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Follow on Google News | Creating a Win-Win Situation for a US-German Product Development TeamITAP’s approach is to address the breakdown in communication, while keeping everyone’s attention focused on achieving the organization’s business goal.
As a US American, Joanna values the expression of opinion, and solicits input from her team members. Her team members are excited to contribute to the conversation about the new product features that IT Know-How’s software package should have. On a teleconference with Helmut and his teammates in IT Know-How’s office in Munich, Joanna shares some of the her team’s ideas. On hearing Joanna’s report Helmut states that she is wrong and the idea is not a good one. He counters with details about why the idea should not be considered. Helmut and his colleagues’ continue to ask pointed questions which unnerve Joanna and her teammates in New Jersey. They fail to understand why the German members of the team are not as excited about the improvements they are suggesting. The team members begin to perceive Joanna as a weak team leader and Helmut as demanding and not open to new ideas. Over time this kind of interaction intensifies tensions and the project stalls. IT Know-How is losing projected revenue because the US product revision is late to market. Competitors are beating them to market and the potential loss is significant. Before companies such as IT Know-How reach an impasse, they should call ITAP. The company and the team leaders suffered an unnecessary setback. From ITAP’s perspective, Helmut uses a typical German communication style where managers tend to express opinions directly and in specific terms, supporting them with facts – and they expect others to communicate the same way. They feel responsible to criticize. They express their sense of social responsibility by offering criticism. They perceive intense debate as an interesting intellectual challenge. Joanna, and other US Americans value expressing their own opinions, as well hearing the opinions of others, and focus on considering ideas even before they have all the facts – if the ideas are worth considering, they will collect the facts. Their perspective is that Helmut is being over-critical and challenging. IT Know-How needs to step up its product design cycle and gain market share, but the flawed communication between its New Jersey and Munich teams is getting in the way. Through ITAP, IT Know-How can gain on two fronts: ITAP can help Joanna and Helmut’s teams resolve the specific roadblocks that keep them from customizing the software package and launching it to market. ITAP will also strengthen the intercultural competence of IT Know-How employees, which will have a positive impact on future projects. Depending on the client’s need and budget, ITAP can benefit IT Know-How in the following ways: 1. Joanna and Helmut teams must work together as one big team. An ITAP TEAM INTERVENTION will help Joanna and Helmut accomplish the following: - Assess the team members’ and team leaders’ perspectives on what is working and what needs fixing to create a targeted intervention that will deliver immediate improvements. - Align the team with resources and support, including, in this case, expert facilitators or individuals with intercultural competence. - Improve team internal dynamics in Munich, New Jersey, and across the Germany-US business culture divide by establishing protocols for communication and team interactions. - Develop better communication around tasks and deadlines. - Create early detection systems to address problems, barriers and issues well before milestones are not met. All these benefits are available through ITAP’s Global Team Process Questionnaire™ http://www.itapintl.com/ 2. Coaching: Either in addition to the team intervention approach, or as the sole approach to the problem that IT Know-How faces, ITAP may offer Joanna and Helmut individual coaching. The learning path may include an assessment of the values that motivate their behavior at work. They will learn to diagnose the communication style and behavior of others. They will also practice adjusting their communication style and behavior to achieve more optimal business results. For more about coaching, click here: http://www.itapintl.com/ 3. Embed intercultural competence in existing learning and developing modules: IT Know-How may decide that this is the time to elevate the level of intercultural competence of its employees across the globe. - If IT Know-How already has an existing of library learning materials, ITAP can redesign some of these materials so that they also deliver cultural learning. - ITAP can augment learning materials that focus on hard skills, such as accounting, sales, marketing, and logistics, and soft skills such as project management and leadership. - ITAP can also create learning materials from scratch. Another possibility is for IT Know-How to purchase pre-existing learning from ITAP’s catalog. To access ITAP’s catalog, click here: http://www.itapintl.com/ There are other approaches that ITAP might recommend, depending, again, on the client’s business needs. To learn more about ITAP, please call us at +1-215-860-5640 or email itap@itapintl.com End
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