I’m working with a leadership team in Korea right now. Their goal is to become a truly global enterprise rather than a Korean company with international outposts. They recently acquired a US competitor and they’re trying to integrate the cultures. I’ve cautioned them against over-indexing on nationality differences (e.g., Korean vs. US culture) because a growing body of research suggests that nationality predicts how we collaborate less than traditionally assumed. Instead, we’ve been identifying the interpersonal and operational dynamics most likely to shape the integration. Some of the variables involved reflect cultural differences, but others are shaped by the unique histories, identities, and leadership teams of the two companies.

The work with this Korean company illustrates a broader pattern I’m observing. A year ago, my colleagues and I introduced PRISM, a framework that emerged from four years of listening to global executives describe the friction that most often derails their teams and work. One of the unexpected discoveries has been seeing leaders apply the findings from this research in ways we didn’t anticipate. Their applications are expanding my own thinking about where this work may lead as well as how to help companies like this Korean one. Here are some examples of what’s evolving.

THREE WAYS LEADERS ARE USING PRISM

1. Diagnose the key points of friction

We expected leaders would use PRISM to address the friction that occurs on global teams—specifically tensions surrounding power, risk, identity, speed, and messaging. But many are using it to more directly identify the points of friction within a particular task force or project. Moving beyond broad generalizations about cultural values or even all five PRISM dimensions, the survey allows them to diagnose which of the five dimensions are most relevant given the specific context.

As an example, a financial services company I worked with convened a cross-functional team to lead the implementation of a new AI tool. Six weeks into the project, the team was struggling with prioritization, clarity, and direction. Decisions stalled and frustration was growing. An HR business partner used the PRISM Workstyle Profile with the group. The results surfaced vastly different assumptions among the team about how quickly the project should move, how much risk was acceptable, and who should make key decisions. Some team members were initially surprised by their profile. But with further reflection, they realized that this particular project and team were eliciting different behaviors than they typically demonstrate within their own functional teams. The friction was unique to this cross-functional task force. They used these insights to establish norms around decision-making, communication frequency, and speed.

The context surrounding a project or task often matters just as much as the cultural differences involved. Individuals may approach an AI implementation differently than a product launch, acquisition, or customer engagement. Some members of this AI team were wrestling with ethical questions about the appropriate use of AI. Others were primarily concerned about maintaining autonomy over how they incorporated AI into their own work. Those concerns shaped the recommendations they put together for senior leadership.

PRISM illuminates the five dimensions of behavior that create the most friction on a team:

Power: Who’s in charge? Who should make the decision?

Risk: Why are some people comfortable taking risks while others think they’re being reckless?

Identity: Should we prioritize individual initiative or group results?

Speed: What’s the right pace?

Messaging: How directly should we communicate?

By focusing on which of these tensions are most relevant to a specific team and task, leaders can develop more targeted solutions.

2. Predict how people are likely to respond

Another unexpected application of this research has been seeing leaders use the dimensions of behavior to more accurately anticipate how people are likely to respond to change, new products, or a difficult announcement. This kind of foresight helps leaders adapt their strategy before getting stuck in costly misunderstandings and resistance.

I’ve written previously about Mediora (pseudonym), a European medical device company that launched a new cardiovascular device in Southeast Asia. Despite strong clinical results and success in Western markets, sales across ASEAN, one of their fasting growing markets, were well below projections. Regional teams attempted to voice concerns about how local beliefs surrounding invasive cardiac procedures might shape physician recommendations and patient adoption; but headquarters didn’t listen.

After the disappointing results, Mediora developed regional insight councils to provide a more structured way to gather regional expertise. In addition, they’ve begun to use PRISM as an early part of their product development process. It gives them data to anticipate how customers, clinicians, distributors, and regulators are likely to respond to new products. They administer the PRISM survey to a sample of people in the target market and review those results alongside the broader regional data from our original study. The data gives them a better understanding of the level of uncertainty clinicians are willing to tolerate before adopting a new product, whether trust is more likely to be built through hospitals, individual providers, or family influence, how quickly different stakeholders are likely to move from interest to implementation, and what kind of messaging is most likely to build confidence rather than skepticism.

Leaders in other organizations are applying a similar predictive approach to a wide range of situations:

• – Will this change initiative gain traction?
• – How will this acquisition integration unfold?
• – Will this marketing campaign resonate?
• – Which leadership approach is most likely to succeed?
• – How is this team likely to make decisions under pressure?

3. Design better interventions

The most rewarding insight from the application of this research has been seeing leaders use it to develop more targeted interventions to address current challenges. Instead of relying on generic leadership development or change management approaches, they’re designing interventions around the specific dynamics of a task and team. The result is more targeted coaching and change management strategies as well as improved engagement scores across a diversity of functions and divisions. Here are a few examples:

Change management: As the AI implementation team discovered, the demands of a particular project can elicit different behaviors among team members. Rather than assuming resistance is simply fear of change, leaders can identify whether the work is surfacing different assumptions about power, risk, speed, identity, or messaging, and then design team norms and communication strategies around those specific points of friction.

Merging organizational cultures: When integrating two very different organizational cultures, leaders can predict the points of friction most likely to surface. The Korean company I mentioned earlier assumed its relatively flat (for Korea!) leadership culture would align well with the US company they acquired. But the US company had a long history of hiring retired military leaders, which resulted in a much more hierarchical approach to leadership and decision making than the Korean tech company anticipated. Identifying the dominant points of friction is informing their approach to governance, decision rights, communication, and other integration priorities.

Team performance: Rather than assuming another team-building workshop will lead to better performance, leaders are using PRISM to identify the specific interpersonal dynamics affecting a team’s work. While this was the kind application I expected, I’m surprised how quickly teams are able to develop norms once they have language for the key points of friction.  A few targeted adjustments to how a team works together can have much more impact than broad team-building initiatives that make people feel good but do little to support alignment.

The Work Ahead

The work in PRISM has only just begun. These discoveries together with our ongoing research on global leadership and cultural intelligence raises as many questions for me as it does answers, particularly as the pace of change in the global workplace continues to happen at breakneck speed. I think a lot about:

• How accurately can we anticipate leadership and team dynamics over time?

• Can we really get better at navigating interpersonal conflicts or is it an inevitable part of teamwork?

• How might this work improve the way organizations approach AI, market expansion, organizational change, and complex challenges?

• Does working globally increase organizational risk, or is it actually a source of risk mitigation?

These kinds of questions are what make this work so satisfying. I’m especially grateful to have colleagues from around the world joining me in both the research and application of these findings across such a wide range of organizations.

If you’d like to incorporate PRISM into your work, we’d love to have you join us for our upcoming Master Certification in September or December.