YouSaid · the spoken record

Vivian Hunt

lines on the record: 31
first: 2021-10-04
most recent: 2021-10-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You've got to commit to act responsibly, make the decision that we're going to operate beyond just economic terms. You've got to commit to stakeholders broader than just your company, and you have to then put it into action.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We hope COP26 will be able to deliver an aligned global vision with a clear ambition and a shared framework for measuring the climate outcomes that we want as governments and business. Increased awareness, we're talking about COP in schools across businesses, you know, right through society. It's an opportunity for a global conversation. And then finally, business as a catalyst. I hope business, as I said, made commitments is very trusted, now can really begin to deliver. So that concrete framework and a real path for businesses to deliver is what I hope will come out of COP26.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Both are important, but I would bet on transformers. Sustainable change also requires scaling. If you have innovations that don't ever scale, your business might be creative and celebrated. You might make a lot of money. But scaling the improvements across a business system is when the benefits are available to a broader range of businesses, employees, and people.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I would say innovation. If you think about what's been transformative for economics and a healthy economic system, it's the ability to look at industrial productivity, transforming work practices, and frankly, innovations that we never thought were possible, enabled by technology.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, that doesn't mean that you're going to grow linearly or exponentially all the time. It's having a business that is agile enough to be able to respond to where opportunities are coming from. But it's about being steady with contingency, not about exponential growth. So you can sustain growth over time, but it requires you to be more granular and manage it from multiple sources.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Improvements that you can maintain over time, short, medium, and long term. If there's any criticism of stakeholder capitalism, it is that it's naive about the importance of short-term results. And so if you want to sustain a stakeholder informed approach, you have to be able to deliver within the quarter, within the year, three years, five years, ten years.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be successful to meet its goals for performance, its purpose, and along any dimensions of sustainability. And you've got to have big ambition around that. So I just would encourage leaders to be bold around those ambitions and not worry that they're not going to achieve it because the ambition is too big. If you're open to innovation, open to working in a collaborative approach with other people and have the humility to accept that you're going to make mistakes and ask forgiveness sometimes or need to redo some things in your business, that's an easier way to manage because you're not trying to be perfect. You give yourself the room and your business the room to make a few mistakes and learn from them.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Competence and reliability being good at your job, being good and excellent as a manager, pushing yourself to improve, I think is a requirement. So you do have to continue to be excellent at the day job, which requires curiosity, learning, willingness to change your mind. But that is core. Secondly is engagement and some level of intimacy. How do I get more closely connected to people? Not just as an individual talismanic leader, but as a management team. So it's not about just you doing it, but also allowing your team to bring their skills and strength. And then the final thing I would say is humility. Alana, you know, most business people know that there's probably a technology and business out there that is more innovative, faster, cutting-edge. We know that we've got to be competitive in a world that is changing. And so the humility and self-awareness to know that good ideas are everywhere. Talented people are everywhere. And you want to attract those to your business so it can continue.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, Vivian as a leader, or what was needed from my leadership was more personal and more human, and it was good enough, you know, so I allowed more of myself to lead. If you really thought as a person from a historically disadvantaged group, if women really believe their jobs wanted equality of outcomes for competent women, you'd be much more engaged in work. So this Challenge as leaders that we have to give more of ourselves to be able to activate a more engaged, authentic, trust-based response from our employees, not only for their productivity, but also so that genuinely is worthwhile and motivating. And so personally, that's been a journey for me, but I've seen a lot of our clients and leaders asking, how do I lead in a more purpose-driven and authentic way in this new environment?”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the 40% of jobs at CAN, at least all of our colleagues and clients are asking for new and different things from work. So the changing nature of work, the changing nature of management in a world where technology is going to allow us to do many more things. And the final thing I would say that really has changed is that you need to bring more of yourself as a leader to the job, you know, particularly as a black female, Alana. I'll just tell you real talk. I used to have very high boundaries between my personal life and my professional life. I did not ever want to be criticized as not being competent and able to deliver and do a good job. And that meant that I had a certain mask and veneer and formality that I interpreted as professionalism and protection at work. Okay, I'm really being honest now. But when I began to lower some of my own boundaries because”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We've obviously talked a lot about purpose and ESG, which I think is now permanently a part of business's strategies. Solving that is one question that I think we probably did not get systemically five or six years ago. Another area is definitely about how to manage people well in a more holistic way as an employer. I mean, if we've learned nothing from the reminder of the health crisis with COVID, it's that we need to communicate in a more empathetic and humane way and be engaged even more closely with our employees and colleagues. So the issue of how do you manage people, we describe it a little bit about hybrid working, you know, a new modern way of working that's going to be permanent post-COVID, but that describes it to me too narrowly. And I think how do you”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Bigger than just my company's footprint, I should probably be working on it with others in the industry and others in the value chain. And so that normally is a really simple way to say getting good practice and collaboration with other players might be the way to get better ideas and solve it.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Communities that are pre growth. They don't yet have the education skill set and capabilities to really attract investment in jobs. You know, you might still say, I'm committed to this local community, but I want to make sure some of those basics are in place, as opposed to expecting that community to just meet a certain bar, and I'll wait till you achieve it. And then I'll become interested in hiring or investing in skills. understanding that sometimes businesses might be great conveners, but they're not necessarily going to have all the content that you need to solve the problem. If you really are looking at systemic climate change impact, companies by themselves have already proven that by themselves they're not best placed to solve that. You need the expertise of the scientific, cultural, and other things who will be taking on those broader responsibilities. So I think of it really simply, Alana, if a problem in ESG is structured”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do really think your idea of a broader set of metrics with transparency that's beneficial for all stakeholders. That's why in our stakeholder analysis we encourage you to think about how is value defined from your stakeholders' point of view, the supplier, the employer, the community in which you live. Now, businesses are not always the expert at solving problems. So in the case of, for example, a vulnerable community where they have climate risks or they have an inconsistent education system or high health risk, some businesses not only don't know how to solve those problems, but shouldn't be taking on those responsibilities. But those are opportunities to convene networks in the public and private sector to help government or expert NGOs solve those problems. And that's where companies can convene around a community engagement. So if you think about”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Loyalty and engagement, increased productivity from their workforce that they believe that they have already fully funded the investments that they've made. And so I think there's a lot to be gained from sharing examples of sustainable business, good practices, because you can learn from that, adapt it to your own situation. And the benefits, frankly, are for all of us. Almost no company on its own can fully address the issue. You have to take more of a network and system approach.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And not having enough money left at the end of a month. So they are a great example of a company that focused on one thing, really supporting their employees and ensuring that all employees got to a net disposable income of 20%. So at least 20p left from every pound that we earned at the end of a month as a household. That requires a huge amount of trust with employees because you need to learn enough about employee situation to be able to help them. It required them to give stock to all employees, not just some. It required them to raise and adjust some wages in a fact-based way. It required them to give health insurance in the US, which is a major complexity and cost in many households, and a huge range of other things. But what's interesting is they've done that. They've accomplished it within one calendar year, and they've also seen huge returns in terms of reductions in attrition, increased.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. The vision, the steps and initiatives you want to take to deliver it, why that creates value for your stakeholders, and then executing against it. So I'll give you a couple of examples, not because the companies are perfect, but they have demonstrated the resilience. PayPal is a really good example of a company that both have the opportunity to relaunch itself. It separated into an independent company five or six years ago and really had profit and purpose at its core, serving small and medium businesses and really delighting its employees. But that was put to a test during the COVID epidemic when it found that it was providing lots of support and services for employees, but many employees, particularly in frontline jobs. In the US, they still had very fragile households. And part of that was, of course, concern about the disease and public health issues, but part of it was just income fragility.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be patient for you to just come back to them in 10 years. So I would just say we have to break the goals down into measurable steps so that you can make progress. If you look at Shell, it has a rolling three-year goals with a little bit of progress every year. And that is how you have to think about goals on all of these things because you still have to deliver the short-term business as well as ESG results, but it has to be building towards the bigger goals.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the skill for us is to be able to have really robust, challenging, evidence based debates about the right choices for sustainable business, be it around environment, social engagement, or governance, but not break our systems, not break our dialogue through that process. Over the long term of a long-term strategy, companies that want to be around in a hundred years, not just five, I think that's why we have to pay so much attention to ESG, because the issues that really are the context in which business is run are the issues that really are driving business. If you don't deliver short-term performance whilst waiting for those trends to have an impact, often shareholders and other stakeholders are not patient. So if you say sustainability is a 10-year issue, I'll get back to you in 10 years. Trust me, activists and your employees as stakeholders are not”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My definition is certainly broader than the old one of shareholder capitalism. Stakeholder capitalism is really a reinforcement and confirmation of what your company's strategy and performance is. And it's reminding management teams and boards that they have a responsibility to serve all of their stakeholders. Shareholders, of course, but employees, suppliers, activists, consumers, and the communities in which they serve. And if you don't have a really structured way of looking at who those stakeholders are, what their importance is to your company, your importance to them, it's almost impossible for you to have an effective strategy with them and to be trusted. We have the skills as business people if we apply the same granular product market consumer supply chain strategies that we apply in our business if we apply them to stakeholders.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With really robust governance, investor expectations and regulators, they found many ways to innovate. We can measure it now. And so I think that is the strongest reason why the change we're seeing on articulated purpose and ESG strategies can now be expected of businesses because we can measure them in ways that are sustainable over time.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Equity. You look at a company like PayPal that's measuring the net disposable income available to all of their employees and what the real living wage is. And they're seeing returns in terms of increased loyalty, attrition, more stability, trust from their employees even within the first year. Measuring diversity, equity, inclusion. There was a time in Europe where we thought we couldn't even ask colleagues about their personal circumstances, whereas now we know with employee permission, we can get a really rich profile of people's characteristics as well as experience. On governance, it used to be about just following the rules and hopefully not getting in trouble with the regulator. Now it's about what's the most innovative way to define and mutually change the boundaries. The work that a company like Unilever or Reliance around value chain innovation are all great examples of how working”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, one of the things that I think limited our ability to think past Milton Friedman's more narrow shareholder driven definition of capitalism was that the clear thing about shareholder returns and economic value, balance sheet, cash flow, and a P&L is you can measure it. And the equivalent terms that we can all understand. And measuring your environmental footprint, whether it be mitigation of your current practices, the value of innovation as you try and change, or renewals and adaptation, you couldn't measure it. And that's transformed in the last five or six years because of the quality of data and more creativity around quality of quantifiable and qualitative metrics. Similarly with S, how do you measure social impact? It's very woolly and it sounds very abstract.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The evidence really is overwhelmingly strong that it is intrinsic to higher performance in addition to being the right thing to do. Our research indicates that companies that have a balanced view of the short, medium, and long term as it relates to purpose and ESG see the returns in their revenue growth, their security and the quality of their investment, as well as their investment velocity, job creation, and sustainability, resilience. So there are so many ways in which there's alpha and high returns in terms of that and finding what it is for your business and how to apply it really is the challenge now.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think there are three things that help a manager and a leader today. Number one is, I think, 90, 95% of businesses in reaction at minimum in 2020 and 21 in reaction to a global shared health crisis, a global shared economic crisis, and a cry for more equal society. 95% of businesses have committed at a corporate level to being more engaged with their stakeholders and being more responsible in ESG. So as a leader, now the job is to figure out how. The second point is it's no longer about individual choice and agency or personal point of view. It's about the performance of our business that we all share and our collective responsibility to not be neutral about these issues, but rather find competitive advantage and better performance for our business. And the final thing I'd say is exactly to your point, Alana.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or inclusion on performance. So fortunately, we were able to do some pioneering work, link it to performance, and I would even say today many of our clients are ahead of where we are in terms of applying some of these principles. So what do high performing businesses do well? And it turns out all of them have more time and attention on purpose, linked to why they exist as a company, their superpower as a company, if you will, and they are also more active on environment, social engagement, and rigorous governance. Every single one of them, they're also all more diverse in terms of both representation as well as neurodiversity. When we saw there was a correlation with performance, that really excited us, but also gave us a lot of confidence to encourage businesses to think about it differently.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When I was first appointed to lead our office here in McKinsey in the UK and Ireland seven or eight years ago, I found the questions I was getting about my role in leadership really changed almost on that day from wanting to know about your industry expertise to more about your leadership skills. And obviously as an Afrocabean, American, British woman, a lot of people were asking whether being a woman made a difference, whether being black made a difference, whether being American in a British business culture made a difference. And I found those questions not helpful, Alana, if I'm honest with you. I wasn't personally offended. I just didn't think they had anything to do with my qualifications or performance. But then I also found we didn't have an evidence-based answer as to whether diversity actually matters in performance. Because, you know, back in 2007, 2010, there weren't a lot of analytic and evidence-based longitudinal studies about the impact of diversity, equity.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Have enough contingency in your performance so that you're confident, okay, we can build these things into our business plan, not just be sort of paddling like a duck underneath the surface, scrambling to deliver tomorrow's results.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mindset sounds like something that you are born with or might be intrinsic or inherent, but it really is just how you learn. And so being open to innovation, open to change. And so I think the mindset is one of learning, curiosity, exploration, but not just in a personal sense. How do you have those attributes in a business? So, for example, resource allocation. If you've got a certain amount of capital or a certain amount of cash that you're able to invest, he is 10% of that or 20% of that reserved for innovation. Do you have contingency to fail if something goes wrong? How much contingency and preparation did any business have for the pandemic? It turns out some businesses had a lot, others had very little. And so there's a lot you can do to make sure your business is able to have a mindset that's open to challenge, open to innovation, open to changes. But you have to”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I am incredibly aware that there are a number of advantages that I've had in my life, a stable, happy family, an excellent education, constructive colleagues, a wonderful apprenticeship with my clients in McKinsey. And I've always felt that anyone who had those same advantages would do equally well. You know, my mother says there's a lot of cute girls in the world, which I know now sounds a little bit sexist, but I think her point was to say, you've got to work hard and apply yourself so that you are worthy of the privileges and advantage that have been afforded to you and also that you do something with them, to whom much is given, much is required. And when you look at business, you see lots of people who don't have the same access to education, training, mentorship, coaching. And I just know that if they had equivalent access, they would have equivalent impact.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The skill is to be able to have really robust, challenging, evidence based debates about the right choices for sustainable business, be it around environment, social engagement, or governance, but not break our systems, not break our dialogue through that process.”
2021-10-04 · Intelligence Squared · Business Weekly: Dame Vivian Hunt on Stakeholder Capitalism and the Value of a Diverse Workforce · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source