Podcast transcript EY Change Happens Podcast Craig Tiley

Jennelle McMaster: Hi, Craig. Thank you for joining me on the podcast today.

Craig Tiley: It's great to be here. Thanks, Jenelle.

Jennelle McMaster: Now, Craig, you have lived a lot of lives as an athlete, as a coach, as a director, as a CEO. You've had an incredible range of experiences throughout your career, all over the world. But when you and I spoke a couple of weeks ago, I asked you when the most significant moment of change in leadership was that you can remember in your life. And I have to say it was without hesitation that you said, well, holding the Australian Open during COVID In fact, you held two given we then had omicron. We all felt the impacts of COVID but none more so, I think, than Melbourne, which was widely quoted as the most locked-down city in the world. So I want to go back to that time if I can, which I have to say to me, always feels like a really distorted dreamlike bubble. I lose track of the years, I lose track of the months. But I think we're placing this as probably mid 2020. And I wonder if you could paint for me a picture of what was happening in the world at that time and in Melbourne with respect to COVID and your initial thoughts back then on how it would be impacting or could be impacting the AO given. I expect it gets planned a long way out, right?

Craig Tiley: It certainly does. And let me start out by saying that time was extremely difficult for everyone, and certainly for those that had impacts on family and family members. And like anything, when you face with adversity, within adversity, there's always opportunity and it always is how you approach that adversity. And you have two choices. You either approach it in a positive way with a greater outlook, with opportunity, or you approach it in a more negative, challenging way, where you make it bigger and make it really impact your daily life. So that context always from a leadership point of view, I've always looked on the silver lining, the opportunity, the positive outcome being part of the solution, not part of the problem. So when we were faced with that challenge, it was basically the middle of 2020. In fact, this came off the beginning of 2020. Keep in mind, Australia, particularly the East Coast, was severely impacted by the bushfires and we were on the verge of having to postpone the Australian Open because of the bushfires. And we were very fortunate. The smoke haze lifted and we were able to continue. But it did have an impact on the beginning of the event.

Craig Tiley: We were also advised at the end of the event that there was this virus that had likely got out of Wuhan. We had over a thousand guests from Wuhan that were with us that week, and so what would we be doing about it? So we did start a testing regime early back in January and not having any detection of any type of disease or anything. And through our medical team who were working closely within the infectious control leadership of Australia, we went about our merry way in our normal way in February. Little did we know a few months later we were going to be dealing with the virus that had globally spread and was going to be significant for us. The first time I called the team together, I said to them, look, don't worry, this is going to be about a month and we'll be back in the office. And it just shows you again how little you do really know about these things and you can never really look into the future and think this is what it's going to be. And I think that's a good learning I took from that. It ended up being two years over two years, but we had to plan an event.

Craig Tiley: We worked closely with the Victorian government in deciding the conditions that we would have and no one knew the conditions. They were forever changing every single day, basically. And so we pulled the teams together and said we are going to run the Australian Open. Not only because the cost was going to be less to run it, which sounds surprising, but also because you need to use it as an opportunity to show people what's possible and we can get out of this. We can get through this. So I started to use it as a platform for much bigger than it was, just running a sporting and entertainment event. We started there the beginning of the middle of that year, started planning for what was going to be an event, regardless of the circumstances and the challenges we were going to have. Little did we know we were going to have to bring in over 1200 athletes and their teams, only a 25% capacity on planes that we had to charter from around the world and have them in lockdown for 15 days. And you put athletes that are high performing and they're coming about to play big grand slam in a room in lockdown for that period of time, then expect them to get out and compete at the highest level to be showcased around the world.

Craig Tiley: It was a difficult task.

Jennelle McMaster: Craig the level of conviction as you talk about that now and you sort of say we are going to go ahead with it. First of all, was that a brave face for others or was that a true, I have no doubt we need to do this, or were you having some doubt but just trying to put on something? Where does that conviction tell me about that, because it feels so certain now, talking about it in retrospect, but what was it then?

Craig Tiley: It's a good question because it's easy to talk about now because we threw it and we can draw back on the things that we remember. But I do recall a leadership has to be authentic. And I felt that at any time, I honestly believed, honestly had never had a doubt that we were going to make this happen. I don't think I ever said this wasn't going to happen. Many people told me no ways. Many people told our team no ways. I also know when you have a really good team, which I was fortunate to have and you have people that have alignment in thinking it wasn't a brave face, there was certain element of extreme optimism and convincing people and persuading people. But that comes into your sales skills, which I think it's really important for everyone to have persuasive their sales skills. And it was more than a brave face. It was an absolute belief that we would find a way to get it done. And I was told by the international playing Group, by the International Tours, that there's no way this was going to happen. In fact, the outcome of 2021 and putting all the athletes in lockdown the entire year, the player compensation that was paid to professional tennis players, tennis Australia paid over 30% for the entire year because we were one of the very, very few events that actually went ahead that year.

Jennelle McMaster: It's quite an incredible story, and I love the conviction that's born from having such a high-performing team, I love the upfront conviction. I've spoken to many, many leaders who talk to me about a side dish of naivety when they've taken on big challenges. Was there some naivety there as well? And were there moments where even if you had the conviction, it got wobbly with certain challenges?

Craig Tiley: There were many wobbly moments up until even the night before we were delivering it. And I think the difference in this, compared to any other leadership challenge most people have had, is everyone around the world was in the same position. This was a virus for everyone. So the comparison to see these people did this in this environment, no one had done this before. There wasn't a roadmap that we could go and copy. So we were forging that pathway ourselves. And that was the great opportunity. And I definitely used that at that time to motivate the team, to say, this is an opportunity to set a standard, not just a standard in Australia, but a global standard. And that's what we did. In January, February actually, 2021, the wobbly moments came is that the government had a date when players could - international people could come into the country, and it kept on being pushed out. It started in December, then went to late December, then early January, then mid January. We was pushing the Australian Open back every week. And so we actually only started in February, which was two weeks, three weeks later than it normally happens.

Craig Tiley: And that was a wobbly moment. The other wobbly moment was certainly when we knew to get the players here. We had to get them. We had a deal with an airline to charter all their planes. We chartered close to 30 major aircraft from different cities around the world. The airline pulled out on the eve of us bringing the planes in.

Jennelle McMaster: Oh, that was right up until the night before.

Craig Tiley: We had to go and find other charters. We thought we had a hotel that we could use as a quarantine hotel. They pulled out, we had to get another one. So this wasn't as simple as asking a question. We work closely with the Victorian government. In fact, many of the leaders in the quarantine task force put together by the Victorian government were A380 pilots. All the pilots were out of work. And they are great logistical people. They know systems and processes and discipline and they were great leaders of our quarantine program. Just the pilots. Many of them came from Qantas. I could go through a list, I could talk to you for hours and hours of all the variables that we had, but we had to get 1200 people, of which more than half of them were superstar athletes on a plane in a city tested with no COVID, have to go through protocols wearing full PPP gear. Only 25% of the plane could be filled. Arrive in Australia, get transported, singularly in a bus, no contact with anyone, get into quarantine. We had thousands of buses get into quarantine and stay in quarantine.

Craig Tiley: And if you tested negative, you were allowed out for 5 hours a day under a very strict regime. Every 30 seconds there was a movement for 18 hours a day. Every 30 seconds there was a movement on getting players in and out, and of which about 30% were in hard lockdown because they came in and either were on a plane, they didn't test positive, they were on a plane where someone tested positive. So the whole plane had to be locked down and getting on the phone, getting on a zoom call with those 1200 people in different groups. We did that about six to 7 hours a day for 15 straight days. They're pretty upset, so you got to go and motivate them. And if they say when are we getting out? Sorry, I can't tell you. And then having to manage that. So I could talk for a long time on the specifics, I'm really summarizing it, but great learnings in leadership, in having to deal with that, great learnings in communication, the accusations of players on the other side that we can't get to stuck in a room that they have against you or the organization.

Craig Tiley: Because why they're stuck in this room, it wasn't the case when they came from the UK. Or when they came from Bulgaria or the US. And this is what it was coming into Australia.

Jennelle McMaster: I actually have a real desire to spend hours talking about this. But when you talk about those learnings and you talk about the diversity of people that you're interacting with, If I think about that stakeholder landscape that you are navigating locally and globally, looking back on that now, what would be some of those learnings that you had on managing such a broad stakeholder landscape?

Craig Tiley: Number one, communicate and start out qualify the communication. And I know for a fact I don't have all the answers. This is how you start. I know for a fact I don't have the answers. I know we're both in a very uncertain environment, but we're in this together, and I'm going to do the best I can to make it work for you. And every bit of communication started that way. We were communicating with the media. We flew in media from around the world. We had about 100 media. We normally bring in over 1000. We had 100 media come in. We flew them in. New York Times, Washington Post, Global Papers. So we had to manage them as well. I think the biggest leadership lesson was communication. And the second one was let everyone know that you are taking full accountability and responsibility. And if something goes wrong, you the ones there needs to be a single point that you the one said, I will fix it, or I'll do my best to fix it, but I'm accountable, I'm responsible. Be the person that stands in front of the community and the media and let them understand you're accountable.

Craig Tiley: So if something goes wrong, you're ultimately accountable. And you'll have to pay the price for anything that does go severely wrong. Even to our own team, even to them, talking to them, I said, this is on me. So you don't have to worry about you do the best job that you possibly can. I will take full accountability and responsibility for this. And you have to verbalize that. And a lot of leaders are afraid of verbalizing that because I may lose my job. I may be blamed for something. It wasn't my deal, but it is what it should be.

Jennelle McMaster: Craig as you say, this is something that we had never experienced in the world. There was no roadmap. The likelihood that anyone could know what was going to be needed or what we're going to have to navigate is zero. No one knew. Why did you have and how did you have that confidence to put yourself at the front, to assume full responsibility and accountability? Where does that confidence, the personal security, safety? Tell me about what is it in you that gives you that confidence to shoulder all of that?

Craig Tiley: I think for everyone, it comes from your leadership journey or from your journey, your life journey. And that's why I also do believe I feel like in many ways I'm just starting my career because there's just so much to learn and so much to take in. And I honestly believe that if you have the approach to your career where you don't have all the answers, everyone else does. And you're going to learn from them, and you're going to learn from the opportunities you get every single day. You're going to have an empathetic approach to it and not put yourself in front, but be the one that's willing to do all the work. I think the approaches principally that you take on the journey, and I do believe that those over time will come back in spades when you really need them. I was surprised on myself personally how I responded, and even going into 2022, which was even more difficult than 2021, I was surprised how I responded to that intense pressure globally, because I thought I would sleep less, be much more stressed, and really struggle with it. But I didn't. From a personal point of view, I slept really well.

Craig Tiley: I felt very calm, and it was very clear to me about what we needed to do.

Jennelle McMaster: I have to ask a secret. I'd like to know how in all of that, did you sleep so well? It feels like you found the Holy Grail there.

Craig Tiley: I don't know. I didn't take any sleeping tablets. That's a question. I think it was just maybe there was so much going on that by the time you got to take that opportunity to have a few hours sleep, you were just really tired. I think it may have been that I don't have the answer for that, but I do know, I do remember very clearly about having a lot significant sense of calmness on it. But that's why I always remind the lessons when I talk now about leadership in that is that everything you do every day is a building block. And if you do the right thing every day, if you learn every day, if you connect with people, if you listen and if you become part of the solution or part of the problem, and you have a great deal of care and compassion. As you do that, that becomes the building block for the next day and the next day and the next day. And eventually you've suddenly got this mountain of opportunity and learnings and experience that you will draw on even without knowing you're drawing on it.

Jennelle McMaster: As you outlined in there so many logistical challenges, communication, complexities decision challenges. There would have been a lot of human emotion throughout all of that time. All understandable (Craig Tiley – accusations). Accusations, yes, that's right. And they got personal. What did you find to be sort of sitting back or even reflecting on it then? What was the biggest challenge for you?

Craig Tiley: I'm a big believer in loyalty. When the pressure is on and the heat really gets on, you really find out from a leadership point of view, there was never really issues with people in the organization, but it's people that are impacting the organization from the outside, so who's really going to stick their neck out? And so you really find out the true colors of people in that period. And I got calls from people, friends that I hadn't heard from a long time, got calls from people that wanted to provide some advice and I will be forever grateful for that. And it was a great lesson for me. And now when I see someone having a difficult time, someone getting fired from a job or someone having a really difficult leadership time, particularly in a sport, and I always reach out, make a call and say, hey, do you want to have a chat about it? What's going on? This is what I've seen in the paper and it's not going to be the reality of what's really happening, so find out. And I didn't do that as much before that and it could be in any other sport or any other environment, and now I do it.

Craig Tiley: And I've actually really enjoyed doing it. Because you yourself learned some things too.

Jennelle McMaster: Yeah, that is a really important lesson. I do think it's those critical moments that people remember. We've had a few of them ourselves of late and it gives you pause when someone does take the time to pick up the phone and go, hey, how are you doing?

Craig Tiley: Yeah. And it's the time when you step up, the great leaders step up into the most adversity. I think if you welcome adversity as a tool to get better, you'll always get better. But if you look at adversity, as I mentioned at the beginning, at the outset, if you look at adversity as a problem, you are going to become part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Jennelle McMaster: Such a good reminder. So we've taken all of that leading up to the event. Your planes have come in, even the one the night before has come and you've sorted through all of that and things have been planned within an inch of its life. What was it like during the event itself?

Craig Tiley: Players were in lockdown, staff were in lockdown. We had to secure in a matter of a few days, 800 exercise bikes, 800 treadmills, get them into the rooms. Teams had to take them into the rooms. This is where these 30 secnd movements had the bike was brought to the room. There could only be one person moving on the floor, which was the Quarantine team, full PPE, only one person in the elevator. I mean, the list goes on about the logistics of it. There were about over 2000 people just working on the logistics of the Quarantine program for the two weeks. And it was run independently by the Victorian government. So we worked closely in partnership with the Victorian government on that. And a remarkable achievement for the government to let us have that happen and then to showcase the event 2021. We're the first to do it. Having a global sporting event, bringing athletes in, our broadcasters stayed on the same level every nation in the world, and it was uplifting for people. They got back to seeing sport. Sport was actually happening in the middle of COVID so we were proud of the fact they were able to do that.

Craig Tiley: However, during the event, extremely difficult to give you a bit of a snapshot. The site was divided up into four parts so people could only move in a part they bought a ticket for. The way we had to wear masks, the way people sat in the stadium, the way they moved in the stadium, the way they queued, that all had to be monitored. And then the players, the interaction with the players we made a commitment to the government that we would not be the cause of one result of COVID spreading in the community because of people and international people we brought in. And we were not the outcome at the end of it. There was not one case that resulted on from putting on the event. So we did the right thing. It was confirmed, we did the right thing. It was high risk, obviously, but the right thing was done. But during the period, I think the thing I remember the the most was the absolute logistical challenges. There were some people that were still in lockdown. There was one athlete that came, and it ended up being for 27 days in lockdown, didn't get to play.

Craig Tiley: And so managing that and managing the health of some of the athletes, but remarkably, the 1200 people coming in, I think there was less than 20 or so that tested positive. But because they were on planes and around others, there was about 300 in full lockdown. No movement. We had to feed them in lockdown. A lot of funny stories that came out of it, if you look at some of the instagram accounts on how they use their room. So that was the most difficult part. And the difficult part was also was having to answer for things around health and quarantine I knew nothing about. And the media expect you, you're the spokesperson, they expect you to be an expert on that, and you're not. So you have to deflect a lot of those answers. And that's never easy because you do want to give someone the answer on something. So I think that was tough. And then I think that the concern each day that are we going to be shut down? Because there's the spread of the virus and completely shut down. Now we're at this position. But it was four weeks, we got through those four weeks.

Jennelle McMaster: As you said earlier, this was something that the whole world was experiencing and you had thousands of people that you were sort of responsible for or taking carriage of events around. You would have seen lots of emotions. What did you learn about the human experience and humanity and human nature?

Craig Tiley: I think people have changed generally I'm speaking after COVID than during COVID because I think during COVID there was a togetherness that we’re kind of in this together, we've got to find the solution together. And I think more than ever before, the world came together and then now we've all lost our minds after COVID the way politics are going on and business and economics. But during that time, I think the biggest learning I had is probably the art of what's possible, I think, to try and replicate how people behave. During that period, we were focused on people's lives, protecting the elderly, protecting the community and ensuring that people didn't get sick and if they had to go to hospital, doing the best thing they could. And then I think the other thing is, I learned, is the reminder that people in our workforce, the teachers, the nurses, the doctors, the security, the police, I will forever, during this period, be the massive advocate. I mean, I've always said they should be paid a heck of a lot more than they currently are. They should be the highest paid in our community because they keep it going.

Craig Tiley: I think there was a big learning in that. It was that group of people again that kept it going and it was a really good reminder, and I'm sure I've left out some. But to come back to where, in a very stressful, negative environment, we were always looking for the positive things we had to do, because that was the only way we're going to get out of it. And I think if you can put that on everything you do, every single day, you will achieve great things.

Jennelle McMaster: Yeah, I often think we should bottle to all of that in a different way, because, as you said, through adversity comes opportunity. And I think that opportunity was a united goal. To experience this world together.

Craig Tiley: You really have to embrace adversity, because we, as humans, we have a choice. There's one choice you have every single day in your life that only you own and that's how you respond to anything. And you can choose on your response to be whatever it is. And when things are tough and it's adverse, it's really hard work to choose to have the choice of looking, having a positive outlook and finding solutions and be part of the solution, because misery enjoys company. Negativity and misery, they are horrible traits, but they resonate a lot because a lot of people approach things that way. I think embracing it, I've taught myself to have that always only be my only choice.

Jennelle McMaster: Very powerful. And speaking of embracing adversity and choosing your own response after that, successful, although trying Australian Open come through on the other side of that and then we get smacked with a new strain. It's called omicron. So tell me about that and what that meant then, for the next Australian Open.

Craig Tiley: Well, just like a year before, I told the staff we'll be back in a month. Got it completely wrong. In September, I said, we're in the clear, COVID's done things are going well. So I think they start to look at me and say, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. We started planning for a full event. There may have been some restrictions on the number and the capacity. We started planning for a full event. And then it was actually only December when Omicron showed up, and we had to go through then start the exact same routine. It was still at that point, the government, if you recall, were trying to manage Omicron, so we're going back to lockdown. And then they realized that there's no ways this is too infectious to be able to put people in lockdown. It's too long, we can't manage it. So we just got to do the best we can to keep our distance. So they gave us permission to go ahead, but again, had to fly people in, had to manage the teams, put them in one hotel. There wasn't the two weeks of Quarantine we had before.

Craig Tiley: If there was positive cases, there was quarantine. So keep everyone apart, wearing masks, wearing PPE, and then running an event at that point. It wasn't like that a year before, but now there was a requirement to come in Australia and have proof of vaccination. And there were still many countries around the world that hadn't reached vaccination levels more than 10%, and there were still many people that were unsure about getting vaccinated.

Jennelle McMaster: We can't talk about this, Craig, without.

Craig Tiley: Exactly and that's the one that got all the global attention. I made people I hadn't seen since primary school contact me because they'd seen me. Some of my face plastered some way. So that was then the biggest challenge. 2022 was about vaccination, was about Omicron, was about keeping people safe.

Jennelle McMaster: Different waves, strategy around how to approach that. And we've now sort of danced across the Djokovic issue, which, as you say, generated quite a buz in the sports community, actually, the community more broadly. Even beyond that, it was what was going through your mind when people were questioning your leadership? You got your primary schoolmates weighing in with a point of view about it that you haven't heard from in I don't know how many decades. What was happening for you at that time as you again, once again leading from the front, but what was happening for you at the time.

Craig Tiley: That was more difficult, because that wasn't all of us together trying to solve for a solution, not the year before. That was becoming a meat and a sandwich. That was not having people on your team or on your side on it, because it was a highly politically charged environment. There was state and federal elections months away. It was a highly globally charged environment. There was massive arguments in the community about vaccination. And to be very clear, I think I was probably one of the close to being the first being Vaccinated. I think I've had five shots minimum. Already, I'm an absolute believer and you need to get vaccinated. The medical professionals know this best, and that was my personal view. But we had a process, we had a system in place. There was also a lot of uncertainty about what it was. There was no clarity, and if there was clarity, things would have been easy. But not just clarity from everyone, and including the tennis community. So people came in under conditions that they believed were the right conditions to come in on, had the right exemptions that they believed at that point. And then, as it turned out, at the 11th hour, like happened the year before in Omicron, things changed, and particularly changed for one, they changed for a few people, but the one person who got the most attention was Novak, because of his stance on vaccination.

Craig Tiley: I deal with Novak often, and my dealings with him have always been very good. He's very professional in dealing with it. He's upfront. We spent a lot of time together, and even after that whole incident where there was reports about us having a very strained relationship, we spent some time together. So that hasn't changed anything in the relationship. But it was a very difficult time and there were many Australians. It's the part I felt the most lonely, and again, it was how you respond to that loneliness, because there were many, in that case Australians, that I was blamed for trying to game the system bring, bring someone in that was not vaccinated and it was not the case. But you took the heat for that. And then when Novak left, then there was the stronger Serbian community, which is very large, who felt that he left unfairly. And then I became again, a lightning rod for that result, that outcome. But it goes with being a leader. Leader, it goes with the territory. You have to take it on, you have to speak to the community and speak to your own team. I was most concerned about our own team because a lot of people flying accusations all over the place that this was missed.

Craig Tiley: You shouldn't have done that, should have done that. Hindsight is always a great way to summarize a situation, but when you're in it, it's definitely not the same. So we made a decision that it's in nobody's interest to start pointing fingers, to start defending yourself. What was in our interest is to get on with it. Day by day, you just get on it. And people wanted sculpts, people wanted people to explain exactly what happened and did this. And it wasn't just that, it wasn't that straightforward, it was not possible to explain exactly what happened because a lot of things that happened we didn't even know about, but what was possible, what we could do. And that's again in leadership, making the decision when all that the heat was I had media security, whatever, parked outside my house, my home, here for two weeks. I was chased, there were death threats, but that goes with the territory at that time and people were highly charged and emotive in Australia too, in Melbourne, we were locked down for a long, long time and everyone were emotive about it. And I completely get that. I was in the same boat as everyone in that.

Craig Tiley: So it is a time when I don't think I'll ever face that kind of heat in leadership, hopefully ever again. But in that time that was very difficult because you felt like unlike a year before, where everyone is in the same boat. And now the community became more divided. And I think unfortunately, I think the community has taken a little bit of that ongoing post COVID of how we treat people and how we respond to adversity and how we respect our leaders. And I think it's also now been driven by the macroeconomic conditions. So I think there's understandably more stress and more pressure.

Jennelle McMaster: Thank you for your candor on that. That sounds horrific. I expected it wasn't a great time and that sounds terrible and I feel profoundly impacted when someone says that they felt lonely. It's a heavy word to use and I'm sorry that was such a tough time. What did you do? Apart from, okay, well, I'm in it and I just need to get through it day by day. Was there anything else you did to look after yourself and your family through that time?

Craig Tiley: Yeah, I think having great people, having a great team, I think again, a reminder as a leader, if you get an opportunity, have the people around you better than you are because that'll come back again and it'll come back to every single day in your organization. It'll come back to make it happen and then under real stress and pressure, it'll come back and do that. We had a board that was magnificent, so supportive in those situations. Obviously, sometimes you get boards that run for the hills and don't support their management team. And every single one of our board members at that time was led by Jane Hurdlick, who's the current CEO of Virgin. And she's obviously lived in stressful environments. Running an airline, I'm sure every day you worry about it and she led the board through it. There may be a couple of times there were some wobbly conversations, but never it was always they were rock solid. That was helpful. A management team that were under tremendous amount of stress themselves because they were all part of the process. So my job was to keep them motivated and keep them positive and that was probably my biggest challenge the whole time.

Craig Tiley: And then your family, how they being treated in the community was a challenge as well. But again, comes back to thing I said at the very beginning, don't go quiet, communicate. If you need help, ask for it. There's nothing wrong. And I think the team I lead the privilege I have right now to do it. I think they would say I put my hand up when we have a team chat I'll say things aren't going that great and I'll explain to you why and I just want to let you know. And so authenticity and transparency and that happened more than ever happened before and also not I didn't felt like from my team or our tennis community or our board that I was ever a target. I felt differently on the wider group and that's important and I think that's really important from your team, whether it be EY or wherever you are, you're part of this team and the loyalty to this team is really important and you can have disagreements but that's not lack of loyalty, that's just a disagreement. It's really surprising when people sometimes you don't know the tough time they're going through, that you have to lean in and support them and show your loyalty.

Craig Tiley: And an organization, you have to show your loyalty. And when things go wrong and it's not right, part of loyalty is calling it out, not being silent.

Jennelle McMaster: You're also, Craig, as a former coach, a highly reputed coach, how much of your own high-performance coaching strategies did you sort of call upon? Were you quite consciously deploying the very things that you worked with athletes on and or did you then develop new strings to your bow in this?

Craig Tiley: Oh it's a great question. I say it now is that I was so fortunate to have that grounding. I was actually listening to something last night is the Bud Light campaign and how a large percentage of the population in the US are boycotting Bud Lights like drop massive percentage points in sales. It was just interesting subject but there a leader that was an ex-Marine who's their CEO, a young guy in his forty s and he was talking about how he's dealing with this crisis and one thing that resonated with me said I'm not used to this. I've been in the Marines, I've been in the CIA. This is completely new to me to deal with this trying to figure this out and he put his hand up he said but I need people to help me figure it out. And you immediately felt for the person even though maybe was it a good decision or not? You don't know. I think in the case be able to draw on your background on I was fortunate I had a military background as well for a short while, for three years and I had a coaching background.

Craig Tiley: And drawing on those two and particularly on the coaching background, any parent or any person that has an opportunity to coach a group of kids, to grow to coach a group of adults in sport, in anything, go for it because the techniques you'll learn in that, you will use it's your best grounding. And I shouldn't say this when you talk about college because I have got graduate education and all that, but I think what's far surpassed all of that was my coaching background.

Jennelle McMaster: It's really interesting. I did seven years in the military and I will always it's funny, you sort of think we're in totally different contexts, but it's amazing. And I think you spoke to the building blocks of experience that you have and they are such fundamental building blocks around leadership, around camaraderie, around loyalty, around teaming, that absolutely help you grow.

Craig Tiley: I don't think compulsory conscription is a bad thing just for that setting up the community and population for the future. But I do think you're right. What's great about Australia as a nation is a lot of young kids, they finish school and they go and discover the world for a year or two and have their gap year. And I think that's a great thing too, because I do believe in getting out and finding out what's out there, talking to people, going to help things. I also believe in making a contribution to the community. You have to working for, not for profits, going to do things where you don't make any money, going to help people. It is your grounding. And any parent that has kids, if you're putting kids in that environment, you're setting them up for life and that beats even any formal education. So it is your journey and we have choices on how we approach that journey and just got to sit down, reflect and think and make the right choice.

Jennelle McMaster: So, Craig, what about now? We find ourselves in a different context. We're not in a shared situation of a pandemic, but we are in a difficult situation economically. The macroeconomic environment is tough, cost of living challenges, all sorts of stresses on us. What is it that you are thinking about and taking forward as you now plan the next big event in the current context?

Craig Tiley: Well, I'm careful how you answer about the future because based on what I told you before, I got it wrong in year one by saying it'll be a month and then I got wrong in year two by saying COVID's finished. But yes, I think the big difference now is in COVID we were all in it together, but from now an economic point of view, there's different levels of pain. So when you're in a leadership role and you have an opportunity to have an impact, you have to now have even greater levels of empathy for a much larger group of people, not knowing what different people are going through. So finding solutions primarily on how you respond to the environment and what contribution you make. So more than ever before, we have to lean in and find ways to help others because there's a lot larger group of people, I think with the economic headwinds that are ahead of us, there's a lot larger group of people that are going to be impacted. And as an organization, you got to think of ways you can do that, how you do that with your people, the type of flexible workforce you provide, the type of focus you have on what they should be paid.

Craig Tiley: And just realizing now we've gone through a tough medical time with COVID together and now going through a tough economic time together, but with different levels in that of where people's pain. Yes, I think it's now the empathy and the realization that more help will be needed.

Jennelle McMaster: Craig, I'm going to draw to a close here, not through want of wanting to ask you so many more questions. I was going to wrap up with what advice can you give? But I feel like this has been so loaded with advice. Is there anything else that you haven't covered off that you think is really important for our listeners to reflect on given the wealth of experience you've had?

Craig Tiley: Don't take it too seriously. We get this one opportunity to live our lives as do as best as you can, care for others more than you care for yourself, but still care for yourself because you've got to be in a leadership role and you got to set an example, be authentic, transparent. But again, don't take it too seriously. If you're not turning into the left lane because you've been slow on the light, you don't have to sit on the horn behind that person to get them to move. Just think about what that person may be in that car going through. You don't have to make it worse for them. So little things like that and all those little things, they add up to the big thing. And the big thing is the opportunities you create for yourself in life by doing the right thing.

Jennelle McMaster: Craig, thank you so much. You are the very embodiment of all of those things that you've said and I don't think we've ever had a crisis moment outlined as well as what you have done there painted that picture. The number one message for me listening to you is you own how you respond, that's the choice you make and through adversity is opportunity. And everything that you have said has shown your willingness and ability to lean into that adversity, to lead from the front. You navigated the unprecedented, you created your own roadmap. You did that with the help of others. And whilst you would own full accountability, take full accountability, you weren't afraid to put your hand up and rely on the and lean on the help of expertise of your team. The message around communication is really important as well. And I liked your questions around I don't know everything, but we will do this together and we'll work through this together. And I think that it demonstrates curiosity, it demonstrates empathy, it demonstrates collaboration just with those questions right there and your quiet confidence, your assuredness, but your humility and kindness is abundantly evident through this discussion.

Jennelle McMaster: So thank you so much for all of that. Plenty to reflect on, plenty for us to take forward. I definitely will think twice before I put my hand on the horn in the car, that's for sure, and ask myself, what's that person?

Craig Tiley: I hope that little comment does that. And I'm actually about to go to the Million Dollar Lunch, which is to raise money for supporting kids in cancer and kids with cancer. So I'm looking forward to doing that, spending a couple of hours and try and help them raise as much money as possible. But I think, again, I appreciate those comments, Jenelle, but at the end of the day, you're just trying to do your best. And I've been blessed, I've been lucky. I've got great people, I've got great family. And I've had adversity, particularly over the last several years, that I've been fortunate to be in a leadership role. So a lot of those things are lucky, too.

Jennelle McMaster: Well, many, many thanks. Good luck. Enjoy your lunch. And thanks for doing what you do Craig.

Craig Tiley: Great. Thank you.