Enterprises are increasingly finding they cannot succeed without a true global perspective deeply embedded in the organization. Such enterprises, private or public sector, can only obtain this perspective if they recruit globally competent employees. I look for the following attributes of Global Competency when seeking out such people.
Global Awareness - understanding that the global village is a rich network of millions of diverse social, financial, and knowledge ecologies sustaining billions of individuals and organizations, many with something of potential value to one's local situation.
Global Openness - an informed alertness to these potential contributions to improving one's self and one's local social/organization ecologies, coupled with a healthy skepticism of the tribal conceit that one's local cultures already represent the best of all possible worlds.
Global Access - a commitment to constantly improving one's performance in efficiently discovering what global resources might offer local improvement and in effectively accessing those resources.
Global2Local Competency - experience in integrating global resources into local organizations through creative cultural translation and meaningful change agency.
Such competency can be achieved through the organic integration of life, educational, and work experiences, but any organization seeking to explicitly develop globally competent individuals must effectively address all four attributes.