'We need a certain amount of humility and a sense of humour to discover cultures other than our own; a readiness to enter a room in the dark and stumble over unfamiliar furniture until the pain in our shins reminds us where things are.’ (Trompenaars) 

There are many studies analysing and defining the challenges of cross-cultural management, the most referenced authors being Hofstede and Trompenaars.

Global project managers can consider these dimensions when assigning roles and responsibilities to team members from different country cultures. During the project execution activities, these differences are potential sources of conflict, but can also increase the level of creativity, bringing advantages to the project and reducing group thinking. You should evaluate the information provided in the other knowledge areas using the cross-cultural lenses provided by these dimensions, and form discussion groups to understand how the dimensions can affect your project, and how your project team members fit into the cultural patterns.

In the first chapter of my book, I explain how the cultural dimensions may affect global stakeholders. I illustrate this with real life experiences, and provide one team building exercise that can help project managers to understand how their team members position themselves on the cultural dimensions. The same exercise informs the participants about the cultural dimensions, and how they should respect and value the differences on international teams.