Podcast transcript: EY Change Happens Podcast – Adam Dent

34 mins | 14 May 2020

Intro: Change happens how we respond to change can make or break us and our careers. Join us for an intimate insight in to how senior business  leaders face change. The good, the bad, and everything in between because whether we like it or not, change happens.

Jenelle McMaster: Hi my name is Jenelle McMaster and I am the managing partner of Markets at EY Oceania. I’ve spent my whole career fixated on people – why do they do what they do? How do they respond to change? And has that response over time evolved as a result of the experiences that they have had because the reality is change happens and it is how we deal with it that makes the difference. What if your life was marked by a series of disasters, one of two you of which you indivertibly created yourself. Imagine what lessons around people, change, resilience and decision making that would surface? Well that has been the case for today’s guest, Adam Dent. Today we will here Adam share with us his story about resignations, resilience and rebounding; and the many lessons on leadership that he has had along the way. Adam, welcome

Adam Dent: Good morning

Jenelle McMaster: Who are you?

Adam Dent: I have been spending most of my life trying to work that out. I am a country boy who escaped the city. I moved to Melbourne for university and sort of grew up if you will in Melbourne. I am now in Sydney via a short stop in Wollongong so I guess I am passionate about making the world a better place and always probably the toughest way to do that but that is the intent.

Jenelle McMaster: Definitely keen to hear more about that. But what is it that you actually do?

Adam Dent: So, my day job I am the Chief Executive Officer of a government agency called the NSW Trustee and Guardian. And on the side, I am a Director of a not-for-profit called Start Out Australia which is a mental health initiative.

Jenelle McMaster: OK so in a sentence, if I was going to push you to keep it to a sentence what does the NSW Trustee and Guardian do?

Adam Dent: We are a state government agency that is the independent and impartial executor administrator attorney and trustee. And we also provide financial management and guardianship for those people who have a disability that affects their capacity to make decisions. So we manage an awful lot of money for people who can’t look after it themselves.

Jenelle McMaster: Sounds like the most vulnerable of the community?

Adam Dent: Absolutely. Either the most bereaved if it is a deceased estate or the most vulnerable if someone has a decision-making disability.

Jenelle McMaster: OK so before we get into it let’s get to know you a little bit better. We typically start this podcast with a few warm up questions, so what is a misconception about you that most people have?

Adam Dent: Mostly my age. People assume I am older than I actually am.

Jenelle McMaster: I would love to say the same for myself but that goes the other way actually

Adam Dent: 29 with a few years of experience, right?

Jenelle McMaster: exactly. What about guilty pleasure? Let’s keep it PG rated, what’s yours?

Adam Dent: Gnocchi soprano at my local Italian and its not even on the menu – I make them make it for me.

Jenelle McMaster: OK. Well we are not all fabulous at everything, so what is one thing that you hope and say no matter how much you try I just can’t nail it?

Adam Dent: Skiing

Jenelle McMaster: OK.

Adam Dent: Sport in generally but definitely skiing.

Jenelle McMaster: OK. I feel like I can visualise you out on the slopes

Adam Dent: Don’t! It’s not pretty

Jenelle McMaster: So how would you describe yourself?

Adam Dent: I’m terrible on Tinder but on LinkedIn I would say

Jenelle McMaster: I am going to leave the Tinder profile alone although I really desperately want to get into it

Adam Dent: A change leader, a crisis manager, and I think really at heart I’m a humanitarian, so I am super committed to social justice but really in a really pragmatic and applied kind of way. So, I like to work within systems to change things, rather than to agitate. And my friends tell me I am a nice guy who is generous with my time and I am very caring about others – I will leave it up to you if you believe them or not

Jenelle McMaster: I am not going to dispute that, I think you are a lovely person. I am interested in that humanitarian social justice piece, where does that come from? Is that something from childhood? Where do you think that came from?

Adam Dent: No, I think that sort of developed a lot over time. As a kid I wanted to be a lawyer and then eventually I decided I wanted to be a school teacher. But somewhere along the way, I just growing up in the country I saw as a kid and didn’t necessarily understand it, but I saw a lot of things that just didn’t seem right. I grew up at a time where a lot of the electricity industry in Victoria was privatised, and that had a huge impact on employment in the town I grew up in; and I think my grandfather was a huge mentor to me and he just always had this sense of service and social justice and I guess I must have developed it from there but it sort of grew over time.

Jenelle McMaster: OK. And how you have talked about a number of different desired professions whether it was a lawyer or teacher and you think about where you are today, how or why and why do you think that path changed?

Adam Dent: I am a really big believer in following your passion and opportunity and I think you know in first year uni I struggled financially quite significantly; my family had offered to pay for my residential colleges and my uni degree and in hindsight I realised that they were probably never going to be able to so I took a job – it was the first job I could find and one thing just kept leading to another and I started developing interests that I didn’t know I had at the time. And I guess along the way a mentor had also said to me something that I never really forgot which was: never ever put a name or a job title on something because you never really know what is going to happen. And the idea is to follow your passion, and for me then it turns out my career has been a series of disasters. Some of which I have orchestrated myself. Somewhat unintentionally but I think it’s passion and opportunity and just a little bit of luck along the way.

Jenelle McMaster: OK so let’s get into that crisis piece a bit here. You definitely we look over your history someone who is drawn to a crisis, why is that?

Adam Dent: I’m really calm when things go wrong. I don’t know how that happened to be but in crisis humanity is sort of it bares all if you will; you see the best and you see the worst of society and I think in my mind it is always when where you can really make a difference one way or another. And I guess crisis is also a small industry so once you have started working in it there is not a lot of people around so you get opportunities relatively readily but for me it is really that moment where you are in an environment where everything has gone wrong and you really do generally see the most challenged things in society but you also see this amazing inspiration of people rising up at times when they were least expected to do so. So, for me that is just fertile ground to do really good important work and its not hard to get quite passionate when you are in that environment.

Jenelle McMaster: Now this podcast is called Change Happens not Crisis happen they are obviously different things, the latter has a much more negative or detrimental overtone to it, so what is your attitude to change, is it similar to what the way it is in crisis or do you have a different view about change and are you drawn it?

Adam Dent: I am drawn to it because I think in some ways, in many ways they are really the same thing. They’re different sides of the same coin. For me crisis has often been that thing that happens when you don’t have control and changes the version of it that you do have control but broadly speaking the lessons are almost always the same; when you are going through a crisis or when you are going through a change program there are normally four things that go wrong: something goes wrong with leadership or the absence of thereof during a crisis – that is always fairly common in change that doesn’t go well; the ability to adapt when things don’t go to plan – that is a pretty important lesson in both crisis and in change; often change is driven with a lack of real genuine intelligence about its impact – crisis has the same flavour almost every single time. And I think in recent history we have seen quite a lot of that play out across Australia and the final thing is there is an issue around resource allocation so when you are changing something significant corporately, someone will always let you know there is the thing you didn’t know about that took more resources than they ever told you about – the same thing plays out in crisis. So, for me they are very similar and in all of my roles in organisations that do with that crisis context, my job is actually largely still been about changing the way the organisation looks and focuses and works. And at the back of every crisis there is always a process of change where you learn from what went wrong. If you look across Australia over the last number of months there have been lots of lessons to be learned about how we have handled crisis both from a leadership point of view, from a planning point of view so they really are the same contexts so if you are a good change manager you probably do well in a crisis and I think vice versa.

Jenelle McMaster: So I mean, whilst I am sort of joking around your whole life has been a series of disasters but obviously there are steadier states when you are in an organisation and their may not be some external change factor, there may not be some external crisis to deal with, in those times do you manufacture a reason for change, do you want to keep an organisation continually moving?

Adam Dent: I am drawn to continuous improvement and looking at the environment and when you haven’t got an external crisis it gives you the opportunity I think to be more forward thinking and to look at well what does the next five, ten years look like for this organisation or agency and so manufacturing sounds almost like you are creating a bit of crisis and I do get bored that is probably fair, but it is I think important that we do have those moments where you are free of challenge, it gives you the opportunity to say well where could we be taking things and while things are calm that is probably the best environment to do this; so it’s a nice time for change you can do it a bit more carefully, you can be a bit more gentle around the process than when it is driven externally. So, I do tend to find myself looking for opportunity when there isn’t a crisis, absolutely, but that is probably the better time to do it really.

Jenelle McMaster: Fantastic. I am going to turn to the NSW Trustee and Guardian portfolio that you have now. It’s quite a unique profile. You have described it to me in the past with various descriptions including provider of last resort, you have talked about you have deceased clients, you have stakeholders who are alive and can be quite difficult whilst the people that you are fighting for are not alive; you would see all sort of dynamics – you have talked to me about in the past inheritance impatience and all sort of – it’s a pretty unique and incredible profile that you look after and perhaps not always the easiest or the most rewarding I would imagine, why are you attracted to it and what do you get out of that personally?

Adam Dent: Why am I attracted to it? It’s very importing work. I think that concept we have talked about being a provider of last resort that literally means there is nobody else, there is nobody else in a vulnerable person’s life or for whatever reason be a family conflict, or a range of other things; somebody independent and impartial has to be involved in order to sort this out in the best interest of the subject person whether it be the deceased in a will or the vulnerable person we are looking after. And I think for me it is that social justice piece that for these people there is nobody else who can protect their interests and look after them. So that is actually enormously rewarding. You are right that it doesn’t feel like there is a lot of rewards some days. Its pretty tricky stuff. You see again some of the worst of humanity in these processes, but it really is about there is somebody who without this intervention would be far worse off and so irrespective of anyone’s perspective of all of that this is just such important work and I often remind my staff that they are not in processing invoices or vouching in an estate or whatever internal language that choose to use they are making a human life better for their intervention today. And often it is hard to remember that when you are sort of getting the barrage of content that comes through, but it really is for me its humanitarian work but it’s the last stop if we fail there really isn’t a safety net after us.

Jenelle McMaster: I accept as you have said that there is some real challenges in this portfolio, I’m sure that there are a number of grey areas that you personally and the organisation as to navigate, would you share with us some of those challenging stories or situations where you have had to navigate that grey?

Adam Dent: That often comes so a lot of our work is dealt with during conflict within families, where there is a disagreement about how what mum would have really wanted to do with the money or what the best interest of the person we are looking after is; so there is often a moral dilemma that evolves out of some of these things and whether that be where we are settling a law suit and the instinct is to fight because you really want to do the right thing but you know that would end up costing so much that is not really in the best interest of somebody; or it’s the making the decision for someone who can’t communicate what their will really is, what their preferences are and then you get caught up I suppose almost in the emotions. So we had a gentleman who was estranged from his daughter, his daughter was very unwell in another country and needed money if we were to give that money he would run out of money far sooner and get sub-optical care in his older years and so do you help the sick daughter or do you look after his long term interests and legislatively my job is to look after his long term interests but emotionally you think a father would probably want to support their daughter so what is the right decision and then so right becomes one of a moral question or one of a legal question – now I am only allowed to make a legal decision but it doesn’t mean you don’t grapple with the moral and some of those decisions you sort of get to a point where you just have to force yourself to make them because they are so tricky that you can probably prosecute it for a really long time and then ultimately it has to be done I mean there is a last choice. So I think for me I still also stress about really simple decisions sometimes too that we get to make so there is the grey area, the really difficult moral ones but sometimes it is as much as I get the opportunity at a particular point to decide whether we continue to manage somebody’s affairs and there is only one point where I get to do that without it having to go back to a court or tribunal which is very difficult for somebody who is under our care because they are there for a reason. So, I really get caught quite up in that decision because its about someone’s human rights at that point and in effect what we do can be seen as a restriction of someone’s human rights, its protective but it’s a restriction. So, making what seems like a simple decision to click approve, to continue managing someone’s finances for them is actually quite ???(34:30)

Jenelle McMaster: That has far reaching implications doesn’t it?

Adam Dent: Huge consequences for that individual, for their family and so for me I take those really really quite seriously. The guardians who work in my organisation have to make end of life decisions sometimes. They will be woken up at 2:00am in the morning by a doctor saying do we turn the machine off? And as the legal guardian they are the ones who have to make that call. Now our work is meant to be done dispassionately and impartially but you can’t be dispassionate about making a decision like that so even the routine things we do I think take a bit of a toll in thinking about it so that grey becomes very broad and this often arguably the right answer somebody in that person’s family won’t think that was the right answer and you just have to wear that even your best decisions are often going to be considered bad decision by others so you have to do it in the full knowledge that you are doing your level best to act in someone’s best interest, that is pretty tricky.

Jenelle McMaster: It is tricky, and I think when you use the word dispassionate it almost suggests not caring but I can hear very clearly is an extreme level of empathy which no doubt would take a toll on you personally, as a leader in the organisation?

Adam Dent: It does, and I think we need to we are very good at starting to look at how we care about each other in the process as well. We spend an enormous amount of empathy and energy looking after our clients and it has taken me being me have come into the organisation said hang on a minute what about the humans who are making these decisions, how do we support each other appropriately, what do we need to put in place, clinical supervision doesn’t sound like something that would normally happen in a government agency that is for social workers and psychologists but for us even our non-social work staff do need that because they are making really tricky decisions. 

Jenelle McMaster: What do you do for you?

Adam Dent: I knew you would ask something that wasn’t in the script

Jenelle McMaster: LOL there is no script here Adam

Adam Dent: I surround myself with very very good people. I think in all of this its about really trying to maintain a positive outlook and remind yourself that this is important. And for me that is about having people around who understand, having people who know that whether it be a change process, a crisis process, or just having had to make a really difficult decision at work, having someone who can kind of look at you and remind you that you’re human too is really helpful because you sort of get into this process of just feeling like the bad guy and having someone sort of put their hand on your shoulder and say “no that was difficult, that was awful, but it is what you have to do and its probably better that you did it than somebody who didn’t care”. I think that reassurance makes it all worthwhile.

Jenelle McMaster: I think that is absolutely right and just picking up on that your words “the bad guy” you know the word trust is inherent in your portfolio NSW Trustee and Guardian and yet we have seen plenty of press out there particularly in more recent times, the kind of press that strikes emotional cords with readers, allegations of misuse of authority, somebody dying in squalor, overcharging fees, you know when you talked about the grappling with the moral and the legal side of things we are in an environment of over examined times, we are in an environment where “can we” gives way to “should we” much more than it ever has before. How do you navigate and lead through that environment of declining trust of increasing of grey of what is, what is right?

Adam Dent: I think those sorts of moments you refer to those the news stories, they really are the worst of days. Of all of the things that could keep me awake at night they are the definitely the things that hit the hardest because there is no winning in the court of a current affairs programs and twitter and the like; And there is almost nothing you can do to fight some of that and the stories the way they are painted, they are awful, and every time one of them pops up my heart sinks thinking how could we possibly have done that, how could we possibly have done any of that and you have this moment of god if any of this is true how am I going to sleep again, so it becomes very very difficult so the first reaction for me is to just immediately dig in to the facts and get to the bottom of it and I get I don’t rely on a three line briefing from someone; I get quite involved in understanding it myself. Now invariably its never anything like it seems, it is never quite the story that hit the press, the facts are never necessarily legally correct but the emotions are and what you are reading is generally horrible but there is no winning in trying to deny that and say “oh but you got that all wrong” so for me it’s a case of let’s get to the bottom of this because I actually can’t say what I want to; there are all sort of legal reasons why I am not allowed to talk these matters that doesn’t necessarily stop somebody on twitter or on a tv programme so the biggest thing to remember there are real people involved in this and its not just the subject matter so the person who is the subject of that story they have obviously had a time that hasn’t been the best but there is also my staff they have been involved in this and they know that file, as soon as you see the news story you know its one that you are involved in so one of the first things I do is actually write to my staff and reassure them that I believe in them and I believe in what we are trying to do but if we have something to learn from this if there has been a mistake we have made we’ll show compassion for our customers and for our own people and work through it. Where we should apologise some of the news stories that have been in more recent times have been my apology where something has come up and obviously sometimes that is the bit that gets into the newspaper not the bit where I have actually corrected the laywer but that’s how this stuff works and you know that is coming and I make sure that we get things right where we need to because no-one is perfect and just the very nature of the things we have to do are always tricky; the potential to do something that someone disagrees with is very real in our world. Now I can’t come out swimming and I wouldn’t anyway but because of trustee disclosure, privacy and the fact that a number of our clients are protected by law so therefore their identity can’t be revealed; I can’t really say much ever so I am the guy who says there was no comment and where I can retry to follow up and provide as many facts as we can so to be sure we have said what is reasonable the big job then becomes internally – how do I make sure my people know that we are doing the best job we can, we fixed what needs to be fixed and we know what we have learnt from it and that my staff are reminded that they are good people trying to do good work and some days not everyone is going to agree with us.

Jenelle McMaster: And I guess coming back to your clarity of purpose about why the organisation exists would be critical in this communication, just a reminder of how everyone’s role, their activities, are a key contribution to their ultimate purpose

Adam Dent: that is right. We are protecting, promoting and supporting the rights, dignities, choices and wishes of some of the most vulnerable people in NSW and that necessarily means it isn’t going to be easy and we are going to have really though days so I think they are the worst of days there is no denying that, they are the days I wake up, I read the news and just think this is really going to be a difficult week because its difficult for us, its difficult for our people and its obviously difficult for the customer who is the subject of the story.

Jenelle McMaster: So, speaking of difficult days and tough days, you seem to have had plenty of them in your life

Adam Dent: I am good at them

Jenelle McMaster: As the commissioner of the SES you oversaw a whole lot of tough days, you oversaw the response to the Hunter Valley Super Storm which I think was the largest response to a storm event

Adam Dent: at the time it was yes

Jenelle McMaster: The history of the agency. You had 7 years with the Australian Red Cross in Victoria where you were providing humanitarian assistance during the Black Saturday bush fire of 2009 and the Victorian Floods in 2010,2011 so you have seen crisis after crisis, you have seen people have to deal, pick themselves up, deal with grief, deal with loss, what did you learn aobut people more generally and how they deal with those kind of changes and crisis?

Adam Dent: It almost always takes longer than you think in those environments. You think that people who have been through something like a Black Saturday or more the recent fires and floods in Australia in your mind you can sort of say right we need to rebuild, we need to do this, we need to replace infrastructure, the human side always takes longer than people think because there is a new normal for people and during crisis people are de-bond from each other so relationships break down, people see the world through a different lense, they then re-bond sometimes with the wrong people in the wrong environment through that crisis period to get through and so there is an element of how do you bring some sort of normality back when nothing is normal anymore so that is really tricky. Some people become stronger and that is what is really interesting that you see people really do rise out of those challenges

Jenelle McMaster: It can be a sort of rallying or war cry, look at the bushfires now of Australia and the world gathering around

Adam Dent: And some of the incredible pop volunteer organisations have done so much now came out of Black Saturday where some people stepped up and decided they were going to do something differently and just went and did some incredibly things in their communities and they have continued to do those. Some people take a really long time and some people just never recover and I think that is the biggest thing is remembering its literally a person by person conversation as you go through this kind of crisis no-one has a story that is similar to anybody else’s and so in the aftermath of Black Saturday just in the few months my team had 5000 conversations with individual people and while there were themes the reality was for every body it was an individual journey; and I think in crisis and in change generally everyone will have their own version of how it impacts them and what that means and its really critical that we take a very human focus on it

Jenelle McMaster: How do you do that at scale?

Adam Dent: That is always tricky and its in my mind its about having that intent about saying do not attempt to apply one answer to everybody and using the network I have been very fortunate in volunteer organisations there are enormous numbers of people, corporately you haven’t always got those sort of numbers so you need to build the cohesion of the willing if you will, you find the right influencers, whether they be in crisis, the people in communities, the republicans, the hairdressers, the people who are incredibly well connected and you attempt to work through people like that to understand the sentiment and then to drive messaging – its no different in an organisation the informal leaders across an organisation are critical elements to change so its about identifying really quickly who those people are and how to use them

Jenelle McMaster: Often there isn’t a one to one relationship between influence and hierarchy

Adam Dent: Absolutely

Jenelle McMaster: That’s something have learnt over time

Adam Dent: My word

Jenelle McMaster: And so Adam through those series of crisis that you have worked through, what did you learn about yourself?

Adam Dent: that is always a tricky one to reflect on because you tend to or I tend to have these inclinations towards what does this mean for everybody else and I think that was probably one of the key lessons which is just how readily I distance myself from that and focus so much on what it means for somebody else – is this person going to be OK, did we fix the right things for that community and then there is that moment about sort of four weeks later where you collapse in a heap a little bit and I think the biggest thing I learned is how easy it is to forget yourself in that moment; you are operating on such a rush of adrenalin and you feel this sort of sense of obligation that its very easy to lose sight of yourself and I tend to do that and that became really really critical for me. There was a moment with a colleague, I remember at Red Cross back in the day where I walked past her, she was just sitting outside the female toilets on the floor in tears and we just knew that was her moment and it sounds like a weird thing to say but we all learned that we had our moment and it was her turn today because mine was probably going to come tomorrow. So, I learned we sort of accepted too much of that stress and I was just too OK that I was going to have that moment where I just needed to lock myself in a hotel for a couple of hours and fall apart then pick myself back up. So, I am probably very good at making sure everyone else gets looked after and less good at looking after myself.

Jenelle McMaster: So that is the old analogy “who takes care of the carers” – the analogy is about oxygen masks and who puts those on for (??? 22:29)

Adam Dent: All of the above and its classically one of the first things that you will forget because you are so busy worrying and there is so much to be concerned about so I did get into a pattern of after those big events making sure I went and got some help and it sounds like a weird thing to say but I came out to my organisation and said I’m going to start seeing a psychologist for a couple of weeks to debrief and talk about all of these things. And that triggered a whole range of other people to say hang on a minute I’m probably not as OK as I thought so for me it felt a bit brave but it was mostly about signalling that none of us are probably that OK after this; we probably need to talk and maybe not to each other for a little while and I think that was really really useful.

Jenelle McMaster: It makes me think back to a long long time ago I used to be a psychologist who worked in prisons and we used to have mental health days that were stacked up and I almost wore it as a badge of honour that I never took those mental health days and if there is one thing I look back on over time now with experience under the belt is that that’s not a badge of honour at all actually – I done myself a great disservice, I sent a wrong message and I am very very cautious to make sure that I take leave ahead of time and look after myself through these kinds of situations

Adam Dent: And you are not making your best decisions when you are in that situation.

Jenelle McMaster: Exactly

Adam Dent: And it was anyone else you would be looking; I sent that many staff home for working too long and not taking enough of a break and one of them bravely turned around and said so when are you going home. And it was that moment when you have to swallow your pride a little bit and realise

Jenelle McMaster: People watch that

Adam Dent: Maybe I am not in great shape

Adam Dent: They take that as a queue and permission for themselves to take leave so it’s the difference between having something that is there in policy format yes yes yes you can take these leaves versus something that is lived and breathed and supported by the organisation

Adam Dent: So, I make sure I go home not long after 5:00pm most days now – no one needs to know how much work I might do when I get home but its about being the one to work off the floor so that everyone else feels comfortable doing so

Jenelle McMaster: OK. If we just turn to decision making clearly in those times of crisis you don’t have all the information to hand; its evolving but you can also get conflicting information, how would you describe your decision making skills and do they change when you are in a state of crisis?

Adam Dent: to an extent in the sense that in a crisis you have to be prepared to act in the abstract. You have to try and piece together what things mean without all of the meaning being there and without the time to assemble that meeting so you have to work with what you have got, make the decision, back yourself in in the full knowledge that you are probably going to learn things later where you will have to change your decision and make a new and better decision when the information becomes clearer. So, I think there is a humility in crisis decision making. That sounds a little counter intuitive when you see people in uniforms with ropes and things on their shoulders and all the rest of it that you wouldn’t imagine the incredible amount of humility it takes to stand there and make those calls because you pretty much know you are going to have to unmake that call. In a non-crisis situation, you have more time to think it through; equally I think you still should have the humility to say as more information comes to light I might need to change my decision and be prepared to do that.

Jenelle McMaster: So, someone we saw I mean are ready faced people condrer up in their minds when they think about exactly what you have talked about there was Anna Bligh during the Queensland floods; certainly, it seemed really evident that communicating effectively during a crisis is a critical skill, what is your philosophy and approach around communications?

Jenelle McMaster: There is probably two elements to it and I definitely won’t call them my philosophy because I am bound to have read them somewhere and then thought they were mine own incredible thinking

Jenelle McMaster: Finally honed

Adam Dent: Yes, my finally honed piece of academic work. Juliane in September 11 as of mayor of New Year City took an approach that I thought was brilliant. It was “I will tell you what I do know, I will tell you what I don’t know, I will tell you what I will do; and I will tell you what I need to do” and I always add “and then I will tell you when you hear from me next” because managing expectations becomes really critical.

Jenelle McMaster: that’s a great framework

Adam Dent: So, it’s a really quite simple and honest framework around this is what is going on and I think one of the things that is really important is be able to say this is what I don’t know. Being brave enough to say I don’t have all of the answers is really really critical. Because people want to see leaders who are stronger than them in that moment in crisis, but they also need you to be human and if you don’t show that humanity people won’t trust you. Now the simpler version of that for me is tell it all, tell it early and tell it yourself. The leaders who struggle in crisis are the ones that hide things because they are not sure about them; they are the ones who wait because they are not sure they have enough information to talk about it or they are the ones who stand behind somebody else. So, tell it all, tell it early and tell it yourself – its hard to get it wrong and Anna Bligh did an exceptional job of that during Queensland; Jacinta Adern is another really brilliant example of the same thing; Shane Fitzsimons in NSW during the bush fires did the same thing. These are people you trust because you know they are telling you everything they know even though it isn’t everything you need to hear.

Jenelle McMaster: I think that is right. I think people can pick it a mile away when its not there. They might not be able to put their finger on what it is when they are seeing it but when they don’t see it

Adam Dent: ??? 17:29

Jenelle McMaster: Yeah that is right. We are surrounded by a series of disasters at the moment – Coronavirus, bushfires and floods; lots of people in leadership roles leading those things its an interesting time to see different styles of leadership through those crises. Do you see people being defined by the way they lead through moments of crisis?

Adam Dent: Absolutely. And for me there were moments in my career where it really did define my style and people saw me in a particular light and then I felt the need to sort of maintain some of that, but I think very much particularly in a 24/7 new cycle that we live in now people are absolutely defined. The most inspiring things I have seen though are the member of communities who step up during crisis and show leadership that you didn’t know was there. And that has been quite inspiring so there are people who now have strong leadership roles in local communities who would have never been noticed. But absolutely when we talked about Anna Bligh who showed such incredible leadership during those Queensland floods and there are moments when we then say this isn’t about politics anymore Jacinta Adern after the issue in Christchurch you think these are moments when you see them as humans, you see them as strong, you see them as willing and that absolutely defines them and without obviously no none needs anyone named but there are those who have not done some of things and people have made judgements about their character. So there is quite a bit of pressure I think in those moments to understand what sort of shadow the crisis will cast but as much for you as an individual as it will for community.

Jenelle McMaster: Now Adam not all crisis that you have dealt with have been external – this is that uncomfortable chuckle that is going to happen. We know that there is at least one of those crisis that was of your own doing, can you talk us through that particular one?

Adam Dent: There was a time I was the youngest ever appointed Commissioner in an emergency service in Australia at the time I had been appointed the Commissioner of the State Emergencies Service. It was an incredible honour and overwhelming responsibility to take on and as you said I saw the organisation through some really really times and come Christmas at the end of a really long year I had a quiet drink with a colleague, walked myself home and got in the car to go and get something for dinner and drove through an RBT and discovered I had a little bit more wine than I thought and that of course being in that role that means you don’t just get to slip through the RBT without anyone noticing; I can’t imagine how it ever got to the media but it did and of course on the day of the hearing in court there were cameras out the front and there I was I was the Commissioner who had been drink driving and for me that was a really tricky situation because I was also in charge of the people who went and rescued people out of car accidents and we had been through a period in the organisation at that time of significant change and I was holding volunteers and staff to account for a range of things that historically had happened and the standards of behaviour I put in place were quite strong. So, in my mind, I had to be held to the same level of behavioural accountability that everyone else had. So, I was in a bit of a moral quandary. How do I kick somebody out for bad behaviour yet have been in the media for having committed bad behaviour myself so I decided the only option was to resign- the mister of the day was kind to me and had assured me I had his support – I think he came out and said “I am going to have to call you an idiot in the news but I don’t think you do a bad job and you probably shouldn’t have to resign” but ultimately we go to a point of view where I had to resign and he felt compelled to accept it because in my mind I was compromised in terms of what I was trying to achieve from a behaviour point of view with the people in that organisation. And so it became a question of integrity for me, ultimately, which was if I really believed in everything I had been sprouting for 12 months I had to go. And I wrote the email and its that thing in Microsoft Outlook where it tells you how many recipients there are and it said this will be received by 10,000 plus people, are you sure,

Jenelle McMaster: There definitely are you sure pop ups

Adam Dent: And if you want to know what crisis feels like when it rattles all the way through your bones hitting send that afternoon, letting my people know that a. I had done the wrong thing I told it all, I told it early (I hadn’t decided that I was resigning at that point), the email came from me but then 48 hours later the second email to them was to tell them I was leaving

Jenelle McMaster: So, the period of time between the incident and you resigning was only 48 hours?

Adam Dent: 48 hours – news story 1, news story 2 and then by news story 3 it was Dent resigns so

Jenelle McMaster: What was the reaction of those 10,000 people got that message and then the rest of the country did so what was the reaction?

Adam Dent: Obviously, there were a hand full of people who were disappointed and they should have been – I don’t think drink driving is an acceptable thing to do so there were people who wrote to me and said you are an idiot and I wrote back and said I agree. I also got an overwhelming number of messages from people it was over 100 messages saying you shouldn’t have to go for that but for the grace of God go I, all of those really kind words – people who had believed that what I had done was brave to own up and to resign in that way so that was all very heart warming. It didn’t change the fact that it had to happen in my mind but it was nice to know that there were people who at least validated what I was trying to do as a leader of that organisation was the right thing at the time for the organisation

Jenelle McMaster: So how did you what did you do from there? You are out of a job now?

Adam Dent: So, well the first couple of months were not great for my health – there were a lot of chicken wings at the pub by the beach at Wollongong for a couple of months there

Jenelle McMaster: Somewhere the gnocchi kicked in as well

Adam Dent: I hadn’t learned about the gnocchi then – that was when I moved from Wollongong to Sydney so let’s hope I don’t end up out of work again because things will really get out of hand. I spent a lot of time as I said before maintaining a positive outlook “this too will pass” somebody had said to me people had done far worse things and done ultimately better in their careers so it was really about keeping perspective that this at the time was the worst thing that had ever happened to me personally from a career point of view. But it would pass so with good people around me and then it was about taking ownership and then making some decision actions and it wasn’t about them being permanent and being the right thing but it was about doing something. I think when you are in that situation personally the worst thing you can do is get into some sort of inertia and not do anything. So, after a couple of weeks, I sort of licking my wounds it was about I am going to get on with something, I’m going to do something; I applied for another job it was awful but I got another job and that sort of kept sort of me moving and it made me realise that things were going to turn out OK. The other thing I would say is there is that element of taking care of yourself and not stopping doing the things I enjoyed. Now it turns out I probably enjoyed chicken wings a little bit more than I used have so I found about 15 kilos, but I think it’s really important it really is about perspective and then for me I just use that as an opportunity to better understand myself. Ultimately, this was awful but it was a matter of integrity and I felt good about myself so that validated I had to make decisions to the rest of my career that supported my integrity; and you start to get a little laundry list of what made you feel good at the time.

Jenelle McMaster: Important lessons and clearly a real demonstration on your resilience through that time as well.

Adam Dent: It was very much a Winston Churchill sort of “never give in” set of moments that had to keep playing and there were moments where it definitely felt like it was going to be difficult but just thinking that never give in

Jenelle McMaster: To the chicken wings and to the

Adam Dent: Absolutely to the world around you but I did give in to chicken wings. I had to eventually build back some courage there and send them off into the sunset

Jenelle McMaster: Important lessons. OK you mentioned you are the director of Start Out Australia, what is that and what role do you play?

Adam Dent: So, Start Out Australia is essentially a suicide prevention and mental health initiative targeted at LGBTI people or people of diverse sex sexuality and gender in rural and regional Australia. We know that in Australia the suicide rate is too high generally but one of the largest impacted group is between 16-44 although not exclusively. It is disproportionally in men and it is disproportionally as a result of challenges or issues with sexuality. So, we wanted to do something about that. A young gay person is 5 times more likely to make an attempt on their life than their straight peers and somebody who maybe transgender or is dealing with gender dysmorphia is 14 more times more likely to make an attempt on their life and that is pretty heart breaking to think about that just because there is not enough supportive people in their life these people are taking their lives; and often younger than they should. So, the stats are pretty soul destroying and we wanted to do something about that and so Start Out provides online access to mentors and role models for people who are struggling so that they can work through that tricky stuff.

Jenelle McMaster: And why is the cause that is so that you are so passionate about?

Adam Dent: Growing up as a gay man in country Victoria wasn’t easy and now it’s obviously getting easier as the world sort of matures on these things, but I was in a country town, I was the proverbial only gay in the village in my mind at the time. Now I later learned that wasn’t true and I learned that some of the kids at school were also a bit different who got sick and disappeared didn’t get sick it was suicide and we didn’t talk about it back then, we weren’t brave enough. So, for me I was personally impacted by the mental health challenges in my younger years around that. But then the time came where a very good friend of mind made a number of attempts on his life as a result of the same things and a group of us sat down and thought we are smart people, we should be able to do something about this. this isn’t good enough so we rallied some people together and ultimately ended up with Start Out being formed.

Jenelle McMaster: Amazing. And I know that that’s not a part of you that you kind of keep separate to you as a leader in business, you have been quite vocal about LGBTQI communities in the workplace, was that something that you struggled with to bring into your work life?

Adam Dent: Absolutely. And I always say to people you don’t come out once you come out every single day of your life. You come out when you start a new job, you come out when someone new starts at your new job so it is this constant sort of process and I made the decision earlier in my career that I would no longer care and I would either not work for organisations where I knew it would be difficult or I would just have to go in bravely. I have to say that the emergency services is a pretty confronting industry to walk into as a young gay person, its actually no way near as bad as it seems externally, it’s far more welcoming and inclusive these days than perhaps it might have been. But I have made a conscious decision to either not care or to join organisations that absolutely have the right approach.

Jenelle McMaster: And certainly, I guess this is one of those examples where being at the top of the hierarchy is really helpful if you are setting the tone for inclusion and inclusion of all it sends a pretty powerful message down the organisation as well

Adam Dent: Absolutely. And you get to have bit of fun like deciding we are going to put rainbow stickers all over our trucks in Mardi Gras now and ???? (06:14)

Jenelle McMaster: I saw that a few years ago

Adam Dent: But was interesting about that is I think when you are at the top of an organisation you gain a whole set of obligations around these things that you might still be nervous about it yourself but when I rainbowed wrapped that truck and it drove up Mardi Gras in Sydney there are a few looks of should you have done that to a piece of State Government infrastructure and I decided I didn’t care. But a young volunteer came up to me and said I was too terrified to come out as transgender but today Commissioner you have made that ok with me and after I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye and realised there were people who struggled so much more than me who still need someone to show them the way it was the most powerful thing I have seen; its one of those if you can then you should; I have the ability to influence this in organisations, you should support people who are of a diverse background, you should make sure your board has 50% woman, all of those things there is no good compelling reason not to do those things and if you are in a position where you can influence it I think you are obliged to

Jenelle McMaster: Here here. ok so Adam with change happening so quickly around us, what are your predictions for society and business over the next five years?

Adam Dent: I think we are going to all have to do more with less. I think in my mind is what I see vulnerability is becoming more significant, the gap is widening, the types of clients I see in my organisation we used to deal with people who had significant ranges of age-related disabilities so dementia and that was what was impacting their capacity. We are now seeing far younger people with significant psychiatric and drug and alcohol issues so all of that is I think indicative that within society the gap isn’t being closed for those who are facing the biggest challenges

Jenelle McMaster: In fact, I think it’s going the other way

Adam Dent: absolutely, I was trying to be a bit subtle it’s getting really worse and its quite horrible some of the things that we are seeing. So that worries me because it means the demand on services both in business generally to do more from a corporate social responsibility point of view but on government its just putting more and more pressure on something that has less and less resources. And then the other side is we just have to keep changing the way work. When I was briefly in the consulting game, we talked about the future of work, well its not the future of work anymore its contemporary work

Jenelle McMaster: It’s here and now

Adam Dent: But most people haven’t caught up yet so we can talk about it being here and now but it takes a long time for the corporate machine or for government or for institutions to move and so we are playing I think for the next five years are really significant game of catch up. I think you indicated early on in societies’ expectations of change – what they see as right reasonable and what we should be doing now is not necessarily what all businesses are ready for so; and the other thing I think will get more difficult over the next five years is trusting in corporations and institutions generally. I think the inability of some organisations to grabble with climate and what that means for people and what that means for their business is there; politics the circus that I think politics can become is really quite a challenge; the Royal Commission’s that are running at the moment that are just exposing the absolute worst in both industry, our institutions, and potentially government. I think will make a quantum shift in what the community expects us all to do and managing that expectations is going to be incredibly incredibly tricky

Jenelle McMaster: I also I’d say though on more optimistic side of that is rising to expectation is the opportunity so if businesses and if government are falling short then the reality is the ground swirl of sentiment is not going to let that be the case, right?

Adam Dent: Absolutely and the leaders and organisations who do step up and do make that change and I think we have seen over the last couple of years some business leaders stepping out against the grain and making really big statements on these sort of issues of the day - that has really worked because that is what society wants to see and people know and to vote just on price; you know people want to buy into organisations or buy from organisations that do the right thing. People don’t want to work for organisations that do the wrong thing now. So, I think there is enormous opportunity to gain from doing the right thing – its kind of a complete win win really

Jenelle McMaster: well it is. I think historically we have tended to think we need to sacrifice one for the other; there is many many examples across every sphere you can think of that doing well and doing good can coexist and actually they support each other

Adam Dent: and I said to somebody recently, what if we did all of this stuff to change the world and it turned out we didn’t need to do as much of it, the world would still be a better place. If we didn’t any of it we are all in a lot of trouble. So, there is no real disadvantage to doing the right thing

Jenelle McMaster: That is fantastic, total agree with you. And then for you personally Adam, what do you see yourself doing over the next five years and beyond?

Adam Dent: Well I think I will be public servant, or at least I hope so. I continue to serve at the pleasure of the crown. I think for me it is finding ways to stay balanced in all of this because there is so much rapid change and I think I don’t want to slow down in any of that but that is going to mean as an individual I need to do enormous amount of work on that. But five years is a long time in business, so I think the best change to predict is just that change will happen itself. I don’t think I really want to label where I will be because I have never ended up anywhere I thought I would its all been a game of chance based on purpose and passions – we will see

Jenelle McMaster: And guided by your ultimate desire to serve the human and seek social justice so

Adam Dent: Hopefully I will still be making a difference in a good way in five years

Jenelle McMaster: Wonderful. Well Adam I wanted to thank you so much for joining me today. I am sure anyone who is listening to this podcast would agree this has been incredibly telling, you have been very open, incredibly candid and I think it is sharing the kinds of vulnerable moments that you have that make us all realise that we can make mistakes, we can learn from those mistakes, and its what we do with those lessons that will define the kinds of leaders and humans that we are

Adam Dent: Thank you

Jenelle McMaster: I think there has been a whole lot of takeaways for me in this conversation amongst those have been that change can be experienced in a really individual way, so I think we really need to recognise individual journeys that people have when they experience change. I have taken away that humility and courage is critical in communications and keeping humanity at the centre of your leadership is also a critical part of that and that even when the worst things happen, they will get better the sun will rise and we just need to keep going.

Adam Dent: Absolutely

Adam Dent: Thank you so much for you time

END OF TAPE RECORDING