[photopress:MBA_CEIBS_students.jpg,full,alignright]The Times Online has an article showing the differences between following your education in your home country and following it overseas.
The best example is of a student named Thorsten Seeger who was in a team and they were choosing a color as the background to its presentation. It took several hours for the six aspiring business leaders to agree on it.
This was in the first week in his MBA course at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai.
What he found was a cultural clash. The two Europeans in the team would have had a vote to resolve the issue within minutes. The proceedings were drawn out because the others were Chinese and wanted to find a consensus.
Thorsten Seeger said he misread the situation. ‘For them it was less a discussion about the color of the presentation, and more of a way to get a feel for each other using a topic of low significance. For most of us Westerners, this was not clear at all and we were complaining to each other about the wasted time. Only several months later did I understand.’
This is a neat example of two totally different approaches to the same problem. Thorsten Seeger said that the 18 months he spent studying in Shanghai, showed him that, to work effectively with people from other cultures, you need to have an open mind.
He said, ‘That understanding helped me to realise that everybody does business in different ways and that you have to respect people and their ways of doing things.’
This is multicultural education and it is being experienced around the world by a growing number of MBA graduates. More, much more on this fascinating topic by clicking on Source.
Source: Times Online
You must log in to post a comment.