Managing Yourself: Making It Overseas BY MANSOUR JAVIDAN, MARY TEAGARDEN, AND DAVID BOWEN | April 2010 Listen to an interview with Mansour Javidan. When Alan, a rising star at a U.S.-based manufacturer, arrived in Beijing to take a position as the general manager for consumer products in China, he was energized and excited. He’d been charged with leading the firm’s expansion in what his bosses kept telling him was the fastest-growing market in the world. Though his predecessor had warned him that some internal tensions were interfering with the company’s growth efforts in the country—in particular, that marketing and sales were making promises that the operations and distribution groups couldn’t meet—it seemed like a relatively easy problem to resolve. All Alan had to do, he figured, was to better integrate the different parts of the organization in China. He’d read that the Chinese tended to be collectivist in their thinking, inclined to prioritize group interests. So he decided to urge his direct reports to focus more closely on the overall good of the company and tackle problems together. In his first meeting with his function heads, he emphasized the need for better cooperation and established a cross-functional team to get marketing and operations on the same page. The new team expressed hearty support for its mandate, which was to identify the reasons for the lack of coordination and develop recommendations for how to remedy it. The members met at least once a week and made all the right noises about their plans for change. But 60 days into the effort, coordination remained poor. The team members had agreed on some general goals but had never committed to any specific action or target or held one another accountable for improvements. Instead, in respectful exchanges, they constantly reminded one another that while cross-functional coordination was important, each function also had to deliver against its own objectives. To Alan’s chagrin, turf protection in China was stronger than anything he had ever seen back home. And before long his enthusiasm began to give way to frustration. Alan essentially withdrew, both in the office and at home. He lost interest in the Chinese culture. He took a dislike to the local food and preferred to frequent Western restaurants and clubs. Even though he’d far exceeded expectations in his previous roles back home, he started to question his competence. He was failing at a highly coveted assignment—one that was fairly straightforward and was supposed to do so much for his development. Sure enough, Alan was soon called back to the States, and he has since given up his global ambitions for good. As it turns out, Alan’s employers had sent him to Beijing for the wrong reason. They’d assumed—as is typical—that a good track record at home is a predictor of success in the global arena, and that exposing high performers to new cultures will set them on the path to becoming effective multinational leaders. To a point, those things are true. We agree that moving people around the world is vital to developing global leadership capabilities. But it is seldom enough. Plenty of smart, talented executives like Alan fail spectacularly in expatriate assignments, even when they try their best to understand local cultures and fit in. Assigning an important overseas post to the wrong executive—one who doesn’t have the propensity to learn and succeed in a new and different environment—can be a painful, expensive proposition. Contrast Alan’s experience with that of a colleague at the same company who had been given a similar assignment in Brazil. Debra went to São Paulo to turn around an operations group that had been suffering from poor morale and low productivity. She quickly embraced her new staff, her new environment, and her new task. Debra immediately engaged with employees at all levels, asking questions and gathering input on solutions. She met with local experts both inside and outside the company and treated every gathering, formal and social, as a chance to build personal relationships. Within 18 months, the group was back on track. Working in a difficult and unfamiliar environment was exhilarating for Debra, who was reinvigorated by the cross-cultural challenges, the travel, and the opportunity to experience a different and vibrant lifestyle. She has since continued to take on even more demanding roles with greater global reach. What sets the Debras of the world apart from the Alans? What kind of person thrives on cross-cultural complexity? And to what extent, if your ambitions are high, can you become more like Debra? To find out, we interviewed more than 200 senior executives in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and surveyed more than 5,000 managers around the world. We asked about their successes and failures, what was getting in the way of their progress in other cultures, and the degree to which they enjoyed working with people who were different from them. We asked what they thought it took to be a global leader and an effective manager in a cross-cultural environment. What we learned is that success abroad hinges on something we call a global mind-set. This mind-set has three main components: intellectual capital, or knowledge of international business and the capacity to learn; psychological capital, or openness to different cultures and the capacity to change; and social capital, the ability to form connections, to bring people together, and to influence stakeholders—including colleagues, clients, suppliers, and regulatory agencies—who are unlike you in cultural heritage, professional background, or political outlook. The most effective international leaders are strong in all three dimensions.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 02:13:33 +0000
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