Intercultural Team Building

Consensus and social responsibility are highly valued in Scandinavia. Scandinavians often try to get a generalist holistic view. Germans, on the other hand, are often (highly) specialized and detail-oriented. This is one of the reasons why teams in Scandinavia work differently compared to teams in Germany. Aside from the fact that communication, decision-making, leadership and organization are done differently in Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and German teams.

The exciting thing about this phenomenon is that teams in all four countries work successfully and more or less efficiently! They say about themselves that they are goal and result-oriented. So are these the best conditions for high-performing teams when Danes, Norwegians, Swedes and Germans work together?

Yes and no. Many studies show that intercultural teams do not usually deliver average results. They either underperform or they overperform. “National average” is almost excluded.

What does that depend on?

When each team member believes that their own way of working is the right and most effective one, the other ways are perceived as wrong or annoying. Colleagues are perceived as unprofessional or incompetent. In that case, the team will certainly underperform. And work will for sure not be fun.

When team members understand and accept the different ways of working and realize the potential and strength in them, they can take advantage of the diversity – and overperform. And imagine: work can be fun in that case!

Uta Schulz – SveTys is an eye opener for German-Scandinavian teams and helps them discover and use the potential and strength of intercultural cooperation. Best practice from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany widens (y)our horizon and opens up new opportunities to complement each other, to strive for the same goal, to support and help each other and experience the joy of joint success where each team member can develop.

The best of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and German business culture.

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