| Sam Young Newsletter |
Issue 197, March 2011
Hi guys,
Have you heard of authentic leadership before? Then check out Dick Hubbard - an Authentic Leader below.
The rush to urbanisation is not only a western trend. It is happening faster in Asia. Read The Rise of Asian Mega-Cities.
Don't forget, if you want to be taken off my mailing list, click here to send me a reply e-mail and I will remove your name.
| Dick Hubbard - an Authentic Leader |
Authentic leadership is aligned with Greek philosophy - that of 'to thine own self be true' to quote Shakespeare (Hamlet). This is a leadership style where leaders model the way to their followers, where they inspire a shared vision, where they challenge standards and processes; they are enablers, empowerers and feed the soul of those around them. Authentic leaders demonstrate consistent thoughts, emotions and behaviours - even when no one is watching. They are positive people with strong ethics and a well-defined social conscience.
Authentic leadership is not merely sincerity, but where the very fabric of the person is aligned; all of an authentic leader's experiences, thoughts, emotions, needs, wants, preferences, beliefs, processes, actions and behaviours are consistent with each other.
Preparing learning materials for my students on authentic leadership got me to thinking about Kiwis who typify the style.
Dick Hubbard, the founder and governing director of Hubbard Foods Ltd is described as a ‘tall, somewhat gangly man with a charming smile’ . Son of a Kiwi returned serviceman and a Scottish war bride, Dick was a product of the post-war “get the country going again” paradigm. Dick “was unhappy working for companies [he believed] were dedicated only to increasing profit for shareholders” and in 1990 Hubbard Foods Ltd was launched. Between 1990 and 2000, turnover on breakfast cereal sales increased from $2m to $23m, rising to $30-40m by 2004. A touch of a social conscience appeared early.
Hubbard's reflects Dick’s own values of sustainable development, honestly, hard work and fair play, communicated to customers through the Clipboard Newsletter included in every cereal packet sold. Hubbard Foods has completed 'triple bottom-line' sustainability accounting since the mid-90s, opening the books to all employees, and offering employee training in reading company accounts. A spot of empowering and enabling. Hubbard's continues to operate in Mangere, despite lures of cheaper rent elsewhere, in order to stay close to their workforce. A long-term supporter of Outward Bound, in 1998, Dick flew all 120 of his then staff to Samoa at a cost of $150,000 (strong ethics, shared vision).
Dick would epitomise, for many New Zealanders, what corporate social responsibility (CSR) really means in practice. He is a past-chair of the Food Standards Committee and the NZ National Parks & Conservation Foundation, past-president of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, and a former director of Business Mentors in the Community. But it is his passion for sustainable business that has spurred much of his service work as a founder and active member of the NZ Business Council for Sustainable Development (challenging standards and processes), ten years before sustainability became trendy (social conscience).
Considering selling Hubbard's internationally in 2008 caused Dick to decide that he did not want ownership to leave New Zealand (strong ethics). In 2009, Dick sold a 35% stake in the company to the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust. In 2010, furthering the company’s sustainability theme, Hubbard Foods installed NZ’s largest commercial array of solar photo voltaic panels, at 227.5 m2. This will generate 29,000kW per year, enough to power three and a half houses (strong ethics, shared vision).
Politically naive, in 2004 Dick Hubbard decided to put his sustainability ideas, co-operative leadership values and his desire for the creation of a positive future for Auckland where his political conscience was, and run for the Auckland mayoralty (strong ethics, and a pity that Auckland didn't share his vision!). While Dick focused on serving the city of Auckland, he installed a Chief Executive, Doug Paulin. Hubbard Foods started to slide in market share (from 12.3% to 9.4%6) and net worth (from an estimated $30-40m in 2004 to $14m in 2010), but he retained faith in Doug, who continues in the role today (positivity, strong ethics).
Dick thinks that leadership is “critically important” and that the leader is the “person who defines the cultural base of the company is the keeper of the soul of the company” . He says “it's hugely important to firstly know who you are and to stand for your principles” , and tries to “fix on who I am and what I stand for, what my values are. And then making sure that I can communicate that right through, that I'm a real and genuine person and hopefully one that people can look up to and respect”.
In my view, Dick Hubbard is a very self-actualised person, time after time after time throughout his business career putting his money where his mouth is, while the rest of the world slowly catches up with him.
Dick Hubbard is an authentic leader.
References:
- Avolio, Bruce J. & Gardner, William L. (June 2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, Volume 16, Issue 3, June 2005 (pp. 315-338)
- Jackson, Brad & Parry, Ken (2001). The Hero Manager; Learning from New Zealand’s Top Executives. New Zealand: Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd (Chapter 5: Dick Hubbard. pp. 97-116)
- Kouzes, James M. & Posner, Barry Z. (2002). In Jossey-Bass reader on educational leadership (book of edited readings), 2007. USA: Jossey-Bass Inc
- Young, Sam (2011). Dick Hubbard - The Way to Start the Day. NZ: NMIT & AUT.
| The Rise of Asian Mega-Cities |
The world is 50.5% urbanised (CIA The World Factbook, 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011). However, China, Africa and India are likely to undergo a huge amount of urbanisation over the next few decades. The current population of China is 43% of the world's total, Africa is 33% and India 29% (CIA The World Factbook, 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011). If these countries continue their already growing trends to city-living, we could have more than 80% of our population urbanised by the end of this century.
This brings huge logistical problems as well as the benefits of a consolidated workforce, an active market and income generation. The logistics of moving people to work each day, of removing waste, of providing water, housing, food and governance is a problem that will have cost and planning implications far in excess of what we have seen thus far.
Just 100 cities account for 30% of the world's economy, and almost all its innovation. Money, knowledge and stability come from world capitals that have evolved and adapted through centuries - and sometimes mere decades - of dominance (Foreign Policy, August 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011).
The new rising cities are Lisbon, Brussels, Budapest, Seoul (each of the former already contributing 25% of their national GDP), Delhi, Shanghai, São Paulo, Moscow, Beijing, Mumbai, Istanbul, Belem, Chongqing and Guadalajara.
- Each day, another 180,000 people move into cities, adding roughly 60 million new urban dwellers each year (Intuit, October 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011).
- By 2050, the global urban population is expected to be 6.3 billion, or 70% of the population at that time (UN, 2009, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011)
- By 2030, China will have an urban population of 1 billion, and India 590 million. Currently, Europe's urban population is 533 million (McKinsey forecast & UN data, 2009-10, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011)
- By 2030, China will have 221 cities with more than 1 million people, and India will have 68. In 2010, Europe has 35. During this period, 400 million Chinese and 215 million Indian will move to urban areas, more than the population of the US and Brazil combined (Foreign Policy, August 2010, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011)
- In January 2011, Chinese city planners proposed merging the nine cities around the Pearl River Delta into a single metropolitan area, containing some 42 million people: more than Argentina, and covering an area 26 times bigger than Greater London (Reuters, January 2011, as cited by Trendwatching, 2011)
In addition, China is producing more Science degrees each year than the rest of the world combined. I suspect we will be start naturally looking to China for the new research breakthroughs in the next few years as well. India for IT, China for research.
We live in interesting times :-)
Thanks to Trendwatching for these statistics at http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/
| Inserting Filler Text |
To insert filler text into a Word, Publisher or other MS document, you can either use the =rand() function, which will insert "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"; or the =lorem() function, which will insert the pigeon-latin text, "lorem ipsum".
You can adjust the amount of text being inserted by entering the number of paragraphs (x) and the lines per paragraph (y) inside the parentheses. Eg =lorem(10, 5) will insert 10 paragraphs of 5 lines per paragraph.
| TLAs for SMEs |
Here are this newsletter's TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) for you:
- 555, Five-Five-Five. This is radio-speak for good radio reception or good aeronautical conditions, often used in the USA. Interestingly, most telephone numbers in US films start with 555 too...
- BCC, blind carbon copy. Used for 'hidden' addressee emails, with no link to the typewriter duplicate technology of the past that spawned the term!
Please feel free to email me with any TLAs that you want to get the bottom (meaning!) of.
| Tips, Short+Hot Keys |
Over the next few newsletters, we are going to look at all you can do with Function keys. This time it is F2:
- Excel, PowerPoint, Word "Save As" Alt & F2
- Excel, PowerPoint, Word "Save" Alt & Shift & F2
- Excel "Edit a cell comment" Shift & F2
- Excel "Edit the active cell and put the insertion point at the end of the line" F2
- Outlook "Open Print Preview & display the Print Preview properties box" Ctrl & F2 Then Alt & S or Alt & U
- Outlook "Open print preview" Ctrl & F2
- Outlook "Turn on editing in a field (except icon view) or move to a field in the active card" F2
- PowerPoint "Select the text box (with text or an object selected inside the text box) or select the text within a text box (with the text box selected)" F2
- Windows "Rename an item. Type the new name. Key Enter to accept, Esc to cancel" F2
- Word "Copy Text" Shift & F2
- Word "Display the Print Preview dialog box" Ctrl & F2
- Word "Move selected text, Enter to place" F2
- Word "Open File" Alt & Ctrl & F2
| Hot Linx |
To check if you have a good work-life balance, go to Career Services website at http://www2.careers.govt.nz/quiz_work_life_balance.html and take their quiz.
The Ministry of Women's Affairs has a good set of resources for directors at http://www.mwa.govt.nz/women-on-boards.
For a look on the light side, check out Parkour Training guru, David Belle's BBC ad at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAMAr8y-Vtw, or some younger Brits in Parkour play at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOOlUR9Cg1Q
Tables in Word often don't convert easily for web use. Excel works better, and there is a nice online tool to convert Excel spreadsheets into HTML at http://tableizer.journalistopia.com/. Just copy your Excel spreadsheet there and click "Tableize it!". (this tip from Woody's Watch newsletter)
Catch you again soon!! E-mail your suggestions to me here
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