Tari's Patch

Tari's LinkedIn post 28 July 2017 I city girl, I signed up to a self defence course for women decades ago. Apparently women find it hardest to scream and punch, so these were the first things we were taught to do. Reading this excellent article, it seems that we're still finding it difficult to push ourselves forward. Coupled with a number of other factors including the male game in corporate and political life with rules women are not always privy to, it is no surprise that achieving parity in the C-suite seems a long way away. But try we must. This is not a task for women, but for men and women, working together. It is not addressed in this article, but analyses after analyses demonstrates that a diverse leadership team delivers improved performance for the organisation. So keeping women out of the C-suite may make incumbent men feel better and more secure, but it is irresponsible, and shareholders should ask tough questions to CEOs and management teams.

When I started to visit and work in the Arab region back in 2006, I had a lot to learn about building and doing business in a new market. I'm still learning. Working in Jordan is not the same as working in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia or Oman - just as working in Germany is not the same as working in Portugal or France. The Arabic language is spoken with very different dialects across the region. When I spoke a few words of Arabic to my taxi driver in Muscat he smiled warmly and said: "Ah madam, I think a Lebanese taught you Arabic?" He was right. The Arab world is full of contrasts, different cultures, different modes of behaviour and doing business, and different traditions. Governments, corporations, institutions operate and perform differently. Reading (yet another) piece of research this week that drinking coffee leads to longer life however, reminded me about one thing which is shared, in the same way, across the Arab region. Sharing a coffee together, s...

We can describe lying in as many ways as we like... I love Lucy Kellaway's FT columns, this one from February last year is a classic. I got to thinking about leaders and lies, and how lies are euphemistically described when Sir John Chilcot today described Tony Blair as "not straight with the nation" on the Iraq war when he was British Prime Minister. Sir Robert Armstrong, British Cabinet Secretary said during the 'Spycatcher' trial in 1986 that a book written by a former MI5 employee "...contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was being economical with the truth.". More recently Kellyanne Conway introduced us to the notion of "alternative facts" http://bit.do/dySAA Is it no surprise therefore that Edelman's 2017 Trust barometer finds "that trust is in crisis around the world. The general population’s trust in all four key institutions — business, government, NGOs, and media — has declined broadly, a phenomenon not report...

Read my LinkedIn post about leaders in the age of the show-off and cultural norms here I take two main thoughts from this article. The first is that rewarding show-offs favours certain personality types, assuming wrongly that having a loud voice is a key trait for a good leader. The second is the importance of cultural norms. This chimes with my own experience in operating in Asia, North America and the Middle East for three decades. Sometimes we forget the most basic rule that business is about building relationships. Understanding national cultural norms, respecting them and blending them with your own personal culture and personality with integrity are just a few of the strands of successful international enterprise. The joy for me is working out how all this works, while making long lasting friendships - which by the way, I consider to be the biggest personal reward of doing business internationally.