AnotherOther

Human against the machine

Technology has threatened to replace humans and, what back at the time sounded like science fiction, starts to be a reality. Bots and spiders are crawling across the world wide web, and different apps are published to make our life easier.

As the digital age goes on, the nature of work changes rapidly. Social media platforms can be an excellent tool for journalists (not to mention influencers; a completely new job description), but it also enables everybody to be their own life´s Clark Kent.

Transparency, freedom of speak or “fake news”? Importance of critical media reading skills grows steady.

Friend or foe?

Translators shiver when Google launches improvements on its Translator-tool, or other instant apps read the menu in Chinese in perfect English within nanoseconds. Future´s jobs are not the same as your parents, and switch to more skill; not experience-based work is happening all over.

Recruiters don’t necessarily go for years of work experience in the same position to decide whether to invite you to an interview or not. They look for cross-functional skills, like critical thinking, complex problem solving and monitoring. I dare to say that any role will become highly tech-enabled soon enough and closing our eyes from it, will only drop us off from the cart.

Got to learn HTML5, JavaScript and Python… NOW!

Wrong.

I don’t mean that now you should run to learn how to code to protect ourselves against the bots, but look towards creativity and communication. In the process of developing new skills, we still need education and know-how from experts of previous generations; or a colleague who has previously tackled the same problem. Even though the solution might be more efficient now – the lesson is still valid.

Don’t look for a pipeline, develop a platform

Talent connects business in every discipline. Decide on what you want to focus on; and gather the right people around that idea. Shape your workforce, reach out globally. Remote work enables the best brains to come together to create something beautiful!

Digital era will make some jobs obsolete for sure, but automation also reduces costs and nurtures growth in new, unexplored areas.

– Photo by Franck V. on Unsplash

17/07/2019 0

Cultural awareness in a nutshell: Do you know where you stand?

Cultural awareness is often mistaken with learning about habits and behavioural models of people, who don’t share the same culture with us. Before a business meeting, it´s most certainly useful to know that in Japan bowing is a form to address respect and deeper the bow is, higher position the person who receives it, has. For example, for a friend 30-degree bow is more than enough, but an office superior will most likely require an extended 70-degree demonstration of respect.

However, this piece of information little has to do with cultural awareness. The real thing goes way deeper.

Us versus them

I´ve been listening to Yuval Noah Harari´s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind -audiobook, and there was a part that claimed: “Homo sapiens evolved to think of people as divided into us and them.” And boy wasn’t he right!

In some intercultural training´s focus seems still to be learning about how “other people” do and don’t do things. A valid point of view, don´t get me wrong, but it does not necessarily teach to appreciate another’s point of view.

Shaped by the world around us

The first step in the process of gaining cultural awareness is to recognize that we are all shaped by the world that surrounds us. We absorb values, imitate accepted social behaviours and reflect them. However, we need to make sure that we know that none of these values is necessarily “good” or “bad” – just different.

Start with writing down your own values, and think are they stereotypically representing your national culture. Didn’t think so. Next, make a distinction between the values that you have adopted without questioning and practises that best describe who you are. When you can map what´s important to you and how you behave in certain situations, you can explore other´s perspectives unjudgementally.

Misinterpretations of each other’s behaviour are common

Misunderstandings between individuals will happen, but the way to address them can be changed. Rule of thumb is not to expect others to share your values and behave just like you. By doing this you reduce anxiety and frustrations of others not doing what YOU expected. Why would they?

This applies to all relationships and not only intercultural encounters. Rather seek common ground by asking yourself these questions:

What is important to you? (money, power, society, family, etc.)
What do you want to achieve in this … (moment, meeting, project, deal, etc.)?
How do you get to your goal? (relationship-building, negation style, timing, business strategy, etc.)

Remember that your counterpart might have very different answers. Communication, information sharing, and expected behaviours vary, but when you can recognize your values, goals and behavioural patterns, those presumptions are not blocking the interaction with the others. Negative presumptions become possibilities to learn.

Working in a cross-cultural environment is an open-minded, curious process where you get to challenge your own culture constantly – enjoy it!

14/06/2019 0

Never buy a pig in a poke – The art of selling something customer can´t check

Finnish has been rated one of the most challenging languages in the world for English speakers to learn. I can´t blame the frustrated language learns. Even we native speakers struggle with endless language rules, infinite suffixes and many, many exceptions to the existing grammar rules. Just when you thought you have it all covered, someone comes and says: “Actually… in this context the word X should be spelt differently as here it means Y”. Enough to drive poor students crazy. Everything learned by heart is useless.

Finnish is… different

Finnish is an extremely synthetic language, where both (just to make it more fun) nouns and verbs have many inflectional types. It´s basically impossible to give a strict rule for a particular grammatical point. Then there are differences between conversational Finnish and written Finnish, yeay! Something that might be completely acceptable in informal conversation is not so in written. The verb conjugation is freer in spoken Finnish, and consonant gradation not that easily detectable. In both cases, though you need to know the case system inside out and understand how the pronouns are declined.

What if I´m not Finnish?

After hearing all the horror stories about Finnish grammar, you might wonder, how can you make sure that the Finnish content or translations your company has ordered are good? Excellent question, Watson! As Sherlock Holmes would have said, it´s all about “data!data!data!”. Ideally, of course, there would be a person in your organization with remarkable Finnish skills to check the result, but if you don´t possess a unicorn, look at the traffic. How many clicks you get? How much time people (here read Finns) spend on your site? Does content convert to clicks or actual orders? Where this traffic comes from?

There are plenty of tools online to track your site´s visitors´ behaviour, and if the numbers are low, it might have to do with text quality. Especially if you have already made the page visible and it´s listed on Google. This is the moment when you call – not ghostbusters – but impartial language agency and kindly ask them to have a quick look at your site and ask what could be improved. Trust is a beautiful thing, but it´s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to online marketing or internal communication.

03/04/2019 0

Communication hints – How to get to what we really want to know?

I talked in my last post Nonverbal power in content marketing about non-verbal communication and wise use of silences, and continuing the same path, I wanted to make a post about communication hints.

What are they?

The definition is not easy to make, but what I´m after, are those tricks, with which you can direct the conversation towards your goal. Asking the right questions without being too obvious on what you really want to know. Sounds sneaky right?

Communication has been described as a process of encoding and decoding. The quality of the process depends on the context, (language) skills, attitudes, previous experiences and culture of both the sender and receiver of the message. That said, there´s no one size fits for all.

Sweet, confusing indirectness

The next step is to tackle the term indirect communication. Instead of directly saying what a person is thinking, he´s using facial expressions, tone, gestures, and the speaker´s true intentions remain hidden. Sherrie Bourg Carter Psy.D. writes well how different communication styles can have a huge impact on our relationships. Yet there’s no magic potion to handle these communication differences. Understanding and flexibility help, but more importantly one needs to be aware of indirect communication patterns.

“Now you know my methods, Watson.”

Direct communication style is often perceived as harsh and demanding, and especially in negotiations, it can quickly turn against you. Try asking questions instead, lead the conversation to the topic by sharing their own experiences, build trust, watch for non-verbal cues (nodding, posture, eye contact) and keep the necessary distance.

Don´t tell your listener what to do, let him reach the conclusion himself. More somebody tries to make an effort convincing you, the less you trust the message. Therefore, superlatives are not good click-bait.

Give distance to your listener, and that actually makes communication more effective. Don’t impose ideas, create dialogue instead. Be enthusiast and positive, that tends to be contagious. Arouse curiosity, and never ever underestimate your listeners/readers.

18/01/2019 0

What we don’t say

Communication is as much nonverbal as it´s verbal. So much can be said without words. Think for example a look of complicity between two friends, or how silently the mother can correct a child. Sometimes raising an eyebrow is enough!

Nonverbal power in content marketing

Silence can be a secret weapon, a powerful communication tool to use with great responsibility. Dr. Albert Mehrabian´s studies claim that a whopping 93 percent of all communication is nonverbal leaving only less than a tenner for words. And yet we put so much more weight on words –, especially in business. There are countless emails, newsletters, content to convert that is based on word count.

However, and more importantly, even though written communication can’t grasp posture, facial expressions or gestures, the tone is something that comes across no matter what. Writing a text is important to think who is the reader (audience) and target the tone accordingly. Voice is an important factor in the brand building too – companies spend money and time defining “how we speak” to our clients, providers and so on. Tone can serious, friendly, even humorous, formal, optimistic and even authoritative or threatening. How do you communicate with your peers? How well does your content convert? Does the message get across?

Next time when you write or read, pay attention to the tone of the text. How does it speak to you?

Silence, our friend

Also, no matter how contradictory it may sound, silence can be an alley, as Declan Mulkeen claims in his article 5 REASONS TO USE SILENCE IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION. It can be a negotiation tool, arouse interest and even improves creativity. I recommend you to have a look!

03/01/2019 1

How to keep up the rhythm – and not die trying

Efficiency, pushing yourself to the limit seems to be on today´s agenda in every organization. And why not in everyday life too, but especially in companies, there seems to be a constant need for improvement. “Stuff” needs to be done better, faster, earlier and bigger. But how can we meet high expectations without falling ill or getting a complete nervous wreck in the process?

Good question. The first aspect to think about is, is there a problem to solve? Will the new procedure make things easier in the long run or is there a danger to spend time and resources in something fancy only for the sake of being innovative. Development is great and keeps the societies moving forward, but it´s also good to stop and think before launching the next 6-month development plan.

Enough of the matters that are not in our hands

Then there´s the personal growth aspect – we´re somehow expected to develop along the year, and we sure do, but necessarily by overachieving. Let me explain, curiosity towards new things is a wonderful thing we should embrace, but what we should avoid is to collect achievements, medals and star stickers to impress somebody else.

Self-development is a wonderful tool, and a goal to reach for. Think about what new skill you´d like to have. Stop right there! It´s not about how you can get your next raise, so forget managing appointments and team or project management. Would you like to write, play or paint? Or cook? Let your imagination fly free and select your New Year’s resolution based on what truly interests YOU. If you´re passionate about something, you become an expert in it, and it will turn into increased efficiency.

Make love, not war

There are plenty of inspiring stories, like Nas Daily or Bucketlist Bombshells, of people making living out what they love. The beauty of going something that inspires you shows in other aspects of your life too. The same energy and enthusiasm stick on you, and voilá even your 9 to 17 job suddenly feels more bearable. Promise yourself this: don’t ever stop seeking new things that intrigue you – and that way your efficiency will increase without noticing.

25/12/2018 0

Killer language

I was reading an article where was said that English is driving western Europe toward
monolingualism and that English is a‘ killer language ’ par excellence, likely to displace indigenous languages everywhere.

I started to think would this really happen someday in the future. Must admit that on the other hand, the idea of a common language is tempting even if it destroys the linguistic diversity we have now. Communicating with each other, work in another country or just going for a holiday would be overly easily. Too easy. Yes, people tend to be lazy and thanks to that the wheel was invented – to make things easier.

However more than I think about using only English, more I feel against it. I like the feeling of accomplishment when learned new expression in other languages. I like how my tongue and mouth feel awkward trying to pronounce other speech sounds. I like to see the connections between cultures and words they are using. I like it difficult!

03/08/2017 0

With languages you are at home anywhere

We choose our friends. But what if the choice is limited by the inability of communication? What if we miss the chance of getting to know the most wonderful people just because we don’t have a common language or…even worse… are too afraid to use the one we know?! Tragic. I speak my mother tongue with my family and some friends but most heartwarming and delighted conversations have always been held in a foreign language.

So choose your friends carefully, but do not let the language be a barrier!

24/07/2017 0

My language, my world

I came across an article. It was about how language makes us change our behavior or even remember the thing differently (How Language Seems To Shape One’s View Of The World). I start to think about it and yes, indeed, I could find the connection. I’m way more affective when using English. Little words like dear, love, darling are constantly in my lips whereas in Finnish it would never occur to me call my friends “kulta”. There´s indeed a link between language and personality like Francois Grosjean Ph.D. stated in Psychology Today.

Another thing comes with the fluency of the language. One cannot really debate and justify his/her viewpoint if the vocabulary is limited. “Why not? – because!”

14/07/2017 0