Failing our people: How Australian business systems sell us short

Panelists

• David Murray, Chairman of Future Fund,
• Julia Connell, Associate Dean, graduate programmes UTS: Business,
• Giam Swiegers, CEO Deloitte
• John Bessant, Imperial College innovation guru, moving to Exeter

Introduction – Roy Green

• What role should business education play in training and developing the leaders of our organisations?
• The real challenge is complacency coming out of crisis.

David Murray

• Have to start with a belief system. If humans are free they will innovate.
• But freedom cannot be maintained w/o government. Governments unfortunately have budgets.
• Annual performance reviews do nothing to improve performance.
• 360 degree evaluation model is a cop out for accountability. Probably best method to lock in nepotism.
• 360s are a good way to lock in a glass ceiling

Julia Connell

• Manpower survey – 16,000 interviews, including 2,000 aussies. 62% felt disengaged.
• Performance management is not rocket surgery, btu so few companies do it well. Why? Because it takes risk and courage.
• Leadership require risk and trust.
• US survey shows that only trait women don’t have that men do is decisiveness
• Q to business: are your programs free of bias? Try to create a level playing field.

Giam Swiegers

• I’m no expert but just a mere accountant with a little bit of passion for this topic
• When I came I was very surprised by number of non-Australian CEOs. Why do outsiders perform better? Tall poppy affects the way Australians think about leadership and how they structure internal systems. Tall poppy causes a lack of self belief. This is why outsiders outperform.
• Example: Lots of resistance developing leadership program for elite teams. HR wanted to make sure nobody was left out – why spend all the money on the elite? But how can a country proud of its elite athletes be unwilling to take pride in their best business people?
• Talent leadership development is the role of the chief executive, not the HR team. CEO must take personal responsibility for IDing and developing talent. Most search teams are more focused on recruiting for capability vs recruiting for talent.
• But even after much effort, there is still something lacking. In a recent firm-wide survey of the best mentors and leaders in the firm, the majority of the top performers came from outside Australia
• 3 questions for leaders: Do you have something to believe in, do you have someone to believe in, do you have someone that believes in you?

John Bessant

• Innovation matters. If we don’t change, we might not be around. The fuel for innovation is creativity. All people are creative. Trouble is, do we really make use of it?
• The group always comes up with more solutions to open ended questions and more types/classes of ideas. More minds is not just more volume of ideas but more variety. E.g. Edison wasn’t a solo act. Had a big think tan with varied input.
• With pair of hands you get a free brain

Questions from floor

Q: If 360 appraisals are flawed, what are the alternatives?

Murray: The alternative to 360 comes down to trust. You must trust leaders to make decisions and they must then make those decisions.

Q: Gen Y wants to be boss on day 2 so they hop jobs until they advance fast enough… how will that impact business and innovation?

Murray: people you hire can either do job or not… but if you don’t keep up with demographic change your dead anyway…

Giam: The Gen X and Gen Y concept is a scam as big as the scam dreamt up by Y2K consultants. They’re great generations that act much like any previous generations that grew up in similar economic conditions. They only job hop when there are boring, uninspired leaders.

Q: How do flaws in the political, regulatory, tax systems affect innovation?

Giam: We don’t have time or energy to fight so we try to win within the system

Murray: of all factors that create engagement, two most important: accountability and authority, and tools to do the job.

Q: Perceive a fundamental gap in basic managerial training.  We let people into these jobs without making sure they understand how to lead. We set our best people up to fail. Issue: people getting promoted based on their tech skill, not leadership.

Giam: Cutting training is the dumbest thing you can do in a downturn. You cannot under invest in developing your people.

Murray: We know in business that stockout is fatal so we keep inventory.  But we don’t keep inventory for development.

Q: What would the panel advise the state about getting rid of business systems that hinder innovation, particularly in the public sector?

Murray: issue is trust. Leader is never trusted to comment on key issues directly. Arms length spokespeople are unworkable.

Too many people employed in interpreting the law… people who do that kind of work burn out by the age of 35…

Closing – Roy Green

• The role of the leader is to design the work of the organisation. That’s what we want to do at UTS: Business
• LSE study to be released in a few months shows that Australia has a long tail of mediocre managers
• UTS is launching b21C – website and magazine designed to develop our proposition to ourselves, students, business community
• You can find out more about the LSE study through our interactive feature that leads the launch home page of http://bit.ly/Hf3Lo
• Thanks to the panel, thanks to the audience, and thanks to all of those in the twitterverse who’ve been following us.