Business creates growth and productivity gains deliver wealth. But it is matter of some urgency that New Zealand’s economic performance demands higher level of strategic managerial and governance performance than is practised today.
New Zealand desperately needs better managers and directors. Education and attitude have been identified as the two elements most needed to improve New Zealand’s economic performance. There is an urgent need for improvement in the core competencies of developing strategy, adopting and exploiting technology, innovation, managing opportunities and human resources.
The fundamental shift for knowledge organisations is management’s recognition of human capital as the principal strategic resource. The emphasis must be on managing human, rather than capital resources.
The Institute must continue to be willing and able to pick up the challenge to lift management standards in New Zealand, particularly for small and medium enterprises. The Institute must think in terms of reinventing the future and addressing change. NZIM needs to be catalyst for changing management attitudes to learning and harnessing technology and for recognising that business success is the key to New Zealand’s prosperity.
NZIM contributions
To make its key contributions to New Zealand’s future NZIM will:
* engage in structured research (with universities and others) to establish gaps and future needs;
* research and analyse the views of practising managers (NZIM members).
And armed with the benefit of this research the Institute will:
* articulate the key role of management in the new economy, what it will be, what it will need, the importance of continual development;
* commit specialist communications resources to articulate the role of managers, directors and the Institute;
* educate and train managers to deliver superior performance in the new economy with relatively new set of forces dominating growth and change in business;
* bring undergraduate management qualifications into the new business world;
* develop and utilise alliances with key organisations, leaders and Government to achieve both national and the Institute’s objectives; (The way forward needs to be participative and include all of NZIM’s members.)
* pursue an aggressive communications strategy and deliver series of membership initiatives as matter of urgency;
* be proactive in getting these initiatives in place and widely known. (The developed world isn’t sitting still while New Zealand gets its act together.)
The Institute’s management qualifications must be relevant, up to date and future focused. We must change our approach to qualifications and research and maintain future-focused curriculum. The critical success factor will be the availability of tutors with the skills to lead such learning.
Management in the new world is to large degree attitude. Such skills are scarce and probably only few leading practising managers demonstrate what is required. That is the management gap. This may dictate an entirely new approach by the Institute to the provision for leading-edge future-focused qualifications curriculum.
International relationships
In September NZIM chief executive David Chapman and I attended the Assembly and Conference of the Asian Association of Management Organisations (AAMO) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I was elected president of that organisation for period of three years 2001-2003.
This will give NZIM an opportunity to provide leadership and to influence the direction we feel AAMO should take over the next two years in the interests of all the management organisations in the Asia/Pacific region. There are many opportunities for cooperative activity which will produce valued outcomes.
We have continued to strengthen our relationship with the American Management Association and 140 NZIM members have taken up the free AMA membership offer through the NZIM website www.nzim.co.nz.
Our relationship with the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) is very strong and we have recently concluded an agreement with AIM which will allow NZIM to deliver the very successful Frontline Manager Programme in New Zealand.
Conclusion
NZIM must continue to reinvent itself as New Zealand’s professional management institute and the centre and focus of the New Zealand management community. Managers will join NZIM to further their vision and competencies.
The knowledge wave is catalyst for new business model for success. For the managers who must lead their organisations into the future this is not one-time event. The ongoing change the knowledge wave process brings to the manager’s environment and the demands for performance it imposes require continuous change in the manager’s job and development of competencies.
The Institute should be the “constant” in every manager’s career, providing centre of excellence for them and an essential resource in terms of continual development of competencies and perspective. The Institute is the modern manager’s resource as he or she face today’s management environment of shorter management job tenure, the need for continual reskilling, occasional redeployment and even re-employment.
The NZIM Small Business Entrepreneurs’ Certificate is specially designed for people who are in business or in the process of starting up business. Participants solve the practical problems they face in their own business through series of individually mentored projects.
A full description of the course and its philosophy can be downloaded from www.arnold.co.nz/nzim (Simon Arnold of arnold.co.nz is helping develop the course).
Critical to the success of the course are tools to help quickly identify the training and business needs of course participants. These tools must pinpoint:
• the most pressing issues facing each business
• the training needs of the management team.
From this information the provider and participants will develop an appropriate course of study. If you can provide suitable tools, please register your interest by contacting arnold.co.nz at either NZIM RFI, arnold.co.nz, P O Box 7360, Wellington South or [email protected]
