[Music]
well
hello and welcome to the wine and wisdom
show thank you for being here on a
wednesday night
for those of you who have been here
before thank you so much for coming back
i so appreciate
seeing your friendly faces in the
comments section and all your
interaction it’s truly wonderful and for
those of you who are here for the very
first time
welcome and cheers this show
despite its name being of course about
sharing a wine together and
sharing some wisdom is actually all
about connection
and i think if that’s one thing that we
have learnt over the last
year and a bit is that as humans
we crave to be connected with other
humans who will bring a smile to our
faces
some warmth to our hearts and some
wisdom to our brains and
let me tell you that tonight we have a
guest
who is definitely going to do all of
that
but before i bring her on i just going
to give you a little bit more
information
about what is in store for tonight
because
really this show you know i have felt
lucky
all my life to be surrounded by very
resilient and courageous self leaders
who i believe
are making the small little differences
that actually have a really big
impact across the world and
i wanted to bring them here to share
them with you and that
is why we are here tonight’s
amazing topic is chord harassment uh can
there be sunshine
after the storm and of course this is a
very topical
topic right now uh and we’ll we’ll talk
a little bit about
what we’re not going to talk about
tonight but what we are going to talk
about tonight but
before i do that i would really love
to start by acknowledging the
traditional custodians and elders spread
across the
many lands that we are all located on
tonight i’m actually personally coming
you
coming to you from the land of the
arakwal people in the byron bay
shire and i want to pay my respects
to all these traditional owners who have
nurtured and protected
this wonderful country that we all get
to work
live and play in
all right we i’m going to bring up our
guest right now
her name is karen maher and oh my gosh i
mean she started her career
as a lawyer i mean she’s obviously
always going to be a lawyer but what
she’s doing right now is
is changing the world and i’m going to
bring her up while i talk about it
because that’ll
kind of embarrass her as well but hello
karen i’ll say hello first before i say
anything else
to you welcome to the white and white oh
thank you heidi no pressure i’m changing
the world
you are thank you you are challenging
the world
and karen you know she is a an
incredible
work health and safety consultant a
keynote speaker
and she’s completely passionate
about ensuring that organisations
and their leaders can create cultures
that will not allow any kind of bullying
or sexual harassment so that
everybody can go to work and feel safe
and feel connected and feel purposeful
and be a part of something
um that they want to be without having
to have any kind of
fear or worry or and concern karen i
don’t know if that
is a good description of what you’re
doing every day perhaps you can share
with us
more about what all the goodness that
you’re sprinkling around the world
oh thanks heidi i think that’s pretty
spot on i started as a lawyer and uh and
then i moved into consulting i started
as a lawyer when i was
in 2003 and then i worked in that space
for about seven years in australia
and then in the uk and mostly in the
safety and
and the employment law space and then
i came back to australia and just moved
into the consulting area and did a lot
of investigations and
um all that sort of reactive type work
and then
i yeah just felt a bit like enough was
enough because i felt like all i was
doing is helping organisations put fires
out
and that was really frustrating for me
so yeah so the last few years i really
focused on
putting my you know all of my effort
into the proactive piece
and really working with organisations to
try and get them ahead of the game
and really you know trying to prevent
these poor behaviors from happening in
the first place
because as you said that’s where we want
to be and you know where we can go to
work and we feel safe and we don’t we’re
not being
hassled and things like that so yeah
and it’s you know like i’ve just thought
about that old analogy about you know
people
you know pulling people out of the river
who are drowning and you just keep
pulling them out pulling them out
rather than going down to where it’s all
started from and finding out why they’re
traveling down a river in the first
place and that is what you’re doing
isn’t it it’s just this prevention work
to ensure that we don’t have to spend so
much time and resources
and people aren’t put in these
situations that
can destroy their lives and and and
everyone around them who’s affected
yeah 100 percent uh we’ve just spent so
we just take
spent so long in australia being on the
back foot and
if we don’t sort of work really hard and
put some effort and commitment into it
that’s where we’ll stay and so yeah so
yeah we want to stop pulling the bodies
out of the river or the people out of
the river and we want to
you know really get ahead of the game
and and have a plan and just
be a bit more strategic about it and we
definitely can do it and i’ve seen
businesses and organisations do it and
that are doing it really well
but yeah um we’ve got some work to do
that’s for sure
it’s time it’s time yeah it is it is
and thank you for doing what you’re
doing karen i i’d love to um i’d
actually love to hear from everybody
where they’re coming from tonight and uh
you know where are you coming from and
do you have something in your glass what
is actually in your glass karen
tonight so i’ve got a really beautiful
um st
hugo’s from the from the book from the
barossa uh
so it’s really nice oh it’s a shiraz
kind of night
i again i again have a buttery
chardonnay because
i always have a buttery chardonnay but
it is nearly time for me to stop the
chardonnay
and go into the ready yeah getting a bit
chilly isn’t it
it is getting a little bit chilly so
um karen you spoke a little bit about
what you started with uh
we had i had a guest last year michael
dixon he’s incredible
and he talked about the magical
dance between choice and chance and
you know that sometimes we end up where
we are
because there’s just kind of this you
know
every little step leads to another
little step leads to another little step
and here we are
but sometimes there’s something actually
quite big that happens to us that means
that we
are doing what we’re doing and i just
wonder what has it been for you
has it been that kind of big moment in
life or
has it been this kind of ripple effect
of things that have
led you to doing all the amazing work
that you’re doing right now
yeah i’m a good question i think
probably a little bit of both because
um yeah i think when i was in my 20s i
went through a bit of a bad experience
so i started law school
and then pretty much dropped out because
i just couldn’t really deal with federal
constitutional law it was just too heavy
for me and then so i left floor
and then i started working in a
restaurant and all of a sudden i was the
restaurant manager it was a bit too good
to be true
but before i knew it i was being
harassed pretty badly by
the kitty chef and um yeah it kind of
just sort of got worse and worse and
worse
and i got to the point where at one
point i kind of rejected his advances
and then
from there the bullying started and so
there was you know just the retaliation
and just victimisation and just
really it was pretty pretty tough and
yeah so not only was it against me
but then it was also against my staff as
well even to the point where you know he
started throwing fry pants you know
and one hit one of my my staff a
waitress that i worked with and that was
the end point for me
and i think at that point being in my
early 20s
and you know trying to raise it and no
one wanted to listen
this person was untouchable and could do
whatever he wanted
and i think for me that was a turning
point because i felt like pretty
powerless to be honest
and i think that really did push me back
to law school
just to really see if i could you know i
guess make my voice stronger
in what i you know how i felt because i
think i’ve always been a pretty strong
person but
i think that made a big difference for
me to sort of go back to law school and
just sort of
and then i stayed in that area i really
quite liked the employment area even
while i was at law school
and then yeah sort of it is a little bit
like that though i think
you know the little things add up and um
yeah i’ve just sort of stayed in this
space so
um yeah and i think everybody you know
almost every single person i talked to
would be an uber driver be it a friend
of a friend when they ask what i do
you know everybody has a story so yeah
you know in this space which is which is
a bit of a bad signal isn’t it it’s a
bit of a bad sign but
um yeah so i think that’s probably the
the catalyst i think of why and where i
am
and i guess it does really make you
feel really passionate about what you do
because you know like i’ve got a little
girl she’s six years old
and i think my big goal at the end of
the day is to do whatever i can to make
sure that when she gets
into the workplace that you know we’ve
moved on from here
you know we’ve still got a long way to
go but yeah
well yeah i mean imagine having
having that personal experience of
course always
lights a fire you know when you’re doing
doing what you’re doing
and um also you’ve had that personal
experience of
lighting a fire in the first place but
also
with having your six-year-old daughter
just
wanting to create that better world for
her by the time she’s ready to go into
the work
workplace i mean i was reading a
statistic recently
um last week by the australian human
rights commission
and in the last 12 months they said that
23
of women and 16 of men had
reported being harassed at work and
i mean i that’s i mean that’s one in
four women and you know
just a little bit less with men but
that’s a lot and
there’s been so much in our news uh
lately
and i know that we don’t want to go down
the whole political
arena tonight at all but there has been
a lot going on
that is finally coming to light
yeah it can get very depressing i would
imagine it we must
i’m going to talk a little bit about
that how you doing later on but
you know like our topic tonight you know
do you think
with everything that’s going on when
we’re so aware of all
all the things that make us feel like oh
my gosh
have we moved from the 50s i don’t know
can there be sunshine after this storm
karen what are you seeing
is there anything positive happening oh
look i think you know we’ve certainly
had a raw haven’t we and we’ve had
um you know i think we’d probably have
to say in australia we’ve kind of hit
rock bottom
with this sort of these sort of poor
behaviors and where we’re at
and as they say there’s only one way up
from there um
but i guess the work and what i’m seeing
and i you know work with quite a few
organisations and some pretty senior
organisations in australia and
um and with some pretty senior at
executive level and
i can tell you and i think what is
positive is that there is a shift
and i’ve you know been seeing this
happen for a couple of years i’ve seen
more of a shift in this space
in the last few years and i have since
2003 when i started as a lawyer
so i think there definitely is sunshine
after the storm
um i’m so grateful to you know the
amazing women who have been roaring and
to the
you know to the grace times of the world
and um
yeah i mean we we just we owe so much to
them and just their courage to do what
they’ve done
uh you know i saw grace tame speak the
other day and she’s just
a wonder woman to me and just listening
to her story
and and and the impact that she’s had on
australia i mean she’s really
revolutionary
i can’t even say the word the way that
we see these topics and
and how um you know how we can do it
better so
so yeah i think there is you know i
think that there’s a lot more um
appetite for uh you know even the boards
in australia to be they’re listening now
and they’re
they’re trying and it’s staying on the
agenda and we just have to keep it on
there um
and so yeah i think there is positive
coming out of the storm
and we just have to keep the momentum up
yeah
we certainly do and i mean danielle’s
just when unfortunately so it’s real
that as women
become more empowered economically
violence again against them
increases wow
yeah is that what you what your what
you’re seeing as well
karen so i mean i i haven’t actually
seen that personally but i mean i
wouldn’t
you know i i certainly wouldn’t say that
that’s not the case but
i mean yeah i think that i mean women in
australia all over the world but also in
australia we’ve got so far to come you
know like we’ve got
um you know we have so much to learn and
we have so much to do
to really you know to get to that gender
equality
point and um yeah no that’s a
just you know there’s so many
unfortunate statistics out there it
doesn’t surprise me
but yeah we need to do some more work on
that
and i and i do want to just just say now
i
meant to say at the beginning that if
this conversation does trigger anything
for anybody because we
you know it is a tough topic there are
lots of different support places
in australia that you can reach out to
uh one of them is the 1-800 respect and
of course there’s lifeline and beyond
blue so
please if this does trigger anything for
you reach out
and connect with these these
professionals because
they are top of their game definitely
yeah okay very lucky in australia that
we have this
these amazing support agencies aren’t we
so yeah we really
are and um but again you know
wouldn’t it be great that we didn’t need
them but because we had all these
prevention strategies in
place and that will be that’s certainly
what the goal will be
um going forward and i know danielle
thank you for your comment because i
know this is
an int a topic that’s very um close to
your heart and
the work that you’re that danielle uh
has written a book the gender code and
she
has you know she does she’s doing
amazing work in this space and i know
yeah hence why she’s online so thank you
for being here danielle
definitely have a rid of that yeah yes
you do it i think you i
i’m gonna connect the two of you
actually after we um come off
for sure karen what do you think um in
our workplaces you know what uh
what is the what are you seeing
in regards to tips and strategies that
people
are putting in place to ensure that we
don’t have these problems what’s working
what’s working in organisations across
australia at least
so the organisations that i’m working
with or the ones that i’m seeing that
actually making change here
and creating change and actually um
doing well
is they’re not taking it off the agenda
they are keeping focused
you know they’re staying focused they’re
you know they’re putting in place
even champions in this space so that we
can make sure that
um particularly with you know really
pushing the male voice in this area as
well
because i think that’s something that
we’ve really been missing um
so yeah keeping it really solidly on the
agenda so it doesn’t we don’t just kind
of end up looking at the next big sort
of issue that comes up that’s a big
thing
yeah a lot of the organisations um
now in australia and of course the laws
are sort of really catching up or not
the laws are catching up but how our
regulators view sexual harassment
is really shifting as well and so um
there’s a there’s a
really big push for us to start looking
at sexual harassment in the safety space
and so you know taking a look at it and
thinking how can we
take a risk management approach to this
and how can we be proactive and look at
sexual harassment and bullying and
and and try to sort of um manage these
risks out of the workplace
and so i’m definitely seeing a lot of
work being done there
and and a lot of organisations are
really sort of merging the hr
and the safety teams as well so we’re
looking at this saying
people come to work and they’re harassed
or they’re bullied they’re just not safe
and so that is the same is it as if
they’re
you know at risk of some other kind of
safety um concern
so well they’re the big things as well
so
um anything else um i think that you
know i think that a lot of
um what i’m seeing a lot of boards do
now is really go back to
their key documents as well so their
strategies and they’re going back to
even their values and things like that
because i think there’s been a bit of a
fractured relationship between you know
what their values say and what’s
happening in day-to-day
and so i think that they’re definitely
going back and really trying to
um to push that a little bit more and
get to the bottom of
why that fracture’s taking place and
yeah i mean there’s yeah there’s a lot
of a lot of work being done
but um but yeah the organisations who
are kicking goals are the ones who have
a plan around this too so they’re
planning how they’re going to do it
they’re not getting overwhelmed but
they’re not letting it go as well so
yeah yeah and i’d love to hear from
anyone who is watching right now
live or if you’re watching later on
which often happens with these facebook
lives
you know who do what organisations do
you know that are doing this well
that you know call them out let’s
celebrate the ones that we know
who are doing a great job right now
despite
it being a really tricky topic i really
think a really tricky thing to address
and really hard to put policies in place
and
and when things come up it’s hard but
they’re just
giving it a go to do their very best and
are succeeding i’d love
to hear and to celebrate those
organisations i mean
i mean i let me start it off because i
know one for sure
that i can call out and celebrate and
that is
beaumont people and i’d like to say that
out loud so if anybody would like to
uh celebrate a company that is doing it
well
let’s do it because they should be let’s
always because often
you know we all always get all their
reports of the ones that are doing a
shitty job
let’s see the good ones and
stuff yeah like let’s see what they’re
doing what are they doing to make it so
good
and i i love you know just everyone to
take note that emma has put here that
the beyondblue lifeline and
1 800 respect can be contacted 24 7.
um emma sits on those lines and she’s
one of the people on the front line
uh to take those calls and i tell you
what
these are the people in more than ever
have saved saved lives around our
country and are doing such a great job
so
thank you emma for all you’re doing it’s
amazing
yeah thank you emma i think some of them
even have the text as well where you can
yeah you can be texting too so i think
yeah that’s amazing it’s very needed at
the moment
it’s very relevant to healthcare like
communicate right you know we’ve got to
change our ways
how people communicate if they don’t
want to talk because they’re not in that
space but they’re likely to text which
the younger generation
are then let’s make it available for
them and i know that is the case
karen you know when you talked about
that situation you had
all those years ago when you had the
harassment
yourself what what does what does an
individual do when that is going on i
mean i know
everything’s perfect if we’re living in
a perfect world you go to hr
and things are dealt with um
but that’s not always the way it works
out is it
so what what can individuals do male or
female
when something happens okay so i think
um i guess my my tips would be to make
sure that
um we’re getting the support that you
need so
these things can be really tough on
people particularly i mean not only if
it’s you know it might be a serious
incident or it might be
something that’s ongoing and so it wears
people down
and people can be really fearful about
you know doing something so i think the
first thing i always say
is to make sure that you’re getting the
emotional support that you need
and whether that be you know by your
with your friends or with your family or
whether it’s a counselor or psychologist
i just say get the support you need
because people slide down pretty quickly
and um you know as they always say in
their mental health space that
you know the further people go down the
harder it is to be pushing them back up
so
yeah 100 get the support you need this
is not easy
um i think try to speak up if you can
as early as possible you know and even
if a lot of organisations are pushing
now for self-resolution so if you can
say to someone you know can you not do
that i don’t like it
or you know can you not yeah i don’t
want to be kissed hello or
um can you not say those jokes around me
they just upset me
yeah and of course you know hopefully
the other person has enough
self-awareness to be saying okay sorry
about that
um that’s an education piece usually um
so yeah just trying to where you can
you know speak up if you can uh and
hopefully
um you know if that doesn’t work you
know if you can speak up to a leader
even if you don’t have the structured
sort of hr setup
to speak up to someone that you respect
and that might not be your
you know exact leader or your immediate
leader it might be someone else in the
business who
um who you feel confident to go and
speak to and i think we are getting
better at that
um we’re not there yet some
organisations a lot of organisations do
it
better than others i mean if we go back
to my example it was hopeless like i
tried to report what happened
and it just fell on deaf ears it was
like ah don’t worry about it that’s just
the way he is and
that was the whole you know that would
be that was the solution
and i’m sure a lot of people have heard
that before um
but yeah i think we’re getting better at
that so i think also just
you know keep a note of things that are
happening too because you know if you do
ever need i mean you hope that you don’t
you hope that you never kind of comes to
anything but
if you have a record and you write it
down and you keep it you know keep it
contemporaneous so
um that can be really helpful down the
track too um
yeah um i think just getting advice as
well so you know make sure that you know
you if you are in an organisation where
they’ve got everything set up pretty
well you know make sure you’re learning
you know grabbing the policies that um
that are relevant to you and just having
a look through those and
seeing what the steps are and what you
can be doing about it um
yeah and i think just keep just you know
keep getting advice and i think
that you know at the moment if if you’re
in an organisation and they don’t
support you if you’re
really trying to do something you’re
trying you know you speak up about it
and they’re not being supported
then you know i’d have to say at this
point that you’re you know your health’s
more important
you know than to sort of get out and to
try and be the matter that changes
everything because
unfortunately which is why i do what i
do
um a lot of organisations need you know
they’re just not there yet
and so don’t you know i just don’t think
that you know you should be putting
yourself
at risk just to sort of prove a point or
you know
unfortunately it’s you know i have a lot
of friends of friends of you know people
who contact me
and they ask um you know i’ve got this
happening with
you know my son or my daughter or um a
friend and
you know they’ll talk me through it and
um
and you know i sort of talked to them
about you know to see if you can get
support
you know in the workplace and if it
doesn’t happen and especially for you
know particularly for younger people who
i think are vulnerable workers
i always you know sometimes you’ve got
to pull your jet cord
and just um you’ve got to look after
yourself first so
yes yeah um yeah and i i mean emma’s
made a really
interesting comment there and question
about being curious as to what support
is offered to the perpetrators
to help them understand their actions
and impacts um they’re having on others
you know what
what happens in a workplace around that
type of thing that you’ve seen
happen you know apart from you know
being disciplined
you know is there education around that
because often i
they don’t even realise their impacts
yeah um i think that i mean we’re sort
of even struggling already you know at
the moment just to do well with the
the victim so to speak but um so the
support for perpetrators usually isn’t
great
um i think that you know if we think
about it the best thing that we can be
doing is to be educating people to start
with again that’s a proactive piece
raising the awareness so hopefully we
prevent it so hopefully they understand
that you know what’s okay and what’s not
okay and the impact of those behaviors
um so yeah to be honest i don’t see a
lot of support
out there for perpetrators particularly
if it’s a more serious
incident then there’s really not much
support at all uh some organisations
will have you know employee assistance
program that would be offered to anybody
involved in the process
or yeah i think um
i think it’s a bit light on i mean you
know quite often i i get i do
quite a lot of individual counselling
and oh not counseling i shouldn’t say
that
um individual coaching as well and so
that can probably be
i guess one way to try and help somebody
to understand
a little bit more about this but again
it’s just so reactive to me
trying to you know getting somebody to
come and and work with someone like me
and and sitting there and having to go
through it um i mean i guess it’s it’s
the best that we can do
but really i think you know
organisations what we really need to be
doing is focusing on that proactive part
so
we can hopefully prevent you know raise
the self-awareness and get people
thinking differently
and so we don’t kind of get to that
point where we have to sit down and
explain to somebody
this is not okay when you touch someone
like this it’s not okay
and when you say words like this it’s
not okay
um it’s an education piece and
and also to understand that it’s it’s
it’s a safety piece
you know like of course it’s it hurts
people
um yeah oh i just
seen that comment um thanks thanks mandy
yeah i think unfortunately i would like
i would you know with all of the work
that’s happening now
and you know we’ve we had a really big
inquiry that was handed down last year
and of course
you know the recent um everything being
in the spotlight in recent times you
know there’s been some
traction finally to get some changes put
into place
and it is so unfortunate you know you
have your young your daughter who’s
you know in a casual job without uh
without that support
you know and without um you know being a
vulnerable worker being a young worker
and thinking is this just part of the
job is this just what i’ve got to put up
with
yeah and i you know i just think it’s so
unfair that we have to you know that
they
should have to leave their employment at
you know such a young age
to have those experiences but um we’ve
yeah we’ve got so much work to do but
again i will stand
by what i say and if you know if you are
worried about your children and that you
know
they are young um you know i i just you
know i just saw something a comment
going on
on facebook where people were commenting
the other day in one of the groups and
there was a young person who i think was
15 who was being
bullied or something like that and
everyone was chiming in and telling this
lady what to do with her with her
with her daughter and i was just it was
kind of crazy that they were saying oh
you know she should do this and she
should stand up for herself and i think
well no you know she’s 15 years old we
need to
you know we need to protest so you know
and then why is it happening in the
first place you know this is the thing
that’s what gets me
because i think you know i like i’m
thinking
30 years ago as a young
teacher i started my career as a teacher
and in my 20s and i
had i was doing extracurricular dance
stuff with the with the
the girls and taking them to dance at
stedford’s and one night
we were coming back late from one of
these dances stedford’s i had
four four 15 year old girls in my car
and you know they wanted to have
mcdonald’s on the way home and we’re in
the drive-through
and the year 11 boys from the school
that we you know i taught at
and the girls attended came up in the
front of my bonnet and they were
slamming the bottom of my car into the
ground
and it was 11 o’clock at night it was
so frightening and i you know we yeah
we’ve they finally got away
you know someone came out and got them
away and we went home and everyone was
fine but when i reported it the next day
to the principal
the comment that i got was oh
you know those basketball boys that’s
just what they do
you know where have we come in 30 years
like i think gosh that was back then
perhaps you know
now on reflection that was the times but
i it makes me mad like you know mandy’s
saying that twice her daughters had to
leave casual jobs because of this
same kind of thing it like blows my mind
that
this still happens so often yeah
i think we need to i think it’s
happening but um we’re definitely not
there yet but i’m really loving seeing
the work that’s happening you know in
schools shifting there
with this education piece you know how
we can um
really push to our young men about you
know
about respecting women and their cult
consent piece and for young women as
well
like i think you know i’ve worked on um
plenty of cases in the past with
men being sexually harassed and and you
know male or male or female or male
and there’s no winners there but yeah
it’s just it is good to see
these positive initiatives and they are
coming and they are either they are
happening they’re a long time coming but
again there’s some of the sunshine
that’s coming out of this and seeing
some really great stuff
um yeah we have to keep it in the
conversation and you know
we have to keep talking you know to our
kids
and and and just you know keep pushing
yeah and you know i think part of the
sunshine is exactly here what emma’s
saying that we have these support
mechanisms here that we have mental
health plans that we can get from our
gps
that are covered by medicare and we also
have the
eap systems within organisations i mean
that’s all part of the sunshine isn’t it
that we do have
support places like these like 1 800
respect like beyond blue light lifeline
uh we do have that kind of sunshine
coming out which is
absolutely terrific the one thing karen
i i would imagine
you know like what you do i mean it’s so
important and
please never stop because what you are
truly you are sprinkling
amazingness um and changing the lives of
people
you really are and we don’t want you to
stop but i
i would imagine that what you do can
chip away at you sometimes
and be pretty difficult to
you know feel the sunshine yourself and
feel optimistic and and feel mentally
healthy
uh when there’s a lot of this kind of
negativity around you
what do you what do you do to ensure
that you know i like to say keeping your
resilience bucket topped up what
what is it that you do to make sure that
you can keep that gorgeous smile on your
face
and you can keep focused and you can
feel positive
about the work that you’re doing so that
sunshine continues to happen
for everybody else ah look i think
uh i think the thing that really shifts
my mindset
and keeps me sort of focused and keeps
the resilience up is
um is just really exercise and
meditation sometimes if i can fit it in
um because yeah it can get heavy and i
mean particularly before when i was
doing a lot of reactive that you know
the investigations and they can be awful
like even you know up to
um fatalities and things like that so
yeah just kind of sitting in that for
you know
going through those cases for you know
maybe three weeks four weeks is pretty
tough
um so i think you do need to make sure
that you know you do
you do kind of lock in that self-care as
much as you can um
walking fonzie is a big one for me uh
do you mean
look at that face yeah there he is he’s
just living the life
but um yeah he’s a you know he’s a big
part
he’s a big part of all of this and just
i think you know we have to do that we
have to
you know we have to really make sure
that we fit these things in otherwise it
can get on top of you
but yeah yeah i think the more that we
the more positive work that we do
and um you know when i started you know
really consulting in this space ten
years ago
it was pretty tough because no one
really wanted to hear about this and
you know i get to a lot of sessions and
there’ll be a lot of eye rolls and
things like that or what are we doing
here what a waste of time
but that is just changing so much and um
you know the sessions that you know when
when i work with people now it’s just so
different and you can really feel that
and you know people are engaged and when
you ask you know ask them at the end
what are their key takeaways and things
like that
it’s just incredible to see how people
can sh you know how we can shift their
mindset
and really get them thinking about
actually changing things for the better
so
i think the fact that i’m more in the
proactive area as well is a big
difference too
to my resilience because i found you
know the reactive stuff is hard and it’s
i think it’s got a bit of
time a time limit on it because it’s
just you know like just
yeah really tough yeah i would imagine
and my final question for the night for
you is
we are on the we are on the wine
and wisdom show so we’ve had a few sips
of wine
now it’s time for extra pieces of wisdom
i’d love to know which piece of wisdom
has been handed down to you
by somebody that has made the biggest
impact
in your life and yeah tell us tell us
about that
all right so this is a bit of a funny
one um i i have a
like a i had an old friend you’re an old
and old italian man that i knew like 20
years ago
and he said something that was quite
profound to me and it’s just a bit
strange probably but
um but i must have been freaking out
about something and getting frustrated
with something
and um he said to me said kareena which
is i think italian for karen and he said
you know you cannot kick every stone on
the road
or you will always need new shoes and
yeah
i don’t know it’s just a big one for me
because it really just made me think
yeah like you know you can’t kind of you
know get upset about everything and you
can’t get you know you can’t
kick every stone on the road and it’s
something that i always talk to my kids
about as well we can’t kick every stone
on the road and we’ve got to keep
getting new shoes
yeah so it’s just kind of a funny one
and it just kind of
take you down a notch when things are
getting a bit hectic
yeah that’s my big one yeah that i love
that that’s amazing i think yeah
that applies to all of it for either we
it applies to so many things it was so
weird it was a bit of a random comment
and at the moment at that time i was
like
yeah i’m going to take that one yeah
well done well that’s so nice to have
that that piece of wisdom thank you for
sharing it
and i know also you have uh really
you’ve curated all your very best work
right now and just launched some online
courses that are really making a massive
difference within organisations for
their leaders and their teams
and tonight you have very kindly offered
to anyone who mentions the wine and
wisdom or my name tonight
you get 15 and off those courses and
we’ll put the
link directly in the comments after the
show uh
how’s that all going what are you hoping
to achieve with your smart culture work
yes so with the smart culture work i
think um with covert and everything
changing so much
um you know with bullying harassment
sort of programs people always wanted
them face to face
but then of course covert hint and a lot
of my clients were really pushing saying
you know do you have online and so it
kind of pushed me to do it
um so yeah we really tried to put the
face-to-face
feel then the i guess um you know all of
the elements of
the courses into their online and so i
guess it just has a bigger reach for
everybody as well
and i think it’s easier you know you can
just learn from home and your pajamas
and your ugg boots and things like that
having a glass of wine at the same time
hopefully
not too boring and yeah and and with the
smart culture
um work we’ve also got like momentum
sessions so
um organisations can work with with me
and some of my consultants as well just
to keep the momentum up
and do review work and strategy work as
well so
the training part is definitely a very
key part
but it has to be supplemented with with
strategy and a plan otherwise everything
everyone gets excited and they do the
training but then everything
life gets busy again and core behaviors
creep back in and things like that so
yeah trying to create a bit of a
solution really there
and still the face-to-face sessions as
well so yeah loving it
oh it’s wonderful thank you thank you
for that work you’re doing
and thank you very much
anyone want to reach out please you know
if you’ve got any kind of questions
because i know
these kind of topics sometimes people
don’t want to talk about them
in a live forum but i’m sure karen you
would be really open to
having any questions sent to you about
any issues that are going on within
their workplaces uh
and perhaps not perhaps i know
definitely your golden nuggets would be
out of perhaps
that little light forward to bring that
sunshine after the storm that perhaps
yeah we need some sunshine everyone
we’re doing
some sponges we’re going to winter we
need sunshine yeah we do
karen thank you so much for all your
amazingness tonight
it’s been incredible to hear of the good
work you’re doing um in a time
you know it’s a real i think it’s a real
uh
time in history for us in australia and
you are at the forefront of it making a
huge change and a huge
difference to individuals and
organisations but
i think it’s more that of course that
you’re doing the work
within the organisations but the ripple
of that ripple effect for individuals
is what i know gets you up in the
morning
to allow you to do that so thank you
thank you honey
thank you so much i think and i think
it’s funny
yeah i think it’s important for us just
to just mention this
last comment from miranda thank you so
much miranda
as a teacher in all boys school keeping
a balance between healthy masculinity is
an ongoing
challenge yes thank you and i would
imagine miranda and you have a tough job
doing that all the time
and yeah we thank you for the work
you’re doing with these young boys
um because they’re growing up to be the
ones in the workplaces
so you know this is our teachers are the
ones
isn’t it where it starts and they are
forgotten
so much that the impact they’re making
so thank you for miranda
yeah thank you miranda but thank you
um so much karen i’m going to wrap it up
i’m trying to ramble because i just you
know i love this show and i love talking
to you so much
i’m going to be putting all the
information that everybody needs about
karen the work she’s doing in the
comments straight after the
show so you can come back to there at
any time
but in the meantime enjoy your wine
for the year a little bit of balance
is good for yours and we will see you in
two weeks time good night everybody
good night everyone thank you