I think once you knock off a couple of those not-possibles, it's a very, very powerful
thing that can be done.
As you go through the ranks and the higher up you go, people use their voice more when
maybe they should be listening more.
A lot of people sort of have very structured plans and that works for them.
Some people don't have structured plans and it still works out.
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 really great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Paul Graham, the chief executive of Australia Post.
Lovely to see you.
Thank you so much for coming into our beautiful Black Sydney studio.
Wonderful to be here.
Thanks for having me.
You are the chief executive of Australia Post.
Last year, you recorded a revenue of around $9 billion, although you did make a $200 million
loss because we basically weren't sending enough letters and meanwhile, you were investing
very heavily in the parcels business.
But I do note that you delivered 2.5 billion items, including parcels and letters, both
domestically and internationally.
That is quite something.
And when you look at our peak season, which we've just had, we did 100 million parcels
in peak for a population of 26 million and counting kids and grandparents, it's a lot
That is a lot of parcels.
So thank you for taking time out of your parcels and allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the
As the title suggests, we only have 15 minutes.
The clock starts now.
So my first question is around your morning routine.
What time do you get up?
What time do you have your first cup of coffee?
Early riser and I spin out of bed about six in the morning if I'm not traveling, grab
a cup of coffee, check the emails, don't go for a swim, don't go to the gym, none of that
stuff which is not a good habit.
But that's the routine and then basically take the dogs out and head to work.
So no exercise for you at all then?
Look, exercise is not really my thing in terms of going to the gym and all that.
We're going on Peloton and having people shout at me.
But going for a walk is good.
Occasionally play around a golf.
My wife's a golfer and people will say that I sort of move at a fast enough pace during
the day that I probably get my steps up anyway.
You get a workout in the office.
And do you go into the office every day?
I mean, I travel quite a bit.
But since COVID, I've made a routine of going to the office.
Part of that is to, you know, just my own routine.
I feel comfortable doing that.
I started obviously a new role with Post right in the middle of COVID.
And part of it is we've got a lot of real estate that's sitting empty and trying to
encourage people to come back to the office and strike that balance between work from
home and being present.
And it's more about collaboration, not about productivity.
It's connectivity.
And I think that's really important in any social environment or work environment.
Yeah, no, it's a big ongoing debate, isn't it?
OK, my next question is about a pivotal moment in your career.
Was there any point in your career that really changed the nature of what you were doing
or sent you in a totally different direction?
Yeah, look, a couple of things.
You know, I started off by default, I'd never been to university, so left school early and
then worked in many, many different jobs, got a job in the freight business, which I've
been in now for the last 40 odd years, and just doing, you know, basically manual tasks
and took over customer service or answering the phone.
Someone said you'd be good at sales, went into sales.
And then at a very early age, in my early 20s, I was sent to Asia before it really became
what it is today to go and look for partners.
So I was in China when you had to book many months in advance, you got an official tour
guide, inverted commas to accompany you in Taiwan, in Thailand and all those places.
So one, that someone had the faith that I could probably go and do that.
And two, it really opened my eyes to the Asian opportunity that we could all see was coming.
So I think I was a really good turning point for my own self-confidence.
And then from there, you know, by default, no real career plan, I've tended to move about
and sort of get recognized.
And I think it just shows that a lot of people sort of have very structured plans and that
People don't have structured plans and it still works out.
So when you left high school, you didn't think I want to be a CEO?
No, definitely not.
Probably wanted to be a politician or in the arts.
So a real conflict.
But as I did lots of different jobs, worked in rubbish tips, you name it, I sort of did
Couldn't really find what I was looking for and then found this summer job as I worked
in the freight business.
I liked the international nature of it in those days and I'm showing my age now as the
old telex machine.
So you'd come in the morning, my job was to split the telexes, one for the boss, one for
filing and one to the relevant department head.
And I thought it was great that I could talk to someone in New York or someone in London
and they could talk to me via telex.
So I guess that's broke my interest in international business, international trade.
And, you know, 40 years later, I'm still in the game.
Well, Paul, I'm very glad you're still in the game.
My next question is, what's the best piece of career advice you've ever been given?
Look, two ears, one mouth.
I think, you know, one of the things that I really admire about the Asian culture is
that sense of respect, that sense of listening.
And I think, you know, I spent a large part of my career, you know, 16, 17 years living
in Singapore, really trying to understand and develop a nuance and appreciation of all
those different cultures.
But I'd say generally, as you go through the ranks and the higher up you go, people, you
know, use their voice more when maybe they should be listening more.
So definitely two ears, one mouth.
Is that something that you try and still in people who are coming up underneath you to
just listen more and perhaps talk a bit less?
Yeah, that. And I think the other thing is curiosity.
Always be curious, you know, find out why people are doing that.
Well, how does that work?
You know, I used to go to India a lot and was thinking about how do I connect with the
culture? So I'd read all the newspapers, all the gossip columns, because Bollywood is huge,
right? So I'd watch the Bollywood movies, which I love now.
And that would be a fantastic talking point with a person in the warehouse, with a taxi
driver right the way up to the chairman of Tata Group.
And I think that curiosity and that genuine interest in their culture and what they talk
about, I think, helps you assimilate and helps you get respect and also makes them feel
comfortable. This is someone I can do business with.
Good advice. So on that note, Paul, 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 brown chatterbox.
Welcome back to 15 minutes with the boss.
I'm here with Paul Gray and the chief executive of Australia Post.
Now, Paul, this is our section called the chatterbox.
So in front of you, as threatened, there is this brown shiny box, very high tech, inside
which are about 20 questions all folded up on little bits of paper.
I'm going to ask you to have a bit of a forage, choose a question, which I will then, of
course, ask you to answer.
So please start fishing.
Right. It feels like a lucky dip.
That's the first one.
What keeps you up at night?
Lots of things keep me up at night from, you know, my kids.
My daughter lives in London, so she's been there for 10 years.
So that usually keeps me up at night wondering how she is doing.
Obviously, things to do with work.
I mean, the safety of our people, I think, is the most important responsibility.
We've got six to eight thousand people.
We've got people out there on motorbikes, trucks, planes, you name it.
And that's the number one responsibility that I have and the thing that always keeps me
And do you have a lot of accidents?
Is that a bit of a problem?
I mean, because your your staff are on the roads a lot.
Yeah. Now, look, we're the most geographically diverse business in Australia.
We touch every community, be it road accidents, dog bites is a major issue for us.
We continue to think about what we can do to prevent that and encourage people to look
after a type of dogs when their postie comes in.
So, yeah, we reflect, you know, the accidents in the community and all the hazards that
So is separating work and home life something that you have to constantly battle with?
Yeah, I do. You know, it's always important to try and be in the present, you know,
particularly if you're home, you know, travel a lot like lots of executives do.
So it is trying to make sure you have clear routines and clear, right?
We're not going to talk about work.
I'm not going to think about work.
But, you know, things happen and occasionally you have, you know, good days and bad days.
And, you know, you bring that home and really being conscious of the fact that that's not
fair and trying to manage that.
And that's just something I think a lot of executives are challenged with and we have
to be mindful of it.
Yeah, that whole work life balancing is really tricky, isn't it?
OK, Paul, time for your next question.
Have a fish. Right.
What's your favorite party story that you like to share?
Yes, let me see party.
I'm not a big party person.
I'm an introvert by nature.
But, you know, the mood takes me like with with other people.
I think it's about like we all just like talking about, you know, your travels, funny
experiences that you had.
I'm pretty good at accents, so I can turn on accents.
I like to sing if the tune going around.
Can you do an accent for me?
Which accent you want, what Scottish accent you want, something different.
Oh, I love it. That's brilliant.
And are you a big traveler?
I'm a big traveler. Yeah.
We were lucky to say that we lived as a family in Asia for a long time.
So we're able to travel all of Asia.
I've been in international transport business my whole life.
And just by nature, you have to travel.
It is at times being difficult, particularly when you have young families.
And I give advice to anybody listening to make sure you get that balance right.
I probably didn't in the early days.
And that's probably not a good thing.
But just the nature of what you do when you're building your career.
But I think being conscious of it is very, very important.
And, you know, I tell my kids that these days that I've had my time over again,
I probably wouldn't have traveled as much.
But again, you don't know any better.
And you're trying to build for the family and build your career.
But yeah, we've been very, very lucky.
We've traveled the world.
And I think it was good for my kids to grow up in a different environment
and appreciate different cultures and both turned into sort of, you know,
very global children or very global adults now and with a particular nuance
for food surrounded by three great cooks.
And I'm a good eater. So it's a good combination.
Sounds fantastic.
So when you travel now, are you very conscious to be at home for key dates?
Absolutely. Yeah.
And I've never missed a wedding anniversary or a birthday or a kid's birthdays.
You know, my father and mother are getting older now.
So making sure I'm back from them.
Yeah, they were sort of locked in.
And well, you flew in that morning, which I liked.
You had to be there for that.
And I think they're really critical, not just setting those important dates,
but setting times in your calendar for holidays.
So if you are busy, you know, you've got that to look forward to
and the family's got that to look forward to.
So whilst it's difficult to build that in, you need to build those formal dates in
and keep to them. They're really, really critical.
So you take all your own holidays?
Yes, I do encourage everyone else to take their own holidays.
Again, it's something you can easily forget and justify why you can't.
But it's really, really important.
You know, what we'll call work life balance or recharging.
I usually tend to sleep a lot for the first couple of days when I'm off.
But after that, I'm in pretty good form.
Sounds good. Good to hear that you take all your holidays.
OK, have another forage. Let's try another one.
Right. What's the advice that you would give your younger self?
I think like lots of people, as you get older, you look back and you say,
you know, why did I worry about that?
Why did I get anxious about that?
You know, life has a way, it's certainly for me, of just sort of defining itself.
And again, you know, I've never had a structured plan
or this is what I'm going to do next. It's sort of just as evolved.
And I think be more confident in the fact that, you know,
if you've got certain values,
if you've got certain rules around life and how you want to treat people
and how you want them to treat you, respect being kind at the end of the day,
those things will see you through the good times and the bad.
But I think, you know, we all tend to get anxious about what the future holds.
And I'm not a religious person, but, you know, there is a pathway
and it'll evolve and try not to worry too much about the small stuff.
So do you think that when you were younger, you spent too much time
sweating the small stuff?
Yeah, look, I think that's the nature of my personality to a degree.
I'm a bit of a worrier and I try to, you know,
for the things that are broken, I try and fix them.
Or if someone's got a problem, I'll try and help them.
But yeah, I think I was a bit of a worrier and trying to fix the world.
And, you know, sometimes that's not possible.
It's good to worry about it.
But sometimes you've got to get things in the context
and break them down into the component part.
So I think that's just experience and also trying to understand
that it's good to have that feeling,
but it's also good to balance that with the reality is that,
you know, life will take care of itself at the end of the day.
Now, I've got one more question, which is actually not in the chat box.
So I thought so full disclosure, I'm cheating,
but I was wondering as a leader
whether you prefer the ideas side of leadership
or whether you really get into the execution side,
because I can see that leaders would lean towards either of those or perhaps both.
Yeah, look, I'm definitely more in the ideas side.
It's one to truly try and lay down a vision as to what we want to be as a business,
the culture we want, how we want our customers to feel
when they come into contact with us as a business.
So that's very much the case.
And the key to that, then, is to surround yourself
with really, really good people who can execute.
But I think you need to be an ideas person as a leader.
You need to set that roadmap and that pathway forward.
And particularly if you are like we are in Australia Post
going through a significant transformation as a business,
not just in terms of the world moving to e-commerce and away from mail,
but the technology roadmap.
We've got to develop the cultural change.
We've got to drive in terms of how the business needs to operate.
And that needs creativity to a large degree.
It needs to lay down very clear marker as to what's expected.
But then, as I say, you surround yourself with really smart people
who can then take that idea, take those visions and turn them into operational reality.
So is that whole corporate transformation side
that you really like as opposed to business as usual?
Absolutely, yeah. I get to a stage.
My career has sort of been landmarked by sort of five to seven year stints.
I go in usually to a problem, get it back in its feet,
turn it around, get it sustainable.
And then I get a bit bored, to be honest.
Interesting. Problem solving.
Yeah, problem solving and, you know, also challenging.
You know, you know, that's not possible.
OK, well, let's give it a go and we'll see.
And I think once you knock off a couple of those, you know, not possibles,
the confidence you can get and particularly in a large organisation,
68000 people at post.
And you're getting that whole alignment of those people marching to the one,
which is a very, very powerful thing.
And it can be done, but it needs a lot of work.
And a lot of people focus on changing, you know, the strategy
or the the nuts and bolts without changing the culture.
You've got to do both.
Yes, but so satisfying to actually be able to achieve transformational change.
Paul, that is a great note on which to end our Chatterbox section.
I now have one last question, which I put to all our guests.
And that is if you had a year off unencumbered,
you could do anything you liked, you could go wherever you liked.
What would you do? Where would you go?
I would go if it was me by myself.
I would probably go to a desert island and write a book.
And what would you write a book about?
I've got a few ideas, but it would be probably a combination of a
my background, where I'm from and Irish history
with a little bit of intrigue and a little bit of subterfuge in it.
So, yeah, not quite a action thriller, but not quite a romantic novel,
but somewhere in between that sort of appeals to the emotions of people,
but also has the occasional laugh in it.
Very difficult thing to write, I think.
Wow. So you wouldn't go for a management book?
No, definitely not. I'm not a management book reader, no.
Have you ever read any management books?
I have read some, yes.
And I've, you know, got things out, but it's just it's just not me.
I just don't read them.
I know some people read them
ferociously and get lots of out of them.
I just don't do that.
It's not that I'm smarter than the books.
That's just that I tend to learn other ways.
So you've learned, basically, do you think, on the job?
Yeah, very much in the job, very much from, you know, watching other people
listening, looking at different businesses
and how they have coped with crises or grown.
Management books has its role.
And there's certainly some great frameworks that come out of that
that I think are relevant.
And I probably subconsciously adopted those by listening to people
use them or reading a book or picking up a couple of pages.
But I think it's like anything in life.
It's a combination of lots of different things.
And I couldn't put my hand on one thing.
I think, you know, I've made up my way of working through
learning from lots of different people, from, you know, a person who goes
and delivers a letter can have as much insight as talking to the chairman
of a board of a multinational.
It's just depending on what the question is and what the discussion is.
But each is enriching as the other.
And that is our 15 minutes up.
Well, thank you, Paul, for such an enriching conversation.
And I wish you well in writing your book.
And indeed, look forward to buying a copy of your book.
Thank you very much.
It's been fabulous to hear that you're not one of those people
who gets up at 4am and swims and then runs half a marathon,
does mindfulness before eating steel oats.
A cup of coffee is fine.
I love the fact that in terms of ideas versus the implementation of ideas,
you're really into the ideas and the creativity and transforming
businesses is something that really keeps you occupied
and clearly you get bored quickly.
And I like your advice not to worry too much.
And the fact that you have had no career path, you have clearly taken opportunities
as they have come along.
So, again, thank you so much for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.
It's been a nervous pleasure. Thank you.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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The Australian Financial Review.