The amount of disruption and change we are experiencing in our lives seems to be increasing. Yet the challenge of change has always confronted us, demanding courageous and compassionate leadership to help us make our way through it. In this episode Gerard speaks with colleague and leadership expert Robbie MacPherson about the essential role leaders play in helping people through the struggle of loss and suffering that accompanies major change, and how leaders can use their own lives as a powerful teacher to learn more about leadership.
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.
The amount of disruption and change we are experiencing in our lives seems to be increasing. Yet the challenge of change has always confronted us, demanding courageous and compassionate leadership to help us make our way through it. In this episode Gerard speaks with colleague and leadership expert Robbie MacPherson about the essential role leaders play in helping people through the struggle of loss and suffering that accompanies major change, and how leaders can use their own lives as a powerful teacher to learn more about leadership.
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.
It's not about the ordinary. We've got enough of that. It's about
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the extraordinary. And we need more.
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Hi there. I'm Gerard Penna 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.
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Welcome to the extraordinary latest podcast. My name is Gerard Penna and I'm your host. For our regular listeners. You may have noticed that it took a little bit longer between episodes than is usual. And that's because we've been very busy delivering programs, facilitating workshops and coaching clients. I'm very pleased, though, that we've been able to find the time to sit down and have a wonderful conversation with an extraordinary guest. And I'm going to share a bit more about that conversation with you shortly.
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I was very fortunate last week to receive a lovely email in my inbox from a person by the name of Joe. And she wrote. Hi, Jared. How have you been? Your program's certainly looking exciting. I trust they are going great guns. I just wanted to say thank you again. Just this week, I presented to a women's leadership forum of 100 people. And one of the comments that I received was From the moment you walk on stage, you have a great ability to hold your space. The audience leans in. And as you know, I've been working on this since we first met at the Leadership Development program that you facilitated for us.
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It wow, must have been way back in 2015. And your advice and the way that you do it still inspires me to continuously improve how I serve the room. So thank you for being you and the wonderful way that you uplift others. It's a gift to this world that ripples ever outward. Warm regards, Joe. This lovely email reminded me that there are always people who are encouraging us and inspiring us and energizing us to to grow and to develop and and to stretch and to be more.
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Sometimes they'll do that directly, where they'll be speaking directly to us, working with us, encouraging us personally. And then at other times, it's just by watching other people go about doing their work that we realize what's possible. We're inspired to try something different or. To give something a go that we would have never tried before. And Jolene's email had me reflecting upon who are some of those people?
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One of those people is going to be joining us on today's podcast. This is somebody who, through my observation, as I've worked with this individual, I've I've seen him do things and operate in a way that I found inspiring, that I've learnt from. And I've certainly benefited from not just the participants in the room who have been working with him.
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He's someone that I would consider a friend and colleague. And his name is Robbie McPherson. Quite a number of leaders that Robbie has worked with, you're lucky to have seen on television representing major government organizations or institutions. These are people whose practice of leadership has been greatly influenced by Robbie over the last 20 years, where he's been delivering innovative, transformational leadership programs for a diverse range of organizations and sectors.
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For over a decade. Robbie was an executive for Australia's oldest non-government organisation, the Benevolent Society, where he was also the director of Australia's leading social leadership consultancy or Social Leadership Australia. Robbie currently teaches senior executive level public service with both the Australian Public Service Commission and he's also on the teaching faculty with the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. He works directly with many of Australia's major organisations and corporations, including the Australian Federal Police.
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The Australian Tax Office. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, the National Mental Health Commission. And a whole raft of private and for profit organisations and educational institutions, including Melbourne University, Medibank, the Australian Catholic University and Australia Post. Robbie is an associate of the Australian Institute of Police Management and is a lead facilitator of the groundbreaking police leadership strategy which develops police commissioners across Australia and New Zealand.
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He's also worked with senior global counter-terrorist agents both in Australia and overseas, and delivered programs for emerging Indigenous leaders, young Muslim leaders and community leaders in various cultural communities. He also works with numerous government departments and agencies in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory. Robbie is also a highly experienced executive coach and he has also worked with senior Dutch public servants at the Netherlands School of Government, along with his colleague, Professor Paul Taggart.
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And if that's not enough, Robbie was also instrumental in expanding my understanding and insight of strength and warmth, which are the two ingredients that I write about in my book Extraordinary, The out insight to remarkable leadership. He did this by sharing with me a book called Power and Love, a book by Adam Kahana, which shows how complex social issues can be solved when we bring both strength and warmth or power and love into our practice of leadership.
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So Robbie's clearly been influential, not just with me, with a number of people, and it's my absolute pleasure to bring this episode to you. So hang around. It's going to be a great one.
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Well, Robbie McPherson, welcome to the Extraordinary Ladies podcast.
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Lovely to be here, Gerard.
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It's a it's a real privilege to have you here. But before we go any further, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I'm speaking. Who had a banner wrong and been warning people of the of nation rugby. You're, of course, up in Sydney. Who are the traditional owners that you would you would acknowledge?
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Yeah. Yeah. I'm on the Gadigal land. Famous Gadigal land here in New York Nation. So the Gadigal people did it particularly tough because they were on the very forefront of the colonisation experience. So, you know, proud, strong community here and very, very proud to be to be here on this on this land.
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Yeah. Robbie, you've actually worked reasonably extensively with First Nations people right across Australia and in its territories. Might seem like a strange question, but how does it feel as a Scotsman and a relatively recent immigrant to Australia to be trusted in this way?
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Wow. An interesting question. Let's kick off. Um, look, I think the first thing to say there is that as a migrant coming to this country right from an early stage, I was acutely aware of my enormous privilege to be here and also to be aware that I'm on colonised land. And, you know, I've always had a sense of unease in a good way that I never want to lose a sense of unease that, you know, as an outsider coming in this country has not just been enormously generous to me, but in comparison to my First nations brothers and sisters, how much more advantage I have as a as a migrant than their experience and the complete injustice of that.
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And I don't want that ever to sit easy for me. I think I feel a great sense of responsibility to do whatever I can to try and address some of those not just historic wrongs, but present wrongs. So In my experience with First Nations people has been one of extraordinary generosity and acceptance. And, you know, beyond words.
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And, you know, I learn so much and, you know, feel, feel. At times
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incompetent sometimes as I negotiate. But I don't want to retreat. I want to kind of take the easy option and say, Oh, that's all too hard. I want to kind of sit on that edge as best I can.
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Mhm. And I suppose it. It's not surprising, your response, particularly given my experience of you and what I understand about you and how important social leadership is also to you. It's figured quite prominently in your own life and that of your clients. It would be lovely to hear a bit about some of the leadership groups that you work with, some of the systems in which you might do your work in cultivating and encouraging leadership, as well as the sorts of opportunities and problems that they might be leading into.
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Yeah,
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it's a strange, very diverse group of people and systems that I have had the opportunity to work with, you know? So over the last 20 or so years, you know, I've worked with, if you like, the big end of town, you know, large corporate banks, large communication telecommunications company, health organizations in the private sector, you know, the sort of
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top, top ten, top 20 companies
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right through to small NGOs in various places. Interestingly enough, these days, most of my work probably I don't know, 70 or 80% is in the government space, in particular Commonwealth government agencies, departments, leaders, senior executives in government, including in policing space with commissioners of police. But I'm also currently running a wonderful program called Sila, which is quite unique and new in Australia, which is science of social impact leadership.
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Australians work with CEOs of for profit NGO. So not not for profit for purpose organisations across the country. So really for the first time in this country there is a properly funded,
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well resourced leadership development support program for CEOs in the in the sector, because many of these people have kind of really risen to running their organisations just from doing it, you know, just learning on the job. And in comparison to the private sector and in government, they've often had very limited opportunities to, to get support, to get coaching, to, to work with other people. And that's a really exciting initiative.
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But, you know, one of the interesting things about working with quite diverse groups of people in very different sectors is that, you know, again, the paradox is they're all unique and they're all the same.
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You know, the the similarities of of senior people, people in these organizations is actually much, much greater than the differences. And there are many times I'll be sitting in a room with people and if I was to. Not know where they were from. I wouldn't necessarily be able to tell you if they were corporate. Not for profit government. Because fundamentally, they're all people with responsibilities, trying to do their best, trying to figure out what it means to take up complex, challenging roles.
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Hmm. Yeah.
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Mm hmm. Makes sense. What? What? It would be some of those characteristics that you might see, regardless of the system from which they come.
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Well, look, you know, the greatest surprise for me over over the course of of doing this work over 20 years is maybe it comes from that fantasy we have when we're younger and we we look at more senior people in the world and in organizations, and we we have this
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view or belief that somehow they are unlike us. They're not quite really what's yours. These are people who are smarter, cleverer, more capable, more confident. And
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they what I've, of course, learned, which is on one level obvious, but I've just seen again and again and again is that.
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With a few exceptions, and these people are usually the ones to worry about. These are people with the normal levels of human frailties and doubts that everyone else has, including Am I good enough
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worrying about being judged? Worrying about stuffing up. Worrying about not being good enough. Worrying about how to take up their role successfully and all all the normal things. That, of course, is what it means to be human. But I've just seen that in in every group. There's never been a situation where I've not seen that revealed even in the most unlikely of circumstances. I mean, I remember maybe because of the stereotype.
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I remember when us for the first time started to work with very senior police. And, you know, police have a particular place in our imagination and,
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you know, in our society and, you know, big roles, uniforms, power
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is kind of a bit intimidating. And, you know, I remember turning up for the first time feeling all of probably feeling a bit of intimidation myself working with and these were assistant and deputy commissioners and that and of that first group, over half of them are now chief commissioners around Australia and. All the stereotypes that I was probably walking in were over the coming days and months.
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We worked together, of course, all found to be unfounded. You know that like every other group, these were people who was at times struggling with the imposter syndrome, worrying whether they would be caught out, worry, worrying whether they were good enough compared to their colleagues. All of the normal
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characteristics and fears and concerns that, you know, humans carry and and also a desire to keep on learning and growing. And if that's really what our job is, is to be beside those people. You know, I can't tell them how to be. I'm not there to tell them how to police. You know, that's their area of expertise. But what I can do is try and create conducive environments for them to feel like they can.
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And this is a metaphor that they'll use to take the mask off, you know, to to start to reveal more of who they are in a in an environment that feels safe enough for them and which allows them to then hopefully reflect and learn and grow and be less afraid.
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Because, of course, when we meet people in this in systems, hierarchical systems, we often see. The role first rather than the person, particularly if we're carrying stereotypes or archetypes of of things through our lives into that moment. And then you have the.
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Yeah.
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The privilege and the responsibility of. Encourage them, inviting them and cultivating the conditions under which they can put aside their masks and show the real person all of the wonderful strengths, as well as the sort of the vulnerabilities and the opportunities. And so you have this extraordinary privilege to to work with them to teach and to cultivate their own learning about leadership. I'm curious, though, about your pathway. You now work with, you know, commissioners and assistant commissioners, and you teach at the highest levels of government and you work with very senior leaders in corporate and not for profits.
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What, though, is your pathway towards teaching leadership?
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Um, I suspect, like most people who do this type of work, a bit of a rickety path, a bit of an awkward one. I think most people find this work. You know, I don't think there's a, you know, straight line to it. And certainly wasn't for me. Like, I you know, I grew up in in the east coast of Scotland. I went to university, did an arts degree. There was really had no particular clear path of what I wanted to do, came to Australia.
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You know, that in itself, I guess there's always a story behind that. But I had no intention of staying. I ended up meeting my my wife on that trip and came back here permanently when I was in my early twenties.
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You know, the interesting thing at that stage of my life, I mean, I've always had an interest in in learning. I've always had a curiosity and I've always been interested in leadership, you know, from a really early age. I loved politics. I love watching people. I was always fascinated by, you know, what makes people tick and what makes the world tick. So I think I had an interest there. But the notion of doing leadership development, I wouldn't have even known that that was a thing. Right. And so probably, like a lot of people bounced around to my toes.
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I was doing various jobs in the corporate world, feeling, frankly, feeling a little bit lost and not having any kind of clear direction. The other thing that was going on at that time, which felt like my kind of dirty little secret, to be honest, was I had a kind of almost pathological fear of speaking in front of groups, which of course is ironic, isn't it? And that goes way back from, you know, having speech therapy when as a kid, you know, I had my teeth knocked out when one as a toddler, blah, blah, blah.
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And it just was something that I avoided doing. And in most parts of my life, I was reasonably confident, you know, playing sport and things. But speaking in front of groups, you know, it was just horrid. The idea of doing that and avoided it to the best of my ability. And that's
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that's kind of. Coleman Ironically, that culminated in me actually experiencing my greatest fear, which was, you know, when I finally had to, you know, do something in front of a group. I think it was my late twenties in I was working for a finance company in North Sydney, and I got up and I completely froze. And I froze because I'd done no preparation, because to actually prepare was to admit that this thing was going to happen. You know, a great strategy is, you know, just pretending it's not going to happen.
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So, you know, I think.
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We call that work avoidance.
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That's right. Exactly. You know, and I can now look back, of course, and understand all of this. But at the time, I was just kind of all confused. So that moment was, in a strange way, both a deeply humiliating experience, but also quite a liberating one, because it was like, okay, well, that was not good, but I'm still I'm still here. You know, actually, the world didn't end. I had a pretty horrendous, you know, hour or so with the group, and that's probably embarrassing for them as well.
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But
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in a way, it took away a little bit of the fear. And then that started to make me want to understand that more and explore it. And that path, I think, was what took me into because I started to do my own development in a more conscious way that got me more and more interested in what, what is it? What does it take to learn and grow and develop as a person? And that led me to start to do adult development in various places and took me to the world that I work in.
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And it was a great it was it was an awful experience and it was also an incredibly important experience.
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Yeah, I like the phrase you used before that. It was it was a rickety path and it was not a straight line to it. And I often reflect upon that because people ask me a similar question How did you get into doing this work?
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Yeah.
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And what I think about is the fact that there is no single clearly defined pathway towards this type of work. It's not as if there is a mapped out set of academic qualifications that you need to get accreditations or some sort of standards in a professional association that you have to meet to be qualified, accredited, certified to do this work. It seems to me that. And when I asked this question of other people who do this kind of work that we do, it's often this pathway through life that was not necessarily charted deliberately, but it was responding to the opportunities and the challenges in a in a genuinely authentic way.
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And I'm really working with the challenges and learning about self sufficiently to want to then bring that awareness or consciousness as a gift towards working with others. In fact, a great influence and teacher that we share is Marty Linsky, who taught adaptive leadership theory and practice at Harvard University. And he often said that life is a laboratory in which you learn about leadership. Yeah. How is that idea applied to your life and your work in teaching leadership?
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Oh, goodness. Look, you know, first of all, I see myself and I see everyone else as a complete work in progress. So, you know, I see that every time I go into the classroom. I'm not just trying to support the learning and development and growth of other people. I'm also there to try and continue that for myself. And I think if we take that mindset in, it actually helps helps us turn up with more connection, more empathy and more openness to the people we're learning and teaching.
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I to be honest, every single time I walk into a classroom, I see it as a form of improvisation. I don't and there's no script. I mean, there's obviously a whole bunch of processes and models and frameworks and I content that we bring. But I the more I do this work, the more I kind of try and hold them likely and hold them almost slightly off to the side and just trust the process of how you try and meet another group of people in a in a meaningful and authentic way.
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And so I sometimes feel like I'm making life hard for myself because I don't follow a script,
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but it feels like that's the right way for me to do it. It can annoy the highlights of, you know, program managers that I'm working with who kind of say, Well, what's the schedule? And and I'm kind of like, well, you know, I'm not quite sure or, you know, yes, I've got one that will almost certainly deviate from it within 10 minutes. And and I think that that is my resistance against false notions of of control.
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I think if I try and turn up with a group of people and work with them and I'm trying to control the process and control the agenda, it acts as a blocker and an impediment for me from me to actually fully connect with them and see them and understand where where they're at. And so I put a lot of focus on trying to.
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To figure out who I'm working with, where they write, what are their what are their needs. And in a way, the the schedule and the content is is secondary to that. It's stuff you you use. When required. And you know, Marty, I remember something Marty said when I when I was in the classroom with him. 15 years or so ago. And at the time it thrilled me and terrified me was he said he said the empty, I the empty or I am in the classroom, the better I teach.
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And that idea of turning up empty.
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As I say, I remember sitting in that classroom and thinking, Oh, that, that that terrifies me. But I'm also drawn towards it. And in a way, I've tried to move more and more to to that place. Now, knowing, of course, that, you know, in a guy like Marty's case, he's bringing in 56 years of experience. He's not really empty. But what is what he's really saying is the more he can let go of the script and empty himself of control and notions and and be fully present, the better.
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And that requires that we have to trust. Trust ourselves. Trust the group. Trust whatever will unfold. And I think I've got that.
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Yeah. Yeah. Well, there is an idea in there, isn't it? It's quite important that because we're not, you know, we, we don't go into do the work as rudderless ships, you know, we often go in with an intention and often that intention is of service to, with the people that we're working.
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With in the.
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Room or the space. And, and that idea then of knowing when to take hold and when to let go is such an important one in this work. And it's also important in life. And if it's okay, I'd like to just reflect on the fact that it was a year ago that we we first attempted to set up this podcast conversation. Sadly, you know, it was interrupted by the passing of your father back in Scotland.
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Mm hm. Well.
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When we spoke recently, you shared that there'd been a number of losses and causes for grief in your life over the past year. And, and clearly that would have required you to in many ways, have to learn how to you let go. But without putting words in your life, I'm curious about what the experience has been like for you and and what impact has that had on, on your leadership work. Mhm.
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Thanks, Charity. So it's a it's a great question. And you're right, it's his anniversary of his death is, is next week and a year ago this week I you know, made a very, very unscheduled trip in the midst of the pandemic and got on a near-empty plane and headed over there not knowing if he would still be alive.
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Yeah. Look I've always been interested in in the loss side of change. You know, I think that one of the things I was really drawn to in in the work of people like Matthew Linsky and and Ron, Hi, Fitz and all that is it was the first time that I came across anyone talking about leadership and change who spoke very explicitly about the loss side of things. So, so many other models and ways of thinking want to rush to, you know, the the exciting, sexy innovation, the new, you know, all of that, which of course is really important.
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But one of the things that drew me to their work was they said, well, you know, change and leadership is is about helping people deal with loss. I remember hearing for the first time and it was like, Oh yeah, that's right. And I hadn't named it quite as clearly as that. In fact, I've heard Marty Linsky say when you when you're in the leadership business, you're in the grief counseling business, you know, which was, again, low. He's got a good turn of phrase.
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The grief counseling business is, as I was thinking about leadership and I think in how dramatically different, different ways think of thinking about leadership is to most heroic notions of leadership. So I guess I've always had brought that in, tried to bring that into my work. How do you help people deal with loss? The last year or so? It's certainly been another layer of that. You know, so in different ways, because the loss can come in so many different varieties, right? The pandemic has been humbling for so many of us because it's been a loss of certainty, it's been a loss of connection with loved ones.
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It's been a loss of our freedom. It's been a loss of certainty. There's many parts of that loss and that's been incredibly loss of lives. You know, I mean, six, you know, millions and millions of lives
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and. On top of that, you know, I lost my father recently, lost another very close friend who died far too young. And then on top of that, you know, thing, even things like, you know, over the last couple of years, 18 months, I've had to two operations where my my joints kind of been giving up for me. And I have had a full hip replacement and a partial knee replacement. And, you know, in the scheme of things, that's not so dramatic.
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But it does mean to say, for example, that some of the activities of that I really enjoyed doing running, for example, and certain other parts of exercise, I've lost that capacity. And that's not just exercise. It's also part of who I am, right? You know, it's part of my identity. And in fact, you know, it was an operation in a way, on a much earlier in my life that brought me to Australia, you know, as a shoulder reconstruction. And I couldn't play rugby anymore. And, you know, I was went through a probably a very bit of a crisis at that point and probably ran away to Australia for a while, for a while.
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And here I am. So, you know, lots of, lots of experiences of, of loss. And even as a parent, you know, my three daughters are, you know, the youngest. Last week finished her final HSC exam, so she's now completed school, which is a wonderful thing and it's a great thing seeing your kids grow into, you know, fabulous young women in the world. But there's still loss involved in that, right? You know, your role as a parent changes.
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Your kids are no longer children. They're young adults, and that's another form of loss. And, you know, I find this
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understanding, a deeper understanding of loss, not just in a in an intellectual way, but in a kind of personal and emotional way, just helps me to understand that so much of of our work and so much of the work of leadership is about helping people deal with forms of loss. And and, you know, of course, develop and grow something that replaces that. But we can't have the new without going through the the pain and the disruption and the uncertainty of the loss.
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We like to think we can. But I think that we are we are offering a false promise when we do that.
00:33:23:25 - 00:34:03:26>
Yeah. And because loss is loss creates suffering. Yeah. Cause suffering is an integral and an unavoidable part of life. Yeah. Because. Because of the impermanence of all things, we're. We're inevitably forced to let go of the things that we're attached to. And the interesting thing is many of the wisdom, traditions and great religions have recognized this, and they part of their function was to try and help us make sense of loss and suffering and to give it meaning and to provide a self to our emotional wounds. But capitalism and its attendant consumerism, however, promotes the idea that we should be free of suffering, that we should be able to buy something, a service or a product that will prevent or remove our suffering.
00:34:04:04 - 00:34:10:12>
And the underlying message of much advertising and marketing is that we deserve to suffer much less than we actually do.
00:34:10:24 - 00:34:11:17>
So yeah.
00:34:11:27 - 00:34:28:16>
We often wallpaper over our grief, our loss and our suffering, and we we try and move quickly beyond it out of the pain. And I'm kind of curious about in your work. How important is it to acknowledge and sit with others pain and suffering without trying to fix it or remove it?
00:34:30:25 - 00:34:52:22>
Oh, it's central to it. You know, it's central to it. And if we're not in touch with our own pain and suffering in a positive way, you know, as in, you know, we don't projected onto other people, we are able to bear our own suffering and pain. If we can do that, we know we will be unable to sit with other people suffering and pain. And
00:34:54:09 - 00:35:33:10>
that is a core part of our job. And you're absolutely right that I think that the modern Western capitalist world has sold as a big, unhelpful falsehood, which is that we can live life without pain or suffering. And of course, it's nonsense. You know, every every great tradition understands that is part of what it means to be human. The mere fact that we all die and we have loved ones who die and there will be loss and there will be physical and emotional pain along the way is part of the fabric of life.
00:35:33:10 - 00:35:56:06>
And to deny that and to try and find ways to avoid it and cover it up is is just so unhelpful and I think leads to many, many dysfunctions as a society and in organizations and individuals. And,
00:35:57:27 - 00:36:14:12>
you know, as you as you say, you know, I love the you know, one of my tan who is he's one of my real inspirations as a teacher. And, you know, he will talk about one of the biggest challenges, one of the biggest
00:36:17:02 - 00:36:24:22>
challenges that we have as humans is how do we. How do we transform our suffering and our pain into something useful?
00:36:26:16 - 00:36:44:21>
And so often the pain and suffering that people face is leads to further suffering and pain, either for themselves or for other people. We pass it on and double it, and we're all imperfect and we'll all get it wrong, of course. But actually, how do we find ways to
00:36:46:19 - 00:37:11:24>
sit with. That pain and suffering and a lot of things to heal. You know, a lot of the work we do is kind of healing work. You know, I'm not I'm not a therapist, but. I'm not not a therapist either. You know, the type of conversations you have and the and the sitting with people as they're going through really tough moments
00:37:13:16 - 00:37:18:22>
where you can't even if you wanted to, you cannot rescue the other person.
00:37:21:09 - 00:37:25:09>
But if you can sit with them and help them make sense of that and help them
00:37:27:19 - 00:38:01:00>
feel normalize that and feel like they're not alone, then some form of transformation is possible. I mean, you know, just just to illustrate that I something I'm coaching at the moment, this this person, you know, very suddenly a few months ago had a life partner left. Unexpectedly a very short notice. She doesn't have kids. This was her soul mate, in a sense.
00:38:01:22 - 00:38:05:26>
And she was in a seriously dark place a few months ago.
00:38:07:17 - 00:38:46:10>
And, you know, not surprising that it's going to affect her capacity to also turn up and do her role, which is a very, very senior quite public role, in fact. And, you know, in those moments, there's part of you wants to jump in and rescue that person and you can see their distress and their pain and you can feel like nothing you do is is enough. But in fact, just. Being with them and listening and asking questions and trying to show some degree of compassion.
00:38:46:19 - 00:39:18:10>
And, you know, sometimes some some offers of some practices that might be useful for them. You can come away and feel like you haven't done very much. But then. They will then tell you of how much that meant to them and how important that was in that in that moment. And there's an incredible privilege, and if you like, almost intimacy in that moment. And I was talking with that person yesterday and.
00:39:20:15 - 00:39:30:13>
She's. She's. Making your way through this. She's doing well. She's doing. You know, she's really going through the pain.
00:39:32:08 - 00:39:34:04>
Yeah. I.
00:39:36:12 - 00:40:06:27>
I'm pleased that that's the experience that she's now having and that you were able to play a part in supporting her through that. Robbie, I, I admire deeply many things about you. One of the things is when I've seen you work with with people, you have this ability. I describe it as to be able to make time. Slow down. You know, whenever you engage with others, you really appear hurried or impatient. You seem to take exactly as much time is needed to engage, to inquire, to listen, to share.
00:40:07:16 - 00:40:22:20>
And often it's an almost reverent sense of communion with others you're cultivating. And in a world that seemed hooked on doing and advancing and moving forward. How important is that act of connecting and just being with others?
00:40:24:21 - 00:40:31:02>
That's. That's very kind. That's lovely for you to say that. I feel, you know, genuinely moved.
00:40:34:05 - 00:40:57:14>
Yeah. Look, you know, we are obsessed with. With doing and moving fast and being productive and rushing along. And of course, there are times when that's required. You know, we need to there are many moments when getting busy and rolling up a sleeve is what's required. But we get a bit hooked on that. And
00:40:59:00 - 00:41:34:02>
I think that. Presence being. Being fully present to each other where we just try and block everything else and give our full attention to whoever is in front of us. You know, we've all experienced that. We all know the power of somebody who listens, who is we know the difference between somebody who's being fully present was in a in a whole way and not judging us where we feel listened to and understood.
00:41:34:11 - 00:41:44:14>
We know what that feels like, Right. And we know the difference between that than somebody who's faking it or going through the motions or is distracted.
00:41:46:06 - 00:42:19:02>
I you know, it's taken a long time, I guess. But you get better at doing that. You know, you get better at bringing yourself fully to whoever's in front of you and trying to turn up as, you know, intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually connected as you possibly can. And when we do achieve that, I think it has its own its own power. You can't predict what's going to happen. And I'm often blown away by what can emerge.
00:42:20:08 - 00:42:57:13>
I mean, you know, I'll be I'll be honest. Jarrett, There are there are many, many, many times in the classroom and in coaching when I'm sitting there going, is is this of any F in use? Am I am is this you know, and there's a bit of me going, oh, maybe I should be, maybe I should be, you know, pushing this faster or maybe I should be offering more. Right. And you've got to kind of resist that urge to to jump to solutions and action and fix it. And sometimes you don't manage it. You know, sometimes I fall into that kind of trap and you've got to you've got to just try and slow that down.
00:42:58:00 - 00:42:58:16>
But
00:43:00:10 - 00:43:04:26>
if you're able to achieve that, when we do achieve that, we know that that's of the greatest value.
00:43:06:04 - 00:43:12:13>
Hmm. And I often find that. People will let you know when they're ready.
00:43:13:03 - 00:43:23:21>
Yeah. Yeah, that's true, isn't it? Yeah. And having trust in that. Having trust in the process.
00:43:26:03 - 00:43:35:25>
Is is half the battle and just believing that, you know, we can we can just,
00:43:39:15 - 00:44:14:06>
you know, believe. Believe that that trying to connect to meet people. And as you know I mean this doesn't mean to saying, you know, we we both do this this doesn't mean to say that we are not offering ideas and content and frameworks and things. You know, those can be incredibly useful to people. You know, we by doing that, we're helping people have language to name their experience, but we have to start with their experience and then provide the language, not the other way around.
00:44:14:09 - 00:44:23:08>
If we lead, I think if we lead with content and then expect everybody to kind of fall in line, that's a mistake. And.
00:44:25:25 - 00:44:56:08>
Again, trusting that, you know, look, it's a creative process, isn't it? You know, it's like your guitar is behind you. You know, creative process is a weird and mysterious thing that you're not really in control of. You've just got to, you know, a couple of weeks ago, as quite often happens, I had something like 24 consecutive coaching sessions of 90 minutes, so in the course of a week. And each one has its own unique path and mystery.
00:44:56:19 - 00:45:06:20>
You know, I don't know. I have no idea where this next conversation will go. And if I try and use a formula, I think I'm selling the other person short.
00:45:09:16 - 00:45:13:19>
You're turning up with a recipe that should solve all the problems.
00:45:13:20 - 00:45:14:07>
That's right.
00:45:14:20 - 00:45:17:02>
Rather rather than meeting the person where they're at.
00:45:17:02 - 00:45:17:17>
Yeah.
00:45:17:22 - 00:45:37:17>
And and understanding that's a unique place and being able to see the world through what they share. Be able to perceive what they're experiencing and help them make sense of. But that's going to be unique to that individual who occupies this ecological niche in the world that is going to be unlike any other person. Um,
00:45:39:02 - 00:46:04:05>
this isn't something he shared with me in our conversation a little while ago. Um, Robbie, was this this idea that you, you mentioned had a Buddhist Zen. Bankable master before. Who does this work about so dear about in every group there is suffering and often the work is about understanding the suffering and meeting, identifying that in meeting them. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah.
00:46:06:11 - 00:46:15:25>
It was something again, taking the time to hurt him. He died in January. And I was, you know, listening to some of his old
00:46:17:12 - 00:46:33:28>
videos and podcasts. And there was one that really struck me. And, you know, wake goes back to your earlier question about working with very different groups. You know, how do you what are the differences and how do you turn up to a group of senior
00:46:35:16 - 00:47:09:01>
CEOs in the not for profit sector versus a group of young Muslim leaders in western Sydney that I've worked with or with another group? What is what does that take to to turn out what's the same and what's different? And TechNet and was asked that question. He was working with a whole bunch of quite different diverse groups. And I find his answer was fascinating because he said, I turn up here and I'm interested in what is their unique form of suffering, which was such a different doorway to anything I had ever thought about before.
00:47:09:16 - 00:47:12:12>
But for him, that was the
00:47:13:27 - 00:47:42:25>
the first primary question that, you know, that he there was no notion that, you know, there's not suffering. It's just like, what's the unique form of suffering that this group of are experiencing? And if we can understand that, then we're probably limited in our capacity to fully meet them where they write and and therefore work with them in a in a meaningful and authentic way. So, again, I think, you know, I think that.
00:47:46:02 - 00:48:21:05>
The last year with with a you know, there's been a fair share of suffering at different times in different ways for me. And and I know this can sound really trite and I'm I'm certainly not I'm certainly not into suffering for the sake of suffering. And I'm and I love joy as much as the next person. But I do find that it does it does give me greater understanding and empathy and compassion for not just my own suffering, but for for other peoples and that I find
00:48:23:04 - 00:48:26:03>
useful. And and it, you know,
00:48:28:03 - 00:49:02:00>
sometimes sounds morbid. You know, maybe maybe I've got a morbid fascination with death at the moment. But, you know, I've been listening to a really fabulous podcast with the American broadcaster, journalist Anderson Cooper called All the Risks. I think it is all there is. And he he he's exploring his own grief and other people's grief. He lost his mother. He was in the nineties. She was a very famous billionaire in America. But he also lost a father when he was in his in his when he was young.
00:49:02:00 - 00:49:39:18>
And his brother committed suicide when when his brother was about 22, quite dramatically. And he's going through his mum's apartment where there's all these memories of his mom and his brother and his father, and he's having to lean into his own suffering and grief. And and then over the course of all these episodes he speaks with has a whole bunch of conversations with other people, some of them, you know, quite famous people like Laurie Anderson, the musician, and Stephen Colbert, and these his conversations.
00:49:39:18 - 00:50:19:17>
I just I find them so enriching because they're funny on this side and they're real and they're painful and they're joyful. And it's like the full expression of human emotion. And there is, you know, there's incredible grace and beauty. And amongst that, you know, that that week I had or five days I had with my dad as he was dying, I was. Without a doubt, one of the most searingly painful and searingly beautiful and joyful weeks of my life.
00:50:20:06 - 00:50:51:06>
And I kind of came away with a deeper appreciation not just of him, but of what it means to be human and what it means to be able to be alive. Because if for me, at least, if leadership is about anything and I know it's a very contested space, has to be about making us all more human. You know, it's not just about productivity and efficiency and doing stuff, although, you know, that can all be perfectly useful.
00:50:51:16 - 00:51:12:17>
It's got to be there's more to it. There's more at stake than that. You know, we're not I've always loved that first line of Dean Williams book, Real Leadership, where he says, quite audaciously, this is a book for anyone who's serious about improving the human condition. Mhm. And I just love that, you know, that
00:51:14:03 - 00:51:18:09>
we are to some extent trying to improve the human condition here.
00:51:19:15 - 00:51:50:08>
Hmm. And I. Hold it. Hold it. To be absolutely true that the work of leadership is to try and cultivate, to do what we need to today to create a better world tomorrow. And that a better world tomorrow is not necessarily about having more things, constructing more stuff. It's it's actually about having enhancing or improving the experience as human beings, which may be about helping reduce suffering. About connecting more. About having more love, whatever that means.
00:51:50:12 - 00:52:23:00>
Whatever genuinely makes people content and satisfied rather than the things that we pursue that are illusions or delusions. You said earlier on, and I love this phrase as well, that you're an incomplete work in progress. And one of the delusions that you can have when you've progressed somewhat in your career and you have the privilege of working with senior folk and I know this temptation is to there can be moments where, you know, there's encouragement for you to think that you've got it all sorted, you've got all the answers, you know exactly what you're doing.
00:52:23:00 - 00:52:54:27>
And then, you know, even if you allow yourself for a moment to think that life comes along and it's not true in the face and reminds you that that is not true and that we're always working on something. Yeah. And that our clients are always working on something. And so one of the questions that I always ask at the end of every episode of of the Extraordinary Ladies podcast is is a question about what are you working on at the moment? You know, what's the where are you at the edge of your competence, your knowing, your comfort? And what are you kind of leaning into?
00:52:55:07 - 00:53:28:27>
Yeah, look, I mean, I think I think it's certainly something to do with this idea of of loss and vulnerability and not being frightened of that and not being afraid to bring that into into the work. It can feel incredibly countercultural to even talk about this, you know, weird. I'm I'm kind of increasingly just trying to embrace my and I'm saying this slightly ironically, obviously, about my inner weirdness.
00:53:29:25 - 00:54:05:02>
You know, so as we grow, you know, and the kind of Keegan work around stages of Idol development, as we kind of grow along that pathway, we we will keep on confronting parts of ourselves that at least in the short term, will feel a bit quirky and a bit weird. And this part of us says, No, no, no, don't say that. No, no, no, don't, don't, don't give that poem to that group of very straitlaced public servants. They'll think you're weird. And and the more I kind of journey along, the more I just go.
00:54:06:03 - 00:54:40:00>
Oh, who cares? You know, like, even if one person in that group resonates, it finds it really useful. That's cool. You know, and people think I'm weird. And, you know, the thing is, of course, they generally don't. But even if they do, that's okay. Right. That's fine, because I think it's only by embracing our own weirdness, quirkiness, difference, diversity. You know, diversity is not about having about numbers of men and women, although that's important.
00:54:40:11 - 00:55:14:07>
It's about how I do airline each person to turn up fully. And if I can't turn up fully and you can't turn up fully, then we can't really allow other people to to do that either. And, you know, I smiled at the day when I last night in the news, there was a a particular figure came on the television in a press conference. And I said to my wife, I said, Oh, that's blah, blah, blah. She's in my group at the moment. I said, Oh, yeah, I sent her. I said, That's the one. And I sent the the the Mary Oliver books of poetry, too.
00:55:14:26 - 00:55:26:16>
And I said, Really? And I said, Yeah, she loved it. And that's me, I guess, stepping into my quirkiness and weirdness and just trusting. That's okay.
00:55:29:00 - 00:56:03:05>
Well, I can tell you, Robbie, having seen you in action, knowing people who've worked with you, that it is certainly okay and it is helpful. It gives, you know, apart from the fact that it. It provides something to people that perhaps isn't the same as what they've always experience. Because often when we keep going to the same places to learn the things that we haven't yet learned, we're not going to find what we need to. We actually need to be presented with something new, something different, something something strange, something that creates enough, enough provocation or disequilibrium in our thinking or our perception for it to actually take hold.
00:56:03:05 - 00:56:22:12>
And then you never know to what extent that will be the seed of something that germinates real growth. So thank you for sharing that, that that reflection on the edge of your competence. I'd only encourage you to keep doing more of it. The weird Robbie McPherson is a very helpful and a wonderful Robbie McPherson we've reached and.
00:56:22:24 - 00:56:24:02>
I like that one.
00:56:25:06 - 00:56:29:10>
Well, maybe I might put that in the the title, the description of this particular episode. Yeah.
00:56:30:01 - 00:56:33:04>
That's right. I like it. I like it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:33:07 - 00:56:56:20>
Well, we have reached the end of the time for the conversation, but I would love to say firstly, like to say thank you very much, Robbie, for sharing your experience and your feelings and your perspective and your, your learnings. I always enjoy it doesn't matter whether it's a short conversation on the phone or whether it's something deeper or seeing you. You work with a group. I always walk away from it
00:56:58:12 - 00:57:15:00>
feeling more deeply connected to both the work and always more connected to you, always more connected to this importance of being human in this work of leadership that we do. So thank you very much for for joining us on the Extraordinary Leaders Podcast today.
00:57:16:26 - 00:57:22:15>
Ah, thanks, Gerard. That's very kind. And it's been a real delight. And you've asked some beautiful questions.
00:57:24:13 - 00:57:24:27>
Thank you.
00:57:29:00 - 00:57:47:16>
I very much enjoyed the conversation with Robbie, and I hope that you did too. Afterwards, I realised that we spoke of this idea of loss quite a bit, and if you're unfamiliar with adaptive leadership theory and practice, the idea may sound a little bit strange to you. So a brief explanation might be warranted.
00:57:49:19 - 00:58:34:00>
The notion of adaptive change was influenced heavily by observations of living systems and how living systems in the natural environment adapt, innovate and change over time. If you were to observe a living system at a molecular or genetic level, what you would see is that that system is constantly innovating new combinations of genetic material which lead to potentially enhanced capacities. So, for example, in Homo sapiens, at some point in time in our movement from the plains of Africa, relatively low altitude to at some point we developed the capacity through genetic mutation, through evolution of the species, to be able to operate at higher altitudes.
00:58:34:00 - 00:59:06:23>
So to the point where we have human beings who live in places like Nepal, very high altitudes, and it's these adaptations which expand our capacity to be able to flourish in new environments or changing environments. That process of adaptation has three elements. The first element is conservation, that in any system you would conserve all of the parts of that system that are currently functional, that produce results or outcomes that are desirable or helpful.
00:59:07:13 - 00:59:18:23>
There may be a small amount of innovation which then occurs, and that innovation in the genetic material of the species expands. The adaptive capacity, expands its capability, capacity to operate in many environments.
00:59:20:25 - 00:59:52:09>
However, to accommodate that new genetic material, that innovation there also has to be lost. You can't just keep adding new genetic material, otherwise the system would become unstable and would collapse. There has to be a loss of genetic material to make way for that. If we take that idea and apply it to any kind of transformation of a living system, and we can think about organizations or teams or individuals as a living system, the same principles apply that to adapt to a new set of demands.
00:59:52:09 - 1:00:25:05>
In our environment, we will largely conserve a huge amount of what we do and how we go about doing it, how we think about it, how we behave. They will need to be some innovation. So a new belief, a new mindset and a new practice, a new idea and new skill, A new technique, a new way of working. And then there has to also be loss. We're going to have to let go potentially of beliefs that we're carrying or mental models or mindsets or particular behaviors or particular routines or particular habits.
1:00:27:00 - 1:01:02:23>
If we don't lose those things, then the innovation can't take hold. A simple example would be Let's imagine that I, as an individual, decided that I wanted to be as a more effective leader, more curious. I wanted to ask more questions. I wanted to become better at listening. I wanted to be able to listen to the other person without judgment, without responding to them as if I am judging them in that moment really, genuinely here. Obviously, the innovation would be the use of more open questions, the use of better listening, the ability to be more present with the individual.
1:01:03:17 - 1:01:36:17>
That's going to require some form of loss. What that's going to have to I'm going to have to lose or let go of any compelling need that I might have to speak to, any compelling need that I might have to judge what the other person is saying, to judge it to be right or wrong and wait just till they finish speaking to then deliver my judgment on their on their statement, which usually will sound something like, yes, I agree with you. But and then every word that issues from my mouth after the word but is going to tell them why they're wrong. So my need to be the expert, my need to know my need to have the answer, my need to have my view heard.
1:01:37:10 - 1:02:10:08>
They're all the sorts of things that are likely to get in the way of me being willing to patiently ask questions, be genuinely open to what I'm hearing, and to really listen to understand. It's the perfect example of how lose losing something from my practice, which may be behavioural or even just how I hold myself to be as an individual, is going to be necessary for me to accommodate that new behavior. And that happens in in groups of people. And it happens in. In organizations, and it happens in whole communities and societies.
1:02:10:24 - 1:02:30:16>
And it's the loss, it's the letting go of the things that we value, that we currently use that may even define who we are. That makes change hard. Another example that I could set at a community level, at a societal level, would be that of the transition to renewable energy.
1:02:32:20 - 1:03:11:20>
It's increasingly making sense, logical sense, that we're going to need to transition away from fossil fuel generation of energy, such as brown coal fired power stations in places like the Latrobe Valley in Victoria. If you have a conversation with my next door neighbor at our place in the country, you'll find that it's not that simple, that these are people who have worked in these places for generations where their sense of community and belonging and their role and their expertise and their jobs are all predicated on fossil fuel generated electricity.
1:03:12:03 - 1:03:42:04>
And to talk with them about renewables is not just to talk about all of the innovations and the wonderful things that might come from renewable energy. It's to actually force them to have to contemplate the idea that the work that they do is no longer worthwhile, that the that the roles that they've played in their communities is no longer valued, that in fact, maybe their community, they may they or their offspring may in fact have to leave where they currently live and disperse and fracture their family to take up work. That's going to be elsewhere.
1:03:42:19 - 1:03:50:05>
And these are the sorts of losses that we're asking people to to accommodate to to for us to be able to move forward.
1:03:51:24 - 1:04:08:06>
And therefore, it's no wonder that the level of resistance that we get from some parts of our community in relation to the movement to renewable energy is so strong because it's the loss that's causing the resistance. It's what we're asking people, the real or perceived losses we're asking them to incur in their lives.
1:04:10:02 - 1:04:47:27>
A holding them back. So above the neck there might even intellectually agree that it might be a good idea. But below the neck in their hearts and their guts, this is a very fearful thing. It's a very dangerous thing. And this is why Robbie and I and other practitioners of of leadership and leading transformation and change, we understand that it's not just about painting a picture of all the benefits of the future. We do need to do that. There is no question that for all change there has to be a vision of something that is consistent with people's aspirations for themselves and their families and their organisations and their communities that we can use to pull them forward.
1:04:48:08 - 1:05:24:00>
That we can compel people and mobilise people and energise people with. But we also have to be compassionate and empathetic to the losses that we're asking people to incur. Because unless we help people incur those losses with that compassion and with empathy, then people might become more resistant than they need to be. And then that means that transformation and change can take longer and can be much more painful for them than it needs be. And hence, the idea of connecting to suffering and understanding the suffering that comes from loss and change is so important in the practice of leadership just as much as the inspirational, aspirational part of it.
1:05:24:22 - 1:06:02:09>
Of course, if you'd like to learn more about this idea, one of the best places to look is in the book The Practice of Adaptive Leadership. By Alexander Grass. How Ron? Hi. Fats and Marty Linsky, who wrote some lovely words about my own book just last year. But for now, that's it for this episode of The Extraordinary Leaders Podcast. If you'd like to listen to other episodes, you'll find them on the Extraordinary Leaders website, which is www.extraordinaryleaders.com.au You'll also find them at the regular places where you find podcasts such as Apple, Spotify, Google Play and others.
1:06:03:04 - 1:06:25:25>
My recommendation is that you subscribe to the Extraordinary Leaders podcast, and that way these various platforms and providers will let you know whenever a new episode lands. You can also visit our website, which I just mentioned before w w w dot extraordinary ladies dot com the day you remember. That's extraordinary. Without A&E and you'll be able to look at all the blog articles that we regularly write and contribute. As well as gain access to other resources.
1:06:27:13 - 1:06:34:15>
But for now, I'd like to thank you for listening to this episode of The Extraordinary Leaders Podcast. Take care. Lead Well.