Jean 0:10

Hi everyone, and welcome to Making Sense of Work. I'm Jean Belfor and it's such a delight for me to welcome my friend, professor Pare Keiha to the podcast today. Welcome pad.

Pare 0:25

Good evening, Jean from Aoteroa New Zealand

Jean 0:27

Welcome. Well, before I introduce pae, we've just been talking about how long we've known each other and we have worked out that it's 44 years, so we have a a lot of shared history from our growing up, our lives, our work lives together, and I'm looking forward to sharing that with you today. So PA is the Pro Vice Chancellor for Maori Advancement and Toki. That's Dean of Te Panama, the faculty of Maori and Indigenous Development, and the Dean of the Faculty of Culture and Society at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. He has a strong and extensive background in the governance of several public. Private companies, and he also supports several Auckland based arts and culture charities and holds a number of Board positions. So he's currently chair of Aroha Collective. He's a member of the Board of the Auckland Phil Harmonia Orchestra, and a member of the Board of the Prince's Trust New Zealand. He was honored by the Queen in 2008 New Year's Honors list when he was made a companion of the Queen's service order. For his services to business education and Maori. He is passionate about education and social justice, and I hope we'll be able to talk more about that in our conversation. As a part of that, he advises several Maori enterprises, including both tribal and pan tribal organizations, as well as state sector entities in the areas of business development, management, and strategy. So welcome again. Pardon? This is fun, to be together here.

Pare 2:19

It is indeed.

Jean 2:22

Well, we always start with this question. How's work at the moment?

Pare 2:27

How's work at the moment? Well, like many institutions of our elk worldwide, the tertiary education sector in New Zealand is suffering from what I'm referring to as the long covid tale. Many of our students have chosen not to return to univers. Many of our secondary school students have chosen to end their secondary school careers by going to work in an environment of high inflation, increasing mortgage costs, and increasing anxiety. In families. Many of our students, and I use this word deliberately, have heroically chosen to go to work, to give up. I hope, for a short period of time, their future in order to support the challenges that their families face. So work at the moment is particularly challenging because as a consequence, we're having to resize our institu. And so earlier today I had the difficult task of sitting with a group of my staff to tell'em that they're unlikely to have jobs at the end of next month. That is the reality of the world in which we all live.

Jean 3:49

Yeah. That's a really hard place to be as a leader, to be in that place of sharing those messages.

Pare 3:59

Well, as a leader, certainly based upon my experience, there are a number of challenges that we have to balance our own personal concerns for those that we love, those that we work with, because I would suggest that if one hasn't got, Loving and indeed respectful relationship with those we work with. And perhaps that work is not for us. Mm-hmm. And on the other hand, we still have to focus on the sustainability of the institution because we're here to serve our students.

Jean 4:38

So we've got this kind of tension all the time between the people we are serving, in your case, the students of the university and, and the people we are leading, and how we hold that tension and do that in a way that's, Okay. I guess for people as much as though it can, any of it can be okay, such difficult decisions to be made,

Pare 5:02

They're difficult decisions depending upon which side of the equation we sit. And I would suggest that anybody who can decouple themselves, From the personal impacts of making difficult decisions is perhaps insufficiently human enough to be an effective manager? An effective manager is required to make difficult decisions for on behalf of the institution because if we don't, we don't serve it well. We do not serve our staff well, and certainly we do not serve our students well. Mm-hmm. so it is indeed. A creative tension that we have to recognize in the first instance and courageously step up to.

Jean 5:51

So thank you for sharing that today. Sounds like it's been, you know, a really challenging day and, and it almost feels, uh, a bit difficult to ask this next question, but I'm still curious about this, about when you have a really good day at work, what does that look like?

Pare 6:10

Well, let me go back to verse principles and examine the notion of work. And life and indeed this odd word that we often insert work life balance. And there's a significant difference in my mind between work and Anita career, the career and my mind is that what you plan for workers simply let what you do and therefore, In my instance, I've taken a very curatorial approach to my career, which on the one hand looked somewhat confused because I started out life with the choice of either being a professional cellist or a professional chemist. I did an undergraduate degree in chemistry, mathematics, and physics. I acquired my first master's degree in chemistry, doctorate in chemical engineering, and mba. And because I got bored run near a master's degree in commercial law, those letters simply, um, aretest me to the fact that I still describe myself as professionally confused But what I consequently have found that the way that we see the world and the way that we see work is so important for the satisfaction that we gain. From our work or indeed our career. Yeah. And consequently from life more generally. Mm-hmm. And so, on the one hand you've noted that I can be described, um, as an academic, um, but more importantly, I describe the work that I do as been magical. I and my teams do magic. Why? Because we change young people's lives and the families from which they come, and consequently the communities in which they live forever and forever is a long time. Yeah. Um, and the way we see the nature of work, therefore gives us an opportunity to enjoy it a lot more. Mm. And so, whilst I have had a difficult day today, I had a young man come to see. To thank me for simply encouraging him to be ambitious, to thank me for facilitating a scholarship for him, for nagging him for months to pursue his postgraduate education. And today he came to tell me that he had put aside his postgraduate education and indeed his career as a future engineer. To become a recruiter for my university so he could find young men and women like him and give them the courage to make the difficult decision, if not the courageous decision to acquire the skills that I've got. So I had a really good day at work today. Yeah. Because, I realize that we do do magic. Yeah. On a daily basis. Mm-hmm. I could spend an awful lot of time telling you what a bad day I've had, what a bad week I've had, what a bad month I've had. But the end of the day, those challenges are what define not only who we are. But more importantly, give us an opportunity to see that the world is ably a very simple glass of water, which is half full, not half empty.

Jean 10:00

There's something about what you're saying that strikes me about this connection between, Purpose and work and also impact, thinking about the impact we have. It can be very tempting when we are stuck in a difficult day or we are tired or we've had a row with our boss to become very narrow, to kind of narrow our focus and say, I find this very difficult. I don't like it. And. What I'm taking from what you're saying is that if we just step back and look into the, the wider connection, the places that we are making a difference, the, the ripple effects of the decisions that we are making that are good and positive, then it helps to bring us out of that. Discomfort, I suppose, or that struggle with work and see it for what it is. See the whole, see, see the places that are good and that hopefully that helps ease the way for us to enjoy work more In that context,

Pare 11:08

I had the pleasure of being introduced to two authors, Peter Sing. And Charles Handy. Um, Peter's book, the Fifth Discipline influenced me significantly because he sits up a framework for successful organizations, which balances our role in those organizations. and what he refers to our personal mastery. So he argues that there are five disciplines in order to develop a successful company. Firstly, self or personal mastery. Secondly, mental models or the way that we see the world. Is hugely important because if we see the world, for example, as something which we cannot change, then we become a victim to the way that we simply see the world. He refers to this notion of building a shared vision or the language of my people. This notion of. A mission which we share then means it'll be at the fact that I'm Dean in many instances, I just, I'm the least important person in delivering or a mission driven outcome. Um, but what I am capable of doing is being able to spot talent, to be able to support it and be able to develop it. More importantly, create a high trust environment. And that then leads to Peter's. Discipline being team learning. We're all part of teams, um, or we should be, and teams are very much like chains. The weakest link in any chain determines the strength of the entire chain. The weakest link in any team determines the strength of that team. and it serve no useful purpose in allowing somebody to be weak on a team. Each of us have a responsibility for supporting that person, whether we understand it or not. We may not like it, but if we want a strong team, then that's what we're going to have to do. Perhaps his most significant contribution after those four disciplines, um, is what he refers to as systems thinking, cause and effect, um, the understanding of the difference between causality and correlation. Um, our ability to understand not only how things happen, but why things happen, simply arguing that something is not fair. Is insufficient. We must understand how it has become unfair, and more importantly, as a consequence of understanding how it has become unfair, we either reconcile ourselves. Impotence what we step forward in being courageous, which is why personal mastery is so important and it's balance between the person, the individual, and the success of the team. If not, the company is so important. Often as I, I hear far too many complain about the performance of others, rather than saying, how can I help others perform? Mm. Yeah, because we are all successful that each and every one of us in a team is successful. Mm-hmm. We all fail success if we let others fail without supporting them. And so, um, I've been fortunate, particularly as I've got towards the end of my career, to both accept and understand that life is indeed what you make of it. Life is what you choose to make of it. Life is as simple as looking at a glass of water and either determining for yourself whether it was half full or half empty. I would suggest that every day we should get up and thank the good Lord. Um, or whoever we might want to give thanks too. But the simple fact that we're alive. Mm. But the simple fact that we may be free, but the simple fact that we can choose whether or not we're gonna be happy or not. Mm-hmm. Because as I say to my students at orientation, each year, you're alive for the period that I've just clicked my fingers and dead for eternity. What is the point in going to our death when the last thing that passes through our mind is, oh my God, I wish I'd spent another day at the office. Yeah, but it's about balance. And Peter saying, you refers to the social creative tension, attention is important. Reconsider it as being destructive, or we can see it as being invigorating. I mean, how many difficult conversations do we avoid? But more importantly, how many solutions have we missed out on because we're insufficiently courageous to have these difficult decisions because certainly as far as a career is concerned, our contribution to the success of others. In many instances should recognize first and foremost that it's not about us. Hmm. And I used to encourage my students many years ago to ask all of the dumb questions that they could possibly do. So because they were doing the person next door to them, a significant favor because the person next door to. Just didn't have enough courage at this point in time to ask the question that you were gonna ask for an behalf on their behalf.

Jean 17:17

I have so many things that come up for me from what you've been talking about. And it links to a conversation I had with somebody this week where we were talking about, um, performance, individual performances versus the system. And I think this connects really a lot to actually, the, the whole idea of systems thinking. And I hadn't been seeing it through that lens that. If we think just about the individual and we don't look at the system, then there's no way we can work out whether that individual was performing or not based on their own means. because it could be that it's the system that's impacting their performance. It could be all the pieces in the pie. And, and so for example, I think at the moment that quite a few people are really struggling with their own performance because they're really tired and there's some sort of systemic tiredness as a result of covid and inflation and war and climate. And, and yes, I think individuals are holding that individually and not looking at the system. It's too scary almost to say I'm really tired and I'm struggling and I think my performance isn't where it should be. Um, I'm not sure I'm making sense, but I think the, I think the system is part of the problem, and it would be good for us to step back and look at the system and give individuals permission to talk about how they're experiencing the system at the moment.

Pare 18:50

I find the term performance manage. Hugely problematic because as much as anything else that which we measure should be that which we value, and I'm using the word value deliberately. Um, and more importantly, when performance becomes individualized, it creates a whole series of rather regrettable, unintended consequences. Like, why should I be courageous? If it means that I might make a mistake? If I make a mistake, will it be counted against me? If it's counted against me, why would I be courageous that is best, that I'm not courageous because I'm going to be blamed. And I spent a lot of time challenging performance measures at my institution simply because every question has a sociocultural context. Let me give an example, Jim. I have failed, and may yet to continue to fail until, um, I just give up to effectively stop, um, institutions like. Asking for academic cvs, which list? The Quantum of Research publications. Okay. Now, I'm a male. I don't have children, but I'm reasonably confident to be able to argue that perhaps one of the reasons not excuse. That many of our female academics haven't produced as many research outputs as their male peers, is that they've had to be mothers, and more importantly, they've chosen to be good mothers. Consequently, we might reasonably assume that they've given up part of their career to be properly selfish to bring up their children, but no, we still continue to ask. For cvs whereby ultimately the quantum becomes a determination of performance, not for quality, and more importantly, having been on fire to many appointments committees. What we never ask anybody is should you be appointed? Where do you see yourself in five years? Because ultimately we should be seeking to have a balance between that which is retrospective and that which is futuristic. In other words, where is the ambition in the appointee? But more importantly, we tend to frame such questions if indeed we're courageous enough to ask them as personal question. It's not where you take your team. Mm-hmm. how will you support others? What are your ambitions for mentoring? How are we going to create a successful team? Um, and so I'm hugely cynical about performance management, simply because an employer also has a ViDu duty to support staff to be successful. And so if we then apply systems thinking to such things, we then begin to ask, well, what's in the best interest of our customers? What's in the best interests of the institution? And how do we all collectively through some form of performance management, look at how we achieve those goals? Um, So there we go. But the, the word that you used there was collectively, and I, I agree with you that I think that individual performance management is, Ignores the system, ignores the team, ignores the society that that person's functioning in, ignores what's going on outside of them. And the the problem is we haven't managed to come up with anything better yet, So it, it's time for us to really rethink. I, uh, I believe how we say to people, well, how we help people to know whether or not they're doing what's a good job, a good enough job, and. Well, Gina, if, if I may, um, it comes back again to the notion of work and the way we choose to see our contribution to that work. So, um, quite accurately I describe myself as the least most important in any of my teams because I pretend I know what's going on, but I rely significant. On my staff, and I hate using that phrase by the way. Mm-hmm. because I simply see myself as being first amongst equals mm-hmm. I rely heavily on my staff to actually know what's going on and absolutely trust them that they do. Um, I'm a little unusual at my institution in which having built my teams personally, I trust them. Without question, how can I do? I know every collective number, which are many instances are ratios, which over time tell me that we're performing significantly better than others in similar circumstances. But the most important word which allows me to do this is trust, both being trusting and trustworthy. And I therefore attempt as best as I can to practice two principles, transparency and fairness. My staff can see the financials, my staff can see all the numbers whenever they want because without their contribution to those outcomes. I wouldn't meet them. And so as difficult as this is going to be in the next couple of weeks, as we prune our staffing, they have confidence in the outcome which we will achieve once we've done that. Yes, it will be sad. Yes, it will be difficult, and yes, it will be tra traumatic. But this is what every organization's going through at the moment. And if a manager is not prepared to recognize, firstly, their own humanity, cause this will be difficult. What I often say to those that I mentor, first thing that you have to do is put aside the adoration complex. Your job is not to be liked. Your job is to be respected. Let me give you an example. One of the worst things that a manager can do is to be accused of favoritism. Yeah. Because to be accused of favoritism means that you are not fair, and it doesn't matter how others perform. They will consider that you are not fair and therefore unworthy. To be trusted. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and that's difficult because often we would like to think that our humanity is much more important than doing the right thing. Right. It's not about us. That's being, to paraphrase Charles hand his words improperly selfish. You say a bit about that. Well, proper, proper selfishness as, as, as Charles sets out in his book, the Hungry Spirit is about a acquiring sufficient confidence to acquire a work-life balance, to acquire a career life balance, which includes your family. which includes your friends, which includes yourself. And what I attempt to do on a daily basis is I try to make my staff laugh always at my expense. And I try to do that deliberately. always at my expense. Because making somebody else feel happy in their work is as important as making somebody happy in the work that they do. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Because that's about how we feel when we are with each other, isn't it that so important. Yes. So here's something for, um, Nu to con consider the weather. New Zealanders have a preoccupation with complaining about the weather of all the preoccupations in life. Nothing could be more futile. And complaining about the weather because we are never going to change it. The most important thing about the weather is to change your attitude towards. And that is a deliberate act. Deliberately change your attitude towards the weather, your relationships with partners, friends, colleagues, the person sitting next door to you on the bus or the train. The world is not going to grind to a hideous halt if you smile at a stranger. I might think you're a bit weird, but that's beside the point. I remember my mother, who was yes, a boy scout, had in her journal little poem, the beginning of which I cannot recall, but I do remember the ending, and it goes something like this. If you want to be happy and life little man, do something for somebody quick. And it has to be just these little things. Yeah, it is in those

Jean 29:51

little things, I think. Can I come back to something you mentioned earlier? This comes from the, the fifth discipline, and this is the idea of self mastery. What's your understanding of what that means? And, and how do we develop it?

Pare 30:09

Actually, I think it's quite hard to develop. Well, there are many synonyms of personal mastery. There's agency, there's confidence, courage perhaps, but it's about being sufficiently self-reflective, whiles, whilst at the same time ensuring that you do have prerequisite skills. To be called a leader. I of the view that this is significant difference between a leader and a manager. A leader is somebody who others are willing to follow, okay? Mm-hmm. they're not the same thing. No. And my experience is that followers wish to follow somebody who they trust, who has a high level of, um, integrity, who clearly understands the difference between morals and ethics. Who doesn't always get things right, but recognize, recognizes the same fault in others. Yeah. I think that's very true. So it's really a collection of the self attributes of trust, but also that kind of self-awareness and self-knowledge and kind of understanding where you fit into the system. Yeah. Many years ago, I supervised a doctoral health science student. Who examined the notion of professional maturity, amongst senior healthcare practitioners in the district health boards in New Zealand, and she was interested in understanding at what point in their career Yeah. Did they realize that they had some form. Professional maturity to be able to perform as leaders, if not managers. And many of them couldn't identify the date or indeed the year, but suddenly came to the conclusion that they had acquired both sufficient expertise. Cause I still think you have to have at least the basic skills. But more importantly, the realization of not self-identification of having agency. In other words, belief in oneself. And if you can get to the point whereby everybody is effectively as anxious as you are about the imposter syndrome, and it doesn't matter. So this is really kind of at the heart of effective leadership is this sense of, um, belief in myself, or I actually might call it realistic belief in myself. So a sense that I'm going to suffer a bit from imposter syndrome and a bit of anxiety, but that's in the normal realm. But actually, I realistically believe I'm mature enough to be in this management role, be in this leadership role. but more importantly, it's about having the confidence and the trust of others. Mm-hmm. it's all very well having trust in yourself, which often is not at the extreme to lead to arrogance for Posity, but certainly from my perspective, once I know that staff respect me by their actions. Yep. Then work becomes a thrill because my job therefore becomes, well, how can I reinforce that? Yeah, yeah. And I often find that one of the biggest reasons for non-performance of teams is the sad, um, reality for many who are too afraid to make a mistake, meet highly competent people. We were too afraid to make the mistake because they're either shouted at or blamed rather than encouraged and supported. Yeah. Yeah. A mistake is only an action that you repeat the first time you make a mistake. It's a learning opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but have you chastised anybody? For making a mistake, what are they going to do? Mm-hmm. they're never gonna be correct. They never gonna a risk. Mm-hmm. risk. And so therefore, the average manager has to become a manager and then begins to blame them for underperformance. Because they are risk averse, do not want to be blamed and though, and so therefore you end up by driving what we used to refer to as satisfaction. Mm-hmm. vicious compliance and drive effectiveness downwards in a spiral essentially. Well, not any drive effectiveness down. Individual morale declines, team morale, declines, and overall performance declines. Mm. Because I can manage my multimillion dollar budgets based upon half a dozen numbers in my head, and I'm constantly acquiring data, refining data. Um, but more importantly, I'm constantly trying to understand how well my staff enjoy their work. Yeah. Yeah. Because if they're enjoying their work, in my belief, then everything just becomes smoother and easier and better. I used to have a view that I could get anything done at my previous institution at the cost of a chocolate fish. People outside of New Zealand will need to go and Google chocolate fish. Now understanding, or that's so beautifully Kiwi chocolate fish, but something, someone expensive. Mm. Yes. That's so simple. It's not fresh. That's important. It's the gesture. Yeah. Yeah. It's the thinking about people. Yeah. Mm. Well, I think that, as somebody who's been alongside you during so much of your career, um, one of the things I love about you is that I think, well, first of all, I think you're a bit humble. I think in many ways you were a trailblazer, and I see you now determined to create opportunities for young people so that they too can step into the types of roles that. found a way into to create the opportunities for those people, for those young people who perhaps might not otherwise have those opportunities. I'm extraordinary privileged, and with every privilege in my mind comes a duty. A duty to serve the best interests of others, and therefore I act out. Perhaps my wildest fantasy on a day-to-day basis. Queen service metal, which I, um, was honored with, has an extraordinary inscription on the edge. And for those of you that are not aware, king Charles, when he wears his medals, the one at the front. On the left is the New Zealand Queen service order and the inscription on the edge of that medal is for service. I didn't know that that inscription was on the medal until I received mine. And when I read it, I cried. I cried cause that's how I see my life. And so, much of the things that I do are not for myself. Mm-hmm. they're for others. I come back to my view of the career, um, that I enjoy is that I and my teams, we, and the pronoun is important, do magic together. We change young people's lives and their families. and the communities into which they were born forever. And so I have the great privilege and the honor to be a trustee of the PRI Trust on New Zealand, um, where I have another career, if you like. Um, certainly not work in which I dedicate my service to the interests of others. Mm. And I cannot tell you how much enjoyment I get when young people come to me 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years later and simply say to me, thank you. Yeah. And I say, no, thank you. Thank you for giving me the joy and the opportunity of being able to see you grow up to be a fine, caring parent, if not loving partner, still serving the community into which you were born. And the way I therefore see that world is important to me. Yeah. Yeah. The way we choose to see work should be just as important. We're coming to the end of our conversation. I noticed myself being, really moved by the way you are describing the role that you play and the role that I think we all play in changing the lives of young people and therefore society that, that we all have a duty to be thinking about. How are we doing that? and I really want to thank you for bringing that to the fore and, and for doing it, for leading by example in the way that you do that Pa It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to be your friend. 44 years. I don't think we should repeat that too often, Otherwise, my gray hair will expand. But I've also got to the point whereby, um, I have shoes that are older than some of my students, That's how quickly life passes. Yeah. The opportunity that we've got is to ensure that life does not pass us by, based upon my experience. Life gives us theo opportunities grab those which are offered to them to. more importantly, make them for yourself. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So next time you find yourself complaining about the weather, stop because you can't change it. The moment you can reframe the weather is the moment you have the opportunity to reframe the nature of work. And more importantly, if your work is not giving you. Particularly after you've reframed it, then leave Yeah. Yes. Cause you only have one life. More importantly, make yourself happy first. Thank you for saying that. A hundred percent agree. Well, thank you, PA. What a nice opportunity it's been to have this and, and so many. Ideas, insights, and pearls of wisdom. And so thank you and I hope the next few weeks you are able to be there for others and the challenge and that we can be there for you through this challenging time. Cool. Thank you.