It does not become a threat, until it becomes a threat. Will it be then too late for you?

Whether you are talking about innovation, women and minority presence on boards, or any kind of other non-standard corporate practices, everyone has a saying. And so do I.

Reviewing all the fuzz that Vivek Wadhwa has created at calling Silicon Valley “all boys tech club”. I could only roll my eyes. (link) Mr. Wadhwa stated a fact: start-ups in Silicon Valley are mainly directed by white male individuals. He argues that, for any company to evolve and last as a business, this kind of male dominated culture is not the best option. Several analyses show that companies that have inclusive boards do better than companies that do not. Many people say that the correlation shown in those analyses does not imply causation and should be ignored.

Let us take a look at other examples of such analyses companies are confronted to: “companies that invest in innovation and take it seriously do better than companies that do not”, or “companies that do environmentally ethical business do better than companies that do not”. Now, is there causation in the correlation shown on the studies that support those statements or should we simply ignore those too?

My take on this is quite pragmatic. Success, from the business perspective, is always relative. The goal of any given company is to do financially better than its competitors. If everyone in a given market is doing exactly the same, there is no way to become better than your neighbour. However, as soon as one company in that ecosystem has the courage to do something different, it sets itself to bring a positive change that can generate competitive advantage.

Companies, like people, do not like change, so they tend to openly disregard the signs that show them that if they do not act differently they might lose their market position. Ignorance is not bliss, but danger.

For those people that still feel sceptical about linking correlation and causality when dealing with business decisions, I will simply tell them that, as the adage goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating!  If a company operates and manages its talent exactly as it did in the old days, I cannot believe it is future proof.

As for the investors in Silicon Valley that seem to support the same success formula over and over. I would only tell them: enjoy as long as you can, because when your competition will see the potential of supporting a different model, you will be doomed. And those new models will include men, women, children, elderly, minorities, environment, ethics, etc. -the most diverse human side. At the end of the day, we are humans and businesses are here to deliver needs to humans of all kinds and sustain our evolution, not more and not less. In my humble opinion by forgetting all that is how we end up with a 1929 crisis, a .com crisis, a general banking crisis, and any other that will come along. There will be more because we are humans and we do not like change… Will it be then too late for you? 

The blessing of not being rich

I have read several articles, some more scientific than others, stating that there is a limit in the amount of happiness money can bring. These articles support with more or less facts that, once somebody starts earning too much money, managing the money itself becomes a source of worry and makes them less happy. I believe that quantity was around $75,000 a year not so long ago.

I never took this kind of studies very seriously because I really think that happiness is something very subjective and as such, money is simply one of the many factors that influences it. However, money is the enabler of many of the activities and actions that we believe make us happy. I want to stress well the word BELIEVE, because like everything that we have not done and we try for the first time, we might get deceived after going through the new experience. 

I could not help thinking how some times the fact that we do not have unlimited amount of resources is a real blessing. The New York Times published recently an article written by a well educated wealthy woman who wanted to share with the readers how she felt she was addicted to plastic surgery. Several times through her text she mentioned that she would not even reflect on the risks or consequences of the operations. She had the money, she could afford it, so she would simply do it.

It seems that more often than we think, having to prioritize things in life saves us from our own stupidity. Maybe the border between coping well with our daily struggles and considering our stupid ideas seriously is $75,000 per year.

Learning to rest - wanting to be rescued

I have endless energy, or so I feel when I look around and become aware of the speed at which I do things. It is even more obvious when I feel this eternal rush to do more and more and I perceive everyone else as very slow.

I always thought this energy to be a blessing. However, yesterday, as I was moving around like a nervous butterfly among friends, my kitchen and the patio, I suddenly realised that is not so wonderful after all.

I was hosting a BBQ at home. This is an event planned to enjoy the company of my friends but I was incapable of slowing down and mingle. I simply kept on moving and moving, right and left. I felt the urge to make sure that everything everywhere was alright, and indeed it was. I also know that it would still have been fine without me constantly checking.

Only once the party was almost over and very few people were left, I relaxed and enjoyed.

I want to learn to rest, to slow down, to enjoy doing absolutely nothing. I want to learn to stop and smell the roses. I simply do not know how. Can somebody help?
   

A radical perspective on banks

In the future, banks as we know them, will not exist.

1. Operational banking will be publicly managed and intervened. Since all financial operations will have to be done through electronic means (so fraud and money laundering are controlled), governments will fully regulate them; the same way they regulate education, healthcare and other services that citizens have agreed as mandatory and needed for human survival.
2. Speculative investment banking and wild trading will slowly disappear. Technology will give people the power to invest their savings directly on those causes, business and people’s projects they trust and believe in with very little need for middlemen. Investors (people) will be willing to take the risk themselves and will keep ‘secured savings’ for the bad times managed by operational financial entities, as said, already regulated (point 1.) to do what they are meant to do (secure the savings). Wealth advisers will work for virtual platforms analysing companies, risk and helping direct investors make the most of their money on the causes and business that people will want to support.
3. Current aggressive trading and speculative investment practices will be treated as gambling. They will be either openly banned or super heavily taxed, so that money is reintroduced into good causes. In reality, it should be made illegal, but, what do you do with compulsive gamblers and misers? They exist, we’d better have them under control and discourage people believe their behaviour is good and normal. They are addicts.

A positive view of what we, normal well-intentioned humans, will do in this context:

Being rewarded for a job, product or service for life will not be possible anymore. The early initial investment that our parents and society made on us will no longer be a guarantee of survival. Living longer will be associated to working differently at different stages of our life to contribute within our limits (age, strength, intelligence). Services that will be no longer required will quickly disappear and labor survivors will reconvert not to become poor. Wealth (yes, wealthy people and less wealthy people will still exist) will be naturally associated to the capacity of individuals to contribute to knowledge, evolution and wellbeing of others. A person will easily transition from different wealth stages, past positive progress toward better conditions will not be guaranteed (it is not the case anymore, anyway). However, it can be a more fair system by design, more meritocratic.

This might be a future further away for some societies than it is for others. However, governments (politicians chosen by citizens to represent them to help them live) had better start working to bring in the policies to make this world happen. Otherwise, chances are that citizens will decide that they do not need politicians to rule them anymore. In my view, not working towards a better ideal world will lead us to the ancient bipolar world (privileged people exploiting less privileged people),  not bringing any progress but regression to darker ages. I believe that at this stage of our evolution, people will not accept it without revolt, it is no longer a choice.

This blog entry is dedicated to my friend Sven, who encourages me to continue writing each time he sees me. Thanks, Sven! 

Londres: ciudad de contrastes

Son las cuatro de la mañana y no puedo dormir. Ayer fue un día intenso; ayer descubrí la cara más triste y dura de Londres.

Dejé la Costa Azul porque quería vivir en un entorno real y no en una burbuja artificial. Pues si realidad quería, realidad he encontrado en Londres.

Mientras todo el mundo celebra animado la exaltación de unos Juegos Olímpicos que, para mí, se han convertido en otro gran negocio comercial, yo veo como unos amigos míos deciden marcharse de Londres. Hace un año tuvieron un hijo: “no queremos educarlo aquí”, me dicen, “éste no es buen sitio para niños, nos volvemos a España” En ese mismo momento me pregunté a qué se referían con ‘buen sitio’. No he tardado en descubrirlo.

Londres es una ciudad de contrastes. Junto a sus edificios maravillosos, sus museos gratuitos, sus múltiples oportunidades, justo al lado, se encuentran el riesgo, la violencia, el abuso de cierta población hacia otra.

Se tiene que ser fuerte psicológicamente para no caer en ciertas trampas que la ciudad lanza. No importa en qué nivel de la escala social te encuentres. De la misma manera que existe una energía muy positiva que te revitaliza, existe una de signo totalmente contrario que te la absorbe.

Es por eso que cruzarse con gente que te explique que en su trabajo se codea con ‘malas personas’, encargadas de estafar, manejar dinero de grandes fondos de inversión sin escrúpulos, no es difícil. Ya no se ven millonetis gastando miles de libras cada noche en champán y lujo, pero no porque no se les siga pagando bien, sino porque se les pidió que fueran menos fanfarrones con su dinero para que la población normal no se quejara, o si no, sus primas estaban en riesgo. La posibilidad de perder primas has sido efectiva, pero los locales nocturnos ahora ya no llegan a final de mes. Los que trabajan en esos locales, ya no tendrán de qué vivir (y son muchos). Una economía basada en el derroche y la estafa, no puede ser buena, por defición.

Un año después de las revueltas, me parece necesario recordarlo. Los Juegos Olímpicos sólo son maquillaje. Para ver el verdadero Londres se ha de rascar.

Londres es una ciudad maravillosa, pero peligrosa. Educa a monstruos, entre ricos y pobres. Esperemos que la crisis  no extienda lo malo que se cultiva en ella aún más. Personalmente yo creo que el cáncer ya se está extendiendo y nadie está haciendo nada por evitarlo. Ojalá me equivoque, aunque raras veces lo hago.  

Applying diversity of views to governments

In the past months I have been reading about the importance of having a diverse set of individuals: different background, sex, religion, ethnicity, etc. to have a successful corporate board. Following the same line of thought, I ended up with the conclusion that our governments will never be successful and achieve what they are there for if they do not go on that same transformation road.

Governments are not formed, at least not in Spain-where I am originally from, by a healthy combination of people with different perspectives that are working together to agree on what is best for a country, city, social group. Furthermore, in most cases, or at least in the case of Spain, they are not formed by people with large experience running economic matters, or social matters. In most cases, the politicians that represent the people have rarely ever dealt with the issues that bother and concern the people. How can they actually know?

I am not saying that all politicians are like this, I am saying that in the past years most politicians are like this. Sometimes, it is almost worse than what I picture because those few politicians that actually struggled to live like the people they represent used their position to get an easy life and detach themselves from the reality that surrounds them. A real shame!!!

I think, and this is completely my personal opinion, that this situation would not have happened if governments were functioning as a mechanism of consensus and diversity. Consensus: all groups that have been voted have a saying in the actions, not only in the discussion, as proportional as everybody else's, not because you are a minority you have less of a voice, but you are forced by thecrules of tge system to work towards consensus. Critics will say that, like that, laws and actions will take long to be made. Well, who wants speed when that speed is bringing you downhill? We would expect decisions to be made and kept for them to cause an effect, instead than changed by a populistic attack of the major parties on board. If the law forces commitment on politicians, if they are forced out if no commitment is reached, I am sure they would be working hard to reach it. Clearly, the best way to get representation in this kind of scenario is by direct democracy, otherwise you risk holding general elections every month. However, there must be an evolution towards direct democracy: if you do not trust your own knowledge, you should be able to trust the person that represents you: person, not political sect!

And what about diversity? Right, left, up, down, liberals, communists, tories, labor, blue, red, ... These tags on politics are something of the past. The crisis is showing us that parties from different colors end up making decisions that even go against what they usually preach. Conclusion? We must do the right thing, based in honest principles and balanced views. We can only do that if we have a balanced government, and that includes people with different points of view. We are not good at everything, a diverse team has better chances to succeed.

Why don't we design our governments to run like successful teams? At the end of the day, we are the shareholders of our governments, we should be demanding, we can induce change!

Size matters

I have worked for large corporations for quite a long time now. I am now learning about making large systems... The more I look at the complexity of creation and development, the more I realise that size matters, and not in the good way.
Larger is not better, growth is not the equivalent of progress. Corporations are learning this the hard way, society even in a harder one. When does this ambicion for getting larger and larger comes from? At what point the weight of management, whether people, software, processes, overrides any kind of benefits from being part of a large more impactful part?
Large corporations are getting it wrong. They are accepting that overhead is unavoidable... That is not very far from the civil servant attitude towards public work. The process justifies the people and the people justify themselves on the process, clearly inneficient and not leading to any progress at all.
Can we run systems in smaller better interconnected ways instead of aiming at becoming the head of a super large group so that our salary/compensation/profits are aimed at being proportional to the structure beneath us?
I do not have an answer. However the current model is failing and we'd better start experimenting with other ways before everything completely collapses. Maybe forcing splitting in manageable units was not such a bad thing after all?