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Communication is the best conflict resolution method

Today’s corporate world is very complicated and the relations between employees and management and between employees themselves is even more complicated.

Conflicts at work place is a common phenomena, there is no best way to resolve this issue since there is so much involved in the modern work place. Today’s workers are better informed and more educated than their parents were; they have more needs than just a place to get a paycheck from.

In almost every work place conflict I witnessed, the conflict could have been avoided had the communications channels remind open.

What really lead to conflicts?

1- Management not willing to listen or too busy to listen
2- Employees not willing to come forward to express their feelings or concerns

In a few conflicts that I have witnessed, the lack of clear and open communications was always the cause of the conflict, as soon as the communications channels were re-stored, the conflict resolved itself and all the parties felt silly about the conflict.

So talk to your employees, make sure they are not holding something back, some of your employees will need time to speak out and express their concerns. Most of the time, conflicts are caused by really small and trivial things, but when the communication breaks and parties don’t talk, the tension level rises and may lead to some very serious outcome.

As soon as you see signs of conflict, have a meeting and talk things out.

When you know more than your boss does

Have you ever felt that you can run the company better if you get the chance to be in your boss place? I think most of us felt that way sometimes during our working years, some of us just keep working hoping that our boss would listen to us one day and implements our ideas.

Management, usually, is not ready to implements new ideas or innovations just because you think they are great. Management doesn’t like to change the way business is done since it would have taken them a great deal of work and time to have a system in place.

If you have that great idea that you think will improve how your job is done, than you have two options:

1- To be patient till management is ready to talk to you
2- To quit your job and start your own company where you can implement your ideas

Many great companies started by individuals who one day knew they know better than their bosses do, they took the chance and started new ventures.

Some people don’t have enough confidence to believe they could know more than the boss could, but the truth is many great ideas and inventions took place because sometime somewhere someone thought he knew more than his boss did and he had the confidence to translate his thoughts into actions.

H-1B visa again and again

Being in the IT world and especially in the US, you cant afford to ignore the controversy over H-1B visa program, a program that allows foreign workers to come to the US and work mostly in IT related Jobs.

The program was designed initially to help IT companies with their needs for skilled labor, most of the early holders of H-1B visas were International students graduate of American colleges and universities, the program was designed to keep those international students who can secure jobs after graduation from living the country.

Initially the program worked well, mostly the hiring companies were paying the H-B1 visa holders the same wages that they would pay American workers, and there were more visas available than there were job seekers. I know this because I worked in an IT companies with few employees holding H-B1 Visas. Those employees were getting paid the same as American workers and our company lawyer used to tell me “there are more visas than there are job seekers.”

This whole program started to get controversial when some IT companies started to setup recruiting offices overseas to hire IT workers on H-1B visas and thouthands of workers (sometimes not-qualified and not-well paid) started to enter the US labor market.

All things being said, lets look at the actual number of H-B1 Visa holders and how they are affecting the American labor market and than you can make your own judgement.

The US population is about 300 Millions (estimated), and the H-1B visa holders would be by now about 1 million workers, if we assumed in the last 10 years we have 100,000 new H-1B visa holders coming each year and not living the country. If you do the math, you will find that the H-1B visa holders are not even 0.05 of the total US population.

Beijing 2008 Olympic and the New Century for China

In August 8, 2008, the whole world watched the starting ceremony for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, the ceremony showed a great deal of China’s tradition and culture, it showed China’s past, but one thing It failed to show, or at least I failed to notice, is China’s future.

As a person who has never been to China, the ceremony confirmed my old views of China, a country full of traditions, various cultures and people who are proud of their legacy, but the world already know this about China, I was looking for “Future China.”

I wanted to see the new image of China as one of the world’s next super power, I wanted to see what China is preparing for the world, we all read and hear about new China and I thought the Olympic Games is one of the most powerful tool to market your country to the world.

In the Games of 84 in Los Angeles, the United States showed its technological advances and the readiness of its space exploration program by showing a man flying in a space suit. It showed the world the US determination to conquer space.

The Olympic is a great marketing tool, so far, by watching the opening ceremony for Beijing 2008; I failed to see what China will over the world in the 21st century.

HP learning center-free online classes

During my early days as on-site tech, I was giving access by HP to their Tech-zone area, an online resources for various type of training offered by HP. Now HP is making these online classes free for everyone. This online courses are great tool for continues education.

They have classes in:
Software and Technology
IT professional
Business skills

You can enroll in any of these classes online, and you will be sent weekly or b-weekly study materials via e-mails, you will have a class instructor and you will also have an option to download the full class content on PDF format.

These are some great classes that are useful for a wide range of professionals; you can see the full list of classes at:
http://h30187.www3.hp.com/all_courses.jsp