Friday, 27 December 2013

ZIG-ZAG HIERARCHY (In homage to Jessica Nagy)




Hierarchy looks like this



It should be like this

 



or this

 


as the case may be (or) require:


You/We are expected to accept what we wouldn't (or couldn't) accept as a customer or a citizen


''Smart'' hierarchies will absorb a great deal.



Dysfunctional hierarchies will implode.

Radical innovation is not a creeping imperative - it goes to the ''root''. It is a violent reality. It is here unbidden; unasked.



 Will you be smart enough to respond and will we be smart in our response?


..


####

Hence ''direction'' will be more like push-back - above, back and against the Pack.

Which necessitates boundaryless thinkers/actors.

..





XXXX

Those who block and box will be an existential threat to open ''absorption''.

..

!!!!!!!!

The rest - possibly the few - will be the ''get-togethers'' of the future, which is nearly here today.
 

 
 

''Get-Togethers''

 

''Get-'It'ers''




 
















''Go-Getters''

 



"Get-On'ers''




Friday, 15 November 2013

A LYRICAL VITALISM, OR DANCING IN THE CREATION: FROM ME TO US (with thanks to Naomi Simson, paraphrasing her work, Peter Watson for his 'Ideas' and to sundry authors): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07pLGIgyfjw; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCotV86izh0

(THIS IS A DRAFT)!!!!___

DANCING IN THE CREATION: FROM ME TO US___

'The Oriental Renaissance'___

A replay of Opium Wars or new way??___

FUSHE (Renewal) in China___

- Equal Tempered (Essence of Music), Zaiyu___

EAST + WEST___

- But tension between modernism + past in China. Will this lead to ‘post’-modern splitting/splintering of identities? (Cf Ming)___

- LYRICAL vs POSITIVIST movement___

- BIG DATA + GLOBALISM/SINICISM = BOTH??___


- ‘ LYRICAL VITALISM’___

ABUFAZL – a ‘Gentling’ of relations  CONCILIATION (Cf Huntingdon)___

IRAN-US tension  rapprochement___

 INTERNATIONALIST expertise to China/SEA (eg Manucci)___

(See SCHLEGEL, SCHELLING, JONES)

NOTION OF ‘BECOMING’___

‘Virile link with romanticism’___

REDUCE SECRECY Cf Snowden___

Portugese, Padroado___

{SHAKUNTALA = ‘ALL-IN-GOD’___



Contradictions +/-___

But dangers of PATRIOTISM + NATIONALISM leading to MILITARISM___

(Cf Japan - Meiji Restoration)___

- BERNARD LEWIS vs SAID___

 SYNCRETISM/Sufism vs WAHABBISM___


Common Paths
+ PATH of Common Law___

‘Outside politics, the topics which attracted most interest of the envoys were the status of women, science and music’___

CROSS-INVENTION/CROSS-POLLINATION___

Incubators were invented in Egypt (GE)___

ASYMMETRY (OPENING-UP)___

‘And the wider answer’..___

Jesuit LETTERBOOKS___
RITES MALABARS, CEREMONIES CHINOISES___

[INDIAN MISSIONS
Now INDO-PACIFIC
(Cf Lowy Institute)___

Quest or battle for ‘Reality’ (Cf Berlin, Vico)___

DOLLARS + SENSE = GLOBAL SENSIS COMMUNIS___

‘RECORD OF (GLOBAL) HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS’ (and conscience_ ___

HARMONISATION/globalisation vs SUPRA-ROMANITICISM___

BERLIN: “Shift uneasily from foot to foot” or dance___



‘DANCE IN THE CREATION’

Cf SHIVA + SIMSON)

Monday, 11 November 2013

INTELLIGENT PEOPLE DEMAND THEIR RIGHTS (More or less): CLAWING THROUGH THE THICKETS TO EMPLOYEE AND ORGANISATIONAL SUCCESS

*liberally seasoned with quotations from ‘Straight From the Gut’___ ‘A confession: I hate having to use the first person. Nearly everything I’ve done in my life has been accomplished with other people. Yet when you write a book like this, you’re forced to use the narrative “I” when it’s really the “we” that counts’___ The job-finding/job-courting process is ludicrous to well-trained and steady eyes. Why is that so? Because Intelligent People will demand their rights - And their sights aren’t always ‘steady’ ___ Let me soften that. It’s not for employees or prospective candidates to demand anything. Rather, they have certain expectations that they hope to meet collectively with a willing partner. ___ Above all, proactive candidates want to make ‘Big decisions in the real game’. And as a corollary to that wish, they seek to form a true partnership where their own ideas are utilised; where these people open up and transfer around, not out of a prospective organisation.___ Why do “we” so often fail to realise such expectations for elevated performance, satisfaction and engagement in the employment game? We don’t, as a rule, give confidence its due.___ In other words, ‘Legitimate self-confidence is a winner’. And the opposite is vapid.___ And so we refuse to accept that certain approaches to managing talent work better than others. This is particularly an issue, I would propose, in the recruitment racket. Whereas you should wish to avoid prima donna types, you can grant able candidates, if not the ‘spotlight’, at least a workshop to register their thoughts and concerns. With all their quirks and kudos. (Yesterday, for instance, I was reading about Irving Langmuir who generated internally 60 patents in the fields of surface chemistry and molecular science). ___ Otherwise your ‘brand’, or more familiarly, the vital essence of what drives your people to do things, withers and wastes. Your group starts to look slovenly, even selfish and stupid. Monitored against fail-safe, established criteria, human endeavour is functionalised out of existence. Operational excellence declines into the cycle of opening a rusty can with nasty, sharp edges. Not to mention you experience plain boredom. ‘You don’t meet all established criteria’, you say. “What a bore”, I think. “What a drag: Is this for real!?”___ In brief, EXCELLENCE should not be a dirty word. And certainly not one uttered sotto voce. Instead of thinking within an organisational setting, seek the ‘right setting’ for your – or more appropriately, “our” - talent to flourish. (Clue, here: There is no one setting). Hence celebrated (and controversial) economist, Joseph Stiglitz commented in Making Globalization Work:___ ‘With corporations at the center of globalization, they can be blamed for much of its ills as well as given credit for many of its achievements. Just as the issue is not whether globalization itself is good or bad but how we can reshape it to make it work better, the question about corporations should be: what can be done to minimize their damage and maximize their contribution to society?’___ This mindset of collective achievement thus presupposes individual and bodily responsibility and accountability.___ During the Industrial Revolution, we might observe, Britain was declared the ‘workshop of the world’. I hope that we, in Australia and elsewhere, can rapidly create a ‘people factory of the world’. We’re certainly not there yet. That may make employees sad, and it might even be a little embarrassing to our national psyche.___ Nonetheless, what truly remains is a challenge.___ And that’s the reason, in the people business, we must minister and mentor, as well as manage and measure. It comes down to energy. Are our smart people getting what they need to help us all succeed? For example, I have a friend with a PhD in English literature - in a large retail chain – working on stodgy emails instead of serious reportage or advertising copy. What a waste of talent!! (Can you be sure anyone else is picking up the organisational slack?)___ The antinomy of performance excellence and overwhelming progress – which takes us all with it, and not before – is clearly that anathema, ‘Groupthink’. Take this passage from ABC Chairman, Maurice Newman’s speech to ABC employees - http://www.theaustralian.com.au/media/maurice-newman-speech/story-e6frg996-1225839427099:___ ‘Long, long ago, as a young security analyst, I developed a relationship with journalists, some of whom remain friends to this day. Journalists were important people to me in my developing career. A respectable newspaper or radio station citing my research was good for business and good for job promotion too. It was a new experience for me and gave me an insight into a whole new world – the media. However, what I thought were good stories were not always seen that way by journalists. My take on events was sometimes rejected and another position adopted. That was their right. Sometimes when what was obvious to me became obvious to them, I would puzzle why the Bonds, Skases, Rivkins, Judges, et al could ever have been seen for other than what they were. I concluded that these adulatory waves of uncritical group-think came easily for journalists who were spoon fed exclusive stories, lavishly entertained and given other incentives by these corporate wizards. It encouraged laziness and a lack of critical enquiry. Group-think so limits curiosity that instead of fresh thinking, it encourages the same stale orthodoxies and superficial stereotypes. People and issues are seen as either worthy or unworthy’.___ People are seen as worthy or unworthy. Indeed.. ___ One should remember, however, ‘Where God parachutes us is a matter of luck’. Too often, it appears, organisations and recruiters luck out on the selection and succession process, be the industry or business what it may. They hire for a role, not for culture. They “hire”, they don’t court. They judge, they do not energize. And the corpus of existing talent doesn’t make it to where it truly wants to go.. In consequence ready talent takes a hike. Hearing the subtle, underline message, they remove elsewhere. In search of happier climes. ___ To put it succinctly, ‘Business success is less a function of grandiose predictions that it is a result of being able to respond rapidly to real changes as they occur’. As such, brand and bluster is never enough now. Thus one should ask, ‘Is the company you read about in the annual report, the company you work for?’ Are your colleagues, in the arts, in science wherever, the people you wish to emulate? Do you discern a straight-line march from fear to drudgery or an enlivened exponential? Where are they going? Are “we” going somewhere? Questions to contemplate. Questions to ask. ___ Perfectibility may be elusive. A heady chimera. On the other hand, who wants to stick at defence all their career? Perhaps we can’t enjoy everything we desire, yet we should be able to remark: ___ ‘I loved to go on the field when I thought I could play, and I loved cheering from the sidelines’.. ___ In tune with this sentiment, we can in time, I'm confident, agree to adopt, together with Joseph Stigtlitz, this maxim of organisational development and human achievement:___ ‘Companies can be thought of as communities, people working together in a common purpose – say, to produce a product or provide a service. And as they work together, they care about each other, the communities in which they work, and the broader community, the world, in which we all live’. In the people game, you’ve gotta move from defensive linebacker to offensive halfback.. C’mon, I just want “us” to get a kick out of life!

Saturday, 9 November 2013

OVERDELIVERY PACKAGE: GIVE IT TO YOUR BOSS!!!

"The internet proved to be a phenomenal tool for delivering products and services to GE customers.” – GE VP & CIO, John Seral... “Destroy Your Business woke us up. Grow Your Business was a home run” I think the time has come in Australian organisations to make innovation real: And that will mean, to make it hurt.. At least to a point. What Do I Mean?___ As study after study shows, Australian business practice doesn't ideally nurture or promote innovative behaviours. Therefore, we need a new business model - or means of tackling business model adjustment - to engrain innovation as a RADICAL IMPERATIVE. ___ Some people, in management, don't take this seriously or are actively hostile. That is why we will need to make innovation real in order to pursue the radical need for 'change as a mindset'. ___ This will mean upending extant business practice and ruffling feathers. So bet it, if that is what is required to render productive change a way of organisational life. ___ A great example of this translated mindset is 'Destroy Your Business'. And from out of the conceptual rubble, REBUILD! http://www.sosemarketing.com/2011/07/25/how-general-electric-used-the-internet-to-grow-business/

INNOVATION IMPERATIVE

WE NEED TO COME DOWN ON THIS BRUTALLY HARD. AND REWARD THE A PLAYERS, WHEREVER THEY ARE. NO OPTIONS, NO COSY RELATIONSHIPS WITHOUT REAL COMMITTMENT TO ORGANISATIONAL IMPROVEMENT. IF NECESSARY, PROMOTE LESS EXPERIENCED, CULTURALLY AWARE PEOPLE OVER UNDERPERFORMING MANAGERS. MAKE IT HURT, MAKE IT REAL. #noexcuses http://www.aim.com.au/home/news/1310_Innovation.html 'While it may be increasingly difficult for organisations to achieve competitive advantage through cost, service and quality, the good news is that sustainable advantages of another kind are possible. This comes from true differentiation through innovation. And while no single innovation lasts forever, what can last for a long time is advantage through superior systematic innovation capability'.

Sunday, 3 November 2013

MY PAIN LETTER (in a very free-form style)

:( :( :( ??? :) :) :) Taking my cue from Liz Ryan, owner of the Human Workplace, I am writing a Pain Letter. This letter is addressed as much to myself as to future employers, business or creative partners. I feel torn, Janus-faced, between where I was, where I am and where I want to be. Perhaps you too can relate? ___ Upfront, I confess the job search is enervating. Liz Ryan, on Linkedin, calls this the interview/application ‘Black Hole’ which swallows a candidate’s aspirations ruthlessly, delaying meaningful organisational and social change. ___ I am therefore struggling, invisibly perhaps to networkers, yet visibly with myself in reference to my Inner Negotiators. Erica Ariel Fox defines these negotiators as the ‘Big Four’ who form one’s internal C-Suite. Thus, every person negotiates each day with their ‘Dreamer’, the CEO; their ‘Thinker’, the CFO; their ‘Lover’, the VP of HR and their ‘Warrior’, the COO. ___ What is my struggle about? How to find, I believe, the right path for personal growth aligned to a suitable vehicle for collective imagination and effort. In plain English, where and whom will I work with such that I actualise my potential in harmony with my employer/partner, as together we strive to attain laudable common goals? ___ I want people to use my brain. In that sense, I am rather inflexible: I have low tolerance for temporizing and employers who take me for granted. Below the surface, however, I am expressing vulnerability. ___ I feel exposed, in short, to a market vacuum where my ‘connective’ skills – the capacity to synthesise disparate and inter-domain knowledge and information – are seemingly disregarded. In terms of stalled progress, I feel like I am facing a ‘dharma-sankat’, somewhat akin (in this case) to a cosmic, moral and practical dilemma concerning where I go next let alone what I do.. (I am indebted to Gurcharan Das for his views on the concept of Dharma – defining Dharma is as much about finding what one’s Dharma is). ___ [And… ___ I’ll confess – I don’t play like the other kids! Nevertheless this is precisely where I may serve to greatest effect and fellow travellers may derive, from me, the greatest mutual value. ___ Thanks for reading my free-form Pain Letter and here is a good link to leadership in times of crisis: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2013/10/24/8-ways-to-spot-great-leadership/

Monday, 28 October 2013

TELL YOUR BOSS TO LEARN TO WIN

I am still looking for a job. But sometimes, I admit, I’m not looking very hard. Why?? Because I get to read, and read and… read. This week, I read about aviation financing: wet leases, dry leases, moist leases (strange sexual metonony here?!). I learned about cross-border mergers and regulatory comparison between EU, US and other anti-trust/competition regimes. I explored the GE-Honeywell merger fallout. I listened to Schoenberg and Sibelius, Lou Reed and electronic music. I read Paul Krugman’s paper regarding a ‘third-order’ explanation for the 1997 Asian Crisis through excess asset price inflation. In other words, I READ STUFF. A lot of stuff, if I may so myself. One article, however, struck me. Occasionally, I reread and resort old papers and files. And I found a paper I had saved by Tony Schwartz. Schwartz queried, impetuously, ‘Are You Learning As Fast As The World Is Changing?’ According to Schwartz: “Translation: You're not going to learn faster (or deeper) than everyone else if you seek inspiration from the same sources as everyone else”. And I would ask: Have you (the reader) ever asked yourself or, God forbid, the boss that question? Perhaps you should. Now. Today. To be fair, Schwartz admits the difficulty. (Even if the boss is more or, possibly, less enthusiastic). As he says in this passage, which I quote verbatim since it requires so little additional effort to do so: “A few months ago, after I gave a talk about innovation to a gathering of executives from the world of food retailing, one frustrated member of the audience asked for some advice about dealing with her boss. "My boss likes to say, 'I want a totally new idea — and three examples of where that idea has worked before.'" The audience roared in recognition of the oxymoronic absurdity of the boss's sentiment, as did I”. And, of course, quoting verbatim is the point here. Schwartz indicates that most learning is, if not exactly second-hand, taken from other disparate sources. (A process he mischievously refers to as ‘R&D: Rip off and duplicate’). On Steve Jobs – “As Jobs talked about the original Macintosh computer, he talked less about semiconductors and software than he did about painting, music, and art. "Ultimately it [creativity] comes down to taste," he explained. "It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then trying to bring those things in to what you're doing...I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians and poets and artists and zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world." There’s a whole mental and conceptual world waiting to be (re)discovered. And you should tell your boss about it!

Sunday, 13 October 2013

BREAKING THEIR BONDS: A VALUE DRIVEN APPROACH FOR AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS

We must become the change that we wish to see in the world – Mahatma Gandhi A good life is one that is characterised by complete absorption in what one does – Jeanne Nakamura and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi A VALUE-DRIVEN APPROACH The next step for upping the ante in Australian business? Inspiring a VALUE-DRIVEN approach to performance, assessment and promotion. In a highly regulated and stable business environment, Australian businesses (such as the banks) achieved high ROE off cost synergies and sales growth. The new normal landscape in South-East Asian led growth, nevertheless, switches us to the pole of quality relationships. Employees, broadly, are going to be exposed to Asian and non-Anglo investors/customers, an evolving regulatory framework and different workplace and cultural norms. THE PROBLEM “You Get What You Measure”: From my experience, Australian business currently tends to measure heavily according to compliance and volume from target-driven growth. (Setting sales and profit metrics which translate down to strict sets of KPIs for individual business units). This made some sense in a period of heavy inorganic expansion, with easy corporate and household credit and a stable domestic legislative framework. But the new environment requires us to INNOVATE. And that means Australian employees, in order to be successful, will have to shift rapidly to customer-focussed growth and away from transaction-based growth. In this environment, ideas count. Employees should optimally – and, in fact, practically – be assessed on the strength and implementation of their ideas. This requires employees to collaborate, initiate and execute creative projects in a rapidly shifting economy. There are no simple path-driven routes to success in such a fluid landscape. In other words, Australian business needs to start measuring succinctly for LEADERSHIP. VALUE IS DRIVEN ‘AROUND’ KPIs AND BY QUALITY THINKING Though it is essential to measure targets the business sets for its staff – and through its managers – it is now critically important to assess accurately ‘how’ employees contribute to valuable growth toward their business mission. And, equally, managers above all should be measured by how they ‘grow’ their employees in the soft skill set requisite to creative team development. This necessitates business seniors “looking behind” formal results to the substance of team activity and how that drives valuable business development. This conceptual target, if you will, must take precedence over the simple numbers, processes and outcomes, crucial as they are. And yes, we should be looking for ‘simple’ processes. Even childishly simple, if businesses can pull it off. REWARD CREATIVE SOLUTIONS AND CREATIVE ‘SOLVERS’ I have to be frank, here. Australian business will need to become much more attuned to employee engagement and reward good employees appropriately. The ‘dollar and cents’ attitude to containing business overhead by saving on employee expense will soon become redundant. And possibly a liability. As Montesquieu stated, ‘What cowardice it is to be dismayed by the happiness of others and devastated by their good fortune’. In a War for Talent – this compound noun is capitalised deliberately – Australian business needs to prioritise the message, ‘find, grow, retain’ as a corporate mantra to avoid stagnation. Employees are themselves conduits to customers and knowledge, and as brand ambassadors provide access to new markets. SO BE GENEROUS, GET OUT THERE AND WIN!!!!

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

KEEP IT HONEST - TODAY'S ABBOTT BLUNDERS

Today’s Abbott blunders: Abbott does NOT have a mandate: the Libs got through the election by default in one of the worst periods of government instability in our political history. Whitlam had a popular mandate, and enshrined the “Doctrine”. Abbott and Gillard had among the lowest popularity ratings in Australian history. Abbott does not have a mandate, whatever that means.. Japan is NOT our ‘best’ friend in Asia: Japan is A friend in Asia. China and Korea are exceedingly important to our mutual economic and, increasingly cultural, wellbeing. There are enormous numbers of Chinese tourists who visit our Great Red Land. Of course, our closes neighbour, Indonesia will become vitally important to our sovereign economic future as she has the potential to be a ‘Top 5’ power. It is very short sighted to privilege one society/economy over another given the massive differences in South East Asia, and China’s exponential rise. Abbott needs to read about foreign policy in light of the dangerous Diaoyu/Senkaku Dispute and not issue divisive pronouncements. If he is policy-lite in this area, he should talk to wonks and academic experts on the subject. In his position, he cannot “wing it”. The Wedding Scandal is the product of negative politics – ‘don’t give it, if you can’t take it.. ‘Abbott ran one of the most negative public campaigns in Australian political history against both Gillard and Rudd (leaving aside any merit to the Liberals’ more moderate aspersions). The dictum, “As you sow, so shall ye reap” is surely applicable to this episode of overblown political diatribe. Therefore, both sides should refrain from inane or negative comment upon the other’s petty foibles and focus upon substantive issues. In light of Abbott’s extraordinary churlishness pre-election, however, Abbott merits exceptional scrutiny (See infra). The press ought to pursue him and his Ministers like the Hounds of the Baskervilles. That is not to say there is serious evidence of impropriety. Again, one should focus on substantive politics. In any event, governments don’t control nearly as much as they think: Fortress Aus just WON’T WORK. As Laura Tingle and lawyer Richard Falkman have argued, Australians – denizens of the ‘global imaginary’ – are increasingly interdependent. Contrary to Treasurer, Joe Hockey’s proposition, Australia influences, and is influenced by global events. That is why the stimulus package was necessary to avert economic catastrophe internally. There is no obvious demarcation between municipal and global governance. These logical terms in governance are co-variant, if you will. If the US sneezes, we will probably catch a cold. Abbott et al should contribute to positive expectations, not construct a Fortress-edifice out of outdated assumptions.

Saturday, 27 July 2013

GETTING PAST NO: "GO TO THE BALCONY"


http://www.tsne.org/site/c.ghLUK3PCLoF/b.5938253/k.75BE/Consultants_Corner__The_First_Step_in_Resolving_Conflict_Go_to_the_Balcony.htm

Tuesday, 9 July 2013

STRETCH TO WIN

A major problem with in-house hiring and recruiting, generally? Reverting to a mean. 

We are living in an elastic world: Stretched continually by technology, social disruption and sovereign risk. In countless analyses, thinkers and policy-makers admit this proposition.

When will this zeitgeist transfer, however, to our institutions of learning and business/political activity?


SEE THE WORLD AFRESH: AND LOOK FOR 'NEW'

The best performance, I am convinced, comes from stretching others. Necessarily, one who is stretched is stretched and "stressed" beyond his or her horizon. The outcome is less predictable than a bell curve can distribute, yet the upside is evident. However, our rule-focussed society is still composed atomically, as if we were completely 'efficient' or inefficient autonomous entities. Efficient markets are, well, nonsense. Not completely; just sufficiently discomposed to produce dangerous hiring practices.

Real growth, especially in this 'New Digital Age' (to borrow from Google's Schmidt and Cohen) is organic. Pure and simple. Linear hiring can only fail..

OLD HABITS DIE HARD: SO KILL THEM!!

Something like 70% of the American workforce - once the powerhouse of the modern world - are disengaged. Some 30% actively ~ these souls would happily knife their boss given half the chance.

And performance, over time, is therefore lacklustre; hiring is haphazard.

When will hiring managers, politicians and thought leaders realise? Your best hires don't revert to a mean; they instantiate the 'Flynn Effect' by increasing collective imagination and capacity to deliver lasting success. And in an interconnected globe, success will exist in various dimensions - financial, environmental and socio-political. 

If you don't create a team of Golden Geese, you almost guarantee dislocation.


HIRE PEOPLE TO 'HIRE' LONG-TERM: EAT AND DREAM

We should go beyond the concept of 'inputs'. People are people and great people will drive the future. If they're put to work with other wondrous people. If you hire short-term, you get the mean - an insidious reversion. If you hire short and long, you yourself must work smarter and bolder, you also shift the curve further toward the unbounded-boundary ~ wherever that is.

And you keep other people in a job..





 

Monday, 8 July 2013

WONT TO FORGIVE ~ His Better Angels {"All at once, as with a sudden smile of Heaven, forth burst the sunshine, pouring a very flood"}


“Do I feel joy again?” cried he, wondering at himself. “Methought the germ of it was dead in me! O Hester, thou art my better angel!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xqYoz5ioHs      

   “Let us not look back,” answered Hester Prynne. “The past is gone! Wherefore should we linger upon it now? See! With this symbol, I undo it all, and make it as it had never been!    
    

SOLUTION TO THE 'SUCCESSION CRISIS' AND CANADIAN LITIGATION? ~~~ A REPUBLIC!!!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2266170/A-crisis-leadership-western-world.html

TRUTH IS HARD TO COME BY - Crisis in Leadership and The Social Contract

Throughout the world, we face an absurd situation: In the sense of existential absurdity. As Umair Haque suggests, our "leaders" have failed to perform. They strut, and they strain.. And they produce very little. This is a sad state of affairs - and I think behind the outbreak in social unrest, East and West. The Social Contract is fracturing. After all, highly qualified graduates and post-graduates cannot find jobs; entrepreneurs cannot obtain seed funding. In Australia, moreover, we are burdened by ever increasing regulation, cynicism and business malaise.

The electorate is force fed minimalist sound bites regarding peripheral issues like the Asylum seeker "problem": the problem is lagging productivity and a falling, ageing population in desperate need of diverse skill-holders with a regional outlook. [Tony Abbott's Churchillian appeal to the Anglosphere is quintessential farce].

Under any honest assessment, our political class would not be entitled to hold their jobs. They have reflected precious little in the way of value and integrity, and have delivered very little in terms of taking our societies in the direction they must now take to avoid stagnation. Properly differentiated, they would be branded as "dud" performers and removed from their posts. But, forgiveness extended, governed and governing have to reestablish the social bond.

We in the West, I contest, must reassert the primacy of service, our Western roots indeed being Judeo-Christian reciprocity and humility. For sure Cujus regio eius religio, or non religio as you please, but our governing bodies primarily owe an obligation to those they lead. We can, and MUST do better...

RISK AND REWARD? TELLING IT AS IT (SEEMS TO BE) ~ It Just Ain't That Great

FREE STYLE INTERVIEWING: THE DILEMMA SUBJOINED

I have interviewed for an executive assistant and insitutional banking Middle Office role recently. I must say I have been impressed by the recruiters. They were candid and sympathetic. So why is it so hard out there to be rewarded for taking risks?

AMERICAN 'DREAMTIME': WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DREAM?

HBR published another Niall Ferguson column in its latest edition. And Ferguson lamented the state of the 'land of the free'. According to Ferguson, the only stakeholders celebrating the legal system "are the lawyers". As I have written previously, law practioners' cultural departure from 'strict and complete legalism' has presaged a deterioration in the overall standard of governance. (Some) lawyers are paid too much, for work that is of little real value: Government's institutional footprint has grown, without concomitant expansion in the quality of impartial service provision. What happpened to 'by the people, for the people'????

THE LUMBERING BEHEMOTH?

This link just about says it all ~ candidates are told to brand themselves, to think big and reach out. But is risk rewarded? Really? REALLLY!??? http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130708140616-12571855-get-fired?trk=tod-home-art-large_0 It seems to me candour must be the first and last line of defence when it comes to job creation and sructural change. Innovation cannot occur in a vacuum; especially when our societies still live in a bubble of our own making. Google has taken the lead by critiquing its hiring practices and admitting to the 'seat-of-their-pants' dillemma in hiring and empowering great people to do great things. As Scott C, founding CEO at Startup America quipped, 'Could one person at Kodak have changed the company's fate? Stay nimble in your mindset, and imagine that your actions will make or break the company's chances of staying afloat'. Surely, though, Winning! as a society and a global community should mean more than slumbering survival.. IF THE ENGINE IS SPUTTERING, CAN'T WE RESTART THE ENGINE, OR, EVEN, GET A NEW ENGINE?

Wednesday, 3 July 2013

TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE ~ You & Life by the Hand


Take Life by Both Hands: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all

"People who have stumbled through the experience just described will of course tend to retell it as though they had known the difficulties all along and have bravely gone to meet them - fare bella figura is a strong human propensity. While we are rather willing and even eager and relieved to agree with a historian's finding that we stumbled into the more shameful events of history, such as war, we are correspondingly unwilling to concede - in fact we find it intolerable to imagine - that our more lofty achievements, such as economic, social or political progress, could have come about by stumbling rather than through careful planning, rational behavior, and the successful response to a clearly perceived challenge. Language itself conspires toward this sort of asymmetry: we fall into error, but do not usually speak of falling into truth"...

Wednesday, 26 June 2013

CALL FOR AN EMERGENCY NATIONAL SUMMIT

Australia was dubbed the 'Lucky Country' in jest by Donald Horne. And Horne decried perceived Liberal intransigence in his 'Death of the Lucky Country'. How very dangerous it will be to rely on our current luck and arrangements to facilitate our expansion into our region and for our citizens. The Constitutional Crisis engulfing our country betrays, like Raskolnikov's motives in Crime and Punishment, cynicism's logical extension. Both sides are to blame..

RANK OPPORTUNISM

The 43rd Parliament stinks of rank politicisation. Julie Bishop, for example, compared Australia's debt "descent" to Iceland. Apparently, Bishop served as partner to a major Australian law firm. On these economic statements, nevertheless, she and the Opposition should go back to High School. Is this the best we can intellectually muster in our representative House?

The ALP pantomime we need not rehearse. The play is afoot.

BUSINESS CONFIDENCE

Clive Palmer has run for Parliament. That is his right. However, business includes all who work as well as those who own. No doubt, the dysfunction in government can infect our productive economy where things are done and made. What is the leadership standard in our corporations today? If we disrespect talent at the apex of the pyramid, we debase our national economic currency and the character of our people.

Those unfit to hold office, whether in public or in private, should be moved to resign. This must become a national imperative. Thus, the Commonwealth will prosper from the application of more capable hands, minds and the light of finer hearts..

A NATIONAL SUMMIT

To staunch the bloodflow and confront the disease, I believe the Business Council of Australia and a bipartisan commission should determine to hold an immediate summit into the subject of our nation's future. Before the Lucky Country suffers intolerable neglect and destitution.

Let's facilitate a new 'lucky streak'

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

SCALING WALLS ~ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tfyLbin9gs



Mid Market spoiling for a fight?    "I smell the sense of retribution in the air"

 

Tuesday, 18 June 2013

WHY EVEN YOUR MOTHER COULD BE WRONG

If you want to know about pain and heartbreak, I could give you a dissertation. We love happy endings in the movies. So why do we tolerate misery and abjection in reality?

I love you Clare. I would deny even my own mother, if you gave me reason to believe.

The strongest organ in our body is the Heart, not the head..

THIS IS MY STAND

My mother has been unwell: This can exacerbate inter-personal problems. Since, perhaps, we are similar, we have failed to see eye-to-eye. I think, in hindsight, we also have differing perspectives on risk. Moreover, I see a wider problem with our infantilisation of adolescents.

I refuse to hold back, and refuse to give in. I know what I like to do, whom I want to work with, even, in the midst of difficulties, whom I wish to marry. And I will not back down.

I have taken huge risks at work and have risked everything to realise what I 'ultimately' desire, and need. My mother just stated, 'You cannot live as an idealist'. I hope to hell she is wrong and that her party is utterly defeated..

For me, to accept such a principle is to accept living death..  

Tuesday, 11 June 2013

FREE RANGE: ROVING THOUGHTS AND WACKY PLOTS

WHAT Y'ALL THINK?


PUBLIC SPHERE


~ Should the Governor-General have a greater role in the Commonwealth? If neither party can promote a legitimate candidate for leadership, should the G-G be able to step in to remove both candidates in line with electoral preferences (eg, Turnbull, Rudd) and call an early election?

~ KPIs for the Executive: should the government fail to meet basic infrastructure and productivity targets as well as net innovation and equity objectives, the government can be taken to an election for poor performance..

~ Longer electoral cycles in accord with the Electoral Act to five years subject to above..

~ Legislative limits on the power to call repeated inquiries or Commissions into the same subject matter (eg, indigenous welfare)


PRIVATE SPHERE

~ High potential conduits in large organisations: taking hipos outside the standing command-and-control, so that line managers and even business unit heads are directly answerable and responsible to the C-Suite team and even the CEO for hipo growth and development. Matrix-wise, the line manager does not have immediate organisational power over identified candidates. If hipos are seen to be treated differently, that is because they ARE..

~ Much as there is an equity investment premium, placing an underlined premium on growing high-potential strategists. Partnering with senior managers and in programmes, candidates are heavily invested in acquiring and developing strategic thought and a strategic outlook and marketing orientation for use of company resources. Big picture thinking is thereby prioritised. 

Monday, 27 May 2013

DON'T TAKE MUCH TO MAKE ME/YOU HAPPY



http://blogs.hbr.org/anthony/2013/05/should_you_take_that_innovatio.html


WHY COMPLICATE THINGS?

New rejections for 'jobs': uggh, what a cold word that is: 'job'. But funny, how people seem to make the same mistake with me..

It doesn't take much to make me happy. Give me some space, a smile, some paper, some hay (only kidding!) and let the Universe do the rest..

No phones and no jerks, that's about it. And I'll pump your business full of value you've never seen before with everyone involved.

Sunday, 26 May 2013

IS RECRUITING A CHINESE WALL? DISRUPT, LEST YE BE DISRUPTED..





'The problem with insecure people is they hire dopes'

'I want a moat, preferably with a drawbridge and shark-infested waters'.

~~

'Applying' for jobs can be tedious. The adverb itself is tedious: Connoting diligent yet ineffectual dedication to a tiresome task.

And task-based recruiting, I suggest, is the next vista for Barbarians at the Gate.

*If organisations, generally, cannot hire smart, they will look increasingly dumb.

*If regulations and onboarding take weeks and even months, talent will walk, and test the ramparts for structural flaws.

* If creativity is discouraged from the outset, competition will get creative both in supply and in attitude. Demand, like a spring rising to its source, will find its own rivulets..

*If creative people cannot design for intraprenuerial roles, they will design blueprints for external change.

Beware the Fate of the Celestial Kingdom and disrupt, lest ye be disrupted..

(This 'applies', of course, to nobody in particular).




Wednesday, 22 May 2013

CANDOR AND THE CAR-INDUSTRY: I OFFER MY CONDOLENCES AND SOME THOUGHTS TO FORD'S WORKERS

Having mentioned the Australian car industry in my last post - yesterday - I was shocked to hear about Ford closing operations in Victoria. But was I surprised?? That's a critical issue, and not so much a question. Without intending to offend anyone, does Victorian manufacturing risk succumbing to Detroitus, which was left behind in that once great city? It doesn't have to happen that way (ditto for Detroit), and here's why:

SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS: REIGNITE YOUR SPARK


# Ford motor: surprise or unsurprising? Moral: change is necessary, but management’s obligation is to avoid landing workers with unpleasant surprises so far as lies in their power. Management's power is intellectual, financial and ethical. And they should utilise all sources: in fact they have an ethical obligation to do so, even if their legal duty is toward the company’s shareholders. (Cf German ‘Rhenish’ capitalism, Japan’s keiretsu and the Toyota Way).

# Globalisation is real. Those who remain in a single occupation for thirty years, as some component manufacturers did at Ford, risk obsolescence. In a global economy, risk and reward follow competitive advantage. Shareholders can emplace and remove capital at will so diversification and reinvention are crucial for workers’ job security and for industry success.

# Take your destiny into your own hands, or someone else will fulfil your destiny for you. In a global marketplace, corporate headquarters could be any place in the world. Face reality as it is when you sign onto new terms and conditions with any business. Instead of waiting on the Fates, all employees and stakeholders – executives, line managers, employees and government officials – should enable transitions with minimal disruption. In a disruptive economy (characterised by restless product and process-innovation) retraining is thus paramount and should be unending. Give people the tools to manage their own futures.

# Employers should be responsible. Treat your employees with respect at all times. If you don’t, your business assumes the reputation risk of a more ethical, creative alternative. (I am not making any observation about particular manufacturers or entities here). 

POSTCRIPT

More than any other stage, perhaps, in history, workers require introduction to the fundamentals of economic thought and history. As industries move in phases and the globe collectively considers the contours of a more human capitalism, Australians need to understand the elements of modern capitalist thinking. And the nucleus for successful transition and flourishing is embedded in the supporting family. 

In particular, I hope to review Jerry Muller's recent contribution to Foreign Affairs, "Capitalism and Inequality: What the Right and the Left Get Wrong".

Here is my list of the economists and thinkers to which Muller charitably refers (p.s. quite an extraordinary list!):


Alfred Rappaport

Hyman Minsky

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Jan de Vries

Tyler Cowen

Joseph Scumpeter

Daniel Bell

Brink Lindsey

Michael Spence

Max Weber

Edward Banfield

Pedro Caneiro and James Heckman

Friedrich von Hayek

Alexander Hamilton

In the search for daily bread, always make room for food for thought... 


~~~ 
Condolences and Best Wishes to Ford workers and their families. 








Tuesday, 21 May 2013

URGENT DELIVERY: DELIVERING THE GOODS REQUIRES DELIVERING MORE AND MORE






http://www.afr.com/p/national/professional_services/accounting_graduates_face_job_market_ml4M9I3CEBdkesW84JzqoJ; Jennifer Eyers. "Paradigm Shift for Local Law Firms"; http://www.lawcareers.net/Information/Features/25022013-Adapt-or-die



I've made the point so many times: And I believe these articles merely emphasise it. The professional and commercial world is changing. So GET AHEAD OF THE CHANGE.. I will not repeat the statistics already tabulated in these Financial Review columns: (Paul Keating's favourite paper, and I appreciate why). The figures largely speak for themselves.

'WHAT COUNTS IS WHAT YOU DELIVER'

We are definitely upon the threshold of a global meritocracy. As the emerging middle class emerges in the BRIC countries and eventually, even, Africa, the power of place will matter less than the power of proximity to growing markets. Like him or loathe him, Rupert Murdoch made this point in his Boyer Lectures. Incidentally, it was Murdoch and Packer, the inconoclasts, who outflanked the establishment in the pursuit of profit.

Thus a venture partner from Sichuan Province raised in the turbulence of the Cultural Revolution likely does not care if you went to Monash, Melbourne or even Oxford. What counts is what value you add to his business or his brand. Of course, he may care: But China has minted countless rural billionaires who happened upon cost-effective and scalable business models emerging from the depths of poverty.

WITH GLOBALISATION'S BENEFITS, YOU TAKE THE COSTS

If Western society wishes to enlarge the global project - the converse could very well be a dangerous mistake - then the Euro-American and Australiasian economies will have to adapt to the 'externalities' of a global marketplace for talent, goods and increasingly ideas. If you are a one-trick financial modelling expert, and your job can be outsourced, most companies will trade players simply to compete. Be more than a utility player: Be a Global Star. If you can cut across disciplines and geographies, and exhibit presence of mind and cultural nous, you may go further than the most decorated, credentialled rival. At least I hope so..

Protectionism will not work. The Australian car industry, for instance, struggles with this conundrum. The industry's product is too expensive to serve the cost-value market (cf Kia) and too inexpensive to serve the luxury segment (think Mercedes or Lamborghini). Australia does not have any obvious competitive advantage in this field of endeavour. And to protect underperforming sectors will distort the economy and reduce our attractiveness to Asian investors.

A PROBLEM I NOTICED AT UNI

We do not, in the West as a whole, allow critical thinking to flourish. China, I understand, is mandating training in emotional intelligence or EI, a point Daniel Goleman makes in HBR. No longer tethered to Maoist orthodoxy or rote learning, Prof Niall Ferguson has suggested that Asian students outperform American and European classmates even in the humanities. They master both STEM and social science. We have to improve literacy and numeracy by broader, collaborative learning and cultural sensitivity. One-lecturer marking and examination templates have to go. They're nonsense.

For example, in Law School I would challenge the lecturer about his interpretation of a hypothetical problem or the application of complex legal principle to a case. 'No, that's wrong. The answer is X'. 'Oh, is that so", I would query, "then why did this commercial entity pay a team of QC's thousands per hour to argue the matter'? No response.. THIS IS PLAIN DUMB: AND THE EMERGING MARKETS WILL CALL US ON 'DUMB'. 

So whether you're a Harvard PhD or a mathematical genius from a remote Indian village, what counts is WHAT YOU DELIVER.. 

GOOD LUCK! 




Monday, 20 May 2013

I LOVE THE COMMON LAW! WHAT THE EAST CAN LEARN FROM US

In his Reith Lectures, Prof Niall Ferguson decried our growing litigious culture. Prof Ferguson referred, in particular, to Lord Goff's reasoning in Kleinwort Benson with respect to common law development through the 'interstices' of past decisions. According to Prof Ferguson, legal firms are rather incentivised to prosecute and prolong legal disputes.

In respect to legal reasoning, I agree largely with Ferguson and Lord Goff having long upheld the precept of Dixonian 'strict and complete legalism'. To be fair to the legal profession regarding interlocutory delay and expense, however, practitioners increasingly resort to international and commercial arbitration and the diverse forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution to allay and terminate legal conflict. Which is as it should be. Litigation is expensive and often onerous: cf Queensland v JL Holdings. In the UK, Lord Woolf's report on case management enunciated the Royal Courts of Justice's committment to the 'overriding objective' of dealing with cases justly. As the Courts should do. In all cases. 

At the same time, I would exalt the common law and the wonderful legacy it has bequeathed to the Anglo-American world. As the classic case of Donoghue v Stevenson demonstrated, common law courts are, overall, responsive to the claims and demands of struggling litigants. Indeed, Judge Christopher Weeramantry of Sri Lanka objected in his Law in Crisis to the unreasonable and objectionable overload in legislation and regulation thereunder. Since State of Victoria v Meakes & Dignan, at least, in Australia citizens and business have been deluged by a torrent of subordinate legislation and administrative procedure. (The Corporations Act is unecessarily complex, and recondite regulation should be culled). Balancing the scales, nevertheless, amendments to the Legal Profession Act in Australia and adjustments to the Practice Rules and Directions of our Supreme and Federal Courts have certainly redirected legal practioniers to their clients and their obligation to observe the due administration of justice.

And, in fact, the furiously growing members of APAC and China herself could well learn from the English tradition of justice. For all our economic and social travails, the Anglo-American world in its very 'pith and substance' inherits the Rule of Law. India, for all her problems, practices the common law tradition as the world's largest democracy. (A point Sir Michael Kirby has made repeatedly). As we learn from the East in Michael Dobbs-Higginson's 'Age of Disorder, therefore, China and her nanyang diaspora can equally learn from the principled application of practical justice which our courts of common law and equity truly afford.

Sunday, 19 May 2013

FILLING THE VACUUM: "STAND UP, MADAMS/SIRS" NOT DOWN

Paul Keating said, "John Howard is the Policeman at the scene of every crime". Whatever your politics, Australia does not need more policemen.

Actual policemen are critical to our democracy; the national traffic cop is not.

For years, I have worked in entry-level roles - now I see why. From a relatively privileged background, I suspected I had not seen the whole story. And I needed to know why?

Indeed I hadn't. So flunking law school meant cutting out of the privileged loop to understand our country's real malaise: a leadership vacuum..

Throughout our businesses, people struggle to manage increasing demands - from consumers, from stakeholders, from government, from their peers - without the tools to do so.

I have seen every species of dreadful management - people who can't or don't understand how to lead..

And I have seen enormous generosity and enthusiasm; and, yes, creativity.

I am not perfect: I am so terribly imperfect. But I want to learn from others. Not get angry with them. I want to watch fellow Australians succeed.

I may be green, but I want to learn to lead. Maybe, psychically, I've graduated from the entry-level stage?

PROFESSIONALISM: WHAT WILL IT MEAN IN THE LATE 21st CENTURY?

The historian and American essayist Randolph Bourne spoke about 'transnational' history, a notion replicated in Ferdinand Braudel's oeuvre: Bourne urged, 'It is for us to educate, and be educated'. As the Helleno-Medittarenean supremacy of Western rationality recedes and meets Eastern mobility, what will an expanded knowledge base mean for professional work in the West?

As a moonshot prediction, I would suggest that the professions shall decline in importance in comparison to the tidal nodes and modalities of international commerce. The biggest and most sought-after employers will belong to global business and to global civil society. (Richard Falk, an international lawyer, for instance, has explored the concept of a Post-Sovereignty world in respect to the human rights "industry").

HOW HAS THE MARKETPLACE CHANGED? POST-WESTPHALIA

As Henry Kissinger discussed in Diplomacy, the West - through the Treaty of Westphalia - settled upon the European conception of Statehood and the Balance of Power to delineate sovereign territory. (The remaining discussion is my own, not Kissinger's). States, through the profession of arms and the law, monopolised the threat of force for the preservation of their commonweal. However, the devastation of WWI and II and mass-mobilisation, militarily and economically, established a new global balance of power: the principal actors, of course, were the USSR and the United States.

Following the Cold War strategies of  'triangulation', great power containment and regional security alliances such as SEATO, the Berlin Wall - symbol of ideological separation - came down and the Soviet Union itself fell together with the Eastern bloc and non-aligned movements in Africa. Proclaiming the 'end of history' and a global 'peace dividend', post-Glasnost and Detente, the West led by America oversaw dissolution of the Warsaw Pact as NATO-led disarmament in Europe and events such as the Madrid Summit set in train the process of marketisation/liberalisation, transnational governance and the opening up of new markets in Eastern Europe and East Asia. In many ways, these were halcyon days for international lawyers who advised on cross-border merger activity and financial deregulation. 

In the wake of the GFC, the sub-prime mortgage explosion and the near-economic collapse which followed in Europe,nevertheless,  the Anglo-European economies have imposed severe austerity and reregulation whereas China has spurred export-driven growth through a managed exchange rate. Although the CCP has permitted some relaxation of the RMB/$ band and instituted limited deregulation of the banking sector, the Chinese leadership have repeatedly pledged the country to the notion of the 'Harmonious Society' and have reoriented the country toward a consumption economy. Clearly, China and neighbouring Asia have not adopted the West's Westphalian doctrine of sovereignty.

Until we have a truly representative global architecture beyond the G20, the primary links between East and West will be market-based. Since the Western world, broadly speaking, will be unable to impose its conception of the rule of law and statehood upon the East, specialised Western legal advice will not carry such prestige. The West will not be able to prevail through force of arms. And, in consequence, the most effective links between the East and the West's rival conceptions of territory will be diplomatic, cultural and economic. In an internationalised workforce, money and management  expertise will count for more than social pedigree or Western rule-based order.

Saturday, 18 May 2013

WHAT IS YOUTH WITHOUT YOUNG HOPES?

Amusing Myself : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDOuooRLvdU

Facing my wine, I did not see the dusk,
Falling blossoms have filled the folds of my clothes.
Drunk, I rise and approach the moon in the stream,
Birds are far off, people too are few.


-Li Bai 

I'm not mad; just desperate, and lonely. Chasing for years (let's call her Miss Piggy). Hoping for resolution.


WHAT AILS ME ~ Unstop the Valve () /- ~~~~ REFLECTIONS ON JOB HUNTING AND THE HUNT FOR NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE




ET IN TERRA (Non-Nullius) PAX
Let our blood flow in not out~

*No to "haters"
*Freer atmosphere
*Speed and confidence
*Empathy for others
*Colours of the rainbow )
..


It is hard to admit, but I am looking for work like so many people at the moment. And yes, I have my folks on my back. That's a good thing - I realise they're concerned. But I'm also anxious about reentering the workplace because of one trait that I have noticed and remarked upon consistently in this country, for all its advantages. The "system" is always out to constrict our intellectual blood supply.

And I wonder: Are we constrained - strangulated even - by a system which does not work the way it should. For example, Gillard proposed an expedient (to my mind) Referendum with respect to local government which will likely fail along with every other referendum in Australia's history. This government's record is hardly sterling, and the Opposition is considerably worse ~ [What a contest!]

From School to University and beyond, it felt to me like I was continually constrained: Don't go faster, tow the line... Well, folks, the line is broken and I think we need a major fix-it job to unleash the best of this country's growing and dynamic population. And, for God's sake, let people in: They reflect the very best of our continent..

Egalitarianism is noble in prospect; reduction to an astringent mean - in tutoring, in managing, in leading - on the other hand is debilitating.

I think it is no wonder that the great nations of the earth, and culturally two of the greatest - the USA and France - were conceived in Revolution. I am not suggesting treason or violent upheaval, yet I am convinced that Australia is due for quite radical, PEACEFUL change..

But theory and vituperation aside, I think we can all free ourselves up a little in our national consciousness. And live more fully ~ in public and in private.

I would love to create and toil again, and serve as well as I can: Just, Please this time, let my blood flow ....

RED, YELLOW OR GREEN _ UP, DOWN OR SIDEWAYS, ALWAYS DESIGN FOR PASSION!!




http://money.cnn.com/2006/07/10/magazines/fortune/rule5.fortune/index.htm

RINGFENCE UR STARS ~ Addendum to last post




Further to 'reverse restructuring', identify (if you haven't already) your fantastic people with performance and values and KEEP THEM, come hell or high water.

Be prepared to release someone three levels up in preference to a star player, whether she be an individual contributor, supervisor or manager. They don't come around all that often.

Once they get through, Onward and Upward!! CREDIBILITY IS FOR KEEPS

Friday, 17 May 2013

REVERSE RESTRUCTURE - WHAT DIFFERENTIATION REALLY MEANS TO ME

In a down economy, companies inevitably restructure their operations and business units. Which invariably involves personnel reassignment and laying off employees. Where does differentiation come in here?

Under Jack Welch, GE famously practiced 20/70/10. I assume the reader knows how that worked. (Google or youtube it). As Welch admitted: 'Famously known for differentiation. "Known" is a kind word!' In a restructure, I would argue this notion is crucial, whichever way you assess employees during more stable periods of growth.

However, I would propose the concept of the 'reverse restructure'. In most companies, managers and supervisors reassign and reassess or fire individual contributors. I contend that the process should obviously be backwards.

Move up the line. Why? Very often, research would suggest, it is inconsiderate or poorly performing managers and immediate supervisors who fail to inspire and motivate their reports towards objectively measurable common goals. Managers, supervisors and indeed in too many cases, executives fail, willingly or unwillingly, to communicate the business or functional strategy through to operational teams. They mismanage or inappropriately coordinate metrics, though of course this is not always the case. They neglect to speak candidly about the business climate to employees, eschewing discussion of 'what's in it for them'.

Jesus famously proclaimed, 'I am no respecter of persons'. What I consider He meant was that an ethical bond must bind all: In the circuitous discussion around organisational culture, too often, in Australia certainly, senior managers and board members leave out cultural primacy. Culture, done right, is your strongest asset. Therefore, culture must know NO BOUNDS. It must translate, in conjunction with valued behaviours, all the way up the line and to the C Suite. Positional power MUST BE EARNED.

In a merger or restructure, I would claim that 'servant leadership' necessitates employees speaking truth to power and conveying their concerns. 'Closest to the work, describing the work'. Are employees being given the material and organisational resources to succeed? Are opportunities for innovation and growth genuinely, not merely formally, available? Are superiors cultivating their reports and setting individual contributors up for lasting success?

If not, managers or supervisors should be the first to go. Not the other way around. What do you think?



LIEBE UND HASS: PARAPHRASING SIMMEL



 
I am riddled with faults: Arrogance, belligerence, confusion and dissembling. But out of these woes and my falls, mix the better elements of our nature. And, combusting with others my heart trembles as, phoenix-like, some thing ‘new’, for us, arises… 


Thursday, 16 May 2013

TO KEEP UP, U HAVE 2 BE RUNNING: The Decline of Authority?

I have been in many a workplace, and in many conversations, in which 'authority-huggers' describe how they have kept to a single path for advancement. "I've been in this role for close on 5 years; I'll be in line then for the next stage. Some people wait ten!"

DO I SIT STILL, OR START RUNNING?

Globalised competition and cultural development is scary: It's also real. The Western world is competing with the accelerating curve in globalised commerce and consumption. The East has become less integral to the factors of production. The value chain is changing. China and India, with their explosive growth rates, are better positioned to service their own populations through regional links. Post-Jim O'Neill, and possibly reverting to history's pre-European norm, a BRIC has been hurled at the status quo. And there's likely no going back...

Therefore in future - and for authority-huggers, the future is just about upon us - iron stability will be the West's exposed flank in lieu of former strength. Dogged application to transactional goal-setting, to total specialisation in a single task could well spell, in the workplace, a suicidal venture for authority-huggers.

The simple fact is the developing world no longer needs us in our former capacity. And, whether China blows up or not (in reference to Ross Garnaut, an excellent thinker), APAC and India would still take up the slack. I remain skeptical about the N-11 (look at corruption in the Phillipines) but global governance has certainly bypassed the 20 C's Trilateral power bloc of Europe, Japan and the US. Whereas the US will conceivably remain the largest economy for some time and Japan hopes for a stock-market led resurgence through quantitative easing, it does appear there is no going back..

'WIFM' DOWN-UNDER?

Without a commitment to organisational and personal growth and development, I suspect very little. Further lay offs, increased international competition etc. Jagdish Bhagwati would speak for the yes case, David Harvey for the 'no'. But such is our 'new' reality..

For the moment, recruiters, businesses, managers and politicians are holding the fort on competency-based metrical stability and poorly designed management practices. (Australia has NEVER excelled the way America has in management practice).

In soon-to-be time, however, this design will be rendered redundant, if not obsolete, through global disruption.

For those who 'look' beyond the horizon in hopes of seeing, the future is bright. Increased prosperity through exciting bye-ways.

For the rest, the authority-huggers, a dispensable past.




(Sure, the Budget was a bummer) ~ NOW LET"S CELEBRATE AUSTRALIANS AS WINNERS! *[Or spare us the stats, and reach for the stars]*




A disappointing budget. As Shane Oliver stated (pace the Liberal/Nationals), however, hardly the end of the world at 11% debt-to-GDP in global terms. No, we can't believe very much this government says, and yes, the ALP cabinet/caucus is chaotic.


SO, GET OVER IT!!!!



IT'S THE PEOPLE WHO WILL WIN

As Robert Hughes wrote in Fatal Shore, Australia was for far too long protected: from international markets, from regional developments and from historical trends. We rode the sheep's back, and we had a stable banking and preference system for our exports. We were (and are) showered in minerals and raw materiel.

Today, however, the world is all ABOUT PEOPLE. And, in recent years, our branch managers have let us down. I say managers, since many of our public intellectual and political figures appear to keep us along a flat-line, stable path. Don't rock the boat.. (Alternatively, don't allow in any boats).

Why don't we junk this impoverished dialogue and aim higher?? Let me suggest, at times, we have to question the rules instead of waiting for our national "ticket-of-leave". And there is much to push for.. We are in the fastest growing and culturally evolving region on planet earth!


TO ASPIRING LEADERS: SHUT UP ABOUT THE PERENNIAL "GROWTH STATISTICS" AND AIM FOR THE STARS****!

Indeed numbers are important. They indicate results. Now is the time, however, to look beyond numbers and "statistics, damn statistics" to the cultural and political potential of our people. Let's not be trapped by numbers. (As if we were caught, eternally, in the down-under vortex of the Caryle versus Malthus debate regarding the "dismal science").

Time to look beyond an asinine oppositionalism in Parliament and civil society which generates friction, though very little heat or light. Beyond the Unions and individual workplace agreements. Beyond the promises and broken promises. TO THE PROMISE OF AUSTRALIA'S PEOPLE.


~ THE LIGHT IS WITHIN: A CONTINENTAL EFFORT REQUIRED ~


The light on a hill will be a product of Australians' enterprise and courage, yes. But we don't have constantly to wait on the State (or states') socialism or neo-liberalism or a nominalist appeal to the 'fair go', fair as that is.

WE must generate that enterprise ourselves. Among ourselves. We must grow our own superb leaders who charge for the hill!! And thus look ahead for the dividends of peaceful opinion and thoughtful commerce. We must find and enhance the very best within us.


RIDE THE DRAGON, NOT THE SHEEP


In Daoist symbolism, the dragon represents good luck. The sheep, obviously (my apologies to sheep) the ovine herd. And the sheep and the spade have served us well. For all our geographic advantages, nevertheless, we will truly enhance and deserve our position through growing home-grown leaders. (Of course, we have many wonderful leaders already. So the task is entirely doable)..

Luck and productivity facilitate prosperity and more abundant luck. So don't luck out! Opportunity starts within your workplace, your home, your community: with a focus on outrageous challenges, camaraderie, and glorious celebrations of collective scientific, artistic, commercial as well as sporting achievement. With a focus on developing phenomenal talents and aspirations not cold-hard obedience, managerialism, skepticism in hock to skew-whiff statistics. (Of course, Treasury does a difficult job well. Just saying)


A NON-POLITICAL MESSAGE: IT'S TIME FOR OZ TO STAND UP!


Academics claim we are a middle power: for all our academics do contribute, the latter prescription is rather ungenerous and probably disingenous. It is not enough to aim low. We must not armchair philsophise and must remain aware of our (interconnected, globalised) surrounding. But Australia could aim for super-power status with great leadership. She can certainly be a super country!

Hence as Australians we should hope to create and sustain homes, businesses and institutions which are the envy of the world. Not entertain pregnant doubts or capitulate to idle excuses or meaningless mediocrity.


[RECAPITULATION, NOT CAPITULATION]

This is OUR century if we want it.. But we have to want it badly. This time is sincerely ours to win.

And occasionally, we should just tune out from the clap-trap pantomine of simulated leadership. And look ahead. Together. To the stars... As a super country


:) :) :) :) :) :) `THE CHOICE IS OURS! ` :) :) :) :) :) :)