Read the full script of Module 2, Episode 3 of the Global Growth Master Class below. Want to get certified on global expansion? Simply click here to access the complete course today.

How do top companies build global teams?

Global Class Companies possess a new view on talent and culture that go beyond functional expertise but consider local expertise.

Achieving global scale requires more than just a superior product and a well-conceived strategy. Global Class Companies appreciate the significance of people and culture, as well as the human connections that span borders. Given the increasing prevalence of remote work, the impact of these human elements is even more critical and must be proactively addressed.

The Global Class holds that talent is driven by skills, not geography

In contrast to traditional companies, which often consider location as much as skill set in selecting talent, Global Class Companies prioritize skills over location. This approach makes cultural fit an even more important factor in the selection process.

Global Class Companies have honed the art of managing a remote workforce. Rather than limiting their talent search to just their local area, they look for the best candidate, regardless of location. In fact, they often go beyond their borders to find top talent, intentionally building a diverse and international team. Having a distributed team thereby becomes a crucial advantage for Global Class Companies, as their diverse workforces help them better understand and gain entry to new international markets across the globe.

Legacy companies approach talent acquisition in a traditional manner, by focusing on hiring employees from specific geographic locations. However, Global Class Companies have a more progressive outlook. They understand that limiting their talent pool to one area can limit their growth potential.

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Global Class Companies have developed the ability to run a distributed organization, and understand that having a global-minded team with diverse perspectives and knowledge of local market needs and nuances helps them both localize for each market, and operate at global scale. 

An important point to highlight here is that distributed does not mean virtual. In the context of building a global team, distributed more specifically refers to building a team of talented people wherever they happen to be located. Local offices can be built around concentrations of people. The point is that the geographic proximity of a candidate to a company office shouldn’t be a leading factor in determining whether to have them join the team. 

Legacy companies may believe that if teams aren't in the same physical space, they can't have chemistry. However, Global Class Companies know that team chemistry and camaraderie can be developed virtually and despite cultural differences. They understand that having local expertise in many markets will help accelerate market entry and avoid pitfalls when expanding into new markets. 

In short, Global Class Companies focus on skills, not location, when it comes to talent acquisition

They believe that hiring the best talent from anywhere in the world is the key to success, and that having a diverse, global-minded team will help them address the challenges and opportunities of the future. 

There is another crucial element to building a Global Class team, and that is diversity. Global Class Companies thrive on diversity and Legacy Companies at their best don’t specifically make it part of team building plans and at their worst actively avoid it in favor of building a homogeneous team often only considering the context of the initial market the company first launched in.

Legacy companies tend to prioritize hiring individuals with similar backgrounds and education, often focusing on prestigious universities. However, the Global Class values diversity and seeks out talent from a wide range of experiences and backgrounds, including underrepresented communities. They believe that talent is not limited to a certain degree or background, and embrace diversity as a strength. By hiring employees from various global markets early on, they understand the positive impact that diverse perspectives can bring to the company's mindset and strategy.

Global Class Companies are proactive in building a diverse talent pool from the beginning, with a vision for their future global expansion. They understand that having a diverse workforce, including employees from various backgrounds and markets, brings unique perspectives and helps them better understand and address local needs. During the onboarding process, these companies emphasize their role as global citizens and the importance of cultural training to bridge company values with local context. New hires in international markets are given opportunities to deepen their understanding of the company through formalized training programs and spending time at the headquarters.

Finding diverse talent can be a driver for growth - not just in executing on a plan, but in helping to identify opportunity in other markets. This was the case for Zoom and Meltwater. At the media monitoring platform Meltwater leadership purposely tapped into employees to highlight opportunity in other markets. In building a diverse team they not only had diverse perspectives, but they had a team with local knowledge of many international markets.

Team members who were passionate about the opportunity in their local markets would bring their company knowledge to bear when highlighting their local knowledge to identify opportunity. This is a recipe for success that we will talk about more in the upcoming team building module. For Zoom, its initial growth into LATAM came from a US-based account manager of Latino descent who saw opportunity in the Mexican market and took it upon himself to prove market demand thereby closing a number of sales, becoming a catalyst for the company’s growth in the region. 

Global Class Companies are intentional in building multicultural teams and take a data-driven approach to ensure diversity. They see diversity as essential for success and growth in a global marketplace.

For Danish fintech company Pleo, out of the first 21 hires, 17 different languages were spoken. and the company admits that building a diverse organization from the onset they have been better positioned for global success. Today, Pleo is a unicorn that operates across Europe (16 countries) with around a 1000 employees from 55 nationalities.

Global Class Companies operate in a more decentralized manner, breaking away from the traditional notion of clusters of employees located close to each other based on departments or functions. The result is a truly cross-border workforce, where virtual collaboration transcends time zones. Again, note that we aren’t saying that to be Global Class a company has to be anywhere and everywhere with a virtual team, companies don’t need to be fully distributed to be successful, we just want to point out that building a diverse team with understanding of various cultures and local markets is essential for success in international markets.

The Global Class places a high value on individuals with a global mindset as they see this as essential for their success - a concept discussed in more detail in the next module. They are always on the lookout for talent that has the potential to develop new functional skills. To keep employees engaged, they create numerous learning opportunities, including cross-cultural ones. They offer their team the chance to live and work in different parts of the world, exposing them to new cultures and connecting them with colleagues from around the globe. By doing so, they believe that this helps to build personal and cultural understanding, leading to improved team productivity and localization efforts.

Team building is so important, and is in fact one of the 3 pillar for achieving global scale, as outlined in the Global Class book, that is why we have a whole other module dedicated to the topic, where we will discuss practical examples, review case studies and share insightful recommendations to help you build a global class team within your organization.

NOTE: Don't miss out on the next episode! If you want to continue learning about global expansion strategies and dive deeper into the course material, simply click here to access Module 2, Episode 4 of the Global Growth Master Class.