One way diversity professionals can keep in touch with the rapidly changing global environment is to “establish personal and organizational information systems” that can scan for trends, best practices, and resources to provide opportunities for increased competitive advantage, suggests Terrence Brake and Danielle Walker in Doing Business Internationally: The Workbook to Cross-Cultural Success.

Among their suggestions:

1. Read professional journals that track your industry and functional trends on an international, rather than national basis;

2. Search for best practices outside your home country; and

3. Develop at least one new idea each year, the seeds of which were obtained from outside your country.

To prepare for increasing globalization, both within the United States and offshore, diversity professionals must develop a global mindset. Rhinesmith suggests six characteristics of people with global mindsets:

1. Knowledge: Drive for the broader, bigger picture.

2. Conceptualization: Accept life as a balance of contradictory forces to be appreciated, pondered, and managed.

3. Flexibility: Trust process, not structure, to deal with the unexpected.

4. Sensitivity: Value multicultural teamwork and diversity as the basic forum to accomplish objectives.

5. Judgment: See change as an opportunity and be comfortable with surprises and ambiguity.

6. Reflection: Expand knowledge and skills on an ongoing basis.

An excerpt from: Digh, Patricia. “Crossing Borders: Thinking about Domestic and Global Diversity” Cultural Diversity at Work, 10:2 (Nov 1997) 17.