What have we learnt?

As we’ve learnt this week, there are many strategies that you can use to harness the potential benefits and manage the challenges of working in diverse teams.

To seize the opportunities, cultural differences have to be explicitly recognised and valued – not suppressed or glossed over.

Culturally diverse teams should not strive to become like monocultural teams, or they will lose all the potential benefits that come from diversity.

Instead, there are a number of ways we can work to get the best out of culturally diverse teams. Approaches such as the MBI model and SPLIT framework allow us to address these challenges and capitalise on the opportunities:

• The MBI model and its strategies can help us to inclusively communicate and make decisions in multicultural teams.
• The SPLIT framework for GVTs on the other hand, helps us understand how to reduce social distance in geographically dispersed teams.

Your task

To help you consolidate your learning this week, reflect on the information that was new to you.

We’ve explored a lot of strategies and tips this week, remember to make a note of those that will be most useful to your team.