Tag: Human capital Management B.com Notes

Video conferencing solutions are a major part of the corporate world today. The working environment in today’s world is moving towards a model where multiple offices and remote workers are becoming a prominent part of most corporates which creates the requirement of a fast, reliable, and flexible mode of communication like video conferencing.

Video conferencing is the method of visual communication in which face-to-face, live communication takes place without requiring any transportation. Video conferencing erases the limitations of distances and helps in real-time communication with the help of the internet. It is widely used by the companies to interact with their employees and clients within the country and overseas.

Importance

Improve Value and Reduce Redundancy

Companies are upgrading their legacy audio or web conferencing providers and finding more value in full video conferencing solutions that include audio conferencing, screen sharing, chat, meeting recording and event live streaming. The total cost of ownership (TCO) of maintenance and licensing for multiple vendors just adds unnecessary costs and complexity for the end users of the solution.

Increase Communication Reliability

Video conferencing provides a fast and secure way to communicate with your teams. As video continues to evolve into a business-critical function, it’s important to prioritize enterprise-class service reliability and support reliability in your solution.

Enable the Digital Workforce

Video conferencing software not only creates a more collaborative meeting culture in your organization, it’s a foundation for enabling today’s digital workforce. Video meetings help teams maintain human connections, irrespective of physical location, which speeds up decision making and improves your ability to collaborate globally.

Rally Communication and Culture

Today’s workforce prioritizes mobility, flexibility and modern forms of communication over private offices and seclusion.  Bringing remote workers face-to-face with in-office employees can boost productivity on both ends and lower travel costs at the same time. Comparing travel costs and costs of video conferencing shows that video conferencing is a true winner.

Simplify Management and Usability

Teams need access to the collaboration solutions that let them meet via audio conferencing, video conferencing, screen sharing and real-time instant messaging. But relying on too many desperate solutions can overcomplicate everything. By deploying a consolidated online meeting solution with a simple UI that is centrally managed, teams can focus on their meetings instead of being burdened with  troubleshooting every meeting.

Advantages

Cost Cutting: Video conferencing helps in reducing the travel costs incurred by a company manifolds. It allows the company to interact with its employees and clients, and share screens, files, HD audios and videos without any hassle.

Happier Employees and Higher Job Retention: Thanks to video conferencing, companies can now let their employees work from home without sacrificing communication. Studies report 56% lower turnover rates among telecommuters. The overall job satisfaction increases when people don’t have to go to office every day. Students can also get sufficient sleep and still be on time for their online lecture or seminar.

Enhances Productivity: Video conferencing prevents back logging of work, as it allows the employees to discuss the problems with the concerned person without any delay.  Easy availability of communication prevents communication gaps; thus, lessening the chances of pitfalls in the work.

No barrier of time: Video conferencing erases the barriers of time and place by allowing a group of people to discuss things with those working in distant locations without moving from their location. This allows a smooth workflow in the company without any breaks and hitches.

Disadvantages

As it the case with any technology, video conferencing also doesn’t come without a few caveats and disadvantages. Even though most people would correctly argue that when it comes to video conferencing solutions, the advantages weigh out the disadvantages but in order to have a well-developed outlook on anything, it is important to see both sides of the argument.

• Even the best systems can suffer from technical problems: No technology is impenetrable to glitches and problems. While most live video conferencing vendors provide 24×7 support for any corporate system they install, glitches can still happen, which wastes a lot of time and resources for the company.
• It still lacks the personal touch of face-to-face communication: While most conferencing solutions by live video conferencing vendors come really close to emulating the experience of personal face-to-face communication online, there’s still a small gap between the effectiveness of video conferencing and a face-to-face meeting. Most corporates understand this and usually also have face-to-face meetings between teams on important issues. However, whereas these meetings used to be the primary method of inter-organization communication, video conferencing service providers have definitely reduced the frequency of these meetings in general.

• Technical issues: The malfunction of any of the hardware or software component can hamper the smooth functioning of the work. To rectify the issue, skilled technical people are required. This may delay the work and add to the maintenance cost of the company.
• Leads to misjudgments: A meeting or an interview via video conferencing can sometimes lead to wrong decisions and selections, as many a time it becomes difficult to access the gestures and personality of a person through this virtual medium.
• Financial strain: Installing a video conferencing system can be a financial burden for a small scale company, as it is a bit expensive technology and requires regular maintenance.
• It has a high initial cost: Setting up an enterprise-grade video conferencing solution is often an expensive task as most solutions require specialized hardware that also needs to be set up, often at multiple locations. Considering the quality of gear and the expertise needed to set up the entire system, it is natural that the process has a high initial cost. However, most corporates are more than willing to pay the costs as it is recovered within a pretty short time of operating.

A message is a discrete unit of communication intended by the source for consumption by some recipient or group of recipients. A message may be delivered by various means, including courier, telegraphy, carrier pigeon and electronic bus. A message can be the content of a broadcast. An interactive exchange of messages forms a conversation.

One example of a message is a press release, which may vary from a brief report or statement released by a public agency to commercial publicity material.

Corporate messaging comprises the core message of a company and all of the methods used to get that message into the minds of consumers and stockholders. Companies use corporate messaging hand in hand with public relations to develop and maintain company branding. Without a central corporate message, investors and consumers might wonder what the goals and motivation of the company are. Small businesses use the same corporate messaging techniques to solidify their position in their market and inform the community in which they operate.

Importance

Shows transparency to employees

Employees are savvier these days. They expect more out of their employers and have greater access to learn about a potential employer. Think about online reviews from other employees, chat groups about companies, and friends touting one company over another on social media. So with all these external factors, it’s important that companies create transparency through corporate communications.

Builds strong internal teams

When you work eight or more hours a day with people, you want good co-workers. The importance of corporate communication in day to day operations is paramount. For example, you have a large product rollout and some team members are holding up the process and missing deadlines. The CEO wants to know why your team is behind and now the entire team is held accountable. Or a manager receives new direction on a project and forgets to tell the team what the new goal is. So, the team members miss the mark on achieving the new goal. These, examples of lack of corporate communication led to frustrated employees. And in return, you either start having “checked out” employees who no longer want to perform or worse high employee turnover which leads to bad company reviews. And this can affect getting great talent to join your organization in the future.

Keeps messaging consistent to customers

If you work for a larger company, you may have a corporate communications department for external audiences like customers and stakeholders and maybe an internal communications department for employee communications. Or if you have a smaller company where one person is dealing with all communications, different messaging may be created for external and internal audiences.

The importance of corporate communication is to keep messaging consistent to not only your employees but your external audiences. If you forget to communicate with your customers in the same fashion as your employees, your company brand and mission gets lost. Customers don’t know what you stand for or why they should choose you over one of your competitors.

Objectives

Internal Audience

Maintaining effective communication within your own company is important in avoiding confusion that can affect morale and productivity. Your internal communication objective should be to develop a network that gets important information to staff members accurately and efficiently. The managerial staff needs procedures in place that release information only after it has been confirmed to avoid conflicting internal messages.

Consistency

A business communication plan creates consistency in the message that is important to maintaining the company’s public image. All correspondence that goes out to the media outlets will contain the same message, and the internal audience of employees and managerial staff will also understand the information the company is releasing.

Presentation

Corporate public relations is a precise process. The message that is released by the company is reviewed by managers, executives and the legal team to make sure the company is properly represented. An important objective of business communication is determining who will release the information, how it will be presented and when it should be revealed.

Media Outlets

Your marketing department does a comprehensive analysis of each media outlet and determines which outlets reach particular target markets. Releasing information to all media outlets will get your message out to the public, but you can use the media analysis to create targeted messages that will reach your intended audience and make a greater impact. For example, if you are releasing a new video game, then your marketing department will tell you that certain video game magazines tend to reach your target audience better than other forms of media.

Reason

• It shows respect for the speaker
• It settles the audience down and gets them focused on the stage.
• Alternatively, it can hype the audience up and get them excited about what they are going to experience
• It gives a chance for the Production crew to correct the sound levels, lights and be ready with any audio/visual cues.
• It lets the audience know who this person is before they start, in case there is no printed program.
• It can link the content or the message of the speaker to the theme of the event.
• It can emphasise why this message is important to the group and why they should listen
• It can show why this person is qualified to speak about the topic and share their insights
• It can allow the speaker to get straight into the meat of their presentation.

The introducer’s job is to:

• Remind the audience why the topic is important to them
• Establish the speaker’s qualifications to speak on the topic
• Get the presentation off on a high note by establishing an up-beat tone
• Make the speaker feel especially welcome

Technical Speech

A technical speech is a speech given by an expert to an audience of experts. It’s not expected that members of the general public will attend or understand the speech. The speaker can assume a general understanding of basic ideas in the audience, and does not need to explain basic concepts.

A technical speech is one which provides information or presents an idea to a specialized group. For example, describing the design and/or function of a “data warehouse” to other Information Technology folks.

Technical presentations serve engineering, scientific and high-tech purposes, describing advances in technology, problem resolution, product design and project status. In general, technical presentations serve one of two purposes:

(1) To inform (e.g., knowledge transfer, classroom instruction)

(2) To persuade (e.g., convincing others to adopt a design approach or accept the results of an evaluation process).

Technical presentation is meaning less most of the time when non-technical presentation is not there because when we are informing to the people about anything but sometimes, they don’t understand because of Symantec barrier but if there is one video or slides which shows about the topic weather it is in the form of written or in animation video it will clearly understand to the other person.

Characteristics

• The use of statistics: this may not be compulsory, depending on the subject matter. Nevertheless, if the report is based on some research findings, there will always be need to present the data in tables and graphs. This will help the audience to easily grasp what is being discussed. Here, it should be noted that statistics should not be used for the sake of impressing the audience; rather, it should be used for the sake of simplifying the information being presented. The use of statistics in technical speech will be discussed in details subsequently.
• There is opportunity for questions or contributions: this is one of the few types of speeches that allow the audience to ask questions from the presenter after the presentation. Because it involves sharing professional knowledge, there is also an opportunity for fellow professionals or senior colleagues to make contributions. During the Annual General Meetings (AGM) of corporations, the President of the organisation makes a presentation on the activities of the company for the past one year. The accountant also presents the financial details of the report. Copies of the reports are given to the stakeholders because these presentations are technical in nature. After listening to the speeches and carefully studying the documents, the listeners are encouraged to seek for clarification in any area that such is desired.
• The use of technical aids: though it may seem obvious, it is still important to mention that the “technical” in the name of the speech does not only refer to the complexity of the idea being discussed; it also refers to the technical assistance needed for conveying the message. Because of the nature of the speech, there is usually the need to substantiate the abstract idea being discussed. Hence, technical aids such as handouts and multi-media presentations are needed for easy dissemination of the information. The handouts are usually distributed to the audience so that they can follow the presentation and also make meaningful contribution.
• Research based: one of the major characteristics of a technical speech is that it is research based. This is not just about the background information you gather so as to enrich your speech; the speech itself is a scientific (so to speak) report. You must have conducted an inquiry in your field and you wish to share the findings with your peers. You may be given the task of assessing the performance of your company’s products in the market. Or, you may be asked to create a new brand for the Nigerian market.

Non-Technical Presentation

Vote of Thanks

A vote of thanks speech is a well-authorized speech where the speaker offers a vote of thanks to the organizer, host, and other participants. No event can be successful without people who dedicate their resources and time to make sure everything is faultless. Like any other crucial meetings organized in schools and colleges, a vote of thanks speech is also vital for association meeting in college. It’s helpful to publicly let everyone know the roles and responsibilities and express your gratitude.

A good vote of thanks speech for association meeting should include:

• Thanks to all the people who helped me either directly or indirectly, to make the meeting successful.
• Thanks to all the participants for attending the meeting, and more.

Keep the following points in mind while giving a vote of thanks speech:

• Your first sentence should let the participants know you are thanking them.
• In 1 to 2 sentences, tell the audience why you have been asked to give a vote of thanks speech.
• Start your speech by showing gratitude to your honorable guest, host, and audience.
• Try to keep each thank-you brief, but honest and warm.
• By sure to remark any work that benefitted your college and then add in it your thank speech.
• You can add your belief that the concerned group of people and your college hold good ties in the future.
• Show the speakers that you were actively listening to their words. Add some reference what they said, and that stuck with you.
• At the end of the vote of thanks speech, talk about what makes your college special.
• Thank the head for the opportunity of giving thanks speech on behalf of their college.

Occasional Speech

A speech of introduction introduces the main speaker at an event and inspires the audience to listen to that speaker. Any speech of introduction needs to be brief. After all, the person making the introduction should not be the focus of attention. The introductory speech usually has three components:

(a) Provide a brief backdrop or background of the main speaker

(b) Introduce the speaker’s topic.

(c) An invitation from the audience to warmly welcome the speaker.

Commemorative speeches and tributes are speeches that pay special accolades to an occasion, extraordinary person, event, idea, or monument. The purpose or scope of this speech is to reflect the emotions felt by the audience as well as underscore the reasons for the speaking event. Delivering a tribute and commemorative speech involves careful attention to language. These speeches are intended to inspire the audience, and the use of the richness of language should serve to evoke the appropriate emotions within the audience as well as the honored persons.

Tributes and commemorative speeches have certain characteristics. First, they are short and eloquent (Letteri, 1997). In most cases, this speech should be one to five minutes long, which means the words should be chosen carefully and efficiently for impact. Second, these speeches are written to anticipate the emotional needs of the audience. There is a difference between the need to be festive and the need to grieve, and the speech should contain language that conveys the appropriate feelings. Rather than focus on a great deal of information about the person, event, or thing being honored, the speech should make reference to the emotions of the audience and respect those emotions; whether directly or indirectly. When the speaking occasion is honoring a person, the speech’s content should contain a balance between the professional and personal accomplishments of the honoree. While the speech should emphasize the person’s professional work, his or her personal activities.

Theme Speech

An e-meeting is a meeting between at least two people who can see each other but are not in the same place. An e-meeting is a web-based meeting or conference format that allows people to see and hear each other. They can hear each other through VoIP. VoIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. Participants talk in real time and may even make presentations with visual aids such as charts and graphs.

The term e-meeting stands for ‘electronic meeting.’ We also call it an online meeting or virtual meeting. A virtual meeting, however, may also refer to a meeting with an artificial intelligence or fictitious character.

An electronic meeting system (EMS) is a type of computer software that facilitates creative problem solving and decision-making of groups within or across organizations. The term was coined by Alan R. Dennis et al. in 1988. The term is synonymous with group support systems (GSS) and essentially synonymous with group decision support systems (GDSS). Electronic meeting systems form a class of applications for computer supported cooperative work.

Mainly through (optional) anonymization and parallelization of input, electronic meeting systems overcome many deleterious and inhibitive features of group work.

Similar to a web conference, a host invites the participants to an electronic meeting via email. After logging into the session, meeting attendees participate primarily through their keyboards, typing responses to questions and prompts from the meeting host.

Electronic meeting systems have been designed to enhance group effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Face-to-face groups can suffer from a number of process losses including:

• Domination of the conversation by one or more members
• Individuals withholding comments for fear of criticism or negative evaluation
• Members failing to participate because they perceive that their input is not required
• Pressure to conform with senior members of the group

Consequently, the advantages of EMS supported meetings vs traditional face-to-face meetings and workshops are:

• Increased openness and less personal prejudice through anonymity
• Any-place (online) capability which avoids travel time and cost
• Increased participant availability (any place, any time).
• Increased interactivity and participation by parallelization
• More sophisticated analysis by voting and analysis in real time
• Less effort in preparation by using meeting templates
• Repeatable meeting and workshop process through meeting templates
• Automatic, comprehensive, neutral documentation

Importance

Recorded meetings. There’s something inherently repetitive about the old boardroom meeting. It’s like, “Didn’t we just discuss that last week? Why are we talking about it again?” Fortunately, online meetings right that wrong by providing the easy option to record each conference, thereby ensuring that any potential overlap from week to week can be mitigated via a simple review of the last recorded meeting.

Time saved. When a company decides to conduct a physical meeting, time needs to be spent booking a conference room, planning for the event itself, and then waiting on the inevitable late-comers who will delay the start of the meeting. But online meetings eliminate these time-wasting moments by offering easy-to-use Web conferencing that workers can access from the comfort of their desk. This remote access also allows people who aren’t physically in the office to participate in meetings, as business.com points out.

Forward thinking. With the broad availability of cloud solutions, organizations are increasingly occupying the virtual realm. For this reason, the adoption of online meetings is only in keeping with a wider business move toward a virtual infrastructure.

Overall productivity boosts. For businesses that have work-from-home policies, the availability of online meetings promises significant productivity increases, as web-meetings points out. That’s because workers who are doing their job from home won’t have to drive into the office on meeting days, which means that the time they save driving is time that can go toward boosting enterprise productivity.

Opening

Small Talk

Whether you are holding the meeting or attending the meeting it is polite to make small talk while you wait for the meeting to start. You should discuss things unrelated to the meeting, such as weather, family, or weekend plans.

Objectives

Some people who hold meetings prefer to pass around copies of the agenda, and others will post a large copy on a wall, or use an overhead projector. No matter which format is used, attendees should be able to follow the agenda as the meeting progresses. Before beginning the first main item on the agenda, the speaker should provide a brief verbal outline the objectives.

Draft opening remarks for a business meeting. Decide on a meeting format before you begin to plan any opening statements. Business and board meetings should have more formal opening remarks to acknowledge the attending members. Keep opening words short for more casual meetings, especially when the attendees have an allotted time to introduce themselves.

State the purpose of the meeting clearly. Make sure that all of the meeting’s attendees understand what you will be discussing. It will be much harder for people to focus if you don’t establish a clear goal or purpose. Let them know what to expect after you ‘ve greeted them.

• In a business setting, you can state say something like: “The purpose of this meeting is to figure out a way to trim this quarter’s budget.”
• For more casual settings, you might stay, “Let’s share our thoughts and experiences on this issue.”

Follow an agenda to avoid any confusion. Review what the meeting will cover before jumping into any new conversations. Different topics can lead to different discussions, which can quickly spiral off topic if you aren’t following a planned agenda. Having an agenda helps to keep the meeting on track and on topic, and gives attendees a way to monitor how long the meeting goes.

Clearly state if a certain part of the agenda only applies to one person. To avoid any confusion in the meeting, establish who is in charge of which task. For example, say, “John will be handling all of the budget paperwork. Talk to him if you have any questions.”

Closing

To ensure you close your meeting effectively, apply these four tips:

1. Add the meeting’s closure to the agenda

If you are presiding the meeting, make sure the closure appears on the agenda and highlight it as important. Allot the final 5 minutes of the meeting this process, taking note that it needs to be done within the meeting timeframe.

2. Quickly run through the outcomes

As the speaker, try to acknowledge whether the desired outcomes have been achieved. Make sure that you get commitment from the tasks and that each task is assigned to a participant with a target date of accomplishment.

3. Encourage everyone to communicate

Initiate interaction by asking open-ended questions like “Is there anything you want to add before we conclude the meeting?”

The questions can take a general or specific approach. The essence of this tip is to make every participant feel connected. It implies that you value their opinion and that will surely boost their confidence.

4. Take note of the key takeaways

Insightful ideas come up when the speaker encourages everyone to participate. Make sure that these key takeaways are captured and noted. Also, do not forget to share them in the meeting notes for future meetings and recommendations.

Without an effective closure process, participants may end up confused and frustrated because they are not able to say what is on their minds. This may cause negative effects to the participants and ultimately, to the outcome of the agenda.

Etiquette is the set of conventional rules of personal behaviour in polite society, usually in the form of an ethical code that delineates the expected and accepted social behaviours that accord with the conventions and norms observed by a society, a social class, or a social group.

Social etiquette is exactly how it sounds, it refers to the behavior you resort to in social situations interactions with your family, friends, coworkers or strangers. We’re expected to follow social norms in order to coexist and live in harmony.

Social etiquette influences how others perceive and treat you. It can help you create lasting impressions that establish trust and reliance. Practicing good social manners not only help you build lifelong relationships; it also helps you create fruitful opportunities.

Social manners are in three categories:

(i) Manners of hygiene

(ii) Manners of courtesy

(iii) Manners of cultural norm

Each category accounts for an aspect of the functional role that manners play in a society. The categories of manners are based upon the social outcome of behaviour, rather than upon the personal motivation of the behaviour. As a means of social management, the rules of etiquette encompass most aspects of human social interaction; thus, a rule of etiquette reflects an underlying ethical code, and can reflect a person’s fashion and social status.

(i) Hygiene Manners: The manners that concern avoiding the transmission of disease, and usually are taught by the parent to the child by way of parental discipline, positive behavioural enforcement of body-fluid continence (toilet training), and the avoidance of and removal of disease vectors that risk the health of children. To that effect, society expects that, by adulthood, the manners for personal hygiene have become a second-nature behaviour, the violations of which shall provoke physical and moral disgust.

(ii) Courtesy Manners: The manners of self-control and good-faith behaviour, by which a person gives priority to the interests of another person, and priority to the interests of a socio-cultural group, in order to be a trusted member of that group. Courtesy manners maximize the benefits of group-living, by regulating the nature of social interactions; however, the performance of courtesy manners occasionally interferes with the avoidance of communicable disease. Generally, parents teach courtesy manners in the same way they teach hygiene manners, but the child also learns manners directly (by observing the behaviour of other people in their social interactions) and by imagined social interactions (through the executive functions of the brain). A child usually learns courtesy manners at an older age than when he or she was toilet trained (taught hygiene manners), because learning the manners of courtesy requires that the child be self-aware and conscious of social position, which then facilitate understanding that violations (accidental or deliberate) of social courtesy will provoke peer disapproval within the social group.

(iii) Cultural Norm Manners: The manners of culture and society by which a person establishes his and her identity and membership in a given socio-cultural group. In observing and abiding the manners of cultural norm, a person demarcates socio-cultural identity and establishes social boundaries, which then identify whom to trust and whom to distrust as “the other”, who is not the self. Cultural norm manners are learnt through the enculturation with and the routinisation of “the familiar”, and through social exposure to the “cultural otherness” of people identified as foreign to the group. Transgressions and flouting of the manners of cultural norm usually result in the social alienation of the transgressor. The nature of culture-norm manners allows a high level of between-group variability, but the manners usually are common to the people who identify with the given socio-cultural group.

Types:

Virtual Meeting Etiquette

Work from home has become the new normal for most businesses today and virtual meetings have become a part of daily work routine. Here are a few tips to help you maintain proper social etiquette during online meetings:

• Dress for success! Wearing appropriate attire can help you feel confident. It also shows that you pay attention to details and it’ll impress your audience.
• Mute your microphone when you’re not speaking. It ensures that there’s no echo and you don’t disrupt the flow of meetings.
• It may be tempting to check your phone but try to stay present and active. Participate in discussions and show anyone who’s speaking that you’re respectfully listening to them.

Social Media Etiquette

Social etiquette also extends to social media and online communication. Here are some ways to ensure proper conduct on social media platforms:

• If someone doesn’t accept your friendship or follow requests, leave them be. If it’s important to connect with someone, message them and state your purpose.
• Avoid posting insensitive content on your social media handles. If you make a mistake, own up and apologize.
• Always get consent if you want to share someone else’s information, photos or content. Before tagging someone in a post or photograph, check if they’re comfortable with it.

Face-To-Face Etiquette

Face-to-face interactions aren’t always easy. Here are a few etiquette practices to follow when you meet someone:

• Use your full name to introduce yourself and greet the other person. You can simply use ‘hello, nice to meet you’ to break the ice. A smile and a firm handshake make it easier to build rapport.
• Pay attention to your body language so that you don’t come off as rude or unprofessional. Good posture, eye contact and a confident attitude can make a huge difference.
• One of the most important aspects of social etiquette is paying attention to people. Never interrupt anyone mid-sentence and always listen respectfully.

Eliciting Response

An elicitation technique is any of a number of data collection techniques used in anthropology, cognitive science, counseling, education, knowledge engineering, linguistics, management, philosophy, psychology, or other fields to gather knowledge or information from people. Recent work in behavioral economics has purported that elicitation techniques can be used to control subject misconceptions and mitigate errors from generally accepted experimental design practices. Elicitation, in which knowledge is sought directly from human beings, is usually distinguished from indirect methods such as gathering information from written sources.

A person who interacts with human subjects in order to elicit information from them may be called an elicitor, an analyst, experimenter, or knowledge engineer, depending on the field of study.

Elicitation techniques include interviews, observation of either naturally occurring behavior (including as part of participant observation) or behavior in a laboratory setting, or the analysis of assigned tasks.

List of elicitation techniques

• Interviews
• Existing System
• Project Scope
• Brain Storming
• Focus Groups
• Exploratory Prototypes
• User Task Analysis
• Observation
• Surveys
• Questionnaire
• Story Board

Probing Questions

These questions are useful for gaining clarification and encouraging others to tell you more information about a subject. Probing questions are usually a series of questions that dig deeper and provide a fuller picture. For example: ‘when do you need the finished project, and is it ok if I email it to you?’

Asking probing questions is another strategy for finding out more detail. Sometimes it’s as simple as asking your respondent for an example, to help you understand a statement that they have made. At other times, you need additional information for clarification, “When do you need this report by, and do you want to see a draft before I give you my final version?” Or to investigate whether there is proof for what has been said, “How do you know that the new database can’t be used by the sales force?”

Useful for: seeing the bigger picture, encouraging a reluctant speaker to tell you more information, and avoiding misunderstandings.

Observation

In marketing and the social sciences, observational research (or field research) is a social research technique that involves the direct observation of phenomena in their natural setting. This differentiates it from experimental research in which a quasi-artificial environment is created to control for spurious factors, and where at least one of the variables is manipulated as part of the experilovement.

Data collection methods

Generally, there are three methods used to collect data in observational research:

Covert observational research: The researchers do not identify themselves. Either they mix in with the subjects undetected, or they observe from a distance. The advantages of this approach are:

(1) It is not necessary to get the subjects’ cooperation.

(2) The subjects’ behaviour will not be contaminated by the presence of the researcher. Some researchers have ethical misgivings with the deceit involved in this approach.

Overt observational research: The researchers identify themselves as researchers and explain the purpose of their observations. The problem with this approach is subjects may modify their behaviour when they know they are being watched. They portray their “ideal self” rather than their true self in what is called the Hawthorne Effect. The advantage that the overt approach has over the covert approach is that there is no deception.

Participant Observation: The researcher participates in what they are observing so as to get a finer appreciation of the phenomena.

Cross-cultural communication occurs when a person from one culture sends a message to a person from another culture. Cross-cultural miscommunication occurs when the person from the second culture does not receive the sender’s intended message. The greater the differences between the sender’s and the receiver’s cultures, the greater the chance for cross-cultural miscommunication.

Cross-cultural communication has become strategically important to companies due to the growth of global business, technology and the Internet. Understanding cross-cultural communication is important for any company that has a diverse workforce or plans on conducting global business. This type of communication involves an understanding of how people from different cultures speak, communicate and perceive the world around them.

Cross-cultural communication in an organization deals with understanding different business customs, beliefs and communication strategies. Language differences, high-context vs. low-context cultures, nonverbal differences, and power distance are major factors that can affect cross-cultural communication.

Geography

In a time of international corporations and foreign outsourcing, business teams are spanning continents. Employees in the Americas may find themselves working closely with people in India, Japan and France all at once. Finding common ways of working together can be challenging especially when communication is primarily through email and occasional video conferences. Companies that elect to outsource and operate international offices have to consider guidelines, protocols and significant education on communication and working together. Otherwise, employees can easily find themselves struggling to work together, and productivity suffers.

Considerations

When conducting business internationally, entrepreneurs learn that cultures have different expectations and protocols when it comes to meetings and interpersonal discussions. Cultures such as those of Japan and China have strong power distance values, and much of the speaking and interaction is done by the most senior member of a group. In fact, it may be inappropriate for someone lower in your organization to speak to a leader in theirs. Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian cultures consider socialization and getting to know one another a very important part of in-person meetings. Therefore, the American standard of “getting down to business” may hit a wall with cultures that consider building trust between parties essential to the business process.

Misconceptions

Phrases and ideas don’t always translate. Numerous companies have found that selling their products in foreign markets has meant changing slogans and branding strategies to meet the tastes of a new target demographic. For example, in many third-world countries, fast-food restaurants are actually expensive to the local population. The low-cost and good value strategies often used in the United States have to be changed to present fast food as a premium product. In another example, products that may be sold with sexually themed or suggestive marketing in North America and European countries may have to be revamped for sales in Middle Eastern and Asian countries where such messages are offensive.

Effects

A diverse population means adapting sales and marketing communications to the various populations that make up the United States. Many companies recognize that varying demographics in different cities, regions and even neighborhoods mean having to come up with different communication approaches. As a result, you may notice billboards in Spanish in some neighborhoods or a national retail chain using more television advertising in one region and more print ads in another.

Impact

Misinterpretations: Expressions and thoughts don’t generally decipher. Various organizations have discovered that selling their items in remote markets has implied changing motto and marking procedures to meet the flavors of another objective statistic. For instance, in some underdeveloped nations, drive-through joints are really costly to the nearby populace. The minimal effort and great esteem procedures regularly utilized in the United States must be changed to exhibit inexpensive food as a top-notch item. In another model, items that may be sold with explicitly themed or suggestive promoting in North America and European nations may be patched up for deals in Middle Eastern and Asian nations where such messages are hostile.

Consideration: When leading business globally, business people discover that cultures have different desires and conventions with regard to gatherings and relational dialogues. Cultures, for example, those of Japan and China have solid power separate qualities, and a significant part of the talking and connection is finished by the most senior individual from a gathering. Indeed, it may be wrong for somebody lower in your organization to address a pioneer in theirs. Center Eastern and Southeast Asian cultures think about socialization and becoming more acquainted with each other a significant piece of face to face gatherings. Thus, the American standard of “getting serious” may reach a stopping point with cultures that consider building trust between gatherings basic to the business procedure.

Barriers to Effective Multicultural Communication

Obviously, not all cultures are similar. Some find the daily challenges of responding to another culture to be too stressful and overwhelming. If possible, such individuals will choose to return to their cultural origin; if they cannot do so, various kinds of maladaptive adjustments, or even mental illness, can occur. People misunderstand each other for a wide variety of reasons, and these misunderstandings can occur between people who are culturally similar as well as those who are different and for the communication to be effective it is important that message should be decoded with the perception of the encoder.

Reasons

1. Formation of “US” and “THEM” Groups

The step in the development of stereotypes is the categorisation of people in to two groups: “us” (in-group) and “them” (out-group). This happens all the time, and we often don’t realise it. The groups are formed along a wide variety of diversity dimensions such as race/ethnicity, gender, age, nationality, religion, geographic location, family status, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation and physical characteristics.

1. Preference for the In-group

The second step consists of the natural tendency to prefer the group of which one is a member (in-group). It makes sense that we would come to prefer the group that we are constantly a part of. These bonds are usually drawn based on geography and the community.

1. Illusion of Out-group Homogeneity

The third step is where actual stereotyping takes place. Simply stated, we tend to perceive members of out-group to be more like one another than members of our in-group. This is probably because we have the opportunity to directly experience the diversity within the in-group while we have limited experience interacting with members of the out-group.

2. Lack of Understanding: Another major barrier is the lack of understanding that is frequently present between people from different backgrounds and this barrier is very common among the cross-culture people. Because people may have differences in values, beliefs, methods of reasoning, communication styles, work styles, and personality types, communication difficulties will occur. In order to avoid this barrier, each party must have a clear and accurate understanding of the thoughts, feelings, ideas, values, styles, desires and goals of other person and many of us are not very effective at getting to understand the ways in which others may differ.
3. Judgmental Attitudes: The third major barrier includes the judgmental attitudes of us have when it comes to interacting with people who are different. Because all the time we interact with other culture people; we set the standard of our culture and compare with it. Most of us would like to believe we are open minded and accepting. But in reality, a great many of us find discomfort with those who are different in terms of values, beliefs and behaviours. We may then evaluate them in a negative light. This is the essence of ethnocentrism, where we evaluate good and bad, right and wrong relative to how closely the values, behaviours and ideas of others mirror our own. We must suspend judgment about their ways, and try to get to understand them from their perspective.

High- vs. Low-Context Culture

The concept of high- and low-context culture relates to how an employee’s thoughts, opinions, feelings, and upbringing affect how they act within a given culture. North America and Western Europe are generally considered to have low-context cultures. This means that businesses in these places have direct, individualistic employees who tend to base decisions on facts. This type of businessperson wants specifics noted in contracts and may have issues with trust.

High-context cultures are the opposite in that trust is the most important part of business dealings. There are areas in the Middle East, Asia and Africa that can be considered high context. Organizations that have high-context cultures are collectivist and focus on interpersonal relationships. Individuals from high-context cultures might be interested in getting to know the person they are conducting business with in order to get a gut feeling on decision making. They may also be more concerned about business teams and group success rather than individual achievement.

Jack and Yamato ran into some difficulties during their business negotiations. Jack spoke quickly and profusely because he wanted to seal the deal as soon as possible. However, Yamato wanted to get to know Jack, and he felt that Jack spoke too much. Yamato also felt that Jack was only concerned with completing the deal for his own self-interest and was not concerned with the overall good of the company. Jack’s nonverbal cues did not help the negotiations either.

Nonverbal Differences

Gestures and eye contact are two areas of nonverbal communication that are utilized differently across cultures. Companies must train employees in the correct way to handle nonverbal communication as to not offend other cultures. For example, American workers tend to wave their hand and use a finger to point when giving nonverbal direction. Extreme gesturing is considered rude in some cultures. While pointing may be considered appropriate in some contexts in the United States, Yamato would never use a finger to point towards another person because that gesture is considered rude in Japan. Instead, he might gesture with an open hand, with his palm facing up, toward the person.