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Leadership principles start with values
I met Craig Dower through LinkedIn when he commented on one of my articles about culture. I was intrigued by his global accolades as CEO: President of Avanade Asia Pacific out of Singapore, CEO Salmat, CEO Xenith Ip, and now CEO of Qantm IP. It’s not the titles but the work he did: growing the business three-fold at Avanade, leading the largest transformation program in the company’s 40-year history at Salmat, and leading through a period of substantial change and steady earnings growth at Xenith IP. His secret? Focus on People First.
This rings true for me on every level, so I wanted to mine his experience for more wisdom.
Why you should listen: leadership responsibilities start with people, then transformation
Why you need to reward values and behaviour as well as outcomes
How to transformational change fast, at scale: Get the people right, then identify three priorities: Focus, Simplify, Grow
As the CEO you need to be the chief change sponsor and chief storyteller
The hardest part about building high performing teams is getting the people right: a fit for behaviour and values, performance can be coached, but performance without values and behaviour is toxic
We explore corporate culture and change
Back to basics in leading a culture back to success: get the people right, get the culture right, and get the strategic focus right
Why culture is everything and that no amount of strategy can overcome a poor culture
Context, context, context: keep explaining WHY the change is happening, and how it will affect the individuals - walk in their shoes
👉🏼 Want to share your experience? Ask a question? Share a resource? Jump on our podcast Facebook page here.
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Shownotes:
Craig’s favourite books:
Jim Collins’s Good To Great
Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Resources:
Real Communication by Gabrielle Dolan
Understanding the Kubler Ross Change Curve - change as grief
About Craig Dower:
CEO Craig Downer talks about leadership effectiveness focusing on people first culture
Craig Dower is a seasoned and successful senior executive with extensive experience in leading large-scale organisational change. Craig has served as CEO, President and Managing Director with a number of prominent organisations, both public and private, over the past twenty years. He has led several successful business transformations and taken those companies to new levels of growth and profitability. Craig has deep global and Asia Pacific experience, and lived with his family in Singapore for five years. He has also served on various boards, both as an executive and non-executive director.
Craig was recently appointed as the CEO-elect of QANTM IP (ASX : QIP), a leading intellectual property and law firm and he commences that new role in January 2020. He was most recently the CEO and Managing Director of Xenith IP (ASX : XIP) the owner of a group of leading specialist intellectual property (IP) services firms.
Craig has also served as CEO of Salmat (ASX : SLM), as well as President, Asia Pacific and China with Avanade, and has held a number of other senior executive positions in his 30+ year career.
Outside of work, Craig sings and plays rhythm guitar in a rock covers band, The Replacements, on the northern beaches of Sydney.
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Related episodes on leadership principles
E134 - My biggest failure was needing to be right - Marene Allison, CISO Johnson & Johnson
E108 - The dark side of culture
E129 - Stop rewarding outputs! Culture tips with best selling author Josh Levine
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About your host, Canberra leadership expert Zoë Routh:
Zoë Routh is one of Australia’s leading experts on people stuff - the stuff that gets in our way of producing results, and the stuff that lights us up. She works with the growers, makers, builders to make people stuff fun and practical.
Zoë is the author of four books: Composure - How centered leaders make the biggest impact, Moments - Leadership when it matters most, Loyalty - Stop unwanted staff turnover, boost engagement, and build lifelong advocates, and People Stuff - Beyond Personalities: An advanced handbook for leadership. People Stuff was awarded Book of the Year 2020 by the Smart WFM Australian Business Book Awards.
Zoë is also the producer of The Zoë Routh Leadership Podcast.