Intercultural teams
Corporate culture at CACEIS Bank – an interview with Brendan Fischer-Simbar
Today I’m talking to Brendan Fischer-Simbar, Group Manager at CACEIS Bank. We studied ‘Intercultural Communication and Cooperation’ together at Munich University of Applied Sciences and I’m delighted to be talking to him about his intercultural working life, leading an intercultural team, intercultural team building and corporate cultures after company mergers.
Left: Anna Weidlich (InterKult Training)
Topics at a glance
✔ How can intercultural teams work better together remotely?
✔ Which skills are important as a manager in everyday international working life.
✔ How can challenges be overcome after a company merger?
✔ What role does corporate culture play in a company?
Reading time: 6 minutes
Leading intercultural teams
Brendan, what exactly is your role at CACEIS Bank and where is your team based?
I am currently Group Manager at CACEIS Bank in France and my team is responsible for updating client identification and analysis in relation to money laundering, sanctions and terrorist financing (KYC) within our banking group. The team currently consists of twelve employees at headquarters, but we also have employees in our branches in the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg.
As we were formed from the merger of several French banks, the main language of our work is still French. Today, most of our employees work abroad. We have developed strong local roots in all the countries in which we are represented. The local language is favoured there and then, of course, English when it comes to communication between locations that do not speak the same language.
As our KYC function is centralised, we process documents in foreign languages (Italian, German, Dutch, etc. ….) on a daily basis, which is also a special feature of our team.
Where is your intercultural team based and how do you work together?
My team in France mainly works in the office at our headquarters on the Crédit Agricole campus in Montrouge. We have had a flex office for four years now and with Covid we have also introduced home office. We don’t have fixed workstations for our colleagues in the office. So when we are in the office, we try to sit as close to each other as possible. We have a quota of home office days per year, which corresponds to around two days per week.
In our open-plan office, we rarely all work at the same time – that’s why our meetings are usually hybrid. We mostly communicate via Microsoft Teams (chat and audio).
Are there things you like or find challenging about it? How does intercultural teamwork work for you?
The setting is good for the work-life balance, but you notice that the team spirit and collegiality are more relaxed than before, and the integration time is also slightly longer than in a traditional setting. For example, we used to be able to spontaneously start an open discussion when there was a topic to discuss, which is interactive, efficient and relaxed. It’s different in an open-plan office with just one part of the team.
In an intercultural team, it is particularly important to talk about metacommunication and get to know each other better so that everyone feels comfortable and a strong sense of togetherness is created. To make this possible, we have planned many intercultural team-building measures such as events, joint presence days and functions. I also use the word ‘we’ here because some of these activities were initiated by the employees. Such events, whether in the context of work with a specific goal (e.g. brainstorming, CoDev…) or more informally, during the lunch break or even outside the work context, build cohesion and are, in my experience, absolutely necessary.
Is there anything you have learnt, had to adapt or develop as a manager in dealing with an intercultural team?
Definitely, I spent most of my time working abroad and when I came back to France, I had to adapt. You always have to try to get to know yourself better first (how do I communicate, what do I like, what don’t I like, etc.); it helps a lot to look at a situation from a distance.
In my experience (not only in management positions), active observation is essential. As a manager, it is essential to develop a sense of how individual team members communicate and how they work. Communication and, above all, meta-communication are important in order to understand each other. Then, of course, you can want to change aspects or find bilateral ‘ways’, but first understanding what makes the other person ‘tick’ is the basis.
But that only applies to personal communication. As a manager, you have to start at a higher level, because our job is to build a team. And you can’t just say: ‘Now you have to communicate this way and that way’. As in any group context, you often have to remind the intercultural team of the common goal and discuss common work problems as a group, but that’s not enough: in my opinion, a good team should also function without a leader. The prerequisite for this is, of course, very good cohesion.
I generally use two different types of negotiation:
When it comes to friction/conflicts or misunderstandings between two people, I try to mediate. Here it is important to allow the individuals involved to grow by developing empathy for the other person and at the same time to grow beyond themselves.
Conversely, if it is a member who is outside the group (resignation or conflict…), I tend to take on the role of coach. In this way, I try to get the person concerned to adapt better and/or to be better understood/accepted.
However, this is not a definitive magic formula; you always have to reassess the situation and take action.
Anna Weidlich
Expert for intercultural communication and cooperation (M.A.)
Counselling offer
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Challenges after a company merger:
What has changed in your company as a result of the recent merger?
We acquired a competitor last year and the legal merger was finalised in June. As our history, our origins, our parent company and the country in which we are based are different, we have a different way of working and there are many differences. But we have common goals. Working and reflection groups have been formed to think about a target culture in the areas of customer service, staff development and diversity & inclusion. We are in the process of concretising and anchoring the new values through numerous actions. However, these are long-term processes.
What role do the corporate cultures of the two companies play?
Without corporate cultures, they have grown organically and are therefore usually very difficult to recognise for employees and managers who have been with the company for a long time. As a new employee, or when you mix with a different culture, you very quickly recognise what is your own and what is different, especially in the areas of decision-making processes, dealing with mistakes, the type of communication, between departments and hierarchical levels…
The corporate culture itself defines the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation. Top management must be aware of this and constantly make changes in order to optimally adapt the organisation to the strategy.
In your opinion, what steps are necessary to ensure successful integration after a company merger?
In large organisations where the individuals do not know everyone, the organisation itself is the most important thing. As long as there is no clarity about the hierarchy and the division into departments and locations, everyone remains in their own little silo and the economies of scale cannot materialise.
Once these have been defined, working groups (as representative as possible of the company’s diversity) can work on a target culture. Professional consultants can be called in for this. In the end, mission statements must be defined and compared with the current situation (if possible, granularly down to departmental level by surveying managers).
This depends on the interaction of management (top down) and interface functions that introduce and anchor the new approach throughout the organisation.
What are the biggest challenges in creating a uniform corporate culture after a merger? Were there issues such as culture shock, difficulties and how are they dealt with?
There are definitely differences, many in the way of communication, the role of managers, expectations towards colleagues from other areas… By and large, the solution is always good communication, but sometimes it takes escalation to prioritise and clarify.
What was also not foreseen by many is that we will be visualising and comparing ourselves, our system landscapes and processes; there is an important work of documentation and reflection on the future. Some of the areas will simply maintain an existing model, but for many we have rethought it and the pursuit of a better common future forms a strong sense of belonging.
Finally, I would be interested in your personal opinion as to whether you have any further thoughts and ideas on how company takeovers and mergers can be organised more successfully within the company.
We are seeing more and more that companies are finding each other through such processes and seeking advice on corporate culture. I think it’s great that the human aspect is now being recognised as a fundamental part. But supporting transformation processes is still important: I think coaching managers and teams is very important so that it doesn’t become counterproductive and the changes initiated have a greater impact.
Anna Weidlich
Expert for intercultural communication and cooperation (M.A.)
Anna Weidlich, founder of Interkult Training, is an experienced expert in intercultural communication and cooperation with international roots in Russia, Korea and Germany. With multilingual expertise and extensive experience abroad, she supports companies in international cooperation. She acquired her in-depth expertise through a three-year Master’s programme at Munich University of Applied Sciences.
