Globalization demands creativity, a new focus, new leadership skills, and new processes.

Any enterprise, whether 25 or 250,000 people, must now think and act globally. Thinking and acting globally demands creativity. It means seeing the world without borders or boundaries. Words like international, offshore, and domestic no longer apply.

Diverse cultures, values, and mores must be understood, respected, and recognized or else strategy implementation will fail. Two recent engagements offer simple examples:

Example #1:

As we assisted a CEO client with a global merger involving over 25,000 employees, it was important to agree on the new enterprise's post-merger values. The CEO asked that each new country manager translate the United States (English) values into their local languages. There were 15 languages involved!

It was impossible to complete the apparently simple assignment without help in understanding and translating the intent of several key words including, for example, accountability.

Straightforward words and phrases that described values could not be translated. Imagine the gap in understanding more complex words related to new product development processes and the new go-to-market value proposition.

Example #2:

Holidays, particularly those honoring religious beliefs, are VERY important. We were startled in a recent engagement when global managers planning product launches and management meetings insensitively failed to anticipate and respect religious holidays and other language, geographic, and cultural imperatives.

Our Perspective

We see the business world as one contiguous and diverse landmass.

Visualize, lead, and manage the world of business focusing on people – customers, prospects, employees, and partners – not geography.

Be competent and comfortable with a growing array of values, beliefs, and languages. Listen carefully to what is said and unsaid . . . and learn.

It is more demanding to implement strategic change in more than a single country. Multinational implementation requires attention to a host of complexities beyond those present in a single-language strategy launch.

Some Suggestions

Carefully shape the profile of your board of directors and your management team to reflect the diverse cultures of your existing and targeted markets for talent, suppliers, partners, and customers.

Make sure that newsletters, advertisements, sales collateral materials, and Web sites are in English as well as the 5, 10, or 15 native languages of targeted markets – for talent, suppliers, customers, and partners.

Establish and nurture global and country-specific advisory groups to continually critique your fast-changing strategy and implementation plans.

Ensure nationals in each of your global markets develop and execute - country - and culture-specific market research and education initiatives.

Ensure management teams are frequently engaged in global, multi-cultural development initiatives.