Introduction
Episode 2 explores how leadership culture affects service delivery and how being Digital Ready nurtures the APS digital workforce. Our multi-level panel provides relevant and applicable advice on leading from junior, mid or senior levels.
Podcast host, Fleur Anderson is joined by:
- Suzanne Aitken, General Manager, Project Delivery Services Technology Services at Services Australia
- Alex Nitschke, Data Integration Delivery Assurance and Strategy at the Australian Bureau of Statistics
- Sofia Athanasopoulos Digital Designer at the Australian Government Department of Veteran’s Affairs
Listen to Episode 2 on:
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Digital Insights podcast. A podcast brought to you by the Australian government's digital profession. Keeping the Australian public service digital ready. I'm Fleur Anderson and I'm your host today. I acknowledge that we are recording this podcast on the lands of the Ngunnawal people, the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present. I extend that request to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening.
Fleur Anderson:
So the topic for today is leadership at all levels. So it's easy to say how someone can lead from the top of an organization. I mean, you're the boss, right? They have to do what you say. But what if you're a new or at a junior level?
What if you're a mid-level person who's just starting to build your own team? So we're going to talk to three Australian public service leaders, all at different stages of their career. They're going to give us some really practical advice and insights on how to navigate the challenges of leadership from within the apps and with a particular focus
on people working in digital roles. Joining us in Melbourne, we have Susan Aitkin, who is the general manager of Project Delivery Services Division within Technology Services Group for Services Australia. She's responsible for delivering the I.T. components for some of our most significant transformation projects.
Her leadership experience spans 20 years across strategic planning, delivery and operations. She's also led strategic governance management and optimizations functions and major technology programs. She's worked and lived across multiple countries across Europe and Asia. And now she's here in Melbourne talking to us.
Hi, Suzanne. How are you?
Suzanne Aitken:
Hey, I'm really well.
Fleur Anderson:
It's great to have you here.
Suzanne Aitken:
Thank you.
Fleur Anderson:
Thank you. And in Adelaide, we have Alexander Nitschke, who works in the Data Integration Delivery Assurance and strategy branch of the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Alex is an executive leader in the Data, Governance and Strategy Field with a focus on project and change management in government data.
So Alex is also a mentor, an online facilitator to university students and the universities on data governance. Hi, Alex. It's great to have you as well, joining from Adelaide.
Alex Nitschke:
Thanks for having me on.
Fleur Anderson:
And with me here in Canberra, we have Sofia Athanasopoulos, who is a digital designer with the Australian government's Department of Veterans Affairs. She's part of the digital transformation agencies emerging talent program because she's very talented and she's really passionate about user experience and interface design with a keen interest in creating accessible and functional designs.
Hi, Sophia. It's great to have someone actually in the studio.
Sofia Athanasopoulos:
Hi Fleur, thank you. It's great to be here.
Fleur Anderson: Now, thank you so much, guys, for joining us. And we might start off with a couple of questions. So turning to you, Suzanne, can you please tell us a bit more about your background? I mean, you've had 20 years of experience in leadership, but it hasn't all been in the public service, has it?
Suzanne Aitken:
No, that's right. I joined the public service just shy of two years ago. And so predominant part of my career has been in private industry. I started my career in our first meeting with a degree and all respect to those individuals that have a career.
But after four years, I decided that it wasn't quite right for me. And so I through my career to take opportunities when they present themselves. And so my career spanned from H.R. to large scale program delivery to strategy roles and to operation rooms across the motor multifactor industries.
So I've worked in manufacturing, worked full time for a while, which was certainly interesting to the financial services, some consultancies and also business process suicide as well. And yes, amarante, public service and loving it.
Fleur Anderson:
Wow. So working for Bacardi, that's kind of interesting. I mean, do you have the same processes, managing teams in an alcohol manufacturing company compared to something that's more digital or is it all the same?
Suzanne Aitken:
No, it's it's fundamentally different. But that was very early on in my career. I think it was twenty four at the time. And it was a car dealer taking over one of those brands. Clearly, from my accent, you can tell that I'm not from Australia originally.
So it was in Scotland. So think about consolidating multiple distillery sites into a new manufacturing plant. It's certainly taught me how to build resilience.
Fleur Anderson:
That sounds diplomatic. So now turning to Sofia, so Suzanne worked for Bacardi and her younger, younger times. So is it fair is our newest public service recruit. When we called up the other day, you said that if I asked you a couple of years ago what you'd be doing now.
Well, this wasn't really on your radar, was it?
Sofia Athanasopoulos:
No, absolutely not. Coming from the music industry, deejaying and organizing events, the public service is the last place I thought I would be. But as Suzanne said, an opportunity presented itself and I thought it was important to take it.
Fleur Anderson:
Well, that's wonderful. I can't wait to hear a bit more about that in a minute. So, Alex, you're in Adelaide juggling a fair bit at the moment, not only sort of just coming out of lockdown. You've got the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a census that's going to be going ahead in the next couple of weeks during a pandemic, which is kind of interesting. And you mentor, mentor, university students. And on top of that, you have four young sons. So how do you handle all of this? Can you tell us a bit more about what you've got on your plate?
Alex Nitschke:
Thanks, Claire. It's certainly a busy household and my wife runs her own business full time as well. So we do try and stay fairly organized. We have Sunday evening planning sessions, much like you would for any business project and usually over read, try and work out what we've got ahead during the week.
But, you know, we accept a certain amount of crazy is just part of our life and kind of embrace that dilemma. So I started back at the ABS in 2008, working in some economic surveys after a couple of years in the banking sector, decided banking wasn't really for me and and have been a public servant ever since. After that work did a few interesting roles, being seconded out to different departments, helping them with their Adobe of strategies and using data to measure priorities and policy measures, that kind of thing.
And then a few years helping ABC with a large justico business transformation program. They went from about two hours and 15 to 19. So a lot of digital disruption across those different projects. And for someone who's not themselves, definitely going to see a lot of the value in using public data and information to to help them strategize and improve the way we live in decisions we make around different government departments, that kind of thing.
Fleur Anderson:
Well, that's great. Thanks so much for that. And that's so interesting. I think, you know, a Sunday afternoon planning session and the acceptance of a little bit of crazy could be applied across. Well, our work and home lives.
So I'm taking those two leadership skills or tips from you right now. So back to our panel. Sophie, as we mentioned, you are sort of the newest member of the APS in this panel. You went from being a philosophy student, a deejay and music event organizer.
I mean, what was the transition like? Tell us about your first day.
Sofia Athanasopoulos:
The transition was a bit of a shock. My first day. You know, you're going from working at night to working during the day to dark rooms, to bright lights. There was definitely a lot of transition. And I remember probably the biggest impression that was made on me on my first day was or US graduates received a printed out org chart which showed the department in its hierarchy of how everyone works together. The secretaries obviously at the top and everyone else sits underneath. That kind of hierarchy was something I wasn't really used to, because the creative industries, especially more in the DIY space, it's about people using their skills and almost assuming roles based on what they're capable to do. So having this kind of structure was, yeah, definitely a shock.
Fleur Anderson:
Yeah. And so that's quite interesting that that's in the music industry, as you said, is do it yourself. And so how have you used those skills that you learned from all the trials and tribulations of, you know, running music events and the pitfalls that happen?
How did you then transfer that across into your current role?
Sofia Athanasopoulos:
Well, it's interesting, going back to that first day, again, we were spoken to by the repatriation commissioner, and he has a military background, as does a lot of the senior leadership in the Department of Veteran Affairs, which is obviously very fitting.
And he posed the question to all the graduates of what are you going to bring to the fight? And from that, I thought back to, you know, even. My job application and how my ability to draw connections from my diverse experience was, I think, what made me a good candidate.
So from philosophy, I draw my critical problem solving abilities and deejaying an event, organizing, it's all about how people are going to have an experience, which is what is the basis of user experience design. It's about being able to respond to people's needs to create a desirable outcome.
So I think, yeah, being able to draw those connections was the biggest way that I've been able to bring that experience with me, because I think we all bring our unique experiences, no matter how diverse they are, our ability to bring those skills to a new task at hand is.
Fleur Anderson:
It's very interesting. So, I mean, I suppose when you think about what you would be doing as a, you know, deejay at an event, you are picking up real time what people's user experience is and making sure that they are having a good time.
And that might be having to make a decision on the fly that this isn't working. Let's do something else. I guess that's exactly what your user experience work is also about.
Yeah, absolutely. In deejaying, you're getting the feedback in real time. In user experience, you know, it's a more drawn out process of you do your user testing and then you get feedback back and then you can go back and revise and make decisions based on that way, obviously in a critical Problem-Solving way based on the information you receive.
Yes, that's so interesting. So, Suzanne, you just heard Sophia's discussion about well, the one of the different ways of leadership is, you know, from the military and and what are you going to bring to the fight? So you've had experience of leading teams in both the private and public sector.
So what do you think is the secret to good leadership? And I mean, have you got any models that you use and as sort of your go to, you know. Success tips that you can deploy every time that you start a new project.
Suzanne Aitken:
Got a variety of experience of managing different teams. I've been fortunate enough to work and live in multiple countries, which adds a whole new flavor, which is the cultural element, visiting teams as well. And I think that as I've gone through my career, fundamentally, people are people.
And so more time spent actually building a connection with understanding what makes people take, showing them in the right roles. And I, I look at my leadership role quite clearly is three things. I tend to simplify things. And so in my role of leading teams for the delivery teams of hundreds of people, whether it be an operations team of thousands of people or whether it be me strategy teams that tend to be smaller scale, it is three fundamental things in terms my philosophy. First is set a vision. So as a leader, you're responsible for ensuring that there is a vision that people are excited by and want to be led by you.
I think that then it is about understanding for the focus that impedes any of your team to match to be able to achieve those results. And then thirdly, backslap people piece you're responsible for people's physical and mental well-being.
And I think that when you focus in on those three things, the thing that I've learned is that it puts people at the core and that can sometimes sound a bit trite. But it's very genuine to me that I have a big belief that you're nothing unless the people that you're signed to actually want to be led by you and inspired by what you're setting out as being that vision. And so it's building that connection. And I think the larger that the teams become that you lead, you realize that your influence is only really your leadership team.
So currently it would be eight people. And then within that framework in the hierarchy that Sophia spoke to there, and most corporate environments that you have and is necessary to see outcomes achieved, you realize that it's building really solid connections and understanding with your leadership team because they're then responsible for managing their teams.
And so understanding that span and control that you have, they have influence, I think, important as well.
Fleur Anderson:
So, Suzanne, you mentioned three things that outlining the vision. There's also understanding the blockages in asking your team to be honest about what are the blockages to achieving that vision. And then the mental and physical well-being of the team.
How do you how do you encourage people to be honest about blockages? I mean, we hear quite a lot when you're talking to team members from different hierarchies that I didn't want to say anything because it will you know, it's going to upset my boss. If I say that's a stupid idea, that's not going to work. I mean, how do you encourage that culture of being able to be upfront and honest and constructive when it comes to dismantling these blockages?
Suzanne Aitken:
So I think two things. I think as you go through your own career and you lead larger teams and take on more autonomy in terms of roles that you have is really important, I believe, for a leader to understand what it takes to get the work done.
And so by that, when I look at my whole career and the variety of different roles I've had, whether it be delivery strategy operations or just the general people aspect of it, I have a really solid understanding of when I set a program, a phone call, what it takes to get the work done.
And so there's less experience there, the 20 plus years of experience that helped me understand and know where the monkeys are going to be. So I guess the part of it is learning experience are also is the environment that you create.
So lead from the front. My behaviors interact with myself across and how I choose to communicate in the language that I use also helps encouragement to know and understand what what they're able to communicate in a safe environment.
I know that that information isn't going to be used in a way that's negatively going to impact them, but also encouraging people to speak lots of planning sessions. That depends on whether or not you're in an environment where you're using agile frameworks that you can spend a lot of time with each quarter, with your leadership team offsite actually having a safe environment, the time spent where you can plan and understand and do a bit like Alex, just can you do the Sunday planning? Homeschooling with my kids. We do retros at the end of the night, depending on how good the day was, just to kind of go, OK, what do we want to change for tomorrow? So I think a lot of it is about behaviors and leadership style that you bring that naturally going back to. Saying before people are people, you know, kind of Maslow's hierarchy, they're looking for the basics to be in place for that trust, to be there, for them to then open up and feel a sense of psychological safety when when they're with you. And then among that, I think a lot of it is about demonstrating what we do with the information and demonstrating that you're there to support them.
Fleur Anderson:
Well, I love that. And I love the fact that you do daily nightly retros with your kids. That sounds a lot more constructive than some of the conversations I have with mine at the end of the day. So when we spoke earlier, Suzanne, you mentioned some well, I think calling it questionable career advice is probably being too kind. But this was earlier on in your career about returning to work after having children and taking a leadership role. Can you just tell us a little bit about that time?
Suzanne Aitken:
Yes, so it was after I had my first daughter came back from maternity leave, and it's just again that when you come back after having your first child and addressed them intensely by taking a year on, it can be quite daunting.
And when I reflect on it, it's more your confidence is a bit not, you know, your kind of sense of self and highly juggle working life with this new beautiful being that you brought into the world. And I remember walking into the Bildstein on my first day, and it was one of my bosses came through and said, oh, you're back. You know that your career is over and that you have kids. You were pretty to tyrants, you know, female. But what are you going to do now? And I remember just thinking, isn't that interesting? Why why would you no one say those words? And number two, that's interesting that that somebody's belief system. So it lit a fire in my belly.
Fleur Anderson:
I think it would light a fire in anyone's belly. Hearing that right now, just quietly
Suzanne Aitken:
To say that absolutely is not my journey. That's not my adventure. And if you want me to expand, that can talk to some of the things that as a result of it. Yes, that's what I felt.
Fleur Anderson:
Yeah. Yes. So you you had basically the ultimate revenge on that. So can you just tell us what you did next?
Suzanne Aitken:
Well, it was a number of years later after I had come back to work, I worked three days a week to gone on a promotional role, quite a massive program of work to deliver and at times is like take no one to prove it.
And they were quite surprised that I was able to do that. Fast forward a few years. One of the things that I was giving Karen Jobs at financial services organization I worked at was to look after a tower of pipelines.
And so I had this wonderful team that we were trying to develop to miss. So they they had twelve hundred vacancies in the organization and going through your normal graduate programs and classroom programs, autism programs. They weren't really giving that school talent that was available in the market.
And so I presented to the leadership group to say, look, I think there are some other untapped markets that we can go into. Just a hypothesis when you back me and give me a chance to prove it. So they agreed.
And one of the tools that we wanted to prove by being a female myself and having two daughters was that there is this untapped market, which is women that have taken a substantial period of time off to have children and can get back into the workforce because they generally have five plus years to attend to these.
And so what we did was a marketing campaign to just test the waters and see what was out there. And we tested in Melbourne the response rate that we thought was overwhelming. And the program of work was branded as return to work.
And it was about supporting females that had been out of work for five plus years to get them back into working lives. Now, the myth that was out there was that while women have been out of work for about that time, they need to be retrained.
And we're saying, well, I've had two children. I've got a number of females that are my two part time and full time. That's an array of different backgrounds. I don't think anybody needs to be retrained. They just need to be given the opportunity and then brought back into the workplace, dustoff, the skills and terms of any know, Microsoft products that might move forward in the last five plus years, but gives them an opportunity. And what you find is that females tend to have had their confidence built. So gives them a two week Carcoar reduction program to be a massive market with the support that they need.
And let's see what happens now. We ended up having a pilot program that was to bring on 14 females. We had in excess of six hundred and fifty for about a pilot program that we had to select to 14.
Wow. The response was overwhelming. And what we got was not just entry level. We go to every single lateral right up to executive leadership positions of females wanting to come back into the workplace. So I'm delighted to say it's Lawrence Ardu as well, and a number of different organizations leveraging off the model that we put in place. And that's been extended out into five different countries, including India. Really a beautiful thing to be part of, to be able to show not only my. Artists don't believe in something and nurture provokes, I think part of what leadership is, is also I as you journey through your own career and you build out the best of experiences, then being able to utilize that positive way and just back to them, to the community.
Fleur Anderson:
You must have goosebumps when you think back on that moment.
Suzanne Aitken:
I yeah, it's just. I'm very proud of that piece of work. Oh, that's wonderful.
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Fleur Anderson:
So, Alex, turning to you, as I mentioned, you're the father of four boys. I hope you've never had some sort of helpful career advice like that.
Alex Nitschke:
I'm probably not to the same extent as I'm sure Suzanne Malveaux, my wife. And you could have a very long and robust discussion about the things you've been told me and my mom said had four years off out of eight to have our four kids.
And a lot of that wasn't because we we necessarily believed in a certain gender roles. It's just in trying to manage economically and and with with work and everything as best you can with what's available to you as a as a new parent.
So definitely hadn't had that resource. But at the same token, you know, outside family believes that, you know, there's there's also different ways to to succeed as a as a male in the workforce, too. So I don't tend to to think it's about climbing to the very top of the tree, as you would say, in my experience, I've kind of found a balance with my life that allows me to to see and and have time with my kids and do things I enjoy, like the the tutoring and balance the balance my work out so I can do something that's really meaningful and interesting through my my public service career while also attain that balance.
So I was I think I was out there, you know, it's all about becoming the CEO or the head of the department. If if you want to have a family life and and and a balance that allows you to do the things you enjoy with the kids, then not something to be free on as well.
And, you know, I certainly I know my wife has had a lot of that advice, and then she's running our own business now. And I think a lot of girls that were seen as maybe being impossible coming back to the public service used to work in the public service as well.
So, yes, that's a great outcome experience. Suzanne, thanks for sharing.
Fleur Anderson:
Yeah, that is really interesting. Alex, I really like your perspective there, that, you know, it's also comes to men's expectations as well, that that they can actually do more than one thing at the same time like you do.
You know, the work that you do, mentoring students. And it's about finding a place where you're doing meaningful work. And when I just quickly turn to Sophia here, when we spoke the other day, we were talking about, well, what's your leadership aspirations?
And you had some interesting thoughts on that as well.
Sofia Athanasopoulos:
Yeah, absolutely. I think especially for me coming into the apps as I guess a bit more of an unconventional graduate where, you know, before this I was in the music industry being a deejay and event organizers, all the grads were coming into it with a headset of you into the apps to climb the ranks and make your way up that organizational chart to get as high as you can. But, yeah, I think for me, my goal has just been to find where I fit best, basically, and where I can use my skills in a way that is most meaningful and exciting.
So for both the services I'm providing and for myself as a person.
Fleur Anderson:
That's interesting is sort of that question that whether you're a generalist or a specialist and what's going to bring you the most satisfaction, I suppose, and and your own opportunities to lead wherever you are. Yes, that's great. Look, coming back to you, Alex.
So you've got a huge amount of training in change management. So I would imagine that you would have some tips and tricks about how to manage a team in a workplace as along with, you know, the work that you do with facilitation of workshops and students at a university level.
What sort of things in your go to bag?
Alex Nitschke:
Sure. So I think and we always talk about one of the keys being having that senior commitment from our family is an organized organization, investing in managing the change and giving us the tools and and things we need, whether that be through using language like PSI and doing readiness assessments and change plans and all that, the kind of rigor of of that kind of thing. That's obviously one one aspect. Of I'm trying to understand what the change means to your people, but at the same time, you know, having lived through it as a team leader or an executive, a middle management kind of level, you've got to be able to and be willing to kind of take that information in. What are the main ones that are telling you? Well, I just kind of it in the schedule to say we're going to do these readiness assessments, are going to ask these questions on our staff or actually planning to do something with the information.
And that's where in recent projects I've been involved in, particularly today with the ibises, new website infrastructure and that kind of thing. We use Agile quite effectively because it's by examination you can have retros and you can have stand up some radio kind of touch base with your team to see how how things are actually improving or changing rather than just filing things away in a filing cabinet. So how do we those tools and structures, I think is really important. But also you've got to have the mindset within whatever project or program you're working in that we are actually going to move with the change in and whether whether that be new technology or new information about how people are feeling or how what they need. It's not just just sort of a token gesture on personal level. In the last few years, I've had really good experience through transformation with with a leader that's kind of been linked since.
And there's that kind of servant nature of, well, I'm here to give you what you need to succeed, and kind of recognizing that you might be sitting across from someone or working with someone on the team, and you might have totally different experiences about the transformation we're going through in terms of whether they're positive or negative for you based on a lot of your personal factors. So I've had some really good leaders that I've acknowledged that understood that different people were coming from from different experiences and and understanding that giving those different people what I need, however, that this training or advice or support or maybe a different direction in their career, I think recognizing that it's not just a one size fits all approach, and it's also not just a throw money at the problem approach. It has to be a bi cultural thing for all the people involved in the project you're working in.
Fleur Anderson:
And Alex, you know, one thing I wanted to sort of touch on with you and and Suzanne mentioned it as well about building confidence in your team members and resilience. Now, you had an interesting experience a couple of years ago, didn't you, where you came up, where you and your team came up with the best plan ever that. Well, I'll let you tell the story.
Alex Nitschke:
Yes, he is. About five years ago now, we were asked to come up with an onboarding schedule for our 200 odd teams and the absolute system of work to to start using all these new systems that the transformation was going to be delivering them after 20 or 30 years of using the same the same stuff.
So first we did a quick Google of onboarding meant and sat down and told everyone and planned out a five year schedule to to onboard all these two hundred areas to the new systems. And we did that based in good faith on what we were told in terms of how hard it was going to be, what teams would need, when they would need it, how much time they would need to to develop these things. And then we started plotting along our schedule. And by the time the very first team actually started using or onboarding, as we found out to any of these systems, was actually eight months after the whole original schedule was supposed to have finished. So we wait quite a long time. Now, they added over 50 or 60 variations of this schedule over time. And the lesson learned there was you can't just set things and start and expect them to to to work perfectly from start to finish.
There was a lot of assumptions and uncertainties that were made at the start there. And probably in that project or program, we were a little bit reluctant to to change things as new information came to hand or a little bit slow to to jump out new information and to understand it.
So going forward into a more recent program is where we we took more of an agile approach. And we actually did our very first schedule on a piece of it, which is paper at the pub after a long lunch.
And it had all the calories cleared out the site and a few textures and markers and and that piece, which is Pavement, proved to be far more useful than a three or four month consultation process on a schedule that really didn't make sense at the end of the day.
So I think you have to do things that are fit for purpose. Obviously, there's a lot of requirements to. In some of these larger programs to to show your thinking and show you direction, but also I think there should be that level of pushback to say this is what we know now, this is what we can kind of lend our feet on. But we're going to have some some new things come up along the way that we can't necessarily be sure of at the moment, particularly when it comes to dealing with new technologies or trying to see new technologies together with older ones while also doing a business.
We often talked about in the about transformation and the idea of trying to rebuild an airplane while it's flying in the sky. And that's kind of what we were doing with the two hundred statistical programs that we're all running.
And everyone's donated their labor force, informational CPI information while trying to sort of make any mistakes in in in stitching these things together. So I guess the quick takeaway was you can't solve all the world's problems on day one, but you can certainly kind of set up a culture and an understanding, a willingness to to move with and fly with with changes. And that might be using things like agile and different change management processes and activities. But at the end of the day, you have to have the culture and the willingness to engage with those along the way and using information that comes comes back towards you as as it happens.
Fleur Anderson:
So, Suzanne, I could see you nodding furiously. One part of Alex's story about how they weren't quick enough to take on new information. I'm summarizing here, Alex, but as it was coming in and then adapting the plan, so have you had similar examples in, you know, leading teams like that?
Suzanne Aitken:
Yes.
I mean, most. Change programs now have some relevance to technology. So there's always a piece of tech and. Any programs in this day and age that is planned to five minutes in advance and doesn't have a methodology applied for it.
You are constantly reviewing everything. In five years time, the technology landscape has changed so much to what you set out to achieve, have changed in so many different facets that it's crazy not to have something that is more aitchison.
So I tend to choose my teams lead from the front to say, let's set an ambition and it's OK to have ambition and vision to five years. So you are visually, because most human beings find something to visually connect to, to understand the parts.
So how that vision iterate. Break it down into bite sized chunks generally for the teams that are run those about 90 days. So you just signed by today. But start with a concept which is highest you've written. So you've got lots of different terms that can be used.
But I tend to say to the teams, there is so many things that are always open to be or or risks or be desired that what's going to have the biggest impact. It's a your backlog of things that you want to get to constantly be really questioning is the value they're being delivered.
And has something changed in the ecosystem? That means that as a leadership team, we need to come together to respond to them. So the most recent piece that we did in San Francisco was the Infrastructure Transformation Society. As I broke it down and said, realistically, we could sign that for like, say, sprint cycles for about 18 months and then every two weeks we get together. And so the last one took place about five weeks ago. And just in the first quarter getting started, we pivoted quite heavily going into the next quarter. And it's the communications that you then send back to the teams.
And on the pro side component, I it change management principles and 70, 70 percent of your time actually building people's awareness. So don't assume that just because you sent an email somewhere in conversation that she ticked off the communication books.
You must constantly be chatting with your teams and helping them understand what's changed. What rules are they playing it? How are we talking to the outcome that we're trying to achieve? So as a leader, it's back to those three fundamentals.
What's impeding the team getting there? And is everybody enjoying the journey as you go on? Hmm.
Fleur Anderson:
Fabulous. Thank you for listening today. And I want to thank our guests, Suzanne, Sofia and Alex. And I want to thank you for listening.
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