ITECH_30376486

Amandeep Kaur

 

The need of Leadership in Managing Multinational Projects

                  

 

 

Introduction

 

Technological advancements have initiated an economic network that revolutionised the way the businesses work today. The globalised world has dramatically changed the success strategies and the definition of competition. The companies now focus more on global collaboration and search for the resources across the globe that best fit within the project.

 

Advantages of Global Collaboration

·         The major benefit of global collaboration is the alignment of local experience and high-end user experience of the non-local teams that paces the operational environment and generates higher responsiveness in a project.

·         The outsourcing of activities within the project based on the skill set helps to deliver high quality of work.

·         The 24/7 business strategies can be easily achieved by scheduling the tasks according to the time-zones.

·         Division of tasks globally help the organisations to enjoy the flexible government and legal policies of different regions.

·         The technology transfer among globally dispersed teams improves the efficiency of the projects.

 

Issues in Global Collaboration

·         The large-scale collaboration involving numerous partners and suppliers are often plagued with problems.

·         Increased pressure of working quicker, faster and in smarter ways.

·         Remote communications within culturally diverse teams needs to be standardised.

·         Disparities in languages, time-zone, values and norms may lead to misapprehensions and variations.

 

It is, therefore, important to address these issues while managing the multi-cultural working environment and focus on the various characteristics of multinational projects. The leadership lessons must be learnt so that global projects can leverage the benefits of alliances and partnerships while overcoming the negative aspects of diverse business culture. (Bruce, 2017)

 

 

 

Analysis

Characteristics of Multinational Projects

The leader or the manager of multinational project must be aware of the characteristics of the projects. These attributes form the basis of delivery of quality and scheduled tasks from the scattered team members. Some of them are listed below:

 

·         The business practices become more sensitive towards the cross-cultural issues and challenges.

·         The project objectives can be achieved when there is unified direction of guidelines and strategies. 

·         The integration of the project and transfer of technology must be synthesised centrally and distributed over the local and non-local operations.

·         The multinational teams need to be integrated within the various business processes, organisational culture, operating environment, support systems and managing styles.

 

These practices are frustrating for the managers because it is a tedious task and often fails across international borders even after careful analysis and implementation of the pre-planned policies. (Asgarya, 2016)

 

Factors Affecting Multinational Team Performance

There are five different subsystems within an organization that directly influence the team performance and must be considered by the managers to take critical decisions and delineate insights for buoyant leadership. 

 

 

SUBSYSTEM 1	Project Work and Its Complexities a	The increasing complexity of the projects require complex and dynamic interactions among team members to tackle technical difficulties, make critical decisions, manage high level of uncertainty and showcase high levels of innovation & creativity.
SUBSYSTEM 2	People and Team Culture	The team performance can be highly affected if they had to deal with standard and traditional guidelines for executing the projects. The teams must be allowed to follow different managerial styles with the flexibility of resource sharing, handling conflicts, working on individual performance, interacting and taking suggestions within the teams.
SUBSYSTEM 3	Work Process and Business Processes	The flow and integration of different processes must be well structured and organised. The teams must deliver within deadlines and ensure integrity and consistency of work.
SUBSYSTEM 4	Management Tools and Techniques	Various tools and technologies used in communicating across the teams, handling the project or integrating the teamwork is tremendously responsible for effective managerial style. Hence, the technology must be chosen wisely.
SUBSYSTEM 5	Multinational Enterprise Environment	The managers have to deal with diversified nature of the project and must handle all the multi-cultural differences gracefully to eventually deliver the best.

(Asgarya, 2016)

 

Figure 1. Diversity & Inclusion (Gallan, 2017)

 

 

Lessons and Guidelines

1.   Project Orientation

This is the first step towards the successful management of multinational projects. The globally separated team members can be brought on the same platform by formally introducing the project. Defining the objectives of the project and mapping the overall objectives with individual objectives. The responsibilities, task handling procedures must be clearly stated, and the tools used as communication channels must be revealed. This step ensures defining an organized and standard method to commence the project.

 

2.   Tools & Techniques

 

The polarity in the culture and region has great influence on the organizational culture and operating environment. The underlying infrastructure of various enterprises may vary and exhibit different properties. The changes in the existing tools and techniques in an organization may result in increased managerial overhead to deal with the involved risks, failures, trainings and other complexities arising due to the change. Therefore, it is recommended to allow organizations to use local tools, techniques and leadership styles if they serve same purpose and protect integrity of the project.

 

 

3.   Management Ideologies

 

The leaders must have the capability to adopt myriad of leadership styles, local tools and techniques and make an effective and unified management process. This can be done by identifying the differences in decision makings and sharing managerial thoughts. The managers can also share power and influence with others in order to achieve a satisfactory level of common framework for completing the project. Stereotyping in any sense must be avoided to function consistently.

 

 

4.   Stimulating Team Performance

 

Creating a high-performance image of the team is highly favourable to incline the performance of the teams and also enhancing a sense of ownership towards the project. The continuous stimulation of building interest and enthusiasm among the team members can be productive for the projects. Even though, the team is divided regionally but leaders should still appreciate and reward individuals on a common platform. This would in turn establish commitment and self-direction among the people involved in the project.

 

 

5.   Support and Continual Improvement

 

Leaders must always support the team members by providing transparency while managing the project. It is critical to establish strong relations with the team and prioritize the team by continuously providing credibility and supporting them through complexities of the project. Besides, as the multicultural environment is prone to changes the leaders must listen to the teams and understand the demands of the changing environment to thrive in the dynamic system.  (Asgarya, 2016)

 

Conclusion

The management of culturally diverse groups and teams is highly complex and require strong influence of leaders to understand the difference among the team members and various tools and techniques used in the deployment of the project. This is important to unify the management process and stimulate the performance of the team members. The continual improvement in another critical step is to ensure successful running of the project. (Asgary, 2014)