Working In Global Diverse Team

Executive summary:

During working in global diverse team, team members perform different roles which assist them not only to meet the targets associated with mid-term project but also to make positive contribution into my team to enhance team’s productivity to grab optimum success throughout the module. While working in global diverse team, identifying as well as evaluating own roles is important that assist team members to understand what are the positive experiences they gained throughout the working process. Sometimes identifying own roles in diverse team is not enough for individuals to evaluate own experiences gained throughout the work process, rather the individuals also need to analyse own contribution into the team to determine what changes is brought about in their professional and personal abilities throughput the team working process. The report will also reflect on own experiences of cultural differences and conflict within the team and process of dealing with this issue. By mentioning different leadership approaches, the report will discuss a self-refection on how different types of leadership approach in a global diverse team pose positive impact on one’s knowledge and experiences. This report will use the Belbin’s Team roles, to evaluate the owe role as well as the roles of other team members in a diverse team. Finally, the report will make suitable conclusion regarding strength and limitation of working in global team, with reflecting on own experiences, knowledge and abilities that are gathered throughout the working process.

Introduction:

In modern business era, working in global diverse team is crucial not only for integrating different skills, experiences and talents into one frame to enhance the overall productivity of entre workforce, but also for maintaining sustainability of innovative thoughts and creative decision-making in workplace that assist an organisation to cope up with the ever-changing market trend. This report is going to depict a self-reflection on own roles and experiences, while working in global diverse team. The report will also reflect on own experiences of cultural differences and conflict within the team and process of dealing with this issue. By mentioning different leadership approaches, the report will discuss a self-refection on how different types of leadership approach in a global diverse team pose positive impact on one’s knowledge and experiences. Here the report will use Belbin’s Team roles, in terms of identifying and evaluate the owe role as well as the roles of other team members in a diverse team. Finally, the report will conclude the usefulness, strength and limitation of working in global team, with reflecting on own experiences, knowledge and abilities that are gathered throughout the working process.

Self-reflection on own roles in globally diverse team:

During working in global diverse team, I use to perform different roles which assisted me not only to meet the targets associated with mid-term project but also to make positive contribution into my team to enhance team’s productivity to grab optimum success throughout the module. As mentioned by Barak (2016), while working in global diverse team, identifying as well as evaluating own roles is important that assist team members to understand what are the positive experiences they gained throughout the working process. While working in diverse team, I use to identify and bring information regarding plan setting and overall progress of the project assigned to our team to the lecturer, team leaders and project manager. During working on midterm project, I used to attend classes on project management and discuss the project topic and objectives with lecturers in terms of generating innovative ideas to set relevant goals for the project. As argued by Roberson et al. (2017), sometimes identifying own roles in diverse team is not enough for individuals to evaluate own experiences gained throughout the work process, rather the individuals also need to analyse own contribution into the team to determine what changes is brought about in their professional and personal abilities throughput the team working process. While working on the mid term project I use to perform different weekly activities such as conducting group discussion with diverse team members on plan setting for project, interacting with lecturers, team leaders and project manager about the issues I faced during working on project objectives and sharing status updates on project work in real time. While evaluating my contribution in term-project, I can state that I have played important roles in integrating skills, decisions and experiences of different team members in my team to create innovative project strategies that assisted my team to cope up with risks associated with completion of project by using smart tactics. During working on diverse team, I have developed innovative issues and risk management strategies by making positive discussion with my team members to deal with issues that have been faced by our team such as time and fund limitation. I use to form transparent information delivery system in my team with maintaining clear interaction with team members that associated me to determine the diverse opinion, viewpoints and preferences of team members regarding completion of project, I have also conducted strong verbal and written communication with team leaders, project manager and lecturers to have their valuables advise regarding improving quality of entire diverse team to complete the project successfully.

Cultural differences and conflict within team and process of overcoming this issue:

Although working in global diverse team has brought about new opportunities for me to develop my skills and knowledge, one of the negative experiences I had during this working process is high level of conflict, opinion mismatch and disagreement among team members, which not only hampers success and productivity of entire workforces but also pose adverse impact on my emotional and psychological wellbeing. In this context Soukup et al. (2018) mentioned that, in a global diverse team, there are people who belong to different educational background, culture, society and family, which impact on their individual perception, assumption and ideas. Here I can use Hofstede Cultural dimension theory, to discuss how culture pose strong impact on behaviour, activities and values of team members working in the global diverse team. In my team I used to work with students coming from different culture and community which had severe impact on their decisions, work process, way of thinking and interest. This cultural diversity in my team sometimes developed severe conflict, opinion mismatch and arguments among team members which affect the overall progress of project. As argued by Han and Beyerlein (2016), diversity in a team although have chances of conflict and mismatches of decisions, it assists the team to use these diverse skills and experiences in effective manner to develop innovative strategies in terms of achieving the target easily. Here the cultural differences in my team not only develop individual opinions in the group, but also develop unhealthy competition among team members to meet individual goals rather than prioritising common project targets.

In terms of overcoming these issues I had taken effective strategies such as developing effective communication with team members, determining actual reason behind the conflict and focusing on integration of different culture into one frame to make a collaborate team rather than developing individual groups within the team. I had used Toomey's mindfulness theory, through which I tried to develop positive thoughts, optimistic decisions and psychological wellbeing in the team. As mentioned by Hoch and Dulebohn (2017), mindfulness is important for reducing work stress and negatives thoughts in workplace thereby eliminating chances of conflict among team members. I tried to develop collaborative apparel within the team in terms of sharing issues and difficulties faced by team members which are the main reasons of conflict. In addition to this, I used to focus on listening to the decisions and interest of my team members rather than only prioritising establishment of my own decision. Here I have used Trompenaars Cultural Model, in which I have selected and used seven dimensions such as universalism, collectivism, neutral, specific, achievement, synchronic and internal, control. Through using the seven dimensions of the model, I tried to develop synergistic work relation within the team in terms of mixing up the cultures and values of different team members to eliminate chances of conflict.

Leadership experiences of the team and effectiveness:

Working in the diverse team also assisted me to develop my understanding as well as knowledge regarding the use and implementation of different types of leadership approaches. As mentioned by Jimenez et al. (2017), team leaders need to take such a leadership approach that is relevant to the needs and objectives of the entire team. During working in my team with diverse group of team members, I understood the importance of transformational and democratic leadership. While working as team leader I use to select transformational leadership approach that allowed me to focus on consistent development and improvement of professional and personal skills of each team member for enhancing the productivity of entire team. According to Shaikh (2018), while working in diverse group, transformational leadership sometimes can cause conflict and disagreement between team leader and team members regarding implementation of new work process and approaches. In this context, I also have faced some difficulties while using new work strategies and innovative decisions making process in the team. Here I realised that only transformational leadership is not sufficient for managing a diverse team, rather I also need to choose democratic leadership approach through which I can work with people of different culture and values. My leadership experiences through out the module assisted me to develop my knowledge and understanding about implementing both the transformational and democratic leadership process in a global diverse team not only to develop innovative work process for grabbing productivity but also to make synergistic work culture in which team leaders will discus any team related matters with team-members before finalising it.

Determining as well as evaluating team roles:

During working in diverse team, I had used Belbin’s Team Roles that assisted me to determine my roles as well as roles of team members throughout the modules. By evaluating my activities and performances during the module, I acted as a shaper in the team. Being a shaper, I always focused on shaping my skills, abilities, understandings and knowledge in terms of improving my performances in the team. As mentioned by Barak (2016), team working needs consistent shaping up of skills and professional abilities of team members which enhance the productivity and efficiency of entire team. Throughout the working process within a diverse team I also evaluated the roles of my team members by using Belbin’s Team Role theory. I had explored that some of my team members work as plant, who are involving in bringing about creative ideas within team which are proved to be highly supportive in enhancing professional abilities of entire team. I consider the roles of project mangers of my team as a resource invigilator as well as coordinator, who check whether there are enough resources to accomplish the project in effective manner and maintain strong coordination among the team members to integrate their skills mand experiences. The overall evaluation of own roles as well as the roles of team members, had assisted me to not only determine my own strength and limitations but also assisted me to analyse overall psychology, values and preferences of team members.

Conclusion:

From the overall discussion I can conclude that, the entire process of team work with diverse team members was full of opportunities and support that assisted me not only to understand how to work in a global diverse team, but also enhanced my personal and professional skill that are important for me to grab success in future workplace By working in diverse team, I was able to develop my understanding about different leadership process, conflict management and positive and supportive work culture within the team, which will assist me in near future to adapt with different teams and enhance team’ productivity to meet common organisational; goals. In addition to this, team work also assisted me to grab strong knowledge on evaluating team roles of team members as well as of own roles which is important to develop healthy relation with team members.

Reference list:

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