Is this the end of big cities?

Article by Manuela Andaloro for Corriere dell’italianita’.

Being an investor in the real estate market for years, I have grown quite an interest in the dynamics that drive the sales and rental markets. The golden rule has always been the same: location is key.

This was a cornerstone in the pre-COVID time. What about now? 

Will COVID cause a real estate vacuum in big cities and a boom in rural towns?

The latest developments suggest that the ‘smart working revolution’ will prompt people to flee overcrowded and expensive cities for greener and more sustainable areas. Thanks to speedy broadband connections and a reliable network infrastructure, many are considering moving to holiday homes, in the suburbs, the countryside or the mountains, at the beach or the lake. Lockdowns seem to have opened up new scenarios: living in nature, reconciling family, career and leisure time whilst keeping a well-paid job in the city is now possible.

Will the urban fabric undergo some deep changes then? And, above all, is this event large enough to be considered a structural change?

A shift towards a coveted more sustainable future, supported by the introduction of COVID-19-related rules, was inconceivable until a few months ago in a society devoted to extreme urbanisation. 

Social distancing and the ongoing pandemic have deprived big cities of their greatest charm – melting pots that attract and blend the lives and skills of different people. Those who love cities – and there are many of them – cannot wait to return to normalcy or, rather, to a new normal, because this epidemic, like every crisis, is also an opportunity to rethink and improve our lifestyle. And this is true also for large cities.

Famous architect Stefano Boeri, earlier this spring expressed his stance on the matter without any doubts: "In the UK people are expected to leave most densely populated areas soon". The same goes for Italy, where those who own a second home will most likely decide to move there or, at least, spend long periods there, making the most of the convenience and potential of smart working. Boeri considers this experience an opportunity to rethink one's way of life and stresses that "going through this tragedy without understanding its causes would be a real waste".

After all, what is the point of paying more than a thousand Euro for a room in central London, Paris, Milan, New York, if you can work from a larger house, perhaps with a garden, from any location?

Questions like this are frequently asked in public debates worldwide and many people answer without a second thought, especially in the wake of the recent lockdowns, confined to narrow spaces without any nature. It is not worth it, the future of our cities is at risk. 

The New York Times has published an extensive article on this subject. The analysis concludes that the Coronavirus could represent an unprecedented cut-off for urban concentrations.

Gabriele Albertini, the former mayor of Milan, talks about the lure of large urban hubs: “Should this situation persist for years, urban design will have no choice but to adapt. Cities have much more to offer than only a physical workplace: besides the work opportunities, we cannot forget also the social and cultural ones. It is wrong to limit a city only to its offices”.

However, the tendency to flee large cities is quite significant: as the Financial Times reported, in the City of London most companies are in no hurry to bring their employees back to their offices.

Many big companies are going down the same road – Google will not have its employees back in the office before spring 2021 while Facebook went the extra mile, announcing that half of its employees will work from home within the next 10 years.

Are the policies of some companies sufficient to generate a structural change leading to the opposite direction to what we have witnessed for hundreds of years, during which mankind has migrated to cities, or will this be merely a privilege for a few?

Will the housing market in cities hold up in the short term? What about megacities versus smaller, greener cities close to nature?

On top of that, there is a social factor to consider. Both private and working life is fuelled by physical presence, by one's network, by the readiness to seize new opportunities or participate in events... All of this is possible only in large cities.

Finally, we must take into account the inevitable commercial interests of the geopolitical stakeholders in big cities. The investors backing the construction of skyscrapers and offices in "prime locations" will clash with large companies for divergent interests.

The governance of the cities will not accept full time smart working indefinitely. The conflict will then affect access to public assets, events, public transport.

If buildings, theatres, cinemas, trains can no longer reach their full occupancy, costs will increase and the final consumer will have to bear them.

Not to mention health. How will countries deal with an increasingly elder population, dispersed in small towns?

Will we face increased health risks when living far from the major health facilities?

Politics will then come into play, taking one or the other side. Climate change will be a hot topic too: on the one hand, it is safe to say that less crowded urban areas ensure environmental sustainability and less pollution; on the other hand, however, we will have to rely less on public transport and more on private cars and we will have to build new homes and infrastructure.

There is clear evidence that megacities (cities with a population of more than 10 million people) such as New York, and London will suffer long-term impact.

The so-called “London crisis” goes beyond the fear of Covid, Londoners were happy to give up days that involved hours of travel squashed on tube and trains, unhealthy and expensive meals and stressful interactions with bosses and colleagues.

Unlike in other smaller cities, only 20% of employees has gone back to the office and to the City. The remaining 80% has little intention to return to a pre-COVID time.  Will London become a ghost town? The fear is real: the City remains empty, offices are deserted, cafes closed, few people around, public transport sees 70% less people. The result is catastrophic: the entire economic system on which the British capital was based is crushed. It is the business model of the capital that is going into meltdown: until now it was based on the idea of ​​concentrating millions of people in the centre.

The pandemic has made clear that current technology makes all this superfluous as everything can be done from home.

Someone compared the fate of London to that of the Northern England mines in the 1980s: when their model became obsolete, they were forced to close. Will the same happen to what used the most electrifying metropolis in the world?

And what about the city that never sleeps, New York City, will it ever wake up?

Not according to James Altucher, a best-selling author and former hedge-fund manager who wrote, in a recent article that went viral, that New York City is “dead forever” as its residents come to grips with the reality of the coronavirus pandemic and what it means for the fate of the Big Apple. Altucher isn’t alone, of course. The New York Times back in June asked the “agonizing” question: “Is New York City worth it anymore?” amid a mass exodus of an estimated 420,000 residents between March and May.

What about smaller cities?

What will be the normal way of city life when the pandemic passes? What will remain and what will disappear?

Like all change, it is difficult to predict. But lessons from history provide us with important knowledge: 

1.     Temporary change sometimes has little lasting effect.

2.     Lasting effects are often the acceleration of existing trends, rather than new, crisis-caused trends.

Working from home has overnight become endemic. Schools and universities switched remarkably quickly to almost exclusively online platforms. We might truly have an opportunity for our cities to shift to new ways of more sustainable urban living. This might be harder to achieve for megacities, easier perhaps for smaller, more adaptable cities. Businesses should seize the opportunity, implement the technology and leverage the current strong determination to achieve successful outcomes and more sustainable ways of living.

So will COVID cause a real estate vacuum in big cities and a boom in rural towns?

Through an exploration of trends the virus has brought to retail, office, hotel and residential real estate, as well as the air travel and vacation industries, a recent report by Fitch Ratings, makes some predictions for the future.

City center real estate may take a hit.

Newly remote workers may transform the residential real estate landscape because of a desire to move to suburban or rural cities. They need bigger homes to fit in their home offices, the report said. People also want outdoor living space because of their experiences during lockdowns.

“Within the big cities, there could be weaker demand for malls, non-grocery real estate and office space. Empty office and multi-family residential buildings may wind up meeting housing needs and bringing down housing pricing pressure in big cities, the report said.

Renting, rather than buying, apartments or homes may become more popular for several reasons. Some people may not be able to obtain affordable credit, while others will just feel uncomfortable taking on a big loan during the uncertain economic climate.

This may significantly increase demand for rental housing, which should boost demand for single-family and multi-family rental properties.

This could be different for student apartment complexes, since university classes are remote and fewer overseas students will attend because of how the pandemic has slowed international travel and impacted immigration figures. Some students may just attend college close to home, for budgetary reasons.”

For centuries, cities have played a fundamental role for mankind. If in the future, people will not spend most of their time in a lockdown and the social distancing issue will be at least partially solved, then the cities, especially those close to countryside, lakes, mountains and seaside, will again become the political, economic, social and commercial core of our society, at least for a large part of the population. A large question mark however remains on large megalopolis that confine people in small apartments and are not located close to natural escapes, shifting the real estate demand for new, sustainable locations.

 Manuela Andaloro

(info@smartbizhub.com) 

(Sources: CNN, Il Sole24Ore, Linkiesta, New York Times, Financial Times, The Conversation, Globest, Fitch Ratings)

Bringing EQ-driven leadership into companies.

Interview by Valeria Camia, journalist, web director Corriere dell'Italianità, to Manuela Andaloro Senior Advisor and Board Member, for Corriere degli Italiani

A successful entrepreneur, an ambassador of gender equality, and a mother, Manuela Andaloro tells her story. 

Business woman Manuela Andaloro has been the CEO of SmartBizHub since 2017. Together with her team, she does management consulting, especially in the field of new technologies and sustainability, working with multinationals and government agencies throughout Europe. Manuela travels often and is active in advocating and raising awareness on diversity, gender equality and on the balance between family and work. She was recently nominated for a major award on gender diversity. For many years, she has been advocating “diversity and inclusion” in companies. Could Manuela picture her current reality when, just a twenty-year-old student at IULM University in Milan, she got her first corporate role as an analyst at ACNielsen, working hard to keep up with her studies?

Manuela has been not only a successful entrepreneur in recent years, for over 17 years she has had important roles in leading financial companies in Europe, since 2012, she’s also a mother. A mother of two small children (4 and 6 years old), in Switzerland, a country in which achieving a balance between family and work is particularly complicated. Maternity leave is granted for only 3 months and fathers are excluded, as opposed to a European average of 6 to 12 months (or even 3 years in Germany) of leave, which in many cases can be shared equally between both parents. If wage parity remains a dream, the same goes for career opportunities, respect for diversity and promotion of social inclusion.

“Finding a balance between career and family is one of the hardest challenges that my husband and I – along with hundreds of parents with careers, I have met over the years – are facing in Swiss society, which in most cases still gives women the role of housekeepers and child carers. This concept is deeply rooted in the culture of this country. I still remember this chat I had with a doctor I had consulted because I felt tired after the birth of my first child and my return to work 5 months later. I remember the doctor asking me why I kept on working. It was shocking. And that was just the beginning. I was shocked again when I went back to work, first part time, then full time. Society in many cases expected me to be mainly a mother”, says Manuela, who considers herself lucky, because “there was still a job for me when my maternity leave was over if you consider that one in seven women in Switzerland loses her job when she becomes a mother.” Not to mention the economic situation, as private nurseries and kindergartens, that can provide more flexible times to allow parents to work, are very expensive and so precluded to many.

To be honest, Manuela actually had some thoughts about giving up her career, or taking a break. It was never easy to leave my children with the babysitter or at the nursery until late, to work and travel even on weekends, and being under the critical eye of society. But Manuela did not give up. She was courageous and aware of the need to break up with an obsolete, individualistic and non-empathic mindset, which does not leave enough space for women and is unable to cope with the new global picture of society and its stakeholders.

— Images, left to right: Manuela Andaloro moderating a FinTech international event in January 2019 in Zurich (credits: British Embassy Bern); speaking about adapting our working cultures to reflect a more modern world and diverse society, June 2019, Amsterdam. (Credits: EWPN, Money 2020); on stage speaking about new role models and leadership, October 2018, London (Credits: PayExpo); Balancing private life and work on a weekend. —

The trump card that can reconcile career and family, says Manuela, is a new type of EQ-driven leadership. “The best leaders of today invest their time and energy in understanding the people they work with and their teams. It’s the EIQ, or emotional intelligence quotient, which experts say has become today more important than IQ and is a better index of success for people, companies and society. This is why we must work to change the old mindset: a new approach will not only favour women but will also foster a type of leadership based on empathic soft skills. In the digital age and its new challenges, women should not be fighting to integrate themselves into a system that has proved to be disastrous as it supports only one model, the alpha personality, mostly very dominant figures. I met women that had old-fashioned leadership styles, not very cooperative and participatory, and men who lead in an inclusive way and pay attention to the social fabric outside and inside the company. Adopting a leadership based on arrogance, blind self-confidence and lack of empathy does not work today, in the face of the probable failure of liberal democracies, the negative influence of social platforms, the climate crisis, artificial intelligence and the associated risks. Both women and men should all work together to transform the mindset of companies (and politics), making room for the new facts on the ground”.

For women, it means they have to learn to believe more in themselves, to not settle for less and to act, without always waiting for the right moment in decisions concerning private and working life – to have a child or to accept a new role of great responsibility that involves changes. “Sacrificing one’s ambitions even before trying is harmful to oneself, to other women, to new generations and to the men that are witnessing this behaviour”.

On 14 June, over half a million women and men across Switzerland joined the demonstrations following the strike, plus all those who participated in a “digital” way. What do you wish for, Manuela? “I wish for strong governmental reforms and independent inspections of companies to assess corporate culture, and diversity within them. And I also expect each of us to raise awareness of issues of vital importance, in each of our daily roles, as mothers, fathers, teachers, workers, leaders. Starting from making our children aware of the importance of equality, inclusion and an open mind-set to face today’s new challenges”.

Valeria Camia with Manuela Andaloro

Manuela Andaloro is a senior professional with over 19 years of executive experience in global roles in financial services, business strategy and digital transformation, having lived in Milan, London and Zurich and worked for firms such as Nielsen, Financial News and UBS. Since 2017, she is the Founder of Swiss-based SmartBizHub, a management consultancy specialising in marketing, positioning, communications, sustainability, future tech and future work. Manuela is a professional speaker, a published author, and an editorial consultant for various leading publications on the topics of finance, social shifts, impact, culture and leadership. She serves as advisory board member of various Swiss and international organizations, and as a board member of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Europe. Manuela is a D&I champion and advocate for EQ- driven leadership, speaks English, Italian, German and Spanish and lives in Zurich with her husband and two children. 

As published in Corriere dell’ Italianita’ cover story, 30 July 2019 view original article in Italian here.

168 hours, make them count. Mrs Moneypenny for #FearlessFridays

“Energy is the hallmark of success, and your energy comes from only one source, you.”

— Prof. Heather McGregor

London, April 30th, light rain and wind do not seem to bother the busy and energetic Mayfair vibe as I walk past the familiar Ritz hotel, heading to my 2pm meeting on the historical St. James street.

As I push open the heavy doors of her office building I am greeted by a polite and matter-of-factly “Hello. You must be here for Heather”. I get in the elevator and realize that no matter how many wonderful and famous people I have come across in my life, I still have an incredible admiration for women and men that have left a mark, on society and on my own life.

As a curious reader of her column in the Financial Times for many years, as a reader of her highly inspiring books and later as I prepared material for my work at the World Economic Forum this year, I could never stop admiring, being inspired and amused by her wit and wisdom.

Director of headhunters Taylor Bennett, author of the Financial Times' Mrs Moneypenny column (in which she refers to her children as cost centres one, two and three, this had me empathizing long before I had children myself!), executive Dean of Edinburgh Business School, champion of diversity in the workplace, CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for services to business, director of Non-Standard Finance PLC and IGT plc, and member of the Honours Committee for the Economy. Does this sum up Prof. Heather McGregor?

Her book ‘Mrs Moneypenny’s Careers Advice for Ambitious Women’ has helped women all over the world to conquer their career challenges with her wit and straight talking, and has been praised by Arianna Huffington as a wisdom-filled guide that “does the invaluable service of redefining success and happiness for everyone.”
She is described as an international business leader with many strings to her bow, an academic, author, TV presenter, philanthropist and financial journalist. Somehow she also has found time to qualify as a private pilot and do two seasons of stand-up comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I found out years ago that the average life span is 4,000 weeks. Normally this statement announced to adults results in a collective gulp. The day I found out that our weeks are zipping by in a blur I decided I was going to shift gears and own the way I lived my life (that’s where the name of my 4 year old blog comes from, in case you are wondering) and leave behind highly uninspiring energy drainers, arrogance and people who love to hear themselves complaining. I have been on a mission since then to achieve the milestones and goals I had for long dreamt about, to surround myself with positive doers and givers. How did she do it I wonder? 

“What you know represents the foundations of your career. But you won`t be able to build much above the first floor if you don’t have the right materials, and the most important material of all is connections – a network. The truth is, if you want to achieve your goals in life, you need to be both good at what you do and good at building relationships with people who matter.” (Extract from Careers Advice). Needless to say that part of the inspiration that led to one of my businesses, SmartPlan, comes from her advice.

And may I add, you will need your best emotional intelligence, strong soft skills and charisma to be able to connect and stay in regular contact with your network. “Developing a style that works for you and shows people the real “you” – personal chemistry counts for a lot”. “A good place to start is offering help to others when you don`t need anything yourself. What are the top two or three things that you want people to remember you for?” (Extract from Careers Advice)

Less than a year ago I was sitting in our garden on a weekend watching my kids playing while (re)reading two of her most famous books. Thinking of timelines, business plans and figures and getting inspired by who I consider one of the most successful leaders on self-brand and witty thought leadership.

Fast forward of 10 months, I have left my corporate role after 17 years, set up two running businesses, have opened many doors, and the one I am pushing open right now is the door of Heather`s London office.

As I enter our meeting room, Heather is finishing a business call, I sip my tea and write down a few early thoughts next to my meeting agenda, a few seconds later she wraps up her call and greets me with a welcoming smile and much interest. One great “secret” of the best leaders I know? Not only showing, but genuinely having interest in who sits in front of you.

We speak for 45 minutes, about her current projects and mission, of my businesses and past career, of combining motherhood with busy schedules, my years in London, her years writing for the FT, time management, learning to say no and third dimensions. We agree to this interview, and to a few more next steps, we speak some more about the importance of social capital, her current platform with BBC, and I even get her fresh perspective on social media channels.

Q. Heather, much has been written about you over the years and in many interviews. Today I would like to reveal a few angles of your professional life and the impact you have had. Shall we start with who is Heather McGregor today?

A. I am a full-time academic and head of the Business School at Heriot-Watt University.

Q. What is the best and worst decision you've ever made?

A. Best – to marry my husband as he is the most supportive husband you could ever find.

Worst – probably selling my house in London just before property prices really took off.

Q. What do you think is the most significant barrier to female leadership?

A. I think there are 10 major barriers that stand in the way of a women’s career progression and I list all 10 in my book Careers Advice for Ambitious Women but to give you an example think about the dual language people use when talking about male and female leaders, when did you ever hear the word ‘strident’ used about a man?

Q. What woman inspires you and why?

A, I meet new women who inspire me every day, to give you an example I recently interviewed Jayne-Anne Gadhia, CEO of Virgin Money, who I found very inspiring and whose new book, the Virgin Bank is a must read . I feel equally inspired by the woman who leads my business in Asia, Sarah Crawshaws, who qualified as a helicopter pilot at the age of 21.

Q. You once said “do not let a year go by without a clear goal to pursue”. Only one?

A. I have one goal for personal development reasons, but I’m sure there’s lots of other goals you can set to do with work and family. But I think every woman should have one personal development goal they should set for themselves which if they achieve will add massively to their self-confidence.

Q. What’s a typical day like for you?

A. I travel a lot so no two days are the same. But if I’m in Edinburgh, my day normally starts with my husband bringing me a cup of tea at 6 o’clock in the morning, I drink this while looking out at the Marina and reading the morning papers. I then normally cycle along the Union Canal to my work at Heriot-Watt University where I try to see as many people as I possibly can in the hours given and then I cycle home. We are lucky to have lovely light in Scotland till late which allows me to cycle rather than take the car. Once home I have dinner with my husband and go to bed.

Q. If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

A. I would qualify as a chartered accountant; this is the one thing I regret in life.

Q. What’s the most important business or other discovery you’ve made in the past year?

A. The power and brand of Adam Smith who lived from 1778 to when he died in 1790 in Panmure House, a building purchased and rejuvenated by Edinburgh Business School which is opening in the Autumn of this year.   

Q. Any success habits you would like to share?

Credits: Time magazine

A. There are 168 hours in week make them count. This includes sleeping!

Q. How do you manage your energy?

A. I’ve learnt to say no. People ask me to do things all day long, and its not always pleasant but saying no is a necessary life skill.

Q. What drives you?

A. Wanting to make a difference.

Q. How would you describe the impact you have had on people and on the world?

A. I hope my legacy is the foundation  (Taylor Bennet Foundation) I established in 2008 to develop black and minority ethnic graduates  so they have a better opportunities in the job market.

Q. There is a large debate going on around the future of work, talent retention, women and millennials values. What do you think the future holds?

A. We are going to live longer and we are all going to have multiple employers. I think everyone should plan for this and visit the www.100yearlife.com 

Q. A few final words of wisdom for our career-oriented, professionals and entrepreneurs alike, women and men?

A. There is no such sentence as I can’t do it; the correct sentence is, I can’t do it alone.

Thank you Heather!

M.

(info@smartbizhub.com) 

What does it take to be the best we can be? #FearlessFridays

Managing a demanding professional life and a busy private sphere takes energy. Never like in the past few years I have had to give some serious thought to how I manage energy and time, two of the most valuable assets we all own. I accepted that nobody can be 100% productive all day. As much as many of us wish to make the most of every minute, to get everything done, performing without break is just not humanly possible.

The notion of productivity is the ability to be able to do more in a smaller amount of time. Of all our available resources, everyone has the same number of hours in a day. Some, however, happen to get more done. Are they faster or smarter? Do they have more help? Perhaps. But they’ve also learned strategies that can help them stretch time and eliminate the unimportant.

I have found, especially in the past few months since starting my own firm, that concentration is like a muscle, it needs to rest to be able to function properly, and it can`t be overworked, or it will burn out and take time to heal. Finding how to turn up and down the dial that is our concentration is vital to make the most of our time, whether that is at work, at home, with our families or with ourselves. 

I was only delighted when I was introduced to the work that James Hewitt, performance science is driving.

James will be presenting at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos next week, releasing new exclusive research and exploring how wellbeing is an essential resource for addressing the global challenges of our hyper-connected, yet fractured world. 

Ahead of WEF, I have sat down with James to find out more about what drives and inspires one of the smartest and youngest minds of the Forum, and what we can learn from his work. 

Q. James, can you tell us a bit about you and your work?

A. I’m fascinated with human performance, and exploring the limits of human potential. In particular, how the human body and mind have an incredible capacity to adapt, and grow, but also to create and solve seemingly impossible problems. I think my most dominant characteristic is ‘curiosity’. I’m always asking questions, I love learning, experimenting, trying to discover more about why and how things work in a systematic way, so science felt like a natural path for me.

Looking back, I think I was inspired pursue this path at an early age. I was born in the United Kingdom, but one of my first memories, when I was around 3 years-old, is from the time we spent living in the United States. It was during the ‘glory years’ of the Space Shuttle Programme, and I remember watching shuttle launches live on TV, and visiting the Space Centre, in Houston, Texas. There was a Saturn V on display: the same model of mighty rocket which sent humans to the moon. I stood, completely dwarfed by the five giant F-1 rocket engines, and had a sense of awe, and wonder that people, working together, had designed and created this machine. It gave me a sense of the almost limitless possibility, which has never really left me.

James Hewitt, Performance Scientist

Q. What does impact mean for you?           

A. ‘Impact’ means doing the most good, with the biggest effect, in the short time we have available on this planet. I feel very strongly, based on a growing body of evidence, that many people are only scratching the surface of their potential, and are likely being held back by out-dated beliefs about what it takes to achieve and ‘be the best they can be’.

‘All-nighters’, sleep-deprivation, sacrificing well-being for more hours in the office, romanticizing ‘the grind’ and ‘the hustle’ are often associated with the highest output, and the greatest achievements. We may even hold people up on a pedestal for pursuing this way of living and working – “Just look at what they built! They are so successful!” - but it’s possible that the people who are working in this way achieved what they did despite, not because of these approaches, and perhaps they could have achieved more, or perhaps achieved the same outcomes, at a reduced personal cost, if they had looked after themselves, and nurtured a more creative, sustainable approach to high-performance.

Right now, I’m trying to contribute to exploring these ideas through my research, and working with organisations to find new ways of working, which enable knowledge workers to manage their well-being and performance more effectively, so that they can realise more of their potential.

I aim to achieve this impact by addressing the four questions associated with my main research project:

1.     How do knowledge workers’ lifestyle & work patterns influence their well-being and performance?

2.     How does the digitally disrupted work context influence this relationship?

3.     To what extent can digital tools enhance wellbeing and performance in knowledge workers?

4.     Are their differences in how people respond to these digital tools, and can we measure that difference to predict the response?

The reality is that we don’t really have much quality data to help us to answer these questions, yet.

Q. What drives you? 

A. I have a clear sense of purpose, that drives a lot of my decision making; How can I equip and inspire people to realise more of their potential? Today, this is expressed through my research and work with individuals and organisations, in sport and business, from Formula 1 drivers to Fortune 500 companies. However, I spent a long time dedicated, in quite a selfish way, to my own performance and potential, before I pivoted into the space I work in now.

As a teenager and up to my mid-20’s, I was trying to become a professional-cyclist. I started racing at a young age, but my cycling career truly began at the age of 19 when I moved to France. I crossed the Channel from my home in England with a suitcase, a contract with a small regional French team, and a dream.

I worked hard, analysing everything I could about my performance in order to improve it, and managed to move up from regional to elite level in a couple of years. I secured a contract with an Elite Espoir team, which allowed me to race and train full-time. The team was also associated with a professional senior team. We received some of their bikes from the previous season, wore the same design of shorts as the real ‘pros’, and it was a credible path to a professional cycling career.

However, as my career progressed, I realised I was working much harder, and more professionally than many of the people around me, but I just wasn’t getting the results. I had to be honest with myself, that I probably wasn’t going to reach the top of the sport. Also, when I looked deep-down, in truth I enjoyed the process of analysing, testing, training and experimenting to improve my performance, more than I did the actual racing.

I made the decision to ‘retire’, and returned to the UK to complete my undergraduate degree in Sports Science, which provided an academic framework, enabling me to explore human potential, and continue to ask the question: “what does it take to be the best we can be?”

Q. There is a large debate going on around the future of work, talent retention and millennials' values. What do you think the future holds for old school organizations?

A. The future of work is one of my primary areas of interest, and how workplaces need to adapt, to attract and retain top talent, is a key question. The future will be both automated and augmented. Some roles will be entirely supplanted. Many will be replaced in part. Even today, complex capabilities once considered too difficult to automate can now be performed by machines. However, I’m convinced that the future of work will be more ‘human’, at least in relation to the high-income, cognitively demanding and creative jobs, where employment is likely to grow. What can be automated will be. What can not, will become increasingly valuable.

Up to 20% of a senior executive’s role could be automated, according to some studies, but this technology will also likely be assistive and enhancing, facilitating deeper insights, better decision making and multiplied output. Work may become less stressful, as machines help us to manage information flows more effectively, releasing us to focus on creativity, collaboration and complex problem solving. However, this kind of thinking and working is best achieved by well-rested, focused, purpose-driven brains, and diverse teams, who can compensate for each other’s biases, and enhance each other’s strengths.

Organisations need to prepare for the growth in importance of non-routine work, produced by employees (and likely increasing numbers of free-lancers), who sleep well, eat healthily, exercise regularly, perhaps don’t follow traditional working hours and need to feel a deeper sense of purpose and vision for their work, to perform at their best.

The days of looking for a ‘cookie-cutter’ archetype to fill rigidly defined job-roles will likely come to an end in many knowledge-intensive industries. Inclusive and diverse organisations are more likely to thrive in the future of work. The multiplicity of thought, agility and effective approaches to collaboration, essential in organisations which encompass people from many different backgrounds, are more likely to propagate novel, harder to replicate solutions, differentiating individuals and companies from the commoditised, automated systems, which will operate vast proportions of many businesses.

Q. This year, in your contribution at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, you will be addressing a topic of increasing importance in today`s world: technology, epidemics of distraction, “always on” culture and productivity. Can you tell us a bit more about that? 

A. Absolutely. The World Economic Forum Annual meeting has a challenging theme this year: creating a shared future in a fractured world. In a 2-hour session, we’ll be exploring how wellbeing is an essential resource for addressing the global challenges of our hyper-connected, yet fractured world, how many leaders feel that they are not in control, and that their wellbeing is sacrificed in pursuit of performance, or even simply to survive.

Leaders are bombarded with information. Short-term signals trigger cognitive rewards, feel valuable and important, hijacking cognitive control & preventing us from achieving our most important goals. The average CEO receives 250 e-mails per day. Many check their smartphone within 15 minutes of waking and multi-task throughout their conscious hours. The people who need to pay attention the most are often the most distracted, and the people who need to focus are too frequently the most fatigued.

Our contemporary approaches to life and work encourage this relentless, fragmented pattern of working and living, and it’s unsustainable, weakens decision-making, diminishes health, restricts potential and may contribute to the cracks we see emerging in ourselves, our organisations, and beyond.

The session’s aim is to inspire and equip leaders to find new ways to manage wellbeing and performance, creating a culture of wellbeing that cascades down their organisations, and beyond. We argue that this starts with themselves, and begins by finding more opportunities to take a step-back, and give their brains a chance to avoid the ‘cognitive hijacks’ that so frequently disrupt us.

Q. I hear of another incredibly interesting experiment you will be running on Davos` guests this year, scanning brain signals in real time, measuring and recording the collective intelligence of some of the world`s greatest minds. What do you expect to find? Will Davos brains really be any different to the cognitive set-up of ordinary mortals? 

Manuela Andaloro testing the “DavosBrains” headset. Davos, January 2018

A. Yes, we’ll be running an experiment called ‘DavosBrains’. The concept was a collaborative effort that first emerged during a conversation with Olivier Oullier. Olivier is a neuroscientist, President of neuroinformatics company ‘EMOTIV’ and a Hintsa Science Board member. We were talking about some of the themes in my PhD, which explores the wellbeing and performance of knowledge workers, and involves measuring their cognitive performance. We began speculating about the cognitive capabilities of high-performers in business, and whether top-executives had better cognitive performance, in domains such as sustained attention, for example, or perhaps it was worse, due to all the switching and attempts at multi-tasking.

We designed an experiment, based on a cognitive test called ‘Rapid Visual Information Processing’, which is a sensitive assessment of cognitive function, including sustained attention. During the test, we’re using some brief survey methods to assess wellbeing, combined with the cognitive test, and an EMOTIV neuroheadset, which will record and visualize brain activity in real-time.

As a ‘good scientist’, I’m backing the ‘null hypothesis’: that there is no difference in the cognitive capabilities of senior-executives, relative to a normal population, but perhaps we’ll find something cool! Whatever the case, it will be a fun and interesting experience for the participants, as they will get to see a 3D rotating model of their brain activity, rendered in real time, and have the opportunity to save and record a short video of their brain activity, to keep or share with their friends. It’s up to them whether they want to disclose the results of the cognitive tests, once they receive those!

Thank you James, and I look forward to seeing such a cool experiment in action in Davos!

M.

(info@smartbizhub.com)

#DavosBrains is a unique initiative, co-hosted by Hintsa Performance, ConsenSys & EMOTIV for guests attending the World Economic Forum this year. Further information available from 23 January here www.bit.ly/davos-brains. 

#FearlessFridays. Is the balance of power shifting?

No career is a straight line. A few follow predictable paths; most take surprising curves to unexpected places; while others receive incredible boosts leading to different outcomes. After 17 years in the corporate world, last month I started some incredibly exciting business ventures and left behind a steady visible role in a large organization and decided to invest time, work and brain into some of my (remunerative) passions and purposes.

Will I go back one day? Maybe yes maybe not, surely not for a little while: I am increasing in value meanwhile as they say, staying laser-focused on my purpose and making impact where right now it matters most to me. I am incredibly grateful for what the corporate world has given me, I could not be doing this had I not had the experiences, network and discipline that only years of hard work in the corporate world often provide. Make no mistake, I worked hard, very hard and nothing was ever given for free, in fact, the opposite really, I gave much more than I received, as it happens for many in the corporate world. But if you are smart you learn from the good and the bad, I treasure this truth and have made it mine daily.

I am born and bread in the corporate world and have met a great amount of smart,  talented people in it. I have met those who love to thrive in it, and probably could not thrive elsewhere and surely not on their own, I have met those who believe to be seriously smart, but get nothing done and really smart are not, they simply shout louder or can temporarily leverage the right "vitamin", which by the way, will not last forever. I have also met a great amount of what one of my old bosses would call "floaters" - still makes me smile thinking of some people I have met over the years who perfectly fit this definition, you know who you are guys. And finally I have met some gems that could really shine brighter in other environments and some who are just perfect where they are and thank goodness for them, please keep shining. 

These dynamics today are increasingly interesting to me. Who stays, who goes back, who leaves the corporate world and why? Is it a generational phenomenon or part of the "4th industrial revolution" or both?

What becomes apparent rapidly once out is the highly peripheral view we often suffer from when plugged deep into a corporation. I recently had lunch with Mark A., an admirable ex colleague who has decreased to the minimum his working hours at his company and started his own exciting business. Like me he has been on his entrepreneurial journey for only a few weeks and we both marveled at the amount of reality we only found out about once both out and about to build our businesses. More about him and his story in the coming weeks.

So what happens once "out"? As mentioned you realize immediately that the business world is much wider than you had perceived. Of course, you do know that while at your corporate desk, but you don`t really size it up because everything you breathe is scanned through the "corporate lens". The incredible amount of seriously smart, brave leaders, ex-corporates mostly, who are driving and launching incredible businesses all on their own while having fast, high, tangible impact is positively overwhelming. And their impact affects their businesses, the economy and society at large. Not in years and multiple headlines, but in weeks or months with stats and facts.

From years as a D&I champion in various corporate roles, I had realized the high amount of talents that the corporate world loses every year. 7 weeks into my own entrepreneurship adventure I can see where many of the brightest minds are increasingly heading to. What will the future hold for large corporations who are no longer able to retain many of their talents I wonder and what could be the impact on society? Is the balance of power shifting? Is this due to the new generations coming in, moving up and out, to the new opportunities offered by digital life, to a new awareness, or is it simply cultural and economical winds of change?

Just over a year ago I was sitting in front of a very forward looking financial services economist, UBS`Paul Donovan who stated that "Labour markets are undergoing a cultural revolution: what we are seeing in the global economy today are the early stages of the 4th industrial revolution: 76% of UK businesses today employ nobody. They are 1 person businesses." Watch his presentation here.  How real does that ring now.

“Fearless Fridays" is about outstandingly talented human capital that has started businesses in the past few years. A series of blog-posts that will showcase the amazing stories of successful, purpose-driven entrepreneurs I have come across in my first 7 weeks outside of the corporate world and of those I met along the way in my highly formative years on the corporate ladder.

We will portray talents that have left the corporate world behind to do something less conventional, whether it was to move into a different sector, to start their own business, or to do something more creative. 

Stay tuned and don`t miss our first story on Friday 1 December on the single, most successful ever-recorded case of crowd-funding in Switzerland. 

M.

(info@smartbizhub.com) 

Credits: Joseph Pisani for Manuela Andaloro

Family Treasures.

I am one of those lucky people who have had the blessing of enjoying their grandparents well into their thirties, and hopefully until later on still. 

Having grandparents around has formed many of my opinions and stances in life, has given me a different take on history, sacrifices, resilience and family relationships. Their wisdom, beliefs, sometimes a bit outdated but so real, their hard work, their memories.

Their hands. Hands that used to make their own food, wine, olive oil, tomato sauce, made their own clothes, built and repaired everything, from watches to cars to their own houses. Hands that to this day help my own children picking cherry tomatoes from their plants. Stories of home births, friendships, respect, family bonds, lands, money, passions, shootings, war cutting through their own memories.

The stories of my great grandma, grandmother of my mother, who woke up every morning at 5am and walked up and down hills, whose long grey hair were tied up in a perfect bun every morning, whose piercing blue eyes had seen and lived through so much. Those same blue eyes that a hundred and thirteen years later came back in my second son. Her husband had fought in the first and second world war, twice came back, last time deaf, his hearing lost to the deafening noise of flying airplanes. I had the luxury to hold her hands until I was twenty one. I have very clear memories of hot summer visits to her house, I used to open the door, call her name while running up the stairs, then sit with her, or help her make bread, her bed, water her plants. She always had money for her grandchildren, so we could buy ice cream, more like fifty ice creams truth be told. Jumping around her when she went to pick up her own salad in her field and let me go with her, the simple acts can be the greatest source of happiness for children. Her rabbits, feeding them with her gave me one of the happiest memories I still nurse. She was so calm and still, I loved being around her. Her name was Venera, that too I loved.

The downside of having great grandparents is of course seeing them going. The last summer she was with us I sat there with her holding her tired hands, she was 98, still independent and doing well, she was afraid she told me, she knew she had to go. 

I have never been able to see them and enjoy them as much as I would have wanted due to distances, I remember crying loud as a child at the end of every summer when the time came to say goodbye. We did everything possible to see them often and they came to visit often, but to me, it never felt enough. 

Clear memories of my grandfather on my father`s side come back too. He had so many stories of his youth, so much passion for his family and was so keen for us all cousins, children of his six children, to play together and stay together, keep in touch through life, he built something close to a family residence in order for us to be able to see each other as often as possible, mostly in the summer, gave houses to all his six children, land to all and gifted his family with land too out of fraternity and generosity. He raised his children with his wife with the strongest love and fraternity bonds that to this day I have ever witnessed in siblings. I remember my grandma's happiness and how she laughed when she put my baby brother in my old father's walker, it was an ancient model with no seat and my brother's chubby wobbly legs scrambled. He was not happy, she picked him up, laughed more, conforted him. I watched her being happy. I used to walk with her in her backyard, we picked berries, she showed me plants. I remember her smile and her insuline syringes. Sadly I was six when she went, too soon. The legacy behind however lives on. The four brothers and one sister of my father would do anything for each other. Their parents gave always the highest importance to family bonds. Grandpa was so in love with his wife, until well after she was gone, over ten years later, he spoke about how beautiful she was and how much he loved her. It was an early lesson of what I wished for in my own relationship. He had deep respect for his friends and his closest friend, the Count of his town, until the last year he lived he insisted on visiting the only daughter of his long gone friend, who by then was in her late 60ies and had no children, living mostly in London and returning to the family lands only once a year. He was there to visit her as he had promised his friend, her father, he would be there for her. 

At five years old I remember insisting on cutting a biscuit with a knife, for some reason I got away with trying and ended up slicing my finger. I remember to this day the warm touch of my grandma who held my bandaged finger till I fell asleep. Mums have no time for that, as a mum now, I know that well. But grandparents do. They infuse that patience and calm and love in children that no one else can match. The patience and care of my grandpa taking me to his lands to pick nuts and figs as a child, my little tantrums and their smiles. The little hand-made baskets I was given, the simple soothing things they would do for their grandchildren.

I feel sad in a way that due to the fact that many of us are having children later in life a whole generation will somehow miss out on being a young grandparent and the next generation will miss out on the invaluable treasure grandparents can be. Yes, we live longer, but no one is getting younger.

All of the above was possible thanks to the fact that my grandma married her ten years older husband at seventeen and had a baby, my mum, almost immediately, my own mother had me at twenty-five, and then off I went and only sat at thirty-two years old, seven months pregnant, in a birth class of first time mums where I was the youngest woman. 

The downside of my invaluable memories with my grandparents is seeing them aging and having had to say good bye once I had got to know them well. Seeing them dealing with the brutally miserable aging process. Losing their strength, losing some of their memories. A part of you goes, at the same time they live in you, but they are no longer there and every time the memory comes back, it stings.

Over the past few years I have done what I could to bridge distances. I have two grandparents left, and I treasure them. I have been flying my grandma over to visit us twice a year, visited whenever I could, face-timed, with my brother we massaged their tired shoulders, played cards, sat with them, asked them of their past. To bridge distances and my own guilt for not being closer this year I bought massage devices and sent massage therapists. Spent sleepless nights going through pictures of the past 90 years, together with my mother, to prepare the album of his entire life for my grandpa's 90th birthday. Fearing I would not make it as his health started to deteriorate 5 weeks before his big birthday. Some of his memories are gone. I was holding his hand on Easter Monday, relieved that despite the last few tough weeks he is doing better. His mind still works and memories are there but some are faltering. He recognises me, but asked me where do I live now. "Ah, I have a granddaughter who lived in England and now lives in Switzerland, works for a big company, my wife knows everything about her". Grandpa who is she I ask? Is it me you are talking about? "Ohhh yes of course it is you!". Somehow the memory doesn't overlap with the person at all times. Our minds are incredible places. Class 1927, he was the first boy in his town to complete higher education, helped me with mathematics homework during my long summer holidays, had a precise engineering job, could calculate faster than anyone I knew. Now memories are unclear. I pray he will recover most of his health but time is ticking and I cherish my own memories, grateful of the gems I have been given, wishing for my children and for the next generation to learn the same love and respect for our family treasures, for our past, for History.

M. 

What's your inner pace?

Last summer I was invited to a talent development offsite,  'women fit for success'. I very much enjoy and applaude these programmes and investments on the company's talents, but I do wonder whether tailoring programmes specifically for women doesn't make the problem of gender equality in the workplace even worse.

Nevertheless, I pack my overnight bag and off I go. The whole two days programme was very interesting, one thing in particular has hit a nerve, the pace calculator exercise. 

After a short networking lunch on day 2, that followed an intense morning and an even more packed day 1, we are asked to stand up from our chairs and start walking in circles around the room, following the pace that the workshop leader would indicate. 

Mentally I wonder 'Seriously, with all the emails piling up in my inbox, my endless to do list, why are we doing this random exercise now?' It took fifteen minutes before realisation hit home and I saw how important is my inner pace, at any given time of the day, and how I could make that work to my benefit. 

So we keep walking in circles, slowly, then fast, then very fast trying to avoid collision with the other twenty ladies, then almost running, then very slowly, then we are asked to choose our pace and keep walking. 

My pace of choice that afternoon after lunch, from 1 to 5, where 1 is slowly walking as if you are admiring art in a museum and 5 is rushing for the train in heels, was 2/3. I felt uncomfortable with 4 and 5, almost annoyed, and so I did with 1 and 2. 

How would my mind and body perform when forced out of their natural pace in a particular moment?

Sunday walks.  

Following the whereabouts of the youngest driver in the house. 

Being a 'morning person' I know that would I have done the same exercise at 9am through to 12pm, I would have gone for 4 or even 5, at 5pm to 8pm probably as well, but after lunch? My mind needs focus and slow pace, as much as it needs adrenaline in the morning and early evening. Your 'inner pace' can also change depending on the time of the year, after a regenerating holiday you would probably choose a pace 5 throughout the day as much as after a long year and a particularly tiring patch (erm) you would probably want to hide under the duvet, no I meant choose a pace 1/2 more often.

Our take away, you have guessed it, was to learn to tailor our days, workload, tasks, based on our personal natural pace. Not that often we are given the choice (hello 1pm meetings) but knowledge and self awareness always make you score higher.

M.

Walking down the Zurich lake on a Sunday in October during a 'pace 1' afternoon, reminded me of the funny picture below someone shared with me. 

On and Off the (Hedonic) Treadmill

I love May. It is normally a warm month in this part of the world, and in all the countries I have lived so far, Italy, UK, Switzerland, normally comes with a few bank holidays.

That long weekend and bank holiday Mondays that we are all looking forward to. Normally these long weekends follow a wonderfully sunny week and are kicked off by majestic storms, or even better, snowstorms. Last week we were playing in the garden in a T-shirt, come the weekend and we are looking for our snowsuits once again in the back of the wardrobe.

 I bet though, if most of us were to be asked what each bank holiday represents and why we celebrate, probably only a small percentage of us would be able to answer. Personally I had to look up on Google one too many bank holidays and celebrations this year and started wondering what it is and why do we forget? 

It is in our nature, we tend to take for granted a lot of what our grandparents and ancestors fought and died for. We do it as populations, and we do it as individuals in everyday life.

Every time we buy a new gadget, we experience something new or reach a goal, after the early euphoric moments we often quickly go back to a state of almost bored indifference or at best to a relatively stable level of happiness.   

This attitude has a scientific name: hedonic adaptation, or hedonic treadmill.

 Normally a yet more expensive gadget, a more intense adrenaline rush or a new goal achieved are never the solution that leads to a magic state of happiness. The risk is to be stuck on said treadmill.

Over two thousand years ago, stoicism followers, thought they had found an answer. The likes of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, used to apply a very efficient technic against hedonic adaptation.

Negative visualizations.

We have long known that "gratefulness" plays a big role for our happiness, the success of the "5 Minutes Journal" books and App leverages exactly this dynamic. But while books and applications these days ask you to list or focus on the positives of our lives, stoics went a tad farther and daily imagined their lives without the people, the objects, the job, the little luxuries they most treasured.

Without going that far and becoming stressed or obsessed, I find the above a theory worth remembering.

“The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the supposed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness. […] During the late ’90s, the concept was modified […] to refer to the hedonic treadmill theory which compares the pursuit of happiness to a person on a treadmill, who has to keep working just to stay in the same place”.

If more things/more money does not equal happiness, though, we should start challenging the paradigm: owning more things/earning more money is not necessarily positive.

A paradigm is, by definition, something you don’t challenge: a good example is the idea that more is good for you (on a larger perspective, the idea that an economy should tend to growth – but how sustainable is that?). In order to have more, you have to spend more. To spend more, you have to earn more money. Our purpose in life, though, should be happiness and balance.

I am "guilty" of running on that treadmill like everyone else, but find that being aware of where I stand daily is a big help to guide my day and my choices. When I am running too fast and realize that, contrary to the name of this website and for how much I try, I do not always own the way I live, I slow down and try to look at the bigger picture, at the kilometres run and those ahead.

When in doubt, stop and challenge yourself and the status quo.

Google asked a large sample of people whether they liked driving. All of them said they did, and went on to try Google`s new self-driving cars. 97% of those who had said they loved driving said they actually liked more being driven.

So are we really doing what we like, and liking what we are doing or we just like the idea of it all but would probably happily do differently?

“I’ll just say this, you’ll feel like Neo from the Matrix. Once you swallow the red pill of simplicity and see the hedonic treadmill at work, you’ll never want to go back.” (Eric LaForest / Elevated Simplicity).

“Morpheus: […] Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind”.

…Which will it be then? Red pill or blue pill?

Happy Monday! ;-)

 M.

Why do we work so hard?

'Why? One possibility is that we have all got stuck on a treadmill. Technology and globalisation mean that an increasing number of good jobs are winner-take-most competitions. Banks and law firms amass extraordinary financial returns, directors and partners within those firms make colossal salaries, and the route to those coveted positions lies through years of round-the-clock work.

Our social networks are made up not just of neighbours and friends, but also of clients and colleagues. This interlaced world of work and social life enriches us, exposing us to people who do fascinating things, keeping us informed of professional gossip and providing those who have good ideas with the connections to help turn them into reality.'

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/why-do-we-work-so-hard

M.

Second to none

I had been living in Switzerland for about a week when I first heard the gut-wrenching term “secondo”.  Technically it refers to the children of the immigrants who moved to Switzerland in the 50ies and 60ies, who even if born here are not Swiss but “secondos”, ie, second generation immigrants.

Unlike in the US and in many countries in Europe, no “foreigner” who is born here is Swiss, they will be able to apply for passport and citizenship once they are 18, just like any foreigner who moves here later in life and can apply for citizenship after 12 years.  That means you have people in their 50ies who have lived here their whole life, native speakers, people who have nowhere else to call home, who actually are not Swiss citizens nor passport holders.  Some do have a passport. Many don`t and many refuse to get one because they disagree with the system. I have seen this only too often.

In practice, this term implies somehow “second best”. As if we are sitting in the center of the world here. So we have the “Swiss-Swiss” and the non Swiss, secondos, immigrants, expats & co.

Last time I had heard of a similar two-class society it was in secondary school on my history book when a certain movement born in Germany in the 30ies started to refer to a part of the “original” population as “Aryan race”. We know how far that concept went.

An episode of last week is a clear example of the status quo. We are planning the refurbishment of our house and have been talking to a few builders. One in particular, who introduces himself as a “secondo”, Italian origin - although when talking to him I have to suppress the urge to correct him - is worth mentioning.  At the end of the meeting for some reason we mention that one of my cousins is a great architect. She lives and works in Italy, is a university professor, has a master degree and various post university degrees, works for beautiful projects around the globe. His reaction: “oh, I have been looking for a secretary; you can tell her if she is interested.”

So perhaps I am wrong but is he thinking that because she is A- Italian (happily) living and having a very successful career in Italy as an architect and B – a woman, she would be interested in a job as the secretary of a builder in Switzerland (who with all due respect has never seen a university classroom)? Never mind that she is the actual expert. Incredible how some secondos bring wrong concepts forward.

Probably no need to comment further on this one.

There are hundreds of studies that show how key is for companies to have a diverse workforce, not just in terms of nationality, religion and the likes, but also in terms of diversity of thought, experience and mindset. Indicators point to clear economic benefits and better environment for companies that score high on the diversity front.

If this is true for companies, I am fairly sure it applies to societies and families too.

Let us do ourselves a favour and drop this daunting and nerve-wrecking “secondo” term.

I will tell my children that the fact that they live and breathe three cultures and are native speakers in three languages is a big asset, not a liability. They are Europeans, they are world citizens, they have an international family and background, they were born here because they come from educated parents who could have lived anywhere in the world and chose to live here mostly for logistics reasons after having travelled the world and lived in different countries. I will tell my kids to think hard before ever judging people based on the place of birth and on stereotypes.

I will tell them to travel the world, to live abroad, to ask and challenge the status quo, to ask why, always. To fear, if anything, ignorance, to fight prejudice and dangerous stereotypes.   

I will tell my kids to check out people's brains, not nationalities, places of birth or skin colour. 

M.