Building Effective Teams - Communication Issues

Scenario: You and the other HR managers are working with a training consultant on a program for cross-cultural supervisors. You are contributing information and expertise in the area of dealing with conflicts when they arise on a team, with a focus on how areas of conflict can be complicated by cultural differences in team members.

Problem: The training consultant has asked you to make notes for them describing two situations where you saw that communication issues on a team you were involved in that caused a serious misunderstanding and led to problems.

- If the problem was caused by only one member, was the problem obvious to others, or were you the only person who noticed it? How did you deal with it?

 - If the problem was primarily between two team members and did not directly involve others on the team, what caused this problem?

How did the team deal with it? Also, they want you to suggest a communication strategy that would have prevented these issues.