Global Team-Building Best-Practice Tips for Navigating, Managing, Leading in this Era of Unrest in the MidEast and other areas
Managing cross-functional, multicultural teams amid dynamic change, economic uncertainty
HOUSTON, July 6, 2011 —
“Building Effective Global Teams” is an article written by CHRONOS CONSULTING Managing Principal, Imaad Mahfooz, describing how organizations can ensure that their cross-functional, multicultural teams are successful, despite a volatile financial environment and continuing global unrest, particularly in the Middle East.
To do this, senior-level human resources leaders must take a custom-tailored and nuanced approach to managing these teams.
Chronos Consulting is based in Houston and is a firm that specializes in significantly improving business results for organizations across the globe, particularly in the areas of human capital management, global, cross-functional and virtual team-building, customer service and support and shared services. Its goal is to assist clients in areas of strong expertise and achieve break-through business results in compressed timeframes. Mr. Mahfooz has extensive experience and expertise in managing cross-functional and multicultural teams on complex business and IT projects. Please direct inquiries to: Imaad Mahfooz; imahfooz@chronosconsulting.org
“The past few years have brought with them some unprecedented turbulence in locations around the world,” Mr. Mahfooz said. “This article speaks to the fact that there are measures HR leaders can take to help global teams achieve maximum success, even while they face new challenges.”
This is especially relevant for organizations involved in restructuring and downsizing HR, while attempting to retain their most important human capital.
According to the article, organizations need to take an approach that considers the various business and social challenges of managing teams worldwide.
This requires working with cross-functional teams, made up of employees from different functions within an organization, as well as multicultural teams consisting of individuals from varying backgrounds and cultures.
In order for global teams to flourish, Mahfooz writes that they must:
• Agree on project goals, plans and definitions
• Conduct a review of working styles and team composition
• Achieve team cohesion and work towards a shared vision
• Address multicultural and cross-functional communication issues
• Define acceptable behavior
• Receive top management support
“With cooperative, involved management from senior HR executives, global teams can gain the knowledge and confidence to collaborate effectively within a new environment through the self-creation of shared and actionable project plans,” Mahfooz writes in the article. In this way, HR executives can help their entire organizations better understand best practices in global team-building.
