I recently attended a public debate on "A New Tasmanian Economy" organised at the University of Tasmania. Considering it was a bitterly cold night with snow on the mountain the turnout was good.
I had some reservations about going, as no one on the panel was from business, but I enjoy listening to leaders in their fields and try to keep an open mind. Three mates came with, Bob from education, Mark from Tourism and Neil, a retired businessman and active volunteer.
There was some discussions after the panelist had done their eight minute presentations. One concerned our island talent pools. It was generally felt that children should go out and get experiences, but then be encouraged to return to build Tasmania. I found that debate naive.
There have been a number of studies done on national talent pools and their diaspora. One particular study (Massey University 2005) examined 4,500 professional Kiwis who had left New Zealand to live abroad. Of those in senior executive roles, CEOs and entrepreneurs, none expressed the intention of returning as much as they wanted, since there were no high level roles available for them in essentially a branch office economy.
Underline and bold this for Tassie. With 500,000 people and an even smaller branch office economy and introspective culture, our island bleeds high potential to levels of work challenge that our small island state cannot ever offer. It is precisely these high potentials who create the engines for building a robust economy. We export this precious resource.
As an aside, our work deals with the talent pools of major companies, both national and global. I often find Tasmanians in senior roles; all talk about wanting to return, but admit there is no work challenge to attract them.
Someone in the panel commented that with technology one can live and work anywhere.That is true. My wife and I live in Tasmania but don't earn our daily crust here; we do it through Skype, Internet technology and pay the price with heavy carbon footprints and in the past, parenting by relay.
Almost every speaker had the mandatory wail about poor productivity, government and state public service bureaucracy; losing the wrong talent through cost cutting; poor service delivery, obsession with process; short termism (and the market???) and being spread too thinly across too many fronts without resources.
The worrying thing is I don't think public sector leadership is curious about improving accountability, performance or delivery. For example, over the last half century our network has worked with restructuring British National Health, British Gas, the US Army and US Military Medical Services and Rio Tinto to name but a few. I am informed colleagues are doing a restructure of White Hall under the British PM.
We offered a free session in Hobart on these principles in 2009 and there was no interest. Nada. Ah, sour grapes you may say, but no, just disappointment. When Lara Gidding was Minister of Health I wrote to her, telling her about the work in the NHS. I received a response (thank you) promising followup (which never materialised). I offered my services free to the Tasmanian Leaders Programme, but the offer fell on stoney ground.
And then thank heavens, it happened. Someone in the panel mentioned there was no long term strategic vision of a future Tasmania. We agreed later this was one factor not stressed sufficiently in the discussion. It was Peter Poulet, the state architect who spoke about passion, vision, doing something different, thinking creatively and more laterally that was needed to build a resilient contemporary economy. He is right, we need to build something that makes our island an exemplar, a beacon of light that shines out to the world, bringing tourism, business, entrepreneurs, while attracting back our diaspora. Good on you Peter.
At the end of the evening the panel was asked their wish for the future economy of Tasmania. They responded with thoughts about prosperous futures, inspiring outcomes, more engagement, improved delivery in the public sector, a more efficient government structure, larger populations built around sustainable cities and every kid finishing Year 12. Good stuff, but we need Visionary Leadership across multiple themes to make this happen.
We need rallying visions that create the attraction. I am not going to do a list of "We need..." but suffice to say we do need some action. Talk fests are great, but they need executable outcomes and simple clear messages. Like Saul Eslake said, how about a rallying cry of "No Year 10 dropouts" (my friend Bob later offered a sensible refinement to that call) and like Peter Poulet said, how about a truly green island that is an example that attracts people. We need to be an exemplar for the society of the future. Why not a carbon neutral city?
We can do it, we have the right scale to be an incubator of the society of the future. It all has to start with with each one of us. Sue Maher has stated the Journey. I am going to as well...
Aluta Continua
