Richard D. Lewis

Richard D. Lewis wrote a book on intercultural teams: When Teams Collide, Managing the International Team Succesfully. It is based on his concept on culture, an environment with the following three extremes.

▼Linear-active people tend to be task-oriented, highly organised planners, who complete action chains by doing one thing at a time, preferably in accordance with a linear agenda. Speech is for information and depends largely on facts and figures.

▼Multi-active people are loquacious, emotional, and impulsive and attach great importance to family, meetings, relationships, compassion, and human warmth. They like to do any many things at the same time and are poor followers of agenda. Speech is for opinions.

▼Reactive people – good listeners – rarely initiate action or discussion, preferring first to hear and establish the other’s position, then react to it and formulate their own opinion. Reactives listen before they leap. Speech is for creating harmony.

His ideas on intercultural teams are reflected in the titles of the chapters.

1. Categorising Cultures

2. Organising the Team

3. Speaking the Language

4. Leading the Team

5. Team Members’ Profiles

6. Speech Styles and Meeting

Procedures

7. Communicating in English

8. Team Humor

9. Decision Making

10. Behaving Ethically

11. Trust in the Team

The key points of his ideas may be found in the stack on the left. In short: “Depending on their nationality and upbringing, each team member is situated in a “cultural anchorage” in which they are comfortable.” and “Managers need to harness and synergise diversity rather than eliminate it”.