My first day on the job is turning into a nightmare. In a few minutes I'm scheduled to meet with a promising young manager who has botched a new assignment. My charge: avert disaster. In three hours I must make a strategy presentation to my new boss. The phone won't stop ringing and I'm deluged with electronic mail.

Phew! It's a good thing this is make-believe. Seated in a makeshift office in suburban London, I'm in the midst of a simulation just like one that hundreds of Motorola Inc. executives around the world will go through in coming months. It's part of a wide-ranging evaluation to choose tomorrow's top managers.

Motorola, like many multinationals, is scurrying to find talented leaders to run an increasingly complex, global business. As companies from France's Renault SA to Cisco Systems Inc. snap up far-flung firms or expand into uncharted territory, the demand for savvy managers with international know-how is growing exponentially.

Moreover, in today's tight job market, many companies have concluded they must rely primarily on homegrown talent. They are using psychological tests and Internet-linked job simulations to pinpoint leading in-house candidates. Some, such as Zurich-based ABB Ltd., perform in-depth evaluations of top business school graduates to select an elite group that is immediately sent on foreign assignment.

Developing Managers

"There's a shortage of management talent in many of the markets where we operate," says Kelly Brookhouse, an industrial psychologist who directs Motorola's executive development program. "We realized we need to develop our next-generation managers."

The consequences can be dire for firms that fail to build up a cadre of competent global managers. Poor decisions can lead to multibillion-dollar flubs as products flop and marketing campaigns go awry. Indeed, Motorola's push to beef up its management ranks came in the wake of costly mistakes made as the company expanded beyond its traditional North American market. The most spectacular flameout: the Iridium satellite telephone system, which gobbled up more than $6 billion (6.96 billion euros) -- $3.5 billion of it from Motorola -- before shutting down last year.

The costs are high in people terms, as well. Human-resources specialists say that as many as 50% of the managers sent on foreign assignment experience serious difficulties. Often these managers, or their families, simply don't adapt well to a bewildering new culture. Such problems often truncate promising careers, hurting both the individual and the company.

"We don't do a very good job of selecting people for foreign postings," concedes Sir Brian Pitman, chairman of Lloyds TSB Group PLC. In one instance, he said, the U.K. bank sent a brilliant young executive to Argentina. "He only lasted one week," said Mr. Pitman. "He just didn't fit in."

Increasingly, however, companies are getting smarter about how they choose the managers they promote -- especially when sending them to a foreign job. Evaluation tools have been around since World War II, when officer training programs in the British and U.S. militaries developed a series of intelligence and personality tests. The process includes role-playing exercises designed to see how people react to a series of real-world problems.

Such testing has been limited, however, by logistical headaches. The role-playing portion of the test often requires several trained assessors, so companies typically set up central test centers. Managers are flown in from all over the world for evaluations that could last from one day to three weeks.

Mobile Testing Procedure

To get around that hurdle, Motorola has partnered with human-resources specialist Aon Consulting Worldwide to develop an Internet-based testing procedure that can easily be deployed anywhere in the world.

During role-playing, test subjects use a specially configured laptop computer to send and receive e-mails, access information about their fictitious employer and consult their calendar. Phone calls, rather than coming from the room next door, can now come from a continent away and with the coming advent of video links, no role-playing specialists will need to be physically present.

"We put people into a simulated environment and throw business challenges at them to see how they respond," says Ms. Brookhouse. "We get a fairly comprehensive picture of people's leadership profile."

The tests are supplemented by performance evaluations by each manager's bosses and subordinates. Once all the results are in, people who have taken the test are encouraged to design a plan to shore up their weaknesses and build on their strengths. In China, managers have been encouraged to take on special assignments that force them to develop new skills.

Motorola has a pilot program for the new procedure in China, where the shortage of management talent is most severe. More than 150 people there will have gone through the process by the end of the year, says Ms. Brookhouse. The company plans to roll it out world-wide next year, evaluating up to 500 executives.

As Aon executives in England explained how the simulation works, I imagined myself enduring several hours of painful, awkward play-acting. In practice, though, the experience is startlingly real-to-life.

I play the role of Chris Jefferson, a regional manager in the finance arm of a fake conglomerate, Globalcom. As soon as I settle into a windowless, brick-walled Aon Consulting office in Hampshire, the phone calls, visitors and urgent tasks come so fast and furious that I quickly forget it is all make-believe.

Demanding Role-Playing Exercise

As I scurry to prepare a presentation about a company that I hardly know, I scour the computer, finding things like market research, results of an employee survey and corporate press releases. But I keep getting sidetracked by a steady stream of callers, like the irate customer who rails shrilly of poor service and threatens to bolt to the competition. And e-mail messages, some of them demanding immediate attention, keep popping up on the screen.

"It was hard. A lot harder than I had expected," said Mandy Chooi, a Beijing-based human-resources executive at Motorola who recently went through the role-playing exercise. "It's surprising how realistic and demanding it is."

Companies that use such assessment programs to identify skilled managers often see a quick payoff. French food group Danone SA reduced its failure rate among expatriate managers to 3% since it began an evaluation program three years ago. That's down from about 35% before, says Jean-Rene Buisson, the group's human-resources director.

Danone, which is pushing aggressively into new markets, from North America to Eastern Europe and China, in 1997 set up a mobile test center that operates in 10 European locations each year. The one-day evaluations focus in part on characteristics that the company believes make people successful in international jobs: flexibility and good listening skills.

"Failures in foreign postings are always tied to a problem of cultural adaptation," says Muriel Penicaud, Danone's development director. "We want people to really integrate into a new culture."

Some companies believe they can get a head start on developing managers who are at ease anywhere in the world. ABB's Swiss subsidiary, for instance, two years ago began sending top university graduates to its management evaluation center in Basel. In one 12-hour session, the job aspirants go through psychological testing, then plunge into a role-playing exercise with five other potential employees.

Foreign Assignment Program

Afterward each member of the group evaluates their own performance, as well as that of others in the group. The whole process is overseen by ABB managers and human-resource specialists who grade participants on their ability to work in a team, and on leadership.

Of 100 young people tested each year, ABB hires 20. They are immediately launched on a 16-month management training program, six months of which involve a foreign assignment in places as far away as Japan and Chile. About 60% of former trainees now hold management level jobs at ABB, says Theresa Schneider, who runs the Swiss division's management development program. That compares with 40% before the testing program began.

Back in the office in suburban London, I'm sweating. My boss, Jean Dubois, is due to walk through the door in about 20 minutes and I'm far from ready. There's a flip chart on an easel in the corner, but my handwriting is illegible, so I'm feverishly typing up a sheet of key points to hand her.

The phone rings. "Damn," I mutter. A singularly persistent colleague wants me to send a team member to Holland for three months to help land a big new client. I put her off politely, promising to call back later. But I've lost precious time and when Ms. Dubois strolls in, the presentation is still humming through the portable printer on my desk.

Sounds a lot like real life, doesn't it?