Fiona Gordon (00:08)
Hi everyone and welcome back to Undubbed, where we're unscripted, uncensored and undeniably data. We're here today to have another episode in the series of What Makes a Great-----? And we threw this one out open to our followers on LinkedIn and gave them a few different options 67 % of people decided that they wanted to hear about what makes a great work culture. So that's it, that's what we're rolling with.

today. Welcome to the episode, Sarah.

Sarah (00:39)
Thanks, Fi. Looking forward to it.

Fiona Gordon (00:42)
Also looking pretty schmick there For people that are listening and tuning in, Sarah's got this beautiful black and white embroidered undubbed trucker hat.

Sarah (00:49)
is

What could possibly go wrong today?

Fiona Gordon (00:53)
Well, who knows? Really? It's one of our podcasts. Anything could go wrong.

Alright, let's get stuck into it. No point us rabbiting on. Why don't you kick it off with something that you reflect on that makes a great work culture.

Sarah (01:09)
So Fi, one of the big parts of work culture to me is having safety in the workplace. And I'm not talking about hard hats and so forth, I'm talking about psychological safety and it's really key. A lot of the big corps and I think smaller organizations now do have channels like Speak Up, but encouraging people to use them seems to be the trickier piece. Now, some of the...

examples that I've seen where it has worked is where you've got a leader that encourages people to use Speak Up when they need to and leans into that. you can have all the policies and processes in place, but unless you're talking about it actively, it's not going to work on the floor. So where I've seen it being really successful is when managers have said, hey, that thing that you've just come across.

I think that's a speak up and let's work on that together and go through the process together.

Fiona Gordon (02:06)
Interesting. I like that having the manager to pitch in on it as well, because it could feel, a little isolating for people. I've seen it work in pockets really well. But I also think at times, there's a bit of lip service that does come through leadership, particularly those at the higher levels of an organization. Great call out though.

just establishing trust, really important in order for that process to work.

Sarah (02:35)
Yeah, completely agree. So Fi, you've just said a big key word here, trust. Now I'm sure you've got something to say about trust and culture.

Fiona Gordon (02:40)
Mm.

spot on. You need to be able to trust what your leaders are saying in terms of a culture and trust your peers as well that they're not going to throw you under the bus if you don't have that trust, you're constantly (or maybe) thinking, is someone out to get me? Can we really be productive when we don't have that foundation of trust? And I would say, nah, not at all.

So trust is a big one for me, being able to know that people aren't jamming knives in your back, aren't undermining the projects that you've got. nodding along, yes, I'll be involved in that in the meetings with all of the leadership team. And then next minute you hear that they're undermining the process, going off with their own project. So it's really important to establish trust throughout an organization.

Sarah (03:32)
Yeah, and when you've seen it go wrong a little bit, so there is a lot of that yes and then no, I've seen that as well. What are some of the things you think can culturally shift to mitigate that going forward?

Fiona Gordon (03:48)
the big word that comes out in front of mind for me is accountability.

Sometimes accountability can feel like a massive weight. But when people see you taking accountability or responsibility for something and actually delivering on it, it furthers the trust that you build within organizations.

Sarah (04:05)
I like that looping background to trust again, because it is such a cornerstone of great culture. something else you mentioned is within accountability, it's having people that do come in and say, hey, actually, you're not being truthful or pulling people up on where they are going a little bit off topic

having people that are also going to marshal that and be really responsible

So any specifics you wanna talk about, Fi, in terms of work culture, any great shining beacons of work culture that you've had in your career where you've just gone, that's amazing. And I wish everyone could replicate this.

Fiona Gordon (04:46)
cultures that I really love working in is when it's where everyone rolls up their sleeves to help one another. And I suppose it's kind of like what I imagine the army's like, never leave someone behind that creates that team unity along the way. what

that has meant for me in the past is as a geek or an analyst, I've been pulled into stuffing envelopes for the marketing team because they're running late on a promo, or they've sat down with me while I've been coding something. And that means that none of them are leaving the office. We're all sitting in there until we really get the job done. And that makes me feel like I'm belonging to something that has a great purpose, but I'm not.

being left behind as it's happening. So that's been a really great experience for me in multiple organizations that I've worked in. Have you had that experience at all?

Sarah (05:43)
Yeah, I've seen that and I do love it. I love it when everyone bands together and it's like, we've got to get this thing out the door. And I love your example of it may not even be my thing or other people's thing, but they're all in the office. So let's see where we can help, whether it's stuffing envelopes or watching someone code or, anything else in between. I think it's really important to show that camaraderie.

Fiona Gordon (06:09)
I love that word camaraderie. So what else Sarah?

Sarah (06:12)
Almost didn't get it off my tongue then, but I managed.

So one of the things I really enjoyed at one of my organizations was, early on in COVID days, we all were all of a sudden on Zoom calls, it felt like 24 seven. And, we see a lot of what we call in human centered design, the hippo. So the hippo is the highest paid person ('s opinion) in the room. Now, when you're in a Zoom call, it's very equal all of a sudden, because you're all the same size on the screen.

and you've got the highest paid person in the room, and they can quite often dominate the conversation, everyone listens and doesn't want to respond. we noticed that really early on in our daily stand-ups where a new leader came in no one really wanted to step out of line or say anything different. a really great

leader within the within the team. she would enforce round robin so every time something of relevance that was said by the hippo she would take note to go around the room

and make sure that everyone got a voice. it was so uncomfortable to start with. So uncomfortable.

Fiona Gordon (07:30)
Is that I think I've heard of Hippo before the way that it's been described to me. There's one slight add, so it's the highest paid person's opinion.

Sarah (07:41)
Sorry, yes, you've got that right. I always just think of it as highest paid person in the room, because that's the opinion we're listening to.

Fiona Gordon (07:49)
yeah.

I really like the way that they would go around and do the opinions of everyone else and do the circle.

thinking of a hippo, it just sounds like that they're going to back up that fat booty and squash everyone else's opinions along the way.

Sarah (08:04)
Ha!

On that note, what else, what else, what makes a great culture?

Fiona Gordon (08:05)
Ha!

Perhaps one thing reflecting on our culture for Dub Dub is that we have a lot of empathy, I think, for one another. In fact, candidly, people might think this is a bit weird, but I've cried the most in this organization, than any other organization that I've worked in, and I think that comes back more to do with what's going on in our personal lives and being really empathetic to that and how that then impacts our professional lives as well.

you let's be candid about it. You can't just have a brick wall between both, you know, there's things that leech in and out. that the way that we support one another and the way that we lead with empathy is a really an incredible experience to be a part of.

Sarah (08:56)
I agree. And leaning into the crying. I mean, I was crying on the last podcast, This equally for me, I'm not someone that normally cries at work, but hey, if it happens, it happens. it's great to have you there supporting me through it. And we're spending so much time together right now. I feel like we're in the room with each other all day anyway, which is also a great thing.

Fiona Gordon (09:20)
Mm, mm, for sure. Okay, that was a short one. Over to you.

Sarah (09:25)
Yeah, so I want to just go into maybe something a little bit more fun in the work culture. So some of the fun things that I've experienced is just around a bit of quirkiness. I used to have a manager, his name was Jonno - And he used to insist on our Friday meetings that were in a big glass office at the end of a big board floor, open to the finance department.

that we would have YouTube Friday. someone would have to find a YouTube clip, it had to be kind of under three minutes. And that was how we would introduce our meeting. And that would set the tone for the meeting. And at the end of every meeting, the next person was chosen. So you had a week to come up with something.

Fiona Gordon (10:13)
you

Sarah (10:14)
And my gosh, some of the things, sometimes it was very serious and very, you know, what was going on in the world. And other times it was just completely left field and it would leave us all rolling around the floor in fits of laughter and the whole finance department looking at us wondering why we were so happy. But, you know, it gave us so much to talk about. that's important as well is when you're communicating with these people that you're spending 40 hours a week with minimum.

day to day, having something just completely random to laugh about. And one of the ones where I think was the high or low depending, maybe research it, is a song called Willy Willy Bum Bum.

Fiona Gordon (10:48)
Mm.

gonna leave that one there. I mean, we can have an explicit tag on the session. It's fine. leaning in a little bit to that around having fun. We used to have a lot of corporate off sites, and maybe it slowed down a lot with COVID and perhaps is not ramped up as much as the appetite for return to office.

Sarah (11:02)
You

Fiona Gordon (11:18)
But hopefully we'll see more of those kind of activities occurring because you find when you're bringing people together for an extended period of time, if it's two nights, it could be three days almost, two and a half days that you're spending together. really those times that you're not just doing the activities of the conference, but perhaps breaking bread together.

that triggers the breakthroughs that you often have. people become more human. you get to really understand what drives them as people. You find things that you can connect with them on as well, which can really help to grease the wheels when you're working in some more high pressure environments.

I hope to see more of those corporate off-sites with spending time together and really trying to connect on the personal level.

Sarah (12:16)
I agree. And when I reflect back onto my last role here in New Zealand, we used to go to Waiheke Island every December, just for a day. was the team. It probably around 15 of us. And we'd start off the morning, we'd have to do a little bit of workshopping and things. But then by lunchtime, it was off to a vineyard, nice long lunch, couple of great wines. Waiheke Island, for those that don't know, is very famous for

Fiona Gordon (12:28)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (12:46)
It's wine collection and I can actually just see it out of my window, it's a great, great island if you're ever in New Zealand to visit. what we got out of that, again, was a lot of laughter, a lot of jokes and something to look forward to. You we knew every December when the weather was great, we were gonna go away to Waiheke and have some good laughs together and like you said, break some bread.

Fiona Gordon (12:57)
Mm-hmm.

I have very vivid memories of going up north to far north Queensland and having activities throughout the day. We'd have speakers come in. We'd be doing things together between the marketing and sales teams. The vibe was electric.

Then, next minute, we were split off into groups and we had to record something, dressing up as Steve Irwin along the way, and just getting crazy on. we all watched the videos afterwards and had a good laugh. And anyone who's trying to record a video that's not used to being a content creator really cringes at themselves. But the fact that people could let their egos down and just have a bit of fun.

really personalised who the individuals were and makes it a lot easier when a problem's happening and you need to pick up the phone and go, hey, Beau, what's the story?

Sarah (14:00)
Yeah, having that connection and a slightly different connection out of the office environment is so important to get a different sense of who people are. sometimes we can really just focus on, okay, this person does this job and I need this out of them. a little bit more around, what they're open to tell you about around their personal life can be really important and can you understand them a little bit more in their journey.

Fiona Gordon (14:25)
Mm-hmm. So what else is on the list?

Sarah (14:30)
So another one for me is really around collaboration. I've spent a lot of time working with off offshore teams. And one of a really great work culture that I unexpectedly walked in on in one of my roles was meeting a woman who led the offshore side of my team her name was Rekha and she was amazing.

from the minute I met her, she just really, really wanted to collaborate with me. She knew the value of getting me on side and being on side. And we would have so many great conversations she really wanted to listen to what the direction I was steering and she had great feedback she really wanted to collaborate. And it wasn't lip service. It was.

let's make this work together, Sarah. Your success is my success. Everything was based around teamwork and pulling things together. I had to have some tough conversations with her at times and, mention members of her team that I didn't think were performing. And her response was always I've got your back, Sarah. I know what I need to do and I will help you get through this and we will get it through together. And those are some of the things that made us an offshoring with her and that lead role.

So, so successful.

Fiona Gordon (15:47)
Oh my goodness, offshoring, a whole other game, in terms of different cultures coming together and working, listening to what you were saying there. Funnily enough, you talk about, she really listened to you. And our bestie PK has told us, go in and give people a good hard listening to.

And that's actually resonated through other people that have worked with PK in the past and they've told me the same thing. give people a good hard listening to him by the sounds of things. Rekha absolutely did that. And I love that she was so aware that you would have mutual success if you could come together by doing it.

Fantastic. Sounds like Reka would be a great person to have on our podcast at some point about how to work with the different global cultures. I want to continue a little bit on the culture side, but slightly adjacent. it's really important for leaders to hire people for fit on culture. So not just about what technical skills they have.

or even what soft skills they have, but indeed whether or not they would be a great fit for the type of culture that you've developed. So for instance, if you have a really strong culture of feedback, where people actually have to present their work publicly and get feedback from the team, people who struggle to adapt to feedback or potentially have rejection sensitivities may really push back on this.

And then they start to undermine your culture and your vision. So they become that voice of negativity. They're trying to say, this isn't great. And really, you know, tearing things off the direction that the leaders are trying to put in place. So I think it's really important for leaders to hire for a fit on culture

Sarah (17:37)
Yeah, I really like that. And it's something that you see some organizations do really well and others not. I do wonder with having so much more data now and a lot of focus on soft skills and a lot of profiling, how that will evolve and improve potentially over time, getting that right cultural fit when hiring.

Fiona Gordon (18:04)
Yeah, 100%. it really leads from this new push, and I say new, you know, and a push in the last four or five years around diversity. But what happens when you pull a really diverse bunch of people together, as if they don't have, they don't share the same values.

then they just tear one another apart. So it's really important to consider how you hire and what you're adding into the team and how this may evolve your culture and is it the right add to be doing in this space.

Sarah (18:44)
Yeah, I really like that. the other risk you can run if you've got pockets of competing cultures is you can almost form groups and silos and that's when it gets really hard to get back out of.

Fiona Gordon (18:53)
Yeah.

Spot on.

Sarah (19:02)
So something else that's on my mind is around the culture of feedback.

Fiona Gordon (19:08)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (19:10)
So what's your thoughts? When I was reflecting on culture, I was looking at some of the programs around feedback that have been instilled, the 360 and some of the gamification. You can get badges or rewards and so forth if you do this feedback to certain people. And what's some of your thoughts on that, Fi? Things that you've seen go well.

when

Fiona Gordon (19:36)
So I've spent a lot of time in coaching teams for delivering feedback along the way. Now there's two types of feedback. There's directive and there's suggestive. So sometimes you are gonna hear feedback where there's no choice, but you need to adapt or change. And some of that might be as much as changing a font or something on a presentation, because it's not quite right. Or it can be actually changing your behavior and directive on that as well.

I like when people are clear with me around is this suggestive or is it directive upfront. So it's really clear for me what's expected of me through this process. So in a suggestive manner, I train people to talk about the things they like and also the things that they would suggest changing.

the reason why that's really effective is the individual that's receiving the feedback can take it on board or they can just push it to the side. so it's less confronting for people to adapt. It still is confronting, especially if they're hearing that feedback publicly from a group of people. But I have seen incredible growth from people who stick with it.

go through it, experience it a few times, and then really start to see the value of what's happening.

Sarah (20:59)
I

like how you talk around being really clear around subjective or directive feedback. And it comes full circle to that trust build as well, because you're being very open and you're telling people that, this is how you're going to deliver the feedback and for them to be able to trust in the process of what you're delivering and why.

Fiona Gordon (21:06)
Mm.

Mm.

spot on and then as a leader, knowing if you are giving directive feedback, you can tell if people are starting to shut down or if they can't take it anymore, and saying, should we take a break on it? Should we, put a pin in it for now and come back? But being, clear that you will come back and revert to the conversation, this isn't just a get out of jail free card.

Sarah (21:46)
very nice, very nice indeed. I want to...

Fiona Gordon (21:48)
What else

on feedback? Do you have some ideas on feedback?

Sarah (21:52)
Yeah, so I've seen feedback is a big journey that I think has evolved in the last couple of decades in terms of how we handle it. It's a thing that you give once a year and it hits you like a cannonball because your managers not talk to you about it for the whole year.

And I've struggled with that in the past and as a result of that have made sure that similar to you that I'm giving constant feedback and I'm allowing my team or the peers, people around me to understand how I'm going to deliver that feedback as well. So I feel it's very much to me around giving feedback as close to the time it's required as possible.

rather than saving it all up for an end of year review or something like that, which historically I really saw happen in my early days. So I'm glad that that has evolved. And with tools that have come on, some of the organizations that I've worked in has allowed like a feedback circle. whether it's anonymous, some of them have...

Fiona Gordon (22:47)
Mm.

Sarah (23:00)
allowed that so people that maybe don't feel as comfortable giving the feedback they want to. It's an interesting one. I'd rather it not to be anonymous, but I feel sometimes people feel more comfortable doing it that way.

the most important one is just making sure it's as open and honest as possible and that it's as close to the event as possible as well.

Fiona Gordon (23:24)
Mmm.

That's a really important one, being close to the event because it'll be fresh in the mind of the person who you're delivering it to. it's also really important to ask for feedback. you and I had a call this morning, straight after the call, I asked you for some feedback on it because we're still growing and learning and having that third party as an observer as well on the things that I can improve on really helps. But I just want to circle back to one

point that you made around the anonymity of feedback.

Being anonymous doesn't give you the right to just, yeah, just troll or have verbal diarrhea and just offload a lot of your feelings and vent on people. You know, really put yourself in the shoes of the person that you're delivering feedback to and try and make it so that it's not just your feelings that have bubbled up, but.

Sarah (24:02)
Troll.

Fiona Gordon (24:20)
constructive that would help them to improve, whether it was their delivery of something or the way they went about it, the way that they spoke, whatever it is, help them to see your perspective. And if you, really just run off at the mouth around it, they're gonna shut down, feel defensive and not really take that on board. Cause they're gonna be like, this person's just got a chip on the shoulder.

And quite frankly, they'd be well within their rights to do that. If you say something, you're like, that was kind of came off wrong. Be really vulnerable with it and say, I didn't quite mean it like that. Let me try again and have another crack at it. this is really important to sharpening your own skills at delivering feedback along the way.

Sarah (25:04)
Yeah, I like that. the other thing that you've just highlighted is vulnerability as well. We're all human. Sometimes we don't get it right. You know, when you and I delivered our feedback session after our call today, what I loved about it is we were very vulnerable. And it's like, yeah, I'll take note of that. And I think the other piece that I enjoyed about it is

taking that time to reflect back, we kind of slowly pulled other bits out and had a really open, honest conversation around things that we would potentially change.

Fiona Gordon (25:36)
It was really great feedback and I feel like that's another reason for a lot of growth in myself that I'm having at the moment with running Dub Dub So that segues really nicely into

I love companies that encourage growth and learning. a uni degree shouldn't be the last time that you're investing in learning something new. Companies who dedicate the time to learning for their people is a huge win for me. And obviously at JLL, where part of my role was enablement, that's why I'm so passionate about it because I saw the growth in individuals, our

retention rate was something like 7.8 % over a period that in other parts of the organization, it was over 20%. And more globally, it was 35 % in the data and analytics space. So that was obviously when a lot of people were transitioning over COVID and turning over jobs. People wanted to stay at JLL because we invested in their skill sets and capabilities with our gamification programs.

Sarah (26:41)
Now, if you use call that as a retention, is that not a attrition?! Wouldn't your retention be in its 90s? And your attrition? Yes.

Fiona Gordon (26:47)
did I call it retention? Yeah, thanks. Yeah. So

the attrition was 7.8%. So that was really good retention on the other side. Thank you. But I still love, to this day, seeing all of the achievements of those amazing people at JLL come through with their digital credentials. And it's a real buzz to see that they're continuing to focus improving their skill set and capability.

Sarah (26:55)
Hahaha

again.

Yeah, yeah. learning is so key to culture. I think most of us really want to learn. giving that time and space for people to learn while they're at work is, your retention, attrition statistics really highlight that. I've got a case specifically.

where a peer of mine called Leah, her and her team would have learning days. And I think it was on a Friday and it might've been weekly or fortnightly, but that was their time. That was their no meeting time and they were gonna go and do dedicated learning. And I saw some really great stuff come out of that team. And I think it was because they took that time and that breathing space to go and learn the things that they needed to learn to do their jobs.

Fiona Gordon (28:00)
Yeah, spot on. mean, at JLL, they had every Friday afternoon, there was an hour for viz review. So that's the feedback sessions. And then there was an hour for learning as well. So really setting that aside, at a time of the week that people just want the week to be over. They were actually investing in themselves, which was superb.

Do you have anything else to add? I have plenty more.

Sarah (28:27)
I have so much more. on that continuous learning and development and asking for feedback and so forth, I've worked with some great people over my years. I actually, one woman, Hansini, she's worked for me a couple of different times. And something that I always loved around her feedback was she was always, hey, Sarah, like,

Fiona Gordon (28:29)
You

Sarah (28:53)
maybe this could have gone this way if we'd done it this like this. So she was always constantly like pushing the boundaries and saying, what if we did it like this next time? And not being scared to come to her manager and being really direct.

Fiona Gordon (29:00)
Mm.

Sarah (29:07)
she'd always do a little bit of like investigative work Like, I've just heard the team over here is doing this. And I think that's really successful because of X, Y, and Z. maybe we should look at it as well. I really loved how she would think well outside the scope of our department and look at what others were doing and to take that on board.

I think back to the cultural side of it, it's building that trust where the leader is open and demonstrates that, where anyone can come in and have a suggestion and change a direction potentially.

Fiona Gordon (29:40)
Okay, I've got another one. I think in a great culture, it means commitment to the vision. Now, the vision doesn't have to be the organization's vision. It could be your broader team's vision as well. But this means that people aren't nodding along to the vision. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, But they're like...

roll their eyes, they're like, totally don't believe in that. And they, undermine what's actually going on. If you don't believe in the vision, get out.

you'll be pushing against it. You won't really be bought in. You won't be energized by it. it's not going to rock your world to come to work every day. Cause you know, sometimes work is just the grind, but if you really believe in what you're doing, the times at which it is just the grind will fly by because you'll be at the next stage of really trying to make that vision actually happen.

Sarah (30:34)
Yeah, I agree. And I like how you've said it doesn't have to be the organization's vision. And it's actually reminded me of a really good thing that a previous manager, Greg, to do. And what he would do is we would have a, at the beginning of each year, we would have a three-day workshop. And everyone in his department was pulled in to rooms. We were offshore, so there was multiple rooms.

but we would all get to have a say and we would all get to shape our department vision. And that meant that everyone bought into it. Everyone had a little piece of the puzzle to play and they knew what their role was, they knew what their interest was and it it shaped it beautifully. And at the end of that workshop, we were all so pumped to go forward and deliver

Fiona Gordon (31:24)
Greg sounds like an awesome leader.

Sarah (31:25)
He is.

Fiona Gordon (31:28)
Okay, another one for you, celebrating the wins. So, hands up, who's one of those people who does lots of projects, gets to the end, and then continues through into the next project, or has 50 other projects on the go. That's definitely me.

Sarah (31:44)
Yes, me too.

Fiona Gordon (31:46)
And it's really easy because what are we doing? We're chasing solving problems because we all love to solve problems along the way. But it's really important to stop and smell the roses, making sure that teams and individuals are recognized where their efforts have culminated in success. Also measuring that success as well is really important. If you have an ROI that you've delivered, being able to trumpet that out and it really embeds the value of your team along the way.

Leaders making sure that they're celebrating the wins making sure that they're giving people pats on the back It doesn't just have to be like bonuses and all that kind of culture It can be you know a shout out on a team's channel where there's lots of people on there and they're getting that recognition

Actually, I read some research a long time ago that said the biggest impact and change is when the individual's line manager says thank you. So simple, so simple, but they say, you know, thank you so much. That's really amazing what you've done. I know that, if you're getting two and a half percent pay rises, that doesn't pay the bills along the way. But it's, it is important to know that you are being

noticed for what you're doing and I'm sure that leaders who can will remunerate you if they're a great leader

Sarah (33:00)
Yeah, and it's something that I see that I really love is at the end of a project having the stakeholder, and even if, if you're the project lead on it, sitting down with a stakeholder and saying, Hey, these are the people that really went out of their way. Can you put an email out to them, and, over time, maybe they'll, they'll just start doing it naturally.

Having people see the impact of what they're doing upstream, think is great.

Fiona Gordon (33:27)
Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing that can tear the culture apart, and I just sort of referred to it a little bit there, is bonuses.

Depending on the size of a bonus in an organization, those bonuses can put such monetary incentives in place that people just want to play their individual game instead of the team game. And so if the KPIs aren't aligned, it very quickly, it dissolves into people.

doing a lot of that, yes, yes, yes, I'm gonna be involved in to, there's no way that I'm spending any time on Sarah's program because I've got this big bonus that's sitting over my head and I need to focus on my project, which will deliver that.

Sarah (34:14)
Yes, yeah, the bonus culture is a very interesting one that I've seen through many different organizations and I completely agree. You don't want it to be the sole reason why people do every single thing and they calculate it, right? Yeah, I really agree on that one. You were talking a little bit around ways that people can feel appreciated. Something that I always...

Fiona Gordon (34:31)
Mm.

Sarah (34:43)
liked and one of my managers, Sean, used to do is unofficially, he would always say, when it's your birthday, you get a day off.

And I know other organizations that have had duvet days or doona days as they call them in Australia. So it's just that kind of little thing that's not through the HR department. It's off on the side, but it says, hey, I appreciate you and why not take your birthday off? Or hey, if you're not feeling the greatest one day, you wake up and you just wanna.

Fiona Gordon (35:02)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (35:21)
effectively call a sickie, but let's not call it a sickie. Let's actually give it a better name, a doona day or a duvet day. And I think as we evolved, they became during COVID, became mental health days as well. It's like, I'm just not fronting up today. And I think having a culture where that is okay is great as well.

Fiona Gordon (35:32)
Mm.

Any final thoughts?

Sarah (35:46)
well, I think I feel we're only touching the tip of the iceberg on this. And there's so many great things that people can do when it comes to improving their work culture and what makes a great culture. I just hope that this podcast has inspired people to make a little change, to move the needle just a little bit and how they work with their colleagues or work, as a leader or

encourage their leaders to maybe improve their culture just a little bit. What about you, Fi?

Fiona Gordon (36:19)
I

love that. My final thoughts is around work culture. Also make sure that you've got a data-driven culture.

Sarah (36:26)
Of course!

Fiona Gordon (36:30)
And with that thought, think that we can wrap up today's podcast. Thanks so much for all of your amazing insights, Sarah. I've had a blast. Bye.

Sarah (36:38)
Me too, thanks, Fi. Catch you later, everybody.

 

Sarah (00:08)
Hi everybody and welcome to Undubbed, Where Where Unscripted, Uncensored and Undeniably Data. Now today we've got a new series for you and it's called What Makes a Great? And today we're starting with What Makes a Great Leader? So, Fi, over to you. What Makes a Great Leader?

Fiona Gordon (00:33)
So many things make a great leader. I think it's really easy to say what doesn't make a great leader and for the mind to flick into things that aren't so positive. But I'm gonna start with going back to earlier in my career and talking about one of my early leaders. Murray had a knack for sitting back and observing.

What makes a great leader are people who observe, looking for where people can excel along the way and helping find them ways to excel in line with the vision or strategy of the organization. Murray hired me to build an access database to reconcile assets. I had no experience with that whatsoever, but he'd seen that I had really good Excel skills.

Even in the interview, I was saying to him, I haven't done this before. And he's like, "don't worry, you'll be fine". You've got great Excel skills. Already he was observing a skill set that was adjacent and knowing that I would be good to go and do what he needed. As I was working for him, I had a couple of months in a contract. He observed me helping the guy next to him analyze trends. And so he found me work to do that same trend analysis as well.

Thinking back, there was also another leader who did this sort of observation. At another organization, John had his personal analyst leave the organization and there was only a few days to pick up and understand her work. They gave me a few months to automate it. Now, John was actually the CEO of the organization and he would walk the floors and stop.

and ask people questions about what they were working on. So whilst I was replacing his previous analyst just to do some automation, I wasn't reporting directly to him. So he would ask me what I was working on. He enjoyed the chat around it and sort of walked off and I didn't think anything less. Now I finished that.

that particular job in half the time that I needed to. And even though I'd figured out a new job to start that was a permanent role instead of the contract, John heard that I was going to be leaving and he pulled me into his office and spent over an hour convincing me to stay. And he created me a role in his organization as well. What stands out for me in those two examples was that

they were taking time to really understand, whether it's a silent observation or if it's actually coming and having a chat to somebody and observing what things people are really good at and then finding space for them to really excel in.

Sarah (03:14)
Yeah, and I really like how you've talked as well around, the CEO, John, of the organization, walking the floor. We've worked in really big organizations, and we've seen the big hierarchies that it can have. And to see someone like John walking the floor and how much he got out of having you, encouraging you to stay on

and perform a role that he had the ability to know that you could do that purely because he'd walked the floor and came and seen that. One of the things about being a great leader is cutting through the hierarchy and actually talking to everyone in the organization. I know that we've seen initiatives come in like the skip level

reviews which has tried to encourage that. But what I liked about your story is you've got John that's just taken the initiative to get to know the people on his floor. And at the time, I think you said you were a contractor there. So you were kind of the lowest on the scale almost.

Fiona Gordon (04:18)
Not even lowest from being a contractor, I think lowest from just, simply being at the stage in my career where I was at. I was young. I was so young that I was naive that thinking, this is normal for somebody to come and have a chat. I haven't seen a lot of that actually occur later in my career.

Perhaps it becomes more difficult as we have more virtual organizations where we're working online a lot more. It's something that definitely sticks out to me and would be something that I would want to go back to as well and find that kind of leadership again.

Sarah (04:56)
Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Fiona Gordon (04:59)
So Sarah, tell me about something that stuck out for you around great leadership.

Sarah (05:05)
Yeah, and I just gonna say back to your original point, it's very easy to think of some bad leaders in my time. And I, I'm lucky to have a lot of great leaders. One that's automatically kind of comes to my head is a manager called Adam.

A couple of years ago, I was going through a really tough time with my son's schooling and I was in quite a high pressure job and I actually, feeling a bit emotional about this one already, but had to just sort it out. I was a single mom in another country and it had to be resolved. And I think...

Fiona Gordon (05:50)
Take a moment.

Sarah (05:51)
Yeah.

think great leaders can show a bit of compassion as well. Yeah. I had to take quite a bit of time off work and resolve this. And what I really remember is my leader, Adam,

not only saying but really standing behind that he and the management team would do and support me in whichever way that I needed to be supported.

And not just saying it but actually following through. And I remember for quite some time, our one on ones would always start with, him asking about the situation and whether it had improved or not. And then also, just making sure that, small things his EA would make sure that during certain times of the day,

things weren't booked for me, so I could just make sure that transition worked.

Fiona Gordon (07:02)
Thank you for sharing that.

I know how hard it is to open up in particular when we're having these conversations. We don't even know where it's going to go or who it's going to reach along the way.

It's important to recognise that we can't compartmentalise what's actually going on in our personal life to what's going on in our professional life as well. As much as we would like to be able to shut the door to our office or come into work in person and say, okay, well now's the work time. Actual what is happening at home impacts work and what is happening at work impacts home as well.

Sarah (07:41)
Yes, to finish off that story, throughout the entire time of this, Adam was very conscious about not ever stepping over boundaries. So asked permission to talk about it each time because it was upsetting. No, I got upset just now. Like imagine how upsetting it was at the time. So he would, make sure we were in a quiet space,

Fiona Gordon (07:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Sarah (08:07)
asked me if I wanted to talk about it at all. And if not, he would put his business face back on and off we would go. I really appreciated that. So I feel a really big part of being what makes a great leader is empathy

Fiona Gordon (08:21)
Okay, next.

Sarah (08:25)
So Fi, what makes a great leader?

Fiona Gordon (08:29)
Another thing that makes a great leader is people who coach. I had a leader, his name was Strav, who has taught me some of the best resilience and perseverance techniques that I try to help other people with as I've started to lead them.

Now our roles weren't always sunshine and roses. You know, there was kind of politics like any large organization. Have any of you tried to get a tool implemented where there's one that already exists that's similar in nature? Yeah, and how did that go? It often feels like you're just tapping against that brick wall.

Sarah (09:04)
Me me!

Yeah, really hard.

Fiona Gordon (09:13)
Many organizations back in the day that used to be Qlik versus Tableau, now it would be Tableau versus Power BI in data visualization. With Strav, we'd go into meetings with senior individuals and I was a lowly manager. Now I use that as a way to describe the hierarchy within organizations. I was a manager and I was going into meetings with head-ofs, managing directors.

Yet Strav would let me prep and talk. I was the one with experience in data and analytics. Strav was the leader in terms of the operational transformations that were going on.

And most of the time I would walk out of that meeting feeling really downtrodden, like I'd made a shedload of mistakes and that there was no chance of moving forward. And why would I feel that way? Well, there would always be a lot more senior individuals who were backing the different tool to what I was backing. They would come in and one after the other, they would ask,

questions and I would respond to them but when you're the one person responding it makes it feel like you're defensive, yeah you're on defense the whole time and it comes across like that. So even though I would walk out of the meetings feeling like there was zero chance that this would move forward even though I knew that it was the way that we should be going, Strav would always find this single glimmer of light that was seeping through this

Sarah (10:26)
It's an attack. It's a bit of an attack.

Fiona Gordon (10:47)
brick wall. The reason why I describe it like that was because we were just trying to chip away all the time and we'd go into these meetings and I'd be banging my head against that brick wall. And we'd come out and, Strav and I'd go for a cigarette to start with. Good times back in the day. He would just sit there and he would talk about the one glimmering light and he would grab a crowbar and say that's

what we're doing and it just wedged open We'd get through that brick wall and wouldn't you know it there's another one across the side as well. So off we trot until the next time that we came up against the naysayers. This has been really important to me to focus on the fact that people will come up with a hundred different reasons to shoot down your ideas but if you can find ways to navigate around them that positive technique focusing on the positives

you eventually find a breakthrough.

Sarah (11:46)
Yeah, I really like that. And you mentioned earlier around, coaching. So did you find that Strav coached you to how you ultimately leveraged that crowbar technique into your own leadership?

Fiona Gordon (12:01)
Absolutely. The muscle memory that he was creating for me as I felt downtrodden and like I failed and it wasn't going to work and we weren't going to get it across the line because he was role modeling this behavior of no, Fifi, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and would go through it. It helped me to understand even if you were hearing no from people, there's always a way around it.

He would, you know, chip in and some of these meetings where he would see they were going off and he would prime some of the ideas where he was getting the glimmers of light as well. How he coached was really about helping me to understand where to focus on. When I stepped back as I matured in my career, I could see.

it's an incredibly powerful tool that even when you feel like there is no more moving forward there's always opportunities to get around things.

Sarah (12:56)
My mind just actually wandered to a time where I had a manager talking about kind of opportunities and seeing things. It was my first role straight out of university and I was working in the coffee industry. And I always say I kind of had two managers there. So I had...

John who was our general manager, and I had Nick who was our marketing manager. I had to come in and tell them something that was going to impact how I was going to get to work each day. go into details. I remember I had to sit both of them down and tell them and I was young, I straight out of university, I was so nervous, I thought I was going to get fired. And

Fiona Gordon (13:37)
fresh.

Sarah (13:40)
funny story. Well, maybe not so funny. But the first thing Nick said was don't worry, when I was eight, I shot my cousin in the leg. Bearing in mind, I had not done anything remotely like that. That was kind of going to the extreme. I was like, okay. And then John turned around and said, Well, we've got this opportunity over here that we need you to work on. And let's do it.

And I just really remember thinking, wow, I thought, I'm going to get fired. I'm going to lose my job. You know, this is horrible. And Nick came up with some random comment that popped into his head about shooting his cousin in the leg.

And John had already in his head come up with another opportunity and gone forward with that and off I went, which maybe didn't quite learn my lesson like I should have, but love the leadership style.

Fiona Gordon (14:33)
That is amazing, so I need to pause on a couple of things there. One, just for anyone who's listening, it's not normal for people in New Zealand to shoot one another.

Sarah (14:44)
No, no.

Fiona Gordon (14:46)
But I love how he just took it down into what's the worst thing he could probably think of to make you feel better. You know, cause we're human. We are human and we've all done silly things. I also love that it wasn't like their first thought wasn't punishment. It was like, how are we going to turn this frown upside down?

Sarah (15:04)
Yeah, exactly. I still laugh about it now.

Fiona Gordon (15:08)
I love it. I need to go and work for John and Nick.

Sarah (15:10)
Yeah. Well,

I actually caught up with Nick recently and yeah, love the fact we're still in contact.

Fiona Gordon (15:18)
That's awesome.

Sarah (15:19)
So any more stories popping into your head, Fi, on what makes a great leader?

Fiona Gordon (15:23)
Yeah, absolutely. So another one from Strav and he's made a huge dent, I reckon, in my career. Strav was a leader who really understood how important it was to have tough conversations.

Some of my best roles that I've had, I've also had my most difficult struggles, which is really interesting, right?

Sarah (15:45)
When it's a great job, you put everything into it. you get really passionate about it. when you're feeling comfortable as well, you're really driving and taking, you know, taking risks.

Fiona Gordon (15:54)
Yes, risks,

that's a good one. having a place that you can take risks. And so Strav, with his "Stravisms", would start out tough feedback by saying, I'm gonna give it to you right between the eyes.

Sarah (16:11)
Love, Strav!

Fiona Gordon (16:13)
Now that can be a bit brutal, but on reflection it's much better than getting a knife between the shoulder blades when you're not looking. I've had that as well from some leaders. So Strav would give me the space to make mistakes, but he would also let me know when I'd breached the boundaries.

we achieved like groundbreaking stuff when we worked together and I really know it's because he gave me enough rope that I could go out there to to chase the success although sometimes I'd get caught up in it and that's when he would give me the feedback

it's a awful thing to deliver feedback. That's tough feedback.

No one wants to do it. Lots of people hide from it. But I'm just grateful that he would sit me down and really tell me, that's not going to work like that. And you need to change and you need to figure this out. yeah, delivering tough feedback or having those tough conversations makes a really great leader.

Sarah (17:26)
Yeah, I agree. I remember having a manager back in London called Lucy and she was so direct and I remember being so scared of her at the time. And when I reflect back, she'd always say this one thing and it was like, we've had this conversation, Sarah. And I'd be like, have we? And when I think back, you know,

She was a very busy leader. had lots of things on and she was very direct. And I think that clashed with me for a little while. But when I reflect back now, having her be so direct and like you said, she was giving it to me between the eyes and not in the back, way, way better.

Fiona Gordon (18:11)
Way better.

Sarah (18:11)
Constructive feedback is so important.

Fiona Gordon (18:14)
And it's not always a shit stack sandwich. Okay. What else, Sarah? What else makes her a great leader?

Sarah (18:22)
Fi, you and I have spoken around neurodiversity in the workplace and you know, we've worked.

with people that are neurodiverse and we both think of ourselves as potentially undiagnosed in the ADHD field. a great leader, Greg, has given me the opportunity to work to my energy level. And that's something where I've been able to feel confident enough to say to him, hey, Greg, kind of got ants in my pants today and I'm just not going to be able to sit at my desk.

So I'm going to go for a walk. We've got our one-on-one scheduled at this time. Hey, it's going to be hot at that time. We were both in Singapore. Can we do it maybe slightly earlier? He was a super early riser. So I knew I could always kind of catch him in the morning or whatever. Can we have our chat now? I'm out walking. And he'd always be like, yeah, sure. just knowing that, you know, people work in different ways and methods and, some people

like to be at their desk all day, other people need that movement. And I just really appreciated how Greg gave me that flexibility and gave me enough confidence to ask for it as well.

Fiona Gordon (19:34)
think I could do better in this space with leading neurodiverse teams. Working in data, you know, I think we've got higher chances of working with people who are neurodiverse.

what I really love about our partnership is that we can talk about, when we've got the ants in the pants, or, when we need a specific break on things.

But I would always love to hear more around what I can do better. And a small plug for our community, we do have a neurodiverse community forum on the Dub Dub community. And I would love to learn more from people who are neurodiverse and can help to share what are the things that help them.

from their leaders and also their teams to be more successful in their roles as well.

Alright, next up for me is actually it's at the same organization as Strav and it was his leader the thing that made Frances stand out as a terrific leader was her sponsorship of things. So transforming organizations, really no easy task.

Spoiler alert, no one likes to change, even if the change is actually really super beneficial along the way. sometimes that's what data people are actually asked to do, whether it's change themselves or help to change the organizations. I strongly believe it's about change management and that sponsorship along the way. And you might not want to hear this listener, but change management comes top down.

So by leaders actually role modeling the behavior and sponsoring the behavior and talking about the behavior and setting the expectations for that behavior. the best outcomes I've seen in transformation is when leaders are committed to change management. They invest in hiring change managers who set out the plans that...

gives everyone the best opportunity to implement the change. Now, Frances, she was the best leader that I've seen who has committed to change and transformation. She would turn up at every steer- co, she would deliver on the steps that were hers, which meant prioritizing her time, like change comms, having calendar blocked out to record videos, and she knocked it out of the park. Now, before the change would go in, she would ask all of the tough questions.

She wouldn't let you get away with anything, but once it was ready, she was 100 % committed to actually getting things across the line. And I still remember her very vividly recording videos for our launch. And I felt like she was a real rock star for doing it and leading by example.

Sarah (22:25)
Yeah, great. really stepping in, right, and fronting up, not just being that leader that was there when things went bad or to take the glory, but actually being there with the hard grafts with you in those meetings as well. another story that comes into my mind is more of a general one, but

Fiona Gordon (22:40)
Yeah,

Sarah (22:46)
around culture and having great leaders that look at the positive and the negative within the culture and try and shift and shape a team So leaning into the things that are good about the company and then trying to help avoid or redirect the toxicity that can sit in a culture.

That is really important for what makes a great leader, is being able to navigate within the bounds of the organization's culture and to try and impact it in a positive way.

Fiona Gordon (23:19)
I love that. And I'd love to add some things that I've seen that really help to shape that culture as well to help turn things around. That means being present. we talked a little bit earlier about John walking the floor.

that's possible when you're in an office. When you're not in the office, it might look like they're on Slack or Teams and really doing shout outs for people or celebrating the wins with people as well.

Sarah (23:48)
Okay, Fi, what else have you got?

Fiona Gordon (23:50)
Leaders who stretch you. So organizations have always got hundreds of problems that they need to solve. And I love it when a leader really believes in you and something that they think that you can do, even though you haven't demonstrated at all that you have the experience. So Sean had a vision on human-centered design.

that it was the future of data and analytics. really getting to the bottom of what is the problem you're trying to solve. I built a program using IDEOs or is it I D E O? I don't even know over their framework and I learned so much along the way in doing that. the important thing about a leader identifying a stretch goal for you is what's the worst that can happen? You fail.

I've had great leaders who haven't cared at all if I've failed. Similar to your story before about the guys sharing the shooting story and then giving you a different opportunity, when things go wrong, no drama. It hasn't cost a great deal for the organization and you can always try again or you can move into a different direction.

Sarah (25:05)
And I think to

that other point as well, if you don't take risks, you're not gonna potentially excel. So having a great leader that gives you that space to take risks and potentially fail, yeah, it's great.

Fiona Gordon (25:12)
Mmm.

the belief that he had in me that I could build many programs, was really empowering. again, it was a period of high growth for me.

Sarah (25:32)
I loved the whole pushing boundaries piece as well, which reminds me of a story with a previous leader of mine called Zoher, who, really pushed me. every day he'd be like, okay, then let's do this. And I'd be like, no, no, we can't do that. And he would very much say, yes, you can.

I really enjoyed working with Zoher _ on his ability to keep me thinking bigger and bigger. And we were very successful in what we did because I think of his big personality and driving that.

Fiona Gordon (26:08)
I love that when people or leaders have this expansive view of where things can go, it really expands the remit of what the team can achieve as well. it's really inspirational and sort of gets everyone hyped towards stretching themselves.

Sarah (26:33)
Yeah.

Fiona Gordon (26:35)
got another one, leaders who partner with you. So it's really easy to think of command control style leadership where they come in, this is what's happening, it's all this top down, pushing down all the time. But we all have strengths and weaknesses.

And I believe a powerful team is when they know that their team excels in an area that they do not. And they may not just have the time for it, or it may be that they just suck at it. In fact, at times leaders great leaders hire for these gaps as well. at JLL,

an organization-wide transformation meant that someone that I perceived as my peer ended up being my manager. And boy, was that a learning experience for me. Turns out, Paul outpaced me in many areas. And that was a great learning as well, understanding what other people bring to the table and why that may actually be more important in a senior level than what I have to bring to the table as well.

We found a groove much faster than what I expected and that's because he focused me on the things that I was good at and he focused on the things that he excelled at, where I played the support crew for him. So I teased out the strategy, built the programs, which were very in line with his vision as well.

And we just adapted to where we had gaps at pace. So that was something that was really amazing to have was this strong partnership where I knew that I had a leader who was there to support me, to support the team. We would have some tough, tough conversations along the way. It wasn't always the rainbows and sunshine, rainbows, lollipops, all that, but...

we did know that we had a commitment to helping to transform the team and we really delivered on that.

Sarah (28:57)
Yeah, something we haven't spoken about enough is around egos, right? the ability for people to put their egos aside to lead as well is super important.

Fiona Gordon (29:08)
huge learning for me. you go in, think, why can't I be in that leadership role? Well, he was 10 times better in that leadership space than I would have ever been. But I feel like I probably was 10 times better than what he was in going out and building the gamification programs. And it gave me an opportunity to shine in a space that I...

thoroughly enjoyed.

Sarah (29:33)
Yeah, that's awesome. And I just want to dig a little bit deeper into my personal experience on egos. And shout out to Jono who really taught me a lot around putting your ego aside. he used to say to me a lot, Sarah, you could do this role. and this is before I was a leader. He said, you've got what it takes to do my job.

that's something that always sat with me. years down the track, I proved that in abundance that I could do that. putting your ego aside as a great leader is something that's super important. not everyone's after your job, but give people the, the encouragement to come in.

Fiona Gordon (30:17)
I that's a great thing to end on. I thoroughly enjoyed this discussion. In fact, now I want to have more discussions with the people who actually led you along the way because they inspire me and I know what you've ended up like as well,

Sarah (30:20)
Yay!

Yeah, and I think same for you, Fi. You know, I do know a couple of the people that you've mentioned today, but there's a few that I'm really, I'm like, can we get them on a podcast? And you know, really kind of drill them and to learn more because I think there's some really great takeaways there what makes a great leader.

Fiona Gordon (30:54)
thank you so much for sharing and also being a little bit vulnerable along the way as well. I really appreciate it. Bye.

Sarah (31:03)
See ya!

 

Notes – we apologise in advance, this transcript is not 100% accurate as we were recording in the same room and had issues with the automation.  We have attempted to clean as much as possible, but means removing time stamps as it was duplicating the transcript from both Fi & Sarah.  Everything will be back to normal when we’re on opposite sides of the ditch! Thanks for your patience, Fi & Sarah

 

Hi everyone and welcome to unDUBBED where we're...

Who knows?

come on, we've got the merch, it's written on the merch. Unscripted, uncensored and undeniably data.

That's it.

Hey, so welcome back and could you believe it or not, it's finally the end of 2024. So we thought we'd take some time to reflect on the year that's been and look forward to the year that's coming.

You're excited, Fi?

I am excited. In fact, I'm the most excited because if we just do a little bit of magic of camera.

I'm excited because we're both in the same place. Very exciting. Yes, we are sitting opposite each other and we are doing our podcast here live in Sydney.

We're looking forward to doing a bit of a reflection of the past year, but also hopefully some looking forward into the next year as well. I always find December is that really like busy time of the year, right? Everyone's just cranking up.

Trying to get everything finished. You know, for those that celebrate Christmas, it's a really big, big time, especially for families.

Here in the southern hemisphere, it's also our summer holiday, so it's a bit of a double whammy, I think, with expectations and things happening. And also for most businesses, it's that time of the year where we do kind of reflect on what's happened, what's been. And I know in our previous lives, a lot of time for performance. So everyone's in that mad scramble to finish their things up,

yeah, there's usually some deadline that's coming up and at the same time you've got the family craziness of getting ready for kids, getting ready for Santa. If you've got older kids, they're probably thinking about holidays. yeah, it's one of the times that I think that it's really easy to lose your mind.

And I always remember my mind just went back to the good old favorite thing in technology, the change freeze period. yeah, I thought about that.

yeah, I forgot about the change freeze period. my goodness, you're right. Lots of fun, little handcuffs on, can't do anything and so there is that real mad rush coming through. Sarah, tell me, what did you used to do when you were working in corporate at this time of year?

 

I used to try and make sure we were prepared as possible for that looming change phase, people going on leave, trying to get all the paperwork done for performance reviews, et cetera. And also just trying to really check in with my team. Although I would do that constantly throughout the year, I just think extra time and kind of guidance and consideration was given around this time of the year because people would be in a bit of a frenzy and work wasn't necessarily top of mind as well. think a lot of people get really tired at the end of the year. I've actually noticed it a lot more, know, obviously being in Asia for the last decade, in the Northern Hemisphere, people get that kind of mid-year break and it's a bit of a reset. And then the end of year, a bit of a break as well. But what I'm finding back here in the Southern Hemisphere is there's not that mid-year reset. So everyone right now is just burnt out. I notice that at schools, all our kids feel burnt out, everyone, adults are burnt out, everyone's just trying to get to the end of the year and to have a little bit of a reset. So I think going back to my team, was really just trying to help them as much as possible, expectations on things that needed to be done, things that maybe could wait and trying to be really mature around the things.

So I think going back to my team, was really just trying to help them as much as possible, see expectations on things that needed to be done, things that may be great, trying to be really mature around the things that, stuff that's more important.

and let's focus on that instead. performance reviews, sure that the year there was no surprises. It was always like, you know, this is what you need support on and helping along that. And what about you, Fi?

Usually at this time of year, I've got some crazy deadline that is more likely to be self-imposed than anything. Also, I'm really ramping up to try and get something done at the same time, thinking about culture for the teams, really thinking about what we can do to celebrate with each other, not just my immediate team, but more broadly across the teams as well.

And then at the same time thinking of Christmas lunches or celebrations and bringing people together. Sometimes even bringing people from who previously have worked for us as well them.

I really like that. I like going back and pulling other people together. You used to see every day and now you don't. I think that's really lovely.

I miss people when I've worked with them so much for so long and then suddenly they might have got a new opportunity that's really great for them. They're going off, they're building their career.

I still miss them and Christmas is a time for bringing people together for me. And so it's really lovely.

 

This is a time for bringing people together for me. And so it's really lovely.

I'm wondering now how I can incorporate that now that there's just the two of us. I know, it's funny, right? Like, you're asking the two of us. I don't think we'd even plan to have a society. Let's see what we can do on Friday. Yeah, let's see. What else would you do at the end of year with your teams? whole performance, you love it, hate it.

And it is a real big time to go in and self-evaluate. wasn't always a big fan of the rigid structure of performance reviews, but I did really like the piece that would tell you like it was a time for you to go back and reflect on your year and how you impacted the organization and so forth.

I liked the way that you could go out to your peers or your team or, manager would always effectively be giving you your review. So it was a really big time to and look at how you made an impact or things that you could

I liked the way that you could go out to your peers or your team or your manager would always effectively be giving you your reviews. That was a really big go and look at how you made an impact on things that you could improve on and do really enjoy that aspect of getting that feedback.

I hear you there. So what I really don't like the whole performance review and corporate culture and I believe even bonus culture isn't a great culture to be working around. In fact, when I worked in financial services, the bonuses were so extraordinary. I felt that it really undermined the collaboration, especially the more senior that individuals got, the more that they would be vying for their own pieces of work to be successful, which meant that they weren't really open to spending time on other people's. And so one thing that I'm grateful for around our organisation is that we don't have performance reviews but I think at the same time we need to make sure that we're giving one another feedback and that's one thin that we're really doing well at the moment.

Yeah I agree, think it's not always easy because there's just two of us so it can always kind of feel a bit in your face when we give each other feedback because there's no one else to support or deny the feedback.

But I do appreciate, I think we've spoken it before on our first podcast, there has been times where we've had to give quite strong feedback to each other and I think we're evolving to that. So we have a performance review all the time and trying to do what's better for us as a company, which I think underlyingly shows through in the feedback that we do give each other.

 

 

Do you have anything planned for our podcast today, Sarah?

Wow, yes. I do have a few things planned. I would take some time to reflect on the year that was, so 2024. We did start our own company only halfway through the year. And I want to talk about a practice that I use quite often, both professionally and personally, and have used the corporate world is around rose thorn bud.

Think about roses, things that are positive that have happened can focus organisation see in half of this year. So anything that's positive and we would take a couple of minutes to write some of those ideas down. And then we would talk about thorn. So that's effectively anything that's negative.

And in the human centered design, normally have roses are pink, thorns are blue, and then we have bud. And bud is the potential.

So what I thought is if we would just take a couple of minutes and we kind of would like people on the podcast as well to take a couple of minutes and just when they're thinking back on 2024, if you could think of one thing that is a rose, so something that's really positive, one thing that you find is a little bit spiky, a little bit negative. And then something that's a bud, some potential.

 Okay that sounds great, do we have to just stick to one?

No, of course not.

 

Because even while we were talking, I was thinking, my god, I want to turn left and go down the next roadway.

Well, normally when we run Rosebudthorn, it's an opportunity for everyone to up and stand and grab their Post-it notes and to write down as many ideas. And we typically would time box it to say five or 10 minutes,

this one, just thinking how we're going to run this. It's live on the podcast. Time

for this one, just thinking how we're going to run this. Time boxed. Time boxed. I reckon another five minutes and

maybe go one for one until we're done. How does that sound?

Okay. All right.

First rose for me this year is to be able to start Dub-Dub with you. It's been such an incredible journey to have such a talented and road for me this year is to be able to start dub dub with been such an incredible journey to have such a good, talented, intelligent, thoughtful and kind person to be building this organisation work. So, getting something out the door, amazing, from the seed of an idea to here we are at the end of the year and coming into next year, so many exciting things ahead.

When I think of my, my rose as well, it's definitely around like getting this off the ground and, on this journey with you as well. I feel that I'm none of those things because you are like 10 layers up from me. 10X! Yeah, 10X, you know, and, and I think, and being really proud of what we have launched. Sometimes I think we're like super critical of ourselves and we're like, but we haven't done this. And it's like, Hey, look what we actually have done in six months. have platforms up

The next rose for me is it's been really odd walking away from corporate life, but it's actually opened up a number of doors and conversations with connections that I've built throughout corporate life, where people are really leaning in and wanting to help. And so an organization, that I had a lot of experience with from a corporate perspective who'd done extremely great work for me at a number of different organizations has stepped up to the plate when we've opened the door and explained what we're doing with dub dub and when we had an opportunity to do some work for an organization. So this client organization might have a lot of work for us. How do we ramp up and scale up? Well, I want to work with companies like MIP who have in the past delivered outstanding work and we came together for this week to deliver for the client who was tied up, no insights, they had some data. And seeing how we self-organized, navigated some tricky requirements that weren't so clear and actually knocked it out of the park was just amazing. So to think that another organization will come in and do this and believe in our ethos has just been an amazing, exciting experience.

I really love that. I think, you when I think of another rose, it's just around pulling community networking and having so many great conversations with organizations like MIP others that understand the value and what we're trying to do and how we're trying to change things. And I love that feedback of, this really makes sense.

Earlier this year we had family members pass away and when that happened one of them was running a business and I just so happened to mention it to Chris McClellan from Visualise Data that I was trying to wind up the business. He asked what kind of business it was. It happened to be a computer business that did some hosting for websites and domain registration. And turns out that Chris also runs a business along with his data business for that. He helped us to pick up all of the clients, reach out to them, contact them. And we transitioned them across at the same rate and with the same really great client experience.

 

Now Chris does our domain registration and hosting as well. he was the first dubber to sign up!

 

The realization is that sometimes being a little bit vulnerable, people will step forward and help you out. I really feel like the relationship that we've built with Chris, even for dub dub, is something that's really going to help pull us forward as well. So Chris, if you're listening, thank you.   

Yeah, agree. Chris's been such a great help for both and the family situation and then ongoing for us in the domain and always at the end of a call, we need him. love that bit where you mentioned around being vulnerable

I'm going to move us into the the thorns now and focus a little bit on the negative. vulnerability is really around the great unknowns, and I have been very much used to being in corporate life and having corporate money coming in on a regular basis. And now we've gone into this great unknown. Fi and I went for a bit of a walk this morning. And as we were talking, we discussed sometimes, we're really pumped about, we don't know what's happening next. And other times it's like, my gosh, it can be a bit heart wrenching as well. I reflect, it's, it's having faith in what we are doing and moving forward, but also knowing it's a bit of a rocky roller coaster as well. those great unknowns is really scary, but I'm super happy that I've got F beside me because we do have really open communication style and when we're feeling those highs and lows, it's great to have you next to me feeling them too. Or quite often, sometimes we're feeling the opposite, which is great as well. So we can balance each other out a bit, which I appreciate.

Yeah, I'm totally there with you on that. Sometimes it’s like there's no money coming in, you know? And trying to get to that point and that realization while we're juggling, you know, so many different plates is certainly challenging at times. But like you, I feel like, thank goodness I've got Sarah, I don't know that I could do this without you.

What else is thorny? Coming back to the open conversation and having those challenging conversations, it's hard. We're friends first. One of the things about starting the business was how do we navigate this business and make sure that this is not something that destroys our friendship because it means a lot, which means having those tough conversations before they fester.

I've always been somebody that's leaned into harder conversations. A lot more than me. A lot more than you. But it doesn't mean that I enjoy giving them as well. And in fact, I ruminate a lot about tough conversations. I might lean into them faster, but then afterwards I'm circling around going, is that the right thing?

Which is funny, actually, because it's something we've not spoken about. So I will

 

avoid a tough conversation at all costs, and I would like to think that throughout our business I have improved. I have tried to lean in earlier, but it's quite funny because hearing that you ruminate afterwards, because I ruminate before.

And so once the conversation's done, I'm okay, it's done, move on, next thing, we've agreed, we've aligned. So it's quite funny to see that we are completely on the other side.

Yeah, absolutely. One thing that I have noticed about these tough conversations, and you alluded to it before, is there's no hiding. We have to have them because you're the only other person. I can't go and talk to Bob or Dave or Susie or whoever else because it's just Sarah. And that I feel is helping to improve my communication style. Really trying to have the conversations in ways where it's not disruptive. Or understanding that you're somebody that likes to ruminate beforehand, how much space can I give her before I can bring this up? There's a lot of thinking and growth happening in that space. That's not to say that I have nailed it at all, but getting there. Journey, journey!

We're growing together. I love that. think we are, we've come from super powerful and we're used to running big teams and it's kind of like, it's the two of us, right? And in the right way, have to have conversations straight away, we have to figure out what we're gonna do as a result and it's a real partnership which is jobs and we're used to running big teams and then it's kind of like, it's the two of us, right? And you're right, we have to have conversations straight away. We have to figure out what we're gonna do as a result and it's a real partnership, which is exciting and nerve-racking all at the same time. Yes.

Do you have any other thorny issues? I think that was a big one. It's happened a lot for me. can't think of any off the top of my head right now. I have one more. I reckon you should share this one too.

Sales? I shouldn't have done that while you were drinking because that could have been dangerous.

So Sarah and I are not sales people. We'd had to do internal sales obviously, but less or so in terms of going out pounding the pavements as virtually as you would say. having to think about what that means for us, I don't think that we've nailed this. I want to think that we are going to get some help from our friends and other dubbers along the way to help us with that. I know that we have really great connections and a well established network, but it's definitely something that we, I'm gonna use we, we need to get better at it.

Yeah, agree and it is like that scary path as well right like it's really important that we get good at sales we've spoken to some really great people and they are there to support us which is exciting and and watch the space we're going to evolve that into 2025.

And I don't know that you need to be aggressive as such but a little more polished and a little more structured in the way that we approach it. Watch this space.

No, that conversation's over, there's no potential. Okay, I see potential in our community. if you haven't signed up yet, please go to www.dubdubdata.com and sign up to our community. It's right at the beginning. So we have about 70 people who have signed up for our community so far, which is really exciting. But as with anything, it's like going to the school dance and no one wants to wants to dance first. Dance first or dance? So I’m in Australia “dance” first.

So we're really looking for people who wanna start driving the conversation, getting involved. We have a space where you can run your own life meetups. We don't care just as long as you don't sell to people while you're doing it. That's all we ask. So you can just go on, hang out, have a meeting there, do whatever you want, connect with people from around the world.

And it's really lovely to see our community start to grow and have a few people who are brave enough to start talking or posting.

 Yeah, and loving seeing some of the conversations that are happening. You know, our last podcast was on redundancy. Some really great conversations there, the meetups and loved that, building and bringing people from around the world together that could have really open and honest conversations about how they were feeling marked on, fact that their roles had been made redundant and having some really great thought leaders on those calls as well, which I was really, really exciting.

 

For me, my bud is around changing lives. When we thought about, why dub dub data, we really thought around how we could have these super talented people come together on this community and look at how they could start selling things there and having opportunities of connection to be able to monetize the stuff that they've potentially been giving away for free over the years. And I love the we could help people find their next job if that's what they're looking for, or have a little side hustle, make connections, work with other people in the community. We wanna pull people together when there's a big project and have that happening. for me is really exciting.

It is super exciting.

 

I'm keen to see how far we can push our platform. So one of the things that might not be outwardly apparent to people is that we can host online training. So you could create a passive income through online training. Think of it like Udemy, but a different platform. So you could sell your course through dub dub. We'll host it for you.

Really great opportunity here. But obviously I'm thinking to some of that as well.

Okay, so I think we're at the end of our rose thorn bud. I hope those on the call spent some little time reflecting on their 2024 as well. box yourself and five minutes and school and get a get a pen out and maybe some colored post-it notes and the things that into your mind some time to reflect. Rose-Thorn-Bud I find really great to just get ideas down and of your head and onto a page. And so with that now I would like to kind of switch it up a little bit and focus on 2025.

2025. Okay, well, why don't you start first so that I can have some time to think about what I think is going to happen in 2025. I want talk about some areas that I, want to focus on for next year. is sounding a little bit like a performance review now, isn't it?

We spoke how we've got the community. It's at 70 people at the moment. And I think that's amazing. You know, we launched less in a month ago. So that's great. I'd like us to really keep that momentum up. We want to put numbers up against those, right? Like, could we 10X that by the end of 2025? I would love that to be at least an 10x, 700. Yeah. Okay. On the board.

Challenge accepted. 10x, 700. Yes. Done. What does that mean from a social media perspective?

Good question. So we do need to really keep going on our social media. We are oneight platforms, the moment, and we try to post at least five times a week. are learning a lot around the analytics. We've spoken a little bit before about we don't have a big [?] behind us at the stage.  .

It is us at this stage. So learning a lot more around helping, maybe encouraging others to help us as well in terms of posting, liking, sharing. Getting the word out there. Yeah. Yeah. Anything stand out as a surprise to you about the social side so far?

I think around the platforms that have been more popular than others.

Like TikTok here we come. It seems like every video we're posting is getting around 700 views coming through. So that's pretty high, I thought. But maybe they just have different ways of measuring it.

 

Learning the algorithms across these platforms is something that we are gonna have to focus on.

And if anyone's got any feedback for us, there's a place on the unDUBBED Details page on our website where you can give us feedback on things that you think would work better. Coming into next year, we will be having some guests on the podcast rather than it just being Sarah and I talking. We will be having dubbers who are people who sell on the dub dub platform come and talk, but they won't be talking about what they're selling. They'll be talking about skills and things that might be of value to you.

I love that our focus on our our podcast has been value-added with a little we're trying to do and in the background as well. So if we think about some goals, we've spoken about growing the community, what are some of the goals that you want to achieve in 2025? Some sales goals? I think we need to put some sales goals in there.

Creating some structure behind it, hopefully also getting some help. One of the things that I'm keen to do is offload some of the lower level tasks that we spend a fair bit of time on at the moment.

Paying someone else to look after those so we can really focus on connecting with our network, understanding how things are going in the dub dub space and getting out there and trying to make the marketplace work.

I love that. both been focusing recently on, early days, it was all like, we've got to get all this done. We've got to, you know, do all these things. And now it's okay, so we've got this to a level where it could be semi-automated. And let's think of, it's a VA or someone that can come in and help us run certain elements while we really focus on the big word that keeps rearing its head around sales.

Is that enough?

maybe it's enough for this podcast.

Okay, I would just like to take the time to say to anyone who's listening, I wish you happy holidays, a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it, or Hanukkah. I hope that you have time to spend with your loved ones and do reach out if there's anything that we can be doing to make this better along the way. So thank you so much for your support so far. It really means the world to us.

It really does. And yeah, looking forward to crash landing into 2025.

We're definitely not going to crash land. We are going to roar. Roar. Roar.

 

We're going to roar into 2025.

Thanks for tuning in.

Thanks. Bye.

Bye.

 

Sarah (00:07)
Hi, and welcome to our second podcast for Undubbed, where we are unscripted, uncensored, and undeniably data. Welcome back, Fi.

Fiona Gordon (00:16)
Thanks Sarah, it's great to be back.

Sarah (00:18)
Very awesome. And so today we are talking about the joyful word that we all have in our dictionary, the most hated word probably in your work life history, maybe redundancy. No? Let's see. It may not be the most hated word. It may be a really great word. So today we're going to go in and talk about a few topics. At some point in our career, we've all faced

either redundancy ourselves, like I have, and I know you, Fi, you have as well, or we've definitely known someone who's been made redundant, that within our family, our peers, our colleagues. So let's get down and dirty and start talking about redundancy.

Fiona Gordon (01:05)
Sounds great.

Sarah (01:08)
cannot wait. So, Fi, I want you to talk about your redundancy and tell me about when you first found out about it, what went through your mind?

Fiona Gordon (01:18)
Okay, starting off with a big hitter, because that question just threw me back into that moment. So I just returned from a three week holiday, living it up large in Europe, and it was absolutely amazing. And I've even taken a day in the office out of my holidays to go and visit everyone. And I was running a little bit late, and I got a message from my manager, and he said, are you coming to this meeting?

I hadn't realized that there'd been something that had been booked in at nine o'clock on my first day back. And I got online and I could tell from his demeanor that there wasn't something that was quite right. And he said to me, HR is just about to join us in a moment, which for anyone is code word for the warning lights going off and it's time for you to be.

told that it's likely that your role is being made redundant. I remember that, the two people, I knew the HR lady on the call, she was absolutely wonderful as well. And I think that the three of us just sat there and went through the motions. You know, there are certain things that the organization has to say to you. I was told at that point that I couldn't tell my team what was happening as well, which threw me.

a bit sideways after being out of the office for three weeks, how am I going to not talk to my team? What are they going to think along the way?

Sarah (02:42)
And I think it's like that is a really interesting part. You've been told this really shocking news that obviously impacts you, but I don't know about you, but I went, first it was me and my environment and how that was gonna impact my family and my livelihood. But for me, my second thought was what about my team? I've got this big team. And then to your point, you're not allowed to tell them for a certain period of

That's really hard.

Fiona Gordon (03:12)
It's really strange when you're actually close to your team to not be able to tell them the truth when you're so used to telling them exactly what's going on.

Sarah (03:15)
Yeah.

Being really open and transparent is really part of our ethos, right? And being told that you're not allowed to do this and you've got HR in the room and your manager saying this information can't get to your team.

Fiona Gordon (03:33)
100%. So there was that. And then at the same time, I would say the adrenaline just hitting, hitting me, it knocked me for six. So even though I had previously had conversations with my manager to say, look, I think, you know, the way that things are, it would be a better opportunity for the organization and for me, if I was to be made redundant, I don't want to walk away from this.

but if we need to invest more money into a certain space, this can be something that works really well. So even though I'd asked for it, it was still a massive shock, and we still had so many amazing things that we were going to achieve So I would say the first thing that hit me was shock. Then the next thing that hit me was I don't wanna talk to anyone about corporate life. I don't want to think about jobs or...

what I'm going to do after the redundancy. But I do want to connect with some people, that are really important to me. So that's, that's the emotional feeling. It just threw my brain for six, like it, really hit it for six to use a cricket analogy. I was

in a space where I had no idea what type of role that I would want to go into, nor had I any interest in figuring that out. And at the same time, I would say that perhaps brain fog, in a way, is the best way to describe it. That hit me as well. I wasn't firing on all cylinders. I was, it was almost like an out of body experience for me.

Sarah (05:11)
Yeah, and it's really, really tough. I'm just gonna kind of chip in with a little piece around when I found out that my role had been made redundant, you know, obviously the shock came in, but one of the first, the first person I called was my son's school administrator, of all things. That's where my mind went to, right? I had just signed his school fees for the coming year.

And that was one of my top expenses. And that was the first thing I needed to figure out for me. So I think, when you're in that kind of shock moment, you end up doing almost the strangest of things because it wasn't my family that I reached out to or anybody. it was the school administrator of all people. And to your point as well, in terms of talking to people, I don't know about you, but I went through like a little bit of kind of embarrassment, right?

Who was I going to tell and how was I going to tell them?

Fiona Gordon (06:09)
Yeah, that's a natural feeling to feel shame in a redundancy. The best way to describe it is when you get made redundant or when your role gets made redundant, let me say, and readjust that, it is so natural to feel all of these crazy emotions, even if you wanted it, even if you thought this would be a great opportunity.

Finding the time to process those emotions in your way, not in a way that anyone else can prescribe for you. It's important to take control of how you will move through that.

Sarah (06:48)
Yeah, I think that's really important. Like really thinking about your own narrative, right? How am I going to voice this out? And, you know, there is a bit of time that needs to be taken internally to take that on.

Fiona Gordon (07:05)
So we've heard about the immediate shock and what happened to us immediately after hearing the news. What did the next month look like for you, Sarah?

Sarah (07:16)
I spoke to my son's school administrator and managed to resolve that pretty quickly and the ways that we could go around the exorbitant school fees that they charge in Singapore for anyone listening that has been an expat will fully understand where I'm coming from and why that was possibly my first conversation. The next piece was really on what I was going to do next.

A similar situation to you, I wasn't allowed to tell my team and I wasn't actually given a timeframe. I was just like, you cannot tell your team at this stage, which was super tough. I had to focus on my family and living in a foreign country and tied to an employment pass, which meant there was a lot of timeframes that I had to stick to.

additional to my son's schooling. I just recently resigned a two-year lease. Now, part of my employment pass meant that I may have had to leave the country in seven months. And without a job, you can't rent a house. So there was all these effects that I had to take into account.

I looked at some jobs internally and I toyed around with that. I looked at some external jobs. I was in banking. I looked at some local banks. But as I was going through that process, it just felt like it was not just...

my company telling me it was time to move, it just felt it was bigger than that. And I really wanted to turn this into an opportunity. And that's when I thought, actually, I'm going to really go out and do something different, and I'm going to leave the country and come home to New Zealand.

Fiona Gordon (08:57)
Wow, there was so much that you had to experience there that I didn't have to take into account. You know, I'm still in the same home. I am still in the same city. I didn't have to think about packing up an entire house and lifetime, you know, 10 year lifetime or however long you're in Singapore to get there. So that definitely is a lot of extra on the top in addition to what we experienced with the redundancy. For me, the week of the news was

really unusual for me and for who I am as a person. So I wake up early in the morning, my brain is very busy. All of a sudden, I did not want to get out of bed. And that's a scary thing, having been through depression when I was in my early 20s. Now, I don't have that at all. It hasn't factored into my life.

I really feel like I've got good practices in place to keep myself mentally healthy, but to find myself in a space where I didn't want to get out of bed, I was questioning what the hell is going on? So one of the things that my company did offer was support from EAP.

And it was really fortunate because sometimes those services can be really, a bit hit and miss, yeah, a bit hit and miss, and more miss than hit in my experience. Always good to give it a go though if you need some support along the way. But the woman who I met with, she was trained as a psychologist and she really helped to nurture me through

Sarah (10:23)
We're hitting it.

Fiona Gordon (10:43)
I would say, you know, one to two months of Fi not being Fi and rediscovery of myself and in fact rediscovery of some of the things that I definitely pushed aside because I was working incredibly long hours in a very senior role and to do that, you know, means that sometimes you sacrifice parts of yourself.

And so it's been a really fun journey for me to rediscover myself. What she taught me was something called SEEDS therapy. And I felt that I could do certain things that were just taking small steps. And small steps is something that I really recommend in that rediscovery phase or that immediate phase after getting made redundant.

to just show that you're doing a little bit of progress. SEEDS stands for Social Connection, Exercise, Education, Diet and Sleep. social connection, for instance, I really leveraged the great people in my network that I would call and have a chat to and...

part of my network I wasn't allowed to chat to for over a week while we were going through the discussions around the role and the consultation period is what they call it. so I didn't talk to people from work, but I reconnected with a lot of my network and

It was quite comforting in some places and not so comforting in others. social connection, I would call you. You were the only person that I would remotely want to talk to anything related to work because you had been through this. I loved the coaching and ideas that you gave me through it.

for education, I was going online, I looked at masterclass, I looked at lots of different things that could really help me understand how to be better. Exercise has always been one of the things that I de-prioritize in life. so having to work on how do I get up, go for a walk, get the blood pumping, do some weight training as well was really great.

Diet, again, love food. Love, love food. I eat my emotions. So I to be quite careful in that space. I really chased after 30 different fresh foods each week. And the last one, sleep. Yeah, it's a work in progress. I think that any middle-aged woman will understand that sleep is something that declines as we hit our mid to late.

Sarah (13:13)
Working on it, still a work in progress.

Fiona Gordon (13:24)
40s and so it's something that's really important to me to make sure that I'm trying to do the best, you know, things with whether it's magnesium, the exercise does of course help, but you know, it's definitely still a work in progress. I will try and post up a blog at some point regarding SEEDS therapy because I really feel that for anyone going through a redundancy, having these small things, you don't have to do everything every day, just a little bit of focus on one or two things can really

improve the lifestyle and that social connection for me was a really important one because it made me feel like I wasn't alone.

Sarah (14:03)
Yeah, and really interesting, right? I think for me as well, the more people you talk to, the more people that have been through some shape or form of this, or a loved one or a peer that has been through it, and they can share a lot of information and support and things that maybe you haven't thought of yourself. But I really like that the SEEDS Therapy and the fact that you leaned on external as well. Your work was kind enough to the EAP as part of their...

process. I know that where I was allowed that as well, which was great and I really leaned into that. So I would say, it's available, tap into it. If the one that you've got is not working for you, there's ways that you can change that as well. So really love the SEEDS Therapy. So social connection, love that. We spent a lot of time on calls and we do still today because look at us now. Exercise.

Fiona Gordon (14:57)
Yeah

Sarah (15:00)
Fi and I have actually got away in our working day where we integrate both of them and we're like, hey, it's a sunny day here, it's a sunny day there, let's have this conversation while we walk and talk. And that helps us to this day. Education, I think we're always throwing each other things even now and going out and researching is in our DNA probably. And then the diet, I love being home and eating all the good foods, I think that's great.

and sleep. I'm a little bit better at sleeping but not perfect but yeah love the SEEDS, the SEEDS therapy.

Fiona Gordon (15:32)
You

And were there any other things sort of after that initial period with the redundancy that you found challenging perhaps in moving on from the role that you'd invested so much into? Were there things that were the major challenges that you experienced?

Sarah (15:58)
You invest so much time into your role and when it's taken away from you in a form of redundancy, you feel a little bit of loss and grieving around the things that you'd set forward to achieve that were no longer going to happen. I think also for me, it was a lot around the care and consideration for the team that I was.

leaving behind and wasn't going to be able to support, whether that be in their day-to-day jobs or their ongoing careers. I have remained in contact with them all to this day, so the career focus, I still hope that I can kind of help them along with and inspire them in different ways today. Then I think it's, You go through that process of then it's like, okay, instead of winding up, like we're so used to doing, we're now winding down.

and we're having to close the door on so many things, which is really so different to what we do in our roles.

Fiona Gordon (16:50)
Hmm.

Yeah, for me, this might sound cold and it's definitely not how I am as a leader. It took me until just last month to be able to do videos for my team. They'd sent me videos as they did so many things to farewell me, which was just really heartwarming, but also overwhelming.

Sarah (17:25)
Yeah, a really mark of how much you meant to them, right? Because that kind of stuff is not, it doesn't have to happen, but it did. That's lovely.

Fiona Gordon (17:33)
Yeah, and so they'd sent me cards with beautiful messages. They'd sent me, these videos with really touching reflections of not only how I had helped them in the role when they were in my team, but even many years beforehand. And it makes me teary thinking about it.

It really demonstrates how much these things meant to me, but also why I felt so overwhelmed with how do I respond to that? And how do I respond to it in a way that they understand how much they mean to me?

Sarah (18:16)
That's lovely. And I love the way that you've taken the time to almost say, I can't respond just now, but it's in my program to go back and respond when I feel that I'm in the space, that I can give it everything. And I think that's a true testament to the kind of leader that you are Fi.

Fiona Gordon (18:35)
I really hope that I'm gonna get to work with them again, so look out my old company. You're on notice, look after them.

Sarah (18:42)
I love it, I love it.

Fiona Gordon (18:43)
Okay, so we've we've been through the journey a little bit about, you know, what it feels like. And obviously, there's still a few emotions there. But really interested in, you know, thinking about how you move through this redundancy. So what advice would you give to someone who's just received a redundancy notice?

Sarah (19:08)
first of all, be kind to yourself. It really is your role that's been made redundant. It's not you. Typically, you're a number on a page. And the higher up the food chain you get, the more likely you are to be made redundant. So almost wear it as a badge of honor, think, it's there, it's going to happen. Redundancy has been around since, I think I was reading, since the revolution, what age is it?

more the dark ages. It feels like the dark ages, right?

Fiona Gordon (19:37)
dark ages. It's been around since the dark ages.

Sarah (19:41)
let these emotions roll over you. Focus on what's important to you. It's more than likely yourself and your family that take priority during this time. So take time, take stock. Know that you're gonna be angry. Know that you're gonna be in shock. Know that you're gonna be in denial. just take that on board and don't think of it as yourself that is being made redundant. It's your role. So don't be.

Don't be cruel to yourself, be kind. Then as Fi mentioned, As you feel comfortable, move through the stages. And I feel as well, a lot of it is around talking to people. Fi mentioned as part of SEEDS Therapy, a social connection. Talk to the people that you can around redundancy. Remove the shameful stigma that you may have circulating in your head.

you'll find that more people than we realize have been made redundant and have great tips to share. like we are today. So I think it's really important just to give yourself a lot of time and to really talk to the right people.

You will feel like you're running on empty for a while because all of a sudden your career, everything was just going along and now it's all in chaos. I know at one point I remember talking to my EAP therapist saying that I felt like my feet were on the ground but everything else was just a tornado moving around me and I didn't really know if I jumped where I was gonna end up and I think that that's okay,

I think that the scariest thing for me was I had a timeline. You know, there was definitive times in my calendar that I had to have a new job in Singapore or start, thinking about shipping an entire home full of everything back to New Zealand.

a really big part was just seeing the good for it. So going, okay, this is a really horrible thing that's happened, but it doesn't have to have a horrible outcome. It can have something awesome instead.

Fiona Gordon (21:50)
It can have something really awesome instead. And I feel like today's podcast is a good example of something positive coming out of it. Yes, we are starting our own business and that all came through conversations and social connections. So my fiance, John, suggested that you and I should start a business. "Why don't you start a business with Sarah?" And, that was something that had

not crossed my mind, but it came as one of those moments where it was like, of course we should be starting a business. So I love that that came out of it. And it's definitely, the sun peeking through the cloud. If I can add to all of your great advice, Sarah, about what are the things that somebody should do if they've just been made redundant. Things that come top of mind for me are really taking

to the next level, the information that's coming out of your mind and it will be going at 100 knots and going around in circles, get it out on paper. start journaling, have a list of the top things that you should be doing during the day.

Don't take it digital, try and get it out onto paper into something that's actually physical that you can cross off along the way. And it really helps you to settle the brain chatter. my advice is get things out onto paper.

Sarah (23:22)
I really like that, think as well, like particularly when you first wake up in the morning or you're going to bed at night and your brain's just full of everything. It's like, what am gonna do? How am gonna get the cat back to New Zealand? Like was having all these random thoughts, right? But actually writing it down just feels like, okay, it's there, it's documented. I can look at that tomorrow or I know it's there.

Fiona Gordon (23:44)
100%. And it also helped me to prioritize which SEEDS aspects I was going to work on that day, for instance, and give me some focus because I really felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. I felt very much like I was in this washing machine being tossed around and there was so much going on. So getting things out into paper really helped me. Doing the coaching really helped me. Now,

The coaching for me, the areas that were important were how do I readjust to this new life for me and get through that. So she helped me to understand that perhaps not getting out of bed sometimes and rotting in there and looking at Netflix and bingeing, that's okay. That's not okay for me normally,

so that was an adjustment for me, but to have somebody that was just in my camp and saying, it's okay to be doing that for now. And it really did help because eventually it was like, I can't think of anything worse than sitting in bed all day. I need to be up and about and getting shit done.

Sarah (24:55)
Yeah, and I think that's where it comes back to that whole being kind to yourself. if you have a pajama day, because it feels too overwhelming and you've got this list and you just don't want to deal with it, then do it.

Fiona Gordon (25:07)
Right, spot on. Then I think reaching out to people that you either know who you admire and you know have helped you through your career or even to people that you've seen out and about in the data community who might be able to help you with your roles or your search for roles. Really great to start working on that network. And don't be afraid.

Chances are they've already been through a redundancy themselves and they will have stories that can help you to actually get further through this redundancy and to have even better opportunities coming out the other side. So really leveraging the power of

people who you are connected to or even maybe people who your connections are connected to as well. LinkedIn is definitely your friend. Some people do the announcements, you know, I've been made redundant, I'm looking for work. I did that initially and then I took it down obviously when we knew that we were doing the business together. But I would say it's easy to feel shame at that point as well. And if we just...

take a step back from that shame for a moment and think about it. What on earth, what on earth do we have to feel ashamed for if the company's not doing well financially and needs to look at a balance sheet and make some cuts along the way? There's nothing there that's there to be for you to feel that way at all. So just...

Sarah (26:45)
Yeah.

Fiona Gordon (26:46)
Close the door, close the door on shame. Acknowledge it, I can see you, but that is not how I need to feel about what has happened.

Sarah (26:55)
Yeah, and I love the way you brought up LinkedIn because I think, it's our friend and our enemy sometimes and I think we overthink that. when I got back to New Zealand, I was like, am I going to put this announcement up? How do I feel about it? And I think one day I was just like, yep, I'm going to do it. I wrote it out. I put up my open for work frame on my LinkedIn and kind of went all out and that was prior.

to you and I kind of forming what we're doing, going forward, but the actual, the reach out was just overwhelming, right? The people and the concern and the, you know, the coffees just came flowing and you know, everyone here back here in New Zealand and abroad as well really wanted to connect and that helped me. it can be a little bit like scary and as you said, it can feel shameful, but it shouldn't.

Fiona Gordon (27:28)
Mm.

Sarah (27:45)
It's like, here I am, I'm still the same person, I've still got everything that I bought to every other role that I've got, and I'm ready to go forward and make a change. when you feel that it's right to go out and bring it up head on and just wear it loud and proud is how I ended up doing this. And I'm excited to be doing the next part of our journey loud and proud as well.

Fiona Gordon (28:11)
So on the flip side of people whose roles have been made redundant feeling shame, what do you see when people post about their redundancies? What's your immediate reaction?

Sarah (28:25)
My heart goes out to them because it's definitely not an easy road, right? When you're made redundant, there's a lot going on, the whirlwind and everything. So my heart really goes out for the people that have been made redundant. Obviously, it's not so obvious if they're happy about it, if they wanted it, if they're devastated, where they feel they are in their career, whether they're...

are even financially able to make a change or whether they're just going to be grinding to get the next role because they have to feed their family. for me it's a lot of empathy and just reaching out to people that have and just asking personally where I can help them or if I can give any advice on where they feel they are in their emotional journey of being made redundant.

Fiona Gordon (29:14)
Yeah, what I'm hearing is you feel compassion for people who are going through this situation and your instinct is, how do I help?

Sarah (29:25)
Yes, very much so.

Fiona Gordon (29:29)
What are some of the things that you have done to help people who are going through a redundancy?

Sarah (29:35)
Yeah, so for me, it's talking about the way in which the redundancy process rolls out and what I would have done myself to be better prepared going forward and whether that's, you know, the difficult conversations with the company itself, the conversations with my peers or my teammates, conversations with my family, with my friends.

It's really just around helping them through potentially where they're stuck at and where I can tell them potentially where I went wrong, you know, or what I would have liked to have been better prepared for when I was going in it. And just sharing a little bit of knowledge there on things that I thought I was successful doing throughout my redundancy and maybe where that will fit with them as well.

Fiona Gordon (30:07)
Mm.

Mm.

Yeah, I've had an opportunity in the last couple of weeks to connect with two people who had been made redundant here in Sydney. They've been made redundant, had worked for, 14, 17 years at this organization, both of them, which is a real chunk of change in somebody's career. And to have that, that news.

that their role was being made redundant was frightening. And I didn't know either of these two individuals directly. Indirectly, were sort of, one of them I was an acquaintance with on a WhatsApp group. We'd realized that we lived in a similar kind of region of Sydney and he was really brave and reached out to me and we went and had a coffee.

Top tip if anyone's been made redundant and you're not the one you're not the one whose role has been made redundant Please be the one that buys them the coffee and just take the pain away. It's just something small but a really nice gesture and sit down and listen to them and comfort them and Really try to understand what they're trying to achieve or where they're at in this process of the redundancy

and give advice on all of the things that have helped you to come out the other side, which of course includes connecting with other people as well. So some of the things that I've suggested around these individuals and how they can improve their chances, I've helped them with their resumes.

given them some really tough feedback and I know you know that can be really confronting especially when you're going through the emotions of the redundancy and then someone's saying to you you're not going to get to the top of the pile with this we need to be you know creating more active words in here than passive words so that people really get excited by it. We can't have

fluffy terms, know, want we data people we want hard numbers, you know, Things like this that can really help people to get shortlisted along the way are really great tips, but they can also be quite confronting for the individuals. So coming at it with compassion. My mentors favorite term kind candor along the way.

I think is really super important. One of the other things that I always recommend to someone who is going through that redundancy process is negotiating. And I know that you're super good, Sarah, at negotiating your way through this. For me, I can't talk directly about what I negotiated through my redundancy because I've signed paperwork behind it, but.

what I advise other people to look at is do you need certifications? They can pay for certifications. Is there a bonus that you have? Can you find a way to get your bonus pro-rata and paid out? Are there shares involved, and options? What else can you do that increases the value? And oftentimes the...

departments that are calculating your redundancy get it wrong as well. So please make sure that you're getting everything you're entitled to. For instance, in Australia, if you're over 45, you get an extra week of redundancy pay that's included. So making sure that you're up to speed with everything that you could possibly get. You you might ask for your sick leave to be paid out. Now, companies don't have to do all of these things, but

By creating a list of things that are important to you and being well prepared, you can often get more than what they originally offered.

Sarah (34:44)
Yeah, I really like that and negotiation there is the key. Like Fi said, you know, we all sign documents around this on what we can talk about, but I really like some of your top tips there around negotiating and looking for your own country and company, what their policies are is really important. And sometimes thinking outside of the box as well, right?

just because typically you wouldn't know if they've done different things before, but really internalize your own situation and take that back to your managers and your HR department and see if there's other things in exceptional circumstances that you may be able to get on offer as part of your package.

Fiona Gordon (35:32)
100%. And I know that there's some really great coaches out there as well. So aside from EAP or the outplacement programs that some companies actually organize, there's companies who offer specific coaching about getting through a redundancy process and actually elevating yourself and finding a better role on the other side.

We know a few people who are actually doing this. We've got Eva Murray, who's based out of the UK. We've got Josh Geller, who's based out of Australia. What I really love is when they go the extra mile and try to also connect you with a new company along the way, which is also something that I try to do is, I know that there's jobs going in this area that I think that you'd be a really great fit for and doing an introduction to it. I would highly recommend

investing in yourself and going and finding a coach you're paying for their services and therefore you're expecting certain things back and helping you to plan your way through this. And think of it like an individual cheerleader who's just there cheering you on along the way, but also guiding you through this process. And you'll be investing, as I say, in yourself. That could be something that you try and negotiate with your organization.

Sarah (36:51)
Yeah, I really like that. And I think as well, beyond the negotiation, having that kind of roadmap when you can be feeling quite lost if you're, you your role may be you may end up on gardening leave or you're all of a sudden gone from, you know, a big role, big hours to nothing. it's almost like you need a project, right? Enlisting in a coach or leveraging into the outplacement companies, if that's what you're

Fiona Gordon (37:09)
Mm.

Sarah (37:18)
organization has given you are really great places to start. And some areas that I started in was really around, you know, the typical, so getting my resume, CV up to scratch, looking at the roles, whether it be on LinkedIn or Seek or any of the kind of places available, then really refining my LinkedIn. I learned how important that was, understanding what my purpose was.

with this opportunity, what was I gonna do differently? How did I want to reframe where I was gonna go next? And just going through all this and running it almost like a mini project for yourself on your own personal development. If you are going to find a new role and that's your journey, then looking at interviews, how do you interview? You may not have been interviewing for five, 10 years.

And things have changed and how can you better do that? With coaching now you can almost do like mock interviews and a lot of them are online, which is a lot different to maybe what we've historically done. So a lot of changes in technology and process and things to take on board and when you feel like the fog is lifted to really have this as a focal point, I'm gonna kick ass with my LinkedIn.

it's going to look amazing and my resume is going to be awesome and leaning into people like coaches and outplacement and networking. that's really important to have that social connection with people within your industry because I think just about every role I've ever had has been through someone that I've known really well and they've known the company that I've been going to and being able to suggest, this is

Fiona Gordon (38:54)
Mm.

Sarah (39:00)
you this is a really great fit for you, go through the process. And some of those roles, I don't think I would have found any other way. So really lean into your network.

Fiona Gordon (39:02)
Yes.

What you're touching on there is making sure that you've got a good values fit for the organization that you're potentially going into next. And a really great way to figure out that values fit is to know someone who knows that company really well, or to know someone who actually works there. And the great thing is if someone actually works there, they can often do a referral through, they might make a little bit of money out of it. And also it might get you to the top of the pile.

Finding the right company that sits well with you. Perhaps it's a company that invests in building your skills up and you really want to make sure that you're continuing to learn along the way, elevate yourself. That's difficult to find a company like that that offers that option for you to spend a little bit of your work time working on elevating your skills. So really important, connect a lot with people.

Be open with them. Be vulnerable. Let them know what you're really looking for. If it's something like, have a lot that's going on in my personal life, so I need a role that's going to be less involved and good work-life balance, people will look for those organizations and perhaps avoid sending you to organizations where they know that you're going to be spending a lot of time in.

Sarah (40:31)
One of the things that I learnt, which is a very new thing, in today's industry,

Fiona Gordon (40:36)
Mm.

Sarah (40:37)
Every CV (resume) is now expected to be almost tailored to the job in which you're applying for because there are now HR bots that are collecting the information before it goes forward. So those lists of candidates per role right now are huge.

Fiona Gordon (40:57)
Yeah, you know, bots can be great. HR can be great at times. But I also feel as somebody who's spent a lot of time recruiting and building great teams with great culture, that it's important for leaders to ensure that they're across all of the resumes that are coming through. Now that might take you some time.

but I can guarantee you, won't miss some little nuggets of gold as well. as leaders, if you've got open roles posted out on LinkedIn, or they might be coming up, I might have some roles coming up. You know, if anyone's interested, reach out so that you're starting to build up a list of people who might be a great fit for your organization and your team and your ways of working as well. Because it's really about

Sarah (41:46)
Yeah.

Fiona Gordon (41:47)
It's just like dating, it's finding the right match, know? Perhaps we need to create an app which is swipe left on employees as well. A little bit different from LinkedIn. Maybe that's dub dub 2.0, Sarah.

Sarah (42:01)
Yeah, maybe. There we go. New business ideas come out of this. What next?

Fiona Gordon (42:03)
Absolutely. One thing that I'm really interested in is what did you find most helpful that people did when they reached out to you when you'd found out that your role was being made redundant?

Sarah (42:18)
So for me, it was two things. It was just them sharing that, they'd been through it before, or they knew someone that had been through it it's not the end of the world. And those kind of pieces, you know, just, I guess, just comfort, comfort and knowing that you're not alone and it's not because of you and these kind of things that can be the voices in your head.

And I think the other piece is the networking. So it's like, so-and-so is looking. exactly what you were just saying, right? Or have you thought of this? Or this company is really interesting right now. Asking for candid feedback. Hey, this is my resume. What do you think of it? This is my LinkedIn. Is there anything missing? And I think For me, it was that social connection and building up your networks again. Because you can go a little insular when you're

single focused on the current role that you're in Getting back out there, getting your name known and building up that confidence one bit at a time that you can do this and you can go forward. And You're not the only person in the world that's in this situation.

Fiona Gordon (43:18)
Mm.

I'm going to start at home and have and just focus on that a little bit before I go out and into my network. So when I found out that my role was made redundant, immediately, John said, it's going to be okay.

we'll get through this. Which was great, but I was in that real washing machine of emotions going through. Over the course of the next few weeks, we had some really good discussions because he has a really different way of looking at redundancies than what I do.

Sarah (43:42)
Yeah.

Fiona Gordon (44:05)
I feel that redundancies and the package, we haven't even spoken about packages really, but that the redundancy package that you get is a really good lift up in your life. You don't often get it. And so you can become more financially independent by leveraging that money, banking it, and then finding something else and keeping the money flowing through.

Sarah (44:25)
Because there's not very many times in your life where you're effectively paid to do nothing. Yes. Right.

Fiona Gordon (44:31)
To leave a company? No. Yes. And John, on the other hand, has a very different opinion on this. He believes that money is for you to rediscover yourself and to have time to work through that, grow, and then move into something. So he doesn't view it as a path to financial independence.

He views it as a way to invest in yourself.

It's been a real journey for me to come to his path and to think about what does that mean for me and us as a family and also you and I in terms of investing in the business that we're bootstrapping and what does that mean along the way. it was really important for me to have that conversation because I felt like I was letting the team down.

Sarah (45:29)
Yeah, that's really interesting, right? That all of a sudden, you're not, you know, your mind went straight to, okay, there's that money and that's over there, but now I've got to have this regular income again. Like, where's that coming from? And I'm not valuable anymore. I'm maybe over-exaggerating it there, but you know, an element of my value is gone because, every month I'm not getting that income anymore.

And it's really nice how John took a different approach to actually, you have got that money, let's you leverage it to invest in yourself. And I love that.

Fiona Gordon (45:56)
Right.

Yes, and so it's, you know, it's paid the bills and it's kept everything going. And I have had no income since my redundancy, I've been really focused on building the platform and the organization. So having his sponsorship on that was really important to me.

And then when I look outside at what other people did to support me through it.

It was really heartwarming when I would hear things like, I'm really sorry this has happened to you. It meant a lot because, people would say it who I'd worked with in my career and clearly they thought that I had value to offer. And so it was putting a few chips in the old emotional bank account. And that was really helpful. People asking, what can I do to help you?

was really important too. People asking me, how do you feel if I send you job links? actually asking for permission to send that through rather than just bombarding me. Yeah, yeah, it was really lovely. the thing that I take away from that is as somebody who's not going through this process, when somebody

Sarah (47:10)
overwhelming you with job links.

Fiona Gordon (47:22)
comes to you that is moving through their redundancy, ask them, how can I help you? What do you need from me? What can I do to help this to be easier for you?

Sarah (47:36)
Yeah, and I really like that because some people can think that they're doing the right thing when really they could be just overwhelming you, right? And I remember an example where I had about three to five friends that were like just overwhelming me, you know, and all around the globe. I'd wake up to like all these links on roles and I'd just be like,

Fiona Gordon (47:46)
Yes.

Sarah (47:58)
I don't even want to open it because my head's not in that space just yet. I'm trying to do 10 other things today. I'm not looking at that space. I think for me, just touching back on having the redundancy package, it really allowed me that space to move home, which I saw as a big opportunity in the end because how often do you get paid to kind of relocate yourself?

Fiona Gordon (48:02)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Right? On the flip side, talking about where things didn't go so well with other people and my redundancy process, and I'm sorry to out my mother here, but every call that I would be on, she would be asking me, have you been for any job interviews? No, mum.

I'm working through this and I'll let you know if I am going to a job interview, but please don't ask me that because every time you ask me, it feels like additional pressure is being loaded on. And she would continue to ask me, even when I told her we were setting up the business and I'd be like, mom, it's not gonna happen. I'm setting up the business, I might fail. I'll tell you if it fails.

And then I will be looking for job interviews. I might even go and work at Woolies and stack shelves along the way if it really means it. I have no shame in doing that.

Sarah (49:16)
Wait a minute, wait a minute, I thought Plan B was a cafe that was only open on the weekends and public holidays. That's it.

Fiona Gordon (49:23)
Dub dub grub.

So yes, please don't put pressure on people about what their next step is or what their journey is. Be open, just keep asking them, what can I do? Is there any, hey, we haven't checked in in a while, is there anything I can be doing now to help you? You don't just have to ask once, you can continue to ask along the way. If you are...

Sarah (49:48)
Yeah, I really like that check-in, like check-in on people. Even if they haven't responded the first time, give them a couple of days grace or a week and check-in again. Is there anything I can do? But to your point, don't overwhelm them with all the things you'd think that you would do in that situation.

Fiona Gordon (49:54)
Yes.

Yes, because we all go about it differently. Yeah, so there's a lot to consider through a redundancy. Now that you're out the other side. Do you think we're out the other side? I don't know, is it? We're somewhere. I do have a purpose. How are you feeling now about

Sarah (50:20)
Yay.

don't know, we're somewhere. We've got a purpose again, I think that's great.

Fiona Gordon (50:34)
what you have been through in the redundancy process.

Sarah (50:40)
I feel I've come out the other end. Am I in the right spot? Time will tell. Maybe, I don't know if I want to end up at Woollies, but let's go the cafe path if dub-dub data doesn't work. I like dub-dub-grub. I feel re-energized. I love the fact that I was given this opportunity to spend the time. It's been a long time. I've been home now for 10 months. You and I started our business.

Fiona Gordon (50:55)
Mm.

Hmm.

Sarah (51:07)
Four months ago? Yeah. So there was a lot of time, I gave myself a lot of time and I was very fortunate to do that. I had to settle my son back in New Zealand and change our lifestyle and very different than Singapore day to day. And I feel so grateful that I got given the opportunity to spend this time, some extra time with my son has been amazing.

Fiona Gordon (51:08)
Mm.

Mmm.

Mm.

Sarah (51:35)
We actually spent the month of January in Thailand because we didn't have an apartment anymore. So there we go. My son got two summer breaks last year, which was, yeah, half his luck exactly. So there's some great things. And I feel If I had to go back into corporate again, which I don't want to, I don't want to be the sad people on the ferry every morning.

Fiona Gordon (51:48)
Half as luck.

Sarah (52:01)
that I see when I take my son to school. But I feel refreshed and re-energized, which is, beneficial coming through the process.

Fiona Gordon (52:13)
Yeah, I feel optimistic that we are doing something to really change the way that people work with data companies and data individuals. And I really am hoping that we can be wildly successful in that space, helping other people to get value out of data, whether they're solopreneurs or organizations, and also do the same for ourselves as well. So I'm

wildly optimistic that this is going to work. And if it doesn't, you know, there's always corporate life again, or dub dub grub I don't want to be a sad person on the ferry either. This redundancy has really given me an opportunity to reassess what I want to be doing with my life, how I want to be leading my life.

and how I want to help others to elevate themselves. in corporate, there's always only a certain amount of things that we can do. When it's our own company, it's you and I. We can decide whether or not we think an idea is great and how we help others to be wildly successful as well.

Sarah (53:23)
Yeah, and I really love that. The piece that I love the most is, you know, a lot of the foundation of what we're trying to do at dub dub data is give people that other opportunity to not be completely reliant on their corporate job. One thing that's come out of this for both of us, if we'd had something on the side, we could potentially, you know, have switched over.

Fiona Gordon (53:39)
Mm.

Sarah (53:48)
and maybe taking some of the early on financial pressure.

Fiona Gordon (53:52)
Okay.

Sarah (53:54)
Okay, so I think we've come to the end of our second podcast, all about redundancy. Very exciting. How did you feel, Fi?

Fiona Gordon (54:05)
still think I'm getting the hang of this podcast thing.

Sarah (54:09)
Yeah, we're getting there. We're hoping we're a lot better than our last one and we're only going to get better. We're excited to get this out there and I hope it's helped you all. Like I really leaned into Fi talking through SEEDS. I'm going to get her to remind me what each of the stages were, but I love the social connection aspect. Let's see if I can remember it actually. The education.

Fiona Gordon (54:36)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (54:37)
The, no, what is it? What's the second E? Exercise, sorry, yes. And then we've got diet and I love how you're trying to eat, what is it? 40 different, 30 different things each week. Yeah, I love that. And sleep, God, wouldn't we all love a little bit more sleep? So that's it, that's a wrap from us. I hope you enjoyed and.

Fiona Gordon (54:40)
Exercise, exercise.

30 different, yeah, 30 different things each week. Fresh foods, whole foods.

Please.

Sarah (55:02)
We'll be back next time.

Fiona Gordon (55:04)
Thank you.

Sarah (55:06)
Bye.

 

Fiona Gordon (00:00)
Welcome Sarah Burnett, I'm Fi Gordon to our very first unDUBBED podcast where we're unscripted, unfiltered and undeniably data. So it's really exciting to get started on this podcast because it's the first time that we're going to really be talking publicly around

what we've been up to for the past few months and the business plans that we have. But before we get started, Sarah, because some people may not be familiar with you, if we think about this like comic book number one, we want your origin story. So give us your backstory, the journey that made you get here today and, were there any kind of plot twists or superpowers that you have that brought you along

Sarah (00:50)
Thanks, Fi So my origin story begins in New Zealand, but it's not quite where you'd expect. It actually kicked off in the coffee industry, where I got hands-on, manually scraping cafe listings from the Yellow Pages, like you do. It wasn't glamorous, but it really gave me a taste of how transformative data can be. I also spent some time in Australia, where I was so excited because they had on a CD-ROM,

the whole state of Victoria's cafe data, which is very exciting. So no more manual scraping for me. And I remember going into the government department and picking up physically the CD-ROM. Then I built an access database. And I remember presenting this back to the coffee reps of how they could now filter on a map by postal code and number of seats per cafe. So it's very exciting for me. From there, I leapt into London. So diving into the world of investment banking.

and I spent a little bit of time in fund management and a plot twist, but a time in recruitment as well. And here I felt like I started off in access and then evolved through to things like SQL. I eventually returned back to New Zealand where I did a little tiny stint in a telco and then I headed off to Westpac, which was one of New Zealand's top banks. Business intelligence was just becoming a buzzword then. And I remember getting some...

powerful consultants in that really showed me the power of visualization. And I was hooked after that. Next minute, it felt like I went off to Singapore. And here I was lucky enough to work for two of the biggest global banks, doing roles like business intelligence and heading up the data democratization. All the time here, I managed to keep like hands on, but was also developing my leadership strengths.

So as guiding teams through complex data challenges and helping them shape strategy at a higher level, I realized really early on that, quite often we were building out these big technology areas and the final hurdle, which was actually the, know, the getting the data out the door wasn't being focused on. So I found that my niche really early on was working tech side and business side and building those partnerships.

and the teams and to make sure that what we were delivering was meaningful, not just a technical solution. Through these twists, I've always had a superpower for me, which is seeing the beauty in data and the stories and insights behind them. I love to drive clear, actionable insights from our data to help strategically make better decisions at the top.

Fiona Gordon (03:32)
Wow, so that's a full on packed career history with data back to back.

Sarah (03:38)
Yep, it really is. And I think when you find your passion and my passion is data, then it kind of just, it leads you and it carries on and it builds. over the years, I got all the way up to exec level and that was really exciting. six months, a year ago, I think I found out that that was all gonna change when my role was made redundant.

Fiona Gordon (04:03)
Mmm.

Sarah (04:04)
And I was based in Singapore and I'd been there for almost a decade supporting my family there. And I kind of thought, I could, yeah, I could just go and get another job. And AI was really kicking off and all the big banks were talking about AI. And I was kind of going into these, interviews and they were like, so what are you doing in AI? And I was like, well, I only found out about it like two months ago. What do you mean? What am I doing? and, and I just kind of felt like it just, it just didn't feel right to come and say, yeah, I'm going to

I'm gonna head AI in this organization. I don't know if it's part of being a woman, but sometimes we like to know 90 % of the job we're walking into, right? And I felt like in this instance, I knew 10 % of the job and I couldn't do that. And I felt, things were changing and I wanted to do something different. I couldn't do that thing different in Singapore. So I came back to New Zealand to do it differently. Yeah.

Fiona Gordon (04:55)
Back home. Well, for the folks that are tuning in, I'm actually a Kiwi as well, but based out in Australia. So you'll be listening to two broad Kiwi accents on this podcast as we continue to host things, over the years, hopefully, if we're really successful, but really interesting. And, I feel you around that redundancy.

that's a really tough space to be in and also a place where you can reinvent yourself as well.

Sarah (05:25)
Yeah, so I think that segues really nicely, Fi into kind of where you are today and what led you and maybe a little random story about your journey to get here.

Fiona Gordon (05:37)
Thanks, Sarah. It was really interesting actually going over your story. And I feel like there's definitely some threads that are so similar between our careers. And it makes a lot of sense why we connect so well. So apart from being two crazy Kiwis, my data story is I fell into data and the way that that would happen, I would have jobs and people would

want me to be their beta tester, helping them on all of their technology platforms and even doing lots of automation and Excel, those good old macros that you could do along the way. And I went along to an interview one day, they wanted a couple of access databases built and I told them flat out, I don't know how to use access and they told me, well,

your Excel skills are really great. And that's how I started in a more truly analytical space. I was sitting next to a guy, he was reading trends and he couldn't do it so well and I was helping him out. And in the end, the manager wanted me to stay on and asked me to come and be an analyst. And I loved that job. So I was analyzing underground tank data for mobil oil in New Zealand and really making sure that petrol didn't get into the water table there.

which was really interesting to have such a green focus all the way back then, those 25 odd years ago. So since then, I've been working in data full time and in lots of different areas of data. I realized using bespoke programs wasn't really great for my career. So I learned how to code in SAS. And from there, I jumped across the ditch and

did lots of different types of analyst roles. I did campaign analyst, I did insight analyst, I went up the ladder a bit and became a business intelligence manager really quite quickly. And I realized the way that the market was going, I actually wanted to step back a little bit and learn predictive analytics because I believed that's where the future was. So I had a really great opportunity to slot into a role.

where I was looking at churn rates of telecommunication customers and building predictive models for that. And really have just gone through different roles in my career, building out new skills and capabilities in different areas of analytics until eventually I felt that I had a good enough foundation where I felt I could successfully lead teams in ways that

I knew which tools needed to be implemented. I knew which processes needed to be implemented having come from that background. eventually I found myself with Tableau and

Tableau was a huge deployment. In fact, we did the biggest deployment in APAC until you came along and implemented it at a bank over in Singapore. that was a really great time to help people see and understand data. And from there, I've just gone from strength to strength, rolling out different tool sets and technologies in more senior roles.

my last role, which was at JLL was as the executive director of BI strategy, enablement and technology, which is a bit of a mouthful. But what I did was I looked after how we standardized all of our processes and operating models. We upskilled our employees using gamification programs like

the Alteryx Adventure and the Tableau Quest, which I personally developed And then, just went on this amazing journey of transforming the way that all of these, 150 odd analysts did things around the globe.

I've really had an opportunity to help so many individuals to upskill and really leapfrog their peers outside of other organizations. And I really look forward to being able to do something similar, but at a greater scale with our company, dub dub data.

Sarah (09:41)
Yeah, and I really love hearing your story. And obviously I've heard parts of it before, but there's so many synergies with both of us, right? We both fell into data and gravitated to it. I mean, my first role in the coffee industry was actually in the marketing department.

to your point as well, that whole access database origins and then, finding our way through technology as it's evolved as well, I think it's been really exciting.

Fiona Gordon (10:08)
Absolutely.

Fiona Gordon (10:09)
Having had a recent redundancy in June of this year, reaching out to you was amazing to have had someone that's just so recently been able to

share their experience and give advice on how to navigate through that. And, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to really say, hey, should we start a data business? Can we do things differently than we've seen done elsewhere? And what's the opportunity there?

Sarah (10:38)
And I think it's really funny, because basically that was the conversation, right? We were talking, you knew I was recently back in New Zealand, and you called me up and kind of, dropped the bomb as I had to you six months before and said, hey, my role's been made redundant. This is what I'm thinking. And I was like, yeah, sounds good, let's do it. And that was kind of the end of the conversation.

It felt like it's been really organic and natural from the beginning We wanted to do something different. And there's not many opportunities that come along that give you a little bit of breathing space.

a redundancy allows you to take a massive step back, or it's forced us to take a big step back, right? And reassess what we're doing. Sometimes it's serendipitous of the timing of things that happen in your life. And I think that initial conversation, did that happen in around June? Have I got the date about right?

Fiona Gordon (11:34)
it was around June so it was either late May or early June and you were the only person that I wanted to talk to anything remotely close to work about Shout out to all the people that are getting made redundant out there it's a really tough time make sure that you've got the right support around you make sure that you've

got plans for yourself, but you're giving yourself that space to really just relax a little bit and settle back into yourself because I can guarantee you there's a part of yourself that you've been giving up along the way for whatever role it is. Even if it's one of those redundancies where you've asked for it and I had asked, know a little while back to be made redundant. So even though that happened, it was really tough.

when the rubber actually hit the road and I was made redundant and that's okay. I'm grateful for all of the support that you gave me because those conversations were really healing for me and also

helped me to understand when things might not just be about me, for instance, what my team at work had been going through as well. if anyone's listening in, perhaps we'll do a podcast at some point about redundancies, because I think that it can really help other people as well. But I'm open to anyone messaging us or wanting to have a chat who's been made redundant. We're pretty well connected in the data community.

and know jobs that are going on, I'd be happy to help out and give you any of the advice that I learned along the way and also the things that I learned along the way that really helped me.

Sarah (13:09)
Yeah, and I'd like to say as well, like reach out, like doesn't have to be obviously New Zealand or Australia, we're well connected globally. In my career, I've worked in both London, Singapore, Auckland, and a little bit in Melbourne actually, very long time ago. We're very well connected and

it's a real rollercoaster being made redundant. actually I try and reframe it to say that my role was made redundant, not myself. And I think that's something that I was lucky enough as part of my redundancy package to have a year of coaching. So I've learned a lot through that and I could actually pass on to Fi at the time, which is great. Another good thing as well is if you can...

Fiona Gordon (13:35)
Mm.

Sarah (13:51)
teach what you're going through as well. It's almost like a second round learning for yourself.

Fiona Gordon (13:55)
100%. Okay, so off the cuff, if you were speaking unscripted, yeah, this is totally unscripted. If you had someone in front of you right now that had just been made redundant, what's the biggest piece of advice that you could get them to take away that you think will help them?

Sarah (13:58)
Unscripted. Unscripted.

Yeah, I think the first thing is it's not personal. Like I used to always say, you're just one management decision away from a redundancy, right? And we've seen it, in my roles, I'm surprised I've only been made redundant once, to be honest, because we work in numbers. And those numbers quite often come down to profit and headcount. And we see it all the time. So I think the first piece of advice is it's not personal.

Fiona Gordon (14:34)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (14:40)
it's the company and they throw away good people all the time. And I think it's quite often, it's really just a number. It's like, you're at this level, you're in this band, you're this grouping. We need to get rid of X amount of people in this space. And it's almost like the first person that looks up, right? It just feels that it's like, don't take it as any kind of personal attack on yourself. And then the second piece of advice, which you've already seen for years just

Fiona Gordon (14:57)
Mm.

Right.

Sarah (15:07)
Take time for yourself. Let it all wash over you. You you're go through all the emotions and some of them are an embarrassment. I was doing all this work and I thought I was doing great. I've got this big team behind me and I'm really proud of everything that we're doing. And then someone just comes and takes it all out. And it can be really humbling that, that's happened.

Fiona Gordon (15:26)
Right.

Right, yeah, I totally agree. It's definitely not a personal thing. It's a numbers thing. it's actually almost always the most impersonal thing.

there's a bunch of senior executives that have sat around a table, looked at how much you're earning and figured out this is the amount that I need to get rid of, and sadly, that's often because, they're trying to report numbers back to market if they're a publicly listed company so, literally they're just going through line by line on a spreadsheet and saying, you're in or you're out.

And, for me, the fact that I'm out now, I'm just grateful.

I absolutely love the opportunity to work with you. I've learned so much so far and there's so much more in front of us that we need to get going along the way. And so, I'm grateful that I've had this opportunity to get a bit of a payout, which has enabled me to spend some time getting dub dub up and running and ready almost to launch.

So, on that note, why don't we talk a little bit about dub dub data.

Sarah (16:42)
Yeah, let's get into it. we started talking in May, June. I think we formed the companies in June, yes. And yeah, we're ready. We're getting ready to launch, which is really exciting. And I'm gonna pass it over to you, because I think you do the best intro pitch.

Fiona Gordon (16:47)
Mm-hmm.

June? Mm-hmm.

So.

no, now I feel under pressure.

What's dub dub data? Well, we help people unlock value from data. we want to help people to be able to find the best people in the world to either deliver their consulting, to deliver their training.

to attend live training sessions, to go online training sessions, to get templates, anything that's data related. It doesn't have to be just about data visualization or data engineering. It can be about anything, anything that's mildly related to the topic of data. it's a combination of Fiverr and Etsy smooshed together.

Sarah (17:51)
for data

Fiona Gordon (17:52)
but for data people and if you want to sell your products on our platform you're called a dubber. You come on you do a listing on there you go through some quality control checks with us because we only want the best of the best actually listed on the platform.

And then clients can come to one place and search for the best people to help them out. And it gives them exposure globally to some resources that they may not actually know about. So we're a global marketplace for data products and services.

when I think of data consulting businesses, one of their biggest risks is that they have people on the bench, right? So these people who they employ, they pay their regular salaries, and then all of a sudden there's a bit

of a lull in what's happening out in market and they've got people that they're still paying.

but they're not getting paid for them. And depending on how long that period of time is, that's when we start to see some of the redundancies come through, and it's not good for anyone. So I'm really excited to be able to partner with other data consulting organizations.

if we can solve for that, and help people to be able to...

advertise short-term contracts for their bench along the way, perhaps at really sharp pricing as well, just for a short period of time. I think that it's win-win for everyone.

Sarah (19:23)
I love the idea that we're not working in opposition. That's a real big part of us is we want to build a community of data and analytics people, whether they be, individuals, companies, et cetera, that are going to come together and, fill gaps that are needed and give them that kind of global reach is really what it is. And with DubDubData,

Fiona Gordon (19:27)
Yes.

Mmm.

Sarah (19:49)
We are trying to really build not just a marketplace but a community as well.

Fiona Gordon (19:54)
that's right. you're talking right to my heart there, because I love the community side of things. I've been really lucky to be working on our community platform.

behind the scenes. It's ready to go for people who want to join us. So if you go to hub.dubdubdata.com and then on our front page there, there's a few different links that you can go to. One is to register your interest if you would be interested in selling anything, whether that's consulting services, could be a short hour mentoring session, could be business coaching.

We're wait listing at the moment. We will be reviewing people and then slowly bringing them on to the marketplace platform. But as soon as you register your interest, you will also get signed up for our community. And the community is a bunch of different groups or channels that you can talk with, data professionals from around the world.

and connect on different topics like data engineering, data visualization, any other data related topics. And then there's places just to hang out. There's places if you want to pitch your own goods so you can sell the things that are actually on the dub dub marketplace as well. And also get support from other Dubbers who, are perhaps solopreneurs or

Sarah (21:01)
A-I.

Fiona Gordon (21:16)
they're running their own businesses to get feedback on on your own products as well.

Sarah (21:20)
It's super exciting and I can't wait till launch. It feels like it's been a long time and a short time at the same time. It's all been building up because Fi's working on the community side, I'm working on the marketplace side, we're dividing and conquering.

Whatever the word is. Yeah.

Yeah, let me think of something more fluffy for next time. Less masculine. it is really exciting that we're going to have something that people can kind of get their hands on soon.

we spoke to a lot of people that we knew and trusted in our community. And we got a lot of really positive feedback, which is great.

the next step in the journey is really being able to potentially monetize all that stuff that you've potentially been giving away, giving away for free in the past.

Fiona Gordon (22:09)
Yeah.

And just on that point, if you don't want to sell on the marketplace, you can also just join in on the community. on that hub.dubdubdata.com, in case you didn't know, we'll put it in the show notes, if you join us early, you'll be one of our founding members, whether or not you are someone who becomes a Dubber, or you just want to hang out and talk data,

get access to some really great things along the way. There'll be freebies, we'll have some great deals as well on things just by joining into our community. We really want to leverage the power of people.

So please join. There's places in there to ask dub dub any questions as well into the community and we'd be happy to connect with you. Whether you're a business or you're an individual, it'd be really great to have you on board.

Sarah (22:45)
Yeah.

just to your point on why, why build this organization for me, is when you're lucky to be part of...

communities you get all the knowledge that you need. we've been very lucky to be able to find resources as we need them. sometimes when you come into an organization, if they haven't tapped into the right community, they're flying quite blind. And what we really want to do with dub dub data is have that really trusted set of products and services.

that people can come in and buy and sell that will really help them in their organizations or on their personal journey.

Fiona Gordon (23:41)
I agree. And sometimes people struggle, Sarah, with understanding what kind of products that they might be able to sell on dub dub or services. Can you just list off a few off the top of your head that you think might work well in a data marketplace?

Sarah (23:58)
if I start with services, like you said, filling bench seats some day kind of consultancy. I'm a specialist in data visualization, for example, or I can help you kickstart your technology platform, or I'm really interested and I've built some LLMs, know, like things like that that can really come in and support small, medium, large size organizations that need a really specific set of...

requirements, built out for them. I also really love the more short-term thing. this could be something that you could potentially charge by the hour instead of by the day. Or I want to do, a viz review, or I need some particular coaching or mentoring and maybe, that I've been made redundant in the data world and I need someone to help me

with a better global reach than I've got And I think those are some of the really key services that I find will be really interesting.

Fiona Gordon (24:52)
one of the things that...

I'm observing out in market at the moment is the rise of the fractional insert name here role and and so if we think about that and in dubdubs Realm, it might be a fractional CDO. It might be a fractional head of It might be a fractional manager might be a fractional consultant on a specific area or you might be going out and pitching in your own business on different things and you just need some

who is well renowned in the industry with that specific expertise who could look over and review the work that you've done. You know we all know that...

Sarah (25:32)
Yeah, almost to get you over that hump that you just can't get over, right?

Fiona Gordon (25:36)
Yeah, it'll just double check. I mean, you may have chat GPT the hell out of something to get you, into your RFP or what have you, but...

let's face it, chat GPT has its own hallucinations sometimes. And so you really want to make sure that you're putting out content, to potential clients that is proven and it's actually accurate along the way. Otherwise, you could have a bit of egg on your face. So I think, if you're considering how you can work in this fractional space, dubdub is a really good way to be able to market your skill sets and capability

Sarah (26:10)
Yeah, I really love that. And then I think onto the product side, I'm going to throw it over to you to kind of start with your exciting hit list of products that you hope to find on DubDubData.

Fiona Gordon (26:16)
God, I wasn't.

Right. So I thought I was doing a really great podcast host role there and asking all of the tough questions. Co-hosts. Co-hosts. Co-hosts.

Sarah (26:28)
Co-founders, co-founders. Doesn't work like that. Co-hosts, co-founders, same, same.

Fiona Gordon (26:35)
That's right, that's right. so what kind of products could one sell on the on the marketplace? Well This might sound strange, but I'm gonna start with books,

As a leader in data and analytics, sometimes I'm, I'm looking for a small acknowledgement of something that somebody's done and I would just like to recognize them for it. And having a data book, particularly for people who are really interested in data, can really help out. But it's sometimes hard to know what's the latest best book or, what's something that would be really good for someone starting out in this particular area. So I'm really keen to build up a great library.

of well-known data books. In addition to that, everyone's favorite, we want to have some Dub-Dub merch that's online as well. I personally am a bit disappointed that in our first podcast, we're not wearing Dub-Dub merch.

Sarah (27:30)
Yeah, stay tuned, stay tuned. Like logo here. Sorry.

Fiona Gordon (27:33)
like Sarah you're behind the eight ball come on definitely having some merch along the way that we want to bring online but that's just kind of the fun stuff more importantly and data products we can look at things like templates style guides

Templates could be for things like how you should document your work. That could be something that's relatively cheap and inexpensive, get off the ground really quickly. Or it could be an automated template. in a past life, we've built out automated.

documentation both for Tableau Workbooks and Alteryx workflows. that kind of thing could save so much time for everyone. Everyone hates doing documentation so the most you can get ahead of would be really great. And they're things that people could really easily implement at their own organization and that would save them potentially weeks of development along the way as well. So anything that can be packaged up and sent

or downloaded whether that's in a physical form or a digital form, That's really what we're looking for. It could even be things like

training. So having an online training program, we have the facility to actually host your online training. if you're a potential dubber, and you want to sell your own online training, we will provide the platform to host that on for you and give you all of the goodies that come along with that. So that's exciting. It could be in person training. So you could host in person training or even virtual training on your own platforms as well.

making sure that you've got the ability to deliver these things out to end clients at scale. What else could we do on there? Is there anything else that you can think of? Sure. Yes.

Sarah (29:13)
I've got one that you've missed that I'm very excited about coming on board because I think it's going to be one of our first products for sure is the Tableau Quest.

Fiona Gordon (29:24)
I think you're putting me on notice a little bit there. okay. Well, that's, that's fair, but I think merch is easier than the quest. So the Tableau quest is definitely something that I'm perhaps more well known for in the data community. Back in 2018, I presented the Tableau quest to the Tableau conference and it's been wildly successful both at my previous organization and also

Sarah (29:28)
Well you just put me on the hook for the merch so come on.

Fiona Gordon (29:50)
the one before that and it really helps people go from rookies to rock stars on the Tableau platform and there's also things like the Alteryx Adventure. So they're things that really help to elevate the skill set and capability of your teams and do it in a way that's really fun and a little bit addictive.

Sarah (30:09)
I think the beauty about this marketplace, if we take the Tableau Quest as an example, I know that we've spoken about that there's going to be like a kind of a gold, silver, bronze package available, So.

Bronze is here's your digital product, done. It's all packaged up, ready to go. End of, of one-off price and you're done. And then you're gonna have the other options where you've got the silver, where it's a little bit more hands-on and some particular coaching. And then you'll have the potential for gold packaging, which is, you might get the use of Fi and really make sure it's.

it flies at record speed.

Fiona Gordon (30:47)
Right, make sure that we're adapting it to the needs of the organization so we're really addressing what's important to you strategically in this process as well. And perhaps doing some upskilling of your own team so that they understand things like change management and how to really make sure that a program gets in, is well received, and it's sticky. There's nothing worse than launching something and no one adopts it.

Sarah (31:15)
crickets.

Fiona Gordon (31:16)
Yeah, exactly.

Sarah (31:17)
I'm gonna change topics because we've been talking a lot about what the platform's gonna do and that, which is awesome. But I think just a little bit back to maybe us and building out an organization and everything, what are some of your fears with taking this big leap of faith which we have done? what's the thing that worries you the most about this?

Fiona Gordon (31:19)
Shoo!

Mmm.

But like jab, jab, right hook. Getting the tough questions in there. No, I think it's really important. And Candidly, one of my biggest fears about being in business is I've experienced when it goes wrong.

Sarah (31:48)
Why not? Why not? Unscripted!

Fiona Gordon (32:03)
I grew up in a family where things did kind of go wrong in a business and so I've always wanted to stay away from that because I just wasn't ready to assume the risk.

everyone might be telling us this is a great idea guys, we can't wait for this. And then, when the rubber really hits the road, it's like crickets in our community, there's nothing going on and no one wants to list their products, who knows? But if that happens, so be it,

Yeah, failing and making this a really expensive bad hobby, which I know is your favorite.

terminology

Sarah (32:36)
Yeah, and I think failure is always the biggest fear. But if I can kind of answer the question, what I love about our kind of connection and relationship is I feel if an element of it fails, we're quite okay to go, okay, well, shit, that didn't work. Let's go on to this part. Like, let's take a total left turn. And I think that's probably why we've been a little bit

Fiona Gordon (32:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sarah (33:04)
we've been buying our time and speaking to the right people. and this is actually a big step for us today, isn't it? Like to actually like publicly put on the line, we're building a community for data and analytics and a marketplace. And it could completely fucking go nowhere, right? And, our family could watch this for years, and say, a big failure that was.

just the fact that we feel that we're comfortable enough to now say, hey, this is actually what we're doing to the world. I think that's really exciting. And also that if it fails, we change it.

Fiona Gordon (33:38)
Right.

I've got another one. Another massive fear with this is,

getting onto socials, doing things like reels, doing the recording of this podcast, being on camera, it is also a fear of mine and, but I'm just gonna fucking do it and get over it.

Sarah (34:00)
Exactly. I think even just setting up this morning, We're like, like, I don't think I've ever seen you this nervous for a while. But at the same time, camera comes on and it's all good, right? Because we're friends first, right? we've been data BFFs for how long now?

Fiona Gordon (34:15)
hundred.

This is, yeah, I don't know. I think it's seven years. I think it's 2017 was the conference that we met each other at.

Sarah (34:20)
Seven years? Seven years?

Yes.

I really love spending quality time with you and we've done a lot of that over the last couple of months and it's been really enjoyable. Fi's come over here and I've been over to Sydney and I'm going back again in December, which is great, very exciting for lots of reasons. And it is really good. And I think one of our fears as well is how will our friendship survive this? But we also really...

Fiona Gordon (34:33)
Mm.

You

Mm.

Sarah (34:57)
feel that it's good to go into business with friends. And I think, we've really had to work a lot on our open communication and we communicate different styles. I feel that Fi thinks really fast. And so sometimes she'll be like 10 steps ahead of me and I'm still thinking of like the first sentence that she said. And, we have to balance each other. But from being really open and honest in our...

Fiona Gordon (35:01)
Yeah.

Sarah (35:22)
and just when we have our chats and everything I think it's awesome and I think because we're building something from the ground up together we've both put our skin in the game right like we can't risk hiding from problems or hoping someone else is going to pick up the crappy things that we don't want to do because it's just us we're having to pack up all the fun stuff as well right and they're not so fun stuff

Fiona Gordon (35:48)
But we have this podcast, Sarah, and this podcast isn't going to be just a one-off. It's going to continue along the way. Can you tell me a little bit about your vision for how this is gonna work the type of podcast that it be so that people know what to look forward to as we start to build this out?

Sarah (35:50)
Yes.

Yeah. So I'm not going to put a frequency cadence on it just yet. it's not just going to be, us just talking every time. Obviously today was really important to introduce you to who we are for those that don't know us and what we're trying to achieve. But what we actually want to do is we actually want to start getting other people on the podcast as well and really going deep into some of those topics.

Maybe pre-attentive attributes is one day fee, a passion. So we really want to come in and unlock and, as it says, undubbed. So unscripted, what is it? Uncensored and undeniably data.

Fiona Gordon (36:52)
don't think that's quite it, but anyway.

Sarah (36:54)
isn't it?

I've decided it is.

Fiona Gordon (36:56)
get it right it's unscripted unfiltered undeniably data but well maybe we'll make a change on that now before it goes out that's what I love about working with Sarah we can just break shit

Sarah (37:00)
can sense it.

Fiona Gordon (37:10)
Yeah, I think that's a really great sort of summary of what we're doing. So if anyone's got any ideas of podcasts that they were topics that they think would be really interesting, we'll be hosting a lot of the Dubbers who we start to bring on, the founding Dubbers that will help us to build the business out.

Sarah (37:28)
Love it, love it. So, is that a wrap? Is that a wrap on our first podcast? I think.

Fiona Gordon (37:31)
I reckon it should be, because know, the time's getting up there and as much as we love to talk, I don't know how much everyone else likes to listen. Thanks very much everyone for tuning in. I look forward to connecting with you on hub.dubdubdata.com. Have a great day. Bye.

Sarah (37:39)
No, over and out, right?

Bye!