Cultural Introspection Hui: Jenene Crossan transcript
We helped co-facilitate a Hui on Sunday night with the founder, director, innovation & investor community to figure out what we could do better in future to support our founders. This was under Chatham House rules, however, individuals can disclose their own speeches and below is the transcript of Jenene’s personal contribution.
“Tonight we gather with sadness in our hearts, but fire in our bellies and that will become our glue to help us hold our conviction and belief in a better way.
I have personally spoken to many of you this week, you have opened your hearts, shown vulnerability, offered empathy and determination. For the first time in a while, I feel drawn back into our community — having dettached myself 3.5 years ago.
We pay homage to Jake Millar tonight, and we thank him for his energy, how he has touched us all in some way or other, and we will be inspired by him to keep on this path and discover a better way. We do not come together to lay blame, cast shadows or cloak anyone else in shame. The anger and upset that sparked our movement, must now make way for a simple ethos that we now know better and we must now therefore do better. We lead with a view that mana enhancement is the basis of our values.
Tonight is a scene setter. With so much energy surrounding us right now, we felt that harnessing it into good immediately was essential if we are to have a fighting chance of genuinely seeing change and making an impact. However, answers will not come in one simple solution it will be a series of small and big implementations and I remind everyone that the keys to culture are in all of our hands, it is all well and good to establish a code of conduct, it is on each of us to bring it to life, live by it and abide by it. It must become our way of doing things, a sharp turn from the current modus operandi.
We have pulled together an incredibly eccletic and diverse group of people, all drawn to the purpose and that is powerful. The “why” for each of us is what enables us to turn up, to be seen and willing to believe that it is possible. Typically that is the hardest piece of the puzzle to unlock, aligning people on purpose is challenging — managing personalities, egos, desires, hurts, pain, we all feel something that might deter us, or hold us back from truly bringing our true selves to this. We have evidence in our hands that led us to be together tonight, that shows that being yourself in our world has ramifications. But we still turned up. We should take a moment to honour that, and I think for the remainder of my life I will call that The Unfiltered Way. Showing our vulnerabilty to each other to dare discover a better view point, is an incredible legacy for Jake to have left us.
I am going to lead the vulnerability this evening by sharing some of my story and the lived experience that brings me to be speaking with you all tonight. Then I will welcome first of all Vic Crone who will speak to the dynamics of the Cultural Introspection and how we might achieve our auspicious goals. We have invited Emily Blyth to join Vic in speaking to her lived experience. Followed by Melissa Clark-Reynolds, Suse Reynolds and Craig Hudson. We will cover each point of view in the eco system, albeit just lightly. We are mindful this is your family time, but to be honest, this felt so personal a subject that we knew you wouldn’t mind.
If you didn’t get a chance to, we would love you to complete the survey we sent out with the meeting invite. It is anonymous and it will give us important insight. Please also feel free to use the chat function to discuss topics, share twitter handles, exchange linkedin connections and ask questions. These questions will be entered into a google doc, where we will look to summarise and then share privately after the event. With so many people now involved, we felt this would be the better way to handle the sheer volume!
This is but a taste teaser this evening. There will be moments, I am sure, that will be triggering. Emotional, confrontational, difficult. I ask you to let your feelings guide what is the right thing for you — be it to take a moment away to regroup, to ask for a sounding board. I have fought my own emotional rollercoaster all week, this has been a hugely upsetting time, but I am not going to sanitise it. I believe we must lean into it. There may well be many tears, and that is really very ok.
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At the age of 20 the business began, with no prior experience, but a gusto and confidence well beyond their calendar years. Within 18 months they had accidentally attracted the attention of a high profile business person to invest, who came to them with deep pockets and a keenness to support and get behind. This attention flung them onto the stage, as people marvelled at how a kid had secured such illustrious investment. They were quickly written about, held up as the whiz kid, front page news, 6pm telly, the new era of entrepreneur being ushered in. A heady time quickly ensued with a whole new lens on the world, they were deemed “ones to watch” and indeed they all did. Parents of friends would cut out newspaper clippings to keep their kids up to date with their childhood friends impressive rise, the beginnings of little green eyed monsters came quickly with it. Accolades and presentations, everybody wanted to be seen to have picked the winner, stand alongside and take some credit in building the “rocket ship”. The investors knew they had some magic beans, and were excited that by simply holding them, they would be able to climb up this giant stalk. Not much talk was given to watering it, the expectations were set that this was an entirely unusual proposition that would return on investment no matter what anyone contributed. How such naivety could have ever existed for such wise old heads remains an eternal lingering question.
Heady heights, and stunning lows, the business and personality were married together (without realising the danger this could and would bring) and they would often reflect that they grew up alongside their business in their 20’s in an unusual manner that most would not be able to relate to (and how naive it was). The weight of expectation grew heavier, and each time they flew a little too close to the sun, they would course correct, find an alternative path and set off again on their quest of exit success.
The pedestal grew taller and the height they would fall from now seemed unimaginably unsurvivable, and so they found ways to cope with that, that might ease the anxiety and dread. Mechansisms that didn’t serve them, but chipped away at the resilience. Until there was none left. They found themselves backed deep into a corner, with no one able to fight for them, a feeling of dread and disappointment and shame, cloaked over them. They looked for help in every direction, but all they found was more recrimination and more fear, this was apparently the bed they had made and they were supposed to lie in it. One fateful morning, a mental battle was fought on a bathroom floor and without the grim details, the decision was made. The pedestal had to go.
That day, armed with newly found determination to set themselves free, they wrote about Success and how it should be spelled with a K — as it sucks the life out of you on the way through. They spoke of their journey, the pain, the gain, the high cost and then they published it. The world started to crash around them, and they found that in the rubble of that disestablishment, they were able to find the important pieces. The ones that mattered. The people who were not part of the solution fell away, those who believed there was a better way came in closer. The vulnerability, whilst exquisitely painful, was also the most fundamental feature in the release. With time and much more discussion, a whole new way forward emerged and a new centre was found. A personal manifesto and value set that underpinned their life. And now, three and a half years later, it feels like a lifetime ago.
That beacon I shone out by sharing my story in June 2018 was how I met Jake. He came to me, open hearted, but already broken and scared. We connected on how eerily similar our stories were. That story I told you was my beginning and unlike Jake, I’ve had a middle and I know that I will have an interesting end.
I could write a book or a ten season series for Netflix on the extraordinary things that have happened in my career as an entrepreneur, and I often over share about it — as my husband likes to call it. But I see it as cruicial that we don’t just see the end of a story, but tell the twists and turns that made it so. That’s where the good stuff is, even if it was hard stuff at the time.
When I reflect on it I wish I had these things:
- Somewhere I could ask for help that was specialised to innovation. My situation was so high octane that calling Lifeline would never have felt appropriate. I needed to be able to reach out to peers without fear of the fall out. I was worried the impact of telling the truth of how much harder it was than what everyone believed, how could we create that safe space?
- A code of conduct for investors to guide them in best practice management of young entrepreneurs. The power balance is off right now, where money means influence and often when you’re young and determined, you need that cash to get started and that is the price you’re willing to pay. That doesn’t feel right to me. So many people say “take smart money” — but what if it’s the only money? How do we ensure that it’s not up to the kids to lay down the law, but the industry helps set the tone instead.
- We must stop misinformation in its tracks. We must find a way for people to be able to help speak up and prevent a pile on. So many people I have spoken to have shared that they wished they’d had the confidence to intervene, or they are worried that the same may happen to them. I feel that pain acutely, I am living in fear right now of the recrimination for being outspoken. We have no way to protect or thwart those attacks right now and we must.
- I wish I had a co-founder from the very beginning (like I have now in Powered by Flossie, Steve Torrance is a wonderful business partner in bringing our shared vision to life) so that it wasn’t all on me, all of the time, to be this magical bean. As Mike Carden said to me this morning, “In the face of the immutable arseholes, the singularity is what kills us.” We must do everything we can to ensure that weight is not on only one set of shoulders, but spread across many.
I offer that the first step to a set of outcomes must be in reflection. “
