In the Philippines, the culture is very rich and dates back many years. The prehistoric evidence of humans living in the Philippines goes back over 20,000 years (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2011). In order to be successful while conducting business in the Philippines, one must understand their cultural differences just as in any other culture. For American leaders it is good to know that aside from their national language of Filipino, English is also used (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2011).

When working with a Filipino person, one must be very cautious not to insult them. An insult can occur from simply criticizing or making fun of them at their expense. An insult can be taken very seriously. The reason for this is because when a Filipino is insulted in front of others they will be shamed. Shame is the feeling of guilt or humiliation that is taught to Filipinos when they are just kids (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2011).

In the Filipino culture shame is a very serious thing. When one is shamed for their actions, they are also shaming their family. This results in Filipinos not taking risks that can result in failure in order to protect their family from Shame. Although shame is not something you want to bring upon yourself, it is also important to understand and have the ability to feel shame. Being unable to feel shame is one of the biggest insult somebody can tell another (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2011).
References

Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011). Chapter 12 Doing Business with Asians and Australians. Managing cultural differences: Global leadership strategies for cross-cultural business success (8th ed.) (p. 365-371). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Inc.

                In this chapter we read about leaders creating cultural synergy. In today’s world the opportunity to create synergy is available in our work lives, personal lives and school life. Every day we work around people from different cultures that have a different way of looking at things. A person from a specific culture may approach a problem differently than a person from another culture. When there is cultural synergy, people learn from each other and work together to accomplish goals (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015).

               I recently watched a movie that reminded me of what we’re learning in this lesson. The movie is about a group of boys that live in a migrant town with low expectations of life. A coach that recently lost his job at a high-end school, comes to this town as his only option because of pervious mistakes. Although the coach and the group of boys come from very different cultures, they adapt to each other and start working together as a team. In order for this to happen the coach had to better understand the culture of the boys. The coach spent time with the boys and even went as far as spending a day with them working the fields. The coach took this group of boys, with no goals other than work in the fields for a living, and turned them into the first state champions in the history of that town. With a better understanding of your team, you can better understand how to support and make them work together (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015).

How do we create synergy in our teams? In order to create synergy in our teams we must work with our group and understand the dynamics of each individual. We must create an environment where people feel at ease of sharing their ideas and managing conflict so people are not afraid to share. Once the environment is created where people can work together, team members start learning from each other. In order to reach this stage it is necessary to spend some time doing research or spending time with the members of the team to better understand the way they are. This will help understand how to manage the team. Understand what makes each team member valuable to the overall mission of the team. Every member of the team will contribute in their own unique way (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015). In the example of the coach, there were team members that were not athletic, but their importance to the team was the ability to keep everyone intact.

When synergy is created in a time it is important to understand that there are somethings that must be managed carefully to keep the synergy in place. If you look around your team you’ll notice that there’s people from different parts of the world with different perspectives. When having so many different people with different ideas it is common to have conflict amongst individuals of a team. Conflict is a fact of life and when dealing with other people it can be inevitable (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015). But conflict is not always a bad thing. If managed correctly, conflict can bring out great ideas from individuals of the team. Conflict can help take us places we never thought of (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015).

References

Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011). Chapter 9: Leadership in Creating Cultural Synergy. Managing cultural differences: Global leadership strategies for cross-cultural business success (8th ed.) (p. 232-252). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Inc.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2015). OLEAD 497B Lesson 06: Cultural Synergy. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/olead497b/001/content/06_lesson/01_page.html

Change in an organization is inevitable. In order for an organization to keep progressing, it is important that new technologies and processes are implemented. If a company were to stay doing the same things in the same ways forever, a few years down the road they will be unable to compete against others that are making advances. The world changes and we must change with it. In order for companies to properly implement change they must use tools to prepare their employees for what will come (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015).

Change is a scary thing for many. Think about it. If you have been at a company for 20 years and you are comfortable with the way things are, would you be so willing to change them? Why is change necessary? That is the question that many employees will be asking themselves in defense to keeping things the way that they are. It is important as leaders that we answer that question (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015). Employees must be made aware of why change it so important, and what can happen if the change is not implemented. If employees are not prepared for change, there can be many consequences (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015).

Now picture this. A few years back I was a part of an organization that was going to take one department and split it into two different departments. The reason behind the change was that there was two main customers of this department and neither customer was getting the support that they needed. In order to better support the customer, two departments were created. Many of the longtime employees felt hurt because they were separating their team which was like their family. The morale of the shop dropped to all-time lows. Even employees that did not have an opinion on the matter, began to resent management in support of their fellow coworkers.
It should come as no surprise that many people in this organization values their job. In order to maintain the business and the jobs of many people, the transformation was necessary. Of course the consequences of not implementing the change was not communicated by the management team. And if it were, would it have been accepted any better? In order to properly implement change, leaders must communicate the reasons behind a change and set a sense of urgency among their followers of why the change is highly important (Moran, Harris & Moran, 2015). Change will always be a sensitive subject, because it requires people to unlearn something and learn something else. But the need to communicate and prepare others for change could have made for a smoother transition.
References

Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011). Chapter 4: Global Leaders Learning From Others and Change. Managing cultural differences: Global leadership strategies for cross-cultural business success (8th ed.) (p. 97-126). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Inc.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2015). OLEAD 497B Lesson 05: Learning and Change in a Global Setting. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/olead497b/001/content/05_lesson/01_page.html

In this weeks lesson we discussed global communications. For leaders across the world, it is important to understand how to interact with people from different cultures (Moran, Harris & Moran). In order to be efficient and precise you must first understand how different cultures communicate and what is important to them. Communicating can be difficult even within our own culture. Often times there are miscommunications due to messages not being clear (Penn State World Campus, 2015).

The process of communicating involves a message being thought of and delivered by the speaker. The process then follows by the receiver hearing the message, and absorbing the message as they heard it. This process is known as encoding and decoding. There are many possibilities for errors during the encoding/decoding process (Penn State World Campus, 2015). It is highly important that we make the most use of our words, and keep our conversation clear and precise. The use of certain verbs can be confusing and hold several meanings. In order to be clear it is good practice to use specific verbs and words without double meaning (Moran, Harris & Moran).
It is important to understand that the possibility of miscommunication can happen even when communicating within our own cultures. When communicating with different cultures these errors can multiply because the many miscues that can happen during a conversation. The need to be more clear and choose the right words is even more important when communicating to different cultures. (Moran, Harris & Moran). Now imagine a message that is being delivered through other means such as email or memo. The possibilities for the receiver to misinterpret the message increases. When we speak, we exhibit many non verbal cues that assist in delivering our message. Body language and tone cannot be sent through an email. When communicating electronically, it is important to review the message before sending. Sometimes having someone else proofread can help get a different perspective to increase the chance of a clear message (Moran, Harris & Moran).
In my day-to-day life I work with people from different parts of the world. Although many of us adapt to the American culture, we still can’t take away our cultural background. The way we communicate is a result of our uniqueness. One thing I’ve been observing this past week is the context of messages by different cultures. Depending on the culture of the person, some information may be added or some left out because it is seen as irrelevant. But when communicating with others, this added or missing information can make conversation difficult. (Moran, Harris & Moran). In order to avoid miscommunication we must attempt to communicate in the appropriate context.
I recently had a conversation that I was able to relate to the captain, co-pilot and controller miscommunication. In this scenario, I received an email stating that we were running low on a consumable and an order was placed for more. The following day I received another email giving me information on how to order the consumable stating that they were unable to order because they ran out of time. Confused, I asked the person if they needed me to order anything. The employee answered, “I tried to order but I found someone that has them in stock.” Still not sure if I needed to proceed with an order, I asked again if I needed to order anything. I did not get a yes or no answer. In this case it was difficult to understand what the person was trying to tell me. Although they were speaking in clear english, they were not giving me the information I was looking for. But it was clear we were having a low context and high context misunderstanding (Moran, Harris & Moran).

References

Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011). Chapter 2: Global Leaders and Communcations. Managing cultural differences: Global leadership strategies for cross-cultural business success (8th ed.) (p. 127-181). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Inc.

Pennsylvania State University World Campus. (2015). OLEAD 497B Lesson 04: Global Communication. Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp15/olead497b/001/content/02_lesson/01_page.html

In this lesson we had an introduction to global leadership and the impacts of the leader in today’s business world. It is highly important for a leader to understand the cultures and diversity in a workforce in order to be successful in their leadership role (Moran, Harris & Moran 2011). When talking about global leadership many may question what that actually means. Global leadership is one’s ability to effectively lead others despite cultural differences on a global level. In today’s business world, companies leverage the skills of employees across the world in order to compete effectively (Moran, Harris & Moran 2011).

Not too long ago, most small companies would do business within their own backyard. Sales, marketing, engineering and production was all done within their own walls. The need to grasp a competitive advantage along with technological advances created an opportunity for all businesses big and small. Now in today’s world, the need to leverage the ability and cost savings of workers around the world is a major part of doing business (Moran, Harris & Moran 2011). Companies can now outsource more than just production to other parts of the world. And this is becoming more and more common. But by using talent from around the world, there is now a new hurdle to climb. Being able to effectively lead teams across different cultures.

Global leadership can be practiced in our own backyard. Today’s workforces around the world are very diversified. The need to communicate with people from around the globe also happens in our own office. When communicating it is important to speak on an international level and respect the cultural diversity of people from around the globe (Kolin, Philip 2010). When communicating with people it is important to understand the differences in what we say and what it means. This is also the case when speaking in English in other countries. One must respect that our english is specific to our region. When communicating with people from around the world we must communicate in a more international English (Kolin, Philip 2010). Using some of the slang that is appropriate in our country may be confusing to others.

Anyone with aspirations of being a successful leader in today’s business world must practice global leadership. The ability to deal with different types of cultures and lead them through change will make a leader more useful (Moran, Harris & Moran 2011). Leaders are required to communicate to a broad audience while conveying a message that motivates all their followers. In order to accomplish this, a leader must understand that their message may be accepted in different ways depending on the cultural backgrounds of each listener.  Understanding a broad range of cultural differences can help leaders communicate in a way that will motivate the entire team without offending anyone (Kolin, Philip 2010).

References

Kolin, Philip. Successful Writing at Work (Selections). Boston. Wadsworth Congage Learning. 2010. Ch. 1. pp. 3-37.

Moran, R. T., Harris, P. R., & Moran, S. V. (2011). Chapter 1: Global leaders and culture. Managing cultural differences: Global leadership strategies for cross-cultural business success (8th ed.) (p. 2-36). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Inc.