building multinational teams: the challenge

International Journal of Value-Based Management10: 237–246, 1997. 237c 1997Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Building Multinational Teams: The Challenge

BRIAN J. HURNDiplomatic Academy of London, The University of Westminster, London, U.K.

Abstract. Using experience from running courses for British and overseas companies atthe Centre for International Briefing in the U.K., and his own training consultancy, the authorexamines the challenge presented to management in building multinational teams in the currentclimate. Concentrates on need to balance cultural values and practices, maximising culturalsynergy. Considers problem areas of perception, team selection, choice of common language,building trust, use of humour, attitude to time, critical success factors in conducting meetings,training and sustaining multi-cultural teams. Offers a checklist of principles to follow.

Key words: multinationals, JVs, the challenge, team selection, language, building trust,humour, attitude to time, conducting meetings, training, sustaining

‘Team-building is a difficult exercise at the besttimes, but doubly so when the team mem-bers are separated by culture, language andgeography.’ (G. Davies, 1992)

Introduction

Building and working with a team of people from different cultural back-grounds presents effective management with additional challenges. We tendto underestimate how much culture affects the way we do business or carry outdiplomacy. Increasingly, there is a need to participate in multi-cultural workgroups, be they project teams, joint ventures, task forces or steering com-mittees, which transcend national boundaries. Such participation requires awide range of interpersonal skills, including tact, cross-cultural awareness,motivational, confidence building and organisational skills, as well as a soundunderstanding of the dynamics of team building, the techniques that can beapplied and an understanding of international management styles. In the pastthe traditional international manager has tended to focus on one overseascountry, but now the current requirement is to deal with many countries.There is, therefore, a need to be conversant with several different cultures,to interact with foreign colleagues and negotiate the cultural parameters for

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meetings. In a survey of the top management of 48 British companies byK. Bartam and D. Oates for the Ashridge Management Research Group(1991), sensitivity to different cultures and the ability to work in interna-tional teams featured in the top four most important qualities required byinternational managers.

The Challenge

One of the main tasks when managing people from different cultures is tobalance apparently opposite cultural values and practices. The challenge isto create a positive and progressive climate where people can work togetherharmoniously and effectively, recognising their strengths and weaknessesand their cultural differences. The managerial skills are in harnessing thesetalents and energies, celebrating cultural diversity and thus maximising theircollective potential.

The enormous costs and technological complexity of many commercialundertakings have necessitated the development of joint ventures (JVs), withmultinational collaboration often as the only way to fund large projects. Thisis already apparent in the aerospace industry (e.g. Airbus and the Eurofighter),oil and gas exploration (e.g. Chevron in Kazakhstan and Shell and Mobil inSiberia), the automobile, defence and telecommunication industries. Therehas been an increasing awareness that it is a serious mistake to believe thatbecause there are common business interests, there are necessarily commonways of achieving the aims. Areas of potential conflict seem to include organ-isational procedures, how business is conducted, how meetings are organised,how information is disseminated and how decisions are made. These prob-lems are well summarised by Peter Drucker, who said: ‘What managers dois the same the world over. How they do it is embedded in their traditionsand cultures.’ This is particularly apparent when East meets West, in the caseof JVs and multinational company involvement in the countries of EasternEurope (e.g. Unisys in Poland) and the central Asian republics of the formerSoviet Union (e.g. Lonrho in Uzbekistan), who have recently emerged froma communist totalitarian economy and are now faced with the forces of amarket economy and free enterprise and the resulting requirement to work inpartnership with Western companies.

There is a growing awareness of the need to recognise cultural differencesand to be aware that we carry our ‘cultural baggage’ around with us, i.e.our values, attitudes, our view of the past, the present and even the future,our sense of hierarchy, our ideology and our language. Problems often arisebecause of differences in conventions, attitudes and norms of behaviour.In many cases the very recognition of the problem areas is in itself half

BUILDING MULTINATIONAL TEAMS: THE CHALLENGE 239

the battle and a positive step in the search for a solution. F. Trompenaars(1993) in his research aims to dispel the notion that there is ‘one best way’of managing and organising people from different cultures. He concludesthat we distinguish our own culture from others by the way we solve threefundamental problems: our relationships with other people, our relationship totime and our relationship with nature. He claims that the basis for success is tounderstand our own culture and our own assumptions and expectations abouthow people ‘should’ think and act. The desired aim, therefore, is to developa truly multinational approach which seeks to harmonise the differencesbetween cultures while preserving individual strengths and potential. Such anapproach is all about managing cultural synergy.

Perception distance

Research carried out by Cranfield University in the U.K. in association with 3i(1993) has highlighted the perceptions of managers from different Europeancultures and an awareness of their national prejudices. Their research mea-sured ‘perception distances,’ i.e. the difference between the self perceptionof one nation compared to the perception of it held by other nations. Thelarger the perception distance, the greater the difference between what thatnation and the other European countries see as its managers’ competencies.High perception distances indicate barriers of prejudice often based on nation-al stereotypes. Some interesting results emerged, particularly in the case ofBritish managers. These tended to have a higher opinion of themselves thantheir European colleagues have of the British, especially in the case of theItalians and French, who tended to hold views farthest away from the British.It is therefore reasonable to postulate that it is those nationalities they maywell have most difficulty working with. Perception distances for the Germanmanagers, however, were found to be relatively small. In general, the researchshowed that managers in other European countries thought more highly ofthem than the Germans thought of themselves.

Team selection

M. Belbin (1981), in his research into team selection at the AdministrativeStaff College in the U.K. and the Industrial Training Research Unit at Cam-bridge, breaks with the traditional approach of management, namely seekingto select the right individual as opposed to selecting the members of a team.Belbin followed the latter approach, examining categories of behaviour, e.g.informing, proposing, delegating, etc., in an attempt to see how well teams

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Figure 1. Team types.

functioned. He was eventually able to identify eight key team roles whichshould prove adequate to any challenge, although not all eight team mem-bers are always necessarily needed. He saw teams as a question of balance:‘What is needed is not well-balanced individuals, but individuals who bal-ance well with one another. In that way, human frailties can be underpinnedand strengths used to full advantage.’ He identified the team types shown inFigure 1.

Belbin postulated that a team consisting of members with these skills andqualities would be required at different stages of a project or programmefrom its planning stage through to full implementation. Such a team wouldalso include the necessary process skills to coordinate the diverse efforts.He emphasized the ability of a team to renew and regenerate itself by newrecruitment and to find within itself all the desired characteristics enabling itto build up a store of shared and collectively-owned experiences.Belbin’s SelfPerception Inventory enables individuals to discover which of the above typesof team member they are most akin to. This is the most useful when beginningto formulate multinational teams. Taking an analogy from cooking, it providesthe right ‘mix’ of the ingredients. Interestingly, Belbin also concludes that ateam made up of ‘whiz kids,’ the so-called ‘Apollo syndrome,’ although oftenappropriate for high-tech firms, is generally less suitable as it lacks a widerange of skills and the inherent flexibility required. An example of this wouldbe a group of clinical consultants who would most probably need a financialexpert to be added to their team if it were to be truly effective.

Choice of language

In order to fulfil their full potential, multinational teams need to overcomeobstacles that single-nationality teams tend to resolve relatively quickly. Theyhave to overcome prejudices, attitudinal differences, different value systemsand behavioural and cultural differences as well as a range of expectations. Inaddition, they are faced with a fundamental communication problem, i.e. the


need for a common language. The selection of a language that is commonlyaccepted for use by a multinational team is of key importance for its ultimatesuccess. The preeminence of English for business, diplomacy and technologygives it the edge in many cases, but it is important to remember that theEnglish language is complex, using rich vocabulary and many metaphors andcolloquialisms. All this is fine for a native speaker, but for somebody forwhom English is the second language, there are real problems. Here it isbetter to use a form of international or ‘offshore English,’ as advocated byGuy and Mattock (1991), learned by those who need to use English mainlyfor practical rather than academic purposes, i.e. using words, phrases andgrammatical structures which are in less danger of being misunderstood, andacronyms, abbreviations, slang, jargon and complex structures. Regardless ofwhich common language is used, it is essential that when multinational teamsare involved, understanding is constantly checked and at meetings summariesof key points are issued, particularly to check what has been agreed upon andwhat further action is required. Any linguistic misunderstandings should befully recognised and clarified as they occur.

Building trust

The largest single problem facing multinational terms is the fundamentalrequirement to build a climate of trust. It is only when this is fully establishedand interpersonal relationships are on a solid basis, where discussion is openand agendas and objectives transparent, that multinational teams can becomefully effective. Positive outcomes from cultural diversity are not automatic andtime is needed to overcome deep-rooted prejudices and stereotypical attitudes.Here, research by W. Schutz (1960) is helpful for multinational team building.He sees three levels of ‘give and take’ relationships in the trust-buildingprocess which he categorises as: inclusion, control and affection. These tendto follow the same sequence in the formation and development of people intoa team. In this process, individuals move from just being members of a groupto becoming members of a team. The more the team members become awareof themselves and others, the better the relationships. This is a continuousprocess as people leave and others join. There are different views in differentcultures as to how much time and effort should be spent on building thisrelationship and, therefore, trust building prior to ‘getting down to business.’With the Arabs, for example, business is essentially personal and time spenton ‘the preliminaries’ is most important; indeed it is most likely that nobusiness at all will take place until personal relationships and the resultingtrust have been fully established. With Americans, on the other hand, there isa more direct and instrumental view of relationships, with teams often being

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put together quickly for a specific purpose in a mechanistic way, and expectedto produce the required results. This is in direct contrast to cultures where the‘getting to know you’ phase can be prolonged and crucial. Again, in Germany,for example, trust is very often assessed against a person’s dependability asregards to delivery time and keeping a promise.

Humour

Humour, if used correctly, can be of great value in helping cement multi-cultural teams. It was Victor Borge who said that: ‘Humour is the shortestdistance between two people.’ It can be used as a means of airing culturaldifferences in an informal, non-threatening way. Furthermore, the amount ofshared humour within the team can often be used as a yardstick for its cohe-siveness. At best humour can be used to diffuse a tense situation or to ‘breakthe ice.’ However, humour can be a double-edged sword and should alwaysbe used with care and sensitivity to cultural differences. The British use ofhumour, particularly self-deprecation, is not always appreciated. It is despisedby the French, and the Japanese in particular find any form of self-mockerytotally beyond their comprehension. The Germans would consider excessiveuse of humour as possibly a cover for lack of preparation or commitment.Americans tend to use humour in preliminary meetings or presentations, butquickly drop it when they get down to serious negotiations.

Body language

Body language also needs to be considered when operating in multi-culturalteams. This is particularly important when organising meetings, where seatingshould be arranged neutrally, with good use of personal space and friendlyeye contact feasible. Different nationalities have their own views on the sizeof their personal space ‘bubble’ and these need to be carefully considered andtheir sensitivities respected.

Attitude to time

Different cultures have different views on the importance of time. It is impor-tant in multinational teams to harmonise monochronic and polychronic viewsof time. The research by M. and E. Hall (1990) is of much assistance in thisarea. In many Western cultures, time is seen as a valuable commodity thatcan be saved or spent and issues are usually dealt with in a linear or sequen-tial way. People from a monochronic culture tend to deal with one thing at a


time. Time is divided into segments and compartmentalised. With polychronicpeople, e.g. Arabs, many Asians, Latin Americans and Mediterranean people,who tend to deal with diverse issues simultaneously or synchronically, timeis used to build personal relationships with less emphasis on punctuality andadherence to schedules. Such people are comfortable with dealing with morethan one issue at any one time, a characteristic which can infuriate peoplefrom monochronic cultures. We can see how easily misunderstandings canoccur when people from different cultures with different views of time aretrying to communicate. It is therefore important to understand the hiddenmessages in the time systems of other cultures and to harmonise these withinthe multinational team.

Conducting meetings

One area which causes much concern when building multinational teams isthe organisation and conduct of meetings. Problems experienced are to a largeextent based on cultural misunderstandings, different national procedures andconsequent lack of trust. The meeting is an activity where considerable cul-tural sensitivity is required and where multicultural groups need to agreebeforehand on a working structure, as it is unwise to take shared values forgranted. Objectives of such meetings need to be clear for all, with no surprises.Participants in multicultural meetings may also have different expectations ofthe function of the meeting and the desired outcomes. Time spent in prepara-tion is important for success, but some nationalities, e.g. Americans, Japaneseand the Germans, will look upon meetings as opportunities for decision mak-ing, whereas others, e.g. Dutch, Italians, and the French and British to a lesserextent, will do little homework and will consider what is discussedat the meet-ing itself more important than any written supporting paperwork. Attendanceat such meetings also needs to be carefully considered. Some nationalities,e.g. British, Dutch, Danes, may well send junior representatives who will beempowered to make decisions, whereas in the case of the Japanese and Arabs,maturity is considered more important and they therefore expect decisions tobe made only by senior members.

The decision as to who is to chair such a meeting is critical to success.He or she must control the meeting, making clear the rules of procedurebeforehand, e.g. clarifying whether discussion should be always through thechair or not. The selected chair is responsible for the meeting arriving atagreement and checking on understanding and ensuring its transmission toother interested parties. It is also important to maintain the momentum andthis can be achieved by careful follow-up, possibly with translations to ensurefull understanding of key decisions, agreements reached and further action

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Figure 2.

required. The socialising needs of the participants should also be taken intoconsideration. It would be unwise to consider continuing business over aworking lunch with, say, coffee and sandwiches, if your team contained, forexample, Frenchmen, as they would expect an adjournment to a restaurant.Figure 2 is a summary of suggested key factors critical for success.

Training

Training for multicultural teams should, wherever possible, use real teamsand should combine elements of cross-cultural training and an awareness ofhow culture influences the developmentand sustaining of effective teams. Thefirst stage should be devoted to self-awareness and understanding one’s ownculture, how fundamental beliefs and values have evolved, how other nation-alities are perceived and how one’s own culture is seen by others. This enablescomparisons to be made with other cultures and should include exploration ofthe recognised differences and how misconceptions and misunderstandingscan arise and be avoided. Further training can be consolidated by experien-tial team building exercises, using role-play, based on real-life scenarios, topractise members in applying appropriate techniques, e.g. management ofmeetings, consensus building and establishing trust. Some of this training canbe conducted outdoors, thus providing a new dimension for team building.Performance should be analysed by the members themselves in conjunctionwith their trainers and ground rules can be developed for maintaining teameffectiveness when working together or apart.

Constituent elements of such training could include:� Self-awareness and the recognition and acceptance of cultural differ-

ences.� Motivation.� Building trust.� Group dynamics.� Selecting a balanced team.


� Language issues.� Setting objectives.� Checking expectations.� Procedures for review of progress.� Importance of company culture – move from ethnocentric to multicul-

tural outlook.

Sustaining multicultural teams

Sustaining a multicultural team is a continuing process as people leave andothers join. There is a constant requirement to reinvigorate the team mem-bers, emphasizing the shared objectives and building a systematic processfor reviewing progress and, above all, demonstrating top management com-mitment. Sight should never be lost of the depth of cultural conditioning allmembers have within themselves and this has to be fully recognised by allconcerned. Building a multicultural team is not to be undertaken lightly. Itrequires a large investment in time, training and human resources in orderto build a shared vision and a strategy for future multicultural cooperation.In addition, the increased stress and resulting fatigue induced by the addedcomplexity of the cultural dimensions involved often requires the expenditureof more organisational effort, preparational time and consultation as well aspre-training on cultural differences. There is no certain recipe for success, butthe following are well-tried principles, which can form a useful checklist:

� Recognise, accept and celebrate diversity.� Address cultural sensitivities.� Realise dangers of stereotyping.� Establish climate of trust.� Maximise cultural synergy.� Ensure top management support.� Establish review procedure.� Use appropriate common language.� Create realistic expectations.� Agree on common goals.

Multinational cooperation is here to stay. There is, particularly in Europe,an increasing impetus towards a homogeneous business culture, supportedby wide use of the English language, economic deregulation, the expansionof the EU in the foreseeable future and the rapid further development ofIT systems. Creating a multinational management team is one of the mostconsistent threads running through the process of internationalising.

As has been seen, multinational team building uses many already tried andproven management techniques. It includes, however, the crucial ingredient

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of recognising, resolving and harmonising the cultural differences of its mem-bers. The ultimate goal is to build a team with a truly international culturewhich is not dominated by any one national group, but which continues tocelebrate cultural diversity.

References

Barham, K. and D. Oates (1991).The International Manager. London: Economist Books.Belbin, N. (1981).Management Teams – Why They Succeed or Fail, Heinemann.Davies, G. (1992). ‘Ganging up – how to build a multinational team.’Human Resources, Spring

1992, London.Guy, V. and J. Mattock (1991).The New International Manager – An Action Guide to Cross-

Cultural Business.Kogan Page.Hall, E. T. and M. R. Hall (1990).Understanding Cultural Differences. Intercultural Press.3i/Cranfield (1993). ‘Cultural stereotypes and barriers to the single market.’Special Report

10. 3i/Cranfield European Enterprise Centre.Schutz, W. (1960).The Interpersonal Underworld. Palo Alto, California: Science and Behav-

iour Books Inc.Trompenaars, F. (1993).Riding the Waves of Culture. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing

Ltd.

building multinational teams: the challenge

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