Course: Managing Organizational Change (Masters Degree)

Case Study: Building a Multicultural TeamIs it Worth it?

Kalia works in a large business, managing a diverse team of eight individuals. Two of her employees are in their early 20s, two in their 30s, three in their late 40s, and one in her late 50s. Four members of her team are Caucasian and the other four are Hispanic, African American, Asian, and African. Her younger employees are fairly new, having been there for less than two years. Most of her team members have worked with the organization for 5 to 10 years, and her most senior staff has been there for 25 years, 10 years longer than Kalia has been in her leadership position.

Generally, team members are cordial to one another on the surface, but Kalia knows that there are tensions among some of the staff that have an impact on the success and productiveness of the team. She is aware that one of the younger employees, Robert, is frequently frustrated that his Hispanic co-worker, Ana, defers authority and decision making to others in the team. In conversations with him, she discovers that the younger employee feels Ana should express her opinions more often. Roberts frustration results from his beliefs that everyone on the team should be able to contribute in a shared, democratic process. He feels that when Ana defers her decision making to others, she is not being accountable as a team member.

Margaret, a senior member of the team has picked up on Roberts comments and feels that he is disrespectful of Anas working style. She has mentioned to him that it could be a cultural thing and that he should learn to adapt his behavior and working style to better meet her needs. In response, Robert mutters, Whatever. You dont know anything about us. Responses like this have led Margaret to believe that he is disrespectful of her knowledge and tenure in the organization.

Frankly, Kalia is tired of managing peoples personalities. She feels that people should just learn to adapt to each others working styles. Even though she believes this, she also believes that a good leader has to unite the team, no matter their differences and working styles. This year, she has made it a goal of hers, and of the team, to resolve these intercultural issues. But given her previous attempts, she does not have high hopes for a successful outcome. The last time she tried to resolve intercultural team issues, she felt like a complete failure. She is concerned about the employees responses to this next attempt. In fact, every time she thinks about that meeting, she flinches. She just did not have the skill sets to facilitate the conversation in their last meeting. She wonders if this next try will progress her team in any way or whether it will just be another failure.

1. How do you describe Kalias self-efficacy?
2. How does Kalias self-efficacy impact her leadership?
3. What strategies do you recommend to Kalia to help her improve her cultural intelligence?
4. What suggestions do you have for Kalia in leading her staff to be a culturally intelligent team?

Answers:

1. Based on the information given in the case, it is clear that Kalia is unable to share her opinions about the team and thereby it is affecting her the leadership. She is not confident in her approach and methods to have the discussion started regarding the differences in cultural aspects. This shows that she is low on self efficacy. She has to believe in herself as a leader of the team that she can manage the team capably and ensure the team works together as a single unit. The teams always look up to the manager and draws inspiration from them to replicate the same in the working style. Her behaviour comes across as someone who has the willpower to change but is not confident enough to share her opinions and ensure the team is aware of the situation and respects each other. Lower self efficacy leads to people being highly critical of themselves and they tend to show poor task planning. The work performances also show drop in efficiency. Kalia has shown these symptoms and this clearly shows that self efficacy is very low and she needs to work on the same to improve it.
2. Kalia`s self efficacy is a major contributing factor to the issues the team is facing. If she was more confident in her approach and in speaking her mind about things she would have done a better job of managing the team better. She is clearly aware of the issues within the team but she is not able to express her leadership style effectively. This is due to the lack of confidence she is having in her own abilities and the constant fear of failure. She might have failed in her previous attempts but a true leader will never give up. The fact that she flinches every time she tries to have the conversation shows her lack of self efficacy and its impact on the leadership style is evident. This is letting the team to do as they feel and they have low confidence in the leadership skills demonstrated by Kalia.
3. Being culturally aware and ensuring the team is showing the intelligence and awareness to be aware of other cultural differences is a key aspect of successful teams. Kalia and her team need to improve the this and there are methods by which she can improve her outlook and improve the cultural intelligence. The most important aspect and method is to have a strong communication with members of team from diverse backgrounds. The person has to keep a clean slate while discussing and ensure that there are no preconceived notions in the mind. Else this will prevent the positive outlook from a discussion. The persons interacting should be curious about other person and culture. This will ensure an open discussion and help in increasing the positive perception towards other members. The other method to ensure increase in cultural intelligence is to practice self empathy and put yourselves in situations with people from different cultures wherein they will be forced to understand the different cultures and act accordingly. This might be an aggressive approach but it surely yields high results.
4. If I were in the position of Kalia, the first and foremost action I would do is to start again with a clean slate. This will help in removing the unwanted burden she is carrying on herself and she can be more transparent in her actions. With a clear focused mind, Kalia can decide better and execute the actions well. I would recommend her to have team bonding sessions and place the teams in such a way that there will be lot of interactions between people who have issues with each other. All the activities that they do should be done in such a way that work related thoughts stay far away. This would ensure the teams focuses on the individual rather than at their activities in the workplace. Knowing the real person rather than the colleague would ensure the team members gel faster and better. The Tuckman model also suggests that there will be a period of forming-storming norming and performing. As the manager of the team it is the responsibility of Kalia to induce such environments to ensure the teams work together. Another way by which the team can work better is by realigning the tasks in such a way that the individual strengths get focused rather than each member working to hide their weakness. The team should be managed in such a way that the team collaboratively works towards finding a solution. Each member of the team should be allowed to practice the important cultural aspects and follow them. This would arouse the curiosity of the team and will help in ensuring the team has better respect for others. If Kalia follows these basic aspects the team can be culturally intelligent team.

Reqiured:

This is a final case study paper requirements below:

Read and understand the case and questions. Show your analysis and reasoning and make it clear you know the material. Be sure to incorporate the concepts of the chapter we are studying to show your reasoning. Dedicate one heading to each following outline topic:

1. Summary of the Situation: 1 page
2. Identify what needs to change/not change: 1-2 page
3. Vision/Direction of the change: 2 pages
4. Communication strategies of change: 1-2 pages
5. Anticipated resistance to change: 1-2 pages

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References required

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