Perspective: the Myth of the Global Executive

 

A. Read the article and match the first sentences with the paragraphs. In these sentences find words and expressions that give clues to how paragraphs are linked together.

a. In fact, however global the company may be, it remains necessary to manage people differently in different country.

b. So given the importance of local cultures within the global company, an obvious question is how to appraise and identify talent around the world on a consistent basis.

c. Multinationals running their various businesses the same way all over the world may have been perfectly acceptable 30 years ago, but it is not the way today.

d. “We’ve been developing a set of 11 management competencies we can use worldwide,” he says.

e. Behind this lies the most fundamental problem of all: the fact that apart from a handful of companies, even the biggest corporations are dominated by the culture of the home country.

f. The global executive, in fact, may be something of a myth.

g. Richard Greenhalgh, head of management development and training at the Anglo-Dutch consumer group Unilever, says that in a few areas, such as integrity and the Unilever code of conduct, corporate culture takes precedence.

h. But if the members of top management are all nationals of the home country, it makes it much more difficult to attract and keep talented and ambitious managers from other countries.

i. “But you need a balance between having a very international cadre and having a national presence,” he says.

 

The key to success is to combine corporate culture with local knowledge and include, not reject national characteristics.

1. Nevertheless, the vast majority of even the biggest companies still have a culture rooted in their country of origin. Changing that is one of the biggest challenges to becoming genuinely global.

2. A sentence missing

3. “A few years ago, we were concerned that we had too many expatriates. Five years ago, three of our four business heads in Italy were expatriates. Now they are all Italian. In a consumer business like ours, that’s important.”

4. According to Mr Greenhalgh, the use of expatriates goes against the policy of providing a career ladder for local managers.

5. Within Europe, Mr Greenhalgh says, Unilever has traditionally been much more open with managers in northern than in southern countries, on matters such as where they stand in the salary scale or what their prospects are. But that is changing, he adds. A younger generation of managers is more likely to have traveled when young, and many have taken an MBA in the US.

6. “Outside that handful,” says Lowell Bryan, a senior partner with McKinsey in New York, “companies are very German, or very British, or very American. And in the case of US companies they assume globalisation means Americanising the world. At least others don’t have that arrogance.”

7. In fact, the problem lies not in attracting people – a talented Indian or Korean manager will typically want early experience with a multinational – but in keeping them. “People will join the company to learn,” Mr Bryan says, “but unless they feel they’re part of the core company, they are going to leave, and exploit the brand status of the company in their next job.”

8. Unilever, Mr Greenhalgh says, has been working on this for the past four years.

9. “The aim is to have a clear objective measure of potential. We measure such things as entrepreneurial drive, the ability to lead and develop others, and integrity. That makes up a common core of behaviours. We’ve tested it, and so far it seems to be culturally transferable.”

Financial Times. 2007

 

B. Choose the best explanation for the phrases:

“exploit the brand status of the company in their next job” (paragraph 7)

a. they will take information about the company’s products to a new company

b. they will get a good job in a new company because of the reputation of their old company

c. they will get good jobs as brand managers in a new company

 

“entrepreneurial drive” (paragraph 9)

a. willingness to take risks

b. previous experience of running a company

c. someone with an outgoing personality

 

C. Comment on the following:

Ideally, it seems a global manager should have the stamina of an Olympic runner, the mental agility of an Einstein, the conversational skill of a professor of languages, the detachment of a judge, the tact of a diplomat, and the perseverance of an Egyptian pyramid builder. And that’s not all. If they are going to measure up to the demands of living and working in a foreign country, they should also have a feeling for the culture; their moral judgement should not be too rigid; they should be able to merge with the local environment; and they should show no signs of prejudice.

Thomas Aitken

 

D. Summarize the article in English.