Compare and contrast your own cultural biases to that of real or imagined other colleagues who come from a culture different from your own.

ESSAY #2 – CULTURAL COMPETENCE AND GLOBAL TEAMS

CONTEXT / What expectations might you have for working with colleagues from different cultures? This essay asks you to compare and contrast your own cultural biases to that of real or imagined other colleagues who come from a culture different from your own. Begin by using the link provided in the Content folder on TritonEd to complete Meyer’s Cultural Profile and gain insight into your own culturally-based tendencies and preferences.

After completing the cultural profile tool, create a hypothetical three-person team using your specific results plus two additional team members with different cultural profiles from yours and from each other (e.g., if you are Chinese you might consider a team with one American and one Italian). The tool allows you to repeat use in order to find results for other cultures. We will discuss this in class.

You will give practical and specific examples of what you understand might be your working interactions within your small team, and how team members may need to adapt or change in order to work together productively. The readings from Cultural Competence and Global Teams (see course reader TOC) provide the background for this prompt. It is expected that your essay will include reference to these required readings as evidence of your understanding. Note: No pre-submission reading of essays is possible, but we would be happy to discuss your ideas in OHs if you bring your completed worksheet with you.

ESSAY PROMPT / How would you expect your small team of three to interact across Meyer’s behavioral scales and how would you expect team members might adjust behaviors to build rapport and to make progress toward the team goal? What do you expect would be shared preferences that would facilitate your good working relationships? What do you expect would be possible areas of misunderstanding or conflict? How do you imagine solutions to help the team overcome possible tension and achieve success?

Begin with a brief introduction of your hypothetical team and its mission or goal. In order to use realistic situations for your analysis, be sure you understand the goal (e.g., don’t imagine a software development team if you don’t know how one would function). Be sure to cover at least 3 scales for full credit (e.g., pick three from the following: communicating, evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, and scheduling).