Bookkeepcon Keynote…
The following is the keynote transcript from the speech I delivered at Bookkeepcon, Christchurch on 29th July 2022. Note that ad libs were omitted as were some personal details.
Nga mihi nui, thank you for the awesome introduction, it’s great to be here “off the bench” as it were. And thank you also to Smartly. Coincidentally, we are actually a Smartly client and have been for a very long time — and so it feels even more appropriate for me to be here today as your keynote speaker, talking to the idea of the lived experience and how we can learn from that to be better leaders.
I’m going to break today from my usual stand up and warble without notes, which usually goes pretty well, but as a result of Long Covid my ‘off the cuff’ capabilities have been a little clipped. What I’d like to do is share with you something personal that I wrote especially for you, and then leave enough time to move into some Q&A — where I encourage you to be as pointed as you can be, I like to think of myself as very transparent and open to public sharing of lessons learned, even the tough ones.
So, let’s begin.
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa
At this time yesterday morning I was still in bed.
I’d love to say that I had some worthwhile reason for being there so late into the day, or possibly even something a little bit raunchy and exciting — but in reality it was a tough day to face after yet another tough night.
Persistently bothered by hot flushes, even with the ranch slider door wide open and the sheets thrown off, the temperature was the least of the worries. Lying next to me a husband (my third to be clear, but let’s not get into the semantics of that just yet — you’ve only just met me), tossing and turning, was also plagued by the seemingly never-ending impending cycle of doom and worry. There’s something in the air right now, am I right?
Leading a global tech business means I work on all time zones simultaneously, and whilst mostly that’s manageable (oddly thanks to the pandemic making work from home and zoom the centre of everyone’s world no matter where they are), at some specific - and usually least optimal moment - it has a way of being a complete …cluster truck. I see I’m still on my good behavour here, I’ll save the cussing for later. There’s nothing quite like negotiating multi-million deals where their outcomes could mean life-alteringly good or catastrophically bad news, somewhere between 1 and 4am to make sleep challenging.
But if I’m honest, which you’ll be beginning to work out by now that is something that I unfailingly am, it was in actual fact the entire large bag of popcorn that I had devoured that really stuffed up the evening’s much needed shut eye.
Like a magpie I had fallen for the glizty packaging of the new flavour of Serious Popcorn and in a moment where ‘want victored need’, I scoffed the whole bloody lot. Don’t worry, I’m not here to kick off a food shaming chat, ordinarily there would be nothing too concerning about this entirely boring anecdote, popcorn is after all a great light snack — but definitely less so if you have diverticulitis, a tied down colon and a frozen pelvis. Somewhere between the menopausal brain, the pandemic frustration and entrepreneurial anxiety a series of swift justifications blinded my rational logic and my diligence was recklessley abanonded…and I ate the damn popcorn.
And the net result was a hot, flustered, pain riddled, sweaty mess that wondered if the world might end at approximately 1.48am pacific standard time. There’s nothing quite like the dead of the night to create mountains out of molehills, eh? Or in this case panic from popcorn.
But yet here I am, 28ish hours later, standing on stage, shoulders back, hair done, make up applied, almost passing for fresh faced and pouring out my health secrets to a bunch of — so I’m told — friendly, but slightly stern looking book keepers. I mean I don’t blame you, I’d be wary of me at this point too!
The point of this questionably delightful vestible of vulnerability is not to shock you into listening….well, perhaps just a smidge, but to lay down the reality of what you should expect from today. I’m a ring in, ushered in at the last minute as an understudy to the uber talented Melissa Cheals from Smartly, who sadly succumbed to Covid.
A phone call at 1pm yesterday altered the course of my day, and here I am now standing in front of you with no slides, a vague idea of who you all are and yet a surprisingly large amount of things to say.
First of all, let’s start with the bio stuff. The kind intro summed up the headlines. I’m a tech founder, currently the co-founder and CEO of global software company Powered by Flossie. This is my 5th start up, having kicked off my first one when I was basically a child at the outlandlishly young age of 20. You may even remember it, it was called nzgirl. I had a weird honour of growing up along side my business through my 20’s and learnt some tough life and business lessons. I like to think I got the little shit kicked out of me quite early on. My 30’s are now a long forgotten blur of incessant travel, capital raising, shareholder management, software development, small child wrangling and endless loads of washing, pepped with IVF, miscarriages, heartache and an abundance of surgeries courtesy of severe endometriosis.
Now in my ‘mid 40’s’ I like to think that life has settled down somewhat. I’ve managed to somehow inexplicably turn the seed of an idea, ten years later, into an actual business and one with global enterprise clients. Huzzah! The kids are all grown up, fully fledged almost-adults, who’ve not quite left home and still dependant a bit too much on the ‘bank of mum and dad’. We now live in Piha, which has firmly become my turangawaewae (my spiritual home), thriving in this quirky beach town community with an over subscription of conspiracy theorists. I absolutely love it. Working from home consists of vast views of Lion Rock, beach walks at lunch time and some simple ways to ground myself when needed. Travel is back on, though only twice a year and I kicked the uterus and ovaries to the curb a few years back, hence the hot flushes.
Weirdly, I can thank covid for most of that. The pandemic in some ways destroyed my life, as I knew it, but in others, it offered silver linings for me to discover and embrace. Change is something I feel comfortable with, though the changes I’ve undertaken these last two years were beyond any I thought I’d ever be asked to face and now I feel ever so less congenial about it. My health has been ruined in ways that most would be surprised to hear how Covid can and IS doing to many people. It has even impacted my appearance and whilst I know it’s absolutely vain, I have to admit that has been challenging to come to terms with that too. My youth got flushed faster than expected!
Accidentally, I took on an odd role through the pandemic. Unexpectedly, and thanks to the media, I found myself a breaking news story back in March 2020 as patient number 37 in Aotearoa with Covid. Since then I have been somewhat the face of Covid-19 patients in NZ throughout the first act of the pandemic, followed by my unfortunate follow up as pretty much the solo known person with Long Covid (up until recently). It’s fair to say that I’ve had my fill of this bloody virus and talking about. Not that it cares, it’s sticking about anyhow. I’d liken it to a bad smell following me around, but two years ago I lost that sense permanently, so it’s a poor metaphor. I also oddly found myself shunted out of the tech start up limelight and into the health reporter pathway, and to demonstrate just how weird my life is now, it was only five days ago that I stood on this same very stage as the keynote speaker for the annual Royal College of General Practitioners conference and delivered a keynote speech directing them on how to diagnose Long Covid.
I mean honestly, WTF?
I laugh a lot at how utterly bonkers my life has become, how I have tripped into being a subject matter expert on a subject that didn’t even exist two years ago. As someone who never went to university and has never sat an exam in her life, I seem to be gathering universities that I help work with on developing medical research and pathways to help assist those in our communities who are at risk or have not recovered. This isn’t where I’ll crack any kind of joke, as it’s something I take very seriously and I recognise my privilege and that’s a huge driver in continuing to do the important mahi of collaborating and giving voice to the lived experience and the individuals whose lives and health have been catastrophically upended by Covid-19. But…I did find it pretty amusing to get a contract last week with the title Dr Jenene Crossan on it….clearly I’ve been hanging out with them all a bit too much, it’s now rubbed off on the administrators.
You see these last two years I was handed not just a lemon, but a whole trailer full of damaged looking lemons and somehow I managed to make my own special weird blend of lemonade. I didn’t know what else to do. There was only so long that a pity party could be held, so I got on with doing what I do best — being bossy. I bossed around the researchers, the ministries, the ministers, the MP’s, the media, the doctors and anyone else who crossed my path and showed an iota of interest in the long term health impacts of the virus on some people.
Eventually all that bossiness, or as some prefer to call it ‘executive leadership’ led to working groups, some grants, research funding, clinical pathways and now GP codes and other tools to assist their mutual quest of patient improvement. It’s been the hardest battle, the most frustrating, illogical, non linear challenge that has been both the bane of my existence and the honour of my life. I find it emotional to talk about. The people whom I have met along the way have showed me love, light, kindness and ushered me gently into a new world where I could see how ableist I once was and how crucial it is that now that I know better, that I do better. It has become the central theme of my life and a value that I hold myself accountable to daily. Let me say that once again; when you know better, you can and should do better.
And through all of this I was able to finally whakapapa to Ngāi Tahu, meet some of my whānau and join the Ropu Kaitiaki with Te Herenga Waka Victoria University and be met with so much genuine love that I could feel the healing process begin on 150 years of ancestral & familial divide. It has felt…divine.
I’ve never chosen an easy path, every step of my 44 years has been a full on metaphorical slug fest. I’ve been in the ring, battling, fighting to be seen, heard, understood and getting completely wasted, again and again. It’s been a bloody mess. Aside from nearly losing my life to this virus, it cost my family their business, livelihoods and then their homes and it very nearly cost me my marriage. I don’t tell these stories to get sympathy — but I do live for empathy. I live for connection, deep and real, human connection. Maybe it’s because I am the youngest of seven children, demanding to not be forgotten, or maybe it’s the wairua in me and my ancestors are urging me to help realise it, and they know that the only way back to my true self is through reflection, vulnerability and wholeheartedness.
If you haven’t picked up by now, whilst I didn’t really ‘go to school’, I am a student of the feminist movement and the wahine who celebrate this kind of rhetoric — Brene Brown, Elizabeth Gilbert, Glennon Doyle. Countless hours have been spent listening to podcasts, educating myself on the missing gaps in my emotional intelligence education and asking myself the hard questions.
All of that work comes in handy when things like pandemics come along and shake the tree. What was up is now down and change is the one constant. The only thing to do from here is to figure out how to bring my own brand of grace and kindness to others and myself and seek to be on the right side of history as the tough times continue to unfold and more people need our colletive strength.
I began writing this ‘small novella’ on the short flight from Auckland. All around me masks were being abandonded for Koru Hour and I wondered at the weirdest of human nature where we trade off risks based on small creature comforts. Across from me barely masked flight attendants looked worn out and I wondered how many times they’ve each been sick this year. I ponder at what point their employer will give them better masks and install better filtration. I now know too much, I can’t look away or just try to go “back to normal”. I care deeply for my community and as a self professed Cancerian empath, that sometimes is a little hard to shake when I just want a sip of wine too.
Leadership matters, that’s the point of my story. My husband and I some time back decided we want to be on the right side of history. We want to make a difference, and so we drive to be the kind of employers and business leaders who think about the impact we make on the greater sphere. Making this the theme of how we show up and the decisions we make and how we spend our time, our resources, our capital and most importantly, our privilege.
Learning to check my privilege wasn’t a fun lesson, it was public and it involved a fair amount of shaming directed my way. Rather than fight it, I leant into it, flushed cheeks and all (not menopause this time!). I never want to be the person that makes someone else feel less, and so I educated myself and opened my mind to learning a bit more every day. Courageous conversations are what I call them. Acknowledging when there is a gap in my understanding, denying the innate defence mechanism and relinquishing control of the ego.
Those are easier words to say rather than do, and I trip up on them all the time. Every day is a brand new one, and there’s a chance to do better with it as well. I have a saying that I keep coming back to “open minds, open palms, open hearts” — this means listening to others view points, understanding what their drivers are, even when they’re politically or emotionally differing from my own, to better understanding their position and lessening our divide. That means showing up without a foregone conclusion coloured by your own lens and a view that you’re right. And it also means being open to all of the feelings, spending time marinading in them, even when they cause discomfort. As Brene says, “brave, awkward and kind”.
Personally, I think this is our super power as women in business. We are hard wired for connection, our instincts are to care and protect. For years we minimised these strengths, undermined our femininity and pushed it away, hoping no one would notice our differences or hold them against us. Now, these are vital characteristics that mean we can spot when someone is struggling, we can open conversations with empathy and draw out of people their fears and help them move through them. This makes us better employers, colleagues, leaders and clients.
The humanisation of our board tables, is finally becoming reflective of what life actually looks like and this deepens our ability to provide a full spectrum, encompassing view that inevitably has powerful escalation into all areas of business. Put simply, the businesses which are thriving are more than commercial entities, they are led with purpose, soul, deliberation, encompassment and real inclusion. No lip service here, these are not merely words, but reflected in our actions, our policies and our approach. The Great Resignation and recessionary times are ensuring a separation out of those with performative ethics only, as we saw recently with the Simon Henry debacle as an example.
Prioritising people has always been a no-brainer as far as I could see, but now that it’s also been proven to be core to maintaining shareholder value and it impacts the bottom line and has economic implications, things are moving faster than ever before. We know that we’re in new unchartered territory and the pendulum is starting to swing. And perhaps it will, as it is want to do, swing a little too far at times in one or other direction, but even as that happens it moves the overall dynamic forward. Never before has this been as important as it is now, where the only way to fix our planet will require the greatest human collaboration of all time and therefore the need to be grounded in community, social purpose and consideration could genuinely be the difference between regeneration and extinction.
I’m not going to apologise for laying down all the hard subjects today — I mean I’ve touched on pretty much all of them except for religion and sex. That’s likely because I don’t affiliate with any of them (though I am spiritual) and y’all know that I’m deep in the womb of menopause right now, so it’s fair to say sex is off the table. Or bed for that matter. I’m assured this is a temporary concern.
Wow that was a lot, right?
So, here I stand in front of you, open minded, open hearted and with open palms and willing us to have conversations that are more real, that deepen our connection and human experience.
I ask of you today to take stock of how you show up. What you say online. How you participate. That you wear a mask, for others. Take stock on who you help, where you are kind to yourself and to others. And thank you for giving me your ears to bend for a mere moment to think about these things in amongst your day.
Kiaora.
