Powerful company directors don’t normally visit the ‘down and out’ with religious charity workers but that is one experience that has helped to shape Tony Howarth’s values.
Powerful company directors don’t normally visit the ‘down and out’ with religious charity workers but that is one experience that has helped to shape Tony Howarth’s values.
Speaking at a WA Business News Success & Leadership breakfast last week, Mr Howarth discussed the close links between his personal values and his business activities.
Best known for being chairman of listed companies Alinta and Home Building Society, Mr Howarth said one of his “great privileges” was to be chairman of St John of God Healthcare, which combined the religious ethos of its founders with a clear commercial focus.
“The challenge for all of us in business who talk of values is to make them come alive in the same way as I experience here [at St John of God],” he said.
A recurring theme through Mr Howarth’s presentation was the need to keep balance.
For instance, he said ego and self interest were positive forces in business, but “once ego and self interest get out of balance, that’s when we start to see abuses of the system such as we saw in the HIH collapse”.
Similarly, he said chief executives should try to foster consensus but may end up having to make decisions themselves.
“Too much consensus can make an organisation moribund, whilst total autocracy does not allow new ideas to grow.”
Mr Howarth said one of the real management challenges he has faced was to build a culture where people celebrated success but also openly learned from what went wrong without always trying to apportion blame.
Another topic he discussed was managing change, which will be of interest to the staff at Home and its prospective merger partner StateWest Credit Society.
Mr Howarth said his experience has taught him that “done well, large change can be a catalyst for growth for both the business and people”.
He said employers had an obligation to improve the “employability” of their staff, so they are ready for change and preferably able to lead change.
Mr Howarth said a decisive moment in his career occurred in the early 1980s when he was put through a time-and-motion study and asked to describe his average day. In contrast to all of his colleagues, Mr Howarth felt that every day was different so he could not describe an average.
“To this day I believe that, had I described an average day, I would have never become a CEO.”
MANAGEMENT TIPS
• Trust others until they prove otherwise.
• Hold others accountable for their behaviour.
• Own up to your decisions; we all learn from mistakes.
• Seek others’ advice.
• Hire on attitude, not just technical skills.
