#50 Lessons from indigenous leaders – Andrew O’Keeffe, Author and Leadership Consultant (s03ep6)

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

• Andrew’s fascinating background which has taken him from his origins in Broken Hill to studying indigenous groups in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, the Amazon and North America.
• His career in mining, manufacturing, in industrial relations and senior HR roles.
• The commonalities amongst the different societies, and the practical implications that workplaces can learn from this.
• Andrew shares great insights for leaders into how we structure organisations, select and appoint leaders, motivate followers, and influence culture based on his research into indigenous cultures

RESOURCES

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Transcript from the interview

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SPEAKERS

Graeme Cowan, Andrew O’Keeffe

Graeme Cowan 

It’s a real pleasure to welcome Andrew O’Keeffe to the Caring CEO. Welcome, Andrew.

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Thank you, Graeme.

Graeme Cowan 

Andrew, what does care in the workplace mean to you?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Respecting other people. I guess that’s respecting self as well. But yeah, what triggers with that concept is respect. Respect for the other person, respect for other people, and the package of experiences that have made that person who they are.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, I saw in the background that you grew up in Broken Hill, what was that experience? Like?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

We thought it was the center of the universe. For us when we, when we traveled 1000 kilometers east to Sydney for holidays. In our teenage years, we felt really sorry for Sydney, people, we thought they were very isolated.

Graeme Cowan 

Interesting.

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Growing up, I’m very proud of my background in Broken Hill. And well, what that really reflects is that I grew up in a large and loving family. So it wouldn’t have mattered where we were but Broken Hill was part of my fabric.

Graeme Cowan 

And was your father in the mines there? Or how did you come to grow up there?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Yes. So. So where so nowadays with my great-grand nieces, Seventh Generation Broken Hill, that my great grandparents arrived? In a great mother’s case, as a little girl, seven-year-old, as far as we can tell, and mum and dad were both born their mum worked briefly on the mine as a librarian after studying in University and dad joined as a laborer/ apprentice and rose to being chief engineer on one of the major mines.

Graeme Cowan 

Okay, yeah. And I also said that you observed there was some pretty positive relationships with the unions and the management there. How did that manifest itself? How did you see that was, you know, a positive relationship.

Andrew O’Keeffe 

It’s funny about the interest we have as little kids, isn’t it as teenagers, I just became interested in industrial relations, which is really the human side of interactions in the workplace. And that growing, he was first of all, on the union side, as an apprentice, and then later as a trades person. And then later then became a manager. So he, he was on the mining manager side. But it also meant if you could imagine that characteristic of people growing up in a small community, the respect that you have for each other. And so I just observed that the relationships in Broken Hill were really strong between management and labor. In our area, you’re in my era, in business and in human resources in the light, Broken Hill had a somewhat notorious reputation, but that was unfair. And people, people being there was really both sides of that work relationship had the interests of the community at heart. And so there were very few industrial stoppages, and they were in the days of the 80s, where there were a lot of industrial disputes across the country. And so yeah, Broken Hill, people, I think, from about the 1920s worked out that we were a long way away from everybody else that we might as well work together as a community.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, I grew up in a small country town as well. Taree on the North Coast of New South Wales, and I know what you mean, there was no sense of, you know, professional, white collar, blue collar. It was really, you know, if it was same school, everyone had their, you know, did the same sports, there was a real buying element to the town. And, and I think that, you know, because it was so small people would also hear very quickly if someone did something, which wasn’t the right thing, so there was that sort of, if you like, a tribal element that sort of had an influence on how people even work together, yes, yes. After you complete your high school certificate there, did you then go to university entered

Andrew O’Keeffe 

In nominating what course I wanted to do at university I had no idea and sitting at the dining room table with my dad and he was helping me and is very generous. He just asked the Socratic question of all the subjects I talk about my work. What do you like talking about and wow, I said industrial relations. Apparently the brain sparks now I second before the rational thought enters your mind, Wow, can you study industrial relations? He said, let’s find out. And it was an unusual course at the time. There weren’t many offerings, but there was one at Sydney University. So then I studied industrial relations as part of an economics degree at Sydney University.

Graeme Cowan 

That’s a great discussion, isn’t it? You know, where, in talking with your dad, you realize what really, you know, was your spark where you want to be involved. And I guess, you know, the experiences you’ve observed in the town contributed to that as well. That must have been a big change coming all the way to the big city and being just, you know, from being quite a big person in a little pond to suddenly being a small person, a huge pond, what was that transition like for you?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

What was good in two ways. One, I wasn’t a trailblazer. Because I’m, one of six children, and two of my three elder siblings have already come to Sydney University. So I wasn’t that sort of brave or daring or pioneering. And the second thing that really helped is that lived in St. Paul’s College with Sydney University. And so day one you meeting heaps of other people and some of my best friends from that era of people who are at college and who are like minded? Yeah, so that was that was that was smooth. And then back to you just triggered to something that the point of dads question was that mum and dad didn’t mind what each of us studied, or what we pursued in our career or professional life. And their main point was that if we, if we follow the path of a subject that we were curious about, we would always want to know more. That was that was really the key. And that’s why I’m a really lucky person that I chose the right career for me, which was the human dimension of workplaces.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. And what was your first role?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

I briefly worked in Waltons a retailer. And that was to move into industrial relations. Now, at that time, also, I had made contact with an employer association in the mining industry that was in my blood, obviously. And then this particular group, six months after I’d started work, had a vacancy come up. And so the general manager or the state manager of that organisation called Australian mines and metals, they contacted me, and we fell in love with each other. And so I was with Australian mines and metals for about seven years in Sydney, Melbourne back to Sydney. And we represented the industrial interests of mining and hydrocarbons type companies, in their discussions with unions presentations before the Industrial Commission’s tribunals award and agreement negotiations was a dream job for somebody like me interested in in the human dimension of work and industrial relations, I think was just a really interesting entry point into the workplace in a sector that I felt really comfortable in it was, as I say, I grew up in it.

Graeme Cowan 

And how would you describe the leadership you experienced in that in that first significant role?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Well, I The person I worked for nor my boss, I can name him because he’s just a wonderful gentleman. It was such a generous manager of such high standards. So being the in effect apprentice to norm was just was just such a such a gift for me and a privilege and it’s provided a role model for me to that he was there for me. He set the high standards, but was so supportive and encouraging and a great developer and I could model off him and his devotion to customers client service. So yeah, I was, I was fortunate in that and also the mining industry was an industry that was really well developed in terms of leadership, safety. So it was a it was a good was a good well run industry. 

Graeme Cowan 

And where are you located in that role? 

Andrew O’Keeffe 

So just in the centre of Sydney, then centre of Melbourne, but a lot of the work was visits to mind sites, refineries, a little bit offshore in best straight out of Melbourne. 

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. And I saw that you also had you know, some senior roles with IBM and Optus are two very well known organisations to very much more international organisations with, you know, just having its head office in Singapore. Was that? How would you describe the culture of those companies compared to the mining environment? 

Andrew O’Keeffe 

So I’d moved out of the mining industry briefly in a classic Sydney, Western Suburbs manufacturing site. And then three years after that in IBM for about 10 years. The special part of IBM was at IBM longer than Optus. And so let’s talk about IBM. Is that the business operator so very, very well, from both commercial that I’m thinking particularly about the human dimension, the employee relations and the light? And what was the secret because being interested in this, it’s always like a subtext where the answer is, you know, how does this place hum along so well, and good quality of managers get on well with their people? And looking under rocks trying to find the answer? What’s the subtext here, and it was really the, the focus on managers serving their people, that there were enough, there was focused plus then enough feedback loops, closing the loop on any manager that wasn’t focused on serving their people. So as a lot of tools and support and training to make sure managers were focusing on the people, the role of HR was to support the leaders, the managers in their relationship, not to get in the middle of that relationship. And that we had enough feedback loops of those managers who were not delivering on that commitment. Then with those feedback loops, we’re able to attend to that hopefully improving those individual leaders, getting them refocused or re skill. But if not, if that wasn’t really their skill, then slowly and respectfully, they would probably be moved out of leadership roles. 

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. And I’m sure this is going back a while. But what you described is quite contemporary. And I’m sure in my experience, wasn’t necessarily active in other organisations, this concept of almost servant leadership, and, you know, having a service approach to the people that you’re trying to lead is, you know, it’s talked about now, but I’m sure we’re talking a while back, because I know you’ve had a lot. So it was unusual, wouldn’t you say?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Yeah, in that mid 80s, to mid 90s, I was there. And really an enlightened view. And, and that comes back to really good values, particularly of the founder, the founder, and the sons of son of the founder. So they had all of us are various, at that time very stable history of senior executives, which you need to have to have such as, like a strong culture that endured.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, yep. And they were very active, you know, in the hardware and in personal computers and that sort of thing. But then they hit a real tough time, didn’t they were that business sort of wasn’t working as well. Why do you think they missed that rapid trend into sort of the services type area?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

There’s a positive out of that. I mean, there’s a blind spot. But the positive is, and I was in the middle of that, in night, the night recessions of 91. And in living through that observing, and also being having a key role to play in what we went through in the early 90s. The way I was observing that and felt about it was, Wow, how special is it that a company could come out of the trough that we went into? There’ll be very few companies that could respond, cut 30% of the staff by voluntary redundancy, and cut and come out of it and still service service clients still deliver still do, do the work that you had to do on the following Monday. You’re the third, the third less faithful. You had you have to be a special fabric and proud organisation to come through that.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. What do you think led to the blind spot?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

It’s an overconfidence dimension, which is one of the great classics of human nature that that becomes so so positive optimistic, which is I know your this is your special interest associated with good mental health. So there’s some really good aspects of being up same mistake. But if that leads to and it’s well documented area of research about denial, which I did see that too, in that early part of that beginning of that reset recession in Easter of that year, because that denials about not able to contemplate the possibility of that other option being true. Yeah. And so you can deny that for a long time until a catastrophic event happens.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, yeah. And you then move into your own business? And can you tell our listeners a little bit of bit about that business and how it evolved for you,

Andrew O’Keeffe 

I got really interested in the subject of human nature, and how that plays out in the workplace. The key concept being that through the long journey of human history have only recently moved into workplaces. And that’s no time to alter what it means to be human, and credit for that key concept to personally became a mentor, Professor Nigel Nicholson at London Business School, and as HR practitioner, I read some of his work. And wow, that explains a lot of things that tee up the nine instincts that are documented about humans, one of them being overly confident, to the point of denying reality that explains a lot of, of the good things about work, and also explains a lot of the challenging aspects of work. If we lead according to the basic human instincts, if we had HR tools, such as performance systems, designed around those nine instincts, then it’s going to make workplaces more positive and productive, and also leadership better and more enjoyable. So I got really interested in that area of work and application because I’m a practitioner, and I was enjoying it so much, I just decided with my wife support that that would be my area of consulting. And I’m happy that pleased to say that there are Nef, other organisations and other HR particularly leaders out there who shared my interest. And so a lot of the work was around leadership development, leadership training, and coaching and change management. And so yeah, and part of that to Graeme was to teach humans a good place to do that is at zoos. So I also spent a fair bit of time running these client workshops, at zoos as venues. And so that cat became a really good place to take this view of us as, as humans as a primate. A lot of these characteristics we share with other primates such as the chimpanzees at Taronga Zoo, so we’d pop out and see the chimps and see a lot of the same characteristics of hierarchy and dominance and relationships and bonding and reassurance and territory, and Border Protection. And so became a good a good place to take something which I found useful. And I think other people found useful about trying to solve these challenges of workplaces.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, that’s a really fascinating insight, you know, to look at the, you know, the animal kingdom, what did people comment on that was helpful that that experience

Andrew O’Keeffe 

so that we certainly around the framework that, wow, yeah, human nature is quite a mystery can be a mystery, both in terms of what other people thought and acted like and the way that I the individual might have thought and acted. So it was very helpful to people in terms of a framework that they were then better at able to observe with a framework, you can then make better choices about the way you act, knowing what will work and what won’t, it helped one of the one of the by comparison to the other primate species, hierarchy. And power relationships became very, very helpful for people to understand hierarchy and power has a bad rap. But really the bad rap is when hierarchy and power is used inappropriately. So it helps to just observe the natural pattern of relationships and relative power, but also about using those power relationships really well. Some of the absolute best leaders that one gets to work with is where power is used. Well now the best bosses I’ve worked for just absolutely delightful to work for. And it wasn’t that they were powerless. It was in fact that they use their power really well. In fact to the IBM compensation power was used really, really well and productively and constructively 

Graeme Cowan 

Yes, yeah. And then you began a fascination with First Nations people, which led to you writing a book. So how did that evolve? 

Andrew O’Keeffe 

This curiosity factor, said in 2016, my wife, Jude, and I were going to Africa on holiday. And that involved in part safari in Kenya. And I thought it’d be really interesting to inquire about leadership in Maasai society. And I said, yeah, just curious, interested in humans, the human relationship, journey, the human instincts journey. So almost like an evolution of that would be, I wonder what leadership means in these societies that have endured for millennia. And so I reached out to the two Safari camps, and they said, Yeah, that’ll be easy to organize, meeting with some Maasais and elders that your guides are Maasai. And so the two, three contexts on that first trip were guides at the camps and, and these folks, they work in the western economy, but when they’re not on shift, they head home to their village generally. And so they’re absolutely living their social practices and their life in their small village. And yeah, so they, you know, very interested to share their their experiences and sitting under giant acacia trees, with the elephants, just on the side of us was was such a nice setting to just explore leadership.

Graeme Cowan 

So what What questions did you ask them? 

Andrew O’Keeffe 

There were two style questions and then a game changer came halfway through that first questions was around there what leadership on some societies by the way, I couldn’t ask what leadership means because I didn’t want to assume a leadership fabric. But I knew a little bit about maasai society from a previous visit. So I was able to ask, you know, what is? What does leadership mean? Who gets to be the leader? What role do they serve? What level of decisions do they serve? So questions like that. And then the game changer was halfway through what was typically probably two-hour interview with one person, several interviews. But halfway through, I changed it from to make it more personal, about their leader, and each of these people on this and a subsequent trip 11, Maasai they all in a reported to a different chief. Halfway through I turn up personal. So I’d say so Graeme, your Chief, are they a good leader? What amazed me was that that question immediately triggered tears in the eyes, thinking about this adorable person in their life. And I went back to my tree contact and a gala. And I said, Nick Geller, I don’t know many workplace leaders who trigger that reaction on there. So the key question from me to him was how do you get leadership so right? That is the experience your people have with their leader or with leadership. And so that we then talk further, but they’re not walking around. In Sydney, where we live soon after that trip, I had this welling of euphoria, this energy Wentz through my body, about how stimulating that experience was in hearing this different perspective. And gosh, I’ve only just scratched the surface. Well, I’d really like to investigate this subject of leadership in First Nations to see what patterns there are and if that experience in other societies are similar to Maasai.

Graeme Cowan 

And what answer they get when you ask to us, how does that lead to tears in, your eyes? You know, it’s obviously a real emotional connect, we over uncover what was the root cause of those tears in the eye? Yeah, so

Andrew O’Keeffe 

In maasai, and then it is a pattern in the other societies fat that one is the incredible care that they take in choosing the leader and bear in mind that this is a amongst a crop of young people in their first leadership position or crop of young people who the elders already know. And yet, at a time when they’re putting a group of warriors together, who will next who will then have a leader chief appointed from that group of 500 to 1000. Young men, they take two or three years to choose. And that comes from a level of observation conversation that they have with, in effect, the shortlisted group. So the incredible care. And then the second key thing, which we are thinking workplaces, we can learn so much from an altar our practice of appointment, is it’s really the followers who get to choose their chief.

Graeme Cowan 

Interesting.

Andrew O’Keeffe 

We can talk some more about that. But that that was the key that one of the elders told me a key person on this conversation was that we, as the elders are merely guiding the choice of the followers, we would not impose on the followers a leader who they did not want.

Graeme Cowan 

And so if the path you take, play such an important role in that selection, how does that happen? Is it a little lecture? No? How do they identify the one that they think is going to be right for them.

Andrew O’Keeffe 

through inquiry and conversation. So they just talk to that there’s seven of the of that 500, or 1000 worries is seven, who become the cabinet. And so that the elders are really checking in with the seven and the seven are then checking in with now the wider group. And it might be a shortlist of 234 warriors who might feel the chief role. And it’s just over that two or three years and the elders are teaching them teaching them teaching them more about Maasai culture during that time and the rituals and the law and the practices the precedence. And so there’s lots and lots of opportunity for observation. And it’s just that care taken, observing, and then checking in even that night before the appointment year, the warriors year, the followers happy with the person we’re about to appoint.

Graeme Cowan 

Wow. And you looked at a number of other cultures in different countries was that were their practices similar or their differences,

Andrew O’Keeffe 

But there were differences but with the same intent. So now the difference between the appointment of leaders or how leaders get to be chosen, and the nature of leadership depends on the level in which the society is organized. So in the maasai I were talking about a society organized at a divisional level, if we use workplace language, some societies are organized. And level depending on the nature of the of the environment and what sort of population the land can carry. Bushman in the Kalahari, for instance, were organised in small family groups in a band of average of 25 people. In the western desert of Central Australia on the border of what’s now Northern Territory in Western Australia. The Pintupi were organised mainly around a family group, six, seven people. And then periodically in gatherings of family groups making a band of 20 or 30 people.  New Zealand much more hospitable, natural environment. Villages could be much larger, up to 80 to 150 people now in the Mohawk case, so their traditional lands were most of upstate New York and I met a community near Montreal. Abandoned environment, though were organised in traditional times, not only as a nation of what’s estimated about 9000 people, but her her then a Shawnee people being a common language group in that part of North America were numbered about 25,000 people. So their organisation design and their leadership structure was a confederacy covering 25,000 people. So leadership means a lot, something very different in different societies. But there was that commonality and certainly the the societies organized at a high level. That level of care taken in the choice of chief and in leadership positions was was common as well as the involvement of the followers in the Mohawk face through the clan mothers, they feel the role of choosing the leader.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. And what can develop countries or organisations in developed countries, learn from those First Nations people and leaders. And have you any had any success in getting them to adopt those? Those practices?

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Yeah. So in terms of my special focuses in workplaces, so if we say what’s the relevance and because of my technical background, I was always looking at what are the practical implications that workplaces can make of this. So if we just take those two elements of, well, let’s take the three that we’ve touched on organisation design, there’s a natural pattern for humans, and hence, its present in all these traditional human societies. Hence, it should apply in workplaces is structuring your work around small family groups, which are teams of seven or there abouts, people within a department have something larger, but maxing out at about 150. So it might be smaller department of 20, midsize 50 to 80, don’t have a department of larger than 150 Just have many departments or villages. So that people get a sense of identity, belonging, therefore good outlook and loyalty and being productive. So that’s, that’s one two is the carrying which we take in appointing leaders that can share just good practice, I don’t think can be a case of if we hire externally putting an ad out there in terms of social media, more likely nowadays, you know, one or two interviews, maybe battery of psychological testing, or inbox exercises, and making an appointment. That is that is high risk, because it’s really hard to work out the complete person or the total package. So taking greater care, part of taking greater care is giving a preference to a solid internal candidate, because bear in mind, the external candidate has an advantage because whereas a hiring person knows the total package, and therefore the potential the possible weaknesses of the internal candidate, they’re magnified because you can’t possibly work out. The weaknesses are more politely said interference factors of external candidates, and so they aren’t paid for an interview look like a better quality candidate, a perfect candidate until the week a month then realize that, like the rest of us, are perfect. And then the third one, which would be I think, a big change and a really healthy one in workplace practice, is to involve the followers. In choosing their leader, they have a lot invested, they have a lot of knowledge. And see what why is it that? And as the history of the last 100 years, what why is it that we think the person above the vacant position has all knowledge required knowledge insight, to make the best appointment? That is just the arrogance of 100 years of leadership practice? Yeah, just turn that around, and the latest of who’s making the appointment? Should just inquire and get the involvement of the followers.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, I remember, actually a good friend of mine, Ted Dorasaimy, he was managing director of Oral B for a while and, you know, he, first of all, made some appointments, which didn’t work out. And, and so he decided to include his team as part of the interview process. And that led to a far higher success rate, you know, in terms of getting people on board, which is exactly what you’re saying, you know, people that probably have smart, better understandings of the pros and cons a leader and also they can probably see things that leader can’t always see but other people can in their conversations that have things. Where

Andrew O’Keeffe 

are you asking your question? Just a moment ago, you asked about PACE practices or where this might have been applied certainly around organisational design, because this what I found in First Nation side is fitted with what I was thinking about and where of work of the last 15 years I’ve been doing theory of human instincts. So there is this pattern linked including to brain size, by the way that groups of up to about 150 matches the size of our brain, and therefore the capacity and the relationship building and so a lot of my clients have applied that method in through the structuring of their population. Yeah. And then also in terms of the nature and quality of leader, then yeah, we would both I think now organisations that you have taken on board and transformed the quality of leadership and then and then also, yeah, one place I worked. Like you just at our Oral B example, the chief executive would involve the followers and check in with them and just ask them and have those conversations and discover what more insight there is, and, and also a big message to the leader, if they come in having been appointed with the support of their followers. That sounds like a really healthy start. So that special relationship.

Graeme Cowan 

It’s been a real pleasure catching up today, Andrew, very, very interesting, you know, hearing your observations about other cultures and what we can learn from and, you know, we do have to keep evolving, don’t we, we can’t just assume that how things been run, the last five years are going to be right for the next five years, 

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Yes and just and, and that this is an area of investigation of leadership that hasn’t been included in workplace practice. 100 years of workplace practices or discipline, we kicked off it by ignoring it at that time ignoring First Nations’ wisdom. And so our leadership practices, our concepts, our approaches, heavy, have ignored this. And this is an opportunity to rectify that to inject the ancient wisdom, which has been developed and fine-tuned over millennia. And I’d like to give credit to the people I met in these First Nations communities who, who was so supportive of the concept that workplace leaders might benefit from their people’s wisdom. 

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, wonderful. My final question always is, you know, if you could go back, Andrew to when you just finished high school and in Broken Hill, knowing what you know, now, what advice would you give yourself

Andrew O’Keeffe 

I probably would have got faster on to if you’ve got a strong motivation, then just follow that strong motivation and wonderful things will happen. Other people will attach to that energy. And your objective or the journey that you’re on will be accomplished.

Graeme Cowan 

Wonderful. Thanks so much, Andrew, for being part of the caring CEO. 

Andrew O’Keeffe 

Thanks, Graeme.

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