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

Let’s break some rules

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

By Jane Caro 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Jane Caro runs her own communications consultancy. She worked in the advertising industry for 30 years and is now an author, journalist, lecturer and media commentator.

Leading sales and marketing from the middle

By Gunnar Habitz CMgr FIML, Channel Sales Manager at software vendor Noggin.

Amid a fundamental change for the sales profession we enter the age of the well-informed buyer. So, how can sales and marketing navigate across their buying journeys instead of sticking to old sales cycles? How can you operate effectively in the sandwich between top management and your teams while delivering KPIs and developing people?

The typical dilemma of a sales and marketing leader is leading from the middle. Delivering KPIs for top leadership, coaching and mentoring teams toward achieving those KPIs, and serving customers by escalation support. All of this while fighting the internal, often political battles that could knock the balance of company culture. If the requested KPIs are purely based on revenue, more sustainable elements are coming short. Leading from the middle is often a reality of many losses with few wins.

Although many companies continue to operate their sales and marketing structure as they have at the start of this decade, buying behaviour has changed drastically. Informed buyers reach out to potential providers only in the last mile of the buying journeys. The Corporate Executive Board (CEB) defined this moment at 57 per cent of the time between acknowledging a problem and implementing a new solution. That was mentioned in the 2011 book, The Challenger Sale, and today the trend is going towards 80 per cent. Aligning sales processes accordingly starts at the middle level with later validation by top management.

For both small companies and large organisations, middle level management becomes more complex with branch offices and overseas locations. When regional management positions, such as Asia Pacific out of Singapore or even Australian cities like Sydney or Melbourne, operate between country and regional interests they are often perceived to be too far away from reality.

On top of that, those leading both sales and marketing live and breathe another tension field where marketing often falls short. With two separate managers, both areas often compete against each other. As marketing talks to an audience and sales to individuals, only a holistic view and aligned KPIs embrace the rarely known ‘SMARKETING’. This approach combines those two flavours from lead generation to closing.

To be successful in the middle, certain skills and experience are required to motivate the teams wisely toward common goals while playing an integral part in developing the culture.

After spending several years overseeing international sales management in the European region, here are my picks for the top ten qualities middle leaders need:

  1. Communicating: Sitting in between all stakeholders, great communication skills are a must for to active listening and influencing. Be an active filter in between top leadership and your teams to ensure only relevant content is communicated down the line. That way, teams in the field can concentrate on doing their client-focused work. Conversely, a translation from market reality to corporate politics upwards is also needed.
  2. Curious: The best way to survive in the middle with success is to be curious. Like a spider on a web, the middle leader enjoys the right distance towards other internal roles, top management as well as customers and partners. Genuine curiosity into those mentioned roles paired with empathy and a lifelong learning mentality are the winning ingredients to further encourage the team members.
  3. Connecting: The old Nokia slogan “connecting people” is important to middle management. Leading sales and marketing teams requires building long lasting relationships with various internal and external stakeholders. Adopting personality profiling right at the first encounter from Myer-Briggs to DISC helps to truly connect to the other side and to refer further within the enhanced network applying a “givers gain” mentality.
  4. Contributing: The top leadership level and the teams at the bottom often see middle managers purely as messengers for their material towards the other side. On the contrary, I see the role as contributing their own views and content. Especially when the KPIs are set in a different way between those teams, it is critical to answer “what’s in it for me” for each level and then align them together as close as possible.
  5. Challenging: Given the changes on the sales side, it is the duty of the sales leader to challenge old processes and adopt to the new reality. Managing marketing and sales separately leads to an exclusive “us against them” approach. Keeping sales reps solely measured on revenue excludes modern KPIs such as Net Promoter Score which has the end customer satisfaction in mind. The sales leader must challenge that!
  6. Coaching and Mentoring: The sales and marketing manager develops the team using a situational choice of coaching and mentoring activities. When I moved up from an individual sales position to a sales manager, I realised the variety of needs to bring the organisation forward. Given the geographical distance, I needed to develop my own virtual leadership styles without regular face to face meetings or formal mentoring programs in place.
  7. Change agents: Nothing is so consistent in sales and marketing as change – and that doesn’t come in circles to return to an earlier experienced pattern. In his book The Future of the Sales Profession, Graham Hawkins says, “When buyers change how they buy, sellers must change how they sell”. The sales and marketing leader in the middle is the first to adopt as an active change agent with endurance towards all directions.
  8. Creativity: Most international organisations prescribe how their country teams have to execute strategies top down. Creativity paired with clever communication skills are the only way to adopt a central idea into a country reality. As an example, Australian customers immediately recognise strategies developed for the US and are often reluctant to follow them. Middle managers won’t be successful without being creative in their sandwich level.
  9. Cultural interest: A genuine way to drive this middle leadership section is applying an honest interest into the cultural background of team members with the attempt to include all members into a fruitful outcome. While the trend towards globalisation might turn into similar behaviours, in reality an appreciation of the cultural diversity towards common team values provides better outcomes.
  10. Client focus: What I learned from Carly Fiorina at the beginning of my career at HP is still valid, “The customer defines a job well done”, she said. Especially given the mentioned changes on the buying side, it is important to apply all the qualities above in the interaction with prospects and clients. It is the role of the middle leaders in sales and marketing to ensure the offered services suit the needs of prospects and existing customers.

Leading from the middle is a true challenge. But it can be very rewarding when you lead the organisation forward and influence teams towards future success. Leaders should develop all mentioned qualities and be careful not to be “eaten” in this sandwich level.

Innovator: Karen Hayes transforming a trusted brand

By Lachlan Colquhoun

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take Two: When like-minds meet

Although she was an experienced professional in her chosen field, Julie Fallon MIML felt she needed some mentoring input when she moved into a new role. She reached out to IML ANZ’s Member Exchange program and was paired with Melbourne-based leadership coach Ross Montalti FIML.

By Lachlan Colquhoun

Why did you join the Member Exchange program?

 Julie Fallon:   “I originally joined the program to offer my services as a mentor having been a mentor for others as part of my consultancy business. However, on opening my own medical practice to provide consulting rooms and administrative services to specialists, I felt I required assistance with strategy and focus to help  sort out the plethora of ideas I have going around in my head.”

Ross Montalti:   “I have been formally mentoring for more than 10 years, initially at the Melbourne University Business and Economics Faculty and then with Australian Management and Education Services. My corporate experience provided me with heaps of related learnings and I wanted to share that with those who might value it, as well as help me keep up-to-date in management and leadership theories and practices, especially as they relate to new workplace incumbents, such as millennials.”

What did you get out of the experience?

 JF:  “I received confirmation that my self-doubts were no different to anyone else in business, and confidence that I was achieving, and heading in the right direction. I also had understanding from someone like minded who could see me without me having to try so hard to get across what I needed. I had an objective perspective from someone outside looking in, who was able to see through my mass of information and bring me to a level where I could focus on what was important and begin to strategise on that basis. Most of all I got a willing, experienced businessperson to help me long term wherever they can assist, even if it is just as a sounding board. Hopefully I got a lifelong friend who understands my business and me.”

 RM:   “So far, it has been an interesting journey. My discussions with my mentee are helping me appreciate that not much has changed since I was in a managerial/leadership role. I am learning that managers and leaders these days have the same set of workplace priorities, and perhaps these priorities are not as well dealt with in the case of people, resulting in ‘people issues’ seeming to take a back seat. The business side of things is still the same: set measurable and achievable goals; set priorities; surround yourself with people you trust, appreciate and can work with; get help if/when you need it; and review business results until you get the desired outcomes. Do this collaboratively, keeping your team informed and with a customer perspective in mind, and sustainable positive business results will be institutionalised.”

What did you learn from each other?

 JF:   “I learned that there are other people out there who just want to help you be the best you can be, with no judgement or criticism. I learned about who Ross is as a person, his personal insight, and experience as a businessman. I think I actually learned more about myself than Ross through this process. It really made me sit back and analyse both my business, my goals in business and life, what I actually want to achieve, and why. Ross helped me help myself, while providing amazing support, which is what it is all about.

 RM:   “I’m still learning, but so far I have learned more about the medical ‘business’ side of things from my mentee than I would have imagined. I have learned that I need to keep asking questions, not only to help me understand but hopefully also assist my mentee to get to the bottom of any issue, and move forward with a clear focus, and achievable and realistic result in mind.”

Would you recommend the program to others?

 JF:   “Yes!”

 RM:   “Yes. It’s a way of staying in touch with business realities, checking out whether what we did in the past actually worked, and helping Australian businesses – and more importantly, managers and leaders – grow and achieve their business outcomes, and personal aspirations.”

Exploring the mystery of the mind

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reality check

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Performance enhancing drugs

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

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

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

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

Plasticity has limits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Entrepreneurial thinking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

The best manager I ever had

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

By Nicola Field


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Firm but approachable 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resilience and emotional intelligence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Galvanising a team

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

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

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

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

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


Make your mark. Go Chartered.

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

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

 

The murky world of self interest

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

By Professor Danny Samson FIML

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

Leader as selfless steward, or selfish agent

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

New perspectives on this age-old problem

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

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

Empirical evidence of this trade-off phenomenon

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

Workplace implications

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


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

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

The 6 ‘Do’s’ of Decision Making

Decision making is a challenge that faces us daily. For organisations, poor decisions can damage corporate reputation, decrease profit, undermine employee wellbeing and distort the organization’s strategic direction. Unfortunately, there is no formula for always getting decisions right; however, there are some ‘do’s’ to promote more reliable and sustainable decisions. In this article, we describe 6 decision making ‘do’s’ to reduce the risk of decision-making disasters.

1. Get Analytical

According to a study by Accenture (2013), only 21% of respondent organisations successfully used analytics for routine decision making. Analysing a situation before making a decision is a great way of ensuring an objective approach and gaining the commitment of others. Despite this, analytical decision making takes more time; therefore, it may not always be the most effective approach when prompt decisions need to be made.

2. Block out Bias

Bias is a hard thing to block out of decision making; however, accepting that bias occurs and forcing yourself to consider other factors can help. There are three common types of bias in decision making: confirmation bias, availability heuristic and halo effect. Confirmation bias refers to our natural desire to not rethink our beliefs or change our opinions. When we are presented with new ideas that contradict our beliefs and opinions, we tend to ignore them rather than using them to form new judgements. Secondly, availability heuristic refers to the mental shortcuts we take when evaluating a specific action or decision. According to this form of bias, we are likely to form evaluations solely on what we initially recall. Finally, the halo effect refers to our desire for consistency when forming decisions. For example, if we initially form a positive impression on someone, we are likely to judge that person more favourably than someone we initially form a negative impression on. When making future decisions, ask yourself whether any of these three forms of bias could’ve come into play. By asking yourself this question, you can prevent bias from steering you in the wrong direction.

3. Think Ethically

Ethics is an important factor to consider in any business decision as it is likely to impact multiple people. By not considering the ethics behind a decision you make, it would be harder to build commitment and gain acceptance from others.

4. Consider Outcomes

Understanding the gravity of different consequences can assist in formulating responsible decisions. One common consequentialist theory is utilitarianism. This theory proposes that the most appropriate decisions are found by evaluating what decision would cause the greatest good for the greatest number of stakeholders.

5. Solicit Stakeholder Opinions

Gaining feedback from other key stakeholders enables you to view a potential decision from a different perspective. For example, it may open your eyes to ethical considerations or outcomes that you may not have thought of. This particular approach is also a great way of reducing personal bias as it forces you to consider alternative attitudes.

6. Remind Yourself of Organizational Priorities

Business objectives and an organization’s vision serve as a good guide for effective decision making as they can sometimes put priorities into perspective. For example, when choosing between two available alternatives, reminding yourself of organisational values or objectives may change the weighting of certain factors that differentiate the two alternatives.

There may not be a formula for decision making success, but considering these 6 factors in future decision making will help you to form justifiable courses of action.