Sustainable and Strategic Business Growth Secrets

Full Transcript

Note: the following transcript was generated by AI and therefore may contain some errors and omissions.

 

(00:00.302)

One of the real success ingredients is getting to this stage where healthy conflict is not tolerated but encouraged. In other words, it’s okay to challenge the boss and the boss can challenge the team. And it has to be a two-way process. And if you do that, you end up with a high-performance team.

(00:32.002)

G’day and welcome back to the Coast and Commerce podcast. I’m Ben Amos from Innovate Media. And on this podcast, it’s all about bringing stories, insight and inspiration from business leaders across the Sunshine Coast and Queensland and beyond. And one of those inspiring business leaders that I’ve got for you here today is Allan Keogh from Keogh Consulting. Hey Allan, welcome to the show. Thank you, thanks Ben for having me here. This is gonna be a really interesting conversation. So we’ve known each other for a number of years and I’ve always been inspired by your way of communicating ideas. So.

I’m really interested to see where we go with this. And hopefully there will be some interesting ideas that are prompted for our viewers and our listeners of the show here. But for people that haven’t come across you or Keo Consulting before, tell me who are you? What’s your story? Well, we started in 1984, mainly working in organisational development, change, team leadership, development, training and development in Brisbane. And the business is 40 years old next year.

Well, I just turned 43. So you’ve been gone for a while. Fantastic. So tell me like, um, you know, what are, what are some of the kind of highlights of businesses that you’ve worked with over the, not many businesses over those years, right? But give us just a little story about some of those businesses. Yeah. Well, interesting. I hope you’re going to ask me a bit about failure as well, because one of the things that’s taught me a lot in the early part of my career was the succession, interesting enough of things that didn’t work.

And I didn’t realise until later on when I started my own business how valuable they were going to be. But the work we’ve done I think is we fight above our weight. We’re really excited about the fact that we were the innovators and designers and developers of what was Bond University with working with Alan Bond which was a challenge but that’s another story. Expo 88, we’re the official trainer for Expo 88.

And we’ve helped establish a series of companies from scratch, obviously, with the entrepreneurs and helped them go global. And one of the most prominent of those is a company called Energy Developments that developed their business based on extracting methane gas and rubbish dumps. And then having a turbine unit that generated power, money for jam, and then detoxified the rubbish dumps as well as reducing CO2 emissions way ahead of its time.

(02:48.59)

And that business went global, listed at 90 cents, went to $14.30, great success story. And then more recently, the P&G, L&G project up in Papua Guinea, $19.4 billion project that finished 11 weeks earlier on budget. So that’s pretty good for a major project. So your role as consultants, when you come into those organisations, like what are you what are you helping them achieve? Well, firstly, we’re helping them identify and develop a very compelling and vision for the future.

bring that to life as much as possible. And you mentioned before, as you probably know, I can’t think much unless I draw. So we normally give, put together a storyboard picture of that and then do a rigorous audit of where they currently are and then look at the bridge between where they are to where they wanna be and develop a strategy to help make that happen. So that whole business we call transformation and we do that for organisations that are in diabolical mess as well as organisations in great shape and ones that start from scratch.

Yeah. And are there particular things you’re looking for or I guess frameworks that you implement into these organisations regardless of the size that are pretty consistent regardless of the industry? Yeah, there is definitely a formula we follow but every strategy we develop is unique to that organisation and has to be. I think one of the downsides in consultancy is this idea of you pull somebody off the shelf and that’s the same approach or formula you use for

flawed. Having said that, there is a methodology that we follow that consistently works. So before we get into some of that, hopefully stuff that people watching can take away for their own business, whether they’re, you know, large oil and gas companies or a small mom and pop shop on the Sunshine Coast, I’m sure there’s some value they’ll get. But I mean, I’m going to throw a question at you that we weren’t prepared for, Allan. Because I’m interested, right? Like what

What is it about what you do that got you into what you do? Like why organisational leadership and change and consulting in this space? Well, I think I mentioned failure before. Yeah. Let’s tell you a bit about that. Earlier on in my career, I was working for a shoe company, very proud company, 150 year old company. And it was a company that was pretty much set in its ways and wasn’t open to thinking about markets external to Australia.

(05:12.066)

in a situation, in a condition when tariffs were reduced and competition increased exponentially. So the thing I learnt from that was the importance of looking outside your own boundaries, looking outside your own patch and thinking about what you do vertically or horizontally integrating your business rather than stick to one particular product line. The second experience I had was working with the building society and it grew too fast, too soon, too quickly.

and basically outstretched itself and lost its ability to do what it originally did very well and so that was a great lesson as well from that experience. And then joining the Australian Institute of Management gave me an insight into how to structure and put together leadership programs right from the grassroots level to executive leaders.

I always felt there was a better way. So what I didn’t realize what was happening was I was learning great lessons in what not to do really well as well as what does work. And so those early days then led to when we first kicked off focusing on doing leadership development in such a way that it really engaged with people and it actually connected to the heart and the spirit and the emotional aspects of being an effective leader.

And in particular, encourage people to be vulnerable and courageous. Awesome. So when you, when you come into organisations and obviously, you know, you’re coming in often, you’re cold into an organisation. So, you know, what are you, what are you looking for? Like, what are some, some signals or some, some common things that you’re kind of looking for in that initial phase to kind of work out where is this organisation at and what do they need from you to get to where they need to be? Does that make sense? It certainly does.

does the client really understand the challenge that they have? And sometimes they don’t, and that’s the reason they’re engaging us, to help them get clarity about where they wanna be and where they are. A classic example there was doing some work for Carlton and Oida Breweries on having a massive turnover in staff.

(07:14.238)

and started with the premise that it’s not possible that sort of turn that around. So one of the things that certainly stretches and challenges me when someone says it’s impossible it can’t be done, you’ve got me in, I’m hooked unfortunately. But I’m not sure I answered your question properly then. Well, I mean, like many listeners or viewers of this show are probably at the small medium businesses, right? And they may be the founders or they may be the owners of the company or managers of the company or just employees of the company.

But I guess, you know, if you could identify some common things that you see in organisations that, you know, maybe indicate is that there is room for improvement, what are you looking for? Well, I guess the first thing is, is how is the organisation structured? Yeah. Who’s in charge? The quality of leadership is absolutely critical. Is there succession in place, particularly for a small business or a family type business?

what’s the backup plan if one of the key rainmaker falls to one side or retires or decides to sell their business.

The other is the significance and importance of what they do, the value that’s current, but also is their potential to leverage what they currently do, expand their business, and do they have the capacity to reach scale. We’re working with a number of small businesses at the moment, talking about that, and I’m talking small meaning with maximum 20 people, and one of them is in the healthcare sector. It has a fantastic concept. Their challenge is to reach scale.

So they do it, they do it really, really well, but their challenge is to expand their business exponentially. You’ve shared with me before, Allan, the idea of you’ve got this system of like colour coding businesses, right? And so there’s green and there’s red and I think blue. Blue, that’s right. So can you share with us, you know, how or like what is this colour code?

(09:13.15)

And how do organisations kind of work out where they fit within this idea? Well, for the life of me, I can’t remember how I just sort of come up with the idea, but it’s just a convenient way of explaining to clients what we do. And so, yes, the red organisations will be organisations that are in strife. If they don’t fundamentally adjust and modify what they’re currently doing, they’re potentially going to go terminal and they’re in trauma. So the second and I’ll give you some examples if you like.

In the green organisations, they’re the startups, they’re the one and two people back of a shared great idea, great concept or a single entrepreneur, and they wanna take their concept and build it into a business. And the blue organisations are mature, well-established, perhaps even household names. Most of the ones we work with tend to be medium to large size corporations who realize they wanna rejuvenate their brand or rejuvenate their business and take it to the next level.

Awesome. So I want to unpack this a little bit further Allan. So let’s start with the green organisation, those startups, right? The founder, great idea, you know, needs some work though, right? Can you give me some examples of those that you’ve worked with at that green level and particularly, you know, what are the common things that you see at that green level and what do they tend to need to get to where they need to go?

I gave you one before which was energy developments is one of the examples. The other one was Bond University and the larger scale one but it’s still relevant is P&G LNG as a project. So each case what we’re looking for there is again the concept, is it sound, is it solid, do they have the working capital to grow their business, to sustain their business, is their leadership depth.

Have they got capacity to generate work? Often they have a great idea, but they don’t know how to actually commercialize what they do. So we help pull together a strategy, working with them. We never do it to them. We always do it with them to develop a strategy to help stage and bench their progress from where they are to where they wanna be. Normally for a startup, it’s a two year type horizon. So get them up and running. And then from then on, five year type horizon after that. Yeah.

(11:21.854)

Okay, awesome. So, and then that blue stage. So tell me about an example of the blue and what’s the common situations you find there? Yeah, the blue one’s a bit different because first it starts with the realisation by the executive, normally the CEO and sometimes the board, that it is time for the business to take its next quantum shift in how it functions and operates. So for instance,

One of the ones we worked with very successfully from 2012 to 2022 was Woodside, a large public company. In fact, now today it’s one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world.

And the mandate from Peter Coleman, who was the CEO at the time, was to help rejuvenate the business and take it to the next level, in particular to do that by changing the culture and the way the business operated and functioned. There’s not much we can teach that organisation how to run an oil and gas business per se, but our mandate was to help change the way people behaved, the way they operated, the way they functioned, to make a difference in the world.

How important at that level, that blue level, is that outside consultancy? Having that outsider company come in and look at the company, the culture, what’s going on from the outside? I think you’ve just hit on a really important point. Getting external consultants is not always the answer. And we’ve seen the recent press examples of, unfortunately, poor behaviour by external consultants. But I think we really come into our own, we can apply,

give that objective independent perspective, and also provide the client with truth, a truth that they want to hear. I love what Emerson said about, tell the truth like cannonballs from the heart. So it needs to be focused and to the point, but compassionate and sensitive to the needs of the organisation, but bold and brave. They want to hear the truth of their situation. They want to actually be challenged about the way they do things.

(13:21.01)

So I think that’s the important thing. One of the traps that consultants can fall into is telling the client what they want to hear. Let’s talk about red organisations. They’re probably not fun to talk about. Oh no, in fact I get excited about it. The interesting thing is as it turns out most of the ones we work with in their health sector. So the irony of this is this is health organisations that are unhealthy and they’re in dis-ease. They’re in disequilibrium. Therefore they’re unhealthy and

And again, it’s the same story. One of the most successful ones is Western Health in Victoria. Ralph Willis was the incoming chair, ex-federal treasurer. New CEO, Cath Cook, fabulous lady. And New CEO, New Board, a realization that Western Health on the Western side of Melbourne, of course.

where lots of patients present late. So it’s a mecca for education for tertiary students who are learning medicine or nursing and other peripheral services.

But in that particular case, they realised that they had one of the worst records in Australia in terms of ramping and throughput for patients and other indicators of poor performance. But they were brave enough to realise that they want to turn this around for the people of that district and they deserved it. And to their credit, they had the ticker and the courage to make tough decisions to improve the overall health of the organisation and turn the health of the community. Great success story.

Yeah. So, you know, with those red organisations, you know, for Keir consulting coming in there, like what are some of the key things that you’re looking to do to turn that company around? Well, one of the key areas and in particular in that organisation was getting the senior clinicians on board. So there’s always a cohort, there’s always a group in each of these organisations that are absolutely mandatory to get on site. If you don’t get them on site, it’s tough to bring about the change that’s necessary.

(15:16.922)

So it’s identifying key change agents, it’s growing and developing champions for change, it’s educating and training the executive leadership team, the senior leaders to actually behave and operate in a different way. Because

they have to lead by example and they have to demonstrate a real commitment to bring about change and it needs to start with the senior leaders first. So I think that’s one of the key ingredients. And then it’s progressive change and victories along the way and they’re celebrated and reinforced with the entire workforce. And in particular, celebrated with the customer on this particular occasion, patients of course and families that support those patients as well.

So much of what you do in leadership consultancy and organisational change and strategy development is about people, right? It’s all about people. And often, as you’ve just mentioned there, in those turnaround, those red companies, it’s about getting the right people on board. Spot on, yep. How difficult is that? Very. And what happens if you can’t get them on board? Do you just start cutting heads? Well, um…

I’m not sure you can get away on some of these things, but… Let’s not talk about specific businesses here. All right. Okay. Look, it’s… I call it the onboarding process. I have a visual image, by the way, of a yacht, if you will, a gangplank. The CEO is standing on the yacht and he’s inviting each member of his or her team to come on board and walk the plank. And the question is, they come on board is, are you willing to come with me on the journey?

Are you willing to do what needs to be done to make it happen? So I think it’s terribly important that there’s an invitation. It’s a legitimate invitation to be part of the future and to, but there’s an expectation that they step up. In this case, step onto the plank and step on board the ship. And this is the direction it’s going in. And it’s critical that when they say come on board, it’s the direction that’s determined by that senior executive team and not just by the captain. That’s important.

(17:24.158)

I like that there’s a choice. Yeah, well, it has to be choice. And that’s really the point. I think I’ve got a couple of examples in mind, which have been appropriate to talk about. But I recall having being actively involved in two situations where the CEO went through this invitation process and initially everyone came on board. But once they got on board, we had a conversation and the language be a workshop to explore what it all meant. At the end of that workshop, the.

the procedure was the CEO would again ask, privately now one on one, are you up for the journey? And there are seven people I’ve got in mind, two said no. And that’s great. That’s a good outcome. That’s not a bad outcome. The fact that someone chooses to go in a different direction is what should happen. And let’s not make them wrong for that. That’s them making self-determined choices, which is the way it should be. Right. Well, the carry on your boat metaphor, you get the wrong people on the boat leads to mutiny, right?

Well, it eventually does. And of course that comes back to the character of the captain too, and that’s terribly important. One of the real success ingredients is getting to this stage where healthy conflict is not tolerated but encouraged. In other words, it’s okay to challenge the boss and the boss can challenge the team. And it has to be a two-way process. And if you do that, you end up with a high performance team. But that’s one of the toughest things to help bring about. And you asked about time.

The longest time I’ve taken with any client so far is four years to get the team right. And sometimes, we’ve mentioned before about letting people go, it’s not always appropriate to fire someone just because they don’t fit initially. It could well be they deserve some time and effort to come on board and to upskill and to have a mindset shift that causes them to say, you know what, I really do want to be part of this and I want to make a difference. Yeah, cool.

I like it. Thanks for that. So before we move on to some, some practical stuff I want to dive into with you, I have to mention that you are also recently taken on a role as part of the strategy for the 2032 Olympics, particularly the Sunshine Coast’s role within that. So can you tell us a little bit about, about that? And I’d love to find out if you see them as green, red or blue.

(19:38.29)

Oh, no, we’re definitely green from that point of view, because it’s Ros White is our chair, and Ros is well known to people in the Sunshine Coast in terms of her role running the white stores, the IGA stores. She’s a fabulous CEO and a great champion for people on the Sunshine Coast, and we’re all about. 

connecting and uniting and embracing people to make the most they can of the Sunshine Coast 2032 Olympic and Paralympic experience. And by the way, Paris is next year, 2024. LA is not too far away. You’ll find that 2032 is gonna come fast. So there’s a lot of that folk on the coast who have volunteered or part of six different teams to help bring all this together. We have no formal mandate.

We’re a voluntary group. 

but we have a close affinity to what’s happening in Brisbane, of course, and we want to see the Games be a great success for the Coast. And what I’m really proud of is that the strategy that has been developed, it’s not been developed by me, it’s been developed by our leadership team who are outstanding. And Duncan Armstrong is our Deputy Chair. We’ve got 88 Olympians and Paralympians here on the Coast who are active in helping make all this happen, but equally to business leaders as well, including the different chambers.

here on the coast. So pretty exciting stuff. Watch this space. Yeah. I imagine it’s a great example of, you know, when strategic planning as a collaborative experience is so critical, right? I think in organisations, there is often a CEO, a founder, a leader, an owner of the company. So it feels like the strategy should come from the top down. Whereas there’s not in a voluntary based committee like the Sunshine Coast 2032, right?

(21:27.062)

there is no leader. So, you know, it has to be that collaborative voice. Yeah, and it has been, I mean, we ran two workshops last year. The first one was called Synergy, and it was all about how are we going to synergize, how are we gonna collaborate, cooperate ourselves to work on this. And of course, the centerpiece of that was developing an appropriate collaborative, inclusive culture. And the second workshop was more tasky, focused on the specific things we need to do from a strategy point of view.

But all of that was built by the board that Ros has formed and also the volunteer leaders from each of the teams that have been formed. So, you know, there’s a lot of sticky fingers, as I call it, that are all over the document that’s been produced that was officially launched in September of this year at Sunshine Coast University. Yeah, awesome. So just before we move on from the Sunshine Coast or the Olympics in 2032, I’d love to just hear from you, Allan, personally. What’s your…

hope or vision or dream for the Sunshine Coast or the southeast Queensland hosting the Olympics. Like what do you hope that it brings to the Sunshine Coast? Well, I’m a resident of the Sunshine Coast and there’s a bit of a backstory here, but mum and dad bought a block of land in Coolum for a hundred pound when I was nine years old. I mean, think about that now in Banksia Avenue, Coolum.

And so I’ve been backwards and forwards from the coast many years and I’ve got the skin cancers to prove it. I learned to swim at the Cod Hole at Cotton Tree at the age of nine, taught by the Surf Life Saving Club. So I’ve been a resident in full time up here on the coast since 2012. So my first aspiration is for the youth of the Sunshine Coast to get actively involved in preparing for the Games. And that’s it, just prepare for the Games, let alone participate in the Games.

The second aspiration or dream I would have is that people on the Sunshine Coast volunteer and get involved. Min Swan’s the head of our volunteering and community group, fantastic local citizen who does an amazing job. And if people want to volunteer, please reach out to us. I think the third…

(23:38.122)

our bold aspiration would be that everyone on the coast benefits from a business and tourism point of view. I mean, equally true, the counter argument to that is we all love the coast, we don’t like it to be spoiled. But rather than that, let’s showcase what we’ve got to offer here. And it’s not just about the coastal strip either, it’s about the hinterland.

and people engaging with the fabulous produce that we produce here, the wonderful beaches that we have, let’s make what we know to be a special part of paradise known to the world. So it’s a wonderful opportunity I think for everyone on the coast. Yeah, yeah, very exciting and looking forward to seeing where the strategy takes Sunshine Coast in that time as well. So I want to get down into…

picking your brain, the years that you’ve had of experience working in a range of organisations, a range of industries, getting insight into how these organisations run and what makes them a success and what makes them fall down and trip over. What would you say are the keys to success for an organisation, whether they be from small to large enterprise?

(24:50.494)

produced a paper on this where we identified 10 key elements, but I’ll just pick a couple out, not a thing make for sustainable success in business. I mentioned a couple already, but the first one is a compelling vision for the future that’s brought to life, not just words on a page, but a visual representation of what you’d like the future to look like. It needs to be compelling, magnetic, attractive, bold.

and slightly sort of almost non-achievable. It’s a bit elusive, but something you really want to aspire to move in that direction. Is that like that big hairy audacious goal thing that you hear? Yeah, I mean, I think you need to set then big hairy audacious goals in sync with that vision. Second thing is…

your code of conduct, the way of working, I think, developing the effect of culture. Culture by design, not by default. In other words, you purpose-build the way you want people to function and work. And I mention that out upfront because I think that puts in place the appropriate architecture that gives liberation to shape, form and style, that encourages people to step outside of their capacity and unwrap, as I call it, their own packages of brilliance.

I think the third thing is again really inspirational and courageous leadership, humble leadership as well and vulnerable too. So it’s human. I think one of the things I learned earlier on back in the beginning of my career was the importance of vulnerability. So I mentioned Dixon Shoes before. One of the saddest days but one of the proudest days was us telling the organisation that 90% of them were about to become redundant in terms of their jobs.

But people had such affinity and love for the organisation itself.

(26:37.782)

that the honest, raw truth about that, you threw us a sad day, it was a great day in many ways because people were celebrating the great history of that organisation. By the way, we found 95% of the people that were redundant, we actually had them walk out of that and do a brand new job. That was part of our termination process, was to guarantee people would have a new job after they were terminated, by the way. We won a major award for that, but that’s another story. Interesting, win an award for terminating people. I know.

in the right way. And by that was a partnership formed with the unions as well as well as the Commonwealth Employment Service at the time. So the companies, CES and the unions were all collaborated to help make that happen. It wasn’t just me or us. Yeah, I think the fourth thing is, mentioned to me before is getting the right team together. You know, the really able, capable people who can lead, can interpret the strategy, develop that strategy and implement it well. And then I think if I had to pick one other thing, it would be a staged,

implementation plan, fit for purpose, sensitive to the needs of the people, timely, well thought through with progressive review points along the way and review points also opportunities to celebrate progress. I think celebration is underrated. I think it’s important that we actually acknowledge the contributions that people make along the way. Just a simple thank you to so powerful.

to an individual, but also to the organisation for where the organisation is at, as well as the honest truth about things some things aren’t working. There’s an honest conversation about that. Follow that very quickly with what are we going to do about it and then take action to make things work. I love that all five of those, and I know I recognise that just five of the ten that you have there, but all five of them I believe are things that can be implemented in an organisation, whether you’ve got a team of two or three up to 200 or 300 or…

maybe beyond 3000, right? So, you know, I love that. I think that idea of culture by design of like having authentic and vulnerable and strong leadership of having the right team and having a clear vision of where you’re going and having the path laid out so that people know the journey that they’re on. All of those things are critical to success. So that’s success, right?

(28:54.858)

What about failure? What are the common things that lead to failure? Is it just not doing those things? It’s not just the opposite. I’ve got some examples in mind and it’s probably inappropriate to mention some of the companies, but one in particular is being in denial. In other words, you’re engaged to work with a client to help develop a future, design a future, great. Then we have a conversation about how things are.

And then that conversation, and normally we make that a fairly rigorous process to identify what shape the organisation is in. And it’s when that information is shared with the executive team, there can be very defensive behavior around that. And one of those is being a complete denial, excuse me, of the truth, if you will. And so if that happens and if there isn’t sufficient courage to own what’s actually has happened without getting into blame, it’s not about blame.

It’s just about owning up to the fact, yeah, things haven’t worked, okay, let’s turn it around. So that would be one of the key trip points. I think the other one is, and I got a note the other day from a CEO I’ve been working with in Sydney.

who was telling me that some work we did initially to get the team on boarding process has fallen apart a bit. I think the second thing is momentum you’ve got. It’s a bit like going to the gym once and assuming you’re going to get fit. I think you’ve got to maintain momentum to sustain people along the journey.

to help them with new skills, new competencies, new capacity, to honestly have conversations about what’s working and what’s not and make corrections. So I think momentum is another key element that can get forgotten and that’s suicidal. Again, you think you wanna get fit, you go to the gym once, well, it’s not gonna work. Yeah. And I suppose if there was a third thing, the third thing is a poorly thought through plan and poorly executed. So,

 (30:51.758)

Not having an effective plan well thought through and not resourcing it either in such a way that you overpromise and under deliver or you over extend the organisation’s capacity to do what needs to be done another way of saying that is Sometimes doing two things too fast too soon too quickly So in the zeal to sort of make real progress you take on too much So I love the Pareto principle there, you know the 80-20 rule which is do one or two things will have the biggest impact

Though I think that’s the other floor. And sometimes that’s just sheer enthusiasm because everyone’s so excited and you’re just trying to do too much. So does that help them? Yeah, I love it, definitely. And I’m sure it resonates with some people listening and watching today. Whether you’ve made those mistakes yourself, some of them I have. Yeah, I have. Or whether it is just identifying those potential mistakes and roadblocks that can get in your way of the success you want for your business. Just in closing it, Allan, I’d love for you, you mentioned 40 years in business. Yeah.

If you were to say one thing to yourself 40 years ago, in the early days of starting your business, what would you say to kind of hit you on the road to success? I mean, you’ve been there, you’ve got success, you’ve had a successful business for 40 years, but I’d love to know like now, 40 years later, what do you wish you knew? What do you wish you told yourself? Well, one of the things I did recently was walk Kokoda. And it was a pretty emotional experience. I lost nine kilos.

And so sometimes when you do things like that, they are major wake-up calls. And so there are three key lessons I got from that experience that answer your question, I think. The first one is I haven’t always been good at asking others for help. And I could not have walked that Kokoda track without the guy who led it, Wayne Enright, who did a fabulous job.

And so it’s a realisation that you can’t do it on your own. So that’s the first lesson, I think. The second one is about your state of readiness. I also walked Kilimanjaro, and that’s the height of Base Camp Everest.

(33:00.034)

And I thought I was super fit for that. And the same thing for Kokoda, I thought I was super fit. No, I wasn’t, I was underdone in both cases. In other words, physically underdone, not prepared well enough for the journey ahead. I think there’s some major lessons from business there. Are you prepared? Have you done the work? Are you fit? Are you able? Is the organisation able to do what you’re about to do? So I think I’ve often underestimated my own capacity.\

to take on the task. Mind you, this is the other side of me. I’m a very determined individual and I can record on Kilimanjaro saying I’m going to get to the bloody top of this thing if even it bloody kills me. The downside to that statement is that every year someone dies on Kilimanjaro from altitude sickness. The downside is dying. Yeah, which is not clever. I had the great fortune of interviewing Sir Edmund Hillary when I was working at Expo 88. 

and asked him what’s the toughest thing about Everest, and he said the descent. So I think the third lesson I’ve learned is it’s not so much about achieving the victory, it’s what do you do on the other side of victory? So it’s what you do after you’ve won the battle. And so it’s the other side of success is what do you do to sustain yourself to go to the next level?

Hence back to those blue organisations again, the same thing applies to me as well. What do I do to pick myself up and take things to the next level? And often underestimate what it takes to sustain the momentum going forward as a person, individual, leader, father, husband. Yeah, I love that, Allan. I think there’s a lot for everyone to take from that as well. So hopefully one day you get a chance to say that to yourself 40 years ago, time travel. I don’t know, who knows?

Maybe by 2032, time travel. Good stuff. Allan, this has been great. Guys, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. Let us know what you think. Reach out to Allan. Before we let you go, Allan, what’s the best way for people if they wanna connect with you further and learn more from you? Well, Google us on our website, Keogh Consulting. Alternatively, just drop me a line, Allan at Keogh Thank you. Thanks, Ben.

(35:21.758)

Awesome guys. And hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. So if you have enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe on your podcast player or subscribe on YouTube, if you’re watching the video version and we’ll be back with you with another inspiring business leader from the Sunshine Coast real soon. Take care. Thank you.