Jack Welch made the following statement more than a decade ago: “The Jack Welch of the future cannot be like me. I spent my entire career in the US. The next head of General Electric will be somebody who spent time in Bombay, in Hong Kong, In Buenos Aires. We have to send our best and brightest overseas and make sure they have training that will allow them to be global leaders who will make GE flourish in the future.”
The context in which global leaders operate continues to remain the same pretty much: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA). Global leaders, therefore, are required to influence individuals, teams and systems that are unlike their own to achieve their organisation’s vision and goals
Global mind-set, like most other competencies, is not a one-time learning. As markets expand, cultures evolve and change and technology influence deepens, the global mind-set has to go through a periodic update. Leaders with global mind-set have an enhanced ability to make sense of their contexts, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead of them.
What is important for us to understand is that global mind-set is more than cross-cultural intelligence. At best, cross-cultural intelligence is just one ingredient of the mind-set. Based on research studies, the following provides us a fairly comprehensive list of competencies that collectively address the global mind-set:
Passion for Diversity : It is much more than tolerating or appreciating diversity, but actually thriving on it. It is about getting to know people and explore other parts of the world.
Quest for Adventure: As Marco Polos of the future, showing an interest in dealing with challenging situations, willingness to stretch and test one’s abilities and interest in dealing with unpredictable scenarios
Self-Assurance : High energy, an appropriate sense of humour
Intercultural Empathy : Ability to work with people from other parts of the world and emotionally connect with them, knowing what their engagement drivers are and engaging them skilfully
Interpersonal Impact : Experience in negotiating contracts in other cultures, strong networks with people and credibility
Global business savvy: Knowledge of global industry, competitive business and marketing strategies, managing risks in other countries, and supplier options in other parts of the world
Cosmopolitan outlook: knowledge of economic and political issues, concerns, hot topics of major regions of the world; being up-to-date knowledge of important world events
These are some of the critical aspects of building the global mind-set. In addition, several other attributes are envisaged for strengthening the global mind-set. They include not being judgemental, tolerance for ambiguity, social flexibility, optimism, and the like.
Investing in talent
Developing a global mind-set is a dynamic and iterative process. There are some tools like Global Mind-set Inventory, Global competencies Inventory and such others that can be used to assess one’s global mind-set and readiness.
This calls for investment both from the company as well as aspiring global managers. Obviously, there is no crash course that can cram all these competencies in a few weeks or months’ time. Individual leaders have to choose where to begin and evolve a systematic learning plan.
In other words, you cannot microwave global managers with global mindset!
Understandably, organisations will invest, perhaps, only in top talent by giving them overseas work assignments and build some of these competencies. Hence, understanding your organisation’s policy and criteria for spotting and selecting top talent is necessary. Then the hard work begins in terms of earning a place in the slate of top talent and exploring possibilities of assignment in regions outside to gain first-hand experience of working in cross cultures and build the related competencies.
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