Each fall, the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) hosts its Global Board Leaders’ Summit, the most recent of which was held in early October 2017. Major issues covered included artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, board composition and other corporate risk factors (which C-Suite looks at throughout this issue).
Changing demographics and psychographics of the workforce—and the board’s role in setting tone at the top—were also a recurring theme throughout the event. With more than 1,500 corporate directors in attendance at the NACD event, these threads of conversation are influential across the governance landscape and provide a look into what lies ahead for 2018. Corporate management and the board have to take a long, hard look at themselves and not only make sure that their backgrounds and experiences reflect those of their employees, shareholders and customers, but they also need to consider the changing attitudes of the culture at large as they look ahead.
For example, the millennial generation is maturing to become a driving force in corporate America. And with that, attitudes and perspectives that were once considered aberrations are now reflective of a much larger proportion of the workforce—on their way to becoming dominant. A great quote from a baby boomer attendee summed this up: “When we came into the workforce, we looked for a good job, and hoped we could find meaning there. Millennials enter the workforce looking for meaning, and they hope it pays.”
While overarching generational stereotypes can be problematic, there is truth to this. With the perception of endless choice and opportunity, and the belief from some that the future of automation will make humans expendable (whether or not this will come to bear), corporate leaders will have to contend with both the perceptions and the realities of a rapidly—and drastically—changing culture in their offices.
In addition, “diversity” has become a centerpiece of corporate focus in the last few years, which has been roundly accepted as important but rarely defined explicitly. One panel in particular stepped outside the boardroom to look at diversity in the culture at large, highlighting why this topic of conversation has reached a fever pitch at the top of the corporate ladder.
Entitled “Divided We Fall: Social Cohesion for a New America,” this panel featured thought leaders on religion and its influence on society and politics, a topic rarely discussed in the workplace due to its social sensitivity. As demographics continue to shift so that there is no majority, the lock on cultural power will wane, creating a vacuum since no one group will own the table. The question posed as this shift occurs was not whether we are divided as a country, which is a foregone conclusion. Rather, the question is how to create a common identity among these divisions? Indeed, boards are behooved to push management to consider how diversity of their workforce influences the impact of political and social issues. In today’s world, leadership is less and less about control and more about facilitating an environment for voices to be heard and to interact, the panelists concluded.