When fiction masquerades as fact

The Cambridge Analytica scandal left ethical questions for all marketers and business leaders to ponder.

By JANE CARO

When I first started out in advertising back in the Stone Age (the 1980s), I remember having to deal with clients who wanted me to guarantee that my little 30-second TVC, radio spot or print ad would infallibly convince anyone who watched it to buy their product. My stock answer was to say that I never gave guarantees. I couldn’t even guarantee that my kids would grow up to be worthwhile human beings, I’d tell them, but I was still in there pitching. I’d finish up by saying that there was no foolproof method of getting people to part with their money against their will and, if anyone ever came up with such a thing, it would soon be illegal to use it. My, how times have changed!

If the fuss about data crunching, opinion manipulating organisations like Cambridge Analytica is correct, it seems someone has come up with such a method and it is not – as yet – illegal. The company itself is now defunct but no doubt others will use their techniques to undermine political candidates or influence purchase decisions (a vote is a purchase decision) in ways we previously thought impossible. Given the grilling of Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg by the US Senate committee looking into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, such opportunists had better move fast. As lawmakers gather in the wake of the scandal it looks likely that my decades-old prediction that such sophisticated manipulation would get banned may be vindicated. However, wherever there is demand, there is supply, so illegal or not, I suspect such techniques – now tried and tested – may prove too tempting for some.

And you can understand that temptation. Along comes a whizz bang organisation incorporating the name of a world-famous university (no actual connection, of course, just the same name), offering you the opportunity to understand what motivates consumers in ways marketers have previously only dreamt about. And I have heard at least one well known Australian business leader admit they were approached by Cambridge Analytica about a project. Sensibly they declined the approach (anything associated with Breitbart founder and ex-Trump adviser Steve Bannon smells pretty stinky). I’ll bet they are deeply relieved they did now.

And therein lies the trick. If something looks too good to be true, we used to say it probably was. Now, given the apparently limitless abilities of technology, it may be true but it is probably a very bad idea.

Anything that can manipulate people without their knowledge, anything that masquerades as editorial, or a comment with no hidden agenda but which is actually a commercial message that has been bought and paid for is unethical. Anything that presents lies as facts, that sets out to distort and undermine without clearly identifying its source and agenda, anything that calls itself news, but is, in fact, propaganda, is unethical. If you write an opinion piece (I write them all the time, see this column) that is fine, as long as it is presented as such.

There is nothing new about people flying very close to the wire pretending advertising is editorial. I once complained to the Press Council about a regular insert in a major newspaper that called itself “a special supplement”. It was clearly an advertising supplement and, I believe, should have been labelled that way. Advertising supplements are a revenue earner for media publications, and that’s fine, as long as they are clearly identified. The publication writes editorial about a particular sector or industry (travel, real estate, private schools) in return for members of that industry taking paid ads in the supplement. As you can imagine, the editorial is rarely critical and the more an advertiser pays, the more mentions they get. No problem, but a “special” supplement it wasn’t. Sadly, my complaint was not upheld.

I have always argued that advertising is the most honest of the dishonest professions because you all know we’re trying to sell you something. Or you used to know. I am not so sure now and I am glad that I am no longer in the industry because the lines have become so blurred. Indeed, I am so paranoid about this that I refuse to boost my posts on my public Facebook page (oh, OK, I am too stingy, as well), because I don’t think they are ads.

I have been asked to use my social media following to promote services occasionally (reminding older women to get a mammogram and younger women to look to their superannuation so far) and I’ve been paid to do so, but I have been punctilious about making that clear when I send a tweet or write a Facebook post about them.

For me, the line is clear. It’s fine to sell so long as you are upfront about it and – this is crucial – do not set out to gain an added advantage by deceiving. The minute you hide something – who is paying you, that anyone is paying you, or that what you are publishing is false – then you are being unethical.

It’s fine to research your audience. It is important to understand them and learn how they see the world. If your work, skill and insights help you to attract their attention to your message, I have no problem. But the minute you hide your commercial agenda or conceal your ulterior motive, not only is it wrong but one day – and this is the only guarantee I’ll give you – it’ll come back and bite you on the bum, hard.

Jane Caro runs her own communications consultancy.

She worked in the advertising industry for 30 years and is now an author, journalist, lecturer and media commentator.

Leadership In Crisis

Written by Sebastian Salicru 

Organisations are known to invest heavily in leadership development. But in a rapidly changing world, are the traditional approaches paying off? 

THE PROBLEM: 

In a world of complexity, turbulence, high-velocity and continuous change, the context for leadership, as we know it, has been turned upside down. Recently, we have witnessed what I call the ‘three Ds’ of leadership – distrust, doubt and dissent. These are the outcomes when leaders fail to respond effectively to the changing context in which they must lead and the expectations of their stakeholders. Distrust and lack of engagement flag the need for leaders to rethink how to exercise leadership and engage their followers. Traditional leadership approaches no longer hold water. The briefest glance at the television news or daily newspaper paints a vivid picture of the global and local leadership crisis, with escalating trends and all-pervasive images to dismay even the most casual viewer. I would contend that data, facts and figures say far more than even a thousand words. Credible research at the forefront of contemporary thinking tells us that current investments in leadership may not be paying off:

  • Only 13 per cent of employees worldwide are engaged at work (Gallup)
  • 81 per cent of CEOs rate leadership development programs as less than highly effective (PwC 2015, Annual Global CEO Survey)
  • Of 7500 business and HR leaders in over 100 countries, 55 per cent judge the return on investment (ROI) of their current leadership development as fair to very poor, and less than 20 per cent are confident they have the leaders they need to deliver on strategic priorities (Korn Ferry, 2015 Global and Regional Real World Leadership Report).
  • Of 2200 global HR leaders, 86 per cent believe their organisation’s future depends on the effectiveness of their leadership pipelines, but only 13 per cent are confident in their succession plans, with 54 per cent reporting damage to their businesses due to talent shortages (Deloitte’s 2015 Global Human Capital Trends: Leading in the new world of work)
  • Only 6 per cent of executives feel ‘very ready’ to meet their leadership needs in 2016 (Deloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends. The new organization)
  • 86 per cent of the 1500 world’s foremost global experts believe that the world is currently experiencing a leadership crisis (World Economic Forum. Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015)
  • Only 7 per cent of organisations feel they have a ‘Best in Class’ leadership development program (Harvard Business School Publishing. 2016 State of leadership development survey).

Meanwhile, in Australia, research conducted in 2016 by the Centre for Workplace Leadership, University of Melbourne revealed 75 per cent of employees needed better managers and leaders. Gallup estimates the cost of the resulting lack of engagement is $54.8 billion a year. This precarious state of affairs exists despite the fact that organisations invest heavily in preparing their leaders. The 2016 Harvard Business Review article ‘Why leadership training fails – and what to do about it’, describes this growing multibillion dollar leadership development industry as failing to deliver results and asserts that corporations have become victims of “the great training robbery”. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that urgent change is required.

 

“This precarious state of affairs exists despite the fact that organisations invest heavily in preparing their leaders.”

 

My research identifies that the following practices will create adaptive leaders and high-performing organisations and deliver leadership results:

  1. Painting a clear picture
    Keep it clear and simple – this encourages people to adapt to change and act. In times of uncertainty, people want to know: what’s the story? Effective leaders are adept at painting a clear picture through storytelling and can help others to interpret and respond positively to change.
  2. Build leadership capability
    Traditional leadership approaches mistake management, authority and power with leadership, which involves exercising influence, whether you are in a position of power and authority or not. Traditional approaches to leadership development are individual-centred only. They confuse ‘leader’ development with ‘leadership’ development. Leadership development historically has focused on enhancing the knowledge, skills and abilities of those holding senior managerial positions only. This focus needs to expand to improve the leadership capacity of the whole organisation, and to develop and improve the relationships and collaboration that knit all units, departments, and networks together.
  3. Move beyond competencies
    Competency models emerged in the 1970s as a way of codifying the required behaviour for particular leadership positions. They drew on past successes by identifying relevant and effective behaviour as opposed to examining mindsets needed for the future. A more holistic and integrated approach to leadership development is required that addresses the many (less visible) mental, emotional, and psychological processes that often determine behaviour. The solution is moving towards using ‘adaptive’ or ‘meta-competencies’ – the sets of knowledge, skills and aptitudes that underpin or allow for the development of other competencies, especially those that people will need in the unpredictable future. Meta-competencies enable learning, adapting, anticipating and creating change. Both self-leadership (personal mastery) and leadership development require going beyond competencies, though they are grounded in competence and skills. Developing character is the key to effective leadership and, given that leadership is a relationship between people, leadership effectiveness is related to everyone’s efforts to create positive relationships in the organisation. Kevin Cashman, CEO at Korn Ferry, explains that “competencies get us to the doorway of leadership, but character gets us through the doorway of leadership. Managers tend to control resources to get results, but leaders exert character to build a sustainable future.”
  4. Focus on creative thinking and innovation
    Modern organisations need to innovate continuously to ensure their long-term survival and success. Leadership is the precursor of all innovation. Strategically, leaders establish work environments that are conducive to creative thinking and innovation, which in turn leads to a competitive advantage.
  5. Conduct impact evaluations
    Evaluation is an important component of the leadership development process itself with three main benefits: extending the reflective dimension of the program by inviting participants to consider the value of the experience and how they apply it; gathering valuable suggestions for improvements to the programs; and fostering employee engagement and loyalty.

THE SOLUTION: 

Collective leadership involves all employees and means that everyone is responsible for the team or organisation’s success and not just for their individual role. This means leadership is distributed, rather than being centred on a few individuals in formal positions of authority. The broad distribution of responsibilities is naturally more inclusive, as it involves all participants, which makes collective leadership more effective than individual leadership.

This approach to leadership offers each individual voice in the organisation. This, in turn, empowers people, who then feel more valued, trusted and heard. In this way, everyone’s interaction and effort at every level drives performance and shapes the culture of the organisation.

Collective leadership is relational rather than hierarchical. It enables everyone to be active in leadership roles as it flattens workplace structures. Giving people more responsibility also means allowing them to be more accountable, take risks, make mistakes and learn from them. This can allow individuals to be more accountable and empowered, making them more committed, engaged, creative and innovative. In this context, leaders become mentors, supporting each other to achieve an organisation’s collective goals and outcomes.

Years of traditional leadership have resulted in systems that value hierarchy, status, authority and control. The move to collective leadership requires change not only at a leadership and cultural level, but also at an individual level. The challenge in shifting to collective leadership is that people are not used to having a voice. Instead, they are used to a dependency created by the pervasive ‘leader–follower’ paradigm. Dependence on a leader does have some clear implications, even though influential leadership can wean followers off their dependence. First, it implies that the followers or subordinates have limited ability to make decisions and get work done without guidance or permission. This results in hesitation, employees who feel vulnerable and threatened by change, and substandard decision making, which produces less than desirable results and decreased productivity. Psychologically, this means the subordinates’ self-esteem and motivation depends on receiving recognition and approval from their leader.

As William James (1842–1910), a philosopher considered one of the fathers of psychology, said: “The deepest principle of human nature is the craving to be appreciated”. Leadership dependency creates this craving and keeps individuals in a cycle of looking for recognition from places beyond their control. This often leads to dissatisfaction, powerlessness and anxiety.

Second, it means that for leadership to succeed, the followers must idolise their leaders, often as authority figures, attribute to them unrealistic qualities and create unrealistic expectations of them. In turn, leaders on pedestals can be pressured by the need to always be correct and can become overly defensive to criticism.

“Collective leadership means each individual has a voice in the organisation.”

Finally, dependence stifles followers’ creativity and kills any chance of them offering innovations. Traditional leadership patterns rely on control, obedience and conformity. Followers who dare not depart from their leader’s ideas are not engaged in their own creative processes.

Empowerment, on the other hand, is about providing others with autonomy and independence. This occurs when people feel valued for their experience, potential and contribution. Empowered individuals are motivated, believe in their ability to perform successfully and are also more creative. Collective leadership allows individuals to develop their own abilities and independent thinking skills, which builds collective social identification and self-efficacy – a shared belief in the ability to accomplish tasks and achieve common goals. This in turn fosters team creative thinking and innovation, which creates an environment rich with job satisfaction and improved results.

Clearly, collective leadership is a relational, fluid and evolving approach where multiple (if not all) employees or individuals assume leadership roles in a group or organisation in response to specific situations, settings or contexts. It means everyone takes responsibility for the success of the organisation as a whole. With everyone taking responsibility for the organisation’s success, power needs to be distributed to where the right capabilities, expertise and passion exist.

Collective leadership, therefore, requires networking and collaboration across organisational boundaries. It draws on a firm’s social capital and builds on the knowledge, skills and abilities of all employees. It requires individuals to engage in high levels of communication and to work openly and interdependently to share ideas and have a joint vision and common goals.

When done successfully, collective leadership benefits everyone, allows for more innovation, allows organisations to adapt to change quickly, and delivers outstanding performance and results.

 

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.

 

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.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Building a Culture of Positive Disruption

 

Leaders can help create a culture that encourages employees to question the status quo to benefit the company. By Nicola Heath

 

Albert Einstein made a strong case for disruption decades before it became a buzzword.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them,” said the famous scientist.

In other words, if you want to upset the applecart, you need a culture that values creativity and questioning the status quo.

Disruption is a key component of success in today’s business landscape. “In an environment where things are changing very rapidly and where new opportunities are coming up all the time… it’s the quick or the dead,” says Anya Johnson, Senior Lecturer in Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School.

The link between culture and performance has also been firmly established. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, “[a] positive corporate culture—one that engages and motivates employees—helps a company’s bottom line.”

 

“Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader. You have to listen to the people who are
on the front line.” – Sir Richard Branson

 

 

What does a culture of disruption look like?

“Workplace culture can inspire disruption,” writes Leanne Hoagland-Smith in the Chicago Tribune.

A culture of disruption is one “in which people feel psychologically safe to speak it out, to say things that perhaps are not popular or that perhaps go against the norm,” says Johnson.

Without it, “the people at the top of the organisation are the ones that drive the agenda,” she says. “Often they’re not the people who are… in contact with the market in the most direct sort of way.”

Subtle cues that an organisation doesn’t value questioning of the status quo can shut down dialogue and stifle innovation, says Johnson. Often these organisations become “monoliths”, driven in one direction by a single overarching view until they are usurped by a more agile competitor.

Peter Wilson, Chairman of AHRI, says that to create a culture of disruption, CEOs must get out of the executive suite and spend time at the coal face, talking to the employees who serve the customers.

It’s an approach favoured by Virgin CEO Sir Richard Branson, one of the leading disruptors of his generation. “We encourage all of our companies to seek feedback from their staff and implement great ideas where possible,” Branson wrote in a 2015 blog post giving examples of ideas proposed by Virgin Trains employees that had been adopted by the company.

Wilson also cites David Thodey, who was famous for his use of Yammer during his tenure as Telstra CEO. A 2015 HBR article reported that Thodey used the tool to cut through layers of management to directly engage with the telco’s thousands of employees. It gave him “an immediate and intimate look into what wasn’t working at Telstra” and “demonstrated that employee participation made a difference,” notes the author.

Wilson agrees. “[Thodey] said he learnt a lot more about what was going on than the traditional performance reports that headed their way up to the CEOs office.”

What leadership qualities help create a culture that invites disruption?

Johnson says as a manager or a leader it’s important “to have intellectual humility, to be willing and open to having your ideas questioned, to being non-defensive when others perhaps are critical of a particular direction [in which] you’re moving… your team.”

 

Learn more leadership tips at the Institute of Manager and Leaders events

Leadership and implementing creativity in the symphony orchestra

By Vincent Ciccarello, Managing Director, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

For decades, leadership and management literature has pointed to the relationship between the conductor and members of a symphony orchestra as a commendable paradigm of organisational teamwork, collaboration and the alignment of resources to a common vision.

But when it comes to implementing creativity, an orchestra is actually more akin to a team of elite athletes: spectators (the audience) may long for flashes of individual brilliance (for example, a breathtaking solo) but, at the end of the day, it’s the ability of the team to execute the game-plan (score or composition) as envisioned by the coach (conductor) that really matters.

Similarly, the sporting team’s coach and players, and the orchestra’s conductor and musicians, must ultimately deliver performances in line with goals and strategies set by the Board and management.

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra with conductor Nicholas Carter.

The sporting analogy doesn’t end there: most sporting teams and orchestras have a well-established hierarchy and leadership group; and there are the expectations of a host of internal (staff, volunteers) and external stakeholders (fans, subscribers, sponsors) to consider.

It is the primary responsibility of the leadership of these organisations to create the conditions and environment for peak performance – through the recruitment and retention of the right people to the right roles; by making available the necessary physical resources; developing a strong organisational culture; the careful management of workload and injuries; and so on.

ASO Managing Director Vince Ciccarello congratulating Juris Ezergailis at the Adelaide Town Hall stage – following the 2016 final Master Series.

Fostering a climate of trust and excellence encourages individuals to realise their potential; but, in reality, sporting teams and orchestras must demonstrate an extraordinary collective discipline to succeed. A champion team will always beat a team of champions…

Symphony orchestras primarily exercise creativity through the music they choose to perform, the composers they choose to commission and in the way they respond to the conductors they choose to lead them.

In most cases, this is a consultative and collaborative process, in which the musicians – collectively or through their representatives – have a voice in the orchestra’s artistic program and ambitions.

It’s a process that usually starts with the orchestra’s senior management and chief conductor but it’s not entirely straightforward. It requires a vision for the business, the ability to clearly articulate it and the skills to build a case to bring people along with you; while at the same time being open to the aspirations of the team, being willing to listen to feedback and recognising that not all of the company’s knowledge, history and wisdom – or even good ideas – reside in the C-suite.

In order to balance the artistic health of the playing group with the organisation’s commercial imperatives, a long-range view is required – and that means no matter what happens on the stage or on the field, for the leadership team, it’s not enough to take it one week at a time.

 Vincent Ciccarello will be speaking at our Adelaide TEL event ‘Lifting the Curtain on Leadership in Arts and Entertainment’ on the 23rd of August 2017.

 

Book Now to hear more from Vincent and others about what is needed for leadership in the arts today.