Nicolas Darveau-Garneau/ "The office mantra for the summer? 'Dress appropriately'"

Jul. 16, 2018 The Ladder: Nicolas Darveau-Garneau: Today I found this article by Cynthia Martin in the Globe and Mail:

Nicolas Darveau-Garneau, 50, became Google’s chief search evangelist in Mountain View, Calif., in May, 2017. He began his career at Google in 2011 as general manager of Google Quebec.

In what I call the journey of my life, from Chicoutimi to Los Gatos, 40 years in concentric circles, the most important thing was learning English – my mom’s idea. I couldn’t speak English almost at all until we moved to Montreal, then I learned it while going to university in Ontario.

The second most important thing was becoming globalized, seeing Canada and the United States, then travelling to 75 countries, where I’ve had extraordinary experiences. If you were born in northern Quebec 50 years ago you didn’t necessarily think highly of people in Toronto. 

You get there and think, “These are wonderful people.” Then in New York: “These are wonderful people.“ Travel broadens your horizons, taking away preconceived notions.

I advise young people to take computer-science first principles classes – like in liberal arts, reading traditional texts. At university, I was intrigued by theoretical underpinnings. I enjoyed working at McKinsey & Co. in Toronto; they trained people well to summarize tough issues, strategy and forecasting. 

Doing my MBA in 1994, I grasped the coming revolution, really for the first time, while I was sitting in Harvard Business School’s computer lab. I got excited by the early browsers; 
Amazon and Yahoo had barely launched. I was fortunate to work at Microsoft. Fully grasping what the internet would bring to the future created my career path. 

My MBA was incredibly valuable. You do hundreds of cases, so your level of pattern recognition is extraordinarily good. It also creates lifelong relationships with incredible people. I had two options: Go back to McKinsey, which would’ve been fantastic and paid for my MBA, or join an internet company. 

I was worth negative-$250,000, with the brilliant idea of starting an internet company – difficult in 1996. Imix.com was one of the first companies in the world with legal music downloads from all major record labels. 

That was a lesson learned; get the timing right. Plus or minus a year or two makes a huge difference – we were early, and struggled. After the infamous 2000 crash, we were fortunate to get some money out. I worked on Wall Street for a wonderful company for a year and a half. It required grit to leave a job paying high six-figures, but quitting brought me back to my first love, the internet.

I joined Google Montreal in September, 2011. Now I’m kind of a consultant sent to its top partners around the world to help think about their digital strategies. I talk to CEOs and CMOs [chief marketing officers] about, in many cases, how to use machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve how we talk to consumers.

 I have access to so many wonderful people, not because I’m particularly clever, but because I work at an interesting company and people want to hear our point of view. One strategy we discuss is the toothbrush test – universal tools used two to three times a day that over a billion people can use. 

It’s important to have diversity to make sure systems work well, not just from an equity perspective, but to make things right as we build technologies. 

One underpinning of my philosophy is freedom – to be who you are, of the press, association, free enterprise – because I’ve seen the opposite at its worst. I’ve appreciated every second living in Canada and the U.S. 

I’m going to join at least two [more] boards, so I’ll get back to Canada more. Canadians tend to be a little more civil; I miss that. I’m really proud of the work [against Quebec separation] by Groupe des cent, which I co-founded for 1995’s referendum, and I’m really happy that Canada is still one country. That was a tough moment. 

Grit and going through adversity is a big thing. My mom’s been my inspiration my entire life, the reason where I am today. I’d failed kindergarten. Being painfully shy, I didn’t recite a poem in front of my peers. She said, “I’ll teach you.” The next year, I could read, write, count, multiply – I skipped first grade. That time with her, honestly, is what allowed me to develop grit and not only succeed, but to power through.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/management/article-how-googles-nicolas-darveau-garneau-learned-to-power-through-after/


"The office mantra for the summer? 'Dress appropriately'": Today I found this article by Virginia Galt in the Globe and Mail:

During a recent Toronto heat wave, chief executive officer Dan Kelly went to the office attired in something he would never have worn to work even a few years ago – “a polo shirt and jacket” instead of his usual business suit, dress shirt and tie. 

That’s about as casual as Mr. Kelly, head of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), gets when it comes to his own work garb. But, like an increasing number of executives, he believes there “has to be a strong business case” for dictating the wardrobe choices of others. The formal business dress code is falling out of fashion.

At General Motors Co., CEO Mary Barra has pared the previous 10-page dress code down to two words: Dress appropriately.

Companies such as accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers and management consulting firm Accenture have adopted a “Dress for Your Day” policy, trusting employees to decide when they can go business casual and when they should bust out The Suit. Tim Ryan, PwC’s U.S. chairman, wore jeans when he announced the more relaxed corporate dress policy in the summer of 2016.

Chartered accountant Penny Partridge, chief people officer at PwC Canada, said it did not make a lot of sense to tell professionals how to dress “when we trust them with millions of dollars in complex issues with our clients.”

The policy applies year round. “In the summer, can people take it a little bit far? Oh, yeah. We joke that sometimes people think that they are at the beach or at a nightclub, but these are sort of one-offs and we talk to people when we see that,” Ms. Partridge said in an interview. There’s no need to make it a bigger deal than it is, she said.

Accenture tries not to be too prescriptive, but offers “soft guidelines,” says Nicholas Greschner, Accenture Canada’s human-resources director. “We tested it out three summers ago and just continued on with dress for your day throughout the year.”

 On the whole, employees have found a good balance between expressing their personal styles, while respecting their clients’ preferences. “If you do need to wear a suit, you wear a suit, right?”

Some employers, however, still feel the need to issue the annual summer memo on what dress is considered acceptable in the warmer weather − it could be khakis, golf shirts, capri pants − and what is not. Employers should also communicate their expectations on grooming and hygiene. 

“During the warm summer months, body odour and other hygiene issues may become more prevalent,” U.S. firm XpertHR said in its 2018 report on summer workplace issues.

At the CFIB, Mr. Kelly gets calls from CFIB members asking whether they can require employees to cover tattoos with long-sleeved shirts, whether it is fair to prohibit men from wearing sandals in the workplace when women are allowed to do so, whether they can ban flip-flops. The old rules don’t necessarily apply, and “there is no hard and fast” on how to address some of these issues now, he said.

There is a case to be made for lightening up on the wardrobe front, Mr. Kelly said. “A lot of companies are being more energy conscious, so if you require people to wear jackets, suits and ties to work, obviously your cooling costs are going to be higher compared with environments where you are allowing people to wear short sleeves or even shorts in some locations.”

With workplace norms changing so quickly, employees, too, are seeking guidance on what, exactly, “business casual” means.

At Accenture’s Montreal office, the men’s employee resource group organized an event with Holt Renfrew to understand the trends, Mr. Greschner said in an interview. PwC employees in Toronto recently held a fashion show at Hudson’s Bay Co. “where we had our own people modelling appropriate professional business attire,” Ms. Partridge said. They had the opportunity to shop afterward, with personal style advice from The Bay experts.

According to a recent report by the Office Team division of HR firm Robert Half, piercings, visible tattoos, jeans and leggings are more acceptable at work than they were five years ago. “Employers have become less tolerant of flip-flops, shorts and tank tops.”

However, employees will not necessarily know if they have run afoul of unwritten dress codes. Senior managers are uncomfortable in the role of fashion police and only 8 per cent of 300 surveyed for the Office Team report have spoken to an employee about inappropriate attire.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/management/article-dress-appropriately-is-the-office-mantra-for-summer/

21 hours ago

now we have to have our comments adjudicated for replying to "‘Dress appropriately’ is the office mantra for summer"

21 hours ago

Now I remember why I turned my car around , one sunny day, and phoned in my resignation.

22 hours ago

There was a time when articles of this nature would dwell on the question: how much cleavage is too much? Now we have to ask about the propriety of side-boob or even under-boob.

1 day ago

If you have ambitions, dress one level above the one you are currently at. It shouldn't matter but it does. Look to your superiors for clues and model your wardrobe after theirs.
But it's easy to take things too far one way or the other. If you are dealing with a high tech start-up, stay away from the power suit and spit shined shoes. They will assume you are an MBA who is brain dead about technology and will never show respect to your back, the only kind that counts.