Are you ready to lead overseas?

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Kets de Vries, Manfred. ‘Are You Ready To Lead Overseas?’. Acuity 2.4 (2015): 58-59. Print.

Working in a foreign country can be a great experience.
It can also be the biggest mistake of your life.

THE STRESS OF living in an alien environment can shatter the most stable of relationships and leave you wondering just where your career is heading. Are you ready for the change?

Just because you’ve travelled a lot doesn’t make you immune to culture shock.

It didn’t take Antonio long to realise his family’s relocation to Brazil was going to be more complex than expected. When his wife, Marion had been appointed head of sales for Latin America they presented the idea to their children as an adventure, one they were all excited to embark upon.

Antonio had imagined that living in a completely different place would give him the inspiration to work on a novel. The reality was very different and the whole family was having a hard time adapting to the new life.

Although they overcame the language barrier remarkably fast, it hadn’t been easy for the children to adjust to a new school. For Antonio getting everything in the new house working was frustrating. Workmen promised to come for repairs, but failed to turn up and his writing project was not going anywhere; there were just too many things to be taken care of.

While Marion was on a fast track with her job and very excited doing what she was doing, there were times when she wondered, what was ahead once she completed her present assignment?

She also felt disconnected from what was happening at the home office. She spent long hours at work and often came home totally exhausted, making a half-hearted effort to read a story to the children before becoming absorbed by email and falling asleep.

What had once been a relationship of intimacy and care had changed into one of irritation and distance. If things continue the way they were going, they could end up each going separate ways.

With stories like Antonio and Marion’s being typical of a significant number of expatriate experiences, it’s not surprising the range of failed expat assignments fluctuates between 10% and 50% depending on the country – with executives transferred to an emerging economy facing a higher risk of failure than those sent to a developed one.

The inability to adapt to the new culture, to cope with the associated challenges of doing things differently and having to deal with limited spousal employment opportunities have all been cited as significant factors to failed expatriate assignments.

Hard skills don’t guarantee success

Despite studies linking the success of international assignments to the expatriate’s spousal or family relationships, very few companies assess marital and family motivation and psychological preparedness when making overseas appointments.

Often the primary criterion for choosing an executive to work abroad is technical competence. If an executive has done a good job, the assumption is that he or she will be able to do an equally stellar job in another country.

After all, an executive is supposed to be someone who has the competence and confidence to sort out any problems that come his or her way – if something goes wrong, he or she should be able to fix it.

While technical skills are necessary, they are not sufficient. Certain interpersonal qualities and attitudes are also needed to make an assignment in another culture a success.

Cultural adaptability is a major factor. Executives who are culturally adaptable usually hold the belief that every culture has developed its own way of managing and one’s (culturally- determined) way is not necessarily superior. They are usually seen as being open-minded, self-confident, curious, able to relate to people and deal with ambiguity.

I’ve also found the greater consideration paid to a candidate’s emotional intelligence, during the selection process, the higher the success rate in the assignment. Unfortunately, criteria for selection are all too frequently developed in a vacuum and the advice of the host- country nationals – the people who are to work with the expatriate manager – is rarely sought.

As in the case of Antonio, another extremely important element of an expatriate executive’s success is the experience of spouse and children. The most frequent reason for an executive’s failure to complete an assignment in another country is the negative reaction of the spouse.

Despite this, very few companies interview spouses during the selection procedure, and a far smaller percentage include spouses in training programmes.

In psychological terms, I’ve noted that successful expats often possess a personality that combines slightly paradoxical characteristics. On themselves in a chameleon-like way, to pick up signals from the external world and mould themselves and their behaviour accordingly.

On the other hand, they possess a set of resilient core values that guide them and provide support in whatever environment they find themselves.

“Going native” is not the answer, but neither is staying aloof from the host culture. A middle position must be found.

Companies can proactively prepare their executives for international assignments in a number of ways. International executive development courses develop cultural awareness and adaptability.

On-the-job training offers education of another sort, and is no less vital. Exposure early in one’s career to international leadership experiences, including working in international teams, is important. These experiences hone a person’s capacity to cope with difficult leadership challenges later in the career cycle.

Cross-cultural coaching

The question can be asked whether the senior executives in Marion’s Brazil. Whether they had paid enough attention to the “softer”, not just technical, considerations concerning the move.

It would have been useful if – from day one of the expat assignment – an executive coach had been available to both Marion and Antonio to ensure their success in their personal and professional lives.

Global companies need to ensure that cross-cultural coaching is available in every international posting. Enlisting such people can powerfully and effectively assist expatriates and their families in dealing with the many challenges that emerge during the course of an expatriate assignment. Making this part of an expat package will be a win-win proposition for all the parties involved

 

Good Governance

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Johnson, Alexandra. ‘Good Governance’. Acuity 2.4 (2015): 62-65. Print.

Experienced director and board chair Paulo Dwyer on good governance, good governments, and taking a gamble.

MELBOURNE-BASED Paula Dwyer FCA is a seasoned director and board chair, but she didn’t set out in her career to deliberately become so.

Now chairman of Tabcorp Holdings Limited and Healthscope Limited, and director of the ANZ Banking Group and Lion Pty Limited, she began working as a chartered accountant at PwC in the mid-1980s. She then went into corporate finance at Ord Minnett, then took up lead financial advisory roles with the Victorian Government, before moving into funds management and investment in Australian equities.

It was not till 2000 that Dwyer began her career as a non­executive director, building a portfolio of directorships in the government and not-for-profit sectors. In 2002 she joined the board of Promina Group Ltd. And by 2015, The Australian newspaper had named her in the top 20 most powerful women in Australian business.

Many factors come into play in terms of being an effective director. Background, skills and experience are important elements, but so too are key attributes such as diplomacy and the ability to work in a team. And a background in chartered accountancy gives you a solid grounding, she says.

Good leadership

While she did not have a specific mentor per se, Dwyer says she has sought advice from wise people over the course of her career. She is a keen observer of people and reads widely to inform her views about how corporations are run. But leadership doesn’t come from expertise and having a background in accountancy doesn’t mean you have the last say in financial matters on a board, she says.

Taking a gamble

Dwyer says some people have challenged her about being chairman of a gambling organisation. When she joined Tabcorp’s board the chairman at the time persuaded her by pointing out that governments are very heavily reliant on the revenue of gambling companies, and that gambling products can have profoundly negative impacts on communities if they are not delivered responsibly.

Good government?

Dwyer also enjoys being involved in the wider community debate. She is frustrated with the political landscape in Australia, which she believes is preventing the policy reforms that business needs. She says a prosperous economy leads to the material wellbeing of the community and everyone is struggling to reconcile community expectations around responsibility and regulatory oversight while generating good economic returns.

Being responsible

At board level, there is an increased expectation of accountability and transparency. Dwyer says that people take the responsibilities of directorship very seriously. The days of the imperial chief executive, when the board just rubberstamps management’s initiatives, are over. She says the role of a director is becoming more iterative and the interaction with management more frequent.

More diversity needed

Dwyer believes that more women need to be more involved in deciding where capital is invested in communities.

People from different backgrounds bring their perspectives and ideas and, although working together might not always be comfortable, this leads to better outcomes than come from a homogenous group making a decision.

While there is an increased focus on enabling women to achieve senior leadership positions, now we need results in terms of more women being appointed, she believes.

Profiting from Happiness

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Blayney, M. (2015). Profiting from Happiness. In The Black, March 2015.

A smile can go a long way in a healthy workplace. A recent study from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business discovered that happy employees work harder than unhappy ones, call in sick less frequently, go the extra mile when performing a task, stick at a job and attract like-minded people to their cause. The report, conducted over seven years, concluded that these productive staff members share two character traits: a sense of vitality and a willingness to learn.

As economies contract and margins continue to be squeezed, the emerging discipline of positive psychology is changing the way we work. Organisations the world over are beginning to take workplace happiness seriously. Clinical psychologist Dr Timothy Sharp is so serious about it that he answers to the name Dr Happy when he’s not at home. And maybe when he is. As “Chief Happiness Officer” at Sydney’s The Happiness Institute, Sharp is a little bullish about putting smiles on dials.

Take the example of the Parnassus Workplace Fund, an American mutual fund that invests exclusively in large firms with outstanding workplaces. The idea grew wings in 2005 after a fruitful investment return analysis was performed on Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies To Work For” list, Since the fund’s inception, it has delivered annual returns of almost 10 per cent, nearly double the S&P 500 Index average same period.

Those sorts of numbers fuel Andrew Bayly, a positive psychology consultant who has run repeat programs in the strategy implementation, leadership development and engagement areas at seven of the ASX’s Top 20 firms. He believes the potential benefits of a happy workplace justify any initial or ongoing outlay. “A happy state will lead to creativity and you’ll be able to connect with others more easily, quickly and productively. There is sound evidence that links happy and optimistic states of mind with more productive lives,” says Bayly, who recently graduated with a Master of Applied Positive Psychology from University of Melbourne’s newly formed Centre for Positive Psychology.

So in practical terms, how can we keep employees happy? Is it as simple as assembling a ping-pong table and firing up the PlayStation? “We definitely need more than gimmicks, but it’s amazing how many organisations believe such an overly simple approach will work. Fun and play are important, but so too are finding ways to give employees meaning and purpose in their work,” insists Sharp. Leadership is crucial. Workplace psychologists often say people don’t quit their jobs, they quit their managers, and finding leaders who manage positively is fundamentally important to productivity.

In many workplaces, inclusion is key, but beyond that, expressing gratitude to employees should be a conscious and regular occurrence. “Being grateful when things are going well and disciplining yourself to do that works for some people,” Bayly says. “The act of being thankful to people when needed builds relationshi­ps and these things make us feel good.” “The best organisations focus more on the strengths of people than on their weaknesses,” Sharp adds.

More than anything, we are happy when we are making progress and doing meaningful work. We want to be challenged, recognised and rewarded accordingly and, importantly, we can all play a part in making our workplaces happier.

 

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned from working with many teams and organisations, it’s that the most effective interventions target the organisation from as many directions as possible,” Sharp says. “This means that yes, leaders need to lead, but also that every single employee has a role to play and should be encouraged to get actively involved in generating positivity.”

Changing change management

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Gettler, Leon. ‘Changing Change Management’. Acuity 2.3 (2015): 48.

Five tips from management guru Tom Peters on how to make change management programmes work by Leon Gettler

TOM PETERS , one of the world’s most influential management thinkers, burst on to the scene 33 years ago with the publication of In Search of Excellence, an analysis of what sets successful companies apart.

He wrote this business book with fellow McKinsey consultant Bob Waterman and it became the model for other business writers. Originally it was self-published. More than 25,000 copies were sold directly to consumers until Warner bought it and sold 10 million more.

The book launched Peters on the path to becoming a global, jet-setting guru. The man The Economist called the “uber-guru” took to the world’s lecture circuits, his manic rants flowing through rooms like a river of electricity as he urged businesses to annihilate hierarchy and bureaucracy, to blow up organisations and drive innovation, to foster uniqueness and celebrate chaos.

Peters was one of the first to take to the blogosphere, in 1999. His Twitter output is prolific, added to his relentless calendar of speeches and client engagements, At 72, he shows no sign of slowing down.

Peters is scathing about the 70% failure rate of change management programmes. As he says, permanence is the last refuge of those with shrivelled imaginations so change has to be brilliantly managed.

He has five tips to make change management programmes work.

  1. “You have to want the change to occur so much, and excuse my American vernacular, that you are willing to take almost an infinite amount of shit along the way because change programmes, if they are significant, are rocky.The notion of a CEO or a person running a 500-person division ordering a change process, getting someone to develop a new system, implementing the system and have all go well with great profitability, the odds of that are as close to zero as can possibly be.”
  2. “Idiots fight enemies, geniuses build alliances. People running change programmes including CEOs need to spend 90% of their time with allies and 10% of their time with enemies. You don’t convert enemies with a radical change programme until you’ve got a lot of evidence underway, so ‘ally developing’ is the key period. You have to recruit them, you have to spend an incredible amount of time with them, you have to respect their input to the point that the change you’re trying to process might not look like what you began with, but it’s all about allies.”
  3. “Don’t let them nail you for the little crap. Save your energy for the important stuff and don’t allow yourself to be written off for silly trivial reasons.”
  4. “Start prototypes as fast as you can. The programme you implement will only vaguely look like the one you propose. You’ve got to learn stuff fast along the way. Forget planning and start acting. Just keep accumulating the wins and the losses. If you’re in a staff job like CIO or CFO, let the line people do the selling, not you. The guy you want in front of the chief executive officer, you want the guy who runs the distribution centre who has implemented your program and done a fantastic job with it. The more you stand on the back row and the more they get the full credit, the faster the changes will occur.”
  5. “It all gets back to tenacity. There are resilient people in the world and there are those who aren’t so resilient. Churchill did once say the ability to succeed is the ability to go from screw up to screw up without loss of nerve. Churchill had 60 years of problems and four good years. We remember him for four good years, as we should.”

WORLD BUSINESS FORUM

Tom Peters is speaking at the World Business Forum, sponsored by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, in Sydney 27-28 May 2015. wbfsydney.com

LEON GETTLER is an independent journalist, author and public speaker.

A general thinker’s tips for entrepreneurs

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Giuffre, Remo. ‘A General Thinker’s Trips For Entrepreneurs’. Acuity 2.3 (2015): 40. Print.

THERE ARE GOOD, bad and ugly things about being an entrepreneur. It’s a sporadically very rewarding but often very hard life.

Financial security is rarely a feature. Superannuation? What’s that?

If, as an entrepreneur, you could choose another life, maybe you would. But generally the fact of the matter is you have no choice. It’s in the blood.

If that’s you, then here are my top eight tips for entrepreneurs.

  • Passion

Consider three factors. There’s what you love to do. There’s what you’re objectively good at. And finally, there’s what will enable you to earn enough money to live.

If you’re not already in the place of equilibrium where those three factors intersect, then you should be heading there with all due haste. But, start with passion. Love what you do. Life is too short to spend time doing work that doesn’t bring joy to yourself and others.

  • Vision

Clarity of vision is critical. If you don’t know what it’s all about, your employees and customers have no hope.

It’s always better when people understand why they are doing what they are doing, and ideally why those reasons are worthwhile. Being able to give people context and a shared sense of purpose is an important part of being an effective leader.

  • Travel hopefully

Be optimistic. Hope is paramount.

To quote Robert Louis Stevenson: “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.” A feeling of optimism about the future delivers a high quality of life in the present. The outcomes of your endeavours are actually irrelevant to the quality of the life you live in the present.

  • Instinct and cool

Some things are really quite wonderful, but you can’t always know why.

Listen to your inner voices. Hone and trust your own instincts. Quiet confidence is cool.

  • Creativity

Find your own path. Create your own world and value. Celebrate your differences.

Also, be mindful of the value of systems for the creative process.

Having a system in place enhances your capacity to be creative.

It’s like knowing that the bars of the jungle gym are solid and sturdy. When that’s the case you will feel able to swing more confidently and higher.

  • Networks

The golden thread connecting my . projects over many years has been the design, development and nurturing of passionate and engaged customer or member networks. A networked structure really is a better mousetrap for any customer-facing business.

Not B2C. B=C. THEM=US. The community is the brand.

That way, your customer network becomes both your development and marketing engines for the new business.

  • Do good work

Good work is its own reward. The best marketing is a delighted customer.

So, focus on developing the best possible product or experience that you possibly can. Give it 100%.

  • Persistence

The critical ingredient for all entrepreneurs is persistence. Seek and ye shall eventually find. You win some. You lose some.

Rejection is actually the norm. The important thing is to keep trying. Don’t be defeated by rejection. Vision + Hope + Persistence = Success.

Future Tech

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Adam Ferguson. (2015). Future Tech. Acuity. 2 (1), p36-p38.

THE RAPID GROWTH

of cloud services and products and the adoption of the technology among the small business community has created a raft of benefits for industry and the economy.

In the first quarter of this year, just under a third of SMEs in Australia and New Zealand reported using cloud products and services in the MYOB Business Monitor Digital Nation report. According to the report, businesses that are using the latest technology tend to be earning more, as well as enjoying more sales and a greater level client engagement.

But, as with any new technology, it pays to be aware of any potential downsides for business clients – especially where their most valuable data is concerned.

Data security and the cloud

Data security is one of the most common concerns for SMEs considering a move to the cloud. For businesses, the loss of data can be disastrous, especially if it includes tax records or sensitive client information. For many business owners, keeping data in-house just feels safer. They take comfort in knowing information is stored on a server on the premises. However, in truth, keeping your data in a cloud server with a reputable and reliable vendor is, most often, far more secure than storing it on an internal system. Cloud storage means data can be backed up across multiple, world-class data centres, with an array of fail safes and backups in place.

The security systems offered by reputable providers are also far more comprehensive than most businesses can afford. In addition, they are constantly monitored and updated – not just when there is a reported issue, but as part of a constant improvement cycle.

In saying this, it is important to be aware that standards in the field are not always consistent. A good example of this in the online accounting field is the practice of screen scraping to collect bank data. Employed by some providers, this practice can put both the security and accuracy of clients’ data at risk.

Screen scraping is collecting screen data from one application and translating it to another. It is useful for capturing data from older applications so it can be displayed using more modern interfaces.

In MYOB’s experience, the bank feeds feature is one of the most popular on the cloud platform. It allows bank transactions to be automatically imported and matched to the correct accounts in the business’ accounting software. This process saves the accountant, bookkeeper and/or business owner many hours of tedious data entry and significantly reduces errors through incorrect coding or recording of figures.

MYOB recommends the bank- authorised data collection system provided by BankLink, which provides secure bank transaction data via direct feeds from financial institutions, without the need for a client to share bank login details.

The data is supplied in a “read only” format, ensuring it cannot be changed and the owner retains full control of it. The entire process complies with the stringent Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard for the safe handling of transaction data and meets the requirements of more than 100 financial institutions.

Who owns your info? Data sovereignly and the cloud

Another key concern for clients, particularly if they want to take advantage of services that offer a better price or range of features, is the control they maintain over their data.

The concept of data sovereignty is one that has become more widely discussed with the growth of the cloud and internet-based services in general. This covers three broad areas:

  • who has access to data?
  • who controls the data?
  • how will that data be made available if the client wants to switch providers?

Although control of access is an important issue, it’s what happens when a business leaves a cloud service that makes questions of data sovereignty so relevant. Before a business signs up to any cloud provider, it’s important they have a clear picture of the form in which their data will be returned, and how long it will take to get it all back. In particular, businesses or their advisers need to find out if they will get their data back in a useable form – one that will allow them to continue to work offline – or if they will just be given a report on their data. This is, of course, a real concern not only because of the impact it can have on the day-to-day running of a business, but also in terms of any government regulations around record keeping.

One or many – who is responsible?

One of the areas that can make understanding both security and sovereignty issues more complex is where a provider bases its service on multiple add-on solutions. When using these services, rather than a single provider, businesses need to be aware of the standards and practices of every provider. For example, if one of them stops trading, who is responsible for managing any disruption, retrieving data and providing any required support?

Ultimately, the onus of managing these relationship is likely to fall on the businesses themselves, making it very important they understand the implications of using a range of providers, and ensuring they have adequate backup in place to cover any eventuality.

Evaluating a cloud provider

High standards of security and access should be a given for leaders in the technology industry. For businesses to evaluate their chosen provider, however there are a range of other elements to consider that will provide a more comprehensive picture of the provider they are choosing to handle their vital business data.

  • Reputation: This is likely to be the first thing that most businesses consider, but it is important to get an objective view on the provider that can meet a business’ evolving needs over the long term
  • Cost: When evaluating cost, it is important to consider whether a business is getting everything it needs for the advertised price, or whether add-on solutions will be required, increasing the overall cost of choosing a particular provider.
  • Transparency: When it comes to protecting and managing data, nothing is worse than a surprise. So it’s important businesses choose a cloud vendor who is as transparent as possible, especially about the terms of any service level agreement, or about important metrics like availability, frequency of outages and exit terms.
  • Backups: Businesses should also be clear on their process for creating backups if data is lost. Is this something that is provided automatically or do they need to do it themselves?
  • Availability: This is an important metric as it measures how often the cloud solution that businesses will be using is available. No system is perfect, but a really good provider should be able to guarantee 99% availability.
  • Support: When something goes wrong, most businesses want to know that their cloud provider is going to provide them with the support they need. It’s particularly worth considering the benefits of a provider that offers real time phone support over those that offer email support, or live chat.

A Cut Above

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Andy Mclean. (2015). A Cut Above, Acuity. 1 (4), p50.

If your business stakes its reputation on delivering high-quality services or products, then it’s essential you have the capability to execute-especially when the clock is tacking and deadlines loom.

Andy Mclean writes, there are a number of lessons that leaders can apply to any business aiming to deliver premium quality.

  1. Lead by example

Whatever size your business is, there’s no substitute for getting among your people and customers. If you lose touch with the way people experience your business, you will make poor leadership decisions

  1. Never, ever accept second best

If your business trades on being premium, you cannot afford to compromise on quality at any stage. Get your suppliers and your staff into a mindset that only the best will do.

  1. Leak from the outside in

“Innovation stems from looking at the business from the customer’s perspective.

  1. Collaboration creates dedication

Giving your staff input keeps them interested and gives them a stake in what you are doing. It also means the business never stands still, it’s evolving. And it encourages a culture of problem solving too. So get everyone’s ideas on the table.

  1. Listen to loyal customers

“Whatever industry you work in, repeat business is golden. Marketers always say that it’s easier to retain customers than to attract new ones. So if you have loyal customers, take the time to find out why they keep coming back to you. Their insights will help you hold onto them, and help you find ways to develop similar loyalty from other customers.

 

For more details on this article, please see acuitymag.com

7 Business Habits That Drive High Performance

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Nicholas S Barnett. (2015). Seven Business Habits That Drive High Performance. Acuity. 2 (1), p46-p47.

Why do some professional service firms continue to outperform their competition?
Why do some continue to grow and others decline and become less relevant?
Why do some retain and grow their client base while others lose clients and shrink?

Yes, there are short-term initiatives to give firms a boost, like hiring one of the more senior specialists from another firm or taking on a whole term form a competitor. Bust a sustained advantage over competition. It means embedding certain important things so deeply in the culture and DNA of the firm that your competitive advantage and way of life cannot be replicated. So what those few important things.?

Those seven habits are:

1. Live an inspiring vision

2. Communicate clear strategies

3. Develop your people

4. Go out of your way to recognise your people

5. Genuinely care for your people

6. Listen and adapt to your customers’ needs

7. Continually improve your systems

For more information about this article, please see acuitymag.com