Episode 84: What Does The Situation Need From Me with Cameron Schwab

Hi everyone, I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Team podcast where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate and keep together highly effective sales teams. Teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits. Along the journey. We also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive year is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So if you're an ambitious sales leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, stronger sales Teams is right where you need to be. Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop super powered sales teams. Long time in the waiting. Today, a man that I have known personally for almost 25 years, Cameron. I'm not sure if you know that we've been friends, if you like, for such a long period of time, but today really privileged to have Cameron Schwab joining the Stronger Sales Teams podcast. Cameron is a man who many who are listening will be familiar with. But for those who don't know anything about Cameron, he's a man who's had a tremendous amount of experience in the sporting world and particularly at AFL level. Started as a recruiter for the Melbourne Football club, then at 23. So picture yourself listening. Now at 23, getting thrown in to be CEO of an AFL football team. So it was actually 24 by the time being that he got to that role, I should say, but he was the youngest CEO of a football club in the history of the game and then spent most of the next 25 years between Richmond Football Club, Melbourne Football Club and Fremantle Football Club as their leader. And I think really importantly to note here is that these clubs were often at their lowest ebb when he joined them and he helped to build them, particularly off the field. But obviously there's an influence on the field as well and as a result of those 25 years, he's actually the second longest serving CEO in the modern game. So Cameron, look, for me, he's taken on some of the most difficult and daunting challenges that you could find in anyone's life, but particularly the sporting landscape, and has really been able to establish a track record of building teams, building organisations and really bringing together people around, particularly adversity and complexity. And on the side, Cameron is also an artist, he's studying fine arts at vca, which is the Victorian College of the Arts. But I think more impactfully for everyone listening is I've known Cameron, as I said, For 25 years and I remember meeting him and as a very young man, a 16 year old work experience probably is the wrong thing. Careers nights was where we first started and I've had a really long journey with Cameron when he was. Has been so impactful on some of the decisions that I've made along my life and I think I'll share some of these as we go through today. But before we do so, I'd like to welcome you, Cameron, to our podcast. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks, Ben. And thanks very much for the introduction. The years have passed. The years have definitely passed, that's for sure.

Yeah, well, it was 16 when we first met and I remember my voice breaking as I came up to you after a careers night presentation saying, excuse me, sir, can we have a cup of coffee one day? I didn't even drink coffee. I still don't at 40, almost 42, but led to some great things from there. We obviously invited me over to Fremantle to do some work experience and learnt some terrific things. I remember a man named Matthew Pavlich was running around. He was, I think he was a year older than me, so he was very early in his AFL career and I remember standing on the balcony and he said to me, watch this guy, he's going to be something special. And I don't think that didn't take.

A particularly clever eye to actually define that. There's certain players and certain people you get to meet and, you know, I think not only become a great player, become a great leader and, you know, one of the things, you know, I'm sure we'll talk about is he create conditions for people to be the best they can be. And in his case, you know, captain, I think he's captaining the team at 23 or 24 years of age. So it didn't take a particularly discerning eye to work out that Matthew something.

Pretty special about him, but you still got to fulfill that potential. And so many occasions we see people having the talent or the capability, but not the internal capacity to actually take advantage of that talent.

Yeah, I think in his case all of those attributes were relatively obvious. So the, you, you know, there's some aspects of the work that we do which is seeing, you know, is what the eye can't see. You know, there are aspects of it where, you know, in his case there was a relatively obvious aspect to him in terms of his physical prowess, as in, he was, you know, he's 6 foot 3, 6 foot 4, kick the ball a long way and. But he also had a very big engine. But even in having. When we talk about a big engine, his capacity to, you know, obviously run hard for a big guy. But he. Part of that was he also had the capacity to push himself probably at a level further than what would naturally be expected of him. And so it initially we took about character and capability. The mix of the two and the character piece with him as soon as he started to grow into, you know, just the environment itself because it can be quite an intimidating environment for 17, 18 year old to walk is. Once he acclimatized to that environment. And there was plenty of opportunities for him at the club at the time because we were poor team and so we were actually giving young people opportunities potentially before they were ready. But he grew to that environment really quickly. And so therefore that mix of, you know, the physical prowess that he brought and, and. But also his capacity to deal with the expectations that quickly came upon him, particularly in a two team town environment where it does amplify really quick for them, just it showed that he had something special from that point of view. And when you got to know him and the people around him, particularly his family, there was nature and nurture both, you know, playing its role in regard to the player he was becoming and then soon the leader he was becoming and you know, in time the father he became all those sorts of things. And he's a tremendous person and really pleased to have been in his orbit, you know, at that important time of his career development.

Yeah. Wow. Well, today we're talking about leadership and I think that's a beautiful unplanned segue into life sometimes being able to throw us into places of adversity or where the challenges are, perhaps ones that are coming to us before we're ready for them or before we think we're ready for them. And I heard you speak to a large group of people. I actually followed you onto the stage that day. She was a hard act to follow, I must say. You were very, very good and have to jump up.

You did a great job. I found myself taking a lot of notes from your stuff, as you know, so I think you do a great job.

Oh, thank you, thank you. Well, it's still difficult to get out there and follow you, but one of the things that I really liked you speaking about on that day was around what the situation can require for me. What does it need now for Me, particularly when you're around adversity. Can you share with us how that came about for you?

Well, it's almost around almost any circumstances, really. So I realized there were times when the environment. I'll come back a little step. The first one is because I was a very young leader, I almost created this identity for myself, which was almost like a mosaic of the important leaders who, even though I was relatively young, I'd grown up in the game, I'd had very impactful people around me, people who were, including my father, who were seen as the leaders of their generation. And I think I was always had a curiosity around people, leadership roles. I can even remember very early days reading books about, you know, famous coaches in other sports. And because my father was in the game, there were books in our house about guys like Vince Lombardi, a famous coach of the Green Bay packers, way back in the day. And so I was always really intrigued by these almost romantic, larger than life type figures. And I got to work with a wonderful man, Ron Barassi, who was certainly that in the afl. And that was what my expectation of leadership was. So I almost tried to create this identity for myself of being someone like that, but I was nothing like that. And so what I effectively did was I tried to. This identity that I created, I then tried to fit into. And then I found that to be exhausting. And so probably one of the very first lessons I learned that came pretty hard and pretty fast was, you know, to make leadership easy because it's always going to be challenging. The best chance is if you try to make it as a natural extension of who you are and be okay with that. And because I was so young and so, so underdeveloped in so many ways, I really hadn't formed that as a person, let alone as a CEO of an environment. But I think probably that coming at me relatively early and, you know, and it's a great line actually in Bono's book Surrender U2, as in Bono of U2 fame, he says that the hardest thing to be on stage is you. That he says that. And I'm thinking, well, if it's still challenging for Bonhoe, with the amount of times he would have been on stage. So there's always going to be times that it challenges who you are. So that's the expectation. So having as much and doing the work inside you so you can be the best person you can be for the group who are reliant on what you actually bring. So one of the things I worked out quite quickly were There were aspects of my behavior, particularly, I think, as it related to expectations around competitiveness. I'm in a very competitive environment, which would often draw out the worst parts of me. And like, for instance, if you're in the middle of a negotiation, you lose your temper or you get angry, or you. You make it about you, or you lack understanding or insight for the person who you're actually negotiating with. All of which are likely to happen if you do, you know, lose your humility. You do lose your temper in those moments. So I just developed this little system, and it was just simply, you know, what does this moment expect of me as a CEO of an AFL club, as someone who's doing the work, the company that you're doing. What does this moment expected? And I'd literally be writing down notes, and I've always got like a pen and paper and stuff like that with me, but people would think you were just writing down notes on the negotiation. But I'd actually literally be writing, what does this moment expect to be? And I'd write down four words, and the first one would be calm. What would a calm leader do now? And sometimes that means saying nothing. That's just, you know, just letting the moment pass in lots of ways, but it's also making sure that you're in the moment. Whereas if you're angry or you personalized, this issue means that you're not in the moment. You know, you're not there, you're somewhere else. The second word would be, what would a humble lead do? So write down humility or humble, because often we're in those situations, we're making it about us, where it's rarely about us. It's about the outcome you're seeking to achieve, you know, on behalf of whoever it is, you know, the. The two organizations or the two groups or the two people in that sense. And the third one would be kind, you know, what all compassionate. What would a kind and compassionate person do in this moment? And I never used to say that because it was almost seen as there's no room for compassion, particularly in the environment I came from, which was pretty feisty and, you know, highly competitive. And it was more who could raise their voice the loudest, almost was the winner, which rarely produced anything near the outcome that we were actually hoping. And the fourth one, and probably as important as any, is what would a brave leader do now? What would a brave leader do? Because often the bravery is to walk away. The bravery is not to turn this into something other than what it is, you know, a Good deal can become a bad deal very quickly, for example, or you know, the bravery to have the conversation you know you should be having as a leader and you're the only person who knows that in fact you should be having that conversation. So that those four words, you know, calm, brave, kind and humble, I find have just served me really well now for around 20 years. But I think what it does more than anything is it creates a pause. It's quite meditative and you know, you just, you can take a bit of a deep breath before you do it. And sometimes what we try to do is we try to achieve the full outcome in one conversation where it might be a 10 conversation outcome, 10 conversation piece of work which is required to get to the outcome that we're actually seeking and, and just to slow it down a little bit, I find to be really important. And so ideas around expectations I think are really important.

Yeah, as leaders we can be trained to be great leaders. We can be experienced in our craft, know our subject matter, know our people, and we can be really well prepared for meetings we go into. But often leadership is about how you behave in the moment. And I think that piece around what does the situation need for me writing it down. I'm a big proponent of pen and paper. Those who know me will know that I'll often put computers away and we'll go old school. Whiteboards or pen and paper haven't gone chalkboard before. I don't know if they're still around, but certainly whiteboards are.

I've seen people do it almost for the reasons that you're talking about those. It's almost deliberately as fragile as chalk on board, which is in fact. So I use fountain pens and pencils for that same sort of reason. It's, it's almost takes you into that. It might be a bit old school, but then it's sort of old school for a reason. In, in that way.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And fundamentally is the reason why I use whiteboards and pens and paper. But when we talk about leadership in the moment and about being able to have the right impact on people at the right time, the area for me to start is having self composure. And I really like that idea of having in your mind or you have a physical impediment or a physical reminder like pen and paper that says, right, what does this situation need from me right now? If it's bravery or if it's humility, or if it's calm or if it's intelligence or if it's questioning or understanding, whatever it may be. I really, really love that as an approach. And I must say, since I heard you talk about that, I've been using it myself and I've been referencing it to some of my teams that I work with. And in fact, I actually used the story around how you told it because I think it's important to pair these types of models with the authors of them. But when we get to those situations, keeping control of ourself as leaders or as people is really difficult. I'm the first to put my hand up to say there are many moments across my career at almost 42 where I haven't been in that moment and I haven't kept control. And it really stuck with me. Listening to your podcast with Michael Voss, which I think now has got a little bit of time behind it, but not a hell of a lot. It's still very, very relevant. And he spoke about during difficult times as a leader, I think it might have been his wife that said to him, he, yeah, Donna, hey, remember Michael, you asked for this. And I thought that's an amazing leveler in terms of where your mental or emotional state can be at, at a point in time.

Well, this is a couple of things. One, it's important to have good people around you, isn't it? And particularly in this case. And so Michael Voss's case, super player, three time premiership captain at Brisbane, wins a Brownlow Medal, coaches his team. The club is not the club that it was. He goes into coaching, you know, he would say probably at his own mission, probably too early, too quickly, didn't do the apprenticeship that a lot of coaches now do, and was sent three or four years later. He then takes himself to Port Adelaide. So he has, he's still Michael Voss, legend of the game. So even at that time, he has the opportunity to go into the media, has the opportunity to do a whole lot of things, but he actually goes out, he takes his family to Adelaide and he does seven, maybe eight years, I think, as an assistant coach at Port Adelaide Football Club, largely forgotten in the sort of the larger world of football, but certainly playing a critical role at that club and working with, which is a wonderful club and working with, you know, a great coach in Kent Hinckley. And so he then gets the opportunity, I think initially to his name starts to get talked about again, but probably during that seven or eight years could have easily started to think, I will not get this opportunity again. And was looking at options beyond coaching as well as part of that gets the opportunity to apply for the Collingwood role. When it comes up, misses out to an old teammate of his, Craig McRae and wonderful coach, done a great job, coached him to a premiership. And then the Carlton job comes up and almost the work that he's done on the other role then sets him up for the opportunity at Carlton and he gets the job. And Carlton's a massive club, 100,000 members, you know, but hasn't won a premiership since 1995. And there's an enormous amount of expectations around a big club which hasn't been successful, but at the same time, in its own way, it's been building towards something. And the first year has a good year, but they miss out on the finals in the very last game of the year. So there's. So there's a little bit of anger come the end of the year. So they probably spent most of the year thinking they were going to make the finals. Then the following year, they start off a little bit shaky, but they win one, we lose one, that type of thing. And then they. I think they lose six games in a row, I think that is. And. And so in. In the afl, that becomes a very nice, noisy environment where there are already people starting to say, well, this guy's the wrong guy. He's a proven failure, all those types of things as a coach. And he tells of a story of, you know, almost his. Can he face into what the role is now asking of him in that moment? And, you know, basically his wife Donna says, well, Hank, just remember, you've worked eight years for the opportunity to be exactly in the place that you are now, and you knew exactly the possible. You know, my deeper reading of it is you knew exactly that this was a prospect and possibility of happening, that you were going to find yourself in a very difficult and challenging place as a coach of this big club. And they were. And so this idea of you asked for it, and I still get it from leaders that people. I think people like the idea of leadership more than they actually like its reality. Because the reality of leadership is that you are only leading, really, if you're dealing with the most challenging and ambiguous and difficult issues, because that's, in fact, when leadership is required. And I can say, even as a CEO and without the same amount of control over the performance of the team, in fact, minimal control over the performance of the team once it's up and running, other than to support and, you know, and provide whatever insight that you can in those moments, you are genuinely thinking, I'm not sure where our next win's coming from, or this Might be too good for me here, you know, I might be up for this. Those are feelings that you will get, none of which will serve you well. It's human nature, is you start to question yourself. And I can remember actually having a similar sort of thought when I was at Freo actually, and I was driving home from a game that I thought we should win and our season was really on the brink. And I remember saying to my wife, I think, excuse my language, I think I'm fucking this whole thing up is what I said to her. And I almost said it looking for some form of sympathy or empathy or no, you know, but I didn't get any of that at all. It was just silence. And we got home and I remember Cecily saying, don't ever say that again. And it wasn't I believe in you type, because I've had a lot of those, certainly with me, it was basically saying, you're being selfish here. You know, we've shifted our whole family from one side of the country to the other and here you are feeling sorry for yourself when you knew exactly what we were getting into when you took this thing on. And so Michael's, Donna and my Cecily, you know, in fact play very similar roles at different times where it's important you have people who, yeah, they're going to care for you, they're going to all the things that you, we all need in life and you're going to care for them in that way. But every so often a bit of truth telling is needed in all of that. And I've been fortunate that I've had it throughout my career in that role with Cecily and she's a clinical psych, so she probably picks it a little bit as well, she sort of senses it and. Yeah, yeah, but to recognize and be really clear on what you're actually those role expectations are and the most important expectation that it has of you is that you're in a good place to lead. And building yourself around with all that sort of negative self talk is almost the worst thing you can do.

It's funny, as you talk it, I'm actually reminded of a similar situation I had with my wife about 18 months ago, perhaps two years ago now. I was in the kitchen and I was grumbling and complaining the same thing. We've moved into our dream town. We've relocated from the big city up to the Sunshine coast in Noosa and we're living in an amazing house. I'm 12 minutes and I'm in the water 10 to 11 months of the year, we have beautiful daughter who's thriving. And I'm complaining about where I'm at in my life because I now have the freedom to do whatever I want. And she looked at me and she said, ben, go and get a job. And look, working in a business for someone is a fantastic career path. But for me, I chose not to do that, and that was one of my drivers. And so this is by no means saying that. It's not something that I think is a great role because I suspect that at a time in my life I may do so again. But I was indignant and I said, how dare you? I've worked so hard to have my own path and choose my own freedom. And she said to me something along the lines of, yeah, you chose this. Stop complaining. And I have never complained since. It just shook me into line and had such a profound impact. And my wife, who I don't think you've met, is very calm, very passive, and supports me, unbelievably, through whatever I decide to do. So it was such a moment that was so, so impactful for me.

And we do need it around us. You know that. Even so, my relationship with Michael Voss is because I coach him. We'd grown up in the same environments, but he was in Brisbane, I was here. We'd probably, you know, we'd see each other, you know, at an event every couple of years and say, g', day, but never had a meaningful conversation in the way that we now do. And he had the insight from his first experience of coaching. And. And he didn't seek a coach in year one of his coaching at Carlton, but it was after a year. And by no means do I overrate my impact on him.

All.

All I would say that it is important in our life, we have people who we can have important conversations with. And I think they've got to be able to tick a couple of boxes in having those conversations. Firstly, they've got to have really good integrity for you, and that's embedded in the coaching relationship. And if it's not, well, they shouldn't be in that relationship. That's an important part of it. But the second part is they need to have insight. And so insight is the understanding and knowledge which is actually helpful, you know, as it relates to the challenge you're. You're in fact, facing. And so in those moments, the people who have clearly integrity in the relationship is, you know, our partners in life. And secondly. But in that moment, they have wonderful insight as well. And. And so if it was just if it didn't have both, if it didn't tick both of those boxes, it wouldn't have had near the impact that clearly it's had on the three of us in that way. But we do need to be able to have, you know, those sorts of conversations with important people. And. Yeah, and, and we can do it in, you know, often say, put yourself in conversation with wise people. Well, the wise person might be the, you know, your partner in life. The wise person might be the coach you're receiving. The wise person may be a mentor in your life, but the wise person might also be in a book that you're reading. And they don't know that they're that wise person in your life. But you're getting wisdom from Brene Brown or Seth Godin or Adam Grant or whoever it is, looking at their work.

So thank you, Cameron, for today. That's part one of our two part series covered off. We'll be back next week to talk in more detail about some of these fantastic leadership topics that we've been running through today. But before we do finish today, I'd just love for you to share with people where they can find you if between now and next week they'd like to learn a little bit more about Cameron Schwaben, Design CEO.

Yeah, now the business is Design CEO, so it's mainly working with leaders and their teams. And, and it's been. I've drawn all the insights, if you like. I've tried to make sense of the experiences that I had as a CEO over a long period of time and really wrapped with the feedback that I get in regards to the work we do. Obviously, you know, we reconnected through. We happen to be speaking at the same event, which was fantastic. And I do enjoy the keynotes. And I think you can actually have a lot of impact in a relatively short period of time in a way that perhaps I never thought you could. And I really enjoyed trying to perfect that craft, if you like, on how you actually can just maybe move a room just that little bit, which may make an impact either personally or in the context of their teams.

Yeah, absolutely. And look, you have a great podcast called in the Arena. I've listened to some of those episodes. Michael Voss is one that we referenced today. We encourage people to jump in and listen to those podcasts. For me, I thought they were really valuable. So you can also be found, I think, at Design Co. And where else on social media can we find you?

Yeah, well, LinkedIn's probably the most active platform and as you mentioned by the podcast, so it's. Yeah, I find that still to be the best way of just connecting. And there's also the good old fashioned way of just sending me an email@cameron designceo.com as well. I just sometimes we overcomplicate some of these things. So let's keep it nice and simple. If you, if you think there's anything worth chatting about, just get in touch. Excellent.

Well, I'm looking forward to part two next week. In the meantime though, for everyone listening, please keep living in a world of possibility and you'll be amazed by what you can achieve. Bye for now. Want to be kept up to date with any of our free materials to help you build the best sales teams possible? Well, the easiest way you can do so is to follow us on your favorite social media channel. We're stronger sales teams on most of them and if you DM us stronger, we'll send you right back some great resources to help you build your super powered sales team. If you'd like a little more help, please get in touch directly and book a free discovery call with me. I run a limited number of these sessions and they're free for my podcast listeners. I'd love to help you out. Until then, see you next week for another podcast of stronger sales team.