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Thomas is a German occupational therapist. He has just started his job as the head of an occupational therapy department at a big hospital in Zurich. The team consists of many experienced therapists; most of them were born in Switzerland. Communication between the team members seems to be friendly and open for collegial advice and professional exchange. Everyone seems to be at ease. Thomas decides to get to know the team first, so for the first two weeks he is observing and listening. In the third week during a regular team meeting, he introduces his action plan to the team. He argues that the team’s treatment methods are outdated. He refers to intervention situations he has observed, and names team members, asking them to explain their professional reasoning. This happens in front of the whole group.

From this moment on, Thomas is met with silence and hostility by his team. He tries to lighten up the atmosphere with jokes but to no avail. Later he learns from his Austrian superior, who has lived many years in Switzerland, that his team has complained about him. They have even asked his superior to remove Thomas from his position. By showing the action plan, Thomas wants to start a process of professional discussion with his team. Now he doesn’t understand why he is met with silence and resistance. Before coming to Switzerland, he has led teams successfully in Germany and now he is puzzled why his leadership style does not work in Switzerland.

How should Thomas react in this situation?

Please select the alternative(s) how Thomas should react in this situation

1.Thomas continues to fight for acceptance of his action plan in the team by bringing many arguments and reasons why his action plan is up to date, but his efforts have no effect. He resigns shortly after and is disappointed, so he goes back to Germany.

2.Thomas explains to his superior how he wants to change things for the better by showing facts and figures from his observations. He asks his superior to support him to execute the new action plan.

3.Thomas asks his superior about his experiences when he came to Switzerland. Has he experienced similar challenges? If so, how has he overcome them?

4.Thomas organises a team meeting to address the obvious resistance to him and his ideas. He asks the team if they are prepared to give him another chance. He says that he wants to change things towards a more participatory way by welcoming ideas from his subordinates. Thomas needs to learn more about Swiss culture and to be more open for learning from the team. He should avoid direct confrontation and not single out individuals.

Analysis

1.This is not a good alternative. Going home in frustration is not a good choice, either for Thomas or for the team.

Thomas’ behaviour indicates an ethnocentric mindset, probably the stage of minimisation according to Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity – DMIS (1998). Thomas does not expect leadership and communication to be different between Germany and Switzerland. Following his mindset, Swiss-German is just a variation of German. Other than that, we are all the same. In the stage of minimisation, he is unable to appreciate Swiss culture because he does not expect differences, partly because he is not aware of his own culture. He is just behaving in a «normal» way – his normal way. He is blind to differences such as the Swiss preference for consensus seeking and a more egalitarian leadership style (S. van den Bergh & S. Schärli, personal communication, June 21, 2016). So, he keeps pushing his ideas with logical reasoning. Thus, when his team members are insufficiently appreciative of his effort in executing his action plan, it threatens Thomas’ minimisation mindset. After all, doesn’t everyone behave the way he does?

2.This is not a good alternative. It is sensible for Thomas to involve his superior in problem solving especially when he is new to the team. Therefore, he should ask his superior for advice in regard to the situation. He definitely should not ask his superior to enforce the new action plan. In a team where consensus building and egalitarianism are important, it would backfire on him and the superior.

3.This is one of two possible good alternatives. This behaviour helps to understand the situation better and may lead to different strategies to deal with the situation. By doing so, he asks the superior to be his intercultural mentor. It is an intelligent step for him to identify a «cultural mentor» who can interpret some of the cultural nuances for him.

4.This is one of two possible good alternatives. Thomas has come to realise that among Swiss people, decisions are ideally achieved by involving opinions and ideas of all team members. All opinions, no matter from whom, are valued. Consensus building and compromising are often utilised in Switzerland (S. van den Bergh & S. Schärli, personal communication, June 21, 2016).

Power distance in Germany is slightly higher than in Switzerland. Hofstede (2017) defines power distance as the degree of acceptance of inequality among people in a society. In Switzerland, hierarchy is rather flat where superiors rely on the experiences and opinions of their team. In contrast, in Germany, power is more centralised, subordinates expect to be instructed and the boss practises more autocracy. The act of challenging leaders is not encouraged.

Another explanation could be the clash between intellectual confrontation and relational confrontation (Bennett & Bennett, 1996). In intellectual confrontation, people are comfortable with debating, fighting over ideas, intellectually challenging the counterparts, whereas relational confrontation is primarily concerned with seeking harmony. «Fighting» stresses the relationship; attacks are taken personally.

In this incident, Thomas welcomes new ideas. He has, however, realised that intellectual confrontation was the wrong strategy to use in this team.

On the other hand, Thomas is not the only one who could adapt. The Swiss team members could empathise with Thomas regarding his difficulties in adapting to Swiss work culture. They could provide him with necessary advice. If the team understood that Thomas is following an intellectual confrontation style, they would not see it as a personal attack.