To Trust is to Thrive: Leading Teams with Authenticity

“If you’re going to take a role, there are three things that are important: a good problem to work on, good people to work on it with, and good leadership that you have faith in or you believe in.”
David Bradford

This month’s theme

This month we discuss the significance of identifying crossroads within our careers or organisations. In each episode, we explore the pivotal moments where decisions shape our professional trajectories, and strategies for navigating challenges and change as an employee or a leader.

From career transitions and industry shifts to leadership changes and organisational restructuring, we unpack practical strategies, share success stories, and empower listeners to embrace challenges and change as a catalyst for growth and innovation.

Rachel Zhang and David Bradford share their experiences building a high-performing team at Telstra. They discuss the importance of authentic leadership, fostering trust, and creating a space where everyone feels valued. You’ll hear how they approach interviews differently, focusing on finding the right fit rather than just skills.

Learn how to create a thriving team environment that embraces diverse perspectives and fosters innovation.

In this episode you’ll hear about

• How to maintain an open and authentic interview style, ensuring the right fit for both the role and the team
• How to create a space where introverts and other personalities can thrive in the workplace
• How to address the challenges of maintaining team connection and communication in a remote work environment
• How does bias in recruiting impact the hiring process, and what can be done to mitigate it
• How does squad engagement and chapter engagement contribute to team morale and productivity
• How to identify signs that an organisation may not be a good fit and how to navigate unexpected changes within an organisation.
• How to navigate unexpected challenges like market changes or innovation, manage conflicts effectively through communication and empathy, and promote authenticity as a superpower to build confidence and reduce stress in both personal and professional contexts

https://youtu.be/8JDtoxnsLA8

Key links

Telstra
Design Outlook
RMIT University
AKQA
Accenture
Parliament of Victoria
Rachel Zhang on LinkedIn
David Bradford on LinkedIn
ANZ
NAB

About our guest

Rachel Zhang, Lead Experience Specialist and a seasoned Experience Designer & Strategist with 15+ years in digital enterprises, showcases a diverse portfolio, including the transformative redesign of the Parliament of Victoria, initiatives for WorkSafe Victoria’s digital Inspector’s tool and career pathways at RMIT. With tenures at Telstra, Google, Accenture, and AKQA.

As a design leader, she is passionate about creating safe, fun spaces and challenges the idea of imposter syndrome as an individual issue to work through. Rachel’s passion extends to serving as a UX expert-in-residence at Academy Xi, showcasing her commitment to nurturing the next generation of digital innovators. She also likes to talk about poo.

David Bradford, based in Melbourne, VIC, AU, is currently a UX Chapter Lead Principal at Telstra, bringing experience from previous roles at UX Sidekick, National Australia Bank and Loud & Clear. David Bradford holds a 1992 – 1996 BSc (Hons) @ Leeds Metropolitan University. With a robust skill set that includes Consulting, Service Design, Agile, Stakeholder Management, Loop 11 and more, David Bradford contributes valuable insights to the industry. David Bradford has 3 emails on RocketReach.

About our host

Our host, Chris Hudson, is a Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.

Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.

Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.

Transcript

Chris Hudson: 0:05
Hey everyone, it’s Wednesday again, and welcome to another Fabulous Company Road episode. So in this last couple of months, we’ve been talking about ways to unlock growth and about trends and innovations, and we’ve talked a little about AI and what the future holds within organisations and what you as entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs do or can do to navigate some of that change. So listen back to that last couple of episodes. If you’re after a midweek boost in some way, and as we propel ourselves. forward towards the end of the financial year and the beginning of the next. There’s no real better time to look at ways in which we can be thinking of a reset in some way or another. So without further ado, I wanted to introduce a very special episode, which is actually my first double guest episodes, and it’s going to be a blockbuster today. So on the company road podcast, you know, we’re often hearing from individual and very brilliant people. And we found ways to. Those people found ways to bring fresh perspective into the world of work and their organisations. And they lead in different ways. And there’ve been a lot of stories around that already. And also ways to find meaningful work for themselves that really aligns them and their core values. But today we’re going to be going even bigger as we talked to brilliant people from the same brilliant team. So I’m delighted to welcome Rachel Zhang and David Bradford from the wonderful Telstra UX team to the show. So, hello, and welcome. Yeah, I’ll just introduce you briefly. So welcome, first of all, to Fabulous Rachel Zhang. So Rachel, you’re an experienced strategist with, 15, 15 years or so. Lots of leading digital enterprises that you’ve worked for. You’ve got an impressive portfolio, diverse projects that you’ve worked on and transformation work within Parliament Victoria. You’ve done some work with WorkSafe, which has been really cool. And where it’s RMIT, but also Telstra, Google, Accenture and AKQA. So I think you’ve covered a lot of the great places to work. Yeah. So welcome to the show, Rachel. And also from Telstra David Bradford. So you’re a seasoned transformation leader. You’ve been working across the industry for more than 25 years in design roles, and you’ve been helping transform a number of big digital organisations from Royal Mail, NAB, Deloitte, ANZ as well. So big names here. So key achievements, you know, you’ve led teams designing the ANZ internet banking features, the mobile banking apps of both ANZ and NAMP. And currently our UX chapter lead and principal at Telstra. So David, welcome to the show. Thank you Chris. And if anyone out there is in Australia, you definitely know Telstra. But if you’re living abroad, Telstra is Australia’s largest mobile network spanning Broadband, internet, NBN, 5G, TV, mobile. It feels like Telstra kind of does a lot of everything. It’s one of Australia’s most innovative companies. And it’s fair to say that, you know, for a technology and service point of view they’re pretty much, you know, there are big questions being answered by Telstra how some of those things happen, you know, from a leadership point of view, really, and how those initiatives get started. So if you’re wondering about what kind of people they hire, and what you could learn from the best in the game, then this is your episode. So let’s go into how to lead a little bit with the From an innovation point of view, but also with authenticity and how to create conditions for success within organisations, we’re going to jump into a bit of a chat now. So Rachel, when we first started talking, we were hearing about your story of when your time with Telstra started and how your working relationship with David started as well. So maybe we could just start with that and we’ll see how we go.

Rachel Zhang: 3:29
For sure. And that’s, you know, funnily, before we jump into that, when you mentioned a double guest episode, I think the story behind why. It’s a double guest episode is actually quite sweet as well. And I think, you know, the best leaders don’t really have from what my view, sometimes the best leaders don’t necessarily have the ego to put themselves out there as much as They need and the trumpeting that they need to do for how amazing they are isn’t something that they have to do all the time. So when we spoke about this podcast, we thought maybe the best way to do it would be to bounce off each other and interview each other because we think so highly of each other that it’s so much easier to get that story out. And then individually coming on your own and being like, yeah, I did this. And, you know, so I think that kind of speaks volumes of the relationship.

Chris Hudson: 4:14
Does that mean I won’t need to do anything? You two can just drink a cup of tea.

Rachel Zhang: 4:20
But yeah, my story, when we spoke last time, I mentioned that, you know, I was going through actually a really difficult time where I just didn’t know what I was going to be doing next and I had a, it was like a crossroads of your ego fighting with your. Heart and what you wanted to do and at that point I think I was probably 34 and just thinking that I should be ahead of or something or you know I should be at director level and I wanted all these high aspirations and I end up turning down an opportunity that didn’t quite feel right to me and I literally just didn’t know who I was because I think I just, you know, you define so much of yourself by your job title sometimes. And when I was like, I’m just a big loser. So I was just trying to feel my time at that time, you know, interviewing around, seeing what’s out there. And when I met David, my, it, well, before I met David, my initial reaction to working potentially for Telstra, I was like, Oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem that cool or like, you know, those big fancy agencies out there. But as soon as I met David, honestly, it just, It was just, he was just the kind, he is just the kindest man. And it was such an easy interview. It wasn’t, I just felt so accepted for who I was immediately. And supported. And even in that interview, he was saying to me, Hey, you know, there’s two great projects that are existing that I’m hiring for and love to learn a bit more about your skills and just see which one would be the best suited for you and you would enjoy the most. And I was like, wow, I haven’t even started working here yet. And this person is being so considerate to, you know, what could help me shine. So it was a bit of a struggle at that time where I just thought my ego was like, no, you should go work somewhere cool, cool. And then, but everything in my body and my heart was like, oh, that feels so nice to be so accepted. Let’s just, Give it a try. So I wrestled with my ego for a bit. And even when I started, I remember thinking, Oh, to be a senior designer, I thought I’d be better than, you know, it was just all ego telling you that you should be doing more. And. I think within week one, David organised a big mirror board of more of my career potential because I’d shared with him that I was really struggling with that. And he, he heard that and he created a board to do like a SWOT analysis of my strengths, see what my interests are, where my gaps are that I could grow in, where, what I could learn and all this learning content as well. So it just, I had never, and I’ve worked with the most amazing people. I’ve never had, You know, a terrible manager or anything like that, but it just felt so good. And it turned out to be a long term experiment, which I thought I was only going to be there for a month, but I’m still there almost two years now. And it’s just wonderful. The people there are wonderful. David’s consistently being that generous, kind, authentic, open to being one little person.

Chris Hudson: 7:07
Amazing. What a great story. And what a great endorsement of you, David.

David Bradford: 7:11
Do you want me to talk to my side of that a little bit?

Chris Hudson: 7:14
I’d love to hear it. Yeah, I’d love to hear it.

David Bradford: 7:16
Yeah, I remember it must have been a Thursday and a Friday because I know that I interviewed three amazing people in the two days leading up to the weekend and then decided on the Monday. But, many years ago I used to work at Seek and I worked on the candidate experience and I really believe that the candidate experience should be a good one, whether they get the role or not and that they should leave. Think it well of our team and of Telstra and of our culture. So, start the interview asking people to shut me up after 15 minutes. But I’m going to talk about the team. I’m going to talk about the culture. I’m going to talk about the organisation. I’m going to talk about why I’m still there with a smile on my face after nearly five years. So, yeah, so that’s the start of the interview and then and then it’s not really an interview, is it, Rachel? You know, I’ve already decided, because I’ve got excellent recruiters, they’ve already, they only give me the best candidates. You know, it’s really a chat to see if the role is right for you and to see if we work together well together. Yeah. Yeah. And far from being a loser or whatever you call yourself you’re absolutely perfect for this at that point. And for that massive piece of work, which was the multi-brand, the J. B. Hi Fi. So that’s my side of the story there.

Chris Hudson: 8:28
No, it’s great. It’s great. And yeah, I was just thinking about that story. Yeah. I mean that. You know, there are different schools of thought around leading interviews and running interviews, and it feels like it’s hard to know, you know, when there’s a set in a very fixed way that, you know, either an organisation expects that for that to happen, or that, you know, a leader might have a certain way in which they want it to happen. Some people would say that, you know, The version where the manager is basically kind of talking about themselves and the organisation for the first 20 minutes is actually, you know, it’s kind of hard for the candidates sometimes because they don’t always get the impression that they can put their own you know, put themselves forward, but, you know, from the flip side, obviously it gives them plenty of time to settle in and actually understand this, the environment in which they’re. You know, they’re in at that moment, but also, you know, the environment that they’re thinking about going into from the jobs point of view. So, yeah, I mean, it’s great to hear that, that, that works out. Have you always run it that way?

David Bradford: 9:23
No I, I started running tests, you know, giving people tasks. I think I did that once on the candidate didn’t accept the role. But what’s the quotes around, you don’t leave an organisation, you leave a leader. Yeah. Well, I think it’s probably the same or certainly been the same for me. I’ve joined heroes, I’ve joined leaders, I haven’t joined organisations. I’ve joined leaders who have teams that I want to be in and cultures that I want to be in. So, and I think it helps with nerves if I talk a little bit about the context of the role of the organiser first, rather than can you tell me about yourself? You know, it’s great. And also it’s a really good prompt for really genuine questions, not the kinds of questions that people think I want to hear, but real curious questions around the team and the culture, whether they’re working flexibly, all of the stuff that really matters to people rather than the things that they Google to see, you know, the questions they should ask at an interview.

Chris Hudson: 10:29
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously, if you get some information back first, then you can obviously start with questions rather than, you know, how a lot of traditional interview formats is basically you run through the whole thing. And at the end, there’s got a question and the manager is kind of looking at the watch and. You know, really wants to just move on to the next meeting and you’ve got maybe got two or three minutes to cover off any questions you know, in between chats, but it’s always a bit of a rush thing I’ve found anyway.

David Bradford: 10:54
Yeah. I, and you know, Rachel wouldn’t be alone in seeing Telstra as a culprit or a dinosaur, you know, the people that have come from agencies. Yeah. So, so, and that’s certainly not the perspective I’ve had it since starting with. With our great leader, John Lazaro and the great leaders in digital. So, so sharing a bit of that, I think is really crucial.

Chris Hudson: 11:16
Yeah, I want to come back to that. But right. So I was just going to ask, like, you were talking through your story a little bit about that feeling of unrest almost around how you How are you thinking about your options that were there in front of you? But maybe I was just looking to understand a bit more about, cause a lot of people feel this where they’re in a role and they don’t know if it’s right, it’s kind of a matter of fit, but it’s also a lot to do with gut feel and how you feel and how fulfilled you feel So that can be one feeling in a current role, but then you’re looking at obviously another organisation you don’t know as well, and you’re almost looking for signals of, you know, what feels right. And, you know, can you break down any of those things in any more depth?

Rachel Zhang: 11:53
Absolutely. And I think for most, it’s such a good question because for most of my career, you think of work as something you bring your logic brain to and not so much emotions, but we are such emotional creatures. And, you know, I used to make decisions based on just logic or pros and cons list. And I feel like this decision was probably one of the start of many just somatic decisions. You know, you just check in with your body and just, Hey, how does this actually feel versus what you think it should be? So that was quite a nerve wracking decision at the time. Cause I’ve never really trusted how I felt. As much, but it honestly just felt so safe. It felt so kind and supportive. And I feel like in a lot of interviews, people forget that you are also interviewing the company, you know, there’s an energy that goes in with, like, prove to us why you’re good for this job and we’ll give you the opportunity. But actually. You’re giving eight hours of your day, your energy, your time, your attention. You also need to interview that company to see if it’s right for you. And I think what David did really well was he went in with that energy of, I know it sounds so woo, but he went in with the energy of not, you need to prove something to me. It was very equal and very balanced of, Hey, I’d love to know if you’re right for this role. I’d love to know if you’d like this role we’d love to have you on board. And it was just very peaceful and equal. You know, you didn’t feel like you had to prove yourself. And that was just such, you know, for someone who’s always been thinking, and I’m sure people are not alone, you know, imposter syndrome and not feeling good enough. It was such a relief to feel that in the body that you didn’t have to prove anything. And someone trusted you to do a good job. I’ve seen that just play out continuously as a consistent. And the way David leads is that he goes with trust first. And then I think that inspires respect and inspires loyalty and just. It brings about the best in you, I feel.

David Bradford: 13:50
It’s not just about me though, is it? Because I, I start those interviews with with an org chart but it’s an org chart of smiley faces starting with our CEO and going down. And it’s because I’ve been in organisations where I’ve had a great, say three years at one organisation. And then overnight, one of those local leaders at the level above me has changed. And the cultures change overnight when that local leadership change and in that case, it changed from a culture of praise and recognition and collaboration to a culture of fear. And so I try to get across that all of these local leaders that we have are absolutely Terrific. They’re first class in the game. They, they foster creativity and collaboration and respect and praise and all of the things that are important to me. And then if they’re important to me, they’re important to other people. And I have this thing where I say that if you’re going to take a role, then there are three things that are important. One is a good problem to work on. The second one is good people to work on it with. And the third is good leadership that you have faith in or you believe in. Yeah, I try to get that across the interview structure. Yeah, and then in the, in all of the meetings that follow, you know.

Chris Hudson: 15:09
That’s really helpful. I think there’s something about that. You know, as a candidate going into the interview, you can almost tell a little bit about the organisation from, you know, the read that you’re getting. It’s kind of what information are you getting from it? How much in the interview do you feel you need to. You know, bend yourself into, you know, what the organisation is putting in front of you, or is the organisation bending towards you or are you finding commonality in the way that you described David and Rachel from the story? Because that’s when it, it feels like it’s balanced and it works. There’s a mutual understanding. It’s not like everyone, anyone, either of those parties is trying to. Pretend that there’s something to make the interview work, you know, it’s like, is it, this is what I stand for. This is what the organisation stands for. Do we work together? Can we move forward? Is it going to be a great working relationship? And you know, some of the conversation gets in the way of that, but ultimately it feels like that’s what it would boil down to.

Rachel Zhang: 16:02
Yeah. And you can’t fake it to, you can for some degree, but I think, you know, David, when you were talking about telling me how wonderful John is and he absolutely is and how wonderful the team know, it’s a conversation, but then you go into the organisation and you see for yourself how amazing the leadership is. I feel like it’s a very, I’ve never seen introversion in leadership shine so bright, you know, it’s about not hearing the loudest in the room. Always. You still can be loud. I talk a lot as you can probably tell, but there’s a lot of people who don’t talk a lot and still do amazing work and they’re absolute stars and they. Also get recognised and shine. I think the first maybe month I was there, David, you guys hit the consumer awards. Is that right? Yeah, and some of the, I met some of the most amazing people who won awards and their faces were all just like, me? Like, you know? And they were genuinely just such kind anyway, I’m just dithering about now, but basically the consistency of seeing what David had said in the interview play out over time just adds to that kind of trust.

David Bradford: 17:10
I think it’s probably the people that you met in those first few weeks as well. I mean, I came from the UK to live in Sydney, but I. I didn’t stay in Sydney. Sydney didn’t feel right for me. And I traveled around Australia and I got to Melbourne and when I got to Melbourne, I immediately met people that felt right with me and, you know, we were in lounge bars and stuff and it just felt comfortable for me. But that same week of course you met Aoife and you’ve become great friends since then, Rachel. When you’re going into the office, you’re with Aishwarya and David and things. So, yeah.

Rachel Zhang: 17:38
Great.

David Bradford: 17:39
You know, it would be beyond the leadership, beyond myself and John and everyone else. It would be the people around you as well. And then, you know, the people online, the likes of Sarah Reynolds, who’s always there to help and stuff. And

Rachel Zhang: 17:52
Matt

David Bradford: 17:52
Angus and Sarah Goddard all of the great people in the chapter.

Rachel Zhang: 17:56
Liz Collins. Yeah, exactly.

David Bradford: 17:58
To learn from and to grow with, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hudson: 18:04
But you said a few things there that. You know, jump out, really, you know, the fact that Telstra is a large organisation and that you’ve been able to bring transparency through that experience, really getting to know Telstra first through the interview stage and then beyond that and to find commonality, but also surprisingly around. Introversion. And, you know, I guess how it’s represented and how it’s accepted really from the point of view of the leadership, because in a lot of big organisations, for one, it wouldn’t be transparent and it would be led by fairly dominant, loud voices and egos. So, how are the conditions for that set out? And how do they You know, how do they work? I mean, how are they kind of set up for working, I guess, is the broad question within Telstra.

David Bradford: 18:45
It’s a fascinating topic, isn’t it? When I was at NAB prior, I don’t know which one’s right, you were all at NAB recently, Chris I looked at the leaders and I thought, oh, I could never do that, you know, I could never, Just suddenly get up and talk to 30 people or whatever. And that probably held me back for a long while, but when you put on the hat, you learned that you can and you learned that the role gives you something that allows you to do that. You also learn that it’s okay to be an introvert at times and in my case, share a lot with the team kind of thing and many people, I think we all have the elements of introvert and extrovert amongst us. Certainly I used to despise, like really be terrified of presenting and things like that. And now the first three or four minutes I am, and then I get into it and I’m starting to enjoy it and be a bit playful with presenting and stuff like that. So, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

Chris Hudson: 19:39
So the trick is to give you a longer than three minute time slot and you’re fine.

David Bradford: 19:44
Well, yeah, just that. I mean, at the start of this very nervous as well, you know, and not a natural role for many people, including myself. But and I think for introverts in interviews it’s so much easier to talk about themself and to talk about their history and that obviously really matters to them that they will know inside out. Yeah, I know, and across the team I’d say we do have many introverts. I think that was why we wanted Rachel in the team. Right. it. To balance that, and then we talked about diversity as well. But those introverts are very great at collaborating. You know, we don’t have that that one rock star in the team that take, that’s got the big ego and takes everything from everyone else, just sucks the light out of the room. So, you know, everyone in the team is very supportive, and they’ve all got their different strengths and they’re all Lean in and support someone on that thing that they know better than someone else. And it can be someone who’s only a few years into that, for example, if they’ve been doing the one that comes to mind is optimal workshop, the information architecture test. Something that we don’t do very often, like you might do once a year and so often the person that’s done it most recently is the person with the best knowledge on that. I’m thinking of Aishwarya at the time, Rachel you know, leaning in and coaching people with a dozen years more experience, but you know, at that point in time, the person with the knowledge.

Chris Hudson: 21:11
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s, yeah, it’s interesting, isn’t it? There’s kind of things that you, I guess, you know, they become more natural the more you do them. And I’m wondering, you know, obviously those team conditions are set out in a certain way of the leadership’s going to have a huge role in setting that up. But the team members almost sort of fit into that and where that feels comfortable. So it’s quite organic from what you’re describing. Have there been instances where on the flip side of that, and you know, I’m interested in, I guess, always the kind of The other side of the argument but is there, have there been occasions where you thought, okay, things aren’t quite, you know, feeling right, or, you know, that there’ve been personalities or discussions, like not even people, but just like discussions where things have gone, you know, a little bit off centre and you’ve had to sort of bring it back. And how have you managed to, I guess, move in some of those situations those have come up.

David Bradford: 21:59
You know, well, we had big challenges when we started working remotely. We were all in the pub on a Friday night and we got a text saying, you’re not going back into the office. And again, John Lazaro, our leader was on his phone arranging that whilst, whilst drinking his whiskey or whatever it was and we didn’t go back in on Monday. And I think it was many months later when we realised the impact of this and We’re organised in chapters, and I’m a chapter lead, and I witnessed that other chapters were having a lot more banter, a lot more dialogue than ours, and you know, maybe we have too many introverts, we went to and our chat was very Admin related, logistics related. So, yeah, so, so I got half a dozen of them into the office and we spoke about this and spoke about how that can only come about organically. So I asked those half a dozen to, to support me in just. Bringing jokes and whatever it took into the conversation and you know, a long running joke about me buying Range Rovers for Jeremy Wright and that sort of stuff, Rachel and and just the same birthday guests popping up time and time again from someone. And just the, just these things that introduced that bit of banter and knowing each other, because we are all around the country. Yeah. 49 percent in Sydney, 49 percent in Melbourne and all over the country and no sort of Perth and places. So it’s challenging to

Chris Hudson: 23:26
And from your point of view, Rachel, how have you found out? I mean, I always find that banter, it can be healthy or it can be unhealthy. Have you found it? Have you found it’s been alright so far?

Rachel Zhang: 23:36
It’s honestly, this is the most wholesome group of people I have ever met. Like, it’s genuinely heartwarming. It’s really healthy banter. Sometimes I think, what do we have on social media? The other week, sounds like I’m making this up, or I’m living in Fairyland, but this actually just happens like this, where we’re all in meetings and we’re just getting FOMO for not being in a meeting and not able to join in the banter. Because when it does go off, it goes off. Like, it doesn’t, you know, it’s not like a every minute everyone’s bantering, but there’s just like, Like David says, organically a little glimmer where everyone’s just jumped on board and a joke’s being carried on for a little while and it is quite nice and it’s just

David Bradford: 24:13
so, I immediately banned all banter while I’m in meetings and,

Chris Hudson: 24:16
It’s not allowed from there on.

Rachel Zhang: 24:18
So fun. So yeah, it is. It is lovely. It is organic. And there are times where we, I think, either have too much work on or people just do feel a bit separate because, you know, we are all working remotely, but all it takes is a little bit of a joke or a share of a photo of someone’s walk or a trip that they’ve gone on and the people are back. It’s a really supportive community. It’s really lovely.

David Bradford: 24:41
Chris, if you’re looking for something that’s someone pushed something on PC or bullying or anything like that that just doesn’t happen. We have really good values and yeah, zero tolerance for anything like that. It’s where I have seen it Become the norm in other organisations. It yeah, it just is not.

Rachel Zhang: 24:59
Sometimes I feel like a quokka on Rottnest Island, you know, there’s like no predators and the quokkas are all smiling. Sometimes I just feel like it’s such a beautiful, like safe little island and I’m like, Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m being on. Oh, it’s so good. That’s

Chris Hudson: 25:13
a great image. Yeah, I mean, I think, it sounds very positive and, I love hearing you both talk. So, enthusiastically about it and you obviously, come from different backgrounds, but almost together, it feels like the place, it’s a lot of people with a shared vision, really and that’s really, what’s important within organisations is that, there’s a sense of everyone brings himself, but also together it ladders up to something much bigger. And that’s presumably why you’ve seen the success and, you know, the culture feels right in, in very personal way as well. So that’s really good to hear.

David Bradford: 25:44
We do have a, an amazing shared vision. We have what was our T22 strategy and now our T25, sorry, Telstra 2025. Yeah. The first pillar of which is creating exceptional customer experiences. Another one being the place that you want to work. So some really, some of the others are around having the best work and things, but but we also, as well as our great leadership and John are in design, we have really amazing leadership and digital. So everything from our strategy, let us down in quarterly game plans. Into everything we do. Yeah. So, yeah, I think that collaboration, I read once the collaboration is not about the tools. It’s not about changing around things. It’s about having everyone working towards the same goals. Yeah.

Chris Hudson: 26:28
Can we talk a bit about diversity? I think, you know, it’s interesting when you think about a team that is aligned to one vision how diversity comes into play from the point of view of, you know, bringing perspectives in. While still, you know, obviously looking in the same direction, you know, you’re thinking about how to enrich the same direction with diverse points of view but what’s been your experience of that, you know, and the way the team sets up yeah, any thoughts there?

David Bradford: 26:51
Yeah, I’m thinking about the recent hiring that we did, Rachel where yourself or others were involved. So, bias absolutely exists in interviews. It’s really hard to rule out try our best. But firstly, we had a male and a female myself and Sarah did but ahead of that, before we did Rachel and four others looked through all the resumes. with me. And it was really interesting. The person that I had at the top of the list. No one else had. And when I did a bit more digging about that person I learned that person wasn’t appropriate. So, yeah, so that, that’s the one key measure. Yeah. It

Rachel Zhang: 27:30
was good because you got us to do it separately as well, you know, and then. Yeah. So we weren’t influenced by each other’s decisions. And then we almost had a book club event where we came back and spoke about, you know, what stood out to us and what our take on these, what we proposed the interview should be or who we thought would be a good fit for the team. And it was just nice to see everyone’s own reasoning. And, you know, I picked up my own bias on things and I was like, Oh, I see what I’ve done here, you know, and then it kind of, you It brings it out and you know it exists and therefore you can kind of deal with it a bit better than if you were just insularly one person doing it all. So it’s actually quite a fun exercise.

Chris Hudson: 28:11
Yeah. I mean, from the point of view of bias, like, how do we set ourselves up for noticing that? You think the best way

Rachel Zhang: 28:17
I was like, this person loves cats. We should hire them. And I was like, I see what you’re doing here. Not that’s a very obvious bias, right? Yeah.

David Bradford: 28:24
Yeah. Fair enough. I wonder we, we mentioned earlier that I only work with a few really trusted recruiters and they’re getting to know what I like. And for instance, where we hired Tina Rosie said, Oh, she’s just like Rachel. And so actually that’s possibly working against me in that because. You know, they’re knowing who’s worked well in the team in the past and almost trying to cloud them, you know, so, so possibly there are a few things working against bias.

Rachel Zhang: 28:52
Oh, so good. I just also like how you just talk about things, David, like your uncertainties or your doubts about yourself. I think that’s really powerful. Like just hearing you saying that and like, Oh, I’m not sure if I’m now doing it wrong because of this. Cause I think that’s really empowering. Cause. Even when we were talking about introverts before, I was, in my head, I was like, fuck, am I just a loud talking person that does no work? Like, what if I’m just like a useless, like, you know, you just get these thoughts in your mind sometimes and naming them, I think is the most powerful thing.

David Bradford: 29:22
Every single person, when I asked them, how did that presentation go? Every single person talks about the one thing. All the audience sees I often didn’t even see that one thing wrong,

Chris Hudson: 29:38
it happens so much, doesn’t it, where there’s an expectation, the expectation from yourself, the percent is always that much bigger. And you know, Rachel, presumably you’ve seen this way done a fair bit of public speaking recently, I believe. Now, how have you found that, that experience yourself?

Rachel Zhang: 29:53
Oh, honestly, I was pooping my pants. Like I just did not want to get on stage. Like. I got to the event. I was like, Oh my God, what have I done? What am I doing here? Like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know what I’m talking about. And I honestly just had to take some deep breaths and I could speak to again, design outlook, creating a safe environment. Nikki got up there as the emcee. It just really sets the tone and similar to you, Chris, like when you interview people, you just really set that tone, where it’s like a safe, chilled environment as I take some real deep breath and just think about how exciting it is to share things that I’m excited about and, I had to tap into that and I really had a good time afterwards. I just thought, look, I’ll, I can’t do anything but be me. So just be me and see if that works. And I just had a really fun time afterwards. But but initially it was like skydiving. You just did not want to get in that plane. You did not want to jump out. Once you landed, you’re like, that was awesome.

Chris Hudson: 30:51
Yeah. It’s interesting. I’ll just take you back to early days of, It was presentation training, basically. You went on, when I started out, it was in advertising marketing in London. And I remember the rehearsals that you would go through, basically, if you’re doing a presentation, you’d, if you were going to present that you’d have to rehearse in some way. And the feedback that you, you would get wouldn’t be so much, you know, A, you know, like an area, part of the presentation that, you know, in your manner, you know, they wouldn’t be constructive in it, basically, they’d just tell you how to do it and you wouldn’t really learn from that other than like, you know, you’re copying what they want you to say and using exactly the same words, exactly the same delivery in this part of the room. And it was like film director. Would say, but with an accent that had no say in the corner, you go and do that. You’re going to be pointing there when you’re making that point. And these are the words that you’re going to say it. I didn’t feel like I, I really. benefited from it that much. You know, I obviously knew what their expectation was, but I didn’t feel like I was able to bring much myself to that presentation in that moment. And I think it’s something that’s very personal to us all. You know, we feel like presentation is there for everybody else, but actually it’s as much about you and how much, you know, how much you connect with the topic that you’re presenting. And I think that the great presentations, the storytellers out there that they’re able to just captivate the room. Based on their passion for the subject about if you haven’t got that kind of just a reading really it’s very different

Rachel Zhang: 32:21
And you know what that’s so true and so observant and when you look at that story Not really being able to bring your individualism. I kind of just realised that in our team David no one tries to be Anyone else, you know, There’s no one, like you said, being shown as like, oh, this is the shining example. And then everyone’s either trying to be like this skill set or do this more, follow a template. Everyone’s just very comfortable being themselves and everyone understands what each other’s skill sets are. And you’re like, oh, that’s amazing. Can you teach me how to do that? I want to learn how to do that. Cause that’s interesting to me. And you’re focusing on the skills and not And trying to be who you’re not, and I just realised how powerful that was too.

David Bradford: 33:03
I think about Fab and when Fab joined the team four years ago his perceived weakness was his presentation skills. English is a second language, Italian is his first. He communicated well then but over three years, he’s practiced it, he’s honed it. To the stage now where he is an excellent storyteller. He speaks with crystal clarity. He really communicates well. And I think about a time when I told all of the team I want you to spend less time preparing for presentations. And Fab, who’s a bit of an introvert leaned into the chat and said, no, David. David. I need to spend time. I need to practice. That’s how I create my story and everything. And I thought that was absolutely wonderful. And I, and praised it and encouraged it in it to tell me when I’m wrong in that way. And now we use his presentations as an exemplar to others in terms of when we’re doing this type of presentation. Here’s what good looks like.

Chris Hudson: 34:04
And I think through that process, like if somebody’s been through that process, it’s almost easier to break down what’s changed so that you can help other people benefit from that as a learning really. Because if it’s somebody that’s like brilliant presenter, they’re just up on stage, they’re just doing it off the cuff and they’re just a natural. Yeah. then it’s almost harder to break down why it is that’s so brilliant. But if you’ve got somebody that’s actually worked at it and has really examined their technique and their delivery and, nuance in their presentation, you can actually really pinpoint what it is that made that good. And that can be helpful to other people too. You’ve just reminded me,

David Bradford: 34:38
We’ve been saying that Fab and I, that we’re going to talk about how we’ve overcome our fears and in presentations, we need to get that back on the agenda.

Chris Hudson: 34:45
Yeah,

Rachel Zhang: 34:46
let’s do it.

Chris Hudson: 34:49
Nice. One of the things as you were talking was just popped into my head was really I mean, Telstra sounds great from the point of view of embracing everyone’s own talent, really. And you know, coming into an organisation, that’s in a sense all you want. You’ve got the opportunity to shine. You can bring yourself and your whole self to work and all things like that. about in relation to authenticity and transparency. But I think in some other cases, there would be organisations where you come in, you feel like you’re almost joining like a year or two too late and that the time for that organisation has been and that, that kind of essence of what the way is that everyone is sort of following. It’s kind of been forged like a little while ago. And, you know, there’s the way that the team ran it and that’s still carrying through, but you haven’t felt part of that in its growth. So you don’t feel like how you can. So I’m just wondering, from the point of view of working with other organisations where the way has been quite set and you felt like it’s taken more effort from your part, maybe to fit in the, are there any other stories from that point of view that you want to share?

David Bradford: 35:49
I didn’t realise but actually the last organisation I was at, that would have been the case, you know, when it was in its big growth I wasn’t part of the team. And your insight there is making me realise that’s possibly why I just had my head down in the work and stayed out of any of the team building stuff and everything. And at the time I thought, no, if I’m doing the work, that’s good, but it certainly wasn’t good for me. You know, I wasn’t feeling a part of the team. I wasn’t feeling like I belonged which didn’t work for me, didn’t work for the team. And of course, those are the people that renew your contracts. I mean, I left it my own accord but but now I’m learning that there are two axes that are really important, one is your squad engagement and everything that you do on the work that you’re doing, and that’s where I was. Putting in all of my effort, but there’s also in our organisation, it’s your chapter engagement, but it’s your engagement with the team and everything. And I think both are absolutely critical. I, and you know, the more you put in, the more you get out to building the team and being a part of the culture. Back and at the start, Rachel, you talked around that Miro growth chart and the canvas. I didn’t put it together for you. I apologise if I made you think that I had, but I put it together for everyone, but but as an example the, a number of the contractors in my team were really surprised that that I would spend time with them thinking about their growth and their aspirations. Weaknesses and their strengths, where they should be training. And indeed we have a monthly, in fact, today is our personal development day. And all of the contractors are included in that. So with that, including them and bringing them in. You know, it’s not all one way. You get a lot more out of that from people feeling they belong and from not treating people differently depending on the logistics of the payment structure, you know. And occasionally we have to occasionally that, that there’s no way around it but in most instances, just making everyone feel the same and not feel like there’s an in crowd in a, I don’t know how you felt about that, Rachel.

Rachel Zhang: 38:06
Oh, no, not at all. And I definitely know you didn’t make that board just for me. I just meant, I just couldn’t believe you put one together for me because I was a contractor. I am a contractor and that was week two of my contract. And I was like, you know, normally you kind of have the pattern might be you chase your manager and it might put in a yearly review at some point. But. You know, you heard in the interview that I was like, Oh, I’m struggling. I don’t know if I’m just like an idiot. And you were like here’s a structure you could possibly follow to understand where you want to go to next. And it was just,

David Bradford: 38:38
It helps so much. I mean, if you think about the two Sarahs in our team, one of them would like to be a people leader and the other one would like nothing less than being a people leader. And I know there’s such as yourself or Sachita listed there her aspiration was to do a TED talk. So, you know, then I can immediately put in place stepping stones towards building up that confidence and building that storytelling and everything. And in the case of the Sarahs, I know immediately when I go on holiday, which one to leave in command which one not to you know, so, so it helps me as well, you know, finding those opportunities little steps in the right direction to that aspiration.

Chris Hudson: 39:19
Yeah, I like that. I was just going to say from a leader’s point of view, you know, by knowing your team to that deeper level, you’re able to obviously see the landscape of passion areas, but also skill sets that you’ve got to work with. And I know it may be that, that can create a more, you know, comfortable, but obviously nuanced version of what the team, you know, what the team role allocation looks like in one way or another. So it’s not just by role, but.

David Bradford: 39:46
It means there’s less volun telling. Is that the word? Volun telling? It means there’s less nominating someone to do something because you know more about the team and you can say, Hey, is this something you’re interested in? Or getting volunteers. For example, Rachel, I know you and Sachita and Swetha all got involved in the Diwali celebrations and things. And yeah. Yeah. And knowing that was something that they would actively want to do rather than having to do.

Chris Hudson: 40:13
How about you, Rachel? I was going to ask you, you know, similar questions before with, you know, the organisation and the way that it is. Have you found in the past that there’ve been signals of it not being right? And if you had to kind of call that out and then take action in some way?

Rachel Zhang: 40:26
Totally. And I think, you know, it’s not even about, If something has been well developed, it could be somewhere that is kind of brand new as well and building a team when you still feel like you’ve joined too late. And it, I think it comes down to that level of agency you get given and contribution because you know, you want to make things better and you say things like, Oh, hey, I think this is not working. Let’s try this. And it’s not being heard and nothing’s being changed. And you’re just being told to continue to continually do the same thing. I think just tends to wear people out and then you feel. Like nothing’s going to get better. And then you eventually have to leave. And I think what those kinds of situations have taught me is that it always comes from the top. So I think that’s why it’s so important to find what leadership is looking like, cause it all trickles down and fighting upstream sometimes is It can just be like a time bomb, really, you just fight till you just then get tired. And I, second, just going on what we spoke about before about individualism. I think it’s about being like that, and I’m stealing this from Android because they say better together. It’s really celebrating your individual as a human, not as a resource for Telstra. It’s like, what does this person want? And like David said, Sachinda wants to do a TED talk. So David will find opportunities for people to do things that will get them where they want to be, even if it’s outside of Telstra. And I think that’s a really powerful thing. And we’ve spoken about it before as well, where, you know, I’ve just decided to start writing rambling stuff on LinkedIn. And David supported that. And I feel like, you know, a lot of companies where you’re building a personal brand might see that as a threat or doing work that’s not your work. But instead he was like, Hey, you really obviously have a passion for this. Do you want to teach or share some of these learnings with the internal team and do a little presentation? And I was like, yeah, I’d fucking love to do that. And you know, if it helps people, that would be awesome too. So it’s almost like finding out what that person likes, supporting them, celebrating them, and then. sharing it with people. And I even said to David, Hey, you know, do you mind if I do a four day week? I might have some other personal projects I’m interested in. And he’s like, go for it. As long as it doesn’t interfere with your work, you keep it within contained time you’re transparent or when you’re doing it, go for it, you know, and that kind of freedom and trust to be who you are and explore things outside of just, you and Telstra is really powerful too, because then you show up better.

David Bradford: 42:54
Yeah we talk a lot about burnouts and the inverse of that, which I think is more important, which is bore out. And so, you know, Rachel had a period where the work has been more visual design, more, more the UI design. And we all need something, we know we all need more than our work. We need to be more than our work. So sure, if that’s where you’re getting your satisfaction and actually, as you say you’ve done multiple talks where you shared your learnings on building your brand on LinkedIn with our chapter and in fact, I don’t know, three or 400 others across the organisation, and they’ve loved that talk and they’ve And then I see there’s a group of them, including myself, who are all a little fan group, all all reading each other’s posts and comments and stuff and You know, why would anyone prevent that? And why would anyone keep you in an organisation if you’re not happy or if your growth path is upswing, you know? So, and you talked around that period of where the team’s growing, Chris. And then if you go after that when our team was growing, I was new to people leadership and frankly, a bit rubbish at it. So, so I don’t think that was the glory period. And in fact, every time someone leaves, it’s something to celebrate, not to mourn. You know, they’re going on to what for them is a better opportunity, whether that’s or role or satisfaction or whatever. And it’s just an opportunity, you know, it’s an opportunity to get somewhat new to the team. To have that new energy, to have that new skill set, that new experience from whatever that organisation is that they were in. So, so yeah, the team’s just continually, and when someone moves on, and also bearing in mind that by the time someone moves on, right for them. 3, 4, 5, 6 months possibly they might retreat a little or even become a little bit better. So, you know, it’s good to have a level of, sorry, I’m going to use the managerial word, attrition but in, in fact, ours is slowed to next to nothing. Yeah,

Chris Hudson: 45:07
well, really encouraging to hear about. And, you know, I think, you know, what we were talking about before, which is, what stage is your company at? And what stage is your team at, from the point of view of mindset, now you’re stuck in the past because you’re trying to relive that in some way, you’re looking in the future because, you’re aiming for something like you’re going to grow, triple the amount in the next three days or whatever we’re going to go like, In some way where nobody understands, what that looks like, because you’re just running at speed and trying to get to somewhere and then you’ll be, almost laying the road as you drive down it. It feels like sometimes organisational teams can be in either of those camps, but from what you’re describing, you’re very much in the present. You know, you’re working together. You obviously have goals and directions and targets and everything else. You’ve got a strategy as I’d expect from Telstra but obviously, you know, there’s a sense of. Yeah, there’s a sense of comfort, obviously, and understanding and transparency around what it is that’s being communicated and what’s being expected and how everyone’s skills kind of play a role in making that a reality in some way. So it’s, it is quite grounded.

David Bradford: 46:07
Yeah. I almost wish you hadn’t asked because we’ve we launched our new app in 21. Yeah. 1. 8 stars in the app store. And we’ve risen it with. A dozen features a month, we’ve risen it to four stars now, and we’ve hit all of our targets for that. And for me the glory days of chasing that have passed and we’re in a, for me, a little bit of a lull at the moment, waiting for the next big challenge, whilst we’re focused on our big stuff in sales and but I’ve put my hand up on the agent exuberance. Improve that because you can’t have a nice experience without a good agent experience. And yes but there is a little bit of well, getting that new app out was crazy times and thriving in that chaos. Yeah. For me, wanting something like that again.

Chris Hudson: 46:57
Yeah, sometimes there’s a known, there’s a known target, obviously, that you’re aiming for, and it can be a rating, or it can be, some expectation that you can set quite tangibly, right? Yeah. But often there isn’t, and I’m wondering, from a, I guess, a more unknown point of view, how you and the team set up for, you know, unexpected things, there could be a market change, there could be innovation, that there’s AI, obviously, and other things, it’s fine when everyone knows exactly what they’re doing. And there’s a feature set to aim at, you know, stars to chase on the way on the reviews and the rankings. But do you, how do you set up for change and manoeuvrability anyway? Well,

David Bradford: 47:33
we when we launched we were trying to get everyone to a bot, which was called Kodi at the time. And it wasn’t up to it, you know, and customers reacted terribly to it. And so we had to pivot and change that quite dramatically. Yeah. Yeah. So that would be an example where something’s not gone to plan. And in fact, we’ve introduced different bots behind it now and a lot more. Data to drive it and everything but I think other organisations were playing with bots that time. And of course we had to close down our contact centres in the Philippines and elsewhere at the time. So, so yeah, really challenging time. And of course, people couldn’t go into our stores during COVID as well. So, and so, so our app was Well, it was a double edged sword, you know, it drove people to our app, but perhaps we weren’t quite ready. And in fact, we celebrated a hundred releases of our app just last week with cupcakes and things. And one of the things that I remember was how, when we first launched, it was very much MVP and a lot of things were just link houses, a webpage and spinning wheels. A lot of like tips to go to lives kind of thing. And really, I’m all praise to our digital team and the fact that we’ve gone back to those. So yeah, it’s really improved.

Chris Hudson: 48:54
Yeah, great. I mean, that’s a great outcome. And no racial like thinking about that story or maybe another that you’ve been involved with, you know, from a more personal point of view, maybe, or I guess from more of a human point of view, how do we best set ourselves up for change within an organisation? If you know that sort of thing is going to be happening, you know, there are ways to prepare the ways to manage the Through the process that you think worked really well. What are some of your personal coping mechanisms?

Rachel Zhang: 49:20
Oh, personal. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, even at Telstra, even when you when we know what we’re doing, it’s still such a big company. Like there’s so much history. There’s so much legacy. You almost need like a good bunch of people who are willing to talk and figure out stuff because you’re still We’re still trying to figure out, you know, who has done this or where has that been? And it’s not always like a smooth sailing, even when you’ve got a coherent team. And I think for me, personal stories of setting yourself up, I really do think that there’s no difficult projects, just difficult people. And I don’t mean that in like good, bad people way, but like sometimes if you’re set up with respect and something gets thrown in the spanner. And I think we had a multi brand moment. Last year where we, everyone’s needed to band together because we realised that because Telstra was rebranding, that was going to affect the design system that we were using, because it was meant to be based off of that and the implications of that were going to be huge. So there was already quite a good core team that everyone just kind of. Almost rang the alarm and we’re like, everyone, meet in the town square and you know, we pointed people to make the decisions to kind of respond quickly and we tasked, and then people were tasked to be like, okay, then you take this action. We go ahead and do that. But yeah, I really think the attitude sometimes makes those big rug pull out moments a lot easier to handle than if you felt like you were going to be a failure if something went wrong. And just having that security to be like, cool, we’re all in this together, we’re all just scratching our heads and we’re going to figure this out tends to make these yeah, these spanners in the works a little bit easier to deal with process wise.

Chris Hudson: 51:05
Yeah. I think also, like, I mean, from what you’re saying, in, in the normal situation, everyone’s seemed quite happy, feeling quite fulfilled. Attrition, as you say, David is pretty low. It feels like the team morale is good. So if you’re in a good. You know, if you’re coming from a good starting point into one of those situations and there’s a headwind or a crosswind or whatever you want to call it, there’s something that’s going down and you’ve basically got to get team into the town square to try and fix it. Then if people are already in that happy state coming into that, then that’s going to, that’s going to say something for how that works. Situation is handled if they’re in a position of stress and everyone is talking about mental health a little bit, but if they’re from the point of view of feeling a bit more vulnerable, feeling a bit more fragile not as yeah, I guess not as grounded in the work environment, feeling comfortable with it, then going to a situation that can be really confronting and actually quite bewildering and just A little bit hard to manage. So, so yeah, it can be that happens and it, you know, if the whole team, there might be team members, obviously, that are still feeling like that, but I think if the team is together, then the culture of positivity can shine through and you can get that sense of pragmatism and the can do attitude that you wouldn’t otherwise get.

David Bradford: 52:20
There’s a recognition that not everyone’s at a hundred percent every day as well. And you know, that we have that bad Tuesday or that bad March where something’s going on in our broader life. You know, for this little period, we need to just, you know, step down a gear kind of thing and keep the lights on. Yeah. And then come back stronger afterwards. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Hudson: 52:46
Tell me about that. Is that, an individual or a team is not at a hundred percent and you’re okay with that? How do you kind of observe it? How do you manage it? How do you respond to it?

David Bradford: 52:54
Well, I talked around one of the great things as a leader is seeing that everyone feels that when they come out of a presentation they’re focused on that one thing. But the other great thing as a leader is seeing that pretty much everyone in the team has got some kind of thing going on in their personal life at any one time. You know, so there’s always someone who’s dealing with family or like you say some wellbeing issue. You know, maybe pets just passed away or something like that. And you know, at any one time, there’s always someone who’s. Not at 100%, not even at 80%, because that person is really struggling every year at the end. For that time being, all you need to do is support that person and everyone in the squad needs to rally around them. In fact, we’ve got a case at the moment where everyone in the squad is doing a terrific job of seeing where they can put that person’s work, while that person takes off a few days. So, so yeah that, that recognition that we’re not all at a hundred percent.

Rachel Zhang: 53:54
And sometimes as well, like, you know, you, when you have your one on ones David might be like, do you need me to help or do you just need a vent? And there’s that safe space just to be like, you know, I just let out some steam. And then you know there’s no judgment you know that it’s just frustrations because people get frustrated and shit does happen. So it’s kind of that healthy balance as well if you don’t have everything to be positive all the time.

David Bradford: 54:20
I always thought that you had to, you couldn’t come to your manager with problems, you had to come to your manager. And in fact, someone said that to me just recently and I don’t think so at all. I think letting off steam with your manager is absolutely fantastic. Talking about it out loud helps you to come to the solution. We have something, I don’t remember it. We have something called grow where G is goal. What’s your goal? What are you trying to achieve? R is what’s the reality, you know, what’s actually going on. The O is your options. And so we try and get the person to come up with their own options rather. And then the W is what next, you know, what are we going to do now, kind of thing. And that R, that reality, you know, what’s the reality? Well, this person is not engaged. That’s not going to go right. We’ve got this barrier here. venting about that, because otherwise I wouldn’t know, you know, I wouldn’t know what the reality is and I would come up with some option that is in fantasy land, you know, so, so, yeah, I think it’s so good. And I won’t tell you which one of the team but one of the team had the most wonderful vent and, uh, profanity after profanity coming from their mouth about someone. And then use the weekend and we talk about emotions being like a wave so, so you can react to them more in three ways. You can you can try and push against the wave and that’s never going to work. You can go with the wave or you can just duck under and let the wave roll over you kind of thing. And then. Choose how you’re going to react to that emotion after a little bit of time has passed and and this person that was giving me all of this ranting and all of this profanity just a few days later, I’d come up with a really constructive way to work with the team member and did and in the following weeks, all of the praise was for this person and you know, really terrific example of how just having That vent and letting off steam really helps that person because that emotion was there, that emotion was there and they needed to express that emotion and then think about how they’re going to react.

Rachel Zhang: 56:35
Fart. You just got a fart. You’ve got that great handling conflict presentation as well, which I haven’t really seen. I think you should definitely talk about that because that’s such a human and necessary. learning skill that we don’t really always talk about.

David Bradford: 56:49
Yeah. I mean, I mean, I want to come up with when the team comes to me with that. I want to give them some really practical advice and I don’t want it to just be based on my knowledge. I want it to be based on real readings and things. So, There’s always going to be conflicts. There’s a conflict throughout the world. And it’s natural, you know, so, you’ll have a developer who wants to make something as robust as it can be. You want to make it as usable as it can be. And there’ll be a PO who wants it delivered yesterday. And that’s always going to bring tension. Yeah. And so, so I went and I did lots of courses on LinkedIn learning around handling conflict and ways to do so, and put together a pack about it around you know, sometimes taking a longer perspective or a broader perspective on something around the idea of perspective and my perspective on something is different to your perspective, Chris, and and the fact that if we’re arguing. It probably means that we’re both right. Because if if we if I was completely right, then you would see that I was right and we wouldn’t be arguing about something, disagreeing anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I put a lot of time into understanding those conflicts and and sharing that pack and sharing it and coaching both sides. Because I’m I was going to say, unfortunately, yeah, unfortunately I often the person in the middle is a chat to lead, you know, so the, for example, a pro tech who will come to me and say, so Sasha’s doing this and that they will share their view. And so, so I can coach both sides. You know, maybe that person wasn’t delivering what you wanted because get sufficient water.

Chris Hudson: 58:28
Yeah. Amazing. I mean, it sounds so good. I mean, you’re putting a lot of effort obviously into building the training foundation that, that’s not only right for you, but obviously will benefit the team around you as well. Which is the amazing thing. I’m going on a, you know, I’m going on a, you know, I’m going on a I don’t know what it is like, I’m going on a table making course and a cabinetry making course, because that’s companies can pay for it. I’ll do it in my spare time and then I’ll show you a picture. But what you’re describing is actually very relevant situations that you would face every day.

David Bradford: 58:59
That conflict just eats away at us, I think, Chris. And and if we if we just do what someone asks and and feel bitter about it then it just eats away at us and it doesn’t benefit anyone in the long term, you know, so, yeah, it’s really important to, to have ways of handling it, you know, and handling it appropriately and going for the win where you know, where we, you know, We both get something out of them rather than me fighting for it.

Chris Hudson: 59:28
No, I love it. And it’s, you know, it’s amazing to hear your stories today because I think and it’s really why I set this podcast, podcast up is really to kind of surface some of the experiences, but also the shared learnings and approaches to how to manage some of these situations, because it is, you know, if you work for Telstra, then obviously there’s a lot, there’s a lot of infrastructure there for helping people No matter where they are, but in some organisations that wouldn’t be the case. And so, yeah it’s really designed to have this conversation so that a lot of that, you know, that shared learning can be there and obviously to create positivity and impacts, you know, for the people that are probably struggling with similar things. You know, there are similar situations in other organisations that. You know, people really, you know, benefit from in terms of hearing you today. So really appreciate you both giving up the time and just having the chat and both coming on at once to just tell us about how you do things and how your experience has been. So thank you so much. Before we go, I just wanted to finish maybe one question and. You know, it was in something that we talked about probably within the pack that I sent around, but it’s more around your superpower. And, if you’re thinking of yourselves as, you’re pretty established within a large organisation and as entrepreneurs in your own ways, what, how would you describe your superpowers to the listeners and maybe based on some of the things you said it’ll all kind of place when you say it, but maybe it’d be something totally different. That’s okay too. Rachel, maybe we start with you.

Rachel Zhang: 1:00:48
Oh, my superpower. I feel like it’s just making jokes. Sometimes I, I feel like there’s some sort of spirit channeling through me and jokes just come out that take me by surprise and I find them funny. And sometimes I feel like, you know, diffusing situations or just making light of things. Cause life already can be pretty, pretty tough and I just feel like maybe that’s the one thing I bring to this earth on my tombstone and it’ll be like, she died laughing at least, you know, like something along those lines of

Chris Hudson: 1:01:18
something funny. Yeah.

Rachel Zhang: 1:01:22
I love it.

Chris Hudson: 1:01:22
Yeah.

Rachel Zhang: 1:01:23
I’m not even that funny, so I don’t even know if that counts as a superpower, but I enjoy it.

Chris Hudson: 1:01:28
Very good. Thanks, Rachel. And David, how about you?

David Bradford: 1:01:30
Yeah we touched on it a little bit, and funnily enough, it’s authenticity. So, I learned this when I failed an interview at one of the big four consultancies and I failed it because they said I was too authentic. I didn’t have enough bullshit and spin for the salesy consultancy role. Yeah. So, so they later got into a spot of bother and had to sell their consultancy for 1, but having been told that was my weakness I decided to embrace it, you know, screw them. And in fact, in my very first role, I was told that I win my heart. I think it’s come across in the book. The conversation with one of my team, Rachel here that that actually authenticity can work really well for you for the sexual environment that they have where you’re being so cruel. I

Rachel Zhang: 1:02:21
wish I’d been more profound now.

Chris Hudson: 1:02:24
Do you want to have another go? You can say something else. Or say something funny.

Rachel Zhang: 1:02:30
No, it’s all good. No, I think that is true. I do really think authenticity is shining through this team. And yeah, it is really nice. Cause then you feel like you can just say anything. Well, not anything, but you feel like you can bring your full self.

David Bradford: 1:02:44
And it’s helped me with two really important areas of my life. So one is to build confidence and we talked around how I’m a bit of an introvert. So, if you’re authentic, you’re never lying to people. And the other one is reducing stress, you know? So again if you’re authentic, then you’re easy to trust and you can grow the relationships that will grow your career.

Chris Hudson: 1:03:04
Yeah. Brilliant. And I like the fact that from what you were saying, David there’s something to be said for every person’s weakness. You know, you can look to your weakness to turn into a strength at any point. And I feel like a lot of people would dwell on that as just being weakness and that, that’s just a given for the rest of the day, till the end of days, but actually you can turn it into something really positive as you’ve shown today. So I really appreciate you sharing that perspective.

David Bradford: 1:03:26
Great.

Chris Hudson: 1:03:27
And thank you so much, Rachel, as well, for coming onto the show and for sharing your stories and perspectives. It’s just amazing to have you both. I feel spoiled to have spoken to you both at the same time. Great to chat. Thanks, Chris.

Okay, so that’s it for this episode. If you’re hearing this message, you’ve listened all the way to the end. So thank you very much. We hope you enjoyed the show. We’d love to hear your feedback. So please leave us a review and share this episode with your friends, team members, leaders if you think it’ll make a difference.

After all, we’re trying to help you, the intrapreneurs kick more goals within your organisations. If you have any questions about the things we covered in the show, please email me directly at chris@companyroad.co. I answer all messages so please don’t hesitate to reach out and to hear about the latest episodes and updates.

Please head to companyroad.co to subscribe. Tune in next Wednesday for another new episode.