The State of Purpose with Rich Hirst & Dani Matthews [PODCAST]

Phil: What is the state of purpose driven organisations at the moment here in Australia? How are people winning and what are they struggling with? That’s the topic of today’s conversation with Rich Hurst and Dani Matthews of Tenfold Australia. Rich is ceodenny is Chief Impact Officer. Tenfold is a purpose driven organisation that provides a range of development experiences to improve the performance and the wellbeing of country leadership teams for global businesses, you’ll hear more about them and their backgrounds and Tenfolds mission in the episode.

And we dive into a range of topics. So this is a, a really broad discussion. So Kerry, Rich, Dani and I all touch on what we see working really well for organisations that are trying to enact meaningful change here in Australia. What are we seeing work? What are the lessons that you can draw from that? What are organisations being challenged by?

And again, what are the lessons we can extract? We also hear from some leaders in this space, some of which are past podcast guests as well. So that was a, that was a nice treat. Uh, and what they’re seeing out there in the world, really fun conversation, really rich conversation. You’ll want a, uh, pad and pen for all of the references we make to books and resources. Um, that’s something that we, we geek out on a little bit. Anyway. That’s enough of a preamble from me without further ado, we bring you Rich Hurst and Dani Matthews.

We’ve been chatting to Tenfold, um, on and off for what the last couple of years, really. And we’re both organisations that are deeply passionate about purpose were organisations that are focused on different things in the space. And there was so much commonality. And every time we came together, there was such a rich discussion about what we were seeing, what we were hearing, what was working, what was not working that we thought it would be, um, remiss us not to have an on mic conversation and not to, in the spirit of abundance, share with you all, uh, what we’re seeing, what we’re hearing out there in the world of purpose. So, uh, welcome Richand welcome Dani.

Rich: Thanks so much, Phil. Great to be here.

Dani: Thanks Phil. Excited to be here.

Phil: So by way of introduction, we we’ll start the way we usually do. And, um, and ask, you know, who, who are you and, and how do you come to do the, how do you come to do the work you are, you are doing now.

And, and because I know this is going out to a, a broader audience as well. We we’ll answer the, uh, we’ll answer the same question too, but maybe Dani, we start with you if that’s okay.

Dani: Thanks, Phil and Kerry. Thanks for having us here today. Who am I? That’s a, yeah. A big question.

Phil: So existential existential for this time of the morning,

Dani: I’m currently a mum in ISO. So like many people out there doing, um, doing the juggle with work life and home life and homeschooling. Um, but I’m very grateful to. To have mild symptoms. So not to be too in distress here. So I I’ll start with my personal purpose, which is really to connect people, mainly leaders and share learning to promote inspiration and try and promote positive action.

My mantra is be the change and I so topical today to talk about purpose. And I just think it’s all gotta start with us individually and walking the talk and being the change. Rich and I, this is our second time working together and we are just both very aligned on values. Family always comes first. We said, when we started Tenfold, let’s keep the main thing, the main thing. And that’s sort of, you know, at the core of everything. Um, but we used to have ginger shots and ideate that one day we’d change the world together. So we’re grateful to be on the journey. And here we.

Phil: I’m just, just to double click on that ginger shots.

Dani: Yeah.

Phil: What’s a ginger shot?

Rich: It’s the secret Phil. It’s the secret of all great innovation. So you gotta go out there and find your source of great ginger shots.

Okay. Wonderful. I, I I’ll put that on the to-do list. Rich, how about you?

Yeah, thanks, Phil. And hi, Kerry. Uh, we, yeah, I’m a dad of, I’ve got, uh, five kids and, uh, and a very exhausted wife who seems to be able to juggle everything and support me in, in my endeavors.

Uh, but we’re pretty good team. And. And sharing the load and working from remotely working, uh, our, we work from home. And so it’s been really nice actually to, to sort of blend, uh, all our roles together and work together much more efficiently and effectively over the last couple of years.

Uh, my personal purpose, as Dani mentioned she, hers, mine is to build and restore relationships, which might sound a little bit different, but I’ve always been very passionate about the, the power of connection and, and how we’re always better together most of the time, sometimes not. Uh, but more often than not, we are better together.

And I’m a big believer in this concept of collective intelligence and how important it is that, you know, we can’t possibly know everything. But we can always know someone who knows whatever we need to know if we have a powerful enough network. So that’s part of the vision, but it comes right down to individual relationships between couples and kids and families.

And, and then that’s sort of, as you’ll soon, hear is really kind of what we do in Tenfold Australia as well. It’s all about building and restoring relationships, certainly the building side, but sometimes the restoring as well.

Phil: Beautiful. Thanks Rich. Kerry?

Kerry: Yeah, I love how you both started with your purpose. And I probably don’t normally talk about my story in the same way, but actually for me, it’s really about unlocking the power that sits in business to do good for the world. So I have a background in corporate world strategy, change management, and then while I was working and living in Cambodia, I saw how many organisations there had so little resources, but were still operating as social enterprises.

So yes, making money was absolutely fundamental to what they did, but they were also doing amazing things for people in the. And that realization that if businesses in lower income countries with very little resources can do that, why are we not doing the same thing in Australia? And we have so much power in our businesses in Australia.

So how can we use those to do more good for the world? So that’s how I came to doing it. And that’s, you’ll hear more about leaders for good. And that being a big part of why we’ve. Set up as an organisation.

Phil: Wonderful.

Dani: Love it.

Phil: I guess that just leaves me. I’m a dad and we’re expecting one more addition to the clan as well over here.

So, uh, the, all the, all the joy and wonderfulness that comes with one will be multiplied by the addition of a, of a new little one later in the year. My, you know, shared belief with Kerry of the power of organisations to, to change the world for better, for the better. And, and obviously that was one of the, the tenants that we founded Leaders for Good on. And my path to that was similar, but, but for me, the real spark and the real insight came from my work with leaders. So I a deep belief in the power of raising the consciousness of leaders to impact the organisations that, that, that changed the world. And so much of the one-on-one coaching I was doing and the work in workshops and leadership development work.

Two common themes kept cropping up. One was this desire to have , more meaning, more purpose, more impact that, that real craving from so many leaders. Why am I doing, what am I doing? Um, and the, the second part was how much our own biases trip us up. In that journey, how, how, how often those biases inhibit that movement towards, um, more joy, more creativity and, and ultimately more, more positive impact in the world.

And so having, you know, starting leaders for good with Kerry and, and using that as a vehicle to do that work with leaders and organisations has just been, has just been wonderful. So mm-hmm, , um, yeah, that’s, that’s kind of me in a nutshell, so, and, and by way, that’s, that’s kind of a nice introduction to all of us is as individuals, but, um, I think it’s also incumbent on us to frame up the, the organisations we work for as well.

So, um, Dani and Rich, I’ll, I’ll throw over to you for Tenfold Australia. What’s the, what’s the problem that you’re trying to solve out there in the world. And. Broadly, how do you, how do you go about solving it and maybe Rich will start with you this time.

Rich: Sure. Thanks Phil. Uh, maybe can I start with a purpose cuz it’s, it’s pretty simple.

It’s our company’s name? You know, I think a lot of companies have a purpose, but we are, so we wanted to build something that was entirely purpose driven and, and putting purpose first. And so we thought what better way to embody that by actually. Naming the company, the purpose that we have. So our purpose is slightly longer than name, but it’s to Tenfold Australia’s impact for a better world in exponential organisations.

Speak for those that follow SI Ismail. It’s a, it’s a massive transformative purpose. So it’s something that we may never achieve to Tenfold Australia’s impacts depending on how you measure it. That’s a big ask, but we do believe we can move the dial in that direction. And it’s, and it’s just the thing that sort of gets us up outta bed and inspires us.

And so we, the way we do that and getting to the problem piece is by supporting the, the leadership teams of global companies with operations in Australia and New Zealand. So the, the remit. Not just Australia’s New Zealand as well, because a lot of the big global companies that have operations here, look after both countries in one.

And yeah, there’s just, I mean, the, the problem is that Australia’s not big enough to support its own needs by, through its own resources. And so we’ve always relied on foreign investment to, to help the country to move forward. But it’s not just financial investment. It’s also the investment of knowledge and capability, processes, technology.

So much of the stuff we benefit from. Us from overseas. And we wanna support that sector in the business community to thrive and prosper. And so, so that’s where we focus is on the, the big global companies with operations in Australia. We, we, everyone’s got an a Z R a Z is AWS to zoom. So they’re the types of companies we work with.

And every, you know, about 110 multinationals, uh, in the group at the moment. So I’ll pass over to Dani, cuz there’s much more that we do than just that, but that’s uh, hopefully a, a bit of a.

Dani: Thanks Rich. And I guess the problem we hear about a lot is in the multinational subsidiary role here, it’s very lonely at the top. You know, Australia and New Zealand are miles away from the rest of the world. We operate often with the last ones to be thought of in global meetings with the time difference. We’ve got that distance and COVID has really, in some ways connected us more virtually, but really made us feel that diff you know, difference from global HQ being there in person building those quality relationships.

So we really helped forge those locally. So I like to describe us as. A true peer network. So as Richshared, we’re a leadership community. We’ve got about over a thousand C-suite multinational and nonprofit leaders. And that’s a key point to mention. So every multinational who joins Tenfold can sponsor in a, not for profit and in that local charity gets access to the program for free.

So that’s been, um, an amazing part of the journey to help empower some leaders in the, for purpose space who are just doing a lot with little resources and just to add as well are three values, which we live and die by. So they’re ‘Get Real, Give Forward and Go Large’. So that’s really gives you an indication of the DNA of the company as well.

Phil: Perfect. Thank you both. That was a, that was a really wonderful, wonderful wrap up of the, of the amazing work that you do at Tenfold., Kerry, do you wanna kick us off with, Leaders for Good? What’s our, what are the problems we’re solving and how do we go about it?

Kerry: Yeah, perfect. I think we are definitely problems that exist in the world.

We of course always try and frame that in a positive way. And I guess the opportunity that we are trying to look at is how we create more equitable organisations and how that leads through to a more equitable world. Um, but to the problem, part of that, I think we all know that the level of inequality that exists is kind of astounding and the richest were 1% in the world earning as much as.

Bottom 90% huge food wastage yet still. We’ve got one in 10 people undernourished and going hungry every single day. Um, when we look closer to home in Australia, we know that almost 20% of the population have experienced major discrimination in the last two years. And women still earning $250 per week, bless them men.

So huge inequality that exists. And really for us, we see this opportunity for business to be a big part of solving this problem. So the vast majority of the world’s resources and we don’t just mean money. We also mean the thought leadership. And sort of resources more broadly, but sits in private organisations.

So 82% of the world’s resources are in private orgs. So how do we unlock that? And how do we use that to try and start to make change? So in terms of what we do as an organisation, it’s about taking that power, taking that resource and, and thinking about it in a positive way and practically what that looks like for us really is.

DEI diversity equity and inclusion strategy and implementation. So building the strategies. Yes, but also how do we implement, how do we help train leaders? How do we help train businesses more broadly? How do we review processes? So things like inclusive hiring and how do we make sure that within organisations themselves, they are structured to be equitable.

And then how do we help those organisations move beyond that? How do we help them actually start to make a bigger impact on society? And the other organisations they work with and similarly to Tenfold impact has been sort of the reason that we set up our organisation and at the heart of everything we do.

And we think of our impact strategy. In three ways. So the first is about the work we do with organisations, which I’ve just spoken about. So yes, driving equity internally, but how that then has a flow on and a ripple effect through behavior change with individuals as well as what the organisation stands for and that flows to society.

So the work we do with organisations, our business model, where 50% of our profits go to equity, driving causes. And then also the work we do on awareness driving and how we can get this positive change message out into society. So things like this podcast, things like blogs, all the thought leadership and the partnerships that we have in that space.

Rich: Amazing.

Kerry: I’m sure you’ve got things to add Phil

Phil: I, yeah, I don’t, I don’t know that I do particularly. I think you really nailed it there. I’ve got nothing, nothing to add on that. I think when we deal, when we dig into some of the, some of the positive things we’re seeing in the, you know, the things we see working well on the challenges we have, we’ll, we’ll kind of, we’ll get to get to more of it there.

If you like what you’ve heard so far in the podcast and are looking for new ways to bring diversity, equity and inclusion to life in your organisation. Why not reach out for a. At leaders for good. We offer a range of solutions from diversity equity, inclusion strategy, sprints through to inclusive leadership workshops to DEI training for your whole organisation. So if that sounds good, drop as an email at [email protected].

That probably leads us on quite nicely to, to that question that in the world of making this change collectively in the world of, you know, raising the consciousness and, and, and driving action within businesses to have more of a positive impact. What are some of the things that we’re seeing that really work? What are we, what are we seeing that, actually gets the, gets the wheels turning and, and, and starts impacting people’s lives.

Dani, I might throw, throw to you for the first question there. What, what are you seeing. Particularly well out there in the, in the world.

Dani: I think when it starts from the top. So when the CEO leads by example and they really rally the rest of the organisation to, to follow his or her leadership.

So we are seeing great examples in our impact space. When recently a group of women’s CEOs went to visit a local nonprofit, Mahboba’s Promise, who really help, support Afghan refugees in the area. And then they’ve gone back to their teams excited, and it’s building momentum. And I think if they’re leading the change, it gives permission for others to bring their causes to the table and promote a healthy sort of activism in the organisation.

So for me, that’s the best things I’m seeing are when you know, the, and the leadership team, you know, the extended team from the CEO, really walk the talk, get involved, lead with heart, and Rich has done that at Tenfold. So it sort of gives us all permission because he’s, you know, always offering extra and above donations from Tenfold and letting us spend time in the community. It sends that ripple effect to everybody else.

Phil: Beautiful.

Dani: What about you Rich?

Rich: Thanks, Dani. Yeah, I, I totally agree. I think there’s a, there’s a big role to play for role modeling and, and so the more, you know, people can’t be what they haven’t seen. And so, I think if they can see it being done by people that either inspire them or are leading them or both.

That’s a really good thing. And so it’s awesome. You know, what the guys at Atlassian are doing and Canva, and how they’re really leading, their businesses, wonderfully successful organisations, but with such a purpose behind the profit they’re making, as well as the, the way they set up their organisations.

Now they’re obviously local organisations you could argue, but within the companies we work with, there’s some incredible social impacts work that’s being done. But beyond, I guess the role modeling, it’s it? I do believe there’s and this is sort of my organisational psych background kicking in.

I think a lot of it comes down to self-awareness and self-development for the leaders themselves. And, and when I don’t know, I mean, I’ve been doing this sort of work for about a decade, worked with over a thousand CEOs during that time, and I’ve definitely seen an evolution of the CEO psyche. There is just so much more of a focus on, on understanding themselves, their drivers, their motivators, really deep diving into why they are on this planet and how they’re gonna make a difference.

And, and that’s so exciting to see that. And it’s interesting in, in our world of multinationals. And within our subset of that, the 110 multinationals, we currently work with about 35% are female. And I think there’s actually a correlation there. The more female leaders we see at the top, the more we see self awareness increase and, uh, not to, not to upset the men listening to this call, but there’s just a, a, I do think there’s a gender dynamic here around that deeper introspective thinking that comes with female leaders. And then in leading, they are asking different questions of their leaders as well. And so. We’re seeing this real awakening. I feel within leadership communities about who they are, why they turn up to work, what their purpose is, and that naturally lends itself then to a conversation around, well, how can we make a bigger difference?

Phil: Perfect so much to build on and, and agree with their, um, you know, on the, um, on the gender diversity at sort of senior leadership levels, where we see plenty of evidence that gender diverse teams at, at the senior level drive greater organisational outcomes. And, and that’s, that’s fairly non-controversial to say now, and that raising consciousness, that raising that, that, that increased level of awareness and self-reflection at a leadership level for, for us. If, if I might sort of interject with one of the things we, we see working well in this sort of, especially in the diversity equity inclusion space is when organisations take a whole systems approach to driving change. So they’re not just, it doesn’t just sit in a silo. It doesn’t just sit with people, practices, but leaders and change makers in the organisation are looking at all aspects of organisational life. They’re looking at they’re helping to raise awareness, challenge bias, and, and, and look at the, the mindset of individuals they’re looking at the, the challenge or the opportunity from a cultural perspective as well. What, what’s our current culture? How does that need to shift? What values is this predicated on? But they’re also looking at the behaviors of individuals, how culture is behavior, you know, over, over time, how do we, how do we show up consistently, but also the systems, the processes, the technology, the tools, the partnerships, the, the, the organisation have to, and it’s when organisations really take that whole, that whole Systems’s view of what they’re doing, that we see real systemic change happen. And it doesn’t just happen in pockets and silos. And just the last thing to touch on the, the, I love that you, that you mentioned, and I think it’s worth, blowing it out a little bit. You were talking about role modeling and, and then you mentioned a couple of organisations Atlassian and can, and you see how much those organisations are rightly lauded as.

Great places to work and organisations that are having a positive social impact. So it, it’s not just role modeling at a leadership level. The, the more we have a blueprint for success at an organisational level, and we can, we can hold up and see, these are wildly successful organisations from a, you know, from a they’re profitable, they’re growing, they’re sustainable, but, but also they’re having an impact.

And, and that gives other people the confidence and, and almost the permission sometimes to, to lean into that themselves.

Rich: Thanks Phil. And, and just a quick add, I, I know you had John Lyden before speak former managing partner at McKinsey. And McKinsey did a great piece of research last year that just published it in a book around what differentiates the world’s best CEO’s huge study, huge study. And one of the findings they, they found was that this greater focus on the, to be list, not just the, to do list. And it sounds like a nice turn of phrase and it is a bit huge, but it’s really, again, right on point in terms of what we are discussing now, which is, you know, who do you want to be? How do you want show up?

How do you wanna be remembered, you know, to spend as time on that? The best CEOs, particularly during the pandemic were really asking themselves that question, you know, how do we want our people to remember us about how we responded during this moment? And it keeps coming up, you know, how do our company, how do we want our companies or our clients, even to think about how we responded to the crisis in Ukraine?

You know, how we respond to all these social causes, beyond, you know, the, the, the big social movements that have happened over the last few years. And, and I, so I think it’s a great question for all leaders. How do we wanna be remembered? How do we want to be seen? Not just, what do we need to do? And I think that’s a big shift again, over the last 10 years of my work with CEOs that I have seen as well.

Phil: And it, and it’s the, the difference that makes the difference that, sorry, just to build on that one last thing I, I could see everyone’s jumping at the bit to dive in, but it’s, it’s making space for that making space for that evolution and making space for that kind of introspection asking themselves the questions and doing the self work, where we see the biggest change from a leadership perspective, with the programs we run it’s in the leaders that do invest time into that because just staying on the treadmill of, of doing the same thing that they always do, doesn’t necessarily create the, the, the, the open, the open space for that, for that change to happen. Kerry, we haven’t heard from you yet. What’s on your mind in terms of the biggest wins that we’re seeing?

Kerry: Yeah, I might just, I know we’ve all got things to say about this. So I might just build on that last point as well, which is definitely, we are seeing a lot of leaders that are now really emotionally driven and are doing this almost for their own legacy or for their own purpose. Absolutely. But the other great trend, I guess, in this area is that we’re at a stage where impact is not becoming.

It’s not optional anymore. Businesses have to do it. So we talked about the likes of, of Canberra and Atlassian, other tech companies that don’t have impact their core are struggling so much to recruit. If we don’t have impact and purpose, we can’t get the best talent. If we don’t have impact and purpose, customers are starting.

To move away from us. We can’t get investment. So we are at the stage now where, where this di from our perspective, but also impact more broadly. Isn’t a nice to have. It’s an absolute must have. And I think for us, that driver, even though it might not be the sort of coming from the heart perspective is also so important of how we get people on board that maybe don’t aren’t this way inclined.

Aren’t naturally. Focused on making an impact. So I think that’s a really key, a key part of it as well. The other thing that I just mentioned is that why is really important and, and the, that flows through then to things like if we really believe in it and we believe in it, not just because we think it’s a right thing to do or the responsibility, but also because we believe it drives business, then that really changes how we think about things like putting investment behind it.

So the organisations that are doing this the best have clear D & I. They have resource against it. It’s more than just that tick box. It’s no, we believe this is a core part of our business and how we embed that into everything. Not just makes us better people, but makes us a better organisation as well.

So I think that’s, that’s really important. And obviously that then flows onto really good measurement systems. If we can measure it, we can prove effectiveness and then we can do even more, So I think getting that why right. And building the strategy around that is an absolute fundamental part of it.

Phil: Dani, I could see you were, you were chomping at the bit and you had something to jump in on. Now I’d love to hear from you as well.

Dani: Thanks Phil and love that Kerry and Rich. I was just gonna add a practical activity on the legacy piece that we heard from Jim Loehr in a masterclass last year. So Phil I’m sure you’ve come across him being a sports fan.

So he is a mind coach for many successful Olympians, tennis players, golfers, CEOs.

Rich: Sumo wrestlers.

Dani: Sumo wrestlers and it sounds a little bit morbid, but it was really empowering. He got our leadership teams to do a tombstone activity. So he said, what would be the three words or phrases that you’d love to see on your tombstone and live by them every day?

And we asked him what his were and they’ve just stuck with me fully engaged, loving, and kind, and just thought those three collections of intentions for how you wanna show up and live your life were so powerful. And the Tenfold team, you know, went through it as well. And a lot of our members. And I just thought for those you’re very action oriented that leaders for good might just be a good practical activity to bring your legacy to life.

Phil: Love, uh, love, love Jim and, and love his work. I think I think there’s a lot that people can take away from that and, and the consistent snippet. And I think he mentioned this. I was, I was listening to him in a conversation. I think he was on the Tim Ferris podcast or some podcast of that ilk. And when he was talking about this and it also goes back to some of the work done by Victor Frankl who wrote, Man Search for Meaning and, and obviously reflecting on his own experience in, in concentration camps. And, and obviously he was the, the founder of Logotherapy. Transformative purpose, a true motivating purpose. He’s always focused externally, you know, a, a, a, a purpose that’s focused just on self gratification on building you as an individual up is, is very short lived. And we know this from our own personal experience, right?

It’s, it’s the thing I wanna get, you know, I wanna get the car or I want to get the new phone or the computer, the, the, the, the gratification that comes from those things is. Is very, very short lived, whereas, um, a, a life built around bringing everybody up can be, can be a sustaining purpose. And I think that’s what a lot more leaders are, are finding and coming to.

Rich, you, you look like you’ve got something to build on, on with that.

Rich: One of the, I mentioned exponential organisations before in Salim Ismail. He’s another one of the, the masters that we’ve interviewed recently, actually just in, in February. And he was unpacking, again, this idea of massive transformative purposes, what the world’s fastest growing companies do differently and, and having an MTP as he calls it.

Absolutely part of that, it’s, it’s gotta be something huge, something enormous, you know, Elon Musk talks about sort of an inter planetary species. I mean, that’s an enormous concept. Will we ever put man or woman or, or living things on Mars? I don’t know, but gee it’s inspiring. And as you said, Kerry drawing the world’s smartest people to him. Cause they wanna be part of this journey and SpaceX, you look at how. It’s just fast tracks, the cost of space travel and a whole lot of breakthroughs as a result of just thinking bigger thinking massively and thinking transformatively. But to your point, Phil, I do feel like this purpose piece, there are lots, there’s some nuances to it.

And, and another concept that Salim was very much involved with the founding. Singularity University that you’ll know about. Great. Again, very transformative way to think about education, and solving problems that are facing a billion people or more, and wrapping their curriculum around those problems, as opposed to around a, a scientific discipline as such anyway enough on SU the the point is, I heard from, one of the, the lecturers professors at SU Mark Bonchek this idea of the t-shirt test and the t-shirt test, which we’ve got our t-shirts on Dani and I are wearing ours today. It’s, Do you Tenfold?, but what’s on your t-shirt as a company, you know, if you put your purpose.

On a t-shirt who would wanna wear it because there are different, there are three different levels of purpose that mark has identified. One is this sort of purpose to achieve a certain outcome. So that might be a purpose to, you know, hit double digit growth, you know, to be number one in the market to, you know, achieve a certain level of total shareholder returns, something like that.

So it’s a purpose. But the people that would wear that are probably the people that have a vested interest in the success of the organisation, shareholders, or maybe senior leaders, not even the re the whole company would necessarily wanna wear that t-shirt. So that’s kind of the base level purpose. It’s better than nothing, but it’s kind of not enough either.

Then there’s the purpose for. So the purpose four is it’s it’s for the benefit of others. So, you know, some sort of service product or experience that you’re offering. But again, that’s not enough. What we really want is a purpose that we can share with our customers and with society at large it’s co-created. And to give you a very quick example, Patagonia who you’ll know, you know, their purpose two originally was to build the best product. Well, That’s, that’s not a bad purpose, but it’s a purpose to do something. A purpose four then they moved to was to cause no harm. So you can, here, it’s getting better. More people might wear that.

T-shirt cause no harm the purpose with that. They landed on and I’m sure it’s evolved since this time. But the purpose with, was to inspire solutions to environmental crises. Mm. Now there’s a whole bunch of people around the world that would wear that t-shirt, it’s something that you can share it’s beyond the company. It’s something that they are co-creating with everybody that believes in that purpose. And so I think for again, people listening to this, where is your purpose at right now? Who would wear the t-shirt if you put your purpose on it? Is it the shareholders of the company? Is it your, maybe it’s all your employees, but what about your customers and your stakeholders externally?

What would they want to have on that? T-shirt that would make them want to put it on and co-create that outcome with you.

Phil: Their, uh, their mission as well. I think it, it sort of sits alongside their purpose, but last I sort of read Patagonia’s mission is we are in business to save our home planet, which I think is just wonderful. And I’d wear that on a t-shirt. I own a bunch of Patagonia stuff shameless as well. Cause they’re, they’re wonderful.

Rich: I picked the right example.

Phil: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think just, just one last thing before we move on, picking up on trends and patterns here, what, what we see and, and what you just touched on there.

Richand, and Dani and Kerry was. That this power of collective sense making and collective intelligence to solve problems. And I think about Otto Scharmer’s work. I’m sure you’re familiar with him and Theory U, and that this concept of presenting and collective sense making and, and similar, similar things going on at singularity university.

And then. Circling that back around to the inclusion space. How do we include more perspectives as organisations, as groups of people to raise the collective intelligence, to look at problems differently and to solve differently as well. So as a force multiplier for solving the world’s biggest problems, inclusion again is a must have from our perspective, because if we’re not looking at things from this multi-dimensional, multi-sided, multi-perspectival way, we’re leaving something on the table, we’re leaving something valuable out.

And I think more and more leaders are coming to realize that and, and really get to grips with the value of it. Again, not just for, not just for creating successful businesses, but solving the world’s naughtiest problems.

I might move us on to the next question. Cause I’m mindful of time and I I’m already sensing, this might have to turn into a round two podcast as well.

Cuz , I think there’s a, there’s a lot here, but what are some of the challenges you’re in encountering out there? What are, what are organisations struggling with in, in terms of, in terms of their work and might go in reverse order Kerry, I might throw to throw to you first on this one.

Kerry: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that we hear from our clients is where do we start?

So. We can hear things like a massive transformative purpose and it sounds awesome. And we want it, or we can hear, we need to have a diverse and inclusive organisation. That’s making an impact on society, but those things are not simple. So a lot of the work that we do is how do we help organisations break that down and make it really practical and achievable.

So for us, the starting point in that is a strategy and getting that right, of course is an inclusive process and including a lot of people across the organisation, but I think. What’s really important, probably associated with that is the framing. So this is about progress over perfection. This is about incremental steps to get better.

We know how many things are on leaders and organisations plate. And if we try and make this like wholesale change, both Phil and I have had a background in change, we know it just doesn’t work. It completely disrupts organisations. What we’ve found we’re much better to do is work out what the incremental steps are. What are the ones that are gonna make the biggest value? How can we prove success internally? We get people on board and then we keep building from there. So I think helping organisations know where to start and how to take this incremental approach to change is one of the biggest challenges and then our approach to, to overseeing that.

We’ve got many more challenges we see that I could keep going with, but maybe I’ll let others have a go first.

Phil: Yeah, just to very quickly build on that. I think it’s, it’s an amazing point. And, it’s one of the things we, we sort of switched pace on very early on with some of our workshops is always holding up. examples like Patagonia as the, uh, they’re a great, they’re a great beacon and they’re a great role model, but, but it can feel unattainable for an organisation that’s a lot lower down on the maturity spectrum. It can be like, okay, we’re, we’re never gonna get there. So it, it almost feels a bit futile.

Whereas if they can see organisations that are one step ahead of them, they can, they can see themselves moving into that, into that space a bit more. You know, that, that, that feels attainable and it feels realistic to them. Dani , what are you seeing out there?

Dani: Yeah. And can I just say, I definitely wear a leaders for good t-shirts I’m not sure Phil and Kerryd if you have them, but, let me know the details.

Phil: We’ve had it on our to-do list for the longest time and, and seeing your t-shirts there, we might have to rethink getting those, make it happen. And we, we now need to think more deeply about what we’re gonna put on there. I think, anyway, all good.

Dani: This question though, is very topical actually through it to a few of our CEO members in advance of this, what are their challenges to get some real anecdotes?

One of the big one in the multinational context is the short term demands, you know, quarterly results, feeding back to HQ. How do we step back and focus on the long term when we’re getting this pressure consistently to deliver and COVID and you know, the floods and Ukraine, we’ve got all these short term crisis things.

It’s like, how can they even think about next week at the moment when you might be in ISO? You’ve got no home in some places. Just so much is going on for them. So at Tenfold, we try and pull them out when we can. And there’s a, a thought leader I’ve just started following Dorie Clark. Who’s written a book on the long game to help leaders navigate, you know, this dichotomy of short term versus long term thinking.

I also think, you know, just helping defining purpose, like global HQ might have a purpose, but then how do we make that real locally? And I know, it sounds like Leaders For Good do some great work in that space in bringing it to life because we know a purpose on a page doesn’t really mean anything until it’s embodied into behaviors and it’s a, a way of being.

So there are a few things that I think, you know, would add, but really that quarterly results focus, I think is a really big one in the corporate world.

Rich: Such a good call, Dani.

Phil: Yeah. We see very similar things as well, that, that, that immediate priorities versus long term long term thinking is we would just echo, echo seeing that as well. I’m sorry, Rich.

Rich: No, no, it’s, it’s such a great point, Dani. And so we do, we do, we sort of have a curriculum of experiences and global thought leaders and, and peer to peer learning, but we also do advisory work and go in and work one on one or one. One person with, with the company and, and in that work, there’s a few different concepts that I think are relevant for answering your question, Phil, in terms of challenges. I will start with a quote from one of my mentors, Peter Fuda, he has this wonderful expression, which is. Extraordinary is closer than you think. And, and it’s exactly what you said, Kerry. It’s all about breaking it down. He calls ’em two percenters. The others are called one percenters, but breaking it down to those smaller components. And, and then it’s the sort of the marginal gains theory. So that’s, I, I do think there’s. Everybody has this opportunity and extraordinary isn’t that far away, if we can do a few things.

The first thing I believe, and this is what we typically do with leadership teams is we work out where are you starting from? Because often, you know, there’s a temptation to focus on where you want to get to, but if you’re not aligned and agree on where you’re starting from. It’s like, you know, I got lost orienteering when I was at school. It’s very embarrassing. I was a Sergeant in my cadet core and I was supposed to be the guy that knew where he was. And I got totally lost because my direction I knew where I needed to get to, but what I got wrong was where I was starting from. So I headed off in the wrong direction. I think again, for a lot of companies and leadership teams, especially, they need to spend time focusing on where are we really, really starting from and where do we really want to get to?

And then as you said, Kerry, you can build in those incremental steps to get there. You know, expression I love is this sort of alignment, precedes advancement. You need to be aligned before you can make progress. And that relates to where you’re starting from as well as where you wanting to get to.

Phil: I think that’s spot on Rich and we’re in complete agreement and alignment on that one.

And building on that with one of the things that we’re seeing is a challenge, but is one of the differences that makes the difference is that, how do we, how do we measure success? How are we keeping track of our movement towards, towards that goal? How, how do we know that what we’re doing is working?

So, a few things in that bucket are making sure we’re measuring the right things. So if we bubble that back to the diversity equity and inclusion space, most organisations are doing some kind of employee engagement survey, which includes some kind of inclusion questions. That gives us data. It doesn’t necessarily give us insight.

So, one thing that we, we see organisations doing is, is taking the data from those surveys and then running with a bunch of initiatives based on it without taking the, uh, the additional step to truly understand the, the why behind the data. So doing things like interviews, doing things like focus groups, providing, an opportunity in a forum for the stories to bubble up and then for us to synthesize some insights from that.

So are we measuring the right things? Are we, are we extracting the signal from the noise? Are we doing that in an inclusive way? Um, and then are we using that. To actually inform decision making on a, on an ongoing and consistent basis. So where we see lack of measurement or we see measurement of the wrong things, we see, um, uh, these initiatives stalling over time, because they’re not compelling, people aren’t particularly motivated by the results or the, or there areno results at all. So what, whatever we’re doing, how are we, how are we keeping track of and, and how are we using. That data to get real insight into what we’re doing.

Anything else on the, on the challenges front, just, just throwing a open question to the room. If anybody’s got anything to layer on that before we move on.

Dani: With often in our own world. So, you know, multinationals often hang out in multinationals with their own industry sectors and as our good friend, John Lydon talks about it’s, how do we cross. Industries and sectors and you know, how do we fuse startups with Mai nationals, with government, with nonprofits, with, and get this whole Richconversation happening to really make change?

Cuz I think if we’re all in our own silo, we are never gonna, you know, Tenfold Australia’s impact for a better world or elevate anything. We’ve really gotta open up all those different sort of silos and boundaries. Uh, so that’s the challenge I think is how do we make those connections easier and have groups.

Completely different people coming together, a diverse group of people.

Rich: So well said, Dani, and, and that’s, it goes back to the original point. . One of the original things we’re talking about, this idea of collective intelligence and, and, and what we found through the pandemic was that the organisations that prospered were the ones that were comparing notes the most efficiently with others from not the same organisation, but from different organisations in different context.

And, and that diversity of learning was essential for the speed of decision making. And, and so if you wanna speed up your decision, making increase the diversity of the networks that you’re interacting with, and it’s not just multinationals. It is not for profits, it’s government sector. It’s all, you know, it’s all these different groups and getting outside your, sort of your bubble and, and interacting with other groups. is so, so critical to that.

Phil: Well, having invoked John Li’s name and, and also building on the topic of diverse perspectives and, and getting the, the wisdom of the crowds, we we’ve gone out to a few of our mutual acquaintances and mutual, friends out there in the, in the world. And we’ve, we’ve gotten a few, um, Perspectives from them. So, I thought this might be an opportune time to, to share those and then kind of add any layers on that, that we might might in the room.

So, so Dani, maybe you could, take us away and share, share one of the, share one of the, sharings from our, our, our group.

Dani: Thanks Phil. I think I might start with Pip Marlow, who I think, you know, a very prominent leader for good.

Who’s currently leading Salesforce in the region and Richand I have known her for a while. Always walking the talk, you know, really big heart compassionate leader. She shared, I’ll just read what she shared. When we asked her the state of purpose in Australia. She said that “the 2022 Trust Barometer found that in Australia business is now the only institution that is perceived as both competent and ethical. Bestowing upon us a clear mandate for driving social change. Business has the opportunity to be the greatest platform for change in this country”. And then she also finishes talking about addressing a few gaps, which we, these are a few we focus on at Tenfold. She says, it’s time to address the gender equality equity challenge in this country, it’s time to address the climate crisis and it’s time we close the gap for our indigenous community.

So I’d love to hear any thoughts there on those wise words

Phil: from PIP. Oh, just a, just an immediate reaction from me. I mean, that’s right on the money with our thinking in terms of the power and the responsibility, I guess, of business to drive change. If, if business is in this position of, of having the trust and having the broad backing of the Australian public, then that is a ripe opportunity to take the power, the influence, the resources it has and use it to address some of those systemic issues like gender equality that you mentioned. So I’m just really in, in broad agreement, but, has anybody else got any, any thoughts to layer on that?

Kerry: I guess just that Salesforce is another one of those amazing organisations. And I know we’ve spoken about tech a lot, but that are doing so much in this space, having impact in everyone’s KPIs, and really leading from the top in terms of absolute determination to, to make a difference. So just to call out to them as yet another great example in this area.

Rich: And just thinking about language, you know, the sort of referring to it as issues that can create a, an energy, but it’s kind of a burning platform type of energy. And, and I think again, to sort of quote Fuda who I mentioned previously to shift that from a burning platform, focus to a burning ambition focus. Is more sustainable, and is actually really quite exciting and, and invigorating now. And you’re not trying to, you know, you put, put lipstick on a pig. I don’t know where that expression came from, but it’s a funny one, but you know what I mean? We’re, we’re not trying to dismiss that there are issues here, but there’s also enormous opportunity. And I think there’s this isn’t to be opportunistic for the sake of the business’ benefit, but just to sort of focus on all the good Leaders For Good, all the great stuff that we, that can be achieved by addressing these inequities at the moment, there is enormous opportunity.

So exciting to think that that’s just right for the taking, you know, we can make such a difference right now in a really positive way that where everyone gets to benefit. And I that’s, that’s what makes me jump outta bed in the morning.

Phil: Perfect. Dani, who have we got next on, from wise words?

Dani: We’ve got another past guest of your podcast, the wonderful Nicky Sparshott from Unilever who leads the region here.

And we know Nicky’s another great role model in this area. So Nicki’s very, quite aligned with John Lydon, she shares “purpose needs to be more intentional in Australia, more purposeful in doing what is right, versus what is easy, across business, government, NGO, media, and community Closed, say to-do gap. So I love those action oriented words. And again, it’s, you know, it’s not just knowing what’s right. It’s the leaders who are actually doing the hard calls and, you know, being the change. So any comments on Nikki’s wise words?

Phil: Rich, we’ll go throw to you first.

Rich: Again. I, I love, Nikki’s amazing. She’s just so passionate and I think again, There’s the words, and then there’s the, the energy that’s behind it.

And, and so I think the leaders, again, like, don’t do this stuff unless you really mean it. And, and Nikki really means it. And she’s, she’s working at uni leader because they really mean it and, and understand that, we don’t have enough planets to provide the resources based on our current consumption levels. So we need to fix this I think they worked out a few years ago. We’d need three earths to continue to, to consume products the way we are, based on the sort of rising middle class. So, so we don’t have three. WE’ve got one. So let’s let’s address that. So there is a, there’s a business perspective to this, but it’s, it’s so much bigger than that and they really, really believe it.

And so it’s not purpose washing it’s a deep deep belief. And so again, I guess the encouragement is just to do talk about it if you really believe it. And if you don’t then find something you do, cuz I’m sure at some level there is something that you are really passionate about and follow that don’t follow the trends, follow what your heart’s telling you.

Phil: Beautiful. Kerry?

Kerry: Just, I love her focus on the closing, the sad do gap. So you’ve probably heard it in some of the things I’ve said, but action for me is so important. We do still see so many organisations that put big statements out there, but then aren’t doing anything. Those statements are absolutely meaningless unless we’re putting them into practice.

So I, I love how she talked to that and really making sure that we take the action to make these things happen.

Phil: One example of that recently on international women’s day and not necessarily advocating this approach, but it was kind of amusing somebody in the UK developed a Twitter bot that whenever an organisation tweeted about international women’s day, it would tweet out the gender pay gap for that organisation. Again, wouldn’t necessarily advocate for the shaming approach there, but, it but it does highlight, but it does highlight something very real there, which is the same doing gap and, and an organisation putting out, Hey, we are all about this.

This is important to us. And then the actual reality on the ground being something, being something very different, and peopleknow that, hey. The the purpose washing, and it’s one of the wonderful things about technology. It’s one of the wonderful things about the level of transparency that technology mediates.

It it’s that if an organisation says something, it doesn’t take very long to, to look at the composition of the, the, the senior leadership team or the board for that organisation and go, Hey, this is 90% people who look like me and rich. And that’s, that’s probably, that’s probably not for the best.

So yeah, love it.

I know we’re running up against our schedules. Was there, was there one more Dani?

Dani: I think we covered John’s points. It was more around, yeah, the different systems, but just quickly on that point around, you know, doing the say, do gap, Megan Ritz out of the UK, who you might follow in this space, she was on Brene Brown’s podcast recently on data leads, talking about, you know, leading employee activism.

And she, the word that they came up with was called facade. And exactly that it’s, you know, Posting about black life’s matter. But then when you actually look at the representation in your company, it’s not very big at all. And I just think it’s, you know, it’s great to have these terms. And as a leadership team actually come up with, you know, what is our definition of activism and what does that mean for us?

So that would be a practical tip I’d just pass on from Megan’s work.

Phil: Beautiful. All right. Well, thank you everyone. Maybe we have a, a, a, a final round of, of closing, closing thoughts, comments, or asks of the, asks of the audience before we, before we wrap up today, Kerry, go to you first.

Kerry: Yeah. Perfect, great chat. Every time we talk as two organisations, there’s an endless amount of things we can say. So loved it. Thank you both so much. I think the closing thing for me is I wanna go back to this progress over perfection and, acknowledging that there’s a lot of work to do. Absolutely no organisation is perfect, whether it’s in broader impact, whether it’s in DEI and we can’t be expected to.

So what are those small actions we can take? How can we start towards making change? What is, what is the next step on this journey would be my, my overarching thought and ask of the audience to consider.

Phil: Great. Dani?

Dani: I think I’d echo that as well. Kerry, for me, it’s all about being the change take an action today. No matter how small. If you want some help, Tenfold having opportunities for impact page on our website, you can see our great nonprofits things you can do to volunteer, donate, or just get involved. Somehow use your skills to, you know, give them some marketing support. So I think it’s all around that. Richand I at Tenfold have a mantra, J F D. Just effing do it. They’re my words. :

Phil: Love it. Love it. Rich?

Rich: Yeah. I love that idea that, you know, people don’t resist change. They resist being changed. And I think, my big tip on this whole area is don’t feel that you have to do it from the top. Involve your people. Don’t just inform them. So how do you involve and inform? And a lot of companies just focus on the informed bit, but get your people involved because they have great ideas and they might have the answer or the, a solution that you’ve never even thought of. So people are pretty open to change as long as they feel involved and then it’s happening through them. Not to them.

Phil: Beautiful. Mine’s similar to yours. I think Richand, and mine would be a, a call to action for any leader. Who’s listening to this. Who’s who’s, who’s got a dose of inspiration from what’s been shared here today and wants to, wants to take steps towards more purpose led leadership. And it would be to do the work and take the time to look inside, and really explore what’s meaningful. What’s motivating to you. And, and there are some great, obviously they can get in touch with us and we can, we can talk to them about some processes for doing that. Or there’s some, there’s plenty of, plenty of great resources out there, but how, however you do it, take that time and, it should be a, in the words of, of Derek silvers, he’s done some Ted talks and he is just a, just a wise wise man and a great thinker. If it’s not a hell. Yes, it’s probably a no. So if you’re thinking about your personal massively transformative purpose or your big hairy audacious goal, if you don’t have that whole whole body, yes it’s probably not meaningful. And motivating enough to see you through the tough times, cuz times will get tough and it will get difficult and it will be, uh, you know, you will be challenged along the way. So it really needs to, it really needs. Sit with you in a, in a very genuine way for for it to sustain.

That would be my ask of the audience.

Rich: Love it. Excellent Phil.

Dani: Love it, Phil.

Phil: Wonderful. Well, thank you both so much. It’s been, uh, like I say, it’s been a wonderful conversation. I’m sure we could do a round two and beyond. I dare say we wouldn’t. We wouldn’t run out of things to, run out of things, to talk about.

Anytime we will pop links to everything we’ve, discussed today in the show notes, we’ll link to obviously, our website and what we’ll link to we’ll link to Tenfold as well. Should you wanna get in touch with, either of us for a, for a chat. And all that leaves is for us to say thank you, for thank you for listening and we’ll see you next time.

Rich: All the best.

Dani: Thanks Phil. Thanks Kerry.

Rich: Thank you so much for listening. If you found this episode useful, the best way to support us and spread the message is by telling a friend or a colleague, you can also give us a rating or a comment on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you’d like to learn more about Leaders For Good and how you can start making positive.

Head on over to leadersforgood.org and join our free community.