Introduction
Intercultural team development is fraught with the risks of unintentional misunderstanding and barriers to role clarity. Vandaveer’s case study centers on a merger of two U.S.-based global companies and the resulting troubled relationships of two talented leaders from dissimilar cultural backgrounds and sheds light on miscommunication in cross-cultural teamwork. This paper presents takeaways from the case and scholarly research peculiar to perceptions, collaboration strategies, humor, verbiage use, career options, and contributors to competence/loyalty.
Culture/Perceptions; Strategies for Working with Leaders/Teammates
Culture affects one’s perceptions in multiple ways, and knowing strategies for working with the representatives of other cultures is essential to success. Culture has a profound impact on the perceptions of team members by causing mutual misunderstanding due to incompatible culture-specific communication styles/habits. Specifically, the use of similar terminologies to express different notions promotes the misinterpretation of others’ values and priorities, causing incorrect opinions on teammates’ motives (Vandaveer, 2012). Strategies to implement with team members originating from a different culture might include offering cross-cultural training to admit inter-group differences and exploring the teammate’s perspective on conflict through open-ended questions (Vandaveer, 2012). Additionally, normalizing decision-making suggestions to the teammate, if they are accompanied by explanations, can be a valid strategy (Vandaveer, 2012). With that in mind, the case offers various ideas to inspire sound strategic decisions in cross-cultural collaboration.
Significance of Verbiage; Benefits of Connecting with Humor
Verbiage selection and humor use recommendations in the case reveal the two phenomena’s advantages peculiar to teamwork. Selecting the best verbiage type for intra-team communication is significant for task completion as it helps align ambiguous universal terms with members’ culture-specific mindsets and ways of thinking. Particularly, incorporating Hofstede’s collectivism and power distance dimensions into verbal directions in a way that reflects the interlocutor’s culture is conducive to quicker mutual understanding (Cosman, 2021; Vandaveer, 2012). The lack of culturally adapted verbiage promotes slightly distorted messages, which runs counter to effective task completion. Next, the benefits of connecting with humor for camaraderie building include the opportunity to ease tensions by means of laughter and destroy or reduce harmful stereotypes (Vandaveer, 2012). Another crucial benefit involves softening the feeling of surprise from encountering teammates’ differences and unique experiences (Vandaveer, 2012). Building connections using humor and the right verbal means is, therefore, central to successful intercultural team-building.
Traits, Social Factors, Leadership Styles; Career Options and Troubled Collaboration
Individuals’ competence and loyalty are predicted by numerous characteristics, and team members should be able to make well-considered decisions to resolve conflicts. Peculiar leadership styles, including absent, self-serving, or excessively authoritarian approaches, could prevent team members from developing emotional connections to the workplace and fulfilling their potential, thus affecting both loyalty and competence (Schattke & Marion-Jetten, 2021). Social factors, such as insufficient employment satisfaction or drastic changes to work responsibilities, can predispose team members to insufficient team loyalty or the inability to demonstrate competence. Personality characteristics also affect behavior, with paternalistic traits contributing to loyalty and expecting it from others, as well as the demonstration of competence (Schattke & Marion-Jetten, 2021). Regarding career options, from Misha’s situation, staying or leaving the position are two chief opportunities to consider if collaboration with cohorts/leaders is challenging (Vandaveer, 2012). Despite involving psychological stress, option one enables the employee to inspire organizational change, whereas leaving promotes immediate relaxation accompanied by a sense of failure (Vandaveer, 2012). Self-awareness and honesty are required to assess one’s workplace behaviors and handle problematic business relationships.
Conclusion
Finally, the case offers practice-oriented insights regarding the six topics. It reveals the ability of culture and culture-specific understandings of common terms to cause distorted perceptions of others and the need for strategies that increase the parties’ awareness of cultural conflicts. The importance of verbiage reflective of the interlocutor’s cultural traits and the role of humor in easing tension and criticizing stereotypes are explained. As traits, loyalty and competence can be affected by personality-related or leadership-related variables, and trouble working with supervisors motivates choosing between mutually exclusive options.
References
Cosman, O. (2021). Cultural differences in business communication. The USV Annals of Economics and Public Administration, 21(2), 78-87. Web.
Schattke, K., & Marion-Jetten, A. S. (2021). Distinguishing the explicit power motives: Relations with dark personality traits, work behavior, and leadership styles. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 1-9. Web.
Vandaveer, V. V. (2012). Dyadic team development across cultures: A case study. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 64(4), 279–294. Web.