Anzac Day

Australia is not open for business today.  Businesses, banks, the stock exchange are closed.  Most shops, cinemas, and places of entertainment are closed, at least for the morning; this is ANZAC Day, April the 25^th.

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Global Management Skills

Why is it that someone who is classed as a good manager in Australia can sometimes become less effective when moved elsewhere?

We’ve all heard the stories.

David, the Aussie Project Manager was great at engaging and driving a team in Australia. Team meetings were full of intense discussion, robust debate, and often laughter. Everyone left feeling energised and enthusiastic. In Indonesia however, he couldn’t create the same team atmosphere. He complained that the employees lacked drive and initiative. The team didn’t achieve their goals.

Mai, the Sales Manager from Thailand had such a tight team that she often took them away with her for weekend activities “just for fun”. In Australia she found the team “very serious” and “not committed to the company and their roles”. Although she seemed to build good relationships with other managers, she was disappointed in her team relationships and performance outcomes.

What was happening in these situations?

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On queuing, deodorant and cultural intelligence

In January, just as I was preparing to leave on my camping / kayaking holiday, the Federal Parliament representative for Brisbane, Julie Gambera made some statements about migrant assistance and in particular that migrants need to better adapt to Australia. Her initial recommendations were that employers who sponsor migrants into Australia on temporary visas (such as the 457) should be required to provide mandatory cultural awareness training.    

She gave examples of what the cultural awareness training could include and specified teaching migrants to “wear deodorant and wait patiently in queues”.  To be fair it appears

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Distance Learning - the parent of e-learning

I recently took part in a webinar on e-learning strategies with Gihan Perera. He helps business leaders with their e-marketing and e-learning strategies and is the author of my favourite resources in this area.  Gihan drew an analogy between e-learning and distance learning, something that has been happening in Australia for decades.  Suddenly all my own experiences of distance education came flooding back.  

These included the joys and frustrations of combining the role of mum and teacher; of opening assignments and writing reports to a school system thousands of miles away.  Those memories helped me look with fresh eyes at the learning systems I am building to support expats as their organisations move them around the globe.  

The things I valued most in distance education are the things I want to build into my e-learning systems.

Many of you know that in the mid 90s, I moved with my husband and young family to Hefei in Anhui province in China.

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Crowd Sourced Kiva Loan

In my Christmas newsletter (sign up here if you’re not receiving it) I promised a gift on behalf of subscribers to Kiva. 

If you aren’t familiar with www.kiva.org the site links micro-finance lenders with borrowers.  Loans are managed by experienced organisations in the lenders country.  They have pre-approved the lenders and assisted them in their venture with training and guidance. In reality they make the loan and kiva lenders provide the back-up financing. 

Kiva Lenders can view the range of industries and people who are seeking finance and choose a borrower.  Sounds easy but choosing who to fund is hard.  So for our Christmas gift I asked newsletter subscribers to tell me who they would like me to fund on their behalf.  A crowd sourced gift if you like. So what were the results?

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