management september 2011

– voted NZ’s Most Reputable Organisation

8

Wh

at’s so

gr

eat a

bo

ut b

eca

?

Septem

ber

2011

9 421902 251030

September 2011 $7.10INCL GSt

The Director • The sorry story of our women on boards p57

management.co.nz

Solid Energy surprises p30No surprise to top cop p32Sallies delight but no surprise p34

What’s so great about Beca?

PAGE 20richardAitkenChairmanbecaGroup

EEO T

rust

Work & Lif

e Award

s p40

Call 0800 627 744 or email [email protected] Or visit www.marsh.co.nz for a comprehensive overview of our credentials.

Sometimes identifying risk isn’t quite this obvious.

Worldwide, Marsh enjoys a reputation for

providing risk analysis that meets the exact needs

of each of our diverse group of clients.

It’s only after becoming thoroughly familiar with

the unique needs of each client that we have

become their risk advisor and insurance broker

of choice.

Because, simply put, risk is rarely immediately evident.

Risk analysis is something we take very seriously

and it’s the advantage that we believe sets us apart

from our competitors. And more importantly,

delivers a real world benefi t to our clients.

So talk to us about why Marsh is recognised as the

world’s leading insurance broker, and to discuss

an in-depth analysis of your business. At no risk,

naturally.

M A R 0 1 4 0 N Z _ M a n a g e me n . p d f P a g e 1 3 1 / 0 3 / 1 1 , 1 : 3 2 P M

September2011 | management.co.nz| 1

tonimyers,publisher

Reputation: it’s out of your hands

www.management.co.nz

a mediaWeb magazine

publisher Toni Myers

consulting editor & Writer-at-large

Reg Birchfield

contributors

Bob Edlin, Anna Gestro, Joseph Grenny, Brendan

Hoare, Colin James, Vicki Jayne, Duncan Mackintosh,

Jens Mueller, Jamie Sinclair, Peter Tynan

advertising manager Rod Myers

09-372 6444, 027-484 8046

[email protected]

designer Jan-Michael David

copY & Web editor Gill Prentice

[email protected]

production manager Fran Marshall

[email protected]

neW subscriptions

www.management.co.nz/subscribe

subscription enquiries [email protected]

Phone 09-529 3000, Fax 09-529 3001 [email protected] www.mediaweb.co.nz PO Box 5544, Wellesley Street, Auckland 1141

NZ MANAGEMENT magazine is independently owned by Mediaweb Limited and is published 11 times a year. It is the officially recognised magazine of the New Zealand Institute of Management Incorporated. Editorial material does not necessarily reflect the views of NZIM.

Copyright © 2011: Mediaweb Limited.All material appearing in NZ MANAGEMENT is copyright and

cannot be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher. Editorial contributions are welcomed. Letters to the editor are also welcomed, but pen names are not acceptable.

NZ MANAGEMENT is printed by PMP.Subscriptions: One-year NZ subscription (11 issues) $78.15

(GST incl). Overseas (airmail only): Australia $NZ130; rest of the world $NZ250.

Enquiries: Mediaweb Limited, PO Box 5544, Wellesley Street, Auckland 1141, New Zealand. Phone 09-529 3000, Fax 09-529 3001, [email protected]

www.management.co.nzNew Zealand Institute of Management enquiries to: National

Office, Box 67, Wellington; Northern, Box 26001, Epsom; Central, Box 11781, Wellington; Southern, Box 13044, Christchurch.

Vol 58 No 8 • ISSN 1174-5339 (print), 1179-3910 (Online)

T he reputation game is changing. Reputation is more important than ever but cannot be controlled by slick

marketing and advertising campaigns. ‘Citizen journalism’ and online forums are examples of the democratisation of dissemination of information and opinion; the people have taken over the airwaves and organisations have little control over what is said about them.

Organisations that value their good reputation and have a commitment to ethical principles and practising excellence embedded in their culture are likely to achieve long-term sustainable success. This year’s NZ Management and Hay Group’s Most Reputable Organisation, Beca, was a slow burner reputation-wise for much of its more than 90-year history. It went about building its considerable business (2010 revenue of $366m) in a quiet way, letting its professionalism and commitment to excellence speak for themselves.

The past five years have seen a raft of industry awards for the international engineering consultancy, topped off by the Company of the Year Award at the Deloitte/Management magazine Top 200 Awards last year, and now NZ’s Most Reputable Organisation award.

Reputation is not built off the back of overnight success, but that’s not to say that can’t happen. And in the Facebook and twitter generation, almost anything is possible. The ‘farmy army’ and ‘student army’ community free labour groups that emerged to help citizens with properties battered by the Christchurch earthquakes gained almost overnight sainthood status. But reputations, hard or easily won can be just as easily destroyed; witness both the adidas and Vodafone PR disasters of recent weeks.

When Beca won the coveted Top 200

Company of the Year Award last year, we noted that, although the company has a long history, it represents the future face of New Zealand corporate success. Not only was it a private company, the first to win the award, but Beca sells a professional service – IP if you like rather than a tangible product.

It’s a game-changer in other respects as well, all of which have contributed to its burgeoning reputation. It’s employee-owned, invests in leadership development in the firm and encourages its people’s involvement in community projects as well as professional bodies.

It’s easy to see why such a solid performer with sound and consistent principles should win the respect and admiration of its business peers – those who voted in Hay Group’s Most Reputable Organisations – in a world whose foundations can seem to be floating on shifting sands.

I was in the UK during the financial storm that buffeted world sharemarkets in the first week of August and the riots that followed. I felt relieved and extraordinarily lucky to touch down back in Aotearoa. While we do have serious issues, by and large our lives here at the bottom of the Pacific are protected from the worst ills of the rest of the world.

Can you imagine any other country where the police force and the tax department would top the list of the most reputable government departments? (see pages 32, 33).

NB: I’d like to acknowledge the sterling professional work by Hay Group management consultancy’s NZ chief executive Ian MacRae and his team in conducting the research and analysis for The Most Reputable Organisations project.

Taking out both 2011’s Most Reputable Company gong and the supreme award, Most Reputable Organisation, on top of

Company of the Year in the 2010 Top 200 awards, Beca’s star is on the rise

and rise. What is it about Beca that is earning these accolades?

contents20 Cover Story


1 eDItor’S Letter

4 INBoX: New and views

9 FoCUS

10 AS I See It: Brendan Hoare

11 MANAGerS ABroAD: Anna Gestro

12 NZIM: Integration! NZIM – the next chapter reg Birchfield

54 eXeCUtIve DeveLoPMeNt

55 eXeCS oN tHe Move

OPINION

14 PoLItICS: A radical departs the public service still sparking Colin James

15 eCoNoMICS: Are the poor getting poorer? Bob edlin

16 LeADerSHIP: Men leading badly reg Birchfield

17 MANAGING SUStAINABLy: taking a 40-year view Jamie Sinclair

18 tHoUGHt LeADer: executing on innovation Duncan Mackintosh

19 BooKCASe: Groundswell; the Leading-edge Manager’s Guide to Success

ADVICE

53 eXeC HeALtH: rubbing the salt in Peter tynan

56 toP tIPS: How leaders change hearts and minds Joseph Grenny

NZ’SmoStreputAbleorGANiSAtioNS

20 theoverview...

26 becatakesthelongview

28 Companiesfinalists

30 mostreputableSoeandfinalists

32 mostreputableGovernmentDepartmentandfinalists

34 mostreputableNotForprofitandfinalists

Coverimage:becaGroupchairrichardAitkenatAucklandcity's

Victoriaparktunnelworksite.

September 2011 • Vol 58 No 8

50

40

58

38

features38 top 200 thinking 2011

harnessing the brainpower of our leaders to activate

transformation.

Jeremymoon,FounderandCeooficebreaker;Chairof

betterbyDesign…NewZealandhastoconnectwiththe

worldtoberelevant.

40 eeo Work and Life Awards: valuing people – creating value

If the recent furore over gender pay equity seems like a blast

from the past then the eeo trust Work & Life Awards offer a

refreshing vision for the future. As this year’s winners again prove

– empowering individuals to give their best is what really puts the

“force” behind “work”. How? vicki Jayne counts the ways.

46 Face to Face: Andrew Mackmurdie – Is Hr missing the boat?

the future of human resource management is up for debate. Is it or

isn’t it relevant any more? Andrew Mackmurdie, Hay Group’s regional

practice leader Asia-Pacific and Africa, talks to reg Birchfield.

50 responsible Governance: Solid energy’s burning commitment

Christchurch-based state-owned enterprise Solid energy sees

the commitments it is making, particularly to protecting New

Zealand’s natural environment, as solid evidence that it takes

responsible governance seriously.

58 the sorry story of our women on boards

Corporate New Zealand’s persistent and self-defeating failure to

appoint women to the boards of our major companies continues

unabated. Board chairmen, the NZX and the Institute of Directors could

sort this sorry state of affairs if they cared to, reports reg Birchfield.

62 off with their heads!

everything about the furore created by the remarks of former

employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive

Alasdair thompson and his subsequent departure demonstrates

substandard corporate governance. By Jens Mueller.

64 Gain from the green game

Boards wanting to lift their environmental performance should

think about appointing independent, more experienced and

perhaps legally competent directors.

The Director

4 | management.co.nz | oCtober2011

M INBoX

Courage, conviction, hard work, perseverance and integrity are

the keys to achieving your goals “even in the face of what can seem like insurmountable obstacles”, Auckland Central MP Nikki Kaye told a gathering of young managers.

Speaking at a function for New Zealand Institute of Management (NZIM) graduates and the finalists of the NZIM Young Executive of the Year Award Northern Region, 31-year-old Kaye drew a parallel with her own entry to Parliament. She was given a very slim chance of being selected as the National Party candidate for Auckland Central.

“When I came back from overseas and decided to run for MP, I quickly learnt something that I think is the number one lesson in business: have courage and back

Hamish McBeath, general manager of Pacific

Coilcoaters, was announced as NZIM Northern region’s Young Executive of the Year at a recent function in Auckland. Held in conjunction with NZIM’s mid-year graduation ceremony, the evening also featured Nikki Kaye, MP for Auckland Central, as guest speaker (see below).

The Northern judging panel said this year’s competition was particularly fierce, describing McBeath as “a standout executive from a group of excellent candidates”.

McBeath began his career in the New Zealand Navy as a trainee officer, and says his military training taught him that you must set the example and earn the respect of the people you lead. After leaving the Navy he

joined Fletcher Building’s Pacific Steel Group as a shift manager at Pacific Wire, where he put his beliefs about building high-performing teams into practice. He progressed to operations manager and then sales manager for the Wire Division, designing and implementing the Pacific Wire business restructure, resulting in its ongoing viability.

He then led the sales and marketing turnaround of the wider Pacific Steel Group as group sales and marketing manager. By 2009, this business had risen to become the highest-earning business unit in Fletcher Building. As general manager, McBeath now has full responsibility for Pacific Coilcoaters, with revenue of $110 million.

“It’s my business to run and I like that environment – I like

An accomplished performer

Back yourself

to be free to make my own decisions and take responsibility for my actions.”

Paul Zuckerman, CE of Fletcher’s Steel Division, says product development has been a key area of success for McBeath and he has often identified new market segments that can be opened through adopting new

technology. The judges agreed, saying he is a proven leader and an accomplished performer who has applied technology in interesting ways.

“He has the ability to understand and clearly view his business environment, communicates effectively at all levels and is a focused and excellent young leader,” said the panel.

For McBeath, the key to running a successful business is keeping things simple and not getting too bogged down in detail. Also key has been his passion for high performance teams. He believes success is only achieved through the alignment and performance of others and says his most satisfying achievement has been meeting and exceeding budgeted commitments in a challenging environment with highly-engaged employees. M

that successful leaders share.The first is a conviction and

clarity of vision. In any leadership role many people will have different views on issues. “In order to be able to navigate through them conviction is a really important quality. Being convinced about what you want, and being able to discuss that with clarity of vision is very important so that people know what you want to deliver and come with you on the journey.”

Kaye said she had met many talented people but the most successful are those with a strong work ethic. “Not many people have success fall into their laps. Most of the successful people I have known are ones that work long hours, started out at the bottom and have fought their way to the top. They

are all willing to sacrifice time and energy to get them past any knock backs or disadvantages they might encounter.”

Kaye also commented that people who succeed are the ones who will find the ability to persevere despite the failures that everyone at some stage experiences. If the cause of that failure has involved compromising integrity, that can be more difficult to live with.

“Integrity takes courage. If you are successful and operate at a high level then your integrity will be tested. Staying true to your beliefs can be difficult in the face of opposition and can sometimes require sacrifice, but it brings greater and richer success in the long run.” M

yourself. Being elected, when close friends were telling me it wasn’t possible and when I knew that the odds were small, taught me that if you fight for what you believe in, you can succeed.”

Kaye said one of the privileges of being an MP is mixing with leaders right across the community in business and in social sectors and she pointed to some similar traits

ifyoufightforwhatyoubelievein,youcansucceed.

NZimNorthernregionYoungexecutiveoftheyear,Hamishmcbeath,generalmanagerofpacificCoilcoaters.

oCtober2011 | management.co.nz| 5

Manage your TaxiSpend with Innovation

and Technology tel: 09 306 1790email: [email protected]

the role of the chief information officer (CIO) is now more

strategically aligned with an organisation than ever before and CIOs must equip themselves with a diverse range of skills that blend the traditional requirements of the role with an equal measure of business acumen and leadership skills, says a recently released report from Hudson Group.

The report – The Reconstructed CIO: Building and Leading the New IT Function – is based on discussions from Hudson’s recent ICT Industry Leaders Series roundtable event, involving CIOs from some of Australia and New Zealand’s leading organisations.

John Coventry, New Zealand national practice director, Hudson ICT says the testing and challenging

business environment of the past two years has had a significant impact on the role of the CIO.

“With companies operating under greater pressure and scrutiny, the components of the modern CIO’s position now have more in common with that of the CEO. Superior technical skills are no longer enough and it is expected that CIOs will provide greater business expertise and leadership than before. In fact, few CIOs expect that in 10 years’ time their role will need to be filled by someone with a background in IT.

Coventry says today’s CIO is challenged by demands to add value, increase competitive advantage and reduce the costs of business, which in many ways can represent conflicting objectives. One key finding of the report is that, post-

The chameleon CIOGFC, IT projects are under increasing scrutiny, in terms of necessity, complexity and return on investment (ROI). Budgets are returning to IT but there is significantly greater analysis of value and alignment with the organisation’s overall strategy.

Roundtable participant Peter Finch, CIO of IT services company Gen-i, says that getting projects approved has become harder, while the demands for ROI are greater. “Our business went through a period where they had to make some really hard choices, and those disciplines continue. Some projects that we might have done previously we are probably not doing now because the return on them is not as significant as it used to be or as we now demand.”

Another key finding from the

Super green” consumers – those engaged in the highest numbers

of environmentally-friendly activities – are top earners with a penchant for luxury items, according to a US report from Scarborough Research.

“Today’s environmentalists have traded sandals and hemp for cashmere and a Lexus,” Scarborough’s vice president of marketing Deirdre McFarland said. “Luxury marketers – or, really, any marketer who wants to capture

the American high spending population – could benefit from green-focused marketing, promotions and products.”

The super green – which Scarborough says comprise around five percent of the Amercian adult population – are far more likely than the average adult to spend up on cosmetics or fine jewellery and to buy a new luxury vehicle as

Green consumers have big pockets well as have a diverse investment portfolio.

Scarborough said its findings have implications for the banking and household

goods industries. “The robust investment and financial profiles of Super Greenies suggest that green-oriented messaging and marketing can help banks connect with this consumer group on a personal level.

“Super Greenies continue

to invest in household goods, despite dips in the housing market,” the report added. “This provides good opportunities for brand development among home accessories stores.”

And the report noted that super greens tend to lead healthy lifestyles, by hitting the gym, enjoying a healthy diet and spending time outdoors. M www.environmentalleader.com

“

report is that CIOs need to look for broader skills when hiring to ensure they build the right teams: they need people not only with the requisite technical skills but also with business sense, change management skills and a strong cultural fit. The roundtable participants noted that the ongoing skills shortage means the talent pool is small and good people are increasingly hard to find. The speed at which the IT industry is evolving means that roles also change frequently – along with their required skill sets.

Hudson has identified eight leadership competencies of successful CIOs and their teams. These are visioning, inspiring, innovating, decision making, collaborating, building talent, building the business and customer focus. M


M INBoX

Lease incentives’ tax twists

A lthough the commercial property market is in recovery

mode, tenants still hold the balance of power when it comes to office accommodation and most are using it to secure incentives from landlords when leases are being entered into or renegotiated. However, businesses should be aware of the tax implications of different types of inducements.

PwC partner Mark Russell says the tax position of the tenant varies significantly depending on the form of the incentive. The most commonly used is a rent-free period at the beginning of the lease. Rent “holidays” have the benefit of being easy to arrange and administer and do not require an upfront cash payment by the landlord.

However, Russell says while

the holiday is taxable to the tenant over the period of the holiday, which can be anything from several months to over a year depending on the length of the lease.

Cash inducements are also popular. In some cases the payment is specifically made as a contribution to fitout costs, and in other cases there is no requirement as

to how the money is spent. These payments are particularly attractive to businesses looking to fund an expensive new fitout.

Russell says fitout contributions are significantly more tax effective

rentfree“holidays”arethemostcommonlyusedbusinessleaseincentive,butaretheleasttaxeffectivefortenants.

the recent release of the black comedy film

Horrible Bosses provides an extreme version of a scenario many workers can relate to. It’s also something that New Zealand organisations should be concerned about since research by finance and accounting recruiter Robert Half shows half of the workforce would look for opportunities elsewhere if they had some conflict with their manager.

Robert Half New Zealand general manager Megan Alexander explains bad bosses aren’t necessarily bad people, but they can certainly make work challenging for those who report to them. Robert Half identifies five common types of challenging executives and has the following tips for working with them:

How to deal with bad bossesboss type Coping strategy

the micromanager has trouble delegating tasks. When assigning a project, this boss tells you exactly how, when and where to do it.

Trust is usually the issue here, so try to do everything in your power to build it. Don’t miss deadlines, pay attention to details and keep your manager apprised of all the steps you’ve taken to ensure quality work.

the poor communicator provides little or no direction. Your assignments often have to be completed at the last minute or redone because goals and deadlines weren’t clearly explained.

Diplomatically point out that by providing more information upfront, time will be saved in the long run. Seek clarification when confused and arrange regular check-ins on projects.

the bully wants to do things his or her way, or no way at all. Bosses like this also tend to be gruff with others and easily frustrated.

Stand up for yourself. The next time your supervisor shoots down your proposal, for example, calmly explain your rationale. Often, this type of manager will relent when presented with a voice of reason.

the saboteur undermines the efforts of others and rarely recognises individuals for a job well done. This boss takes credit for employee ideas but places blame on others when projects go awry.

Make sure your contributions are more visible to others, especially senior management, so that your role isn’t overlooked. Get information in writing from this person so you have a chain of communications to refer to, if needed.

the mixed bag is always a surprise. This manager’s moods are typically unpredictable: He or she may confide in you one day and turn a cold shoulder the next.

Try not to take this boss’s disposition personally. A calm and composed demeanour is best when dealing with this type. When this person is on edge, try to limit communication unless a matter is urgent.

than rent holidays, while general inducement payments are the most tax-effective of all. “A lease inducement payment that is not contractually tied to a fitout requirement is generally regarded as a non-taxable capital receipt to the tenant, provided the rental under the lease is a market rental.”

However, Russell cautions that since lease inducements can provide a tax advantage to the tenant, they are open to scrutiny by Inland Revenue. “It is therefore critical that such arrangements are strictly on commercial terms, that the basis for the inducement has been properly recorded and that the rent payable under the lease is a market rent that has not been increased to compensate for the inducement payment.” M

they are the most convenient from a property owner’s perspective, they are the least tax effective for a tenant. A rent holiday reduces the deductible expenses of the tenant, so in effect the value of


Executive Pulse: Why you are rejecting job applicants

According to the latest AWF Group – Horizon Research nationwide workforce survey, the

main reason people responsible for hiring in New Zealand are rejecting job applicants is because they don’t have the right skills.

Wrong skills is cited by 48%, followed by lack of experience and inability to fit into a team (43%) – and no skills (37%). Insufficient language skills also ranks highly at 34%. M

Which of the following are the most common reasons why you reject applicants?

Source: The nationwide AWF Group – Horizon Research Workforce Survey covered 364 people responsible for hiring within their organisations. It was conducted between August 1 and 9, 2011. On the web: www.horizonpoll.co.nz

A. Insufficient language skills 34.3%

B. Education level 15.2%

C. No skills 37.2%

D. Wrong skills 48.3%

E. Skill mix not industry specific 30.9%

F. Lack of experience 43.3%

G. Team fit/compatibility 43.1%

H. Criminal history 26.6%

I. Failed drug test 20.4%

J. Something else 14.1%

When it comes to social media, even the experts

learn something new every day. Unfortunately, there are a lot of myths that can derail almost any social media marketing plan, says Deb McAlister-Holland, director of marketing for Distribion, a provider of web-based marketing software. She points to four in particular that come up often in talks with marketing managers myth #1: Social media is free.While many of the tools used in social media are free or very low cost, planning and executing an effective social media campaign isn’t any more “free” than executing a great email or PR campaign.

“You have to pay for the time to plan and execute the strategy, the creative inspiration to make it memorable, and the tools to manage, monitor, report, archive, and analyse the results,” says McAlister-Holland. “There’s an even more unfortunate corollary to this myth: that if you create compelling content, people will find it. Search engines can find content with the right keywords – but not enough people will find your content without marketing help. myth #2: email use is declining, particularly among younger people.The Radicati Group, the leading

industry analyst firm tracking email usage, shows that about 20 percent of social media users under age 18 use email less than they did two years ago, but then 16 percent use it more than they did two years ago. Every other age group uses it at least 20 percent more than two years ago, with the biggest gain coming from users 19-24 (37 percent) and users over 45 (28 percent). myth #3: A Facebook fan is worth hundreds of dollars.“The truth is a Facebook fan isn’t worth anything unless that fan has a relationship with your brand, and you are reaching him or her with messages across multiple channels,”

Social media myths McAlister-Holland says. “Just because someone clicks on a +1 or ‘Like’ button doesn’t guarantee that they want to have a long-term relationship with your brand.”

Converting someone from a browser to a fan is step one in a multi-step process with many “touch points” along the way where a company has to deliver relevant, positive interactions, she says. myth #4: Someone in the company needs to “own” social media.Most companies have learned quickly that setting up a separate department to handle social media doesn’t work, says McAlister-

Holland. That’s because a multitude of departments – from HR and legal to marketing and PR to sales and customer service – need to be involved in social media if it’s to have any chance of long-term success. She says the most successful corporate users of social media are those who train employees in how to become brand ambassadors through social media, and set up processes they can follow to report relevant interactions while solving problems and interacting with the public whenever an opportunity arises.

• www.distributedmarketing.org

For further information contact Rod Myers on 0-9-372 6444, 027 484 8046 or email [email protected]

• Local Government• Professional Development• The Director

Ad

ver

tising

booking deadline

5tH O

F MO

ntH

PriO

r

OCTOBER & NOv 2011SPECIALFEATURES

OC

TOB

ER

NO

vEM

BER• Finance & the Economy:

China & Asia• Executive Tools• Energy Efficiency


M INBoX

Smartphones new Swizz army knife

As the usage and processing power of

smartphones increase in tandem with the rising speed of 3G and 4G data networks, mobile devices are invading the domains of single-purpose gear such as game consoles and portable media players, as well as PCs.

Smartphones are also becoming the device of choice for email, web browsing, and product research. A third of smartphone owners prefer using it for web browsing or email even when they are near PCs, new research from McKinsey & Co shows. McKinsey has been tracking consumers’ digital habits through a series of surveys covering more than 100,000 respondents across North America, Europe, and Asia.

Its latest survey involving 20,000 US

consumers shows over the past two years iPhone users have spent 45 percent more time emailing on their smartphones and 15 percent less time emailing on their PCs. More than 60 percent of smartphone users would consider buying goods with it or have already done so.

As the power and functionality of devices grow, the possibilities for making money from mobile platforms

will continue to improve, say the McKinsey researchers. “We found, for instance, that smartphone users already are more accustomed to paying for digital content and services than traditional online users are.”

The research also shows nearly 50 percent of US online consumers are now advanced users of smartphones, social networks, and other emerging tools – up from 32 percent in 2008. M

Letter

A note to say that I have gained a great deal over a long while from various articles by Reg Birchfield in Management and the articles on leadership in past and recent issues.

The July issue has what I consider to be the finest collection of leadership writings that I have been privy to. ‘Leaders For Our Times, compassionate, courageous and committed’ with Jo Brosnahan was inspirational. As was the Ray Avery article.

Several of the pieces reminded me of my address on ‘servant leadership’ to the UN in the year of the volunteer in 2001. Thank you again. Let’s hope that what has been put in place takes root in those who would lead.

Ron RoweLife Fellow NZIM

Name:

JobTitle:

Companyname:

Address: Postcode:

Phone(home): Phone(work): Email:

Iampayingbyq Cheque(enclosed).PleasemakechequepayabletoMediawebLimited

CardNo

From time to time we run subscriber-only offers related to other magazine titles we publish. If you do not wish to receive these, please tick. If you do not wish to receive offers from third parties, please tick.

Nameasitappearsonthecard:

ExpiryDate: Signature:

YES! q Newsubscriber

q Renewal

SUBSCRIBE ONLINE www.management.co.nz/subscribeMail to: Mediaweb, PO Box 5544, Wellesley Street, Auckland, 1141, New Zealand • Email: [email protected]

I’dliketoorderanannualsubscriptiontoNZ MANAGEMENT (11issues) at$78.15+GSTPleasecheckwithsubs@mediaweb.co.nzforinternationalprices.

q Tickhereifyourequireataxinvoiceorreceipt

q Visaq Mastercard

SUBSCRIBENOW

All prices include GST

GST No: 102-417-023

Chequespayableto:

Mediaweb Limited

Postto:

Subscriptions

Mediaweb Limited

FREEPOST 288,

PO Box 5544

Wellesley Street

Auckland 1141

EEO Trust Work & Life Awards: August. 1 Martin King (Coca-Cola Amatil NZ), Kate

Daley (Fletcher Building), Peter Hughes (Ministry of Social Development) (Philippa Reed, EEO Trust).

2 Sam Sefuiva (Human Rights Commission), Lana Hart (EEO Trust).

3 Maxine Graham and Naumai Smith (AUT University), Gabriele Wehler (Clarity Coaching).

4 Jill Greathead and Jean Fitzgerald (EnZed PC Services).

5 Alison Huddell, (don’t know company CAN YOU CROP HER OUT PLEASE JAN), Judi Altinkaya (Department of Labour) Felicity Bollen (Department of Labour), Dianne Rogers (Ministry of Social Development) Therese Weir (Department of Labour).

6 Lui Vitale, Rita Hohaia, Kaisa Teevale, Kalolo Sutter, Faletolu Faletolu, Peter Cook (all Cardinal Logistics).

7 Mark Drury (URS New Zealand), Brendon Mills (Fletcher Building), Sen Chen (Fletcher Aluminium).

8 Karin Adams, Felicity Evans, Kerri Thompson, Lynne Sutherland (all ANZ National Bank).

9 Britt Archer, Bruce Gibson, Greg Price, Kelly Hughes (Spicers Paper).


M FoCUS

1 2

1

3 4 5

4

3

2

Blair McKolskeyis director of Auckland’s Finewood Furniture, manufacturers and exporters of hand-crafted furniture

How would you describe the New Zealand identity?We are uniquely innovative, changing and resilient.

With repeated top global patent rankings in certain sectors, New Zealand has consistently shown an ability to “punch above our weight” in innovation. What makes us unique is that the innovative results endure despite a lack of big research and development budgets such as those abroad.

Like the All Blacks, New Zealand business does not have the big dollars to throw around the global playing field, yet we continue to be world class in innovation. That unique and consistent success can only come from an internal, deeply rooted belief which is enhanced by our trademark determination, the same determination that is characteristic of New Zealand’s rugby heroes.

What will be the country’s next major challenge?I believe our next hurdle will be embracing changes to support New Zealand businesses with the right ideas to compete on the world stage.

We are coming to realise that the industrialisation of New Zealand and being a production-based economy is unlikely to be a winning strategy. I believe the opportunities are around product and service innovations and the associated higher value-added jobs. We need to adapt our thinking and our way o

What do we need to do to prepare for this?I believe we need to take greater responsibility for our own actions (or inactions), and dramatically reduce paternalistic policies that inhibit strong and effective capital markets which could drive innovation and growth.

10 | management.co.nz | September2011

M AS I See It

Brendan HoareFounding director, Organic Systems.

How would you describe the New Zealand identity?New Zealand is the keyhole to the new dominant trade continent, the Pacific Ocean. The world also wants and needs a slice of what we have: Pure, Clean, Green, Smart with a relatively relaxed attitude. This is our brand.

We are also slowly realising we are actually Pacific peoples; modern maritime traders, craftspeople, innovative and disproportionately entrepreneurial. We are getting browner and less Euro centric by the decade; this is a good thing, I encourage it.

What will be the country’s next major challenge?Our country is at a crossroads, we lack vision and fail to see the occasion. We have to shift from a ‘me’ mentality to a ‘we’ one… immediately. We are in a unique position on the global stage to demonstrate the change we are all collectively seeking. It fits our global position, brand and requires support of activities that sustain our identity.

The world is facing the integrated challenges that embrace food, energy and socio political unrest. Our proposition to meet this challenge is simple. A successful brand needs real clean green growth which will drive more economic wellbeing.

To achieve this, we need a good dose of courage and daring mixed with our ‘know how’ ‘can do’ approach. We also need to unleash this potential through a cultural renaissance that reshapes our attitudes, collective and individual intelligence, and practices.

Being smart means being prepared to go deeper. We will become multilingual which will help us appreciate other’s ways of seeing the world and ourselves. Our business style will learn more about nurturing intergenerational relationships and our hosting (tourism) will be world renowned. We will slowly adopt (by being more Pacific) an indigenous attitude of staying, belonging and nurturing that which feeds us.

We will have to work hard at ensuring we maintain the serious business of having a good time. Being reliable, honest and good traders with high quality green products is the essence of what the market wants. However most important is that none of this will be of any value unless the experience of New Zealand matches the brand. Strong, vibrant, healthy, soil, water, families and communities… these are the true indicators of our success. M

When you leave your country of origin you either embark on a journey of freedom/

escapism from any identity or you enter into a new depth of patriotism. The individual levels of patriotism should never be underestimated for a country. New Zealand art on the wall, a New Zealand bumper sticker, All Black or Huffer t-shirts, New Zealand icons and photos on your Facebook wall, pavlova and Steinlager at the summer barbeque uniquely opens the world to New Zealand – an opening that is hard to quantify but speaks volumes for our country. It allows the world to access and experience New Zealand – it allows an emotional connection.

Can we actually take that patriotism to the next level and help New Zealand grow economically? Can we open New Zealand to the world and leverage that patriotism? New Zealand has a physical beauty and overseas we have a physical asset… a whole bunch of patriotic New Zealanders willing to help. There just needs to be a bridge, a way of connecting and a platform to help.

So armed with my bumper sticker, my All Black cap, ANZAC biscuit recipe, a career at the hub of Steinlager and experience as an expat, I felt ready to bring North America physically closer to New Zealand. As a leader for Kea (Kiwi Expat Association) in North America, I am responsible for mobilising an engaged global network for New Zealand – a network that feels passionate to help New Zealand now and in the future.

It’s a far cry from marketing beer at Lion Nathan to now marketing our country and our people – and we

Ex-pats for NZ Inc Patriotism speaks volumes – and volumes we have, with around one million New Zealanders abroad who can help drive our economy ahead, says Anna Gestro, Kea’s North America regional manager.

have one million globally to help us along the way. This is the volume New Zealand has – my job is to utilise my patriotism and activate the network to be patriotic New Zealanders again.

We applaud both engaging with New Zealand on impulse and inspired engagement – but the real goal is cultivating our members from involvement to commitment for New Zealand. Multiple touch points, creative thinking, passionate volunteers in strategic cities who lead a ‘chapter group’ for Kea, and inspirational members all contribute to making this happen. Networking events showcasing New Zealand business and individuals, crowd sourcing, social media, NZ Inc agenda support and online communication and campaigns fuels the network and the relationship with New Zealand.

It’s not an easy task but incredibly rewarding when the motivations, connections, knowledge and volunteer contributions by the many fantastic chapter leaders around North America lead to specific outcomes for the good of New Zealand. For example, funds raised for Christchurch through multiple events and online programmes, NEW ideas to elevate NEW Zealand through our New York: New Zealand: New Thinking event and government speaker forums attended by Friends of New Zealand.

New Zealanders being part of the global fabric and its weave is the best asset we have. Global New Zealanders

are contributing to the new wave of internationalisation for New Zealand.

I am constantly amazed at how passionately patriotic Americans are. They have the biggest economy in the world, through innovation and I am sure a big dose of patriotism. Our expatriate Kiwis can play a major role in boosting our economy through their connections and knowledge gained. They are patriotic Kiwis who understand what patriotism means to Americans. We can use that to our advantage, so let’s accept that patriotism and ingrain it into our DNA. We can all start on September 9 when the RWC kicks off – shout loud. M

Anna Gestro is a member of Kea, New Zealand’s global talent community. www.keanewzealand.com

M MANAGerS ABroAD


NZim


The history and evolution of management ideas and prac-tices, is signposted by seminal ideas, a wealth of literature,

trends, fads and economic cycles. theory and process was, until the 1920s, less clearly defined and more ad hoc. Sci-entific management prevailed and gave birth to ideas like decentralisation and even human relations.

the great depression ushered in an age of government regulation. that lasted until the end of the war, bringing with it concepts of the modern corporation and private property which, US theorists berle and means said, signalled stock-holders’ loss of influence over managers.

toward the end of the war, Abraham maslow published his “Hierarchy of Needs”, a framework for gaining em-ployee commitment that was soon after taken up by marketers. And so, from about 1947, the age of marketing and diversification dawned and corporate growth and confidence blossomed. New Zealand too benefitted from its exports to reconstructing british and european markets and suppliers to the escalating Korean War.

the war and its subsequent economic boom highlighted the need to train su-

Integration!NZIM – the next chapter

The story of the New Zealand Institute of Management began soon after World War II. The next chapter of this tale is now being written

for a world vastly different from the one in which NZIM was originally forged. Reg Birchfield, a Life Fellow who has been involved with NZIM

for almost 40 years, explains the emergence of NZIM Mark II.

pervisors and develop managers. NZIm was established for just that purpose. It introduced membership grading which recognised management attainments and individual contributions to management as a profession.

As former NZIm national president Doug matheson has pointed out, the impetus from both NZIm training and grading in the 1940s and 1950s signifi-cantly influenced management skills and abilities and lifted both business and other organisational performance.

marketing’s influence on growth strategies took hold in the 1950s and 1960s, as did the practice manage-ment thinking of arguably the most influential management guru, peter Drucker. but with the exception of a few top managers who were influenced by overseas developments or worked for multinationals, management practice at home focused more on supervision and management activities.

iNSiGHtIn 1961, Drucker’s book The Practice of Management had a significant im-pact on the perception and practice of management in many countries, New Zealand included. matheson thinks the

book’s opening paragraph is still one of the most insightful explanations of the manager’s role.

“the manager is the dynamic, life-giving element of every business,” Drucker wrote. “Without his leadership ‘the re-sources of production’ remain resources and never become production. In a com-petitive economy, above all, the quality and performance of the managers determines the success of a business, indeed they determine its survival. For the quality and performance of its managers is the only effective advantage an enterprise in a competitive economy can have.”

management’s distinctive role became increasingly apparent. the influence of multinationals in the New Zealand economy grew during the 1960s. NZIm understood the growing array of educa-tion opportunities that management, as a profession in its own right, offered. It intro-duced qualifications that could be gained through specialised training courses or by attending study courses at technical colleges. more than 20,000 students still register each year for NZIm papers.

uNZippeDbut management stagnated through the later years of the 1960s, and through the


1970s and 1980s. New Zealand’s heavily-regulated economy bred administrators, not managers or leaders. In 1991 we were unzipped by an American Harvard academic michael porter. His book, Upgrading New Zealand’s Competitive Advantage, exposed both the state of our economy, the short-sightedness of our (political) leaders and the impact managers without real management competencies were collectively having on the nation’s economic fortunes.

“As a result of New Zealand’s long pe-riod of protectionism, there is a tendency for business to be administered rather than led,” porter wrote.

meanwhile, eras of strategy and social change; competitive challenge and re-structuring; globalisation and knowledge all moved through the decades to this millennium. the consequence of our commercial and political history is that measures of management competency, as defined by NZIm’s own management Capability Index (mCI), show that Kiwi managers perform to something like 73 percent of their potential across a range of performance indicators. And, according to matheson, who developed the mCI, this is simply not good enough for us to success-fully compete on the world stage.

For its part, NZIm is now moving to lift its game and enhance its impact on the management and leadership development market. the structure of NZIm is an acci-dent of history. It grew regionally, with little central accountability. Its four separate incorporated societies (NZIm Northern, Central, Southern and the central NZIm Inc) are moving to form a single legal entity. the deficiencies of separate entities are both obvious and many-fold, including slow decision-making and an increasing inability to provide seamless customer service across the country. Integration will improve these shortages and enhance the organisation’s strategic direction.

the members of the four entities voted last year to move to a single legal entity. the process for completing the legislative change involves the passing of pathfinder, authorising and confirming motions. the pathfinder motion has already been

adopted. the second two are technical requirements under the Incorporated Societies Act.

the Canterbury earthquakes, however, destroyed the Southern region offices and so its involvement in the new integrated body will be deferred for 12 months while it deals with its earthquake recovery priorities.

Northern and Central held their re-quired authorising extraordinary General meetings last month. they will hold their confirming motion meetings this month. Following this the two regions will volun-tarily liquidate and transfer their assets to NZIm Inc. NZIm Southern will remain as a regional society holding an NZIm brand licence until it integrates.

NZIm Inc also held an extraordinary general meeting in August to adopt a revised Constitution that encompasses the integration provisions. the updated constitution can be viewed on http://www.nzim.co.nz/Site/members/whats_hot.aspx

NZIm mark 11 will have one board and a single chief executive. the move will undoubtedly provide a stronger and more effective leadership structure. enhanced decision-making and customer service will follow.

“the National board will appoint a chief executive immediately after North-ern, Central and NZIm Inc have integrat-ed,” says NZIm National chair Gary Stur-gess. “We will then assess NZIm’s current business model with a view to re-aligning it with the needs of all stakeholders.

“the focus will be on building NZIm capability, its staff and its systems, to deliver relevant and high value services to the management community across the country. the Institute is already suc-cessfully using social media to enhance its dialogue with managers, to identify stakeholder needs, build intellectual prop-erty, and conduct research into trends in management and best practice.

“the move to integrate is a very posi-tive one for an organisation that has served New Zealand well for almost 70 years. It will take the brakes off and enable NZIm to innovate and transform effectively for the future,” says Sturgess. M

national boardGARY STURGESS LIFE FNZIM (CHAIRMAN) LYNDA CARROLL AFNZIM DAN COWARD AFNZIM MOHS BRIAN SOUTAR AFNZIM JOHN SANDFORD FNZIM ASH DIxON MNZIM JOANNE O’CONNOR MNZIMMARK WOODARD AFNZIM

oFFicesnational oFFice Chairman: GARY STURGESS Life FNZIMBOx 67, WELLINGTON 6140 Ph 0-4-473 0470, Fax 0-4-473 0479Email [email protected] website http://www.nzim.co.nz

northernPresident: JOHN SANDFORD FNZIMCEO: KEVIN GAUNT FNZIM, FAIMBox 6600, Wellesley St, Auckland 1141 Ph 0-9-303 9100, Fax 0-9-303 9109Email [email protected] Website www.nzimnorthern.co.nz

centralPresident: LYNDA CARROLL AFNZIMCEO: KARIN CALL AGH AN FNZIM, FIPAA Box 11781, Wellington 6142Ph 0-4-495 8300, Fax 0-4-495 8301Email [email protected] Website www.nzimcentral.co.nz

southernPresident: BRIAN SOUTAR AFNZIMCEO: JOSEPH THOMAS AFNZIMBox 13044, Christchurch 8141Ph 0-3-379 2302, Fax 0-03-357 8003Email [email protected] Website www.nzimsouthern.co.nz

NZIM FOUNDATIONCHAIRPERSON: DAVID MOLONEYSECRETARY: JIM THOMSON LIFE FNZIMPO BOx 67 WELLINGTON, PH 0-4-473 [email protected]

LeADerS bUILDING LeADerSOur aim is to build management capabilitythrough Research, Learning, and Recognition.

our focus is to:• Research leading management trends and practice

and promote a constantly developing model of best management capability for New Zealand.

• Enable managers and aspiring managers to participate in learning programmes, mentoring, and events that provide the information and experience they need to develop their capability.

• To identify leading management role models and provide awards that recognise the career and educational achievements of managers.

M PoLItICS CoLIN JAMeS


Peter Hughes moves on after 10 years at the top of the Ministry of Social Development at the end of

September. He takes with him – to the academic School of Government and some other appointments – his pre-eminent reputation as a chief executive. And he’s still pushing change.

The Maori party reckons whanau ora is a revolutionary social policy initiative. But Hughes already had established the base from which whanau ora’s aim of a wraparound service could be developed: Community Link centres.

There will be 80 Community Link centres by end-2011 and 130 by end-2012. The aim is to transform the benefit and social assistance systems so they address in one place a range of people’s needs supplied by several services. They replace Work and Income centres which essentially dole out benefits and get people work-ready and into work.

Building on that, Hughes wants to transform the whole public service model.

The public service was transformed in 1912 from an outfit susceptible to crony appointments to a merit-based, professional service. It was transformed again in the late 1980s-early 1990s when then-modern management techniques were imported, focusing on outputs – things agencies did – instead of inputs – things agencies used – handing to chief executives and managers control of their staffs, budgets and processes and introducing accrual accounting and fiscal transparency.

Some managers took their new freedoms seriously, Hughes told an Institute of Public Administration seminar in July: one built his own regional IT system, another filled a warehouse with office furniture and on sold it at a profit and a third built two buildings for the same function.

A radical departs the public service still sparking

Overall, this “new public management”, as some called it, delivered much greater efficiency and focused much more directly on “clients” – those getting the service. There was also innovation. But agencies became “siloed” from each other, which from the mid-1990s prompted much talk – but not much realisation – of “joined-up government”.

Hughes wants a third transformation – from producing outputs to achieving outcomes, with services integrated horizontally. But whereas 1912 and the 1980s were revolutions – radical changes from what went before – he sees the next transformation as evolution, building on the post-1980s’ efficiency gains to improve effectiveness.

This, he says, requires a shift in mentality from management to leadership. A tall order for risk-averse public servants.

Community Link centres aim not just to enable users to get all services they need in one place (outputs) but to

“help people get on and be successful” – to be healthy, get educated, get well housed and get independent through working for an income (outcomes).

Here’s the jargon: “underlying causes, not service symptoms”, “a virtual organisation around each individual or family”, a “co-production” to help people “take responsibility for their lives”. So, link Community Link with courts, doctors and teachers.

There is a wide range of publics and services, of which social services are only one. So Hughes suggests a range of options: loose clusters, tight mandated clusters, joint ventures, semi-structural integration and full structural integration.

And there are testing questions. Who is accountable for what? How are outcomes specified so they can be measured and evaluated and are achievable and achieved? Through the past 20 years outcomes have often been either ultra-high-level and irrelevant or little more than glorified outputs and outputs little more than glorified inputs. Delivering outputs discharges public servants’ responsibilities safely and is risk-free, even when little is achieved.

Moving to the “outcomes” level is hard and risky stuff – and has to be done with fickle masters hanging over the fence needing good media.

Hughes is undeterred. He wants something truly radical: to “unlock a huge amount of human potential and creativity, apply this to some of the real issues” and in the process “again lead the world in public management system reform”.

Is he talking about the public service here? Time to move on. M

Colin James is New Zealand’s leading political

commentator and NZ Management’s regular

political columnist. [email protected]

Peter Hughes... Still pushing change.


M eCoNoMICS BoB eDLIN

Are the poor getting poorer?

Two recent reports obviously were in Labour leader Phil Goff’s mind when he questioned Prime

Minister John Key in Parliament about poverty and the rising cost of living. First, the NBR Rich List showed the assets of the country’s wealthiest 150 people had swelled by 20 percent last year. Second, the latest labour cost index showed wages had increased 1.3 percent in the year to 30 June, much less than the 5.3 percent rise in annual inflation (3.3 percent if you shake out the GST impact).

Goff accordingly asked the PM if he stood by his statement that “I think we all have to accept that there is a degree of inequality in New Zealand” and, if so, had he read any recent reports on the growing gap between rich and poor in New Zealand?

He was gazumped. Key did stand by that statement. Moreover, he had “excellent news” for Goff: a detailed report on income equality had just been posted on the Ministry of Social Development’s website. Titled Household Incomes in New Zealand it shows the degree of income inequality in New Zealand, under standard measures like the Gini coefficient or the 80:20 ratio, has fallen in recent years. It further shows the distribution of income in New Zealand is more even now “than it was at any time under the previous Labour government”.

In other words, the gap between rich and poor was narrowing.

As for the Rich List, Key noted, it is “a list from a bunch of journalists, who are making up stuff on the best estimates they have”. And the labour cost index was not the best measure of wages increases. The Labour government, don’t forget, had changed the law in 2001 to ensure the quarterly employment survey was used as the basis for superannuation in New Zealand. In the year to June, it showed average weekly earnings up 4.2 percent, or 7.4 percent in after-tax terms.

The household incomes report provides information “on the material wellbeing of New Zealanders as indicated by their household incomes from all sources over the period 1982 to 2010”. Using household after-tax cash income for the previous 12 months, adjusted for household size and composition, its major focus is on trends in income-based indicators of inequality and hardship. All results are estimates, based on data from Statistics New Zealand’s Household Economic Survey (a sample survey of around 2800 to 3200 private households). The latest income data are from the 2009-2010 HES, before the Key Government’s income tax cuts and increase in GST took effect from 1 October.

Among the findings: • There was little change in real terms for household incomes for most income groups from the 2009 HES to the 2010 HES. • From the low point in 1994 through to 2009 there was a steady rise in the median income in real terms, with different income groups faring differently at different times.

• From 2004 to 2007 the Working for Families package led to incomes below the median growing more quickly than incomes above the median – the only period in the last 30 years in which this has happened.• Wealth is distributed much more unequally than income. • The proportion of households with high OTIs (outgoings to income) was a little lower in 2010 (25%) than in 2007 (27%) and 2009 (28%) , but much higher than in 1988 (11%).

High OTIs are of particular concern for low-income households because they can show insufficient income left to properly meet other basic needs such as food, clothing, transport, medical care and education.

But the report cautions there is some uncertainty about the reliability of OTI figures for lower quintiles for 2010. Its authors are holding off commenting on OTI trends until 2011 data are available. The rest of us probably should do the same. M

Bob Edlin is a leading economic commentator and

NZ Management’s regular economics columnist.

Phot

o: th

inks

tock

phot

os.c

om/P

hoto

s.co

m

reG BIrCHFIeLDM LeADerSHIP


There is a leadership issue out there which, while some may consider me less than qualified to address,

is nevertheless dear to my heart. Women! There simply aren’t enough of them. Well, not on the boards of our major companies anyhow.

The latest addition to a living library of literature and research on how few women get to draw up a chair at our biggest board tables simply confirms what most of us men know. We’re not giving up our leadership without a fight, or maybe a directive to do so.

New Zealand is, according to international talent management company Korn/Ferry (see page 60), one of the world’s success stories when it comes to keeping women out of the boardroom. Our defence-centric rugby DNA may have something to do with it.

For a while there it looked like women might just be getting the upper-hand. Unsatisfied with being the first to get the vote in a western democracy a 100 or so years ago, they eventually went on to snatch all the perk jobs – Prime Minister, Governor General, Chief Justice, CEO of Telecom – you name it.

But, as veteran feminist activist and writer Gloria Steinem recently told Time magazine: the idea put about that the fight for women’s rights is over is simply a clever (male) “way of stopping progress”.

It doesn’t look, however, like Kiwi male leaders – particularly corporate directors and even more particularly, chairmen of boards of directors – understand what a disservice they are doing New Zealand by treating women as elephants in the corporate corner. For so many logical, practical, economic, political, social and moral reasons, New Zealand needs more women in leadership roles and on boards of directors in particular. It is surprising that the same men who generally credit themselves with being more logical than women, do either not understand or,

Men leading badly

refuse to act on this urgent need. Male leadership is, as Equal

Employment Opportunity (EEO) Commissioner Dr Judy McGregor has put it, “an essential key to cracking the pitifully low number of women on the boards of our major corporate companies”. The Korn/Ferry research shows just how “pitiful” that statistic is. The reality and reasons for this state of affairs are difficult to understand and beg a number of questions.

Are Kiwi corporate male leaders so stupid they cannot read the writing on the walls of our fast changing and evolving world? Hopefully not. Do they then covet the trappings of office so tenaciously they can’t bear to yield the reins of corporate power? That might not be honourable, but it is certainly believable.

Or, heaven forbid, are they so arrogant as to steadfastly believe all the truths of corporate wisdom and experience reside between their ears? Hmmm!

Men could show true leadership by sharing leadership equally with women and other minority groups. This state of inequality should not even

be an issue. There is no valid reason for perpetuating the status quo. The chestnut that choice is based on the best person for the job, not on gender or diversity per se, is simply to set the male default option. Director selection in New Zealand is secretive, sub-standard and discriminatory. Ironically, the nexus may need to be broken by replacing one form of discrimination with another, albeit more positive one.

A prevailing state of mind, supply and demand squeeze, lack of compulsion to change, limited understanding of the business case for diversity, dismissal of social justice norms, inability to read the relevance of changing demographics, or seeping senility – probably all to some degree, contribute to the current state of the predominantly male corporate being.

It has, and rightly I think, been suggested that one strong male corporate leader who champions women on boards and makes it a competitive advantage would make a huge difference. One who might do this, is Air New Zealand and Solid Energy chairman John Palmer. He is held in such high esteem and has proven himself so often that he might be listened to.

Women hectoring men achieves only so much. Men talking to other men might prove more compelling. They could both point up the benefits of change and simultaneously take credit for the wisdom of their wisdom.

There is another option. Chairs who preside over large companies with significant female workforces, female investors or female customers might like to be “known and shown”. Conversely, they might prefer to be “named and shamed”. Either way, it’s long past time corporate New Zealand acted in its own best interests. M

Reg Birchfield is NZ Management’s consulting editor

and writer-at large. [email protected]

Phot

o: th

inks

tock

phot

os.c

om/P

hoto

s.co

m

M MANAGING SUStAINABLy JAMIe SINCLAIr


This positive imagination of New Zealand’s cultural diversity in 2050 is one example of the outputs

from a two-day Future Leaders session held recently in Auckland as part of the NZBCSD Vision 2050 project. The process was challenging but hugely productive. Draft pathways for New Zealand were developed for the period now to 2050 and we began to explore the business challenges and opportunities that might arise over this timeframe.

To help the creative juices, the team was given an inspiring talk from David Houle – a renowned American futurist. His key messages – avoid a vision “deficit” and capitalise on the opportunities of ultra-fast broadband and ramp renewable energy levels up to 100% as soon as possible.

What can we learn from this? As managers and business leaders we need to be able to tap into the passion displayed by these young leaders – including those from within your organisation. They have fantastic ideas and once they are given the right tools and a framework to work with, discussion about “the future” can lead to unexpected results and strategically relevant findings. While our project is operating at a national and global level,

Taking a 40-year view

the thinking behind this exercise is relevant for individuals, organisations and industry groups.

Our mindset in New Zealand, including our policy making and consumer behaviour continues to be too short term in nature. You can understand this position given the uncertainties with the global economic recovery and the challenges of making ends meet in our personal lives.

Given this uncertainty we tend to operate at the “needs” end of the Maslow hierarchy. This is where our leadership needs to step up. From business to politics, community groups and associations – we need a sea change in our thinking that aligns with our global competitive advantage. Capitalising on our clean, green image is predicated on the effectiveness of our long-term thinking.

Recent polling indicates that the vast majority of New Zealanders believe environmental sustainability is important or very important to our global competitive advantage. Maintaining this advantage requires a long-term perspective.

While change cannot happen overnight, the direction of our national, regional and local plans and policies should support growth based on a positive vision of New Zealand. This

vision should involve a scenario where our income levels, social connectedness and productivity are high, and our environmental impact is low. To date we are missing that vision.

Our Vision 2050 project is an attempt to advance this visioning process. We are heartened by initiatives such as Pure Advantage and the work of the Sustainable Future Institute, which share similar aspirations and who we are engaging with as part of the project process.

To develop this further I encourage more organisations to conduct their own futuring exercises. The challenge is to push beyond the one, two or three year budgeting and forecasting cycle. What lies beyond requires a broader view of local, regional and global trends? In what areas are the pressures for resources going to be most pronounced? What does your customer base look like given anticipated demographic, income distribution and cultural changes? Given this analysis you can begin to ask questions relevant to your organisation’s future. These should cover:• How your products/services will be affected – including how these will be delivered.• What skill base you will require, and how that differs from your existing talent pool – is our education system delivering what you will require?• How will the challenges or changes required in other sectors impact your competitive position?

This analysis will help you to have the conversations with shareholders, financiers, employees and other stakeholders – including policy makers – that put the long-term survival and growth of the organisation at the centre.

In essence, this is what sustainability is all about. M

Jamie Sinclair is project manager for Vision 2050.

[email protected].

Phot

o: th

inks

tock

phot

os.c

om

He huinga no nga maunga puta i te ao

We are many people from throughout the world

Kotahi te iwi

One people

Kotahi te tekahi tenei whenua ahurei

Walking together in this country

M tHoUGHt LeADer

18 | management.co.nz |September2011

WaikatoLink’s Duncan Mackintosh.

Through KiwiNet we can capture, develop and transfer these valuable intellectual property assets from universities and CRIs, along with other work from research institutions and commercial organisations, to provide competitive advantage for industry.

KiwiNet’s collaborative commercialisation model enables members to share resources, networks, best practice, IP and experience to create more commercially viable IP and start-ups from research based ventures. Early visibility allows IP to be combined, if appropriate, and duplication of effort to be avoided.

Collaboration, networks and early visibility to investors and industry who understand the potential of these research opportunities also dramatically increases the chance of success for ventures.

CRIs and universities can better support industry sectors by working together. The trust and transparency so essential to success can only be built by working in a collaborative way and it is this best practice that we want to bring to bear in the new environment. KiwiNet provides the essential ingredients of success; strong governance, rigorous investment screening and decision making, well-structured project guidance and monitoring, and the ability to excite and harness investor appetite.

KiwiNet members have demonstrated

Innovation needs bold executionWe live in an era where discovery

is the new currency and the success with which nations

can foster the climate for innovation will determine their future prosperity. This is an exciting dynamic for a small but competitive nation, and much rests on our capacity to commercialise the ideas, schemes and dreams of our brightest and best. Ambition to succeed in forging an innovative economy is one thing, but the acid is now on to lift our ability to execute that goal. We cannot be content with the status quo.

The Kiwi Innovation Network (KiwiNet) was launched last month to increase the scale, connectivity and economic impact of science and technology commercialisation in New Zealand through an unprecedented level of national collaboration between universities and Crown Research Institutes and their innovation partners.

KiwiNet will act as a hub for commercialisation activities for its member organisations, currently six universities and three Crown Research Institutes, as well as participants in the wider national innovation system, as they work to create commercial opportunities from science and technology research.

The sheer breadth and depth of the founding partners, which include WaikatoLink, Plant & Food Research, Otago Innovation, Lincoln University, AUT Enterprises, AgResearch, University of Canterbury, Industrial Research and Viclink, constitutes a genuinely national network. From this platform, KiwiNet will reach deeply into the innovation systems and into New Zealand’s major industry sectors.

KiwiNet members encompass the large proportion of New Zealand’s science capability with a total combined research expenditure of more than $500 million and they generate a wealth of discoveries.

These innovations need to get close to their markets as quickly as possible.

the ability to execute at the early stage of commercialisation. ZyGEM, Magritek, ArcActive, eco-n, SuperGel, HTS-110, Geosense, General Cable Superconductors and Endace are all good examples of companies formed and in-market products from research commercialised from universities or CRIs.

We want many more of these successes. KiwiNet’s exciting commercialisation firepower will allow us to deploy resource into science and investor facing activities, while continuing to innovate in commercialisation regimes.

KiwiNet also acts as an innovation shop front for investors and industry. We expect our strong commercialisation track record to attract fresh interest from two important quarters; the investors who are on the hunt for propositions of commercial promise, and other entities with ideas who will want to test them under our regime.

We cannot preach the virtues of innovation, yet remain hide-bound in our structural thinking and cramped in our ambition for this initiative. KiwiNet members feel a heavy responsibility to collectively push the boundaries in the search for better and smarter ways to commercially leverage the substantial, but latent and untapped pool of New Zealand’s intellectual property.

As a country we must get moving to create the positive economic shifts we need. One way we can do this is to get really bold about executing an agenda of collaborative and national commercialisation and innovation. KiwiNet is a very practical and crucial push for smart commercialisation. We can produce far greater benefits when we work together than we can when we operate single-handedly. Collaboration not competition is the key to get the outcomes we seek as a country. M

Duncan Mackintosh is chief executive of WaikatoLink,

a founding member of KiwiNet.

M BooKCASe


Groundswell:WinninginaworldtransformedbysocialtechnologiesBy: Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff • Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press • RRP: $35.00

Getting baby boomers’ heads around both the applications and implications of social media and its facilitating technologies isn’t easy. I know because I am one of them.

My personal salvation arrived, in large measure anyhow, with the latest and expanded edition of Groundswell, a book by a couple of American researchers who work in this space.

Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Forrester Research employees, penned the first edition of this book back in 2009. But life in the social technology lane clips along at such a pace that they felt compelled to update. And the book’s value is enhanced by it.

For managers who have some trouble grappling with the implications of

theleading-edgemanager’sGuidetoSuccessBy David Parmenter • Publisher: Wiley • RRP: $78.99

New Zealand is not over-endowed with management thinkers and writers. For that reason alone, it’s good to watch a home-grown author in this genre making it on the world writers’ and speakers’ circuit.

David Parmenter submitted his first article on key performance indicators to this magazine around 20 years ago. We accepted it, edited it and gave it the headline: Killer KPIs. Readers responded and Parmenter was hooked on the fact people took his advice seriously. It was time for him to move on from selling accounting services to Wellington businesses.

Parmenter is now the author of five books, many magazine articles and spends around 150 days a year speaking to business audiences in some of the world’s largest cities. His latest book, all 380 pages of it, is not something to snuggle up to on

networking tools like blogs, podcasts, wikis, facebook, youtube, myspace, RSS feeds and others, this book is very helpful. And if marketing is your concern, then reading it is even more of an imperative.

Groundswell is the authors’ word for the social media phenomenon generated by the rapidly evolving plethora of social technologies. And, as they point out, the groundswell is becoming embedded within every activity on computers, mobile devices and the “real world”. It is a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional suppliers like companies.

Ubiquitous groundswell will, according to Li and Bernoff, connect people with the groups they care about. What that in turn means, is every manager’s company, services and products will be constantly rated and reviewed, talked about, criticised

a wet Sunday afternoon. But it is a treasure trove of pearls of wisdom and anecdotal gems.

The Leading-Edge Manager’s Guide to Success is the generalist manager’s one-stop-shop of career preparation, development and best practice processes that can be dipped into at any time of the day or night. A fusion of practice and inspiration, this Manager’s Guide is a resource guide that covers, if not everything you ever wanted to know about being a successful manager or leader, certainly 80 percent of it.

The former accountant turned management and leadership writer and speaker, has followed his own advice as expressed in the first pages of his new book. “Create a vision of what you want to achieve,” he says. Focus on neuro-linguistic programming.

The subconscious does not, apparently, know the difference between right and wrong; it does not know

or praised without any input from the creator. While managers might not be able to do much about what dialogue goes on around them, they certainly need to understand the process and the rapidly escalating implications of it.

The authors provide some interesting and useful strategies for tapping this groundswell, so the book is more than an eloquent explanation of the trends and technologies behind all this. The profiles and accounts of deployment of the technologies bring a level of accessibility to the table for the technologically challenged.

Even slow learners like me know that this groundswell is no flash-in-the pan trend. This is an “important, irreversible and completely different” way for people to “relate to companies and to each other”. Managers and leaders must get online with it. As a highly relevant work tool, it rates very highly in my book. – Reg Birchfield

the difference between what is real and what is imagined in the future or the present; it does not know its limitations. That, reasons Parmenter, makes it possible for managers to accomplish their dreams if they envision them strongly enough.

There is a wealth of helpful advice on an array of topics too broad for me to give any meaningful matrix of scope or scale – other than to say they fall into first identifying the kit needed to embark on the management journey, getting fit for the trek to the top and finally deploying techniques to become a better manager or leader.

Parmenter finally focuses on leadership that makes a difference. His personal heroes are explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, mountaineer Sir Ed Hillary and British bulldog Sir Winston Churchill from whom he draws anecdotes and incidents to prove his points about what it takes to think and act like a leader. – Reg Birchfield

CoVerStorY


NZ’SmoStreputAbleorGANiSAtioN:beCAGroupPh

oto:

Jan-

Mic

hael

Dav

id


Taking out both 2011’s Most Reputable Company gong and the supreme award, Most Reputable Organisation,

on top of Company of the Year in the 2010 Top 200 awards, Beca’s star is on the rise and rise. What is it about

Beca that is earning these accolades?

Richard Aitken, Chairman, Beca Group.


New Zealand’s globally suc-cessful engineering consul-tancy, beca Group, is NZ Management’s 2011 most

reputable Organisation (mrO). It climbed two places on its 2010 rank-ing to edge Air New Zealand out of the top slot.

beca’s ascendancy is, it seems, built as much on its reputation for having strong ethical and social values as on its outstanding technical, financial and service performance. “beca has excep-tional values. It successfully balances its global corporate size whilst retain-ing the New Zealand family culture that is a large part of their success,” said one mrO survey respondent. “It melds a clear profit motive and effec-tive business operation with strong social values,” said another.

So despite tough economic times, business and other organisational leaders accept that building share-holder value should go hand-in-hand with an ethical and values-based ap-proach to doing business.

NZ Management’s mrO survey identifies reputable organisations in four categories: private sector companies, state-owned enterprises, government departments and not-for-profit organisations. It is conducted for NZ Management by international consultancy Hay Group, which has for many years helped America’s Fortune magazine to identify what its publisher calls the World’s most Admired Com-panies. Hay also researches Australia’s most respected Companies List for Australian Financial Review’s Boss magazine.

Hay Group’s New Zealand chief executive Ian macrae says this year’s survey reiterates his consultancy’s belief that more organisations are focusing on reputation building strat-egies and making a greater effort to understand what goes in to building reputation.

“A good financial performance is no doubt critical to every enterprise. but to achieve that performance

organisations have to have everyone – shareholders, employees, customers and the communities in which they operate – accepting and supportive of the way in which those profits are earned.”

beca was voted this year’s most reputable Company and the most reputable Organisation over al l . Christchurch-based Solid energy moved up five places on its 2010 ranking to become the nation’s most reputable State-Owned enterprise. New Zealand police was again voted New Zealand’s most reputable Gov-ernment Department and the Salva-tion Army similarly held on to its 2010 ranking as our most reputable Not-For-profit.

this year, Air New Zealand landed in second place as both the most repu-table company and the most reputable organisation overall. However, the airline attracts more accolades for its smart business strategies, strong lead-ership and outstanding service rather than for its corporate morality. As one respondent it put it: “Air New Zealand is a high profile, strong brand, is com-mitted to customer and operational excellence and [it] achieves great results even in difficult times.”

building and retaining a good reputation is clearly high on most organisations’ list of strategic objec-tives given today’s competitive and increasingly unsettled marketplace. And, according to Auckland-based corporate reputation expert Hannah Samuel, the digital domain has lifted

reputation higher in “top of mind” organisational priorities.

“Organisations’ ability to control what they think is their reputation has been removed by the digital domain,” she says. “Actually, because of the way in which reputation is formed, organisations have never really been able to control their reputation. they can’t and never could control what others think. Now they can instantly share their thoughts with thousands of others. What individuals think is an organisation’s reputation.”

Knowledge-based organisations, such as professional firms and con-sultancies like beca, rely heavily on their good name. beca’s considerably lower brand profile makes its survey

success even more interesting. Its sen-ior executives don’t enjoy high public profiles either. the company is, in that respect, the antithesis of Air New Zea-land and other top-ranking finalists like Fonterra and Fletcher building.

A lasting reputation is, according to Samuel, built on organisational integrity. And, despite the rise in consumer and investor cynicism, few individuals expect the impossible. “We don’t look for perfect organisations. but increasingly we are looking for organisations that deliver on their promises.”

beca is perceived in that light, if comments from survey respondents are any indication. “they act ethically and their executives can be trusted,” said one. “It is a great business model. It acts with integrity and behaves ethi-

Beca balances its global corporate size whilst retaining the New

Zealand family culture that is a large part of their success.

CoVerStorY


cally,” said another. No other survey finalist was so consistently acknowl-edged for its perceived integrity and across the board high standards of performance.

Organisations are, it seems, think-ing differently about what reputa-tion really is and how it is earned. reputation is not necessarily built on a “brand”, something sports equipment marketer adidas should be contem-plating in the wake of its disastrously arrogant response to local public and retailer objections to its All black jer-sey sales strategy.

the adidas fiasco is a three-dimen-sion reflection of the changing nature of reputation construction, composi-tion and implementation. reputation has generally been left to marketing or communications to work on, says Samuel. Or, if it was thought about at all, it was delegated to customer care or customer services. “but building a brand and building a reputation are two very different processes,” she adds.

“reputation is about an organisa-tion’s culture. It is about everything an organisation says or promises, internally and externally. It is about how people are treated apart from

what is said. It is about engagement, openness, transparency and creating empowering cultures that truly service the organisation’s stakeholders and customers.”

Organisational reputation needs constant repair, maintenance and reiteration. It can take years to build, but just seconds to dismantle. Failure to track trends and listen to what peo-ple want are, according to Samuel, the two most common reputation spoil-ers. “Companies can be leading edge one day and burned toast the next, simply by failing to see what is going on around them or by failing to listen to their stakeholders.”

respondents to this year’s most reputable Organisation survey rated beca’s “strong and effective” leadership its number one attribute. they rated Air New Zealand similarly. Strong leadership is the reputational factor that consistently rates most highly with respondents. the difference be-tween the two enterprises appears to rest with what respondents consider are today’s most important manifesta-tions of leadership.

In beca’s case it’s the soft manage-ment stuff of culture, values, ethics,

integrity and commitment to its stake-holders that resonates. Ironically, beca works in some of the world’s most ethically challenged marketplaces. It has, as one respondent put it, “strong ethical values with a balanced cus-tomer focus”.

When the company rubs up against practices such as bribery in some offshore markets, it applies its home-based ethical standards chief executive Keith reynolds told NZ Management earlier this year. “We maintain our standards irrespective of the markets in which we operate. We have internal management processes to ensure that understanding is captured.”

beca’s standards-based approach to business does not, in the eyes of its peers, compromise its “strong financial management and perform-ance”. they rate this characteristic the company’s second highest attribute, closely followed by its “strong stake-holder relationships” and capacity to be “strategically innovative”.

Air New Zealand’s strong and ef-fective leadership, strategic innovation and strong financial management are still the qualities from which it gath-ers greatest kudos. but respondents


Companies can be leading edge one day and burned toast the next,

simply by failing to see what is going on around them or by failing

to listen to their stakeholders.– Hannah Samuel


also acknowledged its strong ethical values and people-focused culture. “Its leadership and values and customer service are world-beating,” said one respondent. Others expressed similar sentiments.

Dairy giant Fonterra dropped one place to third in this year’s survey, in both the company and overall most reputable organisation categories. Its reputation is built on more pragmatic business performance considerations. It is considered strategically innova-tive, delivers strong financial manage-ment and performance and deploys robust and appropriate risk manage-ment policies – along with strong and effective leadership.

Solid energy’s surge from fifth to first place as New Zealand most reputable State Owned enterprise is the survey’s 2011 surprise. As one re-spondent noted, Solid energy does not work in a “publicly popular industry because of how things get whipped up by politicians and the green lobby. Yet they seem to quietly get about the job of extracting and selling minerals and making money.”

Survey respondents have picked up on Solid energy’s strong leader-

Solid Energy’s surge from fifth to first place

is the survey’s 2011 surprise.

ship, clear vision of where it is going and commitment to innovation and strategic thinking. “Solid energy has a reputation as a leader in direction and management,” another respond-ent said.

Kiwibank, last year’s most repu-table SOe, slipped to second place. respondents still rate it for competing strongly against its large, Australian competitors. they also credit it for being a locally owned company that “works to New Zealand values”. It “consistently delivers service and ac-cepts corporate social responsibility”, said one respondent.

Kiwibank’s parent company, NZ post, dropped to third this year. It rates highest for its strong stakeholder rela-tionships. but its “transparent and ef-fective CSr policies and programmes, its consistent delivery of customer promise and service” and its “robust and appropriate risk management policies” rated a close second with respondents.

New Zealand’s most reputable Government Department is, as it was last year, the police. the department’s reputation is unquestionably based on its strong stakeholder relationships –

for those you can read the public at large. One respondent summed up the prevailing sentiment saying: “An outstanding organisation, staffed by really motivated people operating suc-cessfully in a complex and ambiguous political environment.”

New Zealand’s police tend to score well in reputational surveys, according to Samuel. “they seem to be highly trusted and while no organisation is perfect, the police occupy a unique position based on their sworn com-mitment to serve the interests of the community – a bit like the medical profession’s Hippocratic oath.”

the police are also highly rated by respondents’ for perceptions of their “clear and compelling vision”, their “strong and effective leadership” and “consistent delivery of customer promise and service”. they are, said one respondent, “working more ef-fectively now than they were a year ago. there is better, more transparent leadership.”

the Inland revenue Department has managed to polish up its reputa-tional image too. It climbed two places to become the country’s second most reputable Government Department,

CoVerStorY


one spot ahead of the treasury. IrD has, it seems, “done a lot to improve its image and customer performance” and appears, said another respondent, “to be transforming their organisation to reflect a changed scope and relation-ship with customers”.

the treasury, on the other hand, is recognised most for its “robust and ap-propriate risk management policies”. It has, thinks at least one leader who responded to the survey, “an in-depth understanding of the challenges fac-ing New Zealand in tough economic times”.

With the exception of the Salva-tion Army which topped this category last year, the Not-for-profit sector saw the greatest change in organisations ranked most highly for their reputa-tion. the red Cross, St John Ambu-

lance and parents Inc which ranked second, third and fourth this year, did not feature in the top five places last year. Southern Cross Healthcare did, but slipped one place to fifth.

the Salvation Army “does remark-able work for the indisposed. It always takes people with it. It is sincere and dedicated to helping the less fortu-nate”, said one respondent. Survey respondents rated it most highly for its “effective and engaged workforce”. Its transparent and effective CSr policies and programmes, strong stakeholder relationships and consistent delivery of customer promise and service ranked equally high.

the red Cross’s reputation is built on its strong stakeholder relationships, an effective and engaged workforce, consistent delivery of its customer


The criteria • A clear and compelling vision for the future

• An effective and appropriate operating model

• Well developed strategic plans and objectives

• Effective organisation structure

• Strong and effective leadership

• Effective implementation of strategic plans

and objectives

• Strong financial management and performance

• Consistent delivery of customer promise

and service

• Effective and engaged workforce

• Strong stakeholder relationships

• Strategically innovative

• Transparent and effective corporate social

responsibility policies and programmes

• Robust and appropriate risk management

policies and practices


CSr policies and programmes” and whether they had “robust and ap-propriate risk management policies”.

“We wanted to explore business and other organisational leaders’ at-titudes toward and perceptions of these two important issues,” says Hay Group’s Ian macrae. “the results show pretty clearly that both these considerations are important when it comes to measuring the elements of a good reputation in today’s climate.

“And while we don’t have quite the same measure of community focus we had last year, it is obvious from responses to the questions on stake-holder relationships and transparency and CSr policies, that there is no drop in demand for openness and social responsibility, despite ongoing global economic problems,” he added. M

New Zealand’s Most Reputable OrganisationsmoStreputAbleorGANiSAtioNS

2011 Position

2010 Position

Beca Group 1 4Air New Zealand 2 1Fonterra 3 2Salvation Army 4 -Fletcher Building 5 3

moStreputAbleCompANieS2011

Position2010

PositionBeca Group 1 3Air New Zealand 2 1Fonterra 3 2Fletcher Building 4 4ASB Bank 5= -The Warehouse 5= -Vodafone* 5= -

moStreputAbleSoes2011

Position2010

PositionSolid Energy 1 5=KiwiBank 2 1New Zealand Post 3 2Meridian Energy 4= 4Mighty River Power 4= -

moStreputAbleGoVerNmeNtDepArtmeNtS

2011 Position

2010 Position

NZ Police 1 1Inland Revenue 2 4Treasury 3 3Department of Conservation 4= 2Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry

4= -

moStreputAbleNot-For-proFitS2011

Position2010

PositionSalvation Army 1 1NZ Red Cross 2 -St John 3 -Parents Inc 4 -Southern Cross Healthcare 5 4

* The research was concluded prior to the reporting on August 12 of Vodafone’s fine for breaching the Fair Trading Act.

promise and service and an effective and appropriate operating model. “they continually do great work in the community and especially during the Christchurch earthquake,” one respondent said. many respondents acknowledged the organisation’s post-quake activities.

Overall, the corporates again came out on top. beca, Air New Zealand and Fonterra are New Zealand’s first three most reputable Organisations. the Salvation Army is ranked fourth, ahead of Fletcher building.

A question on how respondents thought organisations “contributed to the wider community” was dropped from this year’s survey. two new questions were added. the first asked respondents to rate the organisations for their “transparent and effective

CoVerStorY


Beca takesthe long view

For a raft of reasons, most of them rooted in global engineering consultancy Beca’s professional accomplishments, the company’s outstanding track record of commitment to excellence is being

recognised. Reg Birchfield talks to Richard Aitken, chairman of NZ Management’s 2011 Most Reputable Organisation.

Perceptions of what makes beca a world-class consultancy have, its chairman richard Aitken thinks, “been built up

over time”. No question the company has been around a while. Its roots reach back to the 1920s.

“We are a long established business in New Zealand, have a big footprint in many markets and hope we are known for getting on with the job,” says the quietly spoken leader of the beca board.

He is, he says, a “little surprised” by the recognition given by his peers. I don’t quite believe him. He knows what an outstanding business he leads and how highly it is regarded. It would not, of course, be seemly to boast or assume others knew how proud he and his team are of the things they do and

how they do them. that is for others to say, through acknowledgements such as this.

“We are very pleased [with being named NZ’s most reputable Organisa-tion] of course. but as a professional organisation we aspire to have a high reputation,” he says. “We do the best we can and we take responsibility for our work” – a sentiment with which many mrO survey respondents agree. “they strive to protect a very proud legacy,” said one.

“A good reputation must be earned and continuously invested in through high performance. Good work talks,” says Aitken. “When we have done a good job and, most importantly, when it results in successful outcomes for our clients, we are happy to tell the story. We focus strongly on the internal

communication of success stories and lessons learned.”

reputation is, according to Aitken, at the core of his professional services busi-ness. “If we lose reputation, clients and potential clients lose respect and trust and then find it difficult to rely on our advice,” he says simply. “We really do live or die by our reputation. A good reputa-tion also allows us to attract and retain the best talent. With the best people, we reinforce our ability to do excellent work and, again, enhance our reputation.” the logic of perpetual reinforcement.

AttrACtiNGtAleNtSurvey respondents certainly believe beca attracts talented employees. many commented on it, like one who said: “Owned by their employees, they deliver on promises every time. they

NZ’SmoStreputAbleorGANiSAtioN:beCAGroup


Beca takesthe long view are trustworthy and have a corporate

responsibility to the community that is admirable.” the comments suggest beca’s reputation strategy works well at the recruitment end of the business.

but beca’s good reputation is also an effective market differentiator. “When clients choose to do business with us we hope they will respond to our reputation for technical excel-lence, for commitment to getting the job done and for being good to work with,” says Aitken. “All three of these reputation factors have a positive com-mercial impact on client outcomes and, we think, help to differentiate us. We also want to be known for our will-ingness to partner with other firms, both nationally and internationally, to deliver the best results for clients.”

beca was highly rated in this year’s survey for its strong and effective lead-ership. “Leadership has always been an important part of our culture,” Aitken responds. “It comes from the top. We had inspirational founders like George beca and Sir ron Carter. but it goes deeper than this. Sir ron in particular, believed in delegating responsibility down so that everyone could make a meaningful contribution.”

beca is a large group of very smart people. “but we only manage to leverage the energy, passion and innovation of these clever individuals if they are mo-tivated to lead in a team environment,” says Aitken. “We invest heavily in lead-ership development both externally and

through our in-house programme. Our employee shareholding model gives us a ‘partner in charge’ mentality.”

the approach delivers a strong, stable and multi-layer leadership, says Aitken. “the leadership team is experienced with a sound understand-ing of both the beca business and the industries within which we operate.” their leaders are also encouraged to volunteer their time to community endeavours and professional bodies.

treAteDCAreFullYbeca also focuses strongly on its im-pressively sound financial manage-ment. “We must be financially strong to make the profits we re-invest, mostly in our people but also in sys-tems to support our work for clients,” says Aitken. “We are continuously in-volved in advising clients on spending large sums of money. they expect us to treat their money as carefully as we treat our own,” he adds.

Of all the reputation performance measures, what perception would Aitken most want his peers to have of beca?

“Our highest objective is for clients to feel that we have worked closely with them and understood them, that we have delivered value and, that their engagement with beca was worth-while.” He might, therefore, take heart from the comments of one survey respondent who said: “beca is a first-class service provider, managed and

directed by people who adhere to the company’s core values of partnership, tenacity, enjoyment and care.”

beca’s reputation has been meticu-lously and painstakingly cultivated. Its profile and business scale and scope have, however, grown dramatically over the past five to 10 years. Can it, therefore, keep its organisational reputation intact given the buffeting growth and increasing global competi-tiveness will inevitably deliver?

Aitken is optimistic. there are, he reasons, commercial pressures on all organisations in today’s business environment. “We live in a quick-fix, short-term world. beca must there-fore be careful to keep focused on the importance of long-term relation-ships and long-term outcomes for its clients,” he says.

“We may have to accept some short-term challenges for ourselves along the way if we want to maintain and grow our reputation, but we’ll still focus on generating the best outcomes for our clients. beca is often called on in times of crisis. reputation can be enhanced by the way in which organi-sations deal with difficult situations or resolve problems.

“As an employee-owned business we can take a longer term view of the business, its resilience and the overall benefits we can attain for our stake-holders,” Aitken says philosophically but with confidence in his assessment of the future. M

Phot

o: Ja

n-M

icha

el D

avid

CoVerStorY


FonterraANDreWFerrier,Ceoeverything we do in Fonterra is based on four values. two of our values speak on what we need to do to perform – ‘Challenge bounda-ries’ and ‘make it Happen’. And two of our values speak to how we want to work. It is these two ‘from the heart’ values that are the

cornerstone to Fonterra’s culture. these are ‘Do What’s right’ and ‘Cooperative Spirit’.

“Do What’s right” means, simply, work with honesty and integrity. Never compromise doing what’s right for profits. be honest and forthright. And be humble.

Cooperative spirit pulls out of the richness of our team from our farmers who farm our milk, to our people all over the world. It is our people, and their ability to work together as a team, that really distinguishes Fonterra and allows us to con-tinue to increase on our leadership in the global dairy market.

results are important, and are part of a corporate reputa-tion. but how you go about achieving those results are key to long term success. At Fonterra, we are tremendously proud about our values and our culture, and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these values will continue to ensure that we deliver on the results.

Fletcher BuildingJoNAtHANliNG,CeoAt Fletcher building, we have a heritage that stretches back over 100 years. Our success as a company over that time has been built on constructive, enduring relationships within the company and with our stakeholders.

We have a set of values which promotes individual and team creativity, mutual respect, commitment and focus on achieving results.

We care about the world in which we work, and understand that what we do has a major impact on the communities in which we live. So for us, providing outstanding products, excellent service, and mutually beneficial business partnerships is crucial for our repu-tation and for our long-term success.

ASB New ZealandbArbArACHApmAN,CeoAs a leading New Zealand financial institution for 164 years, ASb has always taken a long-term view of our responsibilities as a corporate citizen. Our core values of integrity, caring, ambition and passion are ingrained in our culture, forming the strong foundation upon which

ASb is based and guiding our people’s interactions with our customers every day.

maintaining a great reputation requires a singular vi-sion to do the right thing, strong leadership, and an absolute organisation-wide commitment to your customers and com-munity. We never take our reputation for granted – while it is the result of years of commitment by ASb people to doing the right thing, we understand the need to be flexible and innova-tive, constantly challenging ourselves to exceed our customers’ expectations and make a positive difference in the communities in which we operate.

the benefits of a strong reputation cannot be underestimated – it’s the foundation we compete in the market on, and the basis upon which lifelong customer relationships, and therefore sus-tainable, profitable businesses like ASb, are built.

Air New ZealandrobFYFe,CeoAt Air New Zealand we’ve worked hard to turn the tra-ditional airline model on its head and centre our business on people, rather than planes. We have engaged our people to bring our culture and brand to life for our customers so that

when passengers engage with us – before, during and after their flight – they experience genuine Kiwi per-sonality and service that’s reflective of what makes New Zealand and New Zealanders special.

In order to achieve this we need 11,000 Air New Zealanders to make the right decisions and have the right conversations with our customers every day. It’s not easy; and it’s certainly not something you’ll find prescribed in a text book. the key has been to unshackle our staff and allow them to be themselves and let their own personalities shine – while still maintaining the highest levels of professionalism.

the benefits for our business have been substantial. Air New Zealand is now consistently recognised as being one of the best performing, most innovative airlines in the world.

NZ’SmoStreputAbleCompANYFiNAliStS


The WarehousemArkpoWell,Ceothe Warehouse is an iconic New Zealand business and has become a vital part of Kiwi communities not just because we offer customers great value every day, but because being responsible about the way we operate is part of our DNA, and has been from the very beginning, from the

influence of our founder Sir Stephen tindall. We care about our people and the communities in which we operate, and believe that business is about making everyone better off.

As a low-cost retailer, we’re conscious of the impacts of consumerism, and that a lot of what we sell is imported. We’re continuously investing to create a more sustainable business by reducing waste, improving energy efficiency and auditing our supply chain in China to improve product standards as well as working conditions for those who make our goods.

Our reputation reflects the way we operate, which is part of who we are, and we’ve proved that it’s good for business. becoming more sustainable lowers cost and improves quality, creating even better value for everyone; our customers, our team, our suppliers and our shareholders.

VodafoneruSSellStANNerS,CeoVodafone is about connecting people and it is through this connected world that we have been building our reputation since we came to New Zealand in 1998.

reputation is about iden-tity. It is about who we are and

what people think of us. It is more than just what we say and do; it is about how people feel. the core of Voda-fone’s reputation is in our passionate and highly engaged people who believe in our company and what we stand for. Our unique culture of openness and honesty is what we represent externally with our customers, partners, stakeholders and in our strong ties to the community.

I am proud to lead a company whose winning performance shows why a great reputation is key. Our success means we will keep investing and innovating in New Zealand so that we can continue to inspire our people and our customers.

“We make ithappen”

www.haygroup.co.nz

Hay Group has been turning strategy into reality for organisations around the world for nearly 70 years.We know from experience that having a clear business strategy is just the first step in the race for competitive advantage. Success takes drive, a well structured organisation, effective leaders and engaged people, rewarded for the right reasons.

Over the years, through our research and work with world-class organisations, Hay Group has amassed insights into businesses and their people. We can apply this knowledge to your business and translate it into tangible results.

To find out how, contact us on 0800 429 477 or visit our website on www.haygroup.co.nz

Turning strategy into reality

CoVerStorY


moStreputAbleStAteoWNeDeNterpriSe:SoliDeNerGY

Solid Energy surprises

We are proud of innovation. – CEO Don Elder

Solid energy chief executive Don elder can be believed when he expresses surprise at his com-pany’s sprint to top slot as NZ

Management’s most reputable State Owned enterprise. Not because his company doesn’t deserve the recogni-tion, but because he spends so much time defending its activities.

“I’m genuinely surprised, flattered and honoured,” he says. “Solid energy is a high-profile company for a range of reasons, but the feedback we usually get from those who bother to give it, is negative. We spend much of our time dealing with people who tell us we are a disreputable company and an embar-rassment to New Zealand.”

that is not, however, how an in-creasing number of New Zealand’s business and organisational leaders see the nation’s largest coal miner. they acknowledge its strong financial and management performance and its reputation for being innovative and strategic. the company climbed five slots to top this year’s reputation survey in the SOe category.

“Our peers must have recognised the challenges we face,” says elder. “perhaps they also respect us for how we manage those challenges. Having them step up for us like this is both humbling and hugely appreciated.”

Solid energy’s strategic approach to reputation building is based on its company-wide risk management policies and processes. “there are five areas of predominant risk and these are built into our long-term sustainability principles,” he says. “the overall prin-ciple is that whatever we do today, we must do it in such a way that it will not compromise our ability to do the same tomorrow and so ensure the business is sustainable.”

this approach is obviously under-

stood by some survey respondents. “Solid energy has a quiet but strong commitment to sustainability,” said one. “they have a consistent agenda for pushing long-term thinking in their sector,” said another.

“Our five risks are centred on value, people, health and safety, environment and reputation. All our risks and op-portunities can be slotted into one of those areas. We identified these and put policies in place to manage them nine or 10 years ago,” he adds.

reputation is a critical risk for Solid energy because of its high profile and

because of the tensions created by the juxtaposition of mining and environ-mental management. Given the envi-ronmental lobby’s approach to miners like Solid energy, modern communi-cations technology has added another dimension to the company’s need to keep its reputation intact. “these tech-nologies allow informed or otherwise comments to travel very far, very fast,” he says. “In our case, that reality can pose obvious difficulties. this is now a fact of life for us and we try, where possible, to be proactive about it.

“reputation is also a differentiator of the way in which we do business,” says elder. “We won’t be in business in the future if we don’t recognise that. We want to create long-term organisational value in ways that are commensurate with the New Zealand environment and our stakeholders’ needs and wishes. that is what I would most like the com-pany’s reputation to be based on. Our longest term value and sustainability

has to be our prime objective,” he adds.elder is also happy that his com-

pany has been acknowledged for being strategically innovative. “We are proud of our innovation,” he says. “When I joined Solid energy in 2000 it was more or less to close the business down. It was seen as a sunset enterprise with no future. From that point, we have taken a different strategic tack. We have found opportunities in New Zealand and internationally that are now, and will increasingly be, good for both the company and the country. It is great to be recognised for this.” M


Meridian EnergytimluSk,CeoI’m exceptionally proud of the culture meridian has built over the years, which is underpinned by a set of behaviours we call the meridian Way. these be-haviours are our roadmap to creating a better energy future and inform how we are per-

ceived globally as a renewable developer and generator, and retailer of energy.

Our reputation is built on our authenticity. We have a passion for what we do and the meridian Way drives us to succeed in our goals, while always aiming to do “what is right”.

Mighty River PowerDouGHeFFerNAN,CeoIn a little over a decade, mighty river power has evolved to be-come a diversified energy busi-ness, with a portfolio of power stations worth over $4 billion, an increase of over 200 percent. Development of this magnitude would simply not have been

possible without others placing their trust in us.mighty river power’s reputation as a world leader in

geothermal energy has led to the company being sought after as a preferred partner in geothermal development, both domestically and offshore.

reputation is of the utmost importance in everything we do; from our relationships with customers; to part-nerships we enter into; to our ‘licence to operate’ in the communities surrounding our assets; and attracting and retaining the very best expertise.

Our reputation is vital to enable growth and ensure we continue to provide New Zealanders with a secure en-ergy supply for the future, and to leverage New Zealand’s global reputation in geothermal.

FiNAliStS

KiwibankpAulbroCk,CeoKiwibank entered the New Zea-land banking market in 2002 promising to make a difference. It challenged the status quo of the foreign-owned banks with more branches, better service, better interest rates, new and innovative products and being

totally New Zealand owned.Kiwibank made an undertaking to be upfront and

honest with customers. If it got things wrong, it would put them right. the bank undertook to be open and honest in its dealings with customers. but it also promised to be a competitor and to relentlessly find ways to provide better service and better products.

Our people really believe in what Kiwibank stands for and this is reflected in our values by doing what’s right. As a result, we have a great culture and strong employment brand. the bank now has more than 750,000 customers and more than 1000 staff. Kiwibank has made its mark and is here to stay.

New Zealand Post Group briANroCHe,CeoNew Zealand post Group’s posi-tive reputation is built on 170 years of responsive and depend-able service to the community, with some of New Zealand’s most trusted brands – such as Kiwibank and the postShop network of stores – plus our

posties serving as a daily reminder of our service in the community.

those highly visible aspects of our service are com-plemented by strong backroom services for business, as we assist them in effectively identifying and connecting with their markets. this focus on helping customers “work smarter” underscores the ongoing relevance of New Zealand post Group, as we adapt and evolve in line with the changing ways people communicate.

Working in an organisation that’s well regarded by its customers and the wider market is undeniably positive for team spirit and morale. It also has positive impacts on recruitment and retention, with people recognising that ours is a good organisation to work for.

CoVerStorY


moStreputAbleGoVerNmeNtDepArtmeNt:NZpoliCe

Police rep no surprise to top cop

That New Zealand police i s s t i l l cons idere d the country’s most reputable Government Department

doesn’t really surprise its new Com-missioner peter marshall. “I see great work done every day at all levels of the police force,” he says. “In that sense it [this year’s result] doesn’t surprise me.”

“We saw it particularly clearly in Christchurch after the quake on Febru-ary 22 this year. When disaster strikes police are the people running towards the danger,” he adds.

NZ police were last year’s most reputable Government Department too. the consistently positive rating seems to endorse independent research of 10,000 members of the public com-missioned by the department every year. the 2010 study found that 75 percent of those surveyed trusted or had confidence in the police, up three percent on 2009.

NZ Management’s reputational survey of business and organisational leaders is, says marshall, just as rel-evant and important as their survey of public attitudes. “It is essential that we are held in high esteem by all sec-tors of the community. police should be the one constant in any country. An efficient, professional, ethical and trusted police service is the bedrock of a successful society – including its business sectors,” he says.

maintaining a high reputation can be taxing. “Our reputation is won or lost on

every interaction we have with the public,” says marshall. “And we have around five million contacts with the public every year. making each one of those interac-tions positive is a complex mix of leader-ship from the top through to first-class training and development for staff as they progress through their careers.

“the fundamental strength of our reputation comes from the motivation and commitment of our staff to serve their communities and make them safer places.” As one respondent to the mrO survey put it: “NZ police is an outstanding organisation, staffed by really motivated people operating suc-cessfully in a complex and ambiguous political environment.”

the survey rates the police highly for having strong stakeholder relationships. “We police by consent,” says marshall. “We can only do that if we are represent-ative of our communities. A partnership approach is fundamental for us. We can’t

achieve our objectives or enhance our reputation without building stakeholder relationships at all levels.”

the department’s highest reputa-tional objective is to reduce crime and road trauma and to enhance commu-nity safety. “but we should also have a reputation for being able to adapt to the ever-changing demands of our service, learning from our mistakes, utilising new technology and serving according to the tenets of our oath – to serve without fear or favour,” he says.

policing doesn’t get any easier. “We

Police are the ones running towards the danger.

– Commissioner Peter Marshall

face ever-changing challenges and ex-pectations about what we can achieve,” says marshall. “And a minority of of-fenders seem increasingly willing to engage in violence rather than comply with lawful instructions. Our goal is to respond effectively to these changes and still meet the high standards ex-pected of us.”

recruitment then, is critical to maintaining the reputation the police have. “people join for various reasons, but the integrity and reputation of the organisation is common to them all. So too is the desire to make a difference in communities,” he says.

“the endorsement this survey gives us is important and valued by all our people. It’s one thing to be satisfied by doing a good job. It is altogether more satisfying to be told you are doing a good job by those you serve.” M


The TreasuryGAbrielmAkHlouF,CeoANDSeCretArYI am honoured to be leading the treasury, an organisation of skilled and committed staff who work hard in pursuit of our objective of higher living standards for New Zealanders.

As an organisation, we strive to provide expert commentary and advice, shape debates to help navigate New Zealand, work as a problem-solver with others to deliver innovative solutions, and lead through exemplary performance ourselves.

Ours is a busy and challenging role – we are in-volved in important work across a range of areas, and we are also in the driver’s seat of a number of key reforms.

being seen as an organisation of influence is a big responsibility but ultimately, it is the belief that we can truly make a difference that motivates me and my staff.

Department of ConservationAlmorriSoN,DireCtor-GeNerAlWe have put a lot of work recently into strengthening our relationships with business and becoming more business-like ourselves in the work that we do.

We’ve been doing this because we rely on partners across the private sector and the wider community to engage in conservation for New Zealand.

I think that’s behind our growing reputation among business leaders and it is something we are committed to building on because our reputation is vital if we are to get the conservation gains we are looking for.

We know that conservation is at the core of New Zea-land’s prosperity and we need long-term partnerships based on trust and mutual benefits to deliver on that.

Phot

o: P

eter

Bur

ke

The Ministry of Agriculture and ForestryWAYNemCNee,Ceothe ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (mAF) needs to have the support and trust of the public, industry, ministers and staff if we are to realise our vision of growing and protect-ing New Zealand.

Such support does not always come easily, which is why both mAF and the ministry of Fisheries (which of-ficially merged on 1 July) have worked hard to deliver on the performance expectations of their stakeholders. this focus has helped drive our reputation.

moreover, we know from surveys that the public thinks the work we do is important. that has helped our reputation. We know that there is high awareness of what we do. that has also helped. In addition, we regularly engage with key stakeholders and have developed close relationships with them.

As the government “hub” for the primary sector, the new agency will develop even stronger relationships not only with primary production and food businesses, but also with tangata whenua, environmental NGOs, trading partners, local and central government and the wider community.

Inland Revenue DepartmentrobertruSSell,CommiSSioNerInland revenue’s role of collecting money to pay for government serv-ices is critical to the economic and social wellbeing of New Zealand. No less important is our mandate to ensure people receive Working for Families and Child Support

payments, repay their Student Loans, and have confidence in our KiwiSaver administration.

Although we have over six million customers, our reputa-tion depends on each individual customer interaction, and we put enormous emphasis on getting those interactions right.

We are proud of the fact that our overall customer satisfac-tion is consistently high, and of course we are always striving to do better. the integrity of the tax system depends on our customers’ confidence in the job we do.

A good tax system equals good, transparent policy-making plus good, efficient administration and in New Zealand I am pleased to say we have both.

FiNAliStS

CoVerStorY


The Salvation Army is NZ Man-agement’s most reputable Not-For-profit Organisation again this year. And like the reaction

of NZ police, the Army’s Commissioner Don bell is “delighted but not surprised”.

“the Salvation Army has,” he says, “had a hard year responding to the needs of people, particularly in Canterbury fol-lowing the earthquakes. We were the first and largest visible, non-government team on the ground in Christchurch.”

the Army has been busy elsewhere. Its services are, says bell, increasingly in demand as “New Zealand’s economic conditions worsen. What the survey con-firms is that the Salvation Army is reliable and trusted and people know that we will do our best to help anyone who asks for help,” he says.

the Salvation Army is known as a Christian organisation that is also a “practical, sleeves rolled up outfit”. re-spondents to the survey agree. “they [the Army] are there when people really need them, with practical on-the-ground help,” said one.

“We do not judge people, we just get on and do what we can to help and don’t make much noise about it,” says bell. “We do, however, speak out about social injus-tice and issues of poverty when necessary. And when we speak out, we feel we have an impact.”

In 2009-2010 the Army embarked

on an organisation-wide campaign to define its core strategic mission and goals. these included being a streamlined and connected organisation and eradicating poverty. “the results are coming through now, making us stronger and better able to respond to the pastoral and social needs of those who approach us,” he says.

the number of people approaching the Army for help increased “significant-ly” last year according to bell. “I believe this is the result of New Zealand’s tighten-ing economic conditions. We have a finite capacity to take in greater numbers of people and provide more services. While

NZ’SmoStreputAbleNot-For-proFit:tHeNeWZeAlANDSAlVAtioNArmY

Saviour Sallies’ resources stretched

The Salvation Army is known as a practical, sleeves rolled up outfit.

– Commissioner Don Bell

the public continued to support our fund-raising campaign this year, we can’t keep doing more with the finite resources we have. this is an area of tension for us.”

the Salvation Army is increasingly challenged by the need to keep its funding streams going, particularly its govern-ment funding. “the government wants more outcomes for the same money,” says bell. “they also want more evidence of the effectiveness of our funded pro-grammes and interventions. We must get better at demonstrating how the Army provides value for money. We believe we do but must be able to demonstrate it more effectively.”

respondents to this survey are in no doubt about the value of the services the Salvation Army provides. they have now said so two years in a row. “the Salvation Army fulfils its role in the social services area with distinction,” said one respondent.

the Army is concerned about the impact of the increased use of alcohol, particularly by those facing tough times. And the housing crisis in Auckland is, says bell, “putting pressure” on the Army’s services, as are ongoing difficul-ties in Christchurch.

“As Commissioner, being recognised by community leaders makes me proud, humble and a bit worried,” he says. “I am proud that the Salvation Army is recognised so strongly for the work we do. I am humbled by the efforts made by my officers and staff to meet the needs of the poor and disadvantaged in New Zealand.

“I am, however, worried about what the future holds as we look at increasing national and international economic uncertainty.” M


St John New ZealandJAimeSWooD,CeoIt is critical to maintain public trust and confidence in the services St John provides.

Our reputation rating is a credit to all St John staff and volunteers (past and present), and to the quality of care we provide patients and com-munities 24 hours, seven days a week

across New Zealand. St John is iconic, our uniform is recognised and our people are trusted. We constantly work on ensuring this trust is maintained.

We are strongly guided by our mission – to prevent and relieve sickness and injury, and act to enhance the health and well-being of all New Zealanders.

We have worked to profile the range of services we provide (emergency ambulance, community programmes and first aid training) which has resulted in increased public and media at-tention.

New Zealanders know that they can rely on the professional-ism and care of St John, at critical times. It is an ongoing challenge for us to do as much as we can within current funding levels and at the same time maintain public trust and confidence.

Parents IncbruCepilbroW,Ceo/DireCtorOur motto is “Family is every-thing” – a vital statement that we want to be a reality in New Zealand society.

So we start with our reputa-tion and how we, as an organi-sation, deal with the families

who come into contact with us. We pride ourselves on being a positive solution, no

matter what issues people face. When you deal with parents Inc your experience will be second to none.

It’s a tall order, but totally achievable when you have the right people working for you.

parents Inc people are committed, passionate, excited and motivated by the good we do.

Southern Cross Healthcare SocietyiAiNmACpHerSoN,CeoAt Southern Cross Healthcare we truly value our principles. We have a clear vision, which is to help New Zealanders achieve better health. everything we do – whether it’s introducing a new business or standing up for our

customers on an issue – is consistent with that vision. We show we care when it matters. Our customers rely

on us to provide assistance with their healthcare, and we try very hard to make things easy for them during what can be a difficult time.

Our people are proud to work for Southern Cross, and we are proud of them. they can and will go the extra mile for customers.

We know our subject – health. that means we are able to provide leadership on issues that matter. Good healthcare is fundamental to society – we want to work together with the public sector, the medical profession and other parties to ensure our health system, and Southern Cross, is sustain-able for future generations.

New Zealand Red CrossJoHNWAre,CeoNew Zealand red Cross has been part of the fabric of our society for 80 years helping the most vulnerable around the world and across the street, whoever they may be – with neutrality and impartiality.

As part of the world’s largest humanitarian organisation, New Zealand red Cross is always there helping and supporting the most vulnerable, in times of disaster, conflict or emergency. It has been a year of disasters from pakistan and Haiti to Queensland, Canterbury and more recently Christchurch, and like many times since 1931, red Cross is consistently there, putting people first.

the work of New Zealand red Cross is diverse and far reaching and would not be possible without the combined efforts of our members, volunteers and staff. together we can mobilise the power of humanity. people trust us to make a difference, and that gives us the opportunity to make a real impact in the world we live in every day. We are people helping people.

FiNAliStS

TOP 200 THINKINGJOIN THE CONVERSATION AT BLOG.TOP200THINKING.CO.NZ Book now for this year’s Top 200 and meet those who are challenging the perception of New Zealand business thinking. 6:30pm Thursday 24th November, SKYCITY, Auckland.

Visit www.management.co.nz/top200 for more information and ticket registration.

“ New ZealaNd has to coNN ect with the wo rld to be relev a Nt”JEREmy mOON.

CEO, ICEBREAKER

TOP 200 THINKINGedITOrIal

MaNy New ZealaNd busINesses still have an old-fashioned way of approaching the world. They make stuff and then go out to sell it, instead of intentionally trying to build international businesses from New Zealand.

exPOrT Is Old scHOOl. International businesses that glocalise is how all great global companies win. Glocalising is creating a global concept that is executed locally by local people. Many people here think of Cadbury, Vodafone and Subaru as New Zealand companies, but they are international companies with a New Zealand presence that is relevant to our culture. uNder THIs MOdel, INTellecTual PrOPerTy is created where the ownership is based, and local jobs are created through headquarters. But the businesses are run in the market with local experts. At Icebreaker, we have 100 Kiwis in Wellington and more than 200 people offshore, about 30 of whom are Kiwis. We have eight offices globally, all run by local experts, and all the profits come back to New Zealand. You don’t buy a Toyota Hilux from a sales rep in Tokyo, yet every Hilux sold in New Zealand enriches its owners in Tokyo.

PeOPle say, ‘buT caN’T we dO IT all Ourselves?’ That’s nonsense. It’s backward parochial thinking and hugely limiting. The idea that the world will come to us is bullshit because New Zealand has to connect with the world to be relevant. Other than that, we are just mountains and sheep – cool, but not enough.

I’M cHaIrMaN Of aN OrGaNIsaTION within New Zealand Trade and Enterprise called Better by Design. We work with over 100 leading New Zealand businesses, which together contribute over $4 billion to the economy. I admire all these businesses because they have made a commitment to do what they are doing better, to find new markets to make their products more relevant, and to find new ways of

connecting with customers – with an international mindset and using design thinking.

THe success Of THIs busINess MOdel relies on unlocking the value of New Zealand. We have everything here and our country is hugely attractive to other people, yet we have a government that is currently not committed to sufficiently raising environmental standards. We have polluted rivers and waterways and a ‘she’ll be right’ attitude to the environment. It’s disrespectful at best, but very harmful at worst.

I urGe aNyONe wHO cares about this issue to join a group of leading New Zealand businesspeople and sign up to our site Pure Advantage (www.pureadvantage.org.nz). It is possible for New Zealand to be the purest country in the world, and that will bring a premium to products and services created here.

New ZealaNders are a resOurceful PeOPle. We are open and honest, we are trusted, and we are very hard working. This is an incredible country to build anything from, but it takes a bigger vision than the current prevailing mindset, which is: small is OK.

we Need bIGGer busINesses. They pay more, create more jobs and inspire others. We need opportunities for our young people, who want high paying jobs in the new economy. They want to be involved in the design and innovation and technology, they want to be challenged and they want to make an impact on the world.

I urGe us all TO dreaM bIGGer. We need to be more ambitious about developing unique offerings that make a name for us internationally. We need to take on the big competitors and work relentlessly until we have achieved a genuine breakthrough.

ceO aNd fOuNder Of IcebreaKer; cHaIr Of beTTer by desIGN

Jeremy moon

eeotruStAWArDS


Valuing people – creating value

If the recent furore over gender pay equity seems like a blast from the past then the EEO Trust Work & Life Awards offer a

refreshing vision for the future. As this year’s winners again prove – empowering individuals to give their best is what really puts the

“force” behind “work”. How? Vicki Jayne counts the ways.

eeotruStAWArDS

tHiNkiNGAHeADNothing is more certain than that the workforce of tomorrow will differ from that of today. What might tomor-row’s talent pool look like? Will it be attracted to your particular industry? How can you better meet its needs?

these are the sorts of questions that prompted Hawke’s bay District Health board to create a programme designed to engage and excite the next generation of health workers. With New Zealand’s need for health

Phot

o: R

icha

rd W

ood

Phot

ogra

phy

eeotruStAWArDS

professionals increasing significantly by 2021, the future health sector work-force is “one of the greatest workforce development challenges of our time,” notes programme Incubator manager Wynn Schollum.

Init ia l ly tr ial led at Hast ings’ Flaxmere College in 2007, the pro-gramme puts health professionals in front of students – not just talking about their work but providing hands-on demonstrations and, perhaps even more importantly, sharing their pas-

sion for what they do. Despite busy clinical workloads, health staff are readily volunteering their services, says Schollum. “the collective ap-proach is what makes it magic.”

the programme has now been rolled out to 19 schools including kura kaupapa, five more DHbs and the schools associated with them – as well as the New Zealand Correspond-ence School. It now includes summer internships that allow students to have hands-on experience ranging from


one to 12 weeks of paid work, and is also expanding to include adults who want to train or retrain.

What struck eeO trust chief ex-ecutive and awards judge philippa reed was the energy Schollum and his team bring to programme Incubator.

“they’re all really passionate about it – perhaps because they are so acutely aware of the impending shortage of health workers. And they are strongly driven to improve health outcomes.”

that passion helped the Incuba-tor project not only earn tomorrow’s Workforce Award but “Supreme Win-ner” in the 2011 Awards.

It was against some tough com-petition.

this year brought a record number of entries from a wide range of sectors – with the public, private and not-for-profit sectors all well represented, notes reed.

While the future focus ranged from building maori/pasifika academic strength at a university to providing training that improves post-release outcomes for prisoners, none of the tomorrow’s Workforce entries specifi-cally addressed the issue of an ageing workforce. perhaps more surprisingly, given the recent rehashing of the gen-der equity debate, no entry in any cat-egory focused specifically on women’s continuing under-representation at senior management levels.

While the awards are split into five main categories: tomorrow’s Work-force, Work & Life (attracting the most entries), Skills Highway, Diversity, and Walk the talk, there was, perhaps inevitably, some crossover with a few entries less specific in their targeting. What they all share is an ability by organisations to think outside the box – getting the best from individuals by adapting workplace practice to better meet their needs and abilities.

AttrACtiNGNeWtAleNtIn its bid to attract graduates in a highly competitive market, Deloitte NZ discovered a powerful tool in so-

cial networking. the company, whose workforce comprises 61 percent Gen Y, launched its Facebook page in late 2009 and met immediate success with more and higher quality graduates and summer interns accepting job offers. the company has since been sharing its social media success story – not just locally but in the US.

Access to social media websites used to be blocked for employees, so Deloitte’s first milestone was creating a policy for social media use and switch-ing on access for all staff during work hours, according to talent acquisition manager richard Long.

Its future-focused initiative has earned widespread recognition – earn-ing a US social networking award, being voted amongst the top 40 Fa-cebook pages in the world, becoming a finalist in the tVNZ New Zealand marketing Awards – and now taking out a highly commended award from the eeO trust.

the trust’s tomorrow’s Workforce award category attracted a swag of deserving entrants from a wide range of public, private and not-for-profit enterprises.

Amongst these: AUt University’s successful “grow-your-own” solution to the problem of recruiting maori/

pasifika academic staff; a Department of Corrections vocational training programme that has succeeded in creating more positive futures for prisoners on their release; and a “wel-come that works” initiative from Im-migration NZ that presents a powerful business case for helping migrants settle well.

Spectrum Care, a charitable trust which provides services for people with disabilities, has embraced a learning culture to ensure it meets the changing needs of its clientele. the training programmes it now offers its 800 employees mean that staff are not only better able to meet the needs of customers living with disability but are enjoying their work more – and staying longer.

GAiNiNGtHrouGHtrAiNiNGA focus on up skilling its staff is a big part of Cardinal Logistics’ vision to be the best third-party logistics provider in the country. Amongst its challenges were high error rates and low produc-tivity – not helped by the fact that some of its workforce had literacy/numeracy issues and english as a second language. Over the past three years, Cardinal has introduced a packet of initiatives around training and cultural change –

Hawke’s Bay District Health Board: Supreme Award winner for its Programme Incubator initiative.

Phot

o: R

icha

rd W

ood

Phot

ogra

phy

eeotruStAWArDS


including the “Fish” philosophy (choose your attitude, be there, play and make their day), literacy programmes and NZQA education programmes.

results include fewer errors, better productivity, increased customer satisfac-tion, better staff morale and less absentee-ism. One of the eeO trust Work & Life Awards judges, Chris meade of Downer NZ, described these initiatives as a great investment.

“We were impressed by the com-pany’s commitment to the literacy and numeracy programme and its desire to keep building on it by developing training to benefit people at all levels.”

Cardinal was awarded winner in the category with Stevenson Group gaining a ‘highly commended” for a programme called “Stepping Up to-gether” that went further than the more traditional technical training tradition-ally given to frontline staff. Inspired by new CeO mark Franklin’s belief that a happy well-adjusted person would also be a productive, engaged employee, the company put great emphasis on literacy and numeracy, life skills such as effective communication, budgeting, and nutri-tional awareness.

business benefits were evident within six months with fewer disciplinary hear-ings, lower employee turnover, fewer sick days and a reduction in injury rates. reed says that Stevenson’s tailored approach was critical.

“they made Stepping Up their very own so people feel a sense of ownership of the programme and of belonging in the business.”

Other organisations have also ben-efited from taking the “skills highway”. Snap Fresh Foods has found that improv-ing staff communication skills has helped ramp up productivity. Spicers paper has improved both safety and stock manage-ment by introducing literacy and nu-meracy programmes. And at Framework trust, where workers support people with intellectual difficulties or mental illness, the introduction of training aligned with the trust’s mission and values is benefit-ing both staff and clients.

puttiNGFlexibilitYFirStengineering consultancy UrS New Zea-land may be a male-dominated workplace but flexible work policies mean its female employees don’t have to compromise their careers when they opt to spend more time parenting.

Geotechnical engineer Debbie Fel-lows has been working part-time since becoming a mother 13 years ago but says her career growth has not been stalled thanks to a company culture that embraces work-life provisions. Staff are given a lot of autonomy in how they handle their work-loads and can take advantage of a range of flexible working options – from tools to work from home or adaptable leave and compensation policies.

the policies allow one staff member to volunteer with the local fire brigade, another to help out at the CAb, and its large contingent of migrant employees a period of up to three months unpaid leave if they need to attend to issues back in their home country.

Such policies have brought increased staff retention and positive publicity – it

Values that can’t be shakenIn the devastating aftermath of the earthquake that destroyed much of Christchurch’s CBD last February, some companies were able to draw on a strong organisational culture to help minimise the impacts both on staff and wider community.

Westpac attributes its ability to get up and running within 24 hours – despite losses affecting both its infrastructure and staff – to a culture that empowers its people to make decisions. Staff were able to “come up with innovative solutions and utilise the great relationships they’d built to get things done fast,” says head of organisational development Joanne Nicol.

Responses included a special incident team to focus on health, safety and wellbeing, a care centre that allowed employees and families to get together, and a new operations centre that included on-site massage, washing machines and showers.

Vodafone employees also ben-efited from a company culture built on principles of speed, simplicity and trust. As well as offering staff practical help – like funding structural and electrical surveys for damaged homes – it offered emotional support through trauma counselling and hired a holiday house in Hanmer Springs for staff getaways. That the response came from a point of empathy rather than duty was what moved one staff member to tears.

Investing in literacy and numeracy programmes for its staff has paid off for Skills Highway Award winner Cardinal Logistics.


has even published a case study about its approach to flexibility in an international specialist journal called Geologically Active to raise awareness of skills retention issues in the industry.

Its ability to engineer flexibility into work practices saw UrS New Zealand take out top spot in the Work & Life Award category. right behind it – with an employee support service that helps staff achieve work-life balance with “com-passion, empathy and pragmatism” was highly-commended entrant SkyCity. With its “Connect” programme, the company has worked hard to create a culture where it’s okay to ask for and receive support. As judge Neil porteous noted: SkyCity recog-nises that “you can’t separate employees’ lives at work from their lives outside work”.

Award entrants are typically observant of staff needs. Noticing that accident rates rose after summer holiday breaks prompt-ed Hamilton City Council to undertake a series of health and wellness initiatives that have not only improved safety but ben-efited staff both in and outside work hours.

they are also aware that they’re em-

ploying a whole person – not just work skills. For Kiwibank, an injection of fun into the workplace is seen as an important way of encouraging people to bring their whole selves to work. that has prompted initiatives such as its “Art of banking” which encourages staff to indulge their creativity at work.

embrACiNGDiVerSitYNot everyone is the same – a simple truism that few workplaces actively rec-ognise. those that do, reap the benefits both in terms of employee productivity and customer satisfaction.

bupa Care Services earned its top place in the “Diversity” category by initiating a flexible training and cul-tural training programme for all staff that centres around how best to cater for the individual needs of the old folk they care for. “personal best” involves activities that help staff see life through residents’ and customers’ eyes with an emphasis on meeting their emotional needs – and is also flexible enough to meet the needs of its diverse participants.

Walking the talkThe impetus for creating cultures that value people – recognising their needs and embracing their diversity – comes from the top. And the Awards unearth leaders from a wide range of sectors, public to private, big corporation to SME who epitomise that reality.

Entrants range from the managing director of ANZ Bank (Kerri Thomp-son) to the Pro Vice-chancellor Maori Advancement at AUT (Associate Professor Pare Keiha) and all have succeeded in driving positive change in their organisations. But this year’s winner is Kevin Hatley, head of the Learning Support Centre at Wellington-based Newlands College, who helped show his disabled stu-dents that they have a future in the workforce by employing people with disabilities to work as teacher aides.

His focus is on people’s strengths. Instead of seeing impairment, he looks at how he can use people’s skills and abilities to advantage. The result is a culture of encouragement that inspires everyone at the Centre to achieve their long-term aspirations.

Its ability to engineer flexibility into work practices saw URS New Zealand take out top

spot in the Work & Life Award category.

Phot

o: R

ise

mag

azin

e, M

SD

Kevin Hatley (right) with two teacher aides.

eeotruStAWArDS


Bupa Care Services: winner of the Diversity Award for its Personal Best staff training programme.

In what is generally regarded as a low-status job that typically has high turnover, the programme is not just ensuring better customer service – it’s had a major impact on staff satisfaction and reduced turnover.

Celebrating individual difference can generate all sorts of business and organi-

sational benefits. microsoft’s diversity programmes have helped increase the proportion of women on its staff and fuel ongoing innovation by leveraging the company’s biggest asset – its people. Staff at the National Foundation for the Deaf have discovered that celebrating diversity builds cohesion while Giltrap

prestige has found that its hearing-im-paired staff listen better to instructions than those who can hear.

rapidly growing yoghurt manufac-turer easiYo utilises culture in more than just its products. It is focused on building a business that combines the best of a family culture with the corporate busi-ness efficiencies – involving all its staff in the process. that led to a deliberate choice not to shift to fully automated production. Its “Kiwi garage invention goes global” success story is based on embracing the cultural diversity of its workforce – and using their knowledge to better access overseas markets. Its story also resonated with eeO judges who gave the company a highly com-mended award. M

Vicki Jayne, a former editor of NZ Management, is a

freelance business journalist. [email protected]

Supreme AwardHawke’s bay District Health board

Tomorrow’s WorkforceWinner: Hawke’s bay District Health boardHighly commended: Deloitte • AUt University • Department of Corrections • Framework trust • Immigration New Zealand • Spectrum Care • Vodafone New Zealand

Skills HighwayWinner: Cardinal LogisticsHighly commended: Stevenson Group • Framework trust • Snap Fresh Foods • Spicers paper

Diversity AwardWinner: bupa Care ServicesHighly commended: easiYo products • blueprint for Learning • Canterbury business Association • enZed pC Services • Giltrap prestige • microsoft New Zealand • Newlands College • the National Foundation for the Deaf

Work & Life AwardWinner: UrS New ZealandHighly Commended: SkyCity Auckland • Auckland regional Dental Services • Dispute resolution Services • Hamilton City Council • Harbour Sport • Kiwibank • Lyndale Liners • mars New Zealand • pukekohe resthome • turuki Health Care • Vodafone • Westpac • World Vision New Zealand • YeS Disability resource Centre • YWCA Auckland

Walk the Talk AwardWinner: Kevin Hatley, Newlands College• Assoc prof pare Keiha, AUt University • Dianne Das, Computers in Homes • Gay barton, Drake New Zealand • Jill Greathead, enZed pC Services • Kerri thompson, ANS New Zealand • Lindsay Zwart, microsoft New Zealand • Louise Carroll, the National Foundation for the Deaf • Sonia thursby, YeS Disability resource Centre

List of Winners and Entrants

The EEO Trust Work & Life Awards celebrate forward-thinking employers who bring creativity and commitment to meeting today’s employment challenges and preparing for

those of tomorrow. They invest time, thought and energy in the wellbeing of their staff. And they reap the rewards. On August 25th, the EEO Trust announced the winners.

SKILLS HIGHWAY AWARDWINNER

Cardinal LogisticsHIGHLY COMMENDED

Stevenson Group

TOMORROW’S WORKFORCE AWARDWINNER

Hawke’s Bay District Health Board

HIGHLY COMMENDED

Deloitte

WORK & LIFE AWARDWINNER

URS New ZealandHIGHLY COMMENDED

SKYCITY Auckland

DIVERSITY AWARDWINNER

Bupa Care ServicesHIGHLY COMMENDED

EasiYo Products

WALK THE TALK AWARDWINNER

Kevin Hatley of Newlands College

SUPREME AWARDWINNER

Hawke’s Bay District Health Board

Read their stories to find out how they are building flexible,

productive workplaces. www.eeotrust.org.nz

FACetoFACe


FACetoFACe

Human resource managers must become more stra-tegic and business savvy to remain relevant to modern

organisations. that is the unburnished opinion of Andrew mackmurdie of global management consultancy Hay Group.

to gain or re-gain the “strategic ear” of enterprise leaders, Hr manag-ers must smarten up their use of the technologies available and make more meaningful connections between peo-ple, jobs, pay and performance.

Historically, Hr did most of the work around organisational structures and work function. Now, according to mackmurdie, the majority of these initiatives appear to be coming from the chief executive’s office. “Hr must get back to being part of the genuinely strategic discussions held in C [senior management] suites.”

Hr managers have, it seems, lost their way and become preoccupied with gazing at new practices, rather than making better use of tools already available to help them see things more strategically.

the profession, of course, views the future through a somewhat rosier lens. Surveys of Hr managers and profes-sionals consistently predict that more of their number will occupy seats at the board table or in the Ce’s office. “Don’t be surprised if an Hr executive becomes CeO of a Fortune 100 company,” said a panel of top shelf American Hr practi-tioners last year.

mackmurdie, on the other hand, thinks that if Hr is to remain relevant in the debate around strategy, structures, jobs and people it must make more effective use of current work measure-ment technology. “In the majority of NZ organisations, companies use their

work measurement and job evaluation tools solely to establish or confirm employee remuneration levels. We are seeing a resurgence in the use of these evaluation tools in other countries, but not just in the remuneration space,” he adds.

A recent global survey of top ex-ecutives by the economist Intelligence Unit found that managing a company’s talent pool is “now too important” to be left to the Hr department alone. It has instead become “the responsibility of the chief executive”. It is a conclu-sion with which mackmurdie partially agrees. “there’s no doubt chief execu-tives are now taking a great deal more interest in people,” he says. “Conse-quently they expect a higher degree of output, professionalism and business savvy from Hr managers.”

Hr managers must “look at things from a business perspective and use

Andrew Mackmurdie... “The war for talent is real and worldwide.”


integrated tools” to maximise what they get from their investment. “there is a greater global recognition that the key organisational differentiator in today’s world is the people it employs. the war for talent is real and worldwide,” says mackmurdie. “Organisations that manage and grow their talent more effi-ciently and cost effectively will differen-tiate themselves from others fishing in the same under-populated talent pool.”

Hr, it seems, is too often involved in an organisation’s “nice-to-do” things and unfortunately appears to be left out of the real business-related decisions. that should and could change if Hr managers took a different approach, according to mackmurdie. “they must understand the consequences of the new reality that Ces and boards are now more aware of the importance of people to the fortunes of their businesses.”

All the corporate leaders in the

economist study said that talent man-agement was now their responsibility. A third of them spent 30 to 50 percent of their working time on the task. this shift in emphasis is a reflection of both the need to employ and develop good people and, the shortage of available talent.

there is a view that New Zealand employers are struggling with the pau-city of good people but mackmurdie thinks there is more talent about than is generally appreciated. “New Zealand has a lot of talent but we don’t identify or challenge it early enough,” he says. “Some of our good performers are further down the organisation and don’t get promoted or acknowledged soon enough.”

New Zealand companies have tra-ditionally been sceptical about using well-validated assessment tools to first identify and then develop and manage

talented employees. this seems to be changing but change takes time. “this move is part of an evolving profes-sionalism, driven by the war for talent,” he adds.

Overseas owned companies oper-ating in New Zealand are taking the assessment, identification and devel-opment of people more seriously than locally owned enterprises. Kiwi com-panies are more reticent about using well-proven tools and methodologies to support their talent identification and development programmes, says mack-murdie who worked for Hay Group for almost a decade in India and the other Asian countries including China and Hong Kong.

Companies everywhere are, he says, trying to understand their future options. they need to identify what kinds of jobs and skills are required to take their organisations into the future.

The future of human resource management is up for debate. Is it or isn’t it relevant any more? One school thinks HR

managers are destined for executive greatness. Another thinks they may have already missed the boat. Andrew Mackmurdie, Hay Group’s regional practice leader Asia-Pacific and Africa,

talks to Reg Birchfield.

Andrew MackmurdieIs HR missing the boat?

FACetoFACe


2 012

Nominations now open2012 World Class New Zealand Awards

We’re looking for ‘world class’ individuals who:

• facilitate the exchange of information, knowledge or skills from and about New Zealand• foster New Zealand innovation and entrepreneurship• act as a role model on the world stage• promote New Zealand internationally• build global connections with New Zealand

If you know someone who is excelling on the world stage or leading by example in helping to support Kiwi enterpriseinternationally, please put their name forward.

For full details and a nomination form go to: www.keanewzealand.com/global/make-nomination

Please email enquiries to: [email protected]

The World Class New Zealand Awards are presented by Kea, with support from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.

Nominations Close 16 September 2011

ingly need to know if they are getting the right return on their investment in human capital.”

As the human capital component becomes more expensive, more Ces view their people as an investment rather than a cost. that is a major shift in thinking, according to mackmurdie where traditionally people have been seen as a cost to the company as meas-ured through the payroll. “When organ-isations look at people as an investment they begin to have a different perception of the money spend in that area.”

New Zealand companies have gener-ally been reluctant to invest in people assessment and evaluation tools, on talent development and talent reten-tion. Our culture of short-term think-ing probably impacts how many Kiwi companies view the role and relative importance of Hr management.

that approach, in mackmurdie’s opinion, must change. “Companies

“they need to understand what sorts of people are needed to populate those jobs and identify who within their or-ganisations can fill the roles.”

there are, according to mack-murdie, four critical issues organi-sations must address to develop an integrated approach to their Hr man-agement. they must:• measure work to identify how, where and why it is done• align work to ensure it fits their strat-egy and structure • manage the person/work fit by having the right people in the right job• measure the value to the organisation of each individual work role.

Hr managers should take a more holistic look at the information they already have available about their em-ployees. “they would be surprised by how much information they have when they bring the different data collected together,” he adds. “Companies increas-

should start thinking about investment in people as an investment in the future. that may mean making different deci-sions on profit levels and taking a longer view of things,” he offers, “but people are assets and should be treated as such.”

the change in C-suite thinking has impacted Hay Group’s strategic think-ing too. the company is repositioning its job and people assessment tools from transactional to more transformative. It recently launched Spectrum, an inte-grated way of applying its measurement and assessment methodologies that connects people, jobs, pay and struc-ture, so as to provide organisations with an understanding of the way in which they can be integrated and deliver value.

Whatever tools organisations opt for, there seems little doubt Hr man-agement must prove its relevance and earn its place at the genuinely strategic table or risk being replaced in the or-ganisational hierarchy. M


WORD COUNT: Approx 490 words + short heading + pic/s AD SIZE: 185w x 20dmm

2 www.management.co.nz Management april 2010

BodNiamet, sustinci el dolum veli-quat. Lut iriusto et, conse con erciduis ad exeraessim euiscip ismodoloreet iure dolupta tummolesto conulputat ipisl do conulla ndreet, quis dit pratue euisci eugue feuisi tatum velestinit nonulput loborer ipis do dolore eugait el inis atum exercipsum illandignibh ese dolor suscipis augiat dolorem aut utpat nis augait iusci blandip ex esto odolore velit nummod dui tem dipit praessit, vulputat, commod eros ad modip essectet adigna facillan eugait dolorpe raessi.

Ulluptat. Wisl in henismo loreet lamet ent wis dolorem enis augiam, sit, sustrud er sit at lobortinis eugiamet wis at. Percili smodolessent ad et del ip eu-giam, velesting ercidunt utpat praestrud min henit nim euisit laore ero conse del erostrud minit, quatet velesto od tem delenim dolorer sustin vendignit wismoluptat, sit vendipit wis adipit ulla faci blan hent auguerc iduisi.

Tatie faccum dolorem nim essed elisi essectem delisci lluptat in henis nis nonulluptat atum zzriureet prat la aciliquisi tat pratie molenibh eu facinci euguerc ilisim dolobor autat prat luptat autatem velesto et nulputate magnibh et ing ea feui blam quat.

Equis ad dunt am diatum volum zzrilis am, sent ullum quipit alisis en-dre vullam il ing exerosto dignim ilit praesseniam, velesenisim volore magna conse magnim in esto conulla augue eniam erit, quatin hendrerit ad tet lut ullum zzrilisim nis nulland reriuscinci tinisl dignim ipismodignit praesendre er iliquis nos eros dolobor sum irillaore min ullam quismol oboreet ullametum.Um del dolor il et aliquate mod eum

quip eliquat, conum er senisis duis ese eu faciduisi blaoreros nos nonsecte tisis auguerosto et, vel in henit in etum zzriusc ilisci tin ut niam iliscin ulla am do cor in henibh eumsan volore feuis dolesse quisi.

Lore min ulputpate consed do-lenim dolenisi et vel utatet wis nit adio commy nullan hendigna feugiate dui blandrercip elit pratem inim voloreet utatumm olessen iating elestrud tatem vel iure commolorem eumsan eratum vendreros dolore feui bla consequipis dolore min ullut alit laor init, conseni smolut augiat il doluptat dit lor ipit eu feuisi.

Im do commodolobor autat, sim quat venis doleniat am nis alit nulla amet, si tie eum nim ipsusciniam quipit vulput praessit, voloborerit, suscil irillaorem velisl ut in er si blandre tate veliquat niscilis nim vullum quatincipsum veli-qui blamet, se facidunt adignim in volor se corperit lam dionse veliquate verosto dolent la faccum nummodo loreet do-lore feuis autet wis nim ea feugiamet, conse dignim iliquam, volorper sustie enisisi tatem vel ulputpatie euisi enisi

blan volorer sim volor sum essi exer ac-cum iliquisim eui blan ulla feugue dunt numsan utat augue mincin et nos num quis nim quip el digna feugiam dunt lute core eugiam dolesenit, quam dolenissi.

Bore doloborem dolorper irilla cor-peri ureril in ulput lum quat endiam, volor accum velisl ullum vulla facil ulla facip eu faci eraestrud estrud dit nulla feum vercinc illandiat alit, consectem venim nisim nit landion ummolent utat. Agna feugait exer il ex ex enim zzriusto od dion henit iliquis nostrud tatie dunt veriure ting ex et dolortin henit alis

workbase heading

Ibh enis nullam, conum iriurem accummy nummy nullametue consed min henim

• Eenis nullam, conum iriurem accummy nummy nullametue consed minhenim

• Bh enis nullam, conum iriurem accummy nummy nullametue consed minhenim

• Conum iriurem accummy nummy nullametue consed minhenim

• Bh enis nullam, conum iriurem accummy nummy nullametue consed minhenim

The New Zealand Centre for Workforce Literacy DevelopmentKatherine Percy – Chief Executive

phone: 09 361 3800 email: [email protected]

team sample policies, procedures and work instructions for future reference. Templates should also be developed to ensure future written materials are in a consistent format.

Avoid taking a one-off approach; it’s important that your business can sustain good comprehension among your employees. We can train your technical team so they have the right skills to produce effective documents. We also train supervisors and team leaders so that they are able to ensure their people can understand and follow instructions.

Glynis Thomas, Workbase Consultant

Have you got a burning workplace question for this column? Glynis is happy to help:

Email: [email protected]: (09) 361 3800 Mobile: (021) 430 994

Have you got a literacy, numeracy or communication problem in your workplace? Ask Workbase – New Zealand’s leading literacy, numeracy and communication specialists

Although most of these people can read and write, often they can’t understand complex written technical instructions or procedures. When policies and procedures are written using too many unfamiliar terms and abbreviations they are even harder for your employees to understand.

Over half of our adult population have low numeracy levels. It is likely that your people may also struggle with tasks such as understanding tolerances and variances, or accurately completing first counts in stock takes.

Putting things right requires understanding what is causing the problem, ascertaining your employees’ literacy and comprehension levels, and identifying areas where policies and procedures could better align with what’s actually happening at an operational level.

Once you know the nature of the problem, then your technical writing team can be shown how to develop policies, procedures and work instructions in a way that will be easily understood.

Workbase can give your technical

Dear Workbase

Our manufacturing business has spent a lot of time and money developing policies and procedures. Despite management regularly reminding employees, non compliance continues to be a problem and we continue to fall short of our health and safety, and our production targets. What can we do to address this frustrating situation?

– James

Dear James

It is most likely that your employees want to follow the company procedures; the problem is that they don’t understand them.

Research has shown that more than 40% of New Zealanders aged 16 - 65 years have low literacy levels.

ADVertoriAl


ting higher. the swirl of environmental politics, energy demands, economic necessity and world competition all converge around this business. And yet, again this month NZ Management’s annual survey of New Zealand’s most reputable Organisations, ranks Solid energy as the nation’s most reputable SOe as rated by leaders or enterprise.

“there’s no question we govern responsibly,” says elder. “Not because we have to, which we must under our

Solid Energy’s burning commitment

The double act of being a successful coal-based energy company and a responsibly governed enterprise takes

constant commitment. Christchurch-based state-owned enterprise Solid Energy sees the commitments it is making, particularly to protecting New Zealand’s natural environment, as solid evidence that it takes

responsible governance seriously.

Nominations are now open for the Kensington Swan Responsible Governance Award, a major award at the Deloitte/Management magazine Top 200 Awards. See: www.management.co.nz/top200/responsiblegovernance.html

reSpoNSibleGoVerNANCe

The team at the top of Solid energy has an impressive commercial and govern-ance pedigree and track

record. Chairman John palmer and chief executive Don elder have proven themselves in other organisations. Now together, they have both cleaned and fired up the former, grubby govern-ment department – State Coal.

the stakes required to stay in the coal mining game, however, keep get-


Don Elder… “We govern responsibly because it’s good business to do so.”

mandate, but because it’s good busi-ness to do so. many people, myself in-cluded, work for Solid energy because its purpose is inextricably linked with the betterment of the country. this brings with it a high profile and a strong sense of responsibility to always ‘do the right thing’ even if, in the short term, that carries some sort of cost.”

the Government spells out its responsible governance requirements in a Shareholder expectations manual.

Solid energy’s statement of corporate intent is also annually agreed with its shareholder. And finally, the company’s business sustainability principles and values statement are all enshrined in its How We Work publication which defines the company’s approach to health and safety, people issues, envi-ronmental management, reputation and value creation and, thereby, how it expects its people to behave when carrying out its business.

the company is, says elder, cur-rently working to “draw a line of sight” between these policy statements and individual employees to provide “clear and concise” expectations for their behaviour and performance. “We will then undertake training to include compliance and behavioural expectations as a ‘key results area’ in our annual individual performance assessments,” he adds.

Solid energy’s interpretation of re-sponsible governance means the board and senior management give priority to ongoing commitments to:• maximise the company’s value to New Zealand through responsible custodianship and development of strategic natural resources to generate a sustained long-term return;• the company’s people – employees, customers, communities in which the company operates, stakeholders – and their interdependence; • implement sustainable health, safety and environmental protection prac-tices.

responsible governance throws up numerous benefits for Solid energy, starting with the most obvious, a li-cence to operate. “but equally impor-tant, it helps us develop innovative so-lutions to complex opportunities, and generates trust among and respect for our employees and other stakeholders,” says elder. “Consequently, it is a great place to work. the world-class skills we attract, our business achievements in the last decade and the opportunities we generate are the evidence of this.”

the Securities Commission’s Cor-

porate Governance principles were incorporated into the Owner’s ex-pectations manual after they were promulgated back in 2004. the board observes and complies with these principles, says elder, “particularly with regard to fostering high ethical standards at board level and through-out the business”.

the company also operates a continuous performance disclosure regime aligned with NZX expectations. “We were the first SOe to hold a public annual meeting. being an SOe means we cannot operate without being acutely aware of stakeholder interest in our business and their expectations of the way in which we conduct busi-ness,” he adds.

but it is Solid energy’s approach to environmental management that perhaps best illustrates its unrelenting commitment to responsible govern-ance. the company has, over the past

Upper Waimangaroa Valley area at Stockton Opencast Mine.

reSpoNSibleGoVerNANCe


decade, moved from what Solid en-ergy’s general manager environment mark pizey calls a “compliance cul-ture” to being something more. Solid energy now tries to “find solutions to performance problems even before the problems exist”.

And that approach, according to pizey, resulted in “a shift in the cul-ture of the business from the very top down to the operating level”. A decade ago, the company measured success in terms of prosecutions avoided. Now it pays constant attention to its envi-ronmental footprint impacts and takes these potential impacts into account at the planning stage to identify mitigat-ing actions that ensure the business achieves its corporate objective of a net environmental gain on each project.

the company’s flick in thinking and commitment to embrace best practice environmental management began in 2002 when it adopted an environmental policy. that policy is now embedded in the organisation’s DNA. Its provisions are considered core business rather than an add-on to any given project.

the push for change was internal, but the leadership came from elder and a board that could see the increas-ingly green writing on the global min-ing wall. Solid energy would, everyone agreed, henceforth be driven by a net gain imperative from every possible business activity.

to be both authentic and cred-ible, Solid energy’s approach to more responsible governance demanded greater transparency in not just its environmental management policies, but also in its company-wide approach to management and governance. It became particularly transparent in its community interactions. Visible leadership and behaviour are now ac-cepted expressions of the company’s more open governance and manage-ment practices.

the company’s commitment to it people, to health and safety and to ethical business practices is embed-ded in the corporate culture. but it is in environmental management that its responsible governance strategies are both most evident and globally innovative.

each new Solid energy project starts with the creation of an often significant negative environmental footprint. So to effect its net gain strategy, the company has developed unique and verified environmental im-pact measurement tools. It uses these in conjunction with increasingly in-novative and leading-edge carbon and other environmental credit purchases and offsets.

Its activity versus actuality pre-dicament led Solid energy to become an early adopter of biodiversity offset methodology in New Zealand. As an

increasing number of conservation experts, including the director-general of the Department of Conservation Al morrison, have pointed out: the only practical way to preserve New Zealand’s natural biodiversity and con-servation estate is to invest in it. With the Government’s enforced austerity it has cut DOC funding. the likelihood of more state-funded conservation programmes in the near future is bleaker than bleak.

Solid energy’s approach is to adopt a user-pays approach and invest in DOC projects to build a glory box of offset credits and simultaneously contribute to the preservation of New Zealand’s natural environment – a commercially pragmatic preservation policy.

When, for example, the company applied for resource consent to start mining in the Cypress mine on the South Island’s West Coast, Solid energy was required to provide an environmental offset to mitigate the impact its activities would have on kiwi in the surrounding bush. the project now proposed will create more kiwi than would have inhabited the area had it not been mined, says pizey. the number of kiwi in the bush will be at least equivalent to those removed and taken to a mainland island for safety and breeding. the result is an environ-mental gain with two, rather than one, equivalent size clans of kiwi.

“We expect this approach to be adopted as standard practice in future,” says pizey. “We hope it will lead the in-dustry generally to work more closely with partners like DOC to create these kinds of offsets.

“the next logical step for us is to create credits ahead of our need to use them. We know we are going to have impacts, so before we start down the consenting pathway we can make an offset investment by creating habitats for whatever species needs protection.”

Come the day the company starts mining, the loss created is already ca-tered for, goes the thinking. M

Mark Pizey… “Before we start down the consenting pathway we can make an offset investment by creating habitats for whatever species needs protection.”

In these days of upsized and king-size portions, it seems ironic that just a gram or two of a certain ingredient

should be cause for such concern. But reducing sodium intake has become one of the key targets for improving New Zealanders’ heart health.

The main source of sodium in our diet is salt (2.5 grams of salt contains around one gram of sodium). The World Health Organisation recommends we eat somewhere between three to six grams of salt a day – Kiwis average nine grams.

So why the fuss over just a few grams? International research has found strong

evidence that the consumption of excess sodium raises blood pressure – a key risk factor for cardiovascular disease, heart attack and stroke.

These are problems which come at a huge financial and personal cost to New Zealand. Cardiovascular disease (heart, stroke and blood vessel disease) accounts for 40% of deaths each year. One in seven Kiwis is currently taking medication for high blood pressure.

Modelling by Food Standards Australia New Zealand estimated that reducing the average sodium intake of the adult population by just one quarter would reduce the risk of a cardiovascular event by 20 percent – resulting in 2745 fewer heart attacks in New Zealand each year by 2018.

But the problem is not so much a heavy hand with the salt shaker. The majority of our sodium intake comes from the so-called “hidden” salt in processed

and pre-packaged food. And when it comes to cutting down on these types of treats, convenience is a commonly cited stumbling block.

This is where the workplace can play a big role in improving national health outcomes. There are several simple, low-cost strategies that can be put in place to help employees reduce their sodium intake.

Where art thou? With sodium present in so many everyday foods, knowing what types of food to cut back on is crucial. Foods high in sodium include processed meats, sauces and dressings, salty snack foods, and many fast food and takeaways. However, some ‘healthy’ low fat foods may also contain a high amount of sodium – such as certain brands of canned soup and soy sauce. To help clarify matters, a simple option is to provide nutrition information in your workplace, perhaps even running a seminar on healthy eating.

Out of sight, out of mindA sad truth of modern life is that processed foods are far easier to access than fresh – and often far cheaper. At Southern Cross Health Society, a recent change of office prompted a decision to remove snack vending machines – which we replaced with a twice weekly fresh fruit delivery.

Making good choices easyMake it a policy to make healthy, low-salt food options available at functions.

Rubbing salt into the wound

Provide plenty of fridge space and utensils in the work kitchen to encourage home-made food, and ensure the lunchroom is tidy and inviting. M

Peter Tynan is chief executive of Southern Cross

Health Society.

Covering staff with Southern Cross health insurance means less sick days, quicker return to work1 and it’s an attractive incentive for retaining and recruiting employees. It all adds up to a more

productive and profitable business. Your profits, not ours. Because we’re not for profit, we’re for you. To find out more, call Southern Cross Health Society on 0800 323 555 or visit our website healthybusiness.co.nz

Healthy staff means higher productivity

Southern Cross Medical Care Society, Level 1, Ernst & Young Building, 2 Takutai Square, Auckland 1010

1. TNS research 2004.

Healthy people healthy business


M MANAGING SUStAINABLyPeter tyNAN

Slash the saltEach year around 7600 Kiwis will be affected by stroke – and a third of those will die from it. Stroke is the sudden interruption of blood flow to part of the brain, causing it to stop working and eventually damaging brain cells. Though commonly thought of as a disease of the elderly, one in four people affected by stroke are under the age of 65.

Stroke is largely preventable, and lowering your blood pressure can greatly reduce your risk.

The Stroke Foundation is committed to reducing the salt in Kiwis diets as a key way of reducing the impact of stroke on the community.

Tips for reducing salt intake• Eat fresh foods.• Check the sodium level of packaged foods. Food is considered low in salt/sodium if it contains less than 120mg per 100g of food.• Cut back on fast food and other takeaways.• Use herbs, spices and other seasonings instead of salt during cooking and at the table.


M eXeCS oN tHe Move

Sponsored by The University of Auckland Business School Short Courses www.shortcourses.ac.nz 0800 800 875

September7 RecRuitmeNt aNd SelectioN. Christchurch. Organisation Development Institute. www.development.org.nz

7 PeoPle + commuNicatioN SkillS. Dunedin. NZIM Southern. www.managementsouth.co.nz

7-8 BuSiNeSS PRoceSS maNagemeNt. NZIM Northern. www.nzimnorthern.co.nz

7-8 SyStematic PRoBlem SolviNg. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

12-13 BuildiNg RelatioNSHiP veRSatility. Christchurch. NZIM Southern. www.managementsouth.co.nz

12-14 BuildiNg effective teamS (ceRt iN BuSiNeSS). NZIM Central. www.nzimcentral.co.nz

13 SolutioNS BaSed tHiNkiNg. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

14 fuNctioNS aNd RoleS of tHe BoaRd. Christchurch. Organisation Development Institute. www.development.org.nz

14-15 NegotiatioN SkillS. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

14-16 team leadeR - oPeRatioNal maNagemeNt. NZIM Northern. www.nzimnorthern.co.nz

15 PRoject cooRdiNatioN SkillS. Wellington. Project Plus. www.projectplus.com

16 maNagiNg PeRfoRmaNce PRoBlemS. Christchurch. Organisation Development Institute. www.development.org.nz

16 develoP a WoRkPlace leaRNiNg eNviRoNmeNt. NZIM Central. www.nzimcentral.co.nz

16 BuildiNg youR BRaNd. Christchurch. NZIM Southern. www.managementsouth.co.nz

19 team develoPmeNt. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

19-20 iNNovatioN aNd collaBoRatioN. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

20-21 BuSiNeSS PRoceSS imPRovemeNt. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

20-21 PReSeNtatioN SkillS tHat coNNect WitH tHe taRget. Christchurch. Organisation Development Institute. www.development.org.nz

21 PuBlic SectoR | macHiNeRy of goveRNmeNt. Dunedin. NZIM Southern. www.managementsouth.co.nz

22-23 iNtRoductioN to maNagemeNt (ceRt iN maNagemeNt). NZIM Central. www.nzimcentral.co.nz

26-27 leadeRSHiP. NZIM Northern. www.nzimnorthern.co.nz

26-27 PRoject maNagemeNt. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

26-27 StRategic StakeHoldeR RelatioNSHiPS. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

26-28 team leadeR – tHe eSSeNtial SkillS. NZIM Southern. www.managementsouth.co.nz

28-29 iNveStigative iNteRvieWiNg. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

28-29 oRgaNiSatioNal tHougHt leadeRSHiP. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

28-30 iNtRoductioN to maNagemeNt. NZIM Northern. www.nzimnorthern.co.nz

29 coNtRact maNagemeNt. Christchurch. Organisation Development Institute. www.development.org.nz

29-30 advaNced PRoject RiSk maNagemeNt. Christchurch. NZIM Central. www.nzimcentral.co.nz

October5-6 cHaiRiNg tHe BoaRd. Christchurch. Institute of Directors. www.iod.org.nz

5-6 cRiSiS – PRoBlem to oPPoRtuNity. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

5-6 tHe leadeRSHiP cHalleNge. Auckland. University of Auckland Short Courses. www.shortcourses.ac.nz

For more detailed diary listings, visit www.management.co.nz

Make a REAL difference to your organisation0800 800 875 | www.shortcourses.ac.nz

To Darren Levy, The University of Auckland Business SchoolThank you for tailoring a leadership programme for our organisation. New insights were gained that are closely aligned with our business strategies and values. Your team have motivated and engaged our people.Michelle McBride, Southern Cross Health Society


MeXeCUtIve DeveLoPMeNt

Diane Maxwell, Duncan SmithThe financial markets authority has made two further appointments to its strategic leadership team: Diane Maxwell, currently head of brand and corporate affairs at BNZ, joins mid-October as head of stakeholder management; and Duncan Smith, currently chief operating officer at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts, joins mid September as head of business performance. An executive recruitment search continues for the two remaining roles, head of enforcement and head of market intelligence.

Alan HenwoodWellington-based Stephens lawyers has appointed Alan Henwood as a director. Most recently a specialist property practitioner with Impact Legal and Simpson Grierson where he was a partner in its local government and environment practice, Henwood has many years’ experience in commercial and public sector property, local government, and corporate and trust structures.

Tony Rogerstourism australia has appointed Tony Rogers as its new marketing manager for New Zealand. Most recently with Avanti Bicycle Company, Rogers has spent the last decade of his career in senior marketing positions.

Steve WakefieldDeloitte Christchurch managing partner Steve Wakefield has been appointed to the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority as general manager for economic recovery.

Wakefield, who describes himself as “a very proud Cantabrian”, will be taking a two-year leave of absence from Deloitte to undertake his role at CERA. He has been actively involved in a wide range of recovery efforts since the February 22 earthquake. As part of the Canterbury Business Leaders Group, he was appointed to the Community Forum for CERA, and has been a member of the business and property advisory group to Christchurch City Council’s Central City Recovery Plan development team.

Deloitte CEO Murray Jack says the appointment is testament to the leadership and skills Wakefield has shown through his contribution to these various recovery groups. “The economic recovery of Christchurch is important to everyone in business, and to the whole of New Zealand.”

Verdon KelliherNew Zealand software company the Simpl group has appointed IT veteran Verdon Kelliher as its new CEO, effective October 1. He succeeds CEO and founder Bennett Medary, who will remain with the company as executive chair. Kelliher comes to Simpl from software services company Optimation.

Rick JonescPa australia has appointed Rick Jones as its New Zealand business development manager with responsibility to expand the membership base for CPA in New Zealand by managing all aspects of sales and marketing for the business. He has previously worked for Professional Pathways Australia as the Sydney manager and as a business development manager for 1st Contact in London.

Vivien Sutherland BridgwaterSave the children New Zealand has welcomed the appointment of Vivien Sutherland Bridgwater, a board member for the past two years, as its new chair. Bridgwater has a background in television and radio, and is currently the general manager of university relations at AUT University.

Margaret Smith Southern cross Health Society has appointed Margaret Smith as national sales manager – advisers. Smith has over 32 years’ experience in financial services and has worked at a senior level for large organisations such as BNZ and, for the last seven years, AMP.

Looking to Gain More From Your PM Investment?Let Project Plus assist you and your organisation achieve more for less via project management-based approaches and techniques. From consulting

and resourcing through to NZ’s largest learning and development range for all levels. Get in touch to hear more.

www.projectplusgroup.co.nz


M toP tIPS

Our successful structure of small dedicated client

teams has enabled us to become a trusted adviser

to a wide range of organisations – including some

of the country’s largest corporates, successful not-

for-profi ts, and innovative SMEs.

Wright CommunicationsA trusted provider of full-service, results-driven public relations.

We secure our clients outstanding coverage

through trusted media contacts.

See our website for client case studies and

testimonials. www.wrightcommunications.co.nz

How leaders change hearts and minds Joseph Grenny and colleagues

have spent 20 years studying what makes leaders influential. They

wanted to understand what enabled leaders to change hearts and minds independent of their formal authority to demand compliance. To date over 25,000 people have been involved in their study which has found that one versatile skill accounts for a great deal of the most effective leaders’ influence. That skill is how they deal with crucial conversations – those emotionally and politically risky issues that seem to crop up nearly every day in an executive’s life.

Grenny has three key tips for managers based on what he and his team have identified as factors which make a big difference to leadership effectiveness:

1 Learn to lookThose who are most effective

at crucial conversations are most conscious of their own behaviour. They are aware of their own “style under stress” and catch it quickly when their approach to a conversation begins to damage dialogue. Specifically, they watch for when their own behaviour moves to silence or violence – some form of withdrawal or attack. When

another person is reacting badly, they do something profoundly different from others. They make it safe.

2 Make it safeHave you ever noticed how

some conversations – even about very risky subjects – go very well? And others, perhaps even about trivial disagreements, can degenerate into combat or retreat? Why is that? People can listen to tough feedback so long as they feel safe with the person giving it. Patients will even let doctors open their chest with a scalpel because they trust the doctor – they feel safe with him or her.

How do you create safety? You help others understand that you care about

their interests as much as you care about your own. Those who master crucial conversations are masters at watching for and repairing safety concerns the instant they occur.

3 Make it motivating

Influential leaders rarely face instances where they can’t engage someone in a crucial confrontation. Why? Because

they know that the key to influence is empathy. Before they start a crucial confrontation they give careful thought to how the problems they want to raise either are affecting, or will affect the other person. They think about the natural consequences of the situation to the other person. If, in a respectful way, you are able to help them see how their own interests are served by addressing the problem, they will be naturally motivated to engage in solutions. M

Joseph Grenny is co-author of Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations and cofounder of VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and organizational

performance. www.sevenseventeen.com.au

Phot

o: th

inks

tock

phot

os.c

om


September 2011 | tHe DIreCtOr | 57

September 2011VOl 9 NO 4

The Sorry Storyof our women on boards p58Off with their heads! p62 Gain from the green game p64

Korn/Ferry's Katie Lahey.

58 | tHe DIreCtOr | September 2011

pho

tos:

Jan

mic

hae

lDav

id

Corporate New Zealand’s persistent and self-defeating failure to appoint women to the boards of our major companies continues unabated. Board chairmen, the NZX and the Institute of Directors could sort this sorry state of affairs if they cared to, reports Reg Birchfield.

The Sorry Storyof our women on boards



New Zealand’s brief fling with women at the top of its primary governing institutions is over. And throughout the flirtation,

corporate enterprise kept its ruling male face firmly set against anything other than token concessions.

The latest statistics released by global recruiters Korn/Ferry International show that more of New Zealand’s top 100 boards by market capitalisation, exclude women from their boardrooms than any of the seven Asia-Pacific countries surveyed. And, to make matters worse, the percentage of women on Asian boards is about half that of European and North American boards.

Korn/Ferry surveyed boards in Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, China and New Zealand. Of the top 100 boards in those countries, 65 percent of New Zealand boards excluded women directors. That com-pared with 29 percent in Australia – one trans-Tasman gap that definitely needs bridging, 59 percent in Singapore, 57 percent in India, 56 percent in Malaysia, 43 percent in Hong Kong and 39 percent in China.

And none of the New Zealand companies surveyed employed female chief executives – the lowest level of all the countries surveyed. New Zealand’s tiny, exclusive and gener-ally lowly-rated governance gene pool, deter-minedly denies itself access to 50 percent of the country’s working, motivated and increasingly better educated population.

Korn/Ferry’s Australasian managing direc-tor Katie Lahey agrees that the picture painted by the latest research is, to say the least, de-pressing. “But,” she says, “I feel more optimistic than I have at any other time in my 40 years of working life. We are, I believe, on the cusp of change. There is, at last, a realisation that there is something very strange about boards and senior level management teams being so devoid of women. This issue is at the top of the agenda now for a number of very logical, important and coinciding reasons.”

Other countries, including Australia, are now seriously addressing this issue. Some, especially in Europe, have addressed gender imbalance on boards. Fed up waiting for the male-dominated corporate sector to act on its own initiative, governments are chang-ing governance codes and/or implementing

quotas. Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark have all now introduced measures that increased the number of women on boards.

Aussie initiativeCloser to home, Australia changed its national corporate governance guidelines by which boards must report their organisation’s level of gender diversity. The change came into effect in January. Lahey is surprised at how quickly companies have reacted and embraced the change. With no mandated requirement other than to report the facts of the organisation’s gender balance, the number of women ap-pointed to Australia’s corporate boards has jumped from around eight percent a year ago to 14 percent in less than a year.

“New Zealand could do worse than follow the Australian approach,” says Lahey. “What it shows is that a relatively small change can have a major impact. And by reporting the number of male and female employees in a business the questions become obvious. With so many women on the payroll, how come there are so few in leadership roles? It does not make sense or look right.”

Women now make up 25 percent of all new appointments to ASX boards, compared to just five percent in 2009 – evidence, if it were needed, that men resist change until there is some regulatory or supervisory compulsion for them to do so. That attitude and reticence to accept that women are up to the job might, in part, explain corporate New Zealand’s generally poor governance record.

Korn/Ferry’s take on its latest survey is that Asian economies, including New Zealand, are at a turning point. Companies that fail to bring women onto their boards to provide advice and direction are, it says, taking several major risks. “They risk overlooking qualified director can-didates in markets that are drastically short on such talent. They risk missing the opportunity to improve corporate governance by increas-ing the diversity of voices and views on their boards, and they risk losing the opportunity to better connect with the people piloting the boom – women,” the report says.

Lahey confirms that what is happening in New Zealand is also happening in Asia. Young women are fast becoming more edu-cated than their male peers. There are more Asian, Australian and New Zealand women

enrolled in tertiary education than men. “The lack of women on boards should and,

in countries other than New Zealand, is ringing warning bells for corporate leaders,” says Lahey. “The composition of a board should reflect the company’s market and customer base. Compa-nies that rely solely on men to make strategic decisions on products, innovation and growth are short-changing themselves on new ideas and different views on how to address their market. New Zealand is lagging behind the rest of the region when it comes to appoint them as directors or senior executives.”

The Korn/Ferry survey also shows that Asian countries which do appoint female di-rectors then often fail to give them leadership positions. “None of the New Zealand compa-nies studied had a female CEO,” says Lahey. “The numbers were equally low elsewhere. Female chairpersons are also in short supply. Just four percent of the Australian, Chinese and New Zealand companies studied had a female board chair.”

The token And only 22 of the 700 boards surveyed had more than two female directors in either the ex-ecutive or independent non-executive director role. Independent studies in the United States suggest that effective boards have at least three females on a board of, say, 10. One (female) is seen as token, two are viewed as “in cahoots”. When the third arrives, all three become ac-cepted as part of the larger group.

Bigger companies are more inclined to bring women onto their boards – a finding that suggests leaders of larger, more complex enterprises find value in board diversity.

All companies, however, complain about the shortage of good, experienced leaders and directors with the skills to meet the new market challenges. “Broadening the search to include women could immediately widen the talent pool and bring more than just gender diversity to the table,” says Lahey.

With the world’s prevailing financial crisis, companies are trying desperately to improve their governance performance. “Increasing the diversity of boards helps achieve their objective of boosting shareholder value and representing stakeholders. A diverse group of directors is more likely to raise questions, challenge the sta-tus quo or spot new opportunities,” says Lahey.



To effectively lift their performance, boards must also improve their director selection process, according to the survey. They need to put the same rigorous search guidelines and procedures into place that they do for their top executive candidates. A formal, professionally managed selection process that is designed to gather the widest variety of candidates, including women, is more likely to produce a more diverse, bet-ter functioning board.

More thoughtful practising directors, both male and female, agree the problem in New Zealand is acute. They are equally adamant that the solution lies largely in the hands and minds of the chairmen of New Zealand’s largest companies. Chairs set the tone of the enterprise and the boardroom. They call the shots on board composition. The chairs of New Zealand Top 200 com-panies could, if they wanted to, begin the process to change the diversity and gender balance of their boards immediately. Few have shown any willingness or inclination to do so.

“Chairs are not prepared to take the risk,” says highly regarded professional di-rector Sandy Maier. “It is like opting for an IBM computer solution in the old days. No one ever got blamed for choosing IBM, even when the choice was technically wrong and ridiculously expensive.”

Male champions Lahey agrees that chairmen and male directors are critical to progress. “Men get fed up with women whingeing about their situation. What is changing, even in countries like Australia, is that men are now talking to men about the issue. That is a real catalyst for change,” she says. “Influential individuals like David Gonski, chairman of the ASX, have embraced the issue and that has helped change attitudes in Australia’s corporate world,” she says.

“Male champions make all the difference.”The logic of the case for more women

on boards or in the C suite is, even to the most resistant males, increasingly obvious and difficult to refute. It is now more a re-source than gender argument, says Lahey. “Once men see it as a productivity issue or a business case argument that a major pool of talent is sitting on the sidelines, they should come to the party.”

Prime Minister John Key’s support

for the Global Women’s Initiative early this year has encouraged some advocates of change. New Zealand needed, he said, more women in leadership positions in the corporate sector. But he will need to back his words with more emphatic direction to his ministers. They call the shots on many board appointments. And recently, those appointments have looked more political than competency-based which suggests, unfortunately, a return to the approach too often taken by Helen Clark’s Labour administration.

The chair and CEO of the NZX could also make a difference. They should look to the example set by their Australian counterpart. Only obduracy prevents them from at least adopting a similar gender bal-ance reporting scheme to that adopted by the ASX and obviously already working in Australia. The chair of the Shareholders’ Association has also gone strangely silent on the issue. Time was when he advocated more women on boards.

The Institute of Directors has, to date, offered no leadership at all on board composition issues. Observers say that is for obvious membership reasons. The IOD seems to see its role almost exclusively as guardianship of compliance. Governance, however, is increasingly about organisa-tional leadership in its most competent, relevant and community-conscious form. There is more to governance than numbers

There are dozens of talented women outthere who could fill seats at the board tables

of our largest companies.‘‘ ‘‘

and teaching individuals of varying capabil-ity to learn-by-rote the regulatory require-ments of boardroom practice, which is part of the job but not the exclusive point of it.

Problem womenMore women on boards and in C suite offices may provide the answer to some increasingly critical resource need, but they are also part of the problem. A plethora of research shows that women consistently sell themselves short, a practice which fa-cilitates the status quo. Korn/Ferry is un-dertaking new research which, says Lahey, shows that women “start lowering their sights the moment they leave university”.

Why? “It seems to be built into us,” she says. “We are more risk averse. We look at the few competencies we don’t have rather than the larger number we do have. Men take the opposite approach. They look at the job spec and, even if they don’t have half the skills required, they give it a go and toss their hat in the ring. Too often, women fail to put themselves forward. When they do, they can be seen as too ambitious. Ambition in a man is seen as positive; not necessarily so in a woman. These are some of the cultural traits we have to get rid of.

“Women are, generally speaking, happy to play the supportive role, to be second in command. They need to be pushed beyond their comfort zone. Men could do a lot to encourage that and the organisation would be the better for it. For a start, it would bring a diversity of view point and experience to the board table and diversity of thinking is always positive,” says Lahey

“We could fix the issue of gender bal-ance on boards tomorrow if men wanted to. There are dozens of talented women out there who could fill seats at the board tables of our largest companies. It is a nonsense to say women don’t have the experience or the skills to sit at the board table or fill more senior executive roles. And it has been that way for a long time. It is just a case of getting them before the chairmen, the selection committees and upgrading their CVs,” she adds.

Anyhow, women could hardly do any worse job than men have done for the past 20 or so years.

All the wisdom required to be a professional director can be found in:• The Complete Guide to Good Governance in Organizations and Companies $85.00• Great Governance – How the Best Boards Work – $49.00

Phone Mediaweb on 0-9-529 3000 – or email [email protected]

Order now and postage will be included

DIRECTORS CANNOT AFFORD TO BE HALF RIGHT!THEY CAN, HOWEVER, AFFORD TO BE TWICE AS WISE!

Doug Matheson

The Complete Guide to

in Organizations and Companiesess

OR BUY BOTH AND SAVE A FURTHER 15%


Off with their heads!Everything about the furore created by the remarks of former Employers and Manufacturers Association chief executive Alasdair Thompson and his subsequent departure demonstrates substandard corporate governance. by Jens mueller.

of a CEO. It is inconceivable that in this case board members were not aware of Thompson’s beliefs which were, he said in his interview, based on research findings.

Directors are responsible for all aspects of the organisations they govern and del-egate operational duties to management. Delegation requires oversight and neces-sary direction. This board’s actions suggest that all was fine in the shop – until the fateful few minutes of the TV interview and bright camera lights revealed the pre-viously unknown. It’s a bit like the CEO of an airline reporting with a surprised look that heavy losses were the result of “sudden” fuel price increases!

privacy, Thompson is fired, an acting CEO appointed and the matter appar-ently closed. Amazing, how quickly and smoothly an organisation seems able to snap into a new regime, and self-cleanse its failings.

Everything about this case demon-strates sub-standard governance. This is especially alarming in an organisation that advises other employers on how to conduct their business. Has this board not heard the call for greater director involve-ment when organisations or their leaders fail to live up to performance standards presumably already set by them?

By clinging to their board roles and sacrificing the CEO, the EMA’s directors signal that they were not aware of these damaging statements, were taken by sur-prise and thus could not be held personally responsible. Is this a credible position?

Chairs and CEOs normally discuss business frequently, inside and outside regular board meetings. Surely the board knew what opinions the CEO held. This CEO clearly wasn’t one to hold back with his opinions. Therefore, how many times had staff, directors, clients and other stakeholders heard opinions curiously at odds with today’s mainstream business thinking?

Board meetings, where CEOs usually participate, provide many insights into the attitudes, beliefs and competencies

Was Alasdair Thompson alone suddenly overcome by his misguided ‘wisdom’ during the television inter-

views? Did no one else in the organisa-tion or at board level know about these Neanderthal-like views beforehand? Was the board unaware of his opinions and taken by surprise? Was it a completely unexpected event that could only be dealt with after the fact? Was there never a single indication from prior actions that suggested what convictions were held? Are we to believe that his throw-away comments were so unusual that no one else should be looked at to apportion responsibility?

The opinions stated were, it seemed, strongly-held beliefs, repeated under fire. As such they were likely often com-municated in other fora and presumably, therefore, in line with what EMA member firms or their leaders were comfortable with. Otherwise, the members would have bailed in droves a long time ago.

In times of greater stakeholder trans-parency and accountability, I would have expected the whole EMA board to resign, acknowledging their lack of oversight, directoral competence and knowledge of how the organisation’s CEO argued his views, in public or in private.

Instead, after several weeks of haggling and hiding behind the veil of employee

Jens Mueller... "Failure to deal with issues doesn’t make them go away."


What directors should have known or more surely did know, cannot be a surprise. It is reasonable, therefore, to expect that action follows immediately on recognition of a problem. Failure to deal with issues doesn’t make them go away.

Directors should take a proactive view and align the future aspirations of their business with its current activities. If there is a mismatch, directors act on it. They don’t wait for reporters to broadcast their deficiencies and have the world gloat.

This is not just Thompson’s problem. He served more than a decade in a high-profile role and was, by all accounts, highly regarded. This is a wider govern-ance problem and should be seen as such.

Boards must take responsibility and, when they sight signs of underperform-ance they must act. Stakeholders rely on boards, not individual managers, to hold their organisation to high standards of performance.

The boardroom door is the one to which they go knocking when remedial action is needed. I can hear the post ex-posé phone calls among board members: “Bad boy, bad boy, what are we going to do with him?” Not, as they should, asking themselves: “How could we have failed so badly?”

This sad episode throws up another critical governance issue – succession

planning. Apart from ‘suicide-by-media’, CEOs suddenly leave their post for a host of other reasons. Whatever they may be, boards are responsible for operating an ef-fective plan of succession for key staffers, especially operational leaders.

As part of their risk management strat-egy, boards should regularly review the organisation’s exposure to the departure of any important member of the manage-ment team. There are many models for the process, from grooming a senior staffer, identifying competents outside with the ability to take over, or preparing several insiders to take on various parts of the suddenly vacated position. Each model shows that the board understands what roles are critical and that succession must be managed.

It might seem somewhat insensitive to openly discuss what happens when a key person leaves before they do so but, “The King is Dead – Long Live the Queen” is a well-practised exercise. Good leaders recognise the need for instant, smooth and well-understood succession that leaves the organisation fully competent to continue its operation. Smart managers prepare for their own elevation to better roles by putting successors in place. After all, no one ever got promoted wearing concrete boots that seemingly fixed them in place.

Throwing one senior staffer to the

wolves of public outcry doesn’t change the footprint the individual has established in the organisation and into which a replace-ment can easily slip. A CEO represents the board and its long-term direction to the staff and all key stakeholders: The board is responsible for the actions of its CEO. The switch of one CEO does not properly attribute responsibility where it belongs.

Recognition of failure should lead a board to step aside in favour of re-election and compete again for their leadership roles. The process will reveal just what the stakeholders think and give them a chance to express their disappointment or satisfaction? Quit the job, clear the decks and allow membership to vote for those they believe in.

A transparent act such as this allows the salvaging of a badly damaged reputa-tion to begin. Members should decide who deserves to be re-elected.

The EMA directors might mean well, have the ideals of the organisation at heart and not think about their own self-interest. But, the sacrifice of one person does not look like an acknowledgement of accountability. The damage was not delivered simply by one man’s silly com-ments. It was exacerbated by directors moving back to business-as-usual without accepting responsibility for a profound failure of oversight.

This is not an example any existing or aspiring directors should learn from.

Professor Jens Mueller is a governance expert at

Waikato Management School. He sits on the boards of

several multinational firms and works with many New

Zealand businesses to develop sustainable governance

strategies. [email protected] www.muellerjens.com

Boards are responsible for an effective succession plan for key staffers.‘‘

‘‘Contact Carrie Hobson or Stephen LeavyAuckland OfficeT +64 (9) 379 2224 PO Box 362, Auckland 1140 Level 3, Shortland Chambers, 70 Shortland Street, Auckland 1140

Wellington OfficeT +64 (4) 460 5244 Level 16, Vodafone on the Quay, 157 Lambton Quay, Wellingtonwww.hobsonleavy.com

Hobson Leavy MGT0910.indd 1 17/8/10 10:21:09 AM


Gain from the green game

Boards of directors, it seems, sometimes stymie their company’s environ-mental agenda. According to some

new research by University of Canterbury academic professor Chris van Staden work-ing with University of Auckland’s Dr Charl de Villiers and associate professor Vic Naiker, corporate boards play a key role in promot-ing, or otherwise, strong environmental performance.

A company’s governance structure is, therefore, linked to the impact the business has on the environment. Boards with more independent directors, and less directors ap-pointed with chief executive involvement, perform better environmentally.

“Directors appointed by the CEO are more likely to be influenced by him or her, compromising the board’s independence,” says van Staden. And companies with larger boards including CEOs from other enterprises and directors with legal expertise, are also more likely to act green.

Bigger boards give better performance because, collectively, they are more knowl-edgeable, diverse and richer in expertise and experience. “Larger boards are more independ-ent, particularly if members are not involved in the company’s management or financially involved in the business,” he says. “And lawyers understand the risks involved if a company’s activities contravene regulations.”

The natural environment can, says van Staden, provide companies with a useful competitive advantage. “Consumers are be-coming more aware of environmental issues and want products that are environmentally friendly and not produced in ways that pol-lute.” Companies can enhance their market opportunities by taking environmental impacts into account. The risks of not doing

so can, on the other hand, be huge. “Look at what happened to BP after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

“Hopefully our research will go some way towards helping companies that want to improve their environmental performance by telling them what kind of board they need to achieve this,” says van Staden.

The researchers believe companies with a strong environmental performance reduce operating costs, improve access to resources and reduce employee turnover. A 2008 study by global accounting firm Pricewaterhouse-Coopers showed that more than 40 percent of executives think the “green movement” creates significant market opportunities liabilities.

The link between environmental perform-ance and investor interest is becoming increas-ingly apparent. Research consistently shows a positive relationship between financial returns and environmental performance indexes. Other studies prove that firms which adopt stringent environmental standards have higher market valuations than those that don’t. “Our results suggest that shareholders can motivate strong environmental initiatives by ensuring that boards have more directors; fewer directors who are easily influenced by the CEO; and greater representation of outside directors,” say the researchers.

For doubting-Thomas directors, the link between governance, environmental impacts and better overall performance is becoming increasingly apparent. This comprehensive study shows rather convincingly, that boards can play diverse roles in promoting environ-mental initiatives that are good for business.

It is, say the researchers, the first study to provide real “evidence of associations between strong environmental performance and board characteristics, such as director independence,

concentration of directors appointed after the CEO, the size of the board, active CEOs and legal experts on boards”.

The study is based on a cross-section of companies across a range of industries. Its environmental performance measure evaluates performance across a range of environmental strengths. And the study goes beyond the traditional focus on polluting industries and emissions-related performance measures.

The practical implication of the study is, according to the research, that companies want-ing a strong environmental performance should look for “vigilant” directors with the expertise to deliver. “Directors should not be appointed haphazardly but, rather, with the view to im-prove elements of board design that provides the necessary monitoring skills and resources to pursue a strong environmental agenda.”

The researchers think activist sharehold-ers might use their findings to pressure boards to lift their green game. And the study might also catch the eye and interest of policy mak-ers because: “we identify elements of board governance that may deserve further regula-tory focus in order to achieve the public policy objectives or environmental innovation”.

Future studies might, the researchers sug-gest, consider how particular board processes, such as strategic planning, can directly or in-directly influence environmental strategy and performance. “While we assume independent directors act independently, we have no way of really knowing the independence in the thinking, attitude and actions of a director,” they caution. “Similarly, our focus on directors with legal expertise may not accurately capture directors with considerable experience with environmental issue.”

Food for future research thought per-haps.

Boards wanting to lift their environmental performance should think about appointing independent, more experienced and perhaps legally competent directors. NZ Management reports on some compelling research findings.

Talk to the top executives of NZ’s top performing corporates* at the most competitive rates...

NZ MANAGEMENT magazine’s full page advertising rates stack up as the most cost-efficient advertising spend per 1000 on a Net Total Circulation basis and on a Net Paid Subscription Circulation basis.

Audit Bureau of Circulations Comparative Statistics as at 31/12/10

1) TOTAL NZ NET CIRCULATION COMPARISON

MAGAZINE TOTALCIRCULATION

% CHANGE PREVIOUS12 MONTHS

FULL PAGE ADV SPEND PER 1000 CIRCULATED

NZ MANAGEMENT 7782 +5.10 $0.45

IDEALOG 8021 -5.85 $0.52

UNLIMITED 7005 +3.39 $0.56

NZ BUSINESS 7407 -3.06 $0.49

NZ MARKETING 2537 -26.90 $1.10The New Zealand Audit Bureau of Circulations Inc. published figures to 31/12/2010

2) TOTAL NZ NET PAID SUBSCRIPTION SALES

MAGAZINE AVERAGE NET PAID SALES

% CHANGE PREVIOUS12 MONTHS

FULL PAGE ADV SPEND PER 1000 OF PAID SALES

NZ MANAGEMENT 3776 +1.61 $0.93

IDEALOG 2058 -4.01 $2.04

UNLIMITED 1708 -4.95 $2.31

NZ BUSINESS 986 -4.83 $3.71

NZ MARKETING 846 -1.97 $3.31Based on magazine advertising ratecards’ casual full page rates as at 21/05/2011

* NZ Management magazine is distributed to the senior executives of NZ’s Top 200 companies, from the annual Deloitte / Management magazine Top 200 companies ranking.

Contact: Sales Manager Rod Myers, 0-9-372 6444, 027 484 8046

Can your business takethe financial heat?

QBE-047 MM Rapport

Imagine: an overloaded plug starts a fire that destroysboth your office and the shop below.

Disaster flashes without warning. Your business isdevastated, your finances are vulnerable, your teamis overwhelmed, and you need answers. Are youcovered for loss of income? Can you still afford topay salaries? Who pays for damage to the otherbusiness? Can your business take the financial heat?Or will it melt down...

QBE has more than 200 different liability and propertyinsurance policies, working to help protectNew Zealand businesses. So when it hits the fan,you want QBE on your side.

Talk to your insurance broker today aboutQBE Insurance.

www.qbe.co.nz

management september 2011

Documents

po box

nz management magazine

mediaweb limited

risk advisor

risk isnt

year nz subscription

wellesley street

p d f p