PERF RMANCE 04 - The Performance Portal - Ernst & Young

Making a world of difference
Setting the scene (take 2)
Intercultural teams often claim the work
does not “flow” — even if they try to be
tolerant and have a sense of sympathy for
each other, conflicts pop up repeatedly.
When intercultural teams have difficulty
performing, the usual response is to
provide cultural awareness training.
In these classes, cultural backgrounds
and traditions are discussed, general
communication rules in the respective
cultures are analyzed, and more effective
interaction techniques are taught.
What’s missing?
First, the different cultural groups are
trained separately from one another, and
the scenarios used for practice are rather
general. What is needed is for participants
to focus together in one group on situations
that are relevant to their collaboration, that
have an impact on the team’s performance.
Second, cultural awareness training tends
to focus almost entirely on communication.
While this is a helpful approach, it doesn’t
go far enough. Participants get the
impression that they simply have to invest
more effort to communicate successfully
and all differences will then be resolved.
What’s needed?
Intercultural teams need support in their
collaboration. Most goal conflicts come
from dissimilar expectations about how the
work should be done and how performance
should be managed. These expectations
can differ for any factors influencing
performance. The aim of performance
improvement for intercultural teams should
be to understand each other’s expectations
towards performance management and
to reach an agreement about how to
collaborate. Once the expectations match
and the mechanics of the collaboration are
specified and agreed to, the interactions on
the communicative level can be resolved.
“ The aim of performance improvement
for intercultural teams should be to
understand each other’s expectations
towards performance management
and to reach an agreement about
how to collaborate.”
Setting the scene (take 3)
Let’s imagine two companies, Otto
Normalverbraucher GmbH (the German
equivalent of John Doe Ltd.) and Saito
Corp. (the Japanese equivalent of John
Doe Ltd.), have merged, and new mixed
work teams have been established. Six
months later, it is a fact: the collaboration
has failed. The German colleagues
question their Japanese colleagues’
need for extensive consultations over
tiny details. It makes the Germans doubt
the qualifications of the Japanese team
members. From the German perspective,
the Japanese need much more leadership
than they consider normal among
colleagues, because the Japanese
continually come back with new questions.
The Japanese sense similar difficulties in
the collaboration. They feel that they lack
information about the overall project and
consider the Germans to be individualistic,
rude, and extremely unproductive due to
their maverick work style.
Even if the Japanese and the Germans
communicated with the tongues of angels
they still could not work together smoothly.
At the root of the problem are their
dissimilar expectations about collaboration
— a world of differences.
Sustainable collaboration
When cultural awareness training focuses
on communication barriers, the foundation
for a high performing intercultural team
is missing. Like most performance
improvement solutions, this one calls for
a phased approach where collaboration is
constructed on a solid base.
The program Collaboration.Excellence
strives to create sustainable improvements
in the collaboration of intercultural teams
and thus acknowledges the requirement
that intercultural teams need to pass
through three phases geared specifically to
their performance in the workplace:
• Intercultural awareness
• Shared performance system
• Intercultural skills
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