Multicultural sensitivity gone wrong :the risks it introduces to global teams

I was speaking at a future skills in technology conference event I was asked to discuss some of the skills I thought would become crucial in the future. Given limited time I decided to focus on soft skills and how technology is changing and shaping the soft skills needed in future work and workplaces. In the Q & A session the discussion moved to 'multicultural' experiences in global IT.

It has been some time since multiculturalism has been a talking point for me.

Another speaker trotted out the classic statements, Germans are X, Americans are so D, the British are E, Brazilians are Z. The west is... Sub-Saharan Africa is...Asia is...etc. "Watch out for it and then you can avoid embarrassing situations!" Too late I was already embarrassed.

I suppose generalisations can be made about a large group of people, but I am not sure if it should be a starting point for a business interaction. 

Perhaps "being aware" of the differences of "other cultures/people" is just going that extra mile to be politically correct, what harm can that do?

It can do a lot of harm. Put aside the huge questions about being patronising and exercising hegemony. 

Let's focus on how it can cause harm on the day to day level.

People working in global IT businesses already have a lot of challenges . Training them to expect cultural differences, often based on stereotypes, introduces a new risk. The risk of baseless expectations.

If you are working on a global project and you expect your German colleague to be X then when they don't meet that expectation you may be dissapointed or irritated. So now there is a problem and you have not even begun!

Every action that poor German makes will be judged by X, with confirmation bias meaning you will look for things to confirm you believe he is in fact just as you expected good at X. Perhaps in reality he is no better than any other team member or even worse than them at X. Now you don't have the best team member on the task. What makes it worse it confirmation bias means you won't notice how the German may have excelled at Y, his strength may go unnoticed or undervalued and not used effectively.

The part of this multicultural approach that annoys me is that it basically assumes that everyone is an idiot.

What colour are Taxis in New York? People know things, things that they may not have seen or experienced themselves, but they know them.

We live in a connected world, people connect in ways beyond notions of culture attached to language and geography. I have met so many tecchies that love the TV Series Mr. Robot and they come from many different countries, so one could say in a way they are quite similar. I have also met many techies that hate Mr. Robot. To say Germans like Mr. Robot is not right or helpful, at best it is confusing, at worst a risk. Most techies are glad to find someone else who listens to Shpongle or what ever else is not in vogue.

There may be generalisations you can make about people based on geography or language but there are many other things that also influence individuals. These other influences include things like upbringing, education, personality, Mr. Robot and Shplongle. Focus on the person as a total human being and "cultural" differences will be only one aspect of that person that may be prominent , negligible or even non existent.

Getting to know someone on a global team is difficult enough, don't put another barrier to overcome. Focus on getting to know the person who they are and what they do, what their role is in the team. Don't expect the German to be X and the American to be Y. It could lead to resentment by you due to unrealistic unmet expectations and resentment by them because you are closed to how they add real value in other ways.

Below are my views on 3 topics. Is it easier to tell which country am I from, or what person I am?

• I have noticed in New York there are yellow taxis.
• Mr. Robot was good until the storyline shifted from hacking to mental illness.
• Viva Shplongle!