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Sep 18
2024
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Helen Whitten
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The government is telling civil servants and organisations that employees should have the right to request working from home from Day One of their employment. They are also saying that staff should not be disturbed out of hours. Of course, employees should not be abused or over-worked but is it really up to a government to dictate how individual companies work? Surely there are already laws that prevent exploitation? Each company is so different – one SME might be employing 1-10 people, another large organisation at least 3000. You can’t demand a one-size-fits-all practice and expect it to work.
The argument is that WFH boosts productivity but I am not aware that this is always the case, considering that there has been widespread working from home in the public sector and whether you are trying to get a driving test, a change in Land Registry, finalisation of probate, completion of a Court case or a response from HMRC I suspect we have all experienced anything but efficient service in recent years. There is little we can do about this in the public sector as there is no choice to go elsewhere – unless we all band together and complain that our taxed money is not providing the service we can justifiably expect.
But in the private sector bad service means clients go elsewhere. If they go elsewhere the business folds and no one wins. A business is not run for the sake of its employees, it is run for the sake of its clients and through the company’s success the employees also can succeed and thrive. The employee needs to feel motivated, for sure, and in this they need to understand that there is a virtuous circle of performance. We have, in our coaching practice, a motto of motivation that if the individual does well=the company does well=everyone does well, including the general economy. This boosts happiness as well as performance and productivity.
In the meantime, Amazon are insisting their staff return to the office five days a week. Neither solution is perfect. Managers need to have individual discussions with new recruits and staff so as to tailor what works for the individual and what works for the business. I wrote an article about this same topic in September 2020 and I believe everything I said there still applies, so I have reprinted it below. People need some time in the office to learn, bond, create, have social groups and develop a sense of belonging and loyalty to their employer and I can’t believe that it isn’t possible for the employer to also arrange to give them time for home commitments, so that the employee is not stressed or pulled in too many directions.
Similarly, regarding timing of calls or emails in or outside working hours, for some people it suits them better to be contacted in the evenings when they have put children to bed. Often there is a simple equation to be negotiated but personally I do not believe it is up to the government to tell a small business how to manage these sensitive areas, or to give new employees the right to demand impractical ways of working.
Obviously if your team are scattered across the world there is no ‘office’ to go into and people can work from home, yet most of those teams that I personally know make sure that they get together regularly for a few days at a time to share knowledge and ideas. Digital nomads can enjoy travelling and working from anywhere in the world for a time yet can be disconnected and end up somewhat of an ‘outsider’ from a regular team who see each other more often.
Young people today can be stuck in their parents’ home, eating lunch with retired Mums or Dads, whereas when we started work, equipped with our Luncheon Vouchers, we got together as a social group to go to the local café or cafeteria. Being in the office helped us learn how to be professional, turn up on time, respect others, dress and behave appropriately and develop a mutually fulfilling network. There is a balance in all this so don’t force the young to be stuck home alone, even if they need a bit of encouragement to come out of their burrows. I worry that if we don’t do this there will, in a few years’ time, be a reduction in competence as these people reach managerial level but have not observed managerial or leadership practices other than from occasional Zoom screens. I would be interested in your views…!
My article from September 1 2020: Are business leaders really thinking of the long-term business and emotional consequences of their staff permanently working from home? It may have been a delight for some people not to have to commute and to spend time at home but for others it has been lonely and isolating. We have had an exceptional spring and summer: how will it feel once the English winter of grey clouds, cold and rain arrives, I wonder?
Many years ago I was on the Committee of the Work-Life Balance Trust. Our aim was to get work-life balance, flexible working, job shares and home-working on the agenda of Government and business. We did a pretty good job and since that time, back in 2002, work life has transformed in many ways and working options are far more readily accessible than they were then.
But the point of the changes we were lobbying for was to enable people to have autonomy over their lives and flexibility to manage family, work and life in a more manageable way. We were not suggesting that companies enforce home-working on their staff and whilst I accept and understand that we needed to do this during lockdown I am concerned at the tendency for organisations to now demand that all or most of their staff continue to work from home.
Home-working suits some people more than others. Those at the top of businesses and therefore making these decisions are no doubt living in pleasant houses in nice surroundings and are likely to be – though not always – in settled relationships with children either at home or who have left home. They are also at the top of their game whereas those they manage are on a career ladder, which is far harder to climb without access to the hubbub of an office or shared space.
I’d like these leaders to give a little thought to those who are living in cramped apartments without much personal space, or having to stay with their parents longer than they might otherwise have done, or are in a flat-share where the other person is also home-working and potentially talking too loudly on their phones, or interrupting.
They may have young children, toddlers, babies, making a noise and demanding their time. I know quite a few stressed parents who have had to work well into the early hours of the morning after having to supervise their young children during the day. People can do this for a short time but a loss of sleep does little for cognitive capacity or the immune system in the long term.
There are those who are extravert who love to spend time with people and can’t, so have to make more of an effort to create their social life outside the office. Or an introvert who too easily becomes a hermit. Or someone living with an abusive partner who used to get some relief and support from going to an office and now is stuck in hell.
Some people can manage the discipline of a home-working day, others get distracted and pet the cat or fill the washing-machine. The environment of an office gives people structure, routine, a sense of purpose and contribution, whether this is in the public or private sector, a doctor’s surgery or factory.
Many of my generation and our children met their spouses at work – you spent time together, had much in common and ended up falling in love. Much harder to do that from the isolation of a flat, Tinder or no Tinder. So how easy will it be for young people to forge new relationships and meet their future spouse? These young are sitting at home behind a screen all day with hormones raging and no place to go – not surprising we are having all these illegal raves!
Then there is all that you are missing that can enhance your career – watching how your bosses comport themselves in the office with their fellow senior managers, with their direct reports, with clients. One can learn so much from just watching people walk about an office, or hearing how they discuss a business project on the telephone.
How will a boss ‘spot’ the person who has talent beyond what they are currently doing? It is so often that one perceives the hidden talent in others through a chance remark, or in observing how well they manage a particular situation. So much harder to do this when all you receive is emails or online output, only seeing the person physically via Zoom.
The creativity of a group of diverse people or diverse thinkers come to more innovative solutions than any one person on their own. Someone you bump into in the corridor or chat a problem over with on the other side of the desk can often have the answer to a challenge, or the information you require. They can share with you what has worked or not worked, inform of best practice whatever kind of organisation you work in.
There are meetings – often thoroughly tedious and unproductive, perhaps, but one does learn how to chair, how to speak up with an idea, how to listen, and can gain the cross-fertilization of information from other departments. And the banter that lightens the discussion can often bring a negotiation to a close more easily than plodding through a process in the sterile world of online meetings. Plus the fact that many deals are done at the coffee break, and that you forge social and business relationships with colleagues who can remain an important part of your networking circle for the rest of your life.
Yes, I know all this can be done on Zoom or Microsoft Teams or whatever but it is just not the same. I remember some of our clients discussing flexible working many years ago and remarking that one had to be careful that people didn’t go ‘native’ – that meant that they almost forgot who they were working for, lost that sense of pride or belonging. The solution was to make sure they came into the office frequently enough to bond and remember the organisation, product or service they were representing.
Of course, people can save themselves from the ordeal of commuting. I remember some of my clients leaving home regularly at 4.30am and not returning until after 8pm. Too long a day. But now the trains and tubes are empty and all those small businesses that relied on the working population for their income will go bust. And if the economy goes bust we all suffer – and not just us, people all over the world who may supply the goods from India, South America or the Far East, could face poverty. People suggest that the provincial cities may revive as a result of these changes but if everyone is stuck away on their computers all day there is no great reason for this to happen. We have to get out and about.
And what does all that sedentary computer time do to our bodies and brains, I wonder? Our brains are plastic. They alter literally every day as we think or adapt to new tasks or ways of working or living. Habituating to seeing people through a screen rather than in real life is bound to change our perceptions, limit our social and emotional intelligence, potentially also our empathy. We are detached, possibly less able to pick up those intuitive messages that you gain from a tiny cue of body language, tone of voice, eye movement, that gives away how the other person is feeling or what they are planning. So much harder to do this through a screen. And as for our physical health, many people had gyms within their office space and would use them before or after work or in their lunch break. This could possibly be harder to find, and more expensive, where they live.
Wonderful to have flexible working, to be able to work from home for part of the week. But it needs to be a choice and something that is negotiated by a manager and their team individually. This blanket decision that some organisations are making that everyone should now work from home does not make financial sense as far as the nation’s economy is concerned. It does not make social or emotional sense and it cannot make sense with regards to personal growth, team development and the nurturing of individual and organisational enterprise. Let’s get back to the fray and try to reboot our economy, otherwise we shall all suffer.
Aug 31
2024
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Helen Whitten
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I was reading an article last week that reported that Gen Z do not answer their phones. I have heard also on Oliver Burkeman’s Inconvenient Truth series on Radio 4 that Gen Zs find it stressful to pick up the telephone to order a pizza, and now I read that they don’t want to talk to waiters in restaurants and would rather order via a QR code (anathema to me!).
All this takes me back to 1968 and being 17 years old, in my first job at Bodley Head publishers. My kind boss, Guido Waldman, would ask me to make a telephone call for him to a literary agent or maybe an author, or simply to book a restaurant for him. Was I stressed? Absolutely! In fact, as it was the 1960s and everyone smoked, I would light a cigarette before making that call (not something I recommend!). Somehow it gave me the courage to pick up the phone.
Am I glad he pressed me to make these calls? Absolutely, as each time I made a call it became easier to make the next and eventually I could make those calls without lighting a cigarette, and in fact quite enjoy the conversations I might end up having with an agent or author. What else did it do for me? Hone my social skills, build my network of contacts, discover that people I imagined might be terrifying were actually incredibly easy and friendly. And, as life and my career moved on from place to place, I came to realize that all those contacts were invaluable and, who knows, the person I was speaking to might one day become my next boss or my client when I set up my business.
So when I read that an employer, when interviewed, said that he felt he should adapt his own expectations that his employees should answer his phone calls I thought no, absolutely not. He is their boss. He is there to encourage them, to demonstrate to them that it is polite to answer a phone call, that it isn’t necessarily scary and that in fact it is their responsibility, in working for him, to answer his calls and make calls if necessary.
What we don’t do we lose, or never gain, the ability to do. If we don’t drive on a motorway for a long period we find it far more stressful the next time we do it. The brain is a ‘use it or lose it’ machine and has the capacity to adapt right until the day we die but we have to prompt it to do so.
It is natural to feel shy in company when one is young (and later too sometimes). It is natural to find making or answering a call stressful when one does it for the first time, but we can learn, step by step, to master this art, just as we learn to master a new app on our mobile phone.
I think it was on Oliver Burkeman’s programme that I heard a young person say that they did not think they should feel uncomfortable in situations they face. Yet life is endlessly uncomfortable and this self-made rule is impossible to achieve. We must help young people realize that life is about learning to manage challenges and that self-confidence as well as competence is gained by pushing one to do what is uncomfortable – provided, of course, the task is legitimate and achievable. A useful phrase in such a circumstance can be “I would rather I didn’t have to do this but I can manage it if I do…!”
The change in how young people communicate was brought home to me again recently when on a writing holiday in Crete. We were sitting in quite an upmarket bar in Chania and these three beautiful young girls, probably around the age of 19, came in. They sat down and ordered their cocktails and then rather than chatting to one another, each one of them was on their phone, raising a glass to their followers on Facebook or Tiktok or whatever. Hardly a word was exchanged between them as they were too busy interacting with their screens.
Perhaps we need to help them develop the art of conversation. This is surely possible. My older sister was very shy when young and my mother helped her to learn to ask questions so that the other person did most of the talking. When business coaching clients of mine were shy about going to client meetings or business conferences, we worked out topics of conversation together, as well as questions they might ask and pieces of information they were happy to share, so as to boost their confidence when they walked into the room and were faced with a crowd of strangers.
In thinking about all this I came to realize that the loss of the landline has also made the randomness of who one speaks to nearly extinct. The landline used to sit in our hallway, as it did for most people, and so anyone who was passing by would answer it. The person calling might not be seeking to speak to the person who picked up the call but it meant that one had random short conversations with many different people – a mother or father-in-law, an uncle or aunt, a brother or sister, the husband of a friend, a child or teenager, a boss or client, etc. It taught one to respond to many different types of people. Today, one phones direct, on one’s mobile phone, to the person one wants to talk to, on their mobile phone, and so we miss out on those incidental conversations we might have. It has changed the family dynamic radically. We end up with one-to-one relationships with our sons or daughters or friends and lose those incidental conversations with others in the extended family circle.
As I am a worrywart it then got me thinking that without a landline how does a child phone 999 if something goes wrong, should their parent’s mobile be nowhere to be seen or they don’t know how to use it? Hey ho, but that’s just typical anxious me.
Learning to converse can be unnerving at any time of life. Sitting at table over a meal and experimenting with topics of conversation can certainly help young people develop the flexibility to talk to different people in different situations. We shall never get this perfectly right, but we do get better at it, though I still, aged 74, get shy in certain situations and I think that is quite natural, not something that requires a label. Nor do I think others should adapt to make me feel ok – it’s my issue, not theirs, and I continue to work on it.
I empathise, therefore, with the anxiety Gen Zs might feel about answering a phone call but I encourage them to do it as often as they can and they will discover that their brain will adapt to help them manage these random conversations and, who knows, they might just thoroughly enjoy talking to someone who has phoned them. Or that call might even open up an opportunity for them that they had never dreamed possible.
Jul 25
2024
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Helen Whitten
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Back in September 2019 I wrote an article, I Worry for the Girls, about my concerns for the safety and wellbeing of young girls in a changing world of porn, trans and a more diverse society. Five years on I read in the Yorkshire Post of 23 July that reports of violence against women and girls have risen to an even more worrying level. In the same week, J D Vance referred to “childless cat ladies” implying that Kamala Harris and other childless women “have no direct stake in America”, not taking into account that women are quite often heartbroken that they cannot have a child and it certainly doesn’t mean that they don’t play their part in society.
But his words are an example of the derogatory way that some men can describe women and my generation have certainly had our fair share of being insulted and spoken down to by men for much of our early lives. When I went to study in Florence in 1967 I remember having to carry a rolled-up umbrella on the buses in order to push off the wandering hands of Italian men, and being nervous walking back to my apartment at night when men would follow you down a dark street as if taking some pleasure in frightening you. When I worked in the Middle East not so long ago several of the women reported that they could not walk to the shopping mall on their own without being harassed. Throughout much of the world women have been designated a lower status and continue to be subjected to demeaning and violent behaviour such as FGM.
But here, in the UK, we have worked hard to overturn this kind of behaviour. At many schools in the 1950s and 60s girls were not encouraged to go to university or into a profession but to become a secretary, nurse, or hairdresser. By the 80s and 90s we were proud to see that women could be just as good a lawyer, doctor or scientist as men were, and ensured, as practically as possible, that salaries were equal for equal work.
But in the last decade or so we are sliding backwards and I feel we need to become far more aware of this so as to protect our daughters, granddaughters and nieces. We have witnessed in Iran and Afghanistan how a society can switch from allowing women and girls’ education and flourishing to brutally preventing the freedoms of women to wear what they want, do what they want or to be educated. We must not take these rights for granted and must keep a wary eye open for any infringements in this country.
The police report on violence this week spoke of an explosion of misogynism that has derived from porn and influencers like Andrew Tate but it starts in the home and not all cultures treat women with the same respect. It is how a father talks to his wife or daughter, how a brother talks to his sister, how an uncle talks to his niece, how a man talks about women in his male group. It is how a teacher talks to a girl in class in comparison to how they talk to a boy. In the words, voice tone and body language a child knows whether they are given the same status as the males in their family and society or not. When I grew up, as I mentioned, girls were often not sent to the same level of school as their brothers and a son might be sent to university where the girls might be sent out to work in a shop but we have come so far since then. Let’s not lose it.
The lyrics of some hip hop and rap music can be shockingly misogynistic and yet this music has been embraced by politicians and celebrities alike despite this. The NHS has blithely deleted the word “woman” from countless posters and notices even in the context of maternity and obstetric services. See https://millihill.substack.com/s/the-word-is-woman for examples.
On the Radio 4 programme Beyond Belief a Muslim woman spoke about polygamous marriage, which is occurring here in the UK under Sharia law. One of the presenters spoke of the anguish this causes some of the women involved who feel replaceable and how inevitably it is not financially easy for any man to maintain several households to the same level. When I mentioned my discomfort of this practice to a C of E priest I admit I was shocked when he responded “there wasn’t much monogamy in the Old Testament” as if that somehow made it ok. But, I protested, those women 2000+ years ago had few rights, no reliable contraception, little independent income and therefore no power to object and that surely we had come some way since then. But here in this country today there is still polygamy and of course it is only men who have the rights but any wife not married legally under British law has no legal protection when it comes to divorce, child maintenance or redress so is left vulnerable.
I feel blessed but also proud that we have enabled women to express their intelligence, creativity and perspectives with freedom here and throughout most of the Western World. We are 50% of the population and have every bit as much right to exist and express ourselves in life and work as any man. We should not feel fearful of male violence or abuse when walking down the street nor in our homes. But we have seen in the USA how these rights can be taken away from us, how in Afghanistan girls still cannot attend school and in Iran how women can be executed for speaking up for themselves.
It is surely important that each one of us, male and female, become aware of how these rights can slip away and be brave enough to call out threatening or abusive behaviours. We need to talk to our sons and grandsons and help them stand firm against anyone encouraging any kind of misogynistic behaviour. We are talking about their sister, daughter, mother, cousin, niece. We must put a stop to this escalating disrespect and violence.
Jun 09
2024
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Helen Whitten
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My beautiful granddaughter, Emmeline, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at the age of 8. She had been tired, thirsty and going to the loo frequently. Luckily her mother looked up the symptoms and she was taken to her GP who immediately sent her to St Mary’s Paddington. There she stayed for several days while they diagnosed her Type 1 and endeavoured to stabilise her condition.
It was here in the hospital that Emmeline, my son Rupert and his wife Jendy, learnt about what it meant for Emmeline to learn to live with Type 1 and for them, as parents, to support her and manage this condition. It was here in the hospital that they came into contact for the first time with JDRF, the Junior Diabetes Research Fund, and all the wonderful support they give to children, their parents and to the specific research involved in both understanding and managing diabetes but most importantly to finding a cure.
My son and his family were in shock. So was I. I shall always remember taking his call and having to go and sit down for several minutes afterwards as I digested what this meant. Type 1 Diabetes is an autoimmune disease, unlike Type 2. It involves finger pricks, blood tests, injections, the worry of her levels going either too low or too high, the impact on her physiology over time.
It was a huge learning curve for Rupert and Jendy. The testing kits, the administration of the finger pricks and injections, learning that everything she ate or even drank had to be calculated for the carbohydrate content and then calculated again to consider what she needed once any food had been weighed precisely. Like other parents in this situation, they experienced many sleepless nights watching over Emmeline, fearful that she might lose consciousness or worse. It’s tough enough to be a parent but with this condition everything suddenly gets harder and more complicated.
They, and I, were also in grief. I believe we still are. The grief that our beloved girl has to manage this every day and will have to do so for the rest of her life. And that they, as parents, cannot watch her enjoy a care-free childhood in the way that other children do, nor now, as she becomes a teenager, will she be able to enjoy as carefree an adolescence as her friends can. For sure she will need to be even more wary around alcohol and always to keep measuring her carbs and keeping track of her levels. It is a relentless 24/7 process for her and her parents, as it is for all who have or are caring for someone with the condition.
A few months after diagnosis luckily Emmeline was able to go onto the continuous loop system with the Dexcom monitor and insulin pump. It’s a game-changer in terms of managing Type 1 as it continuously measures her blood sugar levels and the pump administers insulin to keep her balanced. The algorithms in these systems were developed using JDRF funding. In addition to the continuous loop system both her parents can now track what is happening via their Apple watches so that they could be in a business meeting in the City somewhere several miles away from her but be able to see if she was going low and ring the school to alert them to take action and give her glucose.
But even with the pump system her levels can vary. As a child grows, as she does PE at school, or as her hormones rocket around, her body can go out of balance.
Inevitably this limits her normal childhood activities such as going for a sleepover at her friends’ houses. How can you ask a friend’s parents to get up in the middle of the night to adjust the pump should it need to be calibrated? And so she would come and stay with me because of course as her Granny I will never mind getting up in the night to make sure she is healthy. And gradually as Emmeline has learnt to manage herself, and her friends’ parents have acclimatised themselves to her needs, she does now go for occasional sleepovers and school trips. But these are not without their worries and hiccoughs.
And yet, now aged 13, she is marvellously brave and stoical and gets on with life, and we are all very proud of her. She can still have bad days and her parents still have to be up at night when her levels are out of kilter and this will continue for her lifetime – you may have read about how the actor James Norton, who is Type 1, has to manage his condition on stage and secrete glucose tablets amid the props of the plays he is in.
There are around 35,000 children and young people diagnosed with Type 1 in the UK. My cousin’s grandson in Switzerland was diagnosed at the age of 2 and some children are diagnosed even earlier, so there are a large number of families experiencing the challenges of caring for a child with this autoimmune condition. The work JDRF do to support the children and their parents makes a huge difference.
JDRF’s information was hugely supportive in helping Rupert and Jendy become familiar with the challenges involved, and also what to expect in the future – it provides them, the whole family and other children and parents with real hope. JDRF has research programmes that are tackling the multiple ways in which this condition can be managed, prevented or cured across technology, immunotherapy, stem cell treatments and more.
And so I ask that you donate some money to JDRF because not only do parents of Type 1 children, and the children themselves, receive such wonderful emotional and practical support from this charity but also, and so importantly, JDRF are working every day towards a real cure for this debilitating and demanding condition. We really pray that there will be a breakthrough soon, and of course this requires investment in the research.
On June 22nd I am taking part in the JDRF One Walk to fund-raise and if you are able to donate a sum to this, however large or small, we shall all be eternally grateful. The link is https://support.jdrf.org.uk/fundraisers/helenwhitten/one-walk-london-2024
May 23
2024
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Helen Whitten
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A wave is about to crash down on us in the form of AI programmes and robotics. There is no question that this will happen. The question is can we use this new and amazing technology wisely? And the second question is could philosophy help us to do so?
There is a major difference between being clever and being wise. Making a clever break-through or clever innovation may not, in the long run, prove a wise decision for humanity. We are seeing how Smart phones and social media are interrupting the natural development of children’s social lives and beginning to wonder what to do about it. This wave has already crashed and it is difficult to reverse it now.
We have witnessed recently with the Horizon Post Office scandal the terrible destruction that can occur when IT technology is allowed to run rampage without the humans controlling it stopping to reflect on the consequences. What makes a group of adults become ‘wilfully blind’, in Margaret Heffernan’s excellent phrase, to what is happening before their eyes? To knowingly do injustice and harm to others?
Technology can. It can deskill us. We give way to what we assume is something cleverer than we are. We can see this in our own lives when we submit to a SatNav’s directions although we know a route like the back of our hand and have a better way to go. Garage mechanics become deskilled as so many parts of a car’s engine are now monitored by computer rather than by hand. If the computer fails, they are lost. Medics similarly are being led by scans and computer diagnostics where they used to make the diagnosis themselves. And yes, this can sometimes be more accurate but where a scanning or X-Ray machine is not available or there is a long delay before screening, then that medic needs to retain the confidence to make the diagnosis without technology. I have personally heard of two near-deaths caused by burst appendix because a doctor was waiting for an X-Ray machine, where in a previous era it would have been up to the medic themselves to make the diagnosis for surgery. We have to watch this tendency.
There are all kinds of clever individuals who are creating AI technology and there are many brilliant applications for it but how can we encourage the developers to stop and reflect on the wisdom of their inventions? Or the ethics? Does there not need to be a wise figure in the room to nudge them in the direction that benefits humanity rather than just makes their business wealthy and successful? Could, in fact, that wise figure even be AI-generated?
I was reading some Plato the other morning, as you do, and it occurred to me how far governments of countries and governance of business environments have diverted from his ideas of how to govern. He predicted how Athenian leaders would gain power by telling voters what they wanted to hear rather than defining a strategy for the future and a set of principles and values by which to direct its course. His solution was to ensure that politicians worked for the good of the state and adhere to their principles through contemplation and reflection of the good rather than the need for a vote. He was an elitist, yes, and believed that leaders should be well-educated generalists but should have studied mathematics and philosophy if they were to govern well. Philosophy, after all, is the love of wisdom.
I think his concept was that the ideas, strategy, principles and direction should be created by the leaders and the public servants should be those who excelled at administration and project management. He saw the ethics of the state as essential as the driver and shaper of individual action. When there is a lack of principle in government, therefore, this can lead to lack of trust and a rottenness within society. As Bob Garratt’s book suggested, Fish Rot from the Head.
So back to my point about could AI actually drive the ethics, this would surely be all about how any AI innovation is programmed. Fill it full of rubbish and we will get rubbish. Fill it full of evil and we will get evil. Fill it full of Plato and the wise words of other philosophers then perhaps we could receive wisdom?
OK, this may sound far-fetched but when I look back over the technological innovations I have witnessed in my lifetime I observe that since my family rented our first television in around 1955 we have watched some amazing programmes and yet now, with all the streaming channels available, there is a preponderance of mindless game shows and a vast amount of violence depicted on screen. Couldn’t we do better? Couldn’t someone in the Board Room encourage scriptwriters to stop and reflect on whether they could produce more uplifting dramas?
People are turning off 24/7 global news because they can’t stand so much negativity brought into their sitting rooms. Human beings need hope and it is clear that our younger generations are desperate to be fed some optimism. And it isn’t as if there isn’t hope to be had, for even with all the problems we have in the world today, including climate change, there is nothing to say that we don’t have the ability to find solutions for these problems. The key is to believe that we can do so, otherwise people give up.
Plato believed that the health of a society depended on minds being fed with education and inspiration to instil a sense of moral value, a wish to contribute to their community. He felt that children should not be exposed to negative images, or exposed to literature that glorified lying or violence or lack of self-control but should be provided with examples and role models of justice and self-discipline. I think he would be pretty horrified by Naked Dating or the scenarios exposed during this year’s Eurovision Song Contest!
My point isn’t that governing politicians or boards of directors should give way to AI technology. It is that perhaps there could be an AI programme that stood in the corner of the room, so to speak, to ask leaders to stop and reflect on whether an action was wise, or ethical, whether it would benefit humanity for the greater good or only benefit one political party or one tech company. If an AI robot was programmed with the wisdom of the ages could it not make decision-makers stop for a moment and contemplate in stillness the potential consequences of any future actions? This should happen anyway, of course, but we only have to look at Horizon and other recent examples of political, medical and business malpractice to realize that this is not happening.
Could an AI robot be the Oracle in the Room, not to force a decision but to make those responsible for it consider the wise and altruistic option rather than the merely selfish one?
May 15
2024
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Helen Whitten
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I owe a lot to the late Dame Shirley Conran, who died on 9 May 2024. She and her peers were the forerunners of the feminist movement. We may forget that women did not have easy access to finance or equality until after the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975. Shirley and her generation wouldn’t take no for an answer and she came to realize that education, communication and the ability to add up and be able to make your own money were the essential ingredients for an empowered life, whether male or female. She not only wanted that for herself but set out in her own inimitable fashion to make it happen for other girls and women.
This she did through her books – the sexual liberation suggested in her blockbuster novel Lace and her more practical suggestions in Superwoman. She also pursued the interests of women through her philanthropic projects and this is where I first met her, in the 1990s. I had just set up my coaching and training business, Positiveworks, which was focusing on how to provide individuals with the personal and professional skills to make their work and home lives easier. I had a specific interest in work-life balance and attended the Mothers in Management conference at the Savoy which Shirley had arranged. I was hesitant to introduce myself to her as she presided over the conference in her wonderful white trouser suit but, as has been the experience of many other women involved in her various projects, she saw in me things of which I had not previously thought myself capable. This was quite a talent of hers as it provided her at the same time with individuals (not all women) who had the skills and know-how that she did not specifically have herself but from which she felt her current project could benefit.
And so shortly afterwards she suggested I become Deputy-Chair of the Work-Life Balance Trust, which is what Mothers in Management transformed into, and that I run sessions at conferences and also create a CD-Rom, through the sponsorship of BT, on the topic of Help Yourself to a Better Life. This was a seven-step self-development programme to enable individuals to consider, analyse and create a life that reflected their priorities and helped them feel in control of their time.
More recently Shirley turned her attention to the subject of learning and specifically of maths and its importance in everyone’s lives. She set up the Maths Anxiety Trust with a variety of experts in the field of mathematics and of education, and worked alongside Caroline Shott at Learnus and the Learning Skills Research Foundation. She tested some of her theories out at Langley Park Girls’ School with my colleague Diane Carrington and later created panels and interventions to help people, but girls and women in particular, to develop confidence and capability in maths. Through this Diane and I created another CD-Rom, Launching Yourself, which led us to write our book Future Directions, Practical Ways to develop Confidence and Emotional Intelligence in Young People.
There was a legacy of women releasing the responsibility for finance to their husbands. This wasn’t always the case as in certain families the man would pass the money over to his wife but there were many other cases where women assumed that their husband was in control, knew what he was doing and they took no interest, only sometimes to discover, should he die, that the family were deeply in debt.
Shirley realized how important it is for girls to feel at ease with numbers, to understand interest rates, to seek to save and invest money, to consider their pensions and to feel in control of their lives as individuals. As a business coach I shared with her my experiences of coaching women managers and how often they shied away from asking for a raise where their male colleagues felt no such reticence. We studied the reasons and the potential difference in values and interests and discovered there were massive discrepancies in financial security for women, especially when it came to pensions. Shirley had lived this experience herself and wanted to pass on her tips to others. The Maths Anxiety Trust provides support in this and many other ways.
It takes courage to make things happen. You can’t be a shrinking violet and Shirley was not. She had exacting standards and huge ambitions. She drew people to her through this commitment and also because she was generous. She gave philanthropic donations to her old school, St Paul’s Girls’ School, and to many other institutions. She also was gracious in giving credit where credit was due.
She was an extraordinary woman and I don’t suppose younger women can fully appreciate how much she and her generation of feisty women did to change the shape of women’s experience in the world. We should all be grateful to her, to them, for this, and make sure we hold onto those rights for our grandchildren’s sake, and in her memory.
She changed my life in her own way, giving me confidence, giving me opportunities with my business that I might not have had without her. I am not alone. I know I speak for many of us who knew her and received her generosity of spirit.
Some women have the reputation of pulling the ladder up after them when they achieve success. Shirley was not that woman. May we adopt her example.