Greener Pastures

During the 1980’s I lived in Darwin, a cosmopolitan town that was in effect a microcosm of the world, its people and culture. There was an itinerant vulnerability to the Northern Territory omnipresent by the everlasting effects of Cyclone Tracy that wreaked devastation on the town and its psyche on Christmas Eve 1974. And as if to underscore the point, you only had to be a resident for two years to be considered a Territorian and if you managed to survive a couple of wet seasons you were usually hooked long term anyway.

For those living “Up North”, Darwin seemed to encapsulate the wild, young and relentlessly care free attitude and somewhat naïve spirit of Australia and Australians at the time. It was almost as if Darwin had seceded from the rest of the world and being paid a Commonwealth Government “District Allowance” for working in the Territory, only served to remind us of our isolation from the rest of the Country. What was particularly enjoyable about living in the Northern Territory was that everybody was from somewhere else and as a consequence, this meant working with and relying on a true community, albeit of nomads, for friendship and support. Work was fun and opportunities for advancement endless, again reflecting the transient nature of the population. Your social and sporting groups were your customers and work colleagues, and life was relaxed and deliciously hedonistic.

Unfortunately, this type of community does not exist in large cities, where our lives tend to be ordered and packaged into separate and well defined boxes – family, friends, work, community and sport and leisure – and each has the capacity to delight and exasperate. However, it is invariably the “work box”, which defines us and yet, when poorly managed, work can fuel intense dissatisfaction in our lives and can ultimately become destructive in both a personal and business sense. As such, the work environment is integral to our sense of well being, and job satisfaction and business success is invariably a reflection of our general state of happiness and how well we are connected to our community.

In their best selling 100 page management parable “Fish”, [Hodder and Stoughton 2001], authors Lundin, Paul and Christensen provide a simple, if somewhat corny, insight into the success of Seattle’s world famous Pike Place fish market and use this as a metaphor to highlight the importance of creating a business environment where staff:

• choose their attitude about the way they do their work even if there is no choice about the work itself
• are encouraged to have fun in, and be energised by the workplace to boost morale and improve results
• are truly connected to their work, colleagues and customers in a way that reflects real ownership of the business through a desire to make a real difference in the lives and experience of others in contact with the business

All in all it’s a simple message, applicable to anyone, in any role, in any business and if you can get over the “cheese”, it is well worth the read and, having done so; it may just save your job or your business. Otherwise, go live in Darwin.

In Issue 19 of Status e News we examined the characteristics that provide the foundation for business success. In part two of our discussion on Business Success we look at those factors that determine the degree of success.

We also introduce two new “Employee Hot Prospects”, which can be accessed from the “hot chilli” link at right and, announce the winner of our Round 17 Footy Tipping Competition.

Last week we discussed a number of characteristics, which successful businesses share in common. Divided into two categories, we first discussed the importance of the “facilitators” in establishing a solid foundation for business success. Facilitators include organisational leadership, culture, vision, customer focus and the ability to embrace change. This week we consider those characteristics that influence the degree of success. These characteristics are referred to as the “operators” and include the ability to work with and through people in a manner which fosters commitment, determination and creativity within the enterprise.

In part one of our discussion we identified good leadership as the most important facilitator of business success. It is of no surprise then that the most important determinant in achieving true greatness is the ability to work with and through people. This characteristic is evident in organisations, which genuinely believe that people are their greatest asset. And it doesn’t matter which of the facilitators is being contemplated, if you don’t engage staff fully in the process you may never achieve greatness.

All business owners and managers are acutely aware of just how expensive employing new staff is and yet, once engaged, staff are often treated as little more than a pair of hands rather than as thinking and feeling human beings hoping to be fully engaged so they can contribute wholly and effectively to the success of the business. However, enlightened employers take the time and put their energy into ensuring the right people are recruited, inducted, trained, mentored and managed. Effective engagement of staff requires commitment to improving energy, passion and the attitude of staff towards their job. Learning the art of working with and through people is critical to the success of any business.

Commitment is a highly valued characteristic of individual leaders. But commitment can mean many things. It can reflect support for strategic direction or endurance in getting the job done and at its extreme, it can extend to courage where people are prepared to put their reputation and security on the line to adopt and follow a new strategic direction, which may be completely foreign to the culture or traditional operations of the business.

It is anathema to business success not to embrace change. Change is good, it reinvigorates, renews and refreshes and contrary to popular belief most people love change if a positive outcome can be demonstrated. Unfortunately, most organisations initiate change as a strategy for survival when desperate times call for desperate measures, instead of seeing change as a key driver for business success and recognising the importance of embedding change into the performance review processes of the organisation. Each year you should ask, what can we change to create or maintain our competitive advantage? What is our point of difference and what do we have to change to maintain the uniqueness of our product or service?

Those with good conceptual skills are the change agents you want driving strategy, direction and growth within your enterprise. They are the risk takers who limit the element of chance by understanding and acquiring knowledge of the business and the market in which it operates. They make informed judgments rather than assumptions about the benefits of change in leading to greater business success. Granted, there is a fine line between bravery and recklessness but all successful businesses embrace change as an opportunity to demonstrate their courage and relevance in the market. As such, it takes commitment to lead and courage to be successful.

To make a decision to initiate change may require courage but beyond that comes the need for determination to see the decision through. Persistence is the key to affecting positive change. There will always be the doomsayers to contend with as well as the impediments created by the legislative environment in which you operate and more often than not there are financial constraints to be overcome. The point is that every challenge is different and each requires unique solutions and sometimes there will be setbacks and even disasters but if each time when you are knocked to the canvass you get straight back up and accept each blow as a learning process, eventually your determination will be rewarded with the spoils of business success.

Innovate or stagnate - stagnate and die. Businesses, which fail to recognise the ideas, skills and experience of their staff, tend to alienate them, stifle ambition and kill off motivation. This is a recipe for disaster and is counter to all of the tenets of successful business management. Failure to take full advantage of the free “in house creative service” of your staff is tantamount to business treason. Organisation’s that tap into the creative genius of their staff will always be more successful than their counterparts. Organisation’s that encourage problem solving and creativity among their staff continue to “discover” new ideas and better ways of doing what they already do. In successful businesses, creativity is valued and considered equally important at a departmental and organisational level.

Andrew Semple
with with Status’ Business Development Consultant-
Michelle Pollock