May 17, 2010 | Communication, Leadership, Management, Personal Rant
I watched Q&A last night, in the ultimately vain hope of getting some intelligent debate on the Federal budget, and its foundation proposal to change the manner in which the mining industry is taxed.
Should have known better.
What passed for debate was really just a moderated annunciation of political hyperbole and PR crafted phrases intended to play to the emotions, there was little presentation of the facts. How are we to form intelligent positions on issues where all we see is the spin? Are we the electorate, expected to be so compliant and thoughtless that we just accept the nonsense from whichever side of the political divide best suits our generic position.
There are strong arguments on both sides, lets hear them in a way that enables us to make a decision on how we feel, rather than being told how we should feel on the basis of spin.
Increasingly businesses I see are making real efforts to remove the verbiage, and present facts without the gloss and polish as a means to make sensible decisions, and engage the stakeholders in the process to the extent that even if they do not agree with the outcome, they are satisfied that there was due process, and therefore they can live with the outcome.
If our two “debaters” last night were sitting around the board table of anything more significant than the local tennis club, and expecting to get support for their respective positions, the chairman would be well within his rights to send them to the corner to share the pointed cap.
May 16, 2010 | Communication, Innovation, Leadership
A while ago facilitating a two day innovation session, I became involved in two very different, but very similar conversations during various coffee breaks.
The first was with a smart young technical bloke, who expressed the view that all the nice encouraging words expressed at the session were great, but that the business was too risk averse to actually do anything daring.
The second was with the marketing director, someone with a track record of achievement, skills, and a preparedness to have a shot, to push resource allocation and strategic boundaries. He felt that those he relied on to develop the means to execute the technical end of some of the ideas were too interested in science for the sake of it, and disinterested in the commercial and market issues he had to address.
In effect, they are both seeking the same outcome, but the language of management, the functional cultural preconceptions and perceptions have got in the way of unambiguous communication.
This is not an uncommon challenge, every innovation effort must work hard to overcome the cultural and semantic barriers to be successful.
The more attention is focused on innovation, and the higher up the tree that focus emanates from, the better to turn the words into action.
May 13, 2010 | Personal Rant
As we appear to be in a recovery, at least those industries that can benefit in any way from digging stuff up appear to be, what will happen to the underemployed?.
Yesterday, the unemployment numbers came out, 5.4% Australia wide, 5.8% in NSW, but what they really mean is that of those surveyed, 95.6% of those who want to work, did some work, which can mean a couple of hours, in the previous month. I normally do not follow the detail of the employment figures, the statistical and political games played with them just get the blood boiling, but you would have to be crazy not to believe there is a very considerable under-employment in the economy.
Usually we focus on the young, but what about the late middle aged, the plus 50’s (of which I am one) who sit around much of the time, under-employed.
There is a huge well of experience and wisdom that is being wasted. Many of these people do not want to retire, they are the baby-boomer generation, they get their kicks out of working, and many now cannot retire, the GFC has seen to that.
As organisations try to keep full time employment down to minimise costs, and many have a barrier about hiring someone 50-plus, this group who have much to contribute, are being shuffled aside ignored, and devalued.
Wake up Australia!
May 12, 2010 | Alliance management, Demand chains, Leadership, Operations
Successful groups have great power, power to identify, understand the causes and implications of problems and opportunities, and come up with creative responses, and once moving can gather great momentum. Most workplaces are now actively seeking to harness the intellect and creative power of their employees and other stakeholders, and those that do it well create great opportunity.
The flip side is that groups also have inertia, they are much harder to get rolling than just an individual, and once rolling, have a tendency to take unpredictable excursions.
It is easy to underestimate the effort, leadership, and capacity to connect that is required to overcome this inertia, and to manage the momentum constructively, leading a group in a consistent direction, focusing on the important issues, and consistently delivering outcomes.
I bet Isaac never thought of this application of his laws.
May 11, 2010 | Alliance management, Demand chains, Leadership
When people are tied together, when they are in “communities” they tend to develop shared values, aspirations, and courses of action. The incidence of double dealing, dishonesty, personal gain at the expense of the community gain, are reduced.
An efficient demand chain is just another type of community, it benefits from the collaboration, is able to identify and filter out self interest and hubris, and can deliver value to all participants.
The oxygen of such a community is information, both the quantitative data that can be collected and shared, but perhaps more importantly, the qualitative stuff that accrues with use, personal relationships, shared obligations, the mutual understanding of peoples idiosyncrasies, and simply the need to be recognised.
