McGraw-Hill Education Europe

While based on in-depth research, this book is also a 'hands on' practical manual for creating high performance in your teams. Here you can see the full pullout graphic of the four stage model of best practices and read about two key interventions, the cultural value checklist and counting contributions, described fully in chapters four and five. You can download versions of these two interventions and experiment with them yourselves. Use them properly and see the difference! For any queries, advise or feedback, contact Sue on pipal@arcc.or.ke or Karen on karen.ward@ashridge.org.uk.

The Cultural Value Checklist and Counting Interventions Our experience and research has convinced us that structuring the interaction of an international team assists communication, cuts time lines and ensures that ‘minority’ views are not only heard, but useful ones are also integrated. We are also convinced that each team is unique. Our model is then based on the obvious - that there is a time before a team meets, when it first meets, of working together and of finishing. Even if a team’s life cycle is not so defined as this, there will be similar ‘mini’ cycles based around specific tasks. One can approach this model from different points of view. Actions that team leaders and members need to take, actions that sponsors need to take and actions and interventions that facilitators can take. The two page ‘pullout’ at the back of ‘Leading International Teams’ lays out what actions the team leader and members can usefully take to ensure high performance. Chapter four of the book then illustrates these in some detail.

Most of the actions are familiar and strongly recommended for any team. There are a few that are essential for international teams. One of these that we mention often is the cultural value checklist. Peter Aylett first introduced Sue to this tool in 1986 on the Shell Intercultural Communication Workshop. He had been using it since the early nineteen seventies. Its origin was unknown to him. With the lack of any knowledge of copyright, Sue has adapted it and spread it around as much as possible over the years. Peter’s original version had 21 points covering all aspect of a person’s culture in both English and Dutch. The one illustrated here is based on the seven dimensions (from Parsons and Shils and Kluckholn) highlighted in Fons Trompenaars’ work so that statistical country norms are there for those that want them. Three other common issues in teams are added. A team leader needs to adapt it to the specific issues that will arise in the team.

The Cultural Value Checklist
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Click here to download (in MS Word format)
After team members have agreed their purpose, vision, goals and targets, they can use the cultural value checklist to agree their ground rules for interaction. In doing so, the cultural value checklist fulfils multiple purposes.

It uses a well established framework within which to raise cultural differences.
It demonstrates that there is no right or wrong, only similarities and differences.
It creates a non-personal language in which to discuss differences.
Even so, it often demonstrates the relevance of individual differences over national norms.
It gives equal voice to the few
It creates a mechanism with which to integrate each team members preferences into a set of workable ground rules, without allowing dominant norms to necessarily prevail.

Procedure
Each team member fills in the questionnaire individually. Team members may find the notion of polarities and meaningless scales difficult to handle as it require a few levels of abstraction in English. In this case the statements can be set out individually on a seven point ‘strongly agree/disagree’ scale.

Each team member then uses colour-coded stickers to replicate their individual answers on horizontal flipcharts (one per question) set out on the walls around the room. The stickers can be coded according to nationality, department, function, gender or whatever is creating the most differences within the team and needs to be addressed. The stickers mirroring the responses for personal preferences are placed on the scale above a horizontal line. The sticker mirroring the team member’s perceptions of reality in the team department, company or whatever the relevant group context is, are placed below.
The team then systematically discusses each flipcharts. Normally they will first look and digest the possible implications of the trends within the chart. They then discuss the reasons for their similarities or differences and the differences between their personal preferences and their perception of reality. They then come to some agreement about ‘whether ground rules are important, who will make what decisions when, what kind of feedback will work best in this team? etc’ These agreements then form the basis of the ground rules of interaction in the team.
This simple technique of colour coding responses on flipcharts is also very effective when conducting a team review as presented in Appendix two in ‘Leading International Teams’. It can highlight patterns of dominance in a non judgemental way and be very revealing for all concerned. The simple pasting up of anonymous results before discussion, gives team members the opportunity to make self corrective suggestions rather than being told that they are at fault in some way.

Counting contributions
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Click here to download (in Adobe .pdf format)
Aside from team reviews, a reflective intervention that we have found helpful in the mid phase of a team’s life cycle is the simple technique of counting how many times each person is speaking. The observation sheet can be found in Appendix two of Leading International Teams.
Procedure
Each team members initials is put in the left- hand column. Each time a team member makes a short ‘statement’ (less that one sentence), a medium statement (1-3 sentences) or a long statement (<3 sentences) it is recorded with a pen stroke crossed through on every fifth contribution of that type. A cross can be put on top of the stroke representing a contribution whenever that particular team member starts talking when someone else is already talking and a cross at the bottom when that person is already talking when someone else starts. At the end of a half hour period, the observer/ facilitatator can quickly add up how many short, medium and long statements each team member has made and how many times he or she has started talking when someone else was still talking and how many times they were the person still talking when someone else started. To give more depth, the type of statement can also be recorded with a tick in the remaining columns with chosen headings such as probing, clarifying, initiating, blocking, supporting etc. The results of half an hour of observation can then be posted on a flipchart and the team members asked to look at them and see if there are any trends that need to be addressed or not. This is a very useful exercise if one or two people are dominating the airspace, seem to be interrupting a lot or some people are very quiet. Again the posting of results in a non judgemental way usually allows the team to have a good laugh and make self corrective suggestions without fingers being pointed directly.
These are two of a wide range of tools that we have found helpful in facilitating these interesting and complex teams. If you have any queries please contact Sue on pipal@arcc.or.ke or Karen on karen.ward@ashridge.org.uk . Future plans involve creating a training pack and putting different tools on line for use by dispersed virtual teams. Meanwhile enjoy these samples.

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