Category Archives: Australian Indigenous

Create Systems and Procedures for Your Office

For many Indigenous corporations, there is a huge gap between what management knows should be done, and what actually gets done. Substantial management time is taken, particularly in administrative matters, reinventing the wheel, doing the same thing in different ways, taking longer to do something that was done efficiently yesterday, and making mistakes along the way. But imagine if your corporation were a business franchise. Have you ever seen a good franchise like McDonald's or Coffee Club produce different products from store to store? No matter where you go or when you go, everything happens exactly the same way, taking exactly the same time, producing exactly the same result. How do you get those outcomes for your corporation? (more…)...
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Managing Conflicts of Interest

Directors of a corporation incorporated under the Corporations Act and the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act have a duty to avoid conflicts of interest. This duty is derived from statutory provisions, as well as common law, and this duty requires Directors to exercise their powers and discharge their duties with reasonable care and diligence, act in good faith in the best interests of the corporation, not use their position to gain an advantage for themselves or a third party, and not to improperly use information gained through their position to obtain an advantage for themselves, a third party, or to cause a detriment to the corporation. (more…)...
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What Does Your Vision Statement Mean?

Let me ask those of you who are Chairpersons, Directors and CEO's of Indigenous organisations: "Do you really know what your vision statement means?" Do you know what your organisation will look like when you have got there? How will your people behave in the future - do they behave as the vision statement imagines they might? I have been helping Indigenous organisations prepare strategic and business plans for decades. All too often, I see organisations with a Vision Statement that is printed in plans, brochures, documents and written on the "About Us" page of their websites. And yet, when I ask those questions, although people might say "sure, we do," they can rarely translate their vision into concrete steps and goals to help them actually work towards their vision. All too often the published Vision Statement is a nice set of words that don't mean anything in their work. I have to ask, why don't people make more of their Vision Statement? Why isn't their Vision Statement the ultimate goal of all planning and operational management? How do you make it so? (more…)...
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Managing People? Learn about 3 skills

Yes, we have read about "Leadership" and how that is different from "Management". Yes, we are well aware that moving a large group of people towards common goals require vision and the ability to translate that vision to the employees. Yes, we are clear about how productive a vibrant and self-motivated workforce can be. But wait, what if we are talking about managing rather than leading (some of us remain "managers" of people after all). What if we are talking about managing the work of individuals? After all you can't "lead" 50 individuals individually. What do you have to do? Here's my suggestions:- 1. Learn to delegate, and delegate properly, making sure the objective is clear, the authorisation is approved, and the tools are available, as well as be clear about how often and how you want to be informed. 2. Learn to push different buttons. You will be managing a number of individuals that make up a team, but each individual will be of different ages, different experiences and be in different financial and social circumstances. Understand what makes them tick and push the buttons that motivate them. 3. Learn to work with different motivating forces - I accept good teams can display coherent behaviours...
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OTS Management