Ep 77 Chris Hudson: Catalysing change: Personal purpose at work

Welcome to the For Love and Money podcast, the show where business and social purpose meet to inspire a movement for positive change. Here's your host, Carolyn Butler-Madden. Chris Hudson is my guest on this episode called Catalyzing Change, Personal Purpose at Work. Chris is an entrepreneurship coach and founder of Company Road, a business transformation coaching and consultancy.

Now, he formed this business in response to seeing over-niching and specialization as a significant barrier to change within corporate organizations. During his career, he's worked with some of the world's most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture, and Dulux. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in innovation and Academy XI in CX, product management, design thinking, and service design, and he mentors many business leaders internationally.

Chris is also a fellow podcast host. The Company Road podcast explores what it takes for entrepreneurs to change companies and organizations and inspire personal growth for themselves. I've listened to several episodes, as well as being one of his guests, and what I love is the breadth of guests and experiences that he shares. There's some real gold in there, sometimes from unexpected places.

Now, our interview explores Chris's personal purpose and how it has inspired his work and the way he approaches his work in entrepreneurship coaching, business design, product design, and experience design. It's a fascinating insight into how to blend what you care about personally into your work. Enjoy.

So chris hudson welcome to the for love and money podcast thank you for joining us oh thanks so much carolyn appreciate you inviting me onto the show and yeah really enjoyed you having on on the podcast as well a little while back so it's great to uh share some more stories i really enjoyed being on that podcast i don't always enjoy being on podcasts i like to be on the other side of the table, but I really enjoyed our conversation because clearly you're passionate and

curious and it shows in, you know, the way you interview, well, certainly the way you interviewed me and I've listened to a couple of your other interviews, that curiosity is so clear and it just allows people to share things that I think, you know, make for a richer experience. So thank you for having me on your podcast and being so curious. You're welcome. So, look, I know you know the first question in this podcast, and it's to you, Chris.

What do you think? Is there a role for love in business? Yeah, it's a hard one to answer, I think. I mean, I know your guests often answer it in really clever ways. I was thinking about it and what it would mean to me. And my observation is that love is kind of like an intrinsic human desire, right? So it's to the core of what drives us as people, and it's something that we all yearn for.

And if we don't have it, then we long for it. And what's interesting about business is that it's often perceived as a highly rational, functional construct in the way that it's been set up and practiced. And it's almost set up around expectation and some fairly rigid constraints.

And since the origination of office culture and its basic form probably dates back to, you know, factory workers and the 1950s and all those things that you associate with work, you know, in the way that it's been practiced and it's been driven by commercial output and productivity and, you know, just making money and just getting people together to make money. And, you know, it kind of feels like people were driven to work by commercial reward.

Expectations for work were almost set by systems of productivity and maximizing that. So since the evolution of business, our love for work, I think, has been provoked by several different motives. And those that are in charge may have been motivated or possibly, you know, through love of something, you know, it could have been love for their company, their success, their earnings, you know, something else, their co-workers maybe.

Those that were the workers, perhaps if they loved their craft, they may have really enjoyed their work and taken pride in it. But actually, they may have just been looking to pay the bills. I think the whole kind of concept of love of work, it feels like it's more recent and it's a refreshing take on what exists in the world today, which is a workplace that everyone should thrive in and should enjoy really.

So I feel like only since work culture has needed to differentiate itself that it's evolved to becoming cool and more lovable, almost. And now that workplace engagement, cultural initiatives, they're everywhere, but they're still a little bit polarized in the way that they're practiced. So some organizations do it really well and other organizations just don't go anywhere near it. So it depends on what kind of workplace you work in.

But it kind of begs the question around whether love for work can in fact be present in in all work environments and i i believe it it probably can but i do know there are exceptions to that which uh which is a little bit sad but you know that that happens so i feel like love for work is probably in the domain and in reach for people who feel like company's purpose and the trajectory of the company is almost aligned to their own you know purpose path vision values some

of those things and thankfully that's that's more common now and employee engagement programs are pretty common now and employee experience initiatives are now taken more seriously so i think it's it's probably there but it could be better and yeah i feel like you know we we both play a role in this space in in trying to make that work for people within organizations and companies but i think you know there's there's always going to be that tension in work between what people

actually want to do and performance tasks and what they have to do for the gain of the organization that they work for. Yeah, and I think the operative word there, you've mentioned it a couple of times, it should be, you know, I think the opportunity for people to really be emotionally invested in what they do because they're connected to something about it, whether it's the higher purpose or, you know, the overall higher purpose or that particular outcome or their own self-development.

That's gold when you can get it. I think it's rarer than people realise. I know when I ask the question, you know, who loves what they do, so many hands shoot up, but then you actually ask a few more questions beneath that and it feels a little bit superficial to many. So, yeah. I also think that love as a concept, it feels like it's almost all-encompassing You can't just like partially love it or slightly like it. You know, it's not like there are different shadings of love.

It's either you love it or you don't love it. And I feel like for that reason, it kind of, and it's probably why you ask the question, you know, it puts people into that space. Do I really love it? Do I really not? And if I don't love it, I just partially like it. Then that's a different thing, you know. I have to tell you a very quick story. When I had my agency. I can't even remember why, but I went down this rabbit hole of brands that people love.

And I asked my team in one session, I said, you know, what brands do you really love? Anyway, we had this discussion. And then a few weeks later, one of my senior team came up to me and she resigned. And she said, do you know what happened? What started it? She said, I wasn't even thinking about leaving, but you asked that question. And she said, and it got me thinking, I thought, I love Qantas. I really love Qantas. And she went down the Qantas rabbit hole.

And anyway, Qantas were looking for a person to fill a role that she could. And she left and went to Qantas. And she stayed there for a long, long, long time. And that's one expression of the power of love, right? Be careful who you ask the question to.

But I think an unexpected question like that in the context of work, like I was saying, you know, it's like a humdrum kind of, you know, the day-to-day of work, something unexpected like that can make you reappraise and reset and just, you know, you're talking about curiosity just before, it just kind of piques your curiosity. What if I did that? And then she walked. I'm sorry that she did for you at that time, but it felt like it was what she wanted to pursue.

Yeah. Yeah. And at the end of the day, that is all you can hope for with good people is that they see what's right for them at the time and they can personally grow. So Chris, give us a brief history of Chris that's brought you to where you are today. So just context, give us some background. Context. All right. So yeah, I mean, I podcast now, but I was a pretty quiet child back in the day. So serious demeanor, probably what I'd classify as extreme social anxiety.

And I was in a boarding school in England, and it was an incredibly difficult time for me. It made me feel really isolated. My parents were away. My dad was working for Shell, and he was working in Eastern Bloc-type countries, so in Prague and Moscow.

And for a period of time, I was in the UK and they were away so I didn't see them that much but I think that that sort of feeling of being isolated actually prompted quite a lot of curiosity for the world within me as well so I felt like I was introverted but nonetheless curious and felt like I was I was able to just see the world in maybe a slightly different way I don't know but I had to kind of take a lot in at that point and yeah growing up it it kind of it led me to pursue quite

a few different passions I was always trying lots of different things out you know from art to music theater and you know a lot getting involved in lots of things sport obviously and you know it felt that when I eventually landed in the world of work I wouldn't necessarily have a natural kind of fixed position because it there are all these different influences and I felt like I needed almost a lot of variety in my work for that to be satisfying in some sort of way.

So I landed in the world of advertising and marketing, you know, like yourself. So working with big brands like Guinness and Volvo and. You know, BT, British Telecom back in the day. And it was just an exciting time for being and working around creative people and enjoyed that mix of art and science. And, you know, the fact that there was a rationale to how, you know, creative ideas could be constructed and also perceived.

And yeah, so move from kind of brand and more proposition type work into customer engagement, customer experience.

And I was doing quite a lot of work with, you know, large organizations that had footprints across many many many countries within europe so sometimes 27 28 different countries and you're thinking about how to do whatever launch a product launch a car do and then and then sustain interest with people for multiple years so three four five years how do you build programs of of engagement customer experience with those people and yeah that that was a that was a big part of it and then ended up

wanting to not just do marketing but create products so I went into more of an innovation type space where I was creating more creative technology and then products and service design and innovation and NPD spent some time in London also working innovation consulting firm and and scaling that and yeah it was it was just interesting to see that over there, innovation was just always on and it was expected.

So there was always a pipeline of ideas that any organization at enterprise level would be ready to launch with and they had to be afraid of.

Cautious about emerging threats and you know competitors coming in to just steal their market share at any given time so so that was that was a big portion of that sort of work and yeah i think after that come we came to australia around the time of brexit because it felt that it was all going all going down the pot we had to we had to make a decision at that point to leave the uk with our kids and we came over here and we set up about eight years ago so since then i've been working in large

and small consulting firms i was working with accenture for a little while but some of the smaller boutique studios here in melbourne and a couple of years ago i set up company road which is an organizational design consultancy it's focused on organizational change and they're bringing so positivity and impact into organizations and usually that's through some sort of new products when you service that they're trying to create but it's it's looking at

transformation through more of a cultural lens and yeah since been doing that it's opened up more and more doors so as you know i've been doing the podcast you mentioned it before and i've got a few other projects running at the minute that yeah kind of grow arms and legs every week but it's it's definitely keeping me interested and i think coming back to what i was saying right at the start where i needed all these things to almost sustain my interest

that's definitely been the case the main challenge is obviously knowing where to where to spend your time Indeed. And what strikes me as you share your background from the UK to Australia. So I imagine the work that you were doing for the companies that you were doing it for, you would have been earning a pretty good salary, right? And so to actually take the leap to start your own business, what drove that?

I think, I think you don't know when you get to a certain level of seniority, you don't know necessarily without giving more of yourself and all of yourself. It felt like there was a need for me to understand for myself how far I could take it without, you know, without the safety and the security of another organization paying salary.

So yeah, it was a, it was a hard call to be honest because there are there are always pluses you know when you've got three kids and you've got certain commitments in your life and your kids need you know a lot of a lot of support and infrastructure we've got asd and adhd diagnosis and you know in in our kids and you know there's a lot of support infrastructure that we need to have in place so it felt like we we needed to be sure that it would work and you don't know until you try right

it was it was kind of like you know, do I just go and freelance. And then I didn't do that. I did do that, but I set it up almost within a brand, within company roads. And then I thought, well, what can I do to build company roads and how do I network? And then I started thinking about how I could connect with other like-minded people that were also looking to bring more impact into their organizations.

And then this topic of intrapreneurship came up and just as an idea kind of brought everything together around how to help people establish and create more momentum, more impact within their organizations as intrapreneurs. And that's all just led to more things. So I think, yeah, why did I do it? Because I had to do it to know whether I could do it for myself. And it's been challenging but at the same time totally totally and utterly rewarding so.

So yeah and i think you know we both know andrew griffiths oh yeah i read his book which is which one he's got about 15 i know he's got a ton of books yeah somebody has to be the most expensive person why not make it you or along those lines i can't remember the exact title but yeah i read that i thought okay well people out there are representing value for themselves in a lot of different ways and i feel like i've got value to bring

to the world and to other organizations so i may as well give it a crack and see whether people are prepared to pay for that so that was good that was good it was an affirming step but somewhat daunting, Yeah, yeah. And then it gets even more daunting the further you get into it. But you said, you know, you were at a senior level and you can only go so far, so you're limited. And that question you posed, how far can I take it?

Again, that suggests to me this innate curiosity in you and the desire to have the freedom to explore it. Yeah? Would that be right? Yeah, I think so. Like I was saying, you give quite a lot of yourself within, if you're working with a senior role, then you're committed to that company, obviously. And I think it was becoming harder to align to one company or one group of people in a way.

And so it felt like a natural fork in the road moment where you, you know, you just take a swerve to a different spot and a different place. And then, you know, it was important to me at that point to see, you know, having established myself somewhat in Australia, I built a bit of a network and yeah, it felt like everything was geared up towards business development and growth for that company that I'd be working for.

And it could be any company right and at that point you're thinking well okay do i devote everything to that or do i devote all of my effort enthusiasm curiosity creativity to towards something else that i can also shape and and move into different directions and because i i wanted to experiment with a lot of different things that felt like the natural choice and so at the heart Part of that desire to experiment with different things.

Do you think you can articulate what that deeper purpose is that drives your work and your podcast and everything you do at the moment? Yeah, I think so. You know, I feel like I'm a bit of an observer in the world and I feel like there are things that I like about it. There are a lot of things that I would like to fix or, you know, and I don't mean to sound idealistic and, you know, in a way that everything's broken and we should all just give up and go home.

But it feels like there are things and niggles that just get to me.

And I feel like, you know, having your own business is one way to obviously think about whether there are you know there there are ways in which that could be addressed in some sort of way so it comes from not just seeing what might be fixable within the world but also understanding that with a certain skill set and if you can if you can work as a consultant if you work you work in experience design or service design you can have extreme you know it's liberating but you can have an extremely

positive outcome or an experience from from helping those organizations or helping the people within those organizations achieve something and move them along and provide perspective in a way that you know can be can be helpful and and i feel like that drive to not just liberate some of the constraints that sit within businesses and organizations but also help them as a catalyst for moving them through steps of change and through transformation i mean it's a

buzzword but different different hoops and and do it fairly easily and in a fun way and and make that experience really rewarding and enjoyable as well it just felt like that that became the calling really. And making the experience fun and enjoyable, in what way? What's the sort of driver of that with the work that you do? Yeah, yeah.

It's a funny one. So one of the things that we're working on separate to this is called Rocky Road, which is a facilitation of, but we essentially parachute into messy project teams and turn it into some sort of sweet success.

And it's using this rocky road analogy of you know the gooey messy you know it's messy and complex and it's all these random ingredients and then it comes together into something that's sweet and people really enjoy as an outcome and i'm working with lena patel and it is an amazing facilitator so we do relational commercial facilitation but it kind of it sums up what we're trying to do with company roads in a lot of other instances where you're trying to you know If you're an experienced

designer or if you worked in customer experience, then the experience of getting to the answer in an organization can be an experience in itself, you know, without using the word experience too many times. If you can design customer experience for end users, consumers, and make that fulfilling, rewarding, useful, fun, entertaining, you know, whatever it is, daring, you know, there are a lot of different ways that you can approach it.

Then you've got that tool set that you can take to organizations and the process of getting from a to b to c through a transformation the employee experience the engagement that goes with it every moment at work could be designed for or done in a more deliberate fashion that would result in more delight more joy more share more shared experiences and more reward for a lot of the people that would be sitting within that so i see that as the opportunity you know i take from

other things that I do you know I do I do I do.

Music in in my spare time and i'm recording an album at the moment oh wow the sense of kind of performance is is sort of creeping in a bit now so i'm trying to think like how do you how do you learn from like the the most immersive and engaging experiences that are there in the world and that could be from you know one of your favorite albums that you listen to you know 90s hip-hop or you know whatever it is you can you can take from that you can take from the way that theater is done and

the way that staging is created obviously film cinematography books you know how do you create drama how do you create tension how do you create excitement around certain moments and all of that can come into you know the world of work and and how how we feel about that so one of the things that i'm focusing on at the moment is is creating a community for example for entrepreneurs and this will be launching later this year but it's going to be centered around this rebel at work concept so it's

bringing together people that would want to yeah probably take more unexpected methods into the world of work and create more positivity and impact for having done so so that that will be that will be a big thing for for us to look at this year but it just feels like the opportunity for work to become more interesting to become more creative to become more impactful you know as a result and as a chain of events, it feels like the opportunity is still there because it does feel stagnant.

Right? It was really staged some of the time. I love, I love, love, love what you've just shared. And it goes back to what you described from your childhood as well. And what you shared in the beginning is you're bringing all these threads of your life's experiences and passions into one area and that's supporting entrepreneurs. And I love the Rebel at Work idea and building a community.

There's a lot of crossover with the work that I'm doing with Phil Preston, which is also about building communities. And I guess it comes back to change, doesn't it? You can't create change alone. And there are a lot of change makers that you work with and i work with but it's it's in community and collaboration that you can actually create that transformation and shift and change.

Yeah yeah and i think the the like i was saying i use the word catalyst but the you know if you were doing it by yourself in your home office you know by yourself it just feels like you can only do so much.

If you have 10 more people doing similar things or a hundred more people, a thousand more people, whatever you can get going, like all of that is greater impact and the collective influence and the collective knowledge of those people practicing in that way, it can just create this, this kind of ripple effect.

Of change and possibility really so it's getting to it's getting to that point which i know is hard you can't just flick it on overnight but i feel like getting to that level of yeah shared shared experience and and positive impact would be the would be the goal really shared experience and positive impact love it enjoying the podcast if you're looking for more inspiration head to our website thecauseeffect.com.au for more resources on

how you can start using your business as a force for good or buy the For Love and Money book. Every copy sold allows us to protect one square metre of rainforest.

You mentioned before when you were talking about the result that you were trying to create like i love i love that idea of well if we're trying to create a customer experience or service experience or whatever whatever it is we've got the tools to make the the experience of designing those experiences and experience in itself yeah and the result more delight more joy and shared experiences which goes right back to that idea of love right You know,

maybe it's not the word you love you use, but it's bringing emotion, positive emotion and emotional investment in what you do, not just going through, you know, jumping through the hoops or whatever it is. And that's so exciting. That's really exciting. I love that. And I think you're, God, you're pioneering in that area, I'd say. Yeah, I hope so. I mean, I think that people hopefully will tune into it a little bit.

And I feel like if you or I were working or anyone else was walking into their work the next day or after listening to a podcast or whatever it is.

Every single interaction that you come across through the walk into the office and then up the lift and then down the corridor to your desk, every every every turn is is basically an opportunity to represent yourself and your personal brand in a positive way that could evoke a reaction or you know create a response in some sort of way from either the environment or from some some people that that you know or don't know you know and i feel like the opportunity for that is is huge

you know you don't just have to you don't just have to follow the calendar and turn up at the meeting and then leave the meeting and then grab lunch you can actually grasp the opportunity of being in the work environment you know virtually or or in real life you can do a lot of things with that opportunity and i feel like that that sense of excitement around work and and also the bringing of something unexpected to work you know people talk about bringing yourself to work and your whole self

to work but bring something unexpected that that will not only help you in strengthening your personal brand But we'll also, you know, just make somebody else's day, you know, a little bit brighter and a little bit more interesting and pique their curiosity. And hopefully they don't leave to go to Qantas. But, you know, it's that kind of thing.

Make the opportunity something more than it is. Or, you know, you don't have to take everything within the work environment at face value because it is just a construct that, you know, has been set in a certain way to keep everything safe and harmonious. But, yeah, I feel like the opportunity is still there to change it.

Which lands us right in the subject of change transformation and you your your podcast the company road podcast explores what it takes for entrepreneurs to change companies and organizations and inspire personal growth for themselves what inspired you to start that podcast it's one thing to start a company what inspired you to start the podcast. Yeah, so the podcast, it was a real twitch.

It felt like at the time I was listening to a lot of podcasts and it was on entrepreneurs, there was some entrepreneurs on fire and all these ones, a lot of them American, quite evangelical. High octane podcasts, I want to say. Some of them are low key as well, but it felt like I was getting inspired by the fact that people were passionate about something. And I wanted to find some passion within myself. And I thought, well, the only thing that I do a lot of is work.

And the only thing that I know a lot about is the work environment. And I'm often consulting and I'm just like, how can I do something that's interesting to people? And how can I create a conversation that would be a little bit unexpected as well?

So it came about as a, okay, well, let's see how far we can push the story around the soap opera that is work and what what is it about you know what is it about people in their success that we can learn and share with other people because so much so much great knowledge you know amazing experience is just kept within the walls of organizations and it isn't more widely shared and dispersed so it might be recognized internally because somebody gets you know a medal at the end of the week or

you know employee of the month or whatever it is there'll be different initiatives but if you don't work within that bank or within that design studio within that architecture firm you don't know any of those those things so i thought like there's so much you know thousands and thousands of millions of billions of people around the world are working you know that's where they spend all their time let's bring some of those stories together.

And and let's see how far we can push it and it's it's just been really exciting for me to to stretch the concept of entrepreneurship, but also just break it apart. So if I've got somebody that I know has been an amazing, amazing leader, who's a jazz musician, who draws creativity from that and brings that into their work and applies it in some way, then let's talk about that. And, you know, I had a former stripper who was... I listened to that.

Brilliant. Brilliant. No, it was just, you know, how do you reinvent yourself? How do you take that as a learning? How do you apply it to your leadership style? How do you instill confidence in people having done so?

I had another one, which is an improv artist and Bronnie Lyle came on and he was telling us about not only just the role of comedy, but the fact that you can disarm people with it and you can, you can make people laugh and obviously, Improv is very much about listening and active listening and then tuning into what the other person is saying so that you're creating a more relevant context for conversation.

And all of these things, I've had a fine artist, I've had lots and lots of different people, it's just been very, very cool.

And I knew the concept of work as a whole was a big meaty one to take on, but there are so many different facets and angles that you can take that it's not just about what you work but if you're thinking about it shared experience and and how you can learn from it more broadly then yeah let's talk about inclusive workplace cultures let's talk about neurodivergence let's talk about silos and how we break them and you know all of the learnings

that exist out there in the world from what people have tried and in some cases they've failed you know is it yoga and fruit is it this or is it that you know how do you how do you represent yourself and i think the the conditions of work are becoming more challenging in a way i feel like people particularly entrepreneurs in in sort of three to five years into their careers they're finding it harder to almost you know feel that stickiness within an organization because they feel

you know compelled to try other things as well like you yeah yeah exactly and why wouldn't you i feel like there's so much that workplaces have to give and having worked as an entrepreneur almost for so long and within so many organizations i thought well let's just bring the conversation together so i'm glad i did it it's a labor of love as you know we're 70 plus episodes in now.

And yeah we just keep going and you know i'll see if i can beat eastender's record for running for decades but i don't know we'll see how it goes if it stays interesting we'll we'll keep going but It's had an amazing response. You know, we've had listeners from every continent in the world tuning in, lots of really lovely feedback from people. So, yeah, really excited to be doing it. And it's brilliant. I love the breadth of experience you bring in and draw out from your guests.

And I feel like the world we're living in is changing so rapidly, so dynamically, and business has to change with it. Yeah. And it is changing, but probably more slowly than you and I think it needs to change. And, oh, the learnings from your guests, because some of them are representing just, you know, a little part of change in their organisations, and some are representing things more broadly.

But, like, what, 70 episodes in, you know, So it's phenomenal what business leaders can learn from the people you're bringing in. And you've got me hooked. I'm going to be listening to a lot more of your episodes because I just think they're gold. And it's interesting, lots of people start podcasts these days. But there is a stat which I've forgotten, like the vast majority don't get beyond, I think it's episode four. I was going to say 12, episode four. Well, yeah, four, whatever.

We'll wait past that, both you and I. Yeah, yeah. And it comes from passion. I'm curious to know what do you get out of doing the podcast? Obviously, you're amplifying ideas. But what else do you get out of it yourself? Yeah, yeah. No, it's a good one. I mean, I say I joke around when I tell people about it because it is my social life, really. It's my way of almost having a very carefully, you know, carefully created conversation and it's definitely a social thing.

I meet some amazing people. I get to meet people I wouldn't get to talk to otherwise, and just hear their story.

And and i think i think you know we can be shut off from the world so often now in the world of work you know we feel like the there are it's hard enough to look after yourself let alone take on the points of view of other people and i feel like this just creates that environment for me being able to you know just just sit back and listen to what people got to say and my my thing is all all about questions and the power of questions and i i feel like you know that in the right environment the

right conditions and these people are amazing they've got amazing experience you can ask questions that just take you into really unexpected places and and we'll we'll get the yeah a surprising surprising outcome or result so it hasn't got quite as kind of soap opery as it might get not and i don't know whether this is going to happen it'll depend a little bit on the guests but i'm just curious to see how far we can push it yeah keep an eye on it keep an eye I mean, I had a guy,

Ben Mason, he came on, he just sold up everything. And it was all about how you could push virtual working to the limits. And he was on a yacht somewhere off the Caribbean and he was boating around the world because that was his dream and his passion. And we were talking about, you know, just how you can break work down to its simplest things. And, you know, I feel like some of those, some of the questions around what work can be, what work can become will be where we focus next.

But yeah it's definitely powered by the guests and yeah just curiosity is like, That theme keeps re-emerging, curiosity, how far can we push it? Yeah, that's very, very clear. Tell me, have any of your guests shared a story that has profoundly shifted your thinking about the work you do?

Yeah. i mean yeah i feel like the the biggest the biggest sponge in a way in the room because i have i've had all of these amazing stories and insightful stories and perspectives on on the way that the people work and you might think that you work with people and you know them really well but until you have a deep and a very deep conversation about their achievements and their motivations and their values in relation to their own careers and you take in the personal context

as well i feel like i've had a not not just a superficial understanding of why people are successful but but also you know what's driven them as people and what's made them the people that they are so you know i'm just scrolling through some of the episode tiles while we're talking now and i just wow there are some really really inspiring stories out there and i feel like i'm you know i'm i'm richer for having had the conversation i'm

richer for knowing those people i'm inspired by all of them and you know that doesn't there doesn't seem to be one that stands out because everything everything as a whole has contributed to you know probably my own personal outlook in the last in the last couple of years since doing it. And it's driven me forward to share those learnings with other people. To help other people, but also to try and discover other interesting stories and other people to talk to.

So yeah, if there's anyone that's listening that wants to come on the show and tell their stories, then feel free to get in touch. That'd be great to have the chat. And do you know what? It's a really hard question to answer specifically, I think. I was thinking this morning, like you didn't get these questions. I haven't, you know, you haven't pre-screened this.

And I was thinking, if you asked me that question, you know, could I, because I've got all these amazing people I've interviewed and such rich learnings, but to be able to just pull one out of the drawer and go, yes, this is really challenging. But you know, there's enormous amounts of value. And yeah, I know with my guests, things have shifted from that. But also, it is a two-way transaction, right?

And something that I know from feedback from my guests, and I absolutely imagine that you would have had the same, is the value to them, of being asked the questions and having the deep conversations is at the end of it, so many guests have said, oh, wow, that was really good. That was almost like therapy. It's allowed me to ground myself back into why I do things and what's important to me. That's a gift as well, I reckon.

Yeah. And I think for people to be heard at that level and in that level of depth of conversation definitely prompts that reaction sometimes because they feel like i mean this is a podcast it's a performance environment you know we're both talking we're both listening and we're both putting on a show you know for the people that are listening so for a lot of other people that wouldn't be as natural or expected or usual so it's definitely one of those things and they feel so concerned and

you know something in some cases like really anxious about coming into the show. And sharing things at that personal level. But at the same time, you know, it's just a conversation and we've had a great conversation. They feel so much better for having had it as well. So it's, yeah, it's both, it is therapy, not just for guests, but for us too, because we hear about their own process for having gone through it as well.

Yeah, yeah. And it's so energizing, isn't it? Even though, yeah, like you said, doing a podcast is hard work, but it's incredibly energizing. I love that it's your social life. Through the many conversations you've had on the podcast, are there any sort of common themes around, you know, what are the catalysts that drive successful. Meaningful change in an organization? Yeah. Yeah. Very good question.

I think the, I mean, I think the, the heart of it lies, you know, as this podcast is about, it's within purpose and passion. Obviously you need to have the drive and the motivation to get up every day in the face of adversity and actually just push through the wall and make something happen. And how you do that, it depends on your skill set.

So, you know, I've had a lot of people that would come from more of a design creative background, you know, other people that are probably more, you know, focused on data or, you know, they might be marketers or they might be, they might be working in different roles, but how you do it is up to you. You know, I feel like you can, you can draw from your toolkit. It's easy to assess, you know, what, what skills you can bring to the world.

You know hard skills are easy just to list out and you can you can have a pretty good view on what your you know what your more rational powers if you want to bring them into your workplace because they'll be on your cv you just have another read but you know how you do it and what you bring and and i think you know the the overall learning i've got is that you know your personal brand counts for so much because how you represent yourself and amplify that skill set and bring it to the world

of work within a team environment and creating not only traction, but chemistry and adhesion with some of the things that you're putting forward as ideas, it's probably...

That's where the magic is it feels in that in that melting pot of chemistry where the soft and the hard skills come together and your personality is probably carrying i reckon 70 to 80 percent of whatever it is that you're trying to do but you're you're putting your own mark on it and making everyone feel like they're part of that that process and that change and that feels like what most of these people are doing and you know i've not just interviewed entrepreneurs I've interviewed a lot

of people that, you know, would have something to say about what entrepreneurs should learn from. And yeah, that feels like it is. So being true to yourself, your personal brand, knowing what you've personally valued. You know, I had a great guest, Lael Stone. I don't know if you know that, Lael, but she's a parenting, positive parenting coach. She works a lot with schools at the moment. We had a great conversation about how you're in a child, you know,

presents at work and what you do when it does. and everyone in the boardroom is basically a little five-year-old at some point and they're just fighting with one another. But I think you can learn from how you perceive other humans in the workplace as well. But you have to start with yourself usually. You have to know who you are, what you stand for, where you're going. And most of these people do and then they're able to bring people on that journey

and include them as well. So, yeah, there's a few things in that, but that's probably what I feel. There's a few things in that, but there's one core thing that I'm going to zero in on because it's what I fundamentally believe in the work we do with, you know, organizational purpose. Everyone talks about start with why. It's start with who.

You know, you talk about the personal brand, but, but ultimate and, you know, personality being 70% of it, but it really has to start with who, you know, you as the leader to begin with, or the change maker that, you know, the person leading the change, but, but really reaching into who everyone else is. You know, what is that shared narrative that brings you together, which, you know, you dig deep enough and that's where you find the unique organisational identity.

So I think we're on really similar, we're really aligned with how we think on that, which doesn't surprise me at all. That's fascinating. Thank you for sharing that, Chris. Yeah. And that puts a perspective on work, right? If you're thinking about the who, how much time are we all spending getting to know each other, you know, at a really basic level? But, you know, in the world of work, the whole week can go past just like that in an instant.

And you spend the whole week at meetings, you've done this piece of work. But how much of that time has been used to cultivate relationships with other people and find out about them and, you know, play to their strengths and hear about what they can bring? And I feel like that balance is not quite right. Yeah. Yeah. There's work to do. So, how has hosting the podcast influenced your own perspective on leadership?

Yeah, I think my perspective on leadership, you know, it was on last week's show as well, you know, there's a conventional and traditional understanding of leadership, which is alpha and often, unfortunately, white male. And it feels like there's a lead with confidence associated with that. And I feel like that's now being reappraised in some way. I feel like Leading with Humility has been more in my camp where I'm like a consultative leader.

I don't want to be directing people what to do, but I like to, it's probably a little bit broad, but quite democratic, lots of different influences. I want to recognize individuals within the team and then help them shine in one way or another, but not just make them conform to one particular stereotype. For you and I, growing up, and we were both in marketing and advertising agencies, you know that the stereotypical leadership was done in a certain way, right?

So you either went with that and you represented yourself in that way to get promotions and so on, or you decided not to do that and you didn't get promotions. It was very much black and white and you wouldn't get anywhere otherwise.

So i think there are learned behaviors that we take on but the learning i feel should be quite carefully tuned into what what you feel you would admire as a leader and for me you know having done the podcast my leadership style is is you know definitely through the art of active listening through understanding you know which traits and which and they don't have to be like big big characteristics but but what are the you know what are the small things that i could learn from

every single person that i interact with you know every day and every week and how can that improve me and actually taking the time to think about that and sit with some of those feelings, you know i think that it reveals a lot of unease and discomfort in oneself sometimes when you see how people do things so well and so effortlessly and if you think about why you know why that is and, you know, why you couldn't personally do that yourself. Then, you know, you don't often come up with that much.

You know, you think you could actually take some of these positive traits on yourself, take them forward. And, you know, in the world of design, experience design, a lot of it is to do with experimentation.

So I could be having a conversation with you or anybody else and I could try something out that I've learned from somebody else in a really like micro way, but in a way that would probably stretch my own understanding of myself and my representation of myself in the way that you would the way that you know people might think and i could it's not a reinvention but it's it's like me trying out something new just to see whether it works or not you get immediate feedback people

like it they don't like it great you move on try something else you know so i feel like we could be a bit more laissez-faire with you know how how we try things out in relation to our own personal brand and you know that that would be how i'm seeing this you know from a leadership point of view understanding how a lot of other people can just influence me and what can i learn from all of those people probably collectively what can i try out

and that curiosity you know can result in quite significant change you know when it does work out but when it doesn't you just learn something from it. Yeah, brilliant. And that bit about experimentation, it's critical. Hmm. You know, and the whole idea of failure, which I know people have become a lot more comfortable with recently, but I remember reading a quote somewhere, if you're not screwing up every now and again, then you're not trying anything new.

And we have to try new things. The world is changing underneath our feet. We have to try new things. So experimentation is key to that, but I love the way you talk about just doing it in little ways for yourself and then sitting with it and, you know, thinking about it and getting the feedback. I have a picture of that statue, that Rodin statue. Rodin, yeah, yeah. Yay. The thinker, yeah. Well, that's it. There are so many ideas that are in one's head, you know, they're just thoughts.

And you know i definitely internalize i've got a lot going on in my head all the time, and i feel like until you translate that into action and get a response back you unless you put something out into the world you don't know what's going to come back and so it's therefore not really a fact or it's not really real because it's just a thought so thoughts just get in the way of stuff sometimes and i feel like you know some of that manifestation can be really positive because it'll just

show you how the world is intending to receive the thing that you're putting out there. Love it. Love it. What's next for you, Chris? How do you see your purpose evolving in the future and the actions you take? Yeah, so definitely lifelong learning and all of that sort of thing.

You know, I want to see how Company Roads can help, you know, help organizations get closer to what really matters, you know, how, what is their purpose, what are the customers needs, help them prioritize things that'll create the most value in some sort of way and, you know, increase customer satisfaction and, you know, mutual value for everybody.

I feel like there's a bravery that probably sits behind that in that companies could be a bit more daring with the products and the things that they create. You know, the overnight successes of products, you know, it feels like it's driven by short-termism and a lot of results that sit around commercial models are often based on what people know will happen.

So a click-through rate or this or that, you know, it feels like people are going for very, very low percentage wins rather than taking bolder steps sometimes. So if there's any way to kind of help companies and organizations create more punchy, more brave, more purpose-driven products, then that's the sort of thing that could really help. Even if it means that you have to prove that it's going to be a success over.

You know, that's a good idea over a few more years, not within two weeks or two months.

So that sort of thing you know i think that entrepreneurs and bringing entrepreneurs together and i want to share more stories from around the world that will help people within organizations you know of all shapes and sizes really learn unexpected ways to bring positivity and impact into their roles and and improve their own job you know their job satisfaction their personal growth and i think you know the the nurturing of more innovative and collaborative work environments in

in australia in the first instance would be where i'd be focusing but yeah there there are big goals right there's big work to be done it's just about opportunities and hopefully through some people listening to this show you know that and maybe the start of future conversations as well so let's see i hope so i hope so so what i'd love you to close with is if you could give one piece of advice to leaders who want to create meaningful change in their business what would it be i think

leaders leaders need to understand their teams better and and that's not just driven you know not just driven from the point of view around their performance their performance management and what they should be achieving in the months or in the year. It's, they need to.

Really get to know those people and think about you know what that means for them in their team environment and within their company so it sounds like it's very broad but actually a deeper conversation with people would be hugely beneficial and i feel like the start of that is you know like you're saying understanding the who but asking the right questions so there are plenty of plenty of materials out there around asking good questions but i think everyone can walk into their

next meeting with somebody within their team and just get to know them a little bit better.

For having done so as we found out through this conversation you're understanding you know what they stand for what they value where they're going where they are right now what they want to achieve in the world you know what they want legacies to be in some cases you know it feels like that is an unexplored opportunity and the work will get done because it always gets done but the understanding and the true understanding of of people that are delivering the work and what sits

behind that it's not just an engine it's not just a rational construct and it's not just a, ways to you know it's not just a ways to help people pay their pay their bills and pay salaries, it it has to be something that unites people around a certain cause and a certain purpose and you know that if that's not the case for people out there then they'll move obviously because they want to be more fulfilled in their work so yeah I think it comes with a deeper

level of understanding you know make conversations like this part of your social life if you're a leader would be probably where I'd end it love that I think that is so so valuable but you've opened the door to one final question sorry you did it legacy you just talked about What legacy, and this will be the final question, unless you open the door to another one, but what legacy do you want to leave? Do you hope to leave? That's a big question. Like five years from now.

Five years. If you could just dream big, you know, unleash the value that you know you could, what might it look like?

So there there are glimpses of organizations out there who who are really through their leadership mainly but they've got really super inspiring females ceos you know very inclusive cultures and they're they're trying to experiment with a lot of organizational practices that are taken as the status quo so i feel like if that in some way it could be packaged amplified and then and then codified in some way so that it's accepted for you know a lot of the things that are wrong

within organizations to be able to work properly then that would be that would be an amazing legacy it feels like there would be obviously a lot of work to get to that point and it's often not that thing that is the you know the problem to solve it's probably more of an outcome in a sense than it is the project that you would be taking on to begin with but.

Many many things can contribute to that and i feel like that the standard of work you know the the equitability of it you know the fact that it could be done in in a better way could be interesting i think the the the construct of work in in terms of where it gets practiced and and how it gets practiced could be reappraised as well i feel like you know there there could be little working hubs and more like a meetup type culture.

It could be more decentralized than having to all walk in, get the train, you know, commute in, sit in an office, listen to everyone else on video calls. You know, there could be like new working practices that hopefully emerge around.

You know behaviors that are probably more healthy for people like walking and running and doing exercise and just getting active you know you could be doing your work walking around the town or wherever you're going you know it feels like you could you could be working you know kind of like in creative agencies so they they're now saying you know that it's pretty accepted that you don't you know that you don't have to beat your desk to be seen to be working but that that still exists

in a lot of organizations out there today it's not as if every employer is going to let you go and walk around the city for two hours because that's where you're going to find inspiration and creativity they're going to want to see you you know doing some stuff on the laptop so yeah i feel like that could be that could be interesting i think.

The convergence of working practices is also an interesting area in that we you know we think in terms of specialisms and then overall management and senior management leadership and boards but actually the the breadth of skill set both soft and hard that you would need to bring in as an entrepreneur it might you know span that whole landscape horizontally you know the the softness of departmental structures and the expectation of people and and

how they maneuver within some of those different environments could be could become super interesting because customer experience for example or marketing customer experience could be owned by you know 10 different teams right now or products it feels like there are so many different ways for a a generalist and curious type entrepreneur to just you know meander through any of those work environments and and create more exciting outcomes for having done so so

i feel like if the permission doesn't exist in the world of work today then it needs to be created and it needs to be created by the leaders and I want to help some of the leaders get to that point. But that kind of anti-stagnation would be where I'd probably focus it. Love it. Love it. Chris, thank you so much for joining us. Is there anything else you would like to share with our listeners before we sign off? What? Do people normally say, how do they get in touch and that kind of thing?

Is that? Yeah. And we'll include it in the show notes, but give it a shout out. Oh yeah, sure. Sure. So yeah, if anyone wants to reach me, so my consultant is companyroads.co. You can find the Company Road podcast, which we've been talking about a little bit on this show. either on that website or on all of the usual audio channels, Spotify and Apple and anywhere else. It's also on YouTube. There's a YouTube channel and I think that's about it.

There's Instagram, but yeah, I think that's about it. Wonderful. I'm going to go and listen to the L Stone interview, which piqued my interest. But thank you so much for joining us and sharing your experiences with us. I've loved chatting to you and getting to know you better and hear some of your insights. So thank you, Chris. Perfect. Thanks so much, Karen. Absolute pleasure. Thank you. Music. Thanks for listening to this episode of the For Love and Money podcast.

If you'd like to take a deeper dive into the purpose movement, visit us at thecauseeffect.com.au. And remember, doing good is good for business, so if you're not doing good, then what are you doing?