Outsourcing: Amit Shankardass And Andrew Kokes Of Sitel (Part 9)

By guest author Tony Scott

Tony: So, looking at the next level – beyond middle management, or lower middle management, looking at the senior leadership – what do you think are the key strengths that are going to be necessary for your executive leadership team and their direct subordinates to develop so that you can continue to grow your company globally? Beyond that, do you think you have those skills on board today? If not, what are you doing to do to get them?

Amit: I think it is a couple of things. For one, companies like us that are global are basically selling services on a global basis and convincing people that global sourcing is the way to go. To do this, you have to have a diverse executive team, and when I say diverse, I don’t mean just ethnic diversity but also diversity of opinions, views, and thought. Because when you work in a global environment, one thing you know is that there isn’t much homogeneity; “homogeneous” is a nonexistent term. Trying to make everything homogeneous is wrong – you need to understand the diversity of how people buy, how people interact, how people are motivated.

As an executive leadership team, we know that the one-size-fits-all approach can’t work. We have to try to cultivate some of that diversity in our executive leadership team. I think as corporations become more global, they will need that diversity. For example, some players in India have become more global, but I think they need to improve that diversity within their executive ranks, not just within the lower ranks, so that all levels in the company show a diversity of backgrounds, set of experiences, and points of view.

Second, I think in this environment, if you have an executive team that is not continually thinking about improvement and enhancement, it will be a challenge. Why do I say improvement and enhancement? Because when you work in a global environment, there are a lot of smart people all over the world, and if you don’t tap into that, I don’t think the executive suite or that next level of leadership of any global company will be very successful. I will give you the automobile industry analogy. Look at the U.S. automobile industry: We were so narrow-minded, there was such a lack of diversity in our executive and middle management ranks. Today, you look at all of the companies and you have people of diverse backgrounds running auto companies in different parts of the world. Toyota’s head in the U.S. is not a Japanese, he is an American.

Tony: And the head of Nissan was born in Brazil of Lebanese immigrant parents, and educated in Lebanon and France.

Amit: But five to ten years ago, that wasn’t the case,

Tony: Absolutely not. That is what I often talk to my clients about – sourcing the best talent irrespective of where it exists. I think that one of the key challenges for companies is building a global executive leadership team, one that operates globally and interacts globally. A team that can interact with each other and with their customers globally. It is a very hard and very big transition; that’s not the way business worked before. Historically, we were focused on a lot of different flags around the map and were “multi-local” as opposed to being truly global in operations. That has all changed.

Amit:  I like that “multi-local” versus truly being global. If you look at our executive team, our president is of Cuban descent, but very global. I lived and grew up in Kenya, and I lived in India for many years. I am of Indian background but have been here in the United States for many years now. Our head of HR is from the United States, of U.S. origin in his background and experiences, but he has been very global in what he has done. There is a lot of mix in our group – it is a very diverse group of people.

Tony: How do you make that work, both in terms of bringing people into the organization and working as a team with that level of diversity? Diversity of ethnicity, of background, of thought – the different lenses people look through to see the world.

Amit: One of the key things you are asking about here is what kind of leadership you need. One of the things you need is an open mind and a relative sense of openness so that each of your individual team members is very broad-minded, open-minded, and accepting of ethnic and cultural diversity. But it is also important to be accepting of diversity in terms of ideas and thought, how we look at things and how we say things. The executive leadership team that we built influences the next level down, and even the next layer of people have a global-ness about them. There’s a willingness to learn about and accept different people’s cultures, ideas, and beliefs. I think it would be much harder for close-minded people to succeed in global companies because they just don’t have that mindset. We have a team that is global and has an open mindset. People say you need to send your staff to training classes and conduct leadership change classes. You can do all that loving and hugging, but it is an open mind that makes the difference.

This segment is part 9 in the series : Outsourcing: Amit Shankardass And Andrew Kokes Of Sitel
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10