the F rant

It’s been reported in the Herald-Sun today that Eddie McGuire held a BBQ for the troops at GTV Nine in Richmond – the Melbourne office of the Nine Network. This isn’t anything extraordinary, except for a subtext in one of Eddie’s comments:

It was a good opportunity for them to see what happens down here and for people to see it… It’s good for the staff to see the decision makers in Sydney, the programmers and people like that and to let them know how we’re going and if that lifts morale and makes people feel good that’s part of the job of being CEO.”

What is so extraordinary about that is the implication that the Sydney decision makers are myopic – as Eddie attempts to erase the “Headquarters Mentality”.

Kenichi Ohmae, the famed Japanese management consultant, spoke of the headquarters mentality in his excellent book, “The Borderless World”.  He describes firms whose head office plays a massive role in the affairs of the local branch office (located in the same area the Head Office is located), but essentially harms the other branch offices by either ignoring, undermining (through lack of resources or power) or over-managing (via placing a “head office person” into the chief role at the expense of local knowledge). The inverse is that issues at the local branch office which is located in the same place as the Head Office then seemingly become Head Office issues, overwhelming and disproportionately taking up the resources of the Head Office in solving the problem.

Ohmae comments that “The Headquarters Mentality is the expression of managerial nearsightedness, the sworn enemy of a genuinely equidistant perspective on markets”. But also that the highly factionalised Nine needs a good healthy dose of Eddie passion. “Indeed, the more you try to coordinate and facilitate from the centre, the more important the value system your people take with them becomes”.  One of Ohmae’s suggestions, one that Eddie is fulfilling currently, although not entirely, is that “it is important that no-one talks of “domestic” or “home” or “interstate” operations.

“It is important that you do not speak of subsidiaries or affiliates or local hires. The language you speak and the worldview it implies, must be global”. The Nine head office might be “in” Sydney, but the Nine head office must not be “of” Sydney.

FREEDOM: Economics, Politics and Business, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends

It’s amazing what you can do in two days in Melbourne.

Starting on Saturday, I had an amazing BBQ with about 50 friends in the MCG parkland. Right near Wellington Parade we commandeered some of the free BBQs and had a brilliant day of sausages, lamb and veal meatballs, footy, cricket, music and laughter. We were there from about 12:30pm til 8pm. 25 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, not a puff of wind.

Sunday was an equally beautiful day, so I ventured down to Brunetti for breakfast with friends before going down to the Docklands to see off of the Volvo Ocean Race. A pity I couldn’t scab any corporate hospitality. A call out for some corporate love for the next global event that hits town please. Oh, I forgot, that’s the Commonwealth Games. Er – make it the Grand Prix please?  ”Blogger outreach” is a term I heard the other day…  How about some for me?

Sunday night finished with some passes to Good Vibrations, where James Brown strutted what was left of his stuff. Not a scratch on his famous 1988 Melbourne Metro performances, however it was good to see the old man in action.

Fireworks over the Yarra finished the evening, and as midnight approached, I sat with a group of friends at Transit Bar above Federation Square in the balmy summer heat and I thought – Melbourne is the best city on earth.

FOOTY: Sport in general, FUN: Music, Culture and Entertainment, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends