ABSTRACT
Global leaders must learn to lead multicultural microworlds through creating shared visions and common mental models. They must manage diversity less by appreciating and utilizing national and cultural differences, and more by establishing an organizational culture that transcends these differences. Programs for developing global leaders must go beyond teaching people to appreciate or accommodate cultural diversity to the task of developing people capable of creating an organizational culture that can cohere diverse groups (McBride, 1992). Peter Senge (1990) has proposed one such approach—a learning laboratory. We have used this approach in the context of the global village ideas proposed by Marshall McLuhan (1964; McLuhan and Fiore, 1968) to create a microworld practice field that facilitates systems thinking and organizational learning.
