Diversity needle

One of Board Agenda’s favourite business boffins, Professor Alex Edmans, appeared before Parlimentarians recently to lend his expertise on equality and diversity in business.

Appearing before the women and equalities committee to speak on the effectiveness of EDI initiatives, Edmans was asked what works to boost performance

Edmans has undertaken his own study and drawn his own conclusions. He had this to say: “Some organisations can tick the box on certain visible demographic diversity metrics whereas they are not moving the needle on what truly drives performance: cognitive diversity and inclusion in corporate culture.” Certainly diversifies the discussion of diversity.

Losing your emoji mojo

Pesky emojis can be hard to handle for those of us not native to the virtual world. And so it proved for Delaware judge Kathleen McCormick who recently proved that clicks can go amiss.

McCormick  has had to reassign three lawsuits against Elon Musk after clicking the “support” emoji on a LinkedIn post about Tesla chief eecutive losing a lawsuit.

McComick denies bias but has, nonetheless, recused herself from the cases after Musk lawyers argued the emoji gaff amounted to bias.

Sadly that all means emoji are now a governance issue, as if there wasn’t enough to worry about. (Wide-eyed with horror emoji here).

Bedbugs and ballyhoo

Really, really, really want to annoy some activist investors? Well, Edelman have top ten tips (observations, actually) over on the Harvard Law school governance blog.

Among them is leaking information to the press, slow-rolling discussions and “unprofessional comments about the activist” (after all, no one likes being mocked in public).

But potentially the most eye-catching tactic is the use of “bedbug letters”. No, this has nothing to do with insect infestation but rather the process of using lawyers to undermine activist paperwork by finding minor technicalities that have gone wrong.

Shame that because Board Agenda is fond of a bit of nitpicking.