Paul Bradshaw is the Managing Director of the fast-growing outdoor goods retailer BCF. An accomplished business leader, who learned from legends in the world of retailing - Sam Walton, Walmart founder and Sir Archie Norman, the turnaround king - Paul is now leading the spectacular rise of the BCF business in Australia. In this episode Paul shares with Gerard what he has learned about the critical importance of role modelling the culture you want to create, listening, being curious, supporting experimentation, and looking after yourself.
Contact Xtraordinary Leaders
1. Tweet us @XtraordinaryLe2
2. Follow us on Instagram @xtraordinary_leaders
3. Email us at interact@xtraordinaryleaders.com.au
4. Check out our website for more info Home | Xtraordinary Leaders
Take Care, Lead Well.
Paul Bradshaw is the Managing Director of the fast-growing outdoor goods retailer BCF. An accomplished business leader, who learned from legends in the world of retailing - Sam Walton, Walmart founder and Sir Archie Norman, the turnaround king - Paul is now leading the spectacular rise of the BCF business in Australia. In this episode Paul shares with Gerard what he has learned about the critical importance of role modelling the culture you want to create, listening, being curious, supporting experimentation, and looking after yourself.
Contact Xtraordinary Leaders
1. Tweet us @XtraordinaryLe2
2. Follow us on Instagram @xtraordinary_leaders
3. Email us at interact@xtraordinaryleaders.com.au
4. Check out our website for more info Home | Xtraordinary Leaders
Take Care, Lead Well.
00:00:00:29 - 00:00:05:04
It's not about the ordinary. We've got enough of that. It's about
00:00:07:16 - 00:00:10:06
the extraordinary. And we need more
00:00:12:26 - 00:00:23:11
either. I'm Gerard PENNER and welcome to the Extraordinary Leaders podcast, where we spend time with recognized leaders and global experts exploring the art and science of remarkable leadership.
00:00:27:00 - 00:00:36:26
Welcome to another episode of The Extraordinary Ladies podcast, where we explore topics and speak with global experts and practitioners on how we can all become better leaders. I'm your host, Gerard PENNER.
00:00:38:12 - 00:01:09:09
I'm very pleased to be bringing this episode to you because we get to speak to a recognized, experienced business leader in one of our country's highest employing industries with the lives of more than 1.3 million Australians are affected daily by the quality of the leadership that they experience in their workplaces, where the leadership that they will encounter will either lead to greater engagement, motivation, satisfaction and accomplishment, or unfortunately, something else.
00:01:10:03 - 00:01:48:17
And of those, 1.3 million employees, approximately one third arrive aged between 15 and 24 years old, making it an extremely large group of people whose daily lived experience of leadership will either release their potential, lift their capability, and grow their contribution, or unfortunately, maybe do something else demotivating, diminishing or even minimizing. It's an industry in which I'm passionate because my early years learning about life, learning about work and learning about leadership were all shaped in the retail environment.
00:01:49:08 - 00:02:22:06
In fact, it was a formative experience I had during my teenage years of leadership. Which founded this interest, passion and drive to understand more about it. How can we do it better? Because I experienced both the positive and the negative impacts that it can have. At the tender age of 14 years and nine months, I got my first job working in a supermarket. My very first shift. After watching a number of training videos, I was shown around the store by the store manager. As we reached the end of our tour of the store, we ended up in the fruit and vegetable department.
00:02:23:11 - 00:02:53:16
And for some reason, I still to this day cannot tell you why. The store manager became extremely agitated, in fact, angry. At a supervisor who worked in that department. I remember watching him as he stood over that department manager berating him, yelling at him. The other thing I remember really clearly is the look on this department manager's face of shame and embarrassment and fear. In that moment, I realized that I couldn't work for this store manager. I couldn't work in this place. So I quit.
00:02:54:16 - 00:03:24:28
Fortunately. I was able to secure a job in a department store just a few weeks later. This was a large multilevel retailer. And of course, I ended up in the department, which a 14 year old filled in nine months year old teenage boy was least likely to end up in and had the least amount of motivation for it was the lighting department tucked away in the back corner of the fourth floor. It was a place where customers rarely visited and sales were poor and morale was low. But it was a job.
00:03:25:12 - 00:03:55:17
And so a few hours every week I work there, along with the other demotivated, demoralized, disengaged members of that lighting department team. But just a few months into my employment. A new department manager was appointed. His name was John. He was young and he was new to leadership. And he had real ambition to lift the performance of the area and to improve the experience that the team were having. So he hatched a plan working with all of the different team members.
00:03:55:25 - 00:04:15:13
He developed a plan, a comprehensive strategy for how we might entice more customers into the area. And then once they got there, how we would shower them with customer service and satisfy their needs so that they would come back and that we could therefore increase the sales and and create a more enjoyable experience for us as team members as well.
00:04:17:08 - 00:04:55:18
John was able to discover that I liked working with my hands. So he involved me in part of the plan, which involved fixing lights to easels and display stands that we could place out in the walkways to attract customers in and advertise our wares. John was convinced that the plan would work. And we were to. Not long after implementing our plan, I turned up for work for one of my regular shifts. Before I started, John pulled me aside. He had a sheet of paper in his hand, had a bunch of numbers on it, and he explained to me that it was the trading report. This reported the sales of the different products and items that we sold in the department and compared last weeks to this weeks and last month to this month's sales.
00:04:56:04 - 00:05:29:19
And he'd highlighted the number of items and he said to me, these are the items that you and your colleagues chose and you selected and you put on the display that we were going to promote and explain to me how to read the report, how to compare the different trading periods. And and as I looked and he asked me to tell me, tell him what I saw. It was pretty clear to me from reading the page that sales in this item had gone up 50% and this one at 70% and this one 130%. And he turned to me, looked me in the eye, and he said, That's right. And these improvements are because of your efforts, your efforts and those of your teammates.
00:05:30:16 - 00:06:02:00
Thank you very much. I remember so clearly. Even to this day, the feeling that that created within me this feeling of pleasure and and gratitude and a sense of satisfaction. My chest swelled with pride that I'd been able to make a contribution, even as a casual, even as a young teenage boy in this strange place called the lighting department, that I was worth something, that I'd been able to do something that made a difference. And from that moment forward, I understood the power of leadership.
00:06:02:02 - 00:06:14:09
I understood what it could do to people, what it can do in terms of lifting their satisfaction and their engagement and their contribution and their sense of having something of value that they can bring to the work.
00:06:16:08 - 00:06:54:20
And that's been part of my mission ever since, is to try and create more of that experience for more people, both through my own leadership and by encouraging people in leadership roles to take up their leadership more effectively. And it's because of that experience that I understand that the retail industry provides an enormous opportunity for so many transformative leadership moments, moments that can engage people, moments that can lift people, moments that can motivate people no matter what the work it is that they're doing, whether they're a cashier in a supermarket or whether they're stacking the shelves or whether they're providing service to a customer or providing advice.
00:06:55:00 - 00:07:27:05
It doesn't matter what the role is. Every moment of every day, people are making a contribution to something that matters to them, their teams, their organizations, and the customers that come there. And that work has meaning, and it really matters. And therefore, every day, the opportunity of leadership to shape the lives, shape positive experiences of more than 1.3 million people is an extraordinary opportunity. And that's why I was so pleased to be able to have a conversation with Paul Bradshaw.
00:07:27:20 - 00:08:02:06
Paul is the managing director of BCF. Boating, camping, fishing. You probably know them. They're very well known. Retailer of boating, camping and fishing and outdoor gear. I know I know them well because I regularly go there to buy fishing gear and camping gear because they're some of the things that I love doing. I'm also quite familiar with Paul. I first met Paul more than ten years ago. He and I were working on the Coles transformation, which was the successful turnaround of one of Australia's largest employers and largest retailers at the time, and employed more than 113,000 people.
00:08:02:08 - 00:08:34:14
And that's how we both held it. That turning that organisation around and allowing it to succeed was really an opportunity to change the lives of more than 113,000 people from demotivated, disengaged, feeling like they were losing to something else, to feeling like they were making a contribution, that the work that they did mattered and that they were in a ecosystem that was sustainable. It wasn't just surviving. It was thriving. After working on the Renewal and Transformation Program, Paul first came to Australia to run on behalf of Coles.
00:08:34:25 - 00:09:09:05
He was then promoted into a series of more senior roles, including ultimately the National Operations Director responsible for more than 300 supermarkets across Australia, employing more than 113,000 people. And the daily actions and decisions of Paul would have a material impact on those people's work lives. A deep, thoughtful and committed leader, Paul was able to make a contribution to the ongoing transformation and success of the Coles business until a few years ago, when he left to take up the managing director role at boating, camping, fishing just in time for COVID.
00:09:10:05 - 00:09:30:24
So in this episode I get to talk to Paul about his experiences in learning about leadership through those transformative environments, what it means to truly engage people and build their trust and align them to make a contribution to what really matters. And importantly, what he's learned through this whole period of COVID, what he's learned about leadership and what he's learned about life.
00:09:32:09 - 00:09:34:19
I hope you enjoyed this episode. It's going to be a good one.
00:09:37:27 - 00:09:40:27
Paul Bradshaw. Welcome to the Extraordinary Leaders podcast.
00:09:42:10 - 00:09:43:08
Thank you, Gerard.
00:09:43:21 - 00:09:53:08
It's a cold, windy and wet, probably about 11 degree day here in Melbourne, but I suspect it's a bit warmer where you are right now. Where are you?
00:09:53:20 - 00:10:04:16
I actually. Gerard, we're on. I'm on the Sunshine Coast and it's a very cold day today. Yet we're actually we're not going to top over 10 to 19 degrees. I think
00:10:06:22 - 00:10:07:18
it's good to be with you.
00:10:07:20 - 00:10:09:25
I think I might have to end the conversation right now.
00:10:11:17 - 00:10:24:03
You're a you're an Englishman by birth, you know, used to the cold with with a lot of experience in UK grocery retail industry before emigrating to Australia about 12 years ago. What brought you to Australia's sunny shores?
00:10:25:08 - 00:11:05:27
Oh, my word. Partly to do with the weather, actually. I love the outdoors and that's pretty challenging in North Yorkshire, which is where I was living last. But now if I'm really honest, I came out probably about 16 years ago, Gerald, and I've got to say, I fell in love with this particular part of Australia, which is in Queensland, and just loved everything about it and the culture, the people and and then went back to UK and had at this age that I just had to scratch and, and that's what I've done and came out here 12 years ago and joined the Coles team in, in retail.
00:11:05:29 - 00:11:08:17
So yeah, similar to what I was doing back in the UK.
00:11:08:27 - 00:11:21:00
And that was the Colts him with the course headquartered out of Melbourne. You got a an appointment to the state manager role up in Queensland, is that right. Well the store operations did well in Queensland, but you headed out of Queensland.
00:11:21:02 - 00:11:52:18
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Know, I mean I initially started with the turnaround in store development actually with the team down in Melbourne. I've got to be honest, I thought I was very naive. I thought all of Australia was pretty similar to Queensland and quickly realised it was a bit cooler than down south. But now I was heavily involved in format development, particularly around the supermarket space and it was in that for five or six years.
00:11:53:11 - 00:12:14:14
But my heart was back in retail with with the team and running operations, got an opportunity to do that in Queensland and then latterly got the national role which I actually did from Queensland but commuted into, into Melbourne and we just made that work. So it's, it was great, great times.
00:12:14:28 - 00:12:46:17
And the dream of living in a, in a warm part of Australia, you managed to continue, you're currently the managing director of BCF, which had its beginnings when the super retail group bought Cap Mart in 2005, which then just consisted of only four retail stores in Brisbane. That business was branded or rebranded Bcf that year and it's now grown to become the largest outdoors retailer in Australia with over 130 stores. Can you describe the Bcf business to our audience so that they can better understand its scope, its size, its complexity?
00:12:47:27 - 00:13:24:15
Yeah, we we're growing at a rate of knots, but it's all to do with boating, camping and fishing and actually four wheel drive. So a huge growth category for us. But yeah, those key areas all around camp, fish and boats and any range that fits into those categories, we stock and we're growing at a fast rate of knots. And one of the key areas of growth is stores. So we've moved that number to we're now up to 145 and will continue growing to just shy of 200 times that we want to be able to service throughout Australia.
00:13:24:17 - 00:13:43:03
So yeah, and it is everything from you starter rods, combos, rails, camping gear right up to the high end where you've got, you know, trusted brands that you can go. Heavy duty camping, heavy duty fishing offshore. Yeah.
00:13:43:29 - 00:13:57:02
When you joined Bcf in December 2019 and just four months later, Australia shut its borders in response to the spread of COVID. How would you describe the state of the business when you joined and where is it now?
00:13:58:00 - 00:14:28:06
Yeah, we had some challenges actually just before COVID hit, so we had the bushfires. So we'd gone actually from drought, which doesn't help efficient business or anything to do with boating, particularly inland and then hit the bushfires. If you remember through that Christmas of S19, that was super challenging because a large proportion of our business is through what we call peak.
00:14:28:08 - 00:14:58:19
So that Christmas and New Year period from from almost Black Friday through to Australia Day is our peak and that affected the business in a large way and then followed into COVID. But we were challenged, we were losing market share to our main competitor. So that was a real challenge. We were kind of on a on a very strategic role on price and service, which is really important to customers.
00:14:59:18 - 00:15:19:12
But is that the critical elements or is that why Australians choose their outdoor leisure store? And that was a question that we couldn't answer right at the beginning and needed to answer. That was very important because that was going to shape the direction that we take the business, which came down to the strategy.
00:15:21:00 - 00:15:51:23
Right. So you meant joining this organization? It's in a particular state. And no doubt between then and now, you will have answered some of those key questions about is it price? Is it service? Is it quality? Where do we need to be? How do we need to actually distribute? What kind of relationships do we need with our suppliers? How do we mobilize and energize our staff to provide a, you know, a fantastic experience for for customers? And I will come back to all of that.
00:15:51:25 - 00:15:58:24
But where's the business now? So is a before and kind of after, if you like. How would you contrast the business today to where it was then?
00:16:01:14 - 00:16:43:03
Well, we're in a much healthier place. We've we've stopped losing market share. So that was the first hole we had to plug, but more importantly, really driven volume. So you'll have seen some of the numbers, you know, from a businesses half a billion it's now in the 800 millions and will we can't bring you losing the Q3 results actually this year even though people said we wouldn't be able to comp last year we have and we we continue to grow and even through the COVID period, it's given us the opportunity to really challenge ourselves on what that customer wanted and really focus on those, those key areas which,
00:16:45:00 - 00:17:06:04
you know, we found out talking to our customers, we just literally the first thing we did was listen to our customers. What do why do Australians choose as to whether it's a competition, whether it's Bcf or wherever? What is it? What's the number one thing they choose? And even I thought it's going to be price, it's going to be convenience. And it wasn't.
00:17:06:09 - 00:17:06:24
Something.
00:17:08:17 - 00:17:56:16
It was very it was it was indeed. It was. And I think it surprised the whole team, the leadership team in BCA, that the number one thing that the Australians want is exactly range and the breadth of range. And if you think we're really focused on price, so what we were doing was taking range out of our stores so that you've got you reduce your costs to be able to reinvest back into price which which makes sense. The issue is the number one reason that customers choose that there are two legs, your store is range and you've got to be able to give the customers in a specific area their range, which is really difficult to do because that means you're going to have different ranges in different stores right across Australia.
00:17:57:22 - 00:18:29:10
And the exactly the same with quality and quality was particularly those camp camping customers so that the core of our campers did not want to be when when I say it now, it makes complete sense. Did not want to be let down on their camping experience, whether that be a weekend away, a full week's holiday with a family. You don't want the tent to leak, you want the cooker to work. You want to have a great experience. And that's the same right up to the high end campers. The buy an expensive gear for a long period of time.
00:18:29:12 - 00:18:54:27
They want quality and that was the challenge to us. And we were going the other way with products at low prices, which hadn't got that quality tendency. So we've really flipped it on its head, put the plans in place around those two key areas to to to drive the the growth. And customers are very receptive to it and given us great feedback.
00:18:54:29 - 00:19:36:02
Now that's terrific. I know that strategy. You know, having having the right strategy is important. When you and I first met, we were both working in the transformation of the coal supermarkets. And this is for those listeners who who may not have been around during that time or may not have been aware of it. It is it's considered to be the the largest and most successful turnaround in Australian corporate history. Scotsman Ian McLeod was the managing director who joined, who came into the business at the beginning of the turnaround, and he led this extraordinarily ambitious turnaround or transformation, and it set leadership and culture as the number one priority in each stage of the five year turnaround strategy.
00:19:36:21 - 00:19:58:29
But what was more powerful than anything else that he did, at least from my perspective, Paul, was that he showed up in a way that he expected everyone else to show up. You know, he demonstrated the kind of leadership, the kind of culture that he believed that everyone else should be aligned with and promoting and cultivating. What role has your own leadership approach played at PKF?
00:19:59:17 - 00:20:33:07
Yeah, I think I took a lot of learnings from those early days and you know, leadership. I've got five points to being a leader, but the first one is the culture. And what culture do you want within your organisation is the first thing you've got to make up your mind. Nobody can help you with this. This is you as the leader and it's really important you set the tone for your organisation. You choose that it can be very disciplined, very structured, you can be a listening business, you can be lots of things.
00:20:33:09 - 00:21:07:19
You got to choose what's right for your organisation. I've got to say Ian did that really well and I take huge learnings from a it's, it's the culture that you set and that's nothing to do with strategy that is all about your behaviour, how you lead and some of the things that he did to make sure that everybody understand the culture. You know, you start with the culture of safety within your. Organization. I start with that every single time and safety is the first thing we will discuss.
00:21:07:24 - 00:21:41:10
Any meeting did it in the first meeting today. What? What's our safety share? And it can be small. It can be large. It doesn't matter why? Because you set the tone that you want. Every single team member, every customer going home as safe as they came into the store, as well as an engaged team. Fully engaged team. And you're going to set those parameters, those measures, and you've got to walk the talk. It's it starts with you. You know, many people say that the shadow you you cast is it is huge.
00:21:41:12 - 00:22:02:10
And everybody will be looking for your leadership in everything you do. It's it's really important. It doesn't matter whether it's a small meeting, it doesn't matter whether it's a store visit with trade partners. You're setting the culture for your business. It's critical strategy comes after that, and that's very different to the culture that you're going to set.
00:22:03:13 - 00:22:53:01
Yeah, Ian. Ian was a big fan of listening, and I believe that he learned that from Sir Archie Norman, who is known as the turnaround. KING Yeah, because of his success in transforming broken and underperforming businesses or organisations like Asda, which I know you work there, ITV in the UK and now Marks and Spencer and Archie is credited with, I suppose, inventing or really promoting this idea of We are listening in which the executive team had to go out and just ask some questions of people and then just listened intently, not defend, not argue, not justify, but just listen and then bring that back to the executive group and share with each other what they'd been hearing and actually confront what they'd been hearing, good or bad, and do something about it.
00:22:54:04 - 00:23:01:26
What role? And another you also believe that listening is essential for for business success. What role has listening played at BBC?
00:23:01:28 - 00:23:05:00
It it's it's huge. It's
00:23:06:19 - 00:23:39:22
it's really right from the beginning. In fact, the first couple of months, I didn't do anything other than, you know, just look and learn, really and listen to the the team you trade partners as well. Listen to you try partners, listen to your customers. And that's what I did right through to post-Christmas, actually. And I joined in the November, November the 26th, I joined and right through till post Christmas, I didn't do anything. I didn't ascertain to do anything. I was conscious that first bit about setting the tone. So yes, I did a few things, but listening was huge.
00:23:39:24 - 00:24:10:09
I just got on the road into stores just like Archie did and sit sit under a gazebo. I literally sat under gazebo with our customers and then I'd sit back, then an hour later with our team members and just listen and tape. Don't stop writing, Archie. Never stop writing in these notepads and then kind of sit down afterwards and pull that together and say, okay, what's a two, three, four things I do need to take back to the team because I'm a firm believer.
00:24:10:11 - 00:24:56:27
Our job is to make life easy. For our team members. To serve our customers is as simple as that. We've got to give our customers what they want. If you can't do that, you probably need to reflect on the business you really talked about earlier. If you don't want to do the range thing in Bcf, you probably got a question. Do you want to run a BCF store in the areas? Because it's not it wasn't delivering what the customers wanted. Therefore, we listened to our team, our customers and put that in place with the ranges and not the ironic thing you said, Rod, our team members have got the answers, they really do and the trade partners and if you really, truly listen to them, make those notes, bring it back and listen right across the board.
00:24:57:12 - 00:25:31:02
You'll get the key themes. Yeah, we're starving your business of stock. We starving you of the range that you require for your customers. Those with the thing. Those are the key items that we coming up from, from store visits, trade partner visits and customer listening sessions. But it goes broader than that as well. General, it's you got to be it's okay listening. You've got to be inquisitive. You got to want to be you've got to want to learn from your team, which sounds crazy because everybody's expecting you to come in and kind of set out the plan and off we go.
00:25:31:04 - 00:26:11:23
And you've got to be inquisitive to start. Why and keep asking you ask why three or four times to get underneath to the real core issues that you've got in your business is really important experimentation. One big challenges I had was to go out and take risk, were very safe and you get how do you protect your team? You'll do that by listening to them what your issues what you challenges and setting. Those guardrails for you you tend to experiment is really important that making sure you go back and support and how you support sort of listening, interacting and it it literally is as simple as that.
00:26:13:01 - 00:26:45:29
Art, you did it brilliantly well even you know, I worked with Archie in in Coles and he was a great mentor, but even in Asda and I joined after he left and I'll never forget it. They still talk about Archie, you know, five years after he left and the listening sessions that he did and the old Post-it notes go round and take those actions and go around people's desks and leave you, leave your messages. And you know, I was lucky enough to be a part of Walmart and it was exactly the same.
00:26:46:01 - 00:27:06:04
We saw he still you know, he was formidable being out there listening to his customers and bringing it back to Bentonville and put it in action for his customers right across America. And that was the same in our store in the UK and very similar to Coles in in Australia.
00:27:06:27 - 00:27:39:29
Yeah. And I'm assuming, I'm assuming Paul it's not just the, the quality of the information that you get as a response because I mean you've got, you know, thousands of team members, you're collecting thousands of perspectives, huge amounts of data from people who are really close to the customer having the conversations every day. Yet you're listening to your trade partners. These are people who are really close to, you know, manufacturing. They're very close to trends. They're very close to other retailers. They kind of know what's going on. This is incredible sources of information. But it's more than that, isn't it? It's it does something to the relationship.
00:27:40:01 - 00:27:46:24
It does something to their energy, their motivation. What do you notice that it does.
00:27:48:00 - 00:28:19:04
It I you to members. You know, I got a note from a team member just yesterday and it builds trust and trust is really important. It's in our strategy in Bcf to give Australians an outdoor store that they trust. That's the first word before you get to range. Quality, value and service trust is there. Why is that so important for an engaged team with you, with your trade partners who believe in what you're doing is really important? And exactly the same with trade partners.
00:28:19:06 - 00:28:52:00
I you know, I have trade partners and I have suppliers and there's a big different suppliers that just pump in stock through to you were trade partners. You are building brands together. You know, there's quite a few new brands in Bcf. Why? Because customers have asked for them. That's been very challenging to get them on board. Why? Because they're concerned that we're going to devalue their brands through lowering prices. So you've got to you know, you sign terms, conditions that link in to those trade partners and protect them.
00:28:52:14 - 00:29:20:06
Just to show trust, just to show I promise you, I will value your brand as you do for yours, or I should say our customers. And yeah, that word trust, this is paramount. And the more your team members, your trade partners, see you listening, you know, the more they're going to be engaged with you as a leadership team and and as a brand. And I think also.
00:29:22:06 - 00:29:53:18
You know, the world is changing so fast. Today you just look at what we've gone through with COVID. Probably increase the amount of listening to the team members. Why? Because he's changing. So you've got to be able to adapt to those those changes, whether it's a shift to the online business, whether it's shift to direct to customer. You've got to be able to listen and pick that up very quickly, which by doing listening sessions won't see you. You're going to miss. You've got to do it. It's got to be part of you. Again, it's the culture that you set.
00:29:53:24 - 00:30:01:12
It's got to be part of your behaviour with your team. Week in, week out. And it's not difficult as you'll.
00:30:01:27 - 00:30:35:18
You'll know during COVID, Melbourne particularly and Sydney to a bit of a lesser extent had quite significant periods of being locked down and that meant that a lot of leaders were unable to get out and about talking to people face to face. In fact, one of my clients as CEO was sharing that he was really struggling because he felt like it, that he didn't have access to a lot of the information that he would normally have access to that would come from those conversations, those many, many conversations he'd have every day with team members or or managers in the business or partners, whoever it might be.
00:30:35:23 - 00:30:55:29
And that's how he made sense of the world. And during COVID, it was difficult being locked in an office in a room somewhere with a small screen in front of him, you know, attempting to kind of have that kind of those kinds of conversations where he could get those insights and almost feel what was going on. How did you find it?
00:30:56:20 - 00:31:00:06
Yeah, it was difficult at the start because you're you're in your
00:31:02:07 - 00:31:31:27
you're very clearly in your diary mode. You're out in stores, you've got your set routine. And that was thrown in the air. But, you know, intimacy, you just look at what we're doing. We're connecting over, you know, different different methods. We use teams. And if I'm really honest, it actually brought us closer to the stores, the store managers, the area managers, our trade partners, because it forced the issue to go diary that time.
00:31:34:12 - 00:32:04:14
I get the challenge actually with the office because I miss my team around me, but I just had to change it and put that in the diary and make those like you would if you just bumped into somebody. Just don't be from two teams. I was doing it. Yes, I teams three different individuals which pre-COVID I probably would never have done at a weight it to bump into them or in-store visits or with a trade partner meeting or a strategy session, you can now just force the issue to use teams.
00:32:04:27 - 00:32:36:23
Now, is it as intimate? No. But that forced us to bring the store operation into our trading meeting as an example, so as to and we continue that today. The first part of our trade meeting is going out into stores, walk in the floor with them and listening to their issues, challenges from the previous week and sharing what's coming in the weeks ahead. So no, I think it actually turned it just a different way of doing it, that's all. You just start to flip it on its head and use the technology that we've got.
00:32:36:25 - 00:32:38:07
I was delighted that we got
00:32:40:05 - 00:33:09:02
Facebook worked out, that that was a huge connection to stores and teams and trade partners as well as teams and just flipping it on its head. So, you know, meeting somebody at The WaterCooler, you just do it with a coffee in your hand and and literally teams the team member and it was as intimate. If not, they've got your time 100% rather than being distracted by anything else. I think there was actually upside there.
00:33:11:00 - 00:33:44:18
You mentioned missing your team, you know, being surrounded by your team. And I wanted to talk about that, particularly in its relationship to strategy, because, you know, I think culture is important. There's no question about that. Strategy is also important that there are many businesses that have failed or, you know, founded even with a brilliant strategy because the leadership team wasn't aligned with the strategy. And I've often said that if I if I've got money to invest in a business, I would rather invest in a business with a good strategy and a highly aligned leadership team than a business with a great or brilliant strategy.
00:33:44:28 - 00:33:49:00
But whose leadership team is siloed and not aligned? Where would you put your money?
00:33:50:06 - 00:33:51:21
100% on
00:33:53:19 - 00:34:27:00
that. Your strategy has to be embedded. Absolutely embedded in first and foremost, your leadership team and their leadership team. So at least two levels. And then I find it will flow through. But if it's not, it's flawed. In fact, all the homework on on strategy is out the window. If you do not get the support of your team in everything they do, whether that be trade partner negotiations or that be new range, it has to feed directly back to your strategy.
00:34:27:02 - 00:35:00:08
It's it's imperative. And where you see businesses go wrong is normally not. The strategy is at the issue. It is we haven't got engagement with the team on why why the strategy is so important and embedded into what we do every single day. It's really important. It's a bit like I touched on earlier around safety. The strategy has to be what you discuss every single day. You know, it's been challenging to COVID.
00:35:00:10 - 00:35:36:09
I've still not had a store manager conference and I've been here three years. So this year will be the first one we have. That's normally the time that you really. Covering off your strategy, what you want to do for the next 12 months. So we've had to find different ways of doing it. I actually perversely, I think it's helped us to get that message across quicker, faster with the team discussed every single day, because we've got we're using teams as one of those vehicles to get that strategy to our team, to our customers, to our trade partners.
00:35:36:27 - 00:36:10:19
And, you know, delighted to sit in just a range review last week. And the first thing, this is the business manager that started with our DCF strategy. Then the next step from that and brought everything they were doing in and they switched to do with fishing category. And you get how it fed up to the strategy of what I talked about earlier about trust. Range, quality, value and service. And it all layered up to what we're trying to do for the Australia market.
00:36:10:21 - 00:36:40:21
So I was delighted to see that. But it really does. And you know, my learnings in Coles again from from me in and a few other leaders that I saw at the time was I almost thought it's almost over the top, the messaging of the strategy. Mike How many times do we need to hear this? There's never enough times. It's in everything that we do. It's at purpose. You know, I'm one of those individuals. I have to have purpose in life generally.
00:36:41:06 - 00:37:16:25
And my purpose is our strategy to give Australians and that also the trust to live in range quality, value service. It is as simple as that. That is why I'm here and playing in the outdoor category and that's our strategy and everything and commercial numbers strategy bridge to get to well over $1,000,000,000 all feeds into that strategy. It's really, really important. And it's when you trade partners in stores on a teams meeting or just a meeting like this, you're discussing your strategy every single day.
00:37:16:27 - 00:37:18:18
Really important. Really important.
00:37:19:22 - 00:37:50:16
I remember reading some research about why transformation if it's fail. And one of the big reasons other than culture and leadership is. A lack of communication in the particular area that the researchers discovered critically important was under communicating purpose and values and strategy. Those things that everyone needs to align to believe in, pursue, invest in, and bring all of their efforts and their energy into alignment with and the research, researchers said.
00:37:50:18 - 00:38:19:04
Instead of the kind of in a side kind of comment, was it as if if you're a leader in the business, one, even when you get to the point where you think you've spoken about it enough, keep talking about it, maybe, maybe at the point where you are so sick of saying those words over and over and over again, that you feel like you're you're sick of hearing them come out of your voice, out of your mouth. Maybe you started to get close ish. Yes. To having said it, enough.
00:38:20:10 - 00:38:49:16
Is so true, etc. I walked a story and it's on a wall. It's, you know, and you go, it's alright, been on a wall. But what does it mean to, to that store manager in that store. And I, you know, I reflected, I listen but you go we still got a lot to do here because I don't fully understand why that's so important. So we've got to go again. So, yes, absolutely imperative. It's it's clarity, commitment and communication. For me, it's and you can't
00:38:51:02 - 00:38:54:26
you can't do enough of any one of those three. It's really important.
00:38:55:11 - 00:39:19:19
Really important in in our earlier conversations. One of them you also mentioned the importance of personal leadership and looking after yourself. And that's been a actually a theme in a number of our previous Extraordinary Leaders podcast episodes during COVID over the last couple of years. What did that look like for you? What did personal leadership look like in practice?
00:39:21:10 - 00:39:56:05
It's good. It's, you know, the first and the fifth point for me. First point is leadership is is set in the culture of your business. And the fifth point is the culture for yourself. So for me, it's about health, diet, really, really important sleep. I know it sounds crazy at times, but, you know, if I don't get my sleep, I am not effective. And particularly through through Covi, there are stressful times. You're making tough decisions, very, very tough people decisions.
00:39:56:16 - 00:40:20:10
They were the toughest and that's fairly you know that that tests you resilience so yeah being fit sleeping well was really important had to I sleep well I do a lot of running believe it or not and that tires me out. So I sleep well at night and when I wasn't doing my running, I'm in trouble. And you kind of know you've got your parameters, you know,
00:40:21:28 - 00:41:00:17
so just making sure your diary. So I took it as a massive positive. We were we were not doing as much travel. We were not going to the support office. So that time use it wisely and use it for yourself to get out on the run, doing, doing the exercise and making sure that you eat well. So they were the, the key drivers for me and the final bit is just make sure you kind of think in time, especially through that time of change, just, you know, yes, you've listened really taken enough time to just think about the direction we're going in your own personal thought.
00:41:00:19 - 00:41:18:21
Time to go. Yes. Well, I'm planning time. Really important. I diaries. I mean, I'm a little bit sad with it, but I have two diaries when I'm going for a run. And if it's not in my diary, probably not going to happen. So I just make sure that I've put it in my diary three times a week as a minimum. Yeah.
00:41:19:15 - 00:42:11:12
It's it's interesting you say that because I remember listening to Graeme Kerr at the time he was the CFO of. BHP and he's now the CEO of South32, which is another spin off from BHP large resources company. And remember him talking to a group of sort of young sort of aspiring leaders, and he said to them that one of the one of the things that is sacrosanct for him when he travels is exercise and that he's you know, if he has a support person, their principal responsibility when they ever they book anything to do with him travelling is to make sure that he's exercise is preserved because he can't he he can't operate at his optimum unless he is feeling like he has looked after himself, that he, his body and his brain and his mind are all connected and we need to look after all of those aspects.
00:42:11:28 - 00:42:49:13
I am actually in the middle of writing an article at the moment which I've been invited to do, which is which is on that topic. It's the idea is that if you want to lead your team well, if you want to help your team be successful, look after your own wellbeing, because the very best leadership is intentional, it's thoughtful, it's deliberate, and it's joyful and self-aware. And it's hard to be all of those things when that survival part of your brain has taken over because stress has built up and you haven't found ways of managing your responses to stress too.
00:42:50:03 - 00:43:20:18
It's so true and that's really great advice, especially travelling because you normally the clock's against you, you're busy on trains, planes and automobiles and you go, I do, I do with my team actually. So when we are travelling we exercise mostly together, actually on the slowest one of us. I've got quite a young team so I'm, I'm at the back of the queue but really important that first hour in the morning you can have a run or walk, but generally run.
00:43:20:20 - 00:43:56:20
Now I'm way behind them, as I say, and exactly the same with the super retail group, the leadership team. We've got a bike club and we've got a swim club and you choose which one to be in. But you know, we start the day in that vein and I think it's really clear that keeps you fit and helps you sleep at night as well. And yes, taking care of yourself. You know, resilience in any leadership role is really, really important. And it starts with you. You know, in fact, I'd urge anybody listening to this, put yourself first before anything else really, really important.
00:43:57:12 - 00:44:06:12
Yes. You what was also unique about Coles and I think I've heard this in some of the things that you've shared in your previous conversations is that.
00:44:09:03 - 00:44:39:12
The idea of sort of gathering and cultivating a large cohort of leaders and growing leaders, you know, and écoles many of them, you know, have gone on to become extraordinary leaders in their own right. For example, Stewart Merchant overcame adversity at Target to then become CEO of Marks and Spencer in the U.K.. Sarah Hunter is now leading the Officeworks business within Wesfarmers. You've taken up the role as managing director of Bcf. I've heard it said that good leaders lead, but great leaders, great leaders grow more leaders.
00:44:39:16 - 00:44:40:15
What are your thoughts on that?
00:44:41:14 - 00:44:46:09
Well, I yes, I couldn't agree with it more. It's
00:44:48:04 - 00:45:20:13
you know, you are as strong as the weakest team members that you've got in your team. So always remember that. I think you've got to have a succession plan and that should be force in the development in your team. Really, really important. And that might not be from within. That might be externally, whichever preferably from within. But having development conversations, development programs, using external support to develop your team is critical to your success.
00:45:20:15 - 00:45:29:23
It's really, really important. You know, I kind of breaking into three areas and you go, yes, you've got your stores, your offer, your strategy,
00:45:31:14 - 00:46:03:15
which is really, really important. You've got the financial commercial numbers, what you've got to deliver. But then underpinning all of that is your team, which is the people that are around you. So yeah, I've kind of spent three years in BCA recruiting the best possible team I've got who can succeed me. They've got to be able to succeed me. So really, really important. And you know, Stuart did that in Coles and did it and Connor Groom John for that role within Coles.
00:46:03:17 - 00:46:18:00
And so it was with internal development with a very strong team underneath you. Right. And yeah. And really reflected on that but a lot of a lot of that team a still in Australia and leading some great great businesses.
00:46:18:21 - 00:46:50:01
Yeah. So my final question for you, Paul, and it's a bit of a tradition on the Extraordinary Leaders podcast. It's to do with continued growth and development because one of the the fallacies that exists is that, you know, senior leaders have all the answers. They must have everything sorted out when in fact, that's not true at all. There's there's many times where we don't have the answers. You only have questions. And I also hold it to be true that the more senior you are, perhaps the imperative to be learning is even greater.
00:46:52:02 - 00:47:04:27
So in what aspect of your leadership do you feel you're sort of developing at the moment? What's the sort of the leadership development that you're doing that's important to you right now? And how are you making progress with it?
00:47:05:22 - 00:47:27:05
Yeah, what what am I working on at the moment? It's the engagement of the team. It's, you know, just continue for me as we come out of COVID and just keeping everything that we've worked on through this COVID period in play. We did a review just recently on our ways of working
00:47:28:25 - 00:47:41:24
step by step. And putting that in place is really important so that change our engagements as we come out. The SEC, the, you know, the COVID COVID piece is really important. Really, very important.
00:47:42:13 - 00:48:18:19
Good report. Let me say thank you very much for joining us on the Extraordinary Leaders podcast. For me personally, it's a thrill to actually have the opportunity to speak with you. Must be almost a decade later, after we first connected on Coles and on that transformation, to see the leadership and hear about the leadership that you're exercising now, the impact that it's having, how you've, you've learnt from others and you've actually applied it into your own practice now, but also developed some of your own views and your own practices around leadership, which are, which are intended really to improve the, the working lives of those people that you seek to lead.
00:48:18:21 - 00:48:27:23
That's an incredibly heartening and refreshing perspective to hear from a business leader. So thank you very much again for joining us and for sharing your perspective.
00:48:29:07 - 00:48:32:28
Thanks for your time, Gerard. I really appreciate it. Speak soon.
00:48:36:19 - 00:49:07:23
I hope that you enjoyed listening to that conversation with Paul. I love what Paul had to say about listening. Deep listening is something that I talk about in my book Extraordinary The Art and Science of Remarkable Leadership. It's one of the habits of leaders who are able to release more energy and more potential and more capability from other people. And that's because it's very simply it's hard to lead people from where you are. You can only lead them from where they are. But to understand where they're at, to understand how they see the world and what's pulling them forward and what might hold them back.
00:49:08:08 - 00:49:41:13
You have to deeply listen. Listen to understand, not to respond. This idea of listening is something that both Paul and I are very, very familiar with and understand deeply the role that it plays in leadership, particularly transformative leadership. And that's partly because in transformative environments, what you need, what is absolutely essential. Is to facilitate the contributions of other people towards actions and initiatives and improvements and and daily experiments that produce better outcomes.
00:49:41:15 - 00:50:13:09
And you can only do that when you encourage people to speak up and when you're genuinely prepared to listen and listen, understand and listen deeply to what they have to say. So not only does it produce even better ideas or better initiatives or better improvements, it also facilitates higher levels of engagement, high levels of contribution, because when people feel that they are being heard, genuinely being heard. They then able to bring themselves to commit. And of course, even at its most transactional level.
00:50:13:24 - 00:50:51:03
The simple fact is. The people are much less likely to be willing to listen to you unless you're first able to listen to them. So with that in mind, I hope that you've enjoyed listening to this episode of The Extraordinary Leaders podcast, and that in some way has informed and evolved your thinking about your own leadership. I also have a favor to ask if you like this episode. I'd love it if you could rate it. This will allow us to reach and engage and help more leaders. And of course, if you want to share your thoughts on any of these episodes, you can make contact with me directly by emailing me at Gerrard at Extraordinary Leaders dot com.
00:50:51:17 - 00:51:23:13
Today. So that's extraordinary without any. I'd also encourage you to share recommend our podcast to friends and colleagues if you feel that they'd find it helpful. I'm looking forward to sharing another episode with you in the next few weeks. And if you want to make it easy to stay up to date with new episodes as they're released, simply subscribe. It doesn't matter whether it's Apple, Spotify, Google or some other platform. They'll make it easy to stay up to date with new episodes and also access our previous episodes on essential leadership topics and fascinating conversations with remarkable people.
00:51:24:14 - 00:51:41:00
You can also visit our website for more information or to join our community. We can then keep you up to date with our latest programs and resources. There's also a page where you can order my book, Extraordinary The Art and Science of Remarkable Leadership. For now. Thanks for listening and lead well.