The second session of the day one was on the theme: Developing a Global Mindset.
The session was chaired by Mr Sudhir Jalan. The other speakers were Mr Jeffrey Watts, Partner, deloitte Tohmatsu, Japan; Ms Anne Nemer, Asst. dean & ED, Univ of Pittsburgh and Mr D Sivakumar, MD Nokia.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Jalan said that good leaders need to have understanding of Global practices as these practices across the globe are transforming us.
Mr Jeffrey Watts defined the global mindset as "ability and willingness of managers to think, act and transcend boundaries on a global scale. It is the understanding the nuisances of the working style and thinking of various countries, companies and cultures."
Mr. Watts said that Global Mindset depends on the following three points:
Ms Anne Nemer commented, "In this globalized world, professionals will be born at one place, grow-up in another, live in some different place and work in altogether different location. A global manager is expected to see beyond the surface while being incisive in their approach, they need to have open mindset to approach problems. The global manager needs to find opportunities to innovate through ideas."
Mr Sivakumar began his talks with making clear understanding of the outdated thinking on the definition of global mindset. He pointed out the two major fallacies in approaching global mindset are – 'Legacy thinking' and the 'reward thinking'. Legacy thinking comes from making decisions based on three powers – US, Europe and Japan; they were economic power by their own, and not because of global mindset. Reward thinking is the thinking which is aligned to the thinking of Head office, even if the office is based out of Atlanta, where people have no idea of local challenges.
Mr Sivakumar said that the global mindset started to set-in with the three major milestones:
Mr Shivakumar said that if India has to be competitive on a global scale, it needs to focus on following issues: