Before we start this episode, please be aware that it does contain mention of suicide.
I know Ben, and I know his dad even better. When I was at the West Coast, Ben was there
the year after I left. He got a second chance, and I'm a great believer in if it's possible
and it makes some sense to give people second chances.
And look, I was so ambitious as a young adult, and I wasn't necessarily that nice to the
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 hoping to get some really great advice from our leaders.
My guest today is Brian Cook, the chief executive of the Carlton Football Club. Hi, Brian, thank
you so much for coming into our Melbourne studio.
And Brian, you do realise that you have Tom Harley, the chief executive of the Sydney
Swans to blame because we had him on the podcast last year and he was singing your praises,
No, I've heard that. I've heard that, and Tom made sure that I was aware that he was
first to be asked.
I love that. And thank you so much for taking time out because it's a busy time of year
because you've got the launch of the season coming up this week.
Yeah, a lot's happening. Big game up in Brisbane. We're rounding off membership. We're rounding
off our partnerships. It's sort of rounding off all of the contracts before you get into
the year, whether it's players or members or partners or sponsors.
Well, best of luck later in the week.
Now, Brian, you're the CEO, as I said, of the Carlton Football Club, and you are also
a former CEO of both Geelong and the West Coast Eagles. And indeed, when you were at
Geelong, the team had 13 top four finishes between 2004 and 2021, including three
premierships. And last year at Carlton, you finished just outside the top four.
I also believe that Carlton is the fourth biggest club in the AFL in terms of members.
You've got more than 95,000 members and a staff of about 200, including players, coaches,
administrators, et cetera, et cetera. That's kind of a big job.
OK, I'm exhausted already.
It does. It takes up a lot of your life. Whilst you might be working at the desk or
in meetings, you know, seven or eight hours a day, it's a 24-7 thing, really. Your phone
is always there for a phone call, whether it's an emergency or not. And it does take
a lot out of the other parts of your life. There is no doubt about that. And I've been
a CEO in the AFL for 35 years and just taken a lot of time out of my life.
I imagine the right to disconnect rules won't apply to you.
No, probably not. I'm not embracing that rule right now. I understand I have 200 staff that
need to be looked after and healthy safety environment, those things, but I don't think
I could do my job properly just working seven or eight hours a day.
No. OK, so as promised, we have 15 minutes. The clock starts right now. Let me ask my
first question. What time do you get up in the morning? What happens? What time do you
have your first cup of coffee? I'm up first light. I swim in the ocean or in the
bay, anywhere between two and three kilometers. And I do that when I can. There's sometimes
I have sort of early morning meetings, so I can't do it. But I would swim at least five
times a week in the morning. Then I would have coffee and a boring breakfast. And it's
usually oats or fruits or two crumpets. It's something really boring. And I prepare. I
try and prepare for the day, the night before or the morning of, depending on my time.
So when you're preparing for your day, what's going through your mind?
Normally the number of interactions I have or I know I'm having, whether it be meetings
or individual people, chats, phone calls compared to meetings. And I would try and have maybe
two or three objectives for each of those meetings. I might have two or three really
simple outcomes that I want from the meeting, or it might be workshopping things rather
than having an end result in mind. That's interesting. So you purposefully think
about the two or three things you want to get out of each meeting.
Absolutely. I think in my case, the further I've gone up the ladder, so to speak, the
more important meetings become in terms of getting outcomes. So I make sure the meetings
also don't go any more than 45 minutes, unless it's a board meeting, which I have no control
over, so to speak, or an executive leadership team meeting. But if you can't achieve things
in half an hour, you haven't prepared properly. You haven't got the right agenda or the papers
aren't right or the recommendations aren't right or the wrong people are in the room.
So do you say no to a lot of meetings?
I say yes to most. I will delegate meetings if I think they should be managed by someone
else. I do a lot of delegating. I have seven general managers. I often give some of the
big jobs for the GMs, but by and large, to answer your question, I say no to some meetings.
Okay. My next question is about a pivotal moment in your career. Can you describe a
moment in your career that really changed you, changed the trajectory of your career,
or changed the way you lead people in some way?
There's probably several, but I think crucible events that occur outside your workplace
as a kid, etc., are just as important in developing your character as a lot of the work events
Can you give me some examples of those events outside of work?
My mother, she passed away when I was nine, and that had a traumatic and long-term effect
on the family, including myself, of course. My mother came from Scotland. We went back
and lived with my great-grandmother for a couple of years when I was 10, and my brother
was 11. It was an amazing time where she really couldn't look after us. We had to look after
ourselves a bit, but we loved it because in summer it got dark at midnight, and we stayed
out until midnight fishing and did all sorts of huckleberry fin things. It was great.
It was interesting also, we were born in Scotland, came to Australia in 54, and we went back
in 64. It was difficult because we were treated like foreigners in our own birthplace. We
went through the bullying phases, we went through the sarcasm phases they had with us.
The people in Scotland all wanted to know how my mother died. She actually committed
suicide. It was just a really tough time for us, but it taught us about, in terms of my
character for the next 20, 30, 40 years, about how ridiculous rumour was, how important being
adventurous was. It was a learning exercise in so many ways for us, one way or another,
but it's part of me now as a leader, where I am still a bit adventurous, where I don't
listen to rumour. I think crucible events in a young age are just as effective, if that's
the right word, certainly as it is in your older age.
Interesting. It taught you about adventure as opposed to resilience?
In terms of, as an adult, sometimes being a bit creative and a bit more adventurous
in the options you pick and the strategies you have for your organisation, just the whole
value of being adventurous is important, but it also did teach us about resilience. There
is no doubt about that as well.
My last question for this first section is, what is the best piece of career advice you've
Learn from everyone you respect, but don't imitate them. Think about all of these leaders
you respect in your life, and there would be 20 or 30 or 40 wonderful leaders that I've
come across, and it's important you learn off each one of those, but don't imitate them.
Don't be someone else, be yourself. Make it a smorgasbord of leadership abilities from
all of these people that you suck into.
There were times in my life where I would say, what would Frank Cost do in this situation,
my former chair? But I don't want to be exactly like what he did. I don't want to act exactly
the same way. You've got to make it a part of your smorgasbord and come out with your
And is that hard to do? I imagine it would be really tempting to, and I have that temptation
too, to imitate people around you.
Yeah, I think it is, but I think if you're aware of not imitating people, but be yourself,
I think that's half the trick.
Yeah, I guess it's really important to find your own voice. Now, Brian, on that note,
we're going to take a short break. When we come back, we're going to open the chatterbox.
Welcome back to 15 minutes with the boss. I'm here with Brian Cook, the chief executive
of the Carlton football club. Now, Brian, this is our section called the chatterbox.
In front of me is a beautiful brown shiny box inside which are around 20 questions all
folded up on little bits of paper. I would normally ask you to have a bit of a forage
and pick a question. But since we're in different states, you're going to have to trust me to
do it on your behalf. So Tom got to choose his own questions. You can't, so I'm going
to choose them for you. Sorry about that.
That's all right. Just choose good ones, please.
Yeah, I'll choose good ones. Okay, here I go. What keeps you up at night?
Mainly people. Not so much the issues, the people, yeah.
And in your case, would they mainly be the players or the administration staff or your
coaches or is there one lot in particular that sort of keep that tends to keep you up?
I think all of those and my directors. I know I've got to deal with the board. That's sometimes
pretty difficult. I'm quite big on having the right behaviours in the organisation.
And so I've been relatively strong, I think, on value based leadership. And little things
tend to worry me, you know, people asking for more money without better results or bigger
input. I tend to worry about work ethic. I worry about people who don't team up well.
I worry about players who go off the rails every now and again. I worry about directors
who are often sometimes I think a bit too demanding. But the thing about people I worry
most is when there are integrity issues.
When you say integrity, what are you referring to?
I think it's about two things. It's about organisational reputation, which I really
worry about. And I also think it's a dent on the strength of our values within the football
club. You know, I think that values are so important. You know, in fact, I think they're
the most important part of organisations.
Actually, that's interesting. So are there other companies or organisations that you
look at which have suffered from brand damage?
Do you try and analyse that and think, how could I avoid doing that? Because people can
get themselves into some pretty nasty situations.
It's difficult because you can't control everyone's behaviour all the time.
You know, it just doesn't happen that way. You don't anyway.
It's difficult. You try and control it, but you just you just can't.
There are young people between the age of 18 and 30 and some of them go astray.
And, you know, you've got to bear the brunt of that.
Yeah, I know what you mean. If you look back at sporting history, there are so many players
that do go astray. And just as an aside, I was so pleased the other day to see Ben Cousins,
a former West Coast Eagles player, going on Dancing with the Stars.
I love it for a couple of reasons. One is I know Ben and I know his dad even better.
When I was at West Coast, Ben was there the year after I left.
But so anyway, he got a second chance.
And I'm a great believer in if it's possible and it makes some sense to give people
second chances, particularly if their values are good.
If their values are poor, I don't give people second chances generally.
Can you elaborate on his second chance?
Well, his second chance was another go at life.
He mucked up with drugs and the second chance was are all the opportunities that people
are giving him now. That's his second chance.
And he's taken it up, you know.
And I had a boss, Frank Costa, who used to go to Pentridge and see his former employees
who committed a crime and went to jail.
He used to go in and talk to them.
And he used to give most of them a second chance in his company.
So the power and potency of second chances is important, I think.
You don't wipe people when they do something wrong.
It's you know, you don't do that.
I love it. OK, let's go to the next question.
I will start. I'm having a little storage in the box on your behalf.
Yes. Ah, I love this.
Good one for you, actually. When were you in school?
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I actually didn't know what I wanted to do until I pretty much finished
And what happened then? What was the epiphany at university?
I was trained up to be a human movement teacher, a phys ed teacher.
When I got out there and started teaching people, I didn't like being with kids
who weren't committed to the cause, you know, because I'd been in high performance
by them for about 10 years in various sports and taking phys ed
for kids who didn't want to be there. I struggled a bit, you know.
And so I decided to stretch out the uncertainty period
and do my master's degree over in Western Australia.
I started to realise what I wanted after that, which was to be an administrator,
sports administrator.
And what high performance sports had you been playing by the time you got to university?
Well, I played for both Hawthorne and Melbourne in the AFL.
Before that, I was a Australian champion boxer,
believe it or not, schoolboy champion in two weights, way, way back.
Wow, I didn't know that.
Yeah, no, there's a lot a lot a lot of stuff in there, isn't there?
And I was a swimmer, competitive swimmer as well, competitive rugby player.
I was a reasonable middle distance runner as well.
So there was three or four things, but primarily was in football.
But before football, it was actually boxing.
So you, I can see, really wanted to work with people who were
pretty dedicated to what they were doing.
Yes. And I wasn't necessarily that nice to the other people.
Thank goodness you weren't teaching me.
I would have been an enormous disappointment.
And look, I was so ambitious as a young adult.
You know, it was ridiculous.
I let the ambition get in the way of relationships and all sorts of things.
I was just so determined to get there.
But I know I've changed now and I hope I've changed.
Oh, that's interesting. So do you regret that or any of that?
Yeah, I do a bit. Yeah, I do. You know, I do.
I became a better leader once I realised it wasn't about me being a leader.
It was about them, you know, making sure you give them opportunities,
listen to them, keeping the door open for them, providing challenges for them.
And so once I changed that method of thinking about from me to others
and thinking about leadership is about me and it's not,
it's really about developing good teams.
And once I once I got that, I started to develop as a good leader.
And honestly, I was I was in my 40s by the by the time it took me to do that.
Wow, interesting.
So when you come across people now who you recognise are really ambitious,
you can probably see a bit of you in them.
What do you say to them?
Now, I talked to them about the experiences I've been through.
I've done that with a couple of my staff, presented a couple of options
for them to think about, particularly the really ambitious younger people
that I've got in in my organisation.
I've had a chat to a couple of them and asked them to think about
how you can lead them.
What is it about them that you have to develop, not you?
You know, I just hope it does.
But it's about influencing those people.
You can't change them overnight, those types of leaders.
It took me 20 years to change.
Yeah, I love that.
OK, let's go back to the chat box for one more question. Sure.
What do you do when you switch off, if indeed you switch off?
I would watch a Netflix movie or a documentary.
I do something like that.
Or believe it or not, watch a football game on television.
I had to give you the truth.
I said, that's true.
So it's hard to turn off. It really is.
So what have you seen on Netflix recently that you really liked?
I thought it was a bit cheesy, but I liked it.
It's about a counsellor who works with alcoholics
and he has a very, very individual sense of humour.
OK. To be honest, I'd rather read a book.
Over the Christy period, I read five books, you know, which is great.
I normally read reports.
On the book front, are you in fiction or nonfiction?
I read Love Stories by Trent Dalton.
That was a really good book.
I really enjoyed that.
The Rambling Man by Billy Connolly.
Yeah, I loved reading that.
But then I read Joel Selwood, the book he wrote himself.
And there was another one I read, which was joining a non-profit organisation.
So about governance, you know, it's a bit of fun with the Billy Connolly stuff
and a bit of work related stuff.
So that's how I try and live.
So, Brian, congratulations.
On that note, you have passed the Chatterbox test.
To finish, I have one last question, which we ask everybody.
And that is if we gave you 12 months off, you were unencumbered.
You could do anything you'd like.
What would you do?
I traveled back to my birthplace for a little while in Scotland with my wife.
And then I would travel to Greece and I would be I'd live on
three or four islands and spend two or three months on each.
And they would be rather lonely, lonely islands, not Mykonos.
And I'd be doing a couple of the not so inhabited places.
And why do you want to go to the smaller or less inhabited places?
I like places that are a little bit barren.
It's more about the landscape.
And I love the heat and I actually love, you know, a bit of a desert
look, if that's the right way of putting it, because the water is
in those places is as blue as you could get.
And it's, you know, if you put me in front of water, I could live in most places.
So I guess you could do a fair bit of swimming in Greece.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
I've done some swim trips in Greece and I took my daughter to one as well.
Greece, Croatia, Indonesia, Italy, swim treks that go for about, you know, 10 days.
Oh, is that one of those tricks where you take a little boat,
they dump you in the water and pick you up a kilometer or two down the track?
It's a little bit more sophisticated than that, but yes. Sorry.
Yeah, there's some living or live on boat tours
and there's some where you start on the land and you finish on the land each night,
you know, and you you swim in the bay or the oceans for the day. Yeah.
And that is our time up.
It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
I have loved the fact that you go into a meeting with two or three things
that you really want to get out of each meeting.
And that 30 minutes to 40 minutes is tops every time you go into a meeting.
I love the way you have learnt to not listen to rumour and to be adventurous
and to be adventurous in business and the way you think.
And I think you offer really good advice about the downfall of being too ambitious.
It's not all about you.
Leadership is about what you can do to develop other people.
And as you say, create really excellent teams. Thank you.
So thank you for your wonderful advice.
Thank you so much for allowing us to spend a bit of time with you
ahead of your very, very, very busy season.
Thank you. Thank you, Sally.
And thank you to everyone for listening.
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