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On the 1st of August 2012, WiPM held its second event of the year on the topic “Managing Cultural Teams Effectively”.
Jemma Park, Senior Manager for Strategy and Business Operations for CISCO Asia Pacific and Japan opened up the presentation stating that everything is now global and virtual. Teams are increasingly no longer being co-located in the same place but rather virtual teams are being set up in various parts of the world to work together. The interactions, relationships and communications between team members has become more complex. CISCO utilizes telecommunications (eg. Video conferencing) to enhance interaction with remote teams as well as supports cross cultural work exchanges for employees to obtain better understanding of local work environments. CISCO understands that success of multiculturalism is a joint effort by the organization and each individual employee and ensures there are programs tailored for both.
WOMEN IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT (WiPM)
Mark Hettler, Vice President, Active Global Support ANZ and Susan McFee, Engineering Architect for SAP also presented and supported this view. They shared their experiences in transitioning a support centre from Sydney to China and utilizing Russian teams for remote service delivery. They recommended that organisations do their homework and understand the cultural environment they wish to engage. In the end, success depends on effective communication (such as listening), setting clear expectations and most importantly treating people with respect.
Finally, Vignesh Arumugam, Director of Australia and New Zealand Fulfilment and Operations for Dell presented a light-hearted presentation on intercultural differences by providing a behaviour comparison between Western and Asian cultures. This included how opinions are expressed, punctuality and Individualism versus collectivism attitudes.
Whilst each culture is different, understanding and respect of each is required. Employees need to be adaptable and act with integrity and this should be assessed in line with other employee competencies.
At the end of the presentations, participants enjoyed the opportunity to discuss key learnings, share their experiences and key challenges in managing multicultural teams.
WIPM would like to thank Cisco for sponsoring the event and for all the speakers for their support.