BGA | BUSINESS IMPACT
‘There are places where companies have seen things like this – and more challenging than this – before, and here’s how they figured out how to thrive in those complex environments’
platform. I’m looking forward to thinking about the ways that our new comfort with remote working, conferences, and other collaboration might be able to encourage more diversity among authors in the most influential journals and a more globally oriented scholarship. What do you think ‘sustainable leadership’ and ‘responsible management’ look like? I’d say that making intentional choices and thinking in long-term and holistic ways in challenging environments with complex mixes of stakeholders is at the heart of sustainable leadership and responsible management. I think that some of the most sustainable, responsible business leadership in the world can be found on the African continent. I think the reason for that is what could be described as a bimodal approach to sustainability in Africa. Over the course of decades (and even centuries), some firms – many foreign- or state-owned – have been among the worst offenders in extracting resources, treating labour terribly, undermining government institutions, and polluting the environment. Yet other firms on the continent have really led the way – in global terms – in the ways that they think holistically about the implications of their decisions. In many cases, they had little choice. Water and power are in extremely limited supply in many places across the continent, and there are constraints on capital and skilled labour. Under these conditions, sustainability is the result of good management – the constraints really force thought and intentionality. Do you think the Business School community and wider business fully understand the benefits of diversity and equality? What should Business Schools be doing to make workplaces more inclusive? I think business and Business Schools are coming around to the benefits of diversity, but I don’t think they’re there yet. The research on the clear business case for diversity on boards and throughout senior leadership teams is a start, but so much of the attention to diversity typically goes to what one might think of as ‘surface-level diversity’. Some of the most talented business leaders I’ve ever met grew up under extremely challenging conditions, then went on to earn an MBA and international work experience and perspective. The skill with which these leaders understand risk, see opportunities, and think about the role of business in society is unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere else. I think that making space in companies and in classrooms for people with extremely different life experiences and worldviews to work together and learn from one another would be enormously profitable – both literally and figuratively. I will say that online learning has brought a new dimension to our notions of what classroom diversity
means. I think we’ll find that, at the end of the pandemic, many students will be more empathetic and better at working in diverse, distributed teams than they would have been if they had been on campus the entire time. The challenge for Business Schools is to ensure that faculty are sufficiently supported and are able to create a respectful learning environment that allows students to learn and grow. I think that these efforts by Business Schools and educators will have positive implications for diversity in workplaces. We can not only help our students to be comfortable with diversity, but we can also help them to think about how they can broaden the approach that they take in looking for talent and the ways in which they are able to support and develop that talent. What can the business world do to diversify its talent pipeline? I think that diversifying the pipeline for talent really requires a new way of thinking about what ‘talent’ is and why it is important for organisations. Firms often end up – intentionally or unintentionally – hiring people with similar life experiences and educational backgrounds who seem like they will ‘fit’ the company’s culture. That approach often leads to a talent pool that is comparatively homogenous across a large number of metrics. This is where I think business education – and, particularly, MBA programmes – can be so important. While it is true that a lot of MBA students have always known that they wanted to go into business, these programmes are also an opportunity for individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds, and with varied life and work experiences, to understand business tools, language, and approaches. Rather than having students think similarly, I think that one of the most exciting things that MBA programmes can do is to take students who think very differently and help them to express their unique viewpoints in ways that will be most compelling to others on their teams and in their firms. Of course, encouraging different viewpoints and supporting diverse teams is easier said than done, which is where I think executive education comes in. Many of these issues and questions have really come to the fore in recent years, and senior leadership teams often find themselves grappling with rapidly shifting norms and
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