Tag Archives: Challenges

Lions roaming Australia…

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“Any fact is better established by two or three good testimonies than a thousand arguments”.

Nathanial Emmons – influential American theologian

Before the opening of open range zoos in Australia, there was an African Lion Park located on the edge of suburban Sydney. It was owned and managed by the famous Bullen circus family. Families could drive through the park and get close to lions. As a kid I can remember visiting and reading the signs warning you that if you got out of your car you could be eaten!

How exciting a visit was for young children! As a visitor you had the chance to see lions rubbing up against your car and even licking the windows!

Interestingly, the park also provided a disposal service for the local community for their unwanted livestock. Classified advertisements ran in the local newspapers for the removal of sick or injured sheep, cows and horses. The park closed in 1991 but the lions remained!!!

Now, Australia is renowned for its dangerous creatures from the sharks, spiders, jelly fish, snakes to crocodiles. In 1995, the inhabitants in the townships of Warragamba and Silverdale close to the lion park were reportedly ‘terrorised’ by lions. In Australia, surely this was an urban myth!

Well, facts can be stranger than fiction.

So, what happened and was it true or just an urban myth?

Yes, three lions escaped. The local police received a call from a startled motorist who saw a lion cross the road and they had to attend to a “lion wandering the streets”. Two of the lions were recaptured and returned to the park. However, one lion continued to wander the streets and after killing a dog was shot and killed by the park’s owner in a suburban street.

How did the lions escape?

Even though the park was closed, lions could still be heard roaring and been seen being fed from the boundary fence. Living next to a defunct lion park were two 12-year-old boys. Now boys will be boys. One day on the park’s boundary fence, they kicked in a rusted grate on a stormwater culvert and wandered in. They did some exploring, fished for yabbies and then headed back home back through the culvert and broken grate. The thought of lions escaping was apparently furthest from their minds, and alas that occurred.  

So, this was not an urban myth!

Is there a lesson about urban myths here for us as managers?

Years ago, a colleague related the story of a business owner who re-employed a person to run the business who had sacked the week before for non-performance. Sometimes facts can be stranger than fiction even if they sound like an urban myth or an episode of Utopia the ABC TV series that parodies how bureaucracies work. A great example is the Harold Holt Memorial Pool in Melbourne. The local Council named the pool after Prime Minister Harold Holt, who drowned while swimming in the surf near Melbourne and whose body has never been found!

When it comes to your own corporate myths, I am not suggesting that you make up stories. Instead, make an effort to find and share them. These stories can be a vehicle to connect and engage with current employees and customers. Without the ongoing sharing of the story, the actual event will be lost or forgotten, and companies will start to lose their corporate memory.

For example, in 1998 there was the shopping trolley story involving Roger Corbett, the then CEO of Woolworths Australia a supermarket company. Apparently, he came across an empty Woolies trolley and then pushed it all the way from Sydney’s Circular Quay near the Opera House to the Town Hall supermarket. At the time, Corbett was creating a culture of attention to detail and cost reduction. Although he retired in 2006, the story is still shared today. It has become an urban myth in the company.

Another business urban myth is the story set in 1960s about Sir Frank Packer, millionaire media owner and father of media baron Kerry Packer. The story goes that Sir Frank, a pugnacious, autocratic and often difficult businessman found himself in an elevator of his Sydney office building with a shabbily dressed man, and was outraged. Packer tells the man he’s a disgrace to his firm, fires him, and hands him $1,000 to buy a new suit. The ‘fired’ man just grins — he was a freelance photographer who stopped by to visit a friend who worked in the building. The story apparently circulated when Sir Frank believed his employees were not meeting his dress standards.

Does your organisation have stories that could be used to enhance and build a positive and constructive culture?

It could be worth exploring.

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Sometimes being a rocket scientist doesn’t help…

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“Reach for it, you know. Go push yourself as far as you can”

Christa McAuliffe – astronaut on the doomed Challenger

38 years ago this month on 28 January 1986, on a cold morning watched by thousands of onlookers and millions live on TV, the Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off from Kennedy Space Centre in Florida at 11:38 AM EST. To everybody’s horror just 73 seconds into its flight the shuttle broke apart, leading to the tragic death of all seven crew members. This event is etched in our collective memory, not only for its heartbreaking impact but also for the profound lessons it imparts to managers, business owners, and leaders across various fields.

What caused this disaster?

The primary cause of the Challenger disaster was the failure of the O-ring seals in its right solid rocket booster (SRB). These O-rings were not designed to handle the unusually cold conditions on the day of the launch. The low temperatures compromised the O-rings’ elasticity, preventing a proper seal. This failure allowed pressurized burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to reach the outside and impinge upon the adjacent SRB aft field joint attachment hardware and external fuel tank, leading to the structural failure of the SRB attachment and the destruction of the Challenger.

Engineers at Morton Thiokol, the contractor responsible for the solid rocket boosters, had raised concerns about the O-rings in cold weather. However, these concerns were not adequately communicated to or heeded by the key decision-makers at NASA. The organisational culture at NASA, which at the time prioritised schedule and budget over safety, played a significant role in the decision to proceed with the launch, despite these known risks.

Furthermore, this design flaw was compounded by a failure in communication and decision-making processes within NASA and between NASA and its contractors.

What lessons can we as managers learn from this disaster?

Here are three lessons:

  1. Importance of a Safety Culture: The Challenger disaster underscores the critical need for organisations to prioritise safety over other objectives, including schedule pressures or financial concerns. Creating a culture where safety is paramount can prevent catastrophic outcomes.
  2. Effective Communication and Heed Expert Opinion: Effective communication and respecting the expertise of team members is vital. The concerns of the engineers about the O-rings were a missed opportunity that highlight the importance of listening to and acting on expert advice, especially when it pertains to potential risks.
  3. Ethical Decision Making: The Challenger incident serves as a stark reminder of the ethical responsibilities of decision-makers. Ethical decision-making involves considering the wider implications of actions and prioritising the well-being of all stakeholders, including employees and the public.

In conclusion, the Challenger disaster, serves as a sombre reminder of the consequences of overlooking safety, underestimating risks, and the critical importance of ethical leadership. For managers and business owners, it is a call to reflect on their practices, to ensure that the lessons from this event are not just remembered, but integrated into how they lead and make decisions.

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Another lesson from the island of St Kilda

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“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
Aldous Huxley – British Author

In a previous blog I used the backdrop of the remote isolated and windswept island of St Kilda off the west coast of mainland Scotland and the suburb of St Kilda in Melbourne, Australia. The moral of the story was THAT as managers, we should never accept things at face value. Once again, I’m going to use the island of St Kilda as a backdrop for another lesson for managers.

Background

On St Kilda the climate was so extreme, and the wind was sometimes so strong that the islanders’ sheep and cattle could be blown over the cliffs.  During the 19th Century, the island’s population was around 100 people. With increasing contact with the outside world in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the island’s population gradually declined. In September 1852, 36 emigrants from St Kilda left for Melbourne. Sadly, only 17 survived the journey, the others succumbing to diseases they had no immunity to due to their isolated existence. The island never fully recovered from this event, both physically and psychologically.

After the World War I, most of the young men left the island. The population fell from 73 in 1920 to only 37 in 1928. In 1930, the last of the island’s inhabitants were evacuated to mainland Scotland, ending hundreds of years of isolation, poverty, and deprivation.

What caused the demise of the population of St Kilda?

Obviously, increasing contact with the outside world provided the opportunity for the islanders to see that an easier and better standard of living could be achieved if they left the island. However, one of the main reasons can be traced back to the mid-19th Century with the arrival of Rev John Mackay, a minister in the new Free Church of Scotland. Mackay was a religious zealot. He introduced a routine of three two to three-hour services on Sunday. No work was permitted or conversation, only recitation from the Bible was allowed.

Although Rev Mackay left the island in 1889 his legacy lived on. Mackay denied the islanders outside influences and being the only English speaker on the island (the islanders spoke Gaelic) he was able to keep them in a state of ignorance, combining this with religious zealotry.

Linked to societal ignorance, one of the sadder aspects of St Kilda’s life was the horrendous infant mortality rate. One out of every two babies born would not survive their first year of life, dying of infant tetanus. When a child was born on the island, fulmar (sea bird) oil, was applied to the baby after the umbilical cord had been cut. The oil was not stored in sterile conditions.

In 1891, two years after Rev Mackay left a midwife arrived from Glasgow.  She brought improved midwifery skills, hygienic nursing practices and education and the practice of dipping the umbilical cord in fulmar oil ceased. This reduced childhood tetanus, and it was virtually eliminated. Unfortunately, by this time the situation on the island was irreversible. The population was stagnant, and many wanted to leave.

What can we learn as managers from this sad story of the demise of the people of St Kilda?

Organisations and businesses have similar characteristics to small communities like St Kilda. In particular, family-owned businesses often fail to bring in new blood and ideas and this can lead to a gradual demise of the business. Often when new blood comes into an organisation, the owner and the family refuse to change and this undermines the newcomer’s position. I witnessed a former client who claimed he wanted to ‘step back’ from the day to day running of the business. Sadly, he failed to share information, didn’t communicate in a constructive and rational way, and often made decisions behind the new manager’s back. Despite claiming he wanted to ‘step back’, he couldn’t let go and didn’t know how to. He then fired the incumbent because he claimed he had “failed”. Employees on experiencing professional management and then seeing a return to the old behaviors, started to leave. People join organisations but leave due to bad managers.

In my experience, keeping people ignorant is never a wise strategy for managers. I have found that often sharing information can improve performance. When I was managing a major trucking business, despite ‘advice’ to the contrary, I shared weekly driving performance statistics with the linehaul drivers. Driving performance improved, with reduced speeding and fuel consumption and fewer accidents.

All organisations have life cycles and they need to be regenerated with ideas and people externally.

Postscript: I do want to stress that many factors contributed to the decline and death of the community of St Kilda, with health-related problems being one of the main causes. I visited the islands in mid-2023 and it was a very interesting trip – history, birds and landscape. I would recommend a visit – a real step back in time.

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…it only took 74 days!

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“Any leader has to have a certain amount of steel in them, so I am not that put out being called the Iron Lady”

Margaret Thatcher – British Prime Minister

The Falklands War in 1982 between Britain and Argentina lasted only 74 days, culminating in a British victory. This short and bloody conflict has some excellent lessons for managers and leaders.

Background:

Just over 41 years ago this month, on 2 April 1982, the Argentinian fascist military dictatorship decided to invade the British Overseas Territory of the Falkland Islands. They hoped to bolster their dwindling legitimacy by mobilising the long-standing patriotic feelings of Argentines towards the islands, as well as diverting public attention from their ongoing human rights violations against their own citizens and the country’s chronic economic problems.

The islands, 12,000 kms away from Britain are a windswept treeless, damp and cold group of islands. The Falklands had a population of around 2,000 people and its major industry was sheep farming.

In the face of cuts to the military budget by the British Government, the Argentinian military junta miscalculated. They thought that Britain would not respond militarily. However, within three days of the invasion, the British Government under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher had assembled a military task force to retake the islands.

The logistics challenges for the British were immense and the risk of failure high. The Argentinians had 10,000 troops dug in on the islands and were protected by mine fields. Their air force, located on bases on the Argentinian mainland, outnumbered the carrier based British planes by eight to one.

Outcome:

On 13 June 1982, the Argentinian forces on the islands surrendered. Despite the logistics challenges, and setbacks such as the loss of almost all their troop-carrying helicopters on the Atlantic Conveyor the British forces triumphed. The loss of the Atlantic Conveyor meant that the British troops with 80 kgs on their backs had to walk 80 kms in freezing and wet conditions to attack the capital of the Falklands, Port Stanley.

Here are three leadership traits displayed in the Falklands War:

  1. Decisive decision making

The British assembled a military task force within three days of the invasion, despite the fact that the Falklands were over 12,000 kms away from London. This was an example of decisive decision making. In our logistics business, we had a toxic manager who was having a detrimental effect on employee morale and customer satisfaction. One of our partners refused to recognise this situation. When the partner was overseas, we terminated the manager. Within a month, the business he had been managing turned around. Following this action, several supervisors came up to me and said how were pleased that action had been taken. They had been waiting for management action to fix ‘the problem’!

2. Clear purpose

Throughout the crisis, Thatcher’s message was clear and simple. In her communications, there was no doubting her intentions and the purpose was very clear. The British were not going to allow the invasion of British territory by a fascist military dictatorship to succeed.

In my experience, employees respond positively to strong and decisive leadership, especially when there is clear purpose. For example, I was engaged by a business owner to review his business, then introduce standard procedures and managerial disciplines. This message was made very clear to the staff. The culture must change. We would create a work environment through a disciplined and inclusive approach, where employees’ experience, expertise and opinions were valued. The incumbent general manager tried to thwart this approach and was “forced” to leave the business. The staff were relieved. Morale improved almost immediately. They became engaged, as they were now valued and could look forward to the future.

3. Communicate a positive message.

Admiral Sir Henry Leach, Chief of the Defence Force who was instrumental in convincing Thatcher that the islands could be recapture, was asked by her why it was important to retake them.

He said:

“Because if we do not, or if we pussyfoot in our actions and do not achieve complete success, in a few months from now, we will be living in a completely different country whose word counts for nothing.”

Following that advice, Thatcher’s message was positive, and she took the high moral ground.      

  1. We are a democracy
  2. We are not going to have a nasty military junta taking over British territory
  3. We can retake the islands

When I was managing a national vehicle transport company in regional NSW, I was confronted with an unsolvable problem. A private vehicle arrived in our transport depot from Melbourne, several days late. The vehicle owner was arriving in Cairns in far north Queensland the same day. This was three days drive away from Cairns by truck, so he was not going to have his car for the first couple of days of his holidays. Confronted with this problem, I phoned him just as he was boarding the plane in Melbourne offering a solution. A hire car would be provided when he arrived in Cairns until his car arrived. It was a positive message given with authority to solve his problem. The customer continued to use our services for many years.

The British armed forces faced with what were seemingly impossible odds were ultimately successful.

 Do you think that the leadership traits of being decisive, having a clear purpose communicated positively, had a significant bearing on the successful outcome?

‘Real’ leadership is important in any organisation, whether it’s a crisis like the Falklands or not. In my experience, I have found that employees respond positively to good leadership.

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Are you prepared for a ‘black swan’ event?

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“The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.”

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

What is a black swan event?

The phrase “black swan” derives from a Latin expression; “rara avis in terris nigroque simillima cygno” – “a rare bird in the lands and very much like a black swan”.

A black swan event is a rare event that is positive or negative, is deemed improbable yet has massive consequences and could not have been predicted even with the help of sophisticated modelling techniques. For example, an event that has a severe impact on the economy, social conditions, and overall well-being of a nation. The recent COVID pandemic has been called a ’black swan’ event or Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A characteristic of a black swan event is low probability and high impact. Often it becomes rationalised in hindsight, as if it could have been expected. Once again, the COVID example comes to mind. The so-called experts had been ‘predicting’ that the world was overdue for a worldwide pandemic as the last deadly one was the Spanish Flu pandemic, over 100 years ago. However there had also been other pandemics that were not as deadly as the Spanish Flu, namely the Hong Kong Flu in 1968 and the 1957 Asian Flu.

Apparently, the phrase was commonly used in 16th century London as a statement of impossibility. It derives from the presumption that all swans must be white as there were no records of swans having feathers that were NOT white. Therefore, a black swan was impossible or at least non-existent. However, in the late 17th century, Dutch explorers became the first Europeans to see black swans, in Western Australia.

Did this change the meaning of the term ‘black swan’ event?

Yes and no.

Nassim Taleb in his book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable said that black swan events have three characteristics:

1. Low predictability based on prior information

2. High consequence, and sometimes catastrophic impact

3. Explained in hindsight as if it were actually predictable

The main idea in Taleb’s book is not to attempt to predict black swan events, but to build robustness against negative ones that occur and to be able to exploit positive ones.

As a business, how can you prepare for a ‘black swan’ event?

This is a challenge for all business managers and leaders.

Some of the possible strategies for dealing with a black swan event include having a business continuity plan and testing it, diversification into unrelated industries, for example a mining company who is reliant on one commodity could move into other commodities, develop alternative supply chains and having adequate insurance cover.

The critical aspect for business to minimalise the impact is to build robustness in the business.

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What if………..

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“what if, but what is”

Gary West coach of Anna Meares – Australian Olympic Gold Medal Cyclist

In mid-2012, I was in England attending a management training program which coincided with the London Olympics. Sadly, I did not attend any events.  However, one night over a cold beer in my hotel room I watched two women cyclists, the 2008 gold medal winner Victoria Pembleton and the 2008 silver medallist Anna Meares, slog it out in the women’s sprint. It was an intense battle of stamina and wills and in the mesmerising trussell Anna Meares eventually triumphed.

So, who is Anna Meares?

Anna was Australia’s first female cycling gold medallist. She was an 11 times world cycling champion and the only Australian athlete to win medals at four consecutive Olympics.

Meares, was a daughter of a coalminer and grew up in Blackwater central Queensland hundreds of kilometres from the nearest bike track.  When her elder sister Kerrie showed promise as a cyclist the family moved to the coastal city of Rockhampton as it had a bike track.

  • Athens 2004 – gold medal in women’s 500-metre time trial, bronze medal in 200m sprint
  • Beijing 2008 – silver medal in women’s sprint
  • London 2012 – gold medal in the women’s in and bronze medal in the women’s team sprint
  • Rio de Janeiro 2016 – bronze medal in the keirin

These results are remarkable but there is something that is exceptional about her Olympic record.  In January 2008 seven months out from the Beijing Olympics, Meares broke her neck after crashing in the World Cup competition, fracturing her C2 vertebra, dislocating her right shoulder and tearing her ligaments and tendons. She went within 2 mm of becoming a paraplegic or worse death. Within 10 days she was back on her bike. With intensive rehabilitation she was able to fight her way back and qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Not only did she manage to qualify, but she also won a silver medal. From a broken neck to a silver medal in seven months – a truly remarkable performance.

Whilst her dedication and intense training to get fit enough to qualify and win a medal is testament to her intense focus and a clear goal (link here) there is something that is more compelling. It was her attitude. She did not focus on ‘what if’ but ‘what is’. Meares do not dwell on what might have happened if she’d been more seriously injured. Her coach made her appreciate her current situation. She was thankful and became more determined and focussed.

As managers, Anna Meares provides us with a great lesson.

Focus on what you can achieve – what’s in front of you. Don’t dwell on what you can’t control.

Four years later in London, Meares went on to win a gold and a bronze medal in Rio.

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A Winter Olympics story ….doing a Bradbury

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Doing a Bradbury…

“I don’t think I’ll take the medal as the minute and a half of the race I actually won. I’ll take it as the last decade of the hard slog I put in”

Steven Bradbury – Gold Medal Winner 2002 Winter Olympics

With the end of the 2022 Winter Olympics comes a great story from the past.

So, who was Steven Bradbury and why did he become famous?

In 2002 Bradbury was the first athlete from Australia, and also the Southern Hemisphere to win a Winter Olympic Gold Medal. He was a former short track speed skater, a four-time Olympian and was also a member of the short track relay team that won Australia’s first Winter Olympic medal, a Bronze Medal in 1994.

So apart from being the first Australian athlete to win a Winter Olympics Gold Medal what was he famous for?

It was in the manner of his win. Bradbury slipped into the 1,000m speed skating final when two of his competitors in the semi-final crashed and another was disqualified. In the final, in the last lap as his competitors jostled for medal positions, Bradbury drifted further and further behind. With just metres from the finish line, a pile-up took out every other skater and avoiding the collision, he glided past to claim the Gold Medal.

His win entered the Australian colloquial vernacular in the phrase “doing a Bradbury” meaning an unexpected or unusual success.

However, there is more to this than chance. Bradbury was from tropical Queensland, not a state conducive to winter sports. He travelled the world, living hand to mouth to complete internationally, and competed in four Winter Olympics. At one stage he needed to borrow $1000 from his parents to repair his car so he could get to training. He supported himself by making skating boots in a home workshop. The years of hard work and training included nearly bleeding to death when a skate blade cut an artery requiring 111 stiches in 1994. Also in 1998, he fractured his vertebrae.

What are the lessons here for business owners and managers?

  • Hard work and sacrifice pay off.

In our logistics business there were times when a key customer left putting the business under pressure. However, with the previous hard work in networking and business development they were quickly replaced. Success can be a matter of luck, but it rarely is.  

  • Having a goal and vision

Bradbury’s goal was to win an Olympic medal on his own. The 2002 Olympics was his last chance. Despite his setbacks he hung in there, even when it looked increasingly unlikely that he would be successful, he succeeded and achieved his goal.

  • Being in the race

Yes, Bradbury’s tactic was to hang in there. This paid off as his rivals slipped, crashed and went spinning wildly across the ice. We had a customer in our logistics business who tendered for a lucrative post office franchise at an Australian airport. He was 5th or 6th in line, and eventually won the tender as his competitors were one by one, disqualified as being unsuitable, for reasons ranging from having a criminal record to no experience.

The Stephen Bradbury saga is a great story that resonates.  

Can you think of some other lessons?

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Do you a have business risk management plan?

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16. Example of Risk Matrix V4

Do you a have business risk management plan?

‘The kinds of errors that cause plane crashes are invariably errors of teamwork and communication’

 Malcolm Gladwell – Canadian author and journalist

Being in business is a risk, and it is a challenge for businesses to manage that risk. Risk varies from business to business, from industry to industry and from country to country. Every business will have inherent risks. A business that handles cash, for example, is more susceptible to theft than a quarrying business with stockpiles of raw materials.

What is business risk?

It is an event or situation that has a negative effect on your business. This can range from additional costs caused by the risk to situations that threaten the business itself. Risks can never be completely eliminated. However, they can be managed and controlled.

There are two broad types of risk:

  • internal risks that are primarily related to what happens inside the business
  • external risks where events and actions affect the business from the outside.

As business owners and managers, it is our responsibility to manage business risk. For example, workplace safety is a managerial responsibility and a serious incident can have a substantial negative impact on the business.

How can business risks be identified?

  • The first step is identifying all the risks that could potentially negatively affect the business. Discuss these initially with the management team, dividing them into internal and external risks. For example, in a mining company, external risks could include country or sovereign risk, weather risk, exchange rate risk and economic risk. Internal risks could include operational risk, safety, people, customers, events such as power outages and fire, and reputational risks.
  • The second step, after identifying the risks, is to assess each of the risks. In my experience, the most effective method is to develop a risk matrix where severity or consequence is rated against the likelihood of the event occurring. Effective communication and consultation with the management team and other stakeholders will improve the quality of the risk assessment. For example, involve an expert in IT to help assess the risk of data breaches and system breakdowns.

Risk Management Matrix

  • The third step, after assessing and ranking the risks, is to develop a risk management plan. There is an international standard (IEC/ISO 31010for risk management, which covers identification, analysis, evaluation, monitoring and reviewing risk. This process is very detailed and involves other disciplines such as finance, safety and human resources.

The management of risks falls into four main areas:

  1. Avoidance – eliminate the risk. A good example is decommissioning dangerous machinery.
  2. Reduce – actions that mitigate the risk. In warehousing, where the risks of manual handling injuries are high, place limits on carton weights and have regular ‘toolbox’ safety meetings to reinforce the importance of using equipment safely and reporting heavy or awkward stock items.
  3. Share – transfer, insure or outsource. Some obvious examples include insuring against events such as fire and accidents, and outsourcing transport services to a third party who have managerial expertise in this area.
  4. Retain – accept the risk and have a plan to manage it. In transport, this could include improved selection of drivers, driver training and ensuring vehicles are maintained to the highest standard.

The risk management plan should have the identified risks listed in a risk register. It should include the following:

  1. Responses – actions to mitigate the risk
  2. Contingency plan – plan if mitigation strategy fails
  3. Risk rating – severity, likelihood and residual
  4. Trigger – what is likely to trigger the risk occurring
  5. Owner-manager or person responsible.

Although not all risks can be eliminated – and some risks are inherent in the industry or business – having a plan, monitoring and reviewing the risks regularly, and updating the plan when required is good practice. The collapse of McAleese Transport  is an example of how poor management of mitigating risks can have severe implications on a business and its employees. In conclusion, the risk management plan should include a crisis management plan.

What are the risks in your business?

Can you categorise the risks easily into consequence and likelihood?

Are they in your risk management plan?

Management lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall…

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Management lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall…

“The Wall will be standing in 50 and even in 100 years”

Erich Honecker – East German head of state, January 19th 1989

Over thirty years ago, the Berlin Wall came down. The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that cut off West Berlin from the surrounding Communist State of East Germany. Over 140 kilometres long, it was built in 1961 to prevent East Germans from escaping to West Berlin. From the early 1950s to 1961, nearly 20% of the East German population left the country for West Germany.

On 9th November 1989, with crowds mounting in East Berlin the East German authorities announced the end of travel restrictions and opened up several checkpoints for visits to West Berlin.  Thousands swept through the checkpoints. Soon Berliners from the East and West began dancing on top of the wall and breaking off pieces of the wall. The fall of the Berlin Wall triggered a revolutionary wave that ultimately redrew the map of Europe, bringing down the Iron Curtain and setting millions of people free. Within two years, the Soviet Union and its empire also fell.

For 28 years the wall kept people in, and kept people out, separating and dividing families and friends, dividing Germany and the European continent. Over 5,000 people had escaped over this time and sadly an estimated 200 plus people died trying to escape from East Berlin to West Berlin. No one tried to escape from the West to the East.

My father believed that he would never see the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in his lifetime. I can clearly remember him saying this to us at the family Christmas in 1989. The current thinking at the time was that Communism’s rise was inevitable. Very few ‘experts’ predicted or expected that eventually Communism would collapse, let alone so quickly, and that Russia would lose its status as a world super-power.

What are the three management lessons from the fall of the Berlin Wall?

  1. The power of a vision. On 12th June 1987 US President Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and demanded “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” His words were largely ignored by the international media. Many so-called foreign policy experts dismissed Reagan’s demand as naïve and sensationalist.

There are few things more powerful for a business than having a clear and concise vision. Amazon’s vision is “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavours to offer its customers the lowest possible prices”. Amazon’s current market penetration and size is testament to their vision.

  1. Things can get better rather than worse. The worst-case scenario may not happen, particularly when people put their minds to achieving positive change. Very often we are subjected to negative media stories. We regularly hear people spreading such sentiments inside organisations.

Never under estimate what positive outcomes can be achieved with great leadership and teamwork. Everyday we are subjected to non-positive messages that make us believe our future is not in our hands. Like the East Berliners in 1989, by believing that we can escape from a prison-like environment, whether physical or mental, we can set ourselves free and make positive change.  The dismantling of the Berlin Wall is a reminder of how the seemingly impossible can became the inevitable and if there is the will to make it happen.

  1. Predicting the future is dangerous. Sadly, we tend to lean on so-called ‘experts’ who advise us and write books predicting the future. However, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the associated collapse of Communism caught almost everyone by surprise. We should be sceptical of people who claim they can predict the future.

In the late 1800s The Times predicted that “In 50 years, every street in London will be buried under nine feet of manure”. This became known as the “Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894”.  The invention of the motor transport and Henry Ford’s assembly line production of motorcars at affordable prices changed this ‘expert’ prediction. By 1912, less than 20 years after this prediction there were more cars than horses in London. Furthermore, they were cheaper to own and use than a horse.

What are the 3 concluding messages from the fall of the Berlin Wall?

  • Change is evitable.
  • Things do not remain the same.
  • Whatever you are doing today will not be good enough for the future.

Certainly, the failure of Communism to adapt and change assisted in its downfall. This is the same for organisations. Many of the great corporations of times past no longer exist.

So, what is your business doing to recognise the evitability of change?

What should you be changing so your business not only survives but thrives?

One small step…

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One small step…

“I believe that this Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”
John F Kennedy – USA President

Over 50 years ago on 20th July, 1969, the whole world watched as Neil Armstrong became the first human to step onto the surface of the moon. It was witnessed by a global audience of over an estimated 600 million people. This was an amazing one-fifth of the world’s population.

The importance of this event at the time was indescribable. At the time, our family did not own a TV. In 1969, TVs in Australia were expensive, costing well over one month’s average wage. My parents had decided to rent a TV to watch the moon landing. This was how important this event was. At the time I was in primary school. The school also hired a TV and we all watched the event live on a grainy screen, and importantly for me as a 10 year old, lessons were cancelled for the day. In those days there was no the audio-visual equipment or computers in schools. Everybody was talking about man landing on the moon.

What are the management lessons from this historic event?

President Kennedy’s 1961 speech is one of the best examples of a vision statement, as within the decade, man had landed on the moon and returned safely.  However, it is important to remember that the moon landing was the result of decades of work by hundreds of thousands of people working across the disciplines of science, technology, and engineering, peaking at a cost of 4.41% of the Federal US budget in 1966.

How important is it for an organisation to have a vision?

A vision is a picture or an idea. It helps focus us on the future, provides inspiration and assists in overcoming the obstacles that inevitably appear along the way. A vision is a target. It should be aspirational, perhaps like the concept of a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) in Jim Collins’ book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, and be successfully communicated throughout the organisation.

Another example of the power of an aspirational vision is Rotary International’s End Polio Now program. In 1979 Clem Renouf, the Australian President of Rotary International read about in the Readers Digest how smallpox had been eradicated. After discussing this with a medical expert, he asked what other diseases could be eradicated. He was told that polio was one such disease. Renouf then proposed a vision where the world could be polio free. At the time, more than 350,000 people were infected by polio each year across 125 countries. Later that year Rotary’s Board of Directors passed a resolution for a program for “the eradication of poliomyelitis and the alleviation of its consequences” throughout the world.  Subsequently, in 1985 the End Polio Now program was adopted with the aim of eradicating polio worldwide. With so many countries where polio was still endemic, this was a challenging vision, a BHAG.

Rotary initiated the program and together with the support of UNICEF, WHO and other organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have now almost achieved Clem Renouf’s original vision. in 2018, only 33 cases of polio were reported in just two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan. At times there were difficulties in overcoming cultural suspicion, low levels of education, training staff to manage and administer the program, political insurgencies and geographical remoteness. However, despite these obstacles, the original vision ensured the program continued and it is now almost complete.

What other lessons are there for managers in man landing on the moon and the ending polio program?

Apart from an inspiring vision, it demonstrated the importance of having a plan behind the vision. Furthermore, the moon landing is a lesson in perseverance and determination. In less than 10 years from Kennedy’s vision speech, Apollo 11 landed on the moon and the astronauts returned safely to earth. Great strides were made in technological advances in rockets, computers and other space-age materials and innovations. The Apollo Program required integrated circuits which lead to the development of micro-electronics connecting the world. This gave us pocket calculators, home computers, mobile phones, iPads and other high-tech devices. An inspiring vision can lead to other remarkable and beneficial outcomes. Today we can see the positive impact of Apollo Program everywhere.

There are a number of websites and other sources that provide methodologies on how to create a vision statement for your organisation. As can be demonstrated from the above two examples, strong and clear visions are powerful tools and can provide a framework for the future. The future can be positively changed for the better. This is the case with any organisation.

Visions should be compiled into a vision statement in a suitable form to communicate to staff, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Vision statements define goals and assist in creating a path for the future. Just look at the Apollo Program and End Polio Now.

Does your organisation have a vision statement?

If not, do you think that the organisation would benefit from having a vision statement followed by a well-constructed plan behind the vision?