‘In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed’[1] Charles Darwin
Last week the global elite of wealthy investors, business leaders, bankers, political leaders, economists, and celebrities gathered at the annual conference of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
The WEF is a foundation mostly funded by it 1,000 member companies who are typically global enterprises with annual revenues exceeding five billion US dollars. The members and attendees look upon themselves as the ‘movers and shakers’ of the corporate and finance world no better illustrated by the cost of attending the week that exceeds a hundred thousand US dollars.
Given its importance hundreds of journalists descend on the Swiss Alpine town ready to report from the 500 or so sessions that make up the week. The Daily Mail was no exception with them deciding to pick up on a talk given by one of the leading women attending, Jane Fraser the CEO of Citigroup.
As with all reports filed by journalists’ selective perception has to be carefully considered, for they are reporting events through their frame of reference where a person gives credence to events and words that conform to own desires and beliefs[2]. Selective perception is a common cognitive bias and essential to understand as it is present in each of us as we go of our daily lives without our noticing.
The Daily mail reports that Jane Fraser in a presentation she gave week warned that ‘slackers working from home will be hauled back to the office for coaching.’ The article goes on to say that ‘it was important for employees to collaborate together and learn from 'eccentrics' in the workplace as she did.’[3]
This appears to not only an extraordinary couple of assertions from the CEO of Citigroup, an organisation at the very forefront of Hybrid Working and Working from Home, but also where she decided to say it.
Did she actually say this in this way or was this the way the journalist interpreted it? Please bear in mind here selective perception. If the journalist interpreted Fraser’s words this way, how would her many thousands of employees do so?
Let’s take the first issue of ‘slackers’.
Was Fraser playing to her audience? She was not alone, for Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the world's biggest asset manager, was more forthright when he spoke at the same event, hosted by Bloomberg, saying that 'Remote working has not worked.'
Is this what the CEO, the key business leader, should be openly saying? Do both not understand that their role is to inspire and motivate all of their people rather than denigrate them in public? What has Fraser achieved through publicly making these two statements? What do her investors think about the productivity and the performance of the business they are investing in?
These questions, of course, begs further questions. Does she have fully supported data that there are ‘slackers’ or is she going to now just pick on those who have chosen, as offered by Citigroup going back some two years, the opportunity to work on a hybrid basis and/or WFH?
Is the problem of ‘slackers’ actually an indictment of the leadership, and thus her leadership and that of all the leaders, down through the hierarchy of the organisation?
On Collaboration, the excerpt has used the past perfect verb ‘was’. Is this an unconscious slip of the mind - a parapraxis - that reveals in Fraser a belief that collaboration in Citigroup has been poor? Maybe the journalist has seen it that way given their own beliefs so we will give Fraser the benefit of the doubt.
Fraser is of course right that it is important for employees to collaborate but surely you cannot just ‘haul them in’ and expect collaboration to ‘just happen’. The word collaboration has become one of the most frequent used words in the lexicon of business today but the least understood, Fraser maybe no exception.
Humans, whilst a highly developed animal, do not naturally collaborate. Indeed, many approach it cautiously given the human defence mechanism of loss aversion that can easily be triggered in a poorly chosen collaboration. Has Fraser given thought to the effect of her words on her people?
Collaboration takes time and patience to nurture and develop within organisations but given that it is built totally upon trust it can be broken in a second. Has Fraser given thought to what she has said, its effect, and her vital role in establishing and leading trust within her organisation?
To help Fraser, and many leaders like her, for she is not alone here are 8 key elements upon which collaboration is built:
· Trust;
· Shared beliefs and values;
· Common purpose;
· Openness;
· Empathy;
· Positivity;
· Accountability; and
· A willingness to learn.
How would Fraser rate herself on her collaboration using these as a measure? Please bear in mind here that many leaders over-estimate their own capabilities, another cognitive bias (the Dunning-Kreuger Effect[4]). More significantly, the real question should be, how do her people rate her?
Leaders of organisations crucially need to recognise that they may appointed by the Chairman, the Board or the Shareholders but they are not a leader until looked and recognised as such by their people.
On Coaching, the expression ‘…hauled back to the office…’ is a fascinating one, for this is a very physical verb that aligns more with ‘punishment’ rather than the powerful individual development process that coaching can be. Is Fraser carrying a belief about coaching that one would have hoped was ‘buried’ years ago, namely that you only get coaching if you are a bad performer?
Has she not learnt that today top performers across sports and business look to, and handsomely pay, coaches to help them incrementally improve their already superior performance?
Coaching will of course help selected individuals – the ‘slackers’ and under-performers but has Fraser considered given the same for all of her leaders down through the hierarchy. These are the people who can build and maintain collaboration through the leadership on their people on a daily basis. Does Fraser have a coach?
To conclude, the choice of the word ‘eccentrics’ is fascinating for as a noun (plural) the dictionary definition is that of ‘people who are unconventional with slightly strange views or behaviour’. What does Fraser mean here? Does she think ‘eccentrics’ are models to learn collaboration from?
Perhaps, and here we may have it, is Fraser actually describing herself in having strange views on collaboration and coaching?
[1] Paraphrase from ‘On the Origin of Species’, published on 24 November 1859 [2] Hastof, AH & Cantril (1954) ‘They Saw a Game: A Case Study’ Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 49 pp 129-134; [3]The Daily Mail 17th January, 2023 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11646031/Working-home-not-worked-Wall-Street-bosses-tell-Davos-summit.html [4] Dunning, D (2011) ‘The Dunning-Kreuger Effect: On Being Ignorant of One’s Own Ignorance’ Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Von 44 pp 247-296
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