Global Mindset - Leadership for the Digital and Global Age

“Our learning experiences enable leaders to develop a growth mindset – the real determiner of effectiveness in the Digital age.”

Success in the Digital Age requires a new kind of leadership that focuses on creativity, collaboration and customer care along with exploiting and humanizing the impact of the rise of machines. The opportunities for revolutionary products and services are unprecedented. The challenges of bringing the best out of people are bigger than ever. We have in many ways reached a plateau in the effectiveness of how we lead and organize people that will not be adequate in the near future.

All companies need to upgrade their leadership and people practices to find sustainable success and while general recipes exist, the best method to develop a firm requires careful customization. Consultant companies who identify and bring out the best in their client’s corporate DNA create better results. Global Mindset has been offering top-class and bespoke leadership and organizational development consultancy services since 2010.

Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, which is a center of high-tech research and development, Global Mindset is dedicated to helping leaders and their organizations reach their maximum potential. “Greatness,” in fact. Services include analysis, consultancy, training and coaching. Uniquely, they help companies to help themselves through “contagious” concepts and tools that are highly effective and easy to use. “Do it yourself” is the mantra for Global Mindset’s world-class methods. Central to all their work is the discovery of how “psychological safety” creates the best conditions for high performance in teams at Google.

In conversation with Skip Bowman, CEO, Executive Coach, Author, and Organizational Psychologist Global Mindset ApS

Q. What is the reason behind the genesis of Global Mindset ApS? How did you expand your company and its offerings over the years?

Global Mindset was originally established to provide a truly global approach to leadership and organizational development to Danish companies. 10 years ago, I realized that Danish companies had a very “Scandinavian” approach towards leadership development, and this was negatively impacting leadership effectiveness and growth. I wanted to open up Danish organizations in a way that included and enabled non-Danish leaders to succeed in Denmark as much as enabling Danish leaders to succeed globally. Scandinavia has developed an extremely effective high-trust model of leadership, but this was hard to export and translate to the US and Asia. Our success is a testament to making the Danish-way more global. I am both an insider and outsider when it comes to Danish leadership and culture. I know better than most where the real strengths and weaknesses lie, and those insights are what I have leveraged to help my clients succeed.

We started offering face2face training and coaching—and this is still one of our strongest capabilities, but as the business grew, we needed a global delivery method. Virtual training and development are central to how we support clients from across the world. 3 years ago, we invested heavily in our own digital transformation with our Digital Leadership Academy (nemo-learning.com). Today, we offer world-class blended learning that integrates self-paced learning, virtual classrooms, digital coaching and highly experiential classroom training.

Q. What challenges did you face in your initial years? What can your peers learn from it?

Customer relations are key. Almost all our sales are through referrals despite having a powerful digital presence. And, we know how to balance the need for profit with the need to have resources to develop and grow. By nature, we are a creative and development company. Ensuring that you don’t generate more ideas than you can sell is an on-going challenge.

Q. How successful was your first project?

Great, we mastered the key deliverables well from the start: Global leadership that makes sense locally. Our challenge has been to not get too far ahead of our customers. Most companies are rather conservative when it comes to learning and development.

Q. What mixed responses have you received from your consumers over the years? How have they motivated you to shape the growth of the company?

Our strong conceptual, visual and humoristic approach has challenged some of our clients. A CEO once asked me how I got so many people across their organization talking about “Growth mindset,” one of our key concepts. He was “frustrated” that we had achieved more in 6 months than their HR and communication department had done in years.

In these days of spin and cynicism, I think the fact that we are mission-based organization is crucial to the credibility and effectiveness of our work. We genuinely strive to “Make global organizations SAFE for great work.”

Q. Is your company a ‘leader or follower’? Do you formulate your core values?

We are leaders, and we are also inspired by others who share our vision for a human-centric workplace. Everything we do is based on our Growth Mindset concept:

• AIM HIGH
• EXPLORE
• TRANSFORM
• GO HIGH
• LIFT OTHERS UP
• TEAM UP

Q. ‘Leaders cannot optimize results by themselves; they need employees’ support and assistance.’ How does your company interpret this saying?

Leadership is about harnessing the potential of other people to do amazing things. There’s no other point of leadership. BUT often leadership becomes about ambition and power. That’s not leadership; that’s dominance and control.

Q. What are the factors that have been/are the biggest asset to your organization?

• Great relationships
• Creative solutions
• Awesome experiences
• Dedication – going the extra mile

Q. What are the factors that make your company stand out from the competition?

• We have fun
• We respond rapidly
• We always add more value

Q. Where do you see your company headed a couple of years from now?

Our big next step is creating a global movement. We have begun certifying people in our techniques and creating a network of fun, professional and skilled people to make more organizations safe for great work.

The Formidable leader behind the triumph of Global Mindset

Skip Bowman is the Chief Executive Officer of Global Mindset in addition to being an author, an executive coach and an organizational psychologist.

Skip coaches and consults with senior leaders on how to transform businesses and culture through principles of “contagious change” : rapid, effective, and sustainable change that is positive and self-catalyzing. His success builds on a combination of creating a compelling vision, designing creative concepts customized to the client, and fun to learn and use, as well as the ability to bring stakeholders from across the organization together in a strong coalition for change.

After studying Finance in Australia, he attained his M.A. in Psychology and Languages in Denmark. Skip has a Masters in Organizational Psychology (Denmark) and has completed additional training in cross-cultural management, group dynamics, coaching, and cultural change.

“To create real change, leaders don’t need more action plans – they need to understand their mindset: their drivers, their values, their habits.”