OUR EXPERIENCE
This is the issue of how to align and integrate differing organisational interests and loyalties. Specific challenges include:
- Integrating organisations after mergers, acquisitions or restructuring
- Building common understanding in international partnerships such as Joint Ventures
- Ensuring local perspectives are included in any �one company� concept
- Building global commitment and accountability for organisational initiatives
- Advancing the best talent from all parts of the organisation worldwide
- Holding organisations together at a distance, and ensuring effective information transfer
- Transferring functions, services and products across diverse locations
ONE CLIENT�S CHALLENGE
We are the newly formed Global Design Institute (GDI) for a multinational furniture manufacturer. This function is being centralised in our country to meet the need for a consistent global focus on brand and design. We will be expanding 3 fold, integrating designers from another 8 countries into the local team of 12. If we don�t succeed in this integration, the company will transfer the design team elsewhere? So how can we manage the integration of the team given that they are heterogeneous in national culture, design approach, mindset, age, language and personality?
THE TCO RESPONSE
We supported the local HR function in the integration of the expatriate designers by defining both the current and desired departmental cultures and creating team-building workshops to develop a common understanding on working approaches and perceptions of barriers to success. The language barrier was overcome through the use of bilingual trainers and the bilingual speakers in the team. By facilitating several internal meetings we were able to help develop guidelines for such events to ensure everyone was involved in the decision-making process. Projects were set up by three multicultural working groups who accepted joint responsibility for dismantling the barriers to success
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