The state of digital transformation in Australia

By Mark Cameron FIML

Increased interest in “digital business transformation” within the global business community has been meteoric over the last couple of years. A quick search in Google Trends confirms that. Why is this so, and what does it mean for businesses in Australia?

Following the GFC in 2008 the term “digital transformation” was hardly discussed or understood. Ten years down the track it seems organisations, large or small, public or private, are focusing on their approach to digital transformation as part of their core strategy.

The conversations with our clients have shifted from “what is digital transformation and should we do it?” to “how do we transform?” and critically “how do we do it and not stuff it up?”.

What is digital business transformation?

“When a snake sheds its skin it changes; when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, it transforms.” – SAP Business Transformation Journal

The key question to get right is this: Are you looking to increase performance or are you truly transforming?

Remember this analogy as we see a number of organisations getting caught in the trap of speeding up delivery and results as opposed to inventing for the future. Speed is important but without a meaningful destination, it can accelerate irrelevance.

Let’s tackle a common point of confusion. What does “digital” even mean anymore? It means many things to different people. It can mean the digitisation of marketing activity, or the implementation of new technologies. Both are technically correct, but significant opportunities exist outside these definitions.

In 1995, Clay Christensen and Joe Bower published their famous HBR article Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave. “Disruption” has become shorthand for almost anything to do with change. This is wrong.

Disruption is about dramatic shifts in delivery models, experiences and expectations. Technology plays a critical role, but it is only an enabler. It allows for the rapid emergence of new models that upend industries and set new customer standards. The recent news of the collapse of Sears in the USA shows the true impact of disruption.

Rabbit in the headlights?

A study by The Global Centre for Digital Business Transformation found that 69 per cent of respondents see the need to adapt their business models to respond to the changing environment. Despite this awareness, only 55 per cent said that digital disruption was a board-level concern, and only 25 per cent had active plans to tackle the disruption head-on.

While digital transformation interest and activity has increased, there is still a gap in business leaders’ understanding of how rapidly the environment is changing. They see future change as linear and manageable.

It reminds me of a quote from Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in 1998 in which he stated, “By 2005 or so, it will become clear that Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” Looking back now it is easy to scoff, but it shows that even the smartest people misunderstand the pace and scale of technological change and how it will impact the world.

Until executives create a true vision for transformation, the organisations they helm are vulnerable to disruption. A business with a better model, that offers better experiences, and new standards of service, will eat their lunch. When it happens, it can happen fast. Leaders run the risk of being caught out like a rabbit in the headlights, aware of the threat but unable to move, waiting for the impact.

Phases of digital transformation in Australia

Leaving disruption to one side, definitions of “digital” and “digital business transformation” help to progress our thinking. For the purpose of this article, let’s define “digital” as the convergence of multiple technology innovations enabled by connectivity. And we’ll define digital business transformation as organisational change using digital technologies and business models to improve performance.

These definitions will help to show that there have been three main phases in digital business transformation following the GFC.

Phase One: A reaction to the global economic crisis. A cost-out exercise where technology was employed to lower operational costs through introducing automation and reducing reliance on human capital.

Phase Two: The media landscape became increasingly digital and fragmented, and tried and trusted methods of acquiring customers and building brands became less effective. In an effort to connect with an increasingly “online” customer, marketing budgets increasingly orientated to technology, focused on data collection, marketing automation and technical capabilities.

Phase Three: Today, cross-sector consumer expectations are high and rising. Many products and services don’t enjoy the stability they once did. Through technology, businesses are searching for new sources of revenue.

Let’s apply this to Telstra.

Phase One: Immediately following the start of the GFC Telstra invested heavily in automation and cost cutting technologies.

Phase Two: When David Thodey took the CEO role in 2009 he focused the whole organisation on the customer, even using Net Promoter Score, as a key KPI.

Phase Three: More recently the current CEO, Andy Penn, is transforming Telstra from “a telco to a tech-co”, essentially moving revenue from their traditional space of connectivity of fixed line, mobile and data to new technology based products and services. This is obviously a monumental task for a company the size of Telstra, but a shift that needs to happen.

Telstra is far from the only company that has gone through, or is going through, these phases. This activity, in varying stages of maturity, is being carried out across the market.

Avoid sleepwalking into irrelevance

Taking action in the face of potential disruptive threats is demanding. While there is no silver bullet, and no substitute for great strategy and leadership, human-centred design methods complemented by the right technology choices are effective tools to fend off disruptive forces.

Here is a basic approach to drive digital business transformation:

Map your current state: Many businesses are unaware what their overarching customer experience is, or how the systems and capabilities work to support that experience. This is unsurprising. Businesses scale organically and focus on requirements incrementally. But this lack of clarity makes it very difficult to design a future state.

Mapping business capabilities and IT systems combined with mapping customer journeys provides clarity. The business then knows how the organisation works, where efficiencies may exist, and where customer experiences can improve to create a competitive advantage.

Design your future state: The best-performing companies don’t start designing a future-state focused on technology. They start with experience. Using service design techniques, led by experienced practitioners, start with the customer and design the target state that transforms your business.

This includes focusing on what it takes to deliver. Begin with your most important asset – your people. Understanding how employees will support your target future state, and supporting them in their experience makes the difference between good and great.

Map process improvements and revise your technology architecture to provide a supporting technology roadmap. This approach ensures your people, processes and technology are designed comprehensively and cohesively.

Communicate a clear roadmap: Leadership should take artefacts developed in the design process and use them to communicate clearly with the organisation. This will help create the context for change, which most of the organisation is aware of and agree with.

Next, be transparent about the projects, expectations and spend. This will allow people to understand how their job impacts the process and provide them with an opportunity to contribute positively.

And of course, communicate the successes. However, be careful of getting addicted to “quick wins” at the expense of the long-term strategy. Constant short-term activity is where organisations can execute a lot of change, but no real transformation.

Communication through major change programmes is critical. When you think you have communicated too much, you are probably pretty close to the right cadence.

Develop new ways of working

Developing and articulating a vision and strategy is one thing, delivering on them is another. All too often businesses allow the delivery of new products or services to become engineering led, which loses focus on the customer problem the initiative was set out to solve.

Human-centered design techniques can, and should, be employed all the way to delivery. Constantly testing and refining features and functions with the intended customer base ensures that internal assumptions about the customer are always being tested. Every idea is a hypothesis that should be validated or discarded.

This approach allows your organisation to begin to build a strategic design practice that puts the customer at the heart of any initiative. It reduces risk and cost of delivery.

Grab the opportunity

Organisations have learned, sometimes in very painful ways, that for digital transformations to be effective the human aspect needs to be at the very center. Yes, automation and machine learning will change the future of the job market, but it is humans, be they customers, staff or a wider set of stakeholders, that will always determine the ultimate success of these innovations and investments.

So, employ the skills and techniques necessary to design the future you want for your organisation. Design your organisation for what it will need to be tomorrow. Design for humans.

The Conversation: Awake to the call of leadership

Dr Daniel Jolley IMLa is no stranger to the fine art of decision making. As a consultant anaesthetist, he is called upon to demonstrate leadership and make life-saving decisions in an environment where split second timing can be critical.

Story by Nicola Field  //  Photography Peter Whyte

Dynamic decision making is the name of the game in an operating theatre. As Dr Daniel Jolley explains, “You try to be proactive rather than reactive.” Like all good skills, this comes with training. Anaesthesia requires a minimum five-year training period, often spent working alongside senior anaesthetists. Nonetheless, Dr Jolley observes that these days, the safety factor of surgery often hinges more on the decisions made by an anaesthetist rather than drugs, technology,
or equipment.

To learn more about how Dr Jolley rises to the leadership challenge – and why as a medico, he opted to undertake management and leadership training – IML CEO David Pich FIML met him in Hobart.

David Pich:   In leadership we tend to think somebody is in charge, and others follow instructions. But it doesn’t sound like that’s the case in an operating theatre.

Dr Jolley:   Australia is quite unique in that the position of the surgeon and the anaesthetist are on more of an equal footing. Coupled with the Australian willingness to challenge authority, members of the theatre team are less likely to be totally subservient to the perceived leader in the room. It’s interesting from a safety point of view – and this is something that’s been heavily studied inside the airline industry. There is a reasonably strong theory, for example, that Qantas continues to be the safest airline in the world both because of the exceptional training the airline invests in its pilots, but also because of the cultural tendency, in Australia, to challenge authority.

It’s the same in a theatre. It’s not uncommon for my aesthetic nurses to very carefully say, “Are you sure you want to do that?” So there’s a shared leadership role in the theatre environment.

DP:   Before you walk into the operating theatre, is there a briefing session?

DJ:   There’s been a big push over the past five years for a team meeting at the start. We have a brief discussion of every patient on the operating list so that the surgeon, anaesthetist and nursing staff can raise any concerns about potential problems and ensure everybody’s on the same page. You’re basically preparing for the unexpected, so that when the unexpected happens, it can be handled in a safe and effective way.

DP:   That’s interesting because a major focus for IML, at the moment, is the concept of intentional leadership. In order to end what we call ‘the chaos of accidental management’, you have to intend to lead. Are you saying intentional leadership is alive and well in our hospitals, and it cuts down the opportunity for accidents to happen?

DJ:   The surgeon is largely the default leader. But that leadership role can change very quickly in emergency situations, and when that happens, it occurs smoothly and without any real tension.

Where there’s say, a cardiac arrest, that’s an area that the anaesthetist is appropriately trained and expert in managing. The surgeon will look to the anaesthetist for direction on what to do next.

When I was a young trainee, I had a patient with a very nasty traumatic injury to the eye. The eye needed to be enucleated – that is, removed – because it had exploded from trauma. Pulling on the eye during the surgery can cause the heart rate to slow precipitously and even stop, which was what happened. It was the middle of the night, when not a lot of people were around, I did what I needed to do with the anaesthetic machine, gave appropriate drugs and then started CPR. We had a good outcome, and the gentlemen recovered well.

However, the feedback I received from my mentor – a very senior anaesthetist – was that I shouldn’t have been the one doing the CPR. I should have directed somebody else to do that. It was totally appropriate criticism because all medical staff are trained for CPR, and I needed to take a step back and direct them. Once I was on the chest I was very blinkered, and much more likely to be fixated on a smaller part of the problem rather than taking the big picture view.

DP:   At IML, we believe that reflection is often ignored in leadership. Leaders make huge decisions that impact lots of people, and then they typically don’t reflect on them. But that doesn’t seem to be standard practice in hospitals?

DJ:   It’s certainly something people are very cognisant of now. We’ve always had a focus on looking at why adverse events happen, and what we’ve done leading up to them. Then having a non-judgmental discussion about how it could be avoided in the future.

DP:   How do you stop yourself feeling vulnerable in those situations because, essentially, your performance is being judged?

DJ:   It’s a challenge. Anaesthetists have the potential to be self-critical. But there is a dominant culture among Australian anaesthetists of being a very social and supportive fraternity. So there’s always a lot of interaction and a supportive view.

DP:   You mentioned your mentor earlier. There’s an interesting statistic that only 21 per cent of CEOs of ASX 200 companies have a mentor. Whereas it seems in your occupation and your brand of leadership, mentoring plays a fundamental part.

DJ:   One of the challenges with the whole concept of mentorship is that sometimes we try to artificially force it on a situation. I suspect a true mentor is someone who finds you rather than you find him or her. That can be a challenge during medical training. You often spend only short periods in any one hospital or department, maybe six to 12 months at most, so it can be difficult to find a true mentor. However, most large departments encourage the development of mentor/mentee relationships to guide you through growth in non-clinical areas like leadership and decision making – things that are often forgotten in the midst of other professional growth.

DP:   One might expect that hospitals are full of accidental managers – people who, because of their technical skills, have ended up in management and leadership positions. What is the real situation in the medical profession?

DJ:   One of the challenges hospitals face is that there are lots of bureaucratic and organisational problems, which have largely been solved in the business world. There is a greater effort now to train, particularly medical staff, in both leadership and managerial roles so that they’re much less accidental and organic.

DP:   You decided to complete an MBA, and develop your skills in management and leadership. Why did you do that?

DJ:   When you reach mid-level seniority as a medical specialist, you often find yourself on various hospital committees, and making accidental managerial or leadership contributions in different areas. It’s very easy to be resistant to ‘management speak’. But I could see there was some real theory behind it, and I was doing myself, the hospital and my patients a disservice if I wasn’t open to learning more about that.

DP:   So, you went off to do an MBA at Deakin University, which is one of our accredited MBAs at IML. What did you learn?

DJ:   The Deakin MBA was very satisfying. It confirmed some of the things I suspected – that the organisational challenges, business challenges, finance and human resource challenges that impact day-to-day hospital life are far from unique. We have a responsibility to properly understand
these so that we can improve the way hospitals work.

DP:   What are some of the stand-out things  that you’ve taken from your MBA?

DJ:   Among the three things I’ve found most immediately relevant, Business Process Management taught me to look at the flow of information, staff, patients and associates, and how we create value. It blew my mind how complex all the processes are that our staff are undertaking on a daily basis. That means there are lots of areas for improvement and efficiency improvement.

The second area I thought was very interesting was Organisational Management and Human Resources. After completing the unit, you see that there is a huge amount of theory, both from the psychological point of view and behavioural theory, and I found that really useful.

The third area I found useful was Change Management. It’s all well and good to identify where there are problems, and then say, ‘Well, these are the solutions’, but implementing the solution is where everything falls down.

DP:   So would you recommend professional development in management and leadership for specialist medical staff?

DJ:   Definitely. The very nature of your specialist role means you have a position of leadership and you need to manage others. You might be lucky and do those well, but a lot of us don’t, and it’s our responsibility to learn to do them better.

In my line of work, where critical things are happening, you get the best performance out of your team when you’re calm and considerate in what you do. Internally, you may not be so calm, but projecting control and confidence is really important to have everyone else respond in a measured way in what could be a life-threatening event.

Leadership in 60 seconds

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat?

Twitter.

Phone, email or face-to-face?

Email.

Name a leader that you admire and why?

Michelle and Barack Obama together, as a team, because of the integrity
they have in the way they approach things. Obama was always referred
to as ‘no drama Obama’. That sort of quiet, confident, competence,
I really admire.

Your personal view on leadership?

One of the important roles of leadership is being able to communicate to the team the destination, what we’re trying to do, and the reason why we’re trying to get there.

Which three guests would you invite to dinner to discuss leadership?

Steve Jobs is number one. Not because I see him as a great leader, but I think he’d be a great dinner guest. Another person would be Julia Gillard to discuss her experience as Labor leader. I find the gender issues in leadership in Australia really fascinating. Mahatma Gandhi would be my third guest, to provide a different historical context on leadership and where it is now.

Advice for somebody just starting out in any career?

Don’t be too worried about getting the direction and the decisions right for where you’re going.  Focus a little more on decisions in a shorter horizon. You don’t know how your interests and skills are going to change.

What’s your personal resilience plan?

I really love running, trail running in particular, and also a bit of mountain biking – all of which are great here in Tassie.

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).

From side-hustle to second income in five steps

By Brian Dorricott FIML

So, you’ve been thinking and working on an idea – something that might bring some extra income. That would make life easier. And, you never know, might mean you could give up the day job and gain autonomy and control over your working life.

However, leaving the day job is a big step. It could be very risky especially if you have responsibilities and dependants.

A step too far?

So, what to do?

The good news is there’s a process that you can go through to gain insights into how feasible the dream really is – and reduce the risk. Let’s look at five steps you can take:

  1. Users: Speak to people whose problem you are looking to solve. But don’t give away the solution. The key is to ask the right questions and explore the world of the person with the problem. Find out how they know they have the problem and what they have done to solve it so far. What language do they use to talk about it? Perhaps it is still unsolved. That’s a good sign.
  2. Problem: Assimilate all the information from the users you spoke to, identify who will be the first potential customers and what they need. Look at competing products or services. Why are they deficient in the eyes of your customers? Understand the problem in-depth.
  3. Solution: Remember how you started with an idea – the solution? Now it’s time to see if it would work for most people you’ve spoken to. Usually, this is where tweaks are made to the original design and you can start writing a product brief. The product brief is a short document that describes three people’s lives before your solution, during and after they have your solution. How did they find out about you? What impact did it make? Will they tell other people?
  4. Finance: Depending on your idea, you may need to take the product or service brief to someone who can create your solution. Also, find out the production cost. Check how to protect your idea – perhaps with a patent. Look at pricing strategy. Do a thumbnail finance plan. How much are you short? What funding options are available to you? Is a mix of personal money, government grants, and a crowdfunding campaign the way to go?
  5. Launch: It’s decision time. Up until now, you’ve spent very little money. Perhaps got some business cards printed. After launch, it’s a big time but now you know where the money is coming from and your first customers. Perhaps start with their money to launch your side hustle.

And all this can take just three months depending on your other commitments. It’s all about talking to people in the right way and creating a plan to solve their problems. Once you have, you’ve now created something of value that people are willing to pay for.

And when you’re confident about the income levels, then it’s time to swap one day job for another. Your own company!

Look out for the webinar on this subject coming in early 2019.

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

Privcore’s Annelies Moens – global thought leader and Chartered Manager

By Jade Collins in Female Leaders

When it comes to leaders in protection and defence, uniformed heroes on the front line could be the first to spring to mind. In the increasingly digitised world, however, often forgotten and overlooked are the unsung protectors and champions who defend our data privacy.

Annelies Moens CMgr FIML has been instrumental in shaping the privacy profession. Managing million dollar portfolios, her work has protected our personal information and data within the public, private and not for profit sectors. Annelies’ passion for privacy is increasingly sought as our societies, legislators and leaders decide what values and ethics we want to embed into our technology and regulation.

As we develop more connected data ecosystems, and grapple with the fear of losing control of our personal information, Annelies’s work is invaluable. From her time on the front lines of data protection, Annelies has first hand knowledge of the significant, long term impacts to individuals and businesses of data breaches.

As a global thought leader, Annelies Co-founded the Australian and New Zealand industry membership body iappANZ in 2008 and was on the Board of Directors for 6 years, ultimately serving as President.

Annelies’ commitment to investing in her leadership development has meant that in addition to being a qualified lawyer and international MBA graduate, she has become one of the first Chartered Managers in Australia.

YOU HAVE TRANSITIONED YOUR CAREER A NUMBER OF TIMES, AND RECENTLY STARTED YOUR OWN BUSINESS. TELL US WHAT LED YOU TO BECOMING A PRIVACY AND DATA EXPERT.

I started my privacy career in 2001 with a background in IT and law. Back then there were no careers in privacy. I initially applied for an exciting role at the privacy regulator. There I managed teams of auditors and investigators, resolving disputes between individuals whose data had been compromised, and big business and government. It was a very niche area and not many people understood its importance and impact.

Today it is different. Every day we are all impacted in some way, and stories abound in the media about privacy. Just consider the impact of the Facebook Cambridge Analytica issue on peoples’ perception of how data is used and disclosed. Consider electronic health records and their potential uses or abuses, automated decision making in everyday transactions, use of third party cloud service providers to store our data, deployment of facial biometrics at airports, and the list goes on.

With the development of the privacy discipline, a few privacy pioneers including myself created a professional membership body for privacy professionals in Australia and New Zealand in 2008, called the iappANZ. As a Founding Board Director and later President, we established in the region a highly successful membership organisation that has advanced and developed the privacy profession.

After several years managing privacy consultants in Australia, I now consult internationally. My vision is to make privacy core business – a discipline which will become as integral to business as the Chief Financial Officer. After all, much of the value of a company’s business is in the data.

HOW SHOULD INDIVIDUALS AND ORGANISATIONS BE PROTECTING AND GOVERNING THEIR DATA, AND WHAT’S IMPORTANT TO HAVE IN PLACE?

Most organisations are custodians of customer data. How they manage it impacts the level of trust in commerce generally and the level of trust customers have with that organisation, whether it is a private business, government or not for profit. How do organisations handle complaints and deal with data breaches? What do they do with customer data? How organisations manage data can rapidly become an ecosystem problem if not done well. Those with weak security and privacy practices reduce trust for everybody.

As such, managers and leaders need to consider how data is governed in their organisations and what they can do to help build trust, by considering culture, risk management frameworks, accountability, key indicators and relationships with regulators.

Individuals can also help protect themselves and their data by implementing two-factor authentication which these days is very simple to use. There are multiple great free options usable with a wide range of email and social media providers, and other service providers. Individuals need to challenge businesses and government when they feel their data is not being managed in line with their expectations. Businesses and government need to be transparent with how their customers’ data is processed.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF?

Helping to shape and influence a growing privacy profession, which is going to become increasingly important as our societies, legislators, managers and leaders decide what values and ethics we want to build into our technology and regulation, as we develop more connected data ecosystems.

WHAT MOTIVATED YOU TO PURSUE THE CHARTERED MANAGER ACCREDITATION WITH THE INSTITUTE OF MANAGERS AND LEADERS?

For more than 15 years I have had a strong connection with IML. My journey with IML started when it was called the Australian Institute of Management, and I decided to undertake the mini MBA they offered. The Chartered Manager Accreditation was introduced in Australia in mid-2017, after 10 years operation in the United Kingdom.

I was one of the first in Australia to undertake the accreditation. It was a way to recognise my management and leadership expertise, as well as evaluate where I was in my journey at the time. Particularly, it was invaluable when I was undertaking a potential management buyout process in 2017.

Having a third party assess and provide objective feedback helps determine whether you are on the right management and leadership track, and what, if any, changes you may need to make. I am a strong believer in continuous personal development and learning, and have instilled that in all the teams I have led.

IN WHAT WAY HAS ACHIEVING INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNISED CHARTERED MANAGER STATUS IMPACTED YOUR LEADERSHIP JOURNEY?

The greater recognition of achieving Chartered Manager status affords opportunities to help others. As your leadership journey is recognised and valued, you are given opportunities to help others and provide advice.

WHAT’S ONE PIECE OF ADVICE FOR FUTURE FEMALE LEADERS?

Define what success means to you holistically. Don’t worry about what others think is successful as it is different for everyone. Know what you want and take risks. Believe in yourself and hold your own values no matter the pressure. Open yourself to opportunities and continue to learn – we live in a time of continuing rapid change.

To find out more about Chartered Manager, visit charteredmanager.com.au.

Are We Doing Enough to Support the Mental Wellbeing of Our Workforce?

There is no denying that the contemporary business environment is taking a toll on the mental wellbeing of our workforce. Roles are no longer as permanent as what they used to be, there is a constant pressure to upskill and organisational change is never far around the corner. Understandably, this creates uncertainty and places additional pressures on employees. So, what are we doing to support mental wellbeing?

For many organisations, a focus on mental health stops after the implementation of an EAP program that is rarely publicized and an announcement to all staff on ‘R U OK?’ day. However, some organisations are starting to think outside of the box to come up with innovative mental wellbeing initiatives. Let’s take a look at some of these new ideas…

  1. Mental Health Day: In their most recent EBA, IKEA has negotiated to provide all staff an additional paid day off each year to support their mental wellbeing. This day off is called a ‘doona day’ and there are no questions asked when taking it. If work or personal life is ever getting too much for IKEA employees, a day snuggled up in their doona may be just what they need.
  2. Puzzles: Other workplaces, such as Brisbane City Council have puzzles in employee lunch areas to encourage employees to switch off from work occasionally. Puzzles have been proven to be an effective tool for reducing stress by creating a sense of calmness and serenity.
  3. ‘Fails’ Celebrations: Mistakes and failures are an inevitable part of organisational change. However, unfortunately these failures can leave a massive toll on the mindset of staff members. Despite this, some organisations are trying to turn these fails around and have actually planned ‘fail’ celebrations. These celebrations encourage staff to collectively look back on the challenges they experienced throughout the year and appreciate that these weren’t always in their control. This has assisted the mental wellbeing of employees in these environments as it has promoted them to have a positive mindset when faced with difficult situations.
  4. Get Physical: This is one initiative that many organisations have already jumped on board with as exercise releases endorphins that promote the mental wellbeing of individuals. However, how creative is your organisation in encouraging staff members to get physical? Perhaps it could be a work social sport team, a boot camp committee or a monthly step-a-thon.
  5. Silent Spaces: One of the major causes of mental health issues at work is stress. Sometimes it just seems like there is too much work and not enough time. Whilst it would be ideal to say that all organisations should stop employees from getting stressed by making sure they never have too much work to do, this is a pretty unrealistic goal. Instead, organisations such as Commonwealth Bank, have tried to alleviate this issue by creating silent office spaces. These spaces are available to employees at times where they may need a couple of hours without disturbance in order to get their work done and reduce anxiety.

Clearly, there are so many creative ways that mental wellbeing can be supported in the workplace. It is time to challenge our current approach to employee mental wellbeing and consider what our organisation could be doing better…

Reference:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5588550/

Does Your Position Vacancy Standout?

Advancements in technology continue to challenge the recruitment landscape. For job seekers, the internet enables them to view thousands of vacant job opportunities from typing a few words into a search engine and selecting ‘enter.’

Due to the number of opportunities job seekers now have access to, organisations must start looking at ways to make their role vacancies stand out. As silly as it sounds, recruitment is turning into a marketing function as well as a HR function. This explains why many organisations are starting to develop employer branding videos as part of their candidate attraction strategy. For example, Employment Office, Hays Recruitment, KPMG and Herbert Smith Freehills have all created employer branding videos to attract candidates. Let’s take a look at why these videos give these organisations a competitive advantage when recruiting the best talent.

Hays Recruitment

Hays Recruitment has been known to create a series of #YourHaysStory videos to attract candidates to their vacant roles. These videos focus on the competitive aspects of their employer brand to attract candidates. For example, one recent video focused on their value of career development and highlighted their extensive training programs to support employees in their career. For individuals that are ambitious and career focused, a video such as this one would be valuable in creating a desire to work for the organisation.

Employment Office

Employment Office’s employer branding video is so powerful due to its unique and unscripted design. In particular, this video capitalises on the fun-loving and close-knit nature of the work environment through phrases such as: ‘it is like a family here’ and ‘I could hug everyone in the office.’ The inclusion of bloopers in their video is also a clever way of creating a realistic job preview and developing a stronger connection between the candidate and the organisation.

KPMG

KMPG’s recruitment video also stands out as it shows a comparison between the type of people that work for them and the type of people that wouldn’t be suited to their company. For prospective candidates, this provides reassurance of the types of personalities they are unlikely to be working with and also develops a stronger insight into the corporate culture. The use of terminology, such as ‘constantly changing’ and ‘never the same’ also attract candidates that are looking for a diverse and challenging role.

Herbert Smith Freehills

The video developed by Herbert Smith Freehills places significant emphasis on their value for collaboration as well as the opportunities to go global with the organisation. Throughout the video, scenes of their high quality work environments are cleverly integrated to develop further desire from job seekers.

Evidently, employer branding videos can be a powerful tool for marketing role vacancies. However, there is definitely a right and wrong way of doing them! The videos in this article have proven that the most effective employer branding videos are ones that are innovative, focussed and genuine. When designing an employer branding video for your organisation, it is important to consider how your video would stand out and also what the key message is that you want a potential applicant to understand.

References:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=FQjVcMHueAI
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyVjYNRTnCo
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvrnzACBRHA
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atMoao0W_1w