{"id":578,"date":"2017-10-25T07:36:36","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T07:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/?p=578"},"modified":"2018-05-30T18:47:20","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T18:47:20","slug":"tall-poppies-need-to-be-watered-so-that-they-grow-even-taller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/rwc-blog\/tall-poppies-need-to-be-watered-so-that-they-grow-even-taller\/","title":{"rendered":"Tall Poppies Need to be Watered so That They Grow Even Taller !"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Today the Eastern Institute of Technology was privileged to have Sean Colgan onsite as a guest presenter to &#8216;Operations Management&#8217; students. Sean owns the largest aggregates business in the world (annual revenue of NZ$1.2 billion). Website:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irvmat.com\/aggregates.asp\">https:\/\/www.irvmat.com\/aggregates.asp<\/a>\u00a0It ranks as one of the 5 top American companies in respect of its scale\/ performance; alongside entities such as Microsoft and Google, and has a customer base that spans 60 + countries.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It was an exceptional presentation by an exceptional person. Because Sean was communicating with a class of Operations Management students this time around, he talked at length about effective &#8220;people management&#8221; practices. <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Some of the valuable insights he offered included:<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Cause no harm &#8211; leaders\/ managers need to concentrate on guiding, teaching and supporting.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Praise in public and discipline in private.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Have employees own the decisions for which they are responsible for making\/ paid to make.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A good manager leads from the front, and doesn&#8217;t assign subordinates jobs that can&#8217;t be done (e.g. for safety reasons).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Good business owners\/ managers share credit\/ praise with others (e.g. favourable customer feedback).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Effective business owners\/ managers lead by working &#8220;with&#8221; colleagues &#8211; not by &#8220;cracking the whip&#8221; working over the top of them.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Don&#8217;t stop people from making bad judgement calls &#8211; let people make their own mistakes to allow them to learn from their mistakes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">A business owner&#8217;s main objective should be to help people be happy and relaxed at what they do. Happy people are naturally productive people. Managing through the use of fear is counterproductive.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">As a business owner\/ manager help other people with their thought processes &#8211; teach others &#8220;how&#8221; to think, not &#8220;what&#8221; to think.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Always take people with you on the journey that you set for your business.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Engage the best people you can afford &#8211; don&#8217;t be threatened by talented people.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">And on the last bullet point above, we discussed in some depth the tendency still of the general Kiwi psyche to &#8220;cut people off at their knees&#8221; or &#8220;shut them down&#8221; whenever a motivated\/ driven fellow Kiwi shows signs of achievement\/ getting ahead. Commonly known as &#8220;Tall Poppy Syndrome&#8221;. It was interesting to hear from one student that her grandparents spoke about this syndrome as she was growing-up in N.Z. &#8211; and therefore its beginnings can be traced back some 80 years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">My response to those who want to fell\/ undermine &#8220;Tall Poppies&#8221; is&#8230;.STOP IT ! These people are <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">essential<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0in order for New Zealand to achieve development and growth. They are the &#8220;path finders&#8221; and &#8220;game changers&#8221; that unlock magical chests of innovation. If anything START WATERING (supporting) these &#8220;Tall Poppies&#8221; so that they grow even taller.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today the Eastern Institute of Technology was privileged to have Sean Colgan onsite as a guest presenter to &#8216;Operations Management&#8217; students. Sean owns the largest aggregates business in the world (annual revenue of NZ$1.2 billion). Website:\u00a0https:\/\/www.irvmat.com\/aggregates.asp\u00a0It ranks as one of the 5 top American companies in respect of its scale\/ performance; alongside entities such as Microsoft and Google, and has a customer base that spans 60 + countries.\u00a0 It was an exceptional presentation by an exceptional person. Because Sean was&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}