The Australian Financial Review.
People think they need to be tough in negotiations.
I actually think you have to have empathy in negotiation, understand what the other
person is thinking.
If you're walking a great long distance, you've got to find your food, you've got to find
your accommodation.
That absorbs sort of almost everything you've got mentally and physically.
When people talk about burnout, I think that's what causes the burnout.
Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review.
And welcome to 15 minutes with the BOSS.
This is a podcast about success and failure and everything in between.
And along the way, we're hoping that we'll get some really good advice from our CEOs.
My guest today is Barry Irvin, the chairman of Bega Group.
Are you ready for your grilling?
I'm sure it won't be that bad.
Now this is called 15 minutes for a reason.
Our 15 minutes starts now.
Now Bega, of course, is one of Australia's most high profile food companies with brands
such as Vegemite, Pure Milk, Dairy Farmer's Milk and Farmer's Union Yogurt, to name but
So Barry, I'd like to start with, how do you start your day?
What time do you get up?
Well, I guess I'm a little bit strange, Sally, it depends where I am.
I spend my life commuting, really.
So it can be four o'clock in the morning to get up and milk the cows to centre myself
for the day, or it can be around 6.37, where I will just start a normal day and expect
to be getting into work about 7.30 or 8.
So when you're getting up at four o'clock and milking the cows, exactly where are you
So our family is a sixth generation dairy farming family, and I left actually never
expecting that I would ever be involved in the dairy farm.
But I actually went back home to help my family out and ended up involved with the Bega group
and then ultimately leading it.
And how long does the milking process actually take?
So normally all over by about seven, which again then therefore allows me to head back
up the house, have a shower and be in the office by 7.30, 8 o'clock.
Sounds like a pretty gruelling start for the day, but I guess at least a bit of fresh air.
I always say it is a very productive workout.
So you're on your feet, you're moving all the time, you're cupping up cows, which is
obviously also an upper body workout.
So the way I see it is it's not too different than going for a run or what other people
might do and going to the gym.
I just happen to go and do some work with some cows.
And of course that always takes me back and reminds me of the origins of the company and
tends to centre me about what's important.
I had never thought about milking cows as a total body workout.
Yes, there you go.
Okay, let's move on.
Tell me about a pivotal moment in your career that shaped you as a leader or changed the
trajectory of your career.
Well interestingly, it might not be what people expect.
It was when my son was diagnosed as being profoundly autistic and we suddenly had all
these challenges that meant that we had to try and find solutions for our entire family
and meant that I had to move the family back to Sydney and we got involved in the very
early infancy of Giant Steps, so we began to build Giant Steps while still trying to
build Bigger Cheese.
And that change in network, change in location, that balance in life, I guess, helped me a
lot not only in terms of priorities but in terms of the people I tended to meet, which
people wouldn't expect.
But I met a lot of different people through my involvement in the Giant Steps, which quite
often they gave me very good counsel, not only about what I was doing with Giant Steps
but what I was trying to achieve with Bigger.
And what is Giant Steps?
So Giant Steps is what began as a primary school for children with autism because Maddie
had nowhere to go, but it's now primary, secondary, post-school, mental health clinics in Sydney
So a very large organisation, or a large charitable organisation now with about 230 staff, which
Yeah, that sounds like a really great charity.
So now let's go to the third question in this first segment.
What is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
Well, interestingly, it's probably from my mum and she didn't realise that it was career
advice, but she always said to me, you need to have good manners and respect.
And the interesting thing is that she went on to explain what good manners were.
They weren't about the knife and fork that you used or the schooling that you had.
They were actually about making the person opposite you feel comfortable.
And if the person opposite you felt comfortable, they would tell you the truth.
And that's really important.
So why has that been such good career advice?
Because I think it allowed me to actually think that way.
So I would always make sure that whoever I was engaging with, and I've done this right
through my life, that it was more important for them to feel comfortable, for them to
understand what I was thinking and me to understand what they were thinking and whether
that's in business or in personal life.
It means that if you're trying to do a deal, if you're trying to encourage somebody to
push a little harder or go a little further, they need to trust you.
I think one of the problems sometimes in leadership is that people get removed from the bad news
or from the tough things or from the reality of what your team might be dealing with or
what might be going on in competitors or a colleague space and having people that trust
you and feel comfortable to sit down and have a chat, I think helps enormously as you share
what you want to try and create.
But they also feel like they can share with you what they want to try and create.
But that's really interesting that having good manners has actually turned out to be
a really good negotiating tactic.
People think they need to be tough in negotiations.
I actually think you have to have empathy in negotiation, understand what the other
person is thinking.
You've got a better chance of getting an outcome that way than just going to your corners.
I never warmed to sort of talking too much about business as if it's sport, but that
idea that you go on the field and you play and when you finish playing, you go off the
field and you shake hands and you respect each other for your skills and your ability,
that's the only parallel that I kind of like to make.
When I try and think back about all the best advice I've had, and ironically enough the
advice I give my teams, I always say if you can't remember any of the goals, just remember
to have good manners and have respect.
Very good advice.
Stay where you are Barry, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back we're
going to open the Chatterbox.
Welcome back Barry.
Welcome back to 15 Minutes with the Boss.
I'm here with Barry Ervin, the chairman of Bega Group.
Now Barry, this is our section called Chatterbox.
Now in the box in front of you, there are 20 random questions.
I would like you to rummage around a bit, pick out a few of those questions, which of
course I am then going to ask you to answer.
Okay, first question, oh I like this, in fact I could benefit from this.
Do you have a favourite productivity hack to help you get more out of your day?
Well, yes in a way, I think so the truth is, and this may or may not be helpful to people,
I've only had two executive assistants in my entire career.
I've always believed in training them really well and having them understand me really
well and stay around, but I think again that really close relationship helps.
They both tend to start work at about 7.30, which means they want to organise me at about
8 o'clock and so ironically enough at the beginning of the day, my priorities are very
They're obviously understood what we want to try and achieve in a week or over a period
of time, but I always actually begin, whether it's with them or with others, setting out
the priorities for the day and the week and that sort of, if you like, having to voice
what you need to get done, saying things out aloud, it tends to then make sure that you're
organised from the very beginning of your work day.
So it's the actual fact of voicing what you need to do that really sets it straight in
I have the same sense about when you're writing something, you should always read it out loud
because it sort of begins a conversation in your own mind that makes you go, okay, I've
So I'll do it now.
You know, I'd never thought about that, but I'm going to adopt that.
Do you want to fish away?
This is short and sweet.
How long should a meeting go for?
Oh, look, as long as necessary.
So I am not, anybody that works with you would say I'm not a good disciplinarian around meetings.
I like it to be a discussion as long as the discussion is not repeating what's already
been said or indeed just going around in circles.
But while ever there is a contribution to the puzzle.
Now I think the important thing is why are you holding the meeting?
If it's important enough to hold a meeting, you better take advantage of the fact that
you've got the people in the room you think you need to have in the room and you better
make sure you understand what they think.
So I'm not a disciplinarian on saying I always set my meetings for half an hour or an hour.
But if I was honest and people said, how often does Barry stick to his meeting times?
Sometimes they're early.
Sometimes they finish early.
Sometimes they go over.
But are you really judicious about which meetings you attend?
And look, there are probably two things.
Either it's a really challenging set of circumstances and my role might be to calm everybody down
and make sure that we're thinking clearly, or it's where somebody needs support.
And if somebody needs support, I'm very, very keen to be there to make sure that people
feel like they can execute their task or execute their job the way they want to.
So it's either a challenging set of circumstances or it's something to do with big strategy
or it's somebody needing support.
And that they'd be the three areas where I would likely to say yes to meetings.
And the other key is that there are inevitably lots of meetings that take place that actually
don't need to take place because they've already been said before.
Meetings for the sake of meetings is probably where I'm very disciplined.
Timing of meetings, I'm not so disciplined.
I just want to make sure that everybody's got the information, the direction, the support
Third question, thank you.
What will you miss most about the job if or when you leave?
Not of course that we are wishing that upon you.
That's a good question.
So I always sort of think that you wake up one morning and decide you can't do it anymore.
So I haven't thought that much about leaving, and I don't want to be cliched, but I would
probably say it is the people and the variety of people that I deal with from customers
to farmers and suppliers to the staff that work for us.
So I think I'd probably also say there's an enormous amount of variety in what I do.
So that variety, as I say, it's the spice of life.
I always jokingly say to the team, all I want one day is for somebody to ring me up or walk
into my office and say, I've just come to tell you everything's OK.
It's never going to happen because when they come to me, they're obviously coming to me
because there is a challenge or there is an opportunity or there is something to go on.
But that's the great joy of the job in a way.
It's the challenge of making sure we keep going forward and keep achieving.
It's pretty good if you can say that, given that, as you say, when people come to you,
nothing's OK, yet you still enjoy the variety.
I think sometimes in the moment you go, oh my goodness, but if you look back at what
the most satisfying things are, it is around overcoming a challenge or getting a strategic
achievement or helping develop somebody, which I think, you know, I love seeing people
that have worked for me or work for Bega become successful, not only within the company
and many of our people have worked for us on my competitors these days, but I still
love the fact that we've been a part of their development and success.
You may find it hard to replicate those challenges if and when you do leave, but somehow, Barry,
I think that probably you will find that.
I like to put challenges in front of me, you're right.
OK, next question.
Another short, sharp, sweet one.
What's the hardest thing about leadership?
The sense of responsibility.
I think it never leaves you.
I think if you're a genuine leader, you do feel responsible for an enormous amount of
And that can be a weight and it can also be isolating because in the end, when you are
at the leadership position in the company, it does come down to you, you know.
And so that sense of responsibility, that never leaves you.
And you need to work out ways where it doesn't just stay with you 24 hours a day, seven days
Yeah, does it wear you down?
I think you've got to be very self-aware.
I think you can when people talk about burnout, I think that's what causes the burnout.
It is that sense of responsibility.
So being aware of how you break that weight or how you lighten that weight is important.
And do you have a mechanism for that?
Interestingly enough, when I don't go online on beaches, Sally, I tend to want to put something
in front of me that is challenging, that is not work and which will take all of my mental
and indeed sometimes physical capability because that allows my mind to clear.
And I'm aware that I need to do that reasonably regularly.
So I can feel when I need the break, if you like, and these days I make sure I try and
So that's sort of physical activity, I imagine.
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, physical and mental.
And that comes to the end of the chatterbox.
Now we are coming to what I like to call a bonus question, where I'm going to ask you
to dream big and think what is possibly the impossible given the business of your schedule.
If you had a month off unencumbered by any responsibilities to do whatever you wanted,
what would that be?
So at the moment, I've got two rather thick books that I carry around with me, which bothers
my family and my colleagues and whatever else, which is the guidebooks to walk from the Canterbury
Cathedral in the UK to Rome.
It's a 1600 kilometre trek, a little bit impossible to do in a month, but funny enough, that's
exactly what I've been trying to work out whether I can do it in a month or not.
And so what I would normally do, and so all my sort of working life, I've always had
two or three or four treks or cycles that are long distance.
I've had the guidebook sitting on tables and I eventually decide each year that I'll pick
up one and see whether I can plan and organise and do that.
Because it goes back to what I was saying earlier, it means that if you're taking something
like that on, it takes all you've got to do it.
And the funny thing is, which I know people may find strange, but if you're walking a
great long distance, you've got to find your food, you've got to find your accommodation,
you've got to find your way.
That absorbs sort of almost everything you've got mentally and physically.
So you don't think about anybody, anything else, and it does indeed give you that total
break. So that's what I would do, or that's what I'm trying to do, Sally.
But I don't know whether I'll get the month or be able to organise it that way.
That sounds so exhausting.
I think that's a very good note on which to end.
Thanks Sally, I think it will be, yes.
And luckily, actually, our time is up.
Barry, thank you so much for letting us spend 15 minutes with the boss.
I really loved your version of a gym workout.
Who would have thought that milking cows would give you a full body workout?
I've loved the fact that you have set up this charity and also how that charity
has really played into your work life and enabled you to build your business.
And I really love your mum's advice, which, unbeknownst to you at the time, has
become a fantastic negotiating tool to have good manners and respect people.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Sally. It's a pleasure.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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This podcast was hosted by me, Sally Patton, produced and edited by Lapfan.
Our theme is by Alex Gale and our executive producer is Fiona Buffini.
The Australian Financial Review.