Globalization From Inside Out

For all their dysfunctional partisanship, Korean politicians agree on one thing: they all love to speak about how Korea will successfully compete in a globalized world by leveraging its power as the foremost leader in technology.

You can't blame them for their jubilance; after all, it's a great soundbite for the evening news. It reassures the people that Korea's economic miracle will continue uninterrupted while simultaneously reinforcing Korea's self-image as a technological powerhouse. What's not to like about it?

The problem is that having the best-selling cell phone or manufacturing the latest state-of-the-art gadgets does not really translate into consistent success in a global environment. Remember Motorola? No? My point exactly. Therefore, if your standing as the IT leader of the world depends on the latest product of three or four of your country's representative companies, then you might want to revisit your national strategic planning document.

No, the best way for any country to ensure its future success in a globalized world is to actively build and nurture core competencies into its national workforce that will propel the nation's future competitiveness in the 21st century.

What are these 21st century workforce competencies? According to a Harvard Kennedy School globalization workshop presentation, they are:

``Analytic Aptitude," which is ``Understanding the beliefs, values, and practices of other cultures; ability to link one's own circumstances to those in other societies; ability to discern transnational transaction strategies and learn from past successes and failures."

``Emotional Intelligence," which is ``Intercultural empathy and the ability to manage multiple identities; openness to divergent cultural influences and experiences."

``Creative Ability," which is the ``Ability to see the synergistic potential of diverse perspectives; ability to envision multilateral, mutually acceptable alternatives; and ability to tap into diverse cultural sources for inspiration."

``Behavioral Agility," which is the ``Proficiency in and use of the counterpart's language; ability to discern different cultural messages (verbal and non-verbal); ability to overcome conflicts related to globalization/localization; and flexible ability to employ a range of transnationally accommodative organizational strategies and interaction paths."

Even at a glance, it's pretty obvious what these core 21st-century workforce competencies have in common. They are all about the people. More specifically, they are all about the diverse people in your society.

When we speak about diversity, we are conditioned to look at skin color in an affirmative action context. However, diversity is not affirmative action. Diversity is all about tapping into the creativity, innovation and productivity of people by including them in the process of discussion, planning and decision-making from the very start.

The business case for diversity is easy to make. According to Byron Kunisawa, a respected diversity expert, diversity is all about ensuring that people's ``abilities are accessible and processes are inclusive so that they do not deliberately or inadvertently exclude anyone from fully participating ... as a result, decisions, new programs, as well as new processes, will be able to take advantage of a broader set of options, as well as reflect a multicultural perspective by those participating in their formulation."

In a word, actionable diversity is all about inclusion and collaboration, which are the very factors behind technological evolutions like Web 2.0 that actively embrace inclusion and collaboration to create a collective intelligence that can overcome groupthink and individual cultural biases to make better decisions.

This points out the inherent contradiction in Korea's claim as the leader in IT: Korea cannot be a leader in information technology because it's still not an inclusive, collaborative society that embraces the diversity of its citizens.

Decision-making is a closed process dominated by ethnicity, sex, and background; in short, it's dominated by male ethnic Koreans who grew up in the wealthy areas of Seoul and went to one of the four top universities and probably spent some time in an Ivy League school in the United States. Such homogeneity might have served Korea well in its headlong drive toward economic sufficiency, but it will inevitably undermine Korea's future competitiveness through its socio-cultural nepotism and myopia.

In short, for Korea to truly compete in a globalized world as an acknowledged leader in information technology, rather than just a self-proclaimed one, it must first become globalized from the inside out. Korea must invite the full spectrum of its society into public debate about policies that define its future direction.

For the traditional decision-makers, this is understandably strange and even threatening. This fear manifests itself in attacks against the most vulnerable populations, including blatant racism against the native speaker teachers in Korea in an effort to marginalize them as a group and deny them a voice in the decision-making process of English teaching.

This happens despite the fact that native speakers, as a group, undoubtedly have the depth of institutional expertise about teaching English to Korean children that, if actively tapped, would do wonders for Korea's insipid English education.

The price of excluding them is painfully obvious and will be borne by Korea's children. However, overcoming this fear and embracing diversity is a vital part of transitioning the people of Korea to become the competent workforce of the 21st century. For Korea, this is not optional.