Work Exercises

Dateline June 10, 2014 



Well everything is tracking towards the end of our prep time for the assignment. I am 75% of the way and we need to be done of all assignments and reading by July 11th. Good training package and easy to follow and track. 

Some particularly Interesting assignments:

The Cultural comparisons /The Country Navigator Tool . We used this tool which asks survey questions (there were a lot of questions!!)  and broke it down to how you scored for 3 major categories:

1. Relating to Others( Task or Relationship oriented, explicit vs implicit communication)
2. Regulating our Interactions (Risk taking, punctuality, hierarchy, decision making)
3. Reasoning (problem solving, persuasion, presenting opinions/information)

Every country apparently has characteristics that are more typical of their overall culture so I was able to compare how I scored against the average Canadian. I did not do well. :-)  I need to get to Tim Horton's more often and start watching more hockey. Apparently I have slipped and I need to do something a'boot it! It should be fine since I won't be hanging with any Canadians over there.

However I matched up well with the Filipino culture. We should get along swimmingly! My #1 Match was Qatar. Go figure! This would help if I wanted to host a World Cup; I need to find out more about Qatar.  My # 2 match Australia. 

The exercise had some valuable insights and things to consider.  Every country has things that make them unique and when visiting these are things to keep that in mind.

 

Case studies of past CSC teams "issues" The names were changed to protect the identities but there were some neat case studies with regards to team dynamics, cultural differences and how teams interact. Each issue was documented and we discussed as teams how we would have handled the situation. After reviewing we got to see how the teams actually handled the situations and compare to what we said we would do.  Good exercise on some tricky dilemmas that could arise and tied in to our studies on Conflict Resolution. 

 Very Interesting essays on International Development in Emerging Markets and how best to attack the very real problems. There seem to be 2 very opposing points of view as to how time, money and energy should be spent to help.  Check out any essays and writings of Jeffrey Sachs, Bill Easterly and Paul Collier.

On the one side, there is the belief that there is no bad $$ being spent. That more aid is the solution and not enough is being done.  This would be more of the celebrity camp (see Bono, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates etc...) and he does provide a lot of compelling reasons why more is better and he does provide some clear vision of grand ways money should be spent.  

On the other side we have the argument that aid needs to promise less and deliver more. It tries to be too many things to too many people and is not targeted or measured enough. Calls it the "headless heart syndrome" and really not enough accountability in how aid is planned, delivered and incentives applied.  Pick several critical problems and stop with the high level goals like "end world poverty".

These are persuasive people on both sides and I was nodding my head in agreement at both arguments!
 
So I am learning lots. You can teach an old dog some new tricks.....if you can get him to sit down and focus!