Made in Australia

The international demand for our talent …

Since emerging from the “recession that we had to have”, Australia has enjoyed a long period of economic growth that shows little sign of abating.   While much of this growth has been driven by an insatiable requirement of various commodities on part of major trading partners such as China and Japan, there seems to be an equally voracious demand for Australian executive and professional talent. Between 800, 00 and one million Australians are living and working overseas at any time; a huge number considering out population of 20 million. It is true that a significant proportion of the numbers of Australians living and working overseas are students on “gap years”, but the majorities are highly educated and skilled managers and professionals.

And while, for example, Australian mining, oil and gas specialists can be found all over the world, it remains largely the case that majority of Australian expatriates are based in the UK, the US and increasingly in the Asia region especially China.

Quite simply, this trend is being driven by globalization. Business consultancy Zaffyre International’s Chairman and author Margot Cairnes says, “Large global corporations and scouring the world for talent around the globe.” So just what is it about Australians talent punches above its weigh in the global economy. “Because we’re a small marketing, Australians get much better general management experience, much earlier in their careers. In an enormous marketplace like America, people specialise and don’t get to become general mangers until late in their careers. In Australia, as soon as you’re made a general manger and you’re in charge of marketing, purchasing, financial management, (which means having to master) a whole array of skills.”

The typical journey

Boston-based Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) Managing Director for Customer Satisfaction and service Adam Bryans experience is typical of many expatriates. Bryan joined global chartered accountancy firm Coopers and Lybrand as a cadet jus out of high school and, after completing his chartered accounting professional year, went to work in Cooper’s London office. Bryan then left Coopers to take up the Sydney based position of CFO with Thomas Financial Asia. “I did that for five years and it was obvious that if I wanted to go anywhere in that company it was not going to be in Australia. I got transferred to Hong Kong, and after a couple of years ended up as regional managing director of another Thomson Financial business, the software company Omgeo. “Again it was obvious that my career could only go to the United States, so when I was offered a job in Boston as Omgeo’s global COO I took it.” Bryan eventually became CEO of Omgeo before moving into is current position with DTCC.

By contrast, Dimension Data’s Scott Petty took more direct route. Formerly the company’s Australian office CIO and COO, Petty was approached by the London-based head office to head up its global services business. He believes that one of the reasons why Australia succeeds overseas is our competitive domestic business environment. “The speed with which deregulation happened in Australia drove a lot of change. It is rare to work in a market as competitive as Australia, and because of that you learn skills that are very useful everywhere else.” Petty also believes that Australians multicultural society stands us in good stead. The flat management structure adopted by most Australian companies and our egalitarian society also tend to be advantages, says petty. “UK companies have very hierarchical management structures. That creates inertia and bureaucracy within business and mangers can struggle to create virtual teams, particularly where they have to work with people many rungs above or below them.” Petty believes that Australians don’t have that problem, and as a result are better at motivating teams and groups of people. “ for an English senior manger its almost unheard of for someone who runs a global services business to have a beer with a networking engineer; but for an Australian its unheard of not to.”

Emotional talent

Recruitment consultant Drake International’s Executive General Manager, Domic Toledo, describes this as emotionally talented leadership, and believes it is a valuable skill that Australians excel at.” Staff retention is becoming a key theme across modern economies, so a manager who is emotionally talented has the ability to be licked by staff, and engaging in staff development helps ensure good levels of staff retention throughout the organization,” he says. “Australians have a natural no-nonsense approach, a desire to succeed coupled with a strong work ethic and the ability to roll up the sleeves and get involved.” Toledo believes underlying environmental factors shape our society and engender these abilities.” (Activities) early in life, such as our engagement with sport, shape that likeability, competitiveness and ability to be a team player. Those qualities are engendered at a very early age socially and it’s underpinned by excellent secondary and tertiary schooling.”

Question and challenge

One aspect of the Australian education system unanimously considered a positive is its encouragement of students to question and challenge. According to executive recruitment firm Laughlin Executive’s Chairman, Sally Laughlin, this translates to innovative managers. “Australians-based managers in larger corporations are too far away from headquarters to threaten the corporate culture,” she says, “therefore they (managers) often get to experiment more and can propose that head office use Australia (as a base) to pilot programs.” Westray Engineering Chairman, Wendy Simpson, noticed a sort of rigidity in overseas managers while working for the French Telecommunications giant Alcatel for seven years, when based in Shanghai. “My colleagues had all come through the French polytechnique system; they were the elite of the elite and they were incredibly good at processing large amounts of data, but when it came to what to do with the data, they weren’t so great.”

Simpson’s own problem-solving attitude led to Alcatel being based in Shanghai in the first place. “Since the early 1980’s, Alcatel had been involved in a joint venture with a state-owned enterprise in China, but problems emerged over issues of technology and control,” says Simpson. “The company had three choices: exit the market, go it alone or try to rekindle the joint venture- which was the least popular option within the company.” Simpson and her Asia-based colleagues believed that china might be the best future the company had, so they hijacked the annual budget planning meeting “instead of feeding the CEO with accounting history, we won him over with the future promise of China. I then became part of the team that moved the company’s regional headquarters to Shanghai and restructured the relationship with the partner. Today, china is one of the most profitable division and powerhouse of intellectual capital for the entire company.”

Cultural dimensions

Zinifex CEO Greig Gailey spent 34 years working for British Petroleum both in Australia and overseas, including a stint as Managing Director of the company’s European Refining business. He believes that there’s a cultural dimension to the success of Australians overseas, but also believes it’s important not to take similarities for granted. “The world’s largest companies tend to be American or British, and there’s a fit for Australians in both cultures. Nevertheless, sometimes the most challenging places were where you did speak the language because you risk presuming they were the same as Australia. I found that most starkly in new Zealand; as you start with the premise that it’s a lot like Australia and they’ll operate the same way- and they don’t.”

Managers, not leaders?

However, among all the positive reasons and examples given for why Australians are successful and desirable as mangers overseas, that’s not to say there aren’t more cautious voices to be found. For one, Gartner Research Managing Vice President Ian Bertram isn’t quite so sure that Australian managers punch above their weight globally. “I would say that we’re commensurate with other countries: punching above our weight may be a bit of an exaggeration. From a business perspective we are now taken very seriously. However, if you go back 20 years the idea of an Australian as the CEO or senior executive of a global company was laughable. Nowadays we’ve really shown the world when we can do in these types of roles and you are finding more Australians in senior executive positions.” Similarly, New South Wales General Manager of Lee Hecht Harrison and AGSM lecturer Geoff Aigner argues that perhaps expatriates are not quite representative of Australian managers as a whole. They are selecting themselves to move up a level and tackle something more challenging. Australian managers who are overseas are people who are already very capable, doing well, have a capacity to adapt and take their experiences into different contexts.”

Wrecking balls

Aigner adds further rider that although we do excel in operational roles, there does seem to be a tendency for companies to use us as wrecking balls. “Australians are seen as doers, and I wonder if we’re seen as too operational, to ‘doing’ focused. Does this preclude us from being in charge of larger organisations and systems? Anecdotally speaking, you meet so many Australians in management roles overseas and, while there are expectations, you don’t see many in senior roles. “It might have something to do with specificity of our training. In the US and Europe, almost all countries require some liberal arts education for a person to progress through the graduate and postgraduate level. In Australia someone can do a business degree, followed by an MBA (after relevant work experience) without having to understand Australian history.”

Natural globalists

If there was one thing that all the current and past expatriates that Management Today spoke to had in common, it was their reasons for working overseas. While overseas salaries can be much higher, and many countries have attractive tax regimes for expatriates, no one gave their reason for heading over seas money. “We’re natural globalists for a lot of cultural and historical reasons,” says Advance’s Elena Douglas. “Australia is a transplanted culture, and Australians often find themselves travelling back to the source of that culture.” This attitude was echoed by Dimension Data’s Petty. “it was the opportunity to travel and experience a different culture, “ he says. “ there are career opportunity, the markets are so much bigger and the opportunities are so much larger; that’s the exciting thing. “ the money for me really wasn’t that important, because l had a longer term view. And also, the standard of living in Australia is so good that id have to earn four times, even 10 times my salary to approximate in London the same standard of living I had in Sydney.”

[Source: Management Today Magazine]