Managing a difficult turn in the road: Going home

Should David return to Singapore?

He attended university in the United States, where he worked for 3 years as a consultant in NYC. He then spent 3 years working in London, before moving to Shanghai.

He moved to France to get his MBA, hoping to use the time to weigh the decision about going home. He has learned how to thrive in environments in which he felt different. He has loved the changes he has experienced.

Can he find a place for himself if he goes home?

While it had been extremely difficult to leave his family, he had adjusted and flourished in the US, London, China and in France. He loved his independence and loved the fact that every day felt like the beginning of a new adventure, but he started to experience a growing desire to return home.

Returning to Singapore for him meant looking for a way to continue this exciting career while recapturing his relationships with parents, family and friends. How could he integrate those relationships and his career potential into the life of the new David - the man that he has become?

David is not alone. Globalization has facilitated the possibility of education and work abroad for many young men and women. This can be a challenging and exciting opportunity.

Life is seen with different lenses after an extended period of living and working across geographical and cultural boundaries. Many head 'home' hoping to integrate the multiple perspectives they have learned from their global experience with the familiarity and comfort of being 'at home.'

Re-entry can be one of the most challenging aspects of their global voyage. If not prepared and carefully managed, this risks a period of dashed hopes and lost careers. If managed successfully, people like David can be among the rising stars of Asia. What can facilitate the process of going home?

I have been interviewing Global Cosmopolitan men and women who share David's dilemma. While they know this is an exciting time to work in Asia, their concerns about continuing their life voyage abroad need to be out-weighed by the opportunity to use their acquired skills and experience in what was once their 'home.'

Global Cosmopolitans like David face serious questions about the feasibility of holding onto their new identities and abilities rather than falling back to the constraints of a previous existence; looking for acceptance and opportunity rather than rejection and roadblocks.

A useful first step in confronting these issues is taking the time to understand and articulate their personal narrative. This helps contribute to a clarity about the meaning of their journey, and what is necessary to negotiate the next career steps.

For Global Cosmopolitans, the gains from a global journey can be invisible, even to the individual. It is particularly important to find a way to understand and express what has been learned and how it can be used in future life and work. It can give an important perspective on what has really changed and what has remained the same. For many women, taking an opportunity to put the identity that they have developed as a Global Cosmopolitan in relation to their cultural origins is crucial. That is part of the integration challenge.

For example, global experience can give much more than acquiring new linguistic and cultural knowledge. The ability to view issues from multiple perspectives and cultural lenses is a skill developed by many Global Cosmopolitans.

David left Singapore as an excellent student, fluent in English but very attached to his parents and their guidance on how things should be done.

His initial challenges in his US university, which seemed difficult at the time, helped him understand how to read new environments; get appropriate help, and how to live and work with people that were very different.

As he learned how to read new messages about appropriate behaviour, he began to make lifelong friends with people very different from himself. Realizing that the process of adaptation and change were crucial elements to his success, he has been able to adapt quite easily to new environments. This same skill can facilitate learning how to guide organisations struggling to succeed in new or rapidly changing markets.

While men and women need to know their stories, a second step in the integration process is presenting the skills that they have gained from their experience. If they are unable to engage in a constructive dialogue with their organisation and work colleagues, many men and women find that they have fallen into the trap of adaptation.

Adaptation, a two-edged sword of mobility, can facilitate re-entry. However it can result in alienation and loss, since the creative voice of a different experience can be lost while trying to 'fit in.'

My interviewees are looking for organisations that are open to change and difference, which often translates to being open to people with global experience.

Many envision nightmare scenarios if they return to traditional organisations. Even those that have been sponsored by their Asian company for education and work experience abroad have been disappointed upon their return when the difficulty of colleagues and sponsors to recognise how they have changed and accept their new ideas.

Others upon re-entry hope to work in a start-up or start their own business. This could bring the opportunity to combine new ideas and skills learned abroad with their familiarity with 'home' markets. But finding partners, networking and funding can be challenging even though one has relationships with family and friends from the past, when you have not been home for a while.

While their entourage can be happy to have them home, they also may represent a resistance to the changed person by relying on previous ways of relating to and understanding the returning individual. The returning Global Cosmopolitan wants and needs understanding and acceptance of who he is now.

After years of confronting the challenges of change in their personal lives, they express concerns about losing parts of their newfound identity. While it can be easy to change certain behaviours, such as how one relates to co-workers, the newly developed attitudes can be very hard to abandon or hide.

 The adaptive side of the Global Cosmopolitan desires to please others and fit in to new situations. This can work against the needs to hold onto the changes in their globally developed self.

It is the ability to sustain and find support for the developed identity while managing the unchanged expectations of family, friends and cultural stereotypes is the fundamental challenge facing the returning Global Cosmopolitan.

While many will revert to past identities or flee to the locations where they can be accepted for their new identity; those who successfully manage these stressful dilemmas can be the rising stars leading growth and success in Asian businesses.

The writer is Emeritus Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD, and the author of Global Cosmopolitans, The Creative Edge of Difference.