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WRITTEN BY TONY MALKOVIC COVER STORY Regional leadership Would-be leaders from countries across the Asia-Pacific region gathered in Canberra recently to undertake the first stage of their Curtin-run Leadership Development Program. The 130 high-achieving participants – all recipients of AusAID Australian Leadership Awards Scholarships – are being supported by the Federal Government to undertake postgraduate study in Australia with the view to increasing their capacity to influence social and economic reform in the region. The Leadership Development Program, offered as part of the scholarship, complements their academic studies with the opportunity to realise their full leadership potential. Curtin recently competed against 26 other Australian universities to win the $10 million, four-year contract to run the leadership program. According to program manager Janet Sutherland from Curtin’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), the scholars have already proved they have the ability to make a difference; the leadership program is designed to hone their existing leadership skills and enhance their understanding of the challenges they face at national, regional and global levels. “The program aims to develop these individuals to be more effective leaders and to create a network across countries and across the region that links very strongly to Australia,” she explains. “It consists of four parts: the introductory conference in Canberra; a residential workshop; and two optional modules focusing on leadership coaching and an internship in Australia. “The internship program can be with government, business, not-for-profit or academia. They can either go in and be an observer and ‘shadow’ a key leader in an organisation for a minimum period of one week, or work in an organisation on a discrete research project. And a third option 4 review JUNE 2008 CURTIN BUSINESS SCHOOL CURTIN AND CBS IS HELPING AUSTRALIA FORGE STRONGER TIES WITH THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION. is to be embedded in an organisation as an employee.” The scholarship recipients travelled from 25 different countries across the Asia-Pacific region to meet at the introductory Canberra conference, from Iraq and Afghanistan in the west right across to Papua New Guinea in the east. Disciplinary interests were also quite diverse, with participants including a paediatrician from Indonesia examining the effects of malaria on pregnant women; another Indonesian woman examining sustainability issues for coastal communities; and a doctor from Bhutan investigating the effects of that country’s world-first national ban on the sale of cigarettes. “Not only had they come from afar, some had put in a mighty big effort just to get there,” adds Sutherland. “For instance, one attendee came from the tiny Pacific territory the lead role in this program,” she recalls. Sutherland and her colleague Sasi Paiboonparadorn, who completed a Master of Business Administration at the GSB as an international student, work full-time on the leadership program, and are supported by academic staff within the Master of Leadership and Management course. “We also work in partnership two other organisations that we have longstanding relationships with – Teamworks Development Australia and the Australian Experiential Learning Centre – and they are really experts in experiential learning,” explains Sutherland. She says the AusAID tender attracted very keen competition. “Of the 27 universities that were asked to tender, there was a shortlist of five that were asked to present in Canberra, and they were really big guns,” she says. Curtin and AusAID will learn as much from the scholars as they will learn from us. of Tokelau, which consists of three coral atolls totalling 10 square kilometres with a population of only 1,400. “In order to get to Australia to take up the scholarship, she had to catch a boat from Tokelau to Samoa which only goes every two weeks – there is no plane from her island.” Sutherland’s background has its own international flavour. Originally from South Africa, she was a teacher and then became a journalist in Zululand in the lead-up to 1994’s watershed election, the first free election held after the end of apartheid. When she moved to Western Australia, she became involved in the not-for-profit sector, and studied the Master of Leadership and Management course at the GSB. Her masters project took her to the mountains of Colombia, where she was working with an organisation that undertakes cross-cultural exchange programs in some 60 countries. “At the time, I was the Australian board member with this organisation and we were in Colombia discussing the future of the organisation when I got an email asking whether I’d be interested in taking on “They included the Australian Graduate School of Management, Melbourne Business School, Monash University, and a consortium of the University of Western Australia and the Australian Institute of Management, so we were in good company. “However, I think having an established Master of Leadership and Management course gave Curtin the edge. In essence, we were tendering on what is our core business.” Sutherland is particularly excited by the opportunities the program offers for two-way exchange. “For me, really, it’s the scholars that breathe life into the program, and I think Curtin and AusAID will learn as much from the scholars as they will learn from us. Much of what we teach is from the Western perspective and our challenge is finding a leadership style or practice that is quintessentially Asian-Pacific.” Contact: Janet Sutherland Email: Janet.Sutherland@gsb.curtin.edu.au ADRIAN LAMBERT L TO R: SASI PAIBOONPARADORN (PROGRAM COORDINATOR, LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM), PROFESSOR DUNCAN BENTLEY (PRO VICE-CHANCELLOR, CURTIN BUSINESS SCHOOL), FAHMIDA TALEB (AUSTRALIAN LEADERSHIP AWARDS SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENT), JANET SUTHERLAND, (PROGRAM MANAGER, LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM), PROFESSOR ROB EVANS (DIRECTOR, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS) review JUNE 2008 CURTIN BUSINESS SCHOOL 5
WRITTEN BY TONY MALKOVIC FEATURE Valuing the workplace COMPANIES STRUGGLING TO RECRUIT AND RETAIN STAFF DURING THE CURRENT SKILLS SHORTAGE DON’T NECESSARILY NEED FISTFULS OF DOLLARS TO TEMPT WORKERS: FINDING AND ADOPTING THE RIGHT CORPORATE VALUES CAN BE WHAT MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE. Professor Tony Travaglione likes explaining how the introduction of corporate values needs to be backed by senior management by citing what happened to giant computer company IBM. About five years ago, IBM was in the doldrums and its CEO decided to realign the company’s direction by asking its workers to determine the values it should operate by. So, in a 72-hour online forum, he invited them to tell him what they thought the company should stand for. “That’s a very extensive exercise when you have hundreds of thousands of employees worldwide,” explains Travaglione, who is head of Curtin’s School of Management and a member of the University’s Leadership and Management Development Reference Group. “But IBM’s CEO, Sam Palmisano, was generally available to take emails from anyone around the world – people say that’s crazy, but it happened.” In the end, there were some 22,000 responses, which the company distilled into three main values – dedication, innovation, and trust and personal responsibility – and IBM became a textbook case study for values-driven leadership. It’s about aligning the values of the employee, the organisation and the values of senior leadership. Travaglione – who is involved in a three-year $390,000 Australian Research Council project that is implementing a values-driven leadership model in one of WA’s largest public sector agencies, Main Roads WA (see accompanying story) – says values can basically serve as a ‘moral compass’ for both organisations and employees. “When a person finds a company with similar values – say ‘green’ or environmental values, or a commitment to work-family values – they can often see a long-term future with that company. They see this as respecting them as individuals, which translates into trust and support in the workplace. Such workers are often better motivated and more loyal to the organisation. “It’s all about aligning the values of the 6 review JUNE 2008 CURTIN BUSINESS SCHOOL ALLAN MYLES employee with the values of the organisation and the values of senior leadership.” In the current skills shortage, Travaglione says corporate headhunters often report feedback similar to the following from potential employees: “Okay, you want me to come to Perth, it’s pretty isolated and real estate prices are high, so what can you offer me in terms of a work-life balance? I don’t have that now in London/Johannesburg/ Sydney. Can I have a look at the values statement of the company that you’re trying to float me into?”. “And the first response if they can’t see that work-life balance in the company’s values will be ‘sorry, not interested’,” says Travaglione. “That’s the starting point for many people now, they’re saying straight out: ‘I’m not making the big move if I don’t have that as one of the value statements’.” He says although a values-driven leadership model needs to start with the full support of the CEO and the senior leadership team, it’s up to employees to get involved and decide what values the organisation stands for. “When Main Roads, or IBM, devised its values, it didn’t come about by four people sitting in a dark room. It wasn’t done by the PR department or the marketing department or the HR department, it started right at the ground floor and extended all the way up. It only gets ratified at the top. So people actually have ownership of this. There’s none of this ‘we plan to be world-best’; they’re realistic, because they are working L TO R: PROFESSOR TONY TRAVAGLIONE (HEAD OF SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT), JOHN TAYA (HR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MAIN ROADS WA), MENNO HENNEVELD (COMMISSIONER OF MAIN ROADS WA) on the ground.” “Main Roads is an interesting example. It went from an organisation with a long, proud history to the brink of extinction and was revived to its current status as one of Western Australia’s best performing public sector organisations through strong leadership and values-driven management.” Now in its third year, the Main Roads research project is currently focusing on helping employees and managers incorporate their agreed and adopted values into their day-to-day activities and decision-making so that both behaviour and values are aligned. Travaglione says that’s not always easy when, for years, managers might have been guided by policy statements handed down by various departments. “For example, an engineer managing a project worth millions of dollars might come up against a situation he or she is not familiar New approach passes road-test Main Roads WA has a big job. The organisation is responsible for the building and maintenance of roads across the State – an area that covers one-third of Australia and includes more than 17,500 kilometres of highways and roads valued at over $27 billion. With a key focus on attracting and retaining staff for the future, the values adopted by the organisation over the past few years include: roads matter; working together; excellence in customer service; embracing challenge; professionalism; and family. Menno Henneveld, the Commissioner of Main Roads WA, says those values are one of several key areas that became part of the agency’s push towards a greater customer focus. “When we started, we didn’t really have a clear idea what we were going to do with values-based management,” he explains. “But as a corporate executive, I felt we needed to move away from the standard black-and-white guidelines-type approach to decision-making that we had taken in the past. “We found there were circumstances where the guidelines, rules and standards didn’t help us in making decisions; that’s when you need to fall back on values, which is the concept we tried to get across to people.” He says staff were sceptical at first with. They can’t just pull out a policy manual, because the solution is not going to be in there. In terms of managing that project, that engineer has to have a set of organisational values that will help steer every decision he or she makes.” Travaglione says every executive meeting at Main Roads is now values-driven. If initiatives are not linked to the corporate values, there’s a fair chance they won’t proceed. “For instance, one initiative required funding to the occupational health and safety area to be increased to purchase certain products for employees. So people thought about it for a while – for about a whole 10 seconds – and said: ‘That’s one of our values, don’t worry about the cost’. And so it just happened.” Travaglione says a value-driven leadership model – when implemented properly – has tangible results: recruitment costs are less, retention costs are less, job satisfaction is and felt a values-based management approach was a bit ‘touchy-feely’. But not any more. “The most pleasing thing is that employees talk about it,” he says. “I know of organisations where a lot of fuss has been made about values and they’re put in a picture frame on the wall, and that’s the end of it. But we wanted people to think about the values and how they affected their everyday decision-making.” We needed to move away from the standard black-and-white guidelines-type approach to decision-making that we had taken in the past. That approach has caught on to the extent that values are used in the agency’s selection processes and in its performance management of staff. They are also embedded in its business model. And it seems to be working. Main Roads has recently won several awards for its efforts, including the ‘Employer of Choice’ (public sector category), ‘Best Graduate Intake’ and ‘Best HR Strategic Plan’ prizes in the 2007 Australian HR Awards. It also picked up a national ‘Excellence in People Management’ award from the Australian Human Resources Institute. higher, and there’s more stability in terms of leadership in the overall organisation. “‘I actually enjoy going to work’ is the average response you’ll get from Main Roads employees, because they know what they’re doing sits comfortably with their values,” he explains. “So, at the end of the day, you’ve got people staying at Main Roads, earning maybe half of what they could be earning in the mining sector, because the values alignment is there. “Moving from a ‘corporate governance’ to a ‘corporate integrity’ approach is quite leading-edge. I think the Main Roads example will be followed with interest by other public sector organisations as community and government expectations change.” Contact: Professor Tony Travaglione Email: T.Travaglione@curtin.edu.au review JUNE 2008 CURTIN BUSINESS SCHOOL 7
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