Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the Culture of Things podcast with Brendan Rogers.
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[00:00:35] Speaker B: Now let's get into the episode.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Culture of Things podcast. I'm your host, Brendan Rogers, and today we have made it to episode 70 on the Culture of Things podcast. So today I'm talking with Cassandra Gordon. Cassandra is the founder of Growth Culture, a new company that works with startups to design and build their culture. She's also founded organizational intelligence group, which is a niche culture turnaround consultancy. Cassandra has spent 20 years driving change and leading teams in corporate and government roles in Sydney, Perth and Canberra. She's also briefed former prime ministers and advised senior leaders on leading change in the insurance, oil and gas and utilities sectors. She left the corporate world to fulfil her mission to create a new way of working that enables people to grow and thrive, not just survive. Today we're focused on the five key elements of a strong culture. Cassandra, welcome to the Culture Things podcast.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: Thanks Brendan. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: It's a pleasure having you. Now, I do have a over the years, as I got older, I've got a little bit more of an interest in politics nowadays. So that experience in premiers and cabinet Office in 2006, 2008, can you just tell us a bit about that? Just wet my appetite a bit.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Certainly. So PM and C was an incredible environment that really shaped me and built me professionally in terms of my strategy, my briefing, my risk assessment skills. I got so used to working under extreme pressure every day and working to tight deadlines to brief the PM of the day on really critical issues. So that would mean consulting with various agencies, including treasury, finance, for example, and coming up with a briefing position that had to be absolutely rock solid. It was tough, but it was incredibly interesting and those three years really enabled me to fly professionally after that.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd imagine. Fantastic experience. I'm going to push you on this. If you could pick one thing that you really loved about that experience and one thing that you would have preferred not to have experienced.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Great question, Brendan. The thing I love most about it was being able to see direct results for federal government policy that impacted the lives of people based on my recommendations. So I spent a lot of my time working in the health and aged care, part of PM and C, which included some really complex, tricky issues around illicit drugs, for example, funding for particular cancer treatments. Off the top of my head and being able to brief on that, weigh up the different risk factors and look at the federal budget and come up with a figure and a proposal for making something work or available to the public was incredibly satisfying. When that actually occurred. Something that wasn't so good was the culture in that it was extremely competitive. So to get into PM and C itself is no easy feat. So when I applied for my role, I was one of 400 people that actually applied for that job and I was one of two people selected. People often work there watching the sun go down at the end of the day, particularly in summer, and it's a commitment, but it provides great exposure and you won't be surrounded by more hardworking, intellectually rigorous people. In my view, it really did give me such great background in terms of a huge range of topics. And it was normal for graduates from, for example, you know, top universities around the world who heard one young queenslander of the year, or scholars or people, people doing their PhDs to arrive and provide their own intellectual input. So it created such a stimulating environment as well.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah, fantastic. Thanks for sharing. Was it that experience or some other experience that sort of whet your appetite around this culture thing?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: That probably certainly was one piece of the jigsaw puzzle, Brendan, in that I deliberately throughout my career, exposed myself to a range of different sectors, industries and cultures. So when I work, I love complex information and I love diving into it and understanding how things work and what it means and how to use information to solve really difficult problems. And once I've mastered my craft or my trade or my role, I tended to then look for the next thing. So I needed to be intellectually satisfied. PM and C did that. However, I also springboarded into a lot of different industries, like you mentioned, oil and gas utilities. I work for IBM. In it for a while in consulting environments, I've also done lots of other assignments through my own company. Organizational intelligence, group insurance and financial services. All these organizations have different cultures, different ways of doing things, different operating systems, different power structures. And they've undoubtedly all formed parts of the jigsaw that have led me to where I am today in terms of my purpose, which is to create cultures where people not just survive, which we all do in those environments. And I certainly did to one where people actually can thrive and reach their full potential. So towards the end of that period, that sort of working for other companies and working for corporates, I realized that my own values were not in keeping with most environments I was working in. Brendan. So I stand for integrity, respect and equality. And those three things which are rock solid to me and are who I am and I'm not negotiable, do not fit with corporate environments as they are now. And that is why I left. But all those experiences gave me that drive to create something that was different so people could really reach their full potential.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: In the hybrid working world, I've seen too many business owners, their businesses suffer because of poor performing employees, leading to below average results.
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I got respect and integrity. What was the third one, Cassandra?
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Justice. Integrity, respect.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Thank you. I have to apologise to you now we're recording and also to listeners that got a bit of a cough off the back of COVID You've had Covid? I've had Covid. I think every man his dog is going to have Covid, if you haven't already. So my apologies. I'm doing my best to control, but look, I love this respect, integrity, excuse me, and justice. When have one or all of those things been compromised for you?
[00:07:56] Speaker B: A good example is when I was working in WA, I was heading up the indigenous health function for a large federal government agency and I was in a director role there and dealing extensively with the state government. And my role was to manage a large team of experts and deliver health services on the ground for indigenous people. And I found that the culture of that state environment was quite different from the national federal environment. And one day I realised that in order to try and get some traction in this highly politicized, highly competitive, to be honest, game playing environment with the state government, that I was starting to bend the truth in emails, which is something I had never done before. I hold my integrity dear to me and it's part of who I am and professionally. To actually start not telling the truth in an email made me stop at my desk and sit back and think, what is happening? What is going on here? Is this who I've become to try and get any chinese traction, to try and get any kind of results. I'm starting to effectively not be honest. And that's when I started to take stock and think, is this the right role for me? That was the first time it was really tested in terms of respect. Most recently working in financial services, to be honest, I found that behaviour was constantly tested. So my idea of respect is to treat people the way I want to be treated, to be professional, to turn up on time, to do what I say I'm going to do, to do the best job that I can in my role. If someone's paying me, I will do the best of my ability. It's that simple. And to play the game was becoming tiring, really tiring. To survive in high paying change roles, very complex programs across the whole organization obviously requires some pretty key stakeholder engagement skills. And I realized that I was not prepared to be dishonest and I was not prepared to play a game to try and survive in that environment. So I didn't. I didn't play the game anymore. I spoke my truth and at one point defended myself and I left. And that's when I took a step back, Brendan, and questioned my life, my career. And at the same time, there was a couple of personal triggers as well. So I closed out one contract again, you know, visual, kind of long hours, which was fine, but in very highly intense role. And my father died unexpectedly, so I closed it out, went to the funeral in Melbourne, came back a couple of days later and kept working to finish off this assignment in the meantime. Also, one of my family members was going through a difficult divorce, so I flew to Perth to help her with that. And then when I came to Sydney, I just thought, God, I've just got to stop. I've got to just take stock before I throw myself in the next contract. Things just didn't feel right anymore. It felt like I was becoming a smaller version of myself that was designed to meet a corporate objective. I didn't have the energy to have hobbies. I had some friends again, didn't really have much time to build a friendship circle. So that's when push came to shelf values were tested, a couple of personal triggers, and I decided to change things.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: The great thing around this is that you actually knew what you stood for, so you could start to make some decisions around that. I guess I just want to ask that point about when, how long, what did you do to actually reach that point where you could really articulate that respect, integrity, justice and those sort of core values, non negotiables for you.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: It was a process to be honest Brendan. Integrity has always been probably the one that's been most dear to me. That where I realized I recognised early on that didn't necessarily fit with most cultures and respect. Injustice grew the more I matured, the more exposure that I had. And for example, I tended to find that junior members of staff would sometimes come to me with their issues if they were being bullied, for example, if they didn't know how to solve a problem and they felt unsupported. And I kind of saw this pattern where that lack of respect was starting to cost my energy. And to play the politics, to actually work the system well, means that really generally you're not being respectful of other people. It's that simple. I have compassion for people as well. I have compassion for people who are unwell, who need help, who simply need support. And I find that a lot of the australian corporate culture is generally unsupportive. And that's my view from talking to a lot of expats, people who have worked here and in other countries, is that the australian culture generally does not offer a lot of support, particularly for women, and that it's highly competitive. So all of these things combined really made me stop and think, do I want to look back in 20 years time when I'm looking down the barrel of sort of, what do I want to do for the next 1020 years of my life? And think, yeah, gee, I wish I had worked at insurance company for another six months or twelve months? Or do I actually want to do something that's close to my heart, which is to enable other people to survive. No, sorry, just not to survive, but to thrive. To enable other people to grow and reach their full capability. That is something that I have loved doing in my work and what I do now. So that's been the primary driver.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: I want you also articulate something for me because there may be some listeners listening to this now and saying, Brendan, in the intro, you talk about, we're going to talk about the five key elements of culture and that sort of stuff. And we're going to get there. In your own words, why is it so important that we just unpack that a little bit? And a leader effectively know what they stand for when they need to lead and drive culture and cultural change.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Thanks, Brendan. So the five key elements I've developed based on my experience, but two years of solid research looking at what does and doesn't work, reading high quality literature from around the world, looking at what different companies are doing that are groundbreaking, what doesn't, doesn't work and collating all of that, I came up with a cultural blueprint. And it's important for leaders to know this because it's a leader's role to enable other people to lead. It's not a leader's role to control. So traditional companies are based.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Cassandra, can you just say that again? That sounds pretty important.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Sure.
It's a leader's role to help other people lead, not control. A leader's role is not to control. That's not leadership, that's a title. And there's a big difference between a title and a leader. They don't necessarily go hand in hand. In fact, it's rare to find a very good leader in my experience. I think that a lot of leaders who I have worked with perhaps are focused on meeting KPI's that have been decided by boards in the interest of shareholders that aren't necessarily going to enable people to thrive. Which is ironic, because when people thrive and they reach their capability, guess what? They achieve more. There's greater success in an organisation. And ironically, that means that the profits and competitive margins are greater. It just makes sense to me. But society has decided that our revered large corporations and our traditional brands, our banks, are the benchmarks for culture. And unfortunately, they are nothing. And I think that the cracks that are starting to show through. Example, I think the AMp situation, the news when that broke on the COVID of the Finn review, really I remember thinking this is a defining moment for australian culture. Gretchen Carlson is tweeting about this at 05:00 a.m. new York time about ANP's decision to promote Beau Piranhy, who was the head of capital at the time, or sorry, into the head of capital, even though he had been punished for sexually harassing a female subordinate who still decided to promote him. And the backlash that it caused internally has never been seen or known to that degree. In Australia. That was the first marker the Hayne royal commission. Rajaban started to test and really place pressure on our big banks in terms of their behaviour and their actions and their practices, which clearly weren't legal or acceptable according to ASIC. And nobody expected that the rug that was lifted up would expose so much underneath. And I think that in fact, Andrew Thorburn, the former CEO of NAB, when he was on the stand at that royal commission into banking and financial services, actually said NAB never had a purpose. And I think that's incredibly telling. The CEO of one of our biggest banks basically stated the bank didn't have a purpose. So why on earth were those employees being motivated to come to work and create something of value to society and be the best they can be. The CEO doesn't know what the bank stands for.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: Yeah. Look, you keep taking me into some areas that I just love. It's very difficult to hold back from asking certain things, Cassandra, but you use this word defining. I do want to ask about this. In your opinion and experience, which is extensive, do you really think industries across Australia, not just banking, that there's been enough change or people have, has it really reached a defining moment like that level of really changing people's mindset, leaders mindset and understanding the value of culture? Do you really think it's been that defining across the board?
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Great question, Brendan. I think certainly the dial has turned substantially in the last two years. So I know on your show that you've talked with some of your guests about the great resignation, and there's a lot of contention about that. But the data is certainly saying that there is a great resignation in the US, in the UK and also in Australia. We're seeing it and people have had a taste of some flexibility and freedom in their lives. So their lives aren't entirely structured and entrenched around work.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Do you really think it's been as defining as what it needs to be?
[00:18:29] Speaker B: I think it's a sliding scale that basically is starting to shift towards a different way of work, a different world of work. So the hierarchy is starting to crack, like we've talked a little bit about. And people are looking for something different generation y. When I talk to them, they want to work for a company that has a clear stance on gender, on the environment, their social responsibility. These are key things that they're looking for when they actually apply for a role or consider working for a company in any form. And companies are now being expected, or they're actually scrambling at board level to be able to demonstrate that and not just talk about it by putting hashtags on a wall, hashtag sustainability, courage, integrity, creativity, whatever it is that doesn't actually ironically stick. They might stick on the wall, but they don't actually stick in terms of people's behavior. So I believe that the world of work is changing. I believe that big corporates are going to start to break. They're cracking now and I think they're going to break. I don't think they're going to be able to be globally competitive anymore. I think that a lot of people have had enough, and we talked a little bit about this before the recording. In terms of different stages of our career and life. But I think people are starting to see. See that working for a brand or a corporation is not who they are and they want to leave a bigger legacy or have a greater purpose in the world, rather than going to work to just simply earn money to keep a roof over their head. There has to be a greater purpose as to why we're here.
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I agree. I do sort of feel that there needs to be some more, for want of a better phrase, shit hitting the fan in organisations, you know, like an amp or some of this banking stuff that, you know, to. It almost feels like some of that stuff was a bit further down the track, you know, in the history, in the past now where some people are still losing sight of what it is. But anyway, not that I'm sitting here hoping that, you know, organizations like that crumble and hoping that some of this stuff happens, but it feels to me in some of these organizations, excuse me, in some of these organizations where it's almost like there needs to be that continual reminder of change needed through some circumstances that are coming out. Like happened with, as you say, banking royal commissions and amp scenarios and stuff like that. But anyway, you use the word thrive a number of times. Again, it's part of your mission. Love that word, by the way. What does this thriving culture mean? Like what success. You working with the organizations and achieving this thriving culture, what does that. What does that look like?
[00:21:05] Speaker B: So that means, Brendan, that people can come to work, not have to put on a game face when they walk in the door, not have to put on their work demeanor. They can actually drop the guard, which takes energy, be themselves, know that they're working in an environment that is psychologically safe, where it's safe to speak up if things aren't right. It's safe to table new ideas, it's safe to. To have a voice without a fear of reprisal and being energized because you're feeling like you're part of a high functioning team and you're receiving, you're valued and you know, what your financial rewards look like that you've decided, you've had a part in deciding in terms of how hard you want to work or not, and what the remuneration is. It may not be just direct salary, being able to interface and influence directly with your customers, not having to seek authority or permission to spend $100 on a new device or for an engineer to, you know, to go and get a new part from the supervisor. It's about adults, capable adults, having the freedom and the autonomy to go to work and work together, know they're clear on their remit, they've decided their purpose and they have the freedom to carry it out the way they see fit. That, I believe, is the future of work. I think that the command and control structure hierarchy is no longer, no longer relevant in the society that we're evolving into. So being connected to the purpose as well, having an innate belief in what that stands for, and seeing your role and your part in that, gives people energy, it gives people drive and a reason to get out of bed in the morning and contribute to an organisation and provide the best of yourself. And working with team members who are also capable and respected, all these things are part of a thriving, what I call a thriving formula. And I'll unpack that with you, of course. But that's what I want. That's what I wanted when I was at work. I wanted to just go to work, know that I could just do the job, to invest in my abilities, be rewarded for it and be able to be at ease and not be in flight or fight mode most of the time, which most people are in corporate settings, that amygdala gets triggered as soon as we feel like we are under any perceived threat, our subconscious brain triggers our amygdala. Scientifically, the evidence is there, it's so clear and it's been around for so long, that it shuts down our frontal cortex, which is ironically, our reasoning and decision making, problem solving part of our brain. And we start to go into survival mode now. What a waste of energy. It just doesn't make sense from the bottom line, even that most people are walking around a building all day, playing politics, worrying about how to protect their back, how to survive, how to get ahead and how to actually just hold their position. That's inhumane to me. And that can't be the best we can do for work. I think there's a much better solution, Cassandra.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Let's say I'm leading an organisation with hundreds of people. You've just sold it to me. That sounds pretty good. Sounds like some pretty good outcomes, pretty good benefits of a thriving culture. So why wouldn't I do it? Because not every leader is doing it.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Well, firstly, Brendan, it takes a lot of courage to be a good leader, of course, which is again at odds with our current system. So meeting KPI's that have been set by a board obviously drives most of our CEO's and their behaviours. And it's acceptable for senior leaders to, for example, demonstrate in some cases that I've encountered sociopathic behaviors that's considered to be acceptable because they're getting results. It's not acceptable. It's no longer acceptable. And so the reason leaders also sometimes often are unable to implement these things as much as they may want to, is because they're working in a system that doesn't enable them to. So the system is highly competitive. It's command and control. It takes a lot of time managing work to get to the top of that apex, if you want to. And once you're there, it's very difficult to maintain that position as well and stay there, which obviously requires a certain skill set and personality type, which is a very small fraction of the population to actually be in that position. Yet that small percentage of the population is basically making decisions that affect thousands of people every day. So that is why the current hierarchy doesn't allow it, basically. And there's room for a much flatter way of doing business.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Let's move into that. Now, this formula, these five elements that you've developed and devised, let's just start with the first one, and we'll just unpack each one as we go along, rather than, say the whole five. What's this first one? So, Cassandra, I'm leading this business. You sold it to me. Great, let's go. What do I need to learn to start with?
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Okay, so the first one is purpose. Brendan. So this is about the business having a clear reason for being. And we've all heard about a purpose or a vision and how important it is. But a real purpose drives people to do their best. It's basically how well people connect to that statement or that vision. It evolves with the company. It has to be clear and repeatable, and it has to be developed by the people who are actually doing the work that generates the revenue for the company, not from the top. It needs to be generated from below and crafted in a way that makes sense to them. I think a really good example of a purpose is one that LinkedIn uses, actually, the very platform that we met on, Brendan. So it's to create economic opportunities for everybody in the global workforce. I think that's a pretty powerful example of a purpose of that works, makes sense, and people understand it and buy into it and want to be a part of it.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: I didn't know that was LinkedIn's purpose. But what you're telling me, all of these people that send me emails or messages on LinkedIn consistently about how they can get me more leads and all that stuff, and I say, look, I'm okay, thanks very much. They're actually just living LinkedIn's purpose. They're helping me to come be more financial.
I'm going to look at them completely differently now.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Cassandra Brendan, it's a very open community, so that they certainly, yeah, there will be a range of different ways of connecting on LinkedIn.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: Thank you for helping me. I need to look at those situations a little bit differently than what I've looked at them in the past. So please continue. Cassandra, thanks for clarifying that.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: The second one is freedom. Brendan so this is about a much flatter structure of doing work.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Cassandra, I'm being very rude. I would like to interrupt one more time with a more serious thing. I know you've done a, you do a hell of a lot of work from with startups now you made a point around the purpose and, you know, for bigger organization or say for more established organisations and obviously there's larger employee numbers and getting involvement at the bottom. How does your work with founders differ given that you've actually got the founders in the business and working with them and whoever around this purpose, because they're there, they founded the business, as opposed to say, you're coming in and working with an organization. The founder may be long gone, no family history whatever.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Founders are under a different type of pressure than traditional business leaders, corporate business leaders. So founders are often leading their first startup. They are under extraordinary pressure to achieve annualised average investment returns for their investors. So what that means is that say there's a couple of one or two co founders who have a new assess or a new technology product and they've received say pre seed or series a funding which is usually around Australia $2 million upwards. And with that comes a very hard set of expectations, as you can imagine, particularly from venture capitalists who have quite a defined scaling system, usually. So founders need to handle once their product market fit is validated and that they're funded, they need to be able to handle often scaling very fast. What that means is that they can be hiring, say up to 100 or 200 people en masse off market as fast as possible to stay competitive. Not only that, they may have varying levels of leadership or management experience. They may be excellent software engineers or know their product that they've developed. They're also needing to handle marketing visibility, accelerators, and all of a sudden their whole interface can tend to, or their bandwidth just stretches exponentially. And the last thing that they want to have the capacity or even the inclination to consider sometimes is culture. I mean, it makes sense. They need to achieve those Arrs, or else they're not going to get further funding and their investors might pull out of. So this is where founders have an exceptional opportunity to create and design a culture that's going to support them during that chaotic, usually highly chaotic scaling process. And of course, culture is the last thing to be considered in business planning. It always has been. It's something that we'll get to later, or once things start to go wrong, that's when culture becomes a priority, of course. So that's where founders need support.
They need expertise and support to help them define what their culture is going to look like. Not just a vision statement that's been developed in an afternoon, that's not going to create a culture or some values put up on a wall. This is a serious deep dive. What do we stand for? What will and we won't tolerate? How are we going to evolve? Who do we want to work with? Clients and people look at what our culture is. So that's the key difference, Brendan. It's just a different set of pressures. So starting from a baseline, there's the opportunity to build from scratch, which can support that chaotic scaling process and ensure longevity. I was shocked to discover that 75% conservatively, of VC backed startups fail. That number is extraordinary considering the sheer effort and analysis that goes into looking at the metrics around product market fit and other criteria before a VC will even consider investment. Family offices are a little bit more flexible in their approach. But given that they've gone through all the hoops and that they've met certain criteria, why are so many startups still failing? The generalized reason is people problems. So sure, you know, there may be a competitive product that arrives unexpectedly, you know, there's always those environmental factors, but the main reason is people problems. Scaling is hard, it's chaotic, it's up and down, it's uncertain, there is no playbook. And that's why culture, when there's a solid culture, a startup can sustain, and when there's not one that's clearly defined, it can just shift and flow and ebb, and it's too. And the tensions that can form as well, can make or break it. Our interview will continue after this.
[00:32:56] Speaker A: An expression of gratitude or reciprocity, no.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: Matter how large or small, is an important part of a healthy culture and relationships. Our friends at Jangler have a great app that allows you to send a gift cardinal with either a personal video.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Voice message, or funny gif.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: You can send it right away or schedule to send on the perfect day and time. So it can be something you set and forget. It's perfect for clients, employees, birthdays and.
[00:33:22] Speaker A: Any celebration where you can't be there in person.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: It's quick, easy to send and you.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Can spend instantly in store or online. When you receive a card, check it out at www.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Dot.
[00:33:36] Speaker A: That'S www jan gler.com dot au it must be really difficult. I guess I've had some experiences with some founders and also other more mature businesses where their purpose is, can I say, very financial driven or sometimes their purpose is not. But it's clear through their behaviours that it's financially driven that makes different decisions. And in my experience, isn't that healthy for thriving cultures? How do you balance that? And what have you seen in your own experience around founders, these pressures with VC situations and meeting financial targets and stuff like that to say, well, you know, hey, they've got to make some really specific decisions, but they can really make decisions that damage the culture. When you're so focused on the, the.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: Financial numbers, I think that the sentiment is changing. Brendan so yes, that focus on getting really high quarter on quarter returns has its place and most VC's still operate from that viewpoint. However, I'm finding that other investors, private investors, family officers are much more open to the idea of investing culture early. Having said that, VC's are also recognizing quite openly now that getting culture right from the beginning is important. They're seeing it, they're understanding it. So for example, Rick Baker from Blackbird Ventures mentioned last year that he now looks at a fourth criteria, top level criteria when investing, which is evidence of a strong culture. Tim Fung, the CEO of Airtasker, made a statement that they wish they had considered culture early. It would have helped them enormously. TDM Growth Partners Ed Cowan also made a statement in his podcast saying that culture is the hardest thing to scale if it's not done right. So I think the knowledge and awareness is growing and the data is also starting to bubble up to support that. Brendan Having said that though, I think also consumers are starting to look, customers are starting to look for evidence of companies that have a social position that are going to provide a service back to humanity or the environment or the greater good. So I think there's going to be some pressure from the consumer and customer side as well when they start to investigate which companies they want to do business with. Would you choose a career who has zero carbon impact compared to one that doesn't? And both offer the same delivery time and roughly the same price, for example. So things are changing and they're changing fast, in my view.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you, Cassandra. Let's move, excuse me, from purpose and let's go to. You mentioned freedom, before I rudely interrupted. Tell us a bit about freedom.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: So freedom is about. This is the concept of, rather than having a hierarchy, which stifles growth and is highly competitive, has silos, creates internal competition to more like. And the analogy they use is more like a rainforest, which is a self sustaining ecosystem. It's incredibly powerful, it's incredibly strong. And when adults are able to operate as organized teams with a centralized ecosystem coordinator, I've called it Tor, a traditional MD who makes sure that teams have all the tools and the support, the materials to do their jobs well, keeps them upheld to the vision, keeps the ship steered in the right direction, but ultimately their job is to enable. So when teams are able to interface directly with their client or their customer and develop those strong relationships, they can also look for ways to add value to their customers because they know them so well and experiment with new, better, improved versions of products. And I think when experts are left alone without having to, when I say loan, I mean not having to rely on constant instructions, not having to seek approval and just eliminate a lot of bureaucracy that, interestingly, the CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, calls a bureaucracy of disease because it's just so stifling and it's just, we all know it's heavy and it's, it's, it's turgid, and it's usually a waste of time, to be honest. So freedom is about giving the adults capability, space and room to solve decisions by themselves, trusting that they can solve decisions, trusting they can go about doing their job without being micromanaged, without being told what to do, without having to check in every second or third day, for example. That seems appropriate to me, particularly as we moved into a new humanity. Which brings me to creativity. Brendan. So part of that freedom is the autonomy to be creative. And this is so important because as humans, we are inherently creative beings. We wouldn't have bridges and new tech if we weren't creative. Creativity creates innovation, and constant creativity is absolutely essential for companies to stay competitive in a now global market. It is so important for us as people, but also for a business to continue to evolve and thrive.
And so, you know, Google is well known for allowing their software engineers one day a week to focus purely on creating something or doing something experimental, whatever they like, and have that creativity time. So that that time, whether it's in that format or another, is crucial for a business such as a startup, for example, to continue to evolve and create new product versions or new products and experiment with those.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: How do you set up that freedom, Cassandra? Is it simply a case of saying, hey guys, I trust you, go and do your stuff, make the right decisions?
[00:39:39] Speaker B: There's quite a few factors, so great question, Brendan. Yes, that's part of it. Trust is inherently part of it. Of course, hiring people that are going to be able to operate well with freedom, people who have some clear values around integrity, work ethic, can solve problems quickly, intellectually capable, for example, emotionally intelligent, maybe some factors that business owners might want to consider. But also when there's a culture of trust and when there's an inherent understanding that mistakes aren't to be punished, that mistakes are learning experiences, it really does create the right environment to cultivate open conversations about new ideas, new thinking. Let's try this out. Let's see if what this customer's asking us can actually be turned into something that we can use for them, for example, becomes embedded in the culture and the DNA. So stand up creativity or ideas sessions, for example. It's all part of allowing people to be who they are and not having to conform to very restrictive job descriptions, which were developed for the industrial revolution when people worked on machinery and have barely changed since. Brendan. I mean, that was appropriate at that time, almost 300 years ago. And unfortunately, organizational design has really not progressed much since then at all, surprisingly so. We're kind of tearing up the rule book a little bit. I don't think there's a need for a HR department, a strategy department, finance area, internal affairs. Why should we need internal affairs if we trust our staff? Really, all these sort of silos of functions that are considered to be normal in business really are so expensive to maintain. Compliance is another one. Why do we need compliance? If we've got a group of adults who work well together and have a common purpose and are seeing results, it instantly says, we don't trust you or we need to check up on you. That model also means that businesses don't see opportunities that come over the hill because corporates are so focused and invested on maintaining their hierarchy that it's quite inward looking, takes a lot of energy and time. And I think the big banks, Brendan, are a great example of this, that they simply did not see the neo banks arriving on the market. They completely missed it almost. So the market share in Europe of neo banks is a lot larger in Australia, but still in Australia we've got four or five neo banks that are real competitors to the big four banks, they're obviously cost effective. They're cheap, they're fast, they work well for the consumer, and I think that's a much better way to do business than maintaining a large hierarchy.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: Cassandra, I think you've touched a nerve with me in that I agree with so much what you're saying, particularly about the damage that these compliance and HR and all that stuff does. So I think at some point, I'm not sure if you're going to be exactly the right person, but I need to get you or somebody in to talk about the damage that the HR function has done to culture over the time rather than help it. But anyway, that is definitely a different conversation. But yeah, I'm very much on your wavelength. I have to say my experience with those sort of areas has been not very good in the past. Okay, you've explained freedom and creativity piece really important there, and I get what you're saying. My takeaway from what you've said too, it's, it sounds really important to make sure that when we're bringing people into our organization, that we have some clarity around the sorts of people and the behaviors that we want these people to have that are in their own DNA. Because when that happens, then creating this freedom, having this creativity, people acting in a way that the organization values will happen. I'd say naturally, nothing ever happens naturally, but it's more inclined to go the way you want as opposed to way you don't want, by bringing in people who aren't aligned with those behavioural values. Is that fair to say?
[00:43:59] Speaker B: It is, and this is absolutely, this is quite a complex topic as well. Of course, at a top level, yes. I mean, there are some behaviors and values that are sort of, that are evident or intrinsic in terms of the way people speak and conduct themselves, or why they're attracted to a certain organization.
Having said that, though, it's important to not hire people because they will be traditionally a cultural fit. Now, I know that sounds like a juxtaposition because we want people to obviously fit with and support the culture. But on the other hand, hiring people that are too much like us means that we're not going to be diverse. And diversity is absolutely crucial. And the reason for that is because there is not only data to demonstrate quite clearly that the greater the level of diversity in organization in terms of spectrum of human demographics, there's a direct correlation with the number of different ideas that are generated. Now this is critical. This is a crucial point in terms of maintaining an innovative, competitive company. We've got people from a range of different backgrounds, obviously, gender experiences, ages, religions. Everybody's going to offer a different viewpoint and create a thriving organization. Having said that, though, there are some core values, Brandon, that you mentioned, that should be deal breakers, and they can be measured now through emerging technologies such as natural voice recognition, which is becoming a quite. It's a sophisticated interviewing tool, basically for being able to look past our subconscious biases and actually select person who. People who have the right skill sets or the right values for that role. So, yes, hiring should be done without the pressure of having to get a lot of people in the door fast as well, because it's bound to mean that a portion of those people won't be a good fit and the attrition rate will be really high, which is what startups grapple with all the time. So resisting that urge to get people on seats, to be competitive and taking one's time is a fine line. But not having a traditional HR function, recruitment function to do that, and having an embedded recruitment or talent acquisition advisor who knows the business, but also knows the industry and the landscape, and actually have them advise managers or people in the team if they want to decide who should work with them, what things or what candidates might be a suitable match for their purpose and for how they work. So I think that area is evolving, too. I think the days of traditional recruitment are going to need to keep pace with creating more diverse work.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: Well, I think the reality is the traditional recruitment process is broken and doing the same thing over and over again and not expecting a different result. That's what they call insanity, isn't it? So again, I really appreciate you just unpacking that a bit and touching on that. And, you know, thankfully, a couple episodes ago, this is 70, episode 68, we spoke to a lady very much around inclusion, the DEI space, and she spoke very, very well around that. So 100% on board. What you're saying, the generation or having that diversity and the different lenses that we all look at in the world through our own experiences is super powerful in progress and building that creativity piece that you mentioned around freedom, super, super valuable. So let's go into three. Cassandra, what's the third part of this creation, this model you work through, you've created?
[00:47:42] Speaker B: It's safety. So this is the absolutely most critical part of a healthy culture. So we've all heard the term psychological safety, and it's talked about, and I, to be honest, I have had probably one or two experiences in my career where I've actually experienced a team with gender and psychological safety. So psychological safety is, again, about how our brains respond when we're in our work environment. And Google's Project Aristotle in 2017 measured what were the most effective elements that created a high performing workforce. So they looked across their entire Google FTE and a range of different factors, and psychological safety stood out by a mile in terms of what was most important to have a high functioning workforce. It's no longer okay to not have a safe workforce where people experience really disrespectful behaviour, or any disrespectful behaviour, for that matter. Can't table ideas without fear of reprisal or threatening somebody else. Bullying, of course, is an obvious one. Exclusion, basically. Dehumanizing behaviors erode safety. Trust is core, like you mentioned before, to creating safety. Trust is essential, and there are certain key ways to do that, but psychological safety is the primary priority. So if we think about that rainforest concept that I mentioned before, and this is mapped out on the growth culture website, safety is basically the floor or the roots of an ecosystem. It keeps it anchored through times of change, through different environmental factors. When people feel safe, they know that they have a voice, they're not under threat, and they can function at their best. And I think it's time for people to start feeling safer at work and not spending up to 60% of their time playing politics. So I've covered freedom, creativity, purpose, diversity and safety. And so the way that I've married those different elements together is like a simple mathematical equation. So if we look at the freedom, creativity and purpose along the top, and if it's divided by safety on the bottom, safety. When safety is diluted, any of those top three factors will also be diluted. So that has to be solid. And then those four, if they're multiplied by diversity, that's when it can expand and a greater number of ideas can be generated. These all create and equals to a thriving workforce. Thriving people and thriving is the genesis of innovation. So that's why I call it the thriving formula. And there's different ways to embed and unpack all of those, but at a top level, that is a formula that I battle tested with a few groups that I believe creates a thriving human ecosystem of work.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: Just run through that formula again, Cassandra.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: So it's freedom plus creativity plus purpose divided by safety, and then right at the end, multiplied by diversity, and that equals thriving, which creates innovation. So I found that that's a great way to translate my cultural blueprint in a way that makes sense to people, and everybody can relate to those elements and have some experience in what they mean to them.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: Safety as the division part of the equation, let's say. So freedom plus creativity plus purpose over safety. I love that formula, by the way, and it's fantastic. From understanding safety and how it. How division sort of makes things smaller in mathematics, I suppose.
What is it that makes things bigger as far as safety goes in organised, is there? Look, I know and obviously aware that safety is a massive bucket of stuff and it's lots of little things, repeatable and all those. Again, have you seen something that a leader has done or an organisation has really focused on that has doubled down on safety? It's really stood out as something. Wow, that's something that I need to harness and use for more organisations because it makes a significant difference.
[00:52:26] Speaker B: Yeah. I had the opportunity to experiment a little bit with this when I was heading up a team some time ago in the federal government and basically what I did was I took with me the key things that I admired from the leadership that I've worked with. I sat down with my team and said, look, you know, I want us to develop a vision and a purpose, but it actually belongs to you. This is your vision, you're creating this with me. So we did that. And then I said, I want to basically map out the ground rules in terms of how we're going to work and what you think are appropriate in terms of values. Once I've had a chance to do that, then I explained that I want you to know that I'm here to support you. My agenda is simply to help you to do your jobs, to be leaders, so that I can lead in the way that I need to and achieve my outcomes. There are no such things as silly questions. If you have a question, ask it. Ask it of me, ask it of your teammates, ask it of somebody else in the organization. If something's not right, speak up and I will back you. Come and chat to me if you feel comfortable doing so and I will support you. That is my job. Even if it means putting my own neck out or taking risks. If you're not well, if you feel like you need a day off work, you genuinely do take a day off work, let me know in advance, or if you can. If not, that's okay, just let me or someone else in the team know. And all these factors, that was simply my style and experience. Immediately you could see people's anxiety levels starting to drop, thinking, oh, I can just not worry about how I'm going to, you know, pick up the kids on these particular days or this concern. I've had for a while, but I haven't been able to speak about because I know somebody else is not going to agree with me. It could just see the worry sort of diminish in the room and that created an instant sense of trust that obviously we had to continue to build. The other thing that I've done is I've rewarded staff where it's been really appropriate. People get, you know, come up with new ideas or they've worked the extra, the yard or the mile. I will openly acknowledge them or nominate them for an award. And that creates incredible traction and a ripple effect when those people start to become role models themselves too. Brandon, that affects other teams and affects other parts of the organisation. So that's been my approach to creating trust and safety, to let people know that it's okay to make mistakes, that I have their back, that they are supported and if they do a good job they're going to get rewarded for it.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: I know we've gone down in a sequential order and maybe that is the way to go, I'm not sure. But where is the best place to start for an organisation in this model?
[00:55:07] Speaker B: From scratch really. So if we're talking large corporates, a large corporate needs to be, to be honest, it needs to be broken down before it can be rebuilt. So I've worked on a lot of transformation programs as you know, a lot of change roles and the sheer millions of dollars that are of spent on yet another transformation, another restructure, not to mention the human impact that, that has the latest leadership training, off the shelf products, there are so many of them and so many of them are often rehashed and reused in a different form because people don't know what the solution is and organisations are looking for the solution to fix their culture. But it's almost, it's too, to be blunt, it's too late unless organizations are really willing to have the courage to sit down and say and be open minded to doing things differently and creating a new structure and a new way of being. A new way of doing things. It's a hard ask in a regular corporate, on the other hand, smaller, newer businesses before they scale. When the culture starts to take care of itself, basically it becomes its own entity and it doesn't, sorry, you said the word take care of itself, but it actually doesn't take care of itself. Ironically, it needs to be set deliberately and decided how it's going to look and feel and be. And that translates to the customer, of course. So what leaders and large corporations can do is be open minded about how they're going to reassess their hierarchy, because I don't think that hierarchies are going to continue to work that well for much longer and for smaller organisations to lead the charge and lead the way because they have an incredible opportunity to create brilliant cultures from scratch. It's such a golden opportunity that larger organizations just do not have. So yes, that's what I think needs to happen for a thriving workplace to be built.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it's again, a great point, but established organisations can't go back and hold on, we're just going to close this down and we're going to start up as a startup again or anything like that. So again, in your experience, what sort of attributes do you think a leader needs to have in order to have the courage to turn around culture in an organization they may have just joined? I mean, as the ultimate leader, that CEO person.
[00:57:29] Speaker B: So a leader needs to be honest, park their ego at the door if that's driving a lot of behavior. Be humble, be willing to listen to staff. There's a real opportunity for boards to also change the way that they do business as part of this. Brendan so I think that the days of boards deciding the strategy and what an organisation should and shouldn't be doing based on quarterly meetings where people fly in and read their papers at the last minute, is not really, I'm talking in general terms, it's not really the best way to do business. If I had a multi million dollar company, billion dollar company, I would want to know what someone in operations thinks about the business. I wouldn't want to know what someone in marketing is doing in terms of their strategic outlook, what a salesperson on the ground is experiencing and what their feedback is. All the different parts of the business should be at the boardroom table. It shouldn't be a set of external people that have often got in that role because of their connections. How is that going to create a high functioning company? I don't see the logic. I understand the history and I understand the concept, but I don't see the logic in that, I never have. There are some stellar people on boards that I've worked with, are highly capable and often juggling those roles in tandem with a range of other board roles and executive roles and other responsibilities, and not best placed to make those decisions. And they often get told what executives tell them and what executives want them to hear, which is not the reality of what's actually going on on the ground floor in terms of the revenue generating of the business. So going back to your question about what leaders can do, leaders can actually still create a vision and lead the company, but they can do it in a way that involves everybody in the organisation and have a much more integrated role. And good sponsorship as well, is about understanding different parts of the business going out on the ground. If it's a utility, for example, having a GM or a CEO actually go out and speak to some of the men and women who are delivering the service on a hot day, or when they've experienced a safety incident or there's been a death, is a much, much more effective way for a CEO to understand what's going on and actually make the changes or lead in the way that is appropriate for the business, not in the way that they know and understand.
[01:00:10] Speaker A: Cassandra, I love the way you think. I think the exciting thing for me, I'd love to sort of be sitting in the boardroom or fly on the wall, because I reckon you'd rock a few boardrooms from time to time. And to be honest, that's exactly what's needed in some of the stuff we're talking out. So maybe when you're doing that, you can invite me sometimes just to sort of be a fly in the wall, just to watch how you make these people squirm.
Look, I always like to ask our guests, you know, with this thinking. And again, I love your thinking. As I said, what's had the greatest impact on this journey of yours through being a leader in your field and being a leader of organizations that you've led in the past.
[01:00:49] Speaker B: Deciding to stand true to myself, Brendan, which takes enormous courage and strength. So as a leader in my different roles, standing by my staff, being true to my word and displaying integrity, compassion and respect, has been challenging to maintain and uphold that. And now that I'm leading my own businesses, to uphold those in a different way. So I get sometimes quite a bit of pushback, or people who don't agree with what I'm doing, which is fine, and that's their opinion. But knowing what my true values are, that those are non negotiable, that nobody else can define who I am, and no corporation, no brand or no client is able to alter or dilute my values. Those are the things that I keep coming back to. They formed when I was a girl, and as an adult, they've really crystallized. So I'm very clear about those. I think that's there, and they're essential to lead in any aspect of life, to be honest.
[01:01:49] Speaker A: Absolutely. And I love how you go back and talk formed as a girl, you know, it's this whole journey of life that we're sort of discovering and learning about ourselves. But then the important thing which you've obviously done and articulated very well, is take time to think about what these things are and how you articulate them. Then you can. It really helps you make decisions through life. What's a good decision for you or what's not a good decision for you or what's a good client look and feel like to one that's not. Because when you don't have that clarity, it doesn't feel right. But you're not always sure why it doesn't feel right and you end up sort of making a few mistakes along the lines that you probably wouldn't have made if you got some clarity around that. So well done for you, being a leader that has actually done that and walking the talk and living it each and every day. Cassandra, this has been a fascinating conversation. I've really enjoyed it. There is one more question I have to ask because again, like we said at the top of the show, you've spent time in prime minister and cabinet and there's going to be a federal election sometime in May, we understand a date yet to be decided, but who's going to win this thing? You're a shrewd political mind. Come on.
[01:03:00] Speaker B: This is the hardest question of the show.
[01:03:03] Speaker A: I think you're right there.
[01:03:04] Speaker B: I actually.
The current director of the Liberal Party is a very capable young man who actually used to play soccer with in Canberra and I have no doubt I'm not showing my colors at all. But I know he's going to be very, a very tough campaign manager and difficult for labour to beat, so. But who knows? Like everything in the world at the moment, Brendan, nobody knows. Be fascinating to really see this time.
[01:03:32] Speaker A: Absolutely. If we only had a crystal ball, right, but it certainly would be fascinating. But thankfully we live in a, what we think is a fantastic democracy. So it's all about choice and people will make their choice whenever that date arrives. So, Cassandra, thank you very much. I said number of times. I love the way you think. I love the formula and I know that those sort of formulas, those sort of models don't just come up in five minutes. There is that journey in the process and the experience that underpins that. So well done on putting that together and utilizing stuff that actually builds and helps leaders and organisations have sustainable change and sustainable growth with their cultures. So keep up the great work. I look forward to maintaining the relationship that we've started now I think we've got a few things that we can chin wag over and some similar concepts that we believe in. So thank you very much. It's been a pleasure having you on the culture of things podcast.
[01:04:28] Speaker B: Thanks, Brendan. It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and thank you for having me.
[01:04:41] Speaker A: Integrity, respect, and justice. These are the values Cassandra stands for. It's not surprising she found her values challenged in the high level political environments she's been involved in, because she knows what she stands for. She could reflect on the challenges to her value system and make deliberate choices on what she would do. This is the sign of a true leader, someone who knows who they are, how they want to show up, and can make tough decisions to make changes. If the place of work and her values aren't aligned, are you in a workplace where your values are being challenged? What are you doing about it? These were my three key takeaways from my conversation with Cassandra. My first key takeaway leaders are proactive. They aren't stuck in the day to day. They aren't getting caught up with emergency after emergency. When it comes to creating a great culture, they are particularly proactive. It's not about waiting for a crisis to happen to instigate a focus on culture. They're proactive and always working on culture from day one. My second key takeaway leaders don't play politics. Politics in the workplace is rife. Real leaders don't get involved in politics. They deal with it as they know how destructive it is in teams. And for culture, playing politics isn't respectful of people. Leaders respect people, which is why they never play politics. My third key takeaway, leaders build reliable, repeatable systems through their own experience. They build systems that work for them, not technical systems, but systems in how they want to lead. Cassandra has built a system off the back of her own years of leadership experience. Freedom plus creativity plus purpose, divided by safety, then multiplied by diversity equals thriving people. This is the reliable and repeatable system Cassandra has developed for herself and her clients. So, in summary, my three key takeaways were leaders are proactive, leaders don't play politics, and leaders build reliable, repeatable systems. If you want to talk culture, leadership, or teamwork, or have any questions or feedback about the episode, leave me a comment on the socials or contact me on thecultureofthings.com. thanks for joining me and remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.
Thank you for listening to the Culture of Things podcast with Brendan Rogers. Please visit brendanrogers.com dot au to access the show notes. If you love the Culture of Things podcast, please subscribe rate and give a review you on Apple Podcasts and remember, a healthy culture is your competitive advantage.
