In the 20 years I’ve consulted I have seen how people can condone, incentivise, deny, justify and enable bad behaviour from petty theft and time theft to racial discrimination and sexual harassment. Not all are first degree perpetrators. But those who stand by and do nothing because the person doing the crime makes the company lots of money, or because uprooting … Read More
iClouding the Issues – Performance vs. Perception
I’ve always been a fast reader. I’ve never before sustained a back injury that meant I had to lie in bed for two consecutive days. I hope I won’t again. But last weekend I took what advantage I could from the enforced rest and pain meds and read two biographies – Walter Isaacson’s tome about the late Steve Jobs and Christine … Read More
Balancing Worker Privacy with Worker Productivity
An article in yesterday’s Age reported concerns that employers are becoming more intrusive in workers’ medical assessments. One specific allegation was that some employers are insisting on accompanying workers on visits to doctors. This was held by the ACTU to be both a potential breach of privacy and unethical behaviour, particularly in light of reports that some employers have sought … Read More
We Need Common Sense to be Common in our Industrial Courts
Two significant industrial cases have been decided in the past few weeks that should give employers heart and reassure workers that sanity can prevail in our IR jurisdictions. The High Court ruled this week that Bendigo TAFE was not in breach of the Fair Work Act 2009 (the Act) when it took decisive action against a union official by standing … Read More
Lance Armstrong – villain or victimised victor?
The breaking news is that Lance Armstrong has elected not to appeal a decision by the US Anti-Doping Agency that found him guilty of allegations of improper use of performance enhancing drugs. Late yesterday, he was effectively stripped of his 7 Tour de France titles. It’s sad but true that the higher the stakes we play for (and/or the more competitive we are), the … Read More
Getting our Priorities Right
The post mortems have begun. One paper calculated the investment cost per gold medal. Another ranked us on gold medals per capita. Another ranked on medals of any colour relative to previous Olympics decrying our torrid decline since Sydney 2000.I love my sport. My Twitter handle includes the phrase “sport fanatic”. I am the best athlete never to play the … Read More
Positioning for Success
I was asked to present last night to a professional body on establishing and building a practice or workplace profile (presumably a good one!). It was great to have the opportunity to reflect and distil those things that I think contribute to success in our respective fields. It occurred to me, especially in the wake of a few presentations lately … Read More
No I in T.E.A.M.
Watching Le Tour late last night I was staggered by the willingness of Chris Froome, one of the Sky team members and current race leader Bradley Wiggins’ team mate, to forfeit a certain opportunity to win Stage 17. For those of us who aren’t Tour de France experts, Froome would, according to the ‘voice of cycling’ commentator Phil Liggett, have certainly caught … Read More
Narky or nirvana -your choice!
It’s no secret I love my sport and while there’s lots more productive to do than watch the idiot box, in a week with Wimbledon, le Tour de France and my beloved footy, life’s pretty good. So there I was last night kicking back late to watch the tennis. Remote control in hand, browsing through the stations, I found Footy … Read More
Etiquette and Style Classes for Raunchy Work Dress Code – Oh Puh-Lease!!
I read an article by Sarah Whyte in The Age today regarding dress code for working women and how some of the high profile accounting and legal firms are running courses on dress style and etiquette for some of their (mostly young) staff. It would appear the employers are quite dismayed at some of the daily fashion choices being worn … Read More