The long and winding road...

During August I've hit the road with the aim of spending time in every Personnel Group location, catching up with as many team members as possible.

With 50 offices and more than 200 team members scattered across NSW, VIC and the ACT, this is no easy task. It requires a fair bit of planning, a lot of time on the open road, and a higher than usual caffeine intake in order to pull it off.

With so much exciting and pressing work going on in our business at present, you could be forgiven for wondering if this is the best use of my time. Surely technology and modern working practices should make such an endeavour unnecessary, and allow a CEO to focus on 'more important things'.

What such thinking fails to grasp, is that this kind of connection work is actually the most important part of my job. It is more critical and valuable than any piece of strategy, planning or execution. It is the glue that binds a business together; and that creates a team rather than a collection of individuals.

Without fail I walk away from every single interaction with new ideas and insights. I see the things that we are doing well and can build on, and our opportunities to improve. The innovations that might be quietly bubbling away, waiting for someone to give capacity to. I grow to understand the dynamics, the tensions, and the energy of the team in a way I just can't from afar.

And, most importantly I get to connect with my people. To hear about their partner who is unwell, their kids who are acting up, their footy team that is winning, their frustrations with something that just isn't working and their aspirations for the future. I need the team to trust and follow me, and they can't do that without them knowing that I genuinely care about each of them as individual people.