Latest / Elite Agent - The Edit / Power with, not power over – Lisa Pennell on leadership beyond labels

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Power with, not power over – Lisa Pennell on leadership beyond labels · Elite Agent - The Edit

• 0:00
  In so many offices, the people with the worst behaviour write the greatest GCI.
• 0:04
  And what does that tell young men?
• 0:06
  As long as men still brand women as emotional and men as passionate, we have a problem.
• 0:10
  Who's going to buy or sell it out to a panicking agent?
• 0:13
  People talk about company values.
• 0:14
  Well, how about just be a good human?
• 0:16
  Everyone wants to be at the top and then you get to the top and you go, oh, I'm here on my own.
• 0:20
  Who do I talk to?
• 0:21
  Leadership for me is power with, not power over, not power under.
• 0:37
  Welcome, everyone, to another episode of The Edit.
• 0:39
  I'm Samantha McLean from Elite Agent.
• 0:42
  Together with me today is my co-host, Chris Hanley.
• 0:46
  Welcome, Chris.
• 0:47
  Thank you for asking me back, Samantha.
• 0:49
  I'm always surprised each time you ask me back.
• 0:51
  Thank you.
• 0:52
  I'm always surprised each time you come back.
• 0:55
  Now...
• 0:56
  We've just finished recording an episode with John Cunningham and Lisa Pennell, who is this week's guest, CEO of Barry Plant, has come in to join us.
• 1:04
  But John had an extra half hour, so we thought we'd just keep going.
• 1:09
  So, Lisa, welcome to the edit.
• 1:13
  I was keen to get you and Chris together.
• 1:14
  I was keen for you to come on because...
• 1:17
  I am keen to have a talk about leadership in the real estate industry and what that is truly like for women at the moment when, you know, and I think like I come from a technology background and growing up in technology, I never sort of felt really some of the things that I feel now.
• 1:37
  So I want to unpack that.
• 1:39
  John is here because I just said, hang around.
• 1:43
  We love John.
• 1:46
  John can stay.
• 1:49
  Yes.
• 1:50
  So, Lisa, you and I have already talked about this a lot.
• 1:53
  And, I mean, this is a leadership topic where I know that you'll all have points of views.
• 1:57
  But I know you're very pro-diversity.
• 2:00
  You've just taken on the CEO role at Barry Plant, doing an amazing job.
• 2:05
  Chris, you've said before that businesses need to become places where women want to stay.
• 2:11
  What do you think that means in practice and what do you think leaders misunderstand about it?
• 2:16
  I'm going to ask Chris that question first and then Lisa, I'm going to ask for your view.
• 2:20
  Well, I'm obviously a veteran grey-haired male, so my perspective on that I'm sure is different to Lisa's, but I look forward to hearing her too.
• 2:29
  But I guess the proof for me that I practise diversity is that the overwhelming majority of people in my business are females.
• 2:39
  My business is highly unusual, I think, in the real estate world.
• 2:44
  Many of my lead agents are females.
• 2:46
  They have been for years.
• 2:49
  I love working with them.
• 2:50
  Diversity is at its best.
• 2:55
  because you build your best cultures with diverse teams of people, end of story.
• 3:00
  My view is if you can have people, I've also got people from different, lots of different cultural backgrounds in my business now.
• 3:07
  My town has lots of visitors from different parts of the world who fall in love and have families and stay there.
• 3:15
  But diversity is everything.
• 3:19
  I don't want to get into politics, but having a diverse group of people in a community like mine allows you to build a great culture.
• 3:27
  And when there's so many females in a business, and if you're out there listening to this podcast, I'll tell you one unbelievable upside on top of culture.
• 3:38
  is the fact that if people are all over your website and all over your newspaper ads and all of those things and you've got a lot of females working for you in this day and age, and my view is that females are still the biggest untapped resource in real estate, when people are seeing that women flourish in your shop...
• 3:57
  or business, all it does is attract more women to work there because they feel safe.
• 4:02
  That's my view.
• 4:03
  If I could reframe the question for you, Lisa, you've said to me a couple of times that the industry doesn't necessarily need more female leaders, but it needs more excellence in leadership.
• 4:13
  What do you feel like the conversation needs to move both from and to?
• 4:19
  I think it needs to move from a
• 4:22
  let's get more women, let's get quotas, you know, focus, because I think for a lot of people with bias and particularly unconscious bias, that's quite a triggering kind of position.
• 4:34
  And I think it needs to move more towards, you know, less conversation around what gender people might be, what background or what age, and talk more about the concept of experience and capability.
• 4:46
  that's realistically it.
• 4:48
  I'm well aware of some really poor female leaders in our industry.
• 4:52
  I'm aware of some really poor male leaders in our industry.
• 4:55
  I'm aware of some really great female leaders and some really great male leaders.
• 5:00
  I think, again, when we talk about gender, we're missing the point.
• 5:04
  We're not focusing on the key metric, which is leadership.
• 5:06
  And John, I got you to hang around purposely.
• 5:09
  What are your thoughts?
• 5:10
  Yeah, look, I think the reality in this space is there's a capability question first and foremost, but also there's a flexibility component that needs to be taken into account.
• 5:21
  There's zero about gender.
• 5:23
  There's zero about race or ethnicity.
• 5:26
  It's simply how do we make this work?
• 5:28
  How's this going to happen?
• 5:29
  I think we've found that with our team because we're, like Chris, we're a 60% plus female business company.
• 5:37
  And I think, you know, I think the reality is the proof point is diversity.
• 5:41
  Like if you can look at your business as you guys have and as I can, I can look out here and I can see men, women, you know, different backgrounds, different ages, you know, then that's the proof point that we have a little bias in our selection.
• 5:54
  Because if you go out with the, oh, I need an Indian and I need a woman and I need, you know, you're kind of, you're trying to get the outcome without understanding why you might not already have that outcome.
• 6:04
  Yeah, exactly.
• 6:05
  And we all carry unconscious bias.
• 6:07
  So I think the topic is unconscious bias, not, you know, and the bias could be anything at all, you know, and we might not even, and the reason it's unconscious is because we actually don't know it's there.
• 6:17
  I was shocked many years ago when I did a Harvard online gender bias test to find out I had a gender bias.
• 6:24
  My gender bias was that I felt, you know, if I was going to be a career woman, I also had to pack the lunches, drive my daughter to school, be there for, you know, and my stay-at-home partner.
• 6:34
  who didn't work, was living the life of Riley while I turned myself into a pretzel through my own bias that put too much pressure on myself.
• 6:42
  So, again, if we're all willing to step back and go, well, where are my blind spots?
• 6:46
  We'll be called blind spots for a reason and I want to be better.
• 6:49
  That's the subject.
• 6:50
  Well, I'll give you my bias and you guys can react to it however you choose.
• 6:57
  I'll be quite transparent here.
• 7:00
  I am a big fan of Guy who does this podcast on YouTube.
• 7:04
  I watch him all the time.
• 7:06
  and I don't know, he's probably in his mid-30s.
• 7:10
  And some days he comes on the podcast, I won't mention who it is or what it is.
• 7:15
  Some days he comes on the podcast looking like he just got out of bed.
• 7:19
  Some days he comes on the podcast sort of looking like he hasn't done his hair.
• 7:23
  Sometimes his hat's on backwards, like he just really doesn't,
• 7:29
  care about you know like how he shows up on camera his content is great but I had this terrible fear as a woman that if I don't show up with my hair brushed done you know like ready to go prepared to within an inch of my life that I won't get paid as much attention to no matter how good my content is
• 7:52
  There you go.
• 7:53
  It's the Julia Gillard factor, isn't it?
• 7:55
  You know, the focus on how she's dressing.
• 7:57
  And you're right, Sam.
• 7:58
  Like I wear heels to work every day.
• 8:01
  Horribly uncomfortable, but, you know, that's the generation I grew up in.
• 8:04
  It feels wrong if I show up.
• 8:06
  I would never show up to work without makeup on.
• 8:08
  And, again, I don't actually care that much about how I look, but it makes me feel like I'm not...
• 8:13
  Right.
• 8:14
  And I don't quite know how to shift that bias.
• 8:16
  Maybe I should come to a podcast with thongs and no makeup and my hair all over the place, Sam.
• 8:23
  Next time we'll both have our baseball caps on backwards and see how you can see our people.
• 8:29
  And we'll put makeup on Chris and John.
• 8:31
  How about that?
• 8:34
  can i go back to something else lisa and and for context for this conversation we did it with john a while ago just tell people who are listening to this give us a sketch of barry plan tell us about the people and the offices and all that stuff so anyone who doesn't know your group can get a context you manage a very lead a very big successful business so tell us about that
• 8:59
  We have around 65 offices.
• 9:02
  We are number two in Victoria.
• 9:05
  It was the number one brand for quite some time.
• 9:08
  We're on our way back.
• 9:09
  Watch out.
• 9:10
  I joined this group about three and a half years ago, and it's been an absolute delight to lead it through a transformation period.
• 9:17
  where we have completely reimagined the brand, the value offering, relationships, trump rules, if you like, that our relationships are very, very important to us.
• 9:27
  And our vision is to be the trusted brand.
• 9:30
  And that starts obviously with trusting each other.
• 9:32
  So it's a very exciting place for me to, I guess, achieve my personal ambition, I hope, which is to elevate trust in our industry by being that brand that can offer a consistently trustworthy service to its end customers.
• 9:46
  Lisa, what does to you excellent leadership look like beyond the labels?
• 9:52
  That's a really difficult question to answer in a simple way, Sam.
• 9:58
  I think there are so many different proof points.
• 10:01
  I think excellence and leadership, I tell you, it doesn't look like LinkedIn posts talking about
• 10:07
  what a great culture I lead and what a great leader I am.
• 10:11
  I think leadership does not have ego.
• 10:14
  I think leadership for me is power with not power over, not power under, but power with pure, true collaboration, whether it's with your...
• 10:24
  direct team or your customers or your stakeholders.
• 10:27
  You know, I think we're in a world now that seeks authenticity.
• 10:30
  Trust is important and that is only built on the basis of power with a recognition and an adaptation to that individual.
• 10:39
  And this is where diversity is so important.
• 10:41
  And so, you know, adapting styles to whether it's gender or, you know, values that because someone's grown up in a different culture or whatever, it's that willingness to look at the human as an individual.
• 10:53
  Long answer to a short question.
• 10:54
  My apologies.
• 10:55
  You know, I feel like over a period of years too, like that I've been sitting in this chair, the 8th of March has become, you know, like a date circled on the calendar where, you know, everyone is happy to have tea and cupcakes and their International Women's Day lunches and things like that.
• 11:18
  That drives me a bit mad, actually, just because I think still we probably need to do more than have a cup of tea and a cake to say that we are supportive of women in our businesses.
• 11:36
  I could not agree more, Sam.
• 11:37
  It annoys me when the family is all pink and girly, she says, as she's got a pink shirt on.
• 11:42
  But all of these, you know, again, where's the unconsciousness of all of this, right?
• 11:48
  Yeah, I agree.
• 11:50
  I'm just going to download a couple of quick things on that last topic.
• 11:56
  Example is leadership.
• 11:59
  I'll put five or six words out there.
• 12:02
  Leadership is about mistakes.
• 12:04
  Leadership is about recovery.
• 12:08
  I've had a very interesting week, and I think what happens the longer you're in the chair, whether you're a male or a female or whoever old you are, it doesn't matter.
• 12:18
  It isn't about the punch.
• 12:21
  or the bruise, it's about your recovery.
• 12:24
  It's about leadership's about being calm at your call.
• 12:28
  Leadership is about asking the right questions.
• 12:32
  And I think in the end of the day, in our profession, leadership is about learning because leadership,
• 12:39
  You'll never get leaderships lonely.
• 12:41
  You never nail it.
• 12:42
  And then all of a sudden you're going to do this thing as a boss where you doubt and that's the last thing I want to.
• 12:48
  None of us ever nail this.
• 12:50
  You never get it right and you'll have doubt.
• 12:53
  And I think there's a belief with young bosses who bring me up all the time that you somehow perfect this thing.
• 13:01
  You don't perfect it ever.
• 13:03
  It's quite funny, isn't it, Chris?
• 13:05
  As I get older and I watch people come into leadership roles and it's the posturing, you know, I'm the best now and, you know, you can see they're pretending.
• 13:14
  They're like little kids in dress-up.
• 13:16
  And I think it's the least powerful position to be active.
• 13:20
  Like the authenticity and the relaxation in everything when a leader says, I don't know.
• 13:27
  Or I made a mistake.
• 13:29
  Or, you know, that's power.
• 13:32
  That's leadership.
• 13:33
  I didn't probably believe in that until the last five or six years.
• 13:38
  Like I'd pay lip service to it, so it's a good thing you brought this up.
• 13:43
  But I've realised over time that people can tell whether you're paying lip service as opposed to saying, I don't know.
• 13:51
  Like, I honestly don't know how to fix this or I don't know what we need to do.
• 13:57
  Certainty is another thing as leaders.
• 13:59
  Like, there's all these people I meet, they're certain about this.
• 14:02
  I'm not certain about anything.
• 14:05
  And isn't it fun to, you know.
• 14:07
  It is.
• 14:07
  It is, but certainly scares the crap out of me now, Lisa.
• 14:11
  It does.
• 14:11
  Anyone that comes at me and they're certain about stuff, I'm like, get away, get away.
• 14:17
  Well, there's so many, you know, we think everything's up to us.
• 14:20
  And the biggest mistake in leadership, I think, is that inability to let go.
• 14:25
  You know, to remain unattached, we all have preferences of how we like to see things roll out.
• 14:30
  But there's so much, as you say, that's grey, John, or that, you know, other people might have influence on or could just happen.
• 14:37
  We call them coincidences.
• 14:38
  I don't believe in coincidences.
• 14:40
  But remaining unattached with a preference enables that calm that Chris is talking about.
• 14:46
  And, you know, the calm is actually, you're quite right, Chris, I couldn't agree with you more.
• 14:51
  That's probably the most important quality in leadership because if you're running around like a headless chook, it's interesting in this difficult market.
• 14:59
  You know, the vast majority of our director group are very calm.
• 15:04
  at the moment and I'm certain that's why we're actually tracking through very well, you know, because the teams are not panicking, we're not panicking, we're growing market share and it's all very, you know, one step in front of the other.
• 15:16
  And I see other directors who are running around going, oh, this is the worst market, you know, blah, blah, blah, and the numbers are down.
• 15:24
  Why?
• 15:25
  Why do you reckon?
• 15:26
  Because everyone's panicking and in a panic, no one can make a good decision.
• 15:30
  And who's going to buy or sell a house to a panicking agent?
• 15:33
  You know?
• 15:34
  Think of the dark calm on the surface, running a mile underneath.
• 15:39
  That's what we're doing, isn't it?
• 15:40
  We're the calm persona and that helps people find clarity, helps us find clarity.
• 15:46
  But underneath, we're busy.
• 15:49
  Very busy.
• 15:50
  And if we are freaking out, we need to be talking to other leaders, not to people underneath us.
• 15:55
  There's this weird thing in an organisation, it doesn't matter whether it's real estate or whatever it is,
• 16:01
  and leaders, no one tells them this, but for want of a better word, imagine a microscope.
• 16:09
  And imagine the leader is under the lens of a microscope.
• 16:14
  The smallest movement by the leader, the smaller is magnified.
• 16:18
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  So the people are watching you all the time, all day, every day.
• 16:24
  And when you react that way, the panic, the chuckle out of head,
• 16:30
  It's 10 times worse than you think, and then there's a multiplier effect, and it goes right through the thing.
• 16:37
  Can I ask Lisa a question I've wanted to ask her since the start of the podcast?
• 16:41
  Three and a half years you've been in that seat, right?
• 16:43
  I know you've done a great job because I've watched and I've seen the interviews and whatever else.
• 16:48
  Thank you, Chris.
• 16:49
  And you have, and I've heard it said a bunch of times, so congratulations.
• 16:52
  But I'm interested.
• 16:54
  in the things you've learnt in the three and a half years since you got into that saddle?
• 16:59
  Because unless I'm wrong with you, was that your first CEO role?
• 17:02
  Absolutely.
• 17:03
  Tell us about that bit.
• 17:04
  Yeah.
• 17:07
  And it's a real CEO role too, Chris.
• 17:09
  It's not just, you know, we love that label.
• 17:11
  We love that label.
• 17:12
  But, you know, I guess sitting in the seat where you actually report to a board and you're responsible for, you know, all of the outcomes of the business is enormously difficult.
• 17:23
  As a first-time CEO, you know, it certainly had a bunch of challenges.
• 17:27
  If we were going to talk about the challenges, we'd need another five podcasts.
• 17:31
  So I think that probably the thing that's popping into my head repeatedly is it's very lonely being the boss.
• 17:38
  I don't have a boss.
• 17:39
  I have a board that I report to.
• 17:41
  I don't have a mentor per se in the way that you might, you know, I will mentor my team.
• 17:45
  I don't have a day-to-day manager per se.
• 17:48
  And I think for all leaders, when you do sort of, everyone wants to be at the top and then you get to the top and you go, oh, yeah.
• 17:54
  I'm here on my own.
• 17:55
  Who do I talk to?
• 17:56
  How do I, you know?
• 17:58
  I think one of my biggest learnings is how important that external support is outside the business.
• 18:04
  Coaching, you know, I have a therapist.
• 18:06
  I have an amazing coach.
• 18:10
  I have some really good colleagues who, you know, in the industry that, and you know, you guys, even this conversation, very helpful when you're having conversations with other leaders who might be experiencing similar things.
• 18:21
  Yeah.
• 18:21
  As you say, the journey is unpredictable.
• 18:24
  The walk I walked won't be the walk that anyone else walks.
• 18:27
  But, you know, the willingness to drop the guard and, you know, say I don't know and I'm going to talk to the right people to find out, not, you know, not the people that report to me, not the, you know, people out in network but, you know, people that can actually help me be a better leader.
• 18:41
  So speaking of that, and we need to farewell John from this conversation.
• 18:46
  All right.
• 18:46
  Thanks, guys.
• 18:47
  Thanks, Ed.
• 18:47
  See you, mate.
• 18:48
  Thanks, Chris.
• 18:48
  Thanks, Lisa.
• 18:49
  See you, mate.
• 18:49
  What were the early days like and what would your advice be for somebody sort of the same path that you are right now in thinking, well, you know, like I know I'm walking into something new here.
• 19:01
  We've got big plans, but, you know, how do you get everybody to actually understand what they are and follow you on them?
• 19:09
  Good question, Sam.
• 19:10
  And the truth is I didn't come in with any preconceived notions about what I would do outside of the fact that to me it was quite obvious that the business needed rebranding in terms of the way that it looked because it looked extremely masculine in its presentation.
• 19:24
  And from the outside, you know, I, like many others in the industry, had the perception that Barry Plant was a boys' club, male name, male branding.
• 19:33
  In fact, I found it's anything but that.
• 19:35
  I found a very accepting and diverse group actually.
• 19:39
  My advice to any leader and certainly the approach that I took here and would in any new role is ask a lot of questions.
• 19:47
  See what you're working with.
• 19:49
  Even for the purpose of the rebrand, they were halfway through the process when I walked in the door and I sort of thought, oh, great, I don't need to worry about that.
• 19:56
  But I realised quite quickly that the rebrand was absolutely not heading in the right direction to really show the values of this brand.
• 20:04
  And so we stopped, we reversed out, and we went in a completely different direction.
• 20:08
  And I think, you know, what I learnt, if anything, I wished I had have taken more time to learn more things.
• 20:14
  There were a number of sort of burning platforms, if you like, so I didn't have the luxury of that.
• 20:19
  But, you know, you've got to adapt your thinking to what you're actually looking at, not what you think is going to work because you did it somewhere before and it happened to work that time.
• 20:28
  So that's my advice.
• 20:30
  Again, just listen, learn, pay attention, and then try and make the best decision based on what's in front of you.
• 20:36
  I would go further than that.
• 20:38
  I would say humans hate and resist change.
• 20:41
  Like, you know, I've talked to a lot of you.
• 20:42
  Oh, no doubt, Sam.
• 20:43
  You know, change management is hard, really hard.
• 20:46
  Yeah, so I was going to say, like, how do you, you know, like, and there would be principals out there that are making all sorts of changes right now, probably trying to implement AI, trying to implement new software, trying to, you know, bring new people into the business or restructure or whatever the change happens to be.
• 21:05
  How do you win the hearts and minds of your existing people over when you know that, you know, things just aren't going to be the same again?
• 21:14
  I think particularly in franchising, it's incredibly important to remember they own their own businesses and to be respectful of that.
• 21:22
  Again, it comes back to my theory over power with, not power over.
• 21:26
  And I think, you know, trust is not, there's no magic bullet for trust.
• 21:30
  It's repeatedly showing up.
• 21:32
  It doesn't mean you always get things right, as Chris has already highlighted.
• 21:35
  In fact, it's more about owning your mistakes, and I've made plenty of those.
• 21:38
  It's being willing to go back and, you know, repair any damage that you might have caused in your own business.
• 21:43
  You know, like there'll be challenges, but as human beings, we often, you know, we're reactive rather than reacting and therefore we can make bad situations a whole lot worse if we're not conscious of that and we're not able to stop and allow some space between that reactivity and the reaction.
• 22:01
  You know, and again, just being authentic, do what you say.
• 22:04
  They're basic human values.
• 22:05
  People talk about company values.
• 22:07
  Well, how about just be a good human?
• 22:10
  You know, be who you say you are, keep your promises, admit when you get it wrong and try and be understanding and respectful of everybody as an individual.
• 22:19
  And I think, you know, I've done my best to do that even in the face of enormous challenges here and I feel like I've made, you know, I've made some really good inroads in that.
• 22:31
  I want to just also say, though, that, you know, one person can't be a movement person.
• 22:37
  And, you know, whenever anyone gives me any sort of credit for where we're at as a group, I, you know, I feel uncomfortable with that.
• 22:43
  I might have started the movement, but it's a movement that is far broader than just me.
• 22:49
  We call it the Kata Juta theory here, one body, many hits.
• 22:52
  What it means is that we're all, you know, I'm a deep believer in the collective consciousness.
• 22:57
  We're all in this together and we're all, you know, some people out there in the world might have forgotten that.
• 23:03
  It's about reminding, you know, and everyone in our group reminding each other that, you know, there is only one.
• 23:10
  So if we operate under that framework, then the decisions become easy because everything we do affects everybody else in the world, everybody else in our world.
• 23:19
  Decisions become a lot easier then.
• 23:21
  I feel like in the real estate industry, we're maybe not doing an incredible job at nurturing the next bunch of leaders.
• 23:31
  Like who is the next, who will be the new Leanne Pilkington or who will be the new, you know, Thomas McGlynn or, you know, like whatever.
• 23:41
  What would your advice be to, say, young women listening to this in real estate who are ambitious?
• 23:49
  Like, what are three things that you would say to somebody?
• 23:52
  Like, pretend I'm 20 years old sitting in front of you and saying, Lisa, I want to be just like you.
• 23:58
  Oh, that's scary.
• 24:01
  Don't do it.
• 24:02
  No, I'm kidding.
• 24:04
  What would be my advice?
• 24:05
  Again, you know, there's no magic wand.
• 24:08
  You know, people think there's some go and do a course or go and do it.
• 24:11
  It's whatever's in front of you.
• 24:13
  And, you know, it comes back to some of the things we've spoken about on this podcast already is if the alignment, and Chris highlighted quite well, the alignment has to come from inside, not outside.
• 24:24
  The outside is the proof point of the inside.
• 24:26
  So get straight with yourself.
• 24:28
  Look in the mirror.
• 24:28
  Yeah.
• 24:29
  You know, how aware are you?
• 24:30
  What impact are you having in the world?
• 24:32
  Is it a good one or a bad one?
• 24:34
  Because whatever you intend is irrelevant.
• 24:36
  The impact is the proof point of whether or not you're succeeding in your intention.
• 24:41
  And if you're not succeeding in your intention, that's with you, not with anyone else.
• 24:46
  Stop pointing the finger.
• 24:47
  Stop looking for a magic solution.
• 24:48
  Look in the mirror.
• 24:50
  So I'm going to ask you a hard question now.
• 24:53
  Like when I was younger, if someone had given me a piece of advice, it might have gone something like this.
• 25:00
  You're going to have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good.
• 25:05
  Do we still have that problem?
• 25:08
  Look, I'm sad to say probably yes, Sam.
• 25:11
  And unfortunately, like I said, this is why I pushed back when we talked about we need more female leaders because, as I say, I personally have probably been helped more by men in my career than I have by other females.
• 25:23
  In fact, I've had some other females do some pretty awful things to me along the journey that feel quite targeted and vindictive.
• 25:31
  You know who you are.
• 25:33
  Yeah.
• 25:34
  Kidding.
• 25:35
  They all know who they are.
• 25:36
  Kidding.
• 25:38
  So I don't know how to shift that other than to continue pressing on.
• 25:44
  I do know that it's a lot better than it was when you and I started out.
• 25:48
  We've talked about this before.
• 25:50
  I tell stories to some of the young girls that I come across and they absolutely can't believe some of the things that you and I faced in our early careers.
• 25:58
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:59
  But sadly, a lot of it seems to have gone underground rather than being, you know, someone slapped you on the butt.
• 26:04
  That's pretty obvious.
• 26:05
  If someone's, you know, not overlooking you for a, you know, a promotion or talking about you behind your back, it's less obvious what's going on.
• 26:14
  But as long as men still brand women as emotional and men as passionate, we have a problem.
• 26:18
  Chris, do we need to look after our men better too?
• 26:24
  Well, I'm going to go back to what Lisa said, and then I'll answer if you're okay, and then I'll answer that one.
• 26:29
  Yeah, we do, Sam.
• 26:30
  We do.
• 26:32
  Young men, this is an observation, a generalisation.
• 26:35
  They're lost at the moment, a lot of them.
• 26:38
  And my view there as an older male is that whatever's happened in the last 10, 15, 20 years, whether it's to parents or dads or grandfathers or uncles or whatever, has meant that a lot of young men
• 26:55
  don't know who and what they are today.
• 26:58
  Real estate's not a profession to find yourself.
• 27:01
  It's the opposite.
• 27:03
  And if I'd been starting today, I'd be lost too.
• 27:07
  Like, how do you deal with social media?
• 27:10
  And the main people that look at real estate agents, social media posts for what it is worth are other real estate agents.
• 27:19
  And when you really analyze what it is we're doing, we compare up
• 27:25
  And I know Mark McLeod said this to me a couple of months ago.
• 27:31
  We were talking about this topic and he said most people,
• 27:36
  Real estate salespeople, not all of them but most of them, compare themselves to their contemporaries and their incomes will go only to the level that those people are.
• 27:47
  They won't exceed that.
• 27:49
  So our greatest challenge, whether it's we'll talk about young men, is this whole issue of comparison.
• 27:56
  And then we talk about this thing about role models with the young men too.
• 28:00
  Who are their role models in real estate?
• 28:03
  Well, let's say your role models in real estate are someone at ARIC and that person at ARIC does phenomenal figures and GCI and then you get close to that person and you're a good human.
• 28:18
  I'll use the phrase that was used before.
• 28:20
  And then you find that person's not good to the people in their team or the people in the business.
• 28:26
  Where do you go from there?
• 28:28
  Like what I'm saying is the role models we've got, imagine the medical profession having conferences where they bring out one surgeon after another and they stand on the stage and tell everyone how much money they've made each year and then the audience is supposed to aspire to that.
• 28:47
  Are we really using that metric?
• 28:51
  So, Samantha, it's a great question.
• 28:53
  No, we're not looking after the young men.
• 28:57
  And the responsibility for that, in my view, is the whole industry and the males that exist because...
• 29:07
  We forgive behaviour that shouldn't.
• 29:09
  We walk past behaviour we should never accept, and I've done it to myself, right?
• 29:14
  Because in so many offices, the people with the worst behaviour write the greatest GCI.
• 29:20
  And what does that tell young men?
• 29:23
  That if you want to be successful, you act like that rather than a different way.
• 29:28
  So does that answer your question?
• 29:30
  No.
• 29:31
  So that's a great answer, Chris, and if I can just jump in and add to that, that I see a lot of finger-pointing that, you know, the regulator's not acting swiftly enough, the, you know, blah, blah, blah, but a lot of these investigations that might take two or three years to come out, the brand they work under is well aware from the get-go.
• 29:49
  I actually had a recent situation myself.
• 29:52
  We have a cab investigation on one of our now ex-people,
• 29:56
  was a star performer.
• 29:58
  We acted well in advance.
• 29:59
  I'm not going to sit around and wait till, you know, if I see enough evidence that, you know, someone has done the wrong thing, then act now.
• 30:08
  And I think it's incumbent on all the leaders in our industry to really take that.
• 30:13
  responsibility, and I don't see that happening broadly.
• 30:15
  You're quite right.
• 30:16
  And again, we all conveniently can ignore things when someone's writing, but when it's in front of you and you can see it, it is incumbent on us to act.
• 30:25
  It's not only the behaviour you walk past is the behaviour you endorse.
• 30:29
  He had a solution, so his things are always really good because he doesn't just state the problem, he tells you what the solution is.
• 30:36
  And nearly every solution I've come up with in real estate is simple, but you mightn't see it at the time.
• 30:42
  The solution is simple.
• 30:44
  When you're a leader, if you see behavior or you hear about behavior that is wrong on whatever level, don't.
• 30:53
  Walk away from it.
• 30:55
  Don't avoid it.
• 30:55
  Don't put it off.
• 30:56
  His simple solution is you act on it there and then on the spot for a series of reasons, but the most important is if you have to, if that part company with that person and the way the employment laws and stuff are now, you've got to tell people about their behaviour along the journey.
• 31:15
  Otherwise, when and if you've got a part company with them, for example, if you're an employer,
• 31:20
  If there's no history of you cautioning them or bringing their behaviour up, right?
• 31:24
  But more importantly, you feel better.
• 31:27
  Like leaders, the weirdest thing when you're a leader, and I've done it, I've made every mistake, but the weirdest thing is this.
• 31:34
  When you're walking past behaviour that's unconscionable or wrong or dishonest or whatever it is,
• 31:40
  you diminish yourself internally.
• 31:42
  And by that I mean you carry around the bad feelings anyway.
• 31:46
  And anyone who sees something bad and walks away from it, they know in their heart and in their head that they're wrong.
• 31:54
  We do it sometimes.
• 31:57
  We do it for peace.
• 31:58
  We do it for money.
• 31:59
  We do it all these reasons.
• 32:00
  But at the end of the day, it'll bite you on the bum later a lot worse.
• 32:04
  That's how that piece works.
• 32:06
  Yeah.
• 32:06
  Because, again, in our industry particularly, it's very easy to get the wool pulled over your eyes, you know, very swift talking, good liars, you know, they do abound.
• 32:15
  So, you know, problems will happen in every group.
• 32:18
  That's inevitable.
• 32:20
  But, you know, once you know, you know, and you've got to do it.
• 32:23
  One of my teams said to me the other day, and I'm going to keep repeating this line now, the way you do one thing is the way you do all the things.
• 32:30
  Yeah, that's from Kirsty Nolan, Barry Plant Operations Head.
• 32:36
  Kudos, credit to...
• 32:39
  Yeah, yeah, we will credit that.
• 32:42
  Look, guys, there's been so much golden wisdom in this podcast.
• 32:46
  So thank you once again.
• 32:47
  Well, thank you, Lisa.
• 32:49
  And Chris, thank you once again for joining me.
• 32:51
  We might just wrap this up with let's just say, you know, things are tough at the moment and you're probably in one of the toughest territories.
• 33:01
  Lisa, what's one piece of advice you could give a leader right now
• 33:07
  if they might be feeling the fear, feeling anxious, feeling any of those sorts of things about where we're sitting right now.
• 33:16
  Don't panic, but don't stand still.
• 33:19
  You know, the sky's not falling.
• 33:22
  This is just our industry is cyclical.
• 33:24
  It's always been cyclical.
• 33:26
  And if your business is exposed to risk at this point, it's a good opportunity to really look at it and see why and take the right action to shore it up.
• 33:37
  I think, yeah, go seek advice, seek support, seek help.
• 33:41
  If you're panicking, don't stay inside your own head.
• 33:43
  Get it out to the appropriate party.
• 33:45
  Amazing.
• 33:46
  I'm going to add to that, and that is a great answer.
• 33:49
  I'm going to add to that.
• 33:51
  When the market changes, and I'll use the term again, it's a normal market or it's an interesting market, whatever word you want to use, but there's no...
• 33:59
  panic in that phrase.
• 34:01
  So for all of you out there, if you don't have people to call, right, go and find some people who've got some experience in this type of market.
• 34:12
  And to further what Lisa said there,
• 34:16
  go and talk to calm people.
• 34:17
  Because if you hang out with people who are all over the shop, up and down, 9 o'clock they're one way, 10 o'clock they're different, 11 o'clock they're again and again, don't go there.
• 34:27
  Just go to calm people, talk to them as much as you can and ask questions, exactly as Lisa said before.
• 34:33
  That's my advice.
• 34:34
  Great advice as always.
• 34:36
  Chris, thank you for joining me.
• 34:38
  And Lisa, thank you for being our special guest this week on The Edit.
• 34:42
  My pleasure.
• 34:42
  Thank you for having me.
• 34:45
  It's been a pleasure, Lisa.
• 34:46
  Nice to see you again.
• 34:47
  Absolutely.