SEASON 3

DATE: 8 September 2021

HOST: David Webley, Founder & MD of Granite Consulting

GUEST: Colleen Callander – Keynote Speaker, Director, Author of 'Leader By Design'

In this episode David speaks to Colleen Callander (former Sportsgirl CEO, Founder of Mentor Me Women and Author of ‘Leader By Design’) and covers topics such as the foundations of leadership, how kindness can be used by leaders, how to recognise and avoid burnout, and building the confidence to be a better leader.

INSIGHT 1 Confidence is a skill and not a trait.  It's therefore something that can grow and be nurtured and developed.

INSIGHT 2 A degree of chaos and disruption is healthy and helps to lift resilience and innovation.  However there is a significant difference between disruptive and destructive leadership and an organisation will only grow from the former and not the latter.

INSIGHT 3 Although kindness is often perceived as weakness, the opposite is true.  It requires courage to make strong and tough decisions with kindness.

This part of the conversation includes:

• Colleen's Backstory
• What Great Leadership Looks Like
• Transition To Leadership
• The Foundations of Leadership

This part of the conversation includes:

• Values
• Principles
• Disruptive Leadership
• Courage       

This part of the conversation includes:

• Confidence
• Leading Remotely
• Leader By Design
• Kindness           

This part of the conversation includes:

• Burnout
• Balance
• Confidence
• Self-Belief         

DATE: 18 August 2021

HOST: David Webley, Founder & MD of Granite Consulting

GUEST: Maggie Roberts – CEO Creative Factory, Director Diving Australia, GAICD

This conversation explores resilience and how it has featured in Maggie's journey from elite athlete to corporate executive. It provides listeners with a range of concepts and techniques to develop and nurture resilience, which during these unprecedented times is more important than ever.

INSIGHT 1 Visualisation is a powerful tool that can be used in all walks of life.  Deep visualisation will help you believe it is possible.  What you believe, you can achieve.  

INSIGHT 2 Values are fundamental to resilience and what bring it to life.  Living by values such as courage, strength, excellence, perseverance, and belief, will help you grow from setbacks and be more resilient.

INSIGHT 3 Reflect, not regret is a mindset that reframes setbacks as opportunities to learn.  This not only provides a genesis for growth, but is key to maintaining a positive outlook and improved mental wellbeing.

This part of the conversation includes:

• Maggie's Backstory
• Life in Hawaii
• Maintaining Focus

This part of the conversation includes:

• Importance of Rest & Recovery
• Nurturing Creativity
• Embracing Change
• Power of Visualisation
• Resilience Journey
• Structure & Discipline           

This part of the conversation includes:

• What is Resilience
• Importance of Values
• Reflect, Don't Regret
• Purpose and Thinking Big
• Routine While Remote
• Difficult Conversations           

This part of the conversation includes:

• Team Resilience
• Mindset
• Warning Signs
• Finding Balance
• Avoiding Regret
• The Creative Factory           

DATE: 14 July 2021

HOST: David Webley, Founder & MD of Granite Consulting

GUEST: Dr. Kay Bretz – Author, Facilitator, Executive Coach, Keynote

Speaker, and Elite Athlete

This conversation explores the mental preparation of competing in ultra marathons and how these techniques can be applied to everyone's work and life challenges.

INSIGHT 1  To achieve step level gain, rather than just marginal gains, a fundamental shift in mindset is required. Although doing bits and pieces may enable the one percenters, it’s necessary to deliberately diverge from your default, to turn right instead of left, to attain your 22% step level improvement.

INSIGHT 2  We all have our limiting beliefs that are self-fulfilling and provide a safety net in work and life. It’s not until we honestly confront and dispel these limiting beliefs, which takes courage and vulnerability, that our true potential can be realised. 

INSIGHT 3  When we accept that pain and discomfort is an essential part of the journey, and from which we learn the most, we can embrace it and use it as fuel for growth. Resisting pain can cause more suffering than the pain itself, and by accepting it, will often allow the discomfort to dissipate.

This part of the conversation includes:

• Backstory
• Mental v Physical
• Importance of Structure
• Mindset        

This part of the conversation includes:

• Marginal v Step Level Improvement
• Best Practice
• Separating Work & Home Life
• The Race With No Finish Line
• Parallels of Running with Work Life
• Importance of Quality Breaks        

This part of the conversation includes:

• Mental Fortitude
• Limiting   Beliefs
• Turning Right for Step Level Improvement
• Principals to Find Balance        

This part of the conversation includes:

• Learning From Adversity
• Turning Right for Businesses
• Knowing Yourself
• Managing Pain and Self Doubt
• Deep Listening        

DATE: 9 June 2021

HOST: David Webley, Founder & MD of Granite Consulting

GUEST: Bill Davoren – High Performance Coach Development Manager, Australian Institute of Sport (AIS)

This conversation explores what high performance development looks like at an elite athlete level, and whether any parallels can be drawn to manage the performance of individuals and teams in the business world.

INSIGHT 1 When individual team members are prepared to make personal sacrifice to put team ahead of self, team performance is raised to a new level. This is where a team of champions can become a champion team, and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

INSIGHT 2 There’s no point striving for the final percent of marginal gain until the ninety nine percent has first been attained. For teams and individuals at this level, the focus is then often more about maintaining, rather than attaining, their leadership position.

INSIGHT 3 As teams and individuals ascend to higher levels of performance, mental strength and resilience is of growing focus. At the elite level, it is usually mental strength, rather than physical talent, that is the differentiator.

This part of the conversation includes:

• Teaching and Coaching   
• What is High Performance   
• The Non-Negotiables  
• Balance of Talent and Application
• How Teams Embrace Talent    

This part of the conversation includes:

• Complimentary Skillsets
• Accountability
• Inheriting Leadership
• Leadership Competencies
• Transferrable Coaching Skillsets    

This part of the conversation includes:

• Values Alignment
• Behavioural Change
• Culture Transcending Hierarchy
• Mental vs Physical
• Marginal Gains    

This part of the conversation includes:

• Factors Influencing Performance
• UK High Performance Development
• Tips for New Leader in a Team
• Upcoming Olympics in Japan
• Australia's Gold Medal Prospects    

DATE: 14 April 2021   

HOST: David Webley, Founder & MD of Granite Consulting   

GUEST: Geoff Purcell - Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Melbourne Water   

This conversation explores the growth of Digital in organisations and across the community, how it has been expedited by COVID and social distancing, and the human impacts that leaders need to recognise and accommodate.   

INSIGHT 1 As Digital becomes more pervasive, the boundaries between IT and the business are fading.  IT is being driven from the back to the front office, and technologists are becoming a more critical contributor to the broader business conversation.   

INSIGHT 2 For technologists to truly add value, they not only need to understand the business, but also to nurture and strengthen their relationships with their colleagues within it.   

INSIGHT 3 Managing the impact that the rise of Digital has on culture, one size does not fit all.  Apart from a principle of ensuring no one feels isolated, each team should have the autonomy of putting in place what works best for them.

This part of the conversation includes:

• Digital v Traditional IT
• Melbourne Water's Digital Transformation
• Customer Segmentation
• Customer Needs Analysis

This part of the conversation includes:

• Human Cost of Digitisation
• Changing Demand for Digital
• Community Support

This part of the conversation includes:

• OMNI Channels
• Portfolio Prioritisation
• Changing Profile of IT
• Future of CTO role

This part of the conversation includes:

• Business Relationships and Understanding
• Impact on Culture
• Leading Through Transformation
• Future Outlook

DATE: 10 March 2021 

HOST: 

David Webley, Founder & MD of Granite Consulting 

GUEST:

Professor Ken Sloan - Dep. Vice Chancellor, Monash University

This conversation explores the evolving corporate landscape and challenges leaders now face on a day to day basis.  It includes the importance of nurturing the right mindset that enables a leader to leverage the opportunities that adversity can present.

INSIGHT 1 2016 was a pivotal year.  As much as 2020 has transformed the world, 2016 was when there were a number of unexpected changes (such as BREXIT and the US election result) that marked a turn in the pendulum and started presenting substantial new challenges and adversity for leaders to navigate.

INSIGHT 2 The challenges of new ways of working are equal to the benefits. Leaders need to nurture a balanced and optimistic mindset that is both empathetic to how different people may be impacted, as well as proactive to leverage the opportunities it presents. 

INSIGHT 3 Leaders need to move beyond response mode.  The leader's 'to do' list should not only include tactical items that are reactive by nature, but should also include proactive items that are 'operational' and 'strategic'.

This part of the conversation includes:

• Professional Journey
• Leadership Styles
• Reverse Mentoring

This part of the conversation includes:

• New Ways of Working
• 2016, A Pivotal Year
• Role of Higher Education

This part of the conversation includes:

• Growth Culture
• Working Remotely
• Mental Wellness

This part of the conversation includes:

• Examples of Leadership
• Beyond Response Mode
• A Leader's 'To Do' List

DATE: 24 February 2021 

HOST: 

David Webley, Founder & MD of Granite Consulting 

GUEST:

Renata Sguario - Founder & CEO Maxme

As one of Australia’s foremost authorities on Human Skills, Renata shares her views on what Human Skills are, why they're critical both now, and in workplaces of the future, and how we can build our Human Skills muscle.

This conversation also explores the growing gap in Human Skills that new virtual ways of working has highlighted, and strategies for how individuals and organisations can best go about bridging this gap.

INSIGHT 1 In the new world of remote working, Human Skills are becoming more important and the gap far more evident.

INSIGHT 2 Uplifting Human Skills is more than just getting ahead.  Uplifting human skills will improve your sense of wellbeing and make you feel better about your life in general.   

INSIGHT 3 Listening is a fundamental Human Skill and is the difference between listening to understand rather than just listening to respond.

• Renata's Backstory   
• Motivations for founding Maxme
• Human Skills in the Virtual World
• Building Trust Virtually
• About Maxme
• About Hodie and a Special Offer to the CWTL Community
• Listening to Understand vs Listening to Respond
• The Importance of Reflection
• Diagnosing a Human Skills Gap
• How to Listen to Understand