Beyond Networking: The Power of Authentic Connections & Relationship Management with Jo Mikleus.

You've got to build something that people actually love and want to buy.

What is your favourite quote?

All problems are an opportunity to innovate.

Do you have any other sort of frameworks or ways of sort of fine-tuning strategy?

The most important thing to be doing is listening to your customers, and you've got to be hugely focused. I think once you have earned the right and you've got money coming in the door and you've got capital that you can play around with other ideas. Hi, Dave here.

Hope you're enjoying the show. Thank you for tuning in. If you like what you're hearing, you want to become part of the conversation, please just click the show note link and we'll connect there. Bye. Here today in the studio, we have Joe Miklius joining us. Joe, very excited to have an interview with you. It's actually our second podcast interview, and yeah, really looking forward to hearing some of your perspectives. So I guess we might just launch straight into some of the conversation. I'd just like to sort of start with building relationships, and maybe if you could share your approach to networking relationships, and just love to sort of dig into that a little.

Well, I guess, I guess, you know, through my working experience over a long time now, I guess I've learned to, initially with customers, learned how to build relationships, understand a lot about them and what their needs are, and being there for them, you know, whether they need you or think they need you or not. And so that's really about initial conversation, getting to know them, and understanding what their goals and objectives are. But then also just periodically checking in and making sure that things haven't changed and needs hadn't changed. So, you know, as an early banker, you know, I went straight from school into ANZ and— really learnt the art of relationship management. And I suppose what I did through my time at the bank is actually apply those relationship skills to my colleagues inside of the organisation. It's a big organisation, 55,000 people.

Yeah.

So how do you kind of perform at your peak? How do you be competitive when, you know, there might be lots of other people in similar roles as you have, and how might you be able to have an impact beyond what your job description entails?

Yes.

So part of that secret, I suppose, is building relationships and volunteering to do stuff and being there perhaps when people didn't know that they needed support. So I guess that's been my approach. And then since leaving the bank about 7 or 8 years ago, I learned really quickly that my relationships were quite tied to the organisation. They were either connected with customers or inside of the bank.

Yeah.

And so what I did really is just replicate what I had known to be successful with my customers and inside of the bank and do that more broadly. So work out who is it that I know, ask for their advice, and also ask if there are any ways that I can support or assist them. And then not just teach it— treat it, sorry, as a transaction, a meeting as a transaction, Actually, it's the start of a relationship. And so when you start a relationship, you invest in understanding, you invest in maintaining contact, and you invest in giving back when you can give back. And then ultimately, when you need to ask for help, they're there for you to help.

So just sort of painting that picture, because I remember, and this is probably when I met you, around that 2016 time. I think it was 26 years, very successful career in the bank, including sort of Chief of Staff and being involved in that whole Asia campaign. And I think ANZ is, is that a word? People that have worked at ANZ call themselves blue.

That's right.

So you were very blue coming out into the real world. But yeah, maybe well networked internally, but Not externally, which is kind of where you found yourself. So where do you sort— how— what worked internally? Because obviously very well networked to move through the organization, very good contacts. What could you sort of transport into, you know, how you're cultivating relationships maybe outside of the bank and you're post-leaving?

Well, I guess inside of the organization I found ways to be innovative, to help, to lean in and kind of volunteer to be at the front of change and innovation and so forth. So I guess that's a little bit about me and my bias towards, you know, always pushing boundaries and trying to disrupt oneself to make yourself better, but also to make the organisation better. So I always did that inside of the organisation. Stepping out of the organisation, yeah, you're right. And people— I actually never saw myself as one who was institutionalised inside of the bank, even though I had such a long time there, because the roles that I did were hugely diverse. really broad, but they had a couple of themes. They were all kind of, whether I was in operations or in that chief of staff role or running frontline teams, I always put the customer at the centre of, you know, growing the business that I was leading. And I always tried to bring in innovation or new ways of doing things to be— to fuel growth.

Yeah.

And to be competitive internally if I was competing against peers or also against the competition as well. And so coming out, I guess you need to think about what are those things that are highly portable in the outside world. And growth is portable. Customer-led strategy, very portable. Innovation, well, that's the topic du jour right now. Very portable. So it was kind of easy for me to to play on those themes, because they're the things that I'm really, really good at. And that's where I like to spend my time as well. So it does take a little bit of practice, though, to kind of create that into a why me, why Jo kind of message, when you might not necessarily have a brand or an organization behind you to be selling something.

Yep.

How do you kind of distill that into something that's just about the individual rather than the individual as part of a big machine? That was a bit tricky.

Yeah, you mentioned practice, took a bit of practice. Like, you talk— tell me what practice is. Like, you're trying—

Yeah, so I guess you work out, you have probably a pretty close network of very trusted people that you really trust, and you can kind of bounce ideas from and test your thinking and your— test your pitch even, you know, with. And they'll give you feedback and they'll say, well, this is how I heard it, or whatever. And they're really great at being able to coach you and help you. to refine that. So find those trusted people. Then they get your message, and they generally refer you to introduce, or introduce you to meet somebody else. And so then you have the opportunity, I suppose, to practice live, talk about what it is that you want to talk about, have an introduction. And, you know, that always sparks creativity in them. The conversation is a creativity kind of space, I guess, and they think of people who might be able to help, and most people generally want to help.

Mm.

And so then you get introduced to another person and another person, another person. And so the knack though is just not to have those meetings and walk away from them, but actually have those meetings and create meaning in the meeting, but also create meaning and a longer-standing relationship well beyond that. And so I try and find ways to, even if you can't physically kind of return with a quarterly coffee or whatever, there are other ways that you can maintain contact and still be kind of top of mind to people, you know, without being physically present as well.

I've got a million questions, Alex, but that sounds like it requires a lot of discipline and organization. How do you organize yourself in that sense?

I guess in the early days, I actually kept a spreadsheet of who I'd meet. So Alex, I've just met you. You've introduced me to Dave. And that was a way of me remembering who I've met, what we talked about, and who they introduced me me to. So I did do that. I had a really good discipline, I think, early on around gratitude and thanking people for an introduction and also circling back and letting them know how it went.

That's good.

And for the people who I was introduced to, I did also have a pretty good discipline around getting the meeting, because some people don't respond.

Yeah.

And so there is a bit of a knack of actually getting into people's diary, but then you wanna make it really worth their while. And then as I said, not make it transactional. It's not a— it's more than just the meeting actually. It's about building that lifelong, or could be lifelong relationships. So yeah, so I guess I am reasonably well organized. I'm probably a bit slacker these days, but I feel like I've got a bit of a system that kind of works for me now.

I think it's so impactful when someone does circle back with you after you're organizing a meeting or something like that. I mean, it does help you remember them in a very positive light.

Yeah, yeah. And also bringing a bit of a personal dimension to it as well. Like, I'm not one-dimensional. I don't just exist because of my job. You know, I'm a human being with interests. I am a mother. I'm a husband— I'm not a husband, I'm a wife to a husband. You know, there's so many attributes to your life, and so actually giving people a bit of a window into that is also interesting as well. Yeah, a little bit more memorable.

Yeah, so I guess that leans into sort of reinforcing your identity and sort of building your own personal brand. being able to share more about yourself.

Right, right. So I was lucky actually back in 2012, 2013 when I first got the Chief of Staff role to the CEO at ANZ. The very first trip I went on was with the board and the executive team and Mike, the CEO. We all went to Silicon Valley.

Oh, yeah.

And so back in the early 2010s, I guess the term fintech was just a— what is this fintech, you know?

Yeah.

And so we actually went over there to see what was this craze all about and really realized the momentum and the disruption that was heading our way. But one of the trips we did, one of the visits we did on that trip was to LinkedIn.

Wasn't that like at the end of the day, you guys like, oh, should we?

Oh, I can't be bothered. Why are we going to LinkedIn? You know, this has got nothing to do with banking. And I think out of the, you know, I can't remember how many people were on the trip. Let's say 15. There was maybe 2 or 3 people who were actually on LinkedIn at that time.

Wow.

And LinkedIn actually, it was the highlight of our trip. And a lot of us walked away realizing that this is a tool for business. This is not just a phase of kind of networking. And this is not kind of a Facebook type thing. This is actually a business tool. And for me personally, I realised that it's kind of an opportunity to amplify your voice and the things that you want to talk about in a one-to-many situation. So we're in a one-to-one or one-to-two type situation right here. There's only a certain— you know, you only have a certain amount of hours in the day. And so there's a finite— there's a cap in kind of how many one-to-one relationships you have.

Mm.

But using a tool like LinkedIn has a one-to-many opportunity really. And so I thought really deeply about what did I want to talk about, talk about in a forum like LinkedIn. And so hopefully you could go through my posts and what I share and what I blog about, they tend to be focused in on the things that I love to do, the things I want to be known for, and the things that I'm good at. So I talk a lot about growth.

Mm-hmm.

I talk a lot about businesses and having an ambition to go global with their growth. I talk a lot about customer-led strategy and customer-led design. I talk a lot about innovation. and AI, and kind of threading that together with some, you know, and you can only do those things well if you're a good leader and you can actually run a business and you know what the P&L levers are to pull in a business. So that's kind of the way I thread it together in a business sense. So yeah.

Yeah.

So that's how I kind of get the one-to-many relationship building, and I've become known for that. And interesting, I was talking just the other day, and a post that I did not expect to get so much traction, it did, it got a lot of traction. More than 5,000 people looked at it, and you know, you can go into your analytics and see who, what kind of job titles people were looking at. And at my post. And so they were CEOs, MDs. They were kind of the target audience, my target audience, actually. So that just really does reinforce that, I suppose I'm talking about the things to the audience that I want to be talking to about, etc.

So yeah. Fantastic.

Brings it home to Roost.

It's like all the trade secrets that were— I'm taking notes down.

Would you find though that it's beneficial or useful to make connections over LinkedIn? This is probably a bit of a sidebar. Yeah, I think it's hard. Or do you think it's more face-to-face?

It's hard. Yeah, face-to-face is always better, or, you know, you can introduce, be introduced over LinkedIn. I don't generally respond to cold calls on LinkedIn, but if you were to connect me to to Dave, maybe I'd say, yes, I'll connect. Yes, I would. But that's a nice convenient way to actually connect people right up front. Yeah.

So you've almost developed a funnel of connections. And then once they're— it's like, yeah, you said, so you're quite disciplined in getting the meeting. So that was like the outcome of the I guess, yeah, it's almost like a funnel of people that you're moving through your pipeline and then you have the meeting and then there's that connection. Sounds like a pretty intimate, personal sort of level.

Yes.

And then they're into a, almost like a nurture campaign where, yeah, and you've got your database, which was the Excel spreadsheet and That's just fascinating. I'm just—

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, to be fair, I only kept that spreadsheet going for maybe the first 6 to 12 months after leaving the bank. And it was more, it was more actually about me being disciplined about getting out and about. 'Cause it's not an easy thing to do actually.

You gave yourself targets of meetings?

I did, yeah, yeah. 'Cause I'm kind of, I'm probably a learned extrovert. And so having that discipline, setting myself, you know, I'm very performance oriented. So if I set myself a target, I generally wanna beat my own target.

Yeah.

I don't like not to succeed. So that was a good motivation and, you know, it's good, It was a good way for me to keep busy as well, given kind of everything else that was going on.

Yeah, because this was at a stage where this was a full-time focus.

It was a full-time focus for 6 months. Yeah, that's right.

As I recall, you could have quite easily stepped into another senior executive role within a bank.

Yes.

But you were deliberately choosing to position yourself.

Diversify, yes.

We talked about the branding, the growth, the customer strategy. Innovation, all parts that sort of transcend just banking.

That's right.

Yeah, fantastic. I don't think I had a question there. I was just marvelling at the process. But then you're saying, so whilst you had sort of that discipline in the background, there was still that personal touch. It wasn't mass email communication.

100%. And I actually did not think of it as a sales campaign as you've just described.

Yeah, sorry.

Well, I mean, they are all the successful elements of a good pipeline management. To this day, I kind of wonder why I don't have my own CRM. But I guess that's what LinkedIn is, you know. It just, you know, obviously don't use it like a CRM. But yeah.

How does that sort of link towards sort of your leadership and sort of that evolution in terms of learning how to lead and leading successful teams? Obviously you talked about the collaboration, the innovation, the positive energy and the customer focus.

I guess I'm always learning and I mentioned growth is one of my favourite things to talk about, but growth in that obviously I want to help organisations to grow, but I also want to be learning and growing as well. And I've always found that as a leader, you— I'm going to use a banking term here, or a banking reference— you don't have a mortgage on the best ideas. You know, the best ideas generally don't come from the boss.

Yeah.

You know, the best ideas actually come from the collective and the team. And so my job as a leader is to really make sure that all ideas are being heard and that there is a co-creation process in building strategy, using those key tenets that I know I can bring to the table, but actually tapping into the ideas of others because the cumulative effect is way, way more powerful than any idea I could dream up myself. And so allowing yourself to be vulnerable in that way, I think, is great for leaders to do, and allowing yourself to have a really, have a growth mindset in terms of where the solutions might come, because pretty much they don't come from the space where you might expect them to be. And when you think about the AI revolution that is, you know, we're sitting here in July 2023, I'm pretty sure in July 2024 we're not gonna be talking about the same things, and we can't even imagine what is gonna be possible in this space. So you've really gotta have a growth mindset to actually harness the opportunity.

Yeah.

And so I really do see that that is a core leadership capability actually, and kind of, how I've always loved to lead as well.

Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like that sort of lends itself to a culture of openness, the fact that people are willing to share and be heard.

Yeah, yeah. And kind of less hierarchy as well. So I love to sit down side by side with people and kind of nut problems out and hear what they've got to say and so forth. And it's awesome for young people to be kind of coached in that way and to be able to feel that they've got access as well to somebody senior, I think it's really powerful. Yeah, it's an amazing gift actually to give as a leader.

Absolutely, someone's development in that.

Yeah.

So you mentioned at the start, Jo, about sort of checking in when you were talking about sort of that customer-led, but maybe referring back to maybe when you're in the branch and you're piloting a new initiative, but you was talking about checking in with the customers. So just from a process perspective, because I love to sort of hack the thinking and the method, what did checking in look like for you from a— how did you—

With customers?

Yeah.

Well, it was quite— actually, it was quite disciplined in a way. So a customer comes to you and they have a need. You unpack what that need is. You provide them with a solution. And actually, as part of the regulation and so forth that the financial services kind of system is, you can't just set and forget a customer. You have to actually do what we used to call as an annual review. So that was a forced discipline to actually check in with your customers once a year.

Right.

So some customers weren't as well behaved as others, so you had to do quarterly reviews or whatever. But at least once a year, you should be, if you're doing your job well, you should be checking in with them. with your customers. So I guess I learnt that, you know, pretty much straight outta school because, you know, that's the job I did straight outta school. And so it has been entrenched in me the whole way. And so when you think about retaining your customers, I mean, it's a fantastic discipline to actually make sure that you've got touchpoints through the year and that you're checking in and making sure that their needs are still being met.

Yeah.

That they still know that you're here, that you're thinking about them in some way, you know, or whatever. So I think that it's a really nice thing to do as well. It's something about nurturing and caring and not being transactional. It's about that relationship, you know, and having that for a long term. And that's how you get that stickiness, I believe. Yeah.

So thinking about, okay, when you were actively sort of pursuing your next role, and then that obviously led to the success of a couple of big CEO placements.

Yeah.

How did you find the, it's not business development, but the networking, the relationships? Was there a momentum effect in that if you kickstarted it now, it wouldn't be like what 2016 was, which was a You know, ground— not ground zero, but the start of it. Or did you find that you just couldn't keep up that sort of schedule when you were in full-time work?

Well, I guess you kind of amplify the relationships that you need when you're in the job that you're doing. And so none of us, I don't think, can do our jobs in isolation or do it well in isolation. You need kind of your network of your team. you need network of your customers, you need the network of your stakeholders and your community to actually be the best that you can be in a job. And so, for example, when I was CEO at Rubik's and kind of thinking about where might our new customers come from, what would our value proposition look like, etc., well, a lot of my network helped me with that. And that's how part of the reason why we were able to double in size in a really short period of time is, you know, is kind of leaning on those relationships and understanding deeply what their needs were. So you kind of, you do go through life and sometimes you need to lean on some relationships more than others.

Yep.

But I feel it's really, really important to find ways not to ignore the customers that you don't need or the relationships that you don't need right now. How do you keep them informed with what you're doing and where you're at and how you're thinking about things and those kind of things, how you might be able to help? Some things, some ways of doing that, if you're thinking of You know, little tips and tricks. I mean, I don't know if you read the newspaper. I read the newspaper when I'm eating my breakfast every morning, and I do it physically as well. I'm a bit old school that way. But, you know, probably a week wouldn't go by where I didn't know somebody in the paper, and they were in there for doing well at something. And so I just send them a little text and say, you know, Wow. That's awesome. Congratulations on, X, whatever it is that they made the paper for, assuming it was for good reasons.

Yes.

It wasn't in Jo Aston's column. You know, so you can do small things like that, right? You know, winning an award or whatever. Like you said to me, I think when we walked in, you know, and what sparked this line of questioning, I think was, you know, you're getting a Christmas email from me A couple of years after we had met.

That's right.

And so I find ways of making sure that I'm touching base at least periodically, maybe once a year. Some, you know, sometimes it's a little bit less depending on workload and so forth, but it's always with meaning.

Yeah, that's—

And genuine. It's from a genuine place of relationship.

Yeah, and I guess that's, yeah, to that point, it's gotta be relevant to the recipient as well.

Yeah, yeah. I still send a Christmas card to the very first regional manager who backed me a very, very long time ago. And he actually always sends me a Christmas card back. God bless him. And he must be in his 90s now, and his handwriting's like, you know, It looks so, but you know, like I sent him a little one-pager about what I'm doing and my family and so forth. And I do that with a couple of really important bosses that I've had over the journey. And yeah, and I do it with other, I don't do it the same for everybody.

Yeah.

It's tailored and bespoke. Yeah.

Hey everyone, thanks so much for tuning in. If you're loving this podcast, please give us a 5-star review. Are there any other tips you have for winning people's hearts and minds or forging loyalty?

I don't know, Alex. I, I can only be myself, and so, um, I guess if, if you don't like what, what Jo Miklius brings, well, um, you know, so be it. I can't be friends with everybody, but I guess I bring my my whole self to any relationship.

So yeah, and I think it's that sort of human-to-human connection that you're bringing. And yeah, it's in no way sort of disingenuous, but like that Christmas message as the example was like, you know, great to receive. Oh great, how's she going? What's news? Yeah, I thought so. So just something you mentioned before around sort of that leadership style and playing sort of this collaborative type of style. You mentioned that that's being received well in maybe the younger generation. Can you maybe just think, maybe elaborate sort of why you think that is? Or, and is there a different style with maybe someone of my generation or that's maybe used to a hierarchical system more?

The last role I had, At Latitude, I was running the insurance business, and basically we had a parallel strategy to either divest it, and if I couldn't find a buyer for that business, we were gonna reinvent it and create something hugely disruptive in the insurance industry. And we got it to prototype actually, but the team I took over were, really deep insurance experts, and they knew their stuff. I have not spent a lot of time in insurance, so I guess it's in the financial services family, but, you know, there's a skill set you need, and I really valued their skill set because I didn't have it.

The actuary side or the sales?

Every dimension is kind of different to broader financial services or, you know, lending, for example. It's a different kind of risk, and everything. So they had really deep domain experience that I really valued. What they didn't have was any digital experience, and they didn't have any experience in kind of getting to a white sheet of paper and reimagining what is possible with the assets that we had. So we kind of figured out we've got 4 assets. We've got a lot, we've got 2 licences, got $100 million of capital, we've got access to Latitude's customers, you know, over 2 million customers, and really deep insurance expertise. If you were in insurtech starting from scratch, they're the 4 hardest things to get.

Yeah.

We had those things. What we didn't have was the digital kind of AI capability that could be meshed in. And so we went through a whole design thinking process and That was a little bit challenging at the beginning, because I'm sure they were thinking, who is this person? And what is she trying to do? But actually spending some time in kind of providing context, and providing insights, and even painting a story and a vision and a picture of the art of the possible, And getting them to believe that was the first step.

Mm-hmm.

And then really sitting down, not just doing that and then walking away, actually being there in the trenches, helping with the design, being their cheerleader, helping to break down barriers inside the organisation so we got the funding we needed and all of those kind of things. And then you build a really strong bond bond for the vision as well as anything else. And the team kind of really rallied behind that and gets super excited about it too. And so that for me is pure joy in just kind of getting them to actually do stuff that they never thought that they had the capability of doing.

Yeah.

Yeah, that must have been a really exciting project.

It was hugely exciting. So my only disappointment, I mean the right outcome was that that the business did get sold, but hugely personally disappointing that I didn't create this disruptive product proposition. But, you know, I'm doing some advisory work right now. And, you know, so that's more about collaborate. I'm not the boss, you know, I'm kind of sitting with teams and collaborating, making sure that I respect, you know, the businesses that I walk into and the people and the capability that's there and really working with them to achieve what their goals are and injecting my creativity and ambition and growth around using technology and so forth to actually help them achieve what they want to achieve. So—

Yeah.

That's also super rewarding doing that across a few businesses, not just being locked into one.

Yeah, nice scope. I mean, you briefly mentioned that you use a bit of design thinking process and sort of coming up with, you know, basically blue skying, should we say, this concept in insurance. Do you have any other sort of frameworks or ways of sort of fine-tuning strategy?

I think the most important thing to be doing is listening to your customers, and, you know, I think Businesses who create ideas or products without actually testing them with their customers is a pretty risky bet. So if you listen and understand what your customers need the most, I mean, at the end of the day, they've just got jobs to be done, right? And so you need to help them with that job. You need to make it as painless as possible. And if you can do those couple of things really, really well, you build a beautiful proposition or product that they want to buy from you and they want to tell their friends about. I mean, that's kind of growth at its most basic level. So you've got to build something that people actually love and want to buy.

So just on that, Jo, that That sort of creative process, you mentioned blue sky thinking, and I've seen you do this quite elegantly in a workshop is where it feels like blue sky thinking, but yet there's some boundaries around it, as in, so we don't get off and get too ridiculously stupid. Is that what you're saying? You're bringing it back—

Yeah.

to the customer? Is that your sort of North Star, or were there other dynamics at play that sort of helped to— blue sky is great, but if you end up with a crazy idea that's just absolutely got no chance of—

Obviously it's gotta be grounded in reality. I mean, having a great idea that can't be built or it's not viable to build it, I mean, that's never gonna work. Having a great idea that can't be funded, that's also never gonna work, right? So you've gotta get those 3 things happening in harmony. I think the other thing, Dave, is that good strategy, good growth strategy, is about defining the field of play. And then—

Hmm.

galvanising around the definition of what that field of play is, and then sticking to the field of play.

Yeah.

Particularly when you're kind of trying to get something up off the ground, right? You've got to be hugely focused. I think once you have earned the right, and you've got money coming in the door, and you've got capital that you can play around with other ideas, well then that's, you've kind of earned the right to do that. But when you're in the early parts of growing a business or an idea or a product, you've gotta stay so focused.

Mm.

It's gotta be something that your customers are gonna love and wanna buy. It's gotta be something that you can make money from. And it's gotta be something that you can actually physically do. It's possible with technology or, you know, whatever your product is, you've gotta do all of those things.

Yeah.

Focus is probably the hardest thing to do.

Definitely.

And I think the other thing is, I mean, I even found this in the bank as well. It's so easy just to open your door and lend money to anybody, right? But a good portion of that, if you do that, the money, people are not gonna pay you back. So it's really easy to do that, but it's hard to actually have a sustainable business. doing it in that way. What's harder is saying, well, we'll only lend to this small portion of people. We'll make a lot of money out of, you know, just lending to that small portion of people, but we'll be really disciplined and focused and skilled, and we'll know where to go for that business. So we'll build the right relationships to find where those customers are, and we'll be super focused on that. And so really I've just applied that across all of the businesses that I've been inside and outside of the bank as well.

Thank you for sharing. Sorry, we're like getting really deep into the psyche of Jo Nicklaus and really sort of unearthing some of those processes. For those that are listening in that maybe are part of getting a communication from you, it'll maybe give them a bit of an insight into how I do love you people. It might be tricky, yes. That's right. Well, Alex, maybe do you want to— should we sort of switch gears and maybe jump into some sort of short-form questions for Jo?

Yeah, I think that's probably a good opportunity to do so.

Okay.

So Jo, these, yeah, 5 or so questions.

Okay.

Comes with a bit of a why to the answer.

All right.

Yeah, so please do feel you can expand on Okay. On your reply. The first question is, what is your favourite quote?

Oh, well, I read recently that all problems are an opportunity to innovate, and I really believe that that's true.

That's good.

That is a really, really good one. I can see that. It's like you've known that your whole career.

I think so. But yes, I've never heard it said that way before. And I'm like, yes, I'll put a little sticky note on. I'm not very good at remembering quotes, but yeah. Yeah. But that was super. Yeah. Maybe I said it. I said it right then.

There it is.

Unreferenced.

Yeah. Attributed to Jo. Yeah.

Excellent. What book or poem has had the biggest impact on you, either personally or professionally?

Do you know, I got invited, one of our partners, I spoke about that reinvention project that we had to reinvent the insurance business. And we worked with a design agency actually, and called Naked, they're called Naked Ambition. And The CEO invited me to an offsite, a workshop, an event, an experience, which I went to in November. Oh my gosh, it was so amazing. It was by a guy here in Melbourne called Michael Dixon. And he's got a book called The Everyday Creative. And it's all around how do you think about bringing back creativity into your workplace, bringing back fun into the workplace. And it was an amazing one-day offsite. And he's had a subsequent one a few weeks back. And I went to that one as well. Also an amazing, no agenda, but filled the day with some really inspiring things. So he's got a book called The Everyday Creative. It goes through, I guess, relearning what we all knew as children and how to bring creativity into our lives, but how to bring it into the workplace and create engagement and fun and alignment in your people in the process.

Yeah.

And I love that it's a local, you know, someone local here in Melbourne. And I do love to support support local brilliance when I find it.

Well, that sounds like it aligns with a lot of what you've been saying as well.

Yeah.

It's all about sort of, you know, allowing people to speak up. The ideas can come from anywhere and—

Yes. Yeah.

Being open to that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Much easier to disrupt when you've got a smile on your face having a good time.

That's very true.

It's like the Velvet Club.

So, Jo, do you have a passion or a hobby that people probably don't know about you?

Well, I do like art. I don't really kind of paint a lot these days, but I do like art. And I've probably refound the joy of exercise and kind of bringing in a balanced into my life and I kind of lost my way a little bit. I was always an exerciser and probably last 4 or 5 years prior to this last year, hadn't done a lot of exercise. I like, I let work consume me probably too much. And I'm really enjoying exercise. And what I'm enjoying is obviously there's physical benefits. And, you know, I'm feeling fit and strong and all of those kind of things, but also have a really clear, sharp mind. Yeah, it just brings so many benefits. And yeah, I spoke a little bit earlier about my performance, you know, bias, but, you know, I'm very proud of my running achievement. I've never been able to run my entire life. I can now run for 45 minutes. Oh, that's decent. So I've built that up over 6 months. So like, that's a real sense of achievement, but like I'm really benefiting from that, you know, in a holistic way. So yeah, loving that.

Have you set yourself a goal? Have you signed up for the Melbourne Half Marathon?

I have not, no.

Not gonna declare an ambition on the show?

No, no, I don't. Yeah, I'm getting a bit long in the tooth maybe, so no.

So Jo, what's next on your bucket list?

I just want to be having fun, working with great people, working on really interesting projects, adding value, and playing to my strengths really. So that could be in one organisation, but probably not. Oh, I don't know, actually. I'm having a growth mindset. It could be anywhere. Yeah, but, you know, I think I've worked really hard over the last 30 years, and I feel like I'm in a position of privilege that I can make the choice to have flexibility. And so I'm contributing to a couple of boards. I mentioned I'm doing some advisory work. I've got my AI company, which I'm kind of pivoting, we're pivoting right now, so given everything that's happening. So yeah, so it's a nice portfolio approach of executive, non-executive advisory, working with awesome people. That's almost my number one criteria is working with awesome people. Yeah, right.

There's a lot of members who I've pointed your way in terms of, you know, kickstarting their own way of getting sort of out there and getting connected. But maybe, you know, if someone's listening in, they're actually in a role, but maybe if you could just share some of the auxiliary benefits. Obviously one of the direct benefits was, you know, landing those CEO roles and subsequent MD roles, et cetera. But some of the auxiliary benefits you found in, you know, getting out and meeting people around sort of that networking campaign.

Well, you know, every business, every person is working, has their own personal story to tell, and they've got their own business story to tell. And every business, I reckon, is different and interesting, and there's so much learning in terms of how teams come together and tackle a problem, and just learning from kind of chatting to people about how they're doing that is a fantastic side benefit.

Yeah.

I was at a recent discussion with a group of CEOs, and we were talking about AI, and the CEOs all in turn were kind of grappling with, you know, don't know where to start, so like it's changing so fast, there's so many risks to consider, so many opportunities, blah blah blah, like just so much. And listening to all of those challenges, you know, it gives you a bit of insight in terms of how they're looking to challenge it, but it also gives me an opportunity to add value back and kind of say, well, maybe if you thought about these 2 things first, create a little bit of P&L capacity for you then to reinvest, and then you could do the next thing and the next thing. And in 6 months' time you'll kind of get to what you're talking about there. And, you know, like, so those kind of co-create— co-creation comes in many forms. It doesn't have to be with a colleague inside of your business. Actually, co-creation can be from your network as well, and just kind of workshopping pointed challenges and getting diversity of perspective, which you get from an outsider's-in perspective.

You know? Yeah.

They see problems in a different way than you see them because you're So engrossed and immersed in those problems, sometimes it's hard to see clear. So yeah, so I can provide that as a benefit, but also can be the recipient of that as well if I've got challenges that I need to work through.

Yeah, well, yeah, thank you for being so open to our probing questions about your process and system and methodology around an approach to networking. Alex, I'll let you wrap it up, mate.

Well, a couple more if you don't mind, maybe slightly more expansive questions.

Okay.

As opposed to the process ones. If you could mentor your younger self, what advice would you give?

I think I said this in my first interview with Dave, but like, I'm a pretty proud person and sometimes I don't ask for help when I should be asking for help. So I think I would, I've learned that through time, but actually if I could have done that so much earlier, it would have been, you know, so much more personally beneficial.

Yeah.

So yeah, yeah.

That's a good one.

Asking for help.

Yeah.

Not being afraid to.

Yeah, yeah.

And obviously you're very future-focused, you know, you love to embrace innovation. Where do you see the next 5 years going? What are your predictions for the next 5 years?

Oh, wow. So the potential is huge for what AI can do. It has the potential to solve all of our diseases, for example. It has the potential of augmenting you know, the way we learn, the way we do things. Oh, it's actually hard to imagine what is possible. But what I do know is that there is enormous potential and growth that will come from this, and particularly for early adopters.

Mm-hmm.

I think the starting line has been reset. And so even companies that were created a year ago, can be disrupted if they don't continue to evolve and iterate their proposition, focus on their customers, and so forth. So that provides opportunity, so because even large enterprises who are really struggling to transform themselves have an opportunity right now to press the reset button.

Right.

If that's the way they think about it. It'll be interesting to see who does and does not think about it that way.

Well, thanks for deciding to work with us today on the podcast.

Yes.

Was there anywhere we didn't go, Jo? Any questions we didn't ask? Any answers you wanted to give to—

I had no expectations coming in here, Dave, actually. So I didn't know what you were going to ask me. No, but yeah, it's great to see the podcast up and running again. So It was a stroke of brilliance, I think, in terms of you building your own networks from the people that you interviewed over the journey. And so I've got to congratulate you on that all those years ago.

Thank you. There's something about when you put a microphone in front of 2 people and how that sort of conversation, the intimacy of that conversation and the buildup and then the Sort of, I guess, the recording, the preparation, the thought, it sort of bonds you or gels you with that person, which I didn't realize when I started podcasting. But I guess you're actually right, given the topic of the day is around relationships, podcasting or having an intense interaction with someone, which a recording is.

Yes.

It's sort of a way of really sort of gelling with that person.

And also like just this idea of continual learning, you know, none of us are the best at everything. Like we learn from each other, don't we? And so relationships are key to doing that and creating a mechanism to do that is the most important thing. I mean, you've done it through your podcast, you know, I've done it in my way. Alex, you've done it in your way. You know, I think, Yeah, it's awesome.

Well, Alex, do you want to kick us into rapid-fire questions so we can catch Jo off guard?

Absolutely. So, okay, so Jo, just as a recap, these are very fast questions. Just please say whatever first comes to your head.

Okay, sounds scary.

There's no judgment.

Oh, hang on, I'll get the timer ready. Okay, yeah, see how many you can pump out in 1 minute. All right, no judgment. And go.

No wrong answers.

Okay.

All right. Cats or dogs?

Dogs.

Netflix or YouTube?

Netflix.

Calls or texts?

Texts. What was the other one?

Calls.

Oh, calls.

I'm like, cools? What are cools?

That's my accent. Beach or snow?

Beach.

Dining out or home cooking?

Home cooking.

Zoom or face-to-face?

Face-to-face.

London or Paris?

London.

Staycation or travel?

Travel.

Branch manager or chief of staff?

Chief of staff.

Dancing or karaoke?

Ooh, can I say both? Dancing.

There you go.

No, karaoke.

Oh, fancy.

Go with karaoke. Pineapple on pizza, yes or no?

Oh, look, it tastes all right, but, um, we'll say it's a bit of a no.

PC or Mac?

Mac.

Still or sparkling?

Still.

Entrée or dessert?

Dessert.

Oh geez.

Heels or flats?

Yeah, okay, go.

Heels or flats?

Heels.

City or country?

City.

Sleep-in or early riser?

Sleep in.

Walk or run?

Run now.

Staycation or adventure?

Staycation.

You had staycation twice, but you got staycation in the last one.

That's right. So there you go. I've got to sit on the fence on that one as well with 2 different questions. Excellent.

Thanks, Jo. Yeah, I guess those questions are just designed— they do tell A little bit about a person. Mac or PC? I was surprised that you're a Mac. I assume that many years in the bank would've institutionalized the PC. I don't know.

It's just so easy. The Apple's just so easy. It's a beautiful user experience.

It's the creative part of it as well.

Perhaps.

Yeah. The rebels or the entrepreneurs' weapon of choice. Not blending in.

But, you know, some of the questions are not fair as well because cats or dogs, I don't have any pets, so— but I had to choose one.

You did. You chose well.

Well, yeah, if you like, I mean, you could try out— we're going away soon, so we'll drop the dog off.

No thanks. Not unless it cleans up after its own mess. No, not that well trained.

Thank you, Jo. Just wanted to say, yeah, thanks for being so open and honest about your process and And yeah, thanks for coming on the show for the second time. My pleasure.

I'm glad you did. Well, you talk about it as a process. I don't actually see myself as a process person. I just see myself as a relationship person and doing what's good and what kind of feels right about and genuine.

Yeah. Yes. No, it's—

But you're right. There is like a methodology behind it, but that's not the way I approach it. It's not from the— process sake, it's from the authenticity.

That's right. And when we try and label it with a process and a CRM and, you know, all of this, it sort of makes it feel disingenuous. And I know it's never been that way.

Yeah, yeah.

With, you know, your intention and sort of why you do it. But yeah, thank you for letting us label it and pick it apart.

No problem.

Appreciate the conversation.

Yeah, thank you for giving us your time today, Jay. It's been brilliant.

Thank you, Alex. And thank you, Jay. Appreciate it. Yeah, it's been good fun.

Thank you. Hey, this is Alex. If you enjoyed the content so far and you want us to do more, if you want to hear more, click the subscribe button. It allows us to bring on more guests in the future. Thanks.