The Paula Principle

Men and the PP

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

all round competences

I'm normally a bit sceptical about international business survey results.  but Business Insider recently produced a set of findings which I found really interesting. They come from pulling together the results of an enormous number of '360o ' appraisals. These are where you as the appraised person get the views of all those you work with - above, alongside and below.  So as well as your boss, you get the views of your colleagues who operate at the same level - and those who work to you. BI pulled together results of 360o appraisals of 16000 'leaders', about one third of whom were women and two thirds men.  The average number of…
Read More

MBAs, fingers and legs

  3 adverts from the same page in a recent Economist. See next blog for Business Insider results on leadership competences!!                                                  
Read More

whose jobs?

There's a long-running debate about what the impact of new technology is on skills at work.   Routine  jobs are liable to automation and/or outsourcing to countries where labour is cheaper.  But how far are less routine jobs beaching vulnerable to the same processes? Which kinds of jobs get automated is obviously relevant to the PP.    Will they be in the occupations where it's mostly women that work?  What will happen to the kinds of jobs that women mainly do?   I've been reading (parts of) a pretty strenuous piece on this by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne from the Oxford Martin School, called The Future of Employment:  how…
Read More

Attention on part-time work

I gave a small - very small, attendance about a dozen - seminar  on the PP recently at the Institute of Education.  A clever press release, not written by me, gained a lot of coverage - including the illustration below for the Peter Principle, which made me chuckle. What captured attention was the argument that only if more men work part-time  will part-time work become more recognised as a legitimate career option.  Is this a pessimistic argument, or a realistic one?   I know that friends of mine firmly believe that the only way to go is full-time.  But my argument is that the progress towards greater equality at work…
Read More

Men and choice

Since I have to rewrite my  PP book completely (a difficult verdict  to swallow from a publisher, but one I now recognise as correct), I've been doing some further interviews, or conversations as I prefer to think of them .   My latest respondent described to me the remarkable case  of her father, a senior engineer who chose to leave his job and be the main parent for his four girls, while his wife took up her career as a teacher.  This was not for financial reasons - the father would have earned more, even though the mother ended up a headteacher- - but simply because the couple decided that…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

all round competences

I'm normally a bit sceptical about international business survey results.  but Business Insider recently produced a set of findings which I found really interesting. They come from pulling together the results of an enormous number of '360o ' appraisals. These are where you as the appraised person get the views of all those you work with - above, alongside and below.  So as well as your boss, you get the views of your colleagues who operate at the same level - and those who work to you. BI pulled together results of 360o appraisals of 16000 'leaders', about one third of whom were women and two thirds men.  The average number of…
Read More

MBAs, fingers and legs

  3 adverts from the same page in a recent Economist. See next blog for Business Insider results on leadership competences!!                                                  
Read More

whose jobs?

There's a long-running debate about what the impact of new technology is on skills at work.   Routine  jobs are liable to automation and/or outsourcing to countries where labour is cheaper.  But how far are less routine jobs beaching vulnerable to the same processes? Which kinds of jobs get automated is obviously relevant to the PP.    Will they be in the occupations where it's mostly women that work?  What will happen to the kinds of jobs that women mainly do?   I've been reading (parts of) a pretty strenuous piece on this by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne from the Oxford Martin School, called The Future of Employment:  how…
Read More

Attention on part-time work

I gave a small - very small, attendance about a dozen - seminar  on the PP recently at the Institute of Education.  A clever press release, not written by me, gained a lot of coverage - including the illustration below for the Peter Principle, which made me chuckle. What captured attention was the argument that only if more men work part-time  will part-time work become more recognised as a legitimate career option.  Is this a pessimistic argument, or a realistic one?   I know that friends of mine firmly believe that the only way to go is full-time.  But my argument is that the progress towards greater equality at work…
Read More

Men and choice

Since I have to rewrite my  PP book completely (a difficult verdict  to swallow from a publisher, but one I now recognise as correct), I've been doing some further interviews, or conversations as I prefer to think of them .   My latest respondent described to me the remarkable case  of her father, a senior engineer who chose to leave his job and be the main parent for his four girls, while his wife took up her career as a teacher.  This was not for financial reasons - the father would have earned more, even though the mother ended up a headteacher- - but simply because the couple decided that…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

all round competences

I'm normally a bit sceptical about international business survey results.  but Business Insider recently produced a set of findings which I found really interesting. They come from pulling together the results of an enormous number of '360o ' appraisals. These are where you as the appraised person get the views of all those you work with - above, alongside and below.  So as well as your boss, you get the views of your colleagues who operate at the same level - and those who work to you. BI pulled together results of 360o appraisals of 16000 'leaders', about one third of whom were women and two thirds men.  The average number of…
Read More

MBAs, fingers and legs

  3 adverts from the same page in a recent Economist. See next blog for Business Insider results on leadership competences!!                                                  
Read More

whose jobs?

There's a long-running debate about what the impact of new technology is on skills at work.   Routine  jobs are liable to automation and/or outsourcing to countries where labour is cheaper.  But how far are less routine jobs beaching vulnerable to the same processes? Which kinds of jobs get automated is obviously relevant to the PP.    Will they be in the occupations where it's mostly women that work?  What will happen to the kinds of jobs that women mainly do?   I've been reading (parts of) a pretty strenuous piece on this by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne from the Oxford Martin School, called The Future of Employment:  how…
Read More

Attention on part-time work

I gave a small - very small, attendance about a dozen - seminar  on the PP recently at the Institute of Education.  A clever press release, not written by me, gained a lot of coverage - including the illustration below for the Peter Principle, which made me chuckle. What captured attention was the argument that only if more men work part-time  will part-time work become more recognised as a legitimate career option.  Is this a pessimistic argument, or a realistic one?   I know that friends of mine firmly believe that the only way to go is full-time.  But my argument is that the progress towards greater equality at work…
Read More

Men and choice

Since I have to rewrite my  PP book completely (a difficult verdict  to swallow from a publisher, but one I now recognise as correct), I've been doing some further interviews, or conversations as I prefer to think of them .   My latest respondent described to me the remarkable case  of her father, a senior engineer who chose to leave his job and be the main parent for his four girls, while his wife took up her career as a teacher.  This was not for financial reasons - the father would have earned more, even though the mother ended up a headteacher- - but simply because the couple decided that…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

all round competences

I'm normally a bit sceptical about international business survey results.  but Business Insider recently produced a set of findings which I found really interesting. They come from pulling together the results of an enormous number of '360o ' appraisals. These are where you as the appraised person get the views of all those you work with - above, alongside and below.  So as well as your boss, you get the views of your colleagues who operate at the same level - and those who work to you. BI pulled together results of 360o appraisals of 16000 'leaders', about one third of whom were women and two thirds men.  The average number of…
Read More

MBAs, fingers and legs

  3 adverts from the same page in a recent Economist. See next blog for Business Insider results on leadership competences!!                                                  
Read More

whose jobs?

There's a long-running debate about what the impact of new technology is on skills at work.   Routine  jobs are liable to automation and/or outsourcing to countries where labour is cheaper.  But how far are less routine jobs beaching vulnerable to the same processes? Which kinds of jobs get automated is obviously relevant to the PP.    Will they be in the occupations where it's mostly women that work?  What will happen to the kinds of jobs that women mainly do?   I've been reading (parts of) a pretty strenuous piece on this by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne from the Oxford Martin School, called The Future of Employment:  how…
Read More

Attention on part-time work

I gave a small - very small, attendance about a dozen - seminar  on the PP recently at the Institute of Education.  A clever press release, not written by me, gained a lot of coverage - including the illustration below for the Peter Principle, which made me chuckle. What captured attention was the argument that only if more men work part-time  will part-time work become more recognised as a legitimate career option.  Is this a pessimistic argument, or a realistic one?   I know that friends of mine firmly believe that the only way to go is full-time.  But my argument is that the progress towards greater equality at work…
Read More

Men and choice

Since I have to rewrite my  PP book completely (a difficult verdict  to swallow from a publisher, but one I now recognise as correct), I've been doing some further interviews, or conversations as I prefer to think of them .   My latest respondent described to me the remarkable case  of her father, a senior engineer who chose to leave his job and be the main parent for his four girls, while his wife took up her career as a teacher.  This was not for financial reasons - the father would have earned more, even though the mother ended up a headteacher- - but simply because the couple decided that…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

all round competences

I'm normally a bit sceptical about international business survey results.  but Business Insider recently produced a set of findings which I found really interesting. They come from pulling together the results of an enormous number of '360o ' appraisals. These are where you as the appraised person get the views of all those you work with - above, alongside and below.  So as well as your boss, you get the views of your colleagues who operate at the same level - and those who work to you. BI pulled together results of 360o appraisals of 16000 'leaders', about one third of whom were women and two thirds men.  The average number of…
Read More

MBAs, fingers and legs

  3 adverts from the same page in a recent Economist. See next blog for Business Insider results on leadership competences!!                                                  
Read More

whose jobs?

There's a long-running debate about what the impact of new technology is on skills at work.   Routine  jobs are liable to automation and/or outsourcing to countries where labour is cheaper.  But how far are less routine jobs beaching vulnerable to the same processes? Which kinds of jobs get automated is obviously relevant to the PP.    Will they be in the occupations where it's mostly women that work?  What will happen to the kinds of jobs that women mainly do?   I've been reading (parts of) a pretty strenuous piece on this by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne from the Oxford Martin School, called The Future of Employment:  how…
Read More

Attention on part-time work

I gave a small - very small, attendance about a dozen - seminar  on the PP recently at the Institute of Education.  A clever press release, not written by me, gained a lot of coverage - including the illustration below for the Peter Principle, which made me chuckle. What captured attention was the argument that only if more men work part-time  will part-time work become more recognised as a legitimate career option.  Is this a pessimistic argument, or a realistic one?   I know that friends of mine firmly believe that the only way to go is full-time.  But my argument is that the progress towards greater equality at work…
Read More

Men and choice

Since I have to rewrite my  PP book completely (a difficult verdict  to swallow from a publisher, but one I now recognise as correct), I've been doing some further interviews, or conversations as I prefer to think of them .   My latest respondent described to me the remarkable case  of her father, a senior engineer who chose to leave his job and be the main parent for his four girls, while his wife took up her career as a teacher.  This was not for financial reasons - the father would have earned more, even though the mother ended up a headteacher- - but simply because the couple decided that…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

all round competences

I'm normally a bit sceptical about international business survey results.  but Business Insider recently produced a set of findings which I found really interesting. They come from pulling together the results of an enormous number of '360o ' appraisals. These are where you as the appraised person get the views of all those you work with - above, alongside and below.  So as well as your boss, you get the views of your colleagues who operate at the same level - and those who work to you. BI pulled together results of 360o appraisals of 16000 'leaders', about one third of whom were women and two thirds men.  The average number of…
Read More

MBAs, fingers and legs

  3 adverts from the same page in a recent Economist. See next blog for Business Insider results on leadership competences!!                                                  
Read More

whose jobs?

There's a long-running debate about what the impact of new technology is on skills at work.   Routine  jobs are liable to automation and/or outsourcing to countries where labour is cheaper.  But how far are less routine jobs beaching vulnerable to the same processes? Which kinds of jobs get automated is obviously relevant to the PP.    Will they be in the occupations where it's mostly women that work?  What will happen to the kinds of jobs that women mainly do?   I've been reading (parts of) a pretty strenuous piece on this by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne from the Oxford Martin School, called The Future of Employment:  how…
Read More

Attention on part-time work

I gave a small - very small, attendance about a dozen - seminar  on the PP recently at the Institute of Education.  A clever press release, not written by me, gained a lot of coverage - including the illustration below for the Peter Principle, which made me chuckle. What captured attention was the argument that only if more men work part-time  will part-time work become more recognised as a legitimate career option.  Is this a pessimistic argument, or a realistic one?   I know that friends of mine firmly believe that the only way to go is full-time.  But my argument is that the progress towards greater equality at work…
Read More

Men and choice

Since I have to rewrite my  PP book completely (a difficult verdict  to swallow from a publisher, but one I now recognise as correct), I've been doing some further interviews, or conversations as I prefer to think of them .   My latest respondent described to me the remarkable case  of her father, a senior engineer who chose to leave his job and be the main parent for his four girls, while his wife took up her career as a teacher.  This was not for financial reasons - the father would have earned more, even though the mother ended up a headteacher- - but simply because the couple decided that…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

all round competences

I'm normally a bit sceptical about international business survey results.  but Business Insider recently produced a set of findings which I found really interesting. They come from pulling together the results of an enormous number of '360o ' appraisals. These are where you as the appraised person get the views of all those you work with - above, alongside and below.  So as well as your boss, you get the views of your colleagues who operate at the same level - and those who work to you. BI pulled together results of 360o appraisals of 16000 'leaders', about one third of whom were women and two thirds men.  The average number of…
Read More

MBAs, fingers and legs

  3 adverts from the same page in a recent Economist. See next blog for Business Insider results on leadership competences!!                                                  
Read More

whose jobs?

There's a long-running debate about what the impact of new technology is on skills at work.   Routine  jobs are liable to automation and/or outsourcing to countries where labour is cheaper.  But how far are less routine jobs beaching vulnerable to the same processes? Which kinds of jobs get automated is obviously relevant to the PP.    Will they be in the occupations where it's mostly women that work?  What will happen to the kinds of jobs that women mainly do?   I've been reading (parts of) a pretty strenuous piece on this by Carl Frey and Michael Osborne from the Oxford Martin School, called The Future of Employment:  how…
Read More

Attention on part-time work

I gave a small - very small, attendance about a dozen - seminar  on the PP recently at the Institute of Education.  A clever press release, not written by me, gained a lot of coverage - including the illustration below for the Peter Principle, which made me chuckle. What captured attention was the argument that only if more men work part-time  will part-time work become more recognised as a legitimate career option.  Is this a pessimistic argument, or a realistic one?   I know that friends of mine firmly believe that the only way to go is full-time.  But my argument is that the progress towards greater equality at work…
Read More

Men and choice

Since I have to rewrite my  PP book completely (a difficult verdict  to swallow from a publisher, but one I now recognise as correct), I've been doing some further interviews, or conversations as I prefer to think of them .   My latest respondent described to me the remarkable case  of her father, a senior engineer who chose to leave his job and be the main parent for his four girls, while his wife took up her career as a teacher.  This was not for financial reasons - the father would have earned more, even though the mother ended up a headteacher- - but simply because the couple decided that…
Read More