Lesson 2: Team Processes

Group Behavior

Team members also need to consider how different cultures behave in a group setting. Some cultures are very careful not to give offense or embarrass a team member in front of the group. They allow the member to "save face", by not being reprimanded, scolded, or directly told no in front of the group. Other cultures are argumentative and aggressive. They openly communicate their feelings and any dissatisfaction they have and then move on. Nothing is taken as a personal insult or offense. It becomes important to tell and remind team members of your personal preferences for communicating. Gentle reminders of cultural behavior helps to avoid offense and cause difficulties within the team. For example, if you are seeking feedback on your part of the design, remind the team member from another culture who is giving the feedback that you want open, honest feedback. Let them know you will not take offense if something won't work or has problems. Conversely, if an idea is presented by an international team member from a culture that seeks to save face, you may give a non-committal answer in front of the entire team (i.e. This idea seems to have some potential.), but then arrange to meet one-on-one with the person to express the deeper concerns.

In other situations, team members from one culture may have the cultural attitude of work before pleasure. They want to start working on the other task immediately and reserve visiting once the work is done. This is counter to cultures that seek to establish a personal relationship by visiting prior to beginning work. In a recent example, the team compromised by limiting the pre-work visiting to 5-10 minutes and allowing time for visiting while working on the task. This met the needs of the one culture who wanted to establish the personal relationship, and with the culture that wanted to begin immediately and focus on the task.