Source: ChengWei Liu
The mysterious “luck”, in the eyes of today’s experts and scholars, can not only analyse its role in all aspects of the business society from a qualitative and quantitative perspective, from the perspective of business owners, as long as you effectively master this “knowledge”, but you can also even maximise career success.
So, when the ESG wave is sweeping, does “luck” make everything more uncontrollable, or bring more good possibilities?
The internationally renowned expert on “luck”, associate professor Chengwei Liu at ESMT Berlin, Germany, specialises in strategic and behavioural science research. He gathered his research on “luck” in his representative work, “Luck: A key idea for business and society”, including how to analyse luck, understand luck and use luck in business fields and sports events.
This time, Prof. Liu was invited to an exclusive interview with “The Icons”. He specifically pointed out that no matter whether the big wave of ESG brings challenges or opportunities to enterprises or business owners, those who know more about “luck” will definitely have more chances to win.
Source: ChengWei Liu
There is always a chance for the “underdogs” to fight back!
Prof. Liu said frankly that “birth” does determine part of one’s “luck”. “Luck” has a key impact on the inequality of wealth, social inequality, gender issues and other aspects involved in the ESG concept. No matter in the West, East Asia, or any other region, people from wealthy families will have a relatively high probability to receive a good education and enter a good company. “Comparatively, people who were born in less wealthy families may also have excellent talents, but may never have the opportunity to shine.”
“However, this is not absolute.” Prof. Liu emphasised.
Coming back to the view of the main domain of ESG- enterprise, Prof. Liu proposed a unique theory. There is an interesting finding in his research: When a company interviews two candidates, suppose the two have the same educational background and work experience, while one is male, who is more privileged in society, and the other is female, who is less privileged, the company might benefit more from choosing the less privileged “underdog”.
Prof. Liu further explained the reason, “The reason is simple since the underdog overcame all the obstacles and achieved the same level as her counterpart, she is likely to be more competent, and this also applies to races, age, etc. This is exactly the “luck” factor enterprises can consider in the ESG era, and this set of mind can also help leaders find more ESG talents.”
Prof. Liu also provided an example of the company Ultranauts. Ultranauts is dedicated to building a work environment that is open to “neurodiversity”. Neurodiversity refers to the idea that neurological differences, such as those seen in autism or ADHD, reflect normal variations in brain development. “These people who are on the autism spectrum often possess outstanding talent in mathematics and engineering; however, since they struggle to fit in the conventional interview set-up, their talents are often overlooked. Ultranauts strives to build a friendly interview and work environment for them. With over 70% of their employees now on the autism spectrum, Ultranauts actually beat many Fortune 500 companies in getting the deals in adopting new technologies for firms.”
Source: ChengWei Liu
Understand the core of ESG: Do not see the changes in the world as random
Tip No.1: Caution! Do not believe in “randomness” easily
Prof. Liu emphasises, enterprises and CEOs should see every phenomenon in ESG issues in a more rational way to make wise decisions.
He pointed out, taking climate change for instance, many sceptics attribute the rise of temperature and sea level to “randomness”, which is another name for “luck”. However, this is usually because of prior beliefs and unwillingness to change their status quo in life. “If we look into the core of “luck”, we can extract data from noise and realise that climate change is a systematic change instead of a random event, and human beings ought to face it together.”
Tip No.2: Eliminate stereotypes and do the right thing!
“Although luck has its random, uncontrollable nature, by doing the right thing, one shall definitely increase the probability of gaining good luck.” Prof. Liu asserted, the right direction is actually clear in the CEOs’ mind, if it is really vague, then check the data.
Take G(Governance) in ESG as an example, should enterprises eliminate their stereotypes and open the doors to talents of different sexes, races and ages, it is most likely to gather great talents, “this is what I always highlight, persist in doing the right thing shall bring you huge return in the long run!”
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