Page 86 - Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct 2018

Navigating Talent Hot Spots

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Starwood Hotels has moved its entire corporate
headquarters from America to China, India,
and the United Arab Emirates for monthlong
immersions.

CEO) in order to foster new team interactions. Every person at Companies also must ensure that the insights gathered are
headquarters had to reapply for a job, and all positions would acted on back home. A one-off immersion may deliver short-
be quite different under the new system. The transformation term change while it’s top of mind for executives, but its lessons
went live in 2015. CEO Vincent van den Boogert has been very may soon get crowded out by other priorities. Tying immer-
pleased with the gains ING Netherlands has made since then sions to a regular strategy or leadership-building process is a
in product innovation, customer satisfaction, and digital good way to capture their benefits. Immersions that have clear
talent acquisition. links to important corporate work before and after the retreat
The global telecom giant Vodafone has also made execu- will have the strongest power, and executives should spend
tive immersions part of its innovation strategy. The company time on the trip itself debating and applying insights.
is based in London, a premier talent cluster, but outgoing Vodafone offers a good example of how to leverage an
CEO Vittorio Colao strongly feels that Vodafone must tap into immersion’s insights back home. The company invites its top
other clusters to stay on the cutting edge in communication 250 employees to London for three-day training sessions on
technologies and other advanced technologies that affect firm the advanced technologies its top 50 leaders have studied.
operations. Every year the top 50 Vodafone executives take This program—which includes exercises like building a
a weeklong trip to Silicon Valley together to broaden their rudimentary chatbot for ordering coffee—pushes familiarity
perspectives. Many other companies organize similar visits to with the technologies into the organization’s second tier
New York, London, Boston, Shanghai, and other clusters for of leadership. To spread the insights throughout its vast
their executives or board members. (I myself have organized organization, the company incorporates the emerging
corporate immersions in Boston, and this article draws on technology trends it has identified into personalized learn-
those experiences. None of the companies mentioned in this ing programs on its digital Vodafone University platform.
article have been my clients, however.) (Vodafone also pairs leaders with young “digital ninjas” to
But many firms underinvest in immersions, for two provide ongoing upward mentoring on emerging technology
reasons: Executives view the trip as a semi-vacation or, at trends and applications.)
the other extreme, can’t extract themselves from e-mails A final risk is that executives will bring the wrong insights
about daily operations to the team back home. The CEO must home with them. Clusters excel when the local community
emphasize immersions’ high price—especially the opportunity buys into the same priorities and perspectives, such as the
costs related to executive time—to all participants. Mandates deep respect given in Silicon Valley to people who launch
from the CEO regarding prework for the trip will set the tone, game-changing companies. But any tightly knit place can also
and nothing keeps executives off their smartphones the way suffer from groupthink. Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break
the CEO’s mindful eye and visible passion do. An all-in mental- things” ethos has arguably left many tech giants blind to a
ity for leaders makes the immersion a success, and trips should backlash on issues like privacy, data security, and surveillance.
be planned at times when that kind of dedication is realistic for Executives participating in immersions may be dazzled by
the executive team. the wrong things, when they should be listening carefully and
A second risk is that participants in immersions won’t dig asking questions.
deep enough. Visits to local companies can be informative
and inspiring, but not if they don’t get past preset professional A STRIKING FEATURE of today’s business landscape is the grow-
tours. ING’s visit to Spotify became much more effective, for ing concentration of innovation activity—and the exceptional
instance, when people at the Swedish music company began to talent associated with it—into a small number of geographic
relate the costs and challenges of adopting agile methodology, clusters. As new technologies continue to disrupt industries,
not just the benefits. the fate of corporations will increasingly be determined in
One (rare) route to deep immersion is to park the leader- these hot spots. By taking one or more of the approaches I’ve
ship team abroad for an extended time. To obtain insights outlined here, companies can access the intelligence in these
on innovative technology and services in emerging regions, key locations and keep up with the fast pace of change.
Starwood Hotels has moved its entire corporate headquarters HBR Reprint R1805E
from America to China, India, and the United Arab Emirates for
monthlong immersions. With shorter trips, visiting companies WILLIAM KERR is the Dimitri V. D’Arbeloff–MBA Class of 1955 Professor of
need to organize tailored sessions with local experts (such as Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the author
business leaders and university faculty members) to achieve of The Gift of Global Talent: How Migration Shapes Business, Economy &
greater learning. Society (forthcoming from Stanford University Press).

86 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2018