Understanding

It will be the continuation of the thought from the previous post.

If people go deep into disclosing their internal integrity (and dis-integrity!) - how can they manage to understand each other?

Looking into my own past - my motivations were tragically different from the ones that I have today. Yet, my behavior probably was not that different. It is some time-related function, because I can also observe that I've gained understanding of the actions of the people, who were more of a mistery for me in the past, yet, those whom I could understand before - are out of my understanding scope now. In the same time - if the external behavior does not differ much - is it this important? This is probably how the working environment generally work - where the understanding between teammates exists initially it stays as long as it ... stays, where there is no common grounds - politeness switches on and we let the others have their own "strangeness". Good enough until somebody comes and decides that the "strangeness" should be eliminated and everybody should be plain and understandable, i.e. - same. Are we equal or are we free? :-)

Cultural Responsibility

Today my dog went to her new home and I'm very glad for her.
However, this fact triggered a long-time argument in my head: love vs responsibility. I know that my family (culture carrier?) tried to install a tremendous feeling of responsibility that is supposed to take over all the other feelings and direct my life. And... responsibility always loses. No matter how hard I try - the other feelings: fondness, hate, love, dislike etc. - take over! And the result is always the same - all the effort collected to support responsibility goes to waste and everybody is very glad that I finally do what I want and not what my feeling of responcibility told me.
Anyway, that was a personal introduction, but the questions are:
- what IS responsibility? Isn't it the force that preserves culture? Guargs it from change? Stops the change?
- How to deal with it? Unnecessary change is a waste too, so some guarding is ok, just to keep the structure within which we can operate. Isn't it just a pattern, with which to compare the effectiveness of change?
- Responsibility is objective, feelings are subjective. Where is the balance?
- Responsibility helps trust by keeping stability and making actions more predictable. Irresponsible/Unpredictable? Not the same. But responsible rather often means predictable. But predictable is not always good. Loyal -> predictable to one certain party.
- What happens when people of different cultures meet and their feelings of responcibility does not match? It's a very strong feeling (maybe just to me?) - should be really difficult if misunderstanding occurs. A takes pride in fullfilling his responcibilities, B do not care about his. In collaborative work A will feel insulted by the B's attitude.
- Maybe responsibility in general is not a cultural dimension (moral?), but the default list of responsibilities is.
I feel like in a wood trying to give everything a name... I need to find out what others are saying about it

Story-telling

"The hardest part of telling the story in your research is finding the story in the first place"(1). This is so true: find what to say and to whom.
I think lately my writing is just an expressed dialog with myself - it is a way of learning - once I realise something and put it into words - this thing becomes a part of me. In a way it is also a method of defining myself and determining my presentation to the world. Constructing the identity.
People are social creatures and we care about how others see us. We create this image and play the role. Sometimes it is a very holistic image, where all details match and all internal disagreements are well-hidden from outsider. But there is no such case as "no internal disagreement". The identity is always under construction. And another way is to disclose these disagreements, to anknowledge that there are things that we don't know, not sure about, don't have an opinion. I'm always struggling between what to disclose and what to cover up. I think it is a matter of deepness - if there is time and it matters - the inconsistencies should be disclosed (research, deep discussion, exchange of opinions). Otherwise, for brevity, it is good enough to show the world a simplified version, which is easy to deal with, with predictable reactions.
Here immediately appear additional questions about cultural differences:
- how much is appropriate to disclose in different culture within working environment (team). I can't formulate it good enough now - but I mean the level of details that a person in a team finds necessary to discuss. I would guess this is where cultures differ a lot (note to myself - check with Hofstede)
- another side - a level of integrity that should be shown to make communication comfortable (if I'm not sure about anything - I will be damn sure that nobody will find it easy to work with me! ;-))


Coming back to the story-telling - one of the main purposes of this blog is to find out what will be the story that I will tell. I need to filter things that are relevant only to me from those that would be interested to a reader.


And one more link:
http://www.isivivane.com/storytelling/creating.a.story

1) http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/writeup.php

Looking at the problem from a different angle

some useful links...

Found a nice useful site:
http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/
Easy to read and good info on qualitative research

From this web-site - it looks like I'm a phenomenologist - I want to know how the world appears to others (well, it is quite obvious to me how it appears to myself, so others are definitely more interesting!).

(Continued later)
One of the outcomes of the qualitative research can be grounded theory, it sounds almost like life - iterative learning approach. The knowledge is acquired in iterations: categorizing - commenting/making notes/observations - and integrating all the details together (making sense of it). if applied to life again: we often face recurring situations that get more complex and detailed (like new levels in computer game). Each time some additional knowledge is acquired, usual things are viewed from a new perspective and at the end of each journey - we meet ourselves once again.

Scientific Morality

It is possible for individuals and even human cultures to care about things destructive for human civilization (1)

Probably well-known ideas, but what I find important is that the presenter talks about the necessity to identify common moral norms for the whole world - makes sense as the communication is so global now, that it is difficult to separate, close eyes and eventually - yes, we have to protect ourselves from self-desctuction, which is probably the base of these moral norms, otherwise they are not necessary :-)

1) http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5300

Knowledge acquirement

I often find myself comparing my own behavior in a situation with somebody whom I knew in a similar situation. It feels like I can draw parallels and understand my own and their behavior better. Was wondering to which degree does it make sense to draw parallels and if I can use it in my research. For example - can I predict the development of the situation taking into consideration that I'm aware of the comparison and will look at it before making choices? Can I use an individual's experiences to suggest conclusions? Probably should be careful there - need to read more about qualitative research approach

Research Questions

As I'm feeling extremely lost in my journey now, I feel I need to at least find out where am I going. Otherwise I will have to adopt Alice's method of going without turning and seeing where will I get in the end (1).
So, I will write questions here without any special order and then will try to see if it will take me anywhere:
1) How is cultural diversity perceived by VT members? Do they find it as obstacle? benefit? incentive to work in such a team?
2) Can social network help to improve team communication and create a feeling of team identification?
3) The importance of task? Whether task acts as moderator?

BTW - regarding a gap of knowledge: looks like I'm search-challenged - can't find anything about cscw and virtual teams together. But I guess I can always say that I will look into "other" tools, that were not researched yet. Here comes another question:


4) How [insert_name_of_software_tool] can be useful in VT management?

Random concepts that can grow into questions:
- personality traits for VT members? managers?
- crusial toolset for being able to do anything?
- how VT membership affects social life? family life? sports participation? travelling? feeling of financial security? ISOLATION??? (I'm not isolated - I'm surrounded)
- problem solving? Potentially more organizational issues around communication? Right-wrong?

ahhhhh






1) L. Carrol "Alice in Wonderland"

6 Hat Method

Trying to use 6-Hat Method (1) to solve a problem. Let's put on the 6 hats:
White hat – Facts & Information:
I have a dog Frida, who becomes a disaster and frankly-speaking I can't take care of her. I have 2 cats whom I love and I want them to feel happy and at home, but they are scared of the dog. The dog gets dangerous for them if she does not get enough walks/attention.
Red hat – Feelings & Emotions:
Tired, exhausted, sorry for Frida, sorry for cats - they are not happy together and I'm not happy with them

Black hat – Critical Judgment:
cats are scared
Ginger cant go to the toilet outside
I cant improve my garden
I cant find time to walk with Frida
Frida is niserable to sit locked in the yard
In winter she won't have any place to sleep as she eats blankets

Yellow hat – Positive:
It is nice to walk and run with Frida
It is a new learning experience to raise a dog
Topic to talk with others about


Green hat – New Ideas:
What if I take her to a kennel for a while and see if she feels better there?
What if I look for somebody to look after her?

Blue hat – The Big Picture:
So the strategy would be - talk to more people, phone SPCA and find out their opinion, look at the situation again after a while, in the meantime try to find if anybody can take her at all.

1)de Bono, Edward (1985). Six Thinking Hats: An Essential Approach to Business Management. Little, Brown, & Company. ISBN 0316177911 (hardback) and 0316178314 (paperback).

On Truth

Looks like truth depends on context.
When the context change - the other values become valid.
I am the same person, but depending on the context I am different.

Literature Review

If the purpose of the literature review was to make me feel like throwing up when I read again that Virtual Teams are important part of global economy - then the goal is achieved :-)
I'm going to produce another scientific research starting from "Virtual Teams are important part of global economy" :-) Sorry :-)

On Trust

Trust is the base of any team. Without trust any continuous collaboration is impossible (1).
Trust is certainly based on telling truth and keeping promises. But it is much more in fact - there is implicit component: keeping implicit promises. This is difficult for different people, worse for different cultures, and even genders (men from Mars, women from Venus). My thinking is that it involves a lot of patience and readiness to accept different views of responcibilities for each other. Comes to mind another example: parents and children - so close, but always having different expectations of implicit promises. Comes close to the feeling of fairness. Was it fair?

Comes close to positioning of an individual in the society and expectations from others:
I'm beggar - people should give me money. I'm homeless - government should give me a shelter. I'm hardworking - people should respect me and help when I work. I'm rich - people should service me, because I pay. I'm powerful - people should do what I say. This is my father - he will never lie. This is my man - he will protect me. This is my mother - she will be kind and caring. This is my family - they are on my side.
The above are cultural norms and can be slightly or severely different across cultures and generations.

But the most deep part of trust - the person whom I trust won't use my weakness against me. I think this is brilliant - complete trust. This last part is something that is communicated without words and is so basic, that it is actually the foundation of a relationship between people and animals (forget culture). Surprisingly animals get it right much better and are very unlikely to misuse it whereas people actually like to misuse it and use as a weapon.
So here we are - building trust:
- show care
- keep promises
- be reliable
- be attentive to implicit expectations (manage expectations). I would expect that being open about you r own expectations counts as well. Ensure communication.
Ok, I see lots of steps to be taken for myself :-)















1)Jarvenpaa, S. L. and Leidner, D. E. (1999) Communication and Trust in Global Virtual Teams, Organization Science, 10(6), pp. 791-815.