#leadership #integration #culturalintegration #teamdevelopment
The minute you have 2 or more people working together, you have more than one culture working together. This means integration will be needed. Most of us work in multicultural environments. Here in Kenya you usually have a minimum of 4 or more cultures in any team.
Let’s all be sensitive of other cultures.
What influences Culture?
Our individual culture is influenced by many things. This also includes work ethics, expectations and moral believes. These are all influenced by:
- Nationality
- Tribal background – we all have one or more tribes we come from
- Religion
- Family traditions and believes
- Political believes
- Work culture
When we assemble a team and try to pull it together, we need to remember these different backgrounds. This means we need to be sensitive to each other. At the same time it also enriches us and gives us a chance to learn.
Integration among team members with all our different back grounds and cultures can also be very enriching. It depends on what you want to make out of it.
Let’s embrace out differences and learn from each other. It will widen our horizon.
How can we integrate?
Integrations starts with a willingness to learn. Once again my own attitude is what will make the difference. Here are a few tips for pulling multicultural teams together
- Ask questions
- Find out about the individual believes, dietary requirements and holidays, anything that can influence how the team will work together
- Celebrate the different holidays and give the relevant team member a chance to share about the meaning of a holiday and how they celebrate it.
- NEVER look down on any culture
- Remember that even among Christianity there are different denominations. And for example Seventh Day Adventists may have difficulties to work on Saturday since it will not allow them to attend their services.
- Remove internal filters and biases and open yourself to new experiences.
- Be willing to go out of your comfort zone
- Attend other culture’s ceremonies both religious and traditional and learn
Integration starts with understanding and willingness to accept. If you are willing to immerse yourself it will even be more educative.
An example of Cultural Integration
My partner is from the Sikh community and as I am writing this I am actually attending a Saptahik Path, the weeklong reading of their holy book done at the family’s home. The holy book will be read from beginning to end. But, at the same time the family also spends quality time together. In our case people have come to visit and participate from 3 different continents and are enjoying catching up. The entire event is in memory of one of the family patriarchs who passed away 11 months ago.
I think this is an amazing way to celebrate the life of a loved one, who has passed. Attending this path has definitely opened my eyes on new possibilities and has brought me to rethink how I do my own mourning and remembering of loved ones.
What does this help me in Work Situations?
Understanding the other person and their culture, will help you understand why they react the way they do. That way you can then help others also to understand. In turn the entire team will learn to be more accepting and open their eyes.
Having several cultures and back grounds represented also is an amazing opportunity! Different cultures have different ways to approach things and different ways to think about it. Take these opportunities and come up with new and creative solutions.
Let’s make a difference and be integrative!