Managing cultural integration

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Saturday , October 27, 2007 at 0026 hrs Businesses today are being hit by waves of globalisation, liberalisation and technology, resulting in a constant churn, competition and change. In such an environment, organisations have to drastically and continually reinvent themselves.

Globalisation is a trend that will have a major impact on the leaders of the future. Not only would leaders need to understand the economic implications of globalisation, they will also have to understand the legal and political implications.

Says Susir Kumar, CEO, Intelenet Global Services, “Globalisation has removed geographical, linguistic and cultural barriers. Largely, this has been possible due to technology, communication and transfer of knowledge and awareness. Leadership in the new economy has called for a shift in the mindset which would mean being more ‘outward focused’. A true global leader is one that possesses an interest in global business and utilises duality—thinking domestically as well as globally.”

Moreover, in an environment where competitive pressures are rapidly increasing, leaders who can make globalisation work in their organisation’s favour will have a huge competitive advantage. Given the uncertainties inherent in today’s economy and the outlook for tomorrow, successful leadership in a globalised era has seen a paradigm shift. Today, leadership necessitates the ability to strategically find, motivate and deploy a diverse group of qualified people across geographies—whether through specialised skill-sets for specific functions or through a process of increasing responsibility for wide-ranging business operations, or sometimes both simultaneously, and lead through them.

Globalisation puts a premium on how well an organisation can build a bridge between different cultures and geographies. The challenge is one of building a value-creating mindset. Leadership, in today’s scenario requires a person to be cross-culturally competitive and be able to navigate the complex nature of culture and understanding of businesses functioning in a global market. “Having a natural curiosity and openness to different types of people and cultures; acceptance (inclusion) of multiple perspectives and tolerance of different ways of working in a collaborative and realistic understanding of the demands on a senior executive in a global environment always helps a leader,” says Naresh Wadhwa, president, India and SAARC, Cisco.