Modern corporations find that transformation and change is the new 'normal', thus their ability to manage change becomes part of everyday operations - not part of the abnormal or unusual.

If change or transformation does not contribute to the corporation's KPOs, then it shouldn't be undertaken. Therefore the ability to handle change and transformation becomes a key criterion of managerial competence.

Goals are achieved though people.

It’s common within organisations to observe managers who think that all they have to do to change things, is to announce the change and it will happen.

Rarely, if ever, is this the case.

What managers are increasingly learning is that most change within organisations affect people. If you change the way a person does his/her work, or change who he/she reports to, then you are changing the way that person thinks about what they do and who they report to, among other things.

These aspects of a person’s work life are instrumental in shaping the way they regard themselves. It shapes their self-image, their feeling of value and worth, and inevitably, their sense of security. It’s not surprising then, that changing a person’s context can have enormous impacts on them. Some people can handle well the change and the unknown, while others are impacted enormously.

When that happens, and if the people being changed don’t understand why you are doing it or how it will affect them, they will respond with some type of psychological reaction – some reactions will be noticeable and some not. Some reactions will be supportive of the change while other reactions will impede the effective implementation of the change.

However, most of these reactions are unsurprisingly negative, at least initially, and may generate stress in the employee or may trigger serious dysfunctional behaviour – either at work, at home or socially.

The management of change discipline is intended to help the organisation manage these impacts on people. At the most basic level, an effective management of change strategy:

• Prepares people for an intended change
• Explains the purpose of the change
• Explains how people will be affected by the change
• Explains how people will benefit from the change
• Explains how the work that people do will be affected by the change
• Trains people to be effective after the change
• Provides on-going feedback on how the change is performing

Therefore, an effective management of change strategy should have the following impacts on a change initiative – it will:

• Increase understanding across the organisation
• Increase understanding of the change by external stakeholders
• Decrease resistance to the change – internal and external
• Decrease stress and dysfunctional behaviour on change-impacted people
• Increase skill-preparedness of change-impacted people
• Increase confidence and cooperation
• Decrease re-work
• Decrease time needed to deal with resistance and objections

Neither strategy formulation or strategy implementation are difficult if you know what you're doing.

It’s rare that a strategy's business case will be sufficient to win the support needed through a document or presentation by itself. Many organisations are inherently political. This is often a cultural trait of the organisation often caused by fear, territorial issues and the threat of losing authority and status as a cultural characteristic as well as a result of certain types of strategies.

Don’t under-estimate the power and dysfunctional influence of this type of culture. Therefore, in order to minimise the impacts of this issue, it’s recommended that you:

• Work your audience: take the time and effort to meet with all important members of your various audiences, to talk through what is proposed, what is the likely impact on them, and what is expected of them before the strategy is implemented, during implementation and after implementation.
• Capture and record their questions, issues and their concerns. Ensure that their concerns are identified (anonymously if possible) in the business case, and discuss the manner you propose to satisfy those concerns. Ask the interviewees, for their suggested solutions. If you can 'live with' their solution to important issues and problems within the strategy, it will be harder for them to withhold approval or cooperation. The written record will protect you (and the strategy) from individuals who claim they "didn’t say that" at some future point.
• Ensure that you spend time explaining the benefits of the strategy to them and their area of responsibility. If they don’t know or aren't convinced of the benefits, then why would they support the strategy?
• Don’t leave the meeting without knowing what it will take to get their support for the strategy.

You may also encounter 'gate-keepers' through whom you need to navigate the strategy, and who don’t have a real direct interest in the strategy or who are not directly affected by it. You still need to meet with them and secure their approval too. This is usually done by explaining the benefits to them or their responsibility area from the successful implementation of the strategy.

When we contemplate the involvement of unions or labour in general in governance, not all things are totally one view or the other. It depends on the context.

When an organisation is planning (from the top) radical change, then it makes sense to seriously engage with people within (and outside of) the organisation to ensure that what is desired is achievable. That involves engagement and/or participation with people who know about the practicalities and operational aspects of the issue being considered and with those who may be impacted by it.

There is little doubt that engagement with the organisation's 'rank and file' can make life easier in the long run, even if in the short run there will be complications and tensions.

Sometimes it makes pragmatic sense to have unions participate in an initiative and sometimes it doesn't. If you don't involve them, then a change initiative becomes more dependent on effective communications and feedback and more susceptible to resistance, work disturbance and even sabotage. If you already have a toxic relationship between management and labour, then that will probably endure. If you do involve them, then a change initiative becomes more inclusive and traditional change management processes flow more reliably. Yet ultimately, it's horses for courses.

Where an organisation has successfully engaged with labour in the past and bona fides has been demonstrated by both parties, then it will be easier to engage again for mutually beneficial outcomes. Where an organisation and union or labour have had problematic experiences in the past then re-engagement and trust will be more difficult to establish.

All of these issues impact governance - not so much its process (since governance is a process or set of processes) but rather what the organisation through robust governance is meant to deliver.

Despite the slowdown, there is still massive production being undertaken.

The upside of the slowdown is that some manufacturers may be performing below capacity, thus may be receptive to production opportunities and requests (such as short run initiatives)that previously they would not have considered.

You can be sure though, that the slowdown is temporary, and that productive capacity will be shifted to those sectors with the highest growth and profit opportunity.

In her article CEO Evaluations: Providing Feedback that Makes a Difference, Laura Hay believes that a CEO's performance be assessed on the following criteria:

• Strategy and Vision – How well does the CEO convey the bank’s vision and develop a clear guide for current and future courses of action?
• Leadership – How well does the CEO motivate and energize employees to implement the business strategy and achieve the bank’s vision?
• Innovation/Technology – Does the CEO have a vision for the development of new/better products and services? Is there an IT strategy in place to improve the customer experience and assist in operational and risk management?
• Operating Metrics – Is the bank meeting its current financial objectives? Has progress been made in achieving mid- and long-term financial performance objectives?
• Risk Management – Is the bank adequately managing its risk and receiving satisfactory regulatory reviews?
• People Management – To what extent does the CEO take steps to improve and expand the capabilities of senior managers? Does the CEO’s management style convey a high level of ethics and respect for employees?
• External Relationships – How well does the CEO interact with shareholders, the Board, customers, regulators, media and other stakeholders?

These criteria are is OK as a generic, but I think that most CEOs are appointed for a specific set of objectives in a specific context.

If you believe the article that this is the way that CEOs are assessed, then any CEO reading the article would focus on those few characteristics. Yet his/her board-directed brief is to achieve specific outcomes, and the generic criteria in the article are of lesser importance (not unimportant, but at a certain time, less important.)

It's not that these criteria a wrong; it's that they may, in context, distract from the task at hand.

If we are honest, the criteria specified here are rarely if ever met perfectly by anyone. Where a CEO is lacking (or doesn't have the time) in a particular area, then others are usually used to fill that role/task. That doesn't necessarily mean the CEO falls short, but rather that the CEO might be focussing on 'more important' things at that time (e.g. like survival!)

Ref: http://boardprospects.hivefire.com/articles/612090/ceo-evaluations-providing-feedback-that-makes-a-di/

I think it's inappropriate to suggest that all/most boards are performing inadequately because they need to be more forward looking.

An effective board works in its context for the deliverables it is meant to provide. This is exactly the same as the variability in shareholder objectives. Not all shareholders want the same thing - not all organisations are the same - therefore not every board is the same.

A board needs to reflect the skills and talents required to manage its context. Looking forward aggressively is fine but it's not a universal requirement and is more important in some contexts than others. Watching compliance and fiduciary competence is also important - and also more important in some contexts than others.

Furthermore, the call on a board will vary with the maturity of the organisation. The skills required in a board for a start-up are significantly different to the skills required at maturity or even when the industry declines.

The only universal truth here is that there is no universal truth. Context is everything, and the board must complement and enhance the context.

Tony Abbott has decided to break convention by allowing Cabinet Papers from a previous government to be accessed and made public through a royal commission; arguably for 'establishing the truth' but more likely for blatant political motives.

I would expect that when a Labor government eventually gets back into power, you'll see the 'Children Overboard' Cabinet Papers being made public too.

What goes around comes around. 

The government has been vocal about its free market orientation. It has used this, in part to justify the refusal to grant SPC/Coca Cola funds for restructuring.

The Government has every right to adopt such a policy, since governments are elected for their philosophies as much as their promised policies (leaving aside the influence of a rejection of the incumbent government issue.)

Let's, for the sake of this discussion, leave aside also the fact that SPC's performance or non-performance is really a matter for SPC, their parent Coca Cola and their directors and management. If they are travelling poorly, then that reflects significantly on either strategic or operational decision-making. If one argues that the world market is changing, then good management should have picked it and repositioned the company to address the changing world. The fact that they didn't, is to their account. That they bought SPC in the first place, should have indicated that they were confident that it would provide some level of sustainable benefit to shareholders. Clearly they have failed. So let's ignore this dimension of the issue.

If one accept that government has reinforced a "Free Market" approach to managing the economy, then one must accept the definition of a 'Free Market'. One definition is:

'A market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control. A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e. buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies or regulation.'  (Investopedia) On this basis alone, their decision to reject the SPC request is correct. However, the definition of free market refers to both supply and demand. More specifically, a free market means that the owners of capital are free to treat with the owners of labour and other supplies. That is not what happens in Australia at the moment or what is intended to happen with this government's policies. The government certainly wishes to free up corporations from unnecessary rules, regulations and constraints - and fair enough too if they are really pointless or a hindrance. However, the government is simultaneously interfering in labour's ability to bargain and contract their labour. It appears that for this government, it's all for making it easier to transact the business for its owners, but harder or more onerous for labour to transact in that business. The core issue for me is that this government has a misplaced sense of purpose. Let me explain. It appears to me that the Conservatives in this country have the view that the purpose of government is to create a strong (maximised) economy, among other objectives such as defence, research, etc. The problem with this is that to maximise the economy, one must eliminate non-productive parts of the economy and reallocate those resources to more productive parts of the economy. If that was all there was to government, then this government would be on-track. However, I am of the view that the purpose of a government is the optimisation of the entire society, and not merely the maximisation of the economy. In other words, the economy is 'merely' an enabler (yet very important one) in order to help a society deliver what is the responsibility of the government of the day to deliver. And the responsibility of a government, regardless of whether it's 'big' or 'small' government, is to grow, protect, support, motivate and nurture its people, capabilities and resources so as to enhance their quality of life. Period. Not everyone in Australia is an owner of a business yet everyone in Australia is a part of the Australian society. A government that merely pursues the maximisation of the economy on the assumption that if you have a strong economy all else will be taken care of, fails to understand the relationship between market performance and individual well-being. The reason that the US society is considered a 'sink or swim' society is because its social philosophy doesn't accommodate all its constituents in the way the Australian society does (or tries to do; or has tried to do in the past.) The US has many outliers from its mainstream economy - and that is a large problem and a large part of the explanation of their social dysfunction. There are a lot of people in the US who are sinking and not swimming. I believe that the Australian economy needs to be growing, robust and profitable, not for its own sake, but in order to improve the life of all Australians. Having a job is really important, but if you're hell-bent of maximisation, then you are prepared to make jobs redundant, without understanding or being prepared to support those marginalised people. So in this context, one can reasonably argue that maybe, just maybe, the government might have engineered some type of support for SPC to save jobs and protects its constituency. So far, this government has exhibited a black or white policy philosophy- they don't appear to understand that government, much like society, is all about emphasis, nuance and balance. Black and white works in simplistic contexts - and society and economy are anything but simple.