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What I've Learnt - Dane Hudson · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, what does 500 plus scuba dives have taught this executive about business leadership?
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: Through half a century in the water, Dane Hudson has mastered the core tenets he brings to coaching, heightened awareness and disciplined deliberate action.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: Global CEO Dane Hudson is joining us on the What I've Learned podcast to talk about his new book, Discipline Beats Vision.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: With 25 years as a CEO across five industries, including Australia, the US, Asia, and Africa, he has had many roles in regional and in the Asia Pacific, overseeing 200,000 employees and a senior executive with Yam Restaurants International.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm looking forward to having a chat to Dane to hear about what he's learned on his very colourful journey.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome, Dane, to the What I've Learned Podcast.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for having me, Deborah.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Glad to be here.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: Pleasure.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: So, first of all, let's talk about what your trajectory has been and where you started, and then we can talk about what seems to be a very high-powered career, but one which you've also tamed by making sure you dip yourself in the ocean.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think probably the first thing I should mention is that I I had great guidance from my father.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he uh he really directed me very well.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Dane, you're smart, but you'll never be the smartest person in the room.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I suggest you do a course like engineering, do well in that, and then down the track do an MBA.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I did that.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I did my engineering degree, I did quite well and got a wonderful job with VisiBo.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I remember Richard Pratt.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: I know them very well.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: I know them extremely well, and they are an extraordinary company to work with.
• 2:06
  unknown: Amazing.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: I've worked with them too.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's great.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was in their I was in their first four four graduates that they ever employed.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Richard didn't know what to do with me.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So he made me general manager of one of the factories, and I was 22 years old.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it took us turning over$5 million, losing about$50,000 a month.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Dane, fix it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, that's very Richard.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: And in fact, what a great honor to work with such an incredible businessman, because anybody who's worked at Visi, and I've also done work with Visi, they they are an extraordinary, extraordinary business, but also the mentorship and the way that Richard would operate was always giving people a fair go and giving them a chance.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_03: And that's just something about you too, the fact that he was prepared to trust this young 22-year-old with such a important, I mean, they take their business very seriously.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that wouldn't have been done lightly.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_03: So you must have been pretty scared, actually, to deliver on that.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was very scared.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And but fortunately, Richard also gave me a couple of mentors who were senior leaders that taught me how to be a CEO.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but basically I had weekly Friday morning meetings with Richard Pratt and uh four or five other New South Wales general managers.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were all 50 plus years old and me at 22, all sitting around this table.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had a wonderful early learning of being exposed to great leaders, but learning how to be a leader.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And gosh, I made some mistakes, but we also did very well by being.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I got the company in, it was profitable, not through any brilliance by me.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was just some great guidance from mentors helped me on the way.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that really set me up.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I was the general manager from the age of 22, and I was very fortunate to start that way.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you were fortunate too, because I think you've you've highlighted, which is very much what you put your your offering is, is how critical having a good mentor is when you're on a journey, whatever your age, actually, but particularly when you're young and being thrust into a big business like Visi, which just for our listeners, maybe you can just give a uh just a sentence on what Visi is and what you did there, so that they just to contextualize.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So a Visi board was probably equal uh terms of size of the largest packaging company uh in Australia.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So Amcor is another Australian company.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amcor and Visi were the largest packaging companies in Australia.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say packaging, they did corrugated boxes.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you buy a box of food, the corrugated is it's it's a good, it's three pieces of paper that make the cardboard, and they did a lot of other types of packaging.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh Richard inherited the business.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Richard was a was a football player and an actor, and he got a phone call from his mum when he was about 32 years old saying, Your father's passing away, you need to come back and run Visiboard.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he had no idea about business, but he came back, and the business was probably worth a million dollars then, and he turned it into uh you know$10 billion business.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then Anthony Pratt's taking it further since then.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it's packaging and it's a very family-oriented company.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Even when I was there and we had two or three or four thousand people across Australia, he treated everyone in the company as family, he treated all customers family.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I learned a lot about customer centricity uh from Richard.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: Very true.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: And and having also worked with them and been quite close to them, I think that that's a really important lesson that I've also learned watching how they operate.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_03: They're basically incredibly loyal.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: If you're you're like families, so whether you're a friend or whether you work in the business, you're treated the same.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: And every there's always celebrations.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, some of those extraordinary celebrations that they still have, by the way, to honor and value their workers, the people that actually are the core of their business.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: So it's interesting that you had that very early experience, and then you obviously took that with you on your own journey.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: And tell me how that fed your trajectory through both the Visi business, but then beyond.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, as you mentioned in my book at the start, discipline beats vision.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm all I've always been incredibly disciplined and competitive.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that first job with Visi was a great example of being disciplined.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I would get up at 4:30 in the morning and drive out to Liverpool, and I was about an hour and a quarter away to open the factory at 6 a.m.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd shut the factory at 6 p.m.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: and drive home.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so getting up at you know 4:30 in the morning meant I'd need to be in bed by about 8:30 or 9 o'clock, and all my friends were going out partying at 22 years old, and I learned discipline, which is if I really want to do this job, I've got to get to bed early and get up, get to bed early and get up early.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: But also, Richard, he would have been on the floor too, because he was always there at 4 a.m.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: He was always there early, he would be up early.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone used to, I'm not sure.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: So you really wanted to be there, didn't you, when he arrived?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: He he's he turned up at my factory at 6 a.m.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: many, many times.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: So that's interesting.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: So so you basically learned early how important discipline is.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: How did that though?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think the challenge is probably one thing that I think we observe with some of these great business people, and you can talk to this, is as well as being disciplined, one also has to be fulfilled and fueled.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I all the people I work with and and that I've worked with over the years, I always say, you know, ask them whether they enjoy it, they're enjoying the job.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Life's too short to not enjoy what you do.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And rarely can I remember a day where I wasn't excited about getting out of bed and going to the office.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And even in tough times, I did that sometimes when I was in the wine industry, and that was a very tough job that I had.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was the worst time in the wine industry's history, and it was a very tough time for Australian wine companies.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And while I was a CEO, the share price went down about 90%.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's a challenge.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: Terrifying.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that that definitely hurt my ego.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: Did I make some bad decisions?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: One or two, but not not enough to drive the share price down 90%.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: The industry was just very difficult.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: But we got we got the share price back up.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: But my my wife would say to me, How on earth do you get out of bed every morning and and go in?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because every day was a knife fight.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Every day.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I did I said, Look, I'm there for the team, I'm there for the customers, and that's what I need to do.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll get through this.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I talk about in the book is leaders are you've got to be a person of hope.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: People are in the company.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people are in the company because of you.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we're talking about Visi earlier with Richard Pratt, people are there because of Richard.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a CEO or very senior leader in the company, people are there and staying there because of you.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so even in tough times, particularly in tough times, you've really got to be optimistic, practical.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can't sugarcoat everything, but you've got to be practical and go, we can get through this.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: We can get through this.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: So discipline and grit too, like at the at the end of the day, it's it's a resilience, it's a capacity to, you know, I actually see this even in people I'm surrounded by, like, um, you know, my husband who's a lawyer, and like I see this sort of incredible discipline, determination, and willingness to, you know, the deliverable is always at top of mind, and whatever needs to be done, he'll do.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: And same with all the partners and the lawyers that I'm surrounded by, which are many.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's a similar approach because it is a business-like approach, which is, and business people who have lawyers expect that too.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: So it's all part of being in a team, and you really can't ride that in that car unless you have the same intention or the same, you're going on the same route.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: Although one I will say, I do think, and this is something we can touch on, which I know you do reflect on, is one has to make sure that in driving that car to wherever you've got to go figuratively, that you have enough fuel in the tank and that you have enough resources to get there.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: And then at the same time, ensure that you somehow stay focused on the road, but also not so focused that you can't see what's on your right and your left.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I was I was going to mention grit and resilience.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm pleased that you uh brought it up because you need both, and they are terrible, they're very different.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: So grit for me is a is a verb, it's a doing word.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: You you grit is is pushing forward, is making a decision.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can be proactive and work my way through this.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Resilience only comes from scar tissue.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Resilience only comes by actually getting through difficult situations and then putting your chest down, going, I know how to do this, I've done this before.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, it's one of the chapters in my book.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: I talk about actually how to be, how to, how to build risk and how to build resilience as well, and the things that you need to do as a leader to ensure that you can show up every day and do a great job.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's extremely important.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, very important.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: And I think though, I suppose there's old school and new school, and they're they're both sort of at the moment in the business world, there seems to be sort of a hybrid approach where people are also very into self-care, nurturing relationships, both within business, outside of business, which you also talk about.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_03: How do you ensure that all those?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: I feel there's a lot more discussion because I think the pressures, particularly not just men now, because there's so many women, probably more women who are even in the grit workforce in some ways.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: But I think that there's a huge price to pay, and a lot of people pay it or have paid it and are sick of paying it.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: So how do you find yet extraordinary success?
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_03: Probably really, it's very rare that it comes without that.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: Whether you're 22, 35, or 60, you know, there's a sense that you have to have it in order to thrive, but at the same time, you've got to survive along the way.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_03: How do you navigate that?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: And what are your what's your guidance or mentorship for people trying to do both?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we're all we're all different.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we all handle anxiety in different ways.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not not suggesting it's easy for anyone to get through this, but there are some tools and approaches that anyone can use that will, I suppose, soften it and make it easy to get through.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: So a few ideas are um I talk about in the book the third space, and this is actually a concept concept Adam Fraser also wrote about 30 years ago.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it talks about creating space between time A and event A and event B.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So a good example would be I'd be driving home from work and it'd be 6:30 at night or 7 o'clock at night, I get a phone call.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you never, ever, ever, ever get a good news phone call at 7 o'clock at night.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's always a bad news phone call.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: You have someone's resigning, we've lost the customer, something's gone wrong.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: You don't get good news phone calls at that time at night.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm driving home, I get a bad news phone call, and then I pull up in front of the house and I go through the call, my wife looks out the window at me and she said, What's what's Dane doing?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then she realized I'm on the phone.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then the phone call finishes, and actually, I don't want to confront the family because I'm all revved up.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been in battle on the phone call.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: Such a good description, yeah.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'd walk into the house and I'd got the spares, and you're like, honey, I'm home.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: But then I'd take 10 or 15 minutes.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd I'm a gym junkie, so I'd unpack my gym gear, repack my gym gear, plug in all my appliances, maybe have a shower, and then I would go down to my wife and family, and I'd be in a better place.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that third space me, that 10 or 15 minutes, was a way for me to reset.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we all need to find out how to reset.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: It might be between meetings, might be between Zoom calls.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: It could be three deep breaths, it could be walking to the coffee machine and just resetting.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because particularly as a leader, you're going from one meeting to the next meeting, and I use the concept of shadow of the leader.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: You have massive positional power.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And anyone who meets with the CEO, it's career day.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're the CEO, you'd you've got to give everyone free space and a free your free mindset to work with them.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And focus.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And having bad energy or being frustrated going into that meeting is not the right place to be.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to learn how to reset.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be anything.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So my challenge and working with my bet my my clients is how do you reset?
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do differently?
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it may not between be between every meeting, but maybe it's three times a day.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: What can you do to reset?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And over time you get better at it.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I think also it's almost like when I listen to you, and I know so many people who work in the business world or the business sector, and I listen to that notion of reset.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: And as you say, it's different for everybody, but it's not always easy to do.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it's also not always easy to access what's going to work for you.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: For some people, they find their reset button.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: For others, it's a challenge.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I assume you work with them in a one-on-one capacity to facilitate them accessing what is their reset button to some degree.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: Have you found there is a change, particularly, I suppose, the younger generation?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like they, anyone under 30, they are working in a very different way, generally.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, yes, they're still thrashing them out at the law firms, making them stay till 11 p.m.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: or whatever.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that hasn't changed for the big firms.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm giving an example in the business sector, there's still deliverables are the same, but there's also this approach of ensuring not just a reset button, but an actual reframing of how you work.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_03: Have you noticed that change?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: And how how do you accommodate that?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've got three amazing daughters, 35, 33, and and 31.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And they're all doing very well in their careers, they're all married and actually having having getting having grandchildren from them.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe they're not below 30, but they're there in the same genre, similar to me.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they definitely have different expectations.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and they're not they're not unrealistic expectations.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're fair expectations.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose when I was going through, I didn't have expectations of what was fair.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was okay being flogged.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was a booze out and consultant for six years.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I worked till midnight four nights a week.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I worked four out of five Saturdays and three out of five Sundays.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just important to do.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, but I think that's not uncommon, particularly for that generation.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: I just think that was the way that everybody was raised.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: I don't there was no opt-out, or there's no, like, for example, you know, you talk about children, like my son who's in his 20s, he's my youngest, but his approach is he's working for a big tech company, which is global, but they are very, very clear that, you know, you need to work full-time, but do as you, you know, go into the office a few days a week, work from home a few days a week, and without fail, he'll be at the gym or the beach toptailing his workday to ensure that his mental health is, you know, he's very incredibly developed, I think, for a 20-year-old, 20, he's 20, nearly 24, but that, I mean, we just didn't, there was no option to work like that or to think like that, was there?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: So there's that's a good thing, don't you think?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it is a good thing.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And but so anyone needs anyone needs to find out, and it's different for everyone, but people need to work out what's their reset and how do they do it.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Is it the gym in the morning, the beach in the afternoon?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going to Pilates in the morning and going for a walk at lunch?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is it and and it's never going to be what you want, but hopefully it's going to be what you need.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then over time, you've also got to realize that stress is cumulative.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't realize that when I was younger.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: I just worked my my backside off and I always handled the stress and I thought I was immortal.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly, when I was in my late 40s, I'm going, actually, no, this has affected me.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Really stressed.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I never thought about that.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: My behavior was different in the office, my behavior was different at home.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that was just self-awareness that I I knew that I really wasn't in the right spot and I needed to get my head in the right spot.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where as a media, you've got to have what did you do to do that?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I had some help.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I went to some people to talk to them to get some guidance on how and and also I realized it was okay.
• 19:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's so normal.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, what I think is happening with the next generation, they're looking at that generation and going, I don't want to live like that.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think there is a real reflection where the younger generation is saying, I want to work hard and I want to get places, but I don't want to arrive at 40 burnt out and broken.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's something that I think that particularly men of that generation, your generation, and now it's it's not only, as you say, normal, it's actually completely acceptable to seek help, get guidance, and get support, which is that's I think that that's good for the next gen.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: In the meantime, there are still lots of people working in the way that you're describing, particularly in our sort of genre.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think that the way that everybody was raised through the corporate sector, your description of working the way you did?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, of course, by the burnout was just almost on the table before.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's just obvious that's going to happen.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: Because no one's immortal, as you say.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_03: So, what do you tell people who are stuck in that rut in a way?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, I I've I've read quite a few books on emotional intelligence by Daniel Goleman.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So he's the guru on emotional intelligence.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about sort of the self-awareness, he talks about self-control, he talks about social awareness and social skills.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he categorizes and he says, those are the four pillars of emotional intelligence, which I love.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that first one is just having the ability to see yourself, look in the mirror and see yourself and understand how you're behaving, how you're leading, how you're handling situations, and going, actually, no, this isn't right.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not handling this the right way.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've got a stakeholder, someone in the office you can, head of HR or something, can tap on your shoulder and say, Hey, Dane, are you okay?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way you're handling situations, is not in the same manner.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Are you doing okay?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then you go, well, okay, no, I'm not.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: What's driving?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is it lack of sleep?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Is it stress and anxiety?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a problem of distraction?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're having an issue with your partner or your parents or something like that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where you need the help, which is to actually triangulate down and actually what's causing this problem.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm really a big fan of the concept of this shadow of the leader, which is have the positional power that you have, being very aware of your shadow.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably one of the leading concepts that I try to teach my mentees.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Which is be very aware of your leadership shadow, your impact, and use it, I'm sure you're using it for good, not evil.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, can you just extrapolate that a little bit?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_03: I don't it's just so that we understand the shadow is is meant to be reflective of just to clarify, just so I understand.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Good question.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're on a CEO a CEO, you have massive positional power.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if if Anthony Albanese with Prime Minister was attending a meeting with 300 people, everyone in the room would know where he's sitting.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone would know if he got up and walked away.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: He has massive positional power given his his role as prime minister.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: We all have that.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Parents, we know that very well.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Our kids copy us from a very young age.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: So in the business environment, people are watching the CEO and the senior leaders, and they're taking cues from those leaders, and those leaders are role models, and they can be role models in good ways or bad ways.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so as a leader, you've got to be immensely aware that everything you say and do is multiplied in terms of impact because of your role.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's your leadership shadow.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the more senior you get, the more powerful that shadow is.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: A good example would be in my last role, I was very cautious.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I led 200,000 people across Asia.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we had 60,000 people in India.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I went to India just about every month.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I would remember, I'd go there and I would say something like, We probably should think about doing this.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Have you thought about doing this?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I go back a month later and they say, Hey Dane, we implemented that.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, I didn't tell, yeah, you told us to implement it.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I said, No, no, no, I told you to think about, investigate.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: But what they heard was the boss saying, do this.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to be very careful because often as leaders, we we don't necessarily remember everything we say to people.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: They remember everything we say to them.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so you have a lot of, you wield a lot of power.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: And you have to also that power, as you say, can be used to guide and steer the ship and make sure that people are, I suppose, learn, which is what this whole podcast is about, what they've learned, you know, about how to lead, but also not just the leaders, it's also the people that you are leading, is what you're saying, need to be also mindful of all this.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like what are they learning while they're watching the leaders?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: And so you could apply it on both sides of the coin in a way.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you're effectively role modeling the behaviors that you want your team to execute.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so another example would be meeting discipline.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: That a lot of my clients, I work a lot with venture capital and startup firms.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably 80% of my clients.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: These young kids, 25 to 35 years old, with these brilliant ideas.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of them have never seen role model leaders.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: They haven't worked in the corporate space, they've never seen good leaders or bad leaders.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: So often their only role models are their parents, and they may all may not be good role models.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I talk to them about creating accountability.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: How do you create accountability in the business?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And a good example is if you don't have meeting discipline, you won't create accountability in your in your company.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't start, if you don't go into meeting with an agenda, start your meeting on time, finish your meeting on time, send out follow-up minutes within four or five hours.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: That discipline creates accountability.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because also what happens, your team copy that and they start having meetings the same way.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I mean by setting a shadow role modeling behaviors that you you want others to execute.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's so interesting, the meeting concept, because I do, I mean, obviously, meetings have I mean a very critical and pivotal role in business.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: And there's not a business that I've worked in or you've worked in where there's not meetings, but sometimes, you know, there's too many meetings, and there's so many meetings that you actually have a meeting to plan a meeting.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: And there's an element where, particularly in the big corporates I've worked with or that my husband's worked with, there's a sense of that.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you talk about that.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_03: I know that that's an example that you were just showing of like how important accountability and all of that is very critical.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: But at the same time, I do think people are doing my observation, particularly in startup world, I'm working with a startup at the moment, is there is a slight tweaking of the way things were done too.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's not a bad thing, but it has to be done, as you're saying, with the arches or the core tenets of business reapplied, reinvented in a fresh way.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: Because they're not going to do it the same way.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm sure you get pushback from some of the startups in terms of those.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because I think that's important too.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: So we're talking about evolution.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me about you personally.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: You, you know, obviously you're a diver, a big diver from what I've read.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_03: And that requires that's almost the antithesis of or is it, you tell me.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's your, you know, to deep dive into the ocean 500 times all the time is like really quite, yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_03: So so what's that about?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, firstly, an element of it would be being present, be here now.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I encourage leaders to think that way.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Be present, be you know focused on someone.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a career day for them.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're the CEO, so be focused and be present.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Be here now.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the diving piece is very much like that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in the water, you know, you're very focused on what's around you and just enjoying the experience.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're not thinking about anything else when you're you know 150 feet, 100 feet under the surface.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: So being very present.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, also it's my I found it's my place of zen.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, my heart rate drops, I my breathing, I barely breathe.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just you know I'm in a wonderful, calm, neutral space.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I find it very energizing.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I go on these liverboard dive trips where you do you know three, four, five dives a day, and it's just wonderful.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you're underwater for you know about six hours each day.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's just uh wonderful, wonderful.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I know there are there's smarter technology, you know, like LOLMs and flying to the moon and things like that, but I think breathing underwater is up there for me.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: Well, clearly, but I think everyone seeks, particularly if you're in an extreme work environment where you're constantly on tap, listening, hearing, engaging, flipping, you know, it's like very intense.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: To find peace is the challenge from what I hear from a lot of business people, finding your peace.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: And it's and it's not just a yoga class, which works for some people, but it seems it needs to be a deep dive, literally, for someone like you.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: And that doesn't surprise me because it's sort of the antithesis of the noise of business.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_03: But it also, I suppose, requires the bravery and the adventurous explorative, you know, personality.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: Because for some people, that is not a place of peace.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's actually terrifying to go, you know, deep dive and go below the surface.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: So as you say, everyone finds their beat.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: But do you think were there skills that you think that you have in business that you apply when you go diving?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: Or vice versa, I should say.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that yeah.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, when you're planning the dive and going on the dive, you you do need to be very aware of safety aspects.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the companies I've worked in, safety was very critical because we had industrial workers, frontline workers, et cetera.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, same thing when you're diving.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, is my tank full?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: All the checks you go through, if something goes wrong, being calm and handling the situation.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, a good example.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: My youngest daughter came diving with me, Komodo, about uh three years ago.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a night dive, so it was about 8:30 at night.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was pitch black.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: We were about close to 100 feet under the water, swimming on, couldn't see it, barely see anything, had some torches going.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: And she looks at me and starts going like that.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's when she had no air.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And she's probably only dive done 20 dives in her life, and she's going, I have no air.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: But she stayed calm and we got the dive mass, and we then did buddy breathing and got her out safely.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a good example of just saying there was a crisis, just handle it, and you know the you know what you should do, just execute that.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it was fine.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: It worked out.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: But well, I'm glad it did, and and that's a very, I suppose, a very important lesson, and a very, as we know, we're just saying this terrible accident yesterday, which we won't reflect on, and the male dives of divers, which was that they still think something went very, very wrong there, which is to be uncovered.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's a terrible story.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: But there's lots of people, as you say, that dive, and you know, adventure is also very much part of a skill set, I think, to equip one's humanity.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, your the humanity sometimes I think business, in my observation, can repress in order to do the discipline that you're talking about.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: You sort of have to repress some very natural urges.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_03: For example, you've got to sit in an office, right?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: Generally all day and have no sunlight.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I just go, I don't get that.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: I'm don't, that's not my work because I a journalist, I'm out and about and I'm but the corporate world, when I have worked in it and what I observe is incredibly repressive by its nature.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: The expectation that you will sit in that chair at that computer, going in and out of meetings, or going to, you know, you might move to the board table and then you're back doing your tap-tap, then you're back on the board table for a meeting.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_03: There's something really unnatural to me about that on one level.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: And so the need to therefore have the capacity to be adventurous and go out into the world.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: For you, it's a deep dive, is surely that's the yin and the yang, isn't it?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's but it's going back to your your challenge about you know going from board meeting to another meeting and bouncing around.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: It also depends on how you mentally frame that, which uh I always loved, I'd love that the mental nimble nimbleness required to go from one issue to another issue to working with someone.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the dynamic nature, continuing to learn, supporting people on their journey.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love, I love that, you know, and yeah, you you don't need senior leaders if everything goes well all the time.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I love that.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: But then I also worked out that you also need the flip side, yeah, which is the the moments of quiet and uh peace to reset.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, you get that stress just again accumulates, etc.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: So just find your thing.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I took up playing the guitar five years ago, so now I'm doing that.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I there's a guitar group I played with on a Thursday night as well, and so just continue to do different things, continue to reinvent yourself.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I I talk about in my book being a relentless student.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: So a bit different to avid learner, but a relentless student, and that's about continuing to reinvent yourself.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been able to reinvent myself six times as a CEO, six different industries, and I've reinvented myself as a coach and mentor, and I suppose lately I've now reinvented myself as an author.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what keeps you young, mentally young anyway.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_03: And it's also their evolution is critical, you know, they say, and then just in in the scheme of things, you know, you clearly fill your cut on many fronts.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: How hard is that for you with relationships because personal relationships, because you're, you know, working flat chat on the deliverables, and then you have to move to the recovery or the respite and find a way to navigate that and then find the space.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're probably a better partner because you do do those things, because in some ways that allows you to evolve, but it means there's only so many hours in a day.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I've um moved country 11 times, I've moved house 29 times.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I've had the same, I've had the same wife for 38 years.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_03: Well, well done you.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good effort.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: And well done her too.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well done.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: More to her than and she's done an amazing job almost as a single parent because I've always traveled.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: So but in the book, I I talk about making your partner your partner.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really critical.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: I would be nowhere near, nowhere near the career I had if it wasn't for my wife Melinda.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I actually dedicate the book to her and because she supported me.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: She allowed me to, I suppose, reach my goals and targets.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that was tough for her because she probably could have been a CEO in her own right, but she gave up a career to actually support me and gallivant around the world.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: And she loved that journey, but she made some personal sacrifices to do that.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: But she was a wonderful is, a great partner for me, and has helped guide me in so many ways.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've got a chapter on creating a support network and a critical element.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: The first element of that is make your partner your partner.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your partner will hopefully outlive the and the relationship will hopefully outlive the length of time you're in a company.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: So be careful about sacrificing your company for a startup.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, your partner for a startup.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: I was about to say, yeah, that's right.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: Your partner hopefully will relationship will outlive the time you spent in the company.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's absolutely true.
• 36:10
  unknown: Yeah.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: I talk about a partner, a mentor, uh a support network or friends.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you think about tennis players, you know, Djokovic or old uh Carlos Sinner, uh Carlos Carlos Arkaran, sorry.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when they came to Australia for the Australian Open, they had teams of 10 people looking after them.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as a CEO, you don't need that many, but you need a partner, you need maybe someone to help you for exercise, the nutrition, and you need a coach or a mentor.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: So surround your people, yourself with people that are going to support you on the journey and not bring you down.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: But be cheerleaders.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: Be cheerleaders.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, you do reflect on your wife.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that is important because I think she obviously got the privilege of enjoying your journey with you.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_03: And obviously, I'm assuming she had her own journey, whatever that was, or however she evolved.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_03: But obviously, and you've got kids, three kids, and and that's in itself a massive achievement and project.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_03: I have the same.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I think the question is, you know, somebody who said somebody said when you've got a partnership, you know, somebody will be 80%, the other will be 20%.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: You're never 50-50 all the time, right?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's sort of that.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_03: It involves have you found a moment in time where your trajectory has been changed to accommodate hers, or is it been predominantly you've been the the sort of the captain, which is which is completely common and normal.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: There's no judgment in that question.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I better answer this truthfully because she listened to it.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um so she would go volume.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: She would say that Dane is very good with this me time and looking after me.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I'm very good at cocooning myself.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I've done that my whole life.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: So an example would be if I'm flying from I was just returned from 10 years in Singapore.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I and I was traveling internationally every month.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I learned how to be able to work overnight or do an overnight flight and get up the next morning on the plane and go straight to the office and be effective.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I I created approaches that meant I could always be effective when I landed.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was just me cocooning myself.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I've that sort of extended to my life that I've always had tough jobs and I do look after me.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's being honest.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um I probably haven't sacrificed enough for Melinda, but we've got a wonderful relationship, and where I can, particularly now, I'm trying to do more and more.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: And she's very very, she's been very understanding of my role and going, look, I know that's you can't always be there.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things we we agreed early was not negotiables.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what was really critical for her that were not negotiables?
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things I'd encourage with my clients as well.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just as partners, you know, work out what's negotiable and what's non-negotiable.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Your partner might need two hours off on a Saturday morning to go to Pilates and get his or her exercise.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that would be one example.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Another one would be kids, school, parent-teacher things.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's a not negotiable.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Events are not negotiable.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Date nights, that's one of the things we did quite a lot, which we're a Friday night every two weeks or so, a date night.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: And on those date nights, we would have vetoed topics.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's so easy as a couple to talk about the kids or your parents and work.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: So we go out and go, we can't talk about kids tonight, we can't talk about work tonight, and we can't talk about our parents.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: So what that means is you actually talk about the same sort of topics that you did when you actually started dating together.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's really interesting.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I like the fact that your mentorship is a full circle, that it doesn't just focus, which is important, on the business discipline, but it focuses on the whole, the holistic approach because I think that's what everyone needs.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's certainly the future and all the startups and all of the new businesses I'm seeing.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_03: That's the approach.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you so much.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: We really appreciate your words of wisdom.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much, Jane, for joining us.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: Me too.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: Well, thank you for joining us on the What I've learned podcast.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_03: I hope you enjoy that interview because we are so privileged to have a wonderful platform where guests come on and share lessons learned as Cross Mountains climbed.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: We love our shared humanity, and we are so grateful to have such a beautiful community.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_03: So remember to stay curious, kind, and connected, and we'll see you next time at the One Up Learn Podcast.