UBUNTU & CROSS- CULTURAL MANAGERS

This week task was reading the article from Mangaliso, M. about Ubuntu and explain how does cross-cultural managers can be aware of this cultural philosophy and use it for the benefit of the organizations and its employees.

Ubuntu, is an ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on people's allegiances and relations with each other.

Nelson Mandela explained Ubuntu as follows:

A traveler through a country would stop at a village and he didn't have to ask for food or for water. Once he stops, the people give him food, entertain him. That is one aspect of Ubuntu but it will have various aspects. Ubuntu does not mean that people should not enrich themselves. The question therefore is: Are you going to do so in order to enable the community around you to be able to improve? (Ubuntu (philosophy), 2010)

Cross- cultural management can be aware of this philosophy and improve the relations with their employees. For example “One of the concerns by Jackson (2002; 2004) in Africa is the apparent antithesis between Western and non-Western ideas of organization and management: between an idea of people as a resource (human resource management) and people with a value in themselves (reflected in South Africa in the word 'Ubuntu', people are people through other people). It may be possible to reconcile this antithesis, but it would seem logical that before this can happen, managers should be aware of these different perspectives. In Jackson's (1999) study the consensus was that people should be valued in their own right, they should be consulted, and they should be treated fairly and ethically in an organization that is not merely concerned with short-term results and making profits.” (Jackson, 2009)

This explain that managers should benefit of this philosophy to improve the work of their employees if there are treated as persons, as persons that have values

Competitive advantages, from Ubuntu go from relationships with others until belief systems.

In ubuntu relationships are reciprocal; others should be treated as your brother and sister. Decisions are made by consensus, diversity of opinions are permitted and encouraged. But Ubuntu can be also used by leaders, in the book “El Factor Humano” that inspired the movie Invictus, show us how the Leader Nelson Mandela, use Ubuntu tu support his 27 years in Jail, how he treat people and jail, how how much this philosophy help him to gain the guards of jail. It also explains how the person who left Robben Island was a more restrained, more reflective and less impulsive person, which undoubtedly strengthened him as a leader. Also the 27 years that Mandela had to pass in Robben Island, and his number of prisoner (46664) remember the contention that a leader should have.

Bibliography

Jackson, T. (2009, January). Management Principles. Retrieved September 21, 2010, from Africa Management: http://www.africamanagement.org/index_files/Principles.htm

Ubuntu (philosophy). (2010, september 11). Retrieved september 21, 2010, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy)