Introduction
Flamingo Consultants is a successful organization that provides advisory services on environmental and agricultural policy matters. The company has risen in the industry, establishing itself as the uncontested leader as a direct result of the extraordinary teamwork of its employees. Despite Grace’s best efforts as Project Manager, the multiethnic team of four people she manages should achieve the quality, efficiency, and speed for which Flamingo Consultants is known. Grace needs to develop as a leader if she wants her team to produce the high-quality work expected of a Flamingo Consultants team. That is why this professional can benefit from specific recommendations that include acknowledging the employees’ level of prior knowledge, developing cultural intelligence, and organizing training to improve the management of cross-cultural challenges.
Team Overview
Grace is dissatisfied with the output and overall dynamic of her newly assembled multicultural team. Her team consists of Thomas, Rashid, Pedro, and Xin, and except for Grace and Thomas, everyone is still getting used to the new ways of performing in the office (Cogan et al., n.d.). In addition to that, these team members come from various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and have different expectations regarding work. Rashid, born in Dubai to Egyptian parents, has a poor reputation for responding to messages, and he rarely meets Grace’s deadlines. Argentine Pedro, a recent business school graduate and former attorney, is not afraid of challenging Grace’s authority in front of the team when he believes his ideas are superior. Since Xin attended college in China before moving to New York to study business, his heavy accent and lack of written and spoken English fluency are evident. Thomas is of Canadian origin and has sufficient working experience. However, this individual has little patience and has difficulties explaining something to others (Cogan et al., n.d.). The group requires assistance with effective communication and leadership issues.
Recommendations for the Team
Since the information above has demonstrated that the selected team suffers from various issues, it is reasonable to suggest a few recommendations for Grace to improve in-group relationships. Firstly, the team leader should improve her communication abilities and adjust them to the audience. According to CizmaÈ™ et al. (2020), a presenter should organize their talk following the audience’s level of prior knowledge. Consequently, Grace should format her speeches in such a way as to ensure that all team members completely understand the message. Secondly, an effective suggestion can be extracted from the Class Material (n.d.) because this document highlights the importance of cultural intelligence. Grace and all the team members should learn more about one another’s cultures. Thirdly, an effective intervention is to organize regular training sessions for the team members to understand how to cooperate with representatives of diverse backgrounds. According to the Class Material (n.d.), there are multiple cross-cultural challenges, including different views of time and conflict resolution strategies, which denotes that individuals should know how to manage them. These steps can help Grace make a more successful leader of a diverse team.
Conclusion
Flamingo Consultants is subject to significant issues because its multicultural team is difficult to manage. That is why appropriate interventions are needed to ensure that Grace and other team members can cooperate efficiently. These recommendations include acknowledging the employees’ level of prior knowledge, developing cultural intelligence, and organizing training to improve the management of cross-cultural challenges. It is possible that these activities will address all the issues that can adversely impact multicultural team management in Flamingo Consultants.
References
CizmaÈ™, E., Feder, E.-S., Maticiuc, M.-D., & Vlad-Anghel, S. (2020). Team management, diversity, and performance as key influencing factors of organizational sustainable performance. Sustainability, 12(18), 7414. Web.
Class Material. (n.d.). [PowerPoint document].
Cogan, Z. D., Wallen, A., Freuler, I. O., & Hamad, S. (n.d.). Case: Managing a multicultural team at Flamingo Consulting [PDF document].