Leading across borders. Inclusive thinking in an interconnected world
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16 Februarie 2011 |
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ERNST & YOUNG S.R.L. |
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The new C-suite leadership agenda: three things for leaders to do now
If Google were a person, what kind of person would it be? Business psychologist Douglas LaBier has an interesting take on that question.
Google displays "the model of a psychologically healthy adult in today's world," LaBier wrote in an article in The Washington Post.1 "Its corporate culture and management practices depend upon qualities like transparency, flexibility and collaboration with diverse people; non-defensiveness, informality, a creative mind-set and nimbleness, all aimed at aggressively competing for clear goals within a constantly evolving environment."
Leaders should take note of this paradigm. Today, every leader knows that things need to be different. But not every leader knows how to be different.
No doubt, companies have made some progress in incorporating diversity into their senior management teams. But they are still far from achieving a true balance of different perspectives. Women, for example, are significantly underrepresented on boards and leadership teams. Companies also have a long way to go when it comes to incorporating diversity of experience, skills, cultures and education — the basis of the flexible, open-minded and inclusive leadership essential to capitalize on global talent and propel the organization to success in a volatile world.
The good news is that inclusive leadership is not an abstract concept. There are practical techniques that leaders can implement to hone their ability to benefit from multiple perspectives. Through new research we conducted with the Economist Intelligence Unit (see full results at www.ey.com/globalization) and interviews with leading thinkers and heads of global corporations, we identified three things that business leaders can do on Monday morning to think, learn and act differently:
1. Think differently: collaborate in the face of uncertainty.
2. Learn differently: seek out different experiences.
3. Act differently: sponsor people who are not like you.
"Cultural differences aren't just something we appreciate. If there's anything we need to appreciate, it's the impact that these cultural differences are having on business outcomes and business performance." Joerg Schmitz, Cultural Anthropologist
1 “You’ve Gotta Think Like Google,” Douglas LaBier, The Washington Post, 11 November 2008.
Think differently
Collaborate in the face of uncertainty
"Most of our current leadership models are based on the present and past, not the future," says Bob Johansen, a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto and author of the book Leaders Make the Future. "Most companies hire analytical people and train them to solve problems. But in the years ahead, there will be fewer problems that can be solved. Instead, we'll have dilemmas, which are basically unsolvable problems, and these will require a different set of leadership skills."2
Johansen sees tomorrow's leadership traits as being mostly about functioning calmly in an environment that you no longer control. Leaders will operate in what Johansen, borrowing an acronym from the US military, calls the VUCA world: volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
For example, even the best inclusiveness tactics can sometimes backfire. Companies may find that they have to live with less-than-perfect results. Diverse teams perform better than homogeneous teams — but only if they are managed properly. Leaders must expect friction, and rather than try to defuse it, listen to what the various people in the debate are saying without punishing them for speaking up. This means modifying the old command-and-control style of leadership and actively embracing a collaborative leadership style in an uncertain global community. Collaboration, in this context, means more than just working together across geographical or organizational boundaries; it involves bringing together people with different backgrounds or capabilities, sparking healthy conflict, fresh ideas and potentially, new products and services.
In fact, the appreciation of differences of all kinds can help leaders manage better in the face of uncertainty. In a new survey of 1,050 executives conducted by Ernst & Young and the Economist Intelligence Unit, the majority of respondents believe that diversity of teams and experiences improves both financial performance and reputation.3
Our findings suggest that companies recognize the importance of diversity of experience, and are taking steps to improve it. But tackling this challenge is a long-term issue that may take many years to address. "Business leaders will have to figure out how to manage multiple viewpoints and perspectives across the company," says Navi Radjou, Executive Director of the Centre for India & Global Business at Cambridge Judge Business School. "But rather than trying to seek convergence, which is the easy route, companies will need to encourage divergence, because divergence leads to diversity and diversity leads to more innovation. If you want to fight complexity, the answer is not simplicity."4
2 Ernst & Young interview, April 2010.
3 Winning in a polycentric world, Ernst & Young/Economist Intelligence Unit, January 2011.
4 Ernst & Young/Economist Intelligence Unit globalization survey, 2010
