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Shake on it: lessonsShake on it: lessonsfromhistory’s bestfromhistory’s best(andworst) negotiations(andworst) negotiations
Is a university educationIs a university educationstill worth having?still worth having?
A friend first and a bossA friend first and a bosssecond: celebrating twosecond: celebrating twodecades of David Brentdecades of David Brent
How South Korea became softHow South Korea became softpower’s new global superstarpower’s new global superstar
Because business is about peopleWorkWork..
Spring 2022
03
WorkWork..In an episode from season five of the US version ofThe Office, Dunder Mifflin is trying to buy out MichaelScott Paper Company. “We are prepared to make you avery generous offer,” CFO David Wallace says. “And weare prepared to reject that offer,” replies Michael Scott(played by Steve Carrell), adding when his colleagueprotests: “Never accept their first offer. What is yoursecond offer?” It is a comic moment perfectly illustratinghow prone to cliché the concept of negotiation is.Of course, negotiation is nonetheless an integral partof business, and who better to learn from than thosedictating the course of history with their powers ofpersuasion – or just dogged patience? On p28 we explorewhat really made (or broke) settlements including theGood Friday Agreement and the Treaty of Versailles.And on p38 we celebrate 20 years of The Office (and itsglobal spin-offs) and ask why we still have such a softspot for the most farcical aspects of corporate life.
Jenny Roper, [email protected]
Because business is about people
Features in detail p4
Perspectives: distilled management thinking p6
15 minutes with… Guy Singh-Watson p12
Interview: Linda Kennedy on innovation in HR p14
Does the university model need a shake-up? p18
Lessons from history’s great negotiations p28
Two decades of The Office p38
Q&A: professor Claudia Goldin p42
How South Korean culture took the world by storm p46
Is the expat a dying breed? p56
Debrief: business research, reports and insight p62
Further reading p72
The off-piste guide to empathy p74Inside front cover:
Donggwoldo (Painting of
Eastern Palaces), c 1830,
paper, silk and wood.
Anonymous artist. Collection
of Dong-A University
Museum, South Korea.
Fine Art Images/Heritage
Images/Getty Images
Joining a companywithproduction sites in 18countries amid a globalpandemicwas inevitablya daunting prospect forKlöckner Pentaplast’sHR chief LindaKennedy,especially given her loveofworking across culturesandmeeting face to faceto ensure initiatives reallyland. Nonetheless herdepartment has beenintegral to helping thepackaging specialistweather the Covid storm.The biggest strategiccontribution her teamcanmake, she tells KatieJacobs, is finding greattalent and then “gettingout of their way”. Herfunction can absolutelybe as innovative as theengineers it supports,but the profession at largemust get better at usingdata, identifying KPIsand quantifying impact,she says.
Katie Jacobs is seniorstakeholder lead atthe CIPD and formereditor ofHR and SupplyManagementmagazines
LindaKennedy
Universitychallenge
Long before studentswere confined to theirhalls of residence andforced tomake dowithlectures and seminarsover Zoom, questionsabounded regardingwhether a universityeducation representedvalue formoney. Is £9,000a year a wise investmentwhen grads often endup serving coffee or onunpaid internships, atleast for the first few yearsafter graduating? Shouldwe encourage somany toattend given the apparentmismatch betweenskills learned and jobsavailable? Is there abetter way – and shouldemployers be helping tobridge the gap? AndrewSaunders explores thehistory of our esteemedinstitutions and askswhether the universitymodel might finally be onthe cusp of disruption.
Andrew Saunders iscontributing editor ofWork. and a businessjournalist whose writingalso appears inTheTimes, Telegraph andManagement Today
p18
04
FEATURES IN DETAIL
When Ricky Gervaisand StephenMerchant’scelebrated TVmockumentary debutedin 2001, it divided criticsand audiences alike,with some finding it fartoo close to home in itsdepiction of the tediumand awkwardness ofoffice life – and somemissing the fact it wasmeant to be a comedyaltogether. Yet twodecades on, in an ageof homeworking andneverending virtualmeetings, it has takenon a nostalgic huefor many, with someeven hankering aftermore interactions withBrentian types. PaulSimpson looks back at TheOffice’s difficult genesis,finest moments, globalretreads and enduringlegacy – not least forfun-loving, robot-dancingmanagers everywhere…
Twenty yearsofTheOfficep38p14
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Negotiation is somethingwe all do every day,whether with family,colleagues or businessrivals. It can be a ticklishaffair. As the former CEOof IAG and Aer Lingus,WillieWalsh, oncenoted: “The reasonableman gets nowhere innegotiations”, withdiscussions often derailedby our human capacityfor misunderstanding,distraction or downrightstubbornness – problemsthat only get worse whenthe stakes increase. Justlook at the on-again-off-again nature of so manyinternational treaties, orthe apparently endlesssearch for peace intheMiddle East. Butsuccessful deals underpinmuch of the progressmade towards a saferandmore prosperousplanet. From the end ofApartheid to the CubanMissile Crisis, PaulSimpson goes behindthe scenes to reveal thelessons we can all learn.
Paul Simpson is a journalistand author. His latestbook,TheColour Code, ispublished by Profile Books
Historicnegotiationsp28
The endofthe expat?
Once upon a time,Western companiesfollowed a well-wornpath of sending theirbrightest managers outfrom head office to runlocal businesses. Today,however – particularly inthe wake of Covid and theserious limits it placed ontravel – this model is influx, Robert Jeffery hears.Many have decided toinvest in nurturing localtalent, and are as likelyto send high-potentialindividuals fromAsia orAfrica to theWest as viceversa, or send employeeson virtual assignments(where the individualgoes away for a shorterperiod then continuesthe project from home).Which all suggests thatglobal mobility might justlook quite different infuture, rather than be injeopardy altogether.
Robert Jeffery is editorin chief ofWork. andPeopleManagement
p56
05
Labour marketWork has actually becomemore not less secure, withmany on non-traditionalcontracts happy with their lot
RecruitmentJob seekers have a poorexperience of AI-assisted videointerviewing, research finds
Inclusion & diversityAre women really lesscompetitive than men? Or justconscious to appear so?
LearningMany graduates regret notconsidering an apprenticeship –firms can help bridge the gap
Corporate governanceCompany directors talk a goodgame on climate change – butdo their actions match this?
PerformanceConscientiousness is thepre-eminent predictor ofsomeone’s success in a job,no matter the occupation type
ValuesStandards around ethicalbehaviour have improved, butmanagers have a rosier viewthan frontline workers
Gender diversityWhy has progress on women onFTSE boards stalled? A focuson particularly influential execroles could help, say experts
Public perceptionDoctors are the most trustedprofession and politicians theleast – along with businesses
FlexibilityManagers must support hybridworking more proactively toavoid worsening inequalities
Annual reportsMuch corporate governancereporting still amounts to“boilerplate or declaratorystatements”, says the FRC
PsychologyNot setting a deadline actuallymotivates people to complete atask sooner, research finds
WellbeingInvesting in H&W programmescould improve workingrelations and reduce bullying
Debrief p62-71
As the first femaleacademic in economicsto be granted tenure atfour major institutions,Claudia Goldin is oftenheld up as a role model.Yet she struggles tosee herself as one, shetells EmmaDe Vita.Which is precisely thepoint of her new book,Career and Family:Women’s Century-LongJourney Toward Equity.“Everyone is stuck intheir own generation...and they do not see thatthere has been progress,”she says. She explains thatmaking headway on thegender pay gap requiresboth parents to enjoy amore equal split of timespent with their childrenand on their careers.So employers shouldrise to the challenge ofspreading workmoreevenly andmaking staffmore substitutable.
EmmaDeVita is a businessjournalist, editor of Projectmagazine and contributorto the Financial Times
Q&A:professorClaudia Goldinp42
“Where on earth did theyget the idea for this?” Itis a questionmanymighthave asked seeing ITV’sTheMasked Singer for thefirst time (before perhapsguiltily enjoying it). Theanswer: South Korea. Orrather South Korea’sKingofMask Singer contest,in which celebritiescompete while wearingoutlandish costumes.And it is by nomeansthe only Korean culturalexport to hitWesternshores and becomewildlypopular. Think Oscar-winning film Parasite andNetflix sensation SquidGame. Notmanywill beaware of the deliberateindustrial strategy behindK-culture’s meteoricrise, however. JeremyHazlehurst discovers thestory behind this softpower success – andwhatit means for a nation ofworkers accustomed to,but becoming increasinglydisillusionedwith,sheer hardwork as acultural norm.
JeremyHazlehurst is ajournalist who has writtenforTheWall StreetJournal andTheTimes
SouthKorea’ssoft powerp46
BUSINESSTHINKERDanielH Pink is an expert on regret. HisWorld Regret Survey has garnered16,000 responses, revealing thatone of our most common regretsis passing up career opportunities.A workplace culture that prizestransparency, decency and purposegoes a long way in addressing this,says Pink, as does creating a senseof psychological safety so peoplefeel empowered to take risks.“Employees will [then] have fewerregrets about their jobs,” he says.
It’s possible to turn a regret intosomething positive, says Pink, aslong as you try to extract a lessonfrom it, and work out how to applythis in future. “Whenwe feel thestab of negativity from regret, that’sa sign the world is trying to tell ussomething about how to behave inthe future,” he says.
“Everybody has regrets. But if weanticipate our regrets properly, wecan reduce them,” he adds. Onetechnique is: when faced with adecision, travel forward five yearsand look back. If the decisioninvolves building a stablefoundation for your life, taking asensible risk, doing the right thingor building meaningfulconnections, pick the decision you’llregret the least. “If it involvesanything else, don’t stress over it,”he advises.
PERSPECTIVES
Own your regretsfor a bolder career
MANAGEMENT THINKING DISTILLED
Q&A JANE EVANS
Daniel H Pink is a business thinker and authorof books including The Power of Regret
FORWOMENOVERTHEAGEof 45, the danger of becoming‘invisible’ to employers when itcomes to career opportunities isstarting to receive the seriousattention it deserves. This is thanksto campaigners like Jane Evans andCarol Russell, founders of theUninvisibility Project, a networkand creative agency offeringsupport and training to midlifewomen, and authors of new bookInvisible to Invaluable: Unleashingthe Power ofMidlifeWomen.
Whydo things need to change formidlifewomen in theworkplace?Women over 50 have half theprivate pension savings ofmen,and if we don’t get them employednowwe face a futurewhere halfourwomen retire in poverty.Weneed to change the ridiculousnotion that awoman has nofurther use in society once sheis no longer fertile. Getting ridof women over the age of 45 inredundancy rounds has to stop.Butmore importantlywe have togo back and employ the generationwho have already been lost.
What can employers do about it?HRhas to take responsibilityfor the rampant ageism thathas been inflicted onmidlifewomen and activelywork tochange their attitude andmakeamends by creating opportunitiesformidlife women. You havetraining programmes for youngpeople, why not takewomenfrom ‘the school of life’? To keepahead, women themselves needto re-skill, shout outwhen theyexperience ageism, and joinother like-mindedwomenfor support.
Whyaremidlifewomen so valuable?Theworld has never seen ageneration ofmidlifewomenlike us before.We are themosteducated, experienced andhealthywomenwho have everlived andwe’ll live longer thanevenwe expected. The best bit?These years have been added tothemiddle. If we come togetherand support each other, midlifewomen have everythingweneed to solve the problemswe face.
What’s the organisational benefit?Midlife women are the answer tothe ‘Great Resignation.’Womenhave left theworkforce infrightening levels and femalerepresentation is back at 1980slevels.Midlife women can dowhatwe’ve done before to createthe opportunities for thewomenbehind them and forge a path sothey can have long and successfulcareers too.
Midlife women canbe invisible at work
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Carl Rhodes is professor of organisationstudies and dean at UTS Business School
If we have learned nothing else about ourworking lives during the pandemic, it is thatflexibleworking is here to stay, and the futureof workwill increasingly feature practicessupporting greaterwork-life integration.
This blending of workwith our private liveshas led to people bringing their ‘whole selves’into thework setting, whether face to face orvirtually.We have seen, duringmanymonthsin the virtual world of Zoom, teammembersgetting to knoweach othermore intimately– learning about their personal stresses andstrains, problemswithin families and their lowand high points. In essencewe have learnedmore about our colleagues as individuals.Wehave also seen themental wellbeing ofmanystaff badly affected during the pandemic.There has been a greater openness among
people to talk about these issueswithcolleagues and seniormanagement.
The pandemic has shownus thatwork is asocial aswell as economic activity, and thatgoodwork is about finding an animatingpurposewhich canmotivate us to devotediscretionary effort to our jobs. Creating a
culturewhere people feel valued, trusted andcan flourishmeansmanaging them in awaythatmeets their personal and psychologicalneeds. Ultimately, embracing these principleswill help employers deliver a healthier and
more productiveworkforce.
You are not your job. It is currently fashionableto declare your passion forwork, and
organisations claim to seek employeeswhowilldevote their ‘whole selves’ to their jobs. But thisis a risky road for employees. As individuals, weneed to rememberwork is not our lives – andour employerwill be loyal and look after us untilthey aren’t, and don’t. A good friend ofmineworked for a global pharmaceutical companyfor 20 years after completing his PhD. Thenout of the blue, the company decided to axeits UKdivision. In the end, all those years ofbeing a top-rated performer, of going the
extramile, counted for nothing.
To get the balance right, think of the unwrittencontract you havewith your employer. Youmight expect to get the training you need,
opportunities to develop, and an environmentwhere you feel accepted, respected and
safe. Then remind yourself what is not in thatcontract: a promise of a job for life, always
getting the promotion youwant or of being ableto fulfil your passions...
If you find your identity is utterly tied upwithwork youmightwant to reset slightly. After all,whatwould happen should yourwork fail todeliver what you yearn for?Work is a place toearn a living. It is a place for creativity, thought,action, intellect, collaboration, communication
andmuch else. But theworkplace is veryrarely a place for passion.
With so many working remotely, the boundariesbetween our jobs and personal lives are now blurred.So how much of ourselves should we bring to work?
And should we keep banal domestic details in check?
Should you bring yourwhole self to work?
TALKING POINT
07
EXPERTS’ VIEW
SIRCARYCOOPERProfessor of organisational psychology and
health, Alliance Manchester Business School
WOKECAPITALISM, aphenomenonwhere majorcorporations, CEOs and billionairessupport political causes normallyassociated with the progressiveand activist left – such as the#MeToomovement, Black LivesMatter and same-sexmarriage –“involves corporations gettinginvolved in fundamentally publicissues that in a democratic traditionshould be left to citizens, the stateand to civil society,” according toprofessor Carl Rhodes.
Gillette’s engagement with thetoxic masculinity debate andAmazon’s Jeff Bezos pledgingbillions to fight climate change areexamples. The problem arises, saysRhodes, when corporations backcauses in a way that benefits theirown interests – known as ‘wokewashing’ or ‘virtue signalling.’“If youmake a big fanfare aboutyour woke credentials while, forexample, aggressively avoidingmassive amounts of tax... Payingcorporate tax is a much better wayto contribute to society, and there isno irony or hypocrisy involved.”
HR, meanwhile, would be betteroff “focusing on the real issues andconcerns of employees... Buildingan organisational culture that isgrounded in solid values andpractises fairness, equality andequal opportunity,” Rhodes says.
How to avoid‘woke washing’
VIEW VIEW
HEDDABIRDCEO of 3C
Performance Management
Adaptationstrategies
What are they?Various governments – including the EU,the US and the UK – have devised flexible
plans called adaptation strategies to mitigateclimate change. The aim, in the EU’s words,is to make “adaptation smarter, swifter andmore systemic” to reduce risks and boost
resilience. As the pandemic has proved, thesestrategies could also be applied by businesses
to manage challenges such as supply chaininterruptions or a disruptive innovation
rendering your product or service obsolete.
So just scenario planning in a new guise?Yes and no. It certainly includes elements ofthat older discipline but also tackles some ofits limitations. Implicit in this new approachis that, even if a company is a Jedi master of
scenario planning – spoiler alert: most aren’t– the challenge is managing the adaptation
successfully. Organisations struggle with thisfor many reasons: the data they are basing
their strategies on may be unfit for purpose;the organisation’s response may be too
narrow in scope and the scenarios themselvesmay be constrained by cultural assumptions,
confirmation bias and groupthink.
Does this matter?If Research in Motion, creator of the
BlackBerry, had honed a coherent adaptationstrategy to cope with the threat from
iPhone and Android devices, it might still bemarket-leader in the smartphone business.Such turbulence is increasingly common inother sectors which are being disrupted bytechnology, most dramatically high street
retail, where many former top dogs have failedto adapt and paid the price.
So what can organisations do?Think the unthinkable. The pandemic did notinvent volatility but it did expose the fact thatmany organisations either had no strategy toadapt, had a strategy but couldn’t implement
it – or both. Adaptive strategies can makebusinesses more resilient by helping them
formulate responses to an array of scenarios,identify the barriers that make it harder to
institute fast, systemic change and begin todismantle those before a crisis, not during it.
The bottom lineAdapt or die may be a terrible cliché but,
like other such terrible clichés, it containsmore than a grain of truth.
PERSPECTIVES
INCOMING
Learn to boostyour charisma
Tessa West is associate professor ofpsychology at New York University
08
Vanessa Van Edwards is founder and leadinvestigator at Science of People
YOUMIGHTHAVE a great ideaor be the best candidate for a job, butif you cannot grab people’s attentionand keep it, it will all be for nothing.
Behavioural investigator VanessaVan Edwards, author of Cues:Master the Secret Language ofCharismatic Communication, hasbeen examining the continuoussmall communication cues ourbody language, facial expressions,word choices and vocal inflectiongive and their unwitting effect onhow people perceive us.
Even the smallest unconscioussignals have a big impact. Forexample, ‘uptalk’ – or speaking astatement with a question inflection– conveys low confidence andinsecurity, as the listener’s brainquestions your credibility.
Van Edwards has catalogued40 cues to help you come acrossmore warmly, competently andcharismatically. Why not try tiltingyour body forward to show interestwhen you are speaking to someone?Or keeping your body free of any‘blocks,’ such as crossed arms oropen laptops? And if you want toexude self confidence, use thelowest natural end of your voice.All wannabe leaders, take note.
TOXICCO-WORKERSCOME inmany shapes and sizes, says TessaWest, an expert on spotting anddealing with difficult colleagues.Themost common type is thefree-rider. “The clever ones areusually likeable and fun… it’s whymost victims feel bad confrontingthem,” she says. ButWest says themost damaging types are those whobelieve life is a stage – they playtheir part differently dependingon who they’re interacting with.“Co-workers like the kiss-up/kick-downer are masters at convincingthe boss that they’re invaluable tothe team and that they deserve tobe in positions of power, all whiletorturing people at the same levelor below them,” she tellsWork.
As amanager, how should youdeal with a toxic colleague? Don’tlead a conversation with theproblem, advisesWest. “No onelikes having their flaws spelled outin excruciating detail. Whenconfronting someone directly, like amicromanager, start with a few oftheir strengths first. Next, focuson the exact behaviour you see asa problem, nothing more. Askthem if they have any issues withyou that they would also like to seeaddressed. Make the conversationtwo sided so they don’t feel backedinto a corner. Nomatter your ownfeelings, it pays to be diplomatic.”
Be diplomatic withtoxic co-workers
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CONSULTANTNaomi Stanfordhas been considering how someorganisations have successfullyshapeshifted to weather ongoingdisruptions: “Leaders of pandemic-resilient organisations have madebold decisions – shifting theirbusiness strategy, adjusting theirbusiness and operating models, andcontinuously adjusting aspects oftheir organisation design, includingsystems, policies, and authorities.”
The best executive teams havechallenged their own assumptions;kept a clear mind onwhat aspectsof their business remain stable andwhat can be rapidly changed; andmade decisions using good qualitydata. She cites the examples ofJohn Lewis and Next. The latterhas developed its in-house brands,expanded overseas and opened itswebsite, warehouses and deliveryservices to brands struggling ontheir own. John Lewis has closedstores, grown its online sales andits chair SharonWhite wants 40per cent of profits to come fromcompletely new segments by 2030.
“It’s too early to say whetherthese two organisations will besuccessful over the next decade, butcompared with collapsed retailersDebenhams, Topshop andHouse ofFraser, changing organisationdesign can be a successfulpandemic response,” says Stanford.
PERSPECTIVES
Organisationdesign in a crisis
09
Naomi Stanford is an organisation designpractitioner and author
THELASTTWOYEARS havebeen tumultuous forworkers andemployers alike, with the pandemicupendingworking life aswe knowit. Companies and organisationsaround theworld are facing anurgent need to attract and retaintalent. Those leaderswho understandthe underlying reasons forworkers’rising discontent are the oneswhowill come out ahead in the long runin their quest for talent.
Inwhat has beencalled the ‘GreatResignation,’ or the‘Great Reshuffling,’large numbers ofworkers are nowquitting their jobs, either to taketime off or to take advantage of newopportunities. This trend shows nosign of abating: a record-breaking4.5millionworkers quit their jobsinNovember. It seems like rightnow, it is amuch better time to be anemployee than an employer. Inmanycases the knee-jerk response ofmanyemployers has been to throwmoneyat the problem. And raising pay is fineas far as it goes – but it is not enough,not by a long shot.I don’t thinkmost employers
have fully grasped howprofoundlytransforming the experience of thelast two years has been forworkers.Some lost family and friends to thevirus or saw thembecome seriously
ill – or they became seriously illthemselves. Formany, the pandemicled to a period of isolation and deepintrospection. It caused people to askthemselves: what am I here for?Whatismy purpose? And howwell ismycurrent job fulfilling that purpose?People aremost productivewhen
a job fulfils three dimensions in theirlives: their job purpose, their careerpurpose, and their life purpose.Leaders seeking to access the best
talent today and infuturemust findwaysto systematically engagewith their employees in adialogue about purpose.What is the purpose
of the enterprise and how can eachof themplay a role in achieving it?Themore effort leaders put intoaligning their employees’ personalpurposewith that of the organisationover all, themore likely thoseemployeeswill feelmotivated.Research showswhen employees
find their job, career and lifepurposes are aligned atwork, theyaremore likely to feel inspired andaremuchmore productive. At a timewhen people have come to expectmore from their lives, and theirwork, that is one of themost effectivethings leaders can do – not only toretain their top employees, but also tocreate an environment attractive tocandidates and new recruits alike.
Ranjay Gulati is Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 professor at Harvard Business School andauthor of the new book Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies
“It seems like rightnow, it is amuchbettertime tobeanemployeethananemployer”
RANJAY GULATIWHY PAYING MORE IS NOT ENOUGH
PERSPECTIVES
10
BEST OF
Why it pays to createyour own ‘smart luck’
Christian Busch is director of the CGAGlobal Economy Programme at NewYork University
DEBBIE LOVICHMD and senior partner at BCG
Three tips for leaders to get the futureof work right
Work that’s dictated by a fixed schedule,place and job description doesn’t make sense
anymore, says leadership expert DebbieLovich. In light of the cultural shift towards
remote work sparked by the pandemic,she gives three essential tips to leadersso employees can keep their autonomy
while remaining productive. Fixed workingtimes, places and job descriptions shouldbe consigned to history. “We have to make
sure we don’t go back to the rigid, structured,bureaucratic, sluggish ways that sucked the
joy out of work,” she argues.
WARREN VALDMANISPartner at Two Sigma Impact
What makes a job ‘good’ – and the casefor investing in people
Businesses need to stop cutting labourcosts and start investing in people, says
social impact investor Warren Valdmanis. Hethinks many private equity investors have
made companies too lean and firms can endup starved of the people they need to be
successful. In this perspective-shifting talk,he breaks down the essential ingredients of a‘good’ job: fair treatment, a promising future,psychological safety and a sense of purpose.
RUCHI SINHAOrganisational psychologist
Getting what you want in a negotiationWe negotiate all the time at work – for raises,
promotions, time off – and we usually gointo it like it is a battle. But it is not about
dominating, says organisational psychologistRuchi Sinha. Rather: crafting a relationshipand understanding your needs and those
of the other person. “When we think aboutnegotiations, we think about being tough. Wecharge in… brandishing our influence and ourpower moves – but a negotiation doesn’t haveto be a fight with winners and losers. Think of
it more like a dance,” she says.
Fresh thinking from the world-famous incubator of ideas
WHAT IS ‘SMART LUCK’?Author and professor ChristianBusch tellsWork. it is “the luckwe create ourselves.” He explains:“Our research shows thatsuccessful people have often donethe necessary groundwork to createthe conditions that have broughtthem smart luck; they workedhard to be luckier. They spotopportunities in the unexpected,but they also often create them.”
So why not share the goodfortune with colleagues? If youare managing a team, you can helpthem become ‘luckier’ by spottingserendipity triggers, says the authorof Connect the Dots: The Art andScience of Creating Good Luck.“Ask people in routine meetingsif they came across somethingthat surprised them last week.If the answer is ‘yes’, does thatchange their assumption?Wouldit be worth digging deeper? Oncewe incentivise people to look forthe unexpected, we start seeingopportunities where others don’t.”
Busch gives the example ofsomeone working for a white goodsmanufacturer learning that farmersin China were using the company’swashing machines to clean their
potatoes, but this was causingproblems with somemachines.Should they tell the farmers notto wash their potatoes in themachines? Or realise many othersin China might have the sameproblem and build in a dirt filter tomake it a potato washing machine?
As a manager, facilitating anenvironment of psychologicalsafety will further enable creativityand cross-pollination. Try puttingon ‘project funerals’, Buschsuggests, where any failed projectsare given post-mortems by theirleaders alongside people from otherdivisions, whomight better connectthe dots on lessons learned.
“In onemajor materials andnutrition company, a coating forpicture frame glass was unviablefor the market,” he says. “When theteam ‘laid it to rest’, someone in theaudience realised it appeared toabsorb a lot of energy. So he asked:‘Could it be useful for solar?’ Thiswas a serendipitous moment thatended up as a valuable new part ofthe company’s solar division.”
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PERSPECTIVES
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Julia Hobsbawm is the author of The Nowhere Office: Reinventing Work and the Workplaceof the Future and co-presenter of The Nowhere Office podcast
AFTERASEISMICEVENTlike Covid-19, it is tempting tohanker after the old, comfortablestatus quo. A vision ofworkers backin their routines, back in offices,back at thewatercooler, just likeold times. Except that is notwhatis happening: half of workers areactively considering joining the‘Great Resignation’ and switchingjobs unless they getmore flexibility.
It is not too difficult to explainthis shift. First, habits havebeen changed by long periods oflockdown and enforced homeworking. And technology has risento the challenge: Zoom, TeamsandGoogleHangouts all provedgamechangers.Work could goon, from anywhere. Productivitydid not fall. If anything, in somequarters, it rose.
Second, Covid lifted the lid ona latent and growing desire forwork-life balance. Ipsos data shows,among bothGenZ andMillennials,roughly half want to bothwork fromhome three days aweek but alsohave face-to-face encounterswithcolleagues in an office.
Third, the genie is out of thebottle.We now knowwork itselfcan be unhealthy. Pre-Covid, 60per cent of working days in the EUwere lost to stress, with TheWorldHealth Organisation declaring stress‘the health epidemic of the twenty-
first century’. Popular televisionshowsTheOffice,MadMen andSuccession have a familiar theme:the toxicworkplace. The forward-thinkingmanager recognises thispost-pandemicmoment offers anopportunity for a reset.
Inevitably, the biggest challengelies with the office and the idea ofcontrol. There are plenty of reasonsto defend the office. It providescomfort, community, amenities thatcannot be replicated at home andthe social capital so vital to career
development. But these have tocompete with the pull of freedomand flexibility which is now beingtaken as a right. Also, the 2Dworldof teleconferencingwe’ve seenduring the pandemicwill quicklybecome 3D. The comingmetaverseand use of virtual realitywillprovide a completely different levelof ‘presence’. This will further throwthe spotlight on the questionmanyreturning towork are asking: whatis the point of spending time andmoney commuting to an office?
Leadersmust use offices to createculture and community on a flexible
basis, with fixed calendar datesfor training, social or significantface-to-facemeetings, inmuchthe sameway a family gathers forbig occasions. Theywill leave theday-to-day to hybrid, fluid, iterativeworking patterns inwhich thedominant feature is trust that workgets donewherever it gets done.Managerswho leave their teams toit without eithermicro-managingor using surveillancewill get thebest results.
The biggest redesignwill needto be to rehumaniseHR,who arethe key to creating a new trusting,healthy and innovative environment.We have known for some timethat strongHRdepartments cantransform profitability. HR guruJosh Bersin’s data shows, forinstance, that companieswithworld-classHR skills aremore thanfive times as likely to be ‘significantlymore profitable than their peers’.But now these skills need to adaptand flex to accommodate a newvalue set: purpose.The pandemic has left everyone
feeling that life may be short andthat it needs to be meaningful.HR should be just that: resourcesto help the humansworking in anorganisation survive and thrivein these uncertain times – timesinwhich there really is everythingto play for.
“Leadersmust use offices tocreate culture and communityon a flexible basis, with eventsheld in the samewaya familygathers for big occasions”
JULIA HOBSBAWMWE MUST SEIZE THIS CHANCE TO REHUMANISE WORK
15minuteswith...
Onhis path back to the landI’m the youngest son of a farmingfamily fromDevon. I went offto Oxford to study Agricultureand Forestry and then became amanagement consultant, whichtookme toNewYork. I’m not surehow good a consultant I proved,as it’s easier tomake it up thanto do thework. I thought it arather dishonest industry, usingfraudulent data. But the experiencedid teachme the shortcomingsof being a commodity producer,which is a trulymiserable place tobe. I saw even then thewritingwason thewall for British agricultureand selling to grocerymultipleslater inmy career proved this. Nohuman beings should be treatedtheway supermarket buyers treatsuppliers. I wanted to be in controlofmy own destiny. So I returned tothe family farm in 1986 and beganthe reversion to organic. I rentedthree acres frommy father andpaid £5 an hour for a plough.
Onemployee ownershipI’ve always seen profit as ameansnot an end.We had offers for thebusiness as it grewmore successful.But to sell Riverford as a tradeablechattel, whose purposewould betomaximise short-term returnsfor external investors, felt tome abit like selling one ofmy childreninto prostitution. (My kids do otherthings but one or two of themmayreturn to the business eventually.)So, I opted to turn it employee-
owned instead.My first approachwas a disaster. I presented the planto the staff committee and they toldmewhere to stick it. The lesson Ilearned from thatwas that I hadn’tlistened first and then explainedit properly – they didn’t knowwhat Iwanted to achieve. I hadto be clearer about the vision andunderstand their aspirations.
Onpurpose andprofitIn the endwewent for theWe–DoIt – OurWaymantra.We challenge,we’re competent, we are neversafe – our stuff is contentious, sowe are never boring. As I said inour Founder’s wishes document:“Much rests on our success; bydemonstrating that a human andethically driven business can becommercially viable, wewill avoidbeingwritten off as hopelesslyidealistic, demonstrate thepossibility of a different future, andcreate an alternative path for otherbusinesses to follow. Values arenever an excuse; our offermust becrediblewithout reference to them.”
Ondoing the right thingI could havewalked awaywith£22million, but instead I took£3million.Whatwould I have donewith the £19million difference?God knows.Money is ultimatelyuseless but doing something usefulis a delight.What I didwas theright thing. Butmore importantly,seeing the business thrive is asource of enormous pleasure and
Guy Singh-WatsonThe Riverford veg box pioneeron not selling out and how tomake purpose pay
pride. Theworld is not black andwhite; agreement is not a conditionof participation andwe are not acult. There are always tensionsand contradictions between ourdifferent values, andwe have tomake compromises and detours.So, although I think capitalism isinefficient and a dreadful waste ofhuman capital, Stalin showed thatFive Year Plans don’t work either.Nothing finances and encouragesinnovation like capitalism butit requires careful regulation toprotect it from corruption. Ourinability to deal with fossil fuelsis amarket failure. AdamSmithwould have taxed the hell out ofthem to pay for the damage theycause, discouraged their use andencouraged safer alternatives.
On the impact of Brexit andCovidThe first is amess and a headache.The second has been good for us;our turnover is up to £76m. At thestart of 2020, before the pandemic,wewere delivering 50,000 vegboxes aweek, nowwe are doing80,000. Quite aside from thenightmare of bringing a load of pakchoi andmixed lettuce on a lorryacross the Channel, Brexit wassupposed to create an opportunityfor agriculture but after six yearswe have nothing. Riverford has afarm in France, andmymanagersthere nowhave to apologise to theirfriends forworking for a Brit. TheUKhas gone from being admiredto being a laughing stock. In
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GuySingh-Watsonis an organic farmer andfounder of Riverford whohas twice been namedBBC Radio 4 Farmerof the Year. Riverfordstarted delivering weeklyboxes of organic veg –chosen by the farmer,not the customer – backin the 1990s whenthe idea was unheardof. In 2018, followingexamples such as TheJohn Lewis Partnershipand Ove Arup, he sold74 per cent of thebusiness to Riverford’sstaff at about a quarterof its market value.
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“Ask yourself every day:
what differenceare youmaking?
”LindaKennedy,HR chief at packaging firmKlöckner Pentaplast, ispassionate about innovation. She tells Katie Jacobs how better data is
helping her teamquantify its impact and think outside the box
Y ou probably won’t have heard of KlöcknerPentaplast. But you almost certainly willhave come into contact with one of itsproducts in the lastweek.Used aVisa creditcard, taken some paracetamol, eaten pre-
packaged fruit? Had your Covid booster jab? All wouldhave involved a KP (as it is known) product. The Germanplastics producer –which acquired British firmLinpac in2017 – employs almost 6,000 people and manufacturesrigid and flexible packaging and speciality films acrosssectors including food, pharma and construction.
“A lot of people think plastics are automatically bad,”says chief human resources officer Linda Kennedy,tackling the plastic PR problem head-on. “They think ofplastics and they think of David Attenborough. But untilthere is an alternative, which we are always looking for,the next best thing is to make sure you are selling thesafest and highest recyclable content you can. We wantour plastics to be repeatedly used and to never end up onDavid Attenborough’s beach.”
Kennedy joined KP in November 2020, coming froman interimCPOrolewith theAA.ShehasalsoenjoyedHRleadership stints atSercoandSIG, andwasVPofpeopleatOrangeduring themergerwithT-Mobile to formEE.Herstrong international background – she speaks German,Spanish and French and has worked in countries asdiverse as Azerbaijan, Australia and Venezuela – madeheraperfectfit foranorganisationwith31plantsacross 18
countries. “You get really great exposure and it broadensyour perspective,” she says, ofworking across cultures. “Ilike being challenged – being forced to consider any ofmyconscious or unconscious biases. If youhavehadpersonalexperience of that culture, it helps to put yourselfin their shoes when you are considering how to bestland something.”
Not, of course, that she has had the opportunity todo many site visits since joining KP. She hasn’t even metall of her team yet and it took more than nine months tomeet her boss, CEO Scott Tracey, in person. “It is one ofmy great regrets that I haven’t been able to get to the US– nothing replaces face-to-face,” she says, adding that sheis hopeful shewill resume some international travel soon,even if reduced for good post-pandemic.
As formany organisations and because of the diversityof its product portfolio, Covid presented a mixed bag forKP. Supply issues and increased demand for packaging– remember that endless stream of Amazon deliveriescoming toourdoors?–posedchallenges, asdidworkforceavailability and closures in the hospitality sector.
When Kennedy joined the company she found herselfnavigating a complex web of Covid regulations, not onlyfrom 18 countries but also different US states, each withtheir own rules. In manufacturing, a shortage of peoplecan quickly shut down a production line, so KP’s peopleteam needed to be agile, working closely with healthand safety and operations colleagues on the ground
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Keeping up with demand: in manufacturing, Covid-related staff shortages can quicklyshut down production lines, but so far KP has avoided this at all of its 31 facilities
to keep things moving. Strict rules were brought inaround temperature checking, mask wearing and socialdistancing, but HR needed to be creative to ensureproduction lines remained open.
“Wedid some fast-tracking of training sowehad back-up skills available and some huge campaigns to raiseawarenessof theKPbrand,”Kennedysays. “But followingthe emergence of the Omicron variant, our challenge hasbeen people staying off because they are isolating. We’vehad to make sure we conform to the health and safetyrequirements in the country at that point in time, whichmeans we are constantly issuing the latest guidelines.”
In the US particularly, attracting people back to theproduction lines has been a challenge. “Many of themdid not want to come back to work at all,” says Kennedy.“Thosewhodid,didn’tnecessarilywanttoworkinaprettywarm environment in a plant with heavy equipment.”Add to themix anAmazonwarehouse opening just downthe road from one of KP’s plants and it is no surpriseKennedy feels it has been “quite a process to keep it allgoing”. “We’ve had to keep on the front foot, constantlyreviewing working patterns, shift patterns, overtime,holidays and wellbeing.” She is justifiably proud that sofar KP has not had to shut down a single production line.
Communication has been a huge theme, especially forfrontline employees, given the kinds of social activities(food trucks, family barbecue…) KP used to put on for itsplant staff. “The camaraderie, the sense of family inmanyof our sites, was really strong. But over time, if you’re notallowed to travel or bring people together, that inevitablysuffers,” Kennedy says. Technology has helped plugthe gap somewhat, keeping two-way communication
running. Each site now has a screen that shares socialposts like birthdays but also enables employees to givefeedback easily, for example via a voting function asthey clock in and out. Kiosks with laptops have also beeninstalled so staff can go online to access training andother content. “The assumption was ‘these are frontlineguys, they won’t be interested’, but the take-up has beenquite good,” she says.
For home-based staff, communicationmust be regularand consistent. Like many businesses, KP introducedevents such as online coffee mornings to keep peopleconnected on a human-to-human level. “It is nothingexceptional,”Kennedy acknowledges, “but youdohave tostick with it and keep going. It cannot just be the flavourof themonth, and Ihave seen that in someorganisations.”
With employers around the world suffering the ‘GreatResignation’, Kennedy will not be alone in believingthe biggest impact her HR team can have is finding thebest talent. “If we did nothing else but that, we wouldbe delivering huge value to the company,” she says.With a relatively lean team of 67 supporting 5,900 staffglobally, she is keen to avoid HR getting bogged downin operational activities. “A big part of my role has beenrecontracting with the business about what we will andwon’t do as we try to move towards a more strategic andproactive approach.”
Having the right data and insight is crucial. “Thefirst thing I do when going into any new business islook at whether we have the right KPIs – or any KPIssometimes,” says Kennedy. “I use that data to work withthe business to decide our areas of focus, which helpsin getting agreement around that. Demonstrating ROI
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interview
to build support for an initiative or project should befundamental – HR needs to get better at quantifyingimpact and benefit.” Her team has done a lot of work tocleanup thefirm’s people data and get better use out of itsHR systems, including by hiring more experts. “We canstart to better understand what’s causing our attrition orwhat is driving absenteeism,” says Kennedy. “Where dowe have strengths?Where dowe haveweaker areas?”
While she acknowledges some upskilling has beenrequired to help her team get to grips with peopleanalytics, equally important has been creating thespace and impetus to focus on it fully. “In some cases ithas been about moving the roles to free people up to dowhat they are capable of doing, but are not getting thechance to do because of bandwidth, or have not had theconfidence to do, or have not been asked to do,” she says.“It is an old adage, butwhat getsmeasured getsmanaged.If you relentlessly focus on something, people start topay attention to it. If no-one has ever asked you for yournumbers on a weekly basis, the likelihood is you willnever have prepared your numbers on aweekly basis.”
She gives the example of the firm’s global engagementsurvey. Rather than focusing on the score alone,Kennedy’s aim was to increase the completion rate, asthat tells its own story: “It gives you a view on whichmanagers are engaged and allows you to set realisticstretch objectives.” On their first attempt, completionrate went up from 53 per cent to 70 per cent. “We can usethenumbers todemonstratewhat is achievable,” she says.“If a year ago I had said we were going to go from 53 percent to 85 per cent, they would have [been sceptical], butnowwe’re at 70 per cent, 85 per cent might be doable.”
Employee engagement is a core metric of KP’s ESGagenda, and Kennedy views sustainability as integralto her people strategy. As well as engagement, she isaccountable for diversity targets (KP aims to have 30 percentmanagementrolesfilledbywomenby2025;thefigureis currently 23.9 per cent) and community engagement(much of which is unfortunately on hold because ofCovid). “ESGandsustainabilityarerealpriorities,not justintegral to the products we produce but to our employeevalue proposition,” she says. “Youngpeople todayplace asmuch emphasis on how a company operates and what itproduces as they do onpay and benefits or even their owndevelopment.” (However, she has noticed that in recentinterviews, candidate questions about hybrid workinghave overtaken those about sustainability.)
KP is private equity backed and its refinancing termsare linked to ESG targets – a first for the industry. “If wedeliver on our ESG targets, we get charged a lower rateof interest,” explains Kennedy. “If that’s not putting yourmoney where your mouth is, then I don’t know what is.The desire to improve things is critical. If that means ourbusinesschangesandendsupproducingsomething[otherthan plastic], then so be it.Wewill grow and develop andevolve with the times. If you haven’t got that alignment
with candidates in terms of values and purpose, it’s goingtomake recruiting hard, especially post-pandemic.”
Making plastics production as sustainable as possible– or finding an eco-friendly alternative – means KPhas a strong focus on innovation. With HR not alwaysrecognised as a powerhouse of creativity and freshthinking, how does Kennedy’s team support this area?“The biggest strategic contribution we can make isfinding great talent and getting out of theirway,” she says.“Innovative people join organisations where they can dogreat things. Innovation starts through diverse talentbringing diverse cultural perspectives, building teamswith the rightmix of skills and experience and creating aculture which enables themagic to happen.”
KP has a flagship innovation lab in the US as well asseveral smaller sites around the globe. “It is a bit likeDisney,” Kennedy enthuses. “It is really exciting whenyou see the new solutions our engineers can build. Ourcustomers come with challenges and we find waysof fixing it. We need to support the development andengagement of people in these roles. They are highlyaction orientated and love delivering, so our role is torecognise that, reward their achievements and buildtheir technical capability.”
Kennedy believes HR can and should be a role model.“HR can be innovative,” she says. “We should challengeourselves every day to say ‘what difference is thismaking?’ For every action in my team, I encourage thatwe ask the ‘so what’ question. If there is not a positiveconsequence or outcome, why are we doing it?”
HR must become more proactive and future focused,she adds. “We can be more innovative by using the dataavailable to us to provide predictive insights on whichthe business can then make decisions. Turning the datainto something meaningful is the innovative part, andthinking outside the box about what you can do.We tendtowork in cross-functional teams at KP and I love that asit pushes the envelope.Youwill havepeoplewhoare goodat efficiency who question why you are doing it a certainway, or someone creative who can helpwith branding.”
Being private equity owned means KP often operatesat a swifter pace than some of the listed businessesKennedy has worked for in the past, something shepersonally enjoys (one of her key philosophies is not todelay decision-making, particularly when it comes topeople). She also appreciates KP’s size and reach.
“You’ve got the Titanics of the world: they movethrough thewater well but they turn quite slowly and donot always see the icebergs. Then you’ve got start-ups,which are more like rowing boats; it’s fun and excitingbut youwouldn’t want to be in one in rough seas. KP is inthe middle. I can get my arms around it and it’s the kindof companywhere you can see the impact ofwhat you do.It means you can leave a legacy.”
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What is the point of university?
Words Andrew Saunders
During the pandemic, dissatisfaction among locked downstudents soared. But resentment over skills and value formoney has been growing for years, prompting many –including employers – to ask if there is a better way
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To appropriate a line from the veterancomedian and film director Mel Brooks,‘The students are revolting’. The 95-year-old Hollywood maverick may have had
peasants in pre-revolutionary France in mind whenhe penned the gag for his 1981 bad-taste fest TheHistory of the World (part 1). But after two years inand out of lockdown, the sentiment must resonatewith many of the UK’s 1.8 million or so universityundergraduates, who if not quite ready to take upthe cudgels, at least seem to be increasingly unhappywith their lot.
And not without reason. During the pandemic,images of halls of residence with posters in thewindows scrawled with plaintive messages such as“send food” or “locked down and locked in” hit ournews feeds. And the mass abandonment – even nowsocial distancing has been relaxed – of face-to-facetuition by many universities, combined withgrimmer tales of serious mental hardship and evensuicide, have created the growing impression thata university education in general – and the studentexperience in particular – may no longer be quitethe gold standard offering itonce was.
It is maybe no surprise thatthe Higher Education PolicyInstitute’s (HEPI) most recentannual Student AcademicExperience Survey, publishedin 2021, uncovered recordlevels of dissatisfaction, nearlyhalf (44 per cent) of studentsbranding their course poor or very poor value formoney. In contrast, only 27 per cent thought theywere getting good or very good value for money.Those numbers have flipped from pre-pandemiclevels in 2019, when 41 per cent rated their studies asgood value for money and only 29 per cent poor.
Students are far from the only ones withquestions about the value of the university system.The latest annual Global Skills Index report fromrecruitment firm Hays (which covers employers in34 countries) found that: “The talent mismatch isbecoming worse in a number of markets” – that is tosay the skills candidates possess are increasingly notwell alignedwith those employers require, especiallyin key areas such as technology, construction andhealthcare. Similarly, the 2019 Open UniversityBusiness Barometer found 63 per cent of UKemployers were experiencing a skills shortage (evenbefore the pandemic hit) and that three in fivebusiness leaders said their organisations were not asagile as they should be due to a lack of key skills.
Not all of those problems can be laid at the doorof the UK’s 175 or so ‘recognised bodies’ (highereducation institutions with the power to award
degrees). But as CIPD chief executive Peter Cheesepoints out, education in general – and universities inparticular – need to change as the world aroundthem does. “The pandemic is a big stimulusfor change. Education is no longer something thatends at 18, or 21. It is increasingly about lifelonglearning,” he says. “Employers should not expectgraduates to be completely oven-ready employees,but they should have the skills that prepare them fora good career and to keep learning – things like theability to collaborate, work as part of a team andthink critically.”
Surprisingly, given the extensive and growinglist of dissatisfactions, university is in fact morepopular with the nation’s 18 year olds than everbefore. Record numbers of 18-year-old school leaversaccepted university places last autumn, up 7 per centfrom the year before at 272,500, according to UCAS.That equates to 37.9 per cent of the total populationof that age group, compared to the previous highof 36.4 per cent in 2020. In 1980, barely 15 percent stayed in education of any kind beyond the ageof 18 – despite the fact that the availability of
full grants made it effectivelyfree, at least for those whosefamilies could not afford tosupport them financially.
And the Higher EducationStatistics Agency (HESA), theUK’s official data provider forhigher education, records thatbetween 2006 and 2019 thenumber of degrees awarded
rose from around 291,000 to over 402,000. Agrowing proportion of those are first or upper secondclass degrees too, up from 72 per cent in 2015 to 82per cent in 2019. This rising tide dates back to then-prime minister Tony Blair’s famous 1999 declarationthat he wanted 50 per cent of young people to go touniversity. It may no longer be an official target; butthat does not stop it continuing to polarise opinion.
However, David Willetts, former Conservativeuniversities minister (now a member of the House ofLords) and architect of the tuition fee regime stillin place today, says more university places will berequired regardless of squabbles over what the‘right’ proportion of youngsters is. “This medianarrative that too many people go to university andthat we should actually cut back on numbers is verydangerous, because it is a distraction from the actualchallenge we’re facing over the next 10 years, whichis how to plan for increases in student numbers,”he tellsWork.
Willetts, who co-authored a recent report for theResolution Foundation on the subject and has justwritten a wide-ranging book entitled A UniversityEducation, says numbers will inevitably rise over the
“Employers should not expectgraduates to be oven-ready, butthey should have the skills thatprepare them for a good career”
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Weird and wonderful initiation and graduation rituals are as much part of university life as essay-writing all-nighters andpints. Here, first year medics are covered in food as part of annual ‘hazing’ at the University of Granada, Spain
The early morning queue for library seats at China’s Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, ahead of exams. In 2020,the world’s most populous country boasted no fewer than 33 million students – more than 10 times the number in the UK
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(% of school leavers who enrol in tertiary education, by region, country and gender)
WHOGOESTOUNIVERSITY,ANDWHERE?
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SOUTH AFRICA
19%
29%
TOTAL24%
ITALY
57%
76%
TOTAL66%
NIGERIA
6%
3%
TOTAL4%
FRANCE
61%
76%
TOTAL68%
UK
56%
76%
TOTAL66%
US
74%
102%**
TOTAL88%
North America87%
Latin America &The Caribbean
54%
Middle East &North Africa
41%
EU73%
UK66%
56% fall in overseas applicantsfrom the EU studying at UK
universities, 2019-2021
9% rise in overseas applicantsfrom beyond the EU studying at UK
universities, 2019-2021
SPAIN
84%
102%**
TOTAL93%
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PUBLIC VS PRIVATE FUNDING OF UNIVERSITY BY COUNTRY
WORLD’S TOP 10 UNIVERSITIES
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HOW MUCH DOES A UNIVERSITY DEGREE COST STUDENTS?
Average tuition fees, 2021 (US$ PPP)
England $12,330
US $9,213
S Korea $4,792
Italy $2,013
Spain $1,768
France $233
Germany $148
(Bachelors degree or equivalent. Source: OECD Education at a Glance 2021, Table C5 p286)
ITALY
99.8%0.2%
ITALY
92.3%7.5%
US
91.7%8.2%
FRANCE
90.8%7.8%, 1.5%
S KOREA
88.6%9.4%, 2%
SPAIN
86.4%12.6%, 1%
UK
83.2%9.4%, 7.5%
SWEDEN
99.8%0.2%
KEY●Public expenditure● Household expenditure● Other private funding
1 University of Oxford
2 Harvard University
3 California Institute of Technology
4 Stanford University
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
6 University of Cambridge
7 Princeton University
8 University of California, Berkeley
9 Yale University
10 University of Chicago
41%
27%
29%
44%
S KOREA
108%**
88%
TOTAL98%
INDIA
28%
31%
TOTAL29%
TANZANIA
9%
7%
TOTAL8%
CHINA
54%
64%
TOTAL58%
GERMANY
73%
74%
TOTAL74%
South Asia26%
Sub-Saharan Africa9%
My course represents very good value for money
My course represents very poor value for money
2019
2021
2019
2021
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Graduating students at Japanese university BBT didn’t let Covid ruin the moment. The ceremony, which took place in 2020amid government pandemic restrictions, was attended by robot avatars dressed in caps and gowns
“I agree with Nick...” In 2012 Lib Dem deputy PM Nick Clegg (left), perhaps enjoying the ‘bromance’ with coalition PM DavidCameron too much, broke his party’s manifesto pledge not to raise tuition fees in England and Wales – and paid the price
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next decade simply due to demographics. It is allthanks to a jump in the birth rate in the noughties,a bounceback after the historic lows around the turnof the century. “Over the next decade there will bea surge in the numbers of 18 to 19 year olds becauseof a rise in the birth rate between 2002-2012. Even ifyou start with the assumption that the proportionwho go to university stays the same, you still end upwith 50,000 more people attending university perannum,” he says.
And that assumption itself is likely to bepessimistic, he adds, because the trend for moreschool leavers to go to university is also set tocontinue growing “not as a result of any governmenttargets… but because of the informed choices ofyoung people who want more years of educationbecause they think, on balance, that it’s good fortheir long term prospects”.
Part of the answer, Willetts believes, is not justto expand existing intakes, but to found newuniversities and colleges in towns and cities wherethere are none currently – a move which hesays would also help deliver the government’smuch talked about, but yet tobe much acted upon, levellingup agenda. “It’s the idealscenario for creating moreuniversities in cold spots thatdon’t yet have one. Thosethree years at university arevery valuable, in terms ofboosting people’s education,their earnings, changing theirbehaviour and increasing the contribution theymake to society.”
These are some of the virtues that account for theremarkable longevity of the university model, datingback as it does over 1,000 years. Oxford andCambridge are the two oldest in the UK (some claimOxford is the oldest in the English-speaking world),founded in 1096 and 1209 respectively. No newuniversities were founded in England or Scotlandbetween 1600 and 1800. But the Victorians got theball rolling again, followed by more spurts beforeWorld War I, after World War II and in the 1960s.University status continues to be granted – formeragricultural college Hartpury in Gloucestershirebecame a University in 2018, for example – but thelast mass event was the conversion of 30-odd formerpolytechnics in 1992.
In his 1852 book, The Idea of a University,academic and clergyman John Henry Newman saidintellectual study should be the goal in itself and the“soul” of a university lay in the mark it left onstudents. With millions of students, rather thana few thousand, in the 21st century, Newman’s loftyideals are inevitably tempered by more pragmatic
concerns. But a university education remains one ofmost parents’ ultimate ambitions for their children,says Nick Hillman, director of the HEPI think tank,which conducted the aforementioned studentattitudes survey.
He cites UCL’s Millennium Cohort Study, a majorpiece of social science research tracking the livesof 19,000 young people across the UK born aroundthe turn of the 21st century. “When those childrenwere around eight years old, their mothers wereasked whether they wanted their kids to go touniversity; 97 per cent said yes. They won’t all go, butthat does show you the level of aspiration involved,”Hillman says.
Employers may fret about the difference betweena candidate being well educated and being highlyskilled, but in many ways the UK’s universities seemto be doing a pretty solid job of giving those children(and their parents) what they want – at least if thepurpose of a university education is to attract plentyof students and award them with a good class ofdegree at the end of it all.
But of course, it is never quite as simple as that.University life has always beenabout so much more than justacademic achievement – whatyou study and how well youdo is a necessary but by nomeans sufficient measure ofsuccess. The enticing prospectof getting a good degree – andsubsequently a good job – aretwo ‘hard’ variables among a
number of much ‘softer’ ones that candidatesconsider when applying, especially at undergraduatelevel. These range from the location and quality offacilities to the choice of social, sporting and extra-curricular activities on offer, to the cost ofaccommodation and living, and even the standard ofnightlife available.
“Before you start your 40 years in the labourmarket, why wouldn’t you want to spend three yearsin an exciting environment surrounded by newpeople studying a subject of your choice, hopefullyhaving a great time?” saysHillman. “The governmentwill lend you the money to do it, and you won’t haveto pay it back unless or until you start earninga decent salary. What’s not to like about that?”
In other words, university can set you up for life,not just for work. One recent (and perhaps slightlyself-serving) study by student accommodationprovider UniHomes found that up to 30 per cent ofUK students meet their future life partnersat university. There are even claims that universitygraduates live longer – news that may not bring joyto famous dropouts Bill Gates, Steve Jobs andMark Zuckerberg.
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“Before you start your 40 yearsin the labour market, whywouldn’t you want to spend
three years in an exciting place”
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AN APPLICANT-EYE VIEW
Katy is 17 years old and studying for A-levels inSpanish, History and English at a state school insouth east London. She is applying to study fora degree in History and Spanish, starting in the
autumn of this year.
“The way that different universities haveresponded to the pandemic has been one of thebiggest factors for me in deciding where I want
to go. I’ve got friends and relatives who arestudents already, and I know from them that
some universities have dealt with the impact ofCovid much better than others. Some of my
friends got great individual support from theirtutors, whereas others didn’t – lots of emails
saying things like ‘We really, really value studentwellbeing’, but a blank space when it came to
actually doing anything useful to help.
One of the reasons I put Newcastle Universityas my top choice was because of the focus onface-to-face rather than remote learning. Theyhave a ‘let’s get on with it’ attitude that I really
like – they were one of the first to reinstatein-person rather than virtual open days. I went
to one and was impressed.
Being able to interact with other people in aclassroom or lecture theatre is very important,not only for the quality of my education but alsofor my general wellbeing and happiness. Onlinelearning has a role to play for sure, but it should
be used to enhance what we already have,rather than replace it entirely. I’ve been through
two lockdowns and had fully-remote learningforced on me; I know how isolating it can be.
Learning is important, but academic study isn’tthe only way to do it. Unfortunately, there is an
assumption that if you don’t go to universityyou’ve failed somehow. I think that is wrong –there should always be space for people who
prefer to learn in a more practical way.
I want to make a life for myself. When I look intomy future, I see a competitive world where I will
have to work hard to get the life that I want.I think university will help me, because it opens
up your chances of getting a good job andmaking more money after you leave.
It is also about the experience. You learn how tolive and study independently, but there is stillsome structure – it’s a kind of halfway house.So choosing which universities to apply to is
a big decision. I do want to enjoy theenvironment, but it’s so expensive. I don’t want
to waste all that money on a course that isn’tgoing to get me where I want to go.”
All the same, universities may be at risk ofdamaging the prospects of their own alumni by notproducing enough of the ‘right’ kinds of skills.Figures from the Institute of Student Employers(ISE) found that while in 2020 graduate vacanciesrose by 20 per cent year on year, nearly one in fiveemployers reported a decline in quality of graduates.
And there is evidence that more employers areturning to school leavers and ‘growing their own’skills bases from scratch – harder work thanoutsourcing the task to higher education, but withmore certainty that the end product will be whatthey need. Accountancy firm Grant Thornton toldthe Financial Times recently that the proportion ofits trainee intake who are school leavers has alreadyalmost doubled from around 10 or 15 per cent in 2011.This year it hopes that figure will hit 40 per cent.
“I think employers have historically useda degree as a filteringmechanism to select candidatesfor jobs that don’t really require a degree,” says theCIPD’s Cheese. “But if you develop your own skillsthrough things such as apprenticeships rather thanrecruiting them, you get very loyal employees.”
Then there is the thorny question of thosecontroversial tuition fees, the policy hill on whichNick Clegg’s u-turning Lib Dems were slaughteredas a parliamentary force back in the coalitiongovernment days of 2012. With undergraduatesacross England and Wales now paying up to £9,250each year in tuition fees – with the exception ofScotland, where students pay nothing – the UK hasbecome one of the more expensive places to studyglobally. Foreign students of course pay much more– and are eagerly courted as a result.
The quid pro quo is that student numbers are upunder tuition fees, but to many observers the currentsystem of high costs offset by large loans looks onbalance like amarket failure. The recent governmentannouncement that student loans will now be paidoff over 40 years rather than 30 – and a reductionin the earnings threshold from £27,000 to £25,000– is a tacit acknowledgement that the model isindeed broken.
“I think you could argue that some of the coursesat some of the universities do not deliver what theypromise,” concedes Willetts. “I thought we weregoing to have price competition, but we don’t. Thesystem as I designed it worked on the basis of around25 per cent of loans being written off. I do think thata situation where 50 per cent are being written off isbad news.”
There is also the danger that in a marketisedsystem where students are customers too, they cometo see their role as being consumers of a productrather than contributors to a joint endeavour, saysBernd Vogel, professor in leadership at HenleyBusiness School. “It is not like going to Sainsbury’s
26
and buying a bit of this and a bit of that. For anundergraduate, their education is a three or fouryear learning journey. It is a synergistic relationshipand the students build the output together. It’s morelike going to the gym – the people who pay will alsohave to do stuff.”
Nevertheless, it is high time value for moneybecame a more serious consideration when shoppingfor university, says Ben Nelson, founder and CEO ofSan Francisco-based online university Minerva,whose USP is providing an ivy-league-beatingstandard of education at a substantially keener price.“If you are a full-paying student at DartmouthCollege [New Hampshire], for example, you’repaying around $80,000 a year for tuition and roomand board, versus around $30,000 at Minerva,” hesays. “So your parents could buy you a Tesla, andthemselves a Tesla, and still save money. And youwould be getting a superior education.”
With only 600 or so students from across theglobe, Minerva remains a mereminnow currently, and as suchboasts some of the toughestentry criteria of any college inthe world. But its model couldwell be the future. Its veryselect few students are taughtexclusively online through acustom-built ‘digital learningenvironment’ that Nelson saysis actually much more effective than old-school face-to-face methods.
“People talk about using technology as if thatsomehow makes things worse – that the goldstandard in education is getting together in a roomjust like we were doing a 1,000 years ago. But themodality of learning in a custom-built onlineenvironment is actually much better than it isoffline,” he says. Minerva focuses on so-called ‘activelearning’ and on what you might call ‘useful’ lifeskills rather than specialised subject knowledge –problem solving, critical thinking and decisionmaking, for example. These are, of course, thingsyou can learn at a traditional university, but usuallyas a by-product of study rather than its explicit goal.
Nelson is a classic SiliconValley techentrepreneur– he was CFO of online photo hosting and printingstart-up Snapfish bought by Hewlett-Packard ina previous life, and Minerva’s $25m seed investmentcame from Benchmark Capital, better known as theventure capitalist behind the likes of Instagram,Snapchat and eBay. But he vehemently rejects theimpression of himself as a ‘disruptor’. “A disruptor’sjob is to destroy incumbents. That’s not what we arehere to do. We believe in the enterprise of highereducation. Minerva is a global reformmovement, nota disruptive one,” he explains.
Perhaps Nelson has been put off by the failure ofprevious attempts to disrupt higher education,which for all its shortcomings has proved remarkablyadept at seeing off challengers. Remember whenMOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses – were allset to make bricks ’n’ mortar colleges a thing of thepast? It never really happened.
Perhaps this is because even the kind of early-adopter individuals who will happily take a punton all the latest gadgets and apps in every otheraspect of their lives, are muchmore risk averse whenit comes to their education. Institutions witha proven track record and generations of successfulalumni behind them will always have an advantage.For thesemoremainstreamplayers, blended learning– that is a curated mix of online and offline – is likelyto be the way forward, says Vogel. “From a purelypractical perspective we know that online learningworks. You can go on the likes of YouTube andthere is a video that will teach you just about any
practical skill you like. You caneven learn more social stuffthat way, like how to havea difficult conversation.”
So universities can replicatethese asynchronous tools andeven use them to enhance theircurrent offering. But they arenot necessarily appropriate forevery situation, he adds.
“It depends on the learning outcomes you actuallywant. Working with others in close proximity canbe a catalyst, and sometimes going to a particularplace and being in a disciplined environment helpsyou learn.”
Either way, just as in the workplace, better tech isall set to make a big difference to the successfuluniversity of the future. The real lesson from theCovid-19 pandemic, concludes Minerva’s Nelson, isnot that remote learning is inherently bad, but thatrushed and poorly-executed remote learning can be.“If you take an offline product and just put it online,of course it’s going to be terrible. Institutions thathaven’t already thought about how to makeuniversity better through technology, will they whentechnology is foisted upon them, end up making itworse? Yes.”
Many of those ‘revolting’ students stuck onlaptops in their rooms over the past couple of yearsmight agree they had tech foisted on them. So the bigchallenge for the UK’s universities now is how to uptheir digital game and persuade the next generationof undergraduates that blended learning can beeffective, enjoyable possibly – and maybe evenprovide better value for money, too.
“The modality of learningin a custom-built online
environment is actually muchbetter than it is offline”
For further reading, see page 72
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SAY ‘NO’ AGAIN,I DARE YOUI DARE YOU
According tomachomyth, successful negotiationis about not blinkingfirst. But historic
settlements – from theCubanmissile crisis totheMagnaCarta – tell amore nuanced story
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“They’re shits. They are tawdry,miserable filthy people.” That is howthe then-National Security AdvisorHenry Kissinger described North
Vietnam’s negotiators to US president Richard Nixon,when the Vietnam peace deal stalled in December1972. In reality, Kissinger may have been as furiouswith Nixon as he was with Le Duc Tho, NorthVietnam’s chief negotiator. After striking a peace dealwith Tho in Paris, Kissinger had been ordered by hisboss to demand 69 revisions, which South Vietnam’spresident Nguyen Van Thieu had requested. Afteragreeing to a dozen of the changes, Tho took umbrageand walked out.
Although negotiations are a key part of businesslife, few of us will ever be involved in deals with quitethe same level of jeopardy attached. Nevertheless,there are lessons we can learn from such examples (thesituation in Ukraine the most high stakes and front ofmind currently of course). For one thing, the muchvaunted ‘art’ of negotiation is often as much a test ofpatience and mental endurance as anything else.
The pressure of being the middle-man in theVietnam negotiations causedeven the publicly-unflappableKissinger to privately lose hiscool. His proposal to resolve theimpasse, he told Nixon on a callon 12 December, was thatthe US should bomb NorthVietnam for six months. This isdistinctly at odds with hiscarefully cultivated image ofa consummate international statesman, whosesangfroid helped to rein in an “unhinged” president.On the call, it is Nixon who restrains Kissinger, saying:“Six months is not going to work … with Congress.Bombing for what?” But then this is also the man ofwhom the American journalist Seymour Hersh oncesaid: “He lies like other people breathe.”
During the same conversation, the pair alsodisparaged everyone from the Russians to their“ungrateful” ally South Vietnam – and even US vice-president Spiro Agnew. It is a compelling insightinto the sometimes tawdry private discussions behindthe public glamour, shuttle diplomacy, soaring rhetoricand even Nobel Peace prizes (the latter awardedjointly to Kissinger and Tho) associated with high-profile negotiations.
It also serves as a useful reminder thatfor negotiations to succeed, a group of exhausted,emotional people with different viewpoints, cultureand experience, who barely know – let alone trustor like – each other, must somehow find commonground. These same people also know that, afterany deal, they will, in a variation on the famousphrase used by American diplomat and former US
secretary of state Dean Rusk during the Cubanmissile crisis, be asked: did the other guy blink? Ordid you?
In theVietnampeace talks, itwasSouthVietnamesepresident Nguyen Van Thieu who reluctantly blinked,only acquiescing to the final deal – which included fewof his amendments – when Nixon secretly, anddishonestly, promised American military aid if NorthVietnam violated the treaty.
Thieu had a poor hand from the start, but he mighthave played it better had he spent less time hagglingover the wording of specific clauses and done somemore groundwork before talks started. As TimoKivimaki, professor of politics, language andinternational studies at the University of Bath says, thecrucial aspect in many negotiations is how they areframedbeforehand. “Individualshaveavery influentialrole when it comes to framing negotiations in sucha way that they deliver better outcomes. In mostnegotiations, there is no objective interpretation of thesituation, so how discussions are framed can have a bigsay in determining what solutions emerge.”
Before the three sides met in Paris, Kissinger andTho already shared one goal:getting the American militaryout of Vietnam. That consensusframed the debate before itstarted and meant thenegotiations focused on howand when the US forces wouldleave and not, as Thieu wished,whether they should leave at all.As they say in poker: “If you
don’t know who the fish [sucker] at the table is, it’syou.” The last American troops left Vietnam on 29March 1973, just over two years before SouthVietnam’sfinal surrender.
The Vietnam deal is also a great example of how –and why – the minnow can beat the whale innegotiations. Despite the huge gulf in terms of globalmuscle between the two, says Kivimaki, the outcomemattered much more to North Vietnam than toAmerica. “Powerful actors are often committed tonegotiations with many less powerful actors, whereasthe weaker party is more likely to see their particularnegotiation with a powerful actor as their onlyimportant bargain. There is an asymmetry ofdetermination there, which gives the weaker party anadvantage. Some scholars say this was how NorthVietnam sustained its bargain against the US andarguably won.”
If minnows and whales are to achieve a successfuloutcome, the mediator can play a critical role, even ifthey don’t always get – or want – the glory. In 2005,talks between independence-seeking rebels in Acehprovince and the Indonesian government endeddecades-long conflict that had cost 15,000 lives.
“Powerful actors are oftencommitted to negotiations withmany less powerful actors, whichgives the latter an advantage”
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President Kennedy badly needed to win the Cuban missile crisis negotiations in 1962. With almost no executive leadershipexperience, his first year and a half had not gone well, including a failure to overthrow Fidel Castro at the Bay of Pigs
Irish Republican Army member and MP Bobby Sands died on hunger strike in 1981. His sister, Bernadette Sands McKevitt,opposed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, stating: “Bobby did not die for cross-border bodies with executive powers”
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While the ANC favoured non-violence and compromise, Inkatha Freedom Fighters were involved in several massacres inthe run-up to South Africa’s first democratic elections, and so seen as a thorn in the side of the ANC – and its negotiations
33
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University of Bath’s Kivimaki, an adviser in the talks,recalls: “Martti Ahtisaari [president of Finland from1994 to 2000] was the mediator, but until he won theNobel Peace Prize in 2008, his role was largelyunknown. He believed that success was more likely ifhe stayed out of the limelight and let both parties takecredit for the outcome. If mediators claimed that thepeacewas theirdoing,he felt, all theconflictnegotiatorswould get was the blame for the compromisesthey made.”
These examples suggest the fewer parties involved,the better; two is company and three is a crowd.Imagine then, the complex social and psychologicaldynamics at work when many more participants sitaround the table. The COP26 talks in Glasgow lastNovember were billed as the last chance to avertapocalyptic climate change. Yet,with 120world leadersinvolved, negotiations soon degenerated into textualsquabbles. A reference to “phasing out coal” wasdeleted when India protested. The final agreement lefteveryone equally disappointed, with activist GretaThunberg mocking proceedings as “blah, blah, blah”.
But it is also true that new commitmentswere made. And, as the endof the Cold War showed,apparently minor negotiatingconcessions can actually haveunintended – but in fact huge –ramifications. Many historianshave argued that the gradualunravelling of Communisthegemony over Russia andeastern Europe began withSoviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev’s decision tosign the 1975 Helsinki Accords.
In return for what looked like a big geopolitical win– recognition of the USSR’s post-war boundaries –Brezhnev agreed to an apparently pretty modest quidpro quo: a clause protecting human rights. But to hischagrin, under US president Jimmy Carter, the humanrights clause became a benchmark against which theRussians could be found wanting, and ultimatelyprovided the manifesto for the dissident and liberalmovement in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
In Czechoslovakia, for example, the Helsinkiagreement was a boon to dissident groups who coulduse the clause that their own government had signed topublicise its (mis)behaviour. A founder of one suchgroup, Vaclav Havel, went on to become president ofCzechoslovakia after the collapse of Communism.
These world-changing events sprang from whatBrehznev regarded at the time as a trivial concession.Little wonder that Czech sociologist Jirina Siklovacalled theHelsinki Accords “one of themost importantturning points of the 20th century”. Its impact is evenmore remarkable when you remember it was nota legally binding document.
That is the power of negotiation for you. So Work.delves into the detail of five of history’s best – andworst – negotiations, to discover the vital lessons thatcan be drawn from them.
Know how to compromiseEnd of apartheid in South Africa, 1990-1993“Tetchy,” is how historian Matt Graham describesthe relationship between African National Congress(ANC) leader Nelson Mandela and South Africanpresident F W de Klerk, who led the negotiationsto end apartheid. “There was a lot of respect there,”adds Graham, a lecturer in modern African history atthe University of Dundee, “but there was a lot ofloathing too”.
“Personal connections often prove crucial innegotiations,” he says. “But in this instance, thefriendship between the ANC’s Cyril Ramaphosa, thecurrent president of South Africa, and the NationalParty’s Roelf Meyer, who were so close they wentfishing together, was critical.” They may not have beenin charge, but the pair’s recognition that the winds ofchange were blowing helped maintain momentum.
Where Mandela and deKlerk were crucial, Grahamhighlights, was in persuadingthe disparate coalitions theyrepresented to come to termswith compromise – somethingthat can look like losing at thetime, but is often vital to successin the long run. “De Klerk tooka calculated political risk. He
wanted to influence the future of South Africa, but healso wanted to maintain as many white privileges ashe possibly could. Whereas, before talks started,the ANC’s official position was that the regimeshould be overthrown by revolution and replaced bya socialist republic.”
In the event, neither happened. The ANC achievedmost of its political goals – a unitary state (to ensurewhite South Africans could not control certainprovinces), proportional representation (so everyethnic community was guaranteed at least some kindof say) and no minority veto – but with funds urgentlyrequired from the IMF and World Bank, revolutionwas not really an option. The economywould be run onmore social democratic principles, but the finalagreement preserved most of the white minority’seconomic privileges.
Negotiations were arduous – clandestine talks hadbegun in the early 1980s – but even members of deKlerk’s party came to recognise the country wasbecoming ungovernable. “More people died frompolitical violence in South Africa between 1990 and1994 than between 1948 and 1990,” says Graham.Massacres,murders, riots – and theneo-NaziAfrikaner •
“If mediators claimed the peacewas their doing, all the conflictnegotiators would get was theblame for the compromises”
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Resistance Movement storming the negotiating venuewith an armoured car – underlined the gravity of thecrisis. With billions of dollars in capital fleeing thecountry every year, disinvestment gathering pace andinflation soaring, de Klerk understood that theprivileges he sought to defend could soon beworthless.
“There is no doubt that the settlement kicked a fewissues down the road – such as land redistribution –which the country is still grappling with,” saysGraham. “But the proof that negotiations succeeded isthat South Africa did not, as seemed increasinglylikely, descend into a bloody civil war.”
Focus on the big pictureCuban missile crisis, 1962As the world edged closer than it had ever been tonuclear armageddon in October 1962, Soviet leaderNikita Khrushchev – who had been sleeping fullyclothed on his office couch for a few days – announcedthat he and his fellow Politburo members should goto Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. “People will tellthemselves: ‘If our leaders can go to the opera at a timelike this, we can at least sleep peacefully tonight.’ Wewere trying to disguise ouranxiety, which was intense,” helater recalled in his memoirs.
Things were no less anxiousat the White House, where thePentagon had recently assuredJohn F. Kennedy that Americacould win a nuclear war,although it would involvedestroying every major city ineastern Europe, Russia and China. The disgustedpresident told an aide: “And we call ourselves thehuman race.”
To the dismay of his gung-ho military chiefs, thepresident did not see the stealthy installation of Sovietnuclear missiles in Cuba as the perfect pretext tooverthrow its president, Fidel Castro, choosing insteadto prevent further deliveries via a naval blockade.When those chiefs also urged him to reject the Sovietoffer to withdrawmissiles from Cuba if the Americanstook theirs out of Turkey, Kennedy reframed thediscussion. He pointed out that averting nuclearannihilation by sacrificing some obsolete weapons inTurkey would strike most ordinary citizens as a prettygooddeal. (Themissileswere later secretlywithdrawn,proving that negotiations can succeed even if theagreement doesn’t dot every i and cross every t.)
For his part, Khrushchev always maintained hisgamble was designed to protect socialist Cuba, soKennedy’s assurance America would never invadegave him a face-saving exit. He later describedKennedy as “a real statesman, gifted with the ability toresolve international conflicts by negotiation”. To thePentagon, the deal reeked of appeasement. US Air
Force general Curtis LeMay, nicknamed ‘Old IronPants’ and the model for deranged anti-Communistgeneral Buck Turgidson in the movie Dr Strangelove,called it “the greatest defeat in our history”.
Hardliners felt that way because Kennedy did notdo what almost every other major American politicianat the time – including Kennedy’s immediatesuccessors Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon –would likely have done: launched an airstrike, followedalmost inevitably by invasion. Instead, he chose theleast aggressive option that was still politically viable,saying: “It isn’t the first step that concerns me, butboth sides escalating to the fourth and the fifth stepand we don’t go to the sixth because there is no onearound to do so.”
In reality, Kennedy won – and saved the world – byignoring narrow militaristic definitions of defeat andvictory and focusing on the bigger win of avoidingnuclear war.
Let everyone be heardGood Friday Agreement, 1998“A day like today is not a day for sound bites, we can
leave those at home, but I feel thehand of history on my shoulderwith respect to this, I really do.”Tony Blair’s famous statement,when he arrived at HillsboroughCastle in Northern Ireland forthe culmination of peace talks inApril 1998 struck John Holmes,his principal private secretary,as ridiculously optimistic.
Each of the key participants – the Ulster Unionists,Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party(SDLP) – felt under threat from one of the others. TheSDLP feared Sinn Fein wanted to annex them. SinnFein worried the Unionists would play “the Orangecard”. And some Unionists were convinced the Irishgovernment was plotting to damage them.
Yet, within three days a historic deal wasannounced, promising peace for Northern Ireland.What changed? Face-to-face talks with Blair and Irishprime minister Bertie Ahern convinced Sinn Fein’sGerry Adams and Martin McGuinness that theirconcerns were being heeded, a belief reaffirmed bya 3am call from then-US president Bill Clinton.American politician George Mitchell, who chaired thetalks over a five-year period, saw his role as ensuringthat everyonewasheard.He even allowedoneUnionistto speak for a full seven hours, an experience likenedby an aide to “listening to paint dry”.
The issue of when the IRA would surrender itsweapons led to a Unionist rebellion, but Blair promisedstrong action if there was little progress after sixmonths. Another call from Clinton – this time toUnionist leader David Trimble – revived the talks.
“The proof that negotiationssucceeded is that South Africa
did not, as seemed likely, descendinto a bloody civil war”
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The punitive peace ‘negotiated’ at the Treaty of Versailles after World War I caused hyperinflation, with the savings of millions ofGermans wiped out and bread bought with wheelbarrows of cash. This all led to social collapse, Nazism – and another war
Mitchell had declared if a deal wasn’t done by Easter1998, he would quit as chairman. The deadline spurredparticipants on. When a consensus finally emerged,therewasnoapplause, just a stunned silence.Reflectingon the deal 20 years later, Mitchell said: “It was a long,tough grind. Before that day of success, we had 700days of failure.”
Don’t go back on a dealThe Magna Carta, 1215The Magna Carta is one of the most famous treaties ofall time – and one of the least successful. Sealed on 15June 1215 at Runnymede, the document inspired theAmerican Bill of Rights, Nelson Mandela (who praisedit during his trial in 1964) and scriptwriters Ray Galtonand Alan Simpson, who gave comic actor TonyHancock the immortal line: “Does Magna Carta meannothing to you? Did she die in vain?”
Clauses 39 and 40 of the Magna Carta defined theconcept of human rights, proclaiming that “no freeman shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of hisrights or possessions, or outlawedor exiled, or deprivedof his standing in any other way, nor will we proceedwith force against him, or send others to do so, exceptby the lawful judgment of his equals or by the lawof the land. To no one will we sell, to no one will wedeny or delay right of justice.”
Even today, those are thought-provoking andstirring words, but they were irrelevant to most of thepopulation who, as “unfree” villeins, remained tied totheir masters’ lands. The modern cult of the MagnaCarta only really began in the 17th century, when theradical politician, lawyer and judge Sir Edwin Cokeused it to define his opposition to Charles I’s despoticrule. We do not definitively know who actually did thenegotiating. Nor do we know exactly how negotiationsU
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were conducted. Fortunately, we have a clearer graspof what was expected from the talks. “The baronswanted life to go back to normal,” says Paul Webster, amedieval historian at CardiffUniversity. “Theywantedto return to a system of kingship based on advice andconsent.” The barons demanded fairer treatment fortheir class on such bread and butter issues as taxation,debt, land and their treatment in the courts.
King John’s primary goal, Webster says, “was tobuy time so he could get more people in his corner.Only a month before the meeting, he had made peacewith the church.” After the agreement had receivedthe royal seal, he made excuses not to meet the baronsin July. By then, he had written to Pope Innocent III,requesting the agreement be annulled because he hadonly signed under duress. The Pope duly obliged.
John found the Runnymede talks so stressful that,back in nearby Windsor Castle, he often “gnashed histeeth, rolled his eyes, grabbed sticks and straws andgnawed at them like a madman”. Bolstered by thePope’s annulment – and even,Webster suggests, by theprospect that he could persuade the church toexcommunicate the barons – he reneged on the deal.This sparked a civil war inwhich the barons seizedLondon – where their ally,France’s Prince Louis, wasbriefly proclaimed king ofEngland – but John held hisown in the north.His expedientdeath, of dysentery on 19October 1216 at the age of 49,ensured the succession of hisson Henry III. One monk observed of his passing:“Hell itself is made fouler by the presence of John.”
The barons wanted to define limits to kingship;John didn’t. That was the central issue in thenegotiations at Runnymede – which the king lost. TheMagna Carta is, in effect, a pact between rival factionsof the English ruling class, and neither side expectedthe settlement to last. That makes its gradualemergence as the historic document that definedhuman rights one of the most remarkable illustrationsof the law of unintended consequences.
Leave something for the other sideThe Treaty of Versailles, 1919Successful negotiators often say their aim is a ‘win-win’ – a deal in which both sides can claim at leastpartial triumph. The Treaty of Versailles at the end ofWorld War I was more of a ‘lose-lose’, in whichexcessive short-term demands sowed the seeds offuture disaster.
When French general Ferdinand Foch read theTreaty, he protested: “This is not a peace, it is anarmistice for 20 years.” History proved him right – theworld was at war again in 1939 – but also wrong. Foch
felt the treaty was not harsh enough, but manyhistorians disagree, believing it went too far, and thatits most punitive clauses – Germany’s acceptance ofwar guilt, ruinous reparation payments (exceeding£200bn in today’s money), the loss of swathes ofterritory – encouraged the Nazis’ rise to power. Bycontrast, American president Woodrow Wilson hadtalked publicly and frequently of an honourable peacebased on the principle that peoples should determinetheir own destiny.
These contradictory aims were echoed by thepublic who wanted, historian Margaret MacMillannoted, “a better world of the Wilsonian vision on theone hand, and retribution on the other.” Yet most ofthe victorious leaders, MacMillan has argued, were sodriven by self-interest that they failed to consider thelong-term impact of their decisions on a ruined,resentful Europe.
The final treaty was condemned by Britisheconomist John Maynard Keynes as a “Carthaginianpeace”, designed to destroy Germany ascomprehensively as Rome had crushed Carthage in146BC. The fundamental flaw in the talks was the
decision to exclude the CentralPowers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey,also known as the QuadrupleAlliance). Their role was to bedictated to, not negotiated with.
As soon as the terms becameknown, wrote historian RobertGerwarth, “the enthusiasm withwhich so many Germans had
welcomed the advent of democracy in 1918, turned intoa sense of fundamental betrayal and resentment.” Thisanger inspired some to claim that the Germanmilitaryhad been “stabbed in the back” rather than defeated inbattle, a myth Adolf Hitler made great use of.
Even Wilson’s big idea, self-determination, wasapplied crudely and selectively. Different peoples wereyoked together in the new – and now defunct – statesof Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. All the CentralPowers had their boundaries redrawn, with tens ofmillions of people finding themselves living in anothercountry, fuelling ethnic tensions across Europe fordecades to come.
The outcome was the inevitable consequenceof a negotiating process in which there was only oneside, but with 30 – often conflicting – agendas andno consideration of the vanquished by the victorious.French PrimeMinister Georges Clemenceau famouslyremarked at the time: “It is easier to make war thanto make peace.” In hindsight, it is hard not toconclude that Allied leaders at Versailles maybe didnot try hard enough.
JohnMaynardKeynes condemnedthe Treaty of Versailles as a
“Carthaginian peace” designed todestroy Germany completely
negotiation
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COME, FRIENDLY BOMBS,AND FALL ON THEOFFICE
When Ricky Gervais’s comic creation debuted two decades ago, critics werefar from enthused. Yet it has proved a cross-cultural phenomenon, perfectly
encapsulating our love-hate relationship with communal working
It is a common enough ritual of office life. Twobranches of the Wernham Hogg Paper Companyare to be merged. Knowing most of his staff will bemade redundant, manager David Brent tells them:“I’ve got some bad news – and some good news.”
After revealing the bad news – the “gutting, gutting”branch closure – he announces the good news: “On amorepositive note, I have been promoted, so… every cloud...”Hissoon-to-be-former colleagueMalcolmprotests: “That’s notgood news and bad news, David; it’s just bad news… andirrelevant news.” In retrospect, Brent admits, he couldhave handled the situation better: “I should have told youthe good news first, got you happy…”
Given so much of what we once called ‘office life’ hasbeen curtailed over the past few years, it is fitting thatthe 20th anniversary of RickyGervais and Stephen Merchant’sThe Office was last year (the showfirst aired on 9 July 2001). As theUK’s office workers again returnto their desks (at least for some ofthe time) what better point torevisit the show? If nothing else, itserves as a salutary reminder ofwhat we’ve all been ‘missing’, andan insight intowhy somany embracedworking fromhome,thereby avoiding their more Brentian bosses.
The programme has come to epitomise that sublimeamalgam of hilarity and awkwardness British comedies inparticular so often achieve. But neither Gervais norMerchant invented the ‘comedy of cringe’. The mostglorious example perhaps is Fawlty Towers, written byJohn Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth. (Like TheOffice, it only ran for two series.) The repugnant Fawltyspurred Los Angeles Times’ TV critic Rick Vanderknyff tocomplain that “after two episodes the cringes outweigh thelaughs.” Going back much further, William Shakespeare
had audiences wincing with laughter in Twelfth Nightwhen pompous steward Malvolio presented himself “inyellowstockingsandcross-gartered” inhisdeludedpursuitof Olivia.
Nor was The Office the first to adopt a fly-on-the-wallapproach.Themockumentary style– inspiredby themovieThis Is Spinal Tap – had already been explored by SteveCoogan (I’m Alan Partridge), Rob Brydon (Marion andGeoff ) and John Morton (People Like Us). But The Officestruck a much deeper chord, raising the obvious question:did this reflect the programme’s excellence or thedysfunctional state of the British office?
The setting, Slough, was brilliantly appropriate: a townin the middle of nowhere, still best known for inspiringJohn Betjeman’s poem of the same name, which starts
with the couplet: “Come, friendlybombs, and fall on Slough/It isn’tfit for humans now”. Thedeliberately drab interiors wereequally fitting. As Merchant toldBBCCulture: “Wehadadiscussionwith a colour correction guy abouthow we could drain as muchcolour out of the footage aspossible. We wanted it to look like
a documentary that had been forgotten about and leftsitting on a shelf at the BBC.”
A few days after the first episode aired, Merchant wasdelighted to overhear a woman on a train asking her friendif she had seen “that documentary about that crazy guy inthe office?”When the friend said it was actually a comedy,the woman replied: “Oh, well it wasn’t very funny then.”
What the show absolutely nailed, as Joy Press noted inher review in Village Voice, was the tedium of “working inthe kind of place where people end up after surrenderingtheir dreams or where they bide their time until gatheringup the courage to do something else (if they ever do).”
“Wewanted it to look like adocumentary that had been
forgotten about and left sittingon a shelf at the BBC”
Words Paul Simpson
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All the principals have unrealised alternative lives:Brent is a failed poet and singer-songwriter (“I’m a friendfirst, boss second and entertainer third”), receptionistDawn (Lucy Davis) wants tobe a children’s illustrator anddiffident salesman Tim (MartinFreeman) dreams of becominga psychiatrist. Meanwhile, DavidBrent’s stupid, sycophanticdeputyGareth (Mackenzie Crook) is amilitary fantasist convinced beingable to kill someone with a singleblow is a usefulmanagement skill.
But some aspects have agedless well. The employees ofWernham Hogg are politicallycorrect enough to deny theirprejudices – even Gareth insistshe is not homophobic becausehe likes Queen – but not tostop expressing them. And inthe wake of #MeToo, the level ofsexual harassment on display –simultaneously casual, consistentand continuous – feels perhapsthewrong side of cringe.
It is true, however, that thewomen atWernhamHogg appearon the whole several rungs up theevolutionary ladder. And Gervaisand Merchant would argue TheOffice exposes misogyny ratherthan espouses it. But a similarargument rages around Brenthimself. Was Gervais using thecharacter as an alter ego toexpress his private but sociallyunpalatable opinions? It troubledsome critics that, for all his flaws,Brent was ultimately empathetic.
Sadly for those concernedabout the quality of Britishmanagers, the idea for Brentsprang from real life. When hewas 17, Gervais was interviewedfor a temporary warehouse job.The manager’s opening sentence,he recalled, was: “I don’t giveshitty jobs. If a good guy comes tome and says I wanna work hardbecause Iwanna bettermyself, I’llmake that happen’.” He then rangthe warehouse manager and liedabout Gervais’s age (“Of course he’s 18”), winked at himand did the Pinocchio nose mime. On screen, this scene isreprisedwhen Brent interviews a fork lift truck operator.
That said, Brent is something of an everyman(ager) andguiltilywe recognise someof ourselves inhim.Weare just asprone to empty buzzwords, and even Brent’s choice of
motivationalmusic is onpoint: howoftenhave we watched speakers take to thepodiumaccompaniedbyanover-familiarblast of Tina Turner’s Simply The Best?
The mood of The Office mellowedover its run: in the final Christmasepisode, Brent turns on bullying salesmanager Dave ‘Finchy’ Finch whileDawn and Tim are finally united. (TheAmerican remake was more sentimentalfrom the start, the British original beingdeemed too cold and bleak to succeed.)Merchant says the change of tone inthe British series was not part of theoriginal plan: “There was probably alittle bit of snobberywhenwestarted anda real affection for the world and thecharacters by the timewe finished.”
The great irony of The Office is thatthe original dynamic was all about whohad the right to bully who and why. Yetnow, in a hybrid working environment,with the gig economy on the rise andonline meetings sapping our energy, theseries has acquired amore nostalgic hue.As Merchant told BBC Culture: “There’ssomething kind of comforting about thislittle hermetically sealed world that youcan go and swim in for a bit. There’ssomething very pleasing about spendingtimewith these people.”
To some younger workers, theprospect of working in an office wherecolleagues embed a stapler in a jelly anddebate whether there will ever be a boywho can swim faster than a shark, mayeven feel strangely aspirational. Brentwould probably not be surprised by TheOffice’s enduring appeal. He, after all,claimed to base his management style onthe works of the great philosophers:“Confucius, Descartes, Rimbaud,Botham”. And, as he once informed staff:“A good idea is a good idea… forever.”
In fact, as we stand on the cusp of anew, barely defined world of work, TheOffice seems more relevant than ever.British digital marketer Grant Fellersummed it up well in the title of hisLinkedIn piece: “Why I’d Rather Have
David Brent InMy Life Than Yet Another ZoomCall.”
BERND, BABY, BERNDProving that bad bosses and unfulfillingjobs are a universal theme, there havebeen nine other versions of The Office,
including in the Czech Republic,Sweden and Israel. The latest, in India
first aired in spring 2019.
While the award-winning US version maybe the best-known homage, the German
adaptation – Stromberg – is probablytruest to the spirit of the UK original.
“The office is our temple… our rubberstamps are transcendental,” sings
Bernd Stromberg, the Teutonic DavidBrent in the show’s spin-off movie.
“I have friends who say they just can’twatch Stromberg because it is their
daily life,” says Uli Hesse, a Berlin-basedsportswriter. “When it started in 2004 itleft viewers flabbergasted because it felt
so relentlessly, so stereotypicallyGerman – from the setting to the
characters and the dialogue.”
The name Stromberg could be anamalgam of the German words for
stream (strom) and mountain (berg).But it is more likely, Hesse says, to referto a specific place. “Ralf Husmann, who
created the show, is a genius when itcomes to names and it can’t be a
coincidence that Stromberg, a verysmall town in south-eastern Germany,
is the traditional home of DeutscherMichel, literally ‘Michael the German’,our equivalent of England’s John Bull.”
Stromberg is a branch manager for aninsurance company and despite beinglord of the files in his own department,relieves his stress through increasinglydesperate attempts to get promoted.
Tired of being small fry, and aspiring tobe “a fry about this big,” he sets his watch20 minutes fast so he is “practically living
in the future”. Inevitably, the ruse failsand he is made redundant.
For further reading, see page 72
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women at work
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Portrait BBVA Foundation
A s the first woman to become a tenured pro-fessor in economics at Harvard University,Claudia Goldin is as much a female pioneerin her field as the groundbreaking careerwomen featured in her latest bookCareer&
Family: Women’s Century-Long Journey Toward Equity.Having spent 35 years researching the area (andwith
several successful books to her name), Goldin is one ofthe great chroniclers of the historical journey of womenin theworkforce.Career & Family is the latest instalmentand considers the difficult choices educatedwomen havebeen forced to make since the turn of the 20th century.
A hundred years ago female university graduates hadto choose between a career or a family. But their 21st-cen-tury successors expect to have both. Expectations,however, are one thing; reality another. Covid-19 has dra-matically highlighted the importance of childcareprovision to the active participation of women in theeconomy.When nurseries and schools closed, the burdenfell overwhelmingly on women’s shoulders. “The pan-demichasnot redirected the journey,”Goldinnotes inherbook. “It has magnified it, lending urgency to questions
surrounding the trade-offs between work and home,forcing the choice of where one’s time is best spent.”
Goldin ascribes the gender pay gap (which widensoncewomenhave children andcontinues towiden there-after) to the need for one parent to opt out of a lucrativeyet inflexible job to be available for their children. These‘greedy jobs’, as economists term them, are the high-sal-arypositions that place a serious, non-negotiabledemandon someone’s time but reward them with promotionsand substantial bonuses. Becausemost parents cannot ordo not want to outsource all childcare, when the maleand female partners in a relationship both have a ‘greedyjob’, it is usually the mother who downgrades.
Closing this pay gap requires what Goldin calls ‘cou-ple equity’, where both parents enjoy a more equal splitof time spent with their children and dedicated to theircareers. She is optimistic shifting social norms may helpget us there, and highlights research showing that 46 percent of fathers now want to spend more time with theirchildren, compared to 23 per cent ofmothers. Employersand the state have their parts to play too. First by drivingdown the cost of flexibility throughmaking high-paying
Employersmustmake high-paying career jobsmore flexible andemployeesmore substitutable, professor Claudia Goldin tellsEmmaDeVita. Only thenwill we achieve gender equality
“Stop asking workers torun faster and longer
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THE HISTORY OF HAVING IT ALL
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career jobs less ‘greedy’. Employers must “stop askingworkers to run faster and longer”, Goldin tells Work..Instead they must find a way to share the burden, mak-ing individual employees more substitutable. Second isto drive down the cost of childcare. Third is to changesocietal norms around fathers taking parental leave andchoosing to spendmore time with their children.
Work. caught upwith the straight-talking Goldin, bornand raised in NewYork’s Bronx district, at her home nearHarvard University, to discuss what needs to change toachieve gender equality in employment, andwhat the leg-acyof thepandemicmight be forwomen in theworkplace.
What can employers do to stampout gender inequality?They have to be thinking that it’s not just about
flexibility, it’s about the cost of flexibility. Anyone canmake any job flexible, and anyone canmake it payvery little aswell.Whatwe’ve seen sinceMarch 2020inmost of the developedworld is a reduction in thecost of flexibility.We’ve seen greedywork becomingmore flexible, and flexiblework becoming less costly[to the employee]. Sowe’ve seen thatwith a greedyjob, you used to be paid a lotmore because youwouldfly to Tokyo every otherweek – now you probablydon’t have to do that.We’ve been catapulted into anewworld inwhichwe have suddenly realised the oldwayswewere doing thingsweren’t necessary.
This is all very good but it hasn’t been caused byanything any one firm has done – it’s a coordinatednew equilibrium that uses a set of [remote working]technologies that have been sitting around for sometime. Firms could have adopted these technologies
before if they had really felt like it, but they didn’t.Flexibility is also about substitutability, so that anyone person is not a deal-breaker in terms of a meetingor a contract or a project. But I don’t know if firmsreally want to do that.
What contributionmight the generation graduating in2022make to that process?
I like to think about the youngmenwho are five or10 years out because what they want is going, in verybig ways, to determine what happens. If they say, as itlooks like they are, ‘I want more time with my kids. Iwant to have a family,’ that’s going to have an impact.
It is of course a very oddmoment to even be talkingabout this, as birth rates in many rich countries wentdown during Covid. I see the more educated andricher group having more kids right now becausethey’re stuck at home and they say: why not? But theaggregate birth data probably still shows a decline, soit is not exactly a family-friendly moment in history.
But it may be that the people whowork in a firm– bothmen andwomen –would like to spendmoretimewith their children, to share care for theirelderly parents, to eat dinner with their families everynight... If that’s the case, firmswill respond, and theyhopefully will respond in a gender-neutral manner.One of the problems that universities have faced isthat they responded in a gender-neutral manner andmen took up childcare leave andwrote papers, andwomen took it up and took care of the kids.
There is a growing sense that a new generationis going to go toWall Street and say: ‘I’m not going
The proportion of US women who achieved both career and family ‘success’ (by four age groups, between 1931 and 1965)
45
women at work
towork onweekends. I’m not going towork in theevenings. You’re going to tell me to jump but I’m notgoing to jump. Goodbye!’Wewill see if that happens –wewill see howmuch is talk and howmuch is action.
Doyouhave any sense ofwhat the legacy of thepandemicmight be?
Covid has, as is often the case with bad events,sparked individuals to rethink their lives and jobs.I have receivedmany emails from people who saytheir husband has been spending so much time withthe kids he just quit his job so he could have moreflexibility. Now that is going in the right direction.Howmuch of that is happening? I don’t know.
One of the first things that happened in the US,which does not have the level of [state] supportmany other rich countries do, is individuals withschool-aged and preschool children were left withthis immense double burden. Certainly for awhile, it made people far more aware of the hugedisparity in caregiving both for children andfor the elderly.
In the businessworld, aswell as inmy ownworldof academia, one legacy is wenow realisewe havemoreoptions thanwe thought.Suddenlywe realisedwe canhave businessmeetings – orseminars – in Cambridge,Massachusetts, with people inCambridge, England, withoutflying people over.We couldalways have done that. It’s justwe never thought of doing it.
Doyou think hybridworking hasmade equalitymoreor less likely to be achieved?
If hybrid working goes in the direction of increas-ing the productivity of flexible work it could be goodfor equality. It would mean the individual whorequires, or would like, more flexibility is actuallymore productive than theywere. On the other hand, ifhybrid working means we end up with an enclave ofindividualsworking remotely and they are all women,it is going to be bad for equality.
A lot of what has changed in the past 100 years is downto technology. Has that changedwomen’s aspirations?
In many ways technology has put women more inthe driving seat. The aspirations of my generation ver-sus the generation that preceded me were the same,except my generation had ‘the Pill’, and the previousone didn’t – or they could have but therewere laws andregulations and other ways to prevent young womenfrom being in control of their own destinies. But Idon’t view the women in my book who lived in 1910 asany different to those in 2010. They were just given
very different options. They were all surrounded bypeople with completely different expectations, differ-ent families and different institutions.
Havewomen in your ownfieldmoved as far and asfast as you expectedwhen you started out?
I’manoptimistic personbut I’mnot a very introspec-tiveperson, so Idon’t think I ever thought at anypoint inmy career: what are things going to look like furtherdown the line? It is true formost academics thatwomenhave entered certain fields that were more male domi-nated – economics is one of them – and that they havechildren. That is an enormous change fromwhen I wasa graduate student, and that really doesmatter. There isno sense of ‘Oh, so-and-so is pregnant, well, there goesher research career’… Some of the best scholars in myfield arewomenwho are parents.
I have often been pointed to as a rolemodelmyself– Iwas the first woman in economics to be grantedtenure at fourmajor institutions. But I don’t seemyself[as a rolemodel] because I didn’t have rolemodels.So one of the reasons forwriting this book is becauseeveryone is stuck in their own generation, in their
own position, and they do notsee there has been progress.Everyone always thinks thattheir generation is thewaythings have always been.
Even in a notionalworld ofequality for both sexes, do youthink dual career couples couldever be truly equal?
Same-sex couples don’t have any gender issues butthey tooarepulled indifferentdirections in termsofpri-oritisingcareers. Iwas thinkingabout awonderful pieceI read where two women were very happily together.One had a baby and prioritised the other one’s career fora while, and then the other one had a baby and theyreversed the priority. If their work is incredibly greedy,then prioritising careersmightmake sense for a couple.
I went to Stockholm a few years ago and visited adaycare centre that some friends of mine had theirkids at. I wanted to see whowas picking up the kidsevery day, which is a good indicator of who is takingcare of them, and there were a lot of men. Of course,because of the pick-up time that means their jobs areflexible enough to allow them to do it. So that probablycomes as close to a gender nirvana as we have on theplanet right now.
So we can look at what goes on in those countries[like Sweden] and it is pretty clear notions aboutwho does what and social norms and traditionshave changed, and that they are better. But we arenot there yet.
“If hybrid workingmeanswe endupwith an enclave of individualsworking remotely and they are allwomen, it will be bad for equality”
For further reading, see page 72
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BoybandBTS’s huge global popularitymakes$5bn for SouthKorea’s economy–and theyare far fromalone. In fact, the rise and rise ofK-pop,K-dramaandK-filmhas a surprisingly
deliberate industrial strategy behind it
“SMOOTHLIKE
BUTTER,PULL YOUIN LIKE NOOTHER”
Words Jeremy Hazlehurst
48
A 20-foot-tall doll rotates her head and intonesthe words “green light” in a childish voice.A horde of people dressed in overalls runtowards the doll, until it speaks again. “Red
light,” it sing-songs. The people skid to a stop. Exceptone, who moves slightly. Gunfire rings out through thesilence and the man falls to the ground in a pool of blood.Horror spreads across the faces of the other players. Butthey have no time to think because the game goes on, thedoll intoning its eerie commands, the figures scamperingacross the sand and bullets tearing into them as bloodspatters and people die in choreographed slowmotion.
This graphic scene is from the mega-hit Netflix showSquidGame,whichbecamethemost-watchedprogrammeon the streaming service across 90 countries in thesummer of 2021. It might be the highest-profile SouthKorean export to fixate the world, but it is by no meansthe only one. Another South Korean Netflix show,Hellbound, replaced Squid Game as the most-watchedproperty in November. Between 2015 and 2020, Netflixinvested no less than $700m in Korean programming,making more than 80 shows in the country, and in 2021announced a further $500m investment, including intwo huge production facilities inPaju-si and Yeoncheon-gun, justoutside the capital Seoul.
So K-culture fans can resteasy that there is plenty more tocome. Shows such as SweetHome,Kingdom Season 2, The King:EternalMonarch,Start-Up and It’sOkay to Not be Okay have alreadybeen massive hits in Asiancountries includingHongKong,Thailand, India,MalaysiaandthePhilippines,andwillbehittingyour‘recommended’list soon. Apple TV recently produced its first SouthKorean series, Dr Brain. On the big screen, the filmParasite, a social satire directed byBong Joon-ho,won theBest Picture Oscar in 2019, kickstarting a worldwidefascinationwith SouthKoreanmovies.
Nor is the explosion in this nation’s cultural exportslimited to television and movies. In 2020, the seven-strong boy band BTS became the country’s first act to benominated for aGrammy, following their singleDynamitehitting number one in theBillboardHot 100. By July 2021,BTShad clockedupfivenumber-one singles in 10months,the fastest such tally since Michael Jackson in 1988. Lastyear the International Federation of the PhonographicIndustry named them the top-selling recording artists ofthe year, beating the likes of Taylor Swift, Justin Bieberand Ariana Grande. Fans guard the boys protectively:some writers now refuse to review their music, havingbeenlambastedbyBTS’smillionsofsocialmedia followersfor themildest of critiques.
The band generates around $5bn for South Korea’seconomy, according toestimates– some0.5%of totalGDP.In 2019, Korean car-maker Hyundai announced a deal
with BTS to promote a new SUV, with simultaneousevents in Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo, Los Angeles, NewYork City, Paris and London. And the band took theopportunity of being in Piccadilly Circus for the launch topop over toWembley,where they played two sell-out gigs.Theyarenot theonlySouthKoreanpopsters tomake it bighere. Soon after BTS’s Wembley triumphs, girl groupBlackPinkplayed a sold-out concert atManchesterArena,followedby threemore groups –NCT,MonstaXandGot7–who all played to packed houses atWembley too.
So K-pop, K-drama, K-film, even K-beauty are huge,and South Korea has replaced Japan as the Asian countrywith the biggest knack for creating global trends. Therewas a time when Japanese Sony Walkmans, NintendoGameboys, Pokémons, Tamagotchi and even death metalbands exuded an exotic, kitschy cool. But as Japan’seconomy stagnated in the 1990s, the sheen seemed todim.
Japan has, of course, long been usurped by China asAsia’s main economic powerhouse – and the consumergoods workshop of the world. But China’s track record inpopular culture is rather less stellar andprecious little thatis seen as cool comes out of theworld’s largest communiststate. When it comes to generating influence overseas, its
po-faced leadersprefer to focusondour construction megaprojectslike the Belt and Road initiative,which has funded some hugeinfrastructure developments incountries including Kazakhstanand Kenya, but not much in theway of entertainment. This hasleft thewayopenforSouthKorea’ssingular blend of kimchi, purple-
haired popstars and pitch-black satire to step into thebreach and become the world’s surprise 21st-centurysuperstar of cultural soft power.
However, like a lot of overnight successes, this one hasbeen a long time in themaking. “I think for a lot of peoplethis seems to have popped out of nowhere, and it’s justexploded out of the blue. It’s not really the case. This hasabout two decades of history behind it, following theAsian financial crash in particular,” says Felicity Davies,an academic at SOAS who is working on an ethnographicexploration of the British K-pop fandom.
Indeed, SouthKorean culture has been bubbling awayjust under the surface for years. Released in 2012,Gangnam Style by Psy was a K-pop number one in morethan 30 countries. In 2017, Bong Joon-ho’s film Okja wasshortlisted for the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Films such as1999’s The Ring Virus (based on the same Japanese novelas horror classic Ring), Poetry from 2017 (a poignant end-of-life drama directed by Lee Chang-Dong), and modernclassic Oldboy from 2003 have gained a fierce cultfollowing. Throughout the past decade the so-calledKoreanWave, orHallyu, has spread across Asia.
To truly understand how and why today’s K-culturephenomenonemerged,youhavetodelve intothecountry’s
“There are now two Koreas: theunchanged you-can-do-it nationof the older generation and thecynical Korea of the young”
•
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South Korea came into existence after the Second World War when the US and Soviet victors carved the country in two.During the ensuing Korean War, some three million of the 30 million combined population of South and North Korea died
The culmination of the ‘Miracle on the Han River,’ in 1988 South Korea made global headlines when the Olympic Gameswere held in Seoul for the first time – only the second games to be staged in Asia and the first in a developing countryIn
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Soft power cinema: Parasite won the Best Picture Oscar in 2019, the first non-English-language film to pick up the coveted gong
51
troubled past. South Korea came into existence after theSecond World War and the defeat of Imperial Japan,whichhadoccupied theKoreanpeninsula.TheAmericanandSoviet victorsunceremoniously carved the country intwoalong the 38thparallel, the line of latitude (38degreesnorth) that roughly delineates the border between thetwo countries. During the ensuing Korean War of1950-53, between the Soviet-backed north and theAmerican-funded south, some three million of the 30million combined population of the two countries died,including 2.5 million civilians. A third of the populationwasmade homeless, orphans roamed the streets, and thesouth became completely dependent onUS aid.
It seems incredible now, but in 1961 what is currentlythe 10th richest country in the world was even poorerthan its NorthKorean neighbour, with a GDP of less than$100 per head. Today the situation is reversed – SouthKorea has a GDP per capita of almost $32,000 while itsimpoverished semi-namesake, the Democratic People’sRepublic of Korea, can only manage a meagre $640 perhead [see box, p54]. In that same year, General ParkChung-hee took power, a military autocrat with animprobable talent for building a successful managedeconomy. Like many of his compatriots, Park was fed upwith his country being a poor vassal state to other richernations and was determined South Korea should becomeeconomically andpolitically independent once and for all.
His prescription was to encourage 18 hand-pickedentrepreneurs to industrialise the country and drag it outof poverty. The first five-year plan of 1962-7 focused onfertiliser production, cement, chemicals, oil refining andtextiles. Others followed, centred on electronics, vehiclesand shipbuilding. It was both remarkably effective, andpopular: the consequent economic boom became knownas the ‘Miracle on the Han River,’ and between 1961 and1979childmortalitydroppedby59percent. It alsocreatedhugesprawlingconglomeratessuchasSamsung,Hyundai,DaewooandLotte,with interests ineverything fromcars,construction and consumer electronics to confectionery,real estate, department stores and insurance.
These diversified giants were known as chaebols – alocal corruption of the Japanese word Zaibatsu, used todescribe similar conglomerates in Japan – and theydominatetheSouthKoreaneconomytothisday.Infamousfor regular corruption scandals and their immense (andnot always progressive) influence on government, thechaebols may be huge employers but many ordinarycitizens have mixed feelings about them. Their popularnickname is mueobal kyeongyeong – octopus businesses– because their tentacles get into absolutely everything.
Unsurprisingly considering the huge concerted pushto create suchgiants, sheerhardworkhasbeen integral tothe nation’s remarkable economic progress. The first five-year plan created punishing working conditions for themasses – no holidays, no minimum wage, 12-hour daysand bans on industrial action. And so South Korea soon •
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became infamous for having some of the longest workinghours – andhighest suicide rates – in theOECD.Throw inan authoritarian leadership culture (known in Korean asgapjil) where bosses would regularly demand all-nightersand even on occasion verbally or physically assault staff,and life as a companyman (and theywere usuallymen) inSouthKorea could be tough.
Also as you might expect, a command economy withunsmiling military rulers took a dim view of popularculture. Foreign films were banned – in the 1970s, a criticwho wrote a book about Argentinian film was jailed onthe grounds that he must have watched them illegally.Films made by the chaebols were terrible. Songs that theregime decided might “disturb social morals” were alsobanned. Musicians were commanded to include a“wholesome song” on every album, meaning somethingthat praised President Park.
His popularity waned in the 1970s and Park’s ruleended abruptly in 1979 when he was shot dead by hissecurity chief during a drunken, late-night, card-playingsession. He was replaced by another unelected army
general, Chun Doo-hwan. Despite his penchant fordeploying tanks and tear-gas on university campuses,under General Chun a slow thawing began in the 1980s.Censorship on “sex, screen and sports” was dialled back,colour TV broadcasts commenced and the 1988 OlympicGames were held in Seoul for the first time. Democraticelections were held in 1987 (albeit won by yet anothergeneral) but in 1992 a civilian – Kim Dae-jung – gainedpower. In 1997, modern South Korea began to take shape,as more elections saw the country’s first civilian-to-civilian transfer of power – something known as thesecond SouthKoreanmiracle.
The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s caused thefirst ripples that led to the Korean wave of soft power –and the economy’s reliance on cultural exports – inevidence today. The country’s over-reliance on a few largefirmsdependent largelyonmanufacturingandelectronicswas exposed by the crash. Stung by the ignominy of anIMF bailout, the new government went looking for freshideas – for new ways to rebalance the economy andmoderate the influence of the chaebols.
ITV’s The Masked Singer is based on the Korean competition King of Mask Singer. Celebrities sing while wearingoutlandish masks and costumes, and panellists (including Davina McCall in the UK) try to guess their identities
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The answer they hit upon was the arts. The seeds ofthe idea that pop culture could be a growth industry hadbeen planted a few years earlier when a white paperproduced by the presidential advisory board on scienceand technology wistfully noted that the movie JurassicPark had earned the equivalent of selling 1.5million Hyundai cars. Thus, in 1994 theCultural Industry Bureau was formed. Soon,President Kim brought in reforms, whichincluded funding for a film industry that hadproduced just 43 films in 1998 and limits onthe number of days foreign films could beshown in cinemas to boost the market fordomestic product.
Meanwhile, wholesome, chaste andfrankly rather dull South Korean TV soapsand dramas were proving big hits withnetworks from Hong Kong, Malaysia andJapan to Russia and even Egypt. They werenot good enough to succeed in the west yet,but they were cheap, popular and laid thefoundations for K-culture’s slick integratedbusiness model. “They were competing onprice,” explains Davies. They also showcasedother K-products – K-pop bandswouldmakethe theme tunes and also put in cameoappearances, while K-beauty brands wouldexplain howwomen could emulate the stars’make-uplook.Italladdeduptomorerevenue.
Official support remained crucial to whatbecame known as Hallyu-wood as theKorean Wave spread. There was a state-backed Venture Investment Corporation toinvest in film, animation, music and drama.In 2012, the Korean Cultural TradeCommission even published a handbookcalled Hallyu Forever, a detailed guide onhow to export cultural products to numerouscountries, explaining which products mightwork where, and providing information onsocioeconomic trends and cultures.
The government even helped sell adpackages to make it financially viable forpoorer countries to take K-culture shows.AndinthesamewayasHyundaiandDaewoowon market share for their drab early carmodels by bundling servicing and a longwarranty into a keen purchase price, thegovernment paid for extras that buyerswould normally have had to stump up forthemselves. One show, Queen of Housewives, became ahit in Cuba after the South Korean government paid tohave it translated.
Being home to some of the world’s largest telecomsfirms hasn’t hurt the growth of K-culture either – SouthKoreawas a serious early adopter in the digital revolution,first with superfast fibre broadband and thenwith 3G, 4G
andnow5Gmobile internetprovidingaready localmarketof subscribers looking for fresh content.
Churning out hit after hit in rapid successionmeans itis a serious business for the talent too. TheK-pop industrytakes young people in their early teens and gives them a
13-year contract, including training but alsothe proviso that if they are successful a largepercentage of profits go to the companybehind them, rather than the artists. Even ifit is not a path to greatwealth,K-pop stardomappeals to many young South Koreans. In2012, more than two million – 4 per cent ofthe country’s population – applied to be onSuperstar K, a TV singing contest. It’s a statepitomising the fact that, just as in the west,the younger generation is less enamouredwith the idea of a “boring” corporate careerand more likely to seek fame and fortune viathe media and the internet. Unlike the west,however, fewer South Korean teenagers aregoing to university and there are now “twoKoreas”, writes Daniel Tudor in his bookImpossible Korea: “The unchanged, modern,you-can-do-it Korea of the older generation,and the emergent cynical, post-modernKorea of the young.”
Such cynicism is no surprise, perhaps,considering the gruelling workplaceconditionsyoungKoreans still face.Althoughprogress has been made, the country’scorporate culture remains uncompromisingby European standards. It was only in 2018that the authorities began to reduce theofficial maximum working week from 68hours, a figure making a six-day week thenorm for many. The reform – to a still-hefty52 hours – is ongoing and due to completethis year. But even then two in five workerswill be exempt from the new limit.
So what next for South Korea’s cultureand economy? Will the country’s influenceremain soft? According to US politicalscientist Joseph Nye, nation states have twobroad options when it comes to persuadingother nations, or individuals, to do what theywant them to: hard power (threats, bribes,sanctions and ultimately military action) orsoft power (largely influence, persuasion orseduction). For a nation like South Korea,largely dependent on overseas commerce for
prosperity, soft power has a lot going for it – it is morelikely to enhance rather than disrupt trading relations, forone thing. Indeed, notably, SouthKoreahasnever invadedanother country, despite the Korean peninsula havingbeen invadedmultiple times itself over the centuries.
But opting to back soft power over hard power has asmuch to do with the strange politics of the Korean
FIVE SOUTH KOREANK-CULTURE
HIGHLIGHTSOldboy
A journey into the darkcorners of the SouthKorean psyche, this
cult classic features alive octopus-eatingscene as well as a
nasty sting in the tail.
My Sassy Girl
A 2001 romcom abouta chance subway
meeting. Based on aseries of real life
blogposts, My SassyGirl proves Korea can
do weepies as wellas satire.
Dynamite by BTS
The biggest hit fromthe band’s 2020 albumBE. More than a billionviews of the video on
YouTube suggestthey’re doing
something right.
All of Us are Dead
Netflix is hoping thegruesomeness of its
latest K-drama (abouta virus turning people
into flesh-eatingzombies) will overcome
any linguistic orcultural barriers.
Kimchi
That the country’snational dish is
fermented cabbageslathered in chilli
means some peopleroll their eyes at SouthKorean cuisine. But itsstatus as a fashionable
global superfood isnow assured.
•
The contrast between life to the north of the 38th paralleland to the south of it could hardly be more stark. SouthKorea’s economic prosperity and willingness to engagewith the outside world contrasts utterly with the toxic
combination of grinding poverty and paranoid leadershipfound to the north. But while Kim Jong-un uses missile
launches as a photo opportunity to reinforce hisquasi-divine status as Supreme Leader, the recent
reintroduction of manure quotas is more indicative ofwhat is really going on in the world’s most secretive state.
Since North Korea (officially the Democratic People’sRepublic of Korea) closed its borders against Covid, it hasbeen chronically short of fertiliser, which was previously
imported from China or donated by South Korea. Inresponse, the government has stipulated that people who
fail to produce a minimum amount of manure cannotshop in the country’s markets. In 2019, when similar
measures were introduced, some people were ordered toproduce as much as 100kg a day of human faeces.
Like so much that happens in the ‘hermit kingdom,’ thissounds comic but is actually tragic. The grim truth is thatNorth Korea is struggling to feed its people – again. LastNovember, defectors reported people were starving to
death. The regime often uses mythology and symbolismin its propaganda and the Supreme Leader’s dramatic,
much analysed, weight loss may be a lame andnarcissistic attempt to convey solidarity with his subjects.
Ten years ago, when Kim Jong-un took charge of thecountry founded by his grandfather Kim Il-sung, there
was speculation that either the regime would collapse orthat he would drive reform. Neither has happened. He
may have been educated at Switzerland’s finest privateschools, accumulated an extensive collection of videos of
the Chicago Bulls basketball team and loved skiing andsushi, but what really recommended him as successor to
Kim Jong-il was that he was the most aggressive andhardline of his father’s sons. Kim Jong-nam, the
overlooked eldest son who at one point was heir apparent,was assassinated in Malaysia in February 2O17. Poisonedby exposure to VX nerve gas, the hit was almost certainly
at the behest of his half-brother Kim Jong-un.
North Korea is a place of paradoxes. This CommunistDemocratic People’s Republic has effectively been run bythe same royal dynasty since it was founded in 1948. TheKims are supported by a class of revolutionary aristocratswho, as long as they don’t annoy the Supreme Leader, arealmost as firmly entrenched in their positions as were the
nobility in pre-revolutionary France.
In 1958, the government began an audacious scheme torank the entire population into 51 categories based on
their revolutionary loyalty, pedigree and commitment. Inthe lowest class – officially designated as hostile – werepeople born in South Korea (before the peninsula was
divided by war), Catholics and fortune tellers.
In this rigid stratification, only Koreans with a skill theregime values – such as athletes, hackers or soldiers
– can progress. In most cases, the only social mobility inNorth Korea is downward, as even some members of the
ruling family have discovered. Four years before KimJong-nam’s death, the Supreme Leader’s uncle Jang
Song-thaek was reportedly slaughtered with ananti-aircraft gun for “counter-revolutionary acts”. More
recently, less exalted subjects have reportedly beenexecuted for daring to listen to K-pop on the radio.
Although North Korea has the world’s fourth largest army– with at least 1.3 million active personnel – the regimemaintains daily control through a system of spying so
astonishingly comprehensive it would have shamed EastGermany’s legendary Stasi. Any citizen wearing a T-shirt
with Latin characters on, using too much electricity orhaving too much hair (one decree stipulated that the hair
on the top of a man’s head should not be longer than 5cm)is likely to incur the wrath of the Socialist Youth League,
Public Standards Office or the kyuch’aldae (mobile policeunits that can enter homes at will).
In such a closed, militarised, hierarchical and totalitariansociety, it is hard to envisage Kim Jong-un being
overthrown from within. Exiles say, as with NicolaeCeausescu’s Romania, the system is more likely to
collapse in an instant than gradually erode. Yet the NorthKorean people have already endured many catastrophes
– with at least 500,000 excess deaths in the 1990s due tofamine – and have not rebelled. Are they cowed?
Brainwashed? Or a bit of both?
Hopes of a transition to democracy, let alone reunificationwith South Korea, are receding, according to Barbara
Demick, author of Nothing To Envy, the classic account ofeveryday life in North Korea. The most realistic ‘best’
outcome, in her view, would be to emulate China’s statecapitalism. That would still deny the people political
freedom but it could at least leave them better fed. KimJong-un was tiptoeing in this direction before he was
distracted, first by Donald Trump then by Covid.
In the absence of much real information, the westernmedia chooses the most sensational scenario. As Demickhas said: “There was a story a few years back that peoplecaught stealing food were being burned alive at the stake
and that their relatives were forced to light the fire. TheNorth Koreans I spoke to laughed it off, saying: “Do you
know how hard it is to get firewood in North Korea?”
54
A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES – NORTH KOREASecrets and lies from the ‘hermit kingdom’
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un is no stranger to an obviously-staged shoot; his state news agency said his eyes were “full ofnoble glitters” during this one, and that it was “a great event of weighty importance in the history of the Korean revolution”
peninsula as it does anything else. Under the terms of theUS-South Korean Alliance, since 1950 South Korea hasnot been in full command of its own military forces, buthas ceded what is known as ‘operational control’ to theUS. In 1994, the terms of this unique arrangement wereamended so that a South Korean general was in chargeduring peacetime – known as ‘armistice conditions’ – butthat operational control would revert to America in theevent ofwar breaking out. Tackling this controversial anddivisive policy was a cornerstone of current presidentMoon Jae-in’s election-winning manifesto, and SouthKorea is scheduled to take back complete operationalcontrol later this year. If it happens, this could have asubstantial impact on the balance between soft and hardpower the country chooses to pursue in future.
Either way, the world’s fascination with K-cultureseems set to stay. Perhaps that is simply because the oftendystopian themes on display resonate deeply with globalaudiences in theageofCovid-19,politicalunrest andrisingsocial and financial inequality. K-culture is novel too, ofcourse, and provides fascinating glimpses into a societythat has not been historically well understood abroad.
There is also the little matter of han, a quality that,according to Euny Hong in her book The Birth of KoreanCool, suffuses Korean life in much the same way thathygge does the Scandinavian soul. Han is a mysteriousand untranslatable mood that Hong says her motherdescribes as “when sad things happen not by your owndesign but by fate, and over a long period of time”. Hersuggested examples include the suffering of an orphanwho has nobody to look after them, or a wife who is leftpenniless by an eloping husband.
Aswe enter the third year of theCovid pandemic, thatcombination of impotent rage and enforced submissionhas become a global rather than local feeling.We see a bitof ourselves in the despair and fatalism of the Squid Gamecontestants or in Parasite’s poor Kim family, battered byfate and struggling against the odds in aworld dominatedby privileged elites. Shakespeare would recognise it, aswouldMargaret Atwood. So maybe the surprise is not somuchthatK-culturehasbecomesuchahuge internationalsoft power phenomenon, but that it took so long.
For further reading, see page 72
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Abstract expressionist Willem de Kooning travelled from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to the US in 1926 as a stowawayon a British freighter bound for Argentina. He finally became a US citizen in 1962
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DYING BREED?In the wake of Covid – and aftermultiple
instances of corporate faux pas and personalbreakdown – the future of globalmobility is up
in the air. Robert Jeffery investigates
The timing of the coronavirus pandemic wasparticularly catastrophic for NatashaThorne*. Having dipped her toes intoexpatriate living with an earlier stint inEurope, the 42-year-old British fashion
buyer – alongwith hermarketing director husband – hadnot long landed in Beijing to begin an open-endedrelocationwhen theworld ground to a halt.
What followedwasaKafkaesquecollageof lockdowns,grindingbureaucracyandmistrust, saysThorne.Workingfrom home and unable to socialise or properly integrate,she senses suspicion and anti-western sentiment amongChinese colleagues: “Very little about this has been fun sofar and I’d be lying if I said we didn’t want to come home.We haven’t been able to see family or have themhere. Butwe aren’t the type of people to give up on something.”
The globalmobility function of any large organisationhas long been a place of raised stakes.Most practitionerscan relate tales of divorce, alcoholism, mental ill-health– even suicide – when overseas postings unravel. Theymust operate as counsellors, psychometric assessors,organisers and concierges, balancing business needswith those of uprooted individuals and families.
On the basis that no company can be governed entirelyfromawesternheadofficeor bymanagerswith a singularethnocentric outlook, mobility practitioners are the glue
binding multinationals (not to mention NGOs anddiplomatic missions) as they chase growth. Yet, from theoutside,theconceptofglobalmobilityseemsanachronisticin an age of meeting technology and emerging-economytalent. Covid, and experiences like Thorne’s, have furtheradded toa sense that the last remnantsof the formerexpatmodel, built around long-term assignments, have (alongwith temporary business travel) had their day.
But the truth ismore complexand surprising.AsDavidEnser, managing director of industry body The RESForum,says: “If theexpatmodelmeanstheoverprivilegedwhite manwith his accompanying wife and their perfectchildren getting the company to pay for them to join acountry club, be ludicrouslywell paid and retire at 55, thatwas on theway out anyway. It’s gone now.”
The nature of global mobility has certainly beenshifting for some time. Principally, that meansassignments are shorter; trips of up to six months makeup more than 20 per cent, according to an ECAInternational survey. The way they are allocated isgradually becoming more egalitarian too. Theproportion of women is still only up to less than 15 percent overall, but it is at least growing. Meanwhile, datafrom InterNations found that while 35 per cent of allexpats globally are aged50or over, those in their 30snowaccount for 28 per cent (only 22 per cent are in their 40s).•
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“Those who assign expatsfrequently send employeeswho lack cultural sensitivityinto high-risk situations”
What is happening here? According to professorMichael Dickmann, director of the master’s inmanagement course atCranfieldUniversity, it representsa trend to expatriate people both earlier and later in theircareers; so empty-nesterswhose childrenhave left home,but also less senior employees to “firefight” technicalproblems in foreign offices or subsidiaries.
Therearemanybroader trends influencingbusinesses’decisions here. A desire to improve diversity is an obviousone, as is sustainability. Leaps in technology have madevirtual meetings more practical, if not enjoyable, but theadvance of techniques such as 3D printing will becomeeven more significant in standardising processes andprocedures, particularly inmanufacturing environments.The cost of expatriation also continues to spiral: it is threetimes more expensive, by some measures, to ship acontainer fromAsia towestern Europe in early 2022 thanitwas 12months ago.Throw in soaringprivate school feesandrealestatepricesinheavilyindustrialiseddestinations,and the six-figure premium UK and US businesses mustattach to even a junior assignee looks too hefty.
This dovetailswith the specificnature of globalisation over thepast quarter century. As the BRICnations (Brazil, Russia, India andChina) became increasingly pre-eminent and attracted inboundinvestment, they initially requiredlarge numbers of westernmanagers. Over time, however,businesses realised it was not justcheaper but also more culturally and operationallyeffective to develop local talent. The Association ofExecutive Search Consultants says, for example, that theproportion of expat executives it found in BRIC nationsand the Middle East fell from 56 per cent to 12 per centin the decade to 2005. The most cherished hire in Chinaand India today is a smart local graduate, educated at aprestigious UK or US institution (what the Chinese call a“sea turtle”). And this pattern is being played out in thenext generation of fast-developing economies across Asiaand Africa. “The positive side is… a lot of companies aregradually finding themselves moving away from the veryold ethnocentric view of things,” says Chris Brewster,professor of international human resources managementatHenley Business School.
So it is no longer either politically correct nor desirablein theeyesof investors for awesternfirmto sendarmiesofmanagers to the developing world. Yet the majority ofexpats byvolumedo still follow this path, and the imageofthe over-privilegedwhitemandishing out orders remainsa persistent cultural trope. We can trace it back to thewave of globalisation in the first half of the 20th century,which caught the imagination of writers and filmmakers.Graham Greene turned out a host of tales based on themisadventures of British expats in sunny climes, mostnotably Our Man in Havana, about a struggling vacuum
cleaner salesman recruited into the intelligence servicesin Cuba, where he drinks copiously and blunders hisassignments. In Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop, William Boot –the underachieving writer of a genteel country diary – ismistakenlydispatched to cover awar in eastAfrica,wherehis hapless naivety turns out to be his best asset.
Such characters perpetuate the idea of the overbearingforeigner banished abroad as a result of their fundamentalineptitude. If it was ever true, it is an outdated stereotype.It is simply too expensive, and too damaging, to ship outsecond-rate staff, and awareness of the value of overseasassignments in the development of high potentials haschanged the nature of globalmobility.
Soren Stürup-Toft, immigration and mobility leadEMEAforChinese socialmedia giantTikTok,hasworkedin the discipline for 15 years and seen approaches maturesignificantly: “It became something to use in talent andretention… a sweetener in some cases but also a placewhere you could blood new talent, with internationalgraduate programmeswhere people could go out three orfour times. If you couldn’t give someone a promotion, you
could send them out to Australiafor three years.”
Yet companies are mindful,too, that many internationalassignmentssimplydonotdeliver.Academic Rosalie Tung authoredan influential 1981 study thatclaimed around 30 per cent ofexpat assignments from NorthAmerican corporations could be
classified as failures that did not lead to the expectedorganisational outcomes. It is an inexact science, butsubsequent studies over the decades have suggested thisfigurewas broadly correct and has barely changed.
Stürup-Toft points to a lack of structure as the root ofmanyfailures–businessesdonotproperlyassessassignees,fail to match them to the appropriate opportunities andneglect to support them on their return: “It’s very hard tobring people back again into appropriate roles. You canpromise someone something but if there’s no vacancy,there’s no vacancy – I’ve seen it so often that you invest£1m in someone and they end up in the same role. They’reupset and the longer they are out for, they can’t get backinto the normal groove in the UK because they’ve been inAlgeria or Egypt and they’d rather go back there.”
Meanwhile, for AngelaWeinberger – an author, globalmobility coach and former mobility professional based inSwitzerland – thosewho assign expats often fail to securebuy-in from the countries hosting them. They frequentlysend employeeswho lack cultural sensitivity, orworse areactively insensitive, into high-risk situations. And theyunderestimate the family factor. “Most of the assignmentsthat I’ve seen fail did so because of family reasons – it’sstillnot really talkedabout,but thereal failuresareusuallybecause the partner wasn’t happy or couldn’t find a job. Itbecomes a choice between whether you jeopardise your •A
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global mobility
Turner-prize winning Anish Kapoor was born in Mumbai, moving to Israel in 1971 and the UK two years later, where he hasworked and lived since. His Sky Mirror sculptures can be found in both Nottingham and New York City
Born in modern-day Belarus, modernist art pioneer Marc Chagall was plagued by homesickness when he first arrived in Paris in 1910 –but was quickly seduced by the visceral energy of the city and its workers, as depicted in Les charpentiers (the carpenters)
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career or your marriage.” Added to this, many HRgeneralists handlingmobility havenever lived abroad andcannot appreciate the personal pressures.
The wonder is that despite all of this, the overallnumbers of expats has not diminished. In fact, quite theopposite: while exact numbers are hard to come by, everyyear since 1995 with two exceptions (2009 and 2020),more than half of businesses surveyed by ECA haveincreased their expat numbers on the year before.“Generally speaking, the numbers go up becausecompanies tend to expatriate earlier in their growthpatterns, they become more international more easilythese days and the flows [where expats are assigned fromand to] are becomingmore varied,” says Dickmann.
This growth has been matched by investment in, andmaturity of, global mobility departments, which havespread from being a niche concern to a key specialism inmany multinationals. The approach still varies greatly,however: while some firms see mobility as a discipline inits own right, others subsume it into a generalised HRfunction. Somegive globalmobility specific responsibilityfor all business travel of any kind, while others are onlyconcernedwith formal assignments.
The frustration forpractitioners is that thediscipline isnot viewed sufficiently strategically by many, and oftendoesnotalignwithhighpotentialprogrammesorbroadersuccession planning, for example. But Enser believes the
focus on wellbeing engendered by coronavirus may helpchangethis:“Employeewellbeinghasrisentotheabsoluteforefront of the global mobility agenda. If you imagine,having arrived in India, you’ve been there two-and-a-halfweeks and the country closes down. You know no one,your kids are home schooling…” She is optimisticbusinesses are beginning to understand how a holisticview of mobility can benefit them. But she cautions thatwhen HR budgets come under pressure, it is too easy forleaders to view the function as a luxury.
This relates to the critical question of ROI. As withother aspects of HR, mobility has been asked repeatedlyto demonstrate its value, yet many of its principaloutcomes are either intangible or difficult to measure.Dickmann says it is a “complex thing to unlock” becausebusinesses fail to trackkeymeasuresacross theentiretyofemployees’ careers. “The only real way to judge the valueof anyHR function is to take it away, but of course no oneis prepared to do that,” adds Brewster.
Thekeyconsideration in2022 iswhether thepandemichasfundamentallychangedmobility,andhow.GlobalDatasays the number of business trips undertaken in 2020 fellby two thirds on 2019 and has been slow to rebound.Meanwhile, there has been wider cultural acceptance ofremote and hybrid working. And many businesses haveused the adoption of new technology as a springboard toreconsider their recruitmentpractices: if homeworking is
Florence-born John Singer Sargent’s love of working far and wide was inspired by his American parents, nomadic expatriates who movedregularly with the seasons throughout Europe. Sargent painted Stable at Cuenca in 1903 while visiting Spain
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global mobility
the future, they argue, why does that home have to be inthe same country as head office? British software firmsare taking on coders in eastern Europe, while countriesfrom Barbados to Estonia are offering digital nomads taxincentives to base themselves on their shores.
Some businesses have reacted by hardwiring ‘workfrom anywhere’ policies into their HR practices. Digitalbank Revolut allows staff to base themselves outside theirhome country for twomonths a year, a move mirrored byPublicis Group and others. Tax considerations make alonger term digital nomad lifestyle impractical for most,but as global taxharmonisation comes closer to reality at agovernmental level, thismay not be the case forever.
The consensus among most is that Covid is a bump inthe road rather than a reset. Dickmann, for example, sayshis research suggests only 20 per cent of multinationalsare currently able to achieve the entirety of the globalmobility they believe they strategically require. Mobilityremains crucial to leadership development, in his view,and any decrease in longer-term assignments will bemarginal. Enser expects a greaterscrutinyof costs andmore shorter,task-based assignments in future.A dichotomy may arise betweentechnology and financial servicesbusinesses, which view mobilityas a cultural necessity, and thoseinmanufacturingwhomoreeasilysee the benefits of technology.
Weinbergersayswhilemobilityis becoming a “lifestyle” rather than a necessity, it isarguably more important as a motivator to junior staffthan ever before. That points to more innovative andlocalised assignments: “We don’t necessarily have to sendpeople on long-term assignments on big packages anymore – local to local is becoming a lot more popular, andthat solves the issue about mobility not being fullyintegrated into talent management and successionplanning,which leads to frustrationwhen they repatriate.When you ask people to move local to local, you also givethemmore responsibility for their own career.”
Howthe function reacts toall this is awork inprogress.The headline-grabbing development of the past couple ofyears has been the rise of the ‘virtual assignment’,something Stürup-Toft has been experimenting with atTikTok. Broadly, this involves an individual beginning anassignment with a stay in a “host” country to developrelationships and outline a method of working, beforereturning to their home country towork remotely. It is anintriguing idea, says Weinberger, but one maybe moresuited to being a stop-gap solution to an emergency ratherthan a long-term concept: “There are limits to workingtogether virtually, especially in cultures whererelationshipsaremore important thangetting tasksdone.”
There is a macroeconomic dimension to consider aswell. The development of mobility as a concept has gone
hand in hand with mobility of capital. But what if that isgoing backwards? “The reality is that there is not a hugeincrease in global investment,” says Brewster. “It’s prettymuch flatlined, and a lot of people are talking about theage of deglobalisation, with America First and Brexit andpeople looking at supply chains in the wake of the SuezCanal [crisis]. We’re going to get a bifurcation of theeconomy– someof itwill getmore globalisedbut an awfullotwill trackback and saymaybe it’s safer tobe regional ornational. For many years, I had the idea that if you lookedat what the big, sophisticated businesses were going to doover time thatwouldfilter down, but I’mnot sure I believethatnow–differentbusinesseshavedifferenttrajectories.”
Diversity, while less dramatic than Covid, may be asignificant driver of change. Progress towards openingopportunities beyond the usual cohort of middle-agedwhitemanagershasbeen laudablebuthardly swift, and somobility could increasingly be targeted for scrutiny. It isnot far-fetched to suggest public companies couldeventually be asked to report on the demographics of
those on assignment. Or thatcampaigners might ask whybusiness remains so enthusiasticabout expats but so uninterestedin refugees – an 82million-strongdisplaced global workforce thatcould solve labour shortages atone fell swoop.
These questions will beanswered in time – but the plot
twist is it is not western companies that will do theanswering. Most of the growth in multinationals is nowcoming from emerging markets, led by China and India.In themost part, theyhave adifferent outlookonmobility;TikTok, the self-described world’s most popular websitewith 120,000 employees, for example, has a “commandand control” culture when it comes to assignments, saysStürup-Toft, with employees who are “single-minded” inviewing mobility as part of their career progression. Theyoung talents of such Chinese companies often competefor international opportunities but do not view them aspart of a broader lifestyle choice somuch as a transaction.
Howthese companies’marketsmaturewill domuch todetermine howweviewmobility tomorrow.Andperhaps,in away, that is fitting. Thefirst expatswerewesterners inChina and India; the moneyed ruling members of theBritish Raj and, less famously, the British and Americantraders who worked under Chinese rule in the 1860sfollowing the establishment of theShanghai InternationalSettlement. In taking their talents to the wider world,China and India are bringing the expat story full circle.What sort of world they are attempting to conquer in the21st century remains to be seen.*Name has been changed
“The only real way to judgethe value of any HR functionis to take it away, but of courseno one is prepared to do that”
For further reading, see page 72
BUSINESS RESEARCH, REPORTS AND INSIGHT
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A ban on zero-hours contracts – the type delivery drivers are often on – could do more harm than good as employers find other workarounds
trends into reverse, the latest datashows this was a blip, with thelabour market rapidly regaining itspre-pandemic shape.The findings come from a report
by the CIPD,HasWork BecomeLess Secure?, based on data analysisfrom a range of sources, includingthe ONS.While almost one in fiveworkers
(18.6 per cent) are ‘non-permanent’– self-employed or on temporarycontracts –most of them choosethis type of employment because itsuits their lifestyle, the report says.Andwhile permanent employeesaremore likely to be satisfiedwiththeir employment contracts, pay andbenefits, and ability to progress, thelatter aremore satisfiedwith theirwork-life balance andwellbeing.Evenmuch-maligned zero-hours
contracts are not the evil manypaint them as. Just 2.8 per cent ofthe workforce are on zero-hourscontracts, and almost two-thirdsof them have a permanent role so
are likely to have full employmentrights. The vast majority are notlooking for new jobs, and three-quarters do not wantmore hours.Indeed, a ban on such contracts
risks doing more harm than good,notes the report, “as it coulddeprive people of an importantflexible employment opportunity.”Employers would likely respond byusing more temporary workers orvery short-hours contracts, neitherof which provide more economic orwage security for workers.But there remain pockets of
insecurity. For example, nearly onein ten people would like to workmore hours, and 3 per cent workpart time because they cannotfind a full-time role. CIPD labourmarket economist Jonathan Boyssays: “When it comes to workingarrangements, one size does not fitall.” He urges employers to “[keep]choice and job quality at the heartof discussions about different waysof working.”
Contrary to popular opinion,work in the UK has become
more, not less, secure over thepast decade. Unemployment,redundancies and competition forjobs all fell over the period; fewerworkers had variable hours, workedpart-time involuntarily, or wereunderemployed; and low pay andvariable pay both declined. Andwhile Covid-19 put many positive
LABOUR MARKET
The truthabout jobsecurityMany non-permanentworkers say this suits theirlifestyle and do not wantmore hours or a different job
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To help improve the quality ofemployment, the CIPD recommendsthat existing employment rights arestrengthened; job quality ismeasuredand tracked through a subjectivejob satisfaction question in theONSLabour Force Survey; and employersare incentivised to invest inimproving their peoplemanagementand development capability. As thereport says: “Opportunities to gainskills and progress at workmitigateagainst low pay and insecurework.”bit.ly/CIPDsecurity
RECRUITMENT
The robotrecruiterwillsee you nowInterviewees assume theymustbehave robotically themselves tosatisfy hiringAI, studyfinds
HRprofessionals have longunderstood that AI-powered
recruitment can bring asmanydrawbacks as benefits, and it seemscandidates havemisgivings too.Research from theUniversity of
Sussex Business School shows howreliance onAI can have unintendedharmful consequences. The team,led byDr Zahira Jaser, found thatuniversity students looking for jobshave a poor experience of AI-assistedrecruitment processes, withmoremarginalised individuals andthose less familiar with technologyparticularly disadvantaged. Theirresearch shows the platforms tendto focus on building commercialrelationshipswith recruiters, oftenat the expense of candidates – and,ultimately, of employers themselves.The business school used amix
of in-depth qualitative interviewswith young job seekers, analysis ofthematerial published by hiringplatforms and insight into the
technology behind asynchronousvideo interviews (AVIs). They foundsupport for candidates using AVIswasminimal, and could includelinks to outdated or incompletedocuments. The young peoplethemselves confirmed they didn’tknowwho to contact orwhere tofindmore information, and failed toget timely replies to questions.Overall, the candidates had a
poor understanding of how the newinterview formatworked and ofthe technology itself, and they felttheir humanitywas diminished. Forexample, they felt they needed tobehave almost like robots – holdinga fixed gaze and smile, and anunnatural posture, speakingwithamonotonous voice and holdingtheir hands still – to satisfy the AVIbot. They also believed AImust besuperior to human decision-makingand, unsurprisingly, they found thewhole experience emotionally andcognitively exhausting.The Institute for Employment
Studies (IES) hasworkedwith theUniversity of Sussex Business Schoolto produce a toolkit for employers,careers advisers and hiringplatforms, to help demystify AI andensure employers and candidatesare better served by the technology.Becci Newton, director of public
policy research at the IES and authorof the toolkit, says: “Companieshoping to establish ormaintain adiverseworkforce should be awareof [the limitations] prior tomakingdecisions about AVIs in recruitment.Theymay not fully understand theirimplications and the effects of newtechnologies on the talent pool in thehiring process. Synchronous face-to-face or video-facilitated interviewsare better understood by employersand candidates, and recruitmentplatforms do not fully emulate these.”bit.ly/IESAI
INCLUSION & DIVERSITY
Dowomenreally shun risk?Female employees are just ascompetitive asmenbut consciousof appearing less so to secure allies
One popular theory for thepersisting gender pay gap
on both sides of the Atlantic is thatwomen are less competitive andlesswilling to take risks thanmen,and so are passed over for higher-ranking roles and better pay.ButMary LRigdon, associate
director of theUniversity of
The candidate experience of asynchronous video interviewing, used by many firms, is often poor
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Arizona Center for the Philosophyof Freedom, andAlessandra Cassar,professor of economics at theUniversity of San Francisco, didn’tbuy that – and decided to exploretheir hunch through a researchproject. They randomly assigned 238people, evenly split by gender, intotwo groups, and participants in eachgroupwere assigned to four-personsub-groups.The first round of the studywas
the same for everyone. Participantswere asked to look at tables of12 three-digit numberswith twodecimal places and find the twonumbers that added up to 10. Theywere asked to solve asmany tables aspossible – up to 20 – in twominutes,with each participant paid $2 forevery table they solved.In round two, they performed
the same task, but the two groupswere incentivised differently. In thefirst group, the two individuals ineach four-person teamwho solvedthemost tables earned $4 per tablesolved, while the other twoweregiven nothing. In the second group,the top two performers of each four-person team also earned $4 per table,but they could decide howmuch ofthe prizemoney to sharewith one ofthe lower performing participants.In the third round, all were
allowed to choosewhich paymentscheme they preferred from the twoprevious rounds. Amongwomen,60 per cent chose the sharing option,with around 35 per cent choosingto compete in thewinner-takes-allversion.Men, however, were splitmore or less 50:50.Rigdon andCassar drew on
previous research to help explainthese findings. For example, men’shigh status secures allies, whereaswomen’s high status can alienateotherwomen.Whilewomen are justas competitive asmen, appearing lesscompetitivemay be a crucial elementfor securing allies – so, for example,they aremore inclined to smootheover bad feelingswith the losers.
Thismight not helpwomenwinpay parity, but the authors suggestbusinesses could help close thegap by engaging inmore sociallyresponsible activity. “Womenmightbemore attracted to positions wherethere is this social component thatisn’t there in traditional, incentive-based firmswhere it’s all about CEObonuses,” concludes Rigdon.bit.ly/womenrisk
LEARNING
Adegree isn’tthe onlywayGraduates regret not doingapprenticeships – and employersmust offermore support
More than half (52 per cent) ofyoung graduates would have
considered an apprenticeship ratherthan a degree had they been betterinformed and there were moreopportunities available. Just 1 percent received support to apply foran apprenticeship while at school,compared to 59 per cent whowere supported to pursue furtheracademic qualifications.These findings, revealed in the
CIPD’s Youth employment in theUK 2021 report, shed fresh light onthemisalignment of labour marketneed and the availability of suitablequalifications in the UK – andshould give policymakers pause forthought, says the CIPD.The research was carried out
among 18-30-year-olds, the majorityof them graduates, through anonline survey of a YouGov panelcomprising more than 2,000 youngpeople in July 2021. Almost half saidthey were unhappy with their job,with one-third of those educatedto degree level and above sayingtheir career had failed to meettheir expectations, and a similarpercentage feeling over-qualified for
their current role. They saw theirqualifications as more necessary toobtain jobs than to actually performthem effectively.The appeal of ‘earn as you learn’
options is clear given the £45,000debt most graduates accrue. It issignificant that the number wishingthey had done an apprenticeshiprises to 66 per cent among youngpeople from disadvantagedbackgrounds. Yet official figuresshow a 36 per cent decreasebetween 2018/2019 and 2020/2021in those under the age of 19 startingapprenticeships. Meanwhile, theUK is suffering unprecedented skillsand labour shortages.While career guidance seems
sadly lacking – only one-fifth saidthey received high-quality advice –the CIPD believes employers shouldplay a bigger role in preparingyoung people for the world of work.It is about enlightened self-interest,the report concludes: “As well asbeing critical to the UK’s economicfuture, recruiting and developingyoung people benefits organisationsnow through improving workforcediversity, bringing in new ideas andskills, and helping to build talentpipelines.” In addition to callingon the government to increasefunding for careers advice, the CIPDwants employers to collaboratewith local schools and colleges toensure young people understandand are equipped with the skillsbusinesses need.Lizzie Crowley, senior skills
adviser at the CIPD, says:“Educators, policymakers andbusinesses all need towork togetherto help young people developthe skills they and employersneed.” The CIPD is shining aspotlight on apprenticeships aspart of its OneMillion Chancescampaign. Its aim is to create amillion opportunities for youngpeople through a range of differentpathways, including apprenticeships.bit.ly/CIPDapprentice
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CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
It’s not easybeing greenResearch finds a gap betweenrhetoric and realitywhen itcomes to firms’ climate goals
Directors should be the drivingforce for climate action in their
companies as part of their fiduciaryduty to care for communities andthe environment – and yet there isa gulf betweenwhat they say theydo andwhat they actually do. Thatis the headline finding of a newreport,Changing the climate in theboardroom, from business schoolINSEAD and executive search firmHeidrick & Struggles.Their researchwas conducted
through the global INSEADcorporate governance centre andHeidrick & Struggles’ corporategovernance networks. Therewere
301 responses, from different-sizedcompanies in a range of industrysectors across 43 countries. TheUK accounted for 21 per cent ofresponses, theUS 23 per cent andWestern Europe 30 per cent.On the face of it, the findings
were positive: climate changewasonmost board agendas; 75 per centsaid the issuewas ‘very’ or ‘entirely’important to their strategic success,63 per cent said the board had aclear understanding of the risks andopportunities climate change posedto them, and 60 per cent said theyand fellow directorswere ‘very’ or‘entirely’ aligned on the importanceof the issue and how to tackle it.But further questions revealed a
gap between rhetoric and reality.Almost three-quarters (72 per cent)of directorswere very confident theircompanieswouldmeet their climatechange goals, but 43 per centwerenot evenworking to achieve themost obvious goal – reducing carbonemissions. Around half were not
satisfiedwith current reporting tothe board on climate change, and 85per cent admitted their board neededto improve its climate knowledge.
The authors believe boards arecaught in a vicious cycle, wherethosewith climate expertise lackboard experience and vice versa.They offer some recommendations:• Include climate change in the board’scompetency matrix.
• Balance traditional boardqualifications with new knowledgeandmindsets – by appointing ESG-savvy directors, turning to advisoryboards, using external specialists oreven going on crash courses.
• Change the board processes anddynamics – the chair shouldensure everyone’s perspectiveis heard.
•Tie climate change strategy to asocial and organisational purpose.
• Integrate climate change objectivesinto executive compensation andsearch strategies.
Ensuring young people are better informed about studying for an apprenticeship could be one answer to the UK’s skills and labour shortages
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The authors – Ron Soonieus,director in residence at INSEAD,andHeidrick & Struggles partnersLouis Besland and Alice Breeden– say: “Many boards do not knowwhat they do not know about climatechange, [so] they are not always ableto take appropriate action.”But with new regulation,
changing corporate governancecodes and activist investorsshuffling boards, acting on this isfast becoming part of companies’licence to operate.bit.ly/climateboard
PERFORMANCE
Does yourpersonalitymake you a star?Conscientiousness is the traitthatmost strongly predictssuccess, nomatter the job
Can your personality affect theway you perform at work? It
depends on your job, accordingto a recent study,Occupational
characteristics moderatepersonality-performance relationsin major occupational groups, bymanagement and psychologyresearchers in the US.MichaelWilmot, assistant
professor of management in theSamMWalton College of Businessat the University of Arkansas, andDeniz Ones, professor of psychologyat the University ofMinnesota,combinedmultiple meta-analysesof the ‘big five’ personality traits –conscientiousness, extraversion,openness, agreeableness andneuroticism – and examined theireffect on job performance acrossnine major occupational groups,from clerical and customer serviceto healthcare and law enforcement.Overall, they found relationships
between personality traits andperformance varied greatly acrossthe job groups. Conscientiousnesspredicted performance in all jobs,but the other four traits performeddifferently across occupations.Each predicted better, however,
when it had high relevance tospecific occupational requirements.For example, agreeableness was astrong predictor of performancein healthcare jobs, where
interpersonal ability is a majorrequirement. Emotional stabilitypredicted strongly in skilled/semi-skilled, military and lawenforcement occupations, wheresafety, protection and control ofthe physical environment are key.Extraversion predicted highly insales andmanagement, whichrequire interpersonal influence. Andopenness was a strong predictor inprofessional occupations, whichrequire problem solving.Though these findings may
be expected, more surprising isthe fact that even in such casesconscientiousness is the pre-eminent predictor of performance.For example, say the authors:“Interpersonal aspects of patientcare may have been overrated [inthe past] versus adhering to medicalrules and procedures. Similarly,the salient aspects of dealing withhigh-stress conflict and threateningsituations may have been overrated[in the past] vis-à-vis matters ofdiligent compliance with the lawwhen enforcing it.”Characteristics such as
agreeableness or emotionalstability should not be downplayed,say the authors, but recruitersshould pair a measure ofconscientiousness with a highlyrelevant secondary trait in gaugingpeople’s suitability for a role.Occupational complexity
has a moderating effect onthese findings. “Personality,particularly conscientiousness andextraversion, appears to betterpredict performance in occupationscharacterised bymoderatecomplexity than it does in thosecharacterised by lower or highercomplexity levels,” notes the report.The authors believe the findings
may help organisations identifytalent, individuals make betterchoices, and society “reap thecollective benefits of betteroccupational performance.”bit.ly/personalityjobs H
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VALUES
Do theright thingEmployees fear reprisals forspeaking out – andare scepticalactionwill be taken anyway
Ethics programmes areno guarantee of ethical
behaviour, according to the Ethicsat Work: 2021 international surveyof employees, conducted by theInstitute of Business Ethics (IBE)and its academic partner, CranfieldUniversity. While standards haveimproved since the last survey in2018, managers have a rosier viewthan frontline staff, and fear and afeeling of futility remain barriersto individuals speaking out whenthey witness bad behaviour.The IBE canvassed almost 10,000
employees in 13 countries about theirattitudes to and perceptions of ethicsin their organisations.The four key building blocks
of a comprehensive programmeare a code of ethics, a speak-upmechanism, a helpline, and ethicstraining. Butwhile 53 per cent areaware of their employer’s speak-upmechanism, up from46 per cent in2018, the percentagewilling to calloutmisconduct has fallen from 57per cent to 53 per cent in six of the10 countries forwhich historic datais available. Switzerland saw thebiggest fall – 17 percentage points –followed by theUK (12 points).Themain reasons for this
reluctance are fear of jeopardisingtheir job and scepticism thatcorrective actionwould be taken– both cited by 34 per cent ofrespondents.Worryingly, in theUK62 per cent didn’t believe correctiveactionwould be taken. Overall, 43
per cent of employeeswho havespoken up experienced retaliation.UK employees seemmore tolerantthan others ofminor transgressions:57 per cent of them, compared to theaverage of 40 per cent, felt minorbreaches of the ruleswere inevitablein amodern organisation, with 45per cent, compared to an average of36 per cent, believing if firms crackeddown on these theywould findthemselveswith no staff.The survey highlighted a
significant disconnect betweenmanagers and non-managers. Forexample, managers aremore likelythan others to say that honestyis practised always or frequently(90 per cent vs 83 per cent), aremore likely to raise concerns aboutmisconduct (71 per cent vs 45 percent), and aremore satisfiedwith theoutcomewhen they do (74 per centvs 45 per cent).Andwhile, on average, 58 per cent
of respondents said issues of rightandwrong are discussed at staffmeetings, 65 per cent that decisionson people are fairlymade, and 78 percent that people knowwhat ethicalbehaviour is expected of them, inall three casesmanagersweremorelikely to agree than non-managers.bit.ly/IBEethics
GENDER DIVERSITY
Has femaleleadershipstalled?Some boards now boast a criticalmass of directors who arewomenbut others trail far behind
The glacial progress of womendirectors on FTSE 100
and FTSE 250 boards suggeststhe voluntary approach isn’tworking and it may be time formandatory targets, according to
Allegations of parties at Downing Street during lockdown have raised ethical conduct concerns
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the authors of Cranfield School ofManagement’s Female FTSE BoardReport, now in its 23rd year.While the percentage of female
non-executive directors on FTSE100 boards was at an all-time high of44 per cent in 2021, including 14 percent women chairs, the percentageof female executive directors hasflatlined for the second year, at 13.7per cent. In FTSE 250 companiesit has remained at 11 per cent fortwo consecutive years, with womenrepresenting 42 per cent of non-executive directors.The overall number of women
on boards is rising (38 per cent inthe FTSE 100 and 35 per cent inthe FTSE 250), but there are widedisparities between the best andthe worst. Diageo leads the charge,with a 60 per cent female board,while Ocado has just 17 per centrepresentation. Overall, 21 per centof FTSE 100 companies and 32per cent of FTSE 250 companieshave yet to meet the target set bythe Hampton-Alexander Review(established in 2016 to increasefemale representation on boards) of33 per cent representation by 2020.Perplexed by the lack of progress,
Susan Vinnicombe, professor
of women and leadership atCranfield School ofManagement,and her co-authors, analysed therelationship between the number ofwomen on the boards of FTSE 100companies, the roles they filled, andthe proportion in executive roles(executive committee and directreports). They found the majority ofcompanies that had a critical mass(defined as at least 30 per cent)of women in executive roles alsohad a critical mass of female boarddirectors – but, significantly, in rolesthat were particularly influential,such as chair, executive director,senior independent director orinterlocked non-executive director.They concluded that, while
important, a critical mass of femaleboardmembers is not on its ownenough to ensure a healthy pipelineof female executives, and that morerobust talent management andsuccession planning is key.The authors see a clear division
between companies engagingin ‘box ticking’ and those thatgenuinely embrace and incorporategender diversity – and it is the lattergroup with the higher proportionof women coming through theexecutive pipeline.
“We are sure that all chairsand CEOs of FTSE companiesunderstand the business case forgender diversity at an intellectuallevel, but it is debatable whetherthey really believe in it and arewilling to invest serious effort intoachieving it,” they conclude.bit.ly/FTSEwomen
PUBLIC PERCEPTION
Trustme,I’m a doctorPoliticians and advertising execsvoted least trustworthy andmedical professionals themost
After the events of the past twoyears, doctors are the most
trusted profession and politiciansthe least. The new Ipsos GlobalTrustworthiness Monitor found64 per cent of respondents inthe 28 countries polled in 2021considered doctors trustworthy,ahead of scientists (61 per cent),with teachers coming a strongthird (55 per cent). Politicians,government ministers andadvertising executives languishat the bottom of the table, withjust 10 per cent, 14 per centand 15 per cent, respectively, ofrespondents trusting them.Business people come a long way
down the pecking order too: just 23per cent of respondents trust them,which puts them on a par withbankers and journalists. However,despite the scandals that haveaffected individual companiesand even entire sectors over thethree years since Ipsos ran itslast survey, trust in business(along with the other institutionssurveyed) is more stable thanmight be expected.Indeed, some sectors have
seen a net increase. For example,31 per cent of people trustChris Whitty is by no means the only doctor to enjoy a popularity boost during the pandemic
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pharmaceuticals firms nowcompared to 25 per cent three yearsago, and banks’ trustworthinesshas risen from 20 per cent to 28per cent. The only exception to thelargely stable picture is technologycompanies, with a four percentage-point fall in trust here, to 34 percent, over the period.There is clearly little room for
complacency among businesses,given that less than one-quarter ofthe world’s population trusts them.The lack of trust comes down toperceptions that a company is notgood at what it does, is unreliableand doesn’t keep its promises,doesn’t have the best intentions,is neither well led nor open andtransparent, behaves irresponsibly,doesn’t share people’s values orwould try to take advantage ifit could.Ipsos observes
that the rises in trustin pharmaceuticalsand banking arethe result of thesesectors managingto convert those who saw themas untrustworthy into neutrals,and neutrals into supporters – astrategy, it suggests, that would befruitful for others to adopt, givena significant proportion of theglobal public is neutral towardsall companies and institutionsmeasured in the survey.Carl Phillips, director of Ipsos
Global Reputation Centre, said:“Those in positions of leadershipneed to accept that deference isdead and trust must be earned.Critical to this is that insteadof looking to rebuild trust backto mythical levels of the past,organisations, governmentsand industries need to criticallyappraise whether they areacting in a trustworthy manner,according to the criteria thatglobal citizens and consumersexpect, and act accordingly.”bit.ly/Ipsostrust •
FLEXIBILITY
Remoteworkis bad newsfor bossesManagers fear disabledworkers,women, carers and young peoplewillmiss out if not in the office
TheCovid-19 pandemic achievedalmost overnightwhatmany
have sought for years – amoreflexibleworkingmodel. Thequestion, however, is whether it willprovemore than a flash in the pan.Research from theWork
Foundation and the CharteredManagement Institute (CMI) foundnine in 10workers do notwant toreturn tomore traditional working
patterns. However,these preferences arefrequently at oddswith employers’plans, according tothe research, which
draws on surveys of 964managersand 1,000 remoteworkers.Around one in four employees
want towork fully remotely andless than one in 10want to be in theworkplace full time –with the rest,on average, seeking towork remotelyfor up to three days aweek. Yetnearly half (46 per cent) ofmanagersexpect some staff towork fully on siteand some towork entirely remotely,with 38 per cent expecting staff tocome into theworkplace at leastonce aweek.The research also found that
‘traditional’ views of theworkplacepersist. For example, managersexpect access to stretch projects andworkplace networks to decreasewith remote or hybridworking,exacerbating already existinginequalities in theworkplace.Disabledworkers, women and thosewith caring responsibilities areperceived as being at risk of isolation
from the office and ofmissingout on learning and developmentopportunities. Additionally, 36 percent ofmanagerswere concernedabout people under 24missing out.More than half of employees
(54 per cent) – rising to 61 per centof disabledworkers – said their linemanagers’ support was themainreason theywere comfortable askingfor remoteworking. But 29 per centof employees said lack of senior staffsupportmade them reluctant to asktowork remotely, and 28 per centcited linemanagers notworkingremotely themselves as a barrier.“The government’s announcement
that every employeewill be giventhe right to request flexibleworkingfrom their first day in the job, is apositive step,” saysMelWilkes, headof research at theWork Foundation.“Formanyworkers, including somedisabledworkers, parents and carers,flexibility is essential. But unlessmanagers change their attitudesand behaviours, andwithout amoreproactive approach to planningand support, not onlywill access tohybrid and flexiblework be limited,but the newhybridmodel couldalso exacerbate existingworkplaceinequalities, and create new onesaswell.”
TheWorkFoundation andCMIhave created a policy brief, toensure legislation and guidancefromgovernment supports aninclusive transition to hybridworking. They have also produceda guide for employers,with keyrecommendations including:• communication, consultationand experimentation with staff todevelop an approach that works;
• role-modelling behaviour;• ensuring managers are adequatelytrained and prepared to managehybrid teams;
• developing action plans aroundhybrid and remote working thatprioritise diversity and inclusion.
bit.ly/Lancasterhybrid
“Those in positions ofleadership need to acceptthat deference is dead andtrustmust be earned”
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ANNUAL REPORTS
Governanceis still hot airMany firms still pay onlylip service to inclusion,purpose andmodern slavery
Much corporate governancereporting amounts to
“boilerplate or declaratorystatements… unsubstantiated byactions or examples,” according tothe Financial Reporting Council’ssecond annual review of firms’compliance with the 2018 UKCorporate Governance Code.Diversity and inclusion, and
succession planning at boardlevel and through the pipeline,were particular concerns. “Therecontinues to beminimal informationon howdiversity and inclusionpolicies and objectives link tocompany strategy,” notes thereport,The Review of CorporateGovernance Reporting, based on arandom sample of 100 FTSE 350and small cap companies.More than 70 per cent disclosed
diversity targets, but thesewerepredominantly related to gender.Twenty-seven of the 35 FTSE 100companieswithin the sample didnotmeet the recommended targetset by the Parker Review of havingat least one director of colour by2021. Boilerplate statementswillcut little icewith investors, who arestepping up pressure on companiesto increase ethnic diversity on boards– particularly asmost statementsdid not translate into an increase indiversity in senior positions.Several companies stated that their
appointments are based on ‘merit’without reporting on any activitiesto encourage diverse candidates toapply, or requests to executive searchfirms to cast their netsmorewidely.The FRC also found that
“reporting on the alignment between
culture, purpose, values and strategyremains largely unsatisfactory.”Companies oftenmixed up purposestatementswith vision andmission,and some companies reducedtheir statements to amarketingslogan.While all referred to theirorganisational values, not alldisclosedwhat they actuallywere.Just 21 companies had non-
financialmetrics in their long-termincentive plans. Only five hadenvironmental or social performancemetrics – surprising givenmanycited climate change as a risk.This year, the FRCworkedwith
Lancaster UniversityManagement School(LUMS) to determinehow companies reportonmodern slavery.LUMS reviewedreporting onmodernslavery governance, policies anddue diligence inmodern slaverystatements in annual reports, andcompared this with a frameworkdeveloped by the Business andHumanRights Resource Centre.The FRC concluded reporting islargely descriptive and superficial:“The evidence suggests thatMSconsiderations appear to be relativelylow on the agenda ofmost boards.”bit.ly/FRCgovern
PSYCHOLOGY
Wehave allthe time intheworldSet a short deadline or betterstill none at all to get work donefaster, say researchers
Procrastination, the old adagegoes, is the thief of time. But
what if it was deadlines that actuallystopped us being productive?Research from the University of
“Specifying a longerdeadline, as opposed toa short deadline or nodeadline, removesthe urgency to act”
Otago Business School in NewZealand suggests if youwantsomeone to do something for you it’sbest not to set a deadline at all. But ifyou do set one, make it short.Professor Stephen Knowles and
DrMurat Genç, from the businessschool’s department of economics– alongwith co-authors Dr TrudySullivan, from the department ofpreventive and social medicine, andProfessorMaroš Servátka, fromtheMacquarie Graduate SchoolofManagement in Australia –initially embarked on their researchbecause theywere interested in
helping charities raisemoremoney.But they say
the results outlinedin their study,Procrastination and thenon-monotonic effect of
deadlines on task completion, applyto any situationwhere someoneasks for help – including at work.They also have important policyimplications formaximising surveyresponse rates.The researchers invited 3,276
participants, randomly selected fromtheNewZealand electoral roll, togive up to fiveminutes of their timeto answer an online survey, and indoing so to earn $10 the researcherswould donate to charity. One thirdwere given aweek to respond,another thirdwere given amonthand the remaining thirdwere setno deadline at all. The team foundthe responseswere lowest for theone-month deadline (5.5 per cent),and highest when no deadlinewasspecified (8.3 per cent), with a 6.6 percent response rate for those given aweek’s deadline.Most people in all three categories
respondedwithin the first three days,but therewere different patterns. ‘Nodeadline’ yielded a big early spikeof responses (41), followed by a longtail, including one response per dayin days 11 to 30. ‘Onemonth’ also hadan early, albeit smaller, spike (21), but
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Rushing to beat the Countdown clock might sharpen the mind, but deadlines are not always good
had no responses between days 14and 27. ‘Oneweek’ had slightly lowerresponses than ‘no deadline’ in thefirst three days (34), after which itfollowed roughly the same patternuntil day 10, when responses fell off.Knowleswas interested that the
lack of any deadline proved thebiggest spur to action. “We interpretthis as evidence that specifying alonger deadline, as opposed to ashort deadline or no deadline at all,removes the urgency to act, whichis often perceived by peoplewhenasked to help,” he says. However, notspecifying a deadline seems to haveled participants to assume there is animplicit deadline.bit.ly/Otagotime
WELLBEING
Why investinginH&Wreallypays offHealthier employees experiencebetter relationships withco-workers and less bullying
Most large employers haveinvested to some degree in
programmes designed to supportemployees’ health andwellbeing.But they aren’t just benefiting frombetter health outcomes – theymayalso be encouraging improved socialrelationships in theworkplace andreducing bullying into the bargain.Researchers from the University
of East Anglia (UEA), working incollaboration with insurance andinvestments company Vitality, foundthemore employees engage withhealth and wellbeing programmes(HWPs), the better the quality ofco-worker relationships, the lessthey experience bullying over time,and the better their longer-termwellbeing and job satisfaction.These benefits accrue even when
senior managers are not committedto such programmes.Research has shown that bullying
is one of themost prevalent threatsto employeewellbeing. Ameta-analysis of 102 studies estimated that,across all continents, between 11 percent and 18 per cent of employeeshave experienced bullying. Otherresearch has highlighted theimportant role of theworkplacesocial environment: strained anduncivil relationships atwork increaseemployees’ propensity to engage inaggressive and vengeful behaviour,which leads to a downward spiral.This has damaging consequences
for employers. “There is strongevidence that experiencingsystematic and prolonged bullyingis a significant occupationalstressor that negatively affectsjob satisfaction, performance andcommitment, and increases therisk of turnover,” write the authorsof the report,Longitudinal Effectsof Engagement withWorkplaceHealth Programmes on EmployeeOutcomes: A Relational Perspective.Workplace bullying also increases
physical andmental health problems,post-traumatic stress disorder andsickness absence.However, the research showed that
“employees’ degree of engagementwithHWPs is associatedwithperceptions of amore respectful andless strained social environment.”Lead author Dr Roberta Fida,
fromUEA’s Norwich BusinessSchool, says: “This supports thenotion that through the availabilityof HWPs, employers communicatetheir care and concern foremployees’ wellbeing, whichis reciprocated through socialexchange processes, with morerespectful relationships at work andless bullying.”Mental and physicalhealth, along with job satisfaction,were shown to improve as well.The three-year study used data
from 7,785UK employees at 64organisations. The co-authors of thereport were Annilee Game, also ofNorwich Business School;MartinStepanek, fromVitalityHealth andCharles University, Prague; andCloéGendronneau, fromRANDEurope.bit.ly/UEAhealth
Further Reading
72
The Office p38
Ricky Gervais, The Story So Far byMichael HeatleyMichael O’Mara Books, 2006
The Office at 20: Why we’re all DavidBrent nowThe Independent, 2021bit.ly/DavidBrentnow
The Office co-creator Stephen Merchantreflects on the UK and US versions ofthe showMashable, 2021bit.ly/UKUSOffice
The Office: the Untold Story of theGreatest Sitcom of the 2000s byAndy GreeneDuttons Books, 2020
Q&A: ClaudiaGoldin p42
‘Yes, the Pandemic Has Been Awful. ButThere Are Signs of Hope for Mothers atWork,’ by Jessica GroseNew York Times, 3 November 2021nyti.ms/3BBjQJg
Claudia Goldin and Anne C. Case inConversation on Career & FamilyPrinceton Public Library, 3 October 2021bit.ly/ClaudiaGoldin
Harvard Professor Claudia Goldin onWomen’s Participation in the WorkforceSustaining Capitalism podcast, CED andThe Conference Board, May 2021apple.co/3BCLMMU
Claudia Goldin: Women in EconomicsMarginal Revolution University (MRU)bit.ly/Womenineconomics
Interview with Claudia Goldin on theeconomics of inequalityConversations with Tyler podcast,October 2021
Negotiation p28
Bertie Ahern Autobiographyby Bertie AhernPenguin, 2014
Bad King John: A rubbish reign whichproduced some good resultsThe Conversation, 2015bit.ly/BadkingJohn
International Relations Then and Now:Origins and Trends in Interpretationby AJR Groom, Andre Barrinha andWilliam C OlsonTaylor & Francis, 2019
JFK vs The MilitaryThe Atlantic, 2013bit.ly/JFKMilitary
Blame politicians not Mandela forSouth Africa’s unfinished businessThe Conversation, July 2018bit.ly/NotMandela
Khrushchev Remembers by NikitaKhrushchevLittle Brown & Company, 1970
King John: Tyranny and Treachery on theRoad to Magna Carta by Marc MorrisPegasus, 2015
The English Translation of Magna CartaBritish Librarybit.ly/MagnaCartatranslation
The Vanquished: Why the First World WarFailed to End by Robert GerwarthPenguin, 2017
Interview:Linda Kennedy p14
Klöckner Pentaplast releases its 2020sustainability reportPackaging Newsbit.ly/KPreport
The Drive Towards Sustainability inPackaging – beyond the quick winsMcKinsey & Co, 2020mck.co/3v6dSir
People AnalyticsCIPD factsheet, 2021bit.ly/CIPDanalytics
2021 Global Human Capital Trends:Special ReportDeloitte, 2021bit.ly/Deloittehumancapital
Universities p18
A University Education by David WillettsOxford University Press, 2017
The Student Academic ExperienceSurvey 2021Higher Education Policy Institutebit.ly/Studentsurvey2021
Cash is king as UK Universities shore upfinancesTimes Higher Education, 2022bit.ly/TESCashisking
University Businesses, The Bottom LineBBC Radio 4, 2019bbc.in/3p4AiNc
Almost a third of students meet theirother half at universityLifestyle Daily, 2021bit.ly/Uniotherhalf
UK Employers look to hire school leaversas skills shortage bitesThe Financial Times, 2022on.ft.com/3BDMoC2
Education at a GlanceOECD Reportbit.ly/OECDglancereport
Because business is about peopleWorkWork..
73
Work. is published on behalfof the CIPD by Haymarket BusinessMedia. Registered office:Bridge House, 69 London Road,Twickenham, TW1 3SP
EditorJenny RoperContributing editorAndrew SaundersArt directorAubrey SmithProduction editorSarah DysonPerspectives editorEmma De VitaPicture editorDominique Campbell
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Work. – ISSN 2056-6425Printed by Stephens & George Print Group,Merthyr Tydfil. © All rights reserved.This publication (or any part thereof)may not be reproduced, transmittedor stored in print or electronic format (including,but not limited, to any online service, anydatabase or any part of the internet), or in anyother format in any media whatsoever, withoutthe prior written permission of HaymarketMedia Group Ltd, which accepts no liability forthe accuracy of the contents or any opinionsexpressed herein.CIPD contact details:151 The Broadway,London SW19 1JQ,020 8612 6208,[email protected] you are a CIPDmember and yourhome or work addresshas changed, pleasecall 020 8612 6233.CIPD is a registeredcharity – no. 1079797
Brought to you by…Global mobility p56
Departing US business chief warns ofexpat exodus from ChinaThe Financial Times, 2021on.ft.com/3JGA6eN
Singapore and Dubai: two very differentapproaches to the Covid expatFortune, 2022bit.ly/Covidexpat
Meet the Covid expats who movedabroad during the pandemic. Here’s whatthey learned about workCNBC, 2022cnb.cx/3LO86I2
The Best & Worst Places for Expatsin 2021InterNations surveybit.ly/Bestworstexpats
Global Mobility Survey 2021/2022SantaFe Relocationbit.ly/Globalmobilitysurvey
The rise of virtual assignmentsMercer Mobility Insightsbit.ly/Mercervirtual
Our Man Down in Havana – The Storybehind Graham Greene’s Cold WarSpy Novel by Christopher HullPegasus, 2019
Korea p46
From Squid Game to Helbound: HowSouth Korean TV took over the worldThe Face, 2021bit.ly/SquidGameHellbound
Hallyu (Korean Wave)The Korean Cultural Centrebit.ly/Hallyuwave
On Hallyu and its global army: Softpower lessons from South KoreaObserver Research Foundation, 2021bit.ly/Softpowerlessons
The BTS Effect: K-pop and the KoreanWave pop culture ‘will propel the nation’seconomy’South China Morning Post, 2020bit.ly/TheBTSeffect
How K-pop became a global phenomenonVox, 2018bit.ly/K-popglobal
Taking back control: South Korea andthe politics of OPCON transferInstitute for Security and DevelopmentPolicy, 2020bit.ly/OPCONtransfer
Hallyu! How South Korean cultureconquered the worldThe Sunday Times, 2021bit.ly/Koreanculture
South Korea’s soft power strategyThe British Council, 2018bit.ly/Softpowerstrategy
The Korean Miracle (1962-1980)RevisitedKellogg Institute working paper, 1991bit.ly/Koreanmiracle
The Korean War 101: Causes, course andconclusion of the conflictAssociation for Asian Studiesbit.ly/Koreanwar101
74
Bonobo apes have it, dogs have it... andmost of us humans like to thinkwehave empathy too. The abilityto understandwhat others are feeling is an essential life skill that has beenweaponised by politiciansand business leaders in trouble. But beware: BPCEOTonyHayward’s complaint after the 2010DeepwaterHorizon disaster, “I’d likemy life back”,was an empathy-freemoment that cost himhis job.And, sinceCovid,we have become evenmore critical of leaderswho lack outward compassion.
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Ecuador is the nation leading theway in the empathy stakes, according to a 2016 study,published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. The hardest country to find a shoulderto cry on – of the 63 surveyed – is Lithuania. (TheUK ranked 47th.) How exactly youmeasureempathy is still fiercely debated, however. If you apply a blunt tool such as Googlementions,Wales is themost simpaticoUKnation followed by England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
Empathymay be in short supply on social media but someUS companies are investing heavily in the belief thatAR andVR can teach us towalk a virtual kilometre in someone else’s shoes – someone of a different gender,nationality or race, for example. Sadly, this experiencemight cause us to burn out emotionally, research by theMax Planck Institute suggests.Maybewe could learn a thing or two fromdolphins, which philosopher ThomasWhite describes as “non-human persons”. Apparently they have three times asmany spindle cells (neuronsconveying empathy). In their natural habitat, dolphins are seldomdiagnosedwith emotional burnout.
Beware the leader who fails to show or tries to fake compassion, says Paul Simpson
5
4
2 “Howhas the national debt affected your lives?” This question in the 1992 presidential debates cost GeorgeBush Snr his job. The Republican incumbent’s boilerplate rhetoricwas trumped by Bill Clinton’s perfect ‘I feelyour pain’ answer: “Inmy state, when people lose their jobs, there is a good chance I know themby name. If thefactory closes, I know the peoplewho ran it.” A shot of Bush looking at his watch, as if he had better things to dothan face the American people, made him look evenmore out of touch. That said, theMonica Lewinsky scandalsuggestedClintonmay have hadmore empathy for the electorate than for anyone he knew (extremely) personally.
Studies of psychopathswatching videos of a person harming another suggest they can switch empathy on andoff atwill. But, to be fair to Parker, thismight be a case of nature not nurture. There is evidence that severalgenes – especially a variant of ADRA2B, OXTR, LRRN1 and 5-HTTLPR (which transports serotonin aroundthe brain) – influence our ability to feel others’ pain. One CambridgeUniversity team says genetics account forone tenth of variations in empathy levels. OxfordUniversity psychologist CeciliaHeyes vehemently disagreesthough, arguing empathy is a quality that people, animals and robots can all learn.
Australian LiberalMPAndrewLaming’s career suggests that if you don’t use empathy, youlose it. In 1992, hewasworking for the RedCross in Afghanistan, yet last year hewas orderedby primeminister ScottMorrison to take a private empathy course. Apologising for harassingtwowomen on Facebook, he then insisted he had nothing to be sorry for. Psychologists saynarcissism can smother empathy and Laming once spent 11 hours commenting on a Facebookgroup comparing him to rambling Grandpa Simpson.
3 “Lacking empathy, constitutional psychopathic state,” was theUSArmy’s verdict when itdishonourably discharged Private Thomas Parker in 1933. He started as a carnival hustlermaking chickens dance on a hot plate, beforemanaging Elvis Presley so ruthlessly that, by themid-1970s, hewasmakingmoremoney out of the singer than theman himself. “Colonel” TomParker (the title was a political honorarium) exemplifieswhat pop psychologists call the ‘darkempath’ – someonewho empathises cognitively but not emotionally andmanipulates people.
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Head of anOba, c 1900Unknown artist (Edo people)
For many, the repatriation of artworks taken by westernnations in the context of colonialism, imperialism or war
should not be up for debate. Yet many suchnegotiations rumble on. Between Boris Johnson andGreece’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the
Elgin Marbles, for example; and the British Museum andNigeria in relation to its collection of over 900 BeninBronzes, seized by English troops in 1897. There are
some 160 institutions globally holding Benin bronzes,with Germany the first country to pledge their return.At the end of 2021, the Ahiamwen Guild of artists andbronze casters hoped to finally clinch the deal, with an
offer to the British Museum of several pieces ofcontemporary art in exchange for the historic
sculptures. But artist Osarobo Zeickner-Okoro reportedhis offer was accepted without the museum agreeing to
return the artefacts – hardly the win-win that expertssay is the hallmark of a well-negotiated settlement,whether between colleagues at work or in the more
rarified world of culturally significant art.The Benin sculptures, made from bronze or brass,
include elaborately decorated commemorative heads(as pictured), animal and human figures, items of royal
regalia and personal ornaments, and were created fromthe 16th century onwards for the Oba (king) in the
west African kingdom of Benin.
©Peter Horree /Alamy Stock Photo
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