I found this to be a really refreshing assignment. I am so used to summarising and just explaining what I thought the Unit Coordinator would want to hear because lets face it....who the heck wants to know what I think about the subject I knew exactly 3/8s of nothing about. But I felt this a great exercise in dumping your brain ( a blog is a fancy word for a brain dump right?). I picked four KCQs and I couldn't help but relate them back to my previous jobs/experience. Here they are:
KCQ 1 - About half of the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of listed companies in Australia have accounting backgrounds, and about half the directors of Australia’s listed companies.
This really shows the correlation of those who have a background/expertise in accounting often go onto to take higher roles in companies all the way up to a CEO. While this statement may be surprising to some it is certainly not the case for myself. I think that that having an in depth understanding of how the finances of a company works and how it is critical to the success or failure of a company would be a basic requirement for being a CEO or Director. In my work history to date prior to my commencement at CQU both the General Manager, CEO and State Managers all had experience in accounting and finance.
In my prior role at Coca Cola Amatil while some may say that Coca Cola “sells itself” it was the financials behind every single decision from the top to the bottom that really shaped how the company operated. Unless you calculated the exact profit margins for every product you could find that while you may be selling large volumes to customers, if your profit margins weren’t financially sound you could end up losing money. This led to all contracts between Coca Cola and Customers requiring approval from the accounting team prior to the contract being made valid. Hence, it is apparent that the accounting team had a substantial impact on the success of the business.
The only point it did raise in me while slightly “off-topic” was the correlation between those moving into CEO/Director positions who had worked in smaller roles such as accounting and worked their way to the top. In my experience those who had worked in several roles at a company seemed to be the best decision makers because they could look at everything critically from a place of prior experience.
KCQ 2 - Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn
This quote really resonated with me and how I learn and approach my daily tasks. Learning is not as simple as just giving someone a list of concepts to memorise and retain. You need to understand a concept by breaking it down and adapting it through how you see the world and how you would approach this concept. Anyone can memorise a concept and its answer but if you don’t understand what the answer means and specifically what your interpretation is then you haven’t really learned anything you have only memorised a question and its answer. It does raise a further point and that is can you be involved in everything you are trying to learn? Are some things as simple as memorise the concept and don’t require any further exploration? I don’t think so, but I am only early in my learning journey so far and I’m sure I will find out more as I progress through my course.
I currently work as a Course Advisor at CQU in the School of Engineering and Technology. I have only taken over this school 2 weeks ago and while the methods are the same each school has certain requirements that require deeper understanding to be able to provide correct advice. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of a student and think how each decision impacts them. We can’t look at each case in the scope of a single unit, we must look at it in the overall pathway to graduation. We need to involve ourselves in each student’s journey to graduation. When changes to the course are proposed we need to look at in the scope of the whole context. Sure, I could simply look that a pre-requisite is being changed and approve but unless I understand how this could impact the whole student experience and impact on their degree then I am not providing sound advice. Therefore, our feedback is required for a change to courses/units as we have to “involve” ourselves from a student perspective and its why I need to just do more than memorise the course and units that make up my school.
KCQ 3 - A firm can create value, and it can also destroy value, through its business activities; just as we can in our personal relationships and in our individual activities each day.
Absolutely any business through internal or external events/decisions can add value or destroy it at any given moment in time. In our personal relationships all your decisions can increase or decrease your value to any given person any given time. Sometimes personally you need to ask, “what is your brand?”
A firm’s value is consistently changing day-by-day and moment-by-moment because of its business activities and of changes in the markets in which it operates and in the world around it. The pandemic is where this statement has proven to be true. Look at CQUniversity and the impact on the loss of international students. Look at companies such as Officeworks, gym equipment etc that would have all delivered huge profits that they would not have predicted due to increased isolation or working from home arrangements. I feel this is the absolute volatility of any business. You can plan to mitigate risk as much as possible but sometimes the unknown can change your fortunes. However, if a business is adaptable then sometimes a quick shift can allow a business to move with market changes and alternatively diversify and create new markets. Sometimes I wonder can creating and losing value happen simultaneously?
In a prior position at Coca Cola, we went to market with a new “Stevia Sweetened” drink. This created value within the health market and lead to contracts within a lot of the Government run hospitals etc as it added healthier options for consumer. However, for the average consumer it was a disaster, lead to a massive loss and was eventually discontinued.
From a personal perspective, when I commenced at CQU in 2019 I was on a short-term contract, so I ensured I put my hand up for all extra work, overtime, anytime there was an opportunity I took it. This then led to me adding value to my work relationships and was eventually made permanent within 8 weeks of commencement. This shows that you can always add value to your personal brand.
KCQ 4 - History unfolds itself by strange and unpredictable paths. We have little control over the future; and none at all over the past.
My mum used to say the past is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is the present so treat it as a gift. This really amounts to you can’t change the past and the future is unknown, so you have no control over how it’s going to unfold. I do not entirely agree with this statement. While we don’t have any control over the past, we can use it to change the future. We learn from the past and use it to map our future. I simply look at this in my current study journey. In my prior study I was casual with it all. Didn’t commit too much time to study each night so when it came time to submit an assignment, I would be staying up all night rushing through leaving it all to the last minute. This time I am trying to commit hours each night and staying as far ahead as possible. What I am doing is putting time into the now to set myself up in the future. I look at it as two Dans, the work I do now is making “Future Dans” life a lot easier.
I hope this is right....
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