The Most Creative Teams Have a Specific Type of Cultural Diversity

Catarina Pereira Cavaco

Resume:
Diversity in a team can bring advantages and disadvantages. The article - written by Sujin Jang-
explains that the cultural brokerage is the most powerful factor that allows multicultural teams
to take advantage of diversity’s’ benefits. The author defines cultural brokerage as the act of
facilitating interactions across parties from different cultural backgrounds. In this definition we
can also integrate the other – Cultural Brokers. These are the people that have more
multicultural experiences who act as a bridge between the monocultural ones. It also clarifies
that we cannot always expect a team to produce creative outcomes just because there are a lot of
people from different cultures. It is necessary that organizations take care and create conditions
that can allow cultural brokerage to appear. The article concludes saying that the collaboration
in multicultural teams is complex and most of the time is a challenge for all the teammates.
Reflection:
In my opinion diversity is a big challenge nowadays. Some years ago, we don´t have this
question emerging. Teams were done based on the culture, ethics, race, religion. But with the
progress of the civilization and the globalization the minds become to change, and this concept
of diversity is one of the biggest in the current days.
I truly believe that it can bring a lot of advantages for the teams. Different people from different
countries together can do so creative and powerful things. I consider that met new people allow
us to enrich our experiences and our knowledge about the world. In my opinion when we do
things with people from over the world the final project is always better. The contact with other
cultures brings to the team new ideas, new knowledges. And in the end, is what counts- being
different, being creative.
However, I also think that in a team, when we have a lot of multicultural people, we need to
know how to lead with them. We have to be open mind, we cannot expect that a multicultural
team will have success if we aren´t available to the listen the others. I fell that the biggest step to
do is listen and try to understand the other point of view. Even if the ideas are super different
from ours, who knows that if we combine both, in the end the success will come? Anyone! So
we need to do this adjustment and help the other multicultural people in everything they need, in
order to have a success end.
Sometimes, having success in multicultural team is not possible and because of that I really
think that the Cultural Brokers have a fundamental role. These people are the ones that can
demystify the problem. Cultural Brokers usually are super open for new experiences that we
only need their presence to success.
Between the two types of Cultural Brokers – Inside and Outside – I think that for one side,
Insides can have the advantage because they know a little bit of the cultures in a team. In
addition, they can try to integrate information and ideas about both cultures. For the other side
the outsiders, even in a more challenge way, they bring the discussion to the group, the
exchange of ideas, and for each person it can be even better. We can learn more, and experience
more.
As far as I’m concerned organizations also have a fundamental role when we talk about
diversity! If something bad happens, they are the ones who have the responsibility to change it,
and do something to have a creative outcome in the end. They know that their team have the
potential, but sometimes is necessary to intervene in order to make sure that the project will be
well done. I also consider that they need to choose a Cultural Brokers in a team, not only based
in the experiences of that peoples, but also based in cognitive and especially emotional tests.
We cannot forget that in the beginning multicultural teams will be a great challenge, but in the
end it can brings so good memories and experiences. The multicultural teams can bring great
advantages to the companies. To conclude, in my opinion I think that companies should invest
more in multicultural team, but also try to control all the negative points that can emerge after.