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. Welcome to part two of a special episode on Willara Council's purpose journey, the transformational impact of a unifying purpose at Willara Council.
Now, in last week's episode, I interviewed Patricia Ocelli, Director of Community and customer experience at the council, where she shared the story of how doing the work to create a unifying purpose transformed the council's vision, culture, and strategic direction. In this episode, I interview Craig Swift-McNair, who played a critical role in enabling and embedding the cultural transformation, as well as laying the early foundations.
Craig is the general manager at Woolara Council. It's a role he commenced in 2020, prior to which he spent six years as the GM of Port Macquarie Hastings Council on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. Craig has spent over 20 years in local government in New South Wales in a range of roles across three councils. Before that, he had a 25-year career in the private sector.
Now, having the perspective of two very different types of leaders, I think offers a rich view of this particular case study. This episode delves into the challenges faced in driving cultural change and the steps taken to eliminate silos within the organisation. Craig reflects on the leadership required to align teams around a shared purpose, the power of storytelling and embedding values, and the importance of investing in people to foster a positive workplace culture.
His honest account of navigating through organisational restructure offers valuable insights for leaders aiming to lead meaningful, values-aligned change in their fields. Enjoy. Craig, welcome to the For Love and Money podcast. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. Very exciting. So the big question we kick off with is, what is your view on is there a role for love in work?
It's a very interesting question. On the one hand, a little bit creepy, but on the other hand, I think if it manifests itself, in my view, in respect for one another and ignoring for the moment loving what you do, because I think that's really an issue for a lot of people. But I see it in the respect you have for people. And if you don't have that respect slash love for those you're working with, then it's never going to work.
So, you know, we speak and many people have the values of respect and so on and so forth. But actually living that is a different kettle of fish. So I think I see that in respect for others and building that respectful workplace and a respectful team. Yeah, brilliant. And yeah, like, love that word when it comes to work does make people uncomfortable, but it is rooted in respect, caring. You know, just enough for people, planet, whatever it may be. So thank you for that.
So I'd love you to share, Craig, just a brief summary of your background and the key moments that have brought you to where you are now as GM of Willara Council. Well, thank you. I guess I have been in, where are we, 2025? I've been in local government for 22 years now. I've crossed a range of roles and a general manager for the last 11-ish years. So I was general manager at Port Macquarie Hastings for about six and a half years before this job.
And I've been here coming up July this year, it'll be five years at Willara, believe it or not well before that i had a range of different roles at director level and manager level in local government before that just the private sector so you know the years of being in local government are not quite usurping the years i had in the private sector but getting very close, and i think it's you know i fell into local government like a
lot of people do i had no intention really in 2003 this would have been of being in local government but that's where i ended up up in Port Macquarie and I grew in the roles and moved into director roles and then GM roles so it's been an interesting roller coaster over those many years. And you talked about at the beginning loving what you do how about that how does that come into play for you?
Yeah look there are many days I go really is this what I'm doing as we all do but it is about you know and I think And a lot of people in local government, and this probably gets back to the respect for this, Just want to make a difference. And I'll be honest, I came into local government not with that intent. I mean, I just got a job, you know, to be frank. And wasn't really thinking about purpose or why I was doing it. It was, I needed a job, needed money, happy days, let's do it.
But as I grew in that business and clearly got slightly older, as those years rolled by, it started to really sink in around the impact local government has because you, and I have this conversation often across many forums and what have you about most residents don't complain to council because things just happen. And that's fabulously good, believe me, as a GM. That's really wonderful that we don't have everybody complain, although it does feel like that sometimes.
But the reality is that we impact everyone's lives from the minute you leave your home. And sometimes in your home, you're at a regional council and you're doing things like water and sewer, every time you get up and turn the tap on, you're impacted by local government.
So, you know, by the time you've left your building and you might have caught a bus or you've driven on the road, you've walked on a footpath, you've interacted somewhere else, you've gone to the library, you've done it, this is local government impacting your life every day. I don't think, and I'm not saying everyone in the country needs to know that, but I think that's the benefit of, hey, you know what, we've kept the place livable, we've kept the place clean.
People love where they live. Isn't that a fabulous thing? So I think it's the purpose of what local government does and can do good or bad to your area is hugely important and that certainly has grown with me during the many years. Yeah, thank you. And just to give us context because I've realised in the previous episode with Patricia we didn't actually state for people outside of Sydney and New South Wales that. Where does Woollara Council, what area does it cover? Yeah, absolutely.
So we're in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, about 5km east of the city of Sydney. So the city of Sydney is one of our neighbours, as is Waverley Council to our south. So we're on the peninsula that sort of runs from Rushcutters Bay right through to Watson's Bay. So one of the wealthiest LGAs in the nation. And I will repeat, that's the residence, not the council, just the charity, sadly. So the suburbs of Rose Bay, Watson's Bay, Walcluse, Belview Hill, Double Bay, et cetera.
So that image that I sit in front of is right behind me. Our building is on Sydney Harbour, so it's a gloriously beautiful LGA. And without doubt, anyone can argue with me, but the most beautiful LGA in the nation, I would suspect. Stunning. And I won't get into an argument, but I am on the northern beaches. You are. Yes, we trash the northern beaches every day. It's all good.
So, when Patricia Ocelli raised the idea of revisiting the council's vision, mission and values, how did you come to the decision, Craig, that this work was important to pursue despite other competing priorities, which I imagine would be many? Yeah, there are always many. And actually, it steps back a little earlier than that. So, when. Gosh, so I started mid-2020, and in early 2021, I implemented an organisational restructure, as most GMs coming into a job do, just because that's what you did.
And one of those things was actually, well, one of the keys there was redefining what we call the divisions in local government, all the directives. And I created a variation on a theme, but a new director called Community and Customer Experience. And so that was the genesis of a whole heap of things that I had wanted to achieve here. And to be frank, I had no idea what that really meant. I just knew that we needed to move into much more of a customer experience world.
I had had feedback for the good six months before from the counselors about how we were good at this, bad at that. What were we doing? How do we do this better? And so the culmination of that was really this structure that took place. And then in sort of May, June of 2021, I engaged three of my four directors that are still currently with me.
So one was someone who'd been around for a while before, and I ended up with three new directors in the organization as part of that restructure, which was a great thing to do for all sorts of reasons and no disrespect to the past, but it was the right thing at the right time. And one of those was Patricia in the customer experience, the community and customer experience director role. So that was that as a structural thing.
And it was part of my approach to start to change the culture of this organization, which with the greatest respect to the past, was very stuck in a – It was like being in the mid-80s or 90s to a degree, just the way we were doing things. And that's not uncommon when anyone starts a new job, and I might be being a bit harsh, but, you know, that's the way it felt. And just structurally it needed a bit of a shock. Anyway, so we did that.
We were already in the process of thinking through the vision, mission issue. The organisational values at the time were just a bit ordinary. They were more like sentences or statements. So when you actually start looking at them, which Patricia and I did at some length, I don't think I still understood what some of those were meant.
I mean, it was just one of those. They were all right for the time, I'm sure, but when you look at it going, now, how does a staff member actually know what X means? And you look at it and go, oh, God, I don't even really know how to sell that. So we started this process of all values was one, but clearly we moved down the path with yourself and dealing with purpose in late 21, I suppose it was. So probably only six months after Patricia started, if I've got my sort of maximum.
And that was all, and I did think that was weird shit at the time, to be honest. I was thinking, what the hell? But because I have faith in my people and had engaged someone to do this work, we went with it. And as you know, we worked through that for some months and Caregiver is our brand and we worked through purpose and part of that whole equation was vision and mission and a reaching of the values.
So they all sort of took a fair body of time because you have elected councillors, and of course there are quite a different bunch to the ones we have now. That's just the timing of election cycles. And we worked through that trying to get a much more succinct vision. The mission is still hideously long, but at least we have a succinct version that we can talk to. And then the values came a little later with a whole heap of work that came off the back of the purpose work we did.
And one of our managers, Justine Henderson, spent inordinate amounts of time and fabulously so with teams across the business, as some of us did, with talking about the values as we knew them and what would be important moving forward. So we eventually presented a new set of values to the counsellors a couple of years back now and they added one, which was excellence, which is fine, and we ended up with what we have now.
So, look, it's been an interesting journey at that sort of vision, mission, values level. But as I'm sure we're going to talk to, it's one thing to put it on paper. It's another thing to actually do something with it. Absolutely. And before we do talk about the doing, I think the thing that stands out to me of the process we went through, which continued, as you said, with the values with Justine, is that you were prepared to invest the time of your people in it.
I mean, we were doing this during lockdown, I think. It was weird. It was a very weird. Well, in fact, I started in lockdown and it was 10 months till I met all the councillors face-to-face. Wow. So that had its bonuses as well as disbarred. Yeah. But that, and when you said, you know, I thought it was weird shit. And so that says to me even more strongly, Craig, you know, the leadership it takes to actually go, no. I've hired these people. I've put my trust in them.
I know we need to do this work. I'm not entirely comfortable with how we're moving forward with it, but I do trust them and I'm going to do this properly. So not only were you prepared to go on the journey, you invested the time of your leadership team and other people, which is what made it so meaningful because it was a piece of important work that was created by then.
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I think no matter what we've done initiative-wise, and I'm talking leadership, vision, values and so on, it's very much that investment in more credit as dollars and people. And I know, and there are still people who do this in this building now, who look at me going, what the, what is he talking about? And why would we ever do X, Y and Z? And that's fine.
That's part of being the leader. And then the challenge and the risk in all of these things that we do is. Does anyone understand what I'm talking about? Number one. How do you get them on the journey, as we all call it, which I do hate, but that is what we do? And how do you ensure that you're not the lone voice trying to sell this stuff? And that's where your team becomes so hugely important.
And we have invested lots of time and money over the last three or four years on developing our people through these processes. Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing to hear. And I'd love to understand, given, you know, a lot of people would say, this is the soft stuff, you know, this is the cultural stuff, and you're a council, and you're accountable to residents. Why are you spending money and time on something like this?
So from your perspective as general manager, why does having a clear, inspiring purpose and values matter in a local government context? Look, I think it's the basis of everything else because you could, I suppose, I've never done it, I guess you could employ robots to do all the mechanical stuff you've got to do and that's all great, but where's the human part in all of that?
And part of what we work very hard at here, and as I did in my previous year, of is the human connection is hugely important in all of this. I have always preached about the fact that if you get your people right, and I mean it with great respect for people not being right, if you get your people right and that all ticking along, everything else slows. And I really do believe that's hugely important. And look, I'm very conscious. As a GM, a local government never has any money.
We're always scrounging for a dollar to spend on anything. So whenever I or anyone else wants to move forward with a particular process that is the soft stuff, I'm incredibly conscious about how that looks and feels to the broader world, even to the counsellor body and to staff, to be frank. But... So you've got to get the buy-in, and I did, thankfully, from the last council and this council, that, yes, they can see the benefits longer term of getting all of these things working.
Because if you don't have a focus on customers, which sounds weird if you didn't, but there's plenty of you really don't. If you don't have a focus on the customer, if you don't have a focus on working collaboratively internally, then nothing works. Nothing else actually works. So I would rather get our own house in order as best one can and then deal with the other bits as they happen. And there's no discounting. We have to do lots of business as usual, I'll call it, stuff every day of the
week. That's what we know. We know from very recent feedback from the community going back to August and November, that's how recent, and a survey we did earlier last year, 2024. They don't mind all the other things we do, and I'm not talking internally here, but, you know, events, community, this community, that libraries, but don't forget the basics council.
Never forget that you're here to do, you know, basic things like waste collection, road maintenance, footpaths, cut the trees, do the parks, all that. And it's a really good reminder because you can get lost in all the things local government could do. Yep. But you've also got the basics to do. Yes. Yep. So let's talk about driving cultural change. What were some of the biggest cultural challenges or mindsets, if you like, that you knew you needed to shift across the organisation?
Yes. I think one of the interesting challenges for local government broadly is longevity of tenure, which is a fabulously good thing for all sorts of really wonderful reasons.
But it can also develop a culture of we've got this we've been doing it this way for 20 years there's no reason to change it's worked before why won't it work tomorrow and you know on the one hand you're going here wonderful bro don't fix it but i have always said that in local government as i have learned it is very easy to say no just because you probably can there'll be some policy legislation, guideline, whatever, that says, yeah, you're not a great idea to do XO.
It's very easy for us to turn around and be a bit obstructive, not for wrong reasons, potentially, but you go, yeah, no, that's not happening, thanks anyway. That's a problem. That's a cultural problem. I'm not saying, well, our was any worse or better than anyone else because we were all a bit tired of that brush. And that comes from the very challenging role of local government.
Not only are we here to make the place beautiful, livable, and all those lovely things, we are a regulatory authority that does have to go bang, bang, bang, 150 plus pieces of legislation we work under. We do have a role to uphold a whole heap of things. So it's a difficult balance. But I think culturally there was that mindset that, oh, no, we'll be fine.
It's good. no residents please leave us alone we know what we do now that was probably the biggest bit that we needed to change is that let's just open ourselves up and patricia will talk and probably has much better than i on this but hearing the voice of the community without instantly going oh my god the phone's ringing again there's another complaint well what are they actually telling you through all of that work and i think that's that's what we were trying to change and And I guess
it was also about the internal customer experience stuff as well, because whilst you might sit next to the team that sits over here or that one over there, do you actually have any idea what they're doing? Do you need to? Do you collaborate on anything? Is there a bit of a blame game going on? Oh, no, not my problem. There are still things, let's be frank, that bounce around this organisation for weeks with no taking responsibility. Are we still doing that?
So try to iron out that sort of approach. and someone just grabbing it and going, oh, it's not my job, but I've got to sort it. Yeah. So I think they were, in a very long-winded way, the key issues that we needed to work through and how did we become, And I use it all the time, modern, efficient, and effective organisation. With limited resources, always we'll have. That's not going to change.
But how did we, on all of the, you know, on the smell of an oily rag, how do we turn that all around to provide a better experience for everybody, staff and the community? Yeah, and I guess part of that was sort of unifying people. So can you talk about the journey of aligning your leadership team around a shared purpose during and beyond the workshops? Were there any key moments that stood out to you? Where was the point that you went, this is weird shit, to, okay, I see where we're going?
And was there a moment there? Yeah, it's an interesting question. I'm not sure there was any one particular moment, but as we worked through 2021 with this work, and that's the latter half of 2021, We then moved into the first half of 2022 with a very difficult financial reality that we needed to undertake a redundancy program. Right. Because we needed some money saved and a whole lot of other issues from a financial sustainability point of view.
So that first half of 2022, we put that process in motion. And that resulted in, I'll stand corrected on the numbers, but 25, 24, 35 roles no longer being as they were. Some not at all, some changed. Yeah. That had never taken place really from a cultural point of view at Olara in any broad sense. So that was difficult always is. That's no different to anyone else.
But I think what in hindsight helped us was that we'd been doing all this work on what was our purpose, what is our vision, mission, and we were moving through values at that particular time too. I think it dawned on me during that process, if that makes sense, that people had some understanding of what we were trying to move towards. This was an ugly, horrible bit of work that had to happen practically, but it had a basis in good, if that makes sense.
That we needed to be here, we needed to be sustainable, we needed to do X to get the Y and all those things. And then not long after this redundancy process wrapped up, which would have been April, May of 2022, I'm going to guess. We ran the first, weirdly or otherwise, we ran our first employee engagement survey for quite a number of years using a different provider than what we used in the past. That's just a matter of choice.
And, of course, when you're running one of those things after a process like redundancy is you think, oh, they're a dumb army. But should we not be waiting until a better moment? But I said, no. I mean, this is a real... That's brave. That's brave. Or stupid. But it was brave because I didn't... My view to the team was I don't want a false view of the world. I mean, we're not going to go through anything much worse than COVID followed by redundancy processes. Let's see what it's doing.
And the results of that were unbelievably good, way greater than I could have ever anticipated. Really? So I put a lot of that down to all that work we had done for the year or so before and what hadn't been planned, believe me, in this way. It's just by the thought, to be frank. I couldn't try and brag it was really great management planning, but it wasn't that people understood what we were trying to achieve.
We'd be incredibly open from day dot of talking through this horrible redundancy process and financial sustainability work we had to do i didn't this sounds obvious didn't want to lie i didn't want to make it sound more fanciful than it was this is ugly this is how it's going to hurt it ain't going to be pretty you're going to miss some people it's going to be you know it is what it is and so gave people as great a clarity as we could
through that entire process and i must say is not the first process I've run through like this. It was reasonably very smooth, the grass and industrial issues that you deal with. And I put that down to the people broadly, the staff accepting that they're like, well, boss is telling me what we don't want to hear, but we need to hear. Yeah. So I think that was, you know, that's one big, very large response for a really quick question.
But I think there were a few points in time over that 18 months or so where it started to show the momentum of what we'd been doing, even though it had an ugly period or two that we had to work through, the results were X and Y. So, you know, I think that was absolutely flawed, to be frank, by the results of the engagement survey, so much so that, you know, you normally wonder about, well, if we get a really low one, it's a great base to work off, but the results were so good and going, my God.
How do we actually ever do this better? We haven't done one since, ironically, for slightly different purposes, but it was great. That's really interesting. And I wonder, like, having had to go through what is a really negative process of redundancy, did the work you'd done, and you said you were doing the work on values, did that impact how you managed the process? Look, I don't know. I've never thought about it in that sense, to be honest. I don't know that it did consciously, to be frank.
I've always, sometimes to my detriment, been very honest and open with everybody, and that ultimately is the way I led that process as well. But I guess it did, you know, if we go back to our brand being caregiver. And what is our purpose in life and what are our vision, is our vision and mission itself?
I guess it does resonate as to how that pushed us through that process because, you know, I've seen some really very, as we probably all have, very ordinary redundancy and all processes done where you're just handing someone a knockout when they walk in the door and you go, oh, it's been a pleasure. But no, I mean, those things don't help anybody and build all that fear.
So I guess it probably did tailor the way we, did it and my messaging to everybody through that process, I made sure it always came from me. I made sure it was always me talking as opposed to just, you know, repeating things from others. And I think that played a role in making it a bit more real for everybody. I'm not sure if I've asked you a question. I think you have. And I can't remember your values offhand. I respect. Yeah.
Well, they're now respect. open, accountable, responsive, and excellence. So there you go, respect, open, accountable. You've just talked about being accountable. It was always you doing it with respect and being open 100%. So it sounds to me like you sort of did it intuitively or that process was managed intuitively, which is a great reflection on the values being true to who you are, right? Yes.
Enjoying the podcast? If you're looking for more inspiration, head to our website, thecauseeffects.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. Patricia talked about how early on teams were working in silos with different interpretations of the organization's purpose. It was very much the purpose of my team is this.
How did you work to break down those silos? It's all very well to, you know, do the initial work, but like you say, it's in action, right? It is. Look, it's an interesting one, and I'm a bit of a fence sitter about silos, to be frank. I think they always exist and always work, and I'm pragmatic. That is what it is. How you work across them, and particularly in local government where there are some, you know, you run, in local government, you're not one business.
You're running 40 different businesses. So there are incredibly different skill sets that are sitting across an organisation like this, and that instantly means there's a bit of silos because they are very broadly different.
So that is what it is. But I do think it's about, you know, that whole sense of if you're trying to turn the world around to being more open to your customers' feedback, then a one-team response that's a negative no for possibly all the right compliance reasons, regulatory reasons, whatever else.
How do you turn that around to actually working with whomever it is to maybe not achieve what they originally wanted because you might not be able to be here but what what else can we do to assist them to get to a point that they might be more comfortable so that started the process i think of all right well let team x talk to team y a very different beast potentially about well Well, can't we do that slightly differently and be open to having those conversations?
So we sort of, as the executive team, forced, for want of a better word, those cross-team conversations far more than probably had happened before and probably than I'd ever done before, to be honest. And I think over time, and that is a slow burn, I believe it, I think that got people working a lot better together. Now, interestingly, we're doing a whole piece of cultural research ourselves at the moment. We've got a project going on as we speak.
And one of the bits of feedback, I've just got the draft report in my hands and we're meeting this afternoon to talk through it. Cross-organisational collaboration is still something that pops up. Now, interestingly, it's clearly much improved because people talk about it through this work we've just been doing about it is so much better to understand what Johnny's doing, Jane's doing, and off we go.
However, there's still a bit of an issue there in relation to, and what's really interesting coming through in this feedback is, and this is the staff talking, not me, maybe I just don't understand what that team really does. Because I expect them to respond to me when I ask them something, but they may have 10 other things that is their core job that I just don't have any vision of.
So there's another body of work in that which is hugely interesting that we will no doubt move towards over the next few while. So there's always going to be siloes, but I think it is being open to the fact that there is an interconnection between a lot of what we do, even though they are quite isolated parts of the business. And just making people realise that over, you know, cross-organisational working teams, cross-organisational barbecue chats, you know, just getting together
as a social thing and learning more about each other. I think that's probably... How much do you think identity comes into play? So that sense of, you know, a shared narrative that, you know, That was what came out of the session we did or some of the sessions we did. It was that sense that actually we do have this common view of the world. Look, it's huge. I think for probably every LGA, and I'm really speaking of lots of others here, but I think you do have a shared narrative by default.
I mean, you are well our council in our world. that is who you are. I think people have really bought into the purpose, they're bought into the vision, Michelle, talking stuff. They understand where we're trying to head. And so you want them to be proud of the workplace, really. I mean, that's a big part of it.
And you want them, if they're out in the public domain, chatting to the community and doing whatever we do, offer Willara Council, blah, blah, blah, blah, and not be afraid to actually say that and stand up for it. And the majority of our staff feel very comfortable. Hey, we're very proud that we work for Willara Council, blah, blah, blah, blah. And nine times out of ten, people go, oh, did you run that thing down the right? Yeah, of course. I'm happy you don't.
Are you the bastard who fined me the other day? Yeah, we were, but you were passed illegally. You know, what do you do? You know, so, I mean, there is that shared narrative, I think. And I think bringing the staff, I was going to say closer together, I don't want to be singing kumbaya, but, I mean, as a working unit, I think is helping support us through all of those sorts of challenges. Yeah, makes sense.
So, embedding purpose and values into the organisation, beyond the strategy documents, beyond the workshops, how did you help ensure that this wasn't just a tick-the-box exercise, but something that stuck? Yeah, look, it's a great question. We all love a good colour poster and banner in local government, as everyone does.
And ironically, with our new values, I'll call them new values, there are very few posters and manners around which we didn't do on purpose but by default we don't have them plastered on every door or wall because that to me is a bit shitty so it is then about how does the gm speak to people how does the next person speak to people it doesn't matter where you are in the organization what are you doing i you know we do new staff inductions every couple of months and i do my you
know little speech to them at the beginning which I'm sure they're rated about. But I talk about values, not just the organisational values, my personal values and how important it is for them to know who it is leading them. And then they do have another value session a bit later in the day where I'm not in there.
So we're embedding it early. It is about, you know, and I say to everybody, if I'm not at any point, I don't care who you are in the organisation, if you don't think that I've lived up to one of the values, tell me, email me, call me, you know, hold me to account. I think that's, and people do, and that's perfectly fine. I don't have a little black book where I'll write, Carol, and said, whatever, I've got a long memory. No, but ultimately that's what you want.
You want people to be safe and feel that they can do that sort of thing, not just to me as the junior, but to anyone else in the hierarchy of global government, which it is a nightmare hierarchy. But I think it was about also making sure that our directors in their divisional catch-ups and all their managers' meetings are bringing values to the fore, and that's awkward for some people. Let's be really frank. It's not something you get up in the morning and go, gosh, I'm going to show
people respect today. Well, hopefully you do. But, you know, I'm going to show people how excellent I am today. It is about that embedding. And, of course, what we have done through the director's performance agreements and the manager's performance agreements is for those last couple of years we've had a goal in there around, it's very difficult to measure, I guess, How are you demonstrating the organisational values across your group, division section, blah, blah, blah?
And even that just means they've got to think about it every now and then and go, oh, all right. And I'm very pleased to say there's one manager who's relatively new. I was shown an agenda that she had drafted for her team just the other week, and it was all based on her values. And they go, my God, I'm only going to do that, so I've stolen that. Always good to steal a good idea. So, you know, those sorts of things.
And then, you know, because to be really frank, one of my great fears, you know, great concerns is that with any of the change we've talked about or anything else that comes up, it can't just be the GM talking it. And potentially doing it. It's got to be shared at every level of the organisation.
So part of the investment we've made over the last three or three and a half, four years, I suppose, in leadership development, of which there had been none previous, has been about getting people comfortable with talking about ourselves, talking to other human beings within the organisation, sharing some of those learnings as they go, and that's from a strengths-based, values-based perspective. So we talk about being values-based often.
I do a weekly jam newsletter, a message that goes out every Monday morning, and I often, not every week, but I will often link whatever it is I've said to one of the values or when I'm thanking a staff member for having done whatever. Yeah. You know, Johnny showed great openness this week by telling us about blah, blah, blah, or what, you know, so just weaving it into the narrative, getting back to the narrative, weaving it into the narrative of voila.
And to the point where even when we've got unreasonable complainants, of which most councils have one or two or many, and they really may be unreasonable. Being very open and honest about it with those individuals saying, it isn't good enough, so stop. It's no longer, you have no right to be doing this to, not just because they're my staff, but to anybody, whether it's a counsellor or another member of the public in a community forum or what have you, call it out.
And it's showing respect for everybody else in the process. So I think all of those things come together to create that narrative and the embedding bit because it's – and one of the things I do often talk about with culture, with the values, it doesn't start on the 1st of the month and ends on the 31st.
You know this is something that just happens forever which i think some people go really are we always going to hear from you like this but i mean that's the main yes you are that's the nature of that evolution that you've got to keep on with i think and i just i just want to pick up on that because for for our listeners you know talking about your your weekly email newsletter where you, you know, share examples of the values in action.
So it's easy to just kind of say that and let it go, but what that is, is... Creating a culture of storytelling in the organization, you know, and stories are the most powerful way to connect with anybody. So when you share a little story about someone who behaved in a certain way, and you're celebrating that, or you're showing people what happened as a result of that, that is one of the single most powerful things you can do as a leader.
Because you're saying this is how we do things here. This is what we value here. And it's huge. It's absolutely huge. And I thank you for that. And I think one of the key things I have probably learnt, so I was jumping back to an earlier question, is and probably more so in my time, my nearly five years here than maybe in my previous world, is the narrative and how important it is. And that's about my narrative to people, let alone the broader organisational
one. And I do credit Justine Henderson with a lot of that counseling and coaching because, you know, I'm someone who'll just get shit done. You know, if I need someone, bang, let's move on next, and that's life. And so if I was, and I wouldn't do this any longer, but, you know, in my earlier younger days, I would have just said the message is bang, suck it up, princess, move on. Yeah. And while there is a bit of that in my mind still at times, let's be honest.
Old habits die hard. But they do it. Oh, for God's sake, are we still talking about it? It is about, look, this is the why, you know, and explaining that. And, you know, one of the things I talk about all the time is clarity. People get sick of me. Every time I see it in a document, I highlight it. You know, clarity. And it's coming through in some of this cultural work we do at the moment. Give people the clarity, build it around a bit of a narrative, and they do get it.
And interestingly, with my messages, my weekly messages, I've maybe for about 18 months now, or maybe two years, So the last little bit of those messages is thought for the week. And I just pluck something random that I might have seen on socials that I've heard or that I did whatever. And I give my little interpretation. It might be an image. It might be a quote from somewhere. And in fact, my message for this week coming, I just wrote.
Yesterday and it's just got a I've got a link to a favorite piece of music that I love listening to to give me a bit of a boost in the morning with just a bit of a story about how important it is to understand the different emotions if you like so I that's that's I think because I'm you know as much as I would like to be out and about a lot more than I am I'm not I'm often pinned to my office for all the right reasons
but I do think those messages have given people much more of and And particularly when we were moving through COVID and all the other horrible bits where you didn't see anyone for a long period of time, much more of a sense of who I am as well. And I think, you know, and the feedback we get from them. And I get, I do track this, which sounds weird, just because it's through a bit of software.
But the open rates, like 70-odd percent most weeks, which is great, which means a lot of staff are hearing it. A lot of people post them in their lunch rooms. And I don't mean to sound like I won't get talking about that, But, I mean, the reality is it's important messaging because there's often a lot of corporate info we've got to get across. But it is also about showing people how we're all human.
You know, I might talk about my grandkids at some point or what I did on the weekend or my fabulous Sydney Swans before winning and those sorts of things. Yeah, so I do think that's part of building that internal, it's okay to talk like that. It's okay to show a bit of emotion. it's okay to know that we don't just have to talk about work every time we're having a conversation. And that's part of breaking out of silos as well, isn't it? Like self-imposed silos.
And I think it's such an important piece that people know. Who you are. Yeah. Because, and so many leaders will just make sure that the walls are up and it is purely professional. And, you know, this idea that showing up as who you are is unprofessional is actually quite bizarre, but it's one we've just got used to. But the thing is, if people don't know who you are, they will build their own narrative around you. Exactly. And I want to control at least something in my life.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So when it came to embedding purpose and values into the organisation, were there any other things that you did, programs that you undertook, for example? Look, I'll get back to the leadership development training we did. As I might have said, we hadn't had any in this organisation previously on the soft stuff.
Yeah. And so, honestly, within my first few months here, we were talking to various parties about what do they offer, how can we move forward, and I'm a big, big fan and supporter of strengths-based stuff. And so we ended up engaging probably in late 2020, I really have no idea, I'm sure it was late 2020 or early 2021, Waterline Leadership, who have been with us for the last four years, doing strengths-based leadership training.
We started with the executive and the management team because if we're going to lead this stuff, you need to learn about each other, learn about how each other works, why I react the way I do, why the next person reacts the way they do, blah, blah, blah. And it was a bit of work because of COVID and we're on line for more than half, oh, for a while, a lot of action. We worked with Waterline in a whole range of leadership bits.
Over a 12, 14-month period. Hugely valuable just for nothing else to get away from the day-to-day drum and spend some time on ourselves when we were doing this. And that was hugely important, I think, as a collective management group of 22, 23 people, whatever it was. Over the last few years, so then we did that. We then moved it down to team leaders, coordinator level. So talking about our herders hierarchy.
And those levels of staff worked through much the same, slightly modified but much the same. We've then moved it through more recently, and in fact it only finished last week. I was just saying hello to the team. Two aspiring leaders, cohorts of about 20 in each and there was the two of them. The sum result being that over the last couple of years, 120-odd staff have been through a strength assessment. Right.
Sharing all sorts of stuff. When I popped in briefly to the aspiring leaders last session, last week, just, you know, and asking them, and they're all a bit daunted sometimes in biology, and they ask me a question. I don't want to make a fitness. What have you found? One of the two things that stood out from this truly was last Thursday. I've learnt to listen with my ears. I was fabulous. And the other was what a grounding process this was, and a reality check.
Now if nothing else happy days what a great investment that to be and that's sort of replicated across the whole group so look i think what has helped embed vision purpose values human to human conversation is the fact that you know we're about 400 staff 120 130 people have been through this particular process lots of others have heard about it our aspiring leaders program was oversubscribed by lots i just couldn't afford to do any more at that point but we'll work through
that as we as we move into the next year or two so that's so good now i guess the challenge in all of that is fabulous how do we keep it going so that's a conversation i start next week in actual fact i've got a meeting or two about that but this cultural research project we just received the draft report obviously over the weekend that i we're meeting about today is sort of the next phase it's about well what is the underlying culture of the organisation? How aligned are we, in fact.
To the values, how aligned are we, in fact, to the behaviours we expect? And I have to say there were 68 interviews, face-to-face interviews in this process. 317 of our staff, additional to the 68, did a survey. Lots of coverage, so big coverage across the org. And what a remarkable piece of work this is because it's telling us some incredible things, which, to be frank, a normal employee engagement survey probably doesn't dig into.
It's really about who is following the bouncing ball or living the values what are the behaviors that are challenging us to doing it better than we are so we've got this other body of work that as i say truly we do meet at one o'clock today for a couple of hours to start wading through it's 80 plus page report but it is gold and so we will then build a bit of a map a roadmap out of all of that all right so we've done all this wonderful work it looks
like we're embedding values really wonderfully here there and everywhere the barriers to success are bang there's a fabulous question in there about if you had a magic wand what would you do to make things better there's some stuff in there we're going wow all right that's interesting how do we actually ever bring some of that to to life and we'll work through that as sort of the next phase of our cultural development, if that makes sense in doing it.
Now, interestingly, this included councillors in the face-to-face interviews too. All right. To get a bit of there, but I'm noting that some of them were very new too. They only got elected six months ago. But important for them to understand what we're trying to achieve as an organisation.
Yeah, that's so interesting and it just, again, it reinforces what's coming through loud and clear through, you know, when I worked with you guys, but even more so now is your understanding of this, your people are your strength. They're where you win or lose, right? Right, and that you are, you know, investing in them and not just at the leadership level but, you know, the up-and-comers as well. Personal takeaways from leading this transformation?
Oh, that's a good question. I think, well, probably the fact that some of this has actually stuck. I think that's a fabulous thing because you do all of this and you enter these particular processes going, right, well, the broad aim is to do blah, blah, blah, doesn't ever deliver that. And I really do think it has stuck and it resonates with people. And I think that's coming through loud and clear in this particular last piece of work that we're just sort of coming to the first phase end of now.
People are realising that this is a good place to be. They want to be here. One of the quotes that's come out of this work, which is, I'm so lucky to work here. This is probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. Wow. That's it. Happy days. Wow, that's amazing. Craig, is there anything that surprised you through this?
And I'll add to that as well, and it's an and or, what are you most proud of as a leader through this transformation and through leading this transformation at a time of intense change and turmoil?
Gosh so many questions what am I most proud of I think that people got it you know I think if you haven't, had a focus in your working life, I'll talk, about working together, being a bit more human, having respect, doing all those things, which sounds very natural, but often in a workplace, that's not how it is. If you haven't had that, and then someone's reducing that, and as I said a minute ago, people have got it.
Not everybody, let's not kid ourselves, we're not in a fancy way, but the majority of stark goes, yeah, I can see what this is about, and I see us moving towards here, that's the bit that you look back on and go, wow, I probably, well, I mean, I suppose I intended that at some point, but you don't know. So looking back now, just looking at this piece of work in front of me at this point, wow, that is fabulous. People have got it.
They understand what we're moving towards. There's still plenty of things we need to do. There is still a gap between operational staff and other when we need to address these issues, but it's given us those flags that go, this is how we can actually do even better. And I'll forget the first part of your question, to be honest. Surprise. Was there anything that surprised you? Probably not necessarily unless I do find some other nuggets. Well, there's lots of nuggets in this work we've just done.
I guess what may have surprised me most is that, well, no, this is not true. It hasn't surprised me that people have been willing to participate because I think they've seen enough over the years and we still have 10 other staff who haven't been with us through some of those earlier processes, but they see the people here are incredible. They see the respect the teams have within themselves and team on team and want to be part of it.
So when they see something coming to them, whichever way it is, oh, there's another survey to do, or we're going to focus on X, we're going to do Y, or there's great reward and recognition stuff that we're doing as well, wow, that makes sense. You know, I think that's a good part of the world. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Now we're going to need to wind up because of time.
I've just got one last question for you, and that is what advice would you offer to other GMs in local government or even CEOs of business who want to lead meaningful values-aligned change? Look, I think my advice would be don't just think about it, frigging do it. You know, I think one of the challenges is we can sit and pontificate on things forever if you wish to.
And I accept that there's different personalities and that's not who I am, but that is an issue that particularly in local government, you can sit here for years going, back three years ago, we had this idea. Just do it. And I think you do have to dedicate the financial resources, clearly, as we talked earlier, and the human resources to spend the time and effort, and that does mean taking them away from their day-to-day work at certain points, reprioritise their work.
Don't use it as an excuse that, oh, I can't take Johnny or Jane off these projects. Well, you can. You're the one in charge. Tell them that's not longer the priority for this week. You're going to do blah, blah, blah. I think just do it. I think you've got to find the resources, bite the bullet, and what is the worst that can happen? Truly, you're investing in your people. I don't actually understand it. There's anything bad about that.
Wonderful. Thank you so much. And thank you for your time, but thank you also for your openness in sharing your journey and your leadership on this. Craig, thank you. No problem. Thank you. 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?