Episode 28: How failure can lead to your biggest success with Tania Rishniw

Do your employees operate with a license to innovate? It's an interesting concept. When you have a real problem to fix where usual solutions haven't worked, understanding the benefits and risks of innovating and articulating that to others around you gives you a licence to try a new and different way forward. But you have to be prepared for failure to be a part of that. Tania Rishniw, Deputy Secretary of Employment and Workforce at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) joins us in our latest episode to talk about this and much more about how failure can lead to your biggest success.

Listen to episode twenty-eight:

Also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

About this episode:

This episode showcases an engaging and authentic leader whose experience in crises and uncertainty offers excellent advice on overcoming challenges, managing risk, innovating, and building resilience.

Tania talks about how it's necessary sometimes to know not what to do before you can figure out what to do, and you need to think through contingencies and plan for those when you're innovating.

In a point often made by senior leaders in past episodes on overcoming setbacks and building resilience, Tania also acknowledges that you can't get to becoming an SES leader or manager without having made mistakes or experienced times when things haven't gone according to plan.

Tania looks back on those times in her career. She shares a specific example from when an environmental impact assessment's advice that she was involved with to a minister didn't go according to plan. That experience helped her learn an important lesson: Sometimes, the answers to ministers and government are that there is no actual basis for them to make a specific decision. You have to fight your natural inclination to try and give them different options unless it is robust and well-seasoned advice.

Tania also describes her time working on the crisis response to the Montara Oil Spill in 2009, an unprecedented time in Australian history. There was no playbook to follow, so they had to try different things to manage it and think about a different way of operating.  

As she looks back on leading in these times of uncertainty, Tania offers terrific advice that's helpful to anyone overcoming challenges in their workplace and working in uncertainty. This includes having clarity of objectives and a common purpose, building trusted relationships with others, having a team around you that gives you strength, and focusing on an outcome without blaming others when something goes wrong.

Another important element is storytelling because occasionally, you need relativity, perspective, and the knowledge that others have dealt with issues just as hard to help you keep going.

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Tania Rishniw

Deputy Secretary

Employment and Workforce

Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

Tania is the Deputy Secretary of Employment and Workforce, in the Department Employment and Workplace Relations in the Australian federal government. She leads a range of programs that enable services to support and help people overcome barriers and develop skills to gain employment.

 Prior to commencing with DEWR, Tania worked in the Department of Health from 2015-23 delivering primary and community care policy and programs. She has worked for over 20 years in public administration, across areas of social, environmental, and economic policy.

 Before being appointed as Deputy Secretary in May 2020, she held senior positions in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Department of Finance, Department of Education and Employment, and Department of Environment.

 Tania has delivered policy reform at the federal level in environmental and financial regulation, First Nations' employment and education, primary care and mental health, and service delivery. She led the response to the Montara oil spill, has represented the Australian Government at the United Nations, and successfully negotiated with states and territories in areas of hospital funding, mental health and suicide prevention, primary care COVID arrangements and wider health reform.

 Tania has a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, as well as holding an Executive Master's Degree in Public Administration.

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.

Thriving in Uncertainty with Sue McCarrey

As an experienced leader who has worked across multiple industries and now is the Chief Executive Officer of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Authority or NOPSEMA, our next guest, Sue McCarrey, has certainly seen her share of times when things haven’t gone according to plan or achieved an unexpected outcome. Sue joins our latest podcast to discuss how challenges can lead to your biggest success.

Listen to episode nineteen:

Also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

About this episode:

Sue provides an honest reflection from earlier in her career when she was younger, and how, like many of us, she would often perceive things that didn’t go to plan or when things went wrong as failures and take them to heart. Sue shares that as time goes on and you build your experience in your career, you develop the ability to look at things more critically, observing what’s occurred and distinguishing if it was really a failure, if it was potentially inevitable, or if it’s something you can look at to see then the opportunity to do it differently.

Sue also talks about the importance for leaders in providing a safety net of support to younger people in the organisation, not putting failure on them personally as this may then inhibit their confidence in having a go, trying things, and putting ideas forward in the future, which are essential for innovation. She also stresses how leaders can help staff not to feel too disappointed when projects don’t go ahead, reinforcing that the work isn’t wasted and may be able to be used in another area at a different time, providing an example from her time as National Rail Regulator.

In her role as Chief Executive Officer at NOPSEMA, Sue discusses the importance of the ability to critically analyse issues that can be complex, how being a good communicator isn’t just about being a good talker, and how leaders need to look out for people who can think for themselves and put ideas forward respectfully when building teams. She also names the most essential skill in the regulatory space as courage – having the courage to make decisions and not to interfere where you don’t believe it’s your role to interfere.

It’s a great episode that will challenge your thinking about failure and how you can support and encourage younger members of your workforce to be resilient, courageous, and confident.

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Sue McCarrey

Chief Executive Officer

National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority

(NOPSEMA)

Sue Joined NOPSEMA as the Chief Executive Officer in February 2023 following eight years as the Chief Executive and National Rail Safety Regulator at the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator.

A career of over forty years in Government, Sue has held a range of roles across Education, including time as a school principal, the Public Transport Authority and as Deputy Director General of Policy, Planning and Investment at the WA Department of Transport. In these roles, Sue developed experience and expertise in government policy and regulatory frameworks and risk management in safety and environmental management, which she applies in her current role.

Sue holds a Bachelor of Law from Murdoch University, a Masters of Education from Edith Cowan University, and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.  Sue is a member of the National Association of Women in Operations, National Women in Transport, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration. 

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.

Thriving in Uncertainty – Episode Seven with Maree Bridger

Failure is often regarded as a bad word in the workplace. No one wants to fail or intentionally sets out to, and it can make you feel pretty terrible when something you are working on goes wrong. Reframing failures positively by rallying around those colleagues and helping them work through them can turn failures into successes, and importantly, it can build resilience in a team, which is essential for embracing challenges, turning them around, and thriving in uncertainty.

Having leaders who acknowledge their mistakes early and take accountability for their team's mistakes by owning them as their own without directing blame to the individual builds a culture of respect. It helps to shift the perception of failure in a team.

Joining us to discuss this further is Maree Bridger, Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, and the Arts.

Maree details the three key things that underpin planning work and help her department with anticipation, proactivity, and responsiveness to priorities that serve multiple ministers. She also explains how her department overcame scepticism to view 'red as your friend'—and how encouraging others to share projects or initiatives that aren't going well helps colleagues rally together to work through challenges.

In this compelling chat, Maree shares experiences from her career from times when things haven't gone to plan and how she has kept moving forward and turned things around through active listening and engagement. She also offers a different perspective on how organisations view innovation and how often, when you are in the trenches, you don't necessarily look around you to realise how far you've come.

Don't miss this uplifting chat with an inspiring leader about changing how we view failures at work.

Listen to episode seven:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Maree Bridger

Chief Operating Officer

Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development,   Communications, and the Arts

Maree has worked in the APS for 16 years across a range of policy, program, regulatory, corporate and service delivery functions and she has held senior roles at Services Australia, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and the Australian Customs Service.

Prior to the APS Maree had seventeen years in the private sector and held roles at the Shell Company, Osborne Computers and Austar United Communications. Prior to her move to the public sector, Maree worked as a consultant for eight years, with a specific focus on organisational change, strategic planning, maximising competitive advantage and building organisational capability.

Maree has a Bachelor of Economics from ANU, Executive MBA from the AGSM at UNSW and is a Certified Practicing Accountant.

Tune in next week as we speak to a new trailblazer in another episode in our series on Thriving in Uncertainty.