Rajasthan is the beautiful Indian state with full of culture information and heritage. Rajasthan is the land of colors, traditions, festivals, costumes and the hub of ancient and medieval forts and palaces. Historical palaces which refer to lacy sandstone, golden forts and luxury beyond imagination, but also a great tradition of honor and courage that one can only wonder at. Rajasthan state has of several holy places and which are turned into heritage hotels. Rajasthan holiday packages are provided by a no. of Indian tour operators take the tourists on an exhilarating travel to the princely states of Rajasthan.  Most of the royal venues of this place are developed as heritage hotels which offer a comfortable stay to their guests. Rajasthan is the land of culture with lots of art and antique collections magnificent forts and palaces, vision lakes, royal gardens and wildlife.

The Rajasthan tour package covers the attractions of royal Rajasthan travel places such as Jaipur, Ajmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur and Udaipur. The special tour package with travel planners also involves the British living accommodation showing of your culinary royal taste. There are more places in this cultural state which are famous for their cultural richness and heritage attractions. On heritage travel destination in this royal and historical Indian state, travelers have a wonderful opportunity to enjoy rich culture and tradition of the state. If you are in Rajasthan tour you can edifices dating back to the age of Mughals Maharaja, culture, enchanting desert, camel safaris and beautiful gaiety of folk performing arts.

The cultural Indian state of Rajasthan refers the gates to the regal past culture of the country. Various places of Rajasthan is evolved with by Thar Desert, however the humidity of the atmosphere never clouded the living structure of its people. The royal palaces and historical forts of Rajasthan bring the hat glory of the state which saluted by different generations of Mughals Kings and Rajputs. Each of the towns of Rajasthan is surrounded with elaborate forts and palaces that value more to Rajasthan travel packages. These palace style and splendid forts are remarkable landmarks of the town that have seen through testimony of past memorable and are incredible criteria of Mughal and Rajputana historical architectural brilliance. Many of the spectacle forts of Rajasthan that has embraces niche for their respective places are Amber Fort, Mehrangarh, Jaisalmer Fort etc. In case the Rajasthan forts are cultural symbols of mighty King in the previous, the palaces displace more taste and affluent living of royalty.

Finally the tourists are to attend the Fairs and cultural festivals in this royal Rajasthan which are also celebrated for enthusiasm and enjoyment. Viewing the fair and festivals of the royal have to give a valuable pleasure cultural harmony in the state. You can create more charm of to cultural travel in this royal state by exploring cultural villages of Rajasthan. Tour package will give you most amusing opportunity to find culture and beauty of the state. You will have change to get local people and explore about their traditional culture and village lifestyle. Rajasthan is almost the best royal state of India.

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Cultural and linguistic competence is one of the values of systems of care. On this basis, cultural competence can be defined as the amalgamation of understanding, experiences, and other relevant data about persons and groups of individuals into experimental principles, expertise, service approaches and sustenance as well as principles and measures among others. On the other hand, linguistic competence is the capability of an organization and its employees to communicate efficiently and express information in a process that is understood by different listeners which include people who have difficulties in understanding English, those people who are different in terms of literacy or are illiterate, and individuals with disabilities (Perez & Luquis, 2008).

It should be noted that, the integration and implementation of cultural and linguistic competence is done by the Cultural Competence Action Team (CCAT) through the Linguistic Competence Community of Practice (CLC-COP), hence supporting the systems of care in the community. On this basis, the CCAT sustains a consistent vision, smoothens the progress of communication and harmonization among the learning societies. Additionally, it offers support and help to organizations of care communities as well as providing tools and other relevant resources that assist systems of care communities to execute and enhance their cultural and linguistic competence. This study seeks to identify the nationally recognized standards and ethical principles involved in cultural and linguistic competence (Perez & Luquis, 2008).

It is of importance to note that, there are different standards of cultural and linguistic competence that are applied nationally. In this case, these standards ensure that the services provided to the communities are of high quality and hence beneficial to the society members. On this basis, the nationally recognized standards for cultural and linguistic competence are mainly given in form of appropriate services provided in health organizations. On the other hand, these standards may be useful to individual providers in making their practices more culturally and linguistically accessible. A point worth noting is that, the policies and activities of culturally and linguistically suitable services should be incorporated in the whole organization and hence embarked on in joint venture with the communities being provided with the services (Rose, 2010).

Notably, there are different themes that help in dividing the nationally recognized standards which include Cultural Competent Care, Language Access Service, and Organizational Support for Cultural Competence. On this basis, the Cultural and Linguistic Appropriate Services are authorized by the federal requirements for all those people who receive the federal finances. The following are the nationally recognized standards;

: It is the role of the health care organizations to make sure that patients or the customers are provided with effective, comprehensible, and respectful care from all staff members. On this basis, this care is offered in a manner that does not abuse their health beliefs, cultural practices and preferred language. In this case, the care providers are required by the federal law to understand the community or the customers in terms of their culture and language before providing them with health services in order to avoid harming the community as far as culture and language are concerned. In this relation, this principle indicates that the community members will be served in a way that is compatible with their healthy beliefs and in a language which they are well conversant with. In this case, if a patient does not understand English language a translator should be used to translate for him/her (Perez & Luquis, 2008).

According to this principle, the health care organizations are supposed to execute a strategy that will help in employing, maintaining and advancing a diverse workforce and management at all levels of the organization. In this case, this diverse staff is a representative of the demographic qualities of the service area. It is of importance to note that, adequate number of personnel should be employed who are well qualified in provision of health care services to the public. On this basis, the process of recruitment, maintaining and promoting these personnel should be well conducted in order to come up with a high performing staff. Basically, the personnel in organizations providing health care services to the community should be well motivated and satisfied in order for them to reciprocate the same services they receive from the employers to the customers. This is because if employees are satisfied, customers will also be satisfied with the services provided (Goode, 2005).

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It’s a subject that’s inspired some witty quotes, like Tom Taussik’s “the difference between Los Angeles and yogurt is that yogurt has real culture.” But quips aside, can those of us who come to live on Mallorca find real culture – of an international standard?

Many of us claim to enjoy culture but how many consider whether our cultural needs will be satisfied living here?

It doesn’t help that the word ‘culture’ has different interpretations. Recent promotional trails for the British television arts programme “The Culture Show” included a montage of people defining the word – and revealing how subjective it is. Generally, though, culture means art, music, literature, dance, theatre and cinema.

As this Art Issue reveals, Mallorca is a gem for art enthusiasts, with its numerous galleries and splendid museums, and initiatives such as La Artevisita and Nit de l’art. Works of art adorn public spaces in Palma, towns and villages, at the airport and even on our highways. People seeing the striking metal sculptures of dancers on the Es Cruce roundabout (Ma15 near Manacor) for the first time often drive around several times!

Dance is popular here. Three top exponents of flamenco have visited this year; last month the Moscow Ballet performed in Palma, Alcúdia and Cala Millor, and the 13th Mallorca Ballet Season also began.

Pop music’s Simply Red, Joe Cocker, Van Morrison, Bonnie Tyler and George Benson have performed in recent years – though chances of a Robbie Williams or Madonna concert here are slim without a larger venue.

The Jazz Voyeur Festival and Sa Pobla Jazz Festival (free concerts) are this musical genre’s annual treats, bringing some famous performers – including Diana Krall and Gloria Gaynor – to the island.

Long-established annual events like the Deià International Music Festival, Valldemossa’s Chopin Festival, and Festival de Pollensa have recently been joined by the opera-based MúsicaMallorca, and all feature international musicians.

Theatre is difficult for those without local language skills. But is it reasonable to expect regular professional theatre productions in a non-Spanish language when we live in Spain?

Some movies in English are usually screened at cinemas in Palma, but German film fans don’t fare well. One woman told me that her only complaint about living here was a lack of movies in German at cinemas.

A new website should at least make it easier to find certain cultural events. Focusing on the year-round programme, art galleries, exhibitions and museums, www.turart.net includes maps, itineraries and latest news on the island’s art scene.

According to the Fomento del Turismo de Mallorca, the creation of this multi-lingual website “is in response to visitors’ demand for indepth information online when planning their visit.” Resident culture vultures might also want to bookmark this site.

Of course, Mallorca’s native artists, singers, musicians, dancers, poets, writers and actors provide a regular fix of home-grown culture all over the island. Many towns and villages have a theatre, and churches often host secular events. A lot of events are free: turn up, mingle and experience the local culture. Isn’t that one of the joys of living abroad?

Broadly speaking, Mallorca does seem to offer the non-native resident a good international cultural programme, but can it compete with other expat destinations, for example, the Canaries?

Our neighbours there seem well-served, considering the smaller size of the two main islands – with Tenerife art lovers enjoying free entrance to La Recova Arts Centre, the Museo de Bellas Artes and the Centro de Fotografia.

There are three major annual music festivals. The Heineken Jazz Festival this summer included Spyro Gyra, The Crusaders and The Pee Wee Ellis Assembly – in concerts on both Tenerife and Gran Canaria.

October to December is Tenerife Opera season, organised by the Tenerife Association of Friends of the Opera and featuring the Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, which – like its Balearic equivalent – also offers an annual season of concerts.

The Canary Islands’ Music Festival – one of Europe’s most important classical music events – has, over the past two decades, featured names like Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, André Previn, Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Krystian Zimerman, with orchestras including the Boston Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic. Each concert in Santa Cruz de Tenerife is repeated on Gran Canaria. Next year’s event runs from January 9 to February 16.

Tenerife and Gran Canaria both boast an impressive multi-purpose performing arts centre – seemingly a real magnet for world-class performers. Gran Canaria’s Auditorio Alfredo Kraus opened in 1997 and Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava’s waterfront Auditorio de Tenerife – completed in 2003 – is acoustically superb and visually sensational.

Mallorca could benefit from something similar. Remember the buzz when – before the May 2007 political elections – the Partido Popular announced plans for an emblematic opera house (another Calatrava project) on Palma’s Moll Vell?

We’ll have to wait a while to see whether the new Palma convention centre will have the same kind of appeal for the world’s cultural crème de la crème.

Whatever type and level of culture, ticket prices must be realistic because Mallorca also offers plenty of free cultural activities. The recent cancellation of Julio Iglesias’s Auditorio concert showed that people can’t or won’t pay 500 euros – even for a globally-adored Latin legend with a 21-language website!

Much more reasonably-priced will be the Balearic Symphony Orchestra’s winter season of 15 concerts, starting on October 16. If that – rather than yogurt – is culture to satisfy you, you’re in the right place.

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as the name suggests is the transfer of information among people of different cultural backgrounds. When you are incorporated in a competitive job industry you may be in a situation where you have to practice the above. The world today is a global village as many have put it so scenarios dealing with clients from different corners of the world. These persons have been born into different cultures from yours and they have been raised with different beliefs and practices. Many will ignore this factor yet it plays a major role in effective communication to say the least. Different have different ways of addressing each other. Depending on where your clients come from you should be able to understand their modes of communication. This is the first step to fully understanding effective.

Different parts of the world have  acceptable ways they use to greet each other. Take for example in many African an elder should be the one who initiates the greeting to a younger person even if the younger person is higher in ranking. Such a culture may not exist in your area but when dealing with such a client it may come in handy.  After understanding the importance of appreciating such it is important to make your employees aware of the same. Try and cultivate this in your employees since most of them will be in  contact with your clients when you are away. A company may also employ personnel from different cultures and it’s important for them to appreciate their colleagues cultures. You should have a good working environment for all your employees. Encourage them to be tolerant of their fellow workmates so as to reduce friction between them.

As an employer you should also take note of their cultural needs. Some observe strict prayer times like for example the Islam culture they have congregational prayers just after noon every Friday.  You should be able to let them attend their prayers. You can liaise with them on when they will be able to compensate for the time they were away. Understanding and patience will help a lot when handling issues pertaining cultural differences.

Above all the English language is the known International language. Most of the the greater population of the English speakers didn’t learn it as a first language though. If English is your first language then be very considerate about this. When addressing persons from different cultures keep this in mind and keep your conversations simple and clear. Your audience may have native interference when with you. You should understand  and be patient with them.
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Most corporate culture surveys are not as effective as they could be. This article will help you to optimize your success and use the results to improve your corporate culture.

Start with Your Goals

When embarking upon a corporate culture survey project, you must start with the end in mind. What is your purpose in doing a corporate culture survey? Do you want to improve the corporate culture? If so, why? What are the main challenges that your company is facing? Do you have a good understanding of what corporate culture is? If not, I encourage you to read Understanding Corporate Culture.

I recommend that you narrow down your goals to three major goals that you would like to accomplish. Examples would include: 1) reduce employee turnover; 2) improve product delivery time; and 3) increase profitability. It is best to set quantitative goals. Even though you cannot quantify your corporate culture, it is the container for all of your results and has a direct and indirect impact on these results. By setting quantitative goals, you will be able to measure the results of your efforts by doing annual or bi-annual corporate culture surveys.

Be prepared to change your goals. While goal-setting up-front is extremely important, you may learn some things about your company and culture that lead you to re-prioritize your goals. This is fine. Be open and flexible. Try not to forecast the outcome of the survey before you get the results.

Designing a Good Corporate Culture Survey

Once you know what you are trying to accomplish in doing a survey, you can design questions around your goals. But, be careful! Quantum physics has demonstrated that the intentions of a scientist affect the outcome of her experiment. That is why I recommend that you use a survey that has been designed by an outside party. Her or she will not share your biases and the results will be less biased.

Below are the sections that we have included in the Culture Builders Corporate Culture Survey:
1. Company Mission
2. Leadership
3. Corporate Culture
4. Company Values
5. The Work Itself
6. Work Assignments
7. Work Fulfillment
8. Individual Career Development
9. Support, Training, and Coaching
10. Summary Questions

You see that the Culture Builders’ survey covers a broad range of areas. Corporate Culture is only one section. The reason for this is that culture is the container for actions, decisions, and results. You will be able to learn about your culture indirectly by querying the other areas.

Sections 1-9 are quantitative questions and section 10 has open-ended qualitative questions. The quantitative questions can be tracked by time period, which is important. You will be able to recognize trends and be proactive in avoiding a crisis. The qualitative questions will give you lots of insights and useful anecdotes.

In designing the survey, it is essential to obtain personal information from the survey participants that will help you to segment the data. For example, tenure and department are essential pieces of information. Position level may also be useful.

That said, it is critical to keep the survey confidential. People will be more willing to complete the survey and provide honest answers if they are confident that their answers cannot be traced back to them. Use design and technology to keep the answers confidential.

Implementing the Corporate Culture Survey

Make it as easy as possible for people to complete the survey. Use the technology that makes best sense for your company. I have helped companies set up surveys on their intranets and on Lotus Notes.

Set it up so that someone can begin the survey and the partial answers will be saved if they get interrupted. Make a tight timeframe for people to do the survey – one week or two weeks if people travel frequently. Send out 48 and 24 hour notices of the surveys deadline.

Getting Good Response to your Corporate Culture Survey

It is important to have the buy-in and support of the leadership team in doing this survey. Spend the time necessary to educate them about corporate culture and your goals for conducting a survey. The leadership team will then advocate for the survey and increase the response rate.

How you present the survey to potential participants is critical to the success of your project. Remember: the survey is confidential so participation is optional. If you only get 70% of people responding to the survey, you will not be able to find out who has not participated.

One of the best ways to ensure 100% participation is to clearly articulate the goals of the survey and share your plan for what you will do with the results. If I believe that you will do good things with the survey results and it will directly improve my life, I am more apt to take the time to do the survey.

What to Do with the Results of your Corporate Culture Survey

The worst thing you can do is to undertake a survey and then do nothing with the results. This is far worse than doing nothing at all. You will raise people’s expectations of life at the company improving and then the results disappear into a black hole. I guarantee that morale will deteriorate.

Set up a company-wide meeting to present and discuss results. Do this within a few weeks of the close of the survey. Use the momentum that you have built up to keep moving towards your goals.

Be as transparent as possible in presenting the results. Don’t skew or sugar-coat them. I helped a company do a survey and the internal person who presented the results focused only on the positive and glossed over the negative. People didn’t buy it. Be as objective as possible. Try to get someone who is respected and well-liked within the company to present the results. This is far better than having an outside consultant do this. Then the whole company will own the results – not an impassionate outside observer.

I recommend setting up three task forces to own the three goals that you have set forth. Try to get volunteers to sit on the task forces. Make the teams a hybrid of different departments and different levels. Set concrete goals and timelines. Make sure that the task forces have the support and resources they need.

What Next

I recommend doing an annual or bi-annual survey to keep your finger on the pulse of the company. Make minor changes to the survey or add questions, but don’t change anything significantly or you won’t be able to track your results and identify trends.

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There are many different and competing definitions of “corporate culture” in the organizational theory literature. On one end of the spectrum culture is simply defined as the patterns of behavior within the organization (Smircich, 1983). On the other end, some theorists have defined organizational culture as a system of shared cognitions and the human mind generates the culture by means of a finite number of rules (Fiol, 1991). Although all the theorists believe in the importance of the culture in the organizational studies but still there is a lack of consensus over its precise definition (Papers4you.com, 2006). Theorists have accepted this fact and approached the concept of culture from the most widely used definition of culture, as defined by Lismen et al (2004) “a complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which a firm conducts its business”.

The evolution of corporate culture within an organization has been the center of discussion for many years. Practitioners have called it the ‘way we do things around here’ (Hampden-Turner, 1990) and the theorists have called it as the ‘collective programming of the mind’ (Siew & Kelvin, 2004) which distinguishes one group from another. Culture reflects the identifiable components of practices, customs, beliefs and values:

Practices: These represents the surface level of a culture i.e. the visible elements such as language, etiquette, form of greeting, clothing, and also include the artifacts of the business i.e. the physical layout. These practices do have relevance as it greases the functionality of the organization. Such practices keep the employees motivated, concerned and even transform everyone to follow the similar path as everyone in order to achieve the common corporate objective.

Customs: These are the accepted modes or norms of behavior within the organization, reflecting the values and beliefs, which provide guidelines for the way people and groups, are expected to behave towards each other. These often shape aspects of the physical appearance of the organization, also called the artifacts.

Beliefs: The assumptions that members hold about the organization and the situation within it- about what practices work well in this business, for example how people make decisions, how teams work together and styles of problem solving.

Values: Deeply held ideas of members regarding what constitute right or wrong, fair or unfair, thus anything that has personal worth or meaning. These values are expressed in operating beliefs and norms of behavior.

The corporate culture develops as people come to share a set of beliefs and then they use these to establish norms about the way they should behave towards each other and to outsiders (Papers4you.com, 2006). If the outcomes are positive this reinforces their shared belief in the values underlying their behavior. In this way, the organizations develop deep seated values and beliefs about the way that staff should run things. However, it looks simple and straight forward case in theory, but when it is referred in the practical life then it is a big task to let it be a success story. It can be concluded by drawing upon Barney (1986) that a valuable, rare and inimitable corporate culture can be a source of sustained competitive advantage for a company.

References:

Barney, J. (1986) “Organizational Culture: Can It Be a Source of Sustained Competitive Advantage?” Academy of Management Review, Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 656-665

Fiol, C. (1991) “Managing Cultures as a Competitive Resource: An Identity-Based View of Sustainable Competitive Advantage,” Journal of Management, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 191-211

Hampden-Turner, C (1990), “Corporate Culture- From Vicious to Virtuous circles”, The Economist books, pg 21-22

Lismen, C.; Margaret, S. and Ed Snape (2004) “In Search of Sustained Competitive Advantage: The Impact of Organizational Culture, Competitive Strategy and Human Resource Management Practices on Firm Performance,” International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 15:1, pp. 17-35

Papers For You (2006) “E/B/49. Review of theories on organizational culture”, Available from http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/sprtbus22.htm [22/06/2006]

Papers For You (2006) “P/B/309. Why is corporate culture important?”, Available from Papers4you.com [21/06/2006]

Siew Kim Jean Lee, Kelvin Yu (2004), “Corporate culture and organizational performance”, Journal of Managerial Psychology; Volume: 19 Issue: 4; 2004 Research paper

Smircich, L. (1983) “Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis,” Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 28, pp. 339-358

Russell Peters on American culture and what immigrants think about it.
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Much of the information in this article can be found in the book, How to Hire and Keep Great Employees by Jim Harris and Joan Brannick, discussed in our book review below. The authors make a very strong case for why it is so important, particularly today to have a strong corporate culture and for aligning all levels of your business with that core culture.

I consult with many organizations about bringing Empowered Leadership to their companies and agencies. One of the things they frequently lament over is their inability to find good employees and then the recidivism rate once they hire employees. One of their biggest complaints is that they hire people, train them and after investing in them, the employees move on.

This is the fate of many corporations today. Because of downsizing and outsourcing, people lack the job security that was present through the 80s. Now, employees know they can’t count on putting in their 40 years and getting their gold watch with one company the way their parents and grandparents did. Employees today know they have to look out for number one and make career decisions based on whatever is best for them and their families.

Organizational loyalty is pretty much nonexistent as workers realize that companies have no loyalty toward them. So, given this corporate climate, what can be done to found great workers and keep them?

The authors of How to Hire and Keep Great Employees say it’s in your corporate culture and what they say makes great sense to me. What would keep a person at a job when someone else may be trying to lure them away? It is a strong corporate culture that fits with their personality.

Do you have an identified corporate culture? If you don’t know, then the answer is a resounding no.

When you have chosen one of the following four cultures and align all your policies and procedures toward that purpose, then you have a corporate culture. Without this, you are most likely drifting around, trying to satisfy all four, without ever really reaching a pinnacle of greatness in any. When you focus on one core culture, the rest of business falls into place.

The four corporate cultures identified by Harris and Brannick are: a culture of customer service, a culture of Innovation, a culture of operational excellence, and a culture of spirit.

Customer Service: “The underlying purpose of a customer-service culture is to create solutions to meet customer needs” says Harris and Brannick. The idea is always meet their current needs certainly, while anticipating future needs before the customer is even aware of them. Customers always receive outstanding service and corporations aligned with this culture constantly seeking ways to go above and beyond for their customers. Even though these companies understand the old adage that “The customer is always right” may not necessarily be ture, their reality is the customer is still and always will be the customer and should be treated like royalty.

Innovation: Harris and Brannick state, “The underlying purpose of an innovation-driven culture is to create and shape the future.” People who thrive in this environment are those who can tolerate chaos, competition and making mistakes. There will be no gain without risks and innovative companies understand this and sometimes even reward mistakes to encourage risk-taking. The primary asset in these corporations is intelligent people. They are able to hire and retain the best people in their field by constantly staying on the cutting edge.

Operational Excellence: Harris and Brannick write, “The underlying purpose of an operationally excellent culture is to create processes that minimize costs while maximizing productivity and efficiency.” Most franchises operate within this cultural framework-downplaying creativity for adherence to standard operational procedures. Standardization of processes is critical. These companies are big on analyzing data to determine where improvements can be made and then making them.

Spirit: According to Harris and Brannick, “Sprit-driven companies are obsessed with creating environments that unleash the limitless creativity, enthusiasm, and energy of people.” The idea here is that one takes care of and encourages his or her employees, then business will automatically be taken care of. People working in a spirit culture develop a strong loyalty to their workplace. Sometimes they leave to try out other pastures, but often they return, realizing the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. The leaders in a spirit-centered culture become servant leaders, looking out for the welfare of their people.

When you are aligned with your core culture employee training, employee incentives, hiring, and retention are all centered around meeting your main corporate goal. How do you measure up?

- created at animoto.com
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Thinking about renting an apartment in Flamengo? Excellent idea! Flamengo has become an increasingly sought-out neighborhood in Rio for several reasons, including its art deco architecture buildings, famous bars like Belmonte and ultimately its cultural centers and museums. Until the 1950s, Flamengo and Catete were the principal residential zones of Rio’s wealthier middle class and that may be the reason why some of many embassies (today consulates) were established here.

Nowadays, Flamengo is a vibrant middle-class residential neighborhood, with much charm and culture to be had. In this article we will describe some of the cultural centers and museums established in the Flamengo district including the Modern Art Museum, Oi Futuro Cultural Center, and the Catete Palace. The best thing is that most of these marvels are free.

Our first stop is the city ´s Modern Art Museum. It has a privileged location on Flamengo Park alongside Guanabara Bay, with the landscaping designs of Burle Marx. The Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro started its construction in 1954, and is perhaps architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy´s most striking design: rows of angled concrete ribs support and enclose the gallery space. Inaugurated in 1958, the Modern Art Museum has a very unusual history; after a tragic fire in 1978 burned most of its collection, and damaged the structure of the building, a tremendous reconstruction effort put the museum back on its feet, and today the permanent collection has over 2,000 pieces by Brazilian and international artists. A major contribution was made by art patron Gilberto Chateubriand, with a private collection of 4,000 pieces. It is also under the care of MAM, and can be seen in the permanent exhibition. An interesting program of art shows and exhibitions keep the museum as an excellent attraction throughout the year. An impressive collection of the works of Picasso, Max Ernst, Rodin, Brancusi and other artists from Brazil and elsewhere is housed in this concrete and glass building in Flamengo Park.

Another major attraction of the Museum of Modern Art is the film collection (“Cinemateca do MAM”), one of the best in Latin America, with over 12,000 titles including some rarities. There are sessions and festivals open for the general public, with Brazilian and foreign cult movies that are not normally shown on the commercial circuit. Art workshops are held at the Oficina da Gravura. Additional Information on the Modern Art Museum in Rio: Open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 12 noon to 6 p.m. Av. Infante Dom Henrique, 85 – Flamengo Park.

Our next Cultural Center for Flamengo is OI FUTURO, located at Rua Dois de Dezembro, 66. The Center is maintained and supported by major telecom player in Brazil: OI and has been receiving since its founding grants from several foundations to enhance its cultural assets and infrastructure. OI FUTURO is housed in a building that was built in 1918 and has just been remodeled, resulting in a gain of over two thousand square meters of internal space. The building’s fa?e was preserved. There are four floors, interposed among the building’s eight levels, connected by glass stairways and elevators. Each floor presents different exhibits throughout the month. OI FUTURO’s varied program includes activities related to music, videos and plastic arts. Visitors will also find an up-to-date library with an abundance of research material: magazines, newspapers and on-line computers as well as exhibition rooms. A full multi-use theater with 180 seats presents regular plays every week, at popular prices. A very charming Wi-Fi connected bistro is located at the upper floor of the Cultural Center, which leads to the terrace of the building. From the terrace, you can even see part of the Flamengo beach and Guanabara Bay. You can check OI FUTURO ´s monthly cultural program and schedule in English at http://www.oifuturo.org.br/oifuturo.htm#/en/

Additional Information on the OI Futuro Cutural Center: Open Hours: Tues-Sun. 11am-8pm; Address: Rua Dois de Dezembro, 63 – Flamengo, Phone 21)3131-3060. Free Admission for several exhibits, with the exception of theater plays.

Our last stop is the Catete Palace. The Catete Palace – seat of Brazil’s Republican Government from 1897 to 1960 and scene of activities of eighteen Presidents – has seen some of the most important events in Brazil’s political life, including the Declaration of Brazil’s entry into World Wars I and II and the suicide of President Get? Vargas in 1954. Transformed into a museum when Bras?a became the nation’s capital in 1960, and closed for restoration from 1983 through 1989, the Republic Museum reopened with a broad-ranging cultural program that includes exhibitions, concerts, plays, movies, videos, boutiques, restaurants and a book-store.

The gardens of the Museum acquired new lighting, with the replacement of 71 forged iron posts – in the eclectic style – for other posts with contemporaneous designs made of steel. Today, on the ground floor, the Entrance Hall and the Ministerial Room still retain the solemn atmosphere of capital meetings and decisions regarding the nation’s destiny. Two long-standing exhibits present historical information about the first occupant of the Palace and his descendents and about the inauguration of the Republic Museum. The remaining rooms hold temporary exhibits that represent varied aspects of Republican Brazil.

On the second floor, known as the “noble floor”, luxury and thematic diversity stand out. The Chapel room and the Blue, Noble, Pompeian, Venetian, Moorish and Banquette rooms show off their vintage Brazilian and French furniture, paintings from artists such as Baptista da Costa, Gustavo dall’Ara, D?o Vilares, Rodolfo Amoedo, Henrique Bernardelli, besides sculptures, chandeliers and porcelain from the 19th and 20th Centuries. The third floor highlights the reconstruction of President Get? Vargas’ room. The remaining rooms are devoted to the display of objects, text documents and photographs from the Republic Museum’s own collection. The complex also hosts one of my favorite movie theaters in town. The theater is especially known for its art movies and is named “Cinema Museu da Rep?ca”. You can check the theater’s schedule in any newspaper in town.

Additional Information on the Catete Palace: Open Hours:Tues-Thurs-Fri, noon-5pm Wed, 2pm-5pm- Sat-Sun-Holidays, 2pm-6pm. Free admission Sundays and Wednesday to the Catete Museum. Address: Rua do Catete, 153 – Catete. Phone: (21) 3235-2650 The park in the Catete Palace is opened for visits until 10 p.m.

We described in this article only some of Flamengo´s cultural centers and museums. There are many other Cultural Centers all within the Flamengo district boundaries, with many art exhibits and public libraries. We also suggest and appoint the following:

Figner Mansion Arte SESC Cultural

Julieta de Serpa House of and Culture

Cultural Center Oduvaldo Viana Filho

Carmen Miranda Museum

Telephone Museum

As we mentioned before, most of these Cultural Centers have free admittance. Other positive aspects of these cultural centers we described above, is that they are very modern and underwent major renovation efforts. If you have cultural interests, consider settling in Flamengo neighborhood on your next trip to Rio. We are sure this district hosts one of the liveliest cultural scenarios in town.

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If you are looking to take part to: Intercultural Dialogue. If you are very interesting in: Mutual understanding, Cultural Diversity and online or offline Cultural Exchange! There is an online initiatiative which may concern you.

A new website: www.caribeworld.org is promoting intercultural dialogue and cultural Diversity between people from the Caribbean zone and the Rest of the world. It is a realy new website. Caribeworld.org is a cultural youth initiative as it is created and being managed by some young people from the caribbean. You’ll be one of the first people to start using its features. When you go and participate to this website’s activities, you vote for, and take part to intercultural Dialogue. You can even participate to the development of the site, by your advises, sugestions etc. Caribeworld.org is different from social network it realy focus Intercultural Dialogue, Cultural Diversity, Cultural Exchange, Mutual Understanding. Every one can use it. Youth, cultural group, organisation etc. All its features are free.

On caribeworld.org you’ll actually find:

- An Intercultural message board (With different cross-cultural Forums)

- Some specials features for Cultural Exchange like: “Tell Us” (To tell a story about your culture) / “Intercultural Directory” (To post info about what your are doing,  your projects needs and or offers and find Coresponding partners) / “Cultural Opportunities” links and search page (Where you’ll find links to online opportunities, Non profit Organizations, Volunteer opportunities, Training, etc. and you’ll be able to add yourself for free if you want to do so)

I could write a big newspaper, but the best thing to do in order to realy appraciate this intiative is to visit the website. And you’ll be able to judge if I say truth or not. After you visited it, if you think that I said truth, do like me, invite other friends to visit it and let’s make it grow up. Then come back here and leave me a comment.

This initiatiave’s creator thinks and beleives that it is a nice thing when people from different cultures are making exchange! Let’s go!
The address is: www.caribeworld.org

F. P. Tenyi II

Introduction 

Changing corporate culture — put the term into Google and you’ll find big companies and consultants offering theories, case studies and help.  Very often leaders in businesses large and small equate change management with culture change.  Let’s examine what kind of change they’re talking about, and let’s see if we can describe it in plain English. 

What is Corporate Culture? 

Webster’s Dictionary defines corporate culture as “the shared values, traditions, customers, philosophy, and policies of a corporation; also, the professional atmosphere that grows from this and affects behavior and performance.”  Got it? 

Do the Google search mentioned above and you may get to read about multi-layered belief systems and organizational psychology and other things that I don’t have enough advanced degrees to understand.   

Ask people for their definition, and you’ll get a variety of responses.  The most common one may well be some variation of “I’m not exactly sure, but I know it when I see it.” 

Do you like simple, straightforward explanations?  Me too.  Here’s one for corporate culture:  it’s the experience, the feeling you get when you either work for an organization, or when you do business with the organization as a customer. 

If you’re a leader looking to change the performance of your organization, you need to determine whether you’re fixing a few broken processes or changing the culture.  Changing corporate culture is fundamental and thus more difficult.  But if you pull it off, changing corporate culture can produce breakthroughs, step function improvements in your performance measures. 

Two Views of the Culture 

In the simple definition offered above, you noticed that corporate culture is comprised of what employees experience, and what customers experience.  These are two distinct views, and while one impacts the other you need to address each view uniquely. 

Ideally, you want to believe that if you make everything right for your employees they will take care of your customers.  There’s some truth to that.  Herb Kelleher attributes his success at Southwest Airlines to focusing on “employees first, customers second, and profits third”.   

He’s wise, but pay attention to what he didn’t say.  He did not say take care of your employees and they’ll take care of your customers and you’ll make money.  He’s too smart for absolutes.  There’s an order to things, and based on results he’s got the right order for his business.  You still need to pay attention to all three things. 

The Employee Perspective 

Employees describe culture as “what it’s like to work here”.  Indeed job seekers are always wondering exactly that as they research potential employers.  Their definition of culture may be impacted by:

Office layout

Dress code

Social environment

Pay for performance (or not)

Advancement Opportunities

Stress Levels

Accountability (team, individual, management)

Availability of training 

The Customer Perspective 

For the customer, your culture is “what it’s like to do business with you”.  Terms that may show up in their description of your culture could include:

Quality of Products

Service Levels

Responsiveness

Value

Supplier behavior vs. Partner behavior

People – their attitude, their skill level 

You can probably add to each list (and you’re invited to do so by commenting or contacting the author!).

What’s the Point? 

If you don’t know what your culture is, how are you going to change it?  Many of the cultural characteristics described above can be measured.  Others can be clearly described. 

The leader who can articulate specifically what needs to be changed in corporate culture will most likely succeed.  You know the other side of that coin. 

Changing corporate culture won’t be easy, mostly because it’s about changing attitudes and behaviors and some people aren’t going to go with you.  The clearer you can be with defining (and quantifying) what’s to be changed, the more quickly you can help those people find something else to do and get everyone else engaged.

Copyrights Putumayo World Music and Culture
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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