Latest / Best of Business / Bosses Unfiltered Episode 4: Roger Gray

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Bosses Unfiltered Episode 4: Roger Gray · Best of Business

0:01
Speaker 1: The big wins and the big losses, the hurdles, the
0:05
Speaker 1: pivots and the emotions, raw and honest New Zealand's great
0:09
Speaker 1: business minds like you've never heard them before. This is
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Speaker 1: Bosses Unfiltered with Kerry Woodham on iHeartRadio powered by Newstalk Sedby.
0:18
Speaker 2: Five years ago, Port of Auckland was struggling with a
0:21
Speaker 2: shocking health and safety record. Three people had died at
0:25
Speaker 2: the port, many more had been injured at work. Financially,
0:29
Speaker 2: the company was dealing with a costly but flawed automation
0:32
Speaker 2: project and COVID added plenty of headaches for the global
0:35
Speaker 2: shipping industry too. The company needed a complete turnaround and
0:40
Speaker 2: Roger Gray was picked as the new chief executive to
0:43
Speaker 2: get on with the job. With the background of twenty
0:46
Speaker 2: years in the Australian Army en roles at Goodman, Fielder
0:49
Speaker 2: and Air New Zealand, Roger came with experience in leadership.
0:53
Speaker 2: But this was a big job with big problems. Roger,
0:57
Speaker 2: welcome to you.
0:58
Speaker 3: Thanks.
1:00
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have thought that being an Army officer would
1:03
Speaker 2: be conducive to being a good manager in this day
1:05
Speaker 2: and age, because in the Army it's jump and the
1:07
Speaker 2: answer is how high.
1:10
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:10
Speaker 4: Probably when I first entered management, management was a little
1:13
Speaker 4: bit still about jump and how high. So I've had
1:17
Speaker 4: to evolve and grow through my working career, and probably
1:21
Speaker 4: the biggest change for me was coming to New Zealand
1:24
Speaker 4: from Australia. Whilst Australians see New Zealand as the Seventh State,
1:29
Speaker 4: things are very different here. Work's done very differently, much
1:33
Speaker 4: less aggressively, much more on relationships and more collaborative. So
1:37
Speaker 4: I've certainly had to evolve and change as a person.
1:40
Speaker 2: So New Zealanders need more a softer approach or a
1:45
Speaker 2: different approach.
1:45
Speaker 4: I think the issue here in New Zealand is because
1:47
Speaker 4: it's a pretty small market, so no one wants to
1:49
Speaker 4: burn a bridge, no one wants to upset anybody, so
1:52
Speaker 4: we are much more.
1:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, we probably are a bit softer.
1:57
Speaker 4: But also New Zealand is there very strongly passive, aggressive,
2:02
Speaker 4: and they are silent disagrees and will often sit in
2:06
Speaker 4: a room and you'll think everything's fine, you'll leave and
2:10
Speaker 4: they'll just give you the middle finger and move on.
2:13
Speaker 4: And whereas in Australia, if someone disagrees with you, they
2:16
Speaker 4: tell you to your face, they don't have a problem
2:18
Speaker 4: with that, so I've certainly found that aspect quite different.
2:22
Speaker 2: Well, how do you deal with the silent solders?
2:24
Speaker 4: You bring them into the conversation. You actually say, look, Kerry,
2:27
Speaker 4: what do you think? And then someone goes, I've got permission.
2:31
Speaker 4: Then they say it. But if you sit there and
2:33
Speaker 4: just expect the person to enter the conversation, I've noticed
2:35
Speaker 4: that they don't do it.
2:37
Speaker 2: There's also cultural differences too, because some communities. Some communities
2:43
Speaker 2: are very reverential to authority, and even if they disagree,
2:47
Speaker 2: they won't say it because that person is in charge
2:50
Speaker 2: or that person's the pastor, so they won't say anything.
2:53
Speaker 3: Correct.
2:53
Speaker 2: How do you get them to come around?
2:55
Speaker 4: That's a really good point because you know at the Port,
2:58
Speaker 4: we've got sixty percent of our workforce are Pacific and
3:02
Speaker 4: they can be very strong and respectful to authority. So
3:07
Speaker 4: again it's about building personal relationships, inviting them to have
3:11
Speaker 4: a chat and to the point where eventually they feel
3:15
Speaker 4: they can speak to you. But often Kerry, they won't,
3:18
Speaker 4: but their union will. So you build the relationship with
3:21
Speaker 4: the union so they feel that they can use their
3:24
Speaker 4: union delegate to talk to you.
3:26
Speaker 2: The Port of Auckland was just an absolute tragedy. Why
3:30
Speaker 2: did you take on the job.
3:31
Speaker 3: It's a huge one.
3:33
Speaker 4: My wife asked me that as well. So we were
3:35
Speaker 4: sitting very comfortably in christ Church. I was leading the
3:40
Speaker 4: sorry the Port of Lyttleton and we had a bloody
3:43
Speaker 4: house and three sheep and life it's pretty good. And
3:47
Speaker 4: I got wrung and I was like, oh, I'm not
3:49
Speaker 4: sure about this, But in the end it was an
3:52
Speaker 4: incredible opportunity to come back and fix something that needed
3:56
Speaker 4: to be fixed. It was a high profile turnaround. I
3:59
Speaker 4: like doing turn around jobs. So and Caroline and I
4:03
Speaker 4: really are Auckland's. So we came back.
4:06
Speaker 2: Had you been sitting there in Littleton looking at what
4:08
Speaker 2: was happening in Auckland, thinking oh, why are you doing
4:11
Speaker 2: it that way? I could do it a different way.
4:13
Speaker 2: Had you been thinking I.
4:15
Speaker 4: Had, and you know, or credit to my predecessor on
4:20
Speaker 4: a whole lot of things, you did really well, But
4:22
Speaker 4: certainly I didn't. I just couldn't make hide nor hair
4:26
Speaker 4: of how automation was going to work in that environment. So,
4:31
Speaker 4: you know, I really came within a view that automation
4:35
Speaker 4: wasn't the right approach. But also I came with a
4:37
Speaker 4: view that combative relationships with your union, combative relationships with
4:41
Speaker 4: your own other council, combative relationships with the media wasn't
4:45
Speaker 4: the right way to go. So they are the sorts
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Speaker 4: of things that we then said about changing how do you.
4:50
Speaker 2: Rebuild trust between management and the workers, because when you
4:56
Speaker 2: have lost three people on the job and you've lost
4:59
Speaker 2: other workers to injury, there wouldn't be much trust.
5:02
Speaker 3: Left with there. No, there wasn't.
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Speaker 4: And the worker said to me just pretty openly, they said, look, Roger,
5:06
Speaker 4: we think management values productivity over our safety. And that's
5:11
Speaker 4: pretty confronting. When someone says we don't feel safe walking
5:14
Speaker 4: out there, you're pushing us too hard. So we had
5:17
Speaker 4: to go back to first principles. We had to say
5:19
Speaker 4: to them, you're free to be able to stop work
5:22
Speaker 4: if you don't feel safe, and a couple of the
5:26
Speaker 4: more forthright ones did and we commended them rather than
5:32
Speaker 4: criticize them, and they started to say, wow, this is
5:35
Speaker 4: so you're saying I can actually do this, And then
5:38
Speaker 4: we actually sat down with their union and said we
5:41
Speaker 4: need to repair our relationships. We need to go together,
5:44
Speaker 4: because when management and workers break apart, whos who feels
5:49
Speaker 4: the void for them, they go to the union and
5:52
Speaker 4: that's what was happening here. So we built the relationship
5:55
Speaker 4: with the union using high performance high engagement, which is
5:57
Speaker 4: an interest based problem solving model, which a number of
6:01
Speaker 4: us did at in New Zealand actually when the Prime
6:04
Speaker 4: Minister was the CEO, so we were we were well
6:08
Speaker 4: schooled in it. We'd seen success with it, so we
6:10
Speaker 4: introduced that and then it's literally you just have to
6:14
Speaker 4: keep week after week behaving consistently and eventually they go okay,
6:20
Speaker 4: So you're not going this isn't a trap. It's not
6:22
Speaker 4: a trick. You're genuine. So it really is just about
6:25
Speaker 4: putting the effort in and talking.
6:28
Speaker 2: Were there a couple of situations where workers walked off
6:31
Speaker 2: where it was dangerous or did you give them the
6:34
Speaker 2: benefit of the dubt justiceit an example that yes, they
6:38
Speaker 2: could stop.
6:39
Speaker 4: It was more the latter. Look, let's not kid ourselves.
6:43
Speaker 4: The port sector is a challenging place to work. You
6:46
Speaker 4: saw you know, you're out there in the rain at
6:50
Speaker 4: night lifting thirty kilo lashing bars. It's hard work near containers,
6:56
Speaker 4: lifting up forty ton containers. So it is a dangerous
7:00
Speaker 4: place to work and often safety isn't necessarily it's unsafe,
7:05
Speaker 4: it's I just don't feel safe right now. Something's different.
7:09
Speaker 4: It just doesn't feel right, and you've got to give
7:12
Speaker 4: them the benefit of doubt and let them walk off
7:14
Speaker 4: in that situation. We did that a couple of times.
7:17
Speaker 4: Probably the biggest trust builder was the decision by the
7:21
Speaker 4: board to cancel automation. The workers had felt that that
7:25
Speaker 4: was a direct attack on them and they said, if
7:29
Speaker 4: only you get rid of it, then we'll will the
7:32
Speaker 4: portal get back to on its feet. It's just a
7:35
Speaker 4: black hole on us. And so when the board did
7:38
Speaker 4: decide to announce it, and I went down to the
7:41
Speaker 4: breast into the mess room and said, team, it's done.
7:47
Speaker 4: We're shutting it down. Now get out there and get
7:50
Speaker 4: those cargo moving. And to their credit, they have done
7:53
Speaker 4: that and we're now seeing volumes well in excessive pre
7:56
Speaker 4: COVID times going through the port Manually.
7:59
Speaker 2: I can give that automation was a good idea, like
8:02
Speaker 2: it is supposed to be safer, so that so that
8:05
Speaker 2: you replace dangerous jobs with machines, that's great, and it
8:10
Speaker 2: would be more efficient and can work in any conditions
8:13
Speaker 2: at the same pace. And there was enormous sunk cost.
8:19
Speaker 2: So can ports be automated or are they not places
8:22
Speaker 2: where automation can take place?
8:24
Speaker 3: Now they can be automated. They're automated all around.
8:26
Speaker 2: The world, right, so why not here?
8:29
Speaker 4: We tried to do two first in the world. The
8:32
Speaker 4: first thing we tried to do was no one has
8:34
Speaker 4: automated a port while it's still running. They automate new
8:38
Speaker 4: ports and then they move the cargo in, So we
8:41
Speaker 4: were trying to literally fly along and change the engine midair.
8:46
Speaker 3: So that's tough.
8:48
Speaker 4: And then we chose and I'm not previated the reason
8:51
Speaker 4: we chose two vendors, a software vendor and a hardware
8:54
Speaker 4: vendor who'd never done it before. So we went with
8:58
Speaker 4: first in the world on one thing, and then first
9:01
Speaker 4: in the world using two untrained vendors that whole lot
9:04
Speaker 4: of other things.
9:06
Speaker 3: You get yourself what we got.
9:09
Speaker 2: I'm blue a steve at all, but even I can
9:11
Speaker 2: see the floors on that plan.
9:12
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
9:14
Speaker 4: It is a classic example of how not to engage
9:17
Speaker 4: in cultural transformation, how not to run a project, And
9:20
Speaker 4: sadly in the end we had to we had to kill.
9:23
Speaker 2: It, not before a couple of people have been killed already.
9:27
Speaker 3: But they hadn't been killed because of automaton.
9:29
Speaker 2: That's true. So when you and Caroline decided you'd take
9:32
Speaker 2: on the job, had you set certain limits or targets
9:36
Speaker 2: in your mind as to, Okay, if we haven't turned
9:39
Speaker 2: this around by this time, I'll leave, or it might
9:44
Speaker 2: be too big for me, if it's taking too much
9:46
Speaker 2: out of my personal life, I'll leave.
9:48
Speaker 3: Oh.
9:49
Speaker 4: Look, it took a lot out of the personal life,
9:50
Speaker 4: there's no doubt about that, and Caroline was fantastic about it.
9:54
Speaker 4: What I had in factored in was the need to
9:57
Speaker 4: renovate a house to replicate the house we had in
10:00
Speaker 4: vist Church, so that's a whole other contract with my wife.
10:03
Speaker 4: But the renovations now finished, so we're very happy with that.
10:07
Speaker 4: So that probably took more effort than turning the port around,
10:09
Speaker 4: actually getting a renovation done in this city.
10:11
Speaker 3: But no, I never felt that we couldn't do it.
10:16
Speaker 3: You know, we put together a great executive, there's.
10:19
Speaker 4: A fantastic workforce at the port, and sometimes you just
10:23
Speaker 4: know you can do it. And certainly I never felt
10:25
Speaker 4: at any stage on the journey we've been on for
10:28
Speaker 4: the last three and a half years that we couldn't
10:30
Speaker 4: do it.
10:31
Speaker 2: So even when you got your bum in the seat
10:33
Speaker 2: and you looked at everything in front of your in
10:35
Speaker 2: the job, now you saw all the information you probably
10:38
Speaker 2: weren't privy too until you were sitting there, you still thought, Yep,
10:42
Speaker 2: I can do this.
10:43
Speaker 3: Yeah.
10:44
Speaker 4: Probably was worse than I expected when I arrived, so
10:46
Speaker 4: no doubt. But what I'd say is, when you are
10:49
Speaker 4: doing these things, you just go back to basics. You
10:52
Speaker 4: focus on the core, You do your basic job, and
10:55
Speaker 4: you just take it one step at a time. You
10:57
Speaker 4: can't get a little fixed in a year. You can't
10:59
Speaker 4: get a little fixed into You just keep nibbling away
11:03
Speaker 4: as long as you keep focus on where you want
11:06
Speaker 4: to be and what you want the place to be.
11:08
Speaker 4: And we do three year planning at the Port, so
11:10
Speaker 4: we imagine what the porter look like in three years
11:13
Speaker 4: and we just keep focusing on delivering towards that.
11:16
Speaker 3: And that's what we've done.
11:18
Speaker 2: Do you have to have enormous self confidence to do
11:21
Speaker 2: what you do?
11:22
Speaker 4: I do think if you get to be a CEO
11:26
Speaker 4: or a senior executive, you do.
11:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:29
Speaker 4: I think you do have a level of confidence intensity,
11:34
Speaker 4: some would say arrogance that I can do this and
11:38
Speaker 4: because in the end, people are looking at you, they're
11:42
Speaker 4: watching you, they're waiting for you to blink, and you can't.
11:48
Speaker 4: So you've got to have that confidence. Yeah, I do
11:50
Speaker 4: think you know, some would say you don't get to
11:53
Speaker 4: this level unless there's a sort of morbidly weird sort
11:57
Speaker 4: of personality as well.
11:58
Speaker 2: So yeah, they must have done personality testing on you
12:01
Speaker 2: at different times in your career. What are you?
12:04
Speaker 4: I'm a very strong, extrovert, big out there, I love
12:09
Speaker 4: to party, I've got I'm loud, I've got a yeh.
12:14
Speaker 4: I'm a big almost very very strong e and as
12:18
Speaker 4: a result, you get what you get sometimes with me.
12:21
Speaker 4: But and I'm I'm also very direct. I don't I
12:25
Speaker 4: don't mince my words. I get stuff I tell people
12:28
Speaker 4: as it is.
12:29
Speaker 3: Some like that.
12:30
Speaker 4: Some in New Zealand have found that confronting. I've had
12:33
Speaker 4: to dial it back a bit. My bluntness when I
12:35
Speaker 4: first arrived here back in two thousand and seven caused me.
12:38
Speaker 3: A whole heck of hurt.
12:39
Speaker 4: But anyway, I've been on that journey, oh just upsetting
12:42
Speaker 4: people and what I thought was a reasonable conversation. People
12:46
Speaker 4: used to walk out in tears and I go, well,
12:48
Speaker 4: that didn't go very well.
12:49
Speaker 2: Was that at work? Yeah?
12:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, good midfielder.
12:52
Speaker 4: When I first arrived, I came in all guns blazing.
12:56
Speaker 3: And after about yep, after about I don't know.
12:59
Speaker 4: I was there about four or five months. I went
13:02
Speaker 4: on Christmas leave and I reflected and went, well, that's
13:04
Speaker 4: not going down very well. So maybe I could better
13:07
Speaker 4: reinvent myself. And I've been on a journey of reinvention
13:10
Speaker 4: the whole time i've been here.
13:12
Speaker 2: But how do you do that? How do you become
13:15
Speaker 2: less of you?
13:16
Speaker 4: You've got to listen to the feedback from people who
13:19
Speaker 4: tell you that's not landing rog and you've got to
13:21
Speaker 4: be prepared to go, okay, if that's not landing, what
13:25
Speaker 4: will how do I evolve? How do I improve? Probably one
13:31
Speaker 4: of the things that the military told us was don'taff
13:34
Speaker 4: be clipped and crisp in way. So you'd say, I
13:37
Speaker 4: don't understand that. Go to page two of your slide now,
13:40
Speaker 4: I'd say that was a great presentation, thank you. I
13:43
Speaker 4: really enjoyed it. I'm not quite clear on one of
13:45
Speaker 4: the aspects of slide too. Could we go back now
13:48
Speaker 4: in the military, you'd say you just wasted a hundred words,
13:52
Speaker 4: But it's about how you leave people feeling. And in
13:55
Speaker 4: a military environment, people are quite once you train in
13:58
Speaker 4: that environment, quite happy to get blunt feedback, both because
14:02
Speaker 4: you are in a profession that needs you to be
14:04
Speaker 4: equipped and direct doesn't always land someone who's a marketer
14:08
Speaker 4: or a salesperson or a people person.
14:11
Speaker 3: They have a different approach. So you've just got to
14:12
Speaker 3: be aware of that.
14:13
Speaker 2: But that's so annoying, isn't it. I Mean, like my
14:16
Speaker 2: one foray into management, I got one of our brilliant
14:19
Speaker 2: waiters and I said, could you train up the other
14:21
Speaker 2: waiters and waitresses because you were just brilliant to what
14:24
Speaker 2: you do. He was hopeless, and I said, oh honey,
14:26
Speaker 2: it's not working. You're a bit shit. But we'll keep
14:28
Speaker 2: you on the same money that we put you out
14:30
Speaker 2: because you are so good and they just don't like you.
14:32
Speaker 2: He sued me for constructive dismissal and my company at
14:36
Speaker 2: Bay ten grand and it's like he was a bit.
14:38
Speaker 4: Shit yep, And look, you can still have the hard conversation.
14:43
Speaker 4: So it's probably about how you do that constructor within
14:47
Speaker 4: the New Zealand legal system, you can still have that
14:51
Speaker 4: coaching conversation, or even the performance management conversation.
14:54
Speaker 3: It's just how you do it.
14:56
Speaker 2: We'll hire people to do it for you.
14:58
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, there are a lot of of HR
15:00
Speaker 4: people who have gone through who have been coaching and
15:03
Speaker 4: supporting me through my career carea and they've given me
15:06
Speaker 4: advice on the New Zealand methodology. So I remember Michael Peters,
15:10
Speaker 4: my HR director at Goodman Fielder. He said, Roger, you
15:13
Speaker 4: just can't do that. This is New Zealand, it's not Sydney.
15:17
Speaker 4: And so he took me on a journey of nudging
15:20
Speaker 4: me to the person I am today.
15:22
Speaker 2: When you go back to Australia, do you revert to
15:24
Speaker 2: the baggie?
15:26
Speaker 3: I can I go back.
15:28
Speaker 4: My children live in Sydney, so I do go back regularly,
15:31
Speaker 4: and yes I do, and catch up with old army
15:35
Speaker 4: friends and other old works.
15:37
Speaker 3: I do sort of flip back a bit little.
15:39
Speaker 4: One of the interesting traits I've had to change here
15:42
Speaker 4: is I don't swear nearly as much in New Zealand.
15:45
Speaker 4: New Zealand is fine swearing. I find in the workplace
15:49
Speaker 4: they find it quite confronting, whereas.
15:52
Speaker 3: It's less so in Australia.
15:54
Speaker 4: So I do I don't notice a few if bombs
15:57
Speaker 4: drop a bit more when I go back doors.
16:00
Speaker 2: Roger does Carolyn prefer?
16:02
Speaker 3: I think she well. She told me.
16:03
Speaker 4: There's a great quote she said to me. I was
16:07
Speaker 4: coached by a coach, an executive coach out of Sydney
16:10
Speaker 4: for five years while I was here in New Zealand,
16:13
Speaker 4: Virginia Mansell. And there's a quote on her website which says,
16:16
Speaker 4: I fell in love with the old Roger Gray, but
16:18
Speaker 4: I love the new Roger Gray more.
16:19
Speaker 3: And it's true.
16:20
Speaker 4: If you do become more empathetic, and you do become
16:24
Speaker 4: more collaborative, and you do actually become less confrontational, it
16:28
Speaker 4: can spill into your personal life, and it certainly has.
16:30
Speaker 4: So I think Caroline like loves the new Roger Gray
16:34
Speaker 4: a little more.
16:35
Speaker 1: What it's really like to build a business in New Zealand.
16:38
Speaker 1: Bosses Unfiltered with Kerry Woodhem on iHeartRadio powered by News
16:43
Speaker 1: Talks EBB, The honor story of being in business, talking
16:49
Speaker 1: the wins and the losses. Bosses Unfiltered with Kerry Woodham
16:53
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio powered my News TALKSBB.
16:56
Speaker 2: When you were at the port, you made Nick Squercia
16:58
Speaker 2: of payment to every employee, why and how did that land?
17:04
Speaker 4: So I've always been believed, you know, you've got you've
17:08
Speaker 4: got collectivised workers who are on a union that gets
17:10
Speaker 4: paid a set amount of money, and that's fine, that's great.
17:13
Speaker 4: And then you've got managers and who are normally got
17:17
Speaker 4: short term incentives, and we've got that.
17:19
Speaker 3: And I'm a.
17:20
Speaker 4: Real believer that if the place performs were an excessive
17:25
Speaker 4: of expectation, then you should reward everybody. And so off
17:29
Speaker 4: the back of that, we made a decision, or the
17:31
Speaker 4: board made a decision to pay an excrusher payment to
17:34
Speaker 4: all of the collectivised workforce as a little acknowledgment to
17:37
Speaker 4: say thanks, you went above and beyond. Now that's not
17:41
Speaker 4: just hitting budget, that's not just delivering. That's when we
17:45
Speaker 4: beat budget significantly, as we did. And off the back
17:49
Speaker 4: of that, the board wanted to acknowledge that. So, yeah,
17:52
Speaker 4: it's pretty cool when you're standing in front of a
17:53
Speaker 4: steved or who might be on sixty five thousand and
17:56
Speaker 4: you say the boys and the boys and girls, I'll
18:00
Speaker 4: put on thet boys. Sadly, you know, they call it
18:03
Speaker 4: a grand in the hand, and that makes a material
18:06
Speaker 4: difference to a family paid in September. I'm sure that
18:10
Speaker 4: it's quickly wisked the way to prepare for Christmas or
18:14
Speaker 4: something to celebrate with the family. So for me, it's
18:16
Speaker 4: a really important acknowledgment when the workforce have enabled you
18:20
Speaker 4: to overachieve, what is.
18:22
Speaker 2: The secret to success to the improved financial performance? Because
18:25
Speaker 2: as you say, it wasn't just hitting your target, it
18:28
Speaker 2: was exceeding it. So was it just heading the users
18:32
Speaker 2: with higher fees? Because everyone seems to be able to
18:35
Speaker 2: justify doing that these days.
18:36
Speaker 4: It's a bit of that. Yeah, I'm not going to lie.
18:38
Speaker 4: We've taken significant price rises. Why have we done that?
18:42
Speaker 2: Well?
18:43
Speaker 4: When I got to the port, the container terminal was
18:46
Speaker 4: losing twenty five million dollars a year. That means that
18:50
Speaker 4: the ratepayers of Auckland were subsidizing importers and exporters of
18:54
Speaker 4: the tune of half a million dollars a week, and
18:56
Speaker 4: that to me is unacceptable.
18:58
Speaker 2: Why were they sustaining that?
19:00
Speaker 4: A traditional approach from port companies that container terminals are
19:06
Speaker 4: not profitable, they're seen as areas going back and forth.
19:10
Speaker 4: There was a lot of competition between Auckland and Todo
19:14
Speaker 4: over history and off the back of that we said
19:18
Speaker 4: as an executive, no, that's not the role of council
19:22
Speaker 4: or rate payers. So we've been stepping up price. Now
19:26
Speaker 4: a lot of people go, well, that's just price. You've
19:28
Speaker 4: done this whole turnaround. It's only one of the point.
19:31
Speaker 4: You know, we've seen year on year growth through the
19:34
Speaker 4: container terminal. We're seeing very strong bulk growth going in
19:39
Speaker 4: bulk cargoes and they're coming because we're no longer gifting
19:46
Speaker 4: volume to todong Are, We're no longer gifting volume to
19:49
Speaker 4: Northport because of our inefficiencies. We're now a credible alternative
19:54
Speaker 4: for importers and they're choosing to come to us. This year,
19:57
Speaker 4: we're almost eight percent up in container volume year on
20:00
Speaker 4: you in a depressed economy, so you know, we're feeling
20:04
Speaker 4: pretty good about.
20:04
Speaker 2: That and is that sustainable.
20:08
Speaker 4: I think the continued growth will settle down as the
20:13
Speaker 4: balance as the volume sorry, as the market chairs re
20:16
Speaker 4: reset themselves, and then we'll probably grow it two or
20:20
Speaker 4: three percent along with GDP. We've given very clear guidance
20:25
Speaker 4: on price rises out for another two or three years,
20:29
Speaker 4: and we are going to continue to lift our price
20:32
Speaker 4: And why are we doing that? So we can give
20:35
Speaker 4: a sustainable return to the city, so we can start
20:38
Speaker 4: to pay a fair return. You know, rate payers have
20:41
Speaker 4: one point six billion dollars of assets sitting down there
20:45
Speaker 4: at the Port, and you know we haven't traditionally paid
20:49
Speaker 4: them a fair return. And it's the job of the
20:52
Speaker 4: port executive the board to give that cash back to
20:56
Speaker 4: the city to pay for the investment that they've made.
20:59
Speaker 3: And that's what we're going.
21:00
Speaker 2: So you've turned the port around. Does the big ee
21:07
Speaker 2: need another challenge to keep interested?
21:10
Speaker 4: Never say never in politics and in life, So no,
21:14
Speaker 4: I never say never. Look, I'm loving the job I'm
21:16
Speaker 4: in right now. There's no other big roles right now,
21:19
Speaker 4: so we'll cross that bridge if it becomes scared.
21:23
Speaker 2: There's always politics. You've had a fascination with.
21:26
Speaker 4: Politics, I have and do still. Maybe right now, I've
21:32
Speaker 4: still got quite a big more witch to payoff from
21:34
Speaker 4: the renovations, so politics probably doesn't pay me well enough
21:38
Speaker 4: to do that.
21:40
Speaker 2: Do you think Christopher Luxen's finding it more difficult than
21:42
Speaker 2: he imagined looking from the outsider and having worked with
21:44
Speaker 2: them at in New Zealand and then seeing what happens
21:48
Speaker 2: when a chief executive a manager goes into politics.
21:51
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody transitions between industries and careers, and
21:58
Speaker 4: let's be honest, it's a big transition from management and
22:01
Speaker 4: aviation or FMCG, where Christopher was before, into politics. One
22:06
Speaker 4: of the things I'd say about Christopher is he is
22:10
Speaker 4: one of the most voracious learners that I know. He
22:14
Speaker 4: is a perpetual learner who has a true X factor
22:18
Speaker 4: about wanting to get better. And I think people will
22:21
Speaker 4: see him continue to understand the whole craft of politics
22:26
Speaker 4: and get better and better as he goes.
22:29
Speaker 3: It look a.
22:30
Speaker 4: Massive hurdle to be leader of the Opposition within first
22:33
Speaker 4: term and then you know Prime Minister so early on
22:36
Speaker 4: in his career.
22:36
Speaker 3: But where credits do.
22:38
Speaker 2: What is it about politics that fascinates you.
22:41
Speaker 4: I think it's a bit about serving the country. One
22:44
Speaker 4: of the things I loved in my first twenty years
22:46
Speaker 4: in the Australian Army was there was a real reason
22:50
Speaker 4: for being. You know, you were there really, you were
22:52
Speaker 4: there to protect the country and to if necessary, prosecute
22:57
Speaker 4: you know, foreign will prosecute a war if you had to.
23:04
Speaker 4: And I do miss that service and I think politics
23:07
Speaker 4: gives you the opportunity to again go back and represent
23:10
Speaker 4: your community to get things done for the betterment of
23:14
Speaker 4: your country. And so yeah, that's what's always interested me
23:18
Speaker 4: about it serving And.
23:20
Speaker 2: What were the other aspects of the army that you
23:22
Speaker 2: really enjoyed.
23:23
Speaker 4: I like the clarity of purpose. I liked the camaraderie.
23:28
Speaker 4: You know, my best friends still are the people I
23:31
Speaker 4: went through done truing with who I met when I
23:33
Speaker 4: was seventeen, when I left home and joined up, and
23:37
Speaker 4: so great friendships, great camara, very clear purpose of what
23:41
Speaker 4: you were there for. And it's yeah, it was a
23:46
Speaker 4: love of mine. As a child, I just wanted to
23:49
Speaker 4: be a soldier, and I suppose I'm one of those
23:51
Speaker 4: few people who actually did what they wanted to be
23:53
Speaker 4: when they were a kid, and the Army provided me
23:56
Speaker 4: a great career.
23:59
Speaker 3: I did twenty years. What did I get out?
24:00
Speaker 4: A lot of people ask me why I got out
24:02
Speaker 4: at thirty seven. I wondered if I could cut it
24:06
Speaker 4: in the corporate world. I'd been privileged enough to go
24:11
Speaker 4: to Cambodia to serve in the UN. I had a
24:15
Speaker 4: wonderful career going up through staff College and being trained,
24:18
Speaker 4: and I just asked, I had this nagging question.
24:22
Speaker 3: I wonder if I cut it in the corporate world.
24:24
Speaker 3: So I jumped.
24:25
Speaker 4: Now, if I had known these team and was coming
24:27
Speaker 4: and then Afghanistan and Iraq and then Afghanistan kerry, I
24:30
Speaker 4: could well have spent another twenty years in the profession
24:34
Speaker 4: because I loved it.
24:35
Speaker 3: It was a great job.
24:37
Speaker 2: A lot of army officers do leave, but fine, they
24:40
Speaker 2: cannot cut it. Yes, you will have had friends and
24:43
Speaker 2: colleagues who would have found that that it's not the
24:46
Speaker 2: world for them. They struggle to find their place.
24:48
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, a lot too, and a lot a lot
24:52
Speaker 4: of and maybe look, I went and did an NBA.
24:57
Speaker 4: I had the resources and the ability to be able
24:59
Speaker 4: to do that. Helped demilitarize myself.
25:03
Speaker 3: But a lot do struggle.
25:05
Speaker 4: They miss the camaraderie, they miss the purpose when they
25:08
Speaker 4: get out. And so I think it behooves people like
25:10
Speaker 4: me and other veterans who have transitioned out to reach
25:14
Speaker 4: out with a helping hand, and I do that a
25:16
Speaker 4: lot now, give advice, support, take people on a journey
25:21
Speaker 4: if they've got some issues, and where I can employ
25:26
Speaker 4: ex veterans because military people bring an amazing set of
25:30
Speaker 4: skills to the workplace that I think a lot of
25:32
Speaker 4: people underestimate.
25:34
Speaker 2: What do you think is common to a lot of them.
25:36
Speaker 4: They deliver what they commit to, they work hard, they're honest,
25:42
Speaker 4: they're nearly always really well trained and actually well educated.
25:47
Speaker 3: The military.
25:49
Speaker 4: Does invest in you in leadership training, in skills, warehousing
25:53
Speaker 4: or truck driving, or apprenticeships or whatever, so they bring
25:58
Speaker 4: a lot and they also Army people are prepared to
26:03
Speaker 4: make decisions. One of the things that I find frustrating
26:06
Speaker 4: in businesses. Lots of people talk about problems, but you
26:10
Speaker 4: often struggle to find someone who actually can get stuff done,
26:14
Speaker 4: makes a call and gets on with it. Military people
26:17
Speaker 4: do have a habit of doing that.
26:19
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Speaker 2: At what point do you need to have the courage
26:46
Speaker 2: to say this was the wrong decision? I'm thinking back.
26:48
Speaker 2: You know you say you people need to make a call,
26:51
Speaker 2: and I couldn't agree. More people need to say right,
26:53
Speaker 2: this is what we've talked about it, this is what
26:55
Speaker 2: we're going to do. At what point, when I come
26:57
Speaker 2: back to the automation should you go. I know we've
27:00
Speaker 2: sunk millions into this. I know I've pinned my professional
27:04
Speaker 2: reputation on this, but it is not working. When do
27:08
Speaker 2: you know? Have you ever had to go through something
27:10
Speaker 2: similar where you've committed.
27:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, a couple of different projects, and let's talk about
27:15
Speaker 4: automation first. The board were very clear with me during
27:18
Speaker 4: my recruitment process that I was to finish automation. Oh really,
27:23
Speaker 4: So whilst I asked the question, are you prepared to
27:27
Speaker 4: let me cancel it? The answer, the resounding answer was no,
27:30
Speaker 4: you are to implement it and come in And to
27:33
Speaker 4: be honest, I wanted the job.
27:35
Speaker 3: It's pretty cool.
27:36
Speaker 4: So I said okay, And I arrived and I said, okay,
27:39
Speaker 4: in good faith, I'll try and make this work.
27:42
Speaker 3: I did a series of deep dives.
27:43
Speaker 4: And probably the important X factor as I was doing
27:47
Speaker 4: those is because jan Dawson was new at the port.
27:50
Speaker 4: She said, do you mind if I sit in with
27:52
Speaker 4: you in these deep dives? So Jane and I would
27:55
Speaker 4: sit there and listen and ask questions and go through
27:58
Speaker 4: them and It wasn't a case of the chair interfering.
28:02
Speaker 4: She just wanted to learn and understand. And I remember
28:05
Speaker 4: we turned to each other after about the fourth deep dive.
28:07
Speaker 3: And went, this is never going to work. And we
28:10
Speaker 3: both think, yeah, it's not going to work.
28:12
Speaker 4: And it wasn't. It wasn't the actual hardware. The straddles
28:16
Speaker 4: work really well. They're running around the port. Now we've
28:18
Speaker 4: converted them to manual their service now for the next
28:21
Speaker 4: fifteen years.
28:22
Speaker 3: They're a good kid.
28:23
Speaker 4: The software wasn't stable and the software didn't work, and
28:26
Speaker 4: that's when you've got to ask yourself, am I just
28:29
Speaker 4: continuing to throw good money after bad And at that
28:32
Speaker 4: stage we were spending about eight hundred thousand to two
28:37
Speaker 4: million dollars a month on the on the software trying
28:40
Speaker 4: to k and it wasn't working. It was two years late,
28:45
Speaker 4: it was it was running at a third of the
28:47
Speaker 4: speed that it was supposed to according to the business case.
28:49
Speaker 4: And when I asked the vendors when will it be right,
28:53
Speaker 4: they said, we don't know, just trust us turn it
28:56
Speaker 4: on and I said no. So anyway, Jane and I
29:00
Speaker 4: then went on a journey of discussing and explaining to
29:02
Speaker 4: the world. Why And it was a pretty hard call,
29:05
Speaker 4: you know, sixty five million dollar right off. It was
29:08
Speaker 4: an interesting conversation with meyor Gough near the end of
29:10
Speaker 4: his term when I let him know that. And there's
29:13
Speaker 4: no way we could repurpose it. We couldn't resell it.
29:16
Speaker 4: It was sixty five million of ratepayers money gone. But
29:19
Speaker 4: it was better than continuing on. And that's where you
29:22
Speaker 4: get to a sunk You've got to acknowledge sunk costs,
29:25
Speaker 4: bias sometimes in decision making and go it's not working.
29:28
Speaker 4: It was the same when I was at Goodminfielder in Australia.
29:31
Speaker 4: Did this whole just in time resupply of raw materials
29:35
Speaker 4: to bakeries grade in theory was perfect, theory should have worked.
29:40
Speaker 4: Complete cluster didn't work. Couldn't get the stuff to the bakeries.
29:44
Speaker 4: So in the end you went, okay, stop, go back
29:47
Speaker 4: to what we had and walk away from a very
29:50
Speaker 4: big project and just say didn't pass the sniff test.
29:55
Speaker 4: Maybe we should have made that call at the beginning.
29:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it would be hard when you're panning your
30:01
Speaker 2: and when you've got staff who are panning their professional
30:04
Speaker 2: reputations on it, to say no it's an abject failure.
30:07
Speaker 2: You know, we've got to stop.
30:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's only money. And I know that sounds
30:11
Speaker 3: a bit flippy.
30:11
Speaker 2: Well it's not yours.
30:12
Speaker 4: No, no, it's not mine. But even if it had
30:15
Speaker 4: been mine, I still would have I probably would have
30:17
Speaker 4: killed it a bit earlier. If I was bleeding eight
30:19
Speaker 4: hundred grand a week a month, I should say. But
30:21
Speaker 4: what I'd say is sometimes you've got to just make
30:24
Speaker 4: the call and go enough is enough and say, Okay,
30:28
Speaker 4: that didn't work, then fix it. You know, And I
30:31
Speaker 4: always think managers worry too much. But what about my reputation?
30:35
Speaker 4: What about this? And you go, mate, just call it.
30:37
Speaker 4: It's okay to make a mistake. We all make them
30:39
Speaker 4: in life.
30:40
Speaker 3: Just fix it.
30:41
Speaker 4: And that's where I think people get. They chase perfection.
30:45
Speaker 4: They chase because they're scared of acknowledging. I made a mistake.
30:49
Speaker 4: And we had a project earlier this year. We had
30:53
Speaker 4: to stop. It got to it was a digital project
30:56
Speaker 4: and in the end we had to write off about
30:58
Speaker 4: a million dollars. And you know, I think the managers
31:02
Speaker 4: who were responsible for it were a bit worried I
31:04
Speaker 4: was going to sack them.
31:05
Speaker 3: And there's that old line.
31:07
Speaker 4: I spent all this money training you mate, I'm going
31:10
Speaker 4: to I'm not going to lose that experience, and I
31:12
Speaker 4: think we should all take that approach.
31:14
Speaker 2: I remember mediating a discussion with the Health and Disability
31:19
Speaker 2: Commissioner and senior doctors and they were terrified of being wrong.
31:24
Speaker 2: For them, it's life and death things, yes, you know,
31:27
Speaker 2: but they there's a real danger and being in an
31:31
Speaker 2: organization or believing that you cannot ever be wrong or
31:36
Speaker 2: make a mistake, because inevitably you'll end up making more
31:39
Speaker 2: if you don't have the freedom to make mistakes.
31:43
Speaker 3: Yep.
31:43
Speaker 4: And I think so many businesses need to create a
31:46
Speaker 4: culture where you're allowed to make mistakes, You're allowed to
31:52
Speaker 4: try something, and that's where you get true innovation, that's.
31:56
Speaker 3: Where you get stuff.
31:57
Speaker 4: Otherwise, everybody sits back, stays conservative, and nothing I think changes,
32:02
Speaker 4: nothing grows. So I'm a big believer in letting people
32:05
Speaker 4: give people a safe sand pit whatever you want to
32:08
Speaker 4: call it, to operate within, as long as they don't
32:11
Speaker 4: keep making the same mistake or keep making mistakes. But
32:14
Speaker 4: I do believe you've got to let people have a crack.
32:17
Speaker 2: Well, I suppose with social media and the court of
32:20
Speaker 2: public opinion and everybody having a recon these days, it
32:23
Speaker 2: seems that the fallout is so huge if people do
32:26
Speaker 2: make a mistake that it can be scary.
32:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think that's valid, and so you know,
32:31
Speaker 4: as leaders of the business, we've got to be there
32:33
Speaker 4: to protect our people and make sure they don't get
32:35
Speaker 4: blamed for it.
32:36
Speaker 3: But yeah, it is tough.
32:38
Speaker 2: Do you think it was the right call for your
32:41
Speaker 2: predecessor to be prosecuted personally?
32:47
Speaker 4: Ah, Look, that was a decision made by the regulator.
32:51
Speaker 4: I don't have a view on that. What I'd say
32:54
Speaker 4: is the port made it. The Port company made a
32:57
Speaker 4: decision off the back of that fatality to plead guilty,
33:02
Speaker 4: and I believe that was the right decision for the
33:05
Speaker 4: port company to make. I can't comment on why the
33:08
Speaker 4: regulator chose to do what they did and who they
33:12
Speaker 4: chose to seek prosecution against. I think it's important now
33:17
Speaker 4: we wait for the appeal and see what the outcome
33:19
Speaker 4: of that is.
33:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, there's that idea that's taken hold more
33:24
Speaker 2: recently that you can't hide behind a company that directors
33:28
Speaker 2: like the main Zeal directors were held accountable personally. Is
33:31
Speaker 2: that the right way to go in general and business.
33:33
Speaker 2: For personal accountability, yep.
33:36
Speaker 4: I believe so, and you know I live with that
33:39
Speaker 4: every day. You know, I'm personally accountable for lots of
33:43
Speaker 4: things within the port and I'm okay with that. That
33:45
Speaker 4: comes with the job. What I'd say from my perspective
33:50
Speaker 4: is if you if you have that accountability, then do
33:53
Speaker 4: your job to make sure you do the stuff that
33:56
Speaker 4: you've got to do to give yourself comfort when you
33:59
Speaker 4: lie awake at night. Did I do everything I possibly could?
34:03
Speaker 4: Be it operationally, be it from a safety perspective, but
34:06
Speaker 4: it how people are treated right the way through to
34:09
Speaker 4: are we trading while we're solving? You know, there's a
34:13
Speaker 4: whole gamut of stuff that as a senior leader you're
34:15
Speaker 4: responsible for and you're just going to make sure you
34:18
Speaker 4: do your job.
34:20
Speaker 2: And to do your job well, you have to have
34:24
Speaker 2: a good life outside of work. Yes, So how do
34:26
Speaker 2: you do that?
34:27
Speaker 3: Yeah? It's interesting.
34:30
Speaker 4: As I said earlier, I'm the be like I do
34:33
Speaker 4: like to party with my friends. So you know, I
34:35
Speaker 4: socialize a lot with friends. I've got a fantastic group
34:38
Speaker 4: of friends here and back in Australia.
34:41
Speaker 3: I this is a.
34:43
Speaker 4: Sort of thing I don't know. Lots of people listen
34:45
Speaker 4: to music or meditate. Carrier, I watch really bad television and.
34:51
Speaker 2: Like six in the study, I was.
34:53
Speaker 3: Watching just like that two nights ago. I lost.
34:57
Speaker 4: And then there's an how called CUBI which has all
35:01
Speaker 4: these shlocks, sixties and fifties horror movies and things on it.
35:05
Speaker 4: I watched that religiously normally on a Saturday morning. I
35:08
Speaker 4: had a cup of coffee when I first wake up,
35:10
Speaker 4: and I watch a really bad Jialio movie or something
35:13
Speaker 4: like that. My wife just wanders passed. Sin says right.
35:16
Speaker 4: And then obviously I spent time with Caroline the kids.
35:19
Speaker 4: We are on a blockout in coastal, so there's quite
35:22
Speaker 4: a lot of lawn knowing. So I do listen to
35:24
Speaker 4: talking books while I'm on the ride on as well
35:27
Speaker 4: sci fi or no No No politics as you'd expect business,
35:32
Speaker 4: those sort of things.
35:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like podcasts like this, like this, like exactly
35:38
Speaker 2: like this. In terms of the healthy mind and the
35:42
Speaker 2: healthy body, do you think it's important? Does the keeping
35:45
Speaker 2: fit thing, because I'm just making an observation visual observation,
35:50
Speaker 2: you're obviously fit. Does that come from the army or
35:53
Speaker 2: from trying to clear your head from the day's work.
35:56
Speaker 4: I think it's I think it does come from the army,
35:59
Speaker 4: so I tend to excit. I was in the morning,
36:00
Speaker 4: so I was in the gym this morning. And what
36:04
Speaker 4: that does is it helps me prepare for the day.
36:06
Speaker 4: And you know, we've just, as I said, done a renovation,
36:11
Speaker 4: so we put on a gym so I can literally
36:14
Speaker 4: wake up and walk through a door into the gym.
36:16
Speaker 3: So that's an indulgence that I'm lucky enough to have.
36:19
Speaker 4: But I do believe in walking and doing some exercise
36:23
Speaker 4: to just a focus and to clear the head, because
36:25
Speaker 4: there's a lot of noise in a job and a
36:28
Speaker 4: lot of noise in life. So sometimes it's just nice
36:30
Speaker 4: to have that time to myself and watch one of
36:33
Speaker 4: those Tubi movies while I'm on the treadmill.
36:36
Speaker 2: I can't believe you're watching six In the study, I
36:38
Speaker 2: picked that as the worst no example.
36:44
Speaker 3: I'd love to meet carry Breadshaw one day.
36:47
Speaker 2: Can you learn to be a good boss or do
36:50
Speaker 2: you happen to be one? It sounds like you can
36:52
Speaker 2: learn to be a better boss.
36:53
Speaker 3: Yeah. Look, I think I think you can learn to
36:55
Speaker 3: be a good boss. I do.
36:56
Speaker 4: I think you We're all built with a preparedness to lead.
37:01
Speaker 4: Some of us like doing it, some of us don't.
37:03
Speaker 4: Some of us don't want to be in management, and
37:05
Speaker 4: that's fine. I think, what if you want to be
37:09
Speaker 4: a really good boss, then I think you've got to
37:11
Speaker 4: be open to feedback. You've got to be prepared to
37:14
Speaker 4: keep improving. You've got to be that learner that I
37:16
Speaker 4: talked about Christopher luxen Is. I try and be the same.
37:21
Speaker 4: I'm trying to always get better. And I think if
37:24
Speaker 4: you come into it with humbleness and preparedness to learn
37:27
Speaker 4: and develop yourself, you can go a long way in
37:30
Speaker 4: becoming a highly effective executive.
37:33
Speaker 2: As a management degree the best way to become a.
37:35
Speaker 4: Boss, well, my first degree was an arts degree in
37:40
Speaker 4: economics and history and politics. Actually, I have done a
37:46
Speaker 4: number of management courses and MBA and things, and I
37:49
Speaker 4: think they all go to helping codify the skills you
37:53
Speaker 4: get in the workplace, and they do teach you some
37:55
Speaker 4: tools and some tricks to help you. So I think
37:58
Speaker 4: they're in adjunct too. I don't think they are the
38:01
Speaker 4: way I think they contribute to you. If you're prepared
38:04
Speaker 4: to be a learner.
38:05
Speaker 2: Wi business decision you made in your career.
38:09
Speaker 4: Probably that just in time Goodman Fielder example, back in Australia,
38:14
Speaker 4: that was yeah, that wasn't good.
38:17
Speaker 2: What is something you'll never regret.
38:20
Speaker 4: I'll never regret coming here to Porteval, I'll never regret
38:24
Speaker 4: coming to live in New Zealand. I'll never regret joining
38:27
Speaker 4: the army, and I'll never regret having a crack at
38:30
Speaker 4: politics because at least I had to go.
38:32
Speaker 2: Did join me? Missed out by one percent year.
38:34
Speaker 4: One point eight percent, not that I'm counting, and in
38:36
Speaker 4: not that you know that eighteen hundred votes couldn't have
38:39
Speaker 4: just nine hundred had changed, I would have been. But
38:42
Speaker 4: if that had happened, that was in two thousand and four,
38:43
Speaker 4: I would never have come to New Zealand.
38:46
Speaker 2: So would you have been Prime Minister.
38:49
Speaker 3: Scott Well? I knew Scott Morrison at the time.
38:52
Speaker 4: He was State director when I was a candidate, so
38:54
Speaker 4: he got to be Prime minister.
38:55
Speaker 3: So let's wait and see.
38:57
Speaker 4: Anyway, that's the past. It's not something would I have
39:00
Speaker 4: liked to have been? Yes, I would have liked to
39:02
Speaker 4: have been. Would yeah, I make no bones about it.
39:07
Speaker 4: If you're going to be in government, if you're going
39:09
Speaker 4: to be in politics, and you want to be in
39:10
Speaker 4: government and you want to be able to affect change.
39:13
Speaker 4: It's great to sit in opposition and oppose, but the
39:18
Speaker 4: thing that's important for me is about making a real difference.
39:24
Speaker 2: Will you ever given a piece of advice that stays
39:26
Speaker 2: with you today?
39:28
Speaker 3: Yeah?
39:29
Speaker 4: My boss Gordon Hardy, who's now running a US listed company,
39:34
Speaker 4: he said to me, Roger, make a decision. And I said, okay,
39:39
Speaker 4: what means when you get seventy percent of if you
39:41
Speaker 4: get seventy percent of your decisions right, just too many
39:44
Speaker 4: people want too much information. So Gordon said, after a while,
39:47
Speaker 4: you go, right, I'm going to have a crack, and
39:49
Speaker 4: he goes, you go, yep, make the call. And if
39:51
Speaker 4: you get seventy percent of your decisions right, and you
39:54
Speaker 4: fix seventy percent of your mistakes in a timely manner,
39:57
Speaker 4: you'll get ninety one percent of your decisions right in
39:59
Speaker 4: the time the manner. And I've never forgotten that because
40:02
Speaker 4: what that did is it said to me, make a call.
40:05
Speaker 4: I think too many people wait to want too much information,
40:09
Speaker 4: and that's worse than not making a decision, even if
40:12
Speaker 4: it's the wrong decision. So that was one that was
40:15
Speaker 4: probably the great bit of business advice Gordon gave me.
40:17
Speaker 2: Do you ever listen to your gut or as it
40:20
Speaker 2: always hid?
40:21
Speaker 3: Ah, it's both.
40:24
Speaker 2: I do.
40:25
Speaker 3: I'm quite numerous, so I do. I will, I will
40:29
Speaker 3: look at the numbers.
40:31
Speaker 4: But sometimes, like I said earlier, you just know this
40:35
Speaker 4: doesn't past the sniff test. There's just something not right.
40:38
Speaker 4: That's when you've got to trust your gut because the
40:40
Speaker 4: numbers might all be telling you. But if it doesn't,
40:43
Speaker 4: it doesn't past the pub test. Don't do it. And
40:46
Speaker 4: so I actually trust both. And if you ask me
40:49
Speaker 4: what would I take preference over, I'd probably take it
40:52
Speaker 4: over my gut.
40:54
Speaker 2: You can't just you can't nullify your spidy sensors. They're
40:57
Speaker 2: there for a reason. They are great piece of advice.
41:01
Speaker 2: I think that's one to remember for all of us.
41:03
Speaker 3: It was.
41:03
Speaker 2: Roger Gray of Port of Auckland still cannot get over
41:07
Speaker 2: the fact that Sets in the City is his favorite
41:09
Speaker 2: TV show, Isn't it just as well? We're all different.
41:12
Speaker 2: If you want to hear more stories about what it's
41:15
Speaker 2: really like to be a boss, make sure you check
41:17
Speaker 2: out Bosses Unfiltered on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
41:22
Speaker 2: Catch you next time,