Margaret Heffernan (born 16 June 1955[1]) is an entrepreneur, CEO, writer and keynote speaker.[2] She is currently a professor of Practice at the University of Bath School of Management in the UK[3] and, in 2021, was inaugurated into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame for her lasting contribution to Management Thinking.[4]
Heffernan is the former chief executive officer of five businesses[5] and is the writer of seven books that explore the areas of business, leadership, decision making and creativity.[6] She teaches entrepreneurship, mentors executives as part of a leadership development company,[7] and makes presentations for corporations, associations, and universities.[3]
While Heffernan's first two books focused on female leadership and entrepreneurship and how they impact women in the workplace, her overarching theme is recognizing and releasing the capacity that often lies buried inside organizations, under-valued and under-rewarded because it is unconventional.
Early life
Heffernan was born in the US state of Texas. At some point, her family moved to the Netherlands where she lived for the majority of her childhood. Heffernan and her family later moved to the United Kingdom. She attended Cambridge University and received a Master of Arts degree.[failed verification]
Personal life
Heffernan was awarded an Honorary Degree from the University of Bath in 2011, where she is a regular lecturer in the university's MBA program.[8]
She subsequently became managing director of IPPA. Moving to the United States in 1994, she developed software programmes for The Learning Company and S&P Global Ratings, and then bought, sold and ran businesses for CMGI, serving as Chief Executive of iCast Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and Information Corporation.
Her experience running businesses in the US and UK have informed all of her writing, as has mentoring Chief and Senior executives of major global companies, as well as entrepreneurs.
While her work has garnered respect and praise from academics, she has also received attention from leading executives who value academic insight insofar as it is tested by real world leadership. [9]
In March 2013, she gave another talk for TED at TEDxDanudia, concentrating on the dangers of willful blindness.[11]
In May 2015, Heffernan gave a TED talk at TEDWomen 2015, titled "Why it's time to forget the Pecking Order at Work". This drew from her book "A Bigger Prize: Why No One Wins Unless Everyone Wins" which won the Transmission Prize. Her talk highlighted how social capital makes candor safe, encouraging more frequent conflicts and leading to better outcomes.[12]
In July 2019, she gave her fourth talk for TED at TEDSummit 2019 about the need for more human skills and less technology to solve problems in business, government and life in the modern age.[13] This book was based on her book "Uncharted: How To Navigate The Future" which was published immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Books
Heffernan writes from her experience, saying she started writing about business because "nothing captured the reality of running companies."[14]
The Naked Truth
UK Front Cover for The Naked Truth
The Naked Truth: A Working Woman’s Manifesto about Business and What Really Matters was published in 2004. The book looked at the barriers to women's equality in the workplace and collected experiences and advice from successful business women who had overcome them. In particular, the book examined women’s attitudes about power and how they define and use power differently from men. The book argued that men see power as expressed through personal or organizational dominance, while women see power as derived from orchestration. Men express ambition as getting to the top, while women see ambition as the ability to live and work freely. The book concludes by arguing that what women bring to the workplace is distinctive and highly suited to the non-linear complexities of modern business.[15][independent source needed]
Women On Top
How She Does It (republished in paperback as Women On Top) was published after The Naked Truth. The book examines women who substituted the struggle to succeed within traditional, male-dominated organizations for running their own companies. The book examines the statistics underlying the growth and outsize success of female-owned businesses, posing the question: "How is it that women achieve so much more when they get so much less in the way of institutional support and funding?" Examining women’s motivation, their neurological and social advantages, choice of markets, leadership styles, use of networks and advisors and their different approaches to mergers, acquisitions and exits. The book argues women's different motivations, thinking and leading styles position them for entrepreneurial success. But much of what makes them succeed are approaches and strategies that men could also emulate. The book concludes to say women set a particularly high standard for business success that might provide a powerful antidote to some of the failed business cultures of the past.[16]
Wilful Blindness
UK Front Cover for Wilful Blindness
Wilful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was published in 2011. In it, Heffernan argues that the biggest threats and dangers we face are the ones we don't see – not because they're secret or invisible, but because we’re willfully blind. She examines the phenomenon and traces its imprint in our private and working lives and within governments and organizations. She asks: "What makes us prefer ignorance? What are we so afraid of? Why do some people see more than others? And how can we change?"
Her book, A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn't Everything and How We Do Better, published in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2014, looks at the perils of competition and how this over emphasis on competing is damaging our society in everything from big business all the way down to everyday family life.
In A Bigger Prize, Heffernan examines the competition culture that is inherent in life. Instead of breeding innovation, new ideas and inspiring us to do better, competition regularly produces instead more cases of fraud, cheating, stress and inequality whilst suffocating the creative instinct we desperately need to nurture. Burn outs, scandals and poor ethics abound in the race to be the best.
So, what can we do instead she asks? By speaking to scientists, musicians, athletes, entrepreneurs and executives Heffernan has found a plethora of examples of individuals and organizations who have implemented creative, cooperative ways of working together. Methods which don't set people against each other, but which establish supportive environments that lead to success and happiness. "They are the real winners, sharing a bigger prize."
Beyond Measure
In Beyond Measure, Margaret Heffernan looks back over her decades spent overseeing different organizations and comes to a counterintuitive conclusion: it's the small shifts that have the greatest impact. Heffernan argues that building the strongest organization can be accelerated by implementing seemingly small changes, such as embracing conflict as a creative catalyst; using every mind on the team; celebrating mistakes; speaking up and listening more; and encouraging time off from work. Published by Simon & Schuster, this book was commissioned by TED.
More Than A Dream
This pamphlet is the text of Heffernan’s public Coleridge lecture, delivered in Bristol in 2016. It examines the writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Shulamith Firestone. It was self-published in the style of eighteenth century pamphlets.
Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future
In this book, Heffernan examined the flaws in forecasting that show the world to be inherently complex and therefore unpredictable. How is one to deal with life and business, knowing that there is so much we don’t know, is her theme. It uses examples from the Bank of England, 3M, Dell Medical School, Buurtzorg, the Sagrada Família, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and other institutions to demonstrate that not knowing the future need not be paralyzing.
Embracing Uncertainty
This book examines the degree to which artists are so frequently ahead of their times and asks what can be learned from the way that they live and work. Using an array of examples from music, painting, sculpture, poetry, novels and theatre, Heffernan traces the creative mindset and argues that all people are born creative and therefore have a capacity to deal with uncertainty in bold and unique ways.
Broadcasting
Heffernan is a frequent broadcaster for the BBC, where she has presented many programmes in the Analysis series[18], and on the TED House. She also appeared in Hard Talk[19] and The Spark[20] talking about "Uncharted: How To Navigate The Future".
Awards
Heffernan was named one of the Internet’s Top 100 by Silicon Alley Reporter in 1999, one of the Top 25 by Streaming Media magazine and one of the Top 100 Media Executives by The Hollywood Reporter.[21]
In 2001, her "Tear Down the Wall" campaign against AOL won the Silver SABRE award for public relations.[21] In 2008, her documentary for BBC Radio 4 on the rise of female entrepreneurship, Changing the Rules, won the Prowess Media Award.
Her two radio plays, Enron and Power Play, were broadcast on Radio 4 and nominated for a Sony award.
In 2011, Wilful Blindness was a finalist for the Financial Times' Best Business Book award.[21]
In 2015, A Bigger Prize won the Transmission Prize.
Publications
Margaret Heffernan talks about Willful Blindness on Bookbits radio.
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