multicultural teams

In my opinion know how to deal with multicultural teams is not just a manager job. Nowadays, where multiculturality at work is growing so fast because the need of companies to have different point of views to solve day-to-day conflicts and to be innovative, so, all of us should be worry or be aware of differences. Now is not one person going abroad to work and  adapt to that culture, today, is more than one adapting to that culture and that culture to them to work in harmony.

Having multicultural teams have it advantages and disadvantages.

-Advantages: as i said before one of the goal of companies to have multicultural teams is to be more innovative because all members have different thoughts and different perspectives of how to do or solve something, another advantage is that as diversity is getting bigger in companies, it is happening also in countries so, having different cultures in teams make easier the communication with customers knowing how to reach some targets better and decreasing misunderstandings.

- Disadvantages: one of the major is the misunderstanding among team members because of their different communication forms. The mistrust could happen also if they don´t have a guide to make them meet each other, accept each other and work as a compact team.

The other importan point for me was the model of "Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing" that defines the steps to reach success in a team.

Forming: where the team star to know each other, they are polite and positive but still everyone with their doubts in mind.

Storming: in this step people start to disagree, going against rules and everyone starts to take it own road.

Norming: They understand they are a team so people start to try solve these problems knowing better among them and trying to understand their differences to work as a team and achieve common goals.

Performing: when the team achieve synergy, working without friction and is easier for others to join the group.

The importance of a team building

As i said in my last blog, when employees are comfortable at work they will do their job with the best attitude and to reach this, is important for the groups to work in a good atmosphere because they have most of the time of the day in an office, co-workers are like their second family.

Executing team building make team members know better each other and help to break the ice among them. Is also important to build a better trust not only among them but also including the manager where they can see at him/her more like a friend but still with that respect of boss.

A team building constructs a team outside the office, creates group dynamics that make each member identify his/her role and is so important also to know better our abilities, fears and weaknesses to improve them.

Source:

http://www.ineventos.com/co/blog/team-building-construccion-de-equipo.aspx

Motivating across cultures

Motivation: As we saw in class there are different factors that affect motivation at work. as Herzberg define some of these like hygiene factors, negative motivations as salary, work condition, security etc... i think that some companies are not having into their objectives one of the most important factors the happiness of human capital, they are so worry about revenues and profits that forget this aspect. The first aspect that make money for companies.

They understand but not apply. some managers still don´t believe that if the employee is happy at work and is motivated, he/she would do the  job giving his/her 100%. 

One of the theories we saw in this class was Maslow´s theory, where he define 5 important aspects in a pyramid that help to maintain workers motivation. These are divided in 3 main aspects: Existence,relationship and growth (from the base to the top of the pyramid). 

In existence, we find the 2 principal factors of the pyramid that are the physiological needs as the salary, a comfortable place to work, cleaning and restrooms, and security where the employee should have a good plan for health a professional plan in the company etc...

Relationship includes another 2 factors of the pyramid, bellonging and steem. The first make reference to the relationship among the group, the spaces the company creates to entertainment and make people interact, and the second to feedbacks, responsabilities, control and awards.

and finally growth which only includes self-actualization where the company encourage commitment, work with CEOs etc... Of course there existe many theories about motivation as it is one of the most important issues at work. Depending on cultures it also exist different factors that motivate people as we all have different interests.

Because we all need different motivations to make things done, applying theories is useful as guides but most important is to have tools to know what motivates people, the 4 steps recommended in class are good to start:

- Gather people - ask for general motivators - clarify meaning and - everyone priorities.

In my opinion one of the best ways to know what motivates people is knowing better their lives, try to be detail with how they act, what they like and try to apply those things in the company, asking people what they want and make them feel good in the workplace.

A good example of this is GOOGLE, yes that big company that for me is the only one that has succeeded in make people work more than 8 hours happily. Why? because if you don`t know employees in GOOGLE works even in lunch time! Yes, GOOGLE´s CEO says that the best moment for employees to be creative is in lunch time and thats why they have more than 10 different types of food daily with excellent chefs from different parts of the world making food for workers. That way if they eat hapily they are more creative. Additionally, they don´t need to worry about their pets or kids because everything is inside the buildings, stress? want to do exercise? OK go to GOOGLE´s gym with personal trainers, jacuzzi and others. so, yes definitely it is important to have employees happy to make money.

first class!

the 2 most important point viewed in class were:

The importance of knowing cultures, not only in firsts principles of theirs but also more deeply thinking in the behavior of people of each culture guide by their different believes such as their religion, geographic location, language etc.. 

is important to know or obtain  the most information about another culture due to allow us to determine how their values, patterns and thoughts could be focus on as a collective culture. Of course we have our own individual side that manage our way of acting (personality) but most of this behavior are linked up with the collective ones.

Culture is more than just a costume, you could know very well one culture but live and adapt to it is a different thing as we have like a cassette in our minds making less easier to act as other cultures. Sometimes is difficult to understand people from our same culture because of  misunderstandings in communication so is much more difficult to do it with others that must have another language and costumes.

 For what is very useful knowing others culture is at the time of doing business where you must understand the principal rules of it, what to do and what not to do.

the other important point is the cultural iceberg that goes hand in hand with the previous topic; this theory talks about the visible part of a culture that is something around 10% ( like the small piece we can see on icebergs) but, under that percentage is something bigger build up of perceptions, roles, believes, etc...

Religion as a dimension of culture

The rol religion plays in culture is so important because men is determine by his relation with God and looks at him as the creator of human, dont matter the way each culture call him its known for all cultures that someone created us. as we were born and raised with that idea, is something that lives everyday with us and therefore, must be part of our culture.

"the religion is the substance of the culture, and culture the shape of religion" said Paul Tillich, la era protestante.

There is an important aspect of religion and is the faith which is define as the determination of men; Faith is what moves us day to day, even people that do not believe in God, have faith on something.

So, as culture covers so many things about our behavior and lifestyle the meaning of men is better describe in religion, in believes and faith.

sources: http://www.contra-mundum.org/castellano/libros/concepto/CCC03.pdf

Germany & Eastern Europe

During this class we learn more about countries in which people speak german as Germany traditions like oktoberfest, the world´s larger beer festival in where of course people drink and eat the Germany traditional food as pork sausage and spit-roasted chicken during 16 days. The metaphor that describes Germany is the symphony, I guess because most of the people there is characterized by the precision and perfection.

The other countries that has german as language are: Austria, Switzerland and lichstenstein. Comparing Switzerland, Germany and Austria in Hofstede dimensions, we could saw that in most of the dimensions they have a high score except in PDD, where the three are below 50.

An interesting thing I learn from this class was te definition of Dutch, which I always believed was the same as german, but Dutch is the native language of Netherland, Suriname and Belgium population. It is characterized by being a combination of English and Germanic as teacher explain in his presentation.

Dutch culture: for this people the truth is very important, expressed as the main value of their culture. Family is the center of their life. Something very interesting is that is a culture that tries to view the woman as equal as the men in work environment but, for example in Belgium is more equal this aspect

Talking about business, is people very punctual as people in Belgium so they expect the same from others but still are informal when negotiating.

In the other hand, we have Eastern Europe composed by Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgary, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and others. The difference in Hofstede dimensions are more remarkable in the PPD where most of this countries are above the 50 and their indulgence level is very low.

GERMANY AND ECOLOGY

Germany has come to be during the last years  one of the countries with more awareness in terms of ecology. Frankfurt has been one of the most important due to they have more than the 50% of the surface dedicated to green areas. The buildings use 20% less of energy compared with other European countries thanks to their passive-house system that forces constructors to build under some regimes to make it possible.

Frankfurt is the city where people use more public transportation (almost 64% of them). The thing that calls more my attention is that because of government strict regulations to care about environment people have been taking more awareness about it and are integrating this new lifestyle with design, making the city something nice to live and visit. Being one of the countries  with more population, and is reaching more goals of the Kioto´s protocol than others where is supposed to be easier for the small ones.

The city has been created different initiatives that makes people know how to take advantages from energy, ventilation and others to make people familiarized with sostenible ways. 20 years ago they create their " green belt" which is a green space that surround the country and where the majority of the gardens are under protection. 

Source: http://www.empresayeconomia.es/actualidad/la-ecologia-alemana.html

http://especiales.elcorreo.com/vitoria-capital-verde-europea-2012/noticias/2012-07-03/frankfurt-centro-industrial-capital-verde-1147.html

ONION MODEL!!

During this class after the presentation about latin America and latin Europe, we saw a topic that calls my attention so much because even we heard all our career about Hofstede, the “Onion Model” was new for me, this model was creatd to understand the cultures from a visual perspective; Where the human behavior could be explain through layers (as the onion) by in terms of culture.

The outer layers are compose of the patterns of behavior, the more superficial chracteristics, The next layer encompasses the beliefs, norms and attitudes of that culture. The middle of the onion represents the underlying cultural assumptions and values. As the most hidden layer, these aspects of culture are much harder to recognise and understand, but all of the other layers are built upon the centre of the culture onion.

So, to understand cultures  and having it into account is very useful to know how those parts of the culture interact and their significance. Then, we can have a more holistic knowledge to negotiate, travel etc..

Hermeneutics

Understanding and interpretation of inguistic and non-linguistic expressions.  In the course of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, hermeneutics emerges as a crucial branch of Biblical studies. Later on, it comes to include the study of ancient and classic cultures. It important proponents are: Heidegger, Gadamer.

Human being, Gadamer argues, is a being in language. It is through language that the world is opened up for us. We learn to know the world by learning to master a language. Hence we cannot really understand ourselves unless we understand ourselves as situated in a linguistically mediated, historical culture. Language is our second nature.

Another cultural model

Iceberg: This model is also used to elucidate the concept of culture, The image of the iceberg with its small visible part on the surface of the water and the much bigger invisible part below the surface illuminates the different layers of culture. 

The upper portion is the first impression when we face a culture, the music, food, language, The portion below the surface stands for those elements which are not as obvious such as values, beliefs and attitudes.

The behaviour of different cultures may appear less foreign and possibly less threatening with an understanding of their particular worldviews, motivations, religious beliefs, attitudes to rules, and other cultural orientations.

Big companies and culture

Are big companies changing the typical customs of countries? As we discuss last class and watch the video of coca-colonization, i think the companies always are going to do their best to make people consume their products because is their goal, make money and make people happy and feel satisfy with their products. So, as we were talking about if coca-cola are changing, for example, french culture because of their wine or the tea in china, i think that the culture is in our blood and because of consuming coca-cola or other products of big brands doesn´t mean we are going to turn our culture, beliefs and costums. By the other hand, we have to understand that trends change and those markets also have to make their marketing investigations to compete and maintain theirselves alive. Globalization is about that, creating opportunities for all and the survivals are going to be those who take advantage of that.

Our minds changes but traditional industries are going to survive anyways because there are markets for everything , every people choises and lifestyles. So the issue now is how those companies are going to create new strategies to remind people what we are and what we use to consume before those companies and why is important to preserve that costums.

 GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURE

The current era of globalization, with its unprecedented acceleration and intensification in the global flows of capital, labour, and information, is having a homogenizing influence on local culture.

This influence of globalization promote the integration of countries and with that, countries has been loosing some of their roots because of the information and lifestyles received from others so, our minds are open to learn and received new ways of life and it may occur a loss of identity. This is especially true for traditional societies and communities, which are exposed to rapid ‘modernisation’ based on models imported from outside and not adapted to their context.

In my opinion this could be bad because as this article says people are loosing their escence but it also is all about balance, not being an excesive consumer but either closed to new things and technology. For me is important to be inform about things happening in other countries, learn about other cultures and  other languages. So, as everything has it positive and negative things we have to take advantage of th good things it can provede us.

qualitative method to identify cultures

IMPORTANT POINTS!

1. we learned about Spain that is a hierarchical culture, they like rules and they think changes causes stress.

They are a collectivist society due to they perceived teamwork as a natural, they tend to work this way. Confrontation is avoided.

Spain is defined as a normative country, they like t olive the moment without worrying about the future. Is not an indulgent society, which means they have a tendency to be pessimism.

So this class show us the qualitative way of a culture as Gannon´s metaphors, where he use a characteristic of the country to develop most part of their culture. What happens with this, is that those qualitative tools can take us to generalize about people behavior but still knowing of what their lives turn around on.

2. the second most important topic is that we cant really know a single way to describe a culture, there is not only one thing that describes it completely so, its better to have different opinions and point of view to makes us the idea of what a country could be.

 CULTURE AND NEGOTIATION

As an article from the business journal, written by Jeswald W. Salacuse where he say that “international business deals not only cross borders, they also cross cultures”, i think this is the 60-70% of the success of a negotiation. Understanding a culture, is to understand a different way of thinking, what influences the communication form and their behaviors, so if you can put “in others shoes” you can do better strategies to negotiate, know about what to talk, how tos ay hello, what to do and what don´t to be respectfully with the others.

He talk in his article about ten particular elements that can complicate intercultural negotiations:

1.negotiating goal: the different point of views parties have in the negotiation, the different interest they have. first and foremost, is a signed contract between the parties. Other cultures tend to consider that the goal of a negotiation is not a signed contract but rather the creation of a relationship between the two sides

2.negotiationg attitude: the intention of the negotiation could be for one culture win-win and for the other one win-lose.

3.personal style: how one negotiator talks to the other one, the way of dressing, of interact etc… all this issues are influenced by the culture how serious and important we think a negotiation is, how formal or informal.

4. communication: some cultures emphasize in direct methods of communication and others in indirect communication, being more complex when talking.

5. sensitivity to time: It is said that Germans are always punctual, Latins are habitually late, Japanese negotiate slowly, and Americans are quick to make a deal. This makes reference of how we estimate the time a negotiation is going to take or the time we need to invest in it.

6.emotionalism: According to the stereotype, Latin Americans show their emotions at the negotiating table, while the Japanese and many other Asians hide their feelings. ITs a tendency but not necessarily have to be like this. In the author’s survey, Latin Americans and the Spanish were the cultural groups that ranked themselves highest with respect to emotionalism in a clearly statistically significant fashion. Among Europeans, the Germans and English ranked as least emotional, while among Asians the Japanese held that position, but to a lesser degree.

7. formo of agreement: Cultural factors influence the form of the written agreement that the parties make.

Generally, Americans prefer very detailed contracts that attempt to anticipate all possible circumstances and eventualities, no matter how unlikely. Other cultures, such as the Chinese, prefer a contract in the form of general principles rather than detailed rules. 

8.building an agreement:  Does it start from an agreement on general principles and proceed to specific items, or does it begin with an agreement on specifics, such as price, delivery date, and product quality, the sum total of which becomes the contract? Different cultures tend to emphasize one approach over the other.

9. team organization: who has the authority to make commitments, and how decisions are made. Culture is one important factor that affects how executives organize themselves to negotiate a deal.

10. risk taking: In deal making, the negotiators’ cultures can affect the willingness of one side to take risks– to divulge information, try new approaches, and tolerate uncertainties in a proposed course of action.

SOURCE

http://iveybusinessjournal.com/topics/the-organization/negotiating-the-top-ten-ways-that-culture-can-affect-your-negotiation#.VEwjBouG8hq