In these times of global work and virtual networks, it’s essential to understand cultural differences and know how to work together in intercultural teams in a fun and productive way.
‘The Culture Map’ by Erin Meyer (2016) is a guide that describes the power and weaknesses of working in intercultural teams. In the Netherlands we are very familiar with direct communication – getting to the point and communicating efficiently. But, how efficient is this communication style in global collaborations, and what effect does this have on human interactions within projects?
The Culture Map describes eight scales, each representing a cultural aspect that managers should be aware of. STBY is all about global collaboration, so scales based on collaboration and partnerships are most relevant to us, rather than those about hierarchy or management.
- Communication: low-context vs high-context conversations
- Trust: task vs relationship based
- Planning: lineair vs flexibel time
Our Reach Culture
STBY cherishes cultural differences. Not only does the STBY London and Amsterdam team consist of people from different cultural backgrounds (currently United Kingdom, Zimbabwe, China, The Netherlands, France and US – across 4 continents), but STBY also collaborates with researchers from all over the globe via the Reach Network. We work together with agencies specialising in human-centred design research and service innovation in France, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Canada, Mexico, China, Singapore, Philippines, India, South Africa, Australia, Kazachstan, Mexico, US, Brazil and Australia. We need these local experts to make sure that their culture and local understanding is firmly included in the research findings.
Reading about all the different ways in which culture has its (subconscious) effect on interactions in ‘The Culture Map’, it’s almost a miracle that we thrive in international collaboration.
What’s our secret? That’s our Reach Culture
In our work culture, we focus on mission before organization. We are very well aware of the result we want to achieve together and trust our partners to be the best they can be. We promote others rather than ourself. We celebrate our success. We build partnerships based on trust, not control. We are open, flexible and collaborative. We constantly align, provide templates, work according to the same research proposal, get results, and reach the planning. We have weekly syncs and use Slack to share things. We document a lot during our research process and analyse our findings together. The client also comes into that mix. Everyone has a seat at the table. We aim to build constellations rather than lone stars. The goal is to build the larger system that is necessary for delivering on the mission, not to become the ‘market leader.’
So if we plot this to the scales…
- Communication: low-context – we keep communication simple, clear and explicit, but always provide space for questions and/or clarifications. We document all forms of communication to help future reference. Erin Meyer emphasizes that it’s important to establish right at the beginning of the project how you intend to communicate internally and externally within the project. At STBY, we establish forms of communication with our client and reach partners in a kick-off meeting
- Trust: our trust is relationship based. We trust the people we work with that they feel just as involved in the project as everyone else in the team does.
- Planning: we plan global research projects carefully. We break down the project into phases, tasks and deliveries. Before we make promises to the client, it’s important that we first discuss with the whole team if the deadlines are realistic. We know the deadline, but we need to be flexibel to deliver the best results for our clients. That means that tasks can be changed as opportunities arise. Many things can be dealt with at once, and interruptions are acceptable.
Listen and stay curious
Are we perfect? No. We can do much more to let cultural differences bloom and enrich the way we work, and how we approach our research, we need to stay aware of our own cultural communication style. In the end, it all comes down to listening without judgment and being curious about the contribution and perspective of others. It’s also important to keep checking if you understand each other, we are lucky that this is something qualitative researchers are particularly good at!