Professional Development
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Leadership & influence
Mike Myatt | March 23, 2011
You cannot be an effective leader without influence. Let me make this as simple as I can – if you’re a leader, influence needs to be a competency.The key to developing influence is understanding that contacts and relationships are not synonymous. Don’t confuse a database with a sphere of influence. A database consists of information records, and a sphere of influence consists of meaningful relationships built upon a foundation of trust – a point of distinction lost upon many.
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Conference to explore social media
Helen Hull | March 17, 2011
Many businesses are struggling to keep up with social media and are failing to integrate it into their overall marketing strategies despite Australia leading the social media revolution in terms of usage.
To help marketers understand the importance of the medium, communications company PMP Limited is hosting international and national experts to provide best practice and insight on the subject through the Schmart marketing conference. -
Intuitive management or logical management?
Anne Fritz-Cohen | March 17, 2011An intuitive manager must first learn to be a logical manager.
Over the years much has been made of the right-brain/left-brain dichotomy, identified by Barnard a long time ago – in 1936. Intuitive vs logical dominant brain halves, feminine vs masculine ways of thinking, artistic or systematic minds are some of the terms that are still used in populist literature to describe ways in which our brains operate.
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How the weak win deals: A theory of asymmetric negotiation
Peter Fritz | February 24, 2011Negotiations tend to favour the powerful.
This is never clearer than in war and battle. We expect the strong army to defeat the weak army. Yet, as is beautifully articulated in a terrific article by Ivan Arreguin-Toft titled How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict, some 30 per cent of the time the weaker army will win a war.
Of course, it is not really the case that weaker armies win wars; for if they were truly the weaker army they would have lost. Instead, we are surprised when our judgement of which army was stronger is proved incorrect. When the weak win wars it is normally said that they “had a better strategy”. The army with the better strategy is simply the one who’s General has done a better job of accounting for all the variables at play when formulating his strategy.
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AIM SURVEY: Women in the workforce
Les Pickett | February 9, 2011The Australian Institute of Management is conducting a SURVEY seeking views on how can we retain more women in the workforce and increase their representation in senior management positions in Australia.
Australia’s escalating skills shortage is hitting the profits and performance of organisations in this country. In this environment, organisations are embarking on new programs to stop the female ‘brain drain’ from the workforce and to ensure they gain full advantage from the skills of all the women and men they employ.
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Gut instinct due for a comeback
Virginia Harrison | January 25, 2011
In an advertisement for her reality television show, business owner Kelly Cutrone explains there’s no crying in her office. If you want to cry, go outside.
The Kell on Earth star is probably not alone in the view that emotion is something best left at the office door.
But according to interdisciplinary education expert Dr Anne Fritz-Cohen, managers need to rediscover their feelings in order to be more effective.
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Mixing business with family – can it work?
Philippa Taylor | January 18, 2011Family Business Australia (FBA), a non-profit organisation working with families in business, has developed a two-day course to help family members be effective directors, and understand the dynamics that can affect their judgement.
FBA, in conjunction with the leading Australian provider of family business education, the Australian Centre for Family Business at Bond University, has focused not only on business governance but governance pertaining to family involvement.
This course is designed to cover material not currently offered in Australia today. The emphasis is on balancing the needs of the family and the business when developing management and governance structures such as boards and advisory councils.
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Beef up your managerial muscles
Virginia Harrison | January 11, 2011http://www.carnegiemg.com.au/
THE strategy used to get a teenager to clean their room might not be so persuasive in the boardroom. Yet executive mentor Kayley Liddle often sees managers fall short by failing to distinguish between worlds – just one area where a corporate coach can help sharpen a professional’s edge.
“Executive coaching helps individuals stay focused on their goals a lot quicker, and a lot more effectively than if they were doing it on their own,” Ms Riddle from Carnegie Management Group says.
“People ask if I had a coach what would I get? It’s a very difficult question to answer, I ask what would you like to get, what would you like to achieve?”
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Mid-size businesses should factor in factoring
David Hechter | December 14, 2010In today’s credit restricted economy, it’s more important than ever for medium-sized businesses to know what forms of financing are available to them.
Medium-sized businesses are different, but like companies of all sizes they have the challenge of chasing up slow payers.
In fact, because they are more likely to be providing services to large companies, the mid-size business is feeling this pain more acutely.
The global financial crisis and the rise in funding costs has prompted banks to protect their internal balance sheets more than ever, and are tightening up their credit criteria for businesses of all sizes. To ensure their success, mid-size growth companies may need to rely on alternative forms of financing, like accounts receivable factoring.
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Who are you in the zoo?
Virginia Harrison | December 13, 2010
Hyenas make great project managers. A lion should head up your sales team, but never the HR department. That job is best left to an owl.
Or so according to The Organizational Zoo, a system of understanding human interactions which uses animals to represent different behavioural styles, devised by lecturer and knowledge expert Arthur Shelley.
The concept is designed to improve group dynamics and outcomes.
“It doesn’t matter how good a project is, success always leads back to the dynamics of the people that involved,” Shelley says.
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Shaping the market-place
Virginia Harrison | December 6, 2010
The leader of Deloitte Private, David Murray, had this to say at the launch of First 5000, held at NSW Parliament House on 20 October 2010, about why Deloitte Private decided to become involved in the initiative.
We often say things are all about the timing and in the case of First 5000 the timing of the initial expression of interest aligned with what we were doing. As JV said in the introduction, I have the pleasure of running what we call Deloitte Private which is a division of Deloitte that looks after private organisations, private entities, businesses and their owners- high networked individuals.
Deloitte Private also spans into certain elements of the listed sector as private business obviously has a very close correlation with the listed sector as many seek to list.
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Go back to school in 2011
Virginia Harrison | December 6, 2010Thinking of hitting the books next year but not sure where to start?
There are plenty of options to consider, from short courses, diplomas and certificates through to a full-blown MBA.
We’ve done the first bit of hard work for you. Here’s an outline of what’s on in executive education for 2011.
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The good, the bad and the ugly: getting to know your business
Virginia Harrison | October 1, 2010
Getting to know the ugly side of your business might just be the trick to move things up a gear. Virginia Harrison spoke to Phil Doyle from Curtin University. They’ve been running hands-on business development programs for small and mid-size businesses as part of the Curtin Growth Owner program for the past 15 years.
The so-called “pocket MBA” delivers practical lessons from business people, rather than academics.
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Managed Accidents
Peter Fritz | September 8, 2010Along with my colleague Jeanne-Vida Douglas, I have just finished writing a new book titled “The Profit Principle”.
The book is due for release in November but the whole hook of it, which I wanted to share here, is that the most common mistake people make in business is falling for the adage that you have to “spend money to make money”.
That’s simply not true; you need to invoice to make money!
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Manager skill-set blocks mid-size growth
Beth Walker | September 4, 2010Medium-sized businesses often stumble when it comes to scaling up because they lack strong managerial skills.
