Last week I spent a few days at the DLD Conference focusing on circularity and AI. The thought in the back of my mind was - if AI is getting smarter by the second and accelerating everything, then might there be a way for it to accelerate diversity so that we don’t have stress about #longevity trends too and wait another 100 years to reach gender equality in the workspace?
I can’t say that I have the answer to that question, but Doris Dörrie said something that stayed with me - that biodiversity below ground creates diversity above ground. She said it in the context of regenerative agriculture, but it struck me that the same idea is true in a gender parity context too: the more we normalise equal working conditions and experiences for men and women at all levels, the more women will reach top management (above ground!)
And to me, keeping women in the leadership pipeline ties into something that globalisation expert Ian Goldin said in his talk: “The jobs of the future are doing things machines cannot do. They are about creativity. They are about empathy.” Those are leadership qualities that we learn through parenthood. And as AI’s importance rises, those human skills that we learn as parents will become more important in the workplace too. So - I think we’re good to go!
A big thank you again to Steffi Czerny and the whole team at DLD for the invitation and the inspiration!