After two failed construction launches: realigning a multicultural team in a 1-day workshop
The context of the workshop: an unthinkable third failure
I'm working for a multinational construction company in Europe that wants to avoid another launch failure for a strategic piece of equipment. After all, the two previous launches have cost them dearly in terms of late deliveries, additional industrial costs and credibility with their B2B customers. The next launch, costing several million euros, is under strong pressure from the management committee.
The project team consists of around twenty people spread over several countries. They are all experienced, but their meetings are less and less productive. The tensions are there, but they are rarely expressed. Decisions are slowing down. Everyone is protecting his or her perimeter and collaboration is gradually deteriorating. As one team member put it: «We're making progress... but we know we're replaying the same scenario». I understand that mutual trust on key decisions has been eroded.
The BU director is clear with me: they don't have the time for long hours. We need to quickly recreate the conditions for team cohesion, so that they are able to decide quickly and coordinate their actions, while respecting their corporate culture.
The challenges of the workshop: saying things without breaking up the team, making decisions without slowing down the project
- The causes of the two previous failures are well known, in particular a decision taken too late, which had a serious industrial impact, and poor co-ordination of the entire production chain, which resulted in a lack of quality. But these causes are not dealt with collectively, and give rise to unspoken messages, misunderstandings and implicit trade-offs.
- But there is a risk of fracturing the team by reopening the wounds, in particular with the great differences in perception between the different nationalities, especially in their perception of risk. Without a framework, working on their liabilities could further deteriorate the current situation and reinforce misunderstandings and cultural stereotypes.
- Continuing to work in local silos has direct consequences: longer lead times, inconsistent decisions, diluted responsibilities.
Tailor-made approach: a short, high-voltage workshop
In the construction industry, projects require rapid trade-offs between technical, industrial and commercial constraints. The system must therefore produce decisions that can be used immediately by multicultural teams. I propose a short, demanding approach, to recreate in a single day the conditions for aligned team functioning. The workshop then becomes a tool for structuring decisions and reconciling the different business logics around the launch.
Half-day 1: dealing with the past while preserving relationships. From the outset, I set out a non-negotiable framework to talk about the facts, never the people, and to ensure that each point leads to learning, with structured feedback periods.
Tension soon arose. One of the managers questions a past decision. Tempers flare. At this point, there was a real risk that the discussion would degenerate into a confrontation and permanently block the group's dynamic. I intervened to ask for a factual reformulation and to refocus on the implications for the next launch. And the team ends up agreeing on a common reading of the key moments of past failures.
Half-day 2: transform the collective work into concrete decisions, applicable as soon as the workshop is over. I question the excessively vague formulations: “better communication” becomes “who decides what, when”. And the teams identify the conditions for success and the non-negotiable priorities and their planning. They validate a short decision-making circuit for critical technical decisions. One of them ended the last round of discussions by concluding: «This time, we won't be able to say we didn't know».
The BU Director opened and closed the workshop, validating the operating rules that had been defined and clearly stating his expectation that the decisions taken should be applied without reinterpretation.
The team's development: from silent tensions to shared operating rules
The team focused on the facts, making cultural differences visible and clarifying responsibilities. Exchanges became more direct and less defensive. The team began to better understand the constraints of other functions and to recognise each other's working styles. Decisions became concrete and accountability real. The team stopped dwelling on the same points and began to structure the launch organisation more clearly, which encouraged new synergies between functions.
Why this workshop produced concrete results so quickly
My role in this project was to regulate tensions and transform endless debates into operational decisions.
As in other cases of collective coaching in multicultural teams, I made the cultural gaps visible (communication, conflict, decision) to limit misinterpretations.
I challenged the vague formulations so that each point led to a rule, a person in charge or a deadline.
This enabled them to reduce their decision-making times, clarify responsibilities at critical stages and reduce friction between the various expert opinions. Where some decisions were taking weeks to reach, they were able to make many more direct decisions in meetings. This 3rd launch was completed on time, without any major incidents, and with better coordination between countries and functions.
This strengthened the project team's credibility with head office.
This type of workshop won't solve everything, but it will quickly restore what makes the difference: a team capable of deciding and acting together.
