There has been significant attention paid
to governance in the last few years, as more and more Native Title Prescribed
Body Corporates are incorporated, and the tide has turned from welfare-based
Government funded Australian Indigenous organisations towards well-run Not for
Profit entities and social ventures seeking the philanthropic dollar.
This is only right because governance
underpins the development of modern Aboriginal corporations as these seek to
make a sustainable and resilient existence in the “mainstreaming” of their
services.
In my work where I advise, guide, help plan
and facilitate the business of Indigenous Boards, I have seen this attention on
governance leading to a trend to appoint “Independent Directors” to the Boards
of PBC’s and Australian Indigenous NFP’s. The question however is whether the
emphasis on governance equates to a need to appoint Independent Directors, and
what should be the criteria used to select them?
Firstly we should define the term. In
actual fact, all Non-Executive Directors (those Directors who are not employed
by their corporations in an operational or executive capacity) are
“independent”. That is, they are “independent” of management. Indeed the legal
fiduciary duty of all Directors, including Executive Directors, includes the
duty to act for the good of the company, and not for any group, family or
interest they represent,...
Read more
I'm about to insult lawyers.
The rest of you - you needn't cheer quite so raucously. I only choose to use lawyers as an example of a highly trained group of professionals, skilled and experienced in what they do and good at their multi-faceted jobs, but because of that, think that they can self-handle other aspects of their business where different specialist skills and experience are required.
I could have chosen accountants, or doctors, or engineers (there, some of you are not so comfortable now are you?).
One of my clients is a firm of commercial lawyers specialising in insolvency. In their business they run the constant risk that their clients cannot pay. To give them their due they always perform at their best and never stint on service, despite this possibility, but now and then, they get caught.
In one such instance they worked for an owner of advertising billboards scattered around the suburbs. Having satisfactorily won the case for their client they found that the client is cash strapped and unable to pay them, asking for a payment plan over a year or so. Clearly not a good situation. The senior partner, true...
Harvard Business School change management guru John Kotter outlines the fundamental differences between Leadership and Management as follows:-
- Establishing direction vs Planning & Budgeting
- Aligning people vs Organising and staffing...
- Motivating & inspiring vs Controlling & Problem-solving.
In Kotter's view, while management produces an order of predictability, order, and the capacity to attain desired short term targets, the qualities of Leadership prodeuces change, often to a dramatic degree and often potentially useful change to create a future vision.
In my consulting, I use my own process called vision-driven planning, first creating a vision for the group (in great detail, to the degree that it is internally viable and credible) which is then quantified through a Balanced Scorecard approach ("If we were to achieve our vision, how must we look and behave in the area of..."). The quantification of the vision is converted into Performance Measures, and then these are redirected as Strategies.
It works exceptionally well for SME's in creating what I call a "POP" or Plan On a Page. However the obstruction I usually see is lack of "Leadership" in that often the SME owners and managers are extremely concerned with the now...
In Australia, business incubation was supported by governments in the 1990’s but since then, the term has been
somewhat debased by “fashion” and carpet-bagger consultants trying to ride a
catchy phrase transformed it to become an offering of its parts rather than as
a total concept.
Hence many consultants now offer “Business Incubation services” to Indigenous organisations, to the extent that in
Indigenous organisations today the term “Business Incubation” means to offer
community members some form of support to help them start business, whether
this be micro-financing, business planning services, or book-keeping services.
While these individual services can help Indigenous small business owners, taken as individual services they cannot
holistically help develop a start up business invariably conceived by someone
in the community who is starting up from ground zero. Business services provided
singly do not provide the support and tailored tutoring and mentorship to
ensure the business aspirants are taken on the whole journey of business
start-up and establishment. What is an aspirant going to...
