So, you would like to work in or do business with the Middle East.  Perhaps before you start out on this venture we should examine the ease of doing business with each of the top six countries as ranked by the World Bank.

 

These are:

Economy World Rank GCC Rank (Irfan, 2010)

Saudi Arabia 13 1

Bahrain 20 2

United Arab Emirates 33 3

Qatar 39 4

Kuwait 61 5

Oman 65 6

Based on this information, Saudi Arabia seems like the logical choice for the new business trying to break into the Middle Eastern Market.  Irfan goes on to say: “Newcomers to the region can protect their interests in the context of an unfamiliar business environment by a) becoming as familiar as they can with Gulf business culture and ethics; b) acquiring a basic understanding about Islam; c) thoroughly researching the companies they do business with in the Gulf (in particular, the company’s track record in dealing with foreign companies); d) securing a reliable local partner or intermediary to guide you early on; d) seeking appropriate legal advice when working on your first few deals.”

Perhaps the most important of these tips from Irfan is the first two; familiarizing yourself with their culture and ethics and understand Islam.  Beyond a doubt when doing business in any foreign country you must have some background in their culture and ethical ways.  Making a wrong gesture or comment can thwart months of work it took to get to a point of contract or negotiating.  For instance, in Islam culture it is considered rude to not shake hands, and in fact, “holding hands among men is common and does not carry the same connotations as it does in the West.” (Kwintessential, ND) It is also considered rude to ask about women of their family such as their wife or daughter; keep questions about family in a general context.  When greeting business women it is advisable to wait and see if a hand is extended. If it is not, then do not try to shake hands. Avoid touching and prolonged eye contact with women. (Kwintessential, ND) Prolonged eye contact between the sexes in the Middle East is considered very intimate.

As a Westerner you may find it Interesting that ”the Arabs do not separate professional and personal life. Doing business revolves much more around personal relationships, family ties, trust and honour. There is a tendency to prioritise personal matters above all else. It is therefore crucial that business relationships are built on mutual friendship and trust.” (Kwintessential,ND) This makes it extremely beneficial to have a local Middle Easterner as an intermediary.  And, lastly, “the Middle Eastern culture places more value on someone’s word as opposed to a written agreement. A person’s word is connected to their honour. Contracts are viewed as memorandums of understanding rather than binding, fixed agreements. Be sure to promise only things you can deliver. Failure to do so will result in loss of honour.” (Kwintessential,ND)

Understanding Islam that Islam is more than just a religion is also imperative to doing business in this region.  “It addresses personal life in regards to hygiene, eating habits, prayer and worship offered to Allah through the recitation of the Quran. It addresses family life in the way we marry and rear children , teaching them values about the meaning of life, being good, honouring parents and elders, and how to believe in and obey Allah. It addresses the communal life in the way we should look after our neighbours, protecting their rights, and how we should look after those less fortunate than us, protecting them from harm and degradation. It also addresses governmental matters in that Islam provides a model for how its rules and laws should be implemented in society, whether societal, penal , judicial or economic. Indeed, it even addresses international relations.”(Islam, ND) You can obviously see how business is intertwined with government and government intertwined with religion, so be assured that you must appreciate Islam as their religion and their way of life in order to be accepted as a business partner.  This is a far cry from our Western culture where we have gone to extreme lengths to separate church from state and our capitalistic society.

 

References:

Irfan, Mohammad, 2010, 12 Tips for Doing Business in the Middle East retrieved from: http://www.businessknowhow.com/manage/middleeast.htm

Islam Explained, No Date, retrieved from: http://islam-explained.info/cache/124/1244271550.html

Kwintessential LTD, No Date, Doing Business in The Middle East, retrieved from: http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/etiquette/doing-business-middle-east.html

(Jing,2012)

Process Improvement and synergy, in my opinion, go hand-in-hand. The process of improving a workplace in modern business revolves around a team of employees brought together to solve an issue.  This team is usually developed from different parts of the company and often times includes the customers and suppliers as well.  This philosophy of team is reinforced by Dr. Redmond in our lesson 6 from OLEAD 497B “In general a leader who wants to successfully prevent conflict from harming the organization will create a process that encourages teamwork, provides resources to encourage strong communication, and allows for open discussion of ideas.”

It is through this open discussion of ideas among the team members where true collaboration and teamwork develop.  However, “people need to be trained on the skills needed to help build and maintain teamwork. This includes how to build a healthy team by balancing task (getting the job done) and maintenance (ensuring everyone feels unique and appreciated). Consensus decision-making is critical to a team’s success, so people need to be trained in how to make true consensus decisions.” (BPI, 2011).

The people aspect and their open lines of communication are the true basis for synergy within a company.  When they work together and play off one another’s positive attributes to attain a certain goal synergy is achieved, customers are satisfied and businesses prosper.

References:

Consulting, BPI,  Balancing People and Process retrieved from: http://www.spcforexcel.com/balancing-people-and-process

Jing, Lisa, 2012,Demographic Changes and Employee Engagement, retrieved from:  http://www.synergyatwork.com/enlightened-business-and-employee-engagement/demographic-changes-and-employee-engagement/

Redmond, Brian Dr., 2015, OLEAD497B: Leadership in a Global Context, retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/olead497b/001/content/06_lesson/01_page.html

 

 

Let’s face it, as individuals we are faced with change throughout our entire lives it simply has to happen in order for us to grow and mature. Physically, mentally, and in business.  Corporations are learning (if they have not already), that they must change also if they are to stay relevant in today’s Global Market place.  Process Improvement is one area that can flip a business on its head quickly. “Bosses and organizations still tend to think that people whom are managed and employed and paid to do a job should do what they’re told to do. We are conditioned from an early age to believe that the way to teach and train, and to motivate people towards changing what they do, is to tell them, or persuade them. From our experiences at school we are conditioned to believe that skills, knowledge, and expectations are imposed on or ‘put into’ people by teachers, and later, by managers and bosses in the workplace.” (Chapman, 2014)   A vast majority of our culture still thinks this way, but businesses must take a different stance.

Why? Simply because process improvement, we are finding relies heavily upon input from the frontline worker.  The person operating the machine or doing the actual work knows the process and the pitfalls involved with it better than anyone.  These workers are referred to as Process Operators and according to the Kaizen Institute, “they work in collaboration with their Operational Manager, create and own their performance objectives. Process Operators are responsible to understand the performance objectives of the process they are to perform and the specifications of the product they are to produce.  In other words they have the ability to give input to what is working and what is not.”(Institute, 2013) Companies around the world are taking this simple first step to improving their processes.

An empirical study of some Indian companies reinforced this need.  In the study it was found that:

“The studied companies had difficulty in that the human resource often do not follow and practice the business strategy in everyday operation. Moreover, the learning behavior was very limited creating wide gap of knowledge and ability among employees. To solve this integrated approach to knowledge management is used to maximize innovation performance that lead to competitive advantage. This result agrees with the finding of Gloet and Terziovski, (2004). However, our study extends the result to three best practices vis-à-vis: capability development and human need consideration, unleashing the creative potentials of employees, and ensuring employee participation in the TQM approach.”(Taddese and Osada, 2010)

References:

Chapman, Alan, 2014, Organizational Change, Training and Learning retrieved from: http://www.businessballs.com/organizationalchange.html

Institute, Kaizen May 31, 2013, Key role of EMPLOYEES in Business Process Improvement, retrieved from:https://kaizeninstituteindia.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/key-role-of-employees-in-business-process-improvement/

Taddese, Fasil and Osada, Hiroshi, 2010, J. Technol. Manag. Innov. 2010, Volume 5, Issue 2 retrieved from: http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-27242010000200005&script=sci_arttext

 

 

 

Communication at its most basic form of a sender, the message and the receiver with some noise or distractions formulating between the sender and receiver and often times it is difficult to perform this action in a normal office setting.  This could be for a number of reasons such as fax machines, incoming email or text messages or other conversations nearby.  On a global scale this simple process snowballs into a giant interwoven ball of challenges.

In order to communicate with another culture we must understand both verbal and nonverbal variables.  While verbal differences are readily apparent, some countries place more significance on it than others.  Non-verbal and challenges are not.  These include: “attitudes, stereotype, social organization, thought patterns, roles in society, space and time sense” are listed by Samovar and Porter (Moran, Harris and Moran, 2011)

In his article, Culture in Business Communication, Morgan Rush states: “Culture directly affects business communication, both verbal and nonverbal. Some cultures, including Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany, place high significance to the words actually spoken. Other cultures, including Japan and Arab cultures, still place significance on the spoken word, but also place great significance on the context of the conversation. Silence carries significance in all cultures, and this might be interpreted in different ways during cross-cultural business meetings.

With so many variables between countries working together in a global business partnership it is amazing communication can happen effectively.  In order to be successful in cultural communication we must revert back to first understanding the culture of the people we are communicating with. “By assessing in advance the roles these variables play in business communication, one can improve one’s ability to convey those messages effectively to an audience from a different culture.  As they, provide an underlying foundation on which one can construct a framework for understanding the businesspeople from other cultures.”(Victor, n.d.) In other words effective communication goes back to the old adage of public speaking ….. know your audience!

References:

Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran , S. V. (2011). Managing Cultural Differences. New York: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Rush, Morgan, 2015, Culture in Business Communication Retrieved from:

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/culture-business-communication-2922.html

 

Victor, David A, N. D. ,  CROSS-CULTURAL/INTERNATIONAL   COMMUNICATION retrieved from: http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Cos-Des/Cross-Cultural-International-Communication.html#ixzz3RG2b2d3A

It has been my experience ever since I entered the Navy at the young age of 18 that associating oneself to different cultures is part of working in America.  In the Navy (like the rest of the armed forces) is a huge melting pot of cultures from both within and outside of our borders.  Personally, I have worked with people from every region in the Unites States and along-side first generation Americans from Central and South America, Canada, Africa, Ireland, and even Russia.  I found it particularly interesting that someone from Russia was even permitted to join the US Navy in the late 1980’s since the Cold War was still going on.

While working with the “Russian” I found some differences that actually helped him to advance faster than most other people.  One reason for this according to Richmond, Yale (1995) American people is the emphasis on and celebration of the individual.  From earliest times, Russia has placed communal good (the group) above that of the solitary individual.  In other words, while most of us young Sailors were still developing our teamwork skills his were in place from early on in his life.  This coupled with his study habits that were instilled in him from early childhood propelled him through 4 advancements in 5 years.  This was practically unheard of among our American counterparts.

As time went on and I proceeded with my military career I was introduced to leadership courses that made me aware of another cultural difference in the military – the military to civilian difference. This seemed foreign to me since, the military was part of America and we all surely represented  American Culture(s).   “Throughout the U. S. military, common elements distinguish its culture from other organizations. These elements include a high standard of discipline that helps organize and structure the armed forces, a professional ethos of loyalty and self-sacrifice that maintains order during battle, a distinct set of ceremony and etiquette that help create shared rituals and common identities, and an emphasis on group cohesion and esprit de corps that connect service members to each other. “ (Bateman 2004)

  From www.digplanet.com

Today, as a military retiree, I am finding the cultural differences challenging.  Since retiring, I have had two jobs in neither workplace have I found the professionalism nor the camaraderie I was accustomed to while in the military.  Now, we just do our work and go home; esprit-de-corps is non- existent.  In the military we train and train and train to prepare for anything that could possibly go wrong with our initial plan; in my civilian job we do not have a training program nor do we prepare for any unforeseen events that could happen during an evolution.  I miss the standard of readiness I was held to in the military and now I am not in charge or in a position to implement change.   Is this frustration or am I wrapped up in my own egocentrism?  Have I taken the ethnocentrism of the military being held to a higher standard than civilians and made it a personal belief that I cannot overcome?

 

Geoffrey W. Bateman , 2004, retrieved from http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/military_culture_us.html

Richmond, Yale, 1995, From Nyet to Da–Understanding the Russians, Yarmouth, Maine: Intercultural Press

Hello to all of my new classmates!  My name is Chris Van Wagner and I currently live in Freeport, FL a small town just North of Destin, which is a major beach resort here in Northwest Florida.  I retired from the Navy in September of 2012 and currently perform maintenance at a local hospital.  While in the Navy I was leader at a very young age and continuously went through training (both academic and trial by error) and it culminated in my final role as the Quality Assurance and Process Improvement Officer.  In this position I responsible for safety, inspection techniques, procedure concurrence and improvement for the maintenance department of 212 sailors, marines and civilians.  I found it very challenging and by following this rule (not quote) ” lead by example” I we successfully passed a multitude of inspections.  This quote is simply put, but difficult to maintain, since I always put myself under scrutiny when something has gone awry.

Although I have a good paying job that is somewhat rewarding, I am not where I want to be yet.  Eventually, I would like to, again, be a manager or supervisor who can influence and train people and build the camaraderie that I have longed for since retiring from the military.  I believe that my degree in O-lead will provide the avenue for m to find the right job with the right company.

My other interests include playing sports, working on my house and restoring cars; probably to many interests to take on considering I am married and we have a 14 year old boy who take up most of my time, and not to mention our two year old pup who requires a lot of our attention as well.