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Mel and I are here today to talk about you as a leader. I’m going to cover three areas like 2020’s been a bit a nut case for all of us. We’re all trying to adapt and adjust and so I’m going to kind of cover what you’ve done individually, what you’ve kind of changed with how you work with the team.
If we just go to the organisational level, what have you thought about in terms of what you start or stop continuing as a business?
I’ll start with a little bit about what’s happened to me in 2020, because on top of all of the broader things, my life has changed quite a lot. So late last year I made the decision to change roles that went into effect in March this year. And not only did I change roles, I moved from Sydney to Melbourne. So in amongst all of these COVID stuff, I’ve changed cities, put my kids in new schools, change jobs. And in fact, the job I’ve gone into is actually kicking off a new team within the organization as well. So I don’t think there’s any more levers I’ve left I could leave untouched. We’ve actually changed everything in 2020, so it’s been a bit crazy.
So within all that, what’s worked for you personally?
Because we’ve been in lockdown for I’ve lost count now for say seven months, we’ve really had to really think about how we work as a team within the household. So getting the kids to work effectively from home, my husband’s been amazing at really doing all of the home schooling and everything because with me starting a new job. I had less bandwidth to do that. And really for us, I think getting outside every day, whether it’s raining, whether it’s dark, by the time you can get outside, whatever it might be going for that walk everyday has been a real game changer in terms of mental health.
And luckily for us, we actually live near the beach. So you can actually go to the beach within the five kilometre radius. And so just seeing the ocean, seeing the sand, getting that fresh air has been really helpful.
Is there anything that has really helped you stay productive working at home?
I’ve done a stint of working from home in the past, so I think I have no idea what to do already in terms of just having that dedicated space that I’m not distracted and I have that, I guess, walk through the door into the study and start my workday. But then equally, you can walk out the door and close the door and start your family time in the afternoon as well.
And those days where we have like back to back zoom calls from eight o’clock to five thirty and there is no break. And there are some of those times where I just you really feel the difference where you just have not stood up, moved outside. There really is this change in mindset from inside the study to outside the study.
Love it, I think that’s really useful for everyone to hear, because I suspect they’ve already adapted and they should be probably doing it already.
But if you haven’t created that space and building those boundaries just really help make things sane. You and I both know that this is the start of a new way of working. So if you create a great home working space now, even if we go back to a blended environment, which we probably are, we’re going to be in the office and back. Having that space will serve you into the future.
What about the team? What have you had to change or what do you have to do?
So funnily enough, because I started a new role in the middle of March, half of my team, I’ve never actually met face to face. So getting to know people and having those really neat personal connections has been a real challenge. So some of the things we’ve done is we have daily catch ups and then we’re social. A bit of a chit chat, so how’s it going? What’s your prediction on the number of cases, whatever it might be? Those little connections have really helped to build the core of the team, even in a virtual environment.
We’ve been able to be clear on our priorities and really say, OK, what are the couple of things we absolutely have to achieve today across the table and then just keep taking those off, keep the momentum going on the things that we can get done.
I trust my team. So it’s not about it’s not about my team working hard. It’s actually are they working too hard and have I got someone overloaded? And so just checking in, asking those questions, have we got the right balance on the workload? I think we can really help people to solve some of the problems of where they’ve got too many peaks and not enough troughs in their work to balance it out for them.
So it sounds like I heard a lot of prioritisation has been really important for a lot of leaders and more about saying what we are going to focus on and what we’re not going to focus on in a limited kind of personal and professional bandwidth environment. Where everyone’s emotionally a bit overloaded and a bit desperate.
That sounds like that’s working for you. And then having those clear priorities listed and so knowing that team is going to focus on those at every meeting. And then the second thing is just to watch out in terms of people’s coping skills and making sure they’ve got the resources they need.
So one of the other things that we’ve really done, we can’t control all of the problems that are going to come our way. But what we can control is making sure that we’re dedicating time to talk about a development plan and having those three conversations.
So that’s another thing I’ve really made sure we don’t deprioritise, those one on one development and career conversations in amongst all the other stuff going on.
So you’re one of those industries and markets where actually you’ve got more demand and so it has put a supply pressure on you to actually fulfill that demand, and you’re kind of busier than ever. But it sounds like for you, you’ve kind of traded off knowing that that’s a short term thing and if you don’t do the medium to long term things with the team, you’re going to lose them over a period of time. Is that kind of your thinking?
Exactly. And I think they’re going to get burnt out and lose sight of what that future vision for them is to sort of keep that spot on the horizon in their eyes to keep everyone going.
How have you thought about being through a lot of personal change in terms of where you live and how you operate, and the company itself has been through a change in a different way to a lot of companies where demands dropped off a cliff. You’ve got the opposite problem. How have you thought about what kind of what you stop, start and continue as a team? So you think about kind of strategically over this period of time?
One of those things that we can do today that can really help our stakeholders to get some wins and then balancing that with the medium and long term and whether it’s the individual career and development stuff. But then also, what do we need to do to be ready for what’s next? What happens when demand goes back to normal? We’ve actually got to have some demand creation ideas in the back of our minds as well. So we need that pipeline to be ready for sometime in the imminent future. We’re just not sure when.
I think I have been talking a lot with bullet and teams about scenario planning over this because they are unknowns and what they do in an army scenario is when there are that many unknowns you kind of know what the other side is going to do and plan for different scenarios. And I think this is one of those situations where it’s a really good method to try out different assumptions.
That’s what you’ve been doing. The game theory.
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