Many organizations claim to be global simply because they operate in multiple countries. But does that truly make them a global organization? Being global is about more than geography—it’s about mindset, leadership, and decision-making. Where are key decisions made? Is a global perspective embedded in the organization’s culture? Do its leaders embody this approach?
At Water for Good, we started asking these questions several years ago, sparking a journey toward becoming a more authentically global organization. Along the way, we’ve learned valuable lessons—here are some of the most important insights from our experience.
Defining What It Means to be a Global Organization
A few questions to begin:
If your organization works in multiple countries, does that make it a global organization?
Does being a leader of an organization that operates in multiple countries make you a globally minded leader?
Water for Good is a U.S.-based organization that has been working in multiple countries for many years. Almost 10 years ago, the organization made a commitment to only hire staff from each country to do the work in that country. We chose to empower individuals in the communities we serve because local staff know the needs of their neighbors the most. However, we also began thinking about just how “global” we were as an organization. Direction and strategic decisions were still made primarily in North America, then communicated to each country. To be a headquarters employee was synonymous with living in the United States.
This reflection caused us to start a transformation in 2021 to become a more global organization. Here are the three foundational ideas that we use:
What We’ve Learned and Implemented
1. Embed a global mindset in the organization
Embedding a global mindset in the organization starts with the mindset of leaders. As a leader, how self-aware am I when it comes to my own cultural biases and preferences? How curious am I to understand the world in which I live from other perspectives? Am I willing to be open minded and flexible to ideas that do not fit within the framework of my own biases and preferences?
Embedding a global mindset for Water for Good started with challenging my own thinking and looking across the organization to challenge cultural biases and preferences held by other leaders in our nonprofit. To accomplish this, we started by having 25 of our global leaders take a cultural assessment and participate in training and candid discussions about the results. It created language around which we could discuss and appreciate other perspectives in the organization. It opened the door for conversations that often start like this, “In our country we typically do it like this, how does that work in your country context?”
Water for Good has over 300 employees across seven countries, with numerous regions from those countries represented. As our global team watched leaders transparently attempting to think from a global mindset (and candidly sometimes still getting it wrong), a global mantra developed around being “one” team. We started seeing this theme appear on hats and shirts in every meeting we had across the countries where we work. More importantly, our team started using this theme in everyday conversation. It became the embodiment of our philosophy around being a truly global organization.
2. Be intentional in hiring, developing, and empowering global leaders
To build a more global organization, we knew that the underlying structure supporting the organization had to change to include everyone. Elevating the voice and influence of our leaders across the organization is key to our future success. Our aim is to move together as one global team, blending our North American, African, and Asian teams, giving more ownership and decision-making authority to key country leaders, and expanding global voices at the senior leadership level.
Almost four years ago, we opened a headquarters hub in Addis Ababa and since then went from having 100% of our headquarters leadership being in North America, to around 40 percent being from our other countries. We continue to be a work in progress when it comes to a global leadership structure. Every new role is evaluated as to where it needs to be and who would be best filling the role from a global perspective.
As global leaders are cultivated across the organization, empowered, and equipped to innovate, and invited to collaborate in vision setting, strategic planning and budgeting, we become more global. We intentionally create opportunities for sharing best practices and experiences across programs. We have seen amazing results from these efforts.
3. Focus on creating a scalable operating system
A global organization requires a scalable operating system of people, tools, and processes that will enable growth worldwide. Water for Good’s prior operating system was built on a US-centric model with tools and resources that were not consistent or accessible across our global organization. We have had to rebuild and adapt systems to be scalable around the world.
Our human resource’s structure has been modified to be more of a matrix system versus hierarchical. Connections between remote program areas in different countries have been refocused to allow more collaboration between those teams. We have increased our investment in technology, specifically implementing five new software tools globally, in the past several years. These tools have helped our team connect, collaborate, and provide important data and feedback from even our most remote locations. (I will talk more about the outstanding ways Water for Good’s global teams have worked toward making us a digitally mature organization in a future post.)
Building a more global organization is a continuous journey. It requires leaders and the organization to be curious and intentional. For Water for Good to grow in a healthy manner and to serve more people with water, sanitation, and hygiene more effectively, we must continue to challenge and enhance our thinking when it comes to truly being a global organization. We are happy to be on that journey—and hope you will consider what it means for your organization, too.
