May 24; An Organization Can Make A Difference Only With People With Different View Points;
MANAGEMENT BY THE BOOK:
365 Daily Bible Verse &
One-Minute Management Lessons For The Busy Faithful

Chapter Five: May Hiring; 24 May

We have different gifts,

according to the grace given to each of us.

Romans 12:6a

Diversity

A car wreck. Crunched sheet metal and a bumper on the road. It is a busy intersection and a small crowd gathers. No one is hurt, but I ask, “Should we call the police?”

My client reacts as if slapped, “Oh no, “ he says. “Witnesses will talk with the two drivers and determine guilt. Then they will agree and settle the account.”

“Huh?” I am confused. “No police? No courts?”

“Law enforcement and judges will favor the party they know best—or who pays the most.”

It sounds something like USA politics but the scene is set in mainland China. The system seems to work for them and I learn a bit more about how our international managers think. Hiring “China Hands” who work across our cultures is the only way Your Business Professor survives. I didn’t have an outside perspective; so I had to rent one.

For example, Confusious wrote that, “Stealing a book an elegant theft.” We each have different ethical values.

We had different points of view and brought our cultural baggage with us. The Chinese value personal relationships or guanxi even more than in the USA.

This is might be the reason the German Max Weber, the father of institutional bureaucracy, is popular in the West and less so elsewhere. Nepotism and neighborhood is more accepted in the East.

Hiring differences in experience can help managers understand other worlds.

Like Louisiana.

Hiring diversity can even help us understand different perspectives.

***

It was raining in Norfolk, Virginia when the carful of girls stopped outside the convenience store. They all jumped out and ran inside.

Except one; the new girl. She sat and waited. And waited.

Finally after a few minutes she stepped out of the car and into the downpour and joined her friends. They asked her, “Why didn’t you come in?”

The lone girl said she was simply going to wait a minute until the rain stopped.

Her friends laughed, “It’s going to be raining all day.”

“What?” she asked.

The other girls looked at her.

“When it rains in Louisiana it lasts a short bit then it passes quickly.”

Different people from different backgrounds will have different perspectives.

Even on the rain.

Thinking out side of the box may have to come from a different, out side the box experience.

Romans 12:6a is referring to the members of the body of Christ where, We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. But this can also apply to the differences of members in a market.

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