The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
00:48:52 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[00:48:52] S0: Yeah, absolutely. I know I'm sure you've heard the metaphor about the carrot and the stick. Sometimes a stick can be a bit too much and people like you do it out of fear than rather than do it as choice, right? And you might get the result, but it's very much by fear and that person is gone the first chance there. [00:49:08] S1: Yes, Scott. And you can imagine it because, you know, I've seen it, it happened to me that I did, I think I did the business case of the acquisition of some aircraft back when I was in Aer Lingus, and it wasn't a great business case. And my boss told me that, but it was there was no. And I still remember today that read the review, and it was more powerful than anything. And he was right. I went off and redid it, and I did a lot better job the next time. And that was more it's still a bit of a stick. It's still giving you, you know, feedback, but it's not doing it in an aggressive way, and I think that's a lot more powerful.
00:49:08 · Alan Joyce, Vidit Agarwal
[00:49:08] S1: Yes, Scott. And you can imagine it because, you know, I've seen it, it happened to me that I did, I think I did the business case of the acquisition of some aircraft back when I was in Aer Lingus, and it wasn't a great business case. And my boss told me that, but it was there was no. And I still remember today that read the review, and it was more powerful than anything. And he was right. I went off and redid it, and I did a lot better job the next time. And that was more it's still a bit of a stick. It's still giving you, you know, feedback, but it's not doing it in an aggressive way, and I think that's a lot more powerful. [00:49:43] S0: Let's go into your first CEO job. So you mentioned earlier Jetstar. Think 2003 is when you became CEO of Jetstar. I'm always fascinated, like, how did you learn... No one gives you a manual on how to be a CEO, It's kind of like being a parent, you become a parent and you figure it out and you sort of make a lot of mistakes along the way is what most people would say, right? And I think CEO is similar, you can go to Harvard and you can go to every school but you got to do the work every day. How do you reflect on your own development as CEO? Did you spend a lot of time on your own development? Did you build a group of mentors you'd reach out to? Did you have other CEOs you'd approach? How did you do that in this first, say, three years of you being a CEO for the first time?
00:50:31 · Alan Joyce
[00:50:31] S1: First of all, I think what I did is I figured out what I knew and what I didn't know. So I had a career that worked through most of the commercial side of the aviation industry. So network planning, revenue management, pricing, fleet planning. And a large part of the job at the start was developing a business case, which I had done for decades. So we did a... I got a team around me that were really good, pulled together a great business case, but then figured out the areas that I had weakness in, and then saying, how do I get really good people to help me with that? When I talk in the book against somebody like Bill Johnsey, who had this huge expertise in operations, John Gissing, who had this huge expertise in safety, I then used these guys who were a lot older than me, who were very experienced in what they did, as people to mentoring me through those areas of the business I didn't know, and relying on their expertise on it. And then also we had a great CEO in Jeff Dixon, so we'd be picking up the phone to Jeff. Then later, when I was CEO of Qantas, it was Leigh Clifford as chairman who was the CEO of a very big company, and ringing him up and ringing Jeff up and saying, look, here's what I'm thinking. What do you think is wrong with this? How do you think I should handle it when there's a problem? And being always open about the problems that you were facing and having that dialogue with them. But getting... And then it's deep diving on it. So while I knew how to do network planning, which is where an airline should fly to on the fleet, you hire people and let them do that. And you stand on that at 30,000 feet. You said, I'm not gonna get down. I'm not doing that job. That's the job. And a few people fail at this because they go back to the peep... The area that makes them comfortable. And fleet planning, network planning, pricing would have made me comfortable, but we had really good people doing that. So I didn't need to be at five feet. I need to be at 30,000 feet, Donna, and let them do the job. But then in other areas, like how does the safety management system work? Because then I was the accountable manager. I had legal responsibility for the safety of the airline. And there was a big learning curve in saying, how do I be at five feet on this so that I learn, I'm comfortable, I know what's happening?
00:52:54 · Alan Joyce, Vidit Agarwal
And then you immerse yourself and spend your time and your effort getting to know that part of the business. And I took, I chaired the safety committee on Jetstar for the full five years I was there. I've had a huge amount of training and learning from those great operational people to understand how that worked, And that brought me up to speed very fast. And you had those people that you could rely on. And then after a while, you started coming up from five fleets to also be at 30,000 feet for that and let the experts manage it. [00:53:28] S0: So when I did the research and I, as you know, spoke to a lot of people, I said, what's one question I should ask Alan? And I think the most curiosity I received on that is people said ask him to assess his strengths and weaknesses. And I say that because you mentioned the word weakness earlier. How would you assess your strengths and weaknesses?
00:53:45 · Alan Joyce
[00:53:45] S1: Yeah, well, think my strengths would be I think I'm a good people manager, good people selector. I usually get good people around me. I think I'm actually really good at strategic thinking and challenging the strategic ways of doing things. I think my... I'm also, I think, a gregarious person. I like talking to people. I like telling stories. I'm very engaged with friends and family on that. I think my weaknesses are, I don't suffer fools. So I think people come in ill prepared, don't know what they're talking about. I'm not sure I tolerate that as well as I could. I think I don't suffer injustices. I think this comes back from the story we talked about with my mom. I think I get to a stage where I a lot of my ex colleagues, my friends would say, God, Alan's fighting over another injustice again. Can you not let it lie? Why do you always have to be out there fighting? And I think that that was one of the feedbacks I used to get from people. Why do you have to be out there fighting? But I think I'm on Mother's side on that. And I think also, I think, looking looking back on it, I think I'm impatient, so I want things to happen faster than sometimes they can. And that that can lead to us... I think that can lead, to people getting frustrated because I I find that why isn't this happening? Why aren't things moving? Because we don't have the time on this. And I think they can be things that are in a negative. But I think you always look back on it, and you think that everybody has positives and negatives. It's, I think it's also trying to recognize, that when your negatives can, well, some of your positives also can be a negative. So I go through some of those positives at the same time, and I think they can translate into being a negative for you, And I think that's worthwhile also recognizing.
00:55:56 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[00:55:56] S0: A lot of people that know you really well say that you are intense. Would you say that's a strength or a weakness? [00:56:03] S1: So it depends on the environment about being intense. So probably a lot of people would see me when it came to, to to big decisions and big issues, being intense around them. And I felt like that is that mindfulness, which is your strength and your weakness. So your mindfulness translates into you being very single-minded and focused, on the thing you're doing at the time. And I think that can come across as intense. But for me, that's been present, that's been in the room, that's been there and paying all your attention to that issue. But that can come across as very intense. To me, it's the other side of mindfulness, the other side of focus. It can be a negative. It's, again, one of your positives being a negative. [00:56:50] S0: Okay, thank you. Thank you for sharing that candidly to some extent. You share in the book about your interview process to become Qantas CEO. I think you talk about, you reflect on the presentation to the board and some of your aspirations. Can you unpack that for us? I think people are always fascinated, like how does someone become CEO? What was your process? And now looking back on that process, is there anything you would have done differently?