Essay Summary of Building Effective Teams
Building a global-based team is not as easy as building a new internal team in the company. There are many things to be considered. Creating a single team composed of different nationalities with different cultures should be done with thorough research and full attention. Several factors need to be looked at and taken into consideration to build an effective global team working together despite the geographical barriers. A good mix of international team members can only be obtained if the right criteria in the selection are correctly set.
The rest of this paper discusses some of the criteria that would best help in the purpose of building a global-based team working effectively towards a common goal. Selecting Global Sales Team Members As an HR Manager tasked to come up with an effective global sales team, there should be some criteria that would better facilitate the selection of team members. Some of these criteria can be the following: • Each member should be open to the fact of working with other members from other countries. • The member should have a proven record of being responsible and reliable in their jobs especially when it comes to important tasks or assignments.
• Excellent communication skills, especially when it comes to dealing with business projects and endeavors, need to be exhibited by the global team member. • The member should have a sense of independence and organization. Working in a global-based team means a possibility of working in a virtual environment where members are not directly supervised by a manager. The member should be able to work on his own at times and organized enough to be able to manage his own time in order to accomplish all the deliverables on time.
As mentioned, if a global sales team is desired, there is a possibility that the members will work together in a virtual environment. With this in mind, I would probably decide on building a team composed of highly experienced professionals with proven and excellent track record. These professionals should also exhibit the criteria and characteristics mentioned above. All of those things are necessary in building an effective global sales team. As the manager who is in charge of building the team, I would ensure that every member of the team is aware of the team’s nature.
They should be briefed when it comes to differing time zones, languages, culture and work ethics of each member since they belong to different nationalities. The members of this global team should fully and clearly understand the objectives and goals of the global team. Since the members do not work in just a single location, they should exhaust all possible means of communication. With today’s technology, working in a virtual team, with members located in all parts of the globe, is now easy because of all the advanced means of communications easily available to anyone just like email, mobile phones and internet telephony.
An effective communication is crucial in the success of any global-based team. For a global team to build trust and integrate well with each other, Mitchell (2000, p. 162) said that “team members [should] realize that each culture has much to offer. The team [should] take the best from each culture and mold them into a team personality that reflects the diverse nature of team members. ” References Mitchell, C. (2000). A Short Course in International Business Culture. Novato, CA: World Trade Press.
