The Australian Financial Review.
The partners who were closest to us said she should be the next partner, but she doesn't
She has a family and she has told us she doesn't want partnership.
And then that person resigned to take a partnership somewhere else.
It's okay not to be doing everything yourself.
In fact, it's incredibly important for you not to be doing everything yourself.
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 having to get some really great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Renee Lattie, the chief executive partner at King & Wood Mallisons
Great to be here.
Lovely to see you on the screen.
Unfortunately, a screen not in person, but you know, maybe we can get together another
Now Renee, you're the chief executive partner at law firm King & Wood Mallisons in Australia,
which actually also takes in Singapore.
KWM is one of the big five law firms in Australia, measured by the number of partners.
You have 192 partners and about 1200 staff.
That seems like calm enough to keep you busy from day to day.
There's plenty to keep me busy.
Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to allow us to spend 15 minutes with
Let's start the clock right now.
Renee, so my first question is about your morning routine.
What time do you get up?
Sally, I think last time we got together, I said that I got up at six and sat and did
wudu in my bed with my son and it was all quite regimented and I think that might have
been a couple of years ago.
My routine is all over the place at the moment.
I think I probably travel a lot more than I was traveling back then and so the routine
can be anywhere from getting up at four o'clock to get the six o'clock flight or if I'm home
in Melbourne, it will be very much about being up around six o'clock, trying not to look
at the phone, trying to get myself organised for the day and get the kids out the door.
So a little bit all over the place, Sally.
So what in particular do you try and streamline so that you can just get out the door and
be at work at the time you've got to be at work?
One of the things for me, and maybe this is a female specific thing, I try and be quite
organised about what I'm going to be wearing the next day because you can waste so much
time worrying about what it's going to be and for me, just having that streamlined is
a really important productivity hack.
So do you do that the night before or do you plan it the whole week?
No, for me, it's either the night before or it's the first thing I think about when
Is there anything else you can streamline?
I will take some oats in a little container and there's my breakfast on the go and the
second thing is to stop me eating not as well as I should eat during the day.
So having cucumber, peppers, carrots chopped up in a little container, it just helps me
through those hungry moments in a semi-healthy way, but that's just what works for me.
That's a really good tip about carrots and cucumbers to keep you energised, but by the
same token, making sure you're not eating the bad stuff.
Now Renee, my next question is, what was a pivotal moment in your career that changed
the trajectory of what you were doing?
There were two moments that changed the way that I lead and me being much more open and
honest with people about these things and the first was I spent a lot of my younger
career having fears and doubts and you spend a lot of time thinking that it's just you.
So years ago we had a partner conference and one of the things we had to do was put in
a box the things that people were going to throw away, stop doing and years later I spoke
to one of the people in management at the time and they said that box was full of effectively
imposter syndrome, people going to throw away their fears and doubts and it was at that
moment that I realised, gosh, it's not just me that's had those in my career and the second
time was when we spend a lot of time on succession and leadership at the firm and the pipeline
of talent and we had been discussing a particular individual, female and the partners who were
closest to us said she is the best, she should be the next partner, but she doesn't want
She has a family and she has told us she doesn't want partnership and then that person
resigned to take a partnership somewhere else.
It's not that she doesn't want partnership, she doesn't want it with us.
Now the good news is that we managed to get her to stay with us and she is now a partner
but it told me that especially when you're dealing with talented people coming through
who are female and I'm sure it happens to the males as well but we see it a lot with
If you hear people say, I don't want partnership, it's not the time to put them to the side
and go, I don't need to worry about promising them a career that I'm not going to be able
It's a time to go deeper and try and understand why because often why they're saying that
is because they either can't see it done in a way that they want it to be done for themselves
or they don't think that they're capable whereas everyone else around them does think
that they're capable and unfortunately we see that quite a bit with females so that
has changed the way that I lead.
So I now talk to the younger folks when they come into the organisation and say look many
of you will be sitting here thinking you might not belong and so it's a way of just putting
that on the table early on to tell everyone you are good enough, you absolutely can make
it in this place so don't let your own thoughts, fears and doubts hold you back.
So why do you think it's the females that feel like they're not capable?
I don't like grossly generalising in this way because there will be plenty of male examples
who would think the same way but I do think females typically will see what's ahead of
them, talk themselves into the fact that they're not exactly that and therefore they should
think about a different path whereas my experience is that with males it's perhaps they'll keep
going until they're told you won't make it whereas the females tend to make a decision
themselves and so look it's just those examples were really good for me both at completely
different times of my career but really good for me to think about that when I'm talking
to people now, think about actually well what do people need to hear early so that they
don't make career decisions they might later regret or not know was possible.
Yeah that's a really good point, now Renee my next question is what is the best piece
of career advice you've ever been given?
I'll tell you what the worst piece of advice I've ever been given, I'll tell you that
one first, when I went overseas to work in one of the big law firms and somebody there
who was also an antipodean said to me whatever you do don't ask questions because it will
show what you don't know and so you know for my first couple of months working there you
know I would just be working all hours of the day and night to try and figure it out
for myself so I think the best piece of advice is about the importance of listening.
It wasn't just a single moment where somebody said to me this is something that you know
you should put on your list of must do's, I watched and observed the great client relationship
leaders in our firm and noticed that the best ones, the ones who formed the strongest relationships
were people who could listen really well.
Interesting so when you're in a meeting of any kind do you try and make a conscious effort to
listen more than you speak?
It will depend on the meeting but too often I think I see people that have got an outcome in mind
go into the meeting and I've actually seen it happen a lot and will come out with a completely
different impression of the meeting than me.
I mean it's always good to go in with an intention whatever the situation is
but unless you are listening you're not going to be building the trust, the rapport, the relationship
and at the end of the day you're not going to get what you need out of that encounter.
So do you think you listen more and ask lots of questions partly because you realise the folly
of one of those original pieces of advice you were given when you went offshore?
In other words don't ask questions.
I've reflected on that a number of times Sally I think you're spot on.
Don't go away we're going to take a short break when we come back
we're going to open our delightful chatterbox.
Welcome back to 15 minutes with the boss I'm here with Renee Laddie the chief executive partner
at law firm King and Wood Malisons.
Now Renee this is our section called the chatterbox.
Now in front of me rather new because we're in different cities is our chatterbox.
It's a really beautiful high-tech brown box inside which are 15 to 20 questions all folded up on
On your behalf I'm going to choose them one by one and ask you to answer them.
I'll start foraging.
What part of your job don't you like?
There's a lot about my job that's really hard but they're not the bits that I don't like.
They're the bits that you learn from and that when you do them you feel like a million bucks
because you've actually solved something or helped move something along.
But the thing that I don't like or I find the most challenging is just the sheer balance
between wanting to do a great job and having personal demands and I'm not somebody who sits
here and says well you can have everything and be amazing at everything.
I think that's really hard and I get help to make sure that you know I'm doing the
best that I can on the home front and in the office.
But there is a lot of travel in my job and to do it well I need to do that travel and
I just try when I can to prioritise the family side.
So that's probably the bit that's the hardest, Sally.
So what do you do to achieve that work-life balance?
And what's your advice to others who have got busy schedules like you?
Biggest suggestion that I have for people is it's okay not to be doing everything yourself.
In fact it's incredibly important for you not to be doing everything yourself.
So my key piece of advice is you get help on the home front because I don't think it's
right for anyone to spend the time that you are at home doing you know a full-time job
of doing all the other things.
And you know especially for somebody like me I don't have family here in Australia.
So I can't rely on the unpaid support that you get from those around you.
And so actually putting in place arrangements means that I'm not trying to
negotiate on a daily basis.
How do I get stuff done?
So what sort of help do you mean?
Is it in the form of a cleaner that comes in every day?
Does someone cook your meals or what sort of help actually has been the most use to you?
I find this question quite challenging because as a partner sitting in our business
it's very easy for me to say well I have a nanny.
And sometimes when I say that in front of my organization people would say well that's all
very well for you.
You can afford that.
And that's a legitimate criticism.
But I would just encourage anyone to really evaluate how much is me trying to do all of
the chores on my off time affecting the time that I'm giving to myself.
And I think making sure that you spend time for yourself is incredibly important.
So getting outside help is giving you time for your work and your family.
But it's also giving you time to regenerate.
Let's go for another question.
Are you ready for this?
Do you have hobbies?
Probably the key one is getting back to playing the piano.
I used to play it a lot when I was at school and did all of my fancy exams.
In fact it was always going to be my fallback career teaching piano just in case
everything else didn't work out.
And when I had my second child I thought this was a great opportunity to spend a bit more
time getting back to the level that I used to be.
And I was quite naive of course.
But I still play it quite a bit during the week.
More stressful weeks I play it a bit more and I don't think I realized how it's not
It's actually quite a good way to unwind for me.
And what kind of music do you play?
Do you have a favorite piece of music?
I've got loads of favorite pieces of music but if I was to think about a favorite
composer it's probably Debussy.
Oh I love Debussy as well.
Claire de Lune is one of my favorite pieces from him.
Okay next question.
What are your favorite interview questions when hiring somebody and why?
Probably the two that I'll always ask is what's going to help make this a success for you?
And what's going to mean that this might derail?
Because I think especially the first one everyone's different.
Sometimes when you ask that question it's a really simple thing like well if you just
let me stay at home in my PJs once a week so that I can get my work done that's going
to work really well for me.
And sometimes it's something much grander.
But where I've seen failures in the past has been where people have come on for a
particular role clearly the right questions haven't been asked by both sides on the way
in and then there's a misalignment of expectations.
So I always try and get those expectations out in the interviews.
So what's going to make it a success?
And if they mention something that's just not part of the role or I know we'll never
be able to deliver on I always make that really clear.
And then the other one about the derailer like what might mean that this is not a success?
Again it's just having that clarity and transparency around expectation.
So do you find those two questions are particularly revealing in a sense that people will open
up about themselves and you'll learn quite a lot about somebody?
Yes and not everyone goes to the personal in those questions.
Some will go to the you know the very tactical side of things.
But yeah quite often people will open up about themselves and the things that they then need.
So for example I've had somebody say look if somebody's going to be micromanaging me
that's not going to work.
I don't work as well in those circumstances.
So I find and maybe it's the sorts of people that these days that I'm interviewing because
you really do need to know the way that somebody will work.
Okay Renee on that note we have completed the chatterbox section.
I now have one final question that we ask all our guests and that is in the extremely unlikely
event or maybe not maybe potentially likely event that you are given a year off you can
do anything you like you're unencumbered what would you do?
If it were just me I think there's two things I'd love to do.
One is get back up to performance standard piano.
And the second thing is I'd love to go back and be a student again.
Yes and learn something new.
If I think back in my career and to the times that I was my happiest it's when you are really
being stretched and learning a completely new thing how an industry works how an issue
a legal issue gets unpacked.
So being able to do that again maybe not with the exams I don't know but just that
curiosity to learn something new.
And that is our 15 minutes up.
Renee thank you so much it's been so great talking to you today.
I love the advice you have about getting outside help which frees up time for your
family your work and more importantly for you.
I love the way you talk about the importance of listening and really interesting the two
questions that you ask in interviews.
In other words what is going to help you to succeed in a role and what is going to derail
you in the role so that everyone gets their expectations right from the get-go.
And Renee I am so looking forward to hearing you play the piano sometime.
So thank you for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with the boss.
Thank you Sally it's been lovely to be here.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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This podcast was hosted by me Sally Patton and produced and edited by Lapfan.
Video and audio assistance and our music theme is by Alex Gao
and our executive producer is Fiona Buffini.
The Australian Financial Review