S/he is, as in Cameron’s masterpiece, connected and in tune with every aspect and nuance of her organization’s existence, and able to tap into every part, however remote to create a better whole. In this case, I guess it isn’t World peace or Harmony of nature s/he is after, but in our crass world of business, I guess s/he will settle for a Q on Q Shareholder Return of 15%!
This is indeed the new Avatar of our often debated and currently much beleaguered Leader. And as in the movie, I wouldn’t be too far off if I said, “s/he is blue in color and is only found on the remote Planet of Pandora!”
In his best selling book, “The World is Flat” and its “3.0” Sequel, Thomas L. Friedman describes the unplanned cascade of technological and social shifts that effectively leveled the economic world and “accidentally made Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda next door neighbors”. Today (he contends from 3 years back), “Individuals and small groups of every color of the rainbow are able to plug, play, connect and collaborate”.
And as a somber wake up call to those of us still living in denial of the massive technology driven social and economic shifts happening around us, here is a perspective changing 5 minute video, http://youtu.be/emx92kBKads
Folks, what we see unfolding before our eyes is Human Evolution on technological steroids. The only question remaining, as Friedman puts it matter-of-factly and a tad morbidly, is “Will it be done by us, or to us?”!
In Friedman's Flat World, that we are living into today, everyday we tap into the creative, technical and entrepreneurial genius of the US, the low cost manufacturing juggernaut of China, the teeming millions of India, competing to stay up nights to take sh#% from our customers, and profiting from selling to customers in every god forsaken corner of our earth. Is it any wonder then that many of our best in class Valley companies, otherwise at the cutting edge of technology, but without the necessary investment in building Global Leaders, continue to struggle in establishing themselves as true long term Global companies. And yes I would say that includes our superstars, Google and Apple.
If we look around us, so many of us are on a daily basis working with, talking to, depending on and in many cases making decisions that impact employees in a totally different time-zone, culture and geography. Yet, how many of us really have the where-with-all, or even the desire to think and act with a global mindset, and work as seamlessly with our global colleagues as we do with our buddy in the next cube. I would venture a precious few, and recent studies not too surprisingly appear to back this assertion.
Many of our large and growing organizations have a global multi-national presence, but not really that many have mastered how to think and behave like true Global organizations and have been able to turn their global presence into a competitive advantage that goes beyond local P&L or Sourcing. Some companies especially in our neck of the woods, tend to operate as local companies that also happen to have offices in other parts of the world! While this insular approach may even work well initially for some of the start ups that our blessed Valley thankfully continues to spawn by the 100s; it can hardly serve an organization that is looking to tap into the global market, well, in the long run.
Definitions of Global organizations are a dime a dozen, but the ultimate test, as an enlightened GM I once supported, used to say, is if you can walk into any of your office locations anywhere in the world for the first time and feel instantly at home, then you know you work for a truly Global company - everyone speaks the same jargon, share the same look and feel, the same systems and processes, the same values. In other words, you experience and share a collective consciousness, a common foundation and framework for the entire company that is painstakingly built over the years by leveraging and globalizing the best practices and wisdom from each culture and geography that the company operates in.
I have had the good fortune to work at at-least 2 such organizations that in many ways, embrace and embody the definition of a truly global company, in Procter & Gamble and General Electric. As testimony, both organizations operate successfully as either the No 1 or 2 players in well over 100 markets in the farthest reaches of the world. I bet very few companies can lay claim to such a remarkable feat.
Like everyone else, these companies also started off as domestically focused companies, and as they expanded into overseas markets, they not only created subsidiaries, but systematically invested in setting up a Global Leadership Development infrastructure to tap into their worldwide talent pool. They took the best and brightest from each geography, and transformed them through a combination of multiple stretch assignments across geographies and functions, mentoring and experiential training into global cadres of highly mobile leadership talent. These programs have dutifully churned for close to 50 years, not only some of GE’s best General Managers, but that for many other Fortune 500 organizations as well!
P&G on the other hand takes a slightly different but equally effective approach where it hires only at the entry level, carefully handpicking its hires from top schools all over the world and growing them through a career path that winds its way through multiple geographies and cultures to General Manager roles. P&G prides itself for having home grown each and everyone of its General Managers for at-least over 50 years, if not longer.
The Globalization formula in each case has been very simple - Each expatriate Global Leader who represented the best leadership values of their respective geography and culture would in turn leave their imprint, overtime building a collective global leadership consciousness that has continued to reward these companies with global leadership for the past several decades, not too unlike the Mother Tree on Cameron’s Pandora!
This is indeed the new Avatar of our often debated and currently much beleaguered Leader. And as in the movie, I wouldn’t be too far off if I said, “s/he is blue in color and is only found on the remote Planet of Pandora!”
In his best selling book, “The World is Flat” and its “3.0” Sequel, Thomas L. Friedman describes the unplanned cascade of technological and social shifts that effectively leveled the economic world and “accidentally made Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda next door neighbors”. Today (he contends from 3 years back), “Individuals and small groups of every color of the rainbow are able to plug, play, connect and collaborate”.
And as a somber wake up call to those of us still living in denial of the massive technology driven social and economic shifts happening around us, here is a perspective changing 5 minute video, http://youtu.be/emx92kBKads
Folks, what we see unfolding before our eyes is Human Evolution on technological steroids. The only question remaining, as Friedman puts it matter-of-factly and a tad morbidly, is “Will it be done by us, or to us?”!
In Friedman's Flat World, that we are living into today, everyday we tap into the creative, technical and entrepreneurial genius of the US, the low cost manufacturing juggernaut of China, the teeming millions of India, competing to stay up nights to take sh#% from our customers, and profiting from selling to customers in every god forsaken corner of our earth. Is it any wonder then that many of our best in class Valley companies, otherwise at the cutting edge of technology, but without the necessary investment in building Global Leaders, continue to struggle in establishing themselves as true long term Global companies. And yes I would say that includes our superstars, Google and Apple.
If we look around us, so many of us are on a daily basis working with, talking to, depending on and in many cases making decisions that impact employees in a totally different time-zone, culture and geography. Yet, how many of us really have the where-with-all, or even the desire to think and act with a global mindset, and work as seamlessly with our global colleagues as we do with our buddy in the next cube. I would venture a precious few, and recent studies not too surprisingly appear to back this assertion.
Many of our large and growing organizations have a global multi-national presence, but not really that many have mastered how to think and behave like true Global organizations and have been able to turn their global presence into a competitive advantage that goes beyond local P&L or Sourcing. Some companies especially in our neck of the woods, tend to operate as local companies that also happen to have offices in other parts of the world! While this insular approach may even work well initially for some of the start ups that our blessed Valley thankfully continues to spawn by the 100s; it can hardly serve an organization that is looking to tap into the global market, well, in the long run.
Definitions of Global organizations are a dime a dozen, but the ultimate test, as an enlightened GM I once supported, used to say, is if you can walk into any of your office locations anywhere in the world for the first time and feel instantly at home, then you know you work for a truly Global company - everyone speaks the same jargon, share the same look and feel, the same systems and processes, the same values. In other words, you experience and share a collective consciousness, a common foundation and framework for the entire company that is painstakingly built over the years by leveraging and globalizing the best practices and wisdom from each culture and geography that the company operates in.
I have had the good fortune to work at at-least 2 such organizations that in many ways, embrace and embody the definition of a truly global company, in Procter & Gamble and General Electric. As testimony, both organizations operate successfully as either the No 1 or 2 players in well over 100 markets in the farthest reaches of the world. I bet very few companies can lay claim to such a remarkable feat.
Like everyone else, these companies also started off as domestically focused companies, and as they expanded into overseas markets, they not only created subsidiaries, but systematically invested in setting up a Global Leadership Development infrastructure to tap into their worldwide talent pool. They took the best and brightest from each geography, and transformed them through a combination of multiple stretch assignments across geographies and functions, mentoring and experiential training into global cadres of highly mobile leadership talent. These programs have dutifully churned for close to 50 years, not only some of GE’s best General Managers, but that for many other Fortune 500 organizations as well!
P&G on the other hand takes a slightly different but equally effective approach where it hires only at the entry level, carefully handpicking its hires from top schools all over the world and growing them through a career path that winds its way through multiple geographies and cultures to General Manager roles. P&G prides itself for having home grown each and everyone of its General Managers for at-least over 50 years, if not longer.
The Globalization formula in each case has been very simple - Each expatriate Global Leader who represented the best leadership values of their respective geography and culture would in turn leave their imprint, overtime building a collective global leadership consciousness that has continued to reward these companies with global leadership for the past several decades, not too unlike the Mother Tree on Cameron’s Pandora!
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ReplyDeleteThank you for expanding my mind on this - the global community. The youtube video you referenced is also illuminating. Great writing!
ReplyDeleteThe barrier to uniformity in corporate culture is driven by simple economics of the the labour market. Organisations like those mentioned in your post may pride themselves in being in the seventieth percentile. However in developing countries they appear in the ninetieth percentile. Therefore the attempts of uniforminity in culture which is driven by an expatriate CEO meets with inherrent resistence from the prototype of the peson who is hired.
ReplyDelete