- La prima idea è quella vincente. E’ molto probabile che una volta in cui viene proposta la prima idea durante una riunione, questa venga subito accettata dagli altri membri del team. Infatti, capita spesso che l’idea proposta dal membro più dominante del gruppo venga perpetrata da tutti senza che ci sia un confronto, ossia un momento di discussione di idee alternative.
- Barriere linguistiche. Può essere difficile doversi esprimere in una lingua che non è quella madre. Chi non padroneggia bene l’inglese (considerata lingua franca in ogni multinazionale), è costretto a perdere forze e tempo nel tradurre i propri pensieri nella lingua madre e poi esprimere il tutto in un’altra lingua. Questi sforzi influiscono in maniera negativa l’intera discussione durante una riunione.
- Salvarsi la faccia. Come già anticipato, in alcune culture proporre idee alternative è visto come un atto di sfida e di anticonformismo. Di conseguenza, persone cresciute in questi contesi culturali tendono ad evitare il confronto e ad accettare quanto proposto dagli altri poiché pensano di essere giudicati negativamente qualora esprimessero il loro punto di vista.
- Visione generale vs. analisi dettagliata. Oltre alle diverse attitudini culturali, in una riunione possono emergere anche differenze in termini di approccio. Infatti, alcune persone sono più portate a proporre idee considerando la visione generale di un progetto (esempio: i venditori), mentre altre persone sono più portate a proporre idee analizzando in dettaglio gli aspetti del progetto (esempio: gli ingegneri).
Ovviamente, nelle riunioni composte da gruppi il più possibile eterogenei è più facile che si manifestino più idee ed approcci diversi rispetto a gruppi omogenei. Tuttavia, la ricerca condotta dall’Harvard Business Review dimostra che che se i partecipanti hanno bassi livelli di intelligenza culturale (CQ) – ossia la misurazione della capacità di una persona di lavorare e relazionarsi efficacemente con gli altri in contesti culturali diversi – è poco probabile che nella riunione emergano idee innovative, sebbene il gruppo sia eterogeneo.
Di conseguenza, è necessario che il leader intervenga in modo da aumentare il CQ delle proprie risorse:
- Definisci chiaramente l’obiettivo. Una delle caratteristiche principali delle barriere culturali durante una riunione sono le diverse aspettative dei partecipanti. Chiedi ad ogni membro del gruppo di scrivere l’obiettivo che hai impartito così come lui/lei lo ha inteso e presta particolare attenzione anche alle più piccole sfumature.
- Dai ad ognuno diverse attenzioni. Avere del tempo per prepararsi ad una riunione, aiuta i partecipanti ad entrare nell’ottica di dover collaborare con gente completamente diversa. Avvisa i membri che tendono a dominare la conversazione che sei interessato ad avere l’opinione di tutti; allo stesso modo, incoraggia i più reticenti a condividere con te eventuali idee e suggerimenti prima della riunione.
- Insisti al massimo sulla partecipazione. Se pretendi partecipazione durante una riunione, allora dillo esplicitamente. Rendi chiaro che gli input devono arrivare da ogni membro del gruppo.
Ovviamente, queste strategie non sono scienze esatte. Tuttavia, preparare una riunione in modo strategico può essere d’aiuto se si vuole ottenere le massima partecipazione e, quindi, idee più innovative.
Di seguito, riportiamo l’articolo originale:
Leading a Brainstorming Session with a Cross-Cultural Team
By David LivermoreBrainstorming is the default way in which many teams and organizations come up with new ideas. And it’s commonly said that the more diverse the group, the greater the potential for innovative ideas. However, it doesn’t always work out this way.
Brainstorming is better suited to some personalities and cultures than others. Extroverts who “think out loud” and Westerners who have grown up in educational environments where classroom participation is required, usually thrive in brainstorming sessions. But others around the world grew up in classrooms where they were taught to think before speaking and to avoid standing out with unique ideas. As a result, many individuals in the global workplace dread brainstorming sessions and say very little.
My colleagues and I have spent the last 15 years researching cultural intelligence, or CQ, and we’ve studied more than 55,000 professionals across 98 countries. We have found several challenges that global teams face when it comes to brainstorming. Of course, many occur on homogeneous teams as well, but these challenges tend to be accentuated within multicultural teams:
The first idea wins: More often than not, the first idea presented in a brainstorming session is the idea most likely to be accepted. And usually the first idea comes from the most assertive and often the most powerful participant in the group. So conformity can quickly crowd out the diverse perspectives around the table.
Language fluency: For non-native speakers, coming up with new ideas and expressing them in a different language can be extremely difficult. It often means translating the question into your native tongue, coming up with a response, and translating the response back into English, by which time, the conversation has moved on without you.
Saving face: Many global team members, particularly from places like Asia or Latin America, find brainstorming challenging because it goes against their cultural norms of harmony and conformity. Brainstorming is largely predicated upon an individualist perspective where everyone is encouraged to contribute, and the more divergent the ideas the better. So when you’re asking participants from more collectivist cultures to speak up with a unique idea, you may be asking them to do something that is very counter-intuitive.
Big picture vs. detailed analysis: Teams can also face cultural collisions in the ways they approach brainstorming. North Americans typically prefer to focus on the big picture and blue sky ideas while many Germans place more value on highly detailed analyses. This can also vary from one personality and business unit to the next. For example, sales professionals may be more apt to contribute macro perspectives and see details as a distraction, whereas the reverse is often true for engineers.
There’s no question that diverse teams offer a much richer repository of ideas than groups in which members come from the same background and think alike. But our research finds that diverse teams with low levels of cultural intelligence (CQ)—a measurement of one’s capability to work and relate effectively in culturally diverse situations—come up with less innovative ideas in a brainstorming session than homogeneous teams do.
This research included multiple studies that included several hundred participants from both university and workplace contexts. Some subjects were placed on diverse teams (teammates from nationally diverse backgrounds) and others on homogenous teams (everyone from the same national background). Each team was assigned a complex, three-month project. The individuals with low CQ were less likely to speak up on a diverse team compared to those on a homogenous team. However, the team members with high CQ spoke up as much or more on a diverse team, just as they did on a homogenous one. Their CQ attenuated the potential risks of voicing their input among a group of culturally diverse peers.
The most important thing a leader can do to tap the diverse range of ideas from a global team is to help participants improve their cultural intelligence. In addition, here are a few simple strategies to use when brainstorming with a global team:
- Clearly define the objective. Any brainstorming session should clearly define the purpose and desired outcome, and leaders should devote additional time for this for global teams. Most intercultural challenges begin with clashing expectations. To address this, ask each team member to come to the brainstorming session having written down his/her understanding of the objective, and in the meeting, briefly go over what people wrote. Pay attention to subtle differences, and don’t move on until everyone is aligned in their understanding of the objective. You can check for understanding by asking participants how they might explain the objective to others on their teams.
- Give advance warning. Don’t spring a brainstorming session on a global team. Let them know ahead of time. Those who prefer to have time to generate ideas independently or by consulting others will feel better prepared to participate. You can also talk to participants who tend to dominate conversations and let them know that you’re going to ask others to share their ideas first. Similarly, encourage those who are more reticent to share their unique perspectives, which may buoy their confidence. You can also suggest alternative ways for their input to be shared (i.e., sending you a written list of ideas).
- Insist on 100% participation. Assuming you want participation from everyone, make that explicit. And assure the team that the goal is not to have everyone talking equal amounts of time but to ensure that input and ideas come from everyone. Offer a variety of ways for input to be offered. For example, those who come from a more collectivist background may prefer to spend some time discussing ideas together beforehand and share them collectively with the group.
These strategies aren’t rocket science, yet they’re easily overlooked. I personally enjoy brainstorming sessions, so my default mode is to assume everyone feels the same way — even though I know better. Especially when we are extremely busy or stressed, it is easy to forego a conscious, proactive approach to brainstorming, which takes a bit more prep time. But by being more thoughtful and strategic in how you approach brainstorming, you will increase participation and yield more, and more innovative, ideas.
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