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Armand V. and Donald S. |
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International Studies at Union 2005 Feigenbaum Forum home page
Closing Remarks In his earlier remarks, my brother emphasized the importance of thinking efficiently and effectively in international terms as an overarching theme in education for leadership – a statement of identity and the commitment to it that has been so well discussed in several of its diverse dimensions in the fine presentations from which we have benefitted today. He and I discussed the agenda for today’s Forum a few days ago during the black sky period of a long flight back from Japan where we also had been reviewing our activities in China and in India. We agreed upon the importance of Union’s international program’s diversity of its emphasis – thus maintaining a steady focus upon extending into international terms Union’s long term values in liberal arts and engineering. In our judgment, this diversity reflects significant strength in terms of providing excellence in education for leadership in the constantly changing, sometimes unpredictable, always demanding global economic, social and technological environment we see in our own internationally related activities today. And it provides for it the necessary discipline – there is no more appropriate term to describe the process for recognizing the important social, economic and technological differences that have to be understood from region to region and from nation to nation in today’s world. That demand has certainly been re-emphasized to us as the Chinese (in Mandarin for the Mainland), Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Indian English, and Complex Chinese (for Taiwan) as, so far, what have turned out to be the eight different editions of our current book, The Power of Management Capital, have come to be published in the past year or so. The many considerations involved in translations of these several books to reflect the diversity of culture and of practice among these regions were epitomized by the very basic question we received from McGraw-Hill as one of these translations was being developed. It was, “how do you express in Complex Chinese the point you make in the English language edition of the book explaining the passion of strong leadership in terms of the phrase that ‘if you can’t stand the heat, don’t make working in the kitchen your occupation.’” It is, in fact, one of the easier questions we’ve received in terms of the book. And in a sense it also reflects the highly diverse economic, social and technology issues that we similarly face in business terms in General Systems as we continue to grow internationally – particularly in Asia. These are issues whose discussions of diversity my brother and I thought would be relevant to our dialogue this afternoon. For example, our big markets in China in economic and business terms in less than two decades have catapulted regions that had been essentially closed societies into those now increasingly driven by largely unfettered capitalism with a political dimension. There is not yet much of a well established infrastructure to clearly support this growth nor are there well documented economic or other data in American or European terms to track its characteristics. And so our primary access is through understanding of the communications and the social and the technological cultures which have created and supported the economic result. The several dimensions of the challenge for accomplishing this understanding in international companies like ours are today clearly understood and can be readily summarized for our discussion this afternoon. It is, first, to recognize the reality of the general economic uplift in which all Chinese businesses are greatly benefitting in profitability and growth. However it is, second, to understand and to accept the reality that some of these businesses have the depth and strength to continue with this growth; but that many others today do not. It is, third, to accept that the issue is to determine which is which among these organizations. And it is, fourth, to recognize that the management and leadership challenge before us is developing the capability of the men and women with the educationally equipped skills and motivation to come to understand and to work effectively in a culture many of whose business leaders have been shaped by the Maoist Cultural Revolution and have developed in dimensions of practice and understanding and motivation quite different from their Western management counterparts shaped by graduate management schools. And it is, fifth, to recognize that these developments are essential not only in business and economic but also political and social terms between America’s and China’s economies. By contrast, our markets in India – while comparably strong to those of China – are being shaped by largely different forces and are forming very different requirements for understanding today’s Indian culture and economy. For example, India , of course a country of enormous human and economic and governance problems, is nonetheless becoming a significant global leader and powerhouse in certain areas of information technology as well as in its supporting education, development and implementation. Moreover, its pacesetting educational institutions which are locally described as the IIT’s – the Indian Institutes of Technology – have been becoming significant global pacesetters in the integration of science and mathematics with technology somewhat more in the Western mold but not entirely. One of our knowledgeable associates has described it as a bazaar trader management economy that has become systematized in twenty first century information technology terms. Moreover, they are becoming global pacesetters in the convergence of this technology in social as well as in economic concepts – in terms that would be recognized in Union’s converging technology terms. They are endeavoring to match technology with support for the sociological and economic evolution of India. America’s so-called information outsourcing to India that is so widely discussed today in so many frameworks from the beneficial to the threatening is being driven by the strength and efficiency of this convergence of technology with these social and economic values in these IIT’s. What has been widely publicized is its low costs in Western terms. However, this major influx of outsourced Western business has been helping to create very significant growth of Indian companies that are themselves now becoming increasingly big markets for American manufacturing goods and services from companies which have long been developing understanding and relationships in India. For example, one of America’s most basic manufacturing companies and the world’s largest manufacturer of diesel and other engines – a company which we have long known and worked with – today sells four times more in dollar volume annually of its American made equipment in India than it oursources there as an example of the corresponding favorable effect on its balance of trade between America and India. But in the face of these differences between China and India, many factors of experience make clear that basic similarity in the driving force in both economies is the rapidly growing numbers of men and women who no longer are willing to travel second or third class indefinitely in their lives, nor in the products they buy, nor in the way they work. They want this transformation in their own lifetimes with all the political and business management planning implications that this makes clear. Our conviction about Union as a college that fits the times has been even further reinforced as I’ve very much enjoyed learning here about some of the key dimensions of Union’s international programs which recognize and focus in strong educational terms upon this diversity of circumstance and culture and practice that is so fundamental today in education for leadership. It’s a great strength for Union College and one of its basic values for its students in preparation for today’s many dimensioned world – as it was for both my brother and myself. Let me conclude by remarking how continuingly pleasant it is for us in our periodic returns to the campus to see and hear evidence of this growth and progress. Union is part of us as with so many of its alums. Your progress and growth is also our progress and we thank you for it and for what has consistently been an illuminating, pleasant and constructive afternoon.
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