Developing a Global

Mindset
B D SINGH
Sr. Prof & Associate Dean (MDP
& C)
IMT,GHAZIABAD
 Market success is only part of globalisation.
We must globalize every activity in the
company. We’ve made some progress in
sourcing products and components so
critical to survive and win in a price-
competitive deflationary world, but our
challenge is to go beyond that – to capitalize
on the vast intellectual capital available
around the globe. – John F Welch Jr. CEO

 There are no German or American

companies. There are only successful or
Background
 The two most dreaded obstacles in the way of human
progress- i.e. Time & Distance have almost been
eliminated, due to technological revolution
 Mind boggling pace of changes have shrank the wide
world to a “global village”.
 We live in interconnected, interdependent, world
economy.
 Globalization has made free flow of goods & Services
– possible opening the new visa of opportunities – for
corporate and individuals – age of mega mergers &
acquisitions
 A global business manager must have a global
business perspective and understanding of how the
world works – Learning, unlearning and relearning are
integral part of the knowledge intensive global
business.
 A global manager must develop a global mindset –
the capacity to analyze, appreciate & leverage the
 The 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by
intense nationalism , building Empires & Colonies &
second half of 20th century intense witnessed a
phenomenon known as “cold war” - bi - polar world.

 During the last 25 years the world has become

borderless & multi polar –
 Wars, if at all fought, are for acquiring economic
supremacy--- mostly fierce commercial/marketing
competitive wars are seen – Global business
Olympiads taking place every day.
 Technology and business sans frontiers- no one is
permanent foe or friend – the traditional enemies
have become friends and allies – European
countries, India & China, Korea & Japan.
 Leveraging on diversities and contradictions –
thriving on chaos
 Diversities like multi – ethnic, multicultural,
multilingual, multi religious challenges.
 Contradiction & paradox like–
 Global peace vs. global terrorism
 globalization vs. localized block – (UNO, WTO, ILO,
WTO, vs. EUs, NAFTA, SAFTA etc.)
 Talent hunting jobs vs. job hunting talent – BPO,
KPO.
 Companies seeking talents & talents seeking global
companies
 Business hunting money vs. money hunting
business.
 Ruthless competitiveness vs. business alliances
 Locals/ natives vs. outsiders
In above back drop, it is important & imperative for
corporate as well as individuals to develop global
mind sets to take maximum – advantages.
What is mind set?
 Mind set is a condition where an individual is
over sensitized to some part of information
available at the expense of other parts . it
sensitizes us to the patterns which have
enables to solve problem as was done in
the past
 It produces fixation & stereotyping in
problem solving behavior
 Drucker – investigated how past experience
may block productive problem solving –
functional fixation
 This mind set can create difficulties for
manager when they are faced with new
problems.
Other Barriers in creative / global thinking
 Perceptual blocks – prevents individual
receiving a true relevant picture of outside
work / world
 Cultural blocks, which result from influence
of the society – cross – cultural clashes
 Emotional blocks – such as fear anxiety /
chauvinism
 Intellectual blocks – I know all- we are the
best
How Mindset Works?
 The concept of mindset, also referred to as
cognitive scheme, mental map, or
paradigm
 Mindsets evolve through an interactive process. The
current mindset guides the collection and
interpretation of new information. To the extent that
this new information is consistent with the
current mindset, it reinforces that mindset. From
time to time, however, some elements of the new
information appear to be truly novel and
inconsistent with the existing paradigm. In this
event, we either reject the new information or forge
a change in our mindset. The likelihood that our
mindsets will undergo a change depends largely on
how explicitly self- conscious we are of our current
mindsets : the more hidden and subconscious the
cognitive schema, the greater the likehihood of
rigidity .
What is a global mindset?
 Every mindset represents a knowledge structure, and the two
primary attributes of any knowledge structure are
differentiation ( the number of elements in the person or
organization's knowledge base) and integration (the person
or organization's ability to synthesize the various elements).
Differentiation in knowledge structures refers to the
narrowness versus breadth of perspective that the individual
or organization brings to the particular context. For instance,
think of the proverbial functional expert with almost no
exposure outside one functional areas. “tunnel vision” –
a classic case of low differentiation in knowledge structure. In
contrast, a manager with significant experience in multiple
functional areas has a more highly differentiated knowledge
structure. In contrast, a manager with significant experience
in multiple functional areas has a more highly differentiation
in knowledge structure and is unlikely to exhibit the tunnel
vision syndrome.
 On the other hand, integration in knowledge structures refers
to the extent to which the person or organization is able to
rise above and integrate the various perspectives or
knowledge elements.
 Integration becomes a critical attribute of mental templates in
those context where differentiation is high – removing the
undesirables /indigestible & adopting desirables
 We would define a global mindset as one
that combines an openness to and
awareness of diversity across cultures and
markets with a propensity and ability to
synthesize across this diversity.
 Global managers have exceptionally open
minds. They respect how different countries
do things, and they have the imagination to
appreciate why they do them that way.
 They sort through the debris of cultural
excuses and find opportunities to innovate.”
they remove carbon to get spark.
 What is a Global Mindset?

Open to Diversity Across Cultures

and Markets
Yes

Knowledgeable about diversity across

Cultures and markets?

Yes

Able to Integrate Diversity Across

Cultures and Markets

Yes
Global Mindset
 How a Global Mindset Differs from a Parochial or a
Diffused Mindset

Able to integrate
Diversity Across
Cultures & Market

Parochial Global
Closed to Mindset Mindset Open to
Diversity
Diversity Across
Across
Cultures and
Cultures and
Parochial Diffused Markets
Markets
Mindset Mindset

Unable to Integrate
Diversity Across
Cultures & Markets
Key advantages
 An early mover advantage in identifying
emerging opportunities:
 Greater sophistication and more fine-
grained analysis regarding the trade-off
between local adaptation and global
standardization
 Smoother coordination across
complimentary functional activities
distributed across borders:
 Faster roll-out of new product concepts and
technologies
 More rapid and efficient sharing of best
practices across subsidiaries
 Lower failure rate in expatriate assignments
 If a company is in the early stages of becoming
systematic about cultivating global mindsets, the
highest returns would come from focusing on these
more at senior levels.
 Development of Global Mindset
 .
Curiosity
Integration of new about how
knowledge and the the world
development of a new works
mindset

Exposure
to diversity
Development and
of a Global novelty
Mindset
Articulation of
current
mindset

Time
 An explicit and self-conscious articulation of
current mindset
 Exposure to diversity and novelty
 A disciplined attempt to develop an
integrated perspective that weaves together
diverse strands of knowledge about cultures
and markets.
 Curiosity about the world and a commitment
to becoming smarter about how the world
works.
 Cultivating Knowledge Regarding Diverse
 Cultivating a global mindset at the level of
individuals is a slow process that can take years of
learning through experience in multiple cultures
 Cultivate literacy of and enthusiasm for diverse
cultures and markets.
 Formal education : Formal education (language
skills and knowledge building regarding diverse
cultures and markets) can take place in the form of
self-study courses, university-based education, or in
company seminars and management development
programs.
 Participation in cross – border business teams and
projects – Consider, for example, a leading U.S.
bank creating a “Euro” team to coordinate the
company’s response to introduction of the new
European currency.
 Immersion experiences in foreign cultures –
 Emerging HR challenges & Practices
One aspect – sourcing
 “Advancement in technologies has new resulted in follow the
sun’ models, which dictate that the work never stops. This
enables teams across countries to work as one unit, cutting
across every cultural and physical barrier. They work with one
goal and hence, come up with faster solutions –
 Old business and hiring structures are both being replaced by
a global sourcing model that places emphasis on doing the
work where it makes most sense, sourcing resources from
where they are the cheapest and of the best quality, and
delivering where there is the best client interface. This has led
to the formation of a global workforce that collaborates
 Seamlessly to create profit for the host country, and the
country where the organization is headquartered.
 “Globalization Universalisation of IT has led to extensive
movement of professionals from one country to another.
Though this has been largely characterized by migration from
the East to the West (specifically the USA), the reverse trend
is also now being seen
 This has led to the governments concerned
interfacing with each other (in areas such as labour
regulations, visa rules, work permit quota, etc.) to
enable to smoother flow of professional from one
country to another,”
 As companies seek talent and talent seeks global
companies
 “Companies increasingly encourage and expect
employees to have cross-cultural competencies and
international experience. It indicates an added
dimension of appreciation for cultural diversity,
different approaches to communication and different
ways to solve common problems,”
 Technology also has the potential to change culture
and economic structures. These changes in behavior,
technology, demographic, resources and global
competition are forcing businesses to strategically
adapt to new ways to fill talent scarcity gaps.
 The talent forces that are emerging to fill scarcity
gaps in our time are from every conceivable part of
the globe and are adapting to the flat world faster
 The IT talent hunt begins: Technology has enabled
recruiters to use several innovative methods to reach
out to a diverse candidate pool. The global talent has
created an entirely new generation of recruiters who
work in different time zones and who need to connect
across multiple cultures. Some of the specific
competencies that recruiters have developed include
change management, flexibility/ adaptability and
contextual thinking (the ability to see the bigger
picture) etc.
 RPO – Recruitment process outsourcing : RPO has
turned out to be a growing global trend. The emergence
of RPO has solution is growing at a very steady pace
and even in India, it promises to be the way of the
future.
 E- Recruitment, job portals: According to industry
estimates, 30-40 per cent of junior and mid – level
placements in India are now made through the internet.
According to experts, the job search market including
print medium and placement consultants will grow from
 Conclusion
 The economic landscape of the world is
changing rapidly and becoming increasingly
global.
 How successful a company is at exploiting
emerging opportunities and tackling
accompanying challenges depends crucially
on how intelligent it is at observing and
interpreting the dynamic world in which it
operates. Creating a global mindset is one of
the central ingredients required for building
such intelligence.
 Case
Cultivating a Global Mindset: The VeriFone
Approach- Circa 1997
 VeriFone was a market leader in the automation and
delivery of secure payment and payment-related
transactions. Officially headquartered in redwood
City, California, the company was founded in 1981
and was acquired by Hewlett – Packard in June 1997
for 1.29 billion. VeriFone’s stated mission was “To
create and lead the transaction automation industry
worldwide.” In 1997, the company had tree thousand
employees based at more than thirty facilities in
North America, South America, Asia and Australia,
Europe, and Africa. Here are some highlights of how
VeriFone cultivated a global mindset among its
people and more broadly at the level of the entire
company:
 Hatim Tyabji, Verifone’s CEO, disdained the idea of an
all-powerful corporate headquarters and preferred to
view the company as a network of locations. Many
corporate functions (for example,
 Human resource management and management
information systems) were managed in a decentralised
fashion out of multiple global locations such as Dallas
(texas), Bangalore (India), Taipei (Taiwan), and
Honolulu (Hawaii).
 Virtually all employees of the company were provided with
laptops and were connected to each other electronically.
Every company facility was also equipped with
videoconferencing facilities. Upon signing on to their e-mail
systems, employees automatically saw a list of holidays and
local times at various verifone locations.
 The top management team, consisting of the CEO and his ten
direct reports, met for five days every six weeks at a different
location around the globe.
 The leadership was dedicated to instilling the company’s core
values (commitment to excellence, dedication to customer
needs, promotion of teamwork, recognition of the individual, a
global mindset, and ethical conduct) among all employees.
The CEO wrote the corporate philosophy manual himself. This
manual was then issued in a number of languages including
English, Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and
Spanish. When rolling out corporate programs, senior
managers traveled personally to various locations to get local
input and to provide guidelines regarding how the program
could be tailored to the local context.
 Prior to its acquisition by Hewlett- Packard, VeriFone
published the CEO’s letter to Shareholders (in its
Annual Report) in multiple languages.
 The company conducted recruitment on a global
basis and instituted structure around the globe.
 One of the company’s recognized core
competencies was its ability to leverage know –
how from various locations in order to serve
customers or pursue new opportunities. As an
example, one of the company’s sales reps in Greece
learned from a large customer that a competitor
had raised concerns about VeriFone’s expertise in
debit cards. The sales rep sent out an e-mail
request to colleagues within the company for
information and references on debit installations.
Within twenty-four hours, he had sixteen responses
and ten references including the names and phone
numbers of established customers with debit card
installations. The next day armed with this
information and able to say that VeriFone had
400,000 installations worldwide, the rep closed a
 Provide a concrete illustration of VeriFone’s already
well-developed global mindset, they also serve to
reinforce the notion of what constitute desirable
attitudes and behaviors within the company –
thereby leading to a further deepening of the global
mindset.