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

Susan Bloch has coached top teams in many of the FTSE100 and Fortune 500 companies across the globe over the past twenty years. She has lived and worked in five countries: South Africa, North America, Israel, the United Kingdom, and India. Currently, she is on assignment as Chief Culture Officer for the Retail division of Reliance Industries; one of the few western women working in a senior role in an Indian company. Prior to that she was Partner and Head of Thought Leadership at Whitehead Mann where she was operating as an executive coach, working with executive teams and conducting board effectiveness reviews. Previously she was global head of executive coaching for the Hay Group. A Chartered Psychologist, with a M.A. from Columbia University in NY, Susan has co-authored Employability and Complete Leadership, and has produced a number of research publications.

Philip Whiteley is an author and journalist, specializing in management, particularly the areas of leadership, motivation, and strategic people management. He has written numerous articles for The Times, Personnel Today and Coaching at Work among other titles, and has appeared on BBC Newsnight discussing the portrayal of the workplace in the media. He is author of People Express, Motivation, Unshrink the People and Complete Leadership and his books have been translated into six languages. Now based in the UK, Philip has previously worked in Latin America.

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

Publishers Weekly

Bloch, a leadership coach, and Whiteley, a writer and columnist for the Times of London, explore the challenges of managing diverse teams that span continents. Through interviews and questionnaires, the authors extract insights from successful managers and distill their experiences into strategies and key learning points. With case studies from multinational corporations such as Coca-Cola, Shell and United Biscuits, the book is divided into two sections, focusing on the team and the individual. The team section covers direction, communicating in a virtual world, culture, leadership skills and creating a good team. The individual portion addresses EQ, intelligence and work/life balance. Each chapter lists key points and a section that helps the reader navigate and extract relevant themes. Especially useful are their 10 strategies-which address teamwork, building trust, respecting cultural differences-which provide a good foundation and frame of reference for professionals to develop their management strategies in a changing business world. Timely and succinct, this much-needed book will improve the management skills of those overseeing staff in multiple locations domestically and around the world. (Nov.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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 Team66

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