The Europe of past centuries knew all about cementing alliances. Royalty and nobility married their children into one another’s families. Love had little to do with it compared to the political challenges and the future of peoples who were all too often at war. The goal was peace: durable, fruitful peace between heretofore enemies. Sometimes […]

At the heart of the future… I invited Melissa, a senior expert from an international high technology company, to dinner four months ago. I’d always thought it was exciting to be at the heart of something that could make the difference in our developed countries: not economies of scale, not doing more with less, but […]

The acquisition has been signed! The big multinational (let’s call it Huge Inc) has finally acquired the smaller niche-market company (we’ll call it Small Inc) in order to pursue its strategic diversification. Small Inc teams are interested but not overjoyed even though it means much needed development resources. After all, many of the Small Inc […]

Overheard in the company restaurant the other day where two regional HR managers were having lunch: “Here we go again. Another questionnaire we have to ask people to fill in. It seems like we just had one to fill in a while ago. We’ve got so much to do, who has time for this? And […]

Is there a limit to metaphors? Why is it that suddenly, big corporations are sequencing their “company genome” and are looking at their “Corporate DNA”, as if their culture had anything to do with genetics? Well, let’s try and answer this, and start with the beginning, the fundamentals: who’s Dad? Who’s Mom? How did it […]

Like mergers, acquisitions and other forms of strategic alliances, international joint ventures (IJV’s) are growing fast. Like these other alliances, failure rates are high. And like in these other forms of market entry or growth, while the business must become global, management and people remain culture-bound, if not local. It’s a new corporate culture In […]

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 […]