July 16, 2025 • 58 mins
In this episode, I sit down with Andrea Clarke — author, former TV journalist turned humanitarian, and now a leadership coach helping people stay relevant in a rapidly changing world.
We discuss her new book, Adapt: Mastering Change in Four Steps.
Her message is simple but powerful: don’t run from change — anticipate it, engage with it, and learn how to shape it.
We talk about Andrea’s interesting early career, the high-stakes environments that shaped her leadership style, why trust and communication matter more than ever.
We recorded this back in April, but in these turbulent and divided times, it’s more relevant than ever — especially if you’re leading a team or want to make 2025 a year of thriving.
Purchase Andrea's book Adapt: Mastering Change in Four Steps here: https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/books/Adapt/Andrea-Clarke/9781761632433
https://www.amazon.com.au/Adapt-Mastering-change-four-steps/dp/1761632434
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Ike Boris and this is straight Talk. Andrew Clarke,
Welcome Straight Talk, Thanks for coming in, Thanks for having me. Well,
you know my mate Laila McKinnon and she told me
that she went to one of your talks and she
gave you a huge rap. So you've got lots to
live off to have you ready that She's good?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So you're an award and winning author, futurist journalist, but
you've sort of launched, You've got your new book. Would
you have a little chat about adapt Not so much
about the book. We'll talk about the book, but we
want to talk about what can we take out of
the book. Maybe he give us a little bit of
history about your background though, because you've had had an
interesting sort of career path. You're only very young drive
(00:41):
because you did tell me we're going to say publicly
but relatively speaking, I think you're quite young. But you've
had a fairly full career and we're doing some interesting stuff.
So maybe take us back to, you know, like your
early twenties of what were you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I was a television news reporter, so I started my
career in at g w waan and Calgooley, so out
there with all the guys, and I always wanted to
be a TV reporter, and so I started off doing
regional and then went to the commercials in Melbourne and Sydney.
(01:15):
But I actually picked myself up and flew myself to Washington,
DC when I was twenty nine because I'd always wanted
to be a foreign correspondent, So moved myself to DC
with no money, no job, in a very tenuous visa
situation to have a go because there was only a
couple of reporters on the East coast of the US,
(01:36):
so I decided that that was the best way for
me to accelerate my career and find the kind of
leadership that I was looking for to be around. So
had a really dynamic twenties in TV journalism covering general assignments,
so thrown out every day onto a different story.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
At twenty nine, you were trying to be a foreign correspondent,
but you weren't before you went nicely said across foreign
cross bond.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Did you get how did you get a job? At
twenty nine? Who signed up? Or did you just freelance?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So yeah, freelance. So I woke up the next morning
in Washington, DC, after arriving and started cold calling every
foreign bureau in the city until Ruters picked up and said,
come on in. So I spent you know, many fantastic
years with Thomson Reuters covering State Department, Pandagon and White
House and all the big names who are in town,
who come through town.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
How does they work? So you're you in town? You
love love yourself into Washington literally rent an apartment or
what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Thought I was in a boarding house.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Boarding house, Yeah, great, in a boarding house. I was
on a budget, single female hanging out in a foreign
country with warriorsome visa. Obviously you don't have much money
at that stage, and and you start contacting the foreign bureaus.
(03:00):
What does that mean? Like, what's a foreign bureau? What
were we talking about?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Obviously Washington, DC is the center of gravity for international coverage,
and so you had every country in the world in
some form represented in the form of a bureau in
the city. A bureau, so news crew, reporter, local production
staff that would gather news from North America and communicate
(03:26):
whatever was going on, mainly from the White House, communicate
that news to their home country. And so there were
stacks of bureaus based in the city, and I literally
started from a went alphabetically and started cold calling every
bureau to see if they had any opportunity for me
to freelance there.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
You mean, just just come in and pay me per hour,
pay me per story or whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Do you need me to come in and help produce stories,
to line up talent, to gather news in whatever form
made sense to that bureau. So that's what I did.
And I got to r and I was nearly out
of I only had five working days to get a
job because I only had five hundred bucks to my name.
So I had five days.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So you see, you saw after this, I got to
go back.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Home, had to turn around and go back. So I
had five days and I got to r and this
really terrific guy called Rob Muir at Rutters, another Aussie,
picks up the phone and says, come on in and
I was like, oh, thank God, Like I get to
stay for another week and we'll just see how long
this goes for?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
How long did they go for?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
About seven years?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you stayed Ruters.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We sat in DC for seven years, d.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
For seven years. But you got your first a job
opportunity at Ruter's what did you do after that?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well, I was producing and gathering news for a couple
of years for Routers and Channel seven, and then I
moved into international aid work. So I saw the signal
of change coming down the pipeline for the business of news,
and I switched into working for a major international aid organization.
(05:05):
So essentially what that meant was Iland in Baghdad Island
in Georgia into.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
BLC Georgia in the ex Soviet country.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
The one that the Russians invaded in about two thousand
and eight. So I switched from news. I was addicted
to being in a newsroom because we were I was
always part of an ultra high performance news team, which
was a very addictive way to be working. But one
day I was walking down the street, walking down K Street,
which is pretty close to the White House. It all
(05:36):
feels really good, it looks good, it's all shiny and new,
and there's lots of things to be There's lots of
things that keep you going in a town like that
because there's always so much happening. But one day I
was walking to the Al Jazeera English news bureau where
I was freelancing that day, and instead of picking up
a copy of The New York Times, I found myself
looking at scanning the news headlines on my BlackBerry, and
(05:58):
I thought, this is a really interesting signs of change.
Because if I'm a journalist being paid to produce content
that as a consumer I'm not prepared to pay for,
then the business model of news is failing right in
front of me, and I'm a part of it. So
what I'm going to do? So I ran through the options,
and for me, you know, I thought, what if my
(06:20):
behavior scale this is you know, two thousand and eight,
What if my behavior scale, like what if ten thousand
people stopped picking up a paper? What if a million
people stopped picking up a paper? Then what's going to
happen to the news business? So I decided to resign
pretty shortly after that, go into international aid. And then
I found myself in Baghdad pretty shortly after.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, as in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
In Iraq. Yeah, but we were running major programs in
Afghanistan as.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Well, So that's that's pretty hectic. It was pretty hectic
going from Washington, a nice safe environment to Bagdad. You know,
it was a war or war well, but it was
sort of sort of rebuilding, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
At that stage, well, it was still volatile. It was
still a very active war zone in two thousand and eight.
So I literally literally land. I mean, it was just
like an out of body experience.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
What does that? What does international aid meet? Like you're
going around helping people who were underprivileged or injured or what.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And so the aid organization I was working for had
a number of pillars that they would use to support
third world nations, and they were infrastructure, so they'd help
people rebuild, microfinance grants, so they'd help people locally engaged,
local residents come back to the city and rebuild their
(07:42):
business like they might be running a small mechanic shop
before the war. So micro finance, food, security, medical supplies.
So there are a number of ways that major international
groups helped rebuild a nation. And it was my job
to go in and make an assessment of the projects
that were being delivered by this organization so we could
(08:05):
ask for more funding from the US State Department and
US AID, which Trump is dismantling at the moment. So
so I had to prove I mean, and there's my
journalism practice that came into play. So I had to
interview people on the ground and prove that the money
that was being spent was being spent well, so we
(08:26):
could get another billion dollars for Iraq the following year.
It was big money. Wow, it's a big cooin.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Pretty deep experience from going from reporting what's going on
in the US or what's going on in terms of
those people operating in the US, and then off into
doing international aid. That's pretty crazy. What do you ask
that and topic? He didn't get put on a sort
of an army if couldn't go to war or something.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
No, I I mean I I made a really difficult
decision because I was just about completely burnt out. Made
a really difficult decision to pack everything up and come home.
So I lost my job in the aid organization because
in principle I had flagged a fairly major misappropriation of funds.
(09:20):
So I recognized that funds weren't being spent in a
way that I thought the American public would approve of,
and lost my job. The CEO figured out that I
knew what was going on, so I got walked from
that job. So it was completely devastating, and I did
pick up another amazing role with the Savedar for coalition.
(09:43):
So basically I ended up being the communication director to
help stop the genocide in Sudan at the time. So
my job for the next twelve months was to organize
the communication that hassled the Obama administration to appoint a
US Special to Sudan, which we did in the UN
General Assembly in two thousand and eight. So it all
(10:05):
sounds big, but all it is is about influence. It's
about how do we stop you know, the civil war
going on in Sudan?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
How could do that sort of job? What do you
learn for the future, for yourself or as a tool
you get out of that.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yes, it's a great question. And I think that that
that experience propelled me forward to looking for great leadership,
because when you're.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
In you're looking for greater I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
But it allowed me to prioritize what great leadership looked like, right,
because you saw great leaders in those moments, and you
saw leaders who didn't perhaps have the influence that they
wouldn't want to have. And so for me, it helped
me recognize what great, what great leadership really looked like.
And then you know, it made me think about how
(10:55):
can I translate all of that experience into running a
small business into you know, eventually coming back to Australia
and developing a leadership and learning business where I was
able to translate all of those lessons into leadership programs
for big businesses like Rio, Tinto, Ostrade, NBN, Aurora.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
AHP, some of your clients. Yeah, you wrote a book
around this. Yeah, what was that called future Fit Future Fit.
That's different in this book because we're as you know,
we're right in the middle of an election period. And
I had yesterday, sitting right there, the Treasurer of the
country and I put to him, you know, you're one
of the senior leaders of government right now and may
(11:40):
well be you know, after the election as well. And
of course you know, it's very traumatic at the moment
out there, at the moment, the stock market's gone mental,
you know, strain dollars lesson sixty cent. So I don't
know if it is as we sit here, but it
was yesterday afternoon. People are getting very nervous. I remember
this happening during the GEFs. People super innovation balances started
(12:02):
to go from you know, one hundred thousand down to
thirty thousand very quickly. People worried about all the money
they're putting away, their whole life of it. What is
someone like, what would you say to someone like the
prime minister or the treasurer or any senior person in
those roles where they try to they need to build
confidence back in the system. How do they what do
they do, what do they talk about? How do they
(12:22):
go about it? It's a better way.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I think there's a recognition that has to happen first,
and awareness that collectively the whole nation is looking to
them for direction, protection and order in a moment where
we feel very uncertain, very chaotic, and yeah, we're trying
to log into our super funds to see what's going
on there.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
And it's funny you should say that. It's funnish you
say that because only a week ago some of those
super funds who were compromised, yes, cyber attack, and that
would make it doubly worse. And you also said a
really really good point there. I think at least we
need them to recognize that there's a problem sort of
(13:04):
do they need to have a solution as well or
just recognize the problem.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I think recognition and an acknowledgment publicly of the problem.
I don't think that we hear that enough. We don't
hear politicians saying we really understand how it feels to
be supporting three kids with three jobs, trying to put
food on the table, trying to make things work, Like
I don't hear enough politicians connecting in a real way
(13:30):
with their constituents by recognizing what the pain the people
are feeling. I mean, surely you must see that as well.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, well, do you think that's the reason for that
is you get paid, getting paid a lot more money
than say, their constituency in whatever area they might be.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I don't think it's got anything to do with the
kind of coin there on. I think I rarely see
leaders spend enough time on the front line of change,
And when you're not close to change, you don't understand
how change impacts people. And the most important thing that
we all need to understand about change, particularly leaders, is
that we are addicted to sameness. We love our routine
(14:07):
and we don't like change. That's how we're wired, So
we associate change automatically with loss. Like imagine, I said,
you imagine for everyone listening, you know I'm your boss,
and I say, you know there's an email coming your way,
and the heading is, you know, we need to talk
like you're going to automatically default to a loss. You're
(14:27):
going to default to that means something really negative. That's
a threat to my security, my stability, my status, my financials,
whatever it might be. I'm not sure that leaders recognize
how deeply people are impacted by any degree of change.
We're not wide for it, we don't like it. You know,
(14:47):
we are constantly clinging to what we know because we
love certainty. Now, I would say to people, and I
say to people in my leadership cohorts, what we need
to do in that moment is interrupt that thought pattern.
And while we recognize that the situation may not be great,
we also need to find the upside in what change
(15:08):
provides us, Like, what's the opportunity in this change? How
can we demonstrate some personal agency in moments where we
do feel uncertain, and how do we understand what we
can control and can't control.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
That's very interesting because I said to their treasurer, and
he told her quite a hard rendering story about when
he was a young man, as still at school, that
he was a bit wayward when he was growing up,
and largely probably because he didn't have proper parenting as
(15:40):
a kid, and his mum and dad split up, et cetera.
Those things can affect a boy, I guess, and a girl.
But he had two older sisters, and he said that
he met up with a guy who was a teacher
at the school actually sort of took him out of
his wing and sort of talk to him and gave
him some mentoring, and as a result of that, he
decided he wanted to become a politician or be in
(16:03):
the public policy environment, not a politician necessarily, and in
terms of his leadership journey, he saw that as a
very important thing. But he also mentioned so first I
want to say to you, ask you how important is
that in the leadership journey that you get mentorship from
somebody who's valuable.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I think that role models models the right role model
at the right time is an absolute game changer. And
I'm sure that we would both now think about the
people who had an impact on us for our lives.
And I think we need to rethink what role models
are these days because I do not believe we should
(16:45):
be basing role models around money, fame, or power. I
think we should be looking at why people do the
things they do instead of what they actually do. And
I think the right role model, a strong role model,
positions us to establish a stronger action of values. So
a great role model really serves three functions. They inspire
(17:06):
us by showing us what's possible. They can influence our
goals and our motivation, and they serve as a behavioral
example of success. And I think that's the key word.
If behaviors and intentions of our role models expire, then
we tend to look elsewhere for a new role model.
But I had the most incredible professor at university who
(17:27):
said to me at eighteen, you can do anything you want.
You can go around the world, and you can do
anything you want. And I believed him. I believed him,
and so I did. And I had that in the
back of my mind from the age of eighteen, and
that was such a powerful and simple throwaway statement for him,
but it meant a lot to me, and it's something
(17:48):
that I carried with me. It gave me the confidence
because I thought if doctor Peter Young, who at the
time I think was about sixty, who'd been a war
correspondent and being to all these places that I wanted
to go to looked at me, and he saw in
me potential, and if he could just throw a few
lines my way, he wouldn't have He would have had
(18:09):
no idea how that impacted me. But that gave me
the confidence to think I really can go and do that,
and sometimes that's all we need in that moment of
uncertainty or vulnerability. So I think we should always be
looking for role models that demonstrate the kind of behaviors
and intentions that we feel aligned with. And we all
(18:29):
know what an anti role model looks like. Right at
some point in our careers. We've had someone in our
life who we've thought, oh, I actually don't want to
be that person. And I had that in a newsroom.
You know. That was one of the reasons why I
decided to get out of news, not just because the
business model was failing, but because I would consistently be
looking around the newsroom and think that that's not demonstrating
(18:49):
good leadership. I don't believe I don't want to be
that person, you know, when I'm in my mid fifties,
So how do I sort of change course? Now? But
a great role model is a game changes. So I
don't think we should ever it doesn't matter who you
are and where you work in society. We should never
underestimate the impact that we have on people around us
(19:10):
because mental sponsors and advisors. Advisors are so foundational to
giving that advice that we need to hear in the
right moments.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It's funny the treasure said something like, if you aren't
these aren't these words. But if you are given a talent,
you have responsibility to make use of that talent. And
that's sort of I think that's sort of what you said,
because most people don't if they've become influential, don't recognize
(19:45):
a their talent. They might think they've got a talent
certainly ways, but they don't realize what their real talent is,
but they don't actually do anything with it. A lot
of times that they don't pay it forward to any
audience for that matter. And that's sort of what he does.
That's what he tries to do. I mean, it seems
to me that I said to him, I said, Treasurer,
(20:07):
to make change, it takes courage. I wonder if you're
I was talking to him about when I don't want
to get political, but I was talking about when his
predecessor in the Labor Party was a guy called Chris Bowen,
and Chris Bowen in the election with when Bill Shorten
was going for Prime minister, decided to bring in a
(20:28):
whole lot of policy changes, financial policy changes to and
presented them to the Electric before the election, things like
silly things like get rid of need to gearing change,
the couple of games, takes in lots of people's home investments,
you get rid of Frankie credits, which in a lot,
a whole lot of old Astrayans rely on to fund
(20:49):
their lifestyle. And of course Shorten lost the election. And
I said, sometimes it takes a lot of courage to
say those things. You, on the other hand, don't say
anything controversial. Does that mean as a leader you're not
being courageous? You know what would your mentor from when
you were sixteen or seventeen say to you about that?
(21:10):
And you said to it before, we don't like change.
And governments sort of know that. They poll and they do,
they check things out, they don't make mistakes too many
times these days, Well that Trump's proven that theory a
bit wrongs. Yeah, totally, but as the Australian government, and
I said to him, like, do you ever feel as
(21:31):
though you're not being courageous enough as a leader. How
do you reconcile A. I want to be the leader.
I've got to stay as I need to stay as
leader to get my ambitions done. I don't mean personal ambitions,
my ambitions for the nation done. But on the other hand,
if I'm too courageous, I could lose the election because Australians,
(21:51):
as you said, people don't like change.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I think that people get paid to have an opinion,
whether you're a CEO, regardless of your leadership position, people
vote you in.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
So take the risk.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Take the risk. Absolutely, there's not enough risk going on
across his country in business.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Don't you think I'm not in favorable the way he
does it at all? But I make too many courageous
take too many courageous steps. Sometimes they turn around and
do work so well. But I don't really care care.
I couldn't give a shit. I'm not trying to become
the treasurer of the Prime Minister. I mean I'm running
my own show and I can do it. I want
sort of thing, and I'm lucky enough to be in
(22:27):
that position. He's not, And it's a hard thing. Sometimes
it can be hard to reconcile because look, I let's
say he's speaking, I have this ambition for this nation
to do blah blah blah blah, but I'm not going
to I need to be the treasurer in order to
do it. I need my party to win in order
to do it. So I'm not going to do anything
(22:48):
crazy at the moment. I'm just gonna look at the
poles where people don't want to change, and I'll make
sure I just play that game. Whereas other people will
go and they just set the joint light like Trump
and bugger the consequences. I'm just going to set the
joint Logers. I actually, I presume you honestly believes that
what he's doing at the moment has actually become better
(23:08):
for Americans. How's that reconciled.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
He's out playing golf, well, the whole well, the world's
blowing up, Like I mean, I saw that morning, and
I thought, to me, that is that exercising leadership? I don't.
I mean, I'm not really sure. I think I think
you have to stay connected to what's going on in
the community, so be present with everyone absolutely. How can
(23:33):
you make decisions that are really well informed? If you're
on the top floor and everyone else is running around
on the ground floor, you've you've got no direct line
of sight, you know, with what's going on, how things
are changing, and how people are experiencing change. So I
think regardless of where you are where you sit as
a leader, you know the most incredible leaders that I've
worked with, and Mike Snider at Bunnings is a great example.
(23:55):
He's out there sweeping the floor full clean and tidy,
you know, at the end of every day with his staff,
so he understands, he's listening to the conversations, he's hearing
what's going on. He's on the front line of change.
So regardless of where we sit in any leadership position,
it pays to stay connected to what people are going through,
whether they're customers, constituents, or you know, whoever is a
(24:18):
recipient of your leadership. If we're not connected, how can
we make decisions at the right time that are going
to be in the best interests for that collective?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
It. Yeah, and I keep coming back to financial things,
but I remember when the COVID hit and everything was
sort of traumatic, quite traumatic, and the Reserve Bank governor
is not the current Reserve band government. The old Reserve
Bank governor was up there talking about now I'm going
to put in trades down to point one and what
it was. And then we had the Prime Minister saying
(24:48):
something we had the Probably more importantly, we had the
state premiers and their health ministers telling us every day
with so many COVID cases, so many deaths, as only
people in hospit all this sort of stuff daily and
I thought it was I just wonder why we don't
get the Reserve Being governor, who at the time was
(25:10):
different to the current Reserve being. Why we just get
him up there along with say the Prime Minister and
along with say I don't know, the Minister for Health,
for Federal mins f Health.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
The whole gang.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
It's a gang, and just put them up on because
this used to have many I remember as a kid
this just happened. Put them on the ABC because you know,
it's respected national broadcaster, not to say the others aren't,
but as a respect to national broadcasts, and you know
it's the owned by the government. And let's say we're
going to do an interview on Sunday night at seven
pm to all Australians. Not an interview, but have a chat,
(25:44):
just tell you what's going on with this COVID stuff
and all's one though not not separately, all together, and
explain what we're thinking and how we're walking, walking our
way through. I wonder why they do that.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I feel like, I mean, the greatest missed opportunity in
most leadership practices is communication, right. It's the most important
part of having influence, communicating change and keeping people informed,
(26:18):
and yet we haven't. We don't see that enough. I
think across corporate Australia we didn't see it. Then across COVID,
and what was interesting to me was we had different
states with very different ways of handling things, and so
any continuity would have been helpful in the overall approach
to how the country was tackling COVID, and there was
(26:40):
so much uncertainty and fear, and we certainly did not
see enough. I mean, as a former journalist looking at
the way that played out, the greatest missed opportunity was
more continuity in communication with people about what was going on.
I know we had daily briefings, right, but they were
all different. They were all different. So the average Australian
(27:02):
is sitting around with relatives in another state. In some
cases people who are terminally unwell in other state with
no idea if or when they were going to see
them again because all the states have different rules. So
a class and that will be a case study in
universities and used to come because.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
They didn't they did have a national group, but they
met in they met in private.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I met in private. We didn't know, we didn't know.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
We didn't get to talk to, you know, the primacy
sit premiers. But it was a private conversation. And I
used to think, well, just let me know, Like I'm
not dumb. They don't really a wood duck.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I mean, I'm happy to listen, give me a And
we were complying a summary, yes, and we were complying.
And I think the the damage that was done was
the erosion of trust. And you know, the erosion of
trust and governments has shifted to you know, to business,
So everyone who goes to work is now looking to
their business as that trusted source of information and cohesion.
(27:59):
They're not necessarily looking to the government anymore because of
how much trust was lost over that period of time.
And I wonder what's going to happen if we have
another version of the pandemic, I suspect we will not
see people be as compliant. I completely agree, and I
don't think we can underestimate what's lost when that erosion
(28:20):
of trust happens, whether that is in the workplace or
socially or in the community or whatever context, because you know,
the DNA of trust is really straightforward. When I'm thinking
about whether or not to trust you, I'm asking myself
three questions. Is this person consistent? You know, is there
are there behaviors consistent? Do they have the character? Do
(28:42):
they have the resources, the skills and the wherewithal to
do what they tell me they're going to do? Character?
Consistency and competency? And are they competent? Do they are
they prepared for this? So if we see a crack
in any of in that thread of DNA, the DNA
of trust, we're going to step back. And where that
(29:04):
erosion of trust has already happened, it's very difficult to
repair trust. And I think we saw that happen at
scale during COVID, and I think across the globe totally.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Do you set the communication peace on leadership? Just generally,
I can ask you three parts three questions around that
So the first question is what do I communicate in
terms of content? Second question is how do I communicate?
In other words, how often is it?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Frequency?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Is it like if I'm a business leader, is it
via zoom or is it or is it in person
or et cetera? And when do I communicate it? Do
I do it? Do I wait? Like we've got a
global financial issue potentially arising at the moment, Do I
wait until it becomes a problem or do I start
talking about it now? So? What how and when we
(30:01):
do leaders to communicate?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Anytime? Every communication is about change, So whenever there's a change,
I mean it depends on the context, right. So I
was actually watching Scott Gallaway yesterday on Instagram and I
thought I loved that he jumped on He was walking
around a college tour and he jumped on Instagram and
he started communicating what was going on with the selloff.
(30:24):
So generally speaking, every piece of communication is about change,
otherwise you wouldn't be communicating. So anytime there's something to
communicate around change, do it?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
So how do I just stop this? So on change,
do you mean something that's changing out there better what
I'm used.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
To, Anything that's going to disrupt the status quo. Anything
that impacts your clients, your customers, your constituents, your stuff, yep,
your stuff. Absolutely, anything that's going to impact them that
needs to be communicated. Secondly, communicate candidly and frequently. So
what people want to feel like is the conversation we're
(31:03):
having now. I want to feel like that tone and
style and everything about this would be carried over if
we're sitting around having a coffee, right, So you want
to be canned in conversational in the way you communicate.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
So it's not written off a script.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I ignore the script. Yeah, and I think that many
many leaders know that leaders we are a really great
communicator to spend hours preparing as well that people don't
really you know, that's not really shared, but it's something
that they do privately. But they prioritize communication as a
skill in the same way they prioritize reading a P
and L sheet, in the same way that they prioritize
(31:37):
other technical skills that keep their business going. So prioritize
when something needs to be when there needs to be
comes around change, do it conversationally and candidly in a
way that's natural to you and effortless to you, what
was the third one?
Speaker 1 (31:53):
And how often? Like you know, what's the process? So
I do it every day? Well, because we saw the
drink they did every day, But do I do this
every day? Like good examples today, Let's say we talked
yesterday about look, guys, there's a global issue at the
moment in relation austrain dollar, et cetera, et cetera. Do
I go back the next day and say, look, here's
(32:14):
an update.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, I would treat it like breaking news.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So I would so anything new that comes up or
any change in from the day before.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
This is the missed opportunity that super funds have with
all of their all of their members.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I haven't seen one super fund, but I don't.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
See a single super fund communicating anything, and I haven't
none to saved for the past hour of many years.
Like that, to me, will end up costing them in
some way. If I was a CEO of a super fund,
I'd be doing a live video link every day to
whatever member I wanted to join that zoom call and
be communicating anything that's going to help me feel more
(32:52):
comfortable about this change that we're experiencing. That's the I
believe people get paid to demonstrate leadership if they're the CEO.
I also believe that CEOs get paid to communicate change,
you know, as frequently as they feel necessary.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
So sort of like you're saying, it's nearly like a
job spec like you're going to put in a CEO. You're
getting paid the extra amount of dollars. Part of your
job specification is that you must communicate. Obviously you must community,
but you must communicate when there's change that effects on
either clients, yeah, suppliers, staff, et cetera. You must communicate.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah. I mean, I'm coming from a comms background, you know,
seventeen years in journalism, but I don't I think that
that is a basic, like a basic criteria as a leader.
I think comms is part of leadership and we don't
see it demonstrated enough because the Australian business community anyway
seems to be you know, they've gotten away with having
(33:46):
barely any comms directly. There are only very few Australian
leaders like Shane Elliott was a great example a enz.
He's putting himself up. He has put himself up previously
on radio, He's done Facebook lives with clients, He's on
the front line understanding what's happening. There are very few
Australian leaders across business community who really do that and
(34:06):
mean it. And I think that if we saw more
of that, we would have more trust in business, in
big business, and if we saw it with government leaders
who were doing it in ways that the less orchestrated,
I think we'd also have a greater sense of trust him.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Less of a performance less it's.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Pretty performative at the moment, I think we could agree.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
I mean it kills me, But I actually said, to
the truth of yessays said, mate, you're very polished, and
which I admire. He's very polished and very structured and
very in control and sensible about what he's doing. In
other words, I wouldn't be able to put him off balance.
I know I couldn't get but he's at polished. I
(34:48):
couldn't put him off balance. I could have tried, but
I didn't want to try. But I felt like he's
he'll have a good comeback and a personal audience would
know whether I was right, here's right or wrong. But
I know I don't have people on my should debate anyway.
But because the debate can happen on Sky news on
Thursday night or whatever. But that's not my game. I'm
not here to debate with anybody. I'm here to try
and understand what's going on. Just can I go back
(35:11):
to that trust element for and I think it's really important.
You said the word familiar So it's funny. I often
say to myself, who do I trust the most? I
trust my family the most. Why do I trust my
family the most? It doesn't necessarily mean I like everything
they do, but I know I've watched them all of
their lives, and I know what they're likely to do.
(35:32):
I have a sort of strong sense of outcomes. So
and because when I talk about brands, I often say
a brand to be trusted, it won't happen overnight. People
have to become familiar with it, as in a family sense.
You can even make mistakes, just like in a family,
but you still forgive your family at the end of
(35:53):
the day because I don't know your family, and you
trust them, and because you trust them, they're your family.
Because your family you trust with, let the go both ways.
And familiarity is like if it's a brand, it's about
me seeing it more often. The more often I see
the brand and I don't even know what the ads about,
but I just see it.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
But there's a presence there, there's a visibility.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
And so how closely aligned is trust and familiarity as
opposed to you're not going to do the wrong thing
by me? That just those two is a very much
in a serviceable familiarity. I know who that organization is
by virtual the fact they've been around for ten years.
How strong is that?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I think what's most important is when you feel like
there's been an erosion of trust or trust has been
undermined in some way, your response to that is most important,
whether you're a brand or a business owner. So and
I see this on you know, in small ways locally myself,
with local businesses getting negative reviews, they'll often call ten
(36:53):
people who trust the business to get online and put
up a positive comment Google. Yeah, yeah, basically. But I
think what's important is what you do about how you
respond in those moments where trust has been eroded. And
if you've got a formidia, if you've already been if
you've been practicing visibility and familiarity as a brand for
(37:17):
years before something goes wrong, then you've got a much
better chance of recovering that relationship with people who.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Are important to you just by virtual time.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Absolutely yeah, but again a commitment to communication and a
commitment to being visible and being familiar in moments where
you don't necessarily have to, but you choose to do that.
Because if you're a business that's grounded in integrity and
building relationships for the long term, that's part of the strategy.
(37:45):
It's something that will come naturally to you because you
don't necessarily need a big strategy around it. But trust
is built over time. It's lost very quickly, but it's
what you do in those moments where it's eroded that matters.
It's how you respond in those moments.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
So we've got some in Australia. We've got a couple
of really big organizations, two in particular who I won't
name them, but one of which is a mining company
from Australia and another one is a city based tech
company and there's been a trust erosion relation to both
(38:23):
in both examples of the CEO, dash chairman, leader, leaders
of the business and the big shoulders in the business.
And what would you because you don't know what I'm
talking about in particular, but what would you say to
those organizations because it seems like those people are pushing
back saying, well, look this's my business, I control it.
(38:45):
I've been good for you so far, trust me. But
they haven't really come out and said it, like I
haven't seen them get on the front foot and actually
talk about it. Definitely not going to get on to
a teally out or anything like that, but I haven't
seen any interviews from them. They've sort of gone to ground.
And there's that old saying in PR give good news
oxygen and some other bad news.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I don't know if I believe either of those, you know,
having watched good news and bad news play out for
so long in my career, I think that the brands
and the businesses that have demonstrated longevity have demonstrated consistent communication.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Warren Buffett good example, totally unbelievably.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
And what have you got to lose by doing a
live stream and talking to your people? What have you
got to lose? And so I think that that visibility
again is fundamental to the trust equation. And if you
want to disappear, that's fine, but I think there'll be
a cost to that over time. And you're already raising
issues around trust because you haven't seen either of these
(39:45):
leaders come out and say anything. So there's a great
example of what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
It's interesting. I know both of them, and I thought
to myself, have you asked them why they No? I haven't.
I thought. In fact, one of them I've done a
show on with and the other one once stage that
was a shohold of mine. And I always considered more
of them to be quite a good friend. But I
wonder as a leader, just a community leader, not in
(40:10):
their particular industry leader. Do you think someone like me
I should be reaching out to them?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Why would you reach out to them to give the
fair back that you've already given them.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, or just to talk about what I just talked about. Hey, guys,
I haven't. I mean, you've just sort of gone aground.
Why don't you.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Well, you know, if they were adults, I mean part
of me thinks they're educated adults right in the show.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
They have understandable leadership there, No, And I.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Do think that there's a disconnect where I do think
that you. For a long time, That's what I got
paid to do. I was a media trainer's top a
six leaders. I'd come in and I'm the bad I
can be the bad guy, you know, and they're in
their staff would say to me, look, this person has
moved from CFO to CEO. Bottom line is he's not
behaving like the CEO. He's still behaving like the CFO.
(40:57):
So we need you to come in and play the
bad cop and to you know, basically say that to
him and elevate his presence, you know, on camera. So
I'd happily do that because I was an outsider a
lot of people that you know, this is an interesting
part of leadership and role models. Who are we surrounding
ourselves with, who are our sort of personal board of directors?
(41:17):
And are we getting one version of the truth from them?
Do we need to be looking further afield to get
unfiltered advice from people who are watching what else is
changing around us. So maybe that could be a really
valuable conversation that would pay off. And you know, I
know that any leader who has any degree of humility
(41:40):
would welcome an observation that would bring them, bring those
leaders closer to their their customers, closer to understanding what's
changing for those customers, and also grow the business at
the same time.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
So why not what about a leader is really highly
skilled and the best person for the job in terms
of skill sets, but is shy. What do you as
a trainer type person, someone who tries to get the
best out of these individuals? How do you work with
someone like that? Do you? How do you get them
confident to sit in front of camera? Like a lot
(42:16):
of people, as soon as that camera's on, they change.
I mean I see it in this job. And in fact,
the very first time I ever had to do something
in front of a camera, which is like a long
long time ago, I remember like, well, like it was
a bit scary, like yeah, it's intimidating. I got nervous.
I don't ask why when I look back at it,
(42:37):
but I just did. What do you do for these people?
Speaker 2 (42:40):
We have to get out of our own road.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
We have to whatever?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
We get over yourself.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
You have to get over yourself. I mean, don't. I've
had seventeen years as an on camera news reporter. I
do not enjoy. I would rather be in your seat.
But the message that I have around adapting more effectively
to change is far more important than how I feel
about myself. So I've got to get out of my
(43:07):
own road. And that is the same advice I give
to anyone who I've worked with previously who has a
job needs to communicate change but doesn't like being on camera.
Just get out of your own road, because it's actually
not about you. It's about your audience. It's always and
only about your audience and how and the kind of
influence that you want to have over them, regardless of
(43:29):
how shy you are.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Let's say, and I see this all the time, a
lot of these organizations have a corporate affairs person and
usually when it's pretty bad news, they said that person
had to be the spokesperson. So and you're read in
the paper a spokesperson for said blah blah blah as
opposed to the individual. Is that do you think that's
damaging to their organization?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
I mean it depends on the scale of the issue.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Less it's an important issue and they just run a
a cover.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Oh, I mean we all know how that plays out.
I think it's a I think that anytime a CEO.
I think if it's if you're a CEO running a
business and the business has a problem, again, get out
of your own road and get on camera and start
communicating that change to people who are important to you,
whoever they are.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Is it important to see you made a mistake?
Speaker 2 (44:17):
If definitely well, I mean obviously that their lawyers would
disagree without depending on the situation. But I think that
that only builds trust if you have an honest and
direct line of communication with your constituents. And I watched
this with I won't name names, but one of the
big banking guys, probably about seven or eight years ago,
(44:41):
everyone knew he was really arrogant, didn't really feel any
obligation whatsoever to communicate to any of his forty thousand
staff or hundreds of thousands of customers. Now, how much
social capital do you think he had when something went
wrong and the board was looking at him and think
thinking he's got to go right. I would argue that
(45:02):
Shane Elliott has a much better chance of staying in
the gig long term. I'd argue that he has longevity
because every day he's out demonstrating that he cares a
lot about what customers think, what his employees think about
the place to work. So I think you build social
capital over time, and that capital may have a payoff
(45:25):
in a moment where you're finding life difficult or where
your job is up for grabs.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, where someone might be challenging your position. That's exactly
as a result of an error of the whole bank.
And that is because there's no one, very rare as
an error in a big organization responsibility to one person.
It's usually the responsibility of many. But because you're you're
at the top of the tree, you take the blame
for it.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
And you know, I think we said a lot in banking,
and I think.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
There's a disproportionate amount of pressure on CEOs these days.
I think there you know, the burnout, liability and scrutiny
is is at a point where it's never been before.
I wrote an article about this for the fin Review
last week. You know, the Global CEO Index has shown
that there's a higher turnover of CEOs because of burnout,
liability and scrutiny and increased attention. And that's not just
(46:14):
damaging to them, it's damaging to emerging leaders who are
looking at their boss thinking, you know what that does?
It it's not worth it. Maybe there's another way, Maybe
there's an adjacent pathway here, And I'm going to trade
power and prestige for peace for peace and privacy right,
and who wouldn't want to do that in today's world.
But that's a pretty dangerous precedent to set when you
(46:37):
look at the kind of you know, the lower is
the barrier to entry for leadership over time. So I
think that we look at CEOs and we do expect
them to be superhuman because they're not only running these
enormous organizations, they're running families. They're expected to be culture shapers,
they're expected to be community leaders. So we do expect
a lot. Our expectations are disproper austuately high of a CEO,
(47:02):
so I think we need to be careful about that.
But when it comes to the basic role of a CEO,
it's not just about growing the business and keeping shareholders happy.
I think it's also about communicating change where necessary. So
I think that's I think communication leadership is a fairly
basic basic ask, but we don't see enough of it.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
And that issue whereby people who are looking around thinking this,
why would I do this? Because of the things you
just mentioned, burnout, et cetera. Do you think that could
be a reason why some people take the view that
we at the quality of our politicians today are less
than they used to be and because it's lower the bar.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Well, this would you be a politician? Why not?
Speaker 1 (47:43):
For the matter of drama you have to put up
with that, don't pay you enough?
Speaker 2 (47:46):
When you can have peace and privacy, why would you
go for the profile and prestige. That's the problem, because
people like you, who should be running for office can
afford not to. You choose to have influences.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
But how do we correct that? Then? How do you
how how would you suggest that we're a nation we
start to try and correct that. Should we pull back
a little bit from laying so much scrutiny on them?
What's this?
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I don't know. I think it's really a complicated question
because the whole system is designed. I mean, it's public sector,
it's not private sector, right, There's no money in it,
There's no It's a very difficult it's a very difficult
and complicated game to play, and for most of us,
(48:34):
by the time we are in our forties, fifties, sixties,
and when we're most qualified to play that game, we
don't necessarily have the energy to So I'm not I
don't have the answer to that. I don't know if
many people do. I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
So what right? I love? So I could quickly talk
about your book. So your book called Adapts a mastering
Change in four steps? Can you do? I have to
read the whole book to get the four steps.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
You don't know this is. This is about adaptability in
its purest form, being about anticipating and influencing change and
not reacting and responding to change so we get ahead
of it. This is for anyone who feels who doesn't
want to feel like they're always constantly playing catch up
to change. And so four steps engaged with signals, accept
(49:20):
what's changing, activate your optimism for what's next, and release
what is no longer fit for purpose for where you're headed.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
So let go of it.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Let go of it.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, so just just on the first part that is
sort of looking out for the signs. That's rights signals. Yeah,
you call it signals yep. So that sort of by
definition requires people to be constantly vigilant and aware.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
I think we can be overly vigilant. My advice is
choose a couple of things to pay attention to, but
also don't ignore that gut feeling because we all have
ignored and there's probably a signal of change today that
we're all ignoring. So I'd urge you, I'd provoke you
to think what is that. It might be personal, it
might be social, it might be in the workplace. Don't
(50:10):
ignore that signal of change because the closer it gets
to you, the less options you'll have to respond to it.
So if you see a signal, like when I saw
a signal in two thousand and eight about the future
of journalism, I made an active decision to get five
to eight years ahead of my colleagues. So always pay
attention to those small changes that you think I just
shouldn't be ignoring that.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Do you think there's a I have to finish off
on this one, but I think it's an important question.
Do you think there's a danger that the way we
live our lives, we get so caught up in our
business from day to day, whatever happens to be with
your employee or running a business doesn't really matter. Or
in government, we get so caught up with what we're
doing day to day, and we convince themselves, wow, I'm
(50:51):
really busy. I'm going to get up really early and
to start on my stuff, and I'm going to get
to the gym, and I've got to see the kids,
and I've got to bubba all the stuff I've got
to do. I'm so damn busy that I know in
the back of my mind there's a something that's bothering me,
a signal, but I sort of either tend to ignore it,
(51:13):
or I ignore it, or alternatively, I just completely forget
about it altogether because I get caught up on what
I'm doing data distracted and what tools the technique would
you suggest we use to get around that that failure.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
So get a blank piece of paper, Just draw a
line down the middle and eighty twenty. Just do an
eighty twenty principle. So for eighty percent of my day,
I'm going to spend triaging all the normal stuff right
to get.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Through the day, get through my crab yep.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
But I'm going to spend even just the twenty percent
of my day, or even just twenty minutes, exploring what
could be about to disrupt me, Like how do I
how can I take a step towards figuring out what
that signal is going to mean for me in a
month's time, in a year's time. So and that explore
versus exploit. So you don't free age of the day,
(52:00):
but always give yourself a few minutes to reflect on
confronting that signal of change, because what you don't want
is for that signal of change to, you know, to
be up close where you've got no.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Options, because then you're panic. Then you panic, and then
you made the worst decisions.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
So is it.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Sort of like health checking? Can we do it ourselves?
If I've got a fever, I think I'll hang on
a bit of be careful, I got sore throat, maybe
I've got something wrong. But you know a lot of
people don't do a bit on my case. I don't
ignore it. Is it like health checking, of course for
that type of thing, that's right. Yeah, it's pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
It's like a health check for life, right, And it
could be in the workplace where you feel like, oh,
you know, a friend of mine called me last week
and said, I've just lost my job, but I'm really shocked.
And I said, well, I'm not shocked because for the
last twelve months you've called me every week and said
how much your boss hates you. So I would have
picked that as a signal of change a year ago
and started, you know, tidying up my CV and look
(53:00):
for another gig. So pay attention to what those signals are,
because what you want is options. You know what I've
wanted through my life is options. And you know, I've
had amazing role models from when I was quite young,
including my dad, that demonstrated that your ability to adapt
to change effectively gives you options. And that's what I
(53:20):
think we all want in life.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Why do you think you were? I mean, you mentioned
your father, but why do you think you were so
I don't want to over yeah, dramatize it, but vigilant
back when before you probably even really thought this stuff
through which you're talking about now, Like going back to
when you were a journalists at Washington. Why do you
think you were so vigilant at such a young age.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Because when I was twelve years old, I was in
Assessina two ten, single engine my dad was piloting, succeeded
with my two sisters. Dad was flying the three of
us between Maury and the Gold Coast and we had
engine failure at nine thousand feet And what I saw
happen in those moments convinced me that having high adaptability
(54:03):
would always give me options. So we lost power.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
What in other words, you're gliding.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
We glided for nine thousand feet. And it wasn't IQ
or EQ that helped Dad land that plane in one piece.
It was his AQ. It was his adaptability quotionent, so
the ability to apply new thinking to a new problem.
And he was so calm and composed in those in
those moments that when by the time we got on
the ground, I didn't think about it then, but many
(54:31):
years later I started to think, when did I first
see the power of adaptability, the power of an adaptive
mindset in action? And that was it. I would have
been twelve years old, and it was an incredible lesson
in what if you commit to having a highly adaptable mindset,
you will always have options. And that's what that's what
I wanted for myself, and so I really was highly
(54:54):
engaged in what those signals have changed looked like for
me from quite a young age, because you know, Dad
would throw a map over the dining room table before
school holidays and say where do you want to?
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Go? Right?
Speaker 2 (55:06):
So like your dad in the Cessna, Dad rang and
he ran a trucking haulage business, right, so he had
a light plan for work, as most people did around
Western Queensland in the eighties, and when he threw a
map over the table, you know, that wasn't just about
planning holidays. In hindsight, for me, that was about, like,
what a remarkable invitation to imagine your own future, to
(55:28):
have an active to be an active player in the
way life was going to play out for you. So
I always engage. I was always engaged in change and
always understood the role of imagination and the kind of
life that I wanted to lead. And I just wasn't
prepared to kind of roll along with the standard narrative.
(55:49):
And I had big dreams and I was encouraged from
a very young age to really go after them.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Like you didn't. I mean, as opposed to being post
traumatic stress syndrome, whatever the words. You actually had an
embedded advantage as a result of what you experienced and
what you saw your dad do. And obviously, luckily it
was a good outcome allow you to to remain embedded
in your mind. And well, what's interesting is that you've
(56:20):
done something about it too, Like you've actually put it
into action. You've turned that asset into action, that embedded
experience into action in your own life. I think many
people also, Andrey, they tend to I don't know what
it is people sort of forget in terms of their
career that a career is a really important part of life,
Like it's I don't mean you have to have a career,
(56:40):
but whatever you're doing, it's an important part of life,
whatever you're doing. And we tend to think we focus
on what we're going to do on the weekend, like
where we're going to go up for dinner, which is
also important, who we're going to see, but we forget
about this other stuff that underpins all that. And you're right,
we don't see the signals.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
Well. Learning, I mean learning and an agency is part
of the DNA of being highly adaptable. I mean I'm
obsessed with learning. I always have been, because learning is
not just about gaining knowledge. Every time we learn something new,
we uncover something about ourselves. So it's a positive feedback
loop that is literally infinite. And you know, I think
learning is a portal. And if we're not learning, we're
(57:20):
not adapting.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
Have We've got so many resources today to learn, podcasts
everywhere and there's your book Adapt And that's a good
way to end today through Look, thanks so much. Actually
that was fascinating mastering change of four steps. So I
quite like the having agency over your future that concept.
I think that's a really important concept. Most people don't
(57:41):
think about that that I know of, and we're too
interested in what we're doing today and what we did
last week and what didn't go right for us last week,
and you know how awful someone was towards me as
opposed to or hang on, that's a signal that I
should do something for my future.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Exactly, have some agency, build personal agency in whatever way
works for you. But I think that is that's a
straight line towards fulfillment.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
Andrew Clark, thanks so much, Thanks much,
Hi, Ike Boris and this is straight Talk. Andrew Clarke,
Welcome Straight Talk, Thanks for coming in, Thanks for having me. Well,
you know my mate Laila McKinnon and she told me
that she went to one of your talks and she
gave you a huge rap. So you've got lots to
live off to have you ready that She's good?
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So you're an award and winning author, futurist journalist, but
you've sort of launched, You've got your new book. Would
you have a little chat about adapt Not so much
about the book. We'll talk about the book, but we
want to talk about what can we take out of
the book. Maybe he give us a little bit of
history about your background though, because you've had had an
interesting sort of career path. You're only very young drive
(00:41):
because you did tell me we're going to say publicly
but relatively speaking, I think you're quite young. But you've
had a fairly full career and we're doing some interesting stuff.
So maybe take us back to, you know, like your
early twenties of what were you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I was a television news reporter, so I started my
career in at g w waan and Calgooley, so out
there with all the guys, and I always wanted to
be a TV reporter, and so I started off doing
regional and then went to the commercials in Melbourne and Sydney.
(01:15):
But I actually picked myself up and flew myself to Washington,
DC when I was twenty nine because I'd always wanted
to be a foreign correspondent, So moved myself to DC
with no money, no job, in a very tenuous visa
situation to have a go because there was only a
couple of reporters on the East coast of the US,
(01:36):
so I decided that that was the best way for
me to accelerate my career and find the kind of
leadership that I was looking for to be around. So
had a really dynamic twenties in TV journalism covering general assignments,
so thrown out every day onto a different story.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
At twenty nine, you were trying to be a foreign correspondent,
but you weren't before you went nicely said across foreign
cross bond.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Did you get how did you get a job? At
twenty nine? Who signed up? Or did you just freelance?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So yeah, freelance. So I woke up the next morning
in Washington, DC, after arriving and started cold calling every
foreign bureau in the city until Ruters picked up and said,
come on in. So I spent you know, many fantastic
years with Thomson Reuters covering State Department, Pandagon and White
House and all the big names who are in town,
who come through town.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
How does they work? So you're you in town? You
love love yourself into Washington literally rent an apartment or
what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Thought I was in a boarding house.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Boarding house, Yeah, great, in a boarding house. I was
on a budget, single female hanging out in a foreign
country with warriorsome visa. Obviously you don't have much money
at that stage, and and you start contacting the foreign bureaus.
(03:00):
What does that mean? Like, what's a foreign bureau? What
were we talking about?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Obviously Washington, DC is the center of gravity for international coverage,
and so you had every country in the world in
some form represented in the form of a bureau in
the city. A bureau, so news crew, reporter, local production
staff that would gather news from North America and communicate
(03:26):
whatever was going on, mainly from the White House, communicate
that news to their home country. And so there were
stacks of bureaus based in the city, and I literally
started from a went alphabetically and started cold calling every
bureau to see if they had any opportunity for me
to freelance there.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
You mean, just just come in and pay me per hour,
pay me per story or whatever.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Do you need me to come in and help produce stories,
to line up talent, to gather news in whatever form
made sense to that bureau. So that's what I did.
And I got to r and I was nearly out
of I only had five working days to get a
job because I only had five hundred bucks to my name.
So I had five days.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
So you see, you saw after this, I got to
go back.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Home, had to turn around and go back. So I
had five days and I got to r and this
really terrific guy called Rob Muir at Rutters, another Aussie,
picks up the phone and says, come on in and
I was like, oh, thank God, Like I get to
stay for another week and we'll just see how long
this goes for?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
How long did they go for?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
About seven years?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you stayed Ruters.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
We sat in DC for seven years, d.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
For seven years. But you got your first a job
opportunity at Ruter's what did you do after that?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well, I was producing and gathering news for a couple
of years for Routers and Channel seven, and then I
moved into international aid work. So I saw the signal
of change coming down the pipeline for the business of news,
and I switched into working for a major international aid organization.
(05:05):
So essentially what that meant was Iland in Baghdad Island
in Georgia into.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
BLC Georgia in the ex Soviet country.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
The one that the Russians invaded in about two thousand
and eight. So I switched from news. I was addicted
to being in a newsroom because we were I was
always part of an ultra high performance news team, which
was a very addictive way to be working. But one
day I was walking down the street, walking down K Street,
which is pretty close to the White House. It all
(05:36):
feels really good, it looks good, it's all shiny and new,
and there's lots of things to be There's lots of
things that keep you going in a town like that
because there's always so much happening. But one day I
was walking to the Al Jazeera English news bureau where
I was freelancing that day, and instead of picking up
a copy of The New York Times, I found myself
looking at scanning the news headlines on my BlackBerry, and
(05:58):
I thought, this is a really interesting signs of change.
Because if I'm a journalist being paid to produce content
that as a consumer I'm not prepared to pay for,
then the business model of news is failing right in
front of me, and I'm a part of it. So
what I'm going to do? So I ran through the options,
and for me, you know, I thought, what if my
(06:20):
behavior scale this is you know, two thousand and eight,
What if my behavior scale, like what if ten thousand
people stopped picking up a paper? What if a million
people stopped picking up a paper? Then what's going to
happen to the news business? So I decided to resign
pretty shortly after that, go into international aid. And then
I found myself in Baghdad pretty shortly after.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, as in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
In Iraq. Yeah, but we were running major programs in
Afghanistan as.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Well, So that's that's pretty hectic. It was pretty hectic
going from Washington, a nice safe environment to Bagdad. You know,
it was a war or war well, but it was
sort of sort of rebuilding, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
At that stage, well, it was still volatile. It was
still a very active war zone in two thousand and eight.
So I literally literally land. I mean, it was just
like an out of body experience.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
What does that? What does international aid meet? Like you're
going around helping people who were underprivileged or injured or what.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And so the aid organization I was working for had
a number of pillars that they would use to support
third world nations, and they were infrastructure, so they'd help
people rebuild, microfinance grants, so they'd help people locally engaged,
local residents come back to the city and rebuild their
(07:42):
business like they might be running a small mechanic shop
before the war. So micro finance, food, security, medical supplies.
So there are a number of ways that major international
groups helped rebuild a nation. And it was my job
to go in and make an assessment of the projects
that were being delivered by this organization so we could
(08:05):
ask for more funding from the US State Department and
US AID, which Trump is dismantling at the moment. So
so I had to prove I mean, and there's my
journalism practice that came into play. So I had to
interview people on the ground and prove that the money
that was being spent was being spent well, so we
(08:26):
could get another billion dollars for Iraq the following year.
It was big money. Wow, it's a big cooin.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Pretty deep experience from going from reporting what's going on
in the US or what's going on in terms of
those people operating in the US, and then off into
doing international aid. That's pretty crazy. What do you ask
that and topic? He didn't get put on a sort
of an army if couldn't go to war or something.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
No, I I mean I I made a really difficult
decision because I was just about completely burnt out. Made
a really difficult decision to pack everything up and come home.
So I lost my job in the aid organization because
in principle I had flagged a fairly major misappropriation of funds.
(09:20):
So I recognized that funds weren't being spent in a
way that I thought the American public would approve of,
and lost my job. The CEO figured out that I
knew what was going on, so I got walked from
that job. So it was completely devastating, and I did
pick up another amazing role with the Savedar for coalition.
(09:43):
So basically I ended up being the communication director to
help stop the genocide in Sudan at the time. So
my job for the next twelve months was to organize
the communication that hassled the Obama administration to appoint a
US Special to Sudan, which we did in the UN
General Assembly in two thousand and eight. So it all
(10:05):
sounds big, but all it is is about influence. It's
about how do we stop you know, the civil war
going on in Sudan?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
How could do that sort of job? What do you
learn for the future, for yourself or as a tool
you get out of that.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Yes, it's a great question. And I think that that
that experience propelled me forward to looking for great leadership,
because when you're.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
In you're looking for greater I mean.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
But it allowed me to prioritize what great leadership looked like, right,
because you saw great leaders in those moments, and you
saw leaders who didn't perhaps have the influence that they
wouldn't want to have. And so for me, it helped
me recognize what great, what great leadership really looked like.
And then you know, it made me think about how
(10:55):
can I translate all of that experience into running a
small business into you know, eventually coming back to Australia
and developing a leadership and learning business where I was
able to translate all of those lessons into leadership programs
for big businesses like Rio, Tinto, Ostrade, NBN, Aurora.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
AHP, some of your clients. Yeah, you wrote a book
around this. Yeah, what was that called future Fit Future Fit.
That's different in this book because we're as you know,
we're right in the middle of an election period. And
I had yesterday, sitting right there, the Treasurer of the
country and I put to him, you know, you're one
of the senior leaders of government right now and may
(11:40):
well be you know, after the election as well. And
of course you know, it's very traumatic at the moment
out there, at the moment, the stock market's gone mental,
you know, strain dollars lesson sixty cent. So I don't
know if it is as we sit here, but it
was yesterday afternoon. People are getting very nervous. I remember
this happening during the GEFs. People super innovation balances started
(12:02):
to go from you know, one hundred thousand down to
thirty thousand very quickly. People worried about all the money
they're putting away, their whole life of it. What is
someone like, what would you say to someone like the
prime minister or the treasurer or any senior person in
those roles where they try to they need to build
confidence back in the system. How do they what do
they do, what do they talk about? How do they
(12:22):
go about it? It's a better way.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
I think there's a recognition that has to happen first,
and awareness that collectively the whole nation is looking to
them for direction, protection and order in a moment where
we feel very uncertain, very chaotic, and yeah, we're trying
to log into our super funds to see what's going
on there.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
And it's funny you should say that. It's funnish you
say that because only a week ago some of those
super funds who were compromised, yes, cyber attack, and that
would make it doubly worse. And you also said a
really really good point there. I think at least we
need them to recognize that there's a problem sort of
(13:04):
do they need to have a solution as well or
just recognize the problem.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I think recognition and an acknowledgment publicly of the problem.
I don't think that we hear that enough. We don't
hear politicians saying we really understand how it feels to
be supporting three kids with three jobs, trying to put
food on the table, trying to make things work, Like
I don't hear enough politicians connecting in a real way
(13:30):
with their constituents by recognizing what the pain the people
are feeling. I mean, surely you must see that as well.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, well, do you think that's the reason for that
is you get paid, getting paid a lot more money
than say, their constituency in whatever area they might be.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I don't think it's got anything to do with the
kind of coin there on. I think I rarely see
leaders spend enough time on the front line of change,
And when you're not close to change, you don't understand
how change impacts people. And the most important thing that
we all need to understand about change, particularly leaders, is
that we are addicted to sameness. We love our routine
(14:07):
and we don't like change. That's how we're wired, So
we associate change automatically with loss. Like imagine, I said,
you imagine for everyone listening, you know I'm your boss,
and I say, you know there's an email coming your way,
and the heading is, you know, we need to talk
like you're going to automatically default to a loss. You're
(14:27):
going to default to that means something really negative. That's
a threat to my security, my stability, my status, my financials,
whatever it might be. I'm not sure that leaders recognize
how deeply people are impacted by any degree of change.
We're not wide for it, we don't like it. You know,
(14:47):
we are constantly clinging to what we know because we
love certainty. Now, I would say to people, and I
say to people in my leadership cohorts, what we need
to do in that moment is interrupt that thought pattern.
And while we recognize that the situation may not be great,
we also need to find the upside in what change
(15:08):
provides us, Like, what's the opportunity in this change? How
can we demonstrate some personal agency in moments where we
do feel uncertain, and how do we understand what we
can control and can't control.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
That's very interesting because I said to their treasurer, and
he told her quite a hard rendering story about when
he was a young man, as still at school, that
he was a bit wayward when he was growing up,
and largely probably because he didn't have proper parenting as
(15:40):
a kid, and his mum and dad split up, et cetera.
Those things can affect a boy, I guess, and a girl.
But he had two older sisters, and he said that
he met up with a guy who was a teacher
at the school actually sort of took him out of
his wing and sort of talk to him and gave
him some mentoring, and as a result of that, he
decided he wanted to become a politician or be in
(16:03):
the public policy environment, not a politician necessarily, and in
terms of his leadership journey, he saw that as a
very important thing. But he also mentioned so first I
want to say to you, ask you how important is
that in the leadership journey that you get mentorship from
somebody who's valuable.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I think that role models models the right role model
at the right time is an absolute game changer. And
I'm sure that we would both now think about the
people who had an impact on us for our lives.
And I think we need to rethink what role models
are these days because I do not believe we should
(16:45):
be basing role models around money, fame, or power. I
think we should be looking at why people do the
things they do instead of what they actually do. And
I think the right role model, a strong role model,
positions us to establish a stronger action of values. So
a great role model really serves three functions. They inspire
(17:06):
us by showing us what's possible. They can influence our
goals and our motivation, and they serve as a behavioral
example of success. And I think that's the key word.
If behaviors and intentions of our role models expire, then
we tend to look elsewhere for a new role model.
But I had the most incredible professor at university who
(17:27):
said to me at eighteen, you can do anything you want.
You can go around the world, and you can do
anything you want. And I believed him. I believed him,
and so I did. And I had that in the
back of my mind from the age of eighteen, and
that was such a powerful and simple throwaway statement for him,
but it meant a lot to me, and it's something
(17:48):
that I carried with me. It gave me the confidence
because I thought if doctor Peter Young, who at the
time I think was about sixty, who'd been a war
correspondent and being to all these places that I wanted
to go to looked at me, and he saw in
me potential, and if he could just throw a few
lines my way, he wouldn't have He would have had
(18:09):
no idea how that impacted me. But that gave me
the confidence to think I really can go and do that,
and sometimes that's all we need in that moment of
uncertainty or vulnerability. So I think we should always be
looking for role models that demonstrate the kind of behaviors
and intentions that we feel aligned with. And we all
(18:29):
know what an anti role model looks like. Right at
some point in our careers. We've had someone in our
life who we've thought, oh, I actually don't want to
be that person. And I had that in a newsroom.
You know. That was one of the reasons why I
decided to get out of news, not just because the
business model was failing, but because I would consistently be
looking around the newsroom and think that that's not demonstrating
(18:49):
good leadership. I don't believe I don't want to be
that person, you know, when I'm in my mid fifties,
So how do I sort of change course? Now? But
a great role model is a game changes. So I
don't think we should ever it doesn't matter who you
are and where you work in society. We should never
underestimate the impact that we have on people around us
(19:10):
because mental sponsors and advisors. Advisors are so foundational to
giving that advice that we need to hear in the
right moments.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It's funny the treasure said something like, if you aren't
these aren't these words. But if you are given a talent,
you have responsibility to make use of that talent. And
that's sort of I think that's sort of what you said,
because most people don't if they've become influential, don't recognize
(19:45):
a their talent. They might think they've got a talent
certainly ways, but they don't realize what their real talent is,
but they don't actually do anything with it. A lot
of times that they don't pay it forward to any
audience for that matter. And that's sort of what he does.
That's what he tries to do. I mean, it seems
to me that I said to him, I said, Treasurer,
(20:07):
to make change, it takes courage. I wonder if you're
I was talking to him about when I don't want
to get political, but I was talking about when his
predecessor in the Labor Party was a guy called Chris Bowen,
and Chris Bowen in the election with when Bill Shorten
was going for Prime minister, decided to bring in a
(20:28):
whole lot of policy changes, financial policy changes to and
presented them to the Electric before the election, things like
silly things like get rid of need to gearing change,
the couple of games, takes in lots of people's home investments,
you get rid of Frankie credits, which in a lot,
a whole lot of old Astrayans rely on to fund
(20:49):
their lifestyle. And of course Shorten lost the election. And
I said, sometimes it takes a lot of courage to
say those things. You, on the other hand, don't say
anything controversial. Does that mean as a leader you're not
being courageous? You know what would your mentor from when
you were sixteen or seventeen say to you about that?
(21:10):
And you said to it before, we don't like change.
And governments sort of know that. They poll and they do,
they check things out, they don't make mistakes too many
times these days, Well that Trump's proven that theory a
bit wrongs. Yeah, totally, but as the Australian government, and
I said to him, like, do you ever feel as
(21:31):
though you're not being courageous enough as a leader. How
do you reconcile A. I want to be the leader.
I've got to stay as I need to stay as
leader to get my ambitions done. I don't mean personal ambitions,
my ambitions for the nation done. But on the other hand,
if I'm too courageous, I could lose the election because Australians,
(21:51):
as you said, people don't like change.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
I think that people get paid to have an opinion,
whether you're a CEO, regardless of your leadership position, people
vote you in.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
So take the risk.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Take the risk. Absolutely, there's not enough risk going on
across his country in business.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Don't you think I'm not in favorable the way he
does it at all? But I make too many courageous
take too many courageous steps. Sometimes they turn around and
do work so well. But I don't really care care.
I couldn't give a shit. I'm not trying to become
the treasurer of the Prime Minister. I mean I'm running
my own show and I can do it. I want
sort of thing, and I'm lucky enough to be in
(22:27):
that position. He's not, And it's a hard thing. Sometimes
it can be hard to reconcile because look, I let's
say he's speaking, I have this ambition for this nation
to do blah blah blah blah, but I'm not going
to I need to be the treasurer in order to
do it. I need my party to win in order
to do it. So I'm not going to do anything
(22:48):
crazy at the moment. I'm just gonna look at the
poles where people don't want to change, and I'll make
sure I just play that game. Whereas other people will
go and they just set the joint light like Trump
and bugger the consequences. I'm just going to set the
joint Logers. I actually, I presume you honestly believes that
what he's doing at the moment has actually become better
(23:08):
for Americans. How's that reconciled.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
He's out playing golf, well, the whole well, the world's
blowing up, Like I mean, I saw that morning, and
I thought, to me, that is that exercising leadership? I don't.
I mean, I'm not really sure. I think I think
you have to stay connected to what's going on in
the community, so be present with everyone absolutely. How can
(23:33):
you make decisions that are really well informed? If you're
on the top floor and everyone else is running around
on the ground floor, you've you've got no direct line
of sight, you know, with what's going on, how things
are changing, and how people are experiencing change. So I
think regardless of where you are where you sit as
a leader, you know the most incredible leaders that I've
worked with, and Mike Snider at Bunnings is a great example.
(23:55):
He's out there sweeping the floor full clean and tidy,
you know, at the end of every day with his staff,
so he understands, he's listening to the conversations, he's hearing
what's going on. He's on the front line of change.
So regardless of where we sit in any leadership position,
it pays to stay connected to what people are going through,
whether they're customers, constituents, or you know, whoever is a
(24:18):
recipient of your leadership. If we're not connected, how can
we make decisions at the right time that are going
to be in the best interests for that collective?
Speaker 1 (24:27):
It. Yeah, and I keep coming back to financial things,
but I remember when the COVID hit and everything was
sort of traumatic, quite traumatic, and the Reserve Bank governor
is not the current Reserve band government. The old Reserve
Bank governor was up there talking about now I'm going
to put in trades down to point one and what
it was. And then we had the Prime Minister saying
(24:48):
something we had the Probably more importantly, we had the
state premiers and their health ministers telling us every day
with so many COVID cases, so many deaths, as only
people in hospit all this sort of stuff daily and
I thought it was I just wonder why we don't
get the Reserve Being governor, who at the time was
(25:10):
different to the current Reserve being. Why we just get
him up there along with say the Prime Minister and
along with say I don't know, the Minister for Health,
for Federal mins f Health.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
The whole gang.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
It's a gang, and just put them up on because
this used to have many I remember as a kid
this just happened. Put them on the ABC because you know,
it's respected national broadcaster, not to say the others aren't,
but as a respect to national broadcasts, and you know
it's the owned by the government. And let's say we're
going to do an interview on Sunday night at seven
pm to all Australians. Not an interview, but have a chat,
(25:44):
just tell you what's going on with this COVID stuff
and all's one though not not separately, all together, and
explain what we're thinking and how we're walking, walking our
way through. I wonder why they do that.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I feel like, I mean, the greatest missed opportunity in
most leadership practices is communication, right. It's the most important
part of having influence, communicating change and keeping people informed,
(26:18):
and yet we haven't. We don't see that enough. I
think across corporate Australia we didn't see it. Then across COVID,
and what was interesting to me was we had different
states with very different ways of handling things, and so
any continuity would have been helpful in the overall approach
to how the country was tackling COVID, and there was
(26:40):
so much uncertainty and fear, and we certainly did not
see enough. I mean, as a former journalist looking at
the way that played out, the greatest missed opportunity was
more continuity in communication with people about what was going on.
I know we had daily briefings, right, but they were
all different. They were all different. So the average Australian
(27:02):
is sitting around with relatives in another state. In some
cases people who are terminally unwell in other state with
no idea if or when they were going to see
them again because all the states have different rules. So
a class and that will be a case study in
universities and used to come because.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
They didn't they did have a national group, but they
met in they met in private.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I met in private. We didn't know, we didn't know.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
We didn't get to talk to, you know, the primacy
sit premiers. But it was a private conversation. And I
used to think, well, just let me know, Like I'm
not dumb. They don't really a wood duck.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I mean, I'm happy to listen, give me a And
we were complying a summary, yes, and we were complying.
And I think the the damage that was done was
the erosion of trust. And you know, the erosion of
trust and governments has shifted to you know, to business,
So everyone who goes to work is now looking to
their business as that trusted source of information and cohesion.
(27:59):
They're not necessarily looking to the government anymore because of
how much trust was lost over that period of time.
And I wonder what's going to happen if we have
another version of the pandemic, I suspect we will not
see people be as compliant. I completely agree, and I
don't think we can underestimate what's lost when that erosion
(28:20):
of trust happens, whether that is in the workplace or
socially or in the community or whatever context, because you know,
the DNA of trust is really straightforward. When I'm thinking
about whether or not to trust you, I'm asking myself
three questions. Is this person consistent? You know, is there
are there behaviors consistent? Do they have the character? Do
(28:42):
they have the resources, the skills and the wherewithal to
do what they tell me they're going to do? Character?
Consistency and competency? And are they competent? Do they are
they prepared for this? So if we see a crack
in any of in that thread of DNA, the DNA
of trust, we're going to step back. And where that
(29:04):
erosion of trust has already happened, it's very difficult to
repair trust. And I think we saw that happen at
scale during COVID, and I think across the globe totally.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Do you set the communication peace on leadership? Just generally,
I can ask you three parts three questions around that
So the first question is what do I communicate in
terms of content? Second question is how do I communicate?
In other words, how often is it?
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Frequency?
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Is it like if I'm a business leader, is it
via zoom or is it or is it in person
or et cetera? And when do I communicate it? Do
I do it? Do I wait? Like we've got a
global financial issue potentially arising at the moment, Do I
wait until it becomes a problem or do I start
talking about it now? So? What how and when we
(30:01):
do leaders to communicate?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Anytime? Every communication is about change, So whenever there's a change,
I mean it depends on the context, right. So I
was actually watching Scott Gallaway yesterday on Instagram and I
thought I loved that he jumped on He was walking
around a college tour and he jumped on Instagram and
he started communicating what was going on with the selloff.
(30:24):
So generally speaking, every piece of communication is about change,
otherwise you wouldn't be communicating. So anytime there's something to
communicate around change, do it?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
So how do I just stop this? So on change,
do you mean something that's changing out there better what
I'm used.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
To, Anything that's going to disrupt the status quo. Anything
that impacts your clients, your customers, your constituents, your stuff, yep,
your stuff. Absolutely, anything that's going to impact them that
needs to be communicated. Secondly, communicate candidly and frequently. So
what people want to feel like is the conversation we're
(31:03):
having now. I want to feel like that tone and
style and everything about this would be carried over if
we're sitting around having a coffee, right, So you want
to be canned in conversational in the way you communicate.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
So it's not written off a script.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I ignore the script. Yeah, and I think that many
many leaders know that leaders we are a really great
communicator to spend hours preparing as well that people don't
really you know, that's not really shared, but it's something
that they do privately. But they prioritize communication as a
skill in the same way they prioritize reading a P
and L sheet, in the same way that they prioritize
(31:37):
other technical skills that keep their business going. So prioritize
when something needs to be when there needs to be
comes around change, do it conversationally and candidly in a
way that's natural to you and effortless to you, what
was the third one?
Speaker 1 (31:53):
And how often? Like you know, what's the process? So
I do it every day? Well, because we saw the
drink they did every day, But do I do this
every day? Like good examples today, Let's say we talked
yesterday about look, guys, there's a global issue at the
moment in relation austrain dollar, et cetera, et cetera. Do
I go back the next day and say, look, here's
(32:14):
an update.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, I would treat it like breaking news.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
So I would so anything new that comes up or
any change in from the day before.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
This is the missed opportunity that super funds have with
all of their all of their members.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
I haven't seen one super fund, but I don't.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
See a single super fund communicating anything, and I haven't
none to saved for the past hour of many years.
Like that, to me, will end up costing them in
some way. If I was a CEO of a super fund,
I'd be doing a live video link every day to
whatever member I wanted to join that zoom call and
be communicating anything that's going to help me feel more
(32:52):
comfortable about this change that we're experiencing. That's the I
believe people get paid to demonstrate leadership if they're the CEO.
I also believe that CEOs get paid to communicate change,
you know, as frequently as they feel necessary.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
So sort of like you're saying, it's nearly like a
job spec like you're going to put in a CEO. You're
getting paid the extra amount of dollars. Part of your
job specification is that you must communicate. Obviously you must community,
but you must communicate when there's change that effects on
either clients, yeah, suppliers, staff, et cetera. You must communicate.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah. I mean, I'm coming from a comms background, you know,
seventeen years in journalism, but I don't I think that
that is a basic, like a basic criteria as a leader.
I think comms is part of leadership and we don't
see it demonstrated enough because the Australian business community anyway
seems to be you know, they've gotten away with having
(33:46):
barely any comms directly. There are only very few Australian
leaders like Shane Elliott was a great example a enz.
He's putting himself up. He has put himself up previously
on radio, He's done Facebook lives with clients, He's on
the front line understanding what's happening. There are very few
Australian leaders across business community who really do that and
(34:06):
mean it. And I think that if we saw more
of that, we would have more trust in business, in
big business, and if we saw it with government leaders
who were doing it in ways that the less orchestrated,
I think we'd also have a greater sense of trust him.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Less of a performance less it's.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Pretty performative at the moment, I think we could agree.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
I mean it kills me, But I actually said, to
the truth of yessays said, mate, you're very polished, and
which I admire. He's very polished and very structured and
very in control and sensible about what he's doing. In
other words, I wouldn't be able to put him off balance.
I know I couldn't get but he's at polished. I
(34:48):
couldn't put him off balance. I could have tried, but
I didn't want to try. But I felt like he's
he'll have a good comeback and a personal audience would
know whether I was right, here's right or wrong. But
I know I don't have people on my should debate anyway.
But because the debate can happen on Sky news on
Thursday night or whatever. But that's not my game. I'm
not here to debate with anybody. I'm here to try
and understand what's going on. Just can I go back
(35:11):
to that trust element for and I think it's really important.
You said the word familiar So it's funny. I often
say to myself, who do I trust the most? I
trust my family the most. Why do I trust my
family the most? It doesn't necessarily mean I like everything
they do, but I know I've watched them all of
their lives, and I know what they're likely to do.
(35:32):
I have a sort of strong sense of outcomes. So
and because when I talk about brands, I often say
a brand to be trusted, it won't happen overnight. People
have to become familiar with it, as in a family sense.
You can even make mistakes, just like in a family,
but you still forgive your family at the end of
(35:53):
the day because I don't know your family, and you
trust them, and because you trust them, they're your family.
Because your family you trust with, let the go both ways.
And familiarity is like if it's a brand, it's about
me seeing it more often. The more often I see
the brand and I don't even know what the ads about,
but I just see it.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
But there's a presence there, there's a visibility.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
And so how closely aligned is trust and familiarity as
opposed to you're not going to do the wrong thing
by me? That just those two is a very much
in a serviceable familiarity. I know who that organization is
by virtual the fact they've been around for ten years.
How strong is that?
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I think what's most important is when you feel like
there's been an erosion of trust or trust has been
undermined in some way, your response to that is most important,
whether you're a brand or a business owner. So and
I see this on you know, in small ways locally myself,
with local businesses getting negative reviews, they'll often call ten
(36:53):
people who trust the business to get online and put
up a positive comment Google. Yeah, yeah, basically. But I
think what's important is what you do about how you
respond in those moments where trust has been eroded. And
if you've got a formidia, if you've already been if
you've been practicing visibility and familiarity as a brand for
(37:17):
years before something goes wrong, then you've got a much
better chance of recovering that relationship with people who.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Are important to you just by virtual time.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Absolutely yeah, but again a commitment to communication and a
commitment to being visible and being familiar in moments where
you don't necessarily have to, but you choose to do that.
Because if you're a business that's grounded in integrity and
building relationships for the long term, that's part of the strategy.
(37:45):
It's something that will come naturally to you because you
don't necessarily need a big strategy around it. But trust
is built over time. It's lost very quickly, but it's
what you do in those moments where it's eroded that matters.
It's how you respond in those moments.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
So we've got some in Australia. We've got a couple
of really big organizations, two in particular who I won't
name them, but one of which is a mining company
from Australia and another one is a city based tech
company and there's been a trust erosion relation to both
(38:23):
in both examples of the CEO, dash chairman, leader, leaders
of the business and the big shoulders in the business.
And what would you because you don't know what I'm
talking about in particular, but what would you say to
those organizations because it seems like those people are pushing
back saying, well, look this's my business, I control it.
(38:45):
I've been good for you so far, trust me. But
they haven't really come out and said it, like I
haven't seen them get on the front foot and actually
talk about it. Definitely not going to get on to
a teally out or anything like that, but I haven't
seen any interviews from them. They've sort of gone to ground.
And there's that old saying in PR give good news
oxygen and some other bad news.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
I don't know if I believe either of those, you know,
having watched good news and bad news play out for
so long in my career, I think that the brands
and the businesses that have demonstrated longevity have demonstrated consistent communication.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Warren Buffett good example, totally unbelievably.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
And what have you got to lose by doing a
live stream and talking to your people? What have you
got to lose? And so I think that that visibility
again is fundamental to the trust equation. And if you
want to disappear, that's fine, but I think there'll be
a cost to that over time. And you're already raising
issues around trust because you haven't seen either of these
(39:45):
leaders come out and say anything. So there's a great
example of what we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
It's interesting. I know both of them, and I thought
to myself, have you asked them why they No? I haven't.
I thought. In fact, one of them I've done a
show on with and the other one once stage that
was a shohold of mine. And I always considered more
of them to be quite a good friend. But I
wonder as a leader, just a community leader, not in
(40:10):
their particular industry leader. Do you think someone like me
I should be reaching out to them?
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Why would you reach out to them to give the
fair back that you've already given them.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Yeah, or just to talk about what I just talked about. Hey, guys,
I haven't. I mean, you've just sort of gone aground.
Why don't you.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Well, you know, if they were adults, I mean part
of me thinks they're educated adults right in the show.
Speaker 1 (40:34):
They have understandable leadership there, No, And I.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Do think that there's a disconnect where I do think
that you. For a long time, That's what I got
paid to do. I was a media trainer's top a
six leaders. I'd come in and I'm the bad I
can be the bad guy, you know, and they're in
their staff would say to me, look, this person has
moved from CFO to CEO. Bottom line is he's not
behaving like the CEO. He's still behaving like the CFO.
(40:57):
So we need you to come in and play the
bad cop and to you know, basically say that to
him and elevate his presence, you know, on camera. So
I'd happily do that because I was an outsider a
lot of people that you know, this is an interesting
part of leadership and role models. Who are we surrounding
ourselves with, who are our sort of personal board of directors?
(41:17):
And are we getting one version of the truth from them?
Do we need to be looking further afield to get
unfiltered advice from people who are watching what else is
changing around us. So maybe that could be a really
valuable conversation that would pay off. And you know, I
know that any leader who has any degree of humility
(41:40):
would welcome an observation that would bring them, bring those
leaders closer to their their customers, closer to understanding what's
changing for those customers, and also grow the business at
the same time.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
So why not what about a leader is really highly
skilled and the best person for the job in terms
of skill sets, but is shy. What do you as
a trainer type person, someone who tries to get the
best out of these individuals? How do you work with
someone like that? Do you? How do you get them
confident to sit in front of camera? Like a lot
(42:16):
of people, as soon as that camera's on, they change.
I mean I see it in this job. And in fact,
the very first time I ever had to do something
in front of a camera, which is like a long
long time ago, I remember like, well, like it was
a bit scary, like yeah, it's intimidating. I got nervous.
I don't ask why when I look back at it,
(42:37):
but I just did. What do you do for these people?
Speaker 2 (42:40):
We have to get out of our own road.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
We have to whatever?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
We get over yourself.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
You have to get over yourself. I mean, don't. I've
had seventeen years as an on camera news reporter. I
do not enjoy. I would rather be in your seat.
But the message that I have around adapting more effectively
to change is far more important than how I feel
about myself. So I've got to get out of my
(43:07):
own road. And that is the same advice I give
to anyone who I've worked with previously who has a
job needs to communicate change but doesn't like being on camera.
Just get out of your own road, because it's actually
not about you. It's about your audience. It's always and
only about your audience and how and the kind of
influence that you want to have over them, regardless of
(43:29):
how shy you are.
Speaker 1 (43:31):
Let's say, and I see this all the time, a
lot of these organizations have a corporate affairs person and
usually when it's pretty bad news, they said that person
had to be the spokesperson. So and you're read in
the paper a spokesperson for said blah blah blah as
opposed to the individual. Is that do you think that's
damaging to their organization?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
I mean it depends on the scale of the issue.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Less it's an important issue and they just run a
a cover.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
Oh, I mean we all know how that plays out.
I think it's a I think that anytime a CEO.
I think if it's if you're a CEO running a
business and the business has a problem, again, get out
of your own road and get on camera and start
communicating that change to people who are important to you,
whoever they are.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Is it important to see you made a mistake?
Speaker 2 (44:17):
If definitely well, I mean obviously that their lawyers would
disagree without depending on the situation. But I think that
that only builds trust if you have an honest and
direct line of communication with your constituents. And I watched
this with I won't name names, but one of the
big banking guys, probably about seven or eight years ago,
(44:41):
everyone knew he was really arrogant, didn't really feel any
obligation whatsoever to communicate to any of his forty thousand
staff or hundreds of thousands of customers. Now, how much
social capital do you think he had when something went
wrong and the board was looking at him and think
thinking he's got to go right. I would argue that
(45:02):
Shane Elliott has a much better chance of staying in
the gig long term. I'd argue that he has longevity
because every day he's out demonstrating that he cares a
lot about what customers think, what his employees think about
the place to work. So I think you build social
capital over time, and that capital may have a payoff
(45:25):
in a moment where you're finding life difficult or where
your job is up for grabs.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, where someone might be challenging your position. That's exactly
as a result of an error of the whole bank.
And that is because there's no one, very rare as
an error in a big organization responsibility to one person.
It's usually the responsibility of many. But because you're you're
at the top of the tree, you take the blame
for it.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
And you know, I think we said a lot in banking,
and I think.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
There's a disproportionate amount of pressure on CEOs these days.
I think there you know, the burnout, liability and scrutiny
is is at a point where it's never been before.
I wrote an article about this for the fin Review
last week. You know, the Global CEO Index has shown
that there's a higher turnover of CEOs because of burnout,
liability and scrutiny and increased attention. And that's not just
(46:14):
damaging to them, it's damaging to emerging leaders who are
looking at their boss thinking, you know what that does?
It it's not worth it. Maybe there's another way, Maybe
there's an adjacent pathway here, And I'm going to trade
power and prestige for peace for peace and privacy right,
and who wouldn't want to do that in today's world.
But that's a pretty dangerous precedent to set when you
(46:37):
look at the kind of you know, the lower is
the barrier to entry for leadership over time. So I
think that we look at CEOs and we do expect
them to be superhuman because they're not only running these
enormous organizations, they're running families. They're expected to be culture shapers,
they're expected to be community leaders. So we do expect
a lot. Our expectations are disproper austuately high of a CEO,
(47:02):
so I think we need to be careful about that.
But when it comes to the basic role of a CEO,
it's not just about growing the business and keeping shareholders happy.
I think it's also about communicating change where necessary. So
I think that's I think communication leadership is a fairly
basic basic ask, but we don't see enough of it.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
And that issue whereby people who are looking around thinking this,
why would I do this? Because of the things you
just mentioned, burnout, et cetera. Do you think that could
be a reason why some people take the view that
we at the quality of our politicians today are less
than they used to be and because it's lower the bar.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Well, this would you be a politician? Why not?
Speaker 1 (47:43):
For the matter of drama you have to put up
with that, don't pay you enough?
Speaker 2 (47:46):
When you can have peace and privacy, why would you
go for the profile and prestige. That's the problem, because
people like you, who should be running for office can
afford not to. You choose to have influences.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
But how do we correct that? Then? How do you
how how would you suggest that we're a nation we
start to try and correct that. Should we pull back
a little bit from laying so much scrutiny on them?
What's this?
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I don't know. I think it's really a complicated question
because the whole system is designed. I mean, it's public sector,
it's not private sector, right, There's no money in it,
There's no It's a very difficult it's a very difficult
and complicated game to play, and for most of us,
(48:34):
by the time we are in our forties, fifties, sixties,
and when we're most qualified to play that game, we
don't necessarily have the energy to So I'm not I
don't have the answer to that. I don't know if
many people do. I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
So what right? I love? So I could quickly talk
about your book. So your book called Adapts a mastering
Change in four steps? Can you do? I have to
read the whole book to get the four steps.
Speaker 2 (48:58):
You don't know this is. This is about adaptability in
its purest form, being about anticipating and influencing change and
not reacting and responding to change so we get ahead
of it. This is for anyone who feels who doesn't
want to feel like they're always constantly playing catch up
to change. And so four steps engaged with signals, accept
(49:20):
what's changing, activate your optimism for what's next, and release
what is no longer fit for purpose for where you're headed.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
So let go of it.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
Let go of it.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah, so just just on the first part that is
sort of looking out for the signs. That's rights signals. Yeah,
you call it signals yep. So that sort of by
definition requires people to be constantly vigilant and aware.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
I think we can be overly vigilant. My advice is
choose a couple of things to pay attention to, but
also don't ignore that gut feeling because we all have
ignored and there's probably a signal of change today that
we're all ignoring. So I'd urge you, I'd provoke you
to think what is that. It might be personal, it
might be social, it might be in the workplace. Don't
(50:10):
ignore that signal of change because the closer it gets
to you, the less options you'll have to respond to it.
So if you see a signal, like when I saw
a signal in two thousand and eight about the future
of journalism, I made an active decision to get five
to eight years ahead of my colleagues. So always pay
attention to those small changes that you think I just
shouldn't be ignoring that.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Do you think there's a I have to finish off
on this one, but I think it's an important question.
Do you think there's a danger that the way we
live our lives, we get so caught up in our
business from day to day, whatever happens to be with
your employee or running a business doesn't really matter. Or
in government, we get so caught up with what we're
doing day to day, and we convince themselves, wow, I'm
(50:51):
really busy. I'm going to get up really early and
to start on my stuff, and I'm going to get
to the gym, and I've got to see the kids,
and I've got to bubba all the stuff I've got
to do. I'm so damn busy that I know in
the back of my mind there's a something that's bothering me,
a signal, but I sort of either tend to ignore it,
(51:13):
or I ignore it, or alternatively, I just completely forget
about it altogether because I get caught up on what
I'm doing data distracted and what tools the technique would
you suggest we use to get around that that failure.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
So get a blank piece of paper, Just draw a
line down the middle and eighty twenty. Just do an
eighty twenty principle. So for eighty percent of my day,
I'm going to spend triaging all the normal stuff right
to get.
Speaker 1 (51:38):
Through the day, get through my crab yep.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
But I'm going to spend even just the twenty percent
of my day, or even just twenty minutes, exploring what
could be about to disrupt me, Like how do I
how can I take a step towards figuring out what
that signal is going to mean for me in a
month's time, in a year's time. So and that explore
versus exploit. So you don't free age of the day,
(52:00):
but always give yourself a few minutes to reflect on
confronting that signal of change, because what you don't want
is for that signal of change to, you know, to
be up close where you've got no.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Options, because then you're panic. Then you panic, and then
you made the worst decisions.
Speaker 2 (52:16):
So is it.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Sort of like health checking? Can we do it ourselves?
If I've got a fever, I think I'll hang on
a bit of be careful, I got sore throat, maybe
I've got something wrong. But you know a lot of
people don't do a bit on my case. I don't
ignore it. Is it like health checking, of course for
that type of thing, that's right. Yeah, it's pretty simple.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
It's like a health check for life, right, And it
could be in the workplace where you feel like, oh,
you know, a friend of mine called me last week
and said, I've just lost my job, but I'm really shocked.
And I said, well, I'm not shocked because for the
last twelve months you've called me every week and said
how much your boss hates you. So I would have
picked that as a signal of change a year ago
and started, you know, tidying up my CV and look
(53:00):
for another gig. So pay attention to what those signals are,
because what you want is options. You know what I've
wanted through my life is options. And you know, I've
had amazing role models from when I was quite young,
including my dad, that demonstrated that your ability to adapt
to change effectively gives you options. And that's what I
(53:20):
think we all want in life.
Speaker 1 (53:23):
Why do you think you were? I mean, you mentioned
your father, but why do you think you were so
I don't want to over yeah, dramatize it, but vigilant
back when before you probably even really thought this stuff
through which you're talking about now, Like going back to
when you were a journalists at Washington. Why do you
think you were so vigilant at such a young age.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Because when I was twelve years old, I was in
Assessina two ten, single engine my dad was piloting, succeeded
with my two sisters. Dad was flying the three of
us between Maury and the Gold Coast and we had
engine failure at nine thousand feet And what I saw
happen in those moments convinced me that having high adaptability
(54:03):
would always give me options. So we lost power.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
What in other words, you're gliding.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
We glided for nine thousand feet. And it wasn't IQ
or EQ that helped Dad land that plane in one piece.
It was his AQ. It was his adaptability quotionent, so
the ability to apply new thinking to a new problem.
And he was so calm and composed in those in
those moments that when by the time we got on
the ground, I didn't think about it then, but many
(54:31):
years later I started to think, when did I first
see the power of adaptability, the power of an adaptive
mindset in action? And that was it. I would have
been twelve years old, and it was an incredible lesson
in what if you commit to having a highly adaptable mindset,
you will always have options. And that's what that's what
I wanted for myself, and so I really was highly
(54:54):
engaged in what those signals have changed looked like for
me from quite a young age, because you know, Dad
would throw a map over the dining room table before
school holidays and say where do you want to?
Speaker 1 (55:04):
Go? Right?
Speaker 2 (55:06):
So like your dad in the Cessna, Dad rang and
he ran a trucking haulage business, right, so he had
a light plan for work, as most people did around
Western Queensland in the eighties, and when he threw a
map over the table, you know, that wasn't just about
planning holidays. In hindsight, for me, that was about, like,
what a remarkable invitation to imagine your own future, to
(55:28):
have an active to be an active player in the
way life was going to play out for you. So
I always engage. I was always engaged in change and
always understood the role of imagination and the kind of
life that I wanted to lead. And I just wasn't
prepared to kind of roll along with the standard narrative.
(55:49):
And I had big dreams and I was encouraged from
a very young age to really go after them.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Like you didn't. I mean, as opposed to being post
traumatic stress syndrome, whatever the words. You actually had an
embedded advantage as a result of what you experienced and
what you saw your dad do. And obviously, luckily it
was a good outcome allow you to to remain embedded
in your mind. And well, what's interesting is that you've
(56:20):
done something about it too, Like you've actually put it
into action. You've turned that asset into action, that embedded
experience into action in your own life. I think many
people also, Andrey, they tend to I don't know what
it is people sort of forget in terms of their
career that a career is a really important part of life,
Like it's I don't mean you have to have a career,
(56:40):
but whatever you're doing, it's an important part of life,
whatever you're doing. And we tend to think we focus
on what we're going to do on the weekend, like
where we're going to go up for dinner, which is
also important, who we're going to see, but we forget
about this other stuff that underpins all that. And you're right,
we don't see the signals.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
Well. Learning, I mean learning and an agency is part
of the DNA of being highly adaptable. I mean I'm
obsessed with learning. I always have been, because learning is
not just about gaining knowledge. Every time we learn something new,
we uncover something about ourselves. So it's a positive feedback
loop that is literally infinite. And you know, I think
learning is a portal. And if we're not learning, we're
(57:20):
not adapting.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
Have We've got so many resources today to learn, podcasts
everywhere and there's your book Adapt And that's a good
way to end today through Look, thanks so much. Actually
that was fascinating mastering change of four steps. So I
quite like the having agency over your future that concept.
I think that's a really important concept. Most people don't
(57:41):
think about that that I know of, and we're too
interested in what we're doing today and what we did
last week and what didn't go right for us last week,
and you know how awful someone was towards me as
opposed to or hang on, that's a signal that I
should do something for my future.
Speaker 2 (57:53):
Exactly, have some agency, build personal agency in whatever way
works for you. But I think that is that's a
straight line towards fulfillment.
Speaker 1 (58:02):
Andrew Clark, thanks so much, Thanks much,
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