Episode 26: Fostering adaptability in teams with Deb Jenkins

What makes a team great? It may seem like a simple question, but the reality is that great teams don’t form and work well together by chance; there is a lot of investment required in making them high-performing. Deb Jenkins, Deputy Secretary of Corporate Enabling Services and Chief Operating Officer for the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations, joins us in our latest episode to talk about fostering adaptability in teams.

Listen to episode twenty-six:

Also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

This episode affirms that to create great teams, you have to work hard at it. Deb shares that the cornerstones of great teams are built on relationships, a clear and shared purpose, and a diverse makeup, and these factors will always be fundamental in leading high-performing teams now and in the future.

Deb also discusses the pivotal role that recruitment plays in ensuring you have the right fit for your team and how evolving your hiring approach to recruit talent can help you succeed in filling key skills gaps.  

The traditional picture of a ‘team’ looks different today than it did a few years ago. While you may not be able to look around and see your direct team sitting next to you, the importance of having a clear direction of where you’re headed together and building connections and relationships with each other is still paramount. Deb reflects on this in our discussion, noting that building personal connections cannot be achieved through a ‘Teams’ call with 20 people. That’s why she makes opportunities to have in-person moments and carefully thinks about how those moments can be fit for purpose.

Deb also shares that understanding how you and the people around you operate can make a significant difference in knowing the tips to succeed in communicating with each other, as well as the importance of giving things time and seeing things from another person’s perspective.

We also speak about innovation and embracing technology, and how it’s important to encourage teams to try new things, have safeguards around experimenting, make failing a learning opportunity, and, as a leader, check yourself to ensure you respond appropriately when things don’t go the way you had hoped they would.

Deb leaves us with an appreciation for how the All Blacks inspire her in their stewardship, putting service before others, and how they embody the principle that no one is bigger than the team. Wise words to build and lead teams by.

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Deborah Jenkins

Deputy Secretary, Corporate and Enabling Services

Chief Operating Officer

Department of Employment and Workplace Relations

Deborah is Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) in a broad ranging role supporting the enterprise covering everything from HR, legal, communications, parliamentary, data and finance through to IT and digital solutions.

Her career has spanned the public and private sector in Australia and overseas, including most recently senior APS leadership roles at the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission.  Prior to joining the APS, Deborah was a partner at KPMG where she held various domestic and international leadership positions with multinational experience in Australia, New Zealand, Asia Pacific and Europe. In Aotearoa/New Zealand she worked in both the public and private sectors, starting her career as a graduate with Inland Revenue before joining a law firm.

Deborah loves executing well designed client and staff experiences to achieve organisational outcomes.  Passionate about communicating and connecting with people, she enjoys developing strong relationships and collaborating with stakeholders.  She works hard to build inclusive teams that value diversity and takes being an active ally seriously. She inspires, leads and motivates those around her through her authentic and engaging leadership.

Her true passions outside of work (apart from her family) are rugby union, travelling and music. She particularly enjoys giving back to the community supporting grass roots rugby.

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 Tim Beresford

When you've had a thirty-five-year-long career that spans industries and sectors as our next Trailblazer has, you have the benefit of seeing how organisational learning has changed and if it's changed for the better or worse. Tim Beresford, Chief Executive at the Australian Financial Security Authority, or AFSA, joins us to talk about this and much more in our latest episode on becoming a learning organisation.

Listen to episode twenty-three:

Also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

About this episode:

This compelling episode offers great advice to other leaders on shifting from knowledge organisations to learning organisations and on how important it is to be open, adaptable, and resilient to foster a continuous learning mindset in your workforce.

Tim dives into the key differences in how organisational learning has changed throughout his career, from focusing more on skillsets at the beginning in terms of what knowledge you could bring to an organisation to now being more focussed on mindsets and what you're willing to learn.

He explains how this fundamental shift from knowledge organisations to learning organisations is for the better, as this has created much more of a two-way dialogue in how organisations communicate, which promotes sharing, teamwork, and curiosity in the workforce.

Tim elaborates on why mindset is so critical in today's workforces, which are facing more external shocks in an increasingly uncertain and ambiguous world. This uncertainty requires all of us to develop resiliency and agility to be more adept at dealing with these external changes and shocks.

From an industry-agnostic perspective, Tim shares three aspects for creating a learning organisation: systems thinking, a genuine openness to self-awareness and reflection, and a diverse team approach to solving problems. He provides advice to leaders on how to drive self-awareness, empathy, and engagement in the workplace, enabling individuals to want to foster and enable themselves to grow, lean into, and become more self-aware.

References from this episode:

Don't Fence Me In by Wendy McCarthy

ISBN: 9780855616953, Published 4 February 2000.

Wendy McCarthy LinkedIn

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Tim Beresford

Chief Executive and Inspector-General in Bankruptcy

Australian Financial Security Authority

(AFSA)

Tim Beresford is the Chief Executive at the Australian Financial Security Authority (AFSA), having joined the agency in mid-2022.

AFSA’s role is to support a strong credit system for Australia and is a visible, modern and contemporary regulator. The agency administers and regulates the personal insolvency and personal property securities systems and manages criminal assets.

Tim is a Board member of the St George Community Housing (SGCH) and the immediate past Chair of the Benevolent Society (TBS), Australia’s oldest non-Indigenous not for profit. Previously, Tim has held the roles of Acting Chief Executive of the Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade), Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University and First Assistant Secretary of the Social Policy Division in Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

He has significant leadership experience in the higher education, government, not-for-profit, financial services and professional services sectors. His areas of expertise include strategy, governance, public policy, change management and organisational design. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours), Bachelor of Laws, a Masters of Philosophy (International Relations) and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

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 Josh Thomas

What does learning look like in an organisation when a high proportion of your workforce is already doctorate-level educated, formally trained marine scientists and former teachers? Josh Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, talks about this and much more as he joins us to discuss becoming a learning organisation in our latest podcast episode.

Listen to episode twenty-two:

Also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

About this episode:

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has a critical job of being guardians and protectors of the Great Barrier Reef, a world heritage-listed coral reef, for future generations. With a high percentage of their workforce made up of marine scientists, their unique organisational DNA is centred on understanding the world around them and has a natural and instinctive curiosity-driven culture that helps fuel their courage to experiment and test ideas about tackling existing and emerging threats to the ecosystem.

As CEO, Josh explains how risk is a key element that drives their organisational strategy and how they approach learning and development, as understanding risks in your environment is critical in understanding what you need to learn and lean into, and if an organisation is calibrated to understanding medium to long term risks, it will be more proactive in addressing challenges and returning value to stakeholders. Josh discusses this further in how their organisation views themselves as a learning and evolving organisation that's generous with knowledge sharing, have honest relationships with peers, and is led through a coaching mindset – leading others to come to their own conclusions on how they want to take a given piece of work and where they want to focus their learning and development on, within boundaries.

He also talks about how information is more publicly available than ever before; their organisation doesn't have a mortgage as being a 'knowledge holder,' instead, they see their role in knowledge sharing, and they are generous with it with the programs of work that the Reef Authority delivers, including educating over 300 schools in Queensland and internationally, working with 19 Reef Guardian Councils, producing outlook and Reef health reporting, broadcasting podcasts, attending multilateral forums, and more.

This episode is an excellent example of a learning organisation that is curious and generous with its knowledge sharing and a leader who is passionate, authentic, and respectful in helping his workforce work in uncertainty.

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Josh Thomas

Chief Executive Officer

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

Josh has over 20 years’ experience in the public and private sector in Australia and overseas. He has helped shape and lead environmental policy and programs for the Great Barrier Reef and in terrestrial natural resource management.

Josh has worked in a number of senior public sector roles and across the environment, agriculture and finance portfolios, as well as in federal Ministerial offices. He has a strong track record of public engagement on matters affecting Australia’s World Heritage sites, and through major environmental programs such as the Biodiversity Fund and Caring for our Country.

Josh’s policy experience in the marine environment extends across the Great Barrier Reef and its catchments, migratory and endangered species, whaling matters, marine parks and Antarctica. He is committed to enhancing Australia’s natural environment and has been a strong advocate for incorporating both contemporary science and Indigenous traditional knowledge into environmental management throughout his career.

Josh lives in Townsville and holds a Master of Business Administration, Master of International Affairs, Bachelor of Science, and Bachelor of Arts (Honours).

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 Liz Tydd

It was a privilege to talk with Liz Tydd, the Australian Information Commissioner, as she shared the future of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner or OAIC with us and how their postural organisational changes over the past year have positioned them to be at the forefront of being a contemporary regulator.

Listen to episode eighteen:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

About this episode:

In this special broadcast edition of our podcast series on Thriving in Uncertainty, Liz takes us through the latest figures on data breaches from their recent report. She explains how an additional dimension of misinformation (e.g.,  deepfakes) can become an accepted truth in the mind of the audience, highlighting how even the human brain is grappling to adjust to this very real and growing threat and its manifestations.

Liz also shares how the latest data tells us that the information from data breaches across various industries has commonalities in the fact that it is sensitive and valuable information about us that defines who we are and can be used to recreate identities.

The OAIC’s work centres on access to information to promote truth and accountability, particularly in government, but also to promote privacy and protect people from the devastating impacts of misinformation and cybersecurity breaches that result in a loss of identity. To perform this critical work, the OAICs need to have the confidence to operate in this new digital world safely and securely, taking a human-rights-centred approach in a dynamic and ever-changing regulatory environment.

In this enlightening episode, you’ll learn the OAIC’s latest thinking on the eight key elements in ensuring there is a human-rights-centred approach in the AI space and how essential it is for their workforce to be committed to preserving human rights, be curious and work collegially, and how the organisation has developed four pillars to manifest in their culture and operations which are proactive, proportionate, purpose-driven, and people-focussed.

She also explains how the OAIC has a unique vantage point on top of the hill in that they can look at the sectors they regulate, pull out common themes, and inform the guidance.

As a knowledge-based organisation, Liz highlights the critical need for knowledge to be shared internally and several ways that the OAIC are doing that through cross-collaboration teams, cross-professional teams, and communities of practice to share expertise, new approaches and ways of working, and refining skills which enables their organisation to then share that knowledge externally and amplify their messaging.

Liz’s leadership approach of being open to change, developing the ability to respond effectively in a dynamic landscape, and taking a human-rights approach to designing for trust is a masterclass for any leader in leading through change and dealing with complexity in a dynamic environment.     

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Elizabeth Tydd

Australian Information Commissioner

Office of the Australian Information Officer (OAIC)

Elizabeth Tydd took up the position of Australian Information Commissioner in August 2024 for a 5-year term.

Elizabeth joined the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in February 2024 as Freedom of Information Commissioner after two 5-year terms as the Information Commissioner at the Information and Privacy Commission (IPC) of New South Wales.

Elizabeth’s role at the IPC was to promote public awareness and understanding of the right to access government information in NSW, as well as providing information, support, advice, assistance and training to agencies and the general public.

Elizabeth has occupied a number of statutory decision‑making roles in NSW commissions and tribunals, including deputy president of the Workers Compensation Commission and deputy chairperson of the former Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal.

Elizabeth has extensive regulatory and governance experience at an executive and board level in a range of jurisdictions and industries, including commercial, not for profit and public sector oversight.

She holds a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws from the University of Technology Sydney, as well as postgraduate certificates in executive management and governance together with post graduate qualifications in leadership and policy from Harvard University. Elizabeth possesses expertise in digital government and has written extensively on this subject.

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 Nine with Gina Dolan

What draws people leaders to managing, well, people? Is it curiosity about the world and the people in it? Is it the ability to problem-solve and be innovative? Is it grit? No one answer fits all, but certainly, these attributes play a significant part. This week, we dive into growth mindsets, failures, and flex workforces with people leader Gina Dolan.

Gina is the General Manager of People and Culture at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and she joins us in this episode to share her experiences of grit and the ability to persist and lead others through uncertainty. Together, we break down the stigma attached to making mistakes and how courageous leaders can pause and reflect when the emotions are running high and admit to their workforce that they don’t always have all the answers.

Gina also shares her perspectives on managing a hybrid and geographically dispersed workforce, including how working together has changed the importance of how contact with people remotely has to be more deliberate than in the office and how creating rituals and ways of working can encompass individual needs and embrace the needs of a diverse workforce.

Gina’s motto of “no surprises,” creating a safe space where there is nothing you can’t talk to her about as there is no judgement, is refreshing. Her crucial advice on investing in yourself, being a decent human being, and paying it forward to others around you embraces what authentic and adaptive leadership is about all.

We hope you enjoy this excellent episode with a great people leader.

Listen to episode nine:

Also available through Apple Podcasts and Spotify:

Find out more about this Trailblazer:

Gina Dolan

General Manager

People and Culture

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission

Gina is the General Manager of People and Culture at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission or ACCC. Gina is an accomplished HR professional with extensive global transformation experience in the private and public sectors. With a keen understanding of workplace culture and leadership, she excels in leading teams to achieve operational excellence and streamline processes, with the ability to simplify complex HR challenges and provide practical solutions.

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