E70 The Draw of Change: Balancing creativity, confidence and humility

Episode Transcript
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Chris Hudson (00:07):
Hello and welcome back to the company road
podcast, where we delve into thestories and experiences of
extraordinary leaders who candrive transformation and who
have done and the growth thatthey facilitated in some way.
And today we've got theprivilege of welcoming Alana
Lynch, who's an accomplishedexecutive coach and business
advisor with over 15 years ofexperience in shaping the future
of creatively driven businesses.

(00:28):
lot of this journey began in theworld of advertising in Sydney,
and it led her to the bustlingstreets of New york, where she
took on senior roles at a toplevel at creative agencies,
media powerhouses, and artplatforms as well.
And she's had a career spanningtransformative leadership roles,
and has influenced change acrossthe board from leading strategic
transformation at Artnet as COOto overseeing a successful
merger at the New York Times andher unique ability to unlock

(00:50):
human potential and lead withinfluence has positioned her as
a trusted advisor to many.
So join us today as we talk toAlana and Alana will share her
insights around.
Personal transformation,navigating leadership
challenges, and the art ofleading with a collaborative
approach.
And we're going to talk to herabout her journey from Sydney to
New York, lessons on leadership,perspectives, and lots, lots,
lots more.
So, yeah, it's going to be coolto talk about work on different

(01:12):
sides of the hemisphere.
And, really want to get underthe skin of this topic of
executive leadership, two wordsthat probably mean a lot of
different things, differentpeople, on what it takes to be
an executive leader.
But let's say hello to Alana.
Alana, welcome to the show.

Alanna Lynch (01:24):
Thank you, Chris.
Thanks for having me.

Yeah, cool.
what do we do?
American greeting.
Like how, how would we normallygreet?
Is it like, so we say, how areyou?
How you doing?
What are you, what's a kind ofstandard meeting opening in New
York?

Yeah.
How you're doing is comfortingto me.
That's a nice nostalgicAustralian.
Yeah.

I thought it was just in friends that they said
that, but maybe it's justAmerican thing.
It's good.
Let's hear a bit about your,your personal journey.
You obviously started life inSydney and then you went to New
York and there's probably thingsin between, but what was your
journey and how did it shapeyour career in executive
leadership?

Yeah.
So I.
Started my career in Sydney inthe advertising industry.
So I started working, came outof university, studied business,
started working in the biggeragencies, kind of your Ogilvy,
MNC, Saatchi, Mad Men era.
Of advertising.
I did that for a little whileand worked my way out a little
bit there.
And then in 2012, I went to NewYork on my own, didn't know

(02:19):
anyone, but just chasing thatkind of sex in the city meets
Seinfeld meets mad men dream.
And ended up landing a job at aboutique agency in downtown,
Soho.
And that agency focused on.
Luxury fashion and lifestyle,travel, hospitality.
So that ended up just being areally incredible experience.

(02:39):
I worked there for about sixyears in the end, kind of in and
out a couple of times, butaround six years, and then ended
up at the New York times andthen went to art net into the
art world after that, and thenit's come full circle almost 13
years later back to Australiainto Melbourne, where I have my
executive coaching leadershipconsultancy.

Yeah, nice, and how were you received into the
American market?
What was your first impressionthere?

Oh, in 2012?

Yeah.

Oh, great question.
I think that was a little bit ofa stark and true for me.
I was really young.
That was the other thing.
I was really young at the time.
As I said, I didn't know anyone.
And so I think I had all myAustralianisms, I think, about
me, even just in the way that Idress, the way that I presented
myself.
And so I think you adjust tothat New York life and style

(03:25):
pretty quickly.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's different, different thing.
And I think particularly ifyou're, you're fairly young,
you're changing cultures andyou're working in a new city.
There's a lot about yourselfthat you almost have the courage
to, to be able to do that and tokind of make it your own.
Did you feel like you werebringing, yeah, you're probably
bringing a lot of yourself over,from what you knew, but then you
find yourself having to adapt afair bit as well.
Is that fair to assume?

Yeah, definitely.
I think, I would go so far as tosay it went past an adaption and
into a reinvention almost.
I think.
Oh yeah.

Okay.

You know, New York is that city that, it's a little
bit of a trope, but everyonegoes there to reinvent
themselves in a way.
And I think I was reallyattracted to that part of it,
actually, that you've grown upin Sydney and you've got all
your people around you andyou're able to arrive in this
city and almost no one knows whoyou are.
And that's petrifying, but alsoincredibly freeing because you

(04:15):
can start to rebuild the personthat you really want to be at
that stage.
In your life, no one knows allyour embarrassing stories from
high school.
No one knows that I forcedmyself to get a senior account
executive promotion.
You know what I mean?
It's like all the embarrassingstuff you do.
No one knows that.
So you can just start again.
It's great.

You forced yourself.
What do you mean by that?
With the promotion?

No, this is just a slightly funny story.
But when I was at I was talkingabout some people that I worked
with at that time recently,actually.
When I was at Ogilvy.
You know, we were babies, littleaccount executives, but we were
all so hungry and determined andlike career focused and we're
going to all the events andreading all the books and doing
all the things.
And I just thought I was doing agreat job.

(04:53):
I wanted to get promoted to anaccount manager and I had like
no experience and I remember myboss.
Said, she's like, no, you're notgetting promoted to an account
manager, you have years before.
And I was like, and I kept at itand I kept at it.
And so just to keep me happy andprobably shut me out, they gave
me a promotion to it, a senioraccount executive, which was
like this fake made up role thatno one else in the agency had.

(05:14):
And I was like, I'm a senioraccount, anyway, it became this
running joke still to this daythat anyone who worked there at
that time, it was like, she wasa senior account executive.

Yeah, nice.

So I didn't have, even though I'm saying it's not
on this podcast, no one in NewYork knew that embarrassing
story, so I could just deletethat and start again.

Well we could take it out, we could take it out.
No, it's, it's fine, I mean,reinvention's an interesting
thing, I mean, what, did youfeel like before you left you
wanted to do that, or did youfeel like the environment that
you're in, in New York, made it,like, that's just, it's giving
me different options, differentopportunities.
It's taking me down differentpathways.
How does reinvention start?
Oh,

great.
Another great question.
I think for me, and this is,yeah, maybe more about my
personal, I guess, kind oftransformation than work
necessarily work side.
I guess they're all merged, butyeah.
My parents are both Irish, sothey're both kind of first
generation immigrants, half myside of my family is in Ireland,
and so Australia, and I have avery big family, lots of

(06:07):
brothers and sisters, they allkind of left and lived overseas.
And I think for me, Australiawas, it's always home, but I
also felt pulled elsewhere, as alittle bit of a gypsy mindset at
that time.
And so I was, I always had thissense that there was this other
part of me that needed to bediscovered somewhere else.

Yeah.
And the other external factorsor other environments can bring
it out in different ways thatyou wouldn't be able to plan
for, in a sense.

Yeah.
Absolutely.
And just different experiencesand different inspirations and
also meeting different people.
I think that's a huge part ofit, the people that you meet
along the way and they end upshaping who you are and, and
what your interests are and whatyou're curious about.

Yeah.
There's I can't remember.
It's conjuring up sort of Disneyfilms or something that there
are films whereby I feel like aperson's sense of self are
examined, right?
And it feels like you're able totake forward what you want to
take forward, but you can alsochoose from other options, what
your influences are going to be.
So you might decide by going toNew York that you want to spend
your time with completelydifferent people in an art
crowd, in a film crowd, whateverit is, music, it doesn't matter.

(07:10):
But I feel like.
In some cases, we lose our senseof choice and optionality
because we're consumed in thework or the job that we're in,
and we're letting that defineus.
Whereas what I'm hearing you sayand reading to analyze it a
little bit with your story isthat at any point we can choose
where we go because we canconnect with something new, we
can broaden our influence we canbroaden our exposure to other

(07:31):
things that might take us down anew path.
And yeah.
Travel's obviously a great wayof doing that.
So, yeah, it sounds like it wasvery fruitful for you.

Yeah, and I think the reality is that can happen
at home, right, too.
I think as Australians, andthere's always this yearning to
leave and to explore the world,but I think that reinvention can
happen at home, too, if you Pullyourself out of your comfort
zone and expose yourself todifferent people and different
experiences.
It's just harder because you'rein your crew and you're in your
clique.

(07:57):
And so you, if you don't reallyhave the discipline to do it on
home turf.
It just drops into somewherewhere you don't know anyone and
you'll be forced to do itanyway.

Yeah.
They're definitely, I've movedover from the UK, camps a years
ago now, and I feel like thereare certain things about
Australia that are just amazinglike the way things are, but a
lot of people want to preservethat obviously for how it is.
And so the kind of itch thatneeds to be scratched for a lot
of people, maybe.
Isn't there, you know, peoplejust quite happy with life in
the way that it is you seeingthat now coming back,

I have a slightly different perspective on this
and this is just reminding me soslight tangent.
I just went to South bySouthwest in Sydney earlier this
year, and I've been to the onein Austin many times and
incredible, amazing.
Made friends there for life, allthe things, my very high
expectations.
I went there and you could tellthe programming was jam packed

(08:45):
with all these internationalspeakers.
They're like, we've got to getthe New York Times bestseller,
and we're gonna get this personfrom the U.
K., blah, blah, blah.
Because it's Australia'sobsession with the rest of the
world and having to look outsideand all the interesting,
inspiring people don't livehere.
And I was in those sessions andhonestly, a lot, not all of
them, but they were some of thesessions that I actually walked

(09:05):
out of because they were sodisconnected to what was
happening here.
It was so clearly just a NewYork times bestseller.
So let's just get this personhere instead of thinking like,
is this person actually relevantto the audience?
And I actually walked out ofthat thinking, my God, there are
so many interesting, inspiringpeople in Australia doing
incredible things.
And I would love to meet themand hear from them, so I know

(09:26):
this is somewhat contradictoryto me saying I had to leave to
meet all these inspiring people.

Oh yeah, that was 2012, different time.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But now I actually feel likecoming back, I feel like there
is so much happening here andI'm really curious about
covering that on home turf too.

Yeah.
We came here with a sense of.
Excitement for the opportunityas well.
And I think if you go into anyculture fresh, you're wide eyes,
wide open, curiosity withoutjudgment.
In some cases you're going tofind a lot and you're probably
going to break past a lot of thenorms and some of the clicky
stuff that happens, you canactually find more than you
think you will.
It's like being a tourist inanother country, but you're

(10:02):
obviously embracing it, maybeand appreciating it being
present, but appreciating it forwhat it is a little bit.

Yeah, I think what you just said around curiosity
is key.
If you bring a curious mindsetto anywhere you go, you will be
able to have that feeling offeeling inspired and out of your
comfort zone if you're curiousabout meeting different people
and having differentconversations.

Yeah.
It's been your approach toalmost taking a wrong turn if
you've had any wrong turns, butyou mentioned senior accounting
executive, I'm not going tomention that again, but you
know, it's kind of like, juststuck in my mind.

I

know I was on that career path as well, like
starting at an ad agency.
I know exactly.
Where you are from, joining asan account executive, as an
account manager.
And I knew that pain because Iwas waiting for that promotion
forever and ever to, but itfeels like if you are going in
eyes wide open, then you'regoing to come across something
that looks good, but isn't, andyou might take a wrong turn or
two.
So how have you managed to copethrough those sorts of

(10:54):
situations?

I think, in the moment I can be pretty hard on
myself actually.
I'm someone that can often, I'mlooking back at past decisions
and like they, I'm like, Oh myGod, why did I, like, I can
really get into that headspaceof not trusting my previous
self.
But I generally find that withtime, when I'm looking back on
them, if I give it enough space,there's always lessons there,

(11:16):
and just trying to think aboutany kind of mistakes or wrong
turns as what did it teach me,what lesson did I pull from
that, and I think It's reallyeasy to say that it's really
hard to do in the moment.
And for me personally, I need alittle bit of space between the
decision and getting to thatreflection, but I have found if
I, you know, beat myself up alittle bit, I can get past it

(11:37):
and then find the insight, findthe nugget.

Yeah.
Yeah.
We see, the benefit ofhindsight.
How do you, flipping it theother way, how do you plan for
things?
Do you find that you base thaton decisions that you've made in
the past?
Or do you just look for ideashere and there, or is it a
similar thing?
You want to take your learningsforward or are you just kind of
keeping your curious mind aliveby doing various things?

Yeah, I think a little bit of both, I would say.
I am someone who I'm verycurious about the world and
what's going on and all thedifferent aspects of it.
And I'm someone that likes tohave multiple things going on at
once, like multiple projectshappening at once.
So I can be a little bitimpulsive in setting up, okay,
let's run with this idea.

(12:16):
Let's run with this idea.
It can be a little bit of animpulsive at the beginning.
But I also can shut things downwhen I know.
They're not working.
So it's a little bit of likefail, fast, fail, often approach
I take.
So I'm not someone whooverthinks things and makes sure
they're 100 percent perfectbefore I launch it.
I'm like, okay, it feels like agood idea, like do it.
But if it's not working in threemonths, I'll kill it and move

(12:37):
on.
And then some of them kind ofbreak, break through.

Yeah.
Okay.
What's an example of somethingthat you dropped after three
months or however long that youthought wasn't working?
So many.
Go

into my Google Drive and like, So many business
plans.
I've spoken to my therapistabout this because I have
started so many businesses withfriends, but halfway through I'm
like, we're not doing thisanymore since they're like, Oh,
okay.
So, but I've also, again, withtime you come to appreciate the
beauty in that, which is more ofan entrepreneurial mindset as a

(13:08):
drive, as an ambition there.
And it's, I think everyone hasto, you know, you've got to
understand where your strengthsare, but also understand your
weaknesses.
Like, there's that great quoteabout confident humility and
it's like, you've got to be, beconfident enough in your
strengths that you're able to beclear about what your weaknesses
are.

Yeah.
So in terms of wrong terms, Imean, we see there are a few
that come up, but there must'vebeen plenty that, if you think
about the ones that didn't getborn into the world, in some
sort of way, um, you have anyexamples of that and what
springs to mind in terms of whatyou've left behind and
decisioning around the thingsthat you have continued with.

Mm hmm.
So, left many examples behind ofdifferent ideas that I wanted to
pick up.
I think for me, I can be alittle impulsive in my decision
making and in when I first kindof have an idea and want to get
it off the ground.
But I've.
Come to recognize the strengthin that and being around the
drive and the ambition and theentrepreneurial mindset.

(14:02):
And I think, with time, I'vejust also come to realize that,
okay, you can overplay like anyof us can overplay our hand,
right?
Like you can overplay.
So if you know you have astrength in being more
entrepreneurial, you canoverplay that, which is having
multiple ideas all the time andfilling the space too much that
you don't give the time andenergy for the right ones to

(14:23):
kind of work, work through.
So for me, I think it was justtime to recognize the pattern
when you do it once.
Okay.
You do it twice.
Maybe you just think you're agenius and have all these great
ideas when you're doing itthree, four times.
Okay.
It's starting to be.
A pattern.
And so for me, I just try to,let those ideas come out, let
them be a little bit fluid, butalso, pressure testing them a

(14:44):
little bit and getting them out,even if it means putting
something out there publicly tosee the reaction and if it's not
working bring it back inquickly.

Hmm.
Yeah.
And there was a quote that youmentioned just before the
recording.
Did you want to mention that?

Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a really great quote.
There's this idea of confidenthumility, and this is a concept
that has been made very popularby Adam Grant, who's also a very
famous organizationalpsychologist, one professor I'm
sure you're familiar, and hetalks about, Confidence without
humility breeds blind arroganceand humility without confidence
yields debilitating doubt.

(15:17):
So it's this idea of just besecure enough in your strengths
that you're willing to be openabout your weaknesses and
uncertainties.

Yeah.
That's really good.
That's really helpful.
There's a feeling of overwhelmwhen there are a lot of ideas in
anyone's head.
But anyone on this show, ifyou're an inrapreneur, if you're
just always full of ideas thatif you don't turn them into the
idea through to like thebiggest, best possible thing
that it could ever be, And youalmost feel disappointed if the
idea doesn't get to that point,but the thing with ideas is that
obviously they require nurturingand they have to be right.

(15:48):
They have to be received by theoutside world in a way in which
they would obviously appreciate,it has to be designed for other
people rather than for you whothought of the idea in a lot of
cases.
So I think you're testing andeven if you just put the feelers
out, you kind of put a few postsin here and there, this, these
days are a lot of practical waysin which you could quite quickly
determine whether your idea wasa stinker or whether it was

(16:09):
something that you could take tobecome the next big thing.
So I don't know maybe it feelseasier than it once did where so
much onus was placed on just oneidea and landing that in one hit
with a silver bullet.
And now it feels like you've gotall the social media channels,
you can have chats with anyoneyou want.
You can have a coffee withanyone you want.
I could meet up if I had an ideaabout whatever it was, electric
vehicles or something inbanking, I could just get in

(16:31):
touch with somebody and validatethat.
But just see whether it.
Warrants the next step.
So I think that expression, itfeels like it's part of the
therapy in itself because youget the idea out.
You just see what comes back.
Is that how you approach it?

Yeah.
I think the point you madearound the accessibility of the
world that we live on, live inis.
Is crucial, right?
Because I guess it all comesdown to your risk tolerance and
also, yeah, what do you have tolose?
Depending on what the idea is.
If you're starting an electriccar business, that might be
pretty high risk investment thatif it's something smaller,

(17:04):
someone has an idea, I don'tknow, to start a newsletter or
to start a podcast or differentideas that they have.
I think we can overthink themsometimes.
And I heard someone saysomething the other week on a
podcast, which I thought wassuch a funny way to talk about
it, but so true that, we havebecome knowledge obese, which I
was like, yeah, I get what he'ssaying.

(17:24):
That we're vultures forinformation.
Now we're reading all the booksand we're listening to all the
podcasts and we're doing all thethings.
And we have all these ideas, butactually you just need to get
out there and start by startingand you just need to, if you
want to do a newsletter, youjust have to do it.
If you want to do the podcast,no, someone can listen to 500 of
your podcasts, but until theyactually do their own and test
it.
You know, and you don't know ifit's going to work or not.

Yeah, definitely.
I Knowledge, obesity, these aregreat concepts.
Feels like there's contentobesity, which is that there's
too much stuff in the world, butyou or I can decide what we want
to consume.
Right.
So it doesn't really matter.
The supermarket is still full offood.
Doesn't mean you have to buyeverything.
You know, it's like you can bequite selective about it, but
until you, the creator has putsomething out there, you don't
know whether it's going to workor not, but you can try.

(18:06):
I want to go back to maybe someof the stories of you climbing
the ladder if we can.
Mm hmm.
And, you know, there were acouple of things.
Probably came up and I justwanted to explore this a bit
with you, which is around therelationship as an aspiring
leader to then what happenedwhen you became a leader,
because obviously at one point,you'll learn, learn, learn, eyes
wide open, as you were saying,like, you're just going straight

(18:26):
up.
The target, which is thepromotion or whatever it is
you're aiming for.
And then all of a sudden you getthere and you've arrived you've
got the badge and the gun andlike, how do you feel, and then
things around you, this is myexperience within an
intrapreneur's role as well, isthat things kind of change and
they feel a bit different.
What was your experience withthat?

So many stories.

I

I feel like my career started to feel like a
Taylor Swift concert to mebecause it's like all these
different

eras,

all the different eras, and they all are very
different and very unique.
And obviously, you're adifferent talk about reinvention
and adaptability.
I feel like I have almost been acompletely different leader in
each of those.
Situations too, as I evolved,but I guess one of the, yeah,
we'll start kind of at the firstera, which was my chandelier
creative era, which is theagency I mentioned in downtown

(19:13):
New York.

Yeah.

I, the kind of, I guess, big overarching question
that came out of that and Iguess big challenge that I
navigated during that time was,this idea of can we be friends
with our colleagues when we'rethe boss?
When you're suddenly the leader.
And as I said, when I got to NewYork, I didn't know anyone.
So I made a lot of friendsthrough work, obviously other
ones too, thankfully, but a lotof my social circles were

(19:36):
through my career and mynetwork.
And so when you arrive in NewYork when you're a 20 something,
I don't know, what's 23, 24 orwhatever, and you know, you're
doing all the things, you'repartying, you're hanging out,
you're going on your weekendsaway, you're having the
friendships that you're makingat that time, I don't think I
ever considered at that timewhere I was hanging out with all
these people that I would everbe their boss, and maybe if I

(19:58):
was aware of that, maybe I wouldhave acted but I worked at this
agency for about four years, Ileft, I went back to Australia.
I thought that was an amazingexperience, but I need to go
back to Australia and like eat asalad.
And New York was fun, but thatwas that chapter close, sent all
my stuff back from New York.
And I remember I was in Sydney,I remember so clearly sitting on
the beach and the owner of thecompany.

(20:19):
That I worked for called me andsaid, would you consider coming
back and stepping in as themanaging director of this
agency?
We'll fly you back.
We'll send your stuff back was,we'll give you X, Y, Z very
appealing.
And obviously for me, this was,Oh my God, this was, you know, I
thought New York was going to bethis chapter and I would move
into a leadership role when Igot back to Australia, but
suddenly this was, okay, this isgoing to be my first serious,

(20:41):
serious job in New York, so Iwent back of course.
Yeah, I was super excited, but Iwas a little bit nervous because
I was like, Oh, God, hang on asecond, all those people that
I've been clubbing with for thelast several years, okay, shit,
I'm now gonna be their boss.
I was like, Oh, my God.
And I started to, I was excited,but I was also spiraling a
little bit about that.
I was like, you know what, theseare my friends, this is gonna be
okay.

(21:01):
And these people have been totheir weddings and they've made
all the things.
I arrived back to very mixedreception.
There was obviously some peoplethat were super happy to be
back.
Some of the people that I wasclosest to in that earlier
chapter were probably the mosticy is probably a good word,
these are my friends now, so Ican say that, but, yeah, it was
a little icy and I get it, theywere like, well, hang on a
second, why is the Aussie girl,who's like younger than most of

(21:24):
us, suddenly the vast, you knowwhat I mean, they were a bit
like, what's happening, and so,I didn't know what to do because
I just didn't have the skills atthat time of how to set
boundaries.
Like, how can you be friendswith people at work with
boundaries?
And I just, yeah, I didn't havethe skills.
I didn't have the kind of selfawareness.
And so.
I think it was the middle of theweek, Wednesday night, maybe,

(21:44):
and I'd had a few days of thisjust being wildly uncomfortable
in the office.
And so I went home, I I canlaugh about it now.
I know this sounds petty, but atthat time, this was a big deal.
I opened up my Instagram and Iblocked every single person at
the company, not justunfollowed, blocked them, my
boss, but also down to theinterns.
And also these are like all myfriends.
And I just came back into workthe next day and I just decided,

(22:08):
like, I'm the boss now, so I'mgonna act like what I think at
that time, which is crazy now tothink, what I think that the
boss needs to be, which issomeone who you need to
establish authority and thereneeds to be a separation of
church and state and you can'tbe friends with them, you can't
be going out with them you'rethe boss.
And so I created this very clearseparation and I don't think I

(22:29):
need to explain to anyone that,like, that didn't go very well.
Everyone was really annoyed andit just made the next few years
incredibly difficult for me.
And I'm someone who leads withmore influence.
I'm really good at buildingrelationships.
I had a lot of relationshipcapital that I had built off of
that company.
And I destroyed it overnight,instead of leaning into that, I

(22:51):
pulled this big, separation,between us.
There's people in that groupthat after I kind of later tried
to get everyone back after Ileft, some people just left me
on read for years.
And it wasn't until you know,five years later they were like,
okay, you can come back now.
But there was some lessons therethat I'm happy to kind of talk
through that with hindsight, Istarted to realize, okay, there
is a way to do this.
Do this without deletingeveryone and putting yourself in

(23:14):
a corner.

Wow.
That whole story is incredible,but it just feels like from the
moment that you were comfortableeating a salad in Sydney to
reboarding the plane with allyour stuff and then, and then
probably a little bit like youdid in the beginning in New
York, that's a big step inreinvention in itself, you're
thinking about who am I going toturn up to at work as today,
which of the eras in TaylorSwift am I going to be choosing

(23:37):
or is it Lady Gaga, you know,it's kind of like a different
thing, but yeah, that's a hardlesson.
It sounds like anyway, it mustbe really difficult, but along
the lines of what we were sayingbefore, which is that you put
something out and you getfeedback in that moment, and
it's good or bad, you mightexpect it, it might be
unexpected, but it feels likeyou can still do that.
It sounded like you did it in apretty extreme way, if I could

(23:58):
say that.

Yeah, no, it was a terrible decision and I know I'm
saying this because I hope noone will repeat it, because I
just had a really bigmisunderstanding about
relationships at work at thattime.
And I think you watch all themovies and you think that it's
got to be the boss and everyoneelse.
And that's obviously not how itworks.
And I have since looked intothis quite a lot because when
I've written a newsletter aboutit, I got really into this topic

(24:21):
of can people be friends?
And I came across this research,which was by Gallup, which was
amazing that said Employees whoagreed with the statement I have
a best friend at work are morelikely to stay in their job.
And not only are they morelikely to stay, if the company's
more likely to be betterbusiness outcomes for the
company, they're likely to bemore profitable.

(24:41):
Safety records are better.
I inventory control is better.
The more best friends at work,the more successful the company
becomes.
And I think, companies are awareof this, this is why it's The
pizza parties and all the moneythat's brought into us trying to
engage with each other.
But I think all that happens atkind of the more junior mid tier

(25:01):
level.
And so it's like, the companiesare encouraging us all to be
friends.
We know it's a good thing, butthen what happens when you're
suddenly.
you suddenly the boss?
like how did someone make thattransition?

I mean, there's a lot that's been written about
leadership and the fact thatnobody has really taught how to
do it, and all of a sudden youare a leader.
The promotions happen in astring over a few years and
you'll probably get up in thatposition.
That feels different to being aleader.
You know, subject matter expertin some sort of way, but
basically you're learning asmuch as you can, you're on a
learning path basically.
And then all of a sudden youbecome a leader and a leader it

(25:34):
isn't really joined to the endresult of learning path because
being the best account manageror being the best data analyst
or whatever field designerdoesn't matter.
But that's taking you somewhere,but at no point is that saying
the end of that path is going tobe leadership.
So you know, when and how shouldpeople be introducing leadership
into the agenda and what do youthink would be a better way of

(25:54):
doing it?

Yeah, because it's a completely different set of
skills too, right?
Like all the things that youlearn along the way, it's yeah,
they're more of the technical.
And then actually the skillsthat you really need from a
leadership perspective is a lotof it is, does come down to kind
of relationship building andtrust building and, and
consensus building and thingslike that.

(26:15):
And they don't necessarilyrequire, that level of expertise
that you, as you say, thatyou've learned along that kind
of very linear path.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah.
Not everyone's suited toleadership.
I don't think that's the otherthing and people might not think
it's okay to say that in a workenvironment, but if you're
expected to be a manager of 10people all of a sudden, then
maybe I don't want to do that.
Yeah, I mean, it's reallyinteresting.
I think there's.
There's obviously a lot fromyour own personal story that
you've learned from, and that'spresumably led you to now, the

(26:42):
point now where you're able toempower people within
organizations, almost take astep back and look back in at
the situation, tell them what'sgoing on because you've had this
experience in leadership.
You can see what the dynamicsare and so on.
What are some of the questionsyou find most impactful to ask
When you're working with yourclients and you're trying to
find out, what their potentialis or how to unlock their
potential, what are some of thequestions that you think you

(27:05):
would typically ask?

I like to always start from 40, 000 feet and get
an understanding of what theirvision is.
For the future and what theirgoals are for the future.
And I think, that becomesincredibly important, right?
So like, where's this personwalking towards in the next kind
of two, five years, andobviously that kind of
influences, the type ofquestions that I ask, I think in

(27:26):
terms of specific question.
I actually have a littlequestion trick for people that
I've learned through thisprocess that actually could be
helpful for people to just applyin their own work too, in terms
of trying to be more coach likein their leadership style, which
might seem very simple, but Ifound it incredibly helpful.
I focus on the kind of what,where, how questions.
Because those questions are, getpeople to be more action

(27:49):
orientated and more forwardthinking about where they're
going.
I avoid yes or no questions,like always ask an open ended
question, right?
Never really ask someone ifyou're trying to get them to
work through some sort of, ifyou're trying to get them to
uncover insights or have somesort of revelation, the worst
thing you can do is ask them ayes or no question because
they're just, can avoid it or itjust stops the conversation.

(28:10):
So always open ended, and thewhat, where, how question.
It's funny, there's thistechnique, I can't remember the
exact name of it, but it's aboutthe five whys.
Yeah.
Have you heard of that?
Yeah.
Like, ask them a why, and thenask them another why, and ask
them a why, and then you askthem five whys, you get to the
core of like, what's reallygoing on with someone.
I find that, I really don'tsubscribe to that approach.

(28:30):
I find the why questions way toooverwhelming for people.
And borderline accusatorysometimes.
Now, it depends on your tone, ofcourse.
But if someone is coming to youand saying, this is going on,
and you're like, well, why didyou do that?
Why did you approach it likethat?
It feels like a little bit of aninterrogation.
And then the person gets stuckin potentially kind of

(28:51):
philosophical reasons or theemotional reasons as to why it
happened and a lot of the timeit doesn't matter anymore and
you just need to focus on kindof moving forward.
Obviously they need to have selfaware awareness about it and
learn from it, but you want themto kind of move forward.

Yeah.

And so if you can just kind of through what were
questions they.
Like, okay, well, what happenedand how would you do that
differently next time?
And like, where should we takeit from here?
Those ones like move forward.

Yeah.
Which can be reallyconstructive.
I'm just thinking about severalconflict management type
situations as well, where you'rehaving to take the heat off the
boil.
Partly.

Yeah.

You know, why did you do that?
Even what were you thinking?
That's a different, that's adifferent one.
That's going to be inflammatoryas well.
But I like that because the why,you know, everyone still talks
about Simon Sinek, why I findyou why and everything else, but
starting with the big question,obviously is it's like rabbit in
the headlights type moment for alot of people because you can't
just jump to that in one babystep.
Yeah, it's too much.

The sign and sending work is amazing,
obviously.
And great, great for brands andpositioning work.
I think there is, yes, to findyour personal why for sure is
helpful when you do that.
Vision mapping and goal setting,it's kind of what I was talking
about at the beginning, find outwhere they want to go is
important.
But I think your everydayconversations with someone in
the workplace, if it's too much.
It's too overwhelming forpeople.

(30:10):
And that discovery of findingyour why I think is, can be
quite a personal discovery.

Yeah, definitely.
And so you start with some open,but easy questions.
It sounds like if I can callthem that, but something that
essentially unblocks, it's alittle bit like getting the
conversation, you're easing thewheels into motion, because you
can get people to open upthrough that.
And I think that even in aworkshop scenario, or if you're
running a meeting, some of thatbasic signposting around, why

(30:36):
are we all here?
And this is what we're going tocover today.
And this is what we want to getout of the meeting.
Like it's a bit like that sortof thing.
It makes people feel comfortablethat they know that they're in
the right place before you thengo deeper into what it is you're
going to get out of theexercise.
And that may be, there aredifferent ways to bring out.
Yeah, probably points of view orthoughts around that could,
could contribute to a why typequestion, but what happens after

(30:57):
the opening for you?
Do you work with people overweeks, months, years?
How does that sort ofunderstanding evolve over time?

Yeah.
So in my executive coachingwork, I work with people one on
one and also with groups.
And when I work with theindividuals, I do try and work
with people for about threemonths.
In the beginning, and then theycan kind of click into every now
and then sessions, and I do gothrough at the beginning, I
actually go through someassessments with them around
defining personality style,leadership style.

(31:26):
And I also do, I'm a bigbeliever in stakeholder
interviews.
As well, so if I work withsomeone, I interview as many
people as possible, kind of up,down across their org, their
cheerleaders, and also thepeople that can't stand them.
And that's really importantbecause it helps to bring a
level of self awareness topeople to help them uncover some

(31:46):
of their strengths and we'retalking about confident
humility, like you need to haveself awareness of what those
weaknesses are to be humbleabout them in the first place.
So I do all of that even beforeI get into kind of the coaching
and the questioning with people,that work is really important at
the beginning to get intouncovering some of the insights
and the self awareness.
So by the time I'm working withthem, I have a level of

(32:08):
understanding as well aroundwhere the potential opportunity
is.
Yeah, because with coaching,it's tricky, right?
You're only really responding towhat people bring into the room.
And so you have to get reallygood at noticing when people are
avoiding lines of questioning.
And I have those clients forsure.
And like fireworks are going offhere and they're trying to
distract with funny stories orwhatever.
And if you have to try and bringthem back and if you've done all

(32:29):
that pre work, even if you'resomeone that just works
internally and you're coachingsomeone that reports into you,
just having an understanding ofwhat's happening around them and
speaking to other peopleconsistently, that kind of 360
approach I think is helpful.

Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
There are different ways to findout.
I think I run a lot of designresearch and you going into a
lot of interviews.
Not just stakeholder interviews,but where you're talking to end
customers or consumers in somesort of way, and you're almost
looking for nonverbal cues asmuch as you are about what is
the best way to do this?
Because the way in which theywould surface the answers to
that would be through expressinga point of view about something

(33:04):
completely different, but you'rethe one that's researching and
you can pull those insightstogether to then, build your
understanding of what it is theywould benefit from in the end.
Sure.
Yeah.
Because you can see thatperspective but not everyone has
that perspective, obviously.
I covered this in a previouspodcast you the question as
well, which is around how muchsort of self evaluation, self
awareness, personal critique doyou think is healthy?

Oh, good question.
So you think that there could bea tendency to be too self aware.

Well, I'm just wondering if you're always in
doubt of yourself it's a bitlike, when I think about
organizations that I've been inthat have been changing all the
time, you're like, sometimesI've been in organizations where
you turn up for work every dayand you don't know what's going
to greet you, right?
So it might be, it might be whatsome of what you expect, but it
might be completely different.
I think it's exciting, but atthe same time, it's a bit

(33:51):
unnerving.
So it's a little bit like thatwhen it comes to self critique
and that if you're alwaysquestioning yourself and maybe
there's a seed of self doubtthat would come in quite
regularly.
Is that healthy or do you thinkit needs to be tempered in some
sort of way?

It's so interesting because when you
say, self awareness to me buildsconfidence.
So I don't see self awareness assomething that would increase
the inner critic.
I actually think it buildsconfidence because I think.
The best way you can showconfidence is to be clear about
and honest and aware of thethings that, what you don't know

(34:25):
and where your blind spots are.
So I think having that kind ofself awareness, as long as you,
yeah, don't get stuck in thekind of inner critic of beating
yourself up about, here's allthe things I don't know.
But for me, I've always beenvery curious about that because.
Then I'm going to find thosepeople that compliment me,
right?
Like I know what my strengthsare.
I know what I'm good at and Iknow what I'm not good at.
And so when I've been buildingteams, I'm always making sure

(34:47):
that I'm finding those people.
To be around me.
So then you're in little supersquad and there is obviously,
yes, you're blind spots and youwant to develop them and get
good at them.
But I do think we can place alittle bit too much emphasis on
that.
I think we can place too muchemphasis in it's like the
performance review and they'relike, here's all the things that
you need to work on and we'regoing to.
You know, you need to improve onall of these before you get

(35:09):
promoted.
It's like, okay, but maybe amore effective approach is
actually leaning into tellingthat person, you're also really
amazing at these five things.
And if you actually lent intoall of those and maybe just
developed one of these otherthings, we would be more
successful.
Hmm.

Yeah, I think that's right and fair, self
awareness is it's almost likefrom what you're saying, it's a
foundation for them being ableto bring in that other expertise
and knowing our weaknesses andstrengths, because entrepreneurs
kind of landscape If you'reright, if you're flying up
through the ranks, you almostdon't want to admit that there's
weakness in some cases.
So you've got to find a delicateway of handling that that says,
I, I'm personally aware of it,but I'm not going to sing from

(35:46):
the rooftops about it.
I want to appear to be, stillone of the team, In the way that
I work, you know, I want to havethe support of other team
members.
I want to be still positioned asthe leader, but I don't want to
admit too much weakness.
So is there a way to balance allof that, do you think?

So I'm only smiling now because I think this
is I mean, we're kind of back tothe conference humility piece,
right, which is interestingbecause I do think even hearing
you talk about it and even metalk about this, you know, I
think there's a lot of culturaldifferences that I have
experienced about this idea,whereas I find you and I
probably we're taking more ofthe humble route, you're like,

(36:22):
okay, there's a lot of thingsthat you're going into an
organization and there's a lotof things that you need to work
on.
I think, in my experience, andthis is maybe a generalization,
but just in my experience, Ihave found that the American
leaders, so that kind ofAmerican organizational culture,
if we're looking at thatconfident humility, like two
sides of a coin, they lean moreinto the overconfidence space.

(36:45):
Right.
So like, it's all about,individual.
Success there, your kind ofcareer success is all built
around your individual resume,your success, your results, your
personal brand.
And so they lean really intolike the confidence piece and
maybe lack a bit of thehumility.
Whereas I find Australians andmaybe probably the English a
little bit too.
I think have a tendency.

(37:06):
You know, it's a moreegalitarian society.
It's more about collectivesuccess.
And they're leaning more intothe humility piece.
And they could actually eachtake a little bit, I think the
Australians could be a littlebit more like the Americans in
that sense when they are alittle bit more confident about
what they're doing.
Because I think if you're toohumble, people just won't trust

(37:26):
you.
It just seems like you don'tknow what you're doing.
And the Americans.
Sometimes could use somehumility, obviously, like it
goes both ways but I've reallynoticed that coming back because
I feel like that's something Ireally had to develop in myself
over there, a confidence abouttalking about, I would always be
like, that's the team and dah,dah, dah.
It's like, okay, yes, but it'salso you and you need to be able
to talk about that and thencoming back, even just, I don't

(37:47):
know, being on social media andnow seeing all these different
coaches and professionalsselling their services here and
it's very much through the lensof I made this mistake and it's
all like I've learned from mymistakes, which is good.

Yeah, sit with the problem for a while and just
reflect.
It's a bit of navel gazing, butit's a humble,

Humble brag a little bit.

Humble brag, yeah, but it's more of a moan than a
brag.
I don't know.

But I think it could be too much sometimes,
right, where it's like it'salmost too humble, like, you
know, oh God, you know, yeah, Imade this huge mistake or
everything fell apart and it'slike, I get what they're doing.
And I just, you're trying tocome from a place of humility
and show how you rose out ofthat.
But I think sometimes it canjust seem like you don't know
what you're doing.

Yeah.
It's interesting.
And you need a little bit of,

a little bit of both.

You do.
And, and I think in most, likeeven in Australia or in the UK,
you'll find that there is amixture of both in most
organizations and you've gotthis notion of conventional
traditional leadership where itis portrayed as confident people
doing what they feel confidentabout, there's a bit of swagger
about it.
They're just swanning up anddown the corridors, cup of
coffee, whatever it is, there'sa way of doing that.

(38:51):
And I suppose, because I'mprobably like you're quite right
in pointing out more from ahumble leadership point of view.
Growing up, I always found thatincredibly intimidating and I
think the question around maleleadership in particular and
alpha leadership is interestingwe need a bit of that confidence
for people to feel confident inthat leader, but how much is too
much and how humble should thosepeople be at the same time?

(39:13):
And I think finding your rightfooting in either of those camps
is really hard and it's probablydown to a particular situation.
You can't just be all ornothing.

Yeah, those really confident kind of alpha male
type leaders that you're talkingabout.
And obviously that can be womenas well.
But anyone who leads into thatdominant leadership style, you
need those in organizations.
And there's a reason that CEOsskew into a dominant leadership
style, because you need someonewho does drive forward, who's
obsessed about the outcomes,obsessed about the results, who
overthink things.

(39:41):
You need that person but also itneeds to be balanced with all
the other different styles thatare more around influence and
consensus building and otherpeople that are thinking about
being more steady and cautiousand looking through scenario
planning and making sure thatthis is all going to work.
And any of those people can bereally incredible leaders but
all of those people need alittle bit of all the different

(40:03):
styles.
It's like not one single style,leaning into just one single
style does not make you a greatleader.
I actually think it's yourability to adapt across the
styles that ends up, being moreeffective.

Yeah.
So running through that feelslike self awareness first, and
then empathy, it sounds likewould be the killer weapon there
because you're able tounderstand what other people are
motivated by and you can placeyourself within that mix.
Maybe we'll just end with a,like a final biggest question
points into the future, but alot of an entrepreneur is going
to be listening to the showwondering where to go and what
advice would you give toaspiring leaders or

(40:38):
entrepreneurs that are lookingto facilitate change in some
sort of way or drive growth forthemselves or for their
organizations, it can be inlooking to more confidence or
more humility or any otherthings.
What advice would you give?

I think from a leadership perspective.
The most important thing for anyleader at any stage is to build
trust, build trust within yourorganization, in you as a person
and your leadership and I thinkif I can just talk very quickly
about how I look at that, causeI think it will be helpful.
There is a great book called thespeed of trust.

(41:10):
It's very, I've read that, it'svery, it's really old school.
It hasn't aged well.
I don't recommend reading it,but I just want to say that this
is, this concept is from thatbook.
And so like, I didn'tacknowledge the author, Steven
McCoy, he talks about trustbeing two sides of a coin and it
is competence and character andthat you need to have both of

(41:30):
those things for people to trustyou.
So the competence piece ispeople need to trust that you
know what you're doing, right?
So you need to be able toidentify what your strengths are
and find moments to lean intothose strengths as regularly as
possible and as publicly aspossible.
I think that's important, so, ifyou're really good at the
communication piece, then findmoments to be able to writing

(41:54):
some of the companycommunications, or put your hand
up to kind of speak at an allcompany meeting, like find
moments to lean into thosestrengths, because if people see
you as more competent thanthey're going to trust you more.
However, the other side of thatis the character piece.
So you can be the mostincredible person at your craft,
but if you don't follow throughon what you say you're going to

(42:15):
do, if you're not consistent, ifyou're talking shit about
people, all the things, it'sgoing to reflect poorly on your
character and people aren'tgoing to trust you.
And I think obviously leadershipis a huge topic, but in many
ways, all roads lead back totrust because what you're doing
is trying to guide peoplethrough the unknown and get
them, convince them to followyou into the unknown and

(42:36):
convince them to drive changewith you.
And no one's going to follow youinto the unknown if they don't
trust you.
So I think working on those twothings would be the most
important advice I would giveanyone.

Yeah.
That's really helpful advice.
But you say, don't read thebook.
Just take that advice.

It's so old school at this point.
I just, it's like HewlettPackard.
And I'm like, Oh my God.
Yeah.
It's about Hewlett Packard andit's like, who?
So yeah, I think there's moremodern voices on leadership at
this point.
Oh, awesome.
Thanks.
Thanks

for unearthing it and bringing it, bringing it to
the podcast and, you know,giving it new lease of life.
Anyway.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah, really, really cool and Ilove the chat today.
And how can people get in touchwith you if they wanna say hi
or, or ask you a question?
Yeah.
Or get executive leadershipcoaching in some sort of way.

Love it.
I do have a website, that is.
Melior-futuri.Com, so M E L I OR dash F U T U R I com I also
have a sub stack where I have abunch of newsletters that I put
out and that's about to be kindof ever expanding.
So that's Melior Musings on substacks.
You can find me there and myMelior Futuri Instagram.

Awesome.
All right.
Thanks.
We'll leave it there.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, I'll put it in theshow notes and yeah, we'll say
goodbye there.
Thank you.

Thank you so much.

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E70 The Draw of Change: Balancing creativity, confidence and humility

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