Speaker 1: Appod Shay Production.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of Brave Always the CEO series.
Speaker 2: This series we launch into the new world of brave leadership.
Speaker 3: Happy people create happy businesses.
Speaker 1: True emotionally intelligent leadership.
Speaker 2: I picked up vomit once on our about our four
Speaker 2: flight and everybody thought, well, if it's good enough for him,
Speaker 2: I can do it now.
Speaker 1: We will be joined by culture and leadership.
Speaker 2: Experts and some superstar CEOs who will courageously tell us
Speaker 2: the truth behind their brave leadership journeys.
Speaker 1: I am delighted to have with me in studio. News
Speaker 1: Corp Australia's.
Speaker 2: Queensland editor and the editor of the Career Mail, mister
Speaker 2: Chris Jones. Chris has had an impressive twenty one year
Speaker 2: career with News Corps, spanning his early days as a
Speaker 2: reporter to head of news and now finding it the
Speaker 2: helm of one of the leading newspapers in the country.
Speaker 2: He also co hosts Towards the Game's podcast with Lutzi,
Speaker 2: where they explore the journey of Brisbane's transformation for the
Speaker 2: twenty thirty two Olympic Games.
Speaker 4: Welcome Chris.
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to be here. Emma.
Speaker 5: I think what you're doing is really impressive. You're giving
Speaker 5: a permission to be vulnerable, particularly for male leaders I
Speaker 5: think find it quite difficult.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 2: And you know, it's funny like over the last few years,
Speaker 2: particularly with running my business, you know, I have the
Speaker 2: pleasure of often working with a lot of executives and
Speaker 2: CEOs in their field, and people will say to me
Speaker 2: afterwards like we're they scary, Like it's like they're.
Speaker 4: Just human beings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's kind of what this is about, is that
Speaker 2: success doesn't mean that you don't have all of the
Speaker 2: human emotions, and people can see that in a different way,
Speaker 2: and it's sort of sometimes I think will put people
Speaker 2: off moving to the type or pushing themselves the top
Speaker 2: or whether they can even get there because they're not
Speaker 2: completely stoic and you know, they don't have these things.
Speaker 2: So it is kind of allowing people to see that
Speaker 2: it's both sides of the coins you.
Speaker 4: I appreciate that. How's a year started for you?
Speaker 3: Good? Busy. It's always busy, but always exciting as well.
Speaker 5: You know, we're coming up to a federal election, you know,
Speaker 5: off the back of a state election with the change
Speaker 5: of government and a lot of what we do as
Speaker 5: politics yeah, it's courts and crime and and so on.
Speaker 5: But I think what makes newspapering in the digital sense
Speaker 5: these days as well as print, but newspapering different to
Speaker 5: other media is the time that we spent thinking about
Speaker 5: politics and so on, and the role that we play
Speaker 5: in terms of meaning. That's probably the central point of
Speaker 5: why journalism calls.
Speaker 3: People, is the ability to use.
Speaker 5: The platform to make a difference. You tend to do
Speaker 5: that through politicians and the decisions that they make, and
Speaker 5: leading them to that is really meaningful. So I always
Speaker 5: start the year feeling relaxed after a big break, but
Speaker 5: also excited about what's to come. You have a big break,
Speaker 5: always do four weeks. I always do not much more
Speaker 5: other than just sitting on my ass as much as possible,
Speaker 5: Try not to travel too far, yep, and just do
Speaker 5: a proper reset so you can come back fresh.
Speaker 4: That's good, good ritual.
Speaker 2: Now I'm guessing that journalists just have an amazing way
Speaker 2: of ensuring that there's little information about them out there.
Speaker 2: So congratulations, you've done a good job with that. The
Speaker 2: least amount of things I could recently human being with you,
Speaker 2: I couldn't even forget what we were born are you
Speaker 2: born in Brisbane?
Speaker 5: Well, I think part of that is I don't think
Speaker 5: we're very good at telling our own story, you.
Speaker 1: Know, So it's because you know what you're like.
Speaker 4: On the other end of the picture, I think.
Speaker 5: It's because you spend your career telling other people's stories
Speaker 5: and leaning into them. It's kind of yeah, you find
Speaker 5: it quite confronting. So I was born in Melbourne but
Speaker 5: grew up in Brisbone. One of the interesting things when
Speaker 5: I think about my career and leadership journey and someone
Speaker 5: is all I ever wanted to do was be the
Speaker 5: editor of the Korean Mail.
Speaker 4: No you didn't, Are you serious?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Absolutely, So it's great to have achieved it. And I've
Speaker 5: been in this gig for five years. And it's kind
Speaker 5: of interesting as well, where you reach a point at
Speaker 5: which you've hit your goal and you can do it
Speaker 5: for a period of time. But I've got twenty or
Speaker 5: thirty years still in the workplace, and I guarantee you
Speaker 5: I won't be able to the corean male for twenty
Speaker 5: or thirty years from now, So you know, it's a
Speaker 5: bit of a crossroads moment as well.
Speaker 4: I bet were you delivering newspapers as a young boy?
Speaker 4: What was it about.
Speaker 5: I just love journalism, and I do love newspapers as
Speaker 5: much as you know. We're a digital subscription business now
Speaker 5: that happens to do a newspaper, and the newspaper's still
Speaker 5: really important and we still print a lot of them
Speaker 5: every night light, but you know, the future is the
Speaker 5: digital subscription business. But I just love There's something beautiful
Speaker 5: about a newspaper and I've always been in love with it,
Speaker 5: the romance of it. Like I said, I did put
Speaker 5: out that little one in the street for a few
Speaker 5: years in the end of primary school and loved that
Speaker 5: and just always had a real affection for them. And
Speaker 5: what it's growing into is a love of journalism and
Speaker 5: as I say, the meaning behind great journalism and the
Speaker 5: impact that you can have in telling, you know, the
Speaker 5: stories of everyday heroes or sporting heroes, or indeed driving
Speaker 5: significant change.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously this there's a lot about the passion
Speaker 2: you have for this. The purpose of being in this
Speaker 2: field is to make change for good. It sounds like
Speaker 2: wherever you possibly.
Speaker 5: Can, I think journalism absolutely is a calling. Yeah, there
Speaker 5: was a period there where every English teacher told their
Speaker 5: kids who were good at English to choose journalism. Some
Speaker 5: of the best journalists in the world world can't string
Speaker 5: a sentence together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but they know what.
Speaker 5: A great story is, that you have the right motivation,
Speaker 5: and they know how to put those things together tocue
Speaker 5: great outcomes. And the way you motivate a team of
Speaker 5: journalists is not to give them rewards or clap their
Speaker 5: paid cynics. So the traditional workplace Friday afternoon stuff makes
Speaker 5: them feel awkward.
Speaker 3: The way that you motivate.
Speaker 5: A team of journalists is really just back their stories,
Speaker 5: back in what they want to tell and the change
Speaker 5: that they want to make. I'd be very surprised if
Speaker 5: there's many successful journalists who wouldn't just consider it a
Speaker 5: total calling rather than a job that you turn up
Speaker 5: to and do.
Speaker 3: For eight hours a day.
Speaker 2: So then on the flip side, given this is to
Speaker 2: purpose driven thing for yourself and for most journalists, probably
Speaker 2: when you're in the reporting space, and let's say in
Speaker 2: particular talking in politics right where sometimes sometimes a lot
Speaker 2: of what said is to be popular, is it conflicting
Speaker 2: for you? Then when you see people not using that
Speaker 2: platform for good.
Speaker 5: I think one of the the challenges that the industry
Speaker 5: has had over the past fifteen twenty years is the
Speaker 5: rise of a celebrity journalist. I think journalists are best
Speaker 5: when they're not the story, but absolutely in the middle
Speaker 5: of it, so that they can provide the behind the scenes,
Speaker 5: genuinely informed analysis and commentary. Analysis is better than commentary
Speaker 5: if you're a journalist to then allow the readers into
Speaker 5: those I suppose sacred spaces that readers would never actually
Speaker 5: get access to it. The great thing about covering politics
Speaker 5: is that you do get access to those things. The
Speaker 5: greatest other than obviously being the end of the Curry Mail,
Speaker 5: the greatest time in my life was when I was
Speaker 5: in the Press Gallery in Canberra in two thousand and three,
Speaker 5: in two thousand and four, and just the way you
Speaker 5: just witness history in those halls, you're part of significant moments.
Speaker 5: Bringing the readers into that is actually part of the
Speaker 5: job of a great journalist, but never actually turning the
Speaker 5: camera onto yourself.
Speaker 2: Does it worry that if you ever changed career pass
Speaker 2: that you'd ever find the same adorenaline that you get
Speaker 2: from this.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure I could ever not be a journalist.
Speaker 4: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough.
Speaker 2: Going back to when you first started your career, I
Speaker 2: did really comment that you said, I think you were
Speaker 2: a reporter for the Weekly Outdoors.
Speaker 1: I think that's what your first role was.
Speaker 5: Look, I won the lottery early in life.
Speaker 3: I was at UNI. I was second year UNI.
Speaker 5: I met the great Dennis Watt, now the chair of
Speaker 5: the Goldcast Titans, one of the greatest journalists ever. He
Speaker 5: was chief of staff I think at the time. And
Speaker 5: I met him in a journalism student Association function and
Speaker 5: he said, with all this stuff you've done, I've done
Speaker 5: a bit of boating and fishing sort of magazine worked
Speaker 5: just as a part time gig to get me through UNI.
Speaker 5: He said, you really should be putting your name up
Speaker 5: to Chris Mitchell, who was the edder at the time.
Speaker 5: So I sent off package Popoli. I sent it off
Speaker 5: and I didn't hear anything for a couple of months.
Speaker 5: Now it's a phone call from Chris Mitchell's the AA
Speaker 5: saying come in on this date next Monday or whatever.
Speaker 5: So I went and bought a tie and did all
Speaker 5: that sort of stuff that you do when you're young
Speaker 5: and going for your first job interview. I sat down
Speaker 5: and Chris basically said I love what you've done.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 5: We're starting a weekly week end well outdoors. It was
Speaker 5: called outdoors supplement. Yeah, on a Friday, I'd love you
Speaker 5: to come in and be the reporter for that. So
Speaker 5: the first maybe twelve months of my career was literally
Speaker 5: jumping out of planes and riding around in boats and
Speaker 5: calling it journalism. It was the weecked and I did
Speaker 5: my best to hide myself over in the corner. But
Speaker 5: it only lasted a year or so before you know,
Speaker 5: the rest of the room figured out all the chief
Speaker 5: of staff who wasn't Don figured out that I was there,
Speaker 5: and obviously I had a bit of talent, and they
Speaker 5: brought me into the news world and off we went.
Speaker 5: That was a great year.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I'm getting this sense that you're the
Speaker 2: kind of person when you sit your mind to something,
Speaker 2: you just go for it. Is that true? Or does
Speaker 2: a lot of fear and doubt come into play? Is
Speaker 2: that sort of a front or in the background, and
Speaker 2: you thinking can I do this? Like I'm not even
Speaker 2: finished my degree here, I'm just going to leap in
Speaker 2: and do this.
Speaker 3: I think self awareness is so important in leadership. So
Speaker 3: I've spent a lot of time doing it.
Speaker 5: My natural work persona, which is not inauthentic to home,
Speaker 5: you know, is a classic Myers Briggsy and TJ.
Speaker 3: You know, it's the full.
Speaker 5: Napoleon Steve Jobs commander type. Okay, if you're more of
Speaker 5: a fan of the HBDI, I'm everything in equal measure
Speaker 5: other than the red quadrant, the WHO stuff. So I'm
Speaker 5: all about the what, how, why rather than the Who. Naturally,
Speaker 5: so I do struggle with the empathy stuff, and I'd
Speaker 5: love to come back to talk about that because I
Speaker 5: think I've got some stuff.
Speaker 3: To share there.
Speaker 5: But beyond all of that sort of personality stuff which
Speaker 5: is authentic, is also this sense in my whole life
Speaker 5: a natural shyness or something maybe a worry about what
Speaker 5: people are thinking about me. And obviously part of that
Speaker 5: drive is also look at me, look at me. So
Speaker 5: I think there's been times where that's come across as
Speaker 5: cockiness when it's not me being cocky. It's just me,
Speaker 5: as you say, being driven and pushing. And I think
Speaker 5: as you grow, being deliberate and learning how to when
Speaker 5: to employ the confidence thing, when to actually lean into
Speaker 5: that and when to come back and be more authentic
Speaker 5: and vulnerable is a constant challenge. But something that's really
Speaker 5: critical because cockiness can absolutely get in the way of
Speaker 5: all sorts of things, including being promoted in a modern workplace.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, interesting.
Speaker 2: So in those early days, then, what was your first
Speaker 2: moment where you felt really exposed, Because you mean, you
Speaker 2: probably would have had a bit of confidence in you,
Speaker 2: you know, this young reporter jumping at the planes and everything.
Speaker 2: When did something goes sort of a bit pear shape
Speaker 2: and you suddenly went, oh, god.
Speaker 5: That you never ever ever forget your first big mistake
Speaker 5: in journalism. Okay, and look, it wasn't a massively big
Speaker 5: mistake in the scheme of things, but I felt like
Speaker 5: it was the end of the world. Somebody had given
Speaker 5: me a tip of the location of the new office
Speaker 5: for the you know what was then the CJC, the
Speaker 5: Crime and Justice or whatever I was commissioned now the
Speaker 5: Triple C. And I basically took the story tips fact
Speaker 5: and wrote it ran that big which is, you know,
Speaker 5: three or four paragraphs on page you know, one hundred,
Speaker 5: and it was wrong. And the next day, obviously, you know,
Speaker 5: it turned out that it was just wrong and I
Speaker 5: just hadn't done the work, just hadn't checked. But I
Speaker 5: just felt like the world was crumbling around me, because
Speaker 5: you know you've made a mistake and you don't know
Speaker 5: at that time whether it's a consequence or not. You know,
Speaker 5: now as the editor, there's probably ten or eleven of
Speaker 5: them on any given week. You know, you just sort
Speaker 5: of work through not the exact thing, but you work
Speaker 5: through issues all the time. I just felt like, again,
Speaker 5: everyone was looking at me. Your world's collapsing. The chief
Speaker 5: of staff at that time was Paul Whittaker, who's now
Speaker 5: the chief executive of Sky News, and he's a classic
Speaker 5: will always be a great journalist no matter what he's doing.
Speaker 5: And he came over and he sat on my desk
Speaker 5: and he said, I can tell that you're hurting. And
Speaker 5: you know, you've got two ways to go from this.
Speaker 5: One you can let this consume you, or two, you
Speaker 5: can just learn from the mistake and just don't make
Speaker 5: that mistake again. What can you learn and just push
Speaker 5: forward with confidence.
Speaker 3: Newsrooms, particularly twenty five.
Speaker 5: Years ago, were not great places for leadership culture. But
Speaker 5: I think that was the first example or modeling of
Speaker 5: just really strong leadership. Yeah, take the time out, show
Speaker 5: the empathy, but be factual. Yeah, like call it out,
Speaker 5: give the feedback, but also give permission to get out
Speaker 5: of it. I'll never forget that, and I owe that
Speaker 5: sort of moment to Paul.
Speaker 2: There's a show, doesn't it like they could have been
Speaker 2: a very different interaction you had. How would you say
Speaker 2: that in general you are with self compassion, because it
Speaker 2: sounds like you probably beat yourself up a lot at
Speaker 2: that point.
Speaker 4: Fair enough, you're a young guy.
Speaker 2: You wanted to get ahead now when things happen, and
Speaker 2: now you've got tons more responsibility on your shoulders when
Speaker 2: things don't go to plan.
Speaker 4: Well has it in a critic?
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty vocal. I don't like to stuff up.
Speaker 5: I certainly have many perfectionist traits, and I think you learn,
Speaker 5: don't you learn how to moderate over the years you
Speaker 5: get older, which I'm suddenly feeling. I actually try to
Speaker 5: lean into it a little bit. I do, genuinely try
Speaker 5: to lean into self awareness and particularly self reflection. And
Speaker 5: that's not exactly what you're asking, But I always always
Speaker 5: set aside time to reflect on most things. So a
Speaker 5: conversation in leadership, I'll always reflect on, you know, a
Speaker 5: mistake or yesterday's paper or yesterday's story, or that story
Speaker 5: we just published, or that slide deck I've just presented,
Speaker 5: or the presentation of that slide deck, or the presentation
Speaker 5: of that strategy, or the conversation I've had with my
Speaker 5: peers and all those moments. I always just try to
Speaker 5: take that thirty seconds or ninety seconds to sit and
Speaker 5: actually work through it, probably sending myself mad in the process,
Speaker 5: but try to be very deliberate about you know what
Speaker 5: am I learning from that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I hate to make a mistake still.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think the industry you're in and
Speaker 2: the role you're in, like in comparison to lots of
Speaker 2: other roles, mistakes can be quite big and e quite amplified.
Speaker 4: Right, how do you relax if.
Speaker 1: You're not leaving work till nine o'clock and you're waking
Speaker 1: it too? With?
Speaker 2: Has this gone out? If we think about resilience in
Speaker 2: my you resilience as the obstacles are the path. You
Speaker 2: can't avoid the obstacles. They're coming, it's just what are
Speaker 2: you doing to prepare for them? So how do you
Speaker 2: set yourself up to live what could be quite a
Speaker 2: high adrenaline stressful life in terms of things could fire
Speaker 2: off at any stage?
Speaker 1: How do you keep yourself calm and how do you
Speaker 1: keeps it together. What are you doing?
Speaker 3: You just drink a lot, Emma, I'm just cut of
Speaker 3: that numbers.
Speaker 5: No, No, not the case. No, that actually makes it worse.
Speaker 5: So first point is I think you just have to
Speaker 5: assume it's going to consume your life. How do you relax? Well,
Speaker 5: I think it's just getting those coping mechanisms of just
Speaker 5: learning about having a head full of stuff and being
Speaker 5: able to just you know, compartmentalize at the end of
Speaker 5: the day and just know it's all going to be
Speaker 5: there tomorrow, which just sort of I think comes over
Speaker 5: time in terms of relaxing. I love anything around the water, boating, fishing,
Speaker 5: being at the beach, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: Water is my.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, And if I can have a water experience
Speaker 5: in the diary knowing it's coming, the thought of that
Speaker 5: is quite comforting when things do get pretty full on
Speaker 5: The other advice I've had from my boss now, Michael Miller,
Speaker 5: who's the executive chairman, is every couple of weeks set
Speaker 5: aside some time to actually just id eight and think, yeah,
Speaker 5: so whether that's you know, alternate fridays, just work from
Speaker 5: home for the morning and don't actually put anything in
Speaker 5: your diary and just maybe make a list of things
Speaker 5: you want to think about and just actually spend the
Speaker 5: time thinking. And every morning I do try, I endeavor
Speaker 5: to just do a ten minute guided meditation. Do find
Speaker 5: that really does help ground and is ten minutes? I'm
Speaker 5: sure most people listening to this, No, it's often hard
Speaker 5: to find the ten minutes, isn't it?
Speaker 1: It's just thing, isn't it's eighten minutes? But yet it
Speaker 1: can be quite hard to find.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 2: So I'm super obsessed with mel Robins at the moment,
Speaker 2: a big fan of her current work that she's put
Speaker 2: out around to let them theory, and as somebody who
Speaker 2: probably hasn't done that very well in her life, like
Speaker 2: I can let people's opinions and thoughts affect me and
Speaker 2: gathering being in journalism, like you have to develop a
Speaker 2: thick skin, right because people have opinions on what you're
Speaker 2: right and so forth. Do you feel that it's been
Speaker 2: a case with you, Like, is your skin go really
Speaker 2: thick over the years?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Does it still bother you when people have opinions on you?
Speaker 2: Or does it not even affect you anymore?
Speaker 5: Okay, So as a journalist, never really felt it as
Speaker 5: a reporter, so I never really felt it, and that's
Speaker 5: because I was in the old school world of you know,
Speaker 5: we weren't the story. Yeah, you have to learn as
Speaker 5: an editor. I think in Hobart I learned it. I
Speaker 5: was there for two and a half years as the editor.
Speaker 3: And the.
Speaker 5: Love affair or that, the ownership and love that a
Speaker 5: community like Hobart two hundred thousand people have for their
Speaker 5: masterthead is extraordinary. They all feel like they have permission
Speaker 5: to criticize and so on, and often that becomes quite personal.
Speaker 5: So that was probably the steepest learning curve was just
Speaker 5: learning to deal with that. I think the way I
Speaker 5: get through it is to just go, well, am I
Speaker 5: confident in the position that we talk or you know
Speaker 5: the way we approach that? And if so, then the
Speaker 5: rest of it is just input and feedback can noise
Speaker 5: so it doesn't hurt people, doesn't mean it stopped hurting.
Speaker 5: Maybe that's the bark you know I've had. There was
Speaker 5: a period there when during the pandemic, when bored Kevin Rudd.
Speaker 3: We all know that.
Speaker 5: We all know that Kevin Rudd. There are many you know.
Speaker 5: It was tweeting to his However, many followers. I think
Speaker 5: he bought most of them, but the you know, that
Speaker 5: little little mob that he gathered in that era, you know,
Speaker 5: just personally calling me out. And you know, I think
Speaker 5: it was one one tweet. I do remember them. But
Speaker 5: one tweet was like, you know, there's rumors that, you know,
Speaker 5: Chris Jones's job is in jeopardy because of you know,
Speaker 5: some perceived political slight you know, Kevin and Malcolm of
Speaker 5: the Classic they forget it was all good when, you know,
Speaker 5: when they were being supported by our company and the editorials,
Speaker 5: and they forget that and they focus on the other
Speaker 5: stuff since when we're calling out their madness. But anyway,
Speaker 5: and and you know, you feel, you know, I wasn't
Speaker 5: worried about my job, but you fear it because you're
Speaker 5: being sort of exposed. You know, you didn't choose public
Speaker 5: life like the politicians.
Speaker 3: I think you're a fair game. But I think that's
Speaker 3: probably part of it as well.
Speaker 5: I think you just have to accept that as the editor,
Speaker 5: you have chosen a bit of a public role, even
Speaker 5: though it's not that customer facing always. And also, you know,
Speaker 5: if you're kind of giving it, you might as well
Speaker 5: you should probably be up for getting a little bit back, and.
Speaker 4: Again that's fine.
Speaker 2: I just I remember when Virgin, when I was back
Speaker 2: at Virgin and we went through administration.
Speaker 1: There's the cartoon slating of our leader at the time.
Speaker 3: Paul and great great got two. Pool's a good guy, isn't.
Speaker 4: He's a great guy.
Speaker 2: Very privileged to work for him for that period, and
Speaker 2: and I just I remember feeling so much for him,
Speaker 2: like because I knew him as a person as out
Speaker 2: you know, I worked for him.
Speaker 4: It was a great human being.
Speaker 2: And he was slated a lot of the time, and
Speaker 2: I just thought, God, that's got to do something to people.
Speaker 2: And and I know, and he's pretty transparent. Actually, he's
Speaker 2: quite a vulnerable leader to be able to say, yeah,
Speaker 2: it really hurt. And I think it's important to know
Speaker 2: that even though people have got thick skin like it's
Speaker 2: it's still a lot. It's a it's a tough thing
Speaker 2: to go through. If you then look at the the
Speaker 2: other side sort of with authenticity, is it easy.
Speaker 4: To be completely Christians all the time?
Speaker 2: Like are the things that you actually want to say
Speaker 2: and do at times that you just can't because of
Speaker 2: the role you play.
Speaker 5: I haven't actually found that Emma. I think the great thing,
Speaker 5: one of the great things about our company is for
Speaker 5: all of the criticism, I tell you, you know, it's
Speaker 5: probably not the right place to get into it, but
Speaker 5: for all the criticism is there's a whole lot of
Speaker 5: great things about our company, as there is, you know,
Speaker 5: and the criticism tends to come from our you know, yes,
Speaker 5: our critics, but also our competitors.
Speaker 3: The free reign that.
Speaker 5: You get as editor to pursue what it is that
Speaker 5: you think is important for your community is pretty extraordinary,
Speaker 5: so you can be authentic. There's the view from the
Speaker 5: inside of the company is as the editor in a
Speaker 5: place you are, your job is not just put out
Speaker 5: the product. Your job is to be absolutely an aggressive
Speaker 5: I suppose, or an out there member and aggressive in
Speaker 5: a you know, in a good sense, aggressively pursuing you know,
Speaker 5: what makes that community tick, Listening to your readers what's
Speaker 5: important to them, and connecting that up with the things
Speaker 5: that you hear in the unique access that you get
Speaker 5: around town. And we're let and you know, if I
Speaker 5: meet with Robert Thompson, who's our global CEO, all he
Speaker 5: does is ask me questions about Queensland. Because my job
Speaker 5: is to understand Queensland better than anyone else. If you're
Speaker 5: given the freedom to do that, then you can be
Speaker 5: authentic in terms of what you're pursuing, what you're saying,
Speaker 5: all that sort of stuff. I think the authenticity in
Speaker 5: the workplace hopefully my team see it. I think it's
Speaker 5: often a challenge, isn't it.
Speaker 3: In leadership. You've got a really.
Speaker 5: Busy job where you get so busy and so consumed
Speaker 5: with that to do list that you struggle to find
Speaker 5: the time to show people the authentic you. And when
Speaker 5: you do, you get that connection that you feel like,
Speaker 5: oh wow, that's really driving an outcome here, and then
Speaker 5: you get caught back in your list. Our CTO in
Speaker 5: Australia does a thing where before he even gets to
Speaker 5: his desk, he walks through the room and talks to
Speaker 5: as many people as he can.
Speaker 3: He must iroze.
Speaker 5: It just sets aside half an hour to just do
Speaker 5: that at the start of every working day, and his
Speaker 5: team you don't even have to say his name, you
Speaker 5: just say has work.
Speaker 3: They oh, I love it.
Speaker 5: Every day my boss comes in and has a authentic
Speaker 5: conversation with me, and it can be about the work,
Speaker 5: but it can also be because we're having this all
Speaker 5: the time and just talk about life whatever. So I
Speaker 5: try to do that. You go for a wander through
Speaker 5: the newsroom, but you're just a slave to the priorities, right,
Speaker 5: and your prior should be a people. I just think
Speaker 5: that juggle is a real constant challenge in my view.
Speaker 2: I say culture's behavior repeated, right, So it's what people
Speaker 2: see all the time. So like in some roles and companies,
Speaker 2: you've got the ability to put things in place and
Speaker 2: practices and rituals, but you know you are living by
Speaker 2: the what's going on around you and what happens. You're
Speaker 2: at the mercy of that. So I think it's role modeling,
Speaker 2: isn't it. Like if I Win and chatted to five
Speaker 2: r people that work for you, how do you think
Speaker 2: they'd describe you as a leader.
Speaker 5: I hope fundamentally they would say he's a great editor, yeah.
Speaker 3: Because that's what we do.
Speaker 5: And I would worry that they would say a bit
Speaker 5: too much of I don't really know him, as I say,
Speaker 5: that's my constant struggle is just how to get that
Speaker 5: balance right to invest in You talk about cultures and
Speaker 5: it was never modeled to me.
Speaker 3: The newsroom that I spent the first.
Speaker 5: Ten years in at least started in ninety eight, So
Speaker 5: they weren't smoke filled rooms, but they certainly were filled
Speaker 5: with a bunch of cranky old people who thought the
Speaker 5: way to an outcome and ironically it got you there
Speaker 5: was to yell at you and rand and rave and
Speaker 5: carry on. So it was never modeled. And I've never
Speaker 5: actually been in I've never done anything else. I've never
Speaker 5: been in an environment which I can model that behavior
Speaker 5: of that would be my concern if I'm being vulnerable.
Speaker 4: Yes, no, it is.
Speaker 2: It's a true thing, right because it comes at risk.
Speaker 2: But when you say, is it more a fear of
Speaker 2: being judged if you are or open? We talk about
Speaker 2: being open? Talk about the most obvious thing COVID Right
Speaker 2: when it happened. Was it like I'm at the helm,
Speaker 2: We've got this, It's just go, go, go go.
Speaker 4: Or is it I'm exhausted?
Speaker 2: How are you guys feeling like I'm not sleeping too
Speaker 2: well with anybody else in this boat? Was there much
Speaker 2: of that happening at that time? Was that difficult to
Speaker 2: do because you kind.
Speaker 5: Of had to just well, I think one of the
Speaker 5: great benefits of that lockdown time was that we all
Speaker 5: as leaders hopefully invested in the human side. Yeah, because
Speaker 5: you knew everyone was strong, and you would find the
Speaker 5: time or lean into that a lot more, maybe because
Speaker 5: you weren't seeing face to face. I think the impact
Speaker 5: of COVID, obviously it has been huge. I've seen it
Speaker 5: certainly in our newsroom and in our industry. For so
Speaker 5: many people it was a really it was a moment
Speaker 5: where they thought about their life and how they want
Speaker 5: to spend it. And I think we're still seeing the
Speaker 5: ripples of that. What we used to do in COVID
Speaker 5: is one example is we had a bunch of cadets
Speaker 5: as usual who we would normally be training up just
Speaker 5: authentically in the newsroom. So we sat up a weekly
Speaker 5: hour where we batch them up with mentors. I'd get
Speaker 5: on there and we just talk to them and you know,
Speaker 5: what's been hard this week?
Speaker 3: What have you loved doing?
Speaker 5: All that sort of stuff, and we just have that
Speaker 5: chat and just give them that time. Literally, I always
Speaker 5: feel like I'm a prisoner to that, you know, the
Speaker 5: challenge of the to do list versus the people stuff.
Speaker 5: And I think that's also where my comfort.
Speaker 1: Zone is, is that more time though, like, is it
Speaker 1: a time thing.
Speaker 3: It's a comfort thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so naturally focused or my safe space is how
Speaker 5: are we going to do this?
Speaker 3: Why are we doing it? How are we going to
Speaker 3: do it? You know? What are we going to do?
Speaker 3: Rather than whose stuff? I mean?
Speaker 5: I think one of the early lessons in leadership for
Speaker 5: me was this shock that people came every day but
Speaker 5: also just came generally from a different context. I couldn't
Speaker 5: work out why don't you just want to work twelve
Speaker 5: hours a day?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, why don't you?
Speaker 5: I know you're different, your personality is different. It took
Speaker 5: me a while to learn that everyone turns up in
Speaker 5: a to diverent context. And I suppose the extension of
Speaker 5: that being the TJ character is really recognizing you know
Speaker 5: it instinctively, but really recognizing that your success relies on
Speaker 5: having a great team around you who are focused and
Speaker 5: supported and guided and valued and feel all those things
Speaker 5: to deliver on the outcome. That has absolutely been a
Speaker 5: journey for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's actually a very nice touch on
Speaker 2: empathy in a way, right, because understanding other people's perspectives
Speaker 2: and points of views is a big part of empathy.
Speaker 1: I feel empathy's the biggest struggle for leaders out there.
Speaker 4: Personally.
Speaker 2: It's a challenging one right because it's holding space for
Speaker 2: other people's emotions and what's going on. But as we're
Speaker 2: seeing with workforces more and more people for the start
Speaker 2: I was looking at the other day, but you know,
Speaker 2: something like ninety two percent I think of employees expect
Speaker 2: their company to be able to provide them with personal
Speaker 2: support and development.
Speaker 4: Now, ten years ago, I remember.
Speaker 2: Speaking to somebody who would laugh at that and be like,
Speaker 2: it's not out responsibility.
Speaker 4: Like you know, sort yourself out, but that's what they want.
Speaker 2: And then we're going to have this, you know, gen
Speaker 2: z workforce come twenty third, that thirty percent of our
Speaker 2: workforce to expect that.
Speaker 4: Do you see that?
Speaker 2: Do you feel now there is that big chef with
Speaker 2: I'm just grateful to have a bloody job versus actually
Speaker 2: I need to give.
Speaker 4: These people more.
Speaker 5: Well, you certainly see in the younger group, and that's
Speaker 5: just I think that you're right, that's his generational thing.
Speaker 5: I started there and I thought, oh, I want to
Speaker 5: be chief of staff by the time I'm thirty and
Speaker 5: I was twenty. You know, like there's my ten year goal.
Speaker 5: These guys come in and go, I'd like to be
Speaker 5: edited next week, you know, like just slow down a bit.
Speaker 5: I think what's been interesting post COVID, whether it's a
Speaker 5: post pandemic thing or what it is, there is more
Speaker 5: of that sense. And I think it's probably also related
Speaker 5: to these conversations, giving us in leadership permission to have
Speaker 5: the more vulnerable conversations over lunch or whatever with our peers.
Speaker 5: Maybe it's also a cultural thing, as people have just
Speaker 5: started to realize, hey, you don't have to just kind
Speaker 5: of turn up and do the grind, like there's something
Speaker 5: else going on here too. We spend the third or
Speaker 5: more of our life, you know, in these workplaces, I
Speaker 5: suppose we expect more. And that's a real challenge for
Speaker 5: busy leaders and particularly INNTJ leaders to dial into the
Speaker 5: thing that you just naturally find the most challenging.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Would you say you're a curious leader or curiosity
Speaker 2: something you need to I wanted to say curious, not
Speaker 2: as a journalist, as a people leader.
Speaker 3: Not enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's the kind of underlying bit, right,
Speaker 2: is they just wanting to know more about people and
Speaker 2: getting to know it. Yeah, journalism can be an industry
Speaker 2: resistant to change, but you've been an ambassador from bracing change,
Speaker 2: especially digital media and new technology. So like, where does
Speaker 2: that inspiration come from? Like why are you so driven inevitability?
Speaker 5: One fair and that's like it's a bit flippant, but
Speaker 5: actually it's also true, right, Like dragging a newsroom that
Speaker 5: is a print newsroom. Yeah, my entire career, well certainly
Speaker 5: the last all but the first few years has been
Speaker 5: dragging that newsroom into what will be the future. Obviously,
Speaker 5: there will be a time where we don't print. I
Speaker 5: don't know when that is. It's further away than we think,
Speaker 5: but there will be a time. So the core of
Speaker 5: what we do is still the same storytelling, telling great stories,
Speaker 5: making difference.
Speaker 3: All that sort of stuff.
Speaker 5: In a busy environment with a seven day roster where
Speaker 5: you got a five am starter and a midnight finisher
Speaker 5: and you got six weeks and three days leave a
Speaker 5: year for journalists because they work public holidays, it is
Speaker 5: very very hard to have your Tuesday morning scrum.
Speaker 3: It just basically doesn't happen.
Speaker 5: And so driving change, leading change is actually a real
Speaker 5: challenge but is so important for our business, like any business.
Speaker 5: But also it's just fun. There's this sense of the
Speaker 5: golden ear of newspapers. It was a golden nearer because
Speaker 5: we were just printing money, because we had the monopoly
Speaker 5: on printing presses and classified ads. It wasn't gold in
Speaker 5: a lot of other You go back and look at
Speaker 5: some of those products that are pretty crap, and part
Speaker 5: of that was it's so one dimensional if you add
Speaker 5: photos maybe one and a half dimensional, the canvas of
Speaker 5: print versus the canvas of digital. Why wouldn't you'd try
Speaker 5: to lean into the canvas of digital and think about
Speaker 5: how does that help us tell the stories? Not how
Speaker 5: do we do tricks to add trickery, How does video, audio, graphics, whatever,
Speaker 5: How does that help tell that story and really engage
Speaker 5: the audience in Again, that story that you're telling I
Speaker 5: think is just bloody.
Speaker 2: Exciting, absolutely very conscious of time. Crest a more minutes,
Speaker 2: you sure loving.
Speaker 3: It's the best counseling session I've ever been to.
Speaker 1: I haven't even and I'm only scoping service. You're lucky.
Speaker 3: I've I appreciate.
Speaker 1: It, thinking I could, but I'm not going to push
Speaker 1: them too hard.
Speaker 2: All right, A couple more I want to ask you here,
Speaker 2: So when we talk about asking the hard questions.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're not afraid to ask hard questions right
Speaker 1: in journalism.
Speaker 2: But what about having the difficult, hard conversations with your staff,
Speaker 2: like you have to let someone know they're not performing
Speaker 2: so well or whatever else do you have to deal with?
Speaker 4: How do you feel about those?
Speaker 3: It's the most important thing. It's also the hardest thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Is it a skill of yours that you feel like.
Speaker 5: Oh, I feel like I'm good at it in the moment,
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm also incredibly good at putting it off, Okay,
Speaker 5: And that is a big learning that I've had, particularly
Speaker 5: over the last eight years when I've been in the
Speaker 5: editor type roles or the editor roles. Is just the
Speaker 5: critical importance of leaning into them and it's getting them done,
Speaker 5: ripping the band aid off. It's not only important for
Speaker 5: you as the leader. It's not important for the subject
Speaker 5: of that tough conversation. It's actually equally as important for
Speaker 5: the team. Yeah, because the team know that person needs
Speaker 5: that conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: The longer you leave it to fester, the more it
Speaker 5: impacts on how the team views your leadership.
Speaker 2: Couldn't agree more and look to be honest when I
Speaker 2: ask that question, and I often do. I mean, if
Speaker 2: someone said to me they don't have a problem with that,
Speaker 2: I think, then there's a problem with the leader because
Speaker 2: it should affect you. Right, You're still dealing with someone's
Speaker 2: feelings and emotions. The point is you can't avoid it.
Speaker 2: It's that my favorite Brene Brown line clear is kind
Speaker 2: unclear as unkind.
Speaker 1: So I think it's important to do that. This is
Speaker 1: a tough one.
Speaker 4: But why not awesome?
Speaker 2: I means, if you wouldn't give it, I want to know,
Speaker 2: Chris Jane, why should anyone be led by you?
Speaker 5: I would hope it's because I'm a leader who's genuinely
Speaker 5: always trying to do better. I'm well aware, as you've
Speaker 5: awkwardly exposed in the last half hour, how many gaps
Speaker 5: I've got. But I spend lots of time on self reflection.
Speaker 5: I sard lots of time thinking about how can I be
Speaker 5: a better leader?
Speaker 3: What do I need to do to be better?
Speaker 5: And I'm always striving to be there, to be better,
Speaker 5: to be like a Not to deflect, but it's a
Speaker 5: bit like our journalism. It's not always right, but do
Speaker 5: we try hard to get it right and make the
Speaker 5: right cause, so there's that, and hopefully also what comes
Speaker 5: through is you know, my passion for what we do.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can tell.
Speaker 2: The definite constant theme I've seen with a lot of
Speaker 2: people is this, when you have this deep passion, it
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like hard work of time. It's tough, but
Speaker 2: it feels different, and I think, I mean, what a gift.
Speaker 2: Not everybody in their life will get to do a
Speaker 2: job where they feel that way, and so I think
Speaker 2: for as long as you feel that way and you
Speaker 2: turn up, I'm sure other people will feel it. I
Speaker 2: could talk to you for a very long time, but
Speaker 2: I want to thank you for coming on and for
Speaker 2: being so honest and vulnerable, because it's not always.
Speaker 1: Easy to do, and it is a gift for other
Speaker 1: people because.
Speaker 2: A lot of people look up to you and admire you,
Speaker 2: and to be able to see that you're not this
Speaker 2: infallible human and that there's things about you too that
Speaker 2: you want to work on and grow on, it is
Speaker 2: going to be great for people.
Speaker 3: Well, look, I've really enjoyed That's what I've tried to
Speaker 3: bring today.
Speaker 5: Am, because I think you, as I said at the start,
Speaker 5: you're doing such a great job with these things. I
Speaker 5: think they're a real gift to others. And when you
Speaker 5: asked me to do it, I thought, yeah, I reckon,
Speaker 5: I can do that.
Speaker 3: And I think.
Speaker 5: Hopefully, hopefully that vulnerability is not just help showing that
Speaker 5: I'm human like everyone, but also just hopefully people have
Speaker 5: picked up other leaders who struggle with the same things
Speaker 5: are hearing going, wow, I'm not alone.
Speaker 1: Absolutely Bill's connection.
Speaker 2: When does the real counseling session I was going to
Speaker 2: say to you, does that mean that you're going to
Speaker 2: come on for a round two where I'll be way
Speaker 2: tough and you I took it easy.
Speaker 4: I took it easy time.
Speaker 1: I reckon you find We'll see how you go for
Speaker 1: around too.
Speaker 4: But thank you for coming on.
Speaker 1: It's been great.
Speaker 4: Thanks Chris Thos