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15 June:Leaders walking the talk. Peace Index. And naming the problem.

Posted on June 15, 2020 Leave a Comment

The UN Global Compact turns 20 and opens its virtual forum today. One background document by executive search firm Russell Reynolds looks at “Leadership for the Decade of Action”. It recalls a 2019 UNGC/Accenture study showing that 92% of CEOs believe integrating sustainability is critical to business success but that only 48% are doing it. It points to a 2019 Russell Reynolds study analyzing 4000 role specifications across industries and countries showing that while 15% of them make reference to sustainability (up from 9% in 2015), only 4% actually have sustainability experience and mindset as a requirement for getting the job. These numbers tell us that there is a still work to do to walk the talk in the private sector. To complement these findings, Russell Reynolds conducted in-depth interviews with 55 CEOs and found that sustainability pioneers are 3 times more likely than the control group to have worked in two or more continents, are more than twice as likely to have had experience in two or more functions, and are more likely to have had experience in operations and supply chains.  It finally argues that all sustainability pioneers in business have a “sustainable mindset”. That means that they display the following leadership attributes: multilevel systems thinking, stakeholder inclusion, disruptive innovation, and long-term activation – a lot of catchy words thankfully unpacked and exemplified in the report.
 
Since the beginning of the crisis, hundreds of CEOs have announced that they would share the pain with their employees and take salary cuts. Financial Times Fan Fei and Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson analyzed – for 554 companies – how these salary cuts compared with returns from equity awards CEOs would be receiving this year. They show that these awards would far exceed the “solidarity” salary cuts as stocks continue to recover. That’s also because salaries only make a small portion of the income CEOs take home. 
 
This graph is from the Institute for Economics and Peace’s ”Global Peace Index (GPI) 2020”. The index is made of 23 indicators and covers 99.7% of the world population. The report shows that global peacefulness has deteriorated 2.5% since 2008, calculates that the global violence price tag is $14.5 trillion dollars, says that COVID-19 adds more tension and uncertainty, and argues that civil unrest and environmental problems could further affect the situation in the future. The graph below shows the percentage changes for each GPI indicator from 2008 to 2020. 15 indicators have deteriorated. Two indicators significantly changed in opposite directions: UN peacekeeping funding improved while terrorism impact worsened.

My quote this week is from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on the Daily Show [1’18’’]:  “Feminism is about justice for everyone but you have to name the problem. And the problem is that it is women who have been excluded. So, we need to call it what it is.” And Trevor Noah’s response: “In many ways that’s what people say about Black Lives Matter.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: business, leadership, peace, racism

27 April 2018

Posted on April 27, 2018 Leave a Comment

I read the Arbinger Institute’s “Leadership and self-deception” this week because it is about a man starting a new job. Like me. The messages were deeper than I had anticipated. Through the fictional story of this man, the book highlights the challenges people face when they focus on their emotions and insecurities rather than on the results they are trying to achieve. It shows how self-awareness leads to happier times at work and at home. The tone is somehow patronizing but it is a quick read that I found helpful at a time I am confronted with a new culture, new politics and new expectations.

I enjoyed Noah Kulwin’s conversation with Jaron Lanier in “One has this feeling of having contributed to something that’s gone very wrong”. Lanier, a virtual reality guru, who works at Microsoft Research reflects on what went wrong with the internet and social media platforms.  He describes a very centralized Silicon Valley culture where “this very open collective process [is] actually in the service of this very domineering global brain, destroyer of local interpretation, destroyer of individual voice process.” Lanier is publishing a new book entitled “Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now” in which he unpacks the political, economic and spiritual arguments behind his call to action. Politically, social media is “empowering the most obnoxious people to be the most powerful”; economically, it is “centralizing wealth”; and spiritually, it is “lacking in empathy or any kind of personal acknowledgment”. An important perspective, I think.

My graph this week is from the Global Findex Database 2017 collecting data from 150,000 people through representative surveys in 140 countries and showing that two third of unbanked adults have a mobile phone. These are big numbers, illustrating the potential of mobile for financial inclusion. But the report also shows that these numbers are much lower for women, the poor, and the less educated.

My quote this week is from Elon Musk in “Progress, Precision, Profit”, an email to his Tesla employees: “Walk out of a meeting or drop off a call as soon as it is obvious you aren’t adding value. It is not rude to leave, it is rude to make someone stay and waste their time.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: finance, leadership, technology

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