Growing up in Belgium, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation‘s Steven Baert never really understood what it was like to be “different.” But when his employer sent him to work in the United Kingdom, he learned as many lessons on human behavior as he did on business strategies.
“It was my first time working in a different country and I experienced what it was like to be an outsider,” he recalls. “I was young and I felt all the pressures to have all the answers to be Superman. I hit a wall and there was real culture shock.”