Last fall, John Chipman, the director-general and chief executive of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, advanced the notion that in our globalized world, “every company needs a foreign policy.”
I can’t say that as the owner of a very small business–as small as you can get before you cease to exist–that I’d ever considered the need to have a foreign policy before. However, executive orders issued by our nation’s President have inspired me to think about the global nature of my business and to respond accordingly.
If it seems ludicrous that a consultant should have a foreign policy, consider this: most of my clients are multi-national and global companies. Over the past 27 months, I’ve worked with one ad agency that’s part of a Paris-based holding company and another agency based in London. Those agencies’ clients, in turn, include a global bank accused of bribery in China and a UK-based company with businesses across the globe. I helped a mid-sized US agency pitch a bank holding company based in Japan. I’ve even worked for two companies based in that most foreign of locales, New Jersey.
So, while I don’t jet-set around the globe, I do recognize that my work depends in a large part on working with people from anywhere and everywhere. These people include foreign nationals, naturalized Americans, undocumented residents and people with countless political and religious beliefs not to mention gender identities and sexual preferences. I can’t count ’em because it’s none of my damn business so I don’t keep a record.
As such, I commit Plannerben | Anecdata to support and work with people and companies in any nation as long as they believe that our differences are strengths and not weaknesses. I will work with people of any political stripe, with any belief system as long as they recognize that what connects us as humans outweighs what separates us.
I strongly reject President Trump’s attempt to wall off America from the world.
Like my daughter, I support international diplomacy
I recognize that I’m not Apple. I’m not Hard Rock Hotels for that matter. And it’s not like Kim Jong Un is burning up the phone lines trying to hire me. I do not anticipate any substantial negative or positive reactions to our policy. However, I accept John Chipman’s challenge above as an opportunity to think about my business and how I conduct it. Even in New Jersey.