Trailblazing with CorbettPrice

Tania Rishniw, Deputy Secretary of Employment and Workforce at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) joins us in our latest episode to talk about how failure can lead to your biggest success. This episode showcases an engaging and authentic leader whose experience in crises and uncertainty offers excellent advice on overcoming challenges, managing risk, innovating, and building resilience.

Having worked on several significant transformation projects across Queensland Health, eHealth Queensland, and Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, Damian Green knows a thing (or ten) about what factors are critical in leading successful transformations and delivering them in uncertain times. Damian is currently the Deputy Director-General of Corporate Services at Queensland Health, and he joins us in our latest episode to discuss fostering adaptability in teams. This episode is a masterclass in leading transformations. It will provide any leader with expert advice on leading change, fostering agility and adaptability in teams, and delivering successfully.

Deb Jenkins, Deputy Secretary of Corporate Enabling Services and Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Employment and Workplace and Relations, joins us in our latest episode to talk about fostering adaptability in teams. This episode affirms that to create great teams, you have to work hard at it. Deb shares that the cornerstones of great teams are built on relationships, a clear and shared purpose, and a diverse makeup, and these factors will always be fundamental in leading high-performing teams now and in the future. Deb also discusses the pivotal role that recruitment plays in ensuring you have the right fit for your team and how evolving your hiring approach to recruit talent can help you succeed in filling key skills gaps.

Our next Trailblazer has over forty years of experience in information technology and digital media in Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and Asia, leading companies such as IBM, Apple, Microsoft, ninemsn, and Xero, and as a result, has been on the frontline of every significant technological shift and economic shock since the 1980s. Steve Vamos, Global Executive, and former CEO, joins us in our latest episode to discuss this further as he reflects on his career and provides insights from his book, “Through Shifts and Shocks – Lessons from the Front Line of Technology and Change.”Steve's experience on the frontline of uncertainty has provided him with a unique ability to get straight to the point of what leaders must do today: establish great teams, maximise the potential of individuals in their workforce, effectively achieve alignment of aspirations at every layer of the organisation, and approach challenges with the right mindset.

Amanda Cattermole, CEO of the Australian Digital Health Agency, is a leader who is passionate about creating an organisational culture that's focussed on stewardship, built on deep collaboration, and comprised of leaders at every level who add to the culture by enabling stewardship and innovation and creating a convening role with the broader ecosystem. Amanda also shares a powerful message of the impact that leaders can have in seeing things and pathways for others that they can't necessarily see for themselves and how, with the right encouragement, it can profoundly impact their career journey in a really positive way.

When you've had a thirty-five-year-long career that spans industries and sectors as our next Trailblazer has, you have the benefit of seeing how organisational learning has changed and if it's changed for the better or worse. Tim Beresford, Chief Executive at the Australian Financial Security Authority, or AFSA, joins us to talk about this and much more in our latest episode on becoming a learning organisation.Tim dives into the key differences in how organisational learning has changed throughout his career, from focusing more on skillsets at the beginning in terms of what knowledge you could bring to an organisation to now being more focussed on mindsets and what you're willing to learn.This compelling episode offers great advice to other leaders on shifting from knowledge organisations to learning organisations and on how important it is to be open, adaptable, and resilient to foster a continuous learning mindset in your workforce.

What does learning look like in an organisation when a high proportion of your workforce is already doctorate-level educated, formally trained marine scientists and former teachers? Josh Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at the Reef Authority, talks about this and much more as he joins us to discuss becoming a learning organisation in our latest podcast episode. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has a critical job of being guardians and protectors of the Great Barrier Reef, a world heritage-listed coral reef, for future generations. With a high percentage of their workforce made up of marine scientists, their unique organisational DNA is centred on understanding the world around them and has a natural and instinctive curiosity-driven culture that helps fuel their courage to experiment and test ideas about tackling existing and emerging threats to the ecosystem.As CEO, Josh explains how risk is a key element that drives their organisational strategy and how they approach learning and development, as understanding risks in your environment is critical in understanding what you need to learn and lean into, and if an organisation is calibrated to understanding medium to long term risks, it will be more proactive in addressing challenges and returning value to stakeholders.

Our next Trailblazer's interest in history and learning from it, particularly the history of labour movements and work, has been a common theme that has led her throughout her fascinating career. Marie Boland, Chief Executive Officer at Safe Work Australia, discusses this further in our latest episode on Taking the Path Less Travelled. Listen to Marie's story of growing up in Ireland and how her dad used to take them around to see the statues and tell the stories of famous people, including great union leaders, helped to fuel her interest in history. Marie talks about moving to Australia and how working in museums ultimately led her to study law and work in industrial relations. It's an episode that cements how your interests and passions can lead you to be on the path you're meant to be on, no matter which twists and turns it includes.

For many leaders in the public sector, there are very few times in your career when you have the opportunity to develop a new agency for a state government entity. Our next Trailblazer, Marina Bowshall, had the chance to do just that as she took on the Chief Executive of Preventive Health SA role in September of 2023. Marina joins us in our latest episode to talk about her experience in leading through a machinery of government change.

As an experienced leader who has worked across multiple industries and now is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environment Authority (NOPSEMA), our next guest, Sue McCarrey, has certainly seen her share of times when things haven't gone according to plan or achieved an unexpected outcome. Sue joins our latest podcast to discuss how challenges can lead to your biggest success.It's a great episode that will challenge your thinking about failure and how you can support and encourage younger members of your workforce to be resilient, courageous, and confident.

Liz Tydd, the Australian Information Commissioner, joins us in this special broadcast of our podcast series on Thriving in Uncertainty to provide a regulator's perspective in building capacity in agencies and industry. In this enlightening episode, you'll learn the OAIC's latest thinking on the eight key elements in ensuring there is a human-rights-centred approach in the AI space and how essential it is for their workforce to be committed to preserving human rights, be curious and work collegially, and how the organisation has developed four pillars to manifest in their culture and operations which are proactive, proportionate, purpose-driven, and people-focussed.Liz's leadership approach of being open to change, developing the ability to respond effectively in a dynamic landscape, and taking a human-rights approach to designing for trust is a masterclass for any leader in leading through change and dealing with complexity in a dynamic environment.

Our next trailblazer, David MacLennan, has had an interesting career. He started out working in the Commonwealth Government, mainly in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra and then overseas, before joining the Western Australian State Government in the Department of Planning and now as the CEO of the City of Vincent. David joins us in our latest episode to talk about his journey as a CEO in improving organisational performance.

We know that there are many modes of learning. One that has been spoken about in recent episodes as critically important is on-the-job learning and how, knowledge sharing between peers, even from different areas of an organisation, can help fuel new ideas and ways of working.Another important learning and development opportunity in the APS is mobility. In our latest episode, Sam Palmer joins us to discuss this and so much more on the topic of learning organisations. Sam is Secretary and a Fellow of IPAA and currently serves as APS reviewer on the independent capability review of the Commonwealth Department of Education on secondment from Austrade.

We are thrilled to present our exclusive broadcast with David Thodey, who joins our podcast to discuss Innovating in Uncertainty. David is a business leader with a career active in business, healthcare, public policy, innovation, tertiary education, the environment, and corporate governance. In our latest episode, we catch up with David to discuss the concept of "Innovating in Uncertainty." Together, we discuss the continued importance of driving innovation in a rapidly changing world that brings uncertainty with it and how great leaders are those who can adapt to the ambiguity that surrounds them.

Tim Bullard, Chief Executive Officer at the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL), joins us in our latest episode to discuss adaptability. Tim knows too well how adaptability can directly influence your engagement at work, having managed the Department of Education and then the Department of Education, Children, and Young People in Tasmania through tremendous amounts of change, including COVID-19, a merger of two organisations, and other significant events.In this episode, Tim reflects on these experiences, and much more.

Dr Ivan Williams, the Chief Medical Radiation Scientist at the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), joins us in our latest episode to discuss the topic of becoming a learning organisation.Critical to performing ARPANSA's work is being across enormous amounts of data, research, regulations, and audits. Staff must also be across contemporary developments in technology, medical practice, and clinical practice. Due to the nature of their work, it is these reasons why there is an expectation that staff invest in their own learning and development. In this great chat, Ivan provides an understanding of the critical work that ARPANSA provides to Australia and how, as an organisation, they prioritise learning while delivering their huge and essential remit.

We often speak about the importance of everyone continuing to learn. After all, learning, in its essence, is about being alive. While some may approach learning with curiosity and be open to the possibilities it may provide for us, others may find it overwhelming to be able to decide in the direction to go. David Coltman, Chief Executive of TAFE SA, joins us to discuss this and much more in our latest podcast episode on change resilience.

You can't help but feel the passion and energy that Tess Bishop, Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Secretary of Enterprise, Strategy, and Engagement, at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry brings to her team as she shares her experiences leading a very large transformation agenda in our latest episode on a growth mindset approach to change. Tess provides her perspectives on how success can only be achieved through an open-minded approach, engaging in open dialogue with others, and adapting and supporting staff along the way.

In a post-pandemic world, have we lost the art of conversation at work? After all, being able to talk and relate to one another helps us to form connections that are crucial to improving our mental health. But this can be challenging for many of us with flexible working arrangements where the lines between work and home often get blurred. Judith Formston, Deputy Chief Executive of Corporate Services at the Department of Health and Wellbeing SA, joins us to talk about how to foster connections and lead authentically in our latest episode of Thriving in Uncertainty.

Gina is the General Manager of People and Culture at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and she joins us in this episode to share her experiences of grit and the ability to persist and lead others through uncertainty. Together, we break down the stigma attached to making mistakes and how courageous leaders can pause and reflect when the emotions are running high and admit to their workforce that they don't always have all the answers.

As an experienced public servant, Martin Hehir, Deputy Secretary for the Governance and Corporate Group within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, has led teams in the Commonwealth and ACT governments. In this episode, he takes us back to the start of his senior leadership career by providing us with invaluable insights into how he has adapted his leadership style to take on a new role in a new department, and how the importance of communication helped him to navigate unfamiliar territory where his team increased by a factor of 20.Martin also shares the importance that a couple of mentors played at this time in his career in helping him to stay real and honest with himself, which are invaluable attributes today for leading authentically.

Maree Bridger, Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, and the Arts details the three key things that underpin planning work and help her department with anticipation, proactivity, and responsiveness to priorities that serve multiple ministers. She also explains how her department overcame scepticism to view 'red as your friend'—and how encouraging others to share projects or initiatives that aren't going well helps colleagues rally together to work through challenges.In this compelling chat, Maree shares experiences from her career from times when things haven't gone to plan and how she has kept moving forward and turned things around through active listening and engagement. She also offers a different perspective on how organisations view innovation and how often, when you are in the trenches, you don't necessarily look around you to realise how far you've come.

Erma Ranieri, Commissioner for Public Sector Employment for South Australia, joins us this episode to talk about how important it is for every generation to be clear on their own sense of purpose and how, even with the best technological skills, future leaders must also be self-aware, vulnerable, and resilient, ensuring that human interactions and connecting with each other are valued.Erma shares examples of some of the numerous mentoring programs that she's led, detailing what it means for leaders to take a whole-person approach to support their workforce's mental health and how she's used her past setbacks to forge a new path for others in avoiding the disadvantages that she encountered earlier in her career.It's a powerful conversation that will leave you wanting to make a difference in supporting those around you.

Kate Driver, CEO of IPAA ACT and co-founder and board member of the CoRE Learning Foundation joins us to discuss 22nd-century leaders. While she may not have a crystal ball to predict the skills a 5-year-old will need to thrive in a 22nd-century workforce, she does offer fascinating perspectives and insights drawn from both her public sector career and her lived experiences. Through her work with teenagers in her charity, she explores what they want from leaders today and how many question or reject the long-standing assumptions about the world of work that have persisted for generations. Listen in as Kate moves beyond the excitement of science fiction hype to provide pragmatic insights on the jobs and industries of the future, framing the importance of sustaining and improving life for humans at scale.

In part two, we continue our conversation with Rachel, discussing the APS Reform, which she has been heavily involved with, and how she keeps herself and others motivated on long-term projects that are hugely significant, have many initiatives attached to them, and require enormous patience and perseverance.

In part one, we delve into the components of a growth mindset and integrity within the APS with Dr Rachel Bacon, Deputy Commissioner of Integrity, Reform, and Enabling Services at the Australian Public Service Commission. Rachel explains how the literature on high-potential leaders has evolved over the past decade: once focused on high IQ as the primary predictor of leadership potential, the emphasis has shifted toward the importance of a growth mindset. Rachel also discusses how a growth mindset is closely tied to learning agility, which involves curiosity, openness, and a willingness to continuously learn. This openness to new experiences transcends culture, age, and gender.

In this 30-minute conversation, you will hear Mandy Young, Chief Executive at State Insurance Regulatory Authority, on 'Taking the path less travelled.'. Mandy provides specific examples from her time at the Department of Communities and Justice and the NSW Department of Customer Service when she served as Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer during COVID-19. This inspiring chat showcases a leader who exemplifies authenticity and resilience. Mandy has been involved in some amazing transformation and reform projects, and we hope that you will find this episode as engaging and refreshing as we did!

Over just 30-mins, you'll hear Jody Grima share her experience in gauging the success of change programs working for Service NSW in the early days when they were establishing the three channels for service delivery in the state, how mindset and EQ play pivotal roles in preparing the workforce for the future, the biases that organisations need to overcome to ensure our workplaces are inclusive and equal for all, and how leaders throughout her career have inspired her to become the leader she is today.

In this uplifting chat, Janet shares her experiences from her early career, how other leaders helped her grow and develop, and how she leans on these experiences to help others grow and develop today. She also explains how important it is for leaders to put themselves in someone else's shoes, acknowledging that the world is now different from what it was, that workplaces themselves are different too, and that it's through a connection with purpose that you can keep yourself, and your team, motivated through times of continuous change and uncertainty.

In the series' opening episode, we spoke to Subho Banerjee about continuous learning and how organisations must adopt it to develop a high-performing workforce ready for the future.Equally crucial to adopting a continuous learning culture is maintaining one. This involves ensuring that employees have an ongoing connection to their organisation, which sometimes is more easily said than done. Globally, there are alarmingly high rates of disengaged employees who are 'quiet-quitting,' and it takes leaders with an EQ approach to navigate the often uncomfortable conversations to reconnect employees to their organisation.Maeve Neilson is a highly respected and experienced leader in New Zealand. In this episode, she joins Andy to discuss how she has developed and led teams in New Zealand, drawing on her direct experience in creating a cross-functional team from the Mosque Shooter sentencing event in 2020 to create a great workplace culture.

According to LinkedIn's Workplace Learning Report for 2024, 4 in 5 people want to learn how to use AI in their profession. But in the public sector specifically, there has been much trepidation about where to use it, how to use it, and, importantly, ensuring that it is used safely with the proper guardrails in place.James Christie, Director of Artificial Workflow, and a guest instructor on our Elevate course on Enhancing Processes with AI, joins Andy to discuss the increasingly popular and in-demand skill of AI. Listen in as James answers the fundamentally essential questions on learning AI skills, including if having a technical background is necessary in learning AI, what the best use cases are in getting started, what other skills are complementary to learning AI skills, and the five critical success factors in implementing AI in an organisation. You will also want to take advantage of James's checklist to get going with AI in your organisation, which is provided as a download.

Sandra Lerch, Executive Director of Strategic Workforce Futures at the Public Sector Commission for the Queensland Government, joins Andy in this latest episode to explain how organisations can create workforce agility. She shares her experiences and learned lessons from her direct involvement in the recently released Even Better Public Sector for Queensland Strategy for 2024-2028. Listen in to hear Sandra explain how organisational agility is a change process and how, by putting people at the centre, you can achieve the agility you need to be fit for the future. Sandra also shares the three important ingredients for being purposeful and holistic in your approach to developing and embedding workforce agility in the way you work.

In today's episode, we dive deep into the current skills landscape, outlining the skills that are becoming increasingly important and discussing proven strategies that can help organisations become more skills-based in how they attract, develop, nurture, and retain their workforce.

Our exciting new series explores critical dimensions of capability building across five insightful and thought-provoking episodes. This series is designed to help leaders instil continuous learning into their organisation's DNA and develop high-performing workforces that are equipped and ready to embrace the future. As the perfect start to our series on Solving the Capability Gap, Subho Banerjee, Deputy Commissioner of the Australian Public Service and Head of the APS Academy and Capability, joins Andy to discuss continuous learning.

Andy Corbett introduces the third podcast series of Trailblazing with CorbettPrice, "Solving the Capability Gap," and provides a brief overview of what's to come.

According to a recent McKinsey report, more than half of global survey respondents on AI said that they had adopted AI in at least one of their business units, and nearly two-thirds expected that their company's investments in AI would increase over the next few years. Yet according to Boston Consulting Group, Australia lags globally, with around 70% of Australian organisations yet to succeed in delivering digital transformation, a critical first step to succeed in AI. Pia Andrews, a global expert in open government and digital government transformation and former public servant, joins us to navigate this important change and provides her unique global and local perspectives on how public institutions can approach the responsible adoption of AI. In this episode, Pia shares her six fundamental questions that the public sector must answer when designing for trust, which are part of The Trust Framework for Government Use of AI and Automated Decision Making whitepaper she developed and her top tips on getting started.

With more than a third of Australian Public Service employees reported as wanting to leave within the next two years, according to the June 2022 APS Census, one correlation you can draw is that leaders need to look for ways to bridge the gap between employee expectations and employer needs. In this episode, Andy talks with Tina McAllister, Acting Director of People and Culture at the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for the Queensland Government, as Tina provides her Queensland lens to questions on what it is that employees want, how leaders can respond, ways to to managing flexibility within the workforce, and the role that internal mobility plays for employee retention and ways of addressing it.

What does it take for organisations to create an inclusive workplace where staff feels valued, safe to contribute, and to be their authentic selves? Has progress been made in the public sector, and how can all leaders acknowledge and act accordingly to close the gaps with their employees, especially those from diversity groups? Please tune in to hear Julie Etchells, Chief Human Resources Officer at the Department of Child Safety, Seniors, and Disability Services for the Queensland Government, provide her valuable perspectives based on her experiences working for the Queensland public sector over the past twenty-four years.

Dan Bowes, Executive Director of Taxes and Grants Products at Revenue NSW, joins Andy to explain how his team ensures they deliver for their customers. Listen in to hear from Dan how his team overcame challenges during COVID through successful collaboration, the entire team's role in improving customer process outcomes, and his top three tips on how other leaders can deliver efficiently and effectively for their customers.

Steve Brady, Managing Director of TAFE NSW, joins Andy in this episode to discuss the important change of shifting mindsets and leading to empower employees. Listen in as Steve shares his invaluable insights and perspectives on how TAFE NSW continues to embrace change and adapt to their customer's evolving needs and how Steve maintains a positive mindset and stays adaptable in the face of change.

Listen to Andy as he announces our latest series of Trailblazing with CorbettPrice, all about embracing organisational change.

With changing employee expectations around the learning and development opportunities organisations offer to improve their overall wellbeing, L&D managers face meeting these expectations to future-proof their organisation and attract and retain the best talent. How and what must L&D managers focus on to provide these opportunities to employees in a hybrid working environment, and how can they empower employees to build and maintain an A-grade team? Listen in to find out!

The leadership style of an organisation can profoundly impact an organisation's health, affecting the workplace culture, employee experience, engagement, performance, and organisational agility and resilience. The prolific global expert in open and digital government and former public servant Pia Andrews joins us for episode six in our series and discusses how public sector professionals must lead and navigate their teams now and in the future.

Cherie Canning from Luminate Leadership joins us to discuss the essential topic of workplace culture. Cherie draws on real organisational case studies to talk through the attributes leaders need to have to create a people-centric culture, how this starts with psychological safety and how to create that, how organisations can overcome toxic workplace cultures, why mental health first aid is essential for everyone throughout an organisation, and how to build a connection with employees regardless of whether they are in the office, or working from home. This episode is must listen for anyone who wants their organisation to be more people-centric or learn how to maintain a positive and strong workplace culture.

To help explain what design thinking is and how it can be used to design a good employee experience that engages and empowers an organisation's workforce, Rodger Watson joins us. Rodger is the founding course director of the Master of Creative Intelligence and Strategic Innovation at the University of Technology in Sydney. If you have always wanted to understand design thinking and hear an example of how it has been used to solve a key societal challenge, then you won't want to miss this!

Dave Wild, Futurist, Strategist and Provocateur, joins Andy in this episode to challenge how we look and approach the future, adapt to new technologies, and evolve how we think about long-term planning for organisational performance health. In this riveting episode, Dave demonstrates what a Futurist is, what they do, and how you can become one to help guide your organisation into the future.

Scott Johnston, Deputy Secretary of Revenue, New South Wales, Chief Commissioner of State Revenue, and Commissioner of Fines Administration, joins Andy in this episode to discuss how Revenue NSW has applied agile principles to transform their organisation to become adaptive and responsive now and in the future. Hear how Scott manages to be a regulator while also delivering excellent customer service to Revenue's three-and-a-half-million customers, his thoughts on empowering the whole organisation to innovate, his top tips for how leaders can respond to changing customer priorities, and much more.

In the continuing climate of uncertainty, organisational leaders need new approaches to redefine the way forward in tackling and overcoming some of today's most pressing challenges. Our Trailblazing with CorbettPrice podcast promises to break new ground as we present cutting-edge insights from industry game-changes and thought leaders who have embarked on this journey. Join us in our debut series, as we take a dive deep into the fascinating world of organisational health, exploring the seven dimensions of wellness across seven compelling episodes. We have an extraordinary line-up of trailblazers who will provide their real-life perspectives and experiences to help unravel the intricacies of each of these dimensions, uncover connections between them and provide practical ways that can help you to elevate your organisation's health and boost its overall wellness.

Andy Corbett introduces us to the new podcasting series by CorbettPrice.