Living in a foreign country

Living in a foreign country

People who gain the most from their overseas experience are and these who try to assimilate with their new culture. These assimilations can give their life more variety and colour. To experience foreign living is multi-faced, such as reading from books and magazines, visiting any cultural places or buildings, watching the local sporting events, and making friends especially the local friends. The fast way to know the information of foreign country is to buy a guide book at first. The guide book will tell visitors every basis of knowledge what they do need to know. Secondly, to read newspaper and magazines can lead visitors to understand the local’s way of thinking and interesting. It can make living in the foreign city easily. Visiting the cultural places and old building is an important thing for absorbing their culture and history. Furthermore, to watch the local sporting events is also a good experience, and to make more foreign friends is not only to add friends but also practice the social abilities. These activities will make visitors to assimilate and live in a foreign country easier and happier.

Making a corporate marriage work

Making a corporate marriage work
- by Stefan Stern

Bringing two companies together is an enormous task. There are grand, big-picture questions that to be solved, such as the new group’s strategy and direction. There are also administrative, logistical and technical challenges. Will new contracts of employment be required? Where should the headquarters of the combined operation be located? How can the companies’ information technology systems be integrated?

“It takes a certain humility to make a merger work,” says Charles Hampden-Turner, coauthor of Building Cross-cultural Competence. “It doesn’t follow that your company is a better one simply because it has taken another company over. It just means that you’ve got more money and have been prepared to pay,” ha says.

Work on bringing the partners together should start well before the deal become public knowledge. But how can executives start planning integration without the news leaking out? Some used a so-called “clean room”, where both sides to a deal can meet and discuss future plans confidentially. Computer manufacturers Hewlett-Packard and Compaq, for example, adopted this approach in their $25bn (￡13.3bn) merger.

Speed is of the essence. Roger Pudney of the UK’s Ashridge business school says: “There is often a tendency for companies to relax once the deal is signed, but this is the point at which speed of implementation becomes crucial. Successful Mergers and Acquisitions companies stress the importance of quick wins as a way of demonstrating that the new combination is already producing added value.”

HP and Compaq ran a series of “Fast Start” seminars for their staff as soon as the deal was announced, to provide reassurance and a sense of direction – seminars that had been planned in advance in the clean room. Offering employees detailed information is essential at the early stage. An internal human resources website set up for HP and Compaq staff received 2m hits on the day the merger was unveiled.

Managers will inevitably be occupied with practical, administrative changes, such as establishing new terms and conditions and pushing through any redundancies. Yet dealing with the cultural issues in a merger is more subtle and challenging. And when things go wrong in this context they can go wrong very quickly.

Michelle Bligh, a professor at Claremont Graduate University, California, has suggested measures leaders should take to avoid the worst consequences of mergers. After studying a merger of health organizations in the US, Prof Bligh advised leaders to avoid taking a dictatorial, top-down approach or micromanaging the transition. They need to respond as the new situation demands, she says, and must “help followers negotiate, modify and even manipulate cultural similarities and differences in the post merger environment”.

Prof Bligh identifies a few simple ground rules. Managers should recognize cultural differences between the companies, for example, by learning about the history of the new partner. They should give employees reasons why change is necessary, and find practical ways of communicating. As one manager told her: “When you sit down and start showing employees the nitty-gritty, you get buy-in a lot quicker.”

Symbolism matters too. “Instead of making great speeches,” Dr Hampden-Turner suggests, “why not start acting differently and providing a lead that way? Words are too easy, but actions will be noticed.” Even apparently simple gestures can count. Discussing employees’ new working conditions and being visible on the ‘shop floor’, for example, may reassure staff that management has an interest in their well-being. One manager in Prof Bligh’s study said: “We have to start with the little things: they really matter to people.”

How do the most successful acquirers handle the process of merger integration? General Electric, the US engineering conglomerate, has made more than 400 acquisitions in the past 20 years. But it is still learning how to make these deals work better. When GE bought Amersham, the UK bioscience company, for $9bn, it made a big effort to reassure the acquired business that it would not be steam-rollered.

Talk of a revival in merger and acquisitions activity is on the rise. Investment bankers and management consultants are once again seeking out potential deals and making flattering noises as they lead candidates to the altar. But marriages succeed or fail in the years following the wedding. Even before the hangover has worn off, the hard work has to begin.

From the Financial Times.

Make a decision!

Today, I had made a decision.

I decide one day one article no matter I write by myself or extract from other magazines and newspapers, although I had had this thinking for a long while. But for the past few weeks I had been too busy to build up my websites. So, On the day, Today is the day I declare the decision.

This is the first time that I decide to write about my feeling and open my mind.

I will make a lot of mistakes with grammars and I will be glad to be told the true.

All of my friends and visitors can share your opinion with me.

And Have a nice night.

Norah Jones - don't know why

Lyrics:
I waited 'til I saw the sun
I don't know why I didn't come
I left you by the house of fun
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come

When I saw the break of day
I wished that I could fly away
Instead of kneeling in the sand
Catching teardrops in my hand

My heart is drenched in wine
But you'll be on my mind
Forever

Out across the endless sea
I would die in ecstasy
But I'll be a bag of bones
Driving down the road along

My heart is drenched in wine
But you'll be on my mind
Forever

Something has to make you run
I don't know why I didn't come
I feel as empty as a drum
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come
I don't know why I didn't come

Shania Twain - You've Got A Way

Original Version:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=7eEAP3Uo8a4

Lyrics:

"You've Got A Way"

You've got a way with me
Somehow you got me to believe
In everything that I could be
I've gotta say-you really got a way
You've got a way it seems
You gave me faith to find my dreams
You'll never know just what that means
Can't you see... you got a way with me

It's in the way you want me
It's in the way you hold me
The way you show me just what love's made of
It's in the way we make love

You've got a way with words
You get me smiling even when it hurts
There's no way to measure what your love is worth
I can't believe the way you get through to me

It's in the way you want me
It's in the way you hold me
The way you show me just what love's made of
It's in the way we make love

Oh, how I adore you
Like no one before you
I love you just the way you are

It's in the way you want me
It's in the way you hold me
The way you show me just what love's made of
It's in the way we make love

It's just the way you are
"You've Got A Way"

You've got a way with me
Somehow you got me to believe
In everything that I could be
I've gotta say-you really got a way
You've got a way it seems
You gave me faith to find my dreams
You'll never know just what that means
Can't you see... you got a way with me

It's in the way you want me
It's in the way you hold me
The way you show me just what love's made of
It's in the way we make love

You've got a way with words
You get me smiling even when it hurts
There's no way to measure what your love is worth
I can't believe the way you get through to me

It's in the way you want me
It's in the way you hold me
The way you show me just what love's made of
It's in the way we make love

Oh, how I adore you
Like no one before you
I love you just the way you are

It's in the way you want me
It's in the way you hold me
The way you show me just what love's made of
It's in the way we make love

It's just the way you are

Adam Sandler - Grow old with you

Lyrics:
Adam Sandler - Grow old with you

Performed by adam sandler
On the wedding singer soundtrack

Contributed by jbrai

Billy idol (speaking): good afternoon everyone. were flying at 26,000 feet,
Moving
Up to thirty thousand feet, and then weve got clear skies
All the way to las vegas, and right now were bringin you some in-flight
Entertainment. one of our first-class passengers would like to sing you a song
Inspired by one of our coach passenger, and since we let our first-class
Passengers do pretty much whatever they want, here he is.

Robbie hart (singing):
I wanna make you smile whenever youre sad
Carry you around when your arthritis is bad
All I wanna do is grow old with you

Ill get your medicine when your tummy aches
Build you a fire if the furnace breaks
Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you

Ill miss you
Ill kiss you
Give you my coat when you are cold

Ill need you
Ill feed you
Even let ya hold the remote control

So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink
Put you to bed if youve had too much to drink
I could be the man who grows old with you
I wanna grow old with you

I Say A Little Prayer For You (My Best Friend's Wedding)

Lyrics:
The moment I wake up
Before I put on my makeup
I say a little pray for you
While combing my hair now,
And wondering what dress to wear now,
I say a little prayer for you

Forever, and ever, you'll stay in my heart
and I will love you
Forever, and ever, we never will part
Oh, how I love you
Together, forever, that's how it must be
To live without you
Would only meen heartbreak for me.

I run for the bus, dear,
While riding I think of us, dear,
I say a little prayer for you.
At work I just take time
And all through my coffee break-time,
I say a little prayer for you.

Forever, and ever, you'll stay in my heart
and I will love you
Forever, and ever we never will part
Oh, how I'll love you
Together, forever, that's how it must be
To live without you
Would only mean heartbreak for me.

I say a little prayer for you

I say a little prayer for you

My darling believe me, ( believe me)
For me there is no one but you!
Please love me too (answer his pray)
And I'm in love with you (answer his pray)
Answer my prayer now babe (answer his pray)

Forever, and ever, you'll stay in my heart
and I will love you
Forever, and ever we never will part
Oh, how I'll love you
Together, forever, that's how it must be
To live without you
Would only mean heartbreak for me (oooooooooh)