Jul 27, 2011 | Change, Leadership, Management
Large organisations tend to have what is usually called their own “culture” but when you look deeper, there is a more basic form of “sameness” amongst organisations in a field, particularly those in a public field, Government departments, churches, non profits and industry bodies.
I speculate that this is because they are stable, relatively long term entities, often protected from the discipline of the market to some degree, so they tend to select new employees, promote and measure performance against the criteria of those already there. This will tend to perpetuate the DNA of the organisation, and as people leave, they will often find themselves in similar organisations, thus spreading the DNA laterally.
In the Australian Public Service there is a set of guidelines driving the employment, promotion, performance assessment and cross departmental transfer processes, the “Integrated Leadership System“. It is a complex set of procedures designed to ensure even handed and consistent selection decisions, but which must result in the perpetuation of the genetic code of the APS.
This genetic coding is what makes change in large organisations so difficult, it takes a real gutsy, and very rare leader to alter the rules by which he/she rose to the point at which they can change the rules.
Jul 26, 2011 | Leadership, Management, Operations
Completing an AAR, (After Action Review) is now widely practiced, effectively a commercial post mortem after any major commercial activity. Completing an AAR has been standard practice for a long time after a capital expenditure, generally called something else, but it embodies the notion of learning from the mistakes, and successes to build capability the next time.
How much better it would be to conduct a formal pre mortem?
Project yourself into the future, a year, 2 years, whatever is appropriate, and assume the project you are considering has gone pear shaped, then conceive of all the ways in which this may have happened, and what the better option may have been. In other words, conduct a “Pre Mortem”
It seems to me that a rigorous pre mortem may be a pretty useful way of avoiding mistakes in the first place, better than having to learn from them.
Jul 25, 2011 | Communication, Leadership
Rupert Murdoch’s refusal to accept any responsibility for the behavior of his staff in tapping phones to get stories, was grand farce. Did he pay the pie-chucker?
When compared with the actions of the MD of Arnott’s some years ago when there was a poisoning scare and he was televised throwing boxes of biscuits into a dumpster, and Toyota MD Akio Toyoda recently fronting US congressional hearings to accept full responsibility for the recent Toyota quality glitches, and many others, Rupert’s gutless display leads me to a new verb.
To “Rupert”
This describes the situation where the one clearly in charge points at various and varying underlings and says “them, not me”. In all probability, those poor underlings accept the charge, as it appears young “Becky” has, in exchange for either “be quiet” money, or keep “your job” choices.
I think we can have some fun with this.
My local council, Burwood, is currently doing a “Rupert” on the approval in 2002 of a very dodgy DA, and the associated transfer of public land.
There is a bit of “Ruperting” going on in the Liberal party in relation to the support of the Howard Government of an ETS
The airport train yesterday was cancelled without notice, leaving hundreds of very disgruntled train passengers (me included) waiting for almost non existent buses out on Elizabeth Street to take us to the airport. I wonder if the new transport minister will do a “Rupert” today and blame the previous government?
Well, at least I like it!
Jul 24, 2011 | Change, Personal Rant
Irrespective of your views on climate change, the carbon tax, global warming, and the need for change, the sight of all the spivs and carpetbaggers mixed amongst the crowd setting out to get their noses into the new troughs created by the Federal Governments clean energy funding initiatives should make the blood of taxpayers run cold.
The Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC)has been quick off the mark with the press releases, but short on all but the vital detail, $10 billion to be given away, kicking in 2015-16 fiscal, so plenty of time to plan, or if you happen to be a real company, struggle for finance to see you through. The really lovely part of this is that it will be run by those paragons of free enterprise and productivity, The Greens.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (AREA) has been set up to take the place of a mash-up of existing programs, guided by an “Independent board”, and will allocate and administer $3.2 billion, including the 1.7 billion unallocated under the current programs.
This is a monster party at which bureaucrats will again pick winners, a task at which they have demonstrated a remarkable lack of skill in the past, but if you practice enough with taxpayers money, it will be right on the night, trust me, I’m a politician!
Jul 21, 2011 | Change, Personal Rant
It seems to me that the carbon “debate” currently taking place fails on the most basic level of dealing with any of the facts. It is simply a political poop throwing contest, where the only success factor in either of the protagonists minds is the level of noise they can generate.
The science appears pretty clear, human activity is contributing substantially to climate change, carbon being the primary villain, but nevertheless just one of many, and whilst it is long term in the context of any individual life, it is reasonably clear that we are on borrowed time.
This is not to support either political position, nor to accept or deny the value of a Tax Vs an ETS Vs “Direct Action” but simply to acknowledge the need to take out some insurance, with a very long time frame, so perhaps out great great grand-children will thank us, or perhaps cash in the policy. Either way, they will be better off.
The question currently being asked is “how can we?” and there are many answers, none really addressing the range of challenges in the implementation. Perhaps a better question to start should add one tiny word: “how can we not…..”?
