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CURSED? THE FUTURE OF WORK OF FUTURE THE

PESSIMISM ISSUE THE OPTIMISM/PESSIMISM BLESSED OR BLESSED ARE YOU A POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE THINKER? NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE A YOU ARE . 25. 25 oo

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159000_095_IAZ_HW15_UK_8_25x10_75.indd 1 28.10.15 14:21 ON THE COVER COVER: “Blessed or Cursed?” by Michelle Thompson soon go spectacularly supernova and supernova and spectacularly go soon Optimism-Pessimism Office Of The Of Future: Office i n 1996 catastrophically collapse.” catastrophically n 1996 Where We’llWhere Work “I predict the Internet will will Internet the predict “I got most other things spectacularly right: An incorrect prediction by someone who Features Continuum Founder of 3Com, inventor of Ethernet, 1995. Ethernet, of inventor 3Com, of Founder The —Robert Metcalfe —Robert IN THIS ISSUE THIS IN 40 22 50 TALENT+LEADERSHIP 32 14 G.E. France G.E. CEO, and President Q&A: Clara Gaymard, A Meeting of Minds A Meeting Tomorrow? How We (Will?) Work

accelerates women in leadership. in women accelerates PARTING THOUGHTS Helping smart leaders succeed. leaders smart Helping 25 The Optimism Illusion Optimism The Taking Off The Mask changing the boardroom. Sydney Finkelstein Board Committees Board The Digital Natives How young directors are directors young How 25 TH How being authentic being How Where the action is. action the Where Robert Rotella Robert CEO LETTER CEO ISSUE SPECIAL ISSUE Are Restless Are Big optimism. Big PROFILE Q&A 54 69 62 10 72 13 4 6

what’s right in what’s

The BY GARY BURNISON GARY BY Consider the M.C. Escher image if Even the bats (above). Illusion BRIEFINGS hich do look you for: wrong—or what’s wrong in what’s right? Optimism Across all cultures, genders and ages, are we overwhelmingly optimistic. The vast majority people of according 80% (about to researcher and au- We acquireWe this “cognitive illusion” as part our of to development us help cope with (read: ignore) the ultimate outcome being of alive. buy into the We “happily ever after,” even in the face such of glaring statistics as the divorce rate 40-50 (about percent) the or likelihood getting of cancer in men, 2 for (1 and our 1 in Even memories women). 3 for are notoriously subjective— recalling our vacations as full fun of and relaxation, while ignoring the boring and mundane. thor The of Optimism Bias, Tali Sharot) gravitate toward the good outcome. They overestimate the likelihood experiencing of good events and underestimate the likelihood experiencing of bad ones. jump at out you, do your eyes keep searching the for gentler, happier images theof angel?

Editor-In-Chief Katie Lahey Indranil Roy Glenn Rifkin Stacy Levyn Stacy Robert Ross Dana Landis Hank Gilman Hank Project Manager Project Dennis Carey Dennis P.J. O’Rourke Gary Burnison Joel Kurtzman David Berreby Cheryl Buxton Board of Advisors of Board Creative Directors Creative Chris Bergonzi Chris Victoria Griffith Jane Stevenson Joe Griesedieck Joe Contributing Editors Contributing Robert Hallagan Roland K Madrid Sergio Averbach Sergio Byrne Mulrooney Michael Distefano Michael Edward McLaurin Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Mitchell Mitchell Stephanie Adrian Wooldridge Adrian Lawrence M. Fisher Chief Marketing Officer & Digital Marketing Manager Marketing Digital Christopher R. O’Dea Tiffany Sledzianowski President, Korn Ferry Institute

Marketing and Circulation Manager Circulation and Marketing 25 4 FROM THE CEO THE FROM

With optimism, we savor the anticipation of what least one blind spot—a trait or capability that they we think is going to be great. That’s why people overestimate. This selective myopia can derail their prefer Friday, even though it’s a workday, as they look career. Great leaders, however, are highly self-aware forward to the weekend over Sunday because of the and hyper focused on exposing their own blind spots prospect of going back to work on Monday. in order to more effectively lead others. Optimists tend to be healthier (less stress and anx- To lead a team, you need to tap into the optimism iety). And regardless of how things actually turn out, bias of your followers so that they believe the sky people with high expectations feel better in general. is the limit. Sometimes literally. In May 1961, in a When faced with failure, an optimist’s brain speech before Congress, President John F. Kennedy goes into high gear to figure out why and what went gave the entire country a vision: “…I believe that this wrong so they can learn for the future and have a better outcome next time. This is very much aligned with what Korn Ferry calls learning agility—the ability and desire to learn from the past and apply those lessons to new and first-time challenges and events. Importantly, learning agility is also the No. 1 predictor of future success. Winston Churchill, who led Great Britain through one of its most dire periods in history, said “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” To that I would add, a realist sees it all—the angels and the bats. Like anything, too much of a good thing is still too much. Too much optimism is a danger. Optimism blindsides. You need pessimism—with all its doom and gloom—to warn you that objects really are closer than they appear. nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, be- For a leader it’s all about creating a common pur- fore this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon pose – transforming self-interest to shared interest. and returning him safely to the Earth.” This establishes the left and right out-of-bounds Even here, though, Kennedy injected the reality of lines and enables others to achieve more in pursuit of what it would take—a list of scientific developments organizational purpose. However, a leader must also that would make even the most optimistic NASA en- use pessimism not only to ensure the organization gineer doubtful: Advanced lunar space craft, alternate is grounded in today’s reality, but also to anticipate liquid and solid fuel boosters, engine development… events that could go wrong. But optimistic vision combined with the right During a difficult time in Korn Ferry’s history, I dose of pessimism was the E=MC2 of reality. In July started a leadership meeting by 1969, realism claimed victory. (As showing a picture and asked people Most people focused a young boy, I remember riding what they saw. Most people, with on a girl picking flowers. my bike and listening through their optimism bias, focused on A smaller number the neighbors’ screen doors to the a girl holding a flower blooming focused on urban decay. clapping and cheers of “We did it!”) in the spring. A smaller number Only 2 of 17 were Our optimism serves us well, said their focus was drawn to the drawn to both. changing our subjective reality as dilapidated buildings in the back- we work to make things better. But ground. Only 2 out of 17 said they focused on both. we can’t be blinded by that bias. After all the world is That’s what I was driving at—while there are opportu- not simple—cut and dry, one team wins and another nities (the flowers), there are always risks to overcome one loses. and challenges to confront (the urban decay). In the proper dosage, pessimism exposes what you For leaders personally, it’s all about self-awareness need to pay attention to and worry about. to reveal their own blind spots. Based on our Reach for the stars, worry about the clouds, and research, nearly 80 percent of executives have at keep your feet on the ground of reality. 

TALENT+LEADERSHIP 5 “There is a huge unmet need for board expertise in tech and the creative digital space.” — SUZANNE MUCHIN

e tend to think of optimism and pessimism as ways of viewing the future, but they can be equally powerful

THE OPTIMISM VS. prisms for looking at the past. It’s often s PESSIMISM ISSUE said that hindsight is 20/20, yet what we remember about a period in time may also be a product of our own outlook. 1950 Here’s a look back at some of the events TIMELINE that have shaped our world, for better Rosa Parks becomes “the first lady of civil rights,” triggering a or worse (or both). change in the decades ahead.

6 BRIEFINGS BY KAREN KANE

The Digital Natives Are Restless How Young Directors Are Changing The Boardroom

hey walk into the boardroom wearing jeans and carrying backpacks. As the Tmeeting stretches over hours, millennial directors convey with their body language that they are not used to sitting and listening; they’re programmed to interact. When the company serves plated lunches, some order out sushi. Those who have “grown up digitally” are the ultimate prize in the hunt for directors who can help boards and CEOs address the technology innovations that are fundamentally changing every business. A new digital industrial economy is emerging where every company is a technology company. It requires directors to develop a core understanding of how technology can impact the business, whether it’s lowering the costs, better connecting to customers or improving the company’s offerings.

Toyota changes the Elvis Presley auto industry by implementing changes the music “lean manufacturing.” landscape and popularizes rock ‘n’ roll Sputnik I The Soviet Union around the world. launches the first artificial Earth satellite into space. North Korea invades South Korea.

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 7 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

new group of directors, call them “digital natives,” have joined the boardroom. They’ve achieved success in tech Acompanies, and they incorporate technology and digital platforms in nearly every facet of their lives. With their energy and techno-savvy expertise, they are changing the boardroom. Chris O’Neill was managing director of Google Canada when he joined the Tim Hortons board before the company was merged with Burger King. “I was able to leverage my experience in Silicon Valley to provide insights into emerging digital and broader technology trends in business, and offer my perspectives on how companies stay customer-focused and create a winning culture,” said O’Neill.

NOW CEO OF EVERNOTE, O’Neill leads a soft- The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender com- ware company that creates productivity tools for the munity has been “the last people to achieve full civil modern workplace. His success at Google included rights,” said Richardson, who serves as L.G.B.T. diver- achieving dramatic growth as managing director of sity adviser. “I’m an advocate for diversity because it Google Canada. He was also once part of Google X, improves decision making.” Google’s moonshot factory. Expertise is another component of informed deci- Nathan Richardson was the digital talent of the sion making. team brought together to restructure and transition There is a huge unmet need for board expertise in C.M.I. from its yellow-pages origins to a digital com- tech and the creative digital space, observes Suzanne pany. Richardson is still on the board of the company, Muchin, who has been on both sides of the boardroom. now called Caribe Media Inc. As a national program director for Teach for America, The former head of Yahoo Finance, the largest she interfaced with the prestigious national board and finance site on the Web, Richardson also was head of helped her staff with the regional boards. She currently Dow Jones Online. In September, Richardson and his serves on the board of Piece & Co., a for-profit private partners announced closing a $4-million seed round company in the social responsibility space that hires for Trading Ticket, a new start-up based in New York women artisans in the developing world to provide the that is developing a suite of products to help consumers fabrics and other raw materials for fashion brands. become more active investors. She sees younger board members bringing an When he joined the C.M.I. board at age 40, Richardson energy and a penchant for greater work-life balance as was impressed with his older board colleagues who were they embrace shorter meetings, working remotely and eager to learn what he could share with them about the making the full board meeting an occasion for active digital challenges and solutions as well as insights into the engagement and meaningful discussions. millennial culture. To the criticism that most boards are “I’m 47, slightly older than what is considered millen- pale, male and stale, Richardson adds, “and straight.” nial,” said Muchin, “but because I have one foot in the tech

Cuban Missile Crisis puts the threat of nuclear weapons J.F.K. at the front of world politics. assassinated. Berlin

s Wall erected to prevent massive defection from Shell begins 1960 the German scenario planning Democratic Neil Armstrong to navigate the “oil Republic. is the first man to shock” of the next set foot on the moon. decade. THE FUTURE BACK THEN

8 BRIEFINGS THE LATESTTHE THINKING

space, one foot in the social impact space, and which began as a solution to help his son with his an arm in the nonprofits, and I’m a woman and a homework. The Answers Corp. (Nasdaq: ANSW) business owner, I cross lots of demographics.” was sold to Announce Media in 2011. A principal of Mind + Matter Studio, co- Tebbe spent six years working alongside founder and cohost of “The Big Payoff” radio Bushnell on the OCTuS board. It was the chance talk show, podcast and video series, Muchin Chris O’Neill of a lifetime, learning from a master. Since has founded several communication firms fo- OCTuS, Tebbe has experienced first-hand the cused on developing social impact campaigns. value boards bring to an enterprise, particularly Her previous company, R.O.I. Ventures (Return for entrepreneurial companies. on Inspiration) was acquired in 2012. Tebbe recruited his own board when he Digital directors are often entrepreneurs made the decision to dramatically grow his like Ryan Morris, who cofounded software business in 1998. “There was so much talent company VideoNote after graduating from on my board. I wanted to tap their experience Cornell Engineering. But it was his investment and leverage their insight because they had so in InfuSystem that turned him to activism, a Nathan Richardson much more experience than I did. board seat and becoming one of the youngest “I keep that in mind when I serve as a di- chairmen of a N.Y.S.E.-listed company at age 27. rector,” said Tebbe. “I try to be very involved to Morris is now president of his own invest- understand and grow the business, because I ex- ment firm, Meson Capital Partners, which pected my board to understand and help me grow focuses on “constructive, active engagement, the business. I also push and challenge and look at value-investing.” As an investor/operator, he strategy from a number of different angles.” can “wind up fixing my own problems.” While he doesn’t expect to start a new As an investor in InfuSystem company, Tebbe likes to stay on the cutting edge Suzanne Muchin (N.Y.S.E.:INFU), Morris met with the board by teaching at the University of Chicago, by men- after it had approved a multimillion-dollar toring entrepreneurs at 1871, and by serving as pay package for the CEO while the company was chairman of ChicagoNEXT, the technology industry’s eco- failing. He rallied other investors and demanded three nomic development component of World Business Chicago. board seats. After being rebuffed, he eventually suc- It’s the yin and yang of board culture—younger direc- ceeded in replacing five of the seven directors with a tors with digital knowledge and expertise working with negotiated settlement. traditional directors with the business experience and But the story of young, entrepreneurial and tech- years of perspective. savvy board members isn’t new. “Young directors can improve a board’s understanding Mark Tebbe was 31 when he was recruited by Nolan of customers and today’s workplace realities,” said Bushnell to the board of OCTuS Software (Nasdaq: O’Neill. “Customers are living digital lives. Employees are OCTS). “Yes, I was flattered,” said Tebbe. “It doesn’t get using new and exciting ways to communicate with one any better than working alongside Nolan Bushnell. He’s a another. Though this is not strictly linked to age, being world-class entrepreneur, a giant in the field, the founder younger and more digital certainly helps and is a positive of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese.” force in assisting companies to address new markets.” The year was 1992. Tebbe was recruited for his There are personal benefits as well. knowledge of the computer industry. Having moved to “I learned to view a business through multiple lenses Chicago to work for Arthur Andersen, he started his own now. I feel better prepared for my current CEO role technology advisory firm, Lante Corp. (Nasdaq: LNTE) in because of my board experience,” said O’Neill. 1984, which he took public in 2000, took private in 2002 and sold in 2004. After Lante, he created Answers.com,

develops the first Black Motorola Monday working “take along” phone. Steve Jobs and stock market Steve Wozniak crash. s s start Apple Computers. The first company Tiananmen Square Katharine to implement massacre results in many student deaths. Graham 360-degree 1970 becomes the employee reviews 1980 first female CEO is Du Pont. of a Fortune 500 company.

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 9 CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Where the Action Is: Board Committees

BY KAREN KANE THE LATEST THINKINGTHE LATEST

oards of directors face more scrutiny, regulation and threats from activist investors than ever before. In response, boards are working Bharder. The bottom line is there’s more work to do. Fortunately, boards have committees. Committees are where directors dive deep into issues, do the research and analytics and bring their findings back to the full board for discussion and decision.

TODAY, the rubber meets the road as well as its ability to effectively vulnerability, activists have zeroed in board committees. communicate the company’s com- in on board composition and After the collapse of Enron and pensation philosophy and practices “refreshment.” WorldCom, the 2002 Sarbanes- to win a favorable vote. It sounds so quaint—committee Oxley Act increased the respon- While less than 2 percent of com- work. For most directors, it’s a key sibility for board oversight of panies fail to achieve shareholder part of the job. accounting and audit, the details approval, the new rules imposed “From my experience, the real of which fell largely to the audit more work on the compensation work of boards has always been committee, where workloads in- committee. The length of the com- in the committees,” said Cynthia creased dramatically. pensation discussion and analysis Jamison, chairman of the board of Washington’s response to the (CD&A), which grew 17 percent over Tractor Supply, where she had previ- global financial crisis of 2008 was five years, is just one metric of com- ously been lead director. She is also the 2,300-page Dodd-Frank Act in mittee time and attention. a director of Office Depot, where she 2010. Among its 400 new rules and Dodd-Frank also required bank serves on audit, compensation and mandates was the requirement for holding companies to add a risk corporate governance committees; boards to ask shareholders to ap- committee, which some non-banks and Darden Restaurants Inc., where prove executive pay packages in an embraced. Greater transparency she chairs the audit committee and advisory vote. “Say-on-pay” brought in director qualifications has serves on the compensation com- more attention to a board’s respon- given activists a window into the mittee. At Big Lots Inc., she serves sibility for awarding compensation boardroom. Eager to exploit every on the audit committee.

is one of “Worm” Six The Internet the first computer virus Sigma becomes available to computer attacks, resulting in coined by

s users around the world. $100 million in damages. Motorola’s Bill Smith.

Google launched 1990 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Nelson Mandela walks free, elected president of South Africa.

10 BRIEFINGS Jamison chaired the audit com- “I want to be on the committees the directors who meet with share- mittee at Tractor Supply as the where I can add value,” said veteran holders gain a better understanding requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley digital entrepreneur Mark Tebbe. “It’s of their issues and bring that insight were being implemented, putting a real chance to learn about some back to the full board. a spotlight on audit. Then say-on- aspect of the company at a deep level.” M. Shan Atkins, a public com- pay brought laser attention to the Committees often require ad- pany director for 15 years, views compensation committee and its ditional time equal to board meet- audit and compensation as the members. Now it seems the heat ings. “You do a lot of work between “meatier” board committees. “Audit is on the corporate governance full board meetings,” said Tebbe. and compensation committees are and nomination com- dealing with very technical mittees as shareholders issues and take time,” said focus on diversity. Atkins. “In terms of my “The activists are going experience, the governance after board composition, committee has tradition- and committees that are ally been lighter, but as not as attentive as they proxy advisers have more need to be,” said Jamison. influence, governance “They want to see board is dealing with issues of diversity not just in race board composition and and gender but in terms of refreshment. Governance different skill sets, different committees at some boards points of view, appropriate also address issues of sus- backgrounds and expertise tainability and corporate to bring real oversight to social responsibility.” their role as shareholder Not to be overlooked representatives holding are the special committees, management accountable.” which are established on an Committee work also ad hoc basis to bring focus helps directors get a better feel “And when you have the responsi- to an assigned task, usually a single for relevant concerns outside the bility to bring the committee’s work issue that is not ongoing in nature. boardroom. “Committee members on a specific issue to the full board, “I’ve served on several special com- are talking to experts and advisers. you sweat the details.” mittees, including takeover defense, Whether it’s compensation consul- At the same time, members or shareholder rights plans and several tants or audit partners or director chairs of committees may become CEO search committees.” Atkins is education, you’re interacting with part of the company’s shareholder currently on the board of True Value the people who see across board- outreach programs. Those who hardware and SunOpta; she chairs rooms,” said Jamison. “It’s another have been most successful have the audit committee for both boards. way to become more educated.” been trained and are “camera-ready” She’s on the boards of Spartan Nash Some board members relish the to meet with shareholders to ap- as well as Darden Restaurants, where chance to dig in, create analysis and propriately discuss governance, not she’s a member of the audit and CORBIS offer larger solutions to the full board. management issues. In the process, finance and real estate committees.

Apple iPhone Manned Chinese introduced with space mission kicks off record-breaking sales. a new era in space exploration. + 9/11 terrorist attack Autonomous car on the United States. technology leaps forward.

2000 Blockbuster Facebook Video turns down IPO is the biggest a deal to buy Netflix. in technology history.

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 11 Continued from page 11 While Sarbanes-Oxley was implemented to reduce How Being company fraud, Blythe McGarvie believes boards should keep a spotlight on audit committees. Even though the incidence of fraud was reduced after Authentic Sarbanes-Oxley was implemented, she observed that the number of fraud cases have started to tick up over the past four years. “Audit remains a hot spot where Accelerates boards should continue to focus,” she said. THE LATEST THINKINGTHE LATEST McGarvie serves on the boards of Accenture, Sonoco, L.K.Q. and Viacom. In addition, she recently Leadership became chair of the nomination and governance committee at Wawa Inc., a closely held company where she has been a director for 17 years. in Women “Culture is so important at Wawa. Culture impacts everything, including customers and especially eading with greater authenticity, instead of employees who own 42 percent of the company adopting personae based on other people’s through the E.S.O.P. [Employee Stock Ownership Lexpectations, may unlock more leadership po- Plan]. I know a lot about governance, and I’m happy tential in women and accelerate their impact within to take over that responsibility.” their organizations, according to new research con- She also noted that in the face of managing risk, ducted by Korn Ferry. Accenture’s high-performance board culture has Female executives who participated in the firm’s developed a best practice to ensure that no risk falls Executive to Leader Institute and Chief Executive In- through the cracks. stitute programs cited authenticity, as well as greater “Once a year we bring together three commit- self-awareness, as important outcomes gained from tees—finance, compensation and audit—to ensure engaging in these programs. that we know what part of risk each committee In interviews, the women often described them- owns,” said McGarvie. selves as having lived inauthentic or “divided” lives Boards evolve. From a focus on audit, compensa- in the workplace—essentially acting in a certain way tion and even governance committees where board to meet the norms and expectations set by others refreshment remains a hot topic for activists, the real within male-dominated cultures. “When I came out game changer is proxy access, the chance for eligible of business school in the mid-70s there were very shareholders (and activists) to nominate directors. few women,” one female executive said. “At work in “Proxy access reached a tipping point,” said particular, I felt I needed to have a persona that was governance expert Peggy Foran. “More than half the not necessarily an authentic one.” institutional investors say they want it.” The women, nearly all of whom (91 percent) were As chief governance officer, vice president and sec- mid-career (ages 35 to 51), acknowledged a desire to retary at Prudential Financial, Foran has had regular integrate more aspects of themselves that had been conversations with the board on governance issues hidden or ignored in an effort to fit in. Becoming for the past six years. They trust her for giving them a more authentic, however, was seen as a process, one view of the world outside the boardroom. “I could be that must be undertaken within the context of the wrong, I told them, but proxy access is coming.” organization’s culture. “It’s O.K. to be authentic… As a result of discussion and board deliberations, to take off the mask, but you will still need to wear the Prudential Financial board chose to be proac- the mask at times, because maybe your level of tive: The board approved and adopted proxy access authenticity is not appreciated or some people have amendments to the company’s bylaws, enabling not gotten to that level of understanding,” another eligible shareholders to have their own director female executive said. nominees named in the company’s proxy statement. The dissonance caused by living an inauthentic Proactive boards remain vigilant, knowing that or divided life can be a significant energy drain for there is more work to do. women executives, and may be a factor in why some women opt out of the leadership track. By expressing more of who they are and their particular strengths,

12 BRIEFINGS BY JANET FELDMAN • DINA RAUKER

women embrace a wider range of leadership charac- their current situation, while also helping them decide teristics needed to run an organization. how they want to shape their leadership in the future. Women executives are equally qualified to lead Specifically, women need to ask themselves: organizations in top executive roles, as previous Korn Ferry research has found. They are rated higher than What is the greatest impact I want to have going forward? How can I drive their male counterparts in 17 out of 21 critical leader- value for the organization and the ship skills, including operating and interpersonal ones, people using my unique capabilities courage and drive—competencies that enable women in ways that others may not? to connect with customers, engage employees and building talent. Self-reflection also enables women to discover The women executives interviewed also high- or re-engage with their sense of purpose, which be- lighted the importance of self-awareness of their comes a powerful motivator of self—and helps leaders strengths and weaknesses, as well as their underlying inspire others. Purpose transcends ego or, conversely, motivations and sense of purpose as being vital to a lack of confidence. A driving purpose becomes a leading more authentically. “My core purpose is not motivation to assume greater risks and take on roles about the prestige, the title … it’s about the ambition that might otherwise be uncomfortable, and can to get to where I am,” a female executive commented. energize them to be more resilient during challenges. “The times in my life I had the most fun were when With greater authenticity, thanks to deeper self- I was helping people develop, or when I had a huge awareness and a clarified sense of purpose, women impact on the business and building or changing executives can more fully embrace new opportunities something and seeing the impact that had on people.” to become their best and devote their full capabilities Taking time for reflection, especially at critical to their leadership. LIVIA CHIVESLIVIA career inflection points, can raise awareness of one’s self and one’s purpose. By checking in with themselves REFERENCES: Orr, J. Evelyn. 2015. Best Practice Series: Women in Leadership. White Paper. Los Angeles: Korn Ferry Institute. periodically, women gain better appreciation of the

Illustration: Illustration: factors and circumstances that have brought them to

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 13 Briefings Q&A Clara Gaymard President and Chief Executive Officer, G.E. France

Women in Business Create Opportunities

Clara Gaymard is a woman of many talents. She is a published author, a senior European business leader and an advocate for women. She has worked in government as the head of an agency promoting France as a place for foreign direct investment. In her government role, Gaymard held the rank of ambassador. Clara Gaymard has nine children, a husband whose job and life are every bit as demanding as hers, and she proudly rides her bicycle to work.

14 BRIEFINGS Photographs by DAVID BACHER

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 15 16 BRIEFINGS Briefings Q&A Clara Gaymard

espite the enormous demands on her time, Gaymard has a large, well- connected group of friends, many of whom are at the top of French society. And yet, as she explains, it is not that she “networks.” Rather, DGaymard likes developing friendships with people who are real and deep. To do that, Gaymard refrains from everything written in those “how to network” books. As a result, Gaymard’s friends are real friends, not props or “con- tacts” or people “in her network.” Still, even with those self-imposed constraints, Clara Gaymard is said to know “everyone.” Working with people from diverse backgrounds has been important in Gaymard’s professional and personal growth. She believes that “working with people who are different helps you grow faster, especially when you also share values,” she said. But despite working hard on behalf of women for most of her career, Gaymard admits progress has been slow and more must be done. Last summer, Gaymard spoke with Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of Korn Ferry’s Briefings On Talent & Leadership. Dominique Virchaux, managing director for France and Spain and its regional market leader for consumer products in Europe, the Middle East and Africa also took part in the interview. What follows is an edited version of that conversation.

New rules in Europe set goals to Before the law, skeptics said Europe increase the percentage of board did not have enough qualified seats held by women from where women to join boards at the rate they are now, the low single digits, and numbers required. What do you to the mid-double digits. There make of that comment? are also new national goals to When you start with an obligation, the process is increase the number of female always the same. You start by checking the women executives at the top of all business who are close to you. They are not necessarily the organizations. Though these best in class. So you start panicking, and you realize goals are laudable, not much has you have a problem, and you ask: “What can I do?” changed. The glass ceiling is as real Some companies started to organize around the goal, as ever for French women. Why and they created pipelines of good female director- haven’t things changed? level candidates for boards. They discovered talent The rules are good, but not good enough. Take the where they didn’t expect it. example of the quota for boards, which has already been implemented in France and in other countries. What did they find? It works. More women are now joining boards. But They saw there is actually a huge pipeline of talented the numbers are still much too low. In France, just women. But of course, these women are not CEOs of 6 percent of board members are female. The law companies or board members. Not yet. They are not requires 40 percent female. That is a law, and because heading business units. In Europe, there are almost it is the law we will have to reach the goal. There are no women doing that. The talent is not always where many talented women who will become excellent you expect it. You have to find it, which means you members of boards of directors. have to look. The woman you need for a board seat

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 17 Briefings Q&A Clara Gaymard

may not be standing in line next to you. She may be view. It’s not that they choose opportunities that younger than you expect or look different than you men are not choosing; it’s that they are the only ones expect. But I can assure you, she is here. taking those opportunities, the only ones seeing them. That’s why they make more money. Is that what happened? Yes. I would say that the push of the regulation What are some examples? is important, but it’s not enough. And there are I was having discussions at Sodexo — which is a obstacles. global services company. It operates in, like, 130 countries. They conducted a survey and discovered Like? that among their employees, the teams that were The first obstacle is you need to educate men. You balanced evenly between men and women performed have to explain to them that if a woman takes a job, better than the ones that were only women or only it doesn’t mean a man is going to lose his job. There is men. They discovered balance is very important. room for everyone, and the competition is not “she is It’s not that women are better than men; it’s that going to take my seat.” I would say men have to have having balanced teams creates a very strong kind the same spirit toward women on this issue that they of creativity and respect and way of understanding have in Silicon Valley. When you go to Silicon Valley, each other. It makes it so everyone is able to capture and I think it’s something that is typical in the U.S. as opportunities for growth. a whole, but especially in Silicon Valley, you can see I’m the mother of a very big family. My husband almost anyone. And the person you are with is likely and I have nine children. When our children were to help you. He or she will meet with you because they young, people would often remark, how “well- understand your success will help their success. It’s educated” and how “well-behaved” our children were. the kind of success that brings new opportunities, new paths you haven’t discovered yet on your own. It gives The question could have been you a window where you can win behind someone prompted by feelings of admiration, else or beside someone else. It can open up new ideas condescension, annoyance, jealousy and opportunities. Bringing women into business or even fear. It could have been brings new opportunities, new creativity, new ways uttered after the person sucked it in of thinking, new businesses. It’s not taking a limited to have enough courage to speak. number of seats and giving them to women. It’s Or, it could have been rudeness. opening the company to new arenas of development How did that make you feel? and new arenas of growth. Ultimately, when new I don’t think it is as complicated as that. I never groups come into the work force, it adds seats. thought it was because of me. I thought it was because my kids were together, and being the Have you seen it happen mother in a big family, like ours, forces respect, in practice? listening, empowering and sharing. Many values in Yes. If you look at the statistics of all the companies, the business world are the same. The point is that and if you take S.M.E.’s — small and mid-sized you grow faster when you share values. Differences enterprises — you see it quite clearly. A lot of S.M.E.’s are good to help you see and understand things, but are run by women. And they are performing better sharing values is important. than the S.M.E.’s run by men. If you take investment forums—and you know finance and investment are There are studies showing that very masculine, macho environments—it turns out diverse groups are more innovative. that investment forums run by women perform Do you agree with that? better than those run by men, and I‘m not talking Absolutely. Putting diversity into a company about during the crisis alone. I’m talking about improves success and innovation. It ensures that the every year. You could say it’s because there are fewer truth gets a seat at the table, and everybody can see it women in that world, so the ones that are there must and has to deal with it. But as I said earlier, you have be very, very talented and self-assured. But my view to explain to men that diversity is not being done is that these women simply have different points of against them.

18 BRIEFINGS The first obstacle is you“ need to educate men. You have to explain to them that if a woman takes a job, it doesn’t mean a man is going to lose his job.”

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 19 Briefings Q&A Clara Gaymard

Isn’t it true that, if people are and so on, that you sit where you do. It’s because you comfortable, they do not to want bring expertise, just like the other people do. It makes to change? you feel you have something important to offer. It’s complicated. At G.E., we try to be very careful about the health of our employees. We have people Which is more difficult, managing a responsible for health policies. As part of that, I diverse group or a homogenous one? recently met with a professor who is an expert on No question managing a diverse team requires more well-being and longevity. This is what he said as a effort. Think about it. It’s easy to manage an army. result of taking scientific surveys inside companies. Your people obey you, and they are like you. They even He said, “Change is good for health.” wear the same clothes you wear, the same shoes, carry We always believe change will create fear, that the same weapons, and they are required to do what people won’t like it, and so on. The truth is, the their bosses tell them to do or face punishments. In an professor said, it’s not change that makes people fearful; army, everyone is on the same page. it’s the way you implement change. If you implement But when you have a diverse team, you see that change in a positive way saying, “We are going to bring when you say something, not everyone understands in new businesses, and we want everyone who works it the same way. They do so because of their culture, in these new businesses to be happy,” that’s good. But their personal backgrounds, because not everyone if change comes down from the top, and your people understands or speaks English on the same level, or don’t understand it, and they don’t know where they’ll in the same way, because people are from different be going, where their place is, and if they are afraid generations and locations and ethnic backgrounds. they won’t have a job or a place tomorrow—things like You need to be sure everyone understands what you that—then, yes, people will be afraid of change. Change want to do when you are the leader of a diverse group. is not the problem; change is good for people’s health And you need to know everyone understands each when it is done correctly. Change imposed from the top other. You need to take time to be sure everyone is on and executed poorly is the problem. board. This means you have to be more sophisticated and adaptable in the market. There are benefits too. What about change in general? Instead of having only two eyes, in a geo-diverse team The survey also asked other questions. For instance, you have 10 or maybe 20 eyes, and you are able to look “Does the company give you confidence in yourself?” at the behaviors of your customers and colleagues Only 40 percent of the men’s responses were positive. differently because of that. The relationships you Then the question was asked of the men, “Does your have with your customer can be different, and your company give confidence to women?” And the answer appreciation of the market can be different. was something like 80 percent positive. The men surveyed thought their companies did a much better Most of your career has been in job helping women build up their confidence…. government, not business. How did We asked women the same questions, “Do you you feel coming to work at G.E. with think your company gives you confidence?” Only a background and set of experiences 20 percent of women answered that question in a so different from the other people positive way. And then we asked them, “Does the you were going to work with? company give men confidence?” And the women At G.E., we recruit people we know will bring answered 80 percent yes regarding men. something different to the company. We don’t Of course, we know confidence is difficult to evaluate necessarily know precisely what that difference is before and measure, especially in a world where everything they join us, but we know we want it, so we seek it out. is changing. But we also know confidence comes from You could say G.E. is built on curiosity and on promoting diversity, because if you see someone who is capturing everything that is happening. We are a different from you sitting in an office in front of yours, very big company. We have a lot of expertise. We or next to yours, you know that it’s not because you are especially have a lot of domain expertise. We are black or red or yellow, or because you are old or young focused. We’re also a high-process company. When

20 BRIEFINGS they recruited me, I went to the first meeting, and government health officials], that’s not their issue. It’s I said, “What do you expect of me?” My boss said, not what they care about. Their issue is cost. They “Look at what was done by your predecessor and want to know, “How do I cut health care costs?” build on it. Bring in more opportunities for the As a result, we changed our approach. We started business. Make the business grow.” And I said to him, to look at it and think about it differently. As we did, “Yes, but how do I do that?” And he said, “Bring us we realized we needed people from medical schools your own way of thinking.” and people with deeper experience in the health care I thought about that, and I went back home and said sector to explain to us how to address the needs of the to my husband, “I don’t know what this job is all about, [health officials]. but I know it is full of opportunities.” My husband knew So we worked with a health care team, and I said, I wasn’t going to try and do the job that the business’s “We have to help with the money, the costs.” And leaders were already doing. They have been doing their our argument became “How can we help the [health] jobs for 20 years, sometimes more. They became experts ministers reorganize themselves in different ways to long ago. I bring something else, something new. I save money?” had the freedom to come not only with my expertise, We knew we had a lot of M.R.I.’s that were used but with my own way of thinking. Jeff Immelt, G.E.’s only six hours a day. We also knew that [if] some were chairman and CEO, says quite often, he prefers used 12 hours a day, and 18 hours a day, it would spread someone who might say “no” 9 times out of 10, than the costs across more people, procedures and over more someone who only says “yes” all the time. He says he time. So, we put ourselves in the shoes of the people needs creative people who want to cross the boundaries making the decisions – the ministers. We wanted to without going out of the frame. So of course you follow understand the way they saw the world and how they the rules of the game, but you are always trying to thought. We wanted to be able to give them the kind improve the game, too. of answers they were searching for. My point is that we looked around the world and then we changed our How do you describe G.E. culture? approach. We changed ourselves and our processes. It is a culture in which we are all good friends. You will never send an e-mail to someone at G.E. without Did you change it on a company-wide receiving an answer. And if someone can’t give you basis or was it a local change? the ideal, correct answer, he will put you in contact On a countrywide basis, because that’s where we had with someone who can. the problem that had to be addressed. People at G.E. are respectful of one another. Also like good friends. Close relationships are very Is that how you addressed France’s important at G.E. But it was my responsibility to issues with regard to women in work inside G.E. and learn the behavior and to be business? Is that how you set your humble, to ask questions, to learn, and so on. We own career goals? are not fixed or ossified. We change. When I arrived I live in a country that is still very macho. If you take at G.E., we had the health care business, and we the 150 biggest companies in France, there are no wanted to sell our [magnetic resonance imaging women CEOs. So, in my own case, I would say I have machines] and our scanners. We did it one way. We taken any opportunity that came to me—and I didn’t argued France had fewer scanners and M.R.I.’s per have that many. I didn’t have a career where I thought, capita than Germany, the U.K. and so on. Because of or could think, “I’m doing this job now because in that, in France, to get an M.R.I. reading, the average three years I will be able to do that job.” Never. And it’s queue was about 45 days. That’s a long time to wait not because I didn’t think I could do the job. It’s that I for such important information. So objectively, didn’t know the opportunity existed for me or would we knew France needed to buy more scanners and ever exist for me. I was ignorant about the extent of the M.R.I.’s to give the French people the same quality opportunity I would be presented with. Thankfully, health care as the British and Germans. However, it because of the hard work we have all done, a lot has turns out that argument doesn’t work. The reason changed in France, and a lot more opportunities now it doesn’t work is that when you talk to the [French exist. But it has taken time. Real change always does. 

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 21 by David Berreby ILLUSTRATIONS by MARCO WAGNER THE OPTIMISM-PESSIMISM CONTINUUM

I suspect the answer is no. Science in the past 20 years has made it abundantly clear that the human mind is not a clear pane through which we see reality. ONCE, It is, rather, a distorting mirror, thanks in no small part I had high hopes for this to its optimistic and pessimistic impulses. Few people, of course, are so purely, foolishly article. As I began work on it, I optimistic as to think that nothing can go wrong, thought it would be compelling, and just as few live with an Eeyore-like insistence that everything will. Rather, optimism is a sense that insightful and influential. Then the unknown problems of the future can and will be solved. According to one leading psychological theory, I hit some bumps, then a few it is a style of thinking about adversity. The optimist is more, and the day came when I prone to think that bad events are, first, generally not part of a pattern, second, not caused by the optimist’s began to feel I might barely get own mistakes, and third, easily compartmentalized (in through it. Why, I wondered, other words, when the car breaks down, the optimist doesn’t assume this means the rest of the day will go did I take this thing on? sour). Conversely, real pessimism is the conviction that I’d been optimistic at the none of this list is true. All other things being equal, people have habitual, outset. Then, I’d gone overboard temperamental tendencies toward one outlook or another, about which they may not have much in the other direction. control. (For instance, it appears that the likelihood Now, at the end of the project, of scoring high on a widely used test of optimism is partly genetic.) And that means, by definition, that we both the up and down swings are ignoring reality, applying our preferred outlook to look like kind of a waste. new situations, rather than judging each on the merits. Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t do that—if we could Producing this article could use a drug, or judicious zaps to the brain, to eliminate these distortions? Wouldn’t it be great to see through have been achieved in less time, the window into the future as if it were a distortion- and with less stress, without free glass of crystal-clear water? The answer is well established by research on the spending emotional capital on basis of decision making in the brain—thanks to those highs and lows. And yet, studies of unfortunate patients who have brain damage in the ventromedial frontal lobe, a region necessary has anyone reading this—or any for making us aware of our emotions. They are free organization to which they’ve of the highs of optimism and the lows of pessimism, and their lives don’t work. For example, after a tumor belonged—gotten through a damaged the ventromedial region in the brain of one formerly successful businessman, he lost his marriage project without these waves of and his job. As one of his physicians, the neuroscientist overly rosy and overly gloomy Antonio Damasio, has written, the man’s brain worked normally in all other respects—so well, in fact, that he intuitions? couldn’t obtain disability payments—but his lack of

25 "Perhaps we are inclined to ignore the odds against us because we, like all living creatures, have already beaten tremendous odds. We did it just by existing." THE OPTIMISM-PESSIMISM CONTINUUM

highs and lows made him seem “an uninvolved spec- terol, according to a recent study in the journal Health tator” in his own life. Without such feelings to focus his Behavior & Policy Review. Optimists are also known in attention, he would spend hours deciding what color the epidemiological literature for getting fewer colds pen to use, or where to eat his lunch. Unmoved by his and suffering less from flu. When they get cancer, they own unraveling, he simply watched with mild interest, tend to have better outcomes. As friends, neighbors as if it were happening to someone else. and colleagues, they are supposedly more pleasant and The lesson here is clear: We can’t sustain our productive—“happiness magnets,” as the former Olym- plans and projects if we’re disconnected from our pian Mary Lou Retton puts it. passionate and distorted perceptions about their Yet a closer look at the science makes it clear that future. So even if a pill should come into existence optimists have—surprise, surprise—overstated their that would allow you to disconnect from the ups and case. Pessimists (if they thought it would do any good, downs of your feelings about the future, you would which they might not) can offer their own studies to be foolish to take it. Contending with our conflicting counter each point about the merits of the rosy view. waves of optimism and pessimism is an inescapable Health benefits? A very long-term Stanford Univer- part of planning for the future. As we cannot do sity study of 1,528 people over eight decades was able to without them, we’d do well to try to harness their track the entire lives of people whose relative optimism benefits and minimize the damage they do. and pessimism had been assessed when they were chil- Half of this case is easy to make: Convincing dren. It found that the children who scored highest in human beings that they need optimism has never been optimism were the soonest to die as adults. Similarly, difficult. A conviction that one can beat unfavorable a study in the journal Psychology and Aging, reported odds seems to be baked into the human psyche. After last year in The Wall Street Journal, found that people all, worldwide, lotteries collect the equivalent of older than 65 who expected to be less satisfied with $275 billion annually, even though any rational person their lives in five years were more likely to be alive and would describe them (as one rational person did) as “a healthy years later, compared to those who were more tax on people who don’t understand probability.” optimistic. Better work and better friendships? Not Perhaps we are inclined to ignore the odds against necessarily, when the going gets tough. When events us because we, like all living creatures, have already fail to confirm their outlook, optimists cope with the beaten tremendous odds. We did it just by existing. stress of adversity less well than pessimists, according In a universe with plenty of barren rocks, we live on a to a host of studies. One likely reason: Pessimists aren’t planet capable of supporting life, which actually has easily disappointed. living creatures on it, some few of which are pretty in- Even if there is no clear verdict about which outlook telligent—something 4 billion years of evolution never is healthier, there is still a widespread prejudice that managed before us. All very unlikely success stories. optimism makes for better friends, neighbors and And what is true about our species is also true for co-workers. Are there any reasons you might prefer any individual human being. At the most literal level, engaging with gloomy Gusses rather than people of the odds are always against any particular egg being cheerier outlook? fertilized and growing to become a healthy newborn. As it happens, there are. One is rooted in the And the odds of any particular sperm cell reaching its fact that pessimism isn’t merely the absence of op- goal are infinitesimally low. That you exist to cherish timism—it is its own mode of thinking and feeling a certain mad optimism is a sort of proof that mad about the future. One that offers some strengths that optimism can be justified. optimists lack. Some medical research suggests that optimism By dint of their uncertainty that they can prevail accords with our biology. People who score high on over future challenges, pessimists tend to worry. As standard psychological measures of optimism tended they game out potential failures, they can be more to have healthier diets, have lower Body Mass Index likely to imagine solutions. In other words, while scores, lower blood pressure, blood sugar and choles- optimists on a team will expect solutions to arise if

27 THE OPTIMISM-PESSIMISM CONTINUUM

needed, generating those solutions may require a few cost overruns ran an average of 45 percent. As Kahn- pessimists who actually thought in detail about how eman notes in his summary of his work on human bias to handle trouble. According to Adam Perkins, a psy- and error, “Thinking Fast and Slow,” these data are chologist at King’s College, London, the pessimistic striking because they cover three decades. They show tendency to imagine threats is a natural spur to that two decades of experience in railroad projects thoughts about how to meet those threats—in other since the late 1960s did not improve the forecasting of words, to creativity. projects started in the 1990s. The planning fallacy is Other psychological research aligns with his theory as much a component of our personal lives as it is of of a link between angst and performance. Experiments our work. As Kahneman recounts, in 2002, a survey conducted on students—some as young as 6 and 7, of American homeowners who had remodeled their some in college—continually find that those who have kitchens found that, on average, they had expected the been lulled into a happy mood score lower on tests and job to cost $18,658; in fact, they ended up paying an games than do those who have been made sad or angry average of $38,769. just before the exercise. There are two types of errors in thought involved in these pratfalls of optimism. One is giving too much weight to social factors: We human beings are highly alert to the way others see us, and in convincing onlookers that we are skilled and efficient, we convince ourselves all too easily. And often organizational politics adds its weight as well. As an acquaintance told me recently, discussing meetings about his construction work for a big urban government, when confronted by the boss’s grand but hese results suggest that overconfidence impossible vision, direct reports faced a choice: They arising from optimism leads people to skip the effort could say “it cannot be done,” and earn a lot of ill will they need to anticipate and solve future problems. But from their superior. Or they could say “yes, indeed!” the problems of optimism may run deeper than lack of and later report that they failed—which earns them a interest in details. When they do settle down to predict pat on the back for at least having tried. As the project how the future will treat them, optimists often fail to planning wore on, he said, everyone involved learned engage reality—even when they have experience to that the second option was the only safe choice. guide them. Aside from pressure from others to be too opti- This is because our innate tendency to prefer rose- mistic, there is a second source of error in optimistic colored glasses causes us to think our goals can be met assessments. It is, simply, making plans using the more easily than they can be in reality. In fact, the reli- wrong frame of reference. To estimate future costs able tendency of estimates to be too rosy has a name, in money and time, your project should be compared coined by the Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel objectively to others like it. Instead, people tend to Kahneman and his late colleague Amos Tversky: the compare it to the last one they personally worked on, “planning fallacy.” This is the almost unavoidable ten- or to those that seem to them to be similar. If that dency of organizations to underestimate the amount comparison yields an unacceptably gloomy projection, of time and money required to complete a project, due they then look for reasons why, to use a familiar jingle to an optimistic take on potential future problems and beloved of optimists, “This time is different.” the organizations’ own capacities. The cure for all this is simple: Request—and heed!— For example, Kahneman has noted, among rail someone who has no incentive to misjudge the future. projects undertaken worldwide between 1969 and 1998, Planning needs an outside observer who has no stake estimates of the number of passengers who would use in being admired, liked or rewarded, and has no cher- the system were on average 106 percent too high, while ished notion about why this project is special and no

28 "We human beings are highly alert to the way others see us, and in convincing onlookers that we are skilled and efficient, we convince ourselves all too easily."

29 "Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you." —Mary Lou Retton THE OPTIMISM-PESSIMISM CONTINUUM

knowledge of your team’s last success story. The cold Then came the unpredictable events that dog eye of the outsider, using the correct reference class to every endeavor. Some were directly related to the make comparisons, is much more likely to be accurate work: Bomb-proof syncing of the app’s complex files, than the “inside view.” which users would need to switch between computers This is easy to say, but social pressure and habits and mobile devices, proved much more difficult than of thought incline us to resist or suppress the “outside anyone expected. Others were the sorts of curveballs view” of our plan. In a project Kahneman himself that pessimists are sure will come and optimists think worked on, one team member with a great deal of ex- they’ll handle if and when necessary. In this case, the perience had projected that the work would take seven iOS developer hired for the project developed serious to 10 years. But before Kahneman had prompted him health problems, but didn’t want to admit defeat. to bring his knowledge to bear, the very same man had In retrospect, Blount reflects, he should have sepa- estimated that the work would take around two. In this rated from the developer and found someone else. But case, a team member needed help from others to see his optimism—intellectual, emotional and social—held own “outside view” clearly. him back. “The person wants to do it,” he says. “You want to give them that chance because you’ve got a personal relationship with that person. And they know the project really well at that point, so you’re kind of hoping they can get past these problems.” The iOS app had to be delayed. Adding to the stress, some potential users complained—some to tech support staff that should have been spending their time on users’ issues with the Mac and Windows versions of the app. then, can you leverage the benefits of each A second developer came on to the project, then outlook on life without succumbing to its ill effects? “hit a brick wall,” Blount recalls, and, again, was kept It’s a tricky challenge in management, both for your- on too long. Much as we look to leaders to optimisti- self and your team. cally inspire us, he has concluded that there are other Consider the experience of Keith Blount, creator of times when leadership requires insisting on pessimism. Scrivener, a writing app beloved of novelists, bloggers “That’s part of being the big bad boss,” he says. “Being and scholars for its writer-friendly features (full dis- the person who says, ‘This isn’t going as well.’ It’s hard closure: this article was created on the app). Begun as a to be that person when sometimes you need to be.” personal project about 10 years ago, Scrivener launched Now, three years later, Blount is on his third devel- as a commercial product in 2006, and Mac and then oper and finally testing a product. However, he says, Windows versions of the app did well for six years. But the company’s stance is now “we’re not going to make by 2012, with the world going mobile, Blount decided it guesses about when it will be released, it’s just going was time to create an iOS version. to be finished when it is. We’re on that swing of the He knew this would be a big project — it involved pendulum now.” not only translating the app into a new operating Of course, he reflects, he could have simply an- system but also creating bomb-proof syncing for very nounced nothing and kept the iOS project a secret. complex files. He knew that the Windows version However, in the software universe, “if you do that of the app had taken two and a half years to perfect, people think you’re not working on anything at all. even though developers had told him it would take People can be equally frustrated by that approach.” six months. (“Whenever you speak to a developer The dance of optimism and pessimism, both in one’s they say, ‘I can do that in six months, easy,’ ” he says own head and organization and in what one tells the wryly.) He optimistically announced that the iOS ver- public, is not easy to maintain. Both outlooks have their sion was in development, and that it would be ready uses, and either, applied wrongly can sink a project. It is, by the end of the year. as Blount says, “a really difficult balance.” ◄

BY LAWRENCE M. FISHER

If you consult Wikipedia on Ned Ludd, you will learn that Ned Ludd may or may not have been his name, and that he may or may not have smashed two stocking frames in 1779. The Luddites who emerged three decades later took the folkloric King Ludd or Capt. Ludd as their mythical hero. Ned may have gotten a bad rap, if he ever existed at all, but the organized frame-breakers who followed were surely only expressing their concern about the impact of new technology on the future of work. Today they might go on the lecture circuit. perhaps they’d write books. Search Amazon for “The Future of Work,” and you find three books with that very title, two just published this year, and 157,971 results with some variation on the theme. These run the gamut from the predictably alarmist—robots will steal our jobs—to the wishful utopian—the coming post-capitalist life of leisure. It’s an enduring theme, the future of work, dating at least since Adam Smith’s 1776 opus, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” through Frederick Winslow Taylor’s 1911 “TheOr Principles of Scientific Management,” and on to more contemporary classics like Peter Drucker’s “Management Challenges for the 21st Century,” and Charles Handy’s “The Age of Unreason.” There is no evidence that hunter-gatherers or subsistence farmers gave much thought to the future of work, but ever since humanity began to substitute technology for labor, we have fretted about the outcome. Some prognostications have clearly come true. Many credit Drucker with coining the term “knowledge worker” in 1957, when he suggested “the most valuable asset of a 21st- century institution, whether business or non-business, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity.” And Handy, who is sometimes referred to as the British Drucker, was similarly apt in foretelling “portfolio careers,” a phrase he came up with in the 1980s to describe people who work for themselves and serve a portfolio of individuals and entities.

Handy took a more pessimistic tone in a 1994 sequel, “The Age of Paradox,” but it was also prescient. Technology has increased wealth and consumption among a few, while reducing employment and incomes for many, he wrote. Opportunities for personal fulfillment are complicated by demands for ever- greater efficiency, and the new freedom to pursue more flexible lifestyles that account for our personal and professional lives only increases the inequities between the skilled or talented haves and the less-fortunate have-nots. That sounds a lot like today’s workplace. But what about 10 or 20 years from now? What will constitute work? What will people do? What will go away? Not Apply Humans Need for all the people around; it’s just going erry kaplan is a serial entrepreneur, having started to be different work. People may not be jpioneering companies in artificial intelligence, Teknowledge; pen skilled for the jobs that come along, and computing, GO Corp.; Internet auctions, OnSale; and social gaming, AI technology is just going to accelerate Winster. Clearly, he’s an inveterate optimist. But his outlook on the future this trend.” of work is more nuanced, as stated succinctly in the title of his new book: As Karl Marx pointed out, industrial “Humans Need Not Apply; A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of automation substitutes capital for labor, Artificial Intelligence.” Kaplan says. The new generation of AI, As Kaplan writes, after 50 years and billions of dollars, we have finally which he calls “synthetic intellects,” can cracked the code on artificial intelligence, and recent advances in robotics, also substitute capital for your mind. perception and machine learning are enabling new computer systems that The future, he says, will be a struggle of rival or exceed human capabilities. These developments could usher in a assets against people. But though Kaplan new period of prosperity and leisure, but there’s a big “but.” is a technologist through and through, “The transition may be protracted and brutal,” he writes. “Without he sees the struggle primarily as a failure adjustments to our economic system and regulatory policies, we may be in of public policy, not malevolent smart for an extended period of social turmoil.” machines. Social turmoil is a byproduct when new technology is introduced in “We don’t move markets. People don’t the workplace, but the severity of that turmoil depends on the speed of move markets, it’s algorithms,” Kaplan the transition. Artificial intelligences may displace Drucker’s knowledge says. “We didn’t sit down and think workers as thoroughly as tractors replaced farm labor. Indeed, some about it and design things effectively. already have: Computers now execute an estimated 85 percent of stock Probably we shouldn’t have allowed com- trades. New technology also creates new jobs, but that takes time. Today’s puter trades. If people could see it, they’d workers may not be qualified for tomorrow’s career opportunities, and be up in arms. It’s crazy to have cabals of this time their collars will be white. programmers fighting over fractions of a “There’s a bunch of new technologies that are going to make a lot second deciding our markets. Or the bots of current activities susceptible to automation where they haven’t been buying up all the best tickets on Ticket- before,” says Kaplan. “It’s all a question of how fast it happens. We’re not master: If you had to buy your ticket by going to run out of things to do. There will ultimately be plenty of work going to the concert hall and you saw 75

35 percent of the people in line were robots, matter, it’s the jobs that are never developed to begin with, because they’re that would be illegal. ” taken by machines instead of people.” Kaplan’s book is longer on description Saffo points out that today’s most successful companies just aren’t than prescription, but he argues that hiring in the numbers that characterized big companies in the past. Face- a comfortable future depends on new book has a market capitalization of $260 billion, but just 10,000 full-time policies that get at the heart of inequality, employees, compared with I.B.M., valued at $147 billion, with 380,000 which will otherwise be exacerbated to employees. Pharaonic levels. Laws must change to Like Kaplan, Saffo says the other critical element will be how quickly hold autonomous systems responsible for robots gain new capabilities, and that is a mixed bag. “Robots are capable their actions; education must prepare stu- of doing things far beyond the capability of human beings,” he says. “They dents for an ever more rapidly changing can see into the infrared and the ultraviolet, but at the same time, some work environment; and a program of tax things that ordinary humans do, they can’t do at all, like opening door- incentives, portfolio transparency and knobs. Anybody worried about the Terminator in his or her future can increased individual control over assets just lock the door. I suspect this is a slow-motion tidal wave, and velocity must encourage corporations to “do the matters, because the more slowly it happens, the more we will adapt.” right thing.” Otherwise, look out. Saffo doesn’t suggest that the changes aren’t real, or that their impacts “Advances in information technology won’t be profound, but he believes that how well society will accommo- are already gutting industries and jobs date them is a matter of choice. If society values quarterly earnings over at a furious clip, far faster than the labor workplace integrity, workers will suffer. Apocalypse is unlikely, he says, markets can possibly adapt, and there’s but jobs will be even less secure, an ever greater percentage of workers will much worse to come,” Kaplan writes. be unwilling independent contractors, and the notion of a job for life will “They are also substituting capital for be a quaint bit of nostalgia. labor in completely new ways, delivering “Automation in the ’60s really did change manufacturing,” Saffo says. a disproportionate share of new wealth “The U.S. is the second-largest manufacturer in the world. The reason to the already rich.” is productivity, which is the substitution of capital for labor. Companies grew, but they didn’t hire more people. You cannot blame the insecurity of American workers on robots. There is no reason we have to use this technology to make workers less secure; we’ve chosen to do that. If I had to blame one thing for the plight of workers, it wouldn’t be robots, it Déjà Vu would be shareholder value.” All Over Again If there’s a ring of “we have all been here before” in today’s lamentations A Failure of Leadership and forecasts about automation and the workplace, it’s because we have. The loss Don’t blame the robots, blame the leaders, says Jeffrey Pfeffer, a much- of jobs to machines was a popular meme published professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, whose during the Depression. It rose again with latest book is piquantly titled “Leadership BS.” Our workplaces are terrible a more hopeful, if fanciful, vibe in the places to be, and our corporate leaders fail at astonishing rates, he says. early 1960s, the era of the Seattle World’s “I think the workplace by every measure—job satisfaction, employee Fair that gave birth to the Space Needle engagement, income stagnation, income inequality—is bad,” says Pfeffer. and the Monorail. “Some colleagues and I have done work for academic journals about the Paul Saffo teaches future studies at health effects of work, and we found it causes 120,000 excess deaths in Stanford and Singularity University, and the U.S. every year. This is not from accidents; it’s from the stress of work. he for one is not stricken by the latest We have by every measure, a very unhealthy workplace, and I see no signs round of robot anxiety. “This subject, this that things are getting better. I see every sign that things are getting fear of robots stealing our jobs, is a comet worse. The workplace is a catastrophe by any measure.” on a loopy orbit that comes screaming In “Leadership BS,” Pfeffer places much of the blame on a leadership across the sky every few years,” he says. industry—all those coaches, consultants and conferences—that promotes “This is a profound shift, but everybody is a lot of feel-good mantras and inspiring stories that are often at odds with focusing on the wrong thing. It’s not the the characteristics of real leaders. The industry recommends that leaders jobs that are being taken by robots that inspire trust, be authentic, tell the truth, serve others, be modest and

36 self-effacing, and exhibit empathy and emotional intelligence and other seemingly sensible nostrums. But, Pfeffer asks, where are the successful leaders with these qualities? And most leaders are not successful; they fail Trading Money their people, their organizations, the larger society and even themselves with unacceptable frequency, he writes. for Time “Then of course, we evaluate the leadership training efforts, not by whether they’ve made the workplace better, but with these happy sheets In a recent article in The New York Times, that ask, ‘Did you have a good time?’ ” says Pfeffer. “They’re evaluating the Amazon was portrayed as a notably harsh wrong thing; they’re evaluating entertainment. The correct prescription place to work, and follow-up stories in a is to change how you hire the people who are going to do the leadership number of publications noted that similar development and talks, and to require expertise. We need to do what pressure-cooker environments were medicine did in the early 1900s. Evaluate things based on the changes common in today’s high-tech corpora- you’re trying to create. If leadership programs are supposed to improve tions. But people are also working longer the workplace, that’s what you ought to evaluate.” and harder days in professional service firms and partnerships, driven by the same technical innovations and the same need to maintain a competitive edge. Consider the practice of law, says Jeffrey Bleich, a former United States ambassador to Australia, special counsel to President Obama, chair of the California “The workplace by every State University Board of Trustees, and president of the State Bar of California. “It used to be that if you were a very measure– job satisfaction, good lawyer, you made a good income, but you didn’t become rich. You just became comfortable, middle class,” Bleich employee engagement, says. “Judges made a bit more because they had to become great lawyers.” The workday for a good lawyer at a major income stagnation, income firm was 9 to 6, probably with a two-hour lunch break. “If anybody left voicemail for you after 5, that was considered very bad inequality–is bad.” form. Most things that needed a response from opposing counsel were sent by mail, so once you sent it, you didn’t have to think about it for two weeks.” Today’s high-level attorneys make many times what a judge makes, many In 1910, a report produced by Abraham Flexner for the Carnegie times what a previous generation of Foundation transformed the training, and also the science and practice of lawyers made, but there’s a cost. “The medicine, leading to the closing of one-third of existing medical schools; expectation is they are going to be avail- the formal licensing of physicians; and the biomedical, scientific founda- able 24/7 by e-mail; they are going to do tion of modern medical practice. Pfeffer would like to see something filings up until midnight,” says Bleich. like a Flexner report for business education, something with a scientific “As soon as something crosses their desk, foundation, but he holds out no hope of such a thing coming to pass. they push it onto the opposing counsel, “Now, do you believe this is possible, in today’s world, where you can’t so things that used to take a month to even get a budget passed?” Pfeffer asks. “It is not that the problems are sort out are done in furious e-mails in the insolvable; they’re completely solvable. course of a day. The ability to go home It is possible to change this, but the odds of it happening in the cur- and have dinner with your family, or to rent situation are close to zero. Maybe instead of the Great Place to Work have predictable vacations—those things list, we ought to put out a list of the companies that are killing the most have gone away.” people every year.” These changes have come about

37 partly through the adoption of new technology, partly through new billing “I’m very optimistic,” says Wind. “I practices and partly through shifting customs and practices, says Bleich. think it’s the most exciting time ever. “Companies are moving at the speed of the Internet, and they expect lawyers Because if people want to be a free agent billing what they do to move at that speed, too,” he says. “In the course of one they can. If they want to be entrepre- generation, there’s been a sea change, but it’s been gradual, so people think neurs, it’s the easiest time ever to start it’s always been this way. People who started 20 years ago don’t mourn their your own company. But let’s put it in old life, but wish they could trade a bit of money for more time.” perspective. I’m very optimistic for the Bleich expects advances in automation to have a number of positive highly educated segment of the work impacts, not just for obvious industries like trucking, but also for home- force. I’m very pessimistic for the unedu- based workers, including artists and publishers. And he’s not worried about cated. These guys are not going to make robots replacing lawyers any time soon. it. It’s not a function of the workplace; it’s “A lot of law is about the emotional connection,” Bleich says. “Can you what we’re not doing to prepare this huge think how other people do? Can you convey that and bring them around percentage of the population for jobs to your point of view? Can you read peoples’ reactions in real time, in a in the new world. This calls for a major way that allows you to quickly recalculate and change the words you use? reinvention of education.” This is far beyond what anyone is hoping to train some artificial intelligence project to accomplish.” All Keynesians Now? The Most Exciting Time Ever A surprising number of the futurists and management thinkers interviewed for Jerry (Yoram) Wind is the Lauder Professor and professor of marketing at this article recommended re-reading John the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and is the founding Maynard Keynes, and specifically his essay, director of the Wharton think tank, the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchil- Management. Wind, who co-wrote a book called “The Power of Impossible dren,” written in 1930, during the depths Thinking,” about transforming life and business, has a distinctly glass-half- of the Depression. Keynes took exception full vision of the future of work. Big changes are under way, he says, but to the then-prevailing view that a decline many are for the best. in prosperity was more likely than an “Among the key forces driving change, one is obviously that consumers, improvement in the decade ahead. and employees as well, are getting more empowered and more skeptical,” “I believe that this is a wildly mistaken Wind says. “Today, people want to work for, be part of and buy from com- interpretation of what is happening to us,” panies that have a purpose, that have a positive social impact. Couple this Keynes wrote. “We are suffering, not from with the desire of people to have a better balance between work, play and the rheumatics of old age, but from the family. That’s been coming for years, but it’s much more dominant today.” growing-pains of over-rapid changes, from Wind sees technology not as a threat, but as a potential source of em- the painfulness of readjustment between powerment. “The other key force for potential workers is the development one economic period and another. The of AI, what I.B.M. calls cognitive computing, with Watson,” the company’s increase of technical efficiency has been name for cognitive computing systems that understand natural language taking place faster than we can deal with and are not programmed, but instead learn by observation. “Think in terms the problem of labor absorption.…” of automation, robotics, but also in terms of the impact on white-collar That does have a familiar ring, and it workers. The nature of work is going to change dramatically because now is comforting. Keynes got some things you have an intelligent assistant that can give you not only a Google search, right and some things wrong, of course; but validified responses.” his predictions of unbounded leisure were Wind says technology will enable free agents to thrive in new types of a bit off the mark. Probably something business. He points to InnoCentive, a pioneer in the field of open innova- similar is true for today’s prophets as well. tion, which connects clients who have a problem, with “Solvers,” freelance That post-capitalist utopia will remain experts from around the globe, who supply a crowd-sourced solution. Wind elusive, but the doomsday scenarios will predicts that some large companies will no longer build in-house expertise, be ameliorated, possibly by solutions but will source it as needed from InnoCentive and its competitors. And yet unimagined. The road to the future as Handy predicted, solvers will build a portfolio of clients, rather than a won’t be free of bumps, but it needn’t be career within corporations. a dead end either. 

39 n the 1980s, aided by the predictions of such futurists as Alvin Toffler in his best-selling book The Third Wave, the office of the future seemed likely to be at home, or at least partially so. Telecommuting was the topic du jour and Toffler’s “electronic cottage” set off speculation that the most productive workers would be allowed flexible strictures around their corporate lives. The office itself, reshaped by advances in technology, would likely remain physically unchanged but white- collar employees would become far more productive if they could avoid time-draining commutes and the distractions of crowded offices. By Glenn Rifkin

ILLUSTRATIONS BY LUCIO SHIAVON 42 Though Toffler was prescient in terms of the emerging popularity of telecommuting, the long experiment in the concept of work-at-home seems to have come full circle. Flex time has become an accepted corporate benefit—an estimated 45 percent of today’s workforce works at least occasionally at home—but forward-looking companies such as Bell Labs, Apple, Google, Samsung and Facebook, have come to realize that innovation rests largely on effective collaboration of smart, motivated and creative workers bumping into each other at the water cooler and in the halls. If ideas are the currency of innovation, the most effective way to share ideas becomes the blueprint for the office of the future.

We’ve learned that face-to-face interactions are by far the most important activity in an office. psychology as technology and the cease- less quest for innovation has spawned a wave of dramatic thinking about how best In fact, to create an innovation-prone environment. Tony Hsieh, founder and CEO of TECHNOLOGY IS NOW CAPABLE Zappos, is a proponent of “collisionable of measuring such outcomes. Ben Waber, hours,” the idea that smart people CEO of Humanyze, a Boston-based bumping randomly into other smart company founded out of Professor Alex people is the optimum source for idea “Sandy” Pentland’s Human Dynamics exchanges that lead to innovation. Laboratory at MIT’s Media Lab, believes Hsieh is reportedly investing $350 the data confirms the point. Humanyze million in the area near Zappo’s new head- makes “sociometric badges” that capture quarters in Las Vegas, in order to foster interaction, communication, and location entrepreneurial activity. The idea is to information for employees. The resulting bring employees together with area resi- data is analyzed to determine just what dents and independent workers to share workers are doing during their day in ideas and create new ventures. Early on, terms of time spent with colleagues and the new virtual office space created a 42 resulting actions percent increase in face-to-face encoun- “We’ve learned that face-to-face ters, a 78 percent increase in participant- interactions are by far the most important generated proposals to solve specific activity in an office,” Waber said. “For problems and an 84 percent increase in example, we can look at all the people who the number of new leaders who emerged just got promoted and see what they do to work on various parts of the project. If differently. That’s really powerful.” he meets his goal, Hsieh hopes to generate While Waber’s technology has demon- 100,000 collisionable hours per acre in the strated intriguing promise, the path to the neighborhood. office of the future is littered with broken Not surprisingly, face-to-face has re- promises and diminished expectations. emerged as a foundational requirement Variations on the “office of the future” for successful companies. have emerged repeatedly over the past “Even though the Internet provided a three decades. Glassed-in offices were tool for virtual and distant collaborations, replaced by cubicles; cubicles gave way another lesson of digital-age innovation to open environments; assigned spaces is that, now as in the past, physical prox- morphed into rotating desk assignments; imity is beneficial,” wrote Walter Isaacson, audio conference calls evolved into sleek author of the best-selling book on Steve video conference rooms that allowed Jobs, in Entrepreneur magazine. Ac- virtual face-to-face meetings of colleagues cording to Isaacson, Jobs fixated on every around the globe. Despite all these modi- detail of the physical layout of his offices. fications, productivity levels remained “When Steve Jobs designed a new head- stagnant. Facilities managers continued quarters for Pixar, he obsessed over ways to be rewarded for reducing costs and in- to structure the atrium, and even where creasing usable square footage rather than to locate the bathrooms, so that serendipi- for creating more productive work spaces. tous personal encounters would occur. But now, things may finally be shifting. Among his last creations was the plan Companies are employing artificial for Apple’s new signature headquarters, a intelligence solutions, data analytics, circle with rings of open workspaces sur- robotics, natural settings replete with rounding a central courtyard.” flora and fresh air, and a renewed focus on According to Isaacson, places like Bell human nature to rethink how employees Labs unearthed the advantages of face-to- work most productively. The modern face collaboration as far back as the 1960s work-space is being reshaped as much by and little has emerged to demonstrate

44 that such meetings in the flesh can be of technology and personalized, choice- replicated digitally. “The founders of Intel based software solutions. The presence of created a sprawling team-oriented open technology in every aspect of our life in workspace where employees all rubbed 2040 is predominating our way of living. against one another,” he wrote. “It was a The workplace of 2040 is far more agile, model that became common in Silicon the presence of technology is ultra pre- Valley. Predictions that digital tools would dominant and human beings are highly allow workers to telecommute were never reliant on it.” fully realized.” When Yahoo named In other words, the more things Marissa Mayer as its new CEO in 2012, change, the more they are likely to remain she immediately dictated that employees the same. And of course, the seeds of that needed to work on site rather than at future are being sown right now. ● home, saying, “People are more collabora- tive and innovative when they’re together.” A recent report called Smart Work- place 2040 from CBRE Global Workplace No longer Solutions, the Los Angeles-based energy efficiency giant, took a crack at pre- dicting the office as we might find it 25 static years from now. “Corporate organizations are still FOR HASIER LARREA, a mechanical considering the workplace as delivering engineer from the Basque region of a strong identity and more than ever Spain, the office of the future is likely as a marketing weapon, creating and to be a dynamic and intelligent space, a sustaining their corporate identity,” the new twist on the Internet of Things that report—hypothetically written in 2040— will transform everything we currently stated. “The intensity of performance think about physical locations. Larrea level improvements increased significantly recently graduated from MIT’s Media over the past ten years, accelerating the Lab where he did breakthrough work on pace of work through the combined power creating dynamic spaces as part of the Lab’s Changing Places research project. Though he remains a research affiliate with the Media Lab, Larrea donned an entrepreneur’s hat and is starting a company called MorphLab to deploy When Steve Jobs some of these ideas into the marketplace. In Larrea’s research, he noted that designed a new the static nature of our work and living spaces has not evolved very much for more headquarters for Pixar, than 2,000 years. Architectural layouts he obsessed over ways today are virtually the same as when the Romans built their cities. Nearly all of to structure the atrium, the improvements in office space depend on large spaces divided into private and and even where to public areas. A meeting room might be used for two hours during a day and be locate the bathrooms, wasted space the rest of the time. But so that serendipitous what if those spaces were dynamic and intelligent (see the video: https://youtu.be/ personal encounters 3Z8rGrjILX0)? What if the technology allowed the walls, the tables, the chairs and would occur. the floors to hold enough embedded intelligence to reconfigure themselves ideas to really improving the ef- and react to a person’s individual ficiency, wellness, and health of our needs, turning a single workspace work environment.” into three different workspaces, Ultimately, enough intelligence, or taking several individual spaces using sensors and data, will be and transforming them into a imbedded into a person’s com- meeting room? What if individual puters or chairs or desks so that devices such as laptop computers they will be able to judge a person’s would automatically notify the emotional state. Your chair might system of a low battery and a feel increasing tension in your charger would wheel itself over back and shoulders and read those to be plugged in? What if such a stress levels and react accordingly. system would notify a user that “All of a sudden, your office can -ef they had been sitting too long, fectively understand how stressed hunched over a computer screen you are and trigger action,” Larrea and suggested a break? said. The smart office of the “Suddenly all these things future will be filled with what a become more malleable and are fellow Media Lab researcher called transformed effortlessly,” Larrea “enchanted objects.” said. Through the use of robotic The key to Larrea’s vision, he technology that already exists, an explained, is that this revolution office space will transform itself will not require a breakthrough automatically when people enter from a single innovative startup. the space. Larrea noted that smart Instead, it will be customizable thermostats and utility technology based on a vast wave of app already allows users to control development from countless spaces with mobile phone apps. But developers, not unlike the world of that is just a beginning. smartphones. “You and I may have With vast numbers of people the same iPhone but the experience moving into the world’s biggest we have is totally different because cities, available real estate becomes we customize it with different more and more limited and spaces hardware and with different apps,” grow smaller and more cramped. he said. “The moment you allow Creating an environment that developers to create apps for these not only shifts and changes with office furnishings, you unleash the a user’s needs, but does it without potential of this concept.” human intervention is going to be Instead of one company dic- increasingly valuable as office space tating the evolution, the office of becomes more restricted. the future will be a platform with “Think about the chair where malleable capabilities. Once that you are sitting or the desk where happens, a new eco-system is born you have your notebook,” Larrea and creative developers will start said. “We think all these spatial ele- flooding the market with apps. ments are the key. They are going “It will be your office app store,” to bring new applications and new Larrea said. ● Tracking productivity IF THE OFFICE OF THE are capable of measuring little interactions are indeed by far future is a self-regulating, shape- more than cost per square foot. the most important activity in shifting entity that encourages According to Waber, companies an office. face-to-face encounters, how will now have the means to measure The badges, worn just like a CEOs actually measure the value whether the design of a space corporate ID badge, but equipped of these encounters? Anecdotal helps or hurts performance. with radio frequency sensors, have evidence can carry an executive With Humanzye’s badges, the been used in several Fortune 100 just so far. Real data to support idea is to shape the design of the companies already—hospitals, the findings makes the investment office of the future in terms of pharmaceuticals, finance and in such technology feasible. “density, proximity of people and software companies—to measure Ben Waber of Humanyze ac- social nature.” The early returns social signals from speech and knowledges that most companies demonstrate that face-to-face body movement and Waber

47 pointed out that the results are negative because they aren’t an- came to performance, what was uniformly positive. “We’ve gotten swering the phones when they are going to be the most important 100 percent positive feedback not not at their desk. A company can’t was how people talk to customers,” only because we deal with the data allow a large group of call center Waber said. “You have certain in the right way but I can point operators to take a break together people who communicate in a to literally tens of thousands of because too many calls would go certain way to customers and that people at companies like Bank unanswered. would impact how fast they com- of America who measurably like With giant call centers around plete calls. But it turned out that their jobs better.” the world employing millions of when it came to performance, the In the current office environ- employees, the metrics for mea- most important factor was how ment, facilities and real estate suring outcomes have always been you talk to your co-workers. If you managers are evaluated by cost simple and clear. How long does it had a really tight-knit network— per square foot rather than how take to complete a call? How many people who talk to each other a useful a space actually is. “People calls can you handle in an hour, lot—those people completed calls who work in real estate should be in a day? Given those measures, in half the time as those with the evaluated based not on how many outcomes should be uniform re- least tightknit networks.” more people can be crammed into gardless of geography. But Bank of Not only did the tightknit smaller offices but much more America was noticing something group complete calls more ef- around how the physical space af- odd. With call centers across the ficiently, they were also a lot less fects collaboration,” Waber said. country, organized exactly the stressed, an outcome the badges By monitoring where people same way with operators trained helped to measure. In a tight-knit

People who work in real estate should be evaluated based not on how many more people can be crammed into smaller offices but much more around how the physical space affects collaboration.

spend their time, who they are uniformly, the bank was noticing group, an individual’s feelings and talking to and how they react, very different performances. It needs become known quickly; and analyzing the results of these was assumed that the culture of telling one person usually means movements, Waber said that that particular call center was at that news spreads quickly and individual companies can measure the heart of the differences but inevitably there is some support the actual impact of face-to-face the bank had no way to isolate the system to help that person cope. encounters in the workplace. cause of the problem. In addition, in most call cen- At Bank of America, for ex- Humanyze came in to one such ters, there is competition among ample, Humanyze outfitted 80 call call center, deployed its badges to co-workers to reap the bonuses center employees with badges and 80 employees and began to mea- and promotions which are limited then monitored their movements sure how people communicated in number. If only the top 10 and activities. A call center is a with each other, how they talked percent of performers get a bonus, fascinating petri dish of the work- to customers on the phone and that means that an employee is place, Waber said, because they how those two factors impacted unlikely to share effective tech- have been managed essentially performance and turnover. This niques and methods for solving the same way since the 1960s. The office of the future effort might customer problems. If it took one employee sits at a desk all day an- have felt too similar to a Big hour for a call center operator to swering calls from people who are Brother invasion of privacy. But solve a customer problem, sharing angry about an issue that is not the response was remarkable. that experience with a colleague that employee’s fault. A call center “Before the data started who can then solve the same person on a break is considered a coming in, I assumed when it problem in five minutes using

48 this new information, makes strategically powerful, bring up a If companies can successfully the first employee look worse in plethora of issues for the office of assuage fears of individual rights comparison. But if they are friends the future. While measuring the being compromised, the net and don’t fear being sabotaged, impact of social interaction, are results are likely to turn conven- sharing is far more likely to occur these kinds of tools crossing the tional office wisdom about pro- and performance across the board line as too invasive? ductivity on its head. Executives is improved. Privacy, Waber said, is central have always assumed that a person According to Waber, when he to Humanyze’s efforts. Individuals sitting at a desk answering emails looked at all the data from the must opt-in and agree to wear or writing reports is being produc- badges it became clear that 80 the badge. It is entirely voluntary tive. Coffee breaks and social chat percent of the interaction among and the data is confidential. Con- around the water cooler were the colleagues took place in the 15 versations are not recorded and a bane of efficiency experts. But minutes when people’s lunch- person’s boss does not get to look what if it is just the opposite? breaks occasionally overlapped. at the data. “If someone doesn’t “If you spend six hours of your Noting that, Bank of America want to participate, they can say day helping ten people you work decided to reconsider the group’s so and we just give them a fake with become 20 percent more 15 minute coffee break. Instead of badge so that no one can know effective, now that should be your staggering the breaks, the entire they are not participating,” Waber job,” Waber said. “Before this, it team would take its coffee break said. Indeed, in its contracts with has been essentially impossible to at the same time. To control the customers, if a company tries to show the impact. There was just experiment, the bank changed compel an employee to give them no data. Now, we can put some the breaks for only half of the call access to the data, they’d be in hard numbers on these things. center teams. The other teams violation of the contract and the That’s where this becomes incred- continued to take staggered company can be sued. ibly powerful.” ● breaks. Nothing else was changed. The bank waited three months to go over the resulting data. They expected the teams that got the group breaks to become more cohesive and they did. But in addition, people reported a 19 percent reduction in stress Face-to-face levels. They found that by being able to share trying experiences OMPANIES THAT SPECIALIZE in managing immediately with colleagues, and enhancing office spaces, such as CBRE Global stress was reduced. Workplace Solutions, have been challenged for the past But more important, the couple of decades with the infusion of technology into experiment had a dramatic impact the workplace. Working with Global 1000 multinational on productivity. People completed companies, CBRE is focused not just on managing buildings but calls 23 percent more quickly ensuring that these buildings are transformed into spaces that attract, after the change was made. In retain and house productive workers. the groups where no change was Hannah Hahn, CBRE’s Global Workplace Innovation Manager, made, call times didn’t change. pointed out the firm is focused on a road map that it calls “high sense On top of that, turnover in those emergence,” which refers to the influx of technologies such as Waber’s groups dropped from 40 percent badges, that touch more senses and make collaboration, even remote to 12 percent a year. All this from collaboration, more effective. instituting a group-wide 15-minute Though the technology already exists in corporate meeting rooms coffee break. to bring together even the most remote workers, Hahn believes that no “What this is showing is that if technology will ever replace physical proximity. you can find the social levers that “It will always be important to have a face-to-face communication people are responsive to and you and real human interaction,” said Hahn, who is based in Cologne, can act on them in the right way, Germany. “In our research looking out to 2040, the digitizing of the you can get the biggest results,” workplace means more mobility and collaboration. But the focus is also Waber said. Such tools, while on employee health, wellness, and well-being.”  By Glenn Rifkin The Future of Work: A Meeting of Minds

THE FUTURE OF WORK HAS BEEN THE SUBJECT OF LIVELY discussion for at least three decades. While optimists and some organizations have been looking forward to a technology-driven utopian job environment, the nature of work remains fundamentally unchanged. Still, the advent of powerful technology and methods has remade the workplace for most organizations.

To explore the implications of the remains elusive. After these techno- Future of Work, Korn Ferry convened logical advances, are workers happier, a conference with the aim of creating more productive, or more likely to a community of ambitious-minded fu- remain loyal to an organization? ture-focused thinkers and practitioners. For corporate human resources The gathering brought together a cross- professionals, the transformation functional group with vision, influence of the workplace environment has and a mindset of positive change. reshaped their mandate and job Consider the impact over the past description. H.R.’s role is now that of 20 years of game-changing techno- strategic business partner. The per- logical breakthroughs such as the sonnel department’s directive is now Internet, wireless communications, aimed at not only helping to affect super-high-speed broadband networks the environment as it is influenced by and increasingly powerful microchips. technology, but in the acquisition of Try to think of life before e-mail and talent as well. No longer a corporate smartphones and social media and support function, H.R. is now tasked texting and Skype. Even those who are with partnering with the business old enough to recall that companies units to create viable talent strategies thrived and work actually got done are and enable employees to build a sense still hard-pressed to contemplate work of purpose and be the best they can be. life, or personal life for that matter, Speakers at the workshop included without these accouterments. We post three leading experts in their respective on Facebook, therefore we are. fields: Jo Taylor, Dave Coplin and Kursty But with the all the changes, the Groves Knight. Each has a unique take realization of a utopian workplace on what the future of work looks like.

50 BONAQUE The Future of Work: A Meeting of Minds

DAVE COPLIN: changes or slight improvements on tions is systematically changing. THE VIRTUAL the way we work, but fundamental Collaboration tools and social WORKFORCE transformative capabilities.” media offerings like LinkedIn, For example, available tech- Facebook and Twitter are creating Dave Coplin has been a futurist and nology could make the office so generational nuances that will visionary at Microsoft U.K. since different that “it might not be an influence the future of work. “H.R. joining the company in 2005. His office at all,” he said. During the has a really important part to play current title is “chief envisioning Industrial Revolution, workers had in not only supporting but also in officer,” and he is focused on to fit inside the physical confines demonstrating and enabling busi- providing strategic advice of a factory or mill, because that ness leaders to understand how and guidance about the was where the infrastructure was. to lead in this new environment,” impact of technology Those constraints no longer exist. Taylor said. on society, at work “Work should be an activity, or In the past, H.R.’s role was to and at play. Coplin is a set of activities, not a destination,” access employee data for an orga- an author whose latest Coplin declared. “Work is something nization, but today that has been book, “The Rise of the you do, not somewhere you go.” turned inside out. H.R., she said, Humans,” offers a call In fact, the biggest obstacle to aided by technology, is giving that to action for harnessing an overhaul of the future of work is responsibility back to the employee the “digital deluge” and taking cultural, not technical. “The chal- and the manager and that respon- control of the technology and its lenge of the next decade or longer sibility now rests not in H.R., but in impact on our lives. is how to make sure this remains the business units. As a self-described “alchemist,” humans plus machines rather than Taylor believes technology is Coplin suggested that we are sur- humans vs. machines,” Coplin said. having a powerful influence on rounded by “base metals”—the how staffers communicate outside organizational structure, the the normal channels. With em- buildings we are in and the tech- ployees able to work anywhere and nology we use—but “we don’t often technology available for sharing combine those elements together to documents and data and for virtual deliver magic. And that’s the poten- face-to-face encounters, she is tial for the future,” Coplin said. hopeful that time-consuming So many of the things we use meetings will die out. today were invented by “alchemists” There is a downside to the tech- who were trying to do the impos- JO TAYLOR: nological tsunami, however, that sible, he said. “The technology af- must be addressed. Technology has fords us a different way of working GLOBAL spawned an “always on” mentality and a different way of structuring TALENT that is wearing down workers. organizations,” he said. “The future WORK FORCE With e-mail and powerful mobile requires a few people to paint that Jo Taylor is a talent and organi- devices, there is no “down time.” picture, to make some whacky zational development consultant “What did we do before e-mail?” experiments that will perhaps in the U.K. She has been a highly Taylor asked. “We actually talked never work in the fullness in which successful senior human resources to each other. Now, whether you they were painted, so we won’t get executive for the past 15 years, are on holiday, on a train or a plane, gold out of base metals. But it will much of which was spent operating you are always ‘on,’ always expected make us think differently about the at the board level in a variety of to be available to answer e-mail and potential, and we may invent some leadership roles within flourishing do more work.” She favors creating new things along the way.” customer-facing organizations. She cultures where employees have According to Coplin, one of his was most recently the director of permission to shut off the work. roles is to show what is possible, to talent and recruiting for TalkTalk Indeed, Taylor is outspoken push through and change concep- Telecom Group. about trusting staffers to work tions about what we do and how we According to Taylor, talent virtually. “Why do we need offices work, and to deliver “not just tiny management within organiza- anymore?” she asked. “Why not

52 work in cafes or at home? We’re tion, commercial organizations disengaged staff and spotty loyalty. predesigned to be in an office, to need to become more innovative It was viewed essentially as a have meetings, to do everything on and think about much more commodity. PowerPoint.” than transactions. They have “When they became a private In fact, statistics show that to be driven by something more company, they had a really big issue personnel work half as hard in the meaningful because that is what getting people to buy products,” office as they do at home. “They get consumers want. Providing a Groves Knight said. “They decided up earlier and work later when they purpose for an organization to create a deeper and more are at home,” Taylor said. “In an of- has a profound effect, aspirational meaning for fice, with meetings and e-mails, you not just on customers the organization.” The are less productive.” For the outlook and employees but company created a new for the future of work to remain on the bottom line. A mission statement: upbeat, technology must enable a company without a “For Better Health” and work-life balance, which thus far clear purpose for doing changed its purpose, has been an elusive goal. what it is doing will not from providing health be able to differentiate itself insurance to creating better in a crowded, fast-moving market- health outcomes for its customers KURSTY place, Groves Knight pointed out. and employees. GROVES KNIGHT: She used Medibank, Australia’s The biggest challenge in making largest health insurance company, this transformation is being able to PURPOSE as an example. Previously run as think “bigger” about value creation AND PROFIT a nonprofit government-owned and discarding the myopic view Kursty Groves Knight is an award- private insurer, Medibank has that sees everything from a finan- winning innovation and design recently changed its business cial perspective, Groves Knight consultant and workplace adviser. model and is now a for-profit entity explained. “When companies take She is passionate about helping that pays dividends to the federal a bigger leap of faith into the un- organizations cultivate the right government. According to Groves known, that’s when they are able to cultural and physical environments Knight, Medibank was a typical take themselves into exciting new to support innovation. Her book, government-run institution with a territory,” Groves Knight said.  “I Wish I Worked There!: A Look Inside the Most Creative Spaces in Business,” examines the drivers to success for some of the world’s most “Organizations need to be innovative companies. genuine from the inside as well According to Groves Knight, as from the outside. They can no we’ve moved a great distance from longer hide behind a big logo the transactional world—“I pay you, you give me goods or services, and expect people to buy their and off we go”—to much more of products and services.” a service economy that is far more experiential. “The entire experience is so important for organizations, for consumers and employees,” Groves Knight said. “Because our world is so much more connected, organizations need to be genuine from the inside as well as from the outside. They can no longer hide behind a big logo and expect people to buy their products and services.” To accomplish this transforma- BONAQUE BY JOEL KURTZMAN AN INTERVIEW WITH SYDNEY FINKELSTEIN • Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College Helping Smart Leaders Succeed

Sydney Finkelstein knows a lot about failure. Not his own. His own life has been marked by accomplishment and success. The failures Finkelstein has studied are those of CEOs and other leaders of organizations. Finkelstein studied their failures as part of his research at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he has been teaching, developing courses and writing for the past 21 years. Much of the subject matter Finkelstein studies, and the conclusions that stem from it, have found their way into print. He is a prolific writer of articles in academic journals, case studies, popular columns and best-selling books. Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management and the faculty director at the Tuck Executive Program and Tuck Center for Leadership. He teaches courses on leadership, management and strategy to graduate students and students in executive education courses. Before Tuck, Finkelstein taught at the University of Southern California, where his colleagues included the late Warren Bennis, Jay Conger and other luminaries of strategy, leadership and organizational development. At U.S.C., Finkelstein began writing his international best-selling book, “Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes.” Over the past few years, Finkelstein’s work changed from focusing on failure to examining the qualities needed to succeed. What follows is an edited version of a discussion between Professor Sydney Finkelstein and Joel Kurtzman, editor-in-chief of Korn Ferry’s Briefings on Talent & Leadership. The discussion took place on Oct. 13, 2015 at Korn Ferry’s offices in New York City. Finkelstein’s newest book, “Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent,” will be coming out in February 2016.

LAURA DECAPUA

54 BY JOEL KURTZMAN AN INTERVIEW WITH SYDNEY FINKELSTEIN • Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

“If you’re lucky, or maybe ‘smart,’ you’ll find a superboss to work for who will make all of these things happen.” ou are best known for your work asking why some leaders fail. What Y interested you in that topic?

● There was an endless cascade of books written by CEOs talking about how great they were. The books would say, “Do these five things.” As I read those books, I realized that first, not all of those five things worked and second, there are dozens of books listing five things to do so the list must be getting longer and longer. I Sounds like a problem. began to wonder what really was happening — and what actually worked. I wondered about patterns of ● It certainly is. The second issue regarding failure success and failure and whether you can recognize is cultural. There are two big evils that can develop them early — especially if you are in an organization here. One is a kind of delusional view where if things that is spiraling downward. worked in the past, you think they’ll work now. Be- cause you were successful in the past, you will be suc- What did you find? cessful now. The other related problem is arrogance. You were right in the past, so you’ll always be right. ● In my book “Why Smart Executives Fail: And What Together these are a bad — and sometimes lethal — You Can Learn from Their Mistakes” I identified four combination. They really hurt your chances of success. underlying drivers of failure. It starts with getting They create blind spots, or what I call “delusions of your strategy wrong, usually because leaders create a dream company.” When a leadership team believes a make-believe view of reality. Relying on the wrong its own hype, it creates lots of problems. Pushback strategic lessons from the past is another. As great and disappears in meetings, and the leadership team starts important as experience is, it cuts both ways. We don’t missing the warning signs that things are amiss. talk about it very much, but you can actually learn the wrong lessons from history. Psychologists have known Such as? about this and have been studying it for probably 80 years. They have a name for it—“negative transfer,” ● Such as people start leaving the company, and by which they mean transferring knowledge that’s leaders miss the significance of the fact that some of just not correct. You can understand how difficult it their best talent is walking out the door—not because is when leaders look at their prior success, learn the they’re ready for the next step in their careers, but wrong lessons from those observations and then teach because they feel they can’t survive in the make-believe their incorrect findings to their teams. culture leaders have created. Or, the CEO is on an earnings call and misses the reason the analysts ask the same questions and why they do it in certain ways. In other words, the warning signs are out there, but they are being missed. What are some other warnings that leaders miss?

● At meetings, there is a lot less pushback. People are afraid to disagree. These are cultural problems, and they are subtle but very significant. They can create a culture that is rigid, and you might not even realize it. Now of course, no one can get it right all the time. But what you don’t want to do is build a culture that keeps people from performing as well as they can and that keeps you from hearing what people really think. “When a leadership team believes its own hype, it creates lots of problems.”

How does a management team was a high flier and owned an entire category. Now it deal with obstacles like the ones hardly exists. In “Superbosses” I found some of the best you just mentioned? generators of talent the world has ever seen, and lay out what I call the “Superboss Playbook” that teaches ● That’s a good question. Sometimes what works for leaders, and managers, how to generate and regenerate entrepreneurs doesn’t work in a company that’s older talent on a continuous basis. What happened to Kodak and established. Instead of pushing forward no matter was not preordained. what, as entrepreneurs have to do to survive, in mature companies, barreling ahead is not always the right way A number of companies are starting to go. Some companies miss that. to understand the importance of talent. They make a big point of Why? identifying high-potential people. They go after them and send out an ● They’re not reading the signals. If brute force doesn’t alert if one of these people says she or work, what does that say? What is it telling you? Maybe he is going to leave. When the alert it means the strategy is wrong or the product mix is goes out, one company I know well, a wrong, or something else is happening you are not Fortune 100 company, alerts its CEO seeing. Confidence is essential, but you can go too far. that it’s time for him to get involved You have to pay attention. What got you to the top is to prevent the high-potential player not necessarily the same as what will keep you there or from leaving. Do you agree with that enable you to re-ascend to the peak you slipped from. approach? Keep the talent from going Rather than arrogance and overconfidence, leaders elsewhere, no matter the cost? need to act with courage and curiosity. ● No. Don’t get me wrong: Losing good people can After writing a hugely successful be an indicator that something big is wrong inside book about why executives and teams the company. And, if the leadership is aware that fail, why turn it on its head and good people keep leaving, she or he might have time write about success? Aren’t the to act. However, pulling out all the stops for a rising lessons the same? executive—especially if you don’t really understand the reasons she is ready to move on — might actu- ● I wouldn’t say the lessons are the same. I would say ally be counterproductive. You have to understand they are related. And, I came to believe that something what’s really going on and why the rising executive was missing in “Why Smart Executives Fail.” For is moving out. Once you know that, you can decide example, one of the things I now understand is that what to do. there is no substitute for the ability to generate and regenerate talent on a continuous basis in an organiza- Sometimes it’s just not a good fit. tion. It’s like brain cells. They have to keep regener- ating or else you’re gone. So, why do companies die? ● You’d probably know that already. I mean if the I’m not talking about when some big, secular change person who is threatening to leave is considered im- happens—a war is waged, the financial crisis hits. I’m portant enough for the head of H.R. to call the CEO, talking about a company like, say, Kodak, which once the CEO should already know whether it’s a good fit.

57 So what should the Are there any tools you’ve seen proper response be? or used to get at whether the balance of pushback is right? ● Sometimes if an employee is ready to leave, it might be best to let them leave. Look at it this way. You don’t ● Paying attention to the level of feedback in discus- get a vote on whether a high performer stays or goes; sions is important. One tool for doing this is beginning she decides. The best talent will want to take on bigger some meetings with a discussion of the “mistake of the challenges and run their own show at some point. month (or quarter),” starting with the CEO. The point Helping them transition out, as radical as that might isn’t to punish or embarrass anyone, it’s to raise the sound, is actually the right move because of the loyalty question and get honest discussion. That can set the it engenders. And by the way, becoming known as a tone for the rest of the meeting. Occasionally, when launching pad for great talent is one of the best ways I’ve brought this up, the response is, “but Sydney, I’m I know to solidify your position as a talent magnet. going to lose credibility if I talk about my mistake.” The net result is you’re managing the flow of talent to To that my response is, “Are you the only person who achieve what you’re really after: generating and regen- knows? Does anyone else know?” And of course, other erating talent on a continuous basis. That’s at the heart people always know. Does credibility really go to a of what superbosses do. “leader” who pretends bad stuff never happened? We know better. You mentioned pushback is necessary, and when it is absent or when people I’ve heard from leaders at smaller are afraid to say what they think, it is a companies with boards that don’t danger sign that other things could be play strong roles asking for that type broken. How do you know when the of meeting. Some of those CEOs join balance is right between pushback organizations that get them more and agreement? and hopefully better feedback and pushback. Or, they hire coaches. ● I wish I could recognize the precise point where the balance was about to shift from too much to too little ● That shows how important it is to generate real pushback. The truth is we don’t really know. But we debate and discussion from people you work with. can help leaders become more self-aware so they’ll be Superbosses expect, even demand, that the people who more likely to notice when there is too little and too work for them challenge them. In a well-run company, much pushback. They can tell when nothing gets done you should be able to give and receive feedback from or when the wrong things are the only things getting your colleagues. It’s certainly something I talk about a done. They can grasp people’s level of frustration. The lot in my own executive coaching. point is, it is fluid and the balance changes. When the balance changes there are consequences. Paying attention to the level of debate and discussion in a team is critical. Comparing it to the past is also critical. “Becoming known as a launching pad for great talent is one of the best ways I know to solidify your position as a talent magnet.”

58 “Does credibility really go to a ‘leader’ who pretends bad stuff never happened? We know better.” Are you saying that when it comes to talent, it’s not just hiring the best people, it’s about giving them enough freedom so they can pursue their dreams?

● In a way. When you think about talent, it’s not just about hiring the best people and then protecting them so you don’t lose them — as you mentioned in your example about a CEO. It’s also about being willing to support the people you hire when they’re ready to take on a bigger challenge that you can’t offer them. When they succeed, you and the company succeed. Sure, you want to protect the people you hire who have lots of talent by ideally creating huge growth opportunities for them. But the truth is that one of the best ways to be successful as a leader is to surround yourself with world-class talent. And world-class talent tends to have very high aspirations. I’d rather keep them on my team for a few years before they head off than work with a team of second-stringers. Some books on leadership imply that anyone can be a leader. And, like you said at the outset, they give you rules on how to do it. But that doesn’t seem right. It is tough to be a leader, or so it seems. It’s a tough job. Leading a business may be tougher than any other type of leadership because there are so many different things to pay attention to, and then there is the audience of shareholders, media, What about successful bosses who analysts and so on. People are voting don’t like when others do well? Maybe on your performance every day, every they feel jealous. Or, they want to be second of the day. So, it’s a pretty the only ones who get credit. Or they tough job. Would you agree? feel threatened. ● Yes. This is why learning both from people who ● Unfortunately, there are a lot of people like that. But didn’t do so well and from people who did well is so the best leaders want the people who work for them useful. If we watch what real leaders do, how they go to shine. Superbosses are proud when they are able to about their jobs, we’re not all going to be like Jamie hire people who are better than they are. They have a Dimon at J.P. Morgan or Jack Welch at G.E., but we’ll lot of confidence. In “Superbosses” I write about Gene get better. It takes time. It takes continuous learning, Roberts, a former executive editor of the Philadelphia introspection and continuous feedback. The key thing Inquirer. Roberts was at the Inquirer for 18 years. is, wouldn’t we want to accelerate the curve? I think Before he arrived the paper had never won a Pulitzer the answer is yes. But it’s not like you can sit in a class- Prize — which is the top prize in journalism. During room and all of a sudden you’re a great leader. There’s his tenure, the paper won an amazing 17 Pulitzers. a lot you have to learn. You have to want to learn, you Roberts was a guy who thrived on giving people who have to be open to feedback, and you have to learn the worked with him the room and resources they needed nuances. And if you’re lucky — or maybe “smart” is a to shine. He loved it when they did well, and he loved it better word — you’ll find a superboss to work for who when they got credit for their successes. will make all of these things happen.

60 How do you judge a leader? Is it simply marketing, to hit a number, but at a great cost to about performance, or are there other the future. And then there is your legacy. Norman issues you have to take note of? Brinker, one of my superbosses, was the godfather of the casual restaurant chain industry. When he died, a ● It’s about more than absolute performance. group of his former employees who became big stars Some things are just out of your control because of in their own right took out full-page ads in newspa- economic conditions, so relative performance (to pers around the country to thank him for what he competitors) is a relevant metric. Also, you can hit did for them and their careers. That’s what legacy is. short-term performance goals while paying a price So the answer is, there are a lot of important things in the intermediate or even long term. In some to focus on beside simply the numbers, especially cases, you can cut back excessively on R&D, or on short-term numbers. 

61 STORY BY CHRIS HODENFIELD

ILLUSTRATIONS BY SARAH HANSON

62 BRIEFINGSBIG Briefings Profile Robert Rotella

here is no guarantee that tremendous physical ac- Tcomplishment brings with it a finely tuned mind. Robert “Bob” Rotella surely knows that. As the nation’s leading sports psychologist, Rotella has shepherded mag- nificent specimens in the fields of golf, baseball, football, Nascar and skiing out of the shadows of doubt and into the bright lights of the winner’s circle. The business people who surround these fields of endeavor can’t help but notice his success. When Rotella goes to a corporate office and people hear one of his pep talks, they want to rush right out and win, the same way Rory Mc- Ilroy overcame a humiliating collapse in the 2011 Masters. Armed with a good bucking-up from Rotella, Rory went out two months later and won the U.S. Open. Optimism

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 63 nyone would love a dose “I ask people, ‘What is your you can create a level of positive of optimism like that, at dream? Where do you want to be?’ thoughts and habits to lay over the least once in a while, and And the big question is: Is the way wild thickets of the subconscious. so leaders and managers you’re thinking on a day-to-day Even LeBron James has signed on to from companies like basis consistent with where you the program. Ford, Merrill Lynch and want to be?” A quarter-century ago, the General Electric clamor Many of Rotella’s lessons, which idea of “learned optimism” was Afor some his modus operandi. he recently assembled in a book advanced by psychologist Martin “People love me to give them titled “How Champions Think,” Seligman, whose research in cogni- techniques,” Rotella says with a involve the notion of getting con- tive therapy led him to believe that laugh. “But the greatest technique trol of your thoughts. While the people are capable of changing in the world is: It’s your brain.” subconscious can’t be controlled, the way they think. In Britain,

64 BRIEFINGS Briefings Profile

Robert Rotella

psychologist Richard Wiseman University of Connecticut women’s interviewed hundreds of people and basketball team into a perennial asked if they felt lucky or unlucky powerhouse. All create an intense in life, and then categorized the family environment, all are masters profound differences in the ways the at teaching self-control. two groups thought. See his book, Rotella leads off the latest book “The Luck Factor.” with an emphasis on learning to be Although an unfailingly opti- optimistic. Exceptional people, he mistic person, Rotella prefers the writes, “either start out in life being phrase “learned effectiveness.” optimistic or learn to be optimistic Optimism, he says, is only a piece because they realize they can’t get of the puzzle. You must learn to be what they want in life without being effective. optimistic.” When Rotella spoke to us, he was For many us, of course, opti- visiting his folks in Vermont and mism requires training, and nothing getting ready to play golf with his is more effective than visualizing “Exceptional 92-year-old father. The Rotellas pro- the right path. When golf star Seve people either vided the kind of Italian-American Ballesteros was a teenager in Spain, family life you never see in the he spent so much time “seeing” his start out in life movies — warm, supportive and success in America that he stepped being optimistic intellectually rigorous. off the plane confident he’d win. “Our families came over here to His first victory in the Masters, he or learn to take part in the dream, and if you’re told Rotella, was anticlimactic. He’s going to enjoy America you better already seen it happen. be optimistic embrace being in a country where Rotella also appreciates singer because they you dream anything you want to Lady Gaga, who brags about the dream. Nobody’s going to put any days when she was young and realize they limits on you.” arming herself for the future with Although Rotella coached sports the “delusion” of success. “When can’t get what such as college lacrosse early on, it people like me are talking about they want in life was his six years teaching children ‘visualizing success,’ ” Rotella says with disabilities to swim that taught admiringly, “we’re actually having without being him how joy can affect thinking. you imagine in your mind being “That was the ultimate optimism,” somewhere long before you ever optimistic.” he says, sighing. One great thing in get there. But Lady Gaga is such a the children’s lives made them “un- clever marketer, she uses a word like believably happy. It had a big impact ‘delusional.’” on me, that’s for sure.” When Rotella trains financial Among his closest allies in life consultants, he comes up against are two other Italian-American various kinds of worried mind- coaches who have excelled in sets. Those from middle-class making dreams come true: John backgrounds, for instance, might be Calipari, the University of Kentucky intimidated by very wealthy people. basketball coach who specializes “They can’t believe some multimil- in taking squads of freshmen into lionaire is going to give them money the N.C.A.A. Final Four; and Geno to invest.” Auriemma, who, after a job recom- Rotella starts by asking for goals, mendation by Rotella, built the and then seeing—really seeing—if

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 65 Briefings Profile

Robert Rotella

his clients’ actions are leading there. fused, I don’t hear anyone talking What if, he wonders, we endured about how talented Tiger is. He the famous athlete’s fortune of our doesn’t look so talented when he’s professional lives televised all day? not in the right frame of mind and You’d go home and tell the wife feeling himself.” about your hard day, and she’d say, It should be noted that Tiger “No, you were reading the sports Woods might be the only big gun page all morning, talking B.S. with who has not worked with Rotella. your buds and cruising the Web.” When counting players on the “At some point, we have to come men’s, women’s and senior tours, to grips with the fact that you’re the Rotella has advised the winners of one who gets to make these deci- 74 major championships. Note to sions in your life. And you better Tiger: If you don’t see Rotella at the “People make choose wisely.” next tournament’s practice green, When a pro golfer succumbs to you can find him at the University up this thing pressure and nervously stabs his of Virginia’s sports department. putter, it’s called having “the yips.” This is not to say that pessimism that they’re Rotella warns against business doesn’t have helpful aspects. “It’s people having “the phone yips. They possible to be such a blind optimist not talented. want to pick up the phone and call that you don’t even look at the The thing is, certain clients. But they can’t pick pitfalls and bother to prepare an ef- it up because they’re thinking how fective solution. You’ve got to know people look bad they’re gonna feel when the all the things that could go wrong. person rejects them. You use that to arm yourself for a lot more “But what you hear from the anything and everything that could top people is, well, ‘I don’t ever take possibly happen. As long as that’s talented when somebody saying no to me on the what people mean by ‘pessimism,’ it phone as a rejection. Why would has a useful place.” they have an he reject me? He doesn’t even know Thus real achievement rides me. I’m going to keep calling him on the proper balance. Optimism optimistic till he says yes.’ ” creates your new reality. “Your Thus the optimistic mind tries attitude does a lot in determining attitude about to affect perceptions. How smart how far you’ll go. But there’s a can this other schmo be if he doesn’t lot of work involved, and they’re things.” see your talent? sustaining a commitment that’s “Perceptions start playing a very involved. I want people to be opti- big role, whether it’s your perception mistic when they do that and take of your talent or someone’s view an honest look at things.” of you. People make up this thing Honest looks are not always in that they’re not talented. The thing demand in business, of course. To is, people look a lot more talented make the sale, the business model when they have an optimistic at- might get tweaked for a totally titude about things. sunny view. A climate of enforced “Lately I’ve been seeing this optimism leads to the wrong kind with the golfers I work with. If you of delusion. And don’t blame Lady remember, six years ago people were Gaga for that. The business fell saying, ‘Oh, that Tiger Woods! If I apart and the war was lost because had his talent I’d be playing great someone didn’t visualize all of the golf.’ But in the last year and a half, scenery. Too much confidence led to now that he’s been so lost and con- laziness and arrogance.

66 BRIEFINGS TALENT & LEADERSHIP 67 Briefings Profile

Robert Rotella Korn Ferry Sports Practice Views of Jed Hughes

“I think optimistic people look at HE ABILITY to focus potential problems and pitfalls along is what separates the average athlete the way and then use their optimism “T or executive from the high to prepare a successful way of dealing performers,” says Jed Hughes, with it or overcoming it.” Vice Chairman and Global Sector Still worried? Rotella advises Leader, Sports. Having worked athletes and business clients to set alongside six Hall of Fame aside a dedicated time every day—15 coaches in his career, Hughes minutes, at least—for visualization brought a concentrated insight exercises. “I don’t mean a quick, to the placement of dozens of general managers and coaches in casual daydream,” he says. “I mean Hughes in his every major sport. And he knows when he meets focused mental preparation.” Bedtime days as assistant coach at the someone with focus. is often the right time. University of “You can tell it in an interview,” he says. And don’t forget to visualize Michigan (top row, second from “When we recently talked with a candidate for current practices to see if they are the right.) a position at the Milwaukee Brewers, it was a leading to greatness. three-hour, focused interview. Nothing wasted. “We talk about ourselves con- His answers were precise and thoughtful. He understood the stantly,” Rotella says. “We visualize issues, articulated them, gave examples, stayed on track and did ourselves constantly. We have per- not deviate from the topics for over three hours.” Early in his career, Hughes was exposed to the powers of ceptions about ourselves constantly. positive reinforcement from the likes of John Wooden, the just- And if all the thoughts that fit into retired basketball legend at U.C.L.A. who for six years took him those categories are consistent with to breakfast on Fridays before football games. He also worked where your dream wants to be, then alongside Stanford football coach John Ralston, a devotee of you’re programming your brain the the Dale Carnegie system of positive thinking who brought right way.” sunshine to a moribund program, not to mention back-to-back Weaving through Rotella’s Rose Bowl titles. commentary are variations of this Later, getting his doctorate at the University of Michigan, he served as linebacker coach under the intense Bo Schembechler. theme. “Thinking correctly” is what “Bo’s style was one of loyalty, emotion, passion and hard work.” separates the run-of-the-mill person Hughes would see more of this as a defensive coach under and the exceptional competitor. It’s Chuck Noll’s Pittsburgh Steelers teams. the subconscious that is the best Being in the trenches in these situations let Hughes observe controller of physical activities like closely as the concept of sports psychology evolved. “At Mich- directing golf swings or violin solos, igan, we were addressing the preparation necessary for getting and it’s the subconscious part of the your mind fit and ready to play, even if that meant turning off brain that guides us in our workday. the lights and visualizing yourself making a big play.” They were configuring practices that psychologists like Bob Rotella would If certain cues lead to bad habits, later use to currycomb players’ psyches. identify them. So the conscious brain When Hughes made his transition to executive search 18 must do what it can to create positive years ago, he knew what worked. “Clearly I’ve had to live on a conditions for the subconscious to path of being positive in different situations. work and lead us into the sunshine of “The team we’ve developed here at Korn Ferry is the No. 1 optimism. sports-recruiting group in the world. And that’s a result of re- So it takes a bit of work. It’s under- cruiting good people, having a vision for them, and caring about standable that Rotella doesn’t use the them.” Good executive choices are made when the decision phrase “learned optimism.” All those makers involved are aligned, he maintains, to a common vision. “That goes back to the optimism equation. I don’t think hardworking immigrant-family aunts I’ve ever been intimidated in a situation. The way you’ve been and uncles and cousins only coached trained really impacts your life’s journey. If you’ve been dealing him to roll up his sleeves and get to with high-profile athletes and executives, it gives you the level it. The Rotella way might better be of confidence that allows you to engage any kind of situation. called earned optimism.  As Rotella says, it’s about mental preparation.” —C.H.

68 BRIEFINGS The aim for Briefings is audacious: To provide great insights to help leaders lead. Not by telling them what to think—but what to think about.

KORN FERRY BRIEFINGS ON TALENT + LEADERSHIP Dedicated to the advancement of leadership and strategic thinking about talent, Briefings is proud to celebrate 25 issues. Since the incep- tion of the magazine in 2009, we’ve featured hundreds of interviews with luminaries from business, education, government, the nonprofit sector, sports, and even rock ‘n’ roll. In honor of this milestone, here are some highlights from issues past and a look at where Briefings’ alumni are today. We invite you to explore the complete archives at www.kornferrybriefings.com > > >

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 69 ISSUE #1 “You have to be absolutely Ken Chenault decisive. And that means you THE STORY may bruise some “Leading In A Time feelings. But Of Crisis” you’ve got to risk people being TODAY upset with you, because you have The third African American CEO of a Fortune 500 company, Chenault to take action.” has been at the helm of American Express since 2001 and sees great potential in the block chain technology behind digital currencies.

“Ninety-five ISSUE #14 percent of the time I put myself Angela Ahrendts in somebody else’s position THE STORY before I decide how to handle “Beyond The something.” Burberry Check” TODAY

The former Burberry CEO became SVP of Retail & Online Stores at Apple in 2014, where she’s credited with breaking down silos and revitalizing the tech giant’s retail culture.

ISSUE #9 “As an undergrad, I thought, Let me Reid Hoffman be a scientist; I’ll use computers THE STORY as tools and “The Brain Behind metaphors to LinkedIN” think through this. My TODAY conclusion was we were modeling The LinkedIN founder and “most- networked man in Silicon Valley” de- thinking when we votes much of his time to philanthropy, didn’t know what supporting economic development and social entrepreneurship causes, thinking was.” including micro-lending site Kiva.org.

70 BRIEFINGS ISSUE #11 “You can tell if someone’s frivolous Angel Martinez or practical. You can tell if they have THE STORY expensive taste. You can tell whether “What Shoes Say” they value comfort over style... You TODAY can tell how much time they spend The Deckers Outdoor CEO has taken on their feet. the company’s flagship Ugg brand from an iconic shoe to a lifestyle brand, venturing into home goods, and soon, outerwear.

‘‘I think about the ISSUE #16 little 12-year-old drummer boy Mick Fleetwood I was, who didn’t THE STORY know what he was going to do, “Fleetwood Mac: but loved being Band Governance” around people. And I’m really TODAY happy that I still The newly reunited Rumours lineup do what I love.’’ is still thinkin’ about tomorrow. The band recently completed another world tour and has been recording new material.

ISSUE #11 “There’s no such thing as a perfect Joe Tucci strategy. I’d rather have a good THE STORY strategy that’s “The Man With extremely well The Plan” executed than a great strategy TODAY terribly executed... Strategies are Under Tucci’s leadership as Chairman and CEO, last year EMC was named living, breathing one of the world’s top 25 multina- organisms.” tional workplaces out of 2,800 global companies surveyed by the Great Place to Work Institute.

TALENT & LEADERSHIP 71 Briefings / 1900 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 2600 BY JOEL KURTZMAN Additional copies: [email protected]

Two Battles Fought, One From the Heart Los Angeles, CA 90067 A Cherokee teaching story describes a fight between two fierce wolves. PARTING THOUGHTS PARTING One wolf is evil, angry, envious, jealous, self-pitying, guilty and resentful. The other is good, kind, peaceful, loving, hopeful, serene, humble, generous, truthful and faithful. The Cherokees ask their seated listeners, “Which wolf will win the fight?” The answer and the intended lesson is: The wolf that wins is the one you feed. Circulation Customer Service: +1 (310) 556-8502 Reprints: Advertising: Stacy Levyn +1 (310) 556-8502 ven if you never read or heard this I could not understand why audiences little short tale before, you probably preferred my negative colleague’s speeches to guessed the answer. The story obeys my own. Then it hit me. Suppose I say some- Tiffany Sledzianowski +1 (310) 226-6336 Ea pattern, as do so many things related to thing like, “Opportunities are everywhere questions of optimism and pessimism, nega- thanks to our creativity and our genius.” tivity and “positivity” and even (to a certain Optimistic assessments encourage you to put degree) right and wrong. The answer is typi- your money at risk. If I am right, you make cally some variation on the theme that “the money and we are both pleased. But if I am answer is in your hands. Choose wisely.” wrong, you lose money—which always car- Apparently, an awful lot of people are ries a sting. wired to be biased toward pessimism. The The doomsayer who warns you of a reason for that, it was explained to me, has to looming tragedy is your friend because he (or do with jumping to conclusions. If your bias she) is watching out for you. That person gets is negative, you are likely to be safer than your gratitude even if they are wrong—you if the opposite were the case. If you hear played safe because of his or her gloomy prediction, and you didn’t have anything at “If you hear something in risk. And if the pessimist is right, and things the bushes and conclude it’s fell apart, it’s not his fault—he’s the one who warned you. It’s your fault if you lost money, a rabbit (and it’s actually a because you were the one who listened to me. with with U.S.A. THE IN PRINTED mountain lion), there’s no When the wolves fight, it is at night and fully environmentally responsible manner. laughing that one off.” in the realm of the heart. When the investors FSC ® -

listen to the economist speak, the competi- in a inks soy-based and papers certified something rattling around in the bushes and tion takes place in the strategy-making you conclude it’s a mountain lion, there’s not places of the mind. much penalty if you are wrong. But if you We have all witnessed metaphorical hear something in the bushes and conclude battles between “good” and “evil” wolves. it’s a rabbit (and it’s actually a mountain lion), Many of us have taken part in marketplace

there’s no laughing that one off. A bunny gets competitions involving players who put a smile, but 85 pounds of startled, angry cat things of importance and value at risk. The comes with deadly serious teeth and long rules and ploys for each contest are different. razor-sharp claws. The Cherokees had wisdom about fights

An economist I knew for almost 20 years between wolves. The other conflict is up to always spoke about the gloom that was about us to understand.  to descend. I never understood why the © Copyright 2015, Korn Ferry 1949-8365 ISSN rooms were filled when he spoke. Everyone Joel Kurtzman knew what they were going to get. Fear. Woe. is author of the new Stock market crashes. No surprises there. book Unleashing My messages were always more opti- the Second American Century. mistic: People are creative. They are problem  kurtzmangroup.com solvers. What goes down does come up.

72 BRIEFINGS Celebrate your company’s greatest gift—people— this holiday season.

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