What does TV impartiality look like in the age of Trump?

National broadcasters, such as the ABC and the BBC have a statutory duty to ensure that the information they share is suitably impartial. Fundamentally, the networks need to demonstrate a diversity of perspectives from a diversity of sources on a range of subject matter. This is not the same as balance; minority views, for instance should not be given equal prominence to the prevailing consensus. It’s what the BBC refer to as “due weight” – you can read their guidelines here.

So, how much weight do the broadcasters afford to the views of Donald Trump? His Chinese hoax theory in regards to climate change has been well documented – and stands in stark contrast to the scientific consensus, but he is the President of the United States. It’s a relatively easy one for the broadcasters to bat away, despite the President’s status – it’s not a position that’s widely supported (despite the tweet’s 66,000 ‘likes’) and Mr Trump has a track-record for outlandish commentary. However, despite its left field origins, the comment is clever. Why? Well it leads any curious journalist to question what exactly the Chinese are doing in regards to global warming. It’s a great example of framing an issue; there may not be a hoax, but it does put the proverbial tennis ball back in the Chinese court.

Moreover, Mr Trump’s appointment also puts the national broadcasters in an uneasy position in view of the bashing they invariably receive for their perceived left-wing tendencies – here’s a 2016 piece from the Herald. The dilemma lies in the key role that’s expected of any discerning media operator, which is to rigorously interrogate the workings of those in power, including the President of the United States. If they do what’s expected of them, the likes of the ABC and the BBC face continued charges of one-sided journalism and the loss of objectivity (which gives further leverage to the free marketeers). Yet, if they pull their punches, they stand supportive of a regime’s policies, however outrageous the facts. So, what will it be?  The question, of course, brings us back to diversity – the need for a diversity of views from a range of people. As the impact of the silent majority begins to take shape, the trick to be achieved here is getting them to speak in the first place.

Are Class Actions on the rise?

Centrelink, the Australian Government’s welfare services program is in a spot of bother. Days prior to Christmas, its new automated system started firing off letters for non-existent debts; lots of letters, 20,000 each week apparently. You can read more here.

The situation has, unsurprisingly, led some commentators to point to a possible class action if the matter was to affect the emotional or physical wellbeing of those in receipt of the letters.

Much has been written in recent years about social media’s ability to unite affected individuals in terms of such lawsuits; the Volkswagen emissions scandal of 2015 is one such example, whereby a plethora of platforms were used to galvanise plaintiffs to register their grievance towards the car manufacturer. Although, in an interesting aside, the dispute in the United States between Gawker Media and a group of its former interns did demonstrate the complexities of such cases, when the federal court ruled that plaintiffs could reach out to known interns via social media, but were not permitted to “friend” individuals on Facebook – see more here.

In light of such coverage, I was keen to gauge whether my instincts – which told me that class actions were now growing at an exponential rate – were correct. Now, here I need to give thanks to Monash University’s Professor Vince Morabito for producing a highly illuminating study on class actions in Australia. The study assesses the Federal Court of Australia’s class action regime across 24 years, from 1992 to 2016, which recorded 370 such actions. So, was it case of an avalanche of disputes since the advent of social media? No it wasn’t, as the study shows 189 proceedings filed in the first 12 years (1992 – 2004), and 181 filed thereafter. Clearly, the reasons behind such actions are many and it would be remiss to point to any one aspect of the equation being dominant; however, the findings do offer a resolutionary opportunity to start challenging my instincts. 

The NAB Sydney move needs to be the start of something bigger.

National Australia Bank (NAB) – one of the country’s big four financial institutions – is moving its Sydney headquarters. The new home will offer staff the latest in “state-of-the-art offices” – you can read more here.

I bring this up as the bank has had its fair share of reputational woes in recent years; primarily providing customers with what’s been ruled as bad financial planning advice; in fairness, they are not alone here, with the same charges leveled at the Commonwealth Bank (CBA), ANZ and Westpac.

So, it begs the question did the bank – NAB – make its move to address its difficulties? The bank’s problems signal a need to examine the organisation’s culture; the CEO, Andrew Thorburn has, rightly, said as much, commenting that it would take 5-10 years to get “true integrity and consistency”.

Moving office presents businesses the opportunity to change, or reinforce the dominant culture. Smart companies get this; there’s enough smart people at NAB to identify the prospects that’s been afforded by the change, I’m sure.

Management guru, Edgar Schein came up with the idea of ‘cultural artifacts’ which are the tangible manifestations of corporate culture, such as buildings, uniforms and logos. So, in simple terms, the NAB state-of-the-art offices need only be state-of-the-art if the behavioural values sought by the bank, dictate that it be so – an open office arrangement would suggest an open culture, for instance.

However, it has to go further than that; a new building needs to mark the start of a process, not its culmination. The NAB move needs to be the catalyst to evaluate all aspects of the business – from recruitment, to employee benefits. If the process is limited to the seating arrangements, then the bank has already lost.

American Greats?

I appreciate that the blog’s usual preserve centres on the finer points of corporate reputation, but in light of THAT result, I hope you can indulge me this one time.

Amidst the recurring US bashing and to assuage my personal sense of upheaval on news of the 45th American President, here’s the reminder to self that it is a place of greatness and no doubt, will continue to be. Here’s my download of those Americans who ripped up the rulebook and did it their way. In no particular order, and yes, there should be more women, and yes there should be more African Americans, and certainly more Hispanics, but it was borne of instinct. America, we salute you.

1 Johnny Cash

2 F Scott Fitzgerald

3 Christopher Walken

4 Philip Roth

5 Daniel Kahneman

6 Iggy Pop

7 Gillian Anderson

8 Scooby Doo (All of them)

9 Francis Coppola

10 Norman Mailer

11 Muhammad Ali

12 Deborah Harry

13 Albert Einstein

14 Jack Nicklaus

15 Robert Frost

16 Jack White

17 Jack Cole

18 Thomas Edison

19 Ella Fitzgerald

20. David Lynch

21 Dwight D Eisenhower

22 Benicio del Toro  

23 Dian Fossey

24 Harry Callahan

25 Marvin Gaye

26 Isadora Duncan

27 Harper Lee

28 Jesse Owens

29 Neil Armstrong

30 Andrew Carnegie

31 Bill Gates

32 George Washington

33 Michael Jordan

34 Jackson Pollock

35 Walt Disney

36 Henry Ford

37. Martin Luther King

38 Rosa Parks

39 Charlie Parker

40 Edward Murrow

41 Ernest Hemingway

42 Pocahontas

43 Amelia Earhart

44 Abraham Lincoln

45 Sylvia Plath 

Etihad's 5 Star U-Turn

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways took occupancy of the back page of The Australian’s Business Review last Friday to tell the paper’s readers that it’s “official – our service now comes with 5 stars”. A resplendent air hostess stands beaming under a quote from the Skytrax Audit Report, which describes how the airline’s premium rating is a “testament to innovation, high-quality service and comfort”.

Skytrax, for those who demonstrate a healthy disinterest in such aviation ranking exercises, is a UK-based consultancy, which runs reviews of commercial airlines and airports. You can read more about them here.

So, what’s the story? Well, Etihad didn’t used to be so enamoured with the Skytrax ratings; oh, no. They were the constant recipients of four Skytrax stars – even after new cabin products had been introduced – but alas, that fifth star remained out of reach. So much was the irritation at Etihad,   that the carrier announced its withdrawal from Skytrax, including its Audit and Awards, in 2014. As Skytrax pointed out at the time, the airline cannot opt to withdraw, as results are decided directly by customers, which is clearly Etihad’s good fortune as they crow with delight at finally achieving equal status with the likes of Garuda Indonesia and Hainan Airlines.

The Etihad situation does beg the question, how much is an award worth to its winners? That is a question that’s clearly open to interpretation – does Bob Dylan’s Polar Music Prize win carry as much value for the performer, as his recent Nobel Prize success? We can hazard a guess.

It is, though, a question that needs to be asked from a corporate perspective in view of the amount of energy that’s being expended in merely submitting the award entry, together with the growing sense of fatigue that surrounds some of those lesser accolades.

I won’t, however, let cynicism completely cloud my judgement, as I believe that awards to be a good thing from a number of perspectives. Firstly, they offer a vital benchmark for any organisation; a measure of collective progress. Then there’s the inherent recognition of the people involved, and of course, the brand awareness that comes with such plaudits. Lastly, the incentivising quality of such prizes to set even higher standards for the business, shouldn’t be overlooked – according to some, there’s a gulf between four and five stars, just ask Etihad.

Can hacking be good for us?

Dropbox – the cloud storage supplier – has been hacked. To be more precise, it’s just been reported that up to 68 million usernames and passwords were stolen back in 2012. Now, that’s a statement which probably bemuses the reader on two points; firstly, the scale of the breach, and secondly, the speed of the news – that’s 4 years ago. In fairness, the company made it known that they had been compromised in 2012, but the size of the incident had apparently been underestimated.

It’s said that Dropbox was completely unaware of the full extent of the attack, which leaves me in a flux – exasperated by their state of oblivion, while being gently encouraged by the fact that nothing has changed. As a Dropbox user (Darn, have I compromised myself?), I read the story with an air of resignation in light of the increasing regularity of such breaches – not just at Dropbox, I hasten to add. However, there lies the nub of the issue – my lethargic response, which is no doubt shared by others, is indicative of the consumer mindset that these attacks are a corporate problem and subsequently need corporate solutions. Not so, as corporate stakeholders we are all part of the problem and the solution. Specifically, the public’s attitude towards passwords is casual at best, with our encryption bordering on an ‘open door’ policy – Pass 1234 anyone?

Hack fatigue would appear to be setting in among the public, leaving them perilously indifferent to the issue. So what to do? In entering the spirit of Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas, maybe we need the castle defences to be brought down occasionally to best appreciate our enemy's strengths, and give priority to investing in bigger and better walls. Only when we have a full grasp of the impact, will we recognise the threat.

Disrupting the Disruptors, or How to Grab an Uber

The combative tone of Anthony Tan’s message to his troops this week got me thinking about market differentiation. Let me explain – Tan runs Grab – a taxi app from Singapore, and he was in fighting mood following Uber’s decision to sell off its China business. Uber has “lost once, and we will make them lose again”, proclaimed Tan. You can read more here

The pugnacious tone of Tan’s words sounded familiar I thought, but why? Of course, it was Uber-speak. The online transportation giant, which counts ‘fierceness and super pumpedness’ as qualities to develop in its people, has being demonstrating a ruthlessness to business since its inception. I suspect that approach will soften, but in short, it’s a tone that’s owned (for want of a better word) by Uber. So, why Tan’s hawkish words?

I could set up an argument for Uber having set the dominant corporate tone-of-voice for the sector, which Tan taps in to, but that’s a hard one to prove. No, my argument is that Tan appears to have missed a trick in not positioning his business away from Uber’s apparent alpha-male sensibilities. There’s room to pitch the brand effectively enough to demonstrate a point of difference, while still achieving growth. Women, for one, need to be a big part of any brand proposition and not from just a customer perspective. Ditto, the communal aspect of the service they offer; in short, the community building.

In light of Uber’s global-reach tentacles, there’s also differentiation in the concept of local, but I guess there lies the nub – why stay local, whey you have an application that can work anywhere and have competitors who are doing exactly that? Well, we may just want to go back to where we started and Uber’s decision to pull out of China – for success may be about recognising the limits of your ride.  

A Soldier's Guide to Managing Uncertain Times

Firstly, let me apologise for not being strong enough to withstand the pull of the Brexit black hole. It was out there and reams have been written and will continue to be written, but not by me I said. Well, that was my position, but I have succumbed.

However, if any respite can be offered, this is no place for the micro, or macro-economic, or further speculation about Scottish independence. No, in what sounds like an Absurdist argument, I’ll try to flesh out the challenges of organisational uncertainty.

What with the disruptive nature of technology, the lingering legacy of the GFC and the widespread rejection of mainstream party politics, It’s been said (by far too many) that we live in uncertain times, and now the UK’s decision to leave the European Union has exacerbated the sense of limbo being felt by corporates and consumers.

So, how best for corporate leaders to manage this ‘fog of war’? Fittingly, I believe military thinking to be an invaluable starting point. To expand, former CIA Director and General, David Petraeus once spoke of his frustrations of live fire arms exercises within the US Army, which were too “carefully scripted” and resultantly lost any spontaneity – you can read more here. I hasten to add that I don’t endorse executive team shoot-outs, but I believe there’s much to be learnt from an unannounced simulation exercise for team members. Clearly, such sessions are carefully choreographed and planned behind-the-scenes, but participants should very much feel ‘down in the deep end’. In extending another of Petraeus’ thoughts, it’s also vital that these exercises are now far more inclusive of more middling and junior ranked employees. To Petraeus’ words, the “decision making needs to be pushed outwards and downwards, towards where new information is originating.” Those more junior members of the team have, for instance, for more affinity with the subversive nature of technology; they know what it can do and have less in the way of reverence for those institutions that stand to lose, or gain from its application.

The military factor should also be explored by way of the war game - a cornerstone of combat strategy for the past 200 years. In contrast to the conventional simulation, the exercise is far more adversarial in nature, with your executive decision makers lining up against a team of competitive adversaries in terms of a given scenario, where every action is met by a reaction. Again, this is about leaders having to take the initiative and manage uncertainty actively.

By our very nature, we as rational animals, look to make decisions based on information; we put off difficult choices by requesting more information, and in an age of big data, there’s no shortage of content to turn to. However, there lies the potential for even greater paralysis and the overriding paradox of the Information Age. The statistics are useful, but let’s not lose sight of the need for strong instinctive leadership. 

Johnson & Johnson's Baby Powder Blues

Johnson & Johnson’s widely praised response to a product tampering crisis in the early Eighties has been long held-up as the pinnacle in effective reputation management. You can read a lot more here.

I mention the business as they are back in the news last week; The Australian’s ‘J&J hit with $170 million damages in talc cancer cases’ headline captures the situation rather bluntly. To summarize, separate juries in the United States awarded two women a total $127 million (USD) in damages as the company’s iconic baby powder was deemed to have been to blame for the plaintiffs developing ovarian cancer.

The story throws up a number of intriguing points; firstly, the legal system’s effect on the notion of truth. Absoluteness in terms of the facts is becoming a lot harder to attain when subjected to the vagaries of a court process; for instance, two courts found for the women, while a third (in 2013) decided the firm was negligent, but didn’t award damages. However, all of this stands in contrast to the company’s “thirty years of medical expertise” which supports the powder. Secondly, there’s the question of who best to rebuild trust in the product among consumers? Typically, this sort of assurance would be offered by appropriate health professionals; generally, doctors. For many, though, such figures are seen as a little too close to industry; part of the problem, as opposed to the solution, possibly. So, would this fall more comfortably within the realm of celebrity endorsement – a discerning mother figure seen elbow-deep in the white stuff? You get the gist. Lastly, the case highlights the importance of external agencies to support organisations over the long-term with such issues. Specifically, it is alleged that Johnson & Johnson “was concerned about the association between talcum powder and ovarian cancer…since the Seventies”. If that was the case (and it’s a big ‘if’), it’s vital to have a agency in place to manage the issue – the matter can be transplanted to a suitable host to carry out all the required pre-crisis preparedness that’s critical for these occasions. Such work can’t be done with any great satisfaction inside the business due to the inherent politics, and the sensitivity of the matter invariably gets in the way of having a full-blown planning strategy – the ‘hush hush’ effect is not good for engendering trust within an organisation, so why not have the matter managed and nursed off site?  

Why not let the army handle the Sydney siege?

The coronial inquest into the 2014 Sydney siege at the Lindt Café, which led to the tragic death of two hostages heard how the Australian Army had contacted the NSW Police and offered their assistance to best resolve the situation. The offer was turned down to the apparent dismay of some within police ranks – you can read more here.

Clearly, the situation is a hugely difficult one involving high-pressure judgments, but in light of the fact that army commandos had actually carried out an exercise in the vicinity of the siege, only a month earlier and have far more experience of combat in close-quarters than their police counterparts, why didn’t the police cede control?

Well, there lies the clichéd $64 million question and as is usual with a drama of many moving parts, the reasons are undoubtedly, many. One unnamed ADF (Australian Defence Force) source talked of “police pride” getting in the way, which unsurprisingly won’t be substantiated by the police. What can’t be argued, however, is the way such an approach – had it been taken up – would have been perceived by the public. Quite simply, as laymen, we put the army on a higher footing in terms of brute force than we do the police, as they have the scale in weaponry to justify such a notion; greater firepower though means greater threats. It would be a brave political leader to order the troops on to the streets of Sydney when the country was not at war. The impact on such images around the world would seriously damage the tourist revenue stream.

Yet, if the aim of the inquest is to get to the truth and apply some painfully learnt lessons to ensure the future safety of Australian citizens, it’s only right that we explore the army option more fully. Firstly, are we not already at war? Malcolm Turnbull has talked recently of broadening the war against terrorists, while predecessor, Tony Abbott’s readily referenced the threats to national security posed by terrorism. If that’s the story, why not keep to it? Secondly, the Coalition Government is viewed by the public as the most trusted to handle national security, so why not go the full ‘nine yards’ and leave them with a reminder they’ll find hard to forget?

As the tourist operators and the politicians know, the answer is fear. We may be able to render greater control through the army, but their presence would be greatly unnerving to the public. Fear is an incredibly powerful emotion, which tends to stay in our memories for an inordinate amount of time, which is no accident. Daniel Kahneman in his fantastic, ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’ details the dominance of negative outcomes over positive ones in human psychology. As he says, “threats are privileged above opportunities, as they should be.” Fear is closely aligned to these threatening feelings. The respected Lowy Institute recently revealed that only 24% of Australians feel “very safe” – you may question the definition, but you get the gist; relatedly, the think tank also found the majority of respondents – 55% of Australians – believed the country’s participation in fighting ISIS only increased the risk of terrorism at home. As Kahneman also knows very well, statistics offer a far more accurate rendition of reality than the way we feel. The chances of us being the victims of terror groups are unbelievably slim; however, as political leaders know, our emotions get in the way and if the people are feeling scared, political change will undoubtedly follow.