Global Teams
Global Teams are becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s competitive marketplace. Working effectively across cultures is a challenge that many teams are faced with each day. Creating awareness of how culture impacts business strategy is essential when dealing with global clients, cross-cultural virtual teams, and global partners.
The Global Teams Cross-Culture Series was initially developed for Hewlett-Packard in the mid-1990’s as a means for their engineering and sales teams to increase their effectiveness when communicating with teams across the globe. The series is founded on the understanding of five core cultural values that shape behaviors in the workplace.
| Identity: | How do individuals perceive their position in society? Who is most important when making any decision? Is it the individual, group, team or organization? |
| Time: | How important is time when setting deadlines? Is the culture monochronic or polychronic? Does the culture embrace a balanced family and work life or do they put everything on hold until the job is done? |
| Authority: | Who makes the decisions within the company? What is the protocol for addressing those in authority? What is most important to those in positions of authority? |
| Problem-Solving: | How does communication impact problem-solving strategies? What variables are most important when addressing challenges? What is the process for problem-solving? |
| Decision-Making: | What is considered the most important criteria for decisions to be made? How do the values of Identity, Time, Authority, and Problem-Solving impact how decisions are made?
An understanding of how these cultural values shape behaviors in the workplace provides the foundation for developing strategies that drive results and increase performance in global negotiations and leading cross-cultural teams. |
| Test Your Knowledge: | Cross-Cultural Case Study |