A mentorship session in March 2022 between mentor Ammar Awachi, CEO of Taha International (left), and mentee Nezar Salhieh, founder of Quality Systemtechnik, a manufacturing enterprise in Bahrain. (Image courtesy of CIPE)
Similar to the other natural resource-based economies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, the Bahraini economy relies primarily on the oil industry and the public sector. However, with the strategic vision of the Bahraini government to reduce reliance on oil revenues through private sector growth and investment, that’s set to change. Bahrain is working to diversify its economy in sectors such as services, manufacturing and technology by enabling entrepreneurs and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in those fields to scale up their businesses.
The William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan is supporting a new project funded by the United States Department of State and implemented by the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) in collaboration with a consortium of partners. The project seeks to unleash the growth potential of Bahraini MSMEs — an objective that has frequently brought WDI and CIPE together through projects in the past.
The consortium members include Tenmou – a leading Bahraini angel investment network and ecosystem builder, the U.S.-Bahrain Business Council (USBBC) of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Bahrain, and the Bahraini SME Society, in addition to WDI and CIPE. The consortium is part of a larger advisory body named the Steering Committee that involves leaders from the public and private sector in Bahrain who provide guidance and support to the implementers throughout the project’s lifecycle. The consortium is building a mentorship program, bolstering commercial dialogue between the U.S. and Bahrain centered around the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), delivering an investment education program with a gender lens, as well as facilitating public-private dialogue around access to finance. Each aspect of the program is essential to its success, with each partner bringing unique capabilities and perspectives. WDI has contributed its deepest expertise to the mentorship program and gender lens component of the investment education program.
Mentorship is at the core of the program in Bahrain — and WDI has long been a trusted leader in developing global mentorship projects. “We believe in the power of mentorship and have seen its impact time and again in the entrepreneurial community,” said Amy Gillett, Vice President of Education at WDI. The team has run mentorship programs across the world, including on a previous project in Bahrain and a recent one in Turkey. WDI is also home to the Entrepreneurship Development Center, a group of educators dedicated to fostering entrepreneurship through dynamic programming.
To unlock their growth potential, they need to enhance their technical skills, increase access to funding, as well as explore the possibility of attracting investors or partners, and these are among the mentor-mentee discussion topics.
For the current project in Bahrain, WDI first developed a mentor toolkit with guidance on how to be a successful mentor, including how to provide effective feedback, and build productive relationships with mentees. “Sometimes mentees don’t realize what their needs are until they start answering questions from mentors,” explained Kristin Babbie Kelterborn, Senior Project Manager of the Entrepreneurship Development Center at WDI. “What obstacles have you overcome? What challenges are you facing? What growth opportunities do you want to explore?” she explained. By exploring these questions together, mentees and mentors can build a fruitful path forward in their mentorship relationship.
The first mentorship cohort is running through July 2022, with five experienced business owners and entrepreneurs serving as mentors to 25 motivated mentees. The mentees all run established businesses, which are in the growth phase. “They want to expand and increase their market share, develop new services and products,” said Mohammed Al Saeedi, Program Officer for the Middle East and North Africa at CIPE. “To unlock their growth potential, they need to enhance their technical skills, increase access to funding, as well as explore the possibility of attracting investors or partners, and these are among the mentor-mentee discussion topics.”
The second cohort is planned to start at the end of summer 2022.
The program’s mentors are all local volunteers and deeply committed to improving the business landscape of the country. Al Saeedi shares one of reasons for their dedication: “They believe success is not individual.” These mentors and mentees understand the key to driving the Bahraini economy forward is cooperation and collaboration. The networks built within the program are meant to be deep, and the hope is that they’ll also be lasting. “The good thing about mentorship is that it’s a one-on-one relationship. It’s not generic,” he said.
The mentorship relationship requires tremendous effort from both parties. The first cohort includes five mentors and 25 mentees, and every mentor meets with each of their mentees once a month over a three-month period, providing technical guidance, serving as a sounding board and connecting mentees with individuals in their network. WDI is supporting the mentors as they guide their mentees by providing them with training and resources on how to be effective mentors.
While the mentors provide a lot of specialized business advice, they’re also there to motivate their mentees. Mahmood Abdulsamad, a fitness studio owner and one of the program’s mentors, shared the advice he most wanted to impart to his mentees: “Failure is not the end. Believe in yourself, be different, fail until you succeed and do not measure success by money.”
The mentors and mentees also will be given the opportunity to participate in a powerful gender lens investing virtual training session. In an often male-dominated investor circle, providing awareness of and training on how to apply a gender lens to decisions and processes at any stage in the investment cycle can help advance the business and financial performance of the company, return on investment for the investor and gender equality in the workplace and broader community. It’s a goal that CIPE, Tenmou and WDI have taken seriously as the consortium moves this project forward — and one that WDI has been committed to for years.
“We’ve been dedicated to women’s entrepreneurship development for the past 15 years, so anything we can do to promote women’s entrepreneurship, advance women-owned businesses and help equip women entrepreneurs with new skills is a great fit for our mission,” said Gillett.
In addition to offering the gender lens investing session for entrepreneurs, WDI will also offer a session tailored for Bahraini investors through the project’s Investor Education initiative, which aims to broaden the pool of both investors and invested companies.
The mentorship program – rounded out by gender lens investment and access to finance, along with the U.S.-Bahrain commercial dialogue focused on harnessing the power of the FTA in the bilateral trade relationship – is contributing to the Bahraini startup ecosystem. The sector is critical to the economic growth of Bahrain.
Gillett can already see how the mentorship project in Bahrain will impact entrepreneurial programs across the globe. “It’s continuous learning for us. We’ll apply what we learn from this program and further develop and refine our tools.”
About WDI
At the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, unlocking the power of business to provide lasting economic and social prosperity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is in our DNA. We gather the data, develop new models, test concepts and collaborate with partners to find real solutions that lead to new opportunities. This is what we mean by Solving for Business—our calling since the Institute was first founded as an independent nonprofit educational organization in 1992. We believe societies that empower individuals with the tools and skills to excel in business, in turn generate both economic growth and social freedom—or the agency necessary for people to thrive.
WDI’s Education team works with world-class instructors from leading universities — including our home at the University of Michigan —to develop and deliver programs. Through our rich faculty network, cultivated over the past 25+ years, we deploy experts with both deep subject matter expertise and relevant regional experience.
About CIPE
The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE; www.cipe.org) works at the intersection of democratic and economic development, partnering with business associations, chambers of commerce, think tanks and other organizations to implement homegrown, business-led solutions to local development challenges. CIPE’s mission is to strengthen democracy through private enterprise and market-oriented reform, fulfilling a vision of a world where democracy delivers the freedom and opportunity for all to prosper. Founded in 1983 and based in Washington, DC, CIPE currently implements programs in more than 80 countries around the world.
The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), WDI, and Tenmou (a Bahrain-based angel investor network) and a consortium of U.S. and Bahraini stakeholders collaborated to strengthen the Bahraini entrepreneurial ecosystem through encouraging investment, advancing business growth for Bahraini startups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); and increasing access to finance and strengthening the Foreign Trade Agreement-based US-Bahraini commercial relations. Under this project, which is funded by the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) of the U.S. State Department, WDI supported Tenmou with the delivery of a mentorship program, which matched two cohorts of 25 Bahraini MSMEs with a mentor. Mentors provided their mentees with one-on-one guidance over four months. At the end of each cohort, a select number of SMEs participated in a pitch night where they pitched their business to a panel of investors. WDI trained the mentors on how to work effectively with their mentees through a mentorship toolkit, short videos, and live webinars with a mentorship expert. Based on learning from the program, WDI published an article on NextBillion: “Seven Keys to Successful Business Mentorship Programs: How Entrepreneur Support Organizations Can Maximize Their Impact.” Through WDI Publishing, WDI developed two business cases featuring entrepreneurs from the program, appropriate for adoption in both entrepreneurship training programs in non-academic settings and university courses.
WDI led two virtual training sessions on gender lens investing (GLI). The sessions focused on inspiring Bahraini investors to promote gender equity and integrate gender considerations into their investing approach, as well as how to apply a gender lens to business operations and understanding financial gains of different GLI strategies. WDI also participated virtually in two training sessions on FinTech which focused on: 1) advantages of utilizing FinTech to advance business growth and 2) returns on investing in the FinTech sector and digitization.
WDI works with the Weiser Center for Europe & Eurasia (WCEE) at U-M to offer NGO Leadership workshops to non-profit leaders from across central and southeastern Europe. The workshop in Bratislava covers marketing, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, fundraising and management to help NGOs run more effectively and sustainably. In 2023, the workshop will be held in June in partnership with Bratislava-based partner, Hekima. Twenty five participants will come from six countries: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, North Macedonia, and Moldova. Supplementary online modules on topics including leadership, social media marketing, and conflict resolution will be available to participants.
Students at an FPT classroom in Vietnam.
In continuing its successful track record of collaborating with universities in emerging market countries to provide world-class executive education programs, William Davidson Institute (WDI) is partnering with the FPT School of Business & Technology (FSB) to provide management training in Vietnam.
With over 20 years of experience in training in management and leadership, FSB is ranked among the top two best business schools in Vietnam and in the top 24 best Executive MBA programs in East Asia, according to university ranking firm Eduniversal.
WDI has offered its Strategic Management Program, also known as its Mini-MBA, for more than 25 years. WDI partners with universities and training organizations in low- and middle-income countries to offer open and custom programs on a full range of managerial topics, including strategy, sales management, marketing, finance, operations, entrepreneurship, leadership, negotiations, human resources, and the Institute’s flagship mini-MBA program.
The WDI/FSB partnership adds a new twist with a first-ever joint executive education program, called the Advanced Mini-MBA Program. The certificate program will begin in July 2022 and will combine in-person instruction in Vietnam with online modules. Three WDI Faculty Affiliates and two FSB professors will provide instruction and guidance for the students, who must have more than five years of management experience, such as boards of directors and C-Suite executives.
The program targets participants who have an interest in applying technology, digital transformation and other global trends toward business administration topics in the fields of insurance, banking, real estate, technology, automation, media, business consulting, and aviation, among others.
“The partnership between the world-class William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan and FPT School of Business and Technology is a highlight in our journey in creating a high quality education which responds to the needs of innovation, allowing students access to global training methods and knowledge,” said FSB Dean Nguyen Viet Thang. “The principles and objectives of WDI are in line with the vision of FSB and FPT Education. The joint program will provide the quintessence in executive management to potential leader generation in Vietnam, helping them to seize the opportunities to share the same management perspective with organizations and businesses in the US and around the world.”
Participants completing the course will:
Participants of the WDI/FSB program will receive a co-branded certificate upon successful completion.
“We at WDI are very excited to partner with the prestigious FPT School of Business & Technology FSB to offer joint executive education programs, starting with our Advanced MiniMBA program,” said Amy Gillett, WDI Vice President for Education. “This program brings together world-class professors from both institutions to bring the latest management knowledge to rising leaders in Vietnam and to enable them to build their global perspectives and strengthen their professional networks.”
The partnership with FSB isn’t WDI’s first training program in Vietnam. In 2004, WDI ran a six-week executive education program for executives from Vinacomin, Vietnam’s national mining company. WDI has extensive experience in cross-cultural business education, a subject explored in March by former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius, whom the Institute recently hosted. (Watch a replay of the discussion here.)
About WDI
At the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, unlocking the power of business to provide lasting economic and social prosperity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is in our DNA. We gather the data, develop new models, test concepts and collaborate with partners to find real solutions that lead to new opportunities. This is what we mean by Solving for Business—our calling since the Institute was first founded as an independent nonprofit educational organization in 1992. We believe societies that empower individuals with the tools and skills to excel in business, in turn generate both economic growth and social freedom—or the agency necessary for people to thrive.
About FSB
FPT School of Business & Technology (FSB) has more than 20 years of training experience in corporate and organizational management. Every year, the school has nearly 1,300 students attending master’s programs, more than 2,000 turns of studying short-term programs. FSB and students create a dynamic, creative and experiential research and learning environment; we appreciate the close and harmonious combination in updating new and advanced knowledge in the world, applying it to practice on Vietnamese culture.
Three student alums of international virtual exchanges managed by the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI) have been invited to join an inaugural fellowship launched by the Stevens Initiative, the supporting partner of the programs.
The Stevens Initiative selected at total five fellows from the U.S. and nine fellows from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for the inaugural 2022 Stevens Initiative Alumni Fellowship cohort. The organization described the fellowships as an “immersive learning opportunity for young professionals,” all of whom have completed a Stevens Initiative-funded virtual exchange with distinction. The program will include monthly synchronous and asynchronous activities, and individual coaching sessions, culminating at an in-person summit in Washington D.C. at the beginning of 2023.
“Through this fellowship, alumni will develop personally and professionally as global leaders, intercultural communicators, and cross-cultural collaborators while forming long-lasting relationships with their peers and the Initiative,” the organization stated. Learn more about the program and the other fellows here.
WDI has managed two programs funded by the Stevens Initiative: The MENA-Michigan Initiative for Global Action Through Entrepreneurship (M²GATE) and Business & Culture, a virtual practicum now in its third semester at the Ross School of Business at U-M.
The WDI-affiliated student fellows are Whitney Brooks, a U-M undergraduate student and 2021 alumna of Business & Culture; Mohamed Hassan, who was a winning team member in the M²GATE Pitch Competition in 2018; and Nouha Ziade, a 2020 B&C alumna, who is now an elementary teacher at the American Creativity Academy in Kuwait.
“We are so proud of our three WDI virtual exchange alums, Mohammed, Nouha and Whitney,” said Amy Gillett, Vice President-Education at WDI “They demonstrated leadership as participants in our programs and now have a great opportunity through this fellowship to continue to develop their skills as leaders and cross-cultural collaborators. They’ll also learn some new ways to promote virtual exchange in their own communities, helping to forge more invaluable global connections.”
From 2017-2019, the M²GATE program brought together more than 400 students from five Michigan university campuses and their peers in Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. Harnessing the power of virtual exchange, the students worked in teams to find entrepreneurial solutions to social challenges in the MENA region, while learning new skills, building cross cultural experiences and forging new relationships. The program culminated in a visit by the winning teams to Ann Arbor to participate in a week of entrepreneurial activities, including a business pitch competition in November 2018.
Business & Culture is an action-based learning course on international business cultures connecting U-M undergraduate students with peers from Egypt, Lebanon and Libya. More than 400 students from American University in Cairo and the American University of Beirut, and students in Benghazi Libya, and U-M have participated in the course to date.
The WDI-organized programs represent a strong point in a broader global network of virtual exchange projects supported by the Stevens Initiative. Through its 86 grants around the world, the Stevens Initiative will reach nearly 75,000 young people by 2023 as part of its vision of giving every young person the knowledge, skills and experiences they need to prosper in an increasingly interconnected world.
Whitney Brooks
In addition to pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art and Design, Brooks has worked as a marketing and media intern at the Zell Lurie Institute at Michigan Ross, supporting its long-term brand identity goal by creating digital graphic assets. Brooks, who hails from Detroit, has an interest in product/industrial design that encourages thoughtful decisions.
Mohamed Hassan
Hassan is a senior undergraduate student at the American University in Cairo, where he is majoring in Engineering with minors in Economics and Sociology. He is currently an Associate Coach at The Center for Learning and Teaching at his university, where he works on designing and facilitating professional development workshops to expose students to design thinking. Hassan is from Egypt and has a passion for outdoor “nature-based: activities, adventure sports, personal development, volunteering, traveling, watching movies, and reading novels of nonfiction, culture and romance.
Nouha Ziade
Ziade, originally from Tripoli, Lebanon, is an elementary teacher at the American Creativity Academy in Kuwait, where she teaches homeroom subjects for third grade students. Previously, she worked as an ambassador for Localized World in Lebanon. She also participated in the Alumni Review Committee for the Stevens Initiative 2020 Virtual Exchange Grant Competition. Ziade has a dual degree in Business Administration and Elementary Education with a Teaching Diploma from the American University of Beirut and is currently studying for a bachelor’s degree in Data Science at the Lebanese University. Her interests include traveling, culture, film and archery.
About WDI
At the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, unlocking the power of business to provide lasting economic and social prosperity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is in our DNA. We gather the data, develop new models, test concepts and collaborate with partners to find real solutions that lead to new opportunities. This is what we mean by Solving for Business – our calling since the Institute was first founded as an independent nonprofit educational organization in 1992. We believe societies that empower individuals with the tools and skills to excel in business, in turn generate both economic growth and social freedom – or the agency necessary for people to thrive.
An Elton service station in Dakar, Senegal. (Image by Diana E. Páez).
Case studies push business school students to make realistic considerations, start layered conversations, and develop functional problem-solving skills. By placing students inside real-life situations, academic case studies are a key tool in developing modern business leaders. For students learning in high-income countries within prominent business schools, most case studies mirror the world they see, including familiar corporations and dilemmas they’d expect to experience on the job. But for students in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), that’s rarely the case.
Instead, LMIC students often have to make significant intellectual, geopolitical and logistical leaps for cases written in and about developed economies to work for them. They need to imagine how the companies featured mirror those in their region and shift the situations detailed in a case study to match the ones they see locally. Both students and instructors guiding them need to adjust the content to their locality, whether that means translating it into another language or imagining how different cultural norms would impact a discussion question. Each one of these steps pulls students further from the goal of the process—immersing them in the case itself to develop their creative business minds—but case studies about organizations and dilemmas in LMICs can provide a remedy.
When leaders at the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan (WDI) and the African Institute of Management (IAM) in Senegal set out to build a supply chain program for local students, they knew they needed to include case studies about that local region in their curriculum.
Paul Clyde, president of WDI, and Noel Watson, founder of OPS MEND and research fellow at WDI, came together with Alassane Fall, engineer and current director of IAM’s supply chain management master’s program, to build the curriculum. Supply chains in emerging markets are complicated, and students need the tools and experience to tackle these complexities. Without locally—or even regionally—focused cases, they would be learning business concepts in the vacuum of the classroom, without any opportunity for practical application.
“Students are more likely to understand the case and be at ease learning it if the case studies are set locally,” Fall said. “They’re more likely to be interested and involved because the situations are never the same otherwise.”
Effective case studies surround students with real-life business dilemmas they need to resolve. If the case study doesn’t resemble a student’s real life, it will have limited learning value in the classroom. Watson shared why this representation is so critical.
“At some point, without seeing that representation, the takeaway is that much less,” Watson said “There’s almost a sense that you don’t really believe the case because it’s not really about where you are. The idea is to address that head-on with cases set in Africa or Senegal.”
WDI’s expertise sits at the intersection of what’s needed for the task of creating these important case studies, with its network of business relationships in LMICs and rigorous academic research practice. WDI Publishing has more than 600 cases, mini-cases, exercises, and conceptual notes in its collection, which have been utilized in more than 800 universities around the world since the group was established within WDI in 2007.
Students are more likely to understand the case and be at ease learning it if the case studies are set locally. They’re more likely to be interested and involved because the situations are never the same otherwise.
Combined with the knowledge and skills of a local leader like Fall, WDI Publishing can identify real-life business challenges and develop case studies that encourage students to brainstorm innovative, accessible solutions.
“Our mission is to equip economic decision-makers in emerging countries with the tools of commercial success. What does it mean to equip economic decision-makers if not through training and education?” said Clyde. “It’s very much in line with what we’re doing.”
WDI also has the publishing capabilities to make these cases a reality. Sandra Draheim, Manager of WDI Publishing, explained how her team helped bring these Senegal-centered cases to fruition. “WDI has the capability and the platform to deliver cases like these, because we have the horsepower and processes to professionally edit, format, publish, and distribute them.” In a world where academic teaching materials are costly to produce and distribute, there’s often a lack of case studies written about doing business in emerging economies. With WDI’s resources, LMIC-focused case studies can be published and adopted by the appropriate institutions around the world.
The first case study produced by the team focused on managing supply, demand, and delivery at Elton Oil, a petroleum products company operating in Senegal. In this case, an interim export manager is faced with an unexpected drop in supply from the country’s refiner. Students are challenged to schedule deliveries to the company’s gas stations despite the constraints, and are asked to use a provided worksheet to support their decisions.
Diana E. Páez, Senior Director of Grants and Partnerships at WDI, wrote the case with Watson and Fall in both English and French, eliminating yet another barrier that many Senegalese students face when using other case studies. These details matter, Páez said. “It matters that students can recognize the places, the names of people. It makes it more real.”
For IAM students, having a case centered on Elton Oil meant they could leave their classroom and drive past the business they’d just been discussing. It also meant the dilemmas were literally at their feet, making the solutions that much more tangible. The same was true for the second case (available here), which focused on supply chain changes in Africa through COVID-19, and it will ring true for the third case in the pipeline, covering inventory optimization for a Senegalese steel company.
Since the partnership between IAM and WDI began, student interest in the program has grown significantly. Just a handful of students participated in the first offering of the supply chain program back in 2017. For the 2020/2021 academic year, 30 students took part, making it one of IAM’s more popular offerings.
“After we discuss the cases, most of the time, the students say they appreciate and love them, they say they learned a lot, and that it makes a big difference,” Fall said. “They’d like the managers from the case locations to come to the class and talk about what they’d do in the situation.”
In fact, one student from IAM was actually hired by Elton Oil, said Fall, who is hopeful this student will return as a guest to the course to add another layer of learning for current students.
IAM students aren’t the only ones benefitting. WDI has helped develop local cases in other regions of the work including the Philippines and the Middle East. These cases, available digitally at no cost, have been downloaded across the world by professors and international business leaders. This enthusiasm, along with the overwhelmingly positive response from students, is an indication that there’s a need—and WDI is working to address it.
About WDI
At the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, unlocking the power of business to provide lasting economic and social prosperity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is in our DNA. We gather the data, develop new models, test concepts and collaborate with partners to find real solutions that lead to new opportunities. This is what we mean by Solving for Business—our calling since the Institute was first founded as an independent nonprofit educational organization in 1992. We believe societies that empower individuals with the tools and skills to excel in business, in turn generate both economic growth and social freedom—or the agency necessary for people to thrive.
Note: A recording of the event is now available.
The William Davidson Institute (WDI) will host a discussion with Ted Osius, former U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam and leader of the US-ASEAN Business Council. He will discuss Vietnam’s economic transformation and the skills necessary to succeed in cross-cultural business. The talk, “Building Trust and Taking Risks,” is set for 2 p.m. March 16, via Zoom. (Register here.)
A diplomat for 30 years, Osius served from 2014 to 2017 as U.S. ambassador to Vietnam during the Obama Administration. Leading a team of 900, Osius devised and implemented strategies to deepen economic, security and cultural ties between the two countries. Only the second openly gay career diplomat in U.S. history to achieve the rank of ambassador, Osius went to Vietnam with his husband and two children.
After leaving government, Osius joined Google as its Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google Asia-Pacific and currently serves as President of the US-ASEAN Business Council, which represents 170 of the largest American businesses in Southeast Asia through its headquarters in Washington, D.C., and its seven regional offices.
During the talk, Osius will share some of the key insights from his 2021 book “Nothing is Impossible: America’s Reconciliation with Vietnam.” He’ll then discuss his fascinating career, including his time in the foreign service, his transition to Google, and how he landed in his current position at the US-ASEAN Business Council. He’ll talk about the differences in working in the public sector vs. the private sector.
“As a leader in foreign service, private enterprise and nonprofit organizations, Ambassador Osius offers a unique perspective for how building understanding can lead to historic opportunities,” said Amy Gillett, Vice President for Education at WDI who will convene the discussion with Osius.
Participants will have an opportunity to submit questions during the discussion.
Earlier in his career, Osius was a senior advisor at the Albright-Stonebridge Group and Vice President of Fulbright University Vietnam. Osius was associate professor at the National War College and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
As a diplomat, Osius served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Political Minister-Counselor in New Delhi, India. Osius also served as deputy director of the Office of Korean Affairs at the State Department, regional environment officer for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and senior advisor on Asia and trade to Vice President Al Gore.
Osius earned a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and an Honorary Doctorate from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education.
You should make every effort to ensure that other members of the team do their part. If you’re a team leader, foster an environment in which others can express their unique perspectives.
Effective business training can’t be solely theoretical. For it to make an impact, the lessons need to encompass the practical matters and decisions facing tomorrow’s leaders throughout their careers — such as engaging team members, harnessing diversity, and navigating conflict.
This critical focus is at the root of a new course from the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan: a seven-week online team-building program, “Team Building for Results.” WDI’s Education team recently completed a pilot program for 91 college-aged social entrepreneurs from six countries participating in the Ford Motor Company Fund’s global College Community Challenge (Ford C3) initiative. The purpose of the WDI online team building program is to build participants’ leadership skills to make their social enterprise work more effective and impactful. The hope is that this successful pilot paves the way for future leadership training courses.
WDI’s program is a participant-centered experience that solves team-focused problems with a model that prioritizes practicality. Students from around the world come together with experienced professors and mentors to discuss topics that impact team success, including diversity, innovation, decision-making and communication. They then test and apply their knowledge through quizzes, conversations, and group projects; and ultimately leave the course with an elevated framework through which they can view and manage their own business relationships.
A Course Like No Other
“Our educational system is so theoretical, so you come out of school and have difficulty applying [these lessons],” said Timothy Azumah Azirigo, a pilot program participant from Ghana, highlighting the distinctions of the course.
When Amy Gillett, vice president of WDI’s education sector, set out to build the course, she had students like Azumah Arizrigo in mind. Gillett knew a program had to be grounded in real-world tools. If she wanted the curriculum to make a difference, the course had to provide practical skills. This priority was a divergence from much of the schooling these global students had already received, which made it all the more necessary.
Gillett also knew that collaboration would be at the crux of many of these modern business opportunities. “Teamwork is a critical skill in today’s globalized business world,” she said — and embracing diversity, setting the right goals, improving listening and communication skills, and learning how to lead a global team have become the superpowers of successful business leaders.
The program’s unique benefits weren’t lost on the participants. “This is a rare opportunity on a platter of gold… It’s worth all the time it requires,” said Peter Ikenna, of Ghana who joined the program’s first cohort. Lukman Selim, another participant, shares Ikenna’s enthusiasm and urges other students to apply. “Seize the opportunity,” he said, “to learn the secret to being a star team player.”
Global Leaders for Global Students
The program is also a lesson in practicing what you preach. Coursework is taught across borders through a diverse team of professors and mentors. Students don’t just talk about the value of collaboration, they experience it. They work with students who have vastly different cultural backgrounds than their own and are guided by leaders whose experiences are just as diverse as those of the students.
For Amira Nour Soudky Dawoud, a graduate of another WDI education program and recent mentor for this program, the situation calls for elevated empathy and kindness. “It’s the only thing that identifies our humanity,” she says, “not our names or cultures.” Dawoud, who hails from Egypt, explains that kindness makes for successful leaders and peaceful teams, which then bring the right environment for team members to shine.
The value of humility and support resonated throughout the lessons. Okulor Chimuanya Lilian, a media personality and program mentor, echoed Dawoud’s call for the students to unite. She said, “I wanted them to work together, and instead of allowing diversity to divide the team, to use it as a strength to become great.” She guided students toward connection with that goal in mind.
A Final Lesson in Collaborative Diversity
At the conclusion of the program, student groups created videos about the impacts of diversity on a team. They shared the varying attributes of their own team members and how these backgrounds shaped their collaborative efforts. They explored how cultural differences can be harnessed for deeper success, a theme that both resonated in the content of the videos and was felt through the experience of creation.
The process of this project brought just as many lessons as the final product, ripe with opportunities to either encourage or exclude team members. Dzokoto Seyram Kelvin, a mentor from Ghana, saw shining examples of inclusion. He highlighted the lesson: “You should make every effort to ensure that other members of the team do their part. If you’re a team leader, foster an environment in which others can express their unique perspectives.”
Providing space for these unique perspectives drives the course forward, and WDI sees the broad value in the program for entrepreneurs, businesses and students across the globe. The Institute is looking forward to continuing to share the program with future Ford fellows — and any other team working toward improving its communication and collaboration.
About WDI
At the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan, unlocking the power of business to provide lasting economic and social prosperity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is in our DNA. We gather the data, develop new models, test concepts and collaborate with partners to find real solutions that lead to new opportunities. This is what we mean by Solving for Business – our calling since the Institute was first founded as an independent nonprofit educational organization in 1992. We believe societies that empower individuals with the tools and skills to excel in business, in turn generate both economic growth and social freedom – or the agency necessary for people to thrive.
About Ford Motor Company Fund
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Navigating business relationships, particularly cross-cultural ones, can feel like moving through a minefield, sidestepping explosives that could instantly derail any progress. But it doesn’t need to be that way.
John Branch, professor of marketing and international business at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and faculty for the school’s Cross-Cultural Business course, along with Amy Gillett, vice president of education at the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan and co-creator of the Business & Culture virtual exchange, advise both professionals and business students on increasing their cultural competency. On Nov. 16, they will host a candid and interactive session around maneuvering these cross-cultural relationships.
While increased globalization is deepening and widening business connections, countries continue to vary widely on norms and acceptable practices. For instance, in some cultures, jumping directly into a business conversation without first getting to know a potential partner can end a deal before it starts.
“If culture didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t talk about these cultural gaffes or cultural blunders, because we’d be just one homogenous blob of people,” said Branch. “Culture still matters and if managers and marketers do not appreciate this, they’ll continue to make these cultural gaffes.”
So why aren’t businesses doing a better job of guarding themselves against these errors? According to Branch, business leaders are under-appreciating the significance of cultural differences. Many do not fully comprehend the major impacts of culture on their interactions and how they relate to business success. Consequently, many do not focus their energy on understanding or resolving these issues.
Making your way through culturally-diverse business interactions requires significant time, resources and analysis. Understanding the relevant and likely cultural sensitivities, collecting accurate and insightful feedback and carefully considering this information are all necessary before taking action. Cultural competency is not as simple as learning the right handshake. Culture is a layered and complex system by which business partners live, and success means understanding each of those layers.
“Even the big companies are failing to do proper cultural research because they’re in such a rush to get the product to market, or they don’t realize the role of culture and the importance of factoring it into their plans from the start,” say Gillett. “In many cases, managers lack training in cultural competence, so this is not even on their radar.”
Though steering clear of negative choices is critical, cultural competency isn’t just about avoiding blunders. Companies mastering cultural competency can also create a competitive advantage, explains Gillett.
Take HP. The company introduced its gaming laptop, Omen, in 2006 with lackluster results. After the success of the 2019 Academy Award-winning film Parasite, the firm re-engaged the market with a new campaign, pulling in cultural references that resonated. This improved sales — all because they took note of a cultural touchpoint and responded.
Mastering cross-cultural connections will facilitate more thoughtful interactions, which will foster better business practices.
Join Branch and Gillett’s virtual discussion on cultural competency to share your stories of cultural gaffes and/or successes, discover what it takes to prepare for better cross-cultural interactions, and learn from the breadth of cultural exchanges that have gone wrong — and right — across the business world.
Work with PES is focused on developing a systematic approach for assisting locally (Kenyan) owned small and medium enterprises by equipping them with the necessary training and skills, providing one-on-one support and then developing a template for providing such assistance in the future based on the learnings from the one-on-one offerings.