After a 40-year career at senior finance positions and having studied in some form for most of that time, I didn’t think I needed to learn anything about my leadership style.
So, when I was asked to consider becoming a Chartered Manager, I thought that this would be a relatively easy and quick process – a first misconception. I also thought that in my position as program director, there would not be any real obvious benefits for either myself or the organisation – my second misconception.
A journey of self-reflection
When I commenced the process of becoming chartered, I thought that leadership, a complex and well-covered academic topic, really comes down to experiences and self-anecdotal evidence.
However, these anecdotes and experiences are only valuable if they are intentionally recalled and put into practice. There’s no point assuming that the skills can be stored and accessed on demand.
The process appeared simple. Although in my current role, some of the leadership questions in the submission did not seem relevant at first glance.
Reflecting on the reality of one’s unique role
As a program director for the Bachelor of Accounting program for Universal Business School Sydney, I didn’t realise that the current business model I work within called for a different approach to leadership. Call it a transitional contingency approach to leadership if you will.
As with many private higher education providers and universities, the business model involves the tensions created by contractual employment. It can be called a “sessional” workforce, with ongoing employment determined by the demand for the subjects being offered.
This factor alone presents several unusual leadership challenges, not the least is developing and implementing a coherent business unit plan.
By comparison, this would have been a more manageable task had I applied my experiences in a commercial context which mostly meant management of permanent staff. However, with some critical thought, the contingent nature of my leadership role became evident.
The value of self-reflection
So what were the benefits for me?
The combination of my written reflection document and the probing questions were the catalysts for leadership self-discovery. It revealed my leadership style and attributes that I apply in my daily management and leadership role.
The three main benefits of self-reflection include learning about:
The known – the affirmation of leadership skills of which I was consciously aware and practised well.
The unknown – identification of in leadership skills in which were weak and requiring more attention and focus.
The unknown unknowns – highlighting leadership traits of which I was not aware I was employing.
Of these, the last two were the real eye-openers concerning my role, with the potential to ultimately benefit my team’s effectiveness.
Overall this exercise alone heightened my leadership awareness and intensity, in particular, the “contingent” nature of the leadership skills I have applied in my role.
Identifying where I could improve the application of those skills, however, was eye-opening. Identifying the skills I was employing and was not consciously aware was the big win.
I have now taken these learnings forward in the workplace and generally reflect across the areas of focus required to be a leader.
What are the benefits for the organisation?
Although, from an organisational perspective, the benefits can be somewhat intangible, all management and leadership training results typically in a positive cascading effect throughout all levels of the organisation.
Arguably the potential organisational benefits relate specifically to:
Highly effective team management
Improved team focus and direction
Greater productivity
I recommend the Chartered Manager program to all those in the academic field, not just for the internationally recognised accreditation, but also for the self-discovery in leadership that it provides. It’s an excellent opportunity for leadership awareness and practical course correction.
Wayne Smithson is Program Director of the Bachelor of Business Program at Universal Business School Sydney (UBSS). He is a Fellow of IML ANZ and a Chartered Manager.
Throughout history, commerce has always impacted society. Migration, import and export laws and even the creation of new social classes were all triggered by progress in business and trade.
Today, our society is slowly trying to reach a state of equality between men and women. Could this be an area where businesses can affect change?
There are hurdles. For example, StatsNZ reports that the gender pay gap in New Zealand sits at 9.3%. And while that has reduced significantly from 16% in 1998, the number has stalled in the past decade. Also, IML ANZ’s National Salary Survey report has seen a steady pay gap rise to almost 15% for leaders at the C-suite level.
Another area where businesses can do more is around performance assessments and recruitment. Research has found that common rating scales used to assess work performance, could be skewed in favour of males. In addition, Australia’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) also reports that for many roles in various sectors, “women must send out substantially more applications to receive the same number of interview invitations as equally qualified men.”
Looking at it from that lens can make the goal of achieving equality appear monumental. But like all great tasks, it may be useful to focus on the elements that make up the larger goal – the smaller bites of the proverbial elephant.
Spearhead social change from within your business
Consider the recently enacted whistleblower protections under Australia’s Corporation’s Act. These amendments followed a recognition within the business community that those who speak up need protection. The reforms were a result of the private sector coming together to try and take steps to rebuild trust – an essential element for any business that wants to retain customers.
So, creating the change we need might be more accessible than you think. After all, the employee remuneration, performance ratings and recruitment are entirely normal, ordinary business activities that leaders can influence.
Little steps could be all it takes. Plus, these steps can be carried out by leaders in companies, both large and small. Some areas of change could include:
Ensuring equal pay for equal work through robust policies
Reviewing how performance assessments are carried out and removing
Adopting best practice in your recruitment process to avoid any gender bias
Push for equality to benefit all
The apparent business benefit of role modelling gender equality is that you’ll improve employee engagement and in turn, productivity. However, there are advantages beyond the company’s bottom line.
It is estimated that if the gender employment gap was closed, Australia’s GDP would rise by 11%. In New Zealand, pay and employment equity means the shortages of labour and skills will be addressed, labour markets will function better and which all feeds economic growth. Not to mention that the equal treatment of women in society would also lead to a reduction in community issues such as domestic violence and other anti-social behaviours.
Challenge your thinking through thoughtful discussions
Making changes within your business can undoubtedly nudge us closer to real gender equity. But more is required than small moves. Mindsets need to shift, and real dialogue must happen.
In a leadership career spanning five decades, Chris Golis FIML has learned a thing or few about managing people. In this article, he shares five tips for a successful life and career.
1. ONE-ON-ONE MEETINGS MATTER
In 1973 I was flown twice to New York by McKinsey & Company and offered a job – but I must be one of only a few people to ever turn them down. My MBA tutor was Charles Handy [who later became a world-famous management guru] and he said to me, “Chris, I’m not sure I’d take that if I were you. I’ve been thinking about what makes business success and have come to the conclusion that it’s being able to handle yourself in a one-on-one meeting. That’s when you get the job, hire someone, get fired, secure the funding, come up with a business plan, and so on.” I took his advice and instead pursued a sales career. I arrived in Sydney the same week that the Sydney Opera House opened.
2. PEOPLE DRIVE PERFORMANCE, EMOTIONS DRIVE PEOPLE, TEMPERAMENT DRIVES EMOTIONS
In sales I learned that we sell to people’s heart, not to people’s head. Understanding someone’s temperament is absolutely vital if you want to get the best out of them. The problem is most managers do not have a scientifically valid model of temperament to help them determine their own and other people’s core emotions. I practise and teach the most practical temperament tool available, the 7MTF which can dramatically lift your emotional intelligence. In the same way the Humm-Wadsworth temperament model is built on the earlier work of Rosanoff, the 7MTF builds on the work done by Humm and Wadsworth. All three models conceive our temperament traits as based on one’s position on the various spectra of mental illnesses.
3. ABOVE ALL, PEOPLE SKILLS MATTER
In 2005, my elder daughter Louisa was asked to run a team of 30 people at Perpetual before she was 30. She asked me a good question: “Dad, you have read all the business books, what do you recommend I read?” I began by referring her to research among Australian managers that showed ‘people skills’ ranked as far and away the most important leadership capability. So I said to Louisa she should read a book that would improve her people skills. After some thought, I realised that there was no practical handbook written to help new managers develop their people skills so I decided that I had to write one myself. Thus The Humm Handbook: Lifting Your Level of Emotional Intelligence was born and published in 2007. (Read details of the book at emotionalintelligencecourse.com.)
4. LEADERS CAN LEARN A LOT FROM THE CLASSICS
At the end of my book, I analysed five classic plays as business case studies. Why? Because theatre gives us a picture of what we are and what we want to be. It helps us to find out about ourselves and others. So I analysed three Shakespeare plays, as well as Death of a Salesman and Antigone, through the prism of emotional intelligence. In each play, the hero suffers a terrible reversal of fortune and loses everything they hold most dear. We can see how their personality traits inform the decisions they make, and can draw business lessons from these to enhance our own emotional intelligence. (For more, read this article listing five leadership lessons from Shakespeare)
5. PRIORITISE WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU
I survived cancer in 2000, 2014 and 2019 (my daughters say I’m now a cat with six lives!). Facing your own mortality changes your outlook on life. When I realised there was a chance I was going to die, I decided to empower the people around me to let them make decisions. I loved my work in venture capitalism but also knew business life would one day have to continue without me. I also asked myself: “What do I want out of life?” In 2000, my wife and I drew up a bucket list of places we wanted to visit and, since then, we’ve been on two overseas trips every year.
Chris Golis FIML is the CEO and lead presenter at Emotional Intelligence Courses.
Andy McLean MIML is the Editorial Director of Leadership Matters magazine.
Thanks to his blockbuster TED talks and bestselling books, Simon Sinek has become a well-known name in business leadership thinking. As a motivational speaker and leadership consultant he has challenged many leaders to reconsider the way they view business. He aims to continue doing that in his latest book, The Infinite Game.
PLAYING TILL GAME OVER
Sinek questions the validity of the mindset (and language) that prevails among many business leaders. They refer to ‘winning’, ‘being number one’ and ‘beating the competition’ as their ultimate business goal. This characterises what Sinek calls the finite game: with winners, losers and ultimately, an end to the game.
THE INFINITE GAME
However, Sinek posits that to make a significant impact, leaders need to adopt an infinite mindset – focussed not on achieving finite goals, but rather in strategically keeping yourself in the game. In an infinite game, players are both known and unknown and success is based on whether you are ahead or behind. It is the players who disappear, but the game keeps going.
In his new book, Simon Sinek outlines five ways that leaders can prosper in the infinite game:
1. HAVE A STRONG SENSE OF PURPOSE
Sinek warns leaders not to confuse ‘finite’ with ‘aimless’. Instead, he encourages leaders to strive for progress and momentum to keep propelling themselves and their organisations forward. And the way to move forward is to align all business activities to a strong sense of purpose. You don’t have to be a visionary or even have a unique vision, but you must devote your energy to something bigger than yourself. Sinek adds, “Every job you have should be contributing to the same vision.”
2. BUILD TRUST IN YOUR TEAMS
Leadership for Sinek is less like sport and more like parenting: “Leadership is not about being in charge. It’s about taking care of those in our charge. It’s a responsibility.” A perpetual view of the game helps leaders to understand the importance of empowering their teams to do their best. By becoming a nurturing and supportive leader to your teams, you’ll ensure they make it through the long haul as opposed to tapping out after a short sprint.
3. CHANGE YOUR VIEW OF COMPETITION
Shifting your mindset from ‘winning’ to ‘staying in play’ requires an adjustment in the way you view other players. Sinek recalls his short-sightedness when dealing with a rival. “His very existence revealed to me my weaknesses. And it was much easier to take that energy and put it against someone than it was to admit to myself that I’ve got some work to do”. In the infinite game, rivals must be seen as a means to identify areas for improvement, rather than someone to take down.
4. BE FLEXIBLE
Having existential flexibility means coming to terms with the fact that the game will continue, with or without you. An infinite mindset requires agility, and a willingness to pivot, letting go of long-held notions and ideas that no longer help you, your team or your business.
5. LEAD COURAGEOUSLY
“The courage to lead fundamentally means you’re willing to be open-minded, to consider that maybe, just maybe, the way you think the world works may be wrong… And just because everyone’s doing it, doesn’t mean it’s right,” says Sinek. Indeed, it takes real courage to choose people over profit, to challenge the status quo and to shift from a finite to an infinite mindset.
Book now. Tickets are selling out soon!
IML ANZ Members are invited to discover new leadership thinking at Simon Sinek Live – The Infinite Game.
This year has certainly seen a shift when it comes to how businesses are approaching climate change. Recently, Qantas piloted the world’s first ever commercial flight with zero landfill. Paper straws are now commonplace in McDonald’s and 7-Eleven even offered free coffee to customers who brought their own reusable cup for a month.
But how can small businesses in rural areas – with less resources and less time than the big corporations – do their bit to tackle climate change? It was this very question that Jayne Thorpe CMgr MIML was asking herself last year.
And so her new business, Stablish, was born.
Stablish provides small businesses and not-for-profits with climate change business development services, grant and tender preparation and sustainability assessments.
“There’s so much business development work that you can put in to [grants and tenders] to make yourself more competitive,” says Thorpe. “I use this as a starting point to talk to businesses about their business plan, what their future is about and their supply chains. This translates over to sustainability assessments, so there’s a real overlap there.”
Innovation and positive change
It was the combined love for innovation and the earth that led the southern Queensland native to take the leap and self-fund her business.
Thorpe has been green fingered since her university days, with a Bachelor of Ecology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Ethnobotany from the University of Southern Queensland under her belt. She’s also a certified Environmental Practitioner and the current President of the Darling Downs Environment Council.
“Innovation to me is all about getting started with positive change to what’s happening now,” says Thorpe. “There are definitely changes that need to happen now around climate change, so they kind of tied up together. There’s lots of applications of innovation through all the work that I’ve done. So I was building on that, but offering it as a consultancy service.”
That previous work was done during her time at Condamine Alliance and Notomys Seeds and it was that experience that helped spark the inspiration: “When everybody is delivering current projects and services it can be quite difficult to figure out what innovations would be of benefit… so having someone look at those collectively was of really high value.”
Contributing to the local community
Thorpe is running Stablish along with her role at CatholicCare Social Services, where she works part time in business innovation. Having also run a habitat reconstruction business with her husband for the past 15 years, juggling different roles is something she is used to.
And it’s the impact on her community in Toowoomba that makes it all worth it.
“I was born here, worked here all of my career and went to university here,” says Thorpe. “It’s being able to recognise that I have something to offer that not everybody is across. Seeing people pick up on what I’m able to share and take things forward for their own business is very rewarding.”
For many sports fans and members of the media, 24 March 2018 is a day that will forever live in infamy for Australian cricket.
To recap, Australia was playing a crucial test in Cape Town, South Africa, and the locals were on top. To try and stem the flow of runs, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft hatched a plan to use sandpaper on the red ball to help it swing. Simply put, a swinging cricket ball is harder to hit or can increase the chances of getting unwary batsmen out. The bottom line, whether you take sandpaper, dirt, or Brylcreem to a ball, is that it’s a form of cheating. In other words, it’s just not cricket.
After a couple of false starts, the game’s peak body Cricket Australia (CA) accepted the behaviour of Warner, Bancroft, and skipper Steve Smith, who appeared to condone the ball-tampering by his inaction, was unacceptable. The trio were given lengthy suspensions. Cricket Australia Chairman, David Peever said at the time, “The CA Board understands and shares the anger of fans and the broader Australian community about these events.”
CA CEO and former professional cricketer, Kevin Roberts, admits the national game found itself in this parlous predicament because, “cricket’s part of the fabric of our culture”. Roberts took over as the boss of Australian cricket in October 2018.
To provide some perspective about how important the red ball game is for Australians, Roberts compares the national cricket team, which is famous for its Baggy Green cricket cap, to the mighty All Blacks of New Zealand. “From a cultural perspective, cricket is a national sport just as rugby is New Zealand’s national sport.”
Before working in cricket full time, Roberts had about 20 years in sports sponsorship working with the likes of Adidas and Kiwi sportswear giant Canterbury. He continues, “When people see an example of the spirit of cricket not necessarily being demonstrated in the national sport that’s part of our nation’s culture, it becomes a big issue.”
The long and challenging journey that CA has travelled in the past two years offers a fascinating case study in organisational culture for leaders in all industries.
CRICKET AUSTRALIA’S RESPONSE TO CAPE TOWN
In April 2018, CA commissioned the Ethics Centre to conduct an independent review into cultural, organisational and governance issues in cricket following the Cape Town ball-tampering scandal. The evaluation aimed to establish a charter setting out standards for improved player behaviour and expectations of the Australian men’s national side.
The review featured a panel of past and present players including national test captains Tim Paine and Rachael Haynes, who was deputising for the legendary Meg Lanning. Others on the panel included former internationals Shane Watson and George Bailey, the world’s best fast bowler Pat Cummins and men’s team coach, Justin Langer. Also an Ethics Centre survey garnered responses from 450 CA executives and employees, current and former players, state and territory association staff, and representatives from sponsor and media organisations.
Running parallel to this process was an examination of team conduct contributing to the events in South Africa. There has been a perception among some sections of the community that the Baggy Greens were arrogant. However, the bubble created by regular test and cup wins tended to paper over the cracks.
Despite the community cynicism, CA has responded decisively to the Cape Town fiasco, which is a credit to the leadership of Roberts, who joined the CA Board in 2012 before switching to executive roles from 2015. Unenviably, Roberts was in the CEO’s chair when the Ethics Centre released its 145-page report outlining 42 recommendations for CA’s consideration. Roberts recalled, “By the time I came into the CEO role, it was time to release the findings, and more importantly to get cracking on its implementation.”
While there was a mixed response to the report’s release, what struck Roberts was, “how isolated incidents had affected people who were on the receiving end of it”. For instance, the report asserts, “We have (also) been told of groundsmen (who) have been required to prepare practice pitches – spending time and effort only to see an elite bowler send down only seven deliveries before reaching the mandated ‘quota’ – and therefore stopping.
“This kind of behaviour speaks of gross disrespect to those who are not natives of the ‘gilded bubble’.”
While that might be an isolated incident, Roberts determined to consider how people were affected, either positively or negatively, through their interactions with cricket. As a result, the new CEO and his team released a cultural change program focused across three categories – people, high performance, and leadership.
HARVARD CONTRIBUTES TO CRICKET LEADERSHIP
CA launched a leadership program in 2019, which is a tailored version of a world-leading program from Harvard University, explains Roberts. Around 40 executives, senior managers, Paine and limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch, as well as coaches took the program, and are now collaborating on developing CA’s leadership culture. “We’re on that journey together, which is fantastic,” Roberts said.
Additionally, CA established the Australian Cricket Leadership Team in late 2018. This group includes the CEOs of each of the state and territory cricket associations. “This team acknowledges that cricket operates through a federal structure as opposed to a corporate hierarchy, and it was about spreading the leadership through that broader cricket ecosystem.”
Since Cape Town there has been a significant turnover of CA’s executive team, including the notable resignation of long-term CEO James Sutherland. Former Hyundai executive Scott Grant joined the peak body as COO. Like Roberts, the new operations supremo is no cricket blowin, and moonlights as the president of Bankstown Cricket Club, where the famous Waugh twins played. Roberts, who also scored runs for Bankstown, said, “We’ve got Drew Ginn, the former member of the Oarsome Foursome [Olympic Games winning] rowing team. He’s working with the states and territories to develop the next generation of talent.” Also, Ben Oliver, who was working for the Western Australian Cricket Association, is now responsible for the national teams. “So, there’s been some development among our leaders themselves as well,” Roberts adds.
PITCHING THE MEDIA TENT
CA has put 100 managers through a cultural change program. “We’ve also identified the need to improve the nature of communication inside and outside the organisation,” Roberts said. This project includes establishing a new internal communications platform aimed at creating closer links throughout the organisation. CA has also implemented new forums for all staff to ask questions or raise issues directly with management, in a safe environment.
Additionally, Roberts and his team have improved communication with relevant stakeholders, such as the media. To this end, CA has increased media training for its leadership and players. “We are making an extra effort to bring the media into the tent and to be open with them,” said Roberts. “The cricket media are great storytellers in the game, and so we must embrace their role.”
HIGH PERFORMANCE: THE PLAYERS ARE DOING THEIR BIT
Under the affable men’s test captain Paine and the approachable limited-overs men’s skipper Finch, Australian cricket teams have made decent strides in reconnecting with the public. Paine for example, has introduced a pre-game handshake between the Australians and their opponents, which seems to have gone down well with the cricketing community. “The men worked together with the Australian women’s team on a players pact. Put simply, they aspired to make Australians proud in everything that they do as players,” explained Roberts. “We worked with the players to define what we stand for and agreed our goal will always be to win because it’s a professional sport.
“But our non-negotiable expectation is to compete with respect. It’s not just about winning – it’s also about how we go about it.” That said, the test team’s magnificent retention of the Ashes for the first time in England since 2001 is a significant fillip for the game in Australia. Particularly given it followed just a few weeks after the Australian women’s team secured an outstanding Ashes series win on English soil too.
The proof is in the pudding for the image of Australian cricket, with the men’s cricket team not earning a single code of conduct charge in the 2018–19 season. This result was a first clean sheet in eight years for the prickly Baggy Greens, who have been notorious for aggressive sledging of their opponents. At the same time, Roberts points to the redemptive journey ‘best-since Bradman’ Steve Smith has undertaken since Cape Town. The former skipper visited many schools around Australia during his enforced absence from the Australian cricket team. “Steve Smith had a profound positive impact on several school children by having the courage to open up and talk about his experience as a leader during and beyond the Cape Town situation,” offered Roberts. “So that’s where the players are fantastic, in opening their hearts, telling their stories and I guess embracing the vulnerabilities. That’s what is connecting with the public.”
However, deep wounds will always take time to fully heal. A recent Roy Morgan poll indicated that the Australian public’s distrust in cricket is higher than any other sport. Although a level of distrust continues, there is some good news. Women’s cricket continues to provide a boost to the overall image of the sport with higher trust than distrust, according to Roy Morgan. Roberts comments, “We want cricket to be a sport for everyone, not a sport for some. That means embracing gender diversity, embracing cultural diversity and all other forms of diversity.” To celebrate diversity, CA is aiming to set a world record at the T-20 Women’s World Cup final on 8 March 2020 for attendance at a women’s sporting event. The final will be held at the mighty MCG, which seats around 100,000 and will take place during International Women’s Day.
ROBERTS THE BUSINESS SKIPPER
As a leader, the humble former NSW batsman Roberts says, “It’s more for others to have a view on my leadership style, but… I seek to be people-focused and to develop deep relationships with stakeholders.”
Roberts admits to presenting a straight bat when faced with difficult decisions. “I make the hard decisions required of a leader. While I try to do so in a way that shows respect for people, I must accept that people won’t always feel good about the decisions or the way I managed them. I’d like to think I demonstrate courage in leading from the front when we face issues so that our people can get on with making a difference.”
We have hand-picked six books that blow the lid off some of the biggest corruption scandals around the world. Check out these explosive must-read titles for all leaders and managers.
Banking Bad, tells the story of power imbalance, toxic culture and cover-ups in Australia’s banking industry. It describes the long fight for justice by whistleblowers, victims and political mavericks, and looks at the outcomes of the royal commission – the falls from grace, the damaging hubris, the scathing assessment of the regulators, and the colossal compensation bill.
Black Edge offers a revelatory look at the grey zone in which so much of Wall Street functions, and a window into the transformation of the worldwide economy. With meticulous reporting and powerful storytelling, this is a riveting, true-life legal thriller that takes readers inside the US government’s pursuit of Michael Cohen and his employees and raises urgent questions about the power and wealth of those who sit at the pinnacle of the financial world.
In 2009, with the dust yet to settle on the global financial crisis, a fraud of unprecedented gall and magnitude was being set into motion. Now known as the 1MDB affair, the scandal would come to symbolise the next great threat to the global financial system.
A stunning true tale of hubris and greed, Billion Dollar Whale reveals how one of the biggest heists in history was pulled off – right under the nose of the global financial industry.
In 2014, Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes was widely seen as the female Steve Jobs: a brilliant Stanford dropout whose start-up ‘unicorn’ promised to revolutionise the medical industry. There was just one problem: the technology didn’t work. For years, Holmes had been misleading investors, officials, and her own employees.
In Bad Blood John Carreyrou tells the story of Theranos and encourages us to consider the possible repercussions of our blind faith in a small group of brilliant individuals.
From the shadows, Eddie Obeid ran the state of New South Wales as his fiefdom, making and unmaking premiers. Along the way he pocketed tens of millions of dollars following corrupt deals.
Following their groundbreaking investigations, Kate McClymont and Linton Besser have unearthed the vast but secret empire Obeid built over decades, producing an authoritative account of how he got away with so much for so long.
When news of Volkswagen’s clean diesel fraud first broke in September 2015, it sent shockwaves around the world. Overnight, the company long associated with quality, reliability and trust became a universal symbol of greed and deception. Consumers were outraged, investors panicked, and the company was facing bankruptcy.
As the future of one of the world’s biggest companies remains uncertain, this is the extraordinary story of Volkswagen’s downfall.
The age of disruption may be characterised as an environment that is fast-paced, uncertain and risky. This new environment emerged from globalisation, aided by technology and trade interconnectivity, whilst facilitated by social media and the internet. A simple presidential tweet, or small change in a trade war is now transmitted instantly around the world, without necessarily any verification, analysis or investigation. This unfiltered and immediate nature of information may contribute to instability and confusion for staff and stakeholders. Leaders may not be able to control the external environment, yet through explanation, influence and engagement, leaders may be able to effectively reduce the stress and worry that results from disruption.
The interplay of trust and successful change
Leadership is influence. It can generate a willingness or inspiration to follow. Staff do not automatically listen and follow leaders irrespective of the environment, as they need trust as a precursor. If there is low trust in leaders, their messages may not be heard nor believed. It has long been recognised that trust is an element of leadership. Recent research now indicates that trust is also closely related to organisational change success. In a future disruption environment, change is likely to be constant and the need for trust is heightened, so future leaders will likely require excellent skills in communicating, explaining and involving staff in associated change.
Leaders set strategy, direction and plans to inform and influence their teams. The strategy and planning process is designed to signal a way forward, provide context and alignment across a whole array of staff and stakeholders. When new data and information emerge quickly, leaders could be under pressure to react to new advances, new information or developments. The risks in this scenario is where there is a high prospect of leaders regularly reversing and overriding past decisions. Reacting quickly may be just as risky as delaying decisions in disruption and the competition may react before accurate information or analysis emerges.
How disruption erodes trust
The changing nature of disruption creates new challenges as leaders will continue to attempt to build trust by delivering on past promises despite the change around them. Organisations will find it impossible to move forward if the leader is not able to ensure that they are believable and worth following. Imagine if a leader offers a pay rise, only to later discover that their cost of inputs has been altered significantly by a new tariff. Imagine a leader who announced a new acquisition but soon discovers that a new technology has completely eliminated the business value. Sudden change that alters decisions are part of a disruptive world. So leaders of the future will need to explain changes, risk and uncertainty with their teams in order to prepare for disruption.
Leaders must be ready to respond
In an uncertain environment, leaders will need to explain the fast pace, the uncertainty and risk regularly. Failure to do this adequately will likely lead to staff confusion, or blame toward the leader for not controlling the situation. Staff will appreciate regular and open communication on disruption, even when they do not like the described environment. Communication is such an important part of leadership, a factor that is likely to be more important with constant change, so the new leader will need to be cognisant of various communication forms, language styles, formats and regularity. Leadership communication may even be so regular that staff may be included as partners or advisors, rather than merely as subordinates. Leaders will require efficient, effective and regular communication in order to build trust, those unable or unwilling to operate this way may fail to move an organisation forward with the speed required. The leader of the future will likely be comfortable in explaining the new environment and changes, whilst building teams that are resilient to multiple options and decisions despite any ongoing risk or uncertainty.
Dr Mathew Donald specialises in leadership, management and organisational change and has more than 35 years of business experience. He is the principal of Dr Mat – The organisational Health Doctor ™, available globally for consulting, mentoring and presentations. He is also the author of “Leading and managing change in the age of disruption and artificial intelligence” (Emerald $USD 100.00).
Because no one likes to fail, we’ve created many ‘feel-good’ sayings about it. However, most of us take these so-called clichés with a grain of salt. But in business, leaders must pay attention to their attitude toward failure – it could hold the key to success.
So, how does your business consider failure?
Non-compliance is not failure
Let’s define failure at the outset. Failure has nothing to do with non-compliance. And by non-compliance, I mean not upholding business values, policies, procedures – the set ways which everyone knows the business requires one to act. That’s not failure. That’s breaking the rules; and appropriate sanctions should be applied and enforced. Non-compliance is an issue of discipline, and all business must uphold discipline.
Failure is trying something new, untested, experimenting, stretching the business’s capability to a new level but not reaching the ‘hoped-for’ outcome.
I draw this distinction as many businesses around the world get caught up in not meeting appropriate standards, whether they be internal to the business or external through regulation and even customer expectations. These outcomes are often described as failures, where they are better-considered non-compliance.
Failure should be encouraged whereas, non-compliance should not be tolerated.
Failing forward
Success and profitability rely on a business’s ability to outcompete all others in its chosen marketplace. And that means being able to deliver greater value to customers than your competitors today and importantly tomorrow.
Stepping out, evolving, reinventing and creating are some of the descriptors I would use to flag the type of behaviours that a business must immerse itself in to be competitive. If a business simply continues with what worked in the past, then there will become a time when their customers’ needs and their competitors’ capabilities have all moved on, and they are left behind.
This ability to continually evolve requires the practice of trying, failing, retrying and continuing to learn from each step taken. Then incorporate those learnings into the value that you deliver to your customers.
Barriers to failing
There are many barriers that exist within a business that will prevent it from failing and taking those learnings forward, but they can all be traced back to the business’s attitude to failure.
In many businesses, failure is spelt ‘your fault’, and it is often swept under the carpet or passed around when it occurs. Such an attitude is anti-change and counter-growth. Everyone wants to be associated with the successful project, and no one had anything to do with the failure. Failure can be a source of fear – real fear – but should it be feared?
Material losses can be incurred by businesses where a fear of failure is prevalent. This fear seeds a blame culture leading to denial, no ownership, and a lack of oversight and accountability. Failures may well be hidden where fear is prevalent, and losses escalated rather than mitigated.
There can be no learnings where fear exists as no one will want to be associated with or recall the project nor its lessons.
So what attitude should a business seek to develop when it comes to failure. Well, there are, I believe, two aspects:
We are an innovative and growing business, so experimentation is part of who we must be.
Failures will occur and will be acknowledged with humility, acceptance and learning.
Honestly, doesn’t something only become a failure if you abandon all the learnings and hope for the future? The attitude you create and sustain in your business must uphold the right attitude towards failure. And do not allow failure to become a political tool within the business.
How leaders should handle failure
The way leaders act with respect to failure will set the role model for everyone else in the business to follow. Failure is a test of and testament to the character of leaders. How leaders handle their failures and those of fellow leaders and colleagues speaks volumes to their character and motive. You should listen carefully to what it says as it will identify the worthy leaders in your business.
Leaders will need to develop humility as a core character trait if they are to build a business that grows and can outcompete everyone else in their market. Humility is the character trait that allows you to listen and learn most effectively, and that is a trait you want in your business’s DNA.
The trait you do not want in your business is self-interest. Self-interest will undermine your individual and your business’s success. If you are always putting yourself first, then no one else will be uplifted, and that uplifting of others is essential for growth.
The right people, in the right places with the right attitude, is essential to the growth and enduring success of your business.
How your business views and approaches failure is a cornerstone to its ability to deliver greater value to your customers every day. Allow the wrong attitude to take hold, and your business will stagnate. Seed, feed and flourish the right attitude, and growth will never be an issue.
Richard Shrapnel is a business strategist, advisor and speaker. He is a Fellow of IML ANZ.
A sign on the door saying ‘business as usual’ can very easily turn into one saying ‘going out of business’ in today’s ever-shifting, hypercompetitive marketplace. The key to survival is new ideas, whether they relate to products, processes, organisation or technology. New ideas often come from new people, but many Australian organisations have not been successful at hiring new voices or, if they recruit them, effectively listening to them.
Everybody has some intrinsic unconscious bias and that can adversely influence hiring decisions, even when a company has a policy promoting diversity and inclusion. Yet there is a substantial body of research showing that diversity has a positive impact on the bottom line. Some of the most convincing is detailed in a 2017 report from McKinsey, Delivering Through Diversity, which indicated that gender diversity in management positions increases profitability, even more than previous studies had suggested. McKinsey’s data analysis showed that companies in the top 25th percentile for gender diversity on their executive teams were 21% more likely to experience above-average profits.
Likewise, according to the McKinsey data, companies with culturally and ethnically diverse executive teams were 33% more likely to see above-average profits. The pattern extended to board level, where companies that were more ethnically and culturally diverse were 43% more likely to see above-average profits – a significant correlation between diversity and performance.
These studies were in the US but specialists in the field believe that the Australian picture would be similar.
“It is very likely, since the countries are comparable, and it reflects my experiences,” says Theaanna Kiaos, an organisational anthropologist for Diversity First specialising in organisational culture, diversity and inclusion within Australian corporations. “What it means is that decisions made with higher levels of cognitive diversity are likely to be better ones. Once, homogenous boards or leadership teams might have been well-suited to make decisions affecting the company’s future. But it is no longer the case. We now live in a more complex, increasingly diverse world.”
AFFINITY BIAS
Unconscious bias arises when a first impression leads a senior person to favour someone in a hiring or promotion decision without knowing all the candidates’ capabilities. This is affinity bias: a ‘first impression’ preference for someone who has the same ethnic, cultural and gender characteristics as you do.
“It has its roots in primitive, tribal times,” explains Clare EdwardsFIML, Principal of BrainSmart Consulting. “Our brains developed to consider anyone different as foe before friend. This reaction is still active in our brains today, mostly unconsciously. The issue for us now is how we overcome that and prevent it from creating group-think and stagnation.”
At one level, unconscious bias can be countered by mechanical processes, especially in recruitment.
Edwards explains that removing gender, residential suburb and tertiary education markers from applications can go a long way to mitigating unconscious bias. Holding panel interviews where panel members are of a diverse background and from other areas of the business is also effective.
“In the recruitment space, apps like Textio that have a ‘watch list’ of gender-biased words and phrases to avoid can help ensure the language and vocabulary we use is inclusive, gender-neutral and not influencing candidates one way or another,” she adds.
“Bias can be very subtle. For example, an ad asking for someone to ‘manage’ a team attracts more male candidates, as opposed to ‘developing’ a team which attracts more female candidates.”
Once a shortlist of candidates is created and applicants are selected for further interviews, the criteria being used for selection should also be absolutely clear to the interviewers. The criteria should relate to the capability to do the job most effectively. It is not about whether a candidate went to the same university as the selector, or if the selector can imagine themselves having a beer after work with a candidate. ‘Cultural fit’, while an important aspect in any selection, should not be manipulated to reject people who show themselves the best at doing the job but come from a different background to the selector.
These methods can be useful at preventing non-affinity candidates being knocked out during search and selection. They are part of an answer but not in themselves sufficient to improve diversity in an organisation. The other, and larger part, of the solution is to focus on the attitudes of the people engaged in the more advanced parts of the selection process.
FINDING THE RIGHT LANGUAGE
Many organisations have tried to address issues of unconscious bias through training but the results have often been mixed.
“Of all the companies we know who have taken part in unconscious bias training, not one of them was able to tell us, with absolute confidence, that it has resulted in sustainable behavioural change,” says Kiaos. “When we ask if leaders have become more insightful through the application of the key learnings, often there is only an uncomfortable silence.”
Chris Burton
In fact, when executives and team leaders are told to think about their biases it can sometimes lead to a defensive reaction because it does not fit with their version of themselves. Kiaos emphasises that an environment of safety and trust is imperative to challenge biases and norms related to diversity and inclusion in an organisation. There must also be a deeper understanding of how the training fits into an overall diversity and inclusion strategy.
One problem is that unconscious bias training is often couched in the language of social science research and psychological phenomena. This can be alienating to executives whose expertise is business. For training to be effective it has to focus on workplace situations and implications, and on the business benefits of diversity. In addition, there needs to be a path for further action, such as giving a specific commitment to overcome an aspect of bias.
If the executives in the training course feel that they are being unduly criticised for being who they are, they are likely to become dismissive of the whole concept. Trainers need to think carefully about the language they use and the specific situation involved. The wrong type of training will not just be unproductive but counterproductive.
Chris Burton, Executive Director of Team Management Systems, a consulting firm that specialises in teamwork improvements, sees feedback mechanisms as essential.
“You need to take time and invest in learning programs that create a link between the inner world of how we think and the operational realities of how we get work done together. We need to illustrate to people how important it is that we accept, validate and incorporate our different perspectives because when we do this well, we are collectively performing better,” he says.
“Ultimately, what is universal when addressing bias is that you need to make the unconscious conscious by providing leaders with reliable feedback about how they process their world and how they prefer to approach their work.”
CHANGE OF MINDSET
Training to help to overcome unconscious bias is most effective if coupled with process changes and set within a business framework. But there is also another aspect: a conscious attempt by leaders, whether at the organisational or team level, to change their own thinking.
One strategy for this is presented by author Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. He differentiates between what he calls ‘system 1’ thinking, which is automatic and habitual; and ‘system 2’ thinking, which is slower and more deliberate. Each has its value but ‘system 2’ thinking delivers more considered outcomes and provides a way to get away from the trap of first impressions through self-awareness and reflection. Edwards has had success with a ‘perspectives’ exercise which invites people to consider how their beliefs and opinions were formed. This can cover areas such as values from parents and elders, religious and cultural upbringing, socio-economic status, and the political beliefs of influencers.
“It’s not often that people take time to reflect and challenge beliefs they may have ‘downloaded’ or adopted but no longer serve them well,” she says. “We also encourage people to interact more with people who are traditionally outside their ‘in-group’ to expand their awareness of difference. The more diverse a group we interact with, the greater our understanding and appreciation of difference and the greater the likelihood of reducing bias in oneself.”
An easy test to check for unconscious bias in a hiring decision is to ‘flip it’. A selector who is having reservations about a candidate who comes from a background of diversity might ask themselves: would they still have those reservations if the candidate had the same cultural, ethnic and gender background as the selector? Alternatively, would a preferred candidate still be preferred if they came from a background of diversity? Questions like this help to turn theory into practice, and to understand the real-world consequences of unconscious bias.
A LARGER PICTURE
Theaanna Kiaos believes that moves to overcome unconscious bias should be set within a large self-development picture.
Theaanna Kiaos
She says, “You can teach people conceptualisations of biases but it isn’t very useful until people connect with insight and personal feelings associated with biases in their own life. Overcoming biases comes about through identifying how these biases play out.
“Ongoing mindfulness training is also valuable. The mindful state allows one to observe their behaviour more easily, so it makes an effective combination with unconscious bias training. If an organisation can afford to do both, then do both.
“A critical thing is to avoid judging oneself negatively when an insight has become conscious. Rather, accept the cognitive deficit for what it is and carefully look at its impact in everyday life, then correct it by stopping that pattern of behaviour. Write it down, become familiar with it, and then stop it.”
Chris Burton offers another path. “Some of the most important resources used to eliminate unconscious bias are psychometric feedback tools used to generate focused self-assessment and self-reflection. A critical reference point for any leader is an awareness of their own default approach to decision-making, so they can then consider whether corrective action is needed,” he notes. “More broadly, as organisations embrace the importance of both learning and employee experience, these two factors have a multiplier effect to enable the workforce to navigate a successful path to better performance.”
A final step in dealing with unconscious bias is to look at personal changes of mindset in connection with the culture of the organisation.
“It would help, from a strategic perspective, to move diversity and inclusion policy and practice out of the jurisdiction of HR and put it into corporate strategy,” advises Clare Edwards. “There, it can function as a key performance indicator for strategic growth and organisational health. And that sort of shift would underline the importance of overcoming bias in order to help the company thrive.”
READ MORE ONLINE
Clare Edwards FIML, Principal of BrainSmart Consulting, shares extensive insights about tackling unconscious bias in recruitment. Read more here.
Theaanna Kiaos also goes into further detail in this article.
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However, Sinek posits that to make a significant impact, leaders need to adopt an infinite mindset – focussed not on achieving finite goals, but rather in strategically keeping yourself in the game. In an infinite game, players are both known and unknown and success is based on whether you are ahead or behind. It is the players who disappear, but the game keeps going.
“But our non-negotiable expectation is to compete with respect. It’s not just about winning – it’s also about how we go about it.” That said, the test team’s magnificent retention of the Ashes for the first time in England since 2001 is a significant fillip for the game in Australia. Particularly given it followed just a few weeks after the Australian women’s team secured an outstanding Ashes series win on English soil too.
“It has its roots in primitive, tribal times,” explains 
One strategy for this is presented by author Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. He differentiates between what he calls ‘system 1’ thinking, which is automatic and habitual; and ‘system 2’ thinking, which is slower and more deliberate. Each has its value but ‘system 2’ thinking delivers more considered outcomes and provides a way to get away from the trap of first impressions through self-awareness and reflection. Edwards has had success with a ‘perspectives’ exercise which invites people to consider how their beliefs and opinions were formed. This can cover areas such as values from parents and elders, religious and cultural upbringing, socio-economic status, and the political beliefs of influencers.
