Episode 85: Lift, Shift, Challenge to grow as a Leader 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. Today we're onto part two of our interview with Cameron Schwab from Design CEO. Cameron is a man that I've known for almost 25 years and I won't go into the introduction again around his past today, but it's certainly impressive and if you haven't listened to the first part of this discussion, I'd certainly recommend you do so. But what I will say is Cameron's been a man who has been very influential on my life from the age of 16 when I met him at a careers night through to a coffee post that session through to work experience with the Fremantle Football Club that then led to me having an active game day role in Melbourne. And when I say active it was was right at the entry level stages of any organisation. But I was there and I remember being on the ground at quarter time holding the banner when David Neets from Melbourne had had a wrestle with some of the Fremantle players and he was absolutely steamy and I was only 18, quite skinny and he walked and he's a big boy. And at 18 I can say I, you know, proverbially wet the bed as he walked past me. Now he did absolutely nothing to me, but you could see the steam coming out of his ears. So some really fun times. And then from there I was actually offered a role into an AFL club that I didn't take at the time, but through my connections with Cameron it actually helped me build some serious networks across my business career and that actually culminated in accounting for about 10% of my business or our business when I had with some other shareholders at a really pivotal time in that business. And this was a decent sized business. We were turning over tens of millions of dollars and the initial relationship that I had with Cameron I can actually trace back to being quite significant in the networks I was able to create across my career. So I think the message I'm talking about as we're introducing Cameron for the second episode today is that the contacts and the connections that you make early in your career can be so impactful in more ways than you can possibly imagine. And for me, where Cameron and I have come back together now is actually around leadership. And today and our last recording, we've actually spent a fair bit of time talking about leadership. But above all of that, Cameron is the second longest serving CEO in AFL history across Richmond Football Club, Melbourne Football Club and Fremantle Football Club. He's been thrown into situations of adversity that certainly in a frequency level higher than many of us would experience across our career. And from that has some super impactful insights as to how we can conduct ourselves as leaders and as humans as well. So, Cameron, welcome back to the second part of our discussion. I'm really, really grateful to have you here today.

Thanks, Ben. And thanks again for the opportunity. I enjoyed the first conversation, so looking forward to going a bit deeper.

Well, we're talking about leadership today and there are times as leaders when we are surrounded by people who can help us along their journey and there are times when we're on our own and we need to forge our own path. And I heard you recently talking about our trademark, if you like, and something that we can hang our hats on as words or philosophies or theories that we live by. And it really fascinated me. And I've actually started to work on one of my own, which I'm happy to share, perhaps in a moment. But can you talk to me a little bit about how you think your trademark or your leadership trademark can be really important to helping you in those more difficult moments when you are on your own.

Yeah, the theory probably more than anything is I mentioned before I got to work with Ron Barassi as a coach and I remember him using the saying that the great people he met were in some ways better than human nature. They're better than human nature. And I love that line because human nature takes us to the mere mortals of the world. It takes you to a place of blame, it takes you to a place of deflection, it takes you to a place of criticism of which there is no future in whatsoever. But also they find friends really quickly. That's the other like, particularly inside organizations that if you have a blame mindset, if you have a blame culture, if you like emerging well, you've basically just minimized any chance of doing anything difficult together, I think. And so I remember that idea better than human nature. Then I got to work with Neil Danaher, who people would probably know of as the great football coach, but also someone who's now, through his own experience with motor neurone diseases, set up fight MND, and 10 years later, it's raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the disease, which is basically killing him. Like, it's extraordinary what he's actually been able to do. And I remember he was coach of Melbourne and I was CEO. I was involved in his appointment and remember he asked me about the idea of a trademark and his personal trademark. I thought we were sitting down to talk about the strategy for the Melbourne footy club, how we're going to grow the club, those sorts of things. And the first thing he wanted to know was who it was that he was working with, which is me as CEO, him as coach. And he said, I'd like to know what your trademark is. And I never thought of it. And he'd done a number of programs where this type of work had been done. And his personal trademark it was or is when it's all said and done. When it's all said and done. And the line is, when it's all said and done, more is said than done. That's the concept. And he's lived that. He's been a doer. He hasn't just talked that he's done it. And it took a while for mine to evolve. And then through a series of personal circumstances and, you know, some challenges, which took me to a really quite dark and heavy space and something I learned a fair bit about myself during. I had a wonderful mentor who just used the term, it's not how you get knocked down, it's how you get up, was the line. And I started writing that at the top of the page each day. It's not how you get knocked down, it's how you get up, because we are going to get knocked down. And then I realized it was more than just willing your way to get yourself or find your feet in those moments. But you need to be quite systematic about it. And so I started writing at the time the words finding something. I need to find something here, here. And so finding something is something I've written at the top of the page now for the best part of 25 years. And then over the last few years, I've started writing down two questions after writing down my trademark, because what your trademark should be is a reminder of the best part of you. And I think often our feelings will take us away from the best part of us. I think you can learn to trust your principles in life at times when you can't trust your feelings. And I'm not saying ignore your feelings, but have an insight into your feelings. And so finding something is just that little simple thing I write at the top of the page. Then I ask myself two questions. What's possible? What's important? So what's possible today, like, even in preparing for this opportunity, is to say, well, how do I get myself into a place of generosity, of care, of hopefully some insight? All of those, just to make sure that I'm honoring you and the opportunity that you're providing me, but also honoring the people who may listen to this. You know, that's what's possible here. And then what's important is that I need to be fully present with you. And being fully present in today's environment has never been more difficult, but has actually also never been more important. So today was a really simple message to myself, knowing that I had this conversation today, this morning, and to actually just bring yourself back into that place. Because otherwise, what we do is we allow the momentum of the things which are happening around us to impact too much on what's happening inside us, which then affects the way that we respond and show up. And the only experience you will ever have of me is how I choose to show up. That's the only experience. And sometimes showing up is hard. And there's some days where I'm not saying show up in a way where you're just pretending to be something other than what you are, but I'm saying show up in a way where you've at least done the work to give yourself the best chance of being in the best place you can be for whoever it is that is reliant on what you bring on any given day. And so for me, it's finding something. But then you have other principals we talk to. And in the moment, sort of pieces of thinking, if I feel that I'm just. My anger is starting to. I've never made a good choice in my life, if, you know, if I've been angry. And so I just often just say to myself, easy, tiger. Just easy, tiger. And it brings a little smile to my face and harks back to my Richmond background and the tigers and all of those things. So it's quite a systematic way of thinking to give yourself the best chance to show up in a way which Honours, whatever role that you're playing in life, whether that's honouring being a parent, honoring, you know, being a leader of an organization, CEO of an AFL club, honouring the person who you're negotiating with or trying to do offer your services to. It seems to me just a good approach to that type of thing.

Okay, great. We've spoken very deeply about how leadership is more than necessarily the preparation and your skills and your training and your, I guess, your education around leadership. We've spoken about what does the situation need from me now, which is very much in the moment piece around leadership. We've spoken about trademarks, and I'll share mine in a moment, which is very much about how you conduct yourself. And I think the other one almost around emotional or mental states being the easy tiger for you, right? How you act when you're under pressure. For me, the trademark piece has really stood out with me. It's something I've been working on since I heard you. And perhaps it's a moment of vulnerability where I share with the audience where we've got to. And you have helped me workshop this one a little bit. So we won't go through that process just for time. But simplify to amplify is something that we've come up with for me, around my approach to really simplifying what's in front of us right now. And that might be to simplify a really complex situation, or it might be to simplify a moment where there is just simply so much going on that we feel the walls closing in and the room starting to become a lot smaller on us. Right. So we're simply overwhelmed. And for me, I think that's when I'm going to start working on. But for those listening, I would really encourage you to take a moment when you finish this podcast and be it today or be it tonight or be it on the weekend that you next get to have a think about what you could take from. What does the situation need from me now? And that's writing down those four words, which were humility, bravery, calm, and boy, I thought I had four. What was the fourth one I missed?

Compassion. Yeah, compassion, absolutely.

Have a think about those. To have a think about what the situation needs from me. Now, the second piece is to have a think about what a trade trademark could be. Simplify to amplify, for example. And the third one, perhaps a mental state that you're approaching. That's the easy tiger, which I absolutely love. And when I heard this story, you told it around a car coming around you around a freeway at breakneck speed and you instantly got angry and the easy tiger kicked in. There's one other piece before we thank you for your time. Is around lift shift challenge. Yeah, it's another. I love one liners or ethos or approaches to leadership. You happy to share a little bit around the lift shift challenge concept?

Yeah, I think the. So the outcome to the lift shift challenge is accountability. I think any organization looks to ideas around accountability as being important. But I think mostly accountability is an outcome if you can develop a. Whether it's a culture of accountability where people take certain responsibility for their own outcomes in that or particularly their behaviours to create the outcomes. And so what's the role of leadership in this? And this came more from actually speaking. You know, when I start when I got asked to speak to people where people I realized that if you couldn't build connection quickly with an audience in one way or another and I have a very conversational style of speaking because I find for me that just works best in that way is to build connection. So I use story to build connection. And I think leaders need to be the capacity to tell your own story with humility. Be able to tell the organization's story and be comfortable with repeating it often is one of the challenges because you think you get sick of your own story but you don't really in that way. And so the lift piece is story to connect. But the story must then carry an idea. The idea must be something which is then helpful to us. And so that's then the shift. So the lift is the story or the lift is the story with the idea. The idea is then the shift. And then you talk to the idea like we've talked to an idea idea today, you know, so I've sort of wrapped the ideas in stories when I've been speaking to you, whether it's Ron Barassi or Neil Danaher or these people to me, but they all held an idea better than human nature. It was Ron Barassi who told me this is what it means that some part of ourselves. So that's the lift shift. And then the challenge is as you just did then, okay, you're going to turn this podcast off. What are you then going to do in regard to this little piece of insight? Perhaps that may be helpful to you. Well, that's more sort of a test of character as much as any anything. So I talk about lift as building connection. Shift is about capability. Then to go into the challenge piece that's more about the character. What it's going to ask of you because even in listening to a podcast such as this, you know, we. We think we've learned something, but we haven't really, unless we actually do something with the learnings that we've actually had. You know, and one of the lines I really like is, if you want to learn something is read, listen to a podcast if you want to understand where you have to write. And so by you writing, simplify to amplify. You're now in fact writing it and saying, well, does that make sense for me? And I'm sure it wasn't the first thing you come up with in regard to it. You've workshopped it in your own way. You've challenged yourself in regard to it. Now the next piece is, can you hold yourself accountable to this process? And do people want to go straight to accountability without being prepared to do the Lift Shift challenge? And they look at their team, they're saying, well, you're not doing as you're told. You know, in my experience, people don't do as they're told. That, you know, are you a teacher or a teller? Is one of the things I often ask of leaders in the work that I do. So lift is about connection, Shift is about capability, and the challenge is about character. And so as a leader, you're always going through those Lift Shift Challenge phases as a speaker, as a storyteller, as I think even as a parent. You know, when your kids go through challenging phases, you know, the last thing your kid wants to hear when they're a teenage, you know, when they're going through puberty. And the last thing they want to hear is that it was also hard for you. You know, you've got to be able to meet the them where they're at. And that connection piece is so fundamental to that.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So if you had to take that model Lift Shift challenge and roll it out to those listening specifically from today, what would you recommend they could do to apply Lift, Shift and Challenge to perhaps just what they've heard from our session together?

Yeah. So even through the lift piece and even creating your own trademark, it will normally be wrapped around an important story of your life. I think, you know, so you've heard me tell my story at a challenging phase. So finding something comes from a personal experience, and in my case, one where if I was to define it by anything, it would be one of resilience, if you like. And so then the idea is, well, how do I now bring that to life? Well, write it at the top of the page every day. That's the idea. And then why do we do that? To remind you of the best part of you. Now, the challenge is, okay, is it the right word? Are they the right word? Am I prepared to then say what's possible, what's important today, and then am I prepared to hold myself accountable to that over the next period? So even the exercise we've talked about has lift, shift, challenge, with the outcome being accountability embedded in it.

Yeah.

Excellent.

Some really impactful pieces of advice that people can take from today. But before you go, I'd like to ask you one question that I ask really regularly to our guests, and that is, you are the sales leader of, or perhaps the leader. You can take either position of a business that's wanting to really rev that growth engine. Vroom, vroom.

Right.

You're really wanting to drive growth into your business over the next 12 months as that sales leader or leader of the business, where would you start?

Well, it almost comes back to the concepts we've talked about in many ways. And that's why I think simplicity around simplify, to amplify has great resonance in that sense, is that even though we're talking about what does the situation expect of me, it's really say, okay, what does the role expect of me? So I'm a leader, whether it's sales leader, whether I'm a coach of an AFL club leading a major business, it's to actually be really clear what does the role expect of me? And there's only ever one answer to that, and that is to create the conditions that enable this group to perform at its best. So our role as leader is to create the conditions. And I think you do that condition creating by doing two things. You got to one, define reality. What is your current reality? Are we really clear on what our current reality is? You know, as in, you know, what capability have we got in the room? What is the market telling us? And that will always be less than perfect information. Because if it's perfect information, that sort of makes the choice for us, you know, you've got to give your own interpretation on what the world's telling you. And then the second part is to give hope. So define reality. Give hope. So give hope is okay, what can we now do in any way to create a sense of progress? And the first part of progress might almost be invisible because you're sometimes getting worse at something before you start to get better at it. And so any form of growth will always start out, in my experience, relatively slow, unless there's some market condition which just happens to unjustly enrich our circumstance, you know, that we happen to have the right product at the right time. We saw that during COVID where people just happen to be selling something which all of a sudden become important and they were enriched by that circumstance. And then there were people who were clearly in the opposite scenario. So I think those two words define reality. Give hope. If you were thinking anyone at any point in time, if you're going to have a mantra as a leader, that for me is what it would be. So what is our absolute current reality and how do we now provide or find hope in regard to that? And hope is more than just, you know, words. You know, it's got to be backed up by actions in regard to that, with the goal to make progress. Because I think we all build our motivation and belief that might start from a place of discipline or motivation, but progress is the thing which sustains it. And sometimes progress is just, you know, the scoreboard mightn't be telling you you're making progress just yet, but you have to have the insight as a leader to ensure that you, you know, when you are and when you're not.

Fantastic. Defining reality and providing hope. I also really like.

Yeah.

Or giving hope. Yeah, sorry. I also really liked the piece in there around recognizing that sometimes to go forward, you may need to go backwards or certainly tread water for a period of time. So really impactful.

Doing anything which is difficult will normally mean slowing down to go. Velocity is never the answer for complexity. In my experience, it will require you to slow it down. And whereas every inclination you have is to just go faster and try harder and rarely will that create the outcomes that you're seeking.

Fantastic. Thank you. Well, I've really enjoyed our time together today. Thanks, Ben Cameron. So we've had Cameron Schwab from Design CEO. Cameron, where else can people find you if they'd like to get in touch?

Yeah, I've got my own podcast which is called in the arena, which is very much sort of a mantra that as leaders we're putting ourselves into the arena. And the arena is a funded a wonderful place to be, but it doesn't promise to be fair, which is probably some of the conversation we've had today. Very much on LinkedIn and got a strong presence there. My business is Design CEO, so Design CEO is our website. And on the website we've got not only this is what we do, but where there's like there's 20 videos just accessible where I've just talked for 10, you know, five or 10 minutes. Just about stuff that I've learned over leadership. There's 100 articles on leadership, so we've done it as a, you know, the values of my of design CEO, got to come from a good place, you know, the goodness piece, we've got to be great, we're grateful, it's generous. And the fourth word's a funny little word which is very Melbourne word is grouse. You know, it's got to be grouse and so have a little bit of fun with it as well. So I'd like to think that what we offer ticks those four boxes.

Excellent. Well, I have heard you personally give a keynote speech and I'd say that was a motivational speech or a piece around leadership and I would recommend absolutely those that are out there that are looking for the next keynote speaker, particularly around those leadership or those motivational leadership topics to get in touch with you because you had an impact on me and I've known you for almost, well, 25 years and still had an impact very much recommend you. So thank you for your time today. Cameron, to 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 favourite 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.