1. Working in Cross-Cultural Teams

2. Introductions Name Where from? Yrs working multi-culturally
Work background/experience
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3. Why Discuss Cross-Cultural Teams?
25% of missionaries quit and go home every 5 years for preventable reasons. “Worth Keeping”, by the World Evangelical Alliance, 2007
About 5,000 missionaries go home for preventable reasons every year. According to a 1996 study by the World Evangelical Fellowship
Countless others continue working but are under tremendous stress, moving dangerously toward burnout
- Difficulties in relationships within their team or organization is one of the leading causes.
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4. “How good and pleasant it is when believers live together in unity
“How good and pleasant it is when believers live together in unity.” Psalm 133:1
Jesus prays “…that they be completely one, so that the world may know you sent me…” John 17:23
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5. What is Culture? Culture is defined as the shared set of: Values
Beliefs
Norms
Attitudes
Behaviors
Social Structures
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6. Cultural Challenges
Examples of Multi-Cultural Team Challenges for a Westerner:
Passive, shy, won’t share thoughts
Kreng Jai – not shaming self/others
Non (or overly) expressive
Low confidence with elders/leaders
Not admitting when don’t understand
Not writing down notes/plans/tasks
Lack of privacy ($, weight, space)
What could you do in these situations?
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7. How to be Sensitive to Culture
Know Yourself and Your Own Culture
Learn Other’s Expectations
Check Your Assumptions
When in Rome Ask Questions
Listen
Consider the Platinum Rule
All Conflict is Multi-Cultural
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8. Know Yourself & Your Culture
Watch the video (Europe vs Italy)
Which cultural items are similar to you?
- Driving
- Parking
- Crossing the street
- Road signals
- Waiting for a bus
- Elections
- Politics
- Bureaucracy
- Waiting in lines
- Coffee
- Air landing
- Mobile phones
- Sports
- Smoking
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9. Know Yourself & Your Culture
The best way to understand culture is to explore your own!
How did growing up when you did shape your view of the world? (Think of the differences between your generation and your parents’.)
How does your gender shape your aspirations in life?
What holidays and major events do you celebrate? Why? How would it feel if you were told you would no longer be allowed to celebrate those?
How does your religious background affect your view of right and wrong?
What ‘rights’ do you feel you have that you may need to relinquish? (i.e. privacy, comfort, equality, cleanliness, structure, clarity of expectations)
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10. Know Yourself & Your Culture
Describe Westerners in the following ways:
View of Authority
Hierarchy
Communication Styles
Dealing with Conflict
Religious Convictions
Independence vs Value of the Group
Focus more on Past, Present or Future
Gender Equality
Relationship vs Task Focus
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11. Learn Other’s Expectations
Describe Asians in the Following Ways:
View of Authority
Hierarchy
Communication Styles
Dealing with Conflict
Religious Convictions
Independence vs Value of the Group
Focus more on Past, Present or Future
Gender Equality
Relationship vs Task Focus
As a result, what will they expect from you?
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12. How Does Each Person Like to Be Encouraged / Appreciated?
“Love Language” - Describes how a person likes to be appreciated:
Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch
i.e. Asian cultures don’t say “I love you”, don’t say “Thank you”, and don’t show physical affection in public. But spending quality time, giving gifts, and acts of service are much more commonplace. These things build trust and develop stronger relationships.
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13. Check Your Assumptions
Watch the video on the next slide
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14. Runner Stretching
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15. Check Your Assumptions
We make assumptions about people according to their:
Body language
Facial expressions
Word choice
Inflection
Timing of when they did or said something
Speed of action or response
What else?
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16. NASA Exercise Read the instructions Complete the exercise individually
Wait for Jay to tell you your “role”
In 7 minutes, work with your team to complete the exercise together
Calculate your individual and team scores
Role #1: Leader who wants to make sure everyone gives input, is heard, and valued… All decisions are made together by consensus.
Role #2: Asian team member who respects authority and age, and thus never questions authority or age, and will not give input once someone with authority or older age has spoken. Quiet, smiles a lot and agrees with anything people say in order to not shame self or others.
Role #3: Western team member who wants to be 100% dedicated and thus is always the first to speak up and give input and ideas, and explains all his/her reasons/explanations about why his ideas make sense, and is very expressive and energetic when interacting.
What did you notice about each team member? Were they helpful? Talkative? Insistent? Passive? A team player?
Why do you think each team member acted the way they did? How did it help or hurt?
Ask the participants to explain to each other the roles they were asked to play.
What could you do to help the team to work better together?
What did you experience?
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17. When In Rome… Ask Questions
A man entered a field with a package and died. What happened?
A man left home and took 3 left turns, only to return home to find two masked men waiting for him. What was going on?
A man walked into a bar and asked the bartender for a glass of water. The bartender pointed a gun at him. The man said “Thank You!” and left. What was going on?
Use Open-Ended Questions
What did you mean by that?(entered, package,home)
How do you interpret the meaning of that?
In your culture, what significance does that have? (a package, a mask, water, a gun)
In your culture, why do people say/do that? With what intent? (Why ask for a glass of water?)
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18. Asking Directions
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19. Shopping While on Phone
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20. Listen What did you hear exactly?
Can you restate it to the person in a new way to check for proper understanding?
What conclusions/judgments are you making about what they said?
What questions should you ask to clarify any conclusions you may be making?
Watch Ants video. What was going on? What did the colony expect? Why? What concerns did ‘Z’ have? Why? How did he behave as a result? What other questions would you have wanted to ask? What could have been done to help in this situation?
Block Building Game
One person gives directions to the other on how to put blocks together.
Word Ball
Stand in a circle. The object of this game is for participants to "throw" and "catch" words with the highest possible degree of accurate mirroring.
The first player throws a word by looking intently at his/her intended recipient and simultaneously saying the word and making a throwing gesture. The intended recipient "catches" the word by making eye contact with the "thrower," repeating the word with the same intonation and emphasis with which it was "thrown," and mirroring the style of the throwing gesture. S/he then "throws" a new word to a new recipient.
All of this is to be done as cleanly and quickly as possible, with maximum focus and minimum hilarity. It is interesting to note how much groups resist focusing; perhaps the tendency to hilarity is a reflex to cover up our discomfort with the basic act of paying close attention to each other.
The learning from this game can be enriched by encouraging participants to pay exquisite attention to the role of "catcher" and to let go of the impulse to be a clever "thrower." Invite players to increase their commitment to making eye contact. Ask them to endow their catch of both word and gesture with the most accurate possible mirroring of the essence and energy of the thrower. At the same time, have the players pick up the pace of play, setting up a dynamic tension between being fully present and keeping the "ball" moving.
Not only do these refinements inherently ramp up the listening component, they force each player into choosing "obvious" words and gestures for their own throws because they don't have the time or attention to do something "original." Team members inevitably discover that paying attention to their partners and then making obvious choices are powerful paths to creative collaboration.
Listening Game: The most influential experience
1. Divide the group of people in two by counting off into twos. The group should have even-numbered people. If the group is odd-numbered, then ask the last person whose number is 'one' to be the observer. Take all the 'ones' outside the room. (This listening game will work well when you have a co-facilitator.)
2. The co-facilitator steps out of the room with the 'ones', while you stay in the room with the 'twos'
3. Instructions to the 'ones': "Take a few moments and reflect on an incident which had a dramatic influence in your life. It should fit into the category of 'life changing'.
"After a while you'll go back to the room. There you'll find your colleagues sitting in different parts of the room with an empty chair in front of them. You can take the empty chair before anybody you choose.
"Once you are seated begin to tell that person the 'one most influential event' in your life. After you have finished, your partner will summarise what you told her."
4. Room arrangement with the 'twos' during this listening game: Get the twos to spread out in the room (not huddle around one area of theroom) and sit on a chair. Other than their own chair they should have an empty chair facing them. Have the 'twos' sit on one of the pair of chairs.
5. Instructions for the 'twos':"After a while the ones will come into the room and each one will occupy one of the empty chairs. So that means each one of you will have one colleague sitting infront of you.
"They will begin to tell you about an experience that they have had in their lives. Your task is to ignore them as unobtrusivley as possible. Your body language will involve sitting back, not meeting their eyes, twiddling with something in your hand like pen or a pencil and possibly doodling.
"You'll continue this 'non-listening' behaviour until the trainer gives you a signal like knocking on the table with a marker. (Set a signal with the 'twos' that is mutually agreeable to you and them. It should be something audible above the din as well as unobtrusive.)
" As soon as you hear the sound transform your body language to one of listening. Lean forward, meet the speaker's eyes, stop twiddling and doodling. Once your partner has finished relating her piece, summarise to her what you heard."
1. First ask the listeners to respond to the following questions:
How do you feel? What are you learning?
2. You'll hear about all the behaviour and feelings that you noticed while the game was in progress.
3. While the speakers want to share too, try and contain them till it's their turn to respond to the debrief questions.
4. Once again you will hear about the observations that you made earlier.
5. You'll also sense amazement and hear sheepish laughter at the discoveries they have made about themselves.
6. They will express learnings like :
'I realise that I have done this with quite a few people and when it happened to me I did not like it at all. I have decided that I will never ignore people again.'
'I felt lousy not being able to listen to my partner especially when she was sharing something so important.'
7. Some of the other learnings that you need to gently bring home to them
It is not everytime people have something earthshattering to share. Yet whatever they do want to share is important to them and so worth listening to.
It is also insensitive for speakers to go ahead and share whatever they want to even if the listener is not paying attention to them. It would be more fruitful if speakers listen to the body language of the listeners and deal with that first, sensitively of course. They need to take time to find out what's keeping the listener from listening.
Not listening (either to the verbal message or the non-verbal message) is the malaise that has affected society. This malaise has resulted in competing relationships rather than in collaborative synergistic relationships.
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21. What values are shared/not shared?
Watch the movie clip.
What values are shared/not shared?
How has this happened on teams you’ve worked on?
Watch Ants video. What was going on? What did the colony expect? Why? What concerns did ‘Z’ have? Why? How did he behave as a result? What other questions would you have wanted to ask? What could have been done to help in this situation?
Video Clip: 3:20 - 6:25 and 1:12:00 - 1:16:45
What did you notice about the team and team members?
What challenges were they facing? Why?
How has this happened in groups you’ve experienced?
What can we do about it?
“Be The Ball”
3:20-6:27
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22. Watch Ants video. What was going on. How were the ants treated
Watch Ants video. What was going on? How were the ants treated? What did the colony expect? Why? What concerns did ‘Z’ have? Why? How did he behave as a result? What other questions would you (as Z or as a leader) have wanted to ask? What could have been done to help the team work together better in this situation?
Video Clip: 3:20 - 6:25 and 1:12:00 - 1:16:45
What did you notice about the team and team members?
What challenges were they facing? Why?
How has this happened in groups you’ve experienced?
What can we do about it?
“Be The Ball”
3:20-6:27
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23. Consider the Platinum Rule
Do unto others as THEY would want YOU to do unto THEM!!
How do they like to communicate?
How do they like to make decisions?
Do they like to work together or alone?
Are they comfortable being open with those in authority or who are older?
Do they like you to be direct or indirect? Bring things up in private or public?
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24. All Conflict is Multi-Cultural
All teams are essentially multi-cultural.
Conflict will arise from time to time.
How your team chooses to respond to conflict can often be the difference between success and failure.
Examples of cultural differences within a country:
My wife and I dating – opening the car door
Me determining how to refer to my new in-laws with proper respect – Mr and Mrs Lusk or Mr Joel and Ms Dede
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25. Team Challenge: Place the Beads
As a group, solve the challenge
You have 5 minutes
What did you experience?
How well did you work together as a team? What went well? What could be improved?
What did you notice about communication, expectations, problem solving, and resolving conflicts?
What were the key factors for success and/or failure? Why?
What additional challenges might you have faced in a more multi-cultural setting?
How would you manage those challenges?
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26. How to be Sensitive to Culture
Review:
How to be Sensitive to Culture
Know Yourself and Your Own Culture
Learn Others Expectations
Check Your Assumptions
When in Rome Ask Questions
Listen
The Platinum Rule – Do Unto Others
All Conflict is Multi-Cultural
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27. Culture Clash! Read the info on your culture
In 7 minutes, interact with as many people as possible
Always follow the rules of your culture
Try to understand and work well with the other culture
How did people’s behavior make you feel?
What kind of assumptions did you make about these people? Are they nice? Friendly? Materialistic? Self-oriented?
Were these people truly rude or self-focused or were they simply being polite in their culture?
What did you do to help you better understand and work with this culture?
Are there people on your team who you might misjudge due to cultural differences? How can you find out?
- What did you experience?
- After today, how will you approach working in teams differently?
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28. Checklist for Healthy Teams
Does each team member have a clear understanding of his/her job, and related expectations?
Is the team leader aware of each member’s financial situation?
Is there a regular schedule for team retreats, where members can get away and be refreshed? Recommended: annually.
In team meetings, is there a regular time for personal ministry?
Are there regular times of worship which are refreshing for the team members?
Is the atmosphere on the team an open environment, where both individual and group needs can be expressed? ( ministry as well as personal)
Does the team leader meet individually with each member at least twice a year? At these times, does the team leader review with the individual his/her personal and ministry goals?
Is there someone available should team members have problems that go beyond the team and team leader’s ability to help? Do members know who this person is and how to get help?
Is cultural diversity among team members openly addressed?
Are there conflict resolution guidelines which are understood and followed?
Are in-service trainings available, and connections to the broader M family encouraged?
Are the team members taking regular breaks and holidays?
Does the team have “fun” times together?
Are debriefings provided at appropriate junctures?
before and after furlough
after critical incidents
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29. Healthy Teams
Pray, worship, openly relate, have fun, & celebrate together
Define purpose, goals, values, and roles
Try to understand the meaning, intent, & values represented by behaviors
Take periodic team/ind health checks
Follow-up and ask for feedback often
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30. “How good and pleasant it is when believers live together in unity
“How good and pleasant it is when believers live together in unity.” Psalm 133:1
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