mid-week Connect: 6/1/22 Cross-cultural Teamwork
I read the most fascinating article this past week revisiting the amazing cave rescue of the boys’ soccer team in Thailand 4 years ago (already 4 years?!).* This recent interview was with one of the divers - and he totally focused on both the impossibility of the rescue and the power of teamwork… which eventually led to success. I thought we’d reflect today on cross-cultural teamwork, which can lead us also to much success! This is yet another Connect example of the ‘Collaboration’ component in our Global SKILLs PROACTive training.**
One thing I found so compelling about this account of the crisis was how international and inter-disciplinary the effort quickly became - bringing together experts, many of whom normally just worked within their own domains. Each of them brought to this crisis one part of the eventual Solution from their widely divergent ‘toolboxes’, so to speak, of knowledge, attitudes and skills (3 pillars of cross-cultural learning). And they worked together, the diver observed, amidst an overwhelming atmosphere of total chaos surrounding the cave, which became increasingly frantic as more rain threatened their whole effort.
Chaos, crisis, impossibilities - sound familiar?! Today’s world is full of them, across borders and cultures. I find it both inspiring and encouraging to hear about, or better yet - be part of, success stories, empowered through collaborative cross-cultural efforts.
How about you ~ what’s one such effort you have heard of, or been part of, lately?
Share about that with a friend or note it here.
And check out the Global SKILLs LINKs below for more teamwork information and inspiration!
Thanks for being part of this Connect community.
Until next week,
Betsy
Global SKILLs LINKs
~ another collaborative rescue effort in Thailand - this 3 minute video has an amazing number of great ‘talking point’ teamwork illustrations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCOHfPyXAzc
~ keys to teamwork from a business culture perspective, when efforts go “haywire!”: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/teamwork/cross-cultural-collaboration
~ a scholarly article on teamwork in crisis management - for Covid (this Sage Journal is a great resource for research on countless topics - it isn’t free but can often be accessed for free through any educational institution one is affiliated with): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14705958211060189
Notes:
* this is the article I read - there’s lots more online about this amazing rescue: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/30/sport/thai-cave-wild-boars-rick-stanton-spt-intl/index.html
** PROACTive Learning Strategies: PRO = PROfile, PROcess, PROgram
ACT = Application, Collaboration (which we looked at today) and Transformation
~ contact me for more information on these strategies and how you might use them in your current programming
2022 ~ Celebrating 40+ years of working in
intercultural communications and global community building
“It takes a community to build a community”
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