Category: Blog

  • AI Is Changing Work — and Leaders Need to Adapt

    As AI is increasingly incorporated into our workplaces and daily lives, it is poised to fundamentally upend the way we live and work. Concern over this looming shift is widespread. A recent survey of 5,700 Harvard Business School alumni found that 52% of even this elite group believe the typical company will employ fewer workers three years from now.

    The advent of AI poses new and unique challenges for business leaders. They must continue to deliver financial performance, while simultaneously making significant investments in hiring, workforce training, and new technologies that support productivity and growth. These seemingly competing business objectives can make for difficult, often agonizing, leadership decisions.

    Against this backdrop, recent empirical research by our team at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab provides new insight into how work is changing in the face of AI. By examining these findings, we can create a roadmap for leaders intent on adapting their workforces and reallocating capital, while also delivering profitability.

    The stakes are high. AI is an entirely new kind of technology, one that has the ability to anticipate future needs and provide recommendations to its users. For business leaders, that unique capability has the potential to increase employee productivity — by taking on administrative tasks, providing better pricing recommendations to sellers, and streamlining recruitment, to name a few examples.

    For business leaders navigating the AI workforce transition, the key to unlocking the productivity potential while delivering on business objectives lies in three key strategies: rebalancing resources, investing in workforce reskilling and, on a larger scale, advancing new models of education and lifelong learning.

    Solution #1: Reallocate Capital Resources

    Our research report, offers a window into how AI will change workplaces through the rebalancing and restructuring of occupations. Using AI and machine learning techniques, our MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab team analyzed 170 million online job posts between 2010 and 2017. The study’s first implication: While occupations change slowly — over years and even decades — tasks become reorganized at a much faster pace.

    Jobs are a collection of tasks. As workers take on jobs in various professions and industries, it is the tasks they perform that create value. With the advancement of technology, some existing tasks will be replaced by AI and machine learning. But our research shows that only 2.5% of jobs include a high proportion of tasks suitable for machine learning. These include positions like usher, lobby attendant, and ticket taker, where the main tasks involve verifying credentials and allowing only authorized people to enter a restricted space.

    Most tasks will still be best performed by humans — whether craft workers like plumbers, electricians and carpenters, or those who do design or analysis requiring industry knowledge. And new tasks will emerge that require workers to exercise new skills.

    As this shift occurs, business leaders will need to reallocate capital accordingly. Broad adoption of AI may require additional research and development spending. Training and reskilling employees will very likely require temporarily removing workers from revenue-generating activities.

    More broadly, salaries and other forms of employee compensation will need to reflect the shifting value of tasks all along the organization chart. Our research shows that as technology reduces the cost of some tasks because they can be done in part by AI, the value workers bring to the remaining tasks increases. Those tasks tend to require grounding in intellectual skill and insight—something AI isn’t as good at as people.

    In high-wage business and finance occupations, for example, compensation for tasks requiring industry knowledge increased by more than $6,000, on average, between 2010 and 2017. By contrast, average compensation for manufacturing and production tasks fell by more than $5,000 during that period. As AI continues to reshape the workplace, business leaders who are mindful of this shifting calculus will come out ahead.

    Solution # 2: Invest in Workforce Training

    Companies today are held accountable not only for delivering shareholder value, but for positively impacting stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, communities and employees. Moreover, investment in talent and other stakeholders is increasingly considered essential to delivering long-term financial results. These new expectations are reflected in the Business Roundtable’s recently revised statement on corporate governance, which underscores corporations’ obligation to support employees through training and education “that help develop new skills for a rapidly changing world.”

    Millions of workers will need to be retrained or reskilled as a result of AI over the next three years, according to a recent IBM Institute for Business Value study. Technical training will certainly be a necessary component. As tasks requiring intellectual skill, insight and other uniquely human attributes rise in value, executives and managers will also need to focus on preparing workers for the future by fostering and growing “people skills” such as judgement, creativity and the ability to communicate effectively. Through such efforts, leaders can help their employees make the shift to partnering with intelligent machines as tasks transform and change in value.

    Solution #3: Educate for the Future Today

    As AI continues to scale within businesses and across industries, it is incumbent upon innovators and business leaders to understand not only the business process implications, but also the societal impact. Beyond the need for investment in reskilling within organizations today, executives should work alongside policymakers and other public and private stakeholders to provide support for education and job training, encouraging investment in training and reskilling programs for all workers.

    Our research shows that technology can disproportionately impact the demand and earning potential for mid-wage workers, causing a squeeze on the middle class. For every five tasks that shifted out of mid-wage jobs, we found, four tasks moved to low-wage jobs and one moved to a high-wage job. As a result, wages are rising faster in the low- and high-wage tiers than in the mid-wage tier.

    New models of education and pathways to continuous learning can help address the growing skills gap, providing members of the middle class, as well as students and a broad array of mid-career professionals, with opportunities to build in-demand skills. Investment in all forms of education is key: community college, online learning, apprenticeships, or programs like P-TECH, a public-private partnership designed to prepare high school students for “new collar” technical jobs like cloud computing and cybersecurity.

    Whether it is workers who are asked to transform their skills and ways of working, or leaders who must rethink everything from resource allocation to workforce training, fundamental economic shifts are never easy. But if AI is to fulfill its promise of improving our work lives and raising living standards, senior leaders must be ready to embrace the challenges ahead.

    Article appears in Harvard Business Review

    Author: Martin Fleming, who is IBM’s Chief Economist and Vice-President.

  • Why Do Smart People Do Foolish Things?

    Intelligence is not the same as critical thinking—and the difference matters.

    Scientific American |

    By: Heather A. Butler

    We all probably know someone who is intelligent but does surprisingly stupid things. My family delights in pointing out times when I (a professor) make really dumb mistakes. What does it mean to be smart or intelligent? Our everyday use of the term is meant to describe someone who is knowledgeable and makes wise decisions, but this definition is at odds with how intelligence is traditionally measured. The most widely known measure of intelligence is the intelligence quotient, more commonly known as the IQ test, which includes visuospatial puzzles, math problems, pattern recognition, vocabulary questions and visual searches.

    The advantages of being intelligent are undeniable. Intelligent people are more likely to get better grades and go farther in school. They are more likely to be successful at work. And they are less likely to get into trouble (for example, commit crimes) as adolescents. Given all the advantages of intelligence, though, you may be surprised to learn that it does not predict other life outcomes, such as well-being. You might imagine that doing well in school or at work might lead to greater life satisfaction, but several large-scale studies have failed to find evidence that IQ impacts life satisfaction or longevity. University of Waterloo psychologist Igor Grossmann and his colleagues argue that most intelligence tests fail to capture real-world decision-making and our ability to interact well with others. This is, in other words, perhaps why “smart” people do “dumb” things.

    The ability to think critically, on the other hand, has been associated with wellness and longevity. Though often confused with intelligence, critical thinking is not intelligence. Critical thinking is a collection of cognitive skills that allow us to think rationally in a goal-orientated fashion and a disposition to use those skills when appropriate. Critical thinkers are amiable skeptics. They are flexible thinkers who require evidence to support their beliefs and recognize fallacious attempts to persuade them. Critical thinking means overcoming all kinds of cognitive biases (for instance, hindsight bias or confirmation bias).

    Critical thinking predicts a wide range of life events. In a series of studies, conducted in the U.S. and abroad, my colleagues and I have found that critical thinkers experience fewer bad things in life. We asked people to complete an inventory of life events and take a critical thinking assessment (the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment). The critical thinking assessment measures five components of critical thinking skills, including verbal reasoning, argument analysis, hypothesis testing, probability and uncertainty, decision-making and problem-solving.

    The inventory of negative life events captures different domains of life such as academic (for example, “I forgot about an exam”), health (“I contracted a sexually transmitted infection because I did not wear a condom”), legal (“I was arrested for driving under the influence”), interpersonal (“I cheated on my romantic partner who I had been with for more than a year”), financial (“I have over $5,000 of credit-card debt”), and so on. Repeatedly, we found that critical thinkers experience fewer negative life events. This is an important finding because there is plenty of evidence that critical thinking can be taught and improved.

    Is it better to be a critical thinker or to be intelligent? My latest research pitted critical thinking and intelligence against each other to see which was associated with fewer negative life events. People who were strong on either intelligence or critical thinking experienced fewer negative events, but critical thinkers did better.

    Intelligence and improving intelligence are hot topics that receive a lot of attention. It is time for critical thinking to receive a little more of that attention. Keith E. Stanovich wrote an entire book in 2009 about What Intelligence Tests Miss. Reasoning and rationality more closely resemble what we mean when we say a person is smart rather than spatial skills and math ability. Furthermore, improving intelligence is difficult. Intelligence is largely determined by genetics. Critical thinking, though, can improve with training, and the benefits have been shown to persist over time. Anyone can improve their critical thinking skills. Doing so, we can say with certainty, is a smart thing to do.

    Heather A. Butler is an assistant professor in the psychology department at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her numerous research interests include critical thinking, advanced learning technologies, and the use of psychological science to prevent wrongful convictions.

    This article was originally published on October 3, 2017, by Scientific American, and is republished here with permission.

  • How To Remove Fear From Your Work Culture

    by Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick

    We all know that fear can get stuff done. If stress levels are amped up sufficiently, people can do some crazy things for short periods of time. We’ve all heard the story of the mom who lifts a Pontiac off a trapped family member. Marketers have long known the power of fear, using it to sell everything from life insurance to alarm systems to fiber cereals that taste like tree bark and feet.

    A degree of fear in our workplaces is unavoidable with this pandemic and economic downturn. But it’s important for leaders to recognize that fear at work can cause a host of ill effects that undermine the quality of people’s output as well as overall team performance. At the heart of fear is doubt, and uncertainty can kill motivation, not to mention innovation.

    When faced with a threat—real or imagined—the brain’s amygdala sends out a distress signal, prompting the release of stress hormones, which cause a number of physiological changes, such as increased heartbeat, quickened breathing, and muscle tensing. This reaction is designed as a boon in response to immediate threats, giving us a surge of energy and enhancing our strength. Shazam! But all that is intended as a temporary response to danger, not as a prolonged state of being. If this pandemic worry stretches into weeks and months, it will sap energy. Chronic stress like that can also seriously undermine the quality of people’s sleep, further undercutting their energy. Fear-induced stress is a major factor in burnout.

    Getting people into a fight mode during a crisis might sound okay to some leaders—“They’ll be charged up to tackle this challenge!” What they need to understand is a fighting spirit, when evoked by fear rather than inspiration and a sense of purpose, actually can end up aimed right back against their managers instead of the challenges to be tackled. Never underestimate the degree of bald-faced contempt that people let brew in response to the perception that a manager isn’t doing all he/she can to solve the problems that are causing them to freak out (even if the manager has little to no control over them).

    In short, few things in a crisis are worse than key stakeholders perceiving leadership to be in disarray, indecisive, or indifferent. It is the very moment of crisis when the organization needs its people to believe the most, yet their faith is often challenged.

    What to do as leaders? Here are just a few tactics that can help.

    Create a Safe Place: One sure-fire way to help reduce fear starts with frequently and honestly framing the market situation in real terms that people can relate to. Leaders must explain in clear terms what behaviors employees must focus their efforts on, all while creating a reassuringly safe environment to keep delivering to clients. During our interviews with leaders who successfully led their teams through the last global crisis, they displayed a dogged commitment to their mission and core values. Employees we interviewed after told us things such as, “He forced us to keep thinking about our mission, and how we were helping make the world a better place,” or “She reminded us that real people were using our products; they had to be perfect every time.”

    Leave the Pillows at Home. During tough times, it’s more important than ever to be more honest and more transparent. In other words: Don’t soften the blow. Let people know what’s up with the business in clear ways and communicate with them every day, even if there’s not much to share. Part of this concept means you’ll need to admit you need employee help and ideas to get through this. After all, you don’t have all the ingenuity or improvement ideas in your head, so let your people know you want to hear their input. Encourage debate on ways to improve service or find new business or enhance processes, even if it rattles established harmony. When employees know their managers are seeking better ways during tough times, and are encouraging them to practice the same, it builds trust and a larger culture of optimism.

    Amp up Gratitude. It is in the worst of times that leaders must amp up praise and recognition of every step forward. In the organizations we studied that made it through the Great Recession in the best shape, there was a statistically significantly higher preponderance of gratitude of employee efforts than in those organizations that achieved average or poor returns. The seemingly warm and fuzzy skill of thanking people for the value they bring creates tangible feelings of hope and points people toward the right behaviors.

    Manage to Motivators. Every person on this planet has a thumbprint-like makeup of what makes him or her most engaged at work and those prints vary considerably. During this stressful time, one of the most powerful ways to engage people is to align (as much as possible) assignments with a person’s specific motivations and uncover subtle changes that can lead to increases in team morale, engagement, and results. The problem is, very few managers know what’s really motivating to their people or, if they do, how to apply that information to day-to-day work. The best leaders have discovered that the surest way to help their employees be more productive in challenging times is to do some sculpting of the nature of jobs or tasks to better match duties with passions.

    Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton are the New York Times bestselling authors of Leading with Gratitude, The Carrot Principle and All In. They own the global training company The Culture Works and work with organizations around the world to address employee engagement issues. Learn more at TheCultureWorks.com.

    Original article appears here: https://www.thecultureworks.com/how-to-remove-fear-from-your-work-culture/

  • Mastermind Series: Legal Contracts for Coaches

  • You’re Invited! Live April 2nd!

    A coaching contract is a useful tool in helping clients understand what to expect from you as their coach and outline what they are committing to you as your client.

    Most of the time, everything goes well. The client receives the benefit expected and you can deliver the valued promised to your client. Both parties conclude feeling good about the relationship.


    But every now and then something goes awry.


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  • The Myth of Self-Control

    Psychologists say using willpower to achieve goals is overhyped. Here’s what actually works.

    • Brian Resnick

    As the Bible tells it, the first crime committed was a lapse of self-control. Eve was forbidden from tasting the fruit on the tree of knowledge. But the temptation was too much. The fruit was just so “pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom,” Genesis reads. Who wouldn’t want that? Humanity was just days old, but already we were succumbing to a vice.

    The takeaway from this story was clear: when temptation overcomes willpower, it’s a moral failing, worthy of punishment.

    Modern-day psychologists might not blame Eve for her errant ways at all. Because what’s true today was also true at the beginning of time (regardless of what story you believe in): Human beings are horrible at resisting temptation.

    “Effortful restraint, where you are fighting yourself — the benefits of that are overhyped,” Kentaro Fujita, a psychologist who studies self-control at the Ohio State University, says.

    He’s not the only one who thinks so. Several researchers I spoke to are making a strong case that we shouldn’t feel so bad when we fall for temptations.

    Indeed, studies have found that trying to teach people to resist temptation either only has short-term gains or can be an outright failure. “We don’t seem to be all that good at [self-control],” Brian Galla, a psychologist at the University of Pittsburgh, says.

    The implications of this are huge: If we accept that brute willpower doesn’t work, we can feel less bad about ourselves when we succumb to temptation. And we might also be able refocus our efforts on solving problems like obesity. A recent national survey from the University of Chicago finds that 75 percent of Americans say a lack of willpower is a barrier to weight loss. And yet the emerging scientific consensus is that the obesity crisis is the result of a number of factors, including genes and the food environment — and, crucially, not a lack of willpower.

    If we could stop worshiping self-control, maybe we could start thinking about diluting the power of temptation — and helping people meet their goals in new ways with less effort.

    The case against willpower

    Many of us assume that if we want to make big changes in our lives, we have to sweat for it.

    But if, for example, the change is to eat fewer sweets, and then you find yourself in front of a pile of cookies, researchers say the pile of cookies has already won.

    “Our prototypical model of self-control is angel on one side and devil on the other, and they battle it out,” Fujita says. “We tend to think of people with strong willpower as people who are able to fight this battle effectively. Actually, the people who are really good at self-control never have these battles in the first place.”

    This idea was crystallized in the results of a 2011 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study tracked 205 people for one week in Germany. The study participants were given BlackBerrys that would go off at random, asking them questions about what desires, temptations, and self-control they were experiencing in the moment.

    The paper stumbled on a paradox: The people who were the best at self-control — the ones who most readily agreed to survey questions like “I am good at resisting temptations” — reported fewer temptations throughout the study period.

    To put it more simply: The people who said they excel at self-control were hardly using it at all.

    Psychologists Marina Milyavskaya and Michael Inzlicht recently confirmed and expanded on this idea. In their study, they monitored 159 students at McGill University in Canada in a similar manner for a week.

    If resisting temptation is a virtue, then more resistance should lead to greater achievement, right? That’s not what the results, pending publication in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, found.

    The students who exerted more self-control were not more successful in accomplishing their goals. It was the students who experienced fewer temptations overall who were more successful when the researchers checked back in at the end of the semester. What’s more, the people who exercised more effortful self-control also reported feeling more depleted. So not only were they not meeting their goals, they were also exhausted from trying.

    “There’s a strong assumption still that exerting self-control is beneficial,” Milyavskaya, a professor at Carleton University, tells me. “And we’re showing in the long term, it’s not.”

    What we can learn from people who are good at self-control

    So who are these people who are rarely tested by temptations? And what can we learn from them? There are a few overlapping lessons from this new science:

    1) People who are better at self–controlactually enjoy the activities some of us resist — like eating healthy, studying, or exercising.

    So engaging in these activities isn’t a chore for them. It’s fun.

    “‘Want-to’ goals are more likely to be obtained than ‘have-to’ goals,” Milyavskaya says. “Want-to goals lead to experiences of fewer temptations. It’s easier to pursue those goals. It feels more effortless.”

    If you’re running because you “have to” get in shape, but find running to be a miserable activity, you’re probably not going to keep it up. That means than an activity you like is more likely to be repeated than an activity you hate.

    2) People who are good at self–control have learned better habits

    In 2015, psychologists Brian Galla and Angela Duckworth published a paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, finding across six studies and more than 2,000 participants that people who are good at self-control also tend to have good habits — like exercising regularly, eating healthy, sleeping well, and studying.

    “People who are good at self-control … seem to be structuring their lives in a way to avoid having to make a self-control decision in the first place,” Galla tells me. And structuring your life is a skill. People who do the same activity — like running or meditating — at the same time each day have an easier time accomplishing their goals, he says. Not because of their willpower, but because the routine makes it easier.

    A trick to wake up more quickly in the morning is to set the alarm on the other side of the room. That’s not in-the-moment willpower at play. It’s planning.

    This theory harks back to one of the classic studies on self-control: Walter Mischel’s “marshmallow test,” conducted in the 1960s and ’70s. In these tests, kids were told they could either eat one marshmallow sitting in front of them immediately or eat two later. The ability to resist was found to correlate with all sorts of positive life outcomes, like SAT scores and BMIs. But the kids who were best at the test weren’t necessarily intrinsically better at resisting temptation. They might have been employing a critical strategy.

    “Mischel has consistently found that the crucial factor in delaying gratification is the ability to change your perception of the object or action you want to resist,” the New Yorker in 2014. That means kids who avoided eating the first marshmallow would find ways not to look at the candy, or imagine it as something else.

    “The really good dieter wouldn’t buy a cupcake,” Fujita explains. “They wouldn’t have passed in front of a bakery; when they saw the cupcake, they would have figured out a way to say yuck instead of yum; they might have an automatic reaction of moving away instead of moving close.”

    3) Some people just experience fewer temptations

    Our dispositions are . Some people are hungrier than others. Some people love gambling and shopping. People high in conscientiousness — a personality trait largely set by genetics — tend to be more vigilant students and tend to be healthier. When it comes to self-control, they won the genetic lottery.

    4) It’s easier to have self–control when you’re wealthy

    When Mischel’s marshmallow test is repeated on poorer kids, there’s a clear trend: They perform worse, and appear less able to resist the treat in front of them.

    But there’s a good reason for this. As University of Oregon neuroscientist Elliot Berkman argues, people who grow up in poverty are more likely to focus on immediate rewards than long-term rewards. Because when you’re poor, the future is less certain.

    Researchers want to figure out if self-control could feel effortless

    The new research on self-control demonstrates that eating an extra slice of cake isn’t a moral failing. It’s what we ought to expect when a hungry person is in front of a slice of cake. “Self-control isn’t a special moral muscle,” Galla says. It’s like any decision. And to improve the decision, we need to improve the environment, and give people the skills needed to avoid cake in the first place.

    “There are many ways of achieving successful self-control, and we’ve really only been looking at one of them,” which is effortful restraint, Berkman tells me. The previous leading theory on willpower, called ego depletion, has recently come under intense scrutiny for not replicating.

    (Berkman argues that the term “self-control” ought to be abolished altogether. “It’s no different than any other decision making,” he says.)

    The new research isn’t yet conclusive on whether it’s really possible to teach people the skills needed to make self-control feel effortless. More work needs to be done — designing interventions and evaluating their outcomes over time. But it at least gives researchers a fresh perspective to test out new solutions.

    In Berkman’s lab, he’s testing out an idea called “motivational boost.” Participants write essays explaining how their goals (like losing weight) fit into their core values. Berkman will periodically text study participants to remind them why their goals matter, which may increase motivation. “We are still gathering data, but I cannot say yet whether it works or not,” he says.

    Another intriguing idea is called “temptation bundling,” in which people make activities more enjoyable by adding a fun component to them. One paper showed that participants were more likely to work out when they could listen to an audio copy of The Hunger Games while at the gym.

    Researchers are excited about their new perspective on self-control. “It’s exciting because we’re maybe [about to] break through on a whole variety of new strategies and interventions that we would have never thought about,” Galla says. He and others are looking beyond the “just say no” approach of the past to boost motivation with the help of smartphone apps and other technology.

    This is not to say all effortful restraint is useless, but rather that it should be seen as a last-ditch effort to save ourselves from bad behavior.

    “Because even if the angel loses most of the time, there’s a chance every now and again the angel will win,” Fujita says. “It’s a defense of last resort.”

    The original article appears here: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-myth-of-self-control?utm_source=pocket-newtab

  • Inspirational Quotes

    The Cocoon

    1995 posted by CB Bowman

    A man found a cocoon, of an emperor moth and took it home to watch it emerge.

    One day a small opening appeared, and for several hours the moth struggled but it couldn’t seem to force its body past a certain point.

    Deciding something was wrong, the man took scissors and snipped the remaining bit of cocoon.

    The moth emerged easily, its body large and swollen, the wings small and shriveled.

    He expected that in a few hours the wings would spread out in their natural beauty, but they did not.

    Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the moth spent its life dragging around a swollen body and shriveled wings.

    The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to pass through the tiny opening are nature’s way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings

    The ‘merciful’ snip was in reality cruel.

    Sometimes the struggle……. is exactly what we need.

    Struggles lead to great success.

  • As A Female Founder, I Don’t Have 108 Years for Gender Parity

    Following the release of our recent report “A Decade in Review: Funding to the Female Founders” Crunchbase is highlighting female founders who are paving the way for the next generation of glass-ceiling-smashers. The “Female Founder Series” is comprised of stories, Q&As and thought-leadership pieces from female founders who overcame the odds, raised funding and are now leading successful companies.

    Last year, Geosite arrived at an exciting inflection point in our growth and I was meeting regularly with current and potential investors. One morning I was walking to my office in Palo Alto when I saw my reflection in a storefront window. A light breeze had caught the hem of my floral sundress and it fluttered in the spring sunlight. A sinking feeling stopped me in my tracks and I had the sudden, unexpected thought: I don’t look like a CEO. 

    I brushed the feeling off. I decided I didn’t have time to be slowed down worrying about others’ perceptions. I had work to do and a company to grow. But the thought stuck with me over the past few years as I built Geosite. 

    Sometimes I am still struck by the realization that I have a firm idea of what a CEO “should” look like, and I have to challenge myself to not buy into that or any preconceived notion of how I might be perceived. Maybe I don’t look the way people expect a CEO to look, but I am lucky to feel very comfortable with who I am. Ultimately, it reminds me to keep my own preconceptions in check as well. 

    I founded Geosite two years ago and have built the team to 15 people with $1.7 million in investment and $1.8 million in revenue. With clients in defense and energy, I spend a lot of time in rooms where I am the only woman. Like all founders, I invest considerable time–more than I had originally anticipated–talking to investors, the overwhelming majority of whom are men. It doesn’t matter what we wear or how we look, women will always stand out in these rooms; there just aren’t enough women empowered in leadership, tech, or finance. 

    After years of scrolling through “Meet Our Team” pages on VC websites, the homogeneity of the teams wears on female founders (and founders from any minority group). That’s bad for all of us. It is hard for the underrepresented founders leading their companies and it’s not good for white male VC’s either. They begin to blur together, robbing them of deserved individuality. “I don’t know, maybe I’ve met this guy before…? I’m not sure, they all look the same.”

    I see signs that diversity is increasing, but far too slowly. As a woman running a company now, I don’t have 108 years for gender parity, so here are the things I choose to lean on in the meantime: 

    1. Get a strong tribe of advisers, mentors and friends

    I am extraordinarily lucky that the very first check came from the team that, to this day, is the solid foundation of advice, access, and cheerleading I need to run Geosite. The team at Bee Partners provides incredible support to not only me, but is blazing a clear path in the venture community with 50 percent of their portfolio companies in 2019 founded by women. 

    Beyond having great investors, peers are vital. I cannot imagine running Geosite without my CEO besties. The camaraderie of entrepreneurship is unbelievable and breathtaking: From the highest highs to the lowest lows, peers who can empathize with and challenge you are a critical component to sustain yourself. Practically, it is also important. We expand each others’ networks and refine each others’ decks and pitches to be the best possible reflection of our companies.

    2. Practice introducing yourself

    Heuristics and pattern matching are important in the risky, intuition-filled world of early-stage investing. We have little control over how others perceive us at first glance, and first impressions are lasting. This makes a strong introduction one of the most important, and often overlooked, skills for founders. I learned this the hard way. 

    After a pitch to a few highly regarded partners on Sand Hill Road, a friend from grad school who had become an investor at the firm told me I had done a wonderful job explaining my company … but I had fallen short when it came to my personal introduction. 

    Sadly, many people in VC aren’t going to assume you, a woman, have the credentials to run your company. You have to tell them your credentials explicitly. Make sure you prepare an introduction and practice it, just like you would a pitch. 

    3. Never be ashamed of your ambition

    It is important to have the humility to identify what you do and do not know. Don’t make the mistake of conflating this with a need to hide ambition. If you have the data and insight to back up what you’re doing, do not shy away from stating that you will change the world (or an industry, or lives, or the state of technology). Others will revise down your optimism, so you should not. 

    Building a fledgling startup into a unicorn takes a vision and a superhuman amount of optimism. Share that vision and dream with the people (investors) who have the resources to help you make that dream a reality and with the team who will join you on the journey to make that dream a reality.

    You’ll be surprised how supportive people are when you aren’t shy about your ambition to change the world.

    Rachel Olney is a Stanford University Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate and the Founder and CEO of Geosite Inc. She has taught innovation frameworks and built standard operating procedures for the most elite US military special operations teams. She has also helped create and scale an international program in national security innovation and conducted research for the US Air Force on the Strategic Implications of Ultra Low-Cost Access to Space.

    As the CEO of Geosite she leads a YCombinator backed startup disrupting the geospatial data industry, making it easier for logistically intensive industries, such as Oil and Gas and the Department of Defense and Intelligence Communities, to easily leverage spatial data (satellites, drones, IOT, and cloud-enables SCADA) to increase operational efficiency. Geosite is the first enterprise software to imbed cutting-edge geospatial data into business intelligence tools.

    Rachel was featured on this year’s Forbes Enterprise Technology 30 Under 30 list.

    Original article appears here: https://about.crunchbase.com/blog/i-dont-have-108-years-for-gender-parity/?utm_source=cb_daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20200320&utm_content=intro&utm_term=content&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkRKaU4ySTVPR0psTm1aayIsInQiOiJmc3g3NU9US2o0RGtEQkVLNzRqXC9JRXRiZnpJTk9XNnpEK0Y4OXNGNmFCejNCK085azRuckFycEV3ME9aelZoQVBROTBcL1U4TktLZWhVSlFIUDVoNDQ2cmpaVEcwelh4Tk9TRk5vMUZ2aytNZEhWZkxJSlRmdUt3MHRuck5XdjhkIn0%3D

  • The ‘Hidden Talent’ That Determines Success

    In our era of globalization, your job performance may depend on your “CQ”. So what is it?

    • David Robson

    Imagine meeting someone for the first time who comes from a distant country but is fluent in your language. There may appear to be no immediate communication barrier, so would you adapt the tone and cadence of your voice, or the spacing of pauses in your speech?

    How about altering your body language, mannerisms and facial expressions, depending on the background of the person in front of you? Would you sit or stand differently and pay attention to your hand gestures?

    These are just a handful of the subtle shifts in behaviour that can contribute to what is known as your “cultural intelligence”, or CQ – and there is growing evidence that suggests they are well worth learning.

    “The number one predictor of your success in today’s borderless world is not your IQ, not your resume (CV), and not even your expertise,” writes social scientist David Livermore in his book The Cultural Intelligence Difference. “It’s your CQ.”

    According to the latest findings, a high CQ could be crucial in a wide range of careers, from bankers to soldiers and scientists and teachers – anyone, in fact, who regularly interacts with people from different backgrounds.

    So what is CQ? Why do some people have a higher CQ than others? And how can we nurture these abilities?

    Cultural Differences

    Much of the research on CQ has been done by Soon Ang, a professor of management at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. In the late 1990s, her job was updating computer systems in Singapore to tackle the “Y2K bug” – a software glitch that was feared would bring down the world’s computer networks at the turn of the millennium. Ang put together an international team of programmers to solve the problem.

    They were some of the brightest minds in the business, yet she soon found that they just couldn’t work together. The groups were ineffectual and failed to gel. Often, individual members would appear to agree on a solution, but then implement it in completely different ways.

    Clearly, it wasn’t a question of expertise or motivation. Instead, she saw that these highly capable employees were stumbling over each other’s cultural differences, leading to a breakdown in communication and understanding.

    These insights would lead Ang to collaborate with the organisational psychologist P. Christopher Earley, then at the London Business School but now dean of the school of business and economics at the University of Tasmania, Australia. Together they built a comprehensive theory of CQ, which they defined as “the capability to function effectively in a variety of cultural contexts”.

    Typically CQ is measured through a series of questions that assess four distinct components. The first is “CQ Drive” – the motivation to learn about other cultures. Then there is “CQ Knowledge”, which is an understanding of some of the general cultural differences you may face. “CQ Strategy”, examines how you make sense of those difficult confrontations and learn from them while “CQ Action”, involves your behavioural flexibility – whether you are able to adapt your conduct like a cultural chameleon.

    Someone with low CQ might have a tendency to view everyone else’s behaviour through his own cultural lens. If he comes from a more gregarious environment, for instance, and notices that his Japanese or Korean colleagues are very quiet in a meeting, he may assume that they are being hostile or bored. In aviation, such cultural differences have sometimes caused a breakdown in communication between pilots and air traffic controllers, leading to fatal crashes.

    A person at the top of the scale, meanwhile, might realise that silence is a sign of respect and that feedback won’t be given unless it is explicitly invited. As a result, she’ll make sure to offer suitable opportunities within the meeting for others to provide their opinions.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, many studies have explored how expats adapt to life abroad, showing that those with the highest initial CQ will find it easier to adjust to their new life. But CQ can also predict more objective aspects of job performance, such as international sales performance, negotiation skills, and overall leadership ability.

    Three Forms of Intelligence

    One study from 2011 measured the IQ, emotional intelligence, or EQ, and CQ of 126 officers studying at the Swiss Military Academy as they engaged in various assignments supporting the United Nations in foreign territories and on international training exercises. Although all three forms of intelligence appeared to contribute to their overall performance, CQ turned out to be the best predictor – accounting for around 25 percent of the variation in the officers’ success on the international missions. IQ, by contrast, only predicted around 9.5 percent of the differences, while EQ predicted 3.5 percent.

    While people with a high CQ might naturally gravitate to international jobs, these studies suggest differences in CQ can also predict their performance once they’re hired.

    This evaluation is leading many companies to consider testing CQ and find out how they can boost their employees’ scores. Organisations such as Starbucks, Bloomberg and the University of Michigan have used the services of the Cultural Intelligence Center in Michigan, which offers intercultural assessments and a range of courses.

    Crucially, Livermore, who is president of the Centre, says that CQ can be learned. There’s no replacement for direct, personal experience in another country, though it seems that people mostly benefit from having tasted a variety of different cultures if they want to learn those generalization skills. “While understanding a specific culture can be useful, it may not predict at all your ability to engage effectively in a new place,” he says. “In fact, our research finds that individuals who have spent extended time in multiple locations are more likely to have higher CQ Knowledge than those who have lived multiple decades in one overseas setting.”

    But explicitly teaching some of the key concepts seems to ease that process. Employees may take a CQ test and then work with a coach to identify potential challenges. Afterwards, they discuss those experiences and the ways they could adapt their behaviour in the future. Using this strategy, expat bankers moving to the Middle East and Asia appeared to have fully adjusted to their new life in just three months, while without the training, it normally took expat employees nine months to become fully functional.

    Mindset

    But not everyone’s CQ grows with experience. Even after years of living abroad, some people’s understanding of other cultures appear to plateau, and they may also be resistant to training.

    Now researchers are trying to discover the reasons for these differences. Melody Chao, a social psychologist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology believes one answer lies in an individual’s mindset.

    She has been inspired by the work of the educational psychologist Carol Dweck, who has shown that people’s beliefs of their own capabilities often become self-fulfilling prophecies. On one hand, some people view their abilities as “fixed” and unchangeable. Others may have a “growth mindset”, meaning that they see their abilities as being more fluid, and so they are likely to persevere through hardship and embrace new challenges.

    These differences soon add up, meaning someone with the fixed mindset may start out with greater natural talent, only to quickly fall behind someone with a growth mindset.

    Dweck’s work considered traditional concepts of intelligence, but Chao has shown that a similar process underlies changes in CQ too. If someone believes that cultural attributes are fixed, for instance, they may face greater anxiety during their interactions with local people, and may crumble after a confusing or difficult encounter without thinking of ways to adapt in the future. As a result, those cultural differences may come to feel like insurmountable boundaries.

    Savvy business leaders adapt their body language as a mark of respect.

    “Individuals’ beliefs create a reality for themselves,” says Chao. She argues that businesses could measure these underlying beliefs in addition to their employees’ raw CQ scores, and adjust their training to address those anxious, fixed beliefs.

    Despite these new ways of thinking about CQ, research in this area is still in its infancy, warns Chao.

    “As international and intercultural dynamics have been changing very rapidly, there is still much for us to learn about how to enhance cultural competence of individuals,” she says. In a world where our global connections grow ever tighter, that new understanding can’t come quickly enough.

    David Robson is a freelance writer. He is @d_a_robson on Twitter.

    This article was originally published on October 13, 2017, by BBC Worklife, and is republished here with permission.

  • The Dos and Don’ts of Gift-Giving Around the World

    What should you do when someone refuses a gift in Japan? And what colors should you use when wrapping a gift in Italy? We’ve got the answers.

    Afar |

    • By Chris Ciolli

    If you think the art of giving gifts is tricky at home, try making it work abroad. While you must carefully choose the item itself, the gift’s wrapping is surprisingly important, too, as is the timing. In fact, in many cultures, gift-giving is like a traditional dance—you have to do the steps in order, in time to the music, and without stepping on anyone’s toes for it to be a good experience for everyone involved. 

    So whether you’re at a business meeting in Seoul or visiting a friend’s home in a small village in Provence, there are destination-specific guidelines you can (and probably should) follow to offer and receive gifts without causing offense. Here are some traditions to be aware of on your travels.

    Insist a Little

    China, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan

    In many countries in East Asia, when offering a gift, you should expect to be refused once, twice, or even three times. This is done to avoid seeming greedy or impatient. If you’re being offered a gift in one of these places and want to be polite, you’re well advised to do the same. Also, when the person finally accepts, you’re expected to thank them.

    Hand it Over With Care

    India, Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia

    In Asia and the Middle East, how you handle gifts is very important. In India and the Middle East, the left hand is considered unclean so use your right hand to give and receive gifts (unless they’re so heavy two hands are required). In East Asia (China, Thailand, Vietnam), always offer or accept a gift with both hands, palms up.

    Give Gifts as a Thank-You

    Asia, Russia

    Throughout Asia, gifts are given to show gratitude after receiving a gift and as a thank-you for hospitality. In Russia, thank-you cards are thought of as impractical; send a small gift to your hosts after a dinner or overnight stay instead.

    Leave Sharp Objects at Home

    East Asia, Brazil, Italy, Peru, and Switzerland

    In more countries than you might imagine, scissors, knives, and basically anything pointy or sharp represents the severing of ties and relationships—a gesture you’d probably prefer to avoid if you’ve gone to the trouble of buying and wrapping a present. 

    Avoid Taboo Objects

    China, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan

    In China, don’t give someone an umbrella—it means you want the relationship to end. Also avoid giving a green hat; in China and Hong Kong, they communicate the decidedly unfriendly message that your wife is cheating or your sister is a prostitute. Straw sandals, handkerchiefs, and clocks are also taboo in these two cultures because of their association with mortality. Skip brooches and handkerchiefs in Italy for the same reason, and in Japan, forget about handing over a potted plant as a hostess gift—it’s thought to encourage illness.

    Pick a Lucky Number

    Asia, Europe

    When you’re gifting multiples of flowers, money, or chocolates, always be sure to steer clear of unlucky numbers. In East Asia, even numbers are lucky. Number four, which has the unfortunate luck of sounding like the word for death in many Asian languages, is an exception. On the other hand, odd numbers, with the unsurprising exception of 13, are locals’ choice in Europe and India. 

    Wrap it Up

    Everywhere

    Etiquette experts from around the world agree that gifts should always be wrapped. That said, the symbolism of colors varies from country to country. Avoid white, black, and blue gift wrap throughout Asia, as they’re associated with mourning. And while yellow paper is cheerful and appropriate for celebratory gifts in India, in China it’s covered in black writing and used exclusively for gifts to the dead. In South America, black and purple are eschewed because of their association with death and religious ceremonies, and in Italy purple is simply considered unlucky. To avoid any of these faux pas, have gifts wrapped by a pro in your destination. Color, folds, and ribbons aren’t just an important element of presentation—in many cultures they’re symbolic and the wrong wrapping could send the wrong message.

    No Gifts, Please

    Yemen, Saudi Arabia

    In these countries, receiving a gift from anyone but the closest of friends is considered embarrassing. If you do happen to have a best buddy from this part of the world, expect to have any gift you give thoroughly examined—it’s a sign of appreciation and respect for the gift and giver, who’s expected to carefully select the best quality available. For men, don’t give anything made of silk or gold.

    This article was originally published on December 7, 2017, by Afar, and is republished here with permission.