If everyone is your enemy, you've already lost.
I had a bit of a chortle today.
I saw an Australian influencer on Linkedin invite Aussie organisations to appoint counter-intelligence officers to defend their company against foreign influence.
Due to globalisation, less than 67% of Australian citizens were actually born in Australia.
So I guess you have to guard against all the rest of them.
Almost 10% of Australians are actually Kiwis.
Which is quite frightening, when you think about it.
Those dangerous Kiwis!
There are also 1.4 million Chinese people permanently living across Australia and New Zealand.
The question is, "Threat or Opportunity?"
If you are a fundamentally racist or xenophobic person, everyone outside of your culture is an enemy that your business has to 'guard' against. Guard against what? Buying your products and services? For goodness sake.
I realised in that moment, that some intellectuals are bonkers.
Harvard Business School teaches us that of two equally skilled people, the one with high emotional intelligence has 90% more likelihood to succeed.
What we are talking about here is a capacity for people skills.
The business that says, all Russian, Chinese or other nations are a threat, is being racist and xenophobic.
Learn to make trade, not war.