The Practical Global Mindset

Photo by Lina Trochez on Unsplash

In part 9, let’s put our Globalization Motivation into practice in an effort to oversimplify and evangelize globalization, localization and above all collaboration. 

There are many articles devoted to the global mindset. It’s a phrase that many throw around and use to mean different things relating to leadership, cultural sensitivity, and even profitability. Here is how I personally define the phrase: The Global Mindset is when you promote globalization, localization, and above all collaboration with the sole purpose of making these three top of mind for everyone in your organization and anyone you hope to partner with. The phrase is used to provoke empathy in our leadership and further the cause for understanding the impact on the global customer. We can all utilize this as a way to influence decision makers on the importance of localization. 

Why a global mindset? 

Remember that old catchphrase about the word “assume.” Humans make assumptions. We assume we are all speaking the same language. We assume we know what other functions are responsible for. Assuming is generated in our silos (the bad ones). We assume that as subject matter experts that we should avoid concerning ourselves with the priorities of our fellow teams. If our peers do not understand why they need to involve us in project planning, we will be forgotten until something breaks (reactive). Localization protects companies from what I have termed the big three: alienating users and customers, non-compliance (with governments), and legal action (getting sued). This is why localization has often been seen as a service provider and brought into projects way down in the funnel. However, there are many advantages to elevating localization as a whole. As a strategic partner leading projects (proactive) and ultimately reaching the largest group of consumers. 

The two fears 

I often hear two distinct fears when breaking through silos: adding to our personal workload and stepping on the toes of our co-workers. As someone who has automated herself out of a past role, I understand these fears all too well and I am here to say that these fears are invalid and will hold you back. Collaboration among peers reduces overlap, aligns processes and tools, and leads to innovation. It is the proactive approach. It’s positive and takes you out of the bad silos that prevent you from advancing your own career and the localization industry as a whole. 

The pandemic killed the silo 

This horrible worldwide pandemic has fast-tracked digital transformation for every business. Most brands had to scramble to implement intuitive, user-friendly, cashless, and above all digital solutions for their internal teams and customers across the globe. Every employee had to be remote and customer safety became paramount. That isn’t to say that retail and onsite collaboration has gone away. It forced everyone to evaluate their dependencies on infrastructure (technology and human support), prioritize internal communication and pivot messaging.

The global advantage 

Most companies that have a global mission may interpret the global mindset to mean different things, especially within the same organization. Some see it as being available in as many markets as possible and others view it as connecting to customers all over the world with a personalized experience that is intuitive, respectful, and practical. Having loyal customers that trust and bring in even more customers.  

Practicing global mindfulness 

Here are four practical ways that you can promote a global mindset and bring localization into the planning phase: 

 1.     Education – Educate your peers and partners with training, on-boarding new employees, and providing digital resources with terminology and visuals that clearly show who you are, your accomplishments, and your impact. 

2.     Promotion – Utilize your personal social media to boast about your industry, inspiring international campaigns and helpful knowledge pertaining to localization. 

3.     Empathy – Actively seek to understand the priorities and challenges of your peers to evaluate where you align, overlap, or possibly overcomplicate. Gather user stories to visualize the expectations of your teammates (you don’t need to be certified in Agile). Generate buyer personas for every market to visualize the global customer.

4.     Analytics – Follow external and internal trends. Leverage existing internal data that your peers are following. This will give you the solid proof you need to convince decision makers the impact localization has. 

The win-win! 

Everyone benefits from partnership. Proactive initiatives will remove the assumptions, redundancies and promote collaboration. Implementing these practices will generate a common understanding and evoke empathy in your peers and partners so they will think about how localization fits into the big picture. You will empower designers to see how the artwork is altered as it travels. Engineers will visualize the global user. Localization professionals will see where we fit into the overall mission and how integral we are to connecting customers across the globe. 

I’m happy to brainstorm ideas with anyone on how to put the global mindset into practice because I see this as a win for everyone. If we take it upon ourselves to translate the localization industry for our peers and partners, we can be a voice for our customers all over the world and bring them the best experience. We also in turn elevate the localization industry and weave it into the evolution of business practice.