Season 2 Episode 6: Jane Spring: Advice for new board members, lived experience in the disability sector and key questions for management.
Jane Spring AM is the chair of the Australian Disability Strategy Advisory Council and the NSW Disability Council. She’s also chair at Sydney University Sport and a board member with Venues NSW. We speak with Jane about: advice for new board members, the importance of lived experience for boards in the disability sector, and her key questions for management.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to Boardroom Conversations, a podcast from the Australian Institute of Company Directors. My name is Bennett Mason and thanks so much for joining us. In each episode, we’ll have candid conversations with some of Australia’s top directors, leaders and experts, delving into their backgrounds and discussing many of the key issues that boards are grappling with. Our guest this time is Jane Spring AM. She’s the chair of the Australian Disability Strategy Advisory Council, the New South Wales Disability Council and Sydney University Sport and Fitness. Jane is also a board member with venues New South Wales and Royal Rehab, plus a former chief operating officer at the New South Wales Public Service Commission. Jane, thanks so much for joining us here on Boardroom Conversations.
JANE SPRING
Thanks, Bennett.
BENNETT MASON
Let’s start by talking a little bit about your personal history, because it’s helped to shape your board career as well. You were a very high-level rower, when you were a student at the University of Sydney. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
JANE SPRING
Absolutely. I started rowing in my fourth year of university when I was doing honours in economics. It was the year that I moved from home to Women’s College. The possibilities really opened up because I was finally on campus 24/7. At the time I started rowing, the club was effectively inactive, and I very quickly was elected club president. Having been involved in all of those leadership exercises like Brownies, Guides and the Duke of Edinburgh Award. I already had some leadership skills, but working with the other student committee members to get the club going again was a great opportunity for me to learn about how to run a modest, not-for-profit enterprise. At the time, we had three boats in the men’s boat shed. So being president was all about negotiation from day one. A few years later, we were able to buy our own shed in Glebe, and we had more boats, we’d welcomed school, we’d bought a whole lot of boats and done a lot of fundraising. My negotiation skills had grown, and I had needed to be really businesslike. I have to say, that experience of moving to college and having access to a whole suite of opportunities at university was formative for me. It made me realise that opening up the student experience to people was a really significant thing, formative for my career, but so important for many others.
BENNETT MASON
In the intro, we mentioned some of the roles that you’ve had in your career. But tell us about your first board position and also, why did you want to be a director?
JANE SPRING
My first real board position was when I was elected vice president of the Women’s Sports Association, while I was still a student. It was a natural extension from being president of the Women’s Rowing Club. I must have felt at the time I could learn and make a difference. I was skiing for university by then, as well as rowing, and I had lots of interactions with the staff and CEO at the Sports Association, organising teams for intervarsity in rowing and skiing, managing equipment purchases and competition entries, and all the things that go with running a sporting club.
BENNETT MASON
What do you think you learnt from that board experience, and then some of your other early board experiences after you left university?
JANE SPRING
Well, my learnings from being vice president of Sydney University Women’s Sports Association were invaluable. I was in my very early 20s, so it was a great introduction to that idea of first duty of a director is to the company. The importance of aligning your budget and strategy and also considering opportunity costs, because there were so many different things that we could do with our resources, but we had to make the right choices to maximise the opportunities for students. The perspectives I brought to that, from being president of the Women’s Rowing Club, and involved with the Ski Club, were invaluable because I was a current student. But on top of that, I was learning about the management of the parent organisation, the maintenance and development of our facilities, and about relationships with significant stakeholders like Australian University Sport, the Men’s Sports Union and the University itself. My advice from those experiences for new board members would be openness to learning from others, taking a lot of time before and after board meetings to talk, and particularly to attend any board events such as venue tours or semi-social opportunities. New board members should also be prepared to join board committees, where there is a much greater opportunity to learn in depth about aspects of the organisation. I always find these opportunities give more time to get a deeper appreciation of the expertise of other board members, and to share values and develop a common language. It’s funny, you know. At the Women’s Sports Association, I joined the Building and Grounds Committee, and ironically, now that I’m chair of Sydney University Sport, more than 35 years later, I’m still keen to resolve the exact same drainage issues on the hockey square and to invest in artificial turf to get much greater use of that sporting ground.
BENNETT MASON
Jane, you’re now beyond your student days, I’ll say. And as we said at the top, you’ve held a number of director roles. How have you put together your board portfolio? And I guess linked to that, how do you decide which organisations you want to work with?
JANE SPRING
Sometimes it’s been following my passion. Other times I’ve been curious and could see where I could add value. Sometimes it’s just been an opportunity arisen and I’ve just wanted to take it. But I’m much more deliberate now. But I’m really pleased that I invested all that time in learning about different industries along the way. My early board roles were in sport, and it was around following my interests. They were relatively obvious choices. I was president of the Women’s Rowing Club for a long time and built the club to a point where we had a boat shed, access to tax deductibility for donations, a good fleet of boats, and paid high performance coaches. When a few years after the Men’s and Women’s Sports Association had merged to form Sydney Uni Sport, they approached me to suggest I run for election to the Senate of the University of Sydney. This was a really significant opportunity for me. My late grandfather, Sir Frederick Deer, had been a long time Fellow of Senate and had chaired the Senate Finance Committee. So, I was honoured to be asked and really keen to make a contribution to the University. I had to work very hard campaigning to be elected by the alumni. I wanted to be on Senate because the University has been transformative for me, and I believe the student experience is incredibly important. Some board appointments haven’t been part of any sort of deliberate plan. Early in my board career, I was appointed to the Venues New South Wales Board, which then took in Wollongong, Newcastle and Parramatta stadiums and was chaired by John Quayle. That really built on my experience at the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, where I had a strong knowledge of sporting venues. Around the same time, a mentor, Carolyn Burlew from the public sector, suggested I nominate for one of the health district boards and I was appointed to the Western Sydney Local Health District Board, which takes in Mount Druitt, Westmead, Cumberland, Auburn hospitals. It’s an enormous health district and a really significant experience. On that board, I chaired the Medical Dental Appointments Advisory Committee, and I gained really useful insights regarding the difficulty in finding some specialists, the culture in the medical community and the challenges associated with enormous administrative loads in a highly regulated environment. But fast forward to now Bennett, and I’m much more interested in focusing on sport and disability and the public sector and finding complementary, non-conflicting roles where I can make a difference and keep learning.
BENNETT MASON
We’ll talk about some of those sectors specifically in a moment. One I wanted to drill into now is the disability sector. We mentioned you’re the chair of the Australian Disability Strategy Advisory Council and also the Disability Council here in New South Wales. Some listeners might not be familiar with those organisations. Can you tell us about the role of those councils and what you do as chair?
JANE SPRING
Sure. The role of the Australian Disability Strategy Advisory Council is to advise all governments, Australian, state and territory, and local governments on the implementation of Australia’s disability strategy. This is because all governments signed the strategy and are involved in its implementation. In my role as chair of this Council, significantly, I attend and report to Disability Reform Ministerial Council twice a year. The Council is supported by the Department of Social Services and the minister is Amanda Rishworth. And of course, Minister Shorten plays a very important role with the ³Ô¹ÏÍøÕ¾ Disability Insurance Scheme. The Disability Council in New South Wales is the official advisory body to the New South Wales Government on all matters relating to people with disability and disability inclusion. The Council is supported by the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice, and the minister is Kate Washington. Both of these councils advise government. And as chair, I particularly enjoy the opportunity to develop relationships with the relevant ministers. And in the case of the Australian Disability Strategy Advisory Council, that opportunity to brief the Disability Reform Ministerial Advisory Council, plus ministers for NDIS and the NDIS leadership itself, is a wonderful opportunity to share how the disability community is travelling and some of our impressions of progress in relation to fulfilling the national strategy.
BENNETT MASON
Jane, it’s probably worth asking why you wanted to become involved in the disability sector. And then, I suppose linked to that is, why do you think it’s so important to have lived experience on the boards in the disability sector?
JANE SPRING
For a long time, I pursued a mainstream career. I wasn’t looking for particular, disability experience, but it found me. So, my time at the organising committee for the Olympic Games, I was asked to be on a committee advising in relation to disability access, and that was a really good starting point. The latter part of my executive career as Assistant Commissioner at the Public Service Commission, I had a team developing a programme of work to try and get the public sector to employ more people with disabilities. It wasn’t until I finished my executive career that I decided I really wanted to make a difference in this area. One of my passions is to create environments where people thrive, and I think anybody could see that people with disabilities are really not thriving. There are so many barriers to full participation. So, I wanted to become involved in the disability sector because people with disabilities have traditionally not had their diversity of experience reflected in public policy. Australia is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities and our legislation, policy and practice should be reflecting that people with disabilities have a right to participation in the development of policy, practice and everything impacting our lives. But regrettably, there are many, many barriers to meaningful engagement of people with disabilities. So as a person with a visible disability, with a high level of experience in senior roles in the public sector and on a range of boards, I thought I had a good chance of overcoming some of the barriers. I was also quite keen to broaden my own personal understanding of lived experience from other people’s perspectives. Because disability is very various, and I can’t represent a person with a vision impairment or hearing impairment. But I am keen to learn from them and to see where their insights too, can be factored in, particularly to public policy. In both these roles on the Australian Disability Strategy Advisory Council and Disability Council New South Wales, governments have looked to appoint people with diverse disabilities, and we are able to bring different perspectives to government policy and programs. And as the voice of those councils, I am honoured to actually have that opportunity to make that difference.
BENNETT MASON
This is obviously a very complex policy environment. You talked a moment ago about some of the barriers for people with disabilities in the workforce. Can you describe some of those barriers and how they could potentially be addressed?
JANE SPRING
I think it starts out with a bias, I guess, on the part of employers. People don’t realise that people with disabilities, one, are absolutely desperate to have a meaningful job, to be fulfilling that essential life experience to be able to work. They often overstate the difficulties around adjustment for people with disabilities. People with disabilities can tell you what they need to become an effective contributor in the workplace. You don’t need to get a whole bunch of technical advice. It may not even be particularly complex, but you don’t know until you actually ask. So, I think there are a lot of challenges. One of the things I felt at the Public Service Commission was we went out to the public sector. We asked the public sector what were the barriers? We did all the work to develop the tools around adjustments to recruitment processes, explaining what adjustments in the workplace might look like, talking about career paths for people with disabilities. But it didn’t really move the dial. We as a community need to work harder, even at a time in the last couple of years with relative full employment. We haven’t seen people with disabilities being employed in meaningful numbers. I have to say that in June I went to the United Nations, to attend the Conference of State Parties on the Convention of the Rights with People with Disabilities. And this is a common experience worldwide. I’d like to think that with all the advantages Australia has, we could actually move the dial. We could take pride in the fact that we were making a difference, and we were starting to utilise the skills of people with disabilities and their willingness to work. I have to say, people with disabilities are infinitely adaptable. Many of us have to think much harder about day-to-day tasks and just getting out and about in the community. So, that flexibility and creativity is an enormous asset in the workplace. So, I guess that’s a little bit of a picture of disability employment from my point of view. But it really does come back from will on the part of public and private sector employers.
BENNETT MASON
We know that people with a disability make up a significant portion of the population, but as you said, they’re underrepresented in the workforce. And we know that they’re also underrepresented at the board level. How do you think that issue could be addressed?
JANE SPRING
There has been, as you know, a fair bit of work done by this by the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Australian Network on Disability. And the partnership between those two organisations to increase leadership and governance capability of leaders through the Disability Leadership Program, which has been funded by the Australian Government, has provided some education and mentoring. The Australian Network in Disability has also run sessions facilitated by AICD, talking about inclusion of people with disabilities on boards, and helped educate boards about the need for lived experience. There’s also been some academic research in this area, and Alan Hough, Professor Christine Bigby and Alison Brookes have written a really good report called the Director Pathways Project, which has looked at the pathways of directors with disability and the experience of Australian directors with disability. And they saw numerous existing and recent initiatives to increase the numbers of people with disabilities serving on boards. And they’ve largely been education, scholarships, mentoring and observerships for prospective directors with disability. And they are all really good ways to increase the number of directors with disabilities. The project that Hough, Bigby and Brookes did also indicated that many of the methods that have been used to increase the number of women on boards could usefully be applied. And the Institute of Company Directors has done fantastic work in that area. It’s been really transformative. From my own experience on boards, I’ve found my lived experience is a real asset. With a significant proportion of the community experiencing disability, it would be a very rare business indeed, or rare government service that did not need to consider the needs of people with disabilities. If you broaden that spectrum and you think about our ageing population, then it’s an enormous proportion that need some form of adjustment to fully enjoy the experiences that business and government offer. The things that I raise in boardrooms are often very practical reminders that make things easier for everybody. And also, that consultation and co-design and taking feedback from clients and customers can actually deliver enormous value and give a competitive edge beforehand. Besides saving money and rework.
BENNETT MASON
We know that boards can have a really key role in ensuring that their organisations are inclusive towards people with a disability, whether you’re a director at a big, listed company or a private enterprise, NFP, or a government organisation. What sort of measures or policies should directors be looking for? And are there “must have” questions that directors should be asking management about how to make their organisations more inclusive?
JANE SPRING
I think the fundamental question here is, have we asked our clients? There are governance benefits to elevating the client voice. We really want to align with our purpose, vision and strategy. Think about our reputation and community trust and more informed and effective decision making. Boards that take the opportunity to have a deeper access to client insights to help them identify emerging risks and develop strategy for proactive mitigation, rather than reactive remediation in the future are always going to win. And regardless of where the boards actually do recruit people with lived experience, it’s important boards are continually thinking about what happens if we don’t elevate the client voice on the decisions around clients and customers, including decisions about how programs and services are provided to them. And some of the things that I’ve seen, just as a reminder for directors, when I was on the Western Sydney Local Health District Board, we would take the opportunity to reflect on a client’s story or client experience, talking about when things went well or sometimes when things went badly. And this really helps keep the board focussed on, in that case, patients and reminds directors of the organisation’s impact, when you get it wrong. We do the same sort of thing on my board Royal Rehab, and I know the Disability Royal Commission commissioners have highlighted that this is a really promising practice, and they also recommend providing regular training and development activities across the life of a board director’s appointment, including visiting services and meeting with service recipients and staff. Having those conversations that mean a director can actually start to imagine what their decisions might look like through client’s eyes. I think this is a really important part of that strategy, risk consideration. Boards need to consider the role of the client voice through a risk lens to ensure they’ve got appropriate governance metrics and measures in place. I’m really enjoying being on the board of Royal Rehab because we think about the client through a human rights lens. What sort of choices and decision making, should we take? How do we help our clients articulate their needs and desires for a fulfilling and meaningful life, even if they don’t have a voice? How do we make sure they’re happy? These are fundamental considerations. At the other end of the spectrum in this area is a concept that I think is really important to understand. It’s called dignity of risk. Now, dignity of risk is around allowing people with disability, or indeed any people, to make a decision about what they want to do, even if it seems on the surface to be risky. Sure, you want people to be able to make informed decisions, but they should make their own decisions about that. Too often I see directors talking about clients or service recipients as “them” and wanting to make an environment absolutely safe. Well, that’s not much of a life. I personally am a paraplegic person who likes to go ocean swimming. Now, that might seem extreme, but actually I really like doing that. So, I would like people to make it possible for me to do that, even though that doesn’t seem like the most obvious choice. What that boils down for me is that at Avoca beach, my husband drops me in the rip, and I catch the rip out the back. And on a big day when the surf is large, I let the lifesavers know that I might need a tow back in. Now that’s dignity of risk at its most extreme level. But really, when we think about services for people, people with disabilities want to do everything that everybody else does. So, let’s actually give them a voice and let them choose and tell us how we should deliver the service to meet their needs.
BENNETT MASON
Stepping aside from boards and governance for a moment, I have to ask you about the ocean swimming. How did you become interested in that?
JANE SPRING
I started life like most Australians with the privileged access that we have to the beach, and I love the surf. So swimming is a really freeing activity if you’re a paraplegic. So, when I could no longer do running to get my aerobic fitness, I started swimming. And I’ve got a fantastic mate called Romilly Madew. Romilly and I did my first ocean swim for my 50th birthday. So now I join Romilly, who’s CEO of Engineering Australia and with whom I did my first intervarsity in 1986 in rowing, and my cousin William and the CEO of Wheelchair Sports New South Wales/ACT Mick Garnett. And we’ll do things like the “Bold and Beautiful” swim at Manly. And I just need their help to roll me using a beach chair into the surf. And then we’ll do the swim, get a bit of a lift back onto the beach wheelchair, and then back to shore for a coffee. And look, I just love getting out on the water. And one of the things I love about it is that I’m doing things with my able-bodied mates. That’s just like anybody else. You want to play golf with your friends, you might play tennis, you might do Pilates, you might just go for a really good walk. A lot of those things aren’t open to me, so I’m always just looking for opportunities where I can do things with friends and ocean swimming Is it.
BENNETT MASON
Back to your board career. As we said, you’re the chair at those two disability councils we mentioned and now also the chair at Sydney University Sport and Fitness. All chairs at all organisations have different ways of interpreting the role. But what’s your advice on being an effective chair? What’s worked for you?
JANE SPRING
The things that are working for me at the moment are around getting to know my fellow board or council members. In the case of my disability councils, with the range of different disability representation around the table, getting to know and building trust with those council members is incredibly important because their insights from their disability perspective is critical for government policy. So, the more opportunities I have to spend time with them, to debrief with them, the happier I am, because I really want them to raise their voice in the room and tell us what’s important for that disability group. I like to spend a lot of time on induction activities and ask managers to provide extra briefings. I want to create those opportunities, so that board members can ask questions that seem stupid, because you never know what people don’t know, and you don’t want people coming on board and thinking they need to wait for the opportunity to ask the question. Or that it might be stupid to ask that question. I always learn when people ask those questions too. So, that’s really critical. It also gives management an opportunity to go through their paces and explain something, and we can test the logic of it. Another thing with management, to always resist the temptation to do their job, but to take the opportunity to test how they’re travelling. One of the things that I like to ask management is, what do they love about working for the organisation, and what is the pain point that they would fix if there were the resources to do that? Because it’s really good to know that they do love their job. And also, to get some insights onto the things that really bug them and are making a difference to their day-to-day job. I think the final thing I would mention in relation to the chair role is to get the CEO to take responsibility for delegating and ensuring that he or she receives finished work from their team. Because if you’ve got, either work coming up to you that’s not complete, because your CEO doesn’t have the time or capacity to fix it, that’s a bad thing.
If your CEO doesn’t push back on their own team and make sure that they get finished work, then that’s a bad thing. You really want your CEO to be continually clearing their desk so they can be strategic and ready to resolve any crisis or respond to emerging situations, and also just to be investing in their own knowledge and skills as well. I guess the final couple of things, and I’ll pick one more, is to state intention up front. To be thinking how does this piece of work, how does this thing we’re looking at, align with our strategy, and how do we want to proceed and to be positive about the ability to resolve the problem and bringing all the voices around the table to play in that resolution.
BENNETT MASON
You’ve had this lifelong connection with sports. You were an elite athlete yourself. You worked with SOCOG, the organising committee at the Sydney Olympics. You’ve had several board roles in sports. But what do you think of some of the unique governance challenges, governance issues at boards for sporting organisations?
JANE SPRING
Some of the governance challenges range around the stakeholders and the participants. I guess that’s true in any industry. But one of the things about sport is that you are balancing the needs of participation, recreation, masters and high performance. And generally, this is an environment where you don’t have much income, really. So not many sports have an opportunity to go professional. So, you’re going to be relying on volunteers for your board, and they bring with them a whole bunch of interests. We would say in governance terms, that term limits for board members, for example, is important. But in many volunteer sports, if you’ve got a passionate board member who’s been there for 10 or 12 years or longer, you want to hang on to them because it’s going to be hard to find anyone with the same interest, passion and depth of commitment. So, managing that governance challenge is really important, and making sure that you are managing succession planning as best you can and making sure that your governance, your boards, are welcoming of newcomers so that you do get infusion of fresh ideas while hanging on to those passionate volunteers. The resource allocation is challenging. As I said, if you don’t have a source of sponsorship, then you’ve got to try and pay your way, and find whatever measures, whether it’s in Sydney Uni Sports’ case will be looking for alumni engagement and donations to try and bring those extra resources. But lots of sports don’t have that. I think, also thinking about the community and making sure that you are welcoming of community members, that you’re not a closed shop. I think sport governance is just, sport is so varied. It goes from that professional right through to the amateur. So, the same challenges that any board experience would go for sports. But making sure that sports leaders do understand what good governance looks like is really important. I mean, we’ve got lots of rules in sport around competition, fair competition, around doping control, and all of those things. So, there’s lots of work that the government has done to actually make sure that directors in sport are on the right track. And I would call out the Australian Sports Commission for the efforts they’ve made over the years to tie funding to good governance. Because we do want to see good use of public money, where that is put into sports, particularly the more amateur ones.
BENNETT MASON
I wanted to drill down on one of the specific sports roles you’ve had in your career. You were a board member with the New South Wales Combat Sports Authority. Now, I imagine that can be a challenging governance environment sometimes. How does the Authority try to ensure sound governance in combat sports?
JANE SPRING
Yes, early in my non-executive career, I was asked to nominate for the New South Wales Combat Sports Authority. The legislation had just changed. Women were being permitted to box in New South Wales for the first time. And my first job after leaving the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games in 2000, after the Games was completed, was at the Department of Sport and Recreation. And I’d written some cabinet submissions around women boxing, around head injury, around those things. And I also had a big range of expertise in combat sports because I had delivered the training venues for all the Olympic and Paralympic sports. So, I’d got to know all of the competition managers and all the requirements for those different sports. So, I did join the Combat Sports Authority, and it was a fantastic experience for me because of course, government is involved in combat sports because of the high risk to participants. It’s not a risk that anybody can resolve away. I mean, there’s no way that you can regulate to the extent, that you’re going to totally protect people from risk. But the alternative, I guess, if you were to try and ban combat sports, that it would go underground, and people would be exposed to more exploitation and injury. So, I got involved on the basis that we had a strong legislative framework. We had medical representation on the Authority, the rules that we were looking to oversight related to things like having medical professionals, a participant at promotions or boxing contests, providing rules around when someone had a serious blow, that they had, time off and time out. So, it was really around overseeing the regulation of what is a very dangerous industry. Look, I had extraordinary experiences. One of them was successfully recommending to the Combat Sports Authority that we cancel a significant mismatch. Now, that fight actually went ahead in a different state, and it was a disaster. So, there were times when I did make a difference, certainly in our state. Another opportunity I had, which was pretty terrifying, was sitting ringside at the first UFC cage fighting event in Sydney, which I must say was pretty rough going. And look, at the end of the two years, while I know the minister and the government wanted me to stay on, and they really appreciated my contribution, I did decline an offer of reappointment. But I’m really grateful for the insights in that role because there are other highly regulated, difficult industries. And board directors have had similar challenges. And it’s a very hard part to play because you don’t know enough about the industry. And you need to work really closely with your fellow board members, who might have those insights, to bring the best insights to the table in your decision making. And those are invaluable skills.
BENNETT MASON
It must be in a fascinating experience. But I wanted to jump to your extensive experience within the public sector more broadly. You were the COO of the New South Wales Public Service Commission, and you’re still the vice president of the Institute of Public Administration, Australia’s New South Wales Council. I guess I have a broad question around what does good governance in the public sector look like? And also, what do you think directors in the private sector can learn about good governance from the public sector?
JANE SPRING
Look, I have had extensive experience in the public sector and some of my earliest roles, as secretary to the committee of the SOCOG board that made all decisions about sport, which was chaired by John Coates with Graeme Richardson and Kevin Gosper on it. I learnt a lot about the fact that there is no margin for error when you have to deliver a Games, and the competition has to be perfect for the athletes. Subsequently, I was company secretary at Sydney Olympic Park Authority, chaired by a giant of the public sector, David Richmond. Taught me a lot. And good governance is different in different environments. For Sydney Olympic Park Authority, it was around delivering on the promise that Sydney Olympic Park offered, as both sporting and residential precinct. But some of the key learnings for me in public sector board roles or supporting them, is the need to be able to withstand public scrutiny. Might be around value for money, it might be around meeting the needs of our very diverse community, or simply being able to defend the choices made and being aware of the opportunity costs. Government has things like budget estimates where government ministers and senior leaders need to be able to stand up and explain what they’re doing and why. I have to say, the public sector has very robust audit processes as well. The New South Wales public sector has a very rigorous audit regime with independent audit committees, generally made up of retired public servants with accounting, business, legal and governance experience. And this is a relatively inexpensive review process that makes for really good decision making, but also good governance frameworks. I have also had that opportunity to sit around these board tables and to see public sector leaders weighing up how they deliver public value. And it’s a different regime from shareholder value, and it’s really multi-dimensional. So, the experience that comes, and the thinking that comes into that is really significant. And I’m very grateful for the many leaders in the public sector I see
BENNETT MASON
A lot of board members or NEDS in the private sector won’t have worked a lot in the public sector. So, what do you think private sector directors might misunderstand or just not know about the public sector?
JANE SPRING
I guess if you’re looking at the public sector from the outside, you’d see that it was big, but you wouldn’t have any concept of the variety of the roles available. You might not see the satisfaction levels. Many people are attracted to the public sector because they want to deliver public value. They want to make a difference. And while there are multi-dimensional measures of success, it’s still really satisfying. People talk about bureaucracy, red tape, paperwork. But this all comes down to the high level of scrutiny around the use of public money. We need to be efficient and effective in solving the many wicked problems. I have to say, with budget estimates, for weeks each year the headline news items are often news items coming out of those “gotcha” moments at budget estimates. There’s a huge amount of preparation that goes into that, and it’s an opportunity to review all aspects of operations and prepare explanations for possible questions. I have to say, the hardest tasks fall to government. Market failures, the most vulnerable people, the most difficult challenges, and often the most expensive. The private sector doesn’t take these on, and they do fall to government. So, we are looking at extraordinarily competent leaders who tackle these issues year in, year out, knowing that they are dealing with socio economic challenges, multi-year, intergenerational problems with, with some communities and families. And yet, we do keep working on them because we know that if we solve problems for those people and give them an opportunity and a fair go at life, we’re going to make a huge difference not just for them, but for our whole society.
BENNETT MASON
Jane, we’re nearly out of time. But I wanted to end by speaking a little bit about your relationship with the AICD itself. You’ve been a member for many years, and you’re now a Fellow with the Institute. Why is the AICD so valuable to you?
JANE SPRING
When I did the Institute of Company Directors course back in 2010, I had just been elected to the University of Sydney Senate, and I had the opportunity to work with fellows of Senate such as Alan Cameron AO, Kevin McCann AO, and I worked with them over several years, which was a great grounding. I loved the course. It made huge sense to me, being a former elite athlete and thinking about the best strategy to win and then mitigating risks had been my focus when I was trying to represent Australia in lightweight rowing. So, applying those principles to business and government just seemed like a really great framework. And I have to say, my degrees in economics and law were also great foundations. I was also really engaged with the course because of that idea around the diversity of thought, delivering more creative solutions and the opportunity to learn from others in the boardroom was also attractive. Working with intelligent and committed people is always fun. The other thing I took to heart from the course was thinking about the impact I had on other people. When I was elected to Sydney University Senate, there were 22 people on the Senate. Inevitably, there were voices I was keen to hear and others I was less keen to hear. And I thought a lot in advance of the meetings about where I wanted to make that impact and save my voice for those items. I was always keen to gauge the impact as I spoke and try to be making a difference and not being annoying.
BENNETT MASON
I’m sure you were never annoying Jane.
JANE SPRING
Look, anybody can be annoying, and you don’t know. You really have to get feedback from others to make sure you’re not the annoying voice, because otherwise people do tune out. I mean, I remember attending one meeting where someone said: “I’ve been saying this for years and nobody is listening.” And I thought, that’s not good, but anyway, you can imagine. So, I think we all need to realise we have different impacts on other people and to truly engage needs to have that capacity to read the room and to work about the best way to make the point and to make sure that you’re heard. And I think that’s a lesson for chairs as well, to make sure people have a turn, and that they’re managing the boardroom so that you are getting the best from everybody, but not too much.
BENNETT MASON
One final question, Jane. You also took part in the AICD’s Chairs Mentoring Program. What did you learn from that experience?
JANE SPRING
I think I’m still learning from my experience doing the Institute of Company Directors’ Chairs Mentoring Program. There was 46 of us that did the program together, and it was during Covid. So, it was initially an online experience, but they are such a fabulous group of women and they’re a superb network. I think we were all transitioning from our executive careers to a non-executive career. We built a lot of knowledge and skills to make that transition. We all had an opportunity to explore what our unique value propositions were and to understand our own values. Developing personal pitch and just doing that and rehearsing that and working through that with others gave us an opportunity to develop and deepen some great relationships. We’ve now got this network where we can help each other find board opportunities that are good matches for our skills and experience and are rewarding for us. I personally have been enjoying hosting dinners for the group at the Union University and Schools Club, and more recently this year we had a breakfast. It’s keeping everybody in touch and sharing the journey. It’s been a fabulous investment for all of us. And we now go together to the Institute of Company Directors’ Governance Summit. And it’s fabulous to have that network, to build from. I’m really very appreciative of the work that the Institute of Company Directors does to build knowledge, skills and expertise, and to grow the diversity of board membership in Australia. It’s such an important role for the Institute to make sure that we are seeing a real diversity of voices in the leadership of companies and in government boards, Australia wide. So, thanks very much to the Institute of Company Directors.
BENNETT MASON
Jane, it’s kind of you to have such nice words on the Institute. And its very kind of you to speak with us for the podcast. So, thank you for that, Jane. And thank you also to your husband, who has been, very quiet in the background while we’re recording this. But thanks for this today, Jane, you’ve been terrific.
JANE SPRING
Thanks Bennett.
