What Makes a Successful Global Executive?

Introduction:

The starting point in any analysis must be the reality of business as it is practiced. The most glaring business reality of today is the global scope of business and of managerial work. In today’s challenging business world, global organizations are constantly facing acute staffing problems (a perfect fit between the executive and the job responsibilities). With ramping scale of operations and globalization, developing the right skills and talents of executives it is of utmost importance for the companies. The challenge for companies is to determine which particular capabilities are of greatest value in their particular industry and situation. This article basically highlights the importance of experience over knowledge. Though the developmental process of a domestic executive is same as the global executive, but the lessons learnt are different. Globalization of business not only means cross –borders it also implies cross-cultural. The implications of the executive development process try and incorporate the various cross- cultural experiences and lessons learned, that are usually ignored or not paid attention to.

Assessment:

In the present article the author reflects on the issues of developing a global executive. The author points out that, the article is to “stimulate thinking and discussion on the topic of what does it take to succeed as an executive in the global business world characterized by accelerating competition, dynamic environments and ever demanding customers and stakeholders”

In my group I was assigned 5th and 6th page of this article. So I have covered these 2 pages in depth. In this article a model [US domestic perspective (Mccall 1998)] has been taken as a base to start understand global talent development. There is no straightforward answer for global leadership development. This article also implies that in this complex world, a simple business organization would not survive or grow. In every organization, its executives must innovate new things and leave no stone upturned to grow its organization. All executives in an organization are not same, neither the same level executives in different organizations are same. Though their working patterns may be same, but they all have different experiences, different level of knowledge, and different outlook towards business. It is true that essential global lessons are the lessons of culture. The level of performance of an executive in one area is not the same as his performance in other areas. Cultural barriers are strong barriers. Moving from a business environment is very different from moving from a cultural environment. It involves emotional factors as well. Table 1 in the article describes various lessons learned by executives at various levels. These lessons are grouped into six broad themes. These are the lessons which an executive is expected to learn. Though table 1 covers only 3 topics under cultural issues, but all other topics are not complete without cultural aspect. Experience gained from studying is far less than experience gained from actual experiences. For e.g. A person can understand the cultures of a foreign country, by studying at a home but his knowledge is far less from a person living and working in that foreign country. This article also proves with the example of Jean that every individual is different. One set of training will not affect all the executives in the same manner. This difference comes from the difference in their