Three Points of View: How to keep your rising stars

How can managers and leaders keep top millennial talent from leaving the organisation? Leadership Matters Editorial Director Andy McLean MIML asks experts for their advice.

 

Sinead Hourigan FIML

Queensland Director, Robert Walters

Sinead HouriganCandidates want to join and remain in businesses that invest in their people, so there are huge benefits if employers can attract millennials.

It is important to train millennials in management and leadership now so that they are ready to fill gaps left by baby boomers who will exit the workforce over the next 10–20 years. Upskilling is essential for millennials and is crucial to their continuous development and lifelong learning. Millennials are keen to access training and development to support their personal and professional growth, so organisations should factor this into their candidate attraction and engagement strategies. In fact, if the company’s values match those of millennial workers – its ethics and coaching, clear progression, flexibility, and feedback – employees are likely to show even more loyalty.

Millennials don’t need to be in a classroom or structured group training session – they’re happy to learn in front of their computers or work with mentors and coaches on the job. However, it’s key for employers to provide a clear roadmap of training opportunities to motivate millennials.

 

Wendy Thompson MIML

CEO and Founder, Start Social NZ, Auckland

Wendy ThompsonA millennial colleague is an awesome asset: proactive, a global thinker and a tech native. But I don’t necessarily think keeping them should be your primary aim.

Millennials often look elsewhere after two or three years so employers need to play a long game and not take it personally when they leave. If handled correctly, you may one day welcome them back wiser and more experienced! One way I do this is by inviting all our ex-Socialites to our annual Valentine’s Party; it’s a great night out and keeps everyone in touch.

Something else I do to help my millennials on their chosen career paths (and get the best out of them for my company) is one-on-one structured mentoring. At the beginning of the year we set personal and career SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timebound) then have monthly progress catch-ups, before celebrating success at the end of the year. Heading into that festive season, where people often reassess their job, my team has a very fresh reminder of how much Socialites has helped them achieve over the past year.

 

Sally Roebuck MIML

Operations Manager, Bulimba Outside School Hours Care, Queensland

Sally RoebuckAs a millennial myself, I understand our generation’s desire to be heard, respected and valued in the workplace. I’m the leader of an almost exclusively millennial team and believe the most important part of attracting and holding on to talented millennials is to create a team culture of mutual respect, where each individual feels their contribution is meaningful and valuable.

Collaboration is vital when managing and leading millennials, as we have been living and breathing collaborative practices since kindergarten. We were taught in school not to accept the status quo, but to question, hypothesise and brainstorm.

We were immersed in the digital revolution, and were educated in resourcing and synthesising differences of opinion and facts for a broader world view. Allowing opportunities for collaboration among team members, especially between colleagues of varied experience and job roles, will ensure millennials feel able to make valued contributions to the organisation’s goals.

Developing this sort of positive growth mindset among your team also gives millennials the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge while giving them clear pathways for advancement and success.

This article originally appeared in the September 2019 edition of Leadership Matters, IML ANZ’s quarterly magazine. For editorial suggestions and enquiries, please contact karyl.estrella@managersandleaders.com.au.

The strength to lift up Special Olympics athletes

By Anthony O’Brien

 

Jo Tarlton MIML is an extremely busy member of IML ANZ. For starters, Jo is the general manager of Eco Maintenance, one of Auckland’s few mid-sized companies dedicated exclusively to the provision of amenities maintenance services.

Away from the office, the indefatigable executive and mother is a successful powerlifter and a dedicated volunteer who supports Special Olympics athletes seeking to participate in powerlifting either recreationally or competitively.

 

POWERING INTO FITNESS

Powerlifting is a sporting activity many of us may associate with eastern European Goliaths or a workout used by the hulking All Blacks to help them mercilessly maul the Wallabies. Yet representative New Zealand powerlifter Tarlton claims she didn’t have a particularly strong pedigree in sports or athletics until five years ago. “I played netball through college, and on and off socially for some years after that,” she says.

The Eco Maintenance GM also dabbled in gym workouts to stay healthy. However, it wasn’t until 2014 Tarlton dived into fitness, boots and all. “I started CrossFit in 2012 after having my second child the previous year and wanting to get back in shape.”

While getting in shape, Tarlton somehow found the time to start volunteering with Adaptive Athletes, a program run by Michael Hynard, founder of Functional Adaptive Movement (FAM). Adaptive Athletes uses functional exercise regimes such as CrossFit, according to Tarlton. “My fitness journey then evolved from CrossFit into powerlifting in 2016 and, as I love the sport so much, I now volunteer with Special Olympics athletes.”

 

THE MOTIVATION TO VOLUNTEER

The compassionate Tarlton says the motivation and inspiration for volunteering stem from the challenges faced by the Adaptive Athletes and Special Olympic weightlifters. “These athletes have a can-do attitude that is a breath of fresh air, and they sometimes think they can do absolutely anything! It can sometimes be a mission to hold them back from going heavier with weights when we are still trying to work on form.”

Tarlton tells of one athlete who is terrified of using a gym bench when undertaking the arduous bench press. Some weeks it takes multiple attempts to encourage this athlete to use the bench, Tarlton explains. “But he never gives up, and I never give up, and every week he does it. Then, the next week he comes back and faces the same fear again.

“A lot of able-bodied athletes would give up and just not do that exercise anymore because it was too hard.”

The massive achievements clocked up by the athletes who face myriad daily challenges motivate Tarlton to help. “Powerlifting is a marathon sport, and it takes much time to improve mobility, build muscle and make strength gains that translate into increased totals on the bar,” she says. “Watching these athletes build on all these aspects and then looking back to compare them from when they first walked in the door is amazing.”

Likewise, Adaptive Athletes demonstrate the same level of determination to improve. Tarlton explains, “From walking in the door with a lot of physical and mental limitations and having little in the way of a sporting or physical activity background, to being able to compete in a CrossFit competition is a massive achievement.”

 

THE VALUE FOR MANAGERS AND LEADERS

Many managers and leaders are accustomed to being in charge and taking the reins, insists Tarlton. “Leading an organisation of 120 staff I am used to directing, creating the vision and making the calls so to speak.

“At the top, you often need to be the one that has all the answers and who drives the business forward while simultaneously dealing with different obstacles and setbacks that all businesses face, which can be mentally very tiring.”

In contrast, volunteering puts Tarlton into a situation where she is working with “someone else’s vision or program”. She adds, “You are just a cog in the machine, albeit a necessary one. This experience enables you, and at times forces you, to step back from a position of being the key decision maker for everything and gives you the opportunity to relax and enjoy being part of the process. It gives you a mental break which is invaluable when dealing with high-powered or pressured day-to-day business roles.”

Tarlton believes volunteering has improved her patience and self-awareness. “I am a pretty empathetic person, but in business, you sometimes need to be quite hard-nosed and take a ‘business is business’ approach, primarily as a woman leader in my industry. “Working with these athletes, you need to take an approach to see life through their eyes to be better connected and give them what they need, which is your reason for being there.”

Finally, for managers and leaders considering volunteering, Tarlton urges, “Just do it! Don’t make excuses, get out there and volunteer and give something back. What you get back from giving is tenfold.”

This article originally appeared in the June 2019 edition of Leadership Matters, IML ANZ’s quarterly magazine. For editorial suggestions and enquiries, please contact karyl.estrella@managersandleaders.com.au.

Managing the business vision

There’s no shortage of talk about strategy. But behind every good strategy, there must be a clear vision – after all, we all need a destination before mapping out our journey’s route. So, on top of managing the day-to-day and adjusting the strategy, how can leaders ensure they don’t neglect to manage the vision?

An organisation’s vision should be its North Star. It needs to be the aspiration that everyone strives to meet.  In other words, it needs to help managers think beyond the daily details and think ahead to the type of future they wish to achieve.

So essential is a leader’s vision that many CEO’s are either marked by their lack of it when they fail or they are exalted for it when they succeed.

At any stage of your leadership career, managing the vision and ensuring that it remains the guiding light is vital. So, here are three ways leaders can manage the organisation’s vision:

 

Align everything to your vision

The Golden Thread Model provides an excellent visual on how to practically align all activities to the organisation’s vision. It represents the link between vision, analysis, systems and people, amounting to a shared understanding of how the vision, goals and values of the organisation relate to daily work.

By using this model, leaders enable the development of clear metrics which align business goals with measures of success and ensures that individuals are aware of and accountable for their contribution. This makes it easier to drive business success as everyone in the organisation is heading in the same direction.

 

Motivate through the vision

In addition to drawing direct relationships between the vision, strategy and metrics for success the model also encourages the creation of team and individual objectives that tie back to the vision. This is important for maintaining lasting motivation. Unlike hitting targets, aiming to move the organisation closer to the vision takes incremental steps and the cooperation of all. That means your teams will aim to complete a marathon rather than running a sprint.

Leaders should, therefore, be conscious of providing their teams with an update on how their individual or team efforts bring the whole closer to its vision.

 

Tell compelling stories about the company’s future

The reality for leaders is that not everyone will be driven by metrics or inspired by stats. Vision-focused leaders appreciate the importance of shaping a powerful and compelling story of their companies’ futures. Beyond crafting an inspiring narrative, it also serves as a powerful engagement builder. Stories have the power to turn aspirations into reality – even if it’s just in the mind. That, in turn, gives employees the clarity they need to visualise something that often can be too abstract and feel out of reach.

Sources (these articles are available to IML ANZ members via Leadership Direct):

Resilient Porters seizes its opportunity

By Lachlan Colquhoun

 

If only he could know it, Charles Porter would be delighted that a sixth generation of his family is now working in the hardware stores which bear his name in Mackay.

Porter’s business was born of necessity and then opportunity. He arrived in the North Queensland town in the early 1880s to build a hotel and found there were virtually no building products available.

So he transported what he needed from Europe, Brisbane and Sydney by boat, and once the hotel was built he stayed behind and founded the Porter’s hardware supply business.

135 years later, Porters Hardware and Building Supplies is a fixture in Mackay but despite its longevity and strong local roots, it hasn’t always been easy for the business to thrive.

 

A BOOMING SECTOR

In fact, as Managing Director Gavan Porter (Senior) Corporate member of IML ANZ puts it, the business is only now coming out of a “perfect storm” of a volatile boom and bust cycle which severely tested its resilience.

“We’ve been through two World Wars, the Great Depression and credit squeezes, but the past four years we had a big contraction with the resource sector downturn. It was brutal,” says Gavan (Senior).

“Most of the contractions have historically been 12 to 18 months. This one went on for four years.”

However, back in the early 2000s Mackay was growing rapidly as a service centre for the resources industry. Multinational companies set up business in the city for the first time and the population increased sharply.

It created a building boom that was good news for the Porter business, where trade comprises 80% of turnover, including the company’s manufacturing divisions, which fabricate aluminium and glass products as well as roof trusses and wall frames.

The boom in Mackay also attracted the attention of bigger national hardware players. Woolworths’ failed Masters chain opened up a store, and market leader Bunnings added a second Mackay store in response.

Porters were also not the only independent operator. They had for decades been in competition with another Mackay family, the Woodmans, who had allied themselves with the Mitre 10 buying and marketing group and had a strong retail and trade presence.

“We went from one ‘big box’ store operated by Bunnings to three in total including Masters, and Woodmans had the advantage of being part of Mitre 10 with their resources,” says Gavan Porter (Junior) CMgr AFIML, who is the company’s CFO.

“There might have been room for everyone during this extraordinary growth period, but then the downturn hit.”

 

SURVIVING THE DOWNTURN

As the economy ground to a halt, the mines made employment cuts and 9,000 jobs were lost across the resources sector supply chain.

With people now leaving Mackay to find work elsewhere, new home building approvals slumped by 90%.

“This was all very new to us, because Mackay had always been a steady growth sugar and coal town,” says Gavan (Senior).

“But after all that growth, the market collapsed, and Mackay collapsed with it. It went off a cliff.”

For the first time, Porters was forced to downsize and initiate staff redundancies; a difficult process for a company where the family ethos often extended to employees.

Out of the downturn, however, an opportunity presented itself.

 

ENDING THE FAMILY FEUD

“With our external advisors we created a strategic plan in 2015 and one of the parts of that was the option of regional consolidation,” says Gavan (Junior).

“In the downturn it was clear that there were too many players in the market and the only way to survive was consolidation.”

A conversation was “struck up” with the Woodman family about a “way forward” for both family businesses, and an amicable deal was made for the Woodmans to exit the hardware supply market in Mackay and sell their retail stores to the Porters.

“It was great for two such staunch independent competitors, who had been competing in the same market against each other for decades, to come to an agreement,” says Gavan (Senior).

“It was clear that the market was very tough and there had to be an exit of one of us and they agreed to exit.”

The deal worked for both companies, and families.

The Woodmans kept other manufacturing businesses in Mackay such as aluminium and glass fabrication, roofing, and roof truss and wall frame manufacturing, where they still compete with the Porters.

That deal gave the Porters a network of stores that spanned not only Mackay and its surrounds but also extended to the Whitsunday region.

The acquisition gave Porters more stores and removed a longstanding competitor, but also introduced them to a new, and powerful, partner in the Mitre 10 group. A new licensing agreement was reached, and the company now trades as Porter’s Mitre 10.

“Mitre 10 was also a good move for us,” says Gavan (Senior). “They are a strong buying group and we needed to buy better to compete against bigger players.”

 

STRIKING UP A GOOD PARTNERSHIP

Just as timing played a role in the severity of the downturn, so it worked in the Porter’s favour in terms of Mitre 10’s own competitive position.

With the demise of Masters, Woolworths also put its wholesale hardware distribution business up for sale, and it was purchased by Mitre 10.

The move transformed the national market and made Mitre 10 Australia’s second biggest player in the hardware sector next to Bunnings.

Such was the timing that Porters went from being an independent player in an overcrowded market to being a strong second placed rival to Bunnings, with the advantage of being able to leverage Mitre 10’s brand name, buying power and marketing.

“They are the strongest partner you can have if you are an independent owner,” says Gavan (Senior). “We have always been strong in trade, but Mitre 10 is a powerhouse brand which has helped us continue to reach a retail target audience.

“And going forward we are able to use some of their benchmarking capabilities to understand where we are compared with our peers, and we’ve already been out to have a look at some of the bigger stores in the group, and this is something they encourage.”

Eight months after the deal, the acquisition is still being bedded down just as the market conditions are showing signs of improvement.

To prepare for the expansion, the Porters created an implementation plan across eight different areas of the business, from facilities management to IT and HR. Focus groups of employees, the number of which has increased by 25% to 250 across the group, were held to review and reset the firm’s culture.

The result has been the definition of five key criteria which will be ingredients of the culture moving forward: focusing on performance delivery, being driven by customer outcomes, valuing relationships, keeping everyone safe, and having fun at work. “We’ve got a way to go but we believe we are on the right track,” says Gavan (Senior).

“We’ve broadened our base, increased our trade and retail presence, and expanded our geographic footprint.

“As the economy improves we believe this will give us a solid platform.”

 

BUSINESS WITH A FAMILY FLAVOUR

The resilience of the Porter’s business, says Gavan Porter (Senior), has come from the company’s financial and management discipline which has helped it adapt to change.

A key to this has been to adopt many public company structures and processes into the way things are done, including the longstanding addition of independent directors onto the company board.

“It was my father who initiated this when he was running the company,” says Gavan (Senior).

“He understood that it had to be about the business, and not the family, and for that we needed that outside and independent perspective.”

Gavan (Senior) has been a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors for many years, and many AICD practices are implemented at board level to create a structure and a discipline.

The company has a relationship with a firm of advisors, with extensive experience in larger family businesses, who played a significant role in creating the strategic plan which identified the consolidation opportunity and led to the Woodman’s acquisition.

“We have all the structures of a listed public company, but with a family flavour,” says Gavan (Senior).

The Porters joined the Institute of Managers and Leaders Australia and New Zealand in 1956, as they sought to keep up with changes and trends to incorporate into their business.

Gavan (Junior) has been on the local IML ANZ committee for the past five years and has pursued a qualification as a Chartered Manager. “Leadership and management is very important to me, and we have such a large staff now that I find it invaluable to share current ideas and thinking,” he says.

The link between diversity and organisational resilience

In this ever-changing modern business environment, organisations need to build up their capacity to cope with unexpected events. The key to effectively handling turbulence may rest on your level of organisational diversity.

Latest research reasons that diversity can lead to the development and improvement of specific capabilities that contribute to organisational resilience. That is – anticipation, or the preventative aspects of resilience; coping, or the implementation of solutions and reactions to change; and adaptation, or the development of new capabilities following unexpected events.

In addition, the Australian Government named respect as one of the key factors in improving organisational resilience. One of the most powerful ways to demonstrate respect in the workplace is inclusion – meaning background, beliefs, age or gender are not seen as a reason for exclusion.

So, how can diversity strengthen an organisation’s resilience? Here are three ways:

 

Diversity assists in observing, identifying and preparing for major change

Our differences, when harnessed collectively, can greatly enrich our capability to detect and prepare for changes. Having a group with diverse experiences in work and life results in an increased ability to perceive changes in the environment and to identify necessary adjustments. Further, the greater the variety of ideas explored, the better prepared an organisation will be for the consequences of change and the less likely they are to be caught off guard.

 

Diversity improves an organisation’s problem solving

As change and turbulence are complex these cannot usually be solved with existing approaches. Creating solutions demands broad knowledge, the interaction of different people, and creativity in coming up with a way to tackle the challenges. Again, the more diverse the ideas are, the better equipped an organisation will be at arriving at the right solution.

 

Diversity enriches team learning

Having diverse perspectives when reflecting upon the aftermath of change pushes organisations away from simple conclusions. It encourages deeper discussions about what actions to take and challenges any common thinking that may exist. Thus, a heterogeneous knowledge base can reduce the tendency to simply skim the surface. Rather, it promotes using logic instead of blame when analysing why things went wrong.

Source: Duchek, S., Raetze, S. & Scheuch, I. Business Research (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40685-019-0084-8

Mind the gap

By Anthony O’Brien

The latest IML Gender Pay Report reveals that if you’re a female working in a C-Suite role, you could be earning as much as 15% less than your male colleagues.

The report presents findings based on an analysis of pay differentials from 2014-2018 between male and female full-time employees within the Australian workforce. The research considers different employment levels and job families ranging from administration to general management. The analysis uses IML’s National Salary Survey, updated in October 2018, and data collected from 460 organisations across Australia, covering more than 250 job roles.

The research doesn’t reflect casual or part-time workers, or maternity leave which explains differences between the IML report and the gaps reported by government organisations such as Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), according to report author, Sam Bell FIML, General Manager, Corporate Services and Research, IML. The full-time total remuneration gender pay gap based on WGEA data is 22.4%, meaning men working full time earn, on average, nearly $27,000 a year more than women working full time.

WHY THE GAP PERSISTS

According to the IML report, the C-Suite pay gap fell to 9.8% three years ago after a high of 14.7% in 2014. But over the past three years, the gender pay gap for C-Suite roles climbed steadily and is now approaching the levels of five years ago. Bell explains that isolating the reasons for the widening gap at the C-Suite level is challenging. “There are probably more female managers in lower-paying industries. However, our research measures like-against-like job levels and job families, so more female executives working in lower paid industries doesn’t explain the C-Suite gap thoroughly.

“That there is a 14.6% difference in like-against-like general manager salaries is certainly an eye-opening statistic that organisations need to review.”

Libby Lyons, Director of the WGEA, says, “The gender pay gap is a symptom of a broader issue. It reflects the fact that women’s work is traditionally undervalued, and women are often paid less than men.

“As a nation, we need to be talking about what is behind the gender pay gap – the barriers women face in the workplace that cause the gender pay gap.”

WHERE THE GAP IS CLOSING

If you’re seeking work in an industry with closer to equal pay, then look no further than information technology (4.6%) and engineering and science (4.8%). That said, in 2014 the IT pay gap slightly favoured women (-0.1%), and the difference was only 0.3% for females working in engineering and science. On the flipside, the salary gap for women in finance and accounting improved from 13.7% down to 7.1% over the past four years.

IT continuously rates well for women’s pay rates because it’s a result driven industry that typically doesn’t differentiate between male or female employees, notes Bell. “The salary gaps in finance and accounting have dropped because there is greater awareness of gender diversity issues in that profession because of CEOs such as former Westpac boss Gail Kelly.

“That industry was heavily male-dominated, but with high-profile CEOs like Kelly championing the issue and taking it head-on, the pay gap almost halved in the past four years.”

ADDRESSING THE GAP

Paul Jury, Managing Director of Australia for global HR executive search firm ChapmanCG, resolutely believes there should be no excuses for gender pay gaps. He elaborates, “Moreover, there’s plenty of research indicating that up to 70% of employers report they have policies in place to support gender equality.

“With the gender pay gap, it is all heading in the right direction, but the speed of improvement is still too slow.”

Personal biases can come into play particularly where objective measures of performance are deficient and create incidences of gender gaps in promotions and pay, reasons Jury. “For senior roles, some managers without access to objective data may tend to promote and reward people they like and whom they perceive are more like them.

“While unconscious bias is hard to rewire, more training, education, and awareness within an organisation can help to mitigate its impact on gender diversity, promotion and pay. This includes putting in place guidelines, along with checks and balances within a business to minimise the gender pay gap.”

Bell agrees more investment in educating managers about gender equality issues is required. “Educating managers who hire staff that pay gaps are not acceptable is a start,” he reasons. “And the fact that skills, experience, and qualifications should be paid for, irrespective of whether a recruit is male or female.”

From a leadership perspective, Bell believes an organisation should have a gender pay gap policy or statement in place that all managers “understand and take seriously”. WGEA research indicates that actions to correct like-for-like gender pay gaps are three times as effective in reducing overall pay inequities when combined with reporting to executives and boards. Bell says, “There’s a lot of large Australian companies that are certainly taking all these steps. All of them probably have a statement from a leadership level, whether it’s CEO down, saying that pay gaps won’t be tolerated.”

ACCOUNTABILITY COUNTS

Using market data such as IML’s National Salary Survey is another prudent step towards minding the pay gap says Bell. “Employers must understand what the market is paying for a C-Suite role or line manager and it shouldn’t matter whether someone is male or female.”

Another critical way to strengthen employer accountability would be to end pay secrecy, according to Alice Orchiston, an Associate Lecturer in Law at the University of Sydney. To this end the federal Australian Labor Party announced in September last year that, if elected, it will legislate for the introduction of publicly available company-specific gender pay gap data. In an opinion piece for academic journal The Conversation, Orchiston wrote: “If women discover they are earning less than their male counterparts for the same jobs, their legal avenues for pursuing equal pay are limited. It’s difficult to prove and costly to litigate.”

Orchiston continued, “Requiring employers to make their pay records publicly accessible or accessible to employees across the same organisation would create greater transparency and a basis for women to assess their pay, which in turn could facilitate negotiation or legal action.”

READ THE FULL REPORT

The IML 2018 Gender Pay Gap report can be purchased at managersandleaders.com.au/national-salary-survey

How Booktopia adapted to industry disruption

As a manager for two decades in the book industry, John Purcell has led people through extraordinary change.

As an author, John Purcell is capable of amazing feats of imagination. But away from writing fiction, he’s been heading up Booktopia’s marketing and buying teams, and is now Director of Books, helping the online retailer become one of the fastest growing companies in Australia. In the past nine years, annual revenue has swelled from $4m to $114m (with a compound annual growth rate of 35% per annum). This year, Booktopia won the People’s Choice award at the national finals of the Telstra Business Awards, as well as the NSW Business of the Year award.

Starting small

“When I joined Booktopia, most of the staff were doing customer service and order fulfilment,” he recalls. At that time, Booktopia was a small operation. “A bell would ring every day and all of us – including the CEO – would go down to the garage and help load a single Australia Post van with books. They gave us three minutes in their schedule, so all of us would rush out there.”

Since those early days Booktopia’s personnel has multiplied from 25 to almost 200; and Purcell now runs a team of six people including a content team, merchandisers and buyers. But that culture of “rolling up your sleeves” has remained constant, he says.

Their culture has been guided by a very clear and simple business strategy, says Purcell. “Our CEO Tony Nash is single-minded about growth. He’s always been prepared to reinvest in the business so that when we needed a warehouse, or shelving, or automation, the resources were available.”

Beneath that overriding growth objective, managers are given the scope to develop their areas of the business. “There’s no micromanagement,” says Purcell. “We have a lot of ownership of our particular areas and that makes us feel that we are part of the business. I think that’s one reason our staff retention has been so high.”

Growing pains

Booktopia’s growth has been remarkable by any standards. It is the only company to be listed in the annual BRW Fast 100 eight of the last nine years. In September it was named in the Australian Financial Review Top 500 Private Companies. But growing at such a pace does present challenges for managers, Purcell admits:

“There’s never a stable environment when you’re growing so fast. We had a very fluid decision-making process and the danger was that teams could get overloaded and some projects perhaps wouldn’t achieve return on investment.”

To overcome this, Booktopia’s leadership team had to introduce more formal processes, explains Purcell. “For our growth to be sustainable, we had to develop our own corporate structure from within. What helped us was attracting people who had been in corporate environments. Every new person we hired brought knowledge and we would alter things accordingly.”

Alarm bells

Booktopia’s growth is all the more impressive when you consider the rollercoaster that Australia’s wider publishing industry has been riding. A decade ago mobile technology began seizing consumers’ attention and refused to let go. In 2011, high street bookstores Borders and Angus & Robertson closed their doors forever. All up, close to 200 bookshops closed around this time and the Australian book market fell by 20%.

Catherine Milne, Head of Fiction at publisher HarperCollins, recalls this time with a shudder: “They were dark days. Bookshops were closing, TV was suddenly accessible on mobile screens, social media was swallowing up people’s time and the Australian dollar was so high that – briefly – it became cheaper to buy books from overseas.”

Milne, who is publishing Purcell’s new novel, The Girl on the Page, says Booktopia helped the industry fight back. “It changed the retail landscape. After the closure of so many rural and regional bookstores, Booktopia was able to service all those Australians who can’t easily travel to a bookshop – not to mention many more who simply like the speed and convenience of online shopping.”

Question everything

As leader in an industry undergoing so much change, Purcell encourages his colleagues to stay up to date. “There are new products born every month from publishing presses. If you want to keep up, reading the right newsletters and social media is vital.

Reflecting on her own experience of leading through change, Milne recalls: “During rapid change you’ve really got to question everything; question your processes, question your methods. You have to ask yourself if what you did previously is still working today – and then be prepared to change when it’s not.”

“Our CEO James Kellow is incredibly good at setting very concrete goals for us that we can reach and then celebrating when we reach them. I think that’s the best way – to really focus on the things that you can influence, the things you can change, the things you can create.”

Kellow is one of the two leaders in publishing who Purcell admires most: “James and also Louise Sherwin-Stark [CEO at Hachette Australia] have made very strong and clever push to make sure they are publishing Australian stories,” he says. “In the past 10 years, it’s become clear that Australians are reading Australians, which is extraordinary because for most of our history we looked towards overseas literature.”

Separating fact from fiction

Purcell points out that neither of these leaders inspired ‘Julia’, one of the more memorable characters in his new novel, who is a terrible leader.

“Julia is the publishing director of my fictional publishing house and she’s a terrible leader because she’s all management and no product knowledge. She thinks only of the bottom line so her ability to inspire people in the business is nil, because she has absolutely no relationship with the books. All she sees is the numbers in the end.”

So how did Purcell’s real-life publisher feel when she read this? “There were times when I winced,” laughs Milne. “I thought ‘Is that the perception people have of publishing?’ Like any industry, there are certainly managers who prioritise profit above all else, but they are few and far between in publishing. In truth, you can only be a good publisher if you put the interests of the book and the reader first and if you invest the time that a book needs to get it right.

“I’m hoping that the mere fact I’m publishing The Girl on the Page is a counterpoint to the Julias of this world!”

By Andy McLean, Editorial Director of Leadership Matters.

*The full version of this article was published in the December 2018 edition of Leadership Matters.

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”.

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