THE Y-AXIS by Rajesh Kumar

Challenges in communication have persisted in a multi-cultural environment since much before presents became gifts , inclines transformed into  ramps , and way long before lifts took avatar as  elevators .It gets quite an aggravated challenge when a single medium of communication is used, such as only voice call or written email. Communication Mindmap Today's cross-functional, cross time zone and multi-location teams make collaborative working quite a challenge. In most occasions, colleagues in different locations don't meet frequently and that lack of face time compounds the problem manifold. Worse still, even the most common forms of intra-organization communication - email and telephone calls - are devoid of visuals, as well as tactile elements. Due to this missing visual/tactile component, body language elements, that often provide a context to the words, go completely missing. The consequence is that communication gets distorted and messages misunderstood.

Does WYSIWYG(What-you-see-is-what-you-get) work for humans?Why has having-a-face or 'losing a face' become such an important metaphor in today's society? Do we live only for such acquired or perceived prestige of prestige or face? Frankly, at the workplace, it is often a difficult choice. If you have lead a team and conducted common weekly reviews with your team, you would come across folks who are performers and are consistently looking to excel. And then there are those who don't and get regularly pulled up. It surprises sometimes that there are folks who are pulled up for work take it easy in their stride. And then there are those, mostly high performers, who require to-be talked with purposefully injected 'downgraders', else they withdraw into a shell at any negative feedback. Picture Credit: Tom Pumford As humans, we tend to take negative feedback personally, when we have 'invested' ourselves heavily into the success of a project. M

Well, why should we even attempt to map something so contextual as the culture, especially, national culture? Is there anything such as international culture? What about the impact of culture within a nation's boundaries? How does this impact business operations within an organization and between organizations? How does one ensure not falling in stereotypical traps when leveraging cultural context? The topic is unavoidable in today's business environment where multi-level supply chain runs across several countries. For example, the Singapore office of an American company could be overseeing sourcing from China, Korea or Japan, maybe even Vietnam.  Maybe the software running on sourced products run Indian developed software. So, which should be the dominant organizational for maximum effectiveness and efficiency in such cases?  The answer is simple. Today, every organisation has a basal culture, which is a product of their historical evolution, if the company is old. Then t

Stereotypes are widely held beliefs about a specific group of individuals, based on, but not limited to, ethnicity, gender, colour, country, religion, profession or social strata. These beliefs are about behavior, lifestyle, choices and so on. They can be loosely called to be manifestations of inductive generalisation. The essential question is, from where does one get the stereotypes. Stereotypes being a cultural issue, it is often inherited from the most important cultural influencers in life. While this list of influencers could vary for every individual, in my case, I feel it mostly comes from family, colleagues, friends, teachers, religion, education (and educational institutions), cities and states I have lived in(10 states so far, and counting!), games such as cricket and Tennis that I follow. An argument is forwarded sometimes that stereotyping is sometimes good because it provides an initial behavioral clue to an individual, in the absence of any other information. Th

The last thing a fish notices is the water around itself, so goes the saying. Today's world is so pervasively globalized that it is easy not to notice it! In our cricket crazy country, it causes no ripple to see a certain Mudhsuden Singh, aka Monty Panesar, deliver awsome bowling on behalf of England. Why Monty alone - Nasser Hussain,  former England Captain was born in 1968 in, what was then Madras. But then, it hardly raises an eyebrow. Tom Alter, an American, a highly acclaimed actor, was part of Indian theatre and Cinema, and when he passed away recently, the Mumbai film industry mourned as one of its own, which he indeed was. But these were global citizens. In reality, there are elements of globalization within all of us, only the extent varies. When we meet French-speaking folks on the streets of Puduchery, when we buy cars from companies that are headquartered in Japan or Germany. Or, when an Indian design engineer, collaborates with French colleague on a deliverable