Effective Team Building Strategies: An International Market Report

This report examines the critical aspects of effective team building within the context of international markets. It begins with an executive summary outlining the report's focus on developing effective teams in a global environment. The introduction highlights the challenges of international teamwork, emphasizing the importance of productivity, problem-solving, and creativity in diverse teams. The main body delves into the core concepts of team building, including Belbin's team role theory, which identifies nine roles essential for team success. The report explores each role's strengths and weaknesses, providing insights into how to leverage individual contributions to achieve team objectives. Furthermore, the report addresses the complexities of working across cultures, emphasizing the impact of cultural differences on team dynamics. It discusses the use of cultural models, particularly Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensions, to understand and manage cultural diversity within international teams. The report covers dimensions such as power distance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term vs. short-term orientation, offering insights into how these cultural differences affect team interactions and effectiveness. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and implications for building successful international teams.

Individual Report

Executive summary
The present report has determined various aspects which helps in developing the effective
teams in the international market. This report has also described the different aspects which helps
in developing the effective teams within the organization. Along with this, the study has also
explored the theories that helps in developing the effective team within the organization.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Working in teams and successful team-building.........................................................................4
Working across cultures in international teams...........................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Working in international teams can be difficult as there are many people with different
cultures, mindset, mentality. It is important to work productively within a team as it affects the
overall productivity, problem solving, creativity, thinking etc. this assignment will lay emphasis
on working in teams and successful team building which will be discussed and explained with
the help of Belbin's team building theory and working in an international culture.
MAIN BODY
Working in teams and successful team-building
Working in a team is is difficult but building a successful team is a challenge as each and
every team member within a team has different perspective, skills, thinking, knowledge and
many more. So, in order to work in a team it is much important to build a successful team. For
building an effective, efficient and successful team it is much important to define and understand
roles and responsibilities of each and every team member (Ahonen, Kinnunen and Saranto,
2018). As per Belbin team role theory there are nine roles within a team that helps in building a
successful team which helps in increasing overall performance of the team and team members.
These nine roles doesn't mean that a successful team will be needing only nine people, in fact a
team can have more than one member with same team role. All the nine team roles has their own
strengths and weaknesses. Each team should first of all decide their team objectives and tasks
that are needed to be fulfilled and then based on this discussion responsibilities of all the team
roles should be explained to all the team members. Fulfilment of roles and responsibilities of all
team members decides the success or failure of a team. There are nine team roles in Belbin's
team theory which are mostly divided into five categories:
 Various kind of doers: Completer finisher, implementer, monitor evaluator.
 An 'ideal person': Plant-innovator
 An expert specialist to give expert advices.
 Person who supports and communicate with others: Resource Investigators, Team worker
 Person who co-ordinates in order to balance tasks ans people, Shaper who drives the
project to completion.
Nine team roles with their strengths and weaknesses have been explained below:

 Resource Investigators: A resource investigator is an enthusiastic, extrovert as well as a
communicative person (Browne, Manzoni and Mere, 2016). They are also good at
exploring and reporting back on any idea.
Strength: One of their main strengths are that they try to explore opportunities, they are outgoing,
try to develop contacts.
Weaknesses: There are various weaknesses of a resource Investigator such as they are over
optimistic, can easily lose interest within a tasks if the enthusiasm has passed within them. They
can be lazy sometimes until and unless they work under pressure.
Don't be surprised to find out: However, they many times forget to follow up on a lead. Team workers: They are one of the most supportive and co-operative members of a
team, they are quite flexible and can easily adopt themselves within any situation and
with others.
Strength: They promote harmony and unity within a team, helps in creating an informal
communication network within team members, They are good listeners and always keep team
objective above any of their personal interest. They are quite diplomatic in nature and tend to
avoid criticism.
Weaknesses: They mostly tend to avoid confrontation and cannot take decisions in critical
situation.
Don't be surprised to find out: They mostly hesitate to take any kind of unpopular decisions. Co-ordinators: They are the persons who have broad and worldly outlook (Rola, Kuchta
and Kopczyk, 2016). They also have an ability to make other work as a team towards a
shared goals. They also have interpersonal skills which helps them to spot talent within
individuals.
Strength: One of the main strengths of co-ordinators are that they are quite mature, trustworthy,
talented and confidant. They also try to work within teams with clear goals.
Weaknesses: They are quite manipulative and can sometimes offload their share of work.
Don't be surprised to find out: they might over delegate and can leave themselves with little
work to do. Plant: they helps in generating complex problems as well as generate new proposals.
They play a vital role at the starting of a project. They can also become a reason for
project's success or failure.

Strength: they are quite creative, imaginative, free thinking which helps them in generating ideas
and solve any kind of difficult problems easily.
Weaknesses: Can be way too much occupied to effectively communicate with others, ignore
incidentals.
Don't be surprised to find out: They can be forgetful or absent minded. Monitor Evaluator: They are quite good at identifying pros and cons of an option
(Grunwald, Ehresmann and Herdrich, 2018). They can be boring or over critical many
times. They also helps in evaluating ideas as well as suggestions or analyse any kind of
problem.
Strength: they first of all sees all options and then judges any situation or option accurately. They
are discerning, sober and strategic.
Weaknesses: they sometimes lack in inspiring or drive others. Other than this they can be be
sometimes overly critical.
Don't be surprised to find out: They can be slow many times to come to a decision. Specialist: they are the individuals with specialist skills and knowledge. They have more
knowledge on a particular subject than anyone else and due to this they can be asked to
take any critical decision on any particular situation because of their in depth experience.
Strength: they are dedicated, self-starting and single minded. They have specialist knowledge
and skills.
Weaknesses: they can forget to focus on other aspects and concentrate on only technicalities.
They do not contribute to the team outside their expert area.
Don't be surprised to find out: They can overload an individual with more and more information. Shaper: They ensures that team keep moving and do not lose momentum and focus.
Strength: they are quite challenging, thrives pressure, dynamic. Has the courage to overcome any
kind of pressure or obstacle.
Weaknesses: Are prone to provocation due to which they can many times offend people and their
feelings.
Don't be surprised to find out: They can sometimes become aggressive on certain things and
offend others. Implementer: They are the ones who plan workable strategies and carry it in an efficient
manner.

Strength: they are quite practical, efficient and reliable (Yang and Li, 2017). They can easily turn
ideas into actions and organize work in a particular order in which it is needed to be done.
Weaknesses: they are quite inflexible and can respond a bit slowly to new possibilities.
Don't be surprised to find out: they can sometimes become slow to implement their plans to
bring positive changes. Completer Finisher: they are the ones who are needed at the end of a project or a tasks.
They have high quality standards and try to eliminate errors within work.
Strength: they are anxious, easily searches out errors, painstaking.
Weaknesses: they can be reluctant to delegates.
Don't be surprised to find out: they can many times be accused to take their perfectionism to an
extreme condition.
Working across cultures in international teams
In this modernised world, Organizations are adopting the advanced techniques to achieve
the growth and success within the organization. Therefore, the business seek to explore the
business functions within the international market. In order to develop the global business, there
are various different type of factors which need to be considered by the organization.
International business consists of the people who belongs to different regions and cultures which
develop the team in order to achieve the organizational goals. Therefore managing a culturally
diverse team can be challenging for the organization (Perry, 2015). As we live in a world with a
globalised workforce where different offices of the same organization consists of different teams
and thus they have different culture, different offices, varied time zone and continents. Although,
the usual challenges of team building and forecasting international teamwork have become even
more magnified. Therefore dealing with the cultural differences of the workforce such as
language barriers and remote team members are some of the major issues within the enterprises
that have to faced by the leaders and managers to deal with the effective teams of the
organizations.
Acceptance of the of the cultural diversity leads to the management of the culturally
diverse team in order to derive the high performance work. There are various cultural models are
theories are used to understand the cultural differences of the people. One of the most popular
theory is Geert Hofstede's cultural dimensional model. This model is develops a
understanding about the value perspectives between the national culture. It consists of six

dimensions in order to determine the cultural differences between the people. This model
provides a great understanding which drives the people from different cultures. It also allow the
organization to adopt the effective working and communication style in order to let the
international teams work together in a cross cultural aspects (Dumitraşcu-Băldău and
Dumitraşcu, 2017). This theory helps in managing the cross cultural aspects of the international
teams. Such dimensions will be described below:
Power distance
This dimension mainly focuses towards the power distance index which lets the
employee to easily accept the unequal distribution of the power within the organization. This
dimension lets the employee understand that that the power within the organization is provided
to the people according to their authorities, position and responsibilities within the organization.
Therefore, this dimension eliminates the conflict at workplace.
Individualism vs Collectivism
This dimension also mainly focus towards the different cultural aspects of the people. So
The organization which develops the company within an international market have to follow the
culture in which they are working. So individualism helps in understanding the type of society
which have loose ties and cannot dependent on their families such countries which follow
individualism culture are UK, US etc. However, collectivism concept mainly allows the
organization to understand the culture in which the society is maintains the tightly interrelated
relationships such countries which follow the collectivism culture are Taiwan and India.
Masculinity vs Femininity
This can be considered as a society which have varied their cultures on the basis of the
gender roles which focuses towards the money, success and competition. This type of culture can
help the organization in understanding about the culture in which Masculinity can represents the
strength, dominance, assertiveness and egotism. However, the feminine society may represents
the traditional thoughts, conventional traits, supportive, caring and relationship oriented.
Uncertainty Avoidance
This can be related to the degree in which individuals of the specific society are
comfortable with the uncertainty or unknown risks (Griffiths, Prause and King, 2016)). This can
determine the culture of the society in which the people have high tolerance power of the
unpredictable situations. Whereas some of the areas consists of the society in which the people

cannot resists in the uncertain situations. In order to identify the cultural differences across the
international lines allows the organization to get beliefs that they get through the uncertain
situations soon.
Long term Vs short term
This dimension mainly associates the connection of past with the present and future
challenges. Long term dimension helps in creating a understanding about the culture of the
society which focus towards efficient and effective work by considering the traditional factors in
mind. This allows the people to view the adaptation, circumstantial and pragmatic problem
solving as one of the important thing. On the other hand, the culture of the countries which are
short term oriented cannot grow further and also they have poor economic development.
Orientation and indulgence vs Restraint
This dimension mainly focus towards the the culture which is concerned with the
freedom which is provided to the people of the country by their respective government. It allows
the citizens to fulfil the human desires (Bonoli, 2017). Although the society which allows the
citizens to enjoy the life according the the own principles have more advanced perspective of the
people within the society. However, restraints is concerned with the restriction on the citizens
regarding the gratification of needs so the actions of the people are strictly controlled by the
governmental laws.
In order to encourage cultural diversity among the workforce within the organization, the
leaders and managers need to discuss the cultural differences within the team meetings. This
discussion will allows the team members to share their cultural expectations and backgrounds. It
enables the team member to share their expectations about the communication and working style
within the company. In order to enhance the communication and collaboration between the
diversified workforce of the company, the leaders and managers need to encourage the co-
curricular activities and entertainment in an informal way. This allows the team members to
learn new and cultural aspects of the different countries in which the company is located at
different place.
However the cross cultural teams present various different types of challenges but it can
be successfully handled sensitive and respectful attitude of the leaders and managers towards the
other cultures. Although those organization which have developed the business globally and
explored the business in an international market, the leaders and managers need to be more

careful and experienced so that it helps them to create the positive environment at workplace
(Fuger, Füller and Hutter, 2017). This results in the motivating diversified workforce in which
most of the employees take huge interest in understanding and accepting the cultural differences
at workplace and thus it helps the employees to effectively collaborate, communicate and
involved towards the main operations of the organization.
CONCLUSION
From the above study, it can be concluded that effective team building in an international
market helps in achieving the overall goals of the organization. It can be determined that
organization with the global business activities has to consider various factors in order to manage
the teams within the international market. This report has also explained the team development
and group development within the organization ion by using different types of theories which
contributes towards the formation of the effective team within an international market. This
study has explored the six different dimensions of the Hofstede's culture which helps the
organization in understanding the different cultures of the society which are followed by the
different countries across the world.
Recommendations
In order to develop the effective team of the organization within an international market.
It is very important to manage and control all the team members which belongs to the different
regions of the world. Some suggestions are as follows:
 Leader and managers should understand the cross cultures of the people and they should
also respect their dignity.
 In order to improve the performance of the employees, leaders and managers should also
train the employees in order to achieve the main objectives of the firm.

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