Marina Gorbis's Blog, page 1396

Beware the CEO Who Is Showered with Awards

Firms run by CEOs who had won major awards (such as CEO of the year) showed significant declines in stock prices, return on assets, and ability to meet market earnings expectations in the 3 years after the awards were won, according to research conducted by economists Ulrike Malmendier and Geoffrey Tate and reported by Adam Grant of Wharton. After CEOs win awards, they spend a lot of time on prestige-increasing tasks that may distract their attention from leading. Malmendier and Tate found that a CEO’s odds of writing a book nearly double after he or she wins an award.

Adapt to a New Culture – but Don’t Go Too Far

One of the most popular pieces of advice that people receive when operating across cultures is, “When in Rome, Act Like the Romans.” This advice essentially means that in order to be successful in a situation different from your own, you need to adapt to the local customs, whatever they happen to be. But what happens when you don’t have a perfect read on what these customs or rules exactly are?

Imagine the following: Cheng, a Chinese professional, is starting a new job as a management consultant at a major strategy consulting firm in the U.S. Cheng is explicitly told that he needs to show his leadership potential in meetings with senior colleagues and partners by outwardly expressing his opinions and even, on occasion, directly disagreeing with his superiors. Cheng realizes this, despite how uncomfortable it feels, and decides to go for it. The first chance he gets, Cheng tells his boss how “crazy” his idea is and how a much more sensible strategy would incorporate various other features that he did not consider in his analysis. As uncomfortable as it was to call out his boss in this way, Cheng feels proud about having expressed himself.

A few hours later, Cheng gets a message to meet his boss in his office. Is Cheng’s boss likely to praise him for a job well done or chastise him for speaking about him publically in an inappropriate manner?

The answer is clearly the latter. Cheng went too far in his behavior, and unless he has a very smart “forgiveness strategy,” he’s likely to land in his boss’ doghouse. Cheng knew that he needed to be more assertive with his boss than he otherwise would have been in China, but he wasn’t able to adjust to the appropriate American level. If in China, you are supposed to act with a 1 or a 2 on a seven-point scale of assertiveness, and in the United States the appropriate level is a 5, Cheng produced a 7.

This story is emblematic of so many other similar stories that I hear in my work teaching and training people to function successfully overseas. Individuals attempt to adapt their behavior to match a particular culture but end up pushing too far, making larger mistakes than if they had just stayed true to themselves. It’s the problem of what I call “over-switching.”

I see this over-switching phenomenon quite often in my work as a business school professor. It happens when students who are generally quite deferential with professors in their native country realize that the U.S. standards are more informal, but they inaccurately calibrate where that level of informality actually is. It also happens often in interviews and cover letters. Students from countries where self-promotion is taboo learn that it’s required in the U.S., but don’t quite understand to what extent self-promotion is acceptable. I remember helping one foreign-born student with her application essays, where the first attempt was low on the self-promotion scale (talking about how “we” achieved certain individual results instead of “I”), but in the second attempt, she leapfrogged well past the level of acceptability to become overly self-promotional (touting her single-handed accomplishments on what was obviously a group-oriented endeavor). Although the student was embarrassed to see the difference, she also appreciated the feedback because it helped her calibrate her behavior the next time around to the appropriate style.

Individuals need to take steps to avoid over-switching and decrease the likelihood that it will interfere with their success abroad. One essential strategy is to develop a detailed sense of the “cultural code” — the correct and appropriate interpersonal style — for whatever key situations you’re working in. How assertively are you expected to act in your role in this setting? How directly are you expected to communicate, and with how much emotional expressiveness? Of course, the rules for how to behave are not the same in all situations you encounter in a foreign culture. Taking Cheng’s case as our example, some work cultures are extremely informal with very high expectations for assertiveness on the part of employees. Others are much less so. Some bosses also have styles that are more or less conducive to the behavior that Cheng exhibited in this situation. The overall goal is not to just learn how the new culture is different from yours. It’s to calibrate the specific level of difference and to learn how to acclimate your behavior to that particular level.

But even if you do work hard at mastering the cultural code, mistakes are still inevitable. You must also find ways to mitigate the brunt of these inevitable faux pas. Do what you can to develop a sense of rapport or, when possible, a relationship with the person you’re interacting with. Express genuine interest in the new culture and bond over areas of mutual interest, such as sports or family. And in certain cases, if the relationship allows, see if the other person might even be able to mentor you about cultural differences and the appropriate level of accommodation.

Over-switching is a natural part of the adaptation process. The trick isn’t to make it go away; it’s to try your best to convert these inevitable errors into valuable learning opportunities.

How to Prepare for Maternity Leave

It can be stressful to step out of your job for three months, no matter how happy the occasion. How can you be sure that you’ve prepared those around you for your absence? And how can you set things up so you don’t return to a complete mess? How much do you rely on others versus putting things on hold? Do you need someone to replace you?

What the Experts Say

“Part of running a 21st-century company with a twenty-first century work force is establishing systems that allow for women to go out and return from maternity leave with minimal impact on the company or on their careers,” says Joan Williams, founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law. Yet few organizations offer clear guidelines on the nuts-and-bolts of managing leave. Often, you’ll need to figure out how to prep colleagues, outsource work, stay in touch with the office, and re-enter with minimal disruption entirely on your own. It’s a challenge, particularly for the many women who start families at the same time they’re taking on greater professional and managerial responsibilities. But “planning for your maternity leave is an opportunity to demonstrate to everyone that you’re in the game,” says Carol Walker, president of the consulting firm Prepared to Lead, which trains young executives. Here’s how to take ownership of the process and ensure a smooth transfer of responsibilities before you leave, while you’re away, and when you come back.

Know your rights

If you’ve worked somewhere for more than a year, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows for 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a newborn or an adopted or foster child. However, these laws only apply to companies with 50 or more employees, so small businesses or start-ups with smaller staffs may have very different expectations. Further complicating the process is the fact that laws pertaining to maternity leave and disability vary from state to state, so as soon as possible, learn about the law and about your company’s own policies. Even if there are no formal guidelines that apply to your particular situation, all is not lost. Find out what other employees before you have done and understand that you will need to negotiate the specific terms of your leave whether you work at a large or small company.

Develop a game plan

Prepare a list of your core responsibilities, dividing them into the tasks that can be assumed by others and those that aren’t so easy to delegate, such as client relationships, expertise-related functions, and mentorship of direct reports. Begin to think of whom among your subordinates, peers, and superiors might be best suited to each role and consider hiring someone to cover your leave if necessary. “Many times it can feel as if it’s more trouble to find a replacement,” Williams says, “but a temporary employee often brings something unique and valuable to the organization.”

Talk to your boss first

Although you may be eager to share the news of your pregnancy with colleagues, talk to your boss first. And, if you intend to come back to work, make that immediately clear; emphasize that you’re a committed employee who wants to return. “From the outset, stay engaged and demonstrate that you’re going to work to make your maternity leave successful,” says Walker. This initial conversation should be the first of many that you have as you work out the details of your leave and navigate any complications that may arise.

Get buy in from colleagues

Talk candidly with your coworkers, particularly your direct reports, and let them know this is an opportunity for them to step up and assume responsibilities that may have otherwise been months or years away. “There’s a big difference between dumping work on someone and incorporating goals into someone’s development plan,” says Walker. Listen to any concerns and be open to the possibility of changing your plan if someone expresses interest or shows aptitude for a particular role.

Communicate clearly with outside stakeholders

Once you’ve decided who will handle your outward-facing functions, especially client relationships, reach out to those external parties as soon as possible. Set up a time to introduce them to people who will be their contacts in your absence. Set a timeline for transferring the relationship — first working in tandem, then handing off — and expect some bumps along the road as you slowly step out of the picture.

Be in regular, planned contact with your team

While it’s perfectly within your rights to be incommunicado, not everyone feels comfortable being completely out of touch during leave. Walker believes that the more practical approach is to maintain contact in a way that’s convenient for you, either by email or perhaps with a short call each week. “It’s incredibly stressful to get up to speed after being away for 3-4 months,” Walker says. “Spending half an hour to check in and debrief isn’t a huge intrusion and can be valuable for everyone involved.”

Do:

Find out as soon as possible if you’ll be able to take leave under the FMLA and research any additional relevant laws in your state
Be the first to tell your boss the news — assume that once one person knows, everyone will know
Treat maternity leave as an opportunity for growth — for both you and your team

Don’t:

Assume that everyone will be eager to take on additional responsibilities —explain why you think certain tasks are important and well-suited for particular colleagues
Follow your initial plan to a T — be open to changes
Disappear completely — even though you may be legally entitled to do so, find a way to maintain contact with your colleagues and stick to it

Case study #1: Continue to help others grow professionally

Allison Falender is a technology manager at Shell, who is currently planning a maternity leave for the birth of her third son in September.

Since her professional responsibilities have grown exponentially since her middle child was born, she started planning much earlier this time around. “I work in a global role and I’m directly responsible for five employees as well as supervising several others together with my counterpart in London,” she says. “I told my boss when I was eight weeks pregnant, so we had a full seven months to prepare, to resolve any concerns that might come up, and to explore solutions as a team. Since maternity leave is temporary, I’ve always approached it as a development opportunity for the people I work with.”

In addition to slowly transferring her regular responsibilities to superiors, peers, anddirect reports, she’s carefully planned around one aspect of her job that isn’t easily performed by others. “I’m a US patent agent and a liaison between technology and the intellectual property office,” she explains. So, almost immediately after announcing her pregnancy, she began training two of her employees to perform that role when she’s out of the office. “Even when I come back from maternity leave, they may continue,” she says.

Allison plans to use email to stay in touch with her team during her leave. “Mentorship is an important part of my job, and I want to be available to answer questions even if my response time is a little slower,” she says. “Being an integral member of my team and continuing to be available to my employees, many of whom have come to Shell directly from graduate school, is very important to me.”

Case study #2: Balancing the professional and the personal

Natalie Baron* negotiates maternity leave from both sides of the table. She’s responsible for human resources at an investment management firm with more than 200 employees, and she’s a mother of three so she understands that balance is key.

After her first baby was born, she took 12 weeks “off the radar.” Although she doesn’t regret the uninterrupted time she spent bonding with her son, she now acknowledges that she underestimated the impact of that decision. “Even though I wasn’t the head of my department at the time, when I returned to work, not having maintained my connection to my colleagues had created real distance between us.”

By the time her second child was born, Baron was running HR at a different company and in a crunch period at work. “Compensation season starts on November 1st, and my daughter was born on November 2nd,” she explains. Because she was privy to a great deal of confidential information, hiring a replacement was out of the question.

So, with support from her COO and a junior member of her team whose specialty was compensation, she worked from home for a few weeks, and then returned to the office the first week of January. The shorter, more connected leave felt comfortable because she was better prepared, both professionally and personally, the second time around. She knew what to expect of a newborn and had trusted childcare lined up.

“I took stock of my own life but I also had the perspective to understand that other people would continue to go to work and have responsibilities regardless of my decision,” she says. “There are points in your career at which you have to show up, and your leadership is tested. I could have taken a longer maternity leave, but I would have failed the business and would have missed out on an opportunity to build my credibility at a critical time.”

*not her real name

Resumes Are Messing Up Hiring

While we are surrounded by a wave of new disruptive technologies and apps, HR still hasn’t improved how it evaluates the prospective workforce. Traditional hiring processes that revolve around CVs are no longer sufficient – they don’t pinpoint the right qualities demanded of leaders today, and their dated criteria obscures many talented individuals from even hitting the radar.

There is nothing inherently wrong with resumes – they highlight applicants’ past achievements and experience. But while CVs are good at showcasing formal skills, they’re not very useful for identifying values and behavior. Resumes generally don’t distinguish between skills (knowing how to do something) and competencies (doing it really well and with great reliability and ease).

Sam Mead, co-founder of London-based start-up, Saberr, which specializes in workforce science, reiterates this problem with CVs – and by extension, the now ubiquitous application systems. They only show the eligibility but not the suitability of a candidate. And while resumes can match an applicant’s skills to the role, they are poor at predicting how well the applicants will interact with the company’s culture and future colleagues.

CVs have led recruiters to focus too much on grades, university reputations, and prior work experience. The problem with these hiring criteria is that they’re biased toward applicants from more wealthy backgrounds. These families usually have better connections and networks, can provide better education opportunities, and can afford to pay reputable universities’ tuition fees. In addition, children who have grown up in the upper echelons of society are also much more used to the social norms that guide successful “acceptable” behavior.

This process is no longer reliable; it has turned income inequality into career opportunity inequality, and recruiters are losing opportunities to tap a wider talent pool. As much as they claim to be interested in taking in talent from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, the practice of using resumes to select candidates can exclude those who can’t afford education or taking unpaid internships. Very often, they end up in lower-paid jobs with limited future prospects. So the better jobs tend to stay in the hands of those from wealthier backgrounds. A recent study in the UK, for instance, shows that 3 out of 4 judges, 2 out of 3 doctors, 3 out of 4 finance directors, and 1 out of 2 chief executives come from fairly well-off families.

What can be done about this?

Companies truly interested in hiring people from diverse backgrounds must abandon the conventional practice of filtering by résumé. Recruiters must seek proof of competencies to find the most promising candidates, those capable of becoming sense-able leaders with skills needed to succeed in a rapid-moving, interdependent world.

New tools and hiring processes can help recruiters find more diverse talent pools and reach candidates who may have previously been excluded from consideration. If hiring companies pay less attention to skill- and history-focused résumés and focus instead on the socio-emotional, cognitive, and behavioral traits of applicants, those from economically underprivileged backgrounds would have much broader job prospects. This garners higher professional effectiveness and also distributes and diversifies the social strata of labor.

And more companies can use smart data to improve the recruiting process. Some are already paving the way, with examples ranging from large multinationals like Coca-Cola, which uses data-driven strategies to increase innovation in its Atlanta HQ, to start-ups like Seedcamp, which uses psychographics (the study of personality, interests, etc.) to identify teams with the greatest chance for success, to tech companies like Kestral in Australia, which identifies the strongest performers through team optimization processes.

Successful placement also greatly depends on “fittingness,” so recruiters need to take other off-resume elements into account. Saberr pays attention to applicants’ core values and specific behavioral traits, in order to create a metric mapper – the main element of their data-driven HR Strategy. Using algorithms to process fundamental values and behavioral compatibility, as well as diversity, the company predicts how strong the interpersonal relationship between the applicants and the potential employer can become. The company does this by administering a survey for applicants and the employer, which maximizes the potential match, and by looking at soft skills and moving away from more conventional credentials or past experiences. The algorithm allows the company to “project” how the new hires will fit into the environment.

Large technology corporations like IBM are also helping build “social businesses” to determine fittingness (which IBM defines as the “ability to create more effective work experiences through social collaboration and digital experience”) by harnessing the power of social media and an individual’s web presences. And companies like Quid in San Francisco are using semantic analysis to analyze and visually depict where the most attention, creative energy, and financial resources are being spent online. While private equity investors and advertising firms are the primary users of this tool, it has huge potential for the recruiting profession, because it could allow staffing executives to see where candidates are devoting their professional energies.

While many privacy questions still have to be sorted out, the likes of Saberr, IBM, and Quid point to the future of human resource acquisition and development, through their use of smart technologies that help predict prospective employees’ behavior and their integration into the work community – something resumes can’t always do. These game-changers are helping organizations embrace talent wherever it surges, transforming the way companies recruit and source the workforce.

Act Like an Entrepreneur Inside Your Organization

We often find ourselves engaged with members of large organizations on questions of how to be more innovative and entrepreneurial. In virtually every case we hear something like this:

“I have an idea for a new product (or process, system, program, etc.). I’m not dead certain it can be pulled off, but if it could, it can have a significant impact on the business. It’s not within the day-to-day scope of my job and I certainly don’t want to put myself or the company at significant risk, but it would be a shame if I didn’t try to move the idea forward somehow.  How do I do this within a pretty traditional organization?”

We have come to call these kinds of managers “entrepreneurs inside” because though they work within an established organizational context, like entrepreneurs, they have ideas that upset the status quo.  And like entrepreneurs, these entrepreneurs inside face a substantial set of risks—even though organizations are calling for more creativity, more innovation, and more entrepreneurial behavior from employees.

To help, experts have rushed in with diagnostic tools and organizational methodologies designed to “unlock” these desired behaviors. Jennifer Prosek catalogs a number of these approaches in Army of Entrepreneurs. But we and others see little evidence of substantive change. 85% of the respondents to an Accenture survey reported that “employee ideas are mostly aimed at internal improvements rather than external ones.”  In fact the average life of Fortune 500 organizations continues to shrink from 67 years in the 1920s to just 15 years today, according to Professor Richard Foster from Yale University, as do the number of world-changing ideas emerging from them. Our notions of sustainable competitive advantage are truly challenged.

So how can companies get more entrepreneurial behavior from employees, and how can entrepreneurs inside act on their ideas, while minimizing risk to themselves and to their organizations?

To that end, and based on studies of entrepreneurs both inside and out, we have created a set of four simple steps for taking effective entrepreneurial action within an organization (or for managing your entrepreneurs inside).

These steps do, in fact, provide more opportunities for “entrepreneurs inside” to test and start more ideas and, by extension, to increase the likelihood of organization improvement.

First, it all starts with Desire. If you are going to start some sort of improvement effort you must want to do it. Without personal motivation to take any step into the unknown, no matter how small, there is no possibility for success. Curiosity is sufficient but if it’s “just a good idea” that you don’t personally care about, stop wasting your time and those around you by considering it any further.

Then ask “What am I willing to invest to take the first step?” Successful entrepreneurs generally don’t try to calculate what they will ultimately get from their efforts, and instead ask “What can I afford to lose” if the next step doesn’t turn out as expected. Given the uncertainty inherent in their work this “acceptable loss” frame of reference represents a powerful offset to the traditional notions of “expected return” that stop most efforts before they ever begin.

External entrepreneurs consider money, time, opportunity cost, etc. as the primary categories for consideration alongside the intensity of their desire in determining whether or not to take the first step. It is quite different for entrepreneurs inside where the most significant investment (and risk) criteria they consider is their social standing and relationship capital within the organization. Their peers and their immediate boss become the important gatekeepers to the first step.  We find ourselves working with entrepreneurs inside to address these social capital issues in exactly the same way we have advised traditional entrepreneurs to manage their financial risks.

And then “Who can I bring along with me?” External entrepreneurs are constantly making deals for free or low-cost assets and resources. Entrepreneurs inside do likewise but they are also acutely looking for employee partners and supportive bosses (or at least passive ones) as they build a marketplace and political support for their evolving idea. This internal network consists of both emotional and physical support.  You want enough to get started given your investment analysis and an orientation toward building as you further your efforts against the idea.

Now it is time to Act. Remain open to what happens and its implications for your next step and then immediately build your next step on what you learned and the result you just achieved. This Act-Learn-Build cycle is the proven and safe recipe for entrepreneurial success. Form the habit of acting your way into the future with low-cost, low-risk steps using the means you and your network have readily at hand.  Over-planning and over-thinking are not nearly as effective. External entrepreneurs are often supported by the discipline of staged venture capital for this work.  Entrepreneurs inside instead use their emergent networks to explore their learning and build support for what comes next.

These simple steps have worked for others and for many of the people we’ve worked with inside organizations, and should help you address the question of how to get started.

What Makes a CMO Powerful

As new conditions and capabilities relentlessly change how business is done, marketing – that is, the internal function responsible for shaping demand for a company’s offerings—is being challenged to reexamine its own workings. My own research interest is in the top of those functions: the leader of the marketing group (whom I’ll henceforth call the CMO, for Chief Marketing Officer, though not all have that specific title). What affects the power that person wields in the company, and his or her ability to have a positive impact on its fortunes?

Far from being “dead,” as some like to claim, the CMO position seems solidly established: by my counts, the proportion of firms having the CMO position has remained fairly constant over a decade at around 40%, with some indication of an increasing trend over the last few years. Many firms appear to agree that marketing is too important to be left without high-level leadership, and that CMOs should be in the C-suite bringing a marketing perspective to inform strategy. As my research with Vijay Mahajan has shown, CMOs are more likely in firms where there is a strong emphasis on innovation and differentiation (requiring deep customer insights to be effective), and in firms where marketing assets (such as corporate brand) have high value. We conclude that CEOs appoint CMOs when they recognize the centrality of these to strategy formulation.

There is, however, no magic that goes along with the mere appointment of a CMO. We find that companies having CMOs do not, as a class, outperform companies that lack the position. Clearly, some CMOs drive high revenues and healthy margins, but others do not. This might seem like a very simplistic statement but it gets to the heart of the matter. It behooves us, both marketing practitioners and academics, to understand what the successful CMOs and their firms are doing right.

On the part of the firm, some key considerations have to do with the power the position is endowed with. Formal power comes through the control of critical resources, often a matter of where the CMO position is located in the C-suite hierarchy. Vijay Mahajan and I find that CMO positional power improves firm performance in firms with a divisional structure, as it gives the CMO the formal authority to align the strategic marketing plans of the various divisions. However, in firms diversified into unrelated businesses, CMO power needs to be moderate –for political and rational reasons, since such firms have powerful divisional heads with diverse agendas.

One way in which the CMO position gains power is when the CMO is given the additional responsibility of other functions. For example, we have seen marketing organizations take command of sales, public relations/communications, product development, and major parts of information technology management – and many have advocated for more expansions of marketing’s scope.  (Meanwhile, marketing’s detractors are just as quick to say that it should be stripped of various functions, sometimes including marketing itself!)  Here, research I have conducted suggests that greater power to the CMO can yield benefits to a firm. For example, in my research on power mentioned above, results show that when CMOs have the additional responsibility of sales, firms deliver superior growth. Notably however, only 15% of the CMOs studied had such a dual responsibility. Similarly, in a forthcoming publication with Monique Bell, I find that the addition of public relations to the CMO’s responsibilities, in general, has reputational benefits and impacts profitability. However, the findings are nuanced. The benefits of bringing PR under marketing’s purview, for instance, only show up for relatively small firms; large firms might be better served by keeping the CMO position independent from what might otherwise be considered related functions. (Because these large firms have powerful and diverse stakeholders, managing reputation might call for more focused, careful management through the creation of separate positions in the C-suite.) As for our finding that the marketing+PR dual responsibility for the CMO has a positive impact on firm profitability, a closer look at the data reveals that this is only true of firms selling primarily services (versus goods). A logical explanation we propose is that service firms have richer and more granular customer data, as well as multiple touch-points, and thus are able to gain the synergistic benefits facilitated by such a dual responsibility.

Thus, there is no one size fits all model. Note, by no means am I saying that CMOs should not strive to be powerful – or conversely, that CMO power is, in and of itself, a good thing for a business. Firms and CMOs should work to increase the power of the position only if doing so will improve the CMO’s effectiveness in reducing C-suite marketing uncertainty and enhance the CMO’s strategic and operational impact. Research and practitioner experience will no doubt highlight even more conditions under which the CMO position, and its various aspects such as compensation and role definition, can be shaped to ensure CMO success.

The CMO’s power to succeed isn’t only a product of firm-level decisions, of course. It also depends on attributes of the individual. The person hired to lead marketing must stand up to the task by being a strategic and operational marketer, adept at developing, protecting, and using effectively the firm’s key marketing assets. In the context of the C-suite, he or she must be authoritative as the voice of the customer – and more broadly, bring the information and insights that will reduce C-suite uncertainty in the marketing domain.

The requirements to operate effectively as part of the top management team also go beyond marketing-specific strengths. Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepsico, in a recent interview compared the C-suite to an ensemble of musicians, with a good CEO making it capable of jazz improvisation. Her point was to emphasize that in times of rapid change, there can be no predefined score. Besides being a master of his or her instrument (or functional toolkit), each player must also be nimble and able to adapt to the others’ improvisations, which in turn take their cues from the changing demands on the firm.

If Nooyi’s analogy is apt, then one implication is that high CMO turnover cannot have positive outcomes. It takes time for a new CMO to understand the needs of the C-suite and those of the firm, and to therefore contribute effectively to a firm’s success. More established, and more powerful, CMOs can arguably achieve more.

Research on this issue, still in its early stages, is being pursued by many of us in the academic field. Meanwhile, the more firms invest in recruiting and retaining the right CMO in an appropriate position of power, and the more that CMOs invest in taking the right job and doing it right, the more likely we are to see success stories. This in turn should lead to more firms appointing a CMO, thus ensuring that marketing gets the attention it deserves at the highest levels of the firm.

The New Marketing Organization

An HBR Insight Center




Should Marketing or R&D Have More Power?
Why Technology Won’t End the Marketing Hierarchy


A Method for Better Marketing Decisions
Innovation Is Marketing’s Job, Too

Freedom of Information Laws Had a Big Impact on Corruption

Freedom of Information laws in American states reduced the rate at which officials committed corrupt acts by about 20%, according to an analysis by Adriana S. Cordis of Winthrop University and Patrick L. Warren of Clemson University. In the immediate aftermath of implementation of strong FOI laws, corruption-conviction rates approximately doubled, suggesting that the regulations made it easier to detect malfeasance. Over time, conviction rates declined, suggesting that overall corruption diminished, the authors say. The changes are more pronounced in states with more intense media coverage.

Even When Women Ask for a Raise, They Don’t Ask for Enough

Margot, my client, was offered a “great” job as the CFO of a fledgling unit within her company. It was a nice little step up for her, and she was thrilled by the prospect. Margot had earned this promotion by spending the previous six months running her department while her boss was out on leave. She did an exemplary job leading a vast piece of the company and was rewarded with a modest promotion. My first thought? Big whoop, Margot.

In her landmark study published in 2003, Linda Babcock found that women don’t get ahead at work because they don’t step up and ask for money and promotions. Our research indicates that this finding still applies, but perhaps not in the way people think.  In the process of coaching hundreds of top female executives over the past decade, we’ve routinely interviewed hiring managers and pored-over 360-degree feedback reports in search of trends and commonalities. One of the things we’ve found consistently is that women do, in fact, step up and ask for more money and better jobs. But they don’t ask for enough. They take what they get on their first try without lobbying for what they really deserve—more.

Dial it up. Many of the women we coach are worried about being perceived as pushy, when in reality they’re not advocating for themselves as forcefully as they should. To help them calibrate their efforts we tell them to visualize a TV remote—and visualize dialing it up three clicks. That brings the volume up to just about where it needs to be. When it comes to increasing your ask, there is a vast gap between wishy-washy and assertive.

Here’s what we mean:  1.) “I believe I deserve a raise.” That’s wishy-washy. 2.) “Based on my work during the acquisition I deserve a [be specific] raise.” That’s confident. 3.) “Based on my work managing the team during the acquisition I deserve a [specific] raise and I would like to be put on the fast track for a [be specific] promotion.” This is truly assertive.

This is the range of comments we see everyday from women in 360-degree feedback conversations. The best way to “dial up” an ask, then, is to take credit for your accomplishments and ask for a specific reward that is commensurate—and don’t accept anything less.

Raise your expectations. If there are two job openings, why not ask for the dream role rather than the smaller promotion? Always ask for more than you think you deserve in terms of the job and salary level. We’ve found that women consistently undervalue themselves. They also underestimate where a given position falls in terms of salary range. This may be why a man, in most cases, is paid better than the woman sitting next to him doing the same job. They expect to be well-paid and they are not afraid to ask for more.

Ask up the ladder. Research indicates that men are more willing to exchange favors than women are, and we believe that puts them in a better position to line up promotions. Women hesitate to trade on their relationships because that feels crass and unseemly. We coach women to network in a much more purposeful way and establish a quid pro quo of career favors with colleagues. In addition, women shouldn’t be reticent to network with their boss’s boss. Yes, you need to proceed with caution in terms of protocol, but courageously hob-knobbing above your level can earn you respect and get you noticed.

Ultimately, this is how Margot got the job she deserved. She did the CFO role well for a few months. During that time she got to know the division president and told him a little about her experience managing the unit. He was impressed and eventually offered her a much bigger position in the company. It took a lot for someone like Margot (she’s modest) to lobby so far above her pay grade, but she did it well and it paid off in terms of career advancement. And no one thought she was aggressive or overbearing, as she had feared.

In the end, it is important to put things in the proper perspective. There is very little risk—and tremendous reward—in asking for the big job. You will never be considered for it if you don’t. And simply stepping up for it means that you are registered for a promotion. Letting people know you want a bigger job is the first step in securing it.

Millennials Are Entering a Changed Workplace. Not.

Discomfiting StatisticsWhat’s Wrong with Millennial Employment, in Three ChartsFortune

Sometimes the U.S. government’s exhaustively and exhaustingly dry reports yield startling results, as Fortune discovered. A Department of Education study of college graduates shows, for example, that the wage gap starts early: Four years out of college, male graduates were already making much more than their female counterparts, even if you control for field of study and other factors. A male engineer, for instance, earned $68,000, on average, while his female peer earned $65,817.



Another finding: The 65.2% of for-profit college graduates who were employed and not in school earned a full-time median salary of $54,000, compared with $47,500 and $45,000, respectively, for graduates of private nonprofit and public universities. Another: Even though Asian-Americans are the best-educated and highest-income racial group in the U.S., ethnically Asian college graduates’ unemployment rate in 2012 was 11.9%, higher than blacks’, whites’, or Hispanics’.

Ferocious CuriositySeeker, Doer, Giver, PondererThe New York Times

I’m sure there have been past profiles of the intriguing billionaire mathematician James H. Simons—after all, he’s been around for decades, earning and donating vast amounts of money, generally enjoying life (despite the accidental deaths of two of his five adult children), and giving Dos Equis’s “most interesting man in the world” a serious run for his money. But if so, I somehow missed out, because the name and story were new to me when I saw this piece in The New York Times about the smiling, ever-generous cigarette fiend with the “ferocious curiosity.”



“Jim,” as he is known to all, not only did pioneering work in mathematics; he also founded Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund that relied on scientists to make predictions and trade in global markets. A few words to live by: “I like to ponder…pondering things, just sort of thinking about it and thinking about it, turns out to be a pretty good approach.”

Holiday at PradaThe Value of Luxury PoseursThe New Yorker

How might a luxury brand like Prada expand its horizons without alienating its customer base? New research from HBS professor Anat Keinan and doctoral candidate Silvia Bellezza sheds some light. In an expansion on Bellezza and Keinan’s article “How Brand Tourists Can Grow Sales” in the current HBR, the New Yorker describes their clever experiments aimed at figuring out how core customers of Prada and Marc Jacobs felt about the idea of stores handing out logo-emblazoned shopping bags, meant as limited-edition collectors’ items, to anyone (gasp!) who walked in. Turns out core customers are fine with this as long as the noncore customers are presented as brand “tourists” who use the bags to demonstrate their affection for the brands. –Andrea Ovans

Unsolid GroundLessons from a Drowning NationWashington Post On Leadership

Executives in struggling industries sometimes find themselves in the unenviable position of having to plan for the end of a company. But imagine if you had to plan the demise of a whole country. “It’s scary,” Anote Tong, president of the Pacific Ocean nation of Kiribati, says in this Washington Post video interview. His country is being swallowed by the rising sea. Some people don’t want to leave, so part of the solution involves planning to build up some of the land so that it can serve as a refuge. For those who choose to go, “our responsibility as leaders is to prepare them,” he says. “We have to provide them with the kind of education that would ensure that if and when they relocate, they would move as citizens who are skilled and would find jobs and who would move with dignity. Dignity is absolutely vital, because people who have lost everything else must not lose their dignity.”

Rich Dads, Rich Kids175 Years Later, The Mellons Have Never Been Richer. How'd They Do It?Forbes

My family is obsessed with books and puzzles. Yours might be obsessed with fishing or hockey. The Mellons are obsessed with capital preservation, and that’s the secret to the longevity of their wealth (of course, it helps to have capital to preserve in the first place). Thomas Mellon made it clear that each generation “must push forward a bigger pile than he or she was given,” says Forbes. This worldview is handed down without many covenants or restrictions, and with “nary a family office or annual meeting.” Compare that saga to Forbes’s tale of the Strohs, which shows that as “hard as it is to build a family business designed to last in perpetuity, it’s shockingly easy for any successor to tank it.”

BONUS BITSCountering Intuition

Has 'Disruptive Innovation' Run Its Course? Not Yet… (Knowledge@Wharton)
Playing Golf, and Other Mistakes CEOs Make (LinkedIn)
Linus Torvalds: 2014 Computing Pioneer Award (IEEE Computer Society)

How to Explain a Career That Looks Stalled

People hold on to jobs too long for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s loyalty to co-workers at a company you’ve outgrown, or maybe you spent a long time thinking you were just about to get promoted… but never got the call. Or perhaps you simply had a lot going on in your personal life and your somewhat dull job felt steadying. During the downturn, many people decided to stay in whatever job they had, figuring that any job was better than no job.

Whatever the reason, if you’ve stayed in a role long after your growth and learning in that role plateaued you need a plan for presenting your experience to recruiters and hiring managers. If this is the flavor of your resume – if your last decade sounds like the same year repeated 10 times — you’ll face tough questions as you look for a new job. When asked about your learning, your challenges, and your career plan, your answer cannot be a variant on “I played it safe.”

How can you show you’ve grown?

There are ways of making even timid choices sound less passive or defeatist. For example, you can focus on the benefits of continuity, and the things you learned by sticking with projects over the long term. Unpack for an interviewer the way your role changed, even if your title didn’t. Plenty of companies in the recession laid off some people and redistributed their work to the survivors without promoting them; if this applies to you, talk about the additional responsibilities you took on (without trashing your current employer, of course).

Dig deeper for good narratives showing skill development – just because evidence is hard to find doesn’t mean it’s hidden beyond reach. Many roles today involve digital skills they didn’t even just a few years ago. Have you had to learn new technical skills or software?

If you’ve been underemployed for a while, take steps now to push your personal learning agenda. Seek secondments, new training opportunities, and informational interviews to bring your industry knowledge up to date. Review what you’ve done to bring out all those points when you pushed back or took control.

Present events as a conscious choice (“I decided it would be better to remain in the role and see how I could develop it…’” or “That setback was actually fortunate, as it meant I had to find a work-around”).

If you have managed to achieve results in a declining market with diminishing resources, say so – but make sure you also present stories which show you can manage growth.

If you’ve been under-challenged for the last year or two you’ll need to work hard on evidence of recent achievement. Make the most of recent projects and successes, and show how you’ve kept your skills and industry knowledge up to date.

Prepare a convincing, short, upbeat answer to the question, “Why haven’t you moved on earlier?” Discuss valid reasons such as wanting to see a project to its conclusion, team loyalty, picking the best time to make a career change. Show your career is in your control, not steered by events.

Above all else, if your career has been on hold, don’t blame the economy. Everyone’s doing it, and it communicates a failure to make the best of difficulty. Emerging organizations are leaner, flatter, and require people to use a mix of lateral thinking and assertiveness to move forward on thin resources. If your career strategy to date suggests that you duck and hide when you hit setbacks, an employer will assume that’s your normal working style.