Return on Connection with Peggy Renders from Telstra [PODCAST]

Peggy:
I think networking has that feel too. You go to an event, you get a name tag, you get a drink in hand, and then you’re looking around, who can I talk to, who looks a bit similar, you know, where can I build rapport the quickest? But for me, networking is when I go to my running club and there’s somebody new popping up who just moved from Sydney and they’re like, Oh, what do you do?
And how, and it’s, it’s just life. It’s just. Every person you connect to it in life, that’s networking to me.


Kerry:
Hello, and welcome to the Inclusion at Work podcast. Today, we are lucky to be joined by Peggy Renders, Chief Customer Officer at Telstra. In today’s discussion, we’re going to be looking at the power of connection in many forms. And Peggy is going to help us think a bit more about that topic by delving into some research that Telstra have conducted into this topic recently.
But before we do that, Peggy, we’d just love to hear a bit more about you, your background, how you’ve come to the work that you do. Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m Belgian. I might just put that out there, so people don’t wonder where I come from and trying to pick the accent. and the work I do, so chief customer officer, it’s been a very natural evolution for me to land in the job that I’m in.


Peggy:
I actually started my career as an auditor. And that didn’t last very long because I realized very early on that I prefer helping people and fixing problems than actually pointing out where the problems are. so since then I’ve been in advisory roles, consulting, a lot of sales, leadership, and, across a couple of different continents, countries, and landed at Telstra two and a half years ago.


Phil:
Beautiful. And just kind of building on that and building a bridge to the theme we’re going to talk about today, which is connection. It might be a good jumping off point for you to define how you think about connection or more broadly how Telstra thinks about connection as well. And yeah, I’d love for you to expand on that.


Peggy:
Yeah. I think when you come to my age, and not that I’m old, but just saying when you’re a bit more mature, it’s really important to work for an organisation where its purpose is closely connected to what you stand for. And I joined Telstra because I was deeply inspired by its purpose, which is to build a connected future so everyone can thrive.
And, it’s pretty obvious when you think about Telstra and you think about connection, well, that comes back to the physical, the networks, the fibre, everything we install in the ground to make sure that Australia as a nation is connected. but to me and to Telstra, it actually goes a fair bit further because that’s just a foundation.
To make every other connection possible. So if you think about, tech, if you think about data AI, the volumes of data are just exploding and to still make sense of the data, but also to have meaningful connection as a human being by leveraging the technology, you just need a really solid network. So how I look at it and Telstra is the same is it’s the network, the connection, but then that allows, that’s the foundation for every other human connection to happen in this very tech fuel, fuelled world that we live in.


Kerry:
And I guess maybe now it’s worth talking about how that links through to the research that you’ve been conducting. Yeah. so maybe let me take a step back, Gary, and. Start with where it came from, the idea to do the research, and that came from, we have a lot of customers at Telstra across the country, and, they are all organised in industry verticals.


Peggy:
And one of those industry verticals is mining. And with the miners, it’s always about really long term planning, like where are they going to explore? Where are they going to invest in new assets to, to find more resources and create more wealth for themselves and for the country? So that longer term planning really required us to collaborate with them very closely because wherever they go, In five or 10 years from now, we need to make sure that we have our capital or investment funding, everything lined up to go there as well, because they will need connection.
They will need Telstra as well to be there. So we started a customer advisory board and the mining customer advisory board was the first one where we brought about 10, C level execs from the big miners and the smaller miners together in a room. And we started having this. Very constructive, conversation around where are you going?
Where are you investing and what are we doing? What are we working on? What are we developing to get closer alignments? And that was the inspiration for us to do the research on return on connection, because we realized there was so much goodness in talking openly and, even putting competitive pressures aside for the bigger good and for a win outcome for all.
all involved. Collaboration with the miners and the mining companies really inspired us to do the research. So we engaged an independent organisation to talk to about thousands Australian organisations, to the, the senior leaders in those organisations and to ask them how well are they connected? Do they have an external network?
what are the challenges they are faced with? what’s the value of the network or of the collaboration for them? what is holding them back for not connecting more? And what came out of that was one third of the leaders in Australian organisations, the senior leaders, Don’t really have an external network and it becomes two thirds in public sector organisations.
So when you line that up with, we then look at the organisations where the leaders are very well connected, how are they performing? And we, we clearly saw that the revenue is bigger and, the year 5 percent higher than the organisations that are not that well connected. So there is value in connecting and then.
Everyone even who’s not connected commented on, they would absolutely, they see the value in it. they already have ideas around what’s the benefits that could come out of that. They just, don’t do it or don’t prioritize it. So it was really interesting research and, something that is very close to my heart because all the customers, I see the same and same challenges popping up everywhere.
And it doesn’t matter what type of organisation you’re in. the cost pressures, the lack of innovation, implementing tech and the challenges that come with that. So, I think there’s a bit of work to be done in Australia. you mentioned that, Peggy, the bottom line kind of 5 percent increase on revenue for kind of.


Phil:
Well connected leaders and well connected organisations. But I’m wondering if we could make that, you know, a bit more, even more explicit for the audience in terms of why that might be the case. You know, what are some of the things that connection brings to organisations that would cause that? I think it’s really interesting that kicked off this kicked off with a conversation with an industry that is I would say in a period of transition and change and flux.
You know, the mining industry is an industry that’s, you know, under some scrutiny and has got a lot of change in its future if it wants to remain relevant. So I think that that probably leads us into some of the areas you might talk about. But I’d love to hear what your what your thoughts are there.


Peggy:
Yeah, my many thoughts. But the one that stands out for me is that, I think collaboration within the same industry, might happen a bit more, but cross industry, it’s a little bit more rare and learning from others from a different industry is very, very valid. And I will make it a little bit more personal, but I have a background for 25 years and, software and what happened in software, 15, 20 years ago was a transition from on premise software to clouds, which had a lot of different dynamics with it.
And it came to how do you go to market? How do customers buy from you? Where does the risk sit and? I think we’re going down the same path in telco, so I feel I’m in a very fortunate position in my role because there’s a lot of learnings that I’ve had from my career outside of telco that I’m applying in the work we do, but I see it.
Every customer I speak to, and even speaking to some of the federal agencies of government, having the 10 biggest agencies together in one room, and we spoke about AI and the value of AI and the risks associated with AI and the approach, the, The chair of that committee literally said to me, it’s so important that we mix industry and public sector together because the problems we are facing today in our economy, because we can’t solve them on our own anymore.
And if I can just maybe give one other example, something I’m also really passionate about is scams. So if you think about Telstra, we do a lot of good for the country. Not everybody might be across. So, natural disasters, emergency services, we work with defence, we focus on First Nations, regional connectivity, so a lot of things we do behind the scenes.
But scams is a problem that all most vulnerable people are faced with, and it happens every day. The regulation is not fully there yet as to who needs to do what. To prevent scams, but we’ve taken the initiative to work with CBA. So CBA is one of our customers and we looked at. Their customer base and their data sets, and we overlapped that with the customers that are Telstra customers.
So the joint customers, both CBA and Telstra customers, we developed with AI a way to stop, to prevent scams when they happen in the moment. So we block things so they can’t, the vulnerable can’t log online to their bank account and start transferring up a lot of money. and then the thinking was, well, We are protecting now a slice of the population.
How can we protect all of Australia and however much we want all of the Australians to be Telstra customers, and I’m sure CBA would want all of them to be CBA customers. They’re not. There’s the other banks and there’s the other telcos. So with our, Quantium Telstra joint venture, we’ve established project Catch, where we are collaborating with all the telcos and the banks to protect all of Australia.
So, there’s a lot of value filled to be gained from connecting and working together. I think one, it’d be remiss of us if we didn’t kind of bring this back to the topic of kind of inclusion. And one of certainly my favourite books on the topic is called is a rebel ideas by Matthew side. anyone who knows me knows I cite this book frequently, but he talks about this concept of combinatorial innovation.


Phil:
So yeah, bringing together and there’s lots of different examples in that book of bringing together different industries, different schools of thought and coming out with these new and novel solutions to emerging problems and challenges for industries. So I think when leaders and industry are thinking about their networks thinking.
Outside of the box and outside of who I’m, you know, immediately and obviously connected to is a good idea. And just on I just remembered an idea the other day or a piece of news. I heard from the UK. One of the telco providers there on the on the scam front. It was the best use of AI. I think I’ve heard yet.
Which was, they’ve developed an AI chat bot, which pretends to be a vulnerable customer to waste the scammers time. So it will, it will stay online with the scammer and kind of just go through loops of going to look for documents and stuff. And of course, nothing comes of it, but it wastes the waste the scammers time.
And I thought that was, I just thought that was fun. Yeah, that’s a great example. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the thing I just wanted to build on was around diversity of thought, because I think that’s a big reason, from my perspective, that we’re seeing that. Benefit to businesses and to leaders in terms of, why strong networks link through, and I think often when we think about diversity, we know from the people that we work with, we quite often think just from an identity perspective.


Kerry:
So just thinking about things like gender or ability or cultural background, but actually organisational diversity and experience you’ve had in the organisational world absolutely affects. So if we’re bringing those different types of thought together, that’s when we’re going to get better solutions, better ideas, better problem solving and the collaboration piece that you’ve touched on a lot, I think was part of what excited us about the report because we need that collaboration to be able to unlock.
That diversity of thought. So we really liked that when you first spoke to us about this report. It requires also a bit of vulnerability, because nobody has the answer to some of those new challenges, but sometimes admitting that you don’t and just bouncing off each other and getting some ideas requires a different approach, I think, and a different way of Us showing up and leaders showing up and that’s something that I think is very exciting about the era we’re in and how fast everything is evolving and how we just, bring in ideas, indeed, experiences from not just a work life, but all of the roles we play in life.


Peggy:
Like I’m a mom, I’m a friend, I’m a, partner, a daughter, all of that. So how. All the interactions and connections you have in life, how do you bring that into your approach at work? Because it’s all one, it’s all connected. Yeah, 100%. There was an article recently that said that one of the most powerful phrases you can say as a leader is, I don’t know.


Kerry:
Because as soon as you’ve said you don’t know, it opens up the floor for other people to not know, but also to suggest ideas. And I think what you’re saying there around vulnerability is Absolutely true. And we talk a lot about that in our workshops, but the additional vulnerability required when you’re with peers from different industries and potentially competitors becomes really, really interesting.
And how you’ve managed that with some of the projects that you mentioned. How? Yeah. Any insights into how you’ve helped leaders do that? I think you hit it nail on the head, Kerry. It’s about how you show up. And I think it comes as well. self-confidence and believing in your worth and your value and your capabilities that, like for me, I have a lot to offer, but I don’t know everything.


Peggy:
I’m still newish in telco. There’s a lot of things that I’m learning about that I didn’t necessarily know, but I’m very comfortable saying to all of my team, Hey, help me out. What does that abbreviation even stand for? or also being brave enough to say, what, why do we. Do that or why do we focus for so many hours on, I know the numbers of the last two years, why don’t we, we know it’s not great.
So why don’t we build a plan of making it better? So I don’t know. It’s, it’s, yeah, I think it’s bravery and vulnerability combined that. I really think can be quite effective. I think the there’s a phrase from Adam Grant, the organisational psychologist. He calls it confident humility, and he’s identified that as the kind of mix of, you know, personality traits that really are the unlock for effective collaboration and effective leadership.


Phil:
And I think it’s the same thing. Same thing with slightly different language. I’m really curious, Peggy, for your insight here and maybe some of the points from the report. So the benefits to connections seem really clear and really compelling. So from an organisational perspective, we’re solving these big challenges, we’re driving growth, we’re driving innovation.
From an individual perspective, it seems pretty clear that it’s a good thing, too. You know, we get more human connection, which is obviously a good thing, but we create more opportunities for ourselves. We generate ideas. What are some of the barriers, so why is it not happening as much as it should? I’m blanking on the stats off the top of my head, but a significant number of leaders identified from the report didn’t have external or even strong internal networks.
So why aren’t people taking the time to do this? What’s getting in the way for them? Yeah. The, the three main reasons that popped up, first of all, competitive, competitive, competitiveness in the relation or the appearance of the competitiveness and, just maybe a bit of fear around that.


Peggy:
The second one is lack of time. And the third one that showed up was, different priorities and, Again, the diversity aspect is really important there. So I think that might play out differently for different groups or different people with different backgrounds. And if I just think about lack of time and different priorities, that one.
became very apparent to me when I became a parent because, as a woman, and as a mother, there is a lot you have to deal with and a lot of different roles you play in life and a lot of things to organise and, and juggle. And I realized, That when I returned to work after becoming a parent, I felt that I was like this highly, efficient machine, but all the nice to haves, as how I perceive them, I just cut out.
I didn’t go out for coffees anymore with colleagues. I didn’t do any networking events. I was just so structured and organised and from one thing to the next and trying to juggle it all. And I’m not saying that all women have that and also not saying that anyone else doesn’t have that same challenge.
But what I’ve realized is that it’s probably in because of how I look at networking or how I looked at it. Aims. put it in the category of nice to have that I didn’t make the time for it because I always have time to do a customer meeting or I always find the time to, I don’t know, to do a podcast or to do something that I think that’s really important to get the message out, get your results.
But somehow for networking, I didn’t feel that it was as high in my priority list. And therefore I didn’t give it enough time. So, the lesson learned for a lot of that work for me is I’ve made it very intentional and I’ve really, re clarified or re defined in my head that it’s not a nice to have. I need to have yellow, I call it yellow in my calendar, because anything yellow is external.
And when I don’t have enough yellow, I say to my EA, where is my yellow? I need yellow. I love that as a way of keeping yourself accountable to it, just being able to glance at the calendar and say, I’m not doing anything this week that’s yellow. Okay. How do I, how do I then, bring that in? That, that’s, that’s a really good tip.


Phil:
I love it. I’m going to start doing that. I’m going to take that idea. And I think there’s probably two parts there, isn’t there? Because this is an individual telling yourself it’s important and understanding why it matters to you. But then also organisationally and culturally, the organisation accepting that this is something valuable and that this isn’t just something someone just wants to go and have a load of coffee.


Kerry:
We need the organisation to actually stand, understand that. Why as well. So there’s probably a couple of different levels we have to. Prove value on completely, and I think, just to jump in on that. I think it, it’s part of the culture of an organisation, and it’s very hard to put a finger on it as to why don’t some organisations collaborate and network more than others.


Peggy:
and I think it might come back to. What’s the position you’ve had in the market? Have you been more a challenger or a monopoly? It can also come back to, do you need to collaborate to get to growth? it can also come back to just that. cultural piece of how much importance do you, the senior leaders in an organisation, do you attach to networking?
Do you lead by example? Do you even, if, if there is no organisations or networking events out there that you think would be of value, do you even take the initiative of setting some up yourself and encouraging your people to be part of that? I think what’s interesting here as well, and I think this is one of the benefits of having a piece of research like this that can be read and also pointed to an organisational perspective is that I think one of the reasons why it gets put on the back burner, as you said, Peggy before, and for very good reasons, you know, we only we all only have so many hours in a day and most people’s days are quite full.


Phil:
So it does require us to prioritize and make time for it. And one of the reasons why I think it gets deprioritized is the benefits are often long term and non obvious. And there’s not a linear, I will have, I’ll go for a coffee with Peggy and, and I will have a great idea. Although I’m sure I would if I went for a coffee with you, Peggy, but the benefits are not one to one like that.
It’s you’ve, you’ve, you’ve got to have a lot of coffees and you’ve got to have a lot of conversations and. It might just plant the seed of an idea that won’t germinate for another three months when somebody else mentioned something. So I think it’s that kind of long term and non linear benefit that makes it more difficult for leaders and organisations to prioritize it.
And I think that’s where pointing to the sort of stats that you’ve generated in the report can be really, really useful and go as an organisation. And as a leader, we value this, so we will make time for it. And it could also be the butterfly effect, which is even harder to measure because imagine we do have a coffee and you come up with a great idea after a couple of months, or you would come home and speak to your friends about, Hey, this came up today in a discussion and I’m thinking this, this, this, and then your friend goes away and starts talking to somebody else.


Peggy:
So it has this butterfly effect, but very, very hard. To measure that. But I believe in it. So, and the report is showing that it is working. Can we stop it for a moment and just talk about what we mean by networking? Because I know that networking can be a dirty word and for a lot of people, it can fill them with absolute dread.


Kerry:
But I think networking is much broader than some of us might think. It’s not just those really awkward drinks. So maybe you could talk a bit more about what networking actually means in terms of how you’ve been thinking about it, Peggy. At Leaders for Good, we have a proven track record of helping clients from a wide range of different industries create lasting culture change.


Phil:
We achieve this by developing impactful diversity, equity and inclusion strategies, by delivering highly effective workshops and programs, and by leading change initiatives that truly work at scale. So if you’re enjoying this conversation and would like to talk to us about accelerating your organisation’s DEI efforts, let us know.
Please reach out at hello at leaders for good dot org to me. It’s a new experience. It’s being exposed to something that you’re not very familiar with. it can be a bit scary because it’s not controlled. I wanted to say it doesn’t have an agenda. However, I do feel it should have an agenda. And before I meet someone or someone new, I’m not sure if you do that, but I do have a quick think What is that person?


Peggy:
Or what do I think of that person? What do I think could be of value to that person? And what do I want to get out of it? So those are the three little checks that I do in my head. So it does kind of have an agenda, but it’s not as defined as showing up for yet another, zoom call or teams call where somebody puts up a PowerPoint presentation and takes you through the content and the agenda.
It is very unstructured, which requires a bit of that self confidence that. You will have something valuable to say in whatever area that is, but for me, it is being comfortable with exploring a lot of different aspects in the connection, not knowing up front where it will land. And for me, networking, it’s, um.
I agree. I think networking has that feel too. You go to an event, you get a name tag, you get a drink in hand, and then you’re looking around. Who can I talk to? Who looks a bit similar? You know, where can I build rapport the quickest? But for me, networking is when I go to my running club and there’s somebody new popping up who just moved from Sydney and they’re like, Oh, what do you do?
And how? And it’s, it’s just. Life. It’s just every person you connect to it in life. That’s networking to me. Connection is probably a nicer word, hey? Yeah, it is. And couldn’t agree more that the amount of interesting conversations, more interesting conversations I’ve had, you know, going to, you know, I’ve got two young kids and going to one of the kids daycare, kids at daycares birthday parties and you get chatting to the other parents and you find out they do something really fascinating in a really cool industry and you have a good, have a good chat about it.


Phil:
And again, that could be germinating the ideas. And I think, I think that yeah. For thinking about the topic of diversity as well and thinking about people who have different communication styles, maybe people who are more introverted, people who are maybe more geographically remote, for example, and how networking can and should look different for all of those, those, those different folk and those different groups, I think is really interesting.
So I think if you’re struggling with or you you’re listening to this and you have a story in your head, and I certainly have been guilty of this in the past that I don’t like for those of you just listening. I’m throwing up scare quotes here. Like I don’t like networking, maybe reframing what networking is even parasocial networking as in listening to a podcast.
You know, the people listening to us and germinating, you know, getting you. Hopefully some ideas from this conversation could be an opportunity. Feel free to reach out. We’ll go for a go for a coffee afterwards. You know, that’s that that could be a jumping off point for a conversation. It, you know, it could be virtual.
It could be, you might say, just in life. So broadening the net of what networking means to you, I think is super interesting. It’s the inspiration piece. I think you’re touching on there that for me. So we went from networking. Maybe it should be more connecting. And what lights me up is. That I learned something new and I get a little bit inspired, for whatever area in my life and definitely also business around how to approach a challenge differently or how to grow, how to grow better, more, um.


Peggy:
With the information I’ve just received, and the energy element is also really important. I feel that what energy do you put in the connections you have, because it definitely, you feel it and it shows if you don’t, if you don’t really want to be there because then you’re blocking off, you will not learn anything new and you will definitely not give away anything or share anything of value that others can benefit from.


Kerry:
I’m just going to pull back to one other thing that we talked about a fair bit in terms of diversity when you talked about the networking events and that it’s our tendency to go and find someone that looks kind of similar to us, which is absolutely human nature. That’s affinity bias. We tend to be predisposed to people that look and sound like us because it feels safe and familiar, but Personal experience.
And I guess the data as well shows us that if we find someone that’s very different to us, we’re probably more likely to have a different type of conversation. We’re more likely to learn more, and that’s going to end up being more productive in terms of those outcomes you talked about, but also often a lot more interesting.
So just wanted to mention that one. And it also translates into leadership and how you build your leadership team. My team at Telstra is amazing, but they such, they’re also different. I have a Kiwi, I have a, a Scottish soccer coach. I have all these different, I have introverts, extroverts. And somehow when you put them together, it’s the most amazing, beautiful team who just hangs together.


Peggy:
Even when I’m not there, they catch up and do, Nice things and, it just works, but I feel you need to be quite intentional with not just building that, but also looking at the teams that they will have to manage what is the identity of that team and what do you need to bring in as a leader to just.
Change it up a bit because, same, same, same, same, same for me just doesn’t give me the results that we need. We talk a lot about, cultural ad versus culture fit. so you’re looking for people who bring something new and add to the culture, not just more of the same when, when thinking about the composition of a team, organisation, whatever it might be.


Phil:
And I think Peggy, what you just described there, which is when you do have a diverse team that come from. You know, many different backgrounds with lots of different experience. It does require that intentional, inclusive leadership and that in, you know, that leaning in to make it, really work. And when you do it, there’s that, and I, I heard it in your voice there.
I think that that vibrancy and that energy that comes out from it and that, you know, that, that positive momentum. I’m wondering if to start capping the conversation off, we could bring together some of those practical, actionable, potential suggestions or ideas. So either at an organisational level.
So what can organisations do to support their leaders in developing Thank you. developing their connections, and what can leaders do, to, to build those, those professional connections? What are some of the, and we can, we can re highlight some of the things we’ve covered before or anything else new that comes to mind?


Peggy:
Yeah, maybe a small recap on first, maybe the individual, what you can do, and then the organisation. So as an individual, I would start with the yellow. If you remember what that means, so the yellow, intentionally make sure you have yellow in your calendar, which shows you’re connecting with someone externally.
and it’s very easy to see when you open your calendar, what does my week look like? Well, there’s no yellow. I’m not liking that. Change that. So very intentional. Second one would be for me, those, that little checklist in your head before you meet someone. What’s that person like, or what perception do I have?
What’s the value I can bring, or I think I can bring, and what is something I would like to get out of that connection? and then the third one would be, if you’re really struggling, start maybe small with joining some organisations that are close to your purpose in life and your, what you stand for.
because that will allow you to more easily establish rapport because you feel you are connecting or networking with a clear objective, which is something you’re passionate about and then brings out the right energy. So those are the individual ones on the organisation. I would say number one is identify culture of the organisation you’re in and whether the networking is accepted or is it.
encouraged or not really, and of course, is it, if it’s not fully there, then the second step for me would be, see if there is individuals in the organisation who do network, good role models is really important. So look at what, oh, they are part of like CW chief executive women or I will get on that as well.
So just do that. And then. Lastly, for organisations, I like a bit of that challenger mindset. And if there is no clear, networking connection agenda, you can create it. don’t wait for other people to do that for you. If you’re passionate about it, do it yourself. I did that long time ago. I set up a, a group of female senior execs.
and we. We came together every quarter and we had this career advisory board where we would pitch to each other and give each other tips around. We thought about that. What about that? And, that has given me lifelong, extremely strong connections that I still have now. And we still rely on each other when we’re stuck or we need some advice.
So don’t wait for others to solve it for you if you’re passionate about it to it yourself. Beautiful. Kerry, any, any builds, any other cherries to put on top of that? No, I just, I think the only thing that I wanted to mention was something you shared earlier, which was just in those networking or connection moments, it’s about, it is that vulnerability, it’s being willing to share.


Kerry:
And I think we often see, especially when there’s competitive organisations, people are shut down, they don’t want to share. And if you’re not sharing, then it’s just not going to get anywhere. So, but what you see, and we’ve all done this in conversations, is when you are open. It makes the other person open as well.
And I think that’s where the magic happens. But if you can’t get past that first barrier, then they’re not productive conversations within don’t get inspired and excited. And then we don’t want to do. More of them. So it sort of closes the loop. So I think, yeah, just that openness in those conversations is so important, I think, just to bring that back to something we talk about a lot in our workshops is that mindset of humility, curiosity and compassion.


Phil:
That’s so important. So recognizing that there’s so much I don’t know about myself and the world and other people and curiosity is that active leaning in and being curious and trying to find out new things and that compassion like it’s okay that you find this Difficult sometimes and also compassion for other people that they might find it difficult to and being the person who maybe goes first.
Sometimes if you’re comfortable doing that, and I guess one final practical tip from an individual level, that I found tremendously helpful is if you’re struggling to build a network, there’s plenty of people who are happy to make introductions as well. So it’s leveraging the people you already know and saying, Hey, I’m interested in it.
Such and such. Is there anyone I should chat to in the organisation and just, you know, it might be asking your boss or a colleague and just saying, Hey, hey, who should I speak to? And nine times out of 10, they will be happy to make an email introduction and you can go from there. So there’s some really easy ends to start building a network like that.


Kerry:
Yeah, I think that’s a great tip. I’m learning lots as well, thank you. So we’ve got a couple to close off. Is there anything else you wanted to say on any of that topic? Otherwise, we’ve got a couple of getting to know you questions to give the audience a little bit more insight into what you like to get up to, Peggy.
No, I’m good. Interesting that you put them at the end. Sometimes we do them at the beginning in terms of how we structure the show to get people to be a bit more warmed up, but yeah, we, let’s jump into some and then we can see how we go. So the first one is what obsessions do you explore on evenings or weekends?


Peggy:
I have a couple, My first one is I like sport, I like physical activity, and I like people. So that’s the magic combination for me, to be active with a group of people. So I’m in a running club, and I’m in an ocean swimming club, and I’m in a boxing club. And that has allowed me to connect with the community very quickly and very nicely.
And then the other big one for me is new experiences. So I, I just love doing new things because It makes me feel alive. Beautiful. there’s nothing quite like sport, hey, to bring people together and foster that connection. I remember first getting to Australia, I joined a triathlon club and it was pretty much all expats at the time.


Phil:
And it was all people again, as well as enjoying the sport, but looking, looking for that, looking for that connection and that social circle. So yeah, beautiful. Who, what organisations do you admire for the good they do in the world, besides Telstra, of course?


Peggy:
A different spin on that is, it’s not like I’m not going to pick one big organisation, but I’ve come across something that really touched me. in six months ago, I did the Kokoda Trail in PNG. And, there’s a couple of organisations who take people, on that trail, well, like, on worldwide, adventures, and, and there’s other organisations there as well.
And what I’ve, I’ve found, Outstanding when it comes to leadership and doing good, because what they did is they, they engage with the local community and this was a Chikoda. So it was girls only. It was really fun. And the, the organisation I was with, they are working with the locals out of the different villages and tribes and the men out of those villages.
They have become all fuzzy, fuzzy angels. So they were all guides on the trail. But what that does is we connected beautifully with them. We were like family after 10 days or nine days together on, on a pretty challenging thing. we, we got to know them, but also they got paid pretty well. They got to see, we gave them stuff and.
They would take that back into their community and they learned a lot about Australia as well. And we learned about their culture. So for me, that’s, it’s not a very out there example of a big organisation, but it’s many little ones that I now believe exists and having experienced the impact they have on community and on people for me, that’s outstanding.
And yeah, I. I was blown away. I love that, Peggy. And, I don’t know if we’ve actually ever spoken to you, but 50 percent of our profits, we invest in local organisations, primarily overseas. And that’s one of our big criteria is that they have to be locally owned and run. They have to be supporting employment in local communities.


Kerry:
So yeah, we’re definitely very aligned to that as a way of thinking. Well, one of the ladies, so my leader for that track, she, she used to work for the army and she did have PTSD, but a very strong female leader and very passionate about what happened in, in the war and, and just. Beautiful person. She’s now setting up her own organisation because she was working for someone now doing around and it just keeps on spreading.


Peggy:
Although the Kokoda trail is closed now, there’s lots of stuff happening there, but they exist elsewhere in the world as well. yeah, I’m deeply passionate about it now. Great. So, one final question for you then. Anything you’ve been inspired by recently that the audience might be interested in? So it could be a book, it could be a movie, it could be a show.


Kerry:
Anything that’s made you think a bit differently or felt inspired? Yeah, I do like books, but I struggle to stay awake when I read. I typically don’t watch TV because I do have a full life, but my partner got me hooked into this series. And it’s a bit, it’s the diplomat, female American ambassador, and I’m still watching it.


Peggy:
And what I love about that is the, so a couple of the ingredients of stuff I really like, I like the strong female, hero or lead figure. It has made me reflect a lot on what I’m seeing and I’m not always liking it because I actually feel that I like the feistiness in her and the resilience but I’m lacking sometimes the female side and the femininity coming through and it makes me just reflect more on how we as females show up as a leader and how The people we’re surrounded with definitely in the diplomats, there’s a lot of males around and some really nice ones, some not so nice ones.
How we sometimes as females react to that and what it triggers in us and yeah, I didn’t expect, to be so reflective over a, like a cheeky little Netflix series, but I am very reflective. I might, my, my partner watches The Diplomat, so I’ve not seen any episodes, but I’ve kind of seen it, you know, walking through the, walking through the living room, but I might have to watch it with that, with that lens in mind now, just to, just to appreciate what you’re, what you’re talking about.


Phil:
Peggy, thank you so much for the conversation. that was absolutely fascinating. and any, any parting words for the, for the audience before we, before we let you go? Yeah, I do like what you stand for. because for me, leadership is about unshackling or unlocking the goodness in others. And so I was very excited for the invite, and I do like what you stand for, so I would love to stay in touch, and I will listen to all of your podcasts.


Peggy:
When I’m running. Oh, beautiful. Thank you so much. Perfect running listening. Yeah. I was going to say, endorsement of Leaders for Good as a final thought is something we can definitely get behind. thank you so much. Yep. And you can find a link to the Return on Connection report that Peggy mentioned in our show notes.


Kerry:
If you got value from this episode, please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on future conversations. And if you’d like to talk about anything DEI and culture change, please get in touch with us. [email protected].
Thank you. Appreciate it. If you’d like to connect as well. Thank you.
Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Inclusion at Work podcast. If you’d like to help others benefit from the conversation you just heard, the most impactful thing you can do is share it with a friend. You can also give us a rating or a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts.


Phil:
And of course, if you’d like to talk to us about accelerating your organisation’s DEI efforts, or if you’d like to provide feedback on anything you heard. Today, you can reach us at hello leaders for good.