Aviva - Cultural understanding
Cultural Understanding
Aviva is moving one of their finance functions off-shore. This involves a group of Sri Lankans coming over to the UK, being trained by the existing corporate office finance team so that they can then return to Sri Lanka and provide this service from there.
Whilst the team leader, Ravi Sanguhan, an experienced senior manager at Aviva HQ in London, had a detailed plan for the training process, he felt it was a good idea to start with a relationship-building event.
The existing team in the UK would act as hosts to the newcomers. He had a buddy system in place so that they could work together in pairs and a thorough process for the transfer of skills and knowledge.
Nevertheless, when the fifteen young Sri Lankans arrived, he was concerned that the whole process was launched appropriately. So, for the first morning of the first full day, he brought in Maynard Leigh to help get the relationships off on a good footing.
With the thirty people gathered in the room, the Maynard Leigh facilitator provided a series of exercises that allowed people to get to know each other better, to reconnect and understand each other at a deeper level and welcome the diversity of the talent present; also to sort out the practicalities of working together.
The group ranged in age from 20 to 55. The host team based in the UK was already a diverse bunch of people including those from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India and other far flung places. So, exchanging cultural differences became an important part of the session, ending with an attempt to describe what the Aviva culture was all about.
People had fun together, laughed, played, improvised, revealed information about themselves and in just four hours took a major step forward in building productive relationships that would stand them in good stead during the months ahead.
Ravi recognised the value of the session which he considered to be excellent and hugely valuable to start building trusted relationships. He added spontaneous feedback from numerous participants, including some of the most more cynical, confirmed that it was very helpful”.
