Success for the New Global Manager

Success For The New Global Manager provides insights about managing globally from an in-depth, three year study with 211 managers - and thus offers more than most popular management books on the subject, which tend to be based on scant evidence. I particularly liked the book because of the cultural frameworks it explains and how managers can use them as a "mental map" for adjusting their style and for sensing what is happening around them. The book could be used as an additional text for management and leadership courses, or as simply an interesting read for someone who is beginning to manage globally, whether the individual is embarking on an expatriate assignment or managing people from different cultures without changing his or her location. Having been an expatriate several years ago, I reflected on my experience in a new way as a result of reading this book.Martha ReevesSociology DepartmentDuke University

In principle this book is a guide to the internationally inexperienced manager as he or she learns the complex world of global management. This book differs from most books from a business press, which tackle the terrain of global "business". Blissful for their absence in these pages are the topics most business books are about-economics, investment, trade policy, finance, taxes, labor factors, upsizing, downsizing, reengineering, accounting and accountability. Instead, there are terms like "global manager", "boundaries of distance, country, and culture", "cultural adaptability", "perspective-taking", and "ability to play the role of innovator". Where most business books are about seeing the world through the eyes of one's own goals, Success for the New Global Manager is about how and why other people see you differs from the way you see yourself. Peter, with whom the reader presumably identifies, has a major ego-education task on his hands. He must learn to let his way of seeing the world not merely coexist with others' ways of viewing the world, but sometimes give his own view up entirely in order to conform to the view of others. This is something of a revolutionary principle in an America-dominated business world where most Americans assume prospective partners must think, act, behave, and motivate themselves like Americans if they are to "fit in".Culls managers are what this book seeks to nip the bud. It is revelatory how the authors-perhaps unwittingly even to each other-try to reach the naive hero before he heads out lance in hand, and to convince him to take a second look at what he is doing. The authors provide our would-be hero-Peter-with nothing less than an entirely new myth to go by. Peter accepts his new assignment confident that he pretty much knows all he needs to know (the lance). But soon he makes a misstep here, a blunder there, here and there and everywhere a misunderstanding or two, till he's all but squandered every opportunity he had. Luckily, the authors of Success for the New Global Manager endow Peter with a willingness to adapt to others' needs. The Modern Hero Myth of Peter is that he realizes he has much to learn, and earnestly sets about improving himself through discerning and providing for others' needs. The Hero is made by modesty, not swordsmanship. The values of compassion suggested in Success for the New Global Manager are far closer to the Bhagavad Gita and Confucianism than it is to any legend floated to sea from the shores of Greece. One wishes that many more books with these authors' set of assumptions could address the conduct of business itself instead of management alone. All this not to say that upon reading this book a sunshaft of benignity will shine upon the world of business. The authors set forth their epistemological message in managerial terms. For them, Peter needs four "pivotal capabilities"-international business knowledge, cultural adaptability, perspective-taking, and ability to play the rol

I found this book to be very insightful about today's marketplace in general - not necessarily limited to those managers who work internationally. The solid advice offered by these authors will certainly benefit anyone with colleagues from different backgrounds or cultures. The skills described here are essential for managers and their employees who want to remain flexible and educated about the worlds ever changing economy. Highly recommended!

This book provides clear, well-written research which global managers can put to immediate use.