People as a National Resource

The New York Times carried a front page story about the growth of non-U.S. born senior management in Fortune 100 corporations.

A provocative quote from the deputy dean of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, S. P. Kothari, is central to the current state of global business. He says, “It’s just a numbers game. It’s absolutely nothing wrong with the United States, but our population here is only 300 million. Imagine two billion people from the outside start getting a decent education and going through the pipeline. Well, we are going to encounter more of them who rise to the top.”

It made me realize once again how the countries that were once burdened by huge populations have seen that burden become a major asset. Technology has made it more possible to educate the masses; it has increased food production and food supplies and made distribution systems more efficient.

As a result, the global talent pool has grown, and since organizations are doing business everywhere in the world–especially in these highly populated countries that we call “emerging markets”–talented individuals are getting the recognition their talents deserve.

Of course, we’ve also grown to recognize that in this global world where all things are interconnected, having the cultural wisdom and fluency is a key to success.

The senior managers in the article gained prominence by working for global companies and had to master cultural challenges as well as gain technical competence. While the global business world seems to be embracing certain common cultural values, such as empowerment and direct communication, these are still fundamental cultural values that may have required some of these senior managers to learn behaviors that were outside the realm of typical cultural values imbued in them from early childhood.