Managing Across Cultures To all managers - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 6 Words: 1716 Downloads: 2 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Analytical essay Did you like this example? The purpose of this report is to provide you with an understanding of the techniques that can be used to maximise the performance of a cross-cultural team. There are many more ideas and way available, nevertheless, the ideas here are a start and will enable you to develop your expertise further. With a cross cultural and diverse team you will have a wide pool of skills with those in your team having a very different understanding of what you expect from them. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Managing Across Cultures To all managers" essay for you Create order With a proactive management approach you can maximise these benefits, including training, planning for and committing to diversity as a core strength. By preparing yourself and using the strategies in this report you will be able to achieve synergy, where the team is greater than the sum of the individuals. Many managers and team members question their ability to manage diversity. When someone is different in looks, language, or actions, people may initially feel uncomfortable and wonder how to communicate. After all, the influences that make people behave and interrelate the way they do are complex, and someone unfamiliar with diversity may feel intimidated or confused. Incorporating training into the workplace, based on awareness and understanding of the issues will enable you to lay the foundation for the effective management of a diverse team. Introduction In todays society with cross-culture and diversity in the workplace, it is certain that your team will be diverse. It is the intention that you be made fully aware of how to manage the various cross-cultural and diverse differences. This report will be providing you with information to enable you to understand: the concept of diversity how to communicate effectively the consequences of failing to manage a cross culture and diverse team effectively how to manage a cross culture and diverse team effectively Your team members commitment will depend on whether they are in the core inside circle or involved at a peripheral level. (Kao and NG, 1992) page 377 The key is engaging the member, whereby you will be able to maximise their productiveness. Many of the suggestions will originate from the Handbook by Harry etcc and Anastasia Bibikova and Vadim Kotelnikov, founder of the Ten3 Business e-Coach training material. The concept of diversity Diversity isnt just about how people look or where they come from, its about differences, but not just differences in gender, race, or class. Diversity encompasses other differences as well for example, in abilities or values and beliefs (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). Some narrowly-focused definitions only refer to diversity in terms of basic personal characteristics. But a true understanding of diversity includes more subtle differences. After all, two people from completely different geographical locations may differ in terms of gender, race, or language, but may share the same beliefs. Alternatively, two similar people of the same gender and community and even working in the same organization can have very different beliefs and values (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). Diversity encompasses all the ways in which people differ. Diversity can bring with it new and relevant approaches to work. Only when you move beyond simply thinking of it in terms of someones cultural ba ckground can you reap the rewards diversity can bring. Think about a great manager whos really motivated you in the past. What comes to mind? Many people describe such managers as fair, respectful, encouraging, objective, clear, and good listeners. The key in a diverse work environment is to be this way with everyone and not only with the team members whom you feel comfortable with. Managing a diverse team requires a commitment to demonstrate these kinds of attitudes and behaviours with everyone on the team. The more you can really connect with each of your team members, the more youll be able to create a highly productive environment. Once youve established your initial approach to managing diversity by building cross-cultural awareness in yourself and your team, you need to use different techniques to maintain the approach. One technique for managing a diverse team is to effective communication. How to communicate effectively Problems in communication can often be a result of cross-cultural issues. Diaz-guerrero has suggested that when people interact culture dictates the priorities in their conversation. Pg 341. There is a requirement to grasp cultural singularities in order for effective communication to be achieved (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). Communicating inclusively is being careful that your language doesnt make anyone feel marginalised. All team members should feel comfortable and know their contributions matter. Listening is one of the most important communication skills. You must listen actively to what your team members have to say to be sure you understand what theyre trying to communicate. You also have to be clear when you communicate. Especially in diverse environments, you need to check to make sure all team members understand you (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). The example below illustrates how a simple hand gesture can be misinterpreted (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). Di fficulties in managing your team can arise with discrepancies between cultures. People from different cultural backgrounds have different understanding of what makes a good manager. They also will have different understandings of situations and appropriate behaviour (Shaw 1990, 380-381) Your automatic response may not be seen as correct in the opinion of someone from another culture. (Shaw 1990, 380-381) It is recommended that you allow yourself to be exposed to other cultures. (Shaw 1990, 380-381) As a manager of a mature team you will have established a common ground of communication and a basis for mutual understanding. (Anderson, 381) In such circumstances the cultural diversity will not be a hindrance to maximise the teams performance. (Graen and Wakabayasia, 1984, 381) The consequences of failing to manage a cross culture and diverse team effectively In the workplace, there are job demands that require a certain degree of conformity. Does that mean everyone should strive to become more similar, especially when they have to work together? Not at all, people can be very diverse and still find common ground (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). Some cultures and particularly those in Asian countries, devalue work and associate physical labour to being in slavery. (Frans Maeh Sali |Desai, 374). But more and more, people understand that all the various groups have a great deal to contribute, and can still retain and even celebrate their differences. This doesnt mean its always easy to manage diversity effectively and if its not managed well, diversity can actually decrease group cohesiveness, making it difficult for teams to benefit from their differences in perspective. A challenge for you is to encourage greater cohesion. If diversity isnt managed well, differences can result in wide-ranging effects on a team: social catego risation in a process known as social categorisation, people may judge team members as like me as part of an ingroup or as different from me as in an outgroup poor communication language differences that arise with diverse teams can result in poor communication that impedes understanding conflict team members may feel discomfort with differences, have attitudes based on stereotypes, or be biased against the unfamiliar, which can all lead to conflict (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). Social categorisation and poor communication often lead to stereotyping. Its common, especially when a new team meets, for members to form opinions about each other based on what they see. They also form opinions on how they expect people to behave. But stereotypes are closed categories that leave no room for individual differences or exceptions, conflict can occur. When people hold preconceived ideas, theyre resistant to ideas or individuals that challenge the stereotype and the person bei ng stereotyped often resents being pigeonholed (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). This emphasises the need for businesses to manage their teams more effectively. Managing a diverse team effectively A team consisting of many cultures is not necessarily a recipe for disaster. (Anderson, 381) Diversity helps to spark creativity, expand horizons, reveals new ways to approach the world, or grow a business. Without diversity in the workplace, companies run the risk of becoming mono cultural, with only one limited perspective. Effectively managing diversity goes beyond respecting the differences between people. Its about putting those differences to work in the best possible way for both the company and your team members Managing diversity in the workplace is more than simple compliance with laws and regulations. Effective diversity management can address issues such as social categorisation, poor communication, and conflict, and create stronger, more cohesive teams. You can reap several benefits from being able to manage diverse teams effectively: encourage greater creativity youll be able to encourage the greater creativity that comes with a diverse team develop high-quality solutions youll be able to harness the potential of diverse teams to make better-qua lity decisions and develop high-quality solutions be a more effective leader youll be seen as a more effective leader who can direct and guide a cohesive team of diverse individuals create job satisfaction for your team members youll create better job satisfaction for your team members, who will then be more motivated to work for you A diverse team thats well managed one thats comfortable communicating all the varying points of view can be more creative. That same creativity can lead to better team decisions and solutions and resulting in a high performance team. Conclusion When you manage a diverse team well, you can inspire them to perform beyond their perceived potential. Youll be seen as a more effective and valued leader as you are able to communicate well with a diverse group of individuals. By showing your team that their needs and interests are important, youll also create better job satisfaction for all. In turn, your team will be more motivated to achieve the results to enhance your position (Bibikova and Kotelnikov, 2010). In a global business environment, it can be a challenge to manage a diverse team effectively. You need to be able to harness all your team members potential to help them improve their performance. Not managing diverse teams effectively can lead to the problems of social categorisation, poor communication, and conflict and the result in loss productivity. There are many benefits to being able to manage a diverse team effectively. Youll be able to encourage greater creativity, come to better team decisions and solutions, be a more effective leader, and have a happier and more motivated team.

Challenges Faced By Ethnic Minority Supervisors - 1216 Words

Challenges Faced By Ethnic Minority Supervisors in Clinical Supervision Personal Preparation My specialization paper will focus on the challenges faced by ethnic minority supervisors in clinical supervision. My paper is guided by the courses I took in the doctoral program, my personal experience as a supervisor and the gaps in literature review that motivated me to pursue this area of research. In the past two and a half years of my doctoral program, I took courses (advanced clinical supervision, advanced family counseling, and independent research in multicultural counseling supervision, multicultural literature for children and adolescents, and a course on survey design in educational research) to help me better understand the cross-cultural supervision and different challenges supervisor’s face in cross-cultural supervision. These courses helped me to look into how ethnicity and clinical supervision are related at a much deeper level, and how same/different ethnicity of supervisors and supervisee affect the supervision process. The UF doctoral program has given me a unique opportunity to supervise many supervisees from cultures (Chinese, Taiwanese, Hispanic, African American, and White Caucasian American) different than mine. As a result, I have experienced some challenges as a supervisor in the supervisory relationship that taught me how speaking about ones culture shapes the supervisory alliance. I have learned that I should communicate openly about myShow MoreRelatedAfrican American Struggles747 Words   |  3 PagesStruggles Shaneisa Smith Soc 308: Racial Ethnic Groups Risa Garelick November 23, 2011 AFRICAN AMERICAN STRUGGLES 2 African American Struggles African Americans are knows to face various issues throughout their lives. 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Continue Improve Strong Brand Image Market â€Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Continue Improve Strong Brand Image Market? Answer: Introducation Our Chief executive officer Mr. Peter Drury, all protocols observed, ladies and gentlemen. Without much ado, allow me to introduce myself briefly for today, since its the first I am meeting majority of you here at this great company Shopz for Us. My name is Mr. Alvaro Morata, the incoming Chief Marketing Officer for the company. We are all gathered here today for the annual road-show for the company and its a great opportunity for us to take stock of what the year has been as well as laying foundation for the new financial year 2017. Our company is in a great position today in the market and I believe we still have enormous potential to within us to further strengthen the company position in the market and improve on our brand image. Ladies and gentlemen, the future belongs to those who prepare for it today and as you can see Shopz for Us has taken it upon itself to plan for the future and we therefore expect to count our success come next year during this particular event. My role as the company Chief Marketing officer majorly involves building a strong brand preposition of the company in the market, ensuring both the marketing and operational activities of the company work in tandem and in a way that brings out teamwork for better achievement of the organizational objectives as set out by the company. I will do this together with my colleague the companys Chief operating officer. More specifically, my role involves overseeing the companys planning, development and execution of the marketing strategies geared towards achieving the sales targets across our brands and those that we distribute in all our stores across Australia. My primary responsibility is to generate revenues for the company through sales by engaging the company in successful marketing strategies revolving around product marketing and pricing, market research, improved public relations and advertisements through various channels such as TV, print media and online platforms. I am also re sponsible for the new product development as guided by the demand in the management, improving our supply chain to meet the demand curve of our market. The role also include customer service which is basically about improving the experience our customers get whenever they visit our shop and by using the actual products purchased from us. The customer experience and service is our core activity that enables us to serve our customers well and improve their loyalty to our products. As a company we continually seek to improve in all fronts guided by our previous experience and the opportunities that keep on arising from time to time in our market. The marketing department under my leadership will continually endeavor to always put Shopz for Us brands in the mind of any customer in who thinks of buying any men or women clothing in markets where we have presence. (Ferrell, 2016) The company has put in place strategic measures that are aimed to improve its performance. Key among them and the one that falls under my jurisdiction as the company chief marketing officer is revamping of our brand image in the market. This basically entails telling our people our values as the company through various media channels that exist. The recent adverse media reporting about our company need to be dealt with it immediately because we believe that that is not really who we are as our values are strong in the society and the public in general. The aim for this strategic decision is to improve consumer confidence in purchasing and wearing our products knowing very well that its made and distributed by a reputable organization. Consumer behavior and taste is what drives sells, this strategic decision will ensure that our products has the best moral image and strong brand standing in the market that influences the consumer behavior in our favor. My department will put a sharp f ocus on this aspect of our company and reverse any negative ratings that the company brand may have suffered as a result of adverse media propagated by some of the media houses and online platforms in Australia. The leadership of the company as well as its people will therefore stand to benefit from the improved media relations that the company seeks to achieve in a short term period. The company also has put in place a strategic measure to ensure that there is teamwork and constructive collaboration among its internal workforce. The company looks to streamline the functions of the marketing department and those of operations department with the view of aligning them together for the purposes of improving teamwork and efficiency of the company business. Under this particular strategic measure the company will eliminate processes that are not complimentary to each other and replace them with those that are complimentary to each other. With this, there will be better co-operation betw een the marketing department and the operation department that will make it easy for the company to achieve its business objectives in a seamless and timely manner that brings more benefit to the company. The marketing and the operations activities of the company should work hand in hand because its through marketing that the company will be able estimate the expected number of sales per individual products which will then advice the operations department to work in a way that will be optimal for the company. This strategic measure will see the performance of each the employee given a fair chance to be on top without any hindrances that may be brought about by internal competition. In turn this will boost the moral of all the employees of the company and thus the management will have an easy time in running the affairs of the company in its endeavor to meet or exceed the company objectives. These major strategic measures therefore will see our company improve and be more successful in the market. (Hawkins and Mothersbaugh, 2017.) My department will implement the following measures and initiatives for the forthcoming financial year of the company. In line with the company vision to introduce designer labels across our stores, my department will immediately begin vetting of the designers whose designs and ideas marries well with our clientele. The department under my leadership would want to ensure that we dont loose our brand identity as Shopz for Us that may adversely affect consumer behavior towards our products. We will also ensure that the designers whose work will be displayed in our stores are of good moral standing in the eyes of the public so that we avoid further adverse media on products and image of our brand. The designers will audition for this purpose and as company we dont intent to lock international designers who can attend the auditions in person or send a representative who will be able to articulate all the issues concerning such as the theme of the designs as well as their market niche. Regarding the company objective of setting up an online platform through which we do more sells, my department plans to implement this objective using a carefully thought out plan aimed at getting maximum results or output for the company. We will first launch this program using existing resources such as our website which will need a few changes to accommodate capabilities such as visitors being able to view products online, ability to search products using sizes, colors and other parameters and the capacity of the website to accommodate increased traffic we envisage as soon as we go online. The interfaces will be made user-friendly in that the customers will still get the best experience in shopping with us same way he/she would have experienced if shopping in our one of our physical stores. The company will also utilize its followers on its social media handles such as Instagram and twitter so has to leverage on the existence resource to launch online platforms for selling product s. This strategy will also see the company use little outlay in terms of the budget and thus realize optimal profits for our company and shareholders. In seeking franchise partnerships my department will conduct an easement of the franchise applications which will be made to the company. The easement will be based on the finding market capabilities of the financial applicants to see which ones among offers the best position for us in terms of complimentary marketing activities that will see our company benefit more. To expound on this, we as Shopz for Us are very keen on ensuring that all our processes compliment each other as opposed to contradicting each other. In view of this therefore ladies and gentlemen, Shopz for Us will only approve franchises whose marketing capabilities compliment what we have and whose other brand suits our customer base or market niche. To improve the image of our brand my department will embark on massive public relations activities that are majorly aimed to improve our image and brand strength in the market. This will be done in a series of initiatives starting with running of our core values in the leading Australian media houses along with the products that we sell. We will seek to let the people and the general public that as Shopz for Us we value our people dignity and right of association or disassociation. That our company has put in place measures through its human resource division that ensures no one in the organization can be forcefully made to engage in any activity that they dont like. Our values such as integrity and honesty will remind people of who we are and despite of the challenges that we may face we have values that guides us and anyone of us going against it undergoes due disciplinary measures as set out in our human resource manual on employees code conduct. The company will through its socia l media platforms call for customers who think we have best products in the market and that our people are nice and respectful to be our ambassadors. The main aim of this is to let other people talk on about who we are so that there is transparency and believability in the message that we are trying to pass across to the public given that its being said by a different and independent party. To assess the success of the measure taken by the company the marketing department will carry out a survey in the public to find out about how successful our brand image campaign is in terms of what the public now thinks about our brand and people who work for us. The outcome that we will get from this survey will help us make informed and necessary changes in the initiatives and media campaigns for the subsequent years. The department in line with the overall objective of teamwork put in place initiatives that will encourage all the employees of the company to value teamwork rather than more on individual success. These initiatives include rewarding employees that contribute more on achieving this agenda such as giving business leads to other employees in the company for the greater benefit of the organization as a whole. These rewards ladies and gentlemen are meant to encourage our employees to work together as a unit and improve our companys internal organization. Research indicates that teamwork is likely to bring out optimal results among the employees as opposed to working in isolation. The reason behind this ladies and gentlemen is that human beings are social beings in nature. They are wired to work as a group more than in individualistic manner. The fact that they are social being makes teamwork achievable and a realistic goal for the company. When working as a team individual member may, in the cause of their duty, come across an innovative idea or business lead that is not relevant to his or her department or job description but the same innovative idea or business lead can greatly benefit a colleague in a different unit of the organization. With teamwork in place the company is likely to come up with an innovative product in the market that will give it a competitive edge in the market thus making more sales. On the other hand the business lead given to a different person within the organization may materialize simply because the person given could be in better position to close that particular business for the company due to the closeness he or she has with the customer in question. In conclusion therefore my colleagues, it is my sincere hope that Shopz for Us will have a great year based on the plans that weve put in place to ensure that the company continue to improve and gain a strong brand image in the market. I take this opportunity to wish you all, all the best in the forthcoming year and may you achieve or exceed both your personal and organizational targets for the New Year. Thank you for listening! References Ferrell, O. (2016). Marketing strategy. [S.l.]: Cengage Learning. Hawkins, D. and Mothersbaugh, D. (2017.). Consumer behavior.

The Gift of the Magi Quotes

'The Gift of the Magi' Quotes The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry is a holiday favorite. The cherished moments in this work have become a Christmas tradition both in the original and many iterations. Do you remember the quotes? Perhaps youve read or heard the lines without even realizing it. Here are a few quotes from the short story and here are some questions to think about. Quotes Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds.She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friendsa mammoth task.His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle o f two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.