- Almanac: Fellini on the pleasures of film
“Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure.” Federico Fellni (quoted in The Atlantic, December 1965) Continue reading Almanac: Fellini on the pleasures... Read more - ASIO will now use the umbrella terms of "religiously motivated violent extremism" and "ideologically motivated violent extremism" to describe those seeking to do harm. Subscribe: http://ab.co/1svxLVE Read more here: https://ab.co/3eV0ohk Image AAP: James Ross/AFP: Tauseed Mustafa ABC News provides around the clock coverage of news events as they break in Australia and abroad, including the latest coronavirus pandemic updates. It's news when you want it, from Australia's most trusted news organisation.
I asked an AI to tell me how beautiful I am - JoriPress
The tool had broken my appearance down into a list of bite-size issues—a laser trained on what it thought was wrong with my appearance
… I blew the dust off a copy of On the Road that had been moldering on the shelf for the last 40 years, breathed deeply of the comforting old paperback fragrance, and dived in. Two hours later, by the time Sal Paradise (a.k.a. Jack) was sprawled out in a Denver park with a bunch of hobos, listening to the trains howling in the mountains, I was hooked again, much as I had been at the tender age of 15, when I last read the novel. Only now, I had driven, hitchhiked, and taken bus trips coast to coast, ridden a freight train from Texas to Los Angeles, drugged, drank, banged, etc. — in fact, done just about everything Kerouac described in prose that was riveting to a ripely rebellious teenage mind.
Outsourcing Government itself: the hidden privatisation of the public service
The privatisation of the Australian Public Service is proceeding at a staggering pace. Documents accessed under FoI laws reveal that even senior roles, including assistant directors, executive officers and ministerial advisers, are outsourced. It is hidden, unaccountable and rips off taxpayers. Geordie Wilson reports.
Is it the role of staff to be managing the managers? – The Select Committee
Increasingly, we hear of cases where employees are advised to ‘manage up’ when things aren’t getting done, or they’re not getting done properly.
Is it the role of staff to be managing the managers? Who’s getting paid the big bucks? Yet sometimes – often – things won’t be achieved without the initiative of down-line employees, even if that means having to manage the boss.
What does it say about the culture of an agency when staff express frustrations about a team leader or manager, only to be told (by senior management further up the line) that they just have to manage their immediate supervisor?
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Is ‘manage up’ the new catchphrase for leaders wanting an easy way forward?
Leaders should encourage initiative. But where to draw the line?
We asked our brains trust The Select Committee to offer some insights on this topic. Specifically, we asked:
How do you seek improvements to leadership in your organisation when you are not a designated leader? Is managing up the line a fair thing to expect of public service staff?
Nicholas Gruen shares a most interesting experience of his own and points out: “It’s not their job, but then it can be anything from a survival strategy to a highly effective way of improving one’s relationship with one’s managers.”
Helen Sullivan says: “The emphasis placed on ‘managing up’ confuses the conduct of discussion and debate with the content, and results in rather sterile exchanges, with everyone focused on the implications of their contribution for their career.”
Richard Bolt also shares a personal experience and concludes: “If a leader doesn’t ask, most staff won’t answer for fear of indifference or hostility.”
While Helen Silver states: “A leader should be interested in the full leadership task, including the personal development of the people who work for you.”
What follows are their responses in full. It is interesting and valuable reading.
Helen Silver AO
Helen Silver AO is Allianz Australia’s chief general manager, Corporate Governance and Conduct. Prior to joining Allianz Australia, Helen had spent more than 25 years in executive roles in the Victoria and Commonwealth public sectors, culminating in the position of Secretary of the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet.
“It is difficult for me to reply directly to the question given I am now sitting in the private sector and have been in leadership roles for some time. I will answer from the perspective of what I see are four useful leadership traits to improve the environment officers are working in.
“Firstly, a leader needs to be clear when delegating work what is the expected task/project objective/outcomes and what does success look like.
“Secondly, a leader should be accessible and be prepared to respond in a reasonable time to requests for advice/clarification.
“Thirdly, given the somewhat difficult nature in the public sector of gaining consensus or getting decisions made, either be prepared to make them (if it is your call) or assist in helping to establish a process to get the appropriate decision makers together.
“Fourthly, a leader should be interested in the full leadership task, including the personal development of the people who work for you including creating opportunities for real time learning through observations and assisting with their career development.
“With regard to ‘managing up the line’, all complex work requires the management of the process, systems and networks.” – Helen Silver AO
Richard Bolt PSM
Richard Bolt PSM is a Principal of the Nous Group of management consultants, and an Adjunct Professor of Energy Transformation at Swinburne University. He has degrees in electrical engineering and public policy and management. Richard had a distinguished career in the Victorian Public Service, leading three departments over 12 years with responsibility for primary industries, education, and economic development and transport.
“It’s fair to expect staff to seek improvements if leaders are open to that input. Leaders can show this by saying so, creating the channels, and rewarding good ideas with recognition and action. Staff see many things leaders can’t, so leaders only discover problems if their people pipe up.
“I once asked 30 non-executive staff to investigate how our new department’s internal services could be improved; and gave them top billing at an all-staff forum to deliver their findings, sight unseen. It was a sobering but constructive message, and the executive built most of their ideas into a corporate services strategy.
“If a leader doesn’t ask, most staff won’t answer for fear of indifference or hostility – and they can’t be expected to if speaking up is career-limiting or pointless. If the leader does ask, the organisation is the better for it.” – Richard Bolt PSM
Helen Sullivan
Professor Helen Sullivan is Director of the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy. She is a public policy researcher, teacher, advisor, and innovator with a commitment to bridging the gap between public policy research and practice.
“Speaking truth to power is generally considered to be about the political/administrative relationship. And there is still much to be improved upon here. However, it is also relevant to the relationships that exist within the echelons of the public service.
“Good decisions get made as a result of a variety of perspectives being brought to bear on an issue or question. This includes the unpopular (evidenced) opinion, the tough question, or the alternative framing of an issue.
“Of course, these views need to be expressed in a way that enables discussion and ideally offers an alternative solution. Too often the culture of public service departments mitigates against this. The emphasis placed on ‘managing up’ confuses the conduct of discussion and debate with the content, and results in rather sterile exchanges, with everyone focused on the implications of their contribution for their career. Some imagine that once they have made it to ‘the top’ they will then be able to change the culture. Unfortunately, by the time that happens their leadership is predicated on maintaining that culture. – Helen Sullivan
Nicholas Gruen
Nicholas Gruen is a prominent Australian economist and commentator on economic reform and innovation. He is the CEO of Lateral Economics and is the chair of the Open Knowledge Foundation (Australia). Nicholas has a PhD from the Australian National University and he is currently a Visiting Professor at Kings College London’s Policy Institute.
“I remember a meeting of the Commissioners of the Industry Commission (now Productivity Commission) to which I’d recently been appointed in 1993 binning a report that had risen up to us from the staff. It was the right decision as the work was unsalvageable. ‘Rescue operations’ by the famous ‘Development branch’ tended to be conducted on inquiry reports that had gone off the rails. But that was a necessity because the Commission was publicly accountable to produce a report.
“Nevertheless, in this case I was dismayed to find that discontinuing work on the report was all there was to it. Several people had sunk several months of their professional lives into this work. They’d be faced with a futility of all that work. And no-one was held accountable for wasting all that time.
“I can’t get on my high-horse. Public sector managers can’t sack time-serving staff. Not being in their position, I shouldn’t be too superior about it. And anyway, the time to pipe up was then. But it would have stirred up a hornet’s nest and achieved nothing. So, I kept my powder dry. And others who had a similar view that day kept their powder dry too. And so it goes. We’re all drawn into this learned helplessness in bureaucracies which make short work of ‘squeaky wheels’.
“Such stories underscore the frequent need for people to ‘manage up’ in the public service. It’s not their job, but then it can be anything from a survival strategy to a highly effective way of improving one’s relationship with one’s managers. Done skilfully, it’s usually appreciated and leads to better outcomes for all concerned. It might have saved the best part of a person-year way back in the 1990s.” – Nicholas Gruen