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Sharing The Benefits

The three winners of the 2011 NZIM Foundation Awards share their experiences and thoughts of their week-long trip to Australia.

• Journey Into Management
• Leaders Creating Passion
• Respectful Inquiry

Journey Into Management

The NZIM scholarship has been immeasurable to me in the knowledge I have gained from inspirational speakers and talking to like-minded people in management who share similar challenges in their line of work. I have outlined some of the presentations from the speakers at the conference.

Key note speakers such as Dr Nordstrom (economics professor) spoke about global capitalisation, countries in the futures that will dominate world innovation and education and the future growth of populations into the cities.

Vineet Nayar (CEO HTC Technologies) talked about our children being our future and the importance of encouraging, trusting and valuing our young. He also instilled in us that management is accountable to the employee and likewise the employee is accountable to us.

Dr Lois Frankel (author and business coach) brought a new prospective on how our childhood experiences can cause derailment in our careers. Lois also talked about why successful people fail and outlinined the 8 factors she considers are the cause of this.

Inspirational speaker Jane Goodall (founder of the Goodall Foundation) and Andrew O’Keethe (Director of Hardwired Humans) discussed the similarities in behaviour between chimpanzees and the human species, explaining hierarchal behaviour with patch protection and dominance. This brought a little chuckle from some of us in the audience as we related this to past experiences!

Dave Ulrich (professor of business) and Wendy Ulrich (psychologist) gave an entertaining presentation that covered topics such as relationships between employees and the customer and productivity that not only related to work time but encompassed what is happening in the family unit and the employees social life. Wendy encouraged us to look at the value of an apology, not only at work but at home She also outlined techniques to help motivate staff and highlighted the need to develop good induction and training programs to instill expectations to staff which would lead to a reduction in misconduct.

Grevis Beard (Director of Worklogic) explained some tips on keeping misconduct to a minimum and ensuring that when an investigation is required it is done well to ensure legal requirements are upheld and the staff member’s welfare is handled appropriately.

Jonar Nader (Management Consultant and author) gave a theatrical and humorous presentation about the importance of well-constructed teams and the impact this has on improveed performance. He commented that poor team work was draining and lead to stress, which can lead to frustration, loss of job satisfaction and utimately destroys productivity.

The closing speaker was the inspirational Li Cunxin (author of Mao’s Last Dance). He spoke with passion about his life struggles in China and his rise to fame as one of the world’s greatest ballet dancers. He is now a senior manager in a large stockbroking firm in Australia.

One of the highlights of the trip was spending the day with Wilfred Jarvis, founder of the Four Quadrant leadership course. He was inspirational, answering many of the questions I had. This will definitely benefit my leadership growth and will also be beneficial for the staff I lead.

The final day I met Vittoria Sortt (Chief Executive of Retail Banking-Bankwest), Gillian Corban (Managing Director Corban & Blair) and Andrew Paykel (Chief Operating Officer International for Fisher & Paykel Appliances). These three people gave up their time to talk to us about their journey into management, answering our questions with enthusiasm and passion.

In closing I would like to thank NZIM for giving me the opportunity to attend the conference and meet Gray and Danette, who proved to be awesome company for the week.

Leaders Creating Passion

My week in Sydney resulted in a bit of an epiphany in that I discovered the answer to the age old question “What is the meaning of life”.

By reflecting on what was said by all the exceptionally empowering inspirational business leaders and social entrepreneurs that I meet during the week, it became obvious to me that the answer to the meaning of life is that life must have meaning. While family and spiritual beliefs cannot be ignored as major motivators in life, for the ambitious business leaders among us, achieving our full capacity and potential at work must also be a major motivator and this objective should be a cause of daily positivity and enthusiasm. This philosophy might sound a lot like common sense but one presenter at the AHRI convention, Dave Ulrich, Professor of Business at the University of Michigan, got the audience to put up their hands, with their fingers indicating between 1 and 10, how much satisfaction they get in life and the individual numbers where high. He then got people to indicate, using their fingers again, how much of this satisfaction was directly related to their work and the numbers were then very low.

While all the presentations at the AHRI convention were excellent and very thought provoking, one of the main highlights for me was listening to the joint presentation from Dave Ulrich and his psychologist wife Wendy Ulrich who both co-wrote the book “Why work”. They postulate that work meaning is primarily about leaders creating passion through stimulating staffs imagination. Staff should get a buzz out of what they do at work. Wendy Ulrich told the story of 3 brick layers laying bricks. The first is asked what he is doing and he says that he is just laying bricks in a straight line to make a wall. The next bricklayer is asked the same question and says that he is laying bricks in a perfectly symmetrical pattern which he is taking great pride in achieving. The third bricklayer says that he is, in fact, building a magnificent cathedral in which to honour his God. Leaders therefore need to be “meaning” makers, value creators and hope builders, fostering an organizational culture of purpose, passion and vitality. When staff relate personally to the “why” of what they do at work they can deal with any “what”. Passion and inspiration is contagious and, as such, is caught rather than taught.

Another AHRI convention presenter Dr Lois Frankel talked about the work environment being like a sports team on a playing field, each team member reliant on each other to achieve the same group goals. A leader needs to learn the rules, strategies and boundaries of their particular playing field but should always be looking to the edge of the playing field as that is where the winners are that they need to emulate.

Another significant highlight of the week was the day spent with Wilf Jarvis. Until listening to Wilf I had thought that while knowledge on leadership theory is always beneficial, human beings are such complex creatures with differing values, customs, personalities, stressors and motivators that no one system would fit every situation and that leaders must just react to each individual situation as they assess it (ie: situational leadership theory). Wilf however described his 4 Quadrant leadership theory in a succinct package that is adaptable enough to be effective in any personal and business environment. It taught me that being a bit autocratic (Quadrant 1) is OK if the staff member has low job task efficiency and the leader expresses the instructions using the empathy triangle of love, power and truth. If the staff member has perceived higher task efficiency then participative, consultative leadership is warranted as in Quadrants 2, 3 and 4. Wilf also talked about managers having “what ness” which are their qualifications and work experience, they however also need to develop their “who ness” which is all about caring for other people, showing respect and collaboration, and, as a result, empowering enthusing, encouraging and enabling.

My week in Sydney has been a truly life changing experience for me. While I learn’t a tremendous amount during the week, which I will now need to digest and implement slowly over time, what I will immediately focus on now is how I communicate my passion and positivity in my work environment, painting dramatic word pictures and a clear vision of the future which resonates to both heads and hearts. I need to be able to create relationships in a nanosecond and then maintain these relationships, not through networking, but as Jonar Nadar, one of the AHRI convention presenters called “netmarking”, a process whereby you make a mark for yourself which others can relate to. A leader needs to be an inspiring story teller, a facilitator of conversations. But as a leader I also need to be conscious of how I frame what I communicate. I am reminded of the story of the 2 priests who both could not quit smoking. One asked the Bishop whether he could smoke when he prayed and was told no. The other priest was a bit more cunning and asked the Bishop whether he could pray when he smoked and was told yes.

However the creation of meaning for others begins with creating it for yourself and therefore I also need to gain my confidence to articulate “my” meaning, to find “my” voice, to build “my” own personal brand so that I can be an outspoken advocate for the people which I represent.

For leadership is not just my job, it is not even my career….it is my calling… my path of duty.

Respectful Inquiry

What a privilege it was to be one of the three recipients of the NZIM Foundation Management Study Scholarship. The week I spent in Sydney was perhaps one of the most inspirational of my life. The scholarship provided us with a unique opportunity to further develop ourselves as leaders and managers through a range of activities designed to broaden our thinking and understanding of what it means to successfully lead groups of people. In the course of the week we attended the ARHI (Australian Human Resources Institute) Conference and Convention, spent a day with Wilf Jarvis, leadership guru and had the opportunity to meet and learn from three New Zealanders in business who generously shared their personal stories of success.

The first was Kjell Nordstrom, Stockholm School of Economics. He spoke of the changing world in which we live and work – providing the context in which we must operate as leaders and as businesses. We are operating in a world where information can no longer be controlled, where there is genuine uncertainty. In this environment you cannot plan – all you can do is experiment – and see what happens. Learn from these experiments – even failures tell us something. Collaboration is key to success. He argues that the nation state is no longer relevant – that capitalism will supersede political ethos. He argues that success in business will come about from new ideas and new innovations that create competitive advantage. Democratic societies are those that will be the most creative and innovative – countries like the US, Australia, New Zealand. Innovation comes from creative destruction – in his view this can only occur in democratic society where the norms are questioned and where there is more freedom to experiment.

Once in charge he maintained those alliances, he was a kind leader who protected the group and engaged regularly in social behaviours such as grooming. The first male ruled for only a few short years, and during that time the chimp community was in chaos – with high rates of mortality. The reign of the second was a calmer and happier time, and he was alpha for more than 10 years, eventually stepping down to allow a younger chimp to take over.

The day was not long enough – we could have spent days talking with Wilf and covering his material. He sent us all home with his Four Quadrant Leadership manual which I look forward to studying further and applying in my organisation.

I have learned a great deal during this thought provoking week, and am looking forward to continuing this journey of discovery by putting into action some of the ideas that I have been exposed to. Perhaps taking a few risks, and being prepared to make a few mistakes along the way.

I would like to thank the NZIM Foundation for this wonderful opportunity and encourage them to continue to offer this scholarship in the years to come. I would also like to thank my companions Gray and Rebecca for their company over the week, and for the insights I gained from them and their experiences as leaders.