A thriving team discusses culture to reach high performance

Posted on 27. April 202226. June 2022 by Tania Pellegrini

Thriving teams discuss culture… twice.

A few years ago, I was working in Brazil, leading a small team of Brazilian women. After a few months of working together on our project, I had the bitter surprise that one of my team members was spiralling…downward. She was losing motivation, losing trust in me and believed that I did not trust her. At that stage, I was concerned that our team was not only going to fail in reaching its set objectives, but that I personally was ruining what could have been an exciting and rewarding experience for this young woman.

In order for a team to thrive it needs to discuss culture… twice.

The first discussion needs to revolve around the personal cultural influences of each individual.

The second discussion should be an exploration of what kind of culture the team wishes to create.

A team’s various cultural influences create cognitive diversity

With the team in Brazil, I had made the mistake of starting off our project talking about the team’s objectives rather than talking about our cultural influences. A team’s various cultural influences create cognitive diversity. Teams that have high cognitive diversity are usually the most high-performing because they are able to view perspectives from very different angles and they have different means of processing information.

I should have been more inquisitive about the team’s cultural influences. By understanding my teammates’ values, I would learn what was important to them and in particular, what motivated them.

When we talk about cultural influences we are looking at all experiences in our life that have shaped the way we perceive the world. These influences affect our behaviour and the way we do business.

Thriving teams discuss culture to eliminate assumptions

When we talk about cultural influences we are not just discussing the values of the country we were brought up in. Our cultural influences have a far wider reach. Amongst other things, our cultural influences are related to:

where we were brought up in the world
education, (formal and informal)
profession
our religion
different abilities
our gender and our age, to name a few

cultural influences that influence our values and therefore the way we behave in the work environment

As each team member discusses their personal values and what influences them the most, it allows their colleagues to become aware of why that particular person behaves the way they do. This in turn helps eliminate forms of judgment and prejudice that can exist in a team.

“My manager is pretentious.”

Let’s look at the anecdote at the beginning of this article. For the sake of anonymity, I shall call my colleague Isabela. What had been happening when I finally noticed that Isabela was losing motivation and that she felt I did not respect her?

For weeks preceding this moment, Isabela had been giving me some important feedback on how to best reach my objectives when dealing with Brazilian stakeholders. I had not understood her feedback and therefore didn’t react to it. I had not understood her because I had not adapted my listening skills to her communication style. Isabela had been giving me feedback in a way that I was not accustomed to. When she noticed that I was not making any changes to my behaviour, she likely started to think the following:

“My manager is not interested in what I say to her. She probably thinks I am not experienced enough. She’s a bit pretentious and thinks she is the only one with any experience. I’m not going to give her any more suggestions, she doesn’t care anyway.”

Trust is the glue that helps a team reach high-performance

By then, Isabela was likely thinking that I didn’t trust her. Trust and therefore psychological safety is an important attribute of thriving teams. Individuals feel they can open up and discuss important matters without being laughed at or ignored, when there is trust. Trust gives them the feeling that it’s “safe” to be themselves. This is what leads to inclusion and to a positive team culture.

If I had taken the time to discuss Isabela’s values before starting off on our project, I would have discovered that she was very relationship-oriented and that she needed time and trust to open up and give feedback to her work colleagues.

Thriving team discuss culture twice

Step two of creating a thriving team is for the team to discuss culture… again. At this point though, the team needs to discuss what kind of culture the individuals would like to work in. When we talk about “team culture”, we are asking team members to acknowledge what behaviour is reinforced and rewarded by the team members. It therefore also indicates what behaviour is not acceptable.

It is the individuals of the team that should create the culture they wish be a part of. These team members know what motivates them to spend the extra hours dwelling over a problem. They also know (at this stage) how to deal with disagreement, and how to contradict one another in a way that will not offend other team members. They also know how to give one another constructive feedback.

Further topics of the team culture discussion can include items such as:

problem solving: for example what do you do when 2 out of 5 team members are not comfortable with brainstorming?
how does the team debate a topic when 3 out of 5 colleagues usually avoid conflict
how should the team make decisions when some of the members are not comfortable voicing their opinion

The discussion is the most important part of creating a positive high-performing team culture

The information shared and exchanged during such a discussion is the beginning of creating a safe environment. This discussion avoids making assumptions about your team members. Incorrect assumptions can lead to negative judgments that are often wrong.

If you feel your team might be lacking in communication or starting to mistrust one another, consider running through the above two activities to help create a thriving team culture.

Realign your global remote teams to create a powerful team culture

Posted on 21. January 202129. November 2021 by Tania Pellegrini

Are you ready for the next step? The start of a new year brings new-found energy with it. Now is an ideal moment to realign remote global teams to create a powerful and inclusive team culture. Bring your team communication to the next level in 2021 by building on what the team recently experienced. Although studies show that working from home can be beneficial for both the employee and the company, there are several challenges. "The main challenges that arise are communication, knowledge sharing, socialisation, performance evaluation and security."

Let's not get intimidated by the word "Culture". In our case, it means, "the way things are done around here". It is a set of accepted ways of behaving, communicating and getting things done that everybody on the team is comfortable with. When the team creates its own culture, each individual feels valued, included, engaged and is therefore more productive.

A strong team culture generates motivation, team-spirit, good communication and knowledge sharing. This in turn builds trust and helps the team deliver its goals. A thriving team culture is one that allows each team member to speak up and give their point of view on what their preferred communication style is.

The powerful team culture communication meeting

Bring the team together (officially) to discuss their team culture. Individuals have had the festive season to ponder over and informally discuss what they enjoyed and what they didn't enjoy about working from home. Use this as a catalyst.

Let's start with communication. An easy way to start the discussion right now it to ask about how productive or not the last six to eight months have been for each individual. Firstly, ask them to consider at what stage, and using which medium, they felt the communication flowed best? When you have good communication flow, creative ideas spill out.

Were they most productive over the phone, during a team zoom session, in one-on-ones, when the kids were in bed, or over a virtual coffee chat? Which communication means make them apprehensive and therefore less productive? Was it long-winded emails or short-handed WhatsApp messages? Individuals will talk plainly about what is best for them, as a result, you leverage on each individual's ideal situation. If you know that "John" is most creative spurting out quick WhatsApps then use it to help him shine and also share the best ideas.

remote team coffee breakSocialisation and trust create a strong team culture

When we socialise with our teammates, we learn more about them as people and not just as business colleagues. This creates trust, which in turn helps us and them to open up and share our ideas more freely. Socialisation is one of the areas that remote teams suffer the most in general and especially during lockdown moments. Socialising does not come naturally when individuals are sitting in front of their laptop feeling cut off from the world. Socialisation has to be consciously worked at on remote teams.

You could consider spending a few minutes at the beginning of team meetings running an ice breaker. Think about creating informal situations for colleagues to chat and meet even if it needs to be virtual. Virtual "aperos" work wonders. Socialisation and therefore trust create team spirit and allow each individual to feel valued.

Knowledge sharing and the dreaded 9pm conference call

If your multicultural team members sit in offices around the globe, it's vital to bring up the topic of time zones. Joining two-hour conference calls, three times a week at 9pm, after a long day of work is not sustainable and it is not very motivational. On top of that, if the participants are passive listeners rather than colleagues who need to actively speak, it becomes even worse.

the dreaded 9pm conference call

Therefore an important topic to discuss is always related to what time of the day these calls should be made. Ask the team at what time of the day they feel they are most productive. If the weekly facilitator is comfortable skipping dinner with the kids for a meeting, that doesn't mean everybody is. Too often, the accepted time zone for such meetings is where headquarters are based. For a motivation boost, consider rotating the meeting facilitator each week. This can be particularly engaging for the facilitator, and what's more, it allows individuals who are not very forthcoming to show a different side of themselves.

A team is made up of individuals

It's vital in such a "team culture creation session", to ensure everybody gets a chance to speak up. If you have a culturally diverse team, with members who perhaps come from hierarchical or collectivist cultures, you may have colleagues who are unwilling to speak up in such a public gathering. There are a number of ways to help them speak up. Tell them in advance what will be expected of them in such a meeting. Let them know that they will be expected to participate vocally. That will give them a chance to prepare something and not feel put on the spot when it occurs. Rotating the facilitator gives every team member a chance to speak up. As a result, it will also give the team a very different perspective each time on what is considered important and who prioritises what.

Keep the powerful team culture alive - write a team charter

Whatever the team decides as the best way to proceed, write it somewhere so you can look back at it occasionally. Choose four or five topics that are the most consequential during the discussion. These should be topics in which the team finds consensus. Use these topics to write the team charter. Most importantly, keep the discussion alive as time passes and as pressure increases. It's easy to stick to "good intentions" when we are not under pressure. However, when tension increases, we tend to fall back on what is the "normal" way of behaving for us. What is normal for one individual, may not be what was discussed as the best way for the team to move forward.

Remember, if culture is, "the way things are done around here," then it needs to be accepted by the whole team to allow each individual to feel included, valued and engaged.

Five Tips to Persuading Culturally Diverse Audiences

Posted on 23. September 20201. December 2021 by Tania Pellegrini

I used to work in a conventional office where from my desk I had vision of the much-loved coffee-corner. One afternoon, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a colleague sitting over his “latte” with a frown on his forehead. It was time for a break, so I walked over and asked how his day was coming along. He scrunched up his face in disappointment.“I’ve just presented to a new Chinese organisation that wanted to hear about our upcoming event. I don’t feel I persuaded them how exciting and worthwhile this new project is”. He continued his distressed explanation;

Hmmm, difficult one….

I didn’t have the knowledge then that I do now on the topic of persuading culturally diverse audiences. Although it may be too late for his project, I’d like to share some kind of remedy for this dilemma that many of us face when working in a global environment. How should we modify our presentations and persuasion techniques according to the cultural background of our audience?

Our cultural mindset influences how we filter what is said

Our cultural mindset influences how we think, problem-solve and how we find solutions to our challenges. As a result, it impacts what kind of information we need to motivate us and help us make decisions. It’s not just about how we understand language or how competent we are with the language being presented to us. Culture influences how we see the world and how the words we hear are filtered into thoughts. Those thoughts in turn are put together to create a picture or an idea. Let’s take a brief look at two studies done on the topic.

In short and in general the studies show that Americans are more analytical in the way they see the world and therefore problem-solve, whilst East Asians, or Japanese specifically in the first study, are more holistic.

How to adapt your presentation for persuading culturally diverse audiences

Firstly, avoid using the same set of slides for different groups. If you have the time, rearrange your slides between presentations. It’s almost a necessity for persuading culturally diverse groups. The subject you present remains the same but the way you present it differs. For example, multinational companies who wish to standardise their global processes according to regions or countries, should be able to do so. However, the way they convince a Korean, a Ghanaian or a Finn of why the process is standardised should differ. Each group will need a different set of inputs to convince them of the necessity of standardising.

Presenting to Holistic audiences

To persuade an audience that is more holistic, avoid going straight to the point with your opening slide. Ensure you give the big picture before talking about details. Holistic listeners usually look at objects as a whole. They find it difficult to remove an object from its surroundings or only focus on one small area. If you remove the context the object loses its significance.

Let's look at an example; if you’re talking about a product launch, it’s best if you relate it to a previous product, a previous launch, history of the products etc. Look at past examples and discuss past experiences. Discuss how the subject you’re presenting today is connected to a different one on the other side of the globe. Anything that could be related to your topic can be of interest to a holistic audience before zooming into your topic. Remember you are trying to motivate them to continue listening.

Presenting to analytical audiences

On the other hand, if you are presenting to an analytical audience, consider using bullet points and diving straight into the topic at hand to ensure your listeners do not start to yawn with boredom. You do not need to give the big picture to motivate the group or to help them follow your thread.

Thirdly, when persuading culturally diverse audiences, consider whether the group needs to hear, “how” to move forward or “why” to move forward. It is likely that they would like to hear both. However, the order you start with will either capture their interest or have them pick up their phones and start messaging. Generally, US American cultures tend to be more "how" oriented. French listeners usually prefer to know "why" they are doing something in order to be motivated.

When the presentation language is not the mother tongue of the listeners

Although the next point is not connected to holistic/analytical differences, it may be helpful when trying to persuade culturally diverse groups.

If the audience's mother tongue is not the one being used for the presentation, consider sending your presentation to them ahead of time. This allows the listeners to read through it beforehand. As a result, they become familiar with the vocabulary and can prepare any questions they may have.

If you don’t give your audience this opportunity you may find that an audience from a very hierarchical, face-saving culture may not react or ask questions, leaving you wondering whether they have understood at all.

Lastly, if presenting to a collective audience for which face-saving and hierarchy may be important values, make sure you insert several coffee breaks in the presentation. This allows the group to gather away from the speaker’s view to discuss issues and prepare their questions for the next session.

“Team Culture – Europe Is Getting Back Into Motion – Now Is The Time To Realign and Create a thriving Team Culture.”

Posted on 27. April 202025. November 2021 by Tania Pellegrini

Europe is slowly opening up after the COVID-19 lockdown. After weeks of isolation people are finally allowed to go out for a walk, factories are re-starting their production machines and office employees will soon be starting back. Now is the time create a thriving team culture.

Each team member has had their own difficult situations to overcome; some have had to share home office with kids who have been doing home-schooling, others who usually love being active are feeling claustrophobic at not being able to exert themselves in the gym or on a long outdoor bike ride. Maybe over the last few weeks work has not always been foremost on their minds. Now is the ideal time to “re-align” and create or revise your team culture. Many of us have been obliged recently to contemplate what matters to us most. What are our values, whether at home or at work.

What is Culture?

Culture is often overlooked by leaders because it can seem too abstract. Actually, it’s quite concrete once we sit down and discuss it with our team. A thriving team culture creates cohesion, pride, team spirit, accountability, open communication, inclusion, productivity and therefore a high-performing team. Creating a team culture is the way to bring that cohesion and team spirit back to the forefront if it is has slipped a bit during lockdown.

What are we referring to when we say culture? Culture is a set of norms accepted and encouraged by the group; acceptable ways of behaving, communicating and getting things done, for example:

Giving Feedback: What is the acceptable way that our group gives feedback to one another?
Risk-taking: Do we plan and wait until we are more “certain” or jump and “fail fast”.
Disagreeing: Is it acceptable to disagree openly with another teammate in a group meeting and encourage constructive conflict or is that rather frowned upon?
Decision-making: What is a productive way for us as a team to make decisions?
Problem-solving: How do we problem-solve when we have little time on our hands, etc.

The team creates it own culture

There are different methods of creating your thriving team culture. What is essential is that it be created by the team, not a few individuals or leaders. Below is a 4-step activity you can start with, there are obviously other methods. This exercise can be done face-to-face or virtually. If you plan to do it virtually then consider planning 4 short sessions rather than one long session.

If you do the below 4-step activity you need to invest time in the discussion part of the activity (step 2). Give every team member the opportunity to express themselves and allow for possible introverts to have their say about how they also envision the team functioning well.

The important message here is that it is the team that creates the culture it believes in. You’ll need to discuss common values and therefore have every member speak up. This could be difficult on a virtual culturally diverse team, so prepare well for that moderation hurdle.

Step 1 to a thriving team culture: Plot a Culture Map

Each team member plots themselves on a Culture Map along 4 scales related to behaviour or communication. Each scale shows each team member’s preference (see sample culture map below). The four scales can be varied, but those that create strong discussions often are:

Building trust and managing conflict
Problem Solving techniques
Decision making – do you feel the need to be involved or not
Dealing with uncertainty / risk-taking,

Similarities and differences between team members are more obvious once everyone is plotted on the map. Remember, differences can be complementary and can enhance creativity and problem solving solutions, therefore don’t play them down.

Step two: Discussion

This is the most essential part of the exercise. Do not skip it. This is the time for discussion. Let’s zoom in on scale 1 above and use it as an example.

Ask each person to discuss their preferences according to what they plotted. In the above example, which looks at communication and how we give feedback or disagree, Elena might come across to Emmanuel as being domineering or aggressive. She may not realise it. You could probably discuss here what the benefits are of having somebody always play devil’s advocate and on the other hand discuss how important it might be with clients to have colleagues who steer away from conflict, such as Emmanuel.

Expect Disagreements

Consider how team behaviour might differ according to what Elena’s role is. If she is the leader of the team it might come across differently compared to if she is not. You might discuss what conflict actually means to the individuals. For some it could mean saying, “I think your plan is really inefficient and our client will hate it.” This could come across as quite aggressive for some Asian cultures. For others, conflict could be as simple as a gentle disagreement. Another topic to discuss here is when (if ever) do the individuals feel comfortable disagreeing; do they need a relationship of trust before being able to disagree?

Discussing preferences creates inclusion

This discussion is the heart of the workshop and to creating a thriving team culture. Each person openly speaks about what their preference is. Discuss each scale and only then move onto step 3. If you do this as a virtual workshop you may prefer to do one complete scale from step 1 to step 4 during each virtual session.

Step three: Write a Strategy for a thriving team culture

Discuss a strategy to be more efficient (if necessary) thereby creating your ideal team culture. For the above scale, your discussion might start with:

How can we come up with good ideas and exchanges in the future and get everyone involved, including those who don’t like conflict?
Let’s create more open/transparent discussions within the team?
Ensure everyone on the team is listened to, both the risk-takers and the risk-averse even though some of them have stated they don’t like to enter conflict?
Can this knowledge help us run more productive meetings?

Step four: Team Charter

Write your Team Charter. The team follows the “behaviour and norms” of the charter. It is important to write them somewhere the whole team has access to and each member can occasionally go back to them and review them.

The Team Charter should be “Our Culture”: Not yours, not mine, but ours. It is a culture in which each team member thinks: “I feel comfortable working here because my values are appreciated. I feel I can be myself and therefore it brings out the best of me.”

Inclusion: It’s as simple as “listening” & learning cultural patterns

Posted on 2. March 202025. November 2021 by Tania Pellegrini

A few years ago, the company I was working for sent me off to Brazil to lead a small team of 4 Brazilian women, all with different work and life experiences. The manager, who was about 35 years old, was the most experienced and the least experienced was an assistant who was about 24. I was excited to be heading there and to learn a whole new set of cultural patterns.

After a few months with the team, I thought it was time to analyse how things were moving forward and if I had considered all the cultural inclusion skills I had learnt. Had I built trust with my team? Had they built trust with one another? Was our communication clear? I asked myself all these questions, and more, and I was fairly content with my answers and gave myself a pat on the back. Boy was I wrong! About a week later, I realised how badly I had been reading Brazilian cultural patterns when one of my team members, (let’s call her Lia), told me how incompetent I was at dealing with Brazilians. Let me tell you what happened.

The meeting in Sao Paulo

Lia and I headed to Sao Paulo for an important meeting. I had 90 minutes to convince a university professor to allow about 100 of his students to do a paid internship with our company. Seems simple right? Well, I thought it was going to be simple. I’d had several similar meetings before, in different countries, and until then I had been successful with my request. I knew the subject matter very well, and I thought I knew what the outcome was going to be. Consequently, I entered the meeting on “Autopilot”. Mistake #1. I didn’t pick up on little signals and body language (the cultural patterns) that the professor was sharing throughout the discussion to show his disinterest. Therefore, I wasn’t flexible enough to change my mode of communication or my persuasion techniques.

“I entered the meeting on Autopilot: Mistake n. 01”

At the end of the 90 minutes, Lia and I walked out of the meeting, our heads down, unsuccessful. The professor was not going to allow his students to join our project. Lia and I stepped into the taxi that took us back to the airport. I was speechless and in shock at how badly the meeting had just gone.

After a few minutes, I turned to Lia and asked, “What just happened in there?” She looked at me and suddenly burst into tears. She was crying and yelling through her sobs, “Tania, you haven’t been listening to me!!!” I’ve been telling you for months that you cannot do things here your way, you have to do it the Brazilian way!” “What? What do you mean you’ve been telling me for months?” “Well, to start with, about one month ago in our team meeting, I said A, B and C. Three weeks ago, I said, X,Y and Z and last week I repeated A, B and C, but you just ignore what I say!”

I hadn’t heard because I didn’t know how to listen

Ooooooh…What a disaster. Lia had been giving me feedback about how to read the cultural patterns to be more efficient with my Brazilian counterparts, but I hadn’t “heard” her feedback. I hadn’t heard it because I didn’t know how to adapt my listening techniques to her communication methods. For Lia, hierarchy was important and I was her Manager. Therefore, she found it difficult to speak to me directly, she didn’t want to seem disrespectful, which means her feedback was very indirect, so indirect that I didn’t understand it. It just went straight over my head.

Lia believed that I didn’t trust her because I didn’t modify my communication according to her suggestions. In her eyes, I was not interested in her opinion or in her ideas. This was all mistaken of course, but that was her perspective. What’s more, I realised that I was probably about to lose the respect and trust from the rest of my team unless I made some changes quickly.

“I had only been listening with my ears”

I hadn’t understood Lia because I had only been listening with my ears and because I was convinced that my method of getting things done was the right one. Lia was putting far more than just words into the message she was delivering. In fact, the words she used were of little significance. Most of the significance came from her body language and the subtle hints she was giving me while smiling.

Did I think that because she smiled while giving me the hints that they were not so important or not serious? For me a smile typically means agreement. Did I not go out to lunch with her often enough and share in personal chatter enough? Maybe that would have created a level of trust with her that could have helped her open up to me differently, or in a way that I would have understood. If I had done more personal sharing, maybe I would have learnt more about her communication techniques and learnt what was feedback and what wasn’t.

Each one of us has a different mindset and therefore a different way of communicating

When we work in culturally diverse teams, each one of us has a very different mindset and a different way of seeing the world and therefore of behaving and communicating. What is a pattern of showing respect in one culture can seem a pattern of disrespect in another.

If we want to be inclusive and bring out the best of each one of our colleagues, irrespective of their background, we need to learn their cultural patterns and the perspective of each one of our teammates is. We cannot assume that just because our company’s corporate culture says, “This is the way we do things around here,” that each individual is going to be comfortable following that path. Inclusion means taking the time, making time, to get to know who you’re working with even though you think that lunch time chit chat or coffee machine chit chat takes you away from reaching your deadlines.

TING

Take a look at the Chinese character below, Ting, (which means to listen). We can learn a lot about listening from our Chinese colleagues. “Ting”, is made up of 4 smaller characters, each one a component of what we should use to listen; our ears, our eyes, undivided attention and an open heart.