Global Leadership Development

Grooming successor candidates for top leadership roles is arguably the most critical long-term priority of any company. As organizations become more global, it is increasingly important for them to focus on building the global competencies of their next generation of leaders.

Although there are myriad views of what global competencies are most critical, many of them fall under the general category of Frame-Shifting. This means the ability to grasp and assess different perspectives and respond effectively to new and unfamiliar circumstances. Frame-Shifting includes a variety of qualities such as inquisitiveness, tolerance for ambiguity, and flexibility coupled with a readiness to make bold choices. In a world where the most attractive opportunities for future growth are likely to be outside of a company's home market, leaders must be able to digest unfamiliar information and react nimbly. Fast-growing economies such as those in China, India, or parts of Eastern Europe are each unique in their own way, and they are also going through enormous changes that can make yesterday's best practices obsolete.

Challenging Assumptions

Original, groundbreaking strategy comes from a collective, conscious leadership discipline of Frame-Shifting. Leaders should of course be aware of the core strengths, resource constraints, and historical success patterns of their own organizations. At the same time, they need to question and sometimes overturn the basic assumptions of participants in a strategic discussion, taking the debate in a direction that is new to everyone involved. Strategic thinking about the business environment and even about one's own organizational capabilities abroad must grasp the core features of radically different foreign markets; it also needs to anticipate future global market changes that no one has yet experienced.

For leaders who are new to global business and about to embark on a strategic planning venture, it is helpful to start by considering different perspectives to stretch the mind and prepare for the unexpected scenarios that another country may hold.

To take this kind of Frame-Shifting beyond the level of a mind game and into the primary toolbox of current and future leaders, however, much more is needed. One must learn to systematically draw out and explore the strategic implications of mistaken assumptions. For example, a global leader should be able to say,

"We have been positioning ourselves to win against our major worldwide competitors in this market when the real competition is coming from local vendors who have been off the radar screen of our divisional marketing people. How much business have we lost to these local vendors, and what are the chances that they could move beyond this country market to become global competitors in the future?"

And leadership teams have to build: a) methods for obtaining key intelligence from customers and employees without excessive filtering, and b) the capacity to flag and respond carefully to unexpected information that normally comes to reside within shared blind spots. Mistaken strategic assumptions and the problems that they bring are often quite subtle, and are grounded in the circumstances of a particular industry.

Developmental Practices

Factors that can contribute over time to the development of Frame-Shifting capabilities in leadership candidates include:

• Varied Job Experience
• International Business Travel
• Multicultural Teamwork
• Contact with Executive Role Models
• Global Account Management
• Training & Development: Action Learning
• Expatriate Assignments
• Global Business Responsibility

Companies cannot control factors such as genetics or family upbringing, which do have an influence on a person's level of inquisitiveness and willingness to explore the unfamiliar. And among the options that an employer does shape, the best developmental formula for any employee of course depends on the nature of the organization and its business priorities, the background of the individual being assigned, and the types of opportunities available. Every firm has certain functional slots that it must fill in order to achieve its global business objectives. A deliberate developmental approach will try to both meet this imperative and match the characteristics and desires of job candidates themselves with the nature of the assignment. From a leadership development standpoint, there is always the same twofold goal: to get the job done and to gain experience in adjusting to new circumstances.

The point of all these practices is to provide future leaders with a set of "fish out of water" experiences of increasing severity. Individuals who are designated as future corporate leaders may be first exposed to global business through activities such as travel or participation in a global or multicultural team. They might also be assigned to assist a current leader who models key competencies. A more challenging job at the next career phase could be running a global sales account from one's own country (e.g., a Korean manager who has worldwide responsibility for coordinating sales to a major Korean enterprise). A mentor relationship with a foreign executive might also be useful at this point.

For the person who performs well under these kinds of circumstances, the most radical exposure to other ways of thinking and acting still usually comes through an overseas assignment as a project leader or expatriate. However, expatriate positions can pose very different challenges based upon the location, the objectives, and the degree of support that one receives.¹ The most sophisticated global corporations have a large percentage of top executives who have successfully completed assignments abroad and have moved on to positions in which they are responsible for global business lines or regions.² The graphic that follows illustrates a number of growth opportunities along with their degree of difficulty and potential level of exposure to different ways of working and living.

Leaders who have undergone developmental experiences that entail increasing exposure to foreign markets become adept at viewing their enterprises from the edges as well as the center. They are often the first to detect places where the core value propositions of their business may be questioned, or to spot new forms of competition. Subjecting leadership candidates to "fish out of water" experiences abroad makes the survivors stronger, more flexible, and more resourceful - able to mediate between divergent viewpoints and turn conflicts into productive outcomes.

¹ See, e.g., Gregersen, Hal, et al, Globalizing People through International Assignments. Menlo Park, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1999, p. 94. At the extreme end of this spectrum of experience is the expatriate warhorse who says, "They gave me a plane ticket and a check and told me to go start up operations in Chile."

² A recent count of top 3M executives showed that ten out of the top twelve had completed expatriate assignments and/or were born outside of the U.S. Gundling, Ernest: The 3M Way to Innovation: Balancing People and Profit. Kodansha, 2000, p. 137.