Describe a common
story in your organization and discuss its implications on the
organization. Does this story promote
the goals and ideals of the organization?
Does it help describe, "who we are and what we stand for?” What is the story's impact on the culture of
the organization?
United State Navy
happen to be a diverse working environment where people from different culture
and languages work together as a team. Navy
promote honouring everybody’s culture and language but uses English language as
the official language to carry out its businesses.
Deferent accent is
the barrier that we face each day in every conversation, mostly especially when
people like me from Africa with British English background communicating with
American and people that have stayed for more than a decade in the state.
Initially, I felt
embarrassed every time we had a hard time understanding each other.
Navy as an entity
has free English class to improve speaking ability of those that comes from
where English is not their first language or with a strong accent like my own. However, I discovered that even with the
English class accent is not what can be corrected within a short period. After
some time I understand that when anybody needs my assistance, they understand
my accent but when it is vice verse they will not understand.
This ushered me to
see what my New Oxford America Dictionary has say about accent; a distinctive
mode of pronunciation of a language, associated with a particular nation,
locality, or social class.
This findings
brings me to a conclusion that accent that one has built over three decades is
not what can be changed within a few years of changing environment. This now gives the confidents to talk back
whenever anybody said he could not understand my accent, saying that it is too
strong. I tell them that having an
accent aren’t a disease but a natural skill of ones language. Now people listen
to me better than before and we understand each other and able to work more as
a team and achieving the primary objective of navy for having people from
different cultural background. For instance, when my Ship was deployed to
Africa in 2012, I was useful for interpretation in Nigeria when we had to
communicate with people of the same accent.
