I support multinational teams.
In 2000 I was at Siemens in Munich, helping to integrate Westinghouse. I began by running intercultural training for German and American colleagues. Ten foundational topics. Communication, decision-making, leadership, and the rest.
The training went well. Then line management came to me with a request. “We are hearing good things, John. Can you help our teams directly? They are struggling to collaborate.”
So I built a second offering, which I called a Policy Workshop. It began with background interviews. Then I did the analysis, designed the agenda, and ran the workshop itself, off-site. These were real problems, and the colleagues worked them out.
Then line management came back. “These are going well, too, John. Can you do the same on the German side, or the American side, where there is no intercultural issue at all? Just a plain collaboration problem.” So I did. The same method, pointed at their problems. It worked there, too.
That taught me what I have relied on ever since. The method is not really about culture. Culture is one of the things that makes teams misread each other, an important one, but only one.
The method helps a team see where they differ in how they think and work, how those differences influence their collaboration, and how to get them to help them rather than hurt collaboration.
Today I do that work with multinational teams. It takes whatever form the situation needs. Training for a team about to begin a long cross-border collaboration. A workshop for management working through integration issues. Coaching for a senior leader.
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