Globalization in our daily work lives will likely show up in our working on increasingly diverse teams. Drawing on Ryan and Deci’s work on autonomy, relatedness, and self-efficacy as universal motivators, Hitotsubashi ICS is preparing students to lead diverse teams through our Empowering Diverse Teams course, which utilizes skills from team coaching, cross-cultural conflict mediation, and facilitation to empower and motivate teams. For example, to support team members in autonomy, we teach facilitation skills by teaching managers to ask rather than tell subordinates things, in order to encourage them to figure out solutions on their own. (This has the added benefit of gaining their buy-in on executing on a solution.) 

Second, to support relatedness and help teams get through the storming phase that faces most teams, we teach cross-cultural conflict mediation, so that teams can move on to norming and performing, à la Bruce Tuckman’s Stages of a Team model. In addition, we use team coaching to promote relatedness through supporting team alignment, in terms of shared goals and team norms. Finally, to promote self-efficacy, we teach leadership coaching skills so managers can leverage and maximize their team members’ self-efficacy. Our MBA program represents more than 20 nationalities, and team coaching, cross-cultural conflict mediation, and facilitation skills have proved effective in empowering diverse teams in our various team projects. 

Note: Tish Robinson would like to exchange ideas with other Global Network partners about using team coaching, mediation, and facilitation skills to empower diverse teams. She can be reached at probinson@ics.hit-u.ac.jp.