Skroo Turner | Don't F**k It Up | Lead with Courage

Graham 'Skroo' Turner is the co-founder and current CEO of one of Australia's most celebrated and famous brands, Flight Centre.
Skroo is no stranger to the ups and downs of business, from growing from a couple of retail stores across Australia in 1982 to being a global travel giant of leisure and corporate travel.
Skroo has led the business of Flight Centre through devastating regional wars, terrorism events like 9/11 and the London bombings as well as global epidemics and pandemics lile SARS and COVID.

Skroo shares his reflections on how he has tried to maintain morale amongst uncertainty as well as foster a sense of ownership across the changing generations in the workplace.
For Andy and Cherie, Flight Centre has been a part of their journey having met each other in 2010 and worked together while working at Flight Centre.

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Until the next episode, we hope you live and Lead with Courage!
Cherie and Andy x
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Luminate Leadership is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14.

Transcript

Cherie: 0:00

Screwturner. Welcome to the Lead with Courage podcast. Thank you for joining us.

Skroo: 0:04

Thank you, Sherry.

Cherie: 0:05

It's so nice to be back in here. It's a bit of a reunion coming back into head office, very exciting to be here and thrilled to have you have a chat with us today. There's no Andy, so it's just me, so I hope that's going to be okay for you. Yeah, sure, but really there's so much I'd love to go through and ask you about today, I guess the history of the business, your own personal motivations, your own lessons as a founder and as a CEO, and also the future of travel and how things are post-COVID for Flight Centre. Before we jump into it all, though, we always ask our guests what does the expression lead with courage mean to you? So I'm just putting you on the spot with that one. But what does it mean to you to lead with courage mean to you? So I'm just putting you on the spot with that one. But what does it mean to you to lead with courage?

Skroo: 0:46

I guess it's you know. Don't hold back. Make sure that you're basically in charge of what's happening in the business and you know events, don't that? You have some control over the events and what happens in the business? That?

Cherie: 1:04

you have some control over the events and what happens in the business. Yeah, beautiful, and there are a few events in your time as a CEO and a co-founder of a travel company, I think, when I was in flights in the 17 years I was here and we used to always share stories of like the GFC and the Cold War and all of these ups and downs, but there's nothing really that's probably knocked the business around as COVID but tell us about, can you tell us about, early days? So, if I'm right, I think Flight Centre started when I was born. 81, 82, is that right?

Skroo: 1:36

Yeah, well, I suppose, just going back to all the things that can go wrong and COVID obviously was one I think you get to the stage where you know business isn't life and death, not like it is in a war or something like that, and so some of these problems you go through obviously is something that you get used to and in the end it's business.

Skroo: 2:06

Unfortunately it's not always the same for everyone in the business, but we started in, essentially started Top Deck in sorry Flight Centre in the Prudential Arcade off Martin Place in 1982 with Dave Tonkin in 1982 with Dave Tonkin and we were obviously in top deck from 1973 and had top deck shops in Australia and New Zealand and this is sort of how we morphed.

Skroo: 2:41

My son, matt, was born in 81. And we came back to Australia for that and that's where we started and I was mainly looking after top deck, the bookings out of Australia. But then Dave Tonkin, who was a friend of mine in London, he worked for us in London for some time. He was relatively young even compared to us, relatively young even compared to us but he ran a bucket shop in London I think it was called the Flight Shop and I knew he was good because he'd worked for us and so I convinced him to come in 50-50 with Top Deck Travel in the Sydney Flight Centre and he called it Sydney Flight Centre. He made about something over $90,000 in the first year and that was quite a lot in those days, Wow yeah.

Skroo: 3:32

And he decided I know we had an agreement. It's on one piece of paper and the paper basically said that it's a 50-50 partnership between Dave Tonkin and Top Deck Travel and Dave does all the work, Top Deck takes half the profit.

Cherie: 3:49

And he signed it.

Skroo: 3:50

Yeah. And after about a year he said well, look, I want to buy you out because I'm doing all the work and you're getting half the profit. So he bought us out. I don't know exactly how much, but it was probably. Our half share was $150,000 or something like that. And that's when we started opening more flight shops flight centres in Brisbane Flight Centre and the flight shop in Melbourne, and later on in Sydney we did a flight centre there too. So that's how it started.

Cherie: 4:29

Yeah, it's incredible, and I remember a story if I'm right it might have been like 86 or 87-ish where you brought all the managers of, or the leaders of, the businesses and the different stores together and started talking about how do we really have, I guess, what we now know today in the Flight Centre philosophies as one best way, but how do we drive everyone? You're saying Flight Centre, Flight Shop, all the different names. To my knowledge, the way everyone advertised was they all did their own advertising in their local newspapers back then. Do you remember that part of the story and how important was that, do you think, for the brand?

Skroo: 5:07

Yeah, I can vaguely remember. I think we had about 30 businesses then and 30 partners who generally had somewhere between 20% and 30% of the business, and we were in Bangkok at a leaders' conference at the Monty Inn, I think it was.

Skroo: 5:26

I don't know whether it still exists. But Jeff Harris got everyone to put their business cards on the table and we had 30 totally different business cards, generally totally different names. There were a few flight centres like Brisbane Flight Centre, there were a couple of flight shops and a whole range of other things, because everyone chose their own name. So that started for us to standardise everywhere, but it took a couple of years. It wasn't until the late 80s that we were. We called our company Flight Centres International Right and generally it was such and such flight centre, you know Aspley Flight Centre or Brisbane Flight Centre or Melbourne Flight Centre.

Cherie: 6:17

Yeah.

Skroo: 6:19

Which changed again in the early 90s, when we just dropped the location and just became Flight Centre and later became Flight Centre Proprietary Limited and then, before floating in 1995, november 95, I think it was and then we became just Flight Centre Limited and, as you know, now we changed again. We're now Flight Centre Travel Group Flight Centre.

Cherie: 6:46

Travel Group. When did that change come?

Skroo: 6:48

I think it was about 2015.

Cherie: 6:51

I was going to say about 15, 16. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. I love hearing you talk about the story and I think I've read it in the book around. Not Screw the Rules one and not Top Deck Days. I'm forgetting the third, like the one about flights and a story.

Skroo: 7:08

Family Villages.

Cherie: 7:09

Tribe book. You tell a story about, I guess, going public and people investing in the business, and what can you? What do you remember from that time? Yeah, well, it was quite an exciting time.

Skroo: 7:19

I mean, you know, we were in 1994, it was quite an exciting time. I mean, you know we were in 1994, 95, we made, I think, about $13 million profit before tax and that's the year we floated and I think our capitalisation was about $65 million after we'd floated and we had originally probably about 60 or 70 million shares.

Skroo: 7:42

Staff could buy up to $50,000 worth of shares at 85 cents and I think the public was 95 cents and within a pretty short time it was up to about $1.25 or so and that first year we went from 13 million profit to 19 million profit. So it was a pretty good story. And it's obviously a long time ago now, nearly 30 years, so there's been a lot of water under the bridge since we went public.

Cherie: 8:16

Yeah, a lot of stories, a lot of experiences. One thing that I I don't know maybe I don't know enough about a million other businesses, but one thing I see here at Flight Centre that I don't always see in other businesses is the amount of buy-in. And I don't just mean external shares if it's a public company, but the set up here with ownership, and if we go back as another company philosophy around leaders, store managers, area managers, whatever the role, the title, but over the years, the ability for leaders to buy into the business. And I remember you've said or you've been quoted in the early days around you know 80, what is it like? 100% of nothing is still nothing, and so the importance of getting people's buy-in. I believe it's something really unique here at Flight Centre. Do you want to share, kind of how that's evolved or how it all sits these days?

Skroo: 9:07

Yeah, well, our core values are irreverence, which some people question a bit and egalitarianism and ownership, and the ownership's been very important. It's the way we've grown and obviously COVID had a big impact on that, because people who did have ownership in businesses and that we you know the company itself had to prop that up, and so some of these things have changed a little bit post COVID.

Skroo: 9:37

But it is. It's certainly one of the things I believe in Bear in mind. Now we're in 26 or 27 countries and it's really important to how we run those 26, 27 countries. Quite a few of them are in Europe, and if you look at the Flight Centre brand, it's only in five countries now, whereas FCM is in 26 countries.

Cherie: 10:09

Oh, wow.

Skroo: 10:11

It does vary a little bit to the type of business as well, but ownership will always be important to us. When we had shareholding actual shareholding in each shop in the late 80s, one of the problems came at one stage, I think we had 70 or 80 different companies. So that's when we introduced the business ownership scheme, which was a way we could do that much more easily just under one or two entities, and they ran as a sort of a dementia system, a return on dementia. But as far as people were concerned that just mirrors ownership.

Cherie: 10:55

Yeah, and I mean, I remember I was my first team leader role was at Curramundi Flight Centre and I had my first BOS and it was a brand new store. Everyone told me don't go there. Could it be Curram? No money, but it was a success and I think, looking back on it, it cost next to nothing to buy into it, but the returns for a 23-year-old. I thought I was absolutely killing it in life and then moved down to Caloundra and had the opportunity to buy into there and it was so incredibly motivating.

Skroo: 11:19

Yeah, it does vary, you know it doesn't. It's not for everyone, because people do have to put up a certain amount of money or they get a loan from.

Skroo: 11:31

I think we had a loan arrangement with one of the banks generally, and that's how we started off and in the early days, you know, you could have three or four BOSs and so, yeah, quite a few people made a lot of money. And obviously in the early days it was, you know, a bricks and mortar travel agency was. If you got it right and you had the right deals with the right airlines, it was very profitable.

Cherie: 12:02

Yeah, and one thing that strikes me now and I know that times have changed with um, technology and and the way that life is in post-covid world that we're in but one thing that is was back then and I think still is now, and it's something that I hold very dear to my time here at flight center was the importance of developing the people in your team.

Cherie: 12:22

Because I think from the, the concept if I have taken it on right is that when you bought your first BOS in the store there as a team leader or store manager, when you move on, the whole idea was to get your, you know, second in charge or 2IC or your assistant manager person behind you to step up and take over, and really about developing people from within um and leaving I was chatting to a few people saying I was having, we're having this conversation with you today. I'm like what do you want to? What should I speak to Screw about? And so many people have said you know what they. What stands out more than anything is that development in people, the training, the opportunities, but just that, I guess the importance and genuine focus on developing people Like what does that all mean to you and do you feel as passionate about it now as you always have? And yeah, what are your thoughts on that?

Skroo: 13:12

Yeah, I mean obviously COVID. You know we had COVID and we'll probably get to that, but we had 21,000 people in 2019, just pre-COVID and we had to get down to around the six and a half thousand. So we're to lose a lot of very experienced, very skilled people. So we're still building that back up. But you know, I think it's the same in any business it's it's about the people that you employ in the first place, but also how they're motivated and trained in the expertise in that as well.

Skroo: 13:48

And yeah, so that's obviously absolutely crucial, and I don't think you'll get many successful businesses not to realise that the first thing you've got to get right is your people, particularly your people at the front line, but obviously also your leadership as well, and that's why establishing the right culture and the right level of ownership has been absolutely crucial. And we're obviously coming back from COVID now, but it's going to be a couple of years Well, as I think I was saying, about five years where we're going to be behind pre-COVID, four years from pre-COVID, but it'll be 10 years before we get back to trading where we would have been without COVID. So it's quite a stretch and it's really challenged some of those basic tenants, which ownership's a very important part of it.

Cherie: 14:44

Yeah, there's so many things. I'd love to pick your brain over the years, but I think pre-COVID, post-covid, and that topic is so relevant right now and so interesting I remember I don't know if you you would have spoken to so many people at this time, and it's not because you don't have a good memory, but you were speaking to so many people at this time. And it's not because you, you know, don't have a good memory, but you were speaking to so many people. But I will never forget it was that day that, yeah, I'm maybe 10,000 of us or close to it you'd probably know the numbers more than me got the call to say we're on the indefinite stand down and and no one in the world knew what was going on. So there was a lot of uncertainty and I happened to get lucky getting one of those jobs in the call centre that was set up here in the building for the next seven months.

Cherie: 15:28

And I remember seeing you up here at MoFo's in the cafe at the top of head office and I said to you how are you? And you were like oh, how are you? And all you? You just worried. I think your concern went straight back to how am I and I was like I'm okay, like we're here, we've, we've got some income. My heart broke for you. I think your heart was breaking for everyone else, but my heart broke for you because you have built this business, you and many other amazing humans, for four decades and just to see this overnight devastation to the workforce how was that for you?

Skroo: 16:04

Yeah, it was hard, but if you see that room, there we're in the library now, of course, but the room next door was our war room.

Cherie: 16:12

War room. Yeah, and so we set that up, and it took us room there. We're in the library now, of course, but the room next door was our war room, yeah and uh.

Skroo: 16:14

So we set that up and it took us. We knew we went from um, our costs were 230 million a month globally, globally, and we our income was about 250 to 60 million and we went almost overnight to practically zero income but obviously a lot of that cost still were there. So we had to get our leadership team to pull together a plan very quickly to get our costs down to around the $65 million a month. And that's where obviously we had to let a lot of people go, to around the 65 million a month and that's where obviously we had to let a lot of people go. And you know, obviously it was a terrible time for the leadership team. But we also had the challenge of survival, which was quite a motivating force, of survival, which was quite a motivating force. And that room is where it all happened. In the first month or five weeks, I think, before, we raised the money and obviously shareholders were heavily diluted, but we got the support of our banks, a couple of the major banks and raised the capital.

Cherie: 17:37

What did you raise? Again, it's public information, isn't it what you raised, or no? I?

Skroo: 17:41

think initially we raised about $700 or $800 million, but we did have about $1.3 billion in the bank when COVID hit.

Skroo: 17:53

That's helpful A certain amount of that, of course, was client funds. So, um, as time went on, uh, we you know, I think we refunded something like two and a half billion dollars over. Uh, and quite a bit of that was were bookings with airlines and other operators, but we went from booking travel for nearly 12 months of refunding travel, and it was largely the operational leaders who had to do all the hard work in terms of sanding people down, and it was hard for them, more so than myself. You know a lot of people were friends and they would have known a lot of the people they had to let go yeah, and it was.

Cherie: 18:37

It's just the impossible, isn't it? I've often people say, oh, you started your own business. Is that always a goal? I said, oh, if it hadn't been for covid, I don't think I would have ever left this beautiful place. Um, now I look at it and I'm deeply grateful for where I'm at and how things have turned out. But it's yeah, it was just somewhere that so many of us we never dreamt of leaving. But that's life sometimes.

Skroo: 19:00

Yeah, we have a lot of people. You know you mentioned you were here 17 years. We do have a lot of people all the time celebrating at least 20 years, and Mel obviously left last year after 36 years. Wow.

Cherie: 19:16

And Fee Taylor was my last leader here and she'd be close I think the same time as Mel 30-odd years.

Skroo: 19:24

Yeah well, there was someone yesterday their 29th year and Fee would be around that. I think she's around over 30 years.

Cherie: 19:31

Yeah, yeah, incredible that duration. How did you get personally for you? How did you get yourself through that time?

Skroo: 19:39

Look, I found it quite an interesting challenge, you know we were lucky. You know, obviously I've been in business for a long time and so I wasn't worried about my survival financially, you know, obviously I've been in business for a long time and so I wasn't worried about my survival financially, you know. But it was, you could say, an interesting challenge. But it was a challenge and we had a very experienced leadership team and particularly in Treasury and in our, our cfos and other financial services we had. So, um, we never had any doubt that we wouldn't survive um, but it it was um very challenging and you know, as I said, the existing shareholders got heavily diluted because of the capital raising. But in the war room, you know, for the first couple of months we were here nearly every day from early in the morning till one of the highlights, at about five o'clock. We'd hear the clinking of bottles and the rosé and gnarly dude's wine would be delivered. So that was.

Cherie: 20:55

Only at five o'clock.

Skroo: 20:57

I don't really believe you, yeah it might have been four o'clock sometimes and it was well known here in Queensland that the police had said that they're abandoning any random breath tests because of COVID abandoning any random breath tests because of COVID. So you know that was quite a relief to everyone.

Cherie: 21:20

Oh, classic, classic, oh, my goodness, and I don't even know where to go from there. But no, I feel that time for you. Your running, cycling like from your personal fitness, and, um, that's still something. Did that get you through, personally, or did you find time for it?

Skroo: 21:39

yeah, I mean, I think you've always got to find time for that sort of thing, and uh did touch still happen or you probably couldn't in covid times not allowed well, um, it's interesting because there was, uh, we were in the middle of a lockdown early on and you weren't allowed that, you were only allowed to exercise in theory with with one other person. And I can remember and this only happened once or twice todd and I going down to musgrave park where we used to play touch and uh having a game of foursome back which is kicking to each other, and this other random guy he was a backpacker from Italy turned up and joined us, so we were actually breaking the law.

Cherie: 22:27

Maybe not the only. Oh no, bending the law over the years in Flight Centre, starting new ways of doing things.

Skroo: 22:33

Well, we did, and we started Touch again very early and when we weren't meant to, and I remember quite often you'd see people just scattering everywhere and you'd look up and there's two or three police walking down the road near the park and everyone would suddenly disappear out of the touch, would he?

Cherie: 22:55

That'd just be you and Todd standing there. What's happened? Oh classic. Well, on a different note, 99 Bikes and the Pedal Group just went ballistic at that time, which is obviously a family business, and your son, matt, leads and runs that business, so it was good for bikes.

Skroo: 23:16

Yeah well, jude Spicer's retreats too did quite well during that period and the bikes did brilliantly. They ended up being quite overstocked once the COVID died down. So there were some serious challenges and I think right around Australia or around the world with bike shops. During COVID you couldn't get stock and then suddenly there was a flood of stock coming in. It used to take. Some of the orders took two years to be delivered during COVID and then after COVID that went down to two weeks. So you can imagine what happened then?

Cherie: 23:56

Well, I don't know if you know this maybe you do, but my husband, andy, worked there from, I think, mid 2020 for about 18 months and yeah, in the beginning, in category management, you know, getting product in, so it was just the directive buy whatever we can get our hands on. And then, yeah, in time, obviously that had to change, but it really was. It was absolutely insane, um, the lack of supply, and then if you did have anything, that customers were just going crazy for it.

Skroo: 24:24

yeah, I think it's interesting there's quite a few people in flight centers got jobs at 99 bikes or advanced traders and uh, and there's a reasonable number of still there.

Cherie: 24:34

Yeah yeah, it's brilliant. I remember actually seeing jude and we had a bit of a giggle about with spices. She said, oh, usually how spices are going, doesn't rater mention with flight center or night or pedal group? She said, but during covid my business was absolutely booming. When people could, only they were forced to travel into their own backyard and so then they were discovering more incredible places in South East Queensland in particular. But yeah, it's funny how the different waves of business and what people are focused on yeah, and we did during COVID, during the lockdowns and the border closures.

Skroo: 25:09

we did two trips to London and you had to do two weeks quarantine. Obviously when you're back which I must admit is pretty funny you have to quarantine, even when you test negative maybe. But we did do two weeks in one of the New South Wales spots, the Sangoma.

Cherie: 25:33

Oh, tough, really tough, those two weeks. Is that the Blue Mountains? That's the Blue Mountains.

Skroo: 25:39

And they had to close because of some COVID thing, and the chef prepared two weeks of meals for us. Basically, and it was just us, jude and I, and we had to have a personal guard to make sure we didn't leave the property, and so I used to get him to come over at about five o'clock every afternoon with the gnarly dudes and we'd get into the beer and wine. You know, I'm not sure he was meant to, but oh, wow, oh wow, wow.

Cherie: 26:15

That's an incredible place to be stuck in a lockdown For you now. I guess you know what. Oh, I don't. What are you? I'm like I don't know whether I say here about your age, because age is just an age, but you're in your 70s.

Skroo: 26:31

Yeah, I'm just about to be 75.

Cherie: 26:37

Okay, all right, mid-70, almost what's. What's the future look like for you? Like leading up to covid, was it a different future? Were you looking at stepping aside or out of the business at all, or has that changed now with covid?

Skroo: 26:47

well, um, yeah, it's not necessarily my decision of, of course.

Cherie: 26:51

The board.

Skroo: 26:52

Yeah, they have a project about succession which is called it's named Weekend at Bernie's, so that's.

Cherie: 27:03

Of course it is.

Skroo: 27:05

Yeah, look, I play it by ear. I'm healthy and I'm certainly enjoying it still. And I suppose the first thing I think a lot of CEOs that were badly affected by COVID have the same thing they really want to get the company and the business back to at least its state pre-COVID. And we've got what we call journey to 2%. We've been working on it for the last 18 months, nearly two years, and we're hoping to get there next year and basically all that is is 2% of our TTV or total sales of profit before tax, and so this is a real challenge to us and, as a global company, it's something that every, all our leaders are focused on. So I certainly want to want to get there.

Skroo: 28:04

There's no guarantee. This is an aspirational goal, but if we don't get it in 2024, 2025, we certainly want to get it the next year or the next year and hopefully all those years. So that's a very motivating thing. It's not just about the money, but it's about running a really good business, getting back to where we were pre-COVID. We've just got a fair way to go. We've got about 15,000 people now compared to 21 pre-COVID, but the business and the business models where we're growing in has changed.

Cherie: 28:41

And what are you seeing now? What are the trends post-COVID?

Skroo: 28:45

Well, the areas that we're growing in do tend to be lower margin. For example, our independent, which is about to be renamed En Voyage Travel. It's grown to. I think this year its TDV will be about $1.3, $1.5 billion, so it's grown dramatically since pre-COVID. Also, you know we shut down travel money which is our foreign exchange business pre-COVID and we thought we'd never reopen it. But about 15 months ago we opened two or three shops, mainly in shopping centres.

Cherie: 29:29

Yeah, I've seen them at Carindale the other day actually.

Skroo: 29:32

yeah, Well, we're now up to. I think they've opened their 88th shop in the last 18 months.

Cherie: 29:38

Is that Scotty back doing travelling?

Skroo: 29:40

Yes, Scott's there and he's done a great job. But you know, it is a low margin business but quite profitable business, but quite profitable. And so that the same with FCM, which is a major international. Fcm is our international corporate business and we we won a lot of business. You know, every year we're winning a billion or more in sales, even with COVID once they came back to trading normally, but it again is a reasonably low margin business.

Skroo: 30:14

So the 2% is a significant challenge and it's something that I think all my senior leadership team are really working towards.

Cherie: 30:24

That's incredible, and so is it fair to say in listening to that. Like for you, what keeps you motivated is having those goals. Like I just know in my time here, there's always BHAGs, there's always goals, there's always big global targets people will be tracking to. How does it play for you personally?

Skroo: 30:41

Yeah, I mean it's important. I think if you get things right, the results will tend to follow. But you know, particularly in travel, there are always challenges. You know there's wars. The Middle East war, now even the Ukrainian war inevitably has some negative impacts. So, but it is a challenge, it's overcoming those challenges and doing it with people who are friends and associates. So one of our core values, of course, is irreverence, and I prefer the irreverent fun, because business has got to be fun, uh or otherwise. Uh, why do it? You know, if, if it's if you, if you're just there to make a lot of money or try to make a lot of money, uh, to me that's not where the fun comes in. The fun comes in by being successful, for sure, but also, um, enjoying that success, uh, with, with your people at work and uh, and I think most people are pretty much the same.

Cherie: 31:52

Yeah, I agree, and it's so true like it's not just words on a wall here. It is genuinely the authentic culture and way of being. If you think back on your 40 odd years with Flight Centre in particular, or even the last 20 odd years, what are some of those moments that really make you smile and the fun times.

Skroo: 32:12

Look, we mentioned touch footy and we still play twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at midday, and that's now been going on a twice-week basis for 24 years.

Cherie: 32:30

Wow.

Skroo: 32:31

And, as you can imagine, we have. Generally you just turn up and go into one team or another. There's generally about 12 or 15 a side, but we do have the odd match and we have an annual match. I can't give you exactly what they're called, but they're basically old boys versus the young boys.

Cherie: 32:56

Yeah, I think was it played recently. Yeah, yeah.

Skroo: 33:00

And I think the young guys or someone asked us whether the young guys had ever won and we couldn't remember. Is that because you can't remember? Because you're the young guys had ever won and we couldn't remember?

Cherie: 33:10

Is that because you can't remember? Because you're the old guys?

Skroo: 33:13

Well, what I eventually said? Well, the young guys reckon that they did win once. It's been going for nine years and they reckon they did win it once. And I said, oh yeah, that's probably when I was playing for the young guys, which would have been a long time ago. The average it's the over 40s, over 41s and the under 41s.

Cherie: 33:33

now, yeah, classic, Some good rivalry. So footy that's highlights what else.

Skroo: 33:39

What are some others? Oh look, I think you know it's one of the things being a global travel company, we have to travel for work uh, and we we try to make that fun as well as as um in, and you know, over the years we've done uh, plenty of different sorts of challenges and that like um you know, doing various um climbs uh, kinabalu, mount kinabalu and various other ones, and so it is about doing work and getting things done and being successful.

Skroo: 34:17

But it's also about not only developing people in leadership positions and that sort of thing, but people who, as you know, know, people who survive at flight center. You, you don't survive if, um, if you can't fit in with, uh, whatever you're doing and the leaders, particularly people who've been here a long time.

Skroo: 34:40

Generally they they have a lot of friends and a lot of uh people. As I say, I I get a lot out of the um, you know, working with people, uh, even when there's some pretty uh pretty tough traveling schedules and that sort of thing. I don't know what I'll be like in 10 years time we'll check back in, have you?

Cherie: 35:01

um? Obviously you have seen a bit of the world. Is there any highlights of where you visited that you love?

Skroo: 35:06

oh, look, over the years I've spent a lot of time in London and we've got a flat there at the South Bank in London and I love going to London for a while and Jo, our daughter, of course, lived there for 12 years until recently, yeah, so it's always good to get back to London. It's certainly a second home for us. But in other terms, we've been to Paros quite a lot Paros is an island near… oh yeah, in Greece. In Greece, near Naxos.

Cherie: 35:40

Yeah.

Skroo: 35:41

And we are actually going in a month or so's time for a week. So that's, you know. It's the sort of thing as you get older. I think you like going back to places you really know, and maybe some new places as well. But I think going back to somewhere you know and you can relax.

Cherie: 36:00

You know you're going to have a good time. Yeah, beautiful. Is there anywhere on your want to go list?

Skroo: 36:06

It's been quite public that I've never been and Jude has never been to Japan, so there is a bit of talk about us doing something there because it is, you know, really it's such a popular destination, particularly from Australia.

Cherie: 36:21

Yeah, not that far away either. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. How's life changed for you personally, becoming a grandad. You've got five grandkids now.

Skroo: 36:30

Yeah, well, five. Yeah, Matt's got three and Jo has two. I'm not a very good grandfather, Aren't you? I will say Jo's daughters, Luca and Rudy. And they don't actually have a grandfather because he died when Scotty was quite young. So I'm their favourite, but on the other side of the fence, I'm definitely number two. Oh, classic.

Cherie: 36:57

Well, maybe if I asked Jude the question, it'd be maybe a bit of a different perspective from Jude. Is she loving being Grandma?

Skroo: 37:05

Oh yeah. Well, she and she. You know it's the same old thing. You put the time in and you get the rewards.

Cherie: 37:10

Yeah, beautiful Screw. I'm curious for you what is that legacy when, one day, when you're 85, 95 and they wheel you out of here at 105, whenever the day's going to be? What is that legacy that you hope you leave behind with the people who have worked here past and present?

Skroo: 37:29

you hope you leave behind with the people who've worked here past and present. Look, I think you know whether now we've got a very established, as you know, culture and and way of working and COVID had a really unsettling impact on that at times but um coming through that, uh, the sort of culture of, of ownership and um really came through and I think if, uh, I think that we've got to get, we still got a fair way to go, to get back to where we were pre-covid in some things. You know, and certainly in your area, you know, in terms of our overall training, particularly in the leadership, and you know in terms of our overall training, particularly in the leadership, and that you know a lot of these things had to lapse.

Cherie: 38:12

Yeah.

Skroo: 38:13

So getting back to that's going to be really important and leaving that legacy of the culture that has been established over a long period, as you know, and it really comes from, I believe, from our top deck days, because in Top Deck generally the trips were quite long, generally a minimum of three weeks up to six months.

Skroo: 38:38

I know one of the overland drivers Blue Ramsey he was. I remember him being away for three years Wow Without coming back. He'd come back to Calais, pick up another set of passengers and take them overland again, and so you can just imagine how being on the road for three years without coming back to the workshop or London makes people very self-reliant, and most of our people were crew in Top Deck. And the same thing happened when people like you opened shops in flight centres, so that there wasn't a lot of support, particularly in the early days. So people had to become very reliant, had to have a lot of ownership, a lot of, you know, in the game. They had to be right in the game, and so I think that's the legacy from our past that hopefully will live on.

Cherie: 39:35

Yeah, and I've heard you say in training sessions that I've run over the years and at conferences, words to the impact of whether, however long people stay at Flight Centre, that the hope and the wish or the intention is that when they leave here they're better for the experience they've had and they've learned skills that will take them to that next chapter. And I get actually I get a bit choked up thinking about that, to say this directly to you, because the last three and a half years of then running my own business and starting this, not only the work doing, the leadership development, but the understanding of the, the business systems, marketing, finance, you know, knowing your product, looking after your people, all that I learned all of that here and, yeah, I don't there's not enough words to say thank you from me to you and and what I've gained from my time here, it's just been phenomenal and I know I'm not the only one. So, yeah, I think it's extremely special, thank you yeah, well, thanks for that.

Skroo: 40:32

You know the reality is too. During COVID, of course, we um, you know, we lost, as I say, about 15 or 16,000 people, and one of the worst things is uh, like you, you know, they, they got. They obviously got other jobs or own businesses and they were so good at it that we had trouble getting them back. So now we've got to train up a whole new set of people.

Cherie: 40:57

Train them too well.

Skroo: 40:59

But no, it is something I think we're all quite proud of, that it's genuinely well known that if someone's worked in Flight Centre for a reasonable amount of time, that they will be self-reliant and they will be very skilled at what they're doing, and I think a lot of people, particularly in Australia. We've been here a long time and we've had quite a large workforce for such a long time. So a lot of people have had their you know, their early days in flight centre and we wish them well. If you know, we don't want them leaving too soon. But if they have 10 or 20 years here and then go on to another challenge, you know I think they'll be well equipped generally be very well equipped for that, yeah.

Cherie: 41:48

Just like you. Yeah, oh, thank you. Just like you. Yeah, oh, thank you, thank you. I'm getting all teary, honestly, because I really not a day goes by that I don't reflect on everything I've gained the friendships, the business lessons, the value of the customer, everything, everything. So, yeah, I'm extremely grateful. It was, it's incredible, coming back in here this morning. It just felt like a reunion seeing everyone what are you doing here? Um, yeah, it's just wonderful. It feels like you're just back at home.

Cherie: 42:15

Touches on it midday if you want to come down I don't know that you want to invite me to that um, but we definitely won't keep you from that um. Screw if we had listeners who are newer business owners or people in their own leadership journey. As I guess your last um words or some last takes from you, what are some? What are your top leadership tips or what's most important to you do you think for for young founders, business leaders?

Skroo: 42:42

look, you could go on, you know, because running a business, as you know, reasonably complex, but there's a few basics. I think you've got to get the people right. You've got to have the right people on the bus, possibly the wrong ones off it. I think that's really important. It is about people and I don't know whether you've heard of Ken Allen.

Skroo: 43:06

He wrote a book, radical Simplicity, fairly recently, but from DHL and he says and I really agree with him that it's one thing having a good strategy, a good plan, but in the end he believes 90% of it's about executing your plan. It's easy, as you know, when we do a lot of planning in Flight Centre, but it's easy to have a plan and it looks good and it may be a good plan, but if you can't execute it, you won't get the results. And, as he said, 90% of a good plan is in execution and 90% of executing is having the right people.

Skroo: 43:46

If you're going to sort of take away anything, I think that's really important when you're running a business and you won't always get it all right. And I know and I've probably said this to you at some stage at one of your training areas is someone inevitably asks me if you've got one piece of advice about business, about running a business, what would it be? And my only thing that I can say is just don't fuck it up.

Cherie: 44:19

I have heard that so many times. I think that is the most perfect way to end the conversation. Don't fuck it up. You heard it here, screw Turner. Screw, thank you so much for your time, thank you for everything in the past and I really thank you for your time for our listeners and yeah, it's been a pleasure sitting across the table in HQ with you today and thank you so much. Thanks, shuri, thank you, thank you.