I read an article on Fox sports about Cristiano Ronaldo (soccer player) being the 3^rd player in Europe to score 70 goals for Portugal. This is a huge milestone in his already successful career. So this got me wondering what traits do players like Cristiano Ronaldo and other successful sportsmen possess.   

Through my research I found certain traits that successful sportsmen share like work ethic, ability to overcome failure, positive energy, handling risks and responsibility. However everyone does not have the willpower to possess these traits. Hence personality and motivation plays an important role in determining who possess these traits.  

According to me motivation is a factor that drives individuals to achieve their goals, and intrinsic motivation is important for an athlete. So what is intrinsic motivation? It is doing an action because of personal interest and satisfaction, thus athletes can be compared to theory Y employees form McGregor’s theory. These are the employees that love their job, are creative and seek responsibility, hence achieve the greatest job satisfaction. In my personal opinion this is true because I always wanted to be best at Soccer due to pure passion for the sport. We can also interpret this situation using Expectancy theory, as athletes believe that their efforts will lead to better performance, so they expect intrinsic rewards like achievement, self-esteem and personal satisfaction. Therefore extrinsic motivation is not a key factor to help athletes achieve their goals.  

Through this we understand that most athletes show core self-evaluation and proactive personality because they are committed to their goals and want to continuously improve their current skills. Hence persist longer at attempting to reach their goals and find new opportunities and initiatives. Speaking from personal experience if an athlete does not show such character, he or she will be forgotten in a few seasons due to the intense level of competition in the sporting world.

In conclusion I believe that an individual can only succeed in the sporting world, if he or she is truly passionate about the sport.

works cited

http://www.foxsportsasia.com/news/ronaldo-breaks-even-records-70th-portugal-goal/

When I lived in the UAE I went to an international school, so my classmates were from all around the world. I had an amazing time interacting with wonderful people from different backgrounds, and I learnt a lot about communications in the process. So this made me wonder whether or not it is the same with organizations.

Diversity in the workplace has many benefits, and according to the Harvard business review article it increases innovation and creativity which is stimulated by a pool of different ideas and perspectives. This is because different cultures have different ways of working due to dissimilar values and beliefs, and a research conducted by McKenzie has found that if diversity is accepted it is supposed to increase productivity by 35%.  A blog written by fellow first year Sauder student Alana Rae talks about how different values and beliefs improves an individual’s cultural intelligence overtime, and I completely agree with her. So what is cultural intelligence? In my opinion it is understanding someone’s unfamiliar gesture in the same way as would people from that culture. This increases appreciative and trustworthiness, which in turn improves communication between workers and further increases productivity.

On the other hand if the employees do not accept cultural diversity, it can lead to the downfall of an organization. For example, the company Tyson and Food has been accused of racism against African American workers. This situation usually creates high tension between workers which leads to a negative work environment, and in the long run decreases employee motivation and increases labor turnover. In addition to that an organizations cost would increase in terms of lawsuit and diversity trainings provided to counteract the issue.

An organization can counteract the negative impacts by implementing diversity trainings and support groups, which will help spread awareness and establish a clear line of communication for whoever that feels violated. These are the few steps that can be implemented to create a positive work environment.

In conclusion I believe that positive aspects outweigh the negative aspects of diversity, because personally I have immensely grown as a person from a multicultural environment.

works cited

http://blackmen.tribe.net/thread/3ff77f11-3749-46f0-9787-128f67219932

The topic of generation gap has come to light in recent years, and I started looking into this topic when I first learnt it in my OB class. So what is a generation gap? A generation gap is the difference in beliefs and opinions between one generation and the other. This exists in the workplace amongst Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials.

I read an external blog written by Hermam Miller on generations at work, and an aspect that interested me is that there are challenges and opportunities working in an organization with various generations. Before I talk about the opportunities and challenges presented, I would like to give a short description about each generation.

Baby Boomers entered the workforce between 1965 and 1985, and their dominant work values are success, achievement and loyalty to career.

Generation X entered the workforce between 1985 and 2000, and their dominant work values are team-orientation, work-life balance and dislike of rules.

Millennials entered the workforce after 2000, and their dominant work value are confident, financial success and loyal to both self and relationship.

The most important challenge has been communication between the generations, because each one prefers to use a different medium of communication. For example Generation Y send text messages and use social media, but Baby Boomers and older GenX like to call and send E-mails. Also the style of messages are different, as the younger generation likes to use informal language and abbreviations in their messages, and the older generation likes to use formal and sophisticated language. The differences are the perfect recipe for communication breakdown. These problems can be solved by increasing interactions between different generations. For example Baby Boomers want to be like a father figure to the younger generations, so if we let them be mentors for the younger employees both the parties have motives to co-operate.

On the other hand this phenomena has it opportunities, and speaking through personal experience people from my generation can learn a lot from people from the older generations. For example when I was coaching and refereeing at Manchester City Soccer Schools Abu Dhabi, I learned a lot about the basics of my job from older and more experienced coaches.

work cited

http://guides.wsj.com/management/managing-your-people/how-to-manage-different-generations/

http://www.hermanmiller.com/content/dam/hermanmiller/documents/research_summaries/wp_Generations.pdf