By Jordan Reizes >>

WHAT MAKES a great leader, especially in rapidly changing circumstances?

I recently had the chance to interview Australian cricket legend Adam Gilchrist. Adam retired a few years ago, but when I asked people on social media if they had any questions for him, my inbox was inundated with people telling me that ‘Gilly’ was their favourite player.

No pressure.

We covered a lot of ground on the different aspects of leadership and how, if it’s done well, it can change the game. This got me thinking about how we can apply those strategies in our business lives. 

In business, as in sport, things don’t always go our way. During our conversation, I learned that from Adam’s perspective, attitude really is everything.

The right attitude is a critical element in changing a team’s results. He spoke highly of one of Australia’s greatest batsmen and his former captain, Steve Waugh.

Gilchrist reflected on the first team meeting in India in 2001 (the Australians hadn’t won in India for 32 years) and how Steve’s first words have stuck with him to this day.

Waugh asked his team, “Attitudes are contagious, is yours worth catching?”

Steve Waugh led by example. In posing this question to the team, he communicated that by focusing on the goal rather than their excuses, they could win.

REASONS FOR SUCCESS

Focusing on the reasons that you can be successful is totally different than unwrapping all the reasons you can't.

As leaders, we need to be aware of this and focus on how we create a contagious attitude.

So, how do we do that?

The truth is, there isn’t a set way to lead. A leader brings their unique set of skills and values to the table – something Gilly pointed to in our chat.

“Of all the captains I’ve played under, they’ve each had a unique approach to leadership,” he told me. 

Gilchrist said one of the great leadership qualities of Mark Taylor was his ability to communicate in a clear and concise manner.

If leaders don’t clearly communicate why an action is necessary, people won’t be motivated to assist.

In fact, there’s a common communication mistake that leaders often make. They assume that communicating the what and how of a situation is the best way to influence and direct their audience. They often think the why is evident – and so it goes unsaid.

THE VALUE OF ‘WHY?’

Effective communicators understand the value of why, and how it can motivate their team by arming them with the necessary information and insight.

To this end, technology is playing an increasing role with real-time intelligence, data and analytics providing the ability to gain insight into the why that may not have been available before.

“Early in my career, at the start of a 1997 tour, Mark Taylor sat me down to explain the role I was to fulfil alongside the big-name players,” Adam Gilchrist told me. “I came out of that meeting feeling just as important as Steve Waugh or Shane Warne, because he had given me responsibility and accountability.”

Responsibility and accountability encourage people to back themselves. I think this concept rings true whether you’re an elite athlete, a business professional or public servant. 

See the full interview and hear all the leadership insights ‘Gilly’ had to share, here: https://www.nutanix.com/cxo/cloud-counsel/episode-16

Jordan Reizes is Asia Pacifc-Japan vice president of marketing for enterprise cloud and hyperconverged infrastructure company Nutanix. 

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By Leon Gettler >>

WITH THE COVID-19 recession in full swing, Lyndall Spooner, the founder and director of consultancy and advisory firm Fifth Dimension, said business leaders need to adopt a wartime mindset.

She said whenever there is a downturn, businesses have traditionally been protective, whereas they need to become more innovative and push their businesses forward more than ever. 

“To me, the wartime mindset is you need to be basically relentless when things get tough and you need to rethink your business, where you are headed and what you’re going to do to make sure your business survives – and to be ruthless in that vision,” Ms Spooner told Talking Business. 

She said many businesses were not prepared for this as they had experienced nearly 30 years of growth since the last recession.

“I think a lot of businesses have looked at their success and probably over-inflated the success of things they’ve done in their business and not taking into account a lot of their growth would have come regardless of what they did or didn’t do, because we’ve been living in a growing economy for several decades now,” Ms Spooner said.

“So what happens when that economy changes and you are now in a downturn?

“You now have to fight to survive as a business. You have to make sure that every dollar you invest in the business is actually going to give you a very good return.

“And you shouldn’t rely on what you’ve done in the past because, I would say, where you did invest, you don’t know to what extent it was successful because there was this natural momentum in the economy anyway that was driving everyone forward,” Ms Spooner said.

DATA MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

Lyndall Spooner said Fifth Dimension urges its clients to use the right data to make the best decisions that they can. She said many companies had been basing decisions on data in an economy that was growing – and only discovered they needed new data when there was a downturn.

Ms Spooner said data came in two forms. The first was operational data setting out sales and revenue and profitability. The second came from the customer base and the market indicating what consumers needed and were buying, and how that might be changing.

She said this second area of data was what companies often got wrong. They often did not see they were looking at the wrong metric until they saw a decline.

“We are in an environment where consumer spending is declining and consumers are becoming far more discerning about the companies they want to buy from and the products they want to buy,” Ms Spooner said.

“So you need very good data to tell you how consumer sentiment is changing. What is it that they’re looking for? What should you be focusing on to invest in your business to have the right products and services to meet their needs?”

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR METRICS

Ms Spooner said there was “no single metric out there” to explain consumer behaviours and businesses needed to look at what the right metric might be for the industry they are in – and what kind of metric suited the company, to help its brand grow

“Be a war time CEO, be prepared to let go what you’ve done in the past, find the metric that will help you grow in a very tough economy by better understanding your consumers and their needs than your competitors and ensure your business is investing in the right things,” she said.

Ms Spooner said a lot of marketing models currently used by companies were developed in the 1800s and the world was now a different place, in terms of how consumers get introduced to brands and select them, particularly with Google.

She said all this needed to be taken into account when selecting a metric. And also, companies should not rely on a single metric.

“You need an ecosystem of metrics to understand all these different areas and considerations,” Ms Spooner said.

www.leongettler.com.au

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.  

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By Tracey Dunn >>

THE FEDERAL Government has released more detail about the much-anticipated changes to the JobKeeper program.

In a press conference, Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced a new and more targeted version of the JobKeeper program will commence from October 2020.

The changes will take effect from September 28 and will be implemented progressively so employers currently receiving the wage subsidy will continue to receive JobKeeper in its current form until the end of September.

The revamped JobKeeper program, labelled JobKeeper 2.0, will see some fundamental changes to the program, particularly around eligibility testing and the rate of pay required to be paid to eligible employees. Under the current JobKeeper program, eligible employers were required to satisfy the decline in turnover test once, with the test period limited to either a selected month or relevant quarter. 

While eligible employers were required to provide monthly data to the ATO of current and projected turnover, eligibility for the program did not cease if turnover returned to normal or increased.  

Under JobKeeper 2.0, eligible employers will need to re-test the decline in turnover in October and December to ensure ongoing eligibility. The PM has indicated the new JobKeeper eligibility tests will be based on a comparison of quarterly turnover and will not be limited to a one-off test.

To be eligible for ongoing JobKeeper assistance, businesses will need to pass the relevant decline in turnover rates as follows:

Testing of ongoing eligibility based on ongoing quarterly turnover will assist in ensuring integrity in the program and ensuring the program is targeted at those businesses impacted most by COVID-19.  This is a welcome change that will help limit the financial burden on the government and Australian taxpayers, but also ensures business owners impacted by COVID-19 are provided with the support to continue to operate and engage their employees until COVID-19 outbreaks are contained and restrictions released.  

While the detail of the new eligibility tests is yet to be announced, on the face of it, it appears the proposed changes will assist in ensuring financial support is targeted to industries most impacted by the ongoing effects of COVID-19 restrictions such as hospitality, tourism, entertainment and the airline industry. The proposed changes will also ensure financial support is directed to businesses in Victoria and New South Wales which have been impacted by an increase in COVID-19 cases and a second round of restrictions.

The PM also announced changes to the JobKeeper minimum wage condition which will see employees receive support based on their basis of employment as opposed to receiving a flat rate of support. The government has announced JobKeeper 2.0 will have a two-tiered approach to the minimum JobKeeper wage: one for full time employees; the other for part-time and long-term casual employees.

The new rates will be as follows:

This change is welcome as it will address the anomaly where casual or part-time employees were paid a flat rate of $1,500 per fortnight (before tax) irrespective of their usual rate of pay or working hours, or where stood-down employees receiving JobKeeper support from their primary employer have obtained temporary employment with another employer.  

The gradual weaning off of government support will give businesses the opportunity to revisit future sustainability. RSM strongly advises business owners to engage with their advisers to create a plan for the future, whether that be business growth, business reinvention or business cessation.

Finance Minister Mathias Corman had indicated in an earlier press conference that the government was cognisant of the issue where stimulus support packages, such as JobKeeper, were keeping otherwise-insolvent companies afloat and this was not the intent of the program. The proposed changes may be a warning for zombie companies. Given the impending changes and ultimate cessation of the program in early 2021, otherwise-insolvent companies may need to consider whether they continue to reassess eligibility or seek advice relating to voluntary administration or winding up while ASIC concessions surrounding insolvent trading provisions are still in effect.

Further detail regarding the changes is not expected until government resumes in September; however, today’s government announcement appears reasonable and equitable, and will ensure support is more targeted towards those who most require it.

About the author

Tracey Dunn is the associate director of RSM Australia, one of the nation's leading professional services firms with a 95-year history of assisting Australian businesses to innovate and develop.

RESEARCH published by Forbes magazine suggests most staff spend from 2.5 hours to as much as 6.5 hours per day reading and replying to emails.

Even at the lower end, that’s more than a quarter of each working day and that’s just the average; some workers in information-intensive roles or industries may spend much more than that. This can create significant bottlenecks when it comes to sharing information, collaborating effectively, and moving projects forward. 

OnePlace Solutions CEO James Fox said, “When email became widely adopted in the business world, it was revolutionary. It provided a faster communication method than letters and memos that had to be physically distributed and it was more private and convenient than faxes.

"However, as email has become ubiquitous, it has devolved into a time-wasting business tool instead of one that promotes productivity," he said.

“In many organisations, business managers are looking for ways to minimise the use of email or make it more efficient so that employees can focus more on deep work and creative tasks instead of on managing their emails. However, most of the solutions organisations trial end up with their own set of challenges.

"For example, instant messaging is too hard to organise and track, and it doesn’t work for team members in different time zones, while internal collaboration tools don’t always let third parties communicate with the team seamlessly.  

“As more employees and businesses are discovering the myriad benefits of remote working, the question of how to solve the email challenge is becoming more urgent.”

In many situations, email still provides the best option to communicate with teams, especially if that communication includes a lot of information. Therefore, it’s likely that the best solution to the email challenge will be one that seamlessly connects individuals’ emails to team collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams or SharePoint.  

“Often, people receive important attachments via email," Mr Fox said. "They then have to manually save those attachments into SharePoint or, worse, shared drives that don’t have an obvious or reliable taxonomy, making those documents hard to find again. 

“Being able to put those emails and their attachments straight into SharePoint without having to switch between Outlook and SharePoint is a massive time saver. It means that all project team members can access all relevant information at all times, keeping projects moving forward based on the latest information.

"This reduces the amount of time people spend on managing emails and increases the amount of time they can spend on creative and innovative work, leading to greater job satisfaction and better results for the organisation.” 

References:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/annabelacton/2017/07/13/innovators-challenge-how-to-stop-wasting-time-on-emails/#786a619e9788
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2017/02/15/as-workplace-communication-evolves-email-may-not-prevail/#27d71f80626c

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