Corporate leadership must be responsive and flexible to take on disruption such as Airbnb, Uber and Tesla and not see it as the domain of the ‘young and nimble’, AMP chairman Simon McKeon told the first 2016 QUT Business Leaders’ Forum today.
He said businesses must be connected with their communities and should encourage and incentivise their employees to volunteer in the non-profit sector and commit to giving away a proportion of its profits.
“Businesses should go that extra mile, particularly in an era of disruption,” he said.
“The reality is the likes of Uber, Airbnb, Tesla and home grown variety Seek and Gumtree are household names. They exploited a particular market in a different way and the take-up was breathtaking.”
He said big business had a few things going for it in the face of disruptive threats including access to capital and knowing how the market worked.
“It ought to understand customers, it already has customer lists, but sometimes business is timid about a great new idea and automatically thinks about the catalyzation of its existing products or services.
“It’s spent decades trying to get to a particular market position and quickly someone in the organisation comes up with a great idea and we think of all sorts of reasons not to pursue it.
“It is confrontingly tough trying to change one’s business but it’s an era where we have no choice because if we don’t, others will.”
Mr McKeon said business required all sorts of input and CEOs should recognise their role is to lead the company’s leaders.
“Good leaders bring out good decision-making by their team. When it comes to big business we really see the CEO as the leader of many leaders,” Mr McKeon said.
“My experience is that the good ones (CEOS) when a big decision is being made by the corporation … says ‘right, management team I need all your insights. I’m here to listen’ and then adeptly turns that conversation into something the group accepts.
“There’s never unity on every issue but the skill is to get everything relevant on the table and then to mould it into a decision that everyone finds easier to own.”
Mr McKeon said leaders must encourage and mentor a whole bunch of other leaders to get the best out of them.
“There’s a lot of backroom stuff there for the CEO of a top company,” he said.
He said Australia had a sophisticated sport industry whose sports psychologists are highly competent at bringing out the best in elite sports people.
“Business could do well to consider learning more from this area.”
Media contact: Niki Widdowson, QUT Media, 07 3138 2999 or n.widdowson@qut.edu.au
After hours: Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901 or media@qut.edu.au.
