#4 Increasing employee engagement in a pandemic – Lisa Claes, CEO International, Corelogic (s01ep4)

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

• Insights into the types of leadership that helped Lisa go outside her comfort zone
• How Lisa improved employee engagement in 2020
• Lessons learnt from her career as a barrister that helped in the CEO office
• Great advice for women on how to progress up the organisational ladder

RESOURCES

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Transcript from the interview

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SPEAKERS

Graeme Cowan, Lisa Claes

Graeme Cowan  07:06

Hi everyone, this is Graeme Cowan and welcome to another episode of the Caring CEO. It is my job to interview CEOs and senior leaders who value both a culture of care and building high performance. I’m very keen to learn how they go about this. I’m glad today to welcome Lisa class. Lisa is the CEO for Core Logic International, which is a New York Stock Exchange-listed a global property information and technology company prior to work nearly worked for over 10 years in a variety of roles with ING direct and also include a role as director of the ING Foundation. Earlier in her career Lisa worked as a barista. Lisa is a member of Chief Executive women whose mission is women leaders in labelling other women leaders. She is also a non-executive director of Loretto Curability a high performing school in Sydney. I’m glad to have to be sharing the microphone with you today. Lisa, welcome.

Lisa Claes  08:07

Thank you Graeme.

Graeme Cowan  08:09

Lisa, I read in last January’s Financial Review that one of your favourite binge watches in 2020 was the bridge which I also watched. What did you particularly like about that?

Lisa Claes  08:25

Many things, and I’m certainly not one who’s normally comfortable with gruesome visuals or violence on the screen. But I love the professionalism of the acting. I think I even enjoyed the subtitles although you can’t make dinner while you’re keeping a lazy ear in because my Swedish is not that good. But look,  I actually was a little bit besotted with the lead female detective saga. And I found it very interesting that the show is obviously about solving usual serial murders, but it’s also about her own personal journey. How she a woman in her mid to late 30s kind of learns about how to relate because I think she has Asperger’s and she’s she’s by normal standards very odd by normal standards and I have a theory about we’re all on the spectrum of just somewhere so I found I love the very delicate parallel that the series presented. So it was yes solving a murder there was always an outcome but her personal journey. I found it very interesting, very subtle, it was just subterranean in the in all the plots, but yeah, that’s what I enjoyed.

Graeme Cowan  10:08

And it was lovely seeing the interplay, wasn’t it between the male detective who was quite gregarious and coupled with people and her, which as you say, was probably Asperger’s but, they formed a very powerful team, didn’t they? By working together?

Lisa Claes  10:24

Yes, yes. So it certainly triggered me on genre there has no end. Just marvel at the fact that, Finland, Sweden and Denmark. Such really relatively tiny little company countries, and they have this prodigious manufacturer of high quality crimes.

Graeme Cowan  10:54

It’s great to watch, and I’ve been exploring that as well. Lisa for our many listeners, keeps a brief overview of your career to date, I mentioned the ING and also you’re rolling out logic, like it’s a bit more of their early career and how you evolved to one stage Barris than what we’ve had to evolve out of that.

Lisa Claes  11:16

Yeah, so I’ve certainly probably get the prize for eclecticism in terms of career and sometimes rather cheekily, I say it was all part of a grand strategic plan but of course, it wasn’t. It was a combination of the pivots in my career, or the, what may, from a distance look like quite dramatic changes, or inflection points where driven by a combination of sure, driving ambition, circumstance, situation, and opportunities. And things didn’t always go to plan either. So, I was an arts law student in University of Queensland and very propelled by social justice and thought that if I did law that I’d be able to write all the wrongs in the world and use my profession to bring more equity to a lot of issues that I found needed writing, which sort of grew up in the era of Bob Hawke and what he was doing off the back of the trade union movement. You know, the days were university students were probably a little bit more radical than they are today. So I thought that that would and I like speaking and presenting and arguments and so I thought, Oh, this is the perfect career for me. But I will go straight to the bar from university obviously didn’t know what impossible meant, then I thought that’s what you did. You did a combined law degree and you just went and started practice. But I pretty much did do that I worked for a judge, I was the judges associate as my bridge career into the bar, and there I was. and I found out pretty quickly that the actual practice the day to day practice of, of law was very different to my perception, I spent a lot of as a very junior barrister, spent a lot of time sitting outside court, I did a lot of menial matters or matters that more experienced barristers wouldn’t get out of bed for I had a lot of shellacking by judges with my clients sitting next to me. And so I guess, sides of life and society that my middle-class upbringing probably wouldn’t have exposed me to, which was good for me. And I think I look back on that period of what I endured is a strong verb, but the preparation I do every night, was like doing an HSC example exam. I didn’t know there was so much I didn’t know which of course probably as a woman I did it to sweat and focus. But little by little, I got better at it. But that career was interrupted I say. facetiously I’ll be well and truly a judge by now and then after we something seriously wrong with it if I wasn’t but I got married and I moved inter state so that I talked about opportunity, ambition, opportunity and circumstance. That was the point where I moved from Brisbane to Sydney and had to completely start afresh, from ground zero. I was realized at that still in my 20s, that going to the bar in Sydney was a very expensive undertaking, I had no network, it’s actually a high referral profession. It’s not just, there was no internet, it’s not a business you build by social media, it is a business on a trust and competency, and you only get that by being known and being seen to be good and get good outcomes and have a following of solicitors that brief you, the woman or man on the street, don’t brief you directly. So that’s started there, I thought very sensibly, I’ve just spent three years getting to a point I wanted to get into the property market. I was married and had certainly wanted to probably go into other perspectives of my life and put the foundations in place there. So I thought, right, I really enjoy the practice of law, I enjoy the commercial side of the law, I’ll become a general counsel. So step away from the advocacy part and go and work for corporation. So I was very fortunate from the day I landed after my honeymoon, walk into a very large, highly diversified financial services business called Mercantile Mutual, they actually don’t exist anymore. I don’t think they all have global financial crisis, and banking, Royal commissions, and that bank assurance model is probably a figment of the past. And again, stepped in there, and that was an enormous learning experience. So, someone who’s practicing personal injuries law and property damage, now going to the pointy end of tax and corporate and big commercial contracts, and sort of starting again, climbing that ladder. And, and that was a probably a long runway I was on for a long time, but I think what was a feature of it was that it was a growth trajectory that I expanded into compliance and privacy and risk and superannuation. And so, it became, if you like, the full enterprise General Counsel role had highly diversified. Then I guess, I started going sideways, more into the business sphere, which I had a pretty good springboard from what I’d learned in corporate life to jump into the commercial track. Well, I was actually, I had a if you like a practice run at it, and it wasn’t a practice run that I a lot of people think that you go to roll you lobbying and you elbowing your way in and that’s sort of the irony of it is that I was very fortunate to have some really strong male leaders. There weren’t many I don’t can’t remember any more senior female leaders in who, who said to me You seem to be good at leading people and why don’t you have a go at this and I was quite horrified. I don’t know I’m not going to be a lawyer. I love being a general counsel. I’m not going to do again, I guess I was a little bit a little bit apprehensive about that. But I was literally like I was pushed off into not directed but you I want us I was asked very nicely to go and mind, a life insurance company with my extensive actuarial background, which hasn’t. Mine for about 18 months, the life insurance company as their executive and I think subliminally that the business was going through a rapid transformation and organizational restructure and, and I was asked to step away from my general counsel role and go into that and I quite I remember it, drinking from the firehose and having a lot of self doubt about how can I do this and whatever, but I got into a bit of a rhythm, and I think it’s so that it had a fixed end point. So it was going well, every structures going on and when you can come back, but I want you to look after this business. So I went in, I went back. And I think that whetted my appetite about broader commercial roles, and that you didn’t have to know everything, you didn’t have to be like a lawyer, barrister, though you really have to know everything, otherwise you this high exposure, failure rate, and it has a direct impact on your remuneration. So I kind of it was an incredible environment to it was a safe environment, looking back, and so I did that I came back to being General Counsel. And then before I initiated a move to one of the subsidiaries, which was the bank, which was ING direct.

Graeme Cowan  19:08

And what motivated you to look sideways?

Lisa Claes  21:25

and had been working for them as a lawyer and saw an opportunity to again it’s a series of building up going resetting, establishing from scratch the legal risk and compliance unit, said on the executive committee, it was a high growth, very innovative, very different bank. Fair to say, I had a lot of financial services experience, but I didn’t have the pure banking experience. So I wanted to, I thought this is a good way I can learn about banking as an incredible leader, as a CEO, and learn from someone I’ve loved working with wanted to learn more from him. 

Graeme Cowan  22:23

Can I just jump back

Lisa Claes  22:25

Yes.

Graeme Cowan  22:25

To something you said before Lisa, you said it was a safe environment. And you had a good leader? How? How did that manifest itself? How did you feel that was safe?

Lisa Claes  22:36

Yeah, what I meant by safe is, that I think, safe is environments where you’re not yet aware if you make mistakes, or you’re encouraged to try, people with more knowledge or experience are very accessible to you. And there’s a level of encouragement. I mean, as an executive, you don’t get gold stars, but you’re listened to. So, yeah, that’s what I meant by, yeah, what I meant by safe. And I think, clearly, the confidence I had that others saw something in me that I probably didn’t even see myself and were willing to take such a big risk on me. In a really critical, highly very lucrative. It’s a critical part of the business, even for an 18 month period, I think is safe is about risk taking as well.

Graeme Cowan  23:49

Yeah.

Lisa Claes  23:50

So, that’s what I meant. What I mean by safe is, being given rich development opportunities when you’re not perfect dining.

Graeme Cowan  24:07

Yeah, it’s interesting. Now, groups like Google have done an extensive research to find out what’s the key to the most successful team. And the number one thing is the psychological safety, which is just what you described, people feel can be themselves, they feel safe to take risks, they know they’ll be supported. And they also know that it’s a learning environment. So things go on, you learn from it and move on. And I think that’s really interesting to hear that that was also an environment that allowed you to flourish as well.

Lisa Claes  24:39

And this is pre-Google, of course, so I think a lot of the contemporary businesses have put labels on these things that have been around and why are they around. the era they come from, unique individuals that inject these, sorts of behaviours into their environments.

Graeme Cowan  25:05

And when you reflect on the people that you’ve worked with the bosses you’ve had the people you’ve led, what do you think is the key to having a strong team, apart from psychological safety, which we’ve already mentioned?

Lisa Claes  25:24

Well it’s no one thing. Feedback, that’s clearly when you’re doing things well, is important. And the crawler is when it delivered in a respectful way, when you’re not doing things well. Something, I think great leaders do is they think about what’s unique about people around them, like you do as parents, I see a lot of parallels to me. But they let the team, the team members know, what it is that’s unique about the man and special about them, and I don’t want to sound like naff about it. But, that’s sort of the beauty in the power of organizations is the collective human leverage, which is bringing together this very rich tapestry of attributes and capabilities that are all different, and it’s kind of those that fit them together. So, there’s that, but for me, I think it was the most powerful thing was people seeing in me something and giving me the opportunity, that, in taking that risk is. I think, is really powerful. And something I have, I believe I’ve emulated as a CEO, that it was done to me, and I feel very strongly about doing that to those around me that have an appetite for it, of course, yeah.

Graeme Cowan  27:28

What were the important business lessons you learned out of your time, at ING?

Lisa Claes  27:33

Oh, well, customers. Compromising for the customer. So, very much it’s certainly shareholders important, but those highly nuanced trade offs that wouldn’t be made in favor of the customer, that may not always be right, for the shareholder democratic structure, very  fluid environment in the sense, very non hierarchical for a bank of fast pace. Like I do with Core Logic, I certainly enjoy the global aspect of these businesses, so, and why not, because I like travel, it’s good, because none of us can do any of that at the moment. But, more that, I just, like the opportunity to interact as I did at ING and I do at Core Logic with just people from different cultures and different backgrounds. So that’s what I enjoy their and I definitely enjoy here. Yeah.

Graeme Cowan  28:59

How do you adjust to different cultures? Who are some of the groups that you work with? Who are some of the countries and how did you learn how to resonate with another culture?

Lisa Claes  29:13

Look, I certainly think these practices or behaviors that apply where whatever culture you interact you respect. And listening and understanding what motivates the person you’re interacting as that can be tricky when you don’t have a lot of time to do that. But, it is a little trickier in a virtual environment. But, I can pick up not only on what people say, but how they behave. And the whole body language certainly helps me. So I think there is definitely something about perceiving and listening when you’re trying to understand someone more than telling and speaking. And nothing’s more powerful than alignment and all being brought together by a collective goal. So that really helps. So, in both ING and Core Logic, we have a common purpose, that’s very evident and visceral, and I like to think we all believe in that. And that sort of you ties you all, but, everyone, every country or culture has its peculiarities and different senses of humor. I’d sometimes learn that the hard way. But Australia, you got to know a lot about our culture too, we find things funny. I found over the years, we have very unique sense of humor, well for a start we use an enormous amount of vernacular that no one else does. So, you have to translate yourself speaking, and we say a lot of things facetiously, that a lot of other cultures, particularly the Americans take literally. So, you’ve got to be careful that whereas the British will and the Dutch and some of the European countries they do not. They just don’t. I like to get the rules of engagement in terms of sense of humor, right, first.

Graeme Cowan  32:03

That’s an important thing for sure, what, what led you to make the decision to leave ING and join Core logic?

Lisa Claes  32:13

Ah. This sounds like I’m making this very dramatic, but probably about 10 years ago, after I’ve been in the business I’ve been running various divisions and ultimately the retail division at ING and it wasn’t an overnight epiphany, but I did have a desire to lead, be a CEO and not because of the title. Because I wanted to be able to have an impact on shaping people’s development, shaping a strategy and producing better customer outcomes. So, it was really potent, I had that desire to do that and when you deconstruct it was about I love solving problems, I love diversity of people, I like work, always have, I like having a hand in shaping someone’s development and as has been done with me, so all of those things tend if you put those ingredients together a CEO role is a great role that allows you to realize that. So, coupled with that I had something I loved at ING was establishing the digital channel that we started with five people call the commerce and definitely one of the leading digital banks and so being at the Zeitgeist of trends and from that very start to get very interested in data and insights from data and how that they could help organizations manage risk drive growth and enhanced productivity so when you Yeah, so I think and love the global aspect mention the multi country bit, I like that bit. And I did have a, not that you’re ever in a position to pick and choose, but Core Logic is a very is a organic and an acquisition play. So, Core Logic International is a series of acquisitions as well as it has its core engines. And since I’ve been here we’ve done that acquisitions in divestment that a few like was my development area in my career that I wanted to get exposure to that, and have a key role in that. And it kind of, you know, the stars align Graeme. The opportunity came about, I had great relationships with there as a strategic partner to ING. I had a great relationship with the previous CEO and not that he made the decision, but you just certainly get, I guess, you get into the information flow and knowing when things are shifting. I try and do my best in my career and my work hard to keep a decent reputation. And so all of that that came together and it was kind of like ticking the box, these are the like when you’re looking for the house; I want a sunroom, I want a pool. I think this is it. And it certainly hasn’t disappointed, I’ve really enjoyed it is exactly what without me knowing like the iPhone, for me, I really have enjoyed what I’ve been doing here and the people I’ve been working with, so yeah, so that that was an opportunity came up and I was ready. And yeah.

Graeme Cowan  36:44

What do you use, from your experience in the law that you apply in your day to day operations as a CEO now?

Lisa Claes  36:54

I feel a lot more than you would think. Nothing to do with the subject matter of law. So I’m, a very dangerous lawyer if you asked me what the law was on certain aspects. So firstly, language, the practice of law teaches you to review intelligently large vast amounts of material and synthesize some and get the get what’s really important out of it. So if you think about that, discipline, which you get drilled into you is really valuable in business, because being a CEO, you get a lot of information, got to be able to cut through and see really what’s important. That written and oral communication. I know that sounds basic, but teaches you how to write, teaches you how to speak, get your point across quickly. This may sound a little bit ironic, but actually, you spend your life as a lawyer telling people what the risk is and what not to do. What it does, it gives you a really good sense of the risk. And then as a business person, with a legal background, you know what the real risk is. So you’re in a position to take that risk, because you know that the risk might be so low, that it’s worth the cost benefit. It’s worth taking. As a lawyer, that’s not your decision to make, but as a business person. It teaches you to have a very an enterprise a very prismatic view of risk, which is really useful because nothing in life is black and white. So, definitely, I’d say they were the three main practices that it’s taught me. Yeah.

Graeme Cowan  38:59

Right. Lawyers don’t have a great record of self care. There’s very high levels of anxiety, stress, addiction in the law. As a CEO, you’re in a very stressful job has self care been an important part of how you live your life?

Lisa Claes  39:18

Absolutely. Yeah, I probably get butterflies in my stomach every week, we’re doing things that have pretty massive consequences, decisions and it’s not a perfect world. So, one, I get a lot of energy from people. So that’s good. People both within and outside of work. So I think that is a destresser in itself. I’m a great believer in exercise, physical and mental exercise. So, apart from breaking into a sweat as often as you can, that’s really important to get your heart rate up all the basics around nutrition and drinking lots of water, I got to sound like some like. But I think there’s something else for me. So I get a lot of relaxation from design. So, whether it’s clothing design, or interior design or just sort of exercising that side of the brain, the other side of the brain that I’m not using so much during my working hours. So I find that incredibly relaxing working with my dressmaker and sourcing fabrics and color. I’ll often walk the streets and take photos of architecture. And it really gives me a lot of pleasure, beauty inform. And I’m very blessed to live in a beautiful, natural environment. So, I guess that in itself is a natural stabilizer in my life and great believer in knowing where your fulcrum is your, finding your equilibrium, so often I feel I’m getting stressed, and doing too much. It’s a lot of anxiety because of things you can’t control or whatever. And I think if you know how to pull back or change or step out of that for a while, and I think that’s a really powerful quality people can have know your equilibrium, and don’t be ashamed or afraid to call it. It’s just like children, I’m tired now, I’ve got to go to bed. People who go, I’ve done too much running this week, I’ve eaten too much sugar, I’m going to not going to do that tomorrow, I’m spending too much time with that person who’s negative, I need to walk around and look at some beauty in the environment and just know and you flick it, and then you go back to those endeavors that can be very stressful, but you’re refreshed, and you’ve reset yourself.

Graeme Cowan  42:59

Absolutely. You mentioned about being able to monitor and know. Is there things you feel that trigger that? How do you know when you need to sort of change course a bit?

Lisa Claes  43:13

I like to think I’m very self aware and that self awareness has matured as I’ve gotten older. Sometimes it’s others, trusted people who might tell you, Hey, you’re stressed or, they’ll pick up on it, and you may not be aware of it. So, it’s a bit of a combination of both, but I prefer the self regulation because everyone’s not always entirely honest with you. So, in terms of life, advice I give to people is know your recipe, know what works for every aspect of your life, what you need, as much as you can and defend it. That’s you at your best and go out and find that and be proud of it and fight for it. And it’s not necessarily being selfish, it is because when you’re at your best, you’re in a better position to be selfless. So, I’m very particular about knowing me. Yeah, my children know.

Graeme Cowan  44:50

I often talk and present on self-care isn’t selfish, and it’s exactly those reasons that you just outlined if you haven’t got fuel in the tank for yourself, you can’t have it for other people. What do you look for in a great friend?

Lisa Claes  45:05

Loyalty. Yeah so, not unquestioned admiration just loyalty; and I guess there’s only usually should only be a handful of people that know that you, and the people that know that you and love that you for all its flaws. So, that’s what I look for in a great friend. Yeah. But you earn that, and they take takes a long time. Yeah,

Graeme Cowan  45:44

Yeah, definitely a once read that these really great friendships require three things; positivity, so it’s a good experience. Consistency, which means you see each other regularly and also vulnerability, you can actually be vulnerable with those people. I think that’s quite a good summary of the critical components. In your role as CEO, you have your executive team are not just responsible for your energy and mood, you see the energy mood of that team? How do you monitor that, and I’m talking at this stage about your immediate team, your direct reports?

Lisa Claes  46:30

Well, there’s a sort of static, quantitative way. We have engagement surveys which are meaningful, and doing those regularly, and having as much consistency in the probes is important. So that you can compare apples with apples. Look, there is one, setting up operating rhythm that makes you very accessible to them. So whether you have your one-on-ones, I know this sounds basic but some CEOs don’t have one-on-ones, have that opportunity. Obviously, we meet as a team, very regularly, there’s something about consistency, like having those signals or signposts in your operating environment, where you’re meeting as a team regularly, you’re meeting one on one regularly, but I think what is very powerful for me is spontaneity, as well. So I will call my team, they don’t set it up, I just call them and I encourage them to just call me, don’t wait for that for more one on one. So the reason that’s important is that these are ways, you can put the thermometer in the environment to test the mood of the team, because, people can be quite contrived in a executive meeting. They’ll say, what you think you want them to say, they may not want to wear their heart on their sleeve. Where as you definitely get a different perspective in a different environment anda different combination with them, and in a different mode of communication. So it won’t always be face to face, it can be on the phone. And I’m a great believer in what I call the horse whisperer’s in organization. So, having trusted allies that are good bellweathers, they’ve got high personal credibility themselves, they know the environment well, they’re very trusted and respected and they are what I call your review mirror readers.

Graeme Cowan  49:23

Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa Claes  49:25

Because sometimes your perspective can be, you want to hear what you want to hear or don’t want to hear. You could interpret a cry for help or an utterance of dissatisfaction in a certain way. Whereas if you get that balancing factor, someone to sort of say, Hey, I’m feeling tension here, and oh, what tension I’m fine. So that’s critical. Yeah, apart from your own intuition. Which isn’t always 100% reliable. So it’s sort of a great believer in putting multiple, but not too many filters on taking reads or things like with numbers, we ultimately have a source of truth, but I like cutting things in different ways. Yeah.

Graeme Cowan  50:22

How many horse whisperers would you have in the organization?

Lisa Claes  50:25

Oh, 2 yeah. And don’t get me wrong these people change according to  what period of evolution the organization is is going through. But I think it’s particularly critical as a CEO, and it’s at different levels as well. That, and these are people that don’t ever breach confidence and there’s sort of this elegance, a way they can operate. Yeah, so it’s something I think, without knowing it in past careers, I’ve played that role without knowing where my Council has been sought from the CEO’s, and I was kind of flattered, but I now realize what role I was playing in addition to my functional responsibility. And it’s a role you take, you handle, extremely carefully. Yeah.

Graeme Cowan  51:35

Yeah. We’ve just got about five minutes left, but one thing really like to get your thoughts and reflection on, is last year, 12 months, it’s been a lot of change, hasn’t there? Quite a bit of change. How do you as a CEO, equip your organization, your employees, your managers, to thrive on that change, rather than be fatigued by the change?

Lisa Claes  52:00

Yeah, so I think as human beings we all seek certainty, which has been very elusive in this very ambiguous environment. So, very much control what you can control. So, for our business, we certainly throughout the distributed, disruptive, COVID period, really amped up the communication. So, every week, last year, either myself or the head of HR was talking about the business or how people are feeling, we put on a whole lot of extra extra curricular activities that were a good reason to bring people together remotely. Whether it be desk stretches wherever you are. We had competitions and quizzes, and not mandatory participation. So, we’ve got a lot of, in addition to the steady beat of the business, also a lot of communication. And I’m a great believer in that simple strategy, articulation, plan on a page, the KPIs, the big rocks that are going to move the KPIs, the measurement of those. It’s all those artifacts, their just don’t have high rotation in our business. So everyone knows, how they go, how the business is going and what their role is in terms of supporting the furtherance of the business. So that just continued, in spite of all this uncertainty, but, definitely the addition was those more human elements, we always have a level of it, but we over indexed on that. It really showed in the engagement results. They were the highest they’ve ever been. We got lot of very positive feedback, people’ve never been more informed, never been more engaged. So,  I like to think, the team here did a great job in turning what could have been a relentless negative slog into something that was quite positive. We will take a lot from, although it’s not over yet, we’ll take a lot of the learnings from the experience, we’ll normalize it and bring it through as we go forward.

Graeme Cowan  55:01

Yeah, I happen to believe that this environment, the rapidly changing environment, and really plays to many women, their natural abilities, their intuition, their capacity to build connection and that sort of thing. How can we get more women in senior leadership?

Lisa Claes  55:24

Very simple, you got to give them opportunities. So, the best thing you can give to a woman is not a course is a development opportunity that has some edge and stretch and a risk of failure, that is the best thing you can give a woman. And that’s what’s been done to me. And that’s my commitment in my executive career to do and you look at the executive here, you’ve got women in meaningful executive roles, not because they’re women, because they bloody good, they’re the best in our business to do that. So it is the pipeline that needs the attention. Theres a lot of focus on the outcomes or results, but you’ve got to get the pipe, you got to get women have been exposed to development opportunities in meaningful roles or endeavors, meaningful meaning whatever, has a direct connection to the strategic, what I call the arteries of the organization, finance sales strategy. That’s what you’ve got to do. So, I will have some pretty direct brutal conversations with younger aspirational women about, you’re never going to get to the top in that role doing that job. Either change roles, change managers, or change organizations.

Graeme Cowan  57:19

Yeah. It’s been great to speak with your daily serve really enjoyed hearing about the communication and made a priority this year, the connection, encouraging people to go outside their comfort zone, and also having a bit of a, I guess, a radar set, knowing when things could be off course, and I’ve never heard used as the horse whispers before, but I like that. I like that term people you really trust people that had their finger on the pulse, and somehow managed to respect competences in the organization. Knowing what you know now, having been in business and law for a fair bit of time, what advice would you give your 18 year old self, if you had to start again? What would you what would advice would you give yourself?

Lisa Claes  58:10

Definitely the power of networks and going above and beyond and getting new experiences. Even I think a lot of people see constraints, even within roles within organizations, within network relationships, but, I guess that discipline to continually see and to nurture networks in terms of whether its personal or business relationships; and just ensuring that you’ve always got something you’re always involved in a significant way in something that makes you feel a little bit uncomfortable, because that’s where progress comes from, that’s where you get the leverage in performance. And yet, so you have to manufacture it yourself, because it just doesn’t often come on a silver platter for you. So, that’s what I would tell my younger self. Yeah.

Graeme Cowan  59:38

Fantastic. So just going outside your comfort zone and being prepared to do that. And I guess, when you look at your career, you’ve done that in a number of occasions. And it’s where we learn the most, isn’t it? We’re outside our comfort zone.

Lisa Claes  59:51

What’s the worst that can happen?

Graeme Cowan  59:55

That’s a great attitude. Thank you very much for being part of the Caring CEO Lisa really appreciated and look forward to catching up with you at a later time sometime.

Lisa Claes  1:00:05

Thank you. Thanks, Graeme.

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

Thanks for listening 🙂

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