Mark,
Thanks for the picture. I am excited (an maybe scared) that someone with your enthusiasm for trying new ideas is on my team!!

The results of my assessments indicate that I should move more in your direction. I have actually had this conversation with a peer of mine to identify areas that I could improve upon. I work in area that depends on people from diverse cultures to make the whole team successful. I am now thinking that maybe exposing myself to participating in the cultural events of my work team might help inside the 9-to-5 environment. I also am going to hold more skip level meetings that blend the work force.

Tuesdays class was very enjoyable. The three presentations coupled with the lecture made for an informative night. I am hoping our team does as good of a job.

Happy Lunar New Year from VA Governor Bob McDonnell :-)

I think it was very nice of the new VA Governor Bob McDonnell to take the time off his busy schedule to write the Lunar New Year/or Tet Greetings to the Vietnamese Community :)
Too bad that we haven't heard or seen anything from the CA or TX Governors yet :(, even though CA is the most populous Vietnamese in the US, then TX.

Happy Lunar New Year of the Tiger to us all!

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COMMONWEALTH of VIRGINIA Office of the Governor
February 11, 2010
Dear Friends:
As we approach the Lunar New Year/Tet, I wanted to take the time to express my gratitude to the Vietnamese-American community for its positive contributions to Virginia.
The Tet New Year symbolizes the beginning of the Vietnamese lunar year and the first day of spring. It is the biggest and most important holiday for the Vietnamese-American community.
Tet is a celebration of rebirth and renewal. It is about letting go of the past and looking forward to what the future brings. It gives us time to honor ancestors, visit family, look up old friends, and celebrate as a community.
The New Year of the Tiger is upon us. As governor, I am honored to represent the Vietnamese-American community here in Virginia. I hope the Year of the Tiger will bring good health and fortune to everyone.
Chuc Mung Nam Moi!
Robert F. McDonnell

GCI Results & other thoughts....

If you ever told me 15 years ago I would be eating a chicken's foot and liking it I would have informed you that you were nuts.

But look at me now, enjoying the wonderful goodness of dim sum with my wife's family.

I am not going to lie, my GCI scores were pretty sweet, but this is not something that came over night; it was something I worked on throughout my life.

As I grew older and changed, I realized that the world is an ever shrinking place.

I started to realize it was important to move outside of my ethnic "comfort zone".

In the beginning it was rough. I remember a business trip when I went out to a dinner where everyone invited was not native to the United States. Do you believe they separated the foreigners from the Americans? (I actually sneaked into the meal cause I had to see what was going on =) That dinner was rough not only because the company did not want to pay for my meal, but also because I felt like an outsider. And I was.

There is a way to become an insider - and that is to keep an open mind, listen and just treat others as you would like to be treated: with some respect & understanding. Sometimes it is OK not to know "exactly" what is going on. I'll just ask some questions later =) In the meantime, I will just enjoy my meal and a good glass of wine.

tuesday class on the 9th

Hi

The tuesday class was amazing and i was actually surprised by the creativity of my class mates and the wonderful presentations. The GCI exercise gave me a good insight on my personality traits and made me think about them to know what areas i need to work on and what are my strengths. The decoding exercise made me realize how important it is to do your homework before you go there and know beforehand what the situation will be like and how you can change it. If you have already planned beforehand there will not be any element of 'surprise'.It was also interesting to analyze the hidden meanings in simple sentences like' my staff is not bilingual'. It was a great learning exercise for me.

February 9, 2010

This class gave me insight on soft and hard competencies. Decoding test gave an interesting perspective as to how cues help us decode a situation. When you are in a different country with completely different culture it is always a best practice to build relationships. However contrasting your views could be from theirs, you will get an idea as to how effectively your goal can be achieved by developing trust through relationships. Once the trust is developed it gets little easy to put forth your ideas to get the work done. The test also geared me up to face such situation(s) with patience and positive attitude.

Go Americans and GCI Results

I was a bit taken back by the 'Americans are the winners' article (the preso was great- it was the article I had issues with). While I do think it's important to have pride in your country and try to motivate everyone to be better, I think the 'Americans are winners' attitude has affected our relations with other countries and how the world views us. I'm not trying to get political, but I think when you are a global manager that kind of attitude would not be something you would try to promote.
On another note, at first I was surprised by my GCI score. However, once Prof Osland explained some of my lower score on relationship management it made more sense. I think these surveys are very useful and I'm looking forward to getting my CPQ results back. These surveys put your attitudes into an unbiased perspective which is easier to digest and therefore work on your behaviors.

Decoding and More

It is always interesting to me how an entire class can always come up with the same answers. Being in an MBA class, have we entered a pool of such small percentages that eventually minds do start thinking alike? The Decoding exercise was interesting though obvious too. However, the obvious part may have been that I was fading around the time we had to engage in an activity of the mind. The presentations were fun and a clever way to learn new material. As far as assessments go, well, there is always something to learn about ourselves and results should be taken with some reserve rather than from the absolute.