Extrait
Chapter One: The New Business Reality
I still remember my first trip to Japan. Surrounded by the signs and sounds of Japanese, I felt utterly lost. Unable to decipher even the most basic information in restaurants and on city streets, I retreated into myself. It was hard to stretch into unfamiliar territory. When I asked questions, people reacted in ways I couldn't quite understand. I simply couldn't read their psychology.
In an instant, I understood what it means to be illiterate. Only when I got home, relieved to be back in the United States, did I fully recognize the personal cost of global illiteracy. Like adults who can't read, I had hidden the fact that I couldn't understand the verbal and nonverbal cues around me. Although intrigued by the differences, I spent a lot of energy protecting myself for fear of appearing foolish. I felt defensive, making it difficult to fully experience the world of Japan.
Being illiterate, even for that short period of time, taught me a lot about the power of literacy in our lives. Many of us take literacy for granted. We can't imagine -- or remember -- a world in which we were not able to read. But all of us were there at one time.
Watching a child learn to read is like witnessing a miraculous process unfold. A whole world suddenly opens up to him or her, enriching life beyond measure, adding depth and feeling to every experience.
We urge children to read at such an early age, and we worry when they don't proceed at the right pace. We do everything we can -- buy them books, take them to libraries, show them flash cards -- to ensure they master this new language, these strange, black hieroglyphics.
Once children have mastered basic words, we urge them toward greater complexity of ideas. One-syllable words give way to three-syllable ones, complex descriptions paint a picture richer than simple picture books, and dialogues become multilayered and more subtle.
But literacy doesn't matter just to children. In the new global world of business, we're all beginning readers. Like children, we must learn to read the world's new language by deciphering the handwriting, engaging in dialogues, and sharing ourselves in the process.
Literacy matters. And the worst thing for adults in the twenty-first century is being unable to read the world. Being able to read this emerging world allows us to witness an unfolding, an opening up of new possibilities. To fully participate in the global society, we need a common vocabulary, syntax, and grammar, and a rich base of knowledge. We need to move beyond comprehension of letters and language to a deeper understanding of ourselves, our customers, our markets, and the cultures of the world.
Global literacy is our new language for the twenty-first century.
The Twenty-first-Century Marketplace
We stand on a precipice, stepping into a new era, a time of enormous change and uncertainty characterized by the emergence of the first truly borderless, interconnected global economy. It's the world's youngest economy, fueled by the spread of free markets and democracy around the world.
Walls are crumbling among markets, organizations, and nations. People, information, labor, and capital move freely as never before. Global media, international travel, and communications have eroded distance and borders, linking us instantly to one another from Prague to Shanghai, from Lima to London. A tightly woven fabric of distant encounters and instant connections knits our diverse world together.
Ours is a unique place in history. Not since the Industrial Revolution have we faced such forces in two fundamental areas of world society: the electronic information revolution and global economic interdependence. This isn't just a change in degree, but a fundamental change in kind. Globalization is a new international system that is shaping domestic and international politics and changing the rules of trade. A dynamic and ongoing process, globalization involves the integration of markets and nation-states, enabling individuals, corporations, and countries to reach the world farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper.
We live in a networked, interconnected world with computer devices embedded in telephones, cars, televisions, and household appliances. The Internet and electronic commerce are dramatically changing how we do business. Our relationships with customers and suppliers have forever been altered, and employees have access to information never dreamed of ten years ago. Everyone is talking to everyone else in real time.
Add to that the fact that all business is global and all markets are local. World markets rise and fall together. Currency traders in Shanghai, Toronto, and London interact at a moment's notice. Global mergers and acquisitions have created megabusinesses with social and political ramifications we couldn't have planned for. The sheer number of competitors around the world continues to increase exponentially, and we're now racing to serve global customers, not just local ones.
In the twenty-first century, competition comes from all corners. Not only does the United States compete with Taiwan and Switzerland for jobs and customers, but businesses in Chicago must also compete locally with companies from Canada and Sweden.
Furthermore, businesses in various countries are infiltrating one another's territories as never before. For example, European firms own large portions of the American publishing industry, while the United States owns much of the Brazilian banking system. Japan owns a large portion of the world's automobile market, while Scandinavian companies provide a majority of the world's mobile telephones. India produces the world's tractors, France is the largest producer of glass, Chile is the leading supplier of copper, and China produces many of the world's apples.
Global brands bring us together, linking people in Cape Town to unlikely partners in the West Bank. Global consumerism has skyrocketed, creating a proliferation of global brands while homogenizing consumer tastes. People in the most remote regions of our world recognize the red Coke can, McDonald's golden arches, and the silver medallion of Mercedes-Benz.
International trade is burgeoning, as evidenced by explosions of foreign direct investment, export expansion, and the growth of multinational corporations. Globally connected capital markets are producing open, transparent exchanges where investment flows seamlessly among trading floors worldwide.
Even within companies, cubicles are disappearing in favor of virtual teams. Companies seek suppliers, customers, and employees globally. Sharing techniques among industries and across national borders, they develop network organizations that are fast, flat, flexible knowledge companies. Their corporate cultures are characterized by less bureaucracy, more teamwork, and infectious entrepreneurship. In this competitive marketplace of winners and losers, there is a race for brainpower, creating whole new knowledge-generating industries.
Government's role is also diminishing as the world moves from state control to market economies and the privatization of business. Increasing pluralism and democracy accelerate the creation of one global community with common interests and concerns.
But not all is good news and global harmony. New threats proliferate. Chemical and biological warfare, urban terrorism, and digital espionage represent only a portion of our global minefield. And threats of nationalism are lurking just under the surface.
Still, there's no turning back. These trends toward a truly integrated, borderless, global economy will continue and accelerate. The overarching market in the twenty-first century is the global market, an interconnected and complex system we must understand. Globalization is the tidal wave -- our worldwide tsunami -- of the twenty-first century. As Peter Bonfield, CEO of British Telecommunications, put it, "I can't promise anyone a smooth ride over the next few years, but I think that's good news, because great turbulence also means great opportunities."
Traveling Around the World
To fully understand this new twenty-first century marketplace, we need to go out into the world and experience it.
This book will take you on such a journey through the world's major regions -- Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and beyond -- each with its own unique personality, economy, and geography, and each with its own distinctive leaders.
North America is the land of shareholder capitalism, individualism, and economic triumph. Home of the primary world superpower, North America thrives on venture capital, Hollywood, and the technological revolution. The land of opportunity, the United States is also a nation of the middle class, yet with great disparities among social and economic classes and violence, drug use, and broken families. The North American Free Trade Agreement links the United States with both Canada, home of multiculturalism and tolerance, and Mexico, a nation of survivalists and relationship builders. With the economic convergence of "Euroland," North America will need to learn to function better as a partner, not a superpower.
North America is also home to Doug Ivester, CEO of the Coca-Cola Company. Ivester is a strong and restless leader who, like American frontiersmen before him, has a destination in mind. He is driven to create value, to communicate aggressively, and to teach others how to reach their goals.
Latin America is a region of paradox. Vulnerable to external shocks, like the recent global financial turmoil that began in Asia, this region also demonstrates a growing resilience and capacity for response. Home of capital flight, collapsing trade, and lower commodity prices, Latin America is also a land with a rich cultural and intellectual history and home of some of the world's greatest writers and artists. In an increasingly chaotic global environment, its trials by fire may prepare it best for what's ahead.
Gustavo Cisneros knows the strengths and shortcomings of this part of the world. A powerful media king, Cisneros and his Caracas-based Cisneros Group of Companies is committed to bringing the world to Latin America and bringing Latin America to the world. A man intent on creating networks of partners, Cisneros personifies the cultural norm of relationship building that defines Latin America.
Europe is a continent in transition, a land of unprecedented economic and political convergence. A culture of intellectualism and social responsibility, the European Union is just beginning to realize its aggregate power. With a healthy respect for tradition, Europe is also learning how to embrace the future. The cultural differences among Europeans have narrowed over the past few decades, though economic conditions in the EU nations vary widely. The role of business is also changing, becoming more focused on shareholder value than ever and driven in part by the fact that 35 percent of stock on the French stock exchange is foreign-owned; in Germany, 25 percent; in Spain, 35 percent; and in the Netherlands, 40 percent.
No one tracks these changes more closely than Helen Alexander, CEO of the Economist Group in Great Britain. Her job is to provide other business leaders with the latest global news and a point of view. The Economist is global to its bones, delivering the news with intellect and insight. "We teach international perspective and communicate context," she says. To do that, she must be able to move fluidly across the world's cultures herself.
Asia brings us traditions of diversity and collectivism. A region with an emerging middle class despite its economic crisis, it is shifting from being labor-intensive and agricultural to developing high-tech manufacturing and service-oriented economies. Asians value education, hard work, relationships, and collective mindsets. They are masters at understanding paradox and creating mutually dependent networks of customers, suppliers, and companies. Coping with the changing role of women and youth, Asian businesses are shifting from hierarchical to participative management and from seniority-based to performance-based reward systems.
At more than 80 years of age, Canon's honorary chairman, Ryuzaburo Kaku, exemplifies both the old and the new Asia. A visionary leader, Kaku works to ensure that the world's business leaders know about the concept of kyosei -- living and working for the common good. It's a philosophy that allows Kaku to seek innovative ways for Canon to do good while making money, and to be a powerful force for social, political, and economic transformation.
This is just a taste of our journey around the world. Yet the idea of hopping from one region to another is itself antiquated. Even this viewpoint is changing as regions compete and cooperate, changing identities and personalities, developing new strengths and shortcomings, and bumping up against one another in a borderless, multicultural world.
The Borderless Economy in a Multicultural World
Beware. And be ready.
This new, borderless economy is changing faster than our ability to manage it. For companies to thrive, they must learn to excel in a multicultural world. They must also learn how to cross the new invisible borders of national culture. But as Doug Ivester, CEO of Coca-Cola, discovered after the 1999 "Coke scare" in Belgium and France, it's easy to be fooled by the transparency of such borders: "As economic borders come down, cultural barriers go up, presenting new challenges and opportunities in business."
All this turbulence and confusion make us nervous and defensive. Our sensitivities are heightened as competitors and collaborators emerge from unlikely places. We may respond by pulling in, becoming more ethnocentric and nationalistic. There is a backlash to globalization, one born of our lack of knowledge and readiness and exacerbated by the economic pinches we feel. Not everyone is equipped to run fast, but some are -- and they respond by opening up, soaking up cultural differences in order to maximize their own awareness and learning.
This porous economy will not bring an end to national history, politics, identity, and nationalism. In fact, the values and identities of culture are being challenged -- and enhanced -- as never before. We must leap at the opportunity to learn from our differences and leverage that learning for competitive advantage, rather than hide, ridicule, or ignore them.
The world is at once borderless, multicultural, and a burgeoning hybrid of cultures. Expanded tourism, the dissemination of pop culture, global migration, Internet communities -- all these have led to unprecedented worldwide connectedness. Traditional boundaries between politics, culture, technology, finance, national security, and ecology are disappearing. There are ecological connections between the Hong Kong flu and the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster, political connections between NATO and the war in Kosovo, and economic connections such as those we saw played out during the Asian financial crisis. The media -- TV, newspapers, and film -- bring us closer to others simultaneously. Business leaders must be capitalists, psychologists, technologists, and culturalists: they must understand the seamless interaction of all these dimensions, the interconnectedness of which creates our twenty-first-century culture.
But this seeming dissolution of national borders triggers the "immune system," moving people and countries into self-protection mode, resulting in increased nationalistic fervor, higher import barriers, hostility to foreign control a...
Revue de presse
Claude Smadja Managing Director, World Economic Forum A fascinating insight into the mindsetting perceptions and perspectives of the movers and shakers of the global economy. An invaluable tool for understanding the trends which are shaping our economic future.
Joseph T. Gorman Chairman and CEO, TRW Inc. Global Literacies will make you realize your old business models just may not cut it in the first decade of the 2000s. Rosen's insightful CEO interviews are a lesson to us all that we need to be sensitive to cultural differences, the reality of national identity, and regional uniqueness.
C. William Pollard Chairman and CEO, The ServiceMaster Company Robert Rosen's Global Literacies will be essential for the leader of tomorrow -- the leader in the 21st century.
Norman R. Augustine Chairman of the Executive Committee, Lockheed Martin Corporation What better way to learn the secrets of global business leadership than to ask successful global business leaders their secrets -- which is exactly what Bob Rosen has done. A tour through the real-world pages of his book can add to the bottom line -- not to mention saving a quarter million miles of travel.
Rolf-Ernst Breuer Chairman of the Management Board, Deutsche Bank Global Literacies impresses through its professional research. Particularly remarkable is the relevance it bears considering the variety of information processed.
Michael R. Losey President and CEO, Society for Human Resource Management A comprehensive book on global business leadership -- thought-provoking and useful for doing business globally. Rosen and his contributors help us understand what that really means culturally for people and organizations.
Alan Mulally President, Boeing Commercial Airplane Group Global Literacies is a wonderful opportunity to learn from successful teams that are creating meaning and value in our new world economy.
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