Overview
ABZ consulting firm is one of the biggest management consulting firms in the world. The company works with top executives helping them to make better decisions, convert the decision to actions, and deliver the actions to clients to maintain sustainable success. The company has been passionate about providing better consulting to their clients in order for them to achieve better results. The results go beyond financial gains and are tailored to the client’s requirements. The ABZ consulting company gives advice to global leaders on their issues and opportunities, which may include marketing, technology, strategy, operations, acquisitions, and organizations. They have worked with several of the Grand 500, hundreds of nonprofits, thousands of major local and regional organizations, and private organizations. This is a representation of about 75% of the world’s equity capital.
Organization Background
The ABZ consulting company was created in 1973 with a motto that stated results, not reports. The motto allowed them to move from a small business in the consulting field to compete with top companies in the game. The main aim of the consulting company was to invest and deliver the outcomes of their work. Sometimes the company owners would approach their clients with analysis and reports of research they did for the client at a fixed fee. If the work they did with a client works, then the work would be rewarded accordingly. In the 1980s, the success of the firm slowed down due to slow business conditions, internal fights, and competition. This leads the company to begin borrowing money against their equity for cash which causes the business to sink into debt. This time they hired a new manager to assess the conditions in the organization and solve them. Within a year after the new manager was hired, he turned the company management around and left an impact on the operation of the company since then. The company has transitioned over the past two decades, with some elements of the previous era remaining in place.
The company is now able to manage its economic slowdown by investing in internal hires, leadership, and internal promotions. Throughout the 21st century, the company has managed to expand its locations to 37 offices around the world. The ABZ consulting company, however, faces competition from companies in the same field, and so they use other strategies to attest to their expertise. Today the company experiences pressure from multiple sources, such as customer expectations, technologies, and markets, which change on a daily basis. The future of the ABZ consulting company will be about mind the expectations of the customers in a highly changing environment. The company will need new strategies and leadership skills to help them manage its growth in the competitive markets.
Interviews had to be done to get first-hand information on the issues facing the company to carry out this research. I carried out interviews with the chief executive officer of the company and the chief marketing officer.
Areas Addressed
Issues involved in managing a diverse workforce
In the interviews, we talked about the issue of diversity in ABC Consulting Company. According to the findings from the interviews, this is what we found out.
There are many benefits of working in a diverse environment because the environment has people with different ideas, perspectives, and opinions that can lead to better innovations and problem-solving. A diverse environment in the company fosters a strong sense of belonging to those in traditionally underrepresented groups. Diversity in the ABZ Company includes gender and ethnic groups such as Hispanics, whites, and black Americans. In terms of gender, the people in the organization are either male or female. When an employee is no longer the only person of color, woman, or the only person with a disability, they become more integrated into the team. But bringing the group together leads to some challenges that the managers of the consultant company work to prevent. To help reduces cases of miscommunication, the company encourages its employees to speak slowly and clearly, and they should feel comfortable asking for clarification if needed.
One of the main problems they face, as discussed with the chief executive officer, is the communication barrier. The issue is common in the workplace and mainly is due to language differences, disabilities such as people with hearing problems, and different communication styles. An example given is when there are generational differences in communication preferences. You find that the younger team members prefer to use slang while the older ones prefer to use phones for communication. This creates a big difference, especially if the older team members do not understand the slang meanings. Sometimes you may find that someone speaks English as their second language, like Hispanic employees or a person with a hearing problem. It is difficult to communicate with these people, especially when they are team leaders and have meetings to attend (Cletus et al., 2018).
Another issue that the organization faces is cultural misunderstandings. For example, some employees refer to giving a thumbs up, patting someone on the back, or using the left hand as taboo. In such cases, when the company employs people, they build an inclusive workplace that helps the offended identify the issues just as a misunderstanding. The CEO says that when people feel confident that their culture is respected in the workplace, then they are likely to give others the benefit of the doubt. Creating an inclusive environment allows the team members to welcome feedback and education when they have offended someone in an offensive way. The organization also helps its team members from different cultures to do their part in order to create an environment that accepts each culture and understands the cultures.
The interviews brought up another problem that the ABZ Company faces. Slow decision-making affects the company workflow. The organization has diverse communities and different opinions that promote innovation but can slow down decision-making and progress towards the company’s aims. To control this, the organization has grouped different sections of the workforce together and allocated a team leader to each. This process fastens decision-making as the managers only meet with the team leaders to give instructions or know work progress. Inequitable inclusion is another issue that faces the ABZ organization based on the diverse workforce.
An inclusive environment may mean something different depending on the diversity of the employees. For example, some team members in the workplace are identified as gay and lesbian, and sometimes they feel like they are not supported. Also, other team members have disabilities, and they too feel like they are not supported or recognized in the organization. The last problem reported by the two managers that the organization faces is discrimination. It is possible, as the managers say, that discrimination, harassment, and biasness are more evident as the team diversifies. He states that in the last year, cases of discrimination and harassment in the ABZ organization were about 61%. These actions hold the company and employees back from applying innovation, teamwork, and creativity.
Current practices used by leaders to ensure effective communication
Leaders and even employees have developed certain workplace practices to ensure effective communication. These practices include building collaboration skills. Collaboration builds effective teamwork, and to build it, one needs to practice honest and open communication. These interactions may not always entail agreement but rather the ability to reach compromises and resolve conflicts. Additionally, managers must understand when and how to communicate. Communication in the workplace is allowed via email, face-to-face, instant messages, calls, and overwork management programs. Leaders are encouraged to follow the communication guidelines and message the right things while at work. Sometimes when the leaders and employees know where to communicate is half the battle in the organization (Sharma & Mann, 2018). The ABZ Company has many sections of communication and tools. The team members are encouraged to make sure they know where they can communicate in case of an issue, or if they do not know, they are allowed to ask.
Leaders are also encouraged to talk face to face if they can. Talking face to face is the most tried and true communication means in the organization and even outside. Speaking through video conferences when the team is large also works, but if the team leader knows what the conversation will be about. Video conferences are allowed if the team is distributed or remote. Watching the body language and tone when talking to the employees. The leaders are encouraged not to cross their hands when talking to their teammates. The team members may not comprehend the connection between a leader’s behaviors and their personal life and may interpret it as anger from their boss based on their observation of the body language. Also, sticking to facts and not stories is another practice. Before focusing on enhancing the communication skills of their team, leaders are urged to address any underlying changes. Understand if the team is feeling comfortable talking openly. Leaders need to make sure their team members feel comfortable coming to work. There is a variety of these, such as being honest about their preferred method of communication, addressing their disagreements, and talking about the team member’s passion outside work. They should make sure each other’s needs are met and understood (Sharma & Mann, 2018).
Also, setting the tone while communicating with the team members is a key concern. The way communication and collaboration occur between the leaders and their member’s impacts entirely the team. The leaders are supposed to set up communication standards that the team can follow. It can be helpful to regularly assess the team’s performance rather than establishing standards and then disregarding the practices.
As mentioned earlier, communication in the workplace of ABZ Consultant Company fosters a good work environment and enhances job satisfaction. Some of the communication barriers, as stated, include information overload, language barriers, cultural differences, physical disabilities, impatient or inactive listening, and mismatched verbal cues. According to research conducted in 2019, the success of organizations does not rely primarily on the rapid growth of profits but rather on the relationship and cooperation between the members of an organization (Jelani & Nordin, 2019). Judging from the results of the interviews, communication in the organization is a problem that is mainly caused by the diverse cultures present. The current communication schemes in the organization are good though the communication barriers hinder strong communication between the team members in the several departments. The company is working on improving the barriers that hinder its success, such as slow decision-making due to the diverse cultures and communities in the workplace.
Strategies
Suggestions to address the issues involved in managing diverse work environments
Achieving and maintaining diversity in large companies such as the ABZ Company comes with challenges. Some of the challenges can be addressed to avoid negative outcomes. Knowing how to deal with the problems can benefit the communities and team. When it comes to discrimination, diversity and inclusion must go hand in hand. Leaders and team members are supposed to communicate the importance to each other and set their expectations through the code of conduct. The team members should be educated on the importance of an inclusive work environment (Jelani & Nordin, 2019).
Organizations must also make sure that they interact with their staff members successfully if they want to manage a diverse environment. Language and cultural limitations should not be a factor when designing safety regulations, policies, and procedures. While in the workplace, people should avoid assumptions about the backgrounds of other employees and look at each other as individuals and judge the failure of the individual merit rather than attribute actions to their backgrounds. To guarantee that all hiring decisions are made in accordance with the established standards, the team should be encouraged to collaborate in a variety of groups. Companies should also be open-minded and hire teams from diverse backgrounds. This will require the leadership and the team responsible for hiring to overcome biasness in interviews and assess talent (Rahmat et al., 2019).
To overcome barriers in communications at the ABZ company and other companies, then communicators need to be sure of the information they are passing. They should be fully present in terms of their concentration and practice, they should use words and a tone to convey confidence, and they should encourage questions. Inviting and prompting others to communicate helps the communicator see the different perspectives and leads to understanding and finding new ways to avoid communication issues in the future. Teaching the employee’s son how to get along with a variety of people is one of many additional techniques. Employees who receive sensitivity training may find it easier to manage workplace diversity. Additionally, articulating an organization’s views on diversity through the documentation of its diversity policy is useful. (Sharma & Nordin, 2019).
I plan to share the suggested recommendations with the ABZ consulting company to help them solve the issue stated of communication in diverse work environments. I think they will appreciate it and maybe implement the ways into their systems to help in solving the issue.
I learned that large companies around the globe face diversity issues such as communication, discrimination, cultural misunderstandings, and slow decision-making. Communication as the main barrier in such companies needs to be solved because the interaction and working in the company depends entirely on communication.
References
Cletus, H. E., Mahmood, N. A., Umar, A., & Ibrahim, A. D. (2018). Prospects and challenges of workplace diversity in modern day organizations: A critical review. HOLISTIC–Journal of Business and Public Administration, 9(2), 35-52.
Jelani, F., & Nordin, N. S. (2019). Barriers to effective communication at the workplace. Journal of Modern Language and Applied Linguistics, 3(2), 7-18.
Rahmat, N. H., Razali, N. A. A., & Awang, N. H. (2019). An investigation of the influence of communication at the operational and individual level in the workplace. European Journal of Social Sciences Studies.
Sharma, S., & Mann, N. (2018). Workplace discrimination: The most critical issue in managing diversity. In Management techniques for a diverse and cross-cultural workforce (pp. 206-223). IGI Global.
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