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Reply to JOFI 2

The fact that my team is being internally recruited is an advantage, as everyone, but particularly those from more collectivist cultures needs time to develop a real relationship with the other members of the team in order to communicate and cooperate effectively.

The first thing I would do in forming my team would be to find people with the knowledge, skills, and abilities (Organizational Behavior, Ch. 9 p.32) needed for each function on the new team. I would then run the list of names by someone from HR and verify that there wasn’t anyone who was a EEO incident waiting to happen, such as someone who had already received a warning for discriminating someone else from a different culture or national origin.

Assuming a team size of 6 people, I would ideally try to find overlapping commonality throughout the range of their demographic factors, to prevent anyone from perceiving that he or she were being singled out based on any particular factor. . For example, If there were a Brazilian woman from the baby boomer generation and a male German Millenial, it would be helpful to have a male Baby Boomer from the US, to prevent the Brazilian from feeling like part of an out-group due to her age, or the German man from being the only man in the group.

At the earliest possible opportunity, I would also meet with the team in person (or at the very least via VTC) and lay out the objectives and roles very clearly, including rules of respect, and what to do in the event of a conflict with another team member. At this meeting, I would try to start to set a tone that struck a happy medium between the formal “let’s go around the table and call on each person for input” preferred by the Baby Boomer Generation, and the anarchic “let’s put our feet on the table and look at our phones throughout the meeting” of Gen Y. (Goudreau, 2013)

Starting out, during the “storming” phase, it will be important to prevent any particular individual from dominating the conversation, and likewise, to prevent people with good ideas, with exaggerated perception of rank/power, from keeping quiet.

As everyone gets to know each other, and the group starts to take on an identity, the things that require deliberate attention would start to happen automatically. Ideally, anyway.

Reply to JUFU 2

Since the instructions do not specifically state a region, I will be operating off of the assumption that this particular office will be dealing with a mix nationalities, but will focus on the fact that currently Middle Eastern, and South American immigrants are in the most need of relocation services. My first priority in forming this team will be to determine what attributes are the most important, find those individuals, and form the team around them. For example, language is the most significant barrier to communication followed by cultural interacting differences. So right off the bat I know my team must consist of Arabic speakers preferably with working knowledge of various dialects, and a Spanish speakers. The main reason for this is the significant role the culture, language, and non-verbal communication play in successful cross-cultural communications (Organizational Behavior, 2014, ch.8, pp.50-52). The fact that dialects and variants of Arabic and Latin language is understood and unavoidable without a very large pool.

Second, it would be preferable if these individuals are from, or fully understand the cultures in these regions. This portion of the team will consist of an older male and middle aged female to interact with the Middle Eastern immigrants, and an older female and middle aged male to interact with the South American immigrants. The make-up of the teams serves two purposes. Mainly on the Middle Eastern side, woman do not talk to men they do not know, and men do not take direction or advise from females, so this is a necessity. Additional, older men are held in high regard. On the contrary South American cultures tend to put a high value on woman, particularly their mothers. Secondly, by having male/ female teams with an age disparity, the teams should naturally interact with each other.

Once this portion of the team is established, the rest of the team responsible for coordinating the logistics of movement and relocation can be formed around them. It is still imperative that this team is motivated, cohesive, and integrated with my cultural facilitators as they will also be an intragal part of the relocation. The remainder of the team will be made up of 4 personnel (for a total of 8) an administrative professional, a relocation specialist, a medical professional, and a general assistant to the team. As is stated in Organizational Behavior (2014) teams smaller the 10 are optimal, and diverse teams with complementary skills perform better (Organizational Behavior, 2014, ch.9, pp.33-34). These 4 personnel will come from Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, and Washington to help with assistance in relocation, diversify the team even further, and encourage collaboration.