The Year 2000 was a great year for Australian team success on the sporting field, with Olympic medals for women's and men's hockey, women's water polo, women's softball and women's basketball, among others. Not to mention world class performances in men and women's cricket, netball, rugby union and rugby league.

So, why would a country known for its laconic individualism also excel in team sports? Maybe it has something to do with the Australian spirit of mateship – when faced with a common challenge, we're prepared to do things for other people.

But, can mateship contribute to success off the sporting field and in the offices and cubicles of business organisations? How do different cultures see mateship and does mateship translate to successful teamwork in business?

In the business world, most work is now being carried out in some form of team from the manufacturing floor to the executive suite. Work and business is also being globalised, which raises the further complication of teamwork across different cultures. Some cultures have a strong focus on the individual (Australia and the U.S. for example), and others have a cultural preference to focus on the group or collective (Japan, China, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, to name a few).

Recently, I was involved in doing cross-cultural training for several groups of executives from Charles Schwab, the international broking firm, to prepare them for leading a joint venture in Sydney. As I researched American multinationals with operations in Australia, I came across some surprising findings. I was prepared to find the usual cultural differences and disconnects around work ethic, attitude to authority, sense of humour, sexism, leadership, trade unions and the like.

But, I also heard from a number of sources particularly positive comments about the capabilities of Australians in team situations.

Take the example of Hatteras Yachts, located in North Carolina with operations around the world, including Australia. Several years ago, they researched the reasons for success and failure of their various design teams. They noted that a significant number of their design teams around the world had an Australian who was particularly influential in its success. On closer inspection, they discovered the Australians were focused on both task and process, and expressed a point of view made more palatable with self-deprecating humour. Yet, Australians struck a cultural balance between the directness and task focus of other Northern European/American cultures and the more indirect and relationship based cultures of Southern Europe, Asia and Latin America.

In the language of team and group work, the Australian team members were comfortable with the two main functions associated with effective teamwork - task and process skills. Task skills include initiating discussion, providing or asking for information or opinions, clarifying, elaborating and summarising in order to get a job done. Process skills are about keeping the group together and on track, including gate-keeping, harmonising, checking group norms and encouraging team members.

These observations have been confirmed by executives from some of my client companies. They report that in regional team situations in Asia-Pacific, it is often the Aussie who listens to the views of others offline and encourages and represents that voice if the team's process or task focus ignores that perspective.

Do these insights have wider implications?

Australia and many other Western economies have what is often referred to as an individualist cultural preference. People in these cultures make their primary commitments to themselves. Another cultural preference is a collectivist or group oriented one, where people distinguish between their own group, clan or organisation and other groups. In this view, group members hold common goals and expect protection and security in return for their loyalty to the group.

I suggest these two cultural dimensions, while appearing to be diametrically opposed, are in fact quite complementary. The individualist and collectivist preferences can be integrated into successful teams.

The glue for this integration to occur is having a common purpose or challenge. In individualist cultures, whether in business settings or at the larger societal level, individuals need to be actively involved in the development of this shared purpose or common goal, so they make it their own.

Similarly, in cultures with a group preference, like many of Australia's trading partners, clear initiatives with individual accountabilities will be supported if they produce the shared or agreed on purpose to which the group as a whole is committed.

Mateship is a very useful cultural analogue for understanding what drives group and team behaviour in Australia. Mateship is the active choice by individuals to support each other around a common challenge or purpose. This choice has to be freely made. In the organisation or business team, it is just plain good practice to have employees participate and shape the development of the organisational or team vision. Without an explicit shared vision, each person defers to his or her own.

At the end of the day, Australian concepts of mateship could be at the heart of world class business performance, as well as renowned sporting prowess. As global competition increases, so does global collaboration.