22. Dane O'Connor: From aspiring career to cancer warrior

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

This week we have possibly our smartest guest on the podcast. Tamara Davis is a Sydney born and bred Astrophysicist and someone I have personally known since childhood.

She has skyrocketed through the fields of academia and has experienced leadership in a way many of us may not have been through before.

Managing teams of authors, balancing egos and ensuring people get the support to develop and achieve in the academic space takes skill and Tamara has that in spades.

In this episode Tamara shares:

• How she was a shy kid who followed he path of academics
• The many hard yards of gaining her qualifications and building status and recognition
• How she first developed leadership skills through sport
• How she worked on an extraordinary research piece that had her coordinate no less that 156 authors
• The sort of things that can cause conflict in a team of academics
• How she ensures that no one is left feeling left out

Key Quotes

“Everyone is gonna have their different strengths and weaknesses. As a leader your job is to figure out what those are and play to everybody’s strengths.”

“A lot of leadership is just telling people where and when to show up and making a decision so that things happen.”

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website: 

https://www.curiousleaderscircle.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This year I am joining some incredible coaches and guest speakers in hosting a 3 day High Performance Leadership Summit from March 8th to 10th.
We'll be empowering elite leaders through an immersive 3-day transformational journey, our mission is to provide a multi-disciplinary approach to High Performance leadership. In an exclusive and intimate setting, we unlock unparalleled insights from military precision, cutting-edge psychology, high-performance sports, and dynamic business leadership.

You can find out more here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 

To give you insights into what to expect, over the next few weeks I'll be giving you some bonus mini chats with some of the coaches and pairing them with a replay of an old interview I have done with them.

This weeks episode is with Ali Flynn

If you haven't caught her episode yet, after studying and working as a psychologist, the shift to motherhood left Ali with uncertainty around her future career. A suggestion from a friend prompted her to try her hand at personal training but before things could get too far disaster struck when she had a stroke and was hospitalised with a long road to recovery.

But that didn’t stop her and she went on to launch and run 3 businesses with a team of 23 all while battling health disasters in her family and her own growing serious health complications.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To book an exclusive spot in our High Performance Leadership summit head here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140

For this weeks we are taking a look at the hard yards and lessons that come from competing in the highest levels of Olympic sport. While this episode doesn’t focus on leadership challenges, the hard yards and lessons will be ones that can help many of you in your careers.

Sami Kennedy-Sim is a 3 time Australian Winter Olympic representative, Australian flag bearer and World Cup silver medal winner.

Since childhood she worked her way towards achieving at the very highest levels of world sports and she encountered many challenges along the way.

In this episode Sami shares:

• How she started her journey to the Olympics
• The first time she and her family had to look at the overseas aspect of the career
• The balancing act her family walked between her parents being parents but also having to take a step back and not dictate everything
• The hard yards in being a fish out of water as an Australian snow sports person
• The cost difference for doing snow sport in Australia versus overseas
• The advice her school advisor gave her that changed how she did things
• How she went through the process of escalating her training and dedication to world level
• What a weeks’ training looked like back then
• The differences between sacrifice and making a choice
• What it was like making the decision to step away
• How her work ethic and connection in sport provided her with the opportunity for a job outside of sport as she retired
• How she changed her purpose with her changed career
• The various other roles that exist because of athletes and that athletes need those people

Key Quotes

“I questioned what I was doing all the time. And that was as a youth athlete, let alone when I was doing it as a job.”

“You don’t have that tenacity instantly, it's developed over time.”

“You are a direct reflection of the 5 closest people that you spend the most time with.”

If you want to find out more about Sami

You can find out about Sami’s coaching and other businesses here: https://www.samikennedysim.com/

Or you can follow her on Instagram: @samikennedysim

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website:

 https://www.curiousleaderscircle.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This year I am joining some incredible coaches and guest speakers in hosting a 3 day High Performance Leadership Summit from March 8th to 10th.
We'll be empowering elite leaders through an immersive 3-day transformational journey, our mission is to provide a multi-disciplinary approach to High Performance leadership. In an exclusive and intimate setting, we unlock unparalleled insights from military precision, cutting-edge psychology, high-performance sports, and dynamic business leadership.

You can find out more here: https://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/registration1660014924140 

To give you insights into what to expect, over the next few weeks I'll be giving you some bonus mini chats with some of the coaches and pairing them with a replay of an old interview I have done with them.

This weeks episode is with Clifford Morgan.

If you haven't caught his episode yet, he is an endorsed organisational psychologist and leadership expert with over fifteen years of service with the Royal Australian Air Force. His years of service leading and coaching people – both in uniform and out – bring a wealth of experience that provides a unique perspective to assist his clients.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For this week’s episode we are joined by JC or Juan Carlos Aragon. He is a long term 30+ year veteran of the global optical industry.

He has been my colleague and my boss in the past and he is truly one of the most experienced and wise leaders that I have had the pleasure to work with.

He is a proven successful global business and people leader with over 39 years of multi-functional experience in establishing, managing and profitably-growing successful businesses in Asia Pacific, the Americas and Europe, within medical device companies.
Currently he is CEO of Visioneering Technologies (ASX: VTI), a growing vision care company within the myopia management and prebyopia segments of the market.

In this episode Juan shares:

• His early career and the first time he became a leader
• Having to let people go during the GFC
• Dealing with missing budgets and budget cut backs
• How he handles himself and his team when the target can’t be handled
• Handling the team when the product becomes unsaleable
• What he did when he has to work with bosses and colleagues he didn’t respect

Key Quotes

“Once you lose that respect it's very difficult to work with someone as a boss or a colleague.”

“If you pay your sales commissions on a quarterly basis, but management is compensated on an annual basis there is a bit of a disconnect there.”

“If you're miserable at work then you're not going to do a good job.”

If you want to find out more about Juan

You can connect with Juan on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-carlos-arag%C3%B3n-90961a4/ 

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website:

https://www.curiousleaderscircle.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trigger warning: terminal cancer and depression

We’ve discussed how hard it can be to lead when battling personal illness on this podcast before. But how do you handle things when you have a terminal illness?

That is a question that Dane O’Connor has absolutely answered.

Dane is a Senior Business manager for the Department of Regional NSW and he is also a member liaison Officer for the Cancer Council NSW.

On top of that he lives with a terminal brain cancer and is currently living well beyond the odds that were given to him at his diagnosis.

In this episode Dane shares:

• His first leadership experience as a kid
• How he discovered natural leadership skills in rugby
• The first ‘pot hole’ experience was when he felt a lump
• The mental health battles that came with the cancer and how it affected his work
• How after the diagnosis he wasn’t leading how he should have been because he wasn’t present.
• The new career stuff he took on after his first cancer journey
• The big career move he made when his cancer returned
• Leaderships skills he applies as a parent
• The battles with depression he had in amongst all the cancer
• The moment he told his work colleagues about the cancer
• How this journey has changed his approach to work

Key Quotes

“If you make a mistake use that as a learning tool, don't think of the mistake as bad you.”

“I have an hour lunch every day and I go for a walk. People say to me, we’re too busy. It’s bullshit, you’re not too busy.”

“There’s always going to have to be a break point with everything.”

Find out more about Dane

You can connect with Dane via linkedin: linkedin.com/in/dane-o-connor-a53b25131

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This episode’s guest is a leader who radiates approachability and kindness, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t faced his fair share of hard yards.

Jonathon (Jono) Peatfield is CEO of Life Ed NSW/ACT. He manages a team of 80 people delivering health and wellbeing programs to around 280,000 children right across NSW and the ACT, with support from the infamous mascot Healthy Harold. 

After graduating in Commerce/Psychology from Australian National University, Jono went on a varied and very unique career pathway that saw him move from being in sales leadership and national account management with national hardware business, Otter Group to Head of Partnerships at Batyr, a social enterprise that focuses on preventative education in the area of young people’s mental health.

Recently, Jono has been working with the Thrive by Five movement to promote equitable, affordable and accessible access to early learning so that every child can thrive.

In this episode Jono shares:

• The first time he found himself in a leadership position
• What happened the first time he had to lead people and they had been there longer and didn’t want to be led.
• The 3 important leadership role models he had early on
• The surprising result after he had to call someone out for stealing
• Why he struggled even more when he had to make someone redundant and they took it personally
• His advice for young people who see that leadership roles have to be the next step in their career
• The hard, messy time he had letting someone go whose value didn’t align and why he think he didn’t handle it the best way he could have
• Why it’s important to remember that people can be nervous talking to you just because of your title and how that can create a power dynamic

Key Quotes

“We've created a bunch of roles to fit people’s ability to lead in a certain area, not necessarily lead people.”

“It’s really hard to prove values misalignment.”

“We’re progressively working out that there’s many forms of leadership.”

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website: 

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We often compare leading a workplace to coaching a sports team because there are so many similarities to be drawn. So many in fact that for this episode we are picking the brain of a truly great Australian sports coach for his leadership wisdom.

John Buchanan is renowned for his remarkable success as an international sports coach for the Australian men’s cricket team

Now, he utilises his extensive experience to transform deep-seated understandings of top-tier sports performance into triumphant strategies and actions within the corporate sphere.

In this episode John shares:

• His story from childhood to coach
• The first steps he took to becoming a coach
• How he handled imposter syndrome
• How he got help by being vulnerable
• Why trying to instigate change too quickly caused him to lose his job
• The way he handled coming in to coach the Australian team
• What happened when his negative report on the team was leaked to a team manager
• How things got a lot better after he got his own support around him
• What happened when he was close to players who had to be dropped or required discipline
• The 3 questions he had to ask himself to make sure he wanted to keep doing the job

Key Quotes

“Leadership isn’t easy, you’re not there to be popular with everybody.”

“You've got to find ways your experiments are given the best chance of success or if they miss then do they miss because it’s the wrong thing or do they miss because you presented it the wrong way?”

If you want to find out more about John

You can follow John on linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmbuchanan/?originalSubdomain=au

Or find out more about his business coaching and guest speaking: https://www.buchanancoaching.com

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

People management can be one of the hardest challenges for leaders and that is no different for this episode’s guest Steve Johnston. In fact he even admits it himself in this episode. Repeatedly.

And that’s saying a lot, because if Steve can find this a challenge, the rest of us surely will as well.

Steve has an extensive career and is a seasoned and experienced non-executive director and CEO.

He’s worked in retail, trade, and wholesale, in hardware, automotive, toys, sporting goods, outdoor, consumer durables markets and optometry. The last of those was as the CEO of Provision for over 10 years.

In this episode Steve shares:

• The first leadership lessons he learnt as a football club captain
• How he learnt how to be responsible for people by first managing himself.
• The horrible experience of working in an org that’s “why” was just about making money for the individual
• His journey at Provision where he came in as CEO when everyone thought the industry was about to end
• The experience of being a new CEO and having almost half his leadership team leave
• The importance of bringing in a team who believes in your vision
• How his hardest challenge was leading people

Key Quotes

“If you don’t understand those individuals (working for you), you've got zero chance of bringing them on the journey with you.”

“We haven’t got two people around that team who see the world the same way.”

“There were too many people on that team who were not prepared to make ANY changes to their approach to people”

If you want to find out more about Steve

You can follow Steve on linkedin: linkedin.com/in/steven-johnston-aaicd

Or support Connecting2Australia here: https://connecting2australia.org/

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website: 

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Trigger warning: suicide

Our guest for the episode is my incredibly dear friend Jess Lawton

She has over 17 years of experience in human resources and organisational development, is passionate about working with people and teams and her goal is to challenge status quo and use her experience in change management, strategy, business design and development to hone in on organisational leaders and teams.

She is a certified gallup strength coach, life and NLP coach and has recently supplemented her psychology and sociology degrees with further education and has added in strategic psychotherapy, clinical hypnotherapy and counselling to her toolbox.

In this episode Jessica shares:

• Jess discusses her first real experience as a leader in a workplace and how she didn’t feel overly prepared
• What happened with how she had to handle people when she changed industries from hospitality to corporate
• How her first leadership challenge was having to let go an admin worker unsuited for their role and she felt she had failed
• The way she was affected when a struggling employee who she had been trying to support ended up losing their life to suicide
• the resources and strategies you can use if someone in your team is struggling with their mental health
• The reason she stepped back from a leadership position and the process she went through to reach that point

Key Quotes

“I’m a very empathetic person which doesn’t always serve me well.”

“One of the best managers I always had, one of the first questions she always asked new staff was, how do you like to receive feedback?”

“Always try and speak to them (struggling employee) about accessing a family member because that support is what they need more than the support from you.”

If you want to find out more about Jessica

Jess mentioned an important  mental health first aid course that every manager should do if they get the chance. You can find it here:  https://mhfa.com.au/

If you want to look into Jess’ services you can check out her website: https://www.mindemporium.com.au/

Or find her on socials,

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themindemporium/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088916512713

If you want to find out more about what Wayne does, check out his business via the website:

http://engage4performance.com/

Or you can follow him on socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wayne-reuben-engage4performance/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.