How to Manage in a Flat World: 10 Strategies to Get Connected to Your Team Wherever They Are

How to MANAGE in a FLAT WORLD

10 Strategies to Get Connected to Your Team Wherever They Are

 

Lead Winning Global Teams in Today’s Flat Businesses!

 

Manage, motivate, and communicate with teams that span continents

Master all the tools available to global managers, from technology to travel

Based on exclusive interviews with dozens of successful global managers

 

In today’s “flat” world, you must get the best from teams that span not just offices, but continents: teams of unprecedented diversity and complexity. Leading those teams, you must deliver better results faster and with fewer resources. Conventional management techniques just won’t do the job anymore. You need a radically new approach to management: one that’s more fluid, more agile, and far less hierarchical.

 

How to Manage in a Flat World teaches you that new approach. Drawing on hard-won lessons from today’s most successful global managers, this book covers both high-level concepts and hands-on techniques. You’ll find best practices for everything from building trust to choosing the right times to travel…even maintaining a healthy work/life balance when you’re leading a team that’s operating 24/7!

 

Susan Bloch has spent the past decade helping leading enterprises build leadership capability and effective teams. She has coached business leaders in manufacturing, financial services, construction, retailing, telecommunications, and other industries. Her clients have included Reuters, Prudential, Shell, Unilever, Philips, Sony, BT, Barclays, Standard Chartered, and Accenture. Bloch holds an M.A. in Psychology from Columbia University, and is a fellow of Ashoka, a global charity that supports social entrepreneurs.

 

Philip Whiteley is a freelance author and journalist specializing in management. He is author or coauthor of numerous books, including Unshrink the People (with Max Mckeown). He contributes regularly to leading business publications, and writes a weekly column on executive compensation for The Times of London.

 

Together, Bloch and Whiteley previously authored Complete Leadership.

 

In a flat world, managers are on the front lines. It is managers who must bring together individuals, teams, and resources from all over the planet. It is managers who must work through differences in language and culture to drive quantifiable results, and be held accountable for those results. Stripped of yesterday’s hierarchical, unquestioned authority, it is managers who must earn the right to lead, every single day.

 

How to Manage in a Flat World gives you a complete blueprint for succeeding as a manager and leader in today’s radically flattened and globalized business environment. You’ll learn realistic, proven techniques for leading and motivating teams, wherever they are…using technology and travel more effectively…creating cultures of trust and motivation…coping with ambiguity while providing clarity…and building a balanced, fulfilled life for yourself at the very same time.

 

• Does culture still matter? Yes, but…

Discover the “common reference points” that are emerging alongside traditional culture

• Bullet trains and mules

Integrate the super-fast pace of business and technology with the slower evolution of humans

• When there’s no substitute for travel

Make the most of face-to-face interactions on a tight budget

• Keeping a life, keeping the “real you”

Improve your work/life balance in a flat, global business environment

 

Sample Pages

Download the sample pages (includes Chapter 1 and Index)

Table of Contents

Foreword    xi

Acknowledgments    xiii

About the Authors    xv

Preface    xvii

Introduction    xix

Part I    The Team

1    “Flat” Teams Need Direction    3

Key Points    3

Followership    4

Getting into Focus    5

Leading out of the Darkness of Ambiguity    6

Behind the Scenes: Teams in Synch with the Business    9

Unity of Focus in Complex Teams    11

Case Study: Coca-Cola: RIP the Department Silo    14

Clusters    15

Case Study: Shell Retail: Huge Workforce in a Dispersed Operation    17

Do We All Have to “Bond”?    20

Case Study: United Biscuits    22

If We Don’t Know Where We Are Going, We Will Probably End Up Somewhere Else    25

Your Own Human Internet    26

Learning Points: High Performance with a Globally Dispersed Team    27

2    The Medium and the Message    29

Key Points    29

What Do We Get from “Being There”?    31

Video-Conferences: An Irritation    33

Why Are We Here?    35

Face-to-Face Can Be Powerful but Must Be Used Well    36

All Businesses Are People Businesses    38

A Level Playing Field in the Same Room    39

An International Team Can Really Fire    41

Benefits to Being the Virtual Stranger    42

Will Face-to-Face Become a Luxury?    44

Are There Hidden Advantages to the Virtual Connection?    47

Native or Nonnative English? Some Notes on Language    49

Onward with Travel    51

Learning Points: How to Get the Meeting Structure Right    51

3    Does Culture Still Matter?    53

Key Points    53

Is There a Generation Y?    57

Is It Really Culture?    59

In Which Ways Do We Differ?    60

In Which Ways Are We All the Same?    61

Individual Case Study: Monika Altmaier, Project Leader Internationalization, Siemens Business Services    63

Group Case Study: European Top Team    66

Defying the Stereotypes: WL Gore & Associates in China    67

Culture Clash Based on Profession    70

Learning Points: Tips to Avoid Stereotyping    72

4    Engage Leadership Skills: Command and Control

Doesn’t Work    73

Key Points    73

Can Empowerment and Control Live Together?    74

Can You Learn, Unlearn, and Relearn?    78

How Do You Set Limits?    79

Managing the Bosses: Where Does Followership Fit in?    81

Quality of Relationships, Not Formulae    82

Learning Points: How to Improve Leadership Skills    83

5    Teams Are Not Self-Assembly    85

Key Points    85

What Are Those Special Ingredients?    86

Search Agent    87

Looking for the Global Mindset    87

How Important Is Fluent English?    90

The Hunt for Talent: Recruiting via Networks    91

Building the Right Culture Will Attract the People You Want    94

Learning Points: Guiding Principles for International Recruitment    96

Part II    The Individual

6    EQ Is Not Enough: Intelligence Matters    99

Key Points    99

LVMH: Understanding the Market    102

Alstom: Building Long-Term Connections    104

It Is Not Always Enough to Be a Virtual Leader    105

Understanding the World: Changes That Creep Up on Us    106

Wake Up: The Paradigm Has Already Shifted    108

How Do We Make Learning Continuous?    111

Learning Points: How to Combine Strategic and Conceptual Thinking for Effective Leadership    113

7    Keeping a Life: Questions of Balance in the Flat World    115

Key Points    115

Meeting Face-to-Face Sends a Positive Message    117

Do We Have to Leave the Real Me at the Door?    118

Do We Have to Have the Maximum Everything?    123

Is Multitasking Really Possible?    124

“You Get Work-Life Balance Complaints When You’re Losing”    126

Learning Points: How to Improve Work-Life Balance    127

8    Ten Strategies for Managing in a Flat World    129

1 Leadership Style Needs to Become Empowering and Inspirational    131

2 A Flat World Means Flat Structures    132

3 Recruitment of the Right People Makes All the Difference    132

4 Always Show the Way    133

5 Communicate Often and Learn to Communicate Well    133

6 Teams Don’t Just Happen    134

7 Build Trust: It Is the Foundation of Strong Teams    135

8 Respect Cultural Differences    135

9 Work-Life Balance is the Blessing and the Curse of the Flat World    136

10 Become Part of the Human Internet    137

Implications for Boards, Managers, and Ordinary People    137

Managers Should Be Cut from a Different Cloth    139

Changing the Leadership Model    139

Ways of Being and Doing    140

Lessons from the Movies    141

Lumps and Bumps in the Flat World: What Would Make You Fail?    142

Using Both Sides of the Brain: Transforming Leadership    143

Conclusion: How to Be a Stand-Out Manager in a Flat World    145

The Three Cs of Success in the Flat World    146

A New Language for the Flat World    147

Notes    150

Index    151