Strategy for Globalization 2.0 (as run with the Haas EMBAs)

Globalization, as it was conceived after World War II, is faltering. The simultaneity and complexity of the crises that have gripped the world since the early 2000s have overstretched the crisis management capacities of corporate and government decision makers. We are experiencing the limits of long-held ideas and solutions of globalization and economic liberalization induced by a potent mix of disruptive forces, from climate change, geopolitical conflict, parallel systems (China’s Belt & Road v. US v. Europe) competing for influence, pandemics, supply chain bottlenecks, pervasive and invasive tech innovation and techlash, to inequality, melting trust in societal institutions, skyrocketing inflation, successive financial contagions, and the worst cybersecurity year since the inception of the internet. This begs the central question of how business leaders can help build a new, smarter architecture for “Global 2.0” for the inclusive benefit of more actors while positioning their own organizations for resilient strategic success. This course equips students to see and evaluate the tectonic shifts in the architecture of the global economy toward an emerging global Cognitive Era and to then remobilize and reposition their organizations through strategic leadership. By parsing the tectonic shifts into the 6C categories — Cognitive Economy, Covid, Crypto, Cybersecurity, Climate & Carbon, and China – and examining the intersections at which they collide, we will see new logic and structures emerge in the global economy. We will then diagnose the new patterns of power distribution and interactions between formal and informal actors before assessing the impact of this for our organizations and recalibrating our strategic action portfolios for them. At the end of the course, students will have developed a new framework, replete with a select set of tools, to become strategic “Design Activist Leaders” that exhibit the capabilities to synthesize new growth in Global 2.0 for and beyond their own organizations. This course will feature engaging discussions about the future of Global 2.0 and strategy for it via lightening talks, 1-2 top-notch speakers, hands-on frameworks (e.g. the 6Cs, FLP-IT global foresight, Global Cognitive Economy Business Canvas, etc) and an immersive simulation to practice fresh “zeroth principle thinking,” i.e. seeing new building blocks of the economy and new value through stakeholder partners, before we chart a path into the evolving opportunity set.