Working Globesmart: 12 People Skills for Doing Business Across Borders.
Ernest Gundling. 2003. Palo Alto, Calif.: Davies-Black Publishing. 408 pages.
Reviewed by Anita Halton, Anita Halton and Associates
“The single greatest cause of difficulties in global business transactions is not lack of technical expertise, hard work, or good intentions—it is a lack of ‘people skills’ for relating successfully with counterparts from other countries and cultures,” asserts Ernest Gundling, author of Working Globesmart. The number of people involved with global business has increased dramatically over the past decade, and now, with the advent of virtual teams, global people skills have become a necessity in many professions.
“When companies analyze the growth trends of the future, many of the greatest opportunities are not at home,” Gundling says. “Global trends point to explosive growth outside of traditional markets such as North America, Europe, and Japan, with the emergence of huge middle-class segments in formerly third-world countries, such as India or China. At the same time, transfers of manufacturing and service functions offshore are further accelerating the integration of worldwide commerce.”
Corporate managers and employees are increasingly discovering that global business has become part of their daily lives. Even without traveling, one can run into foreign colleagues across the hall, take part in a global team project, or communicate by e-mail and video conference with colleagues and customers on several continents. Domestic workplaces themselves are becoming increasingly diverse.
Working Globesmart is written for aspiring global managers and organizations developing tomorrow’s leaders. Whether these workers are in a company’s foreign office or on a virtual team that spans the globe, this invaluable guide delivers strategies for success on the global stage by:
- Demonstrating common pitfalls for businesspeople who interact regularly with foreign counterparts
- Offering solutions structured around 12 critical people skills that frequently make the difference between success or failure in doing business across borders, among them, establishing credibility, evaluating people, training and development, organizational change, innovation, and building global teamwork. All skills are described at the individual, team, and organizational levels.
Rich with examples from all over the world, as well as numerous charts, tables, and a valuable appendix, Working Globesmart illustrates this framework through examples and cases that make it concrete, practical, easy to understand, and applicable to new situations. Ranging from the failure of the head of the international department of a U.S. company to engage his foreign counterparts in implementing his strategy, to the success at the award-winning Buckman Labs in transferring knowledge across borders, many examples in the book reflect diverse business challenges. Examples include negotiating in China where contracts are not enforced, handling a multinational conference call, and managing a team of software developers in India who may feel misunderstood and undervalued because of cultural differences.
The book points out that the failures in global business are usually insidious rather than acute—they take the form of death by a thousand cuts. Although many of the same problems happen domestically, in foreign business open communication is more difficult, feedback may be delayed and indirect, and normally surefooted managers can be thrown off balance by the reality or perception of unfamiliar ways of doing business.
Working Globesmart discusses the many mistaken assumptions that occur, such as “everybody speaks English.” Although relationships can be burdensome for task-driven managers who dread the long dinners and rituals often required overseas, the book emphasizes that relationships are indispensable in many foreign contexts where fast-growing markets may include a legal environment that is ambiguous or unfavorable to foreign interests, different ethical assumptions with regard to intellectual property, and a social structure that favors those with “insider” status.
Other books are based on interviews with current corporate leaders or survey data from employees of different nationalities; however, Working Globesmart is the first book to offer the combined input of more than two-dozen country and regional experts who “have been there” and were sought for their collective knowledge of key business destinations on every major continent. Comments drawn from managers in business locations as varied as Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East include:
- When team members learn to celebrate and embrace courage, there is enormous benefit to the organizational and team psyche.
- When leaders empower their teams, they contribute to the success of the entire enterprise.
- If rising to challenges, doing the right thing, and taking risks to support other parts of the organization is simply “what we do here,” it becomes contagious.
The Leadership Spectrum: 6 Business Priorities That Get Results.
Mary Burner Lippitt. 2002. Palo Alto, Calif.: Davies-Black Publishing. 224 pages.
Reviewed by James B. Kohnen, St. Mary’s College
Mary Burner Lippitt presents a comprehensive look at six leadership priority patterns that can be imposed on her concept of an organizational life cycle. The model she develops is derived from contemporary management and organizational behavior theory. She launches her presentation by using a prism as a metaphor for her concept of leadership. Her notion is that leadership is like a beam of white light passing though a prism that fractionates into a full spectrum of colors. In her mind, a successful leader must consider the full spectrum priority patterns to effectively lead an organization through the life cycle it is in.
The organizational life cycle she uses as the framework upon which she applies her leadership priority patterns includes: inception/rebirth, growth, stature, prime, maturity, and renewal/rebirth. Examples of each stage of an organization’s development through these stages make a convincing case for their existence. Superimposed on this framework are the priority patterns. They are identified as: inventor, catalyst, developer, performer, protector, and challenger. Each is clearly presented by explaining its respective propensity for action, characteristics, and potential liabilities.
Lippitt has an uncanny ability to bring the leadership priority patterns and organizational life-cycle phases into perspective. She does this by referencing well-known examples of organizations led by prominent individuals with varied leadership priority patterns. The relationship of the individual and the organization becomes apparent immediately. The reason for the synergism of mutual success between the leader and the organization is shown to be more than “the right person, being at the right place, at the right time.”
The book concludes with an excellent explanation of how individual team leaders and self-directed teams factor into the leadership picture. The illustrations demonstrate how teams can be as effective as individuals in coping with the challenges presented by organizations in varied phases of their respective life cycles.
The data presented in the book indicate that well-managed organizations have a 50-year life cycle and require varied leadership priority patterns to sustain success. Generally, this means that succession planning should not attempt to clone the incumbents in leadership position. As the organization progresses through its organizational life cycle, the leadership priority patterns must change with it.
Part Two of the book deals with the six results-driven priorities. Each chapter provides detailed information about the operating perspective, hallmarks, leadership priorities, and case histories of practitioners successfully using the priority. The appropriate life-cycle stage and the leadership priority are then coupled, and the value added to the organization is reviewed. Each chapter segues into the next by discussing the liabilities and evidence of imbalance that lead to the next step in the succession process. While the information is solid and well written, the predictable format becomes tedious. The best approach to Part Two is to select the life-cycle stage and the leadership priority that seems the most salient as a starting point.
The Leadership Spectrum is a concise work that explains the variations in organizations and leadership and how to effectively cope with them to succeed in the marketplace. The model presented provides clarity to a complex issue. Lippitt did a superb job in creating a model, documenting its relevance, and clearly communicating its application.
Participation Programs in Work Organizations: Past, Present, and Scenarios for the Future.
Aviad Bar-Haim. 2002. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books. 178 pages.
Reviewed by James B. Kohnen, St. Mary’s College of California
This intriguing book provides a comprehensive academic view of employee participation programs at a strategic level from the year 1830 to the present. The focus traces the activities of various governmental policy boards, commissions, and committees that influenced the shift from autocratic control of workers common in the workplace during the Industrial Revolution through the ideas of participation that emerged in the democratic national states of Europe. Bar-Haim’s treatise illustrates how industrial democracy and power sharing evolved in the workplace and fostered the reduction of worker alienation and the development of human resource management.
This book brings to light things that are often taken for granted in employee participation programs in today’s workplace. The social, political, and organizational struggle that moved the concept of employee participation in the decision-making process is clearly outlined in the historical segment of the book. It describes the Taylorite or scientific management approach, typified by the “Fordist” configuration of jobs and work methods. Here work was decomposed to its most basic and simple tasks that were to be repetitively preformed according to detailed rules and procedures. It traces the emergence of sociotechnical concepts of dealing with work as a functioning whole guided by internal regulation and an increased variety of tasks. The leading proponents of this type of thought were said to be social scientists at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations. Group-centered ideas followed that included self-managed work teams, quality circles, and participation in quality management programs. These management techniques are said to have had a greater effect on the promotion of employee participation in the management process than producing tangible improvement in quality, productivity, competitiveness, or financial returns.
Bar-Haim derives a multidimensional model for the emergence, behavior, and performance of any participation program from the in-depth historical review presented in his book. Briefly stated, the model includes goals, supporting subsystems, and participants as inputs; participatory practices that include information sharing, consultation, co-management and self-management as throughputs; and survival and contributions as outputs. Interlocking circles that combine goals and support as the strategy area, goals and participants as the individual area, participants and participatory practices as the organizational area, and participatory practices and contributions as the performance area illustrate the context of the model. The model is cleverly applied to historical and contemporary cases to demonstrate its usefulness.
The book closes with an examination of future scenarios of participation programs that is created by evaluating the key uncertainties of the future. Bar-Haim identifies them as globalization, localization, democratization, technolization, and virtualization. By varying the strength (low, medium, or high) of these uncertainties against the context areas of the participation program, a gloomy, reasonable, pluralistic, and bright future for participation programs can be predicted.
Bar-Haim delivers a well-researched and documented academic review of Participation Programs in Work Organizations: Past, Present, and Scenarios for the Future.
Partnering: The New Face of Leadership.
Edited by Larraine Segil, Marshall Goldsmith, and James Belasco. 2003. New York: AMACOM. 336 pages.
Reviewed by James B. Kohnen, St. Mary’s College of California
Partnering is an excellent anthology containing 30 articles articulating the new face of leadership that is emerging to cope with changes encountered in both the public and private segments of society. Segil, Goldsmith, and Belasco assembled leading voices in the theory and practice of leadership to offer their thoughts on the current and future direction of its practitioners. They have aptly structured the book in four parts. Part One, “Building Successful Organizations,” deals with the relationship of partnering and leadership. Part Two, “Partnerships and Teambuilding: Emerging Dimensions for the Leader as Partner,” addresses the need for modification of leadership styles to effectively focus the efforts of temporary groups of people brought together to accomplish a specific task. Part Three addresses the critical issues of “Becoming a Global Leader Through Partnerships” in which cultural barriers and time compressions can be overcome. Part Four, “Succeeding in a Complex World,” concludes with the communication skills needed to leave a lasting legacy based on integrity.
Marshall Goldsmith leads off Part One by establishing “The Changing Role of Leadership.” He makes a case for six types of partnerships that set the tone of the anthology. He divides the partnerships into two categories: three inside the organization (direct reports, co-workers, and managers) and three outside the organization (customers, suppliers, and competitors). The most poignant contribution found in this part was prepared by Major General (USAF, Ret.) Donald W. Shepperd, which is entitled “Leadership Partners: September 11, 2001.”
Ken Blanchard sets the tone for Part Two with an explanation of how Situational Leadership II has remained an effective approach to managing and motivating people because it fosters a partnership between the leader and the people with whom he or she works. The section’s remaining eight contributions present various nuances to this theme. These varied perspectives provide a rich background for the role of a leader as a partner.
Larraine Segil opens the third part with a concise summary of her book Dynamic Leader, Adaptive Organization: Ten Essential Traits for Managers. The common theme in this section is that globalization has had a profound effect on how leaders go about their business. The Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, who served as Canada’s 19th and first female prime minister in 1993, prepared a noteworthy contribution found in this section. Her description of how the instrument of rule, the caucus, works in the Canadian parliamentary system of government is very informative. Her experience, described in “The Leader as Partner: The Reality of Political Power,” clearly demonstrates that partnerships can be effectively used to build relationships for the long term.
James Belasco provides a volley of useful partnership tidbits in his article “The Leader as Partner-Coach and People Developer” in the final part of the book. His and the seven other articles provide specific techniques to apply the concepts of partnership to everyday situations. Their advice provides an excellent conclusion to the collective work of the contributors.
Dynamic Leader, Adaptive Organization: Ten Essential Traits for Managers.
Larraine Segil. 2002. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 304 pages.
Reviewed by James B. Kohnen, St. Mary’s College of California
This self-serving book describes the research done by the author to validate the 10 essential traits that make up the Larraine Segil Matrix (LSM). The essential traits are said to prescribe the best profile for individuals or organizations to succeed in an uncertain and precarious world. The ramifications of each trait are described in a separate chapter of the book using the metaphor of an elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. Each trait deals with a mechanism that can be used to identify and resolve an issue that is simply beyond the ability of a single individual or group to address.
Seemingly, the LSM has been embraced by a substantial number of Segil’s clients over the past five years that she could collect and interview. Her efforts have resulted in an impressive amount of anecdotal evidence to support her position that the LSM has merit. The assessment tools she used in this endeavor are included in the book’s appendix along with some rudimentary statistical analysis that supports her position.
The value of the book rests with how the LSM has guided individuals and organizations to successfully cope with the changes that have occurred in the workplace in the new millennium. Segil identifies seven trends that are emerging in today’s workplace: awareness of meaningful work, Internet speed, globalization, knowledge capital, multidimensional work force, balanced growth that leads to profitability, and an adaptive organization. Any of these trends could be the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. Clearly, organizations that remain oblivious to these emerging characteristics of the workplace are placing themselves in jeopardy of acquisition or extinction.
The first trait on the list is fearlessness. It permits individuals and organizations to identify the elephant without fear of reprisal if they are not entirely correct in its description. The idea is that dynamic leaders will make mistakes in assessing the world in which we live. Segil contends that in today’s organizations failure has to be seen as a learning opportunity. Anecdotes from DaimlerChrysler, NCR Corporation, Kodak, GE, Volkswagen, and Shell are used to support this position. Of course, this idea has been suggested previously by a series of notable management consultants, including W. Edwards Deming.
The remaining nine essential traits of the LSM are equally defined and validated with a litany of anecdotes from a variety of well-known executives from both the private and the public sectors. The anecdotes are well written and interesting. Clearly they support the use of the LSM as a guide to change management in any organization.
The true value of the LSM is the guidance that the 10 essential traits present. Collectively they present a solid value system that a few dynamic leaders overlooked when adapting their organization to the contemporary emerging trends. Coping with change, without an ethical foundation, has resulted in monumental failures not just for the leaders but for the society they were trusted to serve. Segil offers an excellent secular approach to guide leaders at all levels to establish and maintain a specific code of ethics that will serve themselves and the organization for which they work.
Confessions of a Civil Servant: Lessons in Changing America’s Government and Military.
Bob Stone. 2003. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 193 pages.
Reviewed by James B. Kohnen, St. Mary’s College of California
Confessions of a Civil Servant is Bob Stone’s overstated retirement legacy that summarizes his 24-year Pentagon career. During that time he championed unpopular causes, unappreciated campaigns, and counterintuitive initiatives that were associated with various quality movements to improve customer satisfaction, reduce waste, and improve processes in the Department of Defense and the federal government. Tom Peters’ eloquent foreword describes him as an individual who “irritated most everyone in his hierarchy,” which led him to his final position in government to lead former Vice President Gore’s effort to “reinvent government.”
Confessions of a Civil Servant is not a confession, because the word “confession” implies remorse and there is very little in this book. From Chapter 1 onward, the principle focus is on the exploits of Bob Stone, the ultimate champion of everything. Everyone and everything else is secondary. His attitude was reinforced by his name dropping throughout the book, beginning with then Lieutenant Colonel Colin Powell, who he refers to as his babysitter since he had no military experience before coming to the Pentagon. The second event that made a strong impression on him was the military’s great attention to detail and to rank. Of course, he entered the Department of Defense during the McNamara era, noted for its systems approach to management.
The first half of the book consists of anecdotes that only a Washington insider could appreciate, much less care about. Each one tells of a gross inequity that came to Bob Stone’s attention that he rectified over the strenuous objections of his superiors and the constraints imposed by a multitude of laws, regulations, and rules. Chapter 4, “Searching for Excellence,” explains how he connected with Tom Peters.
The story of reinvention of government begins in Chapter 6 with the events that led to Vice President Gore summoning Bob Stone and his associates John Kamensky and Gerry Kauvar to the White House on March 14, 1993. It ends several days later when he was appointed Reinvention of Government project director. The frenzied story of how the National Performance Review (NPR) was organized, funded, and operated to prepare, staff, and publish a report on September 7, 1993, continues in Chapters 7 and 8. On that day President Clinton and Vice President Gore presented the NPR report to the world on the South Lawn of the White House. The story of implementation goes on for another six chapters covering six years of battling the bureaucracy, regulations, and controlling entities in government.
Stone concludes his book with the statement; “I left (my government career) with 1001 lessons—a story behind every one.” Fortunately, he limited himself to only “Ten Lessons in Leadership,” which is the title of Chapter 15. True to form, each one has a story, which is briefly retold. The final one is “Think Three,” which he used successfully throughout his career.
Vice President Gore did have a positive agenda that Bob Stone championed as a civil servant. His passion to carry the banner of simplicity, decentralized decision making, and common sense in government did make a difference. His story is worth reading.
