![[header] The Working Journey Projects - Building National Capability](images/header_projects.jpg)
Michael Hawker, Chief Executive Officer. Insurance Australia Group limited. Sydney Australia.
Just a short note to thank you for the extremely comprehensive and professional reviews you have completed with my management team. Your work provides my management team and I an invaluable tool in a number of ways.
Firstly it provides each of us a tremendous self awareness. Secondly, it provides each of us with an insight into another dimension. Performance evaluation of senior managers becomes quite problematic when assessing capabilities as opposed to financial outcomes. This work improves the scale, breadth and richness of individual assessment. It also broadens the horizons of the assessors.Thirdly and finally, it helps me view the capability of my team aggregate, and their potential times of restlessness, providing me with a wonderful forward planning tool for succession.
Thank you for your help and I look forward to a continuing relationship into the future.
Dick Simpson. CEO Reach Telecommunications. Hong Kong. China.
My work with Andrew around work complexity has raised a number of issues. There are levels of complexity and some people choose to stay within the same level for most of the working career and life. In that sense, the work complexity model has helped me understand why those people would be happy with their lot in life.
The second way it has helped me is to understand that if there is more than one level between somebody working directly for me and myself, then I probably will have some difficulty/frustration relating to that person and therefore as a team effectiveness exercise, it was quite useful to understand where the various people's work complexities were. The other side of this is it was very useful to understand how complex the job is versus how capable the individual is, to understand their level of satisfaction with the role.
The third area where it's been useful is the whole concept of in flow versus in transition. It has been interesting to me that there are times when you just feel so good about what you're doing and there are times when you feel genuinely confused and you wonder why you're confused when you used to be so comfortable and confident. Understanding that you're going through complexity transitions has helped me to better understand that changing dimension.
There is one other dimension, - your own self development. I suspect even if you don't want the greater level of complexity, you get dragged into it anyway. It does help if you have a mental model and are consciously making the choice going forward, rather than having the world dish it out to you.
Ann Sherry, Group Executive, People and Performance. Westpac Banking Corporation. Sydney, Australia (2001)
Ann is currently CEO of Westpac Banking Corporation in New Zealand. She won a centenary medal for her services to Australia in 2003.
Westpac Banking Corporation has engaged Mr Andrew Olivier in a consulting capacity between June 1999 and May 2001. During this period he has consulted extensively with a broad group of senior executives and managers in support of work that links to strategic imperatives.
Andrew's knowledge, skills and business experience in the areas of organisation and leadership development are at an extremely high level. These skills are currently a rare commodity in Australia and highly sought after.
Andrew has made a very significant impact not only on our business processes for building management capability, but also on the personal careers of the many executives he's supported. He is highly entrepreneurial and creative, he has the ability to encourage others to think about industry changes and solutions form a much broader perspective than would otherwise have been the case.
Dr Maria Maguire, (ex-General Manager Telstra Mobile, now in UK)
Mr Olivier is a leading international expert on organisational effectiveness and organisational capability issues. His experience and, in our view, unique skills in a field of complexity based work systems enabled him to make a very significant contribution to business effectiveness and competitive advantage. Mr Olivier personally contributed extremely valuable insights on issues of organisational capability that enabled senior management to implement significant improvements in the business. He is a trusted adviser to the senior executive team
A Senior Programme Director. Sydney. 2004
Andrew, I wanted to thank you for the time you have spent with me and to say that I found the process to be the most helpful I have been engaged in. It is not too strong a statement to make when I say this insight has given voice to what I need as a person, and in a very exciting way. I have had a feeling for about two years that my career options are closing down at a time when my personal demand for more growth is expanding, not a good place to be. I have been questioning for about two years as to whether I am going mad, I have had the feeling of being in a final phase or an ending of something and the growing need to break out of my current path. Once again, thank you.