Boris is the wise ol’ CEO of TNW who writes a weekly column on everything about being an entrepreneur in tech — from managing stress to embracing awkwardness. You can get his musings straight to your inbox by signing up for his newsletter!

I recently learned a technique for enabling connections and conversations during dinner, and it’s called… the conversation piece.

Apparently, in previous centuries, it was common practice for the wealthier families of Amsterdam (where I live) to place an object in the middle of the table, so your guests could discuss it. A literal conversation piece.

They’d host prestigious dinner parties where the pieces were crafted by commissioned artists. Some were abstract, some more classical and poetic, and some were downright pornographic. So conversations never stalled, the more audacious and controversial the piece was, the more there was to talk about — especially once the alcohol started flowing.

I greatly enjoy hosting dinner parties as they revolve around good conversations and exchanging ideas, so I was really inspired. But I was also inspired because I could see how the benefits can reach far beyond dinner parties.

I want to have great discussions in my management team, good exchange of ideas with other teams, and engaging one-on-one conversations with my employees.

So here are my three tips to improve your communication, based on the age-old conversation piece.

Tip 1: Choose your piece

Let me be clear: don’t bring an erotic centerpiece to your next team meeting. But what you can do is think about the general concept of having a conversation piece to enable great conversations.

I love the story of the founder of Palm when the company was first starting out. He chose what sparked conversations by actually fashioning a Palmpilot prototype out of wood, drawing a screen and buttons on it with a pencil — and then he carried it around the office and pretended it worked.

He’d come into meetings, place a block of wood on the table, and act as if it was a fully functioning machine. Now that’s a conversation starter.

But a conversation piece doesn’t have to be a physical object or a thing. At our conferences — next one in 84 days , see you there in person? — I like to use our speakers as the conversation pieces.

No matter who you run into or what field they’re in, it’s so easy to encourage a discussion with a simple “have you seen this speaker?” And the beautiful thing is, it doesn’t even really matter whether the answer is yes or no because you now have something to kickstart the conversation.

Tip 2: Shut up

As great as it is to come prepared for conversations, there’s one undeniable fact we have to acknowledge: you talk too much.

If you want to have a good conversation, learn to shut the fuck up . Or as more eloquent people would say: you’ll never learn from just hearing yourself speak.

I know you agree with me when I say the best conversations are when you’re genuinely interested and ask lots of questions. It’s amazing when you have chats like these with friends and family, but they’re even more precious in company meetings.

That’s why I find the most powerful thing you can do in a meeting is to start by saying, “I’m here to listen.” Then hold your tongue and absorb what others have to say — you’ll learn a ton.

So not only can a ‘conversation piece’ be abstract rather than physical, the intentional absence of one can start a deeper discussion.

Tip 3: Walkie-talkie

The physical conversation pieces of old also remind me of a conversation technique I picked up a while back. When you want to discuss complex topics, go for a walk together.

Why? Because it works so much better than a rigid chat sitting across from each other.

When you’re walking, you can stare into the distance and speak your mind more freely. When you’re sat opposite each other, you won’t be able to avoid eye contact, and that can make it harder to think out loud as you feel more scrutinized or worried about how the other person will react to a half-formed thought.

This is just one reason video chats can be so annoying: the constant and unavoidable eye contact.

A walk can therefore make sure the wrong thing doesn’t dictate which direction the conversation goes — for example, perceived judgment by the person sitting across from you.

So to sum up…

Want to ask someone a tricky question or discuss a complex topic? Don’t schedule lunch but go for a walk, or meet in a museum, or find a sunset or fireplace to stare into. And then shut up and listen.

Don’t try to impress others with your stories or insights, but dive deep into their background and reasoning. And lastly, define your conversation piece — whether it’s physical, abstract, or non-existent — then let the conversation develop on its own from there.

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Workplaces still value beauty over brains — and this must stop

Universities position themselves as places where brains matter. It seems strange then that students at a US university would rate attractive academics to be better teachers . This was the finding of a recent paper from the University of Memphis, which concluded that female academics suffered most from this.

It raises an uncomfortable proposition, that beauty trumps brains even in 21st century workplaces. It would certainly be supported by veteran female broadcasters such as radio presenter Libby Purves, who recently complained about the way the BBC dispenses with women of a certain age .

Another survey , this time in the UK , gave a deeper sense of the problem. It reported that employers were asking female employees to dress “sexier” and wear make-up during video meetings .

Published by law firm Slater and Gordon over the summer, and based on a poll of 2,000 office-based staff working from home during lockdown, the report found that 35% of women had experienced at least one sexist demand from their employer, usually relating to how they dressed for video meetings .

Women also reported being asked to wear more makeup, do something to their hair or dress more provocatively. Reasons offered by their bosses were that it would “help win business ” and be “pleasing to a client .”

It seems as though the shift to more virtual working has not eradicated what Danielle Parsons, an employment lawyer at Slater and Gordon, described as “archaic behavior” which “has no place in the modern working world”.

When employees ’ performance is judged on the basis of their physical appearance , potentially shaping their pay and prospects in work , it is known as lookism. It’s not illegal, but arguably it should be.

Beauty and the boss

The Slater and Gordon survey findings affirm that many trends that we describe in our recent book , Aesthetic Labour , are widespread and continuing despite remote working.

Our book reports over 20 years of research and thinking about this problem. Although our research started by focusing on frontline work in hospitality and retail, the same issue has expanded into a diverse range of roles including academics , traffic wardens, recruitment consultants, interpreters, TV news anchors, and circus acrobats.

Companies think that paying greater attention to employees ’ appearance will make them more competitive, while public sector organizations think it will make them more liked. As a result , they are all becoming ever more prescriptive in telling employees how they should look, dress and talk.

It happens both to men and women, though more often to women , and is often tied in more broadly with sexualizing them at work . For example, while Slater and Gordon found that one-third of men and women had “put up with” comments about their appearance during video calls , women were much likelier to face degrading requests to appear sexier.

When we analyzed ten years of employees ’ complaints about lookism to the Equal Opportunities Commission in Australia , we found that the proportion from men was rising across sectors but that two-thirds of complaints were still from women .

Interestingly, the University of Memphis study found no correlation for male academics between how their looks were perceived and how their performance was rated.

Society’s obsession

Of course , workplaces cannot be divorced from society in general, and within the book we chart the increasing obsession with appearance . This aestheticization of individuals is partly driven by the ever-growing reach and importance of the beauty industry and a huge rise in cosmetic — now increasingly labelled aesthetic — surgery.

These trends are perhaps understandable given that those deemed to be “attractive” benefit from a “beauty premium” whereby they are more likely to get a job , more likely to get better pay and more likely to be promoted. Being deemed unattractive or lacking the right dress sense can be reasons to be denied a job , but they are not illegal.

Some researchers have described an emerging aesthetic economy. Clearly this raises concerns about unfair discrimination , but without the legal protection afforded to, say, disabled people .

Not only has this trend continued during the pandemic, it might even have been compounded. With the first genuine signs of rising unemployment reported this month , research already suggests a 14-fold increase in the number of applicants for some job roles. For example, one restaurant in Manchester had over 1,000 applicants for a receptionist position, while the upmarket pub chain All Bar One reported over 500 applicants for a single bar staff role in Liverpool .

Employers are now clearly spoilt for choice when it comes to filling available positions, and those perceived to be better looking will likely have a better chance . We know from research by the University of Strathclyde’s Tom Baum and his colleagues that the hospitality industry was precarious and exploitative enough even before COVID-19 .

It all suggests that lookism is not going away. If we are to avoid the archaic practices of the old normal permeating the new normal, it is time to rethink what we expect from the workplace of the future . One obvious change that could happen is making discrimination on the basis of looks illegal. That would ensure that everyone , regardless of their appearance , has equal opportunity in the world of work to come.

This article is republished from The Conversation by Christopher Warhurst and Dennis Nickson under a Creative Commons license. Read the original articl e.

Report: Coronavirus may lead to ‘mass extinction’ of tech startups worldwide

Coronavirus will have devastating effect on startups, causing a drop in venture capital funding across the world, eradicating many businesses altogether, and making government intervention necessary.

That’s according to Startup Genome ’s ‘Governments, Don’t Let your Startups and Scaleups Die’ report, which states that the recent drop in venture investments in China will help predict what will happen in Europe and the US .

“While it took four quarters for the US Series A and B venture investments to drop from their peak by 30 to 48%, a few weeks ago we had already documented a drop of 50% of Chinese Series A investments.

“Because of their importance on the Asian venture investment landscape, the Chinese VC contraction impacted many other Asian countries before COVID-19 affected their economies directly.”

This contraction caused in venture capital investments is much faster and deeper than in normal recessions because coronavirus disrupts processes themselves — making it impossible for investors to meet startups like they normally would.

According to the report, economists say the return to normality will reveal a deeper recession.

This strongly suggests that the investment contraction is likely to lead to a mass extinction of tech startups precisely at a time when their importance as engines of economic recovery and sustainable job creation is heightened.

“Now is not the time to let venture capital investors prune startup ecosystems by 50-70% — the drop we believe might happen without any government intervention,” the report states.

“Preventing a massive number of premature bankruptcies is exactly why governments all over the world have stepped in to protect SMEs from bankruptcies , and why they must do the same for tech startups,” it adds.

Startup cash reserves are already low — and it’s only the beginning

According to Startup Genome’s study which surveyed almost 1,500 respondents, some 65% of companies — including 34% of Series A+ startups have less than six months worth of cash.

“For companies that previously raised external funding, six months is a red zone when one of the founders starts focusing close to 100% of his or her time on fundraising,” the report warns.

“When equipped with good growth numbers, they can usually make it. In the current context, where 52% of startups have seen their revenue drop by 20 to 100% (barely four weeks into the economic crisis), VCs have greatly reduced and slowed down their investments.”

This, the report continues, makes this crisis a double whammy of capital crunch and demand drop.

“Altogether, it is clear that without government intervention as much as half of our startups might fail unless they lay off most of their employees, endangering their future ability to recover, let alone grow.”

If this were to happen, the report warns it would have a significant knock-on effect on the wider economy.

“Such a large reduction in the number of startups means contemplating a major setback for local startup ecosystems and the local economy for two key reasons a) the accelerating returns to scale of startup ecosystems — and on the flip side, the accelerating losses when the economy gets smaller, and b) the impact on your national and local talent pool,” the report claims.

Coronavirus can heavily impact the tech talent pool

The report notes that 74% of startups have already had to let go of full-time employees, with 26% had to let go of 60% or more of their full-time staff — despite the fact we are still at the very beginning of the economic crisis.

As the coronavirus crisis deepens, and if startups aren’t supported, this lack of care will impact local economies’ talent pools for years to come. “More than one would expect from layoffs in traditional industries,” says the report.

Tech employees, the report states, are a highly productive talent pool.

Layoffs would not only eradicate productivity in the short-term, it may also encourage these employees to seek work elsewhere, opting for tech giants in places such as Silicon Valley, New York, and London.

This, the report adds, means that the impact of unemployment among tech startup workers is three-fold.

Finally, the report highlights how some of today’s most well-known tech companies — including Facebook, LinkedIn, Palantir, and Dropbox — were funded during the Great Recession.

All of these companies, though, are based in the Bay Area. “The Silicon Valley ecosystem is not about to let its most promising startups die. Do not make that mistake in your ecosystem.”

Governments need to do something about it (and fast)

For venture capital-backed startups, the report asks governments to design an immediate flow of government money to startups, not to expect VC firms to lead and spread the money, not to trigger new terms, provide greater flexibility in terms of use of funds, and align its incentives with investors.

For non VC-backed startups, the report says that government money must be funneled to startups through angel investors,

“Because angels have not been vetted by the private sector like VC firms have, the government needs angel investors to first invest their own money to signal to the government that the startup is truly offering good potential,” the report concludes.