Diary of a globalization champion

I had lunch with a UK based client today that has a team of IT professionals in India.  Much of the conversation centered on how best to manage the team from a cultural perspective.  Should an empowered style be used or a more autocratic style?  What’s best for maximizing productivity?  I would say that there is no hard and fast rule and that it very much depends on the team that you have and their experiences.  A team of very high end professionals with global experiences will not take well to an autocratic, command and control management style but a team of less experienced professionals may prefer clear and specific guidance.  I believe it is dangerous to generalise on how to run a team in a specific country.

While on culture, I was reminded of a situation last week.  I was in Bulgaria with another client and we were in a bar in Sofia.  Around the table were 3 people from the client organization (a UK listed software company) including one of their executive directors.  Next to the executive director was a young Java developer from Sofia.  What struck me was the ease with which the conversation flowed between the two.  There were none of the hierarchical barriers that I have witnessed in other countries.

But with both of these points, the overall comment I have is that you should not generalize.  All countries have their cultural differences, some positive, some negative but in the main all manageable.  It is possible to get productivity in almost any country as long as you are sensitive to the working culture and most appropriate management style for your team.

Finally, an interesting note on globalization.  I have just spent two hours on a call with some of our people in Oslo, Chicago and myself in London.  The purpose of the call was to go through our new web site, page by page, checking content, making amendments via the content management system on the fly and getting an agreed list of actions for launch.  The conference call itself cost nothing (Skype Conference Call) and Jennifer in Chicago can go ahead today and carry on working on the site during her working day (it’s almost 9pm where I am but only 3pm where she is).If this isn’t an example of globalization in action, I don’t know what is.  The barriers are gone, you can get work done anywhere, and if you get it right, productivity can soar.