26 It is almost interesting to see why the rank of the converging forces is the opposite that of the divergence forces from cultural dimensions. This maybe a coincident and so far I have no clue how to explain this.
27 The task complexity, on the other side, will influence the teams’ final results. The more complex a task is, the longer time it requires; and less diversified team and stronger convergent forces will have advantages in the same time frame.
And second, the most important concept relevant to this concept model is that TEAM V may well find a “way” well within the originally boundaries that is out the boundary of the TEAM VI team. Next, the attribution factors of these multicultural teams will be examined.
Attribution Factors:
Important enough that attribution factors are what help the team concentrate on the tasks instead of individual difference. Therefore, the team player inventory estimates the extent to which people are positively predisposed to work in teams.
When someone is a team player, more than not, he or she has at least developed certain soft skills. However, some soft skills are more cultural specific. Individuals who claim that they are a team player, in a multicultural environment, these “soft skills” probably have to adjust. Certainly, there are universal elements/skills on working in a team. Empathy is a sensitive understanding of other people’s thoughts and feelings. More specific, cognitive empathy is more of intellectual part of understanding that excluding emotions. People who possess higher cognitive empathy are more sensitive to external cause of other’s behavior, thus minimize fundamental attribution mishaps. Meantime, researches have indicated that teams require a balance of roles. The team role preference refers to someone’s preferred roles in meetings and team activities. McShane has identified roles like encourager, gatekeeper, harmonizer, initiator, and summarizer.
Figure IV-10: EMP Ranges & Norms (Average range is [16~25], see Appendix A &
B)
Multicultural Teams' Cognitive Empathy Ranges & Norms
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Cognitive Empathy: Empathy is a sensitive understanding of other people’s thoughts, feelings and other’s situations. This perspective taking is more of intellectual part of understanding. An active listener echoes with a speaker or other
team members and takes them into consideration. People who possess higher cognitive empathy are more sensitive to external cause of someone else’s behavior, thus minimize fundamental attribution errors.28 When a member is not performing well within a group, blaming won’t help. If a member with high cognitive empathy understands what is bother him and what is the problem, the not performing so well member may have better chance motivated to catch up with the group besides difficulties outside the team. Logically, in multicultural team, members who are high on perspective taking will help the team concentrate on the tasks instead of individual difference. This will help on getting other team members ideas understood and not ignored. This build relationship to face whatever difficulties lie ahead.
Assigning points on the qualitative cognitive empathy on team individuals, 3 points for medium, 5 for high, and 1 for low. As the result, to rank these multicultural teams base on the cognitive empathy:
1. TEAM II (32.2)
It is interesting to see that TEAM V even though have the lowest cognitive empathy, but this team also have a member that poses the highest empathy of the whole class. For attribution factors, is the overall perspective taking of the team more important than an individual?
First, if we compare the two teams between TEAM I and TEAM II (See Appendix A & B), it is not hard to make judgment that TEAM II team will have better attributions than TEAM I with four members score high on this perspective taking scale. However, the question rises, does a team need four members who are all high on this cognitive empathy ability? The answer is probably not. More than likely, this team with one or two individual with this ability is satisfactory.
However, we can view this as a chemical catalyst or a lubricant for machines.
The satisfactory is good enough for the performance but better effect could possible be also achieved with more of these attribution forces. Therefore, perhaps, it is easier when looking at this factor; we look at insufficient side instead of the abundance of
28 Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute the behavior of other people more to internal than to external factors. (McShane & Von Glinow, 2005) Internal factors refer to the cause of an event is due to someone’s “internal” “dysfunctions” instead of some external causes.
29 Both TEAM IV and TEAM V have 20 points. However, since TEAM IV have two members with high cognitive empathy, this will help team more than having only one member that has high cognitive empathy in TEAM V.
these attribution forces. After all, a chemical reaction won’t happen if the chemical catalyst does not exist or the machine won’t function is lubricants ran out.
All six multicultural teams have members possess cognitive empathy abilities.
Therefore, there is less worry that members won’t interact with each other in the
“right” direction.
Team Role Preference:(See Appendix C)
Some roles help the team achieve the goal while others help to maintain the relationship of team members so the team can function. If the roles are not assigned, team members usually take on different roles from time to time. This could be from each team member’s value or personality. However, it is during the forming stage of the team building that team members “develop” their preferred roles inside the team.
People have their preference on type of role they represent. Meantime, researches have indicated that teams require a balance of roles.
The team role preference scale identifies someone’s preferred roles in meetings and team activities. Encourager praises and supports the ideas of other team members, thus showing warmth and solidarity to the group. Gatekeeper encourages all team members to participate in the discussion. Harmonizer mediates intra-group conflicts and reduces tension. Initiator identifies goals for the meeting, including ways to work on those goals. Summarizer keeps track of what was said in the meeting.
The research by A. Robers and R. Nason (2000) revealed that a diversity of ideas was more likely to emerge from within balanced groups than from within random groups, particularly when the random groups where heavily skewed toward one team role preference. This also explains why balanced groups may lead to better knowledge-building activity.
Logically, in multicultural team, members who like to be on certain role will be more likely to take on that role in the team. However, if there is more than one member in the team that would also prefer to take on that role, then, who is going to do what is not clear unless specified. First, it is more important that in a team that there is certain level of willingness that each roles functions are taken care of. So in general, it is better to have a level of medium to stronger willingness on each role in the team.
Meanwhile, there is also possibility that a member likes every roles and a member don’t like to be any of these roles. This can show there are possible dominant individual or individual that is not going to express his or her own opinions. If this is the case, a team’s potential probably won’t be reached. This becomes less of a team.
In situation when the roles are not specified, if a individuals strongest two or three preferences are happened to be “taken” by someone who even has “stronger”
preferences, then, individuals may have to take on the roles that he or she is not normally willing to do when he works alone. However, this also gives him or her an opportunity to grow. This is an opportunity growth, which may result in something more than one could expect or perhaps some cultural synergetic solutions. So, it is probably not a problem if someone is up for all roles, but it will be a problem if one is not up for any roles. There will be also problem if one of the role is not being performed due to there is no one in the team that is willing to take on this role. But more than likely, when the team is performing, this will be “appointed” somehow.
It is important that attribution factors are what help the team concentrate on the tasks instead of individual difference. This will help on getting other team members ideas understood and not ignored. This build relationship to face whatever difficulties lie ahead.
Figure IV-11: TP Ranges & Norms (Moderate range is [21~39], see Appendix A & B)
Multicultural Teams' Team Player Inventory Ranges & Norms
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Team Player Inventory: The team player inventory self-assessment is designed to estimate the extent to which people are positively predisposed to work in teams.
When someone is a team player, more than not, he or she has at least developed certain soft skills. Cognitive empathy is considered a kind of soft skills. However, there are some soft skills that are more cultural specific. Individuals who claim that they are a team player, in a multicultural environment, these “soft skills” probably have to adjust.
However, there is certainly universal “truth” on working in a team. If there is a
member in the team that is not really interested in working in a team, this does not suggest that this individual will not make efforts on his part of work. However, this suggests that this individual will more than likely to avoid the meetings, less openly and eagerly exchange information as well as getting feedbacks from other members.
This in itself, is not a deciding factor of the team’s “success”, but it is indeed a factor that will help team to reach his potentials or beyond.
All six teams team player inventory are average at medium. And no one has low team player inventory in the study30 (See Appendix B).
The Apollo Syndrome:
Dr. Meredith Belbin discovers a phenomenon where teams of highly capable individuals can perform badly collectively. He finds these teams spent excessive time on destructive debate, then abort what they had talked about. They try to persuade other team members to their perspectives, therefore, encounter difficulties in decision-making points. The team members also favor their own way of doing things, act on their own without considering what other team members has been doing.
Furthermore, in some cases, teams realize that there are problems but they somehow avoided the confrontations, which cause further delay on decision-makings.
There is a saying that, the determinations are up to men but the success is up to God. Certain factors are out of the control that cant’ predict the exact performance of the team. However, what we can do is try to see what kind of potential problems the team might have from the beginning, and by knowing so, we might know what we needed in the process, thereby, increase the chance of success better.
By selecting talents with ability will not guarantee the success of a team or a multicultural team. In other words, a multicultural team with larger diversified scopes and strong convergence forces won’t achieve desired potential without the attribution factors. “To maximize team effectiveness, members should be selected to be homogeneous in ability levels (thus facilitating accurate communication) and heterogeneous in attitudes (thus ensuring a wide range of solutions to problems)”
(Triandis, Hall, & Ewen, 1965)
Language Barriers:
Team members often find themselves more attracted to people from their own culture than to people from other cultures. (Triandis, Hall, & Ewen, 1965) This is somewhat true in the multicultural team. This is more because of the language that
30 Why no one has low team player inventory? Perhaps, students today have been educated to participate in team. And the class in itself is full of multicultural exchange students, they are mentally prepared for different cultures and are open minded about others.
members use to communicate. English is the language used here for the team communication. For some people, it is obvious that their English proficiency is better than some others. I had observed that people seems to talk to someone that they feel comfortable talking to, namely, someone they think it is easier to communicate. For members from the same cultures, they can use the first language to communicate.
This certainly isolates themselves from others who can’t understand the language.
However, this effect is minimized at the beginning of the group forming when most teams do not have the members from the same cultures. On the other side, members tend to communicate to other that their English “speaking” level is about the same, or above a level that communication is not an extra effort.
When all members do not fluently speak the team’s working language, communication is slowed down. (Hayles, 1982) For multicultural teams in the study, language skills affect a lot of things from the students’ ability to express themselves, communicate their ideas to others, to feel fit in psychologically. Often time, it is more of the speaking part rather than hearing or writing part. Nonetheless, speaking part dominates what is observed. To be strictly, you might think less of someone’s ability simply because you don’t like the tone of the voice. This further complicate what are needed later for the team to function.
To study multicultural teams, this language barriers exist and hard to know the extent of its effect due to the scope of the study and observation effect. We know this will affect the team, but to what extent is hard to estimate31 and not the scope of this study. While we know in cultural diversified teams, languages is a problem, but this is not the only one we can look at as an indication to team’s performance.
Evolution Changes of Team Members:
“The Perfect Score” is a movie about a couple of students, who don’t know each other at all. Somehow come up with a common goal, try to steal SAT answers to get high scores. No one is sure about doing this in the beginning until they set their mind into it. Problems come up one after another, unanticipated, but somehow, someone in the team happens to have certain skills/abilities to be able to solve them. In the end, even though they are able to get the SAT answers, no one wants to use it. Why? They changed during the whole process. They succeed their goal, but the goal is not important anymore. They have changed, by working hard together; they find something else more important in their lives. You experienced and know what had been through; somehow, you get something from the whole process, from team
31 For, it is often the case the students who can’t “speak” well but actually do quite well on their classes, and get high grades. In multicultural team, or any team, being silent does not necessary mean that the member is not participating in the team, rather, he/she might be doing some other roles and work extra harder on some other areas.
members, from working as a team, from achieving something. Therefore, a successful teamwork will expand members’ views and possible change the team members afterwards.
In multicultural teams, this is almost an expected “unexpected” result. Initially, members are dependent on one another’s experiences as well as abilities for the project. The information and knowledge have been exchanged and communicated.
Conflict is a process of learning. Perhaps members are not necessarily know that they are learning something at the time, simply trying to solve what is right before them.
And team members motivate each other to perform and get through. It seems like if there is motivation, there is possibility for growth. Learning from the multicultural team amplifies these possibilities to a much greater degree for these cultural diversified members bring much more “shocks” to be absorbed32.
Take an example that actually happened in one of the multicultural team. A team member is used to finish the work on the very last minutes. This kind of habit is from the educational backgrounds as well as working experience in the fields. In the same multicultural team, there is another member from another culture that emphasizes scheduling everything beforehand, follow the preset goals, as well as getting things done way ahead of the deadlines to have ample time to do modifications. The team has somehow normed to follow this culture’s styles. As the result, the members had finished the project two weeks before it is due. Actually this is the first time for some members to finish the project so early that the “feel” of relief and time to still think what more can be done. From this, I believe, this experience has changed some members. This new experience stays with all the members, who pick up different things from different members.
32 Even if the result is bad, I believe that the team members have learned something from the experience.
V. Modeling
Propositions:
From the literature reviews and point of departures, to observation of these multicultural groups and discussions, we can come with the following propositions:
1. Proposition 1: Individuals join together to form a team. With the right conditions on certain task, the team will have more resources than an individual to perform better with more alternatives. If a team is more diversified, a team will have potential to be more creative.
Imagine you only have one hand to type on the computer; it is almost certain it will take more time and effort. Then if you use two hands, this seems to be the best combination with the size of the keyboard. Now, say, if you have three hands, this is not necessary better.33 For the right condition on certain task, in addition to multiplying effects, team gathers resources needed or what an individual lacks. One difference between someone working alone and in a team is that one can hardly have ability to do different things at the same time or to be a different role at the moment. Multitasking can’t replace team works. A person will feel hard enough trying to listen to the news on the radio and read a book.
This is when more is more.
When more individuals join to form a team, the widening individual differences result in the more diversified team. Thus, the team is more “creative”
because it has potential to offer alternative solutions than an individual can. Even though diversity causes problems by disrupting communication. Nonetheless, diversity is the sources for creativity if the team is normed. With the right condition on certain task, team will have more resources to come up with possible better alternatives than an individual.
2. Proposition 2: The multicultural team is more diversified than a homogenous cultural team. And the multicultural team differs more in cultural dimensions
2. Proposition 2: The multicultural team is more diversified than a homogenous cultural team. And the multicultural team differs more in cultural dimensions