I fail all the time, I'm my own harshest critic so there aren't too many days where I close
the day out and think I didn't fail at anything.
If you're looking for the silver bullet you might get it and you might get an unbelievable
sugar hit but it's not sustainable, you've just got to grind, it's about doing and having
unwavering confidence that you're on the right path.
Hi I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review and welcome to
15 Minutes with the BOSS, a podcast about success and failure and everything in between
and along the way we're aiming to get some great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Tom Harley, chief executive of the Sydney Swans, hi Tom how are you?
I'm great thanks Sally, great to be here.
Thank you very much for allowing us into your new studio.
It's a beautiful space.
This is my debut in this studio on a podcast, I've obviously taken a lot of people through
it but we're happy to be hosting you today.
Now Tom as I said you're the CEO of the Sydney Swans which is one of 18 AFL clubs.
I should also point out that you are yourself a former player, indeed a former captain of
Geelong which you led to three successive grand finals and two premierships and making
my mother extremely happy so thank you for that.
It feels like a lifetime ago now my playing career but I've been unbelievably fortunate
to have been involved in something that I love which is the game of AFL from a junior
player to a professional player to a broadcaster and now an administrator so I've lived a
very blessed AFL life.
And thank you for letting us spend 15 minutes with you.
As I said we've only got 15 minutes, let's start the clock.
My first question is what happens in the morning, what time do you get up, how do you start
We have had a conversation before Sally and I was proudly spruiking the fact that I was
up at 4.30 and I was exercising at 5 and done by 6.
Unfortunately the gym closed, now that's my excuse so I'm not as rigid as that but I still
do get up early, do exercise in the morning, sometimes passive, sometimes more assertive.
Typically have a coffee with a couple of my very good mates in Balmain and bring one home
for my wife Felicity, make the kids lunch and on occasions a couple of times a week
take the kids to school if not head straight on to work so it's an up early little bit
of exercise, coffee, kids lunch, out the door.
And what does assertive exercise look like and what does passive exercise look like?
The passive exercise is starting to creep into my routine as I get a bit older so passive
is a walk and a stretch and those sorts of things and more assertive or aggressive is
a cardio blowout and one of the things I guess coming through an elite athlete path is you
do become accustomed to working out aggressively.
I see a half hour window as not time to flap around, it's time to go pretty hard and that
might be a really aggressive bike, treadmill, rower, cardio type workout.
I know the feeling I must say, when I get a half hour window I think oh good time for
I've been thinking that a lot lately as well Sally so don't feel too bad about that.
Welcome to the club.
So Tom tell me about a pivotal moment in your career that shaped you as a leader or
indeed changed the trajectory of your career.
Yeah look I think for me there was one really clear moment and it was back when I was an
AFL footballer and I was charged with the responsibility of captaining the club.
I was appointed by the CEO at the time, Brian Cook, who's now CEO of Carlton.
Prior to that point in time I'd been a, I guess what you'd call a role model team player
but then entrusted with leadership.
We had some great success in my last couple of years whilst playing for Geelong and as
a result of that I'm sure opportunities were presented to me which I guess set me on a
path post-playing so I think if I could pinpoint one specific example it was the phone call
that I received to honour me with the captaincy of Geelong.
And what did you think when that phone call came?
Did you think yes I can do it?
Did you think oh I'm not sure that I can do it?
Yeah look I'd never actually definitively led anything before.
I've never been one that is motivated by definitive leadership or titular leadership
where it's a title or it's all the perks that come with that so from that point of view
I was comfortable, I was comfortable with who I was and then I was really comfortable
also putting my hand up saying I don't know what I don't know and one of the things I
learnt really early on in the piece was the power of a group particularly when it comes
to decision making and standard setting and the like and I think one of the things that
become more comfortable saying that I am comfortable at is acknowledging where my gaps
are and who can help me plug those gaps for the greater good not for me but for the greater
good so I guess they were the early learnings from that pivotal moment in my career.
Interesting so it sounds like you eased into leadership quite naturally.
I certainly didn't strive for it.
I still would like to think I'm relatively young in my professional career and from the
journey that I've travelled from player to administrator that's a path that some current
players want to travel as well so I've got the great privilege of having conversations
now with a number of players who would like to go down a similar path to me and one of
the things that I often say to them is just be really clear as to why you want to do that.
Why do you want to be the CEO of a club or why do you want to be the senior coach of
the club and make sure that you're confident and comfortable with those motivations and
that they're pure and what resonates with me is very much subservient leadership and
I'm absolutely motivated by working for and with others and that's certainly the conversation
that I would have with current players now just to try to get some clarity around that.
Yeah it's good advice, understand what your own motivation is.
Okay my next question is, what is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
There is one that stands out more so than any other and that's when you're charged
with the responsibility of making a decision, a career decision, the advice given to me
was any decision that's anchored to your family is a good one. It was given to me by Brian Cook,
he was CEO of Chilong and I had retired and I'd moved cities to Sydney and I'd started a family
in Sydney and there were opportunities to do some other things and ultimately as a family we decided
that we were going to put down our foundations in Sydney as a family and therefore once that
decision is made the reality is that'll probably put some ceilings on some of the paths that you can go down.
I guess that makes it really easy for you in a sense that you know exactly what your priority is.
Yeah that's right, there's a great book called The Road to Character, the author's a guy,
David Brooks, he's an ex-army general in the States and he speaks about when it comes to
decision making around prioritising your loves and so you might have 10 and you list them out,
it might be family, profession, art, music, socialising, whatever. Now when you're faced
with a decision you just make sure that your priorities are in order and therefore you can
go to bed really comfortable knowing that you've made the right decision and that's really at the
end of the day all you need to be comfortable with. I love that. Okay Tom, stay right where you are,
we're going to take a short break and when we come back we're going to open this beautiful cardboard
chatterbox. I look forward to it. Hello and welcome back to 15 minutes with the boss,
I'm here with Tom Harley, the chief executive of the Sydney Swans. Now Tom, this is our section
called the chatterbox. In front of you you will see a lovely cardboard box which we borrowed from
your reception downstairs. It's resplendent this box Sally, it's magnificent isn't it?
It's magnificent. Inside are 20 questions all printed on little bits of paper and wrapped up,
I'd now like to ask you to select three questions one by one, I'm going to read them to you and
ask you to answer them. So I'm going to give them to you? You are. Okay. I'm not looking.
No no. Do you have a favourite productivity hack to help you get more out of your day?
One thing that I did recently was I deleted all social media apps bar linked in off my phone,
I cancelled all push notifications that weren't really really important and then as the weeks
that have unfold you get the weekly screen time report and I just found that my time on my device
was down. I was just doom scrolling and I just didn't need to do that and I thought you know what
if I want to go and find something in this day and age you can go and find it. I can't even
quantify the time but that's time I can take back that might make me more present in a conversation
at work, conversation at home, time away from the gym, could be anything like that and ultimately
that's productivity. Devices, are they banned from the bedroom or not? Because I get up early
I do need an alarm to wake me up and I got into this great habit 12 months ago with a smart watch
as my alarm so it would vibrate on my wrist and then for whatever reason I just stopped
wearing that device and then I got back into the habit of having my phone there and I now need to
break that habit so I would say devices out of the bedroom absolutely but I've got to start
practicing what I preach with that. But you still need an Apple watch to for your alarm. That's true
and it sort of defeats the purpose of it doesn't it? I got myself a smart watch a couple of years
ago and within a week it was just pinging and buzzing and everything was going on and then a
friend of mine said we'll just put it in airplane mode so I did and then I thought well it's just a
watch and I prefer an analog watch and I thought well that's a very expensive alarm clock if I'm
only using it to vibrate on my wrist so I'll land in the right landing spot with my wake-up
routine that doesn't involve devices. We might have to invite you back on the podcast in six
months time. Yeah that's right see how I go. Okay next question do you want to have a fish
around in the box? No I didn't have a look. So Tom how do you make tough decisions or manage conflict?
Oh now that is a good one. I think the first thing in any team and a team can be a sports
team an organization can be a family is the acknowledgement that conflict is inevitable
and the best way to address conflict again from a textbook point of view and I'd love to say I put
my hand up and so I do this every time but there are times where I run a mile like everyone else
does is to have let's call it a behavioral framework and this can present as values
trademark behaviors or whatever it's almost like your MO as a team and you have a conversation
specific to performance that are within those boundaries and you've got to spend a bit of time
creating those boundaries and so if I use the sports analogy and coming through my time at
Geelong and my time at the Sydney Swans is you know we talk about trademark behaviors that basically
the non-negotiables to be a part of that team and it's not a wordsmith exercise it is literally
what are the very descriptive behaviors to be a member of this team and addressing conflict is
when someone or a group of people have stepped beyond those behaviors and then you have the
conversation within the framework of those behaviors so that would be my tip on managing
conflict. So what are those boundaries that you're talking about the boundaries of behavior?
One of the ways in determining what they are is get your group together and you've got to spend
some time to do this with a team and ask the team and say in an ideal world how would you want us to
be perceived? Three words curious, disciplined, respectful. Right now how do you think we are
described? Mundane, a bit lazy, polite and then you have a conversation about the gap between the two
and therefore what behaviors do you need to demonstrate as an individual to be a member
of this team and what behaviors won't be tolerated if you are to be a member of this team.
It's a bit of a process but you knock that around and you leave being really clear on who you are
and what you stand for and what's accepted and what's not and once you've got those clear
boundaries lined you can have a conversation when people step out of that and the conversation is
related just to performance. Take the personality out of it you have the conversation about
performance. And what happens if people just don't agree on something and they've both got quite
legitimate arguments and the conflict is they just don't agree and they might both be being
curious and loyal and all those things. Yeah I think I mean there are lots of hacks around
that and the beauty of the high performing teams that I admire from afar and I aspire to be a part
of has that diversity and but one of the traits that I think the really great teams do have is
cabinet solidarity where you might disagree and hopefully you do disagree on certain things.
That's absolutely can be positive but if you can leave a decision like as a really crude
example there might be a decision and you've got seven people in the room you're throwing it around
four might agree with it three might disagree but as soon as you walk out the door it's sevens it
manage the conflict internally but once you're out the door we're all on the same page. And is
there a secret to managing that conflict? Open and honest conversation yeah I really admire
people who can facilitate those team conversations really well they're the best leaders they're the
ones that I sort of look up to and have it almost an innate ability to manage conversations with
different personality types give everyone enough time to put forward their view enough oxygen to
get their point across shape it around ultimately and then you're looking upon reflections say
he or she got exactly where they wanted to get to at the end of that but they've given everyone
a voice along the way and I think they're the most inspiring and inspirational leaders. Great
I love that. Next question have a bit of a fish around. Tell me about a time where you failed at
something how did you recover and what did you learn? I fail all the time. I'm sure you don't.
I do I'm my own harshest critic so there aren't too many days where I close the day out and think
I didn't fail at anything so I reflect on every conversation I have I clearly reflect on things
that have very tangible and public outcomes as far as you know one singular fail that springs to
mind and maybe our AFL listeners might understand this but in 2008 playing for Geelong we lost to
grand final when we were the overwhelming favorites and your mother-in-law would have been
pretty annoyed about that but it's actually less about the failure it's how you reflect on that to
ultimately be better the next day and one thing I think that failure does present is a more critical
lens on learnings. When you're in flow and you're constantly winning inverted commas and getting
results you can let yourself slip on some of those standards I was talking about before however when
you fail it it's just human nature to critique that a little bit further so certainly from a
playing point of view losing games and AFL football more broadly is a results based industry and it's
very public and we have to reflect all the time and it's just as important to reflect when you
win but certainly when you lose it provides a more critical landscape to address the things
that you can do better. So the lesson then is not to become complacent? Absolutely I love Simon
Sinek as an author he's got a myriad of great books one of them is called The Infinite Game which is
just about literally being better today than you were yesterday so live in the moment but know that
at the end of the day you've made gains and then the sum of those incremental gains leads to great
things. Yeah it's that incremental part that I love. Yeah it is and the incremental part
requires patience you know if you're looking for the silver bullet you might get it and you
might get an unbelievable sugar hit but it's not sustainable you've just got to grind you know it's
about doing and having unwavering confidence you're on the right path. Yeah okay patience I will take
that away with me. That is now the end of our chatterbox section. My last question is if we
gave you a month off unencumbered you could do anything you wanted what would you do? I would go
skiing for a month I would go um the northern atmosphere somewhere probably Canada it's for me
I came across snow skiing late after I'd finished as an athlete and it satisfied immediately that
competitive edge that is just so deeply ingrained in me it's a great combination of just being free
and expressing yourself as an athlete so it's this amazing sport for the skiers out there and now that
I go skiing with my family that you can do it as a group but the reality is when you're on the hill
you're really by yourself and so you've got you got a sense of community you got a sense of
adrenaline and sport and exercise and then just the wide expanses as well so um yeah I wouldn't
have to think for too long to uh suggest that as a month. Do you head for the moguls or no moguls?
No moguls no moguls I've got dodgy knees so no I prefer the the nice groomed runs of uh of Whistler
Blackhound. Tom that's our time up thank you so much for allowing us to spend time with you
I love the fact that you are beginning to slow down physically as you get older makes me feel
slightly better I love your positivity I love what you're trying to do with your devices and
social media and I love the way that you put family first and make that the center of every
decision so thank you so much and I look forward to seeing how you get on with your devices in the
bedroom so do I thanks for having me Sally and thank you to everyone for listening if you like
the podcast and would like to hear more consider sharing the podcast or writing a review as it
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subscribe this podcast was hosted by me sally patten produced and edited by lap fan
our theme is by alex gow and our executive producer is fiona buffini the australian financial review