GEB exam 1

Business language

• First step to understanding business culture is looking at the language

• Tends to be direct and emotionless; filled with metaphors and idioms

• Informs how we view tasks, accomplish goals, and build relationships

• Accepting this language risks limiting ourselves to outdated cliches

Why is business no place for feelings

• Good decisions based on logic, facts, and statistics

• Companies may have mission statements, but at the end of the day they care about profits

• Emotion based decisions are naive, illogical, and possible unprofitable

• This is why the language of business does not include emotions

• This does not mean they don't have senses of humours and emotions, they just put them aside when a task is at hand

Discourse

• The shared language used by a group of people with a common goal

• Discourse of business comes from learned behavior

  • Language doesn't necessarily act the way you've always known it to act

code switch

• Use different vocabulary and ways of speaking in different situations

workplace alienation

• Employees feel disconnected from coworkers because business relationships often lack the intimacy you're accustomed to

• Fast paced environments leave little room to form close bonds, and even slow placed

• Loneliness at work can have negative effects on team building and job performance

reciprocity

• The mutual exchange of privileges or favors between two parties

• Business leaders don't focus on this, and instead tend to use language that describe business as a competition or zero-sum game (one party's loss is the others gain)

indivualism

• US has always been contained at its core to individualism: “American Dream”

• Many internalize this way of thinking that focuses on individual habits

• The norm in US, but other countries such as Japan focus on collectivism

• Much of the business language is rotted in our sense of individualism

• “Its a dog eats dog world”

• Most students focus on personal achievement rather than accomplishing some collective goal through their work

why its important to understand motivations of businessmen

• Lead you to a fuller sense of self awareness about your motivation in doing business

• Do your goals align with your companies? Coworkers?

• Understanding why you believe what you do will help you overcome challenges and disappointments

two common metaphors to describe the world of business

• “Corporate ladder”: advancing through one's career from entry level to retiring wealthy

• Business is a “game”

• Two categories people use to describe business: sports and war: both centered on competitive, win or lose mentality

the art of war

• Best selling book among corporate leaders

• Written in 5th century BC by chinese military strategist Sun Tzu

• Top down management styles

• In recent years management styles have shifted away from a strictly top down approach

idioms

• Many coming from the sports world

• Very conflict driven, reveal the same attitude towards business as metaphors that employ war language

shifting paradigms

• The male dominated workplace image is outdated, and so much of the language is coming from that environment

• Language rapidly shifts and evolves

• It is important to think of the importance of communication in relationship building, many younger people prefer text or email because it allows for quick info

• It's good to ask managers and bosses how they prefer to communicate

shifting dynamic

• Digital communication has changed the division between home life and professional life

• More people work from home, communicate with coworkers on social media, and keep in touch with loved ones at work

• This also means you have to be careful with your language outside of work

emotional intelligence

• The ability to understand, manage, and effectively express ones own feelings, as well as engage and navigate successfully with those of others

• You cant control how others feel, but you can practice improving your emotional intelligence to make it easier to communicate and handle difficult situations

• Some situations will require emotional intelligence much more than theyll require something you learned in school

empathy

• The ability to understand and share the feelings of another

• Important factor to consider when thinking about your emotional intelligence

• Requires inhabiting the same emotional space as another person (where empathy differs from sympathy: sympathy is amore detatched positon: feeling bad for someone)

• Family structure, religious beliefs, cultural norms, and reading habits can all effect

trust

• We feel more connected to people who show active concerns for our needs and well being

• Emotional intelligence strengthens business relationships

• Being an effective communicator requires constant vigilance and reflection

getting over difficult relationships

• If youre consistently not getting along with someone, the best way to improve it is to be proactive

• You have to be willing to look objectively at your behavior and ask is there anything you can change

reducing negative emotions

1. being able to analyze any situation without a cloud of negative emotions hanging over your head

   1. Reducing negative personalization: happens whenever you adopt a posture of negativity about person’s behavior instead of first looking at the situation from multiple points of view

      1. Instead of jumping to conclusions, consider other possibilities

      2. People do what they do mostly because of them and not us

      3. Negative personalization is the quickest and easiest way to ruin a strong work relationship

   2. Reducing the fear of rejection

      1. Failure is inevitable and necessary if you really want to better yourself

      2. Edison tried thousands of times; he didn't believe he had no results, he believed he knew several thousand things wont work

      3. Change your mindset

      4. Several questions to ask yourself:

         1. Am i fully prepared to navigate the task at hand

            1. Surround yourself with people who will be honest with you

            2. Figure out what the situation requires and if youve done all you can to prepare

         2. What aspects of this are out of my control

            1. Focus on what you can control and let the rest happen

         3. What other options are available to me

            1. Dont lend too much weight to a particular situation

      5. Don't limit yourself to thinking about the most negative possible outcome 

staying cool and reducing stress

1. Only 20% of us employees are engaged in their jobs due to the massive stress that people dread confronting 40+ hour work week, with only two days to release

2. Reducing stress takes a more holistic approach

3. Instead of blowing off steam all at once on the weekend, be engaged daily with small practices to reduce your stress levels

be assetice and express difficult emotions when needed

1. Letting a conflict go unresolved can lead to bigger problems

2. Without closure in difficult matters, its hard to move forward and keep your work relationships healthy

3. Be assertive about how you feel when conflict arises: you don't have to be aggressive, but you should be straightforward and communicate your frustrations clearly

4. Usually best to communicate difficult emotions in person, but that's not always possible: allows them to see your body language and expression, hear you, and feel more open about sharing their feelings in an honest, direct way

5. If your boss/manager has done something to frustrate you, you have a responsibility to yourself to be assertive

6. Just because you open the door to discuss difficult emotions, doesn't mean the other person wont close it, but its important to try

stay proactive, not reactive in the face of a difficult person

1. Problems arise when your reactive behavior compromises your ability to function in a healthy way at work

2. Reactive strategies only offer temporary solutions

3. Peter Bregman in book Four Seconds discusses how we react to negative/stressful stimuli in harmful/unproductive ways

   1. Our emotions are controlled by amygdala, part of the limbic system

   2. Being yelled at/receiving a stressful email triggers an emotional response in the amygdala before the information can move to our prefrontal cortex

   3. Four seconds is the amount of time the brain needs to move info from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex

   4. Reactive behavior happens when we don't allow our brains enough time to respond with logic

   5. Solution: take a deep breath, in the four seconds, your brain will have enough time to move past reactive into proactive behavior

4. Proactive behavior is ruled by logic. Involves being self aware enough to realize why you feel a certain way and learning to anticipate your future behavior

5. Self analyze and learn to be prepared and have strategies for dealing with situations

6. It takes a while for a new behavior to become habit

7. Self awareness is a huge part of correcting negative behaviors

bounce back from adversity

1. We often concentrate more on our failures than successful, leading to a snowball effect that makes it difficult to see how much of a good job we're actually doing

2. Dwelling too much on every little thing you do wrong leads to negative consequences, taking a toll on your professional success

3. Bouncing back has a lot to do with mindfulness

4. Take the time to look objectively at a situation, learn from it, and move forward

physical noise

1. Everything in your external environment: actual noise that distracts you from being able to concentrate

2. In a noisy office, it might be a good idea to wear noise cancelling headphones 

3. Consider whether you are contributing to distracting noise

physiological noise

1. Anything that affects the body in a negative way

2. Many Americans still go to work when they're sick

psychological noise

1. Even if you can stop worrying about something personal for a little while, but there's still work stress to deal with every day

2. Its pretty easy to have tunnel vision when it comes to our own stressors, forgetting about the possibility that others are having a tough day

3. The most invisible and the most stigmatized

4. Its important to develop more of an awareness about mental health issues and how they may be affecting you

semantic noise

1. Mix-ups in written and verbal communication

2. When something gets lost in translation between speaker and listener, or sender and receiver

3. Semantic noise can usually be cleared up by double checking what someone means, its better to clarify than the alternative of assuming something and getting it wrong

4. In face to face meetings its important to take clear, detailed notes

closing notes

• According to statistics, people with high emotional intelligence make on average $29,000 more per year

• The process of improving your emotional intelligence is slow and accumulative, but the reward is great

• Its can be difficult because its vulnerable and uncomfortable