Would you like to play games the first Day of work?

What do you think if I organize games for the fisrt day of work?
Any advice?

I found several, the followings:

I Want You To Know

Goals

To share the experiences of various ethnical, gender, religious, and cultural groups and listen to one another.

Directions:

Decide the ethnic categories to be used based on the demographics of the learners by asking the group which ethnic groups they feel comfortable using. If there is only one member of a certain group, ask if she or he feels comfortable or if she or he whishes to join another group.
Divide the group by ethnic categories and give each a sheet of flip chart paper.
Give them about ten minutes to write down their answers for the following questions:

• What we want you to know about our group.
• What we never want to see, hear or experience again as a member of this group.
• What we want our allies to do.

When all groups have completed their lists, reassemble them into one group and have them discuss their answers. When each group has explained their list, ask questions to clarify, not to challenge as the list represents realities for the group.

Discussion

• What are your initial reactions to the activity?
• Which group did you learn the most about?
• Did any of the statements surprise you?
• Did you notice any similarities between the groups? 

Getting To Know You

Goal

To learn about each other.

Instructions

Divide the learners into small groups. Provide each group a large sheet of flip chart paper and markers. Have them to draw a large flower with a center and an equal number of petals to the number of learners in their group. Through discussion with their group members, have them find their similarities and differences. They should fill in the center of the flower with something they all have in common.
Each member should then fill in his or her petal with something about them that is unique - unlike any other member in their group. Workers should be instructed that they cannot use physical attributes such as hair color, weight etc. This encourages them to have more meaningful discussions with their group members).
They should be encouraged to be creative in their ideas and drawings.
After the small group activity, have them share with the large group, about similarities and differences.

The Herman Grid

Goals

To discover that first impressions of people are not always true.

Instructions

Pass out copies of the Herman Grid to each learner. Ask them to share their impressions and if they see gray dots at the white intersections. Are the Gray spots really there? This is an example of how we sometimes see things that are not really there.

Discussion

• Have you ever had a wrong first impression of someone who had a different background or came from another culture?
• Has someone from a different back-ground or another culture ever had the wrong first impression of you?

Ask participants to share and discuss their examples in the large group or in small groups.

Influences on Chinese management

 

This is my few notes of the day:

The confucianism,taoism and the buddhism are philosophies I have to learn more about before my departure to Shanghai

Confucianism: The “Golden Rule”: "What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." 

Taoism: asks that each person focuses on the world around him or her action through inaction

The principle of yin-yang, the expression of the relationship between opposite but interpenetrating forces that may complete one another, make each comprehensible , or create the conditions for altering one into the other.

 

Buddhism: personal /spiritual development/compassion/Change is always possible

   Does anyone have advice for me about readings?

Thank you!

Affective or Neutral?

I find this comparison of affective and neutral cultures very interesting because Im affective.
I dont show the pain, a little bit the anger, and when I am happy everybody is aware.
I am going to work with Chinese people and now I know that I will have to calm down when good things happen!
I will always better understand why they wont express their joy too much, or anger.
Nevertheess I will try to explain to them that for French people its not incorect to show ones feelings openly. Its better for a manager to know how people feel in the team!

Specific and diffuse orientation

Today I learned about specific and diffuse orientation.
It seems that Chinese people are diffuse orientated and French more specific orientated.



Specific cultures tend to:
-Analyse elements separately, and then put them together:  The whole is the sum of its parts.
-Have a large “public” sphere of specific individuals, but a much smaller “private” sphere.
-Specific individuals concentrate on hard facts, standards, contracts.

Diffuse cultures tend to:
- Consider that all elements are related to each other. These relationships are more important than each separate element; so the whole is more than just the sum of its elements.
-Have a large private sphere and a small public one.
-Admire qualities include style, demeanour, ambiance, trust, understanding, etc.


I used to work in specific cultures way, I analyse separately first and  then put ideas together. Maybe Im wrong, maybe Im right.

Neither one nor the other,I think it depends on the situation, the context...


What do you think?

How to manage the team?

As I told you I know the hard work coming ahead, I try to learn every day about managing a multicultural team. I picked up some information and I made a synthesis.

What do you think about it?

I will manage the "I'm Pigeon-toed" team:

By taking time to focus on team-building early in the life of the team:Conducting an initial team-building session can produce continuing benefits, including the ability to form healthy working relationships, make and execute decisions, handle conflict, enjoy and generate truly innovative solutions.

By clarifying team expectations and norms at the outset:Effective multicultural teams are especially mindful of clarifying the team’s purpose, figuring out ways of working together, determining available resources, and understanding their deliverables early on.

By making the extra effort to understand cultural complexities: develop a global mindset that helps them know how to best involve people from different cultures.

By handling the special challenge of managing conflict and creativity:Conflict is perceived, valued, and addressed in different ways in different cultures.

The Team

Here we are!!!
Im joking, but I hope that we will look like them.
The team is composed of 11 people with me.
4 French people and 7 seven Chinese people.
I already know my french colleagues but I have never seen my chinese colleagues. I wrote to them every two weeks, we keep in touch!!
What was your first impression with your foreigner colleagues the very first day?

Who Am I ?

First of all, my name is Cora!

Graduated in science of management, I worked into different companies before like RedBull, Bic Mark-it where I've learned a lot about communication, marketing and management.

I took part of the "Im Pigeon-toed" team two years ago as Sales Manager. It was the opportunity for me to work in a smaller company and improve my skills in management.

I think my personal values are : openness, variety, achievement, faith, quality of work, beauty, creativity, efficiency

Im moderately polychronic: I tend to have a more flexible approach to projects in terms of organisation and deadline adjusting my plans as new considerations arrives.I work on several things at once and have preference for team working.

It seems I develop many informal but long-term professional relationships which help me to achieve my aims. My means of communication tend to be personalised and informal and consult my colleagues is vital to decision making.

My personal strengths and attributes: I come from the french West-Indies, I am from Martinique and I thing its my number one strength in multicultural experiences.That is to say I used to cope with the gap beetween people and I. Even though My island is a French island, french people and caraibean people are totally differents. Differents, in their ways of living, of working and treating people. So I already made a work on myself to improve my relationships with « foreigners »

Openmindedness can be an other strengh, I am not affraid of discovering new cultures and I really like to try new things and take risks. 

I believe that nothing happens by chance and that we can handle everthing on our way.

I also trust that diversity in human capital actually leads to increased creativity and efficiency in many cases.