Creating Effective U.S-based Virtual and Multicultural Teams

With the U.S. population becoming increasingly diverse, the odds are high that most employees are currently working or will be soon working on a multicultural team. Many companies mistakenly believe that multicultural teams are not an issue for them because they are not working globally. Multicultural teams can have members that are in other countries or consist of Americans who have different ethnic, racial, and national origin backgrounds. They can all be U.S. residents or citizens but be from different parts of the world. For example, a defense company doing classified work has a U.S.-based team consisting of 20 team members from 14 different countries. This is a classic multicultural team functioning in the United States.

Multicultural teams are here to stay and most companies are leveraging the advantages while addressing the challenges and finding that the effort is worth it. This session will discuss how to address the challenges multicultural teams and virtual teams face while leveraging the strengths and opportunities.

Learning points:

          3. Learn how to effectively communicate in the increasing diverse American workforce

Dr. Sangeeta Gupta is a management and organizational development consultant and a specialist in diversity and intercultural consulting and executive coaching. She has more than 17 years of experience in a variety of industries including: information technology; entertainment; government; financial services; academia; transportation; health care; and nonprofit. Dr. Gupta has served senior management in a variety of roles including change management, organizational design, strategy, leadership development, business process implementation and outsourcing. By combining her academic background and her business experience, Dr. Gupta works with her clients to improve their overall performance while targeting bottom line results.

Dr. Gupta has developed and implemented training programs and consulted on organizational effectiveness issues, particularly initiatives focused on diversity and creating an environment of inclusion. She is an experienced trainer on numerous topics including building diverse teams and increasing their effectiveness through the development of core skills such as: meeting facilitation; communication skills; time management and delegation; project management; conflict resolution; and intra-team dynamics, particularly those affected by intercultural issues. She believes that training should be interactive and engaging and utilizes real world examples with the intention of providing material that can be applied immediately upon returning to the workplace. Her unique combination of expertise in the area of intercultural dynamics and her business background make her a natural to work in the area of global and virtual teams.

Dr. Gupta is a specialist in non-western history and cultures and speaks several languages. She is the editor of and a contributor to Emerging Voices: South Asian American Women Redefine Self, Family, and Community. Dr. Gupta is also the author of A Quick Guide to Cultural Competency, part of the Quick Guide Business Series for the busy professional. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA. She is a senior faculty member in Chapman University’s Leadership Services Program.