#70 Kindness, connection and gratitude, Todd Harper AM, CEO, Cancer Council, Victoria

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

• How caring in the workplace means for Todd
• Fostering a culture of support and positivity throughout our community
• Principles in strengthening our workplace culture

RESOURCES

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Transcript from the interview

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SPEAKERS

Graeme Cowan, Todd Harper AM

Graeme Cowan  00:01

It’s a real pleasure to welcome Todd. Harper, to The Caring CEO, welcome Todd.

Todd Harper  00:07

Great to be with you, Graeme.

Graeme Cowan  00:09

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

Todd Harper  00:14

Graeme, I think it’s one of those things that we often know it when we see it, and so it can be somewhat of a nebulous concept, but for me, I think it often comes back to kindness, the ability to recognize the contribution of people around you, to be humble in the way that we go about our work, the because if we’re doing that, I think that that does so much to create a workplace where people feel connected, engaged, valued, and creating an environment that is also more productive. So to me, that’s at the essence of of what it means.

Graeme Cowan  00:58

And you shared with me previously for our listeners, you should know that Todd’s in Melbourne the longest lockdown during the pandemic of any city in the world. What sort of strain did that put on your organization during that real period of isolation?

Todd Harper  01:16

Yeah, it fundamentally changed every aspect of our business, and literally overnight. I remember the weekend. I think it was a Sunday. We closed the office the day before the Melbourne Grand Prix was canceled at last notice, and we located in our old offices. We were located 20 meters from the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, and we were located 50 meters from where the track was. So it became very clear to me that we couldn’t run events that weekend, fundraising events that weekend, a lot of them are attended by cancer patients. And we knew that from the data that we were seeing that cancer people going through cancer treatment were particularly vulnerable to the to the pandemic. So we knew that we would have to close down the office. We closed down overnight our office went to working from home almost immediately we saw the impact that it had, not only on our capacity to raise money, but also our work. We saw very quickly, research programs slowed down, labs closed, funding sources diminished. It became harder to get across our messages of cancer prevention because there was this health gorilla in the room by the name of COVID that was occupying everyone’s attention. And also we saw the enormous impact on cancer patients, where it’s hard enough at any stage going through a cancer diagnosis, but to do it in the pan in a pandemic with so much disruption was particularly traumatic for many people. So our business fundamentally changed in an instant,

Graeme Cowan  03:09

and not just that, but you know your own staff had some real challenges as well, and I know you did some research to try and understand that what came out of that? Yeah,

Todd Harper  03:21

we were I remember the most vulnerable period that I’ve ever experienced as a leader was after we’d done all of that initial work, got everyone set up to work at home, and then I was struck with the feeling of feeling very vulnerable as a CEO, as a leader, what do I do now? I couldn’t see people. I couldn’t connect with people, and I felt very I felt very isolated at that time. We discussed this with our our leaders. We were all feeling quite vulnerable at that point, we’d never been through a pandemic. We could see how COVID was impacting every aspect of our work. So we had some discussions together as a leadership team, how do we want to lead during the pandemic? And we had this discussion over a period of weeks. What emerged during that discussion with some really interesting insights for all of us. First of all, that we can see that those who were struggling to cope through the pandemic were really seem to be focusing on a loss of control, whether it be in their work life, their social life, their friends, their family, their networks, they were experiencing a loss of control. So we gave a lot of thought to how we could bring some control back for our leaders in terms of how they led through the organization. And I was lucky enough, I think, to come across, you know the work that Graeme, you do, because that really opened up the first clue for. Us that kindness is so powerful as a way of giving people back control. We all have it in ourselves to exhibit kindness to others. We know how it feels when we receive kindness, and so that was the first thing that we decided as leaders, that we wanted to to be kind to our people, be kind to our leaders. And then we continue to search for other ways that would be the hallmarks of how we would lead. And over a few weeks, we settled on kindness, connection and gratitude. They were three things that we all identified were very powerful in terms of how we could lead, how we could work with our leaders to model those behaviors, and it was something that we all had within our control. It was we could exhibit gratitude how we wanted. It was up to us to connect in a way that felt authentic for each of us. They were very powerful words that we were able to live by during the pandemic, which gave us some real confidence, I think, as an organization, is how we can lead together.

Graeme Cowan  06:09

It was very gratifying to hear that you found some episodes that really inspired you and gave you some of those ideas. It’s wonderful to hear examples of putting ideas into action, because the end of the day, if we don’t act on it, it doesn’t change, does it? But what I what I love about those three words is that it they’re very humane, you know, they’re very about who we are as a person, and connection and belonging are, you know, a fundamental human need. We all want to feel like we’re part of the group, part of belonging. And I think both the kindness and the gratitude, you know, provide the fuel for that connection, don’t they, and I saw in some of the material you shared with me before where people red with me before where people actually shared on your intranet their gratitude posts over that period. And I’m sure it, you know, it benefited everyone to read, to read those very, very authentic posts. Yeah,

Todd Harper  07:12

we were all going through this together, and we used, we were doing daily communications from the from the CEO, some of which I would write. A lot of the material, though, was sourced from across the organization, the remarkable things that people were doing to keep their work of cancer in cancer going, the remarkable things that they were doing to support their teams. One of the things that we saw during that period was we we gave our leaders the permission to lead in the way that they thought best, brought out the needs of their team, because we recognized that every team was going to be different. We were all facing different challenges. We couldn’t be in every conversation. So we wanted to empower our leaders. We want you to lead in the way that is most appropriate for your team, within those parameters that we’d set, kindness, connection, gratitude, and we really saw some incredibly creative, innovative work that even though we were had those incredible long periods of lockdown that are how people remained highly engaged with the work of the organization. We became much better as, I think, as an organization, in celebrating the success of people across the organization. And we saw a great and that unlocked, I think, really strong motivation to deliver according to the work of Cancer Council, and it unlocked a really great engagement with the organization in a level that we hadn’t seen before.

Graeme Cowan  08:53

Yeah, that’s extraordinary. And you showed me a number of those figures, and a lot of them were around 98% in terms of, you know, proud to work for Cancer Council would recommend it to a friend to work there. They’re, you know, they’re extraordinary figures. And it showed that you really tapped into something that resonated with the whole group.

Todd Harper  09:16

Yeah, I think so. Graeme. And one of the other things that was very important for our people during that time was creating or maintaining, I think, and building upon a sense of purpose. So working in an organization like Cancer Council, purpose was always a very strong reason that people wanted to work with us. About six months into the pandemic, we were already seeing, as I mentioned earlier, enormous impacts on every aspect of our work. For example, within the first couple of years of the pandemic, we saw six and a half 1000 fewer cancer diagnoses because people just weren’t engaging with the healthcare system. So cancer. As weren’t being detected in the way they were. So we were seeing these impacts. We used as as an opportunity to finish up on our current strategy. At the time, we finished out that strategy about 12 months early, because we could see the impact that the pandemic was having on pretty much every aspect of our cancer work. So we use that opportunity to engage our organization and the people in the organization to start to think about what cancer control would look like going forward. And that was really important in maintaining and building on that sense of purpose that people could readily identify with across the organization. So we stepped up our efforts around vaping, around the elimination of cervical cancer, the work around liver cancer, you know, these things we picked up during the pandemic, as well as the opportunity to better connect cancer patients to supportive care and cancer navigation services. So that was a really important thread in people feeling connected and recognizing the opportunities that existed for the organization, even in perhaps our darkest period.

Graeme Cowan  11:13

Yeah, just jumping back a little bit before that time, I know you took a very big role in tobacco control and led the I quit movement. And you know, I know you were up against a very, very well funded companies who wanted to maintain the status quo. What were some of the important steps you took there to turn things around? And you know, Australia has a very enviable, enviable record now in terms of the how few people smoke now?

Todd Harper  11:46

Yeah, absolutely. I think the one of the things that I really take out of my work during that period in tobacco control, and probably also going back to the period that I worked in HIV AIDS as well, around how do we use our advocacy to achieve lasting, meaningful change, for for in people’s health and in their livelihoods? So for me, I think there are some really essential building blocks of effective advocacy, and it’s the levers that help us make big change. So it’s things like economics, law and regulation, policy, communication campaigns, all underpinned by really thorough research to help us drive sustainable change. And that then leads to, you know, there were some terrific wins during that period, whether it be smoke free laws, bans on tobacco, advertising, effective new campaigns that we were able to introduce. So these are often things that have a really permanent impact in sustaining better health outcomes. We’ve seen steep declines in lung cancer, for example, as a result of some of the campaigns that Australia has led. So they’ve been particularly important, I think, and salutary lessons for me. And how do you create an environment for big change? What are those levers that you want to have at your disposal to achieve that type of change?

Graeme Cowan  13:22

Yeah, and, you know, to see it across a whole population is amazing. And, you know, even the, you know, plain paper packaging, you know, sort of sounds so simple, and yet it was quite significant as well. And making progress, wasn’t it? It was, you know, sometimes it’s simple things that work.

Todd Harper  13:43

Yeah, absolutely. I remember there was a period we just managed to see smoke free pubs and clubs introduced in Victoria and and New South Wales, that was around the mid 1990s and I was talking with our team at the time around what the next challenges would be, and we talked about plain packaging and how that would be wonderful to achieve. And we started talking about the research that we would need to develop the case for plain packaging. We thought it would probably be 20 years before we would achieve that, but we thought it was so important to do that. One of the things that I remember very clearly is when the the Australian Government and the health minister in particular, Nicola Roxan, put this on the agenda, the reaction that we saw from the tobacco companies at the time told me all we needed to know. They were so worried about the introduction of plain packaging, they threw everything at it. They threatened legal action. Our organization faced legal action from the tobacco companies. We saw just how much this meant to them, and I often reflect back. I think that they were probably worried about Australia introducing plain packaging. I suspect they were far more worried that other countries would follow Australia’s lead, and it’s why it was so important to throw absolutely everything at that issue. And I think Australia and governments health organizations were just mighty during that period to fight off the challenges of the tobacco industry and secure plain packaging going forward.

Graeme Cowan  15:31

Yeah. So a wonderful, wonderful progress, quite extraordinary, apart from listening to the caring CEO, where else have you found inspiration for your leadership style, either in terms of people or books or videos. Has there been, you know, one or two people that really resonate for you? Yeah,

Todd Harper  15:51

I certainly an avid reader of the Harvard Business Review. I think there put out some terrific leadership one that really caught my attention though, Graeme was some interesting work that was done by Christine Porath from the University of Nevada, where she talked about civility in the workplace. And it’s civility is not really a term I think that we use much in an Australian context, particularly in the workplace. But what she unpacked it as being was about, how do you create a workplace which is respectful, that where people feel valued, that their contribution is welcomed? And so she talks about thanking people, sharing credit, listening attentively, asking questions and acknowledging others. And you know, there again, if we go back to what we were talking about earlier, things that we all have in our control, things that, as CEOs and leaders, we can do those things every day. It’s kindness, really. And I think that those things can have such a powerful impact in the in the workplace, CEOs, leaders, perhaps sometimes we underestimate how much our actions, the things that we do, are picked up and responded to, or they become part of the influence within, within the culture of our organizations. So to me, there’s something very powerful in that, that if we are organized, if we as leaders, can model kindness in our organizations, particularly if we don’t do it with the expectation of anything in return. I think you know one of these, one of the things that I don’t love about our current world. At the moment, we seem to expect almost instant reward for effective. Yes, exactly. And I think there’s something very powerful about being kind with no expectation of anything in return. I think inevitably you do, and it probably comes back in other ways, with really, a really engaged teams of people working in the organization. But I think there’s something very powerful about being kind with no expectation of anything coming back to you?

Graeme Cowan  18:21

Yeah. Well, the Gallup organization has been researching engagement, discretionary effort for 30 or 40 years. They now have it down to just 12 statements or questions, but there’s one statement, which is my supervisor or someone at work seems to care about me as a person, not even does seems to care about me as a person, and the more people who strongly agree with that, the higher the productivity, the higher the profit, the higher the customer service levels, and the longer people stay in the organization. And you know, it is interesting, isn’t now these things are spoken about much more openly. They were typically thought as soft skills. I prefer the term strong skills, because, quite frankly, they’re what separate organizations. Now, anyone can have a compelling strategy, anyone can have, you know, the latest AI, the latest technology, but it’s the culture that really makes a difference. And really it is about that contribution. It contributes outside. And you know, the great work that you do and other charities do, and are you okay? Has Done? Has it’s just been wonderful to make that more mainstream. And you know, we saw, I shared that article with you last week from Harvard Business Review, talking about kindness at work and someone actually writing about, you know, why this makes a difference and why it matters. And, of course, the work of Amy Edmondson and psychological safety, you know, if you do have that respect, into. Personal trust and respect. You know, people can contribute ideas. People feel free to challenge them, but then you have to get on with it. And none of us can know the best answer for anyone’s situations. The world’s just changing way too quickly, and it’s really about tapping into the best ideas around the table. Isn’t it that makes a that makes a big difference? Yeah,

Todd Harper  20:26

absolutely. And I think Graeme, you know, one of the things that I have come to appreciate more and more is that when people at Cancer Council, Victoria or elsewhere, where they’re in a difficult situation, they’re not quite sure what to do. I’d like to think that because of the way that that we’ve encouraged them to be engaged with the business, to share their thoughts, be confident in in communicating their views, that they’ll know what to do in those challenging situations. They’re aligned with the values of the organization. They feel that the organization will support them. I think those things are particularly important. We can have a lot of rules to prescribe the way that we should behave in particular situations, but we can’t prescribe every situation, and so having people that are resilient, confident, engaged, aligned with the purpose of the organization, I think, is so powerful in terms of the health and strategy of an organization.

Graeme Cowan  21:36

Yeah, and it’s interesting. Amy Edmondson talks about it as leading like a scientist. And what she means by that is that you know, you form a hypothesis. You can’t know, you know, 100% what you need to do. So you form a hypothesis, then seek out to see whether it’s true or not true or or, you know, just need some tweaks here and there. But even someone who you would never think is being, you know, particularly human Jeff Bezos. He’s obviously had massive success with with, you know, the Amazon group of companies, but he manages by the 70% rule. You know, when you think you’re 70% got the information need, then you need to act. If you wait much longer, it’ll be too late. And so more and more, we’re just needing to have much better interpersonal relations between team members, aren’t we? Yeah,

Todd Harper  22:32

absolutely. I love the hypothesis idea. I think that we sometimes we’re too quick with the answer, and I think there’s so much value in the question and the discussion that follows. So I think that’s a similar thing to what you were describing, where we feel comfortable, confident within our teams to question a particular approach, or why are you doing that? Or how can I assist with that? Have you thought about, you know, some of these, and often it can be tempting for particularly leaders to be quick with the solution, whereas the good question often leads to a discussion which can take you in directions that you may not have previously been open to. That leads to really good outcomes, but also you’re building up that collaboration, connection, muscle, if you like, within the organization that our leaders feel comfortable doing, that solutions are inevitably better, I think, when we’re capable of having that that conversation, rather than jumping to almost a knee jerk and solution, yeah, very true.

Graeme Cowan  23:53

Is there a personal experience or moment outside your professional life that has deeply influenced your leadership style?

Todd Harper  24:04

Yes, inevitably, I mentioned before about at the start of the pandemic, and I felt, I readily admit lost as a leader. What do I do now? I can’t connect with people in the way that I did, and I remember at the time, I’m grateful I did this. I shared how I was feeling with my exec assistant at the time, person by the name of Jane. She was much better at connecting with the organization than than I was, and she was able to recount stories to me about the way that people across the Cancer Council Victoria were finding ways to get on with the job. They were finding new ways to support cancer patients or to support cancer research, or to get our prevention campaigns out there. And. It was a really powerful lesson for me, because sometimes the best thing that a leader can do is enable the great work of the people that they are they’re leading. It doesn’t always have to be that the leader has the answers. So I think having that was a really think taught me a valuable exercise in humility, particularly if you’re surrounded by good people with a good strategy, a good for purpose environment, then that gives you the opportunity to achieve great things as an organization. So I really took a lot out of that about how as a leader, I can support good people around me to achieve wonderful things.

Graeme Cowan  25:55

And yeah, vulnerability is also, you know, obviously Brene Brown’s been a very powerful advocate of the importance of vulnerability, but I’ve had more and more leaders talk about that. And the thing is, when we’re vulnerable, it allows other people to be vulnerable as well. And, you know, and so there is that connection to say, Oh, you’re struggling as well. Are you? You know, you don’t know the answers either. And, you know, I think it allows for a much more truthful and honest discussion.

Todd Harper  26:26

Yeah, I remember, I was during the pandemic. I had taken on my first role as a board chair. I was chairing the non communicable disease alliance based in Geneva, which aims to coordinate responses to non communicable diseases amongst civil society around the world, so as a new chair facing the first ever pandemic. It was, it was pretty challenging times, and I there were good people involved in the organization, CEO, staff and board. The thing that I learned during that period is that I didn’t always have the answer, but there were people in the room that did, and what was really important for me as chair of that board was to create the space to enable everyone to contribute and trust that the answer was in the room. We just needed to spend the time to enable people to contribute solutions. And one of the things that I did then, and I sometimes do with our own executive team, is that if we’ve got a particular problem that we’re struggling with I’ll indicate that, look, I’d like to go around and get everyone’s perspective around the room. And when I’ve done that, it’s almost invariably, by the time we’ve finished that exercise and gone around, the people on the board table or the executive table will realize the answer, because either someone’s had the idea, or we’ve all contributed to the shaping of an idea that we feel very comfortable in going forward, and particularly in times of uncertainty, I think we need to lean into those different perspectives, different information sources, to help us find that solution to go forward.

Graeme Cowan  28:17

Yeah, it’s the yes and rather than the Yes, but approach, isn’t it? You know, building on it,

Todd Harper  28:23

indeed, absolutely,

Graeme Cowan  28:27

if you could spend a day doing anything you love, completely unrelated to work, what would it be

Todd Harper  28:32

I’m out on the bike. I love cycling. It’s, I’ve find it just a wonderful way to connect with nature. I enjoy the physical fitness. I’m not a particularly strong cyclist, but I love challenging my myself, particularly with climbing, you know, climbing mountains and the like. And it’s a, it’s a great way for me to disconnect from work, to connect with friends. And I often find that it’s on a it’s on a country road where I might be alone, where I’ve got that distance from work, that perspective is just so powerful. Some of those problems that you’re grappling with often tend to become less insoluble when you’re able to have that perspective, or at least that’s what I that’s what I find. So that’s that’s certainly my escape, and a way to keep healthy as well, I guess.

Graeme Cowan  29:41

And you know, it is a very, very active thing. You know, getting out in nature, of course, makes a huge difference. How, how often do you cycle?

Todd Harper  29:51

I ride every day, yeah, so I’m usually, usually out and about very early in. To beat the traffic. I may not do a large ride every day, but I try and do a little bit every day, and then during the hopefully, over a weekend, I might be able to get out for a longer ride with with friends. It’s a really and there’s also something I think I enjoy the the the anonymity. So when I’m on a when I’m on a bike, when I’m with friends, when I dare I say, cladding, lycra, I don’t feel like a CEO anymore. And I I really enjoy that, that brief period where you can almost be anonymous. Those times are fairly rare as a CEO. But I it’s something that’s really important to me, because I, I like to think of myself as I don’t want to be just a CEO. I it’s, it’s a label that I have, that I hopefully there’s much more to me than than that.

Graeme Cowan  30:59

Yeah. What book, movie or piece of art has had a lasting impact on you, on you and and why?

Todd Harper  31:10

Right, tough question.

Graeme Cowan 31:21

Wow.

Todd Harper  31:27

I think for me, my wife is Italian, and we have spent some time in in front in Rome, in Florence. And some of the timeless art pieces that you can are almost it feels like they’re almost on every street corner. The incredible architecture, incredible paintings, sculptures, whether it be this, the statue of David, or all of these, what always strikes me with those is the timelessness of them, hundreds of years old, sustained through generations, through centuries. And it really, for me, I think is something that I’ve often grappled with over the course of my work in in public health. What is it that is going to make an enduring contribution to improving the lives of people. Those wonderful artists, Leonardo da Vinci and so forth, Michelangelo, have made incredible contributions that have sustained through generations. And so I’m often thinking of in terms of the work that we do at Cancer Council, Victoria, what’s going to sustain those lasting contributions in public health, whether it be in tobacco control, whether it be in the elimination of liver cancer, of cervical cancer, the steep declines and permanent, permanent declines that we’re seeing in in lung cancer. You know, those are things which will shape future generations, maybe not centuries, like some of the famous artists. But I think it’s, it’s certainly a challenge for me to think about what’s going to be a sustaining contribution that will benefit society.

Graeme Cowan  33:37

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, you would hope that it’s seen as being just as, just as positive long lasting is improved, improved health, although sometimes you see some of the coming appointments in the American administration and the health sector, and think, Whoa, boy,

Todd Harper  34:00

it’s going to be an interesting few years ahead of us. I suspect

Graeme Cowan  34:07

It’s been absolute pleasure catching up today. I just wanted to finish on the way I normally finish, and that that is knowing what you know now. What advice would you give your 18 year old self.

Todd Harper  34:22

Yes, I would. I would lean into that vulnerability piece more that we talked about earlier. I think as a leader I or as someone starting out in workplaces, I think my early workplaces were not terribly they wouldn’t have been the sort of workplaces where you would have seen vulnerability it was expected to be. They were fairly control and command type workplaces. They were quite male dominated and. Um, it, it took me a while to recognize and fully recognize what being vulnerable could could mean as a leader, both for for me and for the people around me. So I think that’s that’s a really important one, and and to be honest, Graeme, I thought I was doing much better at it. And I was reminded again, a couple of years ago, we had a terrific discussion around our executive table about a particular thorny problem. There were some great contributions around the room. And I remember one of my senior leaders said to me afterwards, I hope you don’t mind what I said about that issue around the exec table, and I’d actually loved what he said. I thought it was a fantastic contribution, but it struck me that he was a really gifted, intelligent leader who was worried what I might say, and I thought I really need to lean more into that vulnerability piece if I’m going to bring the best out of the people who work around me. So it’s something that I think I have to continue to work at, but when I do, I see the better contributions that come from people around me, the way that people are prepared to contribute really wonderful ideas and solutions, and how it builds a more resilient organization. Because if we have an environment where people feel that their views are valued and they can contribute them to their leaders and to others, then so much the better for the future of Cancer Council, Victoria and us all as individuals, yeah,

Graeme Cowan  36:47

yeah. A great, a great reflection, which is relevant for all of us, really. Is Todd, thanks for being part of the caring CEO, and I hope you and your family have a fantastic break. I think we’re all looking forward to having a bit of a break and winding down in that traditional slow period in Australia. Yeah,

Todd Harper  37:08

absolutely. And thank you to you, Graeme, I think the work that you do through the caring CEO podcast has had a real impact with our organization. So a big thank you to you. And yes, best wishes for a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

Graeme Cowan  37:23

Thanks very much, Todd.

Oh, you are inquisitive… getting all the way to the bottom of the page!

Thanks for listening 🙂

From all of us at The Caring CEO, and the WeCARE team, keep listening, keep caring and lead with your heart.

P.S. If you want to reach out, share a great leader we should interview or learn more about The WeCARE Way, click here to contact us.