Interview: Michael Dickmann
Global Careers
Steve Macaulay
Hello, I am Steve Macaulay and I am interviewing today an author
of a book called Global Careers; he has co-written it with Yehuda
Baruch.
Now, Michael Dickmann, give me some feeling about why this is
such an important issue and why you have written it.
Michael Dickmann
Steve Macaulay
Global careers are becoming more and more important because we
all know that the world is becoming a smaller place in one sense.
About 25 years ago the term global village was coined; I guess that
was one of the drivers of this. Now global careers, aren’t actually
new per se, several thousand years ago we already had
organisations that operated in the known world to them, but they
become much more important these days. We all see the rising
multinationals from developing countries; we know that our
developing country multinationals operate much more globally, but
even small organisations nowadays have global issues to master.
So if we take one of the key things that came out of the book and
split it into three areas and that is before people go out on
assignments or assignments from their home country if you like,
during that assignment and then afterwards: let’s take a look at
that and let’s take a look at it in the round from the point of view
of both the individual and the organisation.
So let’s have a look first of all at that prior phase – tell me some
more about the things that your research has uncovered.
Michael Dickmann
Steve that is a really good question because it goes to the core of
the book. What I feel very strongly about is that you need to look
at organisational and individual perspectives, so that is what the
book does. It gives first of all a round-up of organisational
structures and the developments that we have just mentioned
about becoming a global village and so on, and then it goes into:
before, during and after a global career or an expatriate
assignment.
Now if you look at that, beforehand, it really looks at how to
strategically plan as an organisation, its global careers; how to then
select and prepare people for their expatriate sojourn. At the
same time, it looks at how individuals are deciding about wanting
to work abroad – what drives them – and how they can prepare
effectively.
Having said that, we do identify twenty different versions, types of
Michael Dickmann
global careers – and there are more – but the key twenty types and
we explore those. So while I am talking about traditional
expatriation here, we do cover self-initiated expats, we do cover
international work in all sorts and forms and shapes for military
organisations, for normal multinationals or for INGOs.
During work abroad we explore, from the individual perspective,
expatriation shock, how to overcome and adjust to the
environment; we explore issues around performance, around
learning and around retention really and use a framework called
the intelligence career framework, where things that are connected
to knowing how – your knowledge skills abilities; knowing whom –
your networks; and knowing why – your motivations, your drivers
are important.
From the organisational perspective, we again look at how you
manage individuals best through this. The book is a result really of
some of the work we do here in Cranfield that I have done with big
organisations including Mars, HSBC, Cadbury Schweppes, Price
Waterhouse Coopers and so on. So what we therefore can
present, and we do present, is their approaches rolled up into case
studies and some of the learnings, but also because it is a “gestalt”
[shape] of an organisation, also there isn’t a one size fits all solution
so we are very context sensitive.
In my mind then, after working abroad, that is a key area for
individuals. The risk to leave the organisation, the risk to be fired
for example, is incredibly high – in our research it is about twice as
high as for non-expatriated peers and we explored the reasons for
that, the personal journey that individuals go through – and
sometimes the opportunities that they see with other
organisations. And at the same time we have developed an
incredibly broad list of how organisations can manage this
important phase.
Steve Macaulay
So each of those phases is important; I was certainly struck by the
hazards of that last phase and how people can come back and
either feel very underutilised or dissatisfied and a lot of good talent
is lost at that stage.
Michael Dickmann
Yes, absolutely. Sometimes people feel they are simply more
marketable and 85% of people say when they leave an organisation
that is this, but the loss of internal networks, the hazards in terms
of reverse culture shock, the frustrations around earning too little
or less at this stage, or not being valued for the experience, or not
being able to use your acquired skills and insights – they are very
real and lead to a lot of frustration.
So this can be managed; you can set up realistic expectations in
advance. Individuals have to do their bit, but organisations can as
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Michael Dickmann
well.
Steve Macaulay
So that is interesting; one of the areas that you touched on at the
start was three areas of the book that look at risk management,
planning and organisational structure. Do you want to say a bit
more about that?
Michael Dickmann
In essence it is a nod to the corporate readers – the HR directors,
the international mobility directors. What we have done is we
teamed up with a major consultancy and we have developed ideas
around how you effectively manage the risk. They are very
manifold; if you talk to lawyers and expat experts, they draw up
these horror scenarios of how you establish unwittingly a corporate
presence in different organisations or the risk about burn outs
individually and so on.
So what we are doing is we develop an idea about how to risk
manage in different corporate environments – national
environments – how to work with social security differences and
how to manage those. What organisational structures may be
appropriate; if you are a very large organisation with lots of
expatriates you might have a global organisation that deals with all
these – all your global employees. If you are smaller, there are
different forms that might be appropriate.
All these risks are also about if you are in a game of global talent
management and you want the leaders of the future, how do you
manage the whole process so that these guys actually stay with
you, they gain the appropriate knowledge and experience so that
these ladies and gentlemen can become the global leaders of the
future you are looking at.
Steve Macaulay
Let me pick up that last word, the future, because one of the things
that you do in the book is take a look forward about the future of
global careers. Can you give me finally a sense of where you think
this is all heading?
Michael Dickmann
Yes; we all know that all sorts of different forms of international
work and global careers are increasing; I think diversity is
increasing. So what it means is we will have more self-initiated
expatriates, we will have more people going on international
project works, we will have a lot of people looking at shorter forms
of international work and so on.
What it means for organisations is they have to start thinking about
different patterns of international work and start to need to
understand their individuals better and the tension points in the
whole process. A lot of frequent flyers, as we call them – these
people who travel to one country on the Monday and the next on
the Tuesday – they have particular issues around isolation, around
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Michael Dickmann
burn out, around costs that companies still grapple with just to
mention one.
So the future will be much more varied, it will be much more global,
it will be much less developed countries and more developing
countries and so this whole diversity and sustainability and ethics
dimension will become more important.
Steve Macaulay
Michael, there are some very timely reminders in there and so very
useful glimpses into the future. Thank you very much.
Michael Dickmann
You are very welcome; thank you.
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