# The Looming Failure of Multinational Organizations By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2024-10-03 There are very few people who can lead a multinational organization. The challenge lies primarily in understanding diverse geopolitical issues and cultures while separating oneself from the culture and geopolitics surrounding the location of headquarters. As the saying goes: out of sight, out of mind. The daily nudges of the headquarters issues add to significantly stronger influences than the scheduled regional situational awareness and strategy meetings. For example, if one region is experiencing a drought but the headquarters is in a rainforest, it will be nearly impossible for the leaders to fully understand the impact of the drought and be able to react accordingly. Local self-preservation almost always wins over problems one cannot see and experience. This is our natural state of existence. We only experience levels of solidarity with those we see and interact with regularly. This proves solidarity is possible, but whether one can scale it beyond a narrow geophysical boundary. Voice and video calls could potentially be one way to extend solidarity, but only if space is intentionally given for solidarity to form. Meetings in organizations, especially multinational ones, often strictly follow an agenda of organizational and project execution. Additionally, breaking down cultural and language barriers requires intentionality. This is only rewarded if there is a direct and immediate capital gain. Today's multinational leaders grew up in a time of globalization, American police and defense protections, and relative peace. This time is ending. American cultural capitalism has propagated wildly around the globe to benefit American interests. It is far from a perfect economic system, and America, lacking a real threat and achieving cultural victory, is retreating from global protectionism. This is a seismic shift that nearly no one alive today has experienced. Thus, multinational leaders didn't have to consider differences in geopolitics and cultures to achieve economic success. America underwrote the gains as long as they aligned with capitalistic and "democratic" ideals. Times are changing, and multinational organizations are likely to fail in massive numbers as these leaders fail to adjust to the shifting paradigms of global commerce. #### Related Items [[Organization]] [[American]] [[Politics]] [[Geopolitics]] [[Culture]] [[Failure]] [[Solidarity]]