I asked the team I was working with in China to identify their strengths. The words “good communication between us” made it on the flip chart page immediately….only to add to it later a few [???} question marks. The team was identifying their struggle with managing the fine line between polite communication to maintain group harmony with the stigma of speaking openly to one another about individual needs or wants. The question marks on the page were a call for help – they had things to say to one another.
This is the opposite problem that what I tend to find In the U.S., where we often do team-building work because, frankly, in many organizations in our society we’re not that great at it. We tend to be more outspoken and highly individuated relative to the rest of the world, and therefore, are not culturally predisposed to taking into account what the group may need at any particular time.
So when working in Colombia and China last month, which are both group-oriented cultures, my group interventions tended to touch on supporting members to individuate. Specifically, how can someone show up with one’s own views, preferences, and needs, so as not to provoke a negative reaction among the others in the group? This is critical because when people don’t speak up, valuable information, ideas, and the chance for departures from the norm, are lost. Leaders in group-oriented cultures often observe employees who don’t speak up and take ownership of organizational problems.
There are a number of ways to set up and work on this issue, but a key component to the conversation is to not forget that the agreed upon behavior (as in “we agree that we will give and receive constructive feedback to another”) must be actively supported by each person in the context of their culture. Indeed, the practice may be counter-cultural. (“Culture” can refer to that of a team, an organization, region, etc.) So while the team might come up with their own set of standards around the kind of communication they most want in the team, challenging them on how they will hold themselves and each other accountable to their commitments – especially necessary in times of stress -- is the real conversation.
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