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: 0:19

Hi there Synergizers and welcome back to another episode of The creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco and today we have the remarkable human being on the show Mr. Trevor Cook, CEO of commercial and general. Trevor is one of the state's most highly regarded property and finance leaders and has an outstanding track record in funds management globally a wealth of experience in the property and health sectors. In his role as CEO Trevor provides commercial and general with a competitive advantage as the company continues to expand its national footprint is an experienced operator with a diverse set of skills which enables commercial in general to deliver a truly unique and complete business solution across funding and investment models, design and development program and project management, feasibility analysis building, marketing and sales. Trevor's portfolio of projects includes the Calgary Adelaide, Adi O'Connell Street and the Australian brag center for proton therapy research. Before joining commercial in general, Trevor was the Managing Director and Head of global real estate Asia Pacific for UBS global asset management, and was responsible for the delivery and management of the company's regional direct property investment capabilities. In that capacity, Trevor was also director of UBS Mitsubishi Corp. Realty and the manager of Japan retail Fund, and the industrial and infrastructure fund two of Japan's largest Rei T's with more than 10 billion of assets under management. In Australia, Trevor was responsible for UPS grow cons and its $500 million investment into the 2018 Commonwealth Games village in Southport, Queensland, and he was also the managing director of IMP Brookfield a global joint venture managing $8 billion worth of assets. Further to this, Trevor sits across multiple boards for junction Australia, Asia Pacific Real Estate Association committee for Adelaide and he's the division councillor for Property Council of Australia. So where do I begin with this episode, it feels like we talked about so much and throughout the conversation, Trevor answers all my questions with a calming and philosophical approach. We spoke in detail about his journey from where he started where he was born in Canada, then his trips all around the world to where he finds himself today as CEO of commercial in general, we deep dive into his personal life and how he manages his time and having so many roles, the importance of values and how they help him drive his behavior, his beliefs into open door culture and meritocracy culture, and the culture of commercial in general and how that allows him to live a balanced life with family and business. We also go into detail about the characteristics of being a great CEO, and what it means to lead with integrity. There's some really great advice here for aspiring CEOs and leaders. We then went on to chat about commercial in general, its history, its journey, its purpose and some of their amazing projects such as ADA O'Connell, and the Australian brag center. Trevor then shares his thoughts in South Australia, and how we can attract more investors and capital into Australia. His expectations coming out of the only current situation, how the pandemic has been handled politically. And then we also talked about how he attributes part of his great mental health to meditation and mind mapping. There's a lot in this episode, but I know you're absolutely going to love it. And if you'd like to learn more about some of the other amazing leaders that we've had on the creating synergy podcast, then be sure to jump on at our website at SynergyIQ.com.au or check us out at creating synergy podcast on all the podcast outlets. Cheers. So welcome back to the creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco, your host and today we have the great man Trevor Cook, CEO of commercial in general. Welcome to the show.

Trevor Cooke: 4:18

Thanks heaps. Daniel. Great to be here.

Daniel Franco: 4:20

I'm started at the when you walked in today we started chatting, you've done a little bit of an injury to your to your shoulder recently.

Trevor Cooke: 4:28

Firstly, I've discovered what a rotator cuff is. Which which I didn't know until earlier this week. Yeah, but I woke up on the River Murray on Friday with a dodgy rotator cuff as it turns out, going too hard on the jets on the jerseys. Absolutely. My midlife crisis so I turned 50 last year and then with COVID Making international travel basically off the radar. My wife and I bought a pair of jet skis. So we've been been out exploring the the beauty of the water of South Australia. You Yeah, over the course of the year, lots of fun. Great fun, great fun.

Daniel Franco: 5:03

I don't need a license or anything. ,

Trevor Cooke: 5:05

You do need a license. Yeah, absolutely. So the whole family got our boat license. My two daughters and my wife and I all have our boat license. And probably the site nobody would want to seize me in a towable being dragged along the River Murray on a little tube going out around 70 kilometers an hour as my wife takes revenge every opportunity.

Daniel Franco: 5:25

And did you fall off and hurt your shoulder in that lie? Oh, you just woke

Trevor Cooke: 5:29

I wish I had that story. You know, it's like the fishing story where you say the one that got away I wish I had that. But honestly, it was just one of those things where you wake up and go, I have no idea how I've done this. You've turned the wear and tear

Daniel Franco: 5:39

you know, you're getting, you're getting towards the end when you wake up with it.

Trevor Cooke: 5:44

Exactly. That's exactly right.

Daniel Franco: 5:47

Thank you for coming on. It's it's a it's actually an honor to sit here with you and I in everything that you've achieved. So thanks again for coming up.

Trevor Cooke: 5:56

Absolute pleasure. And, and you're being way too generous on your compliments from the outset. You know, you can always feed my ego I'm okay with that.

Daniel Franco: 6:04

You get through there it is my style. The the one thing I've always been obsessed with, then I was really keen to sort of pick your brain on this throughout this podcast, which is, is waking up every morning with the desire to improve and grow in that day, right? So 1% Every day, you know, improvement, I really take that model and method in my life. And, and you are CEO for commercial in general, your deputy chair for the board chair Investment Committee for junction, Australia, you're the director and chair for the Australian chapter for Asia Pacific and the Real Estate Association, Deputy Chair for committee for Adelaide and division councillor for The Property Council. So there's a fair bit on your plate there. How I think my question comes from how do you manage your day? How do you manage your your work schedule in in amongst all that you have to do

Trevor Cooke: 7:00

work in progress? What would be the honest answer to that. And I've tried a variety of different strategies over time in terms of what is the most optimal way to manage time and prioritization. And it's still a learning journey to be perfectly honest. And I've done that with him without EAS and a really interesting experiment right now and had been for some time without an EA and self managing my own diary to actually control the priorities, which, surprisingly, is working better than I expected. And so I'm right now in the midst of sort of working out whether I maintain that for myself, because technology now makes it so much easier to manage yourself. Yes. And so I've always been big on the utilization of harnessing a technology is a tool for optimizing efficiency.

Daniel Franco: 7:47

Absolutely. I use our CRM and HubSpot for that very reason. I don't have any AI or anything like that. So I have to manage my own diary. And yeah, HubSpot is I use their technology, you can actually put parameters around times and dates and gaps and everything like that, and just send people the link in.

Trevor Cooke: 8:04

And simple things like planning out your day, that was probably something I learned. One of the CEOs that I learned probably the most from I got the name of Peter Verwer, who was CEO of The Property Council, intellectually, just a giant about extremely disciplined in the way that he planned his day task management. Ultimately, the guy was a strategic genius, who reduced everything down to task management and sort of instilled in me that that approach.

Daniel Franco: 8:31

So what does your diary look like, then?

Trevor Cooke: 8:34

It's full. So generally speaking, depending on the issues that are alive at any one point in time, because typically, as I've described my job in the past, CEOs are often like janitors, you're coming in to clean up messes often, or things are going extremely well, you get the pleasure of dealing with strategy and forward looking in terms of business growth and development and relationship management in the like. But often what you're dealing with, particularly in the line of work that we're in complex projects have issues at any one point in time. So it's about prioritizing the issues that are going on across the portfolio of projects that we have on our plate at one point in time and directing my energy towards that.

Daniel Franco: 9:17

So when you when you say that you're trialing between managing your own diary and between an EA, what are the benefits of an EA versus the benefits of managing it yourself?

Trevor Cooke: 9:29

one degree of separation is often the company a perfectly in terms of trying to avoid people setting your priorities for you. Yeah. Finding that person who understands what my priorities are at any point in time is difficult. Yeah. Work for so many of us intrudes into our personal life. And so having support that supports your family as much as supports you and your job becomes really important. So for example, it's really important in my life that if I do have any aid I have a very strong relationship with my wife because she's managing our family. And she's managing more than I am. Absolutely. Yeah. And that takes that takes a special person to be able to manage personal as well as professional, correct. And so, at the same time, when I'm doing it myself, I kind of know what's going on. I have my wife managing our day life, we're in constant communication and managing those priorities.

Daniel Franco: 10:23

I've got a question about management of family. But I want to talk to you about your quit your what you just mentioned, in regards to being a janitor, how do you plan your diary, if you or your your time, if you are constantly putting out or cleaning up those messes? How do you structured in a way that you are thinking strategically, as a CEO probably should.

Trevor Cooke: 10:43

So there's, it's critical to have a plan. And then it's also equally as important to recognize things are never going to go according to plan, okay. So the ability to pivot and to respond, and w dynamic is a value, I think that not only for the job I'm in but the organization as a whole, that that I work in is a key attribute. So because things happen at any one point in time, and you need to be able to respond to them, you'll be able to respond to market, you need to be able to respond to issues that are occurring at any one point in time. So it's absolutely critical to maintain that dynamism and the ability to pivot. And that's centered around communication. That only works if you have a very established communication network within your organization. So people know when to come in and out with that level of information that's needed. How do

Daniel Franco: 11:33

you set up those?

Trevor Cooke: 11:35

I anchored in trust. So I guess, the starting point for me is values in everything we do. It's embedded in the way that we think about who comes into the organization, and who stays in the organization. Because frankly, if you've got the right set of values, that drives behaviors, and behaviors are what underpin our ability to trust one another in an organization, so that I both can give the autonomy needed and the accountability and responsibility for people to take decisions that they need to take. But then to know that they know when to come to me with the issues that need to get resolved more at my level than necessarily theirs. And that is not something that you can just turn on. That takes time. So we focus on the retention of our people for the long term in our organization. If you think about the projects we're involved in, in the real estate development space, they're often very long projects as well. Calvary hospital from the idea, the inception of the idea to the opening of the hospital was a seven year journey. So it's critical that if we're that for us that we have the same people travel that journey with so many people don't the turnover, can be a real issue and you lose corporate knowledge and you lose continuity, you lose the breakdown of trust. Absolutely. That just makes work

Daniel Franco: 12:56

all that much harder makes the customer experience a little less, right. Wow.

Trevor Cooke: 12:59

So so in that regard, I think probably one of the lessons I learned early on in my career was around collaborative interviewing. And making sure that there's very, very limited captain's calls, if you will, to use a noisy expression. Yeah, in our organization that the hiring of people coming into an organization is one built around consensus, and built around a collaborative interviewing process where people get to see different aspects of our organization. So we're on full display to the people that are coming into the organization, warts and all, so to speak. Yeah. And at the same time, we get a variety of perspectives on those values and behaviors so that it's not a one off in an interview, sort of scenario where people can put their best foot forward. But in fact, it stands up to the scrutiny of others throughout the process. That's brilliant.

Daniel Franco: 13:47

So we are a consulting company that helps businesses with their culture and change. And so values is front of mind in pretty much every project that we work on. So it's music to my ears hearing you do that recruitment from a values based approach is amazing. And kudos to you and the team for doing that. How do you hold people to account to those values as they go through their working career?

Trevor Cooke: 14:13

I'm pleased to say there's there's been limited instances where I've had to hold people accountable to their values. It's about the evolution and of the organization, and people within that value set. And I guess what I mean is we bring we have a history of being able to bring people in and seeing them grow into roles that they never even saw themselves capable of doing. And that they are often faced with new challenges which put pressure on their value system, because there's the expedient and there's the right sometimes those two things are not always aligned. We do that through constant communication. So and that is informal. So the informal was really important in our organization as much as the formal. We are a family owned business ultimately. And we have that approach where it's doors open, we're very flat hierarchically, but we but we are underpinned by a meritocracy meritocracy in terms of the way that we reward, incentivize and develop people through. So for me, it's about that constant informal communication and people knowing that they can knock on the door and say, here's the situation I'm in, what's the best way to deal with it?

Daniel Franco: 15:31

Yeah, brilliant. Just jumping back again to the management of diaries and and the family I'm really interested in something that I always grapple with is the push between family and business in life. And all the above that is, is in that ecosystem? How do we fully pursue and realize our visions, while at the same time cultivating those loving relationships with families? Do you ever get caught up?

Trevor Cooke: 16:06

I get it wrong all the time. Yeah. It's an and it's not an endpoint. It's a journey. And that one's for you, honey, in case you're listening.

Daniel Franco: 16:15

She will. What's her name? April, April, April.

Trevor Cooke: 16:19

And now it's absolutely correct. And there was a mentor of mine, Mark Ford, Mark was the CEO of Deutsche Bank in Australia, who was struck down at a relatively early age with a kidney illness that forced him to retire CEO. And he was the first chairman that I had property counsel. And there's an image in my mind with Mark and his wife and April, and I having dinner and he said, You got to create boundaries, Trevor, if you're going to survive long term in terms of what you're doing. And he's right. And I still try to do it. And I think I'm better at it now than I was 35 40 45. But I'm still not there with it. And it's in reality, it is that is probably the greatest challenge in my life is balancing my ambitions and aspirations for the organization that I lead, relative to the aspirations and love that I have for my family. And so it is stated a management, I fortunately, have a very supportive family, who are interested in what we do, who get involved in it, who support me in it. And that makes it a lot easier. But I suspect I'm not though an orphan, in terms of being one of the key issues.

Daniel Franco: 17:30

It is it is one part of my life that I am constantly in review is how do I improve this and, you know, core value of mine is growth, right? And that is not just in my own development in business or but it's within my family life. And yeah, it's one, just the hours can run out.

Trevor Cooke: 17:52

And there's an attrition rate in families in corporate life. I worked in investment banking, in a Swiss bank for for some time. And I ran the Asia Pacific sleeve of a of a global portfolio. And that was brutal in terms of travel, sort of It peaked at around 200 days a year, being away from the family, which which was difficult. But I remember, there was a pivotal moment for me sitting around a boardroom table in Zurich, and looking around all my colleagues and realizing I was the only person who wasn't either just recently divorced or divorced, and going through a breakup a family. And it was it was the nature of that and that culture was toxic to families. The organization I'm in today couldn't be further away from that. I work in an organization where a husband and wife work in the same business together, the kids come into the office. So while we are while we're our aspirations are high, everyone's highly driven and work hard. We bleed between personal and professional in a way that big institutions struggle to adapt to. I think that's actually one of our real advantages. And being able to attract and retain people is recognition of that we create bespoke situations for people because we can, big institutions are bound by highly rigid policies, and a risk and compliance mindset. At the heart, trying to preserve the company as opposed to the focus on the individual now that individual's long term performance is going to benefit the company as a whole.

Daniel Franco: 19:32

Brilliant in all amongst that I'm hearing so many great examples of previous and past life. Tell us a little bit about your story and how you came to be the CEO commercial in general here in South Australia.

Trevor Cooke: 19:46

It's the great unplanned career. Born in in in a very small village in Nova Scotia, Canada, okay. Put it in context. At people three last names you was was was the place and I finished, finished high school there and backpacked Europe and discovered a love of traveling through that. In my first years and krumitz, my undergraduate degree in Canada. I did an undergrad in politics and wanted to go into law and was going to do my law degree in Canada and do an exchange over here in Australia. I came to Adelaide in 1993 as a post grad law students, with ambitions of being an international human rights lawyer would have been if we were having this interviewing. In that point, that's that's where the aspiration was, but found my way through an accident really through an internship program that the University of Adelaide ran God the name of Clem McIntyre and Dean Jentsch Dean, I don't know if he's a well known in South Australian political circles is a Flinders long term, set up an internship with parliament. And I, as my honors here in law, became an intern to a backbench MP, backbencher was given the name of Ian Evans, and he and subsequently, John Olsen became Premier and became a cabinet minister, and in my honors here, pulled me out of law school and said you want to be a political adviser. So I found my first part of my career actually working in politics. And that just shattered the illusion of politics as an intellectual pursuit relative to the practice of politics in a in a state context. I did that for three years, that was during what was known as the Motorola inquiry, which ultimately led to John's downfall. unfairly, I think, in today's political context, in terms of what's acceptable in the political domain, there's no way John would have been forced to resign today, compared to compared to what we see in today's sort of political domain. And I did that for three years didn't want to necessarily get branded into a political apparatchik, if you will, and jumped ship and went to work for the Property Council of Australia. For a guy by the name of Brian Moulds, Brian has been a lifelong mentor now is a close friend. And he's he's taught me a lot of things over the years, and stayed here until 2004. And at that point, was tapped on the shoulder to go across to Sydney to set up what was the international capital markets division of the Property Council at that point, this is pre GFC. And there was an enormous amount for the first time of international capital flowing into Australian real estate. And at the same time, Australian listed companies were investing in offshore real estate. And so that opened up a whole set of issues that needed to be resolved in in the real estate capital markets domain mainly around international tax and the introduction of International Accounting Standards, which are technical and sort of boring issues, but opened up a whole network to me, I had the opportunity to work out of the OECD at that point on international tax treaty reform. We actually brought the OECD for the first time to a meeting outside of Paris, in Sydney, and ultimately resulted in tax treaty reform across the board. Same with the introduction of International Accounting Standards. And through that really got to understand international capital markets real estate and and how international capital flows worked. I did that for a few years. And then the CIO of a MP, chief investment officer of AMP was on the board of the Property Council. And then he tapped me on the shoulder to go work for AMP AMP had a this was at the beginning of the collapse of financial markets in 2008. To give you an idea, because some people may be too young to remember this. The real estate markets fell 75%. The listed markets fell at this point, AMP had a joint venture with a group out of Chicago who just recently got purchased by Brookfield asset management, a large Canadian institution, great organization and a lot of the best advice I ever had came out of that organization. And essentially what they needed someone to come in and work out whether it was an orderly divorce, or a renewal of vows, essentially, in a joint venture context. In the wake of a collapse, this was a $6 billion fund that had fallen to one and a half billion dollars in assets under management without a cent going out the door. That was all market movement. And a large book of business was out of Japan. And the Japanese are extremely diligent in terms of how they manage their managers is probably the politest way I could say it I remember we were logging up to 150 to 200 questions from them a day in terms of the performance of global markets, because they were then feeding that back through their distribution channels in Japanese banks at the time and still today, in fact, because interest rates were so low and Japan historically for such a long period of time, if someone walks into a retail bank in Japan goes to put money on deposit, they would say, Well, I can pay you 0% interest. Or you could put it into the Nikko Asset Management global real estate fund and get 5% on your money. And so that distribution channel was enormous through Japan. And the need to service that during that period was extraordinary. But that's another that's another sort of, that's another rabbit hole in and of itself. But that taught me a lot to go through the stress of collapse of the financial markets at the same time as the breakup of the joint venture and the need to recapitalize things is where a lot of the most interesting lessons I learned about culture and values actually came out of. So I stayed with AMP until 2012 saw that joint venture right through the cycle AMP, as it has been known to do on several occasions decided to once we had the joint venture, we grew it from one and a half billion to 8 billion. When the markets began to recover, we raised significant amounts of money out of the Middle East and out of Asia and Australia. For that matter, AMP decided to end the joint venture. And I turned the lights off on the JV and went to work for a sovereign wealth fund QIC. In Queensland, and this was in Campbell Newman's first term and the generally accepted view at that time was, Newman would privatize QIC, that was a $75 billion asset manager at the time with a 96% cost to income ratio. What I mean by that is, for every dollar coming through the door, it had 96 cents of expenses against it, put it in context, for a typical sort of money manager, your cost income ratio should be 70%. Yeah, that's practice target. So why there was a lot of work to be done in preparation for privatization. So that was a weird job. That was the first time I was sort of brought in as a hatchet man, if you will. So it's really to come in with the to assist another guy in a complete restructure of the business. And I did that while I was talking to UBS. So I carried that out as if it was a special project of KYC. And then went across to UBS to run the Asia Pacific real estate business, which was a direct real estate platform centered out of Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. And that was really about the raising of capital for the deployment into Asian real estate. And I did that for a while and was still married. And when I looked at each other and said, Wow. That's right. We're tired. April's April's dad had passed away. Mom Get a little bit older, there was a lot of pull factor to want to come back. The kids have been away from any sense of family. I've been traveling,

Daniel Franco: 27:38

how old were they at this at this point?

Trevor Cooke: 27:41

Holly would have been 15 and Ginger 11. And probably the the, the greatest shame in my career was looking at April and looking at ginger and realizing I had 11 year old that I've known for about five years, because of the rest of the time I've been traveling been away, been absent. And so that was a real defining moment for us. And we made the decision to come back in fortuitously, that was just at the same time that Jaime McClurg, who was the the owner of commercial in general, was looking to bank Calvary Adelaide Hospital. And so that was a great platform and great opportunity for me to come to come back into that was probably a longer answer than you want.

Daniel Franco: 28:20

It's amazing. I do want to pick one thing you mentioned and a big part of our the listeners on our show are very interested in the culture aspect. And you said there was some of the key learnings can't remember exactly which company but Brookfield Brookfield, that's one of the key learnings from a cultural point of view. Can you elaborate on?

Trevor Cooke: 28:40

Yeah, so money management is as you would expect, quite an intensively competitive space. It takes all sorts to sort of get involved in and traditionally in money management, people would tolerate bad behaviors of rainmakers. Right? So there would be some really good for lack the without dumbing it down too much like stock pickers, who are exceptional at their job, but are if I can say this assholes in the way that carry out the rest of the organization. Kim Redding, who was the CIO, of Brookfield listed real estate business at the time, was prepared to stand up against that. And so he really showed me the way and he was inspired by a guy named Jim ware, who did a lot of empirical research in money management and why culture counts. It's the classic culture eats strategy for lunch. And if you allow a bad influence into an organization and you reward them handsomely, because you've got to remember these, these are very highly paid. Yes, people and it's obvious that that's going on. The cost of that to the organization as a whole is far greater than the benefit you derive from it. So it is, it is, in a sense, a very logical business decision to make. And that was that was really the emphasis. It is not one that that is being made for the Neverland reasons or just because you feel that the value is right. There's actual value creation in refusing to allow bad behavior. In other words, there's value in culture. And I think that that's something that came starkly into view, particularly in situations of high degrees of stress. So with financial markets falling and constantly having to manage investors, expectations and threats of pulling their money in the like, that's when you really need a united team. And people united against a common set of values people you can trust and rely upon, and people who will do the right thing. And often the right thing is nothing more than bringing the issue to the table, not hiding it, not burying it under the table, are pretending it isn't happening. And so yeah, so Kim Kim was really an important influence in my professional career.

Daniel Franco: 31:06

Oh, everything you just said there was music to my ears, what? What is your approach to dealing with that asshole so to speak, you know, you have these really amazing and intellectually superior when it comes to delivering what their job requires. But their human behavior, or their behavior towards their peers or counterparts within the businesses is subpar? How do you manage that as a CEO or as a leader?

Trevor Cooke: 31:36

The the method of execution is always going to be customized to the individual that you're dealing with on but I guess, first and foremost, I'd say call it out, and call it out in the first instance, in a way that's non threatening that is designed to try to help somebody who may want to help themselves or recognize it. So there have been cases, I've worked with people who were genuinely unaware of how they're being perceived. And that's, that's the good ones, right? Those are the ones that guess what you wish? That's what you wish, right? Because all of us make mistakes. All, nobody is perfect. Everybody, if they have a growth mindset, like the one that you spoke about at the very beginning, then that's something people can work with. If they're not, you move them on. So I have at this point in my life in my career, I won't make that trade. I won't keep the Rainmaker for the sake of destroying the culture and values of the organization.

Daniel Franco: 32:38

Is that an unpopular decision? In context from return on investment?

Trevor Cooke: 32:46

It can be, yeah, yeah, it can be because a lot of what we do involves multiple counterparties. And not all of our counterparties share our values. And I wish I could say that the only people I deal in the marketplace with are people who share values, but that's unrealistic, correct. So what has happened on more than one occasion is where we make the culture call, and the value based decision. And our counterpart doesn't want to often because it may not be embedded in their own organizational values. Right. And that could be cultural because cross border, multinational sort of transactions that were involved in, or just at the heart of the leadership of the organization, so it has caused it has caused stress in corporate relationships. But I believe it has solidified our organization because there's nothing worse than rhetoric, hollow rhetoric that isn't backed up by action. Yeah. That that will ultimately destroy an organization, in my view.

Daniel Franco: 33:55

Absolutely. Kudos to you for taking that approach. It is hard as a role in this CEO gig to to make that unpopular decision. How have you not that I want to point out the I told you so moment, but have you ever had been in a situation where you've realized and seen the benefit straightaway from removing a certain individual?

Trevor Cooke: 34:19

Rarely is it a pop? Yeah. Yeah. What it is, is it stems often a decline in stemness you stop the bleeding, if you will, yeah, stop the hemorrhaging on an issue. But it does require because you, you create gaps in your organization. So not withstanding the fact that the person may be a negative cultural influence on the organization, which is causing issues over here. The reality is they may be very competent at the skill you require in an organization and replacing that can be difficult. So it is imperfect. gets back to recruitment. Yeah, because the job of recruitment is to one of the key jobs of recruitment is to avoid that situation occurring in the first place. So that's why the focus on taking taking the time to find the right people, particularly again, we're not in a large organization, we're so if you think about it, every one individual in the organization has a large impact on values, behaviors, culture and outcomes within an organization, as opposed to say, on IBM, where to go from 100,000 to 100,001. People? Well, there's a dilution by that by numbers and hours, at any one point in time reflect sort of across the different businesses save 70 people. So it's much more

Daniel Franco: 35:41

it is yeah. The the Good to Great model, right, the Jim Collins, chapter one, get the right people on the bus. And then that's exactly what you're saying from a recruitment. It all stems with the the business that you want to be and who you looking to bring in at that particular point. So thank you for pointing that out. I want to just pick on the CEO, CEO role, we talked about the unpopular decision. For me, I'm really interested in your view, you talked about being almost the janitor cleaning up the mess. We're talking about making those unpopular decisions, what are the traits that you believe a really successful CEO should have when managing a business?

Trevor Cooke: 36:28

Openness, I think it's probably one of the key characteristics. And with openness, openness to new ideas, openness to being challenged, we are very dialectic in our in our approach. And so if you walked into a meeting, it might seem like we're all fighting with one another. Sometimes it's better. But in fact, we're attacking the issue. And we're really interrogating things that requires a level of confidence and trust and mutual respect across the board with one another. But that truly underpins, particularly within the senior management of the organization, the approach to decision making. So I think openness is critical, I think a hunger for learning. No matter which industry sector you're involved in. Right now, there is enormous change going on, at any one point in time. And in our particular sectors, I mentioned, these are very long projects, where we create assets that are supposed to have lives that go on for 15. And more years afterwards. So to understand the the future landscape of the projects you're creating, and how they need to respond to that requires you to want to learn and understand the impact of the broader economy on our particular sector. Healthcare is probably for us the the pinnacle of that in terms of understanding both in terms of changes of model of care, across the healthcare center to the impact of technology to demographic change, and being able to synthesize that. So I'd say that, that that hunger for learning is underpins, as well.

Daniel Franco: 38:14

Absolutely. You talked about openness. Do you wrap that up in a, in a cotton in the cotton wall of self awareness, as well? Because you can we see from time after time leaders who are open to listening to ideas, but then just make the decision. That of what they believe is to be true, anyway.

Trevor Cooke: 38:35

I win the facts change, I reserve my right to change my mind. And yeah, is probably the the least I hope so. Yeah, right. So others can probably judge that better for me, but I genuinely I genuinely avoid getting myself into a position where I can't change my mind, okay? Because I've just learned that the facts often do change, and you need to be able to respond to a dynamic situation.

Daniel Franco: 39:08

Look, we're seeing that through and through from the government isn't even managing through this pandemic, right, where every day new information comes out, and new facts and things are changing, but the the ability for the greater society to understand that things are constantly changing and accept that is quite tough. And we see that in business quite a fair bit as well, where the unpopular decision is made based on some new facts and some decisions need to be made where you know, there's going to be some repercussions. Do you believe that the toughest thing about being a CEO or a senior leader whether you're in government, whether you're in business, whether you're here in a family, however it might be? Do you believe that the adaptability of change is is one of those more important behaviors

Trevor Cooke: 40:02

unquestionably, unquestionably, in terms of that, and I, again, I can't speak for every industry sector because I haven't been involved in them. But I know in, in the in the space that we play in, it's critical. And it requires a certain mindset, again, coming back to these recruitment dramatic. People, not everybody's comfortable with that. Yeah. Some people like certainty, some people are looking for an empty inbox, when they go home every night, a clean desk, and a degree of certainty over what it is they're being asked to do. And there is a, there's still a role in organizations for those types of functions. But if you want to be part of the growth of an organization, managing uncertainty and complexity is, is central to success. And I think that's how we seek to distinguish ourselves as an organization is our ability to synthesize complexity and develops solutions for multiple outcomes and for multiple stakeholders simultaneously.

Daniel Franco: 41:01

One last behavior I want to pick out and you and I have spoken about this. Previously, in previous conversations, integrity, as a leader, can you give me your thoughts give us your thoughts on what it means to to lead with integrity.

Trevor Cooke: 41:17

For me in terms of integrity, which needs to be at the heart of everything we do, it really is about not shying away from the tough conversations. It's about showing people the respect to be honest with them, about situations. And it's about demonstrating that in everything that we do. It is we place trust in our people. But more importantly, so many organizations place trust in us. The projects we're involved in are hundreds of millions of dollars of other people's money. And we are ultimately aware of that on many different fronts. And that was instilled to me by some of the great people I worked with in money management were often we were dealing with superannuation money, for example. So what was always instilled is mums and dads, if you will have entrusted us to make decisions that are in their best interests. Right. You know, don't break that trust easily show the integrity needed. It's, it's central to leadership.

Daniel Franco: 42:21

Absolutely. So let's talk about commercial in general that you talking about we work on these long projects. Before we get into some of those projects. I'm really interested in likoni one that this has been going on to Well, long projects. That was

Trevor Cooke: 42:36

19 89 19 89 when the coordinator shut their doors Yeah,

Daniel Franco: 42:40

that is, I wasn't very well. Yeah, it's a very, I was four years. It's very long time. So I want to I want to talk about commercial in general, but I want to ask the question, everyone kind of understands the commercial piece. Talk to us about the general piece what what is the general that comes into it

Trevor Cooke: 43:01

or so it's a great name. Yeah. So some people I think, sometimes Synchron insurance,

Daniel Franco: 43:06

What opens the doors do anything.

Trevor Cooke: 43:10

So commercial in general, was founded by Jamie McClurg. And he had a business associate at the time Anthony catenary, and they highly entrepreneurial, highly competent people in their, in their 20s. They were at the time, when, when they set it up. And really, Jamie's came out of a construction background and, and has a creativity for design and development, which I've never seen before I sighs frankly, stand in awe, but a lot of the time. And so a keen eye for construction and development. And really, if I if I put it in these sort of terms from an early age, they would take their construction business, they would turn those profits into a development opportunity. And the development opportunity allowed them then to begin to take on asset ownership. And so version 1.0, if you will, of commercial in general, probably extended up to about 2007 2008 where that process of wealth creation and constant reinvestment in the business led to the South Australian police headquarters. Okay, great, which was the which was probably the biggest project they had done at the time. And we still have we still own the police building police headquarters today retain that on balance sheet. But that that type of development introduces you into a new level of complexity, a new level of risk management and new level of transactional counterparties and 2.0, if you will, has been our growth since then, which is where we have focused on being really a private developer that is of institutional grade in terms of investment grade. And we have at different times partnered with the likes of DEXIS which is a large listed company, John Holland streets out of Singapore. So we've built really in a private business and institutional set of processes and capabilities. That means that we can have as our counterparties, those larger institutional counterparts, that has allowed us to work on larger projects such as Calvary hospital, such as the Australian brag center, such as 88, O'Connell, all of which, but at the heart of it, as well, family office still has a very large asset owner in and of its own right. And so we sort of eat what we make.

Daniel Franco: 45:36

Yeah, it's a brilliant business model, isn't it? It is,

Trevor Cooke: 45:39

it's fantastic. And it's, it's really, it's a, it's a unique set of capabilities within our organization. And I think one of our ingredients for successes, if you will, the talent within the core leadership team, I'm very privileged to be surrounded by the talent that I get the opportunity to work with in our because at the heart development, it's far more contractual than people may understand. A transaction like Calvary, just to bring it to financial close is 75 separate contracts, 2000 pages of legal agreements, all bespoke, negotiated with variety of counterparties. So having a transactions team that's capable of managing that complexity in house, for a developer, our size is quite, it's quite unique, our project management team, who then basically take the promises, if you will, that are embedded in those contracts and realize them in physical form. Is, is another core capability in the organization. So we're very blessed to have that sort of talent. And not that I'm making too much of a plug. But one of the interesting things because we are at heart, a meritocracy. But I think right now we're 70% female in terms of our organization, which makes us quite unique in the sense of for development and construction. But my general counsel, Senior Legal Advisor, had a project management Chief Financial Officer, all of my direct reports are actually female.

Daniel Franco: 47:14

Brilliant. All right. I'll bet you on this. I'd say we'd be around what would it be Gabs? About 80% 90% of female 20 odd people in there's three, three men in our team. So yeah, we're, we're in the same realm as you which is great. The, I want to I want to touch on some of the key projects such as the brag center, the it's the can you explain to me the proton therapy showcase. It's one of the very first in Australia it's very interesting work. It's, it's currently in construction and going to be amazing for South Australian Australia.

Trevor Cooke: 47:52

It is it's it's an amazing project. It's a good example of that distilling and managing complexity that we that we talked about earlier. So at its heart, the Bragg center will be a next generation cancer treatment facility. So typically, Cancer Patients will receive radiotherapy. And I think most people know somebody who's had cancer and therefore probably someone who's had radiotherapy, and at its essence, to take people back to, to year 11. Physics. Radiotherapy typically involves light. So it's photons. And they are, the photon treatment that you typically get is imprecise in the sense that you'll often get scarring and you'll hurt surrounding tissues. And the photons pass completely through the body. So in essence, you're smearing a tumor with a radioactive beam of light. And that's, for example, you can't give it to children because the incidence of secondary cancers is extremely high with radiotherapy, for example. You can't use radiotherapy in complex spaces, like on organs, head and neck cancers, for example, or on say, sensitive organs yet, so it's limited in its use, because of the nature of the beam that's being generated. Proton Therapy is just that. So a proton is a hydrogen atom with the electron removed. So essentially, you start with hydrogen and you strip away the electron and you get to a positively charged proton. You spin that around a, in this case, a synchrotron to get it to 1/3 the speed of light, and then you channel it down a beam to a precise point where you can attack a tumor. The language of proton therapy is around a pencil beam and painting. So literally, with no surrounding tissue being impacted, you can just over a series of treatments individually hair back the tumor. And so it is, it's an incredibly powerful tool, it will become the preferred treatment for pediatric cancers in Australia. And there's probably about 400, at least kids that year that will benefit in Australia from the center. And, and frankly, their lives can be saved with that. And head and neck and other sort of complex cancers will be dealt with by proton therapy. It also has an extremely high success rate in areas like left breast, so near the heart where you're trying to avoid that. So this technology has been around in the US for 30 years. This is the first machine being delivered in Australia. But proton therapy is now becoming because of the phase three clinical trial results and the the evidence that's built up over a long period of time being recognized as a superior treatment form. And so we would expect proton therapy to be rolled out across not just Australia, but Asia Pacific more generally.

Daniel Franco: 51:04

Is this is a name mentioned, it's been around for 30 years. But is this a game changer for cancer treatment here in Australia?

Trevor Cooke: 51:12

It is in terms of the arsenal of tools, the big ones are going to be genomics and immunotherapy in terms of let's say medical oncology. And in terms of radiation oncology, proton therapy, and probably the two twins, I mean, you're probably aware of this, but for the sake of it, we talked about cancer using the term cancer is a class of diseases as varied as sport. Yeah. As bowling is to you know, AB sailing, correct. So, so the it's horses for courses in many respects. But in terms of the arsenal of tools available, proton therapy will absolutely be one of the the next generation tools available.

Daniel Franco: 51:58

and commercial in generals injury, not interested part in part of his design as well. And bringing in this technology that doing all that research is that you're

Trevor Cooke: 52:09

we've partnered with SAHMRI since 2017, South Australian Health Medical Research Institute. And when we stepped into the project, SAHMRI had an ambition. But we have really traveled the journey alongside SAHMRI on all aspects. So that went to right to running the selection process for the equipment provider, lobbying government for both the funding for the purchase the federal government for the purchase, lobbying, Medicare for the inclusion of the treatment, as a rebatable claim, the design, the construction, the commissioning, the financing, soup to nuts, yeah, we've been involved in so this type of project is closer to infrastructure sort of delivery than classic real estate delivery, because it's got such a strong operational focus. And it's a highly bespoke shell that we're creating for this activity to occur in. So you need to have a deep operational understanding in order to successfully deliver it. You compare that No, I'm not putting, you know, typical apartment development, right, you have a standard design, people might change the curtains, change the lights change the stove, those lines stays the same. That's right. This is a, you know, a two meter thick concrete bunker with 1000 penetrations running through it, every one of which needs to be done with millimeter precision in order to withstand 330 mega electron volts of energy being directed within the room with no radiation leakage. So it's a very different set of parameters. And it's, it has been an effort, the design team is global, but ultimately, led by South Australian talent, both in terms of our own capabilities, but also the architects and the engineers and the like. So it's there's been an enormous importation, of learning into this community as a result of this project. And on the basis that there's an expectation of 200 of these centers being built across Asia, there's an opportunity to for us to be a center of excellence for Adelaide to be a center of excellence for this type of technology. And that's something that we're really keen to see how

Daniel Franco: 54:41

that's fantastic is that when you talk about the Center of Excellence in there's there's some numbers been thrown around saying it's expected to deliver $1 billion worth of economic activity, can you

Trevor Cooke: 54:52

that's just during the delivery period, so this is a $450 million development, okay? And You know, the economic multiplier on construction tends to be three to one. And that's so just at its most basic level, during the three year period of the delivery of this project, it spins off a billion dollars in activity, it'll, you know, at least 700 jobs are created during the delivery period, you then have, essentially, the value chain that's being created here is not just in the development phase, but it's in the operational phase we have in South Australia, the nation's leading radiation oncologists, some amazing people out there who I've had the privilege to get to know Michael pediments in Lee, Peter Gray ski, these are, these are radiation oncologists who are at the forefront of what they're doing, and will be the people who'll be carrying out the treatment on the patients. These are the people who are writing the honors courses, for the university to deliver because we need to create the educational support. IE, you know, there's 50 people that will be employed in the center to some interests and medical physicists and radiation oncologist, radiation therapists, all of whom need to be trained and educated. And our ability to create that as a turn key. And this is one of the unique I see benefits of working in a smaller city like Adelaide is because we're able to bring together that capability and talent, we all know each other, to then look at other opportunities to see that as an export driven opportunity. The equipment provider proton International, who are based out of Texas, I know we're also keen to look at the opportunity to establish an advanced testing and training facility here, basically as their as their flagship Asia Pacific headquarters. And so that then creates started some of the building blocks. There's, there's some, you know, and the reason I go on about that is to give you a comparative example, South Korea, built a Proton Therapy Center, and then had nobody who could operate it. It was it was mothballed almost from the outset. Because they just hadn't built that value chain from the outset.

Daniel Franco: 57:06

So you've thought about sort of the I's and cross the T's? Really,

Trevor Cooke: 57:10

That's right, and in the people involved, you can imagine that projects like this are dependent upon an enormous talent pool to bring the different elements together. So there's no one person who can say, I own this project. Yeah, there are many hands involved in it. But what you have are people who have established relationships and mutual respect for one another in terms of what they bring to the table and openness to work together under a common cause. So at a distance, it sounds like we're a real estate developer. But when you really get to the heart of what we do, our job is to pull the elements of that project together in a way that allows it to be materialized. And what's the evidence of that? The evidence of that is our our ability to bring in a $450 million investor into the project 68 million from the federal government, right? So these are people who have underwritten that and gone well, you guys do have the core, the core elements needed to see this project successful. So that's the that's, that's the element of project management in our organization that I think distinguishes us from typical development. of healthcare, healthcare is fascinating.

Daniel Franco: 58:22

It is absolutely. The shooting in the commercial in general, from a family business point of view, what is the benefit from staying as a family business as opposed to becoming a publicly listed company.

Trevor Cooke: 58:37

So the the number one is the ability to be dynamic, and responsive. So we, in order to win new business, we often have to be able to respond to changing market conditions in real time. And development lends itself to that sort of environment. publicly listed entities have a whole series of appropriate checks and balances for publicly listed companies which are driven by you know, that the interests of shareholders, which don't allow it to make those decisions in real time, in fact, they're deliberately designed to avoid making very fast real time decisions. So they're our business. And fundamentally, it's not just the fact that we're private. It's the fact that we're privately owned by frankly, someone of the caliber of Jamie and his wife, Louisa, who are both incredibly intelligent and talented in and of their own rights and in their own domains separately in their own domains. And so that combination is extremely powerful for us to be able to, to respond in the marketplace.

Daniel Franco: 59:51

Brilliant. I love it. Now you are we've been in South Australia since 93 today.

Trevor Cooke: 59:59

93 to 04 and then from 2015.

Daniel Franco: 1:00:02

Okay, we'll claim you as one of our own as well.

Trevor Cooke: 1:00:06

Absolutely, the accent should give it away

Daniel Franco: 1:00:08

is what we do with everyone. So you're in that really group as well. I know you are proud of me to be here. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I know that you're really passionate about seeing this state flourish. I want to dive into that a little bit in what your thoughts are around everything that's happening in the moment. You know, we're talking about election is I mean, Chrome berry coming out, like the words come out and you know, ravaged the world. There's people coming back into the CBD. How do we revitalize is workforce shortage, like, is everything, all these? What's going on? What's going on? And I'm really interested to hear your thoughts about how South Australia has gone through, and what is your thoughts on how we flourish from here?

Trevor Cooke: 1:00:56

Sure. So I might start that just the lens, I guess, if it's not obvious that that we sort of look through the sun is the projects we create are projects rooted in place. So I can't pick up eighty eight O'Connell and move it to Collin Street in Melbourne, because I go, that's a better performing economy. So we're, we're fixed we create fixed asset. So we have a business interest as well as a personal interest in seeing our community thrive. But organizationally, Jamie and Louisa, are absolutely committed to this community. They could be living anywhere, frankly, they want to be here. And so they also have so that is important in the values of the organization to see our local community thrive. I have a strong view that secondary cities, and I don't mean secondary in any derogatory sense, but just in terms of size of cities have and have the opportunity to outperform larger cities in a post COVID environment. And I think that secondary cities have shown their benefit in that regard. It translates often into benign statements like, we're the third most livable city, which is sort of, you know, a tagline. But in terms of the value that is in that I think it comes a lot into network. I'm a big believer in network. And what that means is in a city like Adelaide, you can walk down the street and see the people that are relevant to you. And you can connect with people easily you see them at the soccer games on the Saturday mornings, you you run into them regularly and and that informal connection and the maintenance of that network allows you to harness the talent within that network for a common outcome. And that is different. It also demands a level I believe, of integrity and dealings, that is not necessarily evident in larger cities. If you put it into the vernacular, if you burn someone, Adelaide, everyone knows it. And everyone knows that pretty quickly. You can get away with that in New York and Manhattan, right? Because you're because the networks are diffused. Yeah. So I think that that that brings with it again, an advantage in dealings with one another. So starting point, I guess would be I think there's a comparative advantage of secondary cities. I think in the InVEST investment terms, what you're seeing is a closing off on pricing differentials. So what we've seen is a massive inflow of capital in that lane when I when I came back to Adelaide in 2015. And we were marketing Calvary. At the time as an investment opportunity. I often had to start with Where's Adelaide? That's the place where you get your wind from, you know, the Australian wind you love it. Yeah. comes from here. Yeah. That is no longer the case. She's crazy. It is very exciting. Adelaide is in Adelaide, its attributes are has a very stable, long term investment market, which is really in a low interest rates. And I think longer term once we see through what I think is more cyclical than long term structural inflation will be typified means Adelaide will remain attractive as an investment destination as well, primarily because I think it's a lot anchored by government spending. So there's a very solid, basically the underlying economy here, which is ultimately propped up by public public spending, which means that you get less volatility in the market. And so Adelaide has been a typical slow and steady. That's kind of what the market wants right now. Reliability of Income, there's a worldwide shortage of long term reliable income. That's why you have a savings glut that you have right now. An aging demographic that's seeking long term income pension funds in the light. Yeah. And we play nicely into that thematic so from a capital markets perspective, I think we're set up really, really well. I think the only thing that's holding us back is our, our, our final demand needs to be supported by population growth. And we have seen this as well. I'm optimistic. One of the benefits of COVID has been people have stayed, people couldn't get out. Yeah. So as you would probably appreciate up until if you went from like 2009 to 2019, and you took 18 to 35 year olds, and you put, filled the Adelaide Oval with them, that's how many left over that period. Right? It's crazy it is and because that's ultimately we created the talent, and then we export it to another market. Now we have the opportunity to retain that talent. And they have been staying, and the micro enterprises and the the flagship of a lot 14 And what people are talking about, there are people like Terry Sweeney, who I know you've had on the work that people like Terry are doing is creating the opportunity set to retain those people in our business, the urban form needs to respond to that we need to give people the places to live to work to recreate that support, that sort of new urban experience at at O'Connell, frankly, is an expression in many respects of that. So I think what we need to talk about is not there's the retention of talent, and then there's the recruitment of new talent in and that I think all the parts are there, it's almost a marketing job in some respects, you think what can it did in the 90s, in terms of promoting Melbourne? Victoria, right. So it was very much the ability to do that. And so again, referring to the enormous talent you have on this podcast, but Bruce and the committee fradley Why that's why we're involved in the committee fradley, because we recognize the job the person and the team are trying to do there is about really putting that flag post up and saying this is likes to be able to come into with the capital coming. If the if the if the talent can see the capital, then I think the opportunity sets there, which is why I think some of the focus and some of the policy conversation needs to be on how we attract capital into those growth areas. So early stage venture capital and private equity opportunities, I think is really where there's there's a gap and something that needs to be filled here as part of the policy prescription in order to retain and attract the new talent in which will support the growth into the city. I'm not an advocate for you know, a 4 million Adelaide. But I think 2 million is actually sort of realistically what the target should be for Adelaide, Bernard salt, it's

Daniel Franco: 1:07:24

for how forever for like, what is your

Trevor Cooke: 1:07:27

so realistically if we had net new migration of around 12 to 15,000 a year, which is Yeah, nothing more than that. Right? That lays the groundwork for a 2 million. Yeah, right. So it's, it's that sort of the medium sized city. The problem with Adelaide and has historically been, it's been too small. So it's uneconomic. So the the incremental cost of infrastructure, for example, in a large geographic footprint is too high. It's subscale in many respects, but as an organic urban form, a 2 million starts to get you right, probably at the optimized, sort of you maintain a quality of life, which is, which is second to none. But you have your scale, your economies of scale, more better at that size.

Daniel Franco: 1:08:16

That's amazing. Yeah. What is the garment passionate, South Australian through and through, and I'm really very optimistic for what the future looks like. What are your thoughts around the next five to 10 years for South Australia coming out of this pandemic?

Trevor Cooke: 1:08:33

I think that I think governments of both persuasions have the economic pillar strategy correct, which is really around call it Defense, Space and health. Yeah, as the two major anchors for for Springboarding economic growth and activity. And I think that the, the blip the the pivot from the diesel subs and Val into the into orcas. And what that means in terms of the nuclear sub capabilities, if executed properly, is an enormous capability because to begin to build a new killer capability in in the state is a phenomenal opportunity, the the complexity that goes with that the talent that's required for that, you know, we will lift our collective IQ substantially as a state if we're to excellent.

Daniel Franco: 1:09:27

We've had Andy Keogh, who's CEO of Saab and credibly smart guy know and more equipped to talk about subs than he recently had when the announcement was made. We had that chat and he he was saying, this is one of the best things for South Australia that moving towards should have done should have done it sooner. It's funny.

Trevor Cooke: 1:09:44

Yeah, I would wholeheartedly endorse Andy's view on that.

Daniel Franco: 1:09:48

Yeah. He's brilliant. What What does I know you're interested in politics, obviously, given your background and everything like that, and I'm just interested I don't want this to become a political discussion. But how have you felt that the government have handled the recent pandemic? And what are your thoughts of the up and coming election within South Australia if you are open to talk about?

Trevor Cooke: 1:10:09

Sure. Look, I think there's a, if you look, not just in South Australia, but I'll say South Australia, Australia, more generally, New Zealand, Canada, all took a similar approach, which is I'm going to defer decision making to medical expertise for a period of time, which I think, let's call that phase one of the pandemic, when we had much less understanding of what we were dealing with was entirely appropriate. I think the struggle that governments have had is, how do they reset decision making and governance within their own organizations, if you will, in the wake of a recognition A, this is not a blip. This is a structural long term change, we're now going to be living with COVID for the rest of our lives. Right. And how do we reassume authority and control over decision making? Yes, having deferred that decision making to essentially health technocrats? Yes. that balancing act is incredibly difficult against a community that is bombarded with information and misinformation. Yeah. So I don't envy political decision makers in trying to manage that balance right now. What's what I think, pull it in a political cultural sense. The community, in its most generalized form, is overly focused on safety, and not risk management. And so there's the lexicon of the government's job is to keep me safe. Taken to it's taken to its extreme is an extremely dangerous idea. And sell totalitarianism. Yeah, ultimately. And so

Daniel Franco: 1:12:08

and you have the agonist antagonist approach where you you hold one thing back and effects five other things down the road.

Trevor Cooke: 1:12:15

That's absolutely right. And so my own personal view is we, I won't, maybe I would say, rip the band aid off, I think we are doing that I think we are doing better than most places in managing that balance. And managing that narrative. The election is elections are always interruptions, because it forces governments back to the preservation of government power, and we can't ignore the fact that politicians seek to get reelected. So that requires them to balance their senses of what I think is right, despite what popular opinion sits with popular opinion. But I'd say overall, I think I think we're doing better than most.

Daniel Franco: 1:13:05

Absolutely. There's the potential for minority government, which is looking like the way might go, is that going to be a detriment to South Australia?

Trevor Cooke: 1:13:16

So I agree with the first part of your statement, I actually struggle to understand how anyone can win a majority. Given the current state of playing given the number of independence Great, yeah, no, this is one. It's a fascinating dynamic. When I worked, I mean, I reflect back to when I worked for John Olsen. He was managing a minority government currently may well, yeah. Right. McEwen, McWilliams, effectively conservative, independent Liberals and Nationals who provided him support, but then provided the same support to my grant. And so the state has a history of conservative independence, being prepared to work with labor. And I look at Peter mal analysis and see a pretty centrist labor figure. And I think it's going to be quite an interesting negotiation, in terms of who forms next government. So it is an open question.

Daniel Franco: 1:14:22

It really is not. Yeah, we won't go down. I don't sit on neither one side, it's just for me. It's,

Trevor Cooke: 1:14:29

for us. It's about who's got the best ideas when we when you strip it back. It's not about and I think this is true of the business community. Generally. It's not about flying flags for one set of colors or another set of colors. It's really about recognizing that both political parties are capable of generating highly talented people who bring good ideas to the table, and they should be given an airing and a hearing and people should be making choices based upon who's got the best ideas based upon how we take the state forward. The The idea of political parties locked in ideologies is actually a thing of the past. No, you can argue that that's a good or bad thing. Yeah. But if you look both nationally at the national stage, look at the state stage. Indeed, you look at the in western democratic senses at the international stage ideology is been left behind for substitutes. Now it's worst formance. It's what we would call populism probably is has been a replacement. Yeah. But in other characterizations have been centrist in their approach, which is trying to strike pragmatic balances.

Daniel Franco: 1:15:37

Yeah, good answer. I am conscious of your time, we have gone over the hour, we're about the over the hour mark. Now gaps around that. Person. We've time flies time does lie. I am very curious. I'll ask a couple of questions before we jump into our quick fire questions at the end. And I'm really interested in you personally, and your productivity levels? How? What does your life look like when you are at your most productive?

Trevor Cooke: 1:16:18

Life at my most productive? And by productive I mean, across all elements of my life? Not just

Daniel Franco: 1:16:24

feel like you're in flow state? Yeah.

Trevor Cooke: 1:16:28

But be characterized by the simple things. Getting a good night's sleep. Yeah, finding time for exercise. And a bit of me time to keep the head clear. allows me to I find make me much more productive across the board with everyone that matters to me. And when those things are not in check. And you know, the worst example of me was international travel, where you're constantly jet lagged. You're up for dinners five nights a week. Yeah, you're waking up tired. You're never fully onto your game, because you don't know what which time zone, you're waking up into. That compared to the ability to live in the state in the city and have the opportunities that we have in the organization. I have the privilege of leading now and living in the city. The two things could not be more

Daniel Franco: 1:17:14

Yeah, star, seven hours sleep six hours. 777 is the sweet spot is the sweet spot. I struggle to get there, though. Yeah, I always wake up around probably six, six and a half. But I aim for seven. My brain and my body tells me otherwise. But you're we've talked about managing your own mental health and self care from a meditation point of view, is that something you do practice?

Trevor Cooke: 1:17:38

It? Is it? Is it something later in life, that both both a problem I have discovered. I was initially skeptical to tell you the truth, because I didn't quite understand it. And so had more of a reference point in meditation more coming from, let's say, religious sort of Buddhist sort of principles. As spiritual, shall we say, as opposed to meditation, which is really about focusing focusing on consciousness and the way that we actually exercise our brain, if you will. So I do find great satisfaction,

Daniel Franco: 1:18:18

and almost like you just switch the computer off and on again, isn't it

Trevor Cooke: 1:18:23

very hard to do? Yeah, it's the hardest thing to do is to not think, yeah, it sounds it sounds trite. But it is extremely difficult.

Daniel Franco: 1:18:32

There's a guy that I follow religiously, and he's not a religious person. I just follow him. His name's Naval Rava Khan is got he's been on many podcasts he's written, he's got a book, like if someone's written the almanac of Nevada, because his teachings are so fantastic. And he says, the number one thing that you can do to control your mind is to sit for an hour each day, one hour by yourself with nothing on it gives you don't try to do anything, but just sit there and you will be a mess in your own mind. And then a bit, eventually, you'll gain you'll gain control of it. And this is a long term practice, because half an hour is not enough. It needs to be an hour a day. And I haven't tried it but just that I believe I'll get there one day, I don't have the lifestyle that can give me an hour a day. But it's one thing that you're right to absolutely stop your mind and almost switch off and switch on again is one of the most difficult things to do.

Trevor Cooke: 1:19:31

And it actually challenge is to open up and think about the world in a slightly different way. So when you actually start to think about consciousness as a concept, we're moving way off track. But when you that is an area both of intellectual stimulation for me, but also in terms of discipline and creating a clear mind which actually helps me during the rest of my day. It's something that the second half of my life, so to speak is something I want to spend more time foused on and I had the opportunity to

Daniel Franco: 1:20:03

do like a mini clip during the like a mini piece of meditation during the day or before you head into a meeting? Or is it just something you concentrate in the morning or night? Or

Trevor Cooke: 1:20:13

typically? Night? Right. Typically at night? Sort of not too late at night? For obvious reasons to fall asleep? Yeah. Have tried it, though, during the day. Yeah. And it can work. It can? Absolutely, absolutely. Particularly, if you're dealing with stressful situations where you want to make sure that the decisions you're making and the statements you're making, are coming from a rational perspective and not from an emotive one, I find that it's an incredibly powerful tool.

Daniel Franco: 1:20:43

Do you do anything else like journal or, in regards to your thoughts in

Trevor Cooke: 1:20:48

A mind mapping is a tool that I've been using for over 20 years, which I find Can explain that too? So mind mapping is essentially a way of capturing ideas on a page, I first got introduced to it when I did speed reading in university. And so what went alongside speed reading techniques was the idea of how you distill your ideas into a into a map. So basically, from the most general to the more specific ideas out on branches. So it literally is a is a series of twigs off a tree, if you will, will often see my maps expressed as, but to be able to capture complexity and distill things into a logical sequence without writing a treaty on it. It's a it's a very simple on a single page narrative of any one particular set of complexities that you're dealing with. So I find that incredibly

Daniel Franco: 1:21:44

powerful. What would a typical trunk look like of that minor?

Trevor Cooke: 1:21:48

So if I'm, if I'm looking at a project, so take a project, like we're gonna talk about at O'Connell Street where you've got multiple elements to it, ranging from managing court appeals through to managing banks, managing purchasers, managing planning authorities, managing design consultants, managing builders, at any one point in time you have significant interdependencies that are that are running through a project like that. And what it allows you to do is break out each individual element into their constituent parts, and then identify interdependencies. Now, you can do that in detail programs. And we do do that. But for me in what I do, and try to maintain, if you will, 40,000 feet over everything and then dive into the detail when you need to. It creates those early warning radars that helps to steal priorities for me, by being able to synthesize things into a very simplistic sort of presentation. It's also a way of conveying complexity to others. I think that one of the great challenges in in today's modern corporate environment is everybody's dealing with complexity. The challenge is can you communicate complexity in a way that people simply understand it? That's that's the art form Well, I believe.

Daniel Franco: 1:23:11

Yet to some of the most renowned scientists and astrophysicists like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Brian Cox and these are the likes so you can take the most complex and turn it into a TV show that everyone loves and is blown away by it is absolutely a skill

Trevor Cooke: 1:23:28

set. Absolutely the the ruler on the knuckles instruction that I got from from Peter Verwer action on this one was no sentence should exceed 13 words. Yeah, the and the chief second rule Yeah, don't say anything until you've traveled two seconds from your brain to your mouth.

Daniel Franco: 1:23:48

My dad used to always tell me growing up then

Trevor Cooke: 1:23:50

you it's funny thing on the homespun advice actually bears fruit.

Daniel Franco: 1:23:54

I know. It does. Excellent. Alright, so we're just gonna jump into some quickfire questions. Feel free to elaborate on some of these they don't have to be

Trevor Cooke: 1:24:01

I'm excited past

Daniel Franco: 1:24:05

won't be great is here. Great CG, Comcast and Sinjar Q we are always looking for learning growth development. For me. I'd be really interested in asking you two questions about books. What are you reading right now? And what is one book that you would recommend to leaders looking to grow and developing a career?

Trevor Cooke: 1:24:25

Hmm Okay. So in terms of organizations and understanding organizations and managing strategic planning and change, a book called rapid transformation is probably been the most effective book that's been supported to me by something we didn't get a chance to talk about which was a strategic planning tool and framework and facilitation process that I've been instructed in over over the over the years, by a guy by the name of Kevin Nuttall at a Sydney watermark consulting and they it's a proprietary system. Incredibly powerful. I brought it into most Oregon As I've worked with her sit on the board of in fact, I'm extremely, extremely, extremely useful in terms of books I'm reading right now, right now listening for the second time, because I do a lot of audiobooks Sam Harris the moral landscape I like, yeah, no. So why I'm I'm I'm a huge fan of Sam Harris, both in terms of the political work he does, but also the waking up and

Daniel Franco: 1:25:25

meditation app as well. I use that in hips, headspace to kind of cross

Trevor Cooke: 1:25:28

cross between the two. So that is actually what I'm reading right now. I just finished before that Neil Ferguson's Doom, which, again, I've read most of Neil Ferguson's work.

Daniel Franco: 1:25:40

You've mentioned new folks, and that was another one is about his history. I can't remember.

Trevor Cooke: 1:25:45

History of money. He's Neil Ferguson's published 20 books. Yeah. And the other one I'm listening to at the simultaneously is Christopher Hitchens. Hitch 22. And Christopher Hitchens. I just, you know, we lost him too young. He's an absolute genius. I love the acerbic wit. Yeah, it's unparalleled.

Daniel Franco: 1:26:06

So transfer, let's just recap on some of those books transfer transaction fee transformation. We'll put it in the show notes. Gabs, right. Big rapid transformation. The moral landscape moral landscape, Doom by Neil Ferguson. Yeah. Brilliant. We'll get them in the show notes. Any other podcasts? You listen to our other than this one? Of course, this one

Trevor Cooke: 1:26:29

So waking up, waking up and making sense are two absolute go twos. Making sense? Yeah. Really, like locally between the lines. So it's an ABC podcast on international affairs. And I find that really good. I do listen to Saturday extra. So Geraldine Dube, I can't I think she's a she's an incredibly articulate and well spoken and considered journalist so so that and for entertainment, I'm a bit of a classics fan. So I'm currently listening to Emperors of Rome, which is which is a professor out of Latrobe University actually. Who does most of that.

Daniel Franco: 1:27:07

Yeah. Do you have you ever listened to Dan Carlin's podcast?

Trevor Cooke: 1:27:10

Dan Collins? Yes, I have. And also, I don't know if you've listened to the history of Rome, like Duncan, which is 155 episodes which sort of traverses from Romulus and Remus through to the final Romulus?

Daniel Franco: 1:27:24

you listen to 100? Absolutely. How do you met this is not in the quickfire questions, but I'm gonna ask this how do you manage because I make time for reading and listening audiobooks or whatever every single day? And really, I base that depends on mood, what I'm looking for over there, I'm thinking about strategy where I'm thinking about my own personal growth, where I'm thinking about, I don't know, all I do want something for entertainment value, I pick up a different book every single day, I've got five or six books on the go at any given time. How do you manage your learning? And how much time and effort do you put in daily

Trevor Cooke: 1:27:57

so it varies as with most things right now, I have the the pleasure of commuting from Norman Ville to Adelaide every day while while our houses under renovation and gray. So that gives me a plenty of time to listen to listen to podcasts, a bit of a longer drive. That's right. So so I'm privileged in that respects. Otherwise, it's often on the weekends. Literally mowing the lawn or or doing whatnot. Now I have you know, noise reduction headphones on Yeah. And listening to things that sort of keep me engaged,

Daniel Franco: 1:28:31

make it part of your life. That's exactly that's fine. Yeah. What is one lesson that's taking the longest to learn?

Trevor Cooke: 1:28:39

I come back to Mark Ford's lesson. And that is really about creating the boundaries in life in order to, to really make sure that work does not dominate unnecessarily into the private domain. And that's, that's, that's the hardest and the hardest lesson for me and the one that I continue to need to be educated on to be perfectly honest.

Daniel Franco: 1:29:00

it's one that I'm so interested in interested in mastery in that realm, but I don't believe it's

Trevor Cooke: 1:29:08

I don't think there's an endpoint. I think it's a journey I think fundamentally, and and in what we do, there's times when it's much easier to attain than when not, in other words, when it's on it's on and there's not much you can do about it. Sometimes. What I have learned over time is when it's not, don't fill it, allow yourself the time to fill it with other things that are that are important.

Daniel Franco: 1:29:35

Excellent. What's some of the best advice you've ever received?

Trevor Cooke: 1:29:43

Probably some of the hardest advice I've ever received, but it's it's captured up in this statement, which is success has many fathers and failures and orphan. And in large organizations, that was probably a lesson that I learned, which was because when you're in those organizations, and frankly, they're built for internal competition as well as external competition, how you when things are going wrong, how you can be stranded as an orphan left holding the bag to be perfectly honest. That was probably one of the one of the harder lessons.

Daniel Franco: 1:30:19

Yeah, absolutely true. People turn their back. Correct. If you could invite three people for dinner, who would they be? And we're assuming April is going to

Trevor Cooke: 1:30:35

be okay. So April's already. Perfect. So it's a dinner for five? That's, I think. So I go to Chris Hitchens. Christopher Hitchens would certainly be one person I'd love to have dinner with. I probably want someone from the Enlightenment period. And it could be even somebody like James Cook, I think it would be fascinating to get that sort of perspective. And then probably someone or the science domain that could be I probably have to go Einstein

Daniel Franco: 1:31:06

for Yeah.

Trevor Cooke: 1:31:09

Yeah, that's right. He can teach me about quantum mechanics

Daniel Franco: 1:31:13

are no show my brain could handle. But just even as a philosopher, he was brilliant in the way Absolutely. Brain thought, correct? Yeah. We had access to a time machine, where would you go?

Trevor Cooke: 1:31:30

2500.

Daniel Franco: 1:31:32

Very specific. Why Ford, and you're one of the rare people that go for it. I'm so happy with that. Because I would as well everyone else goes.

Trevor Cooke: 1:31:41

I'd like to do so I guess. The child in me is fascinated by space, and by the universe, and all things to do with that. And I think that over the next several 100 years, provided we don't destroy ourselves in the process. And the risk of that is greater than zero. I suspect by 2500, we are doing stellar travel on some description. I'm reasonably reasonably advanced by that time. And that that

Daniel Franco: 1:32:13

is exciting. Are you excited about Elon Musk

Trevor Cooke: 1:32:18

push of I think people, Elon Musk is exactly needed in this world, right.

Daniel Franco: 1:32:29

And that's why I'm on board. So he could be. And I know probably from a leadership aspect, I shouldn't look up to this guy, but because the way he may treat some people, but in

Trevor Cooke: 1:32:40

I don't think he presents himself as a leader. Sometimes that's probably like he presents himself more as an engineering entrepreneur, who's been shoved, who's been pigeon holed into running a public company. So he's got to take on a certain easy role.

Daniel Franco: 1:32:53

It is this does come back to the technical brilliant jerk that you come up when someone like Elon can turn a blind eye to I think,

Trevor Cooke: 1:33:05

yeah, that's probably true, but I think he probably thrives with a minimal amount of organization around him. And he would say he wouldn't his desire is to focus on the thing. Yeah, not the people.

Daniel Franco: 1:33:19

That's true. Yeah. If you had one or could have one super one superhero power, what would it be?

Trevor Cooke: 1:33:29

Like superhero power? The power of flights? Yeah, I think would be pretty cool.

Daniel Franco: 1:33:36

It's a popular one.

Trevor Cooke: 1:33:37

Yeah. Well, just everyone talks about being spraying Well, that's right. You have those dreams where you can fly Yeah, and they're pretty cool. So I'd have one of those

Daniel Franco: 1:33:47

I always come back with teleportation i If you want to be some way you could

Trevor Cooke: 1:33:51

that's true. Fly. take longer.

Daniel Franco: 1:33:57

Now I don't know if you came prepared and feel free to push this one aside but I do love this question is what's the best dad joke?

Trevor Cooke: 1:34:04

to know I asked the kids this this morning. And I was heartbroken they said you know what, Dad, you don't really have a dad joke.

Daniel Franco: 1:34:13

Something you're gonna wear in your in your lives. Apply. We'll let you slide on that one. No problem. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for everything you and the team and Jamie and the team are doing commercial in general. Obviously setting South Australia up specifically South Australia up in in for the for the future and bringing some really great technologies and assets and commercial aspects to this to this great state. So thank you for

Trevor Cooke: 1:34:45

Likewise Daniel. It's been a pleasure really enjoyed the conversation and thank you for doing this. This is an excellent platform you've created and, and really appreciate all the time and effort you put into it.

Daniel Franco: 1:34:54

Brilliant. Thanks again. Let's catch you next time guys. Cheers. Thanks for listening to the podcast or you can Check out the show notes if there was anything of interest to you and find out more about us at Synergyiq.com.au I am going to ask though, if you did like the podcast, it would absolutely mean the world to me if you could subscribe, rate and review. And if you didn't like it, that's alright too. There's no need to do anything. Thank you guys, all the best.

Synergy IQ: 1:35:21

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.