Wynne Global Business Success

Leadership Skills You Need for Global Business
1. Auflage 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5439-7910-7
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet/DL/kein Kopierschutz

E-Book, Englisch, 288 Seiten

This book's content is about the adventure of an executive with no international experience who is sent to manage an overseas company, it shows business readers how to safely handle these and many other international business challenges. Plus, Global Business Success requires building better international business relationships in different cultures.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wynne, Michael

Leseproben

Chapter Two George’s First Tour of the Plant The manufacturing process, although somewhat antique, looked familiar. As George walked through the production area, he began to make mental notes about things that needed to be changed and improved. There was a section where a few of the workers were cleaning out the empty barrels that had contained the solvents used in the production process. George noticed the workers seemed a little bleary eyed and uncoordinated. Initially, he felt the smell of the cleaning liquids they were using was familiar but he couldn’t identify it. When he asked the Plant Manager what liquid was being used, he almost couldn’t believe the answer. “WHAT? Is that what they’re using? How long have they been using it?” he asked. The Plant Manager seemed surprised by George’s question. He replied, “We have always used that liquid.” What surprised George was that because of its powerful toxicity that particular liquid was illegal to use in the American plants. No wonder the workers looked groggy; they might have already suffered serious health damage. This was unacceptable. How could the company still be using illegal materials after seven years of owning this operation? George immediately ordered the Plant Manager to stop that operation, replace the liquid with a different one that was known to be acceptable, and have the workers examined by a doctor to determine if they had suffered any damages. “Why were you using that liquid? It is too dangerous.” The Plant Manager shrugged his shoulders and said, “It is cheaper than the other cleansing liquids.” “Didn’t the previous American CEO know this was dangerous?” “I don’t know,” the Plant Manager replied. “He knew the name of the liquid but didn’t seem to be bothered by it.” George knew he had to brief his boss back in the U.S. about this unacceptable practice and its potentially very costly damage to the workers. Continuing his tour of the plant, George made it a point to greet each of the workers. This seemed to make them uncomfortable; in fact, one of the workers seemed almost outraged. George asked the Plant Manager, “What’s going on with that guy? Why does he look so angry? The Plant Manager smiled and said, “Oh, he’s the union leader. He probably thinks you are trying to lure his members away by being nice to them.” “The union leader? “What union?” asked George. “Our company’s union,” replied the Plant Manager. Nobody had told George that there was a union. George was angry. He thought, “How could my boss not tell me that the workforce was unionized; I’ve never worked with a union before? How am I supposed to handle this? I am going to really give my boss a hard time on this one.” “This plant is a mess and no one at headquarters seems to either know or care about it, or has been hiding it intentionally. If I don’t get a reasonable answer from my boss about this, I could sue the company for this unethical behavior and its inadequate and definitely unfair communication with me.” Later that day, George called his boss back in the U.S. All he got was a voicemail recording saying that Frank, his boss, was on vacation and wouldn’t be back for 10 days. George dialed his boss’s administrative assistant’s number and got another voicemail recording asking him to leave a message. Still angry, George thought of calling his boss’s boss, Vice President James Kellogg, but decided not to. He wasn’t sure how to present his situation. What if Mr. Kellogg was unaware of what was going on? Or, even worse, what if he was and hadn’t done anything about it? Frustrated, but now calming down a bit, George decided to email a carefully worded description to his boss of his discoveries as well as their potential impact on both the operation and his performance. He did it because the situation and its probable consequences needed to be documented. He really wasn’t thinking of suing the company, at least not yet; the purpose was to protect his own career. Now, he began to consider what would be an appropriate action to take if medical examinations of the workers exposed to the dangerous liquid indicated that they had suffered permanent damage. He also wondered why the workers seemed so uncomfortable when he greeted them on his tour of the plant. And, finally, he began to explore how to deal with the union and its leader. By now, George was beginning to feel depressed; his discomfort was enormous. “My God; I’m only in my first week here. What else is out there that I haven’t discovered yet? And how am I going to handle the obvious blaming game that the Plant Manager and the Sales Manager are engaged in?” On the way to the hotel that evening, he realized that he had left his passport on the coffee table in his room. “Oh, oh; I hope it’s still there. I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s gone.” Chapter Two.
George’s First Tour of the Plant.
What Headquarters May Never Have Told You. These Questions and Answers will help you to think through how to apply these lessons. The answers provided will start your thinking along the right lines. How can you find out if all is well or not in the new overseas assignment? Talk with people who may have been there before even if only as visitors. Talk with Human Resource people regarding any information they may have dealt with. What if it isn’t? Should you blame your predecessor? How should you report it? Find out who has dealt with that operation in previous years and ask them what might have happened. If headquarters provides supplies of any type, ask if there have been any abnormalities with the foreign operation’s orders. Investigate which local bank in that country works or has worked with your company’s operations there, then call them to ask about the bank’s experiences and impressions. Or should you simply fix it and not report it? Why? Get more information from more people at different departments and locations to develop a helpful basis of data and perceptions. By all means, headquarters should be made aware of what you have found and what has been done. For example, George discovered that some of the production employees had been using a chemical that was dangerously unhealthy. He told headquarters about it and also informed them that the better chemicals would be more expensive but definitely safer. If you have never worked with a union how can you learn? Learn about local labor laws. Talk with a local lawyer and with human resource experts at the U.S. embassy. Study the union contracts of the last few years. Meet the union leaders and treat them with respect. Build a relationship of cooperation and mutual information. Start planning the next union contract negotiation. Should you document negative discoveries, or not? Why? What are the concerns? Definitely document negative discoveries but before you pass them onto headquarters find out if there are any legal (U.S. or foreign) concerns. Once things are documented it may not be possible to change them if the issue could be legally delicate. Should you have explored the labor laws of the new country you will be working in? Yes, but you also need to explore laws and regulations regarding importations if you are bringing in supplies from other countries. Should you explore the financial reports of previous years before you go there? Why? Definitely. As many financial and other reports as possible. You may want to also check previous emails. How can you determine the accuracy of the statistical data you will be working from? When you get there, you will need to explore the ways reports of all kinds are produced. It is important to determine their accuracy. For example, financial data accuracy may be checked by an American auditing firm that has been approved by headquarters. It may be a well-respected auditing firm in the U.S. but how good are the local personnel of the auditing firm? Are they related to any of the financial personnel in your company? Could that be negative? What if you find that the local financial and other data is wrong, how should you handle this? If you suspect that any financial and other data may be unreliable, get headquarter help. How often should you check ongoing performance results? Regarding how often you should check ongoing performance results depends on how comfortable you are with information you are getting. Look at it this way: as your company’s top executive in that country you probably have to prepare P&L statements every month showing the operation’s performance versus the annual budget. That means that you need to have some idea of how well the operation is going versus that month’s target statistics. The report may be monthly, but the weeks go by very quickly and before you know it you will be due to report the results in just a few days. My recommendation is to produce a P&L for each week as the month’s days begin to accumulate. By the middle of the month you will begin to sense whether or not the operation will be on target by the end of the month. It may give you just enough time to do something to improve the...