Geopolitics is a personal matter. People’s relationships with the geopolitical positions of their organizations are influenced by their upbringing, experiences in the world, and the news they consume.
For individuals who experienced the intense, devastating conflicts in Korea in the 1950s or Afghanistan in the 1980s, for instance, the cool War was anything but “cold.” Conflict, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in the Balkans and Rwanda were other hallmarks of the 1990s, a time of hyperglobalization that some people nostalgically compare to the disintegrating global order of today. Depending on your point of view, the realignment of geopolitical power today may be a natural correction or a threat to the international order. Geopolitics is emotional as well as personal.
Employees have a growing expectation that their leaders will take stances on international issues, although their preferences differ greatly. As a result, company executives have to handle both a volatile internal climate and a complex exterior geopolitical setting.
One where their language is scrutinised and sometimes matters more than their deeds when discussing geopolitical issues. One where workers keep a careful eye on whether their organisation is held to various standards in different places. An environment where conflicting geopolitical perspectives can cause disputes over risk and strategy and, if not managed properly, can lead to the loss of talent, trust, intellectual property (IP), and the social and legal right to operate in particular markets.
Leaders must invest in three areas to develop geopolitical resilience to take advantage of possibilities in a changing global order:
Intelligence, oversight, and foresight.
However, when we talk about geopolitical resilience with CEOs and board directors, a fourth dimension always comes up:
- People.
Among the queries that are raised are the following:
- How do I discuss delicate geopolitical subjects with my staff?
- How can I strike a balance between openness and secrecy regarding the work that our company will not undertake in a market—a position that could endanger our operations, personnel, and reputation in that area if it were made public?
- In the face of increasing stakeholder and regulatory expectations and needs, how should I modernise our procedures, from internal controls on unauthorised access to data to employment background checks?
- How can I make our organisation more cohesive and demonstrate our dedication to being inclusive and global in a world that is changing?
Just as leaders require a geopolitical strategy to direct their operations, they also require one to engage with their people to answer these questions. The proactive actions that businesses take to build a resilient organisation are just as crucial as the defensive ones that many are creating to lessen the effects of geopolitical disturbances. The ultimate objective of this approach is to preserve the structure of an international organisation in the face of whirling centrifugal forces that may tear it to pieces.
Actively participate in building bridges
We think that proactive steps that demonstrate a dedication to becoming a values-driven and inclusive company for coworkers with different backgrounds and perspectives are just as crucial as risk controls. This agenda is broadly defined by five M components:
Mission, motivation, messaging, mobility, and multipolarity.
- The multipolarity.
Businesses must take into consideration a variety of viewpoints in a world that is becoming more and more multipolar. This strategy has been openly adopted by certain organisations. This multifaceted attitude ought to direct businesses’ approaches to their employees as well as their business methods.
Instead of simply projecting a normative view from headquarters, workers increasingly expect their leaders to grasp their specific settings and walk in their shoes. For nuanced perspectives on risk in their home markets and a thorough understanding of the long-term potential of the changes occurring there, such as the rapidly expanding middle class in Asia, they are turning to their leaders.
How can businesses show that they have a multifaceted perspective on people?
CEOs should take into account the following practices:
Organise board meetings in international markets to demonstrate the organization’s dedication to interacting with colleagues there and to gain a deeper understanding of the opportunities and realities there.
Make sure that the leaders of key roles and governing committees, such as the risk committee, represent the organization’s global orientation.
To demonstrate a commitment to hearing a variety of opinions, bring together a group of outside advisors and speakers from various areas to talk at company events.
To provide a complete picture, use the opinions of local experts and organisations in addition to those of international analysts and institutions when performing market studies and risk assessments.
Engage local top officials in a consultation process to build risk frameworks for markets with geopolitical sensitivity.
The yellow category can appear subjective in a standard country risk framework, where red indicates activities prohibited by sanctions or other legal restrictions, green covers areas where the company has few obstacles to operate and should quickly grow, and yellow indicates possible risk. An interchange of viewpoints is necessary since some colleagues might object to leaders looking at geopolitical issues through their regional lenses.
The Mobility.
Mobility is a second component of being proactive. This includes initiatives that help staff members develop trust and understanding with coworkers in marketplaces far from the company’s home area. To help with this kind of bridge development, one of the biggest retailers in the world, for instance, invites its whole incoming analyst class from China to its US headquarters every year. Businesses could also think about introducing rotating programs that provide incentives for executives aspiring to senior roles to travel to important areas to gain a global perspective of the business. For instance, two prominent Asian financial institutions have adopted this strategy by appointing Southeast Asian leaders to oversee important South Asian markets.
Budgets, security, family, and liveability are only a few of the factors that such initiatives must take into account, but it’s crucial to widen the horizons of those in charge.
The Messengers and Messaging.
Delivering the appropriate message on geopolitical changes at the appropriate moment is a difficult part of being proactive. Leaders may need to take into account the following factors:
Guidelines to help the organisation decide which developments require a response and which ones are best left unsaid.
The particular position on a dispute or a geopolitical event the justification behind it how an organization’s principles influence its behaviour during a geopolitical event or moment
Who among the organization’s executives ought to discuss a delicate geopolitical issue?
The necessity of not confusing individuals with nations and attributing to the citizens of a state the activities of a government or organisation located there distinguishing between measures intended to safeguard the business and its operating licence from those that suggest a normative position when to physically be present in marketplaces that are disrupted to interact with local colleagues, gain knowledge from them, and personally offer support McDonald’s CEO’s memo to the company’s owners/operators, staff, and suppliers globally after Russia invaded Ukraine is an example of messaging in response to a geopolitical event.
Chris Kempczinski addressed the following five questions in the note to explain the company’s reasoning for leaving Russia:
- Is it lawful for us to conduct business here?
- Do we have unrestricted freedom to run our company and satisfy the needs of our clients and staff?
- Do our worldwide operations benefit from our market presence?
- Is it a wise business decision?
- Is it consistent with our principles?
- The messenger is just as crucial as the message.
Many businesses rely on other coworkers who can act as shuttle ambassadors in addition to the CEO and key company leaders. These could be seasoned business leaders or past heads of business units who have built ties within the company but are not representing management. In addition to acting as sounding boards and providing frontline viewpoints to regional or international leaders, they can aid in fostering a better understanding of the stance taken by management.
Top executives should identify these colleagues, encourage their work, and figure out how to include their perspectives in regional or international town halls.
- The Motivation.
The foundations of human psychology are a further aspect of the people’s agenda. Although not all coworkers support national policies or affiliations, everyone has some fundamental goals in common. These consist of chances to establish a prosperous career, pay and perks, and employment security. The urge to belong, which employees want to see represented in the organization’s mission and values, comes in second to these incentives.
Business leaders should remember those reasons to retain employees loyal to the company in the face of geopolitical unrest. A value proposition—not just a values proposition—is the first step on the path to geopolitical resilience from a people’s perspective. At the same time, management ought to think about proactive ways to improve workers’ feelings of community. Is the company demonstrating a values-driven approach, for instance, by providing avenues for charitable contributions with matching funds during a conflict that elicits an emotional response in the organisation or a specific market (taking appropriate care around the mix of organisations and potential risk concerns)?
In a similar vein, leaders should demonstrate their dedication to their people by providing sufficient assistance to persons in the impacted area when geopolitical factors make it impossible to continue business in a market.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a multinational services company ceased its operations in Russia and offered to relocate colleagues both in Russia and Ukraine.
The CEO affirmed their continued sense of belonging by making a distinction between denouncing the actions of the Russian government and standing by Russian colleagues while describing the choice.
However, there are drawbacks to providing such care, ranging from the financial and practical difficulties of moving employees to concerns about equity over the extent and mode of the organization’s response to market shocks and the extent to which it defines its duty of care.
The mission.
The mission is the last component. In times of intense internal division over geopolitical events, having a clear mission statement that highlights the organization’s global perspective can occasionally act as a North Star and a source of unity. For instance, making its services “universally” available is part of the mission statement of a major US multinational firm. The firm’s management focuses on this core objective and upholds the company’s purpose, which cuts beyond geopolitical divides when discussing whether the corporation should cater to particular regions.
Protect the company’s employees and reputation.
Many multinational corporations have upgraded their security measures to protect their staff and operations as a result of geopolitical concerns.
For the majority, this has meant creating a culture of “trust but verify”—creating a collaborative environment that allows ideas and talent to flow while ensuring that this trust is well-placed by being watchful about who they hire, how their employees behave, and the extent of access that people have to intellectual property and sensitive data.
Companies that operate in markets that are geopolitically remote from their own are increasingly expected by stakeholders to significantly improve their people-related controls. Governments and regulators are converting some of these expectations into mandates, such as those about cybersecurity and procurement. Employee dissatisfaction over the fundamental goals of the policies or their inconsistent application might occasionally result from such commitments. However, in many situations, proactive engagement is irrelevant. Companies have to follow the rules.
BrandSpur business and information news desk reports that three components—procedures, regulations, and positions—can assist leaders in maintaining wholesome organisations.
- The Procedures.
Companies must strike a balance between their core values of luring top people from around the world and preserving an open, international culture, and realistically addressing the requirement for risk mitigation policies that last for an employee’s entire employment. These procedures begin with background checks and screening procedures for possible new hires that take risk factors into account without making any distinctions based on political beliefs.
A strong insider risk program should be in place to monitor any deviation from access limits, and the corporation should grant a colleague a specific amount of access to confidential data once they join the company. Businesses should make sure that no confidential data is stolen after an employee’s employment.
- The Regulations
Establishing a set of rules governing employee behaviour on delicate political or geopolitical matters is the second component. For instance, social media posts and the differentiation between remarks that may have an impact on the organisation and those that are merely personal opinions are covered by policies in many organisations.
To keep sharply differing opinions from becoming causes of conflict that threaten unity, businesses are increasingly adding measures to promote a polite workplace. Other specialized policies may also be important. For instance, businesses ought to establish policies on the use of disputed geographies in internal and external maps. Several organisations have been accused of failing to “respect sovereignty” in their maps; these charges can lead to business suspension, severe consumer backlash, or legal action. Some have attempted to convey an apolitical position to avoid such situations, for example, by employing UN-developed map conventions.
- The Position.
The last component of organisational protection is posture, or how the business establishes, discusses, and conveys its position on extremely delicate subjects. Business leaders must think about how much they consult with senior colleagues in a market where they have a significant presence, how widely they communicate the posture so that other colleagues in the market follow it, and how they frame and communicate the rationale for the posture internally (for example, via email or a more secure channel) if the management decides not to work with government entities in that market. To put it briefly, when discussing topics having a geopolitical component, corporate executives should think in concentric circles of trust.
“When the globe is in chaos, is it possible for us to have peace in the company?
We have previously been asked this issue by the CEO of a multinational corporation with headquarters in Europe. Business executives may need to change how they interact with their employees on a sensitive and personal subject to update their picture of the world to one that is both deeply connected and increasingly contentious. They should take proactive steps to safeguard the company against hazards, not just to maintain harmony (both inside the organisation and with important external stakeholders), but also to become resilient entities capable of grabbing new opportunities.
