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Our Value Systems - The Root of Culture Clashes?We live in a world of different values, systems and standards. It is depending on where we live and how much we are accustomed to certain standards and laws of that land that we behave and believe in certain ways. In addition, studies have found that the way in which we were brought up and taught has a lot to do with how we believe and react to our surrounding occurrences.For example, we react in disbelief and condemn the custom of a South American Indian tribe who consume the flesh and drink the blood of their dying parents as savage and animalistic! When we learn that they also put their aging parents up in high trees and shake them and if their parents could not hold on to the tree limbs and fall down, they would be instantly killed and literally eaten by their children! If the parents successfully hold on the tree limbs and do not fall, they celebrate and continue on their journey. When I was told of this story, like many people, I reacted in dismay and condemn that these people are animalistic, disrespectful and even unlawful! Only after I learned the real reasons behind their actions and their value system, I became enlighten, although I could never do the same. Firstly, this Indian tribe believes that it is disrespectful and cruel to allow wild animals and their rivals to hurt and consume their parents when they are too weak to defend themselves and become a burden to the whole village. Thus, they need to find out how strong are their parents so that they'd be able to defend themselves. Putting their parents on a tree and shake it is a test of strength. Secondly, it is their belief that by drinking the blood and consume the flesh of their own parents who have created them, they will be able to absorb and maintain the family spirit, wisdom, and strength within themselves. To them, burying their parent bodies in the ground is disrespectful and wasteful since this would allow insects and species other than them to consume the very best of their parents, the most magnificent spirit and strength on earth. Like many of us when we hear, see, and smell things that are differently from our own standards, normal beliefs or in-grained values, we react negatively toward them. This is the cause and root of all prejudices. The story above shows us that when we fail to understand certain behaviors, or when we see things and people that are so different from us, from our customs or from our "norms", "status quo", "common sense", we tend to condemn or disassociate ourselves from them, either vocally or silently. Unfortunately, in doing so, many times we deprive these people of their rights to be treated equally and fairly. For example, a hostess of a luxurious restaurant keeps ignoring a couple from India, because they dress differently than us and speak with a heavy accent. Needless to say, this is a form of prejudice, and it only can be cured with understanding and mutual respect. Because technical talent is the most sought after commodity in today's technological world, overseas and ethnic talent recruiting for needed brain cells are the norms among technological corporations. In fact, one of the important considerations in most corporate acquisitions and mergers are the acquisition of talent and technologies. These actions embody the popular belief that companies that posses the most talents will win out in the long run. Therefore, organizations must master the management of different ethnicity's. One of the most often recurrent problems are known as ethnic bypasses where employees of different ethnic are passed over from promotions because upper management failed to trust and accept him for what he is. Instead, they tend to consider people of the same background and belief, or friends from inner circle. This is the most common behavior observed in many domestic as well as foreign corporations. It is also the most common cause for missed objectives and costly mismanagement of human resources. In fact, when effective root cause analysis are made, companies found that the majority of the problem lied in the incapability of the person in charge to carry out the job. Often it is because of the lack of either technical or people skills of the promoted manager. The lacking of technical skills often translates into his failure to command respect from his staff and the front liners. Therefore, it is critical for today's businesses to observe the following golden rule - management promotions must always be based on true technical and management skills. Often, the ratio of technical over people skills is dependent on each particular job requirement. For example, an engineering position requires less of management skill than technical skill and vice versa. However, for today's technological organizations, it is no longer suffice to have managers that possess only people skill without the prerequisite technical skill. Although people skill is the more important skill of the two's . Studies found that managers with people skill have better chance to manage their workforce that those without. However, these same studies found that those who have both technical and people skills are ones that often achieve milestones and develop champions. Without true technical knowledge pre-requisites, managers often can not interpret work issues hence could not make the decision themselves. Because of these shortfalls, they often fail to lead, participate or lend a hand, hence unable to motivate. They often could not appreciate the hard work of their employees and the degree of complexity of any given tasks because of this technical incapacity. Often, they tend to rely on a few inner circle employees or friends who may not have all the necessary technical skills. Worse yet is their misinterpretation of the meaning of "team". To them, a true team player should cover up or ignore failures and mistakes from their team-mates instead of correcting them at the root (i.e., providing counseling and training to avoid same mistakes in the future). The situation becomes more problematic when the mistake is made by the manager. The value of integrity and true team work therefore is found with those who know how to help correct the situation without causing much embarrassment to the one who is at fault. Without this remedy, this type of problem will further deepen resentments and create larger problems among work groups. The end result of these situations spell disasters to corporations when the situation is allowed to last over a long period of time. Therefore to ensure success and milestones, companies and hiring managers must emphasize both people and technical skills as prerequisites for technical job openings. In short, the 21st century managers must be able to breath people skills and master technical requirements for the jobs. They also need to make themselves available to their people and be effective as coaches and mentors to maximize the output of their people. However, they must also learn to remedy non-performance and separate true team work from the popular misconceived team work that are built on condoning and ignoring the problems at hand especially when the mistakes are made by their staff, themselves and their managers (the yes man syndrome). We also need to develop and encourage the appreciation within ourselves and our team for the integrity of those that speak the truth and help us correct our own mistakes instead of condoning them for as long as these corrections are made within our own organization. More importantly, the real issue and
challenge in this discussion is not the differences in our value systems, but
our failure to understand and respect these differences. Therefore,
the challenge for all of us as people of different backgrounds, is to constantly
reminding ourselves to bridge across to the other side and master our
differences. To be able to do so, we should allow ourselves plenty of
opportunities to be acquainted to, and to participate in many events together.
The success of modern managers and citizens of the 21st century depends on our
ability to learn, trust and respect the culture and the make-up of value systems
that people of all different walks come to join us in our society and place of
employment. Of course, we are most comfortable living within our own
familiar behaviors and customs, but in treating and dealing with others, we must
first learn about their beliefs and value systems as they ought to do the same
with ours. It is the mutual respects and understanding that we can ensure
a successful and harmonious world - a world without prejudices and chaos. Prepared by | |||||||||
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