The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Habit 1: Be Proactive

Be Proactive is about taking responsibility for your life. You can't keep blaming everything on your parents or grandparents. Proactive people recognize that they are "response-able." They don't blame genetics, circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. They know they choose their behavior. Reactive people, on the other hand, are often affected by their physical environment. They find external sources to blame for their behavior. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and performance, and they blame the weather.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind

It is based on imagination--the ability to envision in your mind what you cannot at present see with your eyes. It is based on the principle that all things are created twice. There is a mental (first) creation, and a physical (second) creation. The physical creation follows the mental, just as a building follows a blueprint. If you don't make a conscious effort to visualize who you are and what you want in life, then you empower other people and circumstances to shape you and your life by default. It's about connecting again with your own uniqueness and then defining the personal, moral, and ethical guidelines within which you can most happily express and fulfill yourself. One of the best ways to incorporate Habit 2 into your life is to develop a Personal Mission Statement. It focuses on what you want to be and do. It is your plan for success. It reaffirms who you are, puts your goals in focus, and moves your ideas into the real world. Your mission statement makes you the leader of your own life. You create your own destiny and secure the future you envision.

Habit 3: Put First Things First

Habit 1 says, "You're in charge. You're the creator." Being proactive is about choice. Habit 2 is the first, or mental, creation. Beginning with the End in Mind is about vision. Habit 3 is the second creation, the physical creation. This habit is where Habits 1 and 2 come together. It happens day in and day out, moment-by-moment. It deals with many of the questions addressed in the field of time management. But that's not all it's about. Habit 3 is about life management as well--your purpose, values, roles, and priorities. What are "first things?" First things are those things you, personally, find of most worth. If you put first things first, you are organizing and managing time and events according to the personal priorities you established in Habit 2.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win

Win-win sees life as a cooperative arena, not a competitive one. Win-win is a frame of mind and heart that constantly seeks mutual benefit in all human interactions. Win-win means agreements or solutions are mutually beneficial and satisfying. We both get to eat the pie, and it tastes pretty darn good!

A person or organization that approaches conflicts with a win-win attitude possesses three vital character traits:

1. Integrity: sticking with your true feelings, values, and commitments
2. Maturity: expressing your ideas and feelings with courage and consideration for the ideas and feelings of others
3. Abundance Mentality: believing there is plenty for everyone

Habit 5: Seek First toUnderstand, Then to Be Understood

If you're like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you're listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely. "Oh, I know just how you feel. I felt the same way." "I had that same thing happen to me."  Because you so often listen autobiographically, you tend to respond in one of four ways: 

Evaluating:	You judge and then either agree or disagree.
Probing:	You ask questions from your own frame of reference.
Advising:	You give counsel, advice, and solutions to problems.
Interpreting:	You analyze others' motives and behaviors based on your own experiences.

Habit 6: Synergize

To put it simply, synergy means "two heads are better than one." Synergize is the habit of creative cooperation. It is teamwork, open-mindedness, and the adventure of finding new solutions to old problems. But it doesn't just happen on its own. It's a process, and through that process, people bring all their personal experience and expertise to the table. Together, they can produce far better results that they could individually. Synergy lets us discover jointly things we are much less likely to discover by ourselves.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw

Sharpen the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have--you. It means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual. Here are some examples of activities:

Physical:	Beneficial eating, exercising, and resting
Social/Emotional:	Making social and meaningful connections with others
Mental:	Learning, reading, writing, and teaching
Spiritual:	Spending time in nature, expanding spiritual self through meditation, music, art, prayer, or service

CULTURE SHOCK

In today′s business world the importance of international negotiations and cooperation is steadily growing. Every company from middle-sized family operations to large Multi National Companies is somehow involved in international business and therefore has to deal with intercultural issues. 

Due to increasing international competition, worldwide marketing activities, new market access opportunities and a fast growing number of international mergers and acquisitions, managers and employees are necessarily confronted with international projects and assignments, or becoming an expatriate working and living abroad.

Culture shock is the common name of the affliction that results when people become confused and anxious in a strange environment with different customs and beliefs from their own. The term Culture Shock refers to the feelings of distress and unease when being exposed to a foreign culture. Besides this narrow definition of the actual shock the expression is also used in order to describe the whole process a sojourner goes through during an international encounter. They experience homesickness, depression, irritability and frustration for an extended period of adjustment. 

The Four Phases

Outlined below is an example of the stages people go through with culture shock:

Stage 1 – Honeymoon

The individual experiences a holiday or 'honeymoon' period with their new surroundings.

They Feel very positive about the culture, overwhelmed with impressions to find the new culture exotic and are fascinated and they are passive, meaning they have little experience of the culture 

Stage 2 – Culture shock

The individual now has some more face to face experience of the culture and starts to find things different, strange and frustrating.

They find the behavior of the people unusual and unpredictable and Begin to dislike the culture and react negatively to the behavior they Feel anxious, Start to withdraw and Begin to criticize, mock or show animosity to the people

Stage 3 – Recovery

The individual now has a routine, feels more settled and is more confident in dealing with the new culture. They Understand and accept the behavior of the people and Feel less isolated and Regains their sense of humor

Stage 4 - Adjustment

The individual now feels 'at home’, They Enjoy being in the culture and Prefer certain cultural traits of the new culture rather than their own they Adopt certain behaviors from the new culture

A very significant aspect in the field of intercultural management is the issue of Culture Shock, which is discussed in this work. However, before starting to go into detail on Culture Shock, its causes, consequences and possible solutions it makes sense to define the term culture in general.

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Throughout the world, organizations increasingly function on an international basis. Multinational corporations require not only coordination of international strategy, but also the people and organization to implement it. Outlining the consequences of internationalization both for management and generally, and for human resource policy and practice in particular.

 International HRM (IHRM) is the process of Procuring, Allocating, and effectively utilizing HUMAN RESOURCES in a Multinational corporation, while balancing the integration and differentiation of HR activities in foreign locations. A multinational corporation varies from firm to firm. It also depends on whether the manager is located in a global corporation’s headquarters or onsite in a foreign subsidiary. The main Objective of IHRM is to reduce the risk of International human resources is,

1. Avoid the cultural risks.
2. Avoid regional disparities. 
3. Manage Diversifies human capital.

In simple terms, IHRM is concerned about managing human resources at Multinational Companies (MNC) and it involves managing 03 types of employees namely,

1. Home country employees- Employees belonging to home country of the firm where the corporate head quarter is situated.
2. Host country employees- Employees belonging to the nation in which the subsidiary is situated.
3. Third country employees- These are the employees who are not from home country/host country but are employed at subsidiary or corporate head quarters. As an example, A American MNC which has a subsidiary at India may employ a French person as the CEO to the subsidiary. The Frenchman employed is a third country employee.

When compared with domestic human resource management, IHRM requires a much broader perspective on even the most common HR activities. This is particularly so for HR managers operating from a MNC’s headquarters (HQ). In IHRM there will be a more involvement in Employees personal life’s (spouses, children’s).  The number and variety of IHRM activities are daunting. International HR managers must deal with issues as varied as international taxation; international relocation and orientation; various other administrative services for expatriates; selecting, training and appraising local and international employees; and managing relations with host governments in a number of countries around the world. 

RECRUITMENT

In today’s rapidly changing Business environment, a well defined recruitment policy is necessary for organizations to respond to its human resource requirements in time. The recruitment and selection is the major function of the human resource department and recruitment process is the first step towards creating the competitive strength and the strategic advantage for the organizations

According to Edwin B. Flippo, “Recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization”. Recruitment is the activity that links the employers and the job seekers.

Recruitment of candidates is the function preceding the selection, which helps create a pool of prospective employees for the organization so that the management can select the right candidate for the Right job from this pool. The main objective of the recruitment process is to expedite the selection process.

Recruitment is an important part of an organization’s human resource planning and their competitive strength. Competent human resources at the right positions in the organization are a vital resource and can be a core competency or a strategic advantage for it. The objective of the recruitment process is to obtain the number and quality of employees that can be selected in order to help the organization to achieve its goals and objectives.

Recruitment policy specifies the Objectives of recruitment and provides a framework for implementation of recruitment process. It may involve organizational system to be developed for implementing recruitment process and procedures by filling up vacancies with best qualified people  

Team Building Activities Help Employees to Work Effectively Together.

Team building activities that you can do at work have such a positive impact because they are ongoing and reinforcing. So many team building activities are a one shot deal where a group of employees attends an offsite meeting. Then, the follow-up after the meeting, which is where the reinforcement of the good, positive feelings must occur, does not happen.

With team building activities in the workplace, that occur frequently with cross sectional groups of employees, you have a real chance to create a sense of teamwork across your organization.

Team building activities are often used in Meetings,Presentations,Workshops,Training seminars,Education programs,Corporate training, with College,High,Middle,Elementary and Pre-school school groups,Sport teams,Teacher training,Youth work, and in Therapeutic and correctional settings.  Team building exercises can be adapted for virtually any setting, young or old, large or small, and across cultures.

Much depends on the role played by a facilitator.  Different team building activities facilitated in different ways with different groups can and will lead to a wide variety of different experiences and different outcomes.  In the hands of an excellent facilitator, even the simplest game can become a significant experience for participants; with a poor instructor, even with the well-designed activity can go awry.

An important part of team building exercises is participants' reflection and discussion about the activity, how they approached the situation, and possible points of learning.  For example, a group could be videoed during an activity and the video watched, analyzed, and discussed, to help extract potential learning from team building exercises.

Employee Relationship Management

Employee Relationship Management is a science as old as business itself. Employees are the major assets of an organization. It is essential that the employees perform together as a collective unit and contribute equally towards the realization of a common goal. It has been observed that targets are achieved at a much faster rate if the employees and employer as well as between employees at the same level work together and share a warm relationship with each other.

“Employee relationship management” is a term that refers to relationship development and management between employers and their employees. The relationship can be between employee and the employer as well as between employees at the same level. Employee relationship management activity helps in strengthening the bond among the employees and ensures that each one is contented and enjoys a healthy relation with each other. Employee relationship management includes various activities undertaken by the superiors or the management to develop a healthy relation among the employees and extract the best out of each team member.

This involves implementing a dedicated information system for the management of human resources (generally referred to as HRIS), which makes it possible to cover all problems that are related with the relationship between a company and its employees, in particular:

• Training, i.e. the preparation of an overall training plan of the company which makes it possible to handle a catalog of compulsory or optional internships, requests by employees, and tracking of training actions;
• Pay, to prepare a statement of payments and mailing of salary bulletins;
• Recruiting, in particular follow-up on recruiting interviews and new recruits;
• Competence and career management, consisting in the implementation of a competence reference standard which permits improved management of jobs within the enterprise and in-house transfers. The goal is to value human assets by prioritizing the competences, knowledge, and know-how of the employees;
• Time management, i.e. the management and quantification of the activity of the employees of the company, in particular with a view to compliance with existing laws (reduction of working hours, payment of overtime, accounting of vacation, work breaks and absences);
• Internal communication, which permits sensitization and transversal information, which makes it possible to break the isolation of the different sectors of the enterprise.