First reflections about England

Bags, bags and more plastic bags...

I have not yet finished my first week in London and I am surrounded by plastic bags at home.

Coming from an 'anti-plastic-bag' country like France, this has been a real choc culturel. 

Maybe I am simply stating the obvious. So far I have noticed that people reuse them until they finish in the trash. I, myself, cannot keep track with the speed of reuse that is required.

On top of that, my neighbourhood does not recycle :( 

I live in a complete nature unfriendly environment :P in one of the greenest cities in the world!

Skills help donations be effective, donate your skills!!

Most of those that were blessed with a very good education, that made the choice of study even more and get trained by companies on how to be efficient, productive and do our best at work, also decided that we wanted to get well paid for all the efforts. Very few are those that decide that prefer a job where helping others is the priority and pay comes second or third. Jobs where salary comes last are less backed by good training and continuous learning, thus leaving NGOs full of individuals with great potential being unexploited. Volunteering associations and NGOs also suffer from a very little data/scientific approach to run their :"businesses". They seem more driven by a political will that a thorough analysis of facts. That makes them inefficient by wasting money in activities that with ‘better management and accurately interpreted data’ could have been avoided.

Things are changing. Bill Gates, in one of his speeches at the TED talks, exposed his view on how to tackle challenging problems for developing countries by using a more scientific perspective to have better results.

I guess we do not have to become as rich as Bill Gates and as old as him to start applying what we have learnt to help people working in programs that help society development.

So, I encourage everyone to reflect on how they could volunteer their skills, many times more needed than their money, to help around. Often help is needed around the corner. Let’s not wait until we are old, we’ll enjoy it more while we are young :)

Today is IWD - linking nicely with previous entry

Working towards improving things.

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

The fair share

About women and quotas

Women representation in corporate boards and the need for quotas to make sure that boards do 

have women onboard seem touchy topics.

My heart is divided on this topic and I thought that maybe writing down my thoughts would actually make things clear. First, it seems nobody doubts that having a diverse professional group (board, team or other) is a plus. It is even better when that group is made of the best people available. Regarding this point, I seem aligned with the majority.

The challenge comes when you must meet the best people and the diversity requirements at the same time.

What is not measured, rarely gets done. Thus, quotas seem a good way to make sure that the diversity requirement is met. However, imposing quotas might also impose the acceptance of people whose quality and capacity are not up to what is searched for the position. I am profoundly against that!

So, what is the real problem here? Mmmm… Boards and governments are just the tip of the iceberg of a power system which has a large foundation on which the male and the female population do not have a balanced distribution.

If big corporations do not encourage women at the early stages of their career to aim at taking positions of high responsibility, if they do not integrate work/life balance policies in their companies to make sure that both bright men and bright women have exactly the same chances to make it to the top, introducing quotas might simply decrease the quality of the boards (and as a consequence back the arguments of those, generally men, that completely oppose the idea of having women running businesses).

Maybe, to start with, we should implement a fair share schema, which would have to guarantee that quotas on a board encourage a representation proportionally equal to the male-female distribution in the company executive roles (or alike). If the obtained board was not balanced, it would actually show that the company is failing to put in place the right policies to make the business successful. Shareholders beware!!!!

Governments should economically encourage and, in some extreme cases, force companies to adopt policies and to introduce metrics in their annual performance analysis that will show that progress is being made towards an even male-female distribution at the starting levels. I am not sure that board quotas can guarantee that. 

"El poder es como un explosivo: o se maneja con cuidado, o estalla."
Enrique Tierno Galván
(8/2/1918 -  19/1/1986) político, sociólogo, jurista y ensayista español.

"Power is like an explosive: unless it is handled with care, it explodes"

Enrique Tierno Galván

(8/2/1918 -  19/1/1986) Spanish politician, sociologist, lawyer and ensayist.

Some weeks ago, I heard this quote, taken from one of the most famous mayors of Madrid. It made me think a lot. It is such an obvious statement but at the same time so little acknowledged by those that aim at being powerful.

It made me reflect for some days. As technology gives more power to the people, let’s put as an example Wikileaks, it also starts spreading the explosive all over. “With great power comes great responsibility”. Is the average citizen aware of the responsibility associated to power and how dangerous power is? I do not think so.

I like the Wikileaks effect, not so much because of the exposure to the leaks themselves, but because it reminds those that traditionally keep the power, that they should handle it with care and responsibility. They should be an example for all of us, in conduct and behavior, otherwise, we’ll take them as an example and use our power as an explosive.

Entry dedicated to Eva and Rebeca.

What does it take to give up our principles?

A few days ago I bumped into Clayton Christensen's article, How Will You Measure Your Life? It was part of the corporate material that the company I work for shares with its employees. It is a nice reading, I highly recommend it, and made me think.

In addition to many other pieces of advice, Christensen recommends not to fall even once into the temptation of giving up our principles to achieve our dreams and our goals. Repetitively renouncing our believes and moral standards makes humans deeply unhappy and no personal achievements seem to compensate and bring happiness back.

Apparently, betraying our principles is one of the main sources of personal failure in the world. He gives a simple recipe that seems that if applied would stop this source of struggle. He points out that it is easier to be true to ourselves 100% of the times, than 98%. In a world where humans are used to demand immediate reward, this approach is difficult to keep, above all, when, once we have granted ourselves the right to stop doing what we believe is right, we tend to justify ourselves over and over.

But, what it takes to give up our principles? Christensen does not answer this question, most likely because it might take different things to different people. I believe that when people think that the "cause is so noble that it is worth the personal sacrifice" they start giving up.

What is then a noble cause? I do not know. And that is where my confusion starts. No cause can be noble when it demands people to give up their principles. And we are suddenly back on square one. So why do we end up inside these moral traps? I see three options (might be more): 

1. We don't, because in reality we do not have any principles. Amoral people exist.
2. We lie to ourselves and try to convince everyone that we can still be happy even if we betray our principles.
3. We change our principles so that we momentarily feel relieved because the end justifies the means.

And what about companies and their values? When does a company give up on its core values and becomes permissive to those that achieve the results but fail to keep their principles? I guess that with so many people already giving up themselves in their personal lives, those same people might see justified that the company, which is no other thing that the sum of all its employees, also betrays its values from time to time. This fact exposes why employees might believe that their company conducts business in an unethical manner. They answer honestly: they might have already been "forced" to betray their own principles because of the company they work for. Can a company where most of its employees feel like that survive in the long run? No. How do they justify their evolution with such a professional perspective?

1. They don't, because in reality they do not care. Big bosses leave with their pockets full and trouble behind.
2. They lie to themselves and try to convince employees that they can still be rewarded professionally even if they betray their own principles.
3. They change their principles so that they momentarily feel relieved because the end justifies the means: they have survived the crisis.

I wonder, is it possible to become a successful professional without ever renouncing to our principles? Is integrity compatible with success? I want to believe that it is. I'd love to hear what successful professionals would answer, hoping that, when answering, they would not be lying to themselves :P

Convenience or freedom of choice?

This morning one of my friends complained on Twitter because he did not understand why he had to rebuild his social graph all over again in Foursquare. He basically advocated for FacebookConnect to be everybody’s universal ID.