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Credit: Reuters / Handout, Iron Ore Company Canada
Carlos Ghosn, the Brazilian-born Chairman and CEO of the
Renault-Nissan Alliance splits his time between Tokyo and Paris.
He holds both Brazilian and French citizenships.
One difficulty facing companies, however,
is that the goals outlined above are not
complementary, and can even be contradictory.
To give one example, a person sent primarily to
learn about a foreign market may encounter a
completely different set of tasks and
responsibilities from one sent to plug knowledge
gaps. To get the full benefit of such assignments,
says Ms Steele, companies have to aim for global
executives to do both teaching and learning.
However, as she says, most businesses do
neither. “Doing neither has a cost. Doing both is
not difficult but it does require planning.”
Comprehensive planning, though, is too often
absent when executives are sent abroad because
very few companies approach such activity
holistically. Instead, foreign placements are
frequently driven by an ad hoc desire of an
individual business unit. Ernst & Young research
shows, for example, that human resources
departments play little role in helping to decide
who would benefit most from going abroad – for
nearly 6 in 10 companies, global mobility
professionals are not involved at all in candidate
selection. “People aren’t always looking
strategically. Instead they are looking tactically
and short term,” says Ferrigno. “There is a
massive difference between companies who treat
transfers as a way to invest in people and those
who see them as a way to fill positions.”
The first step, then, toward getting the most
benefit out of international placements is for
Zoë Yujnovich, the Australian-born President and CEO of Rio Tinto’s
Iron Ore Company of Canada, built her career in roles within
the company’s operations in Australia, the UK, US and Brazil.
companies to recognize the multiple objectives
involved and to try and align the varying interests
of distinct parts of the organization around
meeting as many of them as possible. But the
million-dollar question, says Schupp, is working
out how to bring this together. This is especially
true amid the tension between business units
and HR in trying to align strategies. “You get
pressure from business units to quickly fill the
open positions. To maximize the value of an
assignment, the best thing to do is to get the two
groups to sit at the table together to begin to
understand each other and collaborate on how to
meet the multiple objectives they each have,”
says Schupp. “It sounds simple, but many
organizations have a difficult time doing that.”
One way that some companies have found to
improve cooperation is to fund international
postings jointly, especially of junior executives. In
this model, the budget is split between the
receiving business unit and corporate level
training funds, as both parties have an interest in
the assignment.
Such alignment allows a coherent approach to
another crucial element of success: defining how
each assignment will benefit the business and
what is expected of the executive. Millward
Brown’s Steele notes, “Every transfer is looked at
individually and as part of a broader strategic
plan.” Not only are executives properly prepared,
but corporate expectations are made explicit.
Being very clear about why you are sending
Global executives
The highly globalized
operating environment of
today is increasingly
demanding leaders with a
suitably international
background and CV, in order
to more effectively manage
multinational teams and
organizations. Executives
such as Renault-Nissan’s
Carlos Ghosn or Rio Tinto’s
Zoë Yujnovich may once
have been the outliers, but
a growing number of
companies are now actively
working to develop new
leaders with similarly global
backgrounds.
Ernst & Young Issue 07 T Magazine 11