Laura Wolfe Coaching LLC

Supporting the Evolution of Careers, Leaders,

& Climate Consciousness

Have you heard of B Corp certification?

By Leave a Comment

leafWhat a great idea to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems! That is exactly what certified B Corps do. From their website – B Corp is to business what Fair Trade certification is to coffee or LEED certification is to green building.

Even though many businesses make claims about being good citizens, it can be hard for consumers to know how they truly operate. The B Corp seal helps the public identify those companies who really walk the talk when it comes to concern for communities and the environment.

The certification comes from the private non-profit B-Lab and is not related to the legal status (business form) benefit corporation or B-Corporation which is now available in more than twenty states.

B-Lab certifies companies based on a rigorous assessment of social, environmental, and accountability standards. To date, more than 1000 companies around the world have become certified B-Corps. These include Method (home products), New Belgium Brewing, and Cabot Creamery to name just a few. Besides feeling good about their social and environmental impact on the world, some advantages of the B Corp certification include attracting talent, differentiation, and publicity – like this recent story from NPR about W. S. Badger Co Inc.

I only recently discovered this certification and to use the words of TED, B Corps are an idea worth spreading. So that’s what I’m doing.

Would love to know what you think about B Corps certification. Share your thoughts in the comment section.

My goal is to write 30 blog posts in 30 days the month of September.

#30in30

 

Growing College Kids

By

Here is some new and interesting research on college students and career development:

1.A recent Gallup poll that examined the relationship between college experiences and life after graduation found that what mattered most to ending up engaged at work and having a sense of well-being was real support from faculty / mentors and experiential learning (i.e., projects, internships, extracurricular activities/organizations) while in school. Sadly, only 3% of those surveyed strongly agreed that all of these were part of their college experience.

2. Research by Katherine Milkman, Modupe Akinola, and Dolly Chugh found that when prospective grad students reached out to tenure-track faculty for a meeting, the requests of women and minorities were ignored by faculty at a higher rate than the requests coming from men. Interestingly, the bias against women and minorities was greater in higher paying disciplines and at private institutions. They found little discrimination in the humanities, more discrimination in the natural sciences, and much discrimination in business schools.
If we generalize the Gallup research mentioned above to grad students, this difficulty women and minorities experience establishing a mentoring relationship is even more troubling.

3. Speaking of business schools, gender, and careers, research by Laura Kray examines why women may opt out of high-paying business careers. In an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition, she shared her findings about b-school students saying “men tend to have more lenient ethical standards than women, and secondly, that negotiators are more likely to tell a blatant lie to a female counterpart than a male counterpart.”
This is a fascinating study and it would be interesting to know if the gender differences in ethical standards and behavior are true for business school faculty as well. I’ve written previously about ethical behavior while in college and believe it has many long-term implications. 

Finally, (disclaimer: it’s my alma mater) what a fantastic way to develop college students – Earl Leonard, a UGA alum mentors students in UGA’s college of business.

Does this research reflect what you are seeing in the universities you care about and with the college kids in your life? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Transparency

By

vector image of magnifierIt’s happened again, the fourth time in the last six months.

I’ve encountered a professional who is fudging their credentials.

Each is a little different. One is claiming to be something but their professional training was not that specialty – kind of like a doctor trained in cardiology who finds dermatology more to their liking so they call themself a dermatologist and set up a dermatology practice.

Another person is stretching their years of employment and their title. I like to refer to these as tenure stretch and title stretch.

The other two have Linkedin profiles that present them as an expert but they don’t have formal training, credentials, or certification to support the professional title they use (title stretch). You may think I’m being picky or petty but I know one of these “experts” did some “expert” work for an organization and the results were catastrophic.

This is the 21st century and in the new world of work you can be what you want to be. It is possible to be self-made and self-educated and trained in the school of hard knocks – that’s fantastic! In no way do I mean to de-value that path to success. However, in some professions, there are ethical principles governing what you call yourself and in some states there are laws regulating professional titles.

I don’t have close personal relationships with the people I described above but there is enough information on the internet that I can easily find what they claim does not check out.

Reminds me of the plot in daytime soaps where the new doctor moves to town, commences doing surgery and treating patients only for it to be discovered several months or years later that they have no medical degree. Of course, much drama ensues.

Fiction is one thing; however, reality is another.

Message to individuals – you can fool some of the people but other people know. Be transparent. Yahoo, Radio Shack, and Notre Dame are just a few high profile, instructive examples.

Message to organizations – background check, background check, background check.

What do you think?

Complicity 2

By

awning bright red MGD©The report on Penn State, Sandusky and his heinous behavior started me thinking again about complicity and the responsibility of leaders, especially gifted, charismatic leaders. The greater the gift, the greater the responsibility to ensure what is good and right prevails over that which is wrong and evil.

Because behavior modeling – copying someone else’s behavior – is the most basic and fundamental way that humans learn, the behavior of those in positions of influence is especially critical. Followers take their cue from their leader. If a leader can’t handle the responsibility commensurate with their gifts, they should step aside.

Someone recently reminded me of the scene from the 1987 movie Broadcast News where Aaron Altman (the talented but not handsome TV reporter played by Albert Brooks) says “What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he’s around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I’m semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing…he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance…just a tiny bit.”

It is NEVER ok for children to be molested by adults, even when a charismatic leader or powerful institution allows it to happen. Never.

You probably won’t face anything as serious as child rape in your career but may see other forms of unethical behavior in your organization that you believe are wrong. Speak up and attempt to change the situation. And if that fails, you can leave. Doing nothing makes you complicit. Staying involved with and supporting an organization that allows wrongdoing makes you complicit.

I quit a good job over an incident of dishonesty. No one – my bosses, their boss or anyone up the ladder seemed bothered by what happened and basically ignored it. I decided not to be part of an organization so loosey-goosey on ethics. But that’s a topic for another blog post.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)

 

What do you think?