Effective Intercultural Communication

As an international student, I have experienced a number of intercultural interactions and communications throughout the last three years in Singapore. One experience that I will never forget is when I first went to help on getting my hall’s float done for RAG day presentation which is commonly called as RAG rush.
RAG rush is held in a dining hall where many people are sitting side-by-side. It would feel awkward if you heard of people sitting side-by-side for hours without actually interacting and communicating with each other. But that was what exactly happened to me, I felt a culture shock and felt really hard to communicate with the other students.

The things that hinder me in initiating communications are languages, jargons, accents and level of endurances. In addition to my non-proficiency in speaking English language along with the difference in accents and pronunciations and local jargons lead me to the difficulty of receiving and conveying messages with other students. The people in RAG team has only been sleeping for less than 4 hours every day but they are still very active and energized. Moreover, I was used to normal sleeping hours that staying up above 11pm was very rare to me and working full-day would be too much for me. But most people would come around that time to start helping on finishing the float.

From Wikipedia, culture is a shared system of symbols, beliefs, attitudes, values, expectations, and norms of behaviour. In the example, the culture differences can be seen in the language, sleeping hours and hard-working traits. Culture differences are inevitable and can hinder on communications, but there are workarounds for allowing intercultural effective communications. I summarized these workarounds as share, respect and adapt. Sharing is important as both parties involved in communications might not aware of the differences. After sharing is done, respect, good-will and patient must be possessed by both parties as it is sometimes difficult in overcoming the cultural differences. For example, by asking on the local jargons meaning would help in communicating effectively in the future. Lastly, adaptation must be made by both parties.

Cover Letter Review

The job ads can be found here: Accenture Job Advertisement

Apology for the long letter. Hope the readers can bear with the length and the refined version of this cover letter will be my actual cover letter for applying jobs as it is already the time for me to look for jobs :)

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Aditya Kristanto Goenawan
10 Heng Mui Keng Terrace
Kent Ridge Hall
Singapore, 119617

August 28, 2010

HR Manager
Accenture
250 North Bridge Road
Singapore, 179101

Dear HR Manager,

It is with a great interest that I apply for the position of Graduate Consultant in Accenture. I am final year undergraduate in National University of Singapore, pursuing a Bachelor of Engineering Honors (expected First Class – Major in Electrical Engineering).

The notion of experiencing the global, dynamic and fast-paced culture of Information Technology company like Accenture really excites me. I am confident that by working in Accenture, I would be able to develop my potentials to the fullest; especially through meeting and collaborating with the brightest professionals while contributing in challenging projects.

I have had numerous experiences in the software development field. I have led a team in my hall residence to create deliverables in the form of website and intranet which serve more than 500 residents in specific and public in general using PHP and .NET Technology. This experience allows me not only to learn on how to lead, motivate and work within a team in meeting tight deadlines but also in transforming and negotiating non-technical requirements from clients into a deliverable solution.

Also, recently, I have been selected as 1 out of 1000 students worldwide to participate in Google Summer of Code program to develop a module for Drupal Content Management System. I love to learn on new things and am willing to go the extra miles. These qualities are shown by the fact that in the end of the Google Summer of Code program I did roughly twice amount of works from the initially agreed target. The qualities that I hold lead my work to be mentioned by prominent individual such as Earl Miles (former Sony Music Director of Web Technology) in Drupal Official Podcast and to be demoed in an international-scaled Drupal Conference in Copenhagen.

In addition, I have excellent time management which is shown by the fact that I can juggle my numerous CCA activities while still maintaining a high Cumulative Average Point (CAP) of 4.81/5. Not only that, I have also joined national, regional and international programming contests, namely:

• NUS Representative for Regional Programming Contests (ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest) in Singapore (2007) and Malaysia (2008), 
• Indonesia’s Representative (out of four students) for International Olympiad in Informatics 2006 in Mexico,
• Gold Medalist in National Science Olympiad 2005, Indonesia and
• Withstanding Champion in Bina Nusantara Programming Contest, national scaled competition, for 2 years in a row (2005-2006).

I believe that my numerous programming contests experience will give me solid foundation in learning the technology requirements needed to tackle the future challenging projects that I will encounter in Accenture.

In short, I am confident that I have the competencies Accenture is looking for; my educational background, coupled with my leadership and work experiences has been excellent preparation for a career with Accenture. I would appreciate the opportunity to come to your office for interview. You can contact me at +65 97512345 (mobile) or email aditya.kristanto@gmail.com. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely yours,
Aditya Kristanto Goenawan

It has always been an intriguing fact as to how conflicts can arise from simple things. In the video above, it illustrates a girlfriend and her boyfriend having a heated discussion which arises from a casual bed conversation.

The girlfriend started their discussion by asking how the boyfriend feels about his plan to go to the Comic Conference event the next day. The boyfriend replied with a sarcastic tone that he was excited because he would meet a lot of hot girls in the event. The girlfriend made a fuss over it which led into her eventually aggressively accusing the boyfriend of cheating. The boyfriend tried to defend himself but most of the words that he used were misunderstood and the girlfriend became more furious upon hearing those words. The story ended when the girlfriend having an emotional breakdown and admitting that she was the one having an affair.

The girlfriend had been acting ridiculous because she had a hard time telling her boyfriend that she had cheated on him. Here, the girlfriend has a low Emotional Quotient (EQ) shown by her lack of "Self Management" and the lack of "Social Awareness" (see table below). Her lack of "Self Management" prevents her from holding her emotions. While her lack of "Social Awareness" disables her to put herself in her boyfriend's shoes. Otherwise, she should be able to see that some buffer, not a fight, before telling that she had an affair is essential.

On the other hand, the boyfriend possesses high EQ. The high EQ was shown when he could manage his emotion even when his girlfriend was acting ridiculous (good "Self-Management"). And also, he could put himself in his girlfriend's shoes (good "Social Awareness") by asking "What is wrong? Do your friends tell you something?"

Please be aware that I am not sexist. I am currently in my 5th year in a relationship and I can ensure you that the girlfriend role in the video shown above can be played by either the man or the woman in a relationship. Unreasonable fights happen. The question is how we can handle it. What will you do if you are in the position of the girlfriend in the video?

Table: Fundamental Capabilities of Emotional Intelligence

Why Is Effective Communication Important to Me?

I, an aspiring entrepreneur, see effective communication as a very important quality that I need to have. As entrepreneurs, ones need to have the ability to convey their ideas across different types of people to attract the clients. Also, entrepreneurs have the requirement of being able to listen to the changing globalized market demands.

In the previous ES2007S classes, types of communication barriers are mentioned, such as background, emotion, sources, etc. Entrepreneurs will be facing those barriers head on due to the fact that they need to deliver the message across different audiences. By learning on how to communicate effectively, the entrepreneurs will be able to overcome the barriers. Thus, effective communication is an important quality for entrepreneur in order to efficaciously deliver the message to wide range of people.

The communication barriers mentioned in the previous paragraph does not only apply to the sender, but also to the receiver of the message. Entrepreneurs need to excel in receiving message from wide range of audiences in order for them to listen and react to the dynamic market demands. So, effective communication again is an important quality for entrepreneur in order to be an “active listener” to all of their clients.

In conclusion, effective communication will enable entrepreneurs to excellently pass the message into different types of people. And also, effective communication will grant ability for entrepreneurs to actively listening to the dynamic globalized market demands. Thus, seeing effective communication’s significance for entrepreneur, it is a very important quality that I must have as an aspiring entrepreneur.