One NZ CEO Jason Paris on Elon Musk, AI Innovation & the Power of Creativity in Business

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Life, nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to the Lead On Purpose podcast. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion and now coach to entrepreneurs, CEOs, professional athletes all over the world. This show is for people who refuse to settle, people who are driven, people who want to grow, who know that there's so much more to learn and want to learn from the world's best. Each week I bring you insights from a special guest who's at the top of their game with whether they're in Formula one, whether they're a billionaire, whether they've started a company from scratch and take it to the top. I bring them to you so that you can rewire your mindset, take action and lead a life of purpose.

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Today's special guest is Jason Paris, CEO of One NZ and arguably the biggest fan of the Warriors. Enjoy the show, Jason.

A huge welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Oh, pleasure. Absolute pleasure. As I said before, I've been with One NZ previously, Vodafone, for a couple of decades now, so it's quite fun to sit down with current CEO.

Thank you. Thank you for your loyalty. And just to say it up front, I'm your personal account manager from this point in time. So any issues for you, your whnau at work, you can come to me and hopefully there won't be too many. But it's always nice to know you've.

Got a backstop 100%. That's pretty awesome. Thank you.

No worries.

I want to get very tactical to start with. What's one habit that you've baked into your life that helps you perform at your best?

Exercising and having something at home because it gives me more flexibility to be able to even just do something for 20 minutes, 30 minutes at any time in the day versus having to go to the gym or do something. And I know that if I'm feeling good myself, then I'm pretty much better in other facets of my life and work.

I love that. It's interesting when I think about it, if we don't make time for health, we better make time for sickness. And it sounds like even someone who's running one of New Zealand's largest organizations, you prioritize your physical health.

Well, I try to. Like, it's. The intention is always there. But for me, you know, my family always comes first. And so often I'll be trying to support them in some way and I'd sacrifice myself, but I know that I'm a better dad and a better partner if I'm feeling good myself. But it's not always possible to get that balance right.

I hear you. It's interesting. I've listened to you speak a lot over the last year or so, and family comes up a lot. And it's interesting. I think there's this real dichotomy between leading a large company and being a present father and partner. And a lot of people struggle with it. A lot of people struggle to find. I don't like the word. I don't believe in work life balance. I believe in counterbalance. Like, okay, I've been heavy on the work for the last couple of weeks. Okay, time to reset and come over here. What's your way of finding that kind of. I don't want to say balance, but that kind of harmony?

Yeah, well, I'm like you. I don't believe in work life balance. I believe in work life choice. And so I fundamentally believe if you are not good at home, you can't be good at work. And now what looks good at home for everyone is different. For me, it's making sure that I never miss a moment of importance with my family. That doesn't mean that I'm with them every single moment. But if it matters to them, therefore, it matters to me. And I'm proud that I've been here, what, for six and a half years at one New Zealand. And I have never missed a moment of importance in their lives. That even included missing meeting Elon Musk and going to a rocket launch in the US Because I went to my daughter's year six graduation. There will be plenty more rocket launches. No more year six graduations for my daughter. But I didn't go to her cross country because it's not a big deal for her. And so I was at work doing that. So, yeah, for me, no such thing as work life balance. There's only work life choice. And anyone who works knows that you can probably bring a sleeping bag to your job and never leave. The to do list is endless. That's not healthy. But I do find I can get through my to do list more if I'm feeling great at home first.

When you look at positive psychology as well, it backs up that when we're in a state of flourishing, we perform better.

Absolutely.

Performance and athletes, you know, if it's on the field or whether it's in the boardroom, we just perform better when we're happy people.

Yeah. And you know yourself, right? When you're at work and you're distracted or feeling guilty about something that you wanted to support someone with outside, or you're at home and. And someone's trying to talk to you and you've got your phone or it's buzzing in your pocket or you've got that email you're thinking about, you're not really engaged. So I try and make a deliberate choice and be present 100% of the time, whether it's at work or home or wherever else I am, and make that choice as much as I can, guilt free.

That's amazing. I deeply admire that because there's certain things with Finn, I've got a little 8 year old boy and there's certain things I've had to say no to, which were amazing work opportunities to go to his production. So sports, not a massive thing for him at this drama and music that that is. And like you, no regrets. I want to be there. It's important to him.

Wow. And like if you're looking at creativity and drama and art, man, that is the future. Like you want to hold onto that as a child, one of my favorite, probably going a little bit off piece, but one of my favorite kind of New Zealanders, Tim Finn, I remember him saying maybe a few years ago now, what is it when you go into a classroom of 8 year olds and you say, who's a magician, who's an artist, who's a singer, who's an actor? And 100% put their hand up for every question and then you go next door to a class of 14 year olds and you go, who's a musician? Musician. Maybe one person might put their hand up slightly at the back, who's an actor? You know, something happens where we lose our creative spirit. So anything that we can do to hold onto it for as long as possible, the better. So fantastic to see here your son is into the creative arts. That's amazing.

He really does. Yeah. So I came to New Zealand on a culture visa 20 years ago as a 19 year old playing drums.

Fantastic.

And so I was here to help a school in Christchurch. They wanted to Become the world's first world champions from New Zealand. And so it was my job to come and teach drums and do that. So creative kind of arts do run in the family, that's for sure.

Fantastic.

What can we do as parents to really encourage that? Because our education system is pretty awesome and yet it's got its challenges. But it's pretty awesome in a lot of ways. But it's set up in a lot of ways to set people up for being accountants. Certainly not set up for people to be entrepreneurs, but it's very traditional. What can we do and not try and push things onto the education area? But as parents, what can we do to encourage that creativity?

I would try and. Well, what we do is we try and be as open minded to them, trying as many things for as long as they possibly can. You often see children being forced to because of the system or because of their parents specializing way too early. And my personal view is it doesn't matter if it's arts or sports for example.

When you're trying lots of things actually it's amazing how the skills are applicable to other parts of your life, whether that is art or whether it is sport. So again, I love the fact that the all blacks learned how to be better in line outs by studying ballet. So like there are lots of things that you can learn from different industries. And so I think it's Sad when an 8, 9, 10, 11 year old, you have to go what, you're a tennis player now or you're a soccer player now or you're a drummer or you're an artist? No you're not. You're all of those things for as long as you possibly can be. And then you know, then you'll find it has to be self determined. The child will decide what they love and then it's your job, I think just to support, encourage, encourage them, not shield them from the tough times because they also need to make sure, build a level of resilience because you can't be around them the whole time. I think that's probably the key. But I love that theme of creativity because it doesn't matter what industry it is.

Being curious, being creative in spirit of mind, genuinely think that's the game changer that I don't think AI will automate that human creativity.

And with you on that, we had Mo Goddard, the former Google CBO on the show talking about AI and he was just explaining where it's going to go and how fast it's going to go there. But one beautiful little gold Nugget that he said was, look, the one thing that will become the most important thing on the planet, human connection, creativity. And so as you say that, I'm like, I agree with that 100%. When you think about work at One NZ, when you look at your high performers and I'm sure there's thousands of incredible people, you're absolute high performers who inspire others. Where does creativity play its part? Do you see that showing up in those people that are truly flourishing?

Hey James here. I wanted to take a quick moment to let you know about something. Look, I get asked to deliver keynotes and workshops for teams and companies all over the world, from London to Antarctica, from America to Australasia, from armies to small businesses to large corporations, corporates to sports teams. But I go in and deliver keynotes around the mindset of high performers, around the habits of high performers, about how we navigate change. If you would like me to come and speak to your team or speak at your conference or deliver a bespoke workshop, please get in touch with my team. Carolinejlochlan.com will be able to help. I'll also make sure that we put that in the show notes.

Yeah, I just, I'm just thinking of all the high performers and they're very different in different ways.

But yes.

Creativity curiosity plays a part in all of them. It's also my job to try and make sure that.

The continuing to think in a creative way and be curious. Because when you're in a business environment there is a tendency to think about your delivery for the next quarter, next half, next year.

Whereas actually you need to step back and think about the next 10 years and what are the moves you can make in the next quarter, half year, two years to make sure that you've got a sustainable business for the next 10 years. And that comes down to creativity, creativity, being curious, different ways of thinking. So I'd say they're all quite an eclectic mix of high performers.

But yes, creativity plays a big part. I'd say the biggest challenge for us has been that kind of well known saying.

A team of champions moving to a championship team. So in business you're structured in silos often.

And that is okay for a point in a point in time, but the real gains are the cross functional benefits that you get when you've got people working collectively together versus in their own swim lanes. And that's probably one of the more challenging things for organizations to get their heads around. And again that takes creativity and curiosity to get there.

How do you do that at One nz. How do you create that cross pollination?

Well, we're only probably moving into that kind of second phase now. When I first joined, I joined because I could just see an immense opportunity within the organization to lift our game even further. Not that we weren't doing a great job, but.

There was a lot of opportunity and I deliberately asked the organization to be operationally excellent in their fields of expertise. And so that was kind of the first four years basically and we've had phenomenal success and now we're going through and moving into.

Now you've been, you know, a team of champions. How do you move into a championship team? And there's a whole range of things that we're looking at. One of the reference points is the All Blacks and looking at some of the things that they've done. So just everything from common purpose, shared.

Goals.

Holding the tension around the table versus letting things go unsaid. Little things like if it's a big decision.

We ask everyone to put their hand up. So there's a physical reaction to go, yes, I am in. Yeah, yeah. So there's a, a bunch of kind of important, kind of strategic and then tactical moves. We've got a thematic that we've just kind of landed called One Shot.

I kind of played that Eminem, you know, Lose Yourself. Yeah, Lose Yourself.

I love that song.

Yeah, it was a pretty awkward moment for me because I stood up and did a little kind of weird Em Eminem rap just to kind of get the flavour of if you had One shot, one opportunity, what would you do? Would you take it or would you let it go? And so we've got a thematic as a team where, you know, if you sit back here in three or four years.

Wouldn'T we be disappointed if we hadn't become a championship team and we've got one shot. What do we think it's going to take for us to get there? So yeah, we've got some thematics and but it's only. It's been emerging for the last six months because we're moving into the kind of next phase of high performance at work.

Beautiful. Yeah. That's what I geek out on is high performance. What do high performers do? How do they do it? And it's interesting, this idea of theming. You know, you look at Canterbury, obviously I'm a little bit one eyed. I live down in Christchurch. But you know, Canterbury Crusaders under Razor Robertson, they had themes, you know, the Muhammad Ali theme, Rumble in the Jungle and that was it. And then this big tidal wave of success came. And every year there's a unique theme and we see that lots of teams, both sporting and business, are starting to adopt that. I would say a couple things come to mind. As you mentioned, this idea of cross pollination. Esther Wasciki raised three girls in Palo Alto using the Trick principle. One of her daughters was the CEO of YouTube, sadly recently passed away. The other one is the founder of a billion dollar company called genetics company 23andMe. And the other one's a medical practitioner. So she says there's gotta be trust. That's the first part of Trick. It's got to be respect, then there's got to be independence. And so this idea of you saying, look, James, when I come in, you've got to be epic in your area. And now you're saying three or four years in, everyone's performing really well in their individual areas. The c part of Trick is collaboration. And you can't collaborate until you have something to bring to the table. And that's the excellence piece. It's that people know who they are, what they do. They perform very well individually, as teams. Now it's how do we bring that across and collaborate? And the K stands for kindness. Can we do this and be kind to each other?

I love all of that, the collaborating in kindness, because the collaboration is like, as you described it, bringing something to the table. But collaboration for me means. Probably also means in kindness, sacrifice.

You've got to make sure that you're prepared to put the team's goal and ambition ahead of your own personal ones. So it's just also, again, easier to say than it is to do. But again, you just see the, you know, the great teams. And I know, again, sporting analogy, you know, from, I don't know, was it the 90s Chicago Bulls, they asked the janitor, what do you, you know, what's your role here? I'm here to win the championship. Right. Everyone is there, common goal. And I think you see that, like there's so many. You go to a symphony orchestra or I'm sure if there was a team of.

Medical staff in a surgery, on a. In an operating theater doing brain surgery. Everyone knows their role, but everyone knows that there's one goal they're trying to get there and they do anything they can for someone else to make it happen. So, yeah, I love Trick. I'll have to look into a little bit more.

I'll send you a little. Actually, I'll send you her book. It's a great book.

I think the other question, I think for her will be.

How do you make sure that you feel like you're performing and successful when you're surrounded by so many high performers, you know, Comparison trap? Yeah. Like.

Must be. Must be difficult when you've got so many people around you that you know and love and. Yeah, that comparison trap will be difficult.

I must pose that to her, actually. She's an amazing. She was a schoolteacher in Palo Alto and she had Steve Jobs as kids come through. But interestingly, she also taught Elon Musk. So you brought Elon up just a second ago. Starlink. I went to Antarctica to deliver a high performance program for Scott Bass just a month or so ago. And I was so grateful that every morning, every night, I was able to FaceTime my son and my partner Caroline, because of StarLink. Amazing. So One NZ has partnered with Starlink to create an incredible network for all Kiwis. So the Musk effect, how do you handle that? I mean, he's a genius. He is so creative, deep curiosity, but he's Elon Musk and he sometimes does funny things. So how do you, as leader of One nz, manage that and kind of quantify it all?

So I always say I love my wife, but I don't agree with everything that she says or does. And we're still married. And there is just no doubt that Elon Musk is the, or if not one of the technology geniuses of our time, potentially ever. You know, when he makes his mind up to do something, he does it and finds a way with the support of some pretty incredible people. But at the same time, with that kind of genius, you do get some polarizing views on other areas of the world that you may not agree with.

So.

It'S a tricky one because the technology is going to provide.

So much benefit for the world. But if it got to a point where we felt that there was a genuine values misalignment, then we'd have to reconsider.

I don't think that's happened from our perspective.

Yeah. So I think that's always a kind of a. Speaks volumes, a watching brief.

Yeah, it's brilliant.

But as you've said.

You know, the technology that his team have and are deploying.

Whether it's being able to FaceTime your children when you are in Antarctica or keeping people safe during a cyclone or the LA fires, is pretty, pretty incredible. It's saving people's lives.

Mind blowing.

Yeah.

And I think when I look at what you've done, that partnership, oh, my God, that's a dream partnership. So for the person that's listening, let's be an entrepreneur. And they're thinking, God, how do I forge world class epic partnerships like that? What did you learn from building that partnership that you could pass on as some advice?

Speed.

And agility and embrace the New Zealand DNA of what's the worst that could happen? They could say no. So we've done this probably two or three times now.

And when you're trying to talk to these big companies who have got scale that we could not fathom, and you're trying to convince them to partner with a country that has sometimes left off world maps, what do you do? Well, you just need to be bold and brave enough to ask the question and to outline why they need to partner with you. And so.

With after Cyclone Gabriel, the Starlink broadband service existed. We could start to hear about the Starlink to mobile service and just basically went to Elon and pitched.

Well by email and just said, hey, you don't know us, we're in New Zealand sometimes. I left off world maps. We've just set a cyclone. We've seen this technology emerging. We want to be the world first. And they'd already just announced a deal with T Mobile to deploy the technology.

In the US.

But they said we want their vision is maximum impact on maximum number of people. And so what we said is we can deploy this across entire country, prove the technology for you to be able to go to much larger markets and show here's the roadmap on how to do it, how do you allocate spectrum and all that kind of stuff.

They came back with a number which we had to remind them that we've got the population of Alabama and so they might need to compromise. But what they would get from us is probably not the commercial benefit, although it's a huge amount of money that we're investing in this technology. What they would get is speed to market. And so we were the first in the world to launch the service in December last year.

Well done.

We'll be the first in the world to launch their IoT service in about three weeks.

Unreal.

Yeah. And so that's pretty cool that we're deploying this kind of life saving technology. And now the operators in Canada, the us, Japan, Australia, Switzerland are all taking our technology model and deploying it because, you know, we're really open about how, how we've done it and it'll mean that the technology gets to people faster.

You should be proud.

Yeah, I'm really proud. Like seriously, when I look back at some of the things that we've achieved at one New Zealand, this will be right up there I bet because.

As we said before, it's a game changing technology that will save lives, keep people connected to the people and things they love.

But also it's inspiring competition as well. Like you've got Kuiper with Bezos being launched, Apple have their own satellites. And so I just think a rising tide of innovation, a rising tide of competition has to be good for everyone. So who knows, in five years time I think Starlink, they've got two or three year advantage on the rest. But in five years time there might be three or four satellite providers that we could choose from and I think that's great.

It can only be a good thing.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm hearing in terms of big collaborations and partnerships, one, be cheeky. Particularly if you're an underdog, which New Zealand in the global scale we can be seen as an underdog. So be cheeky, be curious and figure out what you can do to help them, what's in it for them and that you really angled that quite beautifully. Hey guys, you'll be able to test it so you can deploy it better and bigger and faster.

We're doing the same thing with Salesforce again as agentic AI has emerged. I think it's taken even the technology companies by surprise how quickly AI has moved from just being a pure recommender of actions to actually being able to take actions independently.

Again. It was the same pitch with Salesforce. Like we've got two and a half thousand staff in one New Zealand. Salesforce have 4000 Agentic engineers. They've got more people focusing on Agentic AI than we have in our entire organization across the whole country. But again, the commercial gain that they'll get from us by us paying license fees is a rounding error. However, us being able to deploy Salesforce agents across every facet of our business. Marketing, sales, finance, logistics, market service, you know.

And then being able to demonstrate that this is how you can deploy it, this is the benefits that you can gain from deploying it. They can go to every other telco in the world, they can go to every other subscription business in the world, every other utility in the world and go, here is a business that from a standing Start has deployed 50, 100 agents across its organization. You can do that too. And here is the value that can be created. So that's the pace that we can execute with is the advantage and then it's not just the impact on the company but it's the impact on the country. So how cool is it that we can help lead out and navigate through what AI, what satellite technology means for Aotearoa, New Zealand? So, yeah, so I'm really, I'm really excited. And with this stuff, like, genuinely, if you're business casing it, you're too late. Yeah, this, we saw the technology. We're like, this is going to be a lifesaver.

Let's do it.

Like, it all just makes sense intuitively. 100% the same with embracing AI and we need to do it for good. You can't business case it. You just have to learn and experiment by doing and just getting started. And so that's been our mentality and that's the mentality again of New Zealanders. Right, Innovators. Innovators, yeah. Be nimble. We're pioneers, entrepreneurs, we test stuff, we.

Give it a go.

You know, it doesn't work. Bugger, you move on.

And AI is interesting. So, like, I've had some of the AI kind of gurus and geniuses on this show and like, where's it going? Where's it headed? How do we use it? And they've described it really perfectly for me in terms of there's three levels to think about. There's a personal or just a people level. How's AI going to impact us personally? What can we do with it? Next level up, where it's a bit more complex, is at an organization level and team level. Again, the complexities gain quite a bit. Then the top level, the top part of that triangle is systems, and they're going, okay, that's where we're talking millions, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of investment to try and get that to function. So if we take it down at the personal level, what do you use AI for day to day?

Well, quite a lot now, but I was a bit of a laggard, like, even when.

Because I said we've gone all in with kind of agentic AI, but this has only been since August. And when I went to this San Francisco and I went with our chief data and AI officer, and on the plane I said to her, what does agentic mean? Like, she explained to me, you know, moving from recommendation to actions where you can give AI a Persona. So even in August, I was like, this is emerging. And then when I was talking to these experts in San Fran, they were like, they're surprising us too. So I think the first thing is, if you haven't started, don't worry about it. Just start like you're not behind this technology is moving so quickly, so I use this for some basic things. So if I'm late to a meeting, if we're using AI within the meeting to transcribe, it can summarize what I've missed. 2 It is a very succinct summary of the actions and who needs to do them. If I've been out for a week, it can tell me, it can help me catch up within about 15 minutes, can tell me all the actions that are waiting for me to sort, can help me prepare for my week ahead. But it also can start to draft documents, emails and presentations. So I could type in.

Give me.

A board paper for me to recommend 6G as an investment and it would give me a really good starter 5 pager with an articulation of the opportunity, the technology, the investment, the risks, et cetera. I could then go write it in a way that a 10 year old could understand to remove all the jargon and just make sure that no matter how technically competent or comfortable you were, it's easy kind of to understand and consume. I've also played some fun stuff where I've asked it to look at the last three months of my presentations and emails exchanges and give me a superhero Persona.

I love it. What did I come up with?

Iron Man.

I love it.

And so really cool. Right. And so it talks about some of the things that you're doing, but it also goes, you can see you're a bit of a risk taker right here. And so that's quite, it's fun. It's fun as well. So that's sort of, that's the way that I use AI day, day to day.

You're curious about it, you're testing, you're, you're interested, you're not avoiding, you're not dabbling, you're actually just amongst it and giving it a crack.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But you also have to be careful. So.

What I've just been describing there is in a business grade AI environment where I'm putting in information that is specific to our organization that I might not want to be in the public domain.

Yeah.

So if I was using AI tools personally, which I do, so I'll use ChatGPT for example, I would never put in there personal financial information or confidential stuff about my children or my medical history or whatever, whatever that that was, it would be more generic stuff to, you know, try and, try and help me out.

I love it.

Yeah. So you, you do need to make sure that you understand that when you're putting information into you're putting it into the cloud and to. Into an environment that is a little, you know, it's not as safe as. As you'd think it might be.

Yeah, 100%. I'm very aware of that too. I've got chatgpt, like yourself, very generic stuff. And then I've had a company in Palo Alto help me build a digital brain. So essentially I coach CEOs and executives. So when I'm not able to see them, if they're in New York and we meet once a month, they have access to this digital brain. So everything I've ever talked about from stage on the show, whatever it might be, all the stuff that I've written around, mental models, it's all in there. They can just ring and have a conversation. It weirdly sounds like me. I got my son to test it and he was like, dad, that's you. It's very odd, but it's a fully secure system so that anything, confidential client information, it all stays in there. And the same as you, it's got to be. The data needs to be protected.

And I think that's like, that example is fascinating because we're just thinking about that at the moment as well, because, you know, you've got.

Normally people think about B2B and B2C markets. Now you've got A to B, A to C and A to A. So what happens when an agent, your agent is engaging with the one New Zealand agent on both of our behalves, you know, either reconciling a bill or asking for a plan change or genius. Like it's, it's just incredible. But like, it's so interesting to think about what does that mean for the way that we live, work and society? And because one of the things, you know, you talked, you talked about what does it mean personally, what does it mean for business? Then you talked about the third level of systems. The thing for me is also what does it mean for society? Yeah, as well. Like when I came back from a couple of trips I did last year, I was really super excited, like you and some of the guests that you've had on here talking about how fast this technology is evolving. And I got to listen to a futurist from Nvidia, so the chip manufacturer, and they said that by 2040, AI will be 4,000 times smarter than the human brain. Not as creative as we've discussed, but that means that it could be possible for AI to manipulate atoms and change something you are holding into a pineapple, for example, if you so chose to do that. And then I got home and I was talking to the kids about it. We've got a 17 year old, a 14 year old and 11 year old and going, you know, could this solve world hunger?

What about if you needed a, a replacement of an organ within your body, for example, could you live forever? And then we're like, but what if one or one person had that power? And then my 14 year old. Cause we're talking, I was excitedly like, he goes, dad, is the world about to end? And I was like, I mean, I gotta get my sales pitch right before I go into work, that's for sure. But I was like, wow, isn't that interesting that me talking about this pace of change and what is possible is. Will freak some and, and appropriately so.

Yeah.

Because you need to think about what will this mean for society?

What will this mean for the way that we work, the types of work, job displacement, if it comes in a, at a massive wave as fast as it could, do you have to think about universal income? Like what, what are those themes that you need to navigate through? And again, it's why, you know, I'm really excited about us leading it out because we know that we want to do AI for good. And the only way that you work out what's good and bad is by trying and experimenting and seeing what the impact is.

I love that courage. Because there's going to be things that we get wrong and we fall over and there'll be roadblocks, but actually we won't know till we try. Correct Kiwi mentality.

Yeah. Is with life.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Now criticism, as a CEO, you'll always have moments where you face criticism. So what do you do internally to manage that criticism? Do you have any tactics or tools that you do to manage your mindset and your emotional heartset when you're receiving public criticism?

That's a great question. Because.

My first thought is it's the support of others that helps me the most.

Because they can give you perspective when you've lost it. Because when you're being personally criticized, it hurts. And especially if you're being personally criticized, and you should be, because we all make mistakes or get things wrong or make a bad call.

What comes to mind when you think of that for a second? Has there been a time in recent years where you've been like, I was off piece there, I got that one wrong.

It always comes down to people stuff. So.

People change is always. And I remember it's one of the things I'm working on personally is. So I avoid conflict. I do not like to have hard, difficult conversations, but I'm getting better at them because someone.

Reframed difficult conversations for me. So I used to avoid having conversations because I thought it was a way of showing I cared by not hurting their feelings. And then someone said to me, but if you've got an insight that could make them better that they're not aware of, that you're not telling them, is that showing love? And it was like, oh, no, it's not. And so, going back to your question, when I've had to let someone go in the organization, in my team because of poor performance, and I know that I haven't had early enough conversations or put the support or given them the opportunity to improve, develop, learn, achieve, and I've had to let them go. Ultimately it was on me and them, but ultimately it was on me. That's the stuff that sticks with me the most because when you. That's a, you know, it's a big moment and it has an impact on them.

Their family.

Potentially their career. And so you can't get that stuff wrong. So that's what immediately comes to mind when, yeah, when I've. I've had to let someone go and I know that I could have supported them more than I.

Than I was.

That's great. Thanks for sharing that. And it's interesting. I feel like when I'm working with people who are leaders, they say it's lonely at the top. And I often challenge them on that. I say, well, if it's really lonely at the top, clearly you're very dominant in your leadership, maybe a bit autocratic. It shouldn't be lonely. You should have people, as you say, who care, who can hold you up, who can listen to those challenges. More and more, I'm encouraging people I work with, if they need it, go and get a therapist, Go and see a psychologist, look at the best athletes and the best team leaders. Well, they've got sports psychologists, clinical psychologists, forensic even. Look at Carrie Evans built into the system. Is that something that you're open to or something you've explored in your life, having professionals in terms of the mental side of it?

So I had my first business coach.

For three years. We've just kind of wrapped it up because I think, you know, you, you grow to a point and then you have to look for people who are going to grow you even more. And it all started because someone was brave and kind enough to come in and say, hey, the business is going really well. But when I Think about high performance in this business. I've worked out that you being too nice is a massive impediment. I was like, what do you mean being too nice is a massive impediment? And that's where that you're a great guy, but you just don't want to say anything that offends or hurts or might be perceived as too brutal or confronting. And I was like, yeah, you're true. And you're right. And he said, I've got someone you need to talk to.

And so I did. And he's based in Colorado. I had never met him, and he'd been coaching me for two years. But we'd become best mates. We'd always start our conversation with, what's the one thing you don't want to tell me? And he would, after a few months, know that I was bullshitting. And he's like, that's not it. And I'm like, so that was a really good place to start. And vice versa. Cause stuff was happening in his life or had happened in his life, and what's the one thing he don't want to tell me? And so that created the trust. And so, yeah, we had a. He was kind of my life and business coach for three years. And we'll be friends, dear friends for life now. But it was the first time that I'd had a coach up until that point. It was the support network that I've got, or if I'm really in trouble and I'm alone and I don't have that network.

I try and remove myself from the situation. And I'll either talk into a recording and then listen back, or I'll write it down, the situation I'm in and I'll think about. I'll try and remove myself from it and go. If my best mate or someone I was working with outlined this situation to me, what is the advice I'd give them? And quite often that's given me perspective and clarity by trying to remove the me from it, which is the heightened emotion and the heart going and sweating and all that kind of stuff. And go, actually, you can see more perspective, have more clarity. And then I take the advice I'd give someone else.

Powerful.

That's the only technique I've really found. When you're a bit isolated, it's in the moment. You don't have the support network.

And that's worked for me more often than not.

Thanks for that. Jason has a little masterclass for the listener there, just to double down on a little exercise. They can try. I love that. Let's talk about the Warriors. We've got a real strong connection, so.

Yeah, they just won. There you go again. Three in a row.

How does that feel?

Awesome. Look. I used to play rugby league down home in Invercargill, so I used to play soccer on Saturday morning, rugby on Saturday afternoon, and league on Sundays, so. And again, I could do that right throughout my teenage years. Wasn't a lot to do in Bacagl apart from playing sport, but it was great. So I've been a supporter of the warriors since they started in 95. The first date that I took my wife on was to a Warriors game and she doesn't really like sports.

That was dangerous.

Yeah, she does like wine and I bought her a glass of wine, so that kind of compensated.

Sweetened the deal.

Yeah, sweetened the deal. So, yeah, massive supporter. Have. Have kind of ridden the ups and downs of that club over many years now. Even more, you know, closely associated with them because we're the major sponsor, longest standing sponsor in NRL history.

Wow.

If I. As I've. I've kind of. I've said if I had my. My way, I'd. I'd resign for another hundred years. I think they're that great. And what I love about them at the moment is.

The standards of culture and values and behavior that they won't compromise on. So. And you see that when they let a player go who is an absolute rock star.

But doesn't fit the way that the systems and the way that they want to work, they might be just too individual. Not about team. They. It might be what they're doing off the field. That isn't a good example to the young players coming through. So they're not the role model. And doesn't matter who you talk to in that organization at whatever level, they are just fantastic human beings, including all the coaching staff and the players on the field. So love that club, love that team, Love Webby. I love Cam. They're just incredible people.

Incredible.

Yeah.

I wanted to ask you with, think of all those people, if you had a chance to jump in and swap roles and be in that role, whether it's team player, the water bottle carrier, the janitor, which one would you jump into? You had a whole week to be in that role. Which one? Out of all the roles in the warriors, would you take?

Oh, so I'm caught on two minds. One, I would love to be on the wing for the warriors. So that would just be fantastic. Like, can you imagine? Like, just the feeling of Running out, representing, playing as a team in front of 25,000 screaming loyal fans. And that's. I was an outside back when I played in my sporting career. But then I have to think about the contact and the size of these players and how amaz what amazing athletes they are. So then it would go to coach without it. Without a doubt. So yeah, you, you're as close as you can get to being accountable for the results of the team without being on the field. So yeah, that, that, that, that'd be the. If I could have the opportunity to do any of those roles or a.

Weight get would be coach amazing. Be careful what you wish for.

Yeah. There's no way Webe knows me well enough that he just listens and nods and then disregards any advice I give him.

I love it. Now talking about learnings and advice, when you think about the warriors and what they've been through, where they're at, is.

There one lesson you've learned from them.

That you could attribute and actually apply to your life or work?

The, the pipeline of talent coming through. So if you like from a work perspective.

Like you always think about your legacy and that you want your.

You want the business to, the business to success to be sustainable.

Hopefully over generations, definitely over the next 10 years after you've left. And there's a whole range of things, ways you can do that through partnerships, systems, processes, technologies.

But the culture and the DNA of the organization is the biggest and the talent coming through that are capable but are culturally aligned, that's the most important thing. And so the warriors.

They'Ve got.

Six teams now and even on the weekend, the women's team haven't started playing yet, but the other five all won or drew in one of the toughest sporting competitions on the planet. And so you've got, you know, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 year olds coming through that system who understand the system, the values, the culture and who are fantastic athletes but great human beings at the same time. So, you know, next best person coming along. So I like the fact that they're creating a pool of high performance in the organization and I think a lot of the best businesses or sporting teams do that. That's one of their keys to success.

Yeah, you look at Formula one, it's not just Formula one, there's a whole system academy now that builds into it. I was in Vancouver as a young fellow and there's a pipe band there, Simon Fraser University pipe band, World champions, Untouchable. They'd come to Glasgow, win it, head back home. I really Wanted to play for them, thought the music's awesome, but there's something they're doing. Why are they in Canada being the world's best pipers and drummers? This makes no sense.

So I go there and they have.

Seven levels of pipe bands, right? From the lowest grade to the highest grade. A juvenile grade, a novice juvenile grade, the best teachers. Everyone's chipping in. That's pretty cool. There's a system. So when I was asked to come to New Zealand, there was two things I was challenged to do. One, help the school become first world champions and two, help a team in Canterbury who'd been around for 100 years, adult pipe band. And they'd never won the national championships. I said, what have you been doing for 100 years? I mean, come on, we've got to win this thing. And we started looking at it. There was not enough depth of that pipeline. That was my first learning from Vancouver was every great team sporting business or music in this case has a really great youth program, great pipeline. And so do you think about that at one nz?

Yeah. And so.

The senior leadership group that we have got within our organization now is actually a problem because we've got too many talented people who.

Are ready for the next step. So actually there's a.

There'S a new challenge. So when I first started it was we didn't have the depth. Now we've got the depth. What do you do to retain and inspire and grow and develop those people when historically businesses have rewarded through hierarchy. And so one of the conversations we're having in the organization at the moment is can you move to an operating model where you are rewarded based on skills and impact.

Versus levels in the organization and how many reports that you've got?

And then you go, okay, well how do our remuneration and incentive programs change that? So it's quite a lot of stuff to unpack, but I think it's a big opportunity to unlock if we want to make sure that we can retain and continue to develop that pipeline. And so moving from a hierarchical based to a skills and impact based structure and operating model. Don't have the answer, by the way. It's just a theme that we're trying to think about. Yeah, we're trying to think about at the moment.

I love it. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, it's interesting. I think that a lot of companies and organizations get a bit stale because they've been successful and they rely on past performance and often go, we'll look at the great leaders when they step down. Often the greatest leaders step down on their terms and they're remembered for their last year, their last month in office per se. How will you know when your time's up and it's the time for your next leadership chapter?

Yeah, it's a great question and I think about that a little bit more now that I've been here for six and a half years. My predecessor was here for 13 and which Russell would say was too long, but there was always the next thing for Russell, like there was a potential sky and Vodafone merger that got declined. He was gonna try and help that. And then they were looking at doing an ipo. Then the market kind of just weak conditions stopped. So that gave him probably another two or three years. And another two or three. Another two or three years. My issue is I'm as excited today about my role as I was on the first day. I still genuinely can't believe I'm in this role. I'm just seriously waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and go, what are you doing here? And I'm like, I know, like, I can't believe I'm here either. I'll see you. You know, it was good while it lasted.

And as we've discussed, the industry is so dynamic because of technology changes, competitive moves.

The industry is so important as well because connectivity is increasingly the backbone of life. Just ask a teenager, right? They'd rather give up water than give up their mobile phone. But you can't work, you can't learn, can't stay in touch with your loved ones as much as you would like without our services. So very purposeful as well. So that's fantastic.

Impacts the greatest country on the planet, which is New Zealand, so ticks a lot of boxes for me. So that. But then you have to move to a point and go, even if you've got all the energy, is it time for some fresh thinking, some fresh perspectives?

And yes, it will be. And so I have very grown up conversations with my board about what that timing looks like. And so I'm actively, I would say the next two years I want to make sure that I've got a couple of really strong internal candidates that I would love to be able to come through and take over from me for, to benchmark against the best external candidate because, you know, it's not my call. It's going to be, going to be the board, be the board's call. But I know when I leave it's not going to be because I'm not excited about it. It's because I know that it's time for someone else to bring fresh perspective that's going to make the company even better. And you've just gotta be, you gotta love the company enough to be selfless enough to do it. The challenge for me personally will be, as I've mentioned a couple of times, I just think this is the greatest country on the planet. I just, I love it.

I wanna stay here.

And work here and so it'll just come down to what is next. It's exciting and when the opportunities present themselves and come up. So, yeah, we'll see.

That's beautiful. I hear we. Over me, that's about, you know, it's about the team as the organization, the country. Even over you, you really prioritise the team. So that's beautiful.

There is a self, a selfish nature to it because as I mentioned, three children most important and my wife, most important people in my life and I want them to live here. So I want to make sure this is the greatest country for every generation. And yeah, and so, you know, there's a self centredness to making sure that we're successful and that New Zealand is successful because I would prefer that my kids, yes, explore the world, but they continue to come back here and raise a family and contribute to the economy and have their careers and lives from New Zealand too.

I love that. Yeah, I'm all about that. And it's interesting. We're sitting as we're recording, it's the last day of the financial year. You're the CEO of one of the largest organizations in the country and you're here Monday morning and quarter two is about to start tomorrow and that says a lot about planning systems people. So if we go down to like the nitty gritty. If you're planning your week out, what does planning look like for you?

Well, to be fair, I'm quite fluid. Planning for me means I just do what Nicole, my EA tells me to do. So we've worked together for 17 years across five different companies. Wow. Yeah. So when you've. She's my work wife, I'm her work husband. So we have that kind of relationship. So she knows the business and the industry really well to.

Prioritize my time for me and make sure that I'm spending my time on the stuff that's important, not the stuff that is just urgent. That makes sense 100%. Yeah. So, so she, she. So I've got, I get a really, a massive head start.

And then the. It always starts with people first. So checking in understanding what's happening and people, I mean, from both in the organization and our, and our customers. The only way that I know what is genuinely happening in our organization is to go in where the work is and that is where our front line is and that's where our customers are interacting with our, with our business. It's why I try and make myself as accessible as I possibly can, 24 hours a day, seven days a week on social media and give my email address out as much as I do, is because it's the only way that I really know what is working well and what isn't working well with sense. Check the organisation. Yeah, like, because you can, you can hear it and you can, and you can, you can see it for the people that know better than anyone else. So it's all about people. So first, then numbers. And numbers are your friend in business. They earn you the right to get more investment, to make bold calls, to take more risks. And doesn't matter what your numbers are, if it's a commercial number or a cultural number or a customer service number, if you have a track record of delivering and hitting your numbers, you get trusted and empowered to do more, to invest more, to get more resource. So, yeah, second would be numbers. So after people and customer, then the numbers. And then the third thing would be learning.

So again, it's my job, while everyone's thinking about the next quarter, to step back and think about the big moves that we need to make that are gonna play out over the next 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 years to ensure that we've got sustainable momentum.

The Starlink kind of moves.

Yeah, yeah. And again.

You learn from other businesses. And I've mentioned Jeff Bezos before. And again, I think all world leaders are polarizing and people agree or disagree with their approaches. But one of the things I liked about Bezos is that he gets confidence by focusing on what he knows.

Customers are guaranteed to continue to want in 10 years time. So for example, he said, I know we can go big on logistics because I know that a customer is not going to say in 10 years, I love Amazon, I just wish they would deliver more slowly. And so therefore you know that actually getting a product or a service into a customer's hand as fast as possible, there's no downside to that. So for us, it's about connectivity. Right. I know that someone in 10 years time is not going to say, I love one New Zealand, I just wish my calls would drop more or I wish I couldn't get coverage where I wanted to Or I'm overseas and I can't use my apps to do something like. No one's going to say that. So therefore you can make a big bold call on satellite to mobile with SpaceX. And you can do it because you know it's going to be true.

It lines up. It's your obsession metric. The one thing that you're like, if we do that and focus on connectivity, that's our one thing, everything should fall into place.

Yeah, but it has to be based on a customer need that you know is going to be true for a long enough period of time.

Incredible.

Yeah. And just gives you confidence to make those big investments. And where I do see businesses fail a bit is when they spread themselves too thinly.

And the investments are not based on a genuine customer need. It's what they think customer wants, not actually what the customer needs.

Get to the facts.

Yeah, I just want to be mindful of your time.

So a couple of last questions. Are you a reader, what are you reading or what have you read in recent months that you've enjoyed?

Well, I just gave you a copy of my wife's book. Could we actually get that?

Do you mind, Pablo, if we grab that? I wanna just show that on camera.

So I've read this book 20 times. Cause I read it from the very first.

Kind of. When it was only 3/4 written. And so I do read a lot of psychological thrillers. Cause I do quite like it here.

We have it here. See How They Fall. I'll put it up to this one. See How They Fall by Rachel Parris. Order your copy today.

Ah, thank you very much.

And we'll put a link in the show notes where they can go and order directly as well. So perfect family, perfect weekend, perfect crime.

I love it. I. I always say that Rachel was writing about all the ways she's thought about killing me when I've annoyed her. So I've said, you know, to people, if I ever die suddenly and everyone's like, you look so healthy, like that was such a surprise. There's only one person you should be looking at.

I'll come looking for you, mate.

But I do read the Harvard Business Review, so I subscribe to that and I find that quite helpful. My favorite business book ever though. American Icon the Turnaround of Ford by Alan Mulally.

I haven't read that. I'm going to have to read it.

It's so good. And the reason it's so good is I'm a sales and marketer and that's why I've come through the ranks, he's an engineer, so.

He unlocked the value of systems and process excellence for me. And.

I think I've probably read it 10 times now. It's that great. So I read a lot of psychological thrillers and then I do read a lot of business books, listen to a few podcasts.

What are you listening to?

Well, there's the High Performance podcast out of the uk. I listen to that. Yeah, quite a lot.

Damian Hughes.

Yes, yes. Yeah, so they always have quite a broad range. Probably gravitating too sporty for me just on sports and I'd like, like to see a bit of a broader range of, of people being interviewed. And then I'm just starting to.

Listen to a few AI podcasts.

Yeah, yeah, send them through to me, please. I'm always looking for new podcasts.

Yeah. But as I've said, it's like podcasts for a 10 year old that a 10 year old would understand. Yeah. So that's, that's how I, that's how I kind of learn. I do, I love reading and even if I'm on holiday, even if I'm reading a business book, helps me get to sleep. I genuinely go to sleep smiling and happy if something has triggered a thought that could be potentially applicable. I don't get stressed reading business books at night.

I'm the same as you every night. I have a business book and I love it. It puts me to sleep, literally. I'm nodding off as I'm reading it.

And yeah, I'm enjoying it, you know, and it could be, I don't know, even like the old greats like Malcolm Gladwell's insights into Just Life and High Performance Again, the Story of Nike Shoe Dog, one of my favorites, you know, so. And then I've read Alibaba and Elon Musk and Working Backwards and all those things. So yeah, I love business books.

Well, I'll send you mine. Comes out later in the year from HarperCollins, so I'll send you a copy.

I would love to read it. I would love to. I'd be excited to read it.

Oh, thank you. And thank you for this copy today from Rachel. I really appreciate it. I can't wait to read it myself. One last question, though. If you and I were to fast forward many years into the future and you were highly aware that it was your last day here on Earth, someone very young walks in through the door that you love dearly and they say, how on earth do I go about leading my life on purpose? What would you say?

To them.

Be a great human being.

Human values are going to become even more important as life in the world gets busier and gets disrupted. That will mean.

Shaking hands, opening a door, giving up your seat, looking people in the eyes, asking how they are and genuinely caring how they are will increasingly be a differentiator and important to humanity. That would be my advice.

That's stunning. I will pass that on to my little Finn because I firmly believe in that. So, Jason, thank you so much for sharing, for being so open and for leading one of our great companies here in New Zealand.

Well, good. Thanks for having me. It's been a real privilege.

My pleasure. Thank you.

Cheers.

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