Day-To-Day Creativity, and More – Chicago MBA News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Chicago business schools this week.
Putting Creativity to Work – Chicago Booth Magazine
Chicago Booth recently published an article about how entrepreneurs and employees alike create opportunities for creative thinking.
Bay Area online video startup Darby Smart’s Nicole Farb (’09) suggests setting aside “open blocks of time for less structured thinking while brainstorming initial ideas.” She adds, “In my own life, creativity is a journey. I’m often doing it for the process, not the outcome.” She also advocates that part of embracing creativity is “failing fast.”
U.S. Postal Service Marketing and Client Relationship Manager Mauresa Pittman (’10) writes of the challenge involved in distilling the creative process to just a stamp. She writes, “The creative challenge became, how do we sum up one of the most prominent American artists of the 20th century in a pane of 12 stamps. [We also] need to consider how this message could land with different audiences and ask ourselves if we are being mindful of the diverse viewpoints.”
Ted Wright (’00), founder of Atlanta-based word-of-mouth marketing agency Fizz, believes creativity is the result of “data plus will.” He adds, “We start by asking a lot of questions about your company. For us, creativity starts with what the story is that you are trying to communicate to people.”
You can check out the full article here.
Business Students Learn the Meaning of ‘Moralogy’ During Summer Program in Japan – Mendoza Ideas & News
The Notre Dame University Mendoza Business and Culture in Japan course introduced “undergrads to Japan’s cultural and business traditions during four campus class sessions and two weeks on-site in Tokyo.”
Mendoza Associate Teaching Professor of Management & Organization and Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies faculty fellow Jessica McManus Warnell led the 17-member cohort on the trip to understand Japan’s “moralogical” approach to business, which “presents the idea that business can foster a virtue ethic that then makes business better for all stakeholders—customers and clients, employees, managers, and society.”
She writes, “What we were hearing from the companies we visited [in Japan] was that successful business is more about societal impact and employee engagement and customer satisfaction.”
You can read more from the article here.
What Will It Take to Get More Women on Boards? – Kellogg Insight
Northwestern Kellogg surveyed the gender gap that exists within many company boards—19.9 percent of S&P 500 company directors and 14.7 globally—and how to build more momentum to get more women to serve on boards.
The article’s first point involves the consideration of women who happen to be senior VPs or C-level positions other than CEO when companies want to add a female director. “Applying the same qualifying criteria to both male and female directors would increase the pool of executive women who bring talent, experience, and a diverse perspective to board service.”
The article notes that a major part of being considered as a board director involves “honing a value proposition,” which Kellogg’s Women’s Director Development Program has helped almost 800 women understand in order to be better prepared for board opportunities.
The article singles out a story from one high-level executive whose phone did not ring despite “vast experience, incredible skills, and a huge network.”
“When nothing happened, she realized she needed to reach out strategically to an even broader range of people to communicate the value she could bring to particular types of boards and seek their advice. She ultimately secured a seat not only on the board of one company she admired, but a number of others as well.”
Read the rest of the article here.
Haas Gender Inequality Addressed By ‘Manbassadors’
Haas-Berkeley recently profiled the Manbassadors, a student organization that provides men with tools to “better support their female friends, girlfriends, wives and daughters when they’re no longer blind to how women often have to deal with unfair situations.” Dean Richard Lyons will present a “Question the Status Quo” award to Manbassadors Founder Patrick Ford ’17.
Harvard: CEOs Need To Prioritize Diversity
For the naysayer, the urgent precedent of diversity can often feel like forced righteousness. But the distinct reality behind diversity, as we now know from numerous studies and real-life examples, is that it’s beneficial for business. And CEOs in particular need to take notice.
A recent in-depth report from Harvard Business Review revealed the necessity loud-and-clear: in a modern world where “Women make up half the U.S. workforce, drive 80 percent of consumer buying decisions and represent 60 percent of global university graduates,” ignoring its importance isn’t just arrogant—its potentially destructive for companies.
Speaking directly to CEOs, HBR writer Avivah Wittenberg-Cox illuminates three crucial F’s: Facts, Feelings and Framework.
Regarding facts, Wittenberg-Cox notes, “When it comes to gender balance, a lot of people don’t get it, don’t like it, or, frankly, resist it. That’s why you as the CEO need to be well versed at explaining why you think gender balance in your organization is so important.”
In combating the dilemma, she first proposes a list of questions for CEOs. “How (im)balanced is your company? Do you have a recruitment, retention or promotion issue? Is it all three? Do you even know? Are men and women split by level, role, function? What’s the gender split of your customers, users or purchasing decision makers? What about regulators, government contacts, etc.?”
On promotional issues specifically, Wittenberg-Cox highlights the stark differences between how men and women typically move up in companies. Namely, the difference between the “Peter” (men) and “Paula” (women) principles.
“Men typically experience the Peter principle, meaning they are promoted to their level of incompetence, whereas women often experience the Paula principle, meaning they are underpromoted across the board. This is creating situations where many multinationals are skewing female at the bottom without ever affecting the balance at the top, to their great frustration.”
On feelings, she also notes that, again, it’s not enough simply hire women—rather a CEO needs to set a positive tone, focus on inclusion and “always insist on meritocracy.”
And finally, when dealing with the framework of promoting diversity, she writes, “context is everything. Make gender balance a lever to achieving business goals. Period.”
You can read the entire piece from Wittenberg-Cox here, and check out her previously published book Seven Steps to Leading a Gender-Balanced Business today.
UC Davis Professor Weighs In on Women in Large Public Companies
Amanda Kimball, UC Davis Graduate School of Management research specialist, weighed in on women in large public companies in a recent Sacramento Bee article. Kimball has authored the last five annual studies of women in top positions at the top 400 largest corporations in California.
The article looked at the increasing trend of women-owned firms in Sacramento, something that is also happening across California and the United States at large. The number of women-owned firms in Sacramento is up to 59,200 from 56,700 in 2014, according to the 2015 “State of Women-Owned Businesses Report” commissioned by American Express OPEN. The report also showed an increase in revenue in women-owned businesses from $8.5 billion in 2014 to $9.4 billion in 2015.
In spite of this evidence of more and more women succeeding in the world of business, women tended to not fare as well when working in large public corporations. The latest “Study of California Women Business Leaders” showed that women only hold approximately one in nine executive and board positions among California’s largest 400 public companies and continue to earn less than their male peers.
However, Kimball believes that this inequality in large public companies may have helped the trend of women-owned firms in Sacramento. “I think it’s possible that women who were frustrated in the public corporate world are turning around and starting their own companies,” she said in the article. When asked if she thought that female-operated firms will grow to the point where they start affecting the status quo of female corporate leadership, she responded, “I think that if it happens, it will be a long process.”
SFSU College of Business to Host Women’s Emerging Leadership Forum
San Francisco State University College of Business will be hosting the Second Annual Women’s Emerging Leadership Forum, according to information found on the school’s website. The forum is designed for women who are interested in improving their leadership skills, exploring and learning about business negotiations, and expanding their network. It will be held on October 8 and 9 at SFSU’s downtown campus. The Women’s Emerging Leadership Forum is a College of Business Enterprises program offered in partnership with the College of Extended Learning at SFSU. Continue reading…
Ashridge and KPMG Launch New Research into Women in Leadership Roles
Ashridge Business School has partnered up with KPMG in order to launch new research looking into the question of why there are a lack of women in leadership positions in Major Projects, according to a press release from the school. Along with investigating how the current state of affairs might be changed, the research plans on demonstrating the value that women could bring to some of the United Kingdom’s most important projects. Continue reading…
