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Category Archives: Organisational Development

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Real Business Incubators – How Australian Indigenous PBC’s can stimulate economic development

Business incubation was a concept that started in the United States in 1959 when the Batavia Industrial Centre was opened. Incubation expanded in the US and spread to the UK, then Europe. The following graphic shows a “potted history” of business incubation. real business development 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...
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Why Native Title PBC’s need a Vision Statement and how to get it

Indigenous organisations, especially Native Title Prescribed Body Corporates and claim groups need a vision statement. This statement should serve as the sign-post to point all activity towards the greater outcome of the group, whatever that may be. It should provide a clear and succinct direction about the purpose for which the group came together and the aspirations they are working to achieve. This statement should also point to the way benefits are prioritised to avoid day to day arguments about who receives benefits or why some activities are funded and others are not. A clear vision statement becomes the guide for Boards and funds trustees about the allocation of priorities. Yet, many PBC’s and other organisations have vision statements – why isn’t this helping clarify priorities like it should? Let’s face it; many existing vision statements do not clearly point the way. They are word-smithed in long workshops that make every participant tired, they are often facilitated by “management consultants” who cannot bring the theory into the world of Aboriginal dynamics, and they often leave behind the communities that these statements are meant to represent. What you end up with is something so generic that it is meaningless, or even if the expression is good,...
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Creating Resilient Organisations

The following appears in "Implementing an Effective Change Management Strategy" by Neryl East, MA, PhD, published by the Ark Group in association with Inside Knowledge. While it might be admirable for organisations to strive to be resilient, change and strategic management specialist Teik Oh says resilience is not the end of the journey. Resilience is an element that needs to be embedded in the culture of the business. teik oh smallHe believes that can only be achieved if the organisation and its leadership demonstrate some fundamental behaviour that point to resilience. Resilience is not only important in the hard times or during change. It must also be demonstrated when business is going well. That can be a challenge for many leaders, who Oh says are generally suited to only one style of an economy. Many perform well when the economy is also doing well. Other leaders rise to the challenge when the economy does badly; Oh points out that it is relatively easy to think of great leaders who have turned companies around. However, they may not have been so successful when the business was back on track. Oh says resilience needs to be a constant, rather...
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Structuring Australian Indigenous Business Groups

stucturing Australian Indigenous enterprises can be categorised into three main categories:-
  1. Those owned and operated by Indigenous individuals or “nuclear” families where profits may be distributed to individuals;
  2. Those owned and operated by Indigenous “communities” or larger Indigenous cultural family groups that are operated for the benefit of the whole group and do not result in distributions of profit to individuals; and
  3. Those owned and operated by Indigenous corporate and service entities and Native Title Prescribed Bodies Corporate where profits may be distributed back to that particular corporation or service entity or its constituent corporate members such as the previously mentioned “communities”.
The second and third categories may be described as “social enterprises” or “social ventures” whether there is an intention to make a profit as a business, or whether the enterprise is a not-for-profit community service-delivery organisation. This discussion deals with the structuring of the second and third categories. The first category is clearly a private individual business model and structuring for that category will depend on normal commercial considerations as normally applying to small business, including the application of tax. The second and third categories are more like a combination of community organisations (that happen to run...
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OTS Management