How I Climbed the Corporate Ladder: Lessons From Every Leap

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BEHIND THE GLOSSY HEADLINES

I’m asked frequently how I managed my career, to get where I am today. If you were just to take a casual look at my profile, you'd see that I'd had a very fortunate career. But, like everyone else, I had to start at the bottom and work my way up.

My journey isn't particularly remarkable, but it's a little less conventional than most and, like your path, it's absolutely unique. Today, in typical No Bullsh!t fashion, I'm going to give you a warts-and-all look behind the glossy headlines of my career – the stuff that podcast interviewers don't typically ask.

I'm really conscious of not being overly self-indulgent… I want this to be incredibly valuable to you.

Most often, my tone in the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast is… challenging. I want to challenge you to be better. To be honest, I've had more than one listener tell me that I'm too intense ??

But, my purpose in today's newsletter is just a little different. I want to give you inspiration and hope – hope that:

• Even if your career isn't well planned…
• Even if you make a few bad decisions about which role you should take…
• Even if you have a major screw up…
• Even if you miss opportunities that were there for the taking?

… it's not fatal.

Your career is long, and bad career moves are generally forgiven. I'm living testament to that fact.

I thought quite a lot about the best way to do this, and I decided to focus on the key decision points that I faced in critical moments, and to conduct a personal postmortem on how each of them turned out.

To do this properly, I have to go into some detail on each phase, so I hope it gives you food for thought to help you with your own career decisions.

You're just about to get 62 years of highlights in just a few pages..

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

I think it's important to give you a little insight into my upbringing. There's no doubt that where you start makes a difference; but I'm testament to the fact that, from any starting point, you can go in any direction.

You have choices.

I was really fortunate to be born where I was—in a middle-class suburb of inner-city Sydney, to two parents who were educated, and who dedicated all of their time, money, and energy to raising their five children.

I was the second oldest. There wasn’t a lot of money to spread across the five of us, but we were loved and supported, and we were brought up with Catholic values. The older I get, the more I realize how lucky I was.

But this was common in the context of Australia’s prosperity, and my upbringing was fairly unremarkable… until the age of 11, that is.

Thanks to my older brother's brilliance, we were both offered scholarships at one of Sydney's top private schools, St. Joseph's College Hunters Hill—or Joey's, as it's known. The only catch? Boarding was compulsory. So, I left home and shipped off to an all-boys Catholic boarding school for six years.

Even though the school was only 10 miles from my home, it may as well have been on the dark side of the moon. I knew, though, that very few kids had access to that quality of education.

Boarding school was a whirlwind of intense academic study, punctuated by moments of equally intense sporting endeavors.

Joey's is known as The Wallabies Nursery, because it's produced so many outstanding rugby players who pulled on the green and gold jersey and represented Australia. Clearly I wasn't one of them…

But I was fairly decent at both the academics and the sports, so I got through my schooling relatively unscathed; and, as a result, I managed to set up the perfect runway for launching a stellar career.

I'd worked hard, graduating in the top ~2% of the state and, as a result, I had my pick of Australia's top universities and the luxury of choosing any degree I wanted.

I didn't fancy being a doctor, so I decided to pursue a double degree at the University of Sydney—a law degree, supplemented with an arts degree focusing on mathematics and literature.

Everything would've been going exactly to plan—if I'd had one…

THE UNDERGRADUATE MESS

The upside of being in boarding school was that there were no distractions.

The downside of being in boarding school was that there were no distractions.

The minute I was freed from the rigid structure of the boarding school environment, I absolutely floundered. I discovered alcohol and dating, and I made money working in the cocktail bars of Kings Cross, Sydney's seedy nightlife district.

No one at Sydney University really cared if I went to lectures or tutorials… so I didn't. And after a couple of years of being a pretend student, I left my undergraduate degrees behind. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say they left me behind.

This is a great example of the principle that everything happens for a reason. If I had dutifully completed my law degree which, to be perfectly honest, was more a matter of overcoming the boredom than stretching myself intellectually, my life would've been completely different.

But because I was too socially immature to handle university life, I had to carry around the stigma of failing my undergraduate studies. And that failure would haunt me for years.

GETTING BACK TO BUSINESS

I worked in the bars for a few years before I went back to study, and I have to say, I learned more about people during that time than at any other point in my life. To this day, my preoccupation with trying to understand what makes people tick is the fuel that drives my leadership work.

Even though I'd chosen to squander my God-given talents, and all the hard work and discipline of my childhood by dropping out of university – not to mention all the money that my parents had invested in my education – the things I learned in the post-boarding school years were absolutely indispensable for my future career path.

But I felt as though my brain was turning to porridge, so I started thinking about the future. At my brother's urging (thanks for that, Nick!) I decided to get into the emerging field of computer programming.

Remember, this was 1984, way before coding was cool!

Believe it or not, at the ripe old age of 22, I thought I was too old, so I didn't want to go back to university to start another undergraduate degree. Instead, I got a quickie diploma in software development, which was effectively my ticket to play.

I landed a job as a trainee programmer at a mid-sized bank, the State Bank of New South Wales. I learned really fast. I was exposed to business, and I honed my technical skills rapidly thanks to the generosity of the people who mentored me.

But I was still an arrogant little sh!t. I thought I was better than my bosses, and I became disgruntled. Why were they getting paid so much more than I was when I was delivering way more value than they were?

I was doing exactly what we accuse today's Gen Zs of doing.

So, with a little over two years of experience under my belt, I accepted an offer to join a boutique software consulting firm, Tangent, which was based in Sydney. I effectively jumped at the first thing that came my way to get more money, with very little thought about my career.

And even though my old boss, Jack McElwee, tried to give me some insight into the implications of my move, I wouldn't be swayed.

If I was rating my moves on a scale from 1 to 10 (as I will from here on in), my choice to join the State Bank of New South Wales scores an 8/10.

It was my ticket to play, with accelerated learning and a credible first career role for my resume.

THE MOVE TO CONSULTING

The decision to leave State Bank completely changed my career path. Going into consulting provided amazing growth, as I got the opportunity to work for many different clients in a variety of industries, right across Australia.

What I didn't factor in at the time was that I was forgoing my corporate career path – which I didn’t restart until I secured my first Chief Information Officer (CIO) role almost 15 years later. My path to the C-suite would've been way faster if I'd stuck it out at the bank.

Tangent was a small company that offered great opportunities. The owner, Rick Anstey was a brilliant entrepreneur who had incredible vision, and a highly innovative streak.

Rick invested heavily in me, sending me overseas to be trained in a leading-edge software development tool, which was gaining prominence with big businesses globally. I became a recognized expert in this technology Australia-wide and, for a time, everything was going extremely well.

But Tangent was to be the scene of my biggest career failure. Rick decided that I was a natural salesperson (if there is such a thing), so he asked me to take on a newly created role as Business Services Manager.

You beauty! This was the big promotion I was convinced I deserved.

I was tasked with building a product division for Tangent, selling packaged software that automated the testing of large-scale corporate systems.

There's no other way to say this: I was woeful.

I had no idea what was required in a B2B sales role. I tried to adopt the fake-it-until-you-make-it principle, but there was no way I was going to make it. I had no idea what I was doing, and the kicker is I was too proud to ask for help.

With memories of my university failure still fresh enough in my head to rattle me, I watched my own demise, like an out-of-body experience – it was a slow motion train wreck. When I finally resigned, it was more out of embarrassment than anything else.

I decided to go back to my technical roots and leverage the reputation I'd built before my sales director disaster, so I went out on my own as an independent contractor. Being a gun for hire would be my life for the next decade or so.

Rating my move to Tangent, I'd give it 7/10.

It gave me a boost to my income, immediately doubling my State Bank pay packet. It broadened my experience massively in just three years. And it chipped away at my arrogance, as I experienced my first big failure.

But there was an opportunity cost to disconnecting from my corporate career path.

GOING OUT ON MY OWN

As an independent contractor, I had to go where the money was and, at the time, the greatest demand for my skill set was in the major projects in the Australian federal government in Canberra.?

I was offered a six-month contract, which I commuted to weekly from Sydney, until it became apparent that there was an almost endless stream of well-paid, challenging work. So I relocated the family to Canberra and we set our roots down there.

In terms of career progression, I went nowhere. But I made one pivotal change: because I'd earned the trust and respect of some key clients down there, I had some leverage. One day, I just decided that I'd had enough of technical work: it was fun and I was good at it, self-evidently, but I had a burning desire to lead.

So, I simply made a choice: “At the end of this contract, I won't accept another technical role. I'll only accept a project management role.” Just like that! It was well over 30 years ago, but I remember it as if it were yesterday.

I just want to insert a little footnote here. An amazing principle, which I've seen operate repeatedly during my career, is that whenever I made a firm decision and ‘burned the boats’, so to speak, events conspired to make it happen.

The universe will rally behind you if you are decisive and committed… to anything.

So, of course, a prime project management job magically appeared for me. I did that job and hit it out of the park, which established my reputation as a successful project manager who got results where others couldn't.

I built a brand for being able to take on the toughest jobs, and to get distressed projects back on track.

Rating my choice to go out on my own, I'd score it as 6/10.

It was okay financially, and even though I continued to learn rapidly, I had zero career path for a long time.

I loved Canberra: raising my two daughters through their early years, and I was the fittest I'd ever been: I'd given up smoking and I was running 60km to 80km/week. But eventually I got bored and restless. The contract work was fun, but it wasn't where the action was. So, I started long-term planning.

I knew that I wanted to be able to perform at the highest levels, so I set the long-term goal of becoming CEO of a major business.

REESTABLISHING MY CAREER

Once I'd set that long-term goal, I knew that two things needed to happen:

1. I had to break the stigma of my IT background, and learn more about business; and
2. I needed to look for a job that offered some sort of career path.

I had to get back into the game. I decided to pursue an MBA (because I had a lot to learn), and I started to look for jobs as a CIO. I figured that if I combined my track record as a project manager with my MBA, I could probably parlay that into a CIO role.

The year was 2001, and it was all happening. My soon-to-be ex-wife had decided she wanted to move to Queensland to be closer to her family, so I decided that leaving Canberra might be a good thing all round.

In the next two years, though, I experienced one of the most intense periods of my life.

The good news was that I was successful in securing a dream CIO role at MIM, an ASX top-50 listed company, with global operations in mining and minerals processing.

But it wasn't all beer and Skittles:

• I had moved cities;
• I'd taken my first executive role, which came with a 60+ hour/week commitment;
• I was commuting three hours every day;
• I was studying my executive MBA at nights and on the weekends, and
• I was going through divorce.

Then, just when I thought I was maxed out, the icing on the cake – I'd only been at MIM for a couple of years when the news broke that we were the target of a semi-hostile takeover by the emerging global mining company, Xstrata.

I stayed through the takeover and after helping to integrate the two companies' IT systems, I took some time to catch my breath.

Rating my move to MIM as the CIO, I'd score it 9/10.

It was financially great, especially the big retention bonus and redundancy payout. It gave me a great grounding in senior management in a listed company, and I had the opportunity to go through a major transaction – being on the wrong end of the Xstrata takeover.

It was a superb development opportunity.

LIFE AFTER REDUNDANCY

After taking a few months off to cool my jets after the MIM takeover, I accepted a role in a smaller company, National Transport Insurance (NTI). To give you an idea of the scale, it only generated $150m in revenue, with a couple of hundred staff.

I was initially appointed to the CIO role, with the understanding that I would be an understudy to then-CEO Wayne Paterson. This would give me a shot at the CEO role when Wayne decided to move on – if I was good enough, of course.

But, the best laid plans, right!?

Wayne brought me in to steer a major project to redevelop all of NTI’s systems – underwriting, claims, fleet management, workflow – the whole shebang. And it was a ‘big bang’ implementation. But, as a smaller company, we were severely capital constrained, and I worked out pretty quickly that this was going to be an incredibly intense few years, where I'd be completely unable to lift my head from the ambitious redevelopment project.

After I worked this out, I went to Wayne and said, "Mate, this is not what I signed up for. I'm going to be buried in this project for a couple of years. There's absolutely no way that I'll be able to learn the business well enough to be a credible contender for the CEO role."

This was a pivotal conversation. I agreed that I would stay at NTI, on one condition: if I was going to put my career on hold for two to three years in order to deliver NTI's most critical project, I would need a big career development carrot at the end of it to make it worth my while.

I managed to negotiate a massive career incentive with Wayne: If I delivered the project successfully, NTI would send me to study Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Program.

We did complete the project. It was a little bit late, but it was fully functional, and it became the engine for NTI's growth and competitive advantage for many years to come.

NTI made a huge investment into my development, sending me to Harvard Business School for two months, and I even managed a stint as NTI's head of strategy after that.

Rating my decision to join NTI as the CIO, again, I'd score it 9/10.

Even though my CEO aspirations didn't pan out, I learned a lot about leadership from Wayne, especially how to manage the board. He's one of the best bosses I ever had.

I got experience in a smaller business, and I had the extreme good fortune to live and study at Harvard Business School with 160 top-class executives from all over the world – that gave me an enormous amount of confidence.

Oh, yeah, and I met my wife Kathy while I was in Boston.

AURIZON – THE ULTIMATE CAREER MOVE

One day, my old boss from MIM, Deb O'Toole, called me out of the blue. She wanted to know if I'd be interested in working for her again.

As much as I loved NTI, I didn't hesitate for a second. Deb had gone into what was then Queensland Rail (QR) as the CFO. The plan was to get QR into shape to compete commercially, because the bulk haulage rail sector had been recently deregulated.

Over the next two years, we would separate the commercial business from the public service passenger business, and list the commercial part of the business (which was to become Aurizon) on the ASX. It was one of the largest IPOs in Australia's history.

I joined initially as Group General Manager of Shared Services, a large support division. At the time, Shared Services had over 1,000 people, with an annual operating budget of around $250m. I then acted in the CFO role for 12 months while Deb went offline to work with the investment bankers on the IPO.

Hilarious – here I am, acting CFO of a multi-billion-dollar business… with no finance qualifications. But I knew how to lead the people who did know what they were doing.

After the IPO, I had the opportunity to leverage my commercial skills in a new role, as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Over a two-year period, the team I led secured over $5 billion worth of long-term rail haulage contracts with our big mining customers.

I reckon Aurizon was probably the best job of my career. It had everything except a car chase:

• I got to work with some of the world's best consultants, from companies like McKinsey and DuPont, to individuals like Steve Drotter, lead author of The Leadership Pipeline;
• I led massive reform projects in commercial procurement and capital efficiency;
• I gained more experience in restructures and demergers, with a major IPO on top;
• I learned how politics works (and why governments should never own commercial assets);
• I learned how to lead a heavily-unionized industrial workforce; and, most importantly
• I became deeply passionate about safety.

Rating my decision to join QR/Aurizon, it was a 10/10.

Financially, it was superb. I was given incredible opportunities and gained amazing experience across a number of roles.

I made the transition from a career full of staff roles, and demonstrated my capability as a line leader. I was absolutely in the right place at the right time. Again, I led a charmed life.

Basically, this role was five years of accelerated performance that formed the foundations for No Bullsh!t Leadership.

CRACKING THE CEO LEVEL

Because of my performance at Aurizon, I came to the attention of the chairman of a company called CS Energy, and he tapped me on the shoulder to take on the CEO role. The company was government-owned, so it was performing… abysmally. Not a huge surprise!

But this had the potential to be a mini-Aurizon. The government was looking to privatize CS Energy and needed a CEO who could get it commercially fit to take to market. It was a riskier bet than Aurizon for sure, but the upside was enormous.

Deciding to take on the CS Energy role was one of the most difficult career decisions I ever made. I had to leave a huge amount of money on the table at Aurizon. Despite my stellar performance during my five years there, the CEO and the board decided, for whatever reason, not to exercise their discretion to grant my shares, which would normally be the case for a good leaver.

In fact, prioritizing the money, I initially knocked back the CS Energy role. But the decision didn't sit well with me. So I called the chairman back about 48 hours later, and I accepted it. This was my first CEO role – in an industry that I knew nothing about. But I was able to leverage my transferable skills: leadership… negotiation… commercial acumen… finance… law… marketing… industrial relations… HR and organizational behavior.

In CS Energy, like every business, leadership drives culture – culture drives performance.

At the end of the day, the privatization didn't go ahead. But I got five years of intensive experience leading a major turnaround in one of the toughest business environments you can imagine, in one of the most complex and volatile industries in the world.

This was where, as CEO, I was able to see the impact of my leadership performance when I was unconstrained, and able to set the agenda myself. There was no one above making decisions based on expediency or self-interest, and the team thrived.

In five years, we increased EBITDA from $17m to $441m, a compound annual growth rate of 125%.

Scoring my decision to go to CS Energy, yeah, definitely 9/10.

I'd be inclined to score my professional growth as 11/10, but that gets dragged down a little because financially it was more like a 7/10, compared to the path I was on at Aurizon.

I have no regrets, though, because being CEO of CS Energy prepared me perfectly for what I'm doing now at Your CEO Mentor: and to have the privilege of helping leaders all over the world to improve their performance? Well, that's something you can't put a price on.

EVERY CAREER HAS ITS HICCUPS

Okay, I raced through that, but it's a pretty comprehensive look at the decisions I made that affected my corporate career.

You can judge for yourself how my career as a thought leader has panned out since leaving CS Energy in 2018. What I can say is that working in this business with my daughter Emma, has been the joy of my life.

With the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast and book, and the work we do to improve the performance of businesses all over the world, I feel as though I'm putting the experience and insight I gained during my corporate career to pretty good use.

I really hope this gives you just a small window into how I made my career decisions, for better or for worse. Your path will no doubt be different to mine, but I hope you can take some ideas that help you navigate your own career decisions.

Most importantly, it should give you hope that, no matter what decisions you do make at any point in your career, you're going to be fine.

This is from Episode 339 of the No Bullsh!t Leadership podcast. Each week, I share the secrets of high performance leadership; the career accelerators that you can’t learn in business school, and your boss is unlikely to share with you. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast player.