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Global mindset – what it is and how to develop it – is a prime interest of Mansour Javidan, professor at the Thunderbird School of Global Management and the opening speaker at a recent conference on "Integrative Leadership: Leading Across Boundaries for the Common Good." The conference was sponsored by the Center for Integrative Leadership and held at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and Carlson School of Management.
Javidan’s research indicates that the essential ingredients of global mindset are curiosity and a "passion for diversity." The good news is that many people score quite highly on measures of global mindset, but Javidan said surveys indicate that substantial numbers of people in all countries are "resistant and afraid� of connecting with people from other countries. He said 20 to 35% of citizens fall into this group.
So for those of us who argue that integrative leadership requires leading across cultural and geographic boundaries, this figure may be daunting. Some of the resistance that Javidan cited can be broken down by face-to face encounters. Indeed, he reported on exchange programs and other initiatives that help people in different countries meet and understand each other.
Still face-to-face encounters aren’t possible for most people. I wonder if the arts– fiction , films, plays and the like – aren’t another powerful method of developing cross-cultural understanding, especially for those unable to physically traverse national borders.
What do you think? Do you have examples of how the arts have helped break down fear and resistance between cultures? What ideas do you have for how the Center for Integrative Leadership might study or teach something like "The Arts and Integrative Leadership"?
Barbara Crosby is the academic co-director at the Center for Integrative Leadership (in addition to her faculty role at the PNLC).
pubTalk: Where research meets practice. A blog produced by the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center.
Send us your news, events, and ideas for posts.
Comments
Having sung in organized choirs since the age of 18, I would agree that some very significant cross-cultural awareness comes from digging into the art of another. As a singer, I have the relative luxury of "living" with a piece of music for many weeks before performing it for (or teaching it to?) an audience. I think that through this teaching, my own understanding of art's dual message of commonality and uniqueness is deepened.
I'm reminded of an excerpt from a book called "The Dignity of Difference" by Jonathan Sacks:
"...A primordial instinct going back to humanity's tribal past makes us see difference as a threat. That instinct is massively dysfunctional in an age in which our several destinies are interlinked. Oddly enough, it is the market -- the least overtly spiritual of concepts -- that delivers a profoundly spiritual message: that it is through exchange that difference becomes a blessing, not a curse. When difference leads to war, both sides lose. When it leads to mutual enrichment, both sides gain." [emphasis mine]
Perhaps exchange of artistic ideas serves as a low-cost stepping-stone to exchange in the market or other political arenas.
Posted by: Bjorn Arneson | October 10, 2008 3:19 PM