The biggest enemy of diversity is ‘anti-diversity’ – anything that stomps over things diverse and intending to homogenize them or conversely anything coming in the way of something attempting to diversify. Over the last couple of weeks, I picked two stories both defying this hypothesis. One in a heroic sense and the other in a mysterious way!
The glass ceiling game:
The heroic one comes from the HBR Blog Network, titled “How Female Leaders Should Handle Double Standards”. It is about how women are perceived – how they dress, talk, their “executive presence,” capacity to “fill a room,” leadership style and public image – has been the object of vast, well-intentioned efforts to get more women to the top. Voice coaches, image consultants, public speaking instructors and branding experts have filled the growing demand for these services.
The premise, goes on the blog, is that women have not been socialized to compete successfully in the world of men, and so they must be taught the skills of their male counterparts have acquired naturally. But, at the same time, they must “tone it down” or risk being labeled as having sharp elbows. The crux of the matter is that women are evaluated against a “masculine” standard of leadership that leave them limited options and distracts attention from the task at hand.
While women are likely no more susceptible than men to such diversions, subtle (and not so subtle) cultural biases can easily turn women’s attention inward as they try to reconcile conflicting messages about how to behave as leaders. What to do then, in a world when image and perceptions matter, and gender stereotypes remain firmly entrenched? Three prescriptions, in the blog, from three women leaders (http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/how_female_leaders_should_handle_double_standards.html):
- “We should just focus on what we have to do” says Lubna Olyan, the Saudi CEO of Olyan Financing. She believes, “women shouldn’t be distracted by things that take away from what we are trying to accomplish.”
- “The story is never what she says, as much as we want it to be. The story is always how she looked when she said it”, say the members of Hillary Clinton’s press corps. What does Clinton have to say? She does not fight it anymore; she focuses on getting the job done.
- IMF Chief, Christine Lagarde says be yourself. “Dare the difference”. But do so skillfully. Don’t just let it hang out; and never confuse “being authentic” with “fatal flaws” such as treating people poorly.
So while you work towards breaking the glass ceiling do not give up your originality. Being yourself is diversity too.
The Most Misunderstood Industry (TMMI):
Why is insurance TMMI, consistently across the world? That there is little room for diversity, in the ways it is perceived, remains a mystery. Two professors at Wharton, Howard Kunreuther and Mark Pauly together with Urban Institute researcher Stacey McMorrow, analyze the theme in Knowledge@Wharton Today. The focus of their study is USA, world’s most developed and penetrated insurance market. Yet their findings do not seem to be any different for the rest of the world. It makes an interesting read (http://knowledgetoday.wharton.upenn.edu/2013/02/insurance-the-most-misunderstood-industry/).
An extraordinarily useful tool to manage risk:
- Yet broadly misunderstood by consumers, insurance executives and regulators
- Many do not voluntarily buy coverage against potentially risky & serious losses
- Insurance firms also behave strangely after they suffer a severe loss
- State regulators often constrain insurance premiums because they are concerned that insurance will not be affordable
- Affordable Care Act (ACA) health reform legislation requires sellers of individual and small group insurance to sell coverage to all comers at premiums that do not take into account the buyer’s medical risk
Why do consumers, insurance firms and regulators behave as they do?
- Tendency for those at risk to assume that disaster losses or major health related expenses will not happen to them. Given this view, they feel no need to purchase insurance protection. Only after suffering a loss will consumers voluntarily buy insurance. After a disaster, insurers may decide to restrict coverage, and state regulators are likely to prevent private insurers from charging premiums that reflect the actual risk
- Behaviour of this kind defeats the three principal purposes of insurance: to provide information via premiums as to how serious your risk is; to provide motivation for undertaking financial protection against an event that could produce a significant loss but has a low probability of occurrence; and to offer incentives in the form of premium reductions to reward people who invest in risk-reducing measures
- Incentives, rules and institutions that encourage a constructive role for insurance will ultimately improve individual and social welfare. Several recent pieces of legislation have set the tone for appropriately dealing with risk. Dealing with Terrorism via the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA); Biggert-Waters Act proposes major reforms to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The ACA requires insurers to offer insurance to all US residents who do not currently have coverage through either their job or a public plan.
What can be done to make insurance a better policy tool and to avoid adverse side effects of the well-intentioned programs already in place?
- One way to convince people, prescribe the authors, of the long-term benefits of insurance is to stretch the time horizon over which the event can occur. Studies have shown that people are much more likely to buy insurance or invest in protective measures if an event, such as a hurricane, that has a one in 100 chance of occurring next year is presented as having a greater than one in five chance of happening at least once in next 25 years. And if the disaster does not happen – well, the truth is that the best return on an insurance policy is no return at all. One should celebrate not having a major loss!
- Insurers should construct worst-case scenarios for rare events. They can then determine a premium that reflects their best estimate of their expected future risks factoring in the uncertainty of the events happening. Insurers could also consider offering multi-year policies if state regulators allow them price coverage that reflects risk over that period. A multi-year insurance policy with risk-based premiums coupled with a multi-year home-improvement loan to pay for risk reducing measure may enable policy holders to reduce their overall costs.
Having diagnosed what keeps us into being the most misunderstood industry, the authors demystify our current state and also suggest prescriptions for overcoming this woe. Maybe anti-diverse at the outset but if each market and geography could discover its own remedies; we may soon be a reinvented entity.
My comment on “Still a man’s world” by Sara Mosavi:
Hi! We need to go beyond a pure statistical analysis or judgement on the state of diversity to some softer sides as well.
The stories ought to also cover:
What made the successful women leaders get where they are? Family support, culture, environment, challenges et al. Each one could be an amazingly insightful story, rather than just a statistic.
Likewise, those who really deserved it and never made it – was it the glass ceiling or their choices or a combination of both? Life again need not be judged on a pure SUCCESS = POSITION but success at what price?
There will be several exceptional stories of bright and talented women who chose successful work life balance over a successful career and not so successful personal life. Equally applies to men.
It will be fascinating to hear the life story of Ms Nooyi. To what extent did her living in the US rather than the native country facilitate realisation of fuller potential? The positive roles of husbands/ partners in ensuring that the wives/ partners realise their full potential would be great too. Perhaps this could also become a role model for many a men.
So let us get over a pure left brain approach to a more balanced one, thereby engaging the right side of the brain as well. And look for ways to make it all happen. Not just a statistical reality but a functional metamorphosis of our society.
Published as a Chartered Insurance Institute Think Piece in November 2012
Indian born lady in the driving seat@F1
The announcement of Dehra Dun born Monisha Kaltenborn’s elevation as the Sauber team Principal, close to the Indian F1 event, is bound to evoke tremendous interest. In a sport presently dominated by men, this is indeed a welcome break. And why not when you are F1’s first ever woman team principal. All eyes now on who will succeed the F1 key man Bernie Eccelstone. Could it be his daughter? A lady and of Indian origin indeed constitutes wonderful form of diversity and deserves all the media glare that it has rightfully received. “It is a lot of responsibility because if you mess it up it is even worse than if a man were to do that”, Monisha was recently quoted on the BBC Sports.
Triumph of human spirit
However, there is something else that has an interesting linkage with the F1, which also deserves to be recognized and celebrated. It is a story of triumph of human spirit. The hero is Alex Zanardi. “While he was never able to reach the heights of success in F1 – Zanardi never made the podium in 44 races – he is a champion Paralympian”.
“In 2001 the ex-Formula One driver was at death’s door, lucky to survive a horrific accident that left him with only 30% of his blood supply. He lost both his legs – amputated at the knee – after being pulled from a wreckage of his car at a race in Germany”.
“Having failed to make a career in F1 after four difficult seasons, he turned to the US CART series where he twice won the drivers’ title for Chip Ganassi’s team”.
“That earned him a return to the elite division of motorsport in 1999 with the Williams team, but again he struggled”.
“Drifting back to open-wheel cars, fate came calling at the Euro Speedway Lausitz on September15, 2001. He had worked his way up from the rear of the field to lead the race with 13 laps to go before the life – changing crash”.
“Given the severity of his injuries, the doctors at the scene of the accident said Zanardi should never have survived”.
Zanardi not only survived but discovered hand cycling. It all culminated with him winning a gold medal in his adopted sport at Britain’s Brands Hatch circuit at the recent Paralympics, aged 45 years! Some form of diversity whilst tackling adversity!
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/06/sport/paralympics-zanardi-london-2012/index.html?iid
If the Kinect brings your living room alive in a social and accessible way, a passage through Glacier Bay is more than a live journey through geography. it’s a journey through time. in roughly the 65 miles that you traverse, begining in modern age and finishing in the ice age. you travel north from forested lower bay to the rocky, icy upper bay. You pass through hundreds of bold changes and subtle transitions where plants and animals pioneer new ground and surprise even the most seasoned observers of nature.
A bear crosses a glacier. A moose swims an inlet. A seedling spuce emerges from granite, reaching for the sky. Life is tough and tenacious here. No wonder Glacier Bay holds powerful stories, and attracts scientists, preservationists, and travellers from around the world.
Wildness: Remote, Dynamic, and Intact
And so we arrive in Glacier Bay, a land reborn, a world returning to life, a living lesson in resilience. If ever we needed a place to intrigue and inspire us, to help us see all that’s possible in nature and ourselves, this is it. Glacier Bay is a homeland, a natural lab, a wilderness, a national park, a United Nations biosphere reserve, and a world heritage site. Not a bad resume for a young land, a new sea. Just 250 years ago, Glacier Bay was all glacier and no bay. A massive river of ice, roughly 100 miles long and thousands of feet deep, occupied the entire bay.
Today, that glacier is gone, having retreated north. Fewer than a dozen smaller tidewater glaciers remain. Impressive in themselves, sequestered at the heads of their inlets in the upper bay, they flow from tall coastal mountains to the sea, and calve great shards of ice that bejewel cold waters with diamond like bergs. They are witnesses to change, these rivers of ice. They invite us to slow down and breathe deeply of the cool ice age air, and to imagine, if only for a day, the way things used to be.
Source: National Park Service, US Department of the Interior
Thunderous applause and a standing ovation. The audience adored them and would not want the performers to go. Herr Gerard Schwarz, Music Director of the Seattle Symphony, and the Contralto Ewa Podles did something they had never done before. Bowing again and again, they did. But came back to more than reciprocate the claps and cheering to reinterpret nature for Mahler! Just the way it unfolds during bright sunny summers of Seattle… That was five summers ago. The great conductor has retired since then.
It all starts with the chalk art spilling around the Benaroya Hall. Incidentally, the lane besides now bears the Schwarz name. Engulfing the whole place in a blossom of innocent creativity where I first saw children unleashing art in chalk. Except subdued in parts where adult helping hands came into play. The budding artists captured the excitement of anticipation for those boarding or fulfillment of all the ones disembarking an Argosy cruise, straight down the steep road at the waterway.
Alaska ahoy!
Occasional containment of the adventurous spirit for those who get charmed by the Radio Jazz and the cozy comforts of its air-conditioned confines. No sooner you step onto the deck of the Argosy that you get the welcome blast of fresh air into your face. The shimmering waters of the Pacific. Just in case you miss the sparkle of refracting lights, be ready to be surprised by the photographs. The frolicking sea-lions and the swooping bald eagles reminding you of the world above and below. And the acrobatic orcas of the neighbouring San Juan islands that appear from below and then disappear into nowhere. It could even be an adieu to the departing Alaska cruise. Five years since then, I do get my opportunity to board the cruise line taking me beyond the Vancouver island – as far as Skagway. Beholden by the sights & sounds of British Columbian coast as it unfolds into Alaska.
The sea gulls mockingly inviting all and sundry to let go themselves into the elements of nature. And the mockery of those who cannot figure out whether the Mount Rainier or the Olympic Mountains are farther or nearer. And the frozen volcano deriding those who take it on its face value. Saintly & sublime. Come, measure me by my trails. Figure out if you do hear my guts rumble, my lava awaits just the moment to splurge – in its most intense and expressive form. Undoubtedly paling to glory fireworks on Lake Union and Puget Sound, which in turn desperately attempt to synchronize with Radio Seattle music, every Fourth of July.
Drums of Destiny:
The city streets are the biggest theatre, be it bright summer nights of Seattle; cold, wet and windy mornings of London or the year-round muggy Mumbai. Drama never ceases there. The drums of destiny keep beating. Must say Vancouver was an exception and the train ride to Whistler only more exhilarating!
Pathos of all those who beg on the streets of Seattle, London or Mumbai. Not because they beg, but succumb to the desire of easy money. How unimaginative they must be when they wear a placard reading “My father was killed by a Ninja. I need money to learn Karate”. Less obscene is the one who politely approaches you with a request for 20 cents and whichever way is your response, does move away with a respectful thank you nod. Neither of these, is certainly the American way. Not in the least portrayal of misery and desperation that ‘Saint Martin and the beggar’ on display at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). What to talk of the gleeful merriment of the lonely gull. She seems to have an inkling of the divine awakening within. Thanks to ‘Entheogen’ by Sheldon Skillie at the Stonington Art Gallery, that I now understand their gay abandon better.
Not really an ode to the reincarnated street boys of Mumbai who have turned entrepreneurial. Having realized there is greater margin selling pirated Harvard Business Reviews (HBR) than pestering passer bys for loose change. In some sections of the city, as the road signals go red, they swarm in the melee of cars and you can be sure to hear the knock on your windscreens. Ask them what is inside those pages and they will tell you with eyes gleaming, “It’s all about marketing. Good stuff. Please take it”. Urging to close the deal before the signal turns green. Just as in an Xbox. Bizarre, rather true.
Sleepless in Seattle:
The yin and yang is writ large. It is not about the Chinese fusion cuisine as in Pink communism. The dumb alms leave you exploring all possible notes; the deafening ambulance sounds make you wonder whether it is actually a police chase; sudden upward graph of the Seattle skyline and the silence of the cranes despite the sounds of earth moving equipment.
The raven does get heard once in a rare while. Only an ornithologist can tell whether it’s a mate call or a sheer urge to remind of its existence. Just like the occasional American Indian you spot in the park on the edge of Western Avenue. Perhaps the totem poles have a way to vibe with those of their tribe?!
Then suddenly in one silent road corner you have these protestors wanting to support the cause for the tunnel under the Bering Straits. What then could happen to the summer daytime drivers playing loud music in their convertibles as they drive underground? And remember that will invite Russian auto invasion across the Seattle crossroads. Era of fresh tunes!
Not always fresh & juicy:
The Pike Place market is not just about real fish and the pigs. The drama and merriment. It is also not the organic but hybrid fruits alone. Without any doubt juiciest in the world. It is an orchestration of all the musical talent oozing out from the world over. No brew would be complete without the African American singers performing outside the first ever Starbucks. “We gonna be alright”, is indeed very reassuring. Generosity of the onlookers far more forthcoming. But wait, you also have the occasional retching inebriated to the dismay of mothers and wide eyed toddlers in prams, wondering why grownups cannot behave. And a few obsessed, who must somehow dig out “I Love New York” in a mound of “I Love Seattle” T-shirts.
Boeing Vs Microsoft:
Yes, its been five years since the city celebrated the joy of Dreamliner’s (787) birth. There is still no hiding the grief of the aerospace industry. It bemoans that the digital world silently worked its way to get the best talent. The brightest flock from round the world around Redmond. It has been also that long since some ran from right here the greatest music ‘Live Earth’ show on the planet. Unlike the chess players, at the Seattle Public Library, making swift moves and talking in hushed tones – the aviation industry must quietly follow its destiny.
The Red Barn is the home to sights & sounds of European, British, Russian, Japanese and American heroics in the sky. It resonates the dare devilry of Red Baron, Kamikaze and much more. Whether they were Axis or Allies in the two great wars. Also resting in peace is the stately Concorde, after overcoming many a barrier as does the Air Force One. The sea-plane groans but more drones as it takes off or lands onto the waters. Before too long they must all end up in the Museum of Flight. Its already the turn for the recently retired space shuttle to find a parking slot.
Not too far from where the Chief Seattle greets 
enthusiastic visitors to Space Needle, the amphibious duck-riders create quite a mirth. Today Boy King Tutankhamen is a state guest in there. Glittering in his yellow metal-ware, dating three thousand years ahead of the Klondike goldrush which brought in the first hordes into the city. In a few months he heads back to Tahrir Square which has of late had more than its share of action. Only the joyous gull stays on. It is and shall be witness to the past, present and future of the Seattle spirit. A vast, timeless centrifuge that churns new shades of notes which musicians can only dare imitate. The white speck of a gull on an azure blue Seattle summer sky, should be all to keep the Chief’s benign smile.
*Postscript:
From Xbox to Xbox 360 to Kinect is a story of not just software development but vision, as well. How a gaming device was incubated to arrive at the future of man and machine interaction. Thereby producing a new motion sensing system that does away with the game controller in the favour of the player’s own body. A Star Trek kind immersive experience.
The Natural User Interface (NUI) brings your living room alive in a social & accessible way. Removing the last barrier between you and the entertainment you love. Making the hardware almost invisible to the user.
It was artists, musicians, painters, researchers, engineers, people from Hollywood and several nationalities who made this vision come true – indeed a diversity in thought and creativity!
Back in the Pacific Northwest, Washington – British Columbia region, where the whales rule the high seas, I am confounded by potential challenges entailed in classifying them as humans. There is yet another thread in the diversifying diversity weave, again from a recent story from The Economist. No, it is not about Higgs boson! Morals and the machine: Teaching robots right from wrong. Yes this will be a big one to handle too, for diversity practitioners, in not so distant a future.
Whale & dolphin watch – The cetaceans are coming – Dilemma 1:
- Cetaceans like whales and dolphins, have a high degree of intelligence, and also have self-awareness like the humans.
- Their brains are as anatomically complex as those of humans. They also contain a particular type of nerve cell known as the spindle cell. In humans this is associated with abstract reasoning. Moreover, these are much bigger than those of great apes, thought of as humanity’s closest intellectual cousins.
- They have complex cultures, which varies from group to group within a species. They have distinct and differentiated use of vocal signals and tools. Seem to have awareness of themselves as individuals. At least some can recognise themselves in a mirror.
- According to Dr Thomas White, a philosopher from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, a person need not be human. He believes that a person is a being with special characteristics who deserves special treatment as a result of those characteristics. So other species can qualify. Hence cetaceans can have moral rights appropriate to their species, though different from those accorded to humans.
- The term ‘stocks’, with its implication that whales and dolphins are a resource suitable for exploitation, is being overtaken by ‘populations’, a word that is also applied to people.
- A group of killer whales that lives near Vancouver, passing between waters controlled by Canada and the US, have acquired legal protection even though the species as a whole is not endangered. After a battle in the American courts these whales have been defined by their culture, and the culture is deemed endangered.
- The idea of rights for whales echoes Australian philosopher Peter Singer’s proposal that human rights be extended to the great apes – chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans.
“Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!”
– Moby Dick
Despite all the valiant efforts by “Save the Whales”, International Whaling Commission (IWC) & Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS), thanks to pirate whaling, 15 species have become vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.
Managing and breeding them in captivity may soon come within the purview of HR managers. Whether whales and dolphins will have the benefit of access to the likes of International Human Rights Commission or a separate set of laws and enforcement mechanism need to be codified?
Technology running ahead of legislation – Dilemma 2:
As they become smarter and more widespread, autonomous machines will end up making life or death decisions, thereby assuming moral authority. Moreover, as the human operators go out of the loop , such robotic machines will be presented with ethical dilemmas. Regulating the development and use of autonomous robots will require an elaborate framework, in the following three areas:
- Laws are needed to determine whether the designer, the programmer, the manufacturer or the operator is at fault if an autonomous machine has an accident.
- Where ethical systems are embedded into robots, the judgements made by them need to be ones that seem right to most people. Studies from how people respond to ethical dilemmas need to be reigned in.
- More collaboration is called for between engineers, ethicists, lawyers and policy makers. Ethicists are likely to gain a greater understanding of their field by trying to teach ethics to machines, and engineers need to reassure society that they are not taking any ethical shortcuts.
“Baby you can drive my car”
– The Beatles
Driverless cars are very likely to be safer than ordinary vehicles, as auto-pilots have made planes safer. Sebastian Thrun, a pioneer in the field, estimates driverless cars could save 1 million lives a year.
In conclusion:
Despite the diversities of the two dilemmas, there are interesting dissimilarly similar underlyings. In the first, we are discovering higher forms of hitherto unknown levels of intelligence. With this growing realisation, we need to take a call whether we are gracious and generous enough to bestow the moral authority rightfully due to them – the wonderful habitants of the blue seas? In the second, we are inventing higher abilities to perform intelligent acts. Are we ready to abdicate increasing moral authority before we weigh the risks entailed?
Inspired by:
http://www.economist.com/node/21548150?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/whalesarepeopletoo
