If you're a senior marketer in a large multi-office professional services firm -- and especially if you're the CMO -- you already know what it means to spend a lot of time in transit. Face time among your internal clients is an imperative in order to lead your firm's people to row in a common marketplace direction.
If your firm is global, this means literally weeks of visits, sometimes to places that are on the other side of the world from your own location. Of course you're exhausted much of the time, but you tell yourself that this is a critical part of your leadership mandate. So you pull up your bootstraps and head out the door. Or you take on a global assignment to live in a far-away city, earning your global stripes and hoping that your contribution will help you climb the ladder within the ranks or give you an edge for a marketing job elsewhere.
Right? Well, maybe not, according to today's Wall Street Journal, "Global Experience Doesn't Have to Mean Going to Live Overseas" (subscription may be required). Here are some key quotes from the piece:
"It's not your ability to endure miles in the air that makes the difference," observes Patricia Woertz, CEO of Archer-Daniels-Midland in Decatur, Ill. "It's how quickly you can adapt to different business models, management styles and local practices."
"You sell your global expertise by understanding what's happening in a local market," Ms. Tomlinson explains." [SL note: Not necessarily by traveling often or living there.] [Janice M. Tomlinson, an executive vice president of Chubb, a property and casualty insurer.]
The article offers several examples of how people are gaining global experience even while operating solely from a local base.
This is the first time I've ever heard a "retreat" from the traditionally held philosophy (global face-time or you're not considered to have global experience). (Although it's not a surprise, given the travel and living conditions of many countries today.) And it's a nice change to see that business thinking can evolve to allow more flexible manifestations of globalization.
But will it work for marketing "people-as-product" businesses like professional service firms? I am skeptical.
We agree. New busines comes in "belly to belly" as a rainmaker once told me, who had the belly to go with the advice.
Yours,
Larry Bodine
www.larrybodine.com
Posted by: lbodine | September 07, 2006 at 09:46 PM