The Challenges of Making a Foreign Journey


Let’s begin with a caveat: living abroad will not have much of an effect on your life or leadership if the experience is very similar to your past experience. Some senior executives go abroad and live in replicas of the same communities they left, working and socializing with people like themselves, eating at McDonald’s, and never really exposing themselves to what makes a foreign culture foreign. Just living in another country isn’t the point. The key is to fully experience the different culture.

Here is the ideal scenario describing how this foreign experience might unfold. You are asked to become a marketing manager in your company’s Thailand division—your first international assignment. You’re excited about the assignment, knowing that if you want to be a leader in a global organization, you will need global experience because those moving up all seem to have this particular ticket punched. Your spouse and three children participate in predeparture cross-cultural training and go with you to Bangkok, Thailand, even though your children, because of their ages, don’t particularly relish leaving their friends and moving far away. As a result, you feel guilty about uprooting them. When you arrive, the first few weeks are filled with confusing situations and many frustrations. You find that your children are too advanced for their classes; they are bored in school and frustrated, so you search all over Bangkok for alternative educational venues. It’s also lonely; you and your spouse feel isolated during the first few weeks, despite the hospitality of the head of the Thai company and his attempts to include you and your family in social activities. At one particularly low moment, your spouse wonders whether the decision to leave home was a mistake.

Just as problematic, you find that the business environment is different and, in your view, less sophisticated than what you left. Dealing with the Thai governmental bureaucracy is slow and frustrating. Just as aggravating is the way your Thai vendors respond to your requests for products and services. On the surface, they’re accommodating and friendly, but you regularly find that the commitment or delivery they said would happen in one day still hasn’t arrived after a week. Language issues, too, make it difficult to get points across clearly to Thai direct reports.

After a period of time, however, you and your family settle in. Though your spouse and children may not love being abroad, they stop complaining and start appreciating aspects of the new culture. You also begin to appreciate the challenges more than you’re frustrated by them. You take pride in the way you recognize what it takes to get requests honored; you form a new network that operates differently from the one you enjoyed back home, and you adapt your leadership style to the demands of the culture. You recognize the subtleties of communication that make all the difference in the Thai business world. Although at first you felt the Thai way of doing business was hopelessly complex and inefficient, you learn to appreciate their adaptability and genius for surmounting obstacles.

When you return home, you discover that not only do you have a greater appreciation for cognitive diversity— for people who think differently—but you’re much calmer in the face of problems and better equipped to explore and identify alternatives. Although you’ve gained a great deal of knowledge about how to do business in a foreign country, the larger gain is internal; you have a better sense of who you are, especially in contrast to what you have experienced. The struggles and new experiences of living abroad have been opportunities for reflection. When you were struggling to communicate with your Thai employees, you thought long and hard about why you were unable to connect. They understood English well enough, but you eventually determined that your unspoken arrogance was off-putting. You saw yourself through their eyes, and you weren’t particularly impressed by what you saw. You learned how to project confidence without arrogance, expose some vulnerability, and appreciate and value individuals within the Thai culture. And that made a big difference in the way you related to others, as well as to your capability as a leader.

I went to Asia as a multinational Regional Head with a pregnant wife, a troubled marriage, and a passport that had only been out of Canada three times and only to Europe. The fears of fatherhood, a failing marriage, and a career step beyond my experience and competence propelled me to work night and day to be successful. It was the true turning point in my career, and my Hong Kong-born daughters remain great joys.

Bill Campbell, Chairman, JPMorgan Chase Card Services




Leadership Passages. The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader
Leadership Passages: The Personal and Professional Transitions That Make or Break a Leader (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)
ISBN: 0787974277
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 121

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