The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
01:26:12 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:26:12] S0: Interesting, interesting. Cool, we've covered a lot. So let's move to Rapid Fire Sprint to wrap this up. Is there one non work investment of time and energy that you consider the best in your life? Is there a holiday or a hobby or a course you've done? [01:26:27] S1: I go back to the meditation and the mindfulness I learned at a fairly early age in Aer Lingus. That's just helped me all the way through my career. [01:26:37] S0: One thing you'd like to learn in the next six months? [01:26:41] S1: I'd like to be more proficient at AI. I think I, you know, I was a programmer originally, programmed in Fortran, so agent, and COBOL, is so ancient. But I'm pretty useless at AI. I'd love to be able to get a bit better at utilising that as a tool. [01:27:00] S0: Anything in your personal life that you'd like to learn in the next six months? [01:27:03] S1: Yes, I'm learning the piano at the moment as well. There's a good reason for that. My father had Alzheimer's, and he, unfortunately, in the last few years, he completely lost that consciousness. And they say one of the best things that you can do for your mind to avoid is learning a musical instrument or learning a language. And I think I have a musical instrument in mind for the next few years, and then hopefully then maybe start learning a few languages because they say that does help, and it's one of the ways of reducing your risk. [01:27:36] S0: Yeah, that's probably right. Is there one interview question you love asking people, either in the interview process or now in an investment context?
01:27:36 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:27:36] S0: Yeah, that's probably right. Is there one interview question you love asking people, either in the interview process or now in an investment context? [01:27:45] S1: Yeah, I think I used to like asking the question, what do you think is one of the mistakes you've made as a leader? And then how did you react when you found out it was a mistake? And trying to get people, one, to understand when those mistakes have happened, but also how they handle it when it occurs. Because we... One of the philosophies I always had, you know, you can make mistakes, people should be allowed to make mistakes, but it's how they handle it and how they adapt and how they pivot. So it's admitting that it was a mistake and then moving to solutions with that mistake and presenting them back to you. And some of the best managers I've recruited through that process were really good at doing that. [01:28:28] S0: Were you very involved in the recruitment of direct execs that reported to you at Qantas?
01:28:28 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:28:28] S0: Were you very involved in the recruitment of direct execs that reported to you at Qantas? [01:28:32] S1: Yes, of course, you would always be very heavily involved in the people that were there. And we tried to, I would bring a combination of people in from outside when I thought there was a gap. And then that was either people you knew, so you were taking less of a risk, or if it was people you didn't know, you needed to make sure you go through a good selection process. And then internally, we tried to promote really good talent. So when I set up Jetstar, that team of 20 odd people, a lot of them I didn't know, and we had to bring in because there were experts we didn't have. So part of the selection was asking questions like that and getting to know them. And a lot of them, we made really good calls. They're still friends with them today, John Gissing and Bill Johnsey, people that just knew that side of the business. [01:29:20] S0: Is it true that you didn't do one on ones at Qantas? [01:29:25] S1: What's one on ones? [01:29:27] S0: Like one on one meetings with direct reports?
01:29:27 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:29:27] S0: Like one on one meetings with direct reports? [01:29:30] S1: No, did. So we did a few, but most of the meetings were in a group setting. So what I would find is that, you know, if the head of loyalty was presenting their strategy, it was really good having people from different sides of the business coming in and then putting their side. Because sometimes you'd have this jam coming from somebody that was from operations about loyalty. Or sometimes you'd have somebody from loyalty talking about the operations that was amazing, or somebody from corporate communications that would have a perspective or government affairs. So you try to, when you were making a call, have people from a whole series of different disciplines because they just improved the decision making. [01:30:13] S0: One pet peeve?
01:30:13 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:30:13] S0: One pet peeve? [01:30:15] S1: Oh, just a few at the moment. I was walking the dog earlier, and I don't know if you've seen those e bikes left lying and skewed around the city. I was in New York recently, and they have the city bikes which are all organized. They're all superb. I think they're terrible. They look terrible. Pedestrians people, elderly people, they are hazard. And I think the city needs to have a better solution, and I'm sure we can find a better solution. And in an airline piece, you know, traveling again recently, I look around watching people watch the safety video and the lack of people that watch the safety video. There are so many issues that occurred with people taking their luggage and jumping down the slide when something happens or not knowing how the oxygen masks work. And it was always a pave, how do you get people to pay attention to the safety video and understand the procedures rightly. [01:31:10] S0: Yeah, I'll be happy to admit I don't watch them, even though some of them are like incredible. Some of them I just took Emirates quite a bit on my travels recently, and some of the videos are incredible. The amount of production quality that's gone into it, even the Qantas ones are like very good, they're like a mini movie, but I think it's because they're repetitive, because we've seen them since we were kids. Yes. And it's like, oh, we got to watch this again.
01:31:10 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:31:10] S0: Yeah, I'll be happy to admit I don't watch them, even though some of them are like incredible. Some of them I just took Emirates quite a bit on my travels recently, and some of the videos are incredible. The amount of production quality that's gone into it, even the Qantas ones are like very good, they're like a mini movie, but I think it's because they're repetitive, because we've seen them since we were kids. Yes. And it's like, oh, we got to watch this again. [01:31:32] S1: I think it's the reason why the airlines spent a fortune on them now is to get people to say, oh, this is a bit different, and try and cycle them faster. And that has worked to some extent. Lot of people will at least pay attention. They used to be the same safety video was there for a decade and that just turned people off. Now it's renewed every eighteen months or two years. At least it grabs people's attention and that's good that that's working.