You don’t have to be a CEO to be a visionary leader! Authors Ron Ashkenas and Brook Manville, through their HBR article of the same name (read it here), provide some very practical tips for people aspiring to be at the vision-casting table in their organisation.
The three opportunities that you need to grasp, no matter where you are in the organisational structure, are:
The article explains these in much better detail with great case studies, so this summary barely does it justice. However, it does conclude with a few tips for getting involved in the three opportunities listed above:
Visioning requires practice, so take the chance, at any level, to practice and learn.
Avondale Business School (ABS) can help you develop your vision, to find out how, contact Dr Warrick Long at [email protected]
Effective teams outperform talented individuals nearly every time. There is power in teams, and not just the obvious teams. A recent article by Marcus Buckingham and Ashely Goodall called ‘The Power of Hidden Teams’ (read it here) uses research to show the value of using the team networks that are both on the organisation chart, or form spontaneously.
In their research, the authors tapped into the impact engaged employees make in the workplace, and discovered that what actually drives employee engagement is their experience on teams. In fact, those that did most of their work on teams, were twice as likely to be fully engaged than those who did their work alone, meaning that the quality of an employee’s team experience is the quality of their work experience. The full article is an important read for leaders, but we have summarized some of the ky points below.
The factors that are present in the best teams, as identified in the article, are as follows:
Taking these factors on board will provide workers with the best opportunities to feel valued as part of a team, which flows into being more engaged in their work, which results in a win for everyone. How are your tams managed?
Avondale Business School (ABS) can help you develop your teams, to find out how, contact Dr Warrick Long at [email protected]
Feelings about paternity are changing, but attitudes towards work aren’t, according to recent research. A global coaching consultancy, Talking Talent, found that 75% of working dads of this generation want more involvement in their children’s care and upbringing, and 58% of working dads often feel guilty that they don’t spend enough time with their children and want to spend more.
But they aren’t taking more time off work to do it. The Federal Government’s Australian Institute of Family Studies’ report, Fathers and Work, stated, “In Australia, fathers may request to work part-time hours, as a flexible work option, to assist in the care of children. However, they rarely do.” Interestingly, the data notes that since 1991, the employment for men with children has remained essentially steady. It appears that when a child enters the home, men continue to work the same hours and women work less in order to spend around 75-80 hours a week on parenting and household work. The report is proof that a culture that many treat as dying – women as homemakers and men as breadwinners – remains a reflection of modern life. The study suggests it takes a full 12 years after women have their first child for their employment hours to get to pre-child days.
If men really want to take on more of a share of childcare responsibilities, it may be that everybody takes more time off work (and society reflects on how we think about work), or maybe that men spend less time on their careers so women can spend more. But it’s clear that something has to give. So, what gives?
Dr Peter Williams, Senior Lecturer, Avondale Business School.
Professional development can sometimes be an onerous task for employees, but the benefits are that employees are kept up to date with industry changes and trends. Professional development is also a great way in which employees can network with others in the industry and keep up to date with relevant legislative changes. The ABS recently sent two staff members to attend the SDA Schools NSW Training day, held at the Avondale Colleges Clinical Education Centre at Wahroonga.
This training was specifically tailored for Accountants, and was run by Grant Thornton. The day started off with an Accounting and Regulatory Update, and before you fall off your chair in boredom, the update was really important to people in the industry, making sure they are compliant with Accounting standards and the laws that surround their industry. This was followed by “Trends in Fraud, Whistleblowing Regulation and Cybersecurity” a really interesting look into some current cases of fraud, mainly due to human error. The day finished with some insights into Social Impact Reporting. For ABS staff, these updates will be taken back into the classroom for discussion with our students, making sure they are also updated also.
Networking on the day however was important for ABS as it allows us to interact with other employees from other conferences and other divisions. At this professional development day we interacted with people from schools, the health care sector and we even took this opportunity to survey staff on what they see are important graduate attributes.
As both ABS staff members are members of CPA Australia, it is compulsory for our staff to keep up to date with changes so we can implement them into the class room. So instead of your eyes rolling in the back of the head saying here we go again, when it comes to professional development, think again. This should be seen as an opportunity to connect with others in your industry, or get to know people outside of your immediate work area (collaboration), it also create awareness of the current issues in place in your industry and finally it creates curiosity – to foster creativity and new ways of thinking. So target your professional development for your staff to enable them to continue to learn and update themselves and to be more productive in the workplace.
Remember that the Avondale Business School (ABS) can provide you and your team with professional development, tailored for your needs. To find out more, contact Dr Warrick Long at [email protected].
In the last month, Avondale Business School lecturer Dr Peter Williams, as part of a research project exploring employee views of school leadership and leadership development, has visited 7 North New South Wales (NNSW) Conference Adventist Schools, . The research project is a Conference specific study exploring school leadership perceptions, aspirations, and leadership development. Peter hopes to complete the data analysis for this research over the next three months and provide the NNSW Adventist Schools company with details of the findings and recommendations for policy development and implementation. Travelling almost 2000kms and covering a geographic area from Erina on the Central Coast to Murwillumbah on the Far North Coast, Peter has completed interviews in each school with NNSW Adventist School employees capturing the views of early and experienced career teachers and administrators, from both primary and secondary levels.
So here are some things that reflect the unprecedented degrees of uncertainty, ambiguity and change that organisations and leaders now operate within include: Changing shifts in world economic power bases, global markets without borders, generations working side by side and technology opening doors to big data possibilities.
The leader who can manage within this context will have a distinct competitive advantage, but will require capabilities that can accommodate and adapt to the complexity. A recent article by Harvard Business Publishing (download it here) draws on data they have collected to identify the eight particularly important capabilities need to be successful in the new complexity of business. A summary of these appears below, however reading the full article will provide a much deeper understanding of what is required.
You may already have some of these capabilities, or be on your way to developing them. Either way, to survive in the ever-changing business context it is important to start. The Avondale Business School (ABS) can help you with your leadership development. To find out how, contact Dr Warrick Long via [email protected]
When the leaders in your workplace send invitations to the annual strategic planning session, do you break out the Post-it Notes in anticipation or half-heartedly hide negative body language in resignation?
In the past, strategic planning looked a lot like the old whiteboard filled with ideas for growth or innovation and felt a lot like, “Where did those two days go and why did I eat so much food?”. These days, good leaders use strategic planning to reflect on what the organisation achieved, what it didn’t, what we as employees can learn, and where the organisation goes from here.
As Treasurer and Vice-Chair of Coastlink, a provider of disability services and aged care on the New South Wales Central Coast, I recently attended our annual two-day strategic planning session. But for the first time in a few years, I actually came away refreshed, enthusiastic and . . . optimistic.
Being a not-for-profit, Coastlink has seen many changes in the disability sector, particularly with the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We’ve moved from receiving block funding to marketing ourselves to clients and providing fees for service. The challenges are not only dealing with the government but adapting with ever-shrinking budgets to the ever-growing needs of our clients.
The objective, then, at our strategic planning session was to review the year that was then review our chief executive officer’s research about how the future might look—this can be a challenge in the sector, particularly with the Royal Commissions into Aged Care Quality and Safety and Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability. So, what made this strategic planning session different? In a word: honesty.
We’d spent the previous six months working on a merger with a similar not-for-profit entity that provided transport for aged care and clients with a disability. But like a recent study from global audit, tax and advisory service KPMG shows, 83 per cent of mergers fail. We fell headfirst into that category, even though we followed all the right steps in the right order.
The honest conversations about the failure included reflections on the performance of each board member. You couldn’t ask for better professional development. It made a profound impact on the board members, the chief executive officer and the senior staff members. We all learnt invaluable lessons. These informed our thinking about what we would do differently in the future—we threw the whiteboard away and used only the research for ideas for growth or innovation. The result: a strategic plan with a clearer focus on where we see the future of the organisation, how we can better meet its needs, and what skill sets we need on its board.
Now the fun part begins: the implementation of the plan.
Here are five things you can learn from Associate Professor Lisa Barnes’ Coastlink experience.
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We use communication all the time in a business context and are frequently reminded of its importance to organisational and personal success. Casting a vision for the organisation – communication, need to manage someone’s performance – communication, developing someone’s skills – communication. Okay, point taken, so we go ahead and ‘communicate’ the message by sending out a vision statement, holding a performance meeting or running a training seminar. Job done, right? Wrong. Communicating a message once is not enough to effect the change you seek, but why?
Considering we tend to only remember approximately 10% of what we read and 20% of what we hear[1], it is no surprise that a message needs to be communicated more than once to be effective. The only way our messages can actually be retained and start effecting change is if they are communicated again, again and again. According to the rule of three, a person only really hears something if it’s been said three times[2]. A mentor of mine once explained it to me by saying “first you tell them what you’re going to tell them, then you tell them, and then you tell them what you told them.”
Improving skills requires even more repetition, as a person needs to practice that skill seven times in order to master it. This being the case, one cannot expect employees to become proficient in skills they have recently been trained in unless they are provided with opportunities to practice those skills.
So while communication is important, what’s more important is the ongoing repetition of that communication. If you don’t keep communicating it, your message will simply get lost in amongst the white noise and nothing will ‘catch-on’ or improve. So say it, say it again, and then say it some more!
Guest Writer: Jolisa Rabo, HR Officer, Avondale College of Higher Education
[1] Rigg, cited in Kroehnert, G (1990) Basic Training for Trainers. McGraw-Hill, Sydney, p. 151.
[2] Berman, cited in Westover, J. (2009). Lifelong Learning: Effective Adult Learning Strategies and Implementation for Working Professionals. The International Journal of Learning, 16(1), 435-443.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is growing in use and importance. It is now widespread in the financial services, life sciences and healthcare, retail and media industries. But are there any ethical issues associated with AI? And if so, who is responsible for managing them? These issues were recently discussed in an excellent paper by Deloitte Insights called ‘Can AI be ethical? Why enterprises shouldn’t wait for AI regulation’ (read it here).
Uses for AI include automated weapons, social media interactions, credit and hiring decisions, facial recognition, and automated learning. You might be surprised how much you are already interacting with AI without realising it, including how much your organisation is making use of AI.
The article provides a good balance between the advantages of AI with the potential risks associated with the ethical judgements built into the AI infrastructure. Some of these risks are identified as the following:
As noted in the article, “technological progress tends to outpace regulatory changes, and this is certainly true in the field of AI”. So what can organisations do to protect their stakeholders and reputations while fulfilling their ethical commitments? The article proposes the following, which are summarised here, but well worth the time to read them in full:
AI is advancing across enterprises, and it behoves all leaders to ensure their ethical frameworks are keeping pace. The Avondale Business School (ABS) is available to work with you on this or any other aspect of your business. For more details contact Dr Warrick Long at [email protected].
The ABS team were at the SDA Business Professionals Conference 2019 at the Gold Coast, held June 4-6 2019. The ABS team of David Wilson, Peter Williams and Warrick Long hosted an information table promoting ABS courses and providing information about ABS and Avondale College. ABS were also asked to present three programs on Leadership, Effective Meetings, and Ethics in Business. It was a rewarding time for all present, and a privilege to be asked to be part of such an professionally run program. Well done to the organizers and the ABS Team.
