Emotional Intelligence
Discuss about the Emotional,Cultural Intelligence and Diversity for Organizational Behaviour.
The professional development workshop discusses and highlights on the topic of emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, and diversity. The model of emotional, cultural intelligence together with the diversity is an essential step for the development of the ability for dealing with the differences in the awareness for the effective understanding of the reactions of individuals. Emotions are powerful source of energy behind the reactions of an individual which helps in development of the ability to manage them (Argstatter 2016). They are behavioral,physiological and psychological factors that are experienced towards a person, an object or an event which tends to create the state of readiness. The concept of emotional intelligence deals with the capability to recognize and manage the emotions of an individual together with the emotions of the others. Emotional intelligence includes the capability to harness and manage relevant emotions and engage in effective application of it on problem solving and thinking (Njoroge and Yazdanifard 2014). The concept of cultural diversity deals with the ability to adjust and work effectively in situations that are culturally diverse. It can be defined as the capability of an individual to adapt to different cultural scenarios and respect the beliefs, values, behaviors, and attitudes of people from different cultures. The three important dimensions of cultural intelligence include the intercultural engagement, the cultural understanding, and intercultural communication. The concept of cultural intelligence is closely linked with the concept of diversity (Desmet, Ortuño-Ortín and Wacziarg 2017). Diversity can be defined as the acceptance and understanding of the uniqueness within each and every individual and recognition of social, cultural differences of an individual. The workshop illustrates the influence on the behavior and the attitudes of an individual in the workplace in the lights of these factors stated above. Emotions are experiences that represent changes in the behaviour, psychological and physiological state of an individual (Njoroge and Yazdanifard 2014).The paper illustrates one of the most discussed topics in the context of workplace, the challenges,te threats and the opportunities of cultural intelligence and that of diversity at workplace. The cultural concepts and intelligence are the patterns of assumption and deep level values that concerns the societal functioning. Furthermore culture takes diversified forms for embodying the plurality and the uniqueness of the individuals constituting the societies and the humankind. Diversity is the inclusion of the individual that represents the variety of national origin, color, social economic stratum, religion and sexual orientation (Desmet, Ortuño-Ortín and Wacziarg 2017). The paper highlights the notion of cultural diversity with the understanding of both the challenges and opportunities in the business environment.The paper furthermore illustrates the practical activities of the diversities related to culture with a creative touch and ends up with a final conclusion of personal insight regarding the summary of the accomplishments.
Cultural Intelligence
The workshop on Emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence and diversity include certain practical activities and discussion on some of the related factors influencing workforce practices. The aim and the objective of this workshop are to target the meaning of the term globalization and the related threats and opportunities of the globalization on the individuals at the workplace. The workshop targets to illustrate the connection between the globalization, cultural intelligence, and emotional intelligence. Globalisation is the procedure of worldwide interconnections in the growing sphere of activity. The procedure of technology and democratization has a large impact on the cultural and the emotional intelligence in the modern workplace. This is because the forces of globalization tend to encourage divergence of culture that affects the goals, operation, and policies of a workplace. The concept of cultural convergence and divergence is one of the practical activities in the context of globalization and cultural aspects within an organization.
According to the definition of UNESCO, cultural diversity is one of the common heritage of humanity. It is the necessity of the human kind just like bio diversity is for the nature. The social and cultural diversity at the workplace has both positive and negative outcomes. Some of the factors contributing to inherent diversity includes gender,race, sexual orientations, religious heritage, age, nationality and many more. Furthermore, factors contributing to acquired diversity includes citizenship, marital status, educational background and personal experiences, political affiliation and socio economic strata. In the activity of week 8 various surface level and deep level diversity factors were identified. In the action group, I noticed several types of diversities,mostly relating to gender and race. Women have been the victim of constant discrimination and marginalization in case of workplace environment and benefits in work. Some of the deep level diversity I believe I share in common with my other group member is the values and believes of my culture. Though I respect each and every culture in the globe, I believe in the differences in my respective cultural believes. One of the members of my group had issues with his attitude, he used to judge and the comments of the people from another cultural background. Hence he was being isolated to one group member. I have observed that diversity in the workplace differs from a nation to another. The right to equality and the freedom from any sort of discrimination is the fundamental right by the UDHR, though very few nations are there who actually follow and grant equal rights to all. The gaps in the gender related equality are still prevalent even in the majority of advanced economies. Work discrimination as researched and analysed by my group is something which is ongoing in the current era. There lies various factors over which an individual gets discriminated and challenges the notion of diversity at workplace. Women, people with disabilities, aged people, migrants from other nation, Lesbian gay transgender and bisexual people and the indigenous community people are some of the main targeted groups for the violation at workplaces. Some of the direct consequences of discrimination is degrading focus and productivity,loss in patronage, poor working atmosphere and much more. Some of the indirect effects include depression, job stress, negative impact on society and the company image at the global market. Some of the relevant ways the discrimination can be eradicated and tackled includes building of the concept of diversity from the inside out, bringing out the men in the fight, educating and teaching the employees about discrimination and harassment, establishing networking initiatives, emphasizing the inclusion of the opposite sex, establishing clear education criteria, abiding by the law and propagation of the right to equal opportunities and non discrimination. The importance of diversity at workplace contributes to the achievement of the workplace or the business in the potential level of success. Leaders and managers are responding well towards the importance of the workplace diversity. But there lies various challenges and obstacles in the reaction towards diversity at workplace. These blockages generally come in the form of active management resistance and due to the absence of relevant self awareness and soft skills. Furthermore irrespective of relevant changes in the demographics at the workplaces, many of the senior position managers misuse their positions to threaten the diversity within the workplace. One of the major challenges towards the diversity at the workplace is the lack of relevant soft skills. Hrad skills generally tend to involve skills that are learned and are often reflected in the level of education or training of the leaders. Soft skills then again, are regularly elusive and troublesome to measure or learn. Pioneers who see how to utilize relationship building abilities and spur their teams,especially in a period of diversity, are the individuals who tend to emerge. It takes mindful authority to understand the practices that reflect on themselves, as well as the effect on their groups, clients and at lastly their organization’s prosperity. The top soft skills that are essential to manage a diverse team includes effective communication skills together with active listening and body languages, leadership skills with diplomacy, decision making and managing, interpersonal skills, personal skills like emotional intelligence, empathy and enthusiasm,professional skills like time management, knowledge management and awareness of equality rights. Another important factor is the diversity fatigue. It happens when firms endeavor to convey diversity preparing or social change programs however experience obstruction. Another contributing element is an over-accentuation on diversity makes a few people question in the case of contracting choices are still in light of legitimacy. The figure below illustrates the different levels of diversity.
Diversity
While working in an organization, I often have witnessed incivility associated with some of the primary dimensions of the diversity. Some of the common factors upon which most of diversity related incivility takes place in the workplace are women, race, color, and disability. Talking about my experience, I witnessed how the women in an organization where subjected to lower payments and they were victims of discrimination. The right to equal pay and equal opportunities at the workplace is the fundamental right of each and every human being. I got shocked to notice how the male dominated management snatched a promotion opportunity from a woman and gave it to another man. Women have been the victim of workplace discrimination for long. Now the time has come to revolt. I witnessed how the women put down her papers of resignation the very next day after this horrendous selfish act by the business organization. The managers were not at all cool with the situation since they thought the women will accept her fate just like the others and will remain a silent victim of the discrimination in the workplace. If I were the manager I would not have encouraged these types of actions and discrimination in the workplace since I believe losing a loyal and reliable and a productive employee is a big loss for the organization.
Workplace diversity is essential for every business organization. The traditional notion of the concept of workplace diversity refers to the gender, race and the religious backgrounds of the individuals working at the organization. I believe the concept of workplace diversity in the current era is all encompassing. Apart from these variables and factors, further considerations are made upon skill set, educational background, experiences, age and more. While consideration over the skillset and experience is feasible and I think it is important for the organization to recruit candidates with these filters for choosing the best candidates who can boost up the productivity and be beneficial for the organizational profit. To me, there lie several advantages of having a diverse workforce. Some are the variety of perspectives and opinions, the growth of the employee rates, unity in the diverse strengths, increased company brand name. Furthermore since each and every person is unique in their own way and each one carries their own talents and individual set of skills,it would be beneficial for all the employees to work at the place with diverse work environment since they will get the opportunity to know, learn and analyze new pieces of knowledge and skills from the others. Discrimination in the workplace is a very bad practice that should be abolished. Each and every human being is entitled to equal respect and opportunity for a good and happy life with freedom from any sorts of discrimination at the workplace on the basis of any socio and economic factors. It is only when an organization will be able to successfully propagate diversity at the workplace with a healthy working environment. It is extremely essential for a business organization to identify the relevant factors contributing to the workplace discrimination and abolish them. Furthermore challenges of the diversity at the workplace should also be addressed and proper implementation of diversity and respect towards each and every religion,culture and their values should be encouraged by the employees. It is only when an organization can accelerate in its ladder of success.vb
References
Argstatter, H., 2016. Perception of basic emotions in music: Culture-specific or multicultural?. Psychology of Music, 44(4), pp.674-690.
Ashkanasy, N.M. and Dorris, A.D., 2017. Emotions in the workplace. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4, pp.67-90.
Clayton Sr., CB 2010, ‘A new way to build the business case for diversity based on the numbers: The Diversity Profit Equation (d/PE)’, Diversity Factor, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 1-10.
Desmet, K., Ortuño-Ortín, I. and Wacziarg, R., 2017. Culture, ethnicity, and diversity. American Economic Review, 107(9), pp.2479-2513.
Njoroge, C.N. and Yazdanifard, R., 2014. The impact of social and emotional intelligence on employee motivation in a multigenerational workplace. International Journal of Information, Business and Management, 6(4), p.163.