Increasing the Effectiveness of Multicultural Teamwork

Having a proven workplace strategy for managing multicultural teamwork can help companies achieve organizational goals and business competitiveness.  As organizations continue to expand operations and services domestically and internationally, the need to capitalize on recruiting team members and managers with fully diverse backgrounds and superior cultural competence has become greater over the past decade. The idea of developing a strong multicultural team is believed to be more critical due to globalization. Increasing the effectiveness of multicultural teamwork becomes the next logical priority.

The process involves major challenges and requires strategic planning. Teamwork itself is a complex process, and adding the multicultural component makes it more complex than just accomplishing assigned tasks and duties to meet deadlines. Each team member brings unique perspectives and approach to successfully carrying on global projects.  With individual strengths and weaknesses, each member’s background represents a certain culture or sub-culture and different personality traits.

Managers should be equipped with the tools and competence necessary to effectively communicate with multicultural teams – a type of communication that could reinforce the best behavior and practices for each team member despite the individual or cultural differences. No single approach is proven to work best for an entire team. The way how managers lead individual members and the entire team could have a detrimental impact on the overall effectiveness of the teamwork.

Effective multicultural teamwork requires a strategic plan. Each member of the team should be able to identify oneself with the strategic mission, vision, values, and objectives of the organization. If human capital is the comparative advantage in the organization, then each member is believed to play a key role in pursuing the organizational strategy in the context of teamwork.

Strategic planning for multicultural teamwork involves an assessment of the current teamwork situation, internal strategic factors, situational analyses, key business analyses techniques, and cultural factors.  The plan should be both executable and measurable, focusing on the end goals and outcomes. Since the focus is on multicultural teamwork, the voice of team members should be heard, thus allowing room for considering cultural differences when identifying best practices and formulating the teamwork strategy. The plan should empower and motivate managers and other members, resulting in performance effectiveness.

Whether doing business domestically or internationally, organizations are staffed with employees from diverse cultural backgrounds to best address the increasing demands for products and services in diverse cultural communities. Leading multicultural teams, managing the teamwork challenges, and increasing the overall effectiveness of multicultural teamwork, therefore, requires exceptional cultural competence and an executable strategic plan.