Case Study: Building cultural intelligence

BACKGROUND

UBS is one of the world's leading financial firms. With over 80,000 people located in offices in Europe, the Americas and Asia, the firm specialises in global wealth management, global investment banking and asset management. UBS operates in over 50 countries and from all major international centres. In keeping with many financial services firms, some of its investment banking administrative services has been outsourced to service centres in India.

CHALLENGE

TMA World's challenge was to assist employees at key office locations in the UK, US, Switzerland and Australia to establish effective working practices and relationships with their Indian offshore partners and local colleagues.

The transfer of knowledge from Europeans and Americans to their Indian colleagues and counterparts was being complicated and delayed by suboptimal communication and misconceptions around working within a project team. As a result, project teams were running behind schedule and with associated effects on team morale. This in turn was delaying the implementation of key project deliverables and creating tensions between front and back office personnel.

SOLUTION

From our offices in London, New York and India, TMA World conducted a series of interviews with key stakeholder groups to determine user experiences and obtain a broad 360 degree perspective of the challenges being faced.

With key data and feedback, we then created a set of modular programme interventions addressing cultural awareness training and remote team management. A key finding of the research indicated that cultural differences were sometimes being compounded by virtual working relationships as well as time zone differences.

Within the solution design, therefore, all learners accessed TMA World's online cultural assessment tool the Country Navigator. This enabled individuals to discover more about their own personal cultural orientations and to contrast and compare these with others on their team. Team profiles were then used extensively in the training sessions to help all participants understand key areas of similarity and differences in working styles.

From this analysis and increased awareness, specific tactical changes were agreed amongst the team in terms of the way they worked and interacted. Specifically this involved areas of communication, reasoning (how we approach team process, discuss and solve problems) and regulating (how we manage our resources, plan time, manage and lead our team).

The training solutions integrated personal profiling with case studies, formal instruction and role plays. The aim was to create increased self-awareness for the delegates not just of the national characteristics of their respective cultures and the Indian culture but to build team processes and working relationships based on each individual's unique capabilities and team strengths.

RESULTS

To date over 500 people have participated in nearly 50 workshops in Europe, the USA, India and Australia. The client has documented the positive results of this programme in three areas:

Improved employee feedback about the quality of their cross-cultural relationships, increased cultural intelligence and a corresponding increase in morale.
More effective teamwork, ensuring the completion of projects on time and with greater focus and clarity.
Fewer interventions from HR and senior business executives, freeing their time to concentrate on other business issues.

The key to the success of this project was threefold:

The blended solution: providing pre-workshop assessment using the Country Navigator tool coupled with the face to face workshop.
The use of tried and tested methodologies as the basis for designing team based solutions that addressed the needs of individual team members.
The experience of the TMA World facilitators, especially the breadth of India specialists, that TMA World was able to employ globally in order to facilitate the programme - as well as their business experience.

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