What Makes a Great Global Organization?
By Sirin Koprucu
Published in Global Link, May 2007
There are plenty of ways to look for the answer to this question. I would like to attract your thoughts to the leadership, company culture, and customer service styles of successful global organizations. For this purpose, it also is worthwhile to look at some examples from outside the nonprofit industry.
I. Leadership
An Inspirational Global Leader
Experience shows that if a global leader is a visionary person with an entrepreneurial, out-of-the-box thinking spirit who acts as a role model in reaching out to the various opportunities international expansion offers, his or her organization is fueled with the right level of energy to grow beyond its home-country borders. Strong global leaders come across as inspiring to people in the local markets; they are strong advocates for the core business of their organizations, understand the needs of international audiences, attract local people to following the organizational goals, and know how to support these people in their countries. With the way they work, strong leaders enrich local economies and people. Discovery Communications is one of the great global organizations that enjoyed such excellent leadership in the past ten years. It now is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. “The core of what we do is factual programming,” says Judith McHale, president of Discovery, in an article. “We made a conscious decision not to have studios. We want local people in different countries doing the work; we truly believe in incubating and growing the local talent.” The article also mentions how Discovery strives for local relevance, creating programming that is unique to a specific country or region.
Read the entire article in Global Link, May 2007