February 18, 2025 • 37 mins
Get your pen and paper ready. This is one of those episodes brimming with hot tips! From his days at Essendon football club, to the CEO of the Gold Coast Suns and now the CEO of Grand Prix Australia, Travis Auld knows a thing or two about what it takes to lead from the top in times of good and bad. His unique approach to leaning into anything uncomfortable is nothing short of inspiring and his hands on approach to listening and leadership defines him as one of Australia’s most inspiring CEO’s.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appoche Production. Welcome to another episode of Brave Always, the
CEO series. This series, we launch into the new world
of brave leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Happy people create happy businesses.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
True emotionally intelligent leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I've picked up vomit once on our about our fourth
flight and everybody thought, well, if it's good enough for him,
I can do it Now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
We will be joined by culture and leadership experts and
some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us the truth
behind their brave leadership journeys. Welcome to another episode of
Brave Always. Today, I am thrilled to be joined by
the CEO of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, Travis Alt.
Travis has had nearly thirty years at the helm of
some of Australia's largest sporting institutions during some of the
(00:51):
most turbulent times, a sporting fanatic and a hugely well
respected leader for his authenticity and energy. I am pretty
pumped to have you on here today, so welcome Travis.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thanks for having memro. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Travis. In my experience interviewing people of your professional calub
there's this lovely little link which often is like humble beginnings.
I don't know. That's what I've experienced, that sort of
shakes how they ended up leading later in life. Now
I know you were born in Tatura, Victoria, small rural town.
I think it's like less than five thousand people. When
I googled what's Tatura famous for a little pub appeared.
(01:22):
I'm assuming it's more than that. Is it? This famous
little pub is there?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's got three pubs. It's had three thousand, six hundred
people for as long as I'm sort of know, which
means I don't count very often. They're very humble beginning.
It's very fortunate. But I grew up in a small town,
was raised. You know, they say it takes a village.
I was raised by the Tatura community, very grounded upbringing,
very fortunate. I never sort of missed any opportunities or
without anything. But my parents are still into Tura. Yeah
I get back there. Yeah. It was a very sporting,
(01:47):
very outdoor upbringing, and there's a lot of that still
in May now. It's particularly in my leadership.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Did you always envisage leaving like? Was it I'm never
going to stay here?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Like?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Did you have grand plans quite young to say I
want to get out of here and get to the
big smoke.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Maybe, I mean I my definition of the big smoke
when I was into Tura was some smaller than Melbourne.
No one felt really big when I was a child,
and so I actually went to university in Bendigo. Three
thousand people to a sixty or seventy thousand people was
a much more palatable step than going straight to Melbourne.
And so I went to the University at Latrobe in
Bendigo allowed me to come back on weekends and play sport,
(02:20):
and it was nice stepping stone for them. What was
the big smoke some years after that?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, right, I mean I feel for me in particular.
Always having a strong male role model when you're younger
is a big part of helping people shape how they
grow up. Who was yours? Was that your dad? Was
it somebody else in the community. What did they teach you?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Certainly my father to some degree, he taught me a
lot about hard work, hard work and being relationship focused.
I've got an older brother three years older than me.
He probably paved the way for me and I still
talked very regularly and look up to him and what
he does in his career, and so probably him, as
much as anyone, is sort of the person that's shaped
me very early on. You always want to be like
your older brother, and I tookaly wanted to be that,
(02:57):
but also that the local football club, local cricket club.
As I was sort of coming through the ranks, you'd
always have people go to take you under their arm.
And developed a lot of friendships and great memories through
playing football. But I was never going to create a
career through playing sport right And in fact, I never
really had ambitions of working in sport. It just wasn't
a natural pathway that was in front of me. I
saw of fell into it, which I'm sure we'll get to.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, yeah, well, I was going to say, and then
you decided to become an accountant. I actually find it
really funny. There's so many CEOs of interview who always
sat as accountants, and so I'm trying to figure out
is that like you just had a passion for numbers,
or is this like some long term strategy that you
know you're going to end it at the top and
you need to start off as an accountant.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I think it's the thing you do when you don't
know what you want to do is that it was
for me. I didn't really know what I wanted to
do post doing Year twelve or post university. So I
thought having a really good grounding in finance was going
to be important and it would open up more opportunities.
And then I knew were available at the time, and
so I went off and did a Bachelor of Business
at the Trophy Bendigo and it's always been a good grounding.
I went and worked in a chartered accounting firm. That
(03:54):
was my first opportunity. I was there for three or
four years and you love it, I did. I love it.
I think it was a really good background. I worked
in audit and so the beauty of or it was,
yes fully faces a bit. The beauty of order for
me was that you get exposed a whole lot of
different businesses and so you work on different things all
the time. And that's how I got my first role
at the Essiden football Club. I was their author. Yeah,
(04:16):
so I was really fortunate. I worked from the large
charter of the canning firms in Melbourne. I've got sent
to London for a while to their sister firm for
someone from Tatura that was a big move and it
was a great experience. Came back and you got approached
to join the Essendon Football Club and so I thought
why not? And that's how I ended up in sport.
So when people say, hey, did you get in sport?
Tell me the pathway to get in the sport. I'm
not the person to talk to you in terms of
(04:38):
how I got into sport. I sort of fell into
it and there have been there ever since.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, right, okay, there you go. You did play a
number of key roles during your tenure at the NFL.
From COO I think it was an incident as well,
and then obviously the inaugural CEO at the Gold Coast
Suns to CFO and GM at d AFL. So now
that you've left the world of football, looking back, what
did it teach you about great leadership?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Lots? I think sport is a wonderful environment to learn
about leadership, learn about team, learn about social license, about
the role that you play that exists beyond what you
directly think your day to day job is. And so
if you think about from a working in clubs is
quite different than working at the AFL. From a helper perspective,
working at both clubs taught me a lot, probably maybe
(05:20):
in some cases different things because of my role. My
first sort of foray into AFL was Esthmate Football Club,
very successful, big club. You get to see athletes coming
together as a team and achieving incredible things and some
of the things that sit within that leadership. We had
Kevin Sheedy as our coach for twenty five years, incredibly
successful coach, and I learned a whole lot from how
he went about leading the team. It's the best example
(05:43):
you'll get a high performance, high performance environment. These guys
are trying to get better every day, they're getting marked publicly,
there's a big spotlight on them. So from an understanding
how teamwork works, the importance of culture, that was really important.
So my transition was I was at the Essenmon Football
Club for eleven years. I had been approached to be
a successor to the CEO, Peter Jackson, who's been there
(06:03):
for some time. I thought, given that I'd sort of
fallen into the role that I was in, that I
should probably go through a process somewhere to hone my
interview skills. The role came up to be the CEO
of the Gold Coast Suns, and I thought, I'll jump
into that process. It would just be good experience for me.
I had no really intention of moving too Queensland, but
I thought, it'll just make me think a little bit
(06:24):
about who I am, I'm good at when I need
to get better at what skills I have, And it did.
I went from a long list to over a period
of time, a pretty short list. And as I've got
down to that short list, it's sort of dawned on
me that what of incredible experiences would be to really
step outside my comfort zone? Strange It would be much
easier probably stay at the Essident Football Club. There's one
hundred years of history, there's a whole framework that you
(06:45):
operate within, there's a big supporter base. But I decided
towards the end of the interview process for the Gold
Coast Suns that I really wanted the job. Sort of
built this plan that I thought that it would be
exciting to execute. It would completely take me out of
my comfort zone. I hadn't been a CEO before, so
not only would I be a CEO, but in a
new organization, in a new in an area that hadn't
(07:06):
had it so forty ten before. And so I tell
us a bit about me, probably that I like to
step out of white culport zone.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And getting that vibe.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
It's probably where I learned best and perform best. And
so I was fortunate enough to get the role. And
so Gold Coast was a bit more about learning about me,
learning about leadership in a setting where I have a
truly blank canvas. And so that was a wonderful experience
of sort of five or six years of setting up
the Gold Coast sons.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So like, I have to ask this because I mean, one,
I think that's great in terms of listeners, like go
for interviews that you don't even think you're going to
get as part of the experience. I mean, obviously you
don't know what's going to happen. A lot of people
don't do that right. They want to be completely lined
up and ready for the job. Okay, we've got to
talk about this thing. Obviously I read online you like
being nervous or you enjoy it, which comes with this.
You know you love putting yourself at eat comfort zone.
(07:50):
From a neurological perspective, the brain doesn't often like that naturally,
right in at the anytime things are different from familiarity,
the brain goes ear reject that. So how have you
hacked this? It's just like you just were born with
an ability to go anything that feels different, uncomfortable, challenging,
I gravitate towards or is this something that you go
through with some inner narrative that makes you do this?
(08:11):
Because it's actually not that common.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Now, I've asked myself the same question, because it's not
always you know, sometimes I put myself in a positions
I want to do. It is and Gold Coast was
an example of that. I'm not sure why that is
the case. I do know though, that I thrive in
those environments. Okay, I thrive in an environment where there
is uncertainty, where I feel like I'm being stretched. That
was the best example of that Gold Coast. It also
occurred when I left the AFL. Yes, I stayed in sport,
(08:35):
but I knew not much about the sport. So I
always look for those opportunities and I think it's satisfying,
it's invigorating. It really tests me, but I enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So where do self doubt play in your life? Travis? Then, seriously,
at some point you could have gone as it's actually
a very good idea. Am I going to fail? What
are people going to think?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah? It exists in my life, Absolutely it does. I'm
a big believer in reflecting. Okay, not in any great
formal way, but you know, often when I make a
big decision, or I need to make a big decision,
I often want to spend a bit of time just
reflect on how when about that decision I made? What
I do it differently when I was at the Goldco Suns,
we knew there was going to be a tough start.
The way when I'm building the team is that weren't
going to win very often early on, hopefully built some momentum,
(09:14):
and so I remember early days we'd have a staff
maning every Monday and we'd have a difficult game on
the weekend and get it in front of the staff.
And so we are exactly where we need to be,
where exactly where thought we'd be. We've got all LEAs
steps in place, but know what we're doing, It'll be fine.
Because I needed them to believe where we are going.
I remember ginning in my car driving home, thinking, Holy help,
are we where we need to be right now? Am
(09:35):
I doing this the right way? What could I do
differently and better. But I needed to project that self confidence.
You need to be real and authentic about where we are.
But also your role as a leader is to make
sure that people have confidence and where we're going. And
so there's no doubt sometimes sort of behind the wall
a but you sit back and question yourself. I actually
think that's quite healthy. I'm actually comfortable that I don't
(09:55):
have self doubted accept that it paralyzes me, but I
certainly have self doubt that keeps my feet on the
ground because when you're leading in sport is a lot
of scrutiny. There's sort of low barriers to entry for
people to provide their opinions about how they think you're
going with your role, and so if you wanted to
jump online in any important time, particularly in my role
at the AFL, I had a lot of people telling
me how to do my job, although I haven't done
(10:17):
a very good job. And so there's a real balance
between having some people around you that you rely on
to give you feedback, being able to do that yourself,
look yourself in the mirror and have pretty honest conversation
with how you're going, but not then sort of extending
that to listen to every voice that's coming through just
his noise, because then you will start to paralyze yourself.
(10:37):
And that's been the sort of learning for me over
a long period of time.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, amazing, there's a bit of ted Lasso in there
around the positivity. I remember talking to a friend of
yours who was part of their Goldkos Sons and he
would lose it every time you guys would lose a
game like freak Out, And I was thinking, well, in
your position, like did you sit there on Saturday nights
and Friday night's going, oh God, can't lose this one?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
You have those, I mean, that's sport. Being a leader
in sport in some ways, your job is to keep
things calm's highest people think they are, the lows is
not as low as they are, and to have a
consistency in terms of how you're leading that isn't necessarily
attached to how you went on the weekend. And so
I think one of the things I've developed over twenty
five plus years of working in sport is the ability
(11:19):
to sort of remain calm when everything else around yous areen.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
But I love that. So you mentioned before about authenticity,
So I wanted to touch on that because in my
Brave model of leadership, the A is authenticity, which for
me I defined it as I'm going to choose the
opportunity to connect over the chance of rejection. Right, and
you being in such a high profile public role, there
has to be some challenges with being completely authentic at times,
(11:43):
so saying exactly what you want to say, showing your emotions.
Do you feel that there are times where you were like,
I'm not being as authentic as I want to because
I can't.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
There's a difference between not being authentic as opposed to
not being able to share all the information you might
want to share. So I'd like to say that I
would be authentic pretty much all the time, and sometimes
that is by saying that, actually, sorry, I can't answer
that question. I can't share that information. And so it's
a really good question in the sense that you're always
a balance between being really honest with people without being
(12:12):
able to telling everything they want to know because people's
livelihoods are involved, or there's sensitive information that you can't
share at that point in time. That happens a lot,
particularly in my AFL role. But if you can stand
up in the most difficult times and share that information,
whether it's with your staff or whether it's with the media,
to be able to say, hey, I know that you
would like to help this information. Some of it I
(12:32):
have something that I don't Some of the stuff I
have I can't share with you. I'd found over time
that that builds a bit of trust that tends to
be accepted in the context of sort of authenticity.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You might have been the first one to say that.
I think it's a very big lesson, and authenticity is
sometimes saying actually can't give you that information, versus pretending
or going down some other pathway. I think that's when
people get it wrong. You can say I don't know
or I can't tell you. There's a great takeaway for people.
So obviously, over this entire period of career, can you
think of one particular time where you felt really exposed
(13:00):
and vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah. I think my experience of leading to Gold Coast
SUMS was a bit like that, because you're building everything
with scratched But probably the better example is during COVID,
during the pandemic, when my role at the AFL was
running finance, running broadcasting, running fixturing, and I've seen the
club relationships, which puts you right in the center for
better or worse of all the issues will trying to
(13:22):
solve during COVID. So I just felt a huge sense
of responsibility. Initially, that's responsibility was to keep the game going,
to make sure that we could pay our people and
the clubs could pay their players and staff, that we
could continue playing week in week out. That responsibility quickly
shifted from that to a sense of responsibility because people
(13:43):
were looking at football and other forms of sport for
a sense of hope because I were locked in the
homes all day and so the ability to at the
end of a day turn the television on and watch
their team play was something more than just that. And
I was getting that feedback pretty early on during the
pandemic that please keep the game going because it's the
one thing that is a bit of a showing light
for us at the moment. And I felt that sense
(14:04):
of respon's ability before. And so that was probably the example
where it's like I've got a job to do here.
That is probably one of more important jobs that I've
ever done in my career.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
In terms of dealing with that. Was the certain things
you did in your life to help you manage that stress.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I think we'd all give examples of what we did
during the pandemic that didn't didn't work for me is
very obvious, but it worked out pretty quickly that you know.
The things that put me in a position to lead
well is I need sleep, We've got to eat well,
I need exercise. And so a couple of those got
taken away from me really quickly during the pandemic. Were
working pretty silly hours, like a lot of people were exercised,
were difficult, and so I put myself in a hole
(14:38):
pretty quickly, and I needed to then try and at
least get two of those back together again and put
myself in a position where I can make myself available
to lead. That was sort of the key pillar is
how do I get myself right first? Because we were
asking a lot about each other during those times, and
there was a lot of stress, and then it became
a bit about team. There was a small group of
us who realized on each other. There was displays of
(14:59):
vulnerability during COVID that I've not seen before. We really
got into each other's lives, were in lounge rooms every
day on teams goals, and we got to see first
hand the impact of the pandemic on people's personal lives,
and so I have a sense of connection with maybe
half a dozen people through that period that is much
deeper than you would normally have in any normal work
setting that still exists today. You know, there's times that
(15:21):
I felt really vulnerable. There's times also when I was
probably my st rewarding part of my career.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So after twenty five years and leadership roles, you obviously
had your site set on the top job at the AFL,
and I think a lot of people had bets on
you getting that role, and I think it was pretty hard.
Youous twelve month recruitment process that you went through, and
then obviously you did miss out on the role. So
resilience for me is key when it comes to great leadership.
You know, obviously bouncing back is one thing, but also
preparing yourself for the obstacles. So I'm interested to know
(15:48):
how did you prepare for a twelve month recruitment process
and all that came with, And then I guess how
did you process the disappointment of it not happening and
bounce back from that.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, I don't think I did prepare for a twelve
month that's probably more than that if you're going to
put yourself in a process to be the CEO of
the AFL, and you know it's going to come with
some scrutiny, and scrutiny wasn't something that was foreign to me.
I've worked in footy for twenty years and so I
knew a lot about being judged publicly on a regular basis,
and I had a tight group around me that would
support me through that. I probably thought, there's a three
(16:19):
or four month process coming up, but I'm going to
come into some scrutiny. I just need to focus on
what I can control. But then it became much longer.
I think one of my strengths because of the roles
that I've had, is I'm quite resilient. I can generally
decipher between what's real and what's noise and the voices
that I care about. What starts to impact you is
when others close to you are impacted. And so when
(16:41):
you start to find and what got a bit more
difficult towards the end of it is you'd find that
you know, whether it's your family, close friends, you could
see that they were probably out of care for me.
But starting to be impacted by starting to engage in
what was going on social media, and that was the
time I was like, oh, this is a bit bigger
than me, and I just need to be careful of
what I'm putting others through. It was difficult because I
(17:01):
hadn't really invested in getting the role. You have to
do if you'ren apply for all that, you have to really
invest in as a long process. I'd enjoyed my time
at the AFL and credible twenty five years in the AFL.
I wouldn't change one thing, but you saw it going
knowing that you know, as they guarantees. So when I
found out I didn't get it, I quickly dusted myself off.
The guy got the role, Andrew Dillon. He's a post
friend of mine. You wouldn't find a better person. I
(17:22):
was equally happy for Andrew to get that role. Spend
there for a long time and you'll do a really
good job. And so up against tough competition, you got
to accept that. The question for me was sort of
what now. That was a good question because I had
convinced myself I wanted to sort step into that old
leadership role again. One thing about a twelve month process.
Is you spend a lot of time thinking about what
you bring to the table, what you love, what's your
(17:43):
environments worked for you. I was pretty sure coming out
of that process that I wanted to step back into
a CEO role.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah right, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
And I could have stayed in the a fil industry.
I could have stayed int the AFL, could have went
back to running a club. Those opportunities are putting in
front of me. And then the opportunity to become the
CEO of the Australian Pre Corporation came up. In fact,
it came up about a month or two before the
af process. And I had said to the transparent, I
had said to the recruiter, I am twelve or fourteen
(18:12):
months into a process here. I'm not going to hedge
my bets now. So as much as running the strain
Gold pre is a very attractive proposition, thank you, but
no thank you, because I don't want to hedge my bets.
I'm a sort of all in guy and I'm all
here now. I didn't get the role. I got a
phone call from the recruiter. It become very public quickly
till after day or two I've got a phone call
to say, hey, bad news for you, good news for us.
(18:33):
We want you back in the process. The process hadn't
been completed, and so I jumped in at the back
end of this role. And it's another example stepping out
of my comfort zone. It would have been much easier
for me to stay in the AFL industry, but this
was a different role and had opened up other opportunities
and it tested be a game. It put me in.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And also, I think exactly what happened to you in
the process for the Goldcrows Sons, the process and going
through the interview helped you realize, actually, I do want
to be a CEO, and I can't then go back
into something that's different. I have to ask, you know,
we all know you can't have it all supposedly, what's
the you have to pay for success?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
It's a really good question. I think sport demands a
lot of you, and so if you're in a leading sport,
it's not a nine to five thing. It's sort of
your life. I know that, particularly early on in my
careers when children were growing up, I wasn't there from
as much as I would like either, whether I was
physically there or not. I think when you are in sport,
you're surrounded by it all the time. There's an expectation
you're on all the time, and so I think if
(19:28):
you had your time again, I think as more mature
person now I might do that a bit differently. I
don't give a chance to do that, but that's something
I thought about that it owns a lot of you,
and I gave it a lot back, and you need
to if you're to be successful.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I want to talk to a quickly that empathy, which
I think is like a superpower quite frankly, and probably
the one thing most leaders struggle the most, and kind
of fully understanding that ability to hold space for people's
emotions and not necessarily fixing it. It's often widely known
that males can struggle with expressing their emotions more than women.
How did you find that in the AFL. Is there
a culture of suck it up, don't talk about it?
What did you see shift over twenty five years in
(20:02):
that space?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, go back a step. That's certainly how I was
raised a boy growing up in the country, work hard,
suck it up with any issues, toughen up a bit,
and so I certainly started that way, and I've seen
things change during my time at the AFL incredibly in
terms of the expectations around being vulnerable or the accepted sorry.
The diversity of workforces now in all forms has changed things.
(20:23):
When I reflect back on my career, I think early
on in my leadership journey, I was incredibly judgmental. I
had views of things that this is how things needed
to be and it wasn't really The one thing that
changed that is my daughter has a disability, which was
born with a disability, and so I had this sort
of moment where it's like, it's not actually like black
and white, and it gave me a totally different perspective
on the world. And so going from someone who's judgmental
(20:45):
and you know, look for the people that look a
bit more like me and lead a bit more like me,
to look for the person in the corner who's not
necessarily engagement has something to offer. And so I would
see more possibility and opportunity in people that I did previously.
And so it wasn't directly shaped by my career, was
more shaped by my personal experience. And I think empathy
now notwithstanding sort of where I came from, is probably
(21:07):
one of my strengths, and sometimes it's a strength overplayed.
I get feedback sometimes that, you know, when I'm making
really tough people decisions, I just want to give someone
a chance. I really do. I want to try and
see if we can find a way to get the
best of them. Yeah, and sometimes it doesn't work. But
I do know when it doesn't work, and I have
to have those conversations that I don't enjoy that I
know that I've given them every chance, and that just
comes from a deeper place that's been my chow.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I love that. That's beautiful. Yeah, and you're right, I'm sure. Yeah,
having experienced those challenges that you daughter would have gone through,
you'd have a whole different perspective, all right. So in
twenty twenty three points the CEO role of Australian Grand
Prix amazing. So while still in sport, a completely different
ball game. I actually started watching the Netflix for me
and I ended up becoming obsessed with it, like it's
(21:51):
really fascinating to me, like in my head. And I
think it's because my boys were watching it and it
was a bit like, oh, this is going to be
cars going around a circuit to be honest, and then
you start watching it and you're just like, this is
a whole nother thing, Like it's a massive teams thought,
like it couldn't get more like down to the pet changes.
It's competitive, like insane competitive. I mean, we've watched Ricardo
(22:12):
and all this kind of stuff happened. Like if you're
not top of the game, you're out, Like it's just insane.
You said first of all that you weren't particularly like
huge into motorsport. I didn't know a ton about it.
So what have you learned in this space of time
that you've been here over twelve months?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
And when it comes to the sport, like you, I
was introduced to the sport with any depth anyway through
Drivers Survive. I live near the circuit and so we've
been quite a number of times. Yeah, but it was
actually my wife who would say to me, Hey, when
you finishing work, this next episode of Drive Survives out
and watch what's happened to you. And so that's how
I had some knowledge of F one and there working
is of F one. But when I stepped into the role,
(22:45):
one of the things I'm really clear about through my
interview process and when I first spoke to my team
is I don't know much about motorsport. I don't know
much about F one. I know a little bit about
how sport works and how you create product and connected
with a fan base and commercialize it. I've done that
for a long time, but I'm going to need to
rely on you for your motorsport expertise. And having been
in the AFIL industry for twenty five years, you don't
(23:06):
know the answer to everything, but you know how to
get the answer. It's like everything's one or two phone
calls away, like I know who to call to work
out that thing. I remember early days leaving work thinking
I don't know the answer to this question and I
don't know to call. You feel pretty vulnerable at times,
and so I had a completely different mindset stepping into
this role that I had. I didn't give enough respect
to the industry to come up with the speed with
(23:26):
how the industry works. A bit of the history was
really important. I felt like to respect the history of
the organization and the sport. So I've done a lot
of reading, a little bit of travel to other events
to try and understand F one, and we do the
Moto GP down of Philip Ailin It's been a lot
of time with people. We're very fortunate we have Mark
Webber as the past F one driver on our board,
(23:47):
and we have Doing as a five time world champion
Moto GP writer on our board, and I've been incredible.
I'm sure some of the times when I ask questions
are like, that is ridiculous question, but they humor me.
And so I've had a coming up eighteen months now, right,
eighteen months of just absorbing information. The first six months
I really just say back ask questions. I made a
commitment to the board that it wouldn't change too much
(24:09):
in the first six months. I would just sort of
make sure I knew enough before I did anything. I'm
going to my second F one in forty days time.
I feel like I've got a bit of a sense
now of how it works, and if it doesn't work,
this one's on me. So I've been there long enough
and I feel like I can start to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, amazing. And I suppose like obviously that level of
honesty and vulnerability to say, hey, I'm not an expert
in this field. What kind of reception did you get
from that being so honest about that?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, a bit of surprise, I think because historically leaders
of the Grand Prix come from some a bit or
a motors background and that had been suitable and done
an incredible job. The past had done a wonderful job.
I'd inherit an event that was doing really well, really
well run. But the opportunity was to take learning from
other sports, I think, other events that working how we
grow and so I think for some of them it's
a good question for them, probably, but for some of
(24:53):
them it was quite refreshing to say someone's coming in
not to tell me how to do my job, but
how to focus on the role I have and how
we create a bit of a longer term vision here
and the right environment for people. And so that's been
an adjustment for them.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
But I think that's very very true, is that. I mean,
we all think the safety in someone who's known the
industry for years, but the same token, then there is
an element of, yeah, not letting people do their jobs's
interfering too much, whereas that's not what you're here to do.
You're just here to lead them in the best way possible.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
So there's no risk of me being a micromanager right now.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
No, it doesn't sound like it.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Name can't because I don't know the details, and so
I think they're enjoying the freedom of that. But it's
also an obligation for me to understand enough about their
roles in the industry that I can support them, challenge them,
and provide a bit of direction.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Have you sat in the car yet?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I haven't sat in the F one car, And in fact,
I'm probably a bit tall to sit in the F
one cars. I wouldn't go out there. Generally that mark
web is probably my light. But yeah, they're pretty tight
in those cars. I've been in a supercar, certainly tested
my courage.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Now. I think it's widely known that culture is driven
from the top, and you know, you've held many top
positions that would have directly impacted the culture. Do you
have like a you know, an approach to this, Like,
you know, is it kind of very organic? Just you
know Travis's character, I mean, you are a character. You've
got some very strong positive leadership qualities. I can imagine
naturally it would probably create a very trust built culture.
(26:11):
But do you have particular strategies that you like to
go into organizations and put in place, Like are you
sort of like I need this to happen. These rituals
are things that I just always do wherever I go.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, I think so. And whether I've articulated them that
way or a document or don't know, But I would
say firstly that you have an enormous responsibility as a
leader to role model what you want. And so there's
that sort of saying. A friend of mine who was
a bit of a mentor of mine says that what
walks in the leader's runs and the teams, and so
that notion. No matter whether you you like or know,
people watching what you do, and they may believe what
(26:41):
you say, but they'll always believe what you do. And
so I'm a big believer that of sort of leading
through standard setting what standard do you expect? And so
the only want to do that is through communication. So
I like, you know, my management team meetings to have
conversations about how we're going, how are we leading, how
you think we're going in terms of our values, and
which ones we're doing really well at, which ones you
think we can get better at, and so just making
sure this room on the agenda for those conversations. I
(27:03):
believe in sometimes you got to make conversations about where
you want to go and which people are sort of
on board with that, around your value setting. If you
make exceptions of those things, then people will really doubt
whether it's authentic and whether it's really what the organization
stands for. And so it's about standard setting, it's about
being consistent. You can't pick and choose. I think is
really important. But I think the most important thing for me,
(27:25):
it's something I'm very proud of what I left the
AFL and I'm certainly seeing it here is the ability
to crate, invite where people can be themselves. This notion
of creating a culture that works for me is not
really what it's about. We have a culture here, we
had before I started. So it was really coming in
and trying to understand what really works well for you?
What is about this organization that you really love? You
would like me to keep pushing along emphasizing, and what
(27:47):
is that that you don't like? And how can I
as a leader help with that? Rather than here, I am,
this is my value set, this is the culture you
need to have. It was a lot more trying to
extract and understand as a leader, how can I give
my people the best environment that I can, so they
can bring all of themselves to work and collectively we
can do something pretty special. I don't know if to
ask your question, but.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
It's beautiful and I think it's such a thing because
in order to let people be themselves right, they have
to feel comfortable. And like I've done a lot of
these kind of interviews and there are some where I'm
not as comfortable as I am, Like right now, I
feel completely comfortable. I'd probably go waffling down a trail
with you because you make me feel that way, and
it's interesting. Then what is it? It's non judgment, it's
you know, I mean, there's vulnerability and openness and communication.
(28:29):
So I think if you're modeling that at the top,
it's no doubt that the culture will kind of form
itself from that. How do you then ensure that the
people that work for you are equally as passionate or
share these same beliefs as you like? How't even sure
that happens?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
That's the trick, isn't that? It is in a couple
of ways. One is articulating really clearly what that looks like,
so that the expectations are clear that no one can
say how I didn't realize that you wanted us to
do that or lead that way, or that was important
for the organization. So having those conversations, we had lots
of them. We've had lots of them in my first
eighteen months, just to explore what it looks like. Because
I think the transformation comes in conversation, So serving those
(29:05):
conversations and not always easy conversations, but if you do
them regularly, they get normalized. And so that has been
part of it, a bit of feedback. And then what
I do, as an example, is every three or four
weeks in my diary is an hour with six to
eight staff randomly selected, or I have a coffee with
six to eight stuff okay. And it's a way just
to keep my team accountable but the organization and to
(29:27):
make sure I stay close to what's happening. As a CEO,
sometimes you can become very removed actually what's going on
in the organization. There's set questions. I asked, you know,
what's changing, what's changing for the better, What do we
need to focus more on? If you or me, what
would you be doing? And it just ends up like this,
It ends up being a conversation. But I get really
valuable feedback because my team sees things, my direct reports
(29:49):
these things in a certain way, and sometimes the staff
don't see that way. And it's like gives the ability
to go back in a very constructive way and say, hey,
I know we think we're off heading in this direction,
but my coffee catch ups telling me that we're missing
something over here. It's very non personal. It's sort of
like it's a bit of a barometer for me, and
I find that really valuable. It's the best hour of
sort of my month. It's their twelve months a year.
(30:11):
It's the staff. I sort of building trust in the
process that hate things are happening out of this, so
I can see that things are changing when I offer
my opinion. It's a long way to answering a question,
which is I'm going to work really closely with my
direct reports to understand how they're leading. And that's a
one to one thing. That's not a group conversation because
they all lead differently. Their teams have different needs from
their leaders, but also then from beneath. It's just making
(30:33):
sure that what I'm hearing and what they're telling me
is validated.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
In that Kudos to utro It says brilliant, because people
manage up very well, right, And we've seen this time
and time again where you know, they'll tell you what
you want to hear, but they're not reflecting you down below,
and it does actually cause us massive block So I
think that's a beautiful loop and it keeps everyone accountable.
So I love that. So then what if and I'm
just asking this more hypothetically back you said about the
fact that empathy is a big thing for you and
you keep giving people chances and that, So how do
(30:58):
you deal with having those conflict difficult conversations? You might
have to let someone go, you know what I mean,
they haven't performed. Is that something you're still struggle with
or I.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Don't enjoy it? And I would say, if you do,
you probably a bit strange.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I agree, you up being the wrong role.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I don't like it. Often tell them when I have
the conversation, I don't enjoy these conversations that it would
be difficult for you. It's also difficult for me, and
just been honest about that. I think if you're honest,
I think if they can tell that you're also finding
the conversation difficult, I need to go into those conversations
knowing that I've given them every chance. Yeah, and they'veset expectations.
What is unfair is if they say, I didn't know
(31:33):
that's what you wanted from me. If you had have
told me that, I would have done something different. So
that to answer your question, I if I had to
have a few of them over the years.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
It's more that obviously you're willing to right, it's willing
to have those difficult conversations when you have to, when
someone's not representing the values of the organization or you know,
staying alone.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah. The thing for me is I find that they're
easier if you're having them along the way. Yeah, Rather
this big surprise conversation, I'm offering them conversations with someone
to say, hey, I just observed the conversation or hoy
in that meeting. Do you think we could have done
that differently? Was your observation of it? It tends to
be hopefully, if you're doing your job well enough that
by the time the difficult conversation comes, they know why
(32:10):
you want to catch up with them. They're like, yep,
I get it. We've talked about this a lot. I
might not agree with the decision but I see where
you're coming from because we've talked about it before. Rather
than this big moment of hey, I've been watching you
for twelve months and yet I don't have things and
now you're gone. That wouldn't sit well with me either.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
No, absolutely, I think it might be time for me
to pose a difficult question for you. So I heard
this question posed by a Harvard psychologist the other day,
and I'd love to ask you this, Travis, Why should
anyone be led by you?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
The first thing I'd say is that being a leader
is an enormous privilege and it comes with enormous responsibility.
The same professor will team that leadership doesn't come with
a title. People can choose to be led by you
or not. It could be their boss, it doesn't mean
you're their leader. And I think part of it is
if I start with me understanding the responsibility that comes
with being a leader. You are looking after people's careers,
looking after people's livelihoods. People when they come in through
(32:59):
the door impacted being what's going on in their personal lives,
and so I feel like I have that responsibility to
make sure that I am caring environment for them, but
also providing them enough challenge that they develop and so forth.
And so why should someone be led by me? Hopefully
because they have someone who cares about them as an individual,
have someone who takes an interest in their career. Sometimes
that is or often that is not within the organization.
(33:21):
Often you're encouraging people to think about roles outside the
organization because it's best for them. It may not be
best for the organization right now. Someone who While I'm
strong on accountability, hopefully I'm equally strong on support. And
I like to push the boundaries of it. I like
to change things. I like to innovate, I like to
test people. And I get enormous satisfaction when somebody you've
worked with before goes off and gets an amazing role
(33:42):
and you think you might have just played a really
small part in helping get them to that spot. And
if I ask others about what they think about all that,
but it's something I think a lot about. It's something
I think a lot about as my role as a leader,
that it's not just a right, it's a privilege, and
that I need to turn up every day one thing
I do. I'm very intentional about how I show up,
and so I will think on the way into work,
(34:03):
what do my team need from me today? How do
I need to show up? What's happening at the moment
that might be important for them, that might influence how
I show up. And I think that's important because that's
the decision you get to make as a leader, is
they will take cues from how I show up, and
so what's happening in sort of broader enviru it's pretty important.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Well, my last two Christians for you are I want
to know because it's just so much in your life,
so much in your mind. You're looking after everybody else.
What keeps Travis up at night? Or does Travis sleep
quite well? Oh?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Don't sleep so well? All sleep better?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Is your mind thinking? Is it what it is? Or
are you one of those thing it is?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, yeah, I'm up. It's not unusual for me to
get up at the middle of night and write some stuff
down or think through things. So I'm not the role
model for this stuff. I can see the way you'll
get me.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I don't sleep at all, Like my brain goes crazy
if it was wondering with someone that gives so much
to others and there's so much considerations, like I was
just interested, because often sleep is the time where you know,
we can't wind it down and we're still thinking so
much about other people.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, that's so for me. My wine downtime is exercise. Okay,
I really liked exercise, and so if I go cycle
a bit now, and so if I'm out with mate Psyche,
I'm not thinking about work stuff. I am actually engaging
with them and a bit of fun in the band, yeah,
what I enjoy. So sleep is not that for me.
I'll often be thinking about things, and so I can
sort of go to bed with a head full of
work and wake up with her for work. And so
that's on why I sort of to do itet better
(35:15):
at There's lots of things that keep me out at night.
It's probably what motivates me, to be honest, I'm not
one that sort of relaxes too much in a sense
of personally or professionally. I always like the things I
want to do differently or better, or things I haven't
done yet, and that's probably just make yeah fair enough.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
And my last question for you is, let's cast your
mind back to how old, shall we say, eighteen year
old Travis, what's the best advice you'd give.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Him from what you know now, I think the first
one is just to take opportunities they come. My career
hasn't been a straight line. I'm a big believer in
sort of building the base, and so I've got to
dis role with a whole lot of different experiences which
hopefully help my sort of toolkit that I've got today.
And so I'm a big believer that an opportunity might
not be obvious, but take it if it comes. I
remember when I was at university. I was two and
(35:57):
a half years in. The guy I was living with,
a very smart guy going to be very successful, came
to me and said, one of the bigg accounting firms
in Melbourne is offered me a job finished six months early.
And it was really hard to get into accounting firms
back then in the chartered world. That's this incredible world done.
So I'm not going to take it. I'm going to
finish my Uni right, And so went to bed, got
out the next morning and I said to him, that
(36:18):
doesn't make sense to me. You're going to do that?
Can I speak to that person and see if I'll
give me the job? Right? And he's like, oh, I know,
Like that's a friend of the family and the guy's
a partner, and I said, just let me have a
chat to it. And that's how I got my first job.
I rang up and said, I know you're going to
give the job to Andy, but he doesn't want it.
I want it. This guy's like what he said, coming
to have a meeting with me. I went met with him.
This is the twenty year old mate.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And so a bit of bolder said, a bit of
just there's opportunity everywhere if you look for And so
that's what I'd say to an eighteen year old is
keep your eyes open. But I've been minded to watch
in front of you. It might I'll be obvious the
next step. But just take things and work out later
how are you going to do them? And so I've
had a career of being offered things in addition to
my role, a new roles like yeah, Bugret, I'm going
to do that and I'll work out later on holme,
(36:59):
I actually I can do it. Yeah, And so that
would be the number one piece of advice for me
when I was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
That's amazing, Travis. It has been an absolute pleasure talking
to you. I'm so excited for your year and watching
what happens. So thank you so much for taking the
time to talk to me. It's been great.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Thanks. I appreciate you having me all
Appoche Production. Welcome to another episode of Brave Always, the
CEO series. This series, we launch into the new world
of brave leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Happy people create happy businesses.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
True emotionally intelligent leadership.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
I've picked up vomit once on our about our fourth
flight and everybody thought, well, if it's good enough for him,
I can do it Now.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
We will be joined by culture and leadership experts and
some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us the truth
behind their brave leadership journeys. Welcome to another episode of
Brave Always. Today, I am thrilled to be joined by
the CEO of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, Travis Alt.
Travis has had nearly thirty years at the helm of
some of Australia's largest sporting institutions during some of the
(00:51):
most turbulent times, a sporting fanatic and a hugely well
respected leader for his authenticity and energy. I am pretty
pumped to have you on here today, so welcome Travis.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Thanks for having memro. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Travis. In my experience interviewing people of your professional calub
there's this lovely little link which often is like humble beginnings.
I don't know. That's what I've experienced, that sort of
shakes how they ended up leading later in life. Now
I know you were born in Tatura, Victoria, small rural town.
I think it's like less than five thousand people. When
I googled what's Tatura famous for a little pub appeared.
(01:22):
I'm assuming it's more than that. Is it? This famous
little pub is there?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
It's got three pubs. It's had three thousand, six hundred
people for as long as I'm sort of know, which
means I don't count very often. They're very humble beginning.
It's very fortunate. But I grew up in a small town,
was raised. You know, they say it takes a village.
I was raised by the Tatura community, very grounded upbringing,
very fortunate. I never sort of missed any opportunities or
without anything. But my parents are still into Tura. Yeah
I get back there. Yeah. It was a very sporting,
(01:47):
very outdoor upbringing, and there's a lot of that still
in May now. It's particularly in my leadership.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Did you always envisage leaving like? Was it I'm never
going to stay here?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Like?
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Did you have grand plans quite young to say I
want to get out of here and get to the
big smoke.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Maybe, I mean I my definition of the big smoke
when I was into Tura was some smaller than Melbourne.
No one felt really big when I was a child,
and so I actually went to university in Bendigo. Three
thousand people to a sixty or seventy thousand people was
a much more palatable step than going straight to Melbourne.
And so I went to the University at Latrobe in
Bendigo allowed me to come back on weekends and play sport,
(02:20):
and it was nice stepping stone for them. What was
the big smoke some years after that?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Yeah, right, I mean I feel for me in particular.
Always having a strong male role model when you're younger
is a big part of helping people shape how they
grow up. Who was yours? Was that your dad? Was
it somebody else in the community. What did they teach you?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Certainly my father to some degree, he taught me a
lot about hard work, hard work and being relationship focused.
I've got an older brother three years older than me.
He probably paved the way for me and I still
talked very regularly and look up to him and what
he does in his career, and so probably him, as
much as anyone, is sort of the person that's shaped
me very early on. You always want to be like
your older brother, and I tookaly wanted to be that,
(02:57):
but also that the local football club, local cricket club.
As I was sort of coming through the ranks, you'd
always have people go to take you under their arm.
And developed a lot of friendships and great memories through
playing football. But I was never going to create a
career through playing sport right And in fact, I never
really had ambitions of working in sport. It just wasn't
a natural pathway that was in front of me. I
saw of fell into it, which I'm sure we'll get to.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, yeah, well, I was going to say, and then
you decided to become an accountant. I actually find it
really funny. There's so many CEOs of interview who always
sat as accountants, and so I'm trying to figure out
is that like you just had a passion for numbers,
or is this like some long term strategy that you
know you're going to end it at the top and
you need to start off as an accountant.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I think it's the thing you do when you don't
know what you want to do is that it was
for me. I didn't really know what I wanted to
do post doing Year twelve or post university. So I
thought having a really good grounding in finance was going
to be important and it would open up more opportunities.
And then I knew were available at the time, and
so I went off and did a Bachelor of Business
at the Trophy Bendigo and it's always been a good grounding.
I went and worked in a chartered accounting firm. That
(03:54):
was my first opportunity. I was there for three or
four years and you love it, I did. I love it.
I think it was a really good background. I worked
in audit and so the beauty of or it was,
yes fully faces a bit. The beauty of order for
me was that you get exposed a whole lot of
different businesses and so you work on different things all
the time. And that's how I got my first role
at the Essiden football Club. I was their author. Yeah,
(04:16):
so I was really fortunate. I worked from the large
charter of the canning firms in Melbourne. I've got sent
to London for a while to their sister firm for
someone from Tatura that was a big move and it
was a great experience. Came back and you got approached
to join the Essendon Football Club and so I thought
why not? And that's how I ended up in sport.
So when people say, hey, did you get in sport?
Tell me the pathway to get in the sport. I'm
not the person to talk to you in terms of
(04:38):
how I got into sport. I sort of fell into
it and there have been there ever since.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, right, okay, there you go. You did play a
number of key roles during your tenure at the NFL.
From COO I think it was an incident as well,
and then obviously the inaugural CEO at the Gold Coast
Suns to CFO and GM at d AFL. So now
that you've left the world of football, looking back, what
did it teach you about great leadership?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Lots? I think sport is a wonderful environment to learn
about leadership, learn about team, learn about social license, about
the role that you play that exists beyond what you
directly think your day to day job is. And so
if you think about from a working in clubs is
quite different than working at the AFL. From a helper perspective,
working at both clubs taught me a lot, probably maybe
(05:20):
in some cases different things because of my role. My
first sort of foray into AFL was Esthmate Football Club,
very successful, big club. You get to see athletes coming
together as a team and achieving incredible things and some
of the things that sit within that leadership. We had
Kevin Sheedy as our coach for twenty five years, incredibly
successful coach, and I learned a whole lot from how
he went about leading the team. It's the best example
(05:43):
you'll get a high performance, high performance environment. These guys
are trying to get better every day, they're getting marked publicly,
there's a big spotlight on them. So from an understanding
how teamwork works, the importance of culture, that was really important.
So my transition was I was at the Essenmon Football
Club for eleven years. I had been approached to be
a successor to the CEO, Peter Jackson, who's been there
(06:03):
for some time. I thought, given that I'd sort of
fallen into the role that I was in, that I
should probably go through a process somewhere to hone my
interview skills. The role came up to be the CEO
of the Gold Coast Suns, and I thought, I'll jump
into that process. It would just be good experience for me.
I had no really intention of moving too Queensland, but
I thought, it'll just make me think a little bit
(06:24):
about who I am, I'm good at when I need
to get better at what skills I have, And it did.
I went from a long list to over a period
of time, a pretty short list. And as I've got
down to that short list, it's sort of dawned on
me that what of incredible experiences would be to really
step outside my comfort zone? Strange It would be much
easier probably stay at the Essident Football Club. There's one
hundred years of history, there's a whole framework that you
(06:45):
operate within, there's a big supporter base. But I decided
towards the end of the interview process for the Gold
Coast Suns that I really wanted the job. Sort of
built this plan that I thought that it would be
exciting to execute. It would completely take me out of
my comfort zone. I hadn't been a CEO before, so
not only would I be a CEO, but in a
new organization, in a new in an area that hadn't
(07:06):
had it so forty ten before. And so I tell
us a bit about me, probably that I like to
step out of white culport zone.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And getting that vibe.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
It's probably where I learned best and perform best. And
so I was fortunate enough to get the role. And
so Gold Coast was a bit more about learning about me,
learning about leadership in a setting where I have a
truly blank canvas. And so that was a wonderful experience
of sort of five or six years of setting up
the Gold Coast sons.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
So like, I have to ask this because I mean, one,
I think that's great in terms of listeners, like go
for interviews that you don't even think you're going to
get as part of the experience. I mean, obviously you
don't know what's going to happen. A lot of people
don't do that right. They want to be completely lined
up and ready for the job. Okay, we've got to
talk about this thing. Obviously I read online you like
being nervous or you enjoy it, which comes with this.
You know you love putting yourself at eat comfort zone.
(07:50):
From a neurological perspective, the brain doesn't often like that naturally,
right in at the anytime things are different from familiarity,
the brain goes ear reject that. So how have you
hacked this? It's just like you just were born with
an ability to go anything that feels different, uncomfortable, challenging,
I gravitate towards or is this something that you go
through with some inner narrative that makes you do this?
(08:11):
Because it's actually not that common.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Now, I've asked myself the same question, because it's not
always you know, sometimes I put myself in a positions
I want to do. It is and Gold Coast was
an example of that. I'm not sure why that is
the case. I do know though, that I thrive in
those environments. Okay, I thrive in an environment where there
is uncertainty, where I feel like I'm being stretched. That
was the best example of that Gold Coast. It also
occurred when I left the AFL. Yes, I stayed in sport,
(08:35):
but I knew not much about the sport. So I
always look for those opportunities and I think it's satisfying,
it's invigorating. It really tests me, but I enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
So where do self doubt play in your life? Travis? Then, seriously,
at some point you could have gone as it's actually
a very good idea. Am I going to fail? What
are people going to think?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah? It exists in my life, Absolutely it does. I'm
a big believer in reflecting. Okay, not in any great
formal way, but you know, often when I make a
big decision, or I need to make a big decision,
I often want to spend a bit of time just
reflect on how when about that decision I made? What
I do it differently when I was at the Goldco Suns,
we knew there was going to be a tough start.
The way when I'm building the team is that weren't
going to win very often early on, hopefully built some momentum,
(09:14):
and so I remember early days we'd have a staff
maning every Monday and we'd have a difficult game on
the weekend and get it in front of the staff.
And so we are exactly where we need to be,
where exactly where thought we'd be. We've got all LEAs
steps in place, but know what we're doing, It'll be fine.
Because I needed them to believe where we are going.
I remember ginning in my car driving home, thinking, Holy help,
are we where we need to be right now? Am
(09:35):
I doing this the right way? What could I do
differently and better. But I needed to project that self confidence.
You need to be real and authentic about where we are.
But also your role as a leader is to make
sure that people have confidence and where we're going. And
so there's no doubt sometimes sort of behind the wall
a but you sit back and question yourself. I actually
think that's quite healthy. I'm actually comfortable that I don't
(09:55):
have self doubted accept that it paralyzes me, but I
certainly have self doubt that keeps my feet on the
ground because when you're leading in sport is a lot
of scrutiny. There's sort of low barriers to entry for
people to provide their opinions about how they think you're
going with your role, and so if you wanted to
jump online in any important time, particularly in my role
at the AFL, I had a lot of people telling
me how to do my job, although I haven't done
(10:17):
a very good job. And so there's a real balance
between having some people around you that you rely on
to give you feedback, being able to do that yourself,
look yourself in the mirror and have pretty honest conversation
with how you're going, but not then sort of extending
that to listen to every voice that's coming through just
his noise, because then you will start to paralyze yourself.
(10:37):
And that's been the sort of learning for me over
a long period of time.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, amazing, there's a bit of ted Lasso in there
around the positivity. I remember talking to a friend of
yours who was part of their Goldkos Sons and he
would lose it every time you guys would lose a
game like freak Out, And I was thinking, well, in
your position, like did you sit there on Saturday nights
and Friday night's going, oh God, can't lose this one?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
You have those, I mean, that's sport. Being a leader
in sport in some ways, your job is to keep
things calm's highest people think they are, the lows is
not as low as they are, and to have a
consistency in terms of how you're leading that isn't necessarily
attached to how you went on the weekend. And so
I think one of the things I've developed over twenty
five plus years of working in sport is the ability
(11:19):
to sort of remain calm when everything else around yous areen.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
But I love that. So you mentioned before about authenticity,
So I wanted to touch on that because in my
Brave model of leadership, the A is authenticity, which for
me I defined it as I'm going to choose the
opportunity to connect over the chance of rejection. Right, and
you being in such a high profile public role, there
has to be some challenges with being completely authentic at times,
(11:43):
so saying exactly what you want to say, showing your emotions.
Do you feel that there are times where you were like,
I'm not being as authentic as I want to because
I can't.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
There's a difference between not being authentic as opposed to
not being able to share all the information you might
want to share. So I'd like to say that I
would be authentic pretty much all the time, and sometimes
that is by saying that, actually, sorry, I can't answer
that question. I can't share that information. And so it's
a really good question in the sense that you're always
a balance between being really honest with people without being
(12:12):
able to telling everything they want to know because people's
livelihoods are involved, or there's sensitive information that you can't
share at that point in time. That happens a lot,
particularly in my AFL role. But if you can stand
up in the most difficult times and share that information,
whether it's with your staff or whether it's with the media,
to be able to say, hey, I know that you
would like to help this information. Some of it I
(12:32):
have something that I don't Some of the stuff I
have I can't share with you. I'd found over time
that that builds a bit of trust that tends to
be accepted in the context of sort of authenticity.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You might have been the first one to say that.
I think it's a very big lesson, and authenticity is
sometimes saying actually can't give you that information, versus pretending
or going down some other pathway. I think that's when
people get it wrong. You can say I don't know
or I can't tell you. There's a great takeaway for people.
So obviously, over this entire period of career, can you
think of one particular time where you felt really exposed
(13:00):
and vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah. I think my experience of leading to Gold Coast
SUMS was a bit like that, because you're building everything
with scratched But probably the better example is during COVID,
during the pandemic, when my role at the AFL was
running finance, running broadcasting, running fixturing, and I've seen the
club relationships, which puts you right in the center for
better or worse of all the issues will trying to
(13:22):
solve during COVID. So I just felt a huge sense
of responsibility. Initially, that's responsibility was to keep the game going,
to make sure that we could pay our people and
the clubs could pay their players and staff, that we
could continue playing week in week out. That responsibility quickly
shifted from that to a sense of responsibility because people
(13:43):
were looking at football and other forms of sport for
a sense of hope because I were locked in the
homes all day and so the ability to at the
end of a day turn the television on and watch
their team play was something more than just that. And
I was getting that feedback pretty early on during the
pandemic that please keep the game going because it's the
one thing that is a bit of a showing light
for us at the moment. And I felt that sense
(14:04):
of respon's ability before. And so that was probably the example
where it's like I've got a job to do here.
That is probably one of more important jobs that I've
ever done in my career.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
In terms of dealing with that. Was the certain things
you did in your life to help you manage that stress.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
I think we'd all give examples of what we did
during the pandemic that didn't didn't work for me is
very obvious, but it worked out pretty quickly that you know.
The things that put me in a position to lead
well is I need sleep, We've got to eat well,
I need exercise. And so a couple of those got
taken away from me really quickly during the pandemic. Were
working pretty silly hours, like a lot of people were exercised,
were difficult, and so I put myself in a hole
(14:38):
pretty quickly, and I needed to then try and at
least get two of those back together again and put
myself in a position where I can make myself available
to lead. That was sort of the key pillar is
how do I get myself right first? Because we were
asking a lot about each other during those times, and
there was a lot of stress, and then it became
a bit about team. There was a small group of
us who realized on each other. There was displays of
(14:59):
vulnerability during COVID that I've not seen before. We really
got into each other's lives, were in lounge rooms every
day on teams goals, and we got to see first
hand the impact of the pandemic on people's personal lives,
and so I have a sense of connection with maybe
half a dozen people through that period that is much
deeper than you would normally have in any normal work
setting that still exists today. You know, there's times that
(15:21):
I felt really vulnerable. There's times also when I was
probably my st rewarding part of my career.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
So after twenty five years and leadership roles, you obviously
had your site set on the top job at the AFL,
and I think a lot of people had bets on
you getting that role, and I think it was pretty hard.
Youous twelve month recruitment process that you went through, and
then obviously you did miss out on the role. So
resilience for me is key when it comes to great leadership.
You know, obviously bouncing back is one thing, but also
preparing yourself for the obstacles. So I'm interested to know
(15:48):
how did you prepare for a twelve month recruitment process
and all that came with, And then I guess how
did you process the disappointment of it not happening and
bounce back from that.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah, I don't think I did prepare for a twelve
month that's probably more than that if you're going to
put yourself in a process to be the CEO of
the AFL, and you know it's going to come with
some scrutiny, and scrutiny wasn't something that was foreign to me.
I've worked in footy for twenty years and so I
knew a lot about being judged publicly on a regular basis,
and I had a tight group around me that would
support me through that. I probably thought, there's a three
(16:19):
or four month process coming up, but I'm going to
come into some scrutiny. I just need to focus on
what I can control. But then it became much longer.
I think one of my strengths because of the roles
that I've had, is I'm quite resilient. I can generally
decipher between what's real and what's noise and the voices
that I care about. What starts to impact you is
when others close to you are impacted. And so when
(16:41):
you start to find and what got a bit more
difficult towards the end of it is you'd find that
you know, whether it's your family, close friends, you could
see that they were probably out of care for me.
But starting to be impacted by starting to engage in
what was going on social media, and that was the
time I was like, oh, this is a bit bigger
than me, and I just need to be careful of
what I'm putting others through. It was difficult because I
(17:01):
hadn't really invested in getting the role. You have to
do if you'ren apply for all that, you have to really
invest in as a long process. I'd enjoyed my time
at the AFL and credible twenty five years in the AFL.
I wouldn't change one thing, but you saw it going
knowing that you know, as they guarantees. So when I
found out I didn't get it, I quickly dusted myself off.
The guy got the role, Andrew Dillon. He's a post
friend of mine. You wouldn't find a better person. I
(17:22):
was equally happy for Andrew to get that role. Spend
there for a long time and you'll do a really
good job. And so up against tough competition, you got
to accept that. The question for me was sort of
what now. That was a good question because I had
convinced myself I wanted to sort step into that old
leadership role again. One thing about a twelve month process.
Is you spend a lot of time thinking about what
you bring to the table, what you love, what's your
(17:43):
environments worked for you. I was pretty sure coming out
of that process that I wanted to step back into
a CEO role.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah right, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
And I could have stayed in the a fil industry.
I could have stayed int the AFL, could have went
back to running a club. Those opportunities are putting in
front of me. And then the opportunity to become the
CEO of the Australian Pre Corporation came up. In fact,
it came up about a month or two before the
af process. And I had said to the transparent, I
had said to the recruiter, I am twelve or fourteen
(18:12):
months into a process here. I'm not going to hedge
my bets now. So as much as running the strain
Gold pre is a very attractive proposition, thank you, but
no thank you, because I don't want to hedge my bets.
I'm a sort of all in guy and I'm all
here now. I didn't get the role. I got a
phone call from the recruiter. It become very public quickly
till after day or two I've got a phone call
to say, hey, bad news for you, good news for us.
(18:33):
We want you back in the process. The process hadn't
been completed, and so I jumped in at the back
end of this role. And it's another example stepping out
of my comfort zone. It would have been much easier
for me to stay in the AFL industry, but this
was a different role and had opened up other opportunities
and it tested be a game. It put me in.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
And also, I think exactly what happened to you in
the process for the Goldcrows Sons, the process and going
through the interview helped you realize, actually, I do want
to be a CEO, and I can't then go back
into something that's different. I have to ask, you know,
we all know you can't have it all supposedly, what's
the you have to pay for success?
Speaker 2 (19:07):
It's a really good question. I think sport demands a
lot of you, and so if you're in a leading sport,
it's not a nine to five thing. It's sort of
your life. I know that, particularly early on in my
careers when children were growing up, I wasn't there from
as much as I would like either, whether I was
physically there or not. I think when you are in sport,
you're surrounded by it all the time. There's an expectation
you're on all the time, and so I think if
(19:28):
you had your time again, I think as more mature
person now I might do that a bit differently. I
don't give a chance to do that, but that's something
I thought about that it owns a lot of you,
and I gave it a lot back, and you need
to if you're to be successful.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I want to talk to a quickly that empathy, which
I think is like a superpower quite frankly, and probably
the one thing most leaders struggle the most, and kind
of fully understanding that ability to hold space for people's
emotions and not necessarily fixing it. It's often widely known
that males can struggle with expressing their emotions more than women.
How did you find that in the AFL. Is there
a culture of suck it up, don't talk about it?
What did you see shift over twenty five years in
(20:02):
that space?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, go back a step. That's certainly how I was
raised a boy growing up in the country, work hard,
suck it up with any issues, toughen up a bit,
and so I certainly started that way, and I've seen
things change during my time at the AFL incredibly in
terms of the expectations around being vulnerable or the accepted sorry.
The diversity of workforces now in all forms has changed things.
(20:23):
When I reflect back on my career, I think early
on in my leadership journey, I was incredibly judgmental. I
had views of things that this is how things needed
to be and it wasn't really The one thing that
changed that is my daughter has a disability, which was
born with a disability, and so I had this sort
of moment where it's like, it's not actually like black
and white, and it gave me a totally different perspective
on the world. And so going from someone who's judgmental
(20:45):
and you know, look for the people that look a
bit more like me and lead a bit more like me,
to look for the person in the corner who's not
necessarily engagement has something to offer. And so I would
see more possibility and opportunity in people that I did previously.
And so it wasn't directly shaped by my career, was
more shaped by my personal experience. And I think empathy
now notwithstanding sort of where I came from, is probably
(21:07):
one of my strengths, and sometimes it's a strength overplayed.
I get feedback sometimes that, you know, when I'm making
really tough people decisions, I just want to give someone
a chance. I really do. I want to try and
see if we can find a way to get the
best of them. Yeah, and sometimes it doesn't work. But
I do know when it doesn't work, and I have
to have those conversations that I don't enjoy that I
know that I've given them every chance, and that just
comes from a deeper place that's been my chow.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I love that. That's beautiful. Yeah, and you're right, I'm sure. Yeah,
having experienced those challenges that you daughter would have gone through,
you'd have a whole different perspective, all right. So in
twenty twenty three points the CEO role of Australian Grand
Prix amazing. So while still in sport, a completely different
ball game. I actually started watching the Netflix for me
and I ended up becoming obsessed with it, like it's
(21:51):
really fascinating to me, like in my head. And I
think it's because my boys were watching it and it
was a bit like, oh, this is going to be
cars going around a circuit to be honest, and then
you start watching it and you're just like, this is
a whole nother thing, Like it's a massive teams thought,
like it couldn't get more like down to the pet changes.
It's competitive, like insane competitive. I mean, we've watched Ricardo
(22:12):
and all this kind of stuff happened. Like if you're
not top of the game, you're out, Like it's just insane.
You said first of all that you weren't particularly like
huge into motorsport. I didn't know a ton about it.
So what have you learned in this space of time
that you've been here over twelve months?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
And when it comes to the sport, like you, I
was introduced to the sport with any depth anyway through
Drivers Survive. I live near the circuit and so we've
been quite a number of times. Yeah, but it was
actually my wife who would say to me, Hey, when
you finishing work, this next episode of Drive Survives out
and watch what's happened to you. And so that's how
I had some knowledge of F one and there working
is of F one. But when I stepped into the role,
(22:45):
one of the things I'm really clear about through my
interview process and when I first spoke to my team
is I don't know much about motorsport. I don't know
much about F one. I know a little bit about
how sport works and how you create product and connected
with a fan base and commercialize it. I've done that
for a long time, but I'm going to need to
rely on you for your motorsport expertise. And having been
in the AFIL industry for twenty five years, you don't
(23:06):
know the answer to everything, but you know how to
get the answer. It's like everything's one or two phone
calls away, like I know who to call to work
out that thing. I remember early days leaving work thinking
I don't know the answer to this question and I
don't know to call. You feel pretty vulnerable at times,
and so I had a completely different mindset stepping into
this role that I had. I didn't give enough respect
to the industry to come up with the speed with
(23:26):
how the industry works. A bit of the history was
really important. I felt like to respect the history of
the organization and the sport. So I've done a lot
of reading, a little bit of travel to other events
to try and understand F one, and we do the
Moto GP down of Philip Ailin It's been a lot
of time with people. We're very fortunate we have Mark
Webber as the past F one driver on our board,
(23:47):
and we have Doing as a five time world champion
Moto GP writer on our board, and I've been incredible.
I'm sure some of the times when I ask questions
are like, that is ridiculous question, but they humor me.
And so I've had a coming up eighteen months now, right,
eighteen months of just absorbing information. The first six months
I really just say back ask questions. I made a
commitment to the board that it wouldn't change too much
(24:09):
in the first six months. I would just sort of
make sure I knew enough before I did anything. I'm
going to my second F one in forty days time.
I feel like I've got a bit of a sense
now of how it works, and if it doesn't work,
this one's on me. So I've been there long enough
and I feel like I can start to make a difference.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, amazing. And I suppose like obviously that level of
honesty and vulnerability to say, hey, I'm not an expert
in this field. What kind of reception did you get
from that being so honest about that?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, a bit of surprise, I think because historically leaders
of the Grand Prix come from some a bit or
a motors background and that had been suitable and done
an incredible job. The past had done a wonderful job.
I'd inherit an event that was doing really well, really
well run. But the opportunity was to take learning from
other sports, I think, other events that working how we
grow and so I think for some of them it's
a good question for them, probably, but for some of
(24:53):
them it was quite refreshing to say someone's coming in
not to tell me how to do my job, but
how to focus on the role I have and how
we create a bit of a longer term vision here
and the right environment for people. And so that's been
an adjustment for them.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
But I think that's very very true, is that. I mean,
we all think the safety in someone who's known the
industry for years, but the same token, then there is
an element of, yeah, not letting people do their jobs's
interfering too much, whereas that's not what you're here to do.
You're just here to lead them in the best way possible.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
So there's no risk of me being a micromanager right now.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
No, it doesn't sound like it.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Name can't because I don't know the details, and so
I think they're enjoying the freedom of that. But it's
also an obligation for me to understand enough about their
roles in the industry that I can support them, challenge them,
and provide a bit of direction.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Have you sat in the car yet?
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I haven't sat in the F one car, And in fact,
I'm probably a bit tall to sit in the F
one cars. I wouldn't go out there. Generally that mark
web is probably my light. But yeah, they're pretty tight
in those cars. I've been in a supercar, certainly tested
my courage.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Now. I think it's widely known that culture is driven
from the top, and you know, you've held many top
positions that would have directly impacted the culture. Do you
have like a you know, an approach to this, Like,
you know, is it kind of very organic? Just you
know Travis's character, I mean, you are a character. You've
got some very strong positive leadership qualities. I can imagine
naturally it would probably create a very trust built culture.
(26:11):
But do you have particular strategies that you like to
go into organizations and put in place, Like are you
sort of like I need this to happen. These rituals
are things that I just always do wherever I go.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, I think so. And whether I've articulated them that
way or a document or don't know, But I would
say firstly that you have an enormous responsibility as a
leader to role model what you want. And so there's
that sort of saying. A friend of mine who was
a bit of a mentor of mine says that what
walks in the leader's runs and the teams, and so
that notion. No matter whether you you like or know,
people watching what you do, and they may believe what
(26:41):
you say, but they'll always believe what you do. And
so I'm a big believer that of sort of leading
through standard setting what standard do you expect? And so
the only want to do that is through communication. So
I like, you know, my management team meetings to have
conversations about how we're going, how are we leading, how
you think we're going in terms of our values, and
which ones we're doing really well at, which ones you
think we can get better at, and so just making
sure this room on the agenda for those conversations. I
(27:03):
believe in sometimes you got to make conversations about where
you want to go and which people are sort of
on board with that, around your value setting. If you
make exceptions of those things, then people will really doubt
whether it's authentic and whether it's really what the organization
stands for. And so it's about standard setting, it's about
being consistent. You can't pick and choose. I think is
really important. But I think the most important thing for me,
(27:25):
it's something I'm very proud of what I left the
AFL and I'm certainly seeing it here is the ability
to crate, invite where people can be themselves. This notion
of creating a culture that works for me is not
really what it's about. We have a culture here, we
had before I started. So it was really coming in
and trying to understand what really works well for you?
What is about this organization that you really love? You
would like me to keep pushing along emphasizing, and what
(27:47):
is that that you don't like? And how can I
as a leader help with that? Rather than here, I am,
this is my value set, this is the culture you
need to have. It was a lot more trying to
extract and understand as a leader, how can I give
my people the best environment that I can, so they
can bring all of themselves to work and collectively we
can do something pretty special. I don't know if to
ask your question, but.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
It's beautiful and I think it's such a thing because
in order to let people be themselves right, they have
to feel comfortable. And like I've done a lot of
these kind of interviews and there are some where I'm
not as comfortable as I am, Like right now, I
feel completely comfortable. I'd probably go waffling down a trail
with you because you make me feel that way, and
it's interesting. Then what is it? It's non judgment, it's
you know, I mean, there's vulnerability and openness and communication.
(28:29):
So I think if you're modeling that at the top,
it's no doubt that the culture will kind of form
itself from that. How do you then ensure that the
people that work for you are equally as passionate or
share these same beliefs as you like? How't even sure
that happens?
Speaker 2 (28:42):
That's the trick, isn't that? It is in a couple
of ways. One is articulating really clearly what that looks like,
so that the expectations are clear that no one can
say how I didn't realize that you wanted us to
do that or lead that way, or that was important
for the organization. So having those conversations, we had lots
of them. We've had lots of them in my first
eighteen months, just to explore what it looks like. Because
I think the transformation comes in conversation, So serving those
(29:05):
conversations and not always easy conversations, but if you do
them regularly, they get normalized. And so that has been
part of it, a bit of feedback. And then what
I do, as an example, is every three or four
weeks in my diary is an hour with six to
eight staff randomly selected, or I have a coffee with
six to eight stuff okay. And it's a way just
to keep my team accountable but the organization and to
(29:27):
make sure I stay close to what's happening. As a CEO,
sometimes you can become very removed actually what's going on
in the organization. There's set questions. I asked, you know,
what's changing, what's changing for the better, What do we
need to focus more on? If you or me, what
would you be doing? And it just ends up like this,
It ends up being a conversation. But I get really
valuable feedback because my team sees things, my direct reports
(29:49):
these things in a certain way, and sometimes the staff
don't see that way. And it's like gives the ability
to go back in a very constructive way and say, hey,
I know we think we're off heading in this direction,
but my coffee catch ups telling me that we're missing
something over here. It's very non personal. It's sort of
like it's a bit of a barometer for me, and
I find that really valuable. It's the best hour of
sort of my month. It's their twelve months a year.
(30:11):
It's the staff. I sort of building trust in the
process that hate things are happening out of this, so
I can see that things are changing when I offer
my opinion. It's a long way to answering a question,
which is I'm going to work really closely with my
direct reports to understand how they're leading. And that's a
one to one thing. That's not a group conversation because
they all lead differently. Their teams have different needs from
their leaders, but also then from beneath. It's just making
(30:33):
sure that what I'm hearing and what they're telling me
is validated.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
In that Kudos to utro It says brilliant, because people
manage up very well, right, And we've seen this time
and time again where you know, they'll tell you what
you want to hear, but they're not reflecting you down below,
and it does actually cause us massive block So I
think that's a beautiful loop and it keeps everyone accountable.
So I love that. So then what if and I'm
just asking this more hypothetically back you said about the
fact that empathy is a big thing for you and
you keep giving people chances and that, So how do
(30:58):
you deal with having those conflict difficult conversations? You might
have to let someone go, you know what I mean,
they haven't performed. Is that something you're still struggle with
or I.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Don't enjoy it? And I would say, if you do,
you probably a bit strange.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I agree, you up being the wrong role.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I don't like it. Often tell them when I have
the conversation, I don't enjoy these conversations that it would
be difficult for you. It's also difficult for me, and
just been honest about that. I think if you're honest,
I think if they can tell that you're also finding
the conversation difficult, I need to go into those conversations
knowing that I've given them every chance. Yeah, and they'veset expectations.
What is unfair is if they say, I didn't know
(31:33):
that's what you wanted from me. If you had have
told me that, I would have done something different. So
that to answer your question, I if I had to
have a few of them over the years.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
It's more that obviously you're willing to right, it's willing
to have those difficult conversations when you have to, when
someone's not representing the values of the organization or you know,
staying alone.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah. The thing for me is I find that they're
easier if you're having them along the way. Yeah, Rather
this big surprise conversation, I'm offering them conversations with someone
to say, hey, I just observed the conversation or hoy
in that meeting. Do you think we could have done
that differently? Was your observation of it? It tends to
be hopefully, if you're doing your job well enough that
by the time the difficult conversation comes, they know why
(32:10):
you want to catch up with them. They're like, yep,
I get it. We've talked about this a lot. I
might not agree with the decision but I see where
you're coming from because we've talked about it before. Rather
than this big moment of hey, I've been watching you
for twelve months and yet I don't have things and
now you're gone. That wouldn't sit well with me either.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
No, absolutely, I think it might be time for me
to pose a difficult question for you. So I heard
this question posed by a Harvard psychologist the other day,
and I'd love to ask you this, Travis, Why should
anyone be led by you?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
The first thing I'd say is that being a leader
is an enormous privilege and it comes with enormous responsibility.
The same professor will team that leadership doesn't come with
a title. People can choose to be led by you
or not. It could be their boss, it doesn't mean
you're their leader. And I think part of it is
if I start with me understanding the responsibility that comes
with being a leader. You are looking after people's careers,
looking after people's livelihoods. People when they come in through
(32:59):
the door impacted being what's going on in their personal lives,
and so I feel like I have that responsibility to
make sure that I am caring environment for them, but
also providing them enough challenge that they develop and so forth.
And so why should someone be led by me? Hopefully
because they have someone who cares about them as an individual,
have someone who takes an interest in their career. Sometimes
that is or often that is not within the organization.
(33:21):
Often you're encouraging people to think about roles outside the
organization because it's best for them. It may not be
best for the organization right now. Someone who While I'm
strong on accountability, hopefully I'm equally strong on support. And
I like to push the boundaries of it. I like
to change things. I like to innovate, I like to
test people. And I get enormous satisfaction when somebody you've
worked with before goes off and gets an amazing role
(33:42):
and you think you might have just played a really
small part in helping get them to that spot. And
if I ask others about what they think about all that,
but it's something I think a lot about. It's something
I think a lot about as my role as a leader,
that it's not just a right, it's a privilege, and
that I need to turn up every day one thing
I do. I'm very intentional about how I show up,
and so I will think on the way into work,
(34:03):
what do my team need from me today? How do
I need to show up? What's happening at the moment
that might be important for them, that might influence how
I show up. And I think that's important because that's
the decision you get to make as a leader, is
they will take cues from how I show up, and
so what's happening in sort of broader enviru it's pretty important.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Well, my last two Christians for you are I want
to know because it's just so much in your life,
so much in your mind. You're looking after everybody else.
What keeps Travis up at night? Or does Travis sleep
quite well? Oh?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Don't sleep so well? All sleep better?
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Is your mind thinking? Is it what it is? Or
are you one of those thing it is?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, yeah, I'm up. It's not unusual for me to
get up at the middle of night and write some stuff
down or think through things. So I'm not the role
model for this stuff. I can see the way you'll
get me.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
I don't sleep at all, Like my brain goes crazy
if it was wondering with someone that gives so much
to others and there's so much considerations, like I was
just interested, because often sleep is the time where you know,
we can't wind it down and we're still thinking so
much about other people.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, that's so for me. My wine downtime is exercise. Okay,
I really liked exercise, and so if I go cycle
a bit now, and so if I'm out with mate Psyche,
I'm not thinking about work stuff. I am actually engaging
with them and a bit of fun in the band, yeah,
what I enjoy. So sleep is not that for me.
I'll often be thinking about things, and so I can
sort of go to bed with a head full of
work and wake up with her for work. And so
that's on why I sort of to do itet better
(35:15):
at There's lots of things that keep me out at night.
It's probably what motivates me, to be honest, I'm not
one that sort of relaxes too much in a sense
of personally or professionally. I always like the things I
want to do differently or better, or things I haven't
done yet, and that's probably just make yeah fair enough.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
And my last question for you is, let's cast your
mind back to how old, shall we say, eighteen year
old Travis, what's the best advice you'd give.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Him from what you know now, I think the first
one is just to take opportunities they come. My career
hasn't been a straight line. I'm a big believer in
sort of building the base, and so I've got to
dis role with a whole lot of different experiences which
hopefully help my sort of toolkit that I've got today.
And so I'm a big believer that an opportunity might
not be obvious, but take it if it comes. I
remember when I was at university. I was two and
(35:57):
a half years in. The guy I was living with,
a very smart guy going to be very successful, came
to me and said, one of the bigg accounting firms
in Melbourne is offered me a job finished six months early.
And it was really hard to get into accounting firms
back then in the chartered world. That's this incredible world done.
So I'm not going to take it. I'm going to
finish my Uni right, And so went to bed, got
out the next morning and I said to him, that
(36:18):
doesn't make sense to me. You're going to do that?
Can I speak to that person and see if I'll
give me the job? Right? And he's like, oh, I know,
Like that's a friend of the family and the guy's
a partner, and I said, just let me have a
chat to it. And that's how I got my first job.
I rang up and said, I know you're going to
give the job to Andy, but he doesn't want it.
I want it. This guy's like what he said, coming
to have a meeting with me. I went met with him.
This is the twenty year old mate.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And so a bit of bolder said, a bit of
just there's opportunity everywhere if you look for And so
that's what I'd say to an eighteen year old is
keep your eyes open. But I've been minded to watch
in front of you. It might I'll be obvious the
next step. But just take things and work out later
how are you going to do them? And so I've
had a career of being offered things in addition to
my role, a new roles like yeah, Bugret, I'm going
to do that and I'll work out later on holme,
(36:59):
I actually I can do it. Yeah, And so that
would be the number one piece of advice for me
when I was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
That's amazing, Travis. It has been an absolute pleasure talking
to you. I'm so excited for your year and watching
what happens. So thank you so much for taking the
time to talk to me. It's been great.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Thanks. I appreciate you having me all
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