Business: Cross Cultural Communication Cross

Business: Cross Cultural Communication

Cross Cultural Communication

The Plight of Charlie Roth

As Chapter 7 begins, Charlie, who has had a "crummy year," is in the midst of a "bad day" and a "bad month," suddenly learns that "all midlevel managers" and those managers below midlevel must "reapply for their jobs." it's a "downsizing" reality in Charlie's company (Alpha-Beta Surety, Inc.), and "the numbers aren't working for him lately."

As a result of the fact that "Charlie's department is in trouble" (p. 192) - because "Productivity is down; claims paid are up; customers are angry; subrogation units from other insurance companies see his people as easy marks...department morale is in the cellar...quotas are low" - the 48-year-old insurance professional feels "panic." After all, with only a month to put a stop to the present condition of infighting in his department, and with the ten teams under him (with ten people in each team) struggling to be effective, he is hard put to find a way out of the mess.

He must immediately assess what is wrong, and go from there.

What internal and external forces are at work?

In the first place, "team nine" is in a constant war zone mentality, with the battles between technology-gifted employees and technology-challenged employees being of the "knock-down drag-out" variety. Though the workers are "bright" and "enthusiastic" (193), they have substantial problems with "interpersonal communication, hours, and work assignments - plus, the highly "adept" Internet staffers have "no patience" with the non-empowered, technophobic, anti-Internet personnel.

Meanwhile there are old-school types in team nine who dislike email and digital technology so intensely that they insist on "face-to-face, or at least voice-to-voice" contact with others; indeed, these old school workers refuse to answer email and voice mail messages.

How do generational differences play a role?

Most of the anti-technology employees are baby boomers, and indeed, part of the friction that exists, Charlie begins to see (p. 194), is due to the fact that "team nine is a virtual menagerie of generations"; the older people are technophobes and "the geeks are the young ones." Making their voices heard as "the vocal majority" are baby boomers.

There is clearly a lack of teamwork on team nine, and it is due not just due to generational issues; it is a lack of leadership to get all these diverse personalities to rally behind one single issue - doing the best thing for the cause of the company. In fact, all ten teams probably should be re-organized or somehow kick-started into believing that if radical and positive changes are not forthcoming, everyone in the building could be out in the street.

How would I deal with the problems and get things back on track?

The book suggests that Charlie is giving consideration to several possible scenarios: like, moving all the older workers into one section, the "boomers" in another, and the younger (Gen-Xers) in still another; or bringing in "the corporate shrinks and team buildings, and don't let 'em out until people start working on cases and stop working on each other"; or simply laying down "the law" and telling them to "shape up or ship out."

The views of Bruce Tulgan, author of Managing Generation X and Work this Way, are very intelligent and well-thought-out, but it remains to be seen whether or not Charlie will have time to conduct the kind or revamping, restructuring and re-educating that Tulgan suggests. What Tulgan is saying is close to brilliant in some places, and totally reasonable in all areas of his suggestions; the problem is, the many specific changes Tulgan writes about are things that should have been instituted from the very beginning of Charlie's stewardship over his groups. it's a little late now.

Tulgan is correct in saying that Charlie needs to "rethink the problem," and that Charlie needs to "step back" and re-focus on what it will take to shift the tone away from confrontation and towards cooperation. And Tulgan is right to suggest that the problems overall are based on the lack of employee focus on customer service, on job productivity, added value to the company's ledger - and not issues of age or technology. Generational issues, while seemingly the obvious hindrance to a smooth flow of production, are, as Tulgan offers (198), "merely a reflection of the business issue at play - transition to the workplace of the future."

However, that said, the one pivotal / key sentence Tulgan offers, also on page 198, is very straight to the point, on the money, and a salient theme Charlie should launch in order to save his job, and the jobs of most people under his jurisdiction. "Charlie must get things back on track and restore harmony by getting people focused on mission instead of personality."

The 10 points Tulgan offers are all very cogent and wise; however, Charlie doesn't really have time to implement all those ideas. Gloria Regalbuto, with Bath & Body Works, offers some common sense solutions, as do Diedra Wager, Pat Crull, and others. But Judy Corson hits the nail on the head when she first notes that Charlie "should never have let this situation get to this stage," that "things have gotten out of hand," and that "everyone involved has to be in on the discussion" about how to right this ship of fools.

Charlie needs to install passion in the mission of the team's responsibilities," she writes (208)." That's a key here, and the way he can do that is several-fold. One, in advance of a mass meeting of all the teams, Charlie needs to bring each ten-member team's leadership (two or three per team) to a nice lunch outside the company on a Thursday, and lay it all on the line. He picks the brains of the leadership for ways in which to, first, have some fun together, and two, reach out one generation to another.

Then, two, Charlie next needs to bring the entire team (100 people?) into a warehouse or large conference room late the next day, Friday afternoon, with classy catered finger food and soft drinks and fun items for a party-atmosphere: like drawings for DVDs, for movie passes, and dinners for two at nice restaurants, and more. He needs to stand up using a good microphone and speak from his heart, telling everyone how much he cares about this company and that he, himself, is responsible for allowing the situation to deteriorate to the point where the jobs of all his team members are in jeopardy. No passing the buck; no excuses; no backing down, either, from the challenge.