Professor Chris Jackson

How you answer the phone may influence your chance of a pay rise, your promotion and even your overall career prospects. Here at UNSW we have recently conducted a study which has analysed the personality traits and biological and environmental factors that predict so-called “career maverickism”.

Workers who lift the receiver to their left ear are more likely to be mavericks that bend the rules and foster new ideas, impressing their bosses, and moving up the career ladder much faster. It is important to foster better ways of working in organisations; working smarter, not harder, by doing things in a more efficient way. Those who break the rules and ‘just get things done’ are much better people to have working for you, if you are interested in the bottom line.

The study, based on 458 workers, found that managers can spot “mavericks” simply by assessing how they answered the phone. It details how those who hold the receiver to their left ear denote a preference for using the right side of the brain, which is associated with creative, problem-solving activities.

I’ve noticed that the GFC means that businesses are increasingly reliant on the skills of internal rule-breakers. Australia may have sailed through the global downturn, but there are still firms out there doing it tough. Firms need to be aggressive and competitive in the global market place. They want workers who don’t do it the same way ‘because that’s the way we’ve always done it’. They don’t want people who are cautious, safe or conservative. Maverick employees have been popularly described as independent thinkers, creative problem solvers, quick decision makers, and goal-oriented individuals. It’s all about avoiding ‘group-think’, encouraging workers to be creative and giving them just an extra bit of room to take measured risks.

The research also shows there is a drawback for people who can’t stop breaking the rules. They tend to be poor team players and are generally unpopular. They rub people up the wrong way. You need a manager with vision who can pick up on their insights, and not be put off by the way they do things. In some jobs what may be seen as dysfunctional behaviour, like risk-taking, is crucial.

Interestingly, men are more prone to “maverickism” than women – which I think suggests a further area for productive study.

There are several icons in the business world who don’t follow the rules – and who make great role models.

Just think of people like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, or Michael Crouch, who has established a Chair in Innovation at the Australian School of Business. He started Zip Industries because he thought that instead of selling what everybody else sold – because it was much easier to sell – he came up with a new product that actually did what people wanted – give instant hot water. Mavericks are good at perseverance and overcoming hurdles.

They are good for businesses and good for Australia.

Chris Jackson is a Professor of Business Psychology in the School of Organisation and Management.

Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship | CIE Blog

My apologies on announcing the winners of last week’s Peter Farrell Cup. Official press release or announcement coming soon. In the meanwhile, I couldn’t help building on the earlier blog post about fear of failure vs failure to start. It was nagging me to create this bubble chart based on the same GEM data with a few changes:

• Fear of failure and entrepreneurial intentions in the same chart as different axes
• Bubble area according to additional population data (since the GEM data is based at the individual level, not firm level)
• Color coded by GEM’s classification (Factor-driven economy: RED, Efficiency-driven economy: BLUE, Innovation-driven economy: YELLOW)

So, if one were to draw a linear regression line through the whole data set, then Australia would probably be middle of the road for the overall data. If you look at only the yellow bubbles (innovation-driven economies), then Australia tends to be towards the upper right, i.e., greater intentions to start (not bad), but higher fear of failure (not good). Does that mean that relative to the other innovation-driven economies, Australia is a country of “intentrepreneurs” or “wantrepreneurs”?

– This blog post first appeared on the CIE Blog.

Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) | CIE Blog

There have been recent critiques about What’s Killing Australian Innovation (see our commentary on a recent talk by ASB Dean Alec Cameron, and related ABC radio interview). At this week’s TiECon Australia, TiE Sydney chapter president Dilip Rao commented that Australia is ranked 18th globally for having a ‘fear of failure’ (first being worst). Based on the GEM Global Report 2010, Australia actually shows up worse, ranked 16th out of 59 countries.While that sounds quite bad, the spread of the scores shows that Australia is nonetheless close to the average, and not that much different to, say, Germany (see figure below). The classic benchmark is the US, which is ranked 47, and still not close to being statistically significantly away from average (assuming a normal distribution).

Fear of Failure: Percentage of 18–64 age group with positive perceived opportunities who indicate that fear of failure would prevent them from setting up a business

Wait a second, but what’s this other variable, called “Entrepreneurial Intention”? Well, it’s defined as the “percentage of 18–64 age group (individuals involved in any stage of entrepreneurial activity excluded) who intend to start a business within three years” (p. 63 in the 2010 GEM report). Australia ranks poorly on this one as well (39/59) if you take the rankings at face value. Interestingly, the US ranks even lower than Australia here (44/59).

What the heck is going on?

My best guess, is that in some countries, entrepreneurship is not a choice, but a way of life. Almost everyone there has to hustle and bustle to feed their family. Meanwhile in the “Innovation-Driven Economies” it’s an optional career choice. So, focusing on the latter, what do we see?

Well, Australia ranks 6/23 on the fear of failure measure, but still very close to average for the group (US ranks 20/23 in this group). Australia also ranks 7/23 on the entrepreneurial intention measure, again still very close to average for the group (US ranks 11 in this group, worse than Australia!).

=> Claims that Australia has a fear of failure are NOT supported by THIS data
Yours truly,
The Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship

This post first appeared on the CIE Blog.

Andrew Kakabadse

Ask what innovation means and you will get a broad cross-section of responses.  Some interpret innovation as invention.  This was the case at a recent high profile European Commission meeting in Brussels.  One of the notables, visibly irritated with the thinking of his colleagues pointedly remarked, “Each week my department gets nothing but bright ideas and inventions, which go no-where!.  What we need is to get ideas to market.  We need structures that engage.  Let’s not mix invention with innovation!”

All knew he was right.  Equally all recognised the political message in his few words.  European public services are highly politicised.  An innovation policy initiative from the European Commission, making its way through the step by step, tiresome European consultation process could find itself derailed at the final hurdle because some local interest group, or politician, has leverage with country governments or Brussels.  In effect, reform is brought to a halt simply because of some partisan interest.

Not that the Europeans are that much different to the Americans or Australians.  Innovation that would have benefitted the majority is marginalised simply because single political interests dominate big administrations.

So aligning big capital with efficient big government requires clear lines of delineation between the layers of government.  This is one form of innovation.

A second and more profound level of innovation is that of how ideas are shaped and become the emergent policy of countries or even whole regions.

Globally, there is a seeming acceptance that the citizen is best served by policies anchored in the free market philosophy.  Why such adherence to shareholder capitalism from both the right and left wing of the political landscape, especially from the Anglo American economies?  One reason is the subtle shaping of mindset occurring ‘behind the scenes’ by global networks, such as the most prominent of all, the Bilderbergs.  Recent study of this trans-Atlantic gathering of business and political grandees, highlights the free market thinking that ouses from the Bilderberg meetings.

Yet rather than religiously pounding this one philosophy, the Bilderberger study interviewees referred to the understanding that arises from attracting a divergence of views.  True, the investigation shows that the demographics of the attendees is broad.  But the question to ask is whether their ontology is comparable and deeply shared?  The evidence suggests it is, of course, in favour of shareholder market economics.

The shaping of mindsets particularly in favour of the free market economy is subtle in its creep.  It has many of the world’s leaders blind to the advantage of socialised capital, the predominant philosophy driving Germany, Scandinavia and China.

Thus, innovation on a global basis is at the crossroad – do we pursue short term, transactional shareholder capitalism or longer term, socialised capital for the purposes of the public good?  The fact that we do not openly and enthusiastically debate this issue is testament to the smart power influence of networks as the Bilderbergs.

In the short term there is likely to be no fundamental shift in the repositioning of capital.  On this basis there is equally likely no change in the structure and functioning of government.  The major governments of the globe operate exactly as the opaque vested interests desire.

No innovation in terms of policy design means we are left with innovation meaning invention.  With innovation at the global crossroad, we can expect a future of many bright ideas but with very few actually reaching the citizen.

Andrew Kakabadse is a consultant and professor of international management development at the Cranfield University School of Management.