“Nothing can be said to be certain, except Death and Taxes” – Benjamin Franklin, 1789
As we head into the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), there is the possibility that only one of those will remain a certainty.
While taxes may morph from employee-contribution-for-state-resources, to a nominal amount on the gains of technology, to a Universal Basic Income (UBI) – death may yet be conquered.
An increasing number of futurists believe that death is a disease; and like any disease it can be cured. Perhaps the most prominent of these is Ray Kurzweil, Google’s chief futurist, with a prediction accuracy rate of 86% (115 of 147 since the 1990s). Kurzweil believes by 2029, we will see signs of living forever when we reach ‘Longevity Escape Velocity’ – the point at which every year we live, we extend our lifespan by at least another year.
The oldest verified living person, Chiyo Miyako, died at 117 years old in July. However, the number of centenarians is up 44% from 2000 to 2014. Improvements in vaccines, antibiotics, hygiene and sanitation are all contributing factors to increasing survival to advanced ages.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2018/09/06/you-only-live-twice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: You Only Live Twice</a>
Coupled with affordable healthcare, food abundance, and a decrease in non-natural death causes (war, measles, diabetes), global life expectancy increased from 65.3 years in 1990 to 71.5 years in 2013.
The cost of sequencing the genome has decreased exponentially from approximately $150 million (2013) to under $1,000 (2015), a reduction of 150,000x. Once quantum computers become mainstream, the cost to sequence an individual genome could be cheaper than flushing the toilet! This could lead to mass customized medicines, further decreasing human mortality rate.
Additionally, the introduction of CRISPr allows scientists to cut out and replace living DNA; effectively eradicating almost all diseases and rewriting the genetic code that governs life expectancy.
And we haven’t even included advancements in nano-tech, AI to determine genetic diffusions, R&amp;D into reversing aging, 3D printing organs, or human augmentation to the point of ‘the singularity’.
With life expectancy of, say 200, versus today’s 75, there are a number of considerations. Many challenge the conventional paradigms we currently deem normal. Questions of increased retirement, education systems, second, third or even fourth careers, children and life-savings, are obvious short-term issues to address.
At a micro level, which individual wouldn&#8217;t want to spend just another year with a sick loved one? However, at a macro level, this would be far from ideal. Arguably, the greatest issue we face is resource constraints caused – not by over-population per se (the United Nations projects a world population of 9.7 billion by 2050) – but by the number of consumers and the scale/nature of that consumption.
Across Africa, the median age is 19.4 years with a total population of approximately 1.3 billion, however, the average age of the continental leadership is 65 years old. Already Africa has a history of dictatorships, and with leaders living longer, will we have more authoritarian rule?
With an increasingly aging active workforce, what is the future of jobs? Especially coupled with the replacement of labor with 4IR technologies (robotics, AI, automated plants) and youth unemployment upwards of 50%. From a capitalist perspective, efficiency gains and profit maximization will drive business decisions. However, are we further creating a situation whereby the Gini gap increases while the rich, aging, experienced reap the benefits of longevity? Are we sitting atop a socio-economic time bomb with increasing inequality?
Advances in technology will definitely drive the upward age of longevity toward the 200 mark. However, there are a number of considerations – both moral and social – that we have not begun to think about, as a species. Ultimately, the question is no longer if death (like taxes) is inevitable, but rather: even if we can conquer death – should we?
– By Craig Wing, a partner at FutureWorld International, driving innovation and futures thinking across organizations globally. He is a thought-leader on 4IR, future of work and corporate culture.

Men Trap

Even If We Conquer Death – Should We?

It’s the worst thing to happen – to anyone.
We meet Natasha Sibanda in Johannesburg’s bustling Central Business District. On the street, the cantankerous crowd has a life of its own, their colorful clothes distinct in the morning light as they move in unison like shoals of fish.
Adjacent to this street is a tiny one-bedroom apartment the size of a matchbox and in grimy grey.
As we enter, a pall of gloom. Sibanda, only 22, lost her husband Samuel four weeks ago in Zimbabwe, his country of birth. Their only son is a year old.
“My husband was 25 years old&#8230; We were in Zimbabwe visiting family when he suddenly fell ill. We went to the hospital where they gave us a list of all the items they needed in order to help him. We had to buy all of them [with] cash at a pharmacy before they could treat him,” she says, as a lone tear rolls down her cheek.
The items totaled a bill of $300, which they didn’t have. Her sister, working in South Africa, promised to send the money the following day.
“I pleaded with the hospital to help him while we looked for the money because we both lived in Zimbabwe and had no jobs but they said his condition wasn’t serious and we had to come back when we have money because the hospital didn’t have any of the medicines needed.”
Heartbroken and worried, Sibanda took her husband home.
The night was going to be long.
At about 2AM, Samuel started vomiting. She took him back to the hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.
“I’m still not sure what killed him but I’m hurting because doctors wanted to help him but couldn’t because they didn’t have medicines and now he is dead and my son has no father,” sobs Sibanda.
Her story is only one of many painful parallels in some of Africa’s developing economies with poor – and crippling – healthcare systems.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/10/02/healthcare-got-available-everybody/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: ‘Healthcare Has Got To Be Available To Everybody’</a>
“You don’t want to fall ill in Zimbabwe. It’s like a backyard garage where you bring all your car parts for your vehicle to be fixed. If you have no cash, you can’t be treated,” says Mthokozisi Khuphe, a former government nurse.
Khuphe worked for government for eight years before moving to the private sector and then migrating to work in Namibia.
“When I started, there was already a crisis. I remember there was a big strike and a lot of people resigned. We, the new junior staff, had to work on everything even though we were just starting out. I would have 120 to 150 patients in a day [who] I had to help by myself,” says Khuphe.
He says Zimbabwe’s healthcare system was and still is putting patients’ lives at risk.
“Many patients lost their lives. I remember sometimes there would be no syringes, and needles were in shortage. We would reuse them repeatedly on the same patient when in fact you are supposed to use one and dispose it off immediately&#8230; There was even a time the whole hospital had one ventilator&#8230; As a nurse, it is difficult to know what can help the patient but you don’t have the equipment and the patient dies.”
Zimbabwe is not alone. Africa’s public healthcare sector is in the intensive care unit.
Although the situation is not as terrible as in Zimbabwe, the World Bank and World Health Organisation issued a report on universal healthcare in the world in December, where South Africa received a score of 70 out of 100 for Universal Health Coverage. (The National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom (UK) scored 90.)
The report stated that the poor quality of healthcare in the public sector was concerning.
Jasson Urbach, a director of the Free Market Foundation and head of its Health Policy Unit says the situation is dire. There are pervasive problems with the quality of healthcare in the public sector.
“The healthcare system is a sea of mediocrity in the government-run healthcare sector, punctuated by islands of excellence in the private healthcare sector. Currently all political will is aimed at implementing National Health Insurance (NHI) [free health for all] and nothing is being done to address the current issues of pervasive poor quality in the public sector,” he says.
According to Urbach, the NHS in the UK employs 1.3 million people to service 55 million UK residents, yet the entire South African civil service employs 1.3 million people.
“To think that South Africa can run a government administered Universal Health Coverage system such as the National Health Service is unrealistic.”
He says the poor quality of services in the public sector is the single greatest challenge in South African healthcare.
“If the quality is not addressed, 70 percent of public facilities will not qualify to contract with the NHI, if it gets implemented, which will collapse service provision in the healthcare system altogether. Poor quality is not the result of shortages of funding; it is the result of poor management,” he says.
It is true.
According to inspection records published by the Office of Health Standards Compliance, a government agency in South Africa, hospitals and clinics in the government’s flagship NHI pilot program are failing to improve any faster than those in the rest of the country.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/uncategorized/2018/04/03/death-denial-fear-listeriosis-cost-south-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Death, Denial And Fear: What Listeriosis Cost South Africa</a>
Among the 1,427 facilities inspected, only 89 scored a pass mark of 70% or more. Facilities fell short on matters ranging from the availability of medicines to infection control.
“As an example, there are contracts with cleaning services in place in all public facilities, or cleaners are employed. If a facility is not considered clean, that is a management failure. Poor systems and processes lead to undue delays in treatment. Incompetent political managers at the provincial level, leads to incompetent appointments at hospital levels, which leads to failure of the system,” says Urbach.
Patients in South Africa’s public hospitals are dejected.
Results cited in the General Household Survey 2015 suggest healthcare received from the private sector is significantly preferred to that from the public sector, and states that users of private healthcare facilities seem to be more satisfied with those facilities than users of public healthcare facilities, across all provinces.
“Whereas 97.7 percent of users were satisfied with private facilities (91.9 percent were very satisfied), only 81.1 percent of users of public healthcare facilities were somewhat satisfied or very satisfied. Only 57.6 percent of individuals that used public healthcare facilities were very satisfied,” states the report.
According to Urbach, another problem is that the government does not have the same incentives as the private sector. It partly explains why there are poor healthcare outcomes in the public sector.
Dr Matthew Adams, a surgeon at one of the big public hospitals in South Africa, agrees with Urbach.
“Private hospitals pay two to three times more than government and they have better working conditions compared to us&#8230; essential machine breakdown and fixing them is delayed, and tenders to supply certain things are given to people who can’t deliver on time which always sets us back,” he says.
That’s not all.
Adams says hospitals are understaffed and they have to work long hours and there is misadministration by hospital management.
“[The] department says there is no more money for new doctors but not enough monitoring is done on how much is spent per patient and measures aren’t taken to see how we can save the hospital money&#8230; Hospitals are actually set up in a hierarchy, so that the first place a patient goes to is a clinic before a hospital for day-to-day assistance, but because of low quality, patients overlook lower level health centers to go to hospitals and doctors see cases they are not supposed to see adding to doctor frustration,” he says.
Frustration leads to doctors leaving the public sector for the private sector, or leaving the country altogether.
“The last time I saw statistics [about the number of doctors leaving] was in 2005 when the Health Professions Council of South Africa reported that despite the fact that medical schools produced approximately 19,500 graduates between 1990 and 2005, their records show only 9,304 new registrations during this period. This implies that a significant number of individuals, after graduating, instead of practising in South Africa, are leaving the country,” says Urbach.
Among the common reasons cited for the mass exodus of skilled healthcare personnel from the public sector are poor salaries, high workloads, poor work environments and few opportunities for advancement.
According to Liz Still, who compiles the annual Health Care in South Africa publication, the public sector does not have enough posts available to employ South Africa’s health professionals. For example, over the period 2002-2010, approximately 11,700 doctors graduated but only 4,403 posts were created in the public sector. In the field of dentistry, there were 2,140 graduates but only 248 public posts were concurrently created.
These conditions impact the quality of care.
According to various reports, last year, South Africa’s Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, said more than 5‚500 medical negligence claims have been made against the health department since 2014. The number of claims grows every year. There were 1‚562 claims made in 2014/15‚ 1‚732 in 2015/16 and 1‚934 in 2016/17.
And it hurts the tax payer.
The department paid R391.32 million ($32.4 million) in medico-legal claims in 2014/15 alone and a whopping R730.87 million ($60.6 million) in 2015/16.
It is so bad that in 2016/17‚ the total value of claims rose to R1.2 billion ($99.5 million)‚ with Gauteng&#8217;s 521 claims accounting for almost half of this at R566 million ($47 million).
Romany Sutherland, an attorney at LLA INC. Law, says the majority of these cases are due to obstetric damages.
“These are children who suffer brain injury as a result of complications during birth&#8230; South Africa has a 10 percent higher cerebral palsy rate than anywhere in the world and we don’t know why this might be&#8230; To me, as an attorney, it comes down to perhaps people not being trained properly. Nurses are not involving the obstetricians soon enough,” she says.
Cerebral palsy cases cost the government about R17 million ($1.4 million) on average per case.
“Each province deals with the issues differently. I’m in the Western Cape and here; we try and negotiate or mediate these cases as soon as possible so that reasonable pay-outs are made without undue delay. I believe the best way to go with the negligence cases is to take the initiative to open discussion with your opponent,” says Sutherland.
The problem is, some health departments don’t have any decision-makers who have settlement authority. It means all negligence cases have to go before a judge in the court of law before the department can pay out. It takes longer and costs the state more money.
“The litigation process is extremely expensive. The amounts you see reported in the media don’t include costs. It is a big worry because I haven’t gone to court in nine years because I like to negotiate cases and come to reasonable settlement and the Gauteng government doesn’t allow for that to happen,” she says.
According to Sutherland, some costs to take the case through trial can be four times the amount of settlement.
The amount of money that attorneys stand to make on such cases has caused a boom in the medical negligence industry.
“There are attorneys who are touting for clients and some even paying midwives up to R30,000 ($2,500) for a file. There are also some frivolous cases where the negligence did not cause damages&#8230; yet they carry on&#8230; If such cases are settled, it is not the touting attorney’s fault but the department that is not defending those cases properly,” she says.
The rise in lawsuits is also causing medical insurance for obstetricians to rise.
“An obstetrician is currently paying R1 million ($82,830) in insurance. I think the price has gone up by approximately R100,000 ($8,283) if not more every year for the past couple of years&#8230; This is also cause for some medical students to not consider this field because insurance is just too expensive.”
Back in Johannesburg, as we part with Sibanda, she tells us she wants to go back to school to study public healthcare administration so she can help the very hospitals that didn’t give her husband timely treatment. She wants to save lives.
If only government authorities sitting in their airconditioned offices and seeking treatment in plush private hospitals knew her pain and predicament.

Operating theatre in a cardiac surgery ward. Anesthetics.

Would You Seek Medical Care In Africa’s Public Sector?

Indian billionaire and chairman emeritus of Max Group, Analjit Singh, a <a href="/cover-story/2015/07/01/man-pouring-millions-rich-slice-africa/">FORBES AFRICA cover in 2015</a>, says he is increasing his investments in the hospitality sector in South Africa. On a visit to Johannesburg mid-May, Singh spoke to FORBES AFRICA of his bias towards the Cape. In four years since setting up a base and “home away from home” in the Franschhoek winelands of Cape Town, he has “17 land holdings here and substantial hectarage under wine cultivation”. He established the Leeu Collection here, and now owns three hotels, five restaurants and an award-winning wine business.
<blockquote>
I am a citizen of the world. Why must I only be in India?
</blockquote>
says the Founder and Chairman of Max India Limited with diverse interests in life insurance, healthcare, health insurance and senior living.
He has been ranked by FORBES as one of India’s richest, with a net worth of $1.2 billion. Singh is a partner in Mullineux &amp; Leeu Family Wines, which produces wines in the Swartland wine region, some 800 kilometers north of Cape Town. This is overseen by winemaking duo Chris and Andrea Mullineux. He runs a 17-key country house and winery on Leeu Estates, a 68-hectare farm in the Franschhoek valley, and secures wine from 50 vineyards in Franschhoek and Stellenbosch. In the charming one-road village of Franschhoek, he also renovated Leeu House into a 12-room hotel that’s “very Cape Dutch” featuring thatched roofs, gables with plaster art, shutters and stable doors. He has also installed on both sides of the large garden, statues of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi – bought at the Everard Read art gallery in Johannesburg.
<div id="attachment_31779" style="width: 1031px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31779" class="wp-image-31779 size-full" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Analjit-Singh-Leeu-Estate-Manor-House-Façade-photo-supplied-e1496233976739.jpg" alt="" width="1021" height="512" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Analjit-Singh-Leeu-Estate-Manor-House-Façade-photo-supplied-e1496233976739.jpg 1021w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Analjit-Singh-Leeu-Estate-Manor-House-Façade-photo-supplied-e1496233976739-300x150.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Analjit-Singh-Leeu-Estate-Manor-House-Façade-photo-supplied-e1496233976739-600x301.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Analjit-Singh-Leeu-Estate-Manor-House-Façade-photo-supplied-e1496233976739-768x385.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 1021px) 100vw, 1021px" />The Leeu Estate Manor House. Photo supplied</div>
Incidentally, the gallery has just opened in Franschhoek as well, in partnership with Leeu Collection. At the Heritage Square piazza a few meters away, he opened Marigold, the town’s first Indian restaurant, and, again a first for Franschhoek, he set up Tuk Tuk, a craft beer microbrewery. He says it is now the most happening place in Franschhoek. “I am not done yet in Franschhoek,” says Singh. “I was looking for new vistas and personal renewal, so Franschoek appealed. I have found such connect and sense of place here.”
<a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2015/07/01/man-pouring-millions-rich-slice-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The man pouring millions into a rich slice of Africa</a>
With a “substantial, high-end presence” in the winelands, Singh’s boutique winery targets the export markets of the United Kingdom, some parts of America, Europe and is just about making an entry into Asia.
Singh, who fell in love with South Africa when he first visited the country in 2010 for the FIFA World Cup, spends more than three months a year here. “I fired myself as the chairman of most companies [in the Max Group], I have no operational responsibilities. My level of involvement is almost negligible,” says Singh.
South Africa’s recent downgrading and all the noise in the current political environment is clearly no deterrent for the international investor. “We can be victims of analysis paralysis… If you spoke to someone in France 10 days ago, they would say don’t invest in France. Look at it now, they say ‘invest in France’,” he says.
He has also now acquired properties in Lake District, Florence and London. With a total of “68 keys combined in all properties” around the world, he says this will grow to 105 by the end of next year.
Singh’s long-term vision is to venture into game parks and safaris in this part of Africa, and he is also currently looking at the education space in South Africa.

Analjit Singh

Indian Billionaire Singh Not Done Yet In South Africa

Remember Piet Kemp? It’s been more than three years since FORBES AFRICA featured him in its pages in October 2013. Kemp left South Africa for the Soviet republic of Georgia in search of greener pastures, he says he has found happiness and toil thousands of miles away from home. The 72-year- old Kemp claims to now be a Georgian citizen and vows to never come back to his homeland. He was one of 10 South African famers who left on the promise of free land.
<blockquote>I am really glad to be out of South Africa; it’s a dangerous place.</blockquote>
And the whole country belongs to colonialism,” says Kemp. He now has 30 laborers, who neither speak English nor Afrikaans, but Kemp says he is slowly learning the Georgian language. “Speaking the language was very difficult. My wife has been helping me learn it and I don’t need a translator anymore.” Kemp says spare parts are one of the big problems. “Sometimes when the tractor is broken, it takes a long time to get the tools to fix it. We have to import our tools and machines.” Before the age of 80, Kemp plans to retire.

Piet-Kemp

Greener Pastures For African Farmer

Many people talk about South Africa’s Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba and his shiny tailored suits – few know they are designed by an African and made by an Italian. They are the work of designer, Linda Makhanya.
<blockquote>
I am well aware that the branding of Italy and London are stronger than the branding of Africa because they’ve invested a lot in their craftsmanship and it goes through generations. They’ve mastered their arts of craftsmanship, that’s why they are the world’s best
</blockquote>
When we meet Makhanya at the Marion on Nicol Hotel, in Sandton, he’s sporting a well-fitted grey suit he designed himself. “When I stand in the mirror I feel like nothing is impossible, like success is my potion and that I deserve the best just by wearing a suit,” says Makhanya.
The 31-year- old Makhanya started LM Tailored Suit in 2012 and has been flourishing ever since. He sells up to 50 suits a month. His clients include the Minister of Police Fikile Mbalula and Bheki Cele, South Africa’s former head of police. He now wants to design suits for women in boardrooms.
Makhanya says he used to wear his suits every day in Sandton, Africa’s richest square mile, and it led to a chance encounter in 2011.
“I met a guy through a friend and I was wearing a suit. He complimented me. He gave me his business card, I contacted him and told him that I am going to give him the best clothes that are not in this country, and for us to start I need R50,000 ($3,900). It was enough to source clothes and buy more stock to sell. Then the money started coming,” says Makhanya.
It hasn’t stopped since then.

Linda-Makhanya-018

Meet The Man Behind Gigaba’s Shiny Suits

In working with thousands of career women who also have children, and being a parent myself, I’ve experienced just how challenging it is to balance contributing as we wish to in the professional world, with how we want to mother, parent and care give in a present and loving way. Personally speaking, when I was forging my corporate career years ago, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t want the CEO track. My top priority in my life was to be in the fabric of my children’s lives in a meaningful, enriching way when they were young. I didn’t want to blow that or have serious regrets later in life. “Calling in” on the phone from another state (or coast) each night to read them a bedtime story or hear the highlights of their day (because I was traveling for work) was not how I wanted those years to pass.
To be clear, I’m not judging anyone who has different priorities – we all must choose our own. What’s key to your success, I believe, is to identify your own unique life priorities, and live from that knowledge each day. (Learn more about how to honor your own life priorities while balancing the needs of others.)
Most women I know want, and need, to build a fulfilling career and an enriching life outside of work. They want both, not the either/or that we’ve been told are our only options. But to do that, research has shown that women, as a first step, must adjust their mindsets, their limiting beliefs and their openness to committing to working and balancing outside life. That’s not all that’s required to modify our current competitive career model that doesn’t find a majority of women, but it’s an essential step in women taking charge of their lives. This requires women doing the inner work of overcoming key obstacles in what they believe is possible, and revising five hidden, limiting assumptions they’ve come to make. To learn more about this need to reframe the possibilities and shift away from these constraining assumptions, I connected with Jodi Detjen, co-author of The Orange Line: A Woman’s Guide to Integrating Career, Family and Life. A professor of management at Suffolk University, Jodi teaches management at MBA, undergraduate and corporate education levels, and writes and trains about the skills required, and organizational aspects related to living an integrated life. She is also a principal partner of a boutique consulting firm, the InTrinsic Group, delivering outcome-focused leadership development and coaching to foster effective performance.
Jodi explains: “In our research of 118 women (college educated, middle class), women who were successful at integrating career, family and life, had reframed five key assumptions about what it means to work and participate in family life with the highest degree of success, fulfillment and happiness.”
Jodi shares the five hidden assumptions that keep women from balancing work and home more successfully.
“I am solely responsible for home and family.”
When women in dual-parent households believe this, they feel overly-pressured and burdened to own it all: children’s development and the domestic responsibilities including the laundry, food preparation, shopping, cleaning, home repairs, etc. They may delegate some chores (e.g. garbage) but they tend to grow weary from the conflict that emerges around delegation and are often more comfortable just doing it themselves to get it done more quickly. For women with a partner at home, reframing this assumption to “we are both responsible for home and family” opens up all sorts of important possibilities. Now, we can say: “My career is important and so is yours. How do we figure out how to get the necessary chores done together?” Jodi’s interviewees hired help, shared care, switched off chores, held their kids more responsible and accountable, or gave up doing school projects. The key is to stop over-functioning and involve everyone in the family in a healthier, more appropriate way that builds self-reliance and independence.
“I’m afraid to negotiate if I don’t have permission.”
Everyone tells women to negotiate more and so many women don’t. Research has found, however, that when women have permission, they do negotiate – and often out-negotiate men. For example, if a job has been advertised that “salary is negotiable,” three times as many women will apply for the posting than they do when there’s no mention that wages are negotiable. When women believe they are invited to negotiate, they do so much more readily than when they fear they will be seen as “pushy” or “demanding” to get what they want. (Sadly, there’s some justification to their fears – research has shown that success and likability are positively correlated in men and negatively correlated in women).
Jodi’s tip: Forget permission. Women need to reframe this assumption toward, “I will be paid what my skills and contributions are worth and not less.” Tell the world what you deserve. Do this based on data you compile from a thorough evaluation of compensation trends in your field. Send a strong signal that you value yourself, and understand the importance of the contributions you’ve made, and will continue to bring to the table.
“I’m afraid to negotiate if I don’t have permission.”
Everyone tells women to negotiate more and so many women don’t. Research has found, however, that when women have permission, they do negotiate – and often out-negotiate men. For example, if a job has been advertised that “salary is negotiable,” three times as many women will apply for the posting than they do when there’s no mention that wages are negotiable. When women believe they are invited to negotiate, they do so much more readily than when they fear they will be seen as “pushy” or “demanding” to get what they want. (Sadly, there’s some justification to their fears – research has shown that success and likability are positively correlated in men and negatively correlated in women).
Jodi’s tip: Forget permission. Women need to reframe this assumption toward, “I will be paid what my skills and contributions are worth and not less.” Tell the world what you deserve. Do this based on data you compile from a thorough evaluation of compensation trends in your field. Send a strong signal that you value yourself, and understand the importance of the contributions you’ve made, and will continue to bring to the table.
“I must be perfect in all I do and I am not good enough.”
These two assumptions combined together keep women from seeking advancement, promotions, raises and embracing growth. Jodi has experienced many women sharing their beliefs that they simply were not ready for the next level or that they preferred to stay as an individual contributor. But in looking beneath these statements, Jodi found a need to be perfect and a prevalent feeling that these women weren’t living up to their perfectionistic ideals. Reframing this assumption of “I’m not good enough” to “I am a work in progress, and I am ready for growth” allows for new pathways to open and new opportunities to be embraced. Rather than berating herself for having a messy home, one woman declared that her messy home was an emblem (that she was proud of) of her commitment to her work. She believed her house was perfectly fine, mess and all, and didn’t feel “less-than” because of it.
Another woman, when asked to take on a new role, at first thought “I’m not ready for that” but then reframed her assumption. She looked around at her male peers doing similar roles and realized that she indeed had all the qualifications and experience she needed to succeed and thrive in the role. She negotiated a new title, a raise, and took the job.
“If I follow the rules, good things will happen.”
Women have learned from their school days that when they follow the rules, teachers will like them and reward them. But in business, the rules are quite different. Following these school-based rules – keeping your head down, doing all your work and doing just what’s asked of you – won’t get women promoted. Instead, they must take responsibility for themselves and their careers, and ask for what they need, want, and deserve. Create a regular forum to share with your managers what you’ve accomplished and contributed, and the value you’ve provided. Talk about your accomplishments, not in a bragging way, but as a way to let managers and teams know how the enterprise is moving forward, and how you’ve facilitated that growth. (Check out Peggy Klaus’s book Brag: The Art of Tooting Your Horn Without Blowing It, for tips.) You’re in the driver’s seat of your career. Expecting good things to occur without actively facilitating these positive outcomes is a recipe for disappointment, or worse, failure.
Reframing these five assumptions is a powerful strategy that frees women up to see and embrace growth and new possibilities. Don’t let your mistaken assumptions perpetuate self-limiting behavior. Realize that what you believe is what you will create. Don’t wait for anyone else to offer you opportunity and growth – reach out and grab it.

Tag: Life

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Even If We Conquer Death – Should We?

Would You Seek Medical Care In Africa’s Public Sector?

Indian Billionaire Singh Not Done Yet In South Africa

Greener Pastures For African Farmer

Meet The Man Behind Gigaba’s Shiny Suits

FIVE Hidden Assumptions That Keep Women From Living Larger