Linkedin – Page 4 – Emma Lo Russo

August 3, 2009March 29, 2017

The King and I…(and a story of learning courage)

This is not the start of some fictional story or make believe anecdote. Nor is it about my special memories of my mother, sisters and I all singing along to the Friday night movie special of The King and I, imagining what those days were like of impossible dresses and outrageous social expectations of women. This story is about courage and how The King and I played a role in teaching me about courage.

There were many messages of courage throughout the movie – the courage to follow your dreams, the courage to stand up to a bully or to fight for better outcomes despite the conventions of the day.

However my biggest lesson from The King and I came from having the courage to overcome your fears. Although this may sound corny, it is a real story and I will tell you how I learned to develop courage.

About 3 years into the workforce, I put my hand up to take on a big project. It involved doing some strategy work for a bunch of super smart, confident, talented, experienced – and as it turned out – extremely demanding people.

The brief turned out to be much more difficult and challenging than I had first expected. Certainly it was beyond my experience and knowledge of that time. I felt out of my depth and felt all the physical signs that come with fearing the enormous task and expectations in front of me – heart racing, legs shaking, stomach knotting and mind racing. At that moment of fear and crisis, in amongst thinking of all the reasons to not be able to say yes or to limit somehow what was possible to something more reasonable, somewhere out of the depths of memory, a song started playing in the back of my mind.

It went like this…

Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune, So no one will suspect
I’m afraid.

While shivering in my shoes, I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune, And no one ever knows
I’m afraid.

The result of this deception, Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people I fear,
I fool myself as well!

And sure enough by immediately changing my focus from fear to “I will find a way”, and when I showed confidence that what was being demanded was possible, I actually began to believe those project goals could be reached that it was just a matter of finding the way. It allowed an immediate settling in my mind and an unwinding of my stomach so I could be free to focus on finding the solution and the “how”. In the example I mentioned, I confidently stated what they briefed could be achieved and shared a rough outline of the strategy and a plan of action. I included what the dependencies would be and set a new time to meet to present the more detailed strategy which bought me more time to work through the details.

The result was extremely positive. The goals were reached and a great sense of satisfaction and respect was gained.

But the biggest positive for me was the lesson of courage that it taught me. I was able to put the art of make believing I was brave, and focusing on the positives in every situation, and finding that I was actually brave and positive enough to face anything. By finding a strategy to overcome my fears, it allowed me to find the courage to overcome barriers, find solutions and be confident to continuously look for and do new things.

I have adopted this approach many, many times – whether it be walking into a new networking situation, addressing a large group of people, taking on what may seem to be the impossible brief or role. Each time you find you can do something, it builds your confidence to explore and overcome any future challenging situation. This strategy can be adopted as much in our personal lives as it can in our professional lives.

We can all achieve so much more if we allow ourselves to go as close to the edge of impossible as we can before we allow ourselves to feel limitations or constraints. If we limit our scope to something that feels safer, more comfortable, more easy – we lose the possibility of breaking new ground and achieving something truly new, remarkable and special.

The more we believe we can do something, the more others will believe you can and that they can do it too. As a leader, you will find that if you demonstrate believe, then you will have your people help you do whatever it is you need to do.

And so as the song continues…

Make believe you’re brave,

And the trick will take you far.

You may be as brave
As you make believe you are.

(Lyrics by Rodgers and Hammerstein, 1951. The Movie “The King and I” starring Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr by 20^th Century Fox, 1956.)

July 24, 2009March 29, 2017

Leading your business to success

Written by Emma Lo Russo and as published in the July 2009 “Australian Businesswomen’s Network” newsletter:

Leading your business to success

You have the title, a team that reports to you and a defined business purpose and responsibility. The business environment and competition is tough and you are looking at new ways to ensure continued growth and success. You spend night and day wondering what else you can do, what extra advantage you can create…

It is likely you already hold that advantage. And the answer is your own employees. You can easily move from managing them to do their job (even if you do this aspect very well), to leading them to achieve something far greater – for themselves and for your business.

Understanding the difference between management and leadership

Management is about getting the best out of resources, mostly through defining responsibilities and processes, to further the goals of the company. ‘Leadership’ on the other hand is painting a common view of the future and inspiring and galvanising your team towards achieving it.

There are some key leadership characteristics and qualities to embody if you hope to achieve a powerful business advantage through your people. A key aspect is understanding that your people are entirely your business. They provide the moment of truth every time they interact with your customers, partners, suppliers, each other etc. It is important that they share and believe in the aspirations for your company. That they can see how to align their communications and activities they do every day to the greater picture you have of success, and how that can in turn help them enjoy and benefit from that success.

Acknowledging, encouraging, empowering your people to act in harmony with your vision and values is far more powerful than prescribing what you want and outlining precisely how they should be doing it.

Empowering your people

Regularly sharing your vision and plans for the future and encouraging your team to help visualise success will help stimulate growth. Looking to your people to help identify the best growth opportunities and providing regular forums for your employees to present their ideas can help grow your business. Acknowledge all good ideas, empower your people to own those ideas and reward them when they help you get to where you want to go faster. The more you can celebrate success with your employees, the greater the performance culture you are creating.

Tips to help you lead your organisation to success:

Paint a common view of the future and translate your vision and strategy into workable goals for your employees
Share your vision regularly, applying short and long-term frame of references for all projects and activities
Live and promote your desired culture and values
Model integrity in decisions, communication and treatment of people – always lead by example
Recognise others’ strengths and limitations – focus on building teams around individual employees'(and your own) strengths
Coach, mentor and develop your team – help your team members develop self-awareness and strive for personal development, helping them align their career aspirations with your business goals
Inspire, encourage and acknowledge action and commitment from your employees

When thinking about leadership, it is good to reflect on the line “follow me, I am right behind you”.

If you lead through inspiration, suggestion and example then your team will follow, encourage others and deliver you greater success.

To read the article in context and others on leadership go to:

http://www.abn.org.au/womeninbusiness/newsletterissue79/Leadership-Strategies-for-Women/index_landing.html

To follow Emma on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EmmaLoRusso

July 17, 2009March 29, 2017

Attending to the elephants

How often have you seen or been in situations where everyone around you is busy discussing, dealing and deciding on the smaller, easiest issues to address, and the item that is most likely to be a showstopper is being overlooked or held-over to address at another time.

The expression “ignoring the elephant in the room” is based on this very situation. Just as an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook, we use it to describe those situations where we pretend the elephant is not there, concerning ourselves with smaller, relatively insignificant matters, shuffling around the bigger issue of what to do with the elephant in the room.

The “elephant” is usually a bigger issue we choose to avoid because we know it will be time-consuming, painful and uncomfortable to deal with. So we take comfort in keeping busy with all the other things that can be done instead.

More often than not, it is the smallest things being left unresolved that prevents us from bringing to conclusion the projects we are working on.

Just as we can rationalize ignoring the big elephant, it is even easier to rationalize ignoring the smallest of issues, wishing them away and dismissing them as insignificant or as something “easy to deal with later”.

In reality we find that either issue – big or small – no matter how far forward we move the project or initiative we are working on, it can never be fully resolved and finished until the outstanding matter is resolved.

Recently I was in discussions with a business. They had engaged me to discuss their overall business proposition, position and product portfolio ahead of a launch. There were many outstanding matters to be dealt with and decisions to be made and they were rushing through their list to get feedback on all of them. However there was a starting showstopper, and no matter how much they wanted to cover all the later issues on the list, if they did not resolve the basic starting proposition, they were not going to be able to resolve anything else, nor achieve a successful outcome.

Through further discussions and exploration, it became evident that there was an issue of avoidance in dealing with perhaps the biggest fundamental showstopper (the elephant in the room). There was clear conflict in the direction by two key principals of the business. Each saw it differently, and the rest of the team was busy trying to avoid bringing these differences of opinion into focus let alone to a conclusion and final agreement. Lots of busy work was being done on other facets, giving a false sense of progress, however it was evident there was no way this could work without getting a common agreement from the two conflicting principals. And this agreement was fundamental to the success of the next stage of their business. Once the elephant was attended to, the next stages of business could then move forward.

Discomfort of conflict is often the underlying reason of why issues will be left unresolved although there are many cases where it is avoidance of having to work through the difficult aspects of the project. It is too easy to spend time on the sexier, easier, showier parts of a project or to spend time on the areas that we have greater confidence, expertise or experience in. Meanwhile the clock races on towards the deadline.

No matter what the shape or size of it is – a show stopper is a show stopper. You need to identify when you have a show stopper, and you need to deal with it immediately. Ideally you would be proactively looking for the elephants or the show stoppers of any size.

The beauty in attending to the elephants early is the quality of solution that can follow. The earlier you have to solve the issue, the more creative the solution. And the solution may be very different from what you were first thinking or fitting the rest of the non-critical elements around.

As I have seen firsthand and Edward de Bono is noted as saying:

“It is well known that “problem avoidance” is an important part of problem solving. Instead of solving the problem you go upstream and alter the system so that the problem does not occur in the first place.”

To get this benefit you need to first attend to the elephants.

July 8, 2009March 29, 2017

The power of “Pressing the Flesh”

It doesn’t matter how clever we are. Nor does it matter how many books, forums or surveys we read. Nor how many official meetings we attend. If we do not get out there to “press the flesh” we are not going to be across what is really happening in the world we are responsible for.

Without directly talking to those you have responsibility for – whether this be your employees, customers, investors, family or community – how can you really be confident you have a handle on their real sentiment and emotion? Can you really know how your recent decisions have impacted them? Be certain that what you think is important to them is the same as what they think is important?

The only way to really know is to stop, ask and to listen yourself to the people you are responsible for, and if you can, to spend some time “walking in their shoes”. This can never be met by having this outsourced or filtered through other people.

It may require you to consider it as an imperative, a percentage of time you set aside, or build it into your daily schedule to ensure you are spending enough time being physically connected to the people you are leading and are responsible for. As much as possible, be engaged regularly and as close as possible on their terms, without the formality of a pre-determined agenda. The less rehearsed the encounter, the fresher your read on what is really happening.

It does not have to take up a huge chunk of your time or be a major single event. You can daily walk the corridors and visit workstations taking time to talk to people on the way to somewhere else. Or allocate a day a month to visit your customers’ businesses – and really talk to those who are using your products or services. Or man the phones, have open lunches, create social events and actively participate or help out if someone is away. There are many ways you can get out there and press the flesh. But it is essential that you break the shackles of your work desk. You need to go where you do not normally go. Talk to those you don’t normally talk to. You need to look to encounter as much of a reality of all your people (those you have a responsibility for) as you can.

The powerful return is far greater than helping others feel good. It is about getting a firsthand account and measure of what exactly is happening. It allows you to see what actions you may wish or need to take. What priorities to adjust or what new initiatives you may need to introduce. You may discover you need to make different types of investments or decisions but it is more than likely you will discover that you will need to improve general communications.

You may discover that this practice uncovers a great new opportunity. An idea that can set your organization apart. A product concept that becomes the next big thing. Or just find that these actions of you connecting can energize your team to deliver something greater than before.

If you genuinely care about your people and align everyone under a common vision that they believe in, they too will respond with care, passion and commitment. By engaging directly, they will feel valued and that they have a voice. That they are not dispensable or not important to you, but are instead seen by you to be important and part of helping create something great.

One of the more likely outcomes is the energy source you yourself will gain. Remembering why you went into business, corporate, NFP or office in the first place.

So go on, get out there. Start pressing the flesh. Now.

July 2, 2009March 29, 2017

Are you listening to your customers?

We all understand the power of referral business and a glowing customer testimonial. Particularly if it is from a customer who is prepared to say how you made them richer, stronger or more fabulous than before.

When was the last time one of your customers provided positive feedback in writing or publically endorsed your organization? When you received that feedback, did you acknowledge the customer? And did you acknowledge your employee or team who were responsible for generating that positive response?

What if it was negative, did you re-engage and thank the customer, look to involve them in future product reviews, value them in a way that acknowledges your success is dependent upon how you treat and deliver to your customers.

I am not advocating the customer is always right and that to be a customer success driven organization it means you just do what they ask for. This is about listening. Listening and engaging your customers. Expecting and respecting that they will talk about their experience with your organization with someone, and maybe with many people either face-to-face or via any of the easy-to-use social mediums. You can’t control what they are going to say about you, but you can create an environment that makes every touch point positive, consistent and what is felt as an important engagement in a long term relationship.

Today I talked to two business owners of very different businesses. I asked the question of both of them to define their long term revenue model. And whether they had defined the perfect customer relationship – what engagement model, over what period of time, to generate a defined amount of revenue and profitability. Neither could answer and both admitted they were in the trap of thinking short term. One wanting to squeeze every possible dollar out of the first transaction and thus was focused on how many customers he could meet (in a volume X single transaction model) and the other just thinking survival so the horizon was very short term (weeks in fact). The problem with thinking this way is that they could both see that they were putting at risk a longer term relationship with the customer and potentially putting at risk the long term viability of their business and the profitability able to be realized over a long-term relationship with the end customer. They both acknowledged there was room for a better customer engagement model, with a relationship built and secured over the long term with the added potential to up-sell, cross-sell and value-add based on their ability to perform. Forget short term accountability – think of a longer term engagement model that requires long term accountability, and one that brings greater profitability.

This brings us back to the customer experience, and whether you are delivering this at each touch point and measuring this in a meaningful way.

When you genuinely feel the service or quality you experience is extraordinary, you are more likely to want to thank someone. A phone call, an email, or post something to a web forum or social network. You will share your positive experience with those close to you. When the experience is anything less than average, it can generate multiple conversations with anyone that will listen. Any of you who are active on Twitter will see how quickly great service and even more so, bad service is shared, and if it communicates the point more strongly, it will include an image and provide great detail of what is wrong. This often starts a number of those who begin sharing their similar experience. Or what alternative solution that they found. Rants get posted to blogs and then linked to other blogs, forums, tweets or Facebook posts for all to read, with hot topics seeing many of those who agree or disagree engaged even further. So it moves from perhaps a series of single incidents into a customer sentiment that is hurting your brand.

Someone’s perception of your company is their reality. Which means you can’t hide and you can’t control it. And thus, I ask, are you listening to your customers?

Since you can’t control what your customers are saying about you or where they are saying it, you need to focus on their experience when engaging with you.

If you don’t encourage and provide a forum for them to feedback to you, then they will find or create their own. So create that space, have the space owned by your customers and encourage active feedback (good and bad).

Engage in some way with each and every customer who shares their experience with you – this may be through suggested reading, recourse, or just in saying thanks. Share your appreciation for the feedback and what you did about it, not only to them but to the rest of your customer base.

The basis of creating a community and establishing a large number of loyal long-term customers will be strongly based around how well your customers feel they are being listened to. Whether they can see their feedback is influencing the overall customer experience, the levels or types of customer service and support, possibly even the products or services you provide.

And don’t ignore the stuff “out there” in the global social media space. Not just what they are saying about you but what they are saying about your competition. Today there are companies that offer tools that measure buzz, mentions of products and brands. This can provide you very early insights into what could become a big opportunity for you – either heading off a disaster or in discovering your next breakthrough.

So ask yourself the question today – do your customers have a place to talk to you? Does your business processes and culture encourage listening? And if a customer does talk to you – how will they know they were being listened to and that their input is valued and can help positively impact your business?

You can significantly improve your business if you view every single customer as a potential evangelist and part of your extended sales organization.

June 29, 2009March 29, 2017

Get something positive out of the recession

Emma Lo Russo offers five tips (to electronics organizations) for grasping opportunities created by the downturn. Read the article as published in Electronics Weekly, 24 June 2009, and as promoted on the cover page and published on page 10. Electronics Weekly targets electronic product organizations and electronics engineers.

Full transcript of article below:

Recessions get a bad press. But they are really opportunities with halitosis. Once you get over the shock, you can set to and work with the opportunities to create breakthroughs. It’s all about channeling recessions in a positive way.

The electronics design sector is ripe for this kind of thinking. The current recession can be deployed in your favour, to blast away the staid thinking that abounds in the sector. That things are done the way they are done because they have always been that way is a common refrain. Time it went the way of the thermionic valve.

Here are five tips, made with appropriate humility, that reflect the opportunities for change under the cover of the current recession:

Innovate

Nothing that has gone before will be good enough for the future. This is code for “innovate” and innovate means doing different things in different ways, not doing things better.

So take a holistic approach to electronics design that starts with the broader desired user experience. How do they want to interact with your product (not how you want them to interact)?

And take a close look at the rule book on which you base your design methodology. Does it still serve your needs, or does it now struggle to do so? Is it based on a divide-and-conquer approach to electronics design, in which you divide the complexity of the task into manageable elements to conquer the design comlexity, only to find that you have killed off innovation?

Connectivity

It doesn’t matter how cool it is if it’s not connected. I doubt you need reminding that connectivity is the most important attribute of any device today. This is also code for saying that making something look cool is the minimum attribute of a successful product, and everyone will copy you very quickly.

If the past 40 years of electronics was the age of miniaturisation, we are already well into the age of connectivity. The next generation of electronic products will not be stand-alone devices, as they have been in the past. Instead, electronic products are being promoted, to become elements in much bigger ecosystems. They are now the means by which users tap into these ecosystems. The metal, silicon and plastics from which they are made become less relevant in this much broader view of design.

So, design from this perspective. That means start (once you have worked out the desired user experience, of course) with creating the intelligence you want to pour into the product, and then, and only then, find the right device hardware into which to pour it. After all, you don’t create a statue by starting with the mould. You reflect first on the emotional connection you want to make with the work of art you are about to create.

Intelligence

It doesn’t matter how cool it is if it’s dumb. Intelligence is at the core of successful products, and not just successful consumer electronic products. The intelligence of a device is also how you will differentiate in the future, and it is much more difficult to copy than hardware.

Designers must stop thinking of a design as discrete hardware, programmable hardware and software, and instead define a design by its functionality, and then map this functionality to the most appropriate implementation.

The true value inside tomorrow’s products is defined by the soft elements of the design. These soft elements should be the focus and the place to start. Don’t constrain the critical properties, its function, connectivity and the user experience of the end product before you have even started.

Changing competition

You no longer know who your competition is, or where they’re based. Sorry for stating the obvious. But one bad thing about recessions is that they can camouflage a much larger shift that had started before the recession kicked in.

Take a deep breath, Google “innovation” and see what comes up. These data show one thing: that the design and manufacture of products even as sophisticated as electronic components will likely be done somewhere else in the future. The question to ask, therefore, is whether you want to play in this game, and what do you do to stay in the game?

Check your tools

Nothing should stop you from doing what you want to do, or have to do. This is code for assess your tools and support systems right now. If there is any aspect of what they offer, or how they work, that gets in your way, be ruthless. Change them. Change them now under the cover of the recession.

June 24, 2009March 29, 2017

Utegate – A question of trust

According to a recent Harvard Business Review Advisory Council Reader’s Survey dated January 2009, it was considered that trust had eroded in top executives – by over 76% in US based companies and 51% in non-US companies.

That is a lot of trust to lose.

Watching the recent shenanigans* of our government and opposition spat over the so-called Utegate scandal, it certainly raises the question of what possibly were they hoping to gain? Given no-one seriously thought it would result in a resignation of the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader, all that really is at stake here is the public’s trust in their leaders.

We can only assume the motivation that is driving them to behave, attack and defend their actions as they are, is to help protect and uphold Australia’s values, ethics, security, competitiveness, health, safety, education and all the other reasons that they were voted into office as our leaders. I would not be the first to say that connection is difficult to make. Even if it can be found, would we rate it as the most important issue that we would like our leaders of our nation to focus on? And at what point did or does the motivation change from pursuing the truth to pursuing personal agendas?

In this global economic environment we are seeing increasing pressure on businesses and executives. This is a test of character for most. And we are seeing plenty of examples of organizations’ cultures crumbling, trust being eroded, candor turning into clandestine, and ethics and values once clear now murkily represented.

Trust is something that requires careful building. A coherent and transparent position that is understood, chosen and lived by those who lead and those who follow. It is very easily dissipated. And even harder to rebuild.

So how do you ensure trust not only remains in-tact but grows over these challenging times? The key thing is of course to know who you are and what you stand for. Trust is not a job responsibility, it is a choice in which you wish to offer and earn.

The basis of trust in leadership

Know oneself and take a clear position on your beliefs and values – communicate and live by who you are and what you believe in
Be transparent and candid in communication and decision making – share why decisions are being made, share the process, those engaged, and progress. Your organization and personal values should have a common base otherwise the differences will quickly show and allow room for corruption.
Share – share information, good, bad, challenges, disappointments and wins. Help explain what is clear, what is grey, what is not being shared and why.
Tell the truth always – you may suffer consequences of telling the truth, but it can never be as bad as the consequences of not telling the truth. The most important thing at stake here is your integrity. You can’t deceive and retain integrity.
Encourage, invite, create forums for feedback – this is all about creating a culture that encourages open discussions and the sharing of ideas and information. It is also important that you regularly hear, see and feel the truth and reality of a situation.
Get directly involved and see first-hand any situation that you need to represent – the more layers you have between yourself and what you represent, the more likely the room for spin, softening, misinterpretation of the truth etc.
Evaluate how you are living your word – reflect regularly on your behavior and that of others, call yourself and others to question and do not accept anything that can be considered untrustworthy or against the values of your organization.
Champion Trust – encourage it, live it, recognize it, reward it.

Friedrich Nietzsche, German classical Scholar, Philosopher and Critic of culture once wrote “I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”

To lead in today’s environment, you need to be trusted. Don’t compromise.

* Definition of shenanigan “1: a devious trick used especially for an underhand purpose2 a: tricky or questionable practices or conduct —usually used in plural b: high-spirited or mischievous activity —usually used in plural (Merrriam-Webster online). A most apt description!

June 17, 2009March 29, 2017

Can you afford the expense of a cheap lawyer ?

Ever heard the saying “there is nothing more expensive than a cheap lawyer”? That lesson can easily be applied to the decisions we make every day regarding our business vendors.

It is easy to make the mistake of spreading our budget too thin or going with the cheapest option – mistakenly thinking we are getting more bang for buck or that we are saving money. Often you will find this approach will result in poorer quality and not achieving the goal you set out to do in the first place. The cost either in additional time or further investment to bring what you are doing back to scratch can often be far greater than if you had aligned your budget to your goals in the first place (or your goals to your budget).

Although this rule applies as much to the personal decisions we make, it is less likely we fall into that trap because we tend to naturally protect “our hard earned money”. We will spend far more time in determining return on investment whether it is through measuring easy to compare metrics, searching online or by talking to family and friends to better understand their experiences and opinions. We seek recommendations feeling confident of asking someone we know “how did you find your builder, car, computer, TV, phone etc? “. We do this whether it is a conscious best practice or not.

It has always struck me the difference that people feel about spending their own money vs. their employers’ money. The sense of responsibility and ownership for return on investment regarding business purchases often differs from the way the same decision would be approached if it was their own money. At a time where organizations are looking at innovation as a means to survive the global economic environment, we should also be revising our planning and procurement approach. And this is more about the culture you create rather than defining it through process.

Encouraging your team to spend time on determining the best plan to achieve your goals against budget, investing in research and assessment of the right vendor, obtaining testimonials directly from similar type businesses who have engaged or purchased from that vendor, investing in developing a good brief or requirement specifications; all will help you determine the best partner for you and your company – and I do emphasize that you see the relationship as a partner not just vendor/supplier. This should result in you choosing the best partner that truly shares your vision and belief in your desired objectives, and is motivated to bring you success beyond “making the sale”.

If you are delivering on someone else’s brief, and you find the scope and budget are out of alignment, you may need to either negotiate more budget or learn to reset expectations when determining how best to achieve the goal within the budget you have.

Whatever you do, don’t make the mistake of going with the cheapest option, spread your budget too thin, and have the outcome you are working to achieve at risk. Even with the financial pressures as they are today, you can’t afford the ‘real’ expense of going with the cheapest lawyer or any other vendor unless you really have weighed up the true cost and return of that engagement.

The same goes in reverse. If you are offering a product or service, make sure you invest in understanding the brief and proving how you are best able to help your client achieve their brief. Be realistic about pricing and quote what you believe is fair and reasonable for the scope of brief or requirement given. Everyone needs to win for success to be fully realized.

You need to buy well to return well. And this may mean you need to review your purchasing culture right now.

June 10, 2009March 29, 2017

Progression post recession…

With great caution, we are seeing reports of “Australia avoiding a recession” with claims the worst has passed. And whilst I sincerely hope that is the case and no-one suffers further or unnecessary financial hardship, I do wonder if we as a nation have spent enough time considering just how we will compete and sustain our economy over the long term. Have we invested enough in understanding the global economic crisis? The reasons for the global crash and the questions it raises about our understanding and demands on the companies’ (or investments’) integrity, values and responsibilities that we invest in?

One beauty of financial uncertainty is that it forces us to think about what is important to us. It certainly forces us to review where our priorities and responsibilities lay. In business it brings clarity to what is the true means of competitive differentiation and how best to go-to-market. If your company’s survival is at stake, it forces you to define clearly where your markets are (or could be) and how sustainable they are. It allows you to explore different possibilities and opportunities. And it should be a time where you encourage and promote innovation and change within your organization and empower your team to help find the path to future growth and financial strength.

In the March quarter national accounts, it still showed domestic spending falling by one percent, the sharpest fall since December quarter 2000. We avoided a technical definition of a recession by a GDP expansion mostly due to imports contracting and exports remaining positive. “Overall, GDP growth was positive because imports contracted by an extraordinary seven per cent allowing net exports to contribute 2.2 percentage points to GDP growth and ensuring a positive result” stated Westpac’s chief economist Bill Evans.

Let’s not exhale the sigh of relief that the worst has passed us. Use this time to consider what you need to do to emerge stronger. How can you innovate and compete strongly in the global markets? What is your true means for sustainable competitive differentiation and how do you focus on those?

Back to integrity, values and responsibilities, what does this mean for your company and what (if any) are the lessons here? What should you avoid next time and what do you need to ensure you do next time? What measures need to be in place to help ensure you don’t forget those lessons?

And finally, as we consider the lessons in these times, how in finding your means for financial strength and security will you balance your desire for greater profits against your responsibilities to your employees and to the greater community moving forward?

What will your story of progression post recession (or near recession) be?

As Albert Einstein said “in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”.

June 3, 2009March 29, 2017

Nurturing and inspiring tomorrow’s heroes

Most of our kids harbor a burning desire to be number one at something. They can easily conjure an image of themselves scoring the winning goal, coming first in a race, hitting the winning shot….but how many of them at first call on an image of the invention they are going to create that could change the world? Or a design of a building that breaks all previous thoughts or examples of possibilities? How confident beyond the age of two or three (when they really do believe they are a superhero), do they think they have a chance to be society’s hero? And if you asked them if they wanted to, would they think it is possible for them to be able to do so?

With three children of my own, and with experience of schooling across 3 stages (preschool, primary school, high school) and across four schools and three schooling types (State, Catholic and Private), I have discovered a distinct gap in our education system in helping nurture and inspire our children to become the inventors, entrepreneurs, and creators of tomorrow. As many of us know with our children, the connection between what they are learning today in school and how it helps them in their future is rarely understood by them. And to be honest, unless you raise the level of abstraction in how the skills they are really learning can be applied in life – it is difficult for us to provide an answer to that connection in a way that will satisfy them. More than that, it seems that whilst our children might get lucky with an inspirational teacher, the exploration of engineering something new, the time given to create and celebrate a new invention, learning how previous inventions have changed our lives and the extraordinary achievement it represented in its time, does seem to be lacking, particularly in the early years of schooling.

By the time our children hit high school, unless they have a particular self-interest, most do not relate their natural strengths or interest in Mathematics, English, or Art to the possibilities within engineering and invention. We begin to prescribe requirements for university entry scores in relation to possibilities for pre-defined career paths, but are we really engaging our future minds on the problems, opportunities and possibilities that present every day for them to be inspired to solve and the path to get there?

Thomas Edison claimed that Genius was 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. It seems to me that our education system is putting too much emphasis on, and we are providing too much by way of our own example, of the perspiration element. We seem to be ignoring the importance and are not providing enough emphasis and example-setting on the inspiration aspect. By emphasis I am talking within the design of our education system and in the time and responsibility we have as parents in encouraging, nurturing, and inspiring our children’s creativity and exploration of the “what if you could…” scenarios.

As we have increased our protective care, prescribing the after-school activities in a way that gives our children the best possible opportunities (or so we rationalize), is it possible that we may have not correctly weighed up the cost of preventing or constraining the ability for our children to run free and learn through natural exploration and invention? As we look to ensure enrichment, gifted and learning, and assisted programs to be supported at schools, have we put the same energy into seeing how creativity and invention is being supported and celebrated at school?

If we think about the future for our children, where do they sit within the world’s estimated population?

We know IQ is distributed evenly through the population. So how do we help our children make a positive footprint on the world, both for their generation and for their children’s generation?

Australia has an estimated population of 21million, an approximate 0.3% of the total world’s population. Rather than accepting it is OK to plod along, and accept what is, we have a responsibility and requirement to create a country of global visionaries. Those who see their playground as bigger than the constraints of our shorelines and the comfort we feel in our history of enjoying “the lucky country” and the “she’ll be right” philosophy.

It is absolutely critical that we teach our children now the importance and relevance of their uniqueness. Their unique mix of talent, skills, smarts and experiences. Of the same opportunity that they have as an individual to anyone, anywhere else in the world. They have an equal chance to make a difference; and that difference can come from their own creativity and invention. The problems they can be thinking about to solve may not just be the ones that they face, but rather the problems that we as a global nation of people face. Or may be something that can be enjoyed by others, enhancing and improving many lives, not just their own.

As a country, as business people, as parents – we have a responsibility to nurture and inspire our children to become tomorrow’s heroes.

I know I don’t have all the answers but I do want to keep asking the right questions. And help my children to keep pushing and exploring what could be. I would like for us all to find a way to break inertia, break stereotypical types, break the habits that too much “dead use of technology” like television and electronic games etc provide, and muster the energy to encourage our education system and society in general to promote and support invention and creativity in our children. For us to celebrate our inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs so they become the leading examples in our society.

Here are my thoughts of what we can do to nurture and inspire tomorrow’s heroes:

We must accept our responsibility to inspire and nurture our own children. We must help our children explore what could be and not allow them (or us) to get bogged down on the “how to get there”. We must make the process of exploration and creativity positive; we must invite it, suspend judgment, and allow for self evaluation. We must help our children see the beauty and the impact that inventions have bought us – everything from the printing press, microscope, bike, paperclip, microchip, spaceship all the way to the iphone and everything in-between! They are just a few examples – I am sure you can think of many more exciting examples to inspire others.

And it may be that with this focus, our children will dream bigger dreams, will be given the confidence to explore what could be and take will become tomorrow’s hero.