Ma s t e runi ve r s i t a r i oe nge s t i óni nt e r na c i ona ldel ae mpr e s a
POL’ SDI ARY I nt e r na t i ona lMa na ge me ntSki l l s
PolNa da lCr os
Pol Nadal Cros
International Management Skills
POL’S DIARY
This document is my personal journal. Here is where I wrote all my thoughts about the International Management Skill’s sessions. I wrote since issues or methods that stuck me the most to the ones that I want to remember in order to use in the future. The diary is structured by sessions; however, each session note does not follow any framework.
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1st Session (24/4/2017) In this first session Brendan, our teacher, has given us a deep introduction and an overall how the course will be. After that, he gives us different methods to identify and analyse the personality. I find all they very useful due to the ease to use it and especially because by this way it is possible to identify and take into account issues that probably were never been considered. This happen because the world we live, we are bombard by external stimulus every day such as messages and images that we receive from advertisements or social networks, between others. Thus, it not allows us to think about ourselves. We also saw the 5-WHY questions. This is a method to go deeply in a specific point. I usually make a list of the main advantages and disadvantages when I have to take an important decision of my life. In my opinion the 5-WHY questions method is an evolution of mine because you have to reconsider every point of the list and explain why you think like this (give reasons). I used this advantage/disadvantage list method to decide if I really wanted to do the ICEX scholarship program and although it was not so developed as 5-WHY I feel that I did the right choice. I also found important when Brendan ask us to choose the the most attractive image (the message image choice method). I suppose that this will be a good method to identify personality and what a person likes without needed to do an extensive survey. Therefore, I think that it can be a really effective method to identify and analyse personalities in a quick hiring process where the subconscious. Finally, I would like to add that is my first time in this type of subject and I feel motivated with that.
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2nd session (4/5/2017) This session was divided in 2 parts: the first one where Brendan give us some theory and the second one where we put in practice what he had explained. What stuck me the most of the session was how in our groups could we get such many ideas of each exercise. For example, our group has a Coca-Cola can and we connect this product with trash food because all people of the group that consume Coca-Cola do that only when they eat this type of food. I also found fascinating how we conclude that Coca-Cola apart of sugar contains high doses of marketing, innovation and subconscious message (the “shhhhhh” when a can is opened). To arrive at this point we used mind maps to connect the ideas and the SCAMPER method which used to boost creativity.
3rd session (8/5/2017) This third class was quite different since the whole group was divided in two smaller ones taught by a new teacher, she is Alison. Entering in more detail of the class I have to emphasise the great method she gives us to prepare an effective presentation through some techniques in order that any person would be convince about our speech (to buy the product given, for example). What surprise me the most is THM, which is the main core of our speech (in a presentation, for example). This has to be repeated 3 times: in the beginning, in the middle developing the idea and giving details, and in the end in order to conclude. It could be the key factor of making a good speech. Therefore, I promise that I will keep them as a treasure. We also learnt different techniques in order to transmit a good image regarding non verbal message. I have never thought that hold a pen would transmit a bad image. I would add that Alison told us as an example of protective position when we put our hands over our parts. It surprised me because in Japan is in fact a “the good way” to speak to another person.
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I would add that since I am an architect, a liberal profession and therefore it is necessary all those that are to communicate and persuade to the costumer or the court of an architecture competition (jurado de concurso de arquitectura). However, it is really hard for me develop in a natural way when I am in front of many eyes, I feel the pressure. Thus, I think all these session will help me to improve my skills. Finally, I would like to congratulate Alison since she has so much energy and transmit us so good vibrations that all class has maintained concentrated all the time on her speech. 4rd session (11/5/2017) This session was focus on classify personalities and giving tools to how interview and how reply. What I would like to remark the 4 personality classification given: -
Style A: analytical and focused on details.
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Style B: neutral, hard worker, teamgluer and over all trying to avoid conflicts.
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Style C: creative and innovative behaviour.
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Style D: leader and like to se results quickly.
Regarding the way to classify personalities, I think it could be very useful in order to create balanced groups. I’m not sure if CECO used this classification to make our groups
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due to all my group is style B. I would add that feel totally identified with B profile, it fits to me perfectly. In relation to how ask and how answer surprise me a lot what a significance differences have between Spanish and Irish; I would never mind that “It is very interesting” would means that the idea is crazy or you are wrong. I found very useful to practice with my colleagues how to formulate questions and respond them in a very polite way, taking into account business context and the significance difference that could exist between interviewer and interviewee.
5th session (22/5/2017) In this session Brendan introduce us the persuasion. It is a word that I have always associate with a negative meaning but Brendan made me see that this is not true because persuasion is group of tools that let you influence in person’s opinion without a bad intention. What surprise me the most is that all these tools are logical but I have never think about it and how useful can be in a negotiation or in marketing campaign. One of those is the Cialdini method. It gives 6 points to be followed in any meeting/negotiation in order to persuade the other part: •
Be consistent with my opinion,
•
Show that I have things in common the other person,
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Have good appearance (clothes, qualifications, etc.)
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People go where there are more people
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Scarcity attracts people
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Be polite because people have a tendency of return a favour
All these are tools to influence in person’s opinion but it does not mean that we have to use all at the same time it depends on the situation but it is important to keep in mind. All of them are really useful since I realised that the world we live is based in negotiation and persuasion is key factor in it.
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I would add that I consider myself susceptible of persuasion due to I change my mind easily, therefore, I am easy to be convinced. Now I understand many tools that may have been used to convince me. However, now I have the them to improve my technic to persuade others. I would add that it is a pity that all these tools were taught at the end of the course, I think all of them could be very useful for all of us in many subjects.
6th session (23/5/2017) This double session was very complete, intense and full of useful tools. First of all, we redacted an agenda in order to discuss pros and cons of doing a Joint Venture of our company with another in Germany. Where each component of the group adopted a different play roll. It is called Edward De Bono “6 thinking hats theory”. I would like to highlight how another time we had to use indirect questions and not to defend our opinion in evidence way in order to be very polite get used to the high context cultures. It is quite hard for me to do this due to the Spanish way to speak. I suppose that I have to practice more. In the second class we discussed pros and cons of a Joint Venture with six companies. In this time, we had to adopt “Six Thinking Hat” perspective. Which is see the issue from different points of views. I think what is most important of this technique is to return to the beginning and analyse all things explained. Most of times what is said is useless but watching the problem from all these different perspectives makes you realize of more things that you probably wouldn’t take into account.
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7th session (26/5/2017) Today we have seen paralinguistic, that is to say, how we talk: intonation, stress words, pauses, etc. To do that we have practice each of these components in group. For example, it is not the same if I said: •
Bonka is the for you! (stressing bonka)
•
Bonka is the best for you (stressing you)
In the first case we remark Bonka and no other coffee and in the second example we highlight you and no other person. Therefore, it is a tricky to emphasize our objectives. We have also practice pauses in speeches. Brendan give us a text without pauses and we had to decide where they fit better. He also gives us a very useful trick: when we prepare a speech write down the text with a “enter space” in each pause (as a telegram message). Finally, we put in practice our creativity by doing an advertisement show, in other words, prepare in 10 minutes an advertisement for a product (in our case Bonka). What surprise me the most of this final exercise is how quickly we organize and coordinate to prepare a performance. This is a proof that in a countdown and in group we can give the most and do very interesting things.
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8th session (29/5/2017) This session was so interesting because half of the class had to make a presentation using all the tools given: Cialdini, Story, structure, conclusion, THM, WIIFM, paralinguistics (way we speak), questions policy, anecdotes, make a clear PowerPoint presentation, etcetera. Although most of my colleagues were nervous, they made a really good presentation. The most interesting thing in this session apart of the Alison’s correction was how different were each presentation, I mean, the way each person has to present: someone cached the attention with a humorous anecdote, others showed very creative ideas, others used data to convince.
9th session (5/6/2017) This session was similar to the last one (8th session), presentations of two topics: “What are the interests of your company” and “Selling your country as the best place for the joint venture”. In this case, I had to present the last topic. I put in practice some tools that we had been taught: Story (5 c), use of Cialdini, THM, Body language, Visuals and Intonation. The correction of my presentation was pretty useful to realise how can improve my presentation skills, specially those mistakes that I didn’t realise that I did. Here are some recommendations: -
I have to try to not dance; I can walk but trying to maintain always my face looking to the audience
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I have to not look at the PC screen, therefore, I have to maintain eye contact with the public changing the audience zone/sector in order to not focus in only one person.
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PowerPoint was good: clear and used to be a support of my presentation.
As I said before, I do not feel comfortable speaking in public, therefore I do not act as I am, natural. However, there are some tips to improve my presentations and communicate
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better my message. One of these is try to maintain the eye contact with the public, do not have a defensive body posture or prepare a clear Power Point.
10th session (9/6/2017) This session was focused on the negotiation process. Brendan gives us a key rule in this issue: put ourselves in the counterpart’s shoes. That is to say, analyse and understand what the other wants to achieve throughout the negotiation and therefore in which aspects they are interested in us. This is very important because we can manage the strategy of the negotiation path. For instance, if we know that the counterpart is interested in some feature we have we can use it to give us a strengthen our position and manage the satisfaction feeling of the counterpart. We can also lie in order to have a stronger position, but is better not to play dirty. Related to this, we have to take into consideration the BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) term; which is the best alternative we have if the other part give us an offer below our red line. Brendan give us a couple of examples that reflects clearly what I am saying:
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Before start a negotiation we define our objectives. Let’s put the example that we can accept any offer above 30.000 €. Then we start the negotiation and the first offer the counterpart (negotiator A) gives us is 35.000 € and we accept.
This is a clear example that none of the parts have analysed the counterpart’s interests because the first offer the negotiator A give us is above our red line. However, we also have not managed the situation well because we have accepted the offer at the immediately and this produced to the negotiator A a feeling of have lost the negotiation. Another example that Brendan gives was the following one:
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International Management Skills
He was looking for a car and his budget was 30.000 € and he loves coupe cars. His brother wanted to sell his coupe car for 15.000 €. Then, Brendan bought his brother’s car without thinking about his back pain and his wife was pregnant.
As a consequence, Brendan bought a car because of his mainly interest: price and coupe car and was above the red line. The BATNA for this example could be if I didn’t get a car for less than 30.000 I would take a taxi every day (or I would move to the city centre to not use the car). Then Brendan explain us the Six Stage Model that explain in 6 steps how would be the structure of any negotiation: 1.
Preparation
2.
Opening
3.
Discussion
4.
Proposals
5.
Bargaining stage
6.
Agreement
After summarize the class I would like to keep in mind that the preparation of the negotiation is a very key point. In addition, in all preparation I would have to: •
Outline my interest, my redline and my BATNA
•
Investigate what I think the interests of the other parties are, define what interest
11th session (13/6/2017) This was a negotiation practice session. We put in practice all we have learnt about negotiation simulating one between one representative of each companies’ groups. One of the negotiators have to moderate the negotiation
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The meeting follows the six stage model structure but, in this case, was divided in 4 parts: 1.
Opening, rapport, ground rules: the moderator makes an introduction and organize the debate while each company is presenting themselves giving some features of their business.
2.
Discussion, interests and exploration: each part show its interests in products, markets, financial resources, personal resources, name, length of the JV.
3.
Proposals and counterproposals: each enterprise make a realistic proposal.
4.
Conditional, packages and bargaining: this point is where everyone is trying to get an agreement that fits with all parties’ needs (ZOPA - Zone Of Possible Agreement). What I learnt writing the negotiation essay and participating in this negotiation
simulation is that: •
It is essential maintain an order in any discussion and be respectful and openminded with all the ideas.
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BEAR IN MIND THE NEGOTIATION STRUCTURE. DO NOT ADVANCE ISSUES THAT WILL BE TRHEATEN IN NEXT POINTS. Therefore, do not talk about a proposal in the presenting point; or do not start a debate in the proposal part. (this point is critical)
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It is crucial to elaborate a depth analysis of our own interests and the counterpart ones.
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PUT OURSELVES IN THE OTHER PART SHOES (UNDERSTAND THE OTHER PART’S INTERESTS) Finally, that is to say that it was the last session we have with Alison. I have to say
and, on behalf of my colleagues, that it was a pleasure spend this time with her.
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Forum evaluation The International Management Skills subject was composed by in-person class and by forum debates. In the online forum all the student discussed about different topics, mainly based on culture and negotiation. All the topics were supported by online articles that, in my opinion, I found really interesting. To be honest, it has been a useful tool in order to complete the sessions and manuals and a better way to go deeper in some topics and feel free to give a personal point of view and therefore know our colleagues’ ones. However, that is to say that there has been moment of the course that we didn’t have enough time to prepare and develop interesting entries. What stuck me the most of this tool is how was the perception that each of my colleagues have in each topic threaten. Most of them were related to past experience getting in touch with foreign cultures, or thoughts that they have when they were kids. Moreover, it still was good in order to know deeper each other discovering unknown past experiences. I would like to add that I miss a moderator in all forum entries in order to guide the discussion and give some new information or maybe focusing in an specific topic. PD: I have to say that I enjoy a lot all soundtrack that accompany de topic entry.
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Conclusions I have to say that when we start this subject I felt quite disoriented due to I didn’t get the point how the course works due to we talked about different issues. However, during these days every topic became connected to each other. I remember the first day I thought: “I have never negotiated…probably I will get lost”. Nevertheless, I was pretty wrong: everybody negotiates everyday, with our family, when we want to get a discount in a shop, or even if are trying to enter a club that we cannot due to the short pants. However, I was until then I was negotiating with my natural skills. This course was focus in improving our instinctive skills throughout providing us a wide range of useful tools. To finish I would like to remember 2 thinks: -
When presenting think that we speak to the AUDIENCE.
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When negotiating think about putting ourselves in counterpart’s shoes.
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