Working in a team is always a fun and rewarding social experience – may it be on academic or professional perspective. In taking up the course subject, Organisational Communication, I was able to work with three able and competitive teammates – Gerard, a Chinese Singaporean; Alison, an English lady; and Katherina, a Finnish lady. We worked on explicating the topic on Organisational Culture and Processes of Assimilation.


During the selection of teammates, I was just observant on who to deal with provided that I am having second thoughts on how am I going to relate with other people. Having this team made me apply some of the learning in this course subject. The team is comprised of different nationalities and cultures due to the fact that we are an amalgam of three countries. As expected we learned from each other particularly on how we interact and share ideas so as to make the presentation as good as possible.


I discussed Pepper’s Organization Cultures and Socialization Process. On this part, the PowerPoint presentation that was a product of group effort. I was asked to do some of the scanning of materials to be placed in the plates so as to make it more informative and visually effective. Talking to my teammates is among the most basic application of the theories learned in this subject. More often than not, we understand each other and enjoyed sharing each other’s national cultures as well as personal views. The funny thing about having an “international” team is the way on how we avoid offending each other. So, most of the time, we ask each other if is this fine or not.


Looking on Schein’s organisational culture and leadership theory, the socializing process is very evident to all of us. The socializing process includes learning the ropes in a new company, which means understanding the values and assumptions. Schein notes that new members’ interaction with old members will be a more creative process of building a culture. I consider out group to be evident on this process because two of our teammates are always seatmates, thus it is tantamount to expecting that they share common behaviours.


Given that we have different availability of time, I was not able to attend some discussions but I greatly appreciate the effort of my teammates to update me on what was going on with the presentation. The communication is always open as we make sure that we are always updated on things and other concerns that are relatively important to the success of the presentation. Intercultural communication is one of the lessons I learned in this team. Communication is inevitable to all of us (Adair 1997). We manage to talk every time through all means possible. Communication is simply defined as the transmission of meaning and information from one person to another (Bryant and Heath 2000). This process is basic to the team. While the transmission itself may appear to be a simple task, the interpretation of the message being relayed through communication poses a challenge, particularly on the establishment of human relations. There are times that we argue on some details but we make sure that we reconcile in the end.  In general, our communication becomes effective when all parties involved are honest and open to share information and have the ability to decipher the meaning of their messages. Effective communication is always practiced as it is significant to our beings as well as for the creation of positive relationships.


            There is no problem with the presentation, I guess. It is because all of us are satisfied with what we made. Our classmates are enlightened with the core topic through the help of our group presentation. Even if we belong to different age brackets and cultures, we are able to reconcile with our differences by means of applying the general theories of the course we are taking up. The communication is highly effective. The individual learning as well as the daily dealings we have in our immediate environment leads us to understand each other. Since personal individuality is definite, it is expected that there will always be hindrances in intercultural communication. Even if at times there are identified communication barriers like the time limitations, distractions, and personal assumptions, we managed to do away with such and focused on coming up with a very satisfactory presentation. Regardless of such identified barriers in the communication process, communication still plays a great role in good group performance (Brown 2001; Bryant and Heath 2000) especially to the benefit of the team. With the result of the presentation, we are not just happy about it but also happier on how we manage to build a solid foundation of cooperation and teamwork that are said to be important in the professional application of the theories and concepts that we are learning in this course subject. All in all, the communication process of the team is very effective even if we have different cultures.


 


References


Adair, J 1997, Effective Communication, Basingstoke and
Oxford, Pan Books.


 


Brown, AD 2001, “Organization studies and identity: Towards a research agenda,” Human Relations, vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 113-121.


 


Bryant, J and Heath, RA 2000, Human Communication Theory and Research: Concepts, Contexts, and Challenges, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ


 


 


 


 



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