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The requirement
There is a need for more staff to be trained to operate in multicultural teams 
as firms adopt global strategies with managers moving in and out of other 
cultures and working with colleagues from these cultures. Such participation 
requires a wide range of interpersonal skills, including tact, culture sensitivity, 
high motivation, confidence building and organizational skills, as well 
as a sound understanding of team- building techniques and international 
management styles.
The challenge
Team building is a difficult exercise at the best of times, but doubly so 
when the team members are separated by language, culture and geogra-
phy. (Davies, 1992: 100)
One of the main challenges when managing people from different cultures 
is to balance apparently opposite cultural values and practices. It is impor-
tant to appreciate how much culture affects the way we do business. Even 
when speaking the same language, opportunities for misunderstanding and 
therefore mismanagement exist. It is a serious mistake to believe that because 
there are common business interests, there are necessarily common ways of 
achieving business aims. Multinational teams do not happen naturally – they 
have to be created and carefully nurtured. Gains from cultural diversity are 
not automatic; indeed, in order to achieve their full potential, multinational 
teams may often have to overcome barriers that single- culture teams may 
solve relatively quickly. ‘The very richness of the cultural diversity makes the 
group dynamics much more complex’ (Cox, 1991: 34). These differences can 
create interpersonal conflict and communication problems.
The challenge is to create a positive, dynamic and progressive climate 
where people work together harmoniously, recognizing their strengths 
and weaknesses and their cultural differences. The managerial skills are in 
harnessing their talents and energies to maximize their collective poten-
tial. It should be stressed that those involved must want to operate well in 

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International Team Building and Teamworking 143
other cultures and be highly motivated by the challenge. This is important 
as there is inherently greater potential for frustration and dissatisfaction 
in multinational teams than in single- culture teams, often accompanied 
by a high turnover of team members. For teams to become effective, they 
need to be able to become integrated and balance both individual and 
collective efforts.