Transnational companies need a coherent, forward-looking "foreign policy," but most don't have one. Although governmental decisions significantly affect global business success, many corporations and legal staffs are only involved in defensive, short-term or narrowly self-interested "government relations."
Fewer companies have sought to make sophisticated public policy formation and implementation an important dimension of their business's global growth strategies -- they haven't evolved from a reactive to a proactive approach. This step is necessary, given the increasing global interaction between government and business.
During my time as the general counsel of General Electric Company, we tried, with mixed results, to move from the reflexive to the proactive through a "growth and government" initiative across the company's broad portfolio of businesses. This type of initiative can address a striking range of governmental actions and have relevance for many enterprises in global commerce (and the lawyers who staff them), although its scale will vary.
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