#14 To shine is Starlight’s only value – Louise Baxter, CEO Starlight Children’s Foundation Australia (s01ep14)

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

• The importance of authenticity in the workplace. Especially in NFP organisations.
• Creating a positive work environment that reflects the mission of the Starlight Foundation.
• Championing positive psychology amongst employees and its benefits.
• Equipping team members with the tools they need to be mindful of their emotions and how to look after themselves.

RESOURCES

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Transcript from the interview

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SPEAKERS

Graeme Cowan, Louise Baxter

Graeme Cowan 

Hi everyone, this is Graeme Cowan, and welcome to the Caring CEO podcast. We create this podcast because we believe that every leader is number one priority is to build a more caring and resilient team who enjoys growing together. It is my job to interview CEOs and other senior leaders who value building both a culture of care and a culture of high performance. I’m very keen to understand how they do this, and I’m sure they’ll be lots of insights and tips for anyone who wants to build a high performing team. Today in the podcast was the first time I interviewed an old friend and colleague, Louise Baxter. We worked together a long time ago in the marketing department at Johnson & Johnson. She’s now the CEO of the Starlight Foundation, and has been in that role for 12 years. Starlight helps provide fun and happy experiences for sick children. And what a great mission that is. They have one value to shine, which I think is just fantastic. Louise refers to the Starlight as a profit for purpose, not a not for profit, and provides very good reasons for that the surplus revenue which is generated has allowed them to grow massively in reach and impact. Louise exerts enthusiasm, and it’s no surprise that they’re the only charity that is one Aon Hewitt’s Employer of the Year. The pandemic has provided lots of challenges for starts work, but she encourages everyone to be part of the solution. There’s just so much to take away from this episode. Enjoy. Louise Baxter, CEO of Starlight Foundation, welcome.

Louise Baxter 

Hello. It’s very nice. I’m just pondering that old friend clause.

Graeme Cowan 

We’ll get into that in a moment. But Louise, what does care in the workplace mean to you?

Louise Baxter 

Well, for me, it has a very special meaning here at Starlight. But I don’t want to let anyone else off the hook to think that you have to be in an organization like ours to care within your organization, because I don’t think that’s correct at all. But what we do at Starlight in terms of our purpose, we envisage a world where everyone experiences a happy childhood. Why? Because happiness truly matters. And our mission within that is to brighten the lives of seriously ill and hospitalized children and young people. For us to be an authentic organization, we could not have that purpose, and not authentically as an organization care not only about those children and young people and families we support, but for our entire team, and everyone who interacts with us, quite frankly. So for us, it’s about authenticity, at its core, for us to be an authentic organization. And for our leadership to be authentic, we must be an organization that is about that positivity and wellbeing throughout the organization. And that’s about caring for your team. So from my perspective, it is a must for us as an organization. It’s not something new for us. However, I see that other organizations are probably in more of a transition. Because I’ve also worked in the corporate world, you know, back in the days of command and control, where organizations were quite different. And I just see that if you want to have a high performing organization, the organization has to be a positive caring organization. So I actually don’t think that those things I I’ve noticed people kind of talk about balance between those two things, which suggests to me that they’re mutually exclusive. I actually believe that if you have a positive caring environment that supports the well being and resilience of your team, that is the only way you can actually have a truly high performing team that goes above and beyond. So I actually think they’re connected.

Graeme Cowan 

I couldn’t agree more. And the Up organization has been researching engagement and discretionary effort for over 30/40 years. And they found that the most predictive question in terms of increased engagement increased discretionary effort is a positive answer to my supervisor or someone at work seems to care about me as a person.

Louise Baxter 

I completely agree because we are an organization that has been ranked in the top great places to work and in Aon Hewitt’s great places to work survey. So we really look towards this as an indicator for us. And so we do team surveys, annually. And you know, those questions are the questions that I look for us to have those really high results on. Engagement is something that’s really incredibly Important within an organization, because if people are not aligned and engaged with the direction you’re going, so I talked about two things here I talked about, they need to be aligned and engaged with your purpose, which to me is your destination. And they also need to be aligned and engaged with your strategy with your business plans, the way that you’re going to get there, your route. And I talked about the fact I do not want someone who has one foot at the bus stop and one foot on the bus, I want someone who wants to get on your bus and sit in the seat and put two feet firmly in front of them. Because then they are committed. And if you have someone who’s trying to pull the organization in another direction, it means that it doesn’t support you in achieving your metrics, your business metrics. But what it also means is, they start to become disengaged, and they become negative, and they then start to try and look for others to pull into their negative corner.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah.

Louise Baxter 

So from our perspective, alignment, and engagement is incredibly important. And I say, if you are truly not happy here, it is better for you to leave. Because you will contribute more at another organization, the person that fills your role here will contribute more. So it’s a win-win all round. And so what I what I jokingly refer to that is if you’re not aligned and engaged here, go flourish somewhere else. Because if you’re truly flourishing, you have to be aligned and engaged, and happy and feel that you’re working in a positive caring environment. So for me, it’s everything.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, I heard Tony Shea, who was the CEO of Zappos, he’s passed away since but something he did at the end of the orientation week of an organization as he would pay people $3,000 to leave. And so what he was seeking to do is to really get those that weren’t 110% on journey, which I thought was very interesting.

Louise Baxter 

That’s an interesting concept, I probably like to do it through a more positive way. And look, you can tell. You can tell when people are, you know, not aligned and engaged. And that’s different from, you know, a performance issue, which is often about either behavior, it’s the person’s not a cultural fit, or skill. But if people are aligned and engaged, and if culturally, they’re a right fit, you can correct the skill. So it’s, that’s what it’s all about.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, very much so. And you’ve also champion positive psychology with your employees, and also, with the people you interact with. How did you make. How did you put that into action?

Louise Baxter 

Well, as I said, it’s, it really comes back to authenticity. Now, we’ve been an organization that really has been about positivity and positive psychology, really, from the start. But we probably formalized that back in 2012, 2013. And we started to enable all of our team to be trained in the tenants of positive psychology, when they first joined the organization, we then have training for the people, managers, refresher courses. And so positive psychology is something that really helps every day. And if you think about, you know, I talked about our mission about brightening the lives. And then we talk about l value is we have one value at Starlight, and that’s to shine. And we talk about that in different ways. So we shine for the children and young people who we support, we shine by being exceptional in terms of our experiences with partners, we shine brighter together, which speaks to teamwork. And so we shine in a lot of ways. But at any moment in time, you can just stop and ask yourself, Am I shining in this moment? So that’s a few. From a cultural perspective, I’ve talked about positivity, and all of those things really work together. So for us, it was really necessary and right and proper for us to give our team the tools to recognize because mental health and positivity, it’s a continuum, yeah, I know what I need. In any given day, you can move up and downloads different scenarios can move you. And so what you need to be able to do is recognize within yourself when you’re sliding down into a more negative mental health space. And what can you do to do to lift yourself and so we talk about that here is boosting your mood. And that’s never been more important than now as people are working from home. Because when you are working  in an office situation or physically connected to people, let’s not say office because I’d prefer to think of the way we’re working as Hybrid, which is, you know, which which the place that best suits you whether a point in time, or is it forced upon you and appointed time is now. But I think that you really need to be able to know recognize within yourself that something’s not right here and what do I do so, and we’re also looking out for others. So on teams meetings, when we can see all those faces, you’re looking intently as a manager all the time and you’re thinking that person doesn’t look like they’re 100% need to hop off the phone, either call their direct manager, or call that person directly. So caring for each other is incredibly important. But I think one of the things that I love about positive psychology, which helps me often is they have this premise of ants, which are automatic negative thoughts. Now, we all have them. Sometimes you have ads crawling all over you, you know, that moment, when you are asked to attend a meeting. And you think, why have they called me to that meeting? Oh, my goodness, it’s going to be because of blah, blah, blah, XYZ, and you go into this negative realm of all the negative things that that meeting could be about, they might be calling that meeting to tell you that they want to give you the contract, that they want to give you a salary increase, I don’t know there’s a whole raft of really positive reasons. Somehow, in our minds, we go into these automatic negative thoughts about something. And so I think flipping ants into the positive and stepping back and going, let’s just sit back. And let’s start from the fact that they can have positive intent. There’s a whole raft of positive things need probably need to be prepared. I don’t want people to be ridiculous and not prepared if people ask you a tricky, challenging question. But sometimes we enable ourselves to move in that space. So I think that choosing that recognizing, and having tools to know what you can do to put yourself in a more positive mind space is really important for all of us to have.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, I really like that. And I talked about a moodometer, in the keynotes and workshops I do. And this green zone and the zone, Red Zone, of course. And when you’re in the green zone, you more resourceful, more creative, more positive, more optimistic, but have a business review has also showed that when you are in the green zone, you’re 31% more productive, 37% more influential, 300% more creative. So it really is a no brainer. And it doesn’t mean we don’t go down that moodometer. But also just knowing if you can catch it early, and knowing things you can do that make a difference, whether that’s a walk outside or catching up with a friend or whatever, we all have ownership of our mood and, you know, responsibility to try and boost it and bring it up as well.

Louise Baxter 

That’s exactly right. That’s why we call a bit talk about what are you doing to boost your mood, I say on my national team meetings regularly. And we have our team are all trained in this. And we ask people to make sure they’re doing those things. And also, how can you flip that negative into a positive and you speak about, you know, those performance metrics that you just mentioned, that’s exactly why I don’t think that this is about balance, this is about you must have, if you are a leader of today, in the future, you must care for your team, you must you must show that openly. You must be authentic about that. And then what will happen is you will have a high performing team and things like as you just said, creativity is boosted. You know, innovation is boosted. Collaboration is boosted all of those things that you want that drive business metrics. And I often say this is not about fluffy stuff. This is about business metrics, every single business metric and style that has been improved, because of the way we address it because of our culture, our values and the fact that we provide the tools to the team to the participant themselves and each other.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. You describe your organization as profit-for-purpose, would you mind just explaining what that is and why you’ve provided that tweak for your organization?

Louise Baxter 

I think it’s nonsense that this sector is referred to as the not-for-profit. There is no other sector on this earth that describes itself as what it is not. And  I always say that it quite frankly, it also has this stigma of we are therefore, well historically it’s had this stigma that the sector is somehow not effective. And I think it’s that not-for-profit title that actually can convey some of that. In fact, we are about maximum profit. We actually have much higher profit. We pour it back into our programs, into our research, whatever it is that your mission is, as you’re within the sector. You actually work on higher profit margins than any other commercial organization. You just feed them straight back into whatever your purpose is.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah.

Louise Baxter 

So my my take on that is not that we’re not for profit, you know, any dance can run a business and not make a profit. We are a smart, effective sector. And we are a profit-for-purpose because we maximize our profit and use it for purpose. So that’s where I think the differentiator is. And for me, again, it’s flipping a negative into a positive, and I’m not very big on negatives.

Graeme Cowan 

And that’s led you to grow quite dramatically hasn’t it. Could you just give provide some of the metrics that has appeared, while you’ve been CEO?

Louise Baxter 

okay, well, we’ve been, we’ve grown Well, we have a bit of a blip in that at this point in time. Because COVID is driven a bit of a curveball for us that our revenue has grown from around $16 million in 2010, let’s say, to around $40 million dollars, but most importantly, our program delivery. So back in 2010, we delivered about 145,000, positive Starlight experiences to children and young people and their families. And in 2019, we delivered over 625,000 positive Starlight experiences. So the growth in our program delivery has been significant. And we’ve become if you think about those metrics, as well as the dollars and the delivery, we’ve become more efficient as we scaled. So I think that, as I say, if I look at any business metric, the organization has become more effective our social return on investment, we we measure our social return on investment, and that has grown. So we’re now delivering for the programs that we measure in this way, over $5 of value for every dollar we invest. And so a return on investment of in excess of 5:1 is pretty good. And we were first in the lead in the high threes and hive and early falls for those. And now both of those are over the $5 for every dollar we invest in those programs, which is really positive. And that’s why we did those not to pat ourselves on the back so that we constantly could improve. And that’s what we look to do.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. And and your revenue surpluses have allowed that growth, fund that growth. That’s why we call it profit for purpose. And that’s

Louise Baxter 

Exactly, yeah, exactly.

Graeme Cowan 

I really like that. If you believe like we do that leaders number one priority is to build a more caring and resilient team who enjoys growing together, you may be interested in these three free resources were provided that our website, factorc.com.au. The first one is the we care credo poster. And this contains the mindset and values of teams that prize self care, crew care, and redzone care. The second resource is a poster called How to support a teammate in distress. And this provides easy to follow instructions on how to identify someone who’s struggling, how to have the Ioh k conversation with empathy and how to guide them to the help that they need. And the third resource is a building a mentally healthy culture checklist. And this provides items to think about before you launch initiative, how you do a great launch and then thirdly, how to hit momentum going following the launch. These three free resources can be found that factorc.com.au  I have a good friend that I meet every Thursday morning so we go for a walk really early. And Richard is a partner at KPMG but he’s also been, he and his wife, have been very unlucky. You know they had a son and or two sons that were a real genetic illness and their first son has died unfortunately age of 16 and the second son is very unwell. And but he when I would walking this morning I told him that we’re catching up with yourself. And he just discussed the really positive impact that Starlight had on his his children. Now the Starlight room it made such a big difference. His son had been scheduled to have surgery I think it was about a week ago went under anaesthetic. And they found out there was a urine infection. So they had to stop. So wakes up, didn’t have the surgery, they’ve been preparing for this sort of stuff. And the first thing that the son said to Richard was, can I go to the Starlight room? And it’s must be great to hear stories like that.

Louise Baxter 

I hear that story so often. And people will often say to me, oh, it must be really sad working at Starlights like, Oh, no, it’s not. starlight is the happiest, most positive, inspiring place to be. And when you speak to parents, they don’t have and children and young people, they do not remember the pain that they went through, they do not remember the 43 surgeries the time away from friends, they remember their time, the joy, the happiness, the fun, that they had, interacting with starlight programs in the hospital. And that’s what I say, what we do at Starlight is so incredibly simple, yet so powerful. We give children and young people who have their ability to just have pure joy and be fun. And they have that kind of taken away from them. Because all of the treatment of the illness or injury is really difficult. And it’s causes anxiety and stress and it’s painful. And children, as we all know, are easily distracted. So if we can distract them, positively distract them, it means that their memories then, and you know, having a serious illness of trauma for these children. But if their memory is of the heaviness, enjoying the fun, and children can replace that because we are beings who want to, you know we are positive beings at our very center. So if that’s what the children remember, and I hear stories of parents saying that before Starlight was in a hospital, they had to take their child to treatment and they would be dragging them into the car and the child would screen the entire way to the hospital. And then since Starlight was in the hospital, the child has it bounces into the car is in the front seat, and needs to be dropped off at the hospital before the parent parks set and they run into the Starlight Express room. That to me is everything. So what we do is we reframe that hospital and medical healthcare experience for those children and young people. And you know, we’re in the hospitals, we’re also in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. And they generally have a fear and suspicion of why government health workers potentially coming into their communities. But Starlight, Captain Starlight is part of that team bridges that gap, and makes them feel comfortable in attending those health clinics, which is incredibly important for those children who were in community,  undiagnosed with serious illnesses that could kill them if not diagnosed and treated. Yeah, so it’s, you know, it’s simple. It just reframes the healthcare experience into something that is fun and positive. And that’s what the kids remember.

Graeme Cowan 

And it’s a big win for the parents as well, you know, just seeing that change, like a huge win for them. Because, you know, they’re under so much strain. My sister is a nurse at bear cottage. And one of the things she did there was to put together a wellbeing program for the parents because they’ve been running their own batteries dry, you know, through trying to care for a very, very sick child. And, and so yeah, it’s it’s more than just the child with, you know, their family at least but also friends as well.

Louise Baxter 

You’re absolutely right. You know, I sometimes if I’m in the hospital, you will see the child who is managing, and you look across at the parent who is spent sometimes months in hospital, sleeping in the bed, you know, sleeping beside the child, and the parent is absolutely spent. And the parents will say to us, when Captain Starlight, you know, came into the room and my child’s smile. For the first time in months, I then realize that my child was still there within the illness. And I think that’s something that’s you know, really powerful and, you know, bear cottage is a palliative care, hospice and we but the thing about Palliative care is that 70% of children who are in power care are in at home palliative care. And so we have a program called Starlight moments, which supports those children and families who have a child in at home palliative care, which can be for several years. And you know, we just those moments of joy that we can deliver to those families completely changes because you know, we talked at the beginning, that mental health is a continuum and you’ve got to know what you do to boost your mood. This is starlight is that mood booster for those families, and it just leaves you, and then enables you to have that resilience to go back in to face whatever comes next. So I think it’s incredibly important for the families as well as for the children and young people and also for the health professionals. Because one of the things that we did in this recent time when our programs were restricted for the first time, was we went in and did some research, and the health professionals were delivering comments to us, like, if Starlight is not back fully back in this hospital soon, I’m going to lose my clinical team, because it changes the morale of the hospital. In Jinx fun, I’ve had doctors say to me, I won’t get in a lift with your Captain Starlight because I never know what they’re gonna make me do between floors. But then that, you know, is fun. And it lifts the whole it lists a whole feeling of the the the wards and the community.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. Louise, I know, you went to residential program at Stanford, what can you explain a little bit about that, from what you took away from?

Louise Baxter 

That was the, I attended the executive program for not-for-profit leaders profit-for-purpose leaders, I have to have them change that. And it was a I was there as part of a scholarship from the Stanford Australia Foundation. And it was the most remarkable experience. It was there were 55 people in this residential course. And we were from, I think, 16 different countries, and to just have that cross pollenization of purpose of situations because, you know, it’s very different if you’re talking to someone who’s in an African country, and what they’re trying to do is get sanitation into villages. You know, very different from us, you know, a first world environment. But just that shared energy, positive energy was amazing. And we still connect together as a group, and share ideas and help each other. So I think it was really just the shared experience was incredibly positive. Now, of course, we also had access to the amazing minds at Stanford. And you know, they’re philanthropy and civil society teams, some of the most respected in the world. And I’ve been lucky enough to actually return as part of a fully funded study tour. And that was also an amazing experience that was with a group of 10 CEOs from Australia, who were taken there. So I’ve been able to experience Stanford through two different routes. And it has been remarkable in both the incidences and just to open your mind and take those blinkers off, because I think sometimes people do become very focused on their purpose and their cause.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah,

Louise Baxter 

and one of the things that I really like to do is, this sector is a sector that is very unusual, because we can actually collaborate there are no rules that stop us collaborating, which you have in the commercial world. And it means that if we do that, we’re not we because I don’t see anyone else in the sector as a competitor to us, I see that we are all working together, we have our specific spaces. And if we ensure we don’t duplicate delivery, then we can deliver the maximum impact to those people. We support this the people we support the causes we support, whether that’s the environment. And so people are in this sector who have a bit of a blanket, you know, I’m competing with you. I think that’s really wrong. Because we have an opportunity that does not exist in the corporate world, which excites me so much that we can all work together, we share, I will share our learnings from anything we do with any other organization. Because if I can save them from spending $1 of donated funding, that I know they can spend more effectively elsewhere, then I think we should do that. So I think this is a really. This is a sector that can show everyone how things can really be done if you collaborate. We have 105 collaborations in play right now. And so that’s us working with other organizations in a whole variety of ways. So you know, when we go in community, through our Starlight Healthier Futures Initiative into remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, we’re always partnering with another charity organization to deliver in those those spaces. So I think the more we work together, the more we can all achieve.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah and as you know, I’ve been involved with R U OK? since its inception as well. And we’ve always had that mindset that, you know, it’s not scarcity, it should be abundance we’re thinking about and the very first R U OK? day we had in 2009. It was the first time that all the middle health charities had worked together the first time. And that’s something that we’ve always really strove strive for. Because we don’t, we can’t do everything we can. But just realizing how we can collaborate, how we can, you know, expand the pie, I think that’s a very, very powerful lesson.

Louise Baxter 

Absolutely. And that’s what I say. It’s, you know, if we continue to try and fight over our slice of the pie, nothing is going to grow. But if we all work together, we need to grow philanthropy, we need to grow trust, and donors. When I share stories of Starlights work in partnership with other charity organizations. All they see is that we are smart, the other organizations, we’re working with a smart to do it that way, and increases trust and support.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah. I mentioned at the start, we’re old friends, we’re probably should just sit as we’re friends and known each other for a long time. We probably can tick both boxes. So for our listeners, Louise and I worked at Johnson & Johnson a few years back. And we were both in in marketing roles. So it might be just interesting for our listeners, Louise, just explain about your transition from working as a, you know, senior product manager in Johnson & Johnson to now being the CEO, of the Starlight Foundation. Yeah,

sure. Well, I spent a lot of years I spent 10 years client side in FMCG, or Fast Moving Consumer Coods, areas, and several of those years in incredibly happy years, at Johnson and Johnson. And then I moved into the advertising world, and worked on a lot of businesses, like Procter and Gamble, Kellogg, and New South Wales Tourism, and thoroughly, thoroughly loved that. And I was working in advertising for about 15 years. And I had worked for Leo Burnett, advertising, and then another agency that I’ve worked in partnership with two other individuals who I’d met during my time at Johnson & Johnson. And I just reached this moment in my life where I felt that I wasn’t loving it, as I always had. And I started to question, is there not more I can do with my marketing and sales skills then sell the consumer goods that I’m selling. And so I took a moment and thought I wanted to move to this sector in some way. Now, my original thought was that I would potentially move back into a client side marketing role, because corporate social responsibility or triple bottom line, because I’m talking 20 years ago now, that was all the big thing. And so I thought I’d move into that kind of role back in a corporate. However, a six month contract at Starlight became available. And I thought it would be smart for me to take the role at Starlight because while I had worked client side agency side, I’d worked on promotions, I’d worked on advertising, PR, I hadn’t actually had worked for charities, but I’ve not worked in the charity world. So I’ve done advertising work, or charities or promotional work, but not in a charity. And so starlight was a charity that was very dear to me. I had as a child, I had a family friend who he died it when he was quite young, he’d had cancer, Starlight didn’t exist. And I saw the pain, the anxiety, I saw the impact on the family, and Starlight as an organization that changes that into something that is where people can remember the positives was something that really appealed to me. So I came here on a six month contract, stayed for three years, then returned to the corporate world. Because I reached that moment that I needed a new challenge here. And that then CEO was staying so very, you know, happy to move on and take my own advice of go flourish somewhere else. Because if you are sitting somewhere and you need a new challenge, and you can’t get it within the organization, you should leave. And I left and then I came back about 18 months later, which was post GFC. And it was a very different world then, because things have changed. And so I’ve been here for 12 years since then. So I’ve moved from corporate world to this profit-for-purpose back and back again. So I actually think there is far more similarity than there are differences. And, you know, most of the people, many of the people that I’ve employed here have been from the commercial sector, because the skills are directly transferable. And there are a lot of people who reached that point in their life that I reached 20 years ago.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Last week, I interviewed Dr. Marcus Blackmore, from Blackmores. And he talks a lot about entrepreneurship. When he talks about entrepreneurs and outstanding entrepreneurs, he talks about people like Wesley Noffs, at the Wayside Chapel and, and the Wesley Center and this sort of thing, because he said, That’s true entrepreneurs, and we have an idea, and then you make it happen, you have to execute it. So I thought that was a really interesting take on who he considered great entrepreneurs.

Louise Baxter 

Yeah, exactly. I think there are people who are, you know, you don’t have to be a small business owner to be an entrepreneur, I completely agree with him. This organization has a significant number of people that I would consider as entrepreneurs, they’ve chosen to do that within this space, and within that organ, this organization, so I think, but it’s people who have a love of, of innovation, you know, we constantly are trialing things. Because if you can, if you can review the risks, and you know, manage those just give something a go. And I’m very much what I love about our innovation process here is that, you know, you have to scope what the need is, and you have to be customer centric in everything you’re doing. But you should give it a go and then iterate and learn. And I think that really, is something that speaks to me, and something that, you know, was really instilled in me back in my days in fmcg, marketing, you know, he never had a media plan unless you had a test in it, because otherwise you’re not learning anything. And so that whole sense of here, I’m constantly looking for, what are we doing that’s different within that, the kids are still learning within that. So just don’t keep it the cookie cutter might be working at that moment in time. But try a different shape, you might do the cookies, the cookie cutter for four and try a different shape for the other and see how that goes; otherwise, you’re never learning. So for me, I’m always looking for where’s the trial, where’s, there’s something different that we’re doing within there, that can push us that we can learn from and the other thing is, you then have to have that organization that embraces failure, because you’re not going to get it right, and you need to share why you didn’t get it right. And so, you know, if you embrace, you know, failure, you know, I don’t want the same fail a couple of times in a row. And making the same mistake without changing anything is just stupid. So there was kind of some things you have to put around that. But really, you have to have an environment that actively it’s okay to fail. Because if you have a culture, where people know no matter what you say that they’re going to get hammered. If something doesn’t work, then you’re never ever going to be an innovative, and you’re never going to have entrepreneurs within your organization, because everyone will just, you know, keep their heads down, and you won’t move forward and grow.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, 100% return that psychological safety, you know, where people can be themselves. They know they can take risks, and know they’ll be supported if things don’t go wrong. And it’s been determined as the number one success factor for teams is just what you describe. And it makes a lot of sense. I also had, you know, a very positive time at Johnson & Johnson, and is the only organization in my career where even you know, 20 plus years later, there’s a number of us that meet every year. And it’s certainly what do you think what was unique from your perspective about your time at Johnson & Johnson?

I think we all had, we were all focused, really focused on business outcomes. But the group of people that the marketing crew that we had there at that point in time, we were also, we did care for each other. And we also had fun at work. You know, I can remember people going out for lunch. And back in those days, we didn’t have offices and we didn’t have open plan. We had that halfway house where you had those petitions that set you at office space. And of course, somebody would go out to lunch and we’d all be in on the prank. And by the time they came back, their space was gone because we’d moved all the petitions, and was a bit of fun. So I think back then we were focused on the outcomes. We worked hard, but we also kind of played hard, have fun, and I think that’s why and they were probably We will all, you know, young marketing professionals at that point in time, and we’ve all grown in our careers, but we’ve all stay connected. And you’re right. It’s, you know, it’s a joy to catch up with that team. But I also catch up, you know, with the team that I worked with Leo Burnett. So catching up with those team members that you had all those years ago, I think it shows you the culture of that place at that point in time. And the culture is something that isn’t directed to you top down, you know, that’s something that is within your organization. And I think those people bring that

Graeme Cowan 

One thing Johnson & Johnson had, and this is way before it was popular was, you know, the credo, and this was a definition of what the company stood for. And it was always first priority was to the mothers and that use the products. Then it was to the healthcare workers, and it was the staff and finally to the the stockholders, you know, the people that held the shares. And this was introduced in 1943. And I know, when Robert Johnson introduced it, he had, I think four board members resign, because they just didn’t think it was right, you know, stockholders right at the bottom, but it has proven to be a real key factor in their ongoing success. And if you look at highly successful companies, Johnson & Johnson is one of the few that is still in the top 21 market value in the world. You know a lot of the others are like Facebook and Google etc, etc. But it’s quite remarkable, isn’t it, how it has evolved and still stayed relevant? over 100 years later?

Louise Baxter 

Absolutely. And any, I think that the flip, you know, I think a lot of organizations started that way, they were truly customer centric, because they all started as family companies. And so family companies at their, at their heart, were all about their customers, and in those early days, knew all their customers before they be, you know, scaled and became huge, large organizations. But I think that somewhere, we flipped. And the greed is good took over and the shareholders became the number one on that list. And my firm belief is, if you get the if you get the customer, the team, all of those things, right. Your shareholders will benefit. And so it’s right at the start of this, I said, you know that it’s not a balance of between care for your team and high performance. If you don’t care for your team, you will not have a high performing team. And it’s in your shareholders interests, that your team is high performing. So why wouldn’t you want it? So I just think that somewhere along the way, that flipped, and that was wrong. And I think that we’ve seen the folly of that in recent years, where you know, money is everything, and it’s not, you know, happiness is far more important.

Graeme Cowan 

When you think about your leadership style now, has there been any book or any person who’s had a big impact in the way that you lead now?

Louise Baxter 

Look, I think Graeme in some time, if I open my cupboard here, there’s a bazillion books out there. And there’s also been a lot of people. So there are people I have learned from, and I think you need to listen, and some of those people have been people who, who’ve reported to me that were, you know, my direct reports, who called me when I, you know, wasn’t doing something well, that made them feel uncomfortable that I’ve taken stock of and now would never do. They’ve been clients. You know, I remember once I had a client who said to me, I can tell you’re not truly listening, because you’re already formulating the answer, you know, well, while I’m mid sentence, and I thought he’s absolutely right. So from that moment on, I actually stopped and listened. And thought I’ll hear the question first, before I start to prepare, I suppose back in those days to was probably my defense of why something had happened. Whereas now, I’m much more open to hearing those other points of view. I also now, you know, I embrace vulnerability. I am very anti perfection. And I think that probably back in those days, I would have, you know, 30 years ago, I probably would have liked to have said proudly that I was a perfectionist. I always joke now and say if I’m ever interviewing anyone who says they’re a perfectionist, I need to have Graham Norton’s Big Red Chair and just flip them straight out of the interview. Because all perfectionists ever do is drive anxiety for themselves and everyone around them. So embracing vulnerability and you know, I’ve had a boss who once said to me, I’m going to back you. And even if you’re wrong, I’m still going to back you. I’m like, those kinds of things are very empowering. And then you learn those as you go along. And you they become part of your style. I also had one of my mentors who shared with me how to be the naive enquirer. And I, that’s been something that I use so often. And, you know, the trick in that is, you might already know the answer, or you might know what you think they’re telling you, but you act as though you don’t. And you probe and you get much more valuable information. So I think that questioning listening is probably the area where I’ve, I’ve learned most from but yet there’s little snippets that that you’ll hear in everything, you know, in a lot of what I say which are tiny grabs from from from books and articles that I’ve read and people that I’ve worked with, you know, both mentors and mentees over the years.

Graeme Cowan 

Yeah, I normally ask here, you know, what advice? What if knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self? and you’ve already mentioned a few of that to not strive for perfection to be more vulnerable to bad people. Any other advice that you would give to yourself knowing what you know, now, if you go back and talk to when you were just just out of uni?

Louise Baxter 

Yeah, I think they would be the key things. I think the perfection one is a big one. It’s okay to be vulnerable. And ask, I’m a big believer in asking. And, and reaching out, you know, I have a large network. I never burned bridges. That’s the other piece of advice. I would give people, people who burn bridges. I just don’t know why they do it. You just never know who or what’s going to pop up. So just bite your tongue. You know, and always be nice. Always be nice. So I think that’s really important. But I yeah, I think that whole perfection, vulnerability thing is the most is the most important,

Graeme Cowan 

wonderful, Real pleasure catching Louise in this sort of manner. And getting a chance to sort of just dove a bit deeper into the wave worked. You’ve made a really magnificent contribution to a great area. And you an extended team has served so many kids, so many parents and also health personnel in hospitals. So pleasure having you on the Caring CEO Louise.

Louise Baxter 

Thanks so much, Graeme, have a wonderful day.

Graeme Cowan 

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