00:00:00:06 - 00:00:23:24
Unknown
Welcome everyone to Behind the Curtin with me, Rhiannon. Cause in today's episode, I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Curtins' chief executive, Neil Parkinson. Neil is only just over a year into this job, but not many people know Curtins better. He's been with the business for over 30 years and has worked in seven different geographical locations. That's more than any other member of the team ever.

00:00:23:26 - 00:00:48:16
Unknown
So I think we can safely say that he's what you'd call a subject expert. Welcome, Neil. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, Ruth. Okay, let's dive straight in. So tell us, what's your first year been like as chief? Exact. From a personal perspective. Well, I suppose firstly, a whirlwind. It's gone really quickly. It's the first in my 33 years here without Rob Melling being here.

00:00:48:18 - 00:01:11:02
Unknown
And I think that's been the same for a lot of us. Yeah. We've all adjusted to life without Rob. We've all cut the apron strings, but what's I suppose been a bit scary is how quickly we've all just got on with this. Got used to it. Stuff changes and you move. My, personally, my roles changed a lot, as you might imagine.

00:01:11:04 - 00:01:32:18
Unknown
And nonetheless, a lot of people ask me now, what do you actually do? And I guess, and the real answer should be in this role. Well, nothing. My job is to facilitate rather than do when you've known me a long time. I'm a doer, and I like rolling my sleeves up and doing stuff.

00:01:32:18 - 00:01:54:14
Unknown
Get stuck in. And that isn't always the right answer. So how can I personally facilitate everybody else to be the very best version of themselves? Get the best out of themselves, and you'll know personally that there's a few people who've roles have changed a little bit this year. Yeah. Again, all intended for us all to get the best out of each other.

00:01:54:17 - 00:02:15:13
Unknown
And it feels like it's working. Yeah. So far, so good. That's right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'd certainly say from kind of my perspective and from the position that I sit in on the board, it's felt like a really kind of smooth transition. Nobody knew Rob better than you. And I think it's definitely felt like that kind of custodianship has been passed over and a very kind of thing, I suppose.

00:02:15:14 - 00:02:43:22
Unknown
Easy. Easy way. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So tell us what's really making you tick at the moment. I guess the, the things we've talked a lot about certainly last year. And, and as we move into this, has it been about ownership and leadership of the business EOT and great projects? The, the, the will to make everybody feel like owners of the business.

00:02:43:22 - 00:03:05:27
Unknown
And we started talking to everybody last year, didn't we, about being owners. We talked, we did owners updates. I'm just about to, head off on the road again. To go and talk to the business about the plans for this year and indeed, the plans for the next 3 or 4 years. And again, talking to everybody as owners, reporting to the shareholders.

00:03:06:04 - 00:03:31:24
Unknown
And I feel like that started to gather a bit of momentum, gain a bit traction. And the projects doing great projects, really worthwhile projects. Alex and I did the roadshow last summer. And we highlighted in all of the offices, all of the projects that have been done around the country, and you could see and feel the pride people felt in the difference were making.

00:03:31:26 - 00:03:50:03
Unknown
That I got a lot of feedback from that, a lot of comments. What one really stood out for me, which was from Paul Hargreaves in the finance team, where she'd seen all the projects, and she just said how reflected how nice it was to see what those projects were, rather than just titles on an invoice, because that's what she sees.

00:03:50:05 - 00:04:20:03
Unknown
And again, this sense of pride that we've created thousands of school spaces, thousands of new hospital beds. That, that really that really stood out for people, for me. So those, those issues of ownership and delivering great projects are really, really front of mind to me as we move into this year. Totally resonates with me. I always say when I drive around Liverpool, I love to see the schools and the, the, you know, the commercial buildings, the hospitals that we're working on.

00:04:20:09 - 00:04:39:10
Unknown
But I'll drive past the Albert Dock with my kids, Lily and Evelyn, and I point to it and say, that's one of mummy's. Now, even though Bill saved the Albert Dock decades ago, I feel like really personally connected to that. So I completely relate to what Paul is saying there. Yeah. That actually kind of those projects come into life.

00:04:39:10 - 00:04:56:15
Unknown
You feeling that personal connection to them? It's what we're all here for, isn't that. It's what it's all about? Yeah. And it's so everybody in the individual office is doing that locally, like you're doing in Liverpool. But then knowing we're doing that everywhere. Yeah. So you could walk around the streets of Manchester or London or Edinburgh and do the same again.

00:04:56:17 - 00:05:19:15
Unknown
Really iconic buildings really, really improve in the local area, the local community, and you can point out and say, we did that. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Absolutely. I want to take us to kind of looking at the, the horizon. I suppose kind of the ambition, the vision you're at, you're a visionary person. You, you have these kind of strategic, thoughts in terms of where we want to take care.

00:05:19:15 - 00:05:45:09
Unknown
And so what's the direction of travel? Talk us through that. I suppose the, the things we talked about last year and really focused on, as you know, I, I like focus. How what should we home in on what what's really important to us. How can we improve what we're doing? It's very much about evolution, not revolution, that that the last 65 years have been pretty successful.

00:05:45:09 - 00:06:10:02
Unknown
We're a pretty cool business. So there's no need to change too much. But we do need to evolve. The world is change in technology is changing fast. Yeah. And we need to respond to that. We want to be at the leading edge of it. But in some ways, we want others to be at the bleeding edge and fail first, and then we'll take all the good ideas and implement those and have a few good ideas of our own.

00:06:10:05 - 00:06:34:27
Unknown
So that's been, I suppose, looking forward, there's a real focus on how do we do that. We talked last year about client focus. How can we be more? I suppose customer centric. And make sure that the, the values of those clients are values that are aligned with ours. So how can we make sure we're engaging with the right clients that we're building really purposeful relationships with those individuals.

00:06:34:29 - 00:07:01:27
Unknown
So we want to increase the amount of repeat work we do in those sectors that are important to us health, education, housing, and some of the emerging sectors like energy, green energy, and data centers. How can we do that? So that's a that's how we're trying to push ourselves forward and do more. So you can walk around Liverpool and continue to come to things and say, look, Lili, mommy did that.

00:07:02:00 - 00:07:23:01
Unknown
So, so that's, that's a real focus and a real push. And we talked to the business last year. And we'll continue to this year about the Curtins way, the way we engage with our clients, the way we engage with key stakeholders on projects to be great communicators for people to want to work with us. And that's what we're trying to create.

00:07:23:03 - 00:07:45:13
Unknown
I completely agree. I think that this kind of idea of really driving for those, those purpose kind of value aligned projects, it's the space that we want to be in isn't it. And indeed I think it's what our colleagues really connect with as well. I know that when we, you know, when we talk to people around the business, whether that's through the forum, or whatever that may be, it really is what kind of I suppose it flashes for people.

00:07:45:13 - 00:08:09:08
Unknown
I really want to be part of improving the communities that we live in. Yeah, absolutely. So we're talking as we're moving forwards. The we've got lots of different sizes of offices across the different regions. So the likes of Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, London, big office is making a really big difference in their, in their regions, in their communities.

00:08:09:10 - 00:08:33:00
Unknown
We want to try and make sure that all our, our other offices are similarly scaled and sized so that they can make the biggest possible difference, the biggest possible contribution. So it will you'll know from all the discussions we've had around the at the board table that we don't want to grow for growth sake. Yeah. We but we do want to grow, to be better where it's where it's necessary to do that.

00:08:33:00 - 00:08:57:12
Unknown
So we, we, we, we want to strengthen and consolidate that the offices that are right sized and we want to grow in the regions where we feel this growth to be achieved. So again, that's something we're looking at over the next few years. And you'll know the, the, the organizing we've done around the board table on, on what is right sized, where are the opportunities, where do and where can we make the biggest difference?

00:08:57:15 - 00:09:22:28
Unknown
Well, it's about resilience ultimately isn't it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, somebody, somebody I respect an awful lot has said to me that resilience is our North Star. And I think, I think it's a great line, though, in terms absolutely what we're trying to do. Maintain our resilience, maintain the focus on the things that we think are important whilst evolving, whilst making those things a little bit better.

00:09:22:28 - 00:09:46:05
Unknown
How can we get these marginal gains in everything we do? What do we need to do just to implement little changes to evolve to continue to evolve. Yeah. Yeah. So you talked about the offices that Neil and I know that you really enjoy kind of traveling round the four corners of Curtins, getting to know people, understanding what people are doing day to day, what people's challenges frustrations, what it's exciting them.

00:09:46:07 - 00:10:11:24
Unknown
Talk us through then what do you see being done brilliantly around it? And have you got kind of 1 or 2 examples of what's done brilliantly that we could perhaps be looking to do more of? It's a good question. It's a really hard one to answer because of the line. I, I said so many times last year was I think we do everything we need to do as a business brilliantly somewhere sometimes.

00:10:11:24 - 00:10:50:09
Unknown
And how can we do it everywhere and all the time? So I think having gone round the offices, I feel that even more, some of the whether it be the way we manage our people and develop, provide development opportunities, development objectives, there are some amazing examples of that around the country. When Alex and I went round last summer and Alex shone a light on a few of those brilliant things, whether it be Matt Wright's calculations, parks in Manchester, whether it be Johnny Soul's Cost Tracker, whether it be Sam McCourt standing on the Newport Transport or Bridge, we've got examples of doing amazing stuff.

00:10:50:12 - 00:11:12:08
Unknown
I suppose what we've not been brilliant at over the years is sharing that knowledge. And that's why we've set up the experience community to try and provide a framework where we can share, we can share that knowledge, we can shine a light on the brilliant people doing these brilliant things. A light we've not had to be able to shine before.

00:11:12:11 - 00:11:30:07
Unknown
And what a wonderful thing it is to do something brilliant and then be able to show off and tell everybody in the business and show everybody. And then I'd like to think the people take that, use it and improve it and then play it back and you get this loop, this continual improvement loop that will, that will result.

00:11:30:07 - 00:11:52:03
Unknown
So I don't think I can put my finger on any one thing, but rather to say, I do think everything we do do everything brilliantly. And if we could just share that better. So that's the real ambition for this year and next. And I suppose, I suppose my reflection on that as well as it's not just about sharing the, the successes that I've done this brilliant thing, let me tell somebody else about it.

00:11:52:06 - 00:12:13:04
Unknown
But it's also having a culture where people go, I tried this. It didn't work. Don't you waste time and energy trying it and failing at it in the same way either. You know, take my learnings and do something better. But, you know, not repeating that that perhaps a mistake or that failure or that challenge, or look at it in a completely different way.

00:12:13:06 - 00:12:31:12
Unknown
I suppose just creating that culture where people feel more connected in their collaboration. We kind of look at it from both angles, don't we? Either way, we're really kind of seeing that continual improvement. Yeah. So I, I think that's an even more important point than share in the brilliant stuff, sharing the failures. But but we all get things wrong.

00:12:31:12 - 00:12:48:08
Unknown
We all say, I don't know. Let's create an environment where we all can be vulnerable enough to say, you know, I don't know or. Yeah, you know what? That didn't work. I got it wrong. And make sure we share that that that we got it wrong. And this is what I'm not going to do next time.

00:12:48:10 - 00:13:10:17
Unknown
And, and again, I suspect in the past we've maybe not done that. We've made the same mistakes more than once. And it it's fine again. Can we create an environment where it's fine. I do think we have anyway, it's again creating the framework. Create the connections across all the different locations within all the different people to be able to say, yeah, I tried that didn't work.

00:13:10:17 - 00:13:24:14
Unknown
Don't don't do that. Yeah. And then I did this instead. It was my alternative. And that worked a bit better. And then before you know it, somebody else will be contributing to say, yeah, I tried that too. And then I took it on to the next level. And just those connections are going to make us better. Yeah.

00:13:24:14 - 00:13:41:19
Unknown
And and I mean, I've worked with engineers now for 15 years, and I know that an engineer loves to solve the problem. So we can kind of I suppose, combine those, those collective minds together with that framework and those channels. I mean, it's pretty powerful stuff that isn't. Yeah. Brilliant.

00:13:41:21 - 00:14:05:19
Unknown
Okay, so I want to bring us back then to a kind of nearer horizon. We've kind of talked about the, the future vision. But looking at maybe the next kind of 3 to 5 years, what can people expect to see? I suppose the it ends up being quite granular. This in terms of the things we're looking at to facilitate the improvements we've just talked about.

00:14:05:21 - 00:14:31:18
Unknown
The the world of technology, I said, is changing fast. Yeah. We've we've got a real focus on our I.T infrastructure to facilitate evolution, technical evolution, digital transformation. So as we move through this year, there's a piece of work happening to to try and evolve our I.T infrastructure that what we've got in place at the moment existed in, oh, we installed rather in 2022.

00:14:31:24 - 00:14:51:02
Unknown
It's it's three and a bit years old. It's it's still within its life. But what do we do next? We started looking at cloud computing. And might that be the right answer for us? We started looking at building our own data center. That sounds very grand. That would only be a room. But but a data center nonetheless.

00:14:51:02 - 00:15:14:23
Unknown
And and, of course, the risks that come with our I.T infrastructure, cyber risk, cybersecurity, the probably the single biggest risk to every business. Yeah. And we've seen lots of high profile cyber attacks. So we're under attack every day as as every business is. So how can we build that resilience to to go back to your earlier question. Within within i.t within our digital systems.

00:15:14:25 - 00:15:35:02
Unknown
And then again, how can we create the, the infrastructure to allow the likes of Mark and Sophie in their new roles as they're really trying to push us forwards in the digital space, really trying to innovate, make sure they've got the right infrastructure to be able to do that. So that's, that's a real push in both in the short and the medium term.

00:15:35:02 - 00:15:53:25
Unknown
So the decisions made this year, which will inform how we move forward over the next 2 or 3 years, needs doing a lot of work at the moment on carbon reduction. And the, the approach to that. So over the last few years, we made some brilliant progress in terms of it. It's profile is raised. We record it really well.

00:15:53:25 - 00:16:19:27
Unknown
We now know how much carbon we, we produce in our, in our projects. The next step is doing something about that. What I guess we don't want as a business and a another one. We've talked a lot about at board level. We don't want a net zero carbon badge because it's relatively easy to achieve that. What we want to do is reduce the carbon that's going into the atmosphere.

00:16:20:00 - 00:16:40:21
Unknown
So a great example is all the work that EB you do where they drill lots of holes in the ground, to, to assess ground conditions. Those drills generate a lot of carbon. So a really easy way for us as a business to reduce our carbon output is to not do that. Yeah. That really isn't a very sensible thing to do.

00:16:40:21 - 00:16:59:19
Unknown
And indeed it doesn't reduce the carbon going into the atmosphere. It just means somebody else will be putting it into the atmosphere. What we want to do is work with our partners and stakeholders to come up with more innovative, greener ways of doing that drilling work. Maybe even doing more of that work so that you don't spend as much carbon.

00:16:59:19 - 00:17:27:27
Unknown
If we're talking about carbon as a currency in the building work itself. So really trying to think differently about how we make improvements. Again, it's not about budgets. It's not about getting some some accreditation or certification that says we we are green. It's actually being it. And being real about it. So again they're the two that spring immediately to mind in terms of short term activity to facilitate medium term results.

00:17:27:29 - 00:17:47:20
Unknown
And in terms of for the rest of kind of this year. We've obviously defined some strategic priorities for the business. We've mentioned, the, the experienced community in the framework that we've introduced to really kind of improve things there. Could you talk us through perhaps some other strategic priorities that we're looking at? Yeah. Well, a big one.

00:17:47:25 - 00:18:17:02
Unknown
Well, you'll know all about. And insofar as, one of the leaders of it is to try and improve our gender balance. And what do we mean by that? We've seen, our gender pay gap over the last seven, eight years as continue to reduce, which is really we're proud of that. So we're really proud of it. Our graduate intake, in terms of the split, male and female split is largely 5050 varies each year.

00:18:17:05 - 00:18:38:23
Unknown
But, but but around that date and point to 5050. Brilliant. So that feels like the activities over the last number of years have really started to, have an impact where we've not seen it as in, in the technical and delivery roles at senior level. We're not seeing that passing through. So we don't have the same gender balance at more senior levels.

00:18:38:29 - 00:19:00:06
Unknown
We've tried so hard to introduce policies, processes to, to, to improve that, put things in place to make this an environment that, that encourages that. But we're yet to see those results come through. And, and we always said, I remember you saying a lot of times if we just wait, if we just wait 15 years, it will be all right, because the world will change.

00:19:00:06 - 00:19:18:14
Unknown
But we want to go quicker than that. So that's a real focus for this year. What can we put in place to try and try and see some improvements and try and accelerate that? And that's, that's something that's a real focus. For you in the team involved in that at the moment. Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, we've done some brilliant things.

00:19:18:14 - 00:19:44:21
Unknown
I mean, that that gender pay gap reduction, like it doesn't happen by accident, does it? That is a result of our initiatives like reverse mentoring, which we've we've both been part of our success for all mentoring. We've got really enhanced support for, both people on maternity leave, returning from maternity leave. You know, we've got these policies in place, which, yeah, we're really very proud of, but it's like, right, what what more can we do?

00:19:44:21 - 00:20:00:26
Unknown
Neither of us are known for our patients and, we. So I think it's really exciting to be. Well, I'm, you know, I'm working very closely with fellow board director Andy Roberts on this, as you know, and, and it's great to kind of hear his perspective as well. This is a drum that I've been beaten for a long time.

00:20:00:26 - 00:20:17:16
Unknown
It's a passion, like ridiculously close to my heart. And I know that shared by everybody on the board to some degree or another, but Andy's just got this really fresh perspective, so it's brilliant to be working with him. He he's run the candle office for many years. He's now board director responsible for for several of our business units.

00:20:17:16 - 00:20:38:19
Unknown
So he he's closer to that kind of delivery to that role than I am. So I think that actually, you know, I'm really excited to see what else we do well throughout this year and beyond as well. That will kind of drive things even even further in this focused approach. Combined with our broader approach, which we've perhaps had before.

00:20:38:21 - 00:20:55:20
Unknown
You know, we really know which kind of roles in our business we're now targeting. It's not going to happen in five minutes. We're not going to be a business that subscribes to, you know, positive discrimination because I don't think that suits or works for anybody. But this is where I was. Talk about equity over equality.

00:20:55:24 - 00:21:18:16
Unknown
What do we need to be doing slightly differently to provide additional support so that people have equal opportunities? And that's I mean, that's where we're coming from now, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. But the way you mentioned yours and Andy's role in that, the, that's something we're trying to do more of across a lot of our strategic projects, as it were.

00:21:18:18 - 00:21:38:08
Unknown
You and Andy say differently, you've you've got different backgrounds, you do different roles within the business. And so you're an asset and your solution to problems will come from a different angle. And, they will be greater than the sum of their individual parts. And if we can get that to work across all of those projects and everything we do, we're going to get real successes only.

00:21:38:12 - 00:22:02:13
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. I'd like to move on to a couple of quickfire questions now, so don't overthink it too much. Kind of top of head stuff. What's your favorite thing to do? Oh, God. Well, I suppose this is this might be an age thing. What? What do I get the most joy from at the moment? It's living my life vicariously through my three daughters.

00:22:02:13 - 00:22:24:29
Unknown
So, as you know, I have three. Well, not there's not even teenage any more. So at 20, an 18 and a 15 year old daughter. And as I say, I live my life vicariously through them. So whether I'm watching Ella, who was on race Around the world, as you know, not as a contestant, just as a bystander who got speaking pass, she's now at Newcastle, unique to an English.

00:22:25:01 - 00:22:45:28
Unknown
Whether it's a, animal. Metal door is a wonderfully creative girl. And she's, I tell people, I'm sure I've told you this before as well. She's got a picture, of when we were in Thailand. I won't say it went to Cielo when she was traveling. There was some, She took a picture of elephants. We went to an elephants.

00:22:46:00 - 00:23:06:12
Unknown
I'm not sure this visual thing I'm doing now works terribly well for a podcast, but, we're with you. Yeah. She did, she had a picture of two elephants. She printed out in black and white, and then she tore the middle out of it, and she's, then in charcoal, drew the face and trunk of the elephants, and then they were eating.

00:23:06:12 - 00:23:24:14
Unknown
What do elephants eat? Bamboo. Yeah. Yeah. Green stuff. They're eating green stuff. And she's then painted that green stuff. I framed it. It's like I'd buy it. I'd go and buy it. So again, that brings me joy watching, watching them do cool things. I guess it's a jealousy thing as well, because I wish I was traveling.

00:23:24:14 - 00:23:54:16
Unknown
I wish I was on race around the world. I wish I could do what she does, in creating these incredible pieces of work. So, yeah, a lot of joy that brings. Amazing, I love it. Thank you. Back to Kate. And then what do you reckon is the single most special thing about it? I know you have a long list to be able to answer this question with, but the single most special thing about kittens, as my my one word answer will be people.

00:23:54:18 - 00:24:12:23
Unknown
But I'll leave that up. Yeah. Go on with what I mean. So obviously the people around us, we all like each other. We really care about each other. You can feel it. You can feel that people want each other to succeed. It's it's it comes out of everyone's pores. Which is such a nice thing.

00:24:12:23 - 00:24:35:22
Unknown
And so in keeping with what we're trying to achieve, we're all in this together. Collective ownership. The opportunities for people as somebody who, started life as an apprentice and now, I've got the chief role. I feel very proud of that. And, and I also feel a massive obligation to make sure the opportunities exist for people to progress.

00:24:35:24 - 00:24:55:21
Unknown
What a wonderful place it would be if in the future, we only ever needed to recruit apprentices and graduates because everybody in the business was stay and have the development opportunities they need and could progress. And of course, progression doesn't just mean working your way up and towards that chief exec role, because that's not what everybody wants.

00:24:55:21 - 00:25:23:06
Unknown
That's it's not for everyone. Yeah. How can we provide the right opportunities to progress whatever progression means. So I think of people like Kimberley, who's moved across from an office manager role into the legal team, and I just thrive. And I think of Nick Webb moving out of delivery and into that. The pie and claims world, the number of opportunities we've created for people to move around the business and, fulfill new roles.

00:25:23:06 - 00:25:45:10
Unknown
They're play in them to their strengths. Again, you know, you'll be talking to Mark and Sophia again. I've just recently done the same thing at the start of the year, moved into new roles again related to what they do. But not the same as and that I just think that's a, that's a wonderful thing that I, I've said before, I, been there a long time.

00:25:45:12 - 00:26:10:23
Unknown
I am, I feel that me and Curtins are greater than the sum of our individual parts. I think Curtins has made me better, whatever better might be. I'd like to think I'd made Curtins better, too. But maybe others need to be the judge of that. But the idea that Curtin is that greater than the sum of its individual parts is something I think is what makes it super special.

00:26:10:23 - 00:26:30:28
Unknown
Yeah, I love that. Absolutely love it. And I suppose just to kind of build on what you were saying about people having those opportunities and, and it not necessarily being like way to talk about vertical career paths and horizontal career paths. I mean, you know, that definitely chimes with me. I started and I have said this before and I thought can still do for a year, I really do likewise.

00:26:30:29 - 00:26:49:28
Unknown
Yeah, yeah, I think there's a few events because this kind of subjects teeth into, but I joined as a marketing assistant 15 years ago. Like I say, thought, you know, 12 months and get to know my CV and into the big wide world, I'll go and, through that time, I've, I've kind of developed in that role within the marketing team.

00:26:50:01 - 00:27:09:17
Unknown
But at the beginning of this year, moved from a kind of director of marketing and communications over to Director of Culture and engagement and that was a conversation that we'd had where we saw that there was this kind of potential in the business to build that role, to introduce that role, to kind of crystallize, I suppose, that responsibility as well, on the board.

00:27:09:19 - 00:27:31:19
Unknown
And that then provided certainly me personally with opportunity, but within my team as well, you know, we have Kate, Kate, Claire, who, first joined Curtins, as you remember, as a secretary in the candle office. And then we tempted her to Liverpool to become, our marketing coordinator. And the job title was at the time Kate was promoted to head of marketing.

00:27:31:24 - 00:27:52:14
Unknown
It kind of coincided with me. So stepping away from that role. So, you know, I absolutely, you know, like I say, it chimes with me because it's been my experience and I think so often, it does come down to the individual to say, what do you think about this? How about that? And it's of course, it's not always plausible for us to to act upon that, and it's not always possible for us to act upon that immediately.

00:27:52:19 - 00:28:08:12
Unknown
But I would like 100% encourage people to just have a word with your local director, have a word with us and just say, I've got this idea. I think it could really suit the business, and I think it could really suit me. What do you think? Yeah, absolutely.

00:28:08:12 - 00:28:28:01
Unknown
And I guess the in, in some ways what you've described there is it's individuals and their roles. But that same principle is true for the employee forum. If you've got an idea, bring it. Yeah. It might not be the right idea. It might not be the right time. It might not be the right thing, but there's no such thing as a stupid idea.

00:28:28:04 - 00:28:46:23
Unknown
The way we evolve, the way we progress is by the brainpower of the 400 people who work here. So. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I've told you this before, but I went to see, Jacinda Ardern, former prime minister of New Zealand, last year, like an audience with, And she was absolutely exceptional. I loved her so much.

00:28:46:23 - 00:29:17:16
Unknown
I loved her before. I adore her even more afterwards. But she talked about kind of in her role as prime minister. She felt the people always saw the decisions that were made, but not the choices that were made, kind of behind the scenes to get to that point. And it really made me think about the way that we work as a business and the transparency that we really try and achieve through vehicles like the employee forum, where we do want people to understand the choices that were, I suppose, have led us to the decisions that we made.

00:29:17:19 - 00:29:53:11
Unknown
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and because not all the choices we make, the decisions we make, easy, so that we, it's a we, we work in the construction industry. It's a challenge. And industry comes with challenges. And we sometimes have to make difficult decisions. And, well, we both know they that the, the, the agonizing. We do, board meetings over making some of these difficult decisions and the, the care, that the humanity that that's involved in making those decisions and that that the deep and careful consideration that goes with it.

00:29:53:13 - 00:30:11:15
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Right. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm going to bring us on to our final question then. So this is one that we ask all guests. I want you to picture Neil Parkinson a year from today. Okay. What are you going to be doing? Yeah. Well, like I said before, the nail. What do you actually do?

00:30:11:18 - 00:30:32:15
Unknown
The answer should be nothing, shouldn't I? I shouldn't be doing anything. I'd like to think what I've been able to do over the course of this year. And when we look back in 12 months time, is that we have more people doing the things that really, getting the best out of them. They're in the right role doing the right, doing the right things, working on the projects they want to work on.

00:30:32:18 - 00:30:53:21
Unknown
Can see a future and a more, even more embedded within the business. So what will I be doing in theory, more of the same, more facilitation? Of of the 400 other people in the business making sure that everybody's right place, right time to doing the right thing and, and happy and doing it and adding the most value.

00:30:53:21 - 00:31:14:06
Unknown
And again, we've talked about employee ownership and the idea that because we share reward, we share responsibility as well as part of our ownership. If we all know that the contribution we make by doing a little bit more, a little bit better adds to the commercial success of the business. And that we all share in that commercial success.

00:31:14:06 - 00:31:31:21
Unknown
Wow, what a motivator that is for us all. And again, I hope we're starting to see more and more of that. And that's what I'm really trying to facilitate not to facilitate that day. Got it. Got it. Thank you so much. That brings us to the end. I'm really, really shocked that you've joined us today. It's been brilliant.

00:31:31:21 - 00:31:49:12
Unknown
Kind of hear us both about some of the things that that motivate you about, about where Kurt and says is heading and some of the kind of focused strategic priorities. But also some of that more kind of visionary stuff as well. So thanks for joining us on Behind the Curtin now. Thanks for having me. Thanks, Rhi.