The changing role of women worldwide

In recent weeks we have seen several events which symbolize the changing role of women. In global politics, on three continents, we have seen South America, in chile, elect its first woman President who did not take over from a dead husband. In Africa, Liberia inaugurated the first elected woman leader on the continent, while Finland re-elected a woman President, and Germany's first woman Chancellor visited Washington.

We continue to see women make more steps in business. Norway's law requiring that at least 40% of Board members of public companies be women, seems to be very successful. Countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Israel and many others have had women leaders. This will continue to increase over the next decade, and provides role models for many of our daughters, as well as affirmations for women of all ages.

The need to eliminate bureaucracy

Ironically, many of the poorest countries in the world have the greatest bureaucracy. In most developed economies, the need to streamline government and business is recognized. In many of the poor ones, the need to maintain unionized jobs or keep doing things the old way is given priority. Visa processes discourage vistitors and investors. Even getting a passport can be daunting. Setting up a business is a challenge and buying a cell phone is penalized.

Most poor countries would benefit from an almost complete elimination of bureaucracy, and allowing the natural energy of the people to flourish.

Transportation in developing countries.

India suffers from poor transportation. Railroads are slow and cumbersome, the road system is primitive and air travel is far less convenient and reliable than in the West. The road system is currently being transformed by a new plan to build a national network of highways, privately owned airlines are proving much better than government ones, but airportw are still inefficent. Britain buld an empire through control of the seas, and later railroads. The US Interstate Highway system enabled an enormous expansion of commerce. China has committed to a great modernization of its air and road transportation system - Chinese airports are a generation ahead of Indian ones in facilities and user friendliness.

Comments from my travels

Over the past six months, I have been fortunate enough to travel to Europe, Asia and Latin America. As a result, I have a number of observations about these areas relating to business there. I will be commenting on several of these in posts to come, but am listing a few of the topics I will cover:
The importance of transportation in developing economies
The need to minimize bureaucracy
Why a wide perspective is needed to be successful
How managers in different countries see many things very differently

sometimes it takes a new perspective

In the New York Times today, an article about Mike Leach, the coach of Texas Tech's football team made some excellent points. He gets extraordinary results from ordinary people by doing things differently. He does not do them differently for its own sake, but is one of the few top coaches who did not have a football playing background, but trained as a lawyer. As a result, he comes to each situation with a fresh pair of eyes. Not surprisingly, in spite of his track record, other football coaches avoid his methods and prefer to stay with received wisdom. Just as it took Lou Gerstner, a marketer from RJR Nabisco and American Express to turn around IBM, so someone with a new perspective can often do much better than someone who has too much experience in the industry.

Sadly, we see again and again, that companies look for someone who has done the same job elsewhere and expect them to do things differently.

How much are we genetically programmed?

One of the challenges of studying how ww think is that we are using our brains to study our brains. So we may even be pre-programmed to see things in a certain way. As a result, there are almost certainly some things we can not see objectively, just as the two dimensional creature can not see a three dimensional one completely. This is not the genetics of the individual, but rather the genectics of humanity. We may be disposed to think in certain ways which we consider logical, yet which extraterrestrials might not. If we even encounter such beings, that might provide us with some answers, or if our thinking is so different, we may never even be able to communicate.