At my weekly St John Ambulance unit meeting (I’m a volunteer first aider), a mountain rescue team leader generously came to brief us on their first aid techniques. It was a well-prepared presentation and gave us a unique insight into the voluntary work mountain rescue teams do, week in, week out, often in the worst environmental conditions.
One unfortunate side issue was what might be called the institutional sexism of his organisation. The most generous credit he was able give to his female team members was that they were useful “when it came to dealing with lost children because men were hopeless at comforting them”. This is so statistically inaccurate, archaic and sexist that it barely deserves a riposte. I think I would have had to spell out ‘diversity’ to him!
It made me think about change and how the changes occurring in business, accelerated by Web 2.0 and wireless/mobile technology, are now, in 2009, being recognised by a majority of CXO-level executives. Access to means of expressing themselves online, social media, interactive websites and blogs are increasing…almost exponentially.
Executives are realising that these changes are an opportunity to recognise and harness the talent within their organisations in a new way. The implications do not just affect sales and marketing – although those are profound enough – but radically change the communication model within organisations and with the outside world. This will impact traditional command and control hierarchies the most, but will enable all innovative CEOs to grasp an opportunity.
Looking backwards to the archaic sexism of earlier in the last century, it makes you realise what changes are on the way and how we can all embrace them rather than get stuck with attitudes which could hold us all back.
