"National Treasure": Characters show Migration Paths to understanding Differences in Business Cultures
How can the traditional Characters help to understand ways to improve Business Communication?
Stefan Lovgren in Los Angeles
for National Geographic News November 19, 2004
Internet sources provide you the opportunity to improve your business English skills. These sources have been marked. Please regard their requirements for permission and copyright.
Reading the National Geographic Article
>>> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/98426770.html
Proposal
I would like to propose that the story characters take the lead in developing answers to better business and project communication.
What is successful business communication?
What does successful business communication require?
What can be achieved by successful business communication?
Let’s review the characterization and background once again and see what pointers they give about attaining progress in improving business communication.
Background
“Set against the conflict of a fairy tale relating to the serious conflicts of the Crusades and the potential riches that war promises”; this background indicates that business mixes entertainment and show with the seriousness of (armed) conflict. On the one side; one should not take the background too seriously. But on the other; each side fights for the advantage. The skills of war apply to successfully meeting the requirements of business.
Freemasons
The Freemasons establish value for themselves and the culture that they embed in. They take traditional values to guide their activities and strive to implement them. But they so not show everything. They maintain secrecy as a strategic weapon to gain the initiative, and to hide their activities. It provides them freedom of movement. They combine strategic partnerships to network and build power.
Descendent of a Carriage Boy
Hard work and conscientious effort develop qualities. They are not inherited. Believe in what you can do, and it will succeed.
He demonstrates using native intelligence and shows the courage, and the belief in himself to crack the codes.
This demonstrates the typical American love for expounding the preposterous.
Equality pervades in business communication and it is more important to get the job done and do it right than to worry about the superficiality of correct grammar and well-coined phrases.
Knights Templar
Business is not only a matter of work, but it involves a sense of humor or the preposterous and should be fun as well. Take it easy and have a laugh once in awhile.
If you have contributions or disagreements to the interpretation of the role that the characters play in understanding the essence of the American style of business communication then email them to the blog.
Proposal
What are proposals?
- They identify needs.
- They deal with alternative solutions and the implementation to meet the needs.
- They must be written to illuminate a problem and describe the means to approach and solve the problem. It may present alternatives to discuss. It will present a solution and the reasons it provides the best solution.
- It describes the implementation.
- The implementation contains a roadmap to use for team motivation and management.
- Proposals generally fall into five types: problem resolution, research, research and development, project or planning, and sales.
An easy to use and practical proposal contains:
Solution: State the solution and summarize the plan to attain the solution
Benefits: Sell the solution and plan by presenting the advantages and benefits.
Introduction: Analyze the problem, what has changed and the consequences. Describe the background briefly.
Conclusion: Induce an implementation of the solution, the plans and initiate the team motivation.
Process and Schedule: Explain the processes involved, timeline and service or support.
Needs: summarize how the needs have been (best) met.
Costs: breakdown the costs.
An application of this proposal to attaining Business English Competence
Solution: Take a few moments with me to review the article characters and background to determine what requirements they define for business communication. You should consider how this proposal helps establish guidelines to write better business correspondence and proposals.
This proposal begins with 3 questions that lead the reader to consider his own needs and benefits.
- What is successful business communication?
- What does successful business communication require?
- What can be achieved by successful business communication?
Now formulate the answers to these questions based on the article characters.
Benefits: If you regularly invest this time:
- you will save time in writing the considerable amount of correspondence needed in project management and corporate business.
- you will write more precisely and avoid misunderstandings.
- your project management will improve because the team members understand the goals, tasks and deadlines.
- Your communication skills compensate for cultural differences and bridge the gap.
Conclusions:
- Work to attain business competency in your communication. Business English Competency does not target perfection of style, grammar or language. Experience proves that the biggest barrier to progress in Business English Competence is the belief that perfection is a requirement for understanding. Successful foreign speakers confirm that spontaneous use of the language promotes progress better. Learning by speaking seeks to attain clarity of understanding and precision of statement. Say what you mean how you say it. Native speakers automatically compensate for international differences.
What to look out for:
International English communication uses short sentences. It prefers the active over the passive. It uses the available vocabulary and language skills but intends to use daily tasks to improve and expand it.
- The background of the article shows that business is like the skirmish of knights where both sides confront each other with the intention of attaining the best advantage. Business Competency gives an edge.
- The Freemasons demonstrate that US Business approaches from the perspective of Customer Value and Corporate Value. The team or association should work to improve both. US business works with freedom of action to get the job done.
- The son of the carriage boy displays team equality and the informal nature of international business teams. Native intelligence and innovation replaces structured (established) processes and hierarchies.
- Business communication provides the guidance for hard, intense, directed teamwork.
- Like the Knights Templar; the right business communication builds a successful team. It encourages a lighthearted approach with a sense of humor that wields a team together.
Conclusion II:
Each session of Global English Project targets the means to attain competency and relax with the skills gained through application. It uses “learning by doing” which is also based in “Kaizen”.
Process and Schedule:
- Each week brings a new episode. Look in when you have time to polish up another skill essential for business clarity. Even better: plan the time weekly to improve your communication skills.
- Improvement requires continuity. Use the weekly exercise to improve another component of Business English Competency.
Schedule: plan about 1½ hour a week to invest in improving teamwork through communication and relaxing in the international arena.
Now go back and look at the proposal contents. Decide how useful it is for you by going through the example again. File it for future use if it fits your needs for a simple, practical and concise proposal format.
Online Help. If you want “public” help or discussion in the text or exercises, feel free to use the blogger as your medium of choice. If you have questions, or need help in using the collaboration platform at Google Docs [Google >> Mehr Text und Tabelle, send me an email at: mailto:Gary_Gabriel@web.de?subject=Online Help
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