Soapbox

As I speak with CEOs across the country, there is something they share time and time again.

It’s lonely at the top.

The need to be an expert across all aspects of the business is just getting harder and more demanding.

Burnout is more common than you think.

It's an issue I'm vigorously passionate about.

As the CEO, you bear full responsibility for your company’s fate, but you don’t actually control most of what determines it.

You’re not really the boss…the Board or the owner is.

As the company’s biggest celebrity, everything you say or do will be instantly shared, scrutinised, or misinterpreted.

So, who do you trust?

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Private equity (PE) firms have often been accused of being ruthless business owners interested purely in making money.

In reality, they appear to be astute hirers of high performing CEOs.

When a PE firm decides to make an investment, the senior leadership team are typically the first to go. It makes sense since most investments end up being turnarounds.

Most PE executives hire multiple CEOs each year, while ASX-listed Boards are likely to hire a new CEO once every 5-plus.

That makes them experts at how the CEO search process has changed over time and learning from their hiring successes and mistakes.

PE firms also have more skin in the game, so they feel it more intensely if they make a bad hire.

Researchers have reviewed the difference between listed and corporate CEO hires to that of private equity firms and this is what they found.

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We’re smack in the middle of a highly competitive labour market.

The challenge of attracting and retaining quality people is the biggest issue for CEOs right now.

Many are following a basic strategy…ask people what they want and give it to them.

Seems simple enough but it can be a disastrous trap.

Conversations tend to focus on immediate needs, like more money, better technology, greater flexibility, and hybrid working conditions.

These are often the easiest levers to pull. Although immediately appreciated, their impact are least enduring and easy for your competitors to imitate.

It’s a race to the bottom.

But wait, there is a better way!

Shift the focus from what employees want in the moment to what they, and the organisation, need to be relevant and sustainable into the future.

It requires a strategic combination of short-term, long-term, individual, and collective focus.

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What is the true cost of a bad executive hire?

Industry experts suggest a minimum of 30% of the annual salary, others say it can be as much as 2.5 times the annual salary.

Either way, it’s a lot of money so the stakes are high.

Not just financially disastrous, it’s the negative impact on team culture, customers, productivity, and market reputation.

CEOs we work with say the current market is tough and attracting quality executives challenging.

The business world has changed. We are operating in times of uncertainty, complexity, and change.

Character-led executives with purpose and values, significantly impact organisational success.

They are the game changers.

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There is no such thing as the ‘perfect’ leader.

If there was a cookie-cutter style of leader, it just wouldn’t be real.

You can’t be authentic imitating someone else. You simply won’t be trusted.

We need a new breed of leader to tackle the challenges of a volatile, uncertain, changing, and ambiguous world. We need ‘wartime’ leaders.

Authentic leaders know who they are. They have purpose, live their values consistently, build meaningful relationships, lead with both head and heart, and are disciplined to get results!

So how can we become and remain authentic leaders?

It all starts with your life story. Real world experiences that frame who you are at the core.

Despite experiencing positive influences, research suggests authentic leaders derive their motivation to transform based on moments of trauma, fear, and rejection.

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I don’t know about you, but I feel the world has become an angrier place in recent years.

Just recently the delightful team at my local café shared a disturbing story of an irate customer who lost the plot over a loaf of bread.

They were so rude and abusive, it reduced them to tears.

It immediately reminded me of my own kids’ experiences, working part-time on the frontline of retail, and what they had to endure. Rude, disrespectful, and insensitive behaviour on show daily.

They became easy targets and punching bags for people who were clearly angry, frustrated, and irrational.

The unfortunate thing is that this unsavoury behaviour is widespread. Think about police officers, airline staff, teachers, healthcare workers, or the thousands working in hospitality.

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Close friends, and their young adult children, came to stay last weekend for a chilled night of delicious food, wine, and connection.

All excellent, but it was the conversation around the dinner table that got me thinking.

The initial chit-chat escalated to a full blown gabfest on a range of issues from climate change to social justice, and gender identity.

What got me intrigued was the diverse perspectives from the multiple generations around the table.

The empathy and respect given to each other was contrary to the vitriol often associated with generational debate.

It had me reflecting on the myriad of conversations I’ve had with CEOs about organisational culture and the biases that often exist.

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Most of what I hear in the media right now suggests we’re under attack.

Global pandemic, raging war, tangled supply chains, impending recession, sky rocketing inflation, rising interest rates, housing unaffordability, labour upheavals, and climate catastrophes just to name a few.

Environmental stress is at breaking point, and there is mounting pressure on business leaders, employees, and the broader community to adapt and change.

Despite all of these challenges, I believe we can…and will overcome.

Although the circumstances were different, I lived through the 1991 recession Australia ‘had to have’, where interest rates and unemployment were both north of 15%.

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One of the biggest issues CEOs share with me right now is ‘how do I attract and retain high quality people in the market’.

Organisations are desperate to fill vacancies, entice their people back to the office, and are often forced to offer unprecedented monetary incentives just to stave off the marauding competitors.

This simply highlights a more fundamental problem.

The way we work isn’t working anymore. It hasn’t before the pandemic, and it certainly isn’t now. Work is often stressful, meaningless, and unlovable.

Employee engagement, resilience and trust in leadership is also at an all-time low.

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Over my 25-plus years of corporate leadership, I have mentored, coached, and interviewed hundreds of senior executives, most of whom were working incredibly hard to be better people, employees, spouses, and parents.

Surprisingly, when asked if they were truly fulfilled and happy with the direction of their lives, a vast majority answered with a definitive no.

While achieving material success, it felt somewhat hollow due to an absence of deep meaning and lasting satisfaction. They had lost their ‘mojo’, their place in the world.

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As far back as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with ‘why people do the things they do’, and what makes some more effective in life than others.

Are they simply born more talented, stronger, or smarter? Or perhaps it was sheer grit and fierce determination that drove them forward?

Life experience has taught me it’s probably a combination of both.

I have witnessed naturally talented people self-destruct in life, while others less fortunate have emerged from obscurity to change the world.

Why? Perhaps it had more to do with the way they saw themselves and the world?

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I was trawling through YouTube the other night in search of some much-needed inspiration to distract me from the constant negative chatter that is COVID.

Randomly, I came across an interview with Sylvester Stallone who was sharing his story about living to his potential, rising from poverty-stricken wannabe to Hollywood icon.

It all began with him writing the screenplay for the Academy Award winning ‘Rocky’ in just three days, an inspired idea after watching a Muhammad Ali boxing match.

He was at his lowest ebb and had become very adept at living in poverty.

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If I was brutally honest, for the last ten years I’ve been stuck in a kind of ‘job’ groundhog day. I felt helpless, frustrated, and chained by the shackles of procrastination.

It wasn’t like I hated my jobs; in fact, it was quite the contrary. The one thing that kept gnawing away at me was a desire to find greater meaning in my life and work.

What was I here to do and what legacy did I want to leave?

I didn’t know the answer to that question, but I did convince myself that when I had more time and enough money, I would stop to explore it.

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Looking out the window from my makeshift home office during another lockdown, my thoughts turn to family and good friends, who I have not seen in over a year.

A wave of sadness and despair washes over me.

I should be grateful knowing there are countless people across the globe suffering more trauma and tragedy than I can imagine.

Fear and anxiety has skyrocketed, tightening its grip these last 18-months.

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I love a good action thriller and ‘The Bourne Identity’ was a movie that captured my imagination when it screened in the early 2000’s.

The concept of someone searching to discover their true identity and life purpose fascinated me.

I often asked the same questions; ‘Who am I?’, ‘Do I really matter?’, and ‘What is my place in life?’. A scary thing to contemplate.

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Mention the word 'heart' in business and watch how people’s eyes glaze over, a yawn suddenly appears, and they need to be somewhere else...why?

Well, it's normal to think that way. We've been conditioned to believe our hearts belong at home while we slip into our ‘tough superhero outfit’ at work to drive results and deliver the goods.

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I’m hugely excited to announce the birth of my new venture, Cultivate Search Group.

As 2020 came to a welcome end for many, it was also time for me to reflect, discover and pursue my own true purpose. A vision that has been percolating away inside me for a while now.

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I've heard it said that one of the greatest chasms in life is the one between knowing what to do and actually doing it.

Life would certainly be more plain sailing...and success a lot easier to attain if we simply knew the 'right' things to do and then just 'did' them, right?

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Have you ever noticed how after you’ve achieved something great or significant, the cloak of vulnerability wraps around you so tightly it restricts your every move? It has taken me over ten years to publish my first book, ‘Eyes of Silence’. In doing so..

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