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. 

What will artificial intelligence do for work?

It’s my fourth visit to Davos and it’s fascinating how many more of the academics here are scientists rather than economists or management theorists. What is it that scientists can tell us about business? I had an opportunity to understand this when I led a debate with four professors from the University of California, Berkeley, who are experts in artificial intelligence (AI), neuroscience, and psychology.

The question we debated was “Will machines make better decisions than humans?” Of course this is a crucial question for anyone like me who is interested in the future of work. What impact will machines – be they computers or robots - have on the way we work? There are those that argue that up to 60% of the work we currently do will, within the next couple of decades, be replaced by machines. Of course this is already happening. The ‘hollowing out’ of work has already seen much medium skilled work disappear as executives’ thumbs and their smartphones replace secretaries, whilst assistants are being replaced by a combination of Wikipedia and automatic filing.

I started the debate by asking the audience what they believed: “Will machines make better decisions than humans?” About 50% agreed and 50% disagreed – it seems that even this auspicious group at Davos has no consensus. So what are the issues?

The first is well known to AI scientists.  It is best described in Moravec’s paradox. This is the paradox that right now computers are really good at some things we humans find tricky - solving mathematical equations, playing chess, winning jeopardy, and even driving cars. These are tasks that require speed and precision.  But here is the paradox. Machines are bad at other tasks we find easy  - like clearing the coffee cups from a table or being creative. The psychologist Alison Gopnik studies babies and for her it’s clear: machines are not as smart as a two year old. Why? Well perhaps a two year old cannot play chess or drive a car, but they can do lots that a computer cannot do. They can create theories, make hypotheses, figure out how things work, imitate – and most importantly they learn and can be creative. Moravec’s argument by the way is that computers are great at reasoning, but the often unconscious, sensorimotor knowledge that has evolved in the human brain over billions of years is impossible to imitate.

The second issue, one we debated at length, was values and morality. We humans make decisions on the basis of our values. But do computers have values? The AI expert Stuart Russell argued that it is already possible to programme computers on the basis of utility in terms of gaining the highest value outcome. But whose values and how can the constant changing of consensus on values be programmed? And what of morality? As Bob Knight observed, human decisions are about emotions and we make decisions cognitively and viscerally. This comes from the evolution of the frontal cortex that took place over the last two million years.

Perhaps it’s just a matter of time? Computers cannot make decisions better than humans right now, but what about in 30 years time or a 100 years time? Or will it take another two million years for machines to become moral? Certainly with regard to sheer computing power, the technology is developing fast – recent developments in cloud computing are enabling the connection of millions of devices and that has enormous potential for amplification.

Or perhaps it’s not about time, but more about combinations? Ken Goldberg, an AI expert, believes it is in the combination of computers and people that real progress will be made. And, as I am learning in my own study of open innovation, it is the combination of diverse minds that bring forth the ideas that can be the basis of innovation.

What I have learnt from spending time with scientists is that they have much to tell us about how the world of work and organisations will develop. And even if there is no consensus on timeframes, the direction is clear: there is a great deal more to come in the human/machine interface. 

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How improving job design can secure the future of your business

If you could name a single factor as the biggest enemy of employee retention in your organisation, what would it be? My guess would be job design – specifically, the availability of career customisation.

You might think your organisation already offers career customisation and improved job design, but let me make my point clear: improving job design is not that same as bringing flexibility into work. Many – if not most – large corporations have flexible working arrangements. But when it comes to improved job design – by which I mean initiatives such as phased retirement, job share schemes and, on- and off-boarding ramps, they are lagging far behind. I estimate that such companies have a period of three years at most to introduce these elements of job design before the lack of them starts to have a serious impact.

This is becoming an urgent issue. As things stand, when people want to customise their careers they do so by leaving the company. The most valuable people are building their career elsewhere because companies are not providing what they need.

This talent drain is just one reason why companies need to ramp up their experiments and pilots in the field of job design: and it’s about to get worse. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, life stage is becoming an increasingly important factor in people’s career choices – and people reach these stages 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. It is the companies that are dealing with these issues already – and the ones that act now to start handling them more effectively – that will prove resilient over the coming decades.

The importance of scale

So why are so many companies, many of whom have already invested heavily in flexible working and job design, failing so miserably in this respect? One reason is that companies have for too long associated the idea of career customisation with motherhood. Often because when women in particular leave an organisation, there is an immediate assumption they are doing so to start a family. In fact, what I’ve noticed about my MBA students at LBS is that often when they leave a company, it’s to start their own business. And a key reason for this is that doing so empowers them to take charge of their own job design.

A damaging side effect of associating career customisation with motherhood is a lack of scale. You may have some great improved job design initiatives but failing to scale them beyond the concept of maternity leave means that employees will continue to achieve career customisation by moving on.

The solution to this problem is to make career customisation fluid, mainstream and transparent. Healthy, loyal employees have control over how, when, where they work and can manage their careers in tune with the rhythms of their life. To enable this, employers need to let workers know that the design of their job can change according to their circumstances and that customisation is available to everyone, not just mothers. Above all, they need to know what their options are at each stage of their life and career, so that they can make the appropriate choices.

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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.

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.

Why Can’t A Woman Be More Like A Woman?

London Business School’s Global Leadership Summit was an opportunity to see senior executives and CEOs come together to talk about their views. It was fascinating stuff. We heard how Tim Breedon, a recent joiner to the Barclays Board, has put values at the centre of the bank’s transformation; how Unilever CEO Paul Polman is creating deep alliances with NGOs and multi-lateral organisations like the UN to work on some of the world’s most intractable problems; and how Aberdeen Asset Management’s CEO Martin Gilbert is particularly interested in investing in the ‘frontier markets’ of the world. 

What was striking was that, although each of these speakers looked remarkably similar (dark suit, white shirt, blue/red tie, formal black shoes), when they described their stories, their unique perspectives became clearer. Polman described how his determination to form these alliances, particularly around poverty and climate change, is in part a promise to his children that he will try to leave the world a better place, while Gilbert’s fascination with ‘frontier markets’ came from his early childhood spent in Malaysia, and his familiarity with that part of the world.

While these men looked similar, over the course of the day their unique perspectives emerged. We might visualise senior men as a homogenous group, but those with a strong personal narrative are able to show their differences, revealing their uniqueness in the process.

So, what of women executives? At first glance, they are certainly a less visually homogenous group. Over the course of a month teaching at LBS I have had female corporate executives speak to my class attired in hippie beads, long skirts and cowboy boots, top to toe Chanel and 5-inch high Louboutins, sensible black trouser suits and white shirts, floral blouses and simple skirts… I could go on. But the point is that visually, these women are portraying themselves in their unique way. And like the senior executives at the Global Leadership Summit, they too have a unique narrative about how they see their business and the goals they have for it.

But here is where this marvellous female diversity gets lost. Rather than being defined by their distinct styles and unique narratives, women executives are most often typified by their private lives, with the dominant typologies going something like this:

Type 1: Has one child (late) and has found a way to make it work.

Type 2: Does not have children and works all the time.

Type 3: Has lots of children, works hard and possibly has a stay-at-home partner.

Type 4: Has decided not to return to full-time work and is trying to create a balance between family and work.

The simplicity of this typology has, I believe, two profoundly negative implications for women.

First, it constantly draws the debate about an executive woman towards how she behaves with regard to these typologies. By doing so, this sucks all the life out of much more interesting debates, such as those I heard among the male executive speakers at the GLS yesterday. About what they believe, how they would like to make a contribution to the challenges of the world, what their strategy is for the business

Second, the very simplicity of these typologies, and the focus they bring to a woman’s private life, prevents many from recognising the real differences between women. This is apparent not just in the private life typology, but also in the simplicity with which ‘feminine traits’ are described. Of course some women are sensitive, empathic and caring. And others are ambitious, aggressive and independent. But femininity is not a spectrum, and it certainly can’t be reduced to typology.

We fail women when we fail to see the real and relevant differences between them. More than men, women signal these differences in how they are choosing to present themselves visually, from the hippie beads to the trouser suits. But that does not mean their uniqueness is superficial. It is a rich product of their history, their interests, and their hopes and aspirations. So we can’t let our constant focus on their private lives and our stereotyping of their working traits overpower the uniqueness of what they believe, how they perform and how they want to make the world a better place.

 

Precious Competencies

We may be happy to eat the food that multinationals make, and fly in their aircraft, and even take the pills they have invented. But many of us say we don’t trust corporations, and we don’t trust the people who lead them. Some are even willing to go out onto the streets to make this clear. It seems to me that now is the time for corporations and their leaders to be more explicit and transparent about their purpose and goals.

To do this, corporations have to address three questions: how is leadership ensuring there is sufficient inner resilience to take the corporation through these turbulent times? What is the corporation doing to positively anchor itself in its neighborhood and supply chains? And what role is it playing in solving global challenges such as climate change, endemic youth unemployment, and inequality?

Some leaders are already stepping up. When Unilever’s CEO Paul Polman committed to significantly reducing the environmental footprint of his corporation, he was making a purposeful statement about climate change. When Danone’s CEO Franck Riboud committed over seventy million euros to the Danone.Communities project, he was making a purposeful statement about the role of the corporation in society. When the CEOs of Indian IT giants Infosys, TCS and Wipro built a host of ways to educate Indian children, they were making a statement about their role in India.

These role models are crucial. We need to see more – and at scale! Corporations are unique as institutions in having extraordinary access to the most talented minds from across the world, and in having the innovation processes to bring these minds together in the most productive way. Many have honed their scaling and mobilization capabilities in a way that is far superior to governments and NGOs. Some have become adept at forming global alliances, even with their competitors.

These precious competencies – innovation, scaling and alliances – are crucial to solving global challenges. In the past, it may have been appropriate for corporation to use them in the service of their financial stakeholders, but this is no longer appropriate. The same forces of technology and globalization that have enabled corporations to prosper in the last decades have also brought forward profound global challenges. Those corporations that will prosper in the future will do so because their shareholders, consumers and employees see their leaders describing and living a greater purpose. This is a purpose that sees the role of the corporations not only from the ‘inside’, but also from the ‘outside’, in its neighborhoods and supply chains, and in an increasingly global context.

Corporations must be less precious about their precious competencies. Without an outer focus, those who are taking to the streets to demonstrate against corporations may find more people joining them, and more to be angry about.

The role of corporations in Future Proofing Leadership

This has been very much a leadership couple of months for me – with the World Economic Forum Council on the ‘Future of Leadership’ and indeed our own research on leadership at the Future of Work Consortium. So over the next couple of weeks I plan to talk about what we have found.

Corporations have and continue to play a key role in the journeys of many leaders. For example, a glimpse at the emerging leadership cohort in India will show how many started their careers in talent rich companies such as Tata or Hindustan Unilever. The same is true of the USA where it is said that more CEO’s are GE graduates than graduates of Harvard Business School. In Europe the ‘talent factories’ of Unilever, Shell and Nokia have had a profound impact on the lives of many leaders. When these ‘talent factories’ are missing – as has historically been the case in China, then it can take decades to provide the context for development.

In the WEF we have distinguished between the Outer and the Inner leadership journey. The ‘outer journey’ creates the skills and capabilities to do a leader’s job, and many corporations are great at this – their capacity to engage people in complex global tasks and invest in learning means that most people come to the role of a leader with the requisite skills. My view is that typically the corporate environment can create the breadth of experience that enables leaders to learn how to manage complex stakeholders, or to build purposeful work.  So where there is no question that well run corporations are great at the leader’s ‘outer journey’, what about the ‘inner journey’? 

The ‘Inner Journey’ takes a leader to deep insight that helps them to discover their authenticity and provides the resilience so crucial for judgment under pressure? Here, I think the corporation is often a poor crucible for development. Here is why:

Hyper-Homogeneity: look around any high potential group and what is really striking is often how similar they are to each other. Often they are of the same nationality, but even if they are not they will have similar mannerisms, work styles, ways of looking at the world. Often the selection process for high potential roles is so well tuned that it filters out any diversity. This hyper homogeneity rapidly leads to ‘group think’ and also a certain weakness in spotting the counter intuitive

Extreme Work Pressure: one of the defining realities of corporate life is the sheer and unrelenting pressure many potential leaders are under. Constantly barraged by endless e-mails, spending weekends travelling, answering the phone throughout the night. These are all the symptoms of a globally connected world. This pressure affects their personal life, making it more and more difficult to create deep relationship with others – be they friends, partners or children. The pressure also removes any of the opportunities for reflection and conversation that we believe is so important to the leader’s inner journey. So as the muscle of the ‘outer journey’ become ever strong, those of the ‘inner journey’ atrophy.

Focus on Power: in many corporations the currency of leadership is power. It is positional power that creates the legitimacy for behaviours and provides the cover for action. Power is also a barrier to the open and deep feedback that can be so crucial to personal learning.

So, whilst corporations can be crucial to providing the setting for the ‘outer journey’, I believe that a combination of hyper-homogeneity, extreme work pressure and a focus on power makes them often poor settings for the ‘inner journey’. Many of the executives tasked with leadership development within corporations are well aware of this challenge. They can see that too many of their current leaders do not have the authenticity and depth that will increasingly be important for the future. What is less clear is how this can be solved.