AWAre!
February
2003
AWAre! is the occasional e-newsletter of Adrian Walsh
& Associates. We offer comprehensive training and consulting services
in human resources management, organisational development, planning and
business development. For more information visit our website at http://www.adrianwalsh.com.au/.
Readers are welcome
to use material contained in this e-newsletter (with attribution and
courtesy advice of use) and to forward the e-newsletter to others who may
be interested.
Thought for this Issue
“May
your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the
most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the
clouds.”
IN
THIS ISSUE
Supervisor
Training on a Shoestring
St.
Georges (Melbourne) Aged Care Assessment Service
A
Painless Introduction to BelBin
Mind
Mapping & Radiant Thinking
COMING EVENTS
Supervisor Training on a Shoestring
18 March 2003 (Traralgon)
11 April 2003 (Warrnambool)
12 May 2003 (Shepparton)
6 June 2003 (Swan Hill)
Painless Introduction to BelBin
15 March 2003
14 May 2003
(#
denotes full-day program)
Mind Mapping & Radiant Thinking
29
March 2003
2 June 3003
Some
Personal Musings!
It has been a memorable and fun few
weeks for me. I celebrated my 58th birthday in December and
then satisfied a long-held desire by paddling in the 2002 Red Cross
Herald-Sun Murray River Marathon. My eldest daughter was married in
January, and I rounded my own personal festive season off with a three-day
bushwalk (covering part of Victoria’s South West Walk) over the
Australia Day weekend.
I mention these trivial facts only
because they bring into sharp focus for me the inherent contradictions in
growing older. The literature is full of snappy observations on age –
nearly all of them by way of regret at the aging process. A couple from
the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations:
Growing
old is like being increasingly penalised for a crime you haven’t
committed.
(Anthony Powell in Temporary Kings
(1973))
There’s
one more terrifying fact about old people: I’m going to be one soon.
(P.J.O’Rourke in Parliament of Whores (1991))
Growing old? I certainly don’t feel
it. And personally I am having as much fun as I always have had from life.
I can still do pretty much everything I did when I was younger – it just
takes me a little longer to recover! (And I make this latter comment with
feeling – I got home from hiking only last night, and my legs are
definitely creaking today!) I certainly endorse the redefinition of the
old saying: life does now begin, not at 40, but at 50!
All of this is on my mind as I point
to two items in this e-newsletter. The first, more useful work from Brent
Jones on the contemporary phenomenon of our aging workforce (see Our
Aging Workforce below). The second, a short note about a recently
completed exercise we undertook for St. Georges Aged Care Assessment
Service (ACAS). ACAS staff are highly skilled professionals who work hard
to make sure that when old age does begin to take its toll, the care
provided meets our needs and preferences. Like most people I hope I
won’t need their services – but it’s sure nice to know that
they’re there doing such a great job!
Until next issue.
Adrian Walsh
Our
Aging Workforce
Regular readers will recall that
Senior Associate Brent Jones has been doing some fascinating work on the
future of Australia’s labour force over the next 20 or so years and the
implications for businesses and other organisations. Brent’s discussion
paper on “The Wise Organisation” mentioned in the last issue of AWAre!
(click
here if you missed it and would like a copy)
attracted a great deal of interest.
The bottom line is that our civilian
labour force is aging quite dramatically. Labour force growth will slow
dramatically in coming years (average annual growth rate between 1979 and
1998 was 1.9%; average annual growth rate in 2015/2016 is projected at
0.4%). These figures are pretty much set in solid concrete. Even if
an immediate increase in the birth rate could be achieved, such an
increase could not impact on the 2015/2016 figures (and could potentially
further decrease it by virtue of taking more women out of the workforce).
Similarly, immigration is unlikely to solve the problem; the situation is
consistent in most countries around the world, and competition for
qualified migrants can be expected to be fierce.
The only apparent solution to this
problem is, as Brent suggested in “The Wise Organisation”, to
encourage older employees to continue in paid employment beyond today’s
commonly-accepted retirement ages. The good news is that there are few
practical barriers to making this happen right now, today. What every
organisation needs to do is create an employment environment where age (as
well as gender, ethnicity, etc) is not a factor in the way each employee
is valued for her or his ability to contribute to the organisation. At the
same time the nature of the benefit package paid to older (probably all)
employees almost certainly needs to become more flexible in a number of
ways (and by this we don’t necessarily mean “more expensive”).
Brent Jones has developed a
comprehensive package of material which we will offer to interested
readers on our website shortly. In the meantime, Brent’s intriguing
questionnaire on workers’ attitudes to their colleagues and how much
those attitudes vary with age is already available. The questionnaire is
in working draft form as further testing proceeds. Changes will certainly
be made, but in the meantime we are pleased to offer the questionnaire (in
this “Beta” format) for organisations to use themselves. We ask only
that acknowledgement of source is made on any hard copies produced.
Feedback (both of survey outcomes, and suggestions for improvement) is
welcome (direct to aging@adrianwalsh.com.au).
The following files, both in MS Word 2000
format should be downloaded:
Supervisor
Training on a Shoestring
We are
continuing with our series of high-quality training workshops on
Supervision skills in a number of Victorian Regional Centres in 2003. We
don’t guarantee that your staff will come away (as one recent
participant did) feeling that he had just experienced “the best day of
my life”, but we are confident that you and your staff will find the
experience of genuine value.
Our aim
with this innovative and flexible approach is to put high quality
professional training opportunities in reach of individuals and
organisations who would otherwise be unable to access such programs at an
affordable price.
The dates
of planned programs for the first few months of 2003 are listed in the
sidebar at left. Please contact us at enquiries@adrianwalsh.com.au
to obtain a brochure about these open programs, or to explore the
possibility of a specially focused program for your own organisation.
We are
also considering a more extensive selection of topic-specific training
programs and would be glad to receive suggestions for courses which your
organisation might find of value.
St. Georges (Melbourne) Aged Care Assessment
Service
In
December we concluded a substantial review of services and procedures for
the St. Georges Aged Care Assessment Service (ACAS). Aged Care Assessment
Services (in Victoria, or Aged Care Assessment Teams elsewhere) are
government-funded agencies which undertake a comprehensive assessment of
frail older people in order to offer support and other services designed
to maximise their independence and ensure their safety and dignity. The
St. Georges ACAS is auspiced by the St. Georges hospital in Kew,
Victoria, which is in turn a part of the St. Vincents Health Care Network.
The
review was extensive and addressed a wide cross-section of issues ranging
from the assessment process itself, through to relationships with allied
agencies, clients and carers, staff and team competency and training, and
safety issues. Quality indicators, including KPIs, and satisfaction
surveys were also considered.
The
report has been well-received and we are currently supporting St. Vincents
Health Care management in considering the actual adoption and
implementation of the recommendations of the Report.
A Painless Introduction to BelBin
The BelBin Team Role System is a fully
automated psychometric profiling tool which has wide uses in the workplace
for team and organisation design, recruitment and other human resource
management purposes. Our series of short workshops designed to introduce
people to the BelBin Team Role System have proved popular. These workshops
allow newcomers to gain some insight into the tool and its value. In 2003
we will continue the series and extend them to a select number of regional
centres. Dates are at the sidebar.
Each half-day session (9.30 am until 1.00
pm):
 | Provides
you with a personal BelBin Team Role profile.
|
| Introduces
you to the underlying concepts, meanings and applications.
|
| Allows
you to participate in a job profiling exercise and to use the profile
in recruitment support. |
Please contact us to express your interest
in a particular date, or to obtain details of the closest venue for you.
The full day (9.30 am to 4.30 am) sessions
provide the same introduction to BelBin, but will also allow you to
explore BelBin in the context of some powerful management simulation
activities, including the highly popular Search for the Lost
Dutchman’s Goldmine.
Cost for each of the half-day programs is
just $65, inclusive of light refreshments. The full day program cost is
$140 including light refreshments and lunch). Get in touch (enquiries@adrianwalsh.com.au)
and we’ll send you further details.
Mind Mapping & Radiant Thinking
A "Mind Map" is a radical way of
making and taking notes and organising your thinking. A central word or
concept is first captured and around this you draw the main ideas that
relate to that word. From each of these secondary (or "child"
words) the next layer of ideas or words are drawn. In this way a large
number of related ideas can quickly be produced with a clear and easily
accessible structure and very little effort.
The concept of Mind Mapping was developed
and pioneered by Tony Buzan who points to research which indicates that
more than 95 per cent of people experience major problems in such areas as
thinking, memory, concentration, motivation, organisation of ideas,
decision-making and planning. Our brains are wonderful mechanisms with a
virtually infinite capacity to take in, process and apply information, but
unfortunately they don't come with a User's Manual. In practice most of
our training and schooling actually sets us up to minimise the
effectiveness of these super-computers.
The
potential uses of the Mind Map extend to virtually any area where we use
our brain and might include note taking, creative writing, preparation of
reports, studying (on your own or as a group), capturing notes from
meetings and workshops, and giving a talk or address.
Mind Mapping as a concept has been around
for some time now. Unfortunately, although widely known of, only a
minority of people actually apply the techniques, perhaps because of lack
of confidence, understanding or a resistance to something new.
We are pleased to continue our open programs
on Mind Mapping and its important link with the underlying concept of
Radiant Thinking. Dates for the first few months of
2003 are at the sidebar. In addition, we can provide an in-house
program of one full day (or two half days) designed to give you and your
staff a solid introduction to the concepts and the confidence and
commitment to use it for real in your work.
For a brochure and enrolment details please
contact us at enquiries@adrianwalsh.com.au.
CONTACT US?
ADRIAN
WALSH & ASSOCIATES PTY LTD
PO Box 539
Croydon Vic
3136
Australia
Tel: +613
9870 1378
Fax: +613
9870 1037
Email: enquiries@adrianwalsh.com.au
Website: http://www.adrianwalsh.com.au
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