Kia ora RYLA 2020!

 I was fortunate enough to attend the Queenstown Rotary Young Leaders Award (RYLA) 2020 as a counsellor or for a more New Zealand term, a facilitator! For those who do not know, this is an intensive 5 day leadership course with a focus on community, click the link at the bottom of the article for more details.

My journey with Rotary began in February 2016 where I meet a Rotarian called Tony Taylor, and from there, I have been involved ever since. From that day, I have volunteered hours upon hours in the Christchurch community until recently moving to Wellington. Additionally, I attended the Upper South Island RYLA in 2017, co-organised the Australia/New Zealand Rotary Youth Symposium which included meeting the International President Mark Mahloney and represented the district abroad. Last week I co-facilitated, alongside Simone Mackenzie, the Queenstown course for 28 up and coming rangitira in the lower South Island. Below are my reflections of the week.

Our week kicked off with a discussion on leadership and what that meant to a local community leader and Rotarian, Karen Purdue. The scene was set our week and our course officially hit the road running. These are three lessons I noted from her presentation.

1. What are your core values? Or “what are you prepared to go to jail for?” A strong opening and a useful insight. For a more relevant example, what would make you quit your job? The last job I resigned from was because I was not continuing to learn and grow. Life-long learning is a value I have adopted earlier in my life that I continue to this day. In terms of leadership, values are the criterion how you make decisions, how do you (the reader) show your values as a leader and to your community and sphere of influence?

2. "Have your say... not your way." Regardless of where you are on the maturity spectrum of leadership the following mantra is relevant. Steve Jobs once spoke, "you don't hire smart people to tell them what to do, you hire smart people to tell you what to do", leadership is no different. As a leader by setting the paradigm and direction too early on you can limit one's creativity, capability and in deed ‘have your say'. Alternatively if you are in the position to hire people, hire people who constructively disagree with you! Simply google 'hire people to disagree with you the reviews come plentiful. Having your ways is not always best.

3. "People will never forget how you made them feel". Feelings are the communication of interpersonal relationships. An act of kindness can make a real difference and improve your relationships. I noticed this in a recent job, my colleague always brought food on Monday’s and said good morning to everyone in the team before starting the day.   

Above photo: As part of the kauapapa we each brought a hamper gift, that was given to those effected by the flooding.

Jim Boult, Mayor of Queenstown - Jim had a career of successes and challenges that he shared with us including being the CEO of a number of large organisations including the Christchurch Airport during the Earthquakes. A recent success was the uptake of bus passengers from 30,000 to 130,000 annually after introducing a new fare structure. His ongoing challenge and still is how to govern a city that has 23,000 residents and over 6.5 million tourists annually! He has been doing work for a while on this and is set to conclude, so stay tuned. Overtourism is a concern all over the world, it is great to see Jim developing policy for economic sustainability to his region.

Hamish Walker, MP Balclutha-Southland – We were fortunate to even meet him, the Southland region had just suffered from a devastated flooding. Despite the flood levels lowering by that time, we were all grateful for his appearance to speak to us. He told us of his journey becoming an MP and the early stages of the career, starting off by how he helped a local resident from being deported. It was refreshing to hear an MP say, you have two ears and one mouth use them proportionately! A motto from Bill English that Hamish has adopted for his first term in parliament. The final message he offered us was that he wanted urban citizens to better understand the rural community. From a personal note I could not agree more. It is far too easy to put the blame on farmers for environmental degradation without having worked or lived on a farm to understand their view and what certain farmers do to protect the environment. For policy reform, it needs to be co-designed if New Zealand wants equitably minimise per capita on emissions to the Paris Accord Agreement.        

Next up, Emergency Management and Civil Defense up skilling! My first corporate role I had was with Transpower. There I was first introduced to just-in-time (JIT) supply chain, during the leadership course I found a clear fall back! Here’s an example, Queenstown on any given day only has 2.5-3 days of food storage. JIT ordering certainly has financial and efficiency incentives, however it the case of an emergency there are severe risks depending on the nature of the product. Food is only one example but there are many other critical infrastructure and supplies that need to be considered for safety stocks. Throughout the week each team had to develop an emergency management plan for local industries. The two groups I oversaw were tasked with developing emergency response plans for the cycle tourism and the fruit industry. Both teams thought of unique strategies to prepare for an earthquake or other emergency disaster. For example, one of the groups decide how the organisation would respond by utilising their resource to help the community and people who may be stranded during an adventure tour. If you are in business how does your organisation plan to prepare for an emergency whether that be natural or otherwise.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, former prime minister of New Zealand once said ‘Sometimes it does us a power of good to remind ourselves that we live … where two tectonic plates meet, in a somewhat lonely stretch of windswept ocean just above the roaring forties. If you want drama – you’ve come to the right place.’

The highlight was meeting all the wonderful rangitira and to support them in their journey to making a difference in their community. If you are interested in sponsoring a local candidate early 2021 or want to know more get in touch via the link below.

https://www.rotary.org/en/our-programs/rotary-youth-leadership-awards

Above photo: A 'friendly game' of archery dodge ball.

Photo on right: Me presenting to the group on my journey and when I represented Rotary in Washington DC. One of the key messages was be yourself and how your friends around you can influence you as a leader. In usual fashion I am wearing almost the identical clothing I had whilst at in Washington DC.

Photo below: Photos prior to the Gala dinner, the last evening! Sorry Olivia for the shade.