{"id":4019,"date":"2017-06-26T13:08:00","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T13:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/what-gbs-leaders-can-learn-from-rise-fall-of-empires_062617\/"},"modified":"2017-06-26T13:08:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T13:08:00","slug":"what-gbs-leaders-can-learn-from-rise-fall-of-empires_062617","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/what-gbs-leaders-can-learn-from-rise-fall-of-empires_062617\/","title":{"rendered":"What GBS leaders can learn from the Rise and Fall of Empires"},"content":{"rendered":"
I was struck by the similarities between Global Business Services (GBS) and Empires after reading ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ by Noah Harari. He says:<\/p>\n
“An Empire is a political order with two important characteristics. First, to qualify for that designation, you have to rule over a significant number of distinct peoples, each possessing a different cultural identity and a separate territory….Second, empires are characterized by flexible borders and a potentially unlimited appetite…<\/em>”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n These two characteristics of an empire are uncannily similar to Global Business Service (GBS) organizations. GBS is:<\/p>\n The basis of the creation of Empires and GBS also has similarity. For Empires, it is about basic unity of the entire world around a central ideology. For GBS, that ideology is around standardization, collaboration, and effectiveness.<\/p>\n This all becomes troubling when you realize that we all have a very negative connotation around the word “Imperialism”. We tend to associate wars, brutality, coercion, oppression, and so on when we talk about imperialism.<\/p>\n So, is GBS also this brutal? I think it depends on what lens you view it from:<\/p>\n Bottom-line: GBS will work as long as we keep people at the core, define our outcomes and keep an eye on the future <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n However, I don’t think there is any value in painting GBS as black or white. Like almost everything in life, it has shades of gray. The most important question is ‘how can we make it better?’ And I think this is where GBS organizations can learn from the rise and fall of Empires.<\/p>\n Disclaimer: I am a firm believer in the value and concept of GBS. My sole objective of this post is to make it more human. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was struck by the similarities between Global Business Services (GBS) and Empires after reading ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[851],"tags":[347],"ppma_author":[38],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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