#36 - Susan Stewart, Global Knowledge Culture Leader at Aurecon and an out of the box thinker on Strategy, Culture and Change management

Susan Stewart, also known as Sue is an out of the box thinker, a strategy, business transformation and change management specialist having championed major projects in multinational professional services, government and private organisations, including global design firms Aurecon, Woods Bagot, Hood Sweeny and Unispace, Ernst & Young and also Chaired the Change Connect Group for 7 years.

Sue is an accomplished and confident leader, driving the implementation of a range of projects across America, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific, which have included: global strategic planning, new international market expansion, mergers and acquisitions, cultural transformation, knowledge management strategy, business development strategy, technology system implementations and organisational restructures. 

As a young honours graduate, Sue’s “It’s A Wonderful Life Moment” came when she bogged a tractor in a wheat field and realised that the world would be a better place if she no longer worked in research. Luckily a Big Four firm adopted her and for the next decade she absorbed best practice in strategy, organisational development, change, communication and knowledge and immersed herself in the explosion of mobility and digital. And along the way, she completed a Post Grad in Communications, Master of Arts and has scribbled her thoughts in papers and presented her experiences at national and international conferences. 

Although well-credentialed, Sue is most proud of her family, her ability to make the most out of left-overs, her innate and irrelevant knowledge of film and her love of making Spotify playlists. 

Talking about the playlist, in this episode,  Sue shared her journey and experiences through a  playlist of four iconic pieces of music,  which we deep dive into during the podcast and all things about Strategy, Culture and Change management.

If you enjoy this episode, please share it with your friends and colleagues, and check us out on synergyiq.com.au.   

Where to find Susan Stewart

• LinkedIn

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Books mentioned on this episode:  

• Change by Design, Revised and Updated  - How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation - By: Tim Brown
• The Tipping Point - How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - By: Malcolm Gladwell

Transcript

Synergy IQ: 0:01

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Daniel Franco: 0:20

Hey there synergises and welcome back to another episode of The creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco and today we have the lovely Susan Stewart on the show and she's the global knowledge culture leader at the large engineering advisory firm Oricon Sue as a strategy, business transformation and change management specialist, having championed many major projects and multi in multinational professional services government and private organization including firms such as Oricon, Woods bagger hood, Sweeney UNISPACE, Ernst and Young and she's also chaired the Chang connect group for seven years. Sue is an accomplished and confidently that driving the implementation of a range of projects across America, Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific, which have included global strategic planning new international market expansion, mergers and acquisitions culture transformation, knowledge management strategy, business development strategy, technology system implementations and organizational restructures. As a young honors graduate, Sue's It's A Wonderful Life moment came when she bugged her tractor in a wheat field and realized that the world would be a better place if she no longer worked in research. Luckily, a big four firm adopted her and for the next decade, she absorbed the best practice in strategy, organizational development, change and communication and immerse yourself in the explosion of the digital world. Along the way, she completed a post grad in comes Masters of Arts and a scribbled a thoughts in papers and presented her experiences at national and international conferences. Although well credentialed, Sue is most proud of her family, and her ability to make the most out of leftovers, her innate and irrelevant knowledge of the film industry and our love of making Spotify playlists. So talk about Spotify playlist when preparing for this podcast to actually created a career playlist for a journey and experiences which we deep dive into during the podcast. I know you'll love this episode. And if you do, be sure to hit subscribe and check us out at Synergy. IQ calm but are you. So welcome back to the creating synergy podcast. My name is Daniel Franco, your host and today we have Sue Stewart, the global knowledge and culture leader at Oricon, a worldwide engineering firm. Welcome to the show. Thanks,

Susan Stewart: 2:56

Daniel. It's,

Daniel Franco: 2:57

I would normally kick off the show. Just asking you a little bit about your background. You and I've had a few conversations of we have. And you have a really interesting story or you've you've an interesting way of breaking up your career into music titles.

Susan Stewart: 3:17

Absolutely.

Daniel Franco: 3:18

Can we dive straight into?

Susan Stewart: 3:20

Where is it going?

Daniel Franco: 3:21

I'm really interested in is you broken up into four phases? So early in your career being phase one?

Susan Stewart: 3:28

Absolutely. I think for me, career has not been linear. And so trying to talk about my you know, first I did these and then I did that. To me, it wasn't this perfect trajectory, there was a lot of points where I totally changed and to use the word of 2020 I suppose pivoted into a different space. And so my my first phase I I'm a bit of a lover of music and podcasts and playlists and things like that. I call Should I stay or should I go from the clash, and this is me.

Daniel Franco: 4:01

So everyone's seen that they

Susan Stewart: 4:03

get that little dungeon in the background, but it's very much around that you know, you finished university and for me kind of finally graduating was a bit of a journey in itself I started a few courses didn't feel right finally ended up in a degree and of all things agricultural science, you know, honors degree and came out and was this bright young thing had this you know, a really really great job but realize that work isn't University and so things that I was really good at at university like lab work I got it down pat in in real labs and real environments. I just didn't enjoy it as much. And so for me it was that moment of do I keep doing this thing that I've studied for that I've invested all this time and and money going down this path? Or do I start to really acknowledge what are the things that I actually really enjoy? and also happened to be the things that I'm better at than some of the traditional science aspects. So that's why it's essentially Should I stay or should it go?

Daniel Franco: 5:08

So you were, correct me if I'm wrong, but you were cleaning dirt is that?

Susan Stewart: 5:15

Yes, there are people that claimed it. I specialize in plant pathology of all things and was working at the Institute of horticultural development in Victoria. And we were doing exploring different fuels fumigants for to replace methyl bromide. So we were dealing with bold grows in Dandenongs. And part of that process was actually seeing it a few minutes worked, which meant doing boreholes and getting soil samples. And then essentially, I spent three months washing that soil to see if the fungus had survived in it. So it was very much a time when, unfortunately, we didn't have Spotify or anything. And I would have to, you know, I listened to Triple J every day, sit there and turn it on at eight o'clock in the morning. And in 530, at night, I would have maybe cleaned 10 samples, and studied them. So it was a lot of monotony. I knew it was important to do was I good at it. My maiden name was for olio. And my boss used to call it the for all yo factor because when it came to some of the lab work, there was always some really weird, unusual outcomes. And he's like, I think that one there is an outlier. That's for all your effector because he knew, I think he was a little bit bored. And maybe that one didn't work very well. I think what I did, like during that period was working with the ball grows. And because we had to get funding from, you know, government agencies, we had to get the ball growers on board to actually give us parts of their land give us some laborers pay for the bulbs, they weren't allowed to use the flowers. And in flower industry, you know, land is that's where the money is. So we had to work with them really closely to get them on board through this particular process. And it was a big change for them. They were using a fumigants. That worked perfectly. But international standards were replacing it. So they had a burning platform for change. So it was I suppose my first real change project to be honest, and working with them and getting them on board. And they would be giving me journal articles that they'd got from the Netherlands and they translate the journal article for me and you know, give it to me and say, this is some research happening in the Netherlands. With bolts and things. You could try that here. And I'd be like, Okay, let's give it a bow. And then reporting back and communicating that back. So I realized I loved all that bit. And that was a bit that I was really good at it was that the business aspect? It was the pure science bit that was probably not my strength.

Daniel Franco: 7:42

So you got was the lightbulb moment when you bought a tractor.

Susan Stewart: 7:50

I then I moved to Adelaide for love, who is now my husband, and worked at Roseworthy in dryland agriculture. And so that's essentially working with with wheat, we were looking at drought resistant wheat varieties. And my boss from my first job said you won't enjoy it. Like it's even. It's even harder than you know, working with the Bob growers. And it was it was it was really hard work in, you know, the summers of Adelaide, which I've not experienced before. So where were you before? In Victorian return? Yeah. And there was one day and I just wasn't, I didn't, I didn't enjoy the work environment as well. I'm very much someone that likes to kind of know who I'm working with. And hello. And I used to have a little competition with myself, how many good mornings Could I get when I started work? Because back then it was all offices I walk past and say good morning. And people would look at me with this weird look as if that's That crazy girl that started from this must be a Melbourne thing because she's crazy.

Daniel Franco: 8:46

Saying hello is an odd thing these days. And then

Susan Stewart: 8:48

one one day I got dragged attract stuck in the mud in with this tractor of me of all people driving attractive in any way. And it was my it was my burning platform essentially. And just went I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to I don't want to drive a tractor. I don't want to be in the dirt. I really enjoy this communication side. And the thing it's enough's enough. Now I've tried for 18 months, and this is my pivot moment. And that's what might be move.

Daniel Franco: 9:17

It's a going back to your point of spending all this money, uni and then actually making a decision. It's pretty, you're pretty self aware. At such a young age to make that decision. There's a lot of people that just continue it, trudge it out, try to make it work, end up living lives that really don't fit their needs. So how did you build the confidence or is that just who you are at the at the core of doing what you love?

Susan Stewart: 9:51

I do like a challenge. I am one of those people that you know says if people say oh, you can't do this, I'm like okay, then that is the thing that I'm got to work on. And I don't know if that comes back from my background. You know, my mom and dad were really hard workers. My father was the son of an Italian immigrant. And my father used to run at the petrol station to put petrol in the car because you know, that was wasted time. So I think I came from that background of, you know, you had to give everything your all. But I also had, even though I'd made this decision, I still didn't really know what it meant at the time, you know, the options for if you're good at communications, does that mean I had to go into PR, and I didn't want to go down that route. And I'm admittedly tried to, I applied to jobs within within the agricultural industry in a communications role. And they were saying, I'm sorry, we just want a journalist. And I'm like, but I can actually write, and I know what I'm writing about, like, I've studied this thing, and they were just not at all interested. And so I was a little bit despondent there for a while and apply for law, there was a job in the paper, this tiny little job in the paper that was for a role at instant young. And it was said, you know, you had the three key skills where you could do research, you could write and you could do presentation, like pulling stuff together. And I looked, and I said, I think I could do this job. But my husband's like very well, my now husband is like, there's no way you can their job. And I went Oh, hello, challenge. And was embarrassingly, really embarrassingly, put my seat in the together like a, it was a brochure on myself. I don't want to get into the details.

Daniel Franco: 11:38

So someone who was nervous about talking about him, so

Susan Stewart: 11:46

I know I have a headache. And they rang me up. And I had that first level interview. And I said, Look, I'm really sorry, but you got to tell me, how did I get this far like? And he said to me, Well, I read this thing that you wrote this brochure, and I'm like, this is the person we need. And he said in and then the back page, I see qualifications, Bachelor of agricultural science, and he went, but I have to make this girl like how did she had me until this tiny print eight point pond or something at the bottom. And was very lucky to what I say be adopted by Ernst and Young and worked in a research role in their audit area.

Daniel Franco: 12:23

So it's proposals. So we're moving into phase we are moving into phase two, phase two. So phase two

Susan Stewart: 12:31

is my praise you my Fatboy Slim period. And this is not necessarily praising me of how awesome I am. It's more looking back for me to look back during that period and realize how incredibly lucky I was to be in a period where I was there for 10 years and over that time, a lot of change happened in professional services firms, it went, you know, from six firms to four firms. So we're involved in the at a at an Adelaide level being involved in you know, that whole merger perspective with Addison's being involved in a demerger. We're consulting, uncoupled, I had a phenomenal leader slash mentor who saw my differences not as strange and unusual, but something that was a real strength. And so he got to the box thinking, my out of the box thinking, and he just brought me into anything and everything and I was coming from, like I said, before my background and you know, put your hand up for everything, give it a go, put in your best. And so I just anything you throw at me, I'm like, Okay, I'll catch that all I'll see what I can do. I'm not afraid, asking questions. So you know, getting that learning. They were really supportive during having kids as well. And enabling me to I did post grad studies. I, when I went on maternity leave the second time, I kind of knew what I was doing and felt a bit more confident being being a mum. And you know, said look, when I'm doing my masters at the same time, and they're like, Yeah, sure, we'll pay for you to do your masters. So really, incredibly business. No Master of Arts, Pete, like strategy, communications and things like that. And I decided to do that, from a growth mindset perspective of my strength is not necessarily in I'm good with economics, when it comes down to say accounting and those kind of aspects is not an area where I have a strength in and a growth mindset to me is Focus, focus on the things that you're good on and build on them and become expertise in that area and knowing where you need support and so using others for that, because if we, if you focus on all the things that you're not strong at, you end up rounding off your edges, and it's the edges that make you different. It's why you brought to the table for your different perspective. So I suppose to my boss about that, you know, do I, what route do I do, and he was really supportive and said, No go where your strengths are and focus on that. So, and also it was the emergence of digital. I mean, I worked at a time where, you know, e commerce happened. And, you know, ey did training on what is e commerce in retail, like, we went through all of these, which is funny to look back now. But it was quite an explosion of things that were happening. And so I feel very privileged to have experienced that period and had a lot of different leaders as well that I learnt from weather I learned of what to do, and not what to do. Yeah. But did have that freedom to be able to be myself as well.

Daniel Franco: 15:46

What you you've mentioned previously, that you work on many memorable projects, the big consulting the Big Four consulting firm, you would see some, you would see almost everything in that role. Some of the some of the most memorable projects, obviously, confidentiality is a sizable while ago, but all the anything that sort of sticks in your mind, at the time of some of the work you're doing back then

Susan Stewart: 16:17

some of the aspects around I mean, I, the majority of my time was inside the business. So about eight to nine years of that was inside, and then it was only towards the end, I started working on the other side, which was really interesting, because when you're inside a business, you can be more aggressive in your disruption, I suppose you can challenge more, because you know, the ladies, you've got to report, then you're going into the consulting side, and you look at things and go, Whoa, but I can't say anything, you know, like you've and how do I reframe that in a different way? So that to me was a really big leap of learning of going from it generally, you can say what you think but when you're when you've got to manage that message? And how can you get the most out of it, you come more from an influencing perspective, and how you can change that. So that was really challenging in terms of stories with clients, but I never tell. I'm just trying to think of some that might be.

Daniel Franco: 17:15

Um, now You've piqued my interest in some of the the influences that you may have had internally versus externally? How did you manage the influencing of an external client? If you were in that position?

Susan Stewart: 17:32

It's actually a really good question I drew on, like my leaders in that role very much, I, I'm very much someone that needs to go out and ask a lot of questions and say to people, you know, when you've done this role, or what are some things that I've learned, so I was always asking people like peers, and that how it worked. I was fortunate to have a leader where I, he could see that I would that he I'm a really bad poker face. So the way that I deal with that, if ever, there's a client out there, you're wondering, why do I write so many copious notes? It's for me to process the information of what I'm seeing and hearing and learning. And not necessarily showing you visually that oh, gee, god, did you really say that? And so, and then being able to process that, so I would come back processes, I'm a big draw. So I would draw it and do kind of thinking, and then go back to, you know, that project team and say, This is what I'm thinking, I have real concerns around these particular areas. These are my red lights, how can we approach the client together, and often, we will do it collaboratively, I was lucky to, in my internal role get a lot of BD training as well, because that was part of the space that I was in the marketing comms BD space. So I did have some learnings from that. But it wasn't practical because I was part of the other side. So this was a big leap for me, and I learnt a lot from the people that I worked with. I'm a big learner from watching. Yeah. So using that approach, essentially was building off others. Yeah.

Daniel Franco: 19:06

You're from? Look, this is from our, all of our conversations today. Even just in preparation for the podcast, hearing and listening to the your creative mind and the way you present to people internally and try to influence you. You listen or hear a topic. And it's almost like your brain just takes off and goes off in a direction and everyone else has to catch up. Which is an amazing trade. Where do you believe that comes from your ability to think outside the box and run off and create ideas that people haven't even thought about?

Susan Stewart: 19:48

Has it come from? I think it was just there. I think what has happened though, is a big thing for me. I think one of the things that we did do when we're at a why part of the professional development Then we did a Myers Briggs session. And I know people are like I love Myers Briggs, I hate clients Briggs. To me the biggest thing through that was, ah, not everyone thinks the same as me. I really thought everyone did think that way I thought they all processed content, you know, things were popping in their head and bubbles were popping up and bits throw ideas that I'd heard yesterday, I read last week or experience, I thought everyone thought that way. And it wasn't until this moment, I'm like, Oh, I'm so trying to explain how that works is a little bit complicated for me. But what I've learned is over the years is I need to understand to even though my mind works that way. And I, I do have to draw it and process it, to get it to synthesize it, to then be able to be bring people on the journey. So I've had to change. I'm very much an extroverted brainstorm, as well, my husband's just learned, let it just go for a while. And eventually she'll get there. You know, which, which point do I listen to? And I've learned that I that I have to stop externally brainstorming on people, because it's overwhelming, particularly for

Daniel Franco: 21:08

my next day, how have you managed the overwhelm that you could potentially have on some people? Now,

Susan Stewart: 21:13

I love it. So you, I'm exhausting. But

Daniel Franco: 21:17

it, you know, in a world of especially consulting, which is what I play in, it can be overwhelming for some how have you managed that?

Susan Stewart: 21:27

I think being able to then bring them into that conversation and not not be so quick to jump to these things that are popping in my head. And at least if I can put them down, I need to get them out. That's the problem. So I've learned to draw more and get them out on paper, rather than telling people and then using different, you know, methods, whether it's, you know, design thinking processes or workshops, and then to get them to think outside as well and start to kind of map that a lot of sticky notes, or use a lot of open consultation and thinking around sticky notes on boards, where we're thinking, let's journey map these, what are the experiences, to then get them to see different linkages, and then I can bring my crazy into the mix.

Daniel Franco: 22:16

So for those who can't see through the video, or we've got some yellow draft in front of us, with notes scribbled all over him, I absolutely love it. In fact, I think you told me how to structure this. No, it's It's, it's great. I absolutely, it's really one of the easiest podcasts I prepare for, because everything was handed to.

Susan Stewart: 22:43

You interesting, though, you say that, but I think I have to, I have to structure it because otherwise it would go nowhere. And I've learned to go you've got to bring in all these things into something that can be used.

Daniel Franco: 22:57

I'm I'm an absolute in love with the way your brain works. And what's funny to me, or striking to me, I should say more is that in a world of what seems to be chaos is a lot of structure. It's organized chaos isn't a release, it's it's great the way that my

Susan Stewart: 23:15

husband would call it

Daniel Franco: 23:17

a living. But not so All right. So moving in, we want to move into Phase Three now of your career. What were the key learnings coming out of EY? You working for this big cut through? Big Four firm? How did you What learnings did you get out of them,

Susan Stewart: 23:34

um, I think very much that it's okay to be authentic. And, I mean, when I first started at EY, it was very structured and hierarchial. And you know, everything was kind of in its place at the time. You know, all women who wearing skirts must wear stockings, it was that kind of I rocked out one day, and it was 42 degrees in Adelaide, and I didn't wear stockings on the tram. And I actually had someone look at me and say, so no stockings today. So and I was like, Oh, wow, okay, we're wearing that organization. But in that 10 year period, the culture you know, totally transformed. But I think I did learn that it is okay to be yourself. And that if you are authentic, that's when you your strengths really shine. Whereas if I had have gone down that route of you know, I'm going to try and become you know, this finance person and do all these other things that I never felt I really was, you know, it's strength that I don't think I would be RM today.

Daniel Franco: 24:35

So I agree I is human beings have a pretty good bullshit radar, right? And if you're not being authentic, most people will understand all the, you know, yeah, this whole fake it till you make it. That is a saying that gets thrown around, especially in consulting a lot, but it works to an extent, right because if you're not authentic While you're faking it, I suppose then people can see right through it slightly. Lose Yourself by Eminem. Yes, yeah, is your face.

Susan Stewart: 25:09

And I suppose I picked that song because it's kind of you know, you've got this one shot and you know and make the most of it essentially. And I came out of a why at the time, you know, it's they're dynamic organizations and they move with markets. And so the consulting arm that I was working in, closed down in Adelaide so I was essentially retrenched, I could have that option of two, I had a bit of a do I stay? Or do I go again? Do I do I continue to go back into an old role that they were saying there's a role here that you could take, and I'm thinking I did that role I used to, you know, 10 years ago, do I really want to go back into that, or, I've come with this, this all this experience. And so I decided to take that leap. And in working for a big four, it is, you know, you do have a bit of a brand stamp. And because of the the support that I'd had, like, you know, I came with that brand stamp of you come from Big Four, there is an element of best practice, they are big, they're big for big for a reason. But then also having the education aspect around it. So I had I joined woods, Bagot, a global architecture firm, and originally was in a consulting space and which was great. I have some funny stories about that. But I can't tell you those.

Daniel Franco: 26:30

Leave for a

Susan Stewart: 26:31

while. We'll leave it Yeah, leave that after podcast. But it is interesting. From a workplace design perspective, that's when I was working with organizations were saying, you know, we want to go into open plan. And then they would you know, ring up at the last minute saying, people won't pack their boxes to move. Can you know how you spoke to me a year ago about change management? Can you come and fix it? It's like, what today, you want me to fix the today's change management day. And that was really challenging for me to be able to say it very nicely to a client. Well, okay, let's sit down and work through this. Talk about change when at the last minute. And so which is still, it's not changed. It's not changed management, when it's last minute, it's no one to call it that. It's Can you help me? I've got an emergency. Yeah, she's like 911 help, you know, if that's what it is,

Daniel Franco: 27:22

but how can we how can we just pick on that for one second, I happened so often, where we work, we do change management, that I could almost guarantee 80% of the work we do is called in after the 911, the 911.

Susan Stewart: 27:40

I think it comes in because there is a lack of understanding that it is actually an area of expertise just as much if you've got a project and you have got you know, the either the CIO, let's say it's an ERP implementation project. And we need the CIO, because that's a piece of technology. That's where the change becoming come in at that absolute stage, they should should be part of the decision of consultation around the business of what is the problem at hand? What are we trying to solve? What then is the tool that we're going to use that and so unless you start at that very beginning to me, it's not change management. And it's a bit like I'm really good with leftovers, one of my superpowers is you know, what's for dinner? I don't know, let me open the fridge. You know, we had a bit of this and I make this thing up. And to me, when you bring in a change manager at the end, you're you're giving them leftovers, and saying we've got a dinner party of 30 people what can you do? What can you whip up compared to saying we've got a dinner Potter party of 30 people the reason we bring them together is x y Zed this is how it's going to work and taking it at the very well this is the experience of how I'm even going to invite them to the dinner party I love that so unless you bring them in then we need a name to either fix the word change management to not to say management because there's more to it than that or rename the bid at the end this leftover 911 Section Two to say that's actually not change management and I can help you with emergency implementation needs but it's not changed manage

Daniel Franco: 29:18

dinner party and allergies. Fantastic. Just come up with that then I'm sorry, I didn't know it's brilliant. Because if you actually think about it, there might be some people who are gluten gluten free there might be some people are vegetarians, if you're gonna whip together something you're not really catering for all the different the different needs of each stakeholder. Right? So I think it's a brilliant I don't need seafood. So going back to woods, Bagot, where are you

Susan Stewart: 29:45

back to this? But and at the time they were having a new managing partner new strategy, which was really exciting taking the business from being focused, you know, as an office in Adelaide to being part of a global studio. And this whole connection that someone could be working, there could be a project in Adelaide and different people around the globe could be working on that particular project. So

Daniel Franco: 30:10

what what year are we and where are we at now? I can't remember

Susan Stewart: 30:13

the year. See, my mind doesn't work well with numbers, maybe 15 years ago? Yeah, yeah. And it was actually a really exciting period to think that way. So coming from my focus in AI was very much I'm local focus of Adelaide, in a national organization that's in a in a Asia Pacific organization that's in a worldwide organization, to coming into an organization that's just said, we are global. And they weren't getting some traction with some of their activities. The chairman and the managing partner said, Can you have a look at this and give us your perspective? And so I went back with this paper that essentially said, I interviewed all of the directors and said, you've got the strategic statement. Imagine we had reached that year. And you're popping the champagne. Tell me talk to me about what are you seeing what's happening? What are the things that are going on? And then what was interesting was, they all had a different champagne moment. So went back to the business said, okay, that's okay. I'm going to take all the champagne moments and mix them all together. And but then show you, some are talking about design aspects. I'm talking about clients, I'm talking about internal things. And then so what does that actually mean? And I questioned that. And then they said, Fine, there you go fix it. And I went, oh, oh, actually.

Daniel Franco: 31:37

So your role at this point was change.

Susan Stewart: 31:39

I was actually a consultant. And then they said, but now you're going to have to come into the business. So I can't remember my title that kept changing. And I'm not overly big on titles, I don't really mind but it was essentially working with the COO and the managing partner to look at that. So I suppose organizational aspect of we have a strategy, but how do we get traction and embed that throughout all parts of it and get I suppose that stack on top of each other that covers everything from you know, people to marketing to? We didn't have internal communications, we didn't have a knowledge platform. We built we introduced CRM dynamics, we introduced internal communications, knowledge, a digital work environment, you know, so that people could work on projects, we could pass a project from, you know, Adelaide, sends it off to Perth, sends it off to London, sends it off to the US sends it off to Asia or whatever is happening, that you could essentially 24/7. So it's not just and it's a mindset as well, am I going to give up this piece of because I'm, I'm working on this, this, this design this designs mind? How do you hand it over? So it's not just the functional bits? It's all that? Suppose McKinsey, you'd call it the softer components that are always the really hard bits to implement. So it was taking that ying and yang approach.

Daniel Franco: 33:00

I'm one of the main questions that we get asked quite a fair bit, especially from looking at things from an organizational strategy point of view, is everyone kind of knows where they want to be? Or executives, leaders, they want to know where they kind of want to be that champagne moment used as an example. They just don't know where to start? Where could you talk us through where your brain goes to? Where would you start? Do you just start by speaking to people, what's your method when kicking off a project?

Susan Stewart: 33:37

The interesting thing is, I mentioned at the very beginning, I didn't excellence degree, which sounds unusual that I'm now in this space. But what it has given me is that research approach that you have to start with not your knowledge base, you actually have to start elsewhere. And so when we submitted a paper, in my degree, at a minimum, you had to have 20, journal references if you don't hand up the paper if you don't, and that was expected. So when I start something, you know, I'll do I'm Will, I'll read journal articles, I'll read business magazines, I'll do interviews individually with people, I'll do workshops, I'll look at things that have got absolutely nothing to do with either that industry or that problem to try and find find out how other things have been solved and how I can use different use different ideas to actually solve a similar problem. And so I very much am a analyst at heart. I will draw that methodology and approach. After my Woods time I went to UNISPACE during construction and design, they had picked an ERP system and said, We need you to implement it and you've got we had pretty much a year for an ERP system across 16 countries with not one of them had a set of like their chart of accounts and things like that it's the same somewhere in Excel somewhere in the different platforms. But we did a lot of workshops of China. And so the challenge for us was the the product had already been decided, we were told this is it, this is the deadline. But I still did take that approach of Hold on a minute, before we have I have to find out how they are and what they're doing, how are they feeling? How can we? How can we implement this in an agile way, and go through that particular process, so very much start what he's thinking, then I'll kind of digest pull it together to me, if I can't draw it, to explain it, then it's not working. So it has to be whether it's a triangle, or whatever diagram, it turns out to be, that it at least gives that same kind of visual when you're explaining it to people. And I'm very much coming, you know, with a bit of a marketing background in my past as well. Very much around branding initiatives that I do around making sure it's really easy to understand the strategy as well. It's not, you know, a whole paragraph and I can't remember what it's supposed to be, you know, just core really short, sharp remembering these key things at the moment in our, in our last project was very clear on the visual. So they always knew at what stage we were at where we were going, we were consistent the whole way. So it's every aspect of that communication component around what what happens.

Daniel Franco: 36:33

It's amazing what happens when communication is

Susan Stewart: 36:35

It is it is crazy, powerful. And it's that clear. thing if you don't bring the change people in from the very beginning. And then you say that's all right, we'll bring a comms person in. And they're trying to work out. Well hold on a minute, what's what's the messaging, what's the things and this is midway through a project, all of that should have been decided at the very, very beginning. Right, great. So. So did I answer the question in I don't know that? I did

Daniel Franco: 37:00

You did? Absolutely. You You gave us what your way of starting when you draw? What how do you? What does it look like? Paint a picture for us right? Now? If you're putting something together? And you say, Oh, I can't draw it. It's not working. What is your what are your drawings look like? Are they diagrams are they graph, so they have a bit of everything of everything.

Susan Stewart: 37:21

Sometimes they might be inspirational as what they might be just moments in, I'm a bit of a movie fan, they might be movie things, they might be quotes. They might be things storytelling from a book that I've read. And I do use yellow trace a lot, because you can see in a roll of paper. So you can you can put it on the kitchen table and lay it out and put bits and pieces and sticky notes on it and try and pull it together. And you know, part of that for me is I've worked for with a colleague for a number of years now. And she knows me really well. And there are moments where she'll say, Sue, you need to go for a run, oh, okay, I'll go for a run. And she knows that I'll get to a point in a run where I'll forget about my brain telling me that, you know, I'm breathing too loud, and I should stop running, you know, you're too tired. And then I'll stop listening to the music that I'm listening to. And then suddenly, visually, I can see all these things that I was thinking all start to fall into play. It's like my mind removes all of the side things that are going on. And I'll come back from Iran, and I'll go, Okay, this is how it goes. I've got a I've got, I've got the structure. So it's not always the same. During it. It just depends. I do take inspiration from others. It's not like I sit there and I'm this magical designer, I'm certainly not an architect or an artist, but I will look at other models and you know, I don't copy them, I leverage them and build on where you

Daniel Franco: 38:52

go. You go in your research path

Susan Stewart: 38:54

to go down my research past inspiration, do you

Daniel Franco: 38:58

feel that they're right, because the run running is an interesting one for me, I genuinely feel the same way. If I go get up, go for a run. Not so much from I get the lightbulb moments while I'm running. But I find real clarity when I'm running. If I am thinking about something, I'll play all the scenarios out through run and come up with the one that I feel is most likely it it's been explained to me it's a form of meditation was running and if if you can run without music, I find it really hard not to even run without a podcast in my ears. But it's actually even better there. I can because you one with your own thoughts while you're running.

Susan Stewart: 39:40

Well in the reverse. I can't do yoga. I love the stretching but it's that whole beat at the end and they like meditate and I'm like you don't realize that there's so much talking in my head the fact that you're getting ready to stop and just listen. The only way to get it out I need to get it out and the only way to do that is running or or drawing on paper I find I try and find meditation real stressful, which sounds a bit strange, but I do.

Daniel Franco: 40:03

Yeah, the you're not alone there, there is actual studies apparently around and don't quote me on this, and you probably go research this. There is apparently studies around actually just sitting by yourself being quiet. And doing that for an hour a day, who who's got that hour? I don't know. But even if it's for half an hour, or whatever it might be, over time, you will silence those voices, and you will gain control of them. So I don't know how long it is. I haven't actually had had a crack at it yet. But it makes sense. Because you call it the noting technique, you're most these voices coming in like them, and they move on. So it's an interesting,

Susan Stewart: 40:48

I'm worried i'd lose my ideas. I don't know. Who knows.

Daniel Franco: 40:54

Phase four, let's move into Phase four. Do your thing by basement Jack? Yeah.

Synergy IQ: 40:58

So.

Susan Stewart: 41:01

So I suppose that lose yourself moment was very much, you know, I was doing this kind of global role. And you know, the UNISPACE role was great as well, it was essentially like, here's this thing, you come with all this background. It's all it's all yours. Like my colleague and I worked on it together. And it was the two of us, with the CIO, just essentially try to own this project, which was really great fun. And then I did have some students at the Film Corporation here, and hood Sweeney, which will also really pulled me back into, okay, oh, okay. I'm local again. But I think as well, I did bring in some of that global mindset that and when you have a global mindset, you don't think silo? You You don't think about an organization of which offices this which discipline is this, you know, which which part of it, you actually really think global. And that's what you need to be, if you are in that role, where you are implementing aspects across the organization,

Daniel Franco: 41:56

no, just jump in. Yeah. When you are thinking global, Obviously, every country has its different cultures, how do you account for that?

Susan Stewart: 42:08

It is, it is challenging, and there are, you know, it is particularly, you know, the last project implementing this ERP system in 16 countries. So the approach, you know, working with the US, even though they speak English, it's a totally, totally different culture to Australia, as is the UK and working with people across Europe. And so I think it's, I suppose, going back to that, that moment, in the EY thing around, you know, the, I did the Myers Briggs thing, we also did Rajan training, which, apparently, they used to win the Sydney Olympic speed. And I don't know if, you know, I wrote and tried his presentation skills, essentially one on one, but the, the really great thing about that was understanding your stakeholders, segmenting them, you know, before stakeholder mapping and all that time empathy, maps kind of work, all the thing, this is all way back then. And really thinking about it, how do they think what are they interested in? And you could apply it I think back again, of that Myers Briggs concept or any other concept of how do they make decisions? Is it introverted or extroverted? You know, what's your process? And so, working with different cultures, even there's a different culture and a different office, even if it's in Australia, of what does that mean? And then how should I approach that? So going back to that UNISPACE example, even though we were implementing the same platform, same processes, the way that we approached it was different and and to do that, we actually implemented it slowly. We did Australia first. We did New Zealand, then? No, we didn't. So we started with the US, US, Australia, New Zealand, UK and in Europe. And so we really did stage it, and we learnt along the way, as well, and built on that particular process. So that ongoing learning, but also making friends, I know this sounds really silly in those different locations to say, is this going to work? Like, can you? Can you tell me things that I need to know about this particular office or this particular culture?

Daniel Franco: 44:18

So making friends and building trusting relationships is it's both both, it's both and we would already make friends with someone on the other side of the world at that point.

Susan Stewart: 44:28

At that point, we, we were very lucky back then you could travel. So for example, when we went before we even kind of started that implementation process. We went and did workshops. We brought different people in but the start of the workshop, we did this for inform. They had four minutes for questions. And we told them beforehand, because some people need time to think I would be able to do four and four very quickly, but others can't. And so I can't remember the exact four questions, but one was my fingerprint essentially saying, Who are you where you come from kind of thing. One of them was what your superpower. Another one was they had to tell us their best or worst change experience. Now what that meant through that particular process, the two most important questions with a superpower. And the most important question was the one about the change experience. But we got them talking to us straightaway. They told us their stories, we remembered who they were, I still remember Amy with the carpet that made her cry, you know, she told this knowledge, sorry, change management story of what happened with the client and how the change had not been managed and this problem with carpet, but we kind of gain their trust. But at the same time, I was, you know, doing this workshopping on the board saying, Here are all the things that we know we shouldn't be doing in a night. And when we're implementing these hero things that we know we should be because you're telling us what to do. We also used a lot of humor and games, we would take like when we went to the US. We took Tim Tams. We were very parochial to add labor to create shocks and things that we would have taste testing, we would have games and people would be winning like the next time, that'd be like, I want to win the packet at Tim Tams. I'm like, okay, and then we went to the UK, they were like our chocolates better than yours. So we had Malteser competitions of who could pick which Malteser was Australian, and which one was from the UK, because different chocolate, you know, we did stupid things like that. But what it meant was, then they'd come and see us and say, Hey, this is problem here. Can you help sometimes it wasn't even our area that we would make sure we help them like, you know, I can connect you to all you did, you know, there's someone over in the in, you know, the Boston office that you could work with and fix these problems. So

Daniel Franco: 46:33

it's amazing what happens when you can be a little bit human. Yeah, just be a person

Susan Stewart: 46:37

and, and realize that, if you are working on these projects that you're probably six months or more in front of them. Yeah. And when you're introducing it, this is all really new, you have to make it as as welcoming at Oricon where I am now we use this the five A's that looking at an experience and what are the aspects of that of how you can and it is kind of a change management model of you know, how you how they enter that how you entice them to come here, you know, what is that reach experience that they are part of that and that's very much my approach to change management, it's it's that experience aspect that's critical. Absolutely. I didn't get into my next. So anyway, we'll move it. So I suppose I do do your thing is, is now that I've come I've got a big I suppose not just a toolkit, I've got like a, you know, a backpack of I am a backpacker of you know, the last three phases of my career, I have all of these tools and learnings of what I've got and drawing on that but also being confident enough to, to really trust in myself. And so this phase I'm calling on Do your thing with basement, Jack's of around, be happy in what you're doing continue to put your hand up. I'm very much someone that I I need a north, but I don't actually need a direct path. I just need to know am I North is not necessarily based on a title. It's it's based on? Am I having fun? Did I learn something? And the most important thing is did I make a difference? Have I have I helped three

Daniel Franco: 48:16

people through this process based on your values? And

Susan Stewart: 48:18

very much so I'm very much a values driven. Yes, absolutely.

Daniel Franco: 48:22

So your values of growth? Yes. Wisdom. It sounds

Susan Stewart: 48:28

Yeah, they're very, very important to me.

Daniel Franco: 48:31

It should be what drives you, but doing what your you love cannot always be a practical thing if you young family, you know. Not more, more. Yeah, no, but But in saying that I'm talking in general. Yes, people are mortgages to pay their, you know, these debts to pay and whatnot, going out and starting their own thing or following a career path that doesn't pay as much and all these had had, what's your boyfriend

Susan Stewart: 49:07

outlets as well. And sometimes you're in a phase of your life where you know, I've probably stuck at a while longer than I probably should have. But I did have that fear as well. Have I worked part time? Is anyone going to really I'm going to do I start a new job and they don't know that I work really, really hard. But sometimes kids get sick, you know? Just to to to Gracie Andrew, adults now 20 and 17. And you know, there was that fear of am I going to be accepted because of this part timer to end. So at the time I kind of balanced that out with well what else could I do? So I was doing some kind of I was lecturing at the University at the time. So that was making me really forced me to learn into a different space and things like that on you know, lecturing to post grad students Which got me really thinking in a boarding a little bit more income as well marking papers and having a bit of fun. I really enjoyed that that period, even looking at different opportunities, so change connect, I chaired that for I can't remember now how many years, which was a great experience taking it from what was originally a bit of a groundswell of people that met once a month at a at a local pub, to how could we actually start to get a change management to be elevated a bit more and start to tell the stories and there's a lot of fantastic change in innovation projects and initiatives and people in Adelaide, that that aren't really those stories aren't told, we always look and go what's been done interstate or overseas, but there is this melting pot of really rich stories in Adelaide. So when I became chair, my real focus was we need to elevate that that real aspect of knowledge. And often knowledge managers are like the roadies, we sit behind in the black outfits and make sure the microphones are on and doing all these things. And we put the rockstars out there. And we're not very good at saying hey, my projects pretty awesome. So to me, it was part of acknowledging, getting people to acknowledge well, that project that I worked on was actually pretty awesome, which is why we introduced an awards program. But then also trying to connect those stories out. So telling different types of stories that maybe aren't always traditional change management projects, but have had that aspect of change in it. So we did hear a lot of stories that weren't necessarily traditional, I went in, implemented an ERP system and came out on the other side. And so for me, and I found that as a really rich way, when maybe my work environment wasn't as exciting, I had some another outlet to give me. And it also gave me the ability to pick up the phone and ring people and build networks in Adelaide that because I was in this, you know, I'm on this particular group. And they'd be like, yeah, sure, you can talk to me. Whereas if I had run out previously and just gone hide sued, you know, I don't know that they would have been as lovely. But that was a great period, working on the change connect group and evolving it from being just this little groundswell to something that had it had structure. It's a proper organization. And making sure I went to a conference in the US. And it was amazing. I walked in this room, and there's like, 300 people at this conference, and I don't know what it was, I walked in, and someone's just gone. Oh, you're by yourself. And I went, I Yes, I am. And they're like, Oh, hi, I'm, you know, Bob, and this is Tim. And you know, what do you do? Oh, my gosh, you're from Australia, hello. And then the whole three days, I had this community that were like this Sue, she's the girl from Australia, we need to make sure she feels you know, and it was in a really nice way. I'm probably telling this story in a bad way. But I think in Australia, you know, you go out, you turn up to a networking event. And you kind of go, I don't know anyone here. Yeah. And every time someone looks at me is all they do is look at my name, badge and go is your organization or your title worthy enough for me to talk. So if you do go to a change Connect event, you might notice the badge is just your first name. And someone gives you your badge. And it's not a badger to sticker thing. But essentially what we do is, if you rock up, I would see you come in and say Hi, I'm Sue Stewart, you are and you say, Daniel, I'm like, Oh, fantastic. Let me get your name badge. Let's get your drink. I would start talking to you. And then I would say, oh, okay, you work there. Have you met such and such? And because everyone started to get that what we were finding was that not even just the committee were doing this, we all did it. There was no table to stand behind. And go Hi, thanks for coming. Yeah, take your thing. Go in there. Everyone started doing it. Everyone would kind of see see someone by themselves. And we'll come say, Hey, hi. Oh, you know, because I go, Oh, my gosh, doing that. And the team of busy will do it. And so it became a lot of people were saying I feel I feel okay to rock up to these events when I'm by myself because I know that a network will just come in and protect each other.

Daniel Franco: 54:15

So it's funny, I went to a networking breakfast yesterday morning and was asked if I'm good at these networking events, like that was one of the question. And it was really for me, it was a tough question was Is anyone like is it it's not? It is a difficult thing. I've been to 1000s and still walking up to a group of people who are seemingly together. Yes. Is a really tough thing to do.

Susan Stewart: 54:46

So you get your muscling into a dance thing. Yeah, like squeegeeing there and you can do the moves too. And when you realize that song that song changes, and you're like,

Daniel Franco: 54:56

I don't know if you've ever it's one of my old favorites. Showing my the American Pie where it was trying to talk to some years and he just walked in and started laughing. It was like what I have to do sometimes at these networking events, so yeah, it sounds really great way that you've set the change Connect.

Susan Stewart: 55:17

Yeah. And that's, I mean, that was learning from elsewhere, and how could we, you know, make people feel comfortable. And I think as a, as a change person, that's part of that role making people people feel comfortable when they when they, they're essentially in any change project. They're walking into a room, they don't know anyone, they suddenly have to network and connect or do different things. You have to make them feel comfortable.

Daniel Franco: 55:41

And drawing back on the question, which was, how do you do what you love? I think it You nailed it. When you said, Well, you explained in the way that you found almost a side project, I think that is the way you stay. It's not like I'm going to quit my job. And I'm going to, you really need to do your risk assessment is quitting the job the right option? No. But what you can do is find something to start on the side that is of interest and piques your interest and makes you happy. And then eventually, that's what might grow. If you if you set out to if you said if you say I don't have enough time, and you're sitting there and watching Netflix, instead of reading a book that it's in an area that you potentially love, like these are the things that we need to all review, really review. So thank you for pointing that out. So you're now a global knowledge, culture manager, or ICANN and another global firm in engineering. What an advisor and advisory so what what does, what does that role like, look like? What are you doing now?

Susan Stewart: 56:54

Uh, well, okay. I started about two years ago, and came in with a colleague Felicity, who's a, she's got a background of 20 something years in knowledge management, I come in with that, that strategy that comes a change component. And we were brought in to implement a knowledge strategy. And so very much did that same approach. Okay, we need to assess the situation. This is I've worked in professional services firms for 20 years, but this is a different firm, what are the cultures that are sitting there? And I do very much take a ethnographic approach to culture. So looking at it from a outsider in I spoke to a lot of people that were new to the business, what are the crazy things that you know, as a new person? Did you experience when you joined here? So trying to understand what are some of those cultural barriers or nuances that are a little bit different to a lot of workshops, and really studied that and have implementing, essentially a long term knowledge strategy. And a component of that is a is a knowledge platform, which we released in November last year.

Daniel Franco: 58:01

So explain a knowledge strategy, what are you? Where do you really mean

Susan Stewart: 58:04

another strategy? Okay, so it when you say no strategy, people often just think, oh, there's a knowledge, you're going to give me a platform, a piece of technology. But it's not builder. And they will come. I mean, there are, I'm sure a lot of organizations and our account isn't alone, that people, you know, they build this thing and go, I've now got a lesson plant database, or I now have a knowledge database for X or Y, or Zed. And then you look at it and you go, nothing has been touched for six months. And when I look at it, it was the same three people that loaded stuff over that period of time. So it's never the technology, it's, it's never it's always that cultural aspects. So we were very clear in coming in saying, you know, Felicity came with that real rich technology process system components. And I came with that lens of year, but we need them to come. And so we were also given the constraint that this platform as well had to be SharePoint, which at the time is a constraint, but actually now is connecting to these a million of different things, which is fantastic. So our approach was essentially to the business. There's foundational aspects around our strategy, everything from talking the same language, you know, why do we talk the same language in the finance system, to our CRM system to this knowledge system to well, project systems? So you can connect things essentially, you know, in a wide world, to what are you know, what are some platform aspects, but then starting to look at how do you actually work with groups to start to capture knowledge and do it in a way that is intuitive, which is part of the everyday thing, not the arm and I haven't got time, but you know, of consumer timesheet, I've got to do a knowledge base. So how do we embed that into this is just how we do it here. It's just a natural thing. So it became everything from mapping out the Technology build, but how do you feed it? How do you make sure it's there? How do you add to it? How do you review the governance? So we had to work not just with the people on a pursuit and project perspective to kind of identify, capture, share, and then use it. But also how does that fit in with the rest of the business? Right. So how does it implement? You know, the people side KPIs, cultural assessments, what are the expectations of a leader to a say, graduate around knowledge, one should be using it a lot. A leader should be championing that it's that particular process, and the team in the middle should be actually adding to it and building on it as well. So it's, you know, how does that impact it? How does that impact the innovation components of the business, the mark ons, perspectives around the marketing and comms, sorry, perspective around that. And so it is very much a holistic approach, which is essentially critical for that type of thing. So we are on a stage journey, there is a diagram I could show of how we're taking the business through there. And we are using the exact same diagrams over and over and showing them we've done this stage, these bubbles we've done now we're moving to the next stages. And we present that kind of same message constantly. And we're progressing through that.

Daniel Franco: 1:01:19

It is a common balada, if that's the right word, that change people and organizational development people and culture leaders and all faces, we want to adopt this new way, which we believe is going to really help the culture of this place really helped the way we do things around here. But yeah, it sits on the shelf. And like he said, it gets the three same people that log in all the time, and no one else does it is your How is your what method are you using to overcome there? Is that part of the knowledge,

Susan Stewart: 1:01:58

absolute strategy? So it's embedding it in all parts of the business? So how do you start to embed it? We have a very distinct methodology around engagement deliver, and there's aspects all around that. So how do we embed that into that particular process? How do we get leaders to champion champion that to their teams, we have very dedicated areas of capability. So we work with the capability leaders, they have nominated champions as well to actually help through that particular process. We have, there's so many different aspects to this, I have this massive diagram I could join. But it's looking at and one of the ways that I try and make sure have I covered all bases, is I do love the McKinsey seven s model. Because it at least gives you have you thought about Yes. You've probably thought about the strategy and the structure and the systems. But there is all of those other aspects around, you know, the leadership style. And what does that mean? What does that mean for the skills? Do you actually have the people to complete that task and then smack bang in the middle is, is that that the shared values of you know, how does that actually work? And I think there's another aspect to it, I think the Kinsey need to add another s is what is the space which has become really important, particularly over the last 18 months of dealing with it physically and virtually a very, very different. So if McKinsey are listening, please add another s. And I know that probably technically could come into the middle, but I think it needs its own ears. So we have very much taken that approach around all of those aspects.

Daniel Franco: 1:03:34

So given the pandemic at the moment, and it like you said, the world is virtual people are working from all different parts and angles and potentially can hire anyone from any part of the world. Is culture the new black.

Susan Stewart: 1:03:53

I think it's been the new black for a while now. It's probably faded in the wash and gone to gray. I think it is. And it's it is really difficult. It's a difficult area, but it is what it is. And you have a culture at home. And you would have a culture between you and your partner. You would have a culture, there was a culture in your family unit. You know, like in terms of the extended family, there's a culture that sits around the kitchen. Sorry, the Christmas table.

Daniel Franco: 1:04:22

So we know this because we work with culture every day. It's those who culture isn't even the forefront of their

Susan Stewart: 1:04:28

minds. And I think what simple important to understand is everyone says, oh, we need a culture change. Or my favorite is we don't have a culture here. It's like, yes, you do. Everyone, everyone has one. You do. And I think but it's understanding what you set culture. And so and if you put a growth mindset around culture, same thing, focus on the strengths, build up on the strengths, stop trying to pick on the poor, old areas of weakness, just support those areas of weakness, but don't necessarily try to beat them out of it because I was having Feeling that someone's strength can is their kryptonite, as well, my strength of being able to come up with ideas on a whim and doing all these things is also my weakness that I can be a little bit overwhelming, I can confuse people really easily. And I think the same applies to culture in terms of you need to understand what is what is there. So what are the what are the espoused values, you know, we say this is our culture, or we call them attributes and principles. Other people, you know, might call them they've, what are the values of the organization that we say then what are the aspects around? Edgar Schein calls them artifacts? So what are all the things that you can either see or hear or feel around that particular thing? So, what is the virtual workspace like? So, for example, when you have a virtual workshop or session, does everyone turn on their videos or not turn on their videos? How does the meeting start? What do you talk about? What's the structure around that? To physical workplace to what are the heroes stories told? It's really interesting hearing stories in new workplaces of what gets rewarded? What's seen as funny. hearing those stories, looking at how people communicate. So how does it how did the leadership communicate? Even I look at emails, I study intranet, I look at all parts of communication to really unpack what are the words that they always use, you know, I put things in Word clouds and try and pop out things and say, Do you know that you're trying to get them to do this, but when you look at the language that you're using, it's actually not what you want to happen. And then obviously, at the bottom of all that is the underlying assumptions, which is just this is how we do things here. And you don't often know in culture that you're going against those assumptions until you slam right into that and you go, Oh, that's that landmine. And anyone who started a new job, you have this honeymoon period where you bubble along and you go all the spices also. And then you suddenly whack into one of those landmines and honeymoon periods over. And that's where you're coming in knew and culture essentially smacks you in the face and tells you these things, but it to me, you work with the culture, and you could if you're going to try and change it that could take I know, they said what takes seven years or more. And culture is 70% leadership. So if you're trying to implement particular initiatives, and you start going, well, we're gonna have to call it change the culture along the way, Wouldn't it be easier to work collaboratively with the culture and progress that unless it was a major cultural change project? But yeah,

Daniel Franco: 1:07:32

you almost took the words out of my mouth from NEC. My next question is, how important is role as a leadership play? You said 70% leadership? Does that mean we should focus on who we employ as leaders first? And one of the biggest issues we face with all the clients that we work with? Is that the technical leaders are the ones getting promoted, not necessarily the people, leaders, and we're almost sitting on these leaders for failure? Absolutely. Because we're not giving him the tools or the behavior aspects to be able to do with the people problems. Can you? Can you expand on that and your thoughts on what we should be doing? For our leaders,

Susan Stewart: 1:08:16

I think organizations are getting better. I mean, back in my AI days, they would, you know, the big fours, they work on a pyramid system, you know, employ a lot of graduates and you know, you need attrition, so you can kind of get to that partnership level. And back when I was there, you know, there was an element of you'd be a technical expert. And then there was exact expectation that you would move up to the next level, and then start to win work and have these client relationships in these big teams. And you could, you could pick the ones that wouldn't last and it was horrible to see because their option was, they would they would hit this glass ceiling of Well, I'm a technical expert. So unless I'm going to move up the ranks into shareholding, I'm either going to be kicked out or I move up the ranks in shareholding. And I don't actually have the people skills to manage that big team, or I'm not strong in business development. Clients love me. When I do the work for them. I build these phenomenal relationships. Am I good at building new relationships with clients? Not always. So I think though, like jump to now. And our organization, in particular have a really strong career, pathway development, building up those skills and looking at technical experts and saying yes, you're, you're really great in these technical areas. But we need to build up these other I suppose softer skills, leadership skills, but also acknowledging that you do need people that really, really good technical experts, you don't want to round out all their edges because that's why they're what they are and finding good roles for them. Yeah, well,

Daniel Franco: 1:09:48

that's it don't put them in in charge of exactly people that it's probably not what they want to do anyway. So

Susan Stewart: 1:09:55

why would they want to do that? Well, you know, this is what they love, and this is what they're really good at And then you're getting that square peg and you're shoving it in a round hole. And you're wondering why it's not working. So I think I think organizations are getting

Daniel Franco: 1:10:08

workforce planning issue he is saying it is.

Susan Stewart: 1:10:11

And it's and it's making sure that when they are hiring those leadership, you know, roles to acknowledge and look at what is this person's leadership style because that you you bias yourself, you know, when you're because if that leaders then going to recruit leaders, they're going to change genuinely kind of recruit people similar to you. So if you're, you know, maybe not the greatest, let's take the other one, you're really great inclusively to collaborate, if you're gonna pick people that are the same thing. Because even that leader would think I need to recruit my successes, you know, like, that's the evolution that we're going through. So, culturally, it is really important to look at that leadership aspect. Because if you want, if you want to see collaboration, if you want to see innovation, and all these types of things, then the leaders, the leaders need to be espousing that and leaving that because essentially, staff do what the leader does. And so if the leader is not doing it, then I don't have to do it. If I, you know, I don't have to share knowledge, or I don't have to, you know, capture it and do this particular process. Because my lead is not doing I have to say hello in them. I don't have to say hello in the morning, because my latest not doing an absolutely. Do

Daniel Franco: 1:11:22

you. Where do we start with working on Ali's is thrusting you into leadership programs it's working on? Yeah, what what's the answer? I don't think this one because then, because you'll find what we found is a lot of leaders are told that they should be doing a leadership program and don't really want to

Susan Stewart: 1:11:46

and may not want to, some people are like, the last thing I want to do is have staff reported to me, or even go up that I'm happy in my space. And I think our conduit really well they identify, they've got different programs, where it's essentially the the leadership course, that they one of the ones that they do, that's a really great call to send, it's actually around that authenticity. To be a really good leader, you have to be authentic, and it's okay to have, you know, different areas of expertise. But it's building on those strengths and growing that mindset and getting you to realize that some aspects, you could improve on and build on other ones where you may be not as strong, or you might need to refine it just a little because you know, you do have to work with other people and different types of thinking. And I think that's really progressive. And they're seeing really good results out of that, because it you are evolving people through that journey. And they are building out all of their career pathways aspects around that. And it's, like I said, I suppose at the beginning careers are not linear things, you know, whether or not what you like, or you don't like, or different opportunities that you can take, there's also a life that happens at the same time that sometimes force you not to make some decision not to make a jump somewhere or to make a jump somewhere, that you have to you have to be open to opportunity. But also, there's an individual responsibility to this as well. And I think I find challenging, some people are like, well, I don't understand why that person got promoted over me. And you think, well, that person's volunteered to be in all these different groups, I've seen them, you know, put their hand up to do extra training, I've seen them put their hand up to work on a project, you have said that you've worked really hard on what you're doing. But in terms of developing yourself, you're in the same spot that you were two years ago,

Daniel Franco: 1:13:37

when you have no spatial awareness, you have no awareness that what you're actually doing is where we need you to be is what's best for business and best for the people within our business, not just the particular job that you're working on. Right. So it's a look at that those conversations really come back to me when I when it's about self awareness. Really, you're, you're delusional if you believe that you deserve a promotion over this person who's spending so much more time working with others, or doing this,

Susan Stewart: 1:14:13

or even outside the business, you know, joining you know, boards or committees or doing different types of activities, and it doesn't always have to be, you know, I mean, I was on the, you know, the PNF at my kids primary school and then joined their board probably caused a bit of havoc being chair there. But that was really good fun and expose me to a totally different industry and how things work in in an area that I knew nothing about. But I came with a different perspective of how we would build a strategy at a school and different aspects around that. So I think life experience is critical to that career pathway as

Daniel Franco: 1:14:49

well. Absolutely. So going back to Sue Stuart, how do you start each day you're an out of the box thinker.

Susan Stewart: 1:14:58

You're facing the snooze button.

Daniel Franco: 1:14:59

Yeah, we run out of the books think it has a really meticulous structure, it has meticulous structure. And what does your day look like? How do you structure your day? Is there a routine? Or do you just wing it?

Susan Stewart: 1:15:15

A little bit of both. I think sometimes I may look a little bit manic. But there is some logic there. Sometimes, I mean, I do have a pretty full diary I have, when I first started work, the thought of doing a to do list was like, who just do lists. But I actually, when you have kids, and there's other things happening, you kind of do need a to do list. And when my children were younger, and I was traveling around the globe on different projects and initiatives, there were Excel spreadsheets on the on the fridge, of which child was where and who was picking them up from school and whatnot, you have to be all you have to do some things like that, sometimes, but from a structure, my day is I'm not good at running in the morning, don't expect me to do much until about 10 o'clock, I think, after the coffee, to the coffee. I do have a bit of a method, I find it difficult. Particularly now I think, you know, this whole, even though I've worked from home for a number of years, because what UNISPACE didn't have an office here originally. To that I get more work done either at night, or on the weekend. To actually, you know, that idea thinking that I'm talking about that drawing that happens out of traditional work hours, I can't you know, most of my days meetings, and you know, consulting with people asking them questions, workshops, and things like that. And then I sit down and I just digest it and break it up. So I probably have a pretty mundane, I think it's a mundane day you think you know, jobs and go home cooked dinner? A nice dinner with sometimes leftovers. What's for dinner?

Daniel Franco: 1:16:54

So we've gone we will pass the hour mark or the so? No, that's fine. It's not a problem at all. But we'll start wrapping up and the way we like to wrap up. So it's a bit of fun. Okay, ask some quickfire questions. We are the first question is still related to everything we've spoken about. We're very big readers here at Synergy IQ and synergy podcast, we have a lot of a lot of people to get on the show, we talk about books a lot. Can you provide us a book that you would have read in your career that you felt propelled you or helped you grow? Whether it's in the growth mindset phase or the leadership space? Or?

Susan Stewart: 1:17:39

Um, see, I can't do one thing. Okay.

Daniel Franco: 1:17:42

All right. Maybe

Susan Stewart: 1:17:44

the Design for Change, the Dan Brown thing was big for me, because I realized that my thinking was okay, the way that you know, like going through that design thinking iterations and testing upon like, oh, yeah, it's okay to think that way. I found a really good and I'm a big lover of anything, Malcolm Gladwell writes. And I used the tipping point as when when we were working on this knowledge strategy implementation. And I had, you know, my boss saying when you're launching and like, we're not at a tipping point yet, because our thing was we had to have a certain amount of content in our platform before we would go live. And so I was kind of holding up this thing going, No, not releasing it, not releasing it. We don't have a tipping point, because what will happen is someone we've created essentially a Google so you Google comes at, you know, solar farms, and it tells you proposals, pitch decks, research, past projects, all that type of stuff. And I said, but they're gonna type solar farms and nothing comes up. And they'll say this thing's useless. Goodbye. I'm like, I need a tipping point. And so then I had to explain the Malcom Gladwell tipping point. But I love his storytelling and how you can there's a lot of change in the aspects that he covers. So for me, he's a good storyteller

Daniel Franco: 1:18:56

tipping point in our lives.

Susan Stewart: 1:18:59

I'm reading the new one. Now the talking to strangers.

Daniel Franco: 1:19:02

Yeah, that's his old one. That's

Susan Stewart: 1:19:06

actually got it. For me. It's a new one.

Daniel Franco: 1:19:08

Yeah, he's actually got one he's just released like two weeks ago. So that's why I say it's at the top talking with strangers is brilliant. You actually listened to the audiobook,

Susan Stewart: 1:19:18

because he does it himself. Someone said, yeah, it doesn't.

Daniel Franco: 1:19:20

He doesn't want to book himself. But he also had a lot of the stories he refers back to the original. The original audio in the audio book. Yeah, it's brilliant. It's very, very clever. If you were to give yourself advice to your 10 year old self,

Susan Stewart: 1:19:40

a 10 year old self, what would that be? Stop counting your bruises. No, I used to sit in the bath and count my bruises. And I feel like I do have a lot of scars and bruises from change projects. But that's all part of the learning, isn't it? I think I do reflect a lot even though I seem to be very much Future orientated. I do reflect a lot around like, personally, what worked? What didn't watch it? I know, I do have notebooks of, you know, things that I've read or learned in my, my little lesson learns books and things like that. And I use that for inspiration sometimes as well. If I'm lost, I'll go back and go. Yeah, okay. Yep. I told myself this. I told myself that. So I think, keep learning, and keep writing it down. And looking back, I think, but make sure you reflect back.

Daniel Franco: 1:20:28

Yeah, never put too much time. You can never put too much time into learning. One thing I bang on to my children about a lot, what's one item on your bucket list?

Susan Stewart: 1:20:40

Oh, I do have visions of like having a coffee shop somewhere. But I just don't think I could do customer service anymore. But if I if I really could just pick anything, and it wasn't based on my experience, I'd love to be like an art curator or something, and might put, you know, exhibitions together of different art and whatnot, I'd find that really awesome. Pretty cool. And would be cool.

Daniel Franco: 1:21:03

If you had access to a time machine, and you had a two way trip, so up and back. Yep. You can either go to the future or the past, where would you go?

Susan Stewart: 1:21:17

Interestingly, I'd go backwards. I wouldn't. And the only reason is, I suppose that reflection bit my mum passed when my son was three months old. And it's I think having having kids is probably the hardest change project I've ever worked on. Yeah. And it's still changing

Daniel Franco: 1:21:35

the most emotional and

Susan Stewart: 1:21:37

the most rewarding and to be out, I wish I could go back and just say, Thanks, Mom. I don't and I'm sorry, of course, you're a kid. And kind of I understand, you know, things that happen and why they happened. So I think for me, acknowledging I have and that's why now I've got, you know, a mentor that started at EY he's still my mentor now. Andrew Holzman, and I acknowledge him often, too, because I never acknowledged my mom enough. I think, you know, I said I loved her and stuff. Don't get me wrong, but you kind of take parents for granted sometimes. And so I know that I'm getting a bit sloppy at the end of

Daniel Franco: 1:22:14

the day, I think really, you're either you definitely do take your parents for granted. More than anyone else. Yeah. I'm guilty as charged. I think we will. I got a phone call from my mum the other the other day now I'm getting Sophie and she called me and said, Hey, would you mind calling your mother every now? And I know I've hit that point. I'm the cat's in the cradle in here hit that point. Yeah. Yes. So.

Susan Stewart: 1:22:47

So anyone listening to your mother or your father and say thank you,

Daniel Franco: 1:22:50

I think it is sorry, it is. Listen, but out of that I do have a question about the mentor sheet, which is how much emphasis Do you would you place on a mentor?

Susan Stewart: 1:23:03

My mentors have been I mean, I had my first job when I was you know, cleaning soil. He was awesome. And Porter was very much work should be fun. You should be having a great time, we're gonna learn we're going to do awesome things. But we need to have a great time. And so he kind of gave me that work should be fun component. And he was really challenging one time, first time about to present to all these bold growers. And he's like, are you ready to present? I'm like, Yes. And he said, Oh, you got little cards there? And I said, Yes, I do. And he said, Show me your presentation cards, and I hand them over and he rips them up. And I'm like, oh, and he just went if you're not if you look at those cards, it shows you're not confident and you're not walking out there talking to these guys. And they were all guys not looking confident. And so it was from from then on and I've never used presentation cards ever. But he pushed me in that way just as you know, working with Andrew Holzman at EY and also he was chairman of woods beggared through that experience as well. And he helped me get exposed to that Woods bigger role where he helped me leverage up.

Daniel Franco: 1:24:08

So having the it's so important having these people

Susan Stewart: 1:24:12

absolutely and like when I was at Woods, I had Ivan Ross, who I think he thought I was crazy most of the time, but he trusted me and he was a really solid analytic. He was coo CFO, I would come up with these crazy things and between us he had Boston Consulting background, over smart really elevated how I could deliver stuff as well to not be so out there. So yeah, I've learned a lot from I suppose those three key people absolutely.

Daniel Franco: 1:24:43

It's funny because we often get asked, How do you find a mentor and all this sort of stuff in the way I've always gone about it is just ask as many questions and almost you don't it's not like you have to ask them can you be my mentor but just build a real lationship with him. Absolutely. If someone with that amount of knowledge, they will they most people in that space at that level want to share it? Absolutely. So,

Susan Stewart: 1:25:11

exactly. Would you mind? I'm going for a particular role. Can I can I talk to you about where do you Yeah, where do you think, you know, I would fit well or, you know, be honest. They generally are, which is awesome.

Daniel Franco: 1:25:23

Yeah, absolutely agree to going back to our quickfire questions, we're not big five. These Nobodies, I got one now, if you could have one superhero. So you actually said earlier before, one of the questions that you asked was, what's your superhero power? Oh, yeah. What do you what's one superpower,

Susan Stewart: 1:25:43

I always say and my colleagues is it's not it's not a superpower. I hate filling out forms with a vengeance.

Daniel Franco: 1:25:52

And see the administrators.

Susan Stewart: 1:25:54

Um, and I think it's that whole, particularly when someone says, Can you fill out a form and they asking you, but they have half of the information already. It just, it drives me to absolute distraction. And I've used it a lot in my past, you know, a few rolls of saying, and it comes down to user experience. If we want someone to complete this task, we have to remove all that stuff out of the way, which is, I have to fill in a form to do it. So I'm not going to do it. You know, like, just got to remove that stuff. So to me, I see it as my superpower. Because I'm always looking for those little pains that are reasons why people aren't going to do what we need them to do to go through that particular process. If I could get a superpower. I would love I always say I'd love the power of hindsight. To be able to, to kind of you might have noticed, I tend to think out loud sometimes I say things that I probably shouldn't. So if I could before I did it have that power of hindsight go no shall not say that. Because that's not going to go across very well. So that would be my, my wish have a superpower.

Daniel Franco: 1:27:01

That's brilliant. And last question, do you have a mum / dad joke?

Susan Stewart: 1:27:08

Okay, this one's really sad. And I can never remember jokes. But what did the block of cheese say to the Change Manager?

Daniel Franco: 1:27:17

The block of cheese,

Susan Stewart: 1:27:19

I can bear it any longer.

Daniel Franco: 1:27:26

It's the first change management joke that we've got any manager yet and cheese in there as well. So I absolutely cannot bear any longer. I [inaudible audio] any longer?

Susan Stewart: 1:27:35

Yeah. Sorry.

Daniel Franco: 1:27:39

It's brilliant. Because it said terrible. I love it. Thank you very much, Sue. It's been an

Susan Stewart: 1:27:44

absolute pleasure having you on going down memory lane.

Daniel Franco: 1:27:47

Where can we find you? Where can people get in contact with you?

Susan Stewart: 1:27:51

LinkedIn is probably the easiest. So Susan Stewart@aurecon. A U R E C O N

Daniel Franco: 1:28:00

with Yeah, well, e w a r t perfect. It's been absolute pleasure. going yeah, like I say going back down memory lane. The out of the box thinking with the music titles of your phases. I absolutely love that. We'll have to see if we can

Susan Stewart: 1:28:16

do a playlist for that. Or maybe add to the playlist we should create a an open player

Daniel Franco: 1:28:24

playlist if you've got the time create a playlist of your own career be interesting. Let us let us know about it. Beautiful. So check us out at Synergy iq.com.au Thank you very much again, and we'll catch you next time. And

Synergy IQ: 1:28:38

thank you once again for joining us here at creating synergy. It's been great spending this time with you. Please jump on to the synergy IQ Facebook and LinkedIn page where the discussion continues after the show. Join our mailing list so you'll know what's happening next at Synergy iq.com.au. And of course don't forget to subscribe to this podcast. And if you really enjoyed it, please share it with your friends.