In a leadership career spanning five decades, Chris Golis FIML has learned a thing or few about managing people. In this article, he shares five tips for a successful life and career.
1. ONE-ON-ONE MEETINGS MATTER
In 1973 I was flown twice to New York by McKinsey & Company and offered a job – but I must be one of only a few people to ever turn them down. My MBA tutor was Charles Handy [who later became a world-famous management guru] and he said to me, “Chris, I’m not sure I’d take that if I were you. I’ve been thinking about what makes business success and have come to the conclusion that it’s being able to handle yourself in a one-on-one meeting. That’s when you get the job, hire someone, get fired, secure the funding, come up with a business plan, and so on.” I took his advice and instead pursued a sales career. I arrived in Sydney the same week that the Sydney Opera House opened.
2. PEOPLE DRIVE PERFORMANCE, EMOTIONS DRIVE PEOPLE, TEMPERAMENT DRIVES EMOTIONS
In sales I learned that we sell to people’s heart, not to people’s head. Understanding someone’s temperament is absolutely vital if you want to get the best out of them. The problem is most managers do not have a scientifically valid model of temperament to help them determine their own and other people’s core emotions. I practise and teach the most practical temperament tool available, the 7MTF which can dramatically lift your emotional intelligence. In the same way the Humm-Wadsworth temperament model is built on the earlier work of Rosanoff, the 7MTF builds on the work done by Humm and Wadsworth. All three models conceive our temperament traits as based on one’s position on the various spectra of mental illnesses.
3. ABOVE ALL, PEOPLE SKILLS MATTER
In 2005, my elder daughter Louisa was asked to run a team of 30 people at Perpetual before she was 30. She asked me a good question: “Dad, you have read all the business books, what do you recommend I read?” I began by referring her to research among Australian managers that showed ‘people skills’ ranked as far and away the most important leadership capability. So I said to Louisa she should read a book that would improve her people skills. After some thought, I realised that there was no practical handbook written to help new managers develop their people skills so I decided that I had to write one myself. Thus The Humm Handbook: Lifting Your Level of Emotional Intelligence was born and published in 2007. (Read details of the book at emotionalintelligencecourse.com.)
4. LEADERS CAN LEARN A LOT FROM THE CLASSICS
At the end of my book, I analysed five classic plays as business case studies. Why? Because theatre gives us a picture of what we are and what we want to be. It helps us to find out about ourselves and others. So I analysed three Shakespeare plays, as well as Death of a Salesman and Antigone, through the prism of emotional intelligence. In each play, the hero suffers a terrible reversal of fortune and loses everything they hold most dear. We can see how their personality traits inform the decisions they make, and can draw business lessons from these to enhance our own emotional intelligence. (For more, read this article listing five leadership lessons from Shakespeare)
5. PRIORITISE WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU
I survived cancer in 2000, 2014 and 2019 (my daughters say I’m now a cat with six lives!). Facing your own mortality changes your outlook on life. When I realised there was a chance I was going to die, I decided to empower the people around me to let them make decisions. I loved my work in venture capitalism but also knew business life would one day have to continue without me. I also asked myself: “What do I want out of life?” In 2000, my wife and I drew up a bucket list of places we wanted to visit and, since then, we’ve been on two overseas trips every year.
Chris Golis FIML is the CEO and lead presenter at Emotional Intelligence Courses.
Andy McLean MIML is the Editorial Director of Leadership Matters magazine.
This year has certainly seen a shift when it comes to how businesses are approaching climate change. Recently, Qantas piloted the world’s first ever commercial flight with zero landfill. Paper straws are now commonplace in McDonald’s and 7-Eleven even offered free coffee to customers who brought their own reusable cup for a month.
But how can small businesses in rural areas – with less resources and less time than the big corporations – do their bit to tackle climate change? It was this very question that Jayne Thorpe CMgr MIML was asking herself last year.
And so her new business, Stablish, was born.
Stablish provides small businesses and not-for-profits with climate change business development services, grant and tender preparation and sustainability assessments.
“There’s so much business development work that you can put in to [grants and tenders] to make yourself more competitive,” says Thorpe. “I use this as a starting point to talk to businesses about their business plan, what their future is about and their supply chains. This translates over to sustainability assessments, so there’s a real overlap there.”
Innovation and positive change
It was the combined love for innovation and the earth that led the southern Queensland native to take the leap and self-fund her business.
Thorpe has been green fingered since her university days, with a Bachelor of Ecology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Ethnobotany from the University of Southern Queensland under her belt. She’s also a certified Environmental Practitioner and the current President of the Darling Downs Environment Council.
“Innovation to me is all about getting started with positive change to what’s happening now,” says Thorpe. “There are definitely changes that need to happen now around climate change, so they kind of tied up together. There’s lots of applications of innovation through all the work that I’ve done. So I was building on that, but offering it as a consultancy service.”
That previous work was done during her time at Condamine Alliance and Notomys Seeds and it was that experience that helped spark the inspiration: “When everybody is delivering current projects and services it can be quite difficult to figure out what innovations would be of benefit… so having someone look at those collectively was of really high value.”
Contributing to the local community
Thorpe is running Stablish along with her role at CatholicCare Social Services, where she works part time in business innovation. Having also run a habitat reconstruction business with her husband for the past 15 years, juggling different roles is something she is used to.
And it’s the impact on her community in Toowoomba that makes it all worth it.
“I was born here, worked here all of my career and went to university here,” says Thorpe. “It’s being able to recognise that I have something to offer that not everybody is across. Seeing people pick up on what I’m able to share and take things forward for their own business is very rewarding.”
For many sports fans and members of the media, 24 March 2018 is a day that will forever live in infamy for Australian cricket.
To recap, Australia was playing a crucial test in Cape Town, South Africa, and the locals were on top. To try and stem the flow of runs, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft hatched a plan to use sandpaper on the red ball to help it swing. Simply put, a swinging cricket ball is harder to hit or can increase the chances of getting unwary batsmen out. The bottom line, whether you take sandpaper, dirt, or Brylcreem to a ball, is that it’s a form of cheating. In other words, it’s just not cricket.
After a couple of false starts, the game’s peak body Cricket Australia (CA) accepted the behaviour of Warner, Bancroft, and skipper Steve Smith, who appeared to condone the ball-tampering by his inaction, was unacceptable. The trio were given lengthy suspensions. Cricket Australia Chairman, David Peever said at the time, “The CA Board understands and shares the anger of fans and the broader Australian community about these events.”
CA CEO and former professional cricketer, Kevin Roberts, admits the national game found itself in this parlous predicament because, “cricket’s part of the fabric of our culture”. Roberts took over as the boss of Australian cricket in October 2018.
To provide some perspective about how important the red ball game is for Australians, Roberts compares the national cricket team, which is famous for its Baggy Green cricket cap, to the mighty All Blacks of New Zealand. “From a cultural perspective, cricket is a national sport just as rugby is New Zealand’s national sport.”
Before working in cricket full time, Roberts had about 20 years in sports sponsorship working with the likes of Adidas and Kiwi sportswear giant Canterbury. He continues, “When people see an example of the spirit of cricket not necessarily being demonstrated in the national sport that’s part of our nation’s culture, it becomes a big issue.”
The long and challenging journey that CA has travelled in the past two years offers a fascinating case study in organisational culture for leaders in all industries.
CRICKET AUSTRALIA’S RESPONSE TO CAPE TOWN
In April 2018, CA commissioned the Ethics Centre to conduct an independent review into cultural, organisational and governance issues in cricket following the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal. The evaluation aimed to establish a charter setting out standards for improved player behaviour and expectations of the Australian men’s national side.
The review featured a panel of past and present players including national test captains Tim Paine and Rachael Haynes, who was deputising for the legendary Meg Lanning. Others on the panel included former internationals Shane Watson and George Bailey, the world’s best fast bowler Pat Cummins and men’s team coach, Justin Langer. Also an Ethics Centre survey garnered responses from 450 CA executives and employees, current and former players, state and territory association staff, and representatives from sponsor and media organisations.
Running parallel to this process was an examination of team conduct contributing to the events in South Africa. There has been a perception among some sections of the community that the Baggy Greens were arrogant. However, the bubble created by regular test and cup wins tended to paper over the cracks.
Despite the community cynicism, CA has responded decisively to the Cape Town fiasco, which is a credit to the leadership of Roberts, who joined the CA Board in 2012 before switching to executive roles from 2015. Unenviably, Roberts was in the CEO’s chair when the Ethics Centre released its 145-page report outlining 42 recommendations for CA’s consideration. Roberts recalled, “By the time I came into the CEO role, it was time to release the findings, and more importantly to get cracking on its implementation.”
While there was a mixed response to the report’s release, what struck Roberts was, “how isolated incidents had affected people who were on the receiving end of it”. For instance, the report asserts, “We have (also) been told of groundsmen (who) have been required to prepare practice pitches – spending time and effort only to see an elite bowler send down only seven deliveries before reaching the mandated ‘quota’ – and therefore stopping.
“This kind of behaviour speaks of gross disrespect to those who are not natives of the ‘gilded bubble’.”
While that might be an isolated incident, Roberts determined to consider how people were affected, either positively or negatively, through their interactions with cricket. As a result, the new CEO and his team released a cultural change program focused across three categories – people, high performance, and leadership.
HARVARD CONTRIBUTES TO CRICKET LEADERSHIP
CA launched a leadership program in 2019, which is a tailored version of a world-leading program from Harvard University, explains Roberts. Around 40 executives, senior managers, Paine and limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch, as well as coaches took the program, and are now collaborating on developing CA’s leadership culture. “We’re on that journey together, which is fantastic,” Roberts said.
Additionally, CA established the Australian Cricket Leadership Team in late 2018. This group includes the CEOs of each of the state and territory cricket associations. “This team acknowledges that cricket operates through a federal structure as opposed to a corporate hierarchy, and it was about spreading the leadership through that broader cricket ecosystem.”
Since Cape Town there has been a significant turnover of CA’s executive team, including the notable resignation of long-term CEO James Sutherland. Former Hyundai executive Scott Grant joined the peak body as COO. Like Roberts, the new operations supremo is no cricket blowin, and moonlights as the president of Bankstown Cricket Club, where the famous Waugh twins played. Roberts, who also scored runs for Bankstown, said, “We’ve got Drew Ginn, the former member of the Oarsome Foursome [Olympic Games winning] rowing team. He’s working with the states and territories to develop the next generation of talent.” Also, Ben Oliver, who was working for the Western Australian Cricket Association, is now responsible for the national teams. “So, there’s been some development among our leaders themselves as well,” Roberts adds.
PITCHING THE MEDIA TENT
CA has put 100 managers through a cultural change program. “We’ve also identified the need to improve the nature of communication inside and outside the organisation,” Roberts said. This project includes establishing a new internal communications platform aimed at creating closer links throughout the organisation. CA has also implemented new forums for all staff to ask questions or raise issues directly with management, in a safe environment.
Additionally, Roberts and his team have improved communication with relevant stakeholders, such as the media. To this end, CA has increased media training for its leadership and players. “We are making an extra effort to bring the media into the tent and to be open with them,” said Roberts. “The cricket media are great storytellers in the game, and so we must embrace their role.”
HIGH PERFORMANCE: THE PLAYERS ARE DOING THEIR BIT
Under the affable men’s test captain Paine and the approachable limited-overs men’s skipper Finch, Australian cricket teams have made decent strides in reconnecting with the public. Paine for example, has introduced a pre-game handshake between the Australians and their opponents, which seems to have gone down well with the cricketing community. “The men worked together with the Australian women’s team on a players pact. Put simply, they aspired to make Australians proud in everything that they do as players,” explained Roberts. “We worked with the players to define what we stand for and agreed our goal will always be to win because it’s a professional sport.
“But our non-negotiable expectation is to compete with respect. It’s not just about winning – it’s also about how we go about it.” That said, the test team’s magnificent retention of the Ashes for the first time in England since 2001 is a significant fillip for the game in Australia. Particularly given it followed just a few weeks after the Australian women’s team secured an outstanding Ashes series win on English soil too.
The proof is in the pudding for the image of Australian cricket, with the men’s cricket team not earning a single code of conduct charge in the 2018–19 season. This result was a first clean sheet in eight years for the prickly Baggy Greens, who have been notorious for aggressive sledging of their opponents. At the same time, Roberts points to the redemptive journey ‘best-since Bradman’ Steve Smith has undertaken since Cape Town. The former skipper visited many schools around Australia during his enforced absence from the Australian cricket team. “Steve Smith had a profound positive impact on several school children by having the courage to open up and talk about his experience as a leader during and beyond the Cape Town situation,” offered Roberts. “So that’s where the players are fantastic, in opening their hearts, telling their stories and I guess embracing the vulnerabilities. That’s what is connecting with the public.”
However, deep wounds will always take time to fully heal. A recent Roy Morgan poll indicated that the Australian public’s distrust in cricket is higher than any other sport. Although a level of distrust continues, there is some good news. Women’s cricket continues to provide a boost to the overall image of the sport with higher trust than distrust, according to Roy Morgan. Roberts comments, “We want cricket to be a sport for everyone, not a sport for some. That means embracing gender diversity, embracing cultural diversity and all other forms of diversity.” To celebrate diversity, CA is aiming to set a world record at the T-20 Women’s World Cup final on 8 March 2020 for attendance at a women’s sporting event. The final will be held at the mighty MCG, which seats around 100,000 and will take place during International Women’s Day.
ROBERTS THE BUSINESS SKIPPER
As a leader, the humble former NSW batsman Roberts says, “It’s more for others to have a view on my leadership style, but… I seek to be people-focused and to develop deep relationships with stakeholders.”
Roberts admits to presenting a straight bat when faced with difficult decisions. “I make the hard decisions required of a leader. While I try to do so in a way that shows respect for people, I must accept that people won’t always feel good about the decisions or the way I managed them. I’d like to think I demonstrate courage in leading from the front when we face issues so that our people can get on with making a difference.”
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Banking Bad, tells the story of power imbalance, toxic culture and cover-ups in Australia’s banking industry. It describes the long fight for justice by whistleblowers, victims and political mavericks, and looks at the outcomes of the royal commission – the falls from grace, the damaging hubris, the scathing assessment of the regulators, and the colossal compensation bill.
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In 2009, with the dust yet to settle on the global financial crisis, a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude was being set into motion. Now known as the 1MDB affair, the scandal would come to symbolise the next great threat to the global financial system.
A stunning true tale of hubris and greed, Billion Dollar Whale reveals how one of the biggest heists in history was pulled off – right under the nose of the global financial industry.
In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose start-up ‘unicorn’ promised to revolutionise the medical industry. There was just one problem: the technology didn’t work. For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, officials, and her own employees.
In Bad Blood John Carreyrou tells the story of Theranos and encourages us to consider the possible repercussions of our blind faith in a small group of brilliant individuals.
From the shadows, Eddie Obeid ran the state of New South Wales as his fiefdom, making and unmaking premiers. Along the way he pocketed tens of millions of dollars following corrupt deals.
Following their groundbreaking investigations, Kate McClymont and Linton Besser have unearthed the vast but secret empire Obeid built over decades, producing an authoritative account of how he got away with so much for so long.
When news of Volkswagen’s clean diesel fraud first broke in September 2015, it sent shockwaves around the world. Overnight, the company long associated with quality, reliability and trust became a universal symbol of greed and deception. Consumers were outraged, investors panicked, and the company was facing bankruptcy.
As the future of one of the world’s biggest companies remains uncertain, this is the extraordinary story of Volkswagen’s downfall.
A sign on the door saying ‘business as usual’ can very easily turn into one saying ‘going out of business’ in today’s ever-shifting, hypercompetitive marketplace. The key to survival is new ideas, whether they relate to products, processes, organisation or technology. New ideas often come from new people, but many Australian organisations have not been successful at hiring new voices or, if they recruit them, effectively listening to them.
Everybody has some intrinsic unconscious bias and that can adversely influence hiring decisions, even when a company has a policy promoting diversity and inclusion. Yet there is a substantial body of research showing that diversity has a positive impact on the bottom line. Some of the most convincing is detailed in a 2017 report from McKinsey, Delivering Through Diversity, which indicated that gender diversity in management positions increases profitability, even more than previous studies had suggested. McKinsey’s data analysis showed that companies in the top 25th percentile for gender diversity on their executive teams were 21% more likely to experience above-average profits.
Likewise, according to the McKinsey data, companies with culturally and ethnically diverse executive teams were 33% more likely to see above-average profits. The pattern extended to board level, where companies that were more ethnically and culturally diverse were 43% more likely to see above-average profits – a significant correlation between diversity and performance.
These studies were in the US but specialists in the field believe that the Australian picture would be similar.
“It is very likely, since the countries are comparable, and it reflects my experiences,” says Theaanna Kiaos, an organisational anthropologist for Diversity First specialising in organisational culture, diversity and inclusion within Australian corporations. “What it means is that decisions made with higher levels of cognitive diversity are likely to be better ones. Once, homogenous boards or leadership teams might have been well-suited to make decisions affecting the company’s future. But it is no longer the case. We now live in a more complex, increasingly diverse world.”
AFFINITY BIAS
Unconscious bias arises when a first impression leads a senior person to favour someone in a hiring or promotion decision without knowing all the candidates’ capabilities. This is affinity bias: a ‘first impression’ preference for someone who has the same ethnic, cultural and gender characteristics as you do.
“It has its roots in primitive, tribal times,” explains Clare EdwardsFIML, Principal of BrainSmart Consulting. “Our brains developed to consider anyone different as foe before friend. This reaction is still active in our brains today, mostly unconsciously. The issue for us now is how we overcome that and prevent it from creating group-think and stagnation.”
At one level, unconscious bias can be countered by mechanical processes, especially in recruitment.
Edwards explains that removing gender, residential suburb and tertiary education markers from applications can go a long way to mitigating unconscious bias. Holding panel interviews where panel members are of a diverse background and from other areas of the business is also effective.
“In the recruitment space, apps like Textio that have a ‘watch list’ of gender-biased words and phrases to avoid can help ensure the language and vocabulary we use is inclusive, gender-neutral and not influencing candidates one way or another,” she adds.
“Bias can be very subtle. For example, an ad asking for someone to ‘manage’ a team attracts more male candidates, as opposed to ‘developing’ a team which attracts more female candidates.”
Once a shortlist of candidates is created and applicants are selected for further interviews, the criteria being used for selection should also be absolutely clear to the interviewers. The criteria should relate to the capability to do the job most effectively. It is not about whether a candidate went to the same university as the selector, or if the selector can imagine themselves having a beer after work with a candidate. ‘Cultural fit’, while an important aspect in any selection, should not be manipulated to reject people who show themselves the best at doing the job but come from a different background to the selector.
These methods can be useful at preventing non-affinity candidates being knocked out during search and selection. They are part of an answer but not in themselves sufficient to improve diversity in an organisation. The other, and larger part, of the solution is to focus on the attitudes of the people engaged in the more advanced parts of the selection process.
FINDING THE RIGHT LANGUAGE
Many organisations have tried to address issues of unconscious bias through training but the results have often been mixed.
“Of all the companies we know who have taken part in unconscious bias training, not one of them was able to tell us, with absolute confidence, that it has resulted in sustainable behavioural change,” says Kiaos. “When we ask if leaders have become more insightful through the application of the key learnings, often there is only an uncomfortable silence.”
Chris Burton
In fact, when executives and team leaders are told to think about their biases it can sometimes lead to a defensive reaction because it does not fit with their version of themselves. Kiaos emphasises that an environment of safety and trust is imperative to challenge biases and norms related to diversity and inclusion in an organisation. There must also be a deeper understanding of how the training fits into an overall diversity and inclusion strategy.
One problem is that unconscious bias training is often couched in the language of social science research and psychological phenomena. This can be alienating to executives whose expertise is business. For training to be effective it has to focus on workplace situations and implications, and on the business benefits of diversity. In addition, there needs to be a path for further action, such as giving a specific commitment to overcome an aspect of bias.
If the executives in the training course feel that they are being unduly criticised for being who they are, they are likely to become dismissive of the whole concept. Trainers need to think carefully about the language they use and the specific situation involved. The wrong type of training will not just be unproductive but counterproductive.
Chris Burton, Executive Director of Team Management Systems, a consulting firm that specialises in teamwork improvements, sees feedback mechanisms as essential.
“You need to take time and invest in learning programs that create a link between the inner world of how we think and the operational realities of how we get work done together. We need to illustrate to people how important it is that we accept, validate and incorporate our different perspectives because when we do this well, we are collectively performing better,” he says.
“Ultimately, what is universal when addressing bias is that you need to make the unconscious conscious by providing leaders with reliable feedback about how they process their world and how they prefer to approach their work.”
CHANGE OF MINDSET
Training to help to overcome unconscious bias is most effective if coupled with process changes and set within a business framework. But there is also another aspect: a conscious attempt by leaders, whether at the organisational or team level, to change their own thinking.
One strategy for this is presented by author Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. He differentiates between what he calls ‘system 1’ thinking, which is automatic and habitual; and ‘system 2’ thinking, which is slower and more deliberate. Each has its value but ‘system 2’ thinking delivers more considered outcomes and provides a way to get away from the trap of first impressions through self-awareness and reflection. Edwards has had success with a ‘perspectives’ exercise which invites people to consider how their beliefs and opinions were formed. This can cover areas such as values from parents and elders, religious and cultural upbringing, socio-economic status, and the political beliefs of influencers.
“It’s not often that people take time to reflect and challenge beliefs they may have ‘downloaded’ or adopted but no longer serve them well,” she says. “We also encourage people to interact more with people who are traditionally outside their ‘in-group’ to expand their awareness of difference. The more diverse a group we interact with, the greater our understanding and appreciation of difference and the greater the likelihood of reducing bias in oneself.”
An easy test to check for unconscious bias in a hiring decision is to ‘flip it’. A selector who is having reservations about a candidate who comes from a background of diversity might ask themselves: would they still have those reservations if the candidate had the same cultural, ethnic and gender background as the selector? Alternatively, would a preferred candidate still be preferred if they came from a background of diversity? Questions like this help to turn theory into practice, and to understand the real-world consequences of unconscious bias.
A LARGER PICTURE
Theaanna Kiaos believes that moves to overcome unconscious bias should be set within a large self-development picture.
Theaanna Kiaos
She says, “You can teach people conceptualisations of biases but it isn’t very useful until people connect with insight and personal feelings associated with biases in their own life. Overcoming biases comes about through identifying how these biases play out.
“Ongoing mindfulness training is also valuable. The mindful state allows one to observe their behaviour more easily, so it makes an effective combination with unconscious bias training. If an organisation can afford to do both, then do both.
“A critical thing is to avoid judging oneself negatively when an insight has become conscious. Rather, accept the cognitive deficit for what it is and carefully look at its impact in everyday life, then correct it by stopping that pattern of behaviour. Write it down, become familiar with it, and then stop it.”
Chris Burton offers another path. “Some of the most important resources used to eliminate unconscious bias are psychometric feedback tools used to generate focused self-assessment and self-reflection. A critical reference point for any leader is an awareness of their own default approach to decision-making, so they can then consider whether corrective action is needed,” he notes. “More broadly, as organisations embrace the importance of both learning and employee experience, these two factors have a multiplier effect to enable the workforce to navigate a successful path to better performance.”
A final step in dealing with unconscious bias is to look at personal changes of mindset in connection with the culture of the organisation.
“It would help, from a strategic perspective, to move diversity and inclusion policy and practice out of the jurisdiction of HR and put it into corporate strategy,” advises Clare Edwards. “There, it can function as a key performance indicator for strategic growth and organisational health. And that sort of shift would underline the importance of overcoming bias in order to help the company thrive.”
READ MORE ONLINE
Clare Edwards FIML, Principal of BrainSmart Consulting, shares extensive insights about tackling unconscious bias in recruitment. Read more here.
Theaanna Kiaos also goes into further detail in this article.
As human beings our default position is to trust others. Research noted in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) shows that human beings are naturally predisposed to trust – it’s in our genes and our childhood learning.. And most of the time it is a survival mechanism that has served our species well.
It’s only when we find evidence to the contrary that we stop trusting. And judging by the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, this is exactly what’s happening.
“The past decade has seen a loss of faith in traditional authority figures and institutions,” said Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman.
He explains that there is a growing feeling of pessimism about the future, with only one in three mass population respondents in the developed world believing his or her family will be better off in the next five years. Just one in five believe ‘the system’ is working for them, and 70% desire change.
Tony Beaven CMgr FIML, General Manager of Elders Financial Planning, believes the erosion of trust within institutions has a lot to do with the environment we live in today. The pace of globalisation, disruption, and technological advancement are all making trust an increasingly scarce commodity for the majority of business leaders. As Beaven explains, “This can often see the needs of the organisation take priority over the relational aspects of building and maintaining the trust relationship throughout the organisation.”
And the erosion of our natural predisposition to trust goes even deeper than that.
Darren Fleming, behavioural scientist and author of Don’t Be A D!ck, says, “We tend to regard people who don’t trust as paranoid. But in many ways our sense of trust has been abused, and a lack of trust is the outcome. “If we look around the world, leaders haven’t been doing what we want them to do. This has led to a disconnect from leaders who are supposed to be pursuing our interests. The banking royal commission highlighted that we can’t always trust leaders in our business community – again because they weren’t doing what we believe they should be doing.”
Gabrielle Dolan, speaker and author on business storytelling and real communication, offers this perspective: “In these days of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ we are moving away from that default position of trust, and becoming inherently more suspicious. The result is that leaders have to work harder to gain trust.”
A NEW TREND IS EMERGING
While the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer signifies that people are generally less trustful, we haven’t entirely given up on trust.
Edelman says, “People have lost confidence in the social platforms that fostered peer-to-peer trust. These forces have led people to shift their trust to the relationships within their control, most notably their employers.”
Intriguingly, Edelman found 75% of people globally trust their employer to do what is right. Moreover, 76% are looking to business leaders to create positive change.
This suggests leaders and managers have some solid responsibilities to live up to. But why does trust even matter? And how can it be nurtured?
TRUST IS VITAL ON MANY FRONTS
Beaven says trust is important “because if you don’t allocate enough time to get the right balance of relational factors versus the business needs of the organisation, your business is potentially subject to turnover issues and a diminishing culture that can ultimately impact the survival of the organisation.”
For Fleming, the issue is clear cut. “Without trust nothing happens. We only get in our cars because we trust that people will drive on the correct side of the road. We turn up to our jobs because we trust that we’ll get paid.”
Fleming adds, “Trust is what allows us to contribute. If we don’t have trust, we have to second guess everything going on.”
As Beaven points out, trust can deliver real advantages to organisations. Dolan expands on that point, saying, “When employees have trust, decisions can be made more quickly, and workplace teams are more likely to buy into those decisions.”
She adds, “Trust also makes change easier because employees are confident that leaders will look after them and do the ‘right thing’ by them. Trust is especially critical in peak periods as staff can be sure that leaders ‘have their back’, and consequently they are likely to give more.”
FIVE BUILDING BLOCKS OF TRUST
The big question is how managers and leaders can go about building trust. It’s not always an easy task, especially as Australians and Kiwis have what Dolan diplomatically refers to as “a tremendous capacity to detect the inauthentic.”
As Fleming notes, “Developing trust calls for a far more proactive approach than a simple open door policy – after all, the trap door spider also has an open door policy.” Here are five proactive steps that leaders can take.
1. TRANSPARENCY
A key starting point in developing trust is transparency. “If you say you are going to do something, then do it,” advises Fleming. “Explain why you are acting in a particular way.”
He adds, “This is where politicians often get things so wrong. People are big enough to handle the truth but politicians don’t give it to us. Instead they try to secure the popular vote by not being truthful.”
Dolan agrees that transparency is essential. She adds, “It is very important to have transparent communication. Even if you have nothing to communicate, let your team know this.”
2. STRONG PERSONAL CONVICTIONS
“Good leaders with strong personal convictions explain what they are doing,” says Fleming.
“A lot of the time people in the workforce don’t know why they’re doing something. If someone on your team questions why they have been asked to complete a task, explain why. It’s not good enough to just say ‘because I’m in charge’.”
3. DON’T AIM TO BE PERFECT
Be prepared to show a vulnerable side. Dolan explains, “The leadership style of never showing weakness, never making mistakes and having all the answers is outdated. The ability to show a vulnerable side calls for courage and self-assurance.”
According to Dolan, being able to show vulnerability is a sign of strength. Conversely, refusing to demonstrate vulnerability is a sign of weakness.
“The maxim that ‘perfect leaders aren’t real, and real leaders are imperfect’ is very true,” says Dolan. “When someone is trying to be too perfect they don’t come across as approachable, and we aren’t comfortable with them.”
This view is confirmed by the HBR study, which found we’re far more likely to trust people who are similar to us in some dimension.
4. INVITE, LISTEN, OBSERVE
Fleming has developed his own mantra for building trust, “Don’t turn your back on people, don’t cover your ears, and don’t close your heart”.
He explains this saying, “Invite people into conversations. We are social creatures and we don’t like to be excluded. When you include people, they feel protected because they are part of the tribe.”
Be prepared to listen to others. “We all have a voice and we all want to share and contribute,” adds Fleming. “When you shut people down they become resentful.”
Keeping your heart open matters too. As Fleming notes, “It can be difficult to find a balance between leading and building trust. It’s about knowing your people, reading the environment and having social awareness.
“Observe your team, ask if everything is okay, and adopt an empathetic person-to-person approach. We’re all people trying to get through life. A lot of leaders lose sight of this amid the ‘we’re here to make money’ attitude.”
5. SHARE PERSONAL STORIES
Dolan recommends sharing personal stories to build trust. “It can be very powerful as long as you’re sending a business message to demonstrate personal values,” she explains. However, this calls for leaders to truly know their own values, such as integrity, respect and teamwork.
“Do things that demonstrate your values,” says Dolan. “For example, you may believe in the value of feedback but this means you need to be able to accept feedback yourself.”
Storytelling can be used at team meetings, presentations, or even in a one-on-one situation. Dolan offers an example of how very public storytelling can deepen relationships.
“A client of mine was speaking at an event, and she openly described how the amount of time she was spending at work was starting to threaten her marriage,” notes Dolan. “It was a deeply personal anecdote. But by sharing it she was acknowledging ‘I haven’t got this right’.
“The response from the audience was exceptional,” adds Dolan. “Many people thanked the speaker – it just hadn’t occurred to those she worked with that this person would be having these sorts of issues. It gave others permission to share their story.”
Political tension. Technology disruption. Regulatory change. Economic tremors. The list goes on. Every aspect of modern life seems clouded by uncertainty right now. For managers and leaders, it can feel like the only certainty is that more change is coming.
That presents an enormous challenge for those institutions charged with educating the managers and leaders of the future. How can universities prepare graduates for a business landscape that could be unrecognisable in years to come? Or, to put it another way, how is it possible to prepare someone for tomorrow, when you don’t know what tomorrow even looks like
Keeping up with business and education
One man who may have the answer is Professor Tony Travaglione. The University of Newcastle’s Pro Vice-Chancellor of Business and Law has his finger on the pulse of business education in Australia and worldwide. Until recently, he was President of the Australian Business Deans Council, providing leadership to 39 business schools, nationwide. And he is currently on the International Advisory Board at the Institute of Management Technology in Dubai.
Prior to his role at the University of Newcastle, Professor Travaglione held senior positions at the Curtin Business School, the University of Adelaide and the University of Sydney. He has also held the position of Visiting Professor at Stanford University where he taught MBA students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Throughout his career, Professor Travaglione has maintained close links between the education sector and the business community. He has delivered research and other projects for an enviable collection of organisations including ANZ bank, BHP, Qantas, Nespresso, Main Roads Western Australia, Westrail, Hunter Area Health, and Centrelink. He has also conducted projects for international organisations including Norwich Union, Royal Sun Alliance, Guinness Brewing and the London Underground.
IML ANZ chief executive David Pich CMgr FIML caught up with Professor Travaglione to discuss how the education sector is evolving to meet the changing needs of aspiring managers and leaders.
Addressing the issue of graduate employability
DAVID PICH: Employers sometimes lament that university students, upon graduating, are not ‘work ready’ for the business world. How would you respond to that?
TONY TRAVAGLIONE: Traditionally, graduates who undertook business courses such as MBAs found it relatively easy to find employment. However, more recently, we’ve seen a shift where some institutions’ curricula have struggled to keep pace with the speed of change in the world of work. Of course, the flipside is that there’s been huge success for the universities and courses that have reacted positively and quickly.
Connecting with industry and staying relevant
DP: How can educators adapt to stay relevant?
TT: Working closely with the business sector is a big part of it. One way we’ve done this at the University of Newcastle is in relation to our EMBA, where we’ve consulted with industry. This has resulted in students working on organisational projects. We’re keeping the curriculum up to date by having organisations and employees working on real-life projects, and bringing their learning back to the classroom, and vice versa. So instead of completing textbook assignments, they’re rolling up their sleeves and doing workplace projects.
DP: The University of Newcastle’s links to the business sector now extend to IML ANZ too. We’re delighted to have the University of Newcastle on board as a Pathway Partner for your Executive MBA (EMBA). What excites you about that partnership?
TT: It’s a wonderful opportunity to work with a really professional body like IML ANZ and it helps to address what is missing in MBA programs right now in Australia. To enrol in this program, you need support from an employer. The curriculum supports you in the attainment of a range of skills and competencies, allowing you to graduate as a Chartered Manager in one year if you complete all the eight courses. And, during that journey, students are entitled to IML ANZ Member benefits.
DP: I can’t help but think that’s how education, and particularly tertiary education, has to go: building more of these kinds of partnerships with industry.
TT: Oh absolutely. That’s how to ensure university courses adapt at the same speed that industry does. And equally, if a university is leading the way in terms of research, then that also feeds its way back into the organisations. Everyone benefits from the knowledge that everyone brings to the table.
The shifting education landscape
DP: When I think back to my own university degree, it was essentially sitting in an old dusty, draughty lecture theatre. It was really no preparation for the world of work at all. Back then, the gap between work and academia was huge. Has much changed?
TT: If you were to come and attend classes at the University of Newcastle now, your experience would be unrecognisable from what you just described. The analogy I would use is that the old form of learning – hour-long university lectures – was like sitting down and reading a newspaper for 60 minutes. But instead, we now use blended learning.
Blended learning is more like sitting down with three or four friends, and discussing what you’ve learned having already read the newspaper. Then, at a certain point, a subject matter expert (a university academic and/or industry expert) joins you for the discussion to add their insights. All of a sudden, someone jumps in saying, “Well, I found this online yesterday”. Someone else points out something they read in a magazine. And by the time that 60 minutes is up, you’ve covered numerous sources from around the globe and participated in a sophisticated debate.
Given the choice, what would you do: Stick to reading the newspaper for an hour? Or engage in all those interactions with people using all of those sources of information? I think it’s obvious which approach would enrich your learning most.
DP: In the past, people would study a tertiary degree then work in a single profession or industry for the rest of their lives. Now, as people live longer and markets are increasingly disrupted, individuals are likely to switch careers several times in their lifespan. That means reskilling and learning will be required throughout people’s lives, not just when they’re in their teens or early 20s. What advice would you have for managers and leaders who want to thrive in such an environment?
TT: The skillset that will be transferable across industries may not necessarily be a technical one. It is more about soft skills which centre around leadership: teamwork, negotiation, understanding culture, harnessing diversity, and so on.
My advice to anyone is that the days of a single qualification are indeed gone.
DP: That echoes what we’ve been saying at IML ANZ. If you want to lead people, then technical skills alone are not enough. However, I was interested when you used the phrase ‘soft skills’. I use it too – but I have a problem with it because ‘soft’ sounds easy. Whereas soft skills are actually hard to master!
TT: I agree – we do need to change that phrase. Perhaps we should simply talk about leadership skills? Because to be a successful leader, you’ve obviously got to understand what it takes to recruit, develop and manage a successful team. You’re only able to do that if you’ve got effective leadership skills. You can be the best in the world in a technical area, but if you don’t have those leadership skills, your career will stall. You’re not going to make your organisation as effective as it should be.
DP: Are you optimistic about the future of business education in Australia?
TT: I’m an optimist simply because I believe in competition. There is currently competition in the marketplace and that is only going to grow and grow. Yes, we all offer pretty much the same products, but how the products are delivered is what matters. At the University of Newcastle we use blended learning, as I described before.
There are other business schools who would expect their students to turn up to a big lecture room packed with hundreds of students.
You can simply record that lecture and play it over and over again year in, year out. And the students know that. So why would they bother going to classes? When we hear that perhaps students are not attending classes in the same numbers as they might have done 10 or 15 years ago, it’s easy to see why.
Today, some educators are trying to teach students the same way that they did 10 or 15 years ago. And students today are not interested in those outdated forms of delivery.
But I’m optimistic for business educators and institutions who follow a different path – the path of blended learning.
In a busy world, how can leaders ensure they are setting aside time to focus on creating their strategy? Three Chartered Managers share their thoughts.
Jillian Cable CMgr FIML
CEO and Company Secretary, Venture Housing Company
As someone who survived a close encounter with terrorists; lost a step-son in a preventable incident; and whose mother died of cancer at a young age; I know that life can be both very short and extremely arbitrary. So, above all, do what inspires you. As a very wise mentor once said to me: “If you lead a life of purpose, your job will be an inspirational journey”.
My practical tips are:
Delegate day-to-day tasks. This frees up your time for strategic thinking, helps develop your people, and assists succession planning.
Slowly handwriting my ‘to do’ lists on paper and prioritising tasks embeds them in my mind and stimulates thoughts in a way that typing does not. I then set up alerts in my electronic diary. Freed from the fear of forgetting an important deadline, my mind can relax and contemplate the ‘helicopter view’.
Self-care is important. Some of my best ideas have come during a massage, riding a horse or whilst mowing the lawn! Sometimes the mind needs to be in a non-work zone for the strategy to emerge.
Carol Sutton CMgr FIML
Director, On The Business
It all starts with preparation and intention. Make sure you understand what your long-term vision and goals are – and be crystal clear on how you will know when you have achieved them. Then be bold and begin. Just as you would never dream of waiting to start a journey until every traffic light en route was green, you should accept that there will never be a time when all the business conditions are perfect. So get started! (See CE Lindblom’s papers on Muddling Through and Still Muddling, Not Yet Through for a useful and enjoyable read on this subject.)
Periodically schedule time to check in on your progress and be smart about when you schedule that. I’m a big advocate for active procrastination. Accept that you won’t always be in the right frame of mind to tackle strategy – and don’t feel bad about that. If you struggle to focus on the written word during the afternoon, try and organise meetings or schedule phone calls during that time. (Eisenhower’s decision matrix offers a great rule of thumb for how to spend your time effectively.)
Michael Coe CMgr FIML
Support Services Manager, Maritime Saab Australia
Taking time for reflection can easily be pushed aside due to day-to-day demands. In my experience timing is the key. Ideas can sometimes come from the most unlikely sources and at random times. Capturing these ideas, whether relevant or not at the time, is key to successful planning. This includes process/organisational changes, business opportunities or any other puzzle pieces that contribute to strategic planning. In this way, the time spent on reflection for strategy has more meaning and content.
It is easy to set high-level plans that remain dormant afterwards because they are prepared for representation rather than genuine change. It is pointless attending planning meetings with a blank sheet because that’s unlikely to achieve productive outcomes.
Big picture planning is easier with content. It can sometimes be more effective using a ‘bottom up’ approach rather than ‘top down’. Laying out the opportunities and ideas can make the strategic pathways more apparent. This makes the eff ort spent on reflection and planning worthwhile – delivering real outcomes – and therefore encouraging us to commit our time to it, either individually or collectively.
This article originally appeared in the June 2019 print edition of Leadership Matters, IML ANZ’s quarterly magazine. For editorial suggestions and enquiries, please contact karyl.estrella@managersandleaders.com.au.
Young leader and registered psychologist, Rheza Tan CMgr MIML, lists how the mind impacts effective management.
1. MASTER THE LEADERSHIP MINDSET
When I studied business, I found that many leadership concepts are drawn from psychology or informed by the science. The two main lessons that I keep in mind are:
Look after people. Don’t just focus on the bottom line. If you look after your people, then they’ll do the same for you and your organisation.
Have meaning and purpose. As these are higher-level needs, once people meet their basic needs, they search for meaning and purpose. I found that leaders who share their sense of purpose with their staff and organisation support others in fulfilling their higher-level needs too.
2. CULTIVATE A POSITIVE VIEW
Although I was primarily trained to help people with diagnosed mental illness, when I became a manager I was drawn to positive psychology. It’s about assisting healthy people to increase their wellbeing and happiness. The focus is on enhancing the positive rather than eliminating the negative. When I dug deeper, I found that positive psychology, and business and executive coaching are becoming really intertwined. There’s a strong alignment between positive psychology and coaching. Leaders can use positive psychology models and apply those when helping their teams.
3. LISTEN TO THE UNHEARD
Both personally and professionally I’m drawn to assist those from a culturally and linguistically diverse background – including students, migrants and refugees. Regardless of where people come from, there’s always a struggle to adjust to a new culture. The greater issue they face is a lack of good mental health literacy. Many cultures don’t acknowledge mental health issues. In some, they don’t even have words to describe concepts like anxiety and depression. So it can be challenging for them to get support. As a migrant myself, I understand their experience. When they can speak to someone who understands, it really makes a huge difference.
4. DEVELOP AS A PROFESSIONAL AND AS A LEADER
Completing the Chartered Manager program was the first time I was exposed to a competency framework for leaders. Comparing myself against it was an excellent reflective process. I feel that it gave me an ongoing commitment to be competent as a professional leader. As Chartered Managers, we have a responsibility to uphold ethical business standards and a commitment to leadership development. I know many colleagues who are both health professionals and leaders. While they tend to continue clinical training, they don’t always develop their management knowledge or leadership skills in the same way. Now, I complete professional development for two disciplines – as a psychologist and as a leader.
This article originally appeared in the September 2019 print edition of Leadership Matters, IML ANZ’s quarterly magazine. For editorial suggestions and enquiries, please contact karyl.estrella@managersandleaders.com.au.
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“But our non-negotiable expectation is to compete with respect. It’s not just about winning – it’s also about how we go about it.” That said, the test team’s magnificent retention of the Ashes for the first time in England since 2001 is a significant fillip for the game in Australia. Particularly given it followed just a few weeks after the Australian women’s team secured an outstanding Ashes series win on English soil too.
“It has its roots in primitive, tribal times,” explains 
One strategy for this is presented by author Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. He differentiates between what he calls ‘system 1’ thinking, which is automatic and habitual; and ‘system 2’ thinking, which is slower and more deliberate. Each has its value but ‘system 2’ thinking delivers more considered outcomes and provides a way to get away from the trap of first impressions through self-awareness and reflection. Edwards has had success with a ‘perspectives’ exercise which invites people to consider how their beliefs and opinions were formed. This can cover areas such as values from parents and elders, religious and cultural upbringing, socio-economic status, and the political beliefs of influencers.
DP: How can educators adapt to stay relevant?
TT: If you were to come and attend classes at the University of Newcastle now, your experience would be unrecognisable from what you just described. The analogy I would use is that the old form of learning – hour-long university lectures – was like sitting down and reading a newspaper for 60 minutes. But instead, we now use blended learning.
Jillian Cable CMgr FIML
Carol Sutton CMgr FIML
Michael Coe CMgr FIML
