What is Culture?

As our workforce becomes more diverse and our work teams more greatly impacted by cultural issues, many managers and leaders today are struggling to find the answer to this very complex question. Many believe that if we can just understand culture better, we can reduce conflict and challenge in our teams.

Here are a few links to resources defining culture. Visit these and then think about the following questions;

• Can culture be managed?
• Do only immigrants and ESL speakers have cultural issues?
• Can cultures be bridged?
• Can cultural issues at work be made irrelevant?
• What are the essential parts about culture that we need to know?
• Can we create a cultural profile about specific groups of people and use that to understand them?

Consider posting your thoughts and sharing your discoveries.

Links:

1. http://www.culture-at-work.com/concept1.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture
3. http://anthro.palomar.edu/culture/culture_1.htm
4. http://www.tamu.edu/classes/cosc/choudhury/culture.html

In our Diversity and Cross Cultural Communication training courses, we at Advance Corporate Training focus on identifying the roots of commonality and the core principles that connect us all. By focussing on the basci principles of trust, love and respect and then analysing how they are illustrated by various cultures and subcultures we can create a best practise workplace model.

We can do it for you too.

Controlling blood glucose may fend off cognitive decline

If you are over 30 - no more large meals for you!

After age 30 we all become insulin resistant meaning we have glucose spiking after we eat. At my age (it's a secret, but it's more than 30!) a big meal would have my glucose spiking for almost 3 hours. As we age, our brains are bathed in glucose and new research is showing that this tracks with cognitive aging.

Here is more bad news - in a study published January this year, it was reported that elderly people who reduced their caloric intake by 30 percent for 3 months scored 20 percent higher on a test that involved remembering words - OMG does this mean Diets do work?

Read more on these studies and more on the brain at www.dana.org.