In the early 1960s when Marshall McLuhan introduced the concept of “Global Village” no one really understood what it meant to humanity until the late 1990s and the beginning of the 21st century. Today, the term globalization is most closely associated with the term economic globalization: the integration of national economies into the international economy through reduction of barriers to international trade and through international division of labor.

 Large or small, local or global, all the firms are facing with a different challenge than in the past as workforce demographics are changing as a result of many factors:

1.    decreasing population growth in industrialized countries

2.    increasing life expectancy in industrialized countries (By 2050, one fifth of the world’s population will be aged 60 or older)

3.    mobilization due to changing economics

In the next 20 years, availability of skilled workers will not be balanced by the in-country need. Some countries such as India, Philippines, Mexico, and Vietnam will have a surplus while others such as US, UK, Japan, and Russia will suffer significant deficits. All this demographic turbulence means that industries around the world will have to find new sources of labour and many countries will need to get used to working with workers from different nationalities and from different cultural backgrounds.

Technology on the other hand is developing very fast and enabling people to communicate with almost no time and space boundaries. It has been one of the key drivers of globalization.

As a result of all these factors, today’s world is more competitive than ever. It is almost impossible for companies to stay local and be successful in the long term.  Expatriate or international assignments have been rising and companies need skills to be successful in the global context such as adaptability to different cultures.

The most effective way to cope with this changing world and increasing competition is to work with leaders who can effectively and efficiently work across different cultures, who can build trust and influence people from different backgrounds.  However, those leaders, unfortunately, do not grow in the trees!

Companies need to define their requirements very clearly and then invest/hire the right people to create their very own cross-cultural leaders.

In my Cross-Cultural Leadership in the Global World Training Programme, I help/support companies to have a competitive edge by simply creating cultural awareness, discussing and assessing Cultural Intelligence (CQ), and improving skills in cross-cultural leadership.       

The framework of my training programmes is:

·       Self-awareness

·       Cross-Cultural awareness/CQ

·       Communication skills

·       Cross-Cultural leadership skills  

Within this framework, attendees:

• understand the benefits of understanding the cultural differences

• experience how understanding herself can help the person work with other people from different backgrounds

• learn different communication styles, understand the difficulties of using English as a medium of communication, learn to overcome prejudices, deal with misunderstandings, learn to manage conflict

• learn about cross-cultural leadership styles

• Embrace diversity and recognise its role in innovative problem solving 

For more information- hande.binns@hkbconsltancy.co.uk