We all live in a VUCA world today and for those who have not heard about VUCA here’s the meaning of this acronym: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. And now maybe we should add another V to this – ‘Virtual’. Pandemic may have contained us into our respective geographies but what it has brought about is a far-reaching ability to connect with people ‘virtually’ - literally across the globe – like never before. It's time that we face this reality and learn to live with it and at the same time it's important that we understand that globalization is here to stay – now more than ever.
Now for those of us who have lived in countries besides our own it is easier to understand what it entails and the changes that we have to adapt to and at the same time make them work in our favor. For someone like me who has lived outside of my native country for the last 20 years, in a land where 200 plus nationalities reside, I can tell you that it’s not about where we live and what we do – but more about the mindset we adopt.
Some of us escape from where we were born to shift to a new environment, others do it to earn better, and some others do it to build a life they only can dream of. But what sets one apart from the others and be able to achieve all that - is the ability to adopt and adapt – to where we eventually end up. Now more than ever we need global citizens who have the mindset to live with other cultures and moreso - supporting each other beyond the necessary. Tolerance is a virtue we all need and at the same time each one of us should look for opportunities to support each other in a way that not only enriches each other’s lives but meaningfully contributes to the larger good.
Being in the profession of HR, I can't tell you how many times I have to work with the people around me to bring down the barriers they create within themselves towards people from other nationalities and backgrounds. It is so important to look for the right set of abilities rather than trying to find them deliberately in people one would like to hire. And in every organization, this must start from the top. While this is quite prevalent already in multinational organizations and ‘forced’ to some extent but in smaller organizations this is something that still needs to be deliberately inculcated. Managers play a huge role in this, and they need to take responsibility to find the right talent to fill a particular role rather than choosing to hire someone who they are comfortable with and that usually tends to be from a place they themselves belong to. Why this usually happens is because it's easier to play mind games such as predict, handle and drive the behaviors of those we are familiar with, rather than venturing into the unknown.
On the other hand, it is also important for employees or individuals to develop a mindset that when they go to work, they do not only choose to mingle with people they are comfortable with but try to learn and collaborate with those who are from backgrounds other than their own so they can learn beyond what they already know. Diversity and Inclusion aka ‘D&I’ is a term that is so often used in many organizations today yet there is so much more to do in this area. It's incumbent upon the senior stakeholders to convey the right meaning of this to everyone across the board so that it is encoded in the DNA of any organization. Having said that I still maintain that it is the mindset and mindset only - of individuals and the leaders in a company - that guides the change.
The talent deficit that the world is facing today in several countries can only be turned around by bringing down barriers that exist at all different levels of the society - starting from governments to organizations to leadership teams in these organizations down to the managers and individuals working within these organizations. Let's deal with this VUCA world with an additional ‘V’ now by bringing a mindset change at every level so every individual can develop themselves to deal with the new world order and become global citizens working in a global workforce in the real sense of the word.
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