[It's] useful to ask ourselves, ‘Just how global are we?’ before we think about where we go from here.

The line reflects Ghemawat’s signature argument that “globalization” is routinely overstated and that strategy should begin with measurement rather than myth. By asking “Just how global are we?” he urges firms, policymakers, and individuals to examine the real extent of their cross-border flows—customers, suppliers, talent, capital, information—before making sweeping plans premised on a borderless world. The question is diagnostic: it pushes decision-makers to identify where distance (cultural, administrative, geographic, economic) still matters and to tailor expansion, organization, and risk management accordingly. The quote’s significance lies in reframing globalization as a spectrum that must be empirically assessed, not assumed.