Challenges And Strategies For Managing Diverse Project Teams At XYZ Manufacturing (essay).

You have been assigned the job of leading such a team. You are the Vice President of North American manufacturing for XYZ Fixture Company, a major manufacturer of kitchen and Bathroom fixtures. The company has manufacturing and sales operations in North American, Europe and China (with sales operations also on Japan and South Korea). The CEO of XYZ is concerned about inefficiencies at many of the firm’s manufacturing operations and a lack of coordination with the sales operations.

You have been tasked with leading a team with 20 representatives from all the units around the world to come up with solutions to deal with these issues.

You will literally have team member located in almost every different time zone around the world, coming from many different cultural backgrounds. All 20 representatives speak English, but with varying levels of proficiency. Even the corporate culture within the XYZ operational units vary significantly between Asia, North America, and Europe. You recently had a video conference with top managers of the Chinese Manufacturing and they were taken aback by your Casual Friday attire. One of your main objectives must be to create a culture of cooperation among all these varied representatives.

The CEO is aware of these issues and has some expertise herself in that area, so she wants to want to meet with you to discuss the planning of the team. Before that meeting, she would like a report from you.

In that report, she wants you to discuss at least five challenges you foresee in the implementation of this project team and additionally discuss your strategy for dealing which each of the difficulties. One of the important aspects of this report is creating a list of difficulties and solutions that logically and effectively present your ideas to leadership. You want to show your CEO that you clearly know the issues and have the know-how it takes to effectively lead this project. 

Diverse team management refers to successful involvement and considerations of various culture and knowledge level members into a formal team. For an international organization, it is essential to handle and develop a diverse project team that can help to operate the business across the globe by overcoming the issues and challenges of changes in culture, communication level and collaborating with different perception of team members (Grissom, Kern and Rodriguez, 2015). The report will analyze significance of diverse team management for XYZ manufacturing company and identify the challenges that the project manager will face during handling the diverse team. Moreover, the report will identify and frame the strategies for managing diverse team and leadership to achieve the goals and objectives of organization in efficient manner.

According to given scenario about XYZ manufacturing company, the organization is dealing into bath room and kitchen fixture. The company is operating business in North America and China with sales operations in Japan and South Korea. The issue with organization while dealing with international client is lack of knowledge about management of diverse team to encourage the sales operations in other part of world. The project team members of XYZ are located in different time zone and come from different cultural background. In order to deal with different projects indifferent location company needs an effective and diverse team. It would be hard for project leader to handle the project team and create the mutual culture to increase the cooperation and culture that promote the business. Apart from that, manager has to conduct meeting with 20 representatives from diverse culture and meet the sales and business objectives that organization is looking to achieve. Recently, XYZ manager had video conference with Chinese manufactures and they were taken aback by the Casual Friday attire of organization. Now, XYZ management needs to identify the issues in management of diverse team management and develop a strategy to meet the sales objectives more professional manner.

In the current scenario of globalization, the development and implementation of diverse project team culture and approach is necessary for organizations to increase the market presence and maintain the relation with global business partners. According to O’Brien, the diverse project team culture and management is useful for organization to create the better results and improve the efficiency level of project team members. The diverse project team is beneficial or XYZ manufacturing organization to improve the innovation at workplace by sharing the experience of different members the management could support the staff members to increase the skill level and execute the plans more effectively (O’Brien, Scheffer, van Nes and Van Der Lee, 2015). For example, working alongside with different background, experience and working style and creative concept will influence the working capacity of XYZ organization and open the new doors for business in Asia and other countries. However, there are some language barriers and differences in culture but sharing experience and learning from diverse project team members will helpful to overcome the issues. In addition to this, the diverse team culture and management approach is required for improve the performance of employees as they have opportunities to learn about different tools and approaches to deal with the situation (Colbert, Barrick and Bradley, 2014). 

Significance of diverse team management in Project management

The proper monitoring and control is also needed for managing diverse team. The project manager has to focus on skills and knowledge level of diverse team members to distribute the work. This kind of tactics will improve their leadership skills and understanding about expectation and management of diverse team (Garnero, Kampelmann and Rycx, 2014). In spite of that, the project manager has knowledge of handling the team but lack of monitoring can influence the coordination and communication among diverse project team. Now, it is essential for manager to collect the feedback from diverse team and offer the support that required improving the cooperation. This kind of approach will encourage the sales and business process of XYZ manufacturing company to deal with diverse background business representatives. Moreover, tool of diverse project team members is important for organization to develop new network for company that could help in promotion of business, products and services. However, the management understands the significance of diverse team but the contribution of team members and leader needs to be valued which encourage them and allow them to share their ideas and strategies to manage the situation and develop a strong team (Rice, 2015).

The project manager of XYZ manufacturing organization is looking to develop relation and communication with culturally diverse representatives from global areas. In order to maintain the communication and understand their needs and perception, there are some issues that could influence the approach of leading the diverse culture team. Following are the key challenges that have negative impact on diverse project team culture.

For a manager, it is difficult to understand the values of diverse culture project team. The individual has different values according to their background and perception about the job related functions. The project leader tries to maintain the mutual process of driving the diverse team but lack of understanding and knowledge about social and business values of individual affect the initiatives of leader (Ashikali & Groeneveld, 2015). In addition to this, the cultural differences and changes in perception of an individual member have direct impact on business process of organization. In addition to this, the XYZ manufacturing project leader is facing issues of understanding the values of 20 representatives from different background (Greene & Kirton, 2015). It will be hard for manager to gain the knowledge about each team member needs and value to treat them accordingly.

In order to manage the diverse project team members and maintain a quality culture that helps to promote the business, the project manager has to focus on communication. As per the given scenario of XYZ manufacturing organization, the manager has to deal with representatives from different countries like North America, China, South Korea and Japan and other Asian nations. Now the issue for manager is to overcome the language barrier and maintain the smooth communication with each member. Moreover, the efficiency level of each member is different which also influence the level of cooperation (Barak, 2016). For example, the understanding level of each member about English is different and creates the issue for manager to offer the information in same manner to them.

Challenges for managing diverse team

The complexity level of managing diverse culture project team get increase as the generation gap is there. In the diverse culture team, there are people who belong to different age group and have different perception about sales and developing relation with other companies. For leader, it becomes difficult to understand the approach of senior members and new candidates to develop the sustainable plan for encouraging sales of XYZ manufacture in identified nations (Clegg, Kornberger and Pitsis, 2015). In addition to this, the management approach also plays critical role in valuing the person according to performance and knowledge level.

In diverse project team management, the gender equality has significant impact on performance and cooperation level of team. The leading organization and their project manager tries to maintain the equal opportunities for male and female team but there are some differences in managing work and distribution of role and responsibilities among them (Tang & Naumann, 2016). The lack of consideration of policies and skill level of specific gender creates the issues in handling the diverse team. Moreover, the perception of male and female from diverse background and nations is different which also create problem for project manager to develop a mutual process that engage all in project and improve the efficiency of organization (Sayles, 2017). For example, the CEO of XYZ manufacturing is female and having good knowledge of managing female staff but somewhere, it become difficult for project manager to understand needs and expectations of these diverse culture staff members.

As per the given scenario of XYZ manufacturing, the project manager has to face the issues of time zone to communicate with the people from different nation. The time zone issue is having direct impact on management of diverse team. For example, the time zone of North America and China is different. Therefore project manager needs to work in different shifts to collect the views of both representatives and share with the others. This kind of process consumes time and delayed the decision making that affect the sales process and cooperation’s of XYZ manufacturing (Trevino & Nelson, 2016). In addition to this, the ethnic differences also have significant impact on presentation of products and services.

The manager of XYZ manufacturing organization is looking to craft improvement in approach of leading the diverse culture project team to encourage the sales and operations of organization at international level. For achieving personal and organizational goals through managing diverse culture team the project manager could use the following strategies:

For organizational business perspective, the analysis and communication of information about operations and products of company, the manager needs to develop multiple communication channels. The proper communication and real time sharing of data is essential for managing diverse project team and make the decisions that are beneficial for organizational point of view (Luthans & Doh, 2018). For example, the video conferencing is better way of managing communication with diverse as the management could understand the perception of members by gesture and eye movement. Moreover, there are various online portals that offering good communication tools with language translation to overcome the language barrier. For the XYZ manufacturing organizational point of view, the use of communication tools like email, video conferencing is beneficial to meet the business objectives through managing the diverse project team (Colbert and et al., 2014).

In order to lead the diverse culture team and meet the business objectives, the project manager of XYZ organization needs to gain the knowledge about the needs and expectations of representative. The prior understanding and knowledge about culture, value and perception of diverse culture team would be beneficial for project manager to handle the members and gain their support for expansion of business and achievement of personal goals (Hislop & et al., 2018). Apart from that, the project manager has to provide the clear information about expectation of organization to the diverse team that support to develop a respect and coordination to work for a mutual goal. Apart from that, to manage the diverse team and improve the correlation with representatives, the XYZ project manager needs to accept the approach of individual to satisfy them and has to provide some training to other team members about communication and use of words (de Poel, Stoker and Van der Zee, 2014).

Conclusion

From the above study, it can be considered that diverse workforce is essential for an international organization to expand the business and meet the project objectives. The report has provided information about importance of diverse working project team for organization to manage the operation and increase the level of innovation. Moreover, the report has identified and discuses the major challenges and presented the strategies to lead the diverse project team and overcome the impact of issues.     

References

Ashikali, T., & Groeneveld, S. (2015). Diversity management in public organizations and its effect on employees’ affective commitment: The role of transformational leadership and the inclusiveness of the organizational culture. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 35(2), 146-168.

Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.

Clegg, S. R., Kornberger, M., & Pitsis, T. (2015). Managing and organizations: An introduction to theory and practice. Sage.

Colbert, A. E., Barrick, M. R., & Bradley, B. H. (2014). Personality and leadership composition in top management teams: Implications for organizational effectiveness. Personnel Psychology, 67(2), 351-387.

de Poel, F. M., Stoker, J. I., & Van der Zee, K. I. (2014). Leadership and organizational tenure diversity as determinants of project team effectiveness. Group & Organization Management, 39(5), 532-560.

Garnero, A., Kampelmann, S. & Rycx, F., (2014). The heterogeneous effects of workforce diversity on productivity, wages, and profits. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 53(3), pp.430-477.

Greene, A. M., & Kirton, G. (2015). The dynamics of managing diversity: A critical approach. Routledge.

Grissom, J.A., Kern, E.C. & Rodriguez, L.A., (2015). The “representative bureaucracy” in education: Educator workforce diversity, policy outputs, and outcomes for disadvantaged students. Educational Researcher, 44(3), pp.185-192.

Hislop, D., Bosua, R., & Helms, R. (2018). Knowledge management in organizations: A critical introduction. Oxford University Press.

Luthans, F., & Doh, J. P. (2018). International management: Culture, strategy, and behavior. McGraw-Hill.

O’Brien, K.R., Scheffer, M., van Nes, E.H. & Van Der Lee, R., (2015). How to break the cycle of low workforce diversity: A model for change. PloS one, 10(7), p.e0133208.

Rice, M.F., (2015). Diversity and public administration. ME Sharpe.

Sayles, L. R. (2017). Managing large systems: Organizations for the future. Routledge.

Tang, C., & Naumann, S. E. (2016). Team diversity, mood, and team creativity: The role of team knowledge sharing in Chinese R & D teams. Journal of Management & Organization, 22(3), 420-434.

Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right. John Wiley & Sons.