Jawun: 2017 Learnings and Insights

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Miwatj Employment and
Participation (MEP) was set
up in 2013 to support over
1,000 Indigenous (Yolŋu) and
non-Indigenous ( balanda) people
across the vast homelands of
Yirrkala, Gunyangara, Gapuwiyak
and Nhulunbuy in North East
Arnhem Land. MEP’s employment
work covers jobs, training and
business support, while its
participation work focuses on
community development and
economic participation for highly
disadvantaged people with limited
numeracy and literacy skills.
MEP struggled to find skilled
people to work in challenging
remote areas and experienced a
high burn-out rate among its staff.
As MEP took on more community-
based activities, CEO Jeremy
Kee prioritised skills transfer
and people development. A key
challenge was strengthening
the professional capacity of
regional coordinators—frontline
managers who oversee training
and community-based work-
for-the-dole activities, manage
teams of local staff, and report to
government funding agencies.
In 2015, Gutjapin Gumana was
promoted to regional coordinator,
the first Yolŋu to take up a
management role at MEP. Gutjapin
was to manage 20 staff. Jeremy
sought Jawun secondees with
an explicit focus on skills transfer
to regional coordinators, and
Gutjapin in particular. Kate
Reaper and Courtney McKean,
Commonwealth Bank employees
with backgrounds in customer
service, training and development,
were seconded to MEP.
Kate trained MEP staff in project
management, communications and
everyday professionalism, working
with management to develop
a staff procedures manual that
became part of a formal induction
package. Jeremy found it ‘fostered
a culture of togetherness’, and
‘allowed MEP to use our limited
resources to maximum effect’.
Courtney focused on supporting
Gutjapin. She learned about
the challenges of the regional
coordinator role and guided
him on time management, asset
management and effective
administration. Together they
established a weekly progress
review system for Gutjapin’s team.
Key performance indicators around
placement of dole participants in
work activities were tracked with
a ‘traffic light’ monitoring system.
This motivated staff and by the
time Courtney left, Gutjapin’s team
had reduced the non-placement
rate from 45% to 28% and ‘left
the red’. Progress continued, with
Gutjapin triumphant a month later,
telling Courtney his team achieved
an all-time low rate of 8%, well
and truly ‘in the green’! Gutjapin
feels this support upgraded his
professional skills and ability:
Courtney’s support was
around how I should be doing
my work—it was very simple
and understandable and
such a great tool to achieve. I
already had some of the skills
but she upgraded them.
There was one issue Courtney and
Gutjapin tackled together: while
Gutjapin is mandated by MEP
to manage staff in Gapuwiyak
homelands, he is not a community
leader there, so lacks the cultural
authority that is the basis of local
governance. The ability to ‘walk
in both worlds’—respecting Yolŋu
and balanda ways of acting and
leading—is critically important
to Gutjapin and many Yolŋu
people. He has not always seen
this appreciated by outsiders, but
in Jawun and Courtney he was
pleased to see understanding:
People need to be aware
that Yol ŋu culture is very
strong here, and that we are
working in two worlds. The
rules we are given within our
work have to line up with
our culture and customs,
otherwise there will be a lot
of misunderstandings.
People often say they care
about our cultures but they
don’t, and they trample over
us in ways that sometimes
even Yolŋu don’t realise.
But Jawun is an organisation
where people support other
cultures, in all companies
and organisations, so that
employees can do their jobs
better. I discovered that
about Jawun when Courtney
was here.
Courtney worked with Gutjapin
on ways of establishing clarity
locally around his role with
MEP, and building community
trust in how he performed his
job. Through this he has grown
professionally, filling the boots of
the regional coordinator role with
ever-increasing competence and
confidence.
The Yothu Yindi Foundation
named Gutjapin one of its Yol ŋu
heroes of 2016, an honour reserved
for respected community members
and announced at the annual
Garma Festival. The foundation
cited his invaluable service to MEP
and how, in taking on a challenging
role, Gutjapin had ‘stepped well
outside his comfort zone—one of
the hallmarks of leadership’
Gutjapin sees this as an extension
of his family’s legacy and their
commitment to leadership in
two worlds:
I want to be a leader
because my grandfather and
father were leaders back in
their day, in both balanda and
Yolŋ u worlds.
1. EMPOWERING INDIGENOUS LEADERSHIP 7