Road to Hell

Baker, bothered by this, feels he needs to raise the issue and break-through he seams at the last meeting with his successor. Unfortunately, do to the lack of importance of communicating across cultures portrayed by Baker and his unawareness when it comes to his ladder of inference, Baker has unintentionally created a hostile atmosphere which has left the company with no successor as Chief Engineer. The ladder of inference is a common mental pathway of increasing abstraction, often leading to misguided beliefs. The ladder of inference begins with observable data and experiences. Ross, 1994). For example, Baker, as he begins thinking of the credits" and "debits" associated with Rentals, he claims because Rentals spent four years at London university It has heightened his sensitively to any sign of Dallas coming from expatriates. Baker, by observing what was going on in the work place (Jackson's complaints about Rentals' rudeness), has selected certain data from what he observed and put personal meanings behind it that may be untrue. This has caused him to make assumptions after the meanings he has added to his observations.

Rentals' claims that if a Barracking had behaved in an equally obstruct manner he would have reacted in the same way. He claims there are also other people in the company, also expatriates, who felt the same. Baker assumed because Rentals was a Barracking that he would not get along with expatriate senior managers and he was racially conscious. When, In reality, he was of a new Barnacle generation, who was well educated and professional, open to people of other cultures. Because of Baker's assumptions about Rentals he took action without adjusting or realizing his ladder of Inference, damaging the relationship further.

Lastly, the reflexive loop, which determines our beliefs that influence what data we will select next time, influences the way Baker continuously feels about Rentals. He continuously feels as thought he has to correct Rentals way of being racially conscious without asking Rentals what exactly is going on or how he feels about the situation. Communicating across cultures can be difficult and challenging for all employees in a company, including senior level management. No two groups see the world exactly the same way (Island & Turner, 2011) and through analyzing the case "The Road to Hell... E can see that this is In fact true. If the ideas behind cross cultural misconception, cross cultural misinterpretation, and cross-cultural miscalculation, are not recognized as Important, companies, Like Continental Ore, can be left with a disastrous situation among managers which leads to poor performance for the company over all. When talking about being aware of cross-cultural selective (Island & Turner, 2011), Baker only noticed how Rental's acted with his fellow Barbarians and only took into account Jackson's complaint. Baker did not care to ask Rentals what was going on.

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Perception is also culturally determined (Island & Turner, 2011). Because Baker is European, and Europe has been developed industrially for almost 300 years, he felt that his race was superior to that of the Barbarians because Barbarians had Just begun tapping into the industrial growth that the rest of the world had already seen. Although this may have been accurate, making a stereotype that all Barbarians are "behind" offended Rentals and his culture. Although Baker may have not intended to offend Rentals, Rentals may have misinterpreted what Baker was actually trying to say.

This is an example of cross- cultural misinterpretation: this occurs when an individual gives meaning to observations and their relationships (Island & Turner, 2011). Because Rentals studied in London and represents the professional educated Barracking, he is sensitive to racial issues and he misinterpreted Baker's casual references to European history as putting down his country. What Baker did was stereotype all Barbarians when really Rentals' was part of the professional, well educated, new generation of Barbarians with different viewpoints.

Stereotyping, a form of disintegration that organizes our experience and guides our behavior toward ethnic and national groups, is only effective when people understand other cultures but act appropriate in new situations. Baker failed to do this. Baker also miscalculated Rentals. People often use their own culture as a standard of measurement; they label their own culture as "good" and other cultures as "bad" (Island & Turner, 2011). Baker labeled the European culture as good and the Barracking culture as bad because they have not been developing identical to the way European nations have developed.

The first action I would take, if I were Baker, would be to think about why Rentals could possibly feel this way and I would also consult a friend or colleague. Once I figured out what I did to cause this I would call Rentals and ask him to come in and speak with me again and attempt to apologize and explain that you know exactly what you did to upset him and explain how big of an asset he is to the company. I would also investigate further what is really going on between Rentals and the expatriates working for the company and have a potential meeting with all employees involved. Samaritan Mahoney

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