Achieving Breakthrough Performance for Multi-Cultural Global Organizations Through Alignment Processes and “One-Culture” Development

g a “one-culture” consensus of attitude, rules and business values for the organization is essential, as a starting point, to lay the proper foundation to establish the strategic plan, from vision to business imperatives, goals and objectives. This growingly diverse workforce mix represents an opportunity and a risk, to either harness cultural diversity as a strength, or to accept it as an inherent weakness to be constantly mitigated. Not to meet this multi-cultural challenge head-on represents a significant risk of organizational functionality, potentially resulting in loss of focus, direction and subsequently performance. However, meeting this challenge in a positive and pro-active way can empower and harness a collective of international and local knowledge, energy and skills that make anything possible. This paper addresses often ignored or hidden multi-cultural problems and some root causes through three O&G organizations case studies. Also addressed are methodologies used to overcome the multi-cultural challenges and turning a grass-roots strategic planning process into a positive communication and alignment tool. These organizations reinvented and realigned themselves through this systematic process, both internally and with all stakeholders, achieving breakthrough performance. This paper is intended to be a help to companies and leaders embarking on a new country entry organization or re-energizing flagging multi-cultural organizations. While not a definitive or comprehensive investigation of the subject, one of the main objectives of the paper is to bring these challenges to light and open the subject for further attention and development.