Diagnostics and Interventions IP4

Lessons From Experience: Diversity and Cultural Sensitivity

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Introduction

The story that you are about to read is from actual events that occurred in the field. Its purpose is to provide you with a real-world example from a seasoned professional in the business world.

Diversity and Cultural Sensitivity

My company, Elite Global Engineering, Inc. (EGE) is a multinational organization with international subsidiaries in eight locations.

Project management is an important component at EGE. Individuals are chosen to lead large change initiatives. Depending on the project, these changes often affect our home base in Florida as well as one or more of our global subsidiaries.

I was asked to lead a large project for our home base and two of our international locations in Italy and in China. The project involved the integration of a new informational management (IM) system. My core team was crosscultural and included members from all locations. As the manager of this project, I employed key components of change management principles and steps; I followed a combination of Kotter’s and Lewin’s basic steps.

Well into the project, I felt pleased about my team's performance until I received a phone call from one of the senior directors in China. He told me that team members in China had concerns about the team and their involvement. He said that they felt their opinions were not taken seriously and that they did not feel like equal partners.

This came as a surprise to me because we had been completing key objectives and keeping to our time line. I thought we were an effective team. In hindsight, I realized that I hadn't focused on cultural differences that may have led team members from China to feel that they were isolated. Even though I was always respectful to everyone, it simply wasn't enough because I was not appropriately prepared to handle all aspects of managing a cross- cultural team.

It is important to take away the following from this scenario:

• Expatriates are not the only people who need cultural sensitivity and

Lessons From Experience: Diversity and Cultural Sensitivity

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crosscultural team training. People who work virtually with international sites do as well.

• Project management training should include training interventions of this sort to strengthen the interpersonal skills of a crosscultural team.