Evolving Leadership: Claire Rogers On The Transformation Of Modern Leadership

Let's speak truth. Let's explore what's actually going on. How am I feeling about it? What's actually going on? How are you feeling about what's actually going on? Oh gee, yeah, I understand that. Now, how are we gonna solve this together? If we work together, we would achieve the mission faster. We have to work against our own natural inclination, right? We don't wanna be told if we're the problem, and sometimes we are. Sometimes as leaders, we're in the way and we're not hearing what our people need from us. For not-for-profits raising funds, the really important thing is to be able to demonstrate impact.

Do you have a methodology for achieving that? Is it a question of taking someone for a coffee or—

No, it has to start with—

Welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. Today we have, who have we got, Alex?

Thanks, Dave. Today we're talking to Claire Rogers, who's the CEO of OHO. I think Claire's going to be talking about how she shows up in different leadership styles depending on the organization, talking about how best to get that discretionary effort from her teams and having those tough conversations, you know, having to be clear to be kind.

Well, welcome Claire Rogers to the show today. It's great to have you on the show again for the second time. Fantastic to also have you involved in the Mentorlist ecosystem. So welcome, Claire. First question is just around what drives you, Claire?

My entire career has been built on helping organizations achieve more potential, more than they thought was possible. And it kind of accidentally happened early on in a few roles. And then I kind of went, oh, this is pretty exciting. And particularly in terms of what customers want and in the marketplace. And so that then became a fairly consistent theme. I went into roles that allowed me to shape customer experience and then see the market respond to that. But that's a really cool thing. But what became more exciting in the latter part of my career was actually doing that around things that really matter.

Yeah.

And so purpose became part of what drives me as well. And the sort of long-term significance of the change that I'm making is quite important.

Yeah, I sort of, you could follow that through the different businesses regardless of size. We've got banking, which yes, it's important. And then maybe put that up against something like saving kids in World Vision globally, working in the Australian, as Australian CEO, and now the work you're doing at OHO around the sort of the certification and what that prevents and that sort of work.

Fantastic.

More than they thought. That's an interesting sort of theme. What came to mind when you said that was give them more than they expect. So I guess the expectations increase, which might be at odds with maybe some of the dynamics that might be playing out at the moment with such a strong labour market and sort of the dynamic being shifted around a bit, which opens us up to, I guess, a broader topic, which is the one we're going to cover today around leadership. and leadership showing up in different places. So it's fantastic that we've got you here because we know we've seen you in many different environments, which when you talk about your career. So maybe, Claire, we could just open with a pretty broad question around maybe different leadership styles, where you've maybe seen them, used them, and maybe some context around that.

Yeah, well, I started work when it was a fairly authoritarian environment. And, you know, if your boss said you needed to do something, you did it, even if it wasn't the most sensible thing to do. There was sort of this, you know, compliance kind of attitude. Having said that, even some of those leaders who came from that style that I worked for, if you could find the right context, they were open to new ideas. And so Like I said, early in my career, I started to suggest things or make changes, and people welcomed that. And so that then, you know, reinforced itself, and it became part of my signature in terms of both leadership and experiencing leadership. Then came this whole change in leadership, not just in organisations, but philosophically, and the writings that were coming out of leadership management schools started to shift to much more of this concept of empowerment. And, and I was privileged to be given lots and lots of opportunities to learn and grow in that style of leadership. And particularly at ANZ, they had a heavy focus on, on leadership. And I think that transition has meant that what we've seen is a lot more potential, you know, potential excites me, business potential, and also the potential in people to lead and grow and achieve more than they expected. And I think that leadership style has really suited me. So I embraced it from quite early on. And it's an interesting, you know, we focus on performance of organisations and the outcomes are really important because obviously that sustains the business. But in my experience, to get really great outcomes, It comes from the people and their understanding of what their role is and also their willingness to give above and beyond what I call discretionary effort. And that comes from really great leadership that meets people where they are and then helps them to grow and see their place in the context and then find their special gift and contribution in that context. So for me, I've had a leadership journey moving from experiencing quite authoritarian leadership right through to now a much more empowering structure and style of leading. And I think I've probably put my own flavor on that too sometimes and taken it a bit further than maybe the literature is up to. But, and I found that really rewarding 'cause it drives culture. And then when you've got a strong culture, then you get strong performance.

Yeah, maybe a question for both of you, knowing you've worked internationally, and you mentioned sort of this liberated sort of influential style here, which probably not the words you used. Sorry to put words in your mouth. But was that different, like in the UK or the different countries that you've worked in? Maybe same, Alex, like, you know, Hong Kong, was that different? Yeah, just be interested in that subtle differences around different different countries?

Well, if I can answer that without offending Alex.

Please do.

I found in the UK, you know, 'cause Australians are fairly down to earth and they kind of call it how it is. I don't know if you agree with that, Alex, but it's sort of, I think, a cultural norm to sort of, Sometimes we don't like conflict and sometimes we'll, you know, cover things up in our language, but generally if there's something that needs dealing with, an Australian will say. And so I did find it took me a while to work out because the English are very polite, and so I'd say we should do this and they'd all go, yes, yes, you know, really good idea, and then nothing would happen and I'd have to go, oh, what happened there? Because I thought, I thought we all thought this was a good idea, and then diving underneath it, you discover that they actually didn't think it was a good idea and we needed to have that conversation.

Yeah.

So, so that's one experience in terms of internationally. You know, I was involved in lots and lots of different countries and, you know, across Africa, across Asia, a little bit of Latin America. Every country has a different different cultural context in which they approach problem solving. But I think if you, if your radar is out for understanding that people are not gonna approach things the same way as you, and you're willing to sit down and listen, then that's half the battle, if you like, to then get alignment and move forward.

Yeah.

Without missing out that there are cultural things that will just always be there. You know, like I was talking with someone this morning and the French don't like conflict and they will see every meeting as having gone well. Well, you've got to know that to then know, did that meeting achieve what it needed to, or do I need to do more or encourage other people to do more?

Yeah.

To actually solve the problem.

Yeah. Did you, did you find that you'd have to use sort of a, I guess, something like a cultural translator when you sort of, when you're dealing internationally, similar to, I guess, say, an ally or a mentor?

I think in every job you need a cultural translator because every organization has a culture. It's like joining a family and the family has, you know, this is the way we do things around here. And anyone coming in, especially in a senior leadership position like CEO, you need someone who can tell you how those things worked because, or how they work or what assumptions people are operating from.

Yeah.

Because otherwise you'll, you know, we come from a different context, a different family, if you like, that operated on different systems. and our assumptions about what— how things are going to work will—

Yeah.

Can work. We might get away with it for a while, but we'll probably come unstuck at some point.

Yeah.

So I work quite hard to get people to feel safe enough to tell me what's going on.

Yeah.

Because in my view, if we can find the truth or find the facts, we can solve the problem together. If we don't have it in the open, then we can't put our best people on resolving it and we can't put our best thinking around, around the issue.

Yeah, absolutely. I guess that— I think you touched on it earlier, but that sort of discovering the truth and being open to it is pretty essential, being able to understand what the problem is.

Yeah, but we have to work against our own natural inclination, right? We don't want to be told if we're the problem. And sometimes we are, sometimes as leaders we're in the way and we're not hearing what our people need from us through just normal busyness or assumptions as I talked about at the beginning. So you have to, my view is as leaders, we have to set aside time that's gonna create the space for our people to tell us what they think are the urgent issues.

Yeah.

Or to ask us the questions that haven't been asked.

Yeah. Do you have a methodology for achieving that? Is it a question of taking someone for a coffee or?

No, it has to start with me because people will only share vulnerability, things that are hard or might make them feel vulnerable, especially in the performance area. Like how do you tell your boss that Actually, the big contract that you've just won looks like it's not gonna start for 12 months. You know, those things are uncomfortable. And if the manager or leader is not willing to hear bad news, then they won't get bad news until it's too late.

Yeah.

So it starts with the leader and the leader being willing to share something that matters. not just general sharing vulnerability, but sharing something that matters in the business context. Trust gets built over time and then it, and then it is showing up and regularly asking for that information, regularly being around.

Yeah.

To hear, regularly walking the floor and just chatting to people. It's amazing what you can find out.

Yeah.

Because You know, it wasn't planned, and oh, how's that going? Oh yeah, well, we've got this working, and that's actually a real blockage, and da da da. And then suddenly you've got information that you can take back as leaders and start to work on how do we clear these blockages, because they know what needs fixing generally, right? Better than we as leaders do.

That's true. Claire, you mentioned sort of that. magic word before, 2 words, discretionary effort.

Yeah.

So I'd like to sort of dig into that a little bit. You mentioned sort of when you started, it was very authoritarian, this sort of command control type scenario. And given sort of your experience at World Vision around activating the purpose, activating what I would— I'm assuming is discretionary effort when you've got such a large volunteer base. Is everything discretionary when you're a volunteer? I'll be interested in that dynamic. And then what sort of models do you, or advice or frameworks would you have around activating that discretionary component?

Yeah, so we've touched on some of them already, but let me just explain because I think it is an interesting insight leading not-for-profit organizations. Because what happens is you do get discretionary effort, But people are very attached to the mission. That's why they come and work in a not-for-profit. And in that attachment to the mission, they can set up their own mental frame about how they're gonna deliver on the mission. And so you can end up with, in my case, it was like 500 unique little people, unique little, individual context delivering against that mission. So my job was to actually align that because I could see that if we worked together, we would achieve the mission faster, further, with greater impact. And, you know, in a commercial context, even though I've shared that that's gone through a shift from authoritarian leadership to more empowerment, At the end of the day, you know, if you've done all the work trying to convince management that they should do something differently and they don't do it, you'll— and they insist that you do the other thing, you'll still do it because it's your paycheck. In the not-for-profit land, it's just not quite the same because the mission is so important. And so it called for every influencing leadership skill. that I had, you know, many times I wanted to say, look, come on guys, just do it, right?

Yeah.

But that was— that approach didn't get the response. If I could persuade them or help them see that if we did it together, the mission would go further.

Yeah.

Then we would end up in the right place. And I started to do that and then I realized that Oh, that actually was growing people into making their own judgments about how we could do the mission better and further and faster. And so then it became far more a leadership style, a more embedded leadership style. But again, it's predicated on, it's always safe to say, actually, it's not working over here, can we sit down and talk about it?

And—

And because of that, then people feel safe to try things because they'll only try things if they think that you've got them from a safety net point of view.

Yeah. Yeah, and I imagine, you know, perception when you came into that big role in the NFP, you were sort of out of corporate commercial leader, obviously joining for all the right reasons, but still somewhat of an outsider when you were compared maybe from the staff. I could see why you wouldn't just activate that authoritarian style as well, because it would further sort of divide you.

Yeah, it would have, it would have alienated people. But I had to do something else, which I didn't know at the beginning. I sort of intuitively accidentally fell into it. I insisted on going on a field trip in my first 2 weeks, and everyone said, everyone from the board to you know, my leadership team, well, what are you doing that for? You should be here working out, you know, what we need to do. And I said, well, how can I do that if I don't understand the work that we're championing? So let me get on a plane and I'll, I'll go and see the work and it will only be 3 weeks and then we'll get back together, you know. And it gave me something that I, I needed in that role, which was to expose my heart So my heart was changed by going to the field, but I would never be that corporate leader again because of what I saw. But then I had to learn to share that heart. And, and so heart and head had probably equal weighting in that job.

Yeah.

But that doesn't mean we weren't working 90% of the time on the head part of it. It just meant that the way I described where we needed to go always was connected back to the heart.

Hmm.

And that's how I figured out how to get that discretionary effort. And then the second part is meeting people where they are and helping them see either where they need to go or helping them work that out themselves, actually, not by telling, 'cause telling doesn't work. Everyone can say, well, I don't agree with you. But helping them see if their vision is to go from here to here, what do they need to get to there? And then equipping them or providing the support to enable them to do that. So that's sort of, yeah, it was definitely a head and heart journey. And I think that will stay with me forever in terms of my leadership. Yeah.

Sorry, Alex, I'm just gonna jump in. I've got about 10 in the chamber. You mentioned the mission attached, when you came in attaching to the mission quite quickly. quickly. Mission, purpose, values, they're quite a fairly new or recent concept in the business world and it's moved on from create shareholder wealth. And knowing that you have the privilege of working with a lot of top execs and their leadership teams to sort of help them define their strategy, is that sort of where you look to sort of place focus? And sort of the end question to that is, Is that in the result or is that in the attempt of sort of this discretionary effort as a strategic advantage?

Well, I think it's a strategic advantage to really know why you exist as a company, even as a person. Your own personal mission is important and that's shaped over your career. So mine wasn't, definitely wasn't as clear early in my career as it is now. But you can look back and see the threads and how they all came together.

Yes.

Actually, banking is not as purposeless as we treat it in Australian society, because I've seen banking operating in a poverty context or the lack of banking. And banking has a huge purpose in our lives. We would not be able to achieve what we do as individuals without banks being part of our economy. So I think organizations lose touch because of that shareholder focus with their key purpose and mission. And like the words get bandied around a lot, but usually it comes from the DNA of the organization and where they do their best work, if you like, or where the customer and the organisational capability come together in a sort of signature or competitive advantage, that's still purpose. And I think organisations that tap into that provide enormous strategic clarity to their teams, but also people are looking for my why. Why am I doing this job? And is this a trustworthy organization that they're going to deliver on that purpose and have a space for me to deliver on that purpose? And so when you get all of that working together, it's a pretty exciting environment.

So, Kay, you talked about sort of people's, your personal mission, the why, that must be sort of linked to your values. Would you mind sharing those with us?

Yeah, well, I grew up in a Christian household, so I come from a place of Christian faith to answer this question. But also, it was the people around me early on when I was young that really influenced me. And I think that might— I might have gazumped a question there, but, you know, my nanny was very influential, and my grandfather were very influential in the Ballarat community. And I used to go up there for holidays and Nanny would take me around to all the different things she was involved in, kindergartens.

And this is your nanny, not the— this is your nan, not the family nana.

No, this is my grandmother.

Yes.

Yeah. And Sovereign Hill, they were involved in helping that grow. And, you know, there were so many things that they were involved in. And I saw that sort of from quite a young age. This is a very exciting thing to see her doing that and making those things happen. And so I think there's a bit of, you know, the sort of people that were in my life as well as that sort of Christian faith in terms of thinking about others and not always worrying about myself.

Yeah.

I guess that sort of leads on to— you spoke about your source of inspiration. your grandmother. Do you have another sort of a quote or a favorite book that's also helped inspire you?

Yeah, well, it won't surprise you, Brené Brown's Dare to Lead has been quite influential. She comes at it from a research perspective, so it's quite nice actually because she's gone out and said, what's the role of vulnerability in business and proven that it actually does, it is highly linked to performance. And, you know, you can look at it and say, well, that's obvious. Well, yeah, but it's hard to do.

Yeah.

And, and that's why I perhaps talk about it rather than vulnerability as more let's speak truth. Let's, let's explore what's actually going on.

Yeah.

How am I feeling about it? What's actually going on? How are you feeling about what's actually going on? Oh, gee. Yeah. I understand that. Now, how are we going to kind of solve this together? So yeah, so that's a book that's really influenced my career. And, you know, she keeps on writing good stuff. So yeah, she's one to follow.

Excellent. Thanks, Clare.

And Clare, I'd be really interested if you're open to sharing your own personal mission, and then in the context of— I know you've got the beauty of hindsight, but were there signals along the way? As an outsider who sort of knows of you and knows you, I sort of see this theme of education and growth, I guess, is it flowing through? Whether it was— World Vision effectively uses education to bring people out of poverty, which which is how you explained it to me one day. And now you're mentoring and giving back to maybe executives that are going through those live roles at the moment. But would you, I mean, I know you're on the mic, but are you open to sharing your personal mission and then how you've come across it? And was there signals along the way, I guess, someone that's in that time now?

Yeah, well, one of the most important signals, and I ask people this a lot, is What have been your favorite jobs and why? Because when we're happy and in the zone, that doesn't mean it's always like that, by the way. Your job can't always be, you know, beer and Skittles. That's not how it works. But, but when you are really excited about your work.

Yeah.

And there are jobs over our careers where you just go, oh yeah, that was so fun. Why was it fun? And, you know, there's a number of jobs in my career. One was, you know, I got to completely turn around a disastrous customer situation in mortgage operations. And people's house settlements were failing. And I got to completely turn it around. And it went from, you know, I can't remember the numbers, but it was horrendous, 60% failing down to—

10%.

Like we got it down to 3% and there was still more to do, but really quickly. That sort of stuff were the things that excited me when I could see that real transformation in the customer experience in the market.

It's an impact.

Now, when you get to World Vision, like, wow, the impact they have is phenomenal. They didn't kind of know how good their impact was. So my job was to actually say, 'Cause I kept finding it on page 56 of the, you know, post-implementation review study. And like donors, there's been a huge shift in the donor market. They wanna have impact, even if they've only got $20, they want it to completely change the world.

Mm-hmm.

And so for not-for-profits raising funds, the really important thing is to be able to demonstrate impact. So here was this gorgeous organization delivering incredible educative transformation through people, not handing out money. And, you know, they— my job was to just take that and help the organization communicate that. So, and that led to transformation in donor responses and then revenue improves and, you know, brand improves and all of that kind of really good stuff.

Yeah.

So I'd say the theme is delivering change that matters.

Yeah.

And then my current job, it's actually probably the hardest change in running OHO, co-founding and leading as CEO of OHO. That one's really interesting because no one will argue that the product is needed. So just quickly, what we do is help organisations ensure that all their people who work for them in any capacity, volunteer, contractor, or employee, has the right credentials and are safe to serve. And you think about that in terms of working with children or people with disability, any vulnerability, or us when we're in the health system.

And so that's usually like Like if I was running a childcare practice, I'd probably check it when I hired someone and then I'd throw it in a drawer and I don't know.

Well, what we're discovering is that even the checking at the front door is not fantastic. A lot of the onboarding companies are not that good. So we've gone up into the recruitment screening as well. Recruitment screening through about ongoing screening to ensure that people continue to be safe. And that's probably my hardest social change I've taken on because candidly the market is still in either in denial that they need it or they've got 20 other things that they think are more important, which kind of shocks me really that there would be anything that was more important than making sure the people who are caring for your kids Or the vulnerable are safe. But anyway, that's another conversation. But I guess it's continuing that theme of transforming society. Now I'm at the societal level. I thought I was starting a business, but I think I'm at the societal level of change now.

Different layers of transformation. Yeah. Oh, very—

thank you for sharing that, Klessa. Okay, so it's So when you were enjoying it most was really when you really had a focused change effort, whether it was that going from 60% to 3% and even World Vision. I remember when you sort of stepped into the role, the headlines were all about percentage of fund, how much goes to the end recipients. And yeah, that story certainly changed. And being able to identify, I guess, that marketing was such an asset and strategic value to a vision to drive that in the business. Over to you, Alex.

Thanks.

Well, actually, it'd be interesting. Sorry, Alex, you're nearly going to talk. But we could do that exercise on you. So if you look back at your favorite jobs, or maybe Claire, if we did it quickly, quickly, we could find your purpose.

You're saying it's not sitting here? Personal growth, Mike.

Well, it might be.

It'll be part of it. It'll be part of it.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I know. Claire, if it's okay, I'd like to bring it back a little bit to just sort of establishing that, I guess, that element of trust with your team and sort of bringing on and developing skills of people, I guess, giving them that purpose. Could you dial down into that a bit more just in terms of how do you create that? Really, from such— I know you said you need to start by being vulnerable, but what else is there?

Yeah, there's a few little tricks in terms of if, if you're not getting that, if you can tell that people are holding back. So one I've used, and there'll be other ways to do this, but is I'm an Adele fan and she has a song called Rumor Has It. So one trick is to say, oh, you know, rumor has it that such and such, you know, when you've just got the sixth sense, rumor has it that something's happening. And then people go, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, great that you mentioned it, you know. So to pull, pull the information out. Another thing that I found very helpful was using, having an unstructured time with my external relations and my internal head of HR and just sitting and talking about what's going on and are there things that we need to lean into. The other is encouraging your leaders to give you feedback. How do they? And the best question I found, 'cause if you say to people, you know, how am I doing? They go, oh shit, she's asked us how am I doing?

Yeah, fine.

She really should do blah, blah, blah, but I just don't wanna be the one to tell her. You know, like that goes through our mind all the time. But if you ask them, how do you need me to show up for you to do your best work at the moment? What do you need from me? They'll weave it in. And then as long as you're clued to actually what you need from me is this.

Mm.

And then I think the other one is just humility when you, when you mess it up. being willing to say, you're right, let's try this again. And there was a particular moment, and this is kind of a really good example of why, or proving to you that you can, that I did create a safe culture. 'Cause there was one day we were working on the budget and the board had huge expectations, had a history of very high revenue expectations without, backing it up. And the business had taken the budget in year after year and the board had said, that's not enough, and added. And they'd never met their budgets. And there was a lot of stress on this, you know, what were we aiming for? And we had a first go at the budget and people were lowballing numbers and, you know, there was this whole like— We're not going to make it. We're not gonna put up a big number. And I said, well, yeah, you know, we have to. I did the whole directive thing and it all fell apart. And someone came to me at lunchtime. I had the smarts to pause the meeting 'cause I could tell it wasn't going well.

Mm.

And take a break and we'd come back after lunch. And someone, one of my team came to me and said, you didn't show up the way we needed you to. We need an honest conversation about this. did and what came out of that. And I was happy to put my hand up and say, you're right, I didn't show up in the way that you needed me to.

Yeah.

And we did our best budget and we took it into the board and we fought for it and we were a united team and actually delivered on that budget because it was a combined effort. So, you know, being willing to say, actually, I've got this wrong, let's have another go at it. And that, that's not a, it's not a measure of the performance of my leadership to say, Let's do it again. It's in fact, it probably works in the other way, which is that we can adapt and be flexible and deliver what's needed.

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I think I keep coming back to that discretionary effort. It's like you're like the master, even that scenario there, you're sort of weaving it into the target setting. So if we're going to just put something out there that's not realistic, then the people are like, that's just set by the board.

But this is really Yeah, they've got ownership.

Yeah, yeah, making them own it. So they're going to do whatever it takes to do it. Interesting. I'm taking lots of notes, Claire.

Good.

Claire, do you have a favorite quote on leadership or, or just generally that sort of—

Well, at this end of the podcast, it won't surprise you, but Brené Brown says Clear is kind. So, and it's important to unpack that. That doesn't mean I say everything that comes into my head because that's clear. It's to not avoid saying what needs to be said. A bit like showing up in the way that the team need. Not saying what needs to be said is just as— is unkind.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so, you know—

Unkind, but maybe easier in the moment.

Correct. Yeah, correct.

Kicking the can, aren't you, at that stage?

But what I've also learned is it creates— if you don't speak what needs to be said, even if you've got no answer, If you can just say to people, I've got that on my radar, I know we need to do something about that, I can't do anything yet. You'll get a— it'll take— it's kindness, right? It's kindness to say I haven't got an answer to that yet.

Yeah.

Because if you say nothing, people fill the space in or spend their time standing in corridors going, oh, did you know, you know, we're not doing— we're not dealing with this or we're not You know, or this has happened or that's happened. And the other thing I think is in this communication world where we're all into content and presenting really well and all of that kind of stuff, and that makes us slow to communicate sometimes. You'd think intuitively we'd be fast because, you know, it's out there. Well, individually, yes, on social media, but collectively as an organization, I think we sometimes over-wordsmith or overcorrect. And, you know, again, there was a classic example. Someone in the leadership team was moving on when I first arrived, and they wanted to spend a couple of weeks and pull the leadership team together and figure out the communication. And what if people thought that you'd pushed him out? Or what if, you know, all these things? And I'm like, let's just get it out there because everybody knows anyway.

Mm-hmm.

Let's just get it out there and control the discussion to the extent that it's fact, it's truth, let's just communicate. And so that was sort of the philosophy. And there were a couple of other things that happened like that where I communicated quickly and clearly and saw a massive response in the organization that, 'cause I didn't wanna be left out. late with news. They wanted the news, they wanted the guidance and the information and the context. And so, you know, I think people do need us to be communicating clearly and in the moment and not fussing too much about it and saying it how it is. My experience is that you get a lot more respect from that. And you have a much less political organization.

Yeah, I think people can typically tell if you're just fluffing or stalling. Yeah, so I think that's a fair point.

Didn't you have a huge surge in your Yammer company, one of your corporate Yammer accounts when you were using that channel? Do you wanna maybe share that story?

Oh yeah, well, we'd been at an offsite and I said to the team, well, we need to tell the broad team something because they'll all be assuming, well, I don't know, but I'm guessing, what do you think they'll be assuming? And they said, oh yeah, that we've been doing a restructure. And I said, well, have we?

No.

No, we haven't. Well, perhaps we should tell them. And for various reasons, I ended up with the job of telling, and so I just popped it onto Yammer thinking that will get to everyone quickly and they can have a nice dinner and not be worried about what we were doing today. And I came in the next morning and said to my EA, oh, not everyone's on Yammer, maybe you should put out that message in an email. Can you get it off Yammer and put it in an email? And she added these 3 little words, as I posted on Yammer last night, blah, blah, blah. And so we, yeah, we had 400 signups the next day. The guy that ran the social media team came in and he's like, I love you. Because we'd been trying to get that sort of communication. And then that became, you know, whenever I was out in the field, I'd post the sort of public stuff, but then I'd post the unofficial stuff so the team could hear my perspective on what I'd seen and And stuff. So yeah, and then other people started doing it and, you know.

Yeah.

And we're talking sort of before we started recording, Claire, about, you know, having the privilege of being in and going through media speaking type programs and sort of that conditioning. And maybe is there anything that, any highlights or things that you sort of maybe can share that you've found useful by doing that?

In terms of media training? Yeah.

In terms of how you communicate, maybe not so much, you know, the onscreen stuff, but yeah, how you communicate. Is it your voice? You know, do you—

Yeah, it's really important that it's my voice. You can have people write it for you. Yeah, but you have to— if I'm going to stand up in front of a group of people that I don't know or in front of a media context where I want to get a message across, it's really important that it's my message. And so I generally learnt to— early on they were just writing speeches for me, but then I started— we started working together. My speechwriter and I started working together and I'd set the sort of structure. We'd have a brainstorm and I'd set the structure and, and then she'd go off and bring out these beautiful examples and Things that I would never have had time to go and find to sort of support telling the story or creating the message that we were trying to create. So I do think it's important to own it and you're better off not doing it if you haven't got ownership. Yeah.

Which is a risk now with things like ChatGPT. You just throw it in, they give you a beautifully crafted thing that you would probably never say and you probably skim read it, you realize.

Yeah.

Yeah, I haven't got into that yet, but I've used it for some other things. Yeah, it's very good on marketing, creating your marketing pitch for the website and things.

But yeah, but coming back to communication actually, Claire, so currently obviously you, um, you lead an organization which is pretty much a hybrid model or almost actually a purely work-from-home model. So how does— how have your communication changed in that environment?

Yeah, so we heavily rely on Teams chat as to what's going on. We and we've allocated time, as you know, to come into the office to spend time together. Yeah, because it it's you can't do 100% hybrid. I don't care what anyone says. It's not it's not healthy, and you don't solve problems quickly. So so it's those. kinds of things. It's a bit easier, it's a much smaller team. When you've got a very large team, that's challenging. Yeah.

Yeah. So you think discretionary effort's harder in that sort of model?

Like, oh, look, I think people would like to think that because then they could argue that everyone had to come back in the office. I think that's too superficial. I think it really depends on the individuals, the work, and their commitment to the organisation.

Yeah.

Yeah. The challenge of getting someone to tell you what's really going on in an online hybrid context, that requires a bit more work. And so there's still, I think, no substitute for sitting down and having coffee. face-to-face occasionally, but it isn't needed as much as probably people might think.

Yeah, it's probably going back to the authoritarian command control, get you back in the office, which goes against the whole shift into the other way.

Yeah, and it's a little bit challenging, isn't it? Because trust— if I have to see you to know that you're doing a good job, then am I actually trusting you to do the job or am I not?

Yeah.

And again, that was something that I learned early on in my career, or sort of by accident, 'cause I was working, I was in the UK, had my first child, and my boss was very forward-thinking and said, that's fine, you can come back to work. and work from home. And so I, I was working from home like way before it became a thing. And I can remember speaking to other people in the UK going, oh, my company would never let me do that. And oh, I'd have to be seen, you know, I've got to be in the office and be seen. Anyway, the long and the short of that, I learned I thought I was doing an inferior job because I was working 4 hours a day and that was part-time and You know, and my team in Australia were like, this is fantastic. And they were rapt with everything that I'd achieved. And I'm thinking, oh, you know, there's not a correlation between time and presence and results.

Yeah.

It's actually the results and the commitment and the motivation and the skill and the capability and all of those things that will determine whether you get value from hybrid or, you know, working from home or working in the office. I mean, you have plenty of people sitting in the office marking time. Yeah, you know, so I think it's a little bit more complicated than either or.

Yeah, because you started on, you know, it's not all about the out— When we were talking, outcomes were really important, but it wasn't all about them. But now it's becoming a bit more transactional if you're managing the outcomes. Sorry, that's just me reflecting on what— yeah, the conversation.

What do you mean, Dave?

I think when we were starting, we were sort of talking about outcomes are real— when we were talking about the banking example, outcomes are really important. We've got to get them, but they're not everything. It's about getting them to— getting people to buy into something that's going to drive that discretionary effort beyond sort of what they thought was possible.

Yeah, and I think what was happening was they had my discretionary effort because they'd provided the environment that actually worked for me to deliver great outcomes in that particular context. And so, yeah, so, so you can have discretionary effort in the remote environment. Yeah. And you can have it in the in-office environment or you can not have it in either. And so, and my view is the discretionary effort is what will drive the outcomes.

Yeah.

I mean, it sounds like your manager back in the UK, he sort of made it work for you. So that's it. So he was, he was looking after you in that sense and looking out for you, I should say, not after you. But it sounds like that's sort of a key leadership attribute in terms of making it work for your team.

And yeah, well, if it's not working, you know about it, right? Because you'll spend a lot of time. And I've had people where it hasn't worked out, like working, either the job didn't suit them or they couldn't show up in the way that I was setting as a benchmark in terms of that honesty and facing into problems and And not, you know, not bagging the peers when your own shop is not healthy. Yeah, like that. It still happens. You know, we have to face reality. It still happens. And so sometimes you get people who can't live in that space of openness and truth and collaboration and working with each other so that the whole team succeeds.

Yes.

And in my experience, not dealing with that will cause far more problems.

Yeah.

How do you deal with an employee who doesn't align with your values or culture?

Well, in this particular case, I gave a lot of space and reflection time for them to help work it out for themselves.

Okay.

And I kept setting that was the expectation and kept encouraging the rest of the group to continue to hold that person to that level. But to be honest, like, this is why I talk about it's so important that people will come and tell you directly, because in that particular case, it had been going on for a while, and in the peer group, it was well known. And I wasn't told clearly enough. I was told there were, I can't solve this with this person. And I'm like, oh well, have you tried that? Or what do you think will solve the problem? Or, you know.

Yeah.

We had those kinds of collaborative conversations, but because they didn't directly say to me, this person is not living by the values and I don't think it's going to change, Yeah. It wasn't until that someone courageously did come and tell me that, that I went, oh, I see why there's been so much noise and stuff. Yeah. So, you know, it will, it will come out if you set that tone. People will choose in or out. But in this case, particular case, providing a lot of space for them to reach that decision themselves was the right path.

Yeah.

If, if they hadn't reached that, I would have made the decision to say it's, it's not working. It was very obvious that it was not working once it came into the open. So yeah, it's probably a little bit longer than I wanted, but it, it was resolved, which is important. Many cases, those sorts of toxic things sit there for a very long time.

Yeah. Yeah.

And no one deals with them.

Absolutely.

So Claire, we've sort of been through themes of leadership, not-for-profit, commercial environments. We've covered startup environments, also touched on sort of this authentic leadership, establishing trust and having the tough conversations, or being, as Brené calls it, clear and kind, or clear is not kind, I should say.

Clear is kind.

Clear is kind.

Clear is kind.

Great.

Clearly learning. Was there questions? We haven't really gone into— because I know you're showing up in terms of a leadership perspective at the board table now, which is maybe different to how you'd show up as an executive. But was there questions that we didn't go into? You thought, actually, this is probably something I'd like to share, whether it's a comment or, yeah, an observation. I know you're sort of looking after about 60 top execs here in Melbourne. So maybe what's front of mind for them through the mastermind relationships, but Yeah, love to just have an open question to take it anywhere.

Well, I observe a lot of our CEOs around the table are really struggling. Well, let me put it, let me start that again. If I think about the things that our CEOs around the table talk about the most, it's people issues. And I think there's a couple of things going on in there. One is that we've been called upon to lead in a totally different context. So that whole hybrid in the office, you know, if that makes— it does make things more complex. And the other thing I think is making things a lot more complex for leaders is that at the moment, because there's such a shortage of labour, the power is with—

The worker.

labor rather than leadership.

Or management.

Having said that, you know, that's exactly the context I walked into in World Vision. And so I think that our leaders are grappling with that transition. They have to move to a much stronger influencing style of leadership, and that's calling for harder You know, it's harder, right? It's much easier to say, look, the task is this and off you go and bang, bang, bang, you're responsible for this and if you don't do it, I won't give you your bonus. Like that's much easier.

Yeah.

To actually engage hearts and minds is a much harder task and in our fast-paced urgent world, sometimes leaders, you know, might feel like they don't have the time for it. My experience is if you put the time in for that, you'll get paid the dividends later in seeing your team actually start owning things and taking things forward without you needing to say anything. So that would be the first observation. The second is that as much as we, you know, don't like to think it, we'd much rather be focused on the external organization clients and the internal organization. Boards are very important, and boards take more time than most CEOs think they should. But actually, they're an important part of a company's performance. And, you know, there'll be times where you might be in tension with the board, or there might be times where the board and the management team are working really well together. And both of those times are important because that stretching that happens between the executive and the CEO and the board and the executive team should be, as long as it's constructive, should be what keeps the organization growing and developing. Because you should never be in a situation where you have no external accountability.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you can do that, but it can create, you know, it creates other problems. And you can believe in your own, um, you can get stuck believing your own view of the world is the only view of the world. So, so I think, you know, we, we— it's easy, and I fell into it at times, but it's easy to see the board as a challenge or a nuisance or it takes time or, but actually the more that CEOs and leadership teams can use their board effectively and work with their board effectively and allow them to be that sort of sandpaper refining the organization, I think it's the better. Yeah.

And again, having that clarity, being clear. Very important going up as well as down.

Correct.

And also that perspective, like that. So for example, that you would bring to a board being in a CEO or C-suite role, you know what their perspective is when you're sitting on the other side of the board table.

I always ask now on the boards that I'm on, I always ask and I'm surprised I'm often the only person asking it. What does the CEO think on this issue?

That's interesting.

Yeah, I really want to know, you know, CEO, what do you think? Yeah, because if their voice is not as— like, they're closer to it. It's all very well for a board to have a conversation and go, well, I think we should do this, but we're not living with it every day. And so it doesn't mean we do what the CEO thinks, We might take that and add to that and refine that. And then the CEO might go, oh yeah, that's actually better than what I was thinking. But to ask them is really important, even on, you know, who's gonna be the next director.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry, I'm gonna have to—

That's all good.

No, and that sort of reminds me of the nodding head example you gave, I think when you were in the UK in the scenario and Going around the table, all nod their head, and then nothing got done.

Exactly.

It's all in the tone of voice, Dave. So Claire, you described it as your leadership style and discovering what worked for you was a bit of a, I guess in your own words, you stumbled across it. And I mean, it's quite, as I say, it had to be quite courageous, obviously listening to yourself and and figuring out what works. Do you have any sort of tips for people along the way? Obviously there's been—

Yeah, well, this is where we'll get into a little bit of agenda conversation because the lovely thing about my career in ANZ was they gave me lots of training. The more challenging part was they gave me lots of feedback and quite often it was very contradictory feedback. too aggressive, you're not assertive enough, and you can't reconcile it. Like they were kind of at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Yeah.

And so I had to— and I'm a reflective person, so— and I'm happy to— like curiosity and growth is important to me anyway as an individual. So I'd always take this away, but then I was left with this sort of, you know, I actually can't do both of these at once. So what— who am I going to be?

Mm.

And so that was probably— now, I can't say that that wasn't going on for the guys, but it didn't seem to maybe have the same significance. I don't know. But those particular words are quite challenging 'cause they're often used about women.

Yes.

And girls.

And girls. Yeah. Yeah. And ambitious was the other one I'd get all the time. Oh my goodness, you're very ambitious, Clare.

Sorry, is that a bad thing?

Well, it wasn't said in a way that it was a positive. It was not said in a way that it was positive. So I had to go away and go exactly what you just said, Alex. What's wrong with ambition? You know, and what's my motivation for more senior leadership roles? It was usually because I reckoned I could make more interesting things happen in the market or get a better outcome.

Yeah.

By having more, you know, scope and capacity in the role. So yeah, so feedback's one of those challenges. The litmus test I used to use was, is it someone that I think has my best interests at heart?

That's good.

And if that, that was true, then I needed to sit down and take it seriously.

Yeah.

And that became very helpful. Also had a fantastic coach at one stage who really unpacked. We did quite a lot around— and you've heard some of it in different language— but quite a lot around power versus force. The power I'm talking about is the influencing power. The force is the just get there and do it. This is what's got to happen.

Yeah. Was that an external coach?

Yes, it was.

Okay.

Yeah.

So that's interesting. So obviously you currently coach a lot of executives and you had to clearly believe in the power of external coaching.

Oh yeah.

My goodness. I mean, I love that coaching experience. Now sitting on the other side and, you know, we'll explore a situation or a context and then I get a phone call, you know, a week later. Oh, this, this happened. It's never happened before, but we got this result. You know, that's pretty exciting. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a good impact.

Yeah. And I didn't have to do the work.

That's brilliant.

Yeah.

Well, I think, Alex, uh, I think I might have— you might have a few questions for Claire. We're gonna—

given you hugged them all, Dave, and that—

Yeah, I got about 100 to go. Yeah, it's all right.

I've, um, uh, so Claire, if you, um, if you had to mentor your younger self, what advice would you give you?

Oh, you've floored me there. I had my answer for the 10-year-old self question.

What advice?

I think to have more courage or more faith in myself earlier.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, it's hard advice to give your younger self though too, because when we're younger, we're trying to figure out how the world works and what our place is in it. But Yeah, it would have been to have more confidence earlier to—

Yeah. And sorry.

Yeah. To, to go for things and to pursue what I thought was pretty clearly needed to happen. Yeah.

Okay. And how would that advice have changed if it was your 10-year-old self?

Oh, my 10-year-old self, I would have said to me, Just as well, well, because I don't think you were going to be a very good policewoman.

That's funny.

Yeah, that's what I wanted to be when I was 10, was a policewoman. I don't know why. There were no police in our family. There was like no connection to it anywhere, but yeah, there you go.

Interesting. On that point there, Clare, around having faith in yourself earlier. I hear that come, or having faith or confidence, or I hear that come up in different guises quite often. Do you think there was any way to build that confidence and faith in yourself earlier? If there had been some tactical things you could have implanted that might have accelerated that, now you're in hindsight mode?

Yeah, some About the middle of my career, I did trip over something that was very helpful, which was around that there's some research on confidence and the only solution to confidence, I think this, if I quote this research correctly, is to take the first step towards the thing that you think you can't do. And so, you know, the first media interview. For example, once you've done the first one, you go, oh, actually that wasn't so bad. I'll, you know, and I can keep on doing them. Or, you know, the first job application where, you know, I'm going to try and leverage the network to get the job or, you know, whatever it is, that's really the only answer.

Yeah.

So And also letting other people's voices— probably the other one that would help a lot earlier is, is this feedback coming from someone who has my best interest at heart? If I'd worked that out earlier, that would have helped a lot.

Yes.

Because I spent a lot of time trying to be what, you know, other people thought would— yeah, what I should be as a leader. And, you know, the best leaders are grounded in their authentic self. Yeah, definitely.

I like that advice about sort of facing your fear and taking it a step at a time and building it up. I think that's, that's pretty solid.

Yeah. Yeah. It's usually not as— it's usually not as bad as you think it's going to be. And look, sometimes it is, but actually that had nothing to do with you. Yeah. Like there's contextual reasons. And I think probably something else that might help. some of our listeners is I like to think now, didn't have this earlier, but I think, I like to think now about jobs as a season. I have this role for a season because seasons can come to an end sometimes the way you plan and sometimes not. As we know, like the turnover in CEO jobs is significant.

Yeah.

And if you think of it as a season, then You can think about what was achieved in that season. And then also thinking about new jobs that are coming. What will this season involve? Because we can't hold the job, you know, I guess it helps separate my own identity or our identity from our jobs if we think about them in that kind of, I'm holding this for a season but I won't hold it forever.

Yeah.

It's not mine forever. Yeah, yeah.

That leads on, leads into thinking about succession planning and everything else. And yeah, yeah, I guess the strength of the company, just passing it on.

Yes. And that if you create a culture of safety and leadership where people are pulling together and collaborating and working as a team and a high-performing team in the leadership structure, you'll sort of automatically solve some of those succession issues. Won't necessarily mean that one of those people will get the job because that is the board's decision. And they will look at a much broader context than often the CEO because the CEO's focused solely on the organization. But it does ensure that you have potential people in the, in the set for consideration. Yeah, that's great.

Anything more from you, Dave?

I was still contemplating that transferable confidence or that doing the first, taking that first step. I just, I really resonated with me. I'm a bit, I'm a deep thinker too, Claire. So I like your comment also about Um, saying that you don't have a view on that yet, because I find in hindsight, or just after you've spoken to someone, you know the perfect thing to say or the perfect question. As soon as I get out of this studio, I'll know the perfect question to ask you, Claire.

It's like the perfect comeback in an argument.

I've hogged too many questions, Alex. I'm going to divert back to you.

That's right. Well, Claire, I mean, if there's, um, obviously sort of coming to a close now, but is there anything else you feel you'd like to talk about or touch on that we've You've not yet covered?

No, I think we've done pretty well.

Yeah, I think we have as well.

Yeah, you're gonna have trouble putting it into whatever it is, 5 minutes or what's the length of the podcast?

Well, usually about, yes, about 40, 45.

Oh, is it? Oh, it's that long.

Stretching our long form. So yeah, we won't be cutting too much of you out.

Okay.

No, it's basically just me and Dave.

Yes. Oh my gosh.

Cool.

Well, I'll get my, um, my stopwatch ready.

Because we've got to do some rapid fire, don't we? Yeah, Claire, I think we're going to move on to some rapid fire questions, and these are either/or questions. So you just say whatever comes to the top of your head, front of mind.

I'll get my alarm going. Do you want the alarm going? Why not? I'll put it on. You can run over.

Yeah, you can always ding. Exactly.

All right, 3, 2, 1, go!

Here we go, Claire. Early bird or night owl?

In between.

Sweet or savory?

Savory.

Books or movies?

Oh, books.

Summer or winter?

Summer.

Comedy or drama?

Drama.

ANZ or NAB?

I answered.

Strategy or culture?

Culture.

Traditional in-office or remote work?

In between.

Long-term planning or agile adaption?

Agile adaption.

B2B or B2C?

B2B.

Phone calls or texts?

Phone calls.

Home cooking or dining out?

Oh, is that a choice? Um, at the moment, home cooking.

Uh, passenger or driver?

Driver.

Electric or petrol?

Oh, I want to be electric.

Cash or card?

Card.

PC or Mac?

PC.

Uh, beer or wine?

Well, wine.

Okay. Uh, sweets or chocolate?

Sweets. That's an English word, isn't it?

Yeah, probably should take that out.

Chocolate.

City or country?

City.

Sleep-in or early riser?

Sleep-in. Okay.

And, uh, walk or run?

Oh, run.

Excellent. Thank you.

So we got you on the end. You almost— you asked 2 questions that were the same. It was early bird or Night out. Yeah, I said in between. Yeah, sleep early or sleep in. And then you, you, um, you finally came clean on sleeping. But I know you've got a strong view on this, Claire, about the need for sleep, uh, and sort of against sort of the heroics— is that a word?

Heroism.

You know, don't sleep enough.

Yeah, well, they say Maggie Thatcher got Alzheimer's because she only slept four hours a night. Yeah, and I can't imagine how that would have made her effective. Yeah, but you know, I don't know what her bio system was like, so I can't really comment. But yeah, rest is hugely important. Yeah, and there's another book recommendation for you. There's a book called Rest, and you if you read it, you discover that all these really intelligent. smart people used to work 4 hours a day.

Yeah.

And achieved incredible things. And if you don't give your brain a rest, you can't problem solve too. So yeah, I'm a, I'm very passionate about rest.

So that's not just sleeping.

You mean, yeah, it's not just sleeping. Yeah. Reflection time and downtime. And I often say, you know, CEOs, you look at their diaries and I had to work to do this because my diary, you lose control of your diary as a CEO. people put stuff in.

Yeah.

And I had to say, no, you know, this time is set aside. And I'd just go to my local coffee shop and just sit there and go, well, what do I need to solve? What's on the horizon? What's not working? And just give myself the space. And it was amazing how many times I found something that shortcutted a problem and solved it quicker just because I took myself off. The treadmill.

Yeah. How many hours a day would you typically do that as CEO?

Oh, you can't do it every day. No, I would make sure that I had one minimum, maybe 2 sessions a week where I just had an hour to, to reflect.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

Always outside of the environment?

Usually. Yeah, usually, because someone will interrupt you if you're in the environment.

That's a good point.

Yeah. And also that physical removing from the context allows you to look from the outside in more. That gets harder in remote because you're always outside. It's almost the reverse.

Bring them in. Come in.

You almost need to come in to do the reflecting.

But radiation.

Yeah, but certainly, yeah, certainly having that space is important.

Yeah, there we go. Just when we thought that was the last question, there was a couple more little nuggets to sneak in.

Thank you, Claire.

Well, thank you for your time today. Thanks for coming on the show. And, um, yeah, looking forward to continuing to work with you and, and see you support our CEOs and watch your new business grow and continue to grow. Thank you, Claire.

Thanks.

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.