Personal Development Final Paper

The following are three concepts from the course ‘Managing People from a Global

Perspective’ that I value most:

The first concept

1. What is the concept/insight and why is it important to you?

The first concept that is important to me is about the topic discussed in the first week. It’s

about the organizational behavior, the organizational trends and success inside

organization. As a CFO of an advertising agency, I found that the material discussed are

very interesting. The human capital division is under my responsibility, thus the lesson

that I got regarding OB is very useful.

2. How will this concept/insight affect your thinking and actions?

Having learned about the OB concept and it’s VUCAness level that may vary between

one organization to another organization made me realize the world has change. It will

really need some analysis related to the VUCAness level of my organization. Having a

fully understanding about that VUCAness level, I believe that I can manage the company

better. The discussion regarding the organizational trends has also made me realize

about the trending happens in the current working environment.

3. What specific changes will you make (include how they relate to your management

/leadership future) as a result of this concept/insight?

The specific changes that I will make are the following:

 Applying six factors which contribute to create the best workplace to improve

employee satisfaction/productivity (Goffee&Jones,2013); consisting of let people be

themselves, unleash the flow of information, magnify people’s strengths, stand for

more than shareholder value, show how the daily work makes sense, and have rules

people can believe in

 There are several expatriates in the holding company of the company that I work for.

In order to understand them better and have a successful communication with them,

I have to apply the eight dimensions of Erin Meyer’s culture map: communications,

evaluating, persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing and scheduling

(Meyer, 2014). This also applies to some multinational clients where the management

level are expatriates. I need to apply Meyer’s culture map to understand their culture

lens thus I can gain a better negotiation with them.

 Studying Hofstede’s dimensional paradigm and applying the most suitable one to get

the understanding how the organization operates, particularly the one in my office

(Hofstede,2011). There are six of them: process-oriented vs results-oriented, job-

oriented vs employee-oriented, professional vs parochial, open systems vs closed

systems, tight vs loose control, and pragmatic vs normative

4. How will this concept/insight affect others with whom you work?

Having applied the changes to my current organization, I believe I will bring some

improvement to the business process and better communication with all employees, the

expatriates and the multinational clients.

5. How will this concept/insight help you succeed in another culture that you have

experienced (or intend to experience)

In my current organization, we have several clients from multinational company. Having

learned about the Erin Meyer’s Culture map, it’s easier for me to identify the client’s

behavior using the eight scales. I’m able to understand and communicate with my clients

better. One of the case with a Japanese client when we had such a hard negotiation for

branding pitching. From Meyer’s map, I understand that Japanese is uncomfortable with

direct feedback and open disagreement. Japanese is also very hierarchical, it’s a

consensual society where decisions are often made by the group in a bottom-up manner,

thus the decisions may take longer, as input from everyone is gathered before decisions

are made. By having some understanding about their culture lens, we were able to

manage the communication better and finally we won the pitching and got some business

from them.

The second concept

1. What is the concept/insight and why is it important to you?

The second concept that is important to me is about motivation, rewards, coaching and

feedback. It’s very important as those concepts related to human capital, which is under

my responsibility.

2. How will this concept/insight affect your thinking and actions?

With some lessons that I got from this course, I would able to restructure the reward

program and submitted several suggestions regarding reward and feedback to the

company.

3. What specific changes will you make (include how they relate to your management

/leadership future) as a result of this concept/insight?

The specific changes I will make are the following:

 Taking seven strategies to improve giving feedback (Phoel, 2009); consisting of focus

on business outcomes, give feedback often, cite specific, concrete data, don’t assume

you’re right, ask questions, follow through, ad gather feedback on how you to feedback

 Learning to give and receive advice betters which create some additional opportunities

for personal growth and enhanced performance (Gavin & Margolis, 2015). I will apply

several steps suggested by Gavin & Margolis to improve the process of giving and

receiving advice; including develop a shared understanding, craft alternative,

converge on a decision and put advice into action

 Applying six strategies on how to best receive feedback (Heen & Stone, 2014);

consisting of know your tendencies, disentangle the “what” from the “who”, sort toward

coaching, unpack the feedback, ask for just one thing and engage in small

experiments. I believe that these six strategies can increase the effectiveness of the

feedback.

4. How will this concept/insight affect others with whom you work?

This concept basically applied to all employees in the company. Having learned about the

feedback concept and the best way to providing feedback, the employees in my company

would get benefit from the new reward program.

5. How will this concept/insight help you succeed in another culture that you have

experienced (or intend to experience)

One of the technical advisers in our company is a Germany. With understanding of how

to receive feedback, I could have a better communication with him now. That is eventually
has a good impact to the working effectiveness in the company. From this lesson, I also

found that the cultural diversity can become one of team’s greatest asset.

The third concept

1. What is the concept/insight and why is it important to you?

The third concept that I take is the material from week 6 regarding ‘managing oneself in

a complex, global work environment’. I found that this concept is very interesting and

related to a development in my career since I’ve been working for almost 30 years.

2. How will this concept/insight affect your thinking and actions?

Having learned about ‘managing oneself’ I will need to have sometime to do reflection

and decide what I will do for the rest of my working period time. I will need a specific

action to make a plan for the second career. I should shift from a manual worker think

and behave like a chief executive officer.

3. What specific changes will you make (include how they relate to your management

/leadership future) as a result of this concept/insight?

The specific changes that I will make are the following:

 Applying some suggestion by Peter Drucker from his book of “Managing Oneself”:

performing a feedback analysis of my career and have an understanding of my

strength, understanding the way I perform in the organization and having a deep

understanding of my values and where do I belong

 Spending some time to clarify what is the most important matter, identifying the

important events, characterizing heroes in my life, envisioning my future state and

recognizing my core values (Friedman, S. 2008)

 Applying the suggestion by Stew Friedman (Be a better leader, have a richer life and

the book Total leadership); ie., utilize the leadership to better integrate the different

parts of life and able to have a four-way wins; ie., work, home, community and self.

To be able to have a four-way wins, people need to generate support from the key

people around them. The approach is not about trading off, or balancing, but rather

integrating in an intelligent way that fits to someone’s life, someone’s world.

4. How will this concept/insight affect others with whom you work?

By having an extensive understanding about myself, my strength and value, I believe I

could find an appropriate job/career that effect my personal happiness. If I could achieve

that level, the company must also get benefit from a knowledge worker rather than the

manual worker who do as they are told to.

5. How will this concept/insight help you succeed in another culture that you have

experienced (or intend to experience)

Our family has Australia Permanent Resident visa which allow us living and working in

Australia. Having learned this course, I gain so much knowledge of how to deal and

manage people from a global perspective. Having considered the second career abroad,

I believe I would have a better understanding about Australian culture by applying Meyer’s

culture map.

An additional knowledge that I gain from this course is the reading skill from ‘book critique’

exercise. I picked “The power of habit” by Charles Duhigg which I found that the book is

such an amazing book. Changing habit is a key of winning and can change everything.
 References

Goffee & Jones (2013). “Creating the Best Workplace on Earth”. Harvard Business

Review.

Erin Meyer (2014). “Navigating the Cultural Mindfield”. Harvard Business Review.

Hofstede,G (2011). “Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context”. Online

Readings in Psychology and Culture.

Phoel (2009). “Feedback that Works”. Harvard Business Review.

Gavin & Margolis (2015). “The Art of Giving and Receiving Advice.” Harvard Business

Review.

Heen & Stone (2014). “Find the Coaching in Criticism: The Right Ways to Receive

Feedback.” Harvard Business Review.

Peter Drucker (2005). “Managing Oneself.” Harvard Business Review

Friedman, S (2008). “Clarify what’s important to you” From Total Leadership: Be a Better

Leader, Have a Richer Life (pp.2-23). Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing

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