Holding a meeting of people from different cultures

In one of the People and Business Management workshops that I facilitate we ask participants to outline how they would approach their first meeting as the manager of a multicultural team. I'm always pleasantly surprised by the imagination and inclusiveness of the responses.

This article in the Harvard Business Review provides useful guidance. Here's an excerpt:

DoStudy up on the variations that exist among cultures and how those differences play out in the workplaceCreate protocols and establish norms so that your colleagues understand how meetings will runIncentivize colleagues to step outside their cultural comfort zones by institutionalizing rewards around what you’re trying to motivate people to doDon’tBe hung up on how people from certain cultures are supposed to act—remember, people are capable of adapting and adjusting their cultural defaultForce a perfect dynamic in meetings—solicit colleagues’ opinions in other venues and encourage people to provide feedback in different waysOverlook the importance of team bonding—encourage colleagues to get to know each other outside of meetings so that cultural differences won’t seem as glaring