Change With A Capital C: What Works?

We should all expect to go through upheavals during our working lives, which is all the more reason to become competent at dealing with it. By Professor Danny Samson FIML

 

 

Organisational change is hard and often unsuccessful because even seasoned managers can fall prone to underestimating organisational inertia. We often insufficiently attend to the concerns employees have about change, principally what will happen to them. Yet in these highly turbulent times, surely change management should be a core capability of every competent leader and every organisation that wants to sustain its survival and prosperity. So, what works and what are the pitfalls?

When change is radical, being “Big C” change as against incremental in nature, then the stakes and the risks are commensurately higher. By radical or Big C change, we refer to large transformations or makeovers, whether they are of culture, structure, size, technology, location, product range, distribution channel or any other core element of an organisation.

With radical change in particular, it’s critical to have a strong and compelling vision that motivates and justifies the change. Otherwise, when the going gets tough (and it will), the doubters will emerge and get a strong voice.

The next step is communicate comprehensively the necessity of such a change. Deal openly with the naysayers, and get quickly into the implementation phase. This brings us to the crucial and proven element of successful implementation of major change: create a solid project plan and drive it with tough, hard accountabilities expected from all participants. The project plan is the guiding ‘change map’ that overcomes the chaos that would otherwise result.

Otherwise we’re asking for chaos through ‘ad hockery’. If difficult decisions need to be implemented, such as downsizing and redundancies, then these need to be anticipated as part of the plan, and implemented in a thoroughly professional and precise manner. All employees will want to know their future, so the sooner this can be resolved, the better.

Successful change management is planned and executed in a fast and decisive manner so that the organisation can settle and stabilise.

This approach works much better than the “death by a thousand cuts” approach of multiple incremental steps in an attempt to get to the same end point. I saw this major contrast in New Zealand when both their Post and Telecom businesses were going through major restructuring and downsizing, with one doing a radical change process and the other announcing a five-year downsizing process.

NZ Post was successful in doing it fast and hard, then rebuilding its systems and culture, introducing new technology and renewing almost every aspect of its operations and service levels.

 

“It’s critical to have a strong and compelling vision that motivates and justifies the change.” – Professor Danny Samson

 

 

Similarly, when I served on the board of the TAC (Transport Accident Commission) in Victoria, we chose to implement new e-business technologies, even though it meant that many jobs would change and some would disappear in our pursuit of higher levels of productivity and client service.

Perhaps the hardest thing to change in an organisation is people’s behaviour and culture. As a young engineer (many years ago) working at ICI in Sydney, I was amazed at the negativity of the industrial culture, and the gulf in attitude between managers and the workforce, along with the many insipid managerial attempts to chip away incrementally at the unproductive culture there.

Finally, with necessity being the mother of invention, the need for radical change was realised. A new site manager was brought in to overcome the deeply resistant and negative situation that had built up over decades. He brought sincere, yet firm, intentions, restructuring the workplace arrangements very substantially, enduring personal threats from militant resistors.

When the going got tough during a six-week strike he even had to deal with second thoughts from head office, which was ready to buckle on some of the core issues. He showed a huge amount of personal courage to see through the changes and implement the visionary plan to bring the company out of the industrial dark ages.

Executing radical change needs a vision and a plan, and the ability to demonstrate and communicate benefits of change to the business the. But tying it all together is the leadership team with the determination — let’s call it the stiff backbone — to see the journey through.

 

Trust: Hard To Earn But Easy To Lose

 

If there’s one thing that ensures team success, it’s trust.
By Kate Jones

 

Trust is the key that unlocks the door to more innovative, agile and productive organisations.

Yet it barely rates a mention in boardrooms across Australia, reflecting an even more worrying trend – society’s growing mistrust of institutions.

Declining trust is a problem for governments, banks, the media and even non-government organisations. Research shows flagging trust means the majority of people think societal and economic systems are working against them.

The 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, which samples more than 33,000 respondents from 28 countries, found people’s concerns centre around corruption, globalisation, immigration, an erosion of social values and the pace of innovation.

Across the four institutions of government, business, media and NGOs, business was viewed as the only one that can make a difference. Three out of four respondents agree a company can take actions to both increase profits and improve economic and social conditions.

Business leaders play an important part in rebuilding trust and it all starts in-house.

Today’s fast-paced advances mean there is a greater emphasis on explaining the impact of innovation to employees and what it means for their jobs. There is the ongoing need for businesses to pay employees fairly, constantly improve benefits and provide job training.

Being a trustworthy leader is all about establishing credibility, says business psychologist Sebastian Salicru, author of Leadership Results: How to Create Adaptive Leaders and High-performing Organisations for an Uncertain World.

 

“Leaders need to be fair by displaying consistency in decision-making . . . and sharing their influence and power appropriately”

 

“This means acting with integrity and being role models of the principles, values and behaviours they uphold,” he says.

“More specifically, building credibility entails enhancing or repairing their psychological contracts with their people by fulfilling the expectations employees have of them, building trust by communicating openly, keeping their promises, demonstrating competence and good judgment.

“They also need to be fair by displaying consistency in decision-making, providing opportunities for others to share their views, share their influence and power appropriately, and provide ongoing feedback to their teams.”

Winning a team’s trust is a marathon and relies on being respectful, welcoming feedback and admitting mistakes, Salicru advises. Losing it can be a sprint.

“Don’t assume people know what you expect from them, don’t pretend that you know everything, don’t blame others when things go wrong, don’t display favouritisms, don’t bully, abuse your power or discriminate against others, don’t avoid conflict and don’t try to be liked or seek approval from others,” he says.

Restoring strong team trust will translate to consumers, giving them confidence to do business with an organisation and recommending that organisation to others. Flowing from this are healthy customer relationships, which fast-track business growth and build sustainable brand equity.

“It manifests in increased sales, repeat business, customer loyalty and brand ambassadorship,” Salicru says.

“In turn, this affords you and the organisation brand differentiation, good reputation, and greater competitive advantage. In the longer-term, this means increased market share, sustainability and business growth.”

Maintaining trust has and always will be crucial for business leaders. Leaders can do this by working towards putting people, their employees and customers, at the centre of everything they do.

 

Being decisive and winning the dog fight

Written by Paul Mead – Performance Consultant, Paul Mead Consulting

As leaders, we understand that having a strategy is an essential part of success. But a strategy without action is just a pretty piece of paper. The strategic leader needs to be able to turn this plan into action, understanding how it is to be used in the current environment and bring along the rest of the organisation with them.

 

According to some recent research, an adult makes up to 35,000 decisions per day. Many of these decisions are minor impulsive type decisions (we make over 200 decisions each day about food choices), but others, especially for leaders are critically important ones. So, as leaders, how do we take decisive action when it is required?

 

As an ex-New Zealand Army Officer, I like to look towards my military education to find insights for leaders. One lesson that has stuck with me and rings true for strategic leaders of all persuasions is the OODA Loop.

 

Colonel John Boyd, a US Air Force Fighter Pilot introduced a concept in the 1950’s called the OODA Loop. Observe, Orientate, Decide, Act.

Paul was the National Winner of the 2016 ALEAs Emerging Leaders award

Col. Boyd noted in the Korean War, that despite the US aircraft being less maneuverable than the Russian made MIG’s, they were winning the majority of the dogfights.

Part of the reason being, the US F-86’s had a better field of vision and hydraulic controls that enabled faster maneuverability. This ability to observe and then orientate themselves faster, meant they could disrupt the actions of their enemy.

He emphasised to his pilots the need to observe and orientate faster than their enemy in order to make superior decisions that ultimately would save their lives.

This concept of the OODA loop can be directly applied to the process that exceptional strategic leaders display, in taking decisive action around those important decisions, within the 35,000, they make every day.

 

Observe – The strategic leader is constantly observing the environment in which they operate. They can identify what is a risk to their organisation and where opportunities to exploit lie.

 

Orientate – The strategic leader orientates their organisation into a position to either mitigate the risk or take advantage of the opportunity.

This ability to orientate the organisation should not be underestimated. This is where the strategic leader earns their title. A failure to correctly orientate will spell disaster in the next two stages.

 

Decide – The strategic leader is decisive in their decisions. They know when they have enough information and when the timing is right to take action. They decide on a course of action and launch into it with full force.

 

Act – The strategic leader acts at the right time, always. Their action is well planned and they have contingencies in place for when the situation changes. Success is likely, rather than as a consequence of luck.

Strategic leaders know that the ability to orientate their organisation takes more than charisma. It takes the ability to clearly communicate the need to implement change or transform a business process through a clear vision. This vision is built upon observation that is rooted in research, analysis, experience and gut feelings.

When it comes time to make the decision, the strategic leader has motivated their team to adopt the vision as their own, knowing that the challenge is to ensure that the odds are stacked clearly in their favour. The strategic leader knows that their tactical leaders have the information they require to influence, lead and win their dogfights, contributing to the broader strategic plan.

 

This is the art of strategic leadership, one dogfight at a time.


Paul will be one of many speakers at our upcoming Brisbane Conference on the 2nd November 2017. Book Now to hear Paul and many other specialists in their respective fields discuss attributes of successful leaders at this full day event.

 

What Millennial Companies Get Right

 

Every generation brings with it a unique perspective and experience – otherwise why would people keep coming up with names to describe them? So what can business owners or potential startup founders from other generations learn from millennials? By Carolin Lenehan

 

MONICA Wulff is a statistician, a startup founder, and a Gen Y millennial. But once you strip the labels away, she’s a young Australian businesswoman receiving kudos and recognition around the world for her work developing a reliable statistical base of knowledge about Australian startup founders and the enabling environment they need to sustain them.

As CEO and co-founder of Startup Muster – Australia’s most comprehensive survey into this burgeoning growth sector – Monica’s views on what can be done to help new startup businesses grow and prosper are both insightful and innovative.

 

Do it with Passion

“We haven’t had the hard times faced by previous generations. We haven’t had to grit our teeth and say I’m just going to do this job, even though I hate it. For us it’s, ‘I’m going to follow my passion, I’m going to follow my purpose, I’m going to work somewhere or on something that is unique to me, and from that, I will be able to make an income and a living’,” Wulff says.

For Monica, this was easy – she loved statistics, then she fell in love with the startup world. Startup Muster is the marriage of the two and she has no problem putting every ounce of her being into making it work.

If you’re going to go through the hard slog of a startup life then you need to be doing something that you’re passionate about.

“One of the first things new startups are told is to find your story,” Monica says. “You’ve got to have a problem that you’re solving. Unless you’re dedicated and in love with the idea, you’re not going to succeed and you won’t be believeable [to investors, customers etc].”

Monica Wulff: co-founder and CEO of Startup Muster.

 

Get comfortable putting yourself out there: behave like a digital native

Living, eating and breathing your product and your brand 24/7 is essential – you never know where your next opportunity or investor might come from.

Millennials have an edge from growing up curating their personal brand on social media – with positive and negative personal consequences.

‘Go social’ with your business, but do it with purpose and integrity. Every post, every photograph, every event you report in from, all need to be carefully curated to leave an imprint of who you are, what you stand for and what you are achieving. The story you are telling through blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and WeChat all need to evoke aspirational feelings in your customers and clients – particularly if you are targeting millennials!

 

It’s not Entitled. It’s Entrepreneurial.

In her 2017 book, The Millennial Myth, Crystal Kadakia seeks to redefine the labels into business strategies that harness the millennial mindset:
“It’s not lazy, it’s productivity redefined.
It’s not entitled, it’s entrepreneurial.
It’s not hand-holding, it’s agility.
It’s not disloyal, it’s seeking purpose.
It’s not authority issues, it’s respect redefined.”

 

She has described millennials as enabled by the internet, enabled by STEM, and driven by YOLO (You Only Live Once).

Millennials like Crystal and Monica were at university during the Global Financial Crisis, and the recession that followed. Their generation will be the first to be less well-off than their parents.

“What came out of it was the mindset that there’s no such thing anymore as a golden handshake after 40 years with one company… We are working to have more ownership of our future. I’ve got a mission, and some would describe that as ‘entitled’,” Monica said.

 

AND REMEMBER . . . DON’T FEAR FAILURE

Tackle your new business with passion, drive and integrity. Nurture its public image, curate it carefully. Don’t fear criticism, use it to hone your product and build your defences. If you do fail, learn from it and wear it as a notch on your belt. Soon it will be the new black.

 

Career Doctor: An IML Specialist Takes A Problem To Task

 

 

The problem: ‘I’m a new boss who has discovered that morale and productivity are low. What’s the best way to raise standards?’

 

Peter says: It’s easy to become overwhelmed, lost and bewildered as a young first-time manager taking over a dysfunctional team with a very negative culture. The situation can be magnified if there’s little or no support to coach or guide you through the steps you must take to establish your credibility and garner trust from the members in your team. In any case it’s best to have a fluid plan that you can adapt depending on circumstance. Once you have that set, consider the following as team-building tips that will help you execute your plan.

 

Let them know who you are
At the earliest opportunity, speak to the whole team about your work history and who you are as a person, and present an overview of why you were given the position.

Be open with your intentions
When setting out plans for the future, don’t be tempted to outline a “grand plan”. Building trust, boosting credibility and setting out guidelines for a collaborative culture are key. You will need to be inclusive while remaining cautious when explaining your vision of the team’s future, especially when it includes building a stronger more positive and proactive culture within the team.

Up close and personal
Spend one-on-one time with each team member as soon as possible. This provides the opportunity to learn more about each other, find out what’s working well and why, and what could be improved and how. It’s one of the best ways to find out what the real concerns are. This should become a fixed weekly or fortnightly catch-up to provide and receive open and honest feedback.

The task at hand
As soon as you know what’s working well and what needs to be improved from the team, convene a team meeting to advise your team on what you’ve learned from the one-on-ones and how you plan to tackle the areas that need to be improved (after ensuring to ask them for their ideas). Then divide up the tasks, empowering individuals and teams, while you take responsibility for the big-ticket items.

Accountability
Reinforce standards for correct behaviour and performance, referencing job descriptions and codes of conduct. Emphasise that you also abide by these standards. Respect, credibility and trust are supported by consistency and fairness in all you do. You’re a role model from the very first moment you take up the job. Your team will be watching you.

 

Peter Cullen is an education and training facilitator who teaches “Manage People, Performance and Business Effectively” courses. Each three-day program engages participants in developing and implementing their capabilities as manager and leaders.

A Vision Splendid

 

When Starbucks lost its way it had to come up with a whole new recipe. By Fiona Smith

 

When you order a grande chocolate chip frappuccino at Starbucks, you know exactly what you will be getting – a lot of calories, some free Wi-Fi and a friendly chat with the staff, who may amuse you by misspelling your name on your plastic cup.

It is this reliability that helped make the US cafe company one of the world’s most successful retail chains, but nine years ago, Starbucks was ready to implode. The company had over-reached in its ambitious expansion and was forced to close about 900 stores worldwide.

In Australia, which never embraced Starbucks as enthusiastically as other countries, 66 shops were shut down – leaving only 23.

Stepping back in to the CEO role after an eight-year absence, chairman Howard Schultz sought to reconnect the company with its vision and mission statement, which was: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time”.

Schultz explained at the time that the company had become too focused on the money and had lost sight of the people.

Starbucks’ turnaround is now the stuff of corporate legend. Reversing from the brink, Starbucks last year posted record-high profits of $US2.8 billion on revenues of $19 billion.

Shultz has said an integral part of the recovery was his decision to stage the company’s 2008 conference in New Orleans, which was still struggling to get back on its feet after the devastating Hurricane Katrina three years earlier.

About $US30 million was spent taking 10,000 store managers to the city, starting their conference with community service – building, painting and cleaning for the residents.

“I went to New Orleans because I knew that if I could remind people of the character and the values of who we have been, by starting the conference, not with the conference, but 50,000 hours of community service, that we would make a difference,” he said in an interview in the Harvard Business Review.

“And if we didn’t have New Orleans, we wouldn’t have turned things around. I’m convinced of that. It was the most powerful experience that any of us have had in years, because it was real, it was truthful, and it was about leadership.”

For all the cynical commentary that often surrounds discussions about company vision statements, aligning an organisation with a higher purpose can be a powerful business strategy, says Sydney-based consultant Alan Riva, who uses the concept of ‘purpose’ to grow businesses.

“It’s the glue that holds everything together,” says Riva, pointing to a study of 50,000 brands that found that the 50 highest-performing businesses were those who centred their businesses on the ideal of improving people’s lives.

These companies grew three times faster than their competitors and were 400 per cent more profitable than the S & P 500.

“This is a beautiful piece of research. We have these shining stars of businesses that show that purpose and vision are what really helps galvanise a business,” says Riva, who consults for companies such as yoghurt maker Chobani, BUPA and CoreLogic RP Data.

But not all visions are created equal. The author of that research, former Procter & Gamble global chief marketing officer Jim Stengel, says some are too short-sighted to inspire anyone.

“Does a shared goal of improving people’s lives sound, well, too idealistic for the rough-and-tumble of business? What about practical, hard-nosed goals such as making the quarterly numbers, increasing market share, and cutting costs?” Stengel asks in his book GROW: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit At The World’s Greatest Companies.

“All are crucial, but the best businesses aim higher. When many business leaders articulate mission and vision statements, they typically talk about having the best-performing, most profitable, most customer-satisfying, most sustainable, and most ethical organisation.

“Strip away the platitudes, and these statements all aim too low.”

Such lack of ambition is a “recipe for mediocrity,” he says. Instead, the core beliefs of a business should be linked to fundamental human values that remain relevant through all sorts of business cycles and changes in strategy.

So, a vision should be “visionary”, but it also needs to connect to winning in terms of a customer or market, says the national leader of strategy consulting practice, Monitor Deloitte, Jeremy Drumm. If the customer or market are omitted, then employees are left to rally around products and services. “And that never inspires and is really a poor war cry,” he says.

 

“A strategy is only good if someone else is doing the exact opposite. In order to win in a market, there must be somebody else doing something differently.”  – Jeremy Drumm, Monitor Deloitte

 

Another principle is that the vision should be broad enough so it remains relevant over decades.

Walt Disney’s simple vision – “To make people happy” – is open-ended enough to accommodate expansion into new businesses.

“If they had gotten really detailed and gone down a path [in their vision statement] of winning in animation, that would have been quite limiting and wouldn’t have seen them go into amusement parks or ships,” Drumm says.

 

Drumm uses the term “winning aspiration” to describe an organisational vision, but other commonly used terms are credo, manifesto, statements of intent, mission and core ideology.

Swedish furnishings company IKEA explains its vision (with a charming, slightly Scandinavian syntax): “At IKEA our vision is to create a better everyday life for the many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.”

Microsoft keeps it short and simple: “Our mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more.”

Some companies with enlightened-sounding aspirations today had more blood-thirsty rallying cries previously. US footwear company Nike had “Crush Adidas” as its 1960s motto, but now says its mission is “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world”.

Responsibility for coming up with a vision varies from company to company. It can be dictated by a founder or CEO, it may involve consultants and, sometimes, it is a lengthy process of harvesting and distilling the views of every employee.

Drumm’s view is that it’s the CEO’s role to define and express the “winning aspiration”. “You don’t want to spend money and waste too much time on getting the perfect language around a vision statement, but if you don’t have one, then you don’t have a North Star and all the choices that you make underneath that will be unfounded … which is a horrible place to be because you will spin your wheels and waste more money.”

When a vision is in place, it should be relatively stable, underpinned by strategies that may change frequently, says entrepreneurial strategist, Paul Broadfoot.

“If you’re going to turn something around, a vision helps. Sometimes, it’s not until there’s a dramatic need for a turnaround that a vision gets renewed, or a strategy is linked more to a vision,” says Broadfoot, author of the Xcelerate book.

“The best businesses have both a strong vision and a strong strategy and that they have developed together.”

Drumm starts the strategy conversation by asking: “Where do you play?” and “how do you win?”

The first question examines the value of particular markets, customer segments, and sets of products and services.

“Those are pretty meaty questions but if they’re not answered in the context of the [vision], they won’t resonate,” Drumm says. “They are the essence of how you set strategy.”

“Those are the hardest questions you could possibly answer. They need to be mutually reinforcing and to align with your winning aspiration.

“And a strategy is only good if somebody else is doing the exact opposite. In order to win in a market, there must be somebody else doing something differently – either in that market, or in a different market in the same way.

“Otherwise, you all just fight and the prices go down and it’s a death spiral.”

Being Professional Doesn’t Mean You Stop Being A Human Being

 

One of my (many) professions these days is a public speaker. I often attend conferences in all sorts of sectors that I would never otherwise get to see up close and personal.

It’s a great privilege and generally I learn two things. The first is that every sector and industry think the challenges they struggle with are unique to them – but they’re not. Everyone, regardless of where they work, is living in the same moment of time and is beset by the same trends and problems as the rest of the world.

The second is that a lot of people, especially when asked to present at an industry conference, confuse being a professional with being a robotic, bland and impersonal bore.

It’s as if they believe they must not allow any particle of their personality, humour or lived experience to intrude on their presentation. The result is not only eye-glazingly dull, but would have been much better handled if they’d simply distributed a copy of their (often endless) Powerpoint and remained seated while the audience read it.

The horror of your life intruding on your work has reached pathological proportions among some who strive to be taken seriously. I blame the pernicious phrase “work/life balance” for this epidemic. If you think about it, the idea simply does not make sense. Do you go to work when you are dead (dead inside, perhaps, in some jobs)? No. Well, in that case, work cannot be separated from life. It’s one part of it and that is all.

This false elevation of “work’’ as the only thing that exists outside of life may be part of the reason so many professionals appear allergic to letting anything personal slip out when they’re representing their job or employer. Sadly, such attempts at separation not only fail, they’re damaging.

When I mentored young aspiring career women (another profession of mine), I would often have to explain to them that a particularly nasty and inexplicable comment from a superior was what I called a toxic emotional fart. It was invariably an aside designed to make the young person feel inferior and was unnecessarily mean and annihilating. The young recipient of the bad smell had often spent days puzzling over it and may even have wept a few tears.

 

 

“A lot of people confuse being a professional with being a robotic, bland, impersonal bore.”

 

My explanation was that the toxic fart had nothing to do with the shaken young woman (or man). It was simply an unconscious expression of what occurs when so-called professionals suppress their humanity and have emotional baggage they will neither acknowledge nor deal with. The pressure of the things they ignore builds up until it must escape and when it does it covers all those nearby with its odour.

A professional is not just someone who turns up on time, follows through on their commitments, delivers work by the due date and knows their business – although all those things are important.

They’re not just people who deal fairly, honestly and ethically with their clients, colleagues and staff, important though that is. They don’t simply pay their appropriate taxes (yes, professionals do that, too, they’re also good citizens), and obey the laws of the land. Although they must do all of those and more.

A professional is a person who understands – not just their own job – but themselves. This matters because until you understand yourself – your motivations, vulnerabilities, weaknesses and toxic baggage (we all have some), you haven’t a hope in hell of understanding other people.

It’s called emotional intelligence and really professional managers have lots of it.

If you don’t, you can bore us all with stats and graphs and “consumer insights” until we’re blue in the face, but you’re not fooling anyone, except yourself.

A New Way To Look At Decision-Making

By Michelle Loch FIML, Neuroleadership and Communications expert, Founder and Director at Michelle Loch – Leading Humans

 

As I have become older, and busier, and more distracted in my work and home life, my capacity for making decisions has felt really challenged, and from my conversations with colleagues, it seems I am not alone in that challenge.  There are a number of things that can get in the way of making decisions.

 

I often say to my clients…’people don’t know what they want and they don’t tell the truth’. This is not intentional, but our natural cognitive bias and subjectivity get in the way. We are not good at challenging and stretching our thinking (which is why having a great coach is invaluable) so what we think we want and have articulated is often not quite right and there is a need to reflect deeper.

Another of our human challenges is our relative incapacity to manage complex and conflicting data, or simply the volume of information inside our heads. When it gets too much, it’s overwhelming and the brain interprets this as threatening and pulls back it’s thinking in favour of protection.

Thirdly, our need to be ‘accepted’ is one of our strongest human motivational drivers, and the risk of making the wrong decision, or a decision that might negatively impact the favourable perceptions of others toward you, even if that risk is very low or indeed if the decision is necessary, will evoke an avoidance response and procrastination will ensue.

Here are three ideas you might like to consider in order to improve your decisiveness.

 

Figure out What you Really Want

 

This is actually quite a tough one to do on your own, but take some time to reflect on the real outcome you are looking for. It may be useful to ask these questions of yourself:

 

  • What are my big picture goals that relate to this, and to my life/career/role?  Can I articulate them in one or two sentences?
  • Is there a specific dilemma that is causing the need for this decision?  Can I articulate it in one or two sentences?
  • How do I feel about this issue and how do I want to be feeling around it?
  • In one sentence, what is the specific decision I am needing to now make?

 

Investigate all the Options

 

Make a long list of options and alternatives.  Consider including the options of doing nothing, going with your gut, and also the not so palatable ones like making the unpopular decision. Your first options will be the obvious ones…then ask yourself the following questions…

  • What else could I or others do?
  • What would Richard Branson do?
  • What other perspective could I take?
Michelle is a well-known Thought Leader, Speaker, Author and Mentor, and is Director at Michelle Lock – Leading Humans


Kill off Choice

 

We live in a sophisticated, privileged and complex world with many, many options and choices.  It’s overwhelming.

The etymology for the -cide in the word decision literally means ‘to cut off’…or ‘to kill off’….think pesticide, suicide, genocide, insecticide. Cutting off choices sounds severe, but is not limiting, it’s liberating, freeing you from the curse of endless choices.

First list your options then connect back with your desired outcomes and bigger picture goals, and try to reduce the options to a maximum of 3…or less.

 

Hypothesise and experiment

 

Your brain is not designed for, nor good at, absolutes. When you’re thinking, your entire brain network is firing in complex ways with no simple ‘off switch. The concept of stop, start and continue is more difficult than you think, the stop and start bit in particular.

 

Your brain loves to stay in it’s comfort zone because that is both non-threatening, and therefore energy efficient, both of which are of vital importance to your brain.

 

One way to overcome this is to adopt an experimental mindset – like a hypothesis. After gaining clarity, investigating the options, killing off choice, and connecting the most useful option to the desired outcome, you can then articulate the experiment that you (and possibly your team) are about to enter into.

 

“I have decided that we should ….my thinking behind that decision is …..l expect the outcome to be….but let’s treat it like an experiment and review it in two weeks to see if it has been the right decision”

 

Pressure off…brain happy…you can move on to the next decision knowing that it’s not an absolute and reducing the risk of failure and humiliation.


Michelle  will be one of many speakers at our upcoming Sydney Conference on the 5th October 2017. Book Now to hear Michelle and many other specialists in their respective fields discuss attributes of successful leaders at this full day event.

 

A Few Home Truths On The Future of Work

 

IBM and Yahoo say get back in the office but advocates of remote working are adamant it’s the way to go. By Kate Jones

 

 

Remote work has been hailed the way of the future, yet leading tech companies are starting to swing away from the trend.

IBM, a pioneer in the work from home movement, is the latest organisation to summon its employees back to the office. The tech giant had allowed its staff to work from home since the 1980s and had long touted the benefits. Between 1995 and 2008, the company said it had reduced its office space by 7 million square metres and sold most of that space of $2.4 million (AUD). By 2007, 40 per cent of IBM’s 400,000 global staff was working remotely.

But in a statement to staff, IBM management said bringing staff to the office would foster more powerful and creative teams. They denied it was a cost-cutting measure.

IBM is not the first big name to reverse its remote work policy. Yahoo axed its work from home program in 2013, with CEO Marissa Mayer copping widespread criticism for the move. Other US-based firms Best Buy and Reddit have also recalled their employees back to the office.

Supporters of traditional office working say pulling employees together results in more collaboration and ultimately, innovation. Yet critics say giving employees the freedom to work where they want allows them to be more productive and engaged.

 

 

“Being outside the office is really linked to creativity because you’re not disrupted by that work environment.”
– Ush Dhanak, Collaborate HR

 

 

One in three Australians now regularly works from home – a 10 per cent increase in 15 years, according to data from the Australian of Bureau Statistics.

Collaborate HR’s Ush Dhanak says the pros of working from home definitely outweigh the cons.

“There’s the time you’re not spending on travel to and from work – people I’ve spoken to have said they’ve gained up to two-and-a-half hours a day,” she says.

“I think another pro is to be in an environment outside of the office. That’s really linked to creativity because you’re not disrupted by that work environment.

“The biggest benefit is building better relationships with your leader or your manager because there has to be an element of trust if you’re going to be working from home.”

Employees feeling isolated or tempted to procrastinate are downfalls of remote work, but these can be managed, Dhanak says.

“Have expectations, clearly communicate those expectations and have measures in place and also balance it out by making sure they’re still part of the team,” she says.

“They’ve still got to have a touch point for employees and managers.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helping People Achieve

Written by Tony Burns FIML, CEO of HPA Incorporated “Helping People Achieve”

 

At a young age my parents instilled in me the mantra that giving back is the best reward in life. Taking their advice, I have dedicated my time to making life easier for others, and as the Chief Executive Officer of HPA – Helping People Achieve, I am very humbled to have the opportunity to lead such as amazing team.

Our vision as a company is to empower people. Supporting them through development of confidence, independence and life skills to lead a fulfilling everyday life in a world where there are no barriers. The HPA team are the only motivation I require to continue our journey and remain focused on our commitment to be an innovative employer.

But high-performance cultures don’t just appear, I understand that and have pushed towards finding what motivates people throughout the organisation. I have lived and experienced all types of leadership over my years working with people including in my amazing current role. I feel these experiences have really given me the tools of the trade to be a great example of leadership and how it can help others achieve.

Below are some of my personal leadership qualities in relation and processes with “Helping People Achieve”.

 

Define Your Culture

Company culture is the personality of a company. It defines the environment in which employees work. Company culture includes a variety of elements, including work environment, company mission, value, ethics, expectations, and goals.

Its important to all our employees, because our workers really enjoy their time in the HPA workplace when they fit in with the company culture. What I have found is that people tend to develop better relationships with all coworkers, and are even more productive to help get buy-in and align the organisation behind our strategy.

 

Mentoring

Mentoring is also an essential leadership skill. In addition to managing and motivating people, it’s also important that I can help others learn, grow and become more effective in their roles and responsibilities.

Below are 12 quick tips to remember when approaching mentoring, to help make sure both you and your mentee get the most out of your session.

1) Approach each mentorship differently
2) Set expectations together in the very beginning
3) Take a genuine interest in your mentee as a person
4) Know when to wait before giving advice
5) Improve your emotional intelligence
6) Don’t assume anything about your mentee — ask
7) Be really forthcoming about mistakes you’ve made
8) Celebrate their achievements
9) Give more than you ask for
10) Seek out classes or projects related to skills your mentee wants to develop
11) Solve for the long-term
12) Lead by example

 

Helping-people-achieve
Tony and his HPA team accepting the 2016 Northern Territory Charity Award at the Telstra Business Awards.

Transparency

I’ve never bought into the concept of ‘wearing the mask.’ As HPA’s leader, the only way I know how to engender trust and buy-in from my team and with my colleagues is to be 100 percent authentically me—open, sometimes flawed, but always passionate about my work.

 

Inspiration

Leaders aren’t self-made; they are driven. A lot of people have given me inspiration over the years and great inspiration and fantastic advice, and I was fueled by my beliefs and an internal drive and passion to do great things and inspire along my journey. That’s why I’m always willing to offer motivation—to friends or strangers. I know the power of inspiration.

 

Networking Is Working

I have found that Networking is one of the most important professional skills you can develop. It is defined as ‘exchanging information, contacts and experience for professional or social purposes’. It’s about building two-way, mutually beneficial relationships—one person at a time. I truly believe that people who build strong internal and external networks within their organisation are often better positioned to:
– work collaboratively
– be aware of greater opportunities for our company
– be in touch with the right people to get ‘things done’

 

Passion

You must love what you do. In order to be truly successful at something, you must obsess over it and let it consume you during your process of achieving greatness. No matter how successful your business might become, you are never satisfied and constantly push to do something bigger, better and greater. My passion and drive to make a difference and create possibilities for others is how I live my life every day. I am truly living my purpose to ‘Help People Achieve’.

 

Innovation

In any system with infinite resources and infinite expansion of population—like HPA, or like all of humanity—innovation is essential for not only success but also survival. The innovators are our leaders. You cannot separate the two. Whether it is by thought, technology or organization, innovation is our only hope to solve our challenges and speed bumps along the way.

 


Tony will be one of many speakers at our upcoming Sydney Conference on the 5th October 2017. Book Now to hear Tony and many other specialists in their respective fields discuss attributes of successful leaders at this full day event.