John Bertrand Achieving The Impossible1

This week's conversation is with one of Australia's greatest ever sports people,

John Bertrand, the yachtsman who skippered Australia to victory in the 1983 America's Cup.

For 133 years, the Americans had successfully defended against challenges from across the world.

They were dominant like no team had ever been.

And the story of 1983 is one that is really hard to comprehend in some ways.

And you'll hear John's perspective of it in this chat, hearing him talk about trust

and understanding the way that he looks at leadership in the world of sport and collaboration.

It makes you really understand what happened in 1983 and their victory in a new light.

I found it incredibly fascinating and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

John's perspective to me is similar to a few people we've been collaborating with at Alita.

It's a business founded with my great friend, Matt Waterwitz.

It's a place for bespoke collaboration with incredible leaders from around the world,

like Mikel Arteta from Arsenal.

Socceroo John Aloisi, Eddie Jones from English Rugby, just to name a few.

Now, if you're interested in this space, you can find it at alitacollective.com.

You don't have to be a world-renowned sports person or a leader,

but we would encourage you to check it out, our signature Alita Connect program.

It gives you a great perspective on how people like John are leading in their world.

John Bertrand is an official legend of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.

He's the Australian who skippered the wing-keeled Australia 2 to victory over the Americans.

Dennis Connors' liberty to win the 1983 America's Cup,

breaking 132 years of American domination,

and in the process, breaking the longest running record in the history of modern sport.

After being 3-1 down in the best of seven races,

and considered by many as the race of the century,

on September 27th, 1983, off Newport, Rhode Island,

John Bertrand and his crew pulled off arguably the greatest upset in modern Australian sporting history.

The victory was voted by the Confederation of Australian Sport,

as the greatest team performance in 200 years of Australian sport.

John, it's always a great pleasure to see you,

and I really appreciate you spending the time today.

Great pleasure, Luke.

I have to go back, John, to that day, the 27th of September, 1983,

and I remember it as crystal clear.

How old are you?

I was eight at that stage.

And I think I've shared this with you before,

but I remember Dad getting me out of bed,

get up, son, this is history being made,

Australia are going to win the America's Cup.

And I was just thinking about it today,

I can picture myself where we were in the lounge room,

and this tiny little TV,

and the whole family's glued around,

and how many people share,

because it's a moment where you knew where you were if you were old enough.

Is that shared with you a lot?

Oh, yeah.

Not so much what I was doing.

Yeah, that's right.

You were busy at the time.

Well, I met a bloke the other day,

he was in Sydney,

driving across Sydney Harbour Bridge,

and the traffic,

he told me,

the traffic stopped,

and people got out and hiking each other

on the bridge,

of the Sydney Harbour Bridge,

overlooking the Sydney Opera House.

It's like,

it just blows me away.

It's incredible, isn't it?

It is, isn't it?

So it stopped the Harbour Bridge at the time.

Yep.

Did you have a sense at the time,

John,

that this was as big as it was,

and that the whole world was watching?

No,

nor did we want to.

Yeah.

We got rid of all television sets,

all newspapers entering our compound in Newport,

Rhode Island,

and we went into our bubble.

Look,

we had a sense of it,

but we probably could visualise,

maybe,

a quarter of the,

really,

what was happening back home.

Yeah.

The crowds got big at the end,

didn't they?

And they came from everywhere around.

Australians came from everywhere,

didn't they,

for that final race,

when you look back.

That's right.

Yeah.

And the television,

you know,

crews,

they're flying stuff in from all around America.

You know,

the tower's going up,

the light's going on.

It was,

you know,

showtime.

And you have to go and watch Untold,

the race of the century,

Netflix documentary,

which has just been brought out recently.

It is brilliant.

John,

it brought it all back to life for me as an eight-year-old,

not really understanding the context.

And I love watching that documentary and seeing you in tears and your crew

and your great friends from that time reduced to tears looking at the

significance.

Can you explain for the next generation just how huge a challenge it was to

achieve what you did at that time?

The New York Club were ferocious defenders of the America's Cup.

They oozed style,

wealth,

this unbeatableness.

The U.S. had never lost.

It was the longest winning streak in sporting history for 132 years.

There's no question the emerging force was Dennis Conner.

It was the best sailor in the world.

He will do anything to win.

Are we floated on?

Three,

two,

one.

It was time that we had to do something radical.

It's a huge commitment.

We had to believe ourselves that we belong on the world stage.

I hadn't been the navigator on any of it,

but we were there for one reason,

to win.

All the work that we had done had paid huge dividends.

It was blazing.

What Australians really like is upsetting the upper echelon.

The whole of the world was watching this.

The greatest yacht race of the century.

I've never seen anything like this.

And a little country called Australia had the audacity to think that we could do it.

The American's Cup started off before the U.S. Civil War and the Americans successfully defended over 132 years.

So, you know, it's the longest running, you know, their domination was amazing for all different reasons,

but generally better organized.

But they had technology behind them.

You know, the U.S. surveyed the most powerful technical nation in the world and economically.

And it had never been done.

It was really, it was the Everest of sport.

It was a four minute mile.

You know, I remember reading about Bannister.

He was told, and he was, I think, a medical student at Oxford University at the time.

And the best advice that they could get at that stage is the human heart was not powerful enough to propel a man around the track in less than four minutes in a mile.

He didn't feel that that was the case.

But it was seen as an impossible barrier, a psychological, impossible, physical, medical barrier.

And at any rate, when he did that,

I think something in order of 10 different milers over the next six months broke through that invisible barrier.

All of a sudden it was gone.

So the psychology of it was huge.

And I'd already been involved in three losing America's Cup challenges before, over a 12 year period.

So, you know, I could see, and having lived in the United States,

and interestingly enough, that Netflix thing, documentary actually,

he knows it pretty well.

It was a three year production coming out of LA and their research was amazing.

Most of the content I'd never seen before.

But having lived in the United States with my wife, Raza, and going to MIT and Boston and, you know,

worked with the Americans and the professors and so on, it became clear to me, you know,

clearly a very, very motivated people, the Americans, as I often say, the Americans will eat their

greens.

They'll eat their greens.

They'll eat their greens.

They'll eat their greens.

If required, you know, with great respect, but it's true, you know, highly competitive people.

So to knock the Yanks off was a big deal, both from a technical point of view, as well as a sounding ability.

And the fact that it had never been done, like so many nations had tried, and including Australia,

and no one was able to achieve it.

These projects are generally built very simply around administration, management has to be world class.

The technology has to be world class.

And ultimately, the team has to be world class, same as Formula One motor racing that we were just discussing.

Any of those links weak, and you can't play the game.

So ultimately, in that particular project, we got those three links to be absolutely world class, and we could play the game.

And John, to go into your time at MIT and to just, it gives a window into your mindset and of your commitment to success is next level.

And you're an engineer.

You did your thesis, and the title was The Optimum Angle of Attack for America's Cup Sales.

So you had a pretty specific focus, and then you won a scholarship to MIT, and that was, you know,

reading about you improving your engineering, but as you just described then, getting an understanding of the US psyche really, really deeply.

And so having lost the America's Cup three times, your fanaticism to go over and learn and better yourself.

Do you look back, and can you relate to what that was like at the time?

Well, yeah.

Well, I can now say it was very important, you know, to, best way to describe it in Australia, certainly in my era, and we're talking about a long time ago, when I was at Monash University, you know, the professor, everything was, you know, professor this and professor that.

At MIT, it was all first name with the professors.

And, you know, at Monash, you know, the people would have morning and afternoon tea and lunch, okay?

And at MIT, if you had to donate on the way through at lunch, you had to donate.

You were happy.

You were lucky.

You know, it was a different world.

The speed of, you know, speed of getting stuff done was just another world.

You know, MIT are basically funded by outside sponsorship, including the US military, whereas in Australia, a big chunk of the funding comes from government.

So it's a different mentality altogether.

You know, it's, you've got to make stuff happen.

And so, and we lived, you know, Raz and I, we lived in the States for probably eight years over different periods.

So about.

About time there.

And great respect.

You know, you don't, you don't back, you don't back against the Yanks.

They're a highly mobile community.

They'll move from one country, one, I should say, one city to another.

It's not like, you know, in Australia, moving from Melbourne to Sydney or Sydney to Perth is a big deal.

No, because it's all about increasing your net worth.

It's all about becoming millionaires and God bless them.

That's part of the deal.

And.

So having that sort of background and understanding and having empathy for the Americans was extremely important.

And also their sense of self-confidence at the highest level, the high five thing, you know, in Australia, high five, you don't really see it, but we are highly competitive people, but it's under the cover, under the, under the radar a little bit below, you know, you know that in your world of Australian rules football, you know, you're a lovely man, but out on the field, you're a bloody mongrel.

Well, that's the reality that has to be the case, highly competitive individuals, no difference in the US, except it's, it's above the radar, you know, the high five, the louder voices, competitive environment, you to break through the noise, you've got to speak louder, you know, that's sort of not, you know, I just a broad brush approach.

So the net net is really not being put off by the US of A, you know, the US Navy and the Coast Guard.

The high fives and the pumped up chest, that's part of the deal that we had to overcome, you know, if we were to take on the Yanks, it was like the pool deck of, at the Olympic games, you know, the USA, USA, Australians up until Tokyo, you know, we're sort of, we were quivering people in a corner.

So overcoming that is all part of the psyche of getting stuff done at the highest level.

And you're dealing now on the world stage, there's no way to hide.

And in the US, you know, with the America's Cup, ultimately, there is no way to hide, you got to front up, and that's the competition, you can't change it.

And it's part of the deal, you know, it's a, so the, you know, this game of stuff between your ears, you know, all about being a highly competitive athlete in your former life, and still are.

It's the, you know, you do the so called 10,000 hours.

So preparation, in our case, is much more than that, driven by passion to become good at what you're doing.

But ultimately, between your ears is where the action is.

That's the difference between winning and losing.

And that was part of the mountain that we had to climb with this crazy thing called the America's Cup that had never been won by any nation for over a century.

I love hearing you talk about the psychology of sport, and I'll get to, you know, you imparting that on the culture of swimming in Australia with great success.

But to go into the detail a little bit, you know, you, legendary, even when you, the arch nemesis, Dennis Conner, and even the handshake, you wanted to make sure your handshake was over the top of his handshake, and you went to great lengths.

Am I correct in understanding the boxing kangaroo flag was a creation of you and your crew in lots of ways, and having that flying on the boat, because you wanted a powerful symbol, and even having men at work down there, having a music track that was a powerful, strong, that was the sort of detail you went into.

Yeah.

To create that psyche to overcome the Americans?

Yes.

Is that all correct?

Yes, it's totally correct.

So when you study us humans, when we've gone to war over the last 1,000 years, typically we go to war, and I've never been to war, so, you know, I never want to, but we've gone to war typically with symbols, flags, and music.

So we created our own battle flag, and that was a boxing kangaroo flag, red gloves for aggression.

Pumped up chest to take on the world.

When you look at the stance of the boxing kangaroo flag, it's ready to fight, and the gloves are all about aggression.

So that was part of the, you might say, you know, the thinking behind it.

And the men at work battle down under was our battle hymn.

We brought the biggest loudspeakers we could, and when we left the dock in Newport, Rhode Island, we had maximum volume on our tender, Black Swan, men at work down under, and the flag was broken out.

And we went, you know.

We're off to war in the world of sport.

It's brilliant, and as I said, I can't recommend highly enough to go and see it, you know, beautifully done via the Netflix forum, bring it all back to life.

They capture it incredibly well, and as you said at the start of this conversation, John, you don't just do it on your own.

You need it to have the whole organization, and there's some characters that I wanted to talk to you about that were instrumental in it, and get your reflections on it, again, if you don't mind.

Ben Lexen.

You described as the Leonardo da Vinci of Australia who designed that famous wind keel, which you weren't initially on board with at the start.

You had your reservations.

Can you tell us a bit about Ben and why that was so important?

Well, Benny, he was an orphan.

He went to school at nine and left at 12, and he was presumably unteachable.

So he's never, you know, I have two degrees in engineering, and I remember my professor at MIT saying, you know, involved advanced mathematics.

He said, until you put a problem into an equation, you can never solve it.

And it took me quite a long time working with people like Benny and Alan Bond to understand that that's not the case.

This sense of intuition and gut feel, as well as, you know, being students of their area of activity, driven by passion, is really, really powerful.

And women have a great sense of intuitive feel, you know.

So us men, look, you know, we can meet someone, and we think they're a nice person, and the women can figure out straight away that they're dickheads or not.

It's so true, isn't it?

And any time I've got that wrong in my life, my wife's always been right.

Yep.

100% of the time.

That's right.

So why is it so?

Well, their brains are different.

They look at life differently.

Through their own prisms, you know, they have different.

So this is all the power of, in my opinion, sort of the lateral thinking or the intuitive feel.

Particularly, you know, women.

You know, Raza drives me nuts.

I give her a little bit of information, and she's straight on to it, and she's adding value before I can even finish what I'm talking about.

But the point is that Benny was a little bit like that, okay?

So he had this intuitive feel.

But for every 10 ideas, 8 would be crazy, but 2 of them were, gee, you know, really interesting.

Benny was a student of life, and he was a student of nature, and he was different.

For example.

And this is true.

To wash his clothes, he'd go into the shower and scrub with his clothes on, right?

And in some cases, up in Sydney, if the weather was warm enough, he'd just walk around until the clothes dried.

So we are talking about a different cat here.

That's a unique way to get the clothes clean.

Yeah.

He was the godfather of our son, Lucas, who's now 48 years old.

So we're talking about a long time ago.

And the man was brilliant.

You know, as I say, you know, he was, in my opinion, he was the Leonardo.

He was the Leonardo da Vinci of this country, in terms of his, you know, his ability to just be out there.

And so he was the creator of this thing called the Winged Keel.

And when we first, when I first saw it, you mentioned before, I had reservations, absolutely,

because I'd been involved with Ben's first project.

I was assistant designer straight out of MIT in 1974, Southern Cross, and it was a dog.

The boat was slow.

And I said, Benny, just give us something equal, and we can play the game.

But for God's sake, you know, what are we doing with this stuff?

But at any rate, I'm sure he manipulated the coefficients in the computer.

But he said that this boat's going to win the America's Cup by half an hour every race.

You've got to love that confidence.

But to get back to the psyche, John, you know, having the sheet around that Winged Keel and the mystique of what that created,

it was clearly a fast boat and had some advantages.

But playing back into you and getting the psychology,

it spooked the Americans a bit, didn't it?

The fact that there was something mysterious going on as well.

Was that a big part of?

It was, in the end.

We didn't realize how big a deal it was going to be.

But in looking back on their decision-making under extreme pressure,

the psychology of not knowing what they're racing against.

And Dennis Conner, my counterpart, skipper of the American Defender,

he wrote a book called No Excuses to Lose,

which is all about if you out-fundraise and out-research and out-train,

relative to the opposition, then there's no excuse.

And it's a damn good philosophy of life in many ways.

And so that was fine.

Our win-loss ratio, because we had to race against a whole bunch of other nations,

the Canadians and the Brits and the French and Italians,

before we won the right to challenge for the America's Cup.

In that period, I think we won 48 out of 56 races over a period of summer, five months of racing.

Our win-loss ratio is very, very high.

We had a terrific package.

Not only the win-kill, but the sale development, a whole bunch of stuff,

such that we were world-class, as it turns out.

And the net of it is that in that final race, which they called the race of the century,

they made more mistakes than we did.

Simple as that.

It's going to be Australia 2.

They are going to win it.

Stand up, Australia.

Stand up, Australia.

And give these boys a cheer.

We are looking for this bloke at any moment.

They're about to do it.

They're about to cross the line.

They make a final move.

There it goes.

Yeah.

And almost the perfect race that you sailed in that last leg.

You were down 51 seconds in the final race,

which was the second biggest lead of any time throughout the seven-race series.

And as you said, you didn't make a mistake.

And they did.

Can I ask you, I've got a couple more characters to come back to that,

you know, the Australian Prime Minister has won.

I don't want to talk to you about Alan Bond.

But what was your relationship like with Dennis Conner?

Afterwards and as life has gone on, was there a friendship or was there respect?

What was it like?

Well, respect, clearly.

Friendship, you know, us Australians have a different type of friendship than America.

Americans in a lot of cases is, and again, this is a broad brush.

In the US, it's maybe considered more transactional.

Okay.

Is there an opportunity?

There is a deal there or whatever business relationship.

In Australia, it transcends that.

I think it's just the way we are.

Which I love.

But so with Dennis, you know what?

We really haven't talked about the America's Cup since that final race.

Together, when you've caught up?

Correct.

And I've raced against Dennis quite a lot in the actual class.

And they were, you know, highly competitive.

It doesn't matter where we are in the fleet.

We always kind of understand where the other bloke is.

But, you know, this thing cuts deep.

You know, to lose.

You know, it was to be the first to lose was a big deal.

And I fully respect and understand that.

It's an amazing, amazing story.

And a character like him, it's sort of Shakespearean in some ways, isn't it?

You're very different, but clearly that's lasted a lifetime.

Speaking of extraordinary character, Alan Bond, you know, again,

for those younger, may not know, legendary Australian business figure.

And, you know, had some tragedy late in life.

And people have their own judgments on that.

But really, for him to fight.

And fund, you know, because it was the fourth boat that he'd funded, wasn't it?

America's Cup.

So tell us about Alan Bond, your relationship with him and how you view him.

Well, I first met Alan when I got involved with that America's Cup way back in 1974,

Southern Cross, and Benny was the designer.

So the way to describe Alan was he was a technically broke property developer out of Perth.

At that stage.

At that stage.

Having the audacity to challenge for the America's Cup.

When he was 34 years old, he had no idea what he was doing.

All right.

And nor did Benny and the boat, you know, was slow or whatever, but, you know,

not with great intent, but we just, we're not in the game.

But you know what?

He kept coming back and back and back.

So he lost, you know, we lost 74.

I didn't go back in 1977.

I said, I got involved with the, won a bronze medal at the Olympics in Montreal and then built our own

business here in Australia, 1980, beaten again.

I was involved then, as it turns out, and then 83.

So you talk about resilience and, you know, Alan, and Alan's, his motivation was different.

Everyone has a different, you know, reason for being involved with this crazy event.

His business was to move from a local trader to a global trader.

So the best way to describe Alan is when we won.

He went straight to Wall Street.

He had every investment banker wanting to meet him and every Saudi Arabian prince,

most importantly, wanting to lend him money.

Show me the money.

And he had, so there was, there was method behind the, the, the alignment.

He was, he was clear on, and, and, and at a point in time, I mean, how big, for those who don't

understand, Alan Bond bought everything.

He did.

He was into Chile.

He, he controlled the telecommunications system in Chile.

Correct.

Not only Australia.

Not only in London.

And, and Rome.

He had major shopping centres outside of Rome that he was developing.

So give me a dollar and I'll make two dollars on it on the way through and borrow a whole

heap on the way as a result.

So he was an amazing entrepreneur.

Was it money in the end?

No, it, it was power.

It was influence for Alan.

There was no stopping him.

And it was like, ultimately the whole thing blew apart, you know, with the financial.

He went to jail, Alan Bond.

He did.

That's right.

How was that for you?

Then to have, there's such a piece of history that you're so connected to.

Was that a, was that challenging?

I mean, clearly I'm upsetting and challenging.

Yes.

Well, I communicated with Alan in jail, but typical of Bondy, God bless him.

He had the, uh, he had the inmates organised and he's giving them lessons on business.

So there's no podcast in those days.

It was just one-on-one and he had his own clientele.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Incredible part of the story.

We were, Bob Hawke's the prime minister at the time and, and, and this probably was

the thing that transcended his prime ministership in lots of ways.

I mean, Bob Hawke, uh, floated the dollar.

He did lots of things that strategically changed the course of Australian history, but he's

probably remembered for that famous quote more than anything.

I tell you what, any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up the day is a bum.

For an Australian prime minister to say that makes me smile still to think about it.

For anyone around the world.

The Yanks.

They couldn't believe that the prime minister of a country of Australia would be saying

such outrageous stuff.

But what I loved in the documentary, you shared a story for you, it was even more powerful

was that in the lead up to the final race, he got on the phone and you, I think you said

to him, we're going to do our best.

And his response was, what did he say back to you?

Well, it's actually in person.

So as it turns out, uh, uh, prime minister Hawke, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, the new

treasurer, newly elected.

Uh, you know, uh, in, uh, you know, the party, the labor party of Australia, they happened

to be at an international monetary conference in Washington, DC.

And, uh, as it turns out, they were down at the boat for the first race of the America's

cup.

And I remember, uh, you know, uh, Paul Keating in the background with his Australia to, you

know, Australian wool jersey on.

So Bondi comes down to the boat.

This is the first race of the America's cup.

So we'd gone through the trials, the Louis Vuitton cup and so on.

And we won that.

And, uh, you know, you can't practice this environments again, a little bit like the

MCG, a hundred thousand people.

You can't, you can't practice that environment and the, and the intensity of it.

Well, you can a little bit with Australian footy because you do get big crowds and you've

whatever, but this thing, there's every four years, it's a new world.

So you, anyway, so five minutes to nine, we'd leave the boat, leave the dock at nine o'clock

plus or minus 30 seconds a minute.

Again.

Military operation.

And, uh, so their new prime minister came down to the boat and I was on the stern of

the boat, the back of the boat.

And, uh, and we're just about to break out the boxing kangaroo flag and the music was

about to, uh, to arc up.

And he says, he said, I say to him, well, you know, what do you say?

I said, uh, welcome Mr. Prime minister.

And he's in his gravelly voice.

He says, Johnny says, call me Bob.

I said, well, he said, uh, what are you going to do?

I said, well, Bob, we'll give it our best shot.

He says, bullshit.

He says, destroy the bastards.

So that's, you know, the prime minister of our country, you talk about a communication

ability.

He was unbelievable.

And when he actually said, and we, we weren't here at the time, we're half around the world,

you know, Newport, but anyone who sacks anyway to today, anyone who sacks anyone for being

late today is a bum.

That was not pre-rehearsed.

I know that.

It was typical.

Bob Hawke in his ability to capture the essence of the moment and that's communication, you

know, that's leadership.

So what I learned from that, and I spent a little time with, you know, uh, with Bob Hawke,

you know, following over the years, uh, is his, his great sense of leadership through

being able to capture the essence of the time.

And that is an eight year old going back.

That was the thing you heard.

This is the prime minister of our country.

He's, it's that big.

It made it big for you, as you said, by, you know,

an unrehearsed line that, that has stood the test of time, uh, it captured the moment.

And he, he, he, you know, he said, basically all the great things, floating the dollar

and deregulating the financial system in this country is unbelievable what they achieved.

He and Keating, the words that were remembered was that line.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, and he's proud of it too.

Yeah.

What a great chapter in our, in our history of our country and to have the prime minister

sum it up, uh, he's, uh, he's equally as proud.

You know, I could talk for, for, for days about what you achieved in 1983, but to see

you overlay your leadership into every other area of your life, I find equally fascinating.

The Australian, uh, swim team is probably from an Olympic point of view, the most prestigious

group that win medals lost its way, uh, only one, one gold in London and hadn't lots of

cultural and behavioral issues.

And John Bertrand steps up to the plate and, and, and you bring your psychology and your

leadership to swim.

Uh, swimming, uh, Australia with great success.

Tokyo's the most successful Olympics the Australian swim team's ever had.

Can you tell us about how you went about instilling that in the, in the swim team?

Well, uh, I was approached initially, uh, by one of the directors, Clem Doherty, former

partner of McKinsey's, uh, who I knew previously.

He asked me whether I'd consider taking on the chairmanship role of swimming Australia

because it, it was, you know, it, it had its issues.

And I initially said no, but anyway, he came back a few times and eventually I said, uh,

I said, there, let's give this a shot.

I didn't have any swimming background at all, which was, as it turns out, an advantage.

So I went in as a clean skin, you might say.

Lots of politics, you know, these, these, uh, amount of organizations, great intent,

but so much, so many people, so much passion or, you know, lots of blood on the water,

I can tell you.

And, um, primarily, uh, it was dysfunctional when I first sort of saw the whole thing.

It lacked trust.

Which is so important when your back's to the wall and it lacked, lacked a vision.

And, um, so as I came in as chair, I said, yeah, this is of national importance.

Let's give this a shot for better or worse.

So I embarked on the journey just after the London Olympics in 2013 and, uh, major, major

changes internally.

But primarily, I guess, if you talk about the major positions and change, it was, uh,

and again, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it

was complex.

And then at school I got mad.

It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was so hard.

But overall, it was, it was, it was fantastic.

And I was proud of my full potential, um, you know, coming from the school of hard knocks

and losing as well as a bit of winning with the world of America's Cup.

Um, part of my sort of added value was this vision of what's this game going to look like

in 10 years' time.

Let's get there faster than anyone else in the world.

Okay?

So take the blinkers off.

And it was based on my own experience with the Olympics where you every, the Olympics

is really the cutting edge of human endeavor.

There's no confusion or either cut well out there from them.

And here is hard, going to win right there today, there is no confusion.

You either win or you're a bum.

There's no confusion out there.

You know, I won the leather medal at the German Olympics, fourth place.

It's worse than last.

And other than mum and the kids, nobody cares, okay?

Eventually I got on the platform, on the podium and won the bronze.

And, you know, in Montreal, thank goodness, you know, my God,

the difference between fourth and third is unbelievable.

So, you know, with no money, no coaching, no anything.

But at any rate, if you look at any four-year period,

you get improvement in performance, 100-meter sprint, throwing a javelin.

Interesting enough, any 10 or 20, particularly 20-year period

of the Olympic movement, a quantum leap in performance.

So the question is not why is it so.

It's just that history tells us that in 20 years' time,

playing the game of this thing called the America's Cup

will be much further progressed than what it is now.

AFL football, the industry of podcasting,

what we're doing now in 10 years' time, you know,

it's hard to imagine.

It's hard to imagine the way this thing will evolve,

but it's here, it's fast, it's growing.

Human endeavor, the human brain is amazing.

You know, the suggestion is that we use maybe 9% or 10% of the potential

of this incredible computer hanging between our ears, the brain,

the massive supercomputer, okay?

Yeah.

If we can move to 10 or 11, sorry, 11 or 12%,

you have major, major breakthrough.

So when we look at human endeavor, Olympics,

you get improvement in performance, there's no question.

Same analogy for this crazy thing called the America's Cup.

So part of my, and same with Swimming Australia,

we do not know what freestyle will look like in 10 years' time.

That's got to be the mentality.

Freestyle, it was originally called the Australian Crawl

in the late 20s, 1920s.

Other than the head going down, the human body getting stronger,

okay, nutrition, whole bunch of stuff, nothing's changed.

So got to,

bring in the supercomputers, computational flow dynamics,

CFD from the World of America's Cup.

Let's start analyzing the human form going through this viscous fluid called water,

which is just drag.

How do you actually reduce your drag?

Forgetting about increasing the power with strokes and so on.

What's this game going to look like in 10 years' time?

So that was kind of my craziness that I brought to the table of, okay,

we think we understand what world best practice is, led particularly by the United States,

the U.S.

Swimming team, domination all the way through.

We think we understand that, but that's fine.

How do we get there faster than anyone else in the world?

You know, that we know will be much further progressed than what it is now.

So it was part of it.

The other way is this thing called trust.

Again, you know, from your experience, you understand that, you know,

in the backs to the wall, you're in the trenches, you're fighting for each other.

Okay.

At that stage, you're not fighting for your country.

You're fighting for your mates out on the field in their case.

You're fighting for America's Cup.

How do you build trust?

Well, trust comes from leadership, no question, and then people picking up on it.

It's based around integrity and honesty, basic stuff.

We're not talking about rocket science here.

We're talking about transparency.

Whatever you say you do, no bullshit.

We're talking about having fun.

You know, particularly us Aussies, we've got to have fun.

Because if you're asking people to be involved seven by 24, not nine to five,

you know, total commitment, then you're going to have fun.

It's got to be a blast to be involved with these like-minded people.

No dickheads, as the All Blacks say.

How good is that?

We understand what that means.

And when you start to bring a team together and leadership from, you know,

a crazy person like myself saying these sort of things repeatedly and just –

and you've got to say something at least three times before people can walk away thinking,

is that what he really said?

As long as you keep it simple as well.

You can't get too complicated.

And incidentally, the Americans are very good at storytelling.

They're very good at, in my opinion, communicating an idea.

That's one of their strengths.

So anyway, so once you start to build a team, a group of people where you are talking about trust

and you have a vision that this is what the game is we think now, but how – where do we go?

Let's take the blinkers off.

Let's back people like Benny Lexen and others.

Where is this game going?

Then you start to build – you can build something extremely formidable.

You know, we do not know where business will be in 20 years' time.

You know, this advent of this fantastic new development called the Internet, global communication,

the fact that this podcast is going global, you know,

and some of your business activities you're telling me, you know, that's a global vision.

It's not local.

And so we are now connected to the world and the speed of development.

You know, we're on an asymptotic curve going north in human endeavor.

So that's – so when we're talking about what do I bring to the table, Luke,

it was really this whole issue of taking the blinkers off.

I know with no swimming background at all and saying, okay, let's reach for the stars.

Let's – as we – as I used to say, let's release the beast.

Let's empower our young people in particular.

Yeah.

Who have no fear and no scar tissue which can hold people back.

And let's release the potential of what we've got here.

And that was really part of my – I guess, you know, my added value with this thing called

Swimming Australia Olympic Swim Team.

What a great success story too, John.

It's a masterclass this year and you talk about – you know, it sounds simple when you articulate it.

But as you said, with the politics and the powers that be, you know,

and you see it when great successes.

And organizations get that harmony.

And I love that idea, isn't it?

For all the endeavors that we've got, there's going to be quantum shifts, isn't there, every 10 years.

How do we think about, you know, what it's going to look like and then can we get there quicker is a worthwhile thing.

You can apply it to almost everything, can't you?

Everything.

Doesn't matter what.

Interesting enough, also through my relationship with the Chief of Army, General Rick Burr, wonderful man, former head of SAS operations,

and head of all NATO special forces in Europe.

And we did the Kokoda track together.

Wonderful man called Ron Barassi, number 31.

One of the all-time great people.

And I know a lot of people on that group that did the track with you.

Dipper.

The great Dipper.

And I think my father-in-law, David Shaw, might have been part of that group.

Yes.

And Rick was part of that.

Rick Burr.

He was then a Colonel, Rick Burr.

Yes.

This was probably 17 years ago.

His career has been remarkable.

At any rate, Rick has become a wonderful, wonderful friend.

And so, as a result, I was able to get the Australian Swim Program introduced into our special forces military,

which was a really, again, benchmarking world best practice.

And they are in the business of trust.

Okay.

Talking to Rick, we walked the Kokoda track through Rick's eyes.

Okay.

We had 19-year-old kids defending this country.

No military backup.

No nothing.

Okay.

Fighting a much more superior force, the Japanese coming through, highly trained,

you know, jungle fighters.

Our guys had World War III, sorry, World War I issue 303 rifles.

No camouflage uniforms.

Nothing.

Okay.

And I said, you know, I remember Rick saying, you know, at that stage, what are these people fighting for?

We're talking about trust here.

And he said, at that stage, it's not the country.

It's not even your family back home.

It's your mates in the trenches, in the water, up there and, you know, take the boots off.

The skin comes off on the boots.

Put the boots back on and go back to help your mates.

So they, when we talk about trust, they, Rick recommended a book, and I think, I'm not sure exactly the title,

but I think it's in the order of The Circle of Trust.

And that is, you cannot build an organization beyond the perimeter of trust.

The perimeter of trust that you have within your organization.

So special forces like SAS commandos, their operations can be halfway around the world.

If their perimeter doesn't extend to where their people are, you don't have trust.

You can't operate.

And I think that's a fascinating concept.

So they put, you know, they do their 10,000 hours plus plus in terms of preparation or whatever.

But it gets back to this very, very simple thing deep down in the gut.

In the gut of trust without, throughout an organization.

And it's not when the good times are on.

It's when the tough times, when your back's to the wall.

And can you, you know, do these, you know, can you, then you're starting to get into a world of one plus one equals three.

And that's what a beautiful thing that is.

The story of Kokoda is, you know, such a legend.

Mostly farm hands, as you said, ill-equipped.

The Japanese army at that stage hadn't ever been stopped in its tracks.

And, you know, against all odds.

And then the thought if, you know, if a bit of Papua New Guinea was taken, then the ramifications were enormous, weren't they?

And so no wonder that's been a pilgrimage for Australians to walk that track.

And the original army, sorry, our main fighting force was over in the Middle East, okay, helping the Brits.

And our military people, kids sent to Port Moresby, they were called the Chocos.

They were all the rejects.

And the idea was put them under pressure and they'll melt like chocolate.

So there's no training.

They were sent over there to build an airport.

And then they realized that the Japanese were coming through the jungle, over the Kokoda track, through the mountains.

So there's just no training, no nothing.

But these, what these kids did for each other.

Incredible story, isn't it?

Incredible story, leadership.

And you bringing that into swimming and changing the culture and seeing that success, John.

I love you keep coming back to training.

I love you keep coming back to trust.

It's, you know, where we hear a lot of, but when you implement it properly and the trust of your crew in America's Cup,

the trust that you build in swimming that was dysfunctional at the time is a great story.

Well, a comment there is that when we're 3-1 down, okay, during the America's Cup, we had to get from,

so the Yanks got up to three all and all they had to do is win one more race.

So we came from 3-1 down to 3-2 to 3-3 and eventually won that final race.

Okay.

And the organization was extremely tight and, and, and trust was total.

So we were a hard organ, we were basically almost an impossible organization to kill off.

And the Yanks threw everything at us.

But, you know, this whole issue of we're pretty much impossible to kill off as a competing organization.

That's pretty formidable.

And part of it, the technology was there, et cetera.

But, you know, the guts, the glue was this thing called the trust throughout the organization for each other.

We're literally willing, and let's face it, it's only a sporting event, but we're willing to die for each other.

On the eve of that last race, the Americans went in and Dennis Connors got the ruling to be able to change the setup of their boat,

which it was a technicality that didn't feel like it was, you know, in keeping with, with the spirit,

but they were going to do anything, the Americans.

They, you know, their refusal to, that would have unnerved a lot of crews at that stage,

knowing that they were going to be able to adjust their boat.

But as you said, the, the trust that your team had, you were unable to be killed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, we're, we're, as it turns out, we're pretty, it was a, it was a very, very good team.

There's no question about it.

Yeah.

John, we've been talking to different leaders and your stories is profound in Australian history around what great leadership looks like in the current context.

And it's a passion I was sharing with you before for the, the world of a leader of business we've created,

where we're connecting different leaders together from around the globe and trying to identify great leadership.

And we see these common traits.

I want to ask you about some of them.

We see all leaders really have a sense of self-leadership as, as a place where you start.

And does that term resonate with you, a sense of self-leadership?

What do you mean by that?

For me, it means the idea that if I'm going to be able to lead anyone else, I really have to live those values.

And I need to live up to the same set of values that I want others to, to do.

So for me, it's about the daily routines and the habits is what I think self-leadership.

It means different things to other people, but.

Yeah.

Well, it's interesting.

I hadn't thought about it that way, but primarily we're talking about authenticity.

This, this word authentic is used a lot.

But I think what you're saying, and I understand that, I think it's a, you know, less, you can't bullshit people, you know.

You know, we talk about it.

Yeah.

We talked about it before.

Craig McRae, okay, the Collingwood coach.

Phenomenal story, this whole journey with, and of being a Collingwood supporter.

But what you see with Craig is what you get.

There's no confusion there.

So it's not as if he's, you know, he's moving from one idea to another.

It's, it's really, is, is it basic?

No, it's not basic because he's really, really, he's, you know, he's a student of life.

He's always learning.

He's, he's inquisitive.

He's curious.

It's wonderful stuff.

But authentic?

Authentic?

Absolutely.

The bloke is authentic.

And people can figure that out real fast.

At Harvard Business School, they have a authentic leadership course, which has been extremely successful for, you know, some of our people.

And, you know, this whole issue of living the values, yeah, I understand what you're saying.

Yeah, I love you.

You mentioned Craig, and for those who don't follow Australian Ross football, we took a team that was 17th, John's team.

And I say to a lot of people, if you don't bear for Collingwood, people won't understand.

Everyone hates Collingwood, historically.

But he made everyone, I think, love and respect.

Just, as you said, purely with his authenticity and everything he did and all his language and whatever the circumstances were, you could just feel that pour out of him.

It was, and the playing group behind, who on paper, John, you look at and think sort of talent for talent at the moment, they're probably not at the level that they played at.

Yeah.

But he's incredible authenticity.

I'm not surprised you referenced that.

Another dimension we see, John, leaders are really conscious around how they positively impact other people in their environments, you know, in real time.

Have you thought about that, that positive impact on people?

No question.

You know, I've never seen a successful leader who's naturally negative, you know, and a pessimist.

Gee, you know, this whole issue of seeing the best of everyone.

Yeah.

And the best of any situation and or figuring out how you get there, you know, natural inclination.

That's all part and parcel of leadership.

So, you know, leadership, I think, very much into positive frame of mind, its ability to communicate.

No question about it.

It's a set of values that people can aspire to.

You know, this new, you know, the young people now, the values of leadership, extremely important.

We see that in terms of the way the companies are and, you know, setting up their value propositions and so on.

But it has to come from leaders.

It can't be just with a whole bunch of words that mean nothing.

And primarily it, you know, living, as I said, living the values and, you know, using this word called authentic, which is true, is part and parcel.

Yeah, it's what anyone, but particularly new generation of people now figure out real fast.

Yeah.

I love what you said.

You haven't seen anyone really lead.

No.

Successfully with a negative mindset.

No.

And as you get older in life, you sort of, there is, you know, you go, you gravitate towards the like, don't you?

That's right.

And negative people become hard to, you know, authentically, we all have negative moments, which being authentic, as you said, is a big part of it.

Yeah.

But I love the way you said it.

We see leaders are really conscious around how they create and share their vision.

And your examples are a legend in our lifetime in Australia around having this vision and, you know, having this vision.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You've arrived at the approach of how you İn our lifetime in Australia around having this vision and firstly creating and then sharing it, particularly America's Cup, but certainly swimming as well.

Can you delve into sort of the micro, how you went about creating that vision and sharing it?

Gee.

Well, first of all, let me tell you a, a little story.

John Longely reminded me of a couple of years ago.

He was a grinder and assistant manager on the doc with Warren Jones, our America's Cup

record.

I've forgotten what I said.

But anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He reminded me, he said that race where we're so far behind,

the final race, the race of the century,

we can hardly read their bloody numbers.

That's how far back we were.

Apparently, I said to the guys, I said,

if we don't keep concentrating, we may lose this race.

So you're talking about positive, crazy positive at that stage.

And it looked like the impossible challenge at that stage.

Yeah, 99% of the world would say it's impossible, forget it,

turn the television set off or whatever, go home.

So anyway, apparently that's what I said.

Well, that's the mindset of a skipper of a boat

that eventually we're able to be successful.

And a supreme optimist.

A supreme optimist.

Ask Raza, my wife, you know, drives her nuts.

I've met the beautiful Raza before many times.

Is that just you can't help but pivot towards the glass half full in everything?

That's right, yeah.

And I think that's, for goodness sake,

if you're going to pivot, let's go positive.

Let's get serious.

We're only here for three score and 10 or whatever.

That's a good life lesson there.

You mentioned curiosity before.

We see leaders are really,

curiosity is a word that comes up a lot in leadership.

And that's how a lot of leaders approach their constant desire to learn and improve.

And that comes out in everything you say.

Does curiosity resonate with you?

Oh, no question.

One thing I think,

I am proud of is I'm a student of life.

I've always asked,

I naturally love asking questions to find out more about what people are doing,

what things are happening.

Apparently, you know, on the average,

when kids are growing up,

you know, we've got a five-year-old granddaughter.

And she said, Pop, so why is the sky blue?

Okay.

And look at those birds.

Why can't we fly like those birds?

Pretty beautiful questions, for goodness sake.

You know, the curiosity.

And, but when children get to about the age 14,

they stop asking multiple questions.

And most people flatten off in their curve

and become just part of the society

where in a lot of cases they buy a house

and they sit there for the rest of their life,

in Australia or whatever,

compared to the curiosity of leaders

who are constantly learning.

And I see life and leadership as a lifelong journey.

And I shouldn't say,

leadership because I'm just saying life.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's a lifelong journey of learning.

And, you know, Benny was, you know,

Benny Lexen, he was, he was curious.

Give you an example, sitting down,

sitting down on the beach at Manly up in Sydney,

when we, for the final America's Cup.

And we're watching birds, in this case,

seagulls, flock of seagulls landing and taking off.

A lot of wind, a lot of turbulence along the shore.

And here's this man with supposedly no education,

three years, went to school at nine and left at 12.

So, you know, for God's sake.

And here I am with, you know,

double degree and MIT and all the, all the stuff.

And he's saying, he's saying, John,

look at the way these birds land.

There's, there's no crash landings.

So we would have seen maybe the 20 or 30,

you know, seagulls in a lot of wind.

They land beautifully, beautifully every time.

And he said, look at the way they take off.

Their takeoffs are perfect.

So here I am looking through Benny's eyes of this.

And he says, their, their brains are smaller than a pea.

Our brains is this massive bloody thing

weighing about six kilograms hanging between our ears.

Okay.

And he said that, that their flight control systems,

first of all, there has to be a neuro nerve

from every feather connecting to that tiny,

tiny little brain.

That flight control system has to be more advanced

than any military jet aircraft known to mankind.

The way they land and take off every time,

every time, I just love watching birds now

through Benny's eyes.

And I just, so he said,

look at their feathers on the trailing edge of their wings.

They're feeling the vortices.

This is the bird coming into land in a lot of turbulence.

And he said, they can just feel the air going across

the high, low pressure surface,

which is the top surface of the wing.

And he said they can feel the turbulence just generating.

They trip the air and they drop to the surface, drop to Earth perfectly every time.

Okay?

So you talk about curiosity.

Here's this bloke with supposedly no education thinking way out there in terms of studying nature

and in awe of what a mingy little seagull can do compared to us humans who we think we're pretty good.

And so there's no limitations for those types of people in terms of what's this game going to look like in 20 years' time.

And I've got a refresher on curiosity for you.

When we first caught up, you know, I think you had me for 10 minutes and you're drilling in what's happening

and what's happening in life and what are you up to when you ask questions.

It's that constant wanting to learn.

Well, I was fascinated with what you're doing.

You're an interesting bloke and an interesting character.

And clearly the interest is off the charts with me.

But I was…

I love that about, you know, and you're in, you know, people might not understand.

You won a world championship, you know, in 2016.

You were telling me earlier, asking you, you're back, you know, sailing again.

And it's, you know, people talk about lifelong learning.

That just embodies everything that you're about, isn't it?

Yeah.

Well, on the team, we'll do the national championships in the Edgfield class,

best racing in the country by far, second week of January in Adelaide.

So on the boat, I've got…

Sailing with me is Tom Burton, Olympic gold medalist in Rio.

And Jake Lilly, current representative in the fin class, sailing in the Tokyo Olympics.

I'll learn a lot from them, heaps and heaps.

And hopefully they'll learn a little bit from me.

But, you know, it'll be an MBA of sailing.

Isn't that brilliant?

I love that about your sport, isn't it, John, that you can, you know, transcend generations, can't you?

That you can, with this new current crop, and I know you're so connected to, you know,

sailing is world class.

And you're so connected to the next generation.

The fact they get to compete with you, I love.

It's an amazing part of your sport.

Communicating with clarity is a dimension of leadership.

We know all leaders consider really strongly, and you've mentioned it a few times.

How did you go about your communicating in the areas that you've been in?

I think I'm naturally, I'm a natural teacher.

And I think I can condense complex ideas down into simple forms that can be communicated.

And keep communicating that through my, this crazy thing called passion, okay, and commitment.

So, you know, I naturally like, one of the things I think is really key and is to empower people, okay, to empower people.

So I've used this thing called one plus one equals three before.

The intellectual horsepower within a group of people can be enormous if you can,

if you can combine it.

That's the point.

And that's the untapped potential of organizations or sailing teams or swimming programs where they're coaches and coaches

and the coaching fraternity and relative to talking to each other relative to their teaching,

their working with their, you know, their athletes and so on.

So this whole issue of being able to communicate in a simple manner such that ideas can get across.

And indeed, as I mentioned before, repeating those, hopefully no more than three times,

such that people really walk away and think, aha, the light bulb goes on.

So that's all part and parcel of leadership.

There's no question.

You can be full of ideas, but if you can't communicate it in a simple manner,

then can be communicated throughout the organization.

That's the other thing.

Yeah, and I love you've mentioned empowering leadership a lot.

That's the title of the podcast, Empowering Leaders, John,

because we see that as being ultimately, you know, a big shift now.

And you captured it, you know, in the early 80s around empowering others around you to fulfill their roles.

And you can only achieve, you know, X amount doing it on your own

and without empowering others in your environment.

We see that as being a real skill.

Likewise, collaboration.

And we see leaders are now equally really strategic about their collaboration.

And you've always been ahead of the curve, but your success was done with great collaboration.

How important was that to you?

It's huge.

Ed Debono.

He coined the lateral thinking, the phrase lateral thinking.

And we became good friends.

He used the America's Cup as a case study with his teachings around the world.

Very interesting bloke, you know, lateral thinking, man.

I had his co-founder of the School of Thinking on this podcast, a guy called Michael Hewitt Gleeson,

and they ran the School of Thinking together and fascinated by how they were able to implement that in the school system in the Bay Area.

And they really, the study believes that Silicon Valley's come out of really the alumni of,

of the Bay Area of San Francisco, creating Silicon Valley on the back of Edward De Bono and Michael's thinking as well.

So sorry to interrupt.

No, that's fine.

So Ed De Bono, he's basically says there's four streams of thinking.

There's the reading, there's writing, there's arithmetic, and thinking is the final core.

And he said most people, school systems and whatever, don't really consider thinking.

But now we're talking about lateral thinking and going across from one idea to another to take it to the next level.

Like the transition.

The Siberian Railway was developed, the major, major technical problems, massive, were not thousands of people.

It was maybe half a dozen people who really just work with each other, okay, and, you know, with no limitations in many ways.

He wrote a book, one of the key books he wrote, which was very important for America's Cup Project.

This is Edward De Bono?

Ed De Bono was the six hats of thinking, okay, which became very important with our swimming program as well.

And that is you primarily to do great things, you need, in my case, no more than six people.

Then it becomes too complex.

But a team of six people, which are all different.

That's the key.

Not all the same.

So that you don't have a whole bunch of yes people.

So there's the, and the colors come from, okay.

So the white hat is the chairman, chairperson, who empowers the thinking, empowers the people.

There's, let's say, the green hat, who's the creative thinker, he's the marketeer, comes up with the crazy ideas.

And then there's the black hat, who's the negative person.

You've got to say, now, hang on, Harry.

That, you know, for this, this, and this reason, that doesn't make sense.

And that's right.

You've got to have the checks and balances.

Then you've got to have the complete a finisher.

Don't give me all the high-flying ideas.

Just give me the project and I'll get the bloody thing done.

Okay.

So it's sort of a, you know, it's a very, it's a beautiful way of thinking.

Thinking about teams, high-performance teams, up to say six people, and if you get to 10 or whatever, then, you know, it's too complex.

So this whole empowering of people and, and being comfortable with different people, adding value to the mix, the six hats of thinking.

So, gee, when we were putting the team together for the America's Cup, and indeed, my thinking with Swimming Australia,

obviously, is that you've got all these coaches, dedicated people, but they're all different.

And don't worry about it.

That's how do we leverage off each other and how do we accept each other and how do we

get on with it so that we can create something that's very special.

It's a brilliant story, John, and it links right into that passion I was talking to you

about before.

A leader is the, the business and a leader connect is groups of six people, five or six

people.

And, you know, the diversity of thinking we see is the superpower to have exactly as you

described.

You don't know what you don't know.

Do you?

And if you, you, you, often we operate in the same sphere and when people come from

outside, where the opportunity to, to, to grow and you're right, leadership sometimes

almost the wrong word, I feel, because it seems to exclude people.

We see everyone as being, you're a leader in your own family and you can, you don't

have to have a title to be a leader.

In fact, the opposite of that, you can lead from whatever position in an organization

or, or even in your own family.

So I appreciate you, you sharing that.

What, can I ask you, what was the bono like if you had some time with him?

Oh yeah.

Absolutely crazy.

Absolutely crazy.

And brilliant.

Yeah.

Absolutely brilliant.

You know?

Yeah.

And so each time he came to Australia, we'd invariably would, there, Rouse and I, and

he would have a dinner, you know, these long dinners and we'd, we'd, we'd discuss the world.

Yeah.

We'd discuss the world.

So the, I just, when you're talking about at least, you know, in terms of the teams,

Jeff Harris, who's co-founder of.

Yeah.

He's co-founder of our flight center.

Okay.

He had the great pleasure of doing a podcast with Jeff recently.

What a, what an incredible thinker Jeff is.

Oh yes.

That's right.

Amazing.

So we were talking about teams quite a few years ago and he, he would have told you,

would have told the audience now, I'm sure, about the early days of flight center where

they got four or five or six people together.

And really studied around why, you know, tribes and organization work.

Exactly.

And through trial and error and that, that, that sort of six to eight people was about

the max they felt.

Yeah.

And they built.

Yeah.

Well, what happens, they, based on early success, they went to 10 or 12 or 14.

They thought this is cool.

We just increased the size of the offices, but they, it didn't work.

Yeah.

They got to that level of, you know, six or eight max and that was it.

So that's these, you know, tribes, that's what we're talking about here.

Yeah.

Families and tribes.

And, uh, so De Bono, he sort of, that was his early thinking in many ways.

Ed De Bono.

I love that you've got an engineering.

Yeah.

You've got an engineering mindset and engineering brain, but some of the people you put closest

to you were Ben Lexen and Edward De Bono.

Oh, I love this.

Love these people.

Yeah.

So lovely story.

Okay.

So one of the deals is that Ed De Bono was brought in to consult, uh, in New York City,

a building which they couldn't really, couldn't rationalize putting faster lifts in.

It was too expensive.

It was a residential property.

And, uh, but the lifts were too slow and they're losing income because people didn't like waiting

for a long, long time to get up to there.

It was a 65th floor or whatever in New York City, downtown.

So he's brought in to help find a solution.

So he looked at the whole thing and it was clearly too expensive to, you know, go the

conventional route.

So he suggested installing mirrors, full length mirrors in the foyer.

Okay.

Why?

People like looking at each other.

And if they like looking at each other, then the time goes much faster.

And some people like looking at themselves as well too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Lateral thinking, you know, that's right.

So, okay.

So that's Ben Lexen.

That's out there.

You know, the breakthrough ideas aren't necessarily coming from a mathematical equation coming

out of MIT.

It's, uh, it's pure genius.

Uh, and the genius to me is people putting people around them, like you, that compliment

your skillset, isn't it?

Yes.

And that's, that's smart, isn't it?

You know, your engineering, uh, brain.

Well, all I know is I don't know.

It's true.

Yeah.

If you go in with that type of mindset, you know.

Yeah.

And saying, okay, well, again, uh, you know, this environment in 20 years time would be

much for, so different.

Yeah.

How do we get there faster than any other, other people in the world?

That's the, that's the exciting part of human endeavor in my opinion.

I love listening to it, uh, John.

It's always inspiring to, to hear your thoughts on, uh, on how to get there and what you've

done in the, in the past.

I've been asking these two questions, uh, John, to all the leaders, um, that I've had

the privilege of sitting down with.

Who's been the greatest leader in your life?

Gee.

Uh, well, first of all, um, in terms of, of our family, uh, my wife Raza, I've been married

for 53 years.

Her leadership of the family blows me away.

Unbelievable.

In terms of her natural instinct of what's going on.

You know, we've got kids in London, grandkids in London, Ibiza in Spain, in Melbourne, seven

grandkids.

And all the stuff going on.

And so that little family unit and just, you know, the extension and her natural empathy

for people around her and whatever, just, so that's leadership and it's pure, beautiful

form.

Yeah.

If we talk about high level, uh, you know, someone like the Bob Hawks of the world, um,

the, and spent time, you know, with, uh, with, with Bob, um, his natural instinct, um, yeah,

those types of people.

You know, we, we spent, spent some, I spent time with, um, Ted Kennedy in America, Jackie

Onassis or Jackie Kennedy in the early days, small amounts of time, but, you know, again,

people at, at this sort of a level, really intriguing.

Um, and, uh, you know, through Ted studying the John F. Kennedy era, the Cuban missile

crisis has staying at with Ted and his home in Washington and looking at some of the sketchings

of, uh, that.

Uh, JFK had done during the, during the key crisis meetings and the, and the notes and

so on, and learning about, you know, intriguing about human history being put together.

Um, those things fascinate me a lot, I must say.

Yeah.

But, uh, you know, again, the, the Bob Hawk thing was quite remarkable.

Spent some, quite a lot of time with John Howard, fascinating man, you know, uh, each

of these, all of these very, very strong values, you know, authentic, absolutely.

What you see is what you get.

Yeah.

I love you.

You started at home and then, um, you know, it's been an incredible life that you've,

you've lived and, and, you know, um, clearly your respect on the home front to be married

for 53 years.

Something special is happening there, uh, John, which is, um, not surprising you went

there first, but I loved it.

Hey, it surprises me.

I was 19 years yesterday actually.

So I'm, I'm, uh, I'm happy.

I'm, uh, I'm, I'm, you know, fair way to go to get to 53, John.

But I, I say this a fair bit because, um, and I need to sit down and, and, uh, interview

my wife because she's exactly the same, uh, superstar.

It sounds very much like Ra in terms of her empathy and, and what she does for our family

unit off the charts.

But I'm always surprised on, you've got such a, you know, an incredible brain for how to

succeed, but not many people apply that to their own home front.

I find fascinating because, you know, if that breaks down, your life is on every measure,

going to be, you know, immensely worse, isn't it?

So, um, it's interesting, isn't it?

Yeah.

And I'm not proud of my early days as a father, you know, I was off everywhere doing this

crazy thing, chasing the dream of whether Olympics or America's cups to the exclusion

of family life.

Do you look back with some regret for that?

Oh, gotcha.

Absolutely.

Oh, no question.

You know, looking back, you know, four days after our first, uh, was born, Lucas, you

know, I went to Europe for three months.

Because we're in the beginning.

Because we're in the business of developing our new sailcloth to win the America's cup,

you know, all of the stuff, you know, look back and you think, my God.

So, uh, but anyway, we were able to get through all of that.

Um, and, uh, so we've had plenty of, you know, uh, plenty of issues, you know, she rather

only left me three times, but, but each time she left me with a kid and we came back pretty

fast, but, uh, God bless her.

God bless her.

So she's seen more stuff than most girls who'd ever seen in a lifetime and traveling the

world and on the smell of an oil rag following her crazy dreams.

But, uh, you know, I, I've have, I've just so much respect for her and now as a grandmother,

what she achieves.

Yeah.

And that's human.

That's, that's people, isn't it?

And it's family and it's, it's, hey, how important is family is?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love hearing you talk about that.

Um, we, uh, obsessed with collaboration, John.

And we see that.

We see that that's where, you know, so much of the shift is and how we collaborate to

do things better.

Yeah.

Ask you this question, John, if you could collaborate with anyone in the world on, on,

on anything, there's so many passions in your life.

Is there someone in your, in your mind that you think of that you would like to, to pursue

in terms of collaboration?

Gee, um, was, uh, I've got a, you know, depending on the areas of, of, uh, activity, uh, you

know, some really, really interesting characters.

Like, uh, Rod Eddington, Sir Rod, you know, go around the, around the town with him occasionally

when he's in Australia and, and, uh, people like John Wiley, you know, massive, amazing

intellect in terms of understanding what's going on in, in the, in the financial world.

And for example, um, over in the, over in Europe, uh, Ben Ainslie, who's the head of

the British America's Cup Challenge, Sir Ben now, um, you know, we're very good friends.

We, uh, you know, we've raced with each other.

Yeah.

We've raced with each other in the Etchells and so on.

Uh, it, you know, I, I love hanging out with really, you know, advanced people, um, so,

and I have the, you know what, I have the privilege also, uh, to, to hang out with some

really interesting cats as well, you know, so I'm very fortunate in that regard.

Um, so it's, gee, there's so, there's people who just, there's so many different angles

of life, isn't there?

That you, you know.

I love that your mind's going off in so many directions, John.

And I know that you have a huge amount of influence over so many people as well and

what you give back and you're so generous with your time to, uh, to people across all

the passions of your life from the Collingwood Football Club to, I mentioned, uh, the Alana

and Madeleine Foundation and, and all of your work in everything is, uh, is profound and

it's, uh, it's been great fun, John.

I've, uh, I've learned a lot again sitting along, um, from you today.

So thanks so much.

I appreciate you joining me.

Let me just, a little correction.

The Alana and Madeleine Foundation.

I retired several years ago.

But I was there, I was chair for 15 years with that.

And we've helped, as it turns out, millions of kids in terms of cyber-bullying issues

around that, so.

Yeah.

And people who don't, the background of that is, is, is incredible, isn't it?

Yeah.

One of the most tragic stories in Australian history.

And on the back of that, to have such a profound influence on young people, that must feel

you enjoyed.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Very, yeah.

Very, very fulfilling.

You can make a small difference to a lot of people's lives.

That's right.

Bigger than a small difference.

John, everything you do makes a massive difference and, uh, once again, thanks for your time.

My pleasure.

Empowering Leaders was presented by me, Luke Darcy, produced by Matt Dwyer with audio production

by Darcy Thompson.

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