Organizational Communication

Whenever I think about communication within an organization the first thing that cross my mind is the organization culture. I worked for a multinational company in the bay area. We speak Mandarin among our team (14 people) most of the time except during meetings. When we're on the phone with other departments, we would speak English. This is our unique way of communicating with each other and we agreed that it's the most effective way.

One observation I have is that people act differently when speaking different languages. For instance, a colleague would voice out her opinion in Mandarin but would remain quiet during meetings. Most people would agree that communication is the key to success within an organization by keeping ideas flow. However, in the situation mentioned above, how should we encourage people from different ethnic or cultural background to speak their thoughts?

Some said email is the solution but I personally don't think it works. when things get busy at work, not many will find spare time to draft a lengthy email to explain their thoughts to others, and not many will read and respond to it anyway.

My involvement in a Merger & Acquisition

The company that I've worked for in the past 5 years have recently acquired a firm in Los Angelas and I've been assigned to participate in the training process. I did not expect this to be a pleasure experience but it turned out not as bad as I thought.

My first trip down to LA with the head of another few departments was very interesting. The people over there are not welcoming our presence, as I would expect. We called a few meetings and not many of them showed up, so we had to host a few meetings with the same discussion topic and hopefully it fits their busy schedule. I did not understand why until I found out that most people I see in that office were not staying. Some of them publicly spoke about their plan of leaving the company and some were already packing their belongings.

It took us a few days to figure out who will stay and only focus our training for those people. It was difficult at first but communication is key. We talked to the people and assure them of their job stability. Some responded with doubt but many told us they're glad to hear this from the new headquarter and would do what it takes to bring success for this M&A.

Looking forward to my 1st online class

Hi 244!