Sector and AuSAE News

  • 31 Mar 2015 4:36 PM | Louise Stokes

    Voting is currently under-way for the positions of AuSAE regional director in ACT/NSW and New Zealand regions. Please see below all candidate statements. To vote, an automated email was sent on March 2 from "election buddy". Voting for these positions close on March 31. AuSAE thanks all candidates for applying. 


    If you believe you are eligible to vote and have not received an email, please call Toni Brearley on +61 7 3394 8381.






    AuSAE ACT/NSW Regional Director Candidates 


    Peter Griffin, General Manager, Real Estate Institute of New South Wales

    I have worked in the Association sector for the past eight years. Prior to that my career spanned a number of industry sectors including health, IT, publishing, financial services, telecommunications, and management consultancy. Originally trained and professionally qualified in both marketing and accounting (unusual but very handy), my current role is General Manager of the Real Estate Institute of NSW. I would love to be given the opportunity to serve on the AuSAE Board. I believe that my diverse experience and skills would be of great benefit to AuSAE and its members as the organisation and its members grapple with a range of issues. I believe that I can help to find solutions to those issues.
       
    Joe Lopino, Executive Director, Australian Furniture Removers Association

    Through my experiences in numerous industries I have developed strong advocacy skills to effect change, growth and obtain stakeholder engagement. My current role as Executive Director of Australian Furniture Removers Association has required me to utilise those advocacy skills at both State and Federal Government levels. I also bring a strong governance background and board principles as graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. I hold a delegate seat on the Australian Trucking Association Council as well as a member of their Transport and Economic Policy Committee. 
     
     
    Lauretta Stace, Chief Executive Officer, Fitness Australia

    I believe in the value of Associations. Associations have a vital role to play in society because through collaboration and collective action, people can change things for the better. I have been involved with the Association sector for 15 years in leadership positions. I am currently the CEO and Company Secretary of Fitness Australia Ltd. I understand, value and respect the role of a director in this sector and would like to share and contribute my skills, knowledge and experience to help advance AuSAE as the Peak Body for Associations. I have a thorough understanding of and experience with corporate governance and the role of a director. I am also a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. 
     
     


    AuSAE New Zealand Regional Director Candidates 


    Rod Auton, Chief Executive Officer, Crane Association of New Zealand

    I have been fortunate to have worked in Senior Executive Positions for eight and a half years and in this time have contributed and been instrumental in formulating governance policies, formulating organisational strategy, and ultimately advancing the organisation. I have a diverse range of skills gathered over a 50 year working life. They include business management, planning, change management, financial management, and evaluation and monitoring. I have the ability to listen, analyse, and question strategy proposals and performance data as well. I have an in-depth understanding of the not-for-profit environment and the issues that associations face. I have a firm belief that I can contribute positively to the AuSAE Board and the Society as a whole and request your support.
       
    John Collyns, Executive Director, Retirement Villages Association New Zealand

    I have been an Executive Director of four industry associations over the last 20 years, as well as an elected board member of various other organisations. As a result I have worked closely with many different people, ranging from the CEOs of listed public companies to owner-operators and sole traders who have been on the various boards I've worked with. I understand the principles of governance. I have always believed in effective representation of all members in an association, and the RVA itself scored 81.1% satisfaction by its members in a recent AuSAE survey. I am a passionate advocate for AuSAE and the not-for-profit sector. I have regularly attended AuSAE events (and even spoken at them on occasion). I work closely with my peers in the industry association sector, especially via Business NZ's Industry Advisory Group, and have persuaded both the Bus and Coach Assn and the Retirement Villages Assn to join as a member. I am proud to have recently been made a Fellow of AuSAE.
     
     

    Nick Hill (current Board Member Term 2011-2014), Chief Executive Officer, Building Officials Institute of New Zealand


    As Chief Executive of the Building Officials Institute of New Zealand (BOINZ), the peak body representing the Building Controls and Building Surveying sectors, I have been committed to improving professionalism and the much needed skill sets for our membership and the wider building and construction sector in New Zealand. I have been fortunate to have made and achieved recognizable changes to the building sector in New Zealand. I am currently Vice President of AuSAE, its Treasurer and Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. I have been involved with the Society since co- leading the 2011 merger of ANZI (as it President) with its Australian counterpart (AuSAE) to form the broader Australasian Society of Association Executives. Contributing to this newly formed organisation has been both consuming and a pleasure as the Board set about invigorating member benefits and value to achieve much needed membership growth on both sides of the Tasman.
       

    Linda Noble, Chief Executive, Governance New Zealand 


    As Chief Executive of Governance New Zealand, a Division of ICSA International, I am responsible for the implementation of strategic objectives that enhance and promote the organisation both locally and in the international arena. Key achievements in this role include the rebranding to Governance New Zealand (formerly Chartered Secretaries NZ), instigating a national conference, overhauling the professional education programme, and representing the interests of Governance New Zealand at ICSA International Council meetings. Having worked extensively with complex governance structure, I have a very good understanding of the responsibilities of being a director and the skills required for the position, including accountability, leadership and strategic thinking. As a qualified management professional, I bring a wealth of experience in the not-for-profit sector along with excellent business and financial expertise that would make me an asset as an AuSAE Board member.  
       


    Please find a copy of the AuSAE Constitution and AuSAE By-Laws


  • 31 Mar 2015 3:07 PM | Louise Stokes

    The 2015 Redback Report is here! Find out what makes your online audiences tick and use this research to enhance your webinars and webcasts!


    What did Redback Conferencing uncover?
    The importance of increasing interactivity and keeping viewers engaged is still front of mind for many and the need for on-demand access and powerful and passionate presenters is evident.

    However, delivering on what you say you're going to, clear and uninterrupted audio quality and knowledgeable presenters seem to have topped the list when it comes to importance in this year's report.

    Why should you download this?
    The aim of this research is to assist you when it comes to planning, marketing, hosting and reporting on your webinars and webcasts.

    Here’s some of what the research uncovered:

    • How much are attendees willing to pay for your online events?
    • The best time of day and time of week to hold an online event
    • Memorable experiences - what gets people talking about your event?
    • Preference – should you use webcams? Should you focus on heavy duty slides?
    • What's more important... Audio vs. Content, Passion vs. Knowledge?
    Click here to download your copy of the report!

  • 31 Mar 2015 3:01 PM | Louise Stokes

    “The story of innovation has not changed. It has always been a small team of people who have a new idea, typically not understood by people around them and their executives.”
    —Eric Schmidt, Chairman, Google


    Some of the most frequent questions we get from CEOs and leaders of other companies are: How does Google innovate? Can innovation be planned? Can it be taught? Ultimately, we think that company culture and innovation can’t be separated. “You have to have the culture,” says Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, “and you need to get it right.” We also believe that to stay competitive, we (and every other company in the world) absolutely have to innovate.

    So how do you create a culture of innovation? Google doesn’t have a secret formula, though we’ve done our best to find one over the years. But we have distilled our thinking into a set of basic principles—ideas we believe can be adapted and applied at pretty much any organization, regardless of size or industry.

    In this Google for Work perspective, we’ll share these eight principles of innovation and show how we apply them inside Google.


    1. Think 10x
    The notion of “10x thinking” is at the heart of how we innovate at Google. To put the idea simply: true innovation happens when you try to improve something by 10 times rather than by 10%.

    2. Launch, then keep listening
    The restaurant business has a smart idea called the “soft opening.” Instead of hoping everything is perfect and inviting the entire public to arrive all at once, a new cafe will have a few days or weeks where they invite people in, learn what works, discover
    what customers love, and slowly grow (they hope) into a successful business that everyone is talking about.

    3. Share everything you can
    At Google we believe that collaboration—that is, people working together in teams—is essential to innovation. And collaboration happens best when you share information openly. So as a company, we share as much as possible with employees. This doesn’t mean every last business or strategic detail, but we do strive for transparency.

    4. Hire the right people
    Google has grown at a rapid rate: from 2,000 Googlers a decade ago to more than 50,000 now. What we hope hasn’t changed is the kind of people who work here and the types of projects they like to work on. Ever since our very first hires, Google has worked hard to attract people who want to tackle big problems that matter and do great things for the world.

    5. Use the 70/20/10 model
    We’re firm believers in a concept first introduced in the early days of Google: the 70/20/10 model. Simply put, it means that:

    • 70% of our projects are dedicated to our core business
    • 20% of our projects are related to our core business
    • 10% of our projects are unrelated to our core business
    6. Look for ideas everywhere
    The best ideas can’t all possibly come from any one team, one department or one company. We believe great ideas can be found anywhere, and we look for them everywhere.

    7. Use data, not opinions
    Data usually beats opinions. So at Google, data is a big part of every choice we make. We test and measure almost everything we do so that we have a continuous data stream to inform our decisions.

    8. Focus on users, not the competition
    We believe that if we focus on users, everything else will follow. If you can build a robust and loyal base of people who love what you do, you’ll have something rare and valuable. For us, that always starts with the desire to improve the lives of users.


    For a copy of the full whitepaper "Creating a Culture of Innovation" please click here.

  • 31 Mar 2015 1:30 PM | Louise Stokes
    As part of a recently announced global competition, the Australian Water Association is seeking businesses and entrepreneurs to submit their ideas and innovative solutions to water sustainability challenges.

    An association working toward sustainable water management in Australia is turning to entrepreneurs and businesses around the world for help in solving sustainability challenges with one of the world’s most valuable resources. Last week, the Australian Water Association announced the Australian Water Innovation Challenge 2015, which is calling on companies to submit innovative water technology solutions in a broad range of industries, including food and beverage manufacturing and the energy and resources sectors.

    “AWA is looking for ideas that could potentially transform the sustainability of communities and businesses, both in Australia and around the world,” Jonathan McKeown, AWA CEO, said in a statement  [PDF]. “AWA, and our 4,500 members, understand that innovation and entrepreneurship are necessities for growth, and global growth is only achievable through preserving our most important resource—water.”

    The competition opened last Friday, and interested participants have until May 8 to enter their ideas. The winner will be announced at Australia’s International Water Conference & Exhibition in May and will receive a full-page editorial in AWA’s journal, a tailored B2B program that will help introduce the winning idea to potential users, an entry to the Australia Water Awards, and additional promotional support. Research has shown that parts of Australia could face a water crisis by the end of this century as a result of changes in the world’s climate. The Water Innovation Challenge is not limited to what can be done in Australia, though.

    “We are looking for ideas that can transfer across industries, countries, and applications,” McKeown said. “No idea is too big or too small.” To help administer the challenge, AWA is partnering with global startup competition platform YouNoodle. “Every day we are seeing organizations, governments, and corporations turn to innovation to help answer questions and innovate within almost every industry,” Torsten Kolind, cofounder and CEO of YouNoodle, said in a statement. “The Australian Water Innovation Challenge is a great example of this trend and we are proud to be a part of this unique competition.”

    Startup competitions have been gaining ground in the association industry recently as stagnant and growing industries have been looking to generate new ideas to either solve problems or stimulate further growth.


    This article first appeared on Associations Now


  • 30 Mar 2015 1:16 PM | Louise Stokes

    In 2013 Survey Matters, supported by the Australasian Society of Association Executives (AuSAE), conducted the first Associations Matter Study for Professional Associations.  Twenty three associations participated, over 35,000 members were invited to participate and nearly 8,000 responses were received.


    This inaugural study focused on understanding members’ opinions of the current activities and services provided by their professional association. Why they join, what services they value, how they rate their association’s performance, how they like to participate and whether they intend to renew. The results provided the professional associations who took part the ability to better understand the opinions and preferences of their members so they could tailor their strategies based on empirical evidence. It also enabled those associations to benchmark their individual performance against the overall findings to understand how they performed in relation to others.


    The second Associations Matter Study for professional associations lifted the focus from operational performance to a more strategic outlook.  Rather than concentrating on associations’ current service provision, we changed the conversation to concentrate on members – where their pressures are, what hinders them in their profession and what they believe associations can do to alleviate their challenges.  


    The results are fascinating! Again, nearly 8,000 members provided us with their views and feedback, providing professional associations with a wealth of information about what members want from their membership, how they believe they can contribute and where their association can assist them achieve their own goals and objectives.


    To access the key findings and to read the report please click here: http://www.surveymatters.com.au/professional-associations-matter/

  • 27 Mar 2015 6:05 PM | Louise Stokes

    Historically the objectives of the corporation have been seen as somewhat opposite to those of the not-for-profit sector; specifically self interest as opposed to community interest. So it is ironic that we are now seeing closer relationships developing between the two, with partnerships now a growing trend and a common feature of the corporate landscape.

    So can we attribute this upswing of corporate interest in the community to a sudden outburst of altruistic thinking on the part of the modern corporation? Have they abandoned their previous drivers of bottom-line profits and increased shareholder value? Far from it. In fact it is these very drivers, which have remained the cornerstones of profit-making corporations for decades, now underpinning the growth in partnerships between the two sectors.

    Corporations by necessity are pragmatic beasts and boards by law must act in the fiduciary interests of the company that they represent. The hallmark of the profit makers tends to be commercial astuteness while those of the not-for-profit sector are genuineness, compassion, and commitment. How can these two sectors initially engage with each other? The cold hard reality is that it is precisely because the not-for-profit world offers tangible benefits for the corporate world, via an association with them, that corporate giving is on the rise.

    These benefits include enhanced reputation, branding and marketing benefits, community and governmental support for commercial undertakings and increased capability to attract and retain high calibre staff. Differentiating your brand from that of your competitors, making a statement that you stand for something other than simply profit generation and finding the key to building staff loyalty have all proven elusive for many corporations. The fact is that partnering with the not-for-profit sector has proven to be the solution to these and many of the problems faced by companies today.

    Within this new paradigm corporate giving becomes an investment decision, more about value creation than the old unidirectional philanthropy, fuelled by moral imperative. In the past it has been a one-way street; that is, not-for-profit organisations going cap in hand to the wealthy corporates.

    Therefore, this paradigm shift does require a new approach for any not-for-profit organisation seeking to capitalise fully on this new opportunity. They need to develop a different type of skill in order to engage effectively with the profit makers if maximum corporate support is to be gained. The key to unlocking corporate wealth is in the development of a partnership framework which serves the needs of the corporation not just the not-for-profit partner.

    Many organisations have also discovered that once differing skill sets are shared after a partnership has formed, there can be considerable mutual benefit for both sectors that goes well beyond simply being financial in nature. Some of these transferable skill sets are outlined in the table below:


    Notwithstanding this, there is still a strong requirement for charities to make an approach to corporates to establish these partnerships for day-to-day funding or funding for specific projects. As regards the not-for-profit sector, the Economist.com points out that it is important that organisations do not compromise their own characteristics even though, at the same time, they need to ‘become more like them,’—i.e. more like the corporations that they are seeking support from. This is particularly true with the corporates demanding ever-increasing professionalism from their potential partners.

    It would seem that any debate about whether social investment, is beneficial or not for a corporation, has been somewhat eclipsed by the wealth of positive experiences from the Australian corporate landscape and from overseas. It is now simply a matter of whether a corporation wishes to choose the development of partnerships with the not-for-profit sector as one of its key business strategies for building social capital, goodwill and staff pride and loyalty.

    In essence it is suggested that an appeal based on doing good work and helping others, an appeal driven by the moral imperative, is unlikely to be as effective as one based on assisting your potential partner to overcome many of the commercial challenges that they face today. What not-for-profit organisations have to offer a potential partner is of immeasurable value in securing the success and corporate sustainability that they so desire. Once a strong relationship is formed then the two become a powerful force for social change.

    This article was originally published in the Better Boards Conference Magazine 2014.


    About the author David Cooke
    Dr David Cooke was awarded a doctorate in 2009 for his study entitled The Philanthropic Contract: building social capital through corporate social investment. This study dealt with Australian companies who have successfully developed corporate social investment programs as a means of building social capital. Valuable evidence emerged for non-profit organisations that in order to maximise support from the corporate sector a business case needs to be developed that focuses on a return on investment for the corporation, not on an appeal to altruism. David is also the Managing Director of Konica Minolta in Australia, a global Japanese technology company, and he has applied his learnings to this organisation with extremely positive results.

  • 27 Mar 2015 5:38 PM | Louise Stokes

    It isn't enough for businesses to simply do good. Now they have to prove their worth in measurable ways. Not surprisingly, Australians are spending more than $250 billion each year on social issues. This means that broad claims about making a difference won’t cut it anymore, and Australian businesses must now provide evidence of their impact.

    For not-for-profit organisations (NFPs) this is good news, because it means that the audience is listening. The bad news is that measuring social impact can be complicated, expensive and often impractical. Indeed, social impact is one of the key areas of focus for the Not-For-Profit Conference, held in various cities across Australia this week and next. Measuring outcomes by a dollar-replacement value is one thing. But when NFPs try to quantify impacts that are multi-layered over longer timeframes it becomes a whole other story, and there is no definitive right or wrong way to approach it.

    Simon Faivel, director of Social Ventures Australia (SVA) Consulting and chair of SIMNA, the Social Impact Measurement Network Australia, is confident an evolution is taking place that will see social impact measurement traverse all sectors. The key, he says, is the large amount of information sharing that is bringing more knowledge and greater access to data. “When you see what others have done it makes it easier to make that first leap,” says Faivel. “If you can get your community to share, you can learn more and foster better application of social impact development techniques.”


    Professor David Gilchrist, the director of Curtin University’s Not-For-Profit Initiatives, agrees. He says when like organisations work together to gather outcome data, it can provide a bigger picture for analyses and the costs can be shared. Having a more complete body of information enables a stronger case to be presented to governments when negotiations about policy and funding arise.

    Gilchrist warns against restricting data to annual reporting because true impact can often take years, even decades, to be realised. Measuring impacts on a three- or even five-year cycle can be simpler, more telling and shares the financial load across several reporting periods.


    Full article can be found on the Intheblack Blog here.

  • 27 Mar 2015 5:25 PM | Louise Stokes
    Advocacy takes place in a complex and crowded political environment with many organizations trying to move policy on the same issue at the same time. Consequently, advocates often collaborate with allies to increase the likelihood that their unified advocacy voices will be heard. Collaborative advocacy work can take many forms, from tightly coordinated campaigns and long-term formal coalitions, to looser networks and one-time partnering on particular tactics.

    While funders acknowledge and often encourage collaborative advocacy efforts, they are nonetheless responsible for making decisions about which individual organizations they should support within the broader field of advocates, and for judging whether a particular organization should receive funding to advance a particular policy goal. Acutely aware of this competitive funding context, advocates understandably might hesitate to identify the important role that allies and partners play in helping them to advance policy.

    Even when they do acknowledge the work of partners, it can be challenge for grantees to be specific about the unique role they played in an advocacy strategy when reporting their achievements to funders. This can lead to confusion among funders who want to know what a grantee’s unique contribution to policy progress has been.

    This brief offers four tools that funders might use to get a better handle on a grantee’s contribution to an advocacy effort. The tools can be used at both the start of a new grantee relationship or at the end of a grant, after advocacy strategies have been implemented.


    Please find the full brief by Center for Evaluation Innovation here.

  • 27 Mar 2015 4:47 PM | Louise Stokes

    Twentieth century futurists certainly had a sense – whether of foreboding or optimism – of looming technological disruption, a phenomenon rippling through entire industries and which leaders in 2014 ignore at their peril.


    Exactly 50 years ago, Isaac Asimov (1964) – speculating on what work might look like in 2014 – wrote:

    The world of AD 2014 will have few routine jobs that cannot be done better by some machine than by any human being. Mankind will therefore have become largely a race of machine tenders. Schools will have to be oriented in this direction. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine … Indeed, the most sombre speculation I can make about AD 2014 is that in a society of enforced leisure, the most glorious single word in the vocabulary will have become work!1


    Asimov's vision was, in some ways, prescient. Twentieth century futurists certainly had a sense – whether of foreboding or optimism – of looming technological disruption, a phenomenon rippling through entire industries and which leaders in 2014 ignore at their peril. They asked questions that preoccupy societies today: what do we do with our young people? What skills should workers have and how will they get them? How do we provide jobs for everyone able to work? Is technology the road to the good life, dystopia, or both?

    In April 2014, the Centre for Workplace Leadership held its inaugural Future of Work conference, on the theme of People, Place and Technology. Part of the Faculty of Business and Economics, the Centre aims to bridge the gap between academic rigour and the real world challenges facing Australian businesses.

    Nearly 50 domestic and international speakers speculated on how the nature of work is changing, what this means for entire workforces, workplaces and teams, and the sorts of demands these developments are placing on workplace leaders. The event was held in partnership with the Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Cisco Systems Australia and Clayton Utz. The conference enabled employees, managers, business leaders and business owners to access cutting edge technology, research and thinking on the modern workplace and beyond.

    On technology and knowledge


    Trying to second-guess the future can be fun, a chance to let the imagination run free. In 1958, the American illustrator Arthur Radebaugh began a futuristic comic strip called Closer Than We Think2, in which he depicted space-age marvels that would deliver us into an era of high-tech leisure. Some of these were not far off the mark: electronic home libraries, wall to wall television, and 'bloodless surgery' using 'proton beams'. Radebaugh's jetpack-propelled postmen begin to look positively old fashioned when we consider that drones are now being developed to deliver mail3 and pizza4. Alas, his pogo police car5 never gained traction.

    Envisioning the future can, however, also be confronting and sobering, with a complexity that can defeat our ability to digest the implications. Perhaps this partly explains why decision making in business and government is notoriously short-term. Keynote speaker Lynda Gratton6, labelled one of the world's leading business thinkers by the Financial Times, is a consultant and organisational theorist at London Business School. She is also the founder of the Hotspots Movement7, an interactive research project with 200 executives from 23 multinational corporations that, among other things, looks at the Future of Work. Gratton argues five forces have created a 'perfect storm' that will require people to embark on massive shifts in their approach to their working lives8: technological developments, globalisation, demographic trends, societal trends and low-carbon developments.

    Shrinking technology, expanding knowledge

    According to conference keynote speaker Dave Evans, chief futurist at Cisco, the sum of human knowledge used to double every century but is now doubling every two years and growing exponentially, especially in fields like nanotechnology and biotechnology. Evans noted some estimates that the world's data stores will double every 11 hours by 2025. Much of this activity is in rich-text media like photos and video, but data in the workplace, he said, has grown 50 times faster than consumer data. He also told the conference:

    As of 2008, we're now creating more new data every 10 minutes than we did in all of human history. If we don't invest in the tools and technologies to mine this data, we're going to be buried in so much data we won't be able to extract the knowledge that we need to make smart decisions.


    Evans outlined several developments that are ushering in, or are expected to usher in, new waves of digital disruption, especially in health and medicine and manufacturing. Some of them raise serious issues about privacy, although Evans, a self-confessed optimist, prefers to see them as opportunities that can be managed.

    The first of these is Augmented Reality (AR), in which a view of real-world information (either online or direct) is overlaid by computer-generated input such as text, sound, video or GPS data. Examples include text being overlaid on a driver's windscreen, navigation and weather data to help pilots9, or imaging on a patient's body to help guide surgery10.

    Since the dawn of time, humans have been accustomed to adapting to technology. The future according to Evans is technology that adapts to us. We will move away from actively searching for information to letting information come to us.

    This technology will transform consumer habits through innovations such as digital signage in shopping malls that recognises, if customers opt in, shoppers' faces, ages, ethnicities and shopping preferences. Another scenario is television sets that recognise when a small child is in the room and filters out inappropriate content, or recognises when viewers are bored. Evans believes brain-machine interfaces are not far away – devices such as thought-driven wheelchairs, or the ability to download a new skill or even a language – a theme in Nicholas Negroponte's 2014 TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) talk11.

    The second is 3D printing, which has dropped ten-fold in price in the past five years. 3D printers can already process 70 materials, including carbon fibre, aluminium and precious metals, to produce objects such as bicycles, jewellery and turbo engines. Online marketplace websites such as Shapeways have sprung up to enable bespoke manufacturing, similar to Etsy (the online marketplace for handcrafted and vintage items), but for plastics and metals. The implications for medical research and transplant medicine are enormous: scientists have already printed a human liver that can survive for 40 days, and miniature organs. Airbus Industries predicts that by 2050, it will be able to print planes using hangar-sized 3D printers. The Zeus 3D printer, expected to be available to consumers later this year, will allow people to insert an object, make a copy and even fax it to another Zeus.

    'The entire physical world is becoming digital,' Evans said. 'We will download things as easily as we download music today. Who will be the manufacturer, the innovator, tomorrow? How will this shape the workforce?' Evans is optimistic about the prospects for future workforces as a result of these digital innovations, acknowledging that jobs will be lost, but that new opportunities will emerge. 'The top 10 jobs in the next six years don't yet exist… we're training kids for jobs that don't yet exist, using tools that may not yet exist. It would be quite easy to move into a dystopian future. I don't think that would be the case.' In any case, he says, as outlandish as talk of virtual people and 3D printing sounds, all of this is underway. 'It's not science fiction, it's science fact. And every single thing was enabled by the internet.'

    Are we creating coin-operated employees?

    Technology disrupts and transforms, but it does not do away with the eternal conundrum that is people, and questions such as how best to lead, manage, follow and work with others. The way we work is changing. Australians are increasingly employed in non-traditional industries, working flexible hours and using technology to work anywhere. Expectations of leaders are changing with an ever-increasing imperative to innovate and build dynamic workplace cultures.

    Employees, too, are feeling buffeted by technological advances and globalisation. In survey results released to coincide with the Future of Work conference, 49 per cent of Australian workers aged under 55 reported feeling worried about what the future holds for them at work. Executive and middle managers were more fearful than non-managerial employees. Despite this, the survey also revealed 79 per cent of Australians are open to change in their workplace to improve productivity.

    Better leadership and new technology were the two key areas that Australian workers identified to increase productivity, with government workers in particular highlighting more effective leadership and management as a change that would most likely increase productivity.

    What makes for a productive or 'high performance' workplace might be called the holy grail in management and business research, especially in the area of human resources management and industrial relations, where a great deal of effort has been expended in investigating the relationship between different types of workplace and management practices, and higher productivity and other workplace performance measures.

    The Centre for Workplace Leadership has just completed a literature review of prior research12 to underpin the Centre's own research agenda and inform the development of programs and events. There is abundant international research on the effectiveness of different leadership styles and approaches, but a significant gap in our understanding of leadership capability in the Australian context.

    The last 20 to 30 years of research on the 'high performance workplace' consistently shows that better workplace productivity and performance is associated with the deployment of management practices that invest in skills and capabilities, enable employee discretion and involvement, and engender employee motivation and engagement.

    Paradoxically, however, the evidence also indicates that a minority of workplaces deploy them. There are many reasons that explain this paradox, but clearly, developing the ability of business leaders and managers to translate these principles into their workplace practices presents a great opportunity to lift productivity significantly.

    Anecdotally, we know that many firms are still stuck in a nineteenth-century approach to leadership, and this was a theme taken up by conference speakers who explored motivation and incentives. Terry Lee, Director of Leadership Psychology Australia, whose clients include Wesfarmers and Bunnings, said many organisations were finding themselves in a cultural cul-de-sac at a critical time. 'We've spent 100 years designing organisations not to change, to dumb down initiative, to structure people into compliance, and now we're trying to transform those very structures into high-performance organisations which unlock the potential of people', he said.

    Lee expressed scepticism about financial incentives, arguing they work only in a narrow range of circumstances. They can discourage employees not traditionally rewarded in this way. For example, small businesses that reward sales staff with bonuses are signalling that they value this class of worker more than others. While these incentives are measurable, clear and do work, they have 'a demeaning effect on people who operate in a support capacity'.

    When financial incentives are used to stimulate innovation, Lee argues they have a perverse effect in drawing out mediocre contributions from people keen to harvest financial rewards rather than those genuinely passionate about an idea. Motivation, Lee says, is about carrots and sticks, 'whereas inspiration is to awaken something in the person… If you're paying people to do the thing they love to do, then you demean the thing they love to do.'

    Jason Clarke, author, consultant and founder of Minds at Work, charted a common demotivation trajectory, saying:

    When you hire someone, guess what they bring to the job? Their heart, their mind, their body. The first couple of days you get the whole package. And do you know what happens when we say we're not interested in your ideas? They leave their mind at home. You know what happens when we say we don't care about your passions? They leave their heart at home. And you know what's left? We've thrown away all the best bits, and this husk turns up and we become coin operated.


    Diversity, collaboration and reluctant leaders

    Mid-century futurists like Arthur Radebaugh emphasised technology but seldom speculated on how it might shape us. People might have been portrayed as taller, shinier and happier, but their roles defaulted to the mid-century American norm: the women were at home and the faces were white.

    The reality Australian leaders face today is much more diverse. Geoff Aigner, former management consultant and now director at Social Leadership Australia, told conference attendees that leaders and managers need to understand diversity in much broader terms, not only because the make-up of our workforce is changing but also because collaboration is a much more significant part of our working lives. Beyond the familiar categories of race, class and gender there are also age, experience, psychological outlook, confidence, and connection to a deeper purpose. Australian managers are, he says, too conflict averse to navigate through this diversity. He says:

    The way through collaboration is anything but capability. You can have as much technical capability as you like – great processes, great nous, a great project plan and lots of money. But what's missing is that we haven't been educated or rewarded to work across differences. We've been rewarded to work with similarity.


    Aigner is the author, with Liz Skelton, of The Australian Leadership Paradox, which argues that Australian leaders are reluctant to acknowledge the power they have and are unsure what to do with it. He told the conference that every day, society sees the effects of misused or unacknowledged power in child abuse, domestic violence and workplace bullying.

    'The people who are throwing their weight around or bullying and harassing people are not people who are owning their power,' Aigner said. 'They're generally people who don't understand their power and as a consequence abuse it or neglect it. We see a repeated dynamic in Australian workplaces where people use too much firepower: 'I don't think I have any power so I turn up the heat'.'

    Neglect might seem a benign alternative to misuse, but Aigner argued that disavowing power is not the answer: it is crucial to use it well. And in collaboration, there is no escaping power:

    Collaborative efforts are essentially a negotiation of power, a movement of power between individuals. Collaborative efforts are necessarily shifting power because the (pre-existing) hierarchies which have much clearer power structures are being shaken up.


    This ambivalent attitude to leadership was echoed by Jason Clarke: 'We keep asking for leadership and it's the thing we're most cynical about; 'Tell us, oh mighty one – you idiot – what are we doing?''

    Clarke too advocated an expanded view of diversity: 'Great minds don't think alike. You want change? Then you want cynics, idealists, pragmatists and lunatics, panic junkies, devil's advocates. You need them all, they're all beautiful. The trick is knowing how to get them to work together.'

    Conclusion

    Envisioning the future of work requires both examining the past but also recognising that there are, as Lynda Gratton argues, limits to what the past can tell us about the future in times of massive volatility. The forces shaping new worlds of work not only shape the macroeconomy, but have significant and often disruptive effects 'on the ground'. They are destroying old businesses and prompting the development of new ones.

    Of particular interest for understanding productivity, we can say that these changes are reshaping labour markets and workplaces. These developments challenge managers and business leaders, as well as workers. They are altering models of work and employment, changing our attitudes towards different forms of employment and sense of careers over the life course.


    Read the full article here. This article first appeared in Insights (The University of Melbourne) By Elisabeth Lopez and Peter Gahan

  • 27 Mar 2015 2:44 PM | Louise Stokes

    Incentive Travel & Conventions, Meetings Asia (IT&CMA) and Corporate Travel World (CTW) Asia-Pacific is The World's Only Doublebill Event in MICE and Corporate Travel. The 2015 event is on in Bangkok, Thailand on 29 September to 1 October.


    Please find below some trending topics and highlights you can expect from the Association Days on 30 September and October 1


    Forum 1 - Are You Prepared To Be Led By Millenials?
    Associations rely on member volunteers to take on leadership positions. Many of these positions are now filled by Baby Boomers who are reaching retirement age. Millenials are up next but their sense of volunteerism is quite different from the older generation. How should associations approach succession planning, and what changes are afoot?

    Forum 2 - Being Smart About Rising Meeting Costs
    The rising cost of services in the meetings and events space is a constant challenge for associations. What are some of the ways around this challenge? Is outsourcing end-to-end meetings management really the most cost effective approach for time- and budget-strapped associations?


    Forum 3 - Incentive Travel For Associations
    Corporations often use incentive travel to motivate employees and spur performance. But unlike for-profit businesses, associations are largely funded, directly and indirectly, by their members. How relevant is incentive travel to associations? Should such a programme be limited to full-time association executives only, or do board members need incentivisation as well? This session explores the case for incentive travel in the association industry.

    Forum 4 - Partnering Your Sponsors
    For associations, the sponsorship dollar is as important as it is elusive. Building greater efficiency into your sponsorship programme could start from changing your perspective and looking at potential sponsors as business partners. How do you create a menu of sponsorship opportunities that deliver greater value to your sponsors? This session will feature a recent case study.


    For more information about the event click here and to register please click here.


The Australasian Society of Association Executives (AuSAE)

Australian Office:
Address: Unit 6, 26 Navigator Place, Hendra QLD 4011 Australia
Free Call: +61 1300 764 576
Phone: +61 7 3268 7955
Email: info@ausae.org.au

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Address: 159 Otonga Rd, Rotorua 3015 New Zealand
Phone: +64 27 249 8677
Email: nzteam@ausae.org.au

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