Mediating a conflict is challenging, but as a manager or supervisor, the role of mediator comes with your territory. Your willingness to appropriately intervene sets the stage for your own success. You craft a work environment that enables the success of the people who work there. Conflict mediation is an example of “practice makes perfect.”
1. Do you agree that conflicts in a work environment are inevitable? Can you give reasons and explain sources of such conflicts?
2. What factors must be analyzed in order to manage conflict?
3. What conflict situations do you know? Can you give your own example?
4. Should you, as a manager, intervene in conflict?
5. Should you wait for conflict to go away?
6. Why is it not advisable to meet people in conflict separately? Do you agree with this advice?
7. Why do conflicts affect everyone in the office, not only conflicting parties?
8. What recommendations for resolving conflicts do you know?
9. Who are mediators and why is their role important for creating a good work environment?
Vocabulary to Unit 9
1. inevitable adj. неизбежный, неминуемый
2. perceptionn1)восприятие, ; 2) понимание, осмысление, осознание
3. behelpfulinsmthбыть полезным в чем-либо
4.handleaconflictсправляться с конфликтом
5. heat the situation накалятьситуацию
6. resolve the conflict решитьконфликт. Syn.: settle, solve
7. allocationnраспределение, размещение, выделение средств
8. eventuallyadv. В конечном счете, в итоге, в конце концов
Syn.: ultimately, in the end
9. overtime work hoursсверхурочные часы работы
10. obviousadj. очевидный, явный
Syn.: evident
11. workloadnобъем работы
12. inequitynнесправедливость, пристрастность
13. outcomen итог, последствие, результат
Syn.: result, consequence
14. wordsofwisdomмудрые слова, благоразумие, здравый смысл
15. combativeadj. боевой, агрессивный, воинственный
16. be reflective of adj. мыслящий, размышляющий
Syn.: thoughtful, intellectual
17. argumentative approach аргументированный, логический подход
18. response n ответ, отклик; реакция
19. turf wars борьбазавлияние
20. escalatevрасширять, обострять (ситуацию, конфликт)
21. intervenevвмешиваться, возникнуть (с целью помешать)
Syn.: interfere
22. burblev бормотать, болтать, трещать
23. vested interests заинтересованные круги
24. walkoneggshellходить очень осторожно, быть осмотрительным
25. committo(doingsmth) v держать обещание, выполнять обязательства
26. proactively adv. проактивно, упреждающе
Unit 10. Cross-cultural Differences
Intercultural learning can be viewed as following a process. The starting point, level one, is a state of unawareness – a state of not recognizing that cultural differences exist. It is an attitude of ‘our way is the only way’ or ‘everyone is like us’.
Through intellectual contact, communication and observation, people can move to level two, a state of being aware of the differences. This is an attitude of ‘other people have different ways of doing things from us’.
From awareness comes level three, tolerance. This is the attitude of ‘they are different from us’, but without attaching any judgment of better or best.
When individuals are transplanted into a new culture for whatever reason, they are likely to experience a culture shock, which can be an extremely disappointing situation. The individual is faced with three basic choices: tolerating and adapting to the new culture, remaining, but with a negative attitude towards the host culture or returning to the home culture.
From tolerances of differences, the final level – four – is possible. This is a state of using our differences positively to achieve team work and the attitude is one of ‘let us work together in an integrated manner’.
Roots of cultural differences. Cultural differences evolve because given groups of people develop different values and basic concepts for understanding the worlds around them and for guiding their action. These differences can become barriers between cultures because of four human factors.
First, the psychological processes and defense mechanisms or the individual can result in suspicion and distrust.
Second, barriers are often reinforced by group dynamics, that is, the predisposition of groups to close ranks against other groups and to stereotype them.
Third, barriers may be built up as a result of the competitive nature of business. All parties are not going to get everything they want, so they must fight, compete or find collaborative forms of working together.
National cultures can also be broken down into different subcultures, such as regional, class, generational, and professional.
The increasing internationalization of business over last decades has brought about such themes as globalization and transnational companies.
We are often led to believe that the world is gradually becoming a smaller global village where some universal principals of being an effective manager apply.
However, within this global village, there still appear as many different approaches to business as there are national cultures. For example, ‘management by objectives (MBO)’ is regarded as a sound management practice in many cultures, but is seen as ‘losing face’ in others.
For a business to succeed in a multinational or international environment, it has to be able to identify and quantify the values, beliefs, expectations and ways of doing business of everybody involved. Responding to the complexity, diversity and ambiguity of cultures becomes a crucial task of management and training alike.
Managing a truly global multinational company would obviously be much simpler if it required only one set of corporate objectives, goals, policies, practices, products and services. But local differences often make this impossible. The conflict between globalization and localization has led to the invention of the word ‘glocalization’. Companies that want to be successful in foreign markets have to be aware of the local cultural characteristics that affect the way business is done.
A fairly obvious cultural divide is the one between, on the one hand, the countries of North America and north-west Europe, where management is largely based on analysis, rationality, logic and systems, and, on the other hand, the Latin cultures of southern Europe and South America, where personal relations, intuition, emotion and sensitivity are of much greater importance.
The largely Protestant countries on both sides of North Atlantic (Canada, the USA, Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia) are essentially individualist. In such cultures, status has to be achieved. You don’t automatically respect people just because they’ve been in a company for 30 years. A young dynamic, aggressive manager with an MBA (a Master in Business Administration degree) can quickly rise in the hierarchy.
In most Latin and Asian cultures, on the contrary, status is automatically accorded to the boss, who is more likely to be in his fifties or sixties than in the thirties. This particularly true in Japan, where companies traditionally have a policy of promotion by seniority. A Japanese would also want to take the time to get to know the person with whom he was negotiating, and would not appreciate an assertive American who wanted to sign a deal immediately and take the next plane home.
In northern cultures, the principle of pay-for-performance often successfully motivates people. The more you sell, the more you get paid. But the principle might well be resisted in more collectivist cultures, and in countries where rewards and promotion are expected to come with age and experience.
Singaporean and Indonesian manager objected that pay-for-performance caused salesmen to pressure customers into buying products they didn’t really need, which was not only bad for long term business relation, but quite simply unfair and ethically wrong.
Another example of an American idea that doesn’t work well in Latin countries is matrix management. The task-oriented logic of matrix management conflicts with the principle of loyalty to the all-important line superior, the functional boss. You can’t have two bosses any more than you can have two fathers. For example, French managers would rather see an organization die than tolerate a system in which a few subordinates have to report to two bosses.
Speaking about people’s relationships with their boss and their colleagues and friends, we can distinguish between ‘universalists’ and ‘particularists’. The former believe that rules are extremely important; the latter believe that personal relationships and friendships should take precedence. Consequently, each group thinks that the other is corrupt. Universalists say that particularists ‘cannot be trusted because they will always help their friends’, while the second group says of the first ‘you cannot trust the; they would not even help a friend’. There are many more particularists in Latin and Asian countries than in Australia, the USA, Canada, or north-west Europe.
In Asian countries most of decision-making takes place behind the scenes. In China it may be necessary to have government involved in any decisions taken. And in India people are sometimes late for a scheduled appointment.
Greetings, gestures and terms of address are all potential hazards when meeting people of other cultures.. While we are familiar with short firm handshake in this part of the world, in the Middle East the hand is held in a loose grip for a longer time. In Islamic cultures, showing the soles of your feet is a sign of disrespect and crossing your leg is seen as offensive.
The difference between understanding a culture and ignoring its conventions can be the measure of success or failure abroad. In Western cultures we believe in empowering people and rewarding them for using initiative, but other cultures operate on the basis of obeying direct orders.
You can easily talk yourself into trouble at a business meeting in Japan. For them the most senior person at the meeting will say very little, and the person doing most of the talking is not very important. In a country like Japan, the notion of personal space which we value so much simply has no meaning. With a population of 125 million condensed into a narrow strip of land private space for the Japanese is virtually non-existent.
‘Do and Don’t’ while you are on a business abroad
Do: - show an interest in, and at least an elementary knowledge of the country you are visiting.
- Learn a few words of the language – it will be seen as a compliment.
- Be sensitive to countries who have bigger and better-known neighbours, and try not to confuse Canadians with Americans, New Zealanders with Australians, Belgians with French.
- Familiarize yourself with the basic of business and social etiquette. As a starting point, learning how to greet people is very important.
- Assume you won’t meet any communication problems because you speak English. You may think you are paying somebody a compliment by telling them their business is going a bomb. Americans will conclude you think it is failing.
- Appear too reserved. As Americans are generally more full cheerful than their European colleagues, they may equate reserve with lack of enthusiasm.
Cross-cultural management, as defined concept, is no more than twenty years old. It came into being because in the past decade international companies have become truly international. They are not just exporting; they are opening offices in other countries or buying into joint ventures. As a result, they employ lots of foreign employees, many of them local hires, and have their own employees living and working in other cultures.
Cross-cultural management training teaches, explains, consults and conveys modes of communication to people so they can better understand a culture foreign to them.
We all understand, intellectually, that things are done differently abroad, yet many people tend to forget this in the heat of daily business. Not all conflict is caused by cultural differences – some people just can’t get along – but often it is. Employees must be taught how to manage and be managed across cultures.
Culture is like the air you breathe but only when you put your head under water do you realize that you’ve been breathing air and now you are deprived of it. The same is true for culture: when we are in our home countries, we are swimming in culture without seeing or sensing it since it’s how we were brought up. Only when you leave your country, or start working with foreigners in your home country, do you become aware of your own culture.
When a foreign company opens an office in Russia, for example, it imports its culture here. Not only do the expatriates working here experience cultureshock, but so do the Russians working in the company. Naturally the experience of working and interacting differs depending on whether you work for a German, French, or Japanese company.
One always carries his/her culture and it is always done on the subconscious level. When you come into a new culture, you are shocked because it confronts your own. If you try to push your culture onto the people and environment around you, people will find you difficult. The key to understanding any culture is information- you must look around and ask questions, even if you think they are stupid questions.
If no one explains you how another culture functions, you will not know how to interpret the way its people interact with you; you may seem like they just don’t like you. There are lots of avenues to describe culture: history, traditions, nature, and even ways of society. Knowing even some of them helps reduce conflict because people start to understand more about the culture, and, more importantly, become more open minded. They may still not like their colleague as a person, but at least it isn’t because he is American, French, or Chinese.
Cross-cultural management doesn’t claim to solve all communication issues and get rid of all workplace conflicts. But it does one thing for sure: it brings to light the cultural issues many of us keep hidden. It teaches people to accept the fact that differences do exist.
When you are going to work in an international company, first of all, you should anticipate that you are probably not going to understand what is going on. It is natural for people who do not understand to start blaming somebody else. To combat this, you need lots and lots of solid communication.
First, the company leader need send pioneers – people with international knowledge and experience working abroad. Many foreigners put the blame for their bad experience on the country they are going to, when it is really the fault of living and working abroad for the first time. Living abroad is not easy.
Whether you settle on a joint venture or take on a local partner, sit down and discuss your cross-cultural issues, and come up with a strategy. When you hire locally, first choose those who have experience in an international environment. It is much more difficult to open an office directly, rather than taking on a partner or creating a joint venture, due to the laws and regulations. Foreigners encounter difficulties in any country. Don’t jump to conclusions and blame your host country for your problems. First consider how foreigners are treated in YOUR country.