MANAGING TEAM MEETINGS

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multicultural
MANAGING TEAM
MEETINGS
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From this tutorial

• You will be reminded of the twelve action points
  that create good meetings.
• You will appreciate the extra complexity caused
  by having diverse people at a team meeting.
• You will become familiar with the extra tools
  and approaches you can use to make a
  multicultural team meeting participative and
  effective.

This tutorial will take you about 15-30 minutes
to complete. You may want a pen and paper handy
to write down your thoughts.
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12 Practices for Good Meetings

• Agreeing and circulating a clear purpose for
  holding meeting
• Inviting the right people to achieve a rich
  result
• Scheduling clear uninterrupted time
• Distributing a clear agreed-upon agenda well
  before
• Starting on time whatever
• Taking an inclusive approach from the start,
  agreeing how things will be achieved
• Structuring and allowing good debate to get full
  input from each person
• Listening actively, questioning, clarifying,
  checking understanding, seeking feedback
• Effectively capturing the main points discussed,
  rationale for decisions made
• Generating a clear agreed action plan, who, by
  when
• Finishing on time
• Promptly writing up the minutes and actively
  following up

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What makes a good
team meeting?
multicultural
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12 Practices for a Good
Meeting
multicultural

• You have seen these before
• Agreeing and circulating a clear purpose for
  holding meeting
• Inviting the right people to achieve a rich
  result
• Scheduling clear uninterrupted time
• Distributing a clear agreed-upon agenda well
  before
• Starting on time whatever
• Taking an inclusive approach from the start,
  agreeing how things will be achieved
• Structuring and allowing good debate to get full
  input from each person
• Listening actively, questioning, clarifying,
  checking understanding, seeking feedback
• Effectively capturing the main points discussed,
  rationale for decisions made
• Generating a clear agreed action plan, who, by
  when
• Finishing on time
• Promptly writing up the minutes and actively
  following up

The same twelve points as for any meeting.
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So what is different when come from
different national, disciplinary, functional,
social, racial, economic backgrounds?
women and men
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The web of culture through which we perceive and
act in the world is multi-layered
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We see the world through different

• Cultural lenses based on our personal and
  acculturated preferences and ways of seeing the
  world. E.g.The patterns of logic and norms
  underlying our different mother tongues, whether
  tasks or relationships take highest priority, how
  much we focus on the past, present or future,
  how much we prefer expressing individuality over
  collective harmony, how much authority and power
  we invest in a leader.
• Social lenses our role and advantage or
  disadvantage in many situations can depend on how
  our gender, race, ethnicity, height (believe
  it!), educational background, physical
  abilities, and sexual preferences are seen by
  others in that context.
• Functional and disciplinary lenses scientists
  usually have a different attitude towards money
  than the finance department. Social scientists
  will focus on different aspects of a situation
  than a natural scientist.
• These, in turn, shape our expectations and
  actions.

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Lets meet our team Jose, Ingrid, Aung Li, Moses
and the team leader, Ravi. They will portray
some of the classic norms of different regions,
just to emphasize differences. We appreciate
that there are no normal people. Each one of us
is unique. They are gathering for a meeting
at 3.30pm to discuss whether or not to put in a
proposal for a small grant. Lets start with
Jose, a Brazilian senior natural scientist.
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Jose needs to finish his conversation with an
upset friend and is aware that it will make him
15 minutes late for the meeting . He wants to
share this issue with the team and then find out
how the rest of them are. He expects to explore
the issue in general and see how it unfolds. He
expects to talk and joke a lot. He assumes the
decision will become clear as they raise all the
issues. He expects Ravi to indicate his
preference quite early on and for the rest of the
team to more or less follow him. He presumes
Ravi will make the final decision.
I expect
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Ingrid comes from the finance department. She
intends to show up to the meeting five minutes
early. She wants Ravi to follow the agenda
exactly to give a short introduction of the
relevant facts and data. She anticipates a 30
minute discussion of the implications, a clear
decision by vote and a joint creation of the
exact plan to implement the decision. She
expects that rational debate based on data,
financial and policy facts, will result in her
having a strong equal influence on the final
decision.
I expect
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Aung Li is the senior social scientist on the
team. She will be on time. She expects Ravi to
lead the discussion in such a way that allows
active critical debate and argument. The small
grant is to start action research on a large
development focused project. She believes
this needs social scientist input and will be a
significant component of future work in the
center. She thinks the group should reach
consensus and end on time.
I expect
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I expect
Moses is a senior research assistant He will
arrive at the meeting on time. He has worked
closest with the donor concerned with a previous
senior scientist who left. He is aware of all the
issues around the discussion. He expects that
Ravi has already made his decision and will lay
it out with his rationale. He assumes that he
will be asked for his opinion when Ravi wants it,
so otherwise he will keep quiet. He is happy to
contribute to any follow up decision.
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Ravi is a senior natural scientist and the team
leader. He arrives at the meeting at 3.30pm
precisely. He does not anticipate much
discussion, as the new policy is against applying
for small grants. He would still like to hear
what all his team have to say. He has some
experience in managing his multicultural team
meetings. He has found that making them
participative speeds up implementing the action
plan. It also helps in getting the team to accept
a negative decision.
I expect
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As Ravi walks in at 3.30pm, Ingrid is looking
very upset. Moses and Aung Li are seated,
chatting casually. Jose is absent. Ravi greets
everyone and asks where Jose is. The others say
they do not know, but that he was clearly
informed about the meeting.
Does Ravi wait for Jose or not?
What would you do?
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Ravi realises that he cannot start on the content
of the discussion until everyone is there. He
explains the purpose of the meeting. He goes to
the flipchart. Pause hereWrite down what
you think they might have come up with.
Lets make some working agreements on how we are
going to run the meeting. What do each of you
think our working agreements should be?
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• Their list might look like this
• Lets start and finish on time, whatever. ?
• Switch off mobile phones.
• Listen actively, be free to question each other.
• Lets agree our common purpose and what we want
  to achieve by the end of the meeting.
• We need to appreciate and share our different
  points of view and experience with mutual
  respect.
• Lets respectfully be free to test out our own
  assumptions.
• Lets use simple English, give second language
  speakers time to think and reflect, respect
  pauses and silences, avoid idioms, and be careful
  not to interrupt each other.
• Lets keep our inputs focused and to the point.

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and the meeting continued
What was the point of that? It did not help the
real discussion.
Aung Li chuckled and raised one eyebrow to Moses,
who smiled.
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and the meeting continued
Good question, Ingrid replied Ravi. Now I
have your mandate to facilitate the meeting and
ensure we do these things. I feel these
agreements will assist us to stay on track and
make the most of all our different knowledge and
skills.
Ingrid shrugged her shoulders just as Jose walked
in. He walked around the table to shake
everyones hands and kiss the ladies on either
cheek. Both Aung Li and Ingrid looked
uncomfortable.
Ravi noticed and said softly chuckling) Jose,
in Taiwan and Germany, things are still more
formal and a hand shake will do just fine.
Everybody laughed.
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Action learning points 1) Lightly
acknowledging differences can diffuse a lot of
tension and discomfort. 2)Using cultural value
checklists can do it more formally. You can
check the collated results and see how different
we all are on this conference. 3) Teams are
mature when they can appreciate,respect and
mutually chuckle at our different ways of
greeting, relating and expectations of what
should happen in meetings.
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Ravi greeted Jose warmly and chatted as he sat
down. He let Jose explain where he had been.
Ravi said that they had waited for him and then
went on to show Jose the working agreements they
had come up with so far. He went through each
point, getting Joses agreement and asking if he
had any other input. Ravi made a joke of the
first issue, Start on time, whatever saying
that in one workshop the facilitator had made
people sing a song if they were late. Jose
quipped that he loved singing and would gladly
serenade the ladies. Aung Li laughed and said.
Some other time and only if you promise to be on
time in future, as you kept every one else
waiting Jose agreed and they worked through
agreeing on the other processes. Ingrid
restlessly tapped her foot under the table.
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Action learning point
4) Start slowly and end fast Start
on time, but start the content slowly by first
agreeing on the purpose, creating working
agreements and clarifying the task.
This team took the time to get everyone together
at the beginning. They reached a comprehensive,
inclusive agreement
Time
Two people dominated this team meeting from the
start. The others resigned. No agreement was
reached
Performance
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After 20 minutes, Ravi noticed that Moses had
said very few words. He seemed to be listening
but was mostly quietly doodling. Ravi caught
himself starting to dominate the meeting with
long arguments in favour of the research and
against going for the small grant.
Aung Li and Jose were freely participating,
sometimes arguing loudly about the research
design in very technical language. Ingrid came in
sometimes reminding them that time was passing
and they needed a decision and a plan.
Ravi asked Moses if he was okay and Moses said
Im fine, but, as you are asking me, I do not
understand the need for all this technical
discussion. We know our science around this is
solid. Ravi was about to defend himself and the
others, when he caught himself and realised Moses
had a point. What would you do next?
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Ravi took a deep breath and decided to try a
different approach. He suggested that they leave
the discussion of the research itself and use
cards for each to put up their arguments for and
against applying for the grant. He suggested
that each person use as many cards as they need
to list all their points. Moses put up six cards
for and five cards against as compared to
everyone elses two or three. Ingrid commented
that she was surprised that he had so much to say
and had not said it yet. Jose said well I
guess that is the importance of listening, but
Moses, why did you not speak up? Well,
said Moses, you were all talking so much I could
not find a way into your conversation. Anyway, I
knew that if you asked me directly, then you
would take what I say more seriously. Wow
said Jose I thought the point was to speak up as
we felt like it
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Action learning points
5) Different structured processes, such as
consciously asking each person on an important
topic, structured brainstorming, or posting
cards, can bring in quieter people or those
working in a second, third or fourth
language. 6) Such processes protect minority
views, especially if there is a dominant sub-
group working in their mother tongue, often in
English and talking a lot at the same time. 7)
There is no one right way to build trust and
rapporttry to see it from the other persons
point of view. 8) Search for ways to open up
and integrate the discussion and make it work,
rather than singling out any one persons
expectations or preferred type of behaviour. 9)
Be creative.
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Good multicultural team leaders use structured
processes to foster collaboration while, at the
same time, maintaining each persons
individuality. This means managing dominating
individuals and not trying to make everyone the
same. This nurtures respect, as well as
developing creative flexibility.
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The of Collaborative
Individuality
bright colours
Both weaves may look brown from a distance.
Both teams have external coherence. Z By
actively encouraging each person or thread to
remain their own bright individual colour, you
can reweave any other pattern and colours to face
any complex challenge and context, Homogeneous
threads of only one colour can only solve that
one coloured brown problems. Almost all
problems these days are multi-coloured and
complex.
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To make an informed choice, Ravi needs the input
of both Jose as a natural scientist and Aung Li
as a social scientist. He needs Moses to explain
fully about the donor and Ingrid to see if they
can manage the overheads on such a small grant.
He will need to champion any decisions with
management. To keep the meetings useful,
interesting as well as fun, he needs a someone
watching the time and pushing for action and
decision. He values those who add some humour.
He needs someone who watches for the whole group
and someone who quietly will speak up when they
are not focusing on the most important issue.
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The team laid out the cards for and against
applying for the grant on a pin board and started
to discuss. Jose was active, but Ravi began to
notice that Ingrid was dominating and pushing the
organisational policy against small grants. He
heard Aung Li say resignedly Aye ya, I guess
this is a no brainer, pity. Jose quickly chipped
in Yeah Lets go do some team building over a
good lunch, and Moses was falling silent again.
Ravi realised that Ingrid pushing the
organisational policy advising against small
grants was now dominating the discussion, and
that in fact, one or two other cards might hold
the real crux of the best decision. What would
you do next?
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Ravi stopped the discussion and handed each team
member two small round coloured stickers. He
asked them to put one each on the two cards that
each one of them felt really held the deciding
factor. The team got up, chatted informally
around the cards and thoughtfully placed their
stickers. As the team sat down again, they
heard Aung Li say Wow!. While three stickers
were on the organisational policy cards, four had
landed on a card that Moses had posted. Ravi
asked Moses to explain.
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Moses explained
that he had done some research on the history of
a large grant that they already had with this
donor and that it had started the same way..
with a small grant first. He had checked with
other Centers. They all concurred that this donor
liked to test out a team with a small grant. If
they were timely, reliable and did good science,
it was highly likely that a larger grant would
follow. What is more, they were very unlikely to
get the larger grant without first going for the
smaller one.
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This revelation refocused the whole discussion
onto whether or not to make this an exception to
the new organisational policy. Moses was asked
many questions. He responded thoughtfully and
argued the case for going for the grant. After
much debate and jointly clarifying their
rationale, they agreed to go ahead for the small
grant. Ingrid led the drafting of an action
plan on how they could best approach the
management.
The petals of diverse knowledge and skills
woven held together by the stem of common
purpose, agreement and values.
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Ravi offered to champion the proposal and
suggested that Moses come with him to meet
management. With a big grin on her
face, Ingrid offered to type up the main points,
action plan and rationale and distribute it by
the next day. She liked orderly planning and
clear decisions.
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In the end
Lets recap our working agreements and see what
we have learnt for next time.
I promise to get here on time for the next
meeting!
Thank you!
I know you are only being friendly Jose, but I
feel more professional if we only shake hands
next time
Jose laughed I understand!

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Ravi gently asked Moses if it was hard to
contribute at first . Moses explained that he
thought that Ravi would have had already made up
his mind, so there was little point in speaking
up without being asked. Ravi smiled and asked
if Moses was now convinced that he played an
equal part in decision-making in the team.
Moses smiled and said yes.
Jose suggested that they go for a drink to
celebrate reaching a proactive decision. They all
agreed and he sang as they left the room. Aung
Li laughed and noted that they had finished
fifteen minutes early.
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• Action learning points
• 10) Use the trust and good energy created by a
  successful decision and participation to reflect
  on what went well.
• 11) Dig a bit deeper into the underlying
  behavioural expectations that create the patterns
  of interaction.

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• Reflection points
• SO
• To be a successful participant, you need to be
  both self reflective
• AND
• to be reaching out creatively to build
  connections
• AT THE SAME TIME
• This starts to build a foundation of trust and
  connectivity that lasts beyond the meeting.

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Active Questioning, Active Listening
Others knowledge. expertise, thoughts and
beliefs systems
Own knowledge, expertise, thoughts and belief
systems
Active inner and outer negotiation to reach
self-understanding as well as connectivity
Others idea of the answers and desired outcomes
Own preconceived ideas of the answers and desired
outcome
Others perception of you, your motives and and
context
Own preconceptions about the context
Actively Reaching Out
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It helps others if we make our own assumptions
and thinking as transparent as possible. It
challenges us to find ways of discovering how
others see us, and how to fully engage them.
Multicultural team meetings are a great
opportunity to find out how others can see you,
as well as understand others better. You can
discover how creative you can be in communicating
and creating community. Despite all expectations
to the contrary, twenty years of research shows
no communication losses in diverse teams. Maybe
we consciously try that much harder when people
are visibly different from ourselves.
Multicultural team meetings are also the best
place to change the organisational culture for
the better and to make inclusion REAL.
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In summary, follow the twelve initial actions
that support any good meeting ..and..

• Start slowly, end fast
• Create a set of working agreements that
  acknowledges everyones different expectations
  and creates a level playing field
• Actively reflect, question and listen while also
  reaching out to create more lasting connectivity
• Be aware of different expectations,
  communication styles and preferences and use
  straightforward English
• Use structured processes such as brainstorming,
  written cards, and quick voting to get
  everyones input
• Have fun, enjoy the differences and celebrate
  when it goes well

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And next time a meeting does go well. Show your
appreciation, and give the leaders a flower.
The International Center for BioSaline
Agriculture. Dubai June 2006
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Thanks and acknowledgements

• Sue Canney Davison, for the designing the
  tutorial, based on her own research and
  facilitating experience.
• www.dreamstime.org for a good collection of
  photographs
• Farid Mohamed for posing as Ravi. GDAs for the
  photos of their last meetings.
• Mohamed AL-Attar and Eric McGaw of The Center of
  Biosaline Agriculture for permission to use the
  final picture.
• All those who have done good research on
  multicultural teams over the last twenty years
  and contributed to our knowledge and
  understanding. In particular, Guenter Stahl,
  Insead, Martha Maznevski, IMD, Andreas Voigt,
  LBS. and Karsten Jonsen IMD for their recent
  meta- analysis of the this research. Unraveling
  the Diversity-performance link in multi-cultural
  teams paper presented at Atlanta, Academy of
  Management Conference August 11-15th 2006