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  • Inspiration

  • September9th

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    Sometimes you are privileged to share

    Posted in: Articles, Inspiration, Projects

    On Friday, 7 September 2012, I talked to a group of leaders touring from Pakistan, the topic ““Defining business success and the relevance of the environment on business”

    The group was touring Australia through an AusAid Australian Leadership Award scholarship (http://www.ausaid.gov.au/scholar/pages/ala.aspx).

    There were 20 people in the group, and the intention was to visit a number of successful enterprises and get an understanding of how SME’s are approaching dealing with the environment in Australia.

    The group stated in Queensland, visited Melbourne and will be in Sydney next week, before returning to Pakistan where they will share what they have learned with SME’s in Pakistan.

    Of the 20 people in the audience some 4 were academic, and the remainder were advisers from the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) of Pakistan (www.smeda.org.pk).

    Coincidentally, SMEDA is very similar to Enterprise Connect (http://www.enterpriseconnect.gov.au/Pages/Home.aspx), a great initiative designed to help good Australian businesses improve their performance.

    I have been engaged as a Business Adviser Clean Technology Innovation Centre through Ai Group as part of the Enterprise Connect initiative, so as a group we had a number of interesting observations about the similarities and differences in SME’s in Pakistan and Australia.

    A copy of my presentation is attached. Defining business success and the relevance of

    There were a couple of great things the visitors really enjoyed about their stay in Melbourne.
    They were able to visit the following three innovative and environmentally conscious businesses:

    Cookers: http://www.cookers.com.au/store/index.asp where Peter FitzGerald showed them around the site and explained how it has been developed to be environmentally focused.

    Close the Loop http://www.closetheloop.com.au where Steve Morris explained his business model of “no waste”, a strategic objective of making someone else’s refuse the raw product for your production process.

    Ferguson Plarre Bakehouses http://www.fergusonplarre.com.au where Ralph Plarre explained how he has designed the business with the environment in mind. Ralph was also the enthusiastic guest speaker at the dinner for the ALA’s on Thursday evening.

    Some of the similarities defining success in SME’s while addressing the environment included:
    • Strategic intent
    • Focus
    • Commercial imperative – though accepting that sometimes the environmental path is more expensive, it is profitable in the long run and benefits us all

  • January25th

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    So what is innovation and why is it important?

    Posted in: Articles, Inspiration, Latest News

    Management has a reputation for overusing words to a degree that they lose their ordinary meaning, and eventually lose relevance, even for the best intentioned of managers.

    Management speak, especially when not genuine, has the capacity to make eyes role and attention switch off, and rather than encourage performance can act as a disincentive.

    Innovation is a word that is used frequently, and it is the overuse of the word that blurs the importance of what innovation can be for you and your business.

    “Innovation is a new way of doing things” is the definition provided by Moody and NoGrady in their book “The Sixth Wave” (http://sixthwave.org). A simple definition and a great starting point for discussion.

    In a commercial sense, I suspect you want several benefits from doing something new, so in my view innovation goes beyond something new into meaning something better.

    Michael Bungay Stanier has a fantastic model for doing work that is meaningful, and he provides a great overview of his model and activities that support taking action to do “great work” at http://www.domoregreatwork.com.

    While not focusing on “innovation”, Michael categorizes work as

    • “bad” – stuff that just doesn’t add value and we should get rid of
    • “good” – essential stuff that fills our job descriptions, that keeps us busy, yet may not make the difference we want to make and
    • “great” – work that makes a difference, is challenging and helps us understand our worth.

     In many ways “great “work is the foundation for innovation.

     Looking at what you do, where you create value for your client and making sure that you always look for the best option.

     Innovation means not taking your job for granted and recognising that everyone has the chance to make a difference every day.

     While that may be challenging, developing a culture that encourages and fosters innovation offers us all the chance to be the best we can.

     Innovation is important for a number of reasons, but if it brings out the best in you it is something we all should be interested in.

     I recently presented on “Innovation Leadership” to a group of local government leaders in Mildura – here is a copy of the presentation: Innovation leadership

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