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CI Model in Action

2 October, 2015 - 15:12
  • Acquire: As a leader, it is important for Kalia to understand the types of individual and team culture that are present in her work place. Her frustration about her team is a result of not knowing what to do based on her limited perspective of culture. Broadening her viewpoint to understand the value dimensions of culture such as language, power, authority, and gender can help her to make more sense of the situation. As Kalia learns this new information, she can evaluate her progress by identifying points in her interactions where the value dimensions appear and whether she has accurately assessed the situation. Understanding the particulars about culture will help her to grasp the cultural dynamics at play.
  • Build: Resolving cultural conflicts can be overwhelming, especially to someone, like Kalia, who wants to avoid it. In this situation, Kalia will need to help resolve the conflict among team members. She can do this in two ways: first, by helping team members to understand their individual working styles, and in this case, taking the members that have the most conflict aside for discussions. Second, she can help them understand how individual cultures contribute to a team culture by describing the type of team she wants to build. She can mediate the conflict by herself or bring in an outside mediator.
  • Contemplate: Kalia’s anxiety and self-induced stress is a barrier to her success as a leader. She believes she does not have the skill sets to facilitate future meetings, and her thoughts are focused on this point. She cannot shy away from the situation, thus it would be helpful to Kalia to create smaller action steps for her team and herself to meet the larger goal. She would need to stay calm and focused on the task.
  • Do: Kalia’s internal motivation will be a huge assistance to her managing the situation. She knows she does not have the skill sets to facilitate the next meeting, but she can find ways to build her skills, or she can bring in an outside person to help her mediate. If she chooses to facilitate the meeting on her own, she will need to reflect and identify the skill sets she would need. She can do this by first identifying the thoughts she has related to the situation and the behaviors that accompany the thoughts. In doing this, she may find out that she has the skills to facilitate but needs more confidence.