United Communications Partners Inc (UCPA)

[Barn Cat]

Madison Avenue Greetings: A New York Blog by Ken Rosenthal

Published: September 16, 2014

”Managerial Styles are Not All the Same and iPhone6?

As the world gets bigger it also gets smaller. And because of this, global companies need to understand that just because decisions get done in NY one way doesn’t necessarily mean that decisions will have the same meaning, tone or context in another city, let alone country. Take for example Stockholm, Sweden and NYC, NY. On the surface all appears to be the same. Peal back the layers, and something else is evident. Meetings. Yes meetings. You see, in Sweden, decision making comes in the form of a consensus. That is, from the intern up to the CEO, everyone has a say in a matter, whether it is a large decision such as expansion of an office into another country or a smaller question such as should we hire her or not? One meeting turns into many meetings until a decision is made. The words confrontation or no are never part of the managerial vocabulary. Instead, tentative, risk averse words such as ”could be” ”maybe” or ”perhaps” come into play. You hear, ”I think”, rather than ”I know”, ”we could” rather than ”we should”. Don’t get me wrong, consensus decision making can take longer than the rather quick decisions we make here in NY. But, it does prevent against taking a big risk and failing. In other words, consensus decisions ultimately save a company money. And that’s not so bad, or is it?

In the U.S., risk taking and fire in the belly attitude is more prevalent within management styles. The ability to say yes, or I know or this will happen are lauded as examples of confidence not arrogance. If a decision needs to get done, it happens. No meetings to have other meetings. No stringing people along with the fear of not wanting to tell them no. A meeting is held, due diligence done and decisions made, at the top level of management, without the input of those at lower levels. This is indeed a risky managerial style, but as Ben Franklin eloquently put it, ”Time is money.”

These article gives you even more insight:

http://businessculture.org/northern-europe/sweden/meeting-etiquette

http://www.ediplomat.com/np/cultural_etiquette/ce_se.htm



In other news, PayPal took a bold marketing move against competitor iPhone Apple 6's Apple Pay, by taking out a full-page ad in The New York Times today with copy that read, ”We the people want our money safer than our selfies,” referencing the backlash from Apple’s recent iCloud hack that pulled naked photos of celebrities. Here’s the ad:



Only time will tell if Apple Pay is accepted by retailers. iPhone 6 ships later this week in the U.S. As this German ad says, the iPhone 6 will be on sale in Europe, including Sweden, September 26: