Finding Your Voice

The imperative to find your voice and to exercise independence in thinking is demonstrative of mature, adult thinking. While browsing through Steven Covey's excellent The Eighth Habit I was reminded of so much that has happened in my humble career and even more so by that which has not come to pass for others. Since my early childhood education until now I have never understood why some people choose to excel and others not to. To borrow from Covey, some of my peers have found their own voices but others have not. As a result, those who have not done so continue to miss out on the opportunity to achieve their potential.

My wife reminds me that as a teacher it is part of her role, if not her primary task, to help her students each find his or her individual voice in the classroom. Teaching primary school is the place to build the foundation for a lifetime of learning. Every subject demands an understanding of the material and of the student the ability to express the knowledge through demonstration of skills in, for example, reading and writing, spelling and grammar, arithmetic, and algebra, spatial perception and geometry, geography and map reading, and so on.

In any school it is important, perhaps even more so in the multicultural school where she teaches, for the students to be able to speak of and among themselves, to their peers beyond the classroom, to their parents, their teachers and as budding members of the greater community. In other words, to discover themselves and their place in society and to find their voice.

Almost without fail I believe the ultimate reason many individuals fail to capitalise on their opportunities in the workplace is that the organisations where they begin their careers and the managers for whom they work have failed in their duty to mentor their young employees. The very same organisations suffer through lack of initiative and the absence of pervasive and courageous risk taking because the managers have failed to be leaders and their charges within the organisation have not found their voices.

The pedagogical conundrum whereby an approach using direct instruction based on B. F. Skinner may evaporate the curiosity of the young student or an alternative of Maria Montessori, where children are considered competent users of auto-didactic materials, similar to the child-centred constructivism of Jean Piaget, where the failure to offer clear guidance for his little philosophers may be like the absence of a guide stick for a growing plant. It is necessary but not sufficient to provide intellectual nourishment to those who are learning.

Teachers in the classroom and mentors in the workplace are facilitators of learning. The removal of barriers, the provision of resources and opening the eyes of their respective charges to opportunity requires leadership borne of confidence and self knowledge. Half-hearted reticence, ill-considered ideas and knowledge only half known by the teacher or manager is a recipe to dissuade the enjoyment and pursuit of learning, achievement and scholarship.

One of the proximate causes of the failure to provide leadership is the axiomatic condemnation in some quarters of the socratic method, for example, whereby questions are asked in order to challenge the other. The notion that self-worth is determined not be correctness, self awareness and knowledge but some arbitrary sense of self esteem is the antithesis of learning and itself condemns many students to lifetimes of mediocrity.

Steve Fuller in Kuhn versus Popper: the Struggle for the Soul of Science speaks of the Kierkegaardian concept that Karl Jaspers terms anxiety towards the unknown that a child feels during the learning process of growing up. In my experience this is akin to the uncertainty that young adults feel when moving from their first role or job and onto the next.

The first software package, the first accounting system, the first theory of management sticks as the preferred one even if better alternative are found by later experience, in a strange twist on imprinting, described by Konrad Lorentz to David Attenborough and related in Life on Air, as the attachment that young nestling retain for their parents when fully fledged. Whereas a young fledgling bird could be fooled into imprinting to a cameraman in place of its actual parents it seems that young software engineers can be fooled into tacit acceptance of certain technologies or platforms in place of apparently superior approaches.

This approach-imprinting seems to apply in most fields and is reinforced by the acceptance that to succeed in the workplace it is easier to go with the flow and the accept the status quo rather than to propose alternative, superior view points. It is easier to accede to the extant practices and to do as one is told rather than to intelligently and respectfully question habits that are ingrained. The courage and conviction to speak out and go against the grain takes more than just the knowledge but also the voice to do so.

I have always immersed myself in reading and bookshops provide me with a ready supply of material to support my habit. I was standing in the book shop, browsing, reading of science, mathematics, architecture and other random subjects when I picked up Steven Covey's recent book. In my cursory reading of Covey's The Eighth Habit, I had an epiphany that crystallised my own musings about the path to be traversed personally and professionally in order to step out of a mindset of success and into a reality of excellence. The negative mindset is typified by a story that goes something like this:

When ever she cooks a pot roast the lady of the house always cuts a slice of meat from the end of the piece of meat and throws it away. Eventually my curiosity got the better of me so I asked about the significance of the practice. "I don't know but my mother always did it so I do too." Of course this only piqued my curiosity further so I contacted the lady's mother and asked why she cuts the meat this way. Slightly embarrassed she asked the grandmother to be rewarded with the reply that "It's the only way it fits into my pot."

A colleague recalls a similar story of his one-time workplace. This company works in high technology and has a brace of highly-qualified, experienced and technically competent software engineers. He suggested to the software engineers that they should amend one specific practice and change the design for reasons that he gives clearly and reasonably in technical and common terms they can easily understand.

The others decline with the reason that the process says to do this and that and they proceed to defend the current practice with vigour. He explained to them that the reasons he himself personally introduced the practice, and indeed wrote the long-past dated document, no longer apply. My colleague has found his voice but some of the others only parrot what they hear rather than speak with their own voices.

Find your voice and help others to find theirs.

Philanthropy, Innovation & Higher Education

The title and many of the ideas in this posting are credited to The Hon. Julie Bishop MP, Minister for Education, Science and Training and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women's Issues. Julie Bishop is a cabinet minister in the government of John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia and on this occasion was as invited speaker at the AICC(WA)'s Curtin Zernike Dell Innovation Series 2006 with events partner The West Australian.

This being the first AICC event that I had attended I was suitably impressed by the quality of organisation, the introduction and thank you by the various speakers that framed lunch and the main event, Julie Bishop's talk. My reasons for attending are very good ones: I have an interest in technology and innovation from a business perspective, and in higher education from a professional view of giving back to the community that has given me so much more than a career.

The timing of this talk melds with my recent invitation onto the Engineering Industry Advisory Committee (EIAC) of Murdoch University. The discussion about philanthropy in higher education and the importance of lower-school and secondary education also struck deep chords with me. It was also my pleasure to meet up with some old friends and make some new acquaintances.

Prof. Jeanette Hackett, Vice Chancellor, Curtin University of Technology made the introductory remarks and painted the picture of an extraordinarily successful local university, of particular interest to myself, having five streams of engineering and having strong Information and Communications Technology (ICT) that is closely associated with Technology Park. Tellingly, Prof. Hackett notes that at $10B per annum higher education is Australia's fourth largest export industry and is fundamentally important as a contributor to the social and cultural capital of society.

The Hon. Julie Bishop opened with a little joke about a recent presentation to cabinet that felt a bit like having 17 education ministers in this country. She identified several critical capabilities to compete:

• Global engagement. International collaboration, partnerships with India, China and France are in place and identified US, UK, Israel and Singapore as others where attention should be paid.
• Quality of research. The Research Quality Framework (RQF) has been proposed as a world leading initiative in international benchmarking of the quality and impact of research.
• Leading edge, high calibre infrastructure. National Infrastructure Strategy.
• Astronomy is an area of Australian excellence. $20M has been earmarked on new tech demonstrator. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) needs open space, no noise and Western Australia is ideal (shortlisted with South Africa). $2B international, collaborative project.
• Diversity in higher education. 37 public, comprehensive universities need to change as standing still is no longer good enough. End of Dawkins mediocrity.
• Primary and secondary education standards. Teaching as a profession needs teachers to be highly regarded and valued, paid on performance and great teachers should be treasured.
• Connections and pathways between universities and industry, eg. CRC (Cooperative Research Centres) or mingling, estimated to have contributed over $1B to the economy.
• Backing Australia's Ability has an extra $8.3B towards science and innovation over eight years (about $1B this financial year).
• Development and retention of skills.
• OECD cash not accrual basis distorts real government spending increase if 25% over 10 years.

Business and education funding, one way through philanthropy towards revenue of higher education.

• Alumni networks where, for example, USA about $100B contributes about 20% of total funding compared to 2% in Australia.
• Contribute to excellence not to core funding.
• Almost 1M people at university.
• David Murray, Chair of Future Fund, encourages culture of philanthropy.
• Ian Thorpe Foundation is a charitable trust funding schools in remote locations, eg. south of Katherine, Northern Territory, run by Jeff McMullan formerly of 60 Minutes.
• Honoured to award Certificates of Attendance to students between the ages of 5 and 13 years old for attending school for the first time.

Julie Bishop closed the formal speech with the words that education is the building block how a cohesive and productive society is founded.

Several questions from the audience elicited replies that are gems and memorable in themselves:

• Changes in university funding in 1974 as part of the Whitlam reforms made one mistake, among many, to provide university funding but not for the states to cede control, a historical quirk that leads, for instance, to state audit of federal funding.
• Small research projects are poorly supported under current regime, answering a question about possibly missing funding an innovative and successful tinnitus project she confidently spoke of Helicobacter Pylori and our local Nobel prize winners unconventional research.
• Noted that NH&MRC and ARC grants are exempted from RQF.
• Disastrous implementation of OBE is one reason to reform education system.
• Need a strong public education system.
• Reward teachers working in disadvantaged areas.

The highly regarded founder and Executive Chairman of Azure Capital John Poynton, who has held appointments to the ASX and Reserve Bank of Australia, in formerly thanking Julie Bishop remarked on her passion for the gig, having embraced public service at the highest level after Harvard Business School. In reference to our universities, he exhorts us that as alumni or as individuals to give back to those institutions.

I enjoyed the coverage and depth of Julie Bishop's considered words as invited speaker about what are effectively impediments in our education system that detract from innovation and economic performance. The closing words ring true that there are issues in education of concern to all of us that need leadership and our active participation to set right.

TransformaITonal Management

In my experience working with management of several organisation to institute change in IT processes they usually get it backwards. Hence my deliberate misspelling of transformational to clumsily insert IT into the word.

For instance, the first step usually taken when an unacceptable number of failures are reported in production software is to institute an increasingly onerous bug fixing and tracking system. The second step is to mandate a tougher testing and acceptance regime. The third step, if they haven't yet given up on the idea of writing higher quality software, is to examine the software development process in toto. If there is one at all.

Even among those who accept the commonly held truth that most bugs are introduced early in the development cycle it is rare for managers to put their best efforts into the area where they have the highest chance of success. Rather than fix the problem at its source, easy enough to identify by a simple Pareto or root-cause analysis, they will persevere with the option perceived to be the lowest-cost path with the quickest return.

The last place they look is the most obvious. Usually the barriers origin is at the boundary of the project development centre of the organisation. Poor leadership and lack of accountability leads to placement of blame with those least able to ameliorate the situation.

The steps in any project development are well understood. The strategic outlook dictates feasibility and sustainability issues relevant to projects. For each project, can it be funded and can the project outcome be sustained? By definition, projects are fixed-term endeavours with fixed resources that aim to deliver a product.

Short-term thinking easily leads project management to focus on their own risk management to the detriment of the organisation. It is easy for a project to lack focus on its requirements, to skimp on design, cobble together an implementation and deliver an inferior product on time and under budget to testing and production.

Leaving testing and support to wear the incremental cost of rectifying errors that should not have occurred in the first place. Imposing a long-tail liability on the organisation to maintain a substandard product where the project should have delivered an outcome requiring little or no recurring support and maintenance.

The solution partly involves formal processes and quality standards. I propose a quality tax. Maybe call it VVT for the Verification Validation Tax payable out of the project budget for failing to meet it obligations to verify against build process and to satisfy the users' needs.

Like a carbon tax for users of fossil fuels the goal is to encourage behavioural change.

People, People

The most important resource in any organisation is its people. Everywhere we find people we find social and professional politics. Achieving the appropriate balance is a great challenge.

Recognise that high achievers may choose to participate in these interactions or ignore them. The rest of the staff may be a victim of these machinations but almost certainly they will not be able to control it.

William Edwards Deming, best known for his association with post-war quality management and improvement in Japan, says that the worker is not the problem, rather it is management that is the problem. It is up to management to enable and empower his staff.

Ricardo Semler says something similar in Maverick insofar as managers should build processes that make their own jobs redundant while empowering staff within their circles of responsibility.

Remember that the most important resource in your organisation is your people. Nurture your staff and prosper. Ignore staff or treat them with less than the respect they deserve and expect underperformance or organisation failure.

Sustainability of your organisation depends on retaining existing staff, encouraging and supporting their professional development, and attracting high-calibre people.