the different cultural elements from the Western and Eastern cultures
Introduction
In the past couple of days, my colleagues and I in the assigned group have been working together on preparing a presentation about the different cultural elements from the Western and Eastern cultures in both the business and social environments. The members of this group consisted of Ahmed, Simon, Mike, and Chloe. We worked on the topic, and every member had a significant part to play in the completion of the task. Allow me to specify my contribution to the group and its purpose in achieving the objective of the undertaking. Generally, groups are formed to achieve satisfaction or a goal as one unit. It is necessary to comprehend that working in a group changes every individual’s productivity and their contributions towards the goals. For this paper, I will use John Locke’s Empiricist Reflection Theory of my knowledge on the Western and Eastern world to demonstrate how my ideas reflect or resemble the objects that give rise to the cultures of these regions (the USA and China). Specifically, my contribution to the team involved working on three parts: daily life, stereotyping, and uncertainty avoidance.
Experience
Working in a team has been one of the most exciting things in my life. When group members combine their efforts to work on a task, the outcome is always marvelous. In light of this assignment, we organized ourselves on how individuals were to pursue their allotted sections of the task before finally coming together to compile our work. The topic was broad and with many sections: food, politics, daily life, music, religion, clothing, art, languages, stereotypes, and so forth. In particular, I was assigned to work on the subtopics of daily life, stereotyping, and avoidance of uncertainty among the deferent cultures in the West and East. Indeed, my skills of communication, decision-making, reliability, problem-solving, listening, rapport-building, conflict resolution, influencing, and persuasion, planning, and organizing helped me significantly to handle these subjects and collaborate with the team members towards achieving the goals and objectives of this assignment. Regardless of my specific roles, I worked well with my colleagues and conveyed my teamwork skills in exploring the various cultures of the Americans and the Chinese people with regard to their social and business life. We scanned every team member’s input during the compilation of the work and saw the broader aspects of the West and East cultures.
We thought of different things we have learned in class when brainstorming. These things were indeed exciting, and honestly, we did not necessarily explore the Western and the Easterner cultures just for the sake of completing the assignment. There were many important things about their daily life of the Chinese and Americans, as well as their stereotypes and uncertainties. While completing my part of the assignment, what I noticed was how different the United States and China could be. Some of the key differences I penned down included the fact that in China, the youthful generation loves shopping and has a tendency to relaxing in the coffee shops and clubbing.
On the contrary, young people in the United States see their value in working and achieving success. Another difference I observed regarding the issue of stereotypes is that people from the East, mainly, the Asians, are being good at math; the Chines people generally good at Kong-Fu, and African-Americans being good at sports. However, in my view, these stereotypes could be positive and influence how people see the nature of their differences in the specific groups, I also felt that, sequentially, they could activate negative stereotypes.
Concerning my contribution to uncertainty avoidance, I realized that the United States focuses on the importance of speech while paying particular attention to the freedom of speech, and thus their high score (68). Besides, I learned that the low score in China (24) of avoiding uncertainty followed their restrained society, in which many people are pessimists and cynics. Honestly, the majority of the Chinese believe that human actions are motivated by selfishness, and they minimize and disbelieve disinterested points of view and selfless acts. That aside, other group members researched their respective areas of the task, and their participation in the project boosted my knowledge of the Western and Eastern. Some of the concepts I grasped from their contribution included the differences in Chinese and American foods, politics, music, religion, clothing, art, and languages. For example, I acquired the knowledge that food bills are shared in China while in the United States, individuals pay their bills. I also understood that the majority of the Chinese have no religion, with many others worshiping in Buddhism, whereas in America, the majority are Christians. I do not doubt that the individual contributions of group members were essential and that they helped us in coming up with the presentation document, which we finally prepared.
Feelings and Thoughts
My opinion about this task is that it allowed the respective members of my group to work collaboratively and employ their skills in attaining a mutual goal and receiving common feedback. I cannot hide the fact that I enjoyed working with my colleagues. The knowledge I have acquired in this undertaking about the cultures in the West and East is enough to shape my understanding of the social and business environments in the two major regions of the world.
Evaluation
Generally, the execution of the assignment went on smoothly. The only challenge that perhaps I can mention is the fact that some of the information gathered did not give a true reflection of the business and social environments in China and the United States. We had to go through every member’s work to sieve the unnecessary material. It is only after comprehensive filtering that we came up with the presentation document. Otherwise, the progress of the work and the coordination among the team members were superb. Everyone was committed to their assigned tasks and submitted their contributions in due time. Having done this nature of assignments before, my involvement in the process did not face any hurdle. My group members allocated me a further role of working on the PowerPoint presentation during the compilation of the assignment. Regarding the individual parts of the task, I can confidently claim that I enjoyed working on the subjects of daily life, stereotypes, and uncertainty avoidance of the two cultures.
Analysis
Having learned a lot about the cultures of the West and the East through this group assignment, I am now aware of the most effective ways of achieving a common goal. Unlike other group tasks that faced several challenges in my experience, this particular project was different. We worked within the scheduled time, and we were able to achieve our goals as prescribed at the onset of the project. In the future, I would like to work with the same kind of supportive, understanding, hardworking, and reliable team members. Without a doubt, the insights I have gained from this project have helped me understand the different social and business environments in the Western and Eastern worlds. In keeping with the Group Development Theory, we went through some predictable stages in the formation of our team. We progressed from a crew of four individuals to a cohesive unit, which worked together for a common cause.
Moreover, present in our team were two key dimensions: personal relations and task functions. The twosome influenced the development of our work. Again, in line with Tuckman’s Model, all our team members recognized the fact we needed to start not fully-formed and working, but in the end, our team grows line w though distinct phases, from group creation to task-focused, cohesive team.
Conclusion
In summary, working in this group transformed my productivity and my contributions towards achieving the goals of the assignment. Precisely, I worked on three parts: daily life, stereotyping, and uncertainty avoidance among the Chinese and USA cultures. Without question, the understandings I have developed from this project have helped me comprehend the different social and business environments in the Western and Eastern worlds.
Action Plan
In a similar project, I need to stick to the skills I employed during this task, which resulted in its success: communication, decision-making, reliability, problem-solving, listening, rapport-building, conflict resolution, influencing, and persuasion, planning, and organizing. What, perhaps, I will do differently in the future, is to prearrange and discuss with my team on ways of developing non-redundant information.