Page 74 - Roy W. Rice - CEO Material How to Be a Leader in Any Organization-McGraw-Hill (2009)

You Know You Don’t Know Enough • 55

Seek Global Awareness

If you do not go out into the whole world literally and figuratively, you
will look ignorant, be ill-informed, and be unprepared when the world
comes to you (which it will) in the form of customers, vendors, peers,
and bosses. A good thing to learn is global awareness. You get a fresh per-
spective, are more open minded, are less prejudicial about race/culture,
and you think more broadly.
People in the United States don’t even know what time our work day
starts or ends or when we take lunch here in Hong Kong. It’s like we
are working on Mars.

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When you take your next flight to grandmother’s house, consider that
the Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane you’re on has wings from Japan,
wingtips from South Korea, a horizontal stabilizer from Italy, an
engine from Britain, a cargo door from Sweden, landing gear from
France, and a movable trailing wing edge from Australia.

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I go to bars in New York. They are filled with people from all over the
world. You get a broad world picture. One person is a filmmaker from
Finland, another is a cab driver from Russia, and another is scouting
locations in the south of France for putting in an Abercrombie and
Fitch store.

To constantly seek information outside your “world”:

■ Ask for a foreign assignment.
■ Interview with foreign-owned organizations to increase your
chance for an international assignment or stint.
■ On your own, study global macroeconomics, finance, strategy,
organization and structure, marketing and brand management,
sales, and human resources management.
■ Stay current with world news; most cable companies have
international feeds. (Instead of just checking your local weather,