Business Management – Top Manager Skills Memo – Due Fri 12/3

BMGT 485 – Week 3 – Brainstorming Discussion – Final Draft

Easy Chairs values trust and communication between leadership, management, and employees. Leadership understands the importance of creating and maintaining trusting relationship, which ultimately results in communication.

Trust is the key component in all aspects of business, internally and externally. A leader that can build trust can effectively deal with conflict, manage teams, foster lasting client/vendor relationships, and most importantly motivate people.

After evaluating Easy Chairs current state of affairs, this is an area that needs to be addressed. Sadly, there has been a significant decline in communication and trust between management and employees. The impact of this decline is reflected in production numbers and employee morale across departments. The greatest contributor is lack of transparency, respect, clarity, accountability, appreciation.

We are in unprecedented times, with the advancement in technology and remote workforces. Since in most cases we are not face-to-face with our teams, it is even more important that we are present and clear. Add the fact that our workforce is more diverse and there are cultural and communication differences, this has added a layer of complexity. The US and Asian are polar opposites when it comes to culture and communication styles. Asia's culture is collectivist, while the American's are individualistic. The EC team state that the Asia team does not respond quickly to the new plans and is quiet when they meet. The communication between these Asian countries tends to be subtle, while the Americans are blunt. Therefore, the EC team found personal interactions seem to be one-sided. However, the team leader should be inventive and invest time and energy to build rapport. The quality of the relationship is crucial. It would lead to Asia team members contributing more to the new plans. This makes a difference between goals being achieved and goals being exceeded. Also, one-sided interactions can be minimized by pushing being a team player. Hence, the EC team should consider the Asia team as similar to building trust and reciprocity.

We want to set our teams up to succeed and this can be done by education, connection, and open dialogue. The first step in creating an inclusive, open, and trusting environment is own your part, show you are just as accountable. The second step is showing them the bigger picture, what we are trying to accomplish going forward. Employees need to understand and be a part of the creation of the bigger picture. Increased reliability, productivity, and loyalty are gained by inclusion and effective communication.

Actions speak louder than words. Simply saying we have heard employee concerns and will be making adjustments are pointless if these behaviors are not truly adopted and demonstrated. We are not leaving you high and dry in this regard. Easy Chair will be setting up a training program to assist with trust building and cross-culture communication strategies. The goal is to give leaders the tools they need to implement changes, which will establish rapports with their teams, build trust, and open the lines of communication. We all must commit to be better and do better if we the same from our teams.

Bibliography Covey, S. M. (2019). How the Best Leaders Build Trust. Retrieved November 5, 2021, from Leadership Now: https://www.leadershipnow.com/CoveyOnTrust.html Johnson, S. (2018, May 10). 10 Ways to Build Trust in Remote Teams. Retrieved November 5, 2021, from Learnlight Insights: https://insights.learnlight.com/en/articles/build-trust-in-remote-teams/ Lorenz, M. P., Ramsey, J. R., Andzulis, J., & Franke, G. (2020, April 20). The Dark Side of Cultural Intelligence: Exploring Its Impact on Opportunism, Ethical Relativism, and Customer Relationship Performance. Business Ethics Quarterly, 30(4), 552-590. doi:https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2020.2 Smith, T. J. (2012, August 1). Trust and Business Relationships. Retrieved November 4, 2021, from Wiglaf Journal: https://wiglafjournal.com/trust-and-business-relationships/