Sustainable learning and change in international
teams: from imperceptible behaviour to rigorous
practice
Claudia Heimer
Ashridge Consulting Ltd, Freiburg, Germany
Russ Vince
Research Unit for Organizational Learning and Change, Bristol Business School,
Bristol, UK
This paper outlines the
authors’ experience of working with international crosscultural teams, and is an
attempt to address the question about how international
organizations can give rise to
a sustainable capability in
which generations of teams
build on each other’s experience. The paper outlines
some of the behavioural
dynamics, both constructive
and destructive that seem to
occur in international teams,
and focuses on ways of working through the destructive
dynamics. The paper suggests that sustainable learning can happen when organizations and teams engage
with the “cultural whirlpool”
that their internal diversity
creates; when they maintain
ongoing cross-cultural conversations which bring cultural differences and understandings alive; and where
they engage with the strategic
moments that are afforded by
their emotional and relational
dynamics.
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
19/2 [1998] 83–88
© MCB University Press
[ISSN 0143-7739]
Introduction
The well-travelled international manager,
will claim that making international teams
work is no longer an issue. Having worked in
multinational companies for years, he or she
will relate exciting experiences with
colleagues all around the world, in teams that
“jelled” seamlessly. Why is it then, that the
interest in the topic seems to be increasing?
In the early 1990s, understanding crosscultural teamwork was perceived as an interesting but secondary question. As we head
towards the end of the millennium, there is
growing concern to grapple with the issue at
a deeper human and emotional level. Why is
it that international teamwork is increasingly seen as a critical capability that might
determine the success of international companies competing in the breathtaking speed
of globalization?
In this paper we have two aims. First, to
reflect on and explore our experience of working with international, cross-cultural teams.
We are attempting to make sense of what we
have done, and map out some of the issues we
feel are important for our future work.
Second, we are struggling with a continuing
tension in what we do. International teams
generate intra and inter-personal dynamics
that are challenging to work with, because
they are imperceptible or difficult. Yet leaders and facilitators of international teams
need, and frequently ask for very practical
advice to organizations about behaviour in
international teams, advice that helps them
achieve their business objectives. Beyond the
immediate need to perform well during the
life of the team, how can international organizations create a sustainable capability in
which generations of teams build on each
others experience?
What we will refer to here as an international team, is a group of about eight to ten
people who have a degree of interdependence
in what they do together. By an international
team we mean a group of people who face the
challenges of combining different cultures
within the group as well as of geographic
dispersion with all the implications of
remoteness in distance and time. A question
we are often asked is whether an international
team is really any different from any other
sort of team. We believe it is. The difference is
not in kind, but in degree of complexity. This
complexity is due precisely to the added
dimensions of culture and dispersion. Culture influences expectations and behaviours
in relation to communication, leadership and
what constitutes effective teamwork (Snow et
al., 1996). Dispersion makes regular contact
difficult, and needs to be bridged through the
use of a variety of communication methods,
from face-to-face meetings, video conferences,
teleconferences, e-mail, the Internet,
intranets, and other IT-based groupworking
tools.
Many of the practices to develop high performing mono-cultural teams also apply in
the case of international teams, as do practices for dispersed teams of a single culture.
The difference we find is that international
teams cannot do without these practices if
they are to be successful. While some teams
naturally develop a climate of appreciation
for different cultures, and an ability to work
well together across distances, some do not.
We propose a way to understand what happens in these teams.
Behavioural dynamics in
international teams
We see behaviour in international teams as a
work of art. While a team is working on a
specific task, many things occur that people
do not see at first, because they have not
allowed themselves to develop the conditions
and the mental state for a deep appreciation,
one that requires us to stand still for a while,
take a step back, and allow a work of art to
reach out to us. We have found it useful to
make these behaviours visible, and to give
groups both the opportunity to learn about
what they are doing well, and the choice do
something about what they are ignoring.
Below we outline some of the most common
patterns we have noticed.
Constructive patterns
The involvement of every team member
Teams that have invested energy in ensuring
the involvement of all its members without
Ashridge Business School UK - http://www.ashridge.org.uk
[ 83 ]
Claudia Heimer and
Russ Vince
Sustainable learning and
change in international
teams: from imperceptible
behaviour to rigorous practice
exerting pressure for each member to be
equally extroverted usually develop varied
processes and skills to cope with the complexities of communication and action that international teams demand.
to avoid; and a tendency to avoid conflicts and
settle for unwanted compromises. For example, when teams avoid talking about an issue
because it is seen as “undermining of the way
we work together”.
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
19/2 [1998] 83–88
The team develops bridges that support
issues of language
Under- or overplaying language difficulties
Teams that make the effort to conduct their
meetings in such a way that non-native speakers of the teams’ language can contribute,
work slower yet seem to be more able to use
increased opportunities for reflection and
understanding created by this approach.
The venues for team meetings are rotated
When teams make the effort to alternate
meeting venues between the different countries that represent the diverse nationalities
of their members, a different level of knowledge and understanding can occur. There is a
connection between finding out about each
others’ “home” culture and the issues that
are raised in working together.
Cross-cultural curiosity
Where there is persistent curiosity about
what people of other cultures do, why they
think the way they do, and what differences
emerge between cultural patterns and behaviours, then the team can often more easily
override problems such as interruptions to
their speech, which can be forgiven when
people feel that they have been heard.
Diversity of ideas
International teams function well when they
prioritise the desire to explore ways of combining each others’ cultural strengths in
order to develop new and better ideas.
Destructive patterns
Dependence on dominant individuals or
cultural groups
Some international teams become stuck in a
dependence on individual team members or
members of a single cultural group. Team
members feel (but do not voice) that “the guy
from head office is dominating the meeting”,
or team members reflect (e.g.) “It was fun, but
I never managed to say...”. Teams need to
acknowledge that: individuals tend to dominate the way a team evolves; teams like to
deny that individuals tend to dominate; and
that individual national or cultural groupings are generally dominant.
Avoidance of anxiety
Working within and managing in a diverse
environment, and in a dispersed mode can be
anxiety creating. Some of the characteristics
of this underlying anxiety that we have seen
in international teams include: a fear of
paralysis that promotes the effect it is trying
[ 84 ]
Operating in a language other than one’s own
can be uncomfortable. It has been reported
that “it makes me feel stripped of my personality” (Barham and Wills, 1992). When teams
have a subgroup fluent in the team’s working
language, and others that are not, we have
observed that: groups can acknowledge, yet
do little to effectively bridge language difficulties; individuals can hide their insecurities or lack of competence behind their lack of
fluency in the team language; cultural subgroups can develop the habit of talking in
their own language during team meetings,
creating an atmosphere in which there is lack
of trust, and lack of joint attention and
involvement.
Task focus rather than learning focus
As with any team, managers can often have a
greater desire to consume external knowledge, than they have to generate internal
knowledge about the processes involved
within an international team. Although it is
useful for the team to have access to external
models and approaches, to have ideas about
best practice and a clear notion of the task at
hand, there will inevitably be a point at
which the team needs to reflect on its own
process in order to deal with those blocks to
development that have been created from the
team’s own particular chemistry. Teams do
often focus overly on the task, in preference to
establishing a good basis for co-operation,
even beyond the life of the team. Team learning arises from an ability to comprehend the
language of the team “processes” as well as
the team tasks.
The use and misuse of communications
technology
Communications technology can be underutilised, or used thoughtlessly. There is a big
difference between team managers who use
technology to stay remote from team members and those who use it to stay connected to
them. E-mail, groupware and voice mail are
important tools for communication, but it is
also important to be aware of the effects of
these different forms of communication on
the recipients of it. Teams can overemphasise
the need for face-to-face contact, and loose
momentum between meetings if they don’t
make use of technology. Individuals can use
communication technology to exercise control at a distance, while espousing values of
involvement.
Ashridge Business School UK - http://www.ashridge.org.uk
Claudia Heimer and
Russ Vince
Sustainable learning and
change in international
teams: from imperceptible
behaviour to rigorous practice
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
19/2 [1998] 83–88
Sustainable learning and change
In order to sustain learning and change in
international teams we feel it is important to
work with and develop two general areas of
insight and experience. First, we have developed a particular understanding of the nature
of international team cultures, what we are
calling “the cultural whirlpool” (Barham and
Heimer, forthcoming) that international
organizations inevitably create. Second, we
believe in the strategic importance of emotional and relational perspectives in the
development of international teams.
International team cultures
At the initial stages of their formation, international teams seem to move in one of two
directions; towards the setting up of a “safe
hybrid culture” for highly heterogeneous
teams; or towards a “dominant culture” in
more moderately heterogeneous contexts.
Sustainable learning and change within
international teams, is created out of a further stage of development, the “challenging
hybrid culture” (see Figure 1).
In both highly and moderately heterogeneous teams, some acknowledgement of cultural differences are an integral aspect of
initial group formation. The safe hybrid culture occurs as the team attempts to settle for a
common denominator, emphasising either
explicitly or implicitly the similarities
between team members despite cultural differences. A safe hybrid culture is therefore
one where the team denies or stops seeing
cultural differences as important. “We are all
engineers, so we understand each other, it
doesn’t matter that we are from Finland or
Figure 1
International team cultures
highly
heterogeneous
safe
hybrid
culture
initial
group
formation
challenging
hybrid
culture
moderately
heterogeneous
dominant
subculture
change
continuity
change
Belgium” is the type of comment one can
often hear when these team cultures develop.
In teams with a dominant subculture, one
cultural group persistently sets the agenda
and the frame within which problems are
defined and solved. This often reflects the
national origins of the company, and the spoken or unspoken wish of company members
who are from this nationality to keep a single
cultural identity alive. A dominant subculture is therefore one where the team accepts
and sees cultural differences between members, but where such differences are used to
reinforce the power of a single national
grouping. This is often not at all an overt
process, and these dominant subgroups
behave rather more like a wolf in sheep’s
clothes. We recall the example of a
Scandinavian-based multinational that tried
to create a logic of egalitarian and “empowered” teamworking in one of its subsidiaries
in Asia. The Asian people, used to a more
directive leadership style, felt very demotivated because they interpreted the behaviour
of the Scandinavians as signs of lack of committment to the local organization and the
future development of their country. Yet they
were stuck: the Scandinavians with the
power had inadvertantly made it difficult for
the Asian people to ask for direction. In both
cases the teams are creating processes that
support the continuation of either safety or
dominance rather than creating processes
that encourage learning and change.
We believe that in order to create sustainable learning and change, international
teams need to adopt a challenging hybrid
culture where the cultural differences within
the team are themselves seen as the material
which inspires learning and change. An
important aspect of sustainable learning is
therefore based on the team’s ability to question and challenge its own evolving and established norms, to be able to see and to reflect
on its own group processes as they emerge.
This “process awareness” emerges over time
as a team gets to grips with the emotional and
relational dynamics it creates, and as it
learns how to sustain the uncertainty that is
created through the interaction of different
cultures.
For example, from the first day of the
merger between ASEA of Sweden and Brown
Boveri of Switzerland, Percy Barnevik, exCEO of ABB, insisted that from the top of the
organization and reaching deep down and
across ABB managers should work in international teams, relocate from time to time
and hold their regular meetings in different
parts of the world. He suggested that this
experience is a fundamentally important part
of creating a truly transnational company.
Ashridge Business School UK - http://www.ashridge.org.uk
[ 85 ]
Claudia Heimer and
Russ Vince
Sustainable learning and
change in international
teams: from imperceptible
behaviour to rigorous practice
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
19/2 [1998] 83–88
What the success of ABB has shown both
financially and in achieving a largely multicultural way of operating is that these conditions are hard for all individuals involved, yet
produce a constant state of alert within which
individuals and teams learn. It remains to be
seen if ABB will sustain this rhythm over
time. What this example illustrates though, is
that international teamworking capability
cannot be acquired and kept. Unless individuals learn through their team experiences, and
organizations maintain the conditions under
which this learning can occur, it might not be
sustained. In order to achieve ongoing leaning at the behavioural level, the structural
level might play a fundamental role: it is the
constant mix of people creating cross-cultural
conversations about how tasks should be
achieved that are crucial here.
The “cultural whirlpool” that is important
to sustaining learning and change in international teams is created from the uncertainty
that mixed nationality teams inevitably generate; from the willingness to shift the venues
for team meetings around different parts of
the world; and from an alertness to the ongoing cross-cultural conversations that are
created within an international company.
The relationship between strategy and
emotion
The second aspect of sustainable learning
and change in international teams involves
their willingness to address at least some of
the emotional dynamics that they create.
Because international teams are full of unresolvable differences of language, perception,
behaviour and custom they are environments
where anxieties can be intense. All learning
and change creates anxieties (Menzies-Lyth,
1990; Schein, 1993), but anxiety is amplified in
such culturally diverse settings as international teams.
In any team there are moments of anxiety
emerging from its own chosen way of working and from the organizational politics surrounding it. For the individual, this anxiety
may be provoked by having to say something
difficult or challenging, by the effects of
unwanted decisions, by the pressures of an
unfamiliar task. For the team as a whole,
anxiety may be provoked by external deadlines or demands, the shifts of decision
making that occur in other parts of the organization, or through interactions across team
boundaries. In all of these examples the individual or the team is often faced with a
“strategic moment”, where the anxiety can
either be held and worked through, towards
some form of insight, or it can be ignored and
avoided, creating a “willing ignorance”
(Vince and Martin, 1993).
[ 86 ]
In Figure 2, we identify the two directions
that it is possible to travel from the starting
point of anxiety in teams. In the top cycle, the
one that promotes learning, the uncertainty
created by anxiety can be held long enough
for risks to be taken. Risk, and the struggles
that it makes possible, often lead towards new
knowledge or insight. In the bottom cycle, the
one that discourages learning, uncertainty
cannot be held and anxiety promotes the
denial or avoidance of emotions that seem too
difficult to deal with. In this cycle, resistance
towards anxiety leads towards a willing ignorance of the potential for learning and
change. For both individual team members
and for the team as a whole, in that moment
of feeling anxious it is possible to move in
either direction, towards learning or away
from it. Anxiety therefore can be seen to have
a strategic dimension, to be a feeling that may
equally promote or discourage learning and
change, depending on how a team responds to
it. Emotions, such as anxiety, that underpin
the experience of working together create
both the possibility for making the most of
these strategic moments and the capacity for
ignoring them. Individuals, teams and organizations are all faced with strategic
moments created from emotional responses
to experience. This emotional arena of organizational life is often something that individuals, teams and organizations find difficult
both to acknowledge and work with. However,
the recognition of the emotional aspects of
organizational life and their links to strategy
and decision making are fundamental to the
ability of individuals, teams and organizations to learn and change (Vince, 1996).
Having outlined the two general areas of
our thinking about what can give rise to
Figure 2
Anxiety as a strategic moment
4. Struggle
3. Risk
5. Insight or
Authority
2. Uncertainty
1. Anxiety
5. Willing
Ignorance
2. Fight or
Flight
4. Defensiveness
or Resistance
3. Denial or
Avoidance
Source: Vince and Martin, 1993
Ashridge Business School UK - http://www.ashridge.org.uk
Claudia Heimer and
Russ Vince
Sustainable learning and
change in international
teams: from imperceptible
behaviour to rigorous practice
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
19/2 [1998] 83–88
sustainable learning in international teams
we now move, in the next section of the paper,
towards more specific suggestions for working through the destructive dynamics that we
see as an inevitable part of international
teams.
Working through the destructive dynamics
Although some teams seem to develop constructive ways of working almost naturally,
and are great to work within, we have never
seen a single one without some destructive
patterns. We believe that these dynamics are
unavoidable. An international team develops
maturity because it learns to make them
visible and work through them continually. In
our experience, high performance can come
from confronting and working through
destructive dynamics. Below, we make some
suggestions about what can happen in international teams to help alleviate or minimise
destructive patterns.
Dependence on dominant individuals or
cultural groups
• Acknowledge the ways in which individuals dominate the team, and understand how
this affects the team.
• Become more aware of the basic cultural
preferences with which national or cultural
subgroups in the team will have influenced
the way the team works.
• Find ways of involving everyone, particularly in the way the team runs itself, and in
key decisions.
• Allow everyone to explore and state their
fundamental preferences, and find ways of
letting go of what is not absolutely essential
for each individual (this allows the team to
evolve its own unique way of working).
Avoidance of anxiety
• Accept that effective international teams
need to move slowly in the early stages of
their lives. Holding the fear of paralysis and
doing the work that needs to be done to
form the team will provide benefits later.
• Transform the anxiety instead of stopping
and getting stuck, by continuing through
the learning circle until deep insight and
emotional connectedness is developed.
• Accept that it is natural that teams avoid
conflicts, but see more clearly that in avoiding conflicts it inevitably avoids opportunities.
• Find ways to connect emotionally with each
other’s aspirations and desire for the organization or the team to work well, produce
and succeed; this is not about exchanging
opinions, but about creating an underdeveloped way of communicating which
allows a group to both reach the bottom of
disagreements, or the emergence of new
possibilities through true dialogue, the
very essence of teams that “jell” seemlessly.
Under- or overplaying language difficulties
• Develop effective ways of bridging language
difficulties; the key here is discipline and
rigour, even if the team feels that this discipline slows the working process down (e.g.
frequent summaries of what is being discussed, keeping visual records of what is
being said).
• Ban mono-cultural conversations
completely while there is a single person
that does not understand the language, in
order to generate involvement and trust.
Task focus rather than learning focus
• Create the impetus for exploration of the
“double-loop” aspects of team behaviour.
• Use frequent and short reviews of the working process (better than long and rare ones)
to help team members to develop process
literacy and manage the dynamics of the
team better.
• Rotate the role of “process observer” or
“process coach” in the team to give everyone the chance to develop these skills. Give
the team enough time to discuss and work
with the reflections of the “process
observer”.
• Agree a basic “team grammar”, or groundrules that give the team a language to talk
about its process.
Suboptimal use of communicational
technology
• Find out what team members need to do
face-to-face, and what they need to do at a
distance.
• Explore communication preferences, and
the best modes of communication.
• Develop a routine and disciplined communication pattern while the team is apart,
with clear accountabilities for who will do
what (to develop team identity and functioning communication).
The “Ceutico” case[1]
One of the teams we have worked with operated in the R&D part of a leading international pharmaceutical company. Responsible
for harmonising procedures across the globe
for submissions of developed drugs to regulatory bodies, the team worked together for a
few months when signs of discomfort
emerged. For a global company, building on
the combined knowledge base of this team to
reduce time for submissions to be processed
by the appropriate authorities is a critical
competitive capability. A team review was
scheduled to identify issues and to move
forward.
Ashridge Business School UK - http://www.ashridge.org.uk
[ 87 ]
Claudia Heimer and
Russ Vince
Sustainable learning and
change in international
teams: from imperceptible
behaviour to rigorous practice
Leadership & Organization
Development Journal
19/2 [1998] 83–88
[ 88 ]
During this meeting, a member had an
emotional outburst while the team reviewed
its preferences for how to work effectively
across its dispersed locations with its diverse
backgrounds. The team member powerfully
declared her discomfort at the pressure each
of the two dominant national subgroups was
putting on each other to perform in a certain
way. What had happened?
In the case of the Ceutico team, one of the
key obstacles was a strong orientation of the
two largest sub-cultures to believe in a
culturally-based “one right way” which had
worked in their relationship with the regulators. An enormous amount of energy went
into trying to push other team members to
the “other side”. This dynamic became most
apparent in the struggle between two team
members of each sub-culture.
How did the team deal with the tears? After
a moment of awkward silence, the ice was
broken when expressions of understanding
and appreciation came forth. One of the members who had been doubtful of the the value of
team review sessions later called the disclosure of his colleague the single most important factor in moving the team towards a
common understanding and fuller emotional
contact. And yet there was an easily underestimated, almost invisible moment in which
the group chose to accept the opportunity to
engage more fully with what was happening.
Before it was disbanded as part of a restructuring effort, the team evaluated its effectiveness through a performance appraisal. It had
not only achieved its task of harmonising
procedures in one of the designated areas of
drug development. It had also managed to
streamline procedures in another area
(although they were not fully operational in
all countries by the time the team ceased to
exist). What lives on for team members is the
joint experience of harmony in the group.
Team members learned about the importance
of generating involvement, and using videoconferences as a way of staying connected
across large distances. Giving people space
and listening to each other were key learning
points which gained an additional meaning
and vitality once people realised how they
had created unintended yet real pain on one
another.
Not all teams chose to work through such
moments in this constructive way. Perhaps
even more significantly though, Ceutico, after
building up rich learning experiences over
time, might be losing the memory and capability to build on the learning from previous
teams. The issues faced by the Ceutico team,
and the learning about how to resolve them,
even the intentional development of effective
international team dynamics from the start
was nothing new for the organization. And
yet a series of reorganizations almost wiped
out its ability to work effectively in international project teams. Managers who were
experienced internationally, but never left
their home country to live elsewhere, took a
long time to discover the weight of frequent
international travel, and of cultural differences such as a varying sense of urgency and
pace on the overall effectiveness of their
teams. After a significant period without
support and sponsorship, the capability
remains with very few dispersed individuals
who do not constitute a critical mass as
before. A global real-time training and development effort is planned to rebuild the learning across the organisation.
In this paper we have discussed our experience of working with international crosscultural teams, and we have begun to answer
the question about how international organizations can give rise to a sustainable capability in which generations of teams build on
each other’s experience. Our work suggests
that sustainable learning can happen when
organizations and teams engage with the
cultural whirlpool that their internal diversity creates; when they maintain ongoing
cross-cultural conversations which bring
cultural differences and understandings
alive; and where they engage with the strategic moments that are afforded by their emotional and relational dynamics.
Note
1 The name of the company has been changed in
this paper.
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Ashridge Business School UK - http://www.ashridge.org.uk