#79 Radical Customer Obsession, Amanda Stevens, Keynote Speaker and Author

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

• What caring in the workplace means for Amanda.
• The powerful link between employee experience and customer satisfaction.
• Amanda highlights that when employees feel valued and empowered, it translates directly into stronger, more caring customer service.
• How curiosity—especially about customer frustrations—can drive innovation and give businesses a competitive edge.

RESOURCES

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Transcript from the interview

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SPEAKERS

Graeme Cowan, Amanda Stevens

Graeme Cowan  00:02

Today’s guest is Amanda Stevens, and she’s probably Australia’s most significant influencer in customer experience, knowing what the customer wants and taking care of them. At just 21 she started her own marketing consultancy and built it up to 30 people before selling it to an overseas organization. She’s just released her new book, radical customer obsession, and she totally believes that there’s many things that contribute to that. One of the most important is that employees feel cared for and serve themselves, so they’re encouraged to service and to help their customers. She also explains visiting Necker Island and visiting Sir Richard Branson there, and the profound impact that he had on her. He explained that whenever you see customer frustration, that’s a real opportunity. We also discussed some personal issues as well, one of which was when she almost died during the COVID lockdown due to a sepsis infection and her partner was in Melbourne and couldn’t get back. Amanda is someone who really makes things happen, and I’ve been lucky to benefit from her mentoring and also her marketing services. She’s a real Dynamo. Enjoy. It’s a real pleasure to welcome Amanda Stevens to the caring CEO podcast. Welcome Amanda.

Amanda Stevens  01:34

Hi Graeme, thanks so much for having me

Graeme Cowan  01:37

My pleasure. What does care in the workplace mean to you?

Amanda Stevens  01:42

This is a great question, and it’s a question I’ve been doing deep thinking on over the last 12 months or so, researching and writing my new book, radical customer obsession. And as a result of the research that I did and the thinking that I did and the case studies I looked at, I realized that there is such an intrinsic link between employee experience and customer experience, which is what my passion and expertise is about. And a lot of the case studies and examples that I researched for this book

demonstrated that link, and I think that care in the workplace is really the critical foundation for ultimately creating great customer experiences, because at the end of the day, customer experiences are really just employee experiences played out one at a time.

Graeme Cowan  02:31

That’s such a good point. And something that I often talk about, there’s a engagement survey question by Gallup, which is my supervisor or some of that work seems to be, seems to care about me as a person, and the more people that strongly agree with that, the higher the productivity, the higher the profit, the higher the customer service levels, and the longer people stay there. So this isn’t a idle theory. It’s been shown to work in a very rigorous way.

Amanda Stevens  02:59

And it also, of course, works in reverse. And we’ve all seen examples where a management team or a CEO gets super excited about the potential of the customer experience or being a customer centric brand, and so they go on this journey of, you know, flashy ad campaign or a brand promise to customers, and yet the disconnect with what’s going on internally shows very, very quickly, and that disconnect is often the thing that brings a brand undone, and certainly means that the promise to customers is is certainly not authentic or genuine, which I just think is, is pretty transparently demonstrated these days. Yeah,

Graeme Cowan  03:39

I think it was Peter Drucker that said culture eats strategy for lunch, and you can have the best strategy, but if people aren’t engaged with it, don’t feel they’re part of it. It’s all just words, isn’t it? It doesn’t really embody itself from people. That’s

Amanda Stevens  03:53

right, that’s right. And I think you know the best most, and you’ve interviewed a lot of these very people, the most caring CEOs, realize that the experience does start from the inside out and the top down.

Graeme Cowan  04:07

What have been some of the best customer experience companies that you’ve worked with, and I guess behind it, what do they do with their people? Which seems to be different.

Amanda Stevens  04:18

Great question. So to that point about aligning employee experience and employee culture, internal culture, with ultimately, the customer experience, I was really fortunate last year to work with Terry White Ken March, one of Australia’s biggest pharmacy chains, and their market research identified this gap in the market, and this opportunity for them as a brand, to take a promise to market to consumers around care, which is a pretty big, bold promise, and they really wanted to unpack and explore and tease out this concept of care and what it means to consumers and the you know, ever changing role that pharmacy plays in. Families and communities. But before they took that campaign to market, they realized that they needed to do the internal piece. First. The management team were very aligned, but they needed to make sure that their team, their network of pharmacists and retail assistants across the country, could bring that promise to life in in pharmacy, in store, because it’s all very well to have a

flashy ad campaign, as I said, and an emotional TV commercial that promises this, but if you’re experienced then at a store level, is disconnected from that. That’s actually more damaging to a brand than, you know, a lack of care from start to finish. So they, you know, understood that that internal piece was was the most important thing. So before they added TV commercial, we put their entire network of pharmacists and retail assistants through. It’s very, you know, very rigorous internal training to educate them and empower them, more importantly, to really take ownership of the customer experience and take, you know, take situations that might be perceived as reacting and responding, and really taking them a step further to caring and connecting and and really clearly demonstrating and educating and, as I said, empowering them around what that difference is, so that they could have a sense of ownership over the customer experience, which ultimately made The end brand campaign a lot more successful and certainly aligned, and it certainly had a really positive impact on the business. And

Graeme Cowan  06:26

they have quite a few franchisees that they How did they, how did they help that happen? Necessarily, Director under, directly under the control of Ken Buck, how did they make that happen?

Amanda Stevens  06:40

Yeah, great question. I think it was educating the franchisees that this wasn’t just a warm and fuzzy campaign, and it wasn’t a marketing opportunity that that identified. It was really this is what they wanted, the brand DNA of Terry White Ken mart to represent in the marketplace. And that empowerment piece was so important because it very much relied on the pharmacist and everyone you know in that store to bring that to life at a store level. So I think they championed that and also made the business case for that promise and that focus on customer experience. As I said, it’s not just about the warm and fuzzies. They were very you know, they were able to demonstrate the very clear business case and financial and fiscal benefit ultimately, to the franchisee for them going the extra mile and stepping up customer experience in store.

Graeme Cowan  07:32

Yeah, it’s a great example. And I was fortunate to work a long time ago with Ramsey healthcare, and Pat crier was the CEO of that time, and I’ve had pat on the on the show here. Pat really wanted to embed care into the way that they do business. And what he did was put together a visioning workshop, or at Uluru, and basically say they were struggling at the time. You know, the banks were open the doors, but he said, I want us to be recognized by our peers, to be the best hospital operators in Australia. And he and his leadership team, which were the CEO of the hospitals, the director of finance, the director of nursing, came up with, you know, their first draft. But what I think, made it really interesting was that he then had me take it round to their hospitals. At the time, there’s only like 13, but they really reality tested it and made a few changes and what have you. And it was unbelievable. In 15 years, the Australian stock market, over that period, Pat was CEO grew by 460% but Ramsey grew by, you know, 5,600% and their vision was people, caring for people. And you know, did that with their doctors, their patients, their family, what have you. And you know, this is, it’s wonderful to see that, you know, people are realizing that this is critical to having a a good customer experience, but also a very good shareholder experience, if you if you do the right thing, yeah.

Amanda Stevens  09:10

absolutely, it’s, you know, customer experiences don’t happen in a vacuum. And I think what you’ve touched on there, that I write extensively about in the book, is, you know, a culture of collaboration and caring CEOs and successful CEOs don’t make decisions in a vacuum either. They you know, what differentiates them from, perhaps not, CEOs that don’t perform as well and a whole range of different metrics, is that they invite both their team and their customers into almost co create and CO parent the brand, if you like. And we know the research shows that the more employees are involved in designing the customer experience, the more empowered they feel, and the more likely they are to deliver on that and go the extra mile when it when it matters. And similarly, with customers you. Know, I’m amazed how many brands I work with, and you know, a CEO, or, as you know, someone will in the management team will say, What do you think our customers want? My my response, it sounds simple, but it’s not simplistic. My response is, always, have you asked them? So, yeah, inviting your and not just, I’m not just talking about focus groups. I’m talking about really getting your customers involved in, you know, customer journey mapping, taking your team on what we call Customer Safari days, where they literally get to walk in the shoes of a customer and see the brand through the customer’s eyes. And those kind of collaborative initiatives and collaborative environments, we know, just foster so much more creativity and innovation.

Graeme Cowan  10:45

You may have heard of Connor Menswear. Now they have, I think, about 200 shops around Australia. But interestingly, they went out to their customers and their staff and asked them, what’s a cause you’d like to be involved with? And they basically it came down to mental health. And so they spoke to Beyond Blue and are you okay? And explored going down that track. And you know, for whatever reason, they just found, are you okay to be a bit more entrepreneurial, a bit faster moving. But, you know, so they’d involve their customers and also their staff in deciding that that sector. But then I asked their staff, what could we do? What would you know? What would How can we support R U OK? And so they come up with creating a mobile phone wallet where, you know, the R U OK logo was on there, and you have the little card in there, which had all the emergency numbers, lifeline, etc, etc. And they it became part of their DNA, because, and because the staff had come up with it, you know, every time they check, you know, check out a customer, they’d say, you know, I’d like to give you this on behalf. Are you okay? And then ask, you know, would you like to make a donation? And then they would at that point of sale. And it just became so integral. They’ve been, I think, probably the top sponsor. Are you okay for about the last seven or eight years? As far smaller video, the big corporate brands out there, but you don’t really believe it was part of, you know, having that, having customers, and also the employees involved, and it also then contributed to, of course, engagement and culture in the shop.

Amanda Stevens  12:24

And I think that’s so that example speaks so beautifully to the power of collaboration, but also the law of reciprocity. You know, Connor weren’t just, you know, coming up with an initiative or a campaign. It was very much integral, and it also involved supporting their customers and their community. And I think when you can have that two way reciprocity that says, you know, we actually, this is something that we’re not just doing, that we actually care about, and we care about our customers, the boomerang effect, not It’s not why they’re doing it, but the boomerang effect on their brand will be, will be infinite.

Graeme Cowan  13:03

very much so, Amanda, you were once Young Australian of the Year. I

Amanda Stevens  13:09

thought you were gonna say, Oh, you were once young.

Graeme Cowan  13:13

And you know, what are the most successful female speakers in Australia? Would you mind just telling our listeners a little bit about that journey, why you’ve received that award all those years ago, and what you’ve done since then?

Amanda Stevens  13:26

Yeah, great. And the two, the two kind of pathways, are very closely linked, because it was because of winning that award that I got into speaking a little bit by accident. So when I won that award, it was for business achievement in New South Wales. I had started a marketing agency at the age of 21 in Sydney. Mr. Town. Had no contacts on networks. I just had blind ambition and probably irrational confidence at that time. And when I won that award, I was asked to speak at a whole bunch of events, and I was terrible. I was nervous I’d be vomiting before I went on stage. But every time I spoke at one of those events, we would get business or clients for the agency, because I was just really telling the story about our business and what, what we did differently in our business model. So my initial path to speaking was, you know, quite a selfishly commercial one. It was simply that, if I’m really bad at this, and we’re getting clients, imagine if I was really good. So I went and found a speaking coach, and I just said to him, If I’m going to do this, I want to be really good at it. And so I worked intensively with him for two years, and it was just a case of the better I got at it, the more I enjoyed it, the more I enjoyed it, the better I got at it. And, you know, I didn’t know back then that speaking was even a business or a career or an option to earn a living. So that certainly opened my eyes to the industry, and I just had found my passion, and so I ended up selling my agency to focus on speaking. Which is yeah, for me, standing on stage and impacting lots of people at once was certainly sounded much more fun than dealing with 28 staff. And some days felt like I was running a kindergarten so, so when the opportunity came to sell that business, I Yeah, certainly grabbed it with both hands, and the rest is history, as I say, Yeah,

Graeme Cowan  15:22

and I understand on that, on that journey, you took a trip to an island where you met Richard Branson, and that gave you, you know, quite an insight, which you brought back to Australia.

Amanda Stevens  15:34

Yeah, it was, was really interesting, because I had this opportunity. I’d been invited to this leadership retreat at neck Island, which is where Richard Branson lives and operates his businesses from. But the decision to go, you know, was obviously an incredible opportunity. But the decision to go was not easy. I had a 18 month old baby. It was the longest I’d ever been away from him. It’s the furthest place, like, if you look at it on a map, you literally can’t get a place that’s further away from Australia, it’s like five flights in 33 hours. So the anxiety, the anxiety of being that far away was, you know, was quite overwhelming. But, you know, it was a really good lesson for me, and it was quite a transformative life changing week, because, you know, just immersing myself, or having the chance to be immersed in

that kind of environment. And, you know, dealing with all of the imposter syndrome, if you like, that came with that. I remember when we arrived at Necker, and it’s quite, you know, it’s quite imposing and overwhelming, I just had this wave of panic. And, you know, just who am I? I nearly jumped in the ocean and drowned myself. Like, who am I to be here? Who am I? Like, who do I think I am? And then I just kind of had to have a chat to myself and sort of say, well, you’re here now. Who are you? Who are you not to be here? And I think I’ve met lots of you know, really successful entrepreneurs and leaders who’ve all had those moments in life. And it’s just a reminder that when we do take that leap of faith and really, do you know, throw ourselves out of the comfort zone. That’s where often the really cool stuff happens, you know. And it was quite an amazing week, just in terms of being surrounded by some just incredible human beings, including, obviously, Sir Richard himself, and a conversation that I had with him on that trip, which I write about in the opening pages of my book, really changed my perception around business. And it certainly, I think, helped me solidify my path to being for this passion that I have about customer experience. Because at that stage, he was sharing the kind of behind the scenes journey around virgin voyages, which they were just developing at that stage. This was, this was 2018, and he was sort of telling the story about how, you know, he used to get invited on lots of cruises, and he’d always say no, because the thought of going on a cruise was just icky. He didn’t, you know, he just didn’t. It just wasn’t his thing, as it isn’t for a lot of people, and it led him to this path, and this is how he’s built so many successful brands and businesses. Is curiosity and frustration. And this, you know, kind of mantra of his is that curiosity and frustration make the best businesses, because if you’re curious about your customers, first and foremost, and you’re curious about an industry or a sector, and then you’re curious, more importantly, about the frustrations that people have with that category that can often lead to innovation, creativity, and in his case, a brand that disrupted and redefined that entire sector. And obviously the Virgin voyages stories is is now history, and it has, it’s redefined that category, and people who would never have considered going on a cruise booking their third and fourth and fifth virgin Voyager cruise, because he’s just, he’s reimagined everything that people hate about cruising, and just, you know, flipped the switch on it, and yeah, as a result, has built a, built another very successful virgin brand.

Speaker 1  18:57

We have some helpful resources that you could find at WeCARE 360, five.com.au,

Graeme Cowan  19:05

the first is our mental ill health calculator, which is a quick and simple way to work out what poor mental health costs your organization in lost productivity and employee turnover. You will also find our building a mentally healthy culture checklist, which shows how to launch a great initiative and keep that momentum going. These resources can be found at, we care. 360, five.com.au, and that concept of curiosity and frustration. How do you apply that to your speaking clients. Now,

Amanda Stevens  19:43

good question. I think it’s really shaped what certainly shaped my content, and it’s, you know, certainly shaped a lot of the messaging in the new book around being radically customer obsessed. It actually starts with curiosity. So curiosity is. Something I talk a lot about in my keynotes and workshops, and frustration is really about, you know, understanding what is frustrating your customers. And you know, the reason for this book and that I’ve poured for like I’ve poured my heart and soul into it for the last 12

months, is that I think there’s this really pertinent opportunity right now for brands and businesses across every sector, and more importantly, CEOs and leaders to create a competitive advantage by firstly, understanding how consumers are changing, how humans are changing, and that obviously, that change is happening at the most accelerated rate we’ve ever seen. So if you can really understand and get into the hearts and minds of your consumers and understand what it is that’s frustrating them, and how you can potentially innovate or re engineer your customer experience that is more important often than your product or service research and development, because you can have the best product and service or service in the world. But if the customer experience you’re wrapping around that is, you know, is ordinary, then it’s irrelevant how good your product or service is. And because we’re in this era of commoditization, you know, someone can copy your product or service, you know, very quickly now, whether it’s a physical product or a service. So the customer experience right now, I think, is the greatest opportunity to grow a business, to grab market share, and, you know, future proof, a brand,

Graeme Cowan  21:27

I understand you speak about the customer experience hierarchy. What is that the

Amanda Stevens  21:32

customer experience hierarchy is really understanding, you know, the human needs and what, what they what your customers want. And it might be slightly different for for, you know, different brands and different businesses and different categories, but it’s really recognizing that at the you know, ultimately, we want to feel cared for, we want to feel understood, and we want our needs, in many respects, to now be, you know, met frictionlessly, but almost preemptively so the best brands and businesses in the world now, the ones that are winning, the ones that embrace this philosophy. It’s actually a Japanese philosophy of Omotenashi, which is to be of service, not to be servant, but to be of service without expecting anything in return. The literal translation is to look wholeheartedly after our guests. And I think that brands and businesses that double down and fully embrace this ethos will win the battle for relevance, because that’s where the the customer experience hierarchy is, is heading. Because we, you know, we’re so used to now our needs being met so quickly, but also anticipated by brands like, you know, Uber and Amazon and Spotify, all of those brands have completely changed, changed expectations and shifted our expectations around wait times, around preemptive and about anticipatory things. You know, we now think about a product or service and then it appears in our feed. It feels, you know, it feels very clairvoyantish, but that’s just the baseline reality of the world we’re living in now. So, so yeah, anticipating and being preemptive and thinking two steps ahead of your customer, that’s now kind of mandatory.

Graeme Cowan  23:23

You mentioned earlier about your son, ollie, and to know at some of the time in his is now wife, as I understand it. You know, you’re a single mom. Travel a lot to seek. How do you manage that with a, you know, a young son?

Amanda Stevens  23:38

Yeah, good question. I get asked this a lot, actually. So I became a single mom when I was 10 weeks pregnant, and it was obviously a pretty scary time. My parents have passed away. It’s just me. I’ve got no kind of family or financial plan B, and it was actually Lisa McGinnis Smith, who’s, you know,

regarded as the godmother of speaking. I sort of said to her, what am I going to do? And she said, you’re in the best position and the best profession you could be to juggle this, you know, motherhood and working, because you’re just going to scoop your baby up and travel with him. And I took him pretty much everywhere with me for the first he took his 100th flight when he was 20 months old. And I just had a really, you know, really tight system. I had nannies in every state. And, you know, interestingly, 2018 was a was the first year I cracked a million dollars with a baby in toy. So I think it was just having the right advice, having the right mentors, having the right systems, and just, you know, realizing that I was like, I was in a really fortunate position, because speaking is, obviously it’s a lot of travel involved, but I was really only ever away from him for that hour that I was on stage. So it meant that I could be essentially a full time mom and also earn a really good living.

Graeme Cowan  24:55

But they don’t fit neatly into a little time section, do they? And, and, you know, sometimes, you know, they’re sick or all that sort of thing. So how did there must have been examples like that when you had to confront,

Amanda Stevens  25:08

oh yeah. Look, I’m not saying it was all it was all rainbows and butterflies and it was easy every single day. But, you know, and I had, the thing I did learn interestingly during that time was just how judgmental people are. And I feel like, you know, parents, but particularly mothers, I think you know, in many respects, feel that we can’t we. We damned if we do, and we’re damned if we don’t. Particularly female CEOs and leaders, you know, they’re often asked, How do you juggle it? And you know, it must be hard being away from the kids. And I very rarely hear someone ask a male leader or CEO or speaker that I listened to a podcast the other day with a female founder, and she co founded this quite big tech business with a male co founder, and she was asked, How do you juggle it all, and how do you deal with imposter syndrome? And she said it was probably the 20th time I’d been asked that question. And my male co founder has never been asked that question. Wow, wow. And the people, you know, I had lots of I’d got trolled a few times. If I was, you know, posting stuff on Instagram about traveling with Ollie, I’d have people say, What about his routine? I’m like, he has a routine. He but then I often think those same people who are judging me would probably judge me if I put him into childcare and took a full time job. So I think, you know, we’ve, we’ve all got a responsibility to celebrate people, mothers, leaders, CEOs, who make decisions that they think are best for their family and are able to, you know, juggle it all. It’s not perfect, but life’s not perfect. Business isn’t perfect. Parenthood’s not perfect, but, yeah, I look back on, I look back on, and I’ve obviously got nothing to compare it to. But you know, Ollie, now at eight, has an incredible sense of adventure. He loves travel. He loves new places. He’s inquisitive about the world. He has memories of, you know, going to different countries when he was very young. And I think you know, different strokes for different folks, but it’s certainly what works, what worked for us,

Graeme Cowan  27:04

what’s important to your self care?

Amanda Stevens  27:07

Yeah, great question. I think you know, as a speaker, speaking of routine, it’s not very routine. So as you would know, sometimes, some weeks, you’re busy traveling, like I’m this tomorrow, going to Cairns and then to New Zealand. And I think that it’s in the moments and the weeks where things are super crazy in I might instinctively feel like just, you know, I’ll just get through this week, or, you know, I won’t worry about going to the gym until I get through this week. And I’ve what I’ve learned is that it’s in those times of chaotic busyness that self care is the most important thing, and rather than thinking it’s just another thing that I can put to the side, to the end of the week or the end of the month, that’s the times I need to lean in and double down on it so and I don’t have it, I don’t It’s I don’t have it Perfect. I haven’t cracked the formula yet, but I just, you know, and particularly as I’m getting older, I think that really self care around nutrition and exercise and sleep and diet has has certainly become more and more important.

Graeme Cowan  28:13

How do you fit exercise into your busy routine? I

Amanda Stevens  28:18

prioritize it, and I just probably, I probably make it hard for myself because I set stupid, crazy public goals. So most people know that I’m doing a half marathon in four weeks time, and I deliberately set that goal and deliberately made it public to keep me accountable. So, yeah, you can’t go into a half marathon without any training. I won’t be setting any speed records. I’m telling you that my goal is to finish it without injury, but just it’s just prioritizing and scheduling it in like you would schedule an appointment, rather than sort of seeing what’s left over. You know, I used to have a very leftover approach to to fitness, and now I have a priority approach, so I schedule it in, like a meeting. So, you know, going to the gym this morning was in the diary, because if it’s not in the diary, it’s unlikely to happen.

Graeme Cowan  29:09

Yeah, there’s a Peter gotwitzer from New York University, and he said, if you decide when and where you’re going to do it, the chance of it happening is 300% greater than not doing that sort of thing, which really, really reinforces your point,

Amanda Stevens  29:22

yeah, yeah. And it’s also, you know, the five minute rule is, you know, running, for example. And I don’t actually enjoy running that much. I’m not a runner, but I know that I, you know, when I do it, I kind of enjoy it afterwards, while it’s happening. I’ve often not enjoy it, but it’s a mental game, right? So I just did a 10k race last weekend, which was really hard because I have a strain glute and, you know, dodgy hip, but, and it was just, it was totally a mental game for me. But if I know that, if I don’t feel like going for a run, I’ll just say to myself, just just do five minutes. And if you don’t want to keep going, you don’t have to. So making those little deals with. Myself as well. Important.

Graeme Cowan  30:01

That’s a great tip you shared previously that you know you you had lost your parents. How do you keep a bond of people around you? How do you build relationships that nurture you?

Amanda Stevens  30:15

Good question, I think as I get older, I’ve realized that that you don’t need lots of friends, you need a handful of really good friends. So I think as I’ve gotten older, probably what I’ve done is deepen my relationships and contract the the number of those deep friendships and grown my connections. Whereas I think a lot of people try and sort of, and I certainly when I was younger, probably did it a little bit in reverse. So I’ve contracted that my inner circle, if you like, but expanded my connections. And you know, family is often the friends that you choose. So yeah, I’m very lucky that I’ve got some people who I consider family.

Graeme Cowan  30:59

So how do you deepen those relationships with a fewer people? Is it just catching up regularly, or is there more to it than that?

Amanda Stevens  31:07

Yeah, I think it is. Again, starts with prioritizing and making those people a priority. And again, I don’t have it all sorted. I don’t have it perfect, but I just know that if I prioritize spending time with those people and being present with those people, you know, that fills my cup. And probably, yeah, as I get older, it’s become more and more important. And I think that was, you know, for me, I got very, very sick a few years ago, sepsis. And I think, yeah, that really crystallized for me that at the end of the day, when you’re facing a near death experience, as I was, the things and the people who are really important Get really clear. Mm, and it’s not many of them, a handful of like, there’s a handful of things and people that are really going to matter, and that that, you know, that really do matter. So wouldn’t I wouldn’t recommend facing death to to go through that process, to identify it. But it is, you know, it is a worthwhile, it is a worthwhile exercise to go you know, if I were happen, you know, touch wood for something, you know, for me to pass away tomorrow, would I be happy with the legacy I left, you know, the people in my life, the work that I did, and you then, you know, you do realize when you go through that exercise that a lot of the things that you think are important and that you spend time on are actually not that important.

Graeme Cowan  32:35

Yeah, some people who, who had or have had a native experience. Talk about, you know, a profound change. You know, seeing light six, time, standing still, being able to see themselves. Was that what it was like for you a little

Amanda Stevens  32:52

bit. I was very, very sick, and I wasn’t expected to survive. So I had, I had sepsis that they couldn’t, they couldn’t find the cause of which was kind of made it a little bit baffling for everyone. And yeah, it kind of got, you know, I had eight days in ICU, third night they they just basically, you know, said I wasn’t going to survive the night, because my main inflammatory marker, which in any healthy person, sits below five. If it goes over five, it means you’re unwell. My main inflammatory marker was at 187 which you know is most, most people will die at 160 or at least have all four limbs amputated. And interestingly, the when it was all kind of over, and obviously, I survived it last, the very last antibiotic they tried worked, they said to me at the end that the only explanation they have for how I survived was my baseline fitness, because I was training for a marathon. So that’s that’s when you realize that you know

your health, and that’s why I probably prioritize and schedule fitness, because it is, you know, if you find yourself in a situation where you have to make a very sudden and very major withdrawal from the health bank. The credits you have in that bank are everything. So it’s not, you know, being healthy, healthy and fit isn’t just about how you look and feel today. It’s an insurance policy, potentially for a moment in time.

Graeme Cowan  34:19

Thank you for sharing about that with regards to culture and the culture that does feel good for employees, one of the big things we have as a human is a need to feel that we belong. How do how do you see organizations, good organizations creating connection and belonging and care.

Amanda Stevens  34:43

Great question, and I unearthed a couple of examples for my book, a couple of case studies where employee engagement, which is obviously a huge challenge in corporate Australia right now, people have never been more disengaged. They’ve never felt more burnt. Out they’ve never felt more like they don’t belong. It does. It does come back often, and it’s not the only thing, but having a culture of collaboration is really important, and empowering your team to CO, create and reimagine your processes, your customer experience, that can have a huge impact, not only on the way they then take those customer experiences to market in a store, you know, retail sense or however it is that they’re interacting with your customers and clients, it actually gives them a sense of ownership and can massively impact retention. For example, Oscar Wiley, which is an Australian optometry brand. It hasn’t been in the market that long, and they’ve sort of come in and disrupted, you know, what was a market that was pretty much dominated by two brands. I shopped at Oscar Wiley a few months ago, and when I had a great experience with the optometrist, and then when I was choosing my frames, I realized that all the frames, the glasses frames were not model numbers, as they usually are like that wasn’t the r6, 720, model. They all had names on them. So it could be the Gabrielle or the Graeme or the Amanda. And the woman then went on to tell me this beautiful story about how every year, every Oscar Wiley employee across the country gets to submit a name that’s important to them, and they’re the names that are given to the new range of frames. And I thought, what a real What a clever, very simple but very clever engagement strategy, very clever retention strategy. Because if I work at Oscar Wiley, and there’s a frame in the store, that’s the ollie frame, you know, I’m going to think twice about about being coached by a competitor, or, you know, I certainly feel valued. And that’s a it’s a daily visual reminder that you know that you’re very much part of this business, and you’re part of what makes it, what brings it to life.

Graeme Cowan  36:54

Yeah, I really love that, because it’s not, as you’ve said, it’s not just about feeling that you contributed something, you’re part of something, but it’s also part of a shared future. You know, it’s thinking about, we’re co creating the future, sort of frame or a name or what have you. One of the really critical parts about collaboration that works well is if there’s, you know, really strong psychological safety, and that’s where people feel free to offer ideas and know that they won’t be shut down. It also means that they are free to challenge ideas that they don’t think will work. How have you seen some of your clients apply and build that sort of psychological safety? Yeah.

Amanda Stevens  37:36

it’s a great question, and I think psychological safety when you are building a culture of collaboration, it has to be, you know, key building block to it, because there’s no, there’s no point in empowering and encouraging your teams to think creatively and innovatively if they are then you know, you know, either those ideas are shut down or they’re reprimanded, or, you know, there’s negative consequences for those ideas, even if they are not the right ideas or feasible or commercially viable ideas. I think smart leaders and caring CEOs are the ones that foster that and and create safe environments for that thinking that may, as I said, not always be right, but there’s not any negative consequences. And in fact, it’s the thinking that’s rewarded, not the idea. And I think that that’s the distinction that you know that that caring leaders demonstrate.

Graeme Cowan  38:32

It’s been great catching up Amanda a couple of how quickly the time has gone. No but, and you know, I did also want to mention that I’ve also been very fortunate to benefit from your mentoring, your marketing advice, and as have a number of other speakers as well, and it’s been great, done a fantastic job of building a community of those who do want to, you know, have a really big impact. I always finish by asking the same question, and that is, what do you wish you could tell your 18 year old self, knowing your knowledge, your insights, your setbacks, your experiences. What advice would you give your 18 year old self? Yeah, I

Amanda Stevens  39:13

think this is such a good question. And I think for me, my 18 year old self, I would just say, slow down. It’s all going to be okay. And everything that happens happens for a reason. And you know, as Gabby Bernstein says, the universe has your back. And you know, often things, even in the moment that are painful, are meant to be

Graeme Cowan  39:37

that’s a great insight. Thanks so much for being part of the caring CEO, Amanda,

Amanda Stevens  39:42

Thanks Graeme, thanks so much for having me.

Graeme Cowan  39:45

Thanks for joining us today. We hope you’re inspired to strive for a culture of care that also leads to great results. If you’ve enjoyed this interview today, please rate us on your favorite podcast platform, and don’t forget to subscribe. Subscribe so that you don’t miss an episode. We also welcome any comments. If you’re interested in seeing details about our scalable WeCARE365 Mental Health Training Programs. Please visit us at wecare365.com.au, our goal is to make these programs accessible, practical and ongoing. You can also find me, Graeme Cowan on LinkedIn, and I’d love to hear from you. And finally, if you’ve come across a senior leader who has impressed you and you think they’d be a great guest, please email us at support, at wecare365.com.au, thanks once again for listening today.

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