In principle this book is a guide to the internationally inexperienced manager as he or she learns the complex world of global management. This book differs from most books from a business press, which tackle the terrain of global "business". Blissful for their absence in these pages are the topics most business books are about-economics, investment, trade policy, finance, taxes, labor factors, upsizing, downsizing, reengineering, accounting and accountability. Instead, there are terms like "global manager", "boundaries of distance, country, and culture", "cultural adaptability", "perspective-taking", and "ability to play the role of innovator". Where most business books are about seeing the world through the eyes of one's own goals, Success for the New Global Manager is about how and why other people see you differs from the way you see yourself.
Peter, with whom the reader presumably identifies, has a major ego-education task on his hands. He must learn to let his way of seeing the world not merely coexist with others' ways of viewing the world, but sometimes give his own view up entirely in order to conform to the view of others.
This is something of a revolutionary principle in an America-dominated business world where most Americans assume prospective partners must think, act, behave, and motivate themselves like Americans if they are to "fit in".
Culls managers are what this book seeks to nip the bud. It is revelatory how the authors-perhaps unwittingly even to each other-try to reach the naive hero before he heads out lance in hand, and to convince him to take a second look at what he is doing. The authors provide our would-be hero-Peter-with nothing less than an entirely new myth to go by. Peter accepts his new assignment confident that he pretty much knows all he needs to know (the lance). But soon he makes a misstep here, a blunder there, here and there and everywhere a misunderstanding or two, till he's all but squandered every opportunity he had.
Luckily, the authors of Success for the New Global Manager endow Peter with a willingness to adapt to others' needs. The Modern Hero Myth of Peter is that he realizes he has much to learn, and earnestly sets about improving himself through discerning and providing for others' needs. The Hero is made by modesty, not swordsmanship. The values of compassion suggested in Success for the New Global Manager are far closer to the Bhagavad Gita and Confucianism than it is to any legend floated to sea from the shores of Greece. One wishes that many more books with these authors' set of assumptions could address the conduct of business itself instead of management alone.
All this not to say that upon reading this book a sunshaft of benignity will shine upon the world of business. The authors set forth their epistemological message in managerial terms. For them, Peter needs four "pivotal capabilities"-international business knowledge, cultural adaptability, perspective-taking, and ability to play the role of innovator. Most of the book is devoted to acquiring these. However, they are not mere qualities one can study, pass an exam upon, and sage forth unto success; they are not ends in themselves. These four capabilities represent an attitude shift which is the psychological equivalent of a paradigm shift. Adapting to others' reality requires both motivation, specialized knowledge, and a particular set of skills.
Books-like this one-that address globalization in cultural rather than entrepreneurial terms are much needed today. Had the upper-mid managers of garment manufacturers like Nike known some of the basic tools described in this book, perhaps the fiascos related to Indonesian labor exploitation would not have occurred. For one, they would have been forewarned of the pitfalls of delegating management to third party organizations without also exercising strong oversight, in the manner many Western clothing manufacturers did with Korean subcontractors whose management style was ... well ... less than optimal.
But there is a bigger fish to fry than inept sports shoe manufacturers. It is that globalization is driven largely by American interests, whose managers view business in aggressive entrepreneurial terms and are largely unaware that a great many people value other ways of conducting business. In the Malay countries of Southwest Asia there is a mentality called gotong-royong ("everybody doing their part" or "we all pitch in") which can be described as task-directed consensus management. Shear away the patriarchal overlay imposed by ancient religions and Asia's much-lauded family-focused social system is really nothing but gotong-royong.
Success for the New Global Manager is an octagonal red sign. It reads, "Stop! There is danger ahead." There is nothing quite so scary as being ignorant of being ignorant. The cultural ignorance that this book addresses really should have been addressed way back in the early semesters of business school (and for that matter, as far back as secondary school). Why does a book like this one have to offer advice such as that on page 120, on which they counsel that if you are going to live in a country, you should listen to its music, read its literature and business books, and learn about the food.
The world knows a lot more about the U.S. than the U.S. knows about the world. A scary thought this book seeks to redress.
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