Speaker 1: Just focusing on what we as a business can control,
Speaker 1: and focusing on what I personally can control and not
Speaker 1: what I can So I can't control that the tourism
Speaker 1: industry is not hiring it all right now. Of course
Speaker 1: they're not. Of course they're not. But what I can
Speaker 1: control is for industries that are that they're having a
Speaker 1: really good experience, that my team is checking in with
Speaker 1: our customers and making sure that we're doing all that
Speaker 1: we can for them, and that we set up the
Speaker 1: internal processes and motivations that make that happen.
Speaker 2: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics
Speaker 2: used by the world's most successful people to get so
Speaker 2: much out of their day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imba.
Speaker 2: I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium,
Speaker 2: and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my work. Date.
Speaker 2: Before we get started on today's show, I just wanted
Speaker 2: to do a little call out for listener questions. I
Speaker 2: wanted to experiment with a new format on the Tuesday
Speaker 2: episodes where I answer any questions that you, as a
Speaker 2: listener have on your mind about work and productivity and
Speaker 2: particularly this new world of work, so I'd love it
Speaker 2: if you could send me through anything that's on your mind.
Speaker 2: My email address is Amantha at Inventium dot com dot
Speaker 2: au and that's also in the.
Speaker 3: Show notes, so I look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's get on to today's guest.
Speaker 3: Who is Kendra Banks.
Speaker 2: Kendra is the managing director for Australia and New Zealand
Speaker 2: at Seek and if you live in Australia you've probably
Speaker 2: used sink at some point in your career and for
Speaker 2: overseas listeners. Seek is Australia's number one employment marketplace, which
Speaker 2: Kendra heads up.
Speaker 3: So I loved catching up with Kendra.
Speaker 2: She's such an inspiring female and really thinks deeply about
Speaker 2: how to provide a great experience to employees during this
Speaker 2: time of remote work.
Speaker 3: So we talk about.
Speaker 2: That, we talk about how her leadership team is making
Speaker 2: decisions and as you can imagine as an employment website,
Speaker 2: it's been a pretty tumultuous few months thanks to COVID
Speaker 2: and the huge rise in unemployments, so I love getting
Speaker 2: insight into how Kendra and her leadership team are making
Speaker 2: their most important decisions right now, and we cover a
Speaker 2: stack of other things from homeschooling and juggling three kids
Speaker 2: and trying to work at the same time and even
Speaker 2: providing a limited cares leave. So on that note, let's
Speaker 2: head to Kendra to hear about how she works.
Speaker 3: Kendra, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Now to paint a picture.
Speaker 2: And I've been starting all interviews this way during COVID.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me where you are and what level
Speaker 2: of lockdown or IO or not are you in?
Speaker 4: Yes, so I can tell you.
Speaker 1: I am in the suburbs of Melbourne and it is
Speaker 1: the end of July twenty twenty, so we are in
Speaker 1: pretty much for lockdown. I am sitting at my chair
Speaker 1: in my home office, where I've been sitting most days
Speaker 1: for the past four and a half months, so looking
Speaker 1: out my window.
Speaker 3: And so you've been working from home for a decent
Speaker 3: chunk of time. I'm about the same. I think I'm
Speaker 3: on about five months. And I want to.
Speaker 2: Know how has the way you approach your work on
Speaker 2: a day to day basis changed from making the shift
Speaker 2: from I would imagine like, were you in the office
Speaker 2: almost one hundred percent of the time previously.
Speaker 4: Yes, I was, so I work for a SEKH.
Speaker 1: I run the Australia New Zealand businesses for SEKH and
Speaker 1: for those of your listeners who don't know, SEEKH is
Speaker 1: a technology company for the recruitment industry and for job seekers,
Speaker 1: so we run job boards and recruitment technology, career advice,
Speaker 1: talent platforms, et cetera. So, being a technology company, were
Speaker 1: actually quite enabled to work from home, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people at seek would work from home quite often,
Speaker 1: but I personally didn't. As a people leader, I really
Speaker 1: like the kind of face to face, in person interaction
Speaker 1: of leading my team as individuals, as groups, as project teams,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So I worked from home I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe once every two or three months. And when I did,
Speaker 1: I mean I was literally sitting at the desk in
Speaker 1: my son's bedroom under his bunk bed. That was that
Speaker 1: was my home office setup prior to COVID. So when
Speaker 1: COVID hit, the first thing I had to do was
Speaker 1: set up a desk. So yeah, we've advanced on that
Speaker 1: front in the last last five months.
Speaker 4: For sure.
Speaker 3: That's good. Good to hear You've got a desk that
Speaker 3: certainly helps. So yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2: Being a people leader how did you go about making
Speaker 2: the transition from literally seeing everyone and presumably your team
Speaker 2: and the teams under those leaders pretty much every day
Speaker 2: to having no face to face contact, Like, how have
Speaker 2: you gone about I guess compensating for that loss?
Speaker 1: Well, like most organizations, we started off by pretty much
Speaker 1: transferring everything we were doing in person onto Zoom, and
Speaker 1: we started off just replicating that exact same in off
Speaker 1: as schedule on Zoom. Now that meant we had still
Speaker 1: lots of virtual face to face contact, but we probably
Speaker 1: weren't optimizing for a new kind of remote working setup
Speaker 1: because having a lot of one to ones in big
Speaker 1: meetings on Zoom it gets very tiring very quickly. That
Speaker 1: we all found that Zoom fatigue is very real, and
Speaker 1: also you're not really taking advantage of all the tools
Speaker 1: and different ways of working that being remote technology affords you.
Speaker 2: So, what have been the biggest and most impactful changes
Speaker 2: that you've made on that front?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say there are big changes. We've been optimizing
Speaker 1: kind of as we go, and probably that's the most
Speaker 1: important changes that we check in every few weeks on
Speaker 1: how we're going From a team. Rhythm's perspective is this
Speaker 1: still the do we still need this many meetings? Do
Speaker 1: we need that meeting? Do we need another one? Which
Speaker 1: of our meetings could we be doing asynchronously using email
Speaker 1: or slack instead? Which check insul should we increase because
Speaker 1: we're seeing collaborations start to fade in certain areas, So
Speaker 1: I'd say that that really regular retroing of how we're
Speaker 1: working has been critical. The other point I think is
Speaker 1: just making everything shorter and sharper when it's on zoom,
Speaker 1: so we'll do you know, it was a forty five
Speaker 1: minute check in, it moved to half an hour, it
Speaker 1: moved to twenty minutes. Making everything as tight as tight
Speaker 1: as it it can be, to just give people, give
Speaker 1: everyone a bit more flexibility in how they're managing their day.
Speaker 3: And how have you managed to tighten it?
Speaker 2: Like how do you go from a forty five minute
Speaker 2: meeting to a twenty minute meeting?
Speaker 1: Well, I think making them more frequent. So we found
Speaker 1: shorter and more frequent has been better as a team
Speaker 1: being very specific about what we wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: with which group, when being a little bit more rigorous
Speaker 1: around well, what's the agenda for this meeting? Who needs
Speaker 1: to be here, what aren't we going to discuss here?
Speaker 1: And you know, fortunately we work in a very trusted
Speaker 1: collaborative environment, so with a team with higher levels of trust,
Speaker 1: I think you can shortcut to the heart of an
Speaker 1: issue more quickly.
Speaker 3: I love the idea of shorter meetings.
Speaker 2: I was reading some research from Microsoft a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago that shows that at the thirty minute mark
Speaker 2: in a video call like Zoom or whatever platform people
Speaker 2: are using, that is when the brain starts to officially fatigue.
Speaker 2: So I love that you've got them down to twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: That would certainly be in line with the research.
Speaker 4: And I wish it's not every meeting. That's a few
Speaker 4: of our meetings.
Speaker 1: That research was fascinating and I think just so interesting
Speaker 1: because you know, we're learning more about how the brain
Speaker 1: works when you're on Zoom and on calls like this
Speaker 1: all the time, and it's not it's not optimal.
Speaker 2: It's not it's not and something else like do you
Speaker 2: can't remember that this was in some of Microsoft research,
Speaker 2: but I've read it in other psych journals that one
Speaker 2: of the things that make zoom calls more fatiguing is
Speaker 2: that most people don't hide the view of themselves. So
Speaker 2: there's all this impression management going on, like looking at
Speaker 2: how you're looking when you're talking, not from a vanity
Speaker 2: point of view, but just kind of going, oh, do
Speaker 2: I look oka my expressions okay?
Speaker 3: Inappropriate and so forth.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious, like, do you hide yourself view on
Speaker 2: video conferences?
Speaker 4: No? I don't.
Speaker 1: I've read that same thing and maybe I should. One
Speaker 1: of the things I actually find hardest as a leader
Speaker 1: over the past few or have found hard over the
Speaker 1: past few months, is understanding how you're landing. So you know,
Speaker 1: if I was doing an all staff meeting with you know,
Speaker 1: say four or five hundred people in the room, we
Speaker 1: would do that in person. Yes, we might have some
Speaker 1: people watching on zoom, but most people would be in
Speaker 1: the room. And so as you're explaining, you can kind
Speaker 1: of see are people along with you, are they not
Speaker 1: along with you? Are they understanding? Do they look confused?
Speaker 1: Do they look bored? And when you're doing big meetings
Speaker 1: on zoom or a webinar, you have no idea, you know,
Speaker 1: So I actually find I need to look at myself
Speaker 1: to I don't know, create some kind of energy, I guess,
Speaker 1: and make sure that I'm coming across with energy and
Speaker 1: to sort of self correct in some of these meetings
Speaker 1: because otherwise there's just no feedback loop.
Speaker 2: That is really interesting, isn't it. How else have you
Speaker 2: compensated for that? Because I can completely relate. I do
Speaker 2: a lot of virtual keynotes speaking, and I mean previously
Speaker 2: I or my keynotes were face to face and you get,
Speaker 2: you know, live reactions from the audience, the things like
Speaker 2: a joke's landing even but you have no idea when
Speaker 2: it's when it's virtual. So are there other sort of
Speaker 2: tricks that you've been using to get a sense as
Speaker 2: to how things are landing and the reaction that you're getting.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things it's I'm not sure it's
Speaker 1: a trick we've used, but it's something we've found is
Speaker 1: we use the slide oh app or website for questions
Speaker 1: for Q and A during an all staff meeting. And
Speaker 1: whereas when we started using slider where you can post
Speaker 1: questions anonymously, it was very much a pure questions list.
Speaker 1: What we found over the past few months is it's
Speaker 1: almost becoming like a comment feed of the meeting, so
Speaker 1: people will say things like, oh, really liked that point
Speaker 1: you made.
Speaker 4: About that or.
Speaker 1: Interesting, still wondering about X y Z. So it's a
Speaker 1: little bit hard to kind of watch that live feed
Speaker 1: while you're presenting in the meeting, but that has created
Speaker 1: some feedback in those big webinar type sessions. The dangerous
Speaker 1: side is then sometimes anonymously people will write something not
Speaker 1: so nice, and you know that can get you a
Speaker 1: bit off track as you're presenting. So we're trying to
Speaker 1: manage what's the way to create a feedback leap during
Speaker 1: those meetings without sending them down rabbit hole or taking
Speaker 1: them off track.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I find the chatbox function in zoom just critical whenever
Speaker 2: I'm doing virtual keynotes, and yeah, I encourage people to
Speaker 2: just taste, you know, comment on what you're thinking or
Speaker 2: if I haven't explained something clearly, just ask as.
Speaker 3: I go along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is tricky though to kind of monitor that
Speaker 2: and stay on point and on message. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: like the sound of what you're doing and using slide
Speaker 2: over that. Yeah, similar function to zoom chat absolutely, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: I want to come back to what you said about
Speaker 2: how you're doing regular retros of essentially reviewing how you're
Speaker 2: working and whether you've got like the right frequency the
Speaker 2: right duration of you know, meetings and catch ups and
Speaker 2: so forth. Can you take me through, like specifically what
Speaker 2: happens in one of those retros, Like is there almost
Speaker 2: like an agenda of specific questions that you're asking or
Speaker 2: is it more organic than that? And is this like
Speaker 2: with your team of direct reports. I'd love to kind
Speaker 2: of get some more details there.
Speaker 1: Sure, So it's with my team of direct reports and
Speaker 1: also really in every team through the business. So being
Speaker 1: a software engineering business at our core, we use a
Speaker 1: lot of the agile methodologies and retros are you know,
Speaker 1: I think have come from that that kind of agile
Speaker 1: methodology world. So what we would do in person is
Speaker 1: make it it was very unstructured, you know, the board
Speaker 1: with post it notes, what's going well, what could be improved,
Speaker 1: ideas for the future, kind of stick up the post
Speaker 1: it notes and then group them up and discuss. Just yesterday,
Speaker 1: in fact, with my direct reports, we were running a
Speaker 1: retro and we use Miro, which has a post it
Speaker 1: note type functionality, so we could replicate that approach to
Speaker 1: retros very easily through Miro.
Speaker 4: Yesterday, we did ask specific questions.
Speaker 1: They were about how because we were kind of reviewing
Speaker 1: the financial year. What were our achievements during the year.
Speaker 1: What was disappointing as a team? How are we working
Speaker 1: well together as a team. What could we be doing
Speaker 1: differently when we look ahead to the next year. What
Speaker 1: are going to be the key elements that drive success
Speaker 1: for us? So sometimes will use specific questions, other times
Speaker 1: will make it much more general. What's going well? What
Speaker 1: could be better?
Speaker 2: I want to ask more from an individual perspective. Now
Speaker 2: that you are so far into working from home and
Speaker 2: that's like a complete one eighty for you, what are
Speaker 2: some of the things that you're finding useful in terms
Speaker 2: of your own productivity and your own energy levels? Like
Speaker 2: are there certain rituals or routines that you've incorporated into
Speaker 2: incorporated into your day? Like what's serving you right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great question. It's been changing a lot
Speaker 1: through the past few months, depending on what's happening with school.
Speaker 1: So I have three kids, they're five, ten, and twelve,
Speaker 1: and depending on whether they're on school holidays or homeschooling
Speaker 1: or at school, all three of which have happened in
Speaker 1: the last five months and then gone back again, that
Speaker 1: drives what the house is like. So you know what
Speaker 1: the consistent pieces for me are creating a really clear
Speaker 1: dividing line between when I'm at home and when I'm
Speaker 1: at work, and using this office space I've created as
Speaker 1: a this is my this is my territory. Kids, you're
Speaker 1: not allowed in unless you knock kind of routine. And
Speaker 1: that also has helped me psychologically. So when I'm in
Speaker 1: the office, I'm in the office at work, and when
Speaker 1: I am not physically in the office, I am at
Speaker 1: home with the family, with the kids. So that psychological
Speaker 1: dividing line is helpful. I've also been, you know, like
Speaker 1: a lot of people, I think, trying to force myself
Speaker 1: outdoors every day, just getting the fresh air, having a walk,
Speaker 1: clearing the head. I probably didn't realize how much commuting
Speaker 1: and being at the office and going out for lunch
Speaker 1: or going out to get a coffee gives you the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be outdoors and in the fresh air. And
Speaker 1: if I don't force myself outside, I can actually sit,
Speaker 1: you know, within my office and go back and forth
Speaker 1: to the kitchen in the bathroom and not go anywhere
Speaker 1: else for nine hours straight. So I really need to
Speaker 1: make sure I build in those breaks and as much
Speaker 1: as possible to try to take them outside.
Speaker 2: And I'm curious with almost like training your children about
Speaker 2: the boundaries.
Speaker 3: How have you done that?
Speaker 2: Like, I've got a six and a half year old
Speaker 2: at home, and I'm lucky that I've got some help,
Speaker 2: but i don't know, like how respectful she's going to
Speaker 2: be a boundary. It's like, for example, right now, as
Speaker 2: we're recording this, she's upstairs doing virtual schooling with the
Speaker 2: most wonderful nanny Tudor that is helping me out, and
Speaker 2: I've just said to them, Hey, I'm recording an interview,
Speaker 2: so just try to stay out of the studio.
Speaker 3: Between eleven and twelve. And I think that's going to
Speaker 3: be fine.
Speaker 2: But if it was frankly on her own, I'm sure
Speaker 2: i'd get an important question about her toy lion or
Speaker 2: unicorn or something some emergency like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, And look, that's part of the benefit and joy
Speaker 1: of being at home, right is that you can have
Speaker 1: those little interactions during the day. So you know, when
Speaker 1: I say there's a kind of boundary, you know they
Speaker 1: are allowed to come in, and they do. They do
Speaker 1: so a bit respectfully and they try to be quiet
Speaker 1: when they when they walk in because they know that
Speaker 1: mum's on a meeting or mum's on a call. So
Speaker 1: I've tried to set this that, you know, maybe every
Speaker 1: week there's one or two meetings. I really don't want
Speaker 1: anyone to come in, you know, if I'm presenting to
Speaker 1: the board or you know, this this podcast for example,
Speaker 1: I really don't want to be disturbed, and then I'll really,
Speaker 1: I'll put a sticker on the door. Otherwise, you know,
Speaker 1: if they come in, that's kind of fine. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's one of the nice things about this forced remote
Speaker 1: working as we're all getting a little bit of an
Speaker 1: insight into each other's personal and home lives, which just
Speaker 1: humanizes everybody.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 3: I know, I've really enjoyed that as well.
Speaker 2: And I want to know, like, in terms of almost
Speaker 2: like chunking out your day, particularly during homeschooling, have you
Speaker 2: started to develop different rhythms where you'll be doing some
Speaker 2: work and then some homeschooling or time with the kids
Speaker 2: and then work again, or you sort of still you know, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm at work for the next eight night hours and
Speaker 2: then I'm you know, back to being a mountain.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've been lucky in the since that my husband has
Speaker 1: been doing more of the homeschool support, so I have
Speaker 1: been able to just lock myself and say, I'm working.
Speaker 1: You know, these are my work hours. But that's I
Speaker 1: would say, been the exception, not the norm for most
Speaker 1: people I'm working with. And it's been interesting how we
Speaker 1: have had to adapt our business working rhythms around that,
Speaker 1: because it's just not if somebody is trying to homeschool,
Speaker 1: it's just not possible to work at the same time.
Speaker 1: And I think at the beginning maybe some people thought
Speaker 1: they could kind of do both in parallel. Oh, we'll
Speaker 1: just sit my child next to me. I'm sure it's
Speaker 1: going to be fine. They'll just get on with their work.
Speaker 1: It clearly has not been so, you know, for some
Speaker 1: people it's hit not that hard, like for me because
Speaker 1: my husband's helping a lot. For other people, maybe their
Speaker 1: kids are older and much more self sufficient and it
Speaker 1: hasn't been really impacting their day today, some people this
Speaker 1: has been just enormously disruptive to their ability to work
Speaker 1: from home. And actually, as a team, we have had
Speaker 1: to as a business, we've been spending a lot of
Speaker 1: time prioritizing around that because for people's well being, their
Speaker 1: mental health, their well being. Expecting them to homeschool and
Speaker 1: be as exactly productive as they were without homeschool is
Speaker 1: not good. And if you want to keep somebody happy,
Speaker 1: motivated and able to cope with life, putting pressure on
Speaker 1: them to deliver at the same rate as they were
Speaker 1: before homeschool is not the right approach. So we've been
Speaker 1: telling people we have a carers leave policy. We've made
Speaker 1: that basically unlimited during this COVID time. If you need
Speaker 1: to take cares leave, whether it's half a day, a
Speaker 1: couple hours here, a day, a full week, just take
Speaker 1: it because we would rather you focus on what's important
Speaker 1: to you and then when you're able to work, focus
Speaker 1: on work.
Speaker 3: Wow. That is amazing. So unlimited care isly Wow.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've come across any other companies in
Speaker 2: Australia doing that, not that I.
Speaker 1: Know of whether companies are saying it or not. I
Speaker 1: think for a lot of people, it's just sort of
Speaker 1: become reality because you just can't. It is just not
Speaker 1: possible to do both at the same time. And I
Speaker 1: think that's what this whole lockdown situation is teaching all
Speaker 1: of us. We knew it right, anybody who's tried to
Speaker 1: have carrying responsibilities and work at the same time has known,
Speaker 1: but this has made it very obvious.
Speaker 2: Definitely, definitely, And for those that aren't taking cares leave
Speaker 2: but are kind of trying to juggle homeschool and work,
Speaker 2: are there strategies that you've heard are working for people
Speaker 2: or even a there's strategies that you're using as a
Speaker 2: leader within the business to help people kind of get
Speaker 2: through this very crazy time.
Speaker 1: We've been really trying to help people feel successful at
Speaker 1: what they do. So if you're trying to homeschool and
Speaker 1: care and work at the same time, you feel unsuccessful
Speaker 1: at all three. So some people have divided up their days.
Speaker 1: Maybe they spend a couple hours in the morning focusing
Speaker 1: on homeschool and then they work for a good four
Speaker 1: hour chunk and in that time somebody else looks after
Speaker 1: the kids, or you know, the kids have a bit
Speaker 1: more screen time than perhaps they did in the past.
Speaker 1: Whatever works for that family. So, you know, I think
Speaker 1: probably the more, the more deliberate chunking up of the
Speaker 1: day is what's helping helping a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that sounds very sensible, and I mean, look,
Speaker 2: there is so much stress and I imagine for you,
Speaker 2: like given what Seeks business is, is that like Seek
Speaker 2: is thriving when there's lots of employment opportunities going on,
Speaker 2: and obviously that's not going so well at the moment
Speaker 2: in Australia.
Speaker 3: I imagine it must.
Speaker 2: Have been a very stressful few months for you. How
Speaker 2: have you gone personally about managing the stress and uncertainty
Speaker 2: given the business that Seek is in and given you
Speaker 2: your leading this company.
Speaker 1: Yes, well it's it has been a roller coaster, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. So when COVID hit, you know, the easiest
Speaker 1: way to track what's happening on our business is just
Speaker 1: the number of job ads on the site, and the
Speaker 1: job ads on the website fell by about seventy percent
Speaker 1: within a matter of two weeks, so it's really really dramatic.
Speaker 1: But then that was in April and since then we
Speaker 1: have seen a steady, steady improvement and actually in some
Speaker 1: areas we bounce back quite quickly. So I think there's
Speaker 1: some parts of the economy where they actually let go
Speaker 1: of people very quickly and are now having to hire
Speaker 1: back quickly. So now we're tracking at about thirty percent
Speaker 1: below where we were pre COVID, So that's obviously still
Speaker 1: not ideal from an economic perspective, but it's not it's
Speaker 1: it's not that dire number we saw in April. The
Speaker 1: flip side of that is our purpose as a business
Speaker 1: is to help people live more fulfilling and productive working lives,
Speaker 1: and if we look at it from the job seeker perspective,
Speaker 1: what we're doing is more sortant than ever right now.
Speaker 1: So we've been really motivated by the role that we
Speaker 1: play in helping the labor market work and in helping
Speaker 1: job seekers stand out find the right role for them
Speaker 1: consider different careers. That's another area we've been focusing on recently.
Speaker 1: And while our hiring activity is down, that side of
Speaker 1: our marketplace is unfortunately stronger than ever.
Speaker 3: That's interesting.
Speaker 2: It's kind of nice to hear about you connecting it
Speaker 2: back to purpose. I think one of the biggest questions
Speaker 2: I've been getting from clients and just people connecting with
Speaker 2: me is about losing motivation to you know, kind of
Speaker 2: get up and do their job and you know, go
Speaker 2: to work, that kind of thing, go to work.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting, I think.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, one of the easiest things theoretically is
Speaker 2: to go, Okay, we'll just reconnect back to either your
Speaker 2: company's purpose hopefully that resonates and hopefully you are working
Speaker 2: for a purpose driven organization, or to reconnect back to
Speaker 2: your own purpose and your own values, which again hopefully
Speaker 2: people are at least sort of somewhat in touch.
Speaker 1: With absolutely And that's just so we have really we
Speaker 1: have really leaned on our purpose and seeks very purpose driven,
Speaker 1: and we're also very people focused. And this has been
Speaker 1: a really hard time for all of our people, for everybody,
Speaker 1: not just Seeks people, everybody, and so particularly for leaders,
Speaker 1: but also just as anyone in the business. To look
Speaker 1: after each other has become a bigger part of everybody's
Speaker 1: stay today. And that's that's also I think driven, driven
Speaker 1: motivation and driven support over the last few months.
Speaker 2: It's really nice to hear I want to know for
Speaker 2: you because I imagine you must have days like where
Speaker 2: you're like, oh my goodness, how like works works really
Speaker 2: hard and stressful at the moment, Like how do you
Speaker 2: overcome those feelings when you're just.
Speaker 3: Kind of not having a great day or not having
Speaker 3: a great morning.
Speaker 4: Well, look, I mean I get a lot of energy
Speaker 4: from work.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy my job, I enjoy the team love
Speaker 1: working for SEK and the purpose that we have, and
Speaker 1: so I do remind myself of that, and you have
Speaker 1: to put things in perspective. You know, there's people across
Speaker 1: Australia and across the world right now who are literally
Speaker 1: trying to save lives right there are people with much
Speaker 1: more dramatically stressful jobs than I have right now. So
Speaker 1: I think a bit of perspective is quite useful. But
Speaker 1: then within that, just focusing on what we as a
Speaker 1: business can control, and focusing on what I personally can
Speaker 1: control and not what I can So I can't control
Speaker 1: that the tourism industry is not hiring it all right now.
Speaker 1: Of course they're not. Of course they're not. But what
Speaker 1: I can control is for industries that are that they're
Speaker 1: having a really good experience, that my team is checking
Speaker 1: in with our customers and making sure that we're doing
Speaker 1: all that we can for them, and that we set
Speaker 1: up the internal processes and motivations that make that happen.
Speaker 3: I think that's so good to remember.
Speaker 2: Just like in psychology, psychologists talk about people having an
Speaker 2: internal locus of control or an external locus of control,
Speaker 2: either sort of seeing things within your life as you know,
Speaker 2: within your control or seeing things as happening to you.
Speaker 2: And I certainly think, you know, the more people can
Speaker 2: shift having that internal locus of control in terms of
Speaker 2: how they see their work right now when the rest
Speaker 2: of the world there's so much uncertainty that you know,
Speaker 2: really no one can predict what is going to happen.
Speaker 3: That it's it's a pretty good way to stay engaged
Speaker 3: and energized, that's for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I find, which you might as solve,
Speaker 1: you if you have a six year old, small children
Speaker 1: are very good for distraction, right, Well, if you want,
Speaker 1: you know, I can go spend a few minutes with
Speaker 1: my youngest. Here's five, and he the biggest problem he
Speaker 1: was having the other day was he wanted to put
Speaker 1: socks on his truck. Do trucks thro sucks? Not normally,
Speaker 1: So this was not a very This is not an
Speaker 1: easy problem to solve. You know, we solved it. We
Speaker 1: put sight on that truck.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The problem I was given to solve this morning is, Mom,
Speaker 2: can we make a plane today that will fly? And
Speaker 2: I said, oh, yeah, Like, let's go to the office
Speaker 2: and get some paper. We'll make a paper plan. She said, no, Mum,
Speaker 2: that can fly us like a real one off the ground,
Speaker 2: and can we do that before breakfast?
Speaker 3: Please?
Speaker 4: Very good.
Speaker 1: If you succeed in that today, can I come over
Speaker 1: it and then we can just all go for it
Speaker 1: and go somewhere.
Speaker 4: That would be great.
Speaker 2: I know I'll keep you posting. Something I read when
Speaker 2: I was researching with this podcast is you've said that
Speaker 2: you've deliberately tended to choose the riskier path, and I
Speaker 2: think you know, sort of relating to your career, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to know, I guess, an example of that,
Speaker 2: or maybe a couple of examples of that, and.
Speaker 3: How you have gone about.
Speaker 2: Doing that, because I'd say that that probably doesn't come
Speaker 2: naturally to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Yes, so I've spoken about taking a risk your path,
Speaker 1: and as you say, largely around my own career, and
Speaker 1: that's always been for me because I think I'm quite
Speaker 1: an ambitious, career driven person and the riskier usually takes
Speaker 1: you further. And so the challenge is that is obviously,
Speaker 1: how do you create confidence in taking the risky path
Speaker 1: and how do you kind of control that worry because
Speaker 1: you know, you start to question yourself, are you're making
Speaker 1: the wrong decision or you're going to fail. What happens
Speaker 1: if I fail? Et cetera. That's the kind of the
Speaker 1: mental game you need to play with the with taking
Speaker 1: a riskier path. To share a couple of examples, some
Speaker 1: of them are not positive examples, and actually I think
Speaker 1: the less positive examples are ones that built my confidence
Speaker 1: more so. For example, I started my career in strategy consulting,
Speaker 1: and I had worked with a big nonprofit organization as
Speaker 1: a client, and I thought that I wanted to work
Speaker 1: in the not for profit world.
Speaker 4: And I went to.
Speaker 1: Work for that client, a big, big NGO, and sort
Speaker 1: of through the twelve to eighteen months that I was there,
Speaker 1: I had this like gradual realization just wasn't the right
Speaker 1: place for me. And so after about eighteen months, I left,
Speaker 1: and it took me a really long time to find
Speaker 1: the next job. I looked back on that decision, and
Speaker 1: you know, I could beat myself up about that decision,
Speaker 1: but it was actually because I had made that wrong
Speaker 1: decision that I felt more confident in the next decision
Speaker 1: I made.
Speaker 4: You know, I knew that that wasn't the path for me.
Speaker 1: And therefore, even though and that had been a risk
Speaker 1: to take that path, but because it wasn't the right path,
Speaker 1: I knew much more clearly what the right path was.
Speaker 1: And you know, the next place I ended up worked
Speaker 1: really well. I thrived, stayed there a long time. So
Speaker 1: I think maybe because that was early in my career
Speaker 1: and I made a not great decision but made it
Speaker 1: through to the other side, that built my confidence that
Speaker 1: it's okay to make the wrong decision. You know, a
Speaker 1: career is not a one way path. You can always
Speaker 1: take a step back, you can always take a different turn.
Speaker 1: Getting something wrong actually can help you build your confidence
Speaker 1: more in which what the right direction is?
Speaker 3: What did you learn about decision making?
Speaker 2: Like how do you make those big decisions for yourself now,
Speaker 2: like presumably in a completely different way to how you did,
Speaker 2: you know, back.
Speaker 3: When you took that job early in your career.
Speaker 1: I think I've probably learned to ask for help a
Speaker 1: lot more. And when I say ask for help, I
Speaker 1: mean just getting different perspectives on a decision. So you know,
Speaker 1: for example, I'm part of a network of other tech
Speaker 1: business leaders from a lot of US based leaders or
Speaker 1: some others from international and we meet monthly to discuss
Speaker 1: different questions and that could be a business question or
Speaker 1: a personal question or strategic question, and quite often people
Speaker 1: bring personal career decisions to that group just to talk
Speaker 1: through and get different perspectives on whether what people think
Speaker 1: of that move, what would be the upside, what would
Speaker 1: be the downside, what would be the risks of that?
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, obviously there's no one right
Speaker 1: choice in a career. It depends on the situation, it
Speaker 1: depends on you know what's right for you as an individual,
Speaker 1: and sore for me, hearing lots of different perspectives on
Speaker 1: decisions has made a big difference. And when I've had
Speaker 1: turning points, when I've had to make big decisions in
Speaker 1: the last five or ten years about my career, I
Speaker 1: have reached out to as many people as I could
Speaker 1: who I thought would have an interesting point of view
Speaker 1: on that decision, either because they knew me, or because
Speaker 1: they knew they'd been in a similar role or they'd
Speaker 1: faced a similar turning point, And just collecting those perspectives
Speaker 1: I've found really helpful.
Speaker 3: I can definitely relate to that.
Speaker 2: I think it's such a big one to try to
Speaker 2: remove emotion from the decision, and one of the places
Speaker 2: where I got that piece of advice from my favorite
Speaker 2: book on decision making that I've read, called Decisive by
Speaker 2: Chip and Dan Heath, and they say, you know, think
Speaker 2: about how you can remove emotion from decision because typically
Speaker 2: if you're feeling quite a motive about a decision, you
Speaker 2: tend to make worse decisions. And you know, something like career,
Speaker 2: I mean that triggers all sorts of emotions for people
Speaker 2: making a big career move. So I love the idea
Speaker 2: of sourcing other people's points of view because they simply
Speaker 2: won't have the emotional attachment that you have. And then
Speaker 2: I guess another strategy something I've used occasionally is you know, if,
Speaker 2: for example, like they just aren't people that you can
Speaker 2: ask for advice, maybe it's a highly confidential decision or
Speaker 2: something like that. Is to say, well, if my best
Speaker 2: friend or if this leader that I respect were faced
Speaker 2: with this decision, what would they do in this situation?
Speaker 2: And I found that a very helpful question to ask.
Speaker 4: That is a great question.
Speaker 1: I love that idea of taking out the emotion, and
Speaker 1: I think that that even applies in business decisions. Right,
Speaker 1: So you can be quite wetted people as individuals get
Speaker 1: quite wetted to the things they've worked on for a
Speaker 1: long time, and maybe you know a project isn't going
Speaker 1: that well, but it's hard to let go because you
Speaker 1: actually feel quite emotional about the work that you've done
Speaker 1: and the commitment you've put into it and how hard
Speaker 1: you've worked for it, even though the rational business decision
Speaker 1: could be to stop or change or modify it quite dramatically.
Speaker 1: So I'm a really big believer in having lots of
Speaker 1: different points of view on any decision, as much as
Speaker 1: you can do that in your personal life, but also
Speaker 1: from a business perspective, And I'm wondering.
Speaker 2: With the decisions that you have to make as a
Speaker 2: leadership team, like, are there strategies that you would deliberately
Speaker 2: use to make better decisions or try to remove emotion
Speaker 2: from some of the big decisions, because I would imagine,
Speaker 2: like during March and April there would have been some
Speaker 2: very emotional decisions to make as a business.
Speaker 1: There were, yeah, and look some of them were a
Speaker 1: lot of them were around our people in terms of
Speaker 1: how quickly we were going to mandate working from home,
Speaker 1: and we ended up going more on the earlier side
Speaker 1: of businesses to say no, you know, everyone just work
Speaker 1: from home. This is very uncertain, let's see what's panning out.
Speaker 1: But also how we dealt with our customers. So on
Speaker 1: the hiring side, we've One of the key decisions we
Speaker 1: had was around how much support we give to customers
Speaker 1: who have pre purchased advertising packages with us, So they
Speaker 1: would have said, oh, you know, across the next year,
Speaker 1: we're going to hire five hundred people, so we'll buy
Speaker 1: this kind of level of investment with you. Now for
Speaker 1: a lot of those customers, that five hundred dropped to
Speaker 1: nearly zero, you know, overnight, and so how we dealt
Speaker 1: with that was really important. Probably the key approach we
Speaker 1: use in making decisions, which was relevant there, but I
Speaker 1: think is relevant for other decisions as well, is setting
Speaker 1: up what are the principles we're using to make this
Speaker 1: decision and which are the most important. So in that case,
Speaker 1: we had different factors to look at. We had obviously
Speaker 1: a financial factor. If we were going to refund customers
Speaker 1: a lot of money, that was going to be a
Speaker 1: significant financial impact. We had are we looking short term
Speaker 1: or long term? Is it better to keep the long
Speaker 1: term loyalty or of a customer or the short term
Speaker 1: financial gain? What are our competitors doing, and what you know,
Speaker 1: if we're in our customer's shoes, what would we want
Speaker 1: to see? And we decided that our most important principle
Speaker 1: there was we wanted to be proactive with whatever we offered.
Speaker 1: We didn't want to have customers coming to us and asking.
Speaker 1: We wanted to be proactive. And once we decided that principle,
Speaker 1: that forced everything else into place. There's only so many
Speaker 1: things we can do proactively. There's only so many things
Speaker 1: we can do quickly and simply. And if we wanted
Speaker 1: to err on the side of generosity because we'd rather
Speaker 1: keep the customer for the long term, then actually there
Speaker 1: was only a handful of options that would even make sense.
Speaker 1: So we were able to kind of narrow down a
Speaker 1: very complex, ambiguous question about how we were going to
Speaker 1: support our customers to a narrower set of options that
Speaker 1: we could look at and make a decision quickly.
Speaker 2: And in terms of deciding on what those principles are
Speaker 2: and how much each of them will be weighted, is
Speaker 2: that a group decision or is that something you'd think
Speaker 2: about before harnessing the collective wisdom of the group to
Speaker 2: make a decision.
Speaker 1: We'd probably you know, there'd probably be one or two
Speaker 1: people who would lead the structuring up of that thinking,
Speaker 1: but then we would take it to to a group.
Speaker 1: So in that case, it would have been my leadership team,
Speaker 1: but also in consultation with you know, our finance team
Speaker 1: and executive leadership. Because it was a big, big decision,
Speaker 1: very symbolic decision in terms of how we relate to
Speaker 1: our customers. But I think it helps for one or
Speaker 1: two people to kind of structure up, well, this is
Speaker 1: how we're thinking about it, and then you've got kind
Speaker 1: of a straw man for everyone to look at and
Speaker 1: debate and discuss, just to keep things flowing quickly.
Speaker 2: I want to move on to just general career advice
Speaker 2: because I feel like people that have got, you know,
Speaker 2: become really successful in their career have often received a
Speaker 2: lot of great pieces of advice along the way. And
Speaker 2: I want to know, what are some of the most impactful,
Speaker 2: insightful pieces of advice that you've received over your career.
Speaker 4: M I think it's such a good question.
Speaker 1: And and do you know, I actually think of both
Speaker 1: the best advice I've gotten and some of the worst
Speaker 1: advice I've gotten.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, excellent.
Speaker 4: Tell me.
Speaker 2: Some of the I mean, the best, probably the very
Speaker 2: the most impactful, best piece of advice I had was
Speaker 2: when I was trying to be I had been in
Speaker 2: strategy function for some time and really wanted to move
Speaker 2: into more of an operational function. And this was kind
Speaker 2: of early two thousands, and somebody advised that I move
Speaker 2: into digital marketing because digital was going to be big.
Speaker 2: You know, this is when like Google advertising was kind
Speaker 2: of just getting started and nobody really understood how it worked.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh, we just kind of need somebody
Speaker 1: who's pretty numerus and can figure stuff out to figure
Speaker 1: out how we should use this Google tool.
Speaker 4: Okay, why not?
Speaker 1: Like but that was awesome advice, right obviously set me
Speaker 1: on a path to a very very very big industry
Speaker 1: that then I was able to grow my own career in.
Speaker 1: So I think, you know, more more broadly, I think
Speaker 1: a good piece of career advice that I've received and
Speaker 1: heard is to, you know, to be in sectors and
Speaker 1: businesses that are growing, because as there is growth in
Speaker 1: a sector and growth in a business, that creates opportunities
Speaker 1: and you can grow along with that business or that sector.
Speaker 1: And having been in digital for twenty ish years, that's
Speaker 1: been a lot a big part of the story of
Speaker 1: my own career. Other great career advice I've had has
Speaker 1: been around different jobs. You know, if you say to somebody, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd really like to be in this role one day
Speaker 1: or in that role one day, the advice needs to be, well,
Speaker 1: this is very specifically what the hiring manager for that
Speaker 1: job is going to be looking for, you know, and
Speaker 1: to be really specific about it, because quite often we say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you could stretch into that job one day, definitely,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of vague. But you know, when the
Speaker 1: rubber hits the road and you're sitting in that interview,
Speaker 1: is the hiring manager going to hire you or is
Speaker 1: there going to be somebody who takes more boxes. In
Speaker 1: terms of some of the worst advice, you know, I
Speaker 1: think working parents, and in particular working mothers over the years,
Speaker 1: get a lot of very bad advice from well meaning people.
Speaker 1: The worst advice I ever had was oh, well, now
Speaker 1: that you're having your second child, you probably want to
Speaker 1: come back to a job that's a little bit less demanding.
Speaker 1: Fortunately I didn't take that advice because I had more
Speaker 1: confidence in myself than that. But I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of assumptions made about how parents want to drive
Speaker 1: their careers, which can be can be detrimental. It is
Speaker 1: something I watch for a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. I haven't thought about that one before.
Speaker 2: And I feel like that is great advice to parents.
Speaker 2: And you know, let's face particularly mothers that are listening,
Speaker 2: because that advice is so prevalent, isn't it.
Speaker 1: It's very prevalent. And look, that's not to say that
Speaker 1: parents coming back to work many of that. You make
Speaker 1: your own choice about what's right for you, right, It's
Speaker 1: not that slowing down is the wrong choice. It's that
Speaker 1: to assume that slowing down is the choice for everybody
Speaker 1: is wrong. Equally, to assume that staying in a similar
Speaker 1: career path is the right decision for everybody is also wrong.
Speaker 1: But how do you enable people to look at what's
Speaker 1: really important for them and to make choices that keep
Speaker 1: their options open. If they want to have more options,
Speaker 1: or if they're very set, then they can go on
Speaker 1: a path that works for them. I think quite often,
Speaker 1: at least over the past twenty years, I have heard
Speaker 1: advice given to me and to other working parents that
Speaker 1: I think boxes them in.
Speaker 3: And on the topic of advice. You mentioned this tech
Speaker 3: leaders group that sounds like a global group. It's interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm part of a similar group, which is we're actually
Speaker 2: all Melbourne based female founders slash CEOs of businesses in
Speaker 2: completely different industries. There's a few tech companies, a few manufacturings.
Speaker 3: It's very broad.
Speaker 2: There's about nine or ten of us and we meet
Speaker 2: once a month. And now that the rhythm's kind of
Speaker 2: changed a little bit thanks to COVID. We used to
Speaker 2: meet face to face once a month and we had
Speaker 2: a very set structure and still do of how we
Speaker 2: run that group. So basically we would go around the
Speaker 2: table and now virtual table. We would each do essentially
Speaker 2: a three minute check in where we'd talk about the
Speaker 2: top and bottom five percent of our life, So what
Speaker 2: are the best things and the worst things from a
Speaker 2: work and personal point of view, and also are there
Speaker 2: any problems, challenges, things that we want the Brains Trust's advice,
Speaker 2: opinions ideas on.
Speaker 3: And then we'd kind of divvy.
Speaker 2: Up the rest of the time, which was typically it
Speaker 2: was a three hour meeting when we're doing face to face,
Speaker 2: but that's shorter now, and then we'd each kind of
Speaker 2: generally take the role of facilitator and then we'd divvy
Speaker 2: up time and go around the room and everyone would
Speaker 2: give their sort of their ideas and input. And group's
Speaker 2: been running now for I want to say, three or
Speaker 2: four years. It's quite an amazing group. I like love
Speaker 2: it and look forward to sounds fantastic. It's awesome, And
Speaker 2: so I'm curious around your group. How does it run,
Speaker 2: you know, because obviously that would be solely remote I
Speaker 2: imagine if a lot of the people are faced in
Speaker 2: the US.
Speaker 1: Yes, so it's we catch up for an hour on
Speaker 1: zoom once a month, so it's much much shorter. Occasionally
Speaker 1: people will come, will send a question in advance. Let's
Speaker 1: I'm really struggling with this question. I'd love to discuss it.
Speaker 1: Or it's kind of like quick round robin at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the hour. What are the top things, top
Speaker 1: things on your mind that you would value others perspectives on.
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously in the last few months it's
Speaker 1: been all about COVID and all about workplace culture when
Speaker 1: it's remote, and how do you deal with the disruption
Speaker 1: and the shifts in the world. You know, I think
Speaker 1: that that top five percent bottom five percent is a
Speaker 1: really great way of surfacing what's on people's minds, because
Speaker 1: sometimes you say what's going well, what's not going well?
Speaker 1: And that's really kind of vague, and you know, can
Speaker 1: go on forever. But top five percent is the real
Speaker 1: winners and bottom five percent is the real issues. That's
Speaker 1: a I like that. I might bring that to our
Speaker 1: group as well.
Speaker 2: And can I ask, you know, I guess, off the
Speaker 2: top of your head, have there been sort of interesting
Speaker 2: insights or pieces of advice that have stuck with you
Speaker 2: from that group during the period of COVID when you know,
Speaker 2: everything's kind of gone really strange.
Speaker 1: It's gone really strange, to be honest, because a lot
Speaker 1: of them are US based, and the situation in the
Speaker 1: US from a health and government perspective is very different.
Speaker 1: A lot of it has been very it's been interesting
Speaker 1: to hear. It's been much less relevant for the Australian experience.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more people who are much closer to
Speaker 1: family members or friends who are very sick or in
Speaker 1: many cases dying from COVID in the US than there
Speaker 1: are here. But beyond that difference, I think we're all
Speaker 1: really interested in how do you keep a culture, an
Speaker 1: organizational culture alive when you're all remote all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: So even businesses that were remote first before COVID would
Speaker 1: still get together every few months, you know, to have
Speaker 1: in person social interactions. So what are fun ways to
Speaker 1: have in person social interactions on Zoom? Yesterday my team
Speaker 1: was playing pictionary online. That was actually really good fun.
Speaker 1: We enjoyed that. I've heard somebody on the call the
Speaker 1: other week said, there's a farm that has lamas and
Speaker 1: you can pay them like twenty bucks and they'll have
Speaker 1: a lama join your Zoom meeting for an hour. You know,
Speaker 1: there's musicians who you can you know, are trying to
Speaker 1: sell their services and will join you and play music
Speaker 1: for you for an hour on your Zoom. You know
Speaker 1: you can you can have rate them. You know, celebrities
Speaker 1: will again. Uh, you know, people are looking for any opportunity, right,
Speaker 1: you can pay celebrity to pop into your zoom meeting
Speaker 1: for half an hour. Yeah, just silly things, but I
Speaker 1: think you know it's seek. It's something we're definitely really
Speaker 1: thinking about, is how do we make that those cultural
Speaker 1: connections stay alive when we're not going to see each
Speaker 1: other often For some some long period of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, definitely, And I'm looking at the time and
Speaker 2: we are like we are out of time.
Speaker 3: Soay, look. My last my last question for you is
Speaker 3: for for people that want to connect with Seek and
Speaker 3: or connect with yourself in some way, what is the
Speaker 3: best way for people to do that?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, reach out to me Kbanks at Seek dot com
Speaker 1: dot au. I'm always happy to hear from otherose with
Speaker 1: ideas and thoughts and or on all the normal social channels.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, fantastic, Kendra. I've love chatting to you and just
Speaker 2: getting insight into your ways of working.
Speaker 3: It's been fascinating. So thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, it was great.
Speaker 3: That is it for today's show.
Speaker 2: If you are enjoying how I work, I'd love it
Speaker 2: if you could take a moment to leave a review
Speaker 2: in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this from.
Speaker 2: It's awesome getting listener feedback. It really does bring a
Speaker 2: smile to my face when new reviews posted.
Speaker 3: So thank you to everyone that's done that.
Speaker 2: And that is it for today's show and I will
Speaker 2: see you next time.