Ready for Takeoff: Going Global

  International Development   Leadership   PM Network  

Once a task that primarily fell to an elite few multinationals, developing project leaders who can operate across cultures and continents is fast becoming mandatory for companies of all shapes and sizes.

Today, global business isn’t just about outsourcing, it’s about collaborating with skilled professionals on an ongoing basis. It’s not just about tapping into new lucrative markets, it’s about understanding the requirements of different cultures and people and delivering a project, program or portfolio that answers the specific demands of that region.

And that takes a new breed of project professional.

“The transcultural leader must know how to get up to speed on the customs and values that pertain to each deal or transaction,” says J. Frank Brown, author of The Global Business Leader: Practical Advice for Success in a Transcultural Marketplace [Palgrave Macmillan, 2007] and dean of INSEAD, an international business school based in Fontainebleau,

International work has to be seen as a way to get ahead.

“Project managers do not take global assignments for the sake of working outside their own domain,” says Nancie Whitehouse, CEO of recruitment and retention consultants Whitehouse Advisors, Stamford, Connecticut, USA. “They need to see that the opportunity adds to their skills and to their career.”…

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