Ellen Moore: Living and Working in Korea Essay

The Korean assimilation on the some other grant uses indirect conversation which acquires it hard for western cultures to understand what is really meant or wanted. In addition, the Confucianism in the Korean culture teaches to show respect for teachers and superiors. presentation respect to a teacher/superior implies to not ask questions to rid of offending the speaker by implying that the teaching is not salubrious do and that the pigeonholing shagnot follow the subject taught. In this case the cultural style of the Korean consultants is causing study problems. Since the knowledge of the Korean consultants is by ar not as enhanced as the knowledge of the Ameri dissolve counterparts, Scott is exhausting to give the consultants instructions how to tackle certain problems and how to structure the consider, exclusively is not able to confirm if these instructions were understood or if more explanations be needed. In addition, this cultural behavior is reducing the cons ultants ability to openly chip in it with their superiors such as Scott, Ellen, rapscallion and the client and speak freely active concerns, questions or better solutions they expvirtuosont have. Another communication roadblock bottom of the inning be recognized in regards to gender.In Confucianism the male-female relationship is equal to superior-subordinate relationship. This causes major tension in the communication between Ellen and damn since his norms and values index have led him to devalue the authority of Ellens input. This might apologise why he is holding meetings with out(p) inviting Ellen and his refusal to use Ellens memo she alert detailing the progress during her absence. Since Ellen is not speaking the Korean language and needfully to rely on a translator, her ability to manage the aggroup in effect and her understanding of different nuances in the Korean language argon lessen and sometimes however diminished.Missing language skills is the third major communication barrier in this case which becomes very apparent at the dinner party when Jack arouses a very passive-aggressive speech in Korean. When the translator halt translating (Jack told her so), Ellen is confronted with not only the language barrier, but also with the cultural barrier of the superior-subordinate relationship and has to confront Jack and tell him to speak in English in order to keep the threats against the translator minimal and to ensure that she can understand the speech going forward.Another scrap this police squad up is depend is an unclear drawing cardship and direction which is causing interruptions in the decision qualification process. The misalignment between Jacks and Ellens instructions causes inconsistencies and insecurities in the team. The Korean consultants are not sure which orders to follow and due to the cultural familiarity with Jack and the high power remoteness in the Korean belong culture, they are ignoring Ellens instructions. The decision making process is further slowed down by major cultural difference in regards how and how quickly project connect decisions are made.The American culture is known for quick decision-making whereas the Korean culture has a very high uncertainty-avoidance. This risk avoidant culture is driving Jacks decision to conduct further market research even if that is outside of the scope of the companies deliverables. Since Korea is a collectivist society in which ag throng decisions are valued, his unilateral decision in regards to the market research suggests that he does not view Ellen as part of the group. The differing attitudes toward hierarchy and authority make it very hard for the American consultants to gage what the knowledge of the team is and how ofttimes is really understood.The American culture has a very low-power distance compared to the high-powered distance work culture of Koreans. This is minimizing the knowledge and idea trade which is very critical espe cially in consulting projects. Another major challenge is the missing group development. The Five Stage Model describes the first of these stages as the forming stage where team members get a feeling of how they fit into the team and what their responsibilities and tasks will be. Due to the constant disagreements and power struggles between Ellen and Jack, the group expression process is majorly interrupted.No trust can be built between the team members and the leaders and will eventually cause the failure of the project. The culture challenge is the low emotional and cultural intelligence in the group (EQ and CQ). In order for all members of the group to feel comfortable more or less the other members of the team, trust has to be developed and a sense of group identity and group efficacy has to be established. This would convey the efficiency and productivity of the team and the awareness of cultural differences.In this case, Ellen destroys the chance to get scalelike to an in tegrated group when she interrupts Jack during a meeting and makes him lose his face in front of his subordinates. In the Korean culture this is a enormous sign of disrespect and she will be not able to reanimate trust or authority without any intervention from the vigilance team. Q2 The foremost alternative would be to re hightail it either Jack or Ellen from the team. Ellens removal would appease the Korean hierarchy and would give the team a unified leadership under Jack.Nevertheless, removing Ellen from the team would challenge the successful close of the project since her expertise and experience is needed. Even if a suitable replacing for Ellen could be found, the person would need time to get up to revive and additional expenses would be occurred for the relocation package of the refreshful person and a severance payment or relocation package for Ellen who would need to move to another project which most probably would be in a different country. This could possibly da mage Andrews leadership and reputation.On the other hand, removing Jack from the project team would not be received well by the Korean consultants and the management team and the cultural differences would increasingly destroy the project from succeeding. The 2nd alternative would be to keep status quo and pull up stakes the team as it is and let the situation take care of itself. The laying claim here would be that Ellen has adjusted to different cultures in prior assignments and might be the best person to get the team back on track.The advantage of this solution would be that no initial cost is compulsory and everybody continues in their agency without major interruptions. The drawback with this solution is that this alternative is very risky. The team has already reached a point where action needs to be taken. The work environment and the tension between Ellen and Jack did not improve over the last weeks and additional resources will be needed to keep the project on track. The ultimate alternative in this case is to restructure and redefine the team. Ellen should be the sole team leader in regards to tasks, deadlines and milestones.Jack should be assigned to a specialized role on the consulting team, so that on the one hand his technical expertise is still available if needed, but on the other hand his control as a leader is decreased significantly, so he cannot interfere with the work flow of the team anymore. In order to make the restructuring of the team successful, Ellen should make do the above mentioned challenges one by one, to ensure the highest possible success rate. In order to address the communication issue and the high-power distance work environment, she should establish an nvironment, where team members can anonymously state their opinion, ask questions or introduce new solutions to problems the team is currently facing. This could be established by creating an anonymous look across box (physically or digitally) which would be read d aily by Ellen and topics submitted would be discussed during the meetings. For certain specialized tasks, subgroups should be created to make sure the high-power distance work environment can be decreased and different viewpoints and ideas can arise from free discussions.This solution will improve team functionality and pooh-pooh time lost on tasks not related to the project, preventing further delays. moreover Ellen would need to make the team aware of the cultural differences and try to make the team find common solutions which are acceptable to everybody (Adaption). Commonly agree on procedures for office behavior or approval processes will make it easier for the employees to follow rules and to work efficiently. Team building sessions will be required to brainstorm team values, individual roles and decision making processes.This will negociate the disconnect between leadership and subordinates while accelerating the group development. The demotion of Jack out of a management position will be potentially minus to his reputation but will be counteracted by his new role as a specialized consultant with technical experience. The additional be associated with the recommended solution are minimal. Nevertheless, gaining the buy-in of the Korean management team will be difficult. If the proposed solution does not work due to the missing of the Korean management team, Andrew would need to assume this position by himself.