Tags

  • Published on

    Too many irons in the fire?

    Governance Research
    Periodically I hear directors introduce themselves with "I'm a professional director". Sometimes, they add "I sit on XX Boards", where XX could be as high as eight or even ten Boards. Wow. Presumably this means all of their income comes from director fees, and somehow more Boards is better or more prestigious. Am I impressed? Not really.

    The core role of any director is to maximise the performance of the company they serve. But how can they do this effectively if they spread their time across as many as eight or ten Boards? Ten Boards means a maximum of two days per company each month. In this scenario, how can any director possibly understand the issues and strategic options sufficiently well to contribute effectively around the Board table? 

    Governing a company is demanding. It takes time to understand the issues. Can a director have too many irons in the fire? The stories starting to emerge in the media suggest the answer is a clear "yes".
  • Published on

    A balanced lifestyle

    Societal Wellbeing Time Management
    The latest Regus work-life balance report has just been published. Generally, people are working harder than they were two years ago. However they say they are able to manage their work and home lives adequately.

    Interestingly, workers and owners in smaller businesses are better off than in larger businesses. This surprised me, because I often hear anecdotal comments from small business owners and workers who say they work harder and longer than workers in big businesses.

    I struggle with the concept of a work-life balance. A work-life balance implies a separation between our work-life and our personal-life. Yet with the ubiquity of mobile technology, smartphones, working-from-home arrangements and an "always on" mentality, the supposed separation has become very blurred. For me, the notion of a "lifestyle balance" has much more meaning. What do you think?

    For the record, the average work-life balance across Regus' global survey of 16,000 workers in 80 countries is 124. New Zealanders punched above average with a score of 126, but near neighbours Australia returned an even higher score of 129. Maybe that's why the current net migration figures are favouring the lucky country.
  • Published on

    Not-so-straight thinking

    Most decisions we make are subject to some form of bias or pre-conditioning. Most of us think we are straight thinkers, but our biases can mess with our heads and can cause us to make poor decisions. Business Insider just published a list of 61 (yes, sixty-one) behavioural biases that can compromise the quality of the decisions we make.

    Read about them and how to deal with them here. It won't take long to work through them. I suspect the quality of the decisions you make tomorrow and in the future will be the better for it.
  • Published on

    Re-inventing New Zealand

    Governance Societal Wellbeing
    New Zealand has a proud heritage of export-led growth. For over 100 years, the world has beaten a path to our door to buy our protein and fibre. Superficially, this has been great for the nation. Export sales from our large companies grew by 40% in the four years to 2011. Yet in the last 50 years, New Zealand's OECD ranking has plummeted—from the top-5 to well into the bottom third of the list. The trouble is that our large exporters sell low margin commodities. They contribute little to the economy in real terms. And export growth in the rest of the market is languishing at less than 2%. Clearly, our smaller, aspirational companies aren’t getting the traction they need to grow.

    How should we respond to this? Do we accept our place in the world? Or should we make the changes necessary to punch above our weight as we have done so well in the past? The late Sir Paul Callaghan was right when he argued that diversification into high-value, high-margin businesses is crucial to our economic future.

    The question in my mind, having read the 2012 Budget summary and subsequent comments from MEA, interest.co.nz and others is this: “What role should the government play (if any), to kick start this reinvention of New Zealand’s economy?”