On Multiculturalism

Recently, I was in a meeting/conference call with some leading executives of a

globally leading pharma company.The agenda was pipeline review and a very
broad-based, open brainstorm through which we hoped to come away with
pointers/thought-starters about the challenges and the future vis-a-vis this
company.
Quite a few points came up during the discussion - each highly relevant and
potentially critical for the successful presence of this company, both in India
and across the globe.
What struck me was the clear and marked difference in the psychological and
managerial outlook of the attendees.
While those signing in from EU and North America (the "West" group as one
of my colleagues noted goodnaturedly) were cautious and spoke only about
"careful steps and hedging bets", those that had signed in from southeast Asia,
Africa and some other third world markets (let's call them "Emergents") were
decidedly enthusiastic, more upbeat and more importantly, more optimistic
about where the company was headed, how it would face challenges and how
it could be made future-ready.
Interestingly, the topic of challenge management and future - readiness
brought up similar responses and proposed areas of focus from both groups
including the ever-present shadow of "diverst or push some more" for some
legacy operations. Also, global topics like "in-house outsourcing",

"collaborative innovation" and their inherent challenges came up. Under

challenges, everyone became somewhat guarded on the topic of workforce
multiculturalism.
I understand why it happened - when you are a global player of this size and
scale (refer top 5 Big Pharma for context), multiculturalism creates its own
currents that impact operations and deliverables besides communication
challenges.
Some of the more senior (age-wise) attendees lamented how, in the "earlier
days", multiculturalism was not as prominent as it is today and that, in their
opinion, helped productivity and results.
Not surprisingly, the counterpoints about the inevitability of multiculturalism
and its ubiquity came most strongly from the younger attendees across the
board. Some of these attendees pointed out that consumer and workforce
diversity (including Outsourcing) were the reasons that multiculturalism was
so prominent today. Another youngster pointed out about how diseases tend
to cut across the phenomenon of multiculturalism, creating different impact
areas, new challenges and opportunities (both for research and business).
Interestingly, an age-independent consensus emerged that in the context of
multiculturalism, perceived challenges often exceed actual ground realities by
a wide margin.
Eventually, the following was summarized:

1.

Multiculturalism is extremely crucial in the pharmaceuticals

and medical fields because different cultures lay varying degrees of
emphasis on Medicine, Medicines and personal healthcare which in
turn impacts their acceptance and uptake among culture-specific
consumers. Understanding these impact areas can enable
better consumer outreach, consumer receptivity (to efforts and
messages), disease prevention and treatment outcomes. For
example, in erstwhile India, age-related cognitive decline was
deemed so natural and inevitable that senile dementia cases were
not taken for treatment and care as readily as they are today. This is
definitely changing but more needs to be done

2.

All organizations (especially larger ones) must periodically

assess the impact of multiculturalism and sensitize their workforce
about it. The role expectations are decidedly distinct from standard
HR operations and might segue into that of a "People Officer" or
require a new title (and incumbent) altogether

3.

Tolerance of multiculturalism is not optional but mandatory for

any organization wishing to thrive in the current global marketplace

4.

Inclusive policies and decisions are only possible when

multiculturalism is accounted for in a free and fair fashion

5.

All other things being equal, organizations that acknowledge,

embrace and constructively respond to multiculturalism tend to get
better responses for their products and services. Advertising firms
that embrace, account for and appropriately target multicultural
consumer bases see better results

6.

Finally, multiculturalism merits deeper research since some

diseases (incl. orphans) are exclusive to certain cultures and
ethnicities and may even be rooted in their sociocultural mores.
Further, seeing how the same medicine can elicit widely varying
physiological experiences across different ethnicities, a constructive
focus on multiculturalism is likely to be very helpful.
Oh, by the way, while the upbeat group kept its optimism pedal floored, the
"West" group also picked up steam on cautious optimism.
I am so looking forward to a second brainstorm to discuss how to engender
multiculturalism (even more) strongly into the organizational DNA (and, of
course, review the pipeline!!!).......
Thank you for reading.....:-)