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Building
Multicultural Teams
By Dr. Karine Schomer, President, CMCT
 Old
notions of "majority" and "minority" cultures within
an organization are rapidly becoming out of date.
At
Xpede Corporation, a California startup launched about a year ago to
provide financial service products through Web-based applications, less
than half of the 55 employees are Americans of European descent. Nearly
every other major US ethnic group is represented, as well as a range
of India's many communities, and countries as different as Vietnam,
Germany, Mexico, the Philippines and Russia. One quarter of the workforce
is powered by women, in a variety of engineering positions as well as
more traditional administrative and marketing roles. Educational and
corporate backgrounds are likewise very diverse, as are individual personalities
and approaches to problems.
Such
diversity can be viewed as a difficult challenge or as an exciting opportunity,
depending on how enlightened a company's approach to multicultural management
is.
When
teams - project, management or problem-solving - are very diverse, there
is room for dysfunction of various sorts: misunderstandings and miscommunications,
style and interpersonal conflicts, unmet needs, insensitive behavior
that is experienced as prejudiced, trust and cohesion problems. The
costs of such dysfunction in terms of productivity can be considerable.
On
the other hand, if such challenges are properly addressed, today's diversity
can be a source of immense creativity for innovation, networking, marketing
and organizational culture.
Today's
cutting-edge approach to working with team and company multicultural
diversity is not to seek assimilation of newcomers into an undifferentiated "melting pot," nor to stop at creating understanding and appreciation
of cultural differences.
Instead,
companies seek to create a team culture that is fully inclusive, supporting
and nurturing all members, with no inner-circle vs. outer-circle distinctions
of value and participation.
Leaders
at all levels can build such multicultural teams by following these
basic principles:
- Acknowledge
the diversity of your team as a resource
- Respect
the uniqueness of every individual
- Focus
the tam on a clear common goal
- Establish
cohesion around fundamental core values and ground rules
- Encourage
expression of diverse viewpoints and open debate about their merits
- Lead
your team in the fun and delight that multicultural camaraderie can
provide!
© 2000 Karine Schomer. All Rights Reserved. Originally published in Siliconindia,
February 2000.
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