Sometimes when you don't feel like it, it's also a really good sort of challenge again.
I find it quite interesting when you're having a bad day, things have gone off track, you
don't feel as well prepared and sort of trying to embrace that to see, well, let's see what
Yeah, that's fun.
But when I started, absolutely not.
Like everyone, I was nervous, I was worried.
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
And along the way, we're hoping to get some great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Matt Common, the chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Hi, Matt, how's your day been so far?
Great to be with you.
Matt, as I said, you're the CEO of Commonwealth Bank, Australia's biggest bank, with a global
staff of some 50,000.
Last year, you recorded a 9.8 billion cash profit, of which you returned some $8 billion
to shareholders through dividends.
You bank more than one in three Australians.
And my interesting fact is that 46% of younger adults are your customers.
Does it make you proud to hear those numbers?
I mean, I'm very lucky.
I've been at CBA for more than two decades.
It's been a wonderful life experience.
I've, you know, there's always ups and downs in any career and job, but I've also worked
with some amazing people over that time.
And I'm, you know, I'm proud of what the Commonwealth Bank does and the opportunity
Okay, let's get into it.
We've only got 15 minutes.
The clock starts now.
My first question is, what does your morning routine look like?
Do you have time to get up?
So no fixed routine.
I don't have an alarm clock, but I'll generally wake up around six early this morning.
I basically will get up, exercise, go to work.
And what does the exercise comprise of?
This morning, gym, sometimes run, not so much cycling anymore, but probably exercise most
But if I don't have, if I've got something on, I will skip it, but I generally don't
have a fixed schedule.
I'm always in by a certain time, but I sort of, when I wake up, I get up and I don't seem
to really have a sleep in.
So what time do you get to the office by?
Somewhere around sort of 7.30 ish.
And are you a breakfast person?
I have a fairly regular routine.
I have a protein shake, fruit and a green juice.
And are you a snacker?
Does that last you to lunchtime?
Most days, occasionally I'll have a snack, but not often.
My next question is, tell me about a pivotal moment in your career that changed the trajectory
of what you were doing or somehow changed even what you wanted to be later on.
One of them would definitely be post GFC.
So it'd been 2009 and CBA was involved in, well, a financial advice group in North Queensland
had failed and a number of customers who had products with the Commonwealth Bank.
So it was a three and a half thousand people basically lost their life savings.
And I volunteered to lead the remediation of that.
I went and met with customers directly.
I think you learn the importance of doing the difficult things yourself.
You see the impact of when things go bad and leverage and those customers were highly levered
and invested obviously in a speculative at the time strategy, which had worked spectacularly
badly in the GFC.
So I did that for most of 2009 and it was a really unique experience that I learned
Very, very challenging.
I mean, I dealt for the first time with the then CEO, Ralph Board.
I worked with a number of legal firms because the bank was being sued.
I appeared in parliament for the first time.
So what were you doing immediately before that role?
And did you put your hand up for the role or did someone tap you on the shoulder?
I was running ComSec and I put my hand up for the role.
A number of people asked, why would you do that?
I'm sure they did.
I mean, looking back, it's clear that was a really important period.
But at the time of putting my hand up, it was less obvious.
But obviously, I'm really glad I did.
And I think it's really important about embracing opportunity and trying to do difficult things.
I think when lots of leaders differentiate themselves over time, it's generally those
who move towards the hard issues.
They don't leave it to others.
And was there a point where you thought you had bitten off maybe more than you could chew?
Because I guess that's also part of the learning, right?
I think when you do something for the first time, it can feel daunting.
I think with the right mindset, you can gain both a lot of experience and confidence and
a lot of things become easier in life and also from a career perspective after you've
done them before.
And really doing things that are challenging is so rewarding because a lot of other things
that maybe seemed hard for you before then actually seemed pretty easy.
And a lot of things just get easier with time and experience.
Yeah, it's good to know.
My next question is, what is the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
I mean, really embrace the opportunities that you're given.
And that for me would have been a few years before that.
I was at a particular point when I was being asked to go and lead a piece of work, a big
technology project at CBA, and I didn't necessarily want to do it.
But the person that I was working for gave me that piece of advice.
And ultimately, part of that was, you know, he asked me at the time, do you trust me?
And I said, I absolutely do.
And you might not think it is, it's going to be really good and important for you to
And it taught me a lot.
Life comes with sort of unexpected opportunities and challenges.
And I think if you're the sort of person that's really looking for a way to, you know, embrace
an opportunity, there's so many different ways that you can learn.
You know, you tend to be rewarded with other opportunities as well.
And I've found that there are so many ways to learn in life and in business and from
other people as well.
And so I think the sort of embracing opportunities with curiosity and trying to just continue
to improve every day makes a huge difference.
Both that's a mindset as well as, you know, a determination to do both of those things.
So when you're looking at those new opportunities and you're thinking, maybe I don't want to
do that because it's a bit scary.
How do you stop second guessing yourself and just forcing yourself to say yes?
It's important to be able to do that and I do.
I think it's important to have constructive self-reflection and looking for the things
that you can improve every day.
But I don't ruminate.
I don't second guess.
And I see this sometimes people will ask about public speaking.
I'm never the sort of person that's worried about what if I forget this or what if I just
never allow my mind to go down those sort of paths.
And some of that just comes from repetition.
And so I think there's a point you've always just got to be prepared to commit and not
look back. Looking backwards is, you know, a regret.
Thinking about all the things you could have or would have or should have, forget it.
Just think about how you can take that forward.
And I think that's a really important life skill.
That is fantastic advice.
No, Grace, don't look back. Look forward.
OK, Matt, on that note, that is the end of our first section.
Don't go away. We're going to take a short break.
And when we come back, we're going to open our embarrassingly low-fi, low-tech
Welcome back to 15 Minutes with the Boss.
I'm here with Matt Common, the chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank.
Now, Matt, this is our section called the Chatterbox as Threatened.
Now, Matt, in front of you is our very high-tech random question generator, aka
Cardboard Box, which has about 20 questions in it today.
When you're ready, have a forage, pick out your first question and we'll get going.
I get to read it, thanks very much.
Do you have a coping mechanism for high stress situations?
One, I think being able to perform as well as possible, which also includes dealing
with high stress, there's a lot of very conscious about the sort of state, you know,
good sleep, exercise, I think trying to always put yourself in the right position.
Secondly, I think dealing with stress gets easier with time.
Thirdly, as I've seen and learned, often things are not as bad as they first seem.
Often the worry can be debilitating.
So I think it's a sense of proportionality and being able to just work
calmly through individual problems.
And obviously there's the most important thing about dealing with difficult issues or
stress, just having a great team.
And so it's a big part of my job is getting the right people in the right roles, working
to their potential, working well together.
Once you've got that, things are a lot less stressful.
So in terms of how much you sleep and how much you exercise and your recovery time and
even what you put in your body, do you measure those things or do you have a device to measure those?
I have a couple of devices that measure those.
Yes, I do like metrics, but if I've had a bad sleep, I won't necessarily watch too
close. So I'm sort of like trying to look at the averages and how I'm going over time.
I've sort of stepped back from looking at as closely every single day as I would have
a few years ago, because I think it could be a little bit self-reinforcing.
Whereas I think most things in life, if you're doing the right things month in, month out,
the benefits really, really compound.
Sleep is a really big thing at the moment.
Do you have a sleep goal?
Do you know how many hours you like to get?
I do. I try to get seven.
Yeah, I measure that in a couple of ways.
I'll get less certain days of the week and it's easier to sleep on a weekend night.
I tend to probably not sleep as well on a Sunday night, but I'm just sort of used to
the pattern and also I just try to manage my load physically, mentally.
If I've got something that's really, really hectic that's coming up, I'll try to ease
back to give myself a bit of a rest beforehand.
And likewise, I try to plan pretty carefully.
And when it comes to exercising, are you real type A?
Do you push yourself a lot?
I like to push myself.
I mean, as I've gotten older, I'll train for maybe an hour.
I won't do four hours.
You know, I'd do a 10k run.
I'd never do a marathon now.
It's diminishing returns.
I don't think it's super healthy.
It's too fatiguing.
So I just try to get the right...
You do have a day job.
I do alongside my family.
That's I'm optimising for my work.
And so I'm trying to do everything I can to be healthy and in the best condition
possible so I can perform as best I can.
Yeah, no, that's really good advice.
OK, have another fish in the chatterbox.
Let's see what turns up.
Do you like public speaking and have you always liked it?
I doubt many people have.
I mean, realistically, I communicate for a living.
Sometimes I feel like I answer questions for a living.
I mean, a big part of when you're leading people is being able to communicate clearly,
hopefully inspire, but also try and reach the audience.
Most people can't remember what you say over, you know, obviously that dissipates
relatively quickly, but many people can remember what it felt like when you were talking.
And I think, you know, I've just done a lot of it.
And so the repetitions make it easier, means that you enjoy it more.
I mean, I wouldn't like to be an emcee at a wedding, but I like speaking.
I would have thought that's a lot easier than what you do.
No, I like structure.
I don't mind doing a speech.
I think intent is so important.
What I want to get out of this, you know, I don't sort of stumble into things.
You've thought about it before.
I'm going to think about it, exactly.
And then I just try to push everything else out of my mind right before I go on stage.
I've got routine and then I just start and I don't second guess.
I don't like over, you know, react if an alarm goes off or something.
Sometimes when you don't feel like it, it's also a really good sort of challenge again.
I find it quite interesting when you're, you know, you're having a bad day.
Things have gone off track.
You don't feel as well prepared and sort of trying to again, embrace that to see,
well, let's see how much I can do.
Let's see what I've got.
Yeah, that's fun.
You better when I started, absolutely not like everyone.
I was worried, but I don't know how many times I've spoken in public, but a lot.
So it's something that I've certainly grown to enjoy.
I have seen you a lot in the public on stages and I think you're terrific.
What's your routine beforehand?
Do you have a breathing exercise or do you stand up with your shoulders back?
Or some people have, you know, all sorts of different routines.
I just want a little bit of quiet before I go on stage.
You know, I would like like a minute or two.
And I will just consciously try to push every, you know, I won't be trying to
remember, oh, here's the 13 different points I need to make in the next eight
minutes, I'll just try and breathe and relax and then start, you know, I'm a
big believer in routines, I think in, you know, in professional sport and things as
well, if you talk to someone who let's say is a opening bats person, the one of
the ways that they teach people to not get nervous at the opening ball of the
first test is, you know, to have a routine.
So I mean, I have different routines.
If I on different days that are important, I'll do a certain set of things.
And I think that just gives you a sense of comfort and consistency.
Should we have another go?
Do you have a favourite productivity hack to help you get more out of your day?
Probably two related.
One, I generally think email is a, certainly as a sending device,
a grotesque waste of time.
I'd hope I send probably the fewest number of emails as any CEO.
I mean, I'd do less than five per day.
I think emails are great in terms of like communication to read and send.
They're terrible for understanding context, for problem solving.
So I spend, as I said, as little time as possible.
So what happens to all the emails that you get in that are sort of probably
asking for a response.
Do you ignore them?
Can you pass them off to somebody else?
Well, for a lot of people who work closely with me know, if you want to talk
to me, talk to me, come and talk to you.
I'm not going to go back and forth on email.
And then the second thing, I'm a big believer in some of the work that
Cal Newport's done, which is, it's all about sort of deep work.
So a lot of my job, obviously I'm in and out of different things, meetings.
But I also, if I really want to work on something that's important, I'll have a
big block of time where I can work on something that, that is important.
And it's sort of unstructured time, but I use it in a certain way.
And as I said, I try to avoid things that I think are a waste of time.
And I'd put email substantially at the top of that list.
Yeah, that's really interesting and something that we should
really probably all take on board.
On that note, that concludes our Chatterbox section.
We will move on to our last question, which is, if we were the holiday gods
and we granted you 12 months holiday, you could come back to the same job.
You were unencumbered.
You could do anything you liked.
What would you do?
I suspect I will get bored well inside 12 months.
So I'd have to find something stimulating to do it at the same time.
And I guess like everyone, I'd like to spend some time with family.
I try to do the best I can with my kids, but I'd probably like to substantively
spend that time without a phone for the former CEOs that I've seen.
I think that's the thing that they enjoy most is that the levity that comes
from just not having to be on your phone all the time, be contacted all the time.
And you just never know.
And that's just part of what I really enjoy in the role, but you just never know.
I mean, something could happen very, very quickly and that's always in the back of
So at some point not having to worry about that and whether that's sort of
walking on a beach or walking up a mountain, not having to worry about what am
I missing would be, I think a good feeling.
So to prevent you from getting bored, would you learn a new skill?
I'm terrible at art and music.
So I think I can rule a number of different things out.
I'd love to be able to learn a language.
Italian or French or something like that.
Spanish, I would like to be able to speak more of.
My father was Spanish and he died when I was six and I have a half brother who
lives in Spain and he's Spanish obviously a hell of a lot better than mine.
So I feel like I could have done a better job of learning that language.
And that Matt means that our time is up.
It's been a real pleasure talking to you about the way that you have gone and
deliberately done the difficult things, because that is what is going to develop
I really like the way that you don't ruminate on past mistakes.
You get up and get on with things and I think you're amazing the way you only send
five emails a day.
I also think the way that you optimize yourself, your family and your work is a
really good lesson.
You know exactly what your priorities are.
And I will finish by saying best of luck in your year off, connecting with your
Spanish heritage.
So Matt, thank you so much once again for coming in and allowing us to spend 15
minutes with the boss.
Thanks very much.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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The Australian Financial Review.