I WANT TO KNOW TO WHICH “CAMP” I BELONG!

What is true in Asia is true everywhere: You inspire commitment and earn the loyalty of your leaders and managers by giving meaning to actions and building a strong corporate culture. This creates the “tribe” that makes the difference.
This culture must be strong because when it is shared it provides the driving force for performance, commitment and loyalty. It must be sound because rules of governance and ethics are slowly starting to apply throughout the world. Corporate image, as perceived internally or by the external world is thus a strategic issue. It must be open-minded because international companies must build on cultural diversity while at the same time they mobilize their workforce around a shared project.

FOUR REASONS TO BUILD A STRONG, SOUND AND OPEN-MINDED CORPORATE CULTURE

Big companies and international organizations face four major challenges that put ICM’s offer at the heart of their needs:

Make a complex organization work
International companies have complex, often matrix organizations. They must find a way to create local value while at the same time they manage resources on a global scale. This obliges leaders to develop a management style where authority, negotiation and influence exist at the same time. Their multicultural nature and this complexity can lead to confusion, slowing down their effectiveness. Aligning teams around well-formulated strategies and sharing visible leadership principles will create a united and loyal body of leaders and managers.

Integrate cultural diversity
In our world confrontation is too often a step ahead of conciliation. Thus knowing how to manage multicultural teams is a key managerial skill for aligning senior managers or rapidly and smoothly integrating teams from a new acquisition.

Work Remotely
Big companies have offices on all continents and operate simultaneously at all the different moments of a single day. Learning to work in this context and leading teams that are geographically and culturally dispersed is one of the new skills a company needs to develop in order to maintain the highest level of performance.

Keep top talents
Within the next ten years, emerging countries will attract a growing number of high-level talents. At the same time, given the age pyramid in the industrialized countries, a large number of baby-boomers who have been critical to economic growth will be retiring. A shortage of talented leaders is therefore inevitable. Only companies that are able to earn the loyalty of their leaders and managers by offering them a clear framework and perspectives for personal development will draw the advantages of a strong culture.

THE KEY ROLE OF COHERENT, ALIGNED SENIOR MANAGEMENT

Senior Management, which we call a “Leadership Body”, includes the functional and operational executive management team members: corporate teams, regional and country management teams, global product lines major strategic project teams and the global support functions (Finance, HR, Business Support, Legal, etc.).
Depending on the size of the company, this includes up to several hundred people, to which we can also add high potentials. These managers are often younger and expected to quickly take over positions of leadership.
Companies want this “Leadership Body” to be coherent, effective and aligned. This is particularly true when the organization is looking to successfully integrate a new acquisition or when it must make a complex international organization perform effectively.

In fact, it is within this population that you will find:

• Mobile managers who travel from country to country and must quickly adapt to different cultural environments
• Project managers of strategic projects who must lead remote intercultural teams
• Managers of global support functions who must implement global policies.

All face one common challenge: how to successfully manage the balance between:

• Global perspectives, which aim to optimize the experience and shared resources
• Local requirements, which include serving clients in the best possible way and achieving the commercial objectives to which they have committed

WHAT ICM BRINGS TO OUR CLIENTS

“Building and Bridging Cultures” is at the heart of ICM’s promise.
Our experience has shown us that getting the right balance between cultural convergence and respecting local cultural integrity leads to growth, effectiveness and performance for international organizations. When a corporate culture is sound, strong and shared it provides the strongest “glue” that enables women and men to succeed together.

• Identify the Values on which to build a high performance culture
• Translate these values into a Leadership and Management Profile
• Communicate this Profile to the Board of Directors.
• Position and assess leaders using this Profile
• Bring about progressive change in management practices by bring these values “to life”
• Build and align teams around their objectives
• Communicate the Values in corporate communications in order to get wide-range buy-in

ICM’s APPROACHES AND METHODOLOGIES

ICM aims to be recognized globally as one of the leaders in the field of developing a strong, sound and open-minded corporate culture. We aim to achieve this through the quality of our teams, our responses and innovative approaches in the areas of diagnostics, consulting and accompanying change.
To achieve this goal, ICM engages managers and executives of international companies in defining, communicating and implementing such a culture.

Diagnostic Tools

• Corporate Culture Profile

To allow the leaders of a company to build on their past while at the same time defining together the values and beliefs they need to develop and promote in order to successfully lead change and be successful in the future. ICM has developed a specific methodology for this: CBF© (Culture Bridging Fundamentals)

• Global surveys on internal image, opinion and climate

To be pro-active and trigger global buy-in

• Post-integration Barometer

To measure how people inside the organization perceive cultural integration, particularly after a merger or acquisition

• Measurement of Performance and Team Alignment

To enable each operational, functional or project team to measure regularly its performance and alignment to the corporate culture

• Leadership 360° Feedback

To enable each individual to develop his/her leadership skills and promote the corporate culture more effectively

Consulting Tools

• Redefinition of values and management principles

To trigger agreement on corporate values and management principles that respect the past while also looking toward the future.

• Define a Leadership Profile

Translate management values and principles into measurable and observable leadership behavior

• Turn this Profile into a basis for action

Adapt tools (360°, Leadership Development; detecting High Potentials; Preparation for International Mobility; etc.)

• Define and Support Post-Acquisition Integration Plans

To develop a project-based approach and team alignment to improve effectiveness

Training Tools

• Leadership Skills within a multicultural environment
• Remote Team Management
• International Negotiations, conflict resolution and influencing

Benefits for our clients

• Provide meaning for action and develop management commitment
• Earn the loyalty of leaders, managers and internationally effective high-potentials
• Improve the management of global/local interfaces as well as the headquarters/subsidiaries relationship
• Accelerate the implementation of strategies and decisions by developing “common reflexes”
• Align, mobilize and energize teams
• Ensure effective communication between culturally diverse managers.