The chosen audio covers several problems. I'll try to classify them into key points.
1. Sexism.
Despite emancipation of women still a lot of cases of sexism take place. According to the research, in the UK women make up only 12% of board members and 15% in the US.
Taking into consideration the top 250 companies, we will see that only 7% of the representation of their board are women. A former banker, Lour Davis notices that more women on the board could introduce the better reflection of the society and get better performance. 'If you need the right level of discussion, engagement, and professionalism on the board you need more women.' - Mr. Davis says.
Jo Dickson, who worked at the top of the British bank, was on the board of a football club and currently is on the board of two stocklisted companies can tell a lot of horror stories about her early days in business. Once there was a morning meeting of the board she was invited to join this meeting. Jo knew all the directors at that point, except for one. When she arrived in the room this unknown executive turned to her and said: 'Hello, Jo. We haven't met and I don't know tou THINK you are doing at this meeting because this bank has been run by men for 300 years and people like you are used to be home having babies.'
Jo was insulted, but she answered calmly: 'John, thank you very much for saying this. It's very kind of you to say it right to me, because a lot of people have the same opinion but they don't have the nerve to say it to my face. I have been invited to this room for a reason and overtime you might realise why that is. This bank has a future and a part of this future will be people like me who won't sit home having babies.'
According to Jo, companies should think of more flexible timetable, so that it didn't require 24/7 job. It could give them an opportunity to use a bigger pool of talents, including women-workers.
2. The truth of ikea.
Nowadays Ikea is the largest furnature retailer which made its 85-year-old Ingvar Kamprad the 5th richest man in the world.
The broadcaster had an interview with Johan Stenebo, a former senior Ikea executive, the author of the book "The truth of ikea". Johan revealed a lot of ikea's unusual business culture. The corporate culture of Ikea is unique and it's entirely value based. The values of Ikea imply to doing a lot with small means. That means that one should be really cost-conscious from not allowing to wear a tie to how you fly, how you live3 in hotels, what kind of hotels and so forth.
Mr. Stenebo gives the example:
'If we go back 20 years men went to East Germany and Poland for purchasing aims. During such trips they had to share the same bed in the hotels. These trips could last for about 3 weeks.
By and large there weren't any problems with the business culture: it was very strong from the business point. It brought the management of Ikea together and they delivered a lot of good stuff.
However, Ikea could do a lot more for environment and to the values: how to work with ethnic minorities, how to let women a chance to reach the higher positions on the company and so on.'
Speaking about the profile of Ingvar Kamprad, Johan mentioned that privately he is a very genefous and thoughtful man. The problem one could have with the picture of Mr. Kamrad is that people want to think of famous people in black and white terms, but that doesn't work with him. Ingvar Kamprad is too multidimensional.
According to Johan Stanebo's point of view, despite fantastic ikea's results in developing there are 2 factors working against its further rapid growth. The more company is the less good decisions are usually taken. Moreover, despite the sons of Mr.Kamrad are good people, they don't have a brilliant business mind of their farther. Therefore it could be very destructive for the development of Ikea in the future.
3. Toxic sludge of the reservoir of the plant in Hungary.
Salton Iesh estimates financial and legal consequences of the spill at the mark of 150 - 200 000 000 $.
The investigation of the catastrophe has taken place by the police and other authorities. The owner is known, operators are known, so when the responsibility is announced, then the responsible parties must pay.
The lawer of the aluminium company insists that the company isn't liable. The company's standpoint is that they followed all the instructions of the monitoring agence and therefore members of the management of the company or the employees of the company aren't responsible for the catastrophe.
Moreover, the aluminium company claims that the state environmental monitoring agency carried out the most recent examination just 9 days before the disaster and found nothing wrong.
In this situation the investigation must clarify who's responsible and who is going to pay.
4. Corruption.
The annual corruption barometer from Transparency International was published this week. It shows the view of ordinary citizens. The vast majority of almost 100 000 respondents believed corruption in their country was getting worse. In many countries bribery and corruption is a part of everyday life.
Gary Bosh, transport logistics expert, who used to work in Russia and Africa, says that the biggest problem of corruption is that people who take bribes are elected or appointes officials of the government and it's not for ordinary citizens to tell them how to run the country. In Gary's opinion, if people want to reduce corruption level, they should change the authorities.
Mr. Bosh says: 'Although there is a moral obligation for businessmen to refuse to pay bribes, there is also a moral obligation for them to make sure their workers have work to do and they aren't starving. Factories shouldn't be closed in the middle of the day because of people taking ideological position. People have responsibility to their workforce, to their families and to the shareholders.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий