Tari's Patch

Tari's LinkedIn post 8 November 2018 Interesting that in this otherwise fascinating article, the word 'authenticity' only came up once. If you're a boss of any sort (politics or business), your first step should be to get in touch with your own authenticity and check how aligned this is with a) the organisation you lead or represent, b) expectations of your stakeholders, and c) the prevailing zeitgeist. Yes, presentation and avoiding-gaffs training can help but better still, get the thinking, the emotions and the behaviours right. The bonus is that you'll feel less nervous about making a gaff when out and about in public because you're not second-guessing what might constitute a gaff. There's a bonus in doing this: you get to lead your organisation better and your staff also get to live a culture of authenticity

I often borrow a line commonly used in crime movies when I see yet another leadership organisation fall from grace: "You could have done this the easy way, but you chose to do it the hard way". Oxfam  was a hitherto admired institution, having done impressive work around the world for more than 75 years, respected for its engagement with donors big and small, its courage in working in war- and disaster-torn regions, and its commitment to equality and fairness. The Haiti scandal has rocked it to its core, putting into question its ability to continue its operations, as governments are rethinking funding levels, donors withdrawing sponsorship and customers pulling out of their shops. In other words, it is losing its licence to operate. There are so many lessons that can be learned from brands which fail to protect their culture, vision and reputation. United Airlines CEO's response to the treatment of one of its passengers on a flight, Bell Pottinger's colla...

"...only if the lightbulb wants to change..." Like or hate it, Brexit will bring enormous change for businesses through transformed regulation, trade policies, labour laws, new financial management, and many other challenges.  "...while Britain and Europe are negotiating over what happens to European Union citizens who now work in Britain (as well as Britons who work in other European Union countries), no-one is sure how these ralks will go..." ( NYT Sept 18, 2017 ). Many employees' lives will be transformed in deeply personal ways. They may need to move to a different country, they may be working under a different regime or leadership. Their hours of work, pay scales and contractual obligations may change, their reporting lines and accountability shifted, their place of work reorganised. They may need to get used to a new corporate culture.  Sounds familiar? Any change in an organisation needs to be embraced, lived and supported by its most precio...

The World Health Organisation took just a little over 48 hours to revoke its appointment of Robert Mugabe as goodwill ambassador, following worldwide public, media and institutional outcry at an appointment which, at so many levels, was so blatantly wrong. The wrongs of Robert Mugabe is not what I wish to argue here. What I am astounded by is that such an established institution such as WHO, with its army of strategists and planners could make such a rudimentary blunder. This reminds me that too many of us really still don't get the fact that if we are guardians of our organisations' brands, we have the responsibility to protect our organisation against risks which threaten to attack those values and thereafter, our reputation. I have previously written about CEOs and their mistakes  here . Unfortunately, u-turns and apologies will never completely obliterate the original mistake. In the reputation management world, a right never completely erases a wrong. Corporate wron...

The world of corporate and national reputation is going through a whirlwind right now, even more so than usual. Two particular issues have rather preoccupied my mind recently. One is the relationship between business and government and the other, going back to basics on the relationship between reputation and moral authority.  Bell Pottinger has always been associated with the dark arts of public relations. Most of the industry, for decades now, have at least tried to be morally accountable in the way it communicates its clients' narrative and indeed, in selecting clients with whom it is prepared to work. Bell Pottinger appeared not to have ever been perturbed about representing clients who are morally questionable at best, and downright unacceptable at worst. It managed to weather several storms of exposure and criticism and on the way, continued to gather more and more questionable clients. Until that is, its recent South Africa debacle, made worse by a public spat  b...

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.

Tari Lang LinkedIn post 15 June 2017 "Mr Cameron’s dismal record is fixed forever in the history books. Mrs May still has a chance to write a redeeming codicil." So says Philip Stephens in the Financial Times this week. The ultimate price for a leader who has made a gigantic judgement or strategic error is mostly a gigantic fall. For a national leader, the process is public, (often) quick and less forgiving. With support from the leader's coterie this process might be delayed but end in a fall it will be. As they say in cop shows: "you can do it the hard way or you can do it the easy way". Corporate leaders too, make blundering mistakes. CEOs have learned to apologise (with or without pressure), remember James Staley and https://lnkd.in/gXqBkEg ? Oscar Munoz's https://lnkd.in/gsBRqEK ? But eating humble pie, following up with a change of direction in the interest of the institution and stakeholders, being forgiven and surviving? Less obvious to find ...

Tari Lang LinkedIn post 3 June 2017 Two leaders, both new, both having won office by breaking political orthodoxies and appealing to the popular vote through mass communications and sustained social media. Here the similarities end. One ploughs a single path of achieving personal and tribal (aka his own business) goals, seemingly impervious to the the approval from anyone but his own supporters and tribes, while desperately seeking approval for his own personal attributes. The other opens his sphere of influence and support, works on winning hearts and minds, communicates on issues and not his own personal characteristics. Like or hate their politics, these are leadership case studies worthy of close scrutiny. At the end of their respective tenures, which goals will they each have achieved? Their own personal objectives? The country they are designated to serve? The international community around them? The safety and prosperity of the planet?

I am a frequent visitor to the Gulf and have been so for almost ten years so it's been a delight, in the past few weeks, to have visited two new (for me) places which immediately made me feel at home because they take culture on the one hand and the empowerment of female leaders on the other, seriously. All of which feeds my fascination with the way nations, and cities, work at their vision and position in the world - about which I have blogged often. Sharjah is only 20 minutes down the road from Dubai and to my shame, a place I hadn't visited until earlier this year. This is an Emirate with a passion for culture, a Ruler who actively encourages the arts, and a Ruler's wife who doesn't just carry out charitable work (after all, which Ruler's wife in the world doesn't do charitable work...) but actually gets down and dirty in doing so and speaks with knowledgeable passion about her work - whether in Jordan for the Syrian refugees or at home with children wi...

Two unrelated events in the past couple of weeks made me think about leaders who let go - or not. Steve Ballmer announced his departure from Microsoft, triggering speculation as to whether Bill Gates might or should step back to the company he founded in 1975. Tony Blair, widely condemned for taking the UK into Iraq has stepped back into the limelight, throwing himself into the debate about whether or not the UK should take military action in Syria. Bill Gates concentrated on his Foundation (a million miles in content from Microsoft) when he stepped down as CEO in 2000, since when he has resisted commenting about the company he left behind (and despite remaining on its Board). Microsoft's value halved in his absence. Doubtful though Gates' return might be, he is being talked about as Microsoft's latter day saviour. Steve Jobs, during his break from Apple between 1985 and 1996, went about building other successful entities (LucasFilm into Pixar and NeXT, whose platfor...

Edinburgh is gearing up for the Festival season . Twelve festivals (from the original 1947-founded International Festival to the Edinburgh Fringe, the biggest and most organically grown), five performing companies, numerous arts and cultural galleries and museums, hotels, B&Bs, guesthouses, restaurants are all getting into Festival mood. I have posted a few blogs over the past few months about the cities and the importance of the arts from a reputation point of view ( Arts and the City ,  Abdoun, New Torn and the new majlis  and  Cities - bragging or shaming ). Summer festivals make a major impact  on the economy of Edinburgh (over £250m/$385m over the summer) as well as its reputation. It's the leadership aspect which has fascinated me these past months. There has been a flurry of new CEOs' appointments of major cultural organisations. These appointments have been high profile, much speculated upon and created much debate. I will set aside, for the time b...

Brian Groom reported the launch of  OUTstanding in Business  in  today's FT , a senior network for CEO level corporate leaders aiming to encourage positive attitudes towards gay professionals. While there are plenty of gay network groups in almost every profession, such a senior level platform as this is a new and welcome initiative. The hope is that this will encourage more senior gay men and women in some of the more traditional sectors of the corporate world to come out and in turn, become role models for other young gay professionals. Women are treading the same path and have done so for a long time. Today, there are women networks aplenty but there are still relatively few networks for senior women at the top of their tree, who can use their public image as role models for young women. I have long argued that increasingly, young women look more to public role models than their mothers and women closer to home, as has traditionally been the case. Three years...

Graduation season is upon us and social media has been full of advice for fresh young graduates - what to do, what not to do, what to expect. Or to be precise, what not to expect. Unkindly, there's even been reminders of the number of highly successful and rich men in the world who dropped out of college - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg to mention three. Yes, wealth appears still to up there as an ambition, so I get to think about the game of chances. Billionaires seem to have become something of a role model but the odds of becoming one aren't that great. According to Forbes, there is one billionaire for every 5 million population of the world (one in 750,000 in America). Slightly better odds, granted, than putting money on the lottery. If you played the UK National Lottery, you have a one in 14 million chance of hitting the correct six numbers with a typical prize of £2m. In America, the odds of getting the first 5 numbers and the Power Ball is one in 120 million....

Recently I went to a concert at Edinburgh's Usher Hall where one of the soloists was an incredibly handsome and talented young Macedonian guitarist. I was introduced to him at the interval and told him enthusiastically how much I appreciated his playing. I also told him how gorgeous I thought he was. To be exact, I told him that I'd marry him and leave my husband (this was clearly banter, and my husband was standing beside me at the time). He took it warmly and charmingly and responded with matching repartee. So here's the question. Had I been a 61 year old man and he a gorgeous young female artist, would I be accused of sexism, of being patronising? Is it okay for a 61 year old woman to say these things because I believe my guitarist to be perfectly safe from any power play from me? Because I believe there is zero chance that anything I might say to him would be received with any real or threatening sexual connotation? Social norms of course change all the time, as we...

I seem to have been surrounded by the arts festivals these past few weeks. The Edinburgh International Festival 2013 programme was launched last week so the talk around town is which hot tickets we've all got. It is now supposedly spring but with all this snow, wind and rain, this is good cheerful and 'sunny' talk. Much is being speculated as to whether George Street will again be closed to allow for the Spiegeltent to be put up, and for the street to be transformed into an al fresco buzzing clinking street come July. This is Edinburgh getting ready to prove its place as the world's biggest arts and culture city, hosting a dozen or so Arts Festivals during July/August. The museums and galleries will be competing to put on exhibitions to showcase Scottish artists. While I was in the UAE last week I attended the opening of the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Festival - the Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra performed at the sumptuous Emirates Palace Hotel auditorium with much g...

I blogged about public apologies and public figures' secrets a couple of weeks back. Gratifyingly it seemed to strike a chord. Since then, more scandals have emerged. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland has had to step down from public life as past sexual misconducts with other priests came to light. Lord Rennard, the former LibDem's Chief Executive and senior activist stands accused of inappropriate behaviour and unwanted harassment of women in the past. First and foremost, the  hypocrisy is foolish. I'm still astounded at the number of public figures  who have a Big Secret yet publicly vilify others for doing exactly the same thing. Cardinal O'Brien didn't choose to espouse the cause of poverty, education, social violence or domestic violence as his main platform during his tenure - all of which are so important and a safe million miles from his secret life. No, he made strong attacks of gay marriage and gay adoptions, all of...

An unexpected by-election will take place in Eastleigh on Feb 28. Yet again, a politician set for a glittering career - possibly to the top leadership position of his party - fell from grace through misdemeanours and reputation mismanagement. Chris Huhne may have lost everything - his political career, family, reputation. Although he eventually pleaded guilty in court for perverting the course of justice, to date, he has not actually made a public apology for what he did. He joins a long list of disgraced politicians (Liam Fox, David Laws, Jeffrey Archer, Jonathan Aitken, Jeremy Thorpe and of course the daddy of them all, Bill Clinton) who have with varying degrees of success, sought public forgiveness and return to normality. Two things always strike me when I read about yet another fall from grace (and mostly they're about money or sex - or both - and yes, they're almost inevitably men).  One , like it or not, responsibility comes with being a public figure. Like it or not...