Global trends and how business leaders should adapt to them

Interesting interview with Dominic Barton, Managing Director, McKinsey & Company at the occasion of IBM's leadership forum. In the first 3 minutes Dominic discusses why emerging markets other than China and India should be on every international business' agenda as well. Poland has a mass of well educated talent, Ethiopia is the fastest growing economy on earth, Indonesia is a massive market with a stable government, ... all fair points.


But the second part of the interview is more interesting. In it, Dominic sheds his light on how business leaders should adapt to the 'new normal' in order to be successful. A couple of notes I took:

• Adaptability will become a key leadership skill - learning to work with different cultures;
• Successful careers will be characterized by lifelong learning;independent of age or skills already acquired;
• Successful leaders will increasingly be involved in the community they do business in - think of social innovation and entrepreneurship;
• 'do not manage your image', just be yourself...