Week 6.1 Culture and Subcultures

Chapter 4 talks about Culture and Subcultures. The authors mention that the members of a subculture identify themselves with a distinct group within the larger culture, interact regularly with this group, and often share perceptions and understandings of central problems.

While reading this I was trying to think how this is at work. I was initially part of one group in IT and then transferred to another group last year. Even though there are a lot of things in common, there were some clear differences in the way the took groups look at certain things. Most of the things are directly related to the work we do and how we prioritize the work we do. Each group has a different perception on which is important and have their own definition of which is more important.

Week 5.2 Project Ideas-2

I have a team now and we are going to work on "Communication and Cultural Considerations for Global Teams". We will try to narrow the topic down further so that we can cover it in detail rather than trying to cover too much material and not having clarity in the final product. I planning to find how local cultures effect communication styles, the effect of gender on communication, what type of English we need to use as this is very important when communication with people who do not use English regularly and is not natural for them, also thinking of looking into details about guidelines on how to conduct a multicultural conference call. What effect does local power /authority have on communication styles etc., There is so many thing of interest over the next week we have to come up with some outline on what we will focus on.

Week 5.4 Project Ideas -1

I want to research into something that would be helpful for me in my day to day duties at work. One thing I think sometimes as a team we have trouble with is communicating with global teams. Teams that are not in US and are from a different culture. I would like to research on "Communication and Cultural Considerations for Global Teams". In this I would like to concentrate on one or two cultures like Japan, India, Germany etc., and try to analyze how the cultural differences between them and US like work patterns etc., affect communications. Need to understand what are some of the must do's and what are definite no-no's.

I anyone is interested in this topic, I am looking to team up with them so that we can do more elaborate research.

Week 5.3 Features of the Language

Chapter 15 talks about features of language. The authors present very interesting things about this. One thing that was really interesting was the use the use of "Active versus Passive Voice". This raised more questions for me and i tried to do some reading on which is better to use. I was not able to come to any conclusion except that it depends on the situation in which the message is being composed for and the audience. But still what is the correct way might depend on the perspective of the readers. I think we can use sentences like "It has been decided" but we definitely should make sure that the message includes some details on how some one can express their concerns or questions they might have.

Week 5.2 Data Gathering

Chapter 15 talks about four categories of data gathering: artifacts, surveys, interviews and observation.

I think out of the four techniques interviews provide the most reliable and productive way of data gathering when we are trying to obtain details or opinion about something that is ongoing or current. Even though this is more time consuming, if the process is important this gives personal one on one time with people from whom you would like to gather information and people are more likely to get involved in the discussion and provide more useful information than just going through the motions. Survey's might be effective in some cases as well, but they might not help people express their opinions and tend to be more Q & A (yes/no).

When implementing new systems or process in a company if we send e-mails or surveys to collect the requirements, most likely people end up missing at least some of the requirements. If we conduct meeting with people not necessarily individually but with groups, we can understand the requirements better and this eliminates the need to make changes or modification later.

Week 5.1 Consistency in Message & Actions

In Chapter 15, authors talk about reputation and how a positive reputation can be built. For communications with in the organization or with other organizations having a consistent message with reliable information together with actions that back up the message the information are very important to establish credibility an build positive reputation.

At work, we had a senior manager who was in in charge of setting up guidelines, standards and procedures for IT support for all the customers with in the organization who sends out messages which are very descriptive and clear with very well laid out explanations on how to deal with a task or process. But most of the people in the organization do not really value his message or respect it. When discussing with other people i found out that are mainly two reasons for this one is that the tone he uses is the e-mails is very authoritative and lot of people who worked there for a long time have a issue with that and feel he tells people what to do but does not provide details why he wants it to be done in a particular way. The second one is lot of people pointed out instances where he himself was not following the procedures therefore they feel that it is not important. I think we need to make sure we are following the message we are communicating with others

Week 4.5 Emotions at Work Place

Chapter 3 talks about the Emotionality in Organizational Life. Developing a casual atmosphere at work I thinks helps in creating a better environment. We are by nature emotional beings and by thinking about ideas or proposals with some emotion might help us come to some decision easily. Also, when there dis-agreements if we can discuss and come to a common ground. If employees do not show some emotion, may be they might just agree to everything which might not be helpful.

As long as we can manage our emotions and do not let them get the better of us they can be really helpful.