[00:00:00] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Is your workplace ready for what’s coming next, and are you confident enough to lead through it? First up, in this week’s episode, futurist Gihan Perera explains what it really means to be future ready. From embracing AI to building adaptable, inclusive cultures and developing skills like sense making in a rapidly changing world. Then, award winning CEO, author, and keynote speaker Colleen Callander tells me why confidence isn’t something you’re born with, but a skill you can build. She offers a few practical ways to step outside your comfort zone and back yourself at work. From SoundCartel, I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist, and this is Business Essentials.
Is your workplace future-ready?
Our first guest is futurist Gihan Perera. What does it actually mean to be future ready in a world that’s changing faster than ever? For many leaders, it can feel overwhelming, especially with the rapid rise of AI and constant disruption. So where should you focus to prepare your team and your business for what’s next? Nicole Goodman started the interview by asking what a future ready organization will actually look like over the next 3 to 5 years.
[00:01:15] Gihan Perera: Lots of people think it’s about technology and it’s partly about technology and AI. But more than that, it’s about people. So definitely every organization should be an AI enabled organization in the next 3 to 5 years. It doesn’t mean we have robots controlling us and running the businesses, but AI is going to be a big part of that. But more than that, it’s about how AI helps people and what we need to do as people. So a big part of it is the culture that you’ve got. It’s all about making sure that you’ve got a culture that embraces change. It’s open to change, and it’s up to the leaders and business owners to make sure they create that culture. So the old fashioned organization was very hierarchical. It was top down. It was leaders who had the most experienced, the most gray hair tended to be the ones who were leading and everybody else. Obviously you want to be promoted in that, but you defer to those people with the experience and the expertise. But now the world around us is changing so fast that you can no longer rely on what you used to work in the past. It’s not completely irrelevant, but it’s not automatically relevant either. So being future ready is absolutely about technology, but it’s also about making sure that you’ve got a culture that embraces the change and uncertainty and maybe more disruption coming up in the future.
[00:02:33] Nicole Goodman: From your work with organizations, what are the biggest misconceptions that leaders have about preparing for the future of work?
[00:02:41] Gihan Perera: Okay. Look, I think one of them is that leaders think they still need to know everything because in the past, that was the case they needed to know. So misconception is I need to as a leader, I need to know everything. I need to know what’s coming up in the future. I need to understand where the future is going to look like. And absolutely, that’s true to some extent, but equally, you don’t need to know everything. So it’s a misconception to think that because I need to know everything and I don’t. It’s a weakness. It’s not true. It’s not true. Actually, what you want to do is tap into the skills and talents and different perspectives of everybody in your team. So if you’re one of those leaders or business owners who thinks, geez, I’m worried that I don’t know everything and everyone’s relying on me for that, can I just say to you, lighten up. You don’t need to do that. However, you do need to create this organization that’s allowing everybody to shine.
[00:03:32] Nicole Goodman: Which skills do you think will become non-negotiable for employees in the next 3 to 5 years? And which skills do you think are already starting to lose some relevance?
[00:03:43] Gihan Perera: Okay. So look, if you look at the second part of that question first, Nicole, the skills that are losing relevance, the skills that are routine skills. So if you’re yesterday looks the same as today, which looks like tomorrow, which looks like next week and the week after, the sort of things that you’re doing there that are exactly the same or very similar, are the skills that are going to be irrelevant sooner rather than later. So that’s the first thing to look at. And you don’t have to look at specific things, but just go, what am I doing? That’s being that is exactly the same day after day after day. Those skills are going to be the easiest to outsource, automate, and be replaced mostly by technology. And to look at the first part of your question, if you’re looking at skills, if you ask me to choose a couple of them, one is an external skill called sense making. And sense making is about understanding what’s happening in the world and then helping to understand what that means for you. Make sense of it, and it’s for you as a person, whatever your role as well as for you as your team and your organization. So that’s looking out, looking out, making sense of it. And of course, then being able to decide what you do with that.
[00:04:50] Gihan Perera: The other skill is more of an internal skill. And this is really that skill of embracing diversity. So we talk about like lots of people talk about diversity and inclusion as if they’re the same thing. And of course they’re not. Like diversity is like having a whole bunch of colored textures. Inclusion is about using them. And we want inclusion. We want diversity and inclusion and equity and accessibility in our organizations, not only because it’s the right thing to do. And it is, it is the right thing to do. But we need that now. We’ve got a really complex, interconnected world where the problems are coming from us from different sectors, different industries, different areas, like really unexpected areas. So yesterday it was Covid. Today it’s AI, tomorrow, who knows? And we need those diverse perspectives and those diverse voices to be able to solve those problems. So anybody as a leader, especially if you have that skill of being able to embrace diversity, which is inclusion, like embracing diversity is inclusion, then that’s going to be one of your key leadership skills. So it’s not only about tolerating diversity, it’s about being able to support and facilitate diversity in your team. It’s a really key business decision to make to embrace diversity.
[00:06:07] Nicole Goodman: Given some leaders worry that they need entirely new talent to be ready for the future. How realistic is it to retain your existing teams?
[00:06:17] Gihan Perera: I reckon the more that you can do with the talent you’ve already got, the better, because we all know it costs a lot more to get somebody else in and get them to understand the culture, to understand workplace processes, to understand workflows and systems. It’s much, much harder to do that than to retrain and upskill somebody you’ve already got. So I reckon if you’re asking how realistic is it, then I think that it’s essential that you work with the people you’ve already got. Especially when you’re looking at something like training. So, you know, like I hear leaders go, I can’t afford to train my people because they’re going to leave. And I go, well, what’s the alternative? You don’t train them in this day, right? And you’ve got to retrain them in order to be able to retain them. You’ve got to make sure that you retrain them, give them work that’s meaningful, give them work that’s aligned with their own passion and purpose, and absolutely do absolutely everything you can to keep the people you’ve already got. I’m not sharing anything that you don’t need to be a futurist to know this, right? We’ve got a problem at the moment with retention in the workplace. And a big part of that is because you’re not doing ongoing skills development and you’re not giving people meaningful, purpose driven work.
[00:07:30] Nicole Goodman: When we think about budgets, what are some practical, low cost ways businesses, specifically small to medium businesses, can build these future ready skills without massive training budgets?
[00:07:42] Gihan Perera: Yeah. And that’s right. I think that’s a good question because it’s a really important one. Like in the past, all of your professional development tended to be done or the majority of it through formal training. And that’s no longer the case. It doesn’t have to be that anymore. There are certainly some things that do require training, but even training doesn’t have to be done the same way. It can be done through online training. It can be done through micro skills. There’s a whole bunch of AI driven training that is customized to individual learners, so even your training budgets shouldn’t be allocated all of them to having people sit in a room and do a workshop and be off their tools, right? The second part of it, and I think this is really where the value comes in, is, you know, there’s some research called the 70 2010 rule, which says that 10% of any sort of training is what you learn is what happens in the room. 20% is conversations with colleagues, but a massive 70% is on the job experience. So look at what you can do in terms of mentoring, for example, mentoring younger people, more junior people.
[00:08:47] Gihan Perera: Look at what you can do with reverse mentoring, which is the other way around, where the more senior people are mentored by the more junior people. Look at what you can do with job sharing and job swapping. If there are people in your business organization who aren’t directly customer facing, give them the opportunity to see what dealing with customers looks like, whether they do it themselves or they’re just observing people who do. So there’s a whole bunch of professional development that you can do, which doesn’t require formal training. So even things like, you know, coaching and mentoring is something that used to be done externally. So you look for an external mentor. But more and more now, employees, especially younger employees, are expecting their managers to be their mentors. So it’s kind of a different role, but it’s still an important role for leaders. So and most of those things don’t require massive training budget. And they have higher impact because they’re back on the job experience and on the job development.
[00:09:43] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: That was futurist Gihan Perera.
The power of confidence at work
Now we turn to building confidence at work. Confidence can shape every stage of your career, but it’s something many of us struggle to build and maintain. So how do you develop it? Especially when self doubt creeps in? Colleen Callander is an award winning CEO. She’s also a keynote speaker and author, and her latest book is called The Power of Confidence. Colleen left school at 16 and eventually became CEO of two iconic Australian fashion brands, Sportsgirl and Suzanne. I kicked off the interview by asking her, looking back, what role did confidence play in that journey? Was it something she always had or maybe something she had to learn?
[00:10:28] Colleen Callander: Yeah, it’s a really big question, right? Because I think confidence is something that plays a big part through your entire life, no matter what age or stage you are at. And confidence was definitely something that I had to learn. And the thing I love about that, and the thing I share with people is that confidence is a skill. It’s not a trait. And like any skill, we can all learn skills. So confidence was one of those things that I had to learn as I got up. Fell over, succeeded, failed, and everything in between. And I think about it like a muscle. The more we use that confidence muscle, the more confident we become. And that really starts by just taking that first step.
[00:11:06] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: I really love that because I was going to ask, you know, many people assume confidence is something you’re either born with or not. And I was going to ask if that was perhaps a myth. Are there any other myths about confidence that you’re hoping to break with your new book, which is of course, called The Power of Confidence?
[00:11:20] Colleen Callander: Mhm. I think I mean, the one about being born with confidence is probably the biggest one. People often look at other people and think, wow, you know, they must have been born with confidence. You know, they’re just so confident in everything they do. And that isn’t true. As we know, no one is born with confidence. It’s something that we learn. We build, as you just said. But the other big one that I think people get really sort of confused and thrown off with is that a lot of people think extroverts are more confident than introverts. And again, that’s actually not true. Being extroverted or introverted has absolutely nothing to do with your confidence. What it has to do with is what energizes you and what drains you. So again, you know, I’m a natural introvert. People think I’m an extrovert, but that’s often just the role we play or the job that we do or in that moment. So what I say to people is, it actually doesn’t matter whether you’re introverted or extroverted or somewhere in between, you can be as confident as the person that you’re actually admiring in a distance. Because confidence actually starts with self. It has nothing to do with, you know, extrovert or introvert.
[00:12:21] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Now you’ve had a really long career in leadership, including 13 years as CEO of Sportsgirl. And Suzanne, was there a moment in your leadership journey where you’ve had to really step into confidence despite your own self doubt?
[00:12:34] Colleen Callander: So many of those moments? Grace, I have to say, you know, we all have this inner critic and, you know, no one can kind of get away from the inner critic. Some people have very active inner critics and other people have sort of less active inner critics. But we all have moments throughout our lives where we self doubt, where we self sabotage, where we question ourselves, where we play small. And you know, there were many of those moments throughout my entire career where I thought, do I belong here? Is that next step the right one for me? Am I good enough? You know, there were people that were older than me, more experienced than me. And so, you know, I was constantly questioning myself. Do I belong in this boardroom? And the real magic came when I started to change that story. And when we change our story, we change our lives. So instead of self doubting, it was actually building that confidence, saying, no, I do deserve to be here. Maybe I don’t have all the skills, but I’ve worked hard to get here or I’m going to give it my best shot. It actually doesn’t matter what happens, succeed or fail somewhere in between. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to learn. I’m going to grow. So I think my real confidence journey came with constantly changing my story and backing myself. And that’s not easy, particularly as a woman.
[00:13:42] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Now, your book includes a 30 day plan for building confidence. Obviously, you can’t share the entire kind of breakdown here on one podcast. But what’s one small habit or mindset shift that people can start today that genuinely does make a difference?
[00:13:56] Colleen Callander: Yeah, I would love to share the whole 30. Maybe we’ll come back one day and do that. But you know, there are so many things that we can do. And I think the biggest one is to step outside of your comfort zone because as we know, we don’t grow in our comfort zone. It’s a nice place to be, but it’s a pretty boring place to be as well. So I think one thing that we can do every day is ask ourselves, what am I doing today to just challenge myself? What am I doing to step out of my comfort zone? And it doesn’t have to be big things. You know, often people think we need to make big changes in our lives. But I always say small changes, big impact. So it might be just, you know, talking to that person on the bus that you, you know, want to have a conversation with, it could be speaking up in a meeting where you’ve felt scared to share your voice. It might be putting your idea forward to someone. Those little things that we do every day, it’s that continuous building the confidence muscles. So I would say to anyone listening, just do that one thing. Step out of your comfort zone because that will allow you to build confidence.
[00:14:56] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: Look, it may be similar, but perhaps you have some further tips about that first step, the getting started piece. So if someone listening feels stuck or held back by self-doubt right now, what do you think is kind of the very first step they should take to start building the confidence to move forward?
[00:15:09] Colleen Callander: Yeah, again, I think it comes back to that willingness to try. You know, we often look at things and we want to try them, but we hold ourselves back because we play small or we don’t want to look overconfident or we don’t want to fail. Often that’s a really big one. And I always talk about grace, the willingness to try and whether we succeed or fail or somewhere in between, it actually doesn’t matter because what happens is we learn, we build skills, we build competency, and we build confidence. But it all starts with taking that first step, you know, really doing things before we’re ready. We often think, you know, I’ve got to wait till all the stars align. I’ve got to wait till everything’s perfect. And often that moment doesn’t come for any of us. So we really have to step out of that and really just say, I’m going to have a go no matter what happens here. No more shrinking, no more waiting, no more asking for permission. I’m just going to have a go.
[00:16:03] Host – Grace Jennings-Edquist: That was author, keynote speaker, and CEO Colleen Callander. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode. Follow Business Essentials Podcast across social media and head to www.BusinessEssentialsPodcast.au for more. Business Essentials is a SoundCartel podcast. Producers are Nick Schildberger, Nicole Goodman and myself. Technical production is by Pete Letts. I’m Grace Jennings-Edquist thanks for listening. We’ll bring you more business essentials next week.
