management consultant hired to understand the challenges and best practices of cross-cultural team management.

Imagine yourself to be a management consultant hired to understand the challenges and best practices of cross-cultural team management. You first would ensure you were informed with the knowledge needed for this particular situation: individual motivation, teaming, cultural values, individual/age cohort values. As multi-cultural teaming is dispersed in multiple regions around the world, it is important to have an understanding of how external forces and organizational structure impact this. Finally, the multi-cultural team is part of a company’s internal systems and processes for getting the work done—the learning organization model explains systems thinking.

Read the articles provided in the weeks 4 & 5 course content area. Then read these two articles by Michelle LeBaron that explain with clarity the influence of cultural values upon a person’s behavior:
LeBaron, M. (2003) Communication Tools for Understanding Cultural Differences. Beyond Intractability. June 2003. Retrieved from https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/communication_tools
LeBaron, M. (2003) Cross-Cultural Communications. Beyond Intractability. July 2003. Retrieved from https://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/cross-cultural-communication
2. View the TEDx talk by Ricardo Fernandez on managing cross-cultural virtual teams: