“Find an organisation where you can spend your entire career.” Such was the advice from my father as I was thinking about my career options so many years ago. While that may have been the dominant thinking forty years ago, today’s Millennial and Gen Z workers are likely to have 10 – 15 jobs and 5 – 7 different careers over their working lives.
Making such dramatic and frequent changes required an agile mindset, and an excellent online article in UNSW’s BusinessThink journal (read it here) addresses this in an engaging way. Drawing on the experience and advice of one of their Alumni (Rob Chan), the article proposes three necessary skills:
Such skills, which are expanded on in the full article, help develop strategies that can ease the transition to each new career. But even better, they are skills than can help anyone make the most of their current role in life.
“Leaders with broad multinational experiences are better communicators and lead more effectively, particularly multinational teams.” New research referenced in a recent INSEAD Knowledge article finds that working in other countries usually results in leaders performing better overall.
I’ve been fortunate to have lived and worked in four countries, with an additional five being parts of those territories in which I worked. While it’s for others to judge whether this made me a better leader, the experience has given me a better understanding of working with people from diverse backgrounds. With the multicultural nature of Australia and New Zealand, leaders can benefit from international experience.
The research found “global teams perform better under global leaders, where overseas exposure can help them to leverage the benefits and mitigate the drawbacks of nationally diverse groups of workers.”
Of particular interest is this finding: “the breadth of multicultural experiences (the number of foreign countries in which someone has lived or worked), but not the depth (the duration of time spent abroad), predicted leadership effectiveness via communication competence.” That is, it’s how many places you’ve worked, not how long you’ve worked in those places, that adds value.
The area where leaders most benefit is communication. “Leaders with broader multicultural experiences are more likely to speak and behave in a way that a contact can understand and use language and gestures that are more appropriate to a particular situation.” What’s important seems to be an awareness of cultural differences and incorporating that awareness in how leadership is manifested.
For potential leaders, the benefits of international experience are clear: the broader the better. For organisations, look for broad international experience in leadership candidates so you have people who are better equipped to lead increasingly diverse workplaces.
Photograph: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change on Flickr.
I remember being mesmerized back in 2021 as I read the book Jack, the autobiography of Jack Welch, the then CEO of General Electric, the most valuable company in the world. I thought many of his ideas were cutting edge and revolutionary, and I wasn’t alone. His ideas of leadership and management took off and became the blueprint for CEOs, even still today in many places. Once I was excited about his ideas, now I am embarrassed and ashamed that I subscribed to this philosophy.
What changed? I just finished the 2022 book by David Gelles The Man Who Broke Capitalism, in which Gelles outlines “how Jack Welch gutted the heartland and crushed the soul of corporate America.” This is no understatement – from the opening paragraphs Gelles details the narcissistic personality of Welch and how he exploited every person, opportunity, and business for his own personal gain, irrespective of the consequences. Welch denied the implied social contract that business has an obligation to the greater economy and community, and instead clung mercilessly to the mantra that the sole purpose of business is to create wealth for shareholders.
I admit to being somewhat passionate about this topic, but this book reflects my own journey to understanding that business must consider a multitude of stakeholders rather than just shareholders. Every current or potential business leader should read this book so they can understand the consequences of unrestrained hedonistic autocratic leadership.
What I particularly like about this book is that Gelles doesn’t just present a thoroughly researched evidence-based narrative of one of the most corrosive business leaders of modern time and his ongoing legacy, but also provides a series of actions and suggestions that todays business leaders can take on board. These suggestions provide a blueprint for leaders to once again partner with society to provide a wholistic approach for businesses to create enduing value for all elements within society.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough for every current or aspiring leader to read and wrestle with.
Predicting the future is not for the faint-hearted, yet organisations need to be considering what may be ahead so they can proactively rather than reactively develop strategies. An article in the November 2022 issue of Company Director, and authored by the CSIRO, proposes seven looming megatrends for Australian business over the coming 10 to 20 years.
So what? As the article notes, these megatrends “provide a structure for conversations about the future.” These strategic conversations can then translate into “practical action that mitigate risk and harness opportunity.” It’s time to start thinking about how you will respond.
Image: rawpixel.com on Freepik.
Over the last 14 years Deloitte has published their annual Tech Trends report, which highlights what is on the technology horizon and what the implications might be for business leaders. Deloitte has been amazingly accurate over these 14 years, so I was excited to read their just released Tech Trends 2023 report (read it here).
This year Deloitte have identified six trends business leaders should be aware of and be thinking about how these will impact their business, and how they will respond. The trends are:
As a teaser for what is on the even longer term, the report offers a view as to what is in the incubator and about to impact society. Six emerging technology disciplines are identified that will rival traditional IT for impact on business innovation. These disciplines are:
What are you plans for adapting for the future?
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How is it that business (and world) leaders know all the statistics for the economy, share markets, commodities and other indicators, but can’t tell you how happy their people are? One organisation can, and that is Gallup, who measure it on a global scale.
It the just released book Blind Spot: The Global Rise of Unhappiness and How Leaders Missed it (2022, Gallup Press), author Jon Clifton (CEO of Gallup) provides telling insights from their Gallup World Poll (GWP). The GWP began in 2006 and is based on a poll of people in 140 countries, and which has now conducted over 5 million interviews. While this is global research with global implications, the book also has observations and recommendations at the organisational level.
The point of the book (in their words) “is to show where the world is suffering in each of Gallup’s’ five elements of wellbeing, and where it can improve.” The five elements are:
At the organisational level and based on the findings, the author believes that the voice of organisations stakeholders is missing from their reporting. And because of this, company leaders are not aware of their stakeholder’s decreasing wellbeing and consequently are doing little to address it. The book outlines some recommendations that leaders can apply to their workers, customers, suppliers and community. Essentially it involves developing, tracking, and responding to indicators that represent the voices of these stakeholders. Those that do this will see better company performance and results.
The book is based on incredibly robust research but presents it in very easy to read gripping forms. It is hard to put this book down once you get started. You also can’t think about the issues it raises the same way again.
Overall a very interesting and informative book that leaders would do well to read and come to grips with the issues it raises.
Woe betides any leader who thinks the pandemic is over and business as usual is returning. We will never return to pre-COVID life. Everything has changed. So, about what are CEOs thinking? We preview a collection of articles by McKinsey and Co that comes from speaking with hundreds of CEOs worldwide and identifies these six priorities.
Photograph: Edmond Dantès, Pexels
Popular among approaches to leadership today is the servant leader ideal, which is equally appealing in mainstream and Christian domains. But is it time for a rethink?
The origin stories for servant leadership are many and varied. The most common origin story in leadership literature is attributed to Robert Greenleaf and his 1977 book Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Leadership. In the opening chapter, Greenleaf explains he first encountered the servant as leader idea when reading Hermann Hesse’s Journey to the East. From this, Greenleaf developed the concept into what has become one of the most prominent leadership approaches.
But the essence of servant leadership can be found throughout history in the world’s various philosophies and religions. Plato and Cicero advocated the idea of leaders serving others. The Islam, Tao, Hindu and Buddhist religions also have the ideal of servant leadership.
Christianity lays a strong claim to servant leadership through the stories of Moses and David in the Old Testament. But it’s the story of Jesus in the New Testament Christians use as the inspiration and example for servant leadership. In particular, they cite the following passage from Matthew 20:
“Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant,
and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others” (26-27, NLT).
I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve read or heard this passage quoted as a call for Christian leaders to adopt a servant leadership style. But I want to challenge Christian leaders on this.
While a servant leadership mindset and style is certainly preferable to the traditional “command and control” style of leadership, it’s not the whole story. For whatever reason, the last verse of the passage is all too often omitted. It reads:
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others
and to give his life as a ransom for many” (28, NLT, emphasis added).
Completing that verse changes the emphasis and significantly increases the responsibilities of leaders, because no longer does Jesus call people to servant leadership but to sacrificial leadership. To follow Jesus’ example is to not just serve but to sacrifice, to lay down one’s life.
In his 2013 book Christ-centered Leadership: The Incarnational Difference, David McKenna proposes that when leaders adopt the attitude of Christ (see Philippians 2:5), a new cycle of leadership is revealed as follows:
Maybe it’s time to rethink what it means to truly be a Christian leader.
Photograph: KamranAydinov on Freepik.
Anxiety levels amongst the students in BBUS37400 Strategic Responses in Business were at all time highs for the last class of the semester, because they were about to face a room full of shareholders keen to push them for answers about their companies.
In this unit, students are allocated to groups and are given responsibility for managing a company that competes against each other and other AI teams in a computer simulated environment. Each “year” (week) they consider all aspects of the business, including production, R & D, marketing, HRM, finance and more with around 160 decision points that they input that influence the company’s performance. Financial statements and industry reports are produced for the students to see the consequences of their decisions and to prepare for the next “year”.
At the conclusion of 8 “years” Avondale student teams can compare their results not just with each other, but with every other team across the world who has been doing the simulation at the same time, but within their own institution. This year at the conclusion of the simulation there were 91 teams across the world, and our two Avondale teams did very well. We are proud of them for both performing very well. One team in particular achieved in the top 12 for six of the seven performance measures and were ranked 4th in the world for two of these. This is a very significant achievement, and we are very proud of our students.
This unit is the culmination of the Avondale Bachelor of Business degree that all final year students are required to do in order to graduate. The unit also encompasses a course in corporate governance, which includes each team conducting in the last class of the semester an annual general meeting (AGM) of their shareholders (comprised of Avondale University Staff and fellow BBus students invited to act as such) in which they report on their company performance. Team members act as directors of their respective companies and “face the music”. In this, they learn the importance of being able to conduct effective meetings, how to present and communicate effectively, and how to think on their feet in response to questioning from the shareholders.
Throughout the unit the students gain valuable practical experiences that give them practical business skills in readiness for launching into their careers. This unit, like so many other others, and indeed the entire teaching approach of the Avondale Business School team is to ensure our graduates are “job-ready”, equipped for the business journey ahead.
People who know me well know I love meetings—at least those that are run well.
My career led me to a role that required me to sit on a lot of committees—served as secretary or chair for about half of them. Because of the amount of time these meetings would take, I wanted to find ways to run them more effectively and efficiently. And this saved me and others a lot of time (a precious commodity).
I have a lot of resources on effective meetings, and I’m always looking for more. One I’ve found is part of the Nano Tools for Leaders by Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania. This particular nano tool is called The 25-Minute Meeting and it’s a great guide on how to reduce the typically hour-long meeting to just 25 minutes. The tool is honest enough to note it applies best to meetings of no more than five people, but any saving is a good one.
The 25-Minute Meeting provides three major action steps: set up; show up, and; speak up. It provides a description and simple-to-follow actions points for each step. A short case study shows how one leader makes use of it.
But there’s one issue with the tool: it relies on you being prepared to change a lifetime of habits and persist during the transition while others in your team adopt it. In my experience, few people have the will to make such changes, even though they can halve the time they spend in meetings.
Are you up for the challenge?
Photograph: Fauxels from Pexels.
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