#77 Top 12 Futurist Globally, Michael McQueen, Speaker & Author

DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE

• What caring in the workplace means for Michael.
• Being a true thought leader in the space of self-leadership and influence.
• The evolving role of AI in the workplace and society at large.
• Highlights of fascinating research from the University of Melbourne revealing that Australia ranks lowest in optimism about AI among 43 countries.

RESOURCES

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Transcript from the interview

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SPEAKERS

Graeme Cowan, Michael McQueen

Graeme Cowan  00:00

Today’s guest is Michael McQueen, and he’s one of the top conference speakers across Australia and also around the world. He’s ranked number 12 in the world’s top futurist he’s presented to over 500,000 people across five continents in the last 20 years. So if leadership is about influence. He’s certainly way up there. He’s a prolific author, and has now released 10 his latest book is mind stuck, mastering the art of changing minds. We have a wide raising discussion, including the death of his father in his early 50s, and the impact that had on Michael’s life. We also discuss how finding his diaries helped understand his father better. He talks, of course, about the wide ranging impact of AI in the workplace and across society, and also some incredibly, I thought, interesting research from the University of Melbourne, which showed that out of 43 countries, Australia is the least optimistic about AI, and Michael discusses why he thinks that is the case. There’s so much learned from Michael. He’s incredibly articulate. Enjoy. It’s a real pleasure to welcome Michael McQueen, to the caring CEO podcast. Welcome, Michael,

Michael McQueen  01:24

Thanks for having me. Great to spend some time chatting.

Graeme Cowan  01:27

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

Michael McQueen  01:32

I guess in its simplest terms, I think care is creating an environment where people flourish, where people can be themselves, reach their potential, have not just their minds nourished, but essentially, almost having their souls flourish in a work environment. I mean, that’s that’s the ideal, is that it’s not just about minimizing harm or making sure people don’t get hurt, but actually creating an environment where people can can be their best selves. I think that’s the ideal.

Graeme Cowan  01:56

Yeah, it’s really fascinating that my last interview was with a lady who was Pam. Pam puchanan was previously amazing director of NASDAQ. You can’t think of a more left mind sort of role, yep, but it’s interesting. She left that, and she now talks about soul health and how interesting. Yeah, that really is about, you know, our life force, our spirit, our uniqueness. But it’s interesting that, you know, she talked at something which seems so contrary to, you know, being Managing Director of of as NASDAQ, you talk a lot about change, and you’re one of the World Cups in the world. What do you think is having the biggest impact in our workplaces today?

Michael McQueen  02:48

So I hesitate because it’s the most obvious answer. It’s also in in some ways, the most boring answer, because everyone’s talking about it, and that is in the tech world, AI, and it’s every industry. Is every role function. I think we are not really seeing the impact of AI fully yet. I was there speaking at an event at Parliament House a few months ago, and the head scientist, Australia’s head scientist, was also speaking at this event. And something he said, I thought was pretty accurate. He said, 80% of what you’re hearing right now in terms of AI is high, and it really is. There’s a lot of hype right now, but he said the remaining 20% is going to fundamentally change the way you live, the way you work, the way our society functions, and I think we’re only just seeing the beginning stages of that. So even though there’s a whole bunch of people like, oh yeah, AI, we’ve talked all about that, I’m like, you get what we have, but we’ve also only just seen the beginning of it. So I think the impact of this in terms of certainly how we work, you know, I read some great research from MIT. What am I saying? No, not, sorry. Well, not MIT, Harvard Business School. It was Ethan Moloch here. So any listeners who don’t follow Ethan mollocks work, highly recommend you just follow him on LinkedIn. He posts some really insightful stuff around the impact of AI in the workplace. He shared a study a couple of weeks ago they’d just done, and so Harvard Business School teamed up with Procter and Gamble so globally, looked at the impact of using generative AI in a team context. See this difference it made? Because it’s one thing to say, you know, it’s sexy and it’s cool and all the features and the benefits and the rest, but what does it actually look like in terms of adding value and achieving efficiency? This? This was the first at scale study of this. What they found is that teams using AI were 12% more productive, more effective in their roles. They got more done. Interestingly, they enjoyed the process more. There’s greater job satisfaction and engagement by using AI because it was taking away some of the drudgery of the work. The most telling stat there was this, one single human using AI was as effective as two humans who are not using AI. So I think these are some of the things that over the coming, while we’re going to see this really take shape and impact suddenly organizations. My driving focus right now is, how do we preserve the human stuff? Yeah, organizations in our roles. Because really that’s, that’s kind. To be where the conversation the emphasis has got to be for a lot of leaders right now. And yet, if

Graeme Cowan  05:04

you talk with lots of people in the workplace, they’ll say they’ve never worked harder. They’ve got these incredible tools and resources at their disposal now. And yet, productivity hasn’t moved it’s been even slipped back a little bit for a while in Australia, yeah. Do you think that’s due to a lag effect? Or what do you think is contributing to that?

Michael McQueen  05:26

Yeah. I mean, there’s so many things that could be affecting that I think one of the things I’m seeing is that in a hybrid work environment, there are some great benefits. You know, people can do school drop off and then go back home, you know, do a day’s work, not have to commute into the city or into a regional area, like the hub of that regional area, but the challenge of that, the flip side, the dark side of that, is and snowing when to switch off and knowing how you work best in that environment. And some people work brilliantly when working on their own, when my wife would be good example of this, as she works one day a week in her four day a week role, one day a week from home, because that’s when she does all of her deep thinking, all of her creative planning work she is in the office. It is like open plan office nightmare. Yeah, interactions, constant noise, constant interruptions. So like for her, she’s found a rhythm that’s working for her, but I think a lot of people are still trying to find that rhythm. Real extroverts do struggle working remotely. And even extroverts, where you might spend all your day on calls, like we are right now on a zoom interface, it’s not the same, and you have the same types of interactions. Those interactions where you’re not engaging around the same themes and topics, the threshold for starting a conversation is higher, like if you’re just walking someone past someone’s desk and you notice they’ve got a moment you’re chatting on the way to get a coffee, those that idea exchange is organic and free. If you’ve got to set up a zoom call to actually have that conversation, you’re like, is it worth actually bothering sitting before? I’ll wait until I’ve got a few things I need to ask that person, and you miss those incremental things. So I think the impact on productivity from a from a hybrid or remote workplace standpoint, is really significant. But also, just think, you’ve got organizations where we’re piling more people on, the more tasks onto the capable people, and so the capable people are the ones who are feeling often overburdened and hopefully for use as AI tools. Well, they’ll take some of that burden away. I mean, we’ll see. Hey. The reality is, we were told years ago that technology been weird. Of all this free time, we managed to, we managed to fill our time and fill our people back to capacity pretty fast. So I’m hoping that this doesn’t just increase the velocity of work, but not the volume of work. That’d be my concern.

Graeme Cowan  07:31

And in this rapid change, how do we preserve the humanness for the workplace? How do we, you know, look at things that are important to us as individuals. You know, we have these tools, but there’s still very important things that humans have to do together, isn’t there?

Michael McQueen  07:47

Yeah, well, it’s hard because it’s different for every role. And so it’s figuring out in your environment and in your role, what are the things that only you can do as a human, that, for instance, in my role, and similarly, in your role. A lot of what I can do in terms of preparing for what I deliver on the platform when I’m speaking at a conference, I can use AI brilliantly. I mean, AI has been a phenomenal research tool. I use it to help to craft content, for articles, for social posts. I mean, I’m able to be much more productive in that way. AI can be a great tool. It can do a lot of that stuff quite well. What it can’t do is get on site at a conference, get a feel for the room, and in that moment, like, figure out who needs a bit of love, who needs a bit of attention, who don’t want to really spend time with to make them feel comfortable. Because often you get there and the client’s tense and hyper and they’re nervous, and they’ve never done this before, and when I do it all the time, so I can sit with them and just, you know, what can I do to make this easier or even just be more proactive? You get a gut feel for how things are when the AV team, you can tell they’re not very experienced and like rather than just trusting them to do the AV stuff, I get behind there and I just check a few things. And that’s, that’s, that’s gut feel. That’s intuition. That’s really, I guess, wisdom, if you want to put a word around, I feel like I move from a knowledge economy to our wisdom economy. Like the real value, the premium now is in what you can do because of the experience you’ve got. And then there’s very human traits, like intuition, judgment, deep empathy. That’s the stuff that AI can’t do. And so every goal function is looking at how, what are the things that that I can do, that that a piece of tech can’t and realizing there are some things that technology will do far better than you outsource that stuff to free up your capacity, your head space, your time, your energy, to be able to engage as a human and do the human things. Yeah,

Graeme Cowan  09:31

one of the things I often do when I do a keynote is use, you know, Mentimeter poll, and I ask people to reflect on a great team. They’ve been part of not an average team, but a great team, a great team that really stood out. And I have about 10 options I can choose from. I asked them to nominate three, and in 95% of the cases, the top three are that we had each other’s back. We cared about each other, and we enjoyed working with each. Together, yeah, and they’re just also human elements, aren’t they? We really have a fundamental need to be part of something, to feel that we belong, Yep,

Michael McQueen  10:09

yeah. I’m finding that interestingly, with young people, especially from a generational standpoint, the Gen Zs or Gen Zs, depending on where people are dialing in from, they’re craving that connection, that sense of being together. Interestingly, the greatest appetite to be back in the office is from younger generations, not the older generational crew. And in some ways, even though you might think intuitively, they’re like, they’re the tech the tech natives, surely the technology would be super comfortable for them, and it is. But also, because of the tech natives, they’ve grown up with so much more of the digital there is that, that innate craving for connection, to be seen, to be heard, to be valued, but also the mentoring that comes along with being with other people, that a sense of apprenticeship in a role. You think back to your early 20s. So much of what made work rich and meaningful was the people you worked with absolutely drinks on a Friday night. It was like those, those small interactions you had throughout the day, they might only feel like small talk, banter, simple things, but that actually makes you feel like you’re part of a team and feel like you’re valued. Do I forget seeing and so I think for younger people, especially like any generation, when you’re in that younger, formative stage of your career, those social bonds really matter for all sorts of ways, professionally and personally. I mean, think of the number of people you know who their partner or their spouse, they met at work, or through a common work, friend at work, drinks or whatever it was, that these are really key connection points at that stage of life. And so it doesn’t surprise me, in a way, that they are hungry come back to the workplace, because I feel like that’s often what makes birth work meaningful. And me, to your point, that’s one of the key metrics, that sense of feeling valued, being part of something, when

Graeme Cowan  11:45

we’re working a hybrid way, where everyone’s not in the same place, what’s been some really great ways. You’ve heard that teams do feel that sense of connection, care and belonging. How can you do that when people are often working remotely at times.

Michael McQueen  12:02

Yeah, I think that firstly, it’s about looking at the intentional times where you can be physically together. So if you’re coming together, let’s say, make sure it’s like a Tuesday. Every Tuesday we’re together. Let’s not fill that Tuesday together with meetings that could be done on Zoom or teams. Let’s fill that time with when you get to build that sense of social connection and cohesion. These are activities or times where you’re physically together for the purpose of building commonality, and then leave the rest of the week to do other things that can be done much more transactionally. I think from a leadership standpoint, one of the big things leaders can do is let their guard down. Be far more real, also, to over communicate. The reality is, if there’s a gap in understanding, if we don’t feel like we’ve been told something, or there’s a question mark as to why this decision was made, or what’s happening here, or who’s doing, what? If there’s a gap in the absence of information, people will create their own narrative, their own story. And so we’ve seen that increasingly, with remote and hybrid work, is often those gaps because there’s not over communication. The CEO, the leader, will say, Well, I put out a video message last Tuesday. They’ve all got that. It’s like, well, but you need to say it like two and 345, times in different formats, because in remote in remote working environments, there’s so many more opportunities for that to fall through the cracks and to get missed. Because I think over communicating is really important. So again, otherwise, people invent their own narrative. One

Graeme Cowan  13:21

of the other points raised in that poll was that we have each other’s back. The sense of psychological safety. It’s a sense of we, you know, stick up for each other. And I read in a LinkedIn post that you really recently read Amy Evans recent book, which I think it’s called the right kind of wrong correct, yeah, yep. What was it that stood out from that that you believe was really significant? It’s

Michael McQueen  13:49

an excellent book, and it covers a lot like it’s actually quite a diverse book, because most of us are familiar with Amy’s early work, particularly in the healthcare space around how to create that sense of psychological safety so people make mistakes, own up to them and learn from them. This is really overlaid on top of that, and looking at some of the things we are seeing that are causing people to to shrink back from being in full, bringing them their full selves into the workplace. And again, the impact of, you know, digital technology, putting that layer in play in between each of us as individuals, and how often that means that we’re two dimensional, rather than bringing our full selves into the workplace. So there are a couple of chapters in the book that really jumped out to me that were about just, how do we be far more intentionally vulnerable and honest with each other, and particularly from a leadership standpoint, how important that is. I mean, one of the great things we saw, especially in the early days of lockdown, when and COVID era, when everyone was working from home and trying to figure it all out, those wonderful moments where life broke in, like the cat walked in front of the in front of the camera, and it’s like sat down in front of it on your monitor or whatever, like, and for the leader, though, like often terrified this idea of I’m going to be seen as not credible, not. Serious as a leader, but those are actually beautiful moments, because suddenly the leader is real. And so I think creating those opportunities where you can be unvarnished and honest and upfront, the importance of that, that that creates the environment of not just psychological safety, but an environment where people feel they can be themselves and be real. It’s not this need to have a facade up about this is me at work, and then me normally, and other that’s reflected in what I’ve noticed in the last couple of years, dress codes in the workplace have fundamentally changed. Yeah, like, I’ve not seen a tie in the workplace for probably six years. I mean, Evan and again, you’ll see some, but very, very rarely, I think there has been a sense of being much more casual and open, which I think, if you’re looking for any silver linings from the whole COVID era, that’d be one of them. Yeah,

Graeme Cowan  15:44

it certainly is. And I love that authenticity and vulnerability. It just really does increase a sense of connection with people when they you know, when they’re not perfect, when they talk about what happened, yeah, in real terms, one of the when I had Jamie on the podcast, one of the things she said was really interesting, and that was, we should learn to lead like scientists. And what she meant by that was that we can never have all the information, or if we do strive to have all the information to make a decision, it’ll be too late. So she talked about, you know, as a scientist, you have a hypothesis, so based on the best background that you have, this is our hypothesis. And let’s give it a shot, and we’ll review it in two months, three months, see how we’re going, and then reset if it’s not in the right situation. But, and I also recall that the founder of Amazon. Jeff Bezos talks about the 70% rule that you know, you just can’t have 100% 70 let’s give it a shot. Are you seeing people being more conscious about taking risks these days? Because there is just no way we can understand all the background, all the influences, 100%

Michael McQueen  16:59

Well, I’d like to say, Yes, I think the reality is there is still a natural reflex amongst a lot of leaders to look like they’re in control, to look like they’ve got all the information. Because we assume that extreme confidence equals total extreme confidence, or certainly equals credibility. And that’s not always the case, certainly in the leaders, that in the people you’re leading, they’re looking for you to be again was we talked about real and honest and open, open minded, not rigidly stuck to the way we’ve always done things, because it’s always worked. The tricky thing I’m finding is you’ve got other stakeholders involved. While your team may be keen for the leader to have a more collaborative, open minded approach, not be so certain, they’d be more curious in their leadership style, be more of a scientist. If you’re in a publicly listed company, there’s often not that same grace extended. You know, this idea of the answer being we’re not sure to be, to be comfortable with not knowing the answer to questions is going to be increasingly important for leaders, because any leader who says they’ve got all the information and all the answers to all the questions is either diluted or lying. Yeah. Problem is, we do have a financial system that still rewards certainty. We look what we’ve seen happen in the last few weeks and months with tariffs on and off again, and the market hates uncertainty. The market hates nuance. It only will absolute certainty what’s happening this is when it’s going to happen. The reality is, reality isn’t like that. And so the leaders there is this fine balance between being open, honest, vulnerable, being a scientist. The language I’m using right now is I’m working on a new book around some of these related themes, is the idea of being an explorer rather than an expert, because an expert leads into what has worked, leads into power and authority. Leads to this idea of having all the information, all the answers, and explorers more interested in asking questions. You think about the classic modality of an explorer going into uncharted territory. Here in Australia, we’ve got the some of the best examples of different exploration parties that would set off. And they didn’t just go in completely open minded and like, let’s see what we find. They were planned, they were organized. They had experience. But once they set off, they had to have a level of humility. And, you know, men were traveling around the center, around Uluru and some of those areas around the southern part of Northern Territory in the outback proper, Aussie Outback, last year with my family and we noticed a number of plaques in different cities where the plaque would talk about an exploration party that perished. And if you compare the ones that perish versus those that don’t, the ones that found new areas, unlock new parts of the countries and returned back to the cities secretly, it typically is because they had the humility ask the locals for advice. They sought out the indigenous people who’d lived there for eons, and said, How do we do this? How do we get water here? What’s the food source we can fast and so the experts that went out with that expert mindset, the arrogance, the hubris that often goes with that, because they’ve done this before, were the ones that paid a high price, the explorers who were again highly experienced, very well planned, but were open to new inputs, new ideas, new perspectives. They. The ones that prevailed and did well, I think there’s something in that for leaders today, is as much as we have expertise, having the posture or the archetype of being an expert, I think is dangerous in this environment.

Graeme Cowan  20:10

I also remember reading about that in Jim Collins book, Great by Choice, right? Yep. And he compared, you know, Antarctic expeditions by Edmonson, Edmonson and Scott, and Scott, and you know, the difference in the preparation, the difference in reducing risks between the two, were just extraordinary, wow. And it led to, you know, for example, Scott had these mechanized things that he took to the Antarctic, which basically froze up. The fuel froze, the engine froze. But Edmonson went with dogs, you know, the Huskies that could survive in that situation. You know, on the track out there, Scott would put just one lot of food to get coming back. Edmonson would put flags around the food for about a kilometer either way. So track, you’d see the flag and know where to go. And I think that is and you know, I’m sure you’ve also read the extraordinary story about Shackleton as well, like, wow, even when they found themselves in unbelievable situations, which you just think, I have no idea what I do. Yeah, they didn’t manage. He didn’t manage to really save every person who was part of that ship. So there is definitely something in there. It’s not by chance. There is really well prepared people, the right mindset and to the right resources. And I love that. You know that quest for that new book, because explorers, is the mindset we we we need. I see, you know you’ve done this, I think will be your 11th book. Is that right? Michael, yeah, I just want to jump back a little bit just before we move into talking more about your books, but back to your first and as I understand, that was Memento and and this was a story that you wrote, and I know it came from personal experience about why you wrote it. Would you mind explaining to our listeners that background?

Michael McQueen  22:21

Yeah. So, as it happens, Memento was book number two. So prior to that’s fine. So book number one, prior to that, was one called The New Rules of Engagement, which was all about at the time, one of the early books on generational change. So Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, the millennials. You know, how do you engage that group? And so in many ways, the backstory to both of those books, number one and number two are somewhat linked by the same story you’re referring to. So I had done a bunch of research intergenerational change, mainly because I was seeing it play out every day in my own context. I was in a software marketing and sales roles for a tech company. I could see this generational points of friction, and I thought this is really interesting. And all of the commentary at the time was from older generations trying to look at how younger generations could be connected with more effectively, and how to lead them. But I’m like, Well, I think we need a voice of of the younger generation themselves. And as a young I was only 2122 I’m like, I’m in the generation everyone’s complaining about. And I feel like this, there’s so much truth in what’s being said, like there is so many differences. How do we come together and learn from each other? And so to me, I saw there’s a real opportunity to essentially work with younger generations to help them understand the older generation. So it was a two way street. So I’ve done a batch of research all about this stuff. Came up with what I thought was going to be and what, in many ways, became the first draft of that first book, and I gave it to my dad to read. So my dad was a careers advisor in a high school, government High School in Wollongong, showed him this manuscript, and he said, This is really quite this is really valuable. He said, If you could go into schools and help like your 1011, and 12 students with these sorts of insights to know that, you know, this is how the world of work is going to be for them. This is, you know, they’ll be working for older generations. Here’s what they’re thinking, how to play the game and succeed when you get into a world that is governed by Baby Boomers and Gen Xs. So that’d be really valuable. We get funding in schools to run programs like that. And so he, in fact, sent an email to one of his colleagues who is the head of the careers advisors Association in New South Wales. Here. Her name was Lynn camp. He just made the intro for me to her, as my son is doing this research, be great for him to get some insights into what’s happening in the careers advising world more broadly. And so two days later, and he was 51 at the time, no warning. He had a couple of sort of heart murmurs and the week leading up to this, but the doctor said, look, it’s probably nothing, but we’ll get it checked out, but don’t take it too seriously. Nothing to really be concerned about. And we, what we discovered later was there was a an electrical issue with his part that was undiagnosed. And so Monday morning, middle of October, 2004 passed away. And it was it I can and it was such a shock. And I remember, after all of the, you know, all. The dust settling after that, anyone’s been through that experience, especially a shock loss of someone who’s young so, you know, and I have all the things set up, you know, like we didn’t know where all the details were because, like, he was, there was a sense that this was coming. So we got our affairs in order. So it was just like a lot of chaos for the weeks that followed once all the dust settled. I remember having this email in my inbox from my dad to Lynn making this introduction. And I was like, I was still sort of grieving, trying to figure out which way it was up. And I thought, well, I’ve got this email really. I owe it to him to follow this up. So I did organized coffee with Lynn camp. Beautiful woman, super generous, and she basically just took me under a wing a little bit for the next few weeks and said, Look, this is how it works. It works. This is what careers advisors are looking for. She actually helped me put together the first brochure with a series of seminars to offer to school. So essentially, the stuff my dad would have helped me with, and then I was off and racing. And so I spent the next three and a half years in high schools working with, at that point, Gen wise, mainly few Gen Z, but mainly that group, Gen Y or Millennials all around the sort of school to work, transition readiness piece and so much of it came from that, that sort of almost a sliding doors moment, had that conversation with dad not happened? Had he not sent the email? I mean, quite likely, without the tragedy, Lynn may not have necessarily given me as much time and help and advice. All those little thin threads led to what I’m doing now. And so that was the first body of work, which then ended up leading to the book about generational change that came out after I’d done three and a half years in the trenches in schools, working with younger generations. The book you’re referring to, Memento is essentially a book designed to help parents write down their stories to pass on their their their experiences, their wisdom, their memories, to their kids. Because what we discovered shortly after dad passed away, is in his desk drawer there was a book, a notebook, filled with all these stories he’d be recording about his life, his childhood, stuff that we would never have otherwise known about, and so like that was such a a special thing for us to have. We still got it. I’ve got myself upstairs here. And so we decided to create a book that would guide parents through the process of doing that. And said both of those first two books were essentially as a result of that experience.

Graeme Cowan  27:13

We have some helpful resources that you can find at we care. 360, five.com.au, 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, yeah. And so you were around

Michael McQueen  27:52

21 is that I just I was 22 at the time. Yeah, 22 like, very, very young.

Graeme Cowan  27:58

What do you think you like? I can’t believe how fantastic it would have been to find his writings and his messages and his beliefs. That must have been really, really special. It was, what did you feel that you missed by him passing away so early? Great

Michael McQueen  28:15

question. I mean, I feel like, in many ways, I I got what I needed. You know, as as a young man, I think, like, I’d moved out of home, I’d finished university, I was in a career. There’s always things I look back on. I mean, there would be numerous times even the last 12 to 18 months, I’m like, I wish I could ask dad that, you know, and even just the process of becoming a parent and then a little one moving through different stages of life, you just, I mean, parents are such a wonderful sounding board of like, what was I like at this age? And what would you suggest? And when I asked Mum, but it is, it’s that that dad’s son, that’s a really special relationship for me to ask, you know, as I’m raising my own son, how to do the same sort of thing that he did, and what his wisdom would be. So I do find that, I bet for me, I’d sort of, I was, I’d launched into life. I was, sort of, I was grown up. The biggest thing for me was my younger siblings. So I had someone of five boys, and I’m second oldest, so I had like, a brother that was 16 or 15, you know, like, and so too young, just far too young and at a really vulnerable stage. So I felt more for them at the time, because I’m, like, at least I got into adult life, and I’m launched into my career in life. And it was the younger brothers that I felt, yeah, that’s really sad for they missed a lot of those, particularly those really significant transition stages, you know, finishing high school, choosing careers, choosing further study, relationships, then marriage, like all of that stuff. Yeah, that would have been, that would have been really lovely for them to have had him around for more of those. For more of those years. So I feel grateful that I got as much as I did.

Graeme Cowan  29:46

Yeah, both my parents were lucky to, you know, into the early 90s before they passed away. But one of the things that I did, and I heard about it through Ted, I think they they financed something called Story. Corp and and it’s an app where, you know, you interview parents. And I was very, very glad that I interviewed them both and preserved their stories on there, but I wished I’d interviewed them three times. I really did for you know, the grandkids to hear, you know, some of their early experiences and setbacks. And you know what led to, what led to a great life? And you know, it’s wonderful. It can be preserved and passed on. It makes a big difference. Yeah. What do you do for your self care? Michael, how do you stay in the green zone? How do you keep yourself optimistic, resourceful, energetic.

Michael McQueen  30:42

One of my rhythms that has been for a long time is journaling. So journal. I would journal most days. I would say, so I think it’s particularly when you live in the public eye, a lot, when my time is spent on stage, television, media, stuff like it’s at a prominent role. What I’m always very aware of is the gap between your public persona and your private world. The bigger that becomes, the more dangerous things become, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. And so for me, having those daily rhythms where I spend time in obscurity, where no one knows, and I’m just, I’ve spent time just teasing out ideas and self reflection and challenging myself. And for me, prayer, reading, sort of, you know, scripture or things that are like, rich in like, traditional wisdom, is really important, because my world is all about the immediate, the urgent, the latest AI app, and it’s so easy to get so absorbed in the new to the point where you become sort of untethered from what’s timeless and those principles that will always matter. And so for me, I find those daily rhythms really important just to, I guess, to keep that the ballast. It keeps me upright and keeps me stable in terms of my my my sense of self, my personality. I also am very careful to manage my energy when I travel. Yeah, I very rarely spend a lot of time at the social functions at conferences. So my least favorite environment is the networking thing, where it’s a loud room and you can’t quite hear anyone, and my voice, whatever, for whatever reason, my the range my voice operates at, works great when I’m on stage or with a microphone in that environment where it’s lots of noise, it just doesn’t cut through. Yeah, I am shouting, and people are still like, sorry, I can’t hear you. It’s me. I will do the obligatory like, minute or two, five minutes, 10 minutes, like, I’ll be there so I can be there to be seen, because I want to be around a little bit, but I I exit stage left as soon as I can, because I just know, like, it’s, it’s the best metaphor is, you know, like, keep your car switched off, but with every possible all the interior lights on, the headlights, the hazard lights, the battery will run flat really fast. Yeah, for me, that is the environment where all the headlights and every light is on, and if I stain that environment feel on, my batteries go flat really quickly. So it’s managing my energy, I think, when I’m particularly traveling around, so some of those daily, personal rhythms. But then it’s also just as I’m in the flow of things, knowing where I can push in, push hard and push myself. And the times I’m like, this is just not a good fit for me. Temperate wise, I’m out. I just being unashamed of that. I love that

Graeme Cowan  33:28

you also mentioned this journaling. Do you ask yourself specific questions, or is it more just what’s happened today?

Michael McQueen  33:36

It’s a bit of like what’s happening. It’s reflections as questions that I’m grappling with, a lot of gratitude, a lot of what I’m grateful for or reflecting on this time versus, say, this time last year, trying to be aware of growth. Because it’s amazing how, particularly if you’re an A type personality, it’s always the next figure, the next goal, and actually having those moments where you can flick back and go. My hope, prayer, wish, anticipation 12 months ago was for the very thing that I’m is this now normal in my world, and not to miss that, I find that is a really useful way of just measuring progress and then being grateful, because otherwise it’s very easy to just get for the next thing. And so they’ll find that that a big part of of that daily process.

Graeme Cowan  34:21

Yeah, and gratitude is such a great mood boost, not that you deliberately do it for that, but there’s lots of science that shows the benefit of just thinking about, no matter what day you’ve had, what are three great things that have happened today and actually, actually recalling them, actually something that I do at the beginning of each day, and a little bit from Benjamin Franklin to just write one question, what good am I going to do today? Yeah, wow. And just it makes you just think you look at your diary see who am I going to come into, into interaction with? I’m going to see Michael. My goal is for him to feel that he’s understood. You know, when we do that, another. People, it’s, you know, to assist them. My son’s looking at transferring from as a job, as a new person can stand down to Sydney. And so I thought, I’ll do some research for him, and on AI to look at all the various elements that go through there. So, yeah, those things can be very, very helpful, those regular reflections. And you know something else that Mike Schneider, who interviewed, who is the CEO of buninks, he judges his leadership, or does it on what he calls the four H’s, and that’s honesty, humility was helpful and happy, and that’s how he judges his day. We know of how he goes that and right? And I really love that. And I went on a very, very long walk once, and I thought, what’s going to be my version of that? And I ended up coming up with my five C’s. And it’s, it’s caring, it’s centered, it’s curious, it’s constructive. And then the last one is chucking like dad, because Dad always loved to chuckle, and I really loved that bad and I said, How can I embody that going through there? So, you know, identifying those things that are true to us is a very, very valuable self reflection, isn’t it? I love that I think,

Michael McQueen  36:17

and even not just thinking for yourself, but for like in a family context, what are our family values? Exactly one of the things that we’ve done over the years now I try and keep this front of mind is it’s having adventures and making memories. And so I will spend money, and we’ll spend time, we’ll carve, yeah, capacity out of the calendar to do those things consistently, and even this afternoon. So as we finish, I’m going to race up and do school pick up. And this afternoon we could just do a bit of homework and all the standard things. But I’m like, it’s actually we’ve got a break in the rain here in Sydney. Today. It’s been raining for the last couple of days. Let’s go for a bike ride. Let’s definitely that, like, in 12 months time, our little boy will probably remember, and I’ll remember, like, I won’t remember doing another afternoon of just tipping away at the home, but we’ll do some homework or get back, but like trying to make the most of every moment and not let the moments pass. And I think probably something of losing that young has made me very sentimental, like every moment counts. Now there’s that you can take that too far to the point where you know you’re not happy to just be in the moments, almost trying to add meaning to everything. And there is a danger of that, I’m aware of that within myself. But I think what it does mean is that, like, I don’t miss a chance to make a memory, to have an adventure. If it’s there, we’ll do it, and most of every day. So I feel like that’s that is certainly one of our fam those are our family values as well, which I think this really helps when you’re deciding where you spend your time and your energy and your money. I love that,

Graeme Cowan  37:44

you know, planning the adventures, and I do that with, you know, my wife as well. The kids have left home now. But you know, one adventure we plan this year is to walk around Mont Blanc, and we’re doing that in August. And the beauty about that is that you enjoy it all the way up to it. In fact, it’s probably greater looking forward to it than actually doing it once when it’s really hard. But we specifically talk about that we love doing adventures together, and life should be about that doing things that you know really resonate for you. We love the Yeah, the physical energy of doing that and, but also staying in nice, comfortable places at night. Yeah, and, but yeah, you know, my wife has a very busy career. She leads a group of about 40 researchers at Sydney Uni. Has an unbelievably busy life, but on that trail, no fun. It’s just magic for her. And I really enjoy it as well. It’s, it’s making things that, really, you know, touch your soul, as Pam Buchanan said, you know, things that that are really important, like that, right? I want to jump back now to your work and your very important work. And one thing that you, I saw you shared on LinkedIn, which blew my mind. And it was this, the the optimism or worry towards AI, and it listed 47 countries. India was top 95% optimistic about AI, worried 55% Australia came last out of 47 countries, and only 45% were optimistic. Versus India, what are we missing? I think there’s

Michael McQueen  39:27

all sorts of things that could be a feature of this that drive this. I think Australia, in some ways, we’re very innovative. In other ways, we’re not. We’re not because we’re not as we’re not forced to be as much as other nations are. You know, we are the lucky country. That idea of we’ve had such a good run economically for so many years because we keep digging stuff out of the ground, for instance, that makes us a lot of cash. So there is a level of comfort in Australia that I think can work to our detriment. It can make us complacent, therefore fearful of of the new I think there’s also a real sense of egalitarian. Is in Australia, that means any sense that big companies could control us, we flinch at we’re very, very aware or nervous about that. And so typically, AI is big companies controlling the so many of the things we’re using in our schools, when you go into any classroom today, and typically, they’re using technology that is has been fed to them, has been given to them by, you know, four or five large tech companies. And I think there is a sense of nervousness about around the control that that exerts in daily life. So I think probably the nervousness is around maybe a distrust or a wariness of the power of big tech companies. I think that’s part of it, but also just a level of complacency that’s born of fear, like we like the way things are, and if it’s too new, it’s it’s scary. Whereas you have other other economies around the world that I think they’ve they’ve caught up more rapidly to some of the things that we just take for granted. Now, when you look in some parts of Africa, they’ve leapfrogged us in terms of their financial systems, because they went from, you know, not having, for instance, smart not having landline phones, to then go straight to smartphones, and everything being done on their smartphones, you know, bank payments being done on smartphones, and they’re so adaptive to change because they’ve let from dust so quickly, there’s often this sense of the legacy tech, the legacy way of doing things. It feels safe, it feels predictable. So we want to defend it at all costs, especially when there are players coming in to do new things that perhaps there’s a level of distrust towards I think those, those are some of the factors that, to me, really play into this. But

Graeme Cowan  41:26

I know you also speak a lot about disruption, and disruption is often complacency. You know, not having what Andy Grove used to say, only the Paranoid Survive. And I think there is that does occur, that we are complacent. We do have a very comfortable life, but it’s a danger, isn’t it? Like if we don’t embrace the benefits of AI and see that it can help us to be a better country, better families, better better individuals, we’d stand the chance of being disrupted as individuals, as teams, as a nation. And in your last book, minds mind stack, it was about helping to change minds. So if there is a visionary CEO out there that sees what’s happening, that recognizes that Australia is being complacent, how would you recognize that they went about trying to change the minds of their managers, their leaders, their employees? To realize that we’ve got to be optimistic about this. We’ve got to, you know, look at the things, the great things that can happen. What are your thoughts about the best way to do that? I

Michael McQueen  42:40

think the first thing is, for leaders, that the most effective way to frame this is something that people will be open to, is to share your own experience, your own journey. And for most leaders, I’m speaking to even the most optimistic leaders about AI, they weren’t always that way, as they’re leading with the like, you know, I get it. I there was a time where I felt incredibly nervous, skeptical about this technology. What I learned was, and it’s almost that classic sales technique, you feel, felt found, I know how you feel. I felt the same way. What I found is that, and that’s the most effective way to validate someone else’s position, share your own experience, rather than facts and evidence and logic put in the context of your lived experience of someone you know, and then what you learned in the process of changing your own mind. And so I think that’s probably one of the most important things. The other thing is, you want to figure out, what are the what are the fears that underpin that complacency? And interestingly, we we tend to assume that humans are just Intuit, Intuit, intuitively, inherently afraid of change. We’ve heard that said for so many years, we assume it’s true. It’s not. Now, we’re not afraid of change as humans. What we’re afraid of is loss. The moment there’s loss involved in change, that’s when we dig our heels in, get resistance, switch off entirely, ignore the message or ignore the messenger, and so that the losses we need to be most aware of and the loss of power, the loss of dignity and the loss of certainty, an idea of something feels sure and certain. And if I change, I’m going to uncharted waters. I don’t understand what I don’t understand the new. And so that that is that that loss of certainty is what causes us to push back. And so if you look over history, some great ways that leaders have addressed those things, one of the most effective ones is to make change feel familiar. So frame it in a way that people go, okay, I get that. That makes sense. And if this is just sort of an extension on what I’ve already done, something we’ve already experienced, there’ll be far more open to it. So for instance, a good example of this would be like James Watt when he invented the steam turbine engine. It’s very analogous to what we’re seeing with AI right now. There was huge pushback, a lot of concern about these new machines coming in that would radically change society and upend industries and cause massive job losses. And of course, it did. It did trigger the Industrial Revolution, and some of those very things happened. But the challenge in those early stages was to get people to be open to the idea of these new. These new contraptions. And the genius move was for James Watt to describe the power of electro of steam turbine engines in terms of horsepower. And that’s why we still use that as our reference point. I mean, and use SpaceX rocket going into space near 300 million horsepower, what a lot of horses are measuring power. And that’s where it comes from. And so when people can hear, okay, so this is eight horsepower. I’ve got, I don’t have eight horses. I’ve got two horses. If this gives me the power of eight horses, I can’t afford eight. I’m open. I’m curious how this could work. And so I find, for instance, a conversation I had recently with someone who’s an early years grad lawyer, and was chatting recently, and she was a bit, almost, I wouldn’t say proud, that’s not the right term. But she was sort of like, I don’t use AI at all. She said, I really, I am nervous about AI, its ability to hallucinate. As a lawyer, I think it’s really important I spend the time, I do the reading, I go deep, I don’t rely on AI. And it was almost that badge of honor for her. And I get it, and she’s right. I mean, historically, in the in the in the law world, lots of hallucinations, I mean, embarrassing moments of lawyers bringing precedence or cases to the bench that were actually fabricated because AI generated this legal precedent didn’t exist, and so they’d skipped over all the discovery process in the in the research play, in research process for them. So AI, there are risks, but she was saying, I don’t use any of it because I don’t want the risks. Don’t want the risks. And I said, I get that. So the challenge is, if you don’t use some forms of AI, you’re going to find yourself way behind your peers and the marketplace, and you’ll go jobs, and they’ll be that says, if you don’t understand the technology, you won’t get the job, because it’s one of those sort of essential skills. So the best way to think about this. And this is like using the James Watt horsepower type thing. How do I describe AI in a way that makes sense? I said it’s almost like someone who is so in love with using a typewriter they didn’t want to embrace word processing, yeah, because it feels like cheating. It’s not the right way it and because what typewriting you have to be precise and thoughtful to undo something, to liquid paper, it to redo that page, required energy and effort, so you worked really hard to be precise and specific in what you wrote. Word Processing, Copy and Paste, Delete whole sections. You could say, that’s lazy and goodness. What a more effective way to create content or word processor. They said, it’s almost the same thing. They said, if you’re not able to be like the lawyers 35 years ago, who said, I’m not going to use a computer because I like my typewriter. That’s the way, that’s the way things should be written up. It could be the same. And I could just see for her, that was like a bit of a shift, which is like, okay, cool. I don’t want to get all out with AI, but I need to be open to using it in some ways and developing some of those skills. When I think

Graeme Cowan  47:41

of a leader did an amazing job at turning around an organization, it’s it’s sat in Adela at Microsoft, yeah, and I saw his video of his first day presenting to a large audience, and he shared some real vulnerability about his children having learning difficulties, yep, and tapping into technology and AI to help them learn when they couldn’t before. And so what he then did was to throw the challenge out to the excuse me out to the audience and say, What problems do you want to solve? How can you use Microsoft to solve those problems? Yeah, so it’s so in this deep sense of purpose that technology can be really helpful for things we want to solve. And I thought that was a great example of sharing vulnerability, but also a very personal story. But then throwing the challenge out to how can you use Microsoft to solve the problems that you’re worried about? And I thought, yeah, it was fantastic. It was

Michael McQueen  48:48

only I only read. So hit refresh, which is his book about that whole process of taking the reins. I only read that week before last. It’s been on my reading list for a long time. It’s just that I’m plowing through a whole pile of books at the moment and research for this next one. And it was on the list and it the list, and it was such a good book, so inspiring, because of the level of humanity, the honesty, I mean, him describing that first meeting when he was sort of installed as CEO. I was interim CEO at the time, I think. And he got all the leadership team together, and they were so used to competition, every group competing with each other, and so. And he got the group together, I think he got it was the Seattle Seahawks, or whoever, one of the teams locally that had just had a really winning streak, and they got the psychologist who’d done the work with that team to come in and sit with the leadership team. And they spent, after three day retreat, they spent the first day getting to know each other. These people have worked together for years, but they just it was that sense of, we’ve got the professional, then the personal. The personal was outside of it. And so there was that. And the other thing that really dropped out, and it goes to the theme we’re mentioning before. As you said, one of his key mandates at Microsoft was to go from a know it all company to a learner, all company love it, and that sense of of openness, again, Explorer versus expert. They’ve been the expert so many years. X. Experts defend, explorers discover, that’s that’s that that distinction, I think, is so relevant for like, for all of us, like, even for you and I, we’ve been in our worlds doing, you know, fairly high level, elite stuff for years. How do we never get to the point we think we’ve arrived, you know, where? Because we’ve had success doing something a certain way, we then defend that, we bed it in, we do it and we try and preserve that. And that’s the danger of any of us, and for anywhere in the years ahead, is to and to realize the moment you think you’ve made it, you’ve passed it. We’ve never made it. We’ve never arrived. There’s always the next thing to learn and to challenge our thinking with

Graeme Cowan  50:35

fantastic. Been amazing. Catching up with you today. Michael enjoyed our chat so much, and love how you keep your finger on the pulse of all these things happening. I will ask my final question first, but I’ll just also just add about influence. And when I interviewed Steve Warrell, the local Managing Director of Australia, he’d heard about this organization in the UK, would really wanted to bring mental health into the open in the workplace. And he had this idea of starting the corporate Mental Health Alliance, right, yep, but he knew that it would take time, and he knew there was no money in it for him or Microsoft, but he asked Sadie Nadella, you know this what I like to do, is that okay? And certainly said, Why are you asking? Of course, you should do it. Wow. And I’ve interviewed him and two other people that were in Microsoft during that transition, and the speed of change was unbelievable from being ultra competitive to embracing collaboration, embracing new ways of doing things. So yeah, I think we can learn lots. And maybe everyone should make a note if you haven’t read it, to read, to read to that book, because it is a wonderful way of getting people excited about learning. Yeah, great. Love it. The last question Michael is always knowing what you know now. What advice would you give your 18 year old self? Oh, wow. I

Michael McQueen  52:13

think it’s probably the advice that I was given as an 18 year old, and it was such helpful advice, and I kept it front of mind. I mean a lot along along the way, consistently, but it’s live. It’s proved to be so important for me, like playing a long game, really. And it’s that idea of public victories always preceded by private ones. You know, pay the private prices like this. No one cheers when you go on to do training. They cheer when you win the award at the end of the season. I think it’s the aim of so many areas of life. Like I mean, like you, I live so much my life in the public eye. Now, what people don’t see is all the stuff, the accumulation of just doing things in obscurity, just being diligent, being disciplined, even when you don’t feel like it. And I think so that was probably the best advice I got. Is that, I think it was certainly the case when I was at that stage of life, 1819, 20. I mean, this was pre social media, but there was that sense of everyone wanting to be in a hurry to make a name for themselves and be successful, become an influencer, even though it was a very early use term at the time, that is so much more the case now. Everyone wants instant success, huge number of followers. I mean, that idea of just being ordinary is essentially inexcusable to say, just having an ordinary life, everyone’s going to be amazing. And the problem with that is is the sensors got to be happy and fast, and if it doesn’t happen, faster on the wrong track. And so that was the best advice I got at the time. Is just do the have the private victories, do the stuff that noone sees. And again, that notion, if it was easy, everyone would do it. And so like, if it’s not easy, you’re probably on the right track. Assist, do the things people aren’t seeing, because the public victories will come if you’re just diligent in the private ones. And so that that was the best advice I got. And I’ll probably go back and just underline that and highlight it, because it really was the thing that kept me focused over the years. Because for a lot of years, it was of years, it was just gradually and slowly sustainably building my business research. I mean it it all happened slowly. For me. It wasn’t overnight. And I’m actually grateful in many ways, if that’s the case,

Graeme Cowan  54:14

I love also, and this is a parallel to that, that I heard this Olympic athlete being interviewed, and he said, as an Olympic athlete, you only have to train twice. You have to train when you feel like it and when you don’t feel like it. Thank you so much for being part of the Keurig CEO Michael, it’s been a real pleasure having you on my pleasure. Great to chat. Cheers. 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 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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