Over time, the nature of work has evolved to become digitally collaborative across geographical boundaries, allowing teams to be more diverse and the team experience to be more international. Diversity among co-workers and customers can lead to greater growth and innovation, but it can also make collaboration more difficult. As people from so many cultures, generations, and geographies interact daily, cross-cultural collaboration has become a critical success factor.
There are several positions that require frequent communication with stakeholders around the world. When individuals trust each other, they can work together effectively regardless of cultural differences and geographic distance. Even though global teamwork is crucial for business success, many people struggle with it. Despite their efforts to manage differences in time zones, cultures, and languages, they often fail to reach an agreement or find common ground. Having conflicting group norms, relationships with power, workplace practices, and job expectations can result in severe divisions along cultural lines.
Creating cross-cultural trust and teamwork is more challenging than it appears. Nothing is apparent to everyone, especially when it comes to understanding how a person’s cultural background influences how he or she interprets or rejects information. It is insufficient to consider one’s regional cultural values alone since people are influenced by various cultures and identify with them differently.
Strengthscape’s program titled Overcoming Cultural Conundrum provides global workers with a practical, structured approach for fostering communication across cultures, building trust, and enhancing teamwork.
In our program, participants learn about what culture and identity are, how personality traits and cultural values combine to create each of us as unique individuals, gain an understanding of how cultures differ on numerous counts, including the perception of time, power, teamwork, etc., and finally learn how to communicate across cultures.
