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The World Economic Forum, higher education and outcomes for our children

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The World Economic Forum “engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.” Its 2019 Annual Meeting took place in Davos from Jan. 22nd through Jan. 25th.

The WEF is to the world of business what Paris and Milan are to the world of fashion: not everything they present on the runway will appeal to everyone, but it will give us food for thought.

Our children should be thinking about it if they plan to spend 4 years and $46,764 CDN on a basic bachelor’s degree ($87,164 CDN with residence) so that they can compete successfully for work against graduates of the 28,077 universities in operation around the world today. There will be 262 million students enrolled in those universities by 2025.

Nor should we forget that there are over 7.7 billion of us on the planet and that not all great ideas come from university graduates. (Google “successful business people who didn’t graduate from university”.)

On Jan. 25th, The New York Times published ‘The Hidden Automation Agenda of the Davos Elite’ in which it said, “They’ll never admit it in public, but many of your bosses want machines to replace you as soon as possible.” That’s food for thought.

Lives are built on steady incomes. Bosses who plan to replace people with robots threaten those lives, and that threat isn’t confined to soon-to-be graduates. What qualifications will be in demand when our children graduate? How strong will that demand be? Where in the world will it be? How long will it last?

Do parents understand that only certain university degrees will qualify a graduate to compete for a position, but none guarantee that a position will be offered?

Education is serious business, serious enough that what organizations like the WEF publish should be considered carefully because of its long-term implications. Especially now given how the world is changing and how it will continue to change.

Most of what those organizations publish is free. But it’s not enough that it be free: it must also be correct and relevant because of what’s riding on it.

Showing parents and their children how to identify, access and interpret that information is why Personal Due Diligence exists.

F. Neil Morris
President & Founder
PERSONAL DUE DILIGENCE

info@personalduediligence.ca

Education shouldn’t be taken lightly

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In Ontario, Section 21 of the Education Act requires that a family send its children to school until the age of 18 (Grade 12). The world prefers at least 4 more years (university).

Even though the price of a degree keeps going up, parents accept it as a fact of life because they’re convinced that their children will find work that pays enough to retire outstanding student loans, if applicable, and set out on their own. But (a) $40,000 for a basic, in town bachelor’s degree (tuition, fees, expenses) isn’t pocket change; (b) six million Canadians are working at precarious jobs; and (c) management continues to use technology to reduce its dependence on headcount.

The net result is that young people with incomes are moving back home to live with their parents so that they can save money or turn to The Bank of Mom and Pop for down payments on the 21st century equivalent of a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence. The new normal is changing, but to what we don’t know because the process is still ongoing.

We have to think very carefully about how to reconcile the kind of education our children want with what employers want. This has the potential to place the kids between a rock and a hard place when it comes to finding work in their chosen field. There are 26,368 universities in business in the world today. By 2025, 262 million students will be studying there. That makes many of today’s degrees commodities. Employers are as particular about whom they hire as they are because they can afford to be.

Post-secondary education is now as much about strategy and income as it is about academics. By their actions, employers are telling us to educate our children to be relevant to the times in which we live. They aren’t as willing to accommodate applicants with less than ideal credentials as they used to be. It’s a buyer’s market for graduates, but not all university education guarantees financial security or stability.

Personal Due Diligence (PDD) is based on understanding the labour market and developing post-secondary strategies to deal with it. In 2012 we learned that 300,000 graduates were working as unpaid interns. They said that they “couldn’t find work in their chosen field.” Did they not know where or how to look for it? Were they outmanoeuvred by people who did? Did they assume that a job with their name on it would be waiting for them once they returned their caps and gowns? Or that there would even be one? Now comes word that unpaid internships may still be with us. To wit, this recent headline in the Toronto Star: “Legal advocacy group under fire for unpaid internship scheme.”

The traditional one job/one employee/one employer model has been disrupted. Deloitte and the Human Resources Professionals Association describe these times as the Intelligence Revolution and the gig economy, and the phenomenon isn’t unique to Canada. A child born in 2017 who attends their first lecture in 2035 can expect to pay $86,000 for a basic, at-home bachelor’s degree that today costs $40,000. That number will rise to over $152,000 if they study away from home.

Personal Due Diligence (PDD) helps families vet their assumptions about the connection between advanced education and financial security. We start two years before high school graduation to give them the time to identify and evaluate options. Here are some examples of what they’ll want to consider:

  1. Automate This! The future of work in an artificially intelligent world — CBC Radio One    
  2. What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages — McKinsey & Company
  3. Tech Giants Are Paying Huge Salaries for Scarce A.I. Talent — The New York Times
  4. The coming of the ‘gig economy’: a threat to European workers? — EU-Logos Athéna
  5. The Intelligence Revolution: Future-proofing Canada’s workforce — Deloitte/HRPA
  6. Are graduates good value for money? — Times Higher Education
  7. Number of Universities — CSIC
  8. A Rare Joint Interview with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Bill Gates — Wall Street Journal
  9. Prepare for the Digital Health Revolution — FORTUNE
  10. Global Economy’s Stubborn Reality: Plenty of Work, Not Enough Pay — The New York Times
  11. Temp work growth is ‘alarming’ and changes are coming — Toronto Star
  12. Are we up to the job of rescuing work? — Toronto Star
  13. This Company’s Robots Are Making Everything—and Reshaping the World — Bloomberg
  14. Subsidising coal production is a really bad idea — The Economist
  15. Quarterly Report on Household Debt And Credit — Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Families will want to understand the lay of the land before they commit non-refundable after-tax dollars to post-secondary education. Our public education systems don’t explain the need for that. Nor do they teach what to do when 75% of employers use résumé screening software that eliminates 90% of all applicants. PDD does.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said recently, “Technological displacement is a real issue. There will be new kinds of jobs. Without the technological breakthroughs, we’re not going to have enough growth, and that’s not going to be good for anybody.” Those jobs will be filled by graduates with the latest, most relevant credentials. Some may not even exist today. To be among the 10% of applicants whose résumés will make it through screening, those graduates will need to know how to build a résumé that works with that software, not against it.

During 25 years as an executive recruiter I participated in 25 annual interview skills workshops at a university in the Greater Toronto Area. I saw nothing to suggest that their students understood the priorities that drive managers and how they deal with them. One of those priorities is fine-tuning their respective organizations. In 15 years as a transition counselling consultant, I led job search workshops and group sessions in how to carry out dignified, compassionate and respectful 5-minute severance notification meetings as part of that fine-tuning. In each of 2100 such meetings I was told why the employee was being let go. Half of them claimed that they “never saw it coming.” They’d been told that it could happen: they just didn’t think it would happen to them.

Job loss is an outcome best avoided.

“Control over change would seem to consist in moving not with it but ahead of it. Anticipation gives the power to deflect and control force.” Marshall McLuhan

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Due diligence is behaviour designed to ensure before we put our money down that what we intend to buy and what the seller ultimately delivers are one and the same. Some would call that protecting an investment. Others would call it common sense. Personal Due Diligence calls it both.

Decisions about post-secondary education have consequences that involve life, career, family and financial stability. Too many parents believe that graduating from any institution of higher learning, university in particular, is a guarantee of well-paid, secure, predictable work. There are no such guarantees: only enhanced likelihoods. What we do know for sure is that we’re living in a post-industrial economy: yesterday’s manufacturing jobs and the ones that supported them are gone. What happened to blue-collar workers is now happening to white-collar workers. As Wikipedia puts it, “Information, knowledge, and creativity are the new raw materials of such an economy.”

According to the Conference Board of Canada: “The distinction between college and university is less important than the relevance of the discipline to the workplace, since it is relevance—along with supply and demand—that sets the market price for skilled talent.” Degrees in some disciplines are more likely to lead to work than others.

Research done in Alberta in 2005 showed that young people consult their parents in these matters more often than any other group and by a wide margin. But outdated ways of thinking, like old habits, die hard. Decisions based on wishful thinking rather than fact-based understanding of labour market and technological trends are some of the greatest risks our children face. The evidence has been accumulating since 2012 and the trend shows no sign of abating.

For now, the best defense against unemployment, underemployment and precarious employment for our children is due diligence. To quote The Economist, “[the] rise of the on-demand economy poses difficult questions for workers, companies and politicians,” and it comes with a considerable risk of displacement to which very few of us are immune. Due diligence is about minimizing the negative consequences of that risk. Or at the very least, knowing what the risks are and factoring them into the final decision to proceed with a university education. We should be making these decisions more with our eyes wide open and less with our fingers crossed.

In What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message? Mark Federman, Chief Strategist, McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology wrote:

“Marshall McLuhan was concerned with the observation that we tend to focus on the obvious. In doing so, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. Whenever we create a new innovation—be it an invention or a new idea—many of its properties are fairly obvious to us. We generally know what it will nominally do, or at least what it is intended to do, and what it might replace. We often know what its advantages and disadvantages might be. But it is also often the case that, after a long period of time and experience with the new innovation, we look backward and realize that there were some effects of which we were entirely unaware at the outset. We sometimes call these effects “unintended consequences,” although “unanticipated consequences” might be a more accurate description.

“Many of the unanticipated consequences stem from the fact that there are conditions in our society and culture that we just don’t take into consideration in our planning. These range from cultural or religious issues and historical precedents, through interplay with existing conditions, to the secondary or tertiary effects in a cascade of interactions. All of these dynamic processes that are entirely non-obvious comprise our ground or context. They all work silently to influence the way in which we interact with one another, and with our society at large. In a word (or four), ground comprises everything we don’t notice.

“If one thinks about it, there are far more dynamic processes occurring in the ground than comprise the actions of the figures, or things that we do notice. But when something changes, it often becomes noticeable. And noticing change is the key.

“As McLuhan reminds us, ‘Control over change would seem to consist in moving not with it but ahead of it. Anticipation gives the power to deflect and control force.’”

2015 in review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Technoliteracy is the New Black.

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At this point, all public U.S. Corporate Boards have (or can explain why they don’t have) oneblackJPG.jpg or more qualified financial experts on board. This, of course, has been mandated for some time. The logic for having such talent has long predated the SEC and other requirements. Though by now, most boards see the logic for making sure that all their directors are financially literate, whether they sit on the Audit Committee or not. On occasion, we’ve seen this competency ignored. But how can anyone be engaged in and contribute to a board discussion on financial matters, if they are nearly clueless about what’s being discussed or presented? How can a meeting move forward if each financial matter, term, or implication has to be exhaustively explained to someone?  Or even worse, if the director sits quietly and lets the conversation work around him or her, contributing nothing, learning nothing.

Fortunately, basic financial literacy has now pretty much become more than just a standard for a board’s audit committee service. It is now expected of all corporate directors. This is evident in many candidate specs and defining corporate governance documents today. It is a sign of being up-to-date as a director in today’s business environment. And so, it ends there.

Or does it? After all, the times they are (always) achanging. It might be high time to look at another new type of literacy for board service ― technology literacy. For the sake of argument, let’s call it techno-literacy. What do I mean by “techno-literacy?” I like to refer to a popular definition that says to be technology literate one needs to be conversant (well-informed, versed, not expert) in the subject matter.

Now, not all of today’s directors are in the dark when it comes to understanding modern technologies and their real or potential impacts on corporations’ strategies. But in general, what would you estimate the average director’s knowledge to be in this area? I and many others doubt the “average” person of any age understands what is coming, where it will take us, and what it portends.

The point is that boards are NOT comprised of “average” people, and I’ve never met an “average-intelligence” corporate director. As a whole, public company directors represent and are drawn from the best and brightest of the corporate world. A number do, in fact, have a deep understanding or at least a considerable appreciation of how today’s technology can boost a company and industry, or more importantly, destroy it. Sadly, many more directors do not. Despite their “above average” intellects, they run the risk of becoming “out-of date.” So what’s the upshot? Well, it is only a short step away from being “out-of date,” to becoming irrelevant.

Some boards recognizing this, have quickly moved to “plug the dike” by adding one or two experts — some call them “digital directors”, “tech gurus,” what have you. This has come about because of all the buzz around the very real risks of cyber attacks on corporations’ finances, intellectual capital, and in many cases, infrastructure itself. The rise of social media, hyper-fast communications channels that can boost or trash a corporation’s sales, brands, and reputation, demands that boards ramp up quickly, or risk missing precious opportunities, or worse, face other dire consequences.

Having a top notch CIO and tech staff at the company and a tech expert on the board may work well in the short term. But, just like the financially illiterate director, what happens to the technologically-challenged director when more and more board discussions turn towards making key decisions such as adopting or investing in new technologies, and he or she can’t even follow the discussion? Even worse, how do they contribute to or deliberate on whether to make wholesale changes to operations, marketing, and other business strategies, because the entire industry may be going in another direction?

CEOs and board members of large and mid-cap companies shared how they agree about the need for all board members to ramp up their basic understanding of technology.

Brigadier General Dr. Dana Born, former Dean of the U.S. Air Force Academy, and an airforceJPG.jpgIndependent Director at Apollo Education Group told us: “Technology is a key component of conducting board business for the organization I serve. I believe that having a baseline of technology literacy is paramount for directors to support and guide all industries today. Whereas hard copy binders may have been the preferred format in the past, I believe the timeliness, comprehensiveness and portability of information offered by today’s automated tools (laptops, tablets, iPads, etc.) improves board governance and enables directors to better support the organization they serve. Specifically, having access to accurate, real-time information in a business environment of exponentially increasing complexity enables board members and boards to operate more efficiently and effectively.”

Steven Nerayoff, the CEO of Maple Ventures, a venture capital firm, and leader of a sophisticated technology consortium, is addressing the impacts of technology that go well beyond the average corporate directors’ knowledge of social media and cyber intrusions on business. He stated “fear of cyber crime, and the technological risks they can create, can paralyze the mindset of a board. History has shown that public and private corporate directors must learn how to leverage not just the risks, but the opportunities that are and will become available through advancing technology. Just look at the computer, Internet, and now the Bitcoin revolutions and the disruptive effects on the businesses of these companies and the opportunities that were there for the taking if someone on the board had understood them. The ability to think this way takes the board’s role to a new level where, at the very least, a base technology literacy will be an imperative for all directors in the near future. If not now, when?”

Knowing that you don’t know is always a good start, but accepting it as so is not. That said, how does the average director become “techno-literate?” Good question. Let’s start with, “How did you become financially literate?” You worked on it, you built your knowledge up through study and experience over time, until you got there.  It worked.

It won’t work the same way to get you to become “conversant” in modern technologies. Why? Because, even as you’ve been reading this, even newer technologies have come on the scene, and others have gone extinct. To get to where you can intelligently discuss or even just digital-darwin.jpgappreciate those technologies that will affect your company(ies), you need to catch up and stay up on what’s out there and what is realistically on the horizon.

I’m not just talking about cyber-security, cloud computing, customer relations software, and social media (to name only a few). You also need to know how the company is using various systems and technologies, and importantly, those technologies that have built the industries your company(ies) operates within. And whether you enjoy an innovative edge over your competitors, or lag behind then.

You also need to know – and should be asking this of management – how long these technologies will last or take to overcome you. You also need to embrace today’s tools enthusiastically. It’s fascinating to listen to many in the executive management ranks when they talk about their board’s lack of understanding of technology in general. Many, if not most, have given iPads or similar tools to their board members to receive board related information and materials. But getting their directors up to speed on their newly acquired “cool tools” has quite often been slow and somewhat painful. Many directors still report asking their grandchildren for help with their iPads or tablets.  My own father, a Good Photo.jpgwell-known CEO in the Optical Industry and one of the most fearless users of the technology of his time, will not touch a simple PC for fear he’ll break it. My position has always been: You break it? You can always get another! Even better, there are more “techno-geeks” than you can count who are willing – no – anxious to help you learn and overcome your fears. For many, just being able to demonstrate what they know is reward enough for them.

Having started my career in the technology field during the pre dot-com era, I’ve watched, with fascination how easily many executives are attracted to technology like a moth to a flame, and grasp how it can have an impact on their business strategy. On the other hand, I’ve also seen how many people, of various ages, can’t grasp how subtly complex the implications can be to a company’s existence.

If you’re familiar with women’s fashion, you should understand the importance of black. Black is reliable. Black is always up-to-date: It goes and works with everything. In the boardroom, financial literacy means being relevant and up-to-date. It is today’s director’s black. Being technologically literate is THE NEW BLACK.

Nancy May

Customers First, Investors Last: What were they thinking?

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For years now, my colleagues and I here at BoardBench, have been saying that Wall Street has it backwards.  In the boardroom, directors have been fed, with a very large spoon, the mantra that they are beholden to the shareholder, that their purpose is to “maximize shareholder value.”  If you asked a large group of directors if this is true, you’d see a lot of bobbleheads in the room.  Many believe this is a legal requirement and in line with good business sense and good corporate governance.  Unfortunately, the concept of “shareholder primacy” is a relatively recent phenomenon.  It is also simplistic (shareholders’ wants are not homogeneous), has no legal basis anywhere (go ahead, try to prove me wrong), and, as many are now pointing out, usually damaging to companies, and the economy as a whole.

What we believe is real, and will eventually be proven again as real to the Street, is that customers, and employees are the two key drivers of corporate success.  When I say “again” I’m referring to Peter Drucker’s famous quote from decades ago: “the purpose of a business is to create and keep customers.”  So many seem to have forgotten this, or have never even heard of it.

But the basic premise is this: if you take care of your customers, and have great employees who are well supported and appreciated for being curious and excited about what they do such that they will ensure that customers love the products and services that the company offers, the company and shareholders will reap the rewards, too.  Of course other things come into play, like managing R&D investments (with the customer in mind), operations, and supporting a corporate culture that has strong values and morals.  The basic premise may be slightly oversimplified, but it applies, and should resonate with the board.

It appears that I’m finally not standing alone on this either.  In a recent interview, Jack Ma, the world’s newest CEO darling, made two bold public statements.  He basically shunned the current thinking of the Street by stating, on national TV, that “our customers come first, our employees second, and our shareholders third.”   He continued: “We aim to be larger than Wal-Mart by 2016, or sooner.”  If – no, when – Jack succeeds, and executes flawlessly on his statement, that customers and employees take a front seat over shareholders/investors, then he’s got an excellent chance of passing Wal-Mart as the world’s largest retailer.  Note, Wal-Mart just slapped some of its employees, who have the most direct relationship with their customers, by cutting their insurance benefits. This was probably done to cut costs, but it will probably also have a long-term impact on their customer relationships, too. But, I digress.

It seems that too many directors, CEOs, and business leaders, have become obsessed with what Wall Street, its analysts, and shareholders think.  Many have learned to play these groups exceptionally well, too. Countless analysts and shareholders have been taken in by companies’ projections, quarterly earnings estimates, and highly creative financial management and reporting.  Don’t get me wrong, the importance of the exchanges and the markets cannot be downplayed, but a balance is needed.  Focusing on Main Street is just as important, if not more so.

If you follow Main Street, you know about big box discount stores. Costco Wholesale Club, founded by Jim Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman, believe in serving the customer first, and that if employees are treated properly, they will work with, and treat the customer well too.  Jim, the public face, is a “hands on guy” who is known for visiting each individual Costco store.  Jim is also outspoken about his views on Wall Street.  He’s been known to say that he puts his customers and employee needs above “pleasing shareholders.”  This philosophy must be working: Costco’s five year return is +116.73%.  If you bought the stock earlier, your return would be closer to 354%.

American Express is another company known for taking good care of its customer/members.  Personally I’ve been a fan of the company’s customer service representatives over the years, and tell them that every time I’ve called for help.  Don’t get me wrong, working at this company must be tough: when I was younger, AmEx employees were nicknamed The Dragons.  Perhaps because they were seehat2.jpgn as willing to fight for the company and their customers nearly to the end.  By the way, if you invested in American Express five years ago, your return on investment would be up 149.46%.

If you’ve worked with the general retail public, as I did during my college years, then you know just how tough this can be.  Sadly, not everyone who enters a store, calls a helpline, or dines in a restaurant is a kind and thoughtful customer.  Amazon deals with all sorts of customers from nearly every continent in the world, and I’m sure they have some interesting stories to share.  However, the company is noted for being one of the best customer service organizations in the world.  Amazon has more than one customer base, as many do: retail members, and consumers.  Jeff Bezos clearly divided the customer’s connection to Amazon into two categories: the experience and the service.  At this level, he notes that customer service is part of the full customer experience.  If it’s unpleasant, it’s a negative customer experience.  He supports the idea that a positive customer experience creates greater loyalty with Amazon.  If you’ve ever dealt with an Amazon Customer Service rep, you know that they work quickly to resolve your issue, they get the job done for you, and you are nearly always satisfied and left feeling good about your relationship with Amazon.  And, if you invested in Amazon five year ago, your return on investment is now up 236.64%.

While it’s much more pleasant to focus on the “good guys,” there are dark clouds.  Some companies are noted for their poor customer service.  Some survive because there are few alternatives: think of phone companies and cable providers, and some you can name on your own (take a look at their five-year ROIs).  However, when it comes to poor customer experience these days, I think sadly of that American icon Sears.  Whenever I bring them up these days, all I hear is: “Oh my gosh, I could tell you about the time when…”  Sears is a sad story101.jpg about the decline of a once great and loved retail giant.  Many years ago, the Sears catalog used to be called a “wish book.”  Families would anxiously wait for it to arrive in the mail.  It was nearly 5 inches thick. Moms, dads, sisters, and brothers would argue over whose turn it was to browse through and select from among the items they wanted for birthdays, holidays, special occasions and more.  Some people even bought their homes out of the Sears catalog.  But, it has lost its way, and it’s touch with its customers and has already begun its drop down that magical slide once pictured in its own catalog.  The entire company and its hopes for the future look pretty dismal: sell off of units and real estate, store closings, etc.  Sadly, if you invested in Sear’s five years ago, your return on investment would be -58.50% and it’s still falling today.

To sum up and put things into even sharper perspective, I recently spoke with the General Counsel of one of the largest, most recognized corporations in the world.  He told me, succinctly, that the biggest problem with their board is that not one director had any understanding of who their customers were and are or what they want.  I can also assume that they don’t understand their employees either.  So I will watch how this company slides in the next few years (Note: their record has been negative for some time), and report back with an update, unless, that is, they somehow figure it out and turn it around.

Do you need to focus on board improvement: composition, strategy, direction, execution, oversight?  Boards are our specialty. Give us a call.

Nancy May

Kevin O’Leary’s Best Advice

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On July 5, 2013, I wrote “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects.” — Albert Einstein

What follows is what Kevin O’Leary, Shark on ABC’s Shark Tank and late of CBC’s Dragon’s Den, had to say on the subject in a LinkedIn Influencer post dated February 3, 2015.

Neil Morris

 

 

Best Advice: What You Want to Do Isn’t Always What You Want to Be

Feb 3, 2015

I was raised in a household that deeply valued education. When I was a teenager, my brother Shane, was making a beeline for engineering — an aspiration he had held since he was a kid. My parents were thrilled. Me, on the other hand, they were worried about.

Success was not a given for me. I liked music, taking pictures, and hanging out with my friends.

In my last year of high school, my stepdad George sat me down for the Talk About My Future. I was fidgeting, reluctant to pay attention, worried about telling him of my photography dreams. George was adamant. His singular question: What do you want to do with your life?

I told him that I didn’t want to go to university. That I was going to be a photographer.

“That’s not what I asked you. What do you want to do with your life?”

I repeated my answer with greater conviction.

“OK. That’s all well and good, Kevin, but do you have any idea what you have to do in order to be a photographer?” he asked.

I didn’t know how to answer that. Be? Do? There’s a difference? I crossed my arms and mumbled something about taking night classes, getting an agent, opening a gallery. I had no idea what I was talking about, but it sounded good.

Then he asked another crucial question.

“How much money do you think you’d need to make, every year, to be happy?”

I told him $20,000 which in the early 1970s was a lot of money.

He shrugged.

“Most photographers don’t make that much money,” he said. “They’d be lucky to pull in a few thousand a year. On the side.” He explained that the majority of my income would have to come from a job of some kind, a job I wouldn’t necessarily like doing, but one that wouldn’t interfere with what I love doing. That was the “do” part of George’s question.”

“Are you able to do that Kevin — to work at a job in order to support yourself as you try to be a photographer? That’s how it’s done, Kevin. Actors wait tables between auditions, and writers hold down steady jobs, writing in their spare time.”

What was I willing to do to make money while I honed my craft? Lay bricks? Work in retail? Clean garbage trucks? Plant trees? I’d done all those jobs. The idea of spending the rest of my life subsidizing a passion felt impossible, and because I had no postsecondary education, those were about the only jobs for which I was qualified. George wasn’t discouraging me. He was being brutally honest with me about my chances at making it. Without the drive to work at other jobs to support that passion, I had no chance of becoming a wealthy photographer.

So “to be or not to be?” isn’t the question. The question is: What are you willing to do in order to be what you want to be? It’s not enough to say you want to be a photographer, or an actress, or a writer. You have to want to do all the necessary difficult things that are required to support that goal.

Lots of people are willing to do just that. Some of them make it, both at the doing and the being… but George’s advice was that most don’t.

I simply wasn’t willing to take that risk, to perform all the tasks and jobs required to support my dream of becoming a full-time photographer. I wasn’t willing to work days as a bricklayer or at a mall, shooting and developing photos on weekends. I didn’t want to inch toward my twenties — maybe even my thirties — accumulating debt and rejection, just to build a portfolio of work or a string of shows where most or all of my photos would go unsold.

There was no shame in understanding that about myself. It was an important, life-changing discovery. It meant that I had to stay on the scholarly path, because getting off the path altogether wouldn’t take me anywhere good. I wasn’t willing to make artistic pursuits my full-time priority, and I really wouldn’t have fared well as a punk. I love money too much.

Today, thanks to George’s advice, my decision to pursue academics, and a few other fortunate events and right turns along the way, I’ve built a successful career that allows me ample time and resources for my real passion — photography.

In October 2013, I held an exhibit of my photography in Toronto, titled Kevin O’Leary: 40 Years of Photography. I sold framed prints for $6,000 each, and raised $97,000 for teen entrepreneurs. There’s no doubt in my mind that this never would have been possible if George didn’t teach me the importance of knowing that you need to know what you want to do with your life, before you decide what you want to be.

James T. Kirk and the Kobayashi Maru

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On his third attempt, Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise passed the Kobayashi Maru holodeck “no-win” training exercise by reprogramming it. He was subsequently commended for original thinking. Whether or not this was Starfleet’s way of saying that reprogramming was an option because it was not expressly forbidden, only the film’s writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman know for sure.

Fiction or no, that part of Star Trek lore resonates in 2015, especially the part about original thinking. The 6 crew members onboard the International Space Station may be excused if they haven’t had time to contemplate how sub-US$50 crude oil will impact on them and their families. But the rest of the people on planet Earth won’t have that luxury.

For Canadians, the world started to change on July 1, 2014. On that day, the Loonie closed at 94 cents. It started changing a lot faster when the Bank of Canada lowered its interest rate to 0.75% on January 21, 2015. We’ll soon be paying a lot more for our morning orange juice, and a lot of other things, courtesy of a 78.5-cent dollar as of February 1, 2015. The interest rate could fall to 0.5% as early as March. Barclays Bank has downgraded its stock ratings for the Bank of Montreal, Royal Bank and TD Bank, noting that “consumer borrowing, the main profit driver for Canada’s banks, will likely slow even more than previously expected”.

Much of the reason will be stories like Target Canada’s abrupt closing of its 133 retail outlets and the 17,600 Canadians who were let go as a result. That doesn’t include Target’s suppliers. SONY Canada is closing its retail stores. Alberta now faces the prospect of recession. Oil companies are cutting back on capital expenditures and hiring. CIBC will be laying off 500 employees because of slower than expected profit growth.

The Kobayashi Maru scenario left little room for “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. For the moment, Canada looks like an oil-based, one-trick pony. Canadians will have their say about whom they blame and what should be done about it on October 19th—or sooner.

We keep hearing that a lower dollar will be good for Canadian manufacturers and exporters. But in the meantime, we have to play the cards we’ve been dealt. That will call for out-of-the box thinking by Canadians looking to become re-employed and those hoping to land that first job.

What is broken and needs to be fixed is the notion that we can or should rely on governments at any level to do our thinking and planning for us. Most have shown that they can barely think for themselves. We’re going to have to develop our own versions of Kirk’s Kobayashi Maru, because without them, not all choices having to do with postsecondary education will be the right choices. There is nothing on the horizon to suggest that conventional thinking will mean that there will be more than enough good, secure, full-time work to go around.

As Jean-Luc Picard, captain of a later Enterprise, would have put it: “Make it so.”

 

Diversity in the Boardroom: Resistance is Futile

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If you’re reading this, chances are you sit on at least one board.  If that board happens to be one that understands the value of diversity (and here I’m speaking of gender diversity) or has moved aggressively to get the board there, I applaud you. Your board will benefit, the company will benefit, and other boards will benefit (I’ll explain more later). If you align with board members who are still unconvinced – please consider that diversification sooner rather than later is in your best interest, the best interest of your fellow directors, and all boards. Let me present to you both the carrot and the stick:

The Carrot: Studies indicate diverse boards tend to be better
boards and lead to more stable companies.c2.jpg

There are studies with hard data from Pepperdine University, Catalyst, McKinsey and others that overwhelmingly suggest that companies with more women at the top are better off. More studies like these continue to come out and point to virtually the same things.

Recently, Credit Suisse Research Institute looked at the performance of selected companies with at least one female director over the last six years. While it noted little or no correlation with company performance between 2005 – 2007 when the economy was robust, between 2008 and 2012, the stock prices of companies with at least one woman on board yielded a 26% higher return than those with none. The assessment was that a more diverse board means less “volatility and more balance” during tough economic cycles.

A recent Thompson Reuters study, Mining the Metrics of Board Diversity, revealed how the increase in female participation on boards affects organizational performance. The study drew upon information on 4,300 global companies and over 750 data points that covered every aspect of sustainability reporting. According to the study, on average, companies with mixed boards show marginally better or similar performance measured against a benchmark index. Companies with no female board members underperformed relative to organizations with women on their boards, and had slightly higher tracking errors, indicating potentially more volatility. The study went on to suggest that the performance of companies with mixed boards matched or outperformed companies with male-only boards, stronger evidence that gender equality in the workplace makes good investment and business sense.

The value of board diversity, from directors themselves:

Michael Critelli, board member of Eaton Inc. and former Chairman and CEO of Pitney Bowes, built a strong reputation for advocating using diversity to make his company and board even better. On having one of the most diverse boards during his tenure as Chairman/CEO he said: “Boards are most likely to do their job effectively when they have diversity of life experience and insight.  Groupthink on a board is very dangerous. The advantages of diversity are only realized when a board is inclusive in its membership and when it invites and values diverse thinking relative to board responsibilities.”

Linda Rabbitt, Chairman and CEO of Rand Construction Corporation, Lead Director of Towers Watson, and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond notes: “As a woman I have had to overcome many obstacles as an entrepreneur and in the corporate environment. As a result of these experiences I see the world and business through a different lens. Having large obstacles to navigate around teaches you how to solve problems, identify opportunities and associated risks, and bring up new talent in a way different than the men who built the road before you. These skills bring a new value to the boardroom that has not been there before.”

Maggie Wilderotter, Chairman and CEO of Frontier Communications said: “Company leaders and directors, male and female, must do more to advance women in their ranks, and it is incumbent upon women to be responsible for their advancement as well. After all, doors successfully open and close when we push.” Mrs. Wilderotter added: “A recent Catalyst report shows a continuing shortage of women in America’s C-suites, Boards of Directors and as top earners. Studies show that companies with three or more women on their boards perform better financially than those with fewer members. Diversity in the board room and in the C-suite is a competitive advantage.”

The Stick: The rise of the ““Sheconomy.”

Even for those with a minimal grasp of the obvious, some things are plain. We have moved into a new economy, one overwhelmingly influenced by women. Consider these points raised in research by MassMutual, Fleishman-Hillard, the Spectrem Group, and other noteworthies:

  • Senior women over 50 control net worth of $19 trillion and own more than three-fourths of the nation’s financial wealth.
  • High net-worth women account for 39% of the country’s top wealth earners; 2.5 million of them have combined assets of $4.2 trillion.
  • Over the next decade, women will control two thirds of consumer wealth in the United States and be the beneficiaries of the largest transference of wealth in our country’s history. Estimates range from $12 to $40 trillion.
  • Wealthy women investors in the U.S. are growing at a faster rate than that of men: over a two-year period, the ranks of wealthy women in the U.S. grew 68%. The number for men was 36%.
  • Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases, including everything from autos to health care.

It’s hard to believe that many women could not apply for a credit card in their own name until 1974, when the Equal Credit Act was passed.

The point here: traditional boards cannot ignore the influence, control, and power that women hold as decision-makers, consumers, and, as investors, to go away. Or that they can have a dramatic impact on sales and have gained, through their dominant use of new media, a growing ability to advocate for or against a company’s products and services. Companies that understand and reflect this in their boardrooms will have the advantage over those who do not.

Here are some questions to ponder. With women’s dominant role in customer and financial decisions, coupled with growing transparency of company operations and board composition, plus the rise of electronic reporting and social media allowing everyone to easily see where a board is aligned or not with its customer base and markets (and this new economy), where do you want your company to be? What is the likelihood that if your board has a negative attitude toward more women in the boardroom, your company will be targeted for activist or populist actions and retaliations at a speed, and scale, never previously imagined?

Quotas are coming! Quotas are coming?

Board diversity, especially the number of women serving on boards, has become regular headline news, reflecting a growing pressure on boards to change or explain why their composition is appropriate. Legislative bodies worldwide find themselves under enormous pressure, and have started instituting changes. Outside the U.S., 16 countries have mandated some type of quota, threatening fines and, in some cases, dissolution if corporations don’t meet deadlines for achieving legislated. Formal quotas were introduced nine years ago in Norway where resident companies were required to have 40% of their board seats occupied by women by January 2008. Quota requirements are going global. This past November, Germany legislated a requirement that 30% of all non-executive board seats be occupied by women by January 1, 2016. At the close of last year, women held 14.1% of all non-executive board seats there. In our own backyard—Canada—the Province of Quebec requires that women occupy half of all board seats on state-owned institutions.

In this country, it’s important to gauge the increasing momentum behind gender diversity quotas. Currently, women hold 16.9% of the board posts in U.S. Fortune 500 Companies, have barely improved in their 16.6% performance since 2012. The numbers are even smaller among Fortune 1000 and mid-cap companies. Boards’ failure to respond to these changes will invite legislative and regulatory mandated quotas, if only to relieve the pressure regulators feel. If history is any example, the slower the pace of voluntary change, the faster the pace of imposed change. The more boards resist, the more likely change will come in ways they might not anticipate or want.

Sooner is better than later.

I’m no fan of imposed regulations in the board room. Regulations and mandates, while well-intentioned, often produce unintended effects and consequences. Quotas, with aggressive time limits can easily translate into board seats Nancy-May2.jpgoccupied by people who don’t belong. I applaud boards that see diversity positively now, and are going on to adopt, adapt, and improve. Boards that carefully consider and bring on excellent, relevant female board members improve their perspective and ability to deliberate. Diversity contributes to better board governance, because, as the number of qualified and valued women increases and becomes known, the perceived need for external actions (i.e. quotas) will start to fade. Thus, as your board grows more diverse, the pressure on other boards to do likewise will increase, even if only in a very small way.

So, “fellas,” here’s where this leaves us: this boardroom diversity “thing” isn’t going away. Diversity and equality in the boardroom is coming. How soon you face it and embrace it is up to you. Resistance is futile.

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Thinking university? This isn’t your parents’ labour market

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My parents and I first talked about university at the end of Grade 9. We’d learned that I would have to choose between a “Latin-science” and a “math-science” stream. I chose Latin-science.

Neither of my parents had attended university. They tried to convince me that I should be a dentist because of the benefits of being my own boss and the status that went along with the profession. My dream had been to design spacecraft and space probes. But that would have demanded a specialized degree in Engineering and our finances couldn’t handle it. Two years into the bachelor’s programme that was a prerequisite for entry into dentistry, I was no longer convinced. There was also the matter of my low tolerance for the sight of blood.

I completed a general B.Sc. and joined IBM. IBM trained: most employers didn’t. After 7 years I left to start what became a 26-year career as a self-employed IT executive recruiter that evolved into transition counselling and the Personal Due Diligence Project (PDD).

In the mid-1980s, and with the global economy already on the horizon, I started preparing myself to answer questions from my daughter and son on the subject of attending university when the time came. At the time, they were 8 and 5 respectively. They both attended, graduated, married and are thriving.

Chances are that you’re thinking about sending your children to university, or know someone who is. If so, here are some questions you might want to think about.

  • What kind of work will your child will be doing after they graduate?
  • How did they make that decision?
  • Who, if anyone, influenced it?
  • Have you priced a university education lately?
  • How do you rate the odds that there actually will be “acceptable” work for them to do?
  • On what do you base that conclusion?
  • If work in their chosen field isn’t available, what’s your plan B?
  • If you’re planning to finance their education, who’ll be paying off the loan?
  • What if your child plans to but can’t?
  • Are you willing to delay your retirement to help them pay off that debt if necessary?
  • What if your employer denied your request to postpone your retirement?
  • What if you became unemployed prior to retiring?
  • If your children can’t earn enough to leave home, will you be able to subsidize them?
  • If they want to buy a home but can’t or haven’t saved enough for the down payment, will you make it for them?
  • How important is retirement planning to you and your child?

Unless the work you do requires that you constantly monitor the labour market, you might be astounded to learn that:

  • An estimated 300,000 university graduates in Canada are working as unpaid interns with no guarantee of a permanent position at the end of their term.
  • Canadian families have borrowed to pay for tuition and owe between C$25 billion and C$50 billion.
  • American families owe over US$1.2 trillion in student loans. Many have begun to default for lack of sufficiently lucrative work.

To satisfy yourself about the gravity of the situation, set your Google Alerts or other aggregator to find “student debt” and request daily delivery of the results to your desktop. You can expect an average of 10 items a day.

In today’s labour market, university is as likely to mean financial hardship as financial gain. Students are returning to the family home because they can’t afford to pay rent, let alone make mortgage payments. This is not the outcome that parents expected or wanted for their children. Predictions that this generation will be worse off than its parents’ are already coming true. A major contributing factor is the extent to which parents and their children are out of sync with the needs, wants and priorities of employers. That includes attitudes and tactics designed to reduce costs that simply didn’t exist 20 years ago.

Our business is the extraction and interpretation of deep market intelligence early enough to guide our clients in making informed decisions about how they intend to approach the subject of university. PDD is about building sound business cases for investing in higher education that will satisfy your children’s short-, medium- and long term needs. This includes their financial security and, possibly, yours. We apply the same kind of thinking to clients who are between situations.

As food for thought, consider the implications of this quote from an article in the May 26 – June 1, 2014 Bloomberg Businessweek about the future of IBM entitled ‘The Trouble With IBM’. It will explain why this isn’t your father’s—or mother’s—economy:

“In February, during an onstage interview at a mobile technology conference in Barcelona, [IBM CEO Ginni Rometty] was asked whether business leaders understood just how rapidly their industries are being disrupted. ‘If you try to compare today to the past,’ Rometty said, ‘the speed of change is much faster. And you should not be dissuaded by that, meaning, that is all the more reason to push forward with things.’”

7.2 billion people call Earth home. It’s estimated that 2.5 billion of them were connected to the Internet in 2012. By 2017, there will be 7.6 billion of us, 3.5 billion of whom will be connected to the Internet—and to each other.

That’s a lot of competition, complexity and unpredictability for one planet. And there’s no end in sight.