Strategic Connections
Strategic Connections is our official blog. The idea behind our blog is to share with the world new ideas and concepts and how new realities and thinking might just be relevant to an organization. Much of what we share is intended to be thoughts and ideas that are unfinished and under development, but for public consumption as it may strike a cord to try something a bit different. If we share a new idea, book, article or concept you find interesting, please let us know.
If you want to know the answer, just take a peek at Colin Powell's endorsement of Senator Barack Obama on Meet the Press. State a position with substance that actually says something. Be willing to make a bold statement based on reasoning, not just simply based on "tradition" which is the "illusion of forever" as my buddy Ralph likes to say.
The reality is leaders in organizations today are failing us because they are playing from a defensive posture rather than from an offensive one. There is a lot of talk about being aggressive, growth, and "getting it done" but it is by and large just talk, and empty rhetoric. How did we get to this point in business and especially American business?"Tradition" to quote my buddy Ralph again. Look at the auto industry? Look at our continual reliance on foreign oil and our lack of aggressive innovation. Look at how people are consuming television programming. More and more people are watching on their iPods than from their Lazy-Boy recliner.
As former Secretary of State, Colin Powell stated, be believes that Obama is transformational, which is a requirement to lead in these challenging times--especially globally. He also talked about how inclusive his campaign is and continues to be. We talk about this with clients I work with, and have worked with in the past, but yet there is this feeling of safety and comfort in keeping things just the way they are. Question the status quo, but not so much so, that we "really have to change" or transform. Don't make us uncomfortable if you want to continue the engagement. This is the life of a management consultant today. Faced with the challenge of implementing change and business transformation, but not really. It's like being morbidly obese, and the doctor says you have 5 more years to live at best or 30 more if you make some dramatic changes. Do we really want to leave something special behind or do we simply want to just get by for today? This is the fundamental question of our leaders today.
It takes courage to execute and deliver on what you believe, not just fancy ad campaigns, but values that actually mean something with leadership behaviors that support. The video below shares some ideas forward-thinking companies may want to consider.
An important report, was just released on Global Business Corrpuption prepared by the World Economic Forum. This was a first of its kind report that details the challenges for legitimate business and how to confront corrupton. If you do business that is international in scope, this is urgent reading. Cheers!
Now, it is about Globality. This is a new term, but it has and will have an impact more severe than anything we have seen in global business in the coming years. The concept coined by the great consultants at the Boston Consulting Group define the term simply as:
Competing with Everyone from Everywhere for Everything.
It has taken me a while to truly grasp the implication of this thinking because at first, it is easy to down play it as another consulting buzzword, which it is, to be sure. However, the relevance and importance is undeniable and what I honed in on. Recently, client organizations with which I work are beginning to describe their "global" aspirations and wanting to have a "global footprint" in the markets they serve. The problem with this is similar to the phrase "employees are our most important asset" because it is often times, just simply words on a piece of paper.
What first comes to mind with Globality and its implications is also our most challenging national problem. Education. Organizations are now competing for corporate learners and even first-time students from as far away as Europe or for that matter, people in Brazil can obtain a degree from an accredited institution in the United States.
Unfortunately, the model for education continues to be viewed as a linear, straight-line process by administrators and executives in higher education. In fact, it is more of an ecosystem where people get what they need, when they need and piece together their education. Here's how it is shaping up to illustrate the concept of Globality:
Phase 1: high-school student takes 'early-college' classes to earn credits and reduce cost for college by taking basic requirements.
Phase 2: sophomore participates in exchange program with another university that has more established and focused offering and does so for a semester.
Phase 3: junior participates in some classroom work but supplements with online offerings from a university in another country while doing an internship with a local Fortune 500 company.
Phase 4: senior participates in a cross-cultural exchange program with a university in China to hone up on her Chinese for 12 months.
This is a fairly tame example, but in comparison most students enrolled in college for four or five years and sat in a lecture hall or classroom each day when I was in school in 1982-1985. In terms of Globality and what it means, leaders of higher education, K-12 and funding officials will have to re-imagine what it means to obtain an education and make the processes work for this nomadic approach to knowledge acquisition. Organizations that begin to think in terms of Globality will have a distinct advantage.
