“You working late again?” The housekeeper asked, as she pulled her garbage-can-on-wheels into the computer room and gave me her warm smile.“Someone needs to process these studies,” I replied with a grateful grin. I was relieved to finally see a friendly face. I didn’t confess that I had nowhere else to be.
It was 10PM on Friday, and the year was 1979. I was two weeks into the three month internship required by my graduate school. In a mere 14 days, I had not only processed hundreds of patient studies, but I had also managed to alienate most of the cardiology research team. That’s right, here I was in my first “job” after college and nobody liked me (except the wonderful housekeeper). It took me a few weeks to figure out that I was flunking Diversity 101.
The dictionary defines diversity has “the state or fact of being different.” What I had not yet learned was the ability to adapt my east coast, rapid-fire communication style to the different – slow, laid back – Southern California culture.
Whether you lead a team globally or locally, the ability to appreciate, adapt and leverage diversity (i.e., differences among generations, cultures, religions, ethnicities…) is critical in today’s interdependent environment. Professor Barczak and her colleagues (Research-Technology Management, May 2006) studied 300 global teams from 230 international companies, and found that the most successful teams (i.e., those who performed faster, better, and cheaper) addressed four fundamental challenges:
- Honoring the different cultural backgrounds of team members
- Dealing with the numerous native languages of team members
- Managing stakeholders who live in different countries
- Leading team members who are employed by different companies
How to Meet the Challenges of Global Team Leaders
Fortunately, with a little help from a friend, I rapidly learned several diversity lessons during my internship. Within a year, I was respected, liked, and eventually asked to lead our research team. I was then able to apply these lessons-learned in my subsequent positions at Siemens and UCLA. During the past 15 years, I have helped thousands of leaders use my diversity lessons and the latest research to achieve their local and global goals. I invite you to adapt a few of the following 12 proven ideas to help you meet your leadership challenges and goals.
- Ask a colleague from a specific country to help you understand their culture.
- Select global team members who have strong social and networking skills.
- Conduct face-to-face meetings early in the project or team building process.
- Create a list of common terms and definitions.
- Develop team norms that specify how to interact with each other.
- Send critical documents to all team members with ample time to absorb them.
- Vary times of meetings/conference calls, so everyone is equally inconvenienced.
- Insist that conference calls are conducted on individual phones (e.g., no groups on speaker phones).
- Read about their local news online prior to talking to global team members.
- Ask questions about how well the team is respecting the diverse cultures.
- Write succinct meeting minutes, focused on three bullets for each agenda item (discussed, decided, who’s following up and when).
- Show team members this list and ask them which ideas would help the most.
I’m thankful that the housekeeper was my bright light during my dark night, and that a friend showed me see how to adapt to a different culture. They both helped our diverse research team accomplish our goals. How surprised will you be when you achieve your goals using these ideas with your team?
Keep stretching when you feel pulled,
Dave
P.S. Dave Jensen and his team transform proven leadership tools into your success stories. Dave is an executive coach and an engaging speaker at conferences, meetings, and retreats. He can be reached in Los Angeles, CA at (310) 397-6686. Click here for more info about the research-based, online 360-leadership assessment (XLM): http://xlmassessment.com/ )
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