Ron Anderson was a young graduate when he was appointed deputy manager in the production department of Scott International. He had been a supervisor in a similar company before deciding to take up full-time study to improve his managerial skills.
Scott International is a large reputable company that manufactures and supplies springs to customers ranging from scale manufacturers to car manufacturers. It was set up about 40 years ago as a small garage by the Scott brothers, who are now on the board of directors. The company holds several substantial contracts, covering about 70% of the local market for the product. Scott International has five departments: accounts, sales, production, marketing and personnel. Each department manager is responsible for meeting his department’s budget allocations. The general manager is responsible to the board of directors.
The company has no marketing problems and sells well in advance by contract everything it can produce. The buyers deal with the company mainly because of its reliability in meeting delivery dates. In order to enlist high-quality staff the company pays above-average ind
Barbara Derham is director of Derham’s Foreshore Motor Inn in Whyalla. She has had 28 years experience in the accommodation industry, and was the first woman to chair Flag International, of which she remains a board member. She was the deputy mayor of the City of Whyalla and is a member of the Tourism Commission of South Australia. She has held many civic positions. She is married with four children. During the interview she was working at the motor inn switchboard to get some front-line experience, which she does once a month. She was interrupted by seven phone calls.
AIM: What do you consider the most important elements of management?
Derham: I would say having good leadership skills and being a good communicator and a good listener.
AIM: What do you understand “good leadership” to mean?
Derham: I see leadership as being concerned with setting a good example, whether it be in behavior, dress or manners. I don’t believe a good manager can lead unless they can do the job themselves: if you are a bank manager you should spend time being a teller; if you manage chefs you should be a qualif
There is no simple formula for credit control: it is a question of constant diligence. By Neil Macdonald
Neglect has been the cause of many business failures. It can happen that a business places itself at risk by the problem of rapidly mounting debtors accounts, particularly where one or two major clients who have previously proved reliable encounter cashflow difficulties.
This phenomenon is particularly evident in times of tight liquidity, when even long-standing clients can let a company down. The business’s reluctance to call a halt, and to withhold the supply of goods and services until some arrangement has been made to settle the arrears, is likely to cost them dearly, and place their own futures in jeopardy. Experience shows that this particularly applies where major building and construction contractors are involved.
Clear credit guidelines should be established prior to accepting business. Where relevant, these should include a Romalpa Clause in the Conditions of Sale, ie an agreement whereby the goods supplied remain the property of the supplier until paid for. However, the goods must be identifiable a
While physicists argue the possibilities of the existence of multiple universes, big business is creating multiple universities. By Leon Gettler
In Lilliput and Brobdingnag, Gulliver discovered that growth is not everything. But Jonathan Swift’s hero probably learned something even more important when he visited Laputa.
There he discovered linguists streamlining language by cutting polysyllables into one. These learned scholars were developing a type of discourse that left out verbs and participles. This was based on the understanding that every word was in effect a noun because it named something. In fact, some linguists were even working on eliminating words altogether and having men carry around the things being named.
Knowledge, we are told, is the essence of competitive advantage. But as Gulliver discovered, there is no advantage in knowledge without wisdom. A detailed linear didactic underpinned by a rigid world view is no way of staying ahead of the pack.
Hence the emphasis on the so-called “learning organisation” where learning is encouraged and where raw knowledge is transformed into
Co-operative Whitegoods makes electric and gas kitchen cookers. It once formed part of Stockton Industries, which also made enamel baths, basins and sanitary wares.
In 1989 Stockton decided to sell the cooker division. However, no buyer responded to Stockton’s offer, at which point it decided to close the division, and sell the factory and land.
The workers investigated the market with a view to forming their own company. Market research showed that prospects were good. So a deal was arranged between the division’s management, the workers and Stockton.
At the end of 1989, the new company was incorporated. More than 50% of the shares in the company were in the hands of management and the directors it elected. However, all workers bought shares. The factory and land were bought through a secured loan from Stockton.
The company employs 430 people, and most are process-workers. About 63% were born outside Australia, and many others are the children of immigrants. The workforce is almost evenly divided between men and women.
The main union covering the blue-collar workers is the Metal Fabricators
The Reverend Doctor Gordon Moyes is superintendent of the Wesley Mission, the largest local-church organisation in Australia. He hosts the weekly television program Turn Round Australia and a four-hour weekly talk-back radio program Sunday Night Live with Gordon Moyes. He is president of the Rotary Club of Sydney, a member of the 1996 Prime Minister’s National Task Force on Youth Homelessness, and chairman of the board of several media and insurance companies. He has been married to Beverly since 1959 and has four children.
AIM: Why have you shown such an interest in management?
Moyes: As a minister of religion I undertook a study in the mid-1960s to see why churches in Australia do not usually grow beyond 250 people. In the United States churches often have between 5000 and 10,000 people. In South Korea, it can be in the hundreds of thousands. I concluded that it is because ministers are not taught management skills. So I went to some management courses at AIM and the Mount Eliza Business School.
AIM: Did you confirm that management skills are crucial?
Moyes: Of my own staff of 2000 people, 997 of them w
Every manager needs to master the skills for chairing a meeting. An effectively chaired meeting will have the participants leaving with a sense of accomplishment and a clear understanding of future direction and task. Here are some pointers.
Start on Time
When you wait for newcomers, you penalise those who have arrived on time and you reward late arrivals. Before long, everyone will arrive late. So, how do you get people to your meetings on time? Start on time! Always.
Get the meeting off to a business-like start
Welcome other participants, introduce them and yourself. If necessary, explain their roles. Clarify the objectives of the meeting, ensuring that each member understands the task and is aware of the expertise available in the group.
Preview and confirm the agenda
Check that each member publicly agrees with the stated objective of each item, ensuring that all irrelevant or hidden agendas become redundant. Indicate the successful criteria for a meeting and how the group will decide or know when the outcomes are achieved.
Focus continually on your objectives
Keep the meeting’s
Charismatic leaders seem to be naturals. What we need is a way of producing them. By James Dunn
In the movie Back to School, starring US comedian Rodney Dangerfield, the main character finds himself in a business lecture at a university. The scene is a comic version of the challenges that face Australia’s leaders, challenges that will not be solved by attending business courses on leadership.
Dangerfield is a self-made millionaire men’s wear retailer in his fifties who has gone to university to try to coax his troubled son through the academic year. He is fidgeting through a business lecture that exemplifies the classic Ivy League “bus school” approach.
The stuffy lecturer is describing the costs of a theoretical business start-up: wages, factory, power, and so on. Dangerfield rolls his eyes and groans to the point where he can take no more, and interrupts with, “No, you left out heaps of stuff!” At which point the lecturer sneeringly demands to know what he has left out.
“You left out bribes to the planning authority for your factory, kickbacks to the council and grea
You have been employed as a consultant to assist the management of House Canteens create a more productive and co-operative climate in one of their canteens. House Canteens has had the contract for provision of food services to a large hospital for one contract period. It is keen to improve productivity and ensure that the contract is renewed.
The operation consists of more than 50 people, including seven managers and 40 canteen staff. Numerous complaints have been made about the standard of food provided by House Canteens, and absenteeism among canteen staff has increased.
Management and union delegates are chronically suspicious of each other: a suspicion growing from a long history of industrial difficulties, and from the style of senior management and union delegates, who each regard “the other side” as obstructive. House Canteens has also inherited an enterprise agreement that is not to the liking of management or staff, and is a further obstacle in the company’s efforts to improve services in the canteen. Union members are as dissatisfied with their union representatives as with management.
Professional lobbyists are an accepted part of political life. But are they perverters of democracy or purveyors of community sentiment? By Adele Ferguson
Napoleon, the bolshevist pig in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, revised one of his seven commandments from “All animals are equal” to “Some animals are more equal than others”. He might have had lobbyists in mind.
It is said that when it comes to democracy, lobbyists promise they can get you as much “equal” representation as you can afford. But the tales bandied around about lobbyists do not really reflect the reality. Although left-leaning commentators might complain of lobbyists as perverters of democracy, no modern political system functions without them.
Lobbying is as much a part of business and politics as accounting, marketing or any other professional discipline. It is, after all, one of the oldest professions in the world. From a peasant delegation asking for an increased allocation of grain to a sophisticated multinational corporation seeking a broadcasting licence, the concept is the same. Classic economic theory tea