The McKinsey Quarterly recently published their survey results on “Why multinationals struggle to manage talent“. Their result highlights the challenges that multinational firms are facing when it comes to managing global talent, and more importantly, how it can reflect on their financial results.

International assignments enable firms to achieve greater cultural diversity, innovation through better understanding of their target customers, enabling knowledge transfer between divisions as well as further development of company talent. Yet, many employees don’t view overseas experience as valuable career path, mostly due to the way companies handle international assignments. Based on their survey, McKinsey indicates that those who have done well in managing their global talent have the following best practices:

• Top management encourages people to get experience in multiple business units/locations across organizations
• Overseas experience is regarded as a prerequisite to promotion to senior level within organizations
• Managers are willing to or are offered incentives to lose their talented employees to other divisions, functions or geographies within the company

Along these lines, also check out Kai-Fu Lee’s (President of Google Greater China) Carnegie Mellon presentation “Google China — Can a Multinational Internet Company Succeed in China?” on YouTube. He discusses Google’s success in China and highlights key factors to their continued performance. During the presentation, you will also gain great insights into challenges awaiting companies entering China.

I realize that times have changed… However, I did not internalized the amount of change until my neighbor’s 14-year-old said “I love everything wheat!” And it is not just her; my 10-year-old prefers whole wheat over Wonder Bread. I might be living in a community where there is more sensitivity towards environmental, social and health consciousness. However, I bet there are more communities around the world such as ours. And, those are not the only trends that are shifting. You are probably wondering, what does this have to do with innovation or technology management? Let’s break these trends down; jump in with your own observations and insights.

Going green and ethical consciousness

These days, it seems like every other ad in a magazine is about a firm’s greenness and their new environmentally friendly products or processes. Though the ads might be a fad, the growth of environmental and social consciousness is certainly not. Our new generation is observing the negative impact we have had on our environment, on earth’s natural resources and overall society first hand. That consciousness and society’s learnings are here to stay.

My son recently shared his view on space travel: “We have to find a new planet to colonize, as the human race will be extinct given what we have done to the environment.” I hope it is not as black and white as he sees it.

Let’s not forget ethical consciousness. The Internet, always-connected technologies and social networks have significantly increased the degree of transparency firms once had. With that, consumers are more knowledgeable and demand more from your firm. MIT Sloan Management Review recently published a study on Does Being Ethical Pay? (may require subscription.) The study shows that consumers are willing to pay a slight premium for ethically made goods, and would buy unethically made products only at a steep discounts. The Women of The Buyer’s Army is taking activism to the next level as highlighted in the Ode Magazine. Their mission is to raise shoppers’ awareness on how various products are made.

Your mission, if you decide to accept it, is to incorporate green technologies, environmental and ethical consciousness into your organization’s DNA. Right now your customers are demanding it, and tomorrow your workforce will be joining them too.

Talent management

I can’t help but share my observation on the hypocrisy of some of the CEOs out there, in this case Mark Hurd… Anyone that is plugged into the US business news is aware of CEOs’ concerns on dwindling US tech talent. Though I haven’t seen a study, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a cause-effect relationship between early US outsourcing trends to current US graduates in the technology field. However, the part that really bothers me is when a CEO complains about dwindling US tech talent on one breath, and then reduce his US workforce in large numbers in another breath.

So, let’s focus on the real issue at hand. It is NOT that the US doesn’t have talent, it is either not the right talent or not at the right price. Given that, along with accelerated technology shifts and US visa procedures, your talent management strategy has become even more relevant.

In search for a meaning

Maybe the generations are in crisis, or finally we are learning there is more to life than just work. Either way, as average life expectancy increases, so does the need for that life to be more meaningful and purposeful at every aspect of our lives. I should know, as I am one in search of meaning.

As a manager, you might already be experiencing these shifts in your workforce. Changes that have been taking place just from the perspective of technology alone have been amazing, mainly driven by kids that never experienced a world without the Internet, have no clue what a floppy drive looks like or why would anyone want to use such a thing in the first place Where the communication is driven by text messaging, instant messaging, emails and MySpace. But even more so, these kids are interested in knowing the purpose, understanding their impact and ensuring a world that is healthy and happy. At the same time, you might be dealing with Generation-Xers that are going through their own career shifts to find that purpose and meaning.

These personal shifts create an interesting challenge for managers: how do you motivate and reward your employees? How do you create growth opportunities that are aligned with their own purposes? How do you ensure the meaning they are looking for matches yours? And, how do you keep those employees?

Our opportunities are global, so are our problems

Globalization is here to stay. No doubt, it has fueled the growth of many firms and improved the lives of many. Unfortunately, it is also highlighting the ever increasing divide between the rich and the poor. (Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making) Lets not forget terrorism, global warming or outbreak of a contagious disease.

As Albert Einstein pointed out “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” We need to increase our global reach by building virtual teams around the world. So far this activity has been mainly fueled by firms driven to reduce operational costs. However, we need to shift towards building cultural and social awareness of global communities, and bring that to our product and technology planning activities.

Finally, NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) doesn’t have a relevance in today’s global world. We can’t pretend that just because something doesn’t immediately impact us, we don’t have to care about it. The Story of Stuff highlights in a fun way how everything we do is connected. As consumers we are becoming more aware of how our purchasing decisions are shaping the world we live in. As businesses, we need to take to heart the concepts of: sustainability, zero waste, clean production, renewable energy and a more fulfilling purpose that fuels meaning for all.

Technorati Tags: globalization, sustainability, green

Jeff Housenbold, CEO of Shutterfly, recently spoke at Stanford’s Technology Ventures Program: Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders. I especially enjoyed his definition of entrepreneurship as well as how he applied this definition throughout his career.

I think entrepreneurship is mostly a state of mind. It is a state of mind about how you create things that people haven’t envisioned before. How you aggregate the resources, motivate people and execute against that vision. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to go start your own business. I think the state of mind of entrepreneurship can happen at the largest of corporations … and it can happen at the smallest companies …. Across the whole gamut, entrepreneurship is really about the state of mind: creating new products, creating new markets, creating new ideas, and then creating new businesses. And capturing some of the economic rents from that vision and the hard work.
– Jeff Housenbold

Enjoy the presentation. As you are listening to it, make sure to reflect back on your definition of entrepreneurship, your past experiences of applying it to your career, and explore the opportunities that exist for its application currently and in the future.

Technorati Tags: definition of entrepreneurship, Jeff Housenbold, Shutterfly

The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in. —Harold Goddard

Storytelling is an art. It is powerful, expressive, and perhaps the quickest path to building deep connections. When you are in the presence of a good storyteller, words take you beyond their meanings where you are presented to the world of possibilities. Its like living Sheherazade and hearing her stories from One Thousand and One Nights. I had the pleasure of working for a General Manager that had an amazing storytelling ability. Stories of our customers, competitors, market changes, hopes and dreams were his way of expressing his experiences, his vision and exploring how we could jointly create a new shared reality. For a startup within a large company, these stories are crucial for building a common future and a culture that would sustain itself when the going gets tough.

I can go on and on about the importance of storytelling for the innovation process and the leadership. However, Steve Denning summarizes the power of storytelling quite eloquently in his blog: The Secret Language of Leadership. You can read his summary here.

If you don’t know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don’t know the stories you may be lost in life. —Siberian Elder

We are our stories. We tell ourselves stories about what we can and can’t do, how our world operates, and we use these stories to internalize what we experience daily through our clouded filters. If you like to know more about how our stories shapes our lives, take a look at Jim Loehr’s book The Power of Story: Rewrite Your Destiny in Business and in Life, and be ready to explore your own story.

I hope you can see the power of stories, their influence and impact in the innovation process as they shape and form our views of the world. I also hope that you recognize the importance of grounding ourselves when it comes to our stories, so that we are seeing them for what they really are. Before you read the rest of the post, take a moment and think about some of your own stories. Then, see if any of the ideas below can help ground them, so that they are more real.

Stories are a form of assumptions. However, before you take apart the whole plot piece by piece, step back and understand the overall theme, the key characters and the point of view needed for success. Evaluate each, and determine which ones need to be treated as assumptions and which ones are just flashbacks in your story that adds flavor and spice. Record each of these assumptions and start your validation and tracking process. Just as an example, an in depth understanding of your ecosystem is mandatory for a story that evolves around making your technology platform pervasive across the board. Some of those players within your ecosystem will be gatekeepers needing to be infiltrated, while others are accessory providers adding sugar and spice and something nice to your product. Make sure you are focusing on the right problems.

Get to know your storyteller. In the real world, our storytellers are a part of the human machinery that operates the thing called the corporate bureaucracy. The story might be great, and might even be true. But, if it doesn’t fit within the decision making structure of this bigger machine, it will never be a legend. So, get to know your storytellers, the structure and the decision making process they operate in. It will give you the opportunity to evolve your story, if it wasn’t quite right to begin with. Things such as, your firm’s hurdle rate, markets you operate in, revenue projections, type of customers you serve, resource and funding requirements will all play into your story somehow.

Everyone loves a good ending. So, understand your key metrics that you need to measure and track. Lets say that your story is referring to a target market size. Recognize that, it is actually talking about the addressable target market of your product, and put actions in place to grow that size overtime. Or, maybe your success truly depends on your customer connection. Then start building your customer relationship model and your brand where the customer is the keystone of your story from day one.

Every story has a point of view and a perspective that changes depending on the person involved. It is great to have different perspectives, angles and takeaways which will improve your creativity and innovativeness. However, you need common vocabulary, understanding and acknowledgement in order to execute “Ready all…Row” command properly. Take your customer knowledge as an example. Good analysis and understanding of your customer data is priceless. Yet, extracting this data unbiasedly, interpreting it appropriately and creating the right actions are your challenge. For more on this, check out How to Hear the Voice of Your Customers: Hone First-Person Intelligence From All Forms of Feedback by David Bean at MarketingProfs (registration might be required to access). So, use your stories well, and create the language and the vocabulary that your culture will understand and embrace.

Your stories have a structure (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), and so should your innovation process. Milestones, stage-gate process, iterations, … are great way to ground yourself in the story while it evolves. Whatever process you use, make sure you have frequent checkpoints along the path to keep you honest and accountable.

Finally, share your stories with others and allow them to make it their own. Otherwise, when story is over everyone just goes home. Yes, a meaningful story can be inspiring. But for it to ignite the change you are hoping, individuals will need to believe in the story and make it their own for it to be real. In other words, when you pass the baton, someone is there to take and continue from where you left off, because they believe.

And remember: “The answer is always in the entire story, not a piece of it.” (Jim Harrison)

Technorati Tags: stories, storytelling, grounding yourself