My first job in Sweden was a trainee position in a large insurance company. We were eight trainees who got lectures from every manager or high ranking specialist the company had. This gave us an enviable overview of the company and how all the functions relate to each other. After half a year we got to run projects. One of my first suggestions was to set up a job rotation program to give this overview to others and to lower cooperation thresholds.
At first there was enthusiasm all around, but then I stumbled on “the Lars Wars” for the first time. One of the HR managers explained to me that he liked the project, but that loyalty prevents him from participating. The manager of his manager, called Lars, was in a cold war with the manager of my division, also called Lars*.
A widely held notion is that all female work groups often end up running into unresolvable conflicts. As the Lars Wars shows this is not unique to all female groups. This top management group was all male.
The diversity analyses of Brilliant has run show that one gender groups often function well in simple straight forward work like factories and customer service. But complex work and decision making is different. The more evenly mixed the group is, the better the inclusion. Inclusion is key health indicator in group decisionmaking and innovation.
Mixed management gorups do not necessarilly have fewer conflicts. If anything, the opposite. Also, management groups often have more conflicts than other groups in the company. This comes with the territory even in highly profitable companies. It is the unresolvable personal conflicts like Lars Wars you do not want. These are destructive. These seem to be less frequent in companies with an evenly mixed top management group.
Gender mixed management teams seem to have an easier time cooperating. Having more perspectives represented in the management group may bring a fuller understanding of consequences into the management team. It is also possible that managers on the strategic level have an easier time taking in the decisions made by a mixed management.
Cooperation on the strategic level also means things get done on the strategic level (r2=0,58) and in the company as a whole (r2=,21). I think my story about Lars Wars explains these relationships rather well. All development suffers where top management is not cooperating.
My first blog in this series showed how corporate values were disseminated better in companies with mixed management teams. Common values drives alignment and makes cooperating easier.
Which brings us to the question: How much is improved cooperation worth to you?
PS* This was in the days when the top companies in Sweden had more men called “Lars” than women in their management teams. The chairman of the board in this company was another Lars, as was the next president. There are still 66 290 “Larses” in the management groups of privately held Swedish companies today. But there is a quarter of a million “Larses” in Sweden. 5 percent of the male population. That makes Lars an imperfect choice for best career name today. The same is true for very common names like Anders or Johan. Of course, these are much better career names than Maria or Muhammed. Let us all hope for that to change soon.
The best career name right now is Claes. There are just 40 000 Claes but eight of them are presidents in one of the 258 Swedish whose stock are publicly traded. If you want your baby to reach this elite and you name it Claes the chance is about two hundeds of a percent. Obviously, as Claes is a boys name, being a boy would help. A little baby girl has the best chance with the name “Susanne”. This chance is about a seventh of a boy named Claes, but in 56th place Susanne is still the best girls name.
The top career names in Sweden are:
1. Claes
2. Jörgen
3. Georg
4. Alf
5. Magnus
6. Anders
7. Christian
8. Peter
9. Johan
10. Hans
This list reflects what Swedish upper class boys got in their 1960s. Other lists of names of Swedish presidents simply show what the most common Swedish boys names are. As a career obsessed parent your best bet would probably be to find out what names upper class kids are getting in your country. For similar US lists look here.
I believe and hope that a return to this analysis in 20 years would not produce any name as grossly overrepresented as Claes is today.