User:MSB/Summer-13

=Cultural Diversity & Cross-Cultural Management=

Outline
Welcome to the "Business Culture" course of the International Summer School "European Business and Economics Programme" (EBEP) — or rather, its Wiki portion. Structurally speaking, this course is a mess: fortunately, our topic is not accounting or economics or informatics or any of the other well-defined, well organized almost scientific disciplines created to support business management. Instead, our main subject matter is culture and within culture certain issues of diversity. Of course there is a significant body of scholarly knowledge on cultural diversity and cross-cultural management. However, in my experience with many students, especially those who experienced business cultures foreign to their own, a certain set of practices and skills is of the more immediate importance and use than theory. Hence the topic selection for our classes. You have been handed out much more material than will be able to cover in for half days but I trust that you prefer to have something to read later instead of nothing. In addition to the handouts I will upload a daily photo protocol to this site. Please feel free to use the discussion page for further questions or make comments. You can also add material on your own or correct mistakes if you find any. Don't worry, you cannot break this wiki.--msb (discuss • contribs) 15:47, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Topics
thumbnail|"Follow Fluxus": German fellowship honoring the 1960s "[[w:Fluxus|Fluxus" movement]] Throughout the course I will feature is a very subjective selection of artworks to remind you that culture, even business culture (some say: is specially business culture, because of its relevancy to people's immediate lives and its being grounded in place and time) is in everything. We will discuss what, if anything, this means for doing business in a globalized environment.

Competition In A Shrinking World
Today's business paradox is: the world is both shrinking and expanding. Or rather, different parts of the world are. Distances for example while physically the same can be bridged virtually to the point that they seem to eliminate it to the participants of a meeting who sit thousands of miles apart. At the same time, the range of skills required to succeed in a altogether more complex, more diverse environment, has grown when compared with only a few decades ago.

In this session will also be looking at "the German way" for lack of a better word, and I don't mean the Holocaust by that... but phenomena like the so-called "Fräulein Wunder" which generate equal amounts of ambivalence and antipathy much like Germany's recent leadership surrounding the Euro crisis :


 * "When the Germans guarantee the debts of insolvent states with packages running into the billions, their flag is burned in these very states and the alleged rescuers are vilified in the papers as 'goosestepping taskmasters'. When their soaring exports help pull Europe out of its economic slump, their country is denounced as a business-first steamroller. ... But the problem should really be the solution: Germany is in fact quite a good example for how high-wage countries can succeed on global markets. For example with reasonable unions and plausible wage agreements that keep hundreds of thousands of workers on the job. This model may be less likeable, but it is distinctly more sustainable than those of its critics who make the economy 'work' and create fictitious growth with borrowed money."

Corporate Storytelling
The purpose of corporate storytelling methods is to support change in organizations by identifying, crafting and telling appropriate stories. In this way, very effective interventions can be (literally) staged. Don't think of novels or fairy tales, think e.g. of a booklet of best practices generated not from research among competitors, but from stories picked up from people in the organization instead (this is a real example from Shell). Storytelling is a systemic intervention because to create a story you need to use the system view to generate an abstract representation (which then is made entertaining by adding story elements).
 * Telling Tales, Steve Denning (2004), Harvard Business Review.
 * Applying Storytelling — Interview with Steve Denning (2010)
 * HBR Mgmt. Comm. on Storytelling — C. M. Phoel (2006)
 * Video: Leadership Storytelling — TEDx talk by Steve Denning (2011)
 * Video: Nancy Duarte : Engage through storytelling
 * Sparknow Corporate Storytelling
 * Is this a story? — chart for the novel "Cloud Atlas" from: Outgoingsignals.

Scenario Planning

 * The purpose of scenario planning (originally developed by corporate planning at Shell) is to get a better handle on not one, but different possible futures of an organization. This is usually a lengthy, data driven process of forecasting. Traditional instruments of prediction or forecasting (like trend analysis) usually assume a particular future. Scenario planning on the other hand should yield several (usually 2 to 3) futures. "Companies are better at preparing then at predicting the future". For companies like Shell the scenario time horizon is about 25 years or longer. The reasons are fourfold and have to do with shells business. Finally, scenario planning can be seen as a powerful combination of thorough data mining and analysis, and guided creativity, combined in the course of a lengthy, dialogue oriented process, resulting in 2 to 3 scenarios.
 * Introduction to Scenario Planning Video (2011), 4 min.
 * Some examples from a (German) course on enterprise process modeling
 * Fast & Furious scenarios: (1) Open Science; (2) Project outline with milestones
 * What are scenarios? Shell style...: "Shell has been using scenarios since the early 1970s to allow generations of leaders make better business decisions. Over time, the Shell Scenarios have gained a global following among governments, academia and other businesses. They have helped deepen understanding of how the world might appear decades ahead."
 * Shell global scenarios for 2050: "To help think about the future of energy, we have developed two scenarios that describe alternative ways it may develop. In the first scenario – called Scramble – policymakers pay little attention to more efficient energy use until supplies are tight. Likewise, greenhouse gas emissions are not seriously addressed until there are major climate shocks. In the second scenario – Blueprints – growing local actions begin to address the challenges of economic development, energy security and environmental pollution." — including video with Jeremy Bentham (Head of Corporate Planning, Shell)
 * Trend maps for the future from NowAndNext.com
 * Harvard Business Review: History of Scenario Planning (Wilkinson and Kuipers, May 2013)
 * Futurist Peter Schwartz on Scenario Planning at Shell, Video.

Assertiveness at Work

 * Assertiveness at work refers to a set of techniques that are useful to let your coworkers know where your boundaries are. These techniques can be very useful when trying to defend yourself against over-work, or when you need to show your limits, e.g. with your boss who is continously stepping over your line.


 * Often misunderstood, the key issue of assertiveness is not to defend yourself, to leave a strong impression, or in fact, take any responsibility for what your home might or might not do. The key to assertiveness is to communicate, as efficiently and powerfully as possible, where your personal boundary lies (and, by implication, if your opponent has crossed it). Next to the direct information (always to be considered the first option) "fielding" can be a very effective method. It's also very simple: it consists of identifying the shortest message that you want to send regarding your boundary and then sending it repeatedly, as long as necessary, without defending yourself, without giving extra information etc. Of course, a necessary prerequisite of this technique (or of any assertiveness) is that you know yourself, know your boundaries and are willing to defend them.


 * it can be difficult at first to distinguish the different areas and applications of assertive behavior. This is in part because these areas overlap; assertiveness for example is very important when negotiating. At the same time, assertiveness is typically less needed here, because negotiations tend to be better structured and are built on the silent assumption that the opponents respect each others' boundaries. Two models by Berne (Drama triangle and PAC model) contain positions (e.g. "child" or "rescue") from which it is not possible to be assertive (or desired). There's a transition to dealing with "negative types" like bullies or charmers and exerting more pressure, wanting to get your way, not only communicate your boundaries. Milton Erickson is a hypnotherapist who also used and refined paradoxical interventions in his practice.

Dealing with Negative Types

 * When basic assertiveness is not sufficient, you need additional techniques on how to handle so-called "negative types", like bullies, slackers, charmers etc. Negative types are not as common as you might think but when you encounter them it can be very destructive.
 * Asking yourself who your least preferred negative type is and which negative type(s) you yourself tend to be for others. Negative behavior is relative, it is not good or bad, its usefulness depends on the context. Also when in a situation where you are the one with less actual (not just perceived) power, you should, or can, turn into negative types to save yourself. One possible outcome of both assertiveness and interventions against negative types is that you signal to the perpetrator that you are not an easy target and s/he is then more likely to let go off you and find another, better target.

Systemic Change Management

 * Change management is an operational methodology but also a process. In this course we will proceed very pragmatically: I have identified a few cases and models that I have found to be superbly useful and that we will explore together. Change management is not systemic as such, but effectively supporting change almost always means that you need to take system parameters (e.g. people's roles) and relationships within the system into account.
 * Systems theory has proven to be one of the most fertile incubator for interdisciplinary theories, models and techniques: cybernetics, complexity theory, decision theory are only some of the examples. The systemic view, simply said, requires an abstraction of a complex situation or entity by resolving it into a collection of boundaries (subsystems), elements (including actors) and relationships between these elements. It may surprise you how much can be gained with such a simple recipe. Consider however that the entire methodology of the natural sciences is built upon a principle of abstraction and the carrying out of experiments in the spirit of abstraction and generalization.

Additional Sources

 * "The five words that can swing a meeting in your favour" (TechRepublic, June 2013)
 * Coaching students in Second Life (video)
 * paper (Birkenkrahe and Gallo, 2011) Transfer of Physical Classroom Techniques to the Virtual Classroom During A Practice Supervision Course
 * paper SYSTEM CONSTELLATIONS AS A TOOL SUPPORTINGORGANISATIONAL LEARNING AND CHANGE PROCESSES (Birkenkrahe 2008)
 * Inge Qunhua: Virtual Worlds for Educators Inge is a Danish designer of prize-winning 3D learning objects)

Session photos & comments
Please feel free to leave your comments for the photo records on the "discuss" page.