Article 40

Developing Globally Literate Leaders

A landmark study reveals that global success depends on leadership skills and multicultural experience at all levels.

By Robert Rosen and Patricia Digh

Walk into the headquarters of Ping AnInsurance Company, look up, and you’llsee a bust of Confucius—not at all surpris-ing in this Chinese company. But lookagain. Facing Confucius from across thelobby is none other than Sir Isaac Newton.In fact, paintings of great Eastern andWestern thinkers serve as a backdrop allthe way down the entry hall to where Con-fucius and Newton peacefully coexist.

Ping An is a company devoted to learn-ing from around the world. Its CEO, PeterMa, understands that the employee of thefuture must see, think, act, and mobilizenot only with a Chinese mindset, but alsowith a global one. Ma’s company contin-ues to break new ground, as it has since itwas founded in 1988, as China’s first par-tially employee-owned company. FromUS$30 million in assets and 10 employeesin 1988, it has grown to a US$30 billioncompany with more than 130,000 employ-ees. Ping An’s secret to success is its abil-ity to keep one foot in traditional Chineseculture and one foot in the world, con-stantly learning and modernizing Chineseculture. For Ping An, to be a global com-pany no longer means just doing businessinternationally or being world class athome and abroad. It now also means learn-ing aggressively from around the world.

Global Literacies: Lessons on BusinessLeadership and National Cultures (Simon& Schuster, 2000) is a landmark study ofglobal leaders like Peter Ma. The book

contains in-depth, face-to-face interviewswith CEOs of more than 75 companies in28 countries and a survey of 1,000 seniorexecutives around the world. The studyidentifies the critical competencies neededto succeed in the global economy.

Two main lessons emerge: One, thereare leadership universals that every execu-tive and manager must practice. Those arethe new global literacies. The second les-son defies conventional wisdom: In thenew, borderless economy, culture doesn’tmatter less; it matters more. Doug Ivester,former CEO of Coca-Cola, painfully dis-covered that lesson during the 1999 Cokescare in Europe. He says, “As economicborders come down, cultural barriers goup, presenting new challenges and oppor-tunities in business.”

In the current borderless economy, allbusiness is global and competition comesfrom everywhere, requiring businesses ofall sizes to develop a global perspective,strategy, and skill base. Not only does theUnited States compete with Taiwan andSwitzerland for jobs and customers, butalso businesses in Chicago compete lo-cally with companies from Canada andSweden. Technological advances, theknowledge explosion, globalization, andthe rapidity of change are the universalglobal business drivers affecting organiza-tions around the world—causing us toreexamine the core competencies of exec-utives, managers, and employees requiredfor success in the 21st century.

International competition, the globalwar for talent, domestic and cross-bordermergers and acquisitions, joint venturesand alliances, changing employee expecta-tions, and pressures for greater productiv-ity are demands that learning executivesaround the world are dealing with.

To succeed, we must build world-classorganizations by creating value for inves-tors, customers, and employees. We mustaccomplish global business goals, achievecost efficiency, stimulate growth, and helporganizations become global employers ofchoice. But how?

Global leadership at all levels is the ma-jor catalyst. Two factors predict success in

In This Article: Leadership

• There are leadership universals that every executive and manager must practice; those are the new global literacies.• It defies conventional wisdom, but in the new, borderless economy, culture doesn’t matter less; it matters more.• A company’s global business, lead-ership, and culture strategies naturally shape its learning strategy. The chal-lenge for learning executives is to iden-tify and prioritize current and future learning needs, to create global learn-ing programs to address those needs, and to use global learning partner net-works to execute the plan.

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Article 40. Developing Globally Literate Leaders

the global marketplace, according to Glo-bal Literacies research: 1) developingleaders at all levels of business and 2)placing a high value on multiculturalexperience and competencies. The mostsuccessful companies do both.

Though cultural competency is aproven key to global success, executivesfrom the United States, Canada, and Aus-tralia ranked last in a 20-nation survey ofbusiness leaders when asked whether mul-ticultural experience matters. The lesson?Companies are in danger of losing theircompetitive advantage by disregarding thething that makes companies successful in aglobal marketplace. Culture is no longer anobstacle to be overcome. Rather, it is a crit-ical lever for competitive advantage.

In the new global learning environ-ment, corporations are no longer movingmolecules but brain cells. Ted Kunkel,CEO of Foster’s Brewing Group, doesn’tdescribe his company as a beer maker butas a “global brains company.” He says,“Investing in knowledge and developmentis the flame for us to create a sustainableenterprise.”

Kunkel realizes that learning is crucialto meeting the new challenges of the 21stcentury. Carefully tied to the strategicneeds of the business, world-class learning

solutions start with a new set of globalleadership competencies and use technol-ogy aggressively to accelerate employeelearning. Learning now takes place in flat,flexible organizations well versed in ambi-guity and rapid communication—withfewer boundaries, decentralized decisionmaking, loosely knit entrepreneurial units,and a focus on employee intelligence andingenuity. With a shorter shelf life in aknowledge economy, the goal of learningis to introduce employees to an entirelynew way of thinking about global contextand global competencies so they can per-form broader roles in the global market-place.

Culture is no longer an obstacle to be overcome. Rather, it is a critical lever for competitive advantage.

Great companies are adept at attracting,developing, and retaining people with theskills, perspectives, and experience neces-sary to drive a global business. The globallearning cultures of such companies enableemployees to learn from each other andshare innovations and best practices fromaround the world. What distinguishes thebest companies is their ability to produce asurplus of globally literate leaders at alllevels of their business.

Globally literate leadersGlobal literacy is the new leadership com-petence required for business success. Tobe globally literate means seeing, thinking,acting, and mobilizing in culturally mind-ful ways. It’s the sum of the attitudes, be-liefs, knowledge, skills, and behaviorsneeded for success in today’s multicul-tural, global economy.

Globally literate leaders possess thesedistinct competencies:

• personal literacy (understanding and valuing oneself)

• social literacy (engaging and challeng-ing other people)

• business literacy (focusing and mobi-lizing one’s organization)

• cultural literacy (valuing and leverag-ing cultural differences).

Interrelated and interdependent, each ofthose literacies forms the foundation forthe next.

How each of the literacies gets ex-pressed varies based on the culture inwhich you live, work, and conduct busi-ness. Each major region around the world

teaches important lessons in each literacyarea.

For example, Asians teach us about per-sonal literacy through their deep under-standing of paradox and ambiguity. LatinAmericans teach us about social literacyby modeling how to build relationshipsin complex, chaotic environments. FromNorth Americans, we learn business liter-acy by watching them build change-ready,technologically savvy, results-oriented or-ganizations. From Europeans, we learncultural literacy based on their historicalchallenges of working and living cross-culturally for hundreds of years.

To be globally literate is to be able toread the emerging world—to open up newpossibilities through a deeper understand-ing of ourselves, our customers, our mar-kets, and world cultures.

Training and development executiveshave a challenging job, given the realitiesof the global marketplace: to build world-class organizations by designing educationand training strategies that cultivate cur-rent and future global leaders, and to de-velop the core competencies necessary towin in the global marketplace.

At Healthy Companies International,we help senior, HR, and learning execu-tives build their global enterprises. Com-panies will be successful only bydeveloping, linking, and executing strate-gies in these key areas:

• business• leadership• culture• learning.

To be effective, those strategies must beadaptive and aligned to create maximumvalue for the enterprise. The synergyamong them is critical to global survival.Each strategy outlines the leadership tasksrequired for world-class success. Together,they form the framework for learning man-agers to build a globally literate workforceand enterprise.

Here are 12 steps to achieving global-ization of the strategies, illustrated byCEOs of some of the most successful com-panies around the world.

Globalize your business strategyLearning executives must globalize thebusiness strategy for learning inside thecorporation. What’s your global vision,philosophy, and plan for your learningbusiness? How are you going to develop aglobal vision that excites, challenges, andeducates your workforce?

Survey Findings

Statement: Multicultural experience matters.Percent of executives who agree, by country

New Zealand 52%

United Kingdom 47Singapore 45Philippines 44

The Netherlands 44France 44Brazil 41

Hong Kong 40Sweden 40China 40

Germany 39Mexico 36Japan 35

South Korea 33United States 28Canada 26

Australia 25

Source/Healthy Companies International-Watson Wyatt CEO Survey© 2001 Healthy Companies International

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Step 1: Create a global vision and val-ues. First and foremost, global leadersmust excite other people about their visionfor becoming a world-class organization.By facilitating worldwide conversationsthat articulate the higher purpose of the or-ganization, globally literate leaders global-ize their vision and values.

In the new, borderlesseconomy, culturedoesn’t matter less;it matters more.

In Japan, a culture shaped by ambigu-ity, Ryuzaburo Kaku, honorary chairmanof Japan-based Canon, has no ambiguitywhatsoever about his vision of the future:“Living and working for the commongood” is his goal. That concept of kyosei

drives him and the company to become apowerful force for social, political, andeconomic transformation in Japan and be-yond. Worldwide successful companiesglobalize their vision and values acrossmarketplaces, products, customers, suppli-ers, and partners. By building credible, co-herent, compelling global points of view,such companies create a rallying point forall employees.

Action steps for learning executives:• Develop a vision for becoming a

world-class organization.• Globalize your learning vision and

values.• Build a global point of view.

Step 2: Build a global roadmap.

George Fisher, retired chairman and CEOof the Eastman Kodak Company, had aglobal vision, but he knew he needed glo-bal leaders at all levels to achieve the vi-

sion and that those leaders would need aroadmap, a global trajectory of where hewanted Kodak to go in the future.

“The New Kodak: A Roadmap for Cor-porate Renewal” provided Fisher with thetools to help achieve customer, employee,and shareholder satisfaction. The chal-lenge was that the roadmap had to be read-able around the world. Fisher tailored hismap to local traditions, allowing for a cer-tain amount of freedom by culture withoutlosing the fundamental intent.

Action steps for learning executives:

• Chart a global roadmap for the organi-zation’s learning future.

• Teach the global context of the busi-ness.

• Tailor the roadmap for local adapta-tion.

Global Literacies

Personal literacy refers to understanding and valuing oneself. The key behaviors:• Aggressive insight. Committing to a continuous process of self-awareness and renewal.• Confident humility. Being self-confident, yet humble enough to listen and learn from other people.• Authentic flexibility. Understanding and accepting the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of other people without compromising your own.• Reflective decisiveness. Balancing thoughtful consideration of all options by acting boldly and forcefully.• Realistic optimism. Envisioning a better future while acknowledging the constraints of current realities.

Social literacy refers to engaging and challenging other people. The key behaviors:• Pragmatic trust. Combining the attitudes of trusting believers and skeptical pragmatists.• Urgent litening. Balancing the urgent demands of business with deep listening to teh concerns of other people.• Constructive impatience. Being impatient enough to inspire greater performance without damaging constructive attitudes and relation-

ships.• Connective teaching. Creating learning networks that enable people to learn collaboratively across organizational and cultural boundaries.• Collaborative individualism. Uniting the diverse skills and interests of individuals in a common purpose.

Business literacy refers to focuing and mobilizing hte business. The key roles:• Chaos navigator. Guiding people through change and managing the unexpected.• Business geographer. Understanding teh business context of the regions and countries where your products and services are made, bought,

or sold.• Technology steward. Learning the e-business and Internet skills required in a technological world.• Leadership liberator. Creating leaders every day and at every level of the business.• Economic integrator. Aligning and connecting people, systems, and processes in support of the vision and goals of the organization.

Cultural literacy refers to understanding and leveraging cultural differences. The key roles:• Proud ancestor. Valuing your cultural heritage while acknowledging its shortcomings as well as its strengths.• Inquisitive internationalist. Looking beyond one’s own culture for business opportunities and resources.• Respectful modernizer. Retaining the best of one’s culture while using the knowledge and resources of other to modernize for the future.• Culture bridger. Forming alliances and connections across cultures.• Global capitalist. Bringing global resources to local problems and opportunities and local resources to global ones.

Source/Healthy Companies International-Watson Wyatt CEO SurveyGlobal Literacies™ is a registered trademark of Healthy Companies International.

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Article 40. Developing Globally Literate Leaders

Step 3: Execute a global enterprisestrategy. Learning executives must un-derstand the link between the key strate-gies (business, leadership, culture, andlearning), and they must invite participa-tion from senior executives, operatingunits, and learners to develop an enter-prise-wide strategy.

Under the leadership of Phil Condit,Boeing has crafted a global vision: “peopleworking together as a global enterprise foraerospace leadership.” Out of that vision,Boeing created a global enterprise strat-egy—a component of which is the BoeingLeadership Center, launched in 1999 to de-velop leaders who can take advantage ofrapid changes in the global economy.Carefully designed to help managers ateach stage of their careers, Boeing has ef-fectively created a global learning strategyand linked business strategy to leadership,culture, and learning.

How are you going to develop a global vision that excites, challenges, and educates your workforce?

Action steps for learning executives:• Cultivate a global learning philosophy.• Initiate an integrative global enterprise

strategy.• Invite input from senior executives,

operating units, prospective learners, and outside experts.

Globalize your leadership strategyAll employees are global employees andmust develop broader and deeper skills tomeet the changing needs of global custom-

ers. The challenge for every learning exec-utive is to develop the critical learningphilosophy and practices to create a world-class work environment that liberates and le-verages the company’s global human assets.

Step 4: Create global leadership com-petencies. “The data wave is breakinghigher every day,” says Sir Peter Bonfield,CEO of London-based British Telecom-munications. “Monopoly, bureaucracy,and stagnation are out; competition,choice, and innovation are in.”

Out of that complex global tsunami,British Telecommunications has emergedas a fast, market-driven business riding thecrest of the data wave. To make it work,Bonfield had to create a business-literateworkforce with global leadership compe-tency at every level, tailored to local con-ditions. By liberating leaders to lead, usingcontinuous feedback mechanisms such as360 assessments, Bonfield has combinedBT’s aspirational vision with the metricsof success to create corporate scorecardsthat reward leading indicators rather thanstatic ones.

Action steps for learning executives:• Assess global literacy capability

worldwide.• Globalize and localize leadership com-

petencies.• Require global literacy skills of execu-

tives, managers, and employees.

Step 5: Develop globally literate exec-utive teams. Developing globally intelli-gent executive teams may be the most im-portant job of learning managers. Byfacilitating worldwide conversations aboutglobal markets and opportunities, learningexecutives can help deepen globally liter-ate leadership skills around the table. Den-mark-based pharmaceutical giant NovoNordisk sends “culture coaches” aroundthe world to help teach and facilitate exec-utive teams as the company personalizesand operationalizes its global vision andvalues. Executives must come to the tablehaving “bought” and “sold” best practicesfrom divisions around the world to cross-pollinate their thinking at the top of the or-ganization.

Action steps for learning executives:• Cultivate psychological, business, and

cultural intelligence.• Foster cross-cultural executive com-

munication.• Teach executive teams about global

context, competencies, and problem solving.

Step 6: Cultivate global leaders at alllevels. Helen Alexander, managing di-rector of the U.K.-based Economist Group,cultivates diversity and debate across cul-tures. She looks for and cultivates “highlyeducated and flexible, open-minded peo-ple who can work across borders, who canbe international and local at the same time,and who are naturally culturally sensitive.We want people who can think beyond cul-tural differences.”

By teaching people to work together ina high-speed environment, Alexander hascreated a highly respected publication, towhich global businesspeople turn forviewpoints and analyses.

Action steps for learning executives:

• Make international a part of the com-pany’s bloodstream.

• Foster cross-business and cross-cul-tural work assignments.

• Develop global coaching and mentor-ing networks.

Globalize your culture strategyThe next challenge for training executivesis to create a fast, dynamic global learningenvironment, in which every employee un-derstands the need for global leadershipskills. By building a global culture of inno-vation and accountability, training execu-tives can promote the transferers of globalknowledge and penalize the blockers.

Step 7: Globalize your managementroutines. Coca-Cola knows that effectivemanagers have productive daily routinesand ineffective managers don’t. Certainmanagement routines can be useful for allmanagers around the world to learn. Coca-Cola’s Management Routines program isdesigned for managers to emulate or alterto fit their own styles, depending on theircultural backgrounds. This global toolboxaugments managers’ worldwide communi-cation tools and includes lessons in dia-logue, learning coaches, and globallearning catalogues. Globalizing Coca-Cola’s management routines has led to softinnovations in a company known for hardresults.

Action steps for learning executives:

• Identify universal global management tasks.

• Determine what is global and manda-tory and what is local and discretion-ary.

• Ensure that global leaders model glo-bal management tasks.

Universal Business Drivers

• The knowledge explosion re-quires open, honest people in transparent organizations.• The technology revolution re-quires agile people in networked or-ganizations.• Unrelenting change requires in-novative people in dynamic organi-zations.• Irreversible globalization requires respectful people in multicultural or-ganizations.

Source/Healthy Companies International-Watson Wyatt CEO Survey

© 2001 Healthy Companies International

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ANNUAL EDITIONS

Step 8: Create a global-local businessculture. When Jean-Louis Beffa visits thePalace of Versailles, he can’t help but ad-mire the windows. His pride is wellfounded: The French company he nowleads, Saint-Gobain, created those win-dows. Beffa knows that the market for pal-ace windows has dwindled in the ensuing330 years of Saint-Gobain’s history. To re-main relevant in a much-changed world,Beffa has created a nimble organizationwith a global footprint: Employees mustlearn about the French, European, andglobal perspectives of their business. Hecultivates a global-local culture by ensur-ing that employees can move quickly be-tween those three worlds. Global learningand communications systems enable thatto happen.

Action items for learning executives:

• Globalize-localize HR policies and systems.

• Create a global information infrastruc-ture.

• Develop global communication sys-tems.

Step 9: Foster multitalented, cross-cultural teams. Cows are key players inNew Zealand’s economy, accounting for23 percent of the nation’s GDP (gross do-mestic product). The New Zealand DairyBoard capitalizes on that asset, realizingthat there’s no place for all that milk togo but outside of New Zealand. Thus,strengthening diverse, multicultural teamsis vital to New Zealand’s international suc-cess. By staying true to New Zealand prin-ciples yet respecting different culturalnorms, globally literate leaders of the dairyboard use conflict to build understanding,creativity, and momentum.

Warren Larsen, CEO of the NewZealand Dairy Board, created a new struc-ture for his organization, with global teamsat its center. It’s a structure that leveragescollective intelligence and institutionalizessocial literacy. Says Larsen, “If we’resmart and form strong cultural relation-ships, then performance goes up.

By fostering virtual, multicultural teams,Larsen was able to create a 24/7 cultureand global communities of practice, en-abling his organization to beat much largercompetitors in the global marketplace. Thissmall co-op of farmers recently soldUS$40 million worth of mozzarella to theworld’s largest pizza chain, Pizza Hut.

Action items for learning executives:• Foster virtual, multicultural teams.• Develop global business action teams.• Create global learning communities of

practice.

Globalize your learning strategyA company’s global business, leadership,and culture strategies naturally shape itslearning strategy. The challenge for learn-ing executives is to identify and prioritizecurrent and future learning needs, createglobal learning programs to address thoseneeds, and use global learning partner net-works to execute the plan. Ultimately,learning executives must demonstrate the

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Article 40. Developing Globally Literate Leaders

impact of global literacy on employee re-tention, satisfaction, and development; in-novation; and other critical business goals.

Step 10: Deliver enterprise-wide toolsand processes. Training costs nothingreads the large plaque in the entrance toMotorola University’s main campus.Driven by former chairman Robert Galvin,Motorola has built its reputation aroundthe single-minded pursuit of learning. Itslearning strategy is linked directly to thecorporation’s critical business issues: lead-ership development in a global market, sys-tems solutions, growth through organizationrenewal, global brand-equity management,

and knowledge management. Global skillsare integrated through and across the learn-ing curriculum at Motorola—using enter-prise-wide, multidimensional learning toolsthat teach collaborative, cross-culturalcompetence. Motorola is a global learninglaboratory.

Action steps for learning executives:• Create enterprise-wide, multidimen-

sional learning tools (assessments, lab-oratories, e-learning, action learning).

• Foster global collaborative learning technologies (Web-based, distance, satellite, multimedia).

• Build a global learning infrastructure (learning portal, virtual campus, just-in-time, partner networks).

Coca-Cola knows that effective managers have productive daily routines andineffective managers don't.

Step 11: Create global knowledgebanks. Shelley Lazarus, CEO of Ogilvy& Mather, knows that creativity is the life-blood of her ad company. She uses “testbeds and experiments” throughout O&M:Four to five offices do things in differentways at all times, with lessons sharedaround the world to capture global knowl-edge (assets, databases, skills, and bestpractices). The new IBM brand identitycreated by O&M—“solutions for a smallerplanet”—brought the world together andmade IBM smaller and friendlier, usingforeign languages. It was a campaign cre-ated out of dynamic global knowledgebanks and collaborative communitiesworldwide. Lazarus knows that eachleader, division, and country has some-thing unique to share. Her learning strategyis designed to capture those unique contri-butions for the benefit of the business.

Action steps for learning executives:• Teach global collaborative competen-

cies to management teams.• Develop a global knowledge bank of

stories and best practices.• Develop a global knowledge manage-

ment community.

Step 12: Build global-local centers ofexcellence. Any successful global enter-prise has functions that are global in nature(vision and values, technology infrastruc-

ture, and communication systems) as wellas local assets and centers of excellence.

Lars Ramqvist, CEO of Sweden’s Eric-sson, builds a boundaryless enterprisewhile localizing competence. “Our Cen-ters of Excellence,” he says, “have theirown expertise and are linked globally.Each group of employees brings someunique expertise to the business. Our100,000 employees work together becausethey know that the other 99,999 will turn tothe experts inside the company to buy theirexpertise when needed.” Ramqvist has cre-ated internal markets for ideas, talents,jobs, and projects.

Action steps for learning executives:• Develop a global benchmarking pro-

cess.• Develop local centers of innovation

and excellence around the world.• Develop global metrics and standards

for performance and excellence.Those 12 steps are critical to creating

global success. Learning executives mustdemand global literacy of themselves andteach the global literacies to other people atall levels of the business—encouragingthem to be more personally aware, sociallyskilled, economically enlightened, and cul-turally wise. As leaders, they must under-stand their national strengths and be awareof their national flaws, preserving what isbest in their countries while learning fromother nations around the world. By devel-oping more people at more levels of the or-ganization with global literacies andlinking the key strategies, learning execu-tives help their companies create leader-ship competence around the world andincrease their potential for 21st-centurysuccess.

Robert Rosen and Patricia Digh are co-authors of Global Literacies: Lessons on Business Leadership and National Cultures (Simon & Schuster, 2000), selected as a Fortune “Best Business Book.”

Rosen is chairman and CEO of Healthy Compa-nies International, a Washington, D.C.-basedcompany that conducts research, executiveconsulting services, and enterprise-wide learningprograms in the areas of global leadership,world-class organizations, and national cultures;www.healthy companies.com. Digh is directorof HCI’s Nonprofit Leadership Practice. Theycan be contacted at bob@ healthycompa-nies.com and patti@healthycompanies. com.

The New Rules of Business

Global reach: Businesses will needglobal reach to serve global customersand members. If companies lack the ca-pacity, they must build partnershipsaround the world.Local markets: All markets are localmarkets. Quality, pricing, and servicemust be globally competitive and do-mestically appropriate.Foreign competitors: No longer willgeography bind a corporation’s aspira-tions. Many U.S. firms may lose theirlocal monopolies to new foreign com-petitors.Speed to market: Speed and urgencywill be the norm as companies changestrategy and direction continuously.Flexibility and innovation will be their se-crets to success.Electronic commerce: Electronic com-merce will fundamentally changecustomers’ expectations about conve-nience, speed, and price—giving con-sumers more choices.Real-time delivery: Real-time pres-sures for product design and develop-ment will enable customers to influencehow products are made and delivered.Local distribution: Local distributionwill require a much deeper understand-ing of local business needs and prevail-ing national cultures.Outsourcing: Outsourcing non-coreservices will force companies to rethinktheir basic competencies and developrelationships with suppliers to providethe others.

Source/Healthy Companies International-Watson Wyatt CEO Survey

© 2001 Healthy Companies International

From Training & Development, May 2001. © 2001 by the American Society for Training & Development. Reprinted by permission.

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