Career

Many multinational companies have hidden, unrecognised multicultural gems within their ranks. To find these and get the most from their unique skills means taking the time and trouble to carefully develop and deploy multicultural managers in critical positions.

“I think it’s simply irresponsible to declare that we don’t need [shale gas] and we don’t want [shale gas] here in Europe”. Kurt Bock, CEO of BASF[ii]

The newly appointed CEO of Carrefour, M. Georges Plassat, has given himself three years to rebalance the Carrefour Group. Describing Carrefour as a “duck without a head”[i] – and thus no vision –, he is certainly aware of the challenge he is up to. The fall from grace of Kmart of the US is a frightening reminder of the potential urgency of Carrefour’s refashioning.

The ranking of companies and business leaders has become something of a cottage industry in recent years. But what do they tell us about anything? Quite a bit, it turns out. You just have to learn to read between the numbers.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner program is getting a new manager, Larry Loftis, who is the current manager of the highly successful 777 program. It is hard to be surprised at a change in management of this program, which delivered its first aircraft 3 year behind schedule and has been plagued by design and manufacturing problems. The latest one was discovered one month ago. It makes sense that a project in trouble should have a new manager, and that this new manager should have a track record of success. That’s the way to fix problems, isn’t it?

What qualities are necessary in a global environment of economic uncertainty and political change, in which - thanks to technology – change happens at warp speed? Participants at INSEAD’s Leadership Summit Middle East in Abu Dhabi in January speak out…

Cardiac surgery is a sophisticated, dangerous and delicate procedure; but an Indian surgeon and his hospital group have successfully transformed it into a factory style mass operation, bringing high quality care to the many millions who could never before afford it. Dr. Devi Shetty’s Bangalore based flagship, 1,000-bed Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital, charges $2,000, on average, for open-heart surgery, compared with hospitals in the U.S. that are paid between $20,000 and $100,000, depending on the complexity of the surgery.

The business press and business schools have implicitly or inadvertently focused the public’s attention on extraordinary CEOs and top executives and continued to undervalue the role of middle managers, who are defined as managers who do not report directly to the top CEO and who are one level above front line workers.