With appropriate training, multicultural teams learn how to take advantage of the diversity among their members. The main topics to cover in the team training are described below.
My experience shows clearly that multicultural teams tend either to outperform or underperform similar single-cultural teams. This performance difference is due to how the teams manage diversity; it is not due to the level of diversity itself.
In most cases the team needs to agree new working processes. These can be developed effectively in a short workshop. The processes to be defined vary from team to team and organisation to organisation. Examples include:
Most people need to learn how to communicate with people from different backgrounds. Communication is the most important business process in a multicultural environment. Training covers both verbal and non-verbal communication.
While it is not possible to learn about a new culture or set of cultures in a short time, we have an approach that allows people to grasp the key points very quickly and excites their curiosity to deepen their knowledge over time.
Working in multicultural teams can be highly-stressful. Therefore it is important to help people improve how they deal with stress and with tolerating paradox and ambiguity.
The training helps people to recognise their own stress patterns, how they deal with stress and, where necessary, provides training in easy-to-use stress management techniques.
A shared vision helps the team to focus on what they have in common, instead of emphasising all the ways they cannot work together.