Managing Diversity

This week module was managing diversity.

As we’ve seen last week diversity is the differences that exist within people; these differentiations are due to many facts and affect people’s values, perceptions, attitudes, characters, reactions, and many others.
We then made an exercise of exploring diversity; I explored my workplace and my area of work in both dimensions of diversity.
Although in my work place differences are most of the time easily notices or passed by, making this exercise I realized that they where more differences that the ones I already knew, and I really took a bigger look about the huge tolerance, respect and acceptance that had to have my coworkers in order to have a great environment.
This week we went beyond diversity and read about managing diversity, we made a “zoom” about my perception and conclusion of the exercise.
The Bibliographical reference was Chevrier, Sylvie. 2003. Cross-cultural management in multinational project groups Journal of World Business 38:141-149.
This paper studied 3 different international project groups in order to find the actual practices in managing diversity and be able to create a new and better strategy.
Three dominant strategies that where perceived in these cases, they where used by the leader in an implicit or explicit way.
1. Drawing upon individual tolerance & self control: this strategy is almost like a “no strategy” situation; managers don’t pay attention to the cross culture differences and expect self control, patient and some “obvious” special qualities of their team to “work in peace”.
2. Trial & error processes coupled with personals relationship: in this approach relationship is the key, getting to know and to communicate differently with the co-workers, would make the work easier. Learning what partners like and dislikes can create a better environment in the future.
3. Setting up transnational cultures: in order to join together the parts of the project, managers implement international cultures as a resource, such as professional or corporate culture. National habits are replaced by the habits directed by these cultures.

All thought these strategies are not totally satisfactory for managers the lack of better solution makes them use any type of possible solution. The article proposes a better a new strategy for managing diversity in the most proper way.
According to them there must be a cultural mediator in cross-cultural teams, bases on 2 basic assumptions.

1. Understanding the context of the team members is key to success.
2. Interaction results don’t come naturally.

The strategy is based on studying hypothetical situations in order to create collective solutions that transform in understanding and involvement.


The following questions where proposed by the teacher in order to help us make the proper analysis:
· How diversity is managed within organizations?

I think these answer is part answered by the article cases. However as the document highlights there is a lack of standardized, practical and effective solutions, and although I believe there proposal can be very useful and functional, it requires a lot of time which is not an “available resource” now days. Diversity must be managed, that not a lie, but Managers must create a “diverse friendly” environment within their organization even if the company doesn’t have diversity. Sooner or later that company will have to face globalization and obviously diversity.

In fact I can not assure anything but I will say that 80% of the companies are now facing a big grade of diversity, Chevrier article was written in 2003 and a lot has happened since. Now days rules and regulations demand diversity in companies and the 20% of possibility I left for non diversified companies is actually pretty big.


· What is the future of cultures? Are cultures being homogenized? Or are they falling apart?

Just a decade or so ago, sociologists and best-selling authors such as Benjamin Barber, author of Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and TribalismAre Reshaping the World (Ballantine 1996), were concerned about a homogenization of global culture dominated by the United States and its powerful entertainment industry. It was feared that Hollywood and Baywatch were taking over the global culture.
It turns out that local cultures are more robust than was thought. People are quite capable of taking the aspects of global culture they like, ignoring the rest, and holding tight to what they love about their native cultures. (Hines, October 2008)


Over the years these questions have been asked many times by many people and we still have different cultures and not a homogenized one. The constant interrogation about the future of culture owns its origin to globalization and technology. But even though these questions have many different answers the context is completely different. A decade ago globalization was not “the monster” that is today and technology didn’t believe it could reach the levels of today.

I think these questions are very subjective and all thought my answer it’s based on some data it’s constructed on my own experience.

Today the world is the total market of the companies, globalization and technology connects us every day a little more. Consumers are interacting with each other even if they don’t speak the same language or live in the same region. The flow of information is increasing in an exponential way.

People find their “equals” online; now it’s easy to find people with the same likes and dislikes and necessities to buy. It’s not rare to enter a blog and ask if someone has use, or uses a product, or talk about music, hobbies, etc. “the sky is the limit” and people can have “personal advisors” all over the world for anything they want, and they recommend anything to anyone.

Fashion trends are now global trends, products can be found in any place, any state, and any country. Consumers are more demanding and are becoming more “intelligent”, more rational. The same is happening with culture; people see different traditions, values and rituals every day, whether is in TV, Internet, in schools, Universities or workplace.

Since the “global world” started, nations have been able to keep their culture, because people took aspects of other cultures they like, but never took all of them, so till today, they have only modified their culture, but never homogenized it; till today we could positively say that cultures have evolved.

But then again, globalization and technology are growing every day, so does it mean that the future of these evolved cultures is hazy and unclear?

In the article Global Trends in Culture, Infrastructure, and Values. Andy Hines, shares some illustrating data: Just 19% of the global population is on the Internet, and half the world’s population has mobile phones… Add cultural multipolarity to media spread, and the result is cultural flow. In the coming years, expect to see new ideas, including products and services, coming from practically every corner of the planet. An early indicator may be the growing numbers of teens and young adults who think of themselves as global or planetary citizens. With so many communications options open to Gen Y, youths of today are making online friends around the world. My colleagues and I discovered this to be true when we conducted a study for MTV about the “Future of Happiness” with the Associated Press (AP). We came across an interesting quote from one of the five dozen 12- to 24-year-olds we interviewed, who said: “I’ve never met my best friend.” That is, the young Gen Yer had never met face-to-face with the person he has been communicating with for years by e-mail. Additionally, a survey conducted by AP of 1,280 youths found that 25% of Gen Yers surveyed made no distinction between online friends and the ones they saw every day. Although they reported that they do not see technology as a replacement for face to-face contact, they certainly see the Internet as means to access a greater range of friends and ideas.

I know that these figures are very overwhelming and can be a little shocking, but for me they show a reality that will become bigger but that as a result will only generate acceleration on the cultural flow. The fact that we Gen Yers consider our selves citizens of the world does not mean we will have the same culture.
Culture has many factors of influence besides interactions and connectivity. Factors like demography, natural resources, economic capacity and many more are key pillars of cultures. Its right to think that cultures will be quite similar in some aspects but the probability of having a single culture is almost cero.
Not even the European Union has managed to have a homogenized culture, it’s not easy to eliminate a history that weights that much.

Bibliography
Chevrier, Sylvie. 2003. Cross-cultural management in multinational project groups Journal of World Business 38:141-149.

Quoted Articles
Hines, A. (October 2008). Global Trends in Culture, Infrastructure, and Values. The Futurist , 18-24.

DIVERSITY: exploring my workplace and my working area

Exploring diversity on My Work

What are the similarities and differences between the two groups?
Basically the 2 groups are very similar, diversity is in the two groups and the principles and the values are very much alike. The difference is mostly in the fact that the marketing area is more connected with each other. Areas like sales or finances are very independent with their work and have only result reviews. Unlike Marketing that is always in touch not only within them but with the whole company.
P&G makes activities for all the company like the Christmas party, the beginning year party (our fiscal year stars in July) like any other company, but the market team has special activities only for them and much more than the average of the rest of the company. The pour pose of this marketing activities is to strengthen relationships among marketers and emphasize and create a bigger awareness of their roles interdependency.
The structure of marketing is mores horizontal; in other areas the structure is very vertical.In addition marketing has a lot of trainings unlike the company.

How does the degree of diversity in the workplace affect your learning & working experience?
having different points of view allows me to search always for new ideas, new solutions, forces me to work at peak and give a 100% all the time.
Dealing with different cultures can be difficult at first but then you learn that not everything means the same, that reactions are different, that believes and thought can interact and fusion to obtain better and more optimal ideas and solutions.
Tolerance, self control and acceptance are very important as well as caring to learn about others.

How does the degree of diversity in your area affect the work experience, and extracurricular activities? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
Marketing works as a natural group because they need to be constantly communicated, we are divided in MOTs, witch are responsible of an specific category. This MOTs are multifunctional teams that are composed by marketers (the number depends on the number of brands in the category), one contact of planning, supply and logistics and one contact of the sales area. The leader of each group is a marketer to.
Being part of this group gives me the opportunity of listening to different point of view, different forms of thinking, communicating, different styles, work habits, and many more, this complexity gives me the opportunity to improve, learn and become more competitive. In the extracurricular activities the marketing area is very united and likes to go out all the time, we make plans to eat, party and have a good time.
a very important advantages is that people from outside or new are easily adjust to de company, and I Don’t think there are disadvantages because even though some time different point are confronted, this generates debates and allows better results.

What could be done in terms of diversity to enrich your work experience?
I think that in terms of diversity my experience has been more than fulfilling.

Bibliography:
CULTURAL METAPHORS: APPLICATIONS AND EXERCISES by Martin J. Gannon
Images where taken from:
http://www.gettyimages.com
http://www.shutterstock.com
http://www.istockphoto.com

2nd Week: The Corporation movie Anlysis

WE HAVE CREATED A MONSTER!

The corporations is an awards winning Canadian documentary that talks, analyses and evaluates the evolution of The Corporation and evaluates its impacts in society.
The movie attributes the condition of The Modern Corporation as a dominant institution to the given status of legal person. Thanks to this legal decision Corporations have been gaining rights that where in the past rights only for human beings, for natural persons.
Following this idea the movie makes a challenging question that will resume the nature of this study; If corporations are legally human what kind of people are they?.
Using psychological criteria, such as the manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) the movie analyses the behavior of the corporation, it evaluates it, through various cases studies, like a specialist would analyze the mental health and conduct of a person.
The cases that are studied easily fill all the symptoms of a diagnosed psychopath that shows the corporation as a irresponsible, out of control, heartless, antisocial, dishonest, person with out any conscience at all. From this moment on the movie is an illustration of the corporation as a threat for our future and our society. In the end there are some solutions and some examples about what people should do to stop this destructive monster, this psychopath.
All thought the movie has good points, convincing arguments and “puts in evidence” some actions of the corporations that are some times forgotten or overlooked, it was also “hard to swallow” for me and not that quite convincing or revealing. And I think its more sensationalist than enlightening.
Unlike Frankenstein, The Corporation was built by men in a rational way; The Corporation was not a mistake, not an experiment. The rights the corporation obtained where given only by men, by the legal system that men created.
“The Corporation” is a person, is a legal person because our legal system defines it as one, but in fact is not a natural person; it’s a group of natural or juridical persons that have legal rights. Corporations can not be analyzed as a person, it has to be analyses as a business, as a business community.
Corporations are legal persons--they have legal rights and responsibilities and can sue and be sued… Corporations are artificial or nonnatural because they are the creations of the law.[1]

At the beginning of the movie Monks[2] says “A corporation is an externalizing machine in the same way that a shark is a killing machine. Each one is designed in a very efficient way, to accomplish particular objectives. In the achievement of those objectives, there isn’t any question of malevolence or of will, the enterprise has within it, and the shark has within it, those characteristics that enable it to do that for which it was designed” then again the one that design this machine, was men, and what are or witch are the characteristics that The Corporation has with in? Isn’t again man? Man are inside, within, the corporation and are the forces, the characteristics that control this externalizing machine, men are the ones that design these machine with some specific objectives, and they are not precisely the objectives of “The Corporation” they are the objectives of the men in the corporation.

It’s true that the organization has a personality, but this personality is created by the people within the Corporation. The Corporation does not have like any other person intelligence and a will, The Corporations acts are reduce to the decisions that are made by the stakeholders, the managers, and so on. The Corporations personality is only a reflection, a projected image of the people than manage it, control it and work inside it.
Why aren´t any strike toward the CEO of a corporation? Why, he is the one that controls the company. in order to continue this idea I have to clarify my self and say that I agree in this one with Gibara, when he says that it’s a thought decision for the CEO, the truth is its not only his decision, its also the stakeholders decision. As I said I agree with him in this part, but I don’t agree with Chomsky when he says that an individual is a monster in their institutional life because the company is a monster but in real life he is actually a caring person. What is he a moppet? So he is saying that he is not himself at work? That he is controlled by the monster where he works? Well excuse me, but I think that is a bunch of lies. If your mother and father died because of cigarettes, and you hate them would you work in a tobacco company? The CEO takes this decisions because he is incapable or he dose not what to argue about it. Maybe if we put some ethical guy that cares about the people we could make some change. Companies like Google Inc have shown that they do care about the society and the take good care of the employees in fact they have the 20/5 policy, if 20% of the users need a function they leave it and if 5% need it, they leave it in advanced functions, and in addition the company has the biggest corporative panel. So you see, the owners of this company are “good” people, so the company is a “good” legal person, a “good” corporation.
The corporation was created in the image and likeness of man, we are actually the Gods of the Modern Corporation, we are the creator, and we are inside our creation, witch we continuously modify towards our needs. And even if I force my self to see the corporation as a person then I would have to disagree again with Monk; The Corporation seen as a person it’s not different than us, it’s actually the same.

It is generally accepted that people help others because ultimately it benefits them in some way. Research has shown two main classes of egoistic behavior for helping: reward-seeking (such as gaining social approval and punishment-avoiding (we don’t want to feel guilty or generate negative feeling in others).[3]

Monks asks some questions while saying that the corporation is not like us, he asks; to whom do these companies owe loyalty? What does loyalty mean? And the answer to the first is simple, to them selves. They are as selfish as we are, as all man kind is. To answer the second I will base myself in the same argument that all persons are selfish, and I will first ask and answer this; when are men loyal, and in those moments, to whom are they loyal? Men are loyal when they need something and they are loyal to the person that helps them reach this goal. So, what does loyalty mean? It means you backing up some one no meter what in bad times as in good times, but then again for men is backing up some one as long as it benefits them.



[1] http://legaltheorylexicon.blogspot.com/2004/03/legal-theory-lexicon-027.html
[2] Robert Monks CEO LENS; Founder, Institutional Shareholder “Corporate governance is who is responsible for running the company, how do they function and to whom they are accountable."
[3] http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=0&did=1625861051&SrchMode=1&sid=3&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1233511916&clientId=65927