A City EXPOses Itself - And Changes Forever

It may not seem like 'yesterday', but it sure feels like Brisbane’s World Expo 88 was a lot fewer than 29 years ago.

I read today the City is looking at how to celebrate the 30^th anniversary of Expo and typically, a statue is being considered.

The Brisbane Times describes Expo 88 with these 5 bullet points:

·         It was staged on 40 hectares of land at South Brisbane, which became South Bank.

·         It cost $625 million to stage.

·         It had 15,760,000 visitors.

·         It had a monorail and 100 pavilions with 36 from overseas.

·         It showcased something called 'the internet' in the Swiss pavilion.

I was a moderately regular visitor to the event and recall many of the pavilions. More so, it was the atmosphere I enjoyed.

All ages, from all points of the globe came together with like objectives, to learn and have fun.

The need to queue to access activities, food and pavilions meant conversations between strangers struck up. Australians talked to Canadians who talked to Indians who talked to Africans. Barriers were broken down. Queenslanders even talked to New South Wales visitors.

But it was the change to the lifestyle of Brisbane as a city that in my opinion was most obvious. Brisbane grew from a large country town to a young Cosmopolitan City.

I had been living in Brisbane for about three years when Expo opened. While I enjoyed Brisbane, it was still a City that effectively closed at about 8pm. There was little variety in Restaurants and within each restaurant, little variety in menu or wine list. I used to say with absolute sincerity that I could order a bottle of wine at any restaurant without need to look at the wine list; such was the similarity of lists and the limit of choices.

Petrol Stations worked on a roster at weekends, street lights turned off at midnight and there were no 24 hour convenience stores. Hotels traded for a two hour period, twice each Sunday and the late afternoon or early evening period was known as the Sunday swill.

Restaurants opened and diversified as a result of Expo visitors. They responded to the demand from international and interstate visitors. Locals enjoyed the new offerings and embraced the changes, which continued and further evolved post Expo.

Brisbane people became used to going out, exploring their city and being proud of it. The “chip” came off the shoulder. Dare I say, Queenslanders became a little less parochial and more inclined to identify as Australians rather than predominantly Queenslanders.

Hotels opened on Sundays, Petrol was available 24 hours a day and slowly, shopping laws were modernised.

Brisbane became a little more cosmopolitan and more accepting of the world at large. Brisbane became more accommodating to visitors and its residents more open to travel the world.

Expo 88 was fun, but more than that, it changed Brisbane and Queensland, and did so for the better.

Culture Learnings - University, Facebook, Google and Others

What is Workplace Culture?

I read today about Google and Facebook and that the Culture they want to create is that akin to being on a University Campus.

Is that a good thing?

Think back to your University Days. Chances are there were the groups of geeks and jocks. There were the political activists with uncompromising opinions. There were the fun chasing party people perennially hung over and the gamers, even in my day.

There were those with a clear direction as well as those hoping to find their direction, both groups equally motivated but expressing this in quite different ways. There are the aspirational, the dreamers, the grounded, the pragmatists, the cynical and even the disenchanted.

And the diversity of nationalities was always evident. To many, the exposure to ethnic diversity was first experienced at University.

There were those who craved the University life and others who could not wait to get away, each and every day. 

Is this really what Google wants, what Facebook wants?

Arguably, it is what every organisation, every business entity, all sporting clubs and non profit wants. And certainly, every political party needs.

A University Campus represents our first concentrated exposure to a truly diverse environment. We emerge from the confines of secondary school (Senior High) and are thrust unprepared in to a diverse world of Tertiary Education (College). A world where we can branch out and express ourselves, where we learn so much more than what is lectured to us and measured by exam and assignment results.

The experiences and diversity we are exposed to at University strikes me as being the perfect Culture for a progressive business to replicate. An ideal Workplace Culture.

However, I see very little evidence of our mainstream finance and industrial monoliths going down this path.

Perhaps if they did, our traditional corporations and our traditional political parties would be more in touch with current and future customers, and correspondingly, be less threatened by the Googles', Facebooks', EBays', Amazons' and Teslas' of the world.

Consider how powerful a Culture accommodating and respecting true diversity could be?

Food for thought when next Culture is discussed in your workplace.

Influential Early Years

I have never really maintained any long lasting attachment to a previous employer.

I have never left one job and spent the following weeks, months, years wishing I was back where I had left.

I have even left a job to go to another when the new role is paying less because the new role interested me and I have never changed jobs for financial gain alone.

This doesn’t mean I was not invested or emotionally committed (in a business sense) to my job, it just means there has never been any ‘leaving pains’.

I had a coffee catch up today with a colleague of the past 7 years whose last day at our mutual employer is in two days’ time.

She is a Human Resources Specialist and as such, is industry agnostic meaning her skills are fully transferable. She is bubbling with excitement about the new job and increased pay while also looking forward to a very different industry in which to practice her skills.

However, with all the excitement, she is also genuinely sad about leaving.

I asked her about this and she likened it to when she moved out of home to live away from her parents. She enjoyed a great relationship with them and as an 18 year old, viewed her Parents Mother as friends.

She explained that the 7 years since graduating have been spent working for the same employer and recognises the incredible influence these years have been on who she is as a person.

She met her husband (a teacher), bought a house and has become a Mother. She cited the amazing people she has come in to contact with who have impacted her life, not just her work.

She went on to say how grateful she is for all the good people who she has met and worked with and above all, who have shown faith in her and allowed her to grow.

In retrospect, she had become aware only when reflecting on the past 7 years of the contribution early working years have on a person are no less impactful than the quality of teachers you have during school years, lecturers at University and friends you attract to your side, and all are interlinked.

I had never considered this before but took the opportunity to look back on my first years of full time adult employment. The guidance received, and examples provided by many I worked with at the now defunct Commercial Bank of Australia (CBA) have carried with me in a most positive way for more than 30 years.

Being thrust in to the world of international payments and foreign currencies requiring regular dealings with the Senior Staff of some of our major customers was an education upon which I cannot place a value.

The young lady I met with today is exactly 30 years my junior, yet raised my awareness to the contribution our formative working years make to our later success. Our conversation had me re-value and re-visit some very happy formative years in my career I have not thought about in a long time. It was a period where the working place was one lacking in sophisticated technology but where the interactions and friendships formed were lasting.

Good luck to my soon to be former colleague, and thank you for enlightening me today.

Motivational Quote Mindlessness - Or Not

What is it with our seeming obsession with motivational quotes?

Have a look at your Instagram profiles. If you have anything like the experience I have, you post a photo and a pile of almost instantaneous “likes” follow. Now, have a look at their content. My bet is many are full of little more than what we call motivational quotes.

I too went through a period of collecting such quotes. I would see one I liked and save it to my phone, laptop, tablet.

The more quotes I read, the more I liked and the more I saved.

After a while, it struck me that having saved them, I never actually looked at them again, read them or received any inspiration or motivation, but, I felt good because I now owned something special.

I am not sure why, but Pinterest e-mail me a couple of times a week suggesting quotes or inspirations I might like.

I have been meaning to unsubscribe.

So, why do we find these so compelling?

My thinking is, we like, save or share a quote because we feel it casts a good reflection on who we are, or who we want others to think we are.

By sharing a quote, we reflect a spiritual connection with the “whatever” and are representing ourselves as a new age, connected, caring human being capable of inspiring others, because that is how I want to be viewed, even if nothing else represents this image.

I have landed on a happy “quote” compromise.

I only keep a quote I am prepared to print and display for all to see. I display my inspirational quote in a way that invites discussion I can authentically participate in. This practice also exposes me to analysis of my behaviours in accordance with such a quote and therefore potentially also exposes me to criticism. Or to put it another way, am I being authentic to the quote.

I may also share via social media etc a quote I will print and display, but only those I will print and display.

Am I being a quote “gringe”?

Do I have a case of quote fatigue?

What is your “quote” practice?

Honesty and Integrity Fails When Most Needed

We are a dishonest lot.

All too often, the times it matters most is when we are most inclined to lie.

I don’t mean the question requiring a straight answer from our Partner, Parents, Close Friend, Teacher, Colleague, Manager or Leader. I don’t mean the Census or the Tax Office.  Fundamentally, we answer these honestly.

I am also not talking about the stories we may tell our Children at Christmas and Easter. These perhaps fall more into the Fairy Tale category.

Too many of us are dishonest with the one person we should be most honest with, the one with whom personal integrity should be a not negotiable fundamental.

The person we lie to and do so to our own detriment is none other than ourselves.

I was recently engaged in a conversation with someone entering intense negotiations about their future employment. These were to be career defining, even career ending at least in the area they have worked for the last 20 or so years.

They were preparing three possible outcomes to have ready for the first round of negotiations, one of which included returning full time to the role they were on leave from.

(Stated) option two was Part Time work in the same field while the third involved a negotiated separation.

I suggested they need to be really clear about what their order of preference was in case they were asked outright, what their preferred outcome is.

I asked, what it is?

Their answer was to return full time to their previous role. I was stunned by this and followed up asking:

Is that really your number one outcome and received a reply, “well of course it is; it’s what anyone would want”.

I put it to them such an answer was based on what they perceived was expected of them from Business Colleagues, mates at the Cricket Club, acquaintances and family.

I asked again, what do you really want and received the answer that returning from leave part time is really what is wanted and if that cannot happen, a negotiated separation.

Their initial answer was based on a perception of what others would expect and not about what they wanted and in this case, need. It was a massive “self lie” as it was actually their least preferred outcome.

Why do we lie to ourselves?

There are pressures or perceived pressures from our environment, people in our circles. We are influenced by what we fear others will think or say about us.

We fear expressing what we truly want because we fear having to explain why we want to do this or that.

We all have responsibilities that restrict us, but we can still be honest about our dreams and desires and be honest about why these may be on hold.

Perhaps therefore, the most challenging outcome for many of us is; if you are not doing what it is you want to do, make sure you understand why you are doing what it is you are doing, why you are doing it where you are and why you are doing it with the people you are doing it with.

If you can address this with honesty and clarity, you will have taken a big step towards self-honesty in all other aspects of your world. You will also be on your way to doing what it is you honestly want to do.

Collingwood and Nathan Buckley - My Defence of Both

Let me be very clear, I support the Melbourne Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL)

Further, I am from an era where you learn from an early age, you either support Collingwood or you support the team playing against Collingwood.

And being a Melbourne supporter, this dislike of Collingwood runs deeply, being born from a long, long rivalry as a result of very many Grand Finals between the two clubs.

I was at the 1970 Grand Final and even though my club wasn’t involved, witnessing Collingwood lose after having a seemingly un-beatable half time lead was pure joy. Of almost equal enjoyment was the loss they suffered in the 1979 Grand Final and that goal scored after the ball had crossed (allegedly) the boundary line.

I enjoy Collingwood losing.

Secondly, I do not particularly like Nathan Buckley. I absolutely acknowledge his brilliance as a player. He played hard and fair. Was quick, agile, a good mark, good on the ground and his kicking and hand skills of both sides of his body was as good as it gets

My dislike of him is more to do with his off filed comments when drafted by Brisbane. He seemed to believe he was too good to be playing outside of Melbourne for one of the then smaller clubs. After much speculation, he did play the first season of his career with Brisbane, and from memory, won their best and fairest. The reality is, he was always going to Collingwood.

The fact therefore I am about to defend Collingwood may surprise those who have read this far.

Nathan Buckley is under pressure to retain his role as Collingwood Head Coach. It’s true, finals success has not come under Buckley. His game plan is under scrutiny, as are recent recruitment decisions.

However, the usual dialogue leading up to the sacking of a Coach is that they ‘have lost the players’ and the ‘players are not playing for the coach’.

I am seeing players with skill sets that do not hold up consistently and who kick for goal poorly, consistently.

I am also seeing a playing group that are giving an enormous effort, running hard on and off the ball and competing intensely in each contest. This is the complete opposite of when a coach loses the players or are not playing for the coach. It is the effort and intensity of competition that falls away and this is simply not the case.

Nathan Buckley has an exceptionally high Football Intellect. He is surrounded by a quality group of Assistant Coaches. He will have in place a well thought through and an appropriate, modern game plan. The Coaching team will be coaching to this too

Buckley has a group of players giving their all, and doing so overtly, week in week out.

What he doesn’t have is a group of players with either the skills necessary, or the ability to execute skills under pressure in order to deliver the game plan needed for success – yet.

Get off Nathan Buckley’s back. He can Coach.

Mark Thompson and Alastair Clarkson were in very similar situations at Geelong and Hawthorn respectively and when it could have gone either way, their club re-signed them and supported them totally. Both went on to win multiple Premierships.

Collingwood, do the same and re-sign Nathan Buckley for 2, even 3 years.

India is a Small Country

According to “Worldometers” the population of India was 1,339,981,520 on Friday, May 5, 2017. Further, according to the latest United Nations estimates, India’s population is equivalent to 17.86% of the total world population.

Vir Das is of Indian decent and performs as a comedian. I came across an extract of one of his performances via a Facebook Friend sharing a link.

The performance extract in the video goes for about 5 minutes and is very amusing indeed. He even explains Donald Trump’s rise to the Presidency and has a unique take on Corn Flakes.

He has an easy presentation and in a mildly self-deprecating way, mixes Indian and Western cultures.

His turn of phrase is delightful and his body language supporting his words is both appropriate and seemingly natural.

Take a look

I thought the piece was amusing. I also thought that some of what he had to say, his speech patterns, accent and mannerisms were not dis-similar to a friend of Indian origins living in Brisbane.

I messaged the link to him and I will quote his reply.

“He's my classmate from school...we've known each other since we were 11 years old.

In fact, we used to be represent our House in most drama and debate competitions ...great guy”

I ask this.

What are the chances that an Indian native who comes across your horizon via a Facebook ‘share’ to a performance he gave on an American TV show in April, actually knows a friend of Indian origins living in Brisbane, let alone went to school with him in India?