GLOBAL MINDSET: A PATH TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Culture shapes the behavior of an individual. The places where a person grow up, work and
socialise influence how that person interact and perceive others.

Globalisation and digital transformation are breaking down international barriers and bringing
different cultures closer together. Successful business people from all over the world are
competing for top positions in international organisations. Being business savvy and having a
good track record at home is no longer enough to secure the best roles in the global arena. In the
current worldwide economic situation, being culturally aware and competent is a must for
success. According to new research published by the Harvard Business Review, a ‘global
mindset’ is what managers need to be successful in a global role. A manager need to be capable
of adjusting to different environments and must have the ability to work effectively with
international colleagues.

Even if a business works within national boundaries, there is no doubt that global forces will
affect it. Globalisation is a fact of life. In our increasingly connected world, we are all subject to
sweeping change. An awareness of cultural, geographic and economic diversity helps leaders to
make sense of constant change. It also helps you to spot innovation and best practice and to
adopt this best practice and make it relevant to your business.

A key challenge here is that as people socialised to work with others, they develop a unicultural
rather than a multicultural lens. A unicultural lens can help us to understand our immediate
vicinity, but in a global environment we need a multicultural lens to understand, influence, and
get the best from diverse groups of people.

There is a great deal of discussion these days about the importance of global mindset. The
general feeling is that a global mindset is something a global manager must have, and that it
represents a certain curiosity about the world and a willingness to deal with broad global and
foreign issues. But few attempts have been made to define what a global mindset is and what a
manager with a global mindset might look like.

A mindset is a way of being, not a set of skills. It is an orientation to the world that allows to see
certain things that others do not see. A "global" mindset means to scan the world from a broad
perspective, always looking for unexpected trends and opportunities to achieve personal,
professional, or organizational objectives.
Some think it has to do with how much global business knowledge one actually know while
others believe it means enjoying being around and working with people who are from different
cultures. However these sayings are not totally wrong but these are all outward manifestations of
the inner workings of a global mindset. A global mindset is a higher form of cognitive
functioning.

GLOBAL MINDSET

The most important aspects of a Global Mindset are:

 Openness to learning 

 Adapt to new cultures 

 Manage different cultures 

 No one correct way 

 Interest and curiosity 

 Proactive use of diversity 

 Not bound by local 

So it can be concluded that global Mindset is:

“The ability to step outside one’s base culture and to understand there is no universally
correct way to do things”.

Importance

A global mindset is the ability to reflexively adjust to the cultural signals, so that the
effectiveness isn’t compromised with dealing with people from other backgrounds and styles.

One of the most important skills global managers can possess is the ability to not generalize
about an entire group of people, especially if one’s experience with the few people has resulted
in negative outcomes. Excellent global managers have nuanced and complex cognitive
processing abilities that allow them to not leap to conclusions that result in the stereotyping of an
entire group of people.

The future will belong to millennial leaders -- who tend to be increasingly globally oriented and
eager to explore the world -- and millennials' inclination to identify themselves as global citizens
will further the push for a global viewpoint. A perspective that is unrestricted and unimpeded by
a local economy or a local government.
People with global mindset drive for the bigger, broader picture. People with global mindsets are
constantly looking for context. They are concerned about the backdrop against which current
events are happening. This backdrop may be historical, but it is more likely to be concerned with
current and future trends on a broad, global basis.

A global mind is never content with one explanation of an event, never satisfied with one task
when it can manage a project, and never happy with a project when it can manage an
organization. Likewise, people with global mindsets are constantly scanning the geographical
horizon to learn more about potential markets and competitors, new technology, and new
suppliers.

It should be noted that there is also a great need today for managers with global mindsets in
"domestic" organizations. Many people will argue that there is no longer any such thing as a
"domestic organization" of any consequence, because if your organization is successful
domestically, there is an increasing possibility that a foreign competitor will enter your market to
challenge your position.

Many organizations that market to domestic customers are also finding a need to be more
globally oriented in order to find global sources for materials, technology, capital, and even
people, to help them provide the best product at the highest quality and lowest cost. …

Living and working in a foreign land does not automatically build such a mindset. Several people
who have lived in another country for years seek out the familiar even after they have been in
their adopted country for years. The people they socialise with at work are all from the home
country. Weekends are spent meeting people from back home.

Being immersed in an unfamiliar world frightens most of us. Familiarity is a warm blanket. A
global mindset is about actively seeking the unknown.

A global mindset needs the bandwidth to handle such diversity. To live in a world where there
are multiple truths could mean understanding the laws of different countries and the ability to
work in a regulatory environment different from what the person may have learnt in the home
country over time.

A global mindset also means learning how to operate in an unfamiliar environment. Global
leaders have to define business processes that will work seamlessly across different parts of the
business.

global mindset has emerged as a key individual capability and a critical source of long-term
competitive advantage of firms. There are three major perspectives on global mindset: cultural,
strategic, and multidimensional, each offering a different conceptualization of global mindset.

While globalization has opened new growth and profit opportunities for established and
emerging firms alike, it has also presented significant and vexing challenges, driven by the ever-
increasing complexity of the organizational and business environments. As many authors have
noted, the complexity embedded in globalization fundamentally changes the task of managing a
global enterprise and the nature of the problems that business leaders need to address. Against
this backdrop, global mindset has emerged as a key individual capability and a critical source of
long-term competitive advantage of firms. The mindsets of key decision makers in company
influence important decisions and therefore, organizational behavior and ultimately firm success.
There is no doubt that having the right strategies, structures, and processes are critical to global
competitive success, but there is also an increasing emphasis on the important role that mindset
plays both as a determinant and an outcome of these strategies, structures, and processes. For
these reasons, global mindset has been recognized as a fundamental managerial capability of
companies competing in the global arena.

“In this digital age, geographical borders are no longer clearly defined, so having a global
mindset while working globally has become critically important for the success of business
leaders, especially in the accounting profession,” Drumgo said following her talk.