“I hate change.” A common statement heard and said by almost everyone at some point in their lives. Change has a bad reputation. However, it is necessary and with it can bring new positive possibilities. We often fixate on the process and difficulties of implementing change, and not the need for alterations and the end result. Our absence of forward thinking often creates resistance and avoidance.

In my previous organization, we referred to change as “future planning” with the hope to make any adjustments appear more positive. We began using this terminology for our change management program, after experiencing a few challenging years dealing with change. Our lesson, mentions that many organizations will use different labels for change to create a disguise to increase employees willingness to participate. (PSU, 2017). But as my Dad would say, “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

MNE’S face three different kinds of change that effective their performance: crisis, reactive, and anticipatory. (Moran & Moran, 2014). For years my employer reported positive sales and growth without a bump in the road.  We contained to expand our business into new markets and did not see any need to implement new process or ideas into our daily business.

In 2010 sales suddenly took a significate turn for the worse, leaving us all in a panic. Market performance commonly motivates MNE’s learning behaviors. (Moran & Moran, 2014). Since we were performing well, we spent limit effort and resources into planning and developing for future changes, which meant that as a company we went into crisis change. Crisis change occurs when a company’s performance drastically declines and realizes the need for change is high. (Moran & Moran, 2014).

We understood change was needed; however, we were too ethnocentric minded to realize that certain practices would not work in every market. Our mindset meant that every few months we were retracting and reevaluating where we were going wrong. Sales continued to drop, moral was nonexistence, and terminations and resignation were unusually common. I was blessed to be in the one department that was producing positive productivity. However, we still felt the negative effects of our inability to learn and change. Eventually, things stabilized, new and appropriate solutions were implemented, but this was not without its fair share of casualties. I stayed through all the chaos but the exhaustion and effects on always operating in a reactive environment became too much, and many of my coworkers and I eventually left.

References:

Moran, Ph.D., R. T., Abramson, Ph.D., N. R., & Moran, MA, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences; Ninth Edition. Chapter 4: Global Leaders Learning from Others and Change. New York, NY, USA: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Pennsylvania State University, World Wide Campus (2017). OLEAD 410 Lesson 4: Global Communication. Retrieved on February 8, 2017. https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1826457/modules/items/21654116

Until recently, I was a corporate trainer for a rapidly growing tea company based in the United States. As a trainer, I was responsible for opening new store locations and preparing employees for their grand opening. In 2012 I had my first international experience while opening our first international store in Toronto Canada.

Before my visit, I was naïve. I expected to have seamless communication, and to experience few cultural differences. Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to compare, Canada and the United States share many similarities. (Moran & Moran, 2014). However, while they have comparable cultural values, this does not mean they are the same. I soon learned this fact. I had several experiences where I had errors in my communication. I failed to recognized our cross-culture differences in our thought process, customs, and values. (Moran & Moran, 2014).

As we prepared for the store opening, I lead daily training sessions, covering product knowledge and sales technique. As we progressed through the material, I began to sense hesitancy and confusion. From their questions and body language, I first I thought they did not understand what I was saying or what I meant. So, I was often repeating myself and providing more low-context information, yet this did not correct the sense of being misunderstood. By the end of the second day, I opened the floor for concerns and soon realized that many of the ways we communicate customer service here in the States are considered rude and aggressive.

For example, as a tea company, we have premade tea samples ready for our guests to try. We place a few samples near the door entry and stand next to them smiling and waving to people as they pass. If they are interested, we serve them samples and try and engage in a conversation. While we do this to make sales, the other thought is to create conversation, make connections, and make the shopping experience different and personal. This group did not see it that way. They found many of these nonverbal actions as awkward and overly assertive. During my visit, I learned that in most stores people would rarely greet you, ask if you needed help, or engage in unnecessary pleasantries. I found Canadians to be very nice, and were happy to help, but preferred to let the customer initiate conversation. I took this feedback home, and as we continued to expand in Canada, we adjusted our sales tactics and to training to better suit their verbal and their nonverbal preferences. Now in Canada, their sales process is tailored to meet their communication style. The new sales program uses softer sales verbiage and does not include so many details about nonverbal communication like eye contact and hand gestures. We decided to leave those choices up to the individual.

References:

Moran, Ph.D., R. T., Abramson, Ph.D., N. R., & Moran, MA, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences; Ninth Edition. Chapter 1: Global Leaders, Culture, and a Changing World. New York, NY, USA: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Moran, Ph.D., R. T., Abramson, Ph.D., N. R., & Moran, MA, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences; Ninth Edition. Chapter 2: Global Leaders and Intercultural Communications. New York, NY, USA: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

 

In the world of technology and multinational corporation’s diversity and bringing together diverse individuals is a common word and discussion. For many firms, the belief and hope are that diversity will untimely increase performance and grow profits. This concept is summarized in the formula: diversity + integration=performance (D+I=P). However, studies are showing that this is not always the case. (Moran & Moran, 2014). One reason I think this formula does not always equal results is people misinterpret what diversity is. Diversity is simply “differences between individuals within a group” (PSU, 2017). Diversity does not mean that people share zero commonalities, only that there are variances between one another, broadening experiences and perspectives. Another misconception I think some have about diversity is in some cases diversity can be the cultures majority. The current make-up of a group will determine what diversity looks like for that group.

A personal example, several years ago, I worked for a retail company that is socially progressive and actively tried to include as many backgrounds as possible. At the time, I worked on a team of about ten individuals, and out of that team, 75% were women the other 25% were men. The women were a mixture of races, age, religions, and political views. Each woman had a different background and perspective, but we shared many similarities. For the men in the group, all three were gay, over the age of 45, from foreign nationalities, and a mixture of religious beliefs. For this group, diversity would be a white heterosexual Christian American male.

We were a small group that worked together over several years. We never debated our differences but no one hide or apologized for the imbalance in differences. After a year in the group, one member left the company opening a place in our team. We had the complete opposite join our team, a white heterosexual Christian American male. At first, I know some of the more liberal people in the group were hesitant to include and trust him. Thankfully, our group and company actively work to bring all kinds of people together. Ultimately, he was included, and we continued to produce results

While diversity can increase performance that alone does not advance results. Back to the formula, diversity must also be integrated properly. In my organization integration was accomplished through acknowledging our differences but never focusing on them. We also were never discouraged or ignored for being transparent in who we were as individuals, and we were valued not despite those differences but because of those differences. The focus was on the job requirements and finding the right person with the best qualifications whomever that might be.

References:

Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011). Managing cultural differences. Chapter 6: Motivating the Global Workforce, The case for diversity and inclusion. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann, Elsevier.

Pennsylvania State University, World Wide Campus (2017). OLEAD 410 Lesson 3: Diversity.

Today is Inauguration Day and our country is in the middle of a great cultural divide. This divide has always been there but this year has taken it to a new place. As American’s we live in the same culture, which makes many of us react and response similarly to various situations. However, we also have many sub-groups and two of these groups have dominated the media and social culture this last year. Conservatives and liberals each have a different set of values and beliefs that have created their own individual cultures. I believe that both groups have the best intentions and have valid messages and concerns; however, both cultures have created such division between each other, and the foundation is based on the idea of ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism the is notion that one’s group is superior to another’s. (PSU, 2017) Both parties are guilty of praising and puffing-up their individual parties through rose colored glasses, then they quickly distort, diminish, and even mock any actions from the other group.

The only real cure to ethnocentrism is listening, and exposure. Looking to social media, we all have friends and family from different sides, some more extreme than others. Today as I scrolled through my Facebook news feed I saw both conservative and liberal friends posting articles and status updates. However, the only people commenting or reacting to their post were people in agreement with them. Personally, I find that there are only two types of interactions in this case. The first is ignoring each other, and the second is verbally forcing your views onto another. Sadly, neither of these responses reduces ethnocentrism between these two cultures.

Looking at both parties, each have slightly different components of Hofstede’s six dimensions of culture. (PSU, 2017) The first thing to keep in mind is none of these dimensions are good or bad, they are only different. Also, both cultures have components of each because these dimensions are a sliding scale. Next, let’s consider the idea of individualism and collectivism. America is classified as an individualist culture, yet when considering the messages of both republican and democrats Americans embody both sides of the spectrum. An Individualist culture is one that prefers to work as individuals and be responsible for their own property and immediate family. While a collective culture prefers to integrate their work as teams and are responsible for others beyond themselves and immediate family. Sound familiar? Maybe a few federally funded programs, bills, laws, or political debates come to mind?

Considering Hofstede dimensions of individualism and collectivism it creates some understanding on how both cultures arrive at their policies and where the disconnection between the two lies. Both cultures have elements of truth but many of their values are based on different sides of the six dimensions. Due to many reasons outside the scope of this paper these cultures beliefs have become distorted through the lenses of partiality. Over the next four years, let’s hope the false belief of superiority dimensions and we begin to find new and old commonalities in our first culture, the American culture.

References:

The Pennsylvania State University (2017) Overview of Diversity and Culture. Retrieved January 20, 2017. https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1826457/modules/items/21654072

Hi everyone – I’m Emily.

I am joining this class a little late. I had a few mix ups with my class schedule but thankfully it is all correct now!

I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I am originally from a small city a few miles outside of Nashville, Tennessee. I am a military wife and have been married for 12 years. We have two Chihuahua’s, Hercules and Leonidas. I love to travel, I practice yoga daily, and I enjoy cooking.

As a military wife, I’ve tried to keep my long-term career goals as flexible as possible. My last position I was regional trainer for Teavana, which is a subsidiary of Starbucks. I was responsible for all the new store openings in my area and the continued education of approximately 45 general managers. This job required extensive amounts of travel, which made deployments too challenging. Someone needed to be home to care of the house and dogs, so I adjusted my career goals and decide to pursue my degree in Labor and Employment Relations. I will be graduating this Spring and will reenter the workforce, hopefully doing something that does not require me to live out of a suitcase. Ideally, I would like to find a company with a strong training and development department. My heart is in that field and that’s where I would like to return.

In addition to school, I have joined the Junior League of Norfolk and Virginia Beach. The Junior League is a national women’s volunteer organization, focusing on attacking issues like poverty, illiteracy, women and children issues, and civic rights. Within the organization, I am a member of the leadership committee which is responsible for selecting and facilitating training for our members.

“Be the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.”- Brian Tracy. I’ve always loved that quote. I think it breaks the mold of the vision society has created on what a leader looks like.

I look forward to working with all of you this semester. Good luck!