Gary Ranker defines global mindset as the ability to step outside one’s base culture, and to understand there is no universally correct way to do things. He asks his clients to realize that persons in other parts of the world have different beliefs than they do, and different ways of doing things that work for them. To be effective as a global leader, we need to take this into consideration when we do business with others.
Developing a global mindset means accepting that our values and our ways of doing business don’t have the same meaning, or perhaps even work, for our counterparts in other cultures. To have a global mindset is to get beyond the trap of believing that what has worked for us and our organization in our country, will work to the same degree in another country. It may or may not.
But it won’t work to start with the assumption that we will be successful forcing our ways onto the other culture.