Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
January 27, 2011
In an ever-changing global marketplace, those who lead across boundaries and borders are increasingly required to become Extreme Team Captains – guiding the organization through unfamiliar and turbulent environments, while maximizing the functional, geographical, and cultural diversity of their teams. In today’s multicultural, dynamic world, ensuring the continuous learning and growth of global leaders is critical to achieving high performance and sustainable growth in every organization.
With markets, suppliers, competitors, technology, and customers around the world constantly changing the rules of the game, traditional leadership models no longer work. Companies need leaders of exceptionally high caliber and quality, as they are a key component of the only true source of competitive advantage – people. But how do we create this Extreme Global LeaderTM? Is there the possibility of exceptional leadership that transcends accepted leadership characteristics to create a global leader that is emotionally, politically, and culturally intelligent? How do these high-potential leaders evolve and become extreme? What is the most effective method of creating a transformational leader?
Last week we pondered potential and its source. If we look at the critical components of what we perceive to be potential (performance, emotional intelligence, motivation, and agility), is it possible to leverage potential through traditional training and/or coaching? Both are valuable tools for learning, but have entirely different purposes and outcomes.
The purpose of training is to teach:
- skills
- methods
- theories
- tactics
- strategies
It is the process of disseminating information from the trainer to the leader. Training provides a pre-set curriculum and the trainer imparts what is important for the student to know. Trainers have subject matter expertise and an understanding of teaching methods that work well with adult learners. Training offers economies of scale so, even when customized, it is often less expensive than coaching for a comparable number of students. Because training is typically a one-time event with little to no reinforcement, the benefits may have a very short shelf life.
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Posted in Development, Education, Global, Global Leadership, Innovation, Leadership, Leveraged Learning, Planning, Potential, Potential Series, Strategic Planning, Strategy, Uncategorized, Value Creation | Tagged alignment, challenge, coaching, competitive advantage, complexity, Extreme Global Leader, Global Leadership, innovation, Leadership, Potential, results, Strategic Planning, success, transformational management | Leave a Comment »
January 21, 2011
From a very young age, we all want to be considered as having potential, however potential is often an overused and ambiguous word. Potential… for what? It doesn’t mean a lot by itself, so what do we mean by potential? What is it? What does it look like? How do we define it and make it more measurable and tangible? What is potential, really? Is it a possibility…a proposed capability for becoming something more? But what? How does a leader reach their potential if it cannot clearly be defined? Can we ever really grasp our potential? If we do and we reach it… what then?
In some ways potential is a limiting descriptor because there is really no way of knowing if we have reached our potential. Most of us know of The Peter Principle… does our potential equate only to rising to our own level of incompetence? Personally, I hope not!
Potential is a complex concept and there is little agreement about what it actually means, so we need to start by breaking it down into some key components that are generally expected of people considered to have potential:
- Performance: the consistent capability to exceed expectations in regards to the accomplishment of specific tasks measured against preset standards of accuracy, completeness, cost, and speed.
- Emotional Intelligence: the ability, capacity, or skill to identify, assess, and control the emotions of self, others, and groups.
- Motivation/ Ambition: the inspiration or driving force to succeed.
- Agility: the cognitive bandwidth to learn from past experiences, seeing things in a broader context and quickly applying observations to new situations – applying life experience, noticing patterns, and deriving general guidelines that can be applied to new situations.
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Posted in Cross-cultural, Development, Education, Global, Global Leadership, Innovation, Leadership, Learning Agility, Planning, Potential Series, Strategy, Value Creation, What Is It? | Tagged challenge, competitive advantage, global business, Lead Creatively, Leadership, Potential, results, Talent Acquisition, winning results | Leave a Comment »
January 7, 2011
Exceptional leaders convey a vision and, through their example, expand others’ view of what is possible – rather than what is not. They know their business, set high expectations across boundaries and borders, create a strong sense of community, and through effective team-building and mentoring – they get results.
Leaders demonstrate “how” to achieve results both in what they do, as well as in who they show themselves to be. It is no longer enough to have superior “technical” skills – people are looking for inspiration and accountability in their leaders. In terms of responsibilities, strong leaders emphasize the importance and priority of enhancing the skills and knowledge of the people in the organization, creating a common culture of expectations around the use of skills and knowledge, facilitating the ability of the organization to align in a productive way, and holding individuals accountable for their contributions to the collective results.
In addition, when great leaders act, they do so not only because their role demands it, but also because their own purpose, values, beliefs, and assumptions require it. Who they are, what they do, and how they do it is powerfully congruent and is leveraged for the good of the organization and the people within it. As a result, they are highly authentic, credible, and inspirational – which, in turn, motivates others to act genuinely and powerfully, as well.
Some people are born with a burning desire to succeed, some develop the desire to achieve greatness through life circumstance, and some people are okay with the status quo – they wake up every day and just let the world happen to them. The reality is that we need all types of people to function successfully, however in most successful global organizations there are a handful of extraordinary leaders who make all the difference – but there are also hundreds of ordinary leaders who are more concerned with meeting this years’ numbers than anything else. But what would happen if we could double that handful of “Extreme LeadersTM” in organizations? Imagine the impact it would have on any business – not to mention partners and customers – if we could accurately identify those high potential leaders that are prepared to go above and beyond and develop them into Extreme LeadersTM that sustainably produce game-changing results.
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Posted in Development, Education, Global, Global Leadership, Leadership, Leveraging Leaders, Planning, Potential, Potential Series, Resources, Strategy, Uncategorized, Value Creation | Tagged challenge, competitive advantage, Extreme Global Leader, Global Leadership, Leadership, Potential, results, transformational management, winning results | 2 Comments »
September 8, 2010
A few weeks ago my husband and I led a missions team to Haiti. As I was observing (and serving) in the poorest country in the western hemisphere, I began to think about how there are some leadership lessons inherent in the environment in Haiti that most of us could stand to think about more often. You may think to yourself, “what can I learn from a country that has 90% unemployment and a 70% illiteracy rate?” These statistics are correct… and there are some important reminders (lessons) that impact how we interact with people as leaders and how far people are willing to go to serve you. Here are just a few of the things that come to mind:
- Understand, you can’t possibly understand…
Living and visiting third world countries on a regular basis throughout most of my life, I am more aware than most of cultural diversity and the impact it has within a single culture, much less a wider application. In Haiti, I was reminded that because I live within my own paradigms, I can never fully understand the plight of those outside of them. Despite seeing poverty in its most extreme, I have never been that poor….despite witnessing oppression at its worst, I have never really been oppressed…No matter how much, as global leaders we would like to think we understand, chances are we are just not equipped to comprehend the complexity and diversity that resides within our global organizations. The myriad of cultural challenges our diverse global communities present, only serves to remind us that while we can certainly learn and understand general orientations and respect and value others worldviews, we can not fully understand individual people by observing from a physical or psychological level. The diversity and complexity of those individuals is shaped not only by their culture, but by their life experiences and the dozens of values, thousands of attitudes and tens of thousands of beliefs that continually evolve throughout a lifetime. As global leaders, where we can be effective is through active listening, understanding that there is more than one “best way”, and having the capacity to facilitate the blending of the best of all cultural elements to make the whole more than the sum of the parts.
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Posted in Communication, Cross-cultural, Development, Education, Global, Leadership, Leadership Lessons From Haiti, Leadership Lessons: Haiti, Lessons From Abroad Series, Potential, Resources, Team Building, Value Creation | Tagged complexity, culture, diversity, Execution, Global Leadership, GlobalLeadership, Haiti, impossible future, leadership lessons, sacrifice, teamwork | 6 Comments »
September 2, 2010
As you may have guessed, I have come to realize very clearly over time that there is a remarkable gap between what we learn in business school and what we need to be successful in the ever-evolving world of global business – as such over the past few weeks I have focused on some of the more critical items. Understand that I am the beneficiary of some of the finest universities and professors in the world (and respect and honor both greatly), but I am also a realist who has been out there long enough to know with certainty that there are certain skills just not taught in business school that are indeed critical to success, and often survival, in global business. I realize there are many I have not covered, but the goal is just to bring the challenge to the forefront so we can begin to proactively discuss the issues and identify ways to ensure the success of our global executives. Here is the last installment in this series with two final(for now) important aspects of global leadership that are not typically taught in business school:
1) How to Acquire Talent That Drives Your Success
Why is it that leaders can not be instructed in business school as to how to hire to facilitate their own success? I come across more global leaders that were just not taught how to build strong teams through talent acquisition or development. Why aren’t leaders taught that it is actually detrimental to your success to hire people just like you? It would seem to be common sense that a leader would hire to fill his own gaps, thus making the leader, the team, and the organization much stronger…but it is not.
Here are a few high level tips:
- Rule #1: Understand your own strengths and weaknesses – until you do, you will never build exceptional teams.
- Rule #2: Have a vision. Set your goals. Know what you are trying to achieve. Then, and only then, hire for that impossible future – you will be far more likely to recruit those who will facilitate your success if you hire with the future in mind.
- Rule # 3: Do not hire people just like you. If you hire good candidates that have the same strengths and weaknesses (yes, we all have them) you have, you will never fill in the gaps and create a sustainable model that drives your success. A well-rounded team that compliments your skills will take you much further, much faster.
- Rule #4: Hire for diversity, not continuity . The more diverse the individuals, the bigger pool of knowledge and talent resides on the team and in the organization. Continuity will emerge naturally – through a much more interesting variety of people.
- Rule #5: Hire for accountability & ability to execute. Make sure you have people who consistently deliver – great ideas and an enviable vision are useless if there is no accountability for results and an inability to execute.
2) How To Incorporate Cultural Orientations
In today’s global marketplace, it is almost impossible to work within a single culture. The skill to work across cultures is such a critical need, yet it provokes little interest in a university setting. Because cultural orientations affect our assumptions and perspectives, it is important to understand what a cultural orientation is and how it affects worldviews. Everyone has specific orientations, or ways of perceiving the world around them, primarily derived from our cultural background and the way we were raised. These orientations, or world-views, combine to determine who we are and how we see the world around us.
If global leaders were given the knowledge and opportunity to leverage orientations to better understand their own perceptions, as well as helping them to understand the complex network of cultures surrounding them, they could begin to leverage cultural orientations as a communication tool for discovering creative solutions to problems. This would highlight the unique potential of everyone involved, from every culture, and would provide significant leverage to achieve success on the journey toward high performance and fulfillment – providing the opportunity to far exceed expectations.
If the concept of cultural orientation was taught in business school, leaders would have an enormous head start – allowing them to discover new options, shift perspectives, and quite possibly, to leverage differing orientations to move between and amongst different geographies, functions, and cultures to generate exceptional business results.
Those skills not taught in business schools are so deeply rooted in the day to day operations of global business, perhaps they are not well suited to traditional university teaching. If this is the case, where and how do we ensure our global leaders are learning these critical skills? We know that corporate training can often be ineffective and retention rates are low – especially for busy executives that make decisions and interact on various levels all day, every day. If we are to tool our executives with the skills to accelerate their organizations, we will need to better leverage non-traditional learning to provide reinforcement models so that learned skills become ingrained in everyday actions. We will need to look to effective, ongoing methods – often based in experience rather than theory – to facilitate organizational success on every level.
This week I would like to challenge you to get involved and make a difference in a young leader’s life – teach those skills, and develop those characteristics, that are not taught in business school. How are you going to engage in a young leaders life and make a difference on an ongoing basis?
I would love for you to engage the discussion, and let us know how you believe that current global business leaders can make a difference and fill the gaps that business school may leave. Please feel free to contact me at Sheri.Mackey@LuminosityGlobal.com or by visiting our website at www.LuminosityGlobal.com. Check back next week for the next installment of Leadership Across Boundaries and Borders.
Posted in Business School Final Round, Communication, Cross-cultural, Development, Education, Global, Knockout Round, Leadership, Potential, Resources, School of Hard Knocks Series, Uncategorized, Value Creation | Tagged business school, cultural orientations, facilitate success, Global Leadership, non-traditional education, skills not taught in business school, Talent Acquisition, worldviews | Leave a Comment »
August 27, 2010
High potential global leaders quickly realize that there are challenges and roadblocks that they were not prepared for and that had not previously been contemplated. Topics such as politics, networking, accountability, challenging the status quo, mentoring/coaching, execution, big picture/small picture balance, etc. are not necessarily taught in business school, but these obstacles can derail careers and cause people to question their commitment to global business. If we are to successfully evolve leadership on a global basis, it is vitally important that we understand these challenges and ensure they are addressed – if not in business school, then certainly within our organizations. Here is the second installment with two more important aspects of global leadership that are not typically taught in business school:
1) How To Navigate Organizational Politics
The definition of organizational politics, or (more importantly) how to navigate them, is simply not taught in business school, yet the ability to master the political chessboard is absolutely essential to every executive’s success. A critical component to organizational success is sponsorship and stakeholder engagement. If you engage support from above, laterally, and below, you are likely to succeed. This equates to political influence. To influence others requires building relationships of trust and persuading others to follow, thus leading to power within your domain. To ignore politics in your organization is to ignore those underlying forces that account for the difference between success and failure between equally talented people. People who understand and use politics to their advantage are much more likely to succeed than their politically naïve counterparts.
Leaders need to quickly identify those likely to support them and build strong coalitions aligning individual needs with organizational goals. You must realize that in addition to power and influence, organizational politics is a function of culture – and that politics will always serve both individual and organizational agendas. In order to master the political chessboard, you must to take a strategic approach to politics and should employ the following tips, while recognizing this is not an exhaustive list:
- Spend time with opponents: Most of us spend time with our allies, who we trust and who agree with us… when the people we have the most to learn from are our opponents.
- Never take anything personally: If it’s not personal it is far easier to maintain focus on what we are trying to achieve. It is our choice whether or not we will personalize things that happen.
- Constantly reframe: It is natural to assume that it is “all about us” – the alternative is to recognize that much of politics is about people working to get things done within a diverse community of interests.
- Leverage power dynamics: Recognize that power comes in several forms: legitimate, referent, reward, expert, and coercive power. Much of politics is based on power – who’s got it and how you can use it to your advantage.
- Build on mutually beneficial interlocking relationships: The better you are at networking, the better you will be at organizational politics.
- Focus on interests, not positions: In the interest of finding common ground, care about people’s interests and ask more questions.
Leaders need to inspire people to act by creating clarity and unity of purpose – building synergies through organizational values. We can leverage political skills to manipulate others… or to influence them to achieve more than they ever thought possible. As a global leader, which do you believe will accomplish more and move the organization forward faster?
2) How To Find A Strong Mentor / How To Be A Value-add Mentor
Seeking a qualified mentor is as difficult as becoming one – and business school does not prepare our leaders for either scenario. Early in a career, a mentor is invaluable, and having the necessary skills to seek out and convince a value-add leader to invest in you can expedite your career exponentially. It’s hard to overestimate the value of a confidant from whom you can seek feedback on your ideas, advice on strategy, or a little support when things are not going as well as expected. But cultivating a mentor can be difficult – it takes perseverance to find the right person (with the right skills, position and attitude) that is willing to invest significant time and energy into your success. Unfortunately, the knowledge and wisdom to engage a mentor or coach early in a leaders career is not something that is readily facilitated in business school, nor once out in the workplace when it could be truly effective and meaningful. Do not make the mistake that so many executives do (at any stage in your career) – find an exceptional mentor or hire a phenomenal coach.
Here are just a few qualities to seek, either as an individual trying to identify a mentor or as a mentor seeking to maximize your value:
- Willingness to share skills, knowledge, and expertise – A good mentor teaches what s/he knows willingly, understanding that good mentoring requires time and commitment. S/he is willing to share information and their ongoing support.
- Acts as a positive role model – A good mentor exhibits the personal attributes it takes to be successful. S/he continually demonstrates the specific behaviors and actions required to succeed.
- Takes a personal interest – A good mentor does not take his/her responsibility as a mentor lightly. S/he feels invested in a protégés and is committed to helping them find success and gratification in their chosen profession. Overall good mentoring requires empowering a mentee to develop their own strengths, beliefs, and personal attributes.
- Provides guidance and constructive feedback – One of the key responsibilities of a good mentor is to provide guidance and constructive feedback to their mentee.
- Good Listening Skills – a good mentor will genuinely listen, know your interests and commitments, and be able to ask you, first hand, how things are going.
- Engenders Respect at all levels of the organization – A good mentor is someone who is well respected and whose contributions are appreciated.
The question remains – Can we facilitate the success of high potential global leaders through the acquisition of critical skills not taught in business school?
Because this is supposed to be a blogpost and not a book, I have addressed just two additional critical skills not taught in business school – the remainder of the abbreviated list will appear as next weeks post. I would love for you to engage the discussion, and let me know what skills you believe are critical to global business that are not taught in business school. Please feel free to contact me at Sheri.Mackey@LuminosityGlobal.com or by visiting our website at www.LuminosityGlobal.com. Check back next week for the final (extended) installment of Business School or School of Hard Knocks?
Posted in Business School Part 2, Cross-cultural, Development, Education, Leadership, Resources, School of Hard Knocks Series, Value Creation | Tagged Critical Skills Not Taught In Business School, High Potential Global Leaders, Ho To Be A Mentor, How To Find A Mentor, Organizational Politics, Positive Role Models, results, success | 4 Comments »
August 20, 2010
We go to business school to learn all the right skills, but what are the right skills? Of course we all need to know the fundamentals of basic business management, but what about those critical, but less obvious, competencies that global executives must know in order to succeed? What are those essential skills not taught in business school that often cause high potential leaders to derail and never achieve their potential? Here are a few important aspects of global leadership that are not taught in business school:
1) How To Create A Global Vision:
“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizon are limited by obvious realities. We need men and women who can dream of things that never were.” ~ John F. Kennedy
The problem with this statement is that many global leaders do not know how to create a vision, do not realize how very vital it is to the success of their organization, nor what to do with the vision once they have finally figured it out. Here are a few simple tips:
- Work backward from your imagination, rather than forward from your past – the old adage, “What got you here, will not get you there” is an absolute truth.
- Remember that whatever you can imagine, you can accomplish
- Ask yourself some revealing questions as you develop your vision:
- What is an enormous strategic opportunity within your domain/organization/industry?
- What would change your business and your clients business forever?
- What is missing that would truly revolutionize the products/services/processes/etc.? (Think Apple, Netflix, Facebook…)
- What will take your company/domain from status quo to breakthrough?
- What are you so passionate about that you would be willing to transform not only your company, but yourself?
- Think through and understand what it is going to require of you and the organization to realize the vision: Realistically ensure the benefits outweigh the costs
- Document and Publish an explicit, living, breathing, step by step plan that senior leaders, peers and staff can buy into and share ownership.
2) How to Execute With A Results Orientation
They don’t teach the dogged determination that creates the ability to execute in business school, but this quality is more important in making people successful and in executing in global business than any other. However, if that is all it takes to execute, why do so many executives lack this ability? Because there is no system, formula, strategy, or tactical plan behind the vision – there is a weak results orientation and a lack of process knowledge to support forward movement (aside from a few additional factors we will cover next week). Naturally, it is important to begin with the end in mind, but many executives are so focused on the end, they end up chasing their tails and accomplishing little. Here are some straight forward ways for executives to facilitate their ability to execute:
- Focus on the process, not the prize – concentrate on what will produce the results, rather than the results themselves.
- Get and stay connected – identify key strategic partners that can help you get where you want to go and consistently engage.
- Have both a tactical and a strategic plan.
- Execute one step at a time – By the inch it’s a cinch, by the yard it will be hard.
- Consistently engage ALL key players across boundaries & borders – without the buy-in and commitment of critical resources you will never succeed.
- Listen, don’t just hear – listen to what your subject matter experts are telling you and remain flexible in your gameplan.
- Incorporate strict accountability measures – if no one is openly accountable, little will get done.
3) How To Network For Success
There is great power in knowing you can reach out to your network whenever you have a problem to solve, to be able to reach key influencers at conferences and meetings, to make an impression on audiences, to project confidence and trustworthiness, and to make friends with other successful people. The ability to connect on many levels is essential to success in global business – in fact many top executives say networking is one of the top reasons for their success. Surrounding yourself with successful and intelligent people will allow you to consistently think smarter, as well as having access to brilliant people that will support your objectives and provide valuable insights. Networking presents opportunities to interact on a personal level and to develop profitable relationships. Most people have a reluctance to connect with strangers, however in business talking to strangers is essential and the only effective way to generate interest and support for what you do. It is so easy to stay within your controlled environment, however if you only talk to people you already know, you will miss significant opportunities to make new connections, establish valuable connections, and position yourself for success.
The greatest people in business have certain attributes in common. Some are natural gifts, others are learned attributes. Beyond personal qualities -
Can we prevent the derailment of high potential global leaders through the acquisition of critical skills not taught in business school?
Please feel free to contact me at Sheri.Mackey@LuminosityGlobal.com or by visiting our website at www.LuminosityGlobal.com. Check back next week for Part 2 of “Business School or School of Hard Knocks?”
Posted in Business School Part 1, Development, Education, Global, Leadership, Potential, School of Hard Knocks Series, Value Creation | Tagged Change Management, coaching, Cultural Orientation, Execution, Global Vision, mentoring, politics, Strategic Planning, Succession, Talent Acquisition, Value Creation | Leave a Comment »
July 29, 2010
DDI’s Global 2009 Leadership Study indicated that 37 percent of leaders filling global leadership roles fail. These leaders failed to achieve their global objectives and, most commonly, left the company – unsuccessful. ”Clearly, something is wrong worldwide with leadership development…”, reports DDI in its 2009 Global Leadership Forecast. But what is being done about this epidemic problem? I repeatedly hear people willing to state the problem, but very few who actually propose and facilitate solutions.
After 20+ years of working in global business, and several more coaching global executives, I am repeatedly asked what is needed to facilitate success in global environments. I can tell you that it is not fancy terms or academic theories that move executives forward – but it is the ability to take reality-based theories, put them into layman’s terms, and apply them into real-world scenarios – while simultaneously incorporating some less obvious skills that are not necessarily taught in business school.
I can provide you with the basic components I use to evaluate the likelihood of leadership success in the global marketplace, as well as the competencies I seek to further develop/position executives for global success. It is by no means a formal, definitive “global leadership” list of competencies, as the challenges are always very complex and involve a mix of both hard and soft skill development, but it is a methodology to leverage when evaluating global executives or partnering with them to further individual or group development. The reality is that I am a practitioner, not a scientist – and I promote and teach what I know through real-world experience.
For each of the next three weeks, I will cover one of the three core components that I know from experience are essential to global leadership success (Intellectual, Psychological, and Social) - followed by a discussion specifically on those more covert competencies that are critial to global leadership success.
This week we will look at the first component: Intellectual Acumen and it’s corresponding subsets:
- Intellectual Acumen: Understanding how the business works on a global scale / having the functional and market competencies to succeed.
- Business management capability: Is there a capacity for strategic decision-making, functional expertise, efficient resource allocation, effective time management, problem-solving ability, ease in managing complexities, and ability to stay flexible? Can the executive adapt his/her leadership style to a variety of situations?
- Global business knowledge: does the executive know how the business/industry works worldwide? How global customers behave across various geographies? How competition targets global clients? How strategic risk varies by geography? Is the executive mindful of diverse business protocols and legalities across areas of responsibility on a global basis / how it effects the overall business?
- Cognitive complexity: does the executive have the ability to relate diverse scenarios with many moving parts without becoming overwhelmed? Is s/he aware of corporate/proprietary competencies that include navigation of internal culture, institutional business protocols, and proprietary skills that affect the global business?
It is rarely a simple matter to assess the right competencies for a global leader, and is very situational. From my experience, intellectual acumen is the basic starting point for global leadership success. Although a significant portion of intellectual acumen is gained through education and organizational experience, if the basic competencies are not present, and incredibly strong, the leader has failed before s/he ever begins. If these elements are present, but need development or refinement, more than “traditional training” methods are required. These are longer term, organizational integration issues, which if not incorporated through sustained, continual, coaching and reinforcement, will ensure that the failure rate of global executives will continue to soar – a key contributor to global organizations inability to achieve their potential. I have seen it time and again…
How would you rate your global intellectual acumen? If it is not where you need it to be, what are you going to do about it?
You can contact me at Sheri.Mackey@LuminosityGlobal.com or by visiting our website at www.LuminosityGlobal.com. Check back next week for the next installation of Leadership Across Boundaries & Borders. 59DCENEFB9N7
Posted in Are Global Leaders Set Up To Fail?, Cross-cultural, Development, Education, Global, Global Leader Series, International, Leadership, Potential, Value Creation | Tagged business management capability, challenge, coaching, cognitive complexity, competencies, complexity, executive, experience, failure, global business knowledge, Global Leadership, intellectual acumen, skills, solutions | 2 Comments »
July 19, 2010
First and foremost, I must apologize to all of you who read my blog. I have been working in Africa these past few weeks, and was under the impression I could easily write and publish blogposts from my various hotels, conference facilities, and office buildings. However, internet access being less than accessible, and because I had not prepared in advance, I have not posted for the past three weeks. I can promise you it will not happen again- I will be far more diligent in preparing in advance when working in diverse locations.
I wrote last of how it had occurred to me that it was absolutely critical for academia and business to come together for the greater good of global business and interculturism. Oddly enough, as I spoke to the Global Business and Technology Association in South Africa, my views were reinforced ten-fold. As, on this particular occasion, I addressed a global audience of primarily academic and administrative attendees, it rapidly became apparent that they were not too accustomed to hearing from the business sector. As I made my points and finished by commenting on the need for global business and academia to partner for the betterment of us all, I was greeted with thunderous applause and standing ovations. I thought to my self, “How remarkable – we all know we need to work together, yet the majority of the time we fail to do so.”
The idea that business and academia would partner to create stronger graduates and leaders seems to be quite novel. Until recently, I had not given it a lot of thought, but I was challenged by George Simons of Diversophy France and SIETAR Europa to provide some ideas as to how this could effectively work. Experience has shown me that business struggles to transform leadership and management theory into reality, and academia seems to struggle in the areas of really understanding how to develop, at an experiential level, anything new or innovative that can actually be leveraged to impact business. Here are some of the things I have done personally, and with clients, in the past that could be effective for others moving forward:
- I have, from a corporate and coaching perspective, partnered with universities to come on site and teach courses that incorporate solid global management principles and theories, but that are backed up with real-time global client business cases. These cases are pertinent to current business issues the company is facing and current employees are responsible for managing. Employees actually talk to the clients about the cases and potential solutions – this has repeatedly been wonderful for relating theory to experiential practices.
- Sandwich learning is highly effective - I encourage clients to support employees alternating relevant periods of education with professional application.
- Coaching (vs. training) always has a stronger outcome due to the repeated reinforcement and targeted approach. Extended, reinforced methods of educating both leaders and employees facilitate true growth and development in both the individual and teams.
- At conferences that attempt to bridge the gap between academia and business, I tend to see two types of presentations: 1) purely academic that seem out of touch with business and 2) purely business with no real interest in what acdemians have to say. Wouldn’t it be interesting to pair up an academic professional and a business professional and ask them to partner for a joint session presenting a multifaceted problem with potential for a joint solution? Could we derive some unique, joint perspectives?
- Create and deploy joint think-tanks with membership split between academia and global business – with the express purpose of deriving joint solutions to move both camps forward. I have in the past run both Technical and Strategic Advisory Councils that had similar, but not expressly the same, missions – they were both based on corporate/client think-tanks instead of academic/business think-tanks…
If we are to evolve, we will need to look to Translational Science – we have it in medicine and we need to bring it to global business. Translational science is scientific research that is motivated by the need for practical applications. The term is used mainly in the health sciences and refers to things like the discovery of new drugs that directly help improve human health. Thus, translating bench or “lab” science to clinical practice and real people. In essence, the same principles apply to business. We need to translate the research that is done on management and leadership into practical applications that can be effectively deployed. It seems an easy concept, but experience tells me that today, most of the executives out there can not translate theory into application. As such, they do not apply the research findings to their business environment – thus making the valuable research that is done essentially useless in real-world business application.
So you may ask, “how we can apply Translational Science to global business?” While certainly not the all-inclusive answer, I do believe that the five points made above could be a valid start to the process. We have got to find ways to bring academia and business together to leverage the best in both for the betterment of the whole. If we don’t, we will never actually move forward.
You can contact me at Sheri.Mackey@LuminosityGlobal.com or by visiting our website at www.LuminosityGlobal.com. Check back next Thursday for the next installation of Leadership Across Boundaries & Borders. 59DCENEFB9N7
Posted in Communication, Cross-cultural, Education, Global, Leadership, Potential, Translational Science Series, TS & Business Application, Value Creation | Tagged communication, Education, evolution, global business, Leadership, Partner, Potential, transformation, Translational Science | Leave a Comment »
