Archives for September 2019

Many people struggle with balancing work and family life as they pursue their career goals. Work life balance is a term that is often used to stress the importance of balancing work and family life. The term is defined as “the division of one’s time and focus between working and family or leisure activities” (Arenofsky, 2017, p. 4). It is based on the needs of working men and women and it can affect relationships, finances, health and happiness. (Arenofsky, 2017, p. 3) This can be hard to do when you have a limited time of leave available after the birth of a child or your role has already been defined for you. Women take on multiple roles automatically and this may hinder their balance between work and home life. Corporations that are looking to be successful can embrace diversity by supporting work life balance and offering incentives. This will promote employee engagement, productivity, and managerial support in a culture. (Arenofsky, 2017, p. 3)

One thing to look at that still plagues some in the United States is the role of women. There is a stereotypical thought that women have the responsibility of raising children. (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014, p. 154) Women sometimes hold off on having children in order to pursue their careers because of the thinking that they can’t have both. During the past couple of years thing have started to change slowly as companies realize the importance for diversity. There are some jobs that offer daycare services to help support working mothers. The balance is important to be efficient at work and provide quality of work. The needs of men and women have changed over the years. In some careers individuals may experience working long hours that make it hard to have leisure time.

Another aspect is the amount of time people are spending at work. When an individual is overworked the quality of their work suffers and so will company production. In the United States about 11 percent of people work long hours and in Japan it is about 20 percent. (Arenofsky, 2017, p. 17) In Sweden they are incorporated ways to help bring balance by having a policy on subsidized childcare and required parental leave. (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014, p. 155) Taking steps to ensure that all employees are not being drained and made to feel unimportant helps to build strong relationships with the employee and the employers so that both parties will be successful.

There are things to consider whenever a process is being reconstructed to improve the way of life. As we work towards breaking barriers, we may run into other hurdles that can have an affect on promotions or advancements in career opportunities. One thing that stands out is that women are still looked over when it comes to promotions because they are balancing both work and home. (Moran, Abramson, & Moran, 2014, p. 155) This is unfortunate because their circumstances does not mean that they will not be able to perform these job duties efficiently. Therefore, it is important that there is support by corporations to make vital changes to support diversity and balance.

References
Arenofsky, J. (2017). Work-Life Balance. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, LLC.
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences . New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Global Communication
Posted on September 20, 2019 by Tina Cermignano
Global communication Tina Cermignano
OLEAD 410

The world continues to get smaller as organizations become global and technology makes it easier to connect and work globally. As great as this is to be able to connect with people around the world there comes challenges with these advancements. Communication is one of the biggest issues that employees complain about. This happens with even small organizations that don’t have a global footprint. An example of this difference in what and how things are communicated became very obvious to me when I did a Civil War tour in Atlanta, GA after only having all of my information coming from the Northern perspective. The way this history lesson is taught and how it is described by tour guides in the South are completely different between the two regions. I was confused at times because the differences were so significant. When I asked one of the tour guides about the differences he stated that in the South they learn about the Civil War from a different perspective and that they are not taught that the South lost the war. I found that so interesting but after learning about what needs to happen in communication it makes sense. Imagine the complexities once you are communicating in a global format.
Global communication has the same definition as any communication, it is when “a message is sent from one person or group to another person or group anywhere in the world” (Weedmark, 2018). As with any communication process there is the 5- step process of communicating:
1. the message is sent
2. Message is encoded
3. Message travels through a medium, (voice, phone, text, video, email)
4. Receiver decodes the message
5. Recipient receives the message
This process happens at the very basic level of communication. When communicating globally it is usually during the encoding and decoding process that problems occur (Weedmark, 2018).
I had a unique opportunity a few years ago to participate in a consulting work between the hospital where I work and an independent group in China who wanted to build a Women and Children’s Hospital that would operate under the guidelines and requirements of U.S. healthcare institutions. I worked on this process for many months getting the details of what portion and information in my field of expertise was being requested so that I could than develop the necessary presentation. I then developed a PowerPoint presentation that was high in visual content with brief commentary or descriptions so that the presentation did most of the transfer of information, this was the encoding process. The presentation was then sent to an interpreter to translate the presentation as well as all of my speaker notes, which is equal to the decoding process. When all content was approved and adapted to ensure no incorrect translations the message was sent. When I say the message was sent I mean this was a live presentation between myself and what I believed to be the administrators for this hospital. Since I was presenting live from Philadelphia to participants in China, there was no room for ad-libbing or improve because there was someone across the world interpreting my presentation simultaneously. This required me to stay on script and to inform when to move to the next slide. There was a Q&A portion of the presentation that also required the real time translation back and forth, so additional encoding and decoding occurred in real time as well. I was informed the day before the presentation the Minister of Health would be in attendance for my presentation and I was coached on how to respectfully acknowledge and address this high ranking official. I know the presentation went well because I was told I received a standing ovation. What I did not realize until the end of my presentation was that there were over 200 people in attendance for my presentation from many healthcare institutions in China. I thought I was just presenting to a handful of investors who were interested in building this hospital.
My experience was a very positive experience because we had many months to prepare and work on this presentation. In global organizations there is not the luxury of having all that time to prepare. This is why learning about the different language skills, cultures, values, social norms, attitudes, stereotypes roles and the social organization of the culture is important knowledge to have when you have to communicate globally in more real time situations (Moran, Abramson, Moran, 2014). This is what I was coached to do when addressing the Chinese Minister of Health. To communicate without taking these key items identified by Moran, et. el, will lead to frustration and misunderstandings.
As complicated as global communications are there are some traits that are universal across all countries that can assist leaders with their global communications. Moran, Abramson & Moran explained how all “people have the same set of personality dimensions across cultures that the effects are independent of culture“(pg. 35, 2014). So instead of assuming that because of modern technologies and the ease of communication types that communication quality has improved if those who are communicating do not have the right skills as described above their quality of their communication will not improve (Mayer, 2010).

References
Mayer, M. (2010). Global communications—what does it mean in today’s business? Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2010—North America, Washington, DC. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute. Retrieved from
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/global-scale-communications-teams-challenges-6641
Moran, R., Abramson, N.R., Moran, S., (2014). Managing Cultural Differences, Ninth Edition. Rutledge, New Your, NY

Weedmark, D., June 2018. A Definition of Global Communication, Bizfluent retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/facts-7601794-definition-global-communication.html

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Hello Classmates,

I wanted to resubmit my introduction which was posted to the wrong Blog and I just had my access corrected to the proper site. So i copied my original post for the other site to this one.

Class Introduction
Posted on August 31, 2019 by Tina Cermignano
Hello Fellow OLEAD Classmates.

My name is Tina Cermignano and this is my second time trying to post my introduction on the Blog; finger crossed that it works this time. I have one more semester to go before I graduate with a BS in OLEAD. I returned to Penn State back in 2014 after multiple start and stops throughout many years to finally stick to it and finish my degree. I believe this is my 4th or 5th OLEAD class and most have been with Dr. Redmond. I am looking forward to another interesting class.

I live in the western suburbs of Philadelphia and this semester we became empty nesters as our youngest has just started his college career. We have three amazing children all three which are now in college. My daughter is a 3rd year medical student at Drexel Medical School, current doing her clinical rotations and my two sons are currently at Widener University, a junior studying computer science and a freshman who has entered undeclared. So four of us are currently pursuing higher education.

I work at the #1 Children’s Hospital in the World, (I don’t care what the newspapers say), Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where I am a Senior Operations manager of a very large support services bargaining unit team. In my spare time when I am not working or studying I like to create things. My creative interests go from costumes to paper crafts and anything in between.

I look forward to working with al of you this semester as we learn about Global leadership.

Tina

Communication is key in life. We go throughout our day using different forms of communication to get to where we want to go, express how we feel, what we think and so on. There are very few times when we stop to think about the depth of how important it is to communicate clearly. PSU lesson 4 defines communication as, “the exchange of information between individuals. That information is then used to make decisions that will affect the present and the future of the people involved in communicating those ideas.” (PSU, L.4, p. 1) The way we communicate with others can affect the way those other people see us, can make an impact on forwarding movement in a career, influence the choices others will make etc., this is why It is important to think about the way we communicate with those around us.

“Think before you speak,” is a quote we probably heard, from our parents or anyone else who influenced our lives growing up too many times. But they’re right. It is important to assess who we are communicating with and how to do so before communicating. “The most common assumption is projective cognitive similarity; that is, one assumes that the other perceives, judges, thinks and reasons the same way he or she does.” (Moran, p.77) We are all different and because of that, we all communicate and absorb information differently.

For instance, if someone’s communication style is low- context, “a more direct form of communication” (Moran, p.43),  and they are speaking to someone whose communication style is high -context, “uses more vague forms of communication,” (Moran, p.43)  there will more than likely be a huge misunderstanding and you run the risk of one or both parties getting offended. One person would be used to receiving more information, while the other is assuming the person they’re speaking to knows what they’re talking about. This can lead to a break in friendship, dispute amongst a couple in a relationship, or even a lost opportunity in closing a business deal.

Growing up I was told that there is a difference between hearing someone say something and listening to someone say something. You can hear what someone is saying yet not pay attention to most if anything they have said. “Listening is at the heart of all successful communication.” (Moran, p. 39) When you listen you are intentionally being present. You are paying attention to what is being said, processing it and understanding the information that is given. Combining information gathering and active listening can help us in understanding better which will then allow us to communicate how we feel or what we think after receiving the information. Information gathering allows us to take in the information given to us on both levels, verbally and non-verbally. While active listening allows us to show the person/people giving us the information that we understand.

In possessing the ability to show someone that you understand what they are saying, allows the other party to correct any misinterpretations or reiterate any missed information. This allows for a better understanding of both sides and can build a stronger relationship. The best thing to do is to try to set all stereotypes and assumptions of the person or group you are communicating with aside. “Correct assumptions facilitate communication, but incorrect assumptions lead to misunderstandings, and miscommunication often result.” (Moran, p.76) If we place our assumptions in our back pocket, we are in a sense disarming ourselves. We will be less likely to get offended, less likely to assume and would be quicker to ask for clarification or see things in a different light.

Communication is key. The more we program ourselves to put others first and listen, as oppose to letting ourselves get in the way, the better we will get an enhancing our communication skills.

References:

Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Moran, S. V. (2014). Managing cultural differences (9th ed.). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

Pennsylvania State University (2019). Leadership in a Global Context – OLEAD410. Lesson 04: Global Communication, Penn State World Campus, The Pennsylvania State University. Retrieved September 22, 2019, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2008449/modules/items/27026949

Conflict is most likely to take place after an attempt has been made to resolve an issue through communication. According to At its most basic level, communication is about the exchange of information between individuals. That information is then used to make decisions that will affect the present and the future of the people involved in communicating those ideas (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2013).

When two people get into a physical fight, it is common to see an exchange of words first before any blows are thrown. “conflicts cannot be reduced to the acts of individuals. Rather they are composed of interaction among the parties: moves, responses, and countermoves.” (Joseph Folger, Marshall Scott Poole, and Randall K. Stutman 2012)

Good communication comes as the result of knowing and understanding who you are talking to. Depending who you ask, irony and sarcasm are not a regular thing in Japanese culture. If you are to engage in a sensitive conversation with someone who grew up around Japanese culture that would be something good to know beforehand, otherwise you might come off as being offensive or vague in your attempt to communicate something serious.

Approaching a conversation with bias can also lead to the escalation of the conflict. Recognizing that the world is a diverse place filled with different ideas and beliefs may help you realize that the definition of right and wrong vary based on where you are or who you are around. Conflicts can be avoided by simply taking steps to understand many cultural differences like the few stated above.

References

(Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2013, p . 126) Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2013). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Los Angeles: Sage.

Folger, J. P., Poole, M. S., & Stutman, R. K. (2009). Working through conflict: Strategies for relationships, groups, and organizations. Boston: Pearson Education.

When I first looked into investing in the stock market, I looked for companies that I read would have great upside as well as CEO’s that would continue to push the envelope allowing the company to grow. One company that kept coming across my screen was Amazon and the untapped potential it carried. It has been seen as monopolizer, destroyer of small businesses, and a flat out overworking company. These are labels that people affected by their success point out. In this post I’ll look to focus on Jeff Bezos leadership as well as his communication to his company.

One article I found published by Yousuf Rafi outlines 10 leadership tactics that Jeff Bezos uses to run his company successfully. This includes giving his employees independence in their daily tasks. The reasoning steamed from giving room to think and innovate. Jeff Bezos also likes to communicate with his whole company by providing visions that the workers can relate and be a part of. He sets out a lofty goal of being the most consumer centric as well as stating customers are the top priority.

Jeff Bezos stresses how failure is a part of leadership. Learning from mistakes is what makes a great leader. He goes on to point out the importance of being patient whether that involves a business model or the leadership plan you’ve set before yourself. A leader must trust in the steps they wish to follow.  He see’s how setting a lofty goal of Amazon is a great bar but he was extremely lucky how things turned out.

Finally he stresses being short & specific with communication. Communication is vital to how Amazon came to be. He gives a statement on how people reading memos or power points can become disinterested with length. “Full Sentences are harder to write. They have verbs. The paragraphs have topic sentences. There is no way to write a six page narratively structured memo and not have clear thinking.” (Bezos) He looks to continue this leadership as Amazon continues to grow.

References

Rafi, Yousuf. “10 Leadership Lessons from the Dotcom Mogul Himself: Jeff Bezos TaskQue.” TaskQue, 14 May 2019,

I was particularly struck by Abramson’s insights into geocentrism, as it relates to the differing approaches of ethnocentrism and polycentrism. He makes a compelling case that an organizational leadership team that practices a geocentric approach will ultimately be more successful in a multinational enterprise (MNE), or “a company that does business in two or more countries” (Abramson, 2018, p. 79), than one with an ethnocentric or polycentric strategy. This is due to the fact that geocentrism acknowledges the best aspects of the other two approaches while maintaining the flexibility and adaptability which is necessary for a multinational environment. In reading through this portion of the text, I was reminded of an incident involving a multinational collaboration between Japanese and American car manufacturers that I will explore later on in this post.

An organization is said to be ethnocentric if it denies “the existence of uncertainty and the need to learn, expecting that existing strategies will be effective in new markets” (Abramson, 2018, p. 79). This way of thinking makes the false assumption that the strategies which are successful in your native environment will be the best strategies in other markets. It does not value the diversity and complexity of our globalized world and thus is destined to be outperformed by another organization more adept at making strategies that are optimized to local markets.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is polycentrism. Polycentrism posits that “strategy must take into account only the competitive dynamics and local practices of that foreign market” (Abramson, 2018, p. 80). in other words, a polycentric MNE would result in a grouping of disconnected teams lacking any centralized leadership or cohesive vision. This is because it would seek to implement strategies purely on the basis of individual foreign markets and omit any valuable knowledge from another market.

This is why geocentrism offers the best chance of succeeding in a globalized marketplace. As Abramson states, “With the geocentric mindset, leaders understand that their greatest success is the combining of what is already known from home markets with what is being learned about success in the new foreign market” (Abramson, 2018, p. 80). Any reasonable consideration of these different approaches would acknowledge that designing strategies for a local market and synthesizing them with the best strategies from other markets would result in the best overall approach.

A real-world scenario in which these concepts played out is when Toyota and General Motors launched a joint car-manufacturing factory in California called NUMMI in 1984.The original GM plant had been underperforming prior to the joint venture, and the intention was for the successful Japanese teams to teach the American GM workforce their production practices and management systems. They did so by training a small task force on-site in Japan (amusingly called the “NUMMI Commandos”) who would then return to the NUMMI plant to train the rest of the Americans. Sadly, the effort was ultimately a failure and the plant eventually shut down, and it was due in part to the fact that the American teams were never fully receptive of the Toyota production principles. The NUMMI Commandos were met with hostility and a “that’s not how we do things here” attitude, which is clearly reflective of an ethnocentric mindset. For the approach to have been successful, the American teams would have needed to embrace the successful ideas from other cultures and markets and the Japanese trainers would have needed to be more understanding of the ways in which they could motivate the Americans. In other words, a geocentric approach would most likely have resulted in more success for the overall multinational enterprise.

References:

Abramson, N. R., Moran, R. T., & Harris, P. R. (2018). Managing cultural differences: global leadership for the 21st century. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/us/amtrak-crash-inquiry.html?searchResultPosition=12

When one thinks about miscommunication, what comes to mind? The occurrence is likely something minor or something that may have even caused a heated argument between significant others. It is safe to say that when we think about miscommunication, we do not think of a fatal event where that breakdown in communication was the reason for loss of life. But for an April 2016 Amtrak train crash near Chester, Pennsylvania, that was exactly what happened.

Lesson commentary (2019) tells us that communication is a coding and decoding system in its very basic structure. The process of communication starts with a sender who encodes a message to then be decoded by the receiver. Then the receiver sends feedback, and the process begins again. Errors in communication occur at the encoding and decoding stages of the process, and these errors are noise or bias (Pennsylvania, 2019). In the case of the Amtrak train crash, investigators do not yet know exactly what happened, so we do not know whether the error in communication occurred at the encoding or decoding stage.

No matter where the miscommunication happened, the results were deadly. The Amtrak train going 88 miles per hour collided into a backhoe performing maintenance after the engineer had already put on the emergency brakes, immediately killing the backhoe operator and his supervisor. The investigation, being completed by the National Transportation Safety Board, preliminarily showed that not only did the train operator test positive for marijuana on the day of the crash, an interview with a day shift foreman showed that “there had been confusion in the handoff from a night foreman about whether the track had been cleared for traffic,” (Chokshi, 2017, January 27).

Because of this miscommunication and confusion, two people lost their lives that morning and over 40 others were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment. While the occurrences of miscommunication in our lives are not usually this severe, it is important to remember that errors in communication can have dangerous consequences, even deadly ones.

References

Chokshi, N. (2017, January 27). Inquiry into fatal Amtrak crash reveals error in communication. Retrieved September 21, 2019, from

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/us/amtrak-crash-inquiry.html?searchResultPosition=12

Pennsylvania State University. (2019). Defining communication. Retrieved September 21, 2019, from

https://psu.instructure.com/courses/2008449/modules/items/27026964

What Message are you sending?

If you’re like me, you have been a witness to numerous breakdowns of communication. Typically, communication breakdowns are the cause of a downward spiral in the organization. With a diverse group of cultures this breakdown could occur even greater. We need to communicate better. I was recently told of a scenario that the other managers kept a change in operations from me because they didn’t want to get me upset. Well, as you could imagine when I found out I was even more agitated. Think about the outcome of this event if it occurred across the Country or another culture.

Communication is a process. As with any process if a step is not performed, the entire process will have a negative conclusion. Take your car for instance if you miss the step of putting fuel in the tank the vehicle will not operate. Communication is a process of circular interaction involving a sender, receiver, and message (Moran, Abramson, Moron, 2014, p. 38). I recall playing a game in elementary school over 30 years ago where a person would say something and you would have to pass that message on to the entire class. Well by the time that message got to the end it was different. These minor breakdowns in the communication process cause large breakdowns in the workplace including when dealing with other cultures which may not communicate in the same way.

We can take the steps we use to communicate with other cultures to communicate better in daily communications as well. A cross-cultural faux pas results when we fail to recognize that persons of other cultural backgrounds have certain goals, customs, thought patterns, and/or values different from our own (Moran, Abramson, Moron, 2014, p. 37). Think about that statement. Doesn’t this occur in most of our communication breakdowns not involving different cultures too? If we use communication working together with others in mind our messages will have less chance of confusion and breakdowns. I have learned that everyone has a different view and just because their ways may be different doesn’t mean they are wrong. If we combine strengths we will have better communication as well as a greater outcome.

Cultural communication breakdowns do not only occur in the workplace. My community like many others is seeing a change in cultures. Our community leaders do not understand these changing cultures. All too often we see leaders that are very stuck in their ways that they refuse to change. These blinders have an impact on the entire process. Community leaders need to work with the entire community including the new cultures. Failing to understand predominant values within a society as well as failing to concede that an individual person has a particular set of beliefs will both lead to poor communication (Moran, Abramson, Moron, 2014, p. 41).

In conclusion, think about what your messages send. Keep an open mind to other cultures. Cultural communication may appear to be different but this difference is what keeps us moving forward in a diverse way.

Resources:
Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., Moran, S. V., & Harris, P. R. (2014). Managing cultural differences. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.