#116 Shaun Westcott, CEO of Mitsubishi ON Military Strategy to Corporate Empire: The Unbelievable Journey of a CEO Who Cheated Death!

Dive into our lates episode of the #CreatingSynergyPodcast as we unravel the extraordinary journey of Shaun Westcott, CEO of Mitsubishi. From the challenging military ranks in South Africa to leading a global automotive powerhouse, Shaun's story is a masterclass in resilience and innovation.

Discover how Shaun's early military experience shaped his formidable leadership style. Hear about his transformative role at Coca-Cola and how he revolutionized AC Whitcher amidst the 2008 Global Financial Crisis with his out-of-the-box thinking.

The episode takes a personal turn with Shaun's move to South Australia following a traumatic incident, leading to pivotal changes both personally and professionally. Learn about his rapid rise to CEO at Mitsubishi, a record-breaking achievement demonstrating his exceptional strategic vision.

Shaun shares insights on his leadership philosophy, the future of electric cars, and balancing a demanding CEO role with family life.

🎧 Tune in for this inspiring conversation and don't forget to like, subscribe, and share your thoughts on Shaun's remarkable journey!


KEY HIGHLIGHTS:

[05:04] - Shaun's Childhood on a South African Farm
[06:21] - Shaun's Passion for Adventure and Adrenaline Activities
[07:27] - Shaun's  Ambition to Visit Antarctica
[08:14] - Influence of Shawn's Entrepreneurial Parents
[09:01] - Resilience and Resourcefulness Lessons from Parents
[09:46] - Compulsory Military Service Experience in South Africa
[10:18] - Youngest in School & Joining the Military
[11:07] - Identified as a Leader in the Military
[12:22] - The Importance of People and Motivation
[13:47] - Reflections on Compulsory Military Service


Trigger Warning: Please be advised that some parts of this episode contain discussions on sensitive topics, including personal experiences of violence and trauma. Listener discretion is advised, especially for those who may find such subjects distressing. We strive to handle these topics with respect and sensitivity, but we understand if some listeners choose to skip this content for their well-being.


Where to find Shaun Westcott

• LinkedIn

Books Mentioned:

• From Good to Great by Jim Collins

Join the conversation on Synergy IQ on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram (@synergyiq).

Transcript

00:00:09:29 - 00:00:36:19
Daniel Franco
Everyone. And welcome back to another episode of the Creating Synergy Podcast. My name is Daniel Franco, and today we have a truly remarkable guest with us, Shaun Westcott, the CEO of Mitsubishi Motors Australia. Now, I've known Shaun for quite some time, having collaborated on some projects with Mitsubishi, but I must confess I was a little nervous about this conversation, as Shaun is not only just an exceptional leader, he is a profound thinker.

00:00:36:23 - 00:01:00:02
Daniel Franco
The speed in which he learns and his ability to retain information is like no one else I've ever seen before. And Shaun's journey is fascinating. Born and raised in South Africa, Shaun shares with us his learnings from the South African military, where he rose through the ranks at a rapid speed to the corporate world dealing with HR and IR issues where some people in his company were beheaded.

00:01:00:04 - 00:01:30:27
Daniel Franco
Yes, you heard me correctly beheaded for breaking a working strike. So from here we deep dive into his time in very senior leadership roles at Coca-Cola before he shares stories of true innovation and thought leadership in his role as CEO at AC Witcher, a forestry company that he turned into a global powerhouse. All in the midst of the 2008 global financial crisis, we learned Shaun's process to think outside the box and pivot into areas in which the market demands.

00:01:31:00 - 00:01:53:06
Daniel Franco
It's a no frills approach, but astonishingly effective. In 2007, Shaun, his wife and his two daughters, picked up their lives and headed for South Australia, to which they now call home. After experiencing a traumatic event when shopping at a department store where some thugs walked in with automatic rifles and started shooting up the place with bullets ricocheting past his two daughters and wife.

00:01:53:08 - 00:02:19:27
Daniel Franco
It was that moment they decided they needed to leave South Africa after landing here in South Australia in Adelaide. Shaun held the role of CEO Chimp's a robotics company before deciding to take on a role as director in Aftersales at Mitsubishi. And within the next 12 months was promoted to the CEO role of Mitsubishi Australia, the fastest ever promotion to CEO in Mitsubishi Australia history.

00:02:20:00 - 00:02:45:00
Daniel Franco
His leadership has seen Mitsubishi Australia become a world leader across the whole company. So throughout this chat you learn Shaun's leadership philosophy and his approach to large scale transformation and high performing cultures. His insights on the future of the automotive industry and his vision for electric cars, and how he balances the relentless demands of being a CEO with family and personal well-being.

00:02:45:02 - 00:03:04:12
Daniel Franco
This was an absolute epic conversation with so many pearls of wisdom. So without further ado, let's dive into the world of Shaun Wesco. Welcome back to the Creating Synergy Podcast. Today we have a really remarkable human being. Mr. Shaun Westcott, CEO of Mitsubishi. Welcome, Shaun.

00:03:04:15 - 00:03:07:26
Shaun Westcott
Thank you, Daniel. Great to be here with you.

00:03:07:29 - 00:03:25:13
Daniel Franco
We've known each other for quite some time now, and we know we've done a little bit of work with you guys at Mitsubishi. And I must say, I've been very excited, but I'm very nervous about this conversation. You are an exceptional leader and I feel like I've got to lift my game a little bit to even be on this table with you.

00:03:25:13 - 00:03:30:28
Daniel Franco
So we are really looking forward to deep diving further into your story. Thank you, Daniel. You bet.

00:03:31:01 - 00:03:33:21
Shaun Westcott
You're very complimentary.

00:03:33:23 - 00:03:51:22
Daniel Franco
So for us to understand who is Shaun West, we have to understand your earliest contacts. So are you able to sort of give us a little bit of understanding about your earliest context, your early life, your childhood life, and how you eventually came to sit in front of us today? Thank you.

00:03:51:22 - 00:04:06:17
Shaun Westcott
Daniel. Yes. So my roots or South African was born in South Africa, Raised in South Africa. My dad was a farmer, so I grew up on a farm experiencing the freedom and the liberties of growing up on a farm and having the most glorious childhood you can imagine.

00:04:06:18 - 00:04:07:11
Daniel Franco
What were you farming?

00:04:07:17 - 00:04:29:07
Shaun Westcott
So my dad was he was principally a dairy farmer, but then we grew a lot of crops as well, so he he diversified over a period of time into sheep and also cattle eventually. Yep. And then we, we did a lot of irrigation for the for the pastures, for the cattle and extended that eventually to vegetable farming. So we did a lot of diversified farming in a period of time.

00:04:29:14 - 00:04:43:18
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Excellent. And so and so what else, where we in your younger years is there is there anything that you look back on and and you think about that just makes you smile and memories that you, you, you look fondly on?

00:04:43:20 - 00:05:05:28
Shaun Westcott
Yes. I guess. And creating the relevance for where I'm at Mitsubishi today. I grew up on a farm, driving four wheel drives, driving tractors, driving motorbikes, exploring freedom, having that sense of adventure. Yeah. And it's almost as if life's come full circle. And I've come back to being at Mitsubishi and we sell SUVs and 4x4. Yeah. And we sold vehicles that give you that freedom to enjoy adventure.

00:05:05:28 - 00:05:08:04
Shaun Westcott
So it's almost like life has come full circle.

00:05:08:05 - 00:05:17:08
Daniel Franco
Yeah, Very good. So you. You are a bit of an adrenaline junkie from my understanding, too, aren't you? Of skydiving and rally driving and all this sort of.

00:05:17:09 - 00:05:18:18
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely, yes.

00:05:18:20 - 00:05:32:16
Daniel Franco
So what, what sort of appeals to you about the opportunity to kill yourself or. Because I am petrified of skydiving. I stay heavy, so I can't. I do it. Apparently, there's a weight limit. Yeah, that's my excuse.

00:05:32:19 - 00:05:36:29
Shaun Westcott
I guess also to say that it's not only skydiving, it's also scuba diving.

00:05:36:29 - 00:05:48:14
Daniel Franco
So I guess you go under the surface as well. I must admit, I do enjoy scuba diving. I went for the first time a couple of months ago with my kids, and it was it was real fun. But it's the adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline.

00:05:48:17 - 00:05:51:27
Shaun Westcott
And I guess I'm a kind of person that enjoys stimulation.

00:05:52:01 - 00:05:52:11
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:05:52:12 - 00:05:56:13
Shaun Westcott
So I'm always looking for something new and something exciting and something adventurous to do.

00:05:56:15 - 00:05:56:26
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:05:56:26 - 00:05:58:12
Shaun Westcott
So that's just the way.

00:05:58:15 - 00:06:01:00
Daniel Franco
What's what's next on the bucket list?

00:06:01:02 - 00:06:14:24
Shaun Westcott
Well, bucket list of the things that I haven't done of Kilimanjaro is have scuba divers. Keep it off of some of the best places in the world. I've done a lot of that type of stuff, but on the bucket list that I haven't done yet is a visit to the Antarctica. So that is still on the bucket list.

00:06:14:28 - 00:06:21:14
Daniel Franco
Yeah, well, that would be amazing. Okay. A lot of what I watch, but also that the Majestic. Yeah.

00:06:21:15 - 00:06:25:01
Shaun Westcott
And uninhabited the ice the animals. It's fantastic.

00:06:25:03 - 00:06:35:03
Daniel Franco
Hundred percent. 100%. So you mentioned your your dad there and your mother. What did she do? Is she just working on the farmers? Was working the farm. So yeah.

00:06:35:06 - 00:06:40:25
Shaun Westcott
My mom did all the books. All Yeah. And basically ran the business. But also my dad had other businesses as well.

00:06:40:25 - 00:06:41:12
Daniel Franco
So yeah, he was.

00:06:41:12 - 00:06:45:04
Shaun Westcott
Also into the retail. So we had various shops and things like that.

00:06:45:06 - 00:06:45:15
Daniel Franco
And.

00:06:45:16 - 00:06:48:18
Shaun Westcott
My mother was kind of looking after that side of the business to a large degree.

00:06:48:23 - 00:07:01:13
Daniel Franco
Very good. And so. So what influence did that have on your life? Obviously introduced you to business very early. Did you, with your father and your mother like really good role models for you?

00:07:01:15 - 00:07:21:25
Shaun Westcott
They were Daniel, very influential and a lot of who I am and what I am today I guess is influenced by that. There's always this question of whether it's hereditary or whether it's from yours. Yeah, I think it's a bit of both. So I inherited an entrepreneurial spirit, spirit from my father and I give it a go. And for anyone who's ever farmed, you know that you're always on the edge.

00:07:21:27 - 00:07:44:10
Shaun Westcott
Yes. Not floods, it's famine. Yeah, droughts. And if it's not droughts, it's pests. Yeah, always some kind of challenges. So I also learned to be resourceful and also to be resilient. So growing up in those kind of a very you're very dependent on nature and nature as we as you all know, if your farming is one year drought, next year floods, you know, so it's those almost extremities.

00:07:44:10 - 00:07:48:04
Shaun Westcott
And within that you have to learn to be very resilient and smart to work your way through it.

00:07:48:06 - 00:08:07:28
Daniel Franco
Absolutely. Was there anything that your parents said to you early on that you think was pivotal or was there anything they used to they drumming to you like, for example, my parents growing up, the one thing that they repeated almost daily was there's no such word as can't write. Like you can do whatever you put your mind to, you can do.

00:08:07:28 - 00:08:10:16
Daniel Franco
And was there anything similar that you learned from your.

00:08:10:18 - 00:08:12:19
Shaun Westcott
I think your parents. My parents listen to the.

00:08:12:19 - 00:08:14:06
Daniel Franco
Same thing is.

00:08:14:12 - 00:08:15:20
Shaun Westcott
No such thing as it can't be.

00:08:15:20 - 00:08:17:08
Daniel Franco
Done. Yeah, that's right. It is.

00:08:17:09 - 00:08:19:05
Shaun Westcott
My dad always you say where there's a will, there's a.

00:08:19:05 - 00:08:33:25
Daniel Franco
Way hundred percent very good. So. So what does your life look like? Your child growing up on a farm. And then eventually one day, I mean, you go through schooling and then eventually one day you decide that you're going to join the military or, you.

00:08:33:28 - 00:08:35:02
Shaun Westcott
Know, So we actually had no choice.

00:08:35:02 - 00:08:35:28
Daniel Franco
And no choice.

00:08:36:05 - 00:08:41:13
Shaun Westcott
In South Africa at that point in time. It was compulsory for males to do military service.

00:08:41:13 - 00:08:42:13
Daniel Franco
Yeah, well, so we.

00:08:42:13 - 00:08:45:03
Shaun Westcott
All had to spend a minimum of two years in the military.

00:08:45:08 - 00:08:47:13
Daniel Franco
Is that still compulsory to that? No longer.

00:08:47:13 - 00:08:51:19
Shaun Westcott
Yes. Post the new government in 1992 that all ended or ended.

00:08:51:19 - 00:08:51:27
Daniel Franco
So that.

00:08:51:27 - 00:08:57:15
Shaun Westcott
All ended, but that was a fairly significant and formative phase in my life, if I can say that, because.

00:08:57:18 - 00:08:58:09
Daniel Franco
How old were you?

00:08:58:10 - 00:09:03:05
Shaun Westcott
I was I actually finished school quite early, so I was 16 when I did my grade 12.

00:09:03:12 - 00:09:06:20
Daniel Franco
Okay. So you collated smarter than everyone else. Well, I.

00:09:06:22 - 00:09:10:28
Shaun Westcott
Started school, young age of five, which in South Africa most people started at age six.

00:09:10:28 - 00:09:11:17
Daniel Franco
Okay.

00:09:11:20 - 00:09:12:02
Shaun Westcott
But before.

00:09:12:06 - 00:09:12:19
Daniel Franco
That.

00:09:12:21 - 00:09:14:01
Shaun Westcott
I was always the youngest in the class.

00:09:14:01 - 00:09:14:07
Daniel Franco
Through.

00:09:14:13 - 00:09:19:29
Shaun Westcott
Through the whole of school. And that's not always a necessary necessarily a good thing because you're the youngest. You always the.

00:09:19:29 - 00:09:20:26
Daniel Franco
Smallest. Yeah.

00:09:20:27 - 00:09:22:06
Shaun Westcott
And you kind of get picked on as well.

00:09:22:06 - 00:09:23:17
Daniel Franco
So it was an element.

00:09:23:17 - 00:09:25:29
Shaun Westcott
Of of a bit of, I guess, looking back on it in life, a little bit of.

00:09:25:29 - 00:09:26:26
Daniel Franco
Bullying. Yeah.

00:09:26:29 - 00:09:50:03
Shaun Westcott
But having grown up on a farm and growing up tough and being resilient, I guess that was one of the ways we navigated through that. So it's not always an it being an advantage, being the youngest in your class, but being that as is my I joined the military and I was we first had to do our basic training and during that course, during the basic training, we were well, I was fortunate enough to be identified as somebody with leadership potential.

00:09:50:05 - 00:09:53:07
Shaun Westcott
They put us through batteries of tests and obviously there was the physical test.

00:09:53:10 - 00:10:05:19
Daniel Franco
Yes. And so what what did they say to know what they saw in you to identify? I mean, obviously, your ability to learn at a young age was was critical. But what was some of the I guess.

00:10:05:20 - 00:10:10:17
Shaun Westcott
What happened, Daniel, is that being in the military, we were all in, well, squads and platoons.

00:10:10:17 - 00:10:10:28
Daniel Franco
You know.

00:10:11:05 - 00:10:18:00
Shaun Westcott
And very soon within within first I was made what they called the bungalow bill. Yeah. So in our bungalow I was put in charge of the bungalow.

00:10:18:00 - 00:10:18:16
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Okay.

00:10:18:23 - 00:10:30:23
Shaun Westcott
And then I was made a squad leader. Yes. I think they, they saw that I took the lead and I, I and the whole intent of military is to be physically fairly arduous.

00:10:30:28 - 00:10:31:08
Daniel Franco
You know.

00:10:31:08 - 00:10:53:06
Shaun Westcott
And I was always encouraging and motivating guys and going, Guys, we can do this. Let's work together. Yeah. So I think they saw that and then they put me through a battery of tests and said and I was selected for officers course. And I guess for me that was fairly formative because that was my first introduction to leadership and that, and that first that created the foundation for the rest of my leadership career.

00:10:53:06 - 00:11:08:02
Shaun Westcott
I would say not that military leadership is necessarily the only way of doing it. It's fairly autocratic, and all through life I've learned that there are many other leadership styles that can work very effectively, but that is very much the foundation of my leadership.

00:11:08:04 - 00:11:15:22
Daniel Franco
MM And what was that foundation? What, what do you look back on and go, That's probably stuck with me throughout my career.

00:11:15:22 - 00:11:42:02
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, I guess I realized there the importance of people and the importance of motivating. And what I noticed with a lot of the drill instructors in the sergeants and the corporals that we had, it was it was almost as if the intent was to break you down and to dehumanize you. And when I became an officer, I took a slightly different approach and I'd seen that work when the corporals were shouting and screaming at us and I would go, Guys, we can't do this.

00:11:42:02 - 00:12:08:17
Shaun Westcott
Let's work together. And I found a at some subconscious level, I realized it was actually working better and the screaming and the shouting. And I tried that out as an officer, and I found that my unit performed basic. In fact, I was selected as only national service officer to train an elite unit. So even once I'd been an officer, the platoon that I was in charge of performed so well that I then of of all the we called them national service lieutenants.

00:12:08:17 - 00:12:28:12
Shaun Westcott
I was lieutenant the point of all the national service lieutenants. I was the one that was selected to go and train a specialist unit. And I think what that taught me in life is that leadership is a lot about people, but it's about getting people engaged, about getting people motivated and getting people to work together as a team.

00:12:28:15 - 00:12:34:16
Shaun Westcott
And that is far more powerful than the screaming and shouting and dehumanizing and autocratic style of leadership.

00:12:34:16 - 00:12:43:02
Daniel Franco
Absolutely. Absolutely. Love it. So, I mean, in this time in the military, I mean, how long we.

00:12:43:02 - 00:12:48:09
Shaun Westcott
Had So we had two years of compulsory military service. Yeah. After two years, we went back to civilian life.

00:12:48:09 - 00:12:49:00
Daniel Franco
Yes.

00:12:49:02 - 00:13:05:28
Shaun Westcott
Typically when most of us went to university and studied. Yeah. But once you were back in civilian life for a period of time and a change at the time, what I wanted was for ten years. So for ten years you had to do what we called camps. So on an annual basis you were called up and you had to do, depending on what the circumstances within.

00:13:05:28 - 00:13:14:05
Shaun Westcott
At that time, South Africa was fighting by the conventional and a guerrilla warfare. Yeah, we had to do anything between one and three months of service on an annual basis.

00:13:14:05 - 00:13:16:26
Daniel Franco
Okay, So ten years, you then.

00:13:16:28 - 00:13:18:14
Shaun Westcott
Take ten years outside you.

00:13:18:16 - 00:13:22:15
Daniel Franco
Hanging. Yeah. And that's when you went and studied.

00:13:22:17 - 00:13:45:17
Shaun Westcott
So that's what I studied. And I guess what happened there is again, the military was quite influential in what I chose to study. And, and I think in one of our discussions you said to me, what is, what is unusual about you and what is unconventional and what is what something that people don't know. The unusual is that I actually started my career in human resources.

00:13:45:19 - 00:13:50:10
Shaun Westcott
I'm a CEO today, and not many people come from human resources to become a CEO.

00:13:50:11 - 00:13:51:01
Daniel Franco
No.

00:13:51:03 - 00:14:11:12
Shaun Westcott
Now, the reason I chose to study human resources is the one thing that I learned in the military. And what I needed to learn more about was I had this desire to learn more about leadership and about people and what motivates people. Yeah, so when I looked at the university degrees into available, so I realized that I had a natural calling.

00:14:11:12 - 00:14:33:12
Shaun Westcott
I think that to be a leader and I enjoyed being a leader and I wanted to study in a field that would give me more insight into leadership, leadership practices, people, people, behavior, etc. And the course that identified the university that was able to do that for me was human resources. It included a bit of industrial psychology to a bit of understanding around human behavior, around motivation and around morale, around leadership.

00:14:33:12 - 00:14:53:07
Shaun Westcott
So I selected that as a degree course. And I was very fortunate that Anglo American Corporation, which was at the time one of the largest mining companies in the world, was very kind or kind enough to put me on a scholarship program. And I ended up going to university and studying in human resources.

00:14:53:10 - 00:15:11:14
Daniel Franco
And brilliant and and so, yeah, because we did speak about this last time and it was, it is unconventional because further to that you then your next line of study was marketing. Yeah. Which was like again still going down a direction that doesn't normally point towards a CEO.

00:15:11:16 - 00:15:31:11
Shaun Westcott
So it's actually quite interesting. So when I enrolled for my degree, I started studying and I realized that I had a lot of spare capacity. The other thing, so the degrees, although that was a human resources degree, it was actually a commerce based degree. So I studied economics. I'm studying business. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And I was studying accounting, so I had all of those as subjects as well.

00:15:31:14 - 00:15:49:10
Shaun Westcott
But in the course of studying the business economics subject, I realized that to be a true business leader, you need it. I needed to have a broader base of skills, experience and knowledge. Yeah, and what did business economics did? It opened it opened my eyes to all the various functions. Now, my dad, having been in his own businesses, wasn't to be corporate.

00:15:49:13 - 00:15:52:18
Shaun Westcott
I suddenly realized there's a whole lot of other functions out there.

00:15:52:20 - 00:15:52:26
Daniel Franco
That.

00:15:52:26 - 00:16:06:26
Shaun Westcott
I needed, that I realized I needed knowledge in. So what I did is I had spare capacity. So I approached the university and said I'd actually like to study an additional degree simultaneously. And I said, Well, you can't do.

00:16:06:26 - 00:16:07:21
Daniel Franco
That. No.

00:16:07:24 - 00:16:25:19
Shaun Westcott
That's what I'd like to do that. So they said, Well, how are you going to fit it in? So well? What I could do is do the human resources degree in the daytime and I could go to my classes and do the marketing, identified marketing and sales management. So they that course included a whole of consumer, consumer psychology, marketing and sales management.

00:16:25:19 - 00:16:26:09
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:16:26:12 - 00:16:43:07
Shaun Westcott
So I said, well, I could do it in my classes on that. And they said, Well, that's that's not possible. Long story short, they put me through a whole battery of tests as well. I had a fair number of battles. It was eventually escalated to the Vice-Chancellor and long story short, he finally gave permission for me to do that.

00:16:43:09 - 00:16:58:24
Shaun Westcott
So I was actually studying second year human resource degree, first year marketing and sales degree simultaneously. And then I completed both degrees simultaneously a year apart and then with I and my classes. So that gave me a much broader scope.

00:16:58:24 - 00:17:02:06
Daniel Franco
You're super human and All right. So, so the other thing that.

00:17:02:06 - 00:17:05:06
Shaun Westcott
I really do enjoy is the acquisition of knowledge.

00:17:05:09 - 00:17:19:15
Daniel Franco
I appreciate that. But yeah, but that's the law. And I think from someone at such a young age was what's your I hear you, you talk. There's the genius of it. I won't go there. But but I.

00:17:19:15 - 00:17:21:10
Shaun Westcott
Do find studying and.

00:17:21:12 - 00:17:22:15
Daniel Franco
You get energy from it.

00:17:22:15 - 00:17:41:15
Shaun Westcott
I get image, I feed off of that. So you'll find if you track my career throughout my entire life, I have made sure that I continue to update my skills and stay relevant. I think that's very important. So if you had to look through my CV, you see that I then after that I had an MBA, and then after that I've studied it and I've done courses at Harvard, courses at Oxford University.

00:17:41:15 - 00:17:49:23
Shaun Westcott
So I've continued throughout my career to make sure that that my current knowledge is relevant.

00:17:49:25 - 00:18:17:14
Daniel Franco
So for I want to call out, I understand why you're doing that right? But what motivates you to to be relevant? Why? Why? And it seems as if from such a young age you found this love with business and learning and studying, and then you obviously moved into that. So I think there's a few questions here is what motivates you to continually be relevant.

00:18:17:14 - 00:18:30:27
Daniel Franco
But then on top of that, what actually and before you answer that question, let's go back. Why did you decide to move away from the military? Is it because you wanted to pursue a career in business? Yes.

00:18:31:03 - 00:18:34:25
Shaun Westcott
So what I will say about the military, it has its limitations.

00:18:34:25 - 00:18:35:22
Daniel Franco
Yes.

00:18:35:24 - 00:18:51:00
Shaun Westcott
I found it a very autocratic environment, a very almost dictatorial environment. And I believe that any leader that should have a couple of philosophies in life and one of those use that as a leader should try and learn something new every day of your life.

00:18:51:00 - 00:18:51:22
Daniel Franco
Yeah, right.

00:18:51:25 - 00:19:14:09
Shaun Westcott
And the source of knowledge is not only books and it's not only universities and it's not only degrees, it's actually and it's a it's a, it's a policy that I apply in business is to surround yourself with bright people and to try and learn something from those people every day of your life. Now, the military doesn't promote that type of collaborative learning.

00:19:14:12 - 00:19:15:13
Daniel Franco
From.

00:19:15:16 - 00:19:43:12
Shaun Westcott
Other people. If you surround yourself with really smart people that have skills and knowledge, there's no single human being that can know everything about everything. So if you surround yourself with really smart people, you are pretty dumb. If you don't listen to what they have to say. So I found that console the consultative collaborative leadership style, where you surround yourself with smart people, ask them for their advice, ask them for your opinion, get the insight and together you weave that together and you form.

00:19:43:15 - 00:19:50:18
Shaun Westcott
You come to a more sound and pragmatic solution often, and obviously you get insights that you might not have had before.

00:19:50:22 - 00:19:53:21
Daniel Franco
Yeah, no doubt.

00:19:53:24 - 00:20:03:12
Shaun Westcott
So I've come back to your question. Is that one of the things that we've that we all conscious or should be conscious of is that the world is changing and that the pace of change is accelerating.

00:20:03:14 - 00:20:04:01
Daniel Franco
Yes.

00:20:04:04 - 00:20:19:06
Shaun Westcott
And we all need to constantly adapt to survive and we need to learn and we need to grow and we need to surround ourselves not only with smart people, but we need to embrace knowledge, understanding and experiences to be effective.

00:20:19:08 - 00:20:46:28
Daniel Franco
To be effective, and yeah, to make an impact on positive impact on this world. The I mean, there's so much in what you just said there. I think for me, the I want to ask you I want to ask a question from from that of someone who is potentially running a small business where surrounding yourself with the with great people there might be like the lack of access to cash where you can get those people in?

00:20:46:28 - 00:20:54:04
Daniel Franco
And what's your advice to those who are running small mediums where that's not necessarily an opportunity?

00:20:54:05 - 00:20:54:19
Shaun Westcott
I like your.

00:20:54:19 - 00:20:55:24
Daniel Franco
Question. Yeah.

00:20:55:26 - 00:21:17:28
Shaun Westcott
So when you're in a small business, you often you there's just the scale of your business and as you said, the number of people you employ, obviously people also come at a cost. All right. So you don't you aren't able to do that. But what you can do and what you should do and for example, I might take myself as example, even as part of a big business.

00:21:17:28 - 00:21:29:15
Shaun Westcott
I belong to as many associations as I can now. Yeah, in South Australia we have the Industry Leaders Fund. Yeah, and I would encourage any young business leader to join the Industry Leaders Fund.

00:21:29:21 - 00:21:30:07
Daniel Franco
Yes.

00:21:30:09 - 00:21:44:11
Shaun Westcott
What you do is you join a network and it's not only peers in that. I'll ask the number of senior business leaders you have the opportunity through networking and whether it be business is a and for instance in businesses so we have the 39.

00:21:44:17 - 00:21:44:26
Daniel Franco
Yep.

00:21:45:00 - 00:21:55:09
Shaun Westcott
Which again that's business I say identifying up and coming young business leaders and creating networks around them where they can actually gain access to people like myself and other people.

00:21:55:12 - 00:21:57:06
Daniel Franco
Which I'm part of. Absolutely.

00:21:57:09 - 00:21:59:04
Shaun Westcott
It's great to have you back.

00:21:59:06 - 00:21:59:21
Daniel Franco
This is great.

00:21:59:21 - 00:22:17:13
Shaun Westcott
And that's and it's those opportunities. So go out and and make yourself make yourself part of those networks, engage with people, have discussions, have meaningful discussions with people. You can and again, it's what what you're putting out. As I have another saying, life lesson echo. What you put in is what you get back out.

00:22:17:13 - 00:22:18:07
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I.

00:22:18:10 - 00:22:36:13
Shaun Westcott
You can go to these veins and stand around and drink a few wines and have a few social chats, or you can go there and seek out people who have wisdom, who have insight, you have experience, you have understanding and taste ideas with them, and you'll find that most people are happy to pay it forward. A great I'm having to pay it forward.

00:22:36:15 - 00:22:37:12
Daniel Franco
That's how we mentees.

00:22:37:12 - 00:22:38:02
Shaun Westcott
Grace.

00:22:38:02 - 00:22:48:23
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I think that's how we met as we went out. We met. We did. We met at an event and I, well, I was, yeah, I approached you and said you're up for a chat and you said yes.

00:22:48:26 - 00:22:56:24
Shaun Westcott
And I believe there's good in all people and people are more than happy to to share and to give and to support and to help. You just need to ask sometimes.

00:22:56:24 - 00:23:16:25
Daniel Franco
Absolutely. I see this quite often. I was at an event last night actually, where there was sort of 300 plus people at this event. And and you see some people who kind of congregate always to the same corner and to the same people. And it's just like there's so much opportunity here. There's so many great people in this room.

00:23:16:25 - 00:23:29:03
Daniel Franco
You should walk around, try to meet people, shake hands, meet someone new. I always like to go to those events and say, I want to meet someone new. I want to learn something about that person. Yeah, you know, like you said earlier, learn one thing every day. You might learn something new.

00:23:29:08 - 00:23:44:20
Shaun Westcott
And I want to circle back, Daniel and use You asked me, why do I do all these strange things? And I'll. I'll tell you why I started doing them. Apart from fact, I did a lot of those in the military, so I was rappelling or abseiling, as we call it, and all kinds of strange things that took me outside of my comfort zone.

00:23:44:22 - 00:23:59:20
Shaun Westcott
And what I learned is that as a leader, you need to to grow as a human. You need to sometimes take yourself outside of your comfort zone. Now, a lot of the sports I do all the activities that I do take me outside my comfort zone and I want to come at you example of even a social setting.

00:23:59:22 - 00:24:17:15
Shaun Westcott
We just surround ourselves with the same people that we always know and we always just chit chat about social things. We create a cocoon or bubble around ourselves and to learn and to grow like a lava coming out of a pupa. Sometimes you have to break that cocoon. You think that like you're going to break out of your comfort zone.

00:24:17:18 - 00:24:23:25
Shaun Westcott
You got to go out and put yourself out there. You've got to go out and and meet people who you've never met before, engage like you instead.

00:24:24:00 - 00:24:24:19
Daniel Franco
Agreed.

00:24:24:19 - 00:24:30:25
Shaun Westcott
And start having conversations. And hopefully those conversations can and should add value.

00:24:30:27 - 00:24:59:05
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I mean, growth is in the uncomfortable, right? I think I think I someone I have this analogy which has stuck with me for so many years. It's like imagine you're at a you know, you're going to a Coles or a Woolworths shopping center, remember like the sliding doors as they as they open. And it's like if you were in someone from a different planet and didn't know that these doors you were walking, you're walking, you're walking and you're getting closer and closer and these doors aren't opening and it's like really, you know, hang on, what's going on here?

00:24:59:05 - 00:25:12:16
Daniel Franco
And you keep walking, you keep walking and all of a sudden swoosh, the doors open, right? And that and then and they have the ability to walk through. I think I kind of I really just apply that with my life is where you've got to be uncomfortable for those doors to open.

00:25:12:18 - 00:25:13:27
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely. I like that analogy.

00:25:13:27 - 00:25:33:14
Daniel Franco
Yeah. So in regards to know, so I don't actually talk. You mentioned Anglo-American Association, where you were when you were in the High chair and I aro you did back in South Africa at the time you saw some pretty horrific and traumatic stuff, is that.

00:25:33:19 - 00:25:34:20
Shaun Westcott
It was.

00:25:34:23 - 00:25:40:14
Daniel Franco
I think there was a I recall a story about a potential strike. Yes. Can you explain that? Yeah.

00:25:40:14 - 00:25:55:23
Shaun Westcott
So if you go back, South Africa has quite a tumultuous and conflict ridden past. And during the time that I was in human resources, the country was going through some tremendous political pressures and.

00:25:55:23 - 00:25:56:22
Daniel Franco
Change, you know.

00:25:56:24 - 00:26:19:28
Shaun Westcott
And working for Anglo American Corporation, the the voice of the people was the trade unions. And the trade unions became very, very powerful. And during the time I was in human resources at Anglo American, we had a very significant strike in 1986 and it was fairly traumatic. So so Anglo-American Corporation recruited people. And the other thing about South Africa is it's very multicultural.

00:26:20:01 - 00:26:23:06
Shaun Westcott
And for example, we have 11 official languages.

00:26:23:12 - 00:26:24:09
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Wow. So that.

00:26:24:09 - 00:26:27:26
Shaun Westcott
Just gives you an idea of the size and the diversity of the population.

00:26:27:28 - 00:26:29:22
Daniel Franco
Like different languages, like dialect.

00:26:29:23 - 00:26:34:26
Shaun Westcott
Totally different languages. Yeah. As in, and majority of those would be what we would call black languages.

00:26:34:26 - 00:26:35:03
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:26:35:10 - 00:26:47:17
Shaun Westcott
So they are from indigenous people in South Africa. They speak different languages, but they also have different tribal affiliations. And the trade union strength was, you know, particular was in the closer and the Zulu tribal sort of base.

00:26:47:18 - 00:26:48:03
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:26:48:06 - 00:26:59:04
Shaun Westcott
And some of the people who weren't in that would actually try and go to work and the the it was all pretty horrific. They would put tires around people, sold them with petrol, sent them a lot and burn them to death.

00:26:59:06 - 00:27:00:00
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Wow.

00:27:00:03 - 00:27:10:27
Shaun Westcott
We would go around in the morning sometimes and find people who broke ranks and try to go to work. Decapitated. You'd find heads lying in air and bodies lying there so well.

00:27:10:27 - 00:27:11:22
Daniel Franco
And you so.

00:27:11:24 - 00:27:14:27
Shaun Westcott
Yes. So it was pretty I was in I was in industrial relations at the time.

00:27:15:01 - 00:27:16:02
Daniel Franco
And you saw all this in.

00:27:16:03 - 00:27:30:14
Shaun Westcott
The cutting edge of that. I was not only seeing that, I was in the room negotiating with the trade union across the table that is perpetrating those type of atrocities. So it was it was very conflictual. It was very tough. It was very challenging.

00:27:30:17 - 00:27:35:13
Daniel Franco
But the people who were going to work know that this was going to happen like that.

00:27:35:13 - 00:27:45:03
Shaun Westcott
They were. But this level of desperation. So if you poor and hungry and your family starving and you have to stay off work and some of these strikes were lasting six weeks to months.

00:27:45:05 - 00:27:46:02
Daniel Franco
Wow, you would.

00:27:46:02 - 00:28:02:12
Shaun Westcott
Be without food. Your family would be desperate and you'd break ranks to say, I'm going to work. And the only way that they kept the discipline was actually to kill people. So it was a fairly violent part of our history. Unfortunately, I was right in the heart of it.

00:28:02:14 - 00:28:10:24
Daniel Franco
How do you any compartmentalize that? How do you remove those visions from your head like that? That seems to be something that's.

00:28:10:27 - 00:28:12:09
Shaun Westcott
Resonate with you for the rest of your life.

00:28:12:09 - 00:28:13:16
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Yeah.

00:28:13:18 - 00:28:32:01
Shaun Westcott
But it also so what you what I've tried to do from that is learn on how to not to send to that level and the world we live in today has a lot of trauma is a lot of things happening around the world geopolitically. Yeah and I guess what I would advocate for people is avoided at all costs.

00:28:32:03 - 00:28:39:20
Shaun Westcott
Work, work collaboratively, work together, try and stay away, avoid getting into those depths of depravity.

00:28:39:23 - 00:28:49:17
Daniel Franco
And let's talk about a toxic culture. I mean, do you do you ever like why did you stay in that role? For how long or how long were you?

00:28:49:20 - 00:28:59:05
Shaun Westcott
Yes, I was in that role for a short period of time. Fortunately, Anglo American, they also identified me as having what they called a hypertension. So through a series of tests and various things.

00:28:59:08 - 00:29:00:28
Daniel Franco
I've been tested a lot. Yeah, I was.

00:29:00:28 - 00:29:16:15
Shaun Westcott
I've been doing that my whole life for some reason. But what they did is they put me on a management development program. So they realized that I had skills beyond just human resources. Yeah, they put me on a on a management development program, which is a two year program, and it was for what they called hypoxia potentials. And I was the only one.

00:29:16:15 - 00:29:21:14
Shaun Westcott
There was a select group of listeners on that. It was a two year program and I finished it in nine months.

00:29:21:17 - 00:29:24:03
Daniel Franco
So they went okay, it was.

00:29:24:09 - 00:29:25:25
Shaun Westcott
Self-paced.

00:29:25:28 - 00:29:26:20
Daniel Franco
Yeah. You had.

00:29:26:21 - 00:29:29:18
Shaun Westcott
Modules and various aspects of the business and you.

00:29:29:18 - 00:29:32:20
Daniel Franco
Needed to go, Oh, with us or with high distinctions on these courses.

00:29:32:20 - 00:29:34:06
Shaun Westcott
Yeah. So there was a fair bit of that.

00:29:34:06 - 00:29:34:27
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:29:34:29 - 00:29:53:11
Shaun Westcott
But it wasn't on the academic aspect of it. So you'd have to complete the modules and yeah, had to do practical. So that was a fantastic experience. That was really good because it exposed me to different aspects of the business. So you do the theoretical module on the business and the theories and, and management practices and policies and procedures and processes for every aspect of the business.

00:29:53:11 - 00:30:10:02
Shaun Westcott
And then you actually were deployed in that part of the business and you'd actually have to work in that. So I've worked in everything from public relations to human resources to, you name it, of working every function of business except for I haven't worked in it and I haven't worked in finance, okay? I've studied finance and I've done an MBA.

00:30:10:09 - 00:30:10:27
Shaun Westcott
You know, I understand.

00:30:10:27 - 00:30:12:09
Daniel Franco
You know, finance, you can read.

00:30:12:09 - 00:30:18:06
Shaun Westcott
It. Actually not worked as an accountant. No, that's right. I haven't worked in i.t. Only two areas of business that I haven't worked in.

00:30:18:06 - 00:30:24:08
Daniel Franco
Well, look out. Well, that's what you get. Well, I mean, I'd say is the is the new language.

00:30:24:08 - 00:30:28:08
Shaun Westcott
Or the new language, but again the fact that it doesn't work they doesn't mean they don't understand you know.

00:30:28:08 - 00:30:29:21
Daniel Franco
It through some research.

00:30:29:25 - 00:30:31:17
Shaun Westcott
And and in fact.

00:30:31:19 - 00:30:32:15
Daniel Franco
You need to.

00:30:32:18 - 00:31:02:18
Shaun Westcott
Say absolutely and that's if we if we do a quick segway into that is that is one of the massive opportunities for the future is artificial intelligence here and working back from that is the whole digitization automation and robotics. I will say I had the fortune of being the CEO of an automation and robotics company along the way and just understood the power of the future and improve productivity and efficiencies and gains that would allow us to substantially accelerate the economy, even in places like Australia, if we were to embrace that more readily.

00:31:02:19 - 00:31:24:23
Daniel Franco
Well, I was going to ask questions about that later, but let's jump into it now while we're talking about it. So your yeah, you've quite well, you've come out and said that, you know, there is this talk of let's build south Australian population and get to 2 million people and grow population and jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. And you've kind of got like a different stance on that, which I actually really love.

00:31:25:00 - 00:31:47:21
Shaun Westcott
I do have I have a different take on it and the challenge that we have and this is not just an Australian problem, it's most developed countries in the world and even less developed countries like China are facing this problem now is that the population has peaked and that you actually have demographically the populations are reducing and getting older and these fewer young people coming into business.

00:31:47:21 - 00:32:16:01
Shaun Westcott
So we in Australia are challenged to find enough highly qualified, highly skilled people to do the jobs that we have to do. And one of those solutions and Australia does it very well, is one of the in fact Australia does are probably one of the best in the world in a few other countries are doing well. These immigration and immigrations all good and well, but immigration, if you use it as a blunt instrument in itself, is not going to solve our problems because what it does do, and we all know that we have a housing crisis, for example, in this country.

00:32:16:01 - 00:32:38:22
Shaun Westcott
Yeah. And the cost of the housing is becoming unaffordable. And that's driven by supply and demand. The demand for housing exceeds the ability and the capacity to build it fast enough. And that's leading to these exorbitant housing prices. And we just talking housing, when you increase the population, some say you need more hospitals, you need more schools, you need more police stations, you need more railways, you need more roads.

00:32:38:24 - 00:32:42:21
Daniel Franco
And you're not necessarily recruiting the right talent. Exactly.

00:32:42:21 - 00:33:16:10
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely. So population growth is important because it's one of the economic, economic stimulators, but it needs to be done in a very smart we need to do it in a laser approach and not in a shotgun approach. We need to really be focused on attracting high caliber, highly qualified, highly intellectual people into our economy. And the reason for that is that we are not a low cost labor country and never will be our competitive advantage needs to be through a through intellectual capacity.

00:33:16:13 - 00:33:36:11
Shaun Westcott
And that means bringing smart people and you can buy and as I mentioned, I'll be in automation and robotics. You can buy a lot of solutions off the shelf. We actually need to get to the point where we're not just buying other people's solutions where we are actually developing solutions ourselves. Yeah, and that goes all the way back into academics and research and development.

00:33:36:11 - 00:34:16:05
Shaun Westcott
It's attracting highly, highly qualified, highly intelligent, highly capable people that will allow us to then rapidly grow our economy. We need to be writing the software, we need to be innovating, we need to be finding the solutions, and we need to be doing it in a way that doesn't require large numbers of people. And if I can do a quick segway in to go for business and the Mitsubishi business and what we've done in Australia is we have significantly improved the business over the last couple of years and I've been there and I guess one of the questions I often get from government is how and other industry associations is how many new jobs have

00:34:16:05 - 00:34:17:15
Shaun Westcott
you created?

00:34:17:18 - 00:34:20:06
Daniel Franco
And that's that's their remit as a Labor Government.

00:34:20:06 - 00:34:29:08
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely. But that's also very much an industrial, a way of thinking What you should what you should be asking me is how much more taxable paying because it's happened.

00:34:29:11 - 00:34:29:27
Daniel Franco
We've made.

00:34:29:27 - 00:34:33:04
Shaun Westcott
That. We've grown the business significantly and we've made it significantly more.

00:34:33:04 - 00:34:33:26
Daniel Franco
Profitable, you.

00:34:33:26 - 00:34:59:17
Shaun Westcott
Know, the same number of people, and that's through adopting automation and digitization. So instead of having multiple spreadsheets, we've got software people in and we've written programs that allow us to extract and collate and package and put the information together. So suddenly we've taken and can give many examples where we would have to be putting together reports for our parent company that we've taken probably three or four days.

00:34:59:20 - 00:35:02:08
Shaun Westcott
There will also be written software can do it in 3 hours.

00:35:02:08 - 00:35:03:13
Daniel Franco
Yeah, yeah.

00:35:03:13 - 00:35:24:25
Shaun Westcott
Now we've given that individual all that time back in their life to do more value adding things. So what you do is automate and digitize all the mundane, repetitive, regular things. Yeah, improve accuracy of all the information and you should aim to manipulate 20 or 30 spreadsheets. You have all the data presented to you in a dashboard and bang, you've got information.

00:35:24:25 - 00:35:45:10
Shaun Westcott
You can make decisions much quicker, much faster and more accurately, and so you can accelerate the pace at which you do business. You can improve the way you do things. So I think we should be embracing we're living in the digital age and we should be embracing digitization and automation. And it will allow us to improve the productivity, the throughput and the efficiency of our businesses significantly.

00:35:45:14 - 00:36:08:25
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, And and I'm talking a lot about digitization, but as I said, even in my role as the CEO of and Automation Company, we demonstrated to companies how you can improve efficiency and compete. You can actually through the correct application of automation of factories, we can actually computers, low labor cost countries. Yeah, because equipment works. 2424 seven never needs a holiday, does need a pay rise.

00:36:09:01 - 00:36:11:15
Shaun Westcott
It doesn't go on strike. It doesn't give us any of the hassles.

00:36:11:15 - 00:36:12:26
Daniel Franco
That we seem to have.

00:36:12:28 - 00:36:15:16
Shaun Westcott
With deep, dark and dirty jobs.

00:36:15:22 - 00:36:53:24
Daniel Franco
So we've recently interviewed Adrian Kimball, who is chair of the Productivity South Australian Productivity Commission. He's also the CEO of Thomson Gear, which is a big legal firm. But he said to us on the show that South Australia is actually probably one of the least educated states in regards to from if you actually talking from degree level. So that poses a challenge is if we have and we automate the low level jobs, which is where the majority of our workforce is placed, how do we upskill all those people in being able to take on that hire?

00:36:53:27 - 00:36:55:15
Shaun Westcott
So, Daniel, you've taken me to another.

00:36:55:15 - 00:36:57:01
Daniel Franco
Area of passion for.

00:36:57:01 - 00:37:16:20
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, right. And that is and I'll, I'll use a lesson that I learned when I was with Anglo American Corporation in South Africa at the time, there was a death shortage of advanced skills in the mining industry. Yeah, so we couldn't find metallurgists and things like that. And South Africa was recruiting a lot of them as immigrants, particularly in the UK at that point in time.

00:37:16:20 - 00:37:27:28
Shaun Westcott
So we had a lot of British metallurgists working in our organization and I wasn't given resources that Anglo American at the time. And as you guys, this is not the solution. We need to build our own talent.

00:37:28:00 - 00:37:28:11
Daniel Franco
And what.

00:37:28:11 - 00:37:52:13
Shaun Westcott
Anglo catalogs we showed, what Anglo American did is they approached two eventually three of the top universities in South Africa and they established faculties and the company paid for it. Anglo American put the money in and actually paid for the deans and they paid for a number of professors and they recruited high quality caliber professors from around the world, brought them into these universities in South Africa as expatriates, and they paid them good sums of money.

00:37:52:13 - 00:38:21:25
Shaun Westcott
Some eventually became South African citizens. They remained there and they continue to contribute to the economy. But what we did is we grew our own we built our own talent. We built on skills. Now, that's an area I'm passionate about. And I've had many of those discussions, even with our Premier Peter Malinauskas is, for example, tariffs. And the other thing I was want to say is we shouldn't just glamorize, we shouldn't just focus on universities, we should never underestimate the need and we should glamorize more and more the need for tariffs because our economy is built on technical skills.

00:38:21:25 - 00:38:44:25
Shaun Westcott
If I look at one of the most successful economies in the world, which is Germany as a manufacturing economy, the power of what they've done is to actually it's probably about grade nine in school. You actually can select a vocational career or you can select an academic career. And a lot of people actually select and they become such as turners, electricians, they become tradespeople.

00:38:44:28 - 00:38:51:29
Shaun Westcott
And even if you look at our current housing shortage, what we need right now to reduce cost of housing, more plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, electricians, you name.

00:38:51:29 - 00:38:53:01
Daniel Franco
It.

00:38:53:03 - 00:39:12:06
Shaun Westcott
We we need to grow and we need to provide people with low cost, affordable education opportunities and tariffs is part of the solution because we do need to upskill a labor force. Now, one of the challenges that well, when I was the CEO of this automation company, I had a very heated discussion. Somebody went out and they said, Are you destroying jobs?

00:39:12:09 - 00:39:37:08
Shaun Westcott
I said, We can't even find. And I had discussions. The CEO of a large company, the agricultural space, and he was going, We can't find people to pick our grapes, can't find people to pick our apples. And I said, we have to look at automation. Yeah, there are countries around the world, other high cost labor countries, Europe being one of them, where they've learned how to plant vineyards and trees and things in a certain way that you can actually automate it.

00:39:37:10 - 00:39:43:03
Shaun Westcott
So instead of people doing backbreaking work, picking apples or picking grapes, yeah, we have machines that do it.

00:39:43:06 - 00:39:44:26
Daniel Franco
Absolutely. The it's also.

00:39:44:26 - 00:39:52:26
Shaun Westcott
A labor problem. It solves our skills shortage and it allows us to give people higher paid jobs. We upskill people and we pay them more money and they have a better standard of living.

00:39:53:02 - 00:39:53:24
Daniel Franco
Yeah, trapped.

00:39:53:24 - 00:39:58:18
Shaun Westcott
In those labor low, cool, dark and dirty labor jobs that nobody wants to do.

00:39:58:18 - 00:40:20:07
Daniel Franco
Yeah, we do a lot of work in the aged care industry, in health industry as well. And my understanding and and don't quote me on these numbers, but there's there's like 10,000 nurses, potentially availability of nurses. Like there's just no front line in that whole industry in Australia and it's like there isn't enough people to to do that.

00:40:20:07 - 00:40:23:16
Daniel Franco
So the aged care industry have to look at automating because.

00:40:23:17 - 00:40:25:07
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely and again.

00:40:25:13 - 00:40:27:24
Daniel Franco
And the problem is it's only going to get older, right?

00:40:27:25 - 00:40:46:06
Shaun Westcott
And not only in Australia, in other countries in the world and that's again just screams opportunity. Yeah. Because the all countries in world and we can quote them and we can visit them where a lot of those frontline services automated, you have robots in rooms monitoring patients reacting, calling for help when the patient stops breathing.

00:40:46:06 - 00:40:46:29
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I mean.

00:40:47:02 - 00:41:01:29
Shaun Westcott
This technology is already online. Yeah. Now, if we were to embrace automation and digitization in technology and we would embrace R&D, we would be looking at how do we automate more of these tasks and how do we sell that technology across the rest of the world. And that's how Australia becomes a leader in the world, not a follower.

00:41:02:02 - 00:41:05:18
Daniel Franco
Yeah, stop buying it. Start it out, building it.

00:41:05:21 - 00:41:06:27
Shaun Westcott
And then sell it to the rest of the world.

00:41:07:00 - 00:41:07:20
Daniel Franco
Yeah, that's the rest.

00:41:07:20 - 00:41:20:09
Shaun Westcott
Of the world. Also has an aging population problem. So if we innovate in that space and we do develop automation, digitization robotics that can do a lot of those functions, there's a massive opportunity. And that's that's what I'm advocating.

00:41:20:09 - 00:41:20:28
Daniel Franco
Yes, I'm.

00:41:21:00 - 00:41:32:22
Shaun Westcott
Saying we should embrace as a country. But to do that, we have to go back into the education, the academic chain, into the types, into creating people who think and act and and approach life differently to what.

00:41:32:24 - 00:41:45:02
Daniel Franco
But how do we how do we I mean, the government is is the Labor government right now, which is like unions and people jobs these days they remit I have you know you're not going to shift that.

00:41:45:03 - 00:41:55:22
Shaun Westcott
I'm going to give our Premier full marks yet discussions that I've had with him. And if you seen one of the first things that I'm pretty upbeat about and ask is that when he took over as Premier was to look at opening more tapes.

00:41:55:27 - 00:41:56:10
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:41:56:10 - 00:41:58:05
Shaun Westcott
So I actually think we are on the right track.

00:41:58:05 - 00:41:58:29
Daniel Franco
We're on the right track.

00:41:58:29 - 00:42:02:01
Shaun Westcott
I think he's despite whether he's label liberal, he's doing the right things.

00:42:02:04 - 00:42:04:19
Daniel Franco
Yeah, yeah it's still jobs is there kind.

00:42:04:19 - 00:42:16:18
Shaun Westcott
Of absolutely But but those do create jobs but yeah I guess that the challenge that we have Daniel, is we need to start thinking differently. I Can't find people to fill the vacancy I've got on. How would I create more vacancies?

00:42:16:18 - 00:42:17:03
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:42:17:05 - 00:42:20:21
Shaun Westcott
So creating jobs is not our problem as a country any longer have at the moment anyway.

00:42:20:26 - 00:42:21:15
Daniel Franco
Yeah I'll.

00:42:21:20 - 00:42:25:07
Shaun Westcott
I'll challenge right now he's finding talent, he's finding skills, finding people.

00:42:25:07 - 00:42:25:24
Daniel Franco
Want employment.

00:42:25:24 - 00:42:30:14
Shaun Westcott
So if all the vacancies we've got, so why would we create a whole bunch more vacancies for the ones we've got?

00:42:30:19 - 00:42:38:01
Daniel Franco
Make sense. But then we need the technology and the cash to be able to do that, right? So it feels like we're stuck. In a way.

00:42:38:02 - 00:43:00:13
Shaun Westcott
Yes. But again, it all goes. And this way government has a role to play because it all goes back to university occasionally. Institutions. Yeah, building those institutions, building the talent. And there's the simple analogy I have is if you have two people, one's been through a typhoon, I'll use a very simple example, and he's been a qualified electrician and I don't have any degree and I have no qualifications, I have no education and I have no skills.

00:43:00:16 - 00:43:17:10
Shaun Westcott
I'm not marketable. So if anyone's gonna become unemployed, I'm going to become unemployed. But even if that electrician were unemployed, he could walk around and knock on your front door and say, Excuse me, sir, I'm a qualified electrician. Is there anything I can do for you? Can I put some lights in your garden? You know? Yeah. Is there something I can do?

00:43:17:12 - 00:43:22:28
Shaun Westcott
They they have skills that are marketable that they could use to think, establish themselves and create a business.

00:43:22:28 - 00:43:23:18
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:43:23:21 - 00:43:32:01
Shaun Westcott
Whereas the poor guy who has nothing can end up sleeping on a bridge somewhere. Yeah. So it all comes back to educating our population and creating opportunity through education.

00:43:32:03 - 00:43:41:21
Daniel Franco
With your I mean, you've obviously put a lot of thought into this. What's the time frames for this to start turning around? It's obviously not 1 to 2 year thing. It's a long term one.

00:43:41:22 - 00:44:01:15
Shaun Westcott
It's a long term. And I think as a country to position ourselves differently and as a state to position ourselves differently, we do have to take a long term. Anything that's worth having is we have to and that's what good leaders do, is they go, what does the future look like? And they work back from the inside. Okay, So we don't need to position ourselves.

00:44:01:15 - 00:44:22:04
Shaun Westcott
What do I need to do to to achieve that outcome, that in that end game, that end goal and it does require investment, it does require a different way of thinking, not short termism, not two years, not four years, not three years. Yeah, we need to be thinking ten, 15, 20 years out and we need to be thinking future generations and we need to be thinking of our kids and going, can they afford a house?

00:44:22:04 - 00:44:33:19
Shaun Westcott
Will they be able to afford a house? I can. We've got a problem. What do we need to do to fix that problem? And most meaningful change is very considered and it's long term and it's an approach to a way of thinking.

00:44:33:21 - 00:44:48:16
Daniel Franco
I love it. I love it. Right. So let's just go back that rabbit hole for a moment. Let's get back in to see if you've left Anglo American and then you've gone into Coca-Cola before that.

00:44:48:16 - 00:44:53:08
Shaun Westcott
So what happened is that Anglo American owns a lot of subsidiary companies.

00:44:53:11 - 00:44:53:13
Daniel Franco
And.

00:44:53:13 - 00:45:10:12
Shaun Westcott
They've since divested of those focused on their core business. They become much more company. Yeah, but they owned companies in many different industries. One of those one of the things that we had in those days, in these days, underground mining is done with hydraulic props. Yeah, I'm going back 30 years now. It was wood. Wood props. Yeah, we used to.

00:45:10:15 - 00:45:30:09
Shaun Westcott
And also even Anglo bacon, which had the deepest mines in the world, those working in western deep levels, which is still the deepest mine in the world, over three kilometers on the ground. Yeah. Wow. So the rock pressures are extreme hot rock temperatures. Those extreme people got to work with ice jackets on. But be that as it may, one of the things that we used to do is support the the overhang, which is the roof.

00:45:30:09 - 00:45:47:00
Shaun Westcott
So you're mining out your hollowing out the ground beneath. You need to put packs in underneath to support the ground, otherwise all collapses. And we used to have lots that a lot of people used to die. So they owned forestry companies and they used to act for the simple reason that that was one of the key requirements to build these props was wood.

00:45:47:04 - 00:46:04:16
Shaun Westcott
And they put these props on the ground to hold up. So I ran out of a bit of space in terms of promoting promotion opportunities. I was hungry and I was moving fast, so one of the opportunities arise for me to join one of these subsidiary companies called Henry Shaw's and Hepburn, which was a forestry and milling company.

00:46:04:16 - 00:46:05:26
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:46:05:29 - 00:46:26:15
Shaun Westcott
So I joined that company and spent a few years there first before that was bought out by Sappi, which was the world's, I think, slowly is the world's largest paper pulp company. And I wanted to transform it back to Johannesburg. But now my wife and I have had a traumatic experience in Johannesburg where we were in a shopping center and guys came in with AK 47 and opened fire on us.

00:46:26:18 - 00:46:32:25
Shaun Westcott
And I was lying on top of my wife under a bench in the shopping center to protect her from the bullets. And we left Johannesburg and.

00:46:32:25 - 00:46:34:13
Daniel Franco
Which is a random robbery. Is that random.

00:46:34:13 - 00:46:36:09
Shaun Westcott
Robbery? It happens all the time in South Africa. That's just.

00:46:36:09 - 00:46:37:19
Daniel Franco
And starts shooting towards.

00:46:37:19 - 00:46:47:04
Shaun Westcott
You. Yeah. So what they do is they just open fire and everyone screams and shouts and falls flat on the floor. And then they go into the shopping centers and they clean out the tools or clean out the safe and then escape.

00:46:47:06 - 00:46:48:08
Daniel Franco
Oh, my goodness.

00:46:48:10 - 00:46:56:00
Shaun Westcott
That happens all the time in South Africa. What is the reason? It's the reason why I left South Africa. And the crime and the violence in South Africa is just on a different scale.

00:46:56:00 - 00:46:57:00
Daniel Franco
Do you have kids at that time?

00:46:57:04 - 00:47:06:09
Shaun Westcott
I didn't. At that time I didn't. So I was I was working for Anglo-American Corporation and I was in Johannesburg. We left Johannesburg and I moved down to the Eastern Cape with this forestry and solar.

00:47:06:10 - 00:47:09:08
Daniel Franco
Yeah. So Johannesburg, just out of curiosity that it's the.

00:47:09:08 - 00:47:09:20
Shaun Westcott
Sydney of.

00:47:09:20 - 00:47:10:19
Daniel Franco
South Africa, it's.

00:47:10:21 - 00:47:11:06
Shaun Westcott
The it's.

00:47:11:06 - 00:47:13:02
Daniel Franco
The, that's where the majority of crime is.

00:47:13:08 - 00:47:16:27
Shaun Westcott
Yeah. It's also where the majority of crime and it's also the industrial capital of South Africa.

00:47:17:03 - 00:47:17:27
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:47:18:00 - 00:47:35:12
Shaun Westcott
So instead people without this company, they wanted to transfer me back to their office in Johannesburg and I said no thanks, that's not happening. So it was at that point that I got a job with Coca Cola. Yes. So I moved into a role with Coca-Cola as the group industrial relations manager initially and at that time looking after.

00:47:35:12 - 00:47:56:25
Shaun Westcott
So that was also a very interesting time and probably fairly formative in my life experience. So South Africa, because of its apartheid policies, had been a pariah state and there were many boycotts and many, many countries had exited South Africa, including Coca Cola. So Coca Cola had privatized the assets in South Africa and they were run as franchises.

00:47:56:25 - 00:47:58:06
Daniel Franco
Okay.

00:47:58:08 - 00:48:25:10
Shaun Westcott
When Nelson Mandela came to power as a new government, that all changed. And Coca-Cola came back to South Africa and they bought back their businesses. And a lot of companies like General Motors had also exited. They also came back so many multinationals who left South Africa came back and reinvested in South Africa. But at the same time, the Soviet Union collapsed in 19 around 1999, the wall came down, a lot of countries in Africa.

00:48:25:13 - 00:48:54:28
Shaun Westcott
There was a polarization in Africa, either with the West or with the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union pumped a lot of money into a lot of African countries, bought them in a way, you know, supported them economically and financially and also with guns. And unfortunately, many other things in Africa still awash with guns. But because the Soviet Union collapsed, that economic support of many of those African countries and many of them was that they had what they called socialist governments, which are largely communist type of governments, and those were countries like Tanzania, Mozambique, Cuba.

00:48:54:29 - 00:49:18:01
Shaun Westcott
And through the list, those governments collapsed and a form of democracy emerged in Africa. But what had happened is that under communism or under socialism, as they call it, many of those countries had nationalized assets, including the Coca-Cola factories. When that economic support ended, a lot of those companies were cash strapped and they also didn't know what to do and how to do it.

00:49:18:03 - 00:49:38:25
Shaun Westcott
So Coca-Cola came back into South Africa, bought back into the South African business. I fortunately got recruited at that point in time because the company was on a massive expansion, on a growth expansion, South Africa. We had very good skills. So Coca Cola used South Africa as the base to then go across a number of countries in south east and Central Africa.

00:49:38:28 - 00:49:51:26
Shaun Westcott
And I was involved in those projects where we did a lot of some of those brownfields. We'd actually go in and we were rebuilding factories that antiquated, outdated, putting in a lot of capital investment, new equipment, machinery, new production lines.

00:49:51:28 - 00:49:54:09
Daniel Franco
So you sort of operationalize that. Oh, is that right?

00:49:54:09 - 00:50:09:08
Shaun Westcott
That's right, yes. I was part of the team that would go in and then obviously do the analysis of the business state. It was in some some we'd just put in a bulldozer and flatten it and rebuild it. Some were greenfield sites. So we identified opportunities in countries where they were in factories. We built factories that hadn't been allowed.

00:50:09:08 - 00:50:35:06
Shaun Westcott
They brownfield sites where we just went in and invested a lot and rebuilt it. So we had to rebuild those and I was part of that. And that taught me a lot of a lot in life about business and business opportunities. So we would go in and literally sit down and I was part of a team of five guys or six guys, and we had McKinsey working with us and we would identify all the shortcomings, all the weaknesses, all the areas of opportunity, all the areas of growth, areas requiring investment.

00:50:35:12 - 00:50:57:04
Shaun Westcott
And that was everything from people to equipment to machines to trucks to distribution to manufacturing lines. So I learned a lot. I learned a lot about building a business from the ground up, about looking at the financial world, looking at the feasibility, looking at the market, looking the size of the market. So those are skills that I and I was very fortunate to be promoted and I was in senior, very senior management positions at a very young age.

00:50:57:04 - 00:51:09:24
Shaun Westcott
So I joined Coca-Cola when I was 29 at the time and you know, in already an executive position and then got promoted pretty rapidly off the back. So in my early thirties I was sitting right at the top of the tree doing a lot of stuff that most people don't get the chance to do in their life.

00:51:09:24 - 00:51:12:28
Daniel Franco
In Coca-Cola, South Africa, not so much, probably.

00:51:13:00 - 00:51:24:02
Shaun Westcott
So Initially it was Coca-Cola, South Africa. I became a country man. I was one of the country managers for South Africa. But then we Coca-Cola, it said, was it was called Coca-Cola SAB, Coca-Cola, South African Bottling Company.

00:51:24:02 - 00:51:24:12
Daniel Franco
Okay.

00:51:24:19 - 00:51:34:07
Shaun Westcott
But then what we did is that company got dissolved and we created a new company called Coca Cola Africa, of which Coca-Cola is a majority shareholder. Yeah. And the head office is still based in South Africa.

00:51:34:08 - 00:51:34:28
Daniel Franco
Okay.

00:51:35:01 - 00:51:57:09
Shaun Westcott
And I was I was based in that head office in South Africa. So I got to travel a lot to I looked after many countries. I got lots of exposure, many different languages, many different cultures, doing business in different environments. Got to understand the business from the grassroots up. Investments return on investments. It was it was a fantastic in my early thirties, fantastic growth experience industry being good stayed for the rest of my life.

00:51:57:11 - 00:52:17:19
Daniel Franco
No doubt, which is obviously where you are. I mean, you you went from the CEO. Well, from the role at Coca-Cola as a CEO, I wrote I see. I see which I see which you're and then eventually became the CEO there and from my understanding, completely turned that company around on the back of what you probably learned at Coca-Cola.

00:52:17:21 - 00:52:43:20
Shaun Westcott
So it was actually it was a very interesting journey. It often. So what happened with Coca-Cola is eventually I was traveling so much across multiple countries and Africa head office was initially in London and the global head office was in Atlanta. So I was doing a lot of traveling and was seldom at home. And with a lot of these projects in Africa, leave on a monday morning and get back on a Friday night and sometimes you leave on a monday morning and get back on a Friday two weeks later.

00:52:43:23 - 00:52:46:03
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, Well, so I got to the point where.

00:52:46:06 - 00:52:46:22
Daniel Franco
You had kids that.

00:52:46:27 - 00:52:50:11
Shaun Westcott
Had kids. Yes, I had kids who at the time were eight and ten.

00:52:50:13 - 00:52:52:21
Daniel Franco
To go to. Goes to York. Yes.

00:52:52:24 - 00:53:09:00
Shaun Westcott
And at one point my wife and I sat down and I said, my daughter's eight. The younger one and the older one is ten. She doesn't Her father went to work at eight and came home at five, another eight years. And that one, my elder daughter will be out of out of home, out of school, out of home and gone.

00:53:09:02 - 00:53:27:21
Shaun Westcott
And she'll have never known a father who was present. So I decided I need a lifetime change and a change of life know. And I was on the board of a private school and the chairman of that board liked my way of thinking. And I've been on the board for a number of years. So he knew my way of thinking, my strategic thinking, my approach.

00:53:27:23 - 00:53:46:06
Shaun Westcott
And he he'd asked me a number of times to join his company, and I was loving what I was doing in Coca-Cola. So I didn't take up the opportunity. But things kind of came together. And his brother, who was a partner in the company, was retiring and he said, This is your chance. You have to come now. Otherwise it would take somebody else on board.

00:53:46:08 - 00:54:06:01
Shaun Westcott
And it was also that point about being cut of about ten years, traveling extensively and excessively in that time. Yeah, that the two things came together and I sat down with him. I had enormous conversation. He his company was a private, family owned, medium sized company in the industry that he was in. And Diana was name was Raymond C.

00:54:06:02 - 00:54:06:24
Daniel Franco
Raymond Yeah.

00:54:06:27 - 00:54:15:13
Shaun Westcott
And you don't understand that I am not a good what's the right word? A keeper of the current order?

00:54:15:16 - 00:54:18:00
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I'm a disrupter.

00:54:18:01 - 00:54:34:11
Shaun Westcott
I'm a disrupter. Yeah. And I'm all about change. And I'm about growth and transformation. And he said that exactly what one business needs. So kind of long story short, he basically gave me an open checkbook and said, Do what you have to do. And one of the first things I did is I joined this company was a Somali and forestry company.

00:54:34:13 - 00:54:36:19
Daniel Franco
Yeah. And he it which he had experience.

00:54:36:20 - 00:54:45:07
Shaun Westcott
Which I had experience. So he knew I had that experience and he'd been and in that company that I had been, I made quite a big change. And he knew that because we were in competition with each other.

00:54:45:11 - 00:54:45:24
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:54:45:26 - 00:54:46:23
Shaun Westcott
So he wanted me.

00:54:46:29 - 00:54:47:17
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:54:47:20 - 00:55:03:23
Shaun Westcott
And the first thing I did, one of the first things we did was we were in the Somali industry and we make planks. Now, planks are a commodity. A plank is a plank is a plank. And we were supplying to the housing industry and the size of the everything, everything's regulated. So the only differentiator is. Price.

00:55:03:26 - 00:55:04:23
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:55:04:25 - 00:55:26:26
Shaun Westcott
And I the first thing I did was say, how can we differentiate ourselves as a commodity all kind of make us a lot more valuable than the competitors down the road. And the very first thing that I did was we started I started looking globally and there were massive markets for us opportunities in Europe, but the Europeans were very environmentally focused and joining the dots.

00:55:26:26 - 00:55:32:14
Shaun Westcott
And one of the opportunities that we had is we were growing Australian tourism. I know.

00:55:32:16 - 00:55:33:12
Daniel Franco
Australia.

00:55:33:14 - 00:55:52:14
Shaun Westcott
We growing Australian carry gum in South Africa, in Australia is very protected and prescribed in South Africa. It was an alien species and we could farm it and harvest it as much as we liked it and our business was all about sustainability. You take one tree out your replace with another one. I don't have a business, so it was all about sustainability.

00:55:52:14 - 00:56:08:25
Shaun Westcott
So we were farming these trees in South Africa, he says. Or forest trees were farming trees essentially. The Europeans in particular, the Dutch line, they canals with timber and because they say environmentally conscious, they don't want any timber is treated with because you put them in water rights.

00:56:08:28 - 00:56:09:10
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:56:09:12 - 00:56:23:21
Shaun Westcott
And the way to stop it is to treat with chemicals. The Dutch didn't want that because they said the chemicals would leach into water and obviously pollute the water and sea life and everything else. Yep. So this carry gum, which is used to make railway sleepers for extremely hard wood, and if you're submerged in the water, it'll be there for a few hundred years.

00:56:23:23 - 00:56:24:15
Daniel Franco
Yeah, well.

00:56:24:18 - 00:56:45:00
Shaun Westcott
So there was a massive opportunity for us. So what I did is an organization and to, to, to get entry the key into the European market, in particular the Dutch. It was immediately Belgium and other markets as well that we went into. But Holland was our first port of call was I then certified our company through FSC as being as being a sustainable forestry business.

00:56:45:00 - 00:57:06:19
Shaun Westcott
As I said, every tree you take out your place to another tree and what our practices were sustainable. So we were very environmentally focused. So I got FSC accreditation now straight away after our product was no longer we were differentiated, we were no longer a commodity, we were different to our competitors and we were able to access European markets that the other companies weren't.

00:57:06:21 - 00:57:22:24
Shaun Westcott
So that was the first thing we did was was getting to international markets. Then we started exporting. That went very well. The company took off, we grew, we ate, we actually doubled the size of the business. We put in new we both new factories, we put in new production lines. We doubled the size of the company three years in.

00:57:23:01 - 00:57:24:07
Shaun Westcott
That was 2005.

00:57:24:07 - 00:57:27:20
Daniel Franco
Yeah, 2008.

00:57:27:22 - 00:57:34:02
Shaun Westcott
Phone call from my boss. The world is falling apart. What are we going to do? GFC had happened. The bubble burst.

00:57:34:04 - 00:57:37:06
Daniel Franco
Yeah, and the boss being the owner being the owner.

00:57:37:08 - 00:57:58:10
Shaun Westcott
And he and I sat down and so he was in a state of panic. Where are we going to go? What are going to do? Because what had happened is that many of the European banks were bailing out the governments and they and the governments were bailing out companies to keep them alive in Europe during the GFC. And a lot of these projects were government funded and that funding dried up.

00:57:58:13 - 00:58:30:21
Shaun Westcott
And we said, you know, what are we going to do? And what what essentially happens? A lot of our competitors actually went bankrupt, went out of business, I said, and I went oversimplified or spun the globe. Yeah, the global economy spun it around literally and said, Where in the world is there growth opportunity? And at that point in time, China was still had a it was growing about 9 to 11 between nine and 11% over nine to 10 to 11%, and I said we have to get a product that we can sell into China.

00:58:30:23 - 00:58:49:00
Shaun Westcott
So that meant getting on planes, flying to China, attaining some trade phase, trying to make some contacts. And interesting enough, we found opportunities in a couple of countries in Southeast Asia. So one of the first opportunities for us. So when you cut a tree of trees round and you lose the outside, the outside is round and there's the planks you cut out of the square.

00:58:49:03 - 00:58:56:28
Shaun Westcott
So you have a lot of waste roughly anything if you're really good, slightly less than 50%. If you're not so good, 50% of your product goes into waste.

00:58:56:28 - 00:58:57:26
Daniel Franco
Yeah, well.

00:58:57:28 - 00:59:02:17
Shaun Westcott
We started chopping this waste because that's installing that's a major problem is your sawdust and your waste.

00:59:02:17 - 00:59:02:24
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

00:59:02:29 - 00:59:21:26
Shaun Westcott
Now traditionally we tried to sell adding to farmers to make fertilizers and compost and things like that, but it's very you make no money out of it. So it's just a way of getting rid of your problem basically, which is your waste. The first thing we did was chop that product and sell it to Japan as chips. So we got an opportunity to sell products to Japan, but still relatively low value.

00:59:21:29 - 00:59:22:12
Daniel Franco
Yeah, We.

00:59:22:12 - 00:59:41:15
Shaun Westcott
Then identified that China, part of what China was doing was making furniture and exporting it around the world and they had the final furniture factories. But what we did, it was we didn't became their suppliers into their supply chain. So we used the same factory. We changed this, we used the same source. But what we did is obviously change the dimensions and change the final product of selling.

00:59:41:17 - 01:00:03:08
Shaun Westcott
And we actually pivoted into Southeast Asia. So we found markets in Vietnam. We're selling products on hardwood products into Vietnam. We started selling handles, handles, rake handles, pick handles, We started adding value. So we bought we bought an additional equipment. We were making hammer handles, handles, pick handles, all kinds of handles. So we were evaluating and we're seeing those in the United States and into Australia.

01:00:03:08 - 01:00:04:06
Shaun Westcott
Interesting. After Bunnings.

01:00:04:11 - 01:00:05:23
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Okay. So a lot.

01:00:05:23 - 01:00:25:03
Shaun Westcott
Of stuff, it wasn't Bunnings was actually coming out of our company, so we pivoted and we found new markets. So we survived and we grew. And as our competitors started closing down, we started buying them and acquiring them and we ended up and then the good news is post 2012 type business until 2015 2016, when I immigrated, Europe started coming back.

01:00:25:04 - 01:00:25:16
Shaun Westcott
So post.

01:00:25:16 - 01:00:27:21
Daniel Franco
GFC you got all your Europe started.

01:00:27:21 - 01:00:37:24
Shaun Westcott
Coming back. And these guys, one of the products that we used to sell them, so we, we sold more capacity, we bought more factories and we pivoted and we actually quadrupled the size of the business in ten years.

01:00:37:27 - 01:00:38:20
Daniel Franco
It's amazing.

01:00:38:20 - 01:00:44:03
Shaun Westcott
And we had double the volume in two different markets, different products, and we significantly grew that business.

01:00:44:05 - 01:01:08:10
Daniel Franco
I think like I want to just touch on the disrupter thing, right? Like what it is, it's obviously a big risk which the the founder would have had to have had full trust in you to to make that risk and pivot in that way. What is your thought process in that fight? I mean, to pick up a globe and go, right, where can we go globe?

01:01:08:17 - 01:01:17:09
Daniel Franco
You know, there's talk of a potential recession coming. Yes. In the market next year. Is that something that you buy into? I do, yeah.

01:01:17:13 - 01:01:21:22
Shaun Westcott
But again, we already have plans and strategies, which I can talk about.

01:01:21:25 - 01:01:26:24
Daniel Franco
As in Mitsubishi. But what I mean, what's your advice to those who are trying to plan for that now?

01:01:26:26 - 01:01:48:10
Shaun Westcott
So I have many sayings and I live my life and one of those is never waste a good crisis. This and off the back of that is always find the adversity, always find the opportunity in adversity. So let's look for that. So let me take let me give you another example and I'll I'll stick with the some of the previous companies I work because I'm neutral.

01:01:48:12 - 01:02:06:05
Shaun Westcott
One of the other challenges that we had in South Africa is that we had a new government and new government had a very social program. So they were building houses and doing all kinds of social programs, which is good because people didn't have good quality housing, but it drained all their cash and the populations of Africa grew rather rapidly.

01:02:06:05 - 01:02:22:26
Shaun Westcott
It's sitting in about 65 at the time, it was about 45 degrees very rapidly to 65 and probably officially 65 and probably unofficially about 70 million now, because we have South Africa's the economic powerhouse of Africa, and you have lots of immigrants, and I'll call them illegal immigrants because they come across the border and entered into South Africa.

01:02:22:26 - 01:02:31:21
Shaun Westcott
It means that we can't get work. So South Africa's population grew very rapidly. But what the government didn't do was do that long term planning and thinking that spoke about it.

01:02:31:25 - 01:02:32:18
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:02:32:21 - 01:02:45:03
Shaun Westcott
So they didn't build any new power stations. And at some point the country was started running out of power and we were experiencing blackouts. Now, as the CEO of a company, if you a private individual and you have blackouts, it's inconvenient.

01:02:45:08 - 01:02:46:28
Daniel Franco
Yeah. And you can.

01:02:47:01 - 01:02:49:22
Shaun Westcott
Buy a generator where you can use battery powered lamps.

01:02:49:22 - 01:02:50:05
Daniel Franco
Yes.

01:02:50:05 - 01:02:58:07
Shaun Westcott
And you can use gas to cook with. It's inconvenient. You've running a big company, a manufacturing company with big factories and have lots outside hours a day.

01:02:58:14 - 01:02:59:07
Daniel Franco
You need power.

01:02:59:12 - 01:03:17:13
Shaun Westcott
That is a serious. Yeah, a serious cost of was correct. So we were in a fortunate position as a small company in that we had we were generating a lot of sawdust and waste which were selling as low cost, low value product to to Japan and other places in that saw the opportunity. So we were sitting with the company and we sat down.

01:03:17:13 - 01:03:40:23
Shaun Westcott
And these things aren't in retrospect. And when you sit on a podcast and talk about them, it sounds like it was a light bulb moment. Now it's not as many hours of intense, deep study analysis, discussion, debate, engagement. So and some of it requires you need a well thought out, carefully thought out plan, and you need to go to financiers and you need backing.

01:03:40:25 - 01:04:02:17
Shaun Westcott
And if you if you've been if you run your company carefully and you have a bit of a war chest, that's even better. But what we did is we put together joined a few dots and power outages, massive blackouts, hours and hours a day, losing lots of money. We were sitting on a pile of sawdust and I went, Can we?

01:04:02:17 - 01:04:28:18
Shaun Westcott
And what we were also doing as as every sawmill does is you do we have boilers? Because what you need is you bring some of that to create steam. And the steam you pump it into a kill and you draw your timber. So again, it's just joining dots. And I went, Well, if we're burning, we already had boilers, we really burning this, we making steam, can we upscale this and generate enough and generate power and run our business on our waste?

01:04:28:21 - 01:04:31:29
Shaun Westcott
And that's at the heart of where we ended up. So what we did is in South Africa.

01:04:31:29 - 01:04:33:14
Daniel Franco
It became self-sufficient. Yeah.

01:04:33:14 - 01:04:53:07
Shaun Westcott
So going back 30 or 40 years before that, 30, 40 years before that many, each town had its own power station use to generate its own power. These had all been mothballed, was standing idle and we approached two towns, sites were and Grimes down to towns in South Africa. And we said, Can we buy your power station? And these are cash strapped municipalities went, Wow, Yes, absolutely.

01:04:53:10 - 01:05:10:03
Shaun Westcott
It got them paid quite a few million, got them. We dismantled them. We took them in and we erected them on our sorting sites. We then took our waste. So we had to we had to modify the boilers because the calorific value of sawdust is much lower than coal. And these were coal powered fire stations. So we had to put extra tubes into our bodies.

01:05:10:09 - 01:05:26:14
Shaun Westcott
We had. And what if we had to make some modifications but we didn't? Long story short of building sawdust, burning sawdust in these boilers, generating steam driving turbines and generating power. But because we'd bought power stations that had drawn a whole city.

01:05:26:14 - 01:05:26:21
Daniel Franco
We.

01:05:26:21 - 01:05:44:04
Shaun Westcott
Had excess capacity and the government doesn't have power. So I guess what I engaged in was a long process. Again, took probably close to two years, 18 months or two years negotiating with government to sell power back to and getting agreements through what was called NERSA, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, negotiating with Nersa to get agreements.

01:05:44:04 - 01:05:54:21
Shaun Westcott
They could sell power back onto the grid and so what you've turned is misfortune into opportunity, adversity into opportunity. And that's created.

01:05:54:21 - 01:05:58:00
Daniel Franco
A money printing machine. Absolutely. Absolutely.

01:05:58:02 - 01:06:15:14
Shaun Westcott
And the government is desperate for power. So so so not only did we solve our problem, we solved our waste problem. We had enough power for ourselves and we generated a new revenue stream sitting that power on to the grid. So we love gives you lemons, make lemonade.

01:06:15:17 - 01:06:44:04
Daniel Franco
Yes, I agree. And I love I love the saying that your your way of thinking and your tenacity and your resilience. And I mean, you know, we talked about context earlier. If the ability for you in all your career to think like this is one that some I don't know I think it's you know you're one of a kind in in a sense that it's because it's quite difficult because people get caught up with emotion.

01:06:44:04 - 01:06:54:25
Daniel Franco
They get caught up with, oh, my God, my business is going broke, my honor, what am I doing? And have to let people go Because you stick with your core. You stick with your core strategy. Right.

01:06:54:27 - 01:06:58:14
Shaun Westcott
And although all those emotions are real, we shouldn't discount them.

01:06:58:17 - 01:06:59:05
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:06:59:07 - 01:07:22:02
Shaun Westcott
But we do need to work through them. And maintaining keeping us of anchored to rationality is one thing. I think the other advantage that I have and a lot of people and we all different as humans, I like stimulation, I like adventure, I like new things and I've worked in multiple industries. Now some people choose a particular career in a particular industry and they spend their lives and they get profound, deep knowledge.

01:07:22:02 - 01:07:50:19
Shaun Westcott
Some people in a particular industry, for me it was different. For me. I enjoyed the stimulation of transferring knowledge, working between industries. But what I did gain off the back of that was exposure to multiple facets of and different ways of thinking, different industries. And I guess the, the, the opportunity for any great leader is to learn from your experiences, join the dots, piece things together, put things together, create so.

01:07:50:19 - 01:08:12:19
Shaun Westcott
So there's two ways of looking at life. You can learn from others and that's important to learn from others and apply that. But to be truly profound, you need to think outside the scree. You need to come up with something new that something that's different, something that differentiates you, something that sets you apart, and what is that? And the reality is that the world presents us with all those opportunities all the time.

01:08:12:21 - 01:08:21:15
Shaun Westcott
Everything as we know it is in a state of flux. Everything is in a state of change. The world. We often laugh at people speaking about the good old days.

01:08:21:20 - 01:08:22:09
Daniel Franco
Yeah, but.

01:08:22:09 - 01:08:44:29
Shaun Westcott
Actually the good the good days lie ahead. It's how we formulate the future. That's how we look at trends, patterns, the changing world us and join the dots, weave it together, take the time for introspection, reflection. Think ten, 15 years out. What's the world look like? What's my industry to look like? What's going to be different? What's happening over?

01:08:44:29 - 01:09:01:12
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, that's going to change what's happening over here, what's happening with social media, what's happening with artificial intelligence. How is that going to change the future? What aspect of my business can I use to pivot, to lean into that, to create an opportunity for myself? So it's a way of thinking.

01:09:01:14 - 01:09:32:18
Daniel Franco
I of it. And, you know, I mean, you know, Synergy IQ, the business that I run and we are we help organizations through complex change and and transformation. And I guess everything I'm hearing right now is you know from from where you pivoted to the continue change continue growth to continue learning, continue investment in people is something that is obviously really critical to your your role as a as a see how do you go about managing change.

01:09:32:18 - 01:10:05:03
Daniel Franco
I mean, for us, it's it's very important that people are always considered and often what we see is company makes decision because it improves bottom line or there's a potential return on investment. But they've almost pushed upon this change onto the organization of which people are told to do change without it actually being embraced. Had it. What's your thoughts on.

01:10:05:03 - 01:10:08:18
Daniel Franco
Yeah, on real quality business transformation.

01:10:08:21 - 01:10:12:27
Shaun Westcott
So as somebody that operates in the space, you will know how complex change.

01:10:12:27 - 01:10:14:22
Daniel Franco
Very you know.

01:10:14:24 - 01:10:25:15
Shaun Westcott
And for me it always starts with that formulation of the vision. So it's understanding what the future looks like and again.

01:10:25:15 - 01:10:26:07
Daniel Franco
In how far.

01:10:26:13 - 01:10:38:00
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely. So it depends what business you Yeah, the time frame on the horizon differs very much depending on the industry. And so in the forestry industry you the trees you plant now maybe the next generation.

01:10:38:03 - 01:10:38:27
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:10:39:00 - 01:10:39:17
Shaun Westcott
40, 50.

01:10:39:17 - 01:10:40:22
Daniel Franco
Years. Yeah. Yeah.

01:10:40:24 - 01:11:03:25
Shaun Westcott
In the mining industry we thinking 10 to 15 year cycles. So it depends on the industry that you're in and so that that time frame, that horizon will be different. But I think the key for a leader is to identify trends and patterns and see the earlier and then sit. And if you surround yourself with good people is to sit with people and to by to discuss those.

01:11:03:25 - 01:11:33:07
Shaun Westcott
Because there are so many variables, there's some unknowns and every business has its own strengths and weaknesses. So that's really the key for me is in the formulation of the vision. And once, once and again, I mean, I would never professionally everything about everything, so bouncing ideas of other people, validating your thoughts, validating your opinions, getting the insights, getting the inputs that helps create a clearer vision, but it also creates buying and ownership.

01:11:33:09 - 01:11:41:16
Shaun Westcott
And no change will be successful unless people understand the need for change. Why? Why are we changing?

01:11:41:19 - 01:11:45:09
Shaun Westcott
I've worked at many business re the Senate offices. We've always done it this way.

01:11:45:09 - 01:11:47:21
Daniel Franco
Correct. We need to do the chimpanzee paradox.

01:11:47:21 - 01:12:12:09
Shaun Westcott
Exactly. Absolutely. So. So getting people to understand the need for change allows people to embrace change easier because for many people, change is is something to be feared because it's the unknown. So making it more visible, making it more known, understanding, yes, there's yes, there's unknowns. Let's talk about them. And if they do happen, scenario planning, if that happens, what are we going to do?

01:12:12:11 - 01:12:29:27
Shaun Westcott
So it creates won't a safety net because there's no such thing as perfect safety, but it does create a sense of or actually you take away a lot of the uncertainties, a lot of the unknowns. You create a sense of, yes, we go into this with open yes, there are risks. This could happen, that could happen. But if that happens, we're going to do that.

01:12:29:27 - 01:12:51:10
Shaun Westcott
So so scenario plan, work, work with people, people buying. And that's that is critical because within within any business and even within consumers, there's early adopters and then there's late adopters between there's a range of other people. It's important identify the early adopters in your business and to use them, develop them, grow them, give them skills, train, train them as change agents.

01:12:51:11 - 01:12:52:08
Daniel Franco
Yes, people.

01:12:52:08 - 01:13:08:15
Shaun Westcott
Who can see the vision, who understand the vision and have only the CEO having the vision create a buying get other people to buy into the vision. To start sharing the vision. To start talking about the vision to help you to grow. So to me, that's just a few without going.

01:13:08:17 - 01:13:09:10
Daniel Franco
Oh, without doubt.

01:13:09:10 - 01:13:10:06
Shaun Westcott
And of success.

01:13:10:12 - 01:13:29:24
Daniel Franco
Well, I think for us it's you know I think you now the you hit the nail on the head in the sense of first and foremost, we have to understand, do we have the maturity as an organization to be able to embark on this change? And if we don't, then we need to upskill our people. Right. And so, you know, we work with we've worked with you in this capability space.

01:13:29:24 - 01:13:50:21
Daniel Franco
How do we build the capability of our people in embarking on on change? The other part is what what is our process in which the way in which we go about change? Right. And what I'm hearing is very much, very much about that Abraham Lincoln, which is if you gave me into use a tree analogy, right, if you gave me 8 hours to chop down a tree, it's been 6 hours sharpening my ax.

01:13:50:21 - 01:14:19:25
Daniel Franco
It's about spending that time upfront you and getting the right point. We use a system thinking approach right, which is really understanding the whole process down to the perspectives of the people, which is exactly you said we I like the analogy of we're standing at a street corner, there's a car accident in the middle of the street corner, and when you're in one corner, this intersection among the other corner, you and I both saw the exact same car accident, but you saw this little black cat that ran across the road.

01:14:19:25 - 01:14:33:10
Daniel Franco
And I saw the guy in the back seat on his mobile phone or in the back car and his mobile phone both saw the exact same car accident, but from a different perspective. And and none of us are wrong. All right. So it's about drawing out those perspectives. And that's where you get your buy in. Right.

01:14:33:12 - 01:14:55:10
Shaun Westcott
And I think the other thing that Rico should have is the humility. Arrogance is the most dangerous thing. You can have This year, because coming back to none of us know, every business is complex. And in your business are multiple pockets of excellence. Subject matter experts, areas that you do not have all the insights and all the knowledge.

01:14:55:11 - 01:15:07:05
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, so I respect people no matter where they sit in organization, no matter how low down they are, they are potentially subject matter experts and they could identify challenges, problems or obstacles that you may not have thought of.

01:15:07:09 - 01:15:07:28
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:15:08:01 - 01:15:24:08
Shaun Westcott
So that consultation process is huge in defining all the options and all the risks and consulting, talking to people. Correct, getting their advice, getting the inputs, getting the opinions creates a more consolidated sound outcome without doubt.

01:15:24:10 - 01:15:57:03
Daniel Franco
Why is it that there are many leaders? I am not going to point fingers anyway, but there are many leaders that you know when going and embarking on transformational change in their organization, they they don't believe in the building of the maturity, the organization in the way in which it receives change is a real cultural change. Right? It's like because I mean, we've all been through change, especially in a large corporate space where, you know, turnover increases, engagement drops, you know, processes and systems are up the wazoo.

01:15:57:03 - 01:16:09:29
Daniel Franco
Like no one really knows what's going on. It effectively costs more money than what you actually set out to do. So building that change, that change maturity, yes. Will save you money.

01:16:10:01 - 01:16:10:22
Shaun Westcott
It does.

01:16:10:24 - 01:16:29:07
Daniel Franco
Absolutely. And I just don't understand why. I don't understand. I mean, it seems like, you know, you're preaching to the choir with you, but it is very common that there are leaders who are not looking at building the capability of their people. What is your suggestion or your advice to those leaders?

01:16:29:07 - 01:16:37:00
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, so then I think the other the other challenge that we have as companies is that typically companies are good at what they do.

01:16:37:04 - 01:16:37:29
Daniel Franco
Yeah, based.

01:16:37:29 - 01:17:04:11
Shaun Westcott
On past experience, but the past is not just a predictor of the future. Correct. And people may need it. We may need to adopt new ways and different ways of doing things or our customers and consumers. Expectations may be and they want a different way of being served or supported or expectations are changing. So there's a there's an element of also understanding that, but it's coming back to people and people have skills that are relevant to their jobs.

01:17:04:14 - 01:17:37:06
Shaun Westcott
Change management is not a skill that a lot of us have and as as as a senior leadership team, it was as a CEO and a senior leadership team, you can develop a great vision and the gap between the vision where you are is what needs to be filled, and that requires new skills, new competencies. But before you get there, the process of managing change is a skill that a lot of companies don't have and a lot of people don't have that sorry, companies like yourself coming, you know, if you are and if you're a large organization and you've got deep pockets and you can afford to build that capability internally, that's great because it's

01:17:37:07 - 01:17:56:04
Shaun Westcott
something I believe it's a lot of skill that your CEO and every senior manager should have. So it's something we should train is change management percent. If you don't have access to that, engage with a company like yourself in experts who understand change management because the risks of failure and your point earlier exceed the costs Without doubt.

01:17:56:05 - 01:18:17:15
Daniel Franco
Absolutely. Are the amount of times we've been called in because we're 2 million over budget. Can you come in and help us out like it's it's it's actually scary in somewhat and someone I've explained it in a way that you know if and to your point you outsource logistics right like because we're not a company that does logistics so let's outsource it.

01:18:17:19 - 01:18:18:08
Shaun Westcott
You're fine with it.

01:18:18:08 - 01:18:39:13
Daniel Franco
Yeah that's fine like no worries we can change but but when it comes to change I think it's, it's, it's weird because it's like, well we should really know that Like we that's change is something that I can do or any one of our people can do. And we're of the attitude is like, we are change experts. We absolutely our job is to not make you money, but to save you money.

01:18:39:17 - 01:18:53:00
Daniel Franco
Right. Like that's the if you treat your people correctly, if you have the right processes and systems in place, if you have if you have the right structures in place in which change is enabled. Yes. Right. Then you're on the right path.

01:18:53:03 - 01:18:54:28
Shaun Westcott
The chances are change being successful.

01:18:54:28 - 01:18:55:18
Daniel Franco
Correct.

01:18:55:21 - 01:19:14:04
Shaun Westcott
In a you in a level of magnitude. And I guess often people can and some people are good at doing the vision part, but there's always typically if you if you do your planning is typically a gap between the end state and where you currently are and managing people through that change management because we must change files. Correct.

01:19:14:04 - 01:19:24:26
Shaun Westcott
And then companies file, right? So that's not underestimate the importance of change management and change management skills and having a proper process that's founded and rooted in solid theory.

01:19:24:28 - 01:19:43:11
Daniel Franco
I love it. A job come work for us showing you've changed the world. Let's keep going through your career. So I mean, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs kicks into place when you decide that Australia is is your new home.

01:19:43:11 - 01:19:44:03
Shaun Westcott
Yeah.

01:19:44:05 - 01:19:45:18
Daniel Franco
Tell us about your journey over here.

01:19:45:18 - 01:20:03:26
Shaun Westcott
Okay, so the news about the jobs that I had is that I'd reached a point of self-actualization and how, you know, when you reach self-actualization is that when somebody comes and offers you a lot more money and you go, Now you know what? I'm actually fulfilled. I'm satisfied, I'm engaged, I'm enthusiastic, I'm passionate, I'm enjoying what I'm doing.

01:20:04:03 - 01:20:05:04
Shaun Westcott
I don't need the money.

01:20:05:06 - 01:20:06:12
Daniel Franco
Thank you very much.

01:20:06:14 - 01:20:27:02
Shaun Westcott
And you see the fruits of your success and people around you engage and people around you are successful in the AP, then you know that you're at the pinnacle. And I would like think that I was at that point in South Africa. And what happened is that myself and my family went into what in Australia would be inequalities, a big W on a Sunday afternoon.

01:20:27:04 - 01:20:34:00
Shaun Westcott
And while in it I heard a crack which sounded like a door falling on tiles, but having a military background, I knew what that was.

01:20:34:02 - 01:20:35:02
Daniel Franco
So like barging in.

01:20:35:05 - 01:20:49:26
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, and these guys were coming with guns and, and I grabbed my two daughters and I first ran to beyond a counter and as we got even beyond the canteen, I pushed him down. I realized I was in the watching jewelry section and I knew that it was absolutely the wrong place to.

01:20:49:26 - 01:20:50:12
Daniel Franco
Be because.

01:20:50:12 - 01:21:13:06
Shaun Westcott
They're going to hitting a store. That's where they're going to go for. So I grabbed my daughters and arms around them and my wife and we ran across the aisle and these guys were shooting, opening fire again. As I said before, anyone screams and falls flat on the floor. And I got into a clothing section and I was pulling clothes off of the off the racks and covering my daughters and my wife so that the bullets and glass fragments were flying all over the place.

01:21:13:06 - 01:21:18:27
Shaun Westcott
The girls are shooting shells and glass was flying all over, shooting through the shells. And, you know, you imagine the chaos.

01:21:18:29 - 01:21:20:00
Daniel Franco
Wow.

01:21:20:03 - 01:21:25:06
Shaun Westcott
And my instinct was to get on my phone and find out everything is different.

01:21:25:06 - 01:21:26:13
Daniel Franco
I'm saying, Yeah.

01:21:26:15 - 01:21:47:29
Shaun Westcott
South Africa has what they call a flying squad, which is like a SWAT team. And I found that number and I said, there's an armed robbery that's called pecan pie at this pie. And the person who took the call was still asking questions. And then she heard gunshots in the background. These guys were on automatic phones. She got to shoot so she got her come on is on the on.

01:21:48:00 - 01:22:09:27
Shaun Westcott
And I was talking to him and these guys saw that. So they started shooting at me. So I slid the phone away from me, enrolled under one of the Paul's. But the police arrived very quickly as I flying and they called him Flying Squad because they literally come screaming the sirens and they trapped these robbers inside. So The police were shooting at them and these guys were shooting out of them and all of us were in little pieces.

01:22:09:27 - 01:22:20:04
Shaun Westcott
And this was on a Sunday afternoon, peaceful, supposedly peaceful Sunday afternoon shopping. And that so so as a result of that, my daughter suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder still until today, obviously.

01:22:20:04 - 01:22:20:27
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:22:21:00 - 01:22:36:27
Shaun Westcott
Yeah. So what happened is that we realized and I was a guy who was like, I'm always positive about life and it'll get better. And I realized it's not getting better, it's getting worse. And South Africa, unfortunately, the kind of country where you'll stop at a traffic light and somebody else smashing windows to get a gun against your head.

01:22:36:29 - 01:22:41:04
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, you'll be lucky if they don't shoot you and they take your car and drive off or put you in the boot and.

01:22:41:06 - 01:22:47:03
Daniel Franco
Yeah, Gabriel's family and from Brazil. Yes, I've heard the same. Some of coming.

01:22:47:06 - 01:22:47:28
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely.

01:22:48:00 - 01:22:49:14
Daniel Franco
Sao Paulo. Yeah.

01:22:49:16 - 01:23:05:15
Shaun Westcott
Rio somewhere. Yeah. So I to say I'm talking about. Yeah, but I got to a point where I said okay, this is where they Maslow's hierarchy, safety and security needs not taking priority of self-actualization and everything else. So we made the decision to immigrate came to Australia. Quite a process to getting to Australia.

01:23:05:21 - 01:23:08:21
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Because you're at a certain age when you know that's what I was at a.

01:23:08:21 - 01:23:14:11
Shaun Westcott
Certain age and I was over the 45, which is where you start losing points. So I needed extra points.

01:23:14:16 - 01:23:18:08
Daniel Franco
But why Australia over any other country in the world? I mean you've been, you've been to Europe.

01:23:18:11 - 01:23:25:28
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, I've been all over a couple of considerations. Yeah. My sister lives in Canada and she was very, very keen for us to come there.

01:23:25:29 - 01:23:26:17
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:23:26:20 - 01:23:28:11
Shaun Westcott
And the climate just doesn't work for me.

01:23:28:11 - 01:23:28:29
Daniel Franco
Yeah, Yeah.

01:23:29:00 - 01:23:31:12
Shaun Westcott
Whereas Australia is very much like South Africa.

01:23:31:12 - 01:23:31:24
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Okay.

01:23:31:27 - 01:23:57:06
Shaun Westcott
I've traveled extensively across and everywhere I've been in Australia, it looks like some way in South Africa. So the country, the culture, Australians are great people. I like the culture, they engaging, they're friendly it's a great the lifestyle in Australia is great, it's a beautiful country and it's a similar it's on the same latitude. In fact, the city where I live, Port Elizabeth, is on exactly the same latitude as so it was like moving halfway around the globe but on the same latitude.

01:23:57:09 - 01:23:59:29
Daniel Franco
You know, I'm so lazy.

01:24:00:01 - 01:24:20:13
Shaun Westcott
And because I was over the age of 45 and you start losing points after that, I was close to 50. I needed a few extra points. And the South Australian Government kindly has a skills and I came on a skills visa and the Australian Government gave South Australian Government gave me a few extra points. Obviously I had a living working in South Australia and that's how I ended up.

01:24:20:13 - 01:24:20:29
Shaun Westcott
Yeah.

01:24:21:01 - 01:24:24:03
Daniel Franco
Beautiful. Now we're going to claim you as one of our own right.

01:24:24:06 - 01:24:26:04
Shaun Westcott
I'm now proudly an Australian.

01:24:26:04 - 01:24:26:21
Daniel Franco
Citizen and.

01:24:26:21 - 01:24:27:18
Shaun Westcott
Very proudly a South.

01:24:27:18 - 01:24:38:13
Daniel Franco
Australia. Excellent, very good. And so from there you've moved. I mean that's big, big move. But obviously I very much needed move for you and your family. Everyone's fine now. They're all, Oh, I love it.

01:24:38:14 - 01:24:39:18
Shaun Westcott
Everyone very happy.

01:24:39:18 - 01:24:40:22
Daniel Franco
Here. You know.

01:24:40:24 - 01:24:50:26
Shaun Westcott
My daughter went back during COVID. There was sitting at uni in South Africa and, well, we didn't know what would happen. And they went back in February of 2020 to enroll at the university for the for the, for the.

01:24:50:29 - 01:24:51:06
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:24:51:10 - 01:24:55:15
Shaun Westcott
And Scott Morrison closed the borders and I got locked out and there was stuck in South Africa for nine months before.

01:24:55:15 - 01:24:57:16
Daniel Franco
We could, you know, and.

01:24:57:16 - 01:25:04:06
Shaun Westcott
During that time, with all the lockdowns in South Africa as well, crime spiraled because people had no food, they couldn't work.

01:25:04:10 - 01:25:07:28
Daniel Franco
And that's where the Omnicom started. And bloody.

01:25:07:28 - 01:25:25:12
Shaun Westcott
Hell. So Social Security in South Africa is not so great. So people were starving and hungry as a result of lockdowns not being able to work. So crime spiked and my daughters were stuck there. So they had a bit of a traumatic experience post us moving to Australia. But it shook here that they are. I went back to South Africa for my niece's Wendy two weeks ago.

01:25:25:14 - 01:25:27:01
Shaun Westcott
As you want to come with us now.

01:25:27:03 - 01:25:27:12
Daniel Franco
We're not.

01:25:27:12 - 01:25:29:06
Shaun Westcott
Leaving Australia.

01:25:29:08 - 01:25:31:03
Daniel Franco
So yeah, no, we very happy.

01:25:31:06 - 01:25:32:02
Shaun Westcott
Happily ensconced.

01:25:32:05 - 01:25:47:08
Daniel Franco
Not for us anymore. And I am conscious of your time, but I want to, I want to just drive you to join a company. And this is where we talked about the robotics earlier, about it was a South Australian company.

01:25:47:11 - 01:25:49:13
Shaun Westcott
Literally a stone's throw from office at Mitsubishi.

01:25:49:13 - 01:25:50:17
Daniel Franco
Now right at.

01:25:50:18 - 01:25:51:02
Shaun Westcott
The airport.

01:25:51:07 - 01:26:02:12
Daniel Franco
At the airport, yeah. And you took on the role and robotics. I mean, this is where your love of robotics and automation was sort of sprung me would have had some love before there, but this is sort of essential added a bit more. Yeah.

01:26:02:14 - 01:26:25:18
Shaun Westcott
So I must say that my engagement with robotics started before that. So yeah, particularly when I was in the sorting industry and we had to do some very rapid and major expansion most of the sorting equipment or some of the world's best comes out of Germany and Finland and countries like that. And we actually embraced a bit of automation at at that time already, which was unusual South African businesses.

01:26:25:18 - 01:26:30:27
Shaun Westcott
And part of what gave us a bit of an so is South Africa's. Most companies tend to.

01:26:30:27 - 01:26:32:11
Daniel Franco
Just stick with their labor. Exactly. Yeah.

01:26:32:12 - 01:26:56:27
Shaun Westcott
And with my engagement with those Finnish and German companies I found I saw an opportunity in that as well. So we not only doubled the size of our company initially, we grew more after that, but we embraced technology and I saw the power of technology and what it can do. And I mean, even in the forestry industry and I'm going back 2015, 20 years now, a lot of trees in South Africa were still filled with chainsaws.

01:26:56:27 - 01:26:59:07
Shaun Westcott
Now that's a lot quicker than the X than I think.

01:26:59:08 - 01:27:00:29
Daniel Franco
Yeah, yeah.

01:27:01:01 - 01:27:21:16
Shaun Westcott
But when you're felling trees with a chainsaw and there's technology out there and we use coal and fill up bunches in those days and we bought technology in from the United States, they were the best in that space in one of these big giant years. And this thing would grab a big tree and cut it off in seconds and, you know, grab four or five or six trees in the time that one you couldn't even cut down on treated.

01:27:21:17 - 01:27:24:29
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I've seen that. I've seen that YouTube clip and then it strips all that's.

01:27:25:05 - 01:27:26:08
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely attached to.

01:27:26:08 - 01:27:28:08
Daniel Franco
The right lenses. Yeah it's amazing All.

01:27:28:08 - 01:27:30:07
Shaun Westcott
Of that happens in in minutes.

01:27:30:11 - 01:27:37:08
Daniel Franco
Yeah I find that therapeutic watching that not I. I mean so what in the street you know so I talk a lot about the.

01:27:37:08 - 01:28:06:13
Shaun Westcott
Manufacturing inside but even all the way back into our primary industry, which was forestry, the embracing of automation of technology allowed us to significantly improve our productivity and profitability as a business. So coming back to this company, Adelaide, and I think that's the opportunity for us as Australia is the opportunity and we worked primarily with food processing companies, a couple of big ones around the country, but milk industry, food packaging, processing, putting a lot of automation, robotics into that.

01:28:06:16 - 01:28:42:27
Shaun Westcott
What it does is it would enable and allow Australia to compete on the world stage and to compete against low cost countries. So we tend to think that manufacturing is dead in Australia because all our costs are too high. But if we embrace technology, we can improve efficiencies in our productivity that much, that we can actually compete with low labor cost countries and it allows us to retain and maintain a level of manufacturing in this country that allows people not to do mundane, dark and dirty work, but better skilled, high quality work and better money and allow us to still do manufacturing in this country.

01:28:42:27 - 01:28:54:24
Shaun Westcott
So the again, through my exposure to that and my ability to share that with some of the companies we have, we can use technology. Yeah, in ways that we haven't thought before.

01:28:54:27 - 01:29:14:25
Daniel Franco
Which is what you're doing at Mitsubishi now. So from my understanding, you joined Mitsubishi after a couple of years as CEO, Jim the Champs, and you were director of Aftersales, which and from that did such a remarkable job that you became one of the fastest ever promotions to a CEO, Mitsubishi History. Is that correct? That is correct, yes.

01:29:14:26 - 01:29:32:16
Shaun Westcott
Yeah. So I was very fortunate. So one of the things that I realized coming to Australia and being a known fact is quite an interesting thing. And Gabrielle well know she's an immigrant as well. When you immigrate, you lose everything, you lose, you lose your history, you lose your culture, you lose your friends, you lose your family, you lose everything.

01:29:32:19 - 01:29:48:06
Shaun Westcott
You come to a new country and an unknown quantity. And a lot of the companies and fairly large companies in other countries are not even known. I mean, I'm talking about pecan pie, which is a retailer the same size as Coles or even bigger A only in Australia if you worked for pecan pie. And I went for pecan pie, I go, Who's that?

01:29:48:06 - 01:29:50:01
Daniel Franco
Who's that? The US IBEW?

01:29:50:03 - 01:30:07:14
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, exactly. So that's why I use the BW reference to go, okay, well, okay, that benchmarks things in people's minds. So what I did realize is that I would have to and I've been a CEO and CEO for for many, many years, ten, 15, 20 years before that. But I took a step back and took the directive off to cells for all to get back into a large sized organization.

01:30:07:16 - 01:30:08:13
Daniel Franco
And.

01:30:08:15 - 01:30:14:12
Shaun Westcott
By my entire career has been in big corporates, big companies. So I find myself comfortable in that space.

01:30:14:15 - 01:30:14:22
Daniel Franco
And get.

01:30:14:22 - 01:30:24:18
Shaun Westcott
Back into that. So I took it out of office. Dell's role and we set about changing a few things about the way we did things and was remarkably successful, fortunately.

01:30:24:21 - 01:30:33:02
Daniel Franco
And well, I think you changed from after sales and you made a pre-sales and you like your space. Absolutely at the start. Exactly. So it seems so simple. Yeah.

01:30:33:04 - 01:30:59:08
Shaun Westcott
So that's one example and I'll I'll talk about that in a moment. But after sales we set Aftersales on a new path and that was in 27 and we're about now for five years. Yeah. And Aftersales, you know, in Mitsubishi and I guess this is what putting the right systems and processes, creating sustainability is not about the individual, it's about building the processes and the systems and building the skills and the strength and the capability.

01:30:59:08 - 01:31:19:07
Shaun Westcott
So if I, if I read one for a moment, the company that I worked for in South Africa is still wildly successful, even till today. So if you put in the right processes and systems and you you upskill people, you embed that it becomes the new way of doing business. Yeah, it's like that spinning wheel. It takes a hard way to get spinning once it's growing.

01:31:19:07 - 01:31:20:10
Shaun Westcott
You just need to maintain the.

01:31:20:10 - 01:31:21:08
Daniel Franco
Momentum.

01:31:21:10 - 01:31:42:18
Shaun Westcott
And it's like there was Aftersales in Mitsubishi. Since I've joined till today, it's just on a steep growth trajectory ever since. And I'll give you an example that you mentioned as as one of the ways in how we flipped our way of thinking. Now in the motor industry, it's called Aftersales, and it's typically because there's things that you sell after you've bought the car.

01:31:42:20 - 01:31:48:19
Daniel Franco
Yeah and that's the way. So after I spend 50 grand, do you want to spend $5,000 more? I thought, exactly. I don't have that money.

01:31:48:21 - 01:32:07:26
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, exactly. So, so what you do is typically in a large part of aftersales accessories. Yeah. And Australia, that's big business. So you sell a huge Triton and then people start adding accessories. Yeah. And they customize it and they personalize it and they add all the and that's aftersales. And this added off to the sale and it's, and it's revenue for the company.

01:32:07:28 - 01:32:27:25
Shaun Westcott
But one of the, the, the opportunities for us or one of the challenges for us was that we, we, we wanted to extend our model range and what we wanted to do is instead of letting the customer add all these accessories afterwards is to actually build them into the vehicle upfront. So instead of aftersales making it pre-sales.

01:32:27:27 - 01:32:28:08
Daniel Franco
And.

01:32:28:08 - 01:32:36:09
Shaun Westcott
We went so far as we actually used a package of accessories which we put on to a Triton, that we actually created a distinctive model called GSR.

01:32:36:13 - 01:32:37:10
Daniel Franco
Mm hmm.

01:32:37:10 - 01:32:51:20
Shaun Westcott
And we added all the accessories upfront. We put those the roll tops on and we put the roll bars on, all was on and we put the fender and end and we put it all on upfront. And we created a new model called GSR.

01:32:51:20 - 01:32:53:01
Daniel Franco
Yeah. And people bought it.

01:32:53:01 - 01:33:04:19
Shaun Westcott
And the people bought it. And as financial success, part of the vehicle, it's all financed within your finance. You don't have to in Spain take out $5,000 dollars or $10 afterwards do to add this stuff. It's actually all built into the vehicle.

01:33:04:19 - 01:33:05:04
Daniel Franco
Fabulous.

01:33:05:04 - 01:33:17:12
Shaun Westcott
And it becomes a distinctive model. So it's a different way of thinking. It's flipping it over and putting making it pre-sales. It's not aftersales. And the many things that we did, one example of many of us.

01:33:17:14 - 01:33:20:29
Daniel Franco
And then you got the nod in March 2020.

01:33:20:29 - 01:33:33:03
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, that was very interesting. So I was interviewed and during the February, March of 2020 for the CEO role, and that's after I'd been in Aftersales role for about eight and a half months.

01:33:33:03 - 01:33:33:18
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:33:33:20 - 01:33:44:00
Shaun Westcott
And was successful, got the job and was put into the role. What I was I was told it was successful on the 15th of March and on the 20th of March that year.

01:33:44:03 - 01:33:44:18
Daniel Franco
We closed.

01:33:44:24 - 01:33:47:02
Shaun Westcott
We shutting the country down.

01:33:47:04 - 01:33:49:26
Daniel Franco
And I'm getting post-traumatic stress thinking about it. We've, we've.

01:33:49:26 - 01:34:08:26
Shaun Westcott
All forgotten about COVID now. But I remember the chairman of the dealer council finding me and saying, I was going to congratulate you, but I'm going to commiserate. You're taking on. And I took on the role of CEO from the 1st of April during a total lockdown, during a shutdown. And I guess, again, my previous experience.

01:34:09:00 - 01:34:10:14
Daniel Franco
I mean, you've dealt recessions.

01:34:10:14 - 01:34:13:18
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely. So that's the other advantage of having worked in.

01:34:13:19 - 01:34:18:00
Daniel Franco
Can't be one of the very rare that we would have dealt with the 2008 recession.

01:34:18:00 - 01:34:38:10
Shaun Westcott
Well, that's fortunate in that not not only 28 recessions, the South African economy is a lot more volatile then than than many other stable, mature economies. So we we it's a lot more cyclical. And you have a lot more depressions and recessions and downturns than than you would in in a place like Australia. I think at the time Australia hadn't seen a recession for 27 years.

01:34:38:10 - 01:34:38:19
Shaun Westcott
And yeah.

01:34:38:19 - 01:34:39:01
Daniel Franco
Well.

01:34:39:03 - 01:34:56:15
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, so I had through the exposure that I'd had been exposed to some pretty significant things. So I guess that helped a lot because people went to panic stations as a normal response. What are we going to do now? We conceal cause we shut down, dealers conceal cause, How are we going to survive as a company? What are we going to do?

01:34:56:17 - 01:35:21:01
Shaun Westcott
And it was really how do we pivot? How do we find the opportunity in adversity? And that was getting people into boardrooms and going, okay, slow down, stop, pause. Let's talk this through. What are we going to do? What what is known, what is unknown? And that's and I mean, at the time we did lots of things like if people can't fetch the costs, they can't go to a dealer, can't court, We need to get online and we need to get online fast.

01:35:21:03 - 01:35:36:12
Shaun Westcott
And how do we provide opportunities for people? 3D Configurator is to see the car, to spin it, to turn it this way. That's why I had accessories. Look at what the car costs and buy the car online. How do we create virtual tours, virtual experiences for car buying experiences? How do we create virtual which you don't need to go to?

01:35:36:12 - 01:35:50:07
Shaun Westcott
Dealer How do we the cost to people's homes, how do you start servicing? And then some of the lockdowns were we lost it, but only emergency people can. And how do we service their calls at home? How do we keep their calls on? Yeah, So we did a lot of things. We pivoted very rapidly. Very. And that was good for.

01:35:50:07 - 01:35:51:08
Daniel Franco
Us.

01:35:51:10 - 01:35:54:26
Shaun Westcott
Because it's eliciting backing and oh, the end of the world has come, you know, let's go to the.

01:35:54:26 - 01:35:57:04
Daniel Franco
Corner. And Russell, we're moving into a new out.

01:35:57:04 - 01:36:13:14
Shaun Westcott
Absolutely. How do we how do we lean into that? How do we embrace technology? How do we create new systems? How we create new processes? How do we respond to this? How do we keep our business alive? So we did a lot of things. We fast tracked a lot of things that we knew were coming in the future that we had to do straight away.

01:36:13:16 - 01:36:22:18
Daniel Franco
And you keep people come in that time I think like you talked about leadership. So like everyone just hold on. Yeah. Come you from how did you.

01:36:22:20 - 01:36:24:00
Shaun Westcott
I think that's the job of leadership.

01:36:24:03 - 01:36:24:14
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:36:24:20 - 01:36:42:26
Shaun Westcott
Is my mother you said you talk about influence of parents in life and she's in all others around. You are losing their heads. That's the time to keep your head. And that's what a good leader does. Said it, when everyone else is panicking is to keep their head. And a lot of that is doing exactly what I said.

01:36:43:03 - 01:37:05:23
Shaun Westcott
Slow it down. Slow it down. Just stay calm, guys. Let's sit together. Let's talk this through. This work. This really appealed to the logical let's talk to the left side of the brain, find facts, talk to that. So it's shifting people away from the emotional side of your brain to the logical side of your brain. And that's your job as a leader.

01:37:05:25 - 01:37:30:09
Daniel Franco
And can you explain how you go about that and how you how you work, I mean, directly with your leadership team in I mean, because accountability comes into this as well, how do you hold people accountable yet keeping them focused on what you're actually now trying to do? Yeah, I think like I use this example, I've said this before and I think what you're saying is very similar to this example.

01:37:30:11 - 01:37:48:27
Daniel Franco
I went to Fiji recently and we got on the boat. We went out to one of the islands and on the way back, on the way back it started raining like it was chaos. It was a big yacht, you know, sounds going everywhere. Wind was blowing, rain was going. It was about 50 people. This your staff are running around everywhere trying to get everything and people are coming back.

01:37:48:27 - 01:38:13:22
Daniel Franco
So it's like be chaotic. And I look over and I look over at the captain and he's standing there behind the big steering wheel, comes over. Yeah, looking off into the distance, going, That's where I'm going, right? And like, I instantly just felt calm, right, just by his demeanor. And it's kind of like what you're saying is, is this ability to to stay calm, that's skill set.

01:38:13:22 - 01:38:41:07
Daniel Franco
Like, that's really that's really tough. And then not to mention holding other I mean, you've said it time and time again. Surround yourself with extremely intelligent people. So holding other extremely intelligent and great people accountable and calm as well. I think it's not to mention the rest of the organization. I think it's just this lack and it's it's I think you've been through a lot that you're able to do that.

01:38:41:07 - 01:38:46:00
Daniel Franco
What's your advice for those who aren't that experienced in their job?

01:38:46:05 - 01:38:49:00
Shaun Westcott
So I'm sure you want all the way back to my youth.

01:38:49:03 - 01:38:49:14
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:38:49:21 - 01:39:19:09
Shaun Westcott
Because as I said earlier, my life, everything in life prepares you for the next thing in life. So my military experience at the age of 17, 19 gave me the opportunity and the military to do this. So before you ever are in battle and under live fire, you actually had a friendly fire. So they literally you will ever crawl through and they'll take a machine gun and shoot over the top of you and you'll ever crawl through under barbed wire with your pack, with your rifle.

01:39:19:11 - 01:39:36:23
Shaun Westcott
You will you will simulate, you will practice. And so as an African army, I had an expression train, train, hard, fight easy. So using those experiences stand you in good stead later in life because you always have that as a benchmark. And guy is this person.

01:39:36:23 - 01:39:40:03
Daniel Franco
That I knew. This is not whisper man. It's like army.

01:39:40:10 - 01:40:00:28
Shaun Westcott
So I think leadership is also about creating perspective. Now I want to come back to your captain analogy. The reason that that captain was calm and he had his demeanor was because he knew of the capability of that vehicle, of that vessel. He knew what that vessel was capable of. So that starts all the way back into it's designed for us, built for it can do this.

01:40:01:00 - 01:40:11:02
Shaun Westcott
But then he's probably been in other storms. He's been exposed before he knows what that that and that's for me about life experience. That's why I go out there and get as experiences.

01:40:11:02 - 01:40:11:20
Daniel Franco
I can.

01:40:11:22 - 01:40:28:15
Shaun Westcott
Because everything in life prepares you for something else. So it's not in the logic and in the fact this and in training and in experience and in skill. And I know that this vessel is capable of doing this and it can withstand that. And I know how to navigate and I don't need this and I can do that.

01:40:28:15 - 01:40:48:02
Shaun Westcott
I can navigate from a compass, I can do these things. So a lot of that is about equipping yourself up front with the necessary skill, the expertise. And that's why I continue to train and learn and encourage universities and study and attend programs. It's all about equipping yourself to deal with a wide variety of things. And it's and it extends into your leadership team.

01:40:48:02 - 01:41:09:19
Shaun Westcott
So it's having your leadership team expose themselves, get trained, inexperienced, and each of them is a subject matter expert in their own right. So again, if you're in the military and you going into a particular situation, you know that I have in my small group, I have a gunnery expert, I have a signals expert, I have a medic in this situation.

01:41:09:21 - 01:41:25:04
Shaun Westcott
And a lot of them have a guy that's embedded. So if we get in there and I need artillery, I've got a guy who can call up artillery, who can position them. And I know he's not going to put the bomb on our head or I know that I can call up assets and I have somebody who can talk to that pilot and can give that pilot the trust.

01:41:25:04 - 01:41:39:25
Shaun Westcott
So it's a it's quality training and trust skills expertise. And it's about as a leader. It's about bringing that all together. And in those times of crisis, that's when things really get tested, development. But and it's about keeping a calm, clear head.

01:41:40:02 - 01:41:41:13
Daniel Franco
So do you ever get stressed?

01:41:41:15 - 01:42:05:03
Shaun Westcott
I do. I think it would be abnormal for anybody not to do some stress. But then it's again, it's always about this is the situation, this is what's happening. This is I've seen this before. This is what's happened or I haven't seen this before. So what do I need? Equipment, so forth. What do I need to do? So it's again, it's trying to shift yourself from that adrenalin driven animal brain into the left logic.

01:42:05:06 - 01:42:19:16
Daniel Franco
It's about how quickly do you notice the trigger of stress and what do you normally do. You talk about left brain and is there something that you do that you like to you meditate, you go, right, I'm going to deep breathe here or yeah.

01:42:19:18 - 01:42:23:21
Shaun Westcott
So so so deep breathing is is is a good is a good box breathing.

01:42:23:21 - 01:42:27:19
Daniel Franco
So yeah. Books breathing. Yep. Four, four, four, four, four, four. Hold it.

01:42:27:21 - 01:42:28:26
Shaun Westcott
For four for breathe out.

01:42:28:26 - 01:42:29:23
Daniel Franco
For you.

01:42:29:25 - 01:42:55:19
Shaun Westcott
And that physiologically not interesting enough was at Oxford earlier this year and doing a high performance leadership program. And guess what? One of the things they actually had a professor talking about box breathing because it's been proven and there's lots of research on it that the physiology, breathing forces slows, your breathing forces you to calm down, helps your brain stabilize and focus and recenter.

01:42:55:22 - 01:43:11:01
Shaun Westcott
Think logically it's absolutely sense using skills techniques to create that ground yourself. It yourself, calm yourself, force yourself to think logically, slow down your heartbeat, slow down your pulse rate, focus.

01:43:11:03 - 01:43:11:24
Daniel Franco
It's hard, though.

01:43:12:01 - 01:43:13:18
Shaun Westcott
It's hard.

01:43:13:21 - 01:43:35:19
Daniel Franco
It's really hard. And especially when you're always staring at numbers that don't suggest. Don't tell you the story that you want to see. Don't panic. Yeah, I think it's the and it's it's the unknown. I mean, look, I am an entrepreneur and I've started this business. It's this constant unknown of of what's coming next. And how do you prepare?

01:43:35:19 - 01:43:47:13
Daniel Franco
And I'm green in the sense that I don't have the experience of being a CEO any in any other business. So I'm actually just learning as I go here.

01:43:47:19 - 01:43:56:21
Shaun Westcott
Well, it may be different for other people, but for myself to honest, I have sleepless nights. I wake up at 2:00 in the morning, things going around in my mind.

01:43:56:23 - 01:43:56:29
Daniel Franco
In my.

01:43:56:29 - 01:44:01:17
Shaun Westcott
Brain. That's not good time to think. Those things kind of magnified, amplify themselves.

01:44:01:17 - 01:44:02:01
Daniel Franco
Correct.

01:44:02:01 - 01:44:13:24
Shaun Westcott
So yeah, if to say that it's all happy, smiling is not. No, not for me anyway. That wouldn't be honest. They are. They all stressful periods are stressful times. And these great hazel and.

01:44:13:26 - 01:44:14:23
Daniel Franco
Being a CEO is.

01:44:14:23 - 01:44:15:07
Shaun Westcott
A stressful.

01:44:15:07 - 01:44:43:19
Daniel Franco
Job. You got gray hairs. At least one fell out, right? We have what we want to see at the two hour mark. I think we've we've we're about the two hour mark now 10 minutes away. Well, we're going to hit the two hour mark. So I do I do want to ask just one more question. I think I feel like we could speak for three or 4 hours, but family is one thing that is so dear to me and core to my existence.

01:44:43:22 - 01:45:13:19
Daniel Franco
And then and you mentioned earlier the, you know, the move here to Australia to keep your family safe. You also mentioned earlier that, you know, your daughters were eight and ten and you didn't they didn't really know whether their dad was coming, coming home from work and you're away for a while. One thing that I've learned is that I'm trying to achieve something that is my vision.

01:45:13:22 - 01:45:45:26
Daniel Franco
It's also my family's vision. It's my children's vision. It's my vision of what I want to create. And yet at the same time, I'm trying to cultivate a loving and thriving family life. I find it difficult in the sense that I'm passionate about both things. Yes. And I just think just continuously will clash in a sense. You know, from my decision making point of view.

01:45:45:28 - 01:45:58:18
Daniel Franco
How do you manage that thought? It seems to me if you're now so much more family focused and maybe early, so you've learned some things too. So how do you manage that now? What's your.

01:45:58:18 - 01:46:01:04
Shaun Westcott
Thoughts? All right. So, Daniel, to me, my family's just as important.

01:46:01:04 - 01:46:01:15
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:46:01:17 - 01:46:13:16
Shaun Westcott
And so important that I might you know, if I could say that was Coca-Cola. I was flying and I was flying high. Yeah. And my career was on a rocket trajectory, and I was doing very well.

01:46:13:22 - 01:46:14:08
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:46:14:11 - 01:46:24:22
Shaun Westcott
But I made a very significant decision to change my lifestyle. Very significantly because the company that I then joined was I've been in global roles and traveling.

01:46:24:29 - 01:46:25:02
Daniel Franco
To.

01:46:25:06 - 01:46:49:07
Shaun Westcott
Countries all over the world, living in fancy hotels, on airplanes, having a great life. My family were at home alone and I had these daughters who are eight and ten, who hadn't have a father who worked regular day at that point in life. I did a reset and I took a job with a South African based company, which involved very little that point.

01:46:49:08 - 01:47:15:10
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, eventually very little global or international travel. And it was a it was a serious adjustment. It was a serious adjustment. But for me, the integrity of the family and keeping the family together and whole was more important than the career. So I made some calls coming to Australia for safety and security. It was for giving my family a safe environment, but also for giving my daughters a future.

01:47:15:12 - 01:47:24:28
Shaun Westcott
And I think Australia has a lot of future opportunity and it was creating that opportunity for them to be honest and at that point a lot less money in Australia. And then.

01:47:25:00 - 01:47:25:29
Daniel Franco
Yeah, no doubt.

01:47:26:02 - 01:47:52:21
Shaun Westcott
So I had to make some material financial sacrifices and but that balancing is always challenging. And even now with the role that I have, I'm doing a fair amount of traveling. It's very important that I'm that the time I have with my family is high quality, high value time. And there was bit of adjustment for my wife as well because as you said, it was my goals and my aspirations and my career.

01:47:52:23 - 01:48:16:24
Shaun Westcott
At a point in time the family felt like they were being left out of those plans and they weren't part of those plans. So what we what we do is create one very significant quality family time together when I mean, when I'm in the country and I turn down lots of social invitations and invitations so that I can spend their quality time to rebuild with the family.

01:48:16:26 - 01:48:33:08
Shaun Westcott
And then the other thing that we do is we all like travel, we global citizens, that we have family holidays. Now, COVID interrupted that for two or three years. And at the moment my one of my daughters is needing a PhD in mathematics and no one's knee deep in a master's in psychology. So they're both writing dissertations at the moment.

01:48:33:08 - 01:48:33:22
Daniel Franco
Yeah, well.

01:48:33:28 - 01:48:42:01
Shaun Westcott
But early next year we will be doing another. I was so we used to do lots of overseas families. So they've had one advantage of flying all over the world. As you get a bit of footage of models of.

01:48:42:04 - 01:48:42:15
Daniel Franco
You.

01:48:42:16 - 01:48:48:18
Shaun Westcott
Fly models and we redeem those and help to create special family holidays.

01:48:48:18 - 01:48:49:13
Daniel Franco
Yeah, that all.

01:48:49:13 - 01:48:54:12
Shaun Westcott
Memorable and that we use as a base, as a reference, as a, as a foundation.

01:48:54:12 - 01:49:05:04
Daniel Franco
And recharge as one. You know, I love it. I love it. I think yeah, I think your life is incomplete unless you get that that.

01:49:05:06 - 01:49:11:07
Shaun Westcott
For me family. Yeah right. Some very significant life decisions around family.

01:49:11:10 - 01:49:28:20
Daniel Franco
You have. So just some closing thoughts before we get into some some of what if you were to encapsulate your entire journey of up to this up to date in one in one lesson, one message. What do you think that would be lost?

01:49:28:23 - 01:49:44:26
Shaun Westcott
Echo What you put in is what you get back. I live a life of 110%, I'll put everything into it. If I have a job, pull my enthusiasm, my engagement, my passion. I'm totally focused and life comes back whenever you put in. You get back.

01:49:44:29 - 01:49:49:28
Daniel Franco
Love. What excites you about the future? The future?

01:49:50:01 - 01:50:10:28
Shaun Westcott
My mother had another expression. The future is like a field snow, like a field of driven sun. You can go wherever you want, You can make your own footprints. You can go anywhere you want. Life is in hands. You can make of life what you want of it. The future is exciting and full of opportunity and you can create your own opportunities.

01:50:10:28 - 01:50:22:06
Daniel Franco
Yeah, I love it Right here. Some quickfire questions just to round off the conversation. What are you, a wimpy readers here? What are you reading right now?

01:50:22:08 - 01:50:29:06
Shaun Westcott
What I'm reading right now is the opportunities of commercializing artificial intelligence.

01:50:29:09 - 01:50:30:04
Daniel Franco
Oh.

01:50:30:07 - 01:50:31:00
Shaun Westcott
So right now.

01:50:31:06 - 01:50:32:20
Daniel Franco
Is that a book or is that a.

01:50:32:22 - 01:50:35:04
Shaun Westcott
It's actually a very interesting it's a McKinsey.

01:50:35:06 - 01:50:37:01
Daniel Franco
McKinsey report.

01:50:37:03 - 01:50:51:03
Shaun Westcott
And it's really about looking at it from a business point of view. What are the opportunities for us? And if if I had to say, what's the single biggest emerging technology, it's AI.

01:50:51:10 - 01:50:52:01
Daniel Franco
Without doubt.

01:50:52:07 - 01:51:15:28
Shaun Westcott
And AI at this point. And there's a lot of debate around the world is there's high risk with AI depending on where you go and how you use it. But there's also significant opportunity in AI on and what are those opportunities? How can we commercialize them and how can we apply them to make our lives quicker? FOSTER Better and easier for them.

01:51:16:00 - 01:51:22:09
Daniel Franco
What's one self-development book that you use that stands out from the rest?

01:51:22:12 - 01:51:49:02
Shaun Westcott
I think the book that had the single biggest impact on my life when I was a young senior senior executive at a young age, I read the book From Good to Great by Jim Collins. When I was in that significant transformation that we doing at Coca-Cola. So there was sitting early thirties, very early thirties, senior executive looking at the significant transformation of an organization across the continent of Africa.

01:51:49:05 - 01:51:59:03
Shaun Westcott
And I was looking for guidance and ideas. And the book by Jim Collins From Good to Great was very significant and still stands out as one of.

01:51:59:03 - 01:52:11:05
Daniel Franco
The Yeah, you still see I still revert to it to these days. Yeah occasionally. When you mentioned the flywheel as before what is what is one lesson that's taking you the longest to learn?

01:52:11:07 - 01:52:16:11
Shaun Westcott
I have an agile and a quick brain, so I engage Mouse before I engage brain sometimes.

01:52:16:12 - 01:52:18:01
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:52:18:04 - 01:52:27:02
Shaun Westcott
What the lesson that I've really taken the longest to learn is to, as my mother used to say, these think twice as slowly as you speak.

01:52:27:03 - 01:52:27:29
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:52:28:01 - 01:52:31:11
Shaun Westcott
Let me speak twice as slowly as you think.

01:52:31:12 - 01:52:57:09
Daniel Franco
Think. Think more things. Yeah. Yeah. Two is one mouth sort of thing. Yeah. Do I think I'm going to divert one real quick and just ask you like you're a very. Yeah. Like you say quick thinker, an agile thinker and probably have the ability to see things quicker than what most people do. How do you hold yourself in a moment where you have to let the other people see what you've what you already see?

01:52:57:11 - 01:53:18:26
Shaun Westcott
If you had also been one of my biggest frustrations in life is, is that I have to slow myself all the way back and spend a lot of time explaining what to me seems obvious. And yeah, so that is one of the one of the biggest lessons in life is to succeed. You need to bring other people along with you.

01:53:18:28 - 01:53:40:09
Shaun Westcott
Yeah, need to get to the same insights as you and not initially. Right. And also listening to the inputs in the end. Yeah. Along the way. So forcing yourself to slow down and to step back and to slow the process and give time for consultation because that's the way you get wine and that's the way you get understanding and that's the way you get other inputs and insights.

01:53:40:11 - 01:53:41:02
Daniel Franco
Yeah. For me.

01:53:41:03 - 01:53:42:21
Shaun Westcott
Any good opinion?

01:53:42:24 - 01:53:53:15
Daniel Franco
Absolutely. If you could have a coffee or tea with one of the with A current or historical figure, who would it be.

01:53:53:18 - 01:53:59:13
Shaun Westcott
That would actually be, I think, your namesake, a guy called Daniel.

01:53:59:20 - 01:54:00:12
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:54:00:15 - 01:54:03:00
Shaun Westcott
So Daniel is a figure. It's a book in the Bible.

01:54:03:06 - 01:54:06:00
Daniel Franco
Yeah. And Daniel the vines, then?

01:54:06:00 - 01:54:32:24
Shaun Westcott
That's right. Yeah. Yes. No, but Daniel. And that's what aspect of Daniel I like was that it said that Daniel and this was the testimony of the King at the time. They Nebuchadnezzar he said he has the spirit of God in him, He has deep insight and deep knowledge, and he's filled with wisdom. I'd like to spend time with that God getting more understanding on how to get more and deeper insights and more wisdom.

01:54:32:26 - 01:54:45:03
Daniel Franco
What you just did 2 hours now. Very good. Thank you, Dan, what is some of the best advice that you've ever received?

01:54:45:06 - 01:54:49:28
Shaun Westcott
Probably from a father. He would say, if something's worth doing, it's worth doing properly.

01:54:50:02 - 01:54:50:13
Daniel Franco
Yeah.

01:54:50:20 - 01:54:56:25
Shaun Westcott
So if you do something, put your mind to it, put your heart to it, and it's worth doing properly.

01:54:56:28 - 01:55:03:20
Daniel Franco
Don't do it half assed. Absolutely. What's one habit that holds you back the most.

01:55:03:22 - 01:55:05:07
Shaun Westcott
Engaging mouth.

01:55:05:10 - 01:55:08:17
Daniel Franco
Too quickly? Yes, I would say probably that. Yeah.

01:55:08:17 - 01:55:18:19
Shaun Westcott
It's it's really about as I say, my mind works quickly and I tend to just let it out there and let's go and let's make it happen. So I'm very much a make it. Let's make it happen.

01:55:18:19 - 01:55:19:15
Daniel Franco
Person Yeah.

01:55:19:17 - 01:55:20:23
Shaun Westcott
And it's about.

01:55:20:25 - 01:55:23:00
Daniel Franco
As because you've already seen what can happen.

01:55:23:02 - 01:55:28:25
Shaun Westcott
But it's about remembering that other people don't necessarily get it as quickly as you do and you need to bring them along in the process.

01:55:29:02 - 01:55:33:22
Daniel Franco
Which is one of our questions, which is what frustrates you the most, which you've already answered.

01:55:33:25 - 01:55:38:07
Shaun Westcott
Although the other frustration I have in life is more mundane, and that's traffic.

01:55:38:07 - 01:55:39:11
Daniel Franco
Traffic, traffic. Oh.

01:55:39:13 - 01:55:41:21
Shaun Westcott
What a waste of life sitting in traffic.

01:55:41:23 - 01:55:52:26
Daniel Franco
It doesn't make sense, does it? If you could pay one or someone to do one of your chores, what would it be? What year would it be?

01:55:52:28 - 01:56:02:18
Shaun Westcott
Growing up as a kid, we had a large property and my dad was a farmer. Yeah, property with lots of grass to be cut. I used to hate cutting the grass even. It wasn't right.

01:56:02:18 - 01:56:04:27
Daniel Franco
On my way to take hours to do it.

01:56:04:29 - 01:56:11:18
Shaun Westcott
I guess, to, you know, in a modern day context, washing cars and washing cups, coffee cups. Luckily we have machines to do.

01:56:11:21 - 01:56:18:03
Daniel Franco
Yes, absolutely. What's one word that you hate?

01:56:18:05 - 01:56:23:24
Shaun Westcott
It can't be done. These three words. Yeah, it's impossible. I hate the words. It can't or it's impossible.

01:56:23:24 - 01:56:26:09
Daniel Franco
Impossible. It's very funny.

01:56:26:12 - 01:56:27:27
Shaun Westcott
There's no there's nothing that's.

01:56:27:27 - 01:56:48:22
Daniel Franco
Impossible in this room and some it's very funny that we have the same like the parents have said the same thing. It's probably very common. You're the first person that I've met that has repeated that back at me. So what's the first thing that you would do if you became invisible?

01:56:48:25 - 01:57:00:25
Shaun Westcott
If I became invisible, I think I would travel around the world to all the sites that have nuclear bombs and change the codes so that they couldn't they couldn't blow up the world.

01:57:00:27 - 01:57:01:28
Daniel Franco
That's brilliant.

01:57:02:01 - 01:57:05:04
Shaun Westcott
Given what was happening in the world, in the socio political crises. And it's.

01:57:05:04 - 01:57:06:04
Daniel Franco
Scary and a.

01:57:06:07 - 01:57:17:24
Shaun Westcott
Latent threat of. Nuclear Iran. And I'm not talking about nuclear as an energy source. I'm not talking nuclear as a destructive force. What are we going to do in all of those of trying to scramble the codes for them?

01:57:17:26 - 01:57:26:18
Daniel Franco
Yeah. Yes, it's it's a scary thought. What's the most useless talent that you have?

01:57:26:21 - 01:57:38:24
Shaun Westcott
When I was at school, we had to take one vocational subject and I took woodwork. So I learned to make furniture. I learned to be a carpenter. I learned to make furniture. And I've never made a piece of furniture.

01:57:38:27 - 01:57:47:24
Daniel Franco
That's a latent, useless talent right now. My favorite question of the whole podcast, What's your best joke?

01:57:47:26 - 01:57:50:16
Shaun Westcott
Well, if you ask my daughters, they say there's no big stage.

01:57:50:16 - 01:58:08:07
Daniel Franco
Okay, all bad. They're horrible. I've seen a video clip right on on YouTube. Whatever it is is where, like they they interview these kids and it's like the somber music and like they're going through hardship. It's about the bad jokes. Well, she is.

01:58:08:10 - 01:58:16:21
Shaun Westcott
Usually talking about bad jokes and seeing as you want a dad joke, what are the baby corn say to the mama corn?

01:58:16:24 - 01:58:39:18
Daniel Franco
What did the baby call inside of them was popcorn. Are these horrible meant to be horrible? Right. And it's a bad joke. It's so bad. It's good. I love it. But thank you so much for your time today, Sean. It's been an absolute privilege to sit here with you and learn more about you and your career and your life and some of the things that you've gone through.

01:58:39:18 - 01:59:01:15
Daniel Franco
And yeah, I think I speak on behalf of everyone. It is an amazing career. You've seen some things in your life that I don't think some people, especially here in Australia, will ever see. So thank you for sharing us and giving us a different perspective on what that will bigger World looks like. And kudos to everything that you and the team at Mitsubishi are doing.

01:59:01:15 - 01:59:15:02
Daniel Franco
And I know you've turned it into one of the most profitable Mitsubishi ever in the world and you guys are going from strength to strength off the back of the work you and your team are doing. So kudos.

01:59:15:04 - 01:59:27:00
Shaun Westcott
Thank you, Daniel. A privilege and a pleasure to be here. I love life on Fast Forward and life has given me lots of enjoyment and satisfaction and I really a great, great ride so far. So thank you very much.

01:59:27:01 - 01:59:45:10
Daniel Franco
Beautiful. Thanks, everyone. And we'll catch you next time she's listening to the podcast so you can check out the show notes if there was anything of interest to you and find out more about us at Synergy IQ dot com. So to you, I am going to ask though, if you did like the podcast, you would absolutely mean the world to me.

01:59:45:10 - 01:59:54:07
Daniel Franco
If you can subscribe, write and review and if you didn't like it, that's alright too. There's no need to do anything. Thank you guys. All the best best.