Essential skills to work and collaborate in 21st century... part 3 (Behavior)

Assigning global labels to the people of a particular country is over stereotyping. But while it may be careless to overgeneralize about the people from a single place, it would be naive to deny the existence of significant, overall differences between places and cultures (source: Robert Levine).

Deep down each culture represents a set of values which “easily” can be translated into how we work together. Do we then need everyone to understand each culture they work together with?

No, it’s not crucial you know everything… but basic stuff is important no matter culture you come from - Openness and Readiness to explore outside your comfort zone. It is usually our own comfort zone and lack of understanding and not our culture history that prevent us to work efficiently together.

So what tools do project managers need to survive in the 21st century adding behavior (culture) to the plate and actually eliminate status meetings?

What prevents us to work and collaborate?

A study performed by Siemens Enterprise Communications Global Research in sep/oct 2012) showed that:

• 43% of users feel frustrated and overwhelmed by team collaboration and communication technologies that they work with 
• 75% find their team members more likely to get distracted during ‘virtual’ meetings
• 34% find remote team members often ‘loafing’ – not doing their share
• 44% find it as productive as face-to-face teamwork
• 72% would find teamwork easier if collaboration included video

If you look closer to Siemens’ survey it’s only understate that companies need to apply one Unified Communication technology which off course Siemens can provide. In my opinion it’s not the essential - it’s just another technology.