G'day leaders. In today's episode we're talking about adaptability and how to do the best with what you have at the time. Enjoy.
Why do it count backwards? Oh no, we're now recording.
What? Hello captain.
What do I...
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.
What are we going to talk about?
I don't know. So leadership, life and everything else.
And we're live. No, we're recording. I'm going to say it every time.
Hey Michelle. Hi Guy. How you doing? Good, how you doing?
Yeah, I'm really really good. Hey, we had such an awesome time with Prince last podcast, didn't we?
Ah, he was amazing. Yeah, Prince Siva from Komoda Designer Construction up in Brisbane.
And it got us thinking, didn't it? It did, it did.
He's, one of the things that he mentioned was about doing the best with what you have at the time and it got us thinking.
Yeah, it was kind of like his last message at the end of the podcast that he has always just done the best that he could with what he had at the time.
And I thought it was such a fantastic mindset that it got us thinking about different situations where we've had the same sort of thing.
You have a similar sort of mindset, just keep going until you can't. It's yours.
Yeah, that's my mantra. Your mantra, keep going until you can't.
But what I loved about Prince's podcast was, I've got three examples I want to talk about.
The first one where he didn't get the results that he wanted or that he needed in high school because he was focusing on other things, I guess he said.
But rather than just giving up because his mate told him that that was the end of his scholastic career because he got an E and an N and a D.
Yes, in his A levels or A levels or I don't even know what the levels were, but there was, yeah, and he got an E and D.
So his mate joked to him, that's the end of your schooling career.
But then he went and locked himself in a room for six days and emailed every single university that he could.
Yeah, that's very good.
It's brilliant, isn't it? And he kept on saying in his emails, look, I did not get the results that you would have wanted for entry into university, but here's a few things that I'd like you to take into consideration.
And he ended up getting like a university placement here in Sydney.
That's right. Yeah. But there were conditions on it that he had to prove, so do a couple of bridging courses.
So yeah, and it was great that he just had that dedication to keep going.
Keep going, keep going, keep going. Yeah.
The other one that I really loved where he spoke about when he came to Australia, and he wanted to assimilate.
So he just spent hours and hours and hours riding buses around Sydney to different locations, taking notes and watching TV to just assimilate into the culture that he's now living in.
Yeah, he got to know Manly very well, he said.
And Chatswood and different places because he was just riding the bus. But it's a great way for it.
Just think about the mindset. He's come to a different country.
He's here to study and he wants to fit in. He wants to assimilate. So he just rides around taking notes.
Okay, what do I need to do? Who do I need to be?
So it's not that he's changing who he is as a person, but he's just understanding the environment that he's in and just bending to the situation.
It was a fantastic mindset. And then the last one, which still to this day is one of my favorite leadership stories.
He's working for a company. And what did he find out that the owner was doing?
He was embezzling the money, going to take the money and run basically.
Overseas, yeah. And so he's the salesman in this company. He's the front of the company and finds out that the owner is going to do the wrong thing.
So he starts his own company to make sure that the customer...
Yeah, diverts the customer's money so that he can use it to actually get their job done.
Yeah, rather than that money going into the owner's pocket and then he fleeing the country like he did.
Yeah.
What an amazing story about tenacity and perseverance and...
Well, risking it for the biscuit too, in the fact that it was a big risk.
It was.
Legally, he could have been...
In trouble.
He could have.
But he did that to save the clients that he'd promised to do the work.
Yeah. So anyway, it got us thinking about a mindset of just adapting.
Adapting to the situation where you do the best with what you have in the moment.
And I'm going to put you on the spot, Michelle.
Have you ever had a situation where you've had to adapt and just do the best with what you have in the moment?
Yeah. Okay. There's one thing that comes to mind.
Very early on in my working life, I had just turned 18 and was going to go to...
About to go down to university at Wagga Wagga.
And I would need a job.
So I enrolled in the Alex Beaumont Bar course or Bar School.
That's right. You were a cocktail lawyer.
Yes, that's right.
And so it was a one-day course and you got to learn how to make cocktails and pull beers and things.
But the best piece of advice I got from that course was that whichever bar you go into to get your first job,
just pretend like you've been doing it for years.
So what they said is observe everyone who's working there and copy how they do it.
And so I did. I turned up to Coco's nightclub in Wagga.
And I said, yeah, I'd been making drinks for ages.
And I'd done it once or maybe a couple of times at Mum and Dad's place before I left.
And then the owner actually made a couple of drinks.
And I just watched him. And so I used the same flair that he did.
It took me a little longer than what he did.
But because I basically mirrored him, he was hiring himself.
So how could he not hire me?
So not only were you copying the ingredients he was putting into the drink, you copied his flair.
Absolutely.
Wow. What a great idea.
So you're doing it with the same sort of swagger and confidence that he had, which is what really he's looking at, isn't it?
That's right. Anyone can pour a drink.
Yeah. What's going into it? It's the way you do it.
Yes. Yes. So I really, really liked that piece of advice.
And I've used it since actually in everything.
You just look around you and observe, take in what they're doing, how they're doing it.
And then, yeah, adapt what you do to just add a little bit of that flair to it.
Well, I must say, I wasn't as smart as you in your first bar job.
My first bar job was not far from here at the Balmain Leagues Club.
A friend of mine got me a job there.
And on my first night, I'm like, I'm just raw. I've never done it before.
And so I'm pulling beers and then stupidly putting my hand around the top of the glass
to put the beer up onto the counter rather than putting it underneath where you should hold the glass.
And the barman just very passively, quite aggressively actually said,
people don't want your fingers in their beer.
I thought, whoops, yep, that's good advice.
And I lasted a whole one night on that job because I wasn't as smart as you.
I didn't copy what other people were doing.
I possibly could have worked there for a while, but instead, yeah, no,
I wasn't very smart at assimilating in that situation.
How have you used it at all when you're training people?
Yeah, yeah, in training I have to adapt and assimilate, not assimilate, but adapt all the time.
So it's something I noticed early on that when you're with different audiences,
you need to be a different person. You need to be a different trainer culturally.
For example, I've trained around the world and when you go to different cultures,
you have to be different because their education style is different.
But what I find is that the audience that I have makes me a different trainer.
So if I'm working with senior executives, I'm a particular sort of person.
But if I'm working with, let's say, blue collar workers in different industries,
whether it be a local council or a utility where you've got guys out in the field wearing high vis,
then I have to be a different type of trainer again. So I need to adjust me to suit the environment
rather than expecting them to adjust to me. So yeah, I do it all the time.
And actually, I was watching some stand-up comedy recently and it was hilarious
because it reminded me exactly what I do when I'm working with these construction workers or blue collar workers.
Ricky Gervais has got this fantastic routine where he's in the suburb that he lives
and it's a well-to-do suburb and he talks about how he's walking down the street
with his book of poems under his arm and his scarf thrown backwards and he's sauntering across the stage
and then he goes past the construction site and immediately changes,
G'day fellas, how you going?
Yeah, it reminded me of the very first time I ever trained with a bunch of guys who were wearing high vis
and they're out in the field doing stuff and you know me, I'm useless, I can't build anything.
But I had to adjust, I had to adjust my communication style, the words I used,
the colloquialisms I used because you've got to adapt to the situation you're in.
Well, same in aviation. How you talk to a fellow pilot would not be the same as how you talk to the cabin crew
and then similarly to the passengers. So again, when we were training to be captains,
we were told that if anything happened, an event in the aircraft that needed a PA to the passengers
to update them, keep them informed what's happening and what has happened, what is happening and what's going to happen,
that you would do it in a way that you would tell it to your grandmother.
So you do it with compassion, with understanding and you'd break it down, not use the three-letter acronyms,
you know, any plain speak, so to speak, so to say. So yeah, just to do it in a conversational, clear, succinct way
and they would have a full understanding of what was happening.
Yeah, okay. And when we were speaking to fellow pilots, you'd obviously use a completely different language.
Absolutely. And then cabin crew were the same. You'd have, you wouldn't speak to them as you would as a passenger
or as a pilot, you'd utilize things that they're familiar with. Yeah, yeah.
And it got us thinking when we were talking about this, about how we think the world's changed a bit.
Yeah, it has. So that whole adaptability, you know, using, doing your best with what you've got,
it's kind of changed and we've got a bit of a theory because we both grew up around the same era.
Yeah, well. And our childhoods were. On that, the, I didn't think it was a skill to be adaptable,
but now I'm seeing that it is because I just possibly wrongly thought that everyone did it,
but now I'm noticing it's not as common. No. And so possibly it is a skill now.
Yeah, and I think it's a skill that we learn as kids. And so you and I had a very similar upbringing
because we were both kids at the same age, around the same era where, you know, the sun came up,
get outside, start playing, go and ride your bike with your local neighborhood friends and, you know,
play, you come up with rules for your outdoor cricket, your backyard cricket.
And it was very much we're out there deciding how we play games, who we play with.
The youngest kid has to bat first, otherwise he's going to go home and we're the shorter fielder.
And so we figured things out on our own, didn't we? We didn't have a lot of parents walking around going,
no, no, no, this is the rules. This is how things go. And so it was, that was the growing up in the 70s
and 80s and, and you walk out the door and you figure stuff out. That's it. Yeah.
But both of us are parents and neither of us has raised our own kids that way.
No, I'm very guilty. We're the helicopter parent generation, aren't we?
Yeah, I'm guilty of wanting to protect my children and overprotect them. I do know that.
And, you know, sort their battles for them. That's it. Yeah.
Insane. Same. We don't want them to hurt and we don't want them to have to have the tough lessons that we had as kids.
So we need to know where they are. Are they safe? Who are they with? What are they doing?
And we've been the helicopter parent generation. And I've spoken to lots of people my age in the courses that I've run
that they did the similar thing when they were, when they were kids, the streetlights come on.
You have to go home when the sun comes up. You leave the door, you leave the house and you come back home.
And then parents kind of parented all the kids in the neighborhood if you, if you grew up in that sort of neighborhood.
But now it's, it's very, very different. And I think what's happening is that kids aren't learning to be adaptable
and they're not learning to adjust themselves. So I'll give you an example, if you don't mind.
When I was a kid, Lego was a big bucket of bricks and you built whatever you wanted.
So you designed a building, you built a spacecraft, you built whatever you want.
These days, kids will only build the Lego that is on the box. And then once it's done, it's done.
And it sits on the shelf. They don't pull it apart and make whatever they want.
Yep. Yep. And computer games, all of the rules have been created for them.
When we were kids, we made up our own games. We made up the rules for backyard cricket.
Over the fence and on the floor is six and out. And if it hits that window, whatever, you run.
But now all of the rules have been created for the kids.
Yep. So they're not creating their own rules. They're not socializing around adapting to the situation
and the kids that are there and who owns the bat and who owns the wickets and who's,
and so because everything's been done for them, they're not learning that adaptability that I think our generation learned.
And I don't, it's not their fault.
No. And that's, we're seeing it come through into the workforce.
And so many people are complaining about this younger workforce that don't, you know,
know how to make decisions or don't know how to work or don't want to come up, turn up and things.
They've got a different work ethic.
Well, where to blame?
Yeah, we had to blame. It's our fault. The parents.
We can't complain.
It's our generation that have created now and it's not like they don't have a work ethic.
They've got a different work ethic and yeah, it's changing.
Yeah. But that's not everyone. We're not blanking.
No, no, no.
There are people who have similar work ethics to what their parents would have.
And I'm not saying work ethic as in they don't want to work hard.
It's just, it's how they work and the sorts of things that they're expected to do.
And yeah, so we probably put a blanket term on what is a very complicated situation.
But one thing I'm noticing and I'm finding it very interesting is that we had to learn to adapt to the world.
But now it's almost that some people, not everyone, want the world to adapt to them.
Yeah.
And it's something that I'm noticing in my job that people are getting upset by things.
So they're being triggered. And this term, the trigger warning or that I'm being triggered, it's really quite interesting.
So I had an experience recently where I did a keynote and in that keynote speech I was talking about some scientific evidence.
I won't say what I was actually talking about because if that person is listening, I don't want to trigger them again.
But I was talking about just some science that proved if you do a certain thing, it's going to help you be healthy.
Yeah, lifestyle.
Yeah, lifestyle changes. And I talk a lot about lifestyle changes in a keynote that I do on resilience and being healthy.
And then after the keynote, I got a voice message from somebody that was sitting in the keynote and that they had left me a message saying they loved the keynote,
but somebody in their team had been triggered by something I said.
And so when I spoke to that leader, they said that something you said in the keynote had really upset one of my staff.
And I asked more details about it.
And so this person was in therapy for something and something I said about this scientific evidence that doing this thing will help you be healthy was confronting for that person to hear.
And it was an interesting conversation because I said, well, I really do not like upsetting anyone.
Okay, so what can I do differently?
And the message I got was, well, maybe if you can tell people what you're going to talk about before you talk about it.
And so in other words, it was give the keynote before the keynote.
And I've been thinking about this a lot and I understand what they're trying to do.
They're trying to make the world a safer place for the person that was upset.
And so I thought about it and I thought about this for a few days.
And then I called that person back and I asked if I could speak to the person that I'd upset so that one, I could apologize and two, that I could, I guess, problem solve with them.
What could I do differently in the future so that that didn't happen again?
Because I don't want to hurt anyone.
And the opportunity to speak to that person wasn't given.
And I thought, hmm, that's interesting because I really want to solve this problem that I'm saying things that could potentially be hurting people.
And I really do not like hurting people.
And yeah, it got me thinking about how what's the what do we do in that situation?
Well, I think it's a great opportunity for leaders and managers of teams to really create a place of psychological safety.
So if somebody came to them that they were triggered by a colleague, a situation that had happened, something at home, some media that was put out, whatever, came to them.
So first of all, there is obviously a feeling of some safety if this person felt safe enough to report it to that person.
So kudos to the person that you spoke to.
But what I'm thinking it could be to really see this person has come to you vulnerable and said, I've been triggered by this or this has upset me.
I'm in therapy.
That's right.
They're they're they're on their journey of healing and acceptance.
And then they've they've come to the leader and the leader now has an opportunity to get down there with them and say, look, how what can I do?
You know, how can we help?
And it doesn't mean bend or pander to every wish of everyone.
But if you can understand what their psychological needs are to feel safe, there could be others in the team that also require that, but just aren't game enough to speak up yet.
Yeah.
And so to offering support.
What do you need from me?
How do I help you?
Yeah.
Yeah, it seems to me that it's almost like there's this there's this shift where people want the world to bend to them rather than them bending to the world.
And life is going to be tough at times.
There are going to be things that that trigger us that make us feel bad, et cetera.
And I think it's our jobs personally to find a way to do the best with what we have in the moment and learn how to bend to the world, by all means, try and change the world.
I'm not saying do not accept the world if you don't like the way the world is.
But you have to accept the world the way it is.
Do all you can to change the world, but don't expect the world to bend around you, if that makes sense.
Well, based on what we said earlier that our generation or where to blame for possibly our children not being as resilient or adaptable.
Because we removed all the roadblocks.
That's right. And it's a training thing.
So if workplaces, if leaders can make it safe and give examples of where their teams can practice being adaptable, then we're training the next generation or that generation.
That sounds a bit wanky.
I like that. I like that. It's good.
Yeah, because it's it's not that anyone is in the wrong.
We did our best as parents.
Our parents did their best as parents.
Their parents did their best as parents.
We always do our best and culture changes over time.
And it's really just about understanding how culture has changed.
And this is, I guess, quite a significant change that I've noticed and that you said you've also noticed.
And yeah, I take full responsibility for being a helicopter parent.
Same, so tough love from now on.
I doubt I know you do well. There's not going to be any tough love.
It's compassion and care all the way.
If you ask my kids, they reckon it's tough love.
Well, I guess we do need boundaries.
But yeah, it's an interesting topic.
But what I loved about the last podcast we did with Prince is that he showed and he was a shining example of a refugee who survived a civil war, who has essentially had the drive and the tenacity to just always do the best with what he had.
And he assimilated and bend to the world rather than expecting the world to bend to him.
He's not sitting there going, oh, whoa, it's unfair.
He just kept on pushing and pushing and pushing until he made the success that he has.
So Prince, thank you for your story last time and for sharing it with the world and getting us thinking about this concept of doing the best with what you can, doing the best with what you have in that moment.
Yeah. Fantastic.
Any last thoughts, Michelle?
I think it's quite an exciting opportunity, though.
If companies and businesses and leaders and teams all take on this process of becoming adaptable, of being able to bend and pivot and adjust.
And because there's new ideas, creative ideas, the creativity sometimes in order to be able to adjust and to change your mindset, to change your perception of things.
Yes, it can be painful. But then if you've got to have, I forget who it was. Was it Rumi?
I shouldn't forget.
Was saying how if you have some discomfort every day, it helps you grow stronger. Well, if you get that done in the morning early.
Yeah. Well, that's the antifragility that you talk about in your keynote about we need adversity.
Yeah. And so if you look at it, how you can adjust. And that doesn't mean sucking it up and putting up with bad behavior or a bad situation.
No, it's being so in this situation, if you were at an event where something was triggering a topic, then listen to it or not listen to it, remove yourself.
And yeah, then deal with it either with your counselor or talk to your colleagues, your family.
And yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I am that you just made me think about another topic, which we might have to do on another podcast. But more dogs.
Yes, more dogs.
The world will be a better place with more dogs. Absolutely. Good to see you again, Michelle. Bye, guys.
Well, that was fun. That was fun.
You're such a clown. Lady captain.
And who's going to listen to this? Maybe our mums.
Thanks, mom.