BOB: …I want to be more healthy. I want to eat better. … Like Japanese food.
LYDIA (sarcastic): Why don’t you just stay there, and you can have it every day. ((Lost In Translation script.))
Sofia Coppola’s brilliant movie, Lost in Translation, captures a classic problem facing all globally-minded professionals. Bill Murray portrays Bob, a famous American actor visiting Tokyo to shoot some whiskey advertisements. He has been there for days and is disoriented from jet-lag, strange language and customs, and surroundings. In a phone conversation with his wife, Lydia, he confesses that he likes some of what he sees. Lydia’s reply, why don’t you just stay there, challenges anyone who works abroad. In effect, the reply poses three questions. Where do you call home? How do you bring your home to the rest of the world? And how do you bring the world into your home? Any globally-minded professional has to address the risk of getting lost in translation.
All this came to mind upon my return from India and the observation of two very American ((My international students have reminded me that all the countries in this hemisphere are “American.” Using “American,” when referring to a person from the United States, seems to imply that the U.S. speaks for all countries in North and South America. But I have not found a good alternative: “United Statesian” doesn’t glide off the tongue. Even our less affectionate neighbors, such as Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, have been known to call us Americans. For the sake of convenience, I’ll defer to common usage.)) holidays, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving (yesterday). I have made no secret of the importance for students and business professionals to engage with the world beyond one’s home. As Dean, I practice what I preach and travel overseas quite a lot. Fortunately, I enjoy the foods of all nations and used to be able to chat in a couple of foreign languages. I have worked for extended periods outside the U.S. On those and all other occasions I have gladly returned to the United States. The Lydias of the world could well ask why I didn’t just stay overseas?
Proximity to family and friends is an excellent reason to come home. A second good reason is affinity for a particular culture ((For centuries, American culture has drawn a mixture of admiration and contempt. Alexis de Toqueville loved our entrepreneurial spirit and egalitarian social mores but hated our food, music, and pretensions. More recently, Bernard-Henry Levy lampooned American culture. For a reply in kind, see the review of Levy’s book by Garrison Keillor, “On the Road Avec M. Levy”, New York Times, January 29, 2007. The United States is, and always has been, a work in progress.)) . The United States is distinctive for its social mobility ((The American culture retains a rather footloose character, perhaps owing to the heavy influence of immigration and expansion across the Western frontier. Between a sixth and a fifth of the U.S. population changes address each year (see mobility data from the U.S. Census). Despite the icons of self-made fortunes (such as John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates) the topic of economic mobility in the United States is highly charged and the focus of intense debate. Evidence suggests that income inequality has risen in the past two decades. However, some recent research suggests that economic mobility among groups in the U.S. is relatively high. See the study from the Pew Charitable Trusts and a report from the U.S. Treasury which suggest that mobility among economic strata is high. The Daily Kos and others have condemned the Treasury report as politically-motivated. Is U.S. economic mobility high enough? One study by the Sutton Trust that compared the U.S. to other developed countries found that economic mobility was lower than in Nordic countries and Canada.)); its optimism (the “American Dream”); its edginess (the encouragement of risk-taking and second-chances); its diversity (the “melting-pot”); and its buoyant creativity.
More important than any is the third reason, love of the national institutions and practices. Democracy, relatively low crime and corruption, rule of law, respect for the sanctity of contracts and the rights of investors, freedom of speech and religion, relatively low intrusion by government into private life— the sum total of all this is freedom. My ancestors came to this country to escape oppression. But they also came for the opportunities that freedom would create. Our institutions enable what Batten Fellow, Carl Schramm and his co-authors call ((See Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism by William Baumol, Robert Litan, and Carl Schramm.)) “entrepreneurial capitalism,” an economy in which small and entrepreneurial firms play a defining role. It is the small and medium-size businesses in our economy that produce the most job growth, invent the most, and pay the most taxes—and it is through such businesses that one can try to make a better life for oneself.
In his new book, The Age of Turbulence, Alan Greenspan devotes nearly half of the volume to a survey of the main regions of the world and the economic challenges they face. He wrote, “My experience leads me to consider state-enforced property rights as the key growth-enhancing institution.” ((Page 251, The Age of Turbulence, Alan Greenspan.)) These rights create economic freedom. He points out that the United States ranks most highly among the large economies on an index of economic freedom and concludes, “The greater the economic freedom, the greater the scope for business risk and its reward, profit, and thus the greater the inclination to take risk. Societies that comprise risk takers form governments whose rules foster opportunities. They have laws that offer few regulatory benefits that government officials can sell or exchange for cash or political favors.” ((Page 276, ibid.)) Greenspan reports that economic freedom is highly correlated with economic performance.
The culture and institutions of the United States create a society of great vitality. The country gave us Elvis, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, jazz, Disneyworld, the interstate highway system, the man on the moon, many Nobel Prizes, the modern research university, A-Rod, and the decoded human genome. Over 75 years, real income per capita in the U.S. grew five times. ((http://www.clevelandfed.org/Research/commentary/2004/0815.pdf.)) This vitality has produced changes in society that would have destabilized many countries. Generally, the U.S. has handled turbulent societal changes peacefully. The U.S. has problems, lots of them. But the vitality of this country lends the belief that we will weather these issues.
Why don’t you just stay there? I like it here. And I think I can best serve my professional mission here. Today, the United States is leading the advance in management research and education. Working in the midst of the world’s largest economy brings one close to the changes that management scholars need to study. And the challenges this country faces, owing to fundamental forces such as technology, demography (immigration and aging), trade liberalization, deregulation, and the like, suggest that there is important work to be done here.
Yet what is happening outside our borders cannot be ignored. The world remains a dangerous place and needs the contributions of educated men and women so that we can deliver a better and safer future to our children and grandchildren. One can be a globalist precisely because one loves one’s country. The thoughtful business professional needs to be in the world, not of the world. You must actively engage with the world beyond without losing sight of the values that bind you to one country. In this sense, the successful business leader is not lost, but rather found in translation.
Posted by Robert Bruner at 11/23/2007 01:22:39 PM