64 Business The EconomistSeptember 14th 2019
21Bartleby The eyes have it
Economist.com/blogs/bartlebyP
icture in your mind the typical
chief executive. The chances are that
you have thought of someone male, in a
suit and distinguished-looking. In part,
that is because most bosses look like
that. It may also be because people in-
stinctively defer to such types.
In their book “Messengers: Who We
Listen To, Who We Don’t And Why”,
Stephen Martin and Joseph Marks, two
psychologists, outline how people re-
spond to visual status signals. Just why
are pedestrians likelier (three times as
likely, according to one study) to defy
traffic laws to follow a man across the
road when he is wearing a suit than the
same man dressed in denim? Similarly,
motorists stuck at a traffic light are slow-
er to honk their horn if the car in front
has a prestige brand.
One possibility is an evolved respect
for those with a higher social position.
This is not just about clothes or pos-
sessions. A further piece of research
cited by the authors involved undergrad-
uates who were shown photos of 50 chief
executives from the Fortune 1000 list of
big firms. Half of these bosses were from
the most profitable groups and half from
the least profitable. The undergraduates
were asked to judge, on looks alone,
which executives had qualities such as
competence and dominance. Remark-
ably, the students tended to pick out
those executives who led the most suc-
cessful companies.
It is hard to disentangle cause and
effect. But it seems more probable that
people with a certain type of appearance
are likely to get promoted than it is to
believe they are innately more compe-
tent than everyone else.
Humans tend to respect men with
particular physical characteristics. When
participants in a study were shownpictures of male employees of a business
consultancy, with similar clothes and
masked faces, they perceived the taller
men more positively in terms of team
leadership skills. Indeed, research has
shown that taller and more attractive men
earn more than their shorter and plainer
colleagues.
Another business advantage for men
turns out to be a face with a higher-than-
average width-to-height-ratio. Research
showed how square-jawed men negotiated
higher signing-on bonuses for themselves
than longer-faced, round-jawed peers.
Physical characteristics also affect
recruitment at lower levels. A group of
Italian researchers sent cvs to a range of
employers, some with photos and some
without. Applicants deemed attractive by
independent scorers were 20% more likely
to get an interview than the same applica-
tion without a photo. Things are worse for
the fairer sex. When photos were included,
male jobseekers deemed unattractive were
contacted 26% of the time, compared with
7% in the case of unattractive women.
All rather depressing, particularly forwomen trying to climb the corporate
ladder. But there are some intriguing
differences in the kind of personalities
that boards tend to favour. The stereo-
type is that executives tend to be ruthless
and egotistical—embodied by Gordon
Gekko (or rather, the square-jawed Mi-
chael Douglas who played him). Not
always, it turns out. The authors cite
research on how boards choose chief
executives. When choosing between two
suitably qualified candidates to take
charge of a company that is performing
well, a board is likely to pick a leader who
does not appear to be egotistical and
self-interested. But if the company is in
trouble, a narcissist stands a better
chance. When the going gets tough, in
other words, the board opts for a jerk.
Perhaps board members don’t think
of it that way. One long-established
phenomenon is the “halo effect”. If a
person (or company) is rated highly in
terms of one characteristic, they get good
marks across the board. As the authors
recount, this applies when employees
are being assessed by their managers for
qualities such as intelligence, decisive-
ness and leadership. Broadly speaking,
managers divided staff into “good” and
bad” workers; few employees were
deemed to be intelligent but indecisive,
for example.
What this fascinating book reaffirms
is that people’s assessments of others are
extremely subjective, and easily led
astray by appearances. That suggests a lot
can be achieved by using artificial in-
telligence in hiring and promotion deci-
sions, providing the programming is
done correctly and focuses on candidate
qualifications. A computer shouldn’t be
distracted by a handsome face.A new book reveals the excessive attention paid to how executives lookbusiness intentions are hard-nosed. Mr
Ren says money from the deal would allow
Huawei to “make greater strides forward”.
The value of the firm’s entire 5gtechnology
portfolio, if it were sold, could run to tens
of billions of dollars. In the past decade the
company has spent at least $2bn on re-
search and development for the new gener-
ation of mobile connectivity.
In saying he wants to create a fairer
technological race, Mr Ren is also attempt-
ing to dissociate American security fears
from those of Huawei’s market dominance.
His offer is “essentially calling their bluff”,says Samm Sacks of New America, a think-
tank in Washington. As she points out,
America’s government is working out how
to create a rival to Huawei, whether by fos-
tering American firms or helping bolster
its two main global competitors, Ericsson,
a Swedish firm, and Nokia, a Finnish one.
Moves are also afoot to make certain com-
ponents of mobile networks interchange-
able with each other, to let carriers mix and
match suppliers more easily. Openran, a
standards body, wants infrastructure
manufacturers like Huawei to agree on
standards for the technology in their net-works that shuttles data around to make
joint operation easier. Huawei has so far
declined to join.
Yet questions over the feasibility of the
deal abound. Would China accept hiving
off a core part of one of its few globally
powerful corporations? For better or worse,
5 ghas become a proxy for superpower-
dom. As Mr Ren told The Economist, “5grep-
resents speed” and “countries that have
speed will move forward rapidly. On the
contrary, countries that give up speed and
excellent connectivity technology may see
economic slowdown.”