the future and how they can inspire their global colleagues. Beyond material success, what will make their careers fulfilling and worthwhile? If current or aspiring leaders from Europe and North America go on with business as usual – assuming that their privileged position will last forever – they risk looking like human ostriches, heads buried in the sand to avoid the speeding freight train of globalization. Rather, they must embrace the planet's inexorable tilt toward rising economies and learn how to succeed together with employees from around the world who want to be treated as full partners. Sometimes the consequences are very personal, and one's career can take an unexpected turn.
Promotion Postponed
Ingrid speaks in quick spurts over the phone from her office in London, where she has just returned after three years in India. She is Swedish, but started her career with a company in New York and then moved to London, so her accent is hard to place. Ingrid is in her mid-30s, works for one of the world's most famous banks, and saw the opportunity to move to Bangalore and gain international experience as critical for her career.
Ingrid comments, “I had just completed my first year in Bangalore and had a perfect performance rating. I was on the list to get VP, but then, three days before the promotion lists were finalized, I was pulled off the list and no one could tell me why.
“This really impacted my engagement. There were so many times when I just wanted to leave, especially during my third year in Bangalore. To be honest, I called my contacts in London and said that they needed to find me a position back in the U.K. or I was going to look at other opportunities.
“I realize now that there were a lot of things going on under the surface that no one talked about. The plan when we originally went into India was to outsource business processes to cut costs, and it was cheaper initially. Then we started to move India from an outsourcing center into a more strategic role, with business and revenue driven out of the Bangalore office. It is now its own entity, and the bank just celebrated 10 years in India. The goal of this more strategic positioning was to gain better access to India's talent pool. While the initial objective was to employ cheap talent, people are actually paid very well now – even by the bank's London standards.
“Part of the reason I was passed up for promotion was about wanting to build a local leadership model in India, as a retention strategy and as part of a broader global strategy generally. Because my contract in India was three years, the company had at least another year to convince me to stay. I think that they took the risk to give my promotion to someone in India because they were getting a lot of pushback regarding all the expats in Bangalore. Local nationals were saying, ‘Why do we need all these expats coming in to oversee everything?’ It was better to sacrifice my promotion to address this and then try to reengage and offer me a promotion during the last year of my contract.
“But now I have a bit of a different view of all the expats in Bangalore. These people go back with a broader perspective, so their time in India might also educate them about the country. They can bring that new perspective with them wherever they go next in the world. Having returned here to London, I am asking why people are not involving their Indian team members more. I work to give these newer members of the team a voice because I know how capable they are. The further west you move, from London to New York, it seems the less understanding there is about how serious we are about the Asia-Pacific region.”
Ingrid's experience is likely to become increasingly common as companies seek to expand their leadership talent pool. Her career prospects are still bright, even though her promotion was delayed by a year or two. She is now distinguishing herself through a different kind of role. Based on her knowledge of both India and London, as well as her strong personal network, she is able to draw out the full strengths of her team members to accomplish joint projects, a skill that is very important to her employer. People who join a global organization today and aspire to a leadership position should consider how they can best contribute as the center shifts (see Sidebar 1.2).
Sidebar 1.2 What about Me?
Many individuals are concerned about the impact of cross-border commerce and migration on their careers and personal lives. Regardless of where they are currently living, they face many common – and sometimes deeply personal – challenges, asking themselves questions like:
● What can I do to advance my own career prospects and to make a more secure and prosperous life for myself and my family?
● Will I be able to compete with other employees or people in rival firms who may have more education or better skills, or who are hungry enough to work even longer hours than I do already?
● Does my employer appear to favor some individuals based on their personal background or nationality, and how can I best respond to this?
● Will I be able to understand and to work well with colleagues who were raised in a different culture, speak other languages, and perhaps belong to a different religion?
● How can I comprehend the needs of faraway customers and create products they will buy?
● How can I afford to educate my children well and prepare them for an increasingly competitive world?
● What will happen to my personal life if communication across time zones requires additional hours from my early mornings and late evenings or if I have to travel more and work harder? Can I still be present with my children while they are young, take care of aging parents, and keep my marriage intact?
The best approach to most of these questions is to clearly grasp the changes that are on the way and to cultivate the skills that you and your family will need to survive and prosper. The purpose of this book is to help people from any country succeed in this changing environment.
Change is occurring in other places that could affect the careers of Ingrid and her colleagues. Although China and India are the biggest players in the shifting global economy, a number of locations in Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Africa continue to grow rapidly. Countries like Turkey, Malaysia, and Poland are already or soon will be among the ranks of the emerged nations.
Trend lines seldom remain constant over time, and unpredictable events occur: natural disasters, civil unrest, war, disease, economic crises. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries were once touted as the growth economies of the future, but Brazil and Russia have both since experienced economic turmoil and stagnation. Even China's once torrid double-digit growth has slowed to single digits and what its government is calling the “new normal,” although this is still double or triple the growth rates in the United States and Europe. And, as many companies that invested in Russia have discovered, geopolitics can scuttle once-promising trends. Investing in Russia seemed like a fine idea based on its size and market potential when the BRIC acronym was coined, but the country has turned out to be a far riskier place for investors than many predicted.3 Corrupt governments, poor infrastructure, and limited educational opportunities also hold back development in many locations.
Such caveats notwithstanding, the general trajectory from west to east and north to south has been in place for decades. Projected global population growth of at least two billion more people, almost all outside of the developed world, suggests that this trend will continue. One calculation places the global economy's center of gravity in 2050 between India and China, or more than 5,000 miles east of where it was in 1980.4 Carlos Ghosn, renowned CEO of automaker Renault-Nissan, remarks, “Growth is going to come from new markets – we all know China, India, the Middle East, South America – but also from the countries of the future, which are going to be the next wave coming.”5 In particular, projections based on population and/or natural resources often point to countries such as Mexico, Indonesia,
Chrystia Freeland, “Globalization Bites Back,”
Danny Quah, “The Global Economy's Shifting Centre of Gravity,”
Carlos Ghosn, interview at Stanford Graduate School of Business, “Carlos Ghosn of Nissan/Renault: Look Ahead, Don't Stand Still,” February 4, 2010, www.youtube.com/watch?v=yChtop17sd8.
