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• People in poorly performing departments or organisations often blame people in other departments. "The engineers don't fill in the order forms correctly", "Our logistics department never gets the items to us on time". "Production lets us sales guys down".
• People don't perform badly intentionally. Hindrances arise from other departments which makes it difficult for them to do what they have to do. The trouble is they don't know what to do about it, or if they do, they're not willing to take the necessary action.
• Why don't people take the necessary action? That's what Greater Co-operation Workshops are about - finding out why, finding solutions and then helping people find the courage to act.

Don't be fooled by the "clash of cultures" excuse!

When poor performance is put down to a clash of cultures, this is almost always used as an excuse. Experience shows that so-called "cultural clashes" are caused by lack of respect for others. Ask people what they mean by "culture clash" and you get responses like this:

• Language barriers make it difficult to explain jobs
• Different cultures have different ways of showing humour
• Some nationalities are not willing to integrate - animosity between nationalities
• Why do the ***ish swear so much?
• The ***ians like to keep to themselves and make no effort to mix
• People are rude to us because we come from ***via
• The *******ians always know better than everybody else
• The ****ians don't have the same level of personal hygiene
• Some people are not prepared to help others
• Some people make false accusations

Profit Improvers Ltd has a range of proven techniques to enhance co-operation - even when there are "culture clashes" and even when a project is not going well.

RESULT?

As "hidden" antagonisms are cleared, what each department or group wants is made explicit and expectations are clarified. Better camaraderie, motivation, and productivity result.

 

Bill,

Noble is very pleased with the work you did for us. The 14 nationalities on the Noble Al White have greatly benefited from your input, they are a team now. Our client has recently stated that they are the safest and most efficient team (they have 5 other rigs under contract), which is backed up by statistics. The people do realise that what seems like problems caused by cultural differences, are really problems caused by lack of respect for one another. We did follow-up after your 6 workshops and most of the crew reported significant improvements, which were mirrored by the operational and safety performance statistics.

Kind regards,

Cees van Diemen, Operations Manager (Mobile Rigs Europe), Noble Drilling.