95. Top 50 Global Management Thought Leader Shares Secrets About Transforming People & Businesses with Friska Wirya

Hey, you as leaders, your actions have a direct effect to adoption, engagement and obviously these dollars that you want so badly. I said, look, you can spend a reasonable amount of time engaging your people and getting buy in, or you can spend an unreasonable amount of time fighting resistance till the very bitter end and it's going to cost you more. So which is it?

In your TED Talk you said 80% failure rate of change initiatives.

Yeah.

Do you ever encounter just huge resistance?

Totally. Oh my God. And this example that I'm going to tell you goes to show it's not about the number of people, it's about how against the change that they are. Funny enough, it was in Perth, so your hometown, I probably know.

Welcome back to the bennebergs podcast. I'm Ben, your favorite high school dropout and founder of Collective Shift. Alongside me is Bergs, your favorite MBA and COO of Collective Shift, Australia's leading crypto portfolio insights company, providing professional analysis and portfolio strategies for crypto investors like you. We are a unique blend of the established and the self made. And we're here to break down crypto business and personal growth. But we're not here to just talk shit. We give you the insights that you need to make better investments, build successful businesses and level up your life. And today we have another fantastic guest on the show. Friska Wiria is the powerhouse behind Fresh by Frisker, a change management consulting, coaching, facilitation and training service for executives, teams and businesses. And I thought Friska would be amazing guest to come on the show today because I met her when I did my TedX talk and unfortunately she was before me, so mine was dreadful coming on after her.

Thank you so much. I know it's taking a while to get in the same location, but thanks for jumping on.

No, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Now with our audience, we tend to talk mainly crypto and personal growth. But you know, you're. I was kind of describing our audience to you before the show and you literally said that's who I talk to every day. You know, executives, professionals, business owners. I would love for you to like, you know, talk a little bit about, you know, what you do exactly, and a little bit of backstory of how you've gotten to this point.

So the layman's way that I like to explain it is that I help large, complex organizations improve how they operate and that translates into improved profitability, reduced risk.

Increased employee engagement and morale. So basically I help them change and then I help that change stick. It could be Changes of all shapes and sizes. It could be for example, one of my current clients, very large engineering company, they're going through a big restructure in the Asia Pacific region. And before that I was helping the world's largest family owned business implement a large scale ERP system. So it could be a technological, structural or cultural change.

Amazing. Very people driven.

I must imagine it is. Yeah. So it's the people side of digital transformation. So making sure they're ready to become aware of the change, want to adopt it, want to use it, not scared they're going to be automated out of a job and upskilling their proficiency.

Amazing. And one of the, I mean just the. In the TEDx talk that you're delivering, one of the things that you know made me really engage in your talk was just how passionate you are about, you know, change management. What gets you excited about it like why, why build your life and brand around, you know that area?

I get bored easily and I like to do different things all the time. And the thing with change is it's not a cookie cutter set and forget approach because every company is different, every CEO is different, every leadership team is different, every culture is different. And therefore it keeps my brain firing. So I was in general management consulting before I started to specialize in change. And I just felt every day was like Groundhog Day. I was doing the same thing. It seemed like it was just the same problem, the same solution that's being prescribed, just a different logo. And change management was starting to be recognized as a discipline. And it really intrigued me. It played to my strengths. I'm very good at communication, very good at interpersonal skills. And so I took a big bet on myself. I took a 40% pay cut to start from nothing. Start as a lowly change analyst that did all the crappy jobs, you know all the admin stuff and just work my way up with unwavering dedication and laser like focus. And fast forward seven years later. I was the youngest head of change for the biggest gold mining company in the southern hemisphere.

That's amazing. Well done. Now I know Bergs is super fired up about this episode. He's done a lot of prep so I'm gonna hand over to him because he got it.

I love this. This is right up my alley. So it's change management. You're also a fellow mba. Love it. Absolutely. Great. And you're so right. So I used to work in digital as a chief digital officer at a large hospital. Digital transformation. So I'm the guy that went zero to One built the apps, built the teams, worked with clinicians, had these great solutions and when we kind of implemented it, productionized it, or even if we bought something off the shelf, there was almost zero budget and attention for change management and they spent heaps on the tech and then the change when it was implemented just failed miserably. And I want to know like, what are you seeing in the industry and what do you kind of recommend in terms of digital transformation? What does a good digital transformation look like to have the most chance of success?

And what you've just described is unfortunately, people buy, people don't buy prevention, they buy cure. And often that cure is very, very expensive. So what I recommend early on, I've also gone through a similar experience where the tech team went, you know, 10 steps ahead building something, it's like, oh, it's amazing. Then they handball it over the fence and the users are like, what's this shit? Yeah, what am I supposed to do with this? So number one, first and foremost, early and frequent engagement. It's definitely not a one off thing. Change management is a process and you don't just communicate about the change once. So early involvement in education is critical and also have the right person leading the change. So often it's defaulted to oh, who's the most senior person in the room or who's available, you know, but it has to be who's made of the right stuff, who will roll up their sleeves and manage resistance with particular difficult stakeholders, not handball it to someone else to do so. It's, it's more than being who's the senior person in the room, it's who's got the right qualities. A change leader needs to be a coach, a communicator, an advocate, a liaison and a resistance manager. So if they can't do all those five roles, then keep on looking for someone else that can.

That's fascinating where you're so right. People just want the big bang and it's like, hey, I've built all this stuff. Next week we're going to implement it and it's going to be amazing. That's not how people work. You've got changeover, you've got multiple systems, some parts work, some don't. So I really like that early engagement. And often and people tend to want extreme outputs without extreme inputs. You kind of see that.

Totally agree, totally agree. Like I, and you know, I often lay out a full blown strategy for a client and they'll be like, oh damn, that's a lot of work. Like even before we get, you know, boots on the ground. I said, look, you can spend a reasonable amount of time engaging your people and getting buy in, or you can spend an unreasonable amount of time fighting resistance till the very bitter end and it's going to cost you more. So which is it? You know, it's either the short term pain and effort or it's continuous long term hemorrhaging, lost productivity.

Oh, exactly. And a lot of that comes from fixed costs which they might not look at because you know, change is a variable cost. So I'm really fascinated. Like, so you go into these organizations, quite large organizations, and how do you convince executives to spend on change management? And then after that, like how, what are the first steps when you go into an org? What do you do to actually guide them down that change management path and help them out?

So when they knock on my door, they already sold that they need change because something's not working right. People are disengaged, there's resistance. They're not getting the value from their investments in technology. But if someone's on the fence, I just ask them usually this one question, like you've got this big transformation agenda or this big sexy project, tell me the benefits that you've written in your business case there. What percentage of those benefits depend on people doing something differently? The number is usually either 90 or 100%. So really what you're saying is, you know, it's a big risk mitigation exercise and if you're willing to gamble 90% of those benefits on whether or not you get change management expertise, then you're insane. So usually that's what I ask them and I get them to think about all the changes that have gone really wrong in the organization and how it made them feel. And usually it's like, oh, okay, it would have been resolved through stakeholder engagement, you know, early communication, having the right sponsor, da da da da. So it's this big production that happens. It's not just write a fluffy comms or roll out some training. It's a disciplined, rigorous process to reprogram the way people perceive a particular change in your organization.

That's amazing. So everyone listening. I just want you to acknowledge greatness. Right here you see a true professional walk in like an absolute gangster. Yeah, this is what's going to happen. Do you want choice A or B? And you make it so they can't say no, that is brilliant. Or they say, they say no and their entire thing fails and they look like an idiot hiring you.

Thanks. I'll give you 50 bucks after that.

I absolutely love it.

Frisky. Like I, I've never worked in corporate so I would love for you to like, you know, go like real micron. Like how does this actually look on a day to day level when you come in and are you talking to you bring everyone in a room and you're delivering communications, Is it one on one? Like how do you deliver such massive change with a huge organization like that?

So the answer is not alone. So I am the change architect. So usually when I come in I try to understand what is, what is it that the company is trying to achieve, where do they want to go? And I look at where, where are they today? When I say where they are today, it's not just how many people and literally where they're located, it's what's their past history with changes. Why has it failed? Which ones went well? Who are the movers and shakers in the organization? Who are the influences and influences? Doesn't mean again, who's on the senior leadership team? But who is that trusted voice that people turn to to say, hey, is this change BS or not? Tell me because I trust you. You know, someone that's been there and knows how to get things done in terms of how does change happen? It happens one on one, on an individual basis. And for a very large organization. It's not just me. I have people supporting me. I get the client to nominate an implementation team because the best changes are not changes that I do to you. The best changes are those that you own and you take carriage of. And usually I'll ask them for what I call people who are change agents. And I create a network, so to speak. So for example, I was leading a big heart and lung transplant of a tech project for WA police. And the stakes were literally life and death. Like imagine sending a helicopter in the wrong direction or, or you know, stuffing up a triple zero call. And for that they had 1.5 million people that depended on this. So it was the platform that tracked, audited and managed triple zero calls for assistance. And I said, right, well here's all the police stations, here's all the geographic regions. And I sat down with the commander and said, who, who do you trust in each of these locations? And there was a lot. It's probably the most number of change agents I've had. 120 people. And the key is they are my arms and legs. So they feed information back to me. They tell me how people are thinking and feeling about it, what are the blocks? Like I'M just one person. I can't be everywhere at once. So really, getting the right support team around you is how you make change happen.

Fascinating.

And do you ever. I completely agree with change advocates, finding advocates and change agents because they're the ones that really drive change and it's coming from their peers, so they might look more likely to listen to them. And when you go into an organization, do you ever find where there's a culture that's just so resistant to change? Like even in your TED Talk, you said 80%. There's an 80% failure rate of change initiatives.

Yeah.

Do you ever encounter just huge resistance and really like pushed up against it?

Totally. Oh, my God. And, and it's. And this goes. This example that I'm going to tell you goes to show it's not about the number of people, it's about how against the change that they are. So it was actually a small number of people, about 600 or so. Government organization. Funnily enough, it was in Perth. So your hometown.

I probably know him. Yeah, I'm not gonna mention the shop.

I used to work this small man.

Yeah, yeah.

But long story short, the, the big. The change was multi dimensional. So they were moving from a very old, decrepit 1960s office building in the CBD to Cockburn. And this is going back nearly 10 years ago. So back then Cockburn, you could see tumbleweeds flying around, Right. There was nothing there. And they were like, God, I don't want to move from the city. It's so convenient. You know, I just take the bus or the train or whatever. And it was bad because there was a lot of sabotage. I was the fifth consultant in the door, new CEO, Massive bushfire emergency happening at the time. So resistance was sky high. And there was all sorts of gossip flying around, like people saying trains are unsafe and dirty. It's going to take me an hour and a half to get there from the city. It's confusing.

But they never talked about the benefits. And I realized I had to get them to experience the benefits by themselves. I can talk till I'm blue in the face, but that's not going to happen. So it was a predominantly older workforce and I was like, right, I'm going to kill a few birds with one stone. So I personally went to the new building and it was a brand spanking new $27 million building. You know, architecturally designed, sustainable, blah, blah, blah, and very different to the way that they were working right now, which was no natural light. So I went there and I Thought I need to get creative. Being a government organization didn't have a lot of budget. So I literally walked around to all the new businesses in that Cockburn Gateway shopping Center. I said, look, this is what's happening. I'm bringing. I'm going to be bringing 500, 600 people here. New government building. What can you offer? And they were so generous because they were new businesses, too. And I got so much free stuff, like free coffee vouchers, dry cleaning, free calendars, pans, like every. It was like a goodie bag, right? And it goes to show, little things mean a lot. It's the gesture and the effort that's appreciated. And then I went to the Public Transport Authority and I said, look, I got X couple hundred people. Can you give do me a deal on the Transperth discount cards thing? And they did. I was like, great. And I should have been like a tour guide in a previous life because I literally took them 20 at a time with me from Perth CBD to Cockburn on the train. I literally taught them to swipe on and swipe off, like, because, like, these are people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and yeah, I took them there. And when I got there, you know, they felt so special. They were like kids in a candy store. They were like, oh, my God, the new building's amazing. Look at our new technology. Our furniture is amazing. And then I gave them the goodie bags and it was a great experience for everybody. And then, yeah, took them all back with me on the train back to city. And what? Don't get me wrong, when I came back, there were still really resistant people, but those naysayers were no longer loud and proud. And what meant a lot for me is that a week later, when one of the guys that I took on the train said, friska, you know what? I was so excited. That was the first time I've ever taken the train. And this was when that new link had just been unveiled, because I went back a few days later and took my granddaughter. She loved it, you know, but how many people take the trouble to do what I just did, right? They'll usually, like, announce it at a town hall. They'll be like, suck it up, it's happening. Blah, blah, blah. What they don't realize is they may think they're saving effort and money by not going the extra mile, but the number of corridor conversations that people have and bitch about your lack of effort, like, you can't quantify that. It's way more than the effort that I expended to do that with them, you know, to actually be there and cultivate, create this positive experience for them.

Yeah. And when you don't show people the thing, they'll fill it in with their own minds. It's going to be bad, it's going to be this. But you've taken them on the journey, have experienced it themselves and you've put the human first, like, what are they going to experience? What are the benefits for them? And I went through a similar thing with Fiona Stanley Hospital when that opened. So I was at Raw Perth Hospital and I was smashing Fremantle Hospital and Raw Perth together and everyone was against us moving. And my boss at the time got on the TV and she was just like, it's fantastic. We're going to have a new facility, we're going to have this, we're going to have that, it's bigger, it's better, it's great. And then she did a similar thing, taking the teams out to show them around and what it's going to mean for them. Hey, now, you've got this room, you've got this facility and you've got this. Because exactly the same thing. I live up north, I have to drive all the way there, there's a freeway, there's train, I don't want to catch it. And a lot of people came on board. That part was good, but the bad part was, like, the next two or three years we needed to hire someone like you because honestly, what they were doing was imagine you've got two departments, one Frio, one Raw Perth, you got two heads of department, you do things completely differently. Differently, Yep. They were just smashed together and all of a sudden you got one head, different teams doing different things. The change management was so poor. We were interfacing with new external service providers and it was just crazy. Like, the job doesn't end there. There is so much more to do across that.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah, it's. It's fascinating how deep this actually goes. And.

One thing I want to talk about is you did a huge piece of change and this was a COVID 19 digital response and this was for a top university and I'd like you to just tell us a bit about it, because this is almost like a crisis that happens, like a really difficult situation and they're like, okay, we have to pivot our entire business. And then you come in. How did, how did that work? What did you do for these, this university and how did it all turn out?

So what I was brought on, brought on to do was completely different to What I ended up doing. So I was supposed to create a digital transformation kind of playbook, right? When changes happen in the organization, this is what we do at each step of the way. But then Covid hit six weeks later and my entire engagement just got flipped on its head. And what was most difficult about that one is we didn't know what, like the instructions were so confusing. It was like, go home, everybody. Work from home. Oh, wait, everybody come back. Everybody go home. And a lot of these. And you know, when you think it's 165 year old heritage institution, they've always done things a certain way. For me, the most difficult part there was what you just said. You know, different heads of department, different deans, and they all had done things a different way. It was getting that consistency in a really short amount of time. And often the upskilling leap from getting professors that were used to lecturing in person to a, to a stadium of like, you know, 100, 200 students suddenly talking to a zoom. Like, you don't, you don't get that skill like overnight, you know, so yes, in the beginning it was crap. Like, you know, they had the mute button on, couldn't present their slides and blah, blah, blah. And, and obviously everybody's mental health was through the floor. Like we were all confused, we were all at home, didn't know when we were ever going to come back. And yeah, that was the most challenging thing. So most challenging thing was the big upskill in working remotely. Number two would be the widely varying subcultures, processes and really strong personalities of the different departments. And lastly, number three, decision making was really slow because, I mean, who the hell's lived through a pandemic? None of us. And you can imagine decision making in an institution like that is already slow. So many different layers and we simply couldn't wait for all the necessary approvals. So often we just ask for forgiveness rather than permission.

Yeah.

Frisky. You also achieved a pretty massive saving at a gold mining company. US $170 million annual savings at this gold mining company. Can you share a story or tactic that you know, was particularly pivotal in reaching that large, like saving?

Yeah.

So I had only been in that business for about six weeks before I had to present my digital adoption plan. And I was nervous because it was all the senior leadership team. I was the new kid on the block.

And long story short, it went really well because I drew parallels what no other consultant had done before, which is, hey, you, you. As leaders, your actions have a direct effect to adoption, engagement, and obviously these dollars that you want so badly. So I laid out a plan very clearly and succinctly. And what I realized there is sometimes you have to work from the outside in. And what I mean by that was everybody except the CEO was like, this is amazing.

He literally scoffed at me and said I've seen this all before and that's like a red rag tool bull. I was like, okay, I'm going to show you. So there was no credibility on, on anything tech. They, he, he regarded tech as, you know, people you call when my laptop breaks, it's not, it wasn't regarded as a value adding partner or, or the body to the, to the corporate body. It was regarded as an appendix. I like. Right, okay. And so I had to get inside this person's head. I had to figure out who he respected, who he listened to, what was going to turn him around. And I then proceeded on. I think it was a good six months. I like a, what would you call it? Like, like a brainwashing agenda. Actually I got seen. Well, not, not I, but the program that I was trying to push got seen in the right papers, in the right website. We want to Swift of awards launched our own crowd sourcing platform. And it was a strategic reprogramming of what he thought of this change. And long story short, nine months later he was eating humble pie and accepting an award for the work that the tech team had done. And after that it got so much easier to get budget, to get resources, to get funding for the things that we, we were trying to achieve. So that was, I would say, the, the catalyst to be able to achieve that, those sort of results. Number two would be like, everybody loves a good story. So the way that the team were trying to get budget was Excel spreadsheet. Numbers, numbers, numbers. Some words, very technical. I was like, right, that's not really telling a story. If I just saw a bunch of numbers, quite big numbers, I'd be like, no. And so I thought I said, look, we need to kind of tell our story differently. And what I did was present it in pictures. So I mapped out the value chain of the mining process, you know, from digging, refining, leaching, blah, blah, blah, blah. Very pictorial. And then I overlaid the digital transformation initiatives across each one. Which ones were in flight, which ones had yet to be started, which ones needed funding. And then I assigned dollar figures not of the cost but of the benefits. Benefits in terms of dollars, safety and productivity. And simply by telling the story in a different way, really bringing it to life and driving the emotions and mapping it out in a, in a process that they understood like the back of their hands. It was a lot more easily done to, to get that sort of support that we needed.

I love it.

Absolutely. That's okay. Let's pick this apart. That was one of the greatest Shawshanks in history, honestly. And sometimes you need to do this where you know your CEOs against something and there's a lot of people in your organization that want that change. And you went for a bottom up strategy. So you started building the at ground level and also going outside and starting the conversation. So people start to talk to the CEO about it and they can't ignore.

They couldn't deny it anymore. That's exactly what I did. Yep.

Yeah. And then you made the CEO look good. So you're winning awards and then they're accepting awards. So they have to acknowledge the thing and join the conversation because their board members are going to start asking them about it. The other employees are going to start asking for it. And just how you described and this is a good lesson for everyone out there. When you're describing something to someone or you want budget from your CEO, spreadsheets ain't gonna do it. You need to tell a story, you need a narrative, you need to see where they're going strategically and directionally and just have that resource benefit calculation, make it plain as day and just make it so that they can't say no. I love that story. There is so much to unpick in there. And I'm just wondering as well, like all the stuff you're doing, it's like really high stakes stuff, right? You're there with the leadership team. There's a big piece of change. It sounds like there's like a lot on the line all the time and you're doing a lot of this work and as well as running your own business, what do you do to stay sane through all of this?

How do you manage it? Because it just sounds like, it sounds like you get a lot of energy from it. But it also sounds like, wow, I'm thrown into this situation and I have to figure it all out and I have to be really creative in there. There seems to be a lot on the line.

Yeah. How do I keep myself sane? So what is my self care ritual? Okay, I'll tell you what I do. What's a non negotiable for me pretty much every day, no matter where I am in the world. Eight hours sleep minimum.

Green smoothie.

Pilates, go for a walk in nature and those things give me perspective. And if I'm really feeling the pressure and think, oh God, this is not going to work. Like, not, yes, it's high stakes, but none of the change programs that I'm working on now were like the life and death impact of WA Police. And once you've gone through that and you're like, oh, you know, if I stuff this up, 1.5 million people could be in jeopardy. Everything else kind of pales in comparison. So that's how I gain my perspective and not freak out.

Yeah, it's so important to have a routine. And before we started the pod, you said something as well, like, you're a lifelong learner and I'm fascinated by that. I love learning as well. And what do you kind of, what do you do to keep yourself across change management or keep yourself learning and your mind just expanding? What do you go to? Like, do you do courses, do you read? What things you're into at the moment?

All of the above. Like, for example, last night I watched Ms. Peony at the Melbourne Arts Center. So I, I like to be exposed to creative concepts because that even though it's a light hearted, funny play.

It showed how people walk around burdened by other people's expectations and it showed how your ethnic culture, even though you may be second, third generation, still plays such a strong part in how you view yourself, how you communicate, how you engage with people and everything. All these experience further enrich my change management practice. Like, I can learn something from, from everybody. I try to, yes, I do learn something every year. So last year it was the Emotional Culture Deck certification. This year I'm looking to do Brene Brown's Leadership Facilitation course. Reading books. I would love to say I read a new book every month, but it doesn't happen because I'm quite busy. So instead I do listen to a few podcasts and I try to kind of diversify my podcast, not just one particular topic to further kind of amplify my knowledge base. I meet new people every single month. Whether it's on LinkedIn, whether they message me at an event or some sort, I always manage to learn something new. So I was in Jakarta two weeks ago. I reached out to this young lady on Instagram actually, and she kind of rose to fame because she created the first ever body positivity social media account. So documenting her battles with anorexia and bulimia. And for the Asian culture, that is very out there, that's like very unheard of. And I admired her. She's significantly younger than me. But I learned a lot of things from her. I learned about how to build a virtual community, how to take a Gen Z selfie. I had no idea what the hell that was, you know, and. And I find that just being open to meeting different people really enriches, you know, what, you know, how you engage. And it makes me a better person because then I can relate to more people that I come across in these organizations that I consult to.

That's amazing. And just putting like your business to the side for a minute, just the daily activities you're doing so your self care, getting out in nature, having a green smoothie, doing pilates, but then also expanding your mind through learning and meeting new people. You're almost compounding and setting yourself up for success no matter what else happens along the way. It's phenomenal. It's something that Ben's really into, like, just really into personal growth and constantly learning, experiencing new things and then applying that to your craft.

Yeah, I wanted. Fantastic. I wanted to talk more about your business side and, you know, you're. You're, you know, unbelievably skilled in, in what you do. How have you then packaged that up to develop your own venture? And, you know, how do you. How do you contract with businesses? How do you get more clients? How do you think about that and how long you've been doing the fresh.

By so new is the answer. I chose the worst time ever to start my business. November 2019. You know, I was sick of working for the man. I was like, on a plane every three weeks. And it wasn't your corporate, cushy, Melbourne, Sydney route. It was, you know, Melbourne, Port Moresby in a helicopter up at like, you know, at Pharaoh spot to like, get a. Get on this plane as you do when you're in those sort of industries. And I thought there must be a better way to make a buck. I wanted more control over where, when, and how much I worked. Never started a business before, but. But I was like, look, and I was two weeks away from speaking at a conference, and I was like, I either need to decide to commit to this or go back into corporate. And because I didn't know at the time, my business evolved. Literally.

It was a very emergent path. Like, I literally like, okay, I'm speaking at a conference. I can't rock up with nothing. Go on Squarespace, download a template, whack my photo on it. Like, it happened that organically, you know, And.

I think six weeks in, I was whinging to a Friend of mine, I was like, oh, no one's knocking on my door. I don't have clients. And I was like, I've failed. And he's like, look, you need to take a taste of your own medicine. You tell other people in very large organizations to change yourself. Haven't changed. The only thing standing away with where you are today, with where you want to be, is obscurity. You need to get out there. I was like, what do you mean by out there? It was, you know, like, you're B2B. Get on LinkedIn, start publishing. I said, yeah, I do my articles once a month. And they're like, no, no, honey. Like, you're very good at writing, but articles are dead. You need to diversify. And at that time, video content was being prioritized by the algorithm. And he said, I want you to promise me you'll do one video a week, and if after three months you get nothing, I'll shut up and I'll stop bothering you. And I came up with every excuse under the book, like, I don't have a professional studio, I don't have the kit, and blah, blah, blah. And he. This friend of mine is a very viral influencer. And he said, the best videos that get traction from me is me walking down Pitt street, like, jabbering away on my mobile phone. He's like, don't worry, I'll support you. I was like, okay. And so I did my first one, of course. I messaged all my friends and said, don't make me look like a loser, Please like it.

And so. But, you know, I did it and I kept on doing it. Long story short, after six weeks, that's how the University of Melbourne found me. And my business is built on LinkedIn and referrals at the end of the day. So 80% comes from LinkedIn. So the people that say, oh, LinkedIn doesn't work. It's a bunch of Facebook stuff, posts and blah, blah, blah. It's, it's. It's a. There's an art to it. You know, it's not just about the content. It's actually about the community as well. There's no point publishing content if you don't have the community. So you need to actually be proactive and reach out to the people, not. Not necessarily that you're trying to close them to do business with. But you're like, oh, what you're doing is interesting. I think you could add value to my network. So every week I connect with people.

That's awesome. And we've you know, been, been going down a similar path the last six months. And I think, you know, what's hard about social media, I think, is that they're all different. And what works on LinkedIn won't work on Twitter, doesn't work on YouTube. Doesn't work on YouTube.

Totally.

And you've probably been through that, right? But I think, I mean, LinkedIn's an amazing platform for B2B. How did you grow your channels in terms of the content? Obviously you knew that there's a strategy to it, there's a way to go about it. Did you learn? Did you do courses? Did you just figure it out on your own?

I didn't do a course. I experimented and I learned and I took note of what went viral and what didn't, and I just did more of that. Yeah. And I also, I think every, I just do it naturally. I think every two months or so I'll read up on the algorithm, like, has it changed? What should I do? And I'll, and I'll experiment. So. And I want to also tell people that don't be attached to vanity metrics. Like, just because your post only got 50 likes doesn't mean it's, it's crap. Like, it's not about the numbers, it's about the quality of the people seeing your stuff. So the better your quality, the better your network. And, and really it's, it's a snowball effect and it takes consistency, it takes commitment. But, but yeah, it's, it's effort well spent, I would say, because one deal alone for me, which was that big engineering company, also came from LinkedIn. Message the CEO, you know, follow up, follow up. As you know, the money's in the follow up that turned out to be a $200,000 deal. Yeah, that's, you know, so whatever support you need, like if you like get a va, brainstorm the kind of, kinds of stuff that you want to talk about. Like, you may think you don't have anything to say, but it's just, remember you are the content. It's, it's your unique perspective and your spin on things. You know, everybody knows about, I don't know the, the Ad Car framework or Six Sigma or whatnot, but what's your spin on it? What do you find is interesting about it? That's what people come for.

I just want to touch on one thing you mentioned there. The money's in the, in the follow up in that sales process. Like, are you managing all the pipeline yourself and then, or you've got the VA to help.

I've got a VA to help.

Amazing. And then those like, I assume there's a lot of negotiation, not even negotiation, but even you just communicating. So taking a step back, one thing that we find difficult in our space is we're trying to communicate what we're doing and why it's going to save you so much money if you go out and do it on your own. That's great. But these are, you're probably going to get scammed. You're going to invest in the wrong things. You don't really know what you're doing. It's going to take a bunch of time versus the fast track path, you know, in your space, I assume it's, it's just as complicated. And since you're having to communicate all the benefits of what you're doing versus what they're currently doing and why it's not, you know, working. How does those conversations go? What does a pipeline look for you in terms of like the timeline it takes to close deals? How much, you know, is that a lot of effort?

It is. I, and I find some, sometimes the, the most unexpected deals like come from nowhere.

It really depends on the organization. Like sometimes they're really, it's an urgent need and you know, they've already seen me on LinkedIn or at a conference or whatever. They're already sold and that's really fast. That's like two, three months. But that's also for a smaller piece of work. It could be a workshop. I could be speaking at their leadership off site. I could be designing a transformation program for them. But if it's a more hands on.

Engagement, I'd say it could take anywhere from six months to 15 months.

It's a long.

Yeah. And it's not just about them vetting me, but it takes that long to get the budget, get the approval, you know, especially for these large organizations. And then someone resigns and then you start the process all over again and all that pre sales effort has gone down the toilet.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's fascinating. Both you go, I'm interested in the sales side.

Oh, so am I. And. Oh, okay. I want to talk about your particular brand and your brand feel and kind of how you decided on it and who you help to engage you with it. And I've got your website up here and I'm going to talk you through it. So I've loaded up the website and this is what I feel.

Right.

First of all, you've got this picture of yourself with your jacket draped over yourself, looking contemplatively out. And it's a black and white photo. You've got the social proof of all your awards and you've got a contemporary approach to change. Immediately, I feel that just signals to me you're capable, you know what you're doing. I could see her standing in my boardroom or wherever it is, leading a bunch of people. You've got your connect with Frisco call to action. And as I scroll down the page, you've got all the people you work with and then you've got meet your change catalyst. And just the next photo where you're wearing a kind of. I don't even know how to describe the color burgundy, frilly type thing.

Oh, yes.

But you're just so engaging and the way that you're able to communicate that through your website, the particular style choices. Are you able to kind of talk us through how you decided on this and who helped you with it? And actually communicating what I'm getting in person through your website, because that's a phenomenal skill.

Oh, thank you. I. I did it myself.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So I, I've always had a passion for fashion.

I've always been interested in personal style and interiors and aesthetics etc, so it came very naturally to me. As an aside, the number of times that I got get asked after I'm at an event or whatever, how I put together a certain look. I was so sick of getting asked that I actually started a. A side hustle, which is an executive styling, personal branding business. Like, because people kept on asking me, like, right, fine, then if you want to book for a consult, here's how much it'll cost you. But long story short, it's because I have deep empathy and I know who I'm trying to communicate with because that's what I do. As a change management professional, I'm thinking, who needs to be involved here? What are their fears? What are their desires? What's going to get them to trust in this particular change when all the previous ones have failed? I just put myself in their shoes and think, okay, what's going to signal credibility? What's going to signal trust? Like, what are they looking for? And then I embody those qualities.

That's amazing because as, as an executive falls to hire someone, you're. I'm getting that feeling from you. I'm already confident you can do that for my people.

Yeah. And that's why social proof is so important. Like, I'm going to be completely honest in the beginning because I was fresh I just started. I didn't have the social proof, right? I didn't come from a McKinsey or a Bain or a Deloitte. And when, during COVID I used that time to elevate my personal brand and establish that credibility and stuff. And when you're first starting, you have to do a lot of stuff for free. You know, I spoke at Microsoft for free to get their logo, like all these big logos. I wanted their social proof. And sometimes that's what you have to do when you, when you're starting from zero because people don't know you. And ironically, even though it was the most change any of us had seen in our entire lifetimes, executives were not used to hiring consultants on the other end of Zoom that didn't come from a big consulting house. And so it was a blessing in disguise, I think, because everybody was at home, everybody was bored out of their minds, very open to connecting, being educated and entertained and inspired on LinkedIn. So I leverage that to my advantage. Yeah.

Fantastic. What about, like, your personal. So you're speaking, you're a great speaker. You know, you come into these new environments, you're speaking to brand new people and you're trying to convince them things, right? People are very quick to judge. What are the things that you can give advice to, to people whether they want to be speaking or whether they're doing leadership positions where they are going into new environments, trying to, you know, be someone and communicate something. What are the tips that you can provide to people to. To, you know, improve the quality or the, you know, ways they can.

They're speaking. Yeah. I'll tell you my TEDx rehearsal regimen then, because people.

Are just besotted with that talk. They're like, oh, my God, your hand actions and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, okay. And they're like, oh, you just, you're just blessed. Like, guys, I'm not blessed. I work my ass off for it. FYI, much like you, every single moment was spent rehearsing. And, you know, and because neither of us had done a TED Talk before, I literally typed in TEDx rehearsal tips. And one of them I really liked. This guy said, look, because it's a new audience, you should practice your talk in front of fake audiences. And you can literally type fake audience into YouTube and there's literally fake audiences that will look at you. So then when you're on the TEDx stage, you're not kind of, oh, my God, this is new because you have all these eyeballs looking at you. It's like I've done this all before. I've done this all before. So that was one of my strategies. Number two is that the body really remembers locations and it unfortunately it anchors you to a certain location. So I was very cognizant to practice my talk in many different locations. Not just the study, like not just the living room. So as many locations as possible. So then when you're in the new location, which is in the TEDx talk, you're not freaked out again. And number three, I did a lot of research in why did some TED talks go viral and some flop when they were, the person had the same credibility. They were talking about similar topics, same number of minutes and it was because the other person was so cohesive and what they were saying and their gestures completely aligned. So I did a lot of research into advanced hand gestures and I literally wrote down on my talk where to insert each gesture. Then I practice, practice, practice. And when I say practice, it's like two, three hour day commitment. I recorded myself speaking. I would listen to it five times in the morning. So five times 15 minutes. You can imagine how much time that took. Five times at night. So it would sink into my brain. And that's why on the TEDx stage it was flawless. I think you only get nervous if you haven't put in the hard yards. So don't expect perfection if you're not expect if you cannot be bothered putting in that sort of input.

I love that. And it my like I'm getting sweaty palms because I remember, I remember like this time last year, about a month out and it just was like it was consuming. It's all I could think about was this talk like morning, night, breakfast, like a dream of it. I'd have nightmares on my talk.

Yeah, you were exactly like that. You were just, you were shitting yourself. Like, oh man, I got this talk and the review process in the background is quite stringent as well. Like you have to send your talk in, they review it, it comes back and Ben's like, fuck, I just can't be fucked. So I have to write it.

Typical Ben response.

But then he rocks up to talks he's doing. He's getting people to record him as well and he's reviewing it and then you have to stand on stage and you don't get any notes or anything. It just has to be on the fly. Perfect, one go. It's, it sounds harrowing and you can't.

Move from that red dot. But you know, but, but if you've got put in the Hard yards. That muscle memory just springs back to life. Like, okay, a lot of people don't know this, but literally about three seconds before I walked on stage, I was having a major panic attack. Why? Because if you look at my talk, I use. Because we didn't have slides, etcetera, I used props. I wanted to storytell with things. And I had a little toy granny and a little toy Ferrari. Somehow on my walk from the green room, I lost my little granny. And she was the funniest part of my talk. She was the punchline. And the volunteers in the back were like, we've looked everywhere. We can't find Granny. And they're like, can you do your talk without it? I was like, yes, but it'll be shit. I really need to find Grant. I literally crawled on my hands and knees and backtracked my way because she was tiny and backtracked my way from the green room back to the back to the stage, and I found her jammed into a door. And so I literally just found her before I walked on stage. And I was like. So when she. When I was being introduced, I was still like, calm down, calm down. Because my heart was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. But no one. No one knew because I'd put in so much effort, and I went blank because I was so stressed out. But I kept on saying, what's the first sentence? What's the first sentence? And after I said the first sentence, it just flowed naturally. Yeah.

I think that's one of the things that I've learned doing more presentations is, like. Goes wrong.

Yeah.

Like, it just. It's just never going to be perfect. You know, the microphone might work or you do a presentation, realize the audience is not going to get any value in that, and you've just got to scrap that and just go with something else. Or, you know, last night I had a full presentation. I couldn't share my screen live. So you've got to make it up and, you know, change on the spot, and being adaptable, I think, is important.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's change gears a little bit. And we're talking before the pod about travel, and it sounds like you've done a significant amount of travel. You get a lot of energy from it. You just missed Ben in. In Bali by a couple of days.

Yeah.

And I'd love to know, like, what are the areas that you like to travel to that inspire you or what have you got coming up, so excited about?

So every year I go somewhere new.

And this year it's been Quite a few new places. So I just most recently came back from Labuan Bajo. No one knows about it, but it's the Maldives of Indonesia and it literally does look like the Maldives. Like over water bungalow, over water bungalows, etc. It's only one hour from Bali. So that I find inspires me something new. I'm really big into, as you can tell, new surroundings, change of surroundings, etc.

Earlier this year also I was in Malta, Sweden, Switzerland, France.

All of Scandinavia and I slept in an ice hotel, I don't know if you guys have heard of that, where every year the hotel is created from scratch from the recycled waters of the Ton River. There's a few of them, but I went to the Sweden one. So I like to do kind of out of the box, like non mainstream things like that. I do get a lot of energy from traveling, so a lot of people hate it, but I don't mind it. And now the travel that I do do for work, it's a. It's a totally different ball game when you're traveling as an employee versus you're traveling as a trusted and valued consultant. Like yeah, it's. It's just very different. Like there's no more 4am Wake up calls for me. Hell no. I take the Chairman's flight at 11.

And so if you. Let's imagine you didn't have to live in Australia, right. Where would you choose to live in the world if you couldn't live here anymore? Is there a place that really kind of resonates with you that you could set your life up?

I'd actually live in a different city every quarter.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, so I really loved Valletta. I thought that was an amazing place to visit in Malta, so that's the capital.

So I was born in Indonesia, so I'd like to spend a quarter of the year there. Like traveling around, not no particular city kind of pulls me in that there's just so many beautiful islands. I'm a huge fan of Japan and I've always been a big fan of Switzerland. So yeah, in an ideal world where money is no object, I'd spend a quarter of the year in a different city or country.

Absolutely. I love Japan. That's going to be my next trip. I've been there three or four times already. It's just so fascinating. It's so engaging. There's always something on. It's an incredible place and the true metropolis.

Polarity of the differences. Right. Like Shibuya versus Takayama where like old school ladies still wear their kimonos and, like, go to the fish markets to get their groceries. It's just so different. Yeah.

It's so wild. And you see the traditional people walking around. Even in, like, Roppongi, where you've got, like the, you know, publishing, the towers and you've got all this stuff going on and, like one street over, it's like old school Japan. You're like, what?

Yeah, yeah.

It's fascinating how they do things.

Friska, because you're on the Bennetberg show, we do have to ask about crypto. I briefly asked you beforehand. You're running your own business. You know, you're flying around, you're doing a lot of things. How do you think about investing? Do you own any crypto? And I know we have a mutual friend.

Yeah.

That is into crypto. Has she convinced you to get any?

I've got an account with OkX. I would say I'm more a passive crypto investor. I've just got a pile, just accumulating, just compounding. In terms of investing, it's usually things that I understand, so technology, some consumer products, etc. But I would. I'm not the kind of person that waits for the market to open and like, oh, my God, when do I buy? I'm not like that. I'm more. Invest in quality and leave it to blossom because. Yeah, I just don't have the brain power to do that.

Yeah, I understand you're busy.

Hmm.

Let's. Let's dive into that. So if we look at kind of the way that you invest, we know you invest a lot in yourself, which is fantastic. Everyone should do that, and especially if you're the face of a business. Absolutely. So do you invest in shares? Do you invest in real estate as well? What do you do? You've got a business. I'm imagining it throws off some cash flow you need to do something with. How do you think about that side?

So, yes, property for sure. Just because our entire tax regime here is biased towards property ownership. So I've got. I've got some of them. Yeah. And so property is about 70% and then I'd say 20% shares. Usually technology. And then. Yeah, the crypto is the small minority of it.

We literally did an episode recently, should you buy a house? And we're talking about how literally all of Australia set up for property. Just not to lose. Like, it can't lose. It's basically, you know, say, rigged. But it's pretty close.

Like, to be fair, I would have been fine, like, renting for For a while, but I was being eaten up alive by tax. And so I did it to offset my. My tax liabilities.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. There's so many benefits is even from the bottom up, it's like the bank creates money through loans, through housing. Right. So they need them and it's the highest leverage you can get. And then there's tax benefits and someone's always going to pay the rent. And people understand it like this is a country of real estate.

Yeah, yeah. And another thing that I want to add that you should invest in is relationships. Right. There's no point investing everything into yourself and whatever if you don't have the right relationship. So find those people who will support you throughout your multiple transformations. Because it just takes one, like one person to back you, one person to open the right door, one person to say yes. And that could change the game forever.

All right, I want to go deep on this. This is, this is the gold. Everyone listening out there. Like, this is probably going to be the clip for the podcast because this is so important because people don't think about their relationships, their network, how they relate to people, how much they engage with them. And I imagine you're a very busy person. You're running multiple businesses. Who are those kind of core people that you have around you and how often in which way do you engage with them? Like, so what do you can't. When you say you need those people.

Yeah.

Who are they to you and what would you recommend people? How do they set up their, their support system?

So there's, there's, there's business people you should invest with and there's personal sort of friendship people you should invest with. I mean, the friendship ones are, are a no brainer. But I'm, I've always been one of those people that kind of, every year or so I'll audit my social circle, people who are energy vampires and not adding any value, I literally just stop talking to them or stop engaging with them. And I am quite cognizant of who I surround myself with. So grow. I've. As Ben said, I live in Sydney. I've only been there for two years. And so I guess I've been blessed. I haven't been hampered by.

People that I've gone to school with, uni with, or work with. The, the friends that I have today are people that I actually do want to be friends with. We share the same values. We support each other through thick and thin. And I of my way to find these people. And remember I moved to Sydney during COVID there was no networking events, There was no conferences. I was like, bloody hell, how am I supposed to meet people? So I downloaded some women's friendship apps, and a lot of the girls, the women that I am good friends with, we met through that app. So, you know, you have to put in the effort to find these people. They're not just gonna walk, walk into your coffee shop and you strike up a conversation with them. Maybe that'll happen, a one in a billion chance, but you need to kind of make an effort to. To get to find these people. So that's that in terms of business, there's a few different people. There's people that will refer you, there's people that will collaborate with you, there's people that will partner with you and people that will co create with you. So I try to fill my bucket with those different types of segments because, you know, one person in particular that, that comes to mind, he was a vendor in my previous life when I was in corporate. He. He's always referring good quality leads to me. And when you've got enough people that do that, like your business development costs plummet through the roof because it's just referrals and word of mouth. So, yeah, you got to know what you're excellent as. And as a business owner, you're expected to do all three. You're expected to think, sell, and deliver. So find out which of those three that you're the best at and try to find partners that can do the other two for you, that can help you with the heavy lifting.

You're full of these amazing quotes like, write these down.

Oh, I've literally been.

There'll be, after this podcast episode.

I'll sell you. These days, you can package them up and sell them.

Give you these notes rather. But now, Ben, you've done this as well. Like, you've done an audit on your friendship circle and your relationships as well, in terms of battery charges and drainers. And both of you, you're growing constantly and you're changing constantly. So a year later, the people that you were friends with or networking with may be completely different, or you changed so much, that relationship no longer works. And Ben, do you maybe want to talk us through how you did that? And because a lot of people think it's. Well, it is. It's very uncomfortable to first of all do that and be honest with yourself, but it's what you need to do in order to move forward.

Yeah, that resonated with me a lot. Every year I do probably similar to you Like a yearly review, my battery drainers, my battery like energizers. And then like I look back on those lists, I'm like now like I'm glad, like I'm not there anymore. But one thing that I fascinate about your story there is like that active outreach. I don't do that. You know, like I think there's a lot of inbound that I get just from who we are and what we do in content wise. But you know, I tend to not do a lot of active outreach to find those real close inner circles. I tend to, if anything I probably distance myself from people and just like, like to be on my own because every day is like talking to people. But it's, there's different. Right. There's the personal and there's the work. There's the, the work relationships, but then there's like who's filling a cup on a personal side.

Yeah.

So I'm fascinated to hear that you, you literally went out of your way to go and you know, and no doubt you already had a shite load of people that you knew, but you went out actively to find a group of people that you know that will.

Help me level up to get to the next stage.

I love that. Yeah, I really love that. And I think most people can resonate that. Especially if you're on a growth trajectory. It's like, you know, peeling an onion back. People around you are not going to be on that same path.

Yeah.

And I definitely know of, you know, when you can fall back in that trap of maybe people you previously hung out with or, or whatever, they. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's just not, it's just not where you're at anymore.

Yeah.

You know, you don't have the same conversations, you're not into the same things. You're not thinking about things that's the same anymore. And surrounding yourself with people that are thinking greater, thinking bigger, pushing themselves. You're like, I want to be attracted to that, but the dumbest person in the room.

Yeah, totally. And don't get me wrong, it's not like I cut them out of my life. They're just not in my close five anymore.

You know, you only have a limited amount of time.

Right.

You can't do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. So for all the budding change managers out there that are listening, my sister in law is actually one of them. She was in HR and now she's been, I think for the last year, rolling change. Very large organization.

Yep.

What kind of starting out advice would you give to them or any kind of homework or a resource for people that are beginning this change management journey and want to affect change in their organizations?

Hmm. So if you're a beginner, you need some sort of certification at the end of the day. So a lot of change management consultants have their own courses, myself included. There's a lot of free, I mean obviously read books, etc. But there's no better learning than learning for someone that's done it before. So I'd say find a change mentor. Yeah, for sure. Because they will open up your eyes to what's worked for them, what hasn't worked, things that you would have never thought of. And you don't get that from just reading a textbook, you get that from lived experience. Yeah, yeah. And definitely. Yeah, go ahead.

How would someone find a good change mentor? What should they look for? What does a good person that does change? Because if they're, if they're kind of starting out, they might not be able to differentiate between good. What are the kind of qualities that, that they should look for in that type of person?

Someone with deep empathy, Someone that's got the, the creds obviously. Either, either if it's the piece of paper, the awards, the certifications, whatever it is. And I'm a big believer in like you can tell a lot about a person in a live 10 minute conversation than you can from reading a CV or their LinkedIn profile. So and, and someone that's, if they're good at change, they have to be open to broadening their knowledge base as well. So someone that's looking to give back as well.

Amazing. Friska, this has been absolutely fantastic. Now you do have something exciting that you, I would love for you to share. You have a new book coming out. Yes, that I'm going to be one of the first to buy. Can you share some details of that?

Get a signed copy.

Oh my God, I'm so excited. So my next baby is my book. It's called the Future Fit Organization, A Leader's Guide to Transformation. So it'll be out next month. Available on Amazon, Booktopia, all the online retailers and also on my own website if you want a hard copy. So super excited. It's based on my TED Talk because everybody raved about it. I go into great detail on what these principles mean. I share my own experiences of how I brought that to life and also other real world examples and thought provoking analysis. So watch this space.

Put me down for pre order.

And where can people follow you online. Friska.

So LinkedIn, obviously. LinkedIn.com in forward slash, friska. My website is fresh by friska.com I'm all about consistency. So Instagram and TikTok. It's the exact same handle.

Yeah.

Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for coming on. That's been super fascinating. I've learned a lot. I think you've learned a little bit too bs.

Oh, I'm gonna watch this back like eight to ten times. There's so many, so many deep lessons in here. It has been phenomenal to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much. Risk.

Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. And as always, team, thank you so much for listening. We'd love for you to share this with a friend if you think they'd find value in this. A lot of. A lot of nuggets there. I think you need to rewatch. But yeah, thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you next time.

Thanks, champions.