The Question of Cultural Competence and Global Teams

The rising globalization in the world

The rising globalization in the world necessitates more interactions among people from various origins. People no longer operate in sheltered locations; instead, they are part of the global economy, competing with the global framework. This is why both for-profit and non-profit companies invest in order to be as diverse as feasible. The capitalization and maximum of workplace diversity is a critical problem for company management. They must train employees from all ethnic origins to function effectively as teams and achieve their common goals. This essay evaluates the issue of cultural competence and global teams. The cultures discussed in the essay include Chinese, Italian and American cultures. In an attempt to describe how people from these cultures can work together in an organization as a team, the essay evaluates their shares preferences and possible misunderstandings and thus gives a behavioral solution to ensure they work productively in teams.

Scales for Discussion

There are various scales that highly influence the productivity of teams in organizations. This is because these scales determine the levels in which members of teams in the organizations interact and understand one another. Some of the significant scales include communication, evaluation, persuasion and leading (Meyer 2016, p. 1).

Communication scale

Communication scale is used to measure the level in which cultures give preferences for high or low context communication. In cultures that prefer low context communication, communication is believed to be good if only it is explicit, simple and precise. The messages that are preferred are those understood and expressed at face values. To ensure clarity however, written confirmation and repetition are often appreciated. This is different from cultures that prefer high context communication. In these cultures, communication is preferred when it is nuanced, sophisticated, and layered. Receivers of information are expected to read between the lines, as information is hardly put in writing and listeners are expected to do a lot of interpretation.

Evaluation

Evaluation is another scale that should not be confused with communication. Its relative preferences are measured using indirect criticism and direct criticism. While giving feedback, a culture may prefer giving negative feedback directly, while another may prefer giving them indirectly. In a case where a person from a culture where feedback is given directly interacts with one who gives negative feedback indirectly, he may not understand that the feedback is negative and would thus not act accordingly.

Persuasion

Persuasion is a scale that measures the preferences for applications or principles in arguments. There are cultures that prefer the use of principles in making arguments and those that prefer applications in the arguments. As such people from cultures that use principles in presenting statements and those from cultures that use applications while presenting statements may not easily agree when debating over an issue.

Leading

Leading is a scale that shows the level of respect for authority figures. Some cultures may base the degree of their respect to authority figures by hierarchical means while some show the respect through egalitarian means. Those who use the egalitarian means believe that all people are equal while those that use the hierarchical means believe that respect should be awarded according to the positions held by different people.

Shared Preferences, Misunderstandings and conflict

Through the use of the HBR assessment by Meyer (2014, p.1), it emerges that some of these scales are similar for the Chinese, Americans and Italians. There are also a number of scales that have different preferences. The only scale that has shared preference among the Chinese and Americans is the scale for persuasion. The results indicate that both the Chinese and Americans use applications when they are giving presentations. In this scale, a culture may prefer the use of applications or the use of generally accepted principles. The two cultures prefer the use of applications like case study examples to support their arguments in various topics. For the Chinese and Italians however, the scales whose preferences are shared include communication and leading. In communication, the two cultures often use high context communication. This implies that they give nuanced, sophisticated, and layered communication with little presentation in writings for clarification. Listeners often have to interpret statements in order to understand them. The two cultures also prefer leadership that is hierarchical, an implication that they award more respect to those at higher authority than those at lower management levels.

The differences in the preferences in a number of scales by these cultures are evident. In communication, Americans prefer low context communication while the Chinese and Italians believe in high context communication. In evaluation, the Chinese prefer giving indirect negative feedback while both the Italians and Americans often give direct negative feedback. This implies that a Chinese working with an American in a team may not feel pleased when he receives a direct negative feedback because of the tendency of receiving them indirectly. In persuasion, both the Chinese and Americans use applications to present their statements while the Italians often use generally accepted principles. When it comes to leading, Americans believe in egalitarian leadership where everyone is treated equally, while both the Chinese and the Italians believe in hierarchical leadership where top management is perceived to be more important than those at lower hierarchies.

Behavioral solutions

The differences among the people of these cultures show that management of diversity is highly significant in companies. When improperly managed, the productivity of teams would reduce and the companies may suffer from the negative influence of diversity rather than enjoying the benefits. Evidently, behavioral solutions are needed to ensure that the benefits of diversity like increment in market opportunities, reduction of lawsuits, improve business image and improve creativity are ensured.

There are skills that are necessary in ensuring that a diverse workplace is created successfully. This should begin by making the managers understand their own the issue of discrimination and the consequences it may have for the organization. After that, managers have to recognize their personal cultural prejudices and biases. Evidently, there is no single recipe for successful diversity management for companies. It all depends on the policies of the company on the issue and the level in which managers understand teams within the organization and the dynamics within the place of work.

After ensuring equal employment opportunities in organizations and promoting a safe environment for employees to communicate, training the employees ensures the achievement of a productive diverse workplace. The employees should be trained on diversity, and this would make them understand and respect the cultures of others. Through understanding the cultures and preferences of others in different scales, they would easily interact with them without any significant differences (Meyer 2015, pp. 1). Moreover, the employees should be trained to adhere and adapt to the culture and policies of the company more than their cultures. The culture of the company dictates the way employees should behave towards and interact with one another, and even with the other stakeholders. This helps in ensuring that their cultural preferences on the scale do not dictate their behavior in teams.

Conclusion

A workplace that is diverse perfectly reflects the changes in the global marketplaces. Work teams that are diverse bring perfect value to organizations, and thus individual differences should be respected as it increases productivity and creates a competitive edge. As such, proper diversity management should be ensured to ensure that all employees are exposed to safe and fair work environments in which everyone is equally exposed to challenges and opportunities. Management tools regarding diverse workforce should be applied in educating people about issues related to diversity, laws and regulations inclusive. A number of workplaces are made up of cultures that are diverse, and thus organizations should know how they ought to adapt to ensure success.

Works Cited

Meyer, Erin (2014, May).“Navigating the Cultural Minefield.” Harvard Business Publishing Product# R1405K-PDF-ENG

Meyer, Erin (2015, September) “The Most Productive Ways to Disagree Across Cultures.”

http://erinmeyer.com/2015/09/the-most-productive-ways-to-disagree-across-cultures/

Meyer, Erin (2016, January) “Mapping Out Cultural Differences on Teams.”

http://erinmeyer.com/2016/01/mapping-out-cultural-differences-on-teams/