Relentless Customer Leader Podcast

Dr Chris Brown (00:00)
Well, hi David, it's great to see you again mate. It's been a while, but always good to see your smiling face there.

Dr David Cooke (00:07)
likewise and thanks very much Chris.

Dr Chris Brown (00:09)
So I thought we could start by just getting a bit more background on your own experiences as a young man sort of growing up and then moving into the business world. What were sort of the influences for you to get involved in business sort of early on in your career?

Dr David Cooke (00:30)
That's a very interesting question. I'm not sure I've ever been asked it before, but look, mine probably wasn't the traditional path. I didn't do that well in high school, really because of lack of application on my part, I would venture to say, and I didn't qualify for university. So this is my last year of high school was 1971. And...

But interestingly, I kind of stumbled across a relaxation technique called TM or Transcendental Meditation at that time. Started practicing it, it was really good for me, helped me sort my life out a little bit. And I decided I wanted to become a teacher of that. So I went overseas, came back, opened up a center and started running public lectures and teaching people. A lot of business people came as a form of stress management in their lives. And I...

taught that for about 10 years full time. However, you know, it was motivated by I suppose a bit of a gene in me that wanted to save the world, you know, or do something worthwhile with my young life. But it didn't pay very well. So after a while, I really needed to go out and get a job job. And, and that's when I started applying for different roles and, and I ended up at the Xerox Corporation.

which was a great place to land back in the 80s because I went into a sales role and probably IBM and Xerox were really considered to be the kings, I think, of professional selling in those days. So I was trained very well, I had very good managers and I just learned a lot. And, you know, either fortuitously or for my sins, I...

I remained in that imaging industry for the 35 years of my corporate career.

Dr Chris Brown (02:26)
Yeah, did you find you took to sales kind of like a duck to water? Was it something that just sort of naturally came to you or what was the experience like? I mean, they had incredible training and really professional sort of approach to selling, didn't they, in those days? But was it something that was easy or how did you find that experience?

Dr David Cooke (02:46)
Yeah, another great question. Look, I probably felt very uncomfortable initially. I must admit there was one step before that. I worked in a Xerox instant printing center initially, pressing buttons on an analog photocopier basically, producing customer work. And then pretty quickly they made me a store manager and they knew that I'd originally applied for a sales job, which went to a more experienced person.

but, but they, they'd never forgotten that. And they, when one territory came up, they offered it to me and, and away I went and I did start to question myself as to whether I was the right material because all the salespeople seem to be pretty confident and brash. And, you know, there was that old expression, you know, to be a good salesman, you've got to have the gift of the gab. And although we're having a good chat right now, I'm a pretty quiet kind of person.

But the very first day I walked into the new branch where I was going to be a salesperson, my manager said to me, go upstairs and speak to the state manager, Barry. He's going to teach you how to sell. And so because I hadn't actually been on a course yet, I was scheduled to go on a course. And I thought, you know, this is where it begins. And I walked in and I asked, you know, who was Barry? And they motioned to an office and I went and sat down and he said, you are the new

Young guy, are you? Yep, yep. Been expecting you. Said, sit down. And he said, so I'll teach you how to sell. God gave you two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion and just learn how to ask lots of good questions and shut up and listen. There endeth the lesson. He told me to leave his office and just go out and start selling. And I breathed an enormous sigh of relief because I was probably better at

asking questions and listening. I was a person that had a fairly high degree of curiosity, I think, and keen to learn. But I didn't necessarily have the gift of the gab. What he was saying was that, well, that's what you don't want. You want to be able to listen. You've got to uncover customer needs. And if your solution is selling, there's got to be a problem to solve. And you've got to know what the problem is before you can offer a solution. So it wasn't about product selling. It wasn't about selling on features of products.

It was about uncovering the need that a client may or may not have. And somebody later said to me too, don't ever sell somebody something they don't need. And so you got to start with a discussion about what they might need in their business. And so that was really my entry point. And yeah, I think I was pretty good at it because I sold along the lines of professional solution selling.

Dr Chris Brown (05:40)
It was a great early lesson, wasn't it? I mean, and probably very timely for you in terms of your own career and development. And when you think about where you went from there, so you spent time at Xerox and then moved to Conica at a certain point, what was the trigger for that? How did that evolve? How did that come to be?

Dr David Cooke (05:42)
You

Yeah, so that was via a little 13 -year stint at Canon. So they were the three imaging organizations that I worked for in my time. And look, that really came about because opportunities came up to move into a more senior management role. And...

Certainly the Japanese companies were really starting to encroach quite significantly into that tech space. And Canon seemed like a good place to be. And when I left Canon, I'd set up a national accounts program to sell to the largest companies in Australia, largest corporations. And...

I did a stint as a state manager for New South Wales in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia's capital city. And it was successful and it was very good. But then the opportunity came up to move to Connacham and Alter in quite a senior role. And I was on that executive level reporting to the managing director at that point. That's the first time I'd done that.

And all of these companies are run by Japanese managing directors. And so at ConocoMnalter, I never assumed for a moment that I could move to that next step and be the managing director myself. Except one day, lo and behold, I got a tap on the shoulder and I was told that they'd like me to be the first non -Japanese managing director of the company in its 40 year history in Australia. So...

My career in that sense was very progressive within that particular sector.

Dr Chris Brown (07:53)
Yeah, yeah. And it must have been an interesting contrast to go from Xerox, sort of a US based organisation to the Japanese run businesses. Did you notice that sort of difference in culture and the way in which things were done? How would you describe that? How did you experience it?

Dr David Cooke (08:15)
Yeah, there definitely was a difference. When I was at Xerox in the 80s, it was rank Xerox. So it was 50 % British, 50 % American. And it was the management team in Australia came from the UK. So it probably wasn't exactly the same as Xerox Corporation USA. But a lot of systems and procedures were the same. And I would say it had a pretty hard commercial edge to it.

you know, there was a lot of accountability, you know, high expectations and in many ways sort of short timeframes to achieve things and for success and not a lot of tolerance of lack of success. And that was all fine. It kind of, you know, toughened you up a little bit and built robustness, I guess, into your, you know, nature when you're at work.

And I would say that the move to Japanese companies, they were probably a bit less systematized than the American influence in rank Xerox. And in a way, probably a slightly softer environment. But no less determined to take market share and be successful globally. And they certainly were. And they manufactured,

excellent products as well, which of course helped. But I enjoyed my time at Canon and Conic and Monalto, the two Japanese companies, one I was at for 13 years, one I was at for 15 years. And I found the Japanese to be very, very nice people, you know, very polite, very considerate, at times very frustrating too, because it's a hierarchical decision making process. So,

Nobody would ever make a decision unless their boss had already told them in anticipation of the decision to be made what to do. So you could put forward a very reasonable suggestion to your Japanese managing director or during one of my Tokyo visits and typically there would be no answer. And then the Japanese person would check with their boss at night, this came up in the meeting, David asked this, he proposes.

Dr Chris Brown (10:26)
Mm.

Dr David Cooke (10:35)
what would you like me to say? And so I was used to a slightly harder edged, quicker decision -making cycle. And I had to get very used to the fact that because of the hierarchical nature of Japanese companies, it would be disrespectful for a person at one level to make a decision unless they were sure the person above them wanted that decision to be made in that way. And it was all based on respect, but...

It was probably more my nature to say, look, it's a logical proposal. Let's just approve it and get on with it and we'll see if it works or not. So it had its frustrations, but I also very liked the Japanese very much.

Dr Chris Brown (11:15)
Yeah. And I mean, it was a tremendous achievement to be the very first managing director of Konica Minolta here in Australia. What do you think brought that about? Obviously you were delivering some great results and they had a lot of confidence in you, but was there something that you think triggered that change for them? Did they feel like there was a need to do that, to compete more effectively or what do you think was behind that?

Dr David Cooke (11:41)
Yeah, look, I imagine in its essence, it was exactly that, Chris. They probably felt after having observed me for seven years as the head of sales, realized that I understood the market and we had produced very good results. They were very progressive and the reputation of the company was growing and so on. They probably thought, well,

We've got to the end of a four year cycle of Japanese managing directors visa running out. Instead of doing what we've done for the last 40 years, you know, let's put David into that role. They had that confidence, but it still took an individual to make that decision. And the person that made the decision was the number two person in the company. So there's the president that sat across all divisions.

imaging where I was, but also there's medical and various measuring equipment and things like that. So I reported to the person who was head of the office equipment division essentially, and that was about 70 % of the company globally. So he was definitely the number two guy. And he was a bit of a maverick.

He was the sort of guy, he's been a lot of time in the US actually. He used to run the US for the company and he was just different. He wasn't afraid to think outside the box. And yeah, so he kind of rolled the dice. Now, it's a little bit funny that, you know, to appoint somebody with nearly 30 years experience in the Australian industry, having worked for Xerox and Canon and with now seven years worth of proven results.

I wouldn't have thought it was a particularly risky gamble to take. But for a Japanese person, it kind of was. But anyway, it worked out to be a good decision for the company and for myself.

Dr Chris Brown (13:36)
Alright.

Yeah, it says something doesn't it about that Japanese culture that was still perceived as perhaps risky with all those that track record of great success and the history and so on. And when you took on the role, I mean, what was the approach that you took when you first took on that new role? How did you think about taking on the role, thinking about the organization you're now inheriting, you got that broader scope of responsibility? What was your approach?

Dr David Cooke (14:15)
Yeah, well I think day one and to a larger degree day two were very, very interesting days, very defining days. So the announcement was made at a conference, an annual conference to start the Japanese Financial Year, you know, in a five -star hotel in Sydney. We had about 300 people there, our own team members, but also a lot of regional dealers and so on. And as had always happened, four or five.

very senior Japanese people had come out from Tokyo for the conference and the main person would do a keynote speech and so on. And it was known that the managing director that we'd had for four years was going back, so everybody was waiting for the announcement of the new person. And the assumption was that it was one of the five people sitting in the front row.

But the most senior got up and he said, look, I'm pleased to announce that the name of the new managing director that'll run the company here in Australia and we've appointed David Cook. So I was the only one outside of the Japanese who knew that decision had been taken and everybody was quite flabbergasted, I think. And anyway, I got up on stage and I hadn't written a speech. I don't really write speeches. I'm not.

particularly good at that, I'd rather just talk off the cuff. And what I said to everybody was, I want us all to work together to build a company that cares, that cares about the people who work here, that cares about our customers and cares about our community. And the next day I walked into the office for the very first time as the managing director and I emailed everybody in the company and I said, look, a lot of you weren't able to be at the conference, but this is the...

if you like the vision statement that I made on the day, there's only one problem. I don't actually know how to achieve it. And I need your help. I really need your ideas. I need you to tell me honestly, what's good about working here? What's not so good? What do we need to do? You know, we're still a fair way back in sort of market share. We're probably sitting about fourth at that stage, but we had aspirations to go higher, even though the company's...

above us were much, much larger than ourselves and had much better brand recognition and so on. And so, and then I said, I'll be getting back to you soon with a mechanism to gather up those ideas. So please help me. We're all in this together. So that's the approach that I took. And if you look at kind of standard management practice back then, that was 2013, probably,

Conventional wisdom would have said, well, everybody's waiting to see whether they've made the right choice, even though they knew me in the company. And, you know, probably what you should do is to show great confidence and assertiveness and let everybody know that you know what you're doing and you're, you know, all those sort of classic leadership traits. But instead what I did, I think I showed quite a lot of vulnerability. I said, look, I'm the new person to do the job, but I...

I don't know how to do this, very important aspect of it. And maybe to some degree, some humility as well. And I would say that leadership theory has evolved a fair bit in that last 10 years or so. And we probably do understand now that for a so -called leader to show a degree of humility and vulnerability are actually leadership traits, albeit possibly still not that common. But.

That's how it all started and that was the tone that was set, I think, on day one and day two.

Dr Chris Brown (18:07)
In talking with people then after that, what was your experience in sort of engaging employees around this idea of building a company that cares and that sort of direction for the firm? What was the feedback that you got?

Dr David Cooke (18:23)
Yes, yes. Well, that's pretty much the point where we met Chris. And I have to say, I'm very glad that we did. Because as you know, we went into discussions together and you, I think, clearly understood what I was trying to achieve and the challenges that lay ahead and so on. And, and

you know, we did implement the MRI tool, the Market Responsiveness Index. And in a way, I had said to people that customers are one of our most important three pillars of the organization. And I did emphasize to people that we'll only be successful if we care for our customers. And we did need to gauge and measure.

if you like, you know, where were we at at that point in time of, you know, how customer centric were we, but also that the tool was a fantastic way to gather up these ideas that are asked for from people about, you know, what needs to change in the company. And the funny thing is that the executive team that I inherited and I did make some changes in that team fairly early on, but at this point,

When I said to people, I'm going to ask everybody in the company what they want. A couple of people were horrified, you know, you can't do that. They're going to all ask for more money and we won't be able to give it to them. And you're just going to disappoint people, David, and you've got the right intention, but you're getting this all wrong. And anyway, I kind of backed my intuition, I suppose, on it. And we did send the MRI out. And as you know, Chris, to...

Well, there was a 400 person company in those days. This is just employees. There were probably double that when we looked at dealers and contractors and sales agents and people like that. But we got well over 90 % response rate to a voluntary survey. People didn't have to reply to it.

But they wanted to, they were hungry. It's the first time probably they'd ever been asked their opinion. You know, how do you think we should run this company? A little bit unprecedented probably again in a Japanese culture. And, you know, not only did we get a lot of very, very valuable information about people's attitudes towards the company currently, but we had free text fields where people could just enter their own thoughts and...

And we got, you know, my memory is something like 800 written responses to a survey that went out to 400 people. And I think we handled it quite well. I went straight back to people to let them know what the response rate had been. I let people know that I'd read every single survey myself. So I didn't say, look, I'm a really busy, important...

new managing director, I'll have my secretary read them all and give me the best five ideas or a team maybe set up to vet them or whatever. I didn't do that, I did it all myself and I told everybody I did. If you took the trouble to send an idea in, I read your idea. And then we went, you know, we went back again subsequently and we, you know, went into a more sort of nuanced phase of

You're asking for a better culture, what does that look like to you? Or you're asking for better communication, what are some of your ideas and so on? And to be honest, off the back of having used the MRI, it kind of lit a fuse, if you like, and it just created a wave of cultural change within the organization where all of a sudden people felt like their opinion was valued.

and would be listened to. And it was absolutely transformative for our organization.

Dr Chris Brown (22:34)
Yeah, you did an incredible job of executing it and really taking action on the feedback that you were receiving. And as you said, you know, a number of people in the leadership team, I'm sure, were concerned about what was going to come. And that's sort of a natural sort of fear of the unknown. And, you know, what are people going to ask us to do over time? How did you find did you did you find the team sort of?

bought into it a little bit more over time as they saw the results coming in and they saw sort of some of the change happening and saw the direction start to move or how did you handle that with your leadership?

Dr David Cooke (23:14)
Yeah, look, I would say definitely that the majority thought, wow, you know, this is quite a powerful way to go. And, you know, honestly, the feeling inside the organisation had become more positive and it was palpable. You could feel it, you know, people were kind of happier coming to work. And so there was no denying it. And then, you know, perhaps...

in a moment we can get onto some things like, you know, did it flow through to commercial results and so on, but, and they were undeniable because even the greatest skeptic, you know, couldn't ignore the numbers on the page or whatever. But, but look, you know, still in any executive team, you probably have a slice of society and you have some people that are more predisposed to things like this, this sort of approach and, and some who are less predisposed and whose skills lie in other areas. And so they don't.

quite have the confidence maybe to reinvent themselves or to embrace other ways of doing things. So, you know, the team was always a little bit mixed, but, and of course the other important stakeholder was Tokyo. Did Tokyo kind of get this stuff? And the answer probably was no, not really, because that's not how they operate. You know, I was supposed to tell everybody below me just to sit and wait and I'd tell them what to do.

But again, I would never say in any role that you become bulletproof because your results are good or whatever, that would be folly. But I think it gave me a degree of licence to run the company the way I wanted to run it. Because again, Japanese are very results oriented. And when they see the numbers coming through, well,

Dr Chris Brown (24:38)
Yeah.

Dr David Cooke (25:08)
They would query a number of things I was doing, but at the end of the day, I would politely and professionally ask them to back me, please. I've got a strategy here and know what I'm doing. They largely let me run the company in Australia the way I felt it should be run.

Dr Chris Brown (25:27)
Yeah, yeah, particularly delivering great results gives you that ability to create more flexibility for how you want to lead the organization and what you want to do to take it forward. And as part of, I know your strategy there was to really engage in some social causes. I mean, that was feedback, I think, that came from some of the employees as well. But tell me a bit more about how that sort of manifests in some of the programs that you came up with to engage employees around that.

that process.

Dr David Cooke (25:58)
Yeah, so that was directly from them. That wasn't a top -down instruction from me. It would, it percolated up. and, the, the, the thing most often requested if I categorize them, in terms of responses to the MRI, where the first thing was they wanted better communication. It was too siloed. It was too hierarchical. Every department was just, stuck to themselves.

I mean, I physically knocked down walls and I merged departments and I advised people about our financial results every single month. I gave them information they'd never received before. So communication actually was really easy. It was kind of the low hanging fruit. The next most requested thing was more purpose in their jobs. We didn't have any sort of social outreach programs. We didn't have charity partnerships. So we did that. We actually, again, we took the same approach. We said to our...

team members, look, this is what you've been asking for. We would like you to vote on who our charity partner should be. And we just gave them categories of social, environmental, and various categories like that. And they voted and it was just completely democratic. We've got the most votes, they became our charity partner. So again, we're being inclusive, including people in these things as we went. And...

But probably the most significant shift in that direction was we used to have an annual incentive trip overseas where the top performing salespeople and also our dealers would win a trip overseas if they were X percentage above budget and they and their partner would go away and would have a gala awards dinner on the main night and all that kind of thing. A lot of corporations do, probably a little bit less now, but.

And this particular one coming up, my first one as managing director was in Cambodia. And we needed a keynote speaker, but goodness me, I'd never been to Cambodia and I didn't know any Cambodian keynote speakers, but I had a woman recommended to me who had spent the last 20 years of her life rescuing young girls who'd been trafficked from regional villages into the...

into the brothel systems of the main cities in Cambodia. She'd been rescuing them and going through a process of rehabilitation and getting them into school and in a few cases even university. And so I was very reticent that that was the right sort of speaker to have at a awards dinner. But I was told there was light at the end of the tunnel. It was a very inspiring story. And so we went ahead.

And, and that woman actually brought five young women with her, five who had managed to qualify for university. and, they'd had funding for the first year, but there was no funding after that. So, there's an expression in the human rights world, which is, once you know, you can't unknow and once you've seen, you can't unsee. so pretty much, you know, these were the first.

people that have been enslaved that we'd ever met in our lives. And we decided on the spot that we'd add this organization, it's called AFESIP, it's an acronym, French acronym for assisting women in distressing situations. We'd add them to our charity partnerships and we put in place salary match giving and annual donations from the company and things of that nature. And...

And the staff just really, really, really got behind it. It was just another one of those ways of including people and responding to people's requests as to what sort of company did they want us to be.

Dr Chris Brown (29:53)
Yeah, that's a great story, David. I mean, I think it really speaks, doesn't it, to this yearning that most people have for sort of more meaning in the work that they're doing. And, you know, that's one element. You know, there's a lot of talk about purpose in business and how that manifests. And it manifests a little bit differently for everyone, doesn't it? And from our perspective, a lot of that can manifest through the customer engagement.

and how you treat customers and how you're delivering value for them. But it's also through these other engagements with social causes and things that are meaningful to individuals. So I can see how that would really drive a lot of engagement for people and make it a more attractive place to be part of. Did you get that sort of feedback from people?

Dr David Cooke (30:40)
yes, definitely. I couldn't walk down the corridor or go into the lunchroom to make a coffee or get in the lift without people commenting about the positive changes that they felt were taking place.

you know, I might tell a particularly poignant story towards the back end of our chat this morning because I say the back end because I do tend to choke up a bit when I tell this story, but you mentioned customer there. And so, you know, these initiatives I've indicated really galvanized our company internally and our people. But...

But it was very interesting that what started to happen also was that our commercial results started to improve quite dramatically. And one area that we'd never particularly penetrated in the market was the major corporate area, which was disappointing for me because I'd set up that program at Canon. But if you were going to get three quotes as a large corporate or you wanted to sort of run with one of the big providers and...

you know, be a pretty safe bet. We probably wouldn't get on your shopping list. You know, there's an old expression, nobody ever got fired for buying from IBM because, you know, it's a pretty, you know, even if it didn't go well, it's a pretty easy decision to justify. And if you're a big corporate letting an Australian wide contract or in some cases, Australian companies doing a global contract out of Australia, then...

then typically Konica Minolta didn't come into the discussion. But we started to win these contracts and I might have been involved at the front end with the pitch, but sometimes I wasn't. But in every case, when the contract was awarded, I'd go and I would thank them. And typically I'd say, look, thank you very much. We're very appreciative of becoming your technology partner. And we think you've made a great decision because we actually think we're a really, really good company.

But may I ask, please, how did you come to that conclusion? And typically, they'd say something like this. Look, our tender evaluation team went through the normal processes. And what they determined was pretty much for multifunction device, network printing and scanning devices, everybody's products are pretty much the same. Everybody's service levels are pretty much the same.

everybody's pricing was remarkably similar for a big contract like this. And so ordinarily there would be no reason to change and we'd just stick with our current supplier, who we're pretty happy with. And that would save all the pain of changing network protocols and retraining staff and all that kind of stuff. And then they'd either say, but this time we decided or sometimes they'd say this time our internal governance procedures now require us.

to not only focus on what it is you're trying to sell us, but to focus on who you are. And I found that a very compelling expression. We now want to know who we're buying from, not just what you're selling. And they said, and when we did that, and one man summed that up beautifully, he said, you all come in here trying to sell your bright new shiny cars. We weren't selling cars, of course, but that was his analogy. And he said, and now we look under the hood.

It's that same concept to see who you are as a company. And time and time again, these people said to me, when we looked under the hood, or when we looked deeply at who you were, we saw significant differences. Now all the companies were good companies, by the way, but what they had said is we felt you're an exceptional company. We were aware of the vision statement you made, you know, initially when you took over, we're aware of the internal programs you've introduced.

We're aware of your charity partnerships and everybody's got them. You guys seem to be having deeper relationships with these people. And you're not just doing corporate social responsibility, you're taking on a human rights issue. Young women being trafficked. A lot of companies won't go anywhere near something like slavery. And we'd moved into things like ethical sourcing, looking at where the goods that were used in our business, where were they made, were the people paid a living wage, et cetera, et cetera.

And the thing is, it's really easy to do research on a company. You can really find out a lot about who they are. And these companies were doing that now. And at the end of the discussion, they would say to me, so when it came down to the final decision, we felt that your values and our values were very closely aligned. And we think you're a really good fit for us. And we think that we'll probably be partners for a very long while. And that proved to be the case.

So we didn't think there was any link between improving our internal culture and the marketplace, but there was a direct link.

Dr Chris Brown (35:52)
Yeah, yeah, that's a fantastic example, isn't it? And I mean, it allowed you to stand out in the marketplace in a unique way in a market that's very commoditized as you described there. When you think about the your own journey, your leadership journey through these different firms over many years, I mean, are there things that were real challenges or setbacks that you had that sort of stood out and

made you rethink or move in different directions? Is there any sort of stories around that? For instance, I just had a recent guest on that that told me about a situation where he made an investment for the company that ultimately cost the company $200 million. Now that's a pretty big setback and learning, but he was supported and they learnt a lot from that experience. But was there something that you had in your own journey?

something along those lines that was a big learning and lesson for you.

Dr David Cooke (36:54)
Yeah, look, I think I learned many things. Probably one of the big ones for me was really just have the courage of your convictions. And even when there are people, very influential people, you know, your boss and so on, that might want you to take a different direction to what you truly believe in, you have to stay true to who you are.

if you really feel you're doing the right thing by the company that you're working for. And after my first full year as managing director, I visited Tokyo each quarter, but I was up there now for the full year review with my boss. And my appointment was the following day. I arrived in Tokyo the night before and my hotel was next to the office in Maranuchi, the business district. And I thought, well, six o 'clock,

you know, people will still be there. I'll just pop in and say hello to a few colleagues and then I'll go and book into the hotel. And my boss happened to see me. He was one of the very few people, in fact, the only person on the floor that had an office. And he motioned for me to come over. So I came over and he said, sit down. And he said, look, I know we're not meeting till tomorrow formally, but he said, I just need to tell you that I'm really disappointed in your first year.

And I said, that's interesting. Let's talk more about that. Because really we'd gone from losing money to making a little bit of money and our market share had gone up and things are going pretty well, I thought. And I said to him, look, I kind of thought we're going to have a different conversation, but let's talk about this. And what's the main reason for your disappointment? And he said, I just think you could have done so much better.

And I said, well, in a way, that's a real compliment to me because the results have improved a lot. But you're kind of saying I reached this level, but you thought I could actually go to that level in my first year. And he said, yeah, I think you could have. And I said, what do you think got in the way or held me back? And he said, it's really easy to answer. He said, all that corporate social responsibility you do, you just let yourself get distracted. You know, you should have just stuck to

you know, selling more product. And I said, well, you know, I really appreciate your honesty in giving me that feedback. But let's talk about that a little bit because I said, I would argue that the reason that we have improved the financial results, the commercial results is because we did those things. We did it because we moved from a disengaged

workforce, if you like, to a fully engaged group of people. We earn the respect of our customers and, you know, we've earned a lot of respect out there in the marketplace as well. So I think it directly fed into our success. And he said, I completely disagree with you. And he waved his arm and motioned for me to leave his office. And I said, OK, well, again, I appreciate the feedback. And I said, I'm going to go back to my hotel now. And of course, what's going to happen?

is I'm going to sit there and I'm going to contemplate very deeply the feedback that you've just given me. I respect you greatly as a senior global business leader and I'll be thinking about every word that you shared with me. So thank you and I'll see you in the morning. Now, he didn't see me in the morning because I'd crossed the line of what was considered to be a polite way to interact with your boss in a Tokyo head office.

I hadn't just simply said, yes, you're right and acknowledged and changed what I was doing and dropped all of those things. And the reason I didn't was in good conscience. I knew that were the pillars of our success. And as a human being, I didn't want to just be somebody that couldn't exercise who they were. So I actually didn't have a choice but to keep doing what we were always doing. But he didn't speak to me for nearly a year.

He ended up being moved into a different role at the end of that year. So he was my boss for two years, but he mostly interacted through other people rather than having direct contact with me. And then I bumped into him at a big trade show in Germany just at the end of his time. And I was very, very pleased. He came over to me and very warmly thanked me for my time contribution to the company when he was my boss and, you know, genuinely asked how I was and...

how my family was and everything. And it was really a lovely way to tie up our two years relationship. And it kind of said, look, that was water under the bridge. We didn't always agree, but we still maintained mutual respect. But I've used that as a lesson in saying to people, if you think you're doing the right thing, stay the course. It's going to work out. It might be a bit tough for a while, but always be true to yourself.

and it'll be fine.

Dr Chris Brown (42:13)
It's tremendous conviction there, David, isn't it? And certainly very challenging for people to be able to do that in that situation. So it's an incredible example of conviction and following through and not taking sort of that feedback and using it to change course when it was unnecessary in your view. And obviously you were delivering results, perhaps.

He had a different view of what those results should have been, but you were the one that was doing it. So it's a great story.

Dr David Cooke (42:48)
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I mean, we didn't do a lot of the things that we did as a commercial strategy to increase revenue and grow market share and increase profitability. It wasn't like that. The commercial results spilt out of a, they were the results of doing something whereby we wanted to care for our people.

and we wanted to be open, honest and transparent with our customers. And we felt that we should be having a footprint in society that made a positive contribution. So it was the focus on doing the good, but just automatically you get that reward. I don't exactly know how the system works, but we didn't have to focus on the numbers. And...

Dr Chris Brown (43:42)
Yeah, it's great. I mean, I think there's a lot of good evidence that shows that people that feel like they matter in an organization, people that are going to contribute back to that organization at a much higher level, right, which is really what employee engagement is about, is that, you know, if I think the senior leader actually cares about me more than just being sort of delivering a number, then...

then maybe I should be doing more to contribute to the company. So I think that there's a lot of good evidence that I've seen that shows those connections. And I think you've proven that out in the work that you've been doing.

Dr David Cooke (44:23)
Yeah, and Chris, there is evidence. But I think it's a lot more powerful than people realise, I think. And it wasn't until we used the MRI and went out to everybody and said, every single person in this company matters and your views matter, please come back and interact with us, that we probably realised it. But I mentioned earlier that I...

I would like to tell one story about how connected people started to feel. So I'll share that now. But after it was during my first year, I think I invited everybody who'd been in the company for 25 years or more to come to Sydney. And I said, I just want to take you out to dinner as a group and thank you for your loyalty to the company. And, you know, the company had been going for 40 years and some people had worked there that whole time. It's quite amazing, really.

But, and there were about a dozen people and they're all field service engineers. So, you know, when you're in the office and you're printing to that multifunction device and it jams and the paper doesn't come out the end of it or whatever and you kick it and that doesn't work. So you ring up the number and a service engineer comes in and sorts it out for you. Those people, they were the ones who stayed the longest in the company. And we were just in a public restaurant.

No private dining room or anything, having a cheap and cheerful nice night out. And we got to the end of the meal and one man who hadn't spoken all evening said, would you mind if I say something? And I said, no, of course, I'd be delighted. And he stood up in the middle of this public restaurant and he made what I'm sure was the first speech he'd ever made in his life. People turned around in the restaurant to see what was going on.

And he said, I've worked here for over 25 years. That's why you invited me this evening. And for that entire time, I never told anybody where I worked. I just didn't see the point. It was just a job, just a place I went to. And that's, I did a fair days work for a fair days pay and that's how I fed my family. So, but now I tell every single person I meet.

that I work for Conica Minolta. And why would I do that? I do that because I feel so proud to work for an organisation that would care about young women who've been trafficked into a life of sexual slavery on the other side of the world. Now,

Anybody that manages one person or a team or a department or an entire company, I think would agree that the Holy Grail is getting everybody on the same page, all pulling together and all fully engaged. But it's very challenging to do that. What happened in this case was that this man's engagement meter went from disengaged, he's a good enough company to stay, but he wasn't engaged.

It moved from disengaged to engaged and the meter kept going. He ended up as a loyal public advocate for our company, which was completely outside of his day job, if you like, but he felt compelled to tell people who he worked for and why he worked there and how proud he was. And.

And I would have had 50 people subsequently at different stages say something similar to me, like I say when I'm in the coffee queue or whatever it might be. And so it's not why we did it, but gosh, including people making them feel cared for and that their opinion is respected is incredibly powerful in terms of what you can unleash in a company.

Dr Chris Brown (48:07)
Yeah, what a powerful example that is, David. And I think that also speaks to this linkage between employee engagement and people that are really passionate and engaged and customer engagement too, and customers being that, because we've got stories of the customer, you know, that was having a bad experience, wasn't being treated appropriately and turning them into advocates too, right? And it's a similar process that you're really doing. And

Dr David Cooke (48:33)
Yeah.

Dr Chris Brown (48:36)
And so, you know, the two things are very deeply linked and it's something that we've sort of looked at and known about for a long time, but it's now starting to be, I think, more and more recognised as those links become clearer.

Dr David Cooke (48:51)
I think so. And I think if you head down that customer engagement path, I would encourage everybody to push it to its limits. Don't put a limit on it. So for instance, when we'd have these annual conferences, we would invite some of our customers to sit in on the conference. Yeah, there's a few trade secrets being delivered that day, new product releases that'll come out in three months time, or it might be.

to the salespeople that had gathered there and our dealers, but that was fine. So we'd have some customers in the audience. Sometimes we'd have them up on stage. We might get a procurement person to give us a talk. What's important to them? What do they value most when somebody's coming in and trying to sell them something? Or we'd have them on a panel, a facilitated panel. And even sometimes outside of a conference arena,

If we were going to make a fairly important shift in strategy or market positioning or whatever, and we had to refine that or make final decisions, sometimes we'd bring a customer into the boardroom and say, look, you're very important to us and your opinion is very important, and you have knowledge and skills that we don't have. And we don't ever want our business relationship with you to be a transactional one. We want it to have much more depth to it than that.

would you have an hour or two to give us to come in and be a part of that meeting to help us in our strategy shift? And so again, it's just all about inclusivity. It's just not seeing boundaries of seller, buyer, external society, the employees, family, all these things being completely different. We're all completely interconnected.

And we started to introduce a lot of internal policies that would support people in their family life. Parental leave policies and domestic violence policies and things of that nature as well, because we saw people's families as being part of our ecosphere. What I didn't want was a company that saw that the company began when somebody walked through the front door and it ended when they walked out of that same door at the end of the day. We wanted to see ourself connected.

with people, with their families outside of work, with the community. And then as I say, we even moved into things like assessing our supply chains globally in terms of where uniforms were made and who made them and how much were people paid and were they treated well. And we had a very broad vision rather than a very narrow vision. And I really feel it was the right way to run the company.

Dr Chris Brown (51:40)
Yeah, you speak to a couple of interesting challenges there, you know, this transactional mindset versus more of a relational mindset, you know, where sort of doing deals all the time versus thinking more long term about, you know, this is a partnership where we can work together. What is what's been your experience at trying to overcome some of that transactional mindset? Is there are there things that leaders can do to help?

help people move beyond that, move beyond that shorter term thinking.

Dr David Cooke (52:16)
Yeah, I look there are challenges. I think the challenges are probably say in our case, the direct sales business and we will be to be not be to see the challenge probably lies at that at the co -face with the salesperson and the account executive. You know, who, you know, might might be sort of living month to month against a budget and to say to them, yeah, we want you to make your budget this month and every month.

but please elevate your vision so that you do build this longer term relationship with your clients because that will pay dividends. And I think the best way for any senior person in an organization to reinforce that probably is to model it themself, which is almost like saying, well, this is the way I do it and hey, here are some successes, but also I'm giving you license to do it as well. And I'm asking you to do it.

So I remember we were pitching for one very large contract, arguably one of the largest in Australia, and we'd never been a supplier. In their thinking, we probably weren't going to get on a short list or whatever. And I went along with the local manager in Canberra, it was, and...

And we sat in front of a panel. If you've ever seen Senate estimates in Parliament, you know, there'll be sort of seven or eight people in a panel and then there's some poor bunny sitting at a microphone out the front and they grill them. It was exactly like that. And it opened up with the most senior finance person, it was the Department of Finance running this process, said...

Look, as you would be aware, you're nowhere near as big as a lot of the other people who are interested in obtaining this contract. And although it's going to be a panel contract of a number of suppliers, we're only going to have a very small number. And so you know that there's going to be bigger, there are big competitors than you. So why would we even think about selecting you and putting you on the panel? And so we started to unpack that discussion.

And I said to this particular woman, well, you've obviously indicated to me that size is very important to you in terms of a big supplier, but can we have a look at maybe some of the advantages of dealing with a mid -tier size supplier? And she responded that she didn't really think there were any. And I had the Japanese managing director with us then. This is just before I became MD. And...

And I said, may I ask if any of the other suppliers had their managing director come in and talk to you throughout this process? And they said, no. I said, well, there's one difference. And I said, if we were fortunate enough to become your supplier, another difference is from time to time, we're likely to make mistakes and breach contractual terms. So the contract might say that we have to supply you within five days to every location.

But you might order a very large number at the one time, a thousand devices, and we might only have 800 in the warehouse and we can't deliver the next 200. We're technically in breach of contract, but anytime anything goes wrong, you can ring our managing director or the department can. He will take their call. I'll take their call. So again, you know, possibly a slightly smaller but more nimble and agile and open and receptive organization might bring some qualities to bear.

that it may be a much, much bigger, more detached type of organisation, mightn't be able to. Anyway, the thing is we got on that panel at the expense of some other much bigger ones. And during the process of negotiating the legal contract, they brought in a government solicitor to run the negotiations and so on. And one of the very first points they put up was about interest rates. We want the interest rate fixed on these leases.

Dr Chris Brown (56:11)
Mm.

Dr David Cooke (56:31)
for five years. And I said, we're not able to do that. Because I can't predict what interest rates are going to do. And if you read the press, they're probably going to go up. And the margins don't allow us to take a risk of that nature. And they said, well, if you can't get beyond that, we can't proceed any further, because that's a deal breaker for us. And then I said, well, could we potentially...

I need to go back and have some internal discussions with finance people about how long we can fix it for. Turned out we ended up agreeing to fix it for six months in a five -year contract, not five years. But I said, could we please just park that for the moment and discuss some of the other points and I'll come back to you as soon as possible. So they agreed. Anyway, we got our way through it all and we didn't agree to the five years. We made sensible decisions and I told them why we were making these decisions.

They're in everybody's best interests. And then I got a letter from the solicitor who ran the negotiations completely unsolicited after it was all signed, sealed and delivered. And he said, I do this for my job every single day. I negotiate huge government contracts. And he said, I just wanted to say to you, I've never seen a contract negotiated in such good spirit.

He said constantly, we met them one day a week for six weeks in a row in Canberra. And he said, it was negotiated in such good spirit that you were constantly talking about what was good for them as well as what was good for you. You didn't just try and negotiate the best contract for yourself. And he said, it's rare to see that. And he said, if you manage the contract with the same mindset,

of putting the customer, you know, at the heart of things, the same way that you did the negotiation, you'll hold this contract for a very, very long period of time, which has proven to be the case. But again, it's just about connectedness. You know, we're all in this together, whoever the all is. And I think if you have that mindset, rather than just what's best for me, what's best for my company, then your company will shh, you know.

surely it will thrive. And that's a true essence of sustainability, I think, not environmental sustainability, but longevity. That's what builds long companies that are going to be around for a long while, those that connect with and care for all stakeholders.

Dr Chris Brown (59:06)
Yes.

That's a great example, David. And it prompts me to think about one of the challenges that a lot of people have in this area. When we talk about being customer centric is well, you know, that doesn't that mean we do everything for the customer sort of thing? There's a fear that and that's to us, that's more sort of being compelled, customer compelled, right? Where you sort of feel compelled to do things, but you know, they're only in the customer's interests and not in yours.

but you sort of describe that balanced relationship and understanding that they've got to get a win and you as an organization, it has to make sense for you also, right? It's that better balance rather than just the selfish sort of what's in it for our organization and us sort of doing the deal and running. What's in it for them, what's in it for us? And that, as you say, I think, you know, I'd agree is the sustainable approach to business that...

Dr David Cooke (59:57)
Yeah.

Dr Chris Brown (1:00:13)
It doesn't seem as common as one would think it would.

Dr David Cooke (1:00:17)
Yeah, and with that interest rate one, which was interesting, it was the very, very first point they brought up, probably because they knew it was a big ask. But what the gentleman did was he put up an A4 piece of paper and he turned it sideways so there was almost nothing visible at all. He said, that's the difference between you and who we've got in reserve to replace you if we can't agree to these terms and conditions. So we've got somebody waiting in the wings.

You better or better agree to this. That's quite a good negotiation ploy, but I explained to him that the reason I won't, can't agree to something that I think is very poor business practice is not just for our benefit. I could agree to anything, but that doesn't mean that will then underpin high quality service delivery for the next five years. And in fact, if I agree to something like that, and I continually do every time I go into a discussion with a different.

new client, we probably won't even be around in five years time. So I'm doing it as much for you as I am for us. You know, if we can all just think about what will make a contract successful in totality, rather than thinking about you or me, then it's going to be good for both of us. I was just fortunate that not only did they have commercial skills,

But they had sufficient emotional intelligence to actually understand that argument and go, yeah, that makes sense to us.

Dr Chris Brown (1:01:46)
Yep. Yep. Yep.

That's great. I mean, I've got a few more questions here that are sort of a little bit more about the sort of world that we're living in right now with artificial intelligence and remote work and things like that. I mean, do you have any views on particularly, I think, with remote work these days? You know, it's a very different world that we're working in and so trying to build culture and retain cultures in that environment. Is that something you've had much to...

to do with or thought about much?

Dr David Cooke (1:02:19)
Yeah. So look, in terms of in -office versus remote work, I'd probably sit on the fence a little bit on that one. I know people are passionate about the quality of their life has been improved and their families by being able to work from home. Some companies are nervous about people working from home because...

and they're really being productive and so on. So the world's pretty polarised on that issue and I tend to like a hybrid model probably. I don't see the need for people to be in the office every single day, but particularly to reinforce culture, I think it's good to come in. And I think most companies can structure a balance post...

the global pandemic with the rules having changed and our eyes having been open to the fact that you don't have to be sitting at your desk every single day. But you can build culture online as well. So even before COVID and working from home became a thing, I felt there was some merit in that.

And the kind of the thought I had at the time was probably one day a week or one day a fortnight, but just have a little bit more balance in people's work lives. And I used to work from home and I'd do a photo of myself in my lounge room working away and I posted on the internet and I'd say, hey, I'm working from home today. You might have noticed I'm not in the office. It's really productive for me and it's something I enjoy doing.

and I'd encourage you to do the same. So I was modelling the behaviour. And so I've always been a believer in work -life balance. And I think a mix of working from home in the office is probably a pretty good way to go. Although, you know, every business is different and every role within every business is different and so on. But if you can still be a leader and be having Zoom calls with

people when they're at home or you're at home or whatever and connect with them and continue to reinforce that culture and connectedness is important. Building culture and connectedness doesn't only happen in the office. It should be going on 24 hours a day kind of thing.

Dr Chris Brown (1:04:42)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's interesting, isn't it? I think our experience has been, we've been working remote for a long period of time, me being based in the US for a long time before being back here in Australia. And I think that there is something different about being in person that you do miss from having the online conversations, isn't it? There's a certain energy and a certain ability to bounce ideas off that just feels a little bit more alive and so on. And so I think that...

you know, certainly it looks as though the blend is going to be the best combination for most organizations and many roles going forward, depending on again, what the work is that you're doing. Yeah.

Dr David Cooke (1:05:25)
Yeah. And I think, you know, one discussion that comes up is about the incidental contact that happens when you're in the office. So you're more likely to bump into people in completely different departments to yours when you're in the office, you know, making your coffee or whatever it might be, than you are on a Zoom call.

because the Zoom call's a bit more transactional. It's content relevant to your role, probably delivered by people in your department, and it's kind of transactional, and it's content -based. And you're probably not gonna bump into somebody from Accounts Payable sitting in your lounge room having a Zoom call about a product release with your product team. You know?

Dr Chris Brown (1:06:00)
Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

No, no, no, that's right. So you can lose some of that serendipity and that, that creative, that's right. That just comes through conversation and ideas and bouncing things off people and seeing how they respond and so on. So yeah, yeah.

Dr David Cooke (1:06:17)
Mm.

Yeah, but you mentioned AI as well, Chris. I mean, one of the big things yet to be determined is, is AI going to take a lot of jobs away? And, you know, I don't think that we could really live without AI now. I mean, it's been with us for a very long while. A lot of people don't realize how AI has been a part of their life. I mean, you know, every time they turn on Netflix and the algorithm throws up a few suggestions.

Dr Chris Brown (1:06:30)
Yeah.

Dr David Cooke (1:06:53)
You know, that's that's AI at work. One of the examples I like is a couple of years ago at the Australian Open tennis championships, you know, one of the big four global tennis events, Grand Slams. I don't think I really picked up on it at the time, but one of the pieces of theatre at those tennis events is when a player disputes a line call.

and it's called out and they don't think it's out and they'll go and break the umpire or you know whatever they even had a mechanism where they could ask for it to be reviewed on video and it's the Hawkeye system which I think HP developed and so there was a standard part of watching any tennis match this stuff would go on from time to time and anyway as of a couple of years ago no line call was ever disputed.

And it wasn't until I sort of read a passage about AI that it pointed out, well, the reason it's never disputed is not that the players all now agree with the officials or they've calmed their tempers down or whatever, or there's no John McEnroe's playing anymore. It had nothing to do with that. It's just that AI made the decision and it's indisputable. And the interesting thing was when the system would call out,

then it would even make that pronouncement with an Australian accent at the Australian Open.

Dr Chris Brown (1:08:26)
There's no disputing the machine. That's right.

Dr David Cooke (1:08:30)
Yes, yeah, but I think the challenge is AI is not a sentient being. AI is not a human being. It's a different form of intelligence. It's obviously the aggregation of a massive amount of data that humans have collected.

and so I think the challenge with AI is to build in moral and ethical considerations into AI. And, you know, one example I was given was, an elderly person rings the contact center at their electricity provider and says, look, I've got a final notice. You're going to cut off my electricity, but I just wanted to explain the circumstances. my husband and I are very, very aged. there's been a delay with some.

pension payment or something and we will be able to pay next week but we can't meet the deadline. Please don't turn our power off. It's the middle of winter and could have extreme medical circumstances for us if you do. And if it's an AI run contact center, the first thing that will happen is the database will be immediately searched for that person's history. And the rule might be that you're allowed one

exemption from paying on time per 12 month period and the system will respond and say understand the situation but you drew down on that six months ago you can't draw down on it again you have to pay by that set date and because it's AI is a rules -based system.

How do you build into AI? And it will come, it's probably happening now. How do you build in moral and ethical considerations about that particular situation needs to be viewed outside the rules with greater, greater compassion, less the dire consequences. So that's the current challenge for AI, I think, to replicate not the rules, but the deeper sense of compassion and understanding that human beings have of each other.

Dr Chris Brown (1:10:39)
It's really the challenge of giving AI a heart, right? Giving AI some compassion and caring, which I'm imagining is going to be a challenge, but can be done, right? It's sort of the left brain AI in many ways, right? It's incredibly intelligent in terms of what it can produce for us now.

Dr David Cooke (1:10:43)
Yeah, beautifully silhouetted.

Dr Chris Brown (1:11:08)
But will it be able to marry that with compassion and heart and what's important to being a human being and alive, right? So I think that's the big challenge, isn't it? That's great. And in talking about sort of what this podcast is called, it's called the Relentless Customer Leader. When you think of the term sort of relentless, I think we've sort of, you've mentioned a couple of areas, you know, of conviction.

Dr David Cooke (1:11:18)
Yeah.

Dr Chris Brown (1:11:38)
that you've had, but what does the term relentless mean to you?

Dr David Cooke (1:11:43)
It means exactly what you just said, Chris. It means conviction. It means not compromising or wavering from what you know to be the correct treatment of customers. So you could start out with a set of company values that you'll always be open and honest with your customers or whatever. Maybe new competitors enter the market, maybe...

bringing in products or services at cheaper prices, your margins start to fall, you're getting squeezed on a number of levels, you're getting pressure from your head office or your boss overseas or whatever. And you might just start to get into a mindset of compromise. But once you start to compromise on things like how honestly...

you treat your customers or how honestly you present yourself in marketing materials or whatever on your website or in contracts, then you're on a slippery slope. And that slippery slope will lead you, well, it never ends well. Never ends well. And if you ignore your customer or don't treat them honestly, ultimately there will be reputational damage.

And probably even before that, you'll start to have good staff members leave your company. And so there is no point in succumbing to short term pressure when it comes to the customer. It's just pointless. You just buy yourself a few months or whatever, I don't know, maybe a few years, but ultimately you have to put the customer at the heart of your decision making.

and you have to never compromise on the values that you know have to be applied to those relationships. And not to do so, I would argue, would suggest that the person running that company is not a leader and they are a reactionary follower to circumstances. And I think it's very important to remember that just because somebody is at the top of an organisational chart,

and occupies the most senior position with the most senior title, that doesn't make them a leader. That just makes them sitting at the top of the organisational chart. They're two very, very different things. And true leaders will not compromise on things like morals and ethics.

Dr Chris Brown (1:14:12)
Yeah, no, that's, I mean, we've seen many examples of that, haven't we? And it does turn out badly when it goes wrong. So I agree with you. When you think about other leaders that are listening to this, you know, what would be one thing that you might recommend to them to improve their own sort of leadership around customers and employees and engaging employees?

Is there something that comes to mind?

Dr David Cooke (1:14:43)
Well, the first thing that came to mind, Chris, is don't try and do it all on your own. To be a leader doesn't mean you have to exist in isolation in terms of making decisions or what have you. I would say use the collective consciousness, the collective brain power of everybody in your company and all your stakeholders.

If you've got some important decisions to make, ask your people, ask your customers, ask your family, ask your friends. I'm going to have to make this decision in a matter of weeks or whatever. I've got my own ideas, but I've been really interested in canvassing some other people's ideas. Often what happens is it may not completely turn your thinking around. You might be on the right path anyway. But there can be some gold nuggets out there.

and they can come from the most unlikely sources as well. Somebody says a different slant on things. So yeah, I would just say use all the collective brainpower available to you as a leader and don't feel that it compromises your strength or how you're viewed to go to people and ask for their advice or their input.

If anything, I would say what we've kind of learned these days is that is the hallmark of a very strong leader to have the humility to be able to go to others and say, I'd be interested in your opinion before I make this decision.

Dr Chris Brown (1:16:17)
That's great advice, David. I think that this is a good time to switch gears into your upcoming book, because I'm sure you're discussing a lot of this. I've got a sort of copy on the Kindle here of Kind Business. Values create value is the subheading there, which really stood out to me. I like that a lot.

How do you describe what that phrase means, that values create value?

Dr David Cooke (1:16:51)
Well, it's pretty much, I guess, what we've been talking about, Chris. I think if you create and then stick to your values, particularly around how people are treated, then there's commercial value in doing that. So it feeds directly into your commercial results. Now, I'm not saying that the reason to treat people well.

The reason to be honest with your customers and the reason to make a contribution to society, perhaps particularly to vulnerable people in society, is because you've worked out there's a really good ROI on it. I don't think in a way that's the right reason to do it. But if you establish good values and embed them in your organization and...

as a leader embed them in everybody's mindset in the organization. It's got to permeate everybody in the organization. Then there is considerable commercial value in doing that. There's a link. So it's not an either or situation. Do I become a company with heart?

or do I become a company that performs commercially really well? It's ludicrous to think that those two things are divorced or you have to make a choice. By focusing on the values, the value will just simply come. That's my experience and that's what that book's all about. And the first part really is it's kind of the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly of the corporate world, this book.

And so the first part really it's called traditional business and it's about companies not getting it right. And it's about lots of case studies of where companies took a short term mindset and significantly destroyed shareholder value in doing so. And I slate that back to leadership because when we see companies do really bad things, it's not that the company did it.

It's that human beings who had decision -making power made that decision. I think it's always important because sometimes an individual can deflect it to, that was the company, you know. Well, no, no, hold on. The buck stops with you. You're the chairman of the board or the buck stops with you, you're the CEO. Part two is about a new paradigm, the way we're seeing a lot of companies starting to operate now, which is along the lines of what we've been talking about.

with a much more caring mentality. And I talk about some of the great leaders that are doing that very well and some people who I admire immensely. And then part three, which is a shorter section of the book, is a case study where I talk about, well, the opening sentence is, the company that I'm most qualified to talk about is the company that I ran, Conica Minolta. And then I talk about some of our experiences there. And...

You know, I've been invited to do a lot of public speaking since I left my full -time CEO role and it just made sense to me that if I wrote a book I could probably reach more people than, you know, via speaking at conferences or, you know, in -house management workshops or what have you.

Dr Chris Brown (1:20:21)
That's great. And so that book's going to become available soon, is it? Is it out now or soon to be announced officially?

Dr David Cooke (1:20:30)
Yeah, yeah. So as we speak, Chris, I'm waiting on the final completely laid out proofed copy that will go to the printer. It goes back to the author for one last look and you then accept responsibility for what's in it. And yes, it'll be printed in the next couple of weeks. It'll go into Australian bookstores and as they say, available in all good bookstores. And

and through online retailers or whatever. I have had a peep at a couple of online, well -known online retailers and I noticed it's already sitting in there, kind business value as a pre -order to be filled on the 1st of July. So it's all about to happen.

Dr Chris Brown (1:21:21)
That's great news. That's great news. And where can people find you David online? I mean, you're on LinkedIn, I believe. Pretty prolific on there and there are other places that they can find you and track you down.

Dr David Cooke (1:21:31)
And then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, on LinkedIn definitely. And I haven't announced the book on LinkedIn yet, but any day now I'll start to do a few posts, to let people know it's out there and available. But the company that I set up when I left Conicum and Ultra a few years ago is ESG Advisory. So that's just esgadvisory .com .au. And...

And essentially, you know, what that firm does really is, can do some traditional consulting in -house with organizations around these matters we've been talking about. Or commonly I get invited along to speak to boards or executive teams or I run a workshop on ethical decision -making, for instance, which is a hypothetical.

where I take people out of their day job and I say, you don't work in this company anymore. I'm now moving you over into this environment and this decision has come across your desk. It might be that you're a politician or whatever it might be. And they're very, very interactive workshops. And in my experience, people absolutely love learning in that way, in a participatory kind of way. So yeah, ESG advisory, that's how I spend my time these days.

Dr Chris Brown (1:22:55)
Fantastic, David. Well, it was a great pleasure to see you again and to talk through a lot of the great experiences that you've had during your career. And we were fortunate to be involved in part of that. And you've been a great inspiration to us and the team here. So it's great to reconnect.

Dr David Cooke (1:23:16)
Well, thank you, Chris. And let me just say also that it was very, very fortuitous that I met you and your dad, Linden, and, you know, came in contact with market culture and really you were the start of my very early days of being a managing director that helped set our company on this path.

to focus on internal culture and to focus on customer. And I can't thank you enough.

Dr Chris Brown (1:23:48)
Fantastic mate, appreciate it.