The benefits and risks of teams working remotely Over the past few years, beliefs about how, where, and when work is performed have shifted, and emplo...
Charities are at the heart of social ecosystems and play a vital role in building and sustaining flourishing communities. Yet, charities face several ...
Articles on Governance and Leadership in Purpose Driven Organisations.
Governance
From Inc to Ltd: Making the change to Company Limited by Guarantee
Not-for-profit (NFP) organisations face more demand for structure, accountability and transparency than ever before. Not only are there more NFPs that are growing into multi-million and multi-billion dollar entities, but there are also more public and government expectations of NFPs than in the past. In line with this trend, NFPs around Australia have been transferring from incorporated association to company limited by guarantee and this trend continues to grow, especially in increasingly competitive markets.
Better Boards
How to Embed Cultural Safety in Healthcare Governance
Cultural safety for Australia’s First Peoples (which includes the terms Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islanders, and Indigenous Australians) has emerged as a key principle to address for healthcare executives through organisational governance. However, there are no guidelines that Boards Directors can use to restructure their governance practices to become culturally safe. This article provides some cultural safety principles for Board Directors to consider when responding to the demands of legislators, accreditors, professional associations, and healthcare staff for healthcare governance to become culturally safe.
Dr Mark Lock
Strategy & Risk
Listen: Take Notice of and Act on What Someone Says
“First of all,” he said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view …until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”1 Many of us have been consumers and carers. Whether it’s shopping, queuing for an event, visiting a GP, picking kids up after school, or supporting an ageing parent.
Shane Rendalls
Keeping it Simple by Emphasising Purpose
Complexity abounds in modern organisations, including in their boards. Many organisations – of all sizes – are run as if they are bureaucracies, with lots of hierarchy and lots of organisational rules. Of course, some hierarchy and some rules can be appropriate and can help organisations achieve their missions. However, there is an increasing trend towards challenging bureaucracies from thought leaders such as Ricardo Semler of Brazilian company Semco; Frederic Laloux and his influential book Reinventing Organizations; and Yves Morieux of Boston Consulting Group and his six rules for simplifying organisations.
Alan Hough
How Cost Effective is Your Board?
The job of the board is to direct. That involves making decisions about what to do, how to organise, and who to engage with to further the purpose of the organisation. Those decisions, if taken reasonably and well, will require management support. Increased demands for governance reporting and enhanced diversity will impact not-for-profit company boards in many ways. The three of the most feared are: a possible imposition of direct board costs as new independent professional directors demand recompense for the time, effort and risk involved in the role the increased cost of servicing a larger board, especially in the crucial first few months of each appointment when directors’ demands for information are often at their highest the ever growing costs of providing reports requested or expected by external stakeholders that are diligently reviewed by the board yet add little value to their decision-making.
Julie Garland McLellan
The Three-Wheel Framework of Customer-Centricity
We are now living in a world where customers have more choices than ever before and organisations face the challenge of distinguishing themselves from the dozens of nearly identical providers, products and services. Adopting a customer-centric approach is one approach to tackling this test for organisations. What is customer-centricity? Customer-centricity refers to the strategy of putting customers front and centre in the organisation’s strategy and activities. Customer-centric organisations are designed from the outside in: defining who the customer is, what they care about, and how they interact with the organisation.
Wenda Gumulya
Are you ‘Processful’ or ‘Purposeful’ – A Governance Dilemma
I recently went overseas to a country that I knew would challenge me in many ways… an experience I relished. I enjoyed what the country had to offer in attractions and experiences, and observed a growing economy striving to adopt as much western culture as possible. This seemed impressive on the surface, however, the more I got curious the more I noticed the ‘busyness’ of the people: they were busy trying to be efficient but, were failing to be effective.
Chris Scott
Association Boards: Getting to "Yay!"
Board consensus is not about reaching lowest common denominator, grudging agreements, but about making decisions together that board members accept and can actively support, particularly when communicating them to stakeholders and association members. While all boards have their unique quirks and strengths, association boards can face particular challenges in reaching genuine consensus for action on major strategic issues. Here are three key challenges I’ve identified as experienced by many associations, and some practical, easy-to-implement ideas for overcoming them.
Rosie Yeo
How Innovation Can Help You Do More With Less
There is probably not a single organisation in Australia that is trying to do less work with more resources. It simply doesn’t happen. On the flipside, thousands of organisations both in the public and private sectors are trying to do more with less – a much more challenging proposition. The role for innovation in solving this proposition is a significant one. However, many companies associate innovation solely with customer-facing, product or service innovations.
Amantha Imber
Board Performance & Metrics
Documenting Customer-Centricity
It would be hard to find a business that did not place customer-centricity as a priority and not-for-profits have in recent times started to catch on. However, customers for many not-for-profit organisations will differ from that of a for-profit organisation. For not-for-profits, the “customer” could range from the beneficiaries of the organisation, to their supporters, stakeholders, members or clients. Customer-Centric Constitution Customer-centricity will often require a cultural shift, and fundamental to any sort of cultural shift in this sector is an organisation’s documentation.
Vera Visevic