Lynda Gratton - The Future of Work

What genocide can teach us about change

My partner and I went to Rwanda a couple of weeks ago. Our mission was to trek up the country's highest mountains to see the mountain gorillas that inhabit these bamboo forests. 

People had told us that this would be a "life-changing experience" and indeed both of us came back changed. But it was not seeing the gorillas that changed us. It was being in Rwanda. 

Most people will have a vague recollection of the terrible genocide that ravaged the country 20 years ago when people, often neighbours, turned on each other during 100 days of bloodletting. More than a million people died. 

Yet now people appear to live in peace with each other and the country is prospering. How could this happen and what might we learn from it? 

I realise it's trite to make any comparison between the terror of a genocide and the organisational life and change that I study. Yet I feel I've learnt a great deal from my experiences in Rwanda and wanted to share them because it seems to me that there is a great deal to learn. Here are four insights: 

- Facing up to the truth. The truth in the genocide was beyond imagination. Yet painstakingly and courageously, families and communities faced up to what had happened. First in courts and then in community groups the truth of what happened was openly discussed and confronted. 

- Removing negative symbols of the past. The hatred between groups prior to the genocide was fuelled in part by cattle owning. Some groups had more cattle than others and their superiority was demonstrated through cattle ownership. After the genocide the government stopped the grazing of cattle on public ground - all cattle had to be kept in domestic yards. They also ensured that every family - however poor - owned a cow. 

- Creating pride. Rwanda is spotless - not just cleaner than any African country, but cleaner than London. Every month the whole community get together and clean their space. It's an act of enormous pride. What ever their past, this is a community capable of competence, they can keep their street clean. 

- Creating a sense of the future. Almost every young person we spoke to felt positive about their future. They did not want to describe themselves through their tribal grouping but rather as 'Rwandans'. They felt positive about the future of the country and trusted their leaders. 

These are four lessons that anyone involved in corporate change knows. What the extraordinary change that Rwanda tells us is that it's possible - by following these four lessons relentlessly - to turn around from even the darkest of moments. 

Beyond Our Nature - Insights from Davos 2015

The global challenges facing the world – such as rising poverty, youth unemployment and climate change – are not themes that are new to Davos. What is new for Davos 2015, is a growing realisation that to address these challenges we have to go beyond human nature. Let me explain. Underlying all these global challenges are many stakeholders each of whom have their own approach and way of looking at the world. Take youth unemployment as an example. When young people are able to get jobs it is because many stakeholders work together: companies create jobs for youngsters; governments shape fiscal and regulatory environments that encourage job creation; educators focus on skills that are important to the job market and the young people themselves are motivated and able to look for work. When it works it is because within this complex system, multiple stakeholders are able to understand each other, and to act on this understanding.

And here is the rub. As the neuroscientists at Davos reminded us, we humans are evolutionarily exquisite at working with small groups of people who are very similar to us – and particularly so if they are related. In fact, as Dunbar has shown, anything above 150 people and natural groups break up. We are pre-disposed to like people who are like us, we imitate people we admire, and across our networks our behaviours and attitudes are contagious.

So whilst we are exquisitely evolved to work in tribal groups, little in our evolution prepares us for the sorts of challenges we are now facing. Challenges that can only be solved if we are able to work in huge groups, containing many different types of people, negotiating across complex alliances.

Of course technology (which is accelerating some of these global challenges) is also providing an array of solutions. When thousands of people are able to work together in virtual communities and when their insights are augmented by artificial intelligence, then complex problems are more likely to be understood.

But is understanding sufficient to get them solved? One of the sessions I attended at Davos this year looked more deeply at alliances. What became clear was that the alliances that are capable of addressing these global challenges – indeed of addressing the challenges of innovation and resilience – are extraordinarily complex. They require people who are very different from each other to have some empathy for each others’ position; they require a process to build trust when many of the stakeholders are virtual strangers and don’t spend much time with each other; and they require a process of commitment making that is more complex than much we have seen before.

All of this is indeed possible, but it goes beyond our human nature. So the question I think we face is whether we will be constrained forever by our evolutionary behaviours and attitudes, or whether we are able in a sense to leap beyond them. How we do this then remains the key issue. When human nature changes (for example our attitudes to slavery or women’s rights) it is because across society the narrative and stories change, owing to courageous role models. The societal discourse itself then begins to evolve.

Addressing many of the world’s challenges requires us to move beyond our human nature. Now is the time for stories to be told about how it could be, and for role models to courageously act out collaboration and alliance building beyond the tribe.

 

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The Future of HR: Preparing for Longevity

The key to enhancing employees’ emotional vitality

The topic of emotional vitality has become increasingly popular in HR circles – and the general consensus is that work often damages an individual’s emotional vitality. The downside of the hyper connectivity we all enjoy in our personal and working lives is that the combination of globalisation and technological developments can leave always-on workers exhausted and drained. Employee engagement surveys show that people are exhausted, their well-being is deteriorating, and their emotional vitality is being eroded.

As a result, the very energy and enthusiasm that are the keys to individual vitality and corporate resilience are ebbing away. It may seem that encouraging ourselves and others to work flat out, to answer that message and keep our phone by our bedside, is a sure-fire way to increase productivity. But this is a fallacy. In reality, when we lose the natural rhythm of our lives and work flat out, what disappears is our emotional resilience and those times of reflection, contemplation, and playfulness that can be the wellspring of insight and innovation.

So what can be done?

How corporations enhance emotional vitality  

The simple truth about the future of work is this: there are no checks and balances on the horizon that will reduce these working pressures. The answer lies in the way that employees and executives think about work and about how work is done. It’s fundamentally about working practices and the design and management of culture and norms. Let’s look at three important ways in which this can be done.

1.       Improving the work-home cycle

As the research I did with Hans-Joachim Wolfram shows, the work-home cycle also has a huge role to play when it comes to managing and combating stress. This cycle can be either caustic and draining, or positive. To get the balance of the work-home cycle right, organisations need to stop thinking about work and home as two unconnected spheres, because they are inextricably linked. Companies must think about how they support families and about whether employees have enough scope to ensure a cycle of positive spillover between home and work relationships.

2.       Encouraging playfulness

It is not simply “not working” that can be a source of emotional vitality—the work itself can also be energising. Specifically, when the working day has within it times of unstructured, free-flowing and playful activities, which provide opportunities for vitality to be strengthened and for creativity to flow. While researching my book The Key: How Corporations Succeed by Solving the World’s Toughest Problems, I looked at how “free time” at the chemical company DuPont led to the development of the fibre Kevlar, one of DuPont’s most successful and profitable innovations. The textiles company W.L. Gore is another great example of how unstructured, playful work affects the vitality of workers and the resilience of a company – a playful exercise by one of the company’s engineers led to the reinvention of acoustic guitar strings and a 35 percent share of a market where Gore traditionally had no presence. Providing people with space to explore and experiment with new ideas, behaviours, or identities can play a crucial role in creating emotional vitality and building inner resilience.

3.       Designing natural rhythm 

Playfulness across a week or a month can be a real bonus to emotional vitality, but what happens in the long term? There are times when we want to come “off ramp” and change the speed and trajectory of our career for a period of time to accommodate and prioritise other activities in our lives such as developing new skills.

Many organisations are struggling with this because they have for too long associated the idea of career customisation with motherhood. However, as life stage becomes an increasingly important factor in people’s career choices, a far wider spectrum of employees requires access to customisation. One reason for this is that people can reach the same life stage at vastly different ages. For example, some employees will choose to become parents in their 20s, while others do the same in their 40s. As people start to live longer, we will see more and more people rejecting traditional linear career paths and opting for careers that move sideways, downwards, or even pause for a while. Handling this effectively means making career customisation fluid, mainstream and transparent – as Deloitte has done with its lattice-shaped careers.

There is evidence that the current stress at work will only increase unless those who lead corporations can learn to support the work-home cycle, think about encouraging playfulness, and create a more natural rhythm of work. All this is possible, and as we have seen, there are some emerging good practices in play to act as a role model for others.

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Building resilience in a fragile world

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Building resilience in a fragile world

We live in a fragile world. Every one of us faces profound and escalating challenges– youth unemployment touches many families; income inequality and poverty are a source of shame for many of us in developed countries; whilst it is only the least observant who could fail to recognise the early signs of a profound change in the climate. These challenges are no longer particular to one country or area: they affect most people around the world. 

 The challenges faced by organisations are no less complex. They too are faced with the implications of climate change, of inequality, and of the gap between their needs and the available pool of talent. These challenges are on a greater and more global scale than ever before, and emerging at an ever faster trajectory. Previously stable companies find themselves on shaky ground – and the negative consequences of the problems that surround them are proving difficult to reverse.

Over the last five years I have directed the Future of Work Research Consortium which brings together executives from more than 50 companies to consider how best to address these challenges. What is clear is that resilience is the key, and to build resilience companies will be called upon to develop a whole new set of tools and ways of innovating.

Building inner resilience

Resilience starts with what happens inside the corporation –with an, intellectually challenging, emotionally vibrant and socially connected community of employees. Those companies, like Tata Consultancy Services and Unilever who are attempting to do this, are using newly emerging technology to amplify the intellectual ideas and knowledge of employees across their businesses. They are ensuring that they gather the social wealth held in the different communities of people and in the networks that crisscross the company and stretch beyond its boundaries.

Executives also need to think hard about how to design jobs in a way that they enhance rather than denude the emotional vitality of their employees. For some, like BT, the wide-scale adoption of flexible working is allowing people to manage their own time in a positive and enhancing way. Others, like Deloitte are thinking hard about how to break the career hierarchies and introduce a matrix process that allows people to increase or decrease their contribution at different stages of their working life.

The importance of outer resilience

Creating a foundation of resilience is critical – and in some corporations there is also a focus on building resilience in supply chains and in the wider world they operate in. This is crucial because increasingly companies do not exist independently of the rest of the world, and their future is reliant on their interaction with the communities in which they are embedded

I saw this at Danone where people across the company are actively working with farmers in their supply chain to ensure that they are building strong communities – the John Lewis Partnership is doing the same in the UK. These are corporations that are facing the challenges of our increasingly fragile world head-on, by recognising their connection with the outside world. They understand that their businesses are profoundly related to the communities in which they work and are able to think differently and comprehensively about the larger environment in which they operate. Some, like Royal Dutch Shell, are using scenario planning to help executives really become aware of the forces shaping their lives and their businesses. It is this awareness that will enable them to face these forces in a positive way, seeing them as opportunities rather than threats. The final piece of the puzzle is leadership: building resilience needs leaders who are prepared to balance long- term needs with short- term financial results.

What is clear to me is that being resilient requires making the choices that are positive for employees, investors and those in the communities they touch.

Lynda's latest book, The Key: How Corporations Succeed by Solving the World’s Toughest Problems, is out on 9^th June.

 

 

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More women at Davos? Not at this rate

Recently in an interview with the BBC's Peter Day, I was asked about the future and replied that I expected gender parity within the next decade. Peter simply looked at me and said "But that's what you said when I interviewed you 20 years ago and it still has not happened." Of course he is right and at Davos this week I expect that, as in past years, there will be only a small proportion of women. I'm publically optimistic, but privately pessimistic about achieving a gender balance in the next couple of decades.

There are four key reasons why Davos 2024 will probably look exactly like Davos 2014. Firstly, while societal norms move fast (think about the speed with which attitudes to gay marriage or divorce have changed), corporate practices change at a glacial pace. For example, the way corporations select, promote, appraise people has hardly changed in the last 20 years. Since many of these practices were designed for people who had child care at home (ie a wife), who worked in an office (rather than at home), and who could work standard hours (rather than flexibly) they have proven to be barriers to anyone (often women) who want to work in a different way. And moreover, these are barriers that appear to be resolutely impervious to changing circumstances.

It takes a wise and courageous CEO to actively promote women into business orientated senior executive roles. Some of course do but many do not. Without this push it's almost impossible to achieve gender parity. Research has shown that more often CEOs promote one woman to the senior team and then stand back and think the job is done. Or alternatively they support a women's network, a process that we know makes little difference to promotion prospects. We need CEOs who realise these token efforts aren't enough before we will see any big change.

Like many, I believe that gender parity will only be achieved when men are willing to take as much responsibility for raising a family as women do. Of course there are families where there is already a balance, but this is not the norm. Current working practices implicitly assume that the worker is supported by someone who can stand in for them with regard to family responsibilities, this needs to be true at home.

Finally, and most depressingly, the simple truth is that there are jobs that lead to the top – jobs that require significant management of large numbers of people, jobs that have a heavy dose of finance, jobs that involve working in multiple locations. These are typically not the jobs that women apply for, or are selected into. As a consequence many women are already out of the promotion ladder within a decade of joining the workforce. I hope I am proved wrong. How marvellous it would be to see equal numbers of men and women at Davos in 2024 but I'm not holding my breath.

Davos 2014 – what is on and off the radar screen?

One of the interesting aspects of attending and blogging about Davos each year is that I can look back and reflect on my impressions of previous years. For example, looking back at my Davos 2012 blog, I wrote: “The pervading theme this year is of extraordinary change and challenge: ‘we don’t have a moment to lose’; ‘we have to do things differently’; ‘this is a unique moment in history’; ‘there is a crisis of consent’ are phrases I’ve heard from academics, CEOs and politicians.”

By Davos 2013, I wrote of some change: “Looking back to the 2012 Davos, the talk was all about the final playing out of the financial crisis and the deep concerns about the break up of the Eurozone. Just a year later, and the mood seemed more optimistic, though with a strong undercurrent of realism”.

Looking forward to Davos 2014, what can we expect? The Eurozone has now stabilised and the prospects for a less turbulent world are emerging. But this is also a world that FT Editor Lionel Barber in his pre-Davos briefing described as likely to experience ‘terminally tepid growth’. It is a world of low growth and low inflation. In light of these facts, here is what I think will be on (and off) the radar screen at Davos 2014:

 

On the radar screen:

The rise of nationalism

A crisis is in a sense a great way of diverting attention. Now that the realities of ‘terminally tepid growth’ are beginning to be apparent, many people across the world – and in particular the developed world – do not like what they see. Economies may be healthier, but people are unhappy. And so we are already seeing issues of identity, atavistic politics, and the emergence of fringe populist parties. Those gathered at Davos will be concerned that this will destabilise labour and capital flows and impact on economic recovery.

The misery of youth unemployment

Last year, I saw youth unemployment as one of the major emerging themes at Davos, and I think the debate will continue in 2014. Youth unemployment continues to be a structural issue that is particularly damaging in the fragile economies of Africa and the Middle East. What makes this worse is the ever widening gap between the needs of the work place and the education system. Last year at Davos many of us were entranced by a session in which a young Pakistani girl talked about the incredible progress she had made by using an on-line learning module created by professors at Stanford University. As fascinating as her story was, it’s clear that her experience is the exception rather than the norm. For the vast majority of young people the promises of low cost education and flexible labor markets are yet to be delivered.

 

Off the radar screen:

After the crash and the crisis it is remarkable how quickly the old systems are re-emerging – and as a result some of the challenges we thought might begin to be solved through disruption, seem instead to be moving off the radar screen:

Climate change

Right now what is emerging is a dissipation of political will, for example shale gas has brought the prospect of cheaper energy and disincentivised the investment in renewable energy sources. Governments and corporations alike are still finding it difficult to tackle global problems like climate change which involve multiple stakeholders and there is a growing realization that we don’t yet have the requisite global infrastructure – so I expect the debate about climate change to be pushed onto the back burner.

Gender parity

As any visitor to Davos will notice, women participants make up a tiny proportion of those who attend. Next week at Davos I will be chairing one of the workshops on the subject of diversity, but I don’t expect much to happen in gender diversity in 2014. The glacial movement of women assuming senior positions is surprising and disappointing to those who expected more. As always I expect there to be talk of quotas and much debate about the Norwegian experience. But I don’t expect to see much action. 

5 Trends to Watch in 2014

The start of a new year is a natural point for thinking ahead and planning for the future.  Just before 2013 ended, I sat down for an interview with the BBC's Peter Day, continuing a conversation he and I have been having for over 20 years.  During the interview I talked not only about the changes I’ve observed since he and I last spoke, but also about the five trends I see emerging in 2014 and beyond.

The shade of your future depends on where you are

Something that has become abundantly clear in recent years is that whether your future seems bright or dim depends on where you live. Young people in Europe, for example, are facing an extremely tough time and face the prospect of being less prosperous than their parents generation. But for their counterparts in India or China, expectations are entirely different, with many of them looking forward to a higher income than their parents.

It’s my belief that the youth unemployment we see affecting many countries is structural not cyclical. The past few years have been marked by the hollowing out of work, by which I mean that the  middle-skilled jobs traditionally taken on by graduates have been outsourced or being replaced by technology, leaving only low-skilled jobs or  high-skilled jobs which require more experience and education than the average twentysomething has to offer. This can leave young people adrift, without that very first job role from which to move upwards.

Online education

One major game-changer which I see having a huge impact in 2014 is online education. Online courses are becoming widely available – and they are revolutionising the scope of what people can aspire to. Suddenly, people all over the world are enrolling on courses that were previously only available to affluent individuals in specific locations. I saw a living example of the impact this is having at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2013.  There I watched a panel with Bill Gates, the head of Stanford, the head of MIT – and a 13 year-old Pakistani girl. If you’re wondering why this girl was invited to join these eminent figures, the reason is simple: this young teenager came top in Stanford’s online examinations. This struck me as an outstanding example of how the world is changing: here is a girl who even five years ago would have had no opportunity to leave Lahore, but thanks to a world-class university putting its courses and examinations online, she has the world at her feet. There is no doubt that this will create huge competition for young people in the West.

Quotas for women?

It’s astounding to think that while 50% of graduates are women and 30% of managers are women, only 10% of business leaders are women. For someone who thought that the glass ceiling was about to shatter 20 years ago, this is extremely disappointing. Despite all our hopes to see more women at the top of leading organisations, the speed of change has been glacial. It seems that large organisations remain hierarchical, bureaucratic and have a tendency to pay lip service to the concept of having women in the boardroom. Frequently, they are not places where women feel comfortable holding senior positions. One solution that has been put forward is that of female quotas, but this is an issue which divides opinion amongst senior women. For my part, I’m on the side that thinks quotas are a good thing. The way I see it, if you are in a situation where nothing seems to be moving, a shock is what’s needed.

The business side of social media

I also think we’ll start to see organisations using social media within their businesses as elegantly as people use it in their everyday lives. A trend that has emerged in the last year or two is that there is technology that connects every single person in an organisation in a very sophisticated way. For example, I’ve seen this happening at Tata Consulting Services, a business that employs over 150,000 people under 24 and connects them to each other using social media. The result of this is that people naturally form communities to get things done, to discuss ideas, and to have fun. Since their Knome platform was launched, TCS employees have formed themselves into 3,500 communities. My team at the Hot Spots Movement helps companies do this in a more targeted fashion with their FoWlab jams: facilitated online conversations which companies can use to engage their employees on issues as diverse as brand values, job design and meaningful work.  I see this becoming a model that many other companies will follow. 2014 promises to bring some interesting organisational changes led by technology, particularly the kind that allows people to communicate on a many-to-many basis. This kind of communication model will have a huge impact on how people work together – and on the role of leaders.  In fact, it has the potential to change the very nature of what we call leadership. After all, if information is flowing easily and horizontally – what does a leader do?

Reconsidering trust

Both online education and social information sharing rely enormously on trust – something that will prove challenging for some. For those of us who are Baby Boomers or from Gen X, building trust has always been based on face-to-face interaction – and building trust in a virtual environment can prove challenging. People from younger generations, on the other hand, have grown up working online and playing games virtually, which gives them the advantage of being able to develop trust easily without the need for face-to-face contact. A workforce is emerging where humans can build trust in a virtual environment and this promises to revolutionise how information is shared and how knowledge and expertise flow within organisations.

 

 

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Leading in Complex Times

If you’re a business leader today you are working to understand and balance the perspectives of an unprecedented variety of stakeholders – from NGOs becoming more voracious in their demands to workers who are increasingly hard to engage – and doing so in a world that is more transparent and connected than ever before. It’s a tough challenge.

I found myself reflecting on this the other night as I sat down with two very smart people for one of those marvelous European dinners. Both are business leaders in one of the world’s great pharmaceutical companies. The conversation turned to the growing complexity of the business environment, and the question was inevitably posed: What had I, as a business professor, managed to figure out about what it takes to succeed under such conditions? In no particular order, here are my thoughts.

No Illusions, Eyes Wide Open
Some 15 years ago my colleague Sumantra Ghoshal and I wrote business cases on three companies that were then leaders in their sectors: BP, Royal Bank of Scotland, and Nokia. In one way or another, and for rather different reasons, all of these companies have since struggled. So my first observation is that leaders must constantly acknowledge that their companies are subject to an onslaught of destabilizing forces. Being vigilant and observant about the nature and velocity of these forces is crucial. Effective leaders in complex environments do not succumb to a belief in their invincibility – they keep their eyes wide open to the reality of the world.

Authenticity, Tempered by Custodial Responsibility
Over the course of the dinner, we arrived at the hot topic of authenticity. Various proponents of this notion have urged leaders not to try to conform to a narrow description of what a leader does, much less copy someone else’s style. Leaders are urged to be themselves. Only those perceived to be authentic and who are comfortable bringing their whole selves to work can gain others’ trust and inspire them to pull together. It seems to me that this emphasis on authenticity is an important counterbalance to earlier assumptions that people gained leadership powers by dint of titles or positions in hierarchies. And it certainly resonates with the world’s reverence for Steve Jobs, who created the world’s number one brand while obstinately refusing to be anything but himself.

At the same time, growing complexity in the business environment creates a challenge. For people in organizations facing an external world of mounting chaos, being led by groups of highly idiosyncratic leaders, however authentic, could be confusing and distracting. In particular, when a leader is not a founder, he or she inherits a role as a custodian, and is entrusted with growing and passing on to future generations of employees and shareholders the value that past generations sowed. So yes, be authentic – but don’t break the mold so completely that others need to spend energy figuring out how to engage with your leadership. The world is complex enough without this further variable to be considered.

Strength in Diverse, Collaborative Teams
Thinking again about the problems encountered by BP, RBS and Nokia in the past decade, as different as they were, it’s possible to see a common factor. These firms lacked diverse, highly collaborative leadership teams. At RBS, CEO Fred Goodwin isolated himself from his colleagues, failed to listen to others, and became increasingly selfish in his behavior. At Nokia, the senior leadership team was for a long time extraordinarily homogenous (mostly men, mostly from Finland, mostly software engineers, mostly educated in Helsinki). How likely was it that they would be on top of the rapid developments in Asian consumer markets, or in technology and design emanating from Silicon Valley? At BP, we know top management found it difficult to integrate US assets and build collaborative relationships with the leaders of US acquisitions – contributing to a problem with implementing safety standards globally.

Simply put, as businesses are increasingly challenged by dynamic change and crises, it becomes ever more crucial for their leadership teams to have sufficient diversity to see what is happening from different perspectives, and sufficient collegiality to work collaboratively with each other even when under stress.

There is undoubtedly much more that could be said about leading well in complex business environments. Indeed, in a conference next month – the Global Drucker Forum, in the wonderful city of Vienna – I’ll be participating in a bigger conversation. There will be more smart people seeking answers they can take back to their organizations. Together, we’ll make the way forward for leadership a little clearer. And with luck, there will be time for coffee and streudel.

The Five Unanswered Questions on Gender

Last month, I took the train up to the beautiful city of Cambridge to speak at their Gender Summit. Over the course of the day, and with the help of a varied panel of business and academic speakers, we explored what it takes to promote gender equality and diversity within organisations. We debated a wide range of themes, from the impact of corporate governance structures on gender policies to the practical steps for increasing the number of female applications for the best jobs. The strength of the debate revealed how much opinion is still divided on this issue, and the wealth of research still to be done. As I travelled home, I reflected on the themes we had covered and found that five questions in particular deserved further research:

1. What are organisations doing to change attitudes to fatherhood?

Throughout the day, we touched on the complexity of balancing working life with being a mum, and the emotional and physical exhaustion that can result from ‘trying to have it all.’ It seemed that the problem wasn’t trying to have it all, but trying to do it all. Women continue to be the primary care givers at home despite taking on more responsibility in the world of work. One of the reasons behind this is that the concept of fatherhood has remained quite static over the last thirty years, with short paternity leave entitlements and a continued focus on being the main breadwinner. To really achieve gender equality in the workplace, we must also work on achieving it in the home.

2. How can women operate in male dominated senior networks?

Women are still drastically under-represented at the senior level, at around 17% of all members of FTSE 100 boards and senior executive teams. The result is male-dominated senior networks that are incredibly difficult to penetrate if you are an ambitious woman. So, whom do women end up networking with if they are not easily accepted in the male-dominated elite circles? All too often, the answer is other women more junior than them who can’t help them advance their career. To get more representation of women at the top, we need to ensure they have access to influential senior networks.

3. Are quotas useful?

Norway has pioneered the quota approach to bringing women into the boardroom and now has 40% female representation at board level. However, this has resulted in some negative labelling of these new appointees as ‘golden petticoats’, promoted to tick a box rather than as a reflection of their talent. So, what is the answer? In my opinion, quotas are still essential in getting women to the top. By forcing the distribution, we can get women networking with the right people and can begin liberating men to take more responsibility in the home.

4. How can people bring their best selves to work?

An emerging theme in management thinking is how to encourage your employees to be the best they can be at work. This requires more than just generous compensation packages; it means that working life must be tailored to individuals by acknowledging their interests, concerns and commitments. In particular, women can’t be their best selves at work if they are distracted with family obligations they are neglecting while building their careers. Organisations must invest time in understanding their employees’ needs and building more tailored arrangements to cater to them.

5. How can we move beyond narrow categorisations of women?

In my blog on May 22nd I talked about how we continue to categorise women leaders by their personal circumstance rather than their goals and ideals. These women are far more heterogeneous in their backgrounds and outlook than many of their male peers, however they are often classified according to whether or not they are married, how many children they have and what kind of mother they are. These narrow categorisations fail to recognise the real difference these women are bringing to the world of work. To truly embrace diversity we must first be able to appreciate difference.

This year I launched an Inclusion and Diversity Research Consortium to bring organisations together to provide answers to these questions. We’re hearing some very interesting insights that I look forward to sharing with you in the coming months.

The Three Paradoxes Of Generation Y

Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed a considerable amount of attention focused on Generation Y from both the media and business world. The May 20 issue of Time Magazine led with a cover story labelling them the ‘Me, Me, Me’ generation: narcissistic, fame-obsessed, and self interested; Meanwhile PwC reported findings from a comprehensive Next Gen study of its Gen Y employees – a cohort that will make up around 80% of its workforce within the next three years.

This recent focus on Gen Y reflects a building sense of nervousness around how this generation, the biggest since the Baby Boomers, will reshape work. It’s a nervousness I’ve felt from the HR leaders in my executive programme at LBS who often despair that this generation just aren’t accepting ‘the way things are done around here,' and are instead challenging long-standing processes and practices.

But is this anxiety justified? Are Gen Y really so different from their predecessors? And, if they are, do organisations need to change to accommodate them?

Here are three paradoxes I’ve uncovered that can help us answer those questions.

Short-term focus, but equally committed – Gen Y are fast movers. We know they will change jobs, and perhaps even entire careers, many times in their long working lives. This is a stark contrast with the ‘job for life’ career pattern of their Baby Boomer parents, and the HR leaders at my executive programme. It also shows their desire for meaningful, stimulating work from day one, and their lack of interest in traditional career paths that promote slowly.

This focus on short-term success is sometimes used to depict Gen Y as less committed to work than their Gen X and Baby Boomer peers. Yet this stereotype is certainly not true of those surveyed in the Next Gen study. According to Dennis Finn, Global Human Capital Leader at PwC, ‘this generation is as engaged, committed and prepared to work as hard as previous generations’. They don’t mind working. They just think there are better ways to work.

Tech savvy, but value face-to-face - Gen Y is known for its intensive use of social media and virtual communication. In the USA, this generation send and receive around 88 texts a day according to research by Pew, and 70% check their phones every hour. With these statistics in hand it’s easy to view this generation as happy to conduct their lives, both professional and private, exclusively through their phones, iPads and laptops. But PwC’s research tells us that Gen Y’s aptitude for electronic communication augments rather than replaces face-to-face interaction. Particularly when it comes to performance and career discussions where personal interactions are still the preferred method.

Require recognition, but not necessarily more trophies - Time Magazine rather negatively dubs Gen Y the ‘trophy generation’ who, as a result of receiving too many participation trophies as children, have a sense of entitlement far beyond that of their older peers. It’s easy to see where this assumption comes from. Just look at games such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, which provide satisfying rewards for every action the player takes. So, it should come as no surprise that, according to a study cited by Time Magazine, 40% of Gen Y believes they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performance.

 But again, this may be misinterpreting the issue. We know Gen Y place an real emphasis on continual learning, and the drive for regular promotion should not be confused with the desire for regular feedback, which many see as a vital part of their personal and career development. Though a visual indicator of progression, promotion does not always bring with it greater learning opportunities.

So, what do organisations do about these paradoxes and how can they truly understand what drives their Gen Ys? PwC’s Next Gen report has a few recommendations, but one stands out to me as particularly important for this fast-moving, tech-savvy group: ‘Invest time, resources and energy to listen and stay connected with your people’. If there’s one thing we know for sure about this generation, it’s that they like to have their voices heard, and to feel empowered. Whether in the virtual or real world, perhaps the key to understanding this generation and knowing how to engage them is to simply listen to them.

Many of the insights from PwC’s NextGen study came out of Hot Spots Movement FoWlab jam methodology. Have a look at our website to find out more.