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Luis J. Gonzalez, PhD
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Managing Across Cultures
What is a global mindset? What does having a global mindset mean? What are the requirements for achieving a global mindset or what individuals need to know? What are the keys to have successful global teams? How do the seven cultural keys affect expected team behavior? What are the advantages and disadvantages of global teams? Are virtual teams different from the conventional variety? If so, how? These are some of the questions to be discussed in the following paragraphs. This discussion will be complemented with a real case of study in which a global international team has been successful.
Charlene M. Solomon and Michael S. Schell, in the book Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset, define global mindset as the ability to recognize and adapt to cultural signals so that individuals may be effective in dealing with people from different backgrounds around the world (Solomon and Schell 20). This definition suggests that having a global mindset is based on recognition and adaptation. An experience or knowledge is required to recognize; thus, having a global mindset implies the previous exposures to other cultures. Elsewhere, adaptation, from an evolutionary perspective, can be defined as the process in which a population becomes better suited to its habitat. Hence, global mindset can be visualized as the pre-existence of knowledge or experiences, which can help individuals to become better suited to particular situations. Solomon and Schell claim that for achieving a global mindset four steps must be followed: (1) Recognize the impact of culture and how deeply rooted cultural values and ideas are; (2) Learn about the personal cultural roots, which implies that individuals must know themselves culturally to understand others; (3) Recognize cultural differences in others and learn how to interpret behaviors and actions in the situations that inevitably individuals may encounter; (4) Learn how to manage in multicultural situations by recognizing and managing behavior (Solomon and Schell 19). Having a global mindset is fundamental for the success of global teams, in which people from different cultural backgrounds must interact on a regular basis.
The keys to have successful global teams can be restricted to the internalization of the global mindset paradigm. According to Solomon and Schell emphasize that the global mindset can be achieved by recognizing, understanding, identifying the seven keys manifestations, developing personal strategies, and learning continuously (Solomon and Schell 227). Recognition refers to the self-assessment of cultural values and biases, which will be used as parameters for comparison against the culture of other individuals. Understanding suggests the internalization that others, like us, are a product of their cultures. The identification of manifestations of the seven keys refers to detecting the cultural differences from an angle that includes hierarchy and egalitarianism, group focus, relationships, communication styles, time orientation, change tolerance, and motivation, and work life balance. Solomon and Schell define those aspects as the seven keys to doing business with a global mindset (Solomon and Schell 69).
Having different cultural backgrounds may affect the way in which consensus is achieved in a global team. For example, from a hierarchy and egalitarianism standpoint, individuals will behave according to their original social cultural background. In hierarchical cultures, employees do not feel comfortable giving an opinion or providing ideas because traditionally the boss is responsible for making decisions. On the contrary, active participation or feedback is provided by individuals from social cultural egalitarian groups, which are characterized by the equality of individuals. Antagonism may be observed in global teams because of the cultural backgrounds of team members; however, the diversity of cultural backgrounds may be used positively because the problems can be analyzed and resolved problems from different perspectives. Synergism, which implies cohesion and simultaneous efforts, must be the premise for the success of global teams. Global and virtual teams are generally interrelated because in both cases their members are not restricted to unique geographical locations. The geographical dispersion may create communications problems and restrict team cohesion; however, a leadership oriented to virtual environments in which power is based on the collective effort may be the key to the effectiveness of the team. Oracle Corporation can be mentioned as a real case in which virtual teams with people from different backgrounds interact on a regular basis. Oracle virtual teams are generally integrated by individuals from Australia, China, Canada, India, and Europe. Individuals must work independently, but they must also be interdependent, resourceful and innovative, assertive, able to set boundaries, self-starter and self-stopper, and mostly adaptable and flexible and with a collaborative mindset.
In summary, having a global mindset encompasses the personal knowledge of cultural beliefs and biases, so that other cultures may be identified. Acceptance and respect, understanding that individuals are unique, and flexibility to the changes are essential for the success in a globalized world. Using the seven keys as parameters of reference for cultural analysis may maximize the success of individuals when interacting with people from other cultures.
Works Cited
Solomon, Charlene and Michael S. Schell. Managing Across Cultures: The Seven Keys to Doing Business with a Global Mindset. McGraw-Hill, 2009.