Diversity is 'a must'

INSEAD

Posted by ibbbia on Friday January 09, 2009 1:14 pm

Success requires diverse teams and Brown says real leaders hire teams with differing skills and backgrounds, give them clear responsibilities, and stay in close touch with the team at all levels.

On diversity: “Diversity is an absolute necessity for a team, and when I say diversity, I mean it in every sense of the word: gender, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, culture, personality type (and) area of expertise.

“Diversity is an absolute necessity for a team, and when I say diversity, I mean it in every sense of the word: gender, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, culture, personality type, area of expertise. Over the years, I’ve noticed that diverse teams are more successful than homogenous ones- and, by the way, more fun.”

“In the international marketplace, a diverse team is a must.  In this kind of environment, creating a team with a global, or worldly point of view is imperative. And I’m not talking about team members who have travelled and racked up air miles; I am referring to people who bring different cultural perspectives to the team, who understand that they will encounter cultural differences and who will be sensitive to these differences.”

“Now, some executives will swear that implementing a strategy of diversity is a major challenge.  They say that to get the best people, they need to go with proven talent, and if all that talent happens to be white, Anglo-Saxon and male, so be it.  I reject this argument.  If you go with the talent you know, you will wind up with more of what you’ve got.”

“Leaders should take care not to be too “class conscious”.  I always like to give the most junior person as much air time as the most senior person.  When you are doing business internationally, however, this can be tricky, as there are cultures that revere seniority to the point that they don’t seek input from their juniors.  In such cases, the leader can show respect for local custom by addressing the elders first, but making sure to seek input from the junior staff as well.”

“You’ve got to surround yourself with people that are diverse, have very, very broad perspectives in terms of educational background, in terms of their cultural background, in terms of the languages they speak,” he said.

He points to Europe and says the male-dominated and age-hierarchical nature of management doesn’t foster the effective mentoring that brings out the best managers. For transcultural companies to succeed, managers have to be very focused on finding the best person for the job regardless or age or gender, he adds.

When executives say that building a diverse team is much more difficult, he tells them that a homogeneous team of white, Anglo-Saxon males won’t be as successful as a diverse team. They share values, resist challenging conventional thinking and are more political.

He writes: “In the international marketplace, a diverse team is a must.”

For younger managers, Brown says team building, effective mentoring and networking are crucial. And he says today executives need to think beyond traditional borders.

On mentoring: “If I think about what have been the most important business and personal relationships to me, it’s been from people that have mentored me and people I have mentored. 

“If I think about what have been the most important business and personal relationships to me, it’s been from people that have mentored me and people I have mentored.”

Mentoring is not a formal relationship. But Brown says these relationships can be more important than many official workplace associations. “Someone has a stake in your success and you have a stake in someone else’s and you have a real desire to see each other do well,” he said.

Brown tells young business leaders to seek out people at work, through volunteering, in professional associations, as well as community or religious groups.  Get to know the people you feel a connection with, and with the people who interest you. 

“If you’re looking for a mentor, I think in any group you join, you should be saying, ‘Who should I try to engage with?’, ‘Who can I learn from?’, ‘Who would I like to emulate in my career?’” he says.

You might have many mentors, but it’s vital to keep up with these relationships, spend time on them and be honest. As much as possible, make it a two-way street, listening to the other person and helping where you can.

Senior executives benefit from mentoring younger people as well. “You gain from the experience in terms of the people you know, the people you count as friends, the people that look out for your own family down the road,” he says.

Mentoring, he adds, “is a fabulously rewarding experience.

I do think that anybody who aspires to be a leader in this generation, or in the generations to come, needs to focus beyond their own backyard. Anyone who says my aspirations are local is setting themselves up to fail,” he said.

He encourages the people he mentors to seek out different types of work experiences to expand their knowledge and understanding.

“I also feel very strongly that a lot of leadership is learned and a lot of leadership comes through being in a position to get the right experience and being willing to take advantage of the right experience,” he says.

On succession: “Real leaders don’t worry about legacies.” Instead, Brown says leaders care about the long-term viability of their companies.

Real leaders don’t worry about legacies. Instead, Frank Brown says leaders care about the long-term viability of their companies.

“Anybody who wants to see an organisation survive and be proud of it for their lifetime and beyond wants to leave it in good shape,” Brown says.

In fact, Brown says CEOs should be grooming two or three potential successors. 

“It’s both a responsibility and an enabler to get your job done. Treating someone as a potential successor is a great way of fostering a relationship and retaining that individual for the good of the company,” he adds.

To choose a successor, it’s important for any CEO to get input from across the company and outside the organisation. It’s also important to let the company, the public and the markets know who the successor is, long in advance so there’s a smooth transition.

“If you’re focused on contriving a legacy. If you do things because you’re going to wonder what people are going to say about you later, my guess is you’re not always going to do the right thing” for the business now.

Aspiring executives also should learn to behave like leaders, dressing and acting appropriately, showing humility, and learning to interact with peers and other team members in a way that builds rapport.

He says young managers who spend too much time gaining the perks of power often lose sight of the organisation’s goals and how to achieve them.

On work-life balance: “If you don’t communicate what your particular needs or out-of-work situation is, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

Work-life balance is as much the responsibility of employees as employers.

INSEAD Dean Frank Brown believes employees have to be clear with their bosses about what’s important and where they are in their lives.  

“If you don’t communicate what your particular needs or out-of-work situation is, you’re doing yourself a disservice. And you shouldn’t be afraid to say, ‘You know my kid has a game today’ or ‘I have a doctor’s appointment’ or ‘I’m a member of this particular community group,’” he says. “Whatever it is, an employee owes it to an employer to communicate what it means to them to have a healthy out-of-work experience.”

Most organisations today understand that times have changed and employees will look for another job, if they don’t get the support they want for their family and personal obligations. That means good employers are much better at working with employees on work-life balance.

“Times have changed now. My point is that people are much more mobile. They’re much more willing to vote with their feet and organisations are getting smarter, and have to get smarter, in terms of the way you have to engage people.”

Brown does caution that in today’s 24/7 interconnected world, people have to take stock of their values and tune in to what’s really important for them.

“The Blackberry can be an enabler or it can be a curse, and it’s a curse where if you become so reliant on it, every time the red light goes off, you’re compelled to look at it,” he says. “People think I’m responsive, but in reality there are a lot of times when I turn the thing off for a good portion of the time.”

Brown devotes a chapter of his book to communications and urges leaders to listen better to their staff, other managers, competitors and customers, especially in a transcultural setting. LINOs, he says, often act as though listening to customers and rank and file employees is a burden.

“By investing the time to listen and learn you’ve created a much higher probability that the actions you undertake together are going to be successful and are going to be accepted.”

The global business leader

INSEAD

Posted by ibbbia on Friday January 09, 2009 1:12 pm

Leadership has nothing to do with titles. J. Frank Brown, the Dean of INSEAD, has met a lot of CEOs in his two-and-a-half decades in business and many of them are little more than LINOs – Leaders In Name Only. 

“A lot of people talk about leadership and not that many actually do it,” Brown said in an interview with INSEAD Knowledge.

Brown believes there are seven hallmarks of a great leader. “I think the most important one is how you communicate and how you listen because if you’re going to be a successful leader you’ve got to be a really aggressive learner,” he said.

In his book, The Global Business Leader: Practical Advice for Success in a Transcultural Marketplace, Brown lists the hallmarks of leadership: openness, integrity, humility, a view of the present and the future, an optimistic outlook, the proper use of authority, and an understanding of personal and organisational objectives.

‘Transcultural’ leaders at the helm of international companies also need to be sensitive to other cultures and national differences. That means leaders today need to be willing to explore and travel. They need to be curious about other people and customs.

“This awareness and willingness to engage and be intellectually curious about what’s going on in the rest of the world is an absolutely critical component to being effective in a transcultural environment, and effectiveness gives you the opportunity to potentially lead,” Brown says.

 LINOs aren’t very curious and they tend to surround themselves with people who look and think like them. They don’t really want to engage, learn and listen.

“In my view LINOs don’t really want your opinion, they don’t really want your input, they don’t really want you on their team. They’d like you to go away and do your job,” he says.

But this is a recipe for failure for an organisation.

“There is a failing of CEOs that surround themselves with people who aren’t as smart as they are and therefore they think they’re ensuring they’re going to stay in the top spot, but in reality they’re setting themselves and their teams up for failure.”

This is especially true for global and regional businesses. Brown tells the story of a deal between a Japanese and American company that went hopelessly wrong because the two parties simply didn’t understand each other’s culture.