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The Journal of the American Management Association

Volume 12, Number 3

Fall 2013

Building a Global Team OTHER ARTICLES ASTD Panel Discusses Today’s Global Leader Brands Across the Border The Challenges of Leading in a Global Economy Leading at a Higher Level in a Worldwide Market Mentor Your Employees Finding Opportunities for U.S. Veterans Todd Lachman (fifth executive from right, standing), president of Mars Petcare, with some members of the Petcare Leadership Team and senior leaders from Mars Petcare's Royal Canin business and pets.

How to Adapt Behavior Across Global Cultures Eight Types of Corporate Crises: The Impact on National Culture Engage Employees to Take Charge of Their Talent

COMMENTARY

GLOBAL STRATEGY

TOP SHELF

FIRST PERSON

OUR VIEW

“Going Global”: What It Really Means

Growing (Even More) Global

The Six Styles of Negotiating

Tom Davenport on Practicing Analytics

Great Leaders Are Great Listeners

Growth opportunities... Amazing breakthroughs... Valuable insights...

Analytical Skills Information surrounds us. We’re drowning in data. The variety, velocity and volume of it are staggering. Ever feel completely overwhelmed by it? Afraid you’re missing something? Has analysis paralysis taken over, making it difficult to make a decision? What if the only thing that keeps you from making more intelligent decisions and finding real opportunities is your inability to see things more clearly, in other words, not having good analytical skills? High-performing companies rely on analytical skills to make profitable decisions. AMA offers 26 seminars in 3 key areas—Analysis, Strategy and Action—so you and your staff can develop these essential skills. Our Core Analytical Skills courses help you gather insights from data, analyze complex problems and use analytics to illustrate your ideas. Specialized Skills courses address job-specific needs, from Finance, Marketing and HR to Business Analysis and Project Management.

Unleash the Power of Information! Find the Analytical Skills seminars that fit your needs.

www.amanet.org/analyticalskills or call 1-800-262-9699

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Volume 12, Number 3

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BUILDING HORIZONTAL, HIGH-PERFORMANCE GLOBAL TEAMS. It takes leadership to build a high-performing, mission-focused global team. It may sound “forehead-slappingly obvious,” as author Howard M. Guttman says, “but many leaders either underestimate or just don’t get the unique challenges in dealing with all the forces at play.” Read how Todd Lachman, president of Mars Petcare, has reaped the benefits of his team of 16 global leaders. By Howard M. Guttman. PAGE 4

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ASTD Panel Discusses Today’s Global Leader. AMA brought together a panel of thought leaders on global leadership.

Brands Across the Border. Brands must present consumers with a consistent viewpoint, no matter where they are in the world or how they interact with a brand. By Redicka Subrammanian.

The Challenges of Leading in a Global Economy. Three participants from the ASTD panel

Types of Corporate Crises: The Impact 40 Eight on National Culture. This article identifies eight crises, including success. By Kai Hammerich and Richard D. Lewis.

Employees to Take Charge of Their 44 Engage Talent. Employers need to create a take-charge culture for their staff. By Don Maruska and Jay Perry.

FROM THE EDITOR

(see page 9) expand on the findings of the survey and the challenges that the global market present. By Marshall Goldsmith, Howard Morgan, and Steven Rumery.

3 COMMENTARY “Going Global”: What It Really Means and Why It’s So Important. By David Goldsmith.

Leading at a Higher Level in a Worldwide Market. Ken Blanchard, another participant at the

13 GLOBAL LEADERSHIP Leading in a Worldwide Market.By Steven Rumery.

ASTD conference (see page 9) identifies two new leadership practices that transcend borders: servant leadership and building trust. By Ken Blanchard.

19 GLOBAL STRATEGY Growing (Even More) Global. What should you be doing to drive your business into more markets worldwide? By Bill Seward.

Mentor Your Employees. Chip R. Bell observes how mentoring is the creation and nurturance of a partnership in which mentor and protégé learn together. By Chip R. Bell.

21 TOP SHELF The Six Styles of Negotiating. Learn six styles of

Finding Opportunities for U.S. Veterans.

25 FIRST PERSON Tom Davenport on Why Companies Should Practice Analytics. MWorld interviewed renowned thought

More than one million service members will transition out of the military by 2014. Companies that offer jobs to these warriors told their stories at a one-day program this summer at AMA in New York City. By Florence Stone.

How to Adapt Behavior Across Global Cultures. Global dexterity is a skill you need to acquire if you find yourself within a new cultural environment. By Andy Molinsky.

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negotiation, including the best kind. By Brian Tracy.

leader Tom Davenport on analytical thinking.

SOUNDINGS

A study by AMA and the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) on analytics.

48 OUR VIEW Great Leaders Are Great Listeners. By Robert G. Smith.

FROM

THE

EDITOR

The Global Leader

MWorld

In the book Being Global: How to Think, Act, and Lead in a Transformed World by Angel Cabrera and Gregory Unruh, the authors title the introductory chapter “Being Global Is Not an Option, It’s an Imperative.” That is certainly a reality. I would add another reality for today: the need for training today’s leaders, in particular, training today’s global leaders. As you may have observed, the role of leaders working abroad is very different from that of the past. American Management Association partnered with The Blanchard Companies®, FranklinCovey®, and the Marshall Goldsmith Group in the preparation of a survey about global leaders to identify the competencies needed by today’s global leaders. In this issue of MWorld, we share the survey findings. We also share comments from the panel session at the American Society for Training and Development Conference and Exposition with AMA president and CEO Edward T. Reilly, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, and Marshall Goldsmith about the global business world. Howard Morgan, managing director of the Leadership Research Institute, moderated the discussion. Our lead article is also about global business. Howard Guttman shares his experience with Mars Incorporated’s pet care business that operates in 50 countries and the work he and the firm’s CEO did to build global teams. Marketing your brand in the global environment requires new approaches. You can’t assume that you market your brand the same way as you do in the United States. For example, images don’t always speak larger than words. The local culture must be respected and understood in order to promote your product. In other words, know your audience. You have to adopt and adapt. One of our articles specifically addresses this. It reminds us how the natural, comfortable “default” behavior from our native culture can turn out to be ineffective for a situation you find yourself in within a foreign culture. In this issue, we also have two articles on analytics, a tool for any company that wants to move forward, either globally or locally. We have an interview with Tom Davenport, an authority on analytics, and a survey on the growing importance of analytics by AMA and i4cp. In forthcoming issues of MWorld, we intend to continue our exploration of leadership in the global marketplace. Please write us with insights, concerns, and problems you are dealing with. Email me at fstone@amanet.org

The Journal of the American Management Association EDITOR

Florence M. Stone CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Seval Newton COPY EDITORS

Geoffrey Gneuhs, Laurie Russo GRAPHIC ARTIST

Tony Serio PRODUCTION MANAGER

Laura Grafeld

PUBLISHER

Robert G. Smith PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER

Roger Kelleher

Edward T. Reilly PRESIDENT & CEO

MWorld© (ISSN 1540-2991) is published quarterly by American Management Association International, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-7420, Fall 2013, Volume 12, Number 3. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Management Association, 600 AMA Way, Saranac Lake, NY 12983-5534. American Management Association is a nonprofit educational association chartered by the Board of Regents of the State of New York. MWorld is an independent forum for authoritative views on business and management issues. Submissions. We encourage submissions from prospective authors. For guidelines, write to The Editor, MWorld, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-7420 or email fstone@amanet.org. Unsolicited manuscripts will be returned only if accompanied by a selfaddressed, stamped envelope. Letters are encouraged. Mail: Letters, MWorld, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-7420; email: fstone@amanet.org. MWorld reserves the right to excerpt and edit letters. Names and addresses must accompany all submissions. Subscriptions. Executive and Individual Members of American Management Association receive MWorld as part of their annual dues, a nonrefundable $50 of which is allocated for the subscription to MWorld. Single copies are available at $25 plus shipping and handling. Requests should be sent to sgoldman@amanet.org Rights and permissions. ©2013, American Management Association. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission. Requests should be sent to Joe D’Amico, at jdamico@amanet.org Editorial Offices 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019-7420 Tel: 212-903-8075; Fax: 212-903-7948 Email: MWorld@amanet.org Opinions expressed by the editors, contributors or advertisers are not necessarily those of AMA. In addition, the appearance of advertisements, products or service information in MWorld, other than those of AMA itself, does not constitute endorsement by AMA.

Florence M. Stone Editor, MWorld 2

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COMMENTARY

“Going Global”: What It Really Means and Why It’s So Important

BY DAVID GOLDSMITH

Before you dismiss the subject of this article as irrelevant, perhaps because you don’t see your organization or group as global, take a moment to reconsider your presumption, since contrary to the misconceptions out there, being globally aware—the root of “going global”—isn’t an option reserved for executives at worldwide companies; it is an essential activity that every decision maker must perform to keep pace in today’s world. Your job is to understand what going global means to your organization. “Going global” is a trendy catchphrase with different meanings for different people, prompting people to use it inaccurately, thus perpetuating misconceptions. To clarify, going global is not synonymous with “international” (working or selling outside the home country), “multinational” (having representation in many nations), or even “global” (having representation of staff around the world for different types of distribution). Instead, it is a broadening leadership state of mind that improves decision making and strategies for groups, organizations, and even countries. Global awareness is an expansive and deep understanding of various factors within the entire universe. After acknowledging how all businesses and nonprofits, regardless of size, reach, or location, are globally interconnected, you must increase global awareness, a challenging “how-to” for leaders, since most tend to believe that the answer lies in international work or travel. Both options typically don’t expand global awareness though; travelers usually aren’t globally aware, visiting tourist attractions without integrating into local populations, and international workers, even those who live in another country for years, aren’t likely to speak the host country’s language. So here’s the step-by-step breakdown of a leadership tool called the Roadmap to Global Awareness,* which is proven to expand global awareness: 1. Receive Global Information—Expand your breadth of knowledge in these four foundational categories: humans/living creatures, physical environments, governances, and technologies. 2. Become More Globally Aware—Assimilate the MWORLD FALL 2013

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information you have gathered and continually absorb about the universe around you and increasingly utilize this raw material to connect dots, which will create new knowledge and greater global awareness.

David Goldsmith

3. Develop a Broader Perspective—Use another leadership tool, the ET Global Nesting* concept. Direct your and your colleagues’ attention to these areas whenever you’re ideating to make improvements: individuals and groups within or outside your organization, other communities, territories, countries, and regions, as well as the world at large. Look for both differences and similarities among these categories of global awareness. 4. Apply New Awareness—Utilize the newfound information as you address all of your organization’s needs both internally and externally. Ultimately, you will find that you have improved your ability to make strategically advantageous decisions overall. Finally, consider how building a culture of global awareness within your organization multiplies opportunities and advantages. Engage internal and external stakeholders in practical yet simple activities like shared weekly lunch meetings to encourage discussion about news stories, inventions, or cultural practices in terms of their potential impact on your organization to rapidly develop an organizational mindset of global awareness. Use these topics to trigger ideation that enhances product/ service development, operations, alliances, technology usage, plans, innovation, and more, regardless of whether your organization is multinational, international, or local. MW *To obtain a free download of these tools, visit www.paidtothink.com/downloads Excerpted from the book Paid to THINK: A Leader’s Toolkit for Redefining Your Future by David Goldsmith. David Goldsmith, president of the Goldsmith Organization LLC, is an international consultant and advisor, speaker, telecast host, and business owner. He has taught at New York University and was awarded the SCPS Teacher Excellence Award.

COVER STORY

Building Horizontal, High-Performance BY HOWARD M. GUTTMAN

Peel away all the difficulties of running global teams, and one stands out above the others: Most global Howard Guttman

teams adhere; they don’t cohere. Think about the typical global team, with its far-flung operations; patchwork quilt of cultures; different time zones, country, or region-specific challenges; unique processes; and market demands. It’s fertile ground for silos, misunderstandings, and conflict. It’s not the stuff of e pluribus unum camaraderie. It takes leadership to build a high-performing, mission-focused global team. It may sound forehead-slappingly obvious, but many leaders either underestimate or just don’t get the unique challenges in dealing with all the centrifugal forces at play on a global team. Take the CEO and senior team of a $25 billion consumer products company with operations on five continents. The leader was a command-and-control executive whose senior team was siloed and riven with underground conflict. Different regions were treated like walled city states, accessible only to the country director. The compensation system reinforced the go-it-alone mentality, with zero incentive to think enterprisewide. There were no ground rules for decision making on or below the top team and no process for escalating unresolved issues up to the next tier. When you’re dealing globally, challenges come quickly and evolve over many time zones in the blink of an email. The consumer products company’s senior team just wasn’t up to meeting the challenges. Not surprisingly, business spiraled downward as more nimble competitors, with a unified management team, began eating away at the company’s market share. To date, nothing has been done to address the situation. Ultimately, it starts with the leader and, in the case of this leader, he didn’t have what it takes to shift his team and organization to a more horizontal approach, with everyone playing for the enterprise.

HIGH-PERFORMANCE LEADERSHIP IN ACTION There are leaders who get it. Consider the case of Mars Incorporated’s pet care business, its largest unit, which, according to analysts, is a $14 billion business, with 35 brands, 34,000 associates in 50 countries, and a range of different businesses. When Todd Lachman assumed as president global responsibility for the unit, he faced the usual global challenges, with a few add-ons to test his mettle. 4

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Global Teams Lachman’s leadership team is scattered throughout the world. Corporate headquarters are located in Brussels, and Lachman himself is based in New Jersey. Adding to the complexity, Lachman’s team meets formally only four times a year. The team he inherited performed well but he wanted performance taken to the next level. Leading 16 high-powered, successful senior executives, both line and staff, who run operations in the U.S., Russia, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and elsewhere, and who in some cases run very different businesses, is no cakewalk. Lachman’s challenge was to build a cohesive, high-performing team that scored big wins and worked for the enterprise, not just for functional interest. Whether a team is global or in a single country, changing team dynamics begins with the leader Todd Lachman, president of Mars Petcare, at home in New Jersey with his dog, Francis. and his or her willingness to articulate a vision of how the team should operate. In Lachman’s case, he put forth a compelling picture of a global team that was aligned around a common high-performing team vision; worked together horizontally rather than hierarchically; operated interdependently rather than independently; was focused enterprisewide, not functionally; was willing to assume accountability for the team’s results and those of the entire organization; and openly discussed conflict in a nonpersonalized manner.

Next, Lachman engaged his team to create “our” vision and shift the culture and team behaviors to the high-performance, horizontal model he had articulated. To do so, Lachman took his team through a series of three alignment sessions, which my colleagues and I were called upon to facilitate. Data collected from team members revealed the gaps that existed between the high-performance vision and reality. For example, roles and responsibilities were fuzzy, especially the points of intersection between global and regional responsibilities; basic decision-making ground rules needed to be put in place to move more quickly and with less “noise”; and dealing openly with conflict had to be addressed. The alignment sessions raised questions that went right to the heart of the matter: What’s not working, why, and how can we fix it? How do we align around a common strategy, vision, and MWORLD FALL 2013

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PHOTOS: COURTESY OF MARS PETCARE

Moving his team forward was a tall order and Lachman knew that neither “rah rah” nor a big stick would work to engage his team. Instead, he created a burning platform to drive home the importance and urgency for the change: Given savage competitive pressures in the worldwide pet care segment, he wanted to go beyond business as usual and move quickly from good to great. Nothing less than a steep change was required in how the team showed up and performed.

way of working? How do we operate more as a board of directors and take an enterprise view of the business? How do we move from a siloed mentality to one of greater interdependency? How do we confront issues head-on and resolve them quickly and effectively? How do we clarify the roles and responsibilities not only of the team but of the subteams throughout the regions? How do we engage in conflict in a way that’s depersonalized? And one of the toughest questions: How do we have the right authentic conversations in real time during—and between—meetings? It was an ambitious agenda.

THE RESULTS As the process unfolded, the team gained clarity and commitment to the high-performance, horizontal Mars Petcare products on display in a Russian grocery store. vision that Lachman had initially laid out and to the strategy and specific business deliverables that flowed from them. Roles and accountabilities were agreed upon, along with protocols for making decisions and how team members would engage one another. The team became less wary and worked to achieve greater transparency and a positive approach to resolving the inevitable conflicts that emerge on a global team. Playing horizontally rather than top-down and functionally is something of an unnatural act, especially on global teams. Beyond the alignment sessions, team members, including Lachman, received coaching and were skilled up in a variety of areas, such as conflict management and shifting to new ways of leading a global enterprise. But, as Lachman points out, more important than these “structural interventions” is the more dynamic learning that comes “when we work together as a team, coach one another, and provide feedback to each other in the moment.” Performance reviews with team members became learning and reinforcement opportunities. During such sessions, says Lachman, “we talk about how they operate as a highperformance leader just as much as we talk about the actual performance of the function or business.” The next tiers down were engaged in a similar process. Observes Lachman, “High-performing, horizontal behaviors must be thought about 24/7. This way, it becomes baked into the muscle memory of the organization.” Results speak for themselves. The pet care team transformed the way it operates. Performance accelerated and bottom-line results exceeded expectations, as the team more effectively leveraged its resources across the global platform. There’s greater interdependence and collaboration, a decrease in decision hang time, and less unconstructive conflict.

BUILDING HIGH-PERFORMANCE GLOBAL TEAMS: WHAT’S INVOLVED? Building cohesive, high-performing teams that work horizontally does not come about by chance. The centrifugal forces are too many and too intense. In our research and work with many global teams, here are what we have found to be the key factors enabling them to make the transition: Assertive leadership. Leaders who fail on the global stage tend to be nonassertive. Better to lead with your chin by articulating a high-performance, horizontal vision. To function successfully, 6

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global teams require a picture of what the end game is, of what they are aspiring to achieve. And the team must be tested for buy-in. For leaders on global teams, this involves something of a balancing act. Neither wimpy nor heavy-handed approaches to imposing vision work. Assertive leadership, as Lachman points out, “requires a leader to be vulnerable. He must articulate a highperformance vision and as the process unfolds concede leadership to the team, rather than being the all-powerful decision maker.” The burning platform. Wrap the transition around a significant business issue. It becomes an energizing principle for enrolling others and in so doing coaxes team members to address the deeper issues related to how they and their colleagues view themselves, their roles and relationships, how work gets done, and what it means to be a contributor. A burning platform converts the challenge into a business case for radically and permanently changing the organization and those who work for it. The right players. You need to assemble a team of the best and brightest, with both strategic and operational savvy, high emotional intelligence, and willingness to function in a horizontal, demanding environment.

HIGH-PERFORMANCE TEAMS Eight Key Attributes 1. The mission, goals, and business priorities of the team are clear to all team members. 2. The team is comprised of the “right” players. This implies that they are technically/functionally competent, with the ability and willingness to influence across functional lines. 3. The roles, points of intersection, and “turf” are clear to all team members regarding every player on the team. 4. Team members are committed to the team “winning”—achieving business goals—over their own parochial/functional self-interest. 5. The decision-making process that the team employs is understood and accepted by all team members. 6. Every team member feels a sense of ownership and accountability for the business results that the team creates. Consequently, team members feel that they have a license to speak on any matter concerning how the group functions. The team operates as a managing board of directors. 7. All team members are comfortable dealing with conflict in the team. Consequently, they are willing to be candid, able to depersonalize, and attempt to reach resolution on outstanding team issues. 8. The team has a willingness to periodically selfassess its progress as a group, focusing on how the team functions as a total group. This includes assessing the business deliverables, individual commitments, and relevant protocols.

Team alignment. Engage the team in coming to grips with the tough performance questions, similar to the ones Lachman raised, and go where the team previously feared to tread. At the end of the process there should be tight alignment in eight areas: ៑

Vision/strategy. Is there deep understanding of and commitment to how the team will

perform and act? Is there clarity and commitment to the future direction of the business: the competitive advantage; key product/market choices; the capabilities needed; and the longer-term growth and financial expectations? ៑

Business deliverables. How can the team ensure that the day-to-day work of the team is

supportive of the strategy and goals? One incoming president of a major division of a global enterprise called together his senior team for the first time and asked them how many projects they had: 475 projects were under way. His response: “Here are seven goals that will be driving the company and ensuring our alignment with corporate goals. How many of the 475 have anything to do with these seven goals?” Turned out, only 33 of the 475 projects were in alignment with the goals. The CEO responded, “Reassess the 442 nonstrategic projects!” ៑

Roles and responsibilities. The dreaded question “Whose job is it, anyhow?” tends to get

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role clarity. Unless you are crystal clear on the answer, count on turf battles and your organization becoming a house divided. ៑

Protocols. There is often major confusion, especially on global teams, as to who will make

decisions and how they will make them. One way to avoid this is to develop and agree upon protocols for decision making. For example, how will important decisions be made: unilaterally, collaboratively, or by consensus? Who will be consulted for information? For opinions? Who will make the final decision? And who will execute the decision? Protocols for resolving conflicts, such as those dealing with triangulation, must also be agreed upon. ៑

Business Relationships. Global teams are at a disadvantage when it comes to aligning interpersonal relationships. Face time is a scarce commodity. One initial approach we find useful in aligning business relationships is to ask teams to take these steps: ៑ Ask team members to assess one another’s behavior style ៑ Ask them to think about ways in which they can moderate their own behavior—moving from nonassertive or aggressive to assertive ៑ Have each person “contract” with fellow team members to acquire the skills and make the behavior changes that will facilitate conflict resolution Warning: Don’t try this exercise without an experienced facilitator!

៑

Coaching and skills. Team and individual coaching are essential, as are skill mastery in leadership, conflict management, influencing, and active listening.

៑

Playing for real. This translates into making high-performance, horizontal behavior a

“must,” not just a want; making such behavior part of the performance review, advancement and reward process; having the leader and team role-model expected behavior, and holding everyone, including the leader, accountable. ៑

Dealing with deadwood. Coach team members that need support, skill them, and if all else

fails, bid them farewell. Building cohesive and effective global teams with the muscle to perform is one of the great, if not the greatest challenge facing today’s executives. The executives we know who are winning on the global stage are doing so by using the high-performing, horizontal model and then aligning their team around it to counteract the centrifugal forces that, left unchecked, sap global teams of their vitality and ability to compete now and well into the future. MW Howard M. Guttman is principal of Guttman Development Strategies (www.guttmandev.com), a Mt. Arlington, NJ, organizational development consulting firm that builds horizontal, high-performance organizations and teams through leadership team alignments, leadership coaching, and leadership capabilities development. Adapt your leadership style to work well across boundaries and cultures. Attend AMA’s seminar Leading in a Global Environment (www.amanet.org/2011).

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ASTD Panel Discusses Today’s Global Leader At the American Society for Training and Development International Conference and Exposition in May 2013, AMA held a panel discussion on global leadership. The panel consisted of Edward T. Reilly, AMA’s CEO and president; Ken Blanchard, The Ken Blanchard Companies®; Stephen M. R. Covey, FranklinCovey®; and Marshall Goldsmith, the Marshall Goldsmith Group. The panel discussion was moderated by Howard Morgan, managing director of the Leadership Research Institute located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA.

PHOTOS: LES KAMES OF THE PHOTO GROUP

Reilly opened the panel discussion, telling the ASTD audience how globalization has changed since his first assignment abroad. “With a passport and a young family,” he recalled, “I went to live in another country, and I became a member of a small band of expats who traveled around the world and operated in headquarters that resembled the operating offices of those companies.

The panel at the ASTD International Conference and Exposition draws a large crowd.

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“Some of these operations still exist, but increasingly most global operations are becoming small replicas of their parent organizations wherever they are.”

On the panel (left to right): Edward T. Reilly, Marshall Goldsmith, Ken Blanchard, Stephen M.R. Covey, and Howard Morgan.

Reilly pointed out, “People are realizing that we need to develop the leadership skills not just of people who are in fact in leadership roles, but who can influence people around the world, such as scientists working on a project or a salesperson trying to introduce a new product.”

According to Reilly, this development is placing much interest in leadership development in HR departments and even in line operations. Indeed, people recognize the need for leadership development for all the people they’re operating with around the world. They are managing matrix-managed organizations and the head of operations from one country and the head of operations from another country need to cooperate, and so do the development departments and their marketing departments and even their shipping departments will be working together on a lateral basis. Reilly then introduced Howard Morgan, who shared the findings of a major survey on global leadership trends. For the survey findings, see page 13.

DEFINING A WORLD LEADER Thereafter, Morgan asked members of the panel the following question: What is meant by a world leader? Ken Blanchard responded first. ‘’When we look at the many kinds of leaders,” he said, “we find that corporate leaders aren’t that different from those who lead countries except that their role is more complicated. Besides cultural differences, you have less face-to-face time, you have considerable technological developments, and you have incredible competition.”

Ken Blanchard on the role of listening.

“Today’s global leaders,” Blanchard continued, “also need to be excellent listeners to find out what is happening and how they can facilitate situations. Problems may arise when those in charge of global offices don’t know what people in their offices know. Besides listening skills, you can identify potential leaders and build positive relationships with them.”

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PHOTOS: LES KAMES OF THE PHOTO GROUP

There is also an influence process involved. “Any time you are leading people,” said Blanchard, “there is the need to influence their thinking, beliefs, and professional development. Also needed is goal setting. Goals are very important if you want to help your people do better. That’s one of the key elements that we need to address.

Stephen Covey underscored the importance of listening. He identified listening as “one of two key behaviors that, if people follow, will lead to a different playing field in terms of trust and being trusted. It is not only your listening and working to understand others but people feeling heard and understood. And when people feel understood, you begin to make extraordinary progress in building trust between yourself and your people.

Marshall Goldsmith on the first five factors.

“The second key element is respect about what you hear,” said Covey. “It’s not just listening and judging and evaluating, and then saying, ‘Oh, that’s kind of crazy or weird. You know, we don’t do that here.’ No, we listen first and we show respect for what we hear or what we learn. By doing those two behaviors first, we can begin to build trust. And that trust enables global leaders to be effective.

“The only thing I’d add in my definition of global leaders is that leadership is all about getting results in a way that inspires trust. And when we do it that way, our ability to get results the next time has just increased. But if we get results and do it in a way that diminishes or destroys the trust, our ability to get results the next time goes down. So how we do what we do makes all the difference.” According to Covey, the best global leaders are acutely aware of how the cultural context makes such a difference. “So they lead off by listening first and then adapting what they heard and involving the people in the conclusion. If you involve people in solving the problem and the opportunity it offers, you can work out a solution together. That’s better leadership. You get results in a way that will increase growth and inspire trust. There will be greater involvement, there’s greater commitment.”

LEADERS OF THE FUTURE Marshall Goldsmith noted that “half of my work is now outside the United States and I have found leadership has become a very, very big topic around the world.” Based on his observations, as well as the study conducted by the group, Goldsmith identified five factors that he said differentiate the leaders of the future from those of the past. First of the five, according to Goldsmith, was global fit. “Global thinking is becoming increasingly important as you go down through an organization. Before, it wasn’t important at all; today, it is becoming important on multiple levels of the organization. The second item was “cross-cultural appreciation.” Said Goldsmith, “Cross-cultural appreciation is different from the attitude about diversity in the United States.” Technological savvy was the third factor identified by Goldsmith, who observed that “there is awareness of new technology and how it will impact core businesses. This technological savvy is going to be very, very important for the leaders of the future.” The fourth factor noted by Goldsmith was building alliances and MWORLD FALL 2013

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Stephen M.R. Covey on the importance of inspiring trust.

partnerships. “More and more,” he said, “global leadership is about building alliances and partnerships, not a simple hierarchical chain of command.” The fifth factor Goldsmith called “chair leadership.” “This is critical,” he said. “Leaders need the ability to ask, to listen, and to learn from everyone around them, and then adopt an action plan.” Goldsmith concluded, “There are many qualities of leadership that are always going to be important—things like vision, integrity, and customer loyalty. I can give you a list of factors like these that were important in the past and are going to be important in the future. But these five factors weren’t important in the past but they are going to be very important in the future.”

GLOBAL CAREERS Reilly closed the panel by observing how “the changes demand that companies involve their employees early in career development for global careers. First, it takes a long time to master global sensitivity and understanding around the world. Most people are not going to simply billet overseas and become expats. They’re going to do a lot of travel, and they’re going to meet lots of people in other parts of the world. “You need to get young people inside your organization thinking of themselves as global leaders,” Reilly stressed. “It’s difficult to master the additional things that go on in trying to be a global leader. You need to encourage people early on to see that they have some success in that; your companies will benefit enormously from the fact that these people had experience 10, 15, or 20 years ago, so that when they start running major departments inside the business, it won’t be the first time they get a passport or make an international telephone call or talk to people outside the United States.” MW Recent statistics indicate that most international leaders find cross-culture leadership to be one of the biggest challenges they face in the global business world. Prepare yourself for this in your career at AMA’s seminar Leading in a Global Environment (www.amanet.org/2011). Your talents, skills, and accomplishments got you where you are today. Redefine yourself for continued success in the future by attending What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, AMA’s seminar based on the bestselling book by Marshall Goldsmith (www.amanet.org/2207). Consider, too, Leading at the Speed of Trust, based on the teachings of Stephen M.R. Covey (www.amanet.org/2604). AMA’s Situational Leadership® II Workshop (www.amanet.org/2901, a specially developed course by The Ken Blanchard Companies®), will help you adapt a situational leadership style that will heighten your performance and improve your productivity.

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GLOBAL

Leading in a Worldwide Market How are the best and brightest global leaders identified and developed? This question was posed in a survey of nearly 2,000 managers and training professionals around the world. The respondents were members and clients of professional organizations including American Management Association (AMA), American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), FranklinCovey®, The Ken Blanchard Companies®, and Marshall Goldsmith Group. The sample contained a diverse group of crossfunctional managers, including training and development professionals: ᔢ 26% are managers who lead globally ᔢ 40% are coaches, mentors, or trainers of global leaders ᔢ 62% are from global or multinational companies ᔢ 53% are from organizations with at least 1,000 employees ᔢ 50% are in corporate roles, 20% in plant or office roles, 17% in division roles, and 13% in region roles. The sample also represents a number of geographical regions.

LEADERSHIP

BY STEVEN RUMERY

THE COMPLEXITIES FOR LEADERS WHO MANAGE GLOBALLY

Many survey respondents highlighted the complexities of managing globally. Some of the

consistent themes included: Asked to “rank the drivers of change that need to be addressed by global leaders in order to be successful,” the respondents suggested that the most critical drivers focused on the customer, including ensuring quality products and services, driving innovation, retaining the best people, and running business efficiently. In addition, the results for the top drivers of change were consistent across industries, different size organizations, regions, and whether or not the survey respondent was in a global leadership role or someone who coaches and develops global leaders. None of these drivers is particularly surprising. However, the challenge to global leaders in addressing these common and critical business drivers is that they must do so within a constantly shifting global context. Thus, the fundamentals of leading globally are the same as for leaders in general, but the challenges can be much more difficult within the context of their global roles. SUCCESSFUL GLOBAL LEADERS ADDRESS CRITICAL DRIVERS OF CHANGE

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Managing a Patchwork of People. To lead effectively within a global context, managers need to understand and influence a complex patchwork of people. Each customer, employee, and vendor is uniquely characterized by a host of attributes and past experiences, including ethnicity, language, religion, and social norms. All of these stakeholders weave together into a vibrant patchwork of people with a number of unique attributes and experiences that must be understood and appreciated. Distributed Team Members. Teams in global organizations are often comprised of people located in different geographic areas and in various time zones. The challenges to global leaders are threefold: 1. Keeping communication channels open and clear. This is an especially huge challenge with virtual teams where face-to-face communication is limited. 2. Maintaining a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of team members. Remote team members often struggle to collaborate over time because of a lack of clarity about who is responsible for what. To be successful, there has to be a genuine

GLOBAL

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sensitivity to team members’ varying schedules, opinions, and personal interests. 3. Providing team members the right levels of leadership support and guidance. It is hard for global leaders to exercise the complete range of leadership behaviors necessary to organize and influence their people over time. For example, it is hard for global leaders to be directive or to lend a hand to a direct report when direct reports are not in the same office or time zone. Change Is Constant. If it isn’t hard enough for global leaders to try to manage their patchwork of people, the global marketplace itself is in a constant state of change. Global leaders must have a firm grasp on the business and its products, while having the business acumen necessary to perform in a game with rules that are constantly changing. What were the survey respondents’ opinions of the skills and attributes necessary for global leaders to be successful? Asked to choose the one skill that is critical to determining the best succession candidate for a global leadership role, survey respondents chose—by a large margin—leadership behaviors, followed by international experience and dealing with ambiguity. The lesson here: leadership matters. In a follow-up question, survey respondents were asked to pick the most important attributes when examining candidates for a global leadership role. The most important attributes continued to highlight leadership. The behaviors included superior communication, the ability to develop a business strategy, foster innovation and creativity, develop their people, and drive for results. ATTRIBUTES, BEHAVIORS, AND SKILLS TO ADDRESS THE DRIVERS OF CHANGE

Another follow-up question also highlighted the importance of leadership skills. When survey respondents were asked to choose the top subject areas to allocate money and resources for the development of global leaders, the most selected subject areas related to cultural awareness, coaching, emotional intelligence, fostering innovation, and leading remotely. What can organizations do to develop the competencies that are required of global leaders to focus on the drivers of change? ALLOCATING RESOURCES FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Senior management needs to value the development of global leaders. The development of global

leaders requires the full backing of the organization’s senior leadership. Clear goals need to be set regarding the development of global managers and leaders. The

organization must have clearly stated, consistent goals from its senior leadership regarding the development of global leaders. The organization needs to build a pipeline of global leaders. This is easier said than done. An

organization must identify the appropriate skills and behaviors and then work to accurately assess and develop them. Organizations can hire global talent, but the supply can be limited. Given the significant difficul-

ties in developing global leaders, it would seem that hiring effective global leaders would be the most straightforward solution. However, it is difficult to find leaders who are “ready now” to manage global businesses given the combinations of factors that are critical to the global leader’s role. In fact, when survey respondents were asked what the best strategy will be in the next five years for building a stronger bench of global leaders, only 20% responded that hiring is the way to go. A resounding 80% of respondents indicated that developing leaders internally is the best strategy. Think globally, act locally. Organizational goals and initiatives need to be translated into the local culture to facilitate understanding and engagement. In closing, the results indicate that the challenges facing global leaders can be quite complex given the cultural context of their roles. To be successful, global leaders must be strong on a number of leadership competencies, including being open-minded and adaptable, strong on emotional intelligence, and highly collaborative on dispersed teams. Given the unique and varied challenges of individual leadership roles, survey respondents recommend a highly tailored, blended approach to developing global leaders. MW Dr. Steven Rumery is a principal with the Leadership Research Institute. He specializes in developing the credibility and impact of leaders and organizations through executive coaching, research, and consulting. Ensure your organization always has well-trained, experienced people in key positions. Have them attend Succession Planning: Developing Leaders from Within (www.amanet.org.org/8110). American Management Association

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Brands Across the BORDER BY REDICKA SUBRAMMANIAN

If I’ve learned anything at all in my 18 years in the advertising and communications business, it’s that there is no set formula for success in working with brands globally. It’s a lesson I’ve learned from experience working with some of the world’s leading brands, such as Levi’s, Lenovo, and Motorola, across a wide array of geographies, cultures, and languages. The plain, simple truth is that there is no magic recipe for serving such brands on a global basis. My experience has taught me that the elements most critical to a successful global engagement are inspired passion for the brand, a deep understanding of the audiences, a solid mixture of experience and expertise, and a healthy dose of gut instinct about what will or will not work. To be frank, very few get this mix consistently right. Building a brand is all about understanding its essence, differentiation, and promise, and then communicating that truthfully and consistently in a way people can feel at a visceral level. If they don’t feel it, and if they don’t trust you to deliver it, nothing will happen. When advising clients, I rely on nine foundational principles to transcend these seemingly insurmountable barriers—social, economic, and cultural—and to help brands create digital strategies that transform the way they do business on a local, regional, and global scale.

1 BUILD A STRONG BRAND CULTURE

Traditionally, global leadership dictated the brand frameworks broadly, while local managers pretty much held free rein when it came to developing their own brand strategies. In recent years, however, the priority has shifted toward building a consistent and cohesive brand presence across all audiences worldwide.

Brands must present consumers with a consistent viewpoint, no matter where they are in the world or how they interact with a brand. The rise of digital channels, such as social media and viral marketing, has put a stop to the standard practice of managing brands with a command-and-control style. Today, your brand must reflect your culture and values more than it does your guidelines. The brands that have done it well are those with a strong culture—who know who they are and how to live it.

Coke’s Open Happiness campaign offers a great example of how to effectively communicate a strong brand culture across all channels and messaging. The Open Happiness campaign brings MWORLD FALL 2013

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“An ironclad rule in working globally is as follows: If you don’t speak, read, or write like a native, hire someone who does.” to life the idea of “open a Coke, open happiness,” and evokes optimism, positive feelings, and inspiration. Coke has stuck to these central themes in all its communications and exemplified them in the delivery of its product.

2 GO BORDERLESS

Marketers need to know how to take the essence of a “glocal”—or “think global, act local”— approach and apply it in context to today’s digitally active and mature audiences. The abundance of digital platforms has made regional brand strategy not feasible, and many companies are adopting a more unified marketing approach. Yet, we know that no one-size-fits-all approach works when it comes to a worldwide audience. Brands have to strike a delicate balance between a brand message that has enduring global significance and can resonate with relevance and meaning across every region at the same time. Digital doesn’t respect borders, particularly with social media. We’re finding that as content moves across borders, brand stories are following. Nike created an ad to coincide with the World Cup that exemplifies borderless marketing. It took famous soccer (or football, in most of the world) players from many different countries and wove them into a single story—stars from around the world, all united by one thing. This ad demonstrated that Nike is more than multinational; it’s a transnational, truly global brand.

3 WHEN LOCAL TRUMPS ALL

When one of our clients, an iconic apparel brand, rolled out a global environmental and social campaign, it struggled to see the same success in the Asia-Pacific region as it did in the United States and the UK. We cautioned the marketing team that audiences in Asia are more responsive to messages of self-recognition and rewards than those of social justice. Similarly, cultural sensitivity can make or break a brand’s image in a given market. Marketers must note even the smallest of details to avoid ruffling feathers. When conducting a website usability test for a large telco player in the Middle East, we found that some imagery provided by the company’s in-country brand agency was inappropriate for the market. More than 50 participants flagged one image of young children rolling around in the grass as inappropriate. Similarly, the use of a “+” sign as an icon has unacceptable connotations for some audiences in the Middle East region. Multiple rounds of testing and feedback should be put in place to ensure that all visual elements, messaging, and language remain culturally correct while still conveying a brand’s image.

4 DELIVER YOUR MESSAGE

An ironclad rule in working globally is as follows: If you don’t speak, read, or write like a native, hire someone who does. Every brand needs the people, technology, and resources to deliver its message in the right language and sometimes even different dialects within the same language. It’s not a simple matter of translation, but rather ensuring that the correct words are chosen to communicate the desired message.

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The need for a unified marketing team is more important than ever. Involving marketers from around the globe in overall brand marketing strategy will engender cohesion and 5 BUILD A consistency. But as important as it is to have a strong center, it is just as important to CENTRALIZED have coordination in local markets. MARKETING HUB I recommend creating a strong global hub, focused on managing and initiating projects, sharing resources, creating central segmentation models, and also helping coordinate local initiatives. Remember, though, you cannot simply hand someone a strategy and say good luck. Those local markets still need a chance to feel like they own the strategy and have a responsibility to the brand. By taking this approach marketers are much more likely to focus on the same goals for the brand, as opposed to creating their own version of this brand for a certain market. International condom manufacturer Durex has recently built a global brand center that is helping its marketers become brand evangelists and present a uniform brand image. With this center, Durex has built an internal community where markets can share their best practices and local experiences that could be of global relevance. Initiatives such as these help share the global brand vision and promote engagement and consistency.

6 ADOPT A ”GLOBAL” CULTURE

There are really two conflicting models for global brands right now. It was standard practice for a brand’s local markets to be granted carte blanche in order to be adaptable. Some companies, such as Hewlett Packard (HP), are challenging that model and now work under a centrally led global brand. With this model, it’s the same HP wherever you are in the world, but there might be different content, all consistent with the greater brand message running locally. Many major global brands are moving away from their local structures and shifting toward a more global structure in an effort to become more unified. The ability to be both global and local is essential for success in internal campaigns. The Nike World Cup ad and Coke’s Open Happiness campaign are examples of how marketing can work on a global scale. These elements were created so that they work across all territories. I would caution, however, that control must be exercised over local adaptations if the brand is to remain strong. There’s a tendency that the farther you are in distance and time from that central hub, the more freedom marketers feel to change the brand to what they need. Proceed with caution, because allowing that to happen can weaken the brand for everyone.

7 ADOPT AND ADAPT

Another principle to keep in mind when working with brands internationally: Adapt global trends to suit the needs of a specific market. This can happen at the industry level, for example, when lessons learned from what’s happening in one industry or segment—Fastmoving Consumer Goods (FMCG), for example—are adapted and applied in another, such as business-to-business. The same “adopt and adapt” idea applies geographically. A few years back, a major telecommunications brand engaged us to help launch a flashy new mobile phone in the Australian market. The creative concept involved collaborating with one of the most recognized names in fashion during Australian Fashion Week to live-stream a runway fashion

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“It’s human nature, of course, to assume at some level that ‘our way is the right way’ or even to believe that ‘our message is so universal, it will work everywhere.’” event and position the mobile phone as a fashion accessory. Because fashion is a universal theme, we worked with the telecom brand to adapt the campaign for other markets, including Dubai and Turkey, using local designers and a market-relevant fashion house.

8 UNDERSTAND AUDIENCES

Social media has helped create the perfect environment for interactions between a brand and its customers. Within this community, consumers are talking to each other as well as talking to brands. It all happens on a global scale and in real time. In the digital era, marketers need to consider making room for consumers to have their own voice.

For example, Durex allows consumers to create their own viral, shareable content, which then becomes widely available across the Internet. But don’t be fooled; consumer behavior is not the same everywhere. For instance, audiences in Asia are much more likely to take the role of spectators or critics rather than creators. Branding successfully across borders requires more than lip service to that often overused term and ambiguous concept of the “global marketplace.” In many cases, it takes honest soul searching about how truly global one’s mindset is and how inclusive one’s perspective.

9 A GLOBAL MINDSET

It’s human nature, of course, to assume at some level that “our way is the right way” or even to believe that “our message is so universal, it will work everywhere.” There’s also a tendency toward terminal uniqueness as in, “Our value proposition is so unique, it can’t possibly be fully understood in all its nuance, much less communicated by anyone else.” Too many examples of success and failure point to the value of taking a broad, nonterritorial view of brand communications. Multinational and global brands have known this for some time. They maintain operations and conduct business not only without constraint of national boundaries or international time zones but also by embracing differences and unifying the brand experience worldwide. Today, digital communications technology has, in effect, made all brands global. Despite the fact that there is no magic formula to bring marketing success to brands abroad, these nine principles have helped me guide clients to develop strong brand identities that are relevant on both a global scale as well as in individual markets. MW

Redicka Subrammanian is a global advertising, marketing, and technology expert and the cofounder and CEO of Interakt Digital Communications Group, a digital marketing outfit with operations on four continents. She specializes in helping global companies deliver their brand promise by aligning all audiences and messaging, both internal and external.

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Growing (Even More) Global What should you be doing to drive your business into more markets worldwide? For businesses based in the U.S. as well as internationally, the need for growth into new markets is clear. Global demographics alone are enough of a reason: 25 years ago the Chinese city of Shenzhen had 286,000 people, whereas now it’s a metropolis of more than 10 million consumers. With 95% of consumers living beyond U.S. borders and populations booming in many parts of the world, your prospects for robust success are limited if you stay within your own market. I spend a lot of my time traveling and talking to companies that are looking to grow their business globally. If you look at our most successful customers—both large and small—you’ll see that a disproportionate amount of their total revenue comes from outside their home market. A decade ago, one of our big U.S. industrial clients was booking 75 to 80% of annual revenue in the U.S., but now that number is down to less than 35%. They’re not just manufacturing in new markets, they’re selling into those markets, too. So, given all the global possibilities—and challenges—what do businesses need to do in order to take their first steps into new markets? China has surpassed the U.S. as the world’s largest manufacturer of goods, and in recent years China has made a name for itself in the consumer world as well. According to McKinsey, a huge wave of increasingly affluent consumers will constitute China’s urban majority in less than a decade. By 2022, McKinsey projects that there will be 304 million middle-class consumers in China. Last year, sales on “Singles Day” (China’s Valentine’s Day) more than doubled Cyber Monday sales in the U.S. KNOW WHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE

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STRATEGY

BY BILL SEWARD

This growth opportunity is difficult to ignore— and it extends far beyond China. In the next 15 years, emerging markets will represent three-quarters of global growth. By 2025, emerging markets are expected to account for just under half of global consumption. Trade between these growing markets—also dubbed “south-south trade”—is expected to intensify as well: International bank HSBC concluded in a February 2013 report that emerging economies will produce higher value-added goods and drive a rebound in world trade. We have some customers for whom the intra-Asian market has gone from negligible five years ago to nearly outstripping North America. I am frequently in Asia and I can tell you there’s no lack of companies doing business there. But at the same time, as they look for new consumers, our customers also have their eyes on South America— another major hot spot. This market presents new challenges for companies that may already be familiar with working in Asia but are just testing Latin American waters for the first time. As in Asia, the growth of the middle class and disposable income in countries like Brazil and Colombia is creating the opportunity. We’re seeing a push among our customers into South America across a wide range of sectors, from cell phones and office supplies to healthcare and even industrial manufacturing. The devil is in the details, and new markets always present new challenges in areas including customs procedures, government regulations, and infrastructure. For instance, one of our manufacturing clients, already experienced in Asia, wanted to move into South America and turned to us for advice on what made Colombia or Chile a better location for a new facility. This was not just the dimension of LEARN THE RULES OF THE ROAD

“With a new product or update

with returns, service parts fulfillment, and a reverse supply chain to provide effective and efficient service.

every six months…a company may not see itself positioned to hire or train for those kinds of variances.” transportation they were looking at, but rather at the whole set of logistics considerations, including governmental restrictions, trade rules, and customs. Because we have operations and staff in each of those countries, we are able to talk to clients about the specifics of their needs and requirements, as well as cultural and professional nuances. One area where customers frequently turn to UPS for counsel is brokerage services. A good logistics partner can act as a broker and counselor to ease the transition into new markets. In our experience, trade compliance is a major issue for companies, large and small, so we work closely to simplify shipping needs, manage customs clearance to ensure compliance, and provide supplier and trade management services that allow our clients to focus on their core business. Business-to-consumer trends are also expanding around the world, giving companies more power but also creating more complexity in their supply chains. While deliveries in the U.S., for example, can be dropped off at a consumer’s door when no one is home, that is not an option in many parts of the world. Consumer-driven offerings in parts of Europe now allow the purchaser to specify a drop-off point, often a store, which then notifies the customer by text message when the package arrives. The underlying point here is that consumers want the convenience of delivery and will continue to reward those companies that embrace B-to-C in an ever-growing range of global markets. Years ago, many businesses would have said e-commerce sales were a nuisance or a necessary evil, but most have since embraced the channel as a way to remain relevant. We work closely with businesses to remove barriers and avoid potential pitfalls, such as not knowing the “landed cost”—the final transportation expense including duties and taxes upfront. These costs can vary enormously by market, so it is essential to gather this information in advance. Consumers and businesses alike will also demand a smooth returns process. At UPS, we routinely handle questions from clients about how to work CONNECT WITH CONSUMERS

Each market has its own challenges and opportunities. For example, Europe has arguably the best transportation infrastructure in the world, while many emerging markets are still working to expand their capacities. UPS is taking part in that investment, on behalf of our customers, in places like Asia. We recently took full ownership of our operation in Vietnam, expanded our domestic service in China, and significantly expanded our Worldwide Expedited delivery services from 70 origins around the world to 220 destinations. Our customers want to reach pieces of emerging markets that maybe today are underserved, but they also want to maintain and extend their reach into markets that are already well connected. We are continuously assessing our network to ensure we can enable these companies to develop their business in key markets around the globe. CONSIDER INFRASTRUCTURE

Peak seasons can be another issue, generated around varying holidays, product updates, or new product launches. We have had customers come to us for transportation and contract logistics solutions to a peak that may see their business spike 60 to 70%. With a new product or update every six months, for example, a company may not see itself positioned to hire or train for those kinds of variances. In that case, a UPS Supply Chain Solutions campus environment that serves multiple clients may be a good fit, because we have the IT, labor force and infrastructure to move around between projects and scale to customer demand. Increasingly, contract services like these at sites around the world provide global companies with the flexibility to leverage their logistics spending, spread the cost, and generate more value. Against the backdrop of the global trade growth that we’ve touched on here, companies of all sizes have the opportunity to expand their business across budding consumer markets and extend their supply chain in new geographies. They just need the right partners and strategies in place to seize this evergrowing opportunity. MW PREPARE FOR PEAK SEASONS

Bill Seward is vice president of International Business Development at UPS. In his 23 years with UPS, he has focused on equipping companies with world-class logistics solutions that enable them to serve their customers and grow. American Management Association

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TOP

The Six Styles of Negotiating There are several different ways to negotiate, and you must be clear about the negotiation style you are using and the output or result that you are striving for. In the first style, called “win-lose negotiating,” party A gets what he wants and party B loses. For example, you want to sell at the highest price or buy at the lowest price. Your focus in this type of negotiating is not making friends or establishing long-term relationships. It is simply to get the best deal possible. Of course, this is not the kind of negotiating that leads to additional business or transactions, except in special cases, such as when you are pawning your property to get fast cash. In this case, the pawnbroker is the winner, paying a fraction of the value of the item, and the person pawning the item is the loser, receiving a fraction. WIN-LOSE NEGOTIATING

The second style of negotiating is “lose-win negotiation,” and it is the opposite of win-lose negotiating or simply the reverse of the first style. Party B gets what he wants and party A loses. B’s needs are satisfied and A’s needs are not satisfied. This approach to negotiating is used when each party sees the other party as an opponent or adversary, to be bested with any means available. LOSE-WIN NEGOTIATING

The third approach is “lose-lose negotiating.” In this situation, two parties enter into a deal and neither one of them is satisfied, because neither party gets much of what was hoped for. This type of negotiating is often accompanied by antagonism, animosity, and arguing. For example, the husband comes home and says to his wife, ”Let’s go out for dinner tonight. Where would you like to go?” She answers that she would like to go out for seafood. He replies that he is sick of seafood and would prefer Italian food. She says that she has had too much Italian food lately and is not interested. To keep the peace, they finally agree to go out for Chinese food, which neither of them particularly wants. LOSE-LOSE NEGOTIATING

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SHELF

BY BRIAN TRACY

This is lose-lose negotiating. The wife doesn’t get what she wants and neither does the husband. But they accept the results of the negotiation because at least they get something rather than nothing. The fourth type of negotiating is called “compromise.” In a compromise negotiation, both parties get something and are better off, but neither party’s needs are completely met. At the end of the negotiation, both parties walk away with a bad taste in their mouth. They are not so unhappy as to refuse to enter into an agreement, but they are not particularly excited about the results of the negotiation. COMPROMISE NEGOTIATING

The fifth style is called “no-deal negotiation.” In this situation, you and your counterparty both present your positions, needs, and interests and find that you cannot come to an agreement. You are too far apart. You agree to disagree. NO-DEAL NEGOTIATING

Finally, there is the best kind of deal: a “win-win negotiation.” This is what you are aiming for. In a win-win negotiation, both parties feel that they have won. Both parties feel that they have entered into an excellent deal. Both parties are happy, satisfied, and eager to fulfill their commitments and to enter into additional deals on the same or a similar basis. In most cases, win-win negotiating requires coming to a third alternative that is better than either had initially thought of. MW WIN-WIN NEGOTIATING

Brian Tracy is chairman of Brian Tracy International, a training and consulting company based in Solana Beach, CA. Excerpted, with permission of the publisher, from Negotiation by Brian Tracy. Copyright 2013. Published by AMACOM. For more information, visit www.amacombooks.org Gain the skills, insights and competencies required in all negotiations—in every industry—at every level. Attend the seminar Negotiating to Win (www.amanet.org/2513).

The Challenges of Leading in a BY MARSHALL GOLDSMITH, HOWARD MORGAN, AND STEVEN RUMERY

Perhaps the most significant change that has occurred in corporations over the past 15 years is the development of leaders who can succeed in a truly global economy. Where once a CEO ran his or her company from a single national base with satellite sales offices in other nations, today’s CEO oversees multifunctional business operations in a variety of countries around the world. This breadth of scope and complexity has necessitated the development of leadership capacity and capability to adapt to business and operational challenges resulting from differing cultures and requirements. In the spring of 2013, a consortium of leading leadership organizations (AMA, ASTD, Marshall Goldsmith, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, and the Leadership Research Institute) developed a survey to capture and analyze the needs of global organizations pertaining to the development of worldwide talent. In all, approximately 2,000 people responded to the survey, with one-third responding from outside North America. Based on the survey results, customer focus and service quality continue to be the two major drivers of success for the global leader. However, it is clear that accomplishing these goals has become increasingly complex over the past 15 years. Much of this heightened complexity arises from significant shifts in perception regarding three factors. The first shift occurred in the perception of business practices themselves. From 1990 to 2010, most leaders believed that once the global economy stabilized, business would return to “normal.” However, based on the economic realities of the last few years, many business models have changed forever—and there is no way to turn back the clock, at least not for the foreseeable future. As such, it becomes both the organizations’ and the leaders’ responsibility not only to keep pace with change but also to anticipate it and have the agility to lead through it (and sometimes just survive it). A significant measure of success is how leaders adapt, changing direction when prudent and being proactive, to demonstrate their value and impact on both employees and their organizations. A second factor is how we communicate in today’s global corporation. In many organizations, modes of communication have changed dramatically: We may no longer be able to drop by a colleague’s or a direct report’s office to clarify an issue or have hallway discussions since these people may now be located halfway around the world. These geographic boundaries have created situations where in-person communications are becoming a rarity. Moreover, these geographic realities present increasing challenges for the employee who needs clarification and the leader who needs to manage remotely. Consequently, we must strive to build solid working relationships with individuals whom we may only see occasionally. Add to that the diversity of 22

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GLOBAL ECONOMY

languages spoken, and clarity of communication has never been more important—or more difficult. Unfortunately, the need to establish clear goals and responsibilities is already counted as a developmental opportunity for many, if not most leaders—even before the issue of remote management presented itself. On most surveys conducted over the last 25 years, the identified area of improvement most requested by an individual’s direct reports and peers is “provides the information and orientation to complete a task successfully.” The third factor contributing to the complexity facing global leaders is the management of a diverse set of employees, customers, and suppliers. Although each of these groups understands the concept of a worldwide marketplace, they nonetheless require recognition and respect for their “individual and specific” needs. They want to know that their leader and/or business partner truly understands the unique characteristics and opportunities that lie within the geographic region that they call home. Based on the survey results, we found six factors that will affect leadership development over the next 10 to 20 years. They are the key areas of focus that will allow organizations to prepare themselves for the future challenges in the global economy: 1. Organizations have to recognize the need to develop global leaders early in their careers. It

is very difficult for an individual to leave the relationships and skills they developed within a specific context and over a period of time, and migrate to a different culture and business methodology. To be truly successful in developing impactful global leaders, it will be necessary to expend the same effort and resources into the development of leaders as organizations spend on understanding their customers and the supplier environments in which they operate. 2. The findings in the survey demonstrate that the primary source for global talent comes

from the region in which they operate. While the merits of this talent pool seem obvious, there needs to be acknowledgment that long-term global viability will necessitate a more strategic approach to talent development and acquisition. This will ensure that organizations are not faced with a limited supply of the most talented leaders, particularly in high-growth markets. MWORLD FALL 2013

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“Organizations are…looking to provide better measurement to assess the impact of various initiatives to determine the greatest return on investment.” 3. The leader’s ability to embrace diversity is becoming even more critical over

time. This is not limited to cultural or gender factors but also to encouraging diversity of thought and the importance of individual differences. To navigate the changes required by today’s and tomorrow’s organizations, leaders must value creative and diverse thinkers. It is also important to be aware of—and to manage—the conflict that inevitably results from differences in approach, methodology, and problem solving. 4. Leaders need to recognize the important role that communication plays in the success of

implementing a truly global organization. Since communication is foundational to building and maintaining relationships, finding mechanisms by which regular communication occurs is a critical focal area. 5. Investing in leaders and talented staff is critical since today’s global leaders must deal with

ambiguity as well as demonstrate agility. Leaders must think strategically as well as have an appropriate grasp of the detail. Those who have mastered these skills will inevitably be in high demand. Enlightened organizations will aggressively focus on the development of their most talented leaders since all talent forecasts predict that the supply of these global leaders will not meet demand—particularly when assessed on a country-by-country basis. 6. The focus on leadership development and individualized coaching will see increased

demand over the next 10 years. Respondents sent a clear message that these two areas are a focal point of both investment and interest. Organizations are also looking to provide better measurement to assess the impact of various initiatives to determine the greatest return on investment. This understanding of leadership will not only define the success of organizations around the world but also have a positive impact on the world’s cultures and communities. Pretty heady stuff. MW Marshall Goldsmith has been recognized as the most influential leadership thinker in the world by Thinkers50 2011/HBR and as one of the top-10 most influential business thinkers in the global biannual study. He is the author or editor of 34 books, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Howard Morgan is a managing director of the Leadership Research Institute and founding partner of 50 Top Coaches. He specializes in executive coaching in strategic change management, leading to improved customer/employee satisfaction and overall corporate performance. He has worked with the executive committees of many of the world’s largest organizations. Dr. Steven Rumery is a principal with the Leadership Research Institute and specializes in developing the credibility and impact of leaders and organizations through executive coaching, research, and consulting. He has experience working with Fortune 500 companies across industries, including banking, investment management, private equity, pharmaceutical, and mass media, and can be reached at Steve.Rumery@LRI.com

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Tom Davenport on Why Companies Should Practice Analytics BY FLORENCE STONE

We live in a world awash with data. If we can’t use those data to improve the nature of the decisions we make, then those data are wasted—so is the opportunity to improve the decisions we make. There is much discussion about analytics today. Why? That’s the question MWorld asked renowned thought leader Tom Davenport, the President’s Distinguished Professor in Management and Information Technology at Babson College, research director of the International Institute for Analytics, and coauthor with Jinho Kim, the research director of the KNDU Lab for Analytics Research, of Keeping Up with the Quants. Davenport believes that today’s successful managers need to be more informed consumers of data, more conversant with analytical thinking and methods, and better at working with quantitative information. “Even if you are only going to be subject to the decisions made through analytical means,” said Davenport, “it’s important to have an idea about how the decisions were arrived at. Moreover, if you work with customers, they may want to know, ‘How did you come up with that particular recommendation for me?’ Attribution to the computer won’t be a compelling reply. It’s better to explain the conclusion from the perspective of data analysis.” Lower levels of employees are now involved in decision making. “Employees at these levels need to have an understanding of analytics,” said Davenport, who separates these individuals from the hardcore analytical professionals who create the new algorithms, as well as the semiprofessionals who understand spreadsheets and have MBA-level analytical skills. The “analytical amateurs,” as Davenport refers to them, are presented every day with analytical decisions made either on their behalf or on that of the customers. They need to have some sense of where it came from, what data were used, what were the primary variables in the equation, and so on. Davenport explained, “Let’s say that you work in a healthcare facility, and there are recommendations about what treatment protocols to use—maybe a score that suggests the likelihood of getting diabetes or the likeliUNDERSTAND ANALYTICS

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hood of a heart attack. The patient is going to have questions about how you arrived at that conclusion. Although he may Tom Davenport not want the details of the algorithm that was used, he probably will want to know the factors that were involved in making the evaluation. You need to be able to discuss the process that was used.” For example, Davenport noted how analytics isn’t solely limited to financial decision making or marketing or product-development decisions. “If you can get data on a topic, you can do analytics on the issue.” One of the fastest growing areas in business right now, he added, “is human resources.” According to Davenport, analytical decision making is more accurate and precise in its outcomes. Not every decision can be made using analytics, but, he said, “There’s a large body of academic research that suggests in almost every area of life, the data and analytics-based approach tends to create more accurate decisions. There are lots of examples of analytics that helped organizations compete better and make the right decisions.” Moreover, these examples aren’t limited solely to big companies. As an example, Davenport cited a homebuilder located in the suburbs of Boston. He had a house that wouldn’t sell, at least not initially. The firm was WGB Homes, and the owner convened family members who worked for the company, other employees, and customers who had purchased houses in the neighborhood. Based on the feedback from the group, the company reconfigured different aspects of the house, which sold pretty quickly thereafter. MW BIG AND SMALL FIRMS

Florence Stone is editor of MWorld. Flooded with information and new knowledge on a daily basis? Quickly synthesize the data, determine implications, and make informed decisions. Attend AMA’s seminar Improve Your Analytical Skills: Making Information Work for You (www.amanet.org/2162).

Leading at a HIGHER LEVEL BY KEN BLANCHARD

Being an effective leader has become an increasingly difficult job. In this rapidly changing global work environment, leaders are faced with unprecedented challenges. They are asked to protect profits, reduce expenses, motivate employees, and maintain corporate culture—all without sacrificing ethical and environmental commitments. Leaders in domestic companies have the advantage of leading employees with similar cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and work practices. Imagine how the challenges multiply when leading a multinational organization that represents several cultures, languages, political beliefs, social norms, and value systems. Even leaders in organizations that don’t have physical operations in other countries are increasingly dealing with suppliers or customers from around the world. Given the new demands of globalization, how can you, as a leader, bring value to all stakeholders: employees, customers, shareholders, and the larger community? While there are no simple answers, the task will be easier when you employ two proven leadership practices that transcend borders, language, ethnicity, religious beliefs, political views, and cultural backgrounds.

THE FIRST PRACTICE: Servant Leadership The first practice for leading at a higher level in a worldwide market is servant leadership, where leaders focus on the well-being of others. Servant leaders achieve results by teaching, coaching, and training people to attain their goals and the collective vision. By emphasizing the greater good, servant leaders help diverse groups embrace what could be conceived as differences. Leading and serving at the same time. When I mention servant leadership, people

immediately think you can’t lead and serve at the same time. But you can, once you understand that leadership has two parts: vision and implementation. In the visionary role, leaders define the direction and communicate what the organization stands for and wants to accomplish. The visionary role is the leadership aspect of servant leadership. Once people are clear on the vision and direction of the organization, the leader can focus on implementation: the process of making the vision a reality. This is where the servant aspect of servant leadership comes into play, when leaders listen, praise, support, and occasionally redirect others as they work to achieve agreed-upon goals. In a groundbreaking study on The Leadership-Profit Chain, Scott Blanchard, Dobie Houson, 26

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in a WORLDWIDE MARKET and Drea Zigarmi found that while visionary or strategic leadership is a critical building block for establishing the vision and culture, it has only an indirect impact on organizational vitality. The study revealed that the real driver of organizational vitality was in the implementation phase, or what they call operational leadership. In other words, the vitality in an organization depends more on what leaders do during day-to-day operations than what they do in the boardroom. Turning the hierarchy upside down. How do

leaders achieve this vitality in the real world? During implementation, effective servant leaders turn the traditional hierarchy upside down by asking frontline employees what they can do to help them be successful, rather than expecting frontline employees to ask what they can do for senior leaders. Servant leaders exist to serve—not to be served. In a global context, this means that the leader must listen to what employees around the world have to offer. While it’s important for leaders to set the initial vision, they must respect differences and, wherever possible, work them into the organizational culture in a way that satisfies employees, customers, and the organization. By listening to others, servant leaders reap double rewards. First, their people will be more invested in the ideas that they helped to shape. Second, their diverse insights and perspectives will actually help to make the organization and its strategies stronger.

THE SECOND PRACTICE: Building Trust The second practice for leading in a global marketplace is building trust. A culture of trust allows people to work together effectively and enables relationships to flourish. Without trust, people become suspicious of one another, projects are fraught with setbacks, and often even the best plans fail. Sadly, trust is in short supply in many organizations today. Research by Maritz and others found that “only 10% of employees trust management to make the right decisions in times of uncertainty” and only 12% believe their employer “genuinely listens to and cares about its employees” (Maritz Research Hospitality Group 2011 Employee Engagement Poll). Respondents cited “poor communication, lack of perceived caring, inconsistent behavior, and perceptions of favoritism” as the largest contributors to lack of trust in senior leaders. MWORLD FALL 2013

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“When people believe they are working for trustworthy leaders, they are willing to invest their time and talents in making a difference in an organization.” One of the primary reasons for this epidemic lack of trust is misunderstanding. In our book, Trust Works! Four Keys to Building Lasting Relationships, Cynthia Olmstead, Martha Lawrence, and I found that people see trust through their own filters. In other words, you can be completely unaware that your behavior is eroding the trust of those around you. This is particularly true when people from different cultures try to work together. There’s often a gap between what two people perceive as acceptable behavior.

THE ABCD TRUST MODEL™ To bridge this gap, we created a common language for trust with the ABCD Trust Model™, which highlights the four qualities of trustworthy leaders. First, trustworthy leaders are ABLE. They know how to get things done. They can solve problems and produce results. They have the skills to make things happen. They know the organization and understand the special circumstances within geographical locations or cultures. They use their skills to equip people with the resources and information they need to accomplish their goals. Second, trustworthy leaders are BELIEVABLE. They act with integrity and honesty when dealing with people and situations. They create and follow fair processes and treat people equitably. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is treated the same way in all circumstances, but it does mean that people are treated appropriately and justly. These leaders act in a consistent, values-driven manner and demonstrate their believability by being honest with others in good times and bad. Third, trustworthy leaders are CONNECTED. They demonstrate care and concern for others by using good listening and communication skills. They openly share information about the organization and about themselves to create a sense of connection. These leaders share plans about the future, especially during times of change. They don’t live behind closed doors or delegate the important task of communicating corporate information to others. They make themselves available to people and they answer the tough questions with clear, detailed answers. When information is shared, they acknowledge that people may have concerns about it and make time to understand any anxieties others might have. They create opportunities for dialogue and really listen to what they are hearing. If circumstances change as a result of the open dialogue, they communicate those changes as soon as possible. Finally, trustworthy leaders are DEPENDABLE. They are accountable for their actions and responsive to the needs of others. When they promise something, they follow through on what they say they will do. This requires leaders to be organized, so employees can see that their actions are consistent with their words. Even dependable leaders don’t have every answer at their fingertips, but when they say they will get back to someone after researching an issue, they make sure they do so in a timely manner. When leaders keep their word on even small issues, they demonstrate that they can be relied upon when it comes to bigger ones. 28

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How would you rate yourself in each of these four areas? (For an online self-assessment, visit www.trustworksbook.com) If you are lacking in any area, deal with the issues immediately by practicing trust-building behaviors. It’s important for people to see trust in action instead of just hearing about it.

CONCLUSION Not surprisingly, building trust improves an organization’s financial health. When people believe they are working for trustworthy leaders, they are willing to invest their time and talents in making a difference in an organization. People who feel more connected will invest more of themselves in their work. High trust levels lead to a greater sense of responsibility, deeper interpersonal commitments, and more collective action toward achieving common goals. Although building trust requires patience and time, leaders who do so will be rewarded by employees who stretch, push their limits, and volunteer to go above and beyond. The barriers to success in a worldwide market can be daunting. Yet by employing these two powerful practices—servant leadership and building trust—leaders can overcome the challenges. MW Ken Blanchard is the bestselling coauthor of The One Minute Manager® and 50 other books on leadership. You can follow Ken Blanchard on Twitter @KenBlanchard or @LeaderChat and also via the HowWeLead and LeaderChat blogs. Lead more effectively by creating rapport, synergy, and two-way trust. Attend AMA’s seminar Achieving Leadership Success Through People (www.amanet.org/2128). Focusing skill-by-skill on P.E.O.P.L.E. (Professionalism, Empathy, Optimism, Partnering, Loyalty and Empowering), this seminar can help anyone in a position of leadership to better demonstrate caring as well as courage and maximize staff productivity.

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Mentor Your Employees BY CHIP R. BELL

Mentor. The word conjures up an image of a seasoned corporate sage conversing with a naive, still “wet behind the ears” young recruit. The conversation would likely be laced with informal rules, closely guarded secrets, and stories of daredevil heroics. Mentoring has an almost heady, academic sound, solely reserved for workers in white collars whose fathers advised, “Go get to know ‘old’ Charlie.” What is mentoring? A mentor is simply someone who helps someone else learn something the protégé would have learned less well, more slowly, or not at all if left alone. Notice the powerfree nature of this definition! Mentors are not power figures; mentors are learning coaches: sensitive, trusted advisors. The traditional use of the word “mentor” connotes a person outside one’s usual chain of command who can “help me understand this crazy organization.” Not all mentors are supervisors or managers. But all—I repeat all—effective supervisors, managers, and leaders should be mentors. Mentoring must become simply that part of every leader’s role that has growth as its primary outcome. Mentoring your employees is not easy. How do you carry an “insight goal” from an “in-charge” role? How does a supervisor or manager encourage a subordinate to experiment, make mistakes, and try new awkward behaviors—all important to learning—from a position of “Oh, by the way, I’ll be doing your performance review”? Overcoming this authority/power obstacle to learning can happen only through a partnership relationship.

CREATING A PARTNERSHIP FOR LEARNING Mentoring is not about the transmission of expertise or the conveyance of knowledge; it is about the fostering of insight that leads to understanding, not merely retention; wisdom, not rote competence. Mentoring is the creation and nurturance of a partnership in which mentor and protégé learn together. Mentoring from a partnership perspective is fundamentally different from the classical “I’m the guru; you’re the greenhorn” orientation. Mentoring from a partnership perspective means we are fellow travelers on this journey toward wisdom. Stated differently, the greatest gift a mentor can give his or her protégé is to position that protégé as his or her mentor. However, a learning partnership does not just happen; it must be created. And the mentor must take the lead in crafting it. 30

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Mentoring entails giving learning gifts: advice, feedback, and support. However, such learning gifts may not be readily seen by the protégé as a desired present. Gifts, no matter how generously bestowed, may not always be experienced with glee. Recall the last time someone said to you, “Let me GIVE you some advice” or “I need to GIVE you a little feedback.” You probably did more resisting than rejoicing! Protégés are no different. Protégés are more likely to experience the benevolence of gifts if they are delivered in a relationship of safety, advocacy, and equality. Mentoring from a partnership perspective entails four stages: 1) leveling the learning field, 2) fostering acceptance and safety, 3) giving learning gifts, and 4) bolstering self-direction and independence. The first two stages are aimed at creating a readiness for the main event— gifting. The final stage is all about weaning the protégé from any dependence on the mentor.

STAGE 1: Leveling the Learning Field Leveling the learning field means stripping the relationship of any nuances of mentor power and command. It entails yielding to the process of learning rather than trying to control or drive it. It requires creating rapport and removing the mask of supremacy. The success of a mentoring relationship can absolutely hang on the early mentor-protégé encounters; good starts impact good growth. The tone created in the first meeting can decide if the relationship will be fruitful or fraught with fear and anxiety. Quality learning will not occur until the shield has been lowered enough for the learner to take risks in front of the mentor. Rapport building expedites shield lowering. Rapport begins with the sounds and sights of openness and authenticity. Any normal person approaching a potentially anxious encounter will raise his or her antennae high in search of any clues that would give an early warning regarding the road ahead. Will this situation embarrass me? Will this person take advantage of me? Will I be able to be effective with this encounter? Is there harm awaiting me? It is crucial that the mentor be quick to transmit responses with a welcoming tone and feel. MWORLD FALL 2013

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“Protégés feel the relationship is safe when mentors demonstrate receptivity and validation of their feelings.” Open posture (e.g., no crossed arms), warm and enthusiastic reception, eye contact, removal of physical barriers, and personalized greetings are all gestures communicating an attempt to cultivate a level playing field. Mentors who rely on the artifacts of power (peering over an imposing desk, making the protégé do all the approaching, or facial expressions that telegraph distance) make grave errors in crafting early ease important to relationship building.

STAGE 2: Fostering Acceptance and Safety Great mentors who are effective at fostering acceptance avoid testing tones, judgmental gestures, and parental positions. Great mentors show acceptance through focused and dramatic listening. When listening is their goal, they make it the priority. They do not let anything distract them. A wise leader said, “There are no individuals at work more important to your success than your employees—not your boss, not your customers, not your vendors.” When your protégé needs you to listen, pretend you are at a raffle for a big prize and are waiting to hear the winning number; or you just got five minutes with your greatest hero. Think about it! Would you let a call from your boss, your customer, or anyone eat up part of your precious time? Treat your protégé with the same focus and priority. One of my biggest challenges in striving to be a good parent was to simply listen without an agenda. As my son began to catalog his concerns, convictions, or curiosity, I would usually feel the urge to make a point, teach a lesson, correct an action, or offer caution. When I finally gave up trying to be a smart daddy and worked at simply being a mirror, he began to open up and, most important, to feel heard and valued. When he’d ask, “How would you...?” I would try to have him tell me what he would do before offering my opinions. When he voiced concern, I communicated through various expressions that his message got through before I delivered an answer, especially when my answer was likely to be different from the one he thought he was going to get. Remember the adage: “You are not eligible to change my view until you first demonstrate you understand my view.” Protégés feel the relationship is safe when mentors demonstrate receptivity and validation of their feelings. The goal is empathetic identification. The “I am the same as you” gesture promotes kinship vital to trust. Mildly self-deprecating anecdotes can be particularly helpful. If you feel awkward, say you do. If you feel excited, say so. The sooner you verbalize your feelings, the faster your protégé will “open up” and demonstrate matching vulnerability. Feeling valued, your protégé is more likely to take risks and experiment.

STAGE 3: Giving Learning Gifts: Advice and Feedback Leveling the learning field and fostering acceptance and safety are the stages that lay the groundwork for the main event: giving learning gifts. Great mentors give many gifts—support, focus, story, courage, affirmation. But two crucial learning gifts are advice and feedback. Begin your advice giving by letting the protégé know the focus or intent of your advice. For advice giving to work, it is vital that you be very specific. Make certain the protégé is eager to improve or learn. What do you do if you determine the protégé either disagrees that learning is 32

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needed or is unwilling to learn what you want to teach? First, take a broader “50,000-foot” perspective. Is this your issue or your protégé’s need? Your protégé just may be correct. Second, if performance is a factor, be sure to have objective information (as a tool, not as proof), which is helpful in examining needs. Third, if all else fails, delay the conversation to a time when the protégé demonstrates a greater readiness to learn. Ask permission to give advice. This is the most important step! Your goal is to communicate advice without creating resistance. For example, say something like “I have some ideas on how you might improve if that would be helpful to you.” The goal is to communicate in a way that minimizes the protégé’s sense of being controlled. State your advice in the first person singular. Phrases like “you ought to” can quickly raise listener resistance! Keeping your advice in the first person singular—“what I’ve found helpful” or “what worked for me”—helps eliminate the “oughts.” How does a mentor bestow a gift that by its nature reminds the protégé of his or her inability to recognize it? The mentor’s goal is to assist the protégé’s receptivity for feedback by creating a climate of identification. Help the protégé gain a clear sense of why your feedback is being given. Imagine giving feedback to yourself. People tend to hear feedback more accurately if it is given in a sensitive and unambiguous way. Such frankness ensures that the receiver does not walk away wondering, “What did he or she not tell me that I needed to hear?” Focus on the future, not on rehashing the past. My coauthor Marshall Goldsmith labels this “feed forward.” Again, take your cue from your own preferences for how you prefer to hear feedback.

STAGE 4: Bolstering Self-Direction and Independence Ending a mentoring relationship does not imply ending the relationship entirely. Your employee is still working with you. However, there need to be signs of closure that signal to the protégé that he or she is now on his or her own to apply what has been learned. It does not mean learning support goes away; it means you are returning to your traditional role as supervisor, leader, and coach. In golf there is the expression "playing over your head." It means that a golfer is playing at an unexplained level of excellence in which serendipity and the extraordinary seem the momentary norm. Effective mentoring is a relationship of a mentor and protégé who seek to honor their alliance by "learning over their heads." MW Chip R. Bell is a customer loyalty consultant and the author of several bestselling books. His newest book (with Marshall Goldsmith) is the latest edition of Managers as Mentors: Building Partnerships for Learning. For more information, visit www.managersasmentors.com

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Finding Opportunities for U.S. Veterans This summer, AMA’s chief executive officer and president, Edward T. Reilly, sponsored a one-day program to help U.S. veterans enter the civilian job market. Reilly opened the “Warriors in Transition” special event by observing that more than one million service members will Edward T. Reilly (left) and author Emily King at the transfer out of the military by 2014. Reilly pointed to the spirit Warriors in Transition program. of patriotism shown for veterans, including those disabled, by civilian employers interested in this untapped source of talent. Emily King, author of Field Tested: Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans (AMACOM, 2012), opened her presentation “Why Hire Veterans?” with her answer: “It’s good business.” King continued, “Consider what they bring in terms of competency and productivity. Even a young person with only a few years of service will bring ingrained qualities and values.”

King’s presentation was followed by that of Steven M. Davis and Elizabeth Tyndell of Goldman Sachs, who described their company’s Veterans Integration Program. The program was developed as the result of an increased firmwide focus on recruiting veterans. Spurred by a meeting with then-Secretary of State Leon Panetta, the organization looked to an established program as a template. The Returnship®, which is a program for individuals looking to restart their careers after an extended absence from the workforce, was a great model that could be tailored to the unique needs and skills of the veteran population. The end result is the Veterans Integration Program, which is now moving into its third year. As they explained, the sourcing for the program is done through the firm’s Veterans Network, an internal affinity network dedicated to the professional development of its veteran workforce and advisors to management on military-related engagement, as well as established 34

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PHOTOS: ROGER KELLEHER

King advised those in the audience who were interested in recruiting veterans to also “think further down the pike toward retaining them.” She explained that often those coming out of military service don’t tend to stay in their first or even second job because there is a very steep learning curve culturally. It’s not that much fun to get over that learning curve, and most companies aren’t prepared to help. It may also be that a veteran’s buddy has found a job in another company and speaks well of the company, so the veteran is thinking of joining him at that firm. “That kind of job hopping can happen, especially in good times when the economy is stronger,” said King, who emphasized the importance of companies thinking about not just jobs for veterans but meaningful careers for them.

Speakers were (left to right): Steven M. Davis and Elizabeth Tyndell, both from Goldman Sachs; Arthur Langer from Columbia University; and Brian Stann, from Hire Heroes USA.

relationships with more than 35 veterans organizations. The process takes almost eight months and begins with participation at recruiting events in the summer and fall. The eightweek program transitions military men and women, providing training related to professional skills and education in financial services. Program participants explore new career paths and acquaint themselves with financial markets and products, gain work experience, and strengthen technical and professional skills; while expanding their professional networks through programming and events. Knowing how important giving back to the community is to veterans, Goldman Sachs also included a volunteer day through its Community Team Works (CTW) program as part of the eight weeks. A key component of the success of the program is the support from members of the Veterans Network, who not only provide mentorship but screen résumés, interview candidates and then sponsor them throughout the whole process. Arthur Langer, a professor at Columbia University, explained his Structured Transformation of Veterans into the Workforce initiative. Langer explained that in 2005, Columbia created Workforce Opportunity Services (WOS), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization with the mission to conduct work study programs for veterans with sponsored corporations. Corporations provide financing for the veterans and WOS partners with universities in the United States to provide the training the veterans need. Langer explained how the WOS program provides scholarships to Iraq and Afghanistan War-era veterans for academic certificates in various professional areas. These certificates are conferred by local flagship universities. WOS partners with local corporations that participate in a work/study component that leads to long-term employment. The final presentation was by Brian Stann, chief executive officer of Hire Heroes USA, whose mission is to create job opportunities for U.S. military veterans and their spouses through personalized employment training and corporate engagement. The organization registers an average of 50 new veterans online and through onsite Warrior Transition Assistance workshops, which number between 15 and 20 per session. As Stann explained, “The organization helps veterans write résumés, learn how to deliver their value proposition, and clearly communicate their skillset in person or on a telephone.” Within 48 hours of registering on the website, a veteran is assigned one person to take him or her through all of the training needed. Upon completion of the training, the veteran leaves the workshop ready to apply for positions through a personalized matching service. “Our team helps veterans select potential employers from corporate partners on its job board, personally matching them not only by skills wanted but also by geographic area,” said Stann. MW MWORLD FALL 2013

American Management Association

How to Adapt Behavior Across BY ANDY MOLINSKY

If you have ever lived or worked in a foreign culture, you have likely confronted situations in which the natural, comfortable “default” behavior from your native culture turns out to be ineffective for a situation you find yourself in within the new cultural environment. In these situations, you don’t just struggle with understanding cultural differences; you struggle with the far more challenging task of actually changing your culturally ingrained behavior. I call this ability global dexterity—the capacity to adapt your behavior, when necessary, in a foreign cultural environment to accommodate new and different expectations that vary from those of your native cultural setting. Global dexterity can be a challenging skill to acquire. You can feel anxious and embarrassed about your inability to master the new cultural rules; you can feel inauthentic when performing these new behaviors, especially if the new rules conflict with aspects of your ingrained values and beliefs. You can also feel frustrated and angry about having to adapt in the first place, wondering why the other side can’t simply adapt to you. These feelings can interfere with your ability to successfully adapt your behavior—and, as a result, your professional reputation and effectiveness can suffer. Here’s an example. A few years ago I was speaking with an American manager at a company that had been recently purchased by a larger German firm. That manager was quite annoyed with his new German boss, whom he perceived as cold and uncaring. When I pressed him about why he had this impression, this manager said that the biggest problem was small talk. When they had first met, his German boss showed absolutely no interest in him as a person. He did not ask him any questions about his family—which was hard not to do, given all the personal photos the manager had arranged on his desk and walls—and he also didn’t comment on his interest in sports, which also was obvious from the many posters and photos on the wall. The boss simply came into his office, introduced himself, shook his hand quickly and coldly, and that was it. And this pattern continued into the future—no small talk, no effort to get to know him as a person. I was curious about this story, so I followed up by interviewing several of the manager’s German-born colleagues and asked for their perspective. It turned out that they knew about 36

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GLOBAL CULTURES the importance of small talk in the United States but felt uncomfortable doing it. In Germany, small talk is far less common than in the United States; and from a German perspective, it can feel superficial, irrelevant, and inefficient to engage in such random banter with a person you barely know. The problem, of course, was that in avoiding small talk, the executive inadvertently made a bad impression on his new employee and compromised his reputation within the firm. The lack of global dexterity can also hurt your effectiveness at work. Take the case of Feng Li, a Chinese-born management consultant for a major American-based professional services firm in Chicago. I initially learned about Feng’s case from Robert, one of the managing directors of the consultancy. Several years ago, Robert had hand-selected Feng to work for him in the managing director’s office. Feng had impeccable oral and written English, outstanding technical skills, and was also very creative. He was on the fast track to senior consultant and then director, and eventually partner, except for one major issue: Feng could not get himself to participate actively in meetings. The problem had nothing to do with a lack of ideas. Feng was one of the brightest consultants at the firm, and he had excellent ideas and insights. According to Robert, in terms of pure mental “firepower,” Feng was at the top of the firm. The problem was that Feng was simply unwilling to contribute his ideas in a public forum. Instead of raising his hand or his voice, Feng would remain silent in meetings. Nothing. Not a word. Robert himself tried to work with Feng to overcome these differences. He helped create a special role for Feng in these meetings, which would be an explicit role of authority—it would be Feng’s job to own and drive the agenda within the meeting, and everyone would know that. Feng seemed to react positively to the idea, and Robert was encouraged, but it didn’t work. Feng came to the meeting in this explicit facilitator role but remained silent, as he always did. Robert was tremendously frustrated. He wanted Feng to succeed, and the firm had spent a great deal of time and money trying to help him get ahead. But for some reason, he simply could not adapt to the culture. In the end, Feng ended up leaving the firm because of a “bad fit.” So what can you do to overcome these challenges? How can you find a way of adapting behavior that does not feel so uncomfortable and inauthentic? It sounds impossible, but in fact it’s really quite straightforward. The key is to realize that you have much more power than you think to craft behavior that fits the new culture and that also fits you. MWORLD FALL 2013

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“Each situation you face—whether it’s learning to give constructive criticism, make small talk, negotiate, participate at a meeting, or ask a favor of your boss—has certain rules for appropriate behavior in a given cultural setting.” The first step is learning the new cultural rules, or what I refer to as the cultural code. Learning this code is key because it’s the first step in helping you devise a way to feel authentic and be effective at the same time. What do I mean by the cultural code? Each situation you face—whether it’s learning to give constructive criticism, make small talk, negotiate, participate at a meeting, or ask a favor of your boss—has certain rules for appropriate behavior in a given cultural setting. I portray them in terms of six dimensions that capture the expectations that others have for our behavior in a foreign setting: ៑ ៑

៑ ៑ ៑

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Directness: How straightforwardly am I expected to communicate in this situation? Enthusiasm: How much positive emotion and energy am I expected to show to others in

this situation? Formality: How much deference and respect am I expected to demonstrate in this situation? Assertiveness: How strongly am I expected to express my voice in this situation? Self-promotion: How positively am I expected to speak about my skills and accomplishments in this situation? Personal disclosure: How much can I reveal about myself in this situation?

1. Diagnosis. Diagnosis means identifying the particular aspect of the new cultural behavior

that is the most challenging in your particular situation. In Feng’s case, it was assertiveness. Perhaps in another situation it might be directness or enthusiasm or personal disclosure. Using the six-dimensional approach highlighted above, you will learn how to diagnose the conflict you experience in any situation that you encounter and identify gaps between your personal comfort zone and the zone of appropriateness in the new culture. 2. Customization. Customization means putting your own personal spin on the behavior you need to show so that it feels natural to you and at the same time is appropriate and effective in the new setting. Customization also means creating your personal rationale for why you need to adapt your behavior in the first place. 3. Integration. Integration means becoming so familiar and comfortable with the new way of

behaving that it becomes your “new normal”: a way of acting in a foreign setting that feels automatic and intuitive. MW Andy Molinsky is the author of Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior Across Cultures Without Losing Yourself in the Process, published by Harvard Business Review Press. Reprinted with permission from Harvard Business Review Press. Adapted from Global Dexterity: How to Adapt Your Behavior Across Cultures Without Losing Yourself in the Process by Andy Molinsky. Copyright 2013. All rights reserved. With international mergers, acquisitions, and globalization changing how companies operate, the ability to work effectively across cultures has become a critical skill in business today. Master the knack of communicating globally. Attend AMA’s OnDemand course Working Across Cultures (www.amanet.org/70207).

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SOUNDINGS

Demand for Analytical Skills to Grow Sharply Over Next Five Years With the increasing significance of “Big Data” for business today, the demand for analytical skills training is expected to grow sharply over the next five years, according to a study by American Management Association (AMA). The study, commissioned by AMA and conducted by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp), surveyed nearly 800 business executives in more than 50 industries and 40 countries. Among other issues, the study sought to assess organizations’ need for analytical skills. Those surveyed were asked, “To what extent are analytics in your business important today? In five years?” The survey found that 18.8% thought it was a “very high extent” today and 38.7% in five years. “High extent” today was the answer from 39.5%; while 42.8% replied that it would be in five years. And 31.1% suggested analytics to have a “moderate” interest today and 14.8% in five years. “Overall, 58% of participants report that analytics are already vital to their organization, and that rises to 82% when asked about five years from now,” said AMA’s Senior Vice President for Marketing and Membership Robert G. Smith. “The era of ‘Big Data’ has arrived, but the analytical skills to deal with complex data have lagged, and many organizations are already seeking ways to close the training gap.” According to Smith, the flood of data, as well as more powerful, less costly technology, have made companies look for ways to build stronger analytical skills at all levels and in all functions. “It’s no longer enough for an organization to have a few experts available to interpret data or probe for the right questions to ask. The organization itself has to become data smart so the vast potential of ‘Big Data’ may be realized. Companies that fail to meet the challenge will be left behind.” Organizations have increasing reasons to improve their analytical capabilities, explained Smith. “Most critical are competitive and performance pressures in driving the need for better analytics. Analytics improves an organization’s ability to predict risks, adapt to change, make informed decisions, and compete in a tough environment,” he said. “It’s a mix of MWORLD FALL 2013

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skills, not necessarily just quantitative, that enables teams to gather and analyze information, formulate a plan of action, and solve complex issues. The bottom line is that every function and department need people who are comfortable and conversant with the rising data tide, and that means special training, either in-house or with an experienced provider.” MW To support the growing demand by business, AMA has launched a new portfolio of Analytical Skills seminars. Among the seminars offered by AMA are the following: Improve Your Analytical Skills: Making Information Work for You. Quickly synthesize data, determine implications, and make informed decisions. Critical Thinking. When faced with tough challenges, do your employees arrive at the best business decision? How to Turn Data Into Compelling Visual Presentations. Visually and clearly present data and the message it represents. Tools and Techniques for Mastering Data. Make smarter business decisions using these powerful data analysis methods. Data as a Strategic Asset: A Customer-Focused Approach. Developed with IBM® exclusively for AMA. To see the full training portfolio or to register for a seminar, visit: www.amanet.org/analyticalskills. AMA supports the goals of individuals and organizations through a complete range of products and services, including Classroom and Live Online Seminars, eLearning programs, webcasts, webinars, podcasts, corporate and government solutions, business books, and research.

8 Types of Corporate Crises: BY KAI HAMMERICH AND RICHARD D. LEWIS

A crisis is a defining moment in any organization’s life. It is more than whether it will prevail or falter. Overcoming a crisis often embeds deep values in the psyche of the corporation. During an existential crisis, a corporation will revert to its core national culture and its deep instinctive national behaviors and habits. A company facing financial disaster where, in its view, it was mistreated by the banks, may decide never again to be reliant on external funding—if it survives the experience. However, some organizations like P&G, Siemens, Shell, GE, and Exxon have prevailed over many decades, and continue to add value to society. By enhancing insight into their own cultural strengths and history, we believe more companies could prosper for longer. Here are eight of the most typical sources of a corporate crisis to better understand the root cause and highlight the influence of the national culture.

POOR STRATEGY IN FACING COMPETITION There is little doubt that the British have often been slow in coining new strategies, compared with archrivals in manufacturing such as Germany, Japan, and the United States. Their 19thcentury successes, largely due to the industrial revolution, gave them manufacturing preeminence for the best part of the century. Such industrial (along with political) dominance inculcated the minds of the English elite with a sense of superiority over other people that lingered for decades after the empire had disappeared. Such complacency, persisting even post1945, left the British unprepared for challenges such as the German Miracle, the rapid burgeoning of American postwar industry, and, most surprising of all, the runaway success of the Japanese. Insularity and love of tradition are continuing factors impeding British alacrity. Only in the sphere of financial services have British strategies led the field; for the most part they have a reputation for “muddling through.” The French, also conservative and traditional, are nevertheless more quick-witted than the British. They often make changes on impulse. They cannot be regarded as slow-coaches. However, their reluctance to learn English is poor strategy for pursuing business in China, Japan, the United States, and most of the world. In this regard, the British can certainly outperform them. The Italians, invariably adaptable, are quick to change strategies—especially pricing—when facing competition. They have been particularly adept in marketing cars and white goods. The Americans, change-oriented by nature, generally are skillful in adopting the right strategy to meet competition—their ubiquitous presence in the world’s market means they often set benchmarks. The Chinese and Indians face competition with confidence in 40

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The Impact on National Culture many areas of manufacturing. Their overarching strategy—rock-bottom wages in their factories— is normally triumphant.

POOR EXECUTION The Germans, with their renowned efficiency and sound planning, outplay most rivals in terms of good execution. They excel in quality, timeliness, and exactitude. Koreans pride themselves on good execution, exemplified by industry leaders such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG, and Kia. The Koreans’ incentive to maintain high standards emanates from their burning desire to “beat the Japanese.” Switzerland and the four Nordic countries excel in execution. As far as the Americans are concerned, they have few problems with quality or timeliness but are slow to analyze differences in local cultures.

DISRUPTION This is often caused by the rapid emergence of new technologies or new manufacturing processes that cause previous ones to suddenly become outdated or obsolete. Across most countries, management is slow to react to disruptions as it attempts to balance the cash flow in a profitable legacy business while investing in the new disruptive business, which often requires new skills and capabilities. The Americans are best placed to deal with such phenomena, though Kodak went bankrupt, despite acknowledging the digital technology years in advance of anyone else. Most, though not all, new technologies emerge in the United States. Computers and mobile or smartphones have evolved at a bewildering pace and certain U.S. firms have suffered acute crises as a result. Adaptable companies such as Sony and Nokia encountered serious disruption, though in general one would expect technologically strong countries such as Japan, Korea, China, India, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and the UK to cope. However, considerable financial losses can be incurred when popular technologies become obsolete.

SUCCESS If we scrutinize the names of the companies currently in the top 100 Fortune firms, we shall see that just over a dozen survive from the comparative list compiled 100 years ago. Success can breed hubris, decline, bankruptcy, and disappearance. Hubris was one of the causes of Daimler’s disastrous merger with Chrysler. American blind overconfidence resulted in Walmart’s repeated failures in trying to “do it the American way” in both Europe and Asia. In general, the United States is the chief culprit in pushing American “success” methods in cultures that disdain them; Japanese, Canadians, and Australians are more modest in their approach to foreign markets. Koreans, eager to win but realistic in their expectations, strike the right balance. Korean chaebol (a form of business conglomerate) owners do not fall into

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“Navigating transformation and predicting its effects is the responsibility of the management and the board; such decisions need to be made in the context of the national economy.” the share price trap, so lethal in the U.S., where shareholders’ demands can prejudice a profitable operation that needs significant investment to thrive long-term. Even though the chaebols are now run by professional managers rather than by the owners or their relatives, there is little pressure on them to provide profits that might endanger the fate of the enterprise. Finns, too, in spite of Nokia’s setbacks, try hard to remedy problems caused by the firm’s temporary (though uncharacteristic) hubris.

TIME If you don’t move forward in business—and in life—you risk moving backward. In the last 20 years, China has outplayed everyone in moving forward, though Korea has been a good second. Concentrating on technology, the United States, India, China, Korea, and small Finland are likely to be leading innovators and maintain momentum, while Brazil is finally “beginning to move.” Japan, however, has stagnated for two decades, due to its postwar alacrity encumbered by fearsome bureaucracy and lethargic political parties. Mature conglomerates like Shell and Unilever are content to move forward at their own pace. Norway’s giant Statoil has deliberately slowed its development in the interests of conservation and long-term solvency.

CHANGE OF LEADERSHIP Change of leadership occurs more easily in some cultures than others. In meritocratic, changeoriented U.S., it is a natural event, although firms justly hang on to intelligent, charismatic leaders until they begin to fail. In Germany, change of leadership is not a huge problem, as successors are expected (and inclined) to follow strict procedures and established processes that created the successful enterprise in the first place. Changing a manager is more complicated in France. While mistakes by German leaders are not easily forgiven and American managers are summarily fired if they lose money, there is a high tolerance in France for management blunders. The humanistic leanings of French and other Latin-based cultures encourage the view that human error must be anticipated and allowed for. Leadership change has been successful in Brazil and Korea inasmuch as in both countries there took place a fortunate transition from centralized management to one exercised by a staff of professional managers. In Brazil, rule was originally vested in rich families who were hand in glove with the army. In fact, for decades, business was run primarily by the military. Given the size and eventual growth of the country, the conduct of commerce just became too complex for a small number of key people to control and thousands of managers were educated and trained to run the economy. The same happened in Korea, where the families owning the chaebols had to found a large managerial class to achieve efficiency and growth.

NAVIGATING TRANSFORMATION Navigating transformation and predicting its effects is the responsibility of the management and the board; such decisions need to be made in the context of the national economy. The most traumatic change is due to take place in China, where declining speed of growth dictates 42

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an urgent transition from a decades-long, export-led economy to a domestic-led one. Tens of millions of rural Chinese are moving to the big cities. By 2020, there will be numerous metropoles with more than 20 million inhabitants, individually larger than most European states. These cities, with their incalculable capacity for consumption, will transform the imperatives and goals of Chinese enterprises, both state and in the private sector. Resolving the thousands of crises that will arise during this transition will define the eventual commercial face of China for the rest of the century. Russia, too, faces an inevitable transitional crisis of enormous proportions. Currently 80% of Russian GDP is resources-based (oil, gas, minerals). Commodities are presently abundant and highly priced. Russian state and private enterprises are acutely aware of the problem and are already active in international organizations such as G20 and the WTO, exploring long-term solutions and agreements with governments and conglomerates. India faces more transformation problems than any other country, given her widespread poverty levels and fragile infrastructure. Some cultures are more adept at handling chaos than others—India, Russia, and Italy are among them. The BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), if successful, can solve a lot of problems for each other. China not only can buy Brazilian crops but also already sends peasants to farm (neighboring) Russian land. India will need to find a meaningful role in this quartet. Land-and-resource-rich Canada and Australia could undergo favorable transformations. Asset-poor Japan faces demographic problems and may have to transform its immigration policy. American, British, and other Western companies with their numerous subsidiaries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America will need to predict and handle crises with sufficient agility as they arise. This will have to be done with respect to and in conformity with local cultural tradition and in sync with the current politico-economic climate of the countries they operate in. National culture and corporate culture are simply one lens through which the board, the management, and the investors should analyze a company and its performance. It doesn’t replace other perspectives but adds a complementary view to the currently more popular short-term results-focused business strategy and execution orientation promoted by analysts, management consultancies, and investment bankers. This rational perspective has become prevalent in particular in companies in Western countries and among their business advisors and bankers. In recent years the cultural perspective has been dismissed over other, easier-tomeasure, factors but should not be overlooked. MW This article is excerpted with permission from the publisher, Wiley, from Fish Can’t See Water: How National Culture Can Make or Break Your Corporate Strategy by Kai Hammerich and Richard D. Lewis. Copyright © 2013. Kai Hammerich received his MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg Graduate School of Management and his MSc. in economics from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Based in London, he is a consultant with the international search firm Russell Reynolds Associates. Hammerich has been nominated by Bloomberg Businessweek as one of the most influential search experts worldwide. Richard D. Lewis is a renowned British linguist and founder of Richard Lewis Communications, a language school for executives, as well as a company that advises on cross-cultural business issues. He is the creator of the Lewis Model of Cross-Cultural Communication and author of many books, including the bestselling When Cultures Collide: Leading Across Cultures.

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ENGAGE Employees to TAKE BY DON MARUSKA AND JAY PERRY

Many organizations try to drive employee engagement and talent development from the top down and consequently they struggle. Since their management teams have limited time and resources, they pick “high-potentials” on which to focus their efforts. As a result, they often undermine the very objectives of the cohesive, self-motivated workforce that they seek. One of the valuable insights we’ve gained from thousands of people in our “Take Charge of Your Talent” workshops is how closely job satisfaction correlates with use of talent. The more people at any level in an organization feel that they are using their talent, the more they are satisfied with their work. This invites us to look at talent development as a key lever to boost satisfaction and engagement, as well as performance.

TOP-DOWN, TRANSACTIONAL STRATEGIES HAVE LOST EFFECTIVENESS Employee engagement literature, conference presentations, and the blogosphere are rife with material about how management needs to “drive” engagement and talent development. However, the idea of “driving behavior” as if people were cattle signifies a culture of dependence. Such strategies focus on what management or the organization is doing to fire up the employees. This “top-down” perspective pushes organizations and their employees into transactional relationships: What will the organization offer and what will the employees give? Such a transactional setting is precisely the wrong context for an authentic discussion on this central issue. The organization-employee relationship has undergone, and continues to undergo, a profound evolutionary and generational shift. The need for employees to keep up with and stay ahead of rapid changes in technology has overtaken the old paradigm of completing tasks for cash. In the new paradigm, the transactional relationship loses relevance. Employees need to take personal initiative and be nimble and creative. Younger generations, like the Millennials, are accustomed to being more independent, able and eager to find the information and applications they want. Not surprisingly, surveys of employee engagement reveal persistent, epidemic levels of disengagement. According to a Gallup review of the decade 2000–09, the percentage of employees in the United States not engaged or actively disengaged varied narrowly between 70% and 74% of the workforce. Statistics for 2011 continue the trend at 71%. 44

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CHARGE of Their TALENT This translates into a whopping 95 million people. Since people don’t join organizations with the intention of being unhappy, how can organizations and their workers solve this persistent problem?

ORGANIZATIONS NEED A BUBBLE-UP, GENERATIVE APPROACH Today’s challenges require a generative approach. No longer is the question “How do we get you to engage?” but “How can we encourage your self-expression, the full use of your talent, and the kinds of results of which you would be proud?” This involves inviting employees to think about how they want to grow and contribute and why that is important to them. Although some organizations do this as a tag-along element in a performance review and compensation discussion, it needs front-and-center attention. Begin with a deep and sincere acknowledgment that employees have the talent. Help them develop their talents for the benefit of your organization. If you are thinking about how to get someone to fill a slot, you’ve lost the race right at the gate. How can you expect employees, or at least a majority of employees, to be engaged beyond the initial excitement of a new job if they feel that their work is about filling a slot? What could you do differently? Well, you might try something like the following: “We hire people for the talent, energy, and commitment they bring to grow themselves and this organization. We encourage our employees to pursue their hopes for their career and to work with their co-workers to enhance their knowledge, skills, and contributions.” Maybe you are thinking that this sounds good, but you are wondering how to translate these good intentions into practical results. Let us share with you three keys that we’ve found powerful to help both employees and organizations thrive: 1. Catalyze Fresh Thinking and Creative Action. Supervisors and managers can’t solve

everything for their employees. Even if they could, the employees would feel disempowered and probably be unhappy because they weren’t in charge of their work. What employees need are catalysts—people who stimulate their thinking and accelerate new ideas but don’t take the power away from the employees or undermine their self-motivation. Our work with dozens of organizations—large and small, for profit and nonprofit—has demonstrated with thousands of employees the effectiveness of a structured set of questions that prompt fresh thinking and MWORLD FALL 2013

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“In order to tap the power of self-motivation, employers need to provide (or allow their employees to create) a take-charge culture. ” creative action. We’ve learned that what questions you ask and how you respond to what employees say make a huge difference in the quality of their thinking and results. Start by asking, “What are your hopes about your work and career?” The novelty of this question alone triggers new perspectives. Participants often respond with something like, “No one ever asked me about my hopes before. All I ever hear about are the expectations for the job.” The talent catalyst—a co-worker, colleague, friend, or family member—uses generous listening to reflect back what the participant says and helps the employee clarify what’s important to him or her. This is the foundation for authentic engagement. Continue to explore the resources, opportunities, and actions that the employee can pursue to realize these selfmotivating hopes. The carefully structured conversation isn’t primarily about trying to make employees feel good (although that is one of its benefits). It’s about applying new insights from neuroscience and psychology that stimulate the creative, constructive centers in our brains rather than the feardriven “flight, fright, or freeze” areas that typical management discussions intentionally or unintentionally trigger. Or, as a senior financial manager stated, “Ninety percent of the time I get negative questions: ‘Why are we getting these complaints?’ ‘What went wrong?’ and so forth. How refreshing it is to have positive questions!”

INSIGHTS INTO TALENT Talent isn’t hierarchical. Everyone has talent and anyone, anytime, anywhere can use proven keys to unlock his or her talent and the talent of others regardless of their position. You don’t have to wait for the perfect opportunity, the perfect boss, or an ideal economy to get your engine firing and moving forward. The perfect moment is now. Your talent is much more than your strengths. It’s your self-expression—the joyful demonstration of your unique abilities that benefit both you and the world. It is how you use both your own and others’ strengths and resources to realize meaningful accomplishments. When we start to think about taking charge of our talent, we often get stuck on “Well, I guess I need to figure out what my talent is first.” This attempt to label our uniqueness immediately limits what is possible, and derails us into worrisome thoughts such as: “Am I talented?” “How do my talents compare with others?” “Who’s going to win and who’s going to lose?”

As we’ve learned from neuroscience and psychology, this pathway of fear robs us of our best and most creative thinking. While it’s useful to know your strengths, the more important questions are “What are your hopes for your talent?” and “Why are those hopes important to you?” These are the drivers of your talent and career. Or, as Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Tracy K. Smith commented, “Hope is an idea with an engine.” Your hopes are the engine on your locomotive that provide the direction and motivation fundamental to personal fulfillment and success. This approach shifts the dynamic in productive ways. For example, it helped Fran, a staff member stymied by roadblocks to become a supervisor, find new possibilities, and get the job she thought was out of reach. It sparked Jesse, whose boredom had him looking for a new job, take the initiative to rejuvenate his career right where he was. Sheila, a senior manager swamped with tasks, discovered how to get her work in balance and contribute more to her organization. These people, and thousands of others, have created new worlds for themselves—All because they took charge of their talent.

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2. Provide Tools to Overcome Obstacles. Many managers describe their role as removing obstacles that get in the way of their employees. It’s a nice concept, but it hardly fits with the reality of today’s complex world in which there are few straight paths and the journey is all about navigating the obstacles while expecting them not to go away.

Let’s shift the role of manager from providing tools that employees can use to navigating the obstacles themselves. The metaphor that comes to mind is skiing on the slope. The obstacles make the expression of talent exciting and rewarding. In the new model, the tools include how employees can keep their hopes alive, navigate the constraints of time and other resources, grab opportunities to grow, and stretch in healthy ways. If many employees today find excitement in making their way through the “Dungeons and Dragons” video games, they can find their way through the tangle of policies, procedures, and practices they confront in even the best of jobs—if they view that as their role to play. For example, an aspiring supervisor achieved her dream as she embraced the assertiveness and persistence needed to develop and demonstrate her readiness to advance. 3. Support a Take-Charge Talent Culture. You may be thinking, “This all sounds good, but

how do I know that the work will get done?” Good question. In order to tap the power of selfmotivation, employers need to provide (or allow their employees to create) a take-charge culture. This has several important components. A particularly valuable one embraces the “see one, do one, teach one” approach to learning. Surgeons use this to learn new surgical procedures. Employees use it to learn new skills to fulfill their hopes and, in the process, share what they learn with others in the organization. In a take-charge culture, what one employee has learned to move forward becomes what another employee can learn to step up. For example, a service firm of approximately 1,000 employees created an internal wiki on its intranet to post and share what people were learning. These posts became concrete career assets for the providers and enduring knowledge assets for the organization. Both the employees and the organization won. A self-motivated and engaged workforce is within reach. Let employees take charge of their talent and enjoy the results. The moment is now. MW Don Maruska and Jay Perry are coauthors of Take Charge of Your Talent: Three Keys to Thriving in Your Career, Organization, and Life (Berrett-Koehler, 2013). Maruska founded and was CEO of three Silicon Valley companies before becoming a master coach, helping others to succeed in their careers and businesses. Jay Perry is one of the founders of Coach University and the International Coach Federation. For more information, visit: TakeChargeofYourTalent.com Do you know how to encourage excellence in a culture of "no change"? Are you able to keep your cool when things go wrong? Are you a confident or a reluctant delegator? Learn the answers to these questions and others to win your employees’ cooperation and trust and get their best effort. Attend the seminar Successfully Managing People (www.amanet.org/2295).

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OUR

VIEW

Great Leaders Are Great Listeners The Greek philosopher Epictetus wrote, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we may listen twice as much as we speak.” Although Epictetus lived in the first century, in a world very different from the one we live in today, modern leaders should remember his words each time they interact with an employee, colleague, or customer. It is only through mindful, ongoing listening that leaders can gather the intelligence they need to create the strategies that will effectively lead their people and organizations in the global marketplace. Our new survey, Leading in a Worldwide Market, shows that communication is one of the top drivers of success for a global leader. Marshall Goldsmith, Howard Morgan, and Steven Rumery discuss the results in this issue of MWorld, explaining, “Since communication is foundational to building and maintaining relationships, finding mechanisms by which regular communication occurs is a critical focal area.” They go on to discuss how globalization has changed the way we communicate: “We may no longer be able to drop by a colleague’s or a direct report’s office to clarify an issue or have hallway discussions since these people may now be located halfway around the world.” Unfortunately, say the authors, despite the overwhelming evidence showing the need for clear, open communication, leaders haven’t sufficiently stepped up to the task. They write, “On most surveys conducted over the last 25 years, the identified area of improvement most requested by an individual’s direct reports and peers is ‘provides the information and orientation to complete a task successfully.’” As further evidence of the importance of effective leadership communication, Ken Blanchard talks about the innovative practice of “servant leadership,” where leaders focus on the well-being of others. Blanchard writes: “Effective servant leaders turn the traditional hierarchy upside down by asking frontline employees what they can do to help them be successful, rather than expecting frontline employees to ask what they can do for senior leaders.” That brings us back to the importance of listening—with both ears. It’s not enough for leaders to ask employees and customers what they can do to help them succeed. Unless a leader truly listens to what the respondent says and takes steps to actually implement what he or she hears into the organization’s strategy, neither the individual nor the organization will benefit. Here at AMA, we’ve always understood the importance of listening—and we do it on a worldwide scale. Because we are a global organization, operating around the world from Canada to China, we have a window into many diverse cultures and business practices. We use our international presence to remain constantly on the alert for the latest management issues and trends that matter to today’s leaders. Most of all, we listen to our customers—to figure out the problems that keep them up at night. What are their most pressing professional development needs? How can we fuse instructor-led classroom learning with cutting edge communication technologies to best deliver the content they need? Our seminar offerings—and the way we offer them—are constantly evolving, as we adapt to our customers’ changing demands, from our new Analytical Skills portfolio of seminars to the expansion of our OnDemand and Live Online, leader-led programs. We’re listening. What can we do for you today?

Robert G. Smith Senior Vice President Marketing & Membership American Management Association 48

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UNLEASH MINDS. ACHIEVE RESULTS.

Talent is as critical as technology for businesses today. But how do you identify, motivate, and grow the talent your company needs to thrive? AMA Enterpriseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Talent Transformation process has the power to unleash hidden potential and boost performance, backed by the resources of American Management Association. Find out how we can help you engage, connect, share, and challenge your talentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;so your organization can reach even greater levels of success.

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