Exercise Overview
Interpersonal skills reflect the manager’s ability to com-
municate with, understand, and motivate individuals
and groups. Managers in international organizations
must understand how cultural manners and norms
affect communication with people in different parts of
the world. Similarly, as organizations become more
diverse, it is also important to understand the roles
that various forms of diversity play in the development
of interpersonal skills.
Exercise Background
Managers spend a lot of their time working with
others. These other individuals may be supervisors,
subordinates, team members, or peers and colleagues.
They may also be as close as the next office or on the
other side of the planet. To interact with such a diverse
set of people effectively, you must first develop an
awareness of and sensitivity to people from other
parts of the world and to people different from
yourself.
Exercise Task
A list of five scenarios involving people communicat-
ing with others on work-related matters follows.
Your first task, working alone, is to rank these
scenarios in order of the likelihood of interaction
difficulties. Rank the scenario that seems to have
the lowest likelihood of difficulty as number 1 (for
example, all else equal, interactions between two
white males from the same home town and of the
same age and similar interests will not likely be dif-
ficult). Rank the scenario with the highest likelihood
of difficulty as number 5 (for example, an employee
with racial prejudices interacting with someone of a
different race might have a higher likelihood of
interpersonal difficulty).
Young U.S. female manager meeting with
older female manager from Mexico
German and French colleagues exchanging
e-mails about a new project
Skype call involving a male Jordanian man-
ager, a female Australian manager, and a male Israeli
manager
Telephone conference call between a young
Indian male manager and an older Chinese male
manager
A face-to-face committee meeting with five
people of the same gender from Indonesia, Russia,
Canada, Pakistan, and Israel
After you have finished your ranking, form small
groups of three to five people and compare your rank-
ings. Discuss the similarities and differences. Try to
identify the relative impact of global differences, other
differences, and technology.
Chapter 2: The Environments of Organizations and Managers
5 9
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BUILDING EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS
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