8/march was yesterday, but people still don't get what is women's day

My friend Jake sent us because it concerns the Norwegian reality:

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Adding Female Directors Hurts Norwegian Firms' Value

Minus 18%. When Norwegian companies increased the proportion of women on their boards under a new diversity law, the firms' market value suffered, according to Amy Dittmar and Kenneth Ahern of the University of Michigan. If a firm achieved at least a 10% increase in the proportion of female directors, its Tobin's Q — the ratio of market cap to asset-replacement cost — dropped 18%. But gender wasn't the reason, the researchers contend; the decline was due to the new directors' young age and lack of high-level work experience.

Source: Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan
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Talk about understanding the importance of gender equality and doing it wrong by enforcing laws and regulations that demand unqualified people to take the job of qualified ones. We have the recognize the value in every individual, not force an idiot policy of "let's be nice to these poor little girls". Putting women in the board room that shouldn't be there is also undervaluing them. I can almost hear the male board members telling sexist jokes about the women who were put in the board room for questionable reasons. Is this better? Really?

When Project Managers have the key

When Project Managers have the key

by Juan Cajiao

2500 years after Sun Tzu, McKinsey Quarterly publishes: "Senior executives and nonexecutive managers are unhappy with the performance of their companies’ frontline managers, according to a McKinsey survey".

The frontline managers (aka as Project Managers, Line Managers, LCPs, etc) are the corner stone in translating the strategy into action. Sun Tzu said that Officers are to blame when orders are clear but not follow, when you know what it needs to get done but it doesn't happen.

The great front line managers are CEOs of their processes, projects and initiatives. The ownership they take on what they do and the acknowledgement that success is a direct consequence of the actions of their teams are the ticks for the turn around: "empowering frontline managers to make decisions, anticipate problems, and coach their direct reports (rather than simply following and giving orders and solving crises) generates higher productivity and other benefits"

- Manage the process: and you will get the job done.

- Lead the people: and you will be able to get many jobs done.

- Connect your team to others: and you will release a chain of success that will spread through your organization and your partners.

Source:

https://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Organization/Talent/How_companies_manage_the_frontline_today_McKinsey_Survey_results_2537

Leadership = self-sacrifice for the vision + take responsibility

Lamebook

I wonder if this is a joke or people really know very little about the most obvious things out there.

Too much data leads to not enough belief

by Seth Godin

Business plans with too much detail, books with too much proof, politicians with too much granularity... it seems as though more data is a good thing, because data proves the case.

In my experience, data crowds out faith. And without faith, it's hard to believe in the data enough to make a leap. Big mergers, big VC investments, big political movements, large congregations... they don't usually turn out for a spreadsheet.

The problem is this: no spreadsheet, no bibliography and no list of resources is sufficient proof to someone who chooses not to believe. The skeptic will always find a reason, even if it's one the rest of us don't think is a good one. Relying too much on proof distracts you from the real mission--which is emotional connection.

What we value is really valueless

I happen to be an artistic photography fan (I don't really understand nothing about it, but I appreciate the beauty of well taken shots) and I follow this blog called The Big Picture. They happen to have some amazing pictures, whatever, that's not what I want to talk about.

In this Big Picture blog, by coincidence I assume, there are very close together 2 series of pictures: one about gold and the other about all the mess that is on Haiti right now.

This made me think how stupid can we be to value such thing as a metal so highly. Why people pay so much for a damn rock? Yeah, scarcity rules the market, but, if shit would be scarce, would you still pay money for it? Why? Would you say "wow, this guy is damn cool, his bed is 100% pure shit, he must be super rich". Come on, how idiot. Get any metal, paint it gold (the color, not the metal) and, ta-da, same thing. I am simplistic, yes, there are some medical usage of gold and so on, but, forget this, I am talking about gold for its intrinsic value - for me, more or less on the value of scarce stinky shit.

What if - and there's a big if - some celebraty/charity/saints/media hot shots would start valuing people who make the world better (like these dudes helping out in Haiti)? I don't know exactly how, but some sort of status coming out from helping others. Yeah, that's more or less the whole principle of charity, but taken to another level.

Maybe what I say doesn't make any sense, I didn't think much about it, but, hey, helping others should be a huge value making operation. No?

AIESEC Norway will change

Why? Because we are not afraid of it: