International Teams – What Huge Challenges?
A manager’s job is to deliver results, through people, according to the requirements of the company. Globalization has brought its share of complexities to the management front.
It’s a valuable manager indeed who is able to work across the cultural divide. Having an ability to get the best performamce from employees, often spread across the globe, is a quality a new breed of intercultural managers have in abundance.
Nowadays, being ‘international’ is not an exotic adventure in business, it’s the way that businesses have to operate, through sourcing, manufacturing and, of course, selling.
Multinationals have offices around the world; native audiences are not the sole consumer of products or services; manufacturers have to depend on foreign markets and distributors or even labor.
Those most in demand as ‘intercultural managers’ are those who can leverage the potential and opportunity in a very different world than most of us experience.
Intercultural Management – What You Need To Know
The bottom line is that there is now, in a tough marketplace, a need for exceptional managers who can work worldwide to get the best from cultural differences.
This term really clarifies the expectations of those employing these key people – being able to communicate, manage and realize the value of international cultures.
Just imagine the incredible importance of communication across the void of different cultures and the value it can unlock.
Just by getting the message across, you will ensure that the organization’s information is welcomed and appreciated.
Where a manager is able to inform, communicate (and this means ‘two-way’ of course!) and value the local population, business will grow and flourish.
The manager must also build and oversee an efficient team of often worldwide employees to ensure that and strategies and global plans get delivered at the sharp end.
Externally a multicultural manager will have expertise in broad and varied cultural awareness for supervising the entrance into foreign markets. The selection and training of people who will work in foreign interests must be overseen.
Negotiation and client conflicts should be managed.
Where things work out well, bank those for the future. Where there are some shortfalls, careful scrutiny of what could be done better will also forge the way for future success.
Intercultural Management – Different Skills – Or Not?
The first challenge that a manager in such a suituation is likely to face will be about even understanding the langauge.
For achieving this goal the intercultural manager must possess certain attributes such as:-
1. A focused awareness of the target location(s)
2. An ability to create value from new cultures
3. Multicultural and personal behavioral flexibility
4. Taking change on board with ease
For any manager who has had experience in different cultures, the awareness of this alone is worth it’s weight in gold. It doesn’t necessarily matter that the country is different – the awareness that differences occur and how to aproach them is valuable in it’s own right.
Knowledge about the different relationships and their manifestations across international boundaries is necessity, because such managers can only develop the requisite skills by absorbing the many intercultural differences in the target country.
Cross-cultural Managers Need To Be Very Flexible
Simply having lived in a number of different countries gives people the capacity to work almost anywhere. Their approach is to be flexible and ensure that they pace themselves and understand that things do not always go to plan.
Problems will need different solutions than perhaps might expect – and this often requires a very different approach.
It’s amazing how those who do really well, learn fast how to get the best from their local environment, leveraging local knowledge and radical solutions that come from out-of-the-box ideas that may be completely unexpected elsewhere.
Then new possibilities come from new horizons, that any business can value and create new outcomes from.
The manager with the best capacity to see and seize opportunity will, of course, be the one who brings home the prize.
There is a Dutch proverb that says, “A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains”.
Patience, perception, persistence and resourcefulness, all coupled with a vison for what might be possible, all are the trademarks of the truly valuable intercultural manager.
Filed under: Management