Which way does your culture (or an organization you were once in) lean in each of the six factors? How much?

 Task vs. Relationship

            The first factor is the task vs relationship. In the task culture, the organization share some specific social or personal matters that help in ensuring the tasks will be completed in the given and defined time always. In my organization, the employees will be given very strict deadlines to complete tasks. In the relationship culture, the employees are interacting to each other and different departments or units also focus on the relationship to discuss the tasks purely. Furthermore, the discussion on the tasks by building relations with other departments ensures high accuracy in the completion of the tasks.

2.      Competitive vs cooperative culture

            The organization must have to focus on the competitiveness because the competition internally and among the department will increase the productivity in the workplaces. While in the cooperative culture of the organization is referring to behaviors and beliefs of employees to determine management and employees interact and manage the organizational transactions.

3.      Direct vs. Indirect.

            My organization has also direct and indirect cultures for communication. The management and leaders in organization perform direct communication when verbal messages are essential. On the other side, the management also prefer to indirect communication through emails. The indirect communication is performed when the diplomatic decision are necessary in the workplace.

4.      Hierarchical vs. Non-Hierarchical

      The organization is purely focusing on the hierarchical structure because the ranks or job titles will be helpful to manage the employees. This culture is also providing help to distribute work and ensures more formal way. In this culture, the organizational work and tasks with authorities are divided into more structured form. While in the non-hierarchical culture, the leadership are formed with decentralized authority and fewer levels.

5.      Process-Driven vs. Spontaneous

            The organization should focus on the process driven culture in which the practices, attitudes and employee behaviors drive activities and performing their works daily to impact positively on strategic objectives. But the spontaneous culture is challenging because leaders have to prove the generation of ideas and innovation solutions.

6.      Short-Term vs. Long-Term Focus

In this culture, the leaders mostly focus on the short-term technique by reporting monthly or quarterly because organization will have an idea where it is standing currently. But the long-term focus may be challenging.

2. Which of the six factors do you think is the most important to align with?

The most important align form six factors are competitive vs cooperative and hierarchical culture.

Unit 5 Lesson 2

What is unique about your culture (pick one – organizational, ethnic, geographical, international)? Relate an instance where you had a barrier to communication because of cultural differences. How did you handle this barrier to communication?

I have watched TEDx video on cultures. I have selected international culture because it is very unique in my opinion. The reason is that every country have its own cultures and beliefs and they may also have several types of cultural rituals and cultural activities. In my opinion, there are several types of barriers among different people of different countries because they all have their own beliefs, cultural values, languages, festivals as well as rituals. There can be several things and facts which differ one county’s culture from other one. For example, culture in united states is completely different from Asian countries because they are having different ethnicity, religious views and the languages. Furthermore, we have also learnt about the organizational cultures in classes which comprise of the values, norms, artifacts and the beliefs of employees. It can also be applied to different culture internationally as well as the values, way of thinking, way of talking and the beliefs of different people are affected. Furthermore, the culture they have/live is shaping their own lives.

            The presenter is also sharing his personal experience and said in the video that he works with several types of the people and stakeholders from different countries in the same company. The very effective and challenging thing is that we have the communication barriers because of having and living in different counties and the different cultures. We also have different languages and different accents of speaking and this cultural difference influence their way of communication. To express their opinion and feedback, the attendees form western culture will be more proactive. Although, the attendees from eastern or Asian countries and cultures are more disinclined to speak out.