ARE YOU A SEAGULL OR A CHAMELEON? MANAGING CROSS-CULTURAL TEAMS
By Kyle D. Hegarty
Here is the first lesson for managing people company headquarters in London, he would across cultures: don’t be a seagull. frequently sneak out of the office early and head to the pub with colleagues. Now it may sound as Seagulls are those big, awkward birds that fly in if this guy didn’t work that much, but Axel was from out of nowhere that squawk a lot, and then one of the most effective managers of crossfly away leaving behind a giant mess. Anyone cultural teams I have ever met. who has worked for an international organization has likely encountered a seagull manager. He wasn’t a seagull. Nope. He was a chameleon, able to adapt to any working environment. These bosses operate all over the world and He knew when to speak up and when to have they are easy to spot because they often run patience. Whenever possible, I used to follow him unhappy, dysfunctional and underperforming around in the hope of understanding how he was teams. One of the most common reasons so successful at working with people across the seagull managers fail in cross-cultural teams planet. is because they don’t effectively adjust their working and communication style to align with Axel believed that managing cross-cultural their teammates. teams included two critical pieces: relationship building and communicating. It turns out there is a lot of variation when it comes to how people like to work across The lunch secret the planet. Why two lunches? Axel noticed that lunch was a main source of socializing and relationship With the growing talent crunch in Singapore and building in certain parts of the world, including elsewhere, cracking the code of cross-cultural Singapore. During his time in the United States, team management has become more important he observed the opposite behavior where than ever. workers would inhale a sandwich at their How to overcome these challenges? There desks while either catching up on the news or is no shortage of research on managing people doing work. across cultures. Books, lectures and trainings This was not the case in other parts of the abound. The tricky part is putting this knowledge world. In markets such as Singapore, Axel would into practice. I wanted to find real managers who go to lunch with one group, and go out again with have overcome these cross-cultural obstacles to another group who ate later. He understood that see how they got things done and that’s when I to grow a business globally, relationships had to found Axel. be built locally. A Dutch expat living in Singapore, Axel would Axel didn’t judge. He adjusted. go to lunch twice each day. When he visited his 52 LIVING IN SINGAPORE
