Writing

There is always conflict out there, you just might not know it. If you do not deal with it, it will appear at the worst possible moment.

By calling it out, you are opening yourself up, but there is no courage without vulnerability.

I just added the words ‘cancer survivor’ to my profile. I had no idea I had cancer. There were no signs.

I challenge you not to have a moment when you watch this Devon Fowler video.

Have you ever felt that you’d reached it, even for the briefest moment?

Leading wasn’t about riding in on your white horse as the person with all the answers; it was most often the opposite.

This footage brought a tear to my eye. Not sure if the tears were pride or sadness. Probably doesn’t matter.

The character you possess during the drought is what your team will remember during the harvest

You are judged not by what you bring to the team, but what you are prepared to give to the team.

Putting energy into finding the right system for you to achieve whatever goal you are seeking.

In times like these, we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Yes, there will be hard days, but you will be better for them.

“Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”
– Jack London

When faced with decisions in stressful and emotional times, allow yourself time to review your responses, starting with the question, “Did we stay calm?”

But real confidence is knowing that you will be ok if none of this happens.

Viktor Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage (during difficult times).
 
Leadership provides us with the opportunity of achieving all three.

Any sincere effort will pick you up somewhere, and leave you somewhere else.

About a dozen or so years after my grandfather died, I lost my father Alan. It was sudden and shocking. Dad is the most significant influence in my life. A quarter of a century later, I am four years older than Dad was when he died, and I still go to ring him. What I think about most are the conversations we never got to have. We still had a lot of talking to do.

But we do not rise to the level of our ambition, we fall to the level of our capability, and leadership insight is critical. We will not achieve this understanding by “working harder”, it is achieved by “thinking harder”.

Discipline, like goals, is overrated. It is likely to help in the short term, but is unlikely to be a long-term solution. Motivation wanes for many reasons, human nature takes over, and momentum is lost.

To be a teacher, you must be a learner, the mindset to embrace the discomfort and ambiguity of taking yourself beyond the limits of your understanding, but with the view “It is not what I learn today, it is what I will teach tomorrow that is important”.

Many of my personal learnings in relation to resilience come from my lived experience as a CEO of AFL clubs. This was a test I failed often, tough lessons learned when dealing with the ups and downs, often with an inappropriate allocation of emotional resources.

For those who have studied high performance, there is no golden thread, but there are common characteristics.

Hall of Fame AFL coach Allan Jeans would say “You can’t put in what God left out”.

It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at the hallowed stretch of turf beneath him, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.

In my experience, teams gain their resolve from their shared experiences, the most important being the tough times when individuals falter and team ethos is tested.

‘‘I spent my whole life gripping a baseball, and in the end I found out that all along it was the other way around.’’ – Jim Bouton

For me, the most interesting people seem to have the bumpiest pasts. I prefer to connect with someone who has experienced the struggles, battles and casualties of life’s journey. There is beauty, wisdom, and truth to be found in the scars.

I can say with certainty that I made many of my worst choices as a leader when I lost touch with “what truly matters”. I cannot remember making a good decision when my thoughts were clouded by anger, fear or ego, and it happened often enough that I reflect with a sense of shame.

At times you may be a lone voice, but you just might soon find a chorus of support, and change happens and the world becomes a better place

I often joke that AFL clubs recruit the most selfish human beings known to mankind. The eighteen-year-old male. Yet, the first value we seek to teach is selflessness.

After many hours I finished the drawing, but it remained on my easel for a number of weeks. Whilst it was a decent drawing of a friendly man whose face told his story, it said nothing about how the world mostly judged him.

As a personal reflection, my greatest regret as a leader was not spending more time teaching. There were too many times I allowed myself to get lost in far less meaningful aspects of the role, the busyness, the stuff that really doesn’t matter.

Having spent a lifetime in the game, I learned that some people are into growing, but most people are only interested in arrival. The ‘arrival’ people create all the commotion that distracts from the critical work of the ‘growers’, who are playing a much bigger and far more important game, energised by all its possibilities, and significantly, not overwhelmed by its ambiguity.

Such is leadership, with each day reminding you of the gap between what you thought you knew, and what you actually know, and with that, the ebb and flow of confidence and belief.

Given the multi-faceted challenge of leadership, and its transformational forces, how do you ever know where you are at, and where you are going?

There is always conflict out there, you just might not know it. If you do not deal with it, it will appear at the worst possible moment.

By calling it out, you are opening yourself up, but there is no courage without vulnerability.

I just added the words ‘cancer survivor’ to my profile. I had no idea I had cancer. There were no signs.

I challenge you not to have a moment when you watch this Devon Fowler video.

Have you ever felt that you’d reached it, even for the briefest moment?

Leading wasn’t about riding in on your white horse as the person with all the answers; it was most often the opposite.

This footage brought a tear to my eye. Not sure if the tears were pride or sadness. Probably doesn’t matter.

The character you possess during the drought is what your team will remember during the harvest

You are judged not by what you bring to the team, but what you are prepared to give to the team.

Putting energy into finding the right system for you to achieve whatever goal you are seeking.

In times like these, we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Yes, there will be hard days, but you will be better for them.

“Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.”
– Jack London

When faced with decisions in stressful and emotional times, allow yourself time to review your responses, starting with the question, “Did we stay calm?”

But real confidence is knowing that you will be ok if none of this happens.

Viktor Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage (during difficult times).
 
Leadership provides us with the opportunity of achieving all three.

Any sincere effort will pick you up somewhere, and leave you somewhere else.

About a dozen or so years after my grandfather died, I lost my father Alan. It was sudden and shocking. Dad is the most significant influence in my life. A quarter of a century later, I am four years older than Dad was when he died, and I still go to ring him. What I think about most are the conversations we never got to have. We still had a lot of talking to do.

But we do not rise to the level of our ambition, we fall to the level of our capability, and leadership insight is critical. We will not achieve this understanding by “working harder”, it is achieved by “thinking harder”.

Discipline, like goals, is overrated. It is likely to help in the short term, but is unlikely to be a long-term solution. Motivation wanes for many reasons, human nature takes over, and momentum is lost.

To be a teacher, you must be a learner, the mindset to embrace the discomfort and ambiguity of taking yourself beyond the limits of your understanding, but with the view “It is not what I learn today, it is what I will teach tomorrow that is important”.

Many of my personal learnings in relation to resilience come from my lived experience as a CEO of AFL clubs. This was a test I failed often, tough lessons learned when dealing with the ups and downs, often with an inappropriate allocation of emotional resources.

For those who have studied high performance, there is no golden thread, but there are common characteristics.

Hall of Fame AFL coach Allan Jeans would say “You can’t put in what God left out”.

It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at the hallowed stretch of turf beneath him, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.

In my experience, teams gain their resolve from their shared experiences, the most important being the tough times when individuals falter and team ethos is tested.

‘‘I spent my whole life gripping a baseball, and in the end I found out that all along it was the other way around.’’ – Jim Bouton

For me, the most interesting people seem to have the bumpiest pasts. I prefer to connect with someone who has experienced the struggles, battles and casualties of life’s journey. There is beauty, wisdom, and truth to be found in the scars.

I can say with certainty that I made many of my worst choices as a leader when I lost touch with “what truly matters”. I cannot remember making a good decision when my thoughts were clouded by anger, fear or ego, and it happened often enough that I reflect with a sense of shame.

At times you may be a lone voice, but you just might soon find a chorus of support, and change happens and the world becomes a better place

I often joke that AFL clubs recruit the most selfish human beings known to mankind. The eighteen-year-old male. Yet, the first value we seek to teach is selflessness.

After many hours I finished the drawing, but it remained on my easel for a number of weeks. Whilst it was a decent drawing of a friendly man whose face told his story, it said nothing about how the world mostly judged him.

As a personal reflection, my greatest regret as a leader was not spending more time teaching. There were too many times I allowed myself to get lost in far less meaningful aspects of the role, the busyness, the stuff that really doesn’t matter.

Having spent a lifetime in the game, I learned that some people are into growing, but most people are only interested in arrival. The ‘arrival’ people create all the commotion that distracts from the critical work of the ‘growers’, who are playing a much bigger and far more important game, energised by all its possibilities, and significantly, not overwhelmed by its ambiguity.

Such is leadership, with each day reminding you of the gap between what you thought you knew, and what you actually know, and with that, the ebb and flow of confidence and belief.

Given the multi-faceted challenge of leadership, and its transformational forces, how do you ever know where you are at, and where you are going?

You are bereft of ideas, inspiration and personal confidence. Yet, sleepless night and all – you still have to lead.

Those grounded individuals, who in developing their ‘game’, focus their personal efforts on how they become a better teammate.

A winning organisation is an environment of personal and professional development, in which each individual takes responsibility and shares ownership, knowing better people make better leaders and leaders create leaders.

But leadership is not a DO thing, it is a BE thing. The moment you are accountable to, responsible for, and ultimately dependent on, the performance of people other than yourself, it stops being a DO thing.

Think back to a time. A time when someone did something special for you that changed your life. Now, write them a letter.

By definition, this conversation isn’t about a high-performance culture, it is about our high-performance culture, and this is where it gets complicated.

Often you are struggling and do not know where to get help without showing weakness. There is also the vulnerability of ‘not-knowing’, that sense of uncertainty, unsure of whether you have what it takes to turn-it-around, personally and organisationally.

The man speaking to them is very familiar to everyone in the room. He is their old coach, and while few of the young Demons played under him, he is for those few precious minutes, again their coach and mentor.

Allan Jeans was never a dreamer, he was way too pragmatic for that, but clearly understood that he had the capacity to make or break dreams, and that often proved a heavy burden.

All of our work at designCEO builds on the core philosophy that people, teams and organisations do not rise to the level of their ambition, they fall to the standard of their systems.

So ask yourself, are you matching the values you talk to, with the standards you model, and are you prepared to call people out for behaviours outside of these expectations, regardless of who they are, be it status or ‘technical’ performance?

I use the metaphor, stories and decision making frameworks from high-performance team sport, specifically AFL, as a means of teaching and coaching leaders and their teams. I feel confident to do so because it is my background - my 30 year lived experience. I do not...

In my experience, while the best players do have a physical talent that allows them to play at the level of competition, this is merely their ticket to the game. What makes them special is their capacity to take responsibility for their careers, and the critical personal attribute they all possess is their commitment to learning and improving, and a work rate to back it up.

“A game changer you’re told” by someone you respect and trust. A person who understands your deeper interests, such that you buy or download the book.

Yet the book remains unread.

This was a self-portrait I drew to reflect the ‘tired eyes’ syndrome of being a leader, in this case a CEO.

The photo also hung proudly in the Committee Room of the Punt Road Oval, the inner sanctum of the Richmond Football Club, together with the most important club symbols and memorabilia, almost in defiance of the umpire’s decision on the day.

The notion of ‘better’ is as daunting as it is motivating. It sits at the core of our decision making, both in the moment, or our ambition and goals as it relates to an unknown and unknowable future.

During the tough Tiger times, it was Matthew Richardson who gave the Tiger supporters a reason to come to the footy. He was a hero to a generation of Tiger supporters.

‘Going deep’ is fundamental to the notion of ‘progressive wisdom’. It requires contemplation and self-reflection, some personal kindness and self-compassion, but it also doesn’t come for free and doesn’t happen automatically.

For a generation of Melbourne Football Club supporters, Robbie Flower was reason alone to go to the game.

Like many, I have long been attracted to the pure notion of competition.

My father Alan once told me “I’ve seen many great players, but none better than John Coleman”

One of my favourite thinkers is the poet David Whyte. He describes your ‘to-do’ list as the person you were yesterday.

You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.

Motivation is complex. Yes, goals are important and feedback is crucial, but my view is that a sense of progress is the most important aspect.

With each iteration and each unsuccessful effort to produce a drawing I was satisfied with, I rubbed them out, but not completely, layering up until the final picture emerged, using the mistakes of the previous effort as a guide to the next attempt.

Discussions about culture make for a fascinating and often perplexing conversation. It’s as though people are searching for the secret herbs and spices, a means of short-cutting or ‘hacking’ their way to a high-performance environment.

When looking at my work, he told me in his kind yet direct manner, that my art was too obvious. I was giving no credit to the viewer, no room for their own opinions.

There is most likely something on your mind now that you need to resolve, but it is not only the complexity and ambiguity of the issue that can overwhelm, but your growing sense of isolation.

The pursuit of a career in a professional team sport is inherently selfish.

As a CEO in the AFL, forever focused on building a high-performance culture, I spent years visiting these great clubs, looking for the ‘secret sauce’. 

Set aside three hours of non-distracted time every three months to ask three questions.

We have just witnessed one of the great AFL Grand Finals, with the West Coast Eagles beating Collingwood by less than a goal, in a match the Magpies led for all but a few minutes.

Decisions are best made at the level of organisation where there is the most expertise, knowledge and understanding. For leaders, this means ‘passing the ball’. 

The often misguided goal of seeking ‘simplicity’ most likely results in default thinking – you find the right solution for the wrong problem.

These are the mornings when you wake up knowing that regardless of what happened on the weekend, and no matter how bad the defeat, and while you may be bereft of ideas and inspiration, sleepless night and all – you still had to lead.

When I first got involved in league football, I was told that clubs are in the ‘Premiership winning business’. In fact, there are clubs which have this as their sole ‘statement of purpose’.

Allan Jeans was never a dreamer, he was way too pragmatic for that, but clearly understood that he had the capacity to make or break dreams, and that often proved a heavy burden.

My father Alan died 24 years ago this week. This is a photo of my father in the player race of the Punt Road Oval with Hall of Fame Coach Tom Hafey.