Ann Messenger: From Student Member to Chair of IML

 

Ann Messenger has enjoyed a varied and eventful career in a variety of influential positions. In this interview she reflects upon the toughest challenges facing managers and leaders today, and shares some of the lessons she has learnt. 

By Jade Collins and Alanna Bastin-Byrne

 

Ann Messenger FIML is the Chair of the Board of the Institute of Managers and Leaders (IML). She is a chartered accountant and has enjoyed a varied global career, including six years working in Latin America as an equities analyst covering emerging markets.

Messenger worked in corporate finance and middle market advisory roles with professional services firms KPMG and HLB Mann Judd and later secured in-house roles such as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer with a variety of organisations including the Sydney Chamber of Commerce. Messenger has a strong interest in not-for-profits. During 2009 and 2010, she was the General Manager of St John’s College (within the University of Sydney) and in 2011 was appointed to Mosman Council’s Development Assessment Panel.

Messenger led the strategic rebrand of the Australian Institute of Management Group (AIM) to the Institute of Managers and Leaders to refocus the organisation’s purpose on setting and promoting the national standard of management and leadership competence. As part of this change, IML is the only assessing body outside of the UK offering the internationally recognised Chartered Manager (CMgr) qualification.

You are the first national Chair of the Institute of Managers and Leaders and originally joined as a student member of AIM in the 1980`s. Tell us about your long association with the organisation and how it has influenced and supported your leadership journey.

When I joined in the 1980s, management was a relatively new discipline and AIM was at the forefront of what was at that time the burgeoning field of management education and training. Since then, management education and training has become ubiquitous and IML has morphed into what it is today, the go-to professional body for managers and leaders.

IML has always had a sense of fraternity and as a young management professional there was a great sense of support in meeting others who were effectively in the same boat, not to mention a veritable gold mine of mentors who were always incredibly generous with their time and eager to help. Because IML has always been a completely independent non-aligned not-for-profit organisation, it occupies a unique position in being able to provide a nurturing forum for the profession.

What do you believe are the most pressing challenges leaders and managers face today?

The need for leaders and managers to constantly learn, adapt and change has never been greater. Nothing is static and with information at everybody’s fingertips there’s a constant expectation that we must keep up or be left behind. This is incredibly challenging and exciting but, of course, our reliance on non-curated and unverified data presents risks (and sometimes even fake news!). Seriously, though, this is where professional bodies like IML come into their own in providing sounding boards and support networks of like-minded people with whom we’re not in direct competition in a workplace.

IML has long advocated gender equality and diversity in leadership. What can organisations do to accelerate achieving leadership diversity and a culture of inclusion?

As leaders we can try to understand and appreciate that we are employing the “whole person”, not just the “professional part”. The good news is that by adopting a more holistic view of the individuals who make up our workforce – a culture of acceptance and inclusion follows. Leaders of organisations that do that are inherently promoting diversity and inclusion and, by the way, achieving much higher returns on their human resource investment.

Leaders can also dispel the myth that employees are somehow almost robotic, one dimensional units of production and accept that work is a means to an end for all but the saddest of the workaholics among us. In doing so, we bring some humanity, acceptance and inclusion into our workplaces.

As an experienced director, what would you recommend as the best preparation to those who are considering pursuing board roles?

There are a million and one sage and sobering accounts of boardroom activities, the most colourful of which unfortunately exist in court reports. Gaining an understanding of corporate governance is absolutely critical. Although experience within the boardroom via executive roles provides valuable insights, a director’s perspective is and must be entirely different. Governance is key.

What has been your greatest challenge?

There have been so many challenges. One that’s front of mind for me right now is accepting that sometimes things just have to play out and, as a leader, there are times when you just have to allow that to happen. The learnings and evolution that result for all concerned sometimes just have to come from the actual experience.

What are you most proud of?

In my role as Chair of IML, it’s got to be the rebrand and reinvention of the organisation. That is, of course, still happening. It’s been incredibly rewarding to watch the reaction to this fresh new brand.

What’s your one piece of advice for future female leaders?

I’m going to steal from Eleanor Roosevelt here. She once said something along the lines of: “Do what you know in your heart is the right thing to do because you’ll be criticised anyway!”

I guess that’s another way of saying believe in yourself and see it through – but I’d caveat that by saying, always…always listen to those who you know have your best interests at heart…and then do what you think is right!

As leaders we can try to understand and appreciate that we are employing the “whole person”, not just the “professional part”.

People Power: Leadership hacks to save you time

Scott Stein, renowned business coach and author of Leadership Hacks, Clever Shortcuts to Boost Your Impact and Results, shares some tips to boost the productivity of you and your team.

By Nicola Field

You know the drill. Deadlines are getting tighter, resources are being squeezed and you need to motivate your people to do more with less. It can seem like a tall order, but Scott Stein says some clever hacks – or smart shortcuts – can make it happen.

Everyone’s busy. Our days are packed with different activities. But chances are, you’re not focusing on the right things. Try mapping out what you have actually done during the course of a day, and you’re likely to see a big gap between what you have been doing and what you should be doing.

In this article, Scott reveals some of the hacks that allow leaders to side-step the distractors and reclaim their time:

Hacks for your email inbox

Be disciplined. Schedule time to manage emails, then follow up with this simple four-step hack to save time managing your inbox:

  1. Give your inbox a quick visual scan.
  2. Delete what’s not relevant.
  3. Sort remaining emails based on importance.
  4. Respond.

Hacks for sending emails

When writing an email, think about what you are hoping to achieve. Use the list below to narrow this down:

  • It’s an FYI message.
  • You need to gather/share information.
  • You need to make a decision.
  • You need the recipient to take action
  • You want to arrange a meeting.

State the specific outcome you’re looking for at the start of the email including in the subject line. This gives the reader context and saves you (and them) time. Use bullet points, bold and underline in your email message to help the reader easily grasp the key points.

One-on-one hacks

Delegation is an important skill, yet leaders often don’t know how to delegate. It’s estimated that one in two companies is concerned about their managers’ delegation skills, but they don’t offer training for it.

The result? Leaders are often completing tasks that someone several salary bands below them should be doing – often because it seems quicker and easier to just do it themselves.

The fact is, delegation is a skill that can be mastered. Let’s break it down.

There are four levels to delegation:

  1. Do the task yourself.
  2. Coach your team member. Explain you need their help, describe the task and map out a plan of action together. Share ideas, sequence the steps, and set clear dates when you will check in on their progress.
  3. Explain the task to your team member, and ask them to map out how they’ll approach it. Check in along the way.
  4. Set the task, and ask to see the results when it’s complete.

A key problem is that many leaders head straight to level 4. If things don’t go well, after a few attempts they give up delegating and revert to level 1.

It’s important to use a level 2 approach in the first instance. Gradually progress to level 3, and then to level 4. It will save time in the long run.

Team hacks

Research shows executives can spend as much as 23 hours each week tied up in meetings. That makes meetings a prime target for team hacks.

Trying to combine different types of meetings is a waste of time. The discussion goes round and round, the same people do all the talking and no real result is achieved.

Instead, hack the meeting by first identifying its purpose. Then decide the type of meeting you need to achieve your purpose from the four listed below:

  1. Reporting and checking – for example, reporting sales results.
  2. Problem solving – you have a challenge that you need a broader perspective on.
  3. Decision making – you need to arrive at a clear decision.
  4. Strategy development – you need to plan for the future.

Be clear about communicating the type of meeting to your team. If everyone knows what the aim of the meeting is from the start, it gives the discussion focus and helps avoid detours.

Be prepared to shake up meetings a little too. Or maybe you don’t need a meeting at all. Reporting or checking in can often be done virtually.  The Vice President of Kimberly-Clark, a massive corporation, recently got rid of typical reporting meetings altogether. These days, they have a dashboard in the hallway that sets out KPIs, and the team has a 15-minute stand-up meeting – once in the morning, and then another check-in during the afternoon.

Find more leadership time savers and productivity boosters in Scott Stein’s new book Leadership Hacks, Clever Shortcuts to Boost Your Impact and Results (Wiley).

Responding to the data revolution with resilient leadership

By Dr Selvi Kannan, educator, mentor and Academic Specialist Advisor – Management & Innovation, Victoria University; and Dr Bill Petreski, Principal, Strategy61


Major shifts in the world are placing new demands on businesses, workforces and ultimately education and training. New Resilient Leadership skills are required for the paradigm shift that is upending organisational structures and human capital.

 

The data revolution

Sometimes called the data revolution, the fourth industrial revolution emerged since the global financial crisis of 2008 as a proliferation of our ability to capture, store and manage data that has ultimately led to widespread accessibility and its commoditisation.

By contrast, the first industrial revolution (1760 to 1840) was a defining point in history as we transitioned from hand production methods to new manufacturing processes that were underpinned by steam power, machines, tools and factories.

Inevitably our world did reckon the data revolution. The following industrial revolutions (the technological revolution between 1870 and 1914, and the information revolution between 1980 to 2005) created industries that have been defined by increasingly rapid convergence of computing, telecommunications and networking infrastructure.

Today’s new paradigm is shaping technology-driven futures underpinned by emerging automation technologies, including data analytics, deep learning, artificial intelligence and cognitive computing. Automation technologies are already becoming essential parts of everyday life and will increasingly transform our workplace.

On one hand, the profound technological changes of the fourth industrial revolution intensified competition in an increasingly borderless commercial environment. While such globalisation has led to unprecedented gains for many from the movement of goods, services, people and ideas, there are those who have lost out – economically, politically or culturally.

While there have been profound socio-economic impacts in all past industrial revolutions, each change has also required dissimilar organisational structures, human capital and therefore leadership capabilities.

Now is the time for all organisations to hone their management and leadership competencies to adapt to current accelerating business model innovations. Greater resilience will be the key to meet the demands that are upending human capital management and legacy hierarchical organisational structures.

Resilient leadership is the key

Resilience originates from the Latin word resiliens, which refers to the pliant or elastic quality of a substance. Broadly it often refers to positive self-esteem, hardiness, strong coping skills, a sense of coherence, self-efficacy, optimism, strong social resources, adaptability, risk-taking, low fear of failure, determination, perseverance, and a high tolerance of uncertainty.

Meanwhile, leadership is often described as taking active approaches to making decisions. It involves gaining and keeping engagement of others’ positive attention, showing empathy, insight, intellectual competence, self-direction, self-esteem, setting direction, and demonstrating strength and flexibility during a change process.

In the new paradigm of the data revolution and its emerging organisational structures and new models of human capital, resilience and leadership require additional capabilities that include technical competencies, entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity that will sustainably equip individuals for current and future challenges.

We posit resilient leadership will enable individuals to rapidly fine-tune their professional capabilities to the business model innovations stemming from the current wave of automation technologies. Similarly, businesses will be increasingly required to support their executives, who are otherwise bound by legacy organisational structures, business processes and cultural values.

Our proposed archetype, resilient leadership, will require life-long skill and knowledge development of the attributes to operate in the new agile management environment.  Resilient leaders will need the ability to propel innovative and ethical industries that are globally competitive in rapidly transforming environment to realise the beneficial futures of work and industries and support a new generation of thriving micro, small, medium and large businesses.

 Any enquiries on this research and wish to participate please contact Selvi Kannan: selvi.kannan@vu.edu.au or Bill Petreski bill.petreski@strategy61.com.au

Let’s break some rules

In a fearful world, leaders need to embolden their people to swim against the tide.

By Jane Caro 

A few years ago, I used to teach a subject of intense academic rigour (not) at the University of Western Sydney. ‘Advertising Creative’ was an elective in the Communications degrees offered by the School of Communication Arts. I taught the course twice per year for seven years. I usually had about 100 students per semester. UWS (or WSU as it is called now) is a terrific institution. Quite apart from anything else 75 per cent of its students are the first members of their family ever to go to university. It also enrolls students from a wide range of ethnic, social and religious backgrounds. All the research shows that a rich spread of experiences and beliefs in an organisation is ground zero for creativity.

What I found while teaching this wide range of students, was that the usual suspects were not the people who did as well as they expected in my course. In using the term ‘usual suspects’ I mean the archetypal ‘good’ students. Those who study hard and are very good at following the rules, and memorising and regurgitating what they have been told. To their consternation, for once, they were not the stars of the show. I remember one of them asking me how wide the margin should be on the work they handed in and the way their mouth dropped open at my answer.

“Margin? I don’t care if it has a margin at all. I don’t care if you hand in your creative idea scribbled on the back of an envelope so long as it makes me laugh, cry, shocks me, disturbs me or makes me think. Neatest, correct entry will get you nowhere. Messy but original will win. Show me something I have never seen before.”

The students who did surprisingly well in my course were often the ones who were just scraping through the rest of their subjects. They were the irreverent, lazy kids who winged their assignments at the very last minute because they were too busy having a good time. They were also less anxious than the high-achievers, less driven by the need for the approval of others. Their expectations, if they had any, were realistic. Yet, they were better at original ideas. They were more creative because they had kept their subversive spirit alive. They weren’t obedient or compliant and they didn’t follow the rules. And that is where creativity, originality and new ideas live. They germinate in that little internal voice that says ‘Why do I have to do it your way?’ ‘Why should I do what you tell me just because they call you the teacher (boss/supervisor, whatever) and me the student (employee/subordinate etc)?’

I remember one young man coming up to me on campus after the final results had been announced. “Thank you for the great mark,” he said, in a tone of bewilderment. He was clearly not used to scoring highly. “You deserved it,” I replied. “You think differently.”

The trouble with the world as it is now – whether it is in our education system, the workplace, politics, industry or even the media – is we are obsessed with compliance. We are preoccupied with ticking boxes, following the rules (complying with them, in fact) and being accountable. And accountability, as I have written before, is the proverbial dead-hand when it comes to creativity and original thinking. Accountability is a blame-oriented mechanism. If something goes wrong, someone will be held to account for the mistake. Creativity, originality and innovation thrive on mistakes. Whenever you try something new, by definition you are likely to get it wrong. That’s why the era of accountability has brought the western world to the place we find ourselves now. Some are looking backwards (I’m looking at you ‘Make America Great Again’) in fear and loathing, while the rest of us are desperately spinning our wheels and getting nowhere. Creativity and innovation, in my experience, can only really take flight in an almost fear-free environment. People must feel safe enough to fail before they can succeed. Managers who know this are both very wise and very rare.

We are currently living in a very fearful world. We’re terrified of being blamed and criticised. We’re scared of climate change, terrorism and ‘the other’. The future feels bleak and dystopian. I think we have to throw that self-limiting existential terror away. And we can only do that with some real innovation. So, it’s time to get subversive. Time to break the rules. Time to tear up the guidelines, excise the margins and scribble our best ideas on the back of envelopes.

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.

Innovator: Karen Hayes transforming a trusted brand

By Lachlan Colquhoun

Karen Hayes FIML had decades of experience as a senior manager in business technology consulting when she realised that she wasn’t “bouncing out of bed every morning” to get to work.

After time working in Europe and Canada, she found herself back in Melbourne and sitting on a number of boards of not-for-profit organisations when the realisation struck: she was enjoying the not-for-profit world more than the commercial world where she had made her career.

She she set her sights on the much-coveted role of CEO at Guide Dogs Victoria. Having secured the position, she knew that the organisation needed to change.

The National Disability Insurance Scheme was about to begin and with it a new model of “self-directed” care, where people with disabilities would be the ones making choices on which services they use.

At the time, the philanthropic model was changing and this had major implications for an organisation that receives only 8 per cent of its funding from government.

“The days of corporates writing big cheques, handing them over and then just ticking their corporate social responsibility box are well and truly over,” says Hayes.

The vision was to move to a more sustainable model where Guide Dogs Victoria could maintain all the values that made it so beloved, but at the same time move towards being able to fund itself.

“It was about respecting the fact that the organisation had 60 years of great history, but also putting measures in place to make sure it survived and prospered 60 years and more into the future,” Hayes says.

Many of the staff, for example, had been at Guide Dogs Victoria for 40 years and the average tenure was 13 years. Hayes had come from an industry where the average stay was 11 months.

“I needed to respect the history, but not allow the history to hold us back,” she says.

Part of the reinvention was around communicating the fact that Guide Dogs does more than train and deliver the iconic guide dogs themselves.

Guide dogs are only around 30 per cent of what the organisation does, with the majority of the balance being in providing other services to the sight impaired. There are 250,000 people with low vision issues in Victoria, but most do not have guide dogs.

“We introduced a strategic plan, and that is about us being first choice as an employer, as a services provider, for people looking for an organisation to support with philanthropy and also for volunteers,” says Hayes.

“We are redeveloping our campus in Kew with the objective of diversifying our revenue stream with a vet clinic, a doggie day care centre, a dog friendly café, all of which will be revenue generating.

“We are going to build a low vision clinic and an educational auditorium, and introduce a level of predictability and sustainability in our financial model that has not existed previously.”

This is all in addition to the ‘Dialogue in the Dark’ experience in Melbourne Docklands, where people are led through an environment in total darkness and have to rely on other senses to interact.

Around 15,000 members of the public have been through the experience, which also employs a team of 20 blind people
as guides.

All these changes go right down through the organisation. All employees have balanced scorecards and KPIs that flow from the strategic plan and which are measured every year.

“When I came here I could see that this was an organisation full of individuals with very strong values,” says Hayes. “Now I feel we are also a values-based organisation with a plan everyone understands, so we are all moving in the right direction together.”

Exploring the mystery of the mind

Neuroscientist Dr Hannah Critchlow says that managers and leaders have a duty to get their heads around how the brain works.

By Lachlan Colquhoun  //  photographs by Paul Musso & Martin Pope

Of all the organs, the brain has always been viewed in a different way, and with special reverence.

Weighing only 1.5 kilograms, or around two per cent of our body mass, the brain is seen as the driver of our personalities, the home of our soul, the repository of memory, and the computer that keeps the whole body ticking over so that we can function in society.

While medical science has gone a long way to demystify the physiology of other organs, such as the liver and the heart, our understanding of the brain and its 86 billion neurons has remained comparatively limited until recently.

Breakthroughs in neuroscience over the past decade, however, are rapidly lifting the veil on our understanding of the body’s most complex organ and, in the process, helping us understand more about human behaviour.

“This is a great time to be a neuroscientist, we are peering into the mind as never before,” says Dr Hannah Critchlow, a British author, neuroscientist and fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge. “We are learning about the brain at an exponential rate now — there are as many as five to ten thousand new research papers coming out each month.

“We still have a lot to learn of course, and there are still major problems, as we can see with mental health, but we are discovering the real underpinnings of the brain’s operation and this information will help us to better treat some of the debilitating conditions of the mind.”

Reality check

Dr Critchlow is at the frontline of neuroscience and is on a mission to communicate its findings to the world.

Nominated as one of the UK’s Top 100 Scientists by the Science Council, she is about to follow up her first book Consciousness with a second publication on the theme of “the science of fate”.

Many of the insights from neuroscience, Dr Critchlow says, have come from understanding the brain as a physical organ. Advancing technologies such as optogenetics, which uses light to stimulate specific circuits in the brain, are revealing more about the physiology of behaviours that were previously considered part of the mystery of personality.

Entrepreneurs and drug addicts, for example, have particular brain anatomies, as do people with ADHD and those who enjoy socialising more than others.

For managers and leaders, the challenge is to work with an understanding that everyone has a different perspective on reality and that certain acts that were previously considered voluntary may, in fact, be hardwired.

Although exercise and meditation can help us grow new brain cells and the connections between them, just as chronic stress and depression can kill them off, there may be limits to the ultimate “plasticity” of what a person can achieve with the particular brain they are born with.

The old adage that “you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it” may prove to have clear scientific limitations.

“We can literally see how the circuit board of the mind — this amazing machine comprised of billions of nerve cells, with trillions of connections between them — shifts and changes as we make decisions and experience the world around us,” she says.

“We can switch feelings of pleasure on or off, and feelings of anxiety and even addiction, so we are really starting to understand how these discrete circuit boards in our brain give rise to very particular behaviours.”

Part of this is a more holistic understanding that the brain does not exist in isolation at the top of the body, and that its interactions are strongly linked with the immune system, to our gut, and to organs such as the heart.

“At its most basic, when you have a cold or the flu you feel down in the dumps and depressed, and there is a physical reason for that because your brain is almost in a depressed state at that point,” says Dr Critchlow.

“There is also a lot of emerging evidence which suggests that people with chronic depression might have altered immune systems as well, so their immune system is attacking the brain. An altered immune system has even been linked to the terrifying symptoms of psychosis, and in some patients simply clearing their blood of the faulty immune cells can stop the symptoms for good.”

Performance enhancing drugs

These new understandings of the brain have created new treatments for depression and addiction, and perhaps controversially, opened up the potential to enhance our creative capacities through the use of smart drugs.

“There is lots of information coming out now about how creativity and problem solving in the brain is formed, and there are drugs called cognitive enhancers which seem to boost certain aspects of our alertness, or our reasoning and our concentration skills,” says Dr Critchlow.

“There’s also psychedelics, which previously people were mainly interested in from a recreational viewpoint, but now small doses of these drugs have been implicated in boosting creativity and problem solving skills, raising all sorts of considerations around whether we want people in the workplace to be taking small amounts of drugs, even if it does boost their performance.”

Alongside research into drugs, there has also been work done on “brain helmets” that use mild electrical currents to stimulate specific areas of the brain to see how this can foster particular behaviours like, for example, creativity.

Plasticity has limits

But while this research shows that capabilities can be enhanced, and that we do each hold the scope for plasticity and flexibility within our brains, Dr Critchlow says a key finding of neuroscience is that many of our behaviours are “ingrained” because of how our brains process the vast amounts of information from the outside world, and accepting this has particular relevance in the workplace.

“So rather than trying to make somebody fit into a role and a set of expectations, it may be more productive to just create the environment that will help them to flourish and make use of the skillsets they bring,” she says.

“Although our brain has a huge scope for plasticity and we can learn new things, emerging neuroscience is showing that people have specific strengths and weaknesses that sometimes you just can’t change.”

People whose brains have a larger prefrontal cortex, for example, with many “slots” for beta-endorphins, are “almost hardwired” to need a wide number of different friendship groups.

“They are like conduits which let information be exchanged from clique to clique, so that is a very important role within society,” says Dr Critchlow. “And then there are people with a much smaller prefrontal cortex and they have a much smaller group of friends, or they spend more time with each of their friends in closer relationships.

“There is a hypothesis that because these people have fewer beta endorphin spots they don’t need to go around filling them up by meeting lots of other people.”

These two types of people respond differently to the workplace. The first type, with the larger prefrontal cortex, may be more comfortable working in an open plan office where they can mix with larger number of colleagues, while those with the second brain type may prefer to work in smaller groups.

Entrepreneurial thinking

Neuroscience is also beginning to understand the brains of entrepreneurs, which can sometimes be similar to people with ADHD.

“People who are entrepreneurs and who are thriving in taking risks in business have an evolutionary drive to do so and that is based around their brain biology,” says Dr Critchlow. “Much of this is intuitive, of course, and we have talked about this for decades but neuroscience is now demonstrating how this has a basis in the brain.”

In her next book, Dr Critchlow is focusing on the subject of “the science of fate,” looking at the extent to which our behaviours are predetermined by the brains we are born with.

“I am interested in understanding how much of our behaviour is ingrained,” she says. “We are seeing now that a lot of what we do is predetermined, so that opens up the question on whether we actually have any agency, or any free will at all.

“We have been sold this concept that the brain is highly plastic and that we have the power to change our behaviours if we can put our minds to it, but this may not necessarily be the truth.”

The take out from all this is one of acceptance and tolerance. People have strengths and weaknesses and need to work with them, but at the same time environments need to be sensitive to this to help a diversity of people flourish.

“For leaders and managers there is a responsibility for acceptance, but also to use this to be the best person they can be and look after the mental health of their teams,” says Dr Critchlow.

She says that she personally has “appalling spelling” as a result of dyslexia, “but I’m okay with that”.

Everybody is on a spectrum for every different kind of behaviour, and although there is some wriggle room for moving, we must accept that we need an environment which can nourish us.

“Our individuality is a beautiful thing, and it’s the brain which produces that individuality.”

Dr Hannah Critchlow’s new book on ‘the science of fate’ will be published in Australia in 2019 by Hachette.

The best manager I ever had

Behind every great leader is a manager who offered inspiration and mentorship. We talk with four leaders to discover the best managers they ever had.

By Nicola Field

Holding the reins loosely Kristen Turnbull, Director of CoreData WA, doesn’t hesitate in nominating Andrew Inwood, founder and principal of CoreData, as the best manager she has ever worked for.

“He’s not just a good manager. Andrew is a great leader,” says Turnbull.

Turnbull began working with Inwood nine years ago when CoreData was in its infancy. It was a big change for her, as she was making a career switch out of journalism and into financial services research.

From the start Inwood stood out as an exceptional leader. “I’ve had good managers before,” says Turnbull. “But Andrew really wanted me to succeed and took the time to understand what makes me tick.” Guided by his example, Turnbull recognises the need to know her own team and keep lines of communication open. “We all have external stresses, and when you truly know your people it’s a lot easier to help them manage external issues that may be impacting their professional life.”

She says Inwood demonstrates genuine interest in his staff, and one particular instance really stands out. “One December I casually mentioned to Andrew that I’d lost my sunglasses. When Christmas rolled around, he handed out gifts to all the staff – and my present was a gift voucher for a new pair of sunglasses. It really highlighted how he listened and cared.”

More than helping her transition into a new career, he encouraged an investment in her personal brand. “Education is very important to him,” notes Turnbull. “And he suggested that I complete a Masters of Business Administration (MBA).”

What was remarkable was the no-strings-attached support provided.

“The company funded my MBA, which is an investment worth tens of thousands of dollars. Even more amazingly, there was no lock-in attached – no formal expectation that I would remain with the company, even after I had completed my MBA.”

For Turnbull, Inwood’s willingness to invest in her as an employee has created a tremendous sense of loyalty to both her leader and CoreData. Six years into the role, this two-way street bore fruit. Expecting her second child and keen to be closer to family in Perth, she approached Inwood about relocating from Sydney to Western Australia. She acknowledges that Perth was not a strategic market for CoreData, but both she and Andrew were willing to turn the move into an opportunity.

Turnbull admits, “Andrew really put his faith in me and let me spearhead CoreData’s entry into the Perth market. Andrew talks about ‘holding the reins loosely’, and by trusting me to build the Perth office, he has encouraged me to share that same approach with my own team – letting them know that support is there if it’s needed but otherwise giving them space to achieve independent success.”

Today, CoreData WA is thriving, and a little over a year ago Turnbull became an equity stakeholder in the business, a step that was especially noteworthy for her. “In previous roles I only felt valued when I had one foot out the door. Andrew has taught me to reward my people in the moment and acknowledge their value today.”

Looking back, Turnbull observes, “Having an outstanding leader has shown me the value of being willing to invest in my own people. It helps them grow – and ultimately that helps the business grow.”

Firm but approachable 

Mark Hayball CMgr FIML, General Manager at RCS Telecommunications in Brisbane, says he didn’t directly work under the best manager he has encountered. Rather it was someone who worked in a different area of the business. He explains: “I wasn’t aware at the time that he was monitoring my progress. It was only much later that I connected the dots.”

According to Hayball, the light bulb moment came when he was nominated to attend in-house leadership training. “I didn’t know who had nominated me,” he says. “I later discovered it was this particular manager. After that I became much more aware of him and his management style.”

What especially impressed was the “firm but approachable” style of the manager involved. “I was in the early stages of my career, and I didn’t really know what management was all about. I wasn’t getting a great deal of leadership from my direct managers, and I was focusing on the technical process. This manager took a very different approach. He was more about engaging people, understanding individuals and what they needed to perform well.”

The absence of bias also left an impression. “I saw a sincere commitment to people in this manager. And he never showed bias to any one particular person.”

Those observations have had a lasting impact on Hayball. “Being able to recognise where staff need help, and giving them opportunities to seek recognition, are essential skills of a good manager.”

These days, it is “ingrained” in Hayball to support his team and offer recognition. It’s also become a two-way street. Mark developed a self-assessment tool for his staff to provide feedback on him as a manager. “It’s a wake-up call!” he says, though he adds that this is fundamental in developing trust. “Senior managers need to be able to guide others, but it’s also essential to be able to receive feedback and not take it personally. One of the biggest challenges facing senior managers is that they don’t let others in, so there is no real opportunity for self-reflection.”

Resilience and emotional intelligence

Aletia Fysh, Head of Marketing at Community First Credit Union in Sydney, says that throughout her career she has benefitted from the support of several good managers, and has distilled the best learnings from each into her own leadership style.

One manager in particular taught Fysh the value of brainstorming the rules of engagement with a team as a whole, so that everyone is on the same page. She notes: “When you set clear expectations it is far easier to explain to team members ‘we agreed to do this’ if things don’t go according to plan.” She adds that it is critical for the team to collectively develop these rules. “When everyone takes part in setting the rules it’s more likely each person will take ownership and adhere to the ground rules.”

Fysh says one manager stood out for encouraging leadership and development training. “This particular manager invested in staff – not just to do their roles, but to learn to lead and manage change,” she explains. “I was encouraged to attend courses that were incredibly effective at developing my leadership skills.”

One learning experience stood out in particular. “I attended a course that taught the value of listening to others to gain insights into how they think. It’s then possible to use this knowledge to convey information in a way that each different person is best able to relate to.”

She provides an example: “I was trying to explain to a colleague how we needed to improve our processes. By listening to their response I could see this person wanted numbers and statistics to make sense of what I was saying. Without this, I wasn’t able to influence the team member in the way I wanted. Realising this, I pulled together some key data and statistics, which the person took on board. I could immediately see a big difference in their reaction.”

The value of formal learning has encouraged Fysh to invest in her own team. “I strongly encourage learning and development among my people.” She is quick to point out though that this doesn’t have to mean funding expensive courses. “Development can come from something as simple as teaming a staff member with a peer they can learn from.”

Across the best managers she has worked with, Fysh says a common feature is resilience and mastery of emotional intelligence. “Managers who get overly emotional when things don’t go to plan can have a very destabilising impact on their staff,” observes Aletia. “Resilience matters because if something doesn’t work out, you need to be able to learn from the experience and not take it personally.”

One of the most useful tips Fysh has picked up from a former manager is having monthly one-on-one meetings with each of her team members. “It’s very effective,” notes Aletia. “You only need to ask three questions – ‘What’s going well?’, ‘What’s not going well?’ and ‘What can we do better?’”

According to Fysh, the beauty of this approach is that it empowers team members. “As a leader, people should feel you are open for feedback. At one-on-one meetings I hand the floor to each staff member and they run the dialogue. There is no need to write up notes. It’s about letting your people think through their progress. It’s also a good opportunity for your team to give feedback about you as a manager and leader. And you need to be prepared to take this on board.”

Galvanising a team

Benjamin Brown MIML, Graduate Civil Engineer in Bundaberg, is still in the early years of his career but he is lucky enough to have encountered a great leader in his current manager, Joe Saunders.

One of the key aspects Brown has learned from his manager is the value of culture. Brown explains that Saunders has been in his current role for 12 years and “embodies” the company’s culture: “He works in the way the company is looking for and that’s something the whole team respects as it sets a strong example.”

Brown also says he has benefited from the investment Saunders makes in one-on-one time with team members. “As I move more into a project management role, Joe regularly checks on me,” he says. “That means he can pull me up at an early stage if I am starting to take the wrong direction. I appreciate that he genuinely cares about my progress, and this gives me confidence in my role and what we’re working towards.”

One aspect of Saunders’ style that Brown particularly appreciates is his frankness. “He speaks his mind. It can be confronting at times but by calling things as they are without sugarcoating the issue, I know exactly what needs to be done to get back on track.”

As Brown’s office team expands, he finds himself moving into a project management role. He says, “I now appreciate the value of being able to galvanise a team. Joe is very good at binding everyone together and providing clear team objectives. Having firm objectives across multiple teams working on the same project helps in providing quality outcomes, and this has helped to set our company apart within the market. It’s taught me the value of keeping in touch with individual team members on a regular basis to achieve the highest level of quality with the experience they have.”

Make your mark. Go Chartered.

IML offers the prestigious and globally recognised Chartered Manager designation to leaders in Australia and New Zealand. Have your leadership experience formally recognised through IML today. Contact our Chartered Manager team on 1300 661 061 or email chartered.manager@managersandleaders.com.au

Details online at managersandleaders.com.au/chartered-manager

 

The murky world of self interest

New research shines the spotlight on how managers and leaders make decisions when personal gain conflicts with organisational benefits.

By Professor Danny Samson FIML

Leaders and managers typically find that decision making – be it strategic or tactical – is a core part of their professional lives. We should therefore question the extent to which those decisions benefit the organisation or the individual making the choice on its behalf. Whenever there is a discrepancy between what is good for ‘me’, and what is good for the organisation, then trade-offs invariably play a part.

Leader as selfless steward, or selfish agent

Good leaders and managers recognise that to do what is right for the organisation’s stakeholders, a combination of controls, monitoring mechanisms and incentives might be required. Take bonus systems as an example. Imperfect as they are, we see them paid in short and long-term share options as an example of attempts to improve alignment between what is good for the employee, including the CEO, and what is best for the organisation’s other stakeholders, most notably its owners. The competing view of this aspect of leadership, called stewardship, assumes selfless behaviour and the desire to maximise the outcomes for the whole organisation. Which view is closer to the truth, and if there are both types of people in leadership roles, how can we tell one from the other?

New perspectives on this age-old problem

As part of our research, we have built, tested and validated a new theoretical framework, called Multi-Stakeholder Decision Theory, that recognises the continuum between pure (self-maximising) agent and pure (selfless) steward positions. Our studies showed us that many people weigh up what is good for them personally (for example bonus, career progression), and what is good for the organisation, (such as sales and profits), when making decisions. The question is what are the relative weightings that different leaders apply?

It is interesting to note that for many decades, organisations have allocated massive amounts of resource conducting business analyses including strategic, tactical, market research, cost reduction, and quality improvement under the assumption the findings that are in the broader interests of the organisation will automatically be implemented by its leaders. But we should also consider what would happen if the decision maker is a pure agent (or close to it) and the monitoring, controls and incentives aren’t strong enough to ensure they will do right by the organisation if it conflicts with their personal interest?

Empirical evidence of this trade-off phenomenon

As part of our research we asked managers to anonymously respond to decision situations by choosing between alternatives that had either a monetary benefit to their organisation and nothing for them personally, or vice versa. Under the assumption that there would be no detection of their choice, they were asked to choose between making a profit of $1 million for their organisation (eg closing a deal) or making an amount for themselves while the organisation did not benefit at all. This revealed some scary findings. The first was that only a few individuals are ‘steward-like’. That is, they selflessly put their organisation first and stated that they worked primarily to maximise outcomes for their organisation. Our research revealed that the majority of surveyed managers were ready to forsake significant benefits for their organisation if they could get away with a personal gain instead. The extreme of this was a manager who said that $10 in his pocket was enough to sway him from making a $1 million for his firm. For many people it was one or a few thousand dollars. We found a few different processes and factors that people used to guide their trade-offs.

Workplace implications

The first implication of our research is that, for better or worse, we cannot assume that the majority will do the right thing by their organisation, when their personal interests and gains are in conflict with organisational outcomes. Striving to achieve close alignment between organisational and personal outcomes is a key task for leaders and managers at all levels. Finding that sweet spot – where personal gain and organisational gain overlap – is all important. We would also advocate being on the lookout for agent-like behaviours and highly opportunistic types of people and decision-makers: this shows the need for measurement and motivation systems that carefully drive alignment. This thinking should apply to all decision processes from recruitment, selection and promotion choices to project team formation, and all aspects of leadership.

The full research report is available by email from Danny Samson, d.samson@unimelb.edu.au

Professor Danny Samson, University of Melbourne Director, Master of enterprise & Master of Supply chain Management

Suncorp’s Dominique Layt – Investing in your leadership with Chartered Manager

 

Dominique Layt CMgr AFIML, Head of Stores and Speciality Banking Delivery at Suncorp and Board Director has built her leadership career from the ground up, over 30 plus years in the financial services industry. After finishing Year 12, Dominique’s parents encouraged her to take all the Banking entry exams, which lead to her first job as a trainee bank teller with NAB. She was keen to learn, asking other colleagues to show her their different roles so she could cover their days off. Dominique worked her way up to a senior role in the State Office over 17 years. She then moved to Westpac as a Regional Manager, but found that she’d need to move to Sydney or Melbourne for further promotion.

Dominique joined Suncorp in 2007 in business banking strategy just as the global financial crisis was biting, which she credits as an amazing learning experience working on the restructure. She moved into risk management, setting up the bank’s risk frameworks and committees. Dominique’s subsequent role was to establish the bank’s customer retention and insights strategy and capability, handpicking a team which took Suncorp to #1 in customer satisfaction over that time. The team implemented a new way of having a conversation with customers, which lead to positively impacting Suncorp’s S&P’s rating.

You’ve enjoyed an incredible career in the Financial Services industry, and you describe coaching, mentoring and leading high performing teams as your greatest passion. Tell us how you’ve built your leadership step by step over your career. 

One of the things I learnt early in my leadership journey was that each individual is different and to be an effective leader I needed to adjust my approach to the individual where needed. The other thing I learned with experience and growing confidence as you get older is to be factual, clear and open when giving feedback and coaching. Most people do not like conflict and they expect they will receive it if they provide constructive feedback to individuals. Whilst this can happen I have found the majority of people are grateful for honest feedback especially when it comes to career development.

I have lost count of the number of conversations I’ve had where someone has said they have asked many other leaders why they had missed out on roles. Or, why they hadn’t progressed and they had never been provided with tangible feedback that would allow them to develop and grow. One of my strongest influencers today is Brene Brown who talks a lot about vulnerability and authentic leadership. These practices are critical to developing high performing teams and being an effective coach and mentor.

You recently obtained your first Board Director role with the Somerville House Foundation. What are your initial observations on the different style of leadership required of Boards versus Management?

The Board is a team and whilst the Chair is in essence the leader of that team it is different than organisational leader roles where the leader has the ultimate decision making authority. Similar to organisational teams a Board has a mix of skills which, when fully leveraged, allows the Board to be effective at its role. The role of the Chair is much more about ensuring the key skills are fully utilised, each member is actively contributing and the focus is absolutely on the objectives of the organisation the Board is privileged to govern.

What has been your greatest challenge?

There have been many challenges throughout my career, as there are for most people, including strategic and operational challenges during the GFC, shifting from a defensive to a growth strategy and transforming cultures from a merged organisation into one cohesive team. The one that stands out the most is maintaining team members motivation and energy during extended periods of multiple restructures and change which involved carrying vacancies for several months.

What are you most proud of?

There are many team and individual successes over my 30+ year career I could talk about, but whenever I am asked this question the moments that make me the proudest have been individual coaching sessions. Those moments where you help someone realise what is possible and the only thing standing in their way is their own self-confidence. When you literally see the light bulb go on and they realise they can achieve what they are aiming for. Those are the moments where you know you have made a difference to someone else and then to watch them achieve their goals and grow and grow from there is truly rewarding.

What motivated you to pursue the internationally recognised Institute of Managers and Leaders’ (IML) Chartered Manager Accreditation?

I have invested most of my career into becoming the best leader I can be. I’ve pursued my own development, sought out mentors who are strong authentic leaders and consistently sought feedback from peers and direct reports. I once commenced a Master of Leadership through a University only to find it was cancelled after less than a year.

When I saw the opportunity to be recognised for the development and investment I have made into leadership I jumped at the opportunity to apply for Chartered Manager Accreditation with IML.

How has achieving Chartered Manager status impacted your leadership journey, and what do you see are the future benefits to come? 

I found the application process another learning opportunity. Completing the application provided me with an opportunity to review, self-assess and consider other areas I wanted to delve further into as part of my growth and continual improvement as a leader.

Now being a Chartered Manager I feel I have the opportunity to expand my career beyond financial services and potentially into areas such as executive coaching or leadership coaching.

What’s one piece of advice for future female leaders?

Read Brene Brown’s books and work out who you are and what sort of leader you want to be. Don’t be afraid to be your authentic self. We do not need to be like anyone else nor do we need to compete with others. If you can be an authentic leader with the right values as your anchor, your team will follow. Servant leadership is a great foundation but authentic leadership means you are “all in” and people will respect you for that; but it takes vulnerability and courage.

In partnership with:

Speaking Up Without Fear

Elizabeth Ticehurst and Hoda Nahlous investigate what part a ‘speaking up’ and ‘whistleblowing’ culture plays in rebuilding corporate trust.

 

In this current era where trust in corporations is low, there is demand for organisations to develop an ethical corporate culture to control and minimise, to the extent possible, corporate misconduct. As a result, organisations are focusing on better understanding and improving their internal culture and practices. As part of this process, an effective ‘speak up’ and ‘whistleblower’ culture is becoming a prominent benchmark in measuring whether an organisation has a good corporate culture.

The benefits of ‘speaking up’

An effective ‘speak up’ culture is one where employees are encouraged to raise concerns and feel comfortable in doing so without fear of persecution. This requires the board and senior executives of the organisation to clearly articulate to staff what is ‘good’ corporate behaviour, so that ‘bad’ corporate behaviour can be easily identified. In addition, it also requires an organisation’s leaders to encourage a culture of dialogue and openness so that employees feel that management is trustworthy, accessible and well-equipped to handle their concerns.

If ‘speaking up’ is embedded into an organisation’s corporate culture and is effectively managed, then it provides opportunity for the organisation to deal with employee concerns in advance of these concerns escalating into any form of crisis.

What is a ‘whistleblower’?

‘Speaking up’ is sometimes fused with the term ‘whistleblowing’. Although a ‘speak up’ culture must also be a culture that encourages whistleblowing, ‘whistleblowing’ has specific meaning under law. In particular, ‘speaking up’ often involves an employee raising concerns with respect to their own personal circumstances within the organisation. By contrast, a ‘whistleblower’ is an insider within an organisation, who reports misconduct or dishonest or illegal activity that has occurred within that same organisation.

Whistleblowing has often been associated with negative connotations, most prominently that it is used as a tool by aggrieved employees to make a ‘nasty’ complaint against particular individuals, or that it is an act of disloyalty to the organisations (or ‘backstabbing’ of any relevant individuals involved in the whistleblower disclosure).  However, effective whistleblowing is key to eliciting trust among employees as it demonstrates that the organisation actually wants to know and cares about any misconduct or dishonest or illegal activity occurring within the organisation.

In any case, the proposed amendments to the whistleblower laws look to enforce the implementation by certain organisations of internal whistleblower policies, and to further strengthen whistleblower protections.

The law

Currently, a whistleblower is protected under law if they:

  • are a current officer, employee, contractor (or employee of a contractor) of the company that they are making the disclosure about;
  • disclose the information to any of: the company’s auditor (or a member of the audit team); a director, secretary or senior manager of the company, or a person authorised by the company to receive whistleblower disclosure; or ASIC;
  • provide their name to the person or authority that they have made the disclosure to;
  • have reasonable grounds to suspect a breach by the subject of their disclosure; and
  • make the disclosure in good faith.

Certain protections are afforded to whistleblowers under law, including protection of information provided by the whistleblower and protection for whistleblowers against litigation and from victimisation.

Proposed changes to whistleblower laws

Late last year, the federal government introduced a Bill aimed at improving protection for whistleblowers in the corporate, financial, credit and tax sectors. The Bill proposes various changes to the current whistleblower protection laws, including a requirement that public companies and large private companies implement internal whistleblower policies. Notably, it also proposes extending protection to a whistleblower who makes a report to a journalist or politician in circumstances where they reasonably believe there is an imminent risk of serious harm or danger to public health or safety, or to the ‘financial system’, if the information is not acted upon immediately, and a “reasonable period” has passed since the whistleblower first made a protected disclosure.

The whisleblower’s right to confidentiality is a key feature of the Bill. If enacted, these rules would potentially lead to significant civil penalties, and even criminal charges, for individuals and entities who breach the confidentiality of a whistleblower, or who engage in detrimental conduct towards an individual because that person has been, or is suspected of being, a whistleblower.

The changes were to take effect from 1 July 2018, however, the Bill is still pending in Parliament at the time of writing this article (August 2018). In any case, there is an expectation that most (if not all) of the proposed changes will be passed.

 

Hoda Nahlous is Director and Elizabeth Ticehurst is special counsel – Employment at KPMG Law.