Blogging each week is a challenge – having recently been away and not being technologically advanced the prospect of publishing a blog while overseas was beyond me!
I have not yet worked out how to work my iPad in the same way as my laptop!!
Blogging weekly! Maybe I will just number the Blogs!! There are three big issues to ponder?
And what to write – it comes back to why am I doing it – an authentic purpose.
In my first Blog I said I was doing it because I can – and nothing has changed – but now I am even more excited! The learning is seductive –it is a new world for me – a more concrete reason to engage with this medium is the exploration of a marketing (public communication) platform of the future.
How does business incorporate this “new” form and create serious value?
The target market for a Blog like this is not specifically my existing clients – or my peers!
It is very clearly – Younger Business leaders of Small and Medium Size Enterprise –Entrepreneurs – Start-Ups – it is this market that is creating the future of Australian business.
While the issues, which confront their businesses, are similar – their responses to a radically changing business environment may well differ from the previous generation.
Many of this new generation have a business degree as a starting point -if not, the education about business is much more prolific than 20/30 years ago.
Universities
Business channels (and shows)
Web Sites and whole range of social media
Business Associations and networks
Professional Development Networks for Business leaders
All this has emerged in the last 20/30 years – some in the last 10 years so at the level of information and education there has been a sunami.
In my early career the reading/ education material was both academic and theoretical. Now there is more substantive research and a plethora of “stories” about business and from CEO’s.
In my early awareness a very popular book was In Search of Excellence – Peters and Waterman – this book appeared to move business from the Academic realm to the accessible popular realm. Now every airport book store has dozens – Good to Great by Jim Collins – Great by Choice by the same author are just two.
While the context is very different now the issues remain similar:
• Establishing clear directions
• Managing High Growth – or the reverse –Managing in an unfavorable business environment
• Building capability and systems
• Succession issues – Family or private Business
• Corporate Governance
• Establishing Priorities – Personal and Business
• Creating productive work organizations
• Teamwork
• Managing responses to the Changing Business Environment
• And Productivity and Profitability
These are just a few of the issues that Business leaders must get their heads around.
It strikes me after 40 years, the one challenge confronting every business leader – from Prime Minister – to Chairman and CEO of BHP Billiton – to Family Business – to Entrepreneurial start-up is:
How to move a group of people from Point A to Point B with focus and coherence – and have them experience dignity, meaning and security – while doing it profitably?
When I started in consulting one of the very first projects I undertook had to do with analyzing performance data for regions of a public sector organization – and it has evolved from there. Forty years ago the project was related to establishing Performance Indicators – back then they were called Performance Statistics.
The challenge to create the future is for us all the most exciting challenge – to live every day with hope and optimism is a great gift. Even when the time is tough – to know there is a cycle.
In my early working life I actually documented a personal mission for my work, which still is:
Changing the way Australia does business using leading edge educational and social technology.
It is as important today as it was then – and my commitment to it is the same.
While I may not have changed the way Australia does business – I have changed in ways I could never have imagined and certainly there has been serious learning.
It is a fact along the way some Industries have been deregulated; some businesses have become very successful. Many business leaders I have worked with have been gracious enough to say I made a contribution.
So the challenge is to take the learning and work out how to extend the model to the next generation of Business Leaders:
There are few options:
1. Continue as I have been operating –
If you always do what you always have done –you will always get what you have always got!
Over the years, I have used this quote to challenge multitudes of businesses to change the way they work – and dare I say – change the nature of their business.
Now the time has come to PREACH ONLY WHAT I PRACTICE!!
2. Make the changes required to work in this new market place
Young men and women who want to make their mark in the business world now dominate this market place and they need support, guidance, and challenge.
It is my hypothesis they are more educated and open to the notion of lifelong learning and social media is certainly a “window’ on learning opportunities for business.
Ben Kehoe
