As Kenyans we proliferate as commensurate professionals. Go to any major global city and you are likely to find at least two types of Kenyan professionals: accountants and NGO leaders. We dominate those sectors.
The most innovative and prolific donor and sustainable development initiatives often originate in Kenya and even despite the sad demise of USAid, we still tower above others in the sector. Similarly with the accounting profession.
Over the years, I have sat in meetings in Washington DC, London, Singapore, Berlin, and other global hotspots only to have a joyful surprise when a Kenyan accountant walks in the conference room unexpectedly part of whatever meeting is taking place.
Then look Pan-African, our entrepreneurs and financial technology professionals are legendary. From Johannesburg to Kinshasa to Accra to Senegal to Cairo and everywhere in between, our entrepreneurs and fintech experts bring expertise and creativity to sectors. Then look regionally how our medical doctors, bankers, insurance actuarial scientists, and real estate project managers are far preferred.
But even as the world benefits from our Kenyan ingenuity and how many around the world come to Kenya to learn from Kenyans, how, in return, do organisations benefit when our professionals gain international experience and then come back here at home to run companies?
Mountains of social science literature have been written over recent years on how a professional who gains international experience can then improve how they work and the deliverables they produce. At an individual level, clearly the exposure to different types of thinking and processes is useful in expanding horizons but also building resilience in professionals to figure out new solutions.
However, what about on an organisational level? Sometimes we assume that a leader with international exposure can lead better because of experience with networks and different ways of thinking. These same leaders often demand higher renumeration packages from the organisations that they serve. But is it worth it?
Fei Qin, Klaus Meyer, and Sabina Nielsen just published rigorous qualitative research looking at 270 studies to investigate the extent to which a strategic leader’s own international experience actually helps the organisation that she or he leads or is the exposure largely overstated. In short, strategic leaders’ international experience generally does improve organisational outcomes. However, relevant and usable experience matters far more than merely having spent some time overseas.
Unsurprisingly, the research found that internationally experienced executives tended to invest more in innovation and generate better organisational returns from those investments. Additionally, top management teams who have international experience rank as the strongest predictor of how extensively a firm itself is able to grow internationally and domesticate global best practices.
Further, as many Kenyans who go abroad to study at foreign universities and then only to come home to find it difficult to find work, international work experience appears far more valuable in improving organisational outcomes as a leader than does the foreign education of a leader.
It is better for organisations if you conduct your studies in Kenya and then go and work abroad rather than go and study overseas and then come directly back.
In fact, people who both studied and worked overseas and then came back were found to do worse for the organisation than one who only worked abroad. People become too mentally fixed into the habits of the overseas location at that point to become as useful locally.
Unexpectedly, more international diversity on a firm’s management team does not automatically produce better results. While diversity within leadership teams does improve information processing and decision quality up to a point, extensive diversity creates coordination problems, interpersonal friction, and weaker post-acquisition performance when mergers take place.
Then what did the research find about boards of directors?
Alignment within the leadership group matters a lot. Internationally experienced board members contributed more to the firm when the respective CEO also possessed international experience. Otherwise, without having matching CEO international experience, directors on the board sometimes interfered too deeply in management decisions.
In summary, a person who worked intensively in the relevant foreign market may contribute far more than someone who merely studied overseas or accumulated numerous unrelated international assignments. Benchmarking trips do not help. More international exposure does not necessarily produce better leadership.
International experience does not operate like a qualification whereby you just go and hang it on your wall and assume that it automatically makes someone a better leader.
Instead, it creates the greatest organisational value when leaders gained substantial professional experience, when that experience matches the market or challenges actually facing the organisation, and when the leadership team can convert the resulting knowledge into sound decisions and effective implementation.