5.5 Using cultural profiles as a basis for mapping and negotiating culture

 

Imagine you are expected to work in a virtual intercultural and interdisciplinary team of three. Your boss is planning to invite you to an initial call where the team members can become acquainted. He asks you to develop a profile to help other team members get to know you. These profiles will be distributed to all team members so that you can use them to identify commonalities and differences. Because you know that the project is not only going to be challenging task-wise, but is likely to be so due to the diversity of the team members. You want to bring in your previous experiences and in particular you want to achieve a high level of cooperation and mutuality.

As a first task, develop your cultural profile. Your identity profile has four squares and covers issues such as:

• Who am I?
• What can I contribute?
• What have I experienced?
• What is important to me when working in a team?

As a first step you are asked to fill out the four quadrants of the cultural profile in your learning journal. In doing so, you can refer to the questions below as a general guide, from which you may choose relevant questions depending on time, the project itself and other factors. However, for the purpose of this exercise you only need to answer the questions which are highlighted.

Who am I?

I am 30 and I am an experienced female professional in the sphere of languages. My core value is communication. I already possess two degrees and now I am pursuing a new program to extend my hard skills and develop soft skills. Currently I live alone in a foreign country which I moved to last year. Every day since I arrived I face linguistic and intercultural challenges on both private and public levels. My newly acquired intercultural competences help me a lot. One of the key things here is not to forget who I am and where I am from.

Everyone belongs to different collectives and I am not an exception. Collectives I can attribute myself to include: my family in Russia, students, students of HS Fulda, friends who live in Russia, friends who live in Germany, foreigners from Russia in Germany, women, women aged 30, linguists, Fulda residents.

My family, my school and my friends had the most profound impact on me during my upbringing.

I believe that during my upbringing I was strongly influenced by my school community, because English was taught at the school right from the first year and this helped to shape my career choices later on. So my school community influenced my my job choices but also my way of working. It was there that I first started speaking in front of an audience, and I became really passionate about it.

What do I bring with me?

My cultural backpack includes my Russian origin, knowledge of English and German. I have been to 17 countries and have always worked in intercultural teams. Recently I started becoming involved in virtual teamwork for diverse projects. Here I understood that working on remote projects is much more difficult because it requires a higher degree of commitment and stricter self-management. Anyway, I believe that I am a a very conscientious team member who always adheres to rules and shows a high level of responsibility. When I work in a team I contribute professional knowledge, commitment, responsiveness, MS Office skills and intercultural competencies.

What have I experienced?

The feeling of togetherness motivates me to work with others, especially when I understand that there is something important that unites me with the team. Miscommunication irritates me in teamwork, so for example when team members are reluctant to speak out. I am motivated to achieve results,  especially when I enjoy the topic of the project. My trigger points  revolve around the nature of the project, because I can’t work on something that I have no interest in. I feel excluded when I don’t feel updated on the progress of the project and when I don’t have a particular field of responsibility. I am a very easy-going and friendly person, and I feel comfortable with people who share the same feelings with team members.

What is important to me when working in a team?

One of the most important aspects is to be tolerant and understand each other’s differences and uniqueness. Always being able to listen to each other makes the project smooth and seamless.

As far as dimensions are concerned, I would prefer the following:

• Interdependence – makes you feel like you are working in a team;
• Task – any effort should be attached to a goal;
• Status – every team should have a leader;
• Direct – having to read between the lines causes stress for me;
• Certainty – a level of risk is unavoidable, but being more certainty-oriented can bring more stability;
• Monochronicity - deadlines and plans help to achieve goals and lead to better results.

Who am I?

I have a Masters degree in International Business and Cultural Studies and have been working for the past 15 years as a facilitator and consultant for cross-cultural collaboration.

My collectives are first and foremost my direct family with my wife and our three children. I am also a son of parents who originated in China. As I have lived and worked there for many years, many of my friends are also based there. I also am part of several networks of intercultural collaboration, and engaged in non-profit groups who strive to make our society more sustainable on many levels. As a student, I was engaged in a student organization which promotes international exchange. I still am involved here as alumni. These are also the collectives that have shaped me professionally. The student organization gave me the chance to meet and work with people of countries across the globe, and there I already worked as a facilitator. Growing up in Germany, I was heavily influenced by having the ideas of a multitude of worldviews and values from childhood on.

What can I contribute?

I speak native German, and fluent English and Mandarin Chinese. I also speak a Chinese dialect that is rather seldomly used in business context. I am a trained moderator and mediator, as well as trainer and consultant. I have worked as a General Manager and as Freelancer for many years, which enabled me to work in highly independent manner, but I also work well in a team. I consider myself to be creative, and believe myself to be a good listener and motivator of others. I am also highly experienced at working with several virtual collaboration tools.

What have I experienced?

I feel motivated when trying out new things. I love it when the work of the team meshes together, and contributes to something positive at the end. I also like it when there is a positive atmosphere in the team, and the team members also connect on a human level. However, I am also motivated when things get “to the point”, and there is no time wasted on needless discussions- so for example on small technicalities. I also do not like it when responsibilities and structures are unclear to me.

What is important to me when working in a team?

Working as a promoter of diversity for my entire working life, it is important for me to see differences as an asset for the team. I prefer working rather independently, but I also do not mind working with an interdependent team culture. I believe that having a good relationship with your colleagues helps  avoid misunderstandings, and the team should invest some time getting to know each other. I believe that because of my upbringing I prefer to have clear leadership structures in a team. I enjoy working as equals with my teammates, but it should be clear how decisions are made. I believe that in today´s volatile market situations, flexibility is more important than planning. Some planning is advisable, but rules and processes should generally serve an objective.

I prefer working monochonically, but do not mind working on several different projects at a time, as long as there are certain time slots for them. I also believe that sometimes it can be more productive to work on several tasks at once.

I prefer a clear language within communication, but believe that it is important to also take the feelings of others into account.

 

Comparing your own profile with the profiles of Natalia and Hoang, use the common triangle (figure below) and highlight commonalities as well as differences.

 

How would you go about dealing with differences following the MBI-approach?
Choose two examples and go through the MBI process considering differences and commonalities between the three of you.

First of all, we might assess their answers to "What is important to me when working in a team?"

Our comparison shows that Hoang and Natalia have certain common areas:

• Both value tolerance of diversity within the team
• As Natalia believes that listening to each other is important, Hoang mentioned that he believes himself to be a good listener.
• In terms of status, both believe that it is positive to have a clear leadership structure in the team
• Both team members prefer working in a monochronic way

What are the differences in desired working styles?

• Natalia prefers interdependent work, whereas Hoang rather prefers to work independently
• Natalia seems to be more task-oriented, whereas relationships are important within the team for Hoang
• While Natalia strives for more certainty in the collaboration, Hoang believes in a more flexible approach
• In terms of communication, Natalia prefers a direct communication approach, whereas the relationship aspect is also important for Hoang when communicating

We can see that some of the starkest differences relate to the certainty vs. risk orientation and the task vs. relationship aspect. According to Hoang's profile he only has a slight preference for independent work and can also imagine himself working in an interdependent manner. Hoang also mentions that direct communication works for him as long as it is not offensive.

As both believe in diversity as an asset, and seem to be open-minded for each other´s point of view, it might be better to apply the “third culture approach”, and negotiate a working style with which both feel comfortable

One way to do this would be to discuss these points as examples:

1. What kind of communication would Hoang find offensive? What could be some examples? When could the indirect communication style lead to misunderstandings in Natalia’s point of view? Is there a style they can agree on?
2. Where do both view their personal benefits within certainty or risk orientation, respectively? In which scenarios would which style be more helpful? It might be possible to agree on different working styles in specific situations. They could for example agree that in times of emergencies, a risk-oriented approach would be more appropriate, whereas when it comes to long-term strategies, more time should be invested in the planning processes within a certainty-oriented approach.
3. Why is it more important for Hoang to be relationship-oriented at work? Why is Natalia rather task-focussed? What could be the benefits for them? As in the case above, the idea would be to see how we can come to a common consensus. It is also possible that Natalia would say “I don’t mind getting to know my colleagues on a personal level as well, as long as the task is not neglected”. This would make sure that Natalia and Huong have both benefits in mind when they work as a team.

Instead of looking for a third culture, it is certainly also possible for Hoang and Natalia to work on their individual work assignments in order to avoid friction. However, we can see in this example that by looking for common ground, we have the potential to find a working style that might be much more beneficial for team success.