Just finished watching the corporation as a public sector friend of mine suggested... well...
Interesting film well put and persuasively conveys a point of view... but the token nature of covering both sides of corporations is a little disappointing from such a serious undertaking.
Given the evolution of CSR over the last 30 years (and there’s both real CSR and greenwashing) why is there so little coverage of this in the film?
It’s interesting that there’s almost no coverage or quantification / rankings of CSR between different companies...
There are socially responsible stock indexes (such as FTSE4Good) that generally outperform others; and those companies practicing green-washing generally get exposed and generally don’t benefit by doing so in the way that those who really conduct business ethically do. Those companies that have nice words and in practice ride rough shot over anything contrary to their short term gains typically wind up near the bottom of such indexes or excluded.
No mention of things like Business in The Community’s Corporate Responsibility Index (http://www.bitc.org.uk/integration_and_advice/cr_index/cr_index_2008/cr_index_08.html) and different auditing techniques... Volumes of journal articles and practice completely neglected. A lot more than a non-responsive security system shown in the film.
The notion that corporations are legally obliged to place short term financial gains before all other interests is totally untrue. That public corporations are often short term by nature of their stockholders could be argued, but by this argument could one explain how corporations also make massive long term investments in infrastructure, factories and the like which take 20 years to pay back?
So.... Now available on itunes (from Apple Corp) , put together and spread by technology (developed by various corporations), all of which cost more to develop than one or a small group could possibly accept unlimited liability for and would be difficult to judge by any entity government or otherwise if allowing those people to incorporate for that innovation is in the public good...
Forum Post on film's website
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Cultural translation machine?
Exactly, well isn't always so exact...
One of the interesting things I find in Persian is that it generally isn't that exact. When asked where something is, rather than saying in the basement next to the stairs on the left, one would say just "it's down" typically.
If communication is the process of giving and receiving a message then there is the problem of cultural perception glasses putting the message out of tint.
Perhaps the fact is that more explanation is required and expected, so perhaps what we need is a standard for a 'cultural dictionary'. It is one thing to translate the words. It is another to convey the true meaning, the whole message. Yes it would be better to really understand completely and adjust and adapt, but sometimes we don't always have that much time. Learning a language takes quite some time, understanding a different way of thinking and truly accepting it, well this is something different. Just going over the notions of intercultural exercises isn't really addressing the issue.
Particularly when expatriates need to lead teams in different countries and react accordingly, what we really need is a dictionary. For example it isn't unknown for Germans to be found just a little bit too much to the point. Then others get upset, then that takes time to recover, well ultimately
Something like
Or....
On the one hand over simplistic, but a starting point. When you go to a country you would obviously try to avoid doing something that is considered taboo there (we hope) like kissing in public where this isn't allowed. Frankly sometimes I just have too many other things to think about, and when that's the case, I fall back into my own culture without realizing.
The spoken word may not be that high a percentage of communication overall, but it is what nails the details. Or so we think. But then it doesn't when we use the same language but at the same time a different language.
Hmmmm.... Thoughts anyone?
One of the interesting things I find in Persian is that it generally isn't that exact. When asked where something is, rather than saying in the basement next to the stairs on the left, one would say just "it's down" typically.
If communication is the process of giving and receiving a message then there is the problem of cultural perception glasses putting the message out of tint.
Perhaps the fact is that more explanation is required and expected, so perhaps what we need is a standard for a 'cultural dictionary'. It is one thing to translate the words. It is another to convey the true meaning, the whole message. Yes it would be better to really understand completely and adjust and adapt, but sometimes we don't always have that much time. Learning a language takes quite some time, understanding a different way of thinking and truly accepting it, well this is something different. Just going over the notions of intercultural exercises isn't really addressing the issue.
Particularly when expatriates need to lead teams in different countries and react accordingly, what we really need is a dictionary. For example it isn't unknown for Germans to be found just a little bit too much to the point. Then others get upset, then that takes time to recover, well ultimately
Something like
| German 'Meaning' | English 'Way of saying' |
|---|---|
| That was very bad / awful work. | "That wasn't what we needed to do. We have a lot of room for improvement and we gotta do better next time" |
| What the hell are you doing? That's stupid! | I don't see any sense in doing that |
Or....
| British 'Meaning' | Afghan Way of Saying |
|---|---|
| We must do this exactly like that... | This thing is very important. It's needed for x/y/z. Talk through the steps. Quiz understanding. Check at regular intervals. If we do a different, this would cause this problem, if we do b different, that would cause that problem... |
| That was very good - we should continue like that | This thing done like this will bring benefits x/y/z ... has been well done... |
| We should invest in this | There is a very good opportunity here - if we can work together we could benefit... |
On the one hand over simplistic, but a starting point. When you go to a country you would obviously try to avoid doing something that is considered taboo there (we hope) like kissing in public where this isn't allowed. Frankly sometimes I just have too many other things to think about, and when that's the case, I fall back into my own culture without realizing.
The spoken word may not be that high a percentage of communication overall, but it is what nails the details. Or so we think. But then it doesn't when we use the same language but at the same time a different language.
Hmmmm.... Thoughts anyone?
Friday, 5 February 2010
Multi active effectiveness?
If we accept that in many places the practice of doing quite a few things at once, having people coming and going, and 'flexible' timing are the norm, and will continue to be, then we need to grapple with the challenge of how to effectively achieve change and carry out projects anyway.
Well, first what the heck do we mean by effectiveness? I guess to attempt to accomplish a given objective using the minimum required resources (time, money, assets, etc).
So we have some key challenges here:
Well technology gives us an answer to the first issue. Now everything I need to do 99% of my jobs is sitting on my laptop - so anywhere anytime I can just get on with something that I need to be doing (coding, writing, whatever).
Sometimes things that we are relying on may or may not happen as planned. Clearly then we need to throw out Just in Time (JIT) methods. One of the pre-requisites of JIT is to have an extremely reliable supply chain, otherwise the overheads saved are going to be a lot lot less than the wastage / cost of not having the item / stock etc. that we were relying on.
Personal followup - this is a tricky one. Somehow it feels like this could be automated, but I'm sure that an automated phone recording just would not have the same effect as actual follow-up / checks. So I better budget it in my plan. Padding schedules to account for this is legit.
On the frontier in the developing world many places are running like this. Too often my first instinct was to try and fight all of the above. Yet this all too often might be just a painful failure.
Actually the funny thing is this - in an environment of uncertainty where things may or may not come together; it actually makes rather a lot of sense to have quite a few different things going on at once. Putting all the eggs in one well defined clearly planned basket may have a much higher chance of failure than other places. So rapidly changing plans and possibly having a few extra plans is pretty sensible really...
Well, first what the heck do we mean by effectiveness? I guess to attempt to accomplish a given objective using the minimum required resources (time, money, assets, etc).
So we have some key challenges here:
- We need to try and avoid time spent 'waiting' going to waste
- What we rely on may or may not appear as planned
- Sometimes a lot of personal follow-up is required
Well technology gives us an answer to the first issue. Now everything I need to do 99% of my jobs is sitting on my laptop - so anywhere anytime I can just get on with something that I need to be doing (coding, writing, whatever).
Sometimes things that we are relying on may or may not happen as planned. Clearly then we need to throw out Just in Time (JIT) methods. One of the pre-requisites of JIT is to have an extremely reliable supply chain, otherwise the overheads saved are going to be a lot lot less than the wastage / cost of not having the item / stock etc. that we were relying on.
Personal followup - this is a tricky one. Somehow it feels like this could be automated, but I'm sure that an automated phone recording just would not have the same effect as actual follow-up / checks. So I better budget it in my plan. Padding schedules to account for this is legit.
On the frontier in the developing world many places are running like this. Too often my first instinct was to try and fight all of the above. Yet this all too often might be just a painful failure.
Actually the funny thing is this - in an environment of uncertainty where things may or may not come together; it actually makes rather a lot of sense to have quite a few different things going on at once. Putting all the eggs in one well defined clearly planned basket may have a much higher chance of failure than other places. So rapidly changing plans and possibly having a few extra plans is pretty sensible really...
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