Hunter Gatherers of the New Millenium

My working life started around the same time, fourteen and a half, at McDonald’s. Much of motivation, in the aspect of life, has to do with survival. We can have a discussion of Maslow later but we are no longer hunter-gathers of the traditional sorts. We hunt for a better job or position and gather as many resources (money and contacts) as we can. In the world humankind has altered, structures and organizations have removed us from nature and into a new realm of motivation, capitalism. I am sad to say, I am part of this new motivation. With 2 little girls and a wife, the society we have created around us ‘forces’ us to be motivated by the ‘blood’ that keeps the system moving. Because of this, this cycle is close to perpetual. That is what school is for, teaching the next generations how to survive basically. Don’t eat the red berries but learn to use a ‘QWERTY’!

But this leads me to thinking of globalization and how we, as humans, are infesting the ‘body’ of this world. What happens when we get a build up of viruses in our system? Fever. But that’s for another discussion. I was thinking more along the lines of diversity and race.

Globalization offers issues related to managing diverse workforces that many managers are ill equipped to handle. It is not that the manager is negligent in understanding, but more so that the organization is lacking in handling the diversity appropriately, in this one’s opinion. No organization is more globalized than the military, and this learner has had the benefit of experiencing the military just as the facilitator. In the military experience of this student, the military offered little in the way of training, orientation, or acculturation of understanding the diverse and often vastly different cultures one may encounter in a military deployment. Whether it is due to lack of concern or lack of effort,one can only feel there is a lack of concern for the individual soldier, airman, marine, and/or sailor.

I digress, ethical issues develop from the varying cultures one may encounter and without clear explanation, may offend. Any offense may hinder the completion of any task, or cause communication gaps that may have wide spread effects on the mission or goals of any organization. As a solution to such experiences, one suggest that time be invested in cultural-ization of staff or employees that may be involved in multicultural situations. By ensuring that individuals have an understanding of the environments, cultures, ethics, and social customs of a given society or region he or she can effectively relate a topic, communicate effectively, and/or provide task completion or focus in a way that increases productivity and provides cost effective management. Knowledge is power and knowing is half the battle.