Take a piece of printer paper. Unlined. Fold it in half. Twice. You have quadrants. Turn the paper sideways to the landscape position. Now use a pencil and an eraser.
Baseline Number
First, what is your baseline number? It could be a hard number: revenue, profit, cost. Or a soft number: speed, quality, response time. Perhaps it is an investment: a merger, an acquisition, private equity or a joint-venture, a corporate reorganization, an important project. In the top-left quadrant write that number.
Key Success Factors
Second, what are the key success factors? In the bottom-left quadrant list max. five factors. These are the things which your organization must do well in order to meet the baseline number in order to succeed.
Cross-Border Collaboration
Third, which factors are dependent on cross-border collaboration? In the top-right quadrant list those success factors which are driven by collaboration. Then sketch out per factor and on a separate piece of paper: who is working with whom, on what, why, and most importantly how. Fourth, how is your company supporting that collaboration?
Steps Taken
In the bottom-right quadrant write down the actions your organization is taking in order to ensure successful cross-border collaboration in the areas you identified in the third quadrant.
Folks, this exercise asks three important questions: What are your key success factors? Who are the people collaborating? How are you helping them to understand the influence of culture on their collaboration?