Ross Swan: From Financial Services to Pioneering Executive Coaching in Asia

Self-leadership and transforming executive performance with Ross One as our guest today. So what if I told you that poor leadership doesn’t just affect workplace performance? It ripples through people’s entire lives affecting their families, their confidence and their wellbeing. So my guest, Ross Swan, has spent 25 years coaching executives across Australia and Asia, and he’s been seen firsthand, I should say, how transforming one leader can transform hundreds of lives.

After decades in financial services, Ross made the courageous decision to pursue his passion for coaching. Eventually relocating to Singapore, where he became a pioneer executive coach. His approach a little bit different, instead of focusing on management techniques. Ross helps executives lead from within emphasizing self-leadership and inspired leadership.

In this episode, he shares a very powerful story about an executive who publicly berates a team member, and then the one simple question that changed everything. He also explores why executives who need coaching most are often the blindest to it, and how to create those breakthrough moments. That transform leadership behavior.

You don’t wanna miss this episode with Ross Swan. This is Biz Bites for Thought Leaders. Let’s get into it.

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites for Thought Leaders. I have one such thought leader with me today. We’ve got to know each other a little bit over a period of time ’cause he’s been a regular attendee at a forum that I run on a monthly basis. So if anyone wants in on that, you better just reach out and I’ll tell you more.

But right now I’d like to introduce Ross Swan. Welcome to the program. Thanks. No, we like chat. We like to start off by letting you introduce yourself. So why don’t you fill everyone in on the little bit of the backstory. Oh, the do the short version. To on my gray hair, if you’re looking at that, I’ve, it could be a long version, but I’ll stick to the short one.

Look based, I’ve had probably 30 years in financial services, then another 25 years in coaching executives. Most of that time was in Singapore and it was an interesting journey leaving. Australia and all my contacts within the industry of financial services and then going to I don’t know be a pioneer in coaching because there wasn’t that much around to turn the century.

So coaching with the coaching executives over that time and instead it evolved with people the way they lead people. It’s given me a lot of I guess a lot of thought process to move to where I am now, so I’m probably being slower than not quicker. In essence, my original coaching led me per more sole inspired leadership.

In other words, self-leadership, and that’s what I’m about now, helping people to be better self leaders. And that’s, that comes from within you, your own belief, your own purpose. And that’s what I now do is help people become better versions of themselves. To use that cliche, there’s a lot that I wanna explore around that because I think it is an important area and I’m gonna ask the listeners to bear with us a bit here because I, I think that what’s important in order to get to that point where we can start talking.

About how important that is and ways to address that. I think it is important to understand your backstory a little bit because you’ve downplayed it, moved to Singapore, then you’ve moved back, right? So tell me about that time and then your, first of all, financial services and then deciding to make a leave.

With financial services, where you wanted to go originally, and then how do you make that leap to then jump to Singapore? Yeah, that’s a good question, Anthony. I’m writing a book and I actually cover some of those aspects. It’s interesting when you grow up in your high school, you, there’s pressure on you to decide what you wanna be, what you wanna do.

I had absolutely no idea, but, so I floated through school. I just passed things. Primary school, I’d be way up on top of the class. But whenever I got study in high school, I fell right back because I had no vision of what I wanted to do. And in hindsight, coaching and helping people, if I’d said that when I was 15, people think I was strange.

Yeah. So anyway, it evolved. I fell into financial services, joined the local national banking town. I said, I can’t nimble. That’s how I went to financial first and upstate manager of the insurance company, both in South Australia and back home in Queensland. So I got to level and then I thought, I dunno where this for me, I actually, we did some training on whole grain thinking, right?

And we the facilitator looking at. What part of the brain he is. We did this and I’m a senior executive of there and all the other senior people, it ended up, they were sitting on one side of the room and I was the other side by myself maybe. Maybe on the certain to be working with actuaries or whatever.

I dunno, man. Look. Anyway, I can start. It got me to start thinking. But in essence my, my manager who always me and be true to yourself. And I started seeing because I helped him, I fell into catching, ’cause I helped him different, he had different hotspots around Australia he’d send me to sort out the issue.

’cause I just naturally do it. I can help people and motivate people, find out what’s wrong. So in Congress do that. But one thing I learned, just how much core leadership, how much, much it just affects people’s lives. Like you you’re work all day or a poor leader, everyone has a toxic environment, then they go home.

It’s like I go home and kick the cat and do it. Yeah, it just flows out. That’s when I started. I’d like to do coach. I’d love to help some of these people because the more I help them, the better lives. Everyone under there, out their sort of control. Control has better lives. And that’s how I started.

That’s a big leap to make, to be working, in somewhat of security of a financial services company in a decent position to then say, I’m going to be a coach in a completely different way. ’cause it’s not like you were doing the same thing that you were doing in the financial services company.

So that’s a significant decision, is that, how hard was that decision at the time? It would, we bit to make and then. The, my, my boss was retiring and I just saw this as a catalyst. The go rather than be the only one in the room now. So I thought, no, now’s the time will go. So it it happened that way and I think that’s what the universe does that to you gives you beat up the backside at times and, oh, now I’m out by myself.

And I did that for a couple years. I was not starving, but I wasn’t far from it because a lot of people saw me as financial services executive. And they, so that’s why I went to Ville. I was gonna say, people have a great way. Pigeonholing you. I do. And it’s it’s always a strange thing to me because particularly in this day and age now you hope that it happens less because there’s so much fluidity in the way that people move around.

But I know personally that I worked for a number of years as the communications manager for the largest funeral company in Australia, and I went to a recruitment company at the time and said. I’ve done this for a while. I wanna do something different. And they said, ah, okay, we’ll look for a job for you in the funeral industry.

Nice. See? And I went there’s literally one at the time, there is literally one job for a communications manager in the funeral industry in Australia, and I’ve had it for seven years. So do you think we could take me outta that box and put me somewhere else? I didn’t and didn’t end up getting the next job through the recruitment company.

Yeah. And soon enough led to me setting up my own business, but yeah. Yeah. Talk to me though about why Singapore, how did that happen for you? I thought I, I needed to probably get some education or some sort of, ’cause given Asia, I could see that’s where the growth is, but I just need a bit of education that sort of hint towards coaching.

So I went and did a masters in performance management at a UK university. Which is something my boss working and with him for time, he encouraged that and helped me with that. So I started that, started coaching, but when I went and so part of my dissertation for that, with some research I did in Hong Kong in Singapore, and when I was there, I thought, geez, this is probably where I could probably land.

No one knows mes, so I’m not gonna be pigeonhole. And that’s where the growth is for the region. Australia is on the edge of the region of the Asia Pacific region thing. Pause in the middle of it. So that’s when I went and I had my wish. I had wish no one knew me, but unfortunately no one knew me. I’m knocking on doors.

Naomi, who are you and what are you doing? Reason we. Yeah what sporting team de cope.

It was umbrella and that forms a lot of the, what I talk about that I’m writing about now, that quite a few people, Naomi, keep encourag me to do because it’s that belief yourself and what you want to do. Only thing that keeps you going. If you listen to your head, I would’ve Pat come back here go working for insurance company or bank again.

What? But I just have to go. It is just, and I, for 20 years, feast and F, you’d get a good project. Ironically, most of the good ones I had were back in Australia. US driven client, contractor, right? But in essence, it’s that belief. You just gotta, it’s that belief that I wanted to help people be better leaders, that all the people under their influence have better lives.

That was what kept driving me. That was my essential purpose. I think it’s so important to, to get this story because. To me there are a number of coaches that are out there. Not, there’s a small percentage, let’s just say that I think have been career coaches, and whilst there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s, I think it, it, to me it lands a lot more when.

Someone is coaching their particular area and you can see that they’ve had the experience in that area. And so what they’re bringing out is the experiences that they’ve had and offering it to other people and how to navigate that is a lot stronger one. So talk to me then, what has. Provoke the move back after 20 years.

And you’ve obviously established yourself, you’ve established, you’ve gone from not being known to obviously being known and having a network over there. So what makes you pack up your bags and move back to Australia? It’s a couple of reasons. The first one, see, I do, I was doing a lot of subcontracting work at this firm in the US and I do get a lot of work in age specific.

And I was certainly not in financial services. I probably coached 50% of the lease would be engineers working for construction companies, oil and gas, the goes on. But COVID hit, so a lot of that work disappeared. I was working on a project in Bangkok at the time. Come home for the weekend, never left.

So we, we completed that online, that job, but it, now they data wound it all down because r and gas and they were bleeding at the time before that. But then it was hard to enroll out of that. It’s interesting. So one of the reasons was that I was struggling to get momentum again, this is the feast in the family, right?

And like anything, when you challenged Challenge void, you learn a lot of life yourself. So I thought I had challenges leading up to that. But post COVID, it just seemed to happen more and more to calm up and down, and I was at the same time. Grandchildren in Australia which I’ve been divorced for quite a few years now, and I have another partner think of the right.

But my grandchildren are getting, are now getting older, asking once you come and watch me play cricket, granddad, or football or something. So I’m missing that. So I thought, no, I can go. So I was thinking about coming back and then. I was about to Stu 2024 with a full book of engagements looking to be all year thinking this could be the breakout here.

This can be, I’ve never had a hole yet and within a month every went to zero. Just about off. And my, a good friend crying who was. Me probably about 18 months of work CEO of the company. And I, and these are jobs I’d have three days a month or four days. A month. A month, whatever I sent out.

He even had to tell me, and I won’t go into the reasons, but they weren’t reasons you could make up. Yep. They’re all legit. And I told him the other one, he said, you can, he said. You cannot make that stuff up. And instead even what I’m telling you now, it’s a up, it’s things. It’s that happened, but very rarely.

So that all went within a month from the hero to zero. And I thought that’s the universe saying, Ross, go Australia because, so that’s where I come back. And I’ve just taken a bit of time to, yeah, spend a bit time with family and now I cranking up and I want to talk about that story because people like coach, the ones who keep coming and want to keep coming back, are the ones who connect with that desire and belief.

They have their sense of purpose as a leader, and so they keep coming back to more. More chat, more conversation convers. So that’s why they’re one saying one song and that’s happening in the background and we know that. And we look forward to talking about it when it’s when it’s done as well.

But, so let’s turn a little bit to the shift that you are making in terms of the style of coaching that you are doing. Moving away a little bit from the executive style coaching, which in itself, this is a question that I wanted to ask you, and particularly whether this is, you’re gonna see this in the shift that you’ve made.

There is a lot of this executive coaching idea. There’s and I find it fascinating that business owners and CEOs. And maybe some upper executive management. In larger companies, coaching is the norm. People get coaches. It is accepted thing that you should do. It is now. Yes. Yep. Personally I’ve had a co, I’ve had coaches for an, for a number of years that what’s interesting to me is.

Is there a lack of coaching that is happening at lower levels? Are people, is this being reserved just because you’re going to be, you’re a CEO or a business owner, you’re aiming to get that way. Is there a lack of coaching that happens at lower levels and particularly as you are seeing, moving from these executive coaching to more the more around self-belief and those kinds of ideas which have, everyone can benefit from.

Is there a gap there? Is there, there is a gap? I think the gap is probably getting a bit shorter. But certainly there’s still a gap. Like I’m not brought in to coach somewhat middle to lower management, but I’ve coached a lot. But that’s because I’m there coaching their boss. And he or she asked me, can you have a little chapter?

And I coach him because I sit in many leadership meetings with Tom coaching, a lot of walk arounds planned up, seeing behavioral challenges from everyone. So I’d end up doing, but it is more likely added hours to the bosses. Then having a separate account from John Smith or something. Mary Smith. Because they wouldn’t get through which budget. So they just, they’d worked out that way, which is rather unfortunate, by the way. I think that I think a lot of larger businesses miss the mark that if they can offer coaching. Opportunities to people who aren’t even in management positions or they might be in lower management positions, but that’s where the opportunity lies.

’cause if you can get so much more out of people when you pay attention to those people and steer them in the right direction, I definitely, looking back on it now, we spoke earlier about when I was communication manager in the funeral industry. I, I would massively have benefited from a.

Coach at the time, I was making a lot of stuff up as I went along the way and I think they would think, and I think I, think that I did a pretty good job at the time. It was a great learning curve, but I think there would’ve also other directions I could have gone and benefited if I’d have had that, coach alongside of me now not blaming the company. It was a, it was quite a few years ago, by the way. That’s it. It wasn’t as prevalent as it is today. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So talk to me about this shift that you’ve made from the sort of executive style coaching into more personal development.

What’s brought the passion out in that? ’cause it’s a little bit come out in your story, but what’s the passion for that? And where is this going? Where are the opportunities here? Actually come to be successful coaching executive is to start with their themselves and to lead themselves.

And where the most success was to when they can, when the light bulb will go on. Oh. So it’s me, so it’s me not everyone else. Yeah. It is you now let’s look at you and get that right and then let’s work on, on, on everyone and how you connect with everyone and so forth. So that’s where all went to.

So it was interesting, like when I started coaching, if I’d mention to someone that you should lead from within, so being so inspired, listen to you in yourself, guy. No mate, not me. What, how do I do with this evil? But that, over time, that changed and and that’s in about 2015. I started a business call, so as my lose, but I wouldn’t have, I wouldn’t have started that name earlier on.

It’s quite an interesting area when you start getting into this because. I guess the first question is how difficult to sell. Is it from the point of view that, do people have to recognize that they need this, personal development or. Because it’s a very, I was gonna say, because there’s a big difference between you coming on as a, as an executive coach, where people understand that need, okay, I wanna navigate, and do better in business.

And so they’re thinking more in terms of the business. Yeah. And then you turn it around and you go, okay, you need some help in this area. And that’s okay to make that transition when you’ve got a relationship with someone and you say, Hey, we’ve been working on this, but actually you need a bit of this.

To come out and start saying from the beginning saying, Hey, I’m here doing personal development. How many people are putting up their hands and saying, yeah, that’s me. I need this. I guess I’m not probably saying that so much. I’ll give an example of a personal coach, an engineer and a team of about a hundred in a quite a large company, and they asked me to case him.

There’s some challenges with the way he is, he dealt with people and et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, it’s, there’s a graveyard of coaches before me. Fuck. You don’t go there and say you need to leave from within. They’ve gotta take them there. You’ve gotta take them to within. We had an episode where he berated one of his staff, a lovely guy, about 28 years of age, and they have all desks in Pigpen type thing so everyone can see, and here everyone does.

So he comes out of his office, berates, this guy, I won’t go into it, but it’s and wandered off back in his office. That, that, that word came to me and my next chat I had with him asked him about it and he said he is gotta be, he’s gotta learn, he’s gotta be clear. So I thought I’d just do it out there.

That just makes him feel as though, be more motivated to, to do it. I’m telling him to do all, you, so I still go,

He’s a good fellow and everything. He’s very popular. He’s just had a baby. He’s got a 2-year-old son. So you yelled at him the other day. How do you think when he went home, and I can’t, I won’t mention the kid’s name, but I knew he knew the kid’s name. I said, so little Johnny comes up to his dads on his leg and say, how was your work day Daddy?

All small, little excited. How do you think he’s feeling? Why do you think he’s thinking himself at that moment? He, that it looked, it felt like about five hours, maybe about 10 seconds, and he said, yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t I? I probably shouldn’t yelled him like that. That’s taken him from his head when he thought it was clever to his heart when he thought, that’s not safe.

Clever. So you don’t say you’ve gotta go there, you just take people there. So whenever I want take people there, you start talking about things that’s close to their hearting and that then you try and kick them there and, so he went he apologized. Apologized, and he told everyone in a meeting how he shouldn’t have done that.

And he doesn’t wanna see anyone else do it. That’s huge. He’s still struggling. He still struggle, buddy. And I think this is the important thing to realize as well, that this is, it’s very much a journey. It’s not like going to the doctor. It is where, oh, I’ve got a, I’ve got a little bit of a cold grate here.

Take these Ill in two weeks and you’ll be better. It’s not quite the same as that. And, and it’s very easy to fall back into old habits. It’s it does, making these kinds of shifts is huge and it’s ongoing, but it’s being conscious of it. And it’s having someone such as yourself that you can confide in and say this is what happened this week.

And being called out for the things that maybe didn’t realize or being accountable for that in a different way, because that’s one of the hardest parts about. Leadership is having accountability. Plenty of people out there that’ll be listening to us now have got their own business. So there isn’t really any accountability as a business owner.

You’ve got team more than likely and you are trying to keep them in line, but who’s keeping you in line? That’s right. If it a thought coming in my head then you’re saying that Anthony a lot will say it, it’s my business. Or this is my team, right? So therefore I’m so on that guy as well.

If I sat down, worked out, I thought let’s look at it from the head perspective. And I looked and we worked out roughly what that costs him on the bottom line by that outbursts to that guy. Going about how to effect it, everyone else. They’re not working because all they’re doing feeling sorry for someone off, they lost half a day work for about 30 people because they were not working.

And if they were they making mistakes because they weren’t concentrating and the list goes on. So this is what business owners struggle. It, they, it’s their business, but they forget if you don’t stop and do these things well, you are paying people. To be only working at half the capacity or the key working 10% of capacity and your goes through the real frost because you are used to dealing with people working 56, 6% of, but they don’t get it.

They’ll put on two extra to cheat everything. Everything that you can. If they’re all you probably.

That’s, and you get a, the light bulb comes on. Others not so much. And it’s a difficult thing. So tell me, tell me a little bit about that. ‘Cause how do you get the light bulb to turn on for people? Does it have to be very personal? Do you have to listen to their stories and call them out on things and do it that way?

Or is there a way you can make people more aware from the outset? I think it’s everyone’s individual. Some you can read, I can read that they’re a bit open. So you can talk about those things more quickly. Others you work on and wait for cues where you can actually, ah, now’s the time. I think they’re, apron can listen to this, otherwise they’d have shut you down.

Yeah. It like, I had one lady. Singapore, it runs a very successful business, but she’s in the sixties and wanting to sell it. But see, because she’s got the business, she knows what everyone should be doing, and she’s got a hundred staff and she tells them he empowers them, but they know in reality, they go one step out of a small little box that.

I’ve been given to work in, they’ll get hammered. And I, when I told her at the beginning, I said, I’m happy to case you, but I said, the biggest challenge here is not your staff, it is you. Unless you are willing to open up and look at yourself. I don’t want the job. It’s a hiding to nothing. You’re paying me for a couple of months, you gonna say you work clear, see your off on your bike.

So I just didn’t take it. Years later, they’re still in the s still to trying to, no one wants to buy it. You now, once she leaves the skill’s not there. All the brains are gone. So they’re happy to pay, but a lot less than what she knows the business is worth when shit, she’s there working long hours, seven days a week.

Just, they don’t get it. It’s it’s a very difficult thing for people to let go. It is. That’s right. And how so let’s assume that she said yes and it’s a pity that she didn’t, how, you know and people in a similar situation. How do you coach that to get people to let go?

You just, every case, it’ll all depend on who they’re letting go. Work is work for the ones they. Probably respect the most. They’re more easily to let go and then work with them and discuss it with them. Get them to talk it out. What paranoia are they now feeling that they need to go in and poke their nose into what’s happening?

It’s just letting it stack bite lip ring and bear her. She’s getting over that and. Just helping them do that, helping with you. I think one of the, that’s the biggest experiences. I was gonna say, one of the biggest challenges I would imagine is that and I think every business owner has probably experienced this, is that you let go of something and it goes okay for a while, and then something happens and you’re forced to either pick up the tools and do it again.

Or, something goes wrong and it’s, that’s the point where it’s really hard to maintain that letting go and not going back into those old habits. Yes, I agree. And it depends on, on, on the situation and the person and discussing if something goes wrong here, sorry something goes wrong, what will it cost you?

What’s the worst case scenario? And sometimes it’s very little or sometimes it’s a lot. Then we have to put some parameters in. But it’s just how you talk to that person. You like, you might say, oh, look I’ll let look I feel confident in you answer to be doing this just because I know it’s a, it’s you’re eager and you’re keen to get this going.

I want you to learn. I wanna help you with my expertise, so I’ll check in on you. I’ll give you a call once every, whatever it’s gonna be, right? Yeah. And you get there, you get their permission. Look, you gotta do things to to ease that along. So he is not, you’re not going a let ’em have it and I’ll just be in the dark.

You are helping them tell you, and I might say, so Anthony, now that I’ve got this, I’ve got this task. You said you how you intend to t and you. And you ask questions. And you ask questions and then they give answers. You answers. That’s a good idea. Good idea. This just a thought, you’ve gotta work. You’ve get a garbage.

How serious.

So Ross, this whole idea of, recognizing when you need help, recognizing that it’s gonna be about you. These are really difficult areas. What can we suggest to people who are out there? Listen at the moment, who maybe they haven’t had a coach. Maybe they have had a coach in the past, but they haven’t really considered that the problem is them.

What do you say to those people? Let’s do some serious reflection. Reflection and listen to me cues and messages that sort of surround you. But the challenge, Anthony, when there is a listen in needed, the people are most blind to it. And it’s interesting that some people do need it, but suddenly something happens and they start to.

Change a little bit, make something happens in their life, they start to reflect more or whatever. Soon as that comes there, that’s the time to act, because something’s telling you that you need to be doing this, that, and that’s coming from, that’s your intuition saying, I, you need to be doing this. And, but a lot of people for bit until it gets louder and later.

But the key is if you get a little feeling, I should then reach out to someone, reach out to me, anyone, and just test, test the water. Test the water.

Then you start to realize what it is. It’s not me telling them what to do. It’s me helping all.

I think it’s a really challenging area. That you’re in, because I can see that there’s so much that you can give people. But getting them in the first place and getting people to put up their hand is always going to be the challenge. But once people are working with you.

What are the sort of the processes that you need to work through and is it a, is this a many year journey? Is it, once you start in, you’re saying really this is something we’re gonna have to continue to work with and work on four years to come or is this something where you can go we’ll be able to shift this in the next whatever period of time?

I guess depends what the challenge is. That could be a specific challenge to someone, or if it’s just an overall, I wanna be better at being me, type, sort of scenario. So it just depends on the person then? Depends. One person. It could take one month, three months, one, three months. Could be couple years.

I’ve coached pretty senior executives for a good few years before we, there’s nothing more you can do. You’re right. And some of them have come back occasionally, just a can. You have a chap. Chap, but generally there’s no set. Set. Depends on the person and situation. The context are. There’s some core areas that you would encourage people to start doing some self assessment with to see whether they’re in need of some extra support.

I, I, there’s some things that people can reflect on and do quite specifically to say, if I spend a bit of time on this, it’ll reveal whether I need something

probably right. You could the people who need something don’t usually go and fill anything in, and if they do, they only look for the, what’s the positive side of it. I’m not saying that’s everyone, but a lot of per, a lot of the personality tests I never really like doing because it puts people in a box, for example, right?

So I won’t go into a male one, one put in, put ’em in a box of being are task leader. This person, it was like a badge of honor. I’m a task leader. Beautiful. It’s, but I am stuck. Hey, you’d need to be task focused, but you also to, it’s not just one or the other. So I do it like, it’s like a mor a strength traits and we, strength and challenges traits, and just picks up your traits, ups when you have a really strong strength every trait has a yin and a yang, there’s an opposite trait. It’s it’s like I’m blunt or I’m diplomatic. Opposites in the way they communicate, the way they communicate, the keys can be a bit more balanced than you do it. And so that’s the to I get people to look at and I tell ’em, is any red mark, mark, you probably need to have a chat.

Most times they go, yeah, that’s me. So I’m more to get a chat to start the Little Bowl. I know we’ve gotta wrap things up in a moment or two, but there is just one other area that you’ve touched on a few times in here. So it’s one thing when you’re being, you’re working on yourself as a leader and it’s the impact that it has on the culture of the business.

And I know this is an area that you are passionate about as well. So talk to me about. Where we are going wrong in cultures? What people, what were the signs that people are missing? ’cause it comes from the top, doesn’t it? It does it, it has to be driven that way. It has to be driven that way.

It’s culture is just the way people behave at work. It’s what they’re do and say, work and cultures are driven by the leader, but by the consequences. The consequences of people’s actions. That’s what drives them. So if you do something well and you get encouraged, encouraged and pat it on the back in, in a way, you’ll do it again because you’re proactively doing it again.

But if you get bere embarrassed, like that example I was telling you, that doesn’t mean to say they run, do it again. They may not do that particular thing that particular. They’re so paranoid. They make a thousand other, HES, they don’t, they’re not, they don’t have any confidence. And so the consequences drive the culture and the more toxic it is, because those consequences, the harder and tougher, and it’s always around verbal or human.

Human sort of challenge. It’s yeah. Yeah. If you put your finger in a fan and it gets cho off, you’re smart enough to not to do it again, right? But you want people, if they do a good job, keep doing it. And the more they keep doing it, the less you have to, and you can get onto doing what you do, but they just don’t get.

So the more you spend time encouraging people to keep going, and if they make a mistake making mistake. It’s a debrief. It’s debrief. They don’t get Belgian for it. The military do it politically politic. They have a problem with their, whether they win or lose, they have a debrief. No one gets blamed.

Blame. They just debrief. Debrief. Did that go wrong long? Yeah, that’s. It’s very simple. And it’s, and it is a lesson that many don’t learn. I’m very grateful for the fact that I had a boss many years ago that said to me, pretty much, look, we are human. We are gonna make mistakes. How you respond to the mistakes is everything, including if you make a mistake, come in, own up to it, and by the time you leave the office, I’ll have forgotten about.

There won’t be a blame game for that. It’ll just be, we’ll deal with it in there and then you’ll walk away and we’ll get on with the next things. And he was very true to his word on that. In fact, we are still very much in contact. I think it partly as a result of that, and it’s been a long time.

Been longer than both of us care to remember. And it’s, it’s a wonderful thing to learn that very early on and to give people that security as well as saying, Hey, if you make a mistake and you make it once it’s fine, but own up to it. Don’t try and cover up, but also work out how we’re gonna deal with it.

Because how you deal with it is everything. And I’ve certainly been. Privy to some stories where things have not been dealt with in a particular way. They’ve ended up in newspapers and courts as a result of it. Not something that I was involved with, but other companies and things that I was very aware of were going on.

And it’s you go, why would you do that? And people trying to cover up. And at the end of the day, all it was people trying to cover up the mistakes because they didn’t have the confidence to go and say, I made a mistake. And no matter how big that mistake is, it’s like owning up to it, learning from it, and moving forward.

But you’ve gotta create the atmosphere for that to happen. That’s right. And that’s the environment that const, that’s driven by the consequences. Consequences or how everyone behaves that if you’re saying, we got, we Little couple of, only a couple of seconds to wrap up. There’s one thing I ask people, and yet you gave the perfect example there.

See your bob if you remember the most was a good one. Yep. You forget all the up. Yeah, we had a few. I’ve had a few. That’s what I’m saying. One good one stands there like bloody. Yes. Yep. So I asked executives, I said, look, what do I want you to do for me? Write down how you want your staff to describe you as a leader.

And Right, and I’ve never had anyone ever ride down. I wanna be known as an absolute bastard.

A, it’s always nice you say down and say, what are you gotta do? 365 days, 24 hours a day in order for people to destroy me that way. And then it gets to people once they work, an hour one do it. And I, one had a checklist, looked every hour, every time she’s at work. All time. She turned her, the leadership around for being not very popular to being one of the most popular because she did exactly to what she had to do.

So they’d describe it that way. Being motivated to be better. Others talk about it, don’t do it. But if you can do that breathing, it’s no different to starting. Write down how you want your. Partner described you, your wife, asked wife, what are you gonna do them to describe me that way? Belong. Now you gotta do it.

Put you on notice to do the, that you need to do to be that your utopian over can be true. Like that good lady pad. He did the right things. He did the right things. Hence you’re still in contact with him and you always have bring a smiley face. Yeah. Hear his name right? Absolutely.

Absolutely. Which reminds me, I’m supposed to catch up with him, so I better send that note out to him. Before too long. Just to wrap things up, I have a question that I like to ask all of my guests who come onto the program. What’s the aha moment that people have when they come to work with you that you wish more people knew they were going to have?

It’s when. Oh yeah. I guess the light bulb comes on. It’s like that example I gave you ago when he said to me, yeah, I probably shouldn’t have said that. Probably shouldn’t have said so that point, yes, that’s a breakthrough. I’ve had a lot of those type of moments. That’s when you think, yeah, that’s workers.

I hadn’t worked with him, he’d still be yelling, abusing people, and everyone’s life is hell right there. I think that is a wonderful way to end it. Really fascinating discussion, A great journey that you’ve been on, and some really insightful comments I think about how people can recognize that they’re the problem.

I need to start working on it. Thank you so much for being part of the program, Ross. Thanks for the conversation, Nancy Conversation. Alright, and to everyone listening in, of course, we will give you all the details on how to get in touch with Ross in the show notes. We look forward to your company next time on Biz Bites for thought leaders.

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