Skip to main content

Management

Business is changing (as always) – but can you handle the pace?

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

THE PROBLEMS and challenges facing today’s CEOs have changed.

Most notably, it’s the pace of change.

Jarrod McGrath, CEO of Smart WFM believes the big issue now is the rate of change. It’s never been seen before and surviving it is the biggest challenge, he said.

“If you look back 10 years ago, it was very much you have your financial responsibilities, you’ve got your people responsibilities, you’ve got your process, your operations,” Mr McGrath told Talking Business. 

“Today the fundamentals are the same but the rate of change is happening at such a significant pace that people are wanting instant feedback, instant response, you’ve got all sorts of technology coming at a million miles an hour.”

AI a troublesome accelerator?

Mr McGrath said artificial intelligence was a perfect example of this.

He said CEOs now need to have an “incredible” team of people around them. The team and the organisation need to be investing enough to make sure it can take on all the change that is coming at them.

He said CEOs had to make sure they had the rhythm of AI fitting their particular company and sector.

“Some organisations are on the cutting edge and they need to be on the cutting edge of where AI is going,” Mr McGrath said.

“But if you’re an organisation that hasn’t traditionally come from a technological background or that digitally flavoured way of operating, then as a CEO and an organisation, you’ve got to get yourself prepared first because you can’t just come and take the AI on without having a really good understanding of how it’s going to fit into operating rhythm and cadence.”

He said companies need people with competencies like problem solving, digital literacy, project management and emotional quotient (EQ) skills to deal with AI. Everything that goes using AI needs human vetting.

“These days there’s a set of competencies that organisations need to have to take on AI,” Mr McGrath said.

“A lot of organisations are really good at bringing these skills and competencies in, or they have them already, but there’s a lot of organisations that are really struggling with this because they haven’t been founded on what I call digital muscle.

“So it’s the organisations that are able to adapt and develop these competencies that are going to do well from AI.”

High CEO turnover is having a ‘short-sighted’ impact

Mr McGrath said one of the big problems facing companies – and CEOs – these days is the high turnover of CEOs. They don’t usually last more than five years.

McGrath said keeping a CEO in the same position for longer would improve Australia’s productivity.

“Often what happens, from my observations with CEOs, is that the CEO will join an organisation on a two-or-three year tenure to drive a certain outcome for the organisation and for the next two or three years it’s a certain outcome.

“I really wonder whether this turnover of CEOs in organisations stifles productivity.

“I think organisations would become more systemic in the way that they think and the way they develop their plans. To really drive productivity into organisations these days, it’s a mix of the old three things of people, process and technology,” Mr McGrath said.

“But these days, to really get productivity improvement, those areas need to be so well integrated, working together.

“And if a short-term objective of a CEO is to drive bottom line profit, are you losing sight of some of these longer term activities that need to take place?

“Because a lot of organisations have systems, processes and technology that are very old and built on old-skilled thinking – and these (business development activities) are multi-year programs of improvement to get these right. And, from the centre of that, stems the productivity improvement.”

www.smartwfm.com

www.leongettler.com

 


Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-22-interview-with-jarrod-mcgrath-from-smart


ends

Helping businesses deal with the ascendance of bullies

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

THERE ARE bullies everywhere. Whether in business, on the street, on the roads, you’ll always find them,

Why is this happening?

Personality expert Bill Eddy, the co-founder and director of innovation at the High Conflict Institute in the United States put it down to two main reasons.

First, it was the pandemic.

But second, it’s because of social media which has “shown people images of bullying over and over again all over the world”.

“Bullies are becoming role models for what gets attention. Also, social media has helped bullies find each other and encourage each other rather than discouraging each other the way community standards do,” Mr Eddy told Talking Business.

“So with social media, anybody can find their group that reinforces them being nasty. 

“We often get people who are the most aggressive, most self-centred are very comfortable with social media and putting themselves out there.”

“I think our screens in general – with the news on TV, movies, drama, seeing images of bullying gets a lot of attention – and so we’re getting shown those images more than ever before and then people are copying those images.”

Imbalance in online hostilities

Mr Eddy said while most of us don’t get hostile online, the people who are already hostile in person are getting more attention and are louder online. Reasonable people drop out of those conversations early on.

He said businesses are not prepared to handle bullies.

“People will often hope that things will settle down and the person will come to their senses but that’s not how bullies work,” Mr Eddy said.

“It’s part of their personality and that’s what seems to keep it going.

“They don’t stop themselves. Therefore, the people around them and the organisations need to stop them.

“What I’ve found is that business waits way too long. They keep giving them chances and these people don’t change – so why keep giving them chances to do damage to the organisation?”

Institute teaches conflict resolution skills

Mr Eddy said the High Conflict Institute has developed a method of coaching which teaches conflict resolution skills. So if a company doesn’t know whether or not to sack a bullying manager, the Institute will tell them to give them some coaching to see if they can change their high conflict bullying.

“Maybe half the time, coaching does make a difference and maybe half the other time, the coaching doesn’t make a difference and people just leave or they get fired,” he said.

Mr Eddy said Steve Jobs, who founded Apple, was well known as a bully. Yet his management team was able to set limits on him.

“You need to have restraints and if you surround the person with reasonable people, who cannot take personally what the bully does, then you may be able to help them succeed,” he said.

Mr Eddy said there was a higher proportion of bullies in law firms – as well as in the police force and in healthcare, ministry and counselling services.

“One thing I think we see is that every profession has some of these and people tend to protect their own,” he said.

“That’s not a good thing. You shouldn’t be protecting the bullies in your profession or your whole profession gets a bad name.” 

www.highconflictinstitute.com

www.leongettler.com


Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-18-interview-with-bill-eddy-from-the-high-p


 

ends

AI may help salespeople … but only salespeople succeed

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

SALES roles are so competitive. Everyone wants to get ahead. But what are the best ways to do this?

Aaron Tighe, a sales coach who wrote What You Already Know & Don't …The B2B Sales Playbook  knows there are some simple ways to go about this.

A lot of it would, of course, rely on the personality of the sales person, but Mr Tighe said a key strategy would be to use artificial intelligence (AI) to do research on prospective clients. “It’s a fast and efficient way of doing it,” he said. 

“What we’re seeing now is the speed of access to that kind of information. It’s incredible with the likes of AI and your ability to get that information and educate yourself before and after you meet the customer,” Mr Tighe told Talking Business.

“In boosting sales, for me it’s all about speed and efficiency. So where you might spend an hour or so doing research on a company on the web, you can do that in minutes.

“So what does that mean for sales? You can work quicker, you can work more efficiently and there are no excuses for not being prepared when you go see a customer.

“All it means is there’s an efficiency to get there quicker. If I’ve got my sales hat on, I’m going to be using that to the best because I know that can give me an advantage.”

Circuitous route to sales

How did Mr Tighe end up in sales?

He actually started out as a footballer in England but at the age of 22, as happens with a lot of footballers, his career was coming to an end. So he ended up at the Macquarie Technology Group in WA.

He started out in the accounts department.

“I always remember doing the payroll and, in the payroll, I’d see these people called sales executives and they paid them commissions and bonuses and I thought: ‘How do I do that?”  he said. 

Mr Tighe said the other great skill sales reps need is the ability to listen. In other words, they should cut back on pitching and listen more closely. They need to articulate ahead and ask key questions.

“Listening in sales and in general is just so important. You have to be intently listening,” he said.

“You have to be motivated to listen and then observe

“It’s not just what the customer is talking about. It’s about thinking ahead to: ‘What else can I go to here? What else can I do to learn and understand from that customer about what they need?

“You might need to dig for that a little bit and go two, three, four layers down to understand what the customer really wanting and needs,” he said.

“It’s super important. It’s not just listening but taking it in and articulating back to the customer that you understand.”

Questions lead to answers you need

Mr Tighe said ‘listening’ means asking questions.

There are different types of questions that can be asked. Like factual stuff -- yes or no questions.

“Certainly ‘how’ and ‘what’ questions are super to come out with,” he said.

“And there are double barrelled questions. Like ‘tell me about that department’ …”

But,of course, everyone answers questions differently. Every person is unique. 

“Again with the listening skills, you might have some who are very introverted and closed and give you shorter answers, so you have to work harder there to do that uncovering.”

www.leongettler.com


Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-17-interview-with-aaron-tighe-sales-coach

Creatives earn from Promeet’s blockchain ‘monetization’ of online events

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

IMAGINE a company that is revolutionizing the creator economy by developing a platform that allows users to monetize their online meetings and streams using blockchain technology.

Imagine a company that aims to eliminate third-party intermediaries, reduce fees, and give users more control over their earnings.

Promeet offers a simple and frictionless experience for both content creators and viewers. With a competitive 5% fee on transactions, Promeet provides a more affordable alternative to traditional platforms.

Gadi Buch – founder and chief business officer – explained that Promeet does all these things. 

He said Promeet takes Zoom, Google Meet, Teams and other systems then combines them simply where users don’t even have to register to monetize their audience with micropayments.

The platform uses blockchain to achieve this.

“The majority of products out there for Blockchain are more about trading, trade finance, tokens and so on … no one is using Blockchain for a real time usage in today’s world,” Mr Buch told Talking Business.

“So we created a product that when you log on to Promeet with your socials, your email or your phone, we built a wallet on the back of that.

“So people using Promeet don’t know that the back office for that is blockchain and without them knowing, it gives them capability of micropayments and instant payments”

Blockchain works silently away in the background

The beauty of Promeet, he said, was that a lot of people find blockchain so complicated and that people using Promeet have no idea that they are using blockchain.

“With blockchain, you have to have a password, you have to have 12 words you have to keep and all this complexity,” Mr Buch said.

“We took all that complexity and moved it into something that nobody feels

“So basically when we generate our wallet, we put you on blockchain without all the hassle.”

He said Promeet was built for all content creators, including people who want to use it for webinars, where people have to sell tickets and send Zoom links.

“That’s a lot of back office work,” Mr Buch said. “But when you do it on Promeet, you do it instantly.

“So they pay as they come in, they pay by the minute as they stay on it. They pay for the entire session, or you have the option to pay by the minute.

“The main users can be doctors, they can be lawyers, they can be anyone who is doing anything online. Streamers, content creators. Gamers. Anything you want to do online and you want to get paid instantly without all the hassle you have in today’s market.”

Free to use, Promeet profits from user’s profit

Mr Buch said with Zoom, people had to pay a subscription if they use it for more than 45 minutes. Promeet, on the other hand, is completely free. Even for a three hour session on Zoom.

He said other platforms take 20-50% of what people make.

So how does Promeet make money?

“We are charging 5% from any transaction that’s being made on Promeet,” Mr Buch said.

“So basically we don’t make any money until you make money. And 5% compared to the market is very low.

“So that’s liberating part of the world and because we don’t have barriers on payments.

“We think if you’re going to do a live event and you’re going to charge $1 or $2 for the event and people will pay for the time spent on it, that’s a new economy that will help a lot of people.” Leon Gettler.

www.promeet.live

www.leongettler.com

 


Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-14-interview-with-gadi-buch-from-promeet


ends

Margo Faraci’s research counts the costs of poor leaders and managers

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

BUSINESSES around the world are caught in a vortex of bad leadership, leaders who simply aren’t up to the job. And they know it too. The result: inability to communicate with teams, falling morale and poor productivity.

It’s rife in Australia, the US and UK, according to Margo Faraci, a global leadership expert and executive.

Ms Faraci has a background in some of the largest global blue chip companies including in her native Australia – Macquarie Bank, NAB, Seek.com, Ashurst, and Commonwealth Bank – and internationally with global mega-techs such as Amazon and Coca-Cola.

Ms Faraci said bad management can mean a range of things to different people.

“But ultimately, it’s management and leadership that makes people small and misses their potential. And therefore business potential,” Ms Faraci told Talking Business

Self-awareness is key

Ms Faraci said much of it came down to self-awareness.

“If we’re turning up as leaders frustrated, if we’re turning up as leaders saying to ourselves” ‘Just do it for the money’. If we’re turning up not happy with our team, with the people around us, then we are probably operating from fear and there’s probably some work to be done there,” she said.

“In terms of finding out what’s going on in your team, what you realise the more senior you become is that the further up you go, the less you know what’s going on because people are really deferential to hierarchy.

“However, this means people stop telling you things so what you must do in your team is find out how people are and how they behave to you as a leader,” Ms Faraci said.

Build psychological safety

Ms Faraci said there are several ways to do this.

“The best thing you can do is be the leader admitting mistakes and asking for help,” she said.

“If you build what we call psychological safety, that’s the single biggest driver of performance.

“They’re the things you can do as a leader which will ensure people will come to you and let you know when there are problems in your team of direct reports.

“If you create the environment where people see you being open to different views and you admit mistakes, that creates psychological safety, that drives down fear.

“And performance is created when people can speak up, and people can have respectful debate and people can tell you things as they see it.”

Failing leaders cost companies

Ms Faraci said her study of managers in the US, UK and Australia showed leaders who couldn’t achieve this cost their companies heavily in terms of inadequate productivity.

Her research covered all sectors and examined emerging leaders in their late 20s and early 40s.

Ms Faraci’s research did not cover any particular industries. And it was the same across genders.

“About a third of emerging leaders are leading with what we call unconscious fear,” she said.

“That’s costing about $2.2 billion in Australia.

“If you don’t care about the impact on people, you might care about the dollar loss you are experiencing because of it.

“And we know those people who are leading unconsciously with fear are really unhappy as well. We know about half of them are unhappy in the job – so it’s not working for them either.” 

www.margotfaraci.com

www.leongettler.com

 


Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-11-interview-with-margot-faraci-global-lead


 

Reminder for SMB owners: profit comes first

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

MANY small business owners work their butts off to keep their businesses going. One of the problems they have is they don’t know how much cash they’re burning. And alas, too often, they run out of cash.

Rocky Lalvani, who serves as a chief profitability adviser for business owners in the US – and is the founder of Profit Comes First – has a simple formula for business owners.

Everyone is told by their accountant that profit equals sales minus expenses. What Mr Lalvani believes they need to do instead is say sales minus profit equals expenses. This forces them to constrain expenses.

He said it was amazing how many business owners fail to do that. Instead, they just focus on revenue, which he said is easy enough. The rubber hits the road however when they look at their costs.

 “What it does is it constrains your spending because, more often than not, business owners spend too much,” Mr Lalvani told Talking Business

“By looking at it differently, they are forced to constrain themselves.

“It’s a whole change in the equation, it’s a whole change in mindset.”

A sensible new approach for business owners

Mr Lalvani said this approach is a big change for many business owners.

“If you’re a business owner, and I’m going to invest in a business, do I not expect a return on my investment?” Mr Lalvani said.

“But how many business owners actually track their investments and track the return on the investment in the business they own? They wouldn’t put up with this with anyone else.

”How often do we talk about the bottom line? Everyone talks about what their revenue is. For a lot of people, it’s real easy to drive revenue. What’s really hard is to keep it and it’s a very different skill set.”

He said his formula sets up early warning signals for businesses when they are running out of cash.

“Because of the way the system works, you’re getting early warning signals that there is not enough cash in your expense account,” Mr Lalvani said.

“Too often business owners don’t know until much later that they ran out of cash until it’s too late. This system creates early warning signals.

“It prevents a lot of those sleepless nights and freakouts.

“When I look at my clients, my clients who have the most cash tend to be the ones who follow the system and do it well.”

Owners must pay themselves properly

Mr Lalvani said business owners need to pay themselves an appropriate salary for the work they do.

A lot of business owners start work at 6am and are still going into the night. But are they compensated for those hours? Do they give themselves the six figure salary they should get for those hours?

“They need to know how much they’re getting, whether or not their business is profitable,” Mr Lalvani said.

“We go through and look at the entire business from beginning to end. What does your lead flow look like? How many of your leads convert? How much is it costing you from marketing to get those leads? Is that a good number?

“Is that a thumbs up, is it a thumbs down? What do we need to do to improve the sale process? What’s your retention rate? What’s your average sale?

“All of that helps drive revenue.

“Now, our second bucket is how you drove all that revenue. What does it cost you to run your business?” he asked. “So, looking at all the operational costs and efficiencies.

“And the last bucket is the cash bucket. Because your profit and loss can say you’re profitable and you have no cash because it’s tied up in accounts receivable. Or it’s tied up in inventory. Or you have a lot of debt,” Mr Lalvani said. 

“Profit is a fictitious number your accountant came up with. It doesn’t equal cash in the bank.

“So we look at the entire process completely to help business owners have more cash and to work less too.” 

www.profitcomesfirst.com

www.leongettler.com


Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-8-interview-with-rocky-lalvani-from-profit-


ends

Workplace training declines – and we're losing out on wage and productivity gains

WORK-RELATED training is declining in Australia, despite it bringing higher incomes for workers and increased productivity for employers, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) has found.  

In Learning curve: Why Australia needs a training boost, CEDA analysis of HILDA data shows workers’ incomes are 20 percent higher the year after starting work-related training.

“Workers who trained were also more satisfied at work and more likely to report a promotion the year after training,” CEDA head of research Andrew Barker said.

“For employers, greater staff satisfaction and engagement are associated with higher productivity.  Given the need to lift Australia’s productivity performance, increasing training should be a focus for employers and policymakers. 

“These findings show work-related training is important to everyone – for employees in terms of their future incomes and career progression, and for employers in terms of employee engagement and productivity – even though it can sometimes feel like yet another task on the to-do list.

“The time and money devoted to training underline its economic importance. We estimate employers and employees invest a combined $12 billion a year in work-related training. Of this, $7 billion is the direct cost of delivering training, while the remainder is the time spent by employees on training. 

“Despite its importance, it is under-researched, and its decline has received little attention.”

Work-related training is structured learning such as short courses or online modules to help people become more effective in their jobs.

It can be voluntary or mandatory and can range from help to get started in a job to senior leadership training and compliance training.

Participation in work-related training has declined by 14 percent since 2007 in Australia, falling in 17 of 19 industries. This is concerning when Australia urgently needs to boost its productivity.

The decline has occurred even as participation in work-related training has increased in most other developed countries over the past decade. 

“The decline is surprising given strong wage growth for those who do training, productivity and staff-retention payoffs for employers and the increasing need to update skills in a changing economy,” Mr Barker said. 

“Time constraints are one key barrier identified by both workers and employers.

“Another is concerns that staff will take their new skills to a competitor after receiving training. But our analysis found participants were actually less likely to move jobs after receiving training.

“Employers should also take care that compliance training does not crowd out time for upskilling in more functional areas.

“Compliance training can be necessary to ensure safety, but when poorly delivered it can cut the time available to develop more practical skills.” 

One-third of Australian occupations face worker shortages. The need for work-related training is also increasing due to other trends including: 

•    Shifts such as digital transformation and the energy transition, which require retraining and upskilling as new roles emerge and industries adjust;

•    Artificial intelligence (AI), which is reshaping roles, changing how work is organised and the types of skills in demand;

•    The failure of tertiary education to fully meet the need for technical skills at the leading edge of industry practice; and 

•    An ageing workforce, which means there is a greater need to update skills to today’s needs, and an increasing need for lifelong learning. 


To address the decline in training, employers should:  

1)    Build a culture that values and encourages learning by understanding the barriers to training across the organisation;

2)    Measure the return on investment from training initiatives; and

3)    Better target compliance training through measures such as regular evaluation and minimising unnecessary re-training.


Governments should:

1)    Develop transparent and consistent accreditation of work-related training at the federal level, beginning with formal micro-credentials developed in collaboration with education providers, and incorporate this data into the new National Skills Passport currently under consideration; and

2)    Work to reverse declining literacy and numeracy skills among school students, ensuring disadvantaged children can meet the minimum standards necessary to enable learning in later life. This will require work at both the federal and state/territory level.  

“Done well, workplace training offers significant benefits for relatively low effort,” Mr Barker said.

“At a time of weak productivity growth, high skills mismatch, skill shortages and low job mobility, we should do everything we can to improve productivity and workers’ career trajectories through training.”

www.ceda.com.au

 

ends