By : Ishan Jha

Introduction

At the outset, I would like to introduce the team with which I worked and the basic structure and
rationale behind the formation of the team. I began my corporate career with JPMorgan Chase &
Co. (JPMC) in January 2019 working in their Intraday Liquidity team for the Corporate &
Investment Banking (CIB) Division. I was in the Technology team responsible for the
development of the Intraday Liquidity Platform ( a software which regulated the liquidity of the
various off-shore and in-house bank accounts of JP Morgan across the world) for 18 months
,until July 2020, when I started my Masters.
I was the only fresh hire in the Indian team working with professionals from the United
Kingdom, United States and Singapore alongside India. My team in India consisted of 5 software
developers and a manager. We worked in tandem with the team from Bournemouth, UK who
were 3 software developers with 1 manager. We were supported by 4 application support
engineers - 2 from the USA and Singapore. At the helm, we had 2 product managers, both from
the UK responsible for ensuring that the software satisfied high-level business requirements.

Below is a simplified summary of the members of my team:

Name Team Nationality Role Age

Ishan Software Indian Analyst 22

Development

Lavanya Software Indian Vice President (Manager) 40

Development

Aayush Software Indian Associate 25

Development

Mohona Software Indian Associate 26

Development

Kshitij, Manjul Software Indian Senior Associate 35

Development

Simon Software British Vice President (Manager) 50

Development
 Craig, Andrew, Software British Vice President (Software 45
Jim Development Engineer)

Andy, Candace Management British Product Manager 50

Mike, Supratik App Support American Application Support Engineer 30

Chan, Xi App Support Singaporean Application Support Engineer 30

National Cultures and Language

As discussed in the previous section, our teams were composed of diverse team-members cutting
across gender, age and ethnicity. As a software engineer, my involvement with the team was
mostly limited to developing and testing new features of the software product. Therefore, most of
my interactions were with the Indian and British software development teams. I also had
discussions with the application support team every fortnight for our software release while my
conversations with Product Managers would be a half hour call every fortnight too.
This was my first time working in a corporate setting, let alone that of an international team in
the biggest bank of the world, so I was overwhelmed at the beginning. However, as I began
getting acclimated to my role, I began noticing subtle differences between the working styles in
different cultures.

For starters, the Indian team often spoke in a mixture of regional languages and English while
conversing between each other. English was always used in meetings or calls but the mood
otherwise was more relaxed and laid-back than our British counterparts. The Brits meanwhile
seemed to come across as more direct and formal in their communication. This could be as a
result of our geographical differences as well as a difference in demographics (all the British
team members were native British and older than 45). The one clear difference was that the
British displayed an interesting dichotomy, of being precise in their communication but also
using a lot of colloquialisms which would be hard for non-native speakers to understand. It was
implied that every attendee of every meeting or call had a superlative grasp of the English
language which was not always the case which sometimes led to misunderstandings. Indian
team-members meanwhile were often high-context in their conversations, not being very clear in
the progress of their work or whether they would meet the deadlines. I sometimes would be
scared of asking for help or letting my team-mates know that I was struggling with a piece of
work. It was a little while later that I realised that this was not a very transparent way of doing
work since I sometimes had to cut corners to get the work done on time when I should have just
approached someone for help. The British were also a lot more forthright with their
communication, maybe due to their superior grasp of the English language since they were
native speakers. The Indians meanwhile, despite doing most of the work, did not do a great job at
explaining the work done largely due to the differences in language familiarity. [1]

Indians also seemed a lot more laid-back with their work, often backing themselves to do things
despite the odds. While this worked on most occasions, there were times when we also faltered
due to the lack of process which we applied. The British meanwhile were a lot more
process-oriented which made things a lot slower but also ensured that things worked smoothly,
which were important factors to take into consideration while building a critical application for a
bank. Another difference, which I may be mistaken about, was that the Indian colleagues got
along a lot better with each other than the British among themselves. There were occasions when
it was very clear that they were exasperated between each other. However, due to the importance
that relationships play for Indians, minor fallings and problems were often discounted and all my
team-mates were very friendly amongst each other.

Another difference was in the flexibility which the Indian team showed when compared to the
British. Almost like an unspoken rule, we were expected to work British timings, which would
mean working from 1 in the afternoon to 9 in the night, which sometimes extended to 10 or 11. I
was also required to login on some weekends to ensure that the software releases happened
smoothly. We were flexible and adaptable, which could be due to our low uncertainty avoidance,
however the Brits always worked from 8AM to 4PM and barely logged in on weekends. One
factor could be that the British team was older and had families, while the Indian team was a lot
younger - but I found the underlying reason to be that Indians are generally a lot more flexible
and adaptable. I will be using Trompenaars & Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Hall’s
Communication Context theories to explain the root cause behind 4 misunderstandings which
occurred in our team:
1. We had a software release every fortnight, where the new version of software was put out
to the user. Preceding the release, there was a test session which was run to ensure the
implementation of the features in the software. This was not released to the users and
seen largely as a chance for the software developers to make some fixes. In one of our
releases, the British manager asked me if the new feature would be ready. I replied that I
would be confident to get it done before the release. The time for the test session arrived
but I hadn’t implemented my feature yet. While the Indian manager found it acceptable,
the British manager was understandably angry that I had not implemented the feature in
time. I had assumed that it would be fine to wait until the release to implement it. This
was due to the cultural differences which existed in communicating specifically.
Belonging to a relatively high context culture [2], I assumed that ‘on time’ would be until
the release which led to this misunderstanding and inconvenience. This also highlights
the difference between interpreting time according to Trompenaars’ dimensions. Indians
belonging from a synchronic-oriented culture have a more flexible definition of time
when compared to those belonging to sequential-oriented cultures.
2. While not a personal experience, one of my team-mates, Kshitij, was expecting a
promotion to Vice President soon. He was one of the subject matter experts of the team
having been in the team for 6 years. He was expecting a promotion to Vice President
soon for his efforts. However, despite all promises he was not given a promotion. Due to
the high-power distance which existed in Indian setups, he found it difficult to approach
his boss, Lavanya, for an explanation.
3. We had a critical release and I had a family emergency. I unfortunately could not help the
team which led to issues in the release. My local manager , Lavanya, was understanding
of my problem, however her British counterpart, Simon, found it inappropriate to not
support the team in such a critical release which was essential for the front office. This
difference could be because Lavanya belonged to an external direction culture which lays
emphasis on relationships versus Simon belonging to an internal direction culture.
4. I was shifting my accommodation from one place to another, this required me to miss a
day’s work. However, my team members apart from filling in for me also helped me to
shift in. This indicates the presence of a diffusive culture where work and personal lives
are intertwined together.
 Analyzing Team Composition

As previously mentioned, the software development teams were split across Bournemouth, UK
and Bangalore, India. The Indian team consisted of 4 software developers and a manager while
the team from Bournemouth were 3 software developers with 1 manager. To give some
background on the demographics, the Indian team consisted of 3 males and 1 female software
developer with a female manager. All the Indian software Engineers were in the age group of
21-35 while our manager was around 40. The British team meanwhile was all Male with
everyone older than 45 and hence far more experienced than us.

While a couple of them from the British team were very patient with my doubts, the rest were a
little rude and dismissive towards me and maybe the whole Indian team in general. This led to
our team forming a stronger and united social identity, maybe since we felt that we were being
treated a little unfairly. This led to deeper bonds which transcended beyond work among our
team, which I didn’t see as much in the British team. We had a strong comparative fit, since we
maximised our inter-category differences between ours and the British team, while minimising
the intra-category differences which were very vast, since we all spoke different languages, came
from different regions and of different ages and genders. Interestingly enough however, there
wasn’t any favouritism shown by our managers when it came to the professional side of things.
Equal opportunities were provided to all members of the team to work on new and interesting
concepts, and efforts were made to upskill everyone. There were smaller sub-groups formed on
the basis of age within the Indian team despite the perceived unity. I felt comfortable and largely
spent my free time with a couple of team-mates who were young too alongside fresh graduates
from other teams. Therefore, we formed our in-group on the basis of age but I saw several
in-groups being formed in other Indian teams on the basis of age, ethnicity or gender too. I
suppose there were sub-groups formed in the British team too, however I did not notice them
very distinctly since we collaborated remotely. [4]
To breach these in-groups would be difficult but the only way to do that would be to have
informal discussions with team-mates. This again I found different from other cultures, since
Indian co-workers have a much stronger propensity to cultivate a professional relationship to
friendship as well, however from my observations, other cultures were more predisposed to draw
their boundaries and separate work from fun.

The strengths of the fault-lines between the teams were strong but they did not greatly impede
our work. We at least had 1, if not more, meetings every day with the British team. Despite the
impression I have given in this paper, I cultivated some nice friendships with my British
counterparts where we discussed our hobbies and common interests. We had to collaborate all
the time as well, hence our personal differences did not come in the way of getting the job done.
A clear faultline was the nationality of the team members. However, as mentioned previously,
there were also faultlines on the basis of age in our group. [5]

Faultline Sub-Group 1 Sub-Group 2 Sub-Group 3

Nationality Ishan, Aayush, Simon, Craig, -

Mohona, Kshitij, Andrew, James
Manjul, Lavanya

Age Ishan, Aayush, Kshitij, Manjul, Simon, Craig,

Mohona Lavanya Andrew, James

Between multicultural and cross-cultural, our team would be a combination of both. While we
did work in homogenous groups for a large part of our time, we were often made to collaborate
with counterparts from other countries where we strived hard to bury our differences and achieve
a common goal.

Team Leadership and Performance

Our development team could be best described as the equalizers. The two software development
teams - British and Indian, often worked in silos to avoid conflicts and clashes. We pretended
that the differences which existed would be best resolved by working amongst our separate
cultural groups. This would result in work being done painstakingly slow since neither group
could leverage the strengths of the other group. Due to the complexity of the software
application, we would each have different strengths and specialisations in different components
of the application. However, due to the time zone and cultural differences, each team would often
work independently despite there being overlap between our work. Hence, despite us meeting
most deadlines, we could not pick up as many features or bug fixes in a development time-cycle
as our team was capable of. Therefore, the team performance was often mediocre at best.

We did not really talk about the cultural differences that existed in the team. Hence, we did not
really utilise the aspects of the MBI (Map, Bridge and Integrate). This could be because we were
a highly technical team which probably did not bring out the human element in our work.
However, we did have daily stand-up meetings where we would discuss the work done in the
previous day, as well as weekly review calls where we would discuss our performance and the
direction we should adopt going forward. However, most of these team meetings did not
acknowledge the differences in culture or the means to resolve them. It was like the elephant in
the room which nobody wanted to speak of. [6]

This was naturally a less than perfect way of doing things which is why it is important to identify
a boundary spanner who could bring up these discussions to the table for us to discuss about. The
boundary spanning coordinator would be the individual responsible for bridging the gaps
between the two sub-groups and ensuring healthy collaboration. While linking and information
exchanging came naturally between the groups, due to the inter-dependence in the work, there
was a real need to find a facilitator who would work towards assisting in cross-border interaction
and an intervener who would play an active role in creating positive inter-group outcomes and
diffuse tensions and disagreements. The Product Manager would be the best candidate to play the
role of a boundary spanner. They would be an independent party who would want the best from
the team. Hence, they hold an active interest in the performance of the team and would be a
perfect bridge between the two teams. While the managers of the two teams could play the role
of a facilitator, the intervener has to be an independent party who does not hold biases or favour
either team. The product manager would make a great intervener since they would be directly
impacted by the functioning of the team while also being impartial to the best of their abilities.
[7]

Since our team was geographically dispersed, it was the embodiment of a virtual team where
different team members worked from different locations. This was further exacerbated at the
onset of the Covid pandemic where all of us worked from our homes without any physical
interaction. It was therefore harder for leadership to notice the intrinsic details of every employee
since all of us worked remotely from different locations. How we dealt with this was by
conducting regular Zoom meetings where things from work to personal lives were discussed.
Birthdays and special occasions were celebrated remotely. All meetings, even prior to COVID,
were done through WebEx calls where anyone could join from any device. The work-cycle and
team progress was monitored through a tool called Jira where everyone’s tasks for the week were
listed as well as the deadlines and tips and tricks for solving them. We had fortnightly virtual
meetings with senior management to discuss our progress and map it with the long-term outlook
of the firm and how it fit the larger picture. These measures helped bridge the geographical
distance between the group and improved productivity. [8]

Conclusion and Learning

There are several takeaways and learnings for me to take back from my experience in JPMorgan.
Although this experience was slightly old, these learnings of mine were reinforced during my
time at EM Normandie. This was especially true since my time at JPMorgan was spent working
with people from diverse backgrounds remotely, but classes at EM Normandie and my overall
experience in Europe allowed me to encounter these lessons first-hand.

When it comes to specific facets of my emotional intelligence viz., self-awareness,

self-management, social awareness and relationship management, I would say that I fare well
when it comes to my emotional self-awareness, and my social awareness. Understanding my
emotions came naturally to me, and I was not at odds or at loss of explaining what I have been
feeling. I am also, more often than not, observant of the subtle social cues which are brought out
in meetings and informal discussions. This would help me say the right things and behave
appropriately even when not brought out explicitly. I would rate this as one of my major
strengths which helped me handle precarious situations even when the going got tough. I am
empathetic, and can relate to people’s experiences which is why I believe that people find it easy
to connect with me or confide their feelings to me. I also understand the social dynamics of the
organisation and the importance that factors like power distance, long-term orientation,
uncertainty avoidance, etc. play during the daily working of a team. I was also a friendly and
easy-going person which made it easier for me to become close to my colleagues. [9]

However, when it comes to my weaknesses, it would be my self-management and my emotional

self-control and achievement orientation in particular which hindered my performance. There
were times when I felt deflated or even angry at my team-mates or the work I was assigned. This
would fester into procrastination and a general disinterest in my work which affected my
performance at times. In hindsight, despite my achievements, I was also lacking in my ambitions
in the job. I could have achieved more but I found little motivation and purpose in what I was
doing. This held me back from reaching my potential, but these learnings are definitely what I’ll
take back with me. The other drawback of mine was my lack of clear communication.
Sometimes, I would assume that things were implicitly conveyed but the other party was usually
kept in the dark.

To become an effective international team member, we should most importantly acknowledge

and understand the differences in our mindsets, biases and working styles as a result of our social
conditioning from the culture we belong to. These factors predispose us to think or/and act
differently which is not an indictment of how we feel towards someone or something in
particular, but a cultural trait that we possess. Therefore, we should be patient and accepting of
the differences and try to discern them in people from different cultures so as to have a strong
and lasting relationship. At the same time, we should aim towards ameliorating certain cultural
traits which are in odds with other cultures - such as being risk averse vs being open to take risks,
etc.
To become an international team manager, the above factors are just as important but with the
added responsibility of not just improving the performance of oneself but that of the team. This
would imply that apart from being patient and culturally aware, they should also imbibe these
traits into the team members. There might be people, especially minorities, who would be
reticent or unsure of opening up. This could be as a result of a cultural or language barrier, and
would lead to poor team performance as a result of communication gaps. These gaps should be
broken by organising frequent informal catch-ups, team dinners, etc. to make people feel in ease
with each other. Apart from this, the other responsibility of a global manager should be to bring
the best facets out of every culture to improve performance. For example, Germans are slightly
more predisposed to being good designers and engineers, Indians are good at coding while the
Brits and Americans are good at communicating ideas and results to stakeholders. Therefore,
giving a chance to every culture to work on their strengths while also allowing them to try their
hands at different activities would help in improving team performance and morale.

The two skills which I intend to improve upon the most are planning and implementing my tasks
better. While these are not strictly within the realm of intercultural management, I believe that
improvements in these aspects would make me a better international team player or leader. I have
trouble paying attention for long durations of time which leads to procrastination and suboptimal
performance. How I have intended to become better at this is by journaling frequently. As a
result of constantly multi-tasking or rushing to finish deadlines, my thoughts become muddled
and confused. Journaling helps in concretizing my thoughts. Writing things down helps me in
giving structure to the nebulous tasks in my head. Specifically, what I intend to do is write my
goals and actions for the day before I start my work. These would include fresh tasks as well as
the backlogs from yesterday. My journal entry at the end of the day meanwhile would be a short
follow-up of how I have accomplished those tasks. I believe that writing this down would
constantly remind me of the things that I need to do, instead of just having those thoughts float in
my head. Working on this would be a big accomplishment since this would help give me a basic
outline of my long-term and short-term goals and my progress towards achieving them, hence
making me a better team-player in specific and a person as a whole.
References

1. Jane Kassis Henderson,2005 “ Language Diversity in International Management Teams”

2. Geert Hofstede, 2011 “Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context”
3. Trompenaars, 1992 “Human resource management in Europe”
4. Hornsey, 2008 “Social Identity Theory and Self-categorization Theory: A Historical
Review”
5. Earley and Mosakowski, 2000 “Creating Hybrid Team Cultures”
6. Distefano and Maznevski, 2000 “Creating Value with Diverse Teams in Global
Management”
7. Barner et al., 2014, “Cultural and language skills as resources for MNE”
8. Malhotra et al., 2007, “Leading Virtual Teams”
9. Goleman & Boyatzis, 2017, “Emotional Intelligence has 12 elements”