Which bosses are the best?

Dear Editor,

I was reading the article „Which bosses are the best?“ from your newspaper the Guardian the other day and as a female student at a business college, I want to give you my opinion on that. Basically what the article is about, is the disparity between male and female managers. It also mentions, that only 7 % of secretaries would prefer a female boss instead of a male boss.

I totally agree with your opinion that women will become more common around the conference table. You mentioned that women are more flexible, more empathic and have more listening skills. This manner will become normal at office soon. Women will be more and more inquired at leading positions because of their advantages towards men. Especially young female managers are getting more common in business life. This is our future. Men are still representing a substantial number of managers but the direction changes slowly.

What shocked me most was that nearly 100 % of secretaries prefer a male boss. This may be the cause of the overwhelming majority of female secretaries. Female managers are critical in a personal way and that affects a woman a lot more than a man. Even though this evidence, women should constitute more manager positions.

I hope this letter gives you an idea about my opinion.

Sincerely,

Katja Höller

cartoons

Hello everybody!

In our latest english lesson we were discussing a lot of cartoons and that's why I thought you might be interested in the following cartoon about Donald Trump:

Everybody knows his slogan "Make America great again!" and his intentions to built a wall to isolate America from Mexico because he doesn't want illegal immigrants to be in America.

The cartoon above shows a meeting between some business partners and one of them is Donald Trump, the current president of the United States and there are two other american people and one mexican who says "si, senior" instead of "yes, sir".

That's why Donald Trump gets mad and kicks him out of the window. This symbolizes his reluctance towards illegal mexican immigrants.

Regards,
Katja Höller

Sun Valley Idaho

Hello everybody!

I stumbled upon a great homepage the other day which shows many different ski resorts all around the world and I thought you might be interested because most of us love winter sports and everybody loves at least the beautiful winter landscape. I decided to tell you something about the Sun Valley in Idaho because it impressed me a lot and it will impress you too.

First of all, I want to give you a little idea of what the Sun Valley looks like:

Pretty beautiful, isn’t it?

Additional to the offer of great views, there are a lot more particular reasons to visit this place. Basically what the article says is that it finds the perfect balance between being low-key[1] and up-market[2]. It has European influence mixed in with the cowboy Wild West. Roughing it in style is what attracts Hollywood royalty to hang out in Sun Valley.

Sun Valley has a lot of experience when it comes to operating a ski resort. What surprised me most was that it even invented the first chairlift and is known as the first modern ski resort in the USA.

There are two distinct ski mountains. Bald Mountain, or “Baldy” as some like to call it, has mixed terrain and is considered the main ski area of Sun Valley. It has a modern lift infrastructure with 19 chairlifts. There are plenty of great wide cruisers[3] that seem endless.

On the map below you can see where Idaho is located:

I would definitely visit this place, what about you?

Link to the article: http://powderhounds.com/USA/Idaho/SunValley.aspx

Regards,

Katja

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[1] dezent, zurückhaltend

[2] exklusiv

[3] Pisten

International Teams

Hello everybody and welcome to my press review!

I was reading an article the other day named "Building an Effective Global Business Team" in the online edition of MIT-Sloan. I thought you might be interested because international business is important to all of us and some of you may even become a part of an international team in the future.

First of all, what is an international team?

Basically what it says is that those teams are cross-border teams of individuals of different nationalities, working in different cultures, businesses and functions, who come together to coordinate some aspects of the multinational operation on a global basis. They are myriad organizational mechanisms that global corporations can use to integrate widespread operations. Those teams play an important part for every global company's competitive advantage because it depends on its ability to coordinate critical resources and information that are spread across the whole world.

It is also mentioned that it is nearly impossible to manage a multinational corporation successful without a sovereign global team. Creating a capable international team is, however, easier said than done. The article references to one of their studies, where they discovered that only 18 % considered their performance "highly successful" and the remaining 82 % fell short of their intended goals. What shocked me most was that in fact, fully one-third of the teams in their sample rated their performance as largely unsuccessful. The corporations have to understand the obstacles to success that global business teams confront. Then they can take concrete steps to avoid those mistakes and build effective and efficient teams.

Further the article talks about why global business teams fail.

International teams and global teams are plagued by many of the same problems - a shortage of the necessary knowledge and skills, a lack of clarity regarding team objectives, to name a few. But global business teams face additional challenges resulting from differences in geography, language and culture. It's important that the teams break down the communication barriers and solve the other difficulties. Those challenges tend to exacerbate the more common problems all teams face.

What do you think about this topic?

Here is the link to the original article:
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/building-an-effective-global-business-team/

Wordbank:
multinational = multinational
myriad = vielzählig
corporations = Unternehmen
widespread = verstreute
intended = beabsichtigten
competitive advantage = Wettbewerbsvorteil
plagued = geplagt
shortage = Mangel
exacerbate = verdrängen

Regards,
Katja :)

the Millstone Worker's House

Welcome everybody!

In our last english lesson we were talking about the main sights of Perg. Now we decided to start a research about them to inform our new English-Assitent about our district.

Today, I am going to tell you a little bit about the Millstone Workers' House. It's an open-air museum since 30th of November 2006 and back in the beginning of the 19th century it was a residence for working man. It reflects the habitat conditions of easy people and was renovated in 2007 to keep the atmosphere from the 19th century real. People lived there since the mediaeval times.

It is a landmarked building and obtained the upperaustria folk-culture-award and it's a station of the nature-experience-rooms of Perg.

Regards,

Katja :-)

Burning Man

Hello everybody!

In our latest English lesson we were talking about two different celebrations in two completely different cultures. I want to tell you something about the Burning Man Festival in the Black Rock Desert in the Werstern USA. Maybe you have already heard about it too.

It lasts one week and culminates with the burning of a 12 m (40-foot-tall) wooden man. It's like a different dimension filled with art installations and crazy dressed or even completely naked people which is a fun-fact because being naked is normally strictly forbidden in the USA.

The huge art event has some important principles which the orangisers ask the visiters to consider. Everyone must bring their own food and supplies. Cars are only allowed when they have been transformed into art cars. As a result transportation is made by foot or by bicycle.

Another important thing, actually the meaning of it all, is that everyone is encouraged to perform, to exhibit artwork and to organise activities. That's how Burning Man is so diversified. It has no sponsors, that's why money is forbidden, but some exceptions exist.

What I like most is that this principles help that the desert remains in the same state before and after thousand of people celebrate art and self expression.

Regards,

Katja 

Our Trip to France

Welcome everybody!

Our vacations is over now and the schoolyear has started again. It's our final year and things get finally pretty serious . Today I would like to tell you about our trip to France in June.

First of all, the journey started with a huge shock because our English professor was sent to the hospital because of a virus. As a result he wasn't able to join our journey. In exchange for Mr Wartner a friend of him, Mr. Perndorfer, accompanied us. It emphasized that Mrs. Klinger and Mr. Perndorfer guided us soverreignly through St. Malo and at the end of the week through Paris.

After our flight to Paris and the unbelieveable long bus ride we got to know our guest family. Kathi and I were housed at a family composed of mother, father and two daughters. They have been very friendly but we only saw them for lunch or dinner.

Serge was our guide who showed us the town and the half-island Dinard. Everything looks so stunning there and an extra benefit was the great weather on the first few days. We even got time to relax in the sun at the atlantic ocean on Sunday. As a result some of us couldn't escape a little sunburn.

During our stay in France the European Championship took place and that's why the whole class assembled in the same bar to watch the football matches every evening in St. Malo. The EC was definitly one of the highlights of our journey because we visited the match of Austria against Iceland in the Stade de France in Paris.Unfortunately Austria lost 1:2 to Iceland but we were in the honour to see the first and only goal Austria scored during the EC 2016. This experience was amazing and unforgettable.

The other day in France we visited a lot of sights in Paris. We saw the modern quarter of Paris, the l'Arc de Triumphe, Notre Dame, the Eiffel-Tour, the Louvre and many more.

All in all I am glad I attended this funny trip. It was a great experience with my school collegues.

Thank you for reading my post!

Regards,

Katja :)