The Art of Closing Cultural Gaps and Mastering Change Management

Have you ever wondered why global leaders opt for culturally diverse teams??

Culturally diverse teams produce more creative and innovative results than homogenous groups. This is likely due to various experiences, ideas, and different reactions to scenarios.??

But the most difficult challenge that leaders face in the professional world is - ‘smashing cultural barriers and implementing change.’??

Our guest mastered the art of dealing with cultural diversity. For that, he chose ‘Food’ as a medium. But how did food come into picture? Keep reading and you will get to know.?

In the ClariTea Chat with Fin O'Leary, a seasoned CIO, digital business founder, business transformation leader, non-executive director, start-up mentor, and a board advisor at BLUERIDGE, we absorbed how to become cultural experts, mastering change management, problem-solving, and mentoring.??

His philosophy enlightens Democratic and Collaborative leadership - ‘unless you have people with you on the train, you can’t reach your destination.’??

Here are three ideas worth sharing, from the conversation:?

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Fin shares an effective hack in dealing with culturally diverse people. You can implement this in your life as well. Here's the hack:??

• Food is the key to the heart: - Everyone loves food. Lunches and coffee with open-ended questions and appreciation of food and culture breaks barriers. A little bit of socializing goes a long way.??

After leaving Ireland's collapsing building industry, Fin started his IT career in a Bank back office, learned a programming language, and did batch-processing for multi-branch consolidation.? Here are his three learnings worth pondering over:?

• Understand the business: - Communicate – socialize - ask questions and empathize.??
• Focus on solving the problem together: - Don't give readymade solutions. Diagnose the problem and figure out the solution 'together'.?
• The root cause of the issues: - Ask ‘how’ and ‘why.’ Diagnose correctly. The solution won’t take much time. But first, have a deep understanding of the context and subject.?

Speaking on solving treasury problems in the Philippines and setting up Offshore Development Centre (ODC), Fin shared an effective approach to?dealing with a cross-cultural setup.???

Make small teams and let them choose their team leader: - Side-line the managers/leaders if they are the bottleneck. Divide people into manageable groups.??

?Your success is measured by how well things work after you leave.?

?Moving forward, Fin shared his troubleshooting techniques in banking operations as a Global Head of Technology at Arab Banking.?He brought out 3 principles to stem the tide in a large project:

• Simplify and communicate: - Break monolithic programs into coherent chunks. Then make these easy to comprehend and execute.??
• Check people-readiness: - Communicate in business terms. Involve teams in setting milestones and restoring confidence.???
• Speed up the execution: - Deliver fast and parallelized outcomes. Be agile - ‘fail fast and change’ strategy.??

He walked the audience through his experiences of consolidation of 400 ERPs - a big transformational feat there. Here are the best 3 learnings from his Middle East tenure:????

• Wear a mentor's cap: - Ask! ‘How to get desired results?’ ‘Do the complexities outweigh the business benefits?’ ‘Does the leadership agree?’ Then choose the better route to success.?
• Let the technology lead equally: - IT is an equal business partner. Take ownership, bring in the partners and collaborate, to drive business value.??
• Follow a pragmatic approach: - Nothing is cast in stone. Be agile and change ready. Standardize the processes. Assimilate key business indicators of progress. Set the teams free within guardrails. ?

Watch the case study Consolidating 400+ ERPs into a single system.???

IQ gets you a job, but EQ brings success. It is all about human interaction and communication.??

Fin resolved the humungous problem of uncontrolled data spread out across 8000 excels of traders, by arranging a third-party audit. He navigated skillfully to avoid political battles with powerful ops function. Here is his 4 pointer on winning political wars without casualties:??

• Collaborate to kill the conflict: - Don’t handle conflict in isolation. Bring in a third party to assess, evaluate and recommend a strategic plan.??
• Empower people to overcome difficulties: - Identify the problem and validate it. Approach the top leadership. Use decoy tactics, as well as be a catalyst, to cross the barriers to success.?
• No blame game: - No scapegoat mentality. Either seek ownership or support others.??
• Mind your reputation: - Recognize the risk and mitigate it. Take the weight of risks on your back.?

Don't be risk averse, be risk covered.??

Catching on the audience's questions about how to empower IT teams, Fin gave his on-the-fly advice on 2 ways to excel:?

• Upskill: - Organize multiple training and upskilling workshops.
• Business clarity: - Give them a holistic view, and a clear understanding of what they are doing.?

At the end of the ClariTea chat, Fin shared 3 deep insights into the art of Change Management. They are: ?

• Encourage Self-Reflection: - Get people along - encourage them to reflect on improvement - to inculcate qualities of honesty and willingness to change.??
• Provide collaborative leadership: - Don’t command or control people. Empower them to get better responses and results.???
• Focus on inclusive governance: - Be democratic. Provide regulatory framework and guidelines to follow and perform.??

To conclude, this session about the art of closing cultural gaps and change management was indeed impactful and worth implementing.?

As a leader, did you ever face issues while managing people from different cultures? Or did you ever struggle with bringing change to your team? Do share your experiences with us.?

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Here’s the video of the ClariTea chat between Jagdish and Fin:?

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