One of the fun parts of being more ‘senior’ in one’s career is having the opportunity to share ‘lessons learned’ over the years. I had the opportunity to participate in one such session in August – blog post here – and another earlier this month. Here are a few of the lessons shared from this latest session:
The ‘why’ is always the most important – why are you undertaking this effort? Form (tactics – what will you do and how will you do it?) should follow function (what is it you’re trying to accomplish?). I’ve often called it the Journalism
If your organization is expanding its international reach, taking time for doing the due diligence to explore and understand new environments is crucial. First steps to take include clearly articulating with your board and senior leadership why you want to engage with a particular country or region and what you are trying to accomplish. Once the answer to these questions are clear, developing a criteria for identifying or determining if a particular area of the world is aligned with your goals is an important next step.
There is a range of steps you can take to conduct your due diligence …
Going Global Takes Time – that was the theme of an American Society of Association Executives MasterClass on operating globally that I presented at last week. 80% of the group represented organizations operating internationally for more than five years, and 24% for more than 20 years, so there was a lot of experience in the room. The group discussed some of their successes and challenges in increasing their international engagement. The unifying theme was the need to look at long-term horizons and not rush the process. Some of the specific topics discussed included:
Cultural sensitivity – For organizations, there should …
I recently facilitated a session for social sector practitioners on global trends for organizations engaging internationally, and some ideas for how they could incorporate them into their operations or programs in creative ways. Here is some of what we discussed:
Tying to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – organizations can use the SDGs as a gateway to encourage their members to think and act more globally
Some examples:
* The International Coach Federation through its foundation has an initiative to ‘advance social progress through coaching‘ by supporting organizations working on the SDGs.
* The International Federation of Library Associations has …
A couple of years ago Bonnie wrote a series of posts on how our concept of networking has changed in a more globally connected world. We are continuing to see an increase in global networking and in the creation and expansion of new networks. Two new efforts provide interesting examples of how some of these new networks are being created and some of what is being learned.
Civil Society and Testing Change
The Civil Society and Testing Change project is a collaborative effort among a network of organizations and individuals interested in …
