The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast
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We nerd out on leadership and workplace culture – which is why we’re good at them. We tackle the topics you need to develop as a leader and to transform the workplace culture you have into the workplace culture you want. And we have fun doing it.
Hard hitting topics. Easy listening.
The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast
The Contemplative Leader with John Hardy (CEO, RSL Tasmania)
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In today's episode, we spoke with the incredibly insightful (and entertaining) John Hardy, CEO of RSL Tasmania.
John is the ultimate story teller, and takes us on his own leadership journey which started in the UK Military and has led him to now being CEO of RSL Tasmania, and living in his own slice of paradise near Hobart. His ability to always remember where he began and the challenges he has had throughout life leads him to be an incredibly grounded and insightful leader - and a bit of a character that we just loved listening to. There was very little interviewing in today's episode because John just told his story, and we listened and learned. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
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Thanks to our Podcasting producer, Josh at Deadset Podcasting for all his work behind the scenes.
Thanks for listening!
Hey listeners, it's Kiralee here, can you believe? We have been podcasting now for over two and a half years. Over that time, we've had some really fantastic chats with other leaders. Simon has had a rant or two. We've discussed leadership topics that are relevant to the current news. We've had a couple of name changes. Now we even have a podcast producer.
Speaker 1:Shout out to Josh. Thank you for all that you do for us. But most of all, we have had so much fun bringing you our podcast on a topic that we love culture and leadership so we wanted to mix things up a little. So we have dug deep into the archives of the show to find the best tips, tricks and conversations from the past two and a half years of discussions that we've had around culture and leadership. Essentially, we've gone back and found the gold. So you don't have to. If you listen to any of these bite-sized episodes that are coming up over the next few weeks and you would like the full episode, you can follow along over at reallearningcomau, where you'll find not only the full podcast catalogue but also loads of super helpful blog posts and other resources that every aspiring culture nerd needs. Now we won't hold you up anymore here at the start. Let's jump into the podcast Before we get into today's episode. We want to acknowledge the privilege of living and working on Aboriginal land and we pay our respects to the elders past, present and emerging.
Speaker 2:So we have a guest with us today who is the new CEO and I say that he's been there for a year of the RSL in Tasmania, really interested in hearing about his journey, really interested in hearing about some of the initiatives he has implemented in that first year. Welcome, John Hardy.
Speaker 3:Good morning. Thank you for having me on your podcast and again I would like to thank my ops team for volunteering me.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, for our listeners. We did know someone on the ops team and John's not here under sufferance. I think he's now here voluntarily, but the initial idea was theirs and planted very carefully in John's head. And here we are. So, John, tell us how the whole journey started for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, look, I think I'm probably not stereotypical in the terms of a CEO, whatever that stereotypical may be. My life began in a small town in Yorkshire, a fairly low socioeconomical town. Know, we all know many. Uh. I left school at about 15. Uh, no education, couldn't read and write. Uh, couldn't actually spell my own address. Uh, look, mid 80s. It's not a blame, I'm not blaming anybody, it's the way it was and, looking back, didn't do any harm, uh.
Speaker 3:I then joined the uk military, uh, and went into sort of seven months of probably some of the toughest training in the western world because I joined the parachute regiment, uh, and at 17 years old, having never left north yorkshire, I ended up leaving the side door of a c-130 on my first parachute jump.
Speaker 3:I've never even seen a plane on the ground or been in one and therefore the journey started there. I did about 24 years, give or take the odd month, in the UK military in the parachute regiment. I started as a private soldier, progressed through the ranks, learned a lot of lessons and some very hard lessons, particularly about leadership, and then became the Regimental Sergeant Major of 3 Para, after which I was commissioned and I left as a commissioned officer at the rank of captain, which is not a particularly senior rank within the captain's world, but if you compare it into terms of promotions, it's probably about the same amount of promotions that a field officer would have to do to get to be a brigadier. If you put it in perspective of what an enlisted man or a volunteer might have to do, it's a significant number of motions in a relatively short time. Yeah, I learned a lot of lessons from that, but I knew very young that actually I had to make change myself, otherwise I could have gone in a very different direction, and we all know kids like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was back when you were leaving school, and yeah, this was in the.
Speaker 3:This was a sort of mid-80s, when I was leaving school. Yeah, I very quickly realized or maybe not, maybe something. My brain clicked in and went right, john, it's, you know, time to do something, otherwise your life might not be that good. Yeah, and look, I think we all have those. This isn't something that's special to me. I am definitely not special. Well, actually, my wife and my ops manager might call me special, but it might not be in the right way. Anyway, I digress. So, yeah, I had to sort of do something about it.
Speaker 3:24 years in the military, which I thoroughly enjoyed, would do again in a heartbeat and then I transitioned out of the military. For me it was a relatively easy transition. I spent about three years running very large contracts in the Middle East, again running the security side of aid delivery I'm afraid in places like that they need security and then after that I transitioned back to the UK and then over a period of time, worked for some fairly large organizations. So I third-party contracted for Amazon, initially running their physical security of their fulfillment centers in the UK, and then transitioned into a company called Capita, which is a big UK company. It's probably got about 65,000 FTE, did various roles in that, from operations director to director of operational performance, to CEO, to back to director of operational performance, and then left the UK to continue our journey now in Australia.
Speaker 3:Now, the reason why I left the UK is I was laughing with you yesterday about this. Look, I've probably got four things in my life where I've made really good decisions. I left the UK to return with my wife, who's Australian, and she is a beautiful, strong Australian woman and that's probably one of the four greatest things I think I've ever achieved managing to punch well above my weight, as they would say, and Marie, potentially well, for me, she is, you know, the most beautiful thing on this planet and I've seen quite a lot of that.
Speaker 2:John, I'm glad we're not interviewing her, because she'd have to be saying I'm punching below my weight.
Speaker 3:She is definitely punching below her weight, Absolutely yeah, yeah. And before people are going, what are the other things? The other things would be my two kiddos, now young men. Yeah, although you know, at times young adults are young adults, they are sort of starting their journeys in their life. And the final one, and clearly his fourth, would be fly fishing. I think they're my four loves.
Speaker 2:And I'd like to say that was the order John put them in yesterday when we were talking privately. So I'm going to hold the party line and support him on that.
Speaker 3:Then I think, look, moving forward, I suppose this last sort of you know, this next sort of evolution of my life. I don't really know how we ended up in Tasmania. It's just one of those things. This job came up, it did sort of tick a lot of boxes and we were in Victoria at the time. We'd already moved. It was all part of the plan. I mean, tanya is a massive planner. I mean she literally, you know, she plans for plans, her plans are plans and those plans also are plans.
Speaker 3:We sort of just ended up here and I wouldn't say, you know, you sort of just uh, we just sort of ended up here and I I wouldn't say, you know, you sort of roll in, you sort of drop into these roles, but I sort of did, uh. And then you know, now we live in tasmania, uh, yeah, and it's, you know it's, yeah, it has its issues. It's quite remote, but it also has. You know where I live. It's beautiful, yeah, and it's nice. You know, it's nice to listen to radio conversations where people are complaining about 15 minutes of traffic.
Speaker 2:John, you're not the first Englishman to be bewildered by ending up in Tasmania, but long history of that happening. So I'd love to go back and unpack a bit of this, if I may. And I think the first thing for and this may be for existing leaders out there who are on a similar journey, it may be for prospective leaders out there for a kid who left school at 15 or 16, couldn't spell his own address. Did you have any concept that you could end up in senior leadership roles?
Speaker 3:Absolutely not, not for a minute of one day. I mean, I do you know, and I think I might have said this yesterday I do still walk into meetings and I think this is good to be honest, right, and that's part of leadership, you know. Be honest with who you are and your team, because if you want to really build a report team where, yes, you're the leader but everybody feels valued, you all need to be in a room at some stage where you're honest, everybody gets their 10 pennies worth. I mean, if you look at organizations now, having done a little bit of work with them, not directly but indirectly people like Amazon you walk into one of their planning briefs. It's a bloodbath. They literally they will say discuss the plan, the plan, nail the plan, deliver the plan. But when you're in that room, you get a say. You can only do that if you've got honesty and that's all aspects of honesty. You know honesty that your staff actually believe that when you say once the door's open, it's over, that it is over, and you don't go back to it in a month's time and say do you remember when you said this? Yeah, or if honesty is, look, I really value what you say and that's one of the reasons.
Speaker 3:When Jo came to me for those that she's my ops manager and said, look, I'd really like you to do this, I did it partially for her, to show that I respect her and her opinion. Yeah, uh, you know, uh, she had that. She said, look, I think you should really do this. I could have just gone now. No way, governor, I'm not doing that, but I went. All right, okay, fair enough, it's a request from a member of my staff. Uh, uh, you know, and it should receive, you know, all the respect that comes with that.
Speaker 2:Because she had good reasons for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely. So I think, look, yeah, look. I honestly believe, every day when I walk into some of these meetings, you know, I speak to politicians and other ceos and various and various influential or important people, as they all may not they or other people may not see them in the community, that's up to that. Uh, I do walk in some days and go, do they realize I'm just some thick kid from colburn? Uh, look, and I think that's very grounding. So I, you know, I went to a.
Speaker 3:I went to an organization yesterday that are doing some really good work with young kids. Uh, and these kids have got. These kids come from bad backgrounds. No, I don't come from bad background. I come from a relatively poor background, uh, and I come from a background where my mum died when I was relatively young. She died of emphysemia. I never really knew her sort of fit and healthy.
Speaker 3:But I look at some of these kids come from really poor backgrounds and you sort of you look at them and you think, oh, that's me and I think that that's me and I think that that's me and that could have been me, and I remember, at the end of it, the guys and girls that were running it. I didn't really know I'd gone there because we want to support them it's very important that the RSL supports community and I went to them. At the end I didn't have to do this, but I thought it was and, between you and me, I was struggling a little bit with it, and I remember I stood there yesterday and said look, ladies and gentlemen, you don't really know who I am, but I'm one of them, and without people like you, I wouldn't be me, and I'd just like to thank you for that. That's honesty, right? Yeah, absolutely, and so much vulnerability.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, To lead with vulnerabilities. Yeah, such a great quality, John.
Speaker 3:You know, I think they were. I don't know if they were surprised or not, but it and I wasn't doing it for them. Really, I suppose I was doing it for me, but really it was for them as well. Yeah, really I suppose I was doing it for me, but really it was for them as well. Just to say, look, you don't know who I am. I'm just some grey eyed guy walking around with a bag, completely dressed inappropriately for what we're doing today. And you know, I would just like to say from me to you thank you. Yeah, that is very. You know, that's critical for the workplace. One. Two, you know, when it's your fault, you need to wear it, mate, and put your hand up and go. Look, I'm going to take this on the chin. This is my mistake, because when you go to a staff member, they will much likely walk into your office or walk into one of your manager's office and say, look, I've made a really big mistake here.
Speaker 2:We might wear this, but because we now know we can adapt very quickly because things change by the minute, it sounds like, rather than limiting you or restricting you as a leader, the background and the start you had has actually helped you become a better leader, because it's created such strong empathy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look, I don't. I suppose I mean, clearly you're right, I've never thought of it like that. But yeah, it's very easy to walk into a room and talk to staff if you can actually talk to them from their place on the playing field. That's probably something I learned in the military. So, look, the transition from military life to civilian life is not easy. By the way, it was easy for me because I phased in in sort of this military, then pseudo-military if you like, and then worked with people that clearly had the same skill set as me, used to being dealt with in that way, and then I sort of transitioned quite slowly. You know, I was almost weaned off the military if that makes sense in a very controlled, slow way.
Speaker 3:But I think what the military gives you is it gives you a very grounded approach because, for instance, in my you know, if you look at my perspective, I started as a private soldier. So I started as a digger at the bottom, you know, class three private soldier. So when I moved up, when I moved through the leadership structure, I'd done all those shit jobs that we knew that our private soldiers needed to do. So when you speak with that empathy, I mean, look, you're not speaking as their buddies, but you are speaking in a term that says I understand what you have to do. This is why we are doing it Now. We need to do it and really, I think, unless you're particularly skillful and there are people that are then I think, really, in terms of leadership, you probably don't get a better grounding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh, because you've done it. Yeah, uh, you know, and I think, like, in terms of the military, I think, in, you know, we look at the private sector in the civilian world. That's what the civilian world doesn't get about. The military, it doesn't understand, it's going to get people that, have you know, dug latrines in the middle of the desert and clean them the next day. So I've, you know, I've started right at the bottom. Uh, the difficulty that the military has is the transition. I was lucky because, like I said, I was literally, know, I was literally decafed, if you will. You know, I still thought coffee and over the weeks it became weaker and weaker and at the end I was drinking, you know pseudo-soya latte.
Speaker 2:We call that a. Why bother?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a why bother? But you know, yeah, so it did. I made some fundamental errors as a very young junior leader, that I learned some really hard lessons relatively early. You know and you move on, but you've also got to understand as a leader that you are going to make difficult decisions. You have to make difficult decisions and those decisions are based on the business or organization's outcomes. Yeah, but they're a lot easier to do if you're upfront and you're honest and if you do it with empathy and if you do it with understanding.
Speaker 3:So I didn't come up with this saying, by the way, but it stuck in my mind. It might be Johnny Weeks. Johnny Weeks was a guy that you won't know who he was, but he was a late entry. So he was a late entry officer. When I joined the parachute regiment and I used to go fishing with him and he said to me and he was a real hard bastard, and I mean this man was nails and I'm really surprised and everybody respected him. And I mean this man was nails and I'm really surprised and everybody respected him. And I always thought respected him because he was nails and he was, and they probably did. But the other side of it, and that was he said.
Speaker 3:Look, just treat people like you want to be treated yourself. John, everybody understands you've got a job to do, but there's no need to be a twat. And he was absolutely right. So, true, he was absolutely right, sorry, true, he's absolutely right, you know. So, treat people like you want to be treated yourself. Yeah, uh, because they will understand. If you're you know even of the simplest of the communicator, they will understand that actually there is a job to do. Yeah, whatever it is. And that's reality, until we all get to a stage where we can all retire and go live on our farm and grow soy lattes do they come on a tray maybe in tasmania they do, but I think you know, I think if you, if you're honest with yourself, honest with your staff, show empathy, show respect.
Speaker 3:Yes, you're gonna with yourself, honest with your staff, show empathy, show respect. Yes, you're going to have difficult conversations. I mean, I can, in my current job, my welfare lead, claire. We've had a couple of conversations where she's come and she says look, I'm not quite happy the way we spoke there, or you spoke to me there about that and I'll go. That's fair enough, claire, I apologize for how that made you feel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that took four seconds and it's true we all say stuff in the heat of the moment, when we're all under pressure. Now that can be, you know, this is where we've got to decouple this. It's not just work pressure. You might have drove in after dropping the kids off and you might have had a shit day. Or you know you've had a really bad day. You've been up all night. You know, whatever it may be, your colleagues aren't going to know that you're going to walk into work and they are going to get it a bit.
Speaker 3:Now I'm not about me giving, but I mean even each other. Yeah, it's them having the honesty a little late in the day to go. I'm sorry, sorry, but you know I've got this going on at home, you know, but if we know that and we're open to that, hopefully you don't get it because hopefully the member of staff feels empowered enough to phone you up to say look, john, I'm having a really bad time. Can I work from home today? Yeah, yeah, mate, as long as you're working, no problems. I mean, look, let's be honest, if I take it from the business perspective, I need people to do that every now and then, anyway, because we need to test our pandemic resilience.
Speaker 3:If COVID comes back. I need to homework immediately. So the spin of it you're always thinking of the you know what. That's a really good idea and maybe we should all do that a bit more often. So a couple of weeks ago, for instance, I said right tomorrow everybody works at home. I didn't give them any notice and it's just to sort of, it's just one to make sure that they feel comfortable they can work from home. I understand some businesses can't, but also there is a strategic business requirement for them to work from home.
Speaker 2:Gee, the culture you're talking about there, where people are able to be vulnerable enough to say, yeah look, I'm having a bad day, instead of being defensive about it and prickly just name it up. A culture where people can walk in and say, john, I felt uncomfortable with our conversation and you can clear the air. They're such important things and we have to work really hard to create those. They're the result of consistent behaviour over a period of time where people start to recognise that's an expectation, but it's also safe to do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look, I think you're right. And again, you know, if people listening to this, you know one don't think that I've sort of just picked up a sort of management manual and I'm just reeling off the things we should do, I'm not You've got. You do have to take stock. So you do have to have a moment to stand and stare. Yeah, you do need to be able to go somewhere where you can just have a quiet space and say to yourself did I do that right, you know. Or you phone a friend and say, did I do that right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, tell us about stand and stare. Yeah, tell us about stand and stare. Yeah, tell us about stand and stare.
Speaker 3:So I'm a bit of a believer and again, this isn't I'm not sure who came up with that phrase. I might claim that one actually Honestly. I think I might. I don't know, but I'm good with it.
Speaker 2:We'll quiet you in the show notes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look, I think, look, we all live busy worlds. Whether our worlds are any busier than the people 100 years ago, I don't know. They had other problems, you know. But I think we do live in a busy world. I think we are bombarded.
Speaker 3:I think you know, you've got all aspects of communication and I think we don't get time to stand and stare. Now, that might be a place to go where it's quiet or you can do a bit of self-reflection. It might be a moment in your office at lunchtime where you close the door or something like that. But it just stand and stare by me is just a moment where it's just you and you can contemplate your thoughts for the day. Now I'm not, you know I'm not. This isn't a yoga moment, and if you do yoga, great, I don't, but it's just a moment where you just get a chance to self-reflect. That might be a work self-reflection.
Speaker 3:It might be my case that I've got two young adults living in my house and have been there for the last three months and they're about to go off and do stuff in Australia and I might think, I think I need a moment to, you know, reflect on the way that you know, the way this is going, or it could be a work thing, but it's really important Now. That might be for some people going for a run, that might be their stand and stare. It might be for some. For me, it's to go to the cenotaph in hobart and you know, it's not just to go up there and have a sit, uh, and I'm not necessarily reflecting on what the cenotaph is. It's a quiet space where you can go to do that. Yeah, uh, or it's, you know, uh, walking around my pond at home. Yeah, what it's called here that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a pond. Sounds much more romantic, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, uh, you know, just throwing a few pellets into the goldfish and having a moment. Yeah, uh, I think moment. Yeah, I think it's really important. I think it's really important for mental health. I think it's really important for leaders to run over conversations they've had during the day and that, you know. It just allows you to one sort of de-conflict with everything that's going on in your head. Two sense check whether what you're doing is right or what you did do was right. And three, you know, self-negotiate a way forward and how you're going to deal with the next issue, or how you deal with something better next time, or how you take learnings from the way you dealt with it because you dealt with it well and I'm sure most leaders do deal with things well uh, and how you use that again. And maybe even how you pollinate that into your wider team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, from some of your reflections, it's very look, it's very comforting for a team to walk into a room and the boss to say you know what, yesterday I did? This had nothing to do with you. Know what? Yesterday I did this. It had nothing to do with you. I completely got it wrong. It was the wrong thing to do. I should have thought about this. I should have thought about that. We should have done that, because that's you know, people talk about a learning account. That's in the learning account. I think that's really important. I think it's important to staff to know that what you're asking them to do, you do yourself.
Speaker 2:You mentioned that it's very comforting for a team to have that happen. What do you think that comfort comes from?
Speaker 3:I think it probably comes from I think it was mentioned before some of it is vulnerability. There's nothing wrong with being a little bit vulnerable. I say this as an 80s man, by the way. There's nothing wrong with being a little bit. There's nothing wrong with a little bit of vulnerability in terms of you, and if you show that, what you will get in return is you will get a better understanding from your team. Yeah, and I think the team is more likely to share its vulnerabilities.
Speaker 3:Now, again, I'm not taking this from a latte drinking side of the fence, where I'm sat here with cloth shoes on, with no socks. I'm taking it from a fairly pragmatic view, which is we all need to learn from each other. We all need to deliver the product or the outcome, but let's do it the fastest, smartest way. Let's also learn from each other while we're doing that and let's listen to each other's mistake, because it's all like saying, oh, don't do it that way, but actually it's better to say you know what, don't do it that way, but actually it's better to say you know what, don't do it that way, because I did it that way and this, this, this and this and this and this happened where she or he did it that way and banged it out the park first time yeah, uh, there's so much I want to unpack there, including the cloth, shoes and no socks, my husband is going to love that saying John.
Speaker 2:I'm going to tell him that tonight. John, I'm conscious of your time. I've really got one more background question and then I really want to talk to you about a couple of things you're doing right now, because I'll get to those in a minute. What was the biggest change for you? You mentioned that you decaffeinated from the military to civilian life. What was the biggest change for you in terms of as a leader? What did you have to let go of or do differently when you left the military and started being a leader in the broader corporate world?
Speaker 3:Okay. So, contrary to popular belief, people will believe the military is a very one-way machine where leaders tell subordinates to do something and they just do it. That's not true. Uh, if you try to tell a team of guys, for instance, that we are going to assault the house, we're going to do it like this, we're going to do it right now, uh, and some of them could be killed. Uh, they're just going to look at you and go, yeah, right, all right. What they need to know is they need all the detail. So they need to know why we're going to do it. They need to know, you know entry points, fire support, all the things that come with that sort of stuff. They need to know all the actions on what support medical support they're going to get and all the rest of it. And then you discuss the plan with them and then generally unless it's really you know quick battle orders, but generally everybody at the end can say, well, what about this, what about that? And effectively, generally together you generally get a better picture.
Speaker 3:So there is a perception that it's not. You know, it's very much one way. You do have to talk to people differently, quite considerably differently. So the military has a language, a culture where you say certain things, everybody understands it, and then on we go. That doesn't really work in civilian world, although a little bit in corporate world, in civilian world or corporate world, corporate world although a little bit in corporate world and civilian world and corporate world corporate world believe it or not is quite like the military, in the sense that there's very much a goal and we're going to do X, y and Z to get to this goal. You know, and they have strategy and all the rest of it.
Speaker 3:It's a lot closer than you think, but it's the way that you, the people that are around you in the corporate world or the civilian world, haven't all gone through the same thing as you in the military world. So therefore they're all coming from. You know, even that day you won't have spent the last six months with them. You, you know, at five o'clock they go home. You don't really know what goes on in their life at home and all the rest of it. They come back to work In the military.
Speaker 3:You sort of get a feel of that very quickly. So you've got to be far more persuasive in the civilian world, which I actually agree with, and I think that's one of the biggest differences, and you're working with a much more diverse set of people in terms of what their personal objectives, opinions, agendas may be. I'm not saying that isn't in the military. I'm not saying the military isn't diverse, it is extremely diverse, uh, but I think in the case of how we actually talk to people, that's very different. In the military, you are going to get away with go and do that, go and do that now here you're probably gonna. You're gonna get away with that as well, but you're probably going to get away with that as well, but you're going to really piss the staff off.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's resentment You're going to start to lose staff and that has a cost, not only a cost of a financial cost, but a cost of we lose all that information in their head because they've learned that over such a period of time and it's their job to do that. And I know people will go oh, there should be continuity plans at every level. Yes, there is, but not down to some of the granular detail that individuals have in their job, particularly if they love their job. You will never know what they know. You will never have the relationships with the people that they've got. You'll never have that. So you absolutely must invest in them and what they do, and that is making training available.
Speaker 3:It is, you know, if they've had a bad day, sending them home. It is sort of saying things you know, when they've had a good day, bring them in At the end of the day, say you've done a really good job, mate. Just want to say that Don't say it every day, and you shouldn't, because it won't mean anything. But when you do say it and you stop in the corridor with them or you walk into their office and just say look, I'd just like to say thanks, this has made a difference. But if you understand the picture. You can then say to them it's made a difference, because it's also made it. You know, in our case it's also made a difference to Mrs X or Mr Y. You did that today, you know, and that should have filled you and that fills their cup up. Yeah, you know, it makes them feel proud of what they do. That's really important, Really important. But if you do it, what will then happen is your managers will then start to do it to their staff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Once you do that, it's a do that. It's a whole different experience. You're always going to lose people. People are always going to go to different jobs or they don't like it. Some people won't fit. You've got to accept that. But you've always got to put your hand on your heart at the end and say treat people like you want to be treated yourself. But we did what we could do.
Speaker 3:Redundancies and things like that are always difficult, but the business, the things that all businesses face, as long as you can be honest and do everything you can do for that person that you may be going to be make redundant, for instance, that's that's so. That's two courses of action. The first one, it's the right thing to do right. Let's be honest, there is a human factor here that says right, wrong. You stay in the right line. And the second thing is the way you treat your staff. You are measured by other members of staff, subconsciously, because they will go well. That happened to them, you know, and he or she, they were really bad with them and they treat them really bad. So I'm not going to say a word.
Speaker 3:If you go. Well, actually, jill, we haven't got a Jill. By the way, Jill last week did that massive error and we spent three days trying to correct it. But Sam, we haven't got sam either. Sam was all right about it and said yeah, it's all right, it's a learning account. Let's get it out there in our weekly sort of get together. Yeah, crunch out the mistakes we made. Yeah, that means that people will take a little bit of risk, which we need them to take. And two, it means that when they do make a mistake, one, they'll own it, but secondly, they'll tell us. And thirdly, we'll learn from it. Yeah, fantastic. Look, I know I'm probably putting this in a very simplistic way and people will put a lot of yaddy-waddy words around this, but look, this is pretty basic.
Speaker 2:We overcomplicate it. Sometimes we really do so. That, I guess, brings us to today, and I know that in your year that the RSL in Tasmania has experienced a resurgence, and I know that you've made some bold decisions, not necessarily easy decisions. Is that something that you're able to talk about today?
Speaker 3:Yeah, look sure, I think it's worth saying that. I don't believe any of this was me. I think it was one. It was being empowered by a relatively new board before me. So I've been here 12 months. The board's probably been here. You know, I should think anything, probably about 16 months. The board was generally supportive.
Speaker 3:Uh, it looked at me sometimes because, you know I am, I have come into a australia, you know a very old australian institution and it is, if not the oldest, I don't know if it is. If you get people writing in, by the way, I'm not saying it is pretty old, uh, you know. So some of the things I was saying to them was a little bit scary to them, but they're all relatively forward-thinking board members, I've got to be honest. So they did sort of say, okay, get on with it. And then for me it was having a moment to stand and stare and take stock and go back through history. That I didn't know because I'm British and from Yorkshire, I'm not from Australia, and sort of try and decouple or try and understand what the RSL meant to the people that first made it, ie the Anzacs that came out the First World War that first made it, ie the Anzacs that came out in the First World War and try and define, you know, almost sit in a room with them, I suppose, with the door closed, and have them across the room for you, you know, in their chairs, and make the link, as you know, you've been to war, I've been to war, you've seen it, I've seen it. What do you want, you know, what do you want me to do? And sort of read through and have a sort of conversation in your head where you are discussing with them what they defined, they wanted the rsl to be, you know, commemoration, recognition of service welfare for veterans and their families. And then, at the end of the conversation, you in your head, you think, right, well, they're all sat there, nodding across the room now, probably calling me a pom and all the other loving terms that go with it, and then sort of going like, okay, that's what I think it is, and then speaking to the team and saying, is this what you think it is? And then formulating a plan from that.
Speaker 3:Now, look, change, right. Change is an incredibly difficult thing to do, but what always surprises people with change is in nature, not in mankind. It is the only thing that is constant. If you think, you know, you can literally think of nothing else. It doesn't involve change. Yeah, you know, we look in the mirror each day and we see a wrinkle. Uh, clearly I don't, because you know I don't have any.
Speaker 2:Uh, anyway, uh, you know, or you've got a dodgy mirror.
Speaker 3:It's one of the time uh, we've all done those poor things on the phone, haven't we? Where you can soften it so you look completely round but you've got no wrinkles. Anyway, I digress. So you know change is completely constant and it doesn't matter whether it's the seasons, it doesn't matter whether you're looking at your children, it doesn't matter whether you're looking driving your car. You know change is always constant, but it's something we all struggle with and maybe we struggle with it because one you know, I think we all struggle to accept change. Now, that may be something as simple as struggling to accepting grey hairs on your head, or we don't communicate particularly well why we've got to change. Yeah, in business it's probably the latter. And I think you know, fundamentally, with RSL Tasmania, I believe that state level so I'm not talking sub-branch level I believe that state level we needed to get or we need to be better. We were doing it, but we needed to be better with delivering service to our veterans. Now, that's all times, that's all types, so that if that means that, you know, I have to go and see a local mayor about something I believe we should be doing for veterans, then I should go and do that. If that's a politician, I should go and do that. It also means's a politician, I should go and do that. It also means I should listen to people when they're having a rant because they think that we're doing something completely wrong. But also, you know and here's the I suppose here's the catch, and we spoke about it earlier on you have to do things as a leader, regardless of where you are. That, you know, are fundamentally right.
Speaker 3:Now that and look, bravery is not just about storming trenches. Bravery comes in many guises. You know, doing the right thing comes in many guises. You know, doing the right thing comes in many guises. This morning I was driving down the road and I noticed these things there was a load of bins. There was a load of bins on the side of the road. It's only a really small thing, but there was one bin that was blowing, blown over, and all the rubbish was in the road. Four people walked past that bin and I knew this because I was in a queue of traffic and then someone walked up to it, who I saw come up the right-hand side of me, and she came up to it. She put all the rubbish in the bin, she closed the bin, she put it back on the street Because that was doing the right. Now, I know that's only a very small action, but it's doing the right thing. Yeah, all of a sudden, somebody out of the blue did the correct thing in society. Yeah, yeah, uh, and it.
Speaker 3:And if you think that, okay, that's a, that's a micro level, but if you blow that out, you've got to do the right thing, and sometimes the right thing is painful, sometimes difficult, and sometimes you're going to take it on the chin a bit for doing it. So you know, like we've just done, we've just announced the removal of pokies from our last sub-branch. We have had overwhelming support from some fairly big hitters in Tasmania. So you know Salvation Army, people like that, you know the drugs and alcohol. They've also come back and said it's the right thing to do. We've had some criticism, but if we are going to try and deliver services from ourselves for veterans in need, we've got to take a stand. Yeah, because it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 3:And this isn't about, this is not about politicians. It is not about politics. It is not about whether I believe gambling is right or wrong. It's about if our place is to deliver welfare. If that's one of the things we must do, then we have got to start to think about what things we need to change. You know, if you think about it I don't know when it was, I don't even know when it was now 25 years ago or whenever it was we took smoking out of pubs. People would go oh, all your clothes, no one will go to them. Well, all that happened is my clothes don't smell of smoking.
Speaker 2:And they're nice places to go. Yeah, and you know.
Speaker 3:So it's that sort of thing, but I do get it. I really do get people going oh, this is just one more thing. It's just one more thing it is. But remember why we're here Commemoration, recognition of service, welfare for veterans and their families. That is why we're here. If an RSL in Tasmania is not that, then it's the same question. What is it?
Speaker 2:I love that because it comes down to, you've got to be true to your purpose. And look, I can probably say this really bluntly that having pokies seems contrary to welfare, doesn't it? And I'll say that and that's my statement. I don't expect you to own it, but there's a great saying, john, and I'm sure you've heard it, that courage is in the absence of fear. It's having fear but doing it anyway. And I'm not suggesting people do foolhardy or reckless things, but in a situation like removing the pokies from the sub-branches things. But in a situation like removing the pokies from the sub-branches, that's going to create some fear. But if it's the right thing, courage is about experiencing that fear, experiencing that reluctance or hesitation, but doing it anyway because it's the right thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, look, I completely agree with that, but you know so. If that was an external action, then the internal actions we've on a journey with is we've had to also recognise something that state, you know some of the things that state branch do and were doing. We weren't doing particularly well, you know, and we needed to get much better at that. We needed to be much more outwardly focused with veterans in Tasmania. We needed to deliver services and we needed to try and think of a way or start to strategize a way that how we could make RSL Tasmania still be relevant in the 21st century. And this isn't rocket science, this is every single organization you can think of has to do this or it won't survive.
Speaker 2:If you stop meeting the needs you exist to meet, then there's no purpose anymore, is there? Yeah?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So, yeah, some of it and the thing is and all is, I think it's worth. It's a bit of a self-evolving machine. So once you start that, once you start that mindset of right, okay, how can we better, what can we do better? It starts to do it itself, it sort of self-repertuates and then it sort of evolves around you. So as a leader, let's say, here you may put the first seed into the pot, but you don't grow the tree. Your staff grow the tree. They feed it, they put water in it, they look after it, they cut the dead branches off it and all of a sudden you're looking at a big, massive blue gum. Yeah, because this thing has just shot out the ground. But what you did is you set the conditions, so you made sure the ground was fertile, you put the seed in, but that's all you did. Yeah, you just enabled everybody else to grow the tree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a great analogy for ladyship, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 3:Well, I've just talked about it. So it was Thank you very much. I'll take that. So John was. Thank you very much. I'll take that to John Hardy. 1026, 19th and 1st close the street.
Speaker 2:John, I'm sure we could talk forever, but I'm conscious of your time. I'm sure that out there Jill and Sam have listened to this interview and, even though they don't work for you yet, you'll have applications rolling in from every Jill and Sam in Hobart Mate. It's been an absolute pleasure. I've really enjoyed it. You're not hard to interview. We just sort of give you a nudge and off you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, look, I think where I'm from, I'd be called a gobshite. I think I am. But no, look, look, look, it's a pleasure. And I think, look, it's. Leadership is not easy. If people are listening to this and they think it's easy, it isn't. It is about self-doubt, but it is all about courage, it's all those things. But I will go back to it and you know I will go back to. You must build an environment where people believe that, one, you're going to support them. Two, you've got their backs, yeah, but they must also understand that you must. You know you've got to do this with whatever business you've got at heart. So, yes, you need to listen, but you also need to be able to make the hard decisions. Yeah, but those hard decisions don't have to be made in a hideous way.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Great advice, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Fantastic.
Speaker 1:John, I was just about to say we're really grateful to your ops manager for nominating you and for someone who was hesitant before coming on. That was a fantastic story of your journey Like it was amazing to listen to, and we're really appreciative that you shared that with us, thank you.
Speaker 2:Come and see the real thing. Come and see the real thing. Come and see. Come and see the real thing. Come and see the real thing. Come and see. Come and see the real thing. Come and see the real thing. Come and see.