French managers are quite different from American managers, in the sense that they don't have the same relation with their superiors and that they don't value the same working ability in a company. French people try to be less personal in their working environment that in the US.
In French company, employees don't really try to learn about their superior's personal lives and their real personality. They tend to be less open for creating an informal relationship between each other in order to know each other better and work in a more relaxed environment. This is more of an American way of managing. In French company, the status of the manager is really what gives you the power on your subordinates. It's what makes things done. The personality of the manager does not really have an influence on how the French employees are going to work. They respect the position, not the person.
[...] This way of dealing with the French employees shouldn't be too difficult for her. The real difficulty resides in the way of teaching and training them her testing techniques (for the chemists) and quality control techniques (managers). The fact that they value their own way of thinking and working techniques much more than what we teach them and ask them to do can be very problematic for her. Elizabeth techniques are used in other GPC locations, they work well and therefore they need to be applied by the French employees. [...]
[...] There are so many different interpretations between cultures and languages that misunderstanding and communication problems are common when using an everyday language. The technical language in the other hand is more universal because it comes from works made by people from around the world. It is therefore, an international language. Even if the translations can be a bit different, they always have the same meaning. [...]
[...] She needs to describe very clearly how she learned to adapt to the French way of doing business, how she communicated with them and how she acted around them. Question 4 How can technical language differ from everyday language in corporate communications? Technical language is very different from the everyday language we use in the sense that it is much more precise and can't really be interpreted in another way. In corporate communications, technical language is much more efficient because it helps to state exactly what we are trying to say or looking for. [...]
[...] The personality of the manager does not really have an influence on how the French employees are going to work. They respect the position, not the person. French managers also differs from American ones because they value more their ability to think and resolve problems on their own than the knowledge they learnt through their studies. They are much more proud to show that they succeeded to resolve a dilemma using their own brainpower and way of thinking than by just applying known management techniques. [...]
[...] The last thing she wants is that the French people misunderstand what she is trying to tell them. She needs to be very careful when she addresses to French employees. She has to use the right words by thinking about how they could interpret what she is saying. Question 3 What should Elizabeth include in her report, and what should be the manner in which it is communicated, so that future executives and scientists avoid communications pitfalls? The best way to explain the future executives and scientists on how to deal with French employees is by starting to explain how they view authority and how they have more impersonal business relations than in the US. [...]
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