Synergy IQ: 0:01

Welcome to Creating synergy where we explore what it takes to transform. We are powered by Synergy IQ. Our mission is to help leaders create world class businesses where people are safe, valued, inspired and fulfilled. We can only do this with our amazing community. So thank you for listening.

Daniel Franco: 0:20

Are you there? synergises and welcome back to another episode of The creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco and today we have a remarkable human being on the show. Fiona Blakely. Fiona is the people executive lead at oz minerals, and after joining the Forward Thinking mining company in February 2019, she believes that the focus on corporate culture can no longer be seen as an optional extra. For the past two decades, Fiona has worked with organizations to help build cultures that create value for all stakeholders. With a master in ArcSight and NBA in 20 years multinational corporate HR experience, Fiona is passionate about evidence based practices to help leaders build cultures they need. It's through her experience. She knows for certain that in toxic cultures engagement drops, turnover increases and market values decrease. Fiona began her career with Shell in the UK before establishing the HR function for Bausch and Lomb UK manufacturing division. After moving to Australia to complete her MBA Fiona joined line Nathan as HR director, wines and spirits, followed by a series of roles in corporate strategy and capability. across all of these roles. Fiona's passion has been the development high performing cultures through the application of evidence based practices. Most recently, Fiona ran her own leadership development consultancy supporting leaders to drive culture change through a focus of their mindsets and behaviors. Fiona is a fellow of the Australian HR Institute and accredited coach with international coaching Federation and a member of the adaptive leadership institute Advisory Committee. In this episode funer and I touch on her journey from backpacking all around the world to unpacking your experiences through her corporate career. We deep dive into the systems symbols, behaviors and mindset required for high performing cultures. We also spent a lot of time talking about the innovative ways that oz minerals manage their workforce inclusion and diversity and how they positioning themselves for the future. If you love the episode, which I'm sure you will, be sure to hit subscribe button and check us out at Synergyiq.com.au and synergy IQ on all the media outlets. Welcome back to the creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco, your host and today we have the amazing Fiona Blakely on the on the show. Thank you, Fiona for joining us. Thank you for that. So Chief People Officer oz minerals

Fiona Blakely: 3:00

last off today, people executive lead

Daniel Franco: 3:03

people executive, okay, is there a difference in various

Fiona Blakely: 3:06

eras we just we're ditching the chief ah, part of our journey around trying to really think about all the symbols around the culture. So we felt chief seemed a bit but traditional, a bit bit hierarchical. So as of today, all the executive team or executive leads for their executive

Daniel Franco: 3:22

blades. Yep. See that already. He's talking about the way minerals is thinking and thinking about the future of their work. So congratulations on that change is actually quite, quite exciting and quite innovative. Yeah, thank you. Look, before we deep dive into your world, or those minerals, and everything that you're doing there, I'd really love to learn and unpack a little bit about your history. where you came from today, why we've invited you on this podcast and everything like that you've got a good story. There are a lot of people in the industry who know your name and and know the work that you've done. You've worked as a consultant previously in your own life running your own business. So yeah, if we could just who is Fiona and how did you get to where you are today?

Fiona Blakely: 4:02

Oh, I'd love to say it was a plan strategic, but actually it was I say it's a series of accidental, great things that happens on the ways who am I? Well, bit of an obvious one, I'm Irish, not not not a local, although I've been here about 20 years. So I'm a mom, I've got two boys 16 and 14. And I started life as actually doing business in German at university and fell into psychology as sort of as a side subject fell in love with it, switched over took psychology and that was really the beginning of kind of sort of a journey through mostly through corporate corporate world. Yeah, started off with Shell some of the graduate program and then after about 10 years UK in the UK yep started in the UK and as long as Aberdeen actually in the oil fields, spent my first years yet flying out to Brent Alpha helicopters and and then down and head office in London with their with them shell international for a little while. And then within an hour I can accompany Bausch and Lomb. I went to Scotland and set up their, their kind of people function for their manufacturing division in Scotland, and yeah, and then after about 10 years, I decided to go adventuring.

Daniel Franco: 5:13

Yeah, did you? Did you meet someone go adventuring? Or did you? Were you with your husband? Oh,

Fiona Blakely: 5:19

yeah, yep. Yep. College sweethearts,

Daniel Franco: 5:20

obviously. Yeah. Yeah. So you both decided to take on the world. Yeah, well,

Fiona Blakely: 5:24

we got married. And I think we just sort of thought, what's the next adventure? We're all excited. We're getting married. And all our friends were sort of getting married. And we sat back and we were like, quite ready for the whole house kids. And yeah, we just stopped. Haven't we've gone straight from from college into work into careers. And we just had this moment over in Breckenridge actually snowboarding. And we were like, imagine if we were just having really different. And so we went back and we quit. And we actually became lefties. Oh, yeah. We went back and apply to it became lift operators with all the snow. Yeah, the ski fields yet we packed everything up on our everything up in our apartment and reknown our apartment, we rented it. So I packed all our stuff up, put it into a brother's garage, sold our car, put the money into an account, and we flew out to America, we became lefties with Vail Resorts for six months, which was amazing. I think we're the oldest lefties because we're like 29 ripe old age. And that was amazing. And then after that we use the money to buy an old car and we just did the whole, from Canada to a laptop from Alaska down to Mexico, we just hiked we're just camped and hiked the whole way down. So I've just had the most amazing year. And we ran out of money in Australia 20 years ago, hence

Daniel Franco: 6:36

the reason you started working again. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, I think you've, you've just demarked What's on a lot of people's bucket lists and just selling everything out, packing up and going and exploring the world. Obviously, it's hard to do at the moment, but it is, it would have been an amazing experience, you would have met some amazing people,

Fiona Blakely: 6:54

just incredible, just just the people and just to get a chance to step back a little bit, you know, and just do something different. And do it, you know, and just not be kind of stuck on one pathway. And another thing, I think we just realized the amount of people that said afterwards, I was so brave, you know, I'd love to have done something. Well, I don't think we ever thought it was brave. At the time, we didn't really as easy when you're in your 20s you haven't got kids. And you haven't got all the other things that come with kind of later in life with responsibilities. But at the time, it was just, it was more it was something that was there and we had an opportunity and we took it and it opened, then I think of all the things we've done since then all the doors, it all came from some of those decisions. So we have a real philosophy of if a door opens, you take you step in Yeah. And don't worry about what's on the other side to step in, take whatever adventure opportunities right in front of you, and just trust that. In doing that, the next thing usually emerges, which as I said, I'd love to say my career was a structured strategic plan together, but it's not. It's been a whole series of those sort of doors that

Daniel Franco: 7:57

I often I often look at life as a sliding doors moment in that sense. You know, the old saying, you know, when you walk into a supermarket, and as you're walking towards the doors at your local Kohl's or wherever it might be, the doors are shut, right? And you keep walking and keep walking. If you've never seen these sliding doors before you don't know what's going on. The doors are shut doors are shut and all of a sudden as you get close to the doors open, right. And that's your opportunity to step through. I really I've always taken that on as the philosophies. It's you've got to kind of push yourself to the point where hang on what's going on here. You feeling uncomfortable? And then you step through? And yeah, so I really like your analogy you're welding in that you did that. Exactly. Which is which is amazing. So what prompted the move from UK to Australia? Oh,

Fiona Blakely: 8:45

honestly, itchy feet? Yeah, I think we'd been so 10 years in the UK post college, we've been working and we really honest, I think it was three years for summer lasted a week. And we were kind of done. We'd actually had this amazing after our wedding, we had gone out with all our friends to Breckenridge and we'd had this incredible 10 days snowboarding and being in America and we came back and was really, really wet. I was remember that day was such a wet July day and we're a little bit move had a couple of extra vodka Redbulls the night before. And we're sitting around, I was just on the website, browsing and just going back to record region looking at pictures and kind of thing. I'll go shows anywhere but you know, rainy Scotland right now. And I saw this button for employment. And I just thought was really funny like Florida. Back in touch my, my husband was like, magic to prove like to us to not be here. Like I go to something really weird, like, go work on a ski resort. And on that moment, we put an application and a spur of the moment and we put an application to into work at Breckenridge and then about three, four weeks later out of the blue. I got a phone call. And I happen to be at home and from work and I took the phone call and I was interviewed for a job over the phone at the ripe old rate of $10 Actually, I started at $9.75 an hour. Oh, wow. And I was at a trauma with time with patient love. And my husband came home from work and I said, I've just been offered a job, you know as 50 in Breckenridge and he was like, what was it remember those applications? And he said, Okay, so he rang up and he said, Well, you just offered my wife a job. What about me? So we interviewed him and, and then next thing we were like, Alright, okay, we've just been offered jobs. So we thought about it. And then we went in on the Monday morning and Pandora noticing. Brilliant. Yeah. And then as part of that, we thought, well, if we're going to do that, let's do something. Let's keep going. Yeah. And so before we left the UK, we decided, where would we like to go and live and explore it. We looked places around the world, we thought Australia seemed pretty interesting. We never been here. But we had an image of what it would be. And so we put an application in for visas in London with a with a migration agent, and then headed out to America, I thought, but we'll see what happens. And then the visas came through while we're on Route. So we collected the visas in Vancouver. Oh x on our travels. And if we hadn't got them, we probably would just have headed back. Yeah. Or maybe state. Did

Daniel Franco: 11:11

you get a job here? No, no, that's not not a clue over No. ended in

Fiona Blakely: 11:16

London, London to Sydney 10 days before September 11. Oh, wow. So I was a member it'll bedsit in the in the salubrious suburb of Kings Cross anybody Sydney will note will be smiling. Yeah. And they tried to tell us it was Darlinghurst. But actually, it wasn't it was a rat infested Little Bear in Kings Cross and we were 10 days and we we arrived and we're pretty getting pretty low on funds that stage we exhausted most of our money. And so we thought Great, okay, we'll start working. And we started, you know, ringing up headhunters and and then obviously, September 11th, hit. And the factory said, you might as well go traveling for six months as nobody's gonna be employing, and with all when we've got any money to have to go traveling. So we had enough money to get us through to December and literally five days before we were out of money, and we'd kept enough to get a plane home. My husband got a job with JPMorgan. Oh, two networks and contacts back from the UK. And that was enough to

Daniel Franco: 12:13

spark before again. Yeah, so

Fiona Blakely: 12:15

we went home basically packed everything up, say goodbye, the family and arrived back into Sydney a few weeks later with, with so 100 job when I went back to college to my MBA, I decided at that stage Yeah, I was not quite ready to, to give up new things.

Daniel Franco: 12:29

So MBA, what what drew the interest, you've, you've obviously done some work in psychology, as you know, as you graduate certificate and whatnot, then you've decided businesses that the world that you wanted to really master it and grow up that sort of move up the chain?

Fiona Blakely: 12:46

No, it was really bad. Anything about a chain? I mean, I did, I had a master's in occupational psychology. So I'd been a have always been sort of then in corporate world, and I've been with Shell International and with passion alarms. So I've been always in business. And I think part of me was always it was I had a really good grasp of obviously, the psychology of people in the business environment for the occupational psychology, but I found business fascinating as well. And I thought it'd be really interesting to go back and actually do an MBA because I'm always going to be in business in some shape or form. At that time, I thought so. I thought were really interesting to go back and do an MBA and again, sliding doors moments, I met an amazing I'm at the Sales Director of line Nathan was one of my, one of my friends at university, he was doing the MBA as well. We became like syndicate group members and friends. And at towards the end of the MBA line, Nathan was expanding at a beer and wine just bought a whole series of wineries and had created new division called wines and spirits. I'm not looking for an HR director. And I thought oh, okay, so I had the kind of MBA background then I also had the Masters Yeah, I had the the the HR background as well. And it was a good fit. So I joined lined Ethan, straight out of the NBA.

Daniel Franco: 13:58

And what was that like your first role within Australia? In Australian business? Was it different to everything else you'd

Fiona Blakely: 14:05

done? Fascinating, because I think the reason I go back to the NBA is I had done, you know, talk to a couple of companies. And I arrived in Australia and I started getting a bit worried because everybody I spoke to was there a big companies, they really were offshoots of in, they were like off, they were international kind of operations. So the ability to actually drive change, affect culture, you know, be strategically involved is quite limited. And I was thinking, Oh, I didn't realize Australia was so kind of, you know, smaller frying. Yeah. And so a lot of companies but an awful lot, all the decisions were made elsewhere. And so when I met Bob Barber, who's the HR director at the time, and Gordon Karen's at Adeline Nathan, and I got to know them and chatting to them. And I thought, wow, this is a company that's it's you know, I mean, kind of concept come from what you like 100,000 people and 30 was small was 3000 people at a time, but it was a small company that thought really big. They really did they They were out constantly looking at best practice thinkers, particularly the world of people and culture. And also they were, you know, because they were effectively an ASX listed company, totally in control, you know, of their own destiny. So I thought that was fascinating to come and think it was really like, I'm so glad I didn't jump, I waited. Yeah, I found the right company, because I had 14 years that I would lie Nathan, and I was just fantastic. I learned so much.

Daniel Franco: 15:25

The the learning curve would have been huge. And would you say that that was the propeller that propelled you to where you are today, the learnings and the growth that you're in? Position?

Fiona Blakely: 15:35

Yeah, absolutely. I think because with I mean, shell was amazing experience as well, what I had the chance to do with us now line with line was really get involved in thinking about almost going back a little bit to the psychology roots, we had a philosophy at line at the time of always having a strategy team. And that strategy team was non operational, and they got to actually, you know, go out and look at best practice thinking around the world and bring it back into into the company. And so I had a time both working in the team and leading that team, as well as being operational, you know, in terms of the business units as well. So I got a chance to be exposed to pretty much all the leading thinkers, it was like kind of a little bit of a perfect sweet spot, you got to explore and play in that kind of research space, but then apply that research. So and I got that really helped me kind of, I think solidify that thing about I call it applied research, the research is really interesting. And I do love that back that kind of in that kind of academics piece to it. But if you can't apply it, you know, to people in a really practical way that makes a difference and changes something for the better then it's just it's interesting, but not particularly useful. So yeah, yes, really good grounding in that space.

Daniel Franco: 16:47

In the in that role. What I'm hearing is that there's real opportunity for the executive team and senior leaders within businesses to go and research what is practice? How do you? How did you manage the, I guess the opportunity of, of researching and looking into what the rest of the world is doing? From a best practice point of view to managing the every day? You often? Yes, I just I don't have time. Yeah, busy. So was that something that you're empowered to do? Or is that how you set your day? So look, if I'm going to be the best I am in this job, I need to do it this way? Well, I

Fiona Blakely: 17:23

think we think about the things that drive culture, you got systems symbols, sort of and behaviors. So that was a real system piece. So in line, we had a very purposeful decision to have a team that had no operational responsibility. So that team was really tasked with being the thinkers, and going out and looking at the research, and then bring it back and then partnering with the operational teams to turn that into something that was operational. So that really helped. I think that's a perennial problem for anybody, which is the day to day can take over. So how do you separate out from the day to day and be involved and create space, and you had to do it structurally by setting up teams that are a little bit in a way protected? And that sort of thing? I think about what AWS is doing in the transformation space is something very similar. You know, we have it's kind of a transformation team that sort of pulled out, it's not in the day to day. And it's partnering with the business to sort of think ahead and think I get ahead of the curve, for most of innovation perspective. So I think that's structure is quite an important thing to do.

Daniel Franco: 18:23

Absolutely. It's often though, in times of pandemics and times of recessions, the first jobs that go, though, because it's like, Alright, we just need to go back to operations, do you suggest that they should be the jobs that stay in those times where continuous research and continuous improvement needs to be looked at in late in lieu of the continuous? operational side?

Fiona Blakely: 18:49

Yeah, well, I think it's that constant element of trying to balance this strategic long term direction of a company. And then the delivery of the now and I don't think it's an either or, because if you're not delivering now, you know, you don't have a company to build for the future. So if you're about to go bankrupt, I know last year for a lot of companies to make some really serious, really serious, like, kind of, can we get through the next month? Have we got cash flow? So I wouldn't ever just, you know, criticize somebody in those moments to do what's needed. But I think for any company, if you're not consciously thinking about, you know, what the future looks like, and you're only in the Now, chances are the world around, you will change really quickly, you won't see it changing, and you'll be left behind. So I think I do think you've got correct,

Daniel Franco: 19:33

isn't it? So you mentioned culture symbols, those three elements, system symbols and behavior, system symbols and behaviors. Can you just dive into that a little bit for us? Want to hear a little bit more about that?

Fiona Blakely: 19:47

Yeah, absolutely. And we've sort of expanded. We use that system symbols and behaviors, but also now we take behaviors and we think about, we've broken that out into sort of mindsets and skill sets. So the behavior both what's going on inside your mind, but So what you see on the outside, if you indulge the covers the academic piece, there's a theory called integral theory, which says for any ailment for any movement or any change, you need to look at the both the individual and the group. But you also need to look at what's going on the inside as well as the outside. So it's that constant idea of like the interior, the exterior of the group and the individual. So if you think about it in that context, and your systems is all the kind of the outside of the group, the symbols are sort of the inside of the group, the behaviors that we see you and I displaying is what you see on the outside of a person. And then the mindset is what's happening, sort of inside a person's head. And if you want to get systemic, sustainable, long term change, our view is that you need to be thinking of all four quadrants. So if you're only changing, say behaviors, and a lot of companies go down this route, they put a lot of effort into kind of a suite of behaviors, and we're going to talk about them and train people on that when you only work on that one quadrant. But your systems, like say, your pay is dry, you're sending another message and your recruitment sends another message and your operating rhythm and the way you run meetings is all disconnected, then you won't get the change. Great. And so that's why you see, you have to look at your systems, fundamentally, as well as your behaviors. The symbols, I think most people get a lot of muscle on, they don't pay enough attention to the symbols and the symbolism of things they do as well. But the bit that's missed by a lot of companies, I think, is their mindset piece as well. Which is, again, if you really want to get that deep, long term, sustainable, changing, supporting people to really understand why they think how they think. And notice how they think we think is almost like learning to notice, like how your thought processes work, is the key to unlocking that long term, sustainable sort of behavioral changes, which in the driving seat,

Daniel Franco: 21:48

it does. Self awareness is really key in all this and those, the leadership programs. You know, we work with many businesses in helping them run leadership programs and work with their leaders and really understanding their behaviors, we can use diagnostic tools, 360, feedback, that sort of stuff. But You're 100%, right, it doesn't just stop it creating that awareness and behavior change, because that's a long term journey in itself, it's breaking behaviors of history, and, you know, kind of these are the behaviors that got you into this leadership position as it is. So how do we improve that, you know, take you from good to great. But then on top of that, you go back into the work life or you go back into the to the organization, and then you still need 16 signatures to get something through or it's you still and that's the system, that's the system part. And that's the issue, because like, you are, you're telling me to almost be woke in this world, but then I go back and nothing works. Yeah. And that's where, you know, we all we look at it almost from a culture as an ecosystem. Yeah, and it's just the old moving parts, everything has to work.

Fiona Blakely: 22:53

Yeah, 100%. And that's, that's why we kind of almost pedantic about the system, symbols, behaviors, and mindsets. Because if you're not thinking about them all, as an integrated, you say, ecosystem, then you really can put a lot of time and effort into one piece, and then the system takes you and pulls you back. And I'd say if anyway, the system part is, is, is probably one of the most important parts of it, because generally speaking, you know, you get whatever the system is designed to give you. And so most people, this is like a more of a personal sort of philosophy, I believe. Most people, you know, really want to behave, you know, in an awesome way. But often, it's a system that they're, it's amazing how often you can get really great people, put them into a toxic work environment, and watch how their behavior changes. Because everything that the all the signals to them, that tells them how you're expected to behave, you know, through the system starts to change that behavior. So it's very hard to be, it's very hard to be that to change as a lone person, if you're not actually designing right through the system, all the changes that you have to make. And

Daniel Franco: 23:57

that's a that's a human thing, isn't it? Really, if you there's that the sum of the five people have you heard that thing, the average wage of your five closest friends is generally where you would fall. And I know wage is just one way of sort of, but the mindset also falls into that place where you look at your five closest people around you, and who you surround yourself with on a day to day basis. And you are an average of all five of those people. And that's what they generally say. So if you're surrounding yourself with really great thinkers, and people who are looking to innovate, people are looking to change the world, the niche, naturally your mentality moves into that space. If you're hanging around with people who are you know, taking drugs or getting involved in crime or whatever, then naturally you start falling into that way as well. So your environment is absolutely paramount to your success. Yep. high performing teams Amina rose is a high performing team doing very well on watch the the stock market quite regularly. I've been watching him for years. Talk to me about high performing teams and how oz minerals got there. And what you really implement is working on those three simple systems and behaviors? Or is there anything in particular that when you walked in through the door, those minerals that you said, right, this is the first thing that I'm going to, I'm going to take on and embark on?

Fiona Blakely: 25:19

Well, to be honest, I mean, I'm really just sort of another person that's come in that's building on what's been gone before. So this is ultimate as on that journey long before? Yeah, yeah, I can I often used to joke and say it was, in a way it was a consultants almost like dream job. Yeah. Because often you you know, as a consultant, you go in, and this thinks that you're going into the turn around, or do the pivot the company, whereas all I was doing was taking these amazing foundations that were already in place, and just putting an extra just just continuing just continuing, you know, the incremental, the incremental improvements. So

Daniel Franco: 25:52

you walked into the Goldilocks zone? Yeah, in a way, actually, I

Fiona Blakely: 25:55

think so. And so and so, on that I think the first thing is that, you know, I think ours, you know, back in sort of 2015, when it was really forming into the companies that are that it is now got really, really clear about, about the culture that it wanted to have, and the culture that it wanted to be, that's the first thing you got to do is any companies be super create clear about what it is and what that looks like? And so for us, it was always around, really, really breaking the mindset of I'm breaking the kind of the paradigm of mining and becoming a modern mining company, and then really starting to explore what does that mean? What does it mean to be a modern company? What does that look like in terms of how people show up, and how they behave, and the way in which we innovate and the way in which we do business and the way in which we go about approaching all of our operations and thinking so everything pretty much is put onto the table. So those elements of empowerment, devolve decision making innovative behavior, innovative thinking, was really, really crystal clear from an early stage. And then the company said about thinking about, again, through the lens of systems, symbols and behaviors, how do we start? How do we start sort of building towards that. And I think a big milestone then was sort of in about 2016 2017, really getting clear on what those behaviors are going to be. And we have a we have a framework called or how we work together, it's 24 behaviors. And that works started in 2017. And then we had a big nother sort of review of it in 2019, we looked at it, we said, Okay, we play around with it now for two years. And we went to the whole company, we talked to people and we had about a quarter of the workforce, talk to us. And we ran workshops, and again, looked at all the research and just stress tested it and really then locked in those behaviors by the end of 2019. And that's kind of the bedrock of pretty much everything. And it feeds into all of our systems, all of our processes. And it's it really is deeply now in the company, those that behavioral framework. And that I think is, for any high performing team, you got to be really crystal clear about the behaviors that you want to see. And then you have to design them and weave them into into everything. So it just becomes

Daniel Franco: 28:04

becomes common language, common language,

Fiona Blakely: 28:06

but also part of the fabric. Yeah. To the point where people, it just it's not something separate over here. And you know, the wall or teacher, it's the

Daniel Franco: 28:15

moment you walk in, in your induction, right. This is, it's probably even more that for that. Yeah, when you're applying or looking at the brand as a whole

Fiona Blakely: 28:22

opposite. So when we think about it, we think about sort of talent, attraction, you know, a brand, etc. But it's right from what's that user experience in the moment somebody even like, has any conversation with us, whether they're, they meet us at a conference, or they're talking to us at an event or whatever that, you know, how do we give people an experienced connecting with in with our company that is completely aligned to those those six principles and those 24 behaviors? So we pretty much from like that point, right through, have that sort of lens around? What's that experience? And are we are we behaving? Are we showing up in a way that's that's actually aligned, and there's, you know, keeping

Daniel Franco: 29:02

there's a few things in there that the 24 behaviors and how we work together? Yeah. What's the one low hanging one that you're thinking of right now that is critical to how we work together?

Fiona Blakely: 29:15

inclusiveness? Yeah. Yeah. I think by longshot, because, for me, so we have on our span that we have lots of planning, delivering, but also sort of innovation, inclusiveness, collaboration, integrity. The inclusiveness, one is the one that really speaks to that element of understanding yourself as a person first and foremost. And so that you can create space for other people. And I think that I think what kind of prompted questions like what that secret sauce and to me it's around that psychological safety? Yeah, if you can create an environment in a company where people can just be themselves and show up as humans rather than how they think. Others are expecting them to behave, you can just lose all the wasted time energy and effort that goes into that, that pour the the front the people, mostly, yeah, and bring people in. So I think there's two things. One is massive win for the company, because you tap into people's, all their talents and all their thinking or their innovation. But secondly, I think it's actually an obligation companies have, because, you know, we're not around for a long period of time. And I think if we spend so much of our, our life in a working environment, we should be in an environment where, you know, we come as a human, you know, and we come and we're seeing and we're accepted as that full person, and we can thrive and grow. And there's so much I think loss of to humanity of toxic organizations that just lose all that this wasted, wasted potential. What

Daniel Franco: 30:42

inclusiveness is one, what is great inclusiveness look like if you've got someone who is sort of charismatic and an extrovert and all the above that is that's who they are at a whole Yeah. But being destroyed disruptive with that behavior, not because they are targeting to be disruptive just purely because it can be overwhelming. Yeah. How do you manage that situation? Or, you know, any other situation similar?

Fiona Blakely: 31:12

So I think the first question I have there is, why is that behavior experienced as disruptive, you know, for the other people is because they've also maybe got a very homogenous mindset about how work should be done. So maybe there's maybe there's some mindsets, or some narratives or assumptions there, that needs to be surcharged. But then maybe also for the individuals, maybe that exuberance is also covering up something else that maybe they've got it. So it's really it's around, really giving people the tools and the skills, you know, and the and support, to always ask that question, you know, which is sort of, like the Why Why am I behaving this way? What am I holding to be true? What's the story? What's the narrative, you know, that I'm carrying? And what impact is my behavior having on somebody else? So, quite often, I think we, we talk about sort of perspective, taking as sort of, you know, so I'll tell you what I think, you know, as opposed to how do I create space where I can genuinely hear what you're saying, Yeah, you know, and allow you to feel free and safe to be able to sort of explore that. So. So I think it's the starting point for that has to be first of all, I need to notice, even what I'm thinking when you start to speak Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 32:28

it's understanding triggers. Yeah.

Fiona Blakely: 32:30

We call it triggers and gongs. Yeah. You know, so what's my Gong? What was that thing? Like? Oh, yeah, and then why? Why is it a gong for me? Yeah, it's probably something in the past, you know, is that true for me right now? And am I unfairly filtering out what you're saying? Yeah, you know, because of that. So if you can understand self first, then you can create space for others. So I think about you that I talked about, about that psychological safety, we've spent a lot of time in the last probably two years, with the team, all of our senior leaders, we're spreading that throughout the rest of the company is really investing, leadership development, starting at the self, if you can understand self and you can really help people understand that and under how they think, then you can stop all the other things falls into place.

Daniel Franco: 33:16

Absolutely. It's a long journey to understand self and even when you think you understand so if you still but I really do believe that the tree understanding tree is is is one that probably the low hanging fruit we're talking about where you can work on I reacted that way Why did I react that way? And at what point and you know, you can almost start feeling I used to always talk about it. I'm addicted to time, right? I like time away and you were late today so but I was I'm getting better at it. But and, but But you I mean you rang through and you I think that's the thing if I'm late, I do exactly what you did, I'm going to be 15 minutes late you give it you think about the person on the other on the other end, if I am late and there's no way of contacting and then all of a sudden I can feel like you know switches gone off the kettle is gone, the blood starts to boil the anchor, the anxiety starts at play. And I and that was something that was really strong in me a couple of years ago being very much in the approval seeking world I work in business development and business growth and manage my own business and all this sort of stuff. So I really want to create a great customer experience for everyone. So there's also that play of really understanding who I am and understanding this is going to trigger me unless I put some parameters in place and also be very open with people about you know what my expectations are and how and creating some clear guidelines and yeah, we would we would work not that my ways the highway but in the sense of look, this is how I operate sort of things. So I think clear communication is also, you know, you're talking inclusive inclusiveness but we often use a saying and it's a Brene. Brown saying it's clear as clients to be really clear about what it is you're trying to achieve. And what were you trying to go and what it is that and what we're actually trying to create value for. So yeah, we're it's the human mind in working with with people is it is

Fiona Blakely: 35:22

what I probably add on to that is there's an answer to that as well, which is also exploring why is that a trigger for you? So yeah, yeah, what's what's, what are you holding to be true, that creates that because that triggers coming from an assumption. So there's something there, you're going assumption, and you're holding something to be true. So that behavior is being interpreted through a certain lens. One thing that we talk about a lot is, we often look through, we're looking at often looking through a mask, which is our, our inner narratives. And on those assumptions, we're not even aware of that. So one of the greatest things we can do as people to help them almost take the mask off and look at it. Yeah, and then explore it and say, well, actually, it might, it might still be as true for me right now, or things in my environment might have changed. Yeah, the things I'm holding to be true might not be as true or might not be serving me as well. And that that, to me, is that piece about understanding self, because if we can do that, then we are a little bit more in control. So we can then make choices as to whether or not I'm still going to hold that or we can start to loosen some of those triggers. And we've got like sort of those kind of hooks and releases, how do you actually start to go up that was really driving my behavior quite strong up to this point. But actually, it's now probably at a point where I can let go of some of those assumptions, or some of those, you know, narratives or simple stories that we tell ourselves. Yeah. And just even recognize that there's a simple story in there.

Daniel Franco: 36:39

Oh, with that doubt, yeah, I've deep dive into, into that I, I, I come from an Italian family who's always seeking approval, right, always worrying about what someone else is thinking. And so I think that being on time, and almost trying not to let someone down Yeah, is where that comes from. And that

Fiona Blakely: 37:01

that piece about the inclusivity is that we're talking a lot about sort of this concept, you know, of really high trust, high accountability, and we're trying to up the bar really lift the bar in terms of feedback. But the way we're trying to approach is thinking about, well, quite often, feedback tends to be judgmental. So you're late. So let me give you some feedback about you know, the impact of you being late on me. And just because you haven't noticed that you were late, I'll give you some feedback. But actually, that if I'm doing that that's coming through the lens of It really annoys me. So it serves me to give you that feedback. Yeah, because I've got some wisdom to share with you that it's going to make you better, which quite quite kind of paternalistic in a way. If we change that Rand, and we had this conversation, and I know why that's such a trigger for you. Something now potentially, something happens and I observe, I might be able to give you some observations that are in service of what you're working on still being, you know, clear and still attempts being uncomfortable, given those observations, but now I'm trying to serve your growth, rather than kind of serve myself. So it's really switching the concept of feedback to be one of developmental feedback.

Daniel Franco: 38:08

100%. If you if you do go in with that, look, I'm going to give you some feedback and all that some you can almost create an anxiety, I guess, opportunity or potential for anxiety in the future from that person. It's like, oh, I can't let this person down again. Yeah, yeah. And then that starts eating away at the very fabric of what you're trying to try to achieve. Yeah. Inclusivity is the is that is the word that you're using from a as the number one fundamental from from a team point of view and how we work together. With that, I'm going to put a leadership lens on if we're thinking about leadership, what is the what is a high performing leadership look like if we are going to be inclusive to all types of leadership? Yep. What is What do you see as being the most high performing style of leadership?

Fiona Blakely: 38:57

It's a good question. Like, if anybody answers that we get to the real answer and make a fortune? If they do, they're probably not being quite honest. Yeah. I mean, there's anyone exactly again, but again, we go back to our starting point was inclusive leadership. So I think leaders in you know, this sort of this well, there's times you know, in sort of really complicated situations or, you know, technical challenges that the type of leadership you might need might be quite, you know, around prioritization, structure order, you know, protection, resource allocation, etc. There's other times in really complex Gray, you know, unclear ambiguous situations, we're actually the type of leadership you need is the opposite, opposite opposite. It's about say, actually, we don't have the answer. I don't have the answer. You don't have it, but how do we learn our way towards the answer? And so how do I create the conditions and be an enabler? So there's times where I think you're asking our leaders quite often to be in very different roles sometimes, you know, we need them to be in a very clear, kind of, you know, technical sort of orientated, almost sector, that kind of authority sort of style around another times, it's actually, we need to be very, very different. And that's about creating the enabling conditions, to allow all the great ideas, and all the different perspectives and all the people that can bring something to help us as a group, learn our way towards what a solution might be. So depending on what the situation is, I think you need something different. And you got to help leaders situational leadership. Yeah, you've got that you got to help us understand the difference. Yeah. And when they're going to need to, you know, when they're going to draw on different, you know, different parts of the toolkit.

Daniel Franco: 40:29

Yeah, but just having that toolkit readily available, yeah, is the skill set, it's

Fiona Blakely: 40:33

absolutely so if it's, if it's a, you know, super complicated, you know, technical, and we obviously, in that deal that space a lot, you know, we design, and we build mines, and we operate mines there, and I'm learning, I'm not a miner, and every you know, every week, I'm blown away by how complex or I don't know, how complicated and amazingly, technically, you know, complicated the whole sort of that spaces. And that needs a time, a certain level of subject matter expertise, and, and a help and guidance to the teams that you're that you're working with. And other times, but saying, actually, you know, the team probably has the answer much more than you as an individual, and how do you create the conditions that allows them to, you know, to bring that up, and, and that's where it goes back to the inclusivity piece? Because if you're leading in a way, just through your lens, you're going to potentially collect so many ideas, and so many, you know, kind of new concepts, because they might not be in line with that your way of thinking.

Daniel Franco: 41:32

Yeah, yes. Awesome. In roses. You talked about the technicality of the work that you do and the complexity of the work that you do, you would have many engineers within your ranks. Yeah. And engineering. Typically, if I'm going to paint them with a brush, like to get my to get stuff done. I like to achieve results and then want to get there quickly and methodically. And, and not necessarily the most people orientated way of thinking, right, just purely because of the interest in the actual work that they're doing. We want to design something, we want to create something, we want to create something that's safe for our people. Yeah. But I'm not really concerned about the journey. Like, that goes along with getting that I just want to get it done. How do you manage the engineering minds, or the technical minds in that space where you you work with them to include the people on the journey of trying to get the outcomes?

Fiona Blakely: 42:34

So it's a couple of things maybe? I think you're describing and a lot of the team would say that themselves, they've been rewarded and trained and educated, you know, because they've been in that very, very technical world, there is an answer. Yeah. And it is complicated. And it is drawing on subject matter expertise, and, and there's a way of kind of designing your way to the answer. So really, it's not about I think, that's not to say that as humans, that they aren't massively inclusive in all other parts of their lives, etc. And they are, I think, most my biggest learning is that humans are humans, we are so like, yeah, you know, we may have different ways of thinking and work styles and kind of professional kind of areas that we're in. But fundamentally, you pull people out and you look at who's running the who's managing the soccer team and run it as not for profit, we're all very, very similar. Yeah. So for me, really, it's purely about, again, just layering on an extra level of a toolkit, you know, for that group to give them some additional resources to draw on, and the different ways of thinking and making it okay, to not have the answer, that's probably the biggest bit of feedback we get, which is, if you if you've been trained and educated, rewarded, you know, for knowing things, it's very hard to not know, yeah, because it goes back to the mindsets and narratives and why we want what are triggered. So the biggest thing we can do is to make it okay to not know, to make it okay to experiment, obviously, we're not going to say can't be okay to not know when you're back to go into safe from a safety point of view, or from a, you know, how we're going to design, you know, reinforcement of a, you know, development stoep, etc. In the mind, there are certain things but when it comes down to how are we going to hit our CG aspiration become a zero entry, carbon, carbon neutral mind, we don't even have the technical solutions to do that yet. That takes a whole different way of thinking. So it really is around I think helping people get comfortable not knowing and making it okay, and creating a common language and a common sort of culture that allows that thing or we call it sort of safe to fail experiments.

Daniel Franco: 44:41

Yeah. You know, growth mindset.

Fiona Blakely: 44:43

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, so that to me, it's it's less around having to convince somebody or teachers make something different. I think it's just more about making it okay. And recognizing that there might be certain toolkits and ways of thinking that they just haven't had a chance. I just haven't been encouraged to explore up to that point in time.

Daniel Franco: 45:03

It's brilliant. You talked about I want to talk about. You mentioned something earlier about us minerals wanting to be the new type of mining company. What does that look like? What's a new type of mining? What are the what are the plans? And what's the future vision for us minerals without giving away your secrets? Obviously, we don't want to the BHPs of the world listening in and stealing your, your thunder, but what are you as a team working on to become that new, innovative mining? Business?

Fiona Blakely: 45:36

Well, two things. First of all, I say parts of it are there already. And parts that we're still we're still working on, we've purposely never defined what a modern mining company looks like, for that very reason. Because if you assume you do it, it's not modern anymore.

Daniel Franco: 45:54

It's constantly changing. It's

Fiona Blakely: 45:56

constantly changing. So for that very reason, we almost we purposely leave it rather ambiguous. And then we're causing that quest to say, Well, what's our context, what's happening in the world around us what's out there, and we try and look outside of the industry a lot. So not just looking within the industry, but actually looking outside the industry for ideas for innovative ways of thinking, for different ways of working. And that's that's sort of, that's the direction that we're always heading in. At the moment, it's very much around, very focusing on trying to break down the mental sort of take a step back, I think, from behavior point of view, that's been a really big focus, and a really successful focus. And I think that's quite strongly now embedded into the, into the into the fabric and kind of the DNA of the company, the last year or two and we use, we use the pandemic last year is a little bit of a sort of an extra accelerator for this was to really start challenging the concept of how we work, you know, how has worked on that, particularly in something like the mining industry, it's been done the same way for a very long time, particularly in FIFO. And quite often, it's not being challenged. So one of our strategic aspirations is to challenge you know, to have no almost assumptions about how and where work can be done, and put everything on the table and make everything up for grabs. So we want to work with the best talent no matter where they reside. So for that reason, we went, we made a decision last year to move to be remote working company, and we aspiration to become a virtual company. So we've given people the freedom to base themselves, wherever they like, they want to work with, you know, an expectation that will come together to create and collaborate, etc. Not all of our roles, obviously, as of right now, yeah, can be done that way. So what we're in the journey of doing is really going back and challenging all the assumptions, because that's what we talked about earlier about mental models. What are the assumptions that we're holding? That tells us that that job needs to be done that way, in that format? And what can we test? What can we so at the minds at the moment of capturing that provenance or letting some incredible work challenging, and with all of the teams with their people really tried to challenge each and every piece of work, just as they will actually kind of be done a different way? What are we holding to be true? That might not be as true? What could we test? What could we think about differently, and trying to break that I think that's the big yes, at the moment, because that's what leads to flexibility, because you can't change the way you do the work. You can't really, truly open up that world of work, to a much wider demographic and to and to give people much more flexibility in their working lives.

Daniel Franco: 48:33

I love it. I love that way of thinking, looking at something from the point of view of how can we best improve this? There is the old adage, though don't fit, don't fix what's not broke, right? And if you're from a safety perspective, you're working with some of the people down in the minds is tinkering with some of those things a little bit dangerous. Are you being really is that a sort of a slow moving beast in its in itself?

Fiona Blakely: 48:59

Well, I think it's two things are safety. And like any industry, but particularly in the mining, it's just like it's the core. I think that is the absolute that and that's so deeply in the fabric, again, coming from a non compliance of the industry, you're really struck by it. It's, it's very personal to people safety. So everything starts, everything starts with that safety lens. This is more around trying to take all the layers around that and unpack it, and it's less about tinkering. And then you tinker, you just take what you have. And you probably don't even challenge some of the assumptions. You just say, Okay, how can we incrementally improve it? This is around say, what are we holding to true but how that Job's even done in the first place. Yeah. And that, obviously, automation, digital robotics, that's a huge other part of it as well, because the way in which we're trying to reimagine work, a lot of is also about using, looking to the future looking to AI look into robotics. So that's the other big focus for us. The moment

Daniel Franco: 49:58

is safety that improves Safety?

Fiona Blakely: 50:01

Yeah. So how do we how do we take that, and but create an environment for that to thrive by also challenging all the various assumptions that you know, sort of about how how sort of work, you got a good example, it's like, last year, obviously, when the pandemic hit, from a safety point of view, we took everybody apart from essential workers are off the minds and move to remote working. Now, a lot of those jobs, nobody had ever stopped that point, and actually said, what is the job need to be FIFO? Why do you have to find out, you know, to Mindsight be undermined, sit at a desk, in a mind be away from your family, you know, be tied into rosters be tied into, you know, which then cuts down the demographics, you know, that can actually come and probably do those roles hadn't really been challenged too large, it just had been always been that way. That's the way all those roles have been done. When you really challenge it and break it down, there's really a much smaller number of roles, and you actually think there are that genuinely physically have to be, it's an honor mine. So as a first point, we were able to, like, challenge all of that. So that's been able to offer an awful lot more flexibility. And we talked about work life plans, we we moved last year to giving everybody the not just the right to ask for work, but almost like it's an obligation, though, every leader has to have make sure everybody in their team has a personalized work life plan that's written to take their whole of life into account. And we flipped it a little bit to say, you almost as a company, we have to build it, we have to be able to say why it wouldn't work rather than the individual having to come and say why it will work. Yeah, it's almost like it's a it's a right now.

Daniel Franco: 51:35

It's just you and I've talked about this offline. It's about asking the people within the business to talk about what's ideal for them.

Fiona Blakely: 51:41

Yeah, yeah. So for every it's different, unique. So what is the ideal picture look like? In terms of the work you love to do the way in which you'd like to do it? When are you at your best? You know, Wendy, some people are mornings, or evenings, somebody have caring responsibilities that somebody have young kids, others have, like, have their community work they're involved in so everybody's different. So if you just say to people design it, write down what that perfect looks like for you. And then pretty much unless there's a real reason why we can't make that work, then why shouldn't we be able to structure for you, and it takes a lot of effort, because you have to then there's no set working patterns anymore. Like in my team, I've got people working, you know, different days of the week, different areas of the day. Yeah, they're in different states. So trying to work out when we're gonna come together as a team, you have to, you have to work a lot harder. At some of the glue part. Yeah. And, you know, and to manage, it takes a lot of extra work. But it gives everybody the chance to then be a lot more trismus adults. Yeah, it says, you know, because people want to come to work if people want to do their best work. But again, if we always had a mental model at work had to be done between the hours of like, you know, for an office or eight, eight and six and have to be done physically at an office in a, you know, that you drove to I mean, why? Yeah, really, we're technology these days. And I guess, last year showed us, you know, we were going that direction anyway, but we used last year as a bit of a launch pad, to sort of really try and shake it up and break it up. And taking that thinking now also into not into operational roles as well, and asking everybody to just start challenging assumptions.

Daniel Franco: 53:13

I really, I really love what you guys are doing, you know, taking the company virtually. And you and I've talked again, offline in the sense that if not everyone can be in a room in a meeting then and was one person online, then everyone needs to go online, right? Because it creates the, you don't want the people in the room having that sort of almost collective power, as opposed to the person who's who's watching in. I want to ask you a question. I want to challenge that not because more from just another point of view, do you think this podcast would be as smooth running? If we were both online at the moment? Like, I really believe in the power of being in the same room and having a conversation? Do you miss that by moving purely online? Or do you because it can become very transactional in the sense, as opposed to building relationships, you don't get to really see mannerisms and tone? And you know, all the above?

Fiona Blakely: 54:10

Yeah. So I think it's again, being really clear, there's not one or the other. Yeah, cuz I agree. I think humans are humans, and we got mirror neurons, we, you know, we just we know, the psychology of like, how we form bonds, etc. And I think it's really important to one of the things that we do is say, every team now has to put a lot of time and thought into thinking about those personal connections, when are they going to come together as a team? So we said, Go by yourself, wherever you want to go live in New Zealand, go to Singapore, you know, wherever you more energy like, but as a team, every team is going to agree it's cadence, and it's going to involve a level of coming together. You know, that personal connection, because it is super important as humans, humans need we need that we need that sense of touch and that sense of connection and close proximity. So what we try to free up teams to work that out themselves. Okay, what's that level of How does that work for you, because every team's work is different, and its pattern is different. So it's not, it's not saying about being never coming together. But saying come together with purpose, because we're coming together, but you're coming together to come sit in a row of desks. Jimmy and it's kind of, we must do that from wherever you want to, you know. So it's come together with purpose come together to create, to collaborate, to build connection, don't come together, just because that's how you've always done it. That's, that's really the challenge. The other side of the coin is that I always remember was, it was February last year, we had just finished the design and have been sort of wasted eight, nine months in the making of our senior leadership development program, it was all face to face because I was believer that you cannot do this deep personal, vertical development work. Virtually, I was out. And obviously COVID hit and we were few weeks away from kicking off the first we really sat down, we're like, what do we do? Do we, you know, we thought at the time was going to pass in in a month or two? Do we pause? And then we thought no, let's, let's try, you know, let's give it a go and see what we can do. And it's not pause it now. Because we don't know how long COVID is going to last and it could God lasted a lot longer than we were expecting. But I remember going into thinking this is not going to be as good. We will not be able to recreate this virtually How do you create that sense of deep safety, to help people unpack and explore, you know, all these things we were talking about in virtual worlds. And we had to go back to the drawing, but we don't know how to do it. And we worked with our with our partner on chartered leadership who are amazing, and they've never done it virtually either. And I realized afterwards, we ourselves will call our own mind traps, we had our own mind trap that this couldn't work could not be done virtually. And yet, I think what we've shown having over the 12 month program, his things happened in a virtual environment that I never, ever would have believed. So if we had not been forced into that through the situation in the context, we would never have moved, we would never have done that. We were able to do Pomorie we were to bring in people from the US we had different, you know, contributors to the program that we would never have been able to bring into a credit spaces virtually that, again, I fundamentally would have argued the case came home before last February, couldn't be done. So I had to step back and go wow, like what else am I wrong about? Because I had such obviously a mindset around how it could be done. So I think we can do more in the virtual sense than we thought we could do. We just had to let go of certain things. And we had to rethink assumptions was not to say that the personal connections not also as important. So yeah, I think so it's to me, it's it's both. And I just I hear a lot from saying, Oh, well, you know, we're going to get people back into the office as soon as we can. And I hear an element there of probably some of those. Maybe the mindsets I was holding sort of last year and thinking well, you know, I've said it would be brave, like challenge them and see what you can do. Because the upside and the positive thing that brings is tremendous. I mean, it from a purely selfish point of view as a company, it opens up our like our talent pool, phenomenally to the world, not just the world. This is this visit, like the the physicality and a geographical piece, but thinking about all the different demographics, you know, think about, you know, the underrepresented demographics that work is closed off to at times, yeah, you can tap into that massively, if you can create that, because that virtual working gives people so much more freedom to manage their time. So people can really build their lives around, you can I suppose they can they can design work around their life, rather than the traditional model, which is I need you in this set location, this set period of time, and try and squeeze in life edges, which frees other people and puts them out of that out of out of the running for for coming to that work. So our view is that it just opens up, like explodes our talent pool. Yeah, you know, of people who can bring in new thinking new ideas, by creating this level of flexibility. And recognizing on the way that you have to work really extra damn hard to then make sure that you keep that personal connection going. And so we we spend a lot a lot of time now is thinking about that, thinking about the personal side of it. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 59:16

The interesting question that come out of that, for me, is the mental health and well being of our people who are working online and aren't getting that human connectivity. I know if I'm sound like I'm coming out with the lenses. Yeah, you know, that you have to be in a room with someone that humans crave human connection, all this sort of stuff. Have you got any data? Or is any color correlation between working at home and the mental health and that sort of feeling of loneliness? And or are you saying that that's non existent in the data that you've got at the moment?

Fiona Blakely: 59:53

So I think from a data point of view, so we do a pulse of all of our people every two every two months services roughly eight weeks. And in there we we do track, we know sort of mental well being and health etc. And so the data is telling us is saying that the return obviously track the change quite closely over the last sort of 18 months. So the data is telling us that that, that we're not seeing any, any deterioration or any decrease. I think, just as humans, the whole world is struggling. Yeah, you know, with because the virtual way of working, all those personal elements that we would put in place to cut, you know, to make sure we've kept that connection. What's happening, particularly in Australia, at the moment would lockdowns we're not able to do Yeah, so people aren't able to fly down and we aren't getting together physically. And I think there's not a human on Earth that's not struggling. Yeah, without that sense of disconnection from family and loved ones. And so I think that that's just an average, I think, if anybody says that they're not alone know what land they're living in? Yeah. What you can do, again, is just not thanks for black and white about it, but kind of okay, so what do I need to do to create that level of connection, but just to have to do it virtually. So we've introduced a concept of check ins. So we check in and we check out, you know, pretty much anything, it's gonna last more than an hour or so. And check in effectively is be able to articulate whatever's on your mind. So when I was fuel coming to a meeting, I'll say, what's on your mind, as you entered the meeting with no expectation that's got anything to do at work? Simple invite invitation. And that can be anything from, you know, I just tripped over the dog on the way in, or I had a fight with my kids, you know, or, or I just, I'm down, I'm sad, I'm just really having a hard day to day. Or does that next meeting, I'm going to not prepared for it. To be honest, that's clouding my mind can be anything, it's really giving people a space, just name it to tame it. Yeah. And I think that is really important to us giving people what we're finding someone, sometimes those check ins, can last 1520 minutes, because somebody might need might then check in about something that's actually quite, you know, quite meaningful on their mind and, and needs some time to talk about it. And we give them that space. So that's, I think, a really silly against simple thing I've often said to so at various talks, etc, cost nothing. You could introduce check ins, check outs, tomorrow, cost nothing, you have to train people how to do it, it's just about saying that giving people a time to almost mentally transition into the work they're about to do. And come and present, then means we really focused in the work they're doing. But also, I think it has a big mental health piece as well, because what we've noticed is that compared to say, how we were operating when we were all, you know, pre kind of February, yeah, 2020 We were just so busy. You know, we're in and out of meetings all the time we were in, we're very focused, I mean, the mining industry is incredibly fast moving fast moving, really efficient, time efficient, and task orientated sort of environment. And so we were moving on the go all the time, and that social interaction was happening, you know, in the cut, you know, kind of in the kitchen and kind of in the walks etc. But in the work, we're very organized. Now we don't have the water cooler, we don't have the coffee, you sit around have a coffee. So what you do is you got to design it into your into your work. So creating those spaces to get people to check in check out is really I think important because it lets that social element come in. Yeah. So the the practices is sorry,

Daniel Franco: 1:03:24

can I just Yep. query on the chicken? What does it look like? Is a? Is it just an open source? Where teams invite where anyone can join the meeting in this particular error? Or what is

Fiona Blakely: 1:03:37

your second episode? Where every two weeks, like my team will get we get together. And we're gonna spend a couple hours doing our sprint planning, because we move to sort of Officer routes or agile ways of working. So we, we sprint plan and review do retro. So we start up planning, we'll say, Okay, quick check in. And everyone just knows, I'll just go around the room. And usually one person will open it with and don't have to be the, you know, the most senior person in the room, but anybody can open with, let's check in, right? What's on your mind with no expectation that is going to do with the work? Yeah, absolutely. So you check into a meeting. And effectively, which is so it's just it's a practice. It's just a ritual and a practice of checking in and people sometimes go and part of the practices, saying what's on your mind and then saying I'm in it's like a kind of a mental like, right, I'm ready. Yeah. And some people take five seconds, save bone, I think what's on my mind, I'm in Yeah. And others might say, might share something that's more meaningful and might take two, three minutes to check. And there's no necessary discussion about it. There's no commentary, there's no judgment. It's purely it's not for discussion. It's purely a case of expressing whatever's on your mind to just notice that it's on your mind. So you can notice, I'm noticing it. I'm putting it aside. And now I'm in and I'm ready for the content for the work of them of the purpose of almost like

Daniel Franco: 1:04:55

wiping your feet before you enter it. Do you have to I'm

Fiona Blakely: 1:05:00

sorry, I just finished up. So then we check out the chat. Okay, yeah, no, we're not as good that I noticed that we can be, we always kind of get to one minute to the hour and it was raising to the next meeting with the idea is to check in, but also check out to help you transition to the next to the next. So it's kind of like a mental state change, yeah, to kind of recognize that if our brains are just on all the time. And we're not present. And we're not mindful that actually a we're less productive. So we know from all the science and all the research that that mindfulness, that sense of presence actually makes us far more clear in our thinking. So we've got an initial introductions, given all the signs and stats around the impact it has on team decision making and thinking and creativity. But there's a huge human element part terms of mental health as well, it's both. Is there?

Daniel Franco: 1:05:47

So two questions? Is there a time limit on to how long that checking is? If you got an hour meeting and could like, as the checking potential time go for 15 minutes? And the other question is, do you put gaps in between meetings? Especially if they're a great question,

Fiona Blakely: 1:06:04

great question. Is they're talking about no and doing what gaps in No, we should? Do? We have talked about it. We haven't go back to sort of systems. We haven't systematized that, I think that will be something we'll have to start thinking about what we try, right? Whenever I can I 50 minute meetings, for example, purposely, or 55 minutes or just just to believe because I know people will be going to that next window, I'd say I'd still spend 99% of my time, kind of hanging up on one call and jumping and the next call already started or jumping into the next call. So no, we don't. And that's something I think I think we'd love to get more systematized about is there a time limit? No. Again, ideally, you check in and check out every every meeting, what we tend to do at the moment, because we're just you know, we're working away towards it. Certainly anything that's a longer meeting, we'll we'll always check in to see if it's a half day workshop or a couple of hours, we'll always do that. Generally, for those quick, you know, an hour in the diary to just get a group together to talk about something, we're probably we don't do it sort of as much. But for all of our big things, nurse or

Daniel Franco: 1:07:08

situation, whatever it is, yes. Like, we are now meeting, I'm not going to sit here and talk for 15 minutes about something it's on my mind. Is that or Absolutely,

Fiona Blakely: 1:07:16

yeah. And in fact, I would suggest that most people get quite frustrated and get a bit tired. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 1:07:22

Especially if you got an agenda, you know, work too, and you want to get some decisions made? Yes. Meeting then checking. Look, I'm not trying to discount the power of the checking. It's just that there are I would like to see some parameters around some Yes, yes. I think it's a great idea.

Fiona Blakely: 1:07:37

Yeah, yeah. But in terms of the there's longer meetings, generally, I find if a group of 10 never takes more than five minutes, yeah. Five, seven, most seller aware agenda and agenda when I'm working on site, you know, Tim, sort of Team sessions, etc, will always just factor in that the first 10 minutes is factory check in? Yes. Yeah. Sometimes it could be locked a lot faster than that.

Daniel Franco: 1:08:00

There's been some articles in the industry at the moment around harassment on site, on, you know, in the villages and whatnot on site. What is oz doing about those sorts of things, and now it hasn't been specifically directed at us has been another, it's been another in the other scene in the mining industry, but in the company. Yeah. It really is, obviously, an important to really understand that area. And, you know, you talk about inclusivity diversity, inclusively, all that world harassment have is AWS manage that part of the world. Yes, people,

Fiona Blakely: 1:08:44

it's really topical question. In fact, we were just chatting with some investors yesterday, they asked the exact same question off as our starting point has always been, you know, we've we've called it inclusive inclusion and diversity, not diversity and inclusion. So because you have to have that inclusive environment. Otherwise, you can bring in as many diverse thinkers and people as you like, but they'll exit your company really quickly, or you'll tap into the potential that they can bring. So you've got to start with an inclusive environment. So I think the behaviors that we've and the framework, those behaviors are, you know, themselves tell you that there is zero tolerance, and zero acceptance for that type of for any type of harassment, particularly sort of, you know, gender or race or, or sexual related harassment. So, so our starting point has always been build the right culture, that's just you have to create the right environment. On top of that, then as an industry, particularly with FIFO, and particularly being a very male dominated industry, you've got to also then be practical and say, even with all of that built into place, you cannot ever rest on your laurels and assume because if the situation the context of that environment, means that there is there's more opportunity, you know, for behaviors to be observed. And unseen. It's different, very different to an office environment. So What we've always started doing at the beginning of this year, is we're doing a lot of workshops, sort of in the business to really test all our controls, to kind of kind of go back and go, let's not just assume that everybody's behaving, you know, in the way and that the culture is exactly, you know, sort of as we would like to be, let's go and check all the potential causes. We were we were a real philosopher at risk. At oz minerals, we talked about threats and opportunities, and, you know, for every threat or every opportunity, what are the causes that could lead to it? What are the controls that you'd have in place? Are they and are they actually, you know, working right now. So we were undergoing quite a thorough sort of risk assessment in that space to say, this may be how we've designed it. But actually, what might be all the causes of other threats over of a harassment incident? And have we actually tested each of those potential controls that we have in place? What evidence do we have at the controller's working? And how do we keep testing it and keep checking it. So we're kind of doing quite a thorough risk review at that moment. Part of that was in that pulse that I talked about, again, those measures in the pulse, we measure things like inclusion. So we're constantly able to track the level of sense of inclusion maturity, we track things like development and growth and engagement, etc. But we've also put in some explicit questions, particularly around that sense of feeling safe feeling that if there was a level of harassment that will be acted on, if it was reported about, so now, we're able to track quite explicit questions as well. And it's run by third party to independent we use a platform called pecan. So everybody's commentary on it is completely anonymous. And that gives people sort of a sense of sort of a safe space, if they felt they weren't able to speak to the leader, or some of their work colleagues around what was happening. They can always, you know, in that kind of that pulse every two months, we can pick up and we do everything, and then we'll pick up sort of an indicator, maybe in a comment or something. And we can then go in and with purpose, explore and understand sort of what's happening a bit more. So that's, I think that's going to be really helpful as well as to to make sure that we're just never sitting back and assuming that you know, that everything's perfect. Yeah, there's no risk of

Daniel Franco: 1:12:06

being proactive and making sure it doesn't happen. I think, like you never gonna hit that. 100%. And I think because there's human behavior, yeah. tendency.

Fiona Blakely: 1:12:15

Yeah. But but you do have to be realistic about that, you know, that I think, as an industry, you know, that we really have to probably even be much more rigid. I came from the manufacturing, and with everybody in clean rooms, physically in the in virus, a very different environment. Yeah. I think certainly mining, underground mining, in particular, we have to just be incredibly vigilant and but again, it keeps going back to the most powerful control is going to be one where if I come onto a, you know, into a workplace, you know, any any workplace, which has minerals, that every symbol, and every everything fiber being tells me for the outset, that that type of behavior is not going to be accepted. So whether it's the first time I make you know, that smart alec joke, you know, that's just that's that little bit disrespectful, and one of my work colleagues go whoa, like, they get, like, if we have a culture where that type behavior is never accepted, it's never walked past, because it's just so part of how we work together. Yeah, then that I think, massively decreases your risk, when you've got environments where the culture actually sends you a signal that says, you know, it's kind of okay, then the risk of actually of a sort of harassment incident taking place, exponentially goes up. So, for us, it's around, making sure we were all those controls in place, but fundamentally, the most pivotal one is continuing to work, you know, on sort of culture, because as we go back to that we talked about earlier, which is, all the cues that you get when you come into a workplace, basically tell you how to behave. Yeah. And most of them are subtle, and they're, they're unspoken. Yeah. So what are those cues? What are the symbols and what's what's accelerated, what's celebrated and and sort of really amplified, and what's stomped on really quickly, and are we actually doing that? So that's, yeah, kind of imagine ongoing conversation.

Daniel Franco: 1:14:02

Absolutely. I think if like my background, I come from a blue collar background, right? And I really understand the type of characters and the people in that world but there is an element and there is a definitive, where there is a fine line between banter and harassment. How do you manage that it's in its own right. In when the when someone might make a comment, it's just purely because they're thinking that's part of their relationship. Do you put a stop to that you take away that that you know,

Fiona Blakely: 1:14:34

I think honestly, the best thing you do is you just have as diverse a group and as possible because often that banter comes from because it's it's that concept of like genius or like you know, privilege they're not even seeing it's often its mind says you know, even since if you have everybody that looks like speaks like same gender, same background same, then that banter for them might feel really normal and they might feel really included and be completely Leon aware of how somebody you know, from a different demographic is feeling on the inside with that banter. So yeah, I think the best thing to do is actually get more diversity into integrates with a fascinating session on Friday for wear purple day. And we had an amazing chap come in actually from another company. And he talked about coming out in that company, and what it felt like to try and have to hide his identity for so long. And how after he came out, how many of his colleagues came up to him really upset? Realizing how they've been making him feel? Totally unintentionally, yeah, great, big, good people good at heart. But to them, what was banter to them, they, you know, they just, they weren't even consciously aware of, you know, of the impact it was having on him until afterwards. So I think, gotta be very careful about this idea of our group. It's not about becoming PC. And you know, nobody can, you know, connect and fun, but we always have to think about it through that might feel like banter to me, because that's the world I live in. Because I have just No, no, I've no awareness, we look through the urine goggles, right? Yeah, absolutely. So I think the best way to, I think to to come that is that you've got a team with a real mix of people, different cultural heritage and orientation and background and life experience and industry experience and gender. And for all that melting pot in, they'll create a banter that's real for them. Yeah. For the identity of that group, not for the dominant demographic of that group. Do

Daniel Franco: 1:16:28

you put targets on that diversity, then?

Fiona Blakely: 1:16:30

No, we don't know, again, we had this great debate yesterday with our investors, for a very purposeful reason. We believe that targets and coders can inadvertently have an unintended consequence. And they can drive the wrong behavior. And they can drive simply, the sole objective being to have the number, rather than actually, I genuinely deeply want to have that diverse group, because it's better for my business, it's better for the team, you know, you know, irrespective of being the right thing to do, there is a real business, massive business imperative, and having that diversity in certain teams. So we're really trying to work this from a sustainable, long term, sort of systemic approach to building that inclusive culture. And now what we're doing is having built, I think we've been quite successful in the last couple of years, really, really embedding inclusivity sort of into the business, we're now starting to lift the the ante and say, Okay, now we've got an environment where all types of you know, sort of diverse workforce can thrive, we have to now good I got to bring that diverse workforce in our you know, we're

Daniel Franco: 1:17:34

almost poaching in the sense that you want to knock on people's doors and say, Hey, come work for us, as opposed to putting something on seek and hoping, hoping for the best?

Fiona Blakely: 1:17:42

Well, it's a couple of things. So what we've, we've always done that we've always been tried to build kind of proactive about talent out there looking for the best people, but also it's around the industry has a big hurdle to overcome. So you say mining industry to a lot of people and you know, they don't even think about, you know, coming to work that industry. So really showcasing for what a modern mining company is actually like incredibly innovative, exciting, bring it all of your thinking to sort of have a impact on the world, you know, through change the technology, but how we, you know, mind things like copper, which we need for the future, you know, for for the future of the world, we need these, these minerals, the copper, etc. Changing the brand, and, and opening up the world to a much broader demographic is probably one of the first things you've got to do, then you have to look at all of your processes, right? From how we go out and think, you know, do you use the same recruiter DC sees the same channels? See, how do you know that the demographics, the wider demographics, they tried to do even on sick, like so we put so what we're doing now is we're starting to layer in obligations through our process standards, which is we have kind of a tight loose framework and a devolved model where we give a huge amount of empowerment and devolve decision making, but within the constraints of things that are just too important to be involved. And we call them process standards. And they're, they're like hardwired into an every asset and every function has to operate within those process standards. So we are designing into that we have now a lot of obligations around really challenging your, your recruitment channels. So had basically, can you prove to me that you have used a range of recruitment channels to go out and tap into a much broader network of people in the first place. Then when they've come through? How are you thinking about your shortlisting? So what criteria are you using? So show to me, you know, demonstrate that you actually really, really again, challenge all the assumptions about who makes it on to shortlist that shortlist, we have a we have an expectation that your shortlist should, should represent the demographic that you're recruiting from within. So, you know, if you're in part of the world and such as that female then I expect to see 50% on your shortlist. If it's got sort of a certain percentage of sort of indigenous population I expect to see that on your shortlist. We expect to see you know, a cultural heritage all of that so your shortlist should represent The demographic of basically, Australia, yeah, and it shouldn't just represent the demographic of the current workforce that you've got. So again, we've woven that in as a as an obligation, right through to, we're doing a lot of work with them with our hiring managers and our recruitment teams around unconscious bias and, and interviewing techniques and language and just just all the practical tools we can give people to then to then feed through into the demographics that we have then in the organization, they were tracking and measuring that. So every week at our executive team meeting we track how many people have applied to jobs was, we look at that through all the demographic splits. And we've see how many that's translating into shortlist. And into hires. So we can have a constant view as to whether or not we're starting to shift the dial. And so, so long way of saying I think you got to do this, you got to do this bottom up. Yeah. And you have to put the obligation into your, into your system and to business. And then you got to skill people up and create the environment. Rather than go, I think it's a bit of a blunt, and it's easy what we do tomorrow, come in tomorrow and say, right, we're gonna have a target of x. But you can achieve that without actually getting the benefit. Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 1:21:12

well, I think it's just it's almost a cop out to just put a target on, there is a lot of hard work to that goes into the background, like the simple thought process that you just said, then of having people to really understanding and changing their thought process when recruiting Yeah, right. Like that, in itself is fundamental that you don't, you don't just do that by a target, you don't change someone's thought process for saying you need to meet a quota you chases thought process by removing those unconscious biases. Right. And that said, I think what you're saying there is really,

Fiona Blakely: 1:21:45

and one of the risks is if you if you if I say to you, right, without doing any of the other stuff, you know, you got to hit this quarter, you'll hit it because you know, maybe your bonuses connected to it or, or your future employments correct connected to it. We truly embrace those people. Will you change the way you actually get the benefit? Will you make this a great experience and a valued experience? That person probably was suspect, probably not wearing a lot of that, you know, the backlash of that sense of all sorts of got the job just because yeah, yeah, that's that's what was the worst position on

Daniel Franco: 1:22:18

that? Yeah. So many times, and it just creates a fragmented environment?

Fiona Blakely: 1:22:22

It does. It does. I think, again, I was starting a starting point, I think people set out people do the best with what they have. I don't think people set out intentionally to be to be biased. But if you don't even aware that you got this thing called similarity bias, and that you are like neurologically programmed to connect more to somebody that looks like you sounds like you had your life experiences. That's how we're wired. Yeah, it's how we survived as tribes. It's just helping people know that. And be aware of that, so that they have that feeling of warmth to a certain thing, I suppose similarity bias kicking in? So how can i What's what structure can I do to try and overcome that? And giving them tools to sit down and think, Okay, how do I think about diversity of thought in my team? You know, we know and again, we've got the science and the evidence to help, you know, to shoot people, we know that having different diversity sort of in a team impacts on the way the team thinks about and solves problems. And so sitting down and go, Okay, so what kind of things I got my team, what's the diversity of thought my team, doing that mapping, to know where your gap is to help you in your going out recruiting again, it's just simple tools to help people with conscious thought, go into that recruitment process, rather than, you know, unintentionally looking around and go, Oh, I've got seven people that look exactly like me.

Daniel Franco: 1:23:35

Well, kudos to you and the team for everything you're doing. I am conscious of time we, we are coming to the close now. Again, I just want to say thank you for everything that you're doing. I was mean rules and everything that you shared, I didn't even get through half of the questions that I wanted to ask you maybe do a part two, I'm just looking at sharing. I can also say

Fiona Blakely: 1:23:57

one thing. There's always a moment we say. So myself and the team, to me that that team is the whole of us minerals, is one thing we've always had culture does not sit with people teams. And it's something we're actually different. In other companies, it's often seen as like, the kind of, yeah, 100% my team's role is really just to systematize you know, and create the environment and the system. Yeah, the culture is created by everybody. And so all the things I've talked about, you know, I would say the, there's been flat has been a huge, organizational wide, you know, kind of journey that we've been on, and then things that we're talking about are just, you know, some of the neighbors that, you know, the teams are there to systematizing. But you, you talk to anybody, you may be from AWS, you'll probably talk exactly as I've talked, yeah, no doubt about what we're doing. I

Daniel Franco: 1:24:48

think, you know, you could go in there and say everyone needs to wear you know, a purple shirt, and that'll create a great culture. And that's not necessarily saying that that's the greatest the greatest idea You're like you said, you're removing the bollocks so that the culture can be in that can perform at its highest level, right. But what it does need is the uptake from everyone to be able to do their culture just is it isn't one is the the people that you hire, it's their attitude, it's their behaviors. It's their thought process on life. It says self reflection, it's all the above 100%.

Fiona Blakely: 1:25:21

And when we go out, and we recruit, we have a concept. We call it sort of bar raiser, but it's like, how do we raise the bar, every time we recruit one person in that person should be somehow coming in and adding something to our culture. So we actually have our we've, I think we've got about 50 people that call them how you work together coaches, and they all nominate themselves. And we have and we help train them. And so you can't get you can't get recruited into ours without having an interview at one of one of our hierarchical coaches, and they've got the effective veto. And so it's almost like, the culture is now so owned by the people like the workforce, the quite protective of it. So excuse me, if you're going to come in and we make sure that that person is completely separate to the hiring area, so that they've got no vested interest. They don't and they don't suffer the pain, if that brilliant person doesn't get recruited, because their sole job is to say, is this person going to lift the bar and push us ahead culturally? And if not, they don't come in.

Daniel Franco: 1:26:15

At least join us on the bus, right? Yeah, in the direction that we're going. Yeah, I love it. Gonna bring this to a close. We do have some really quick fire questions. And I'd love asking you at the end of every podcast. We would be great as here. Yeah, really? synergy and synergy. IQ. What are you reading right now?

Fiona Blakely: 1:26:32

I got two books. My birthday for my son, and he bought me my year of living vulnerably by Rick Morton. Okay. Yeah. Which is a quite fascinating 16 year old boy that

Daniel Franco: 1:26:44

being vulnerable? Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Fiona Blakely: 1:26:46

It's like Complex PTSD.

Daniel Franco: 1:26:49

Okay, so it's quite fascinating, the shownotes. And we can definitely click on Yeah, I'm interested in that one. For those who are interested in building high performing teams, what is a book that you could recommend?

Fiona Blakely: 1:27:00

There's tons of awesome books out there written by other companies, one that really powerfully moved me was an everyone culture by Bob Kagan and Lisa Leahy that talks more to principles of that, that kinds of how do you free up people to almost like, just drop that, that front that they're putting on? Yeah, and that everyone kind of come into the culture. So that was that that blew my mind when I read it. I had read one was called and everyone called him everyone. Yeah, by Robert Keegan, Bob Keegan, and Lisa Leahy. So if you ever want to get into that airspace, offering a few books, yeah, yeah, there's that whole like thing about how do you become deliberately developmental as an organization? No. Okay. So that's awesome. Read,

Daniel Franco: 1:27:39

what other podcasts you listen to, other than the creative energy podcasts? Obviously, this

Fiona Blakely: 1:27:44

dinosaurs don't listen to serve as your kids and work. And I have to I'm a very, I'm a reader. Yeah. So I read read, like my son's finally managed to get me to convince to read on a Kindle, where that's only recent. But have you found that I struggle. The Kindle only just from a practical point of view? I want to book really quickly now. And I don't want to wait. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. But other than that, after I'm a little bit, I just, I love curling up on a sofa or sitting in the sun. And with a book. Yeah. So I love reading.

Daniel Franco: 1:28:16

I highlight and write notes. So that's why the Kindle doesn't let you know you can highlight and you can do we can't right now. So yeah, I mean, that's the next

Fiona Blakely: 1:28:23

possibly, but to me, it just is I love turning the pages.

Daniel Franco: 1:28:28

The smell of it. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Alright, some quirky ones. If you could invite three people for dinner, who would they be? You know, I

Fiona Blakely: 1:28:35

thought a bit late, I think influenced by the whole pandemic thing. It actually would be my dad, my brother and my sister because they're in Ireland. And I haven't seen them since December. 2019. So yeah, I know. It's very, not very, no, that is mind blowing. But think about that question. I thought, right now, three feet. I really want most to dinner probably is. Yeah, I've got a brother in Melbourne. And thank God to be able to see him a couple of times. So yeah, so Brendan, if you're listening, I do love you, but because because I have actually managed to see him. Yeah. But yeah, completely cut off on my other brother and sister, my dad back in Ireland. So

Daniel Franco: 1:29:14

yeah, that's, that's lovely. Well, fingers crossed, we can get back to, you know, a world with ease connected again, physically, as opposed to virtually Yeah. What some of the best advice you've ever received.

Fiona Blakely: 1:29:28

So great advice by somebody in one of my team I worked with back in line my early days, and I was struggling with going part time as a working mom and her sense of achievement. And she said, You got to recreate your definition of achievement. And it was like that first kind of penny drop of like, wow, like I'm feeling bad because I'm defining achievement through like, almost like external norms. And it was that one bit of advice to sort of kind of go actually get in the driving seat, like, define it for you right now what achievement looks like. And then As yourself against it was really quite powerful bit of advice.

Daniel Franco: 1:30:04

And he's amazing because quite often we're not really understanding what achievement looks like, I think I'm constantly striving every time I achieve I then go for the next thing and go for the next thing is yeah,

Fiona Blakely: 1:30:15

when I look back, I think it was one of the early Genesis of me starting to notice some of the assumptions I was holding and realizing I was subject to narratives I was holding in my head. Yeah. And now called out, and what am I referring to, like notices narratives and try not be subject to them anymore. But yeah, I hadn't realized how much I was anchored in it and somebody wise bit advice, and that person actually managed to recruit into my team's

Daniel Franco: 1:30:38

excellent, beautiful, yeah, time machine. If we had access to a time machine, where

Fiona Blakely: 1:30:43

would you know this, again, this is gonna sound a bit sort of lame, but I would actually go right back to, I'd go back to the last time I had the whole family together back in Ireland. So we had my brother's in Melbourne, and my mom passed away a while ago, and we had a barbecue in Ireland, where all the siblings, you know, and our partners and our kids and our mom and dad, and then all my aunts and uncles and cousins that I grew up with. And that was the last time that the whole family was, was all together. So I would probably probably think because your sense of loss of family in during this sort of pandemic ears are thinking about

Daniel Franco: 1:31:15

the fun the laughs Yeah.

Fiona Blakely: 1:31:17

So if I could just do a time machine, I go right back to that moment in time. And our back garden in Dublin, I think was probably But seven years ago.

Daniel Franco: 1:31:24

Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. You could have one superhero power, what would it be?

Fiona Blakely: 1:31:31

It would be, I think, to wave a magic wand and have everybody really be able to take other people not just take but seek other people's perspectives. And think about actually, if I really like all the wars that we're fighting at the moment, they all come from the view of like, my view of the world and imposing on others. through human history. I thought, God, imagine if, if everybody could sign sort of stop and pause and go, I wonder what the world looks like from your shoes. Yeah, and I could take you back actually seek and take your perspective would have saved ourselves an awful lot of an awful lot of pain.

Daniel Franco: 1:32:05

Yes. A magic wand. Yep, we need it in the world. And last but not least, you are a mother. So you would have had a bad joke. It's so

Fiona Blakely: 1:32:18

Alright, so I am the world's worst. Irish I can crack jokes. I'm the world's worst thing. And I can't tell jokes. I didn't want

Daniel Franco: 1:32:26

to bring the hours. I didn't. But that's got to be a joke. Totally.

Fiona Blakely: 1:32:29

I failed the pub test every time. I've already got one joke. And it's my brother wrote, we were kids. He wrote it for competition and the rice krispies column rice bubbles here. And he wrote this joke, and he won, and it got printed on the back in the rice krispies box. And we thought he was like a superstar I can ever remember which is where do generals hide their armies? Were up this Levy's. Remember, I still remember reading on the back of the rice krispies box. And we were so except we were about like, nine or 10 or something achievement

Daniel Franco: 1:33:03

like that's usually gotta be nice resume.

Fiona Blakely: 1:33:06

In fact, he's an engineer. And he said, he wrote a joke that made the back of the rice bubbles but so that's my as my as my as my lame joke.

Daniel Franco: 1:33:14

Thank you so much for your time today. My pleasure. And amazing, it's been it's been deep, we've learned so much about you, and what you where you've come from, what you've done, and also what others in the team are doing. And thank you, for you and the team in leading the way and really thinking about, you know, all things diversity, inclusion inclusivity all the above. It is really, really amazing to hear that. A company like that, who is doing some, you know, doing some great things, is also thinking very, very clearly about the people and what, and gaining the best from their people. So thanks. You're welcome.

Fiona Blakely: 1:33:52

Thank you for avi

Daniel Franco: 1:33:53

Not to worry. Thank you guys. We'll catch you next time.

Synergy IQ: 1:33:56

Thank you once again for joining us here at creating synergy. It's been great spending this time with you. Please jump on to the synergy IQ Facebook and LinkedIn page where the discussion continues after the show. Join our mailing list so you'll know what's happening next at Synergy iq.com.au. And of course, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. And if you really enjoyed it, please share it with your friends.