The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
01:24:38 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:24:38] S0: Okay, that makes me feel better. I assume running an airline for so long, you'd have a pack of things you'd carry on the plane and a manual and you'd be perfect at this. [01:24:47] S1: Not at all. And I think usually to show you how bad I was, when I was traveling quite a lot, I always ended up with catching a cold and the flu, which meant that you were not doing a ride. And that happened so often when I was travelling. So yeah, think for everybody. [01:25:04] S0: I'm a clean freak, so I hate touching stuff. I was talking to someone the other day about, you know, the security trays, we can put your stuff in that. I hate that. So COVID was great because everything was wiped down. COVID was very bad for many reasons, but one of the things I loved about COVID is everything was clean, particularly in airports and planes. And that bugs me to no end. Germs that are on a plane and on an airport that has got nothing to do with US CEO, by the way, but that just is the reality when you've got that there's traffic coming through, that bugs me to no end.
01:25:04 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:25:04] S0: I'm a clean freak, so I hate touching stuff. I was talking to someone the other day about, you know, the security trays, we can put your stuff in that. I hate that. So COVID was great because everything was wiped down. COVID was very bad for many reasons, but one of the things I loved about COVID is everything was clean, particularly in airports and planes. And that bugs me to no end. Germs that are on a plane and on an airport that has got nothing to do with US CEO, by the way, but that just is the reality when you've got that there's traffic coming through, that bugs me to no end. [01:25:33] S1: And it was funny what we discovered during COVID, because the aircraft itself is actually not a bad environment, because you're all facing the right way, and the HEPA filters in the aircraft take the... Refresh the air every few minutes, and they filter the bugs out. Where you catch the bugs is actually walking through the terminals and touching things, because you're in it, particularly queuing up at security, particularly queuing up at immigration. You're just packed together, and that's where we're finding that things were spreading. So it's actually interesting where the risk is and where it isn't. It's not in the air per se, it's mainly on the ground getting to be in the air. [01:26:12] S0: Interesting, interesting. Cool, we've covered a lot. So let's move to Rapid Fire Sprint to wrap this up. Is there one non work investment of time and energy that you consider the best in your life? Is there a holiday or a hobby or a course you've done?
01:26:12 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:26:12] S0: Interesting, interesting. Cool, we've covered a lot. So let's move to Rapid Fire Sprint to wrap this up. Is there one non work investment of time and energy that you consider the best in your life? Is there a holiday or a hobby or a course you've done? [01:26:27] S1: I go back to the meditation and the mindfulness I learned at a fairly early age in Aer Lingus. That's just helped me all the way through my career. [01:26:37] S0: One thing you'd like to learn in the next six months? [01:26:41] S1: I'd like to be more proficient at AI. I think I, you know, I was a programmer originally, programmed in Fortran, so agent, and COBOL, is so ancient. But I'm pretty useless at AI. I'd love to be able to get a bit better at utilising that as a tool. [01:27:00] S0: Anything in your personal life that you'd like to learn in the next six months? [01:27:03] S1: Yes, I'm learning the piano at the moment as well. There's a good reason for that. My father had Alzheimer's, and he, unfortunately, in the last few years, he completely lost that consciousness. And they say one of the best things that you can do for your mind to avoid is learning a musical instrument or learning a language. And I think I have a musical instrument in mind for the next few years, and then hopefully then maybe start learning a few languages because they say that does help, and it's one of the ways of reducing your risk. [01:27:36] S0: Yeah, that's probably right. Is there one interview question you love asking people, either in the interview process or now in an investment context?
01:27:36 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:27:36] S0: Yeah, that's probably right. Is there one interview question you love asking people, either in the interview process or now in an investment context? [01:27:45] S1: Yeah, I think I used to like asking the question, what do you think is one of the mistakes you've made as a leader? And then how did you react when you found out it was a mistake? And trying to get people, one, to understand when those mistakes have happened, but also how they handle it when it occurs. Because we... One of the philosophies I always had, you know, you can make mistakes, people should be allowed to make mistakes, but it's how they handle it and how they adapt and how they pivot. So it's admitting that it was a mistake and then moving to solutions with that mistake and presenting them back to you. And some of the best managers I've recruited through that process were really good at doing that. [01:28:28] S0: Were you very involved in the recruitment of direct execs that reported to you at Qantas?
01:28:28 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:28:28] S0: Were you very involved in the recruitment of direct execs that reported to you at Qantas? [01:28:32] S1: Yes, of course, you would always be very heavily involved in the people that were there. And we tried to, I would bring a combination of people in from outside when I thought there was a gap. And then that was either people you knew, so you were taking less of a risk, or if it was people you didn't know, you needed to make sure you go through a good selection process. And then internally, we tried to promote really good talent. So when I set up Jetstar, that team of 20 odd people, a lot of them I didn't know, and we had to bring in because there were experts we didn't have. So part of the selection was asking questions like that and getting to know them. And a lot of them, we made really good calls. They're still friends with them today, John Gissing and Bill Johnsey, people that just knew that side of the business. [01:29:20] S0: Is it true that you didn't do one on ones at Qantas? [01:29:25] S1: What's one on ones? [01:29:27] S0: Like one on one meetings with direct reports?
01:29:27 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:29:27] S0: Like one on one meetings with direct reports? [01:29:30] S1: No, did. So we did a few, but most of the meetings were in a group setting. So what I would find is that, you know, if the head of loyalty was presenting their strategy, it was really good having people from different sides of the business coming in and then putting their side. Because sometimes you'd have this jam coming from somebody that was from operations about loyalty. Or sometimes you'd have somebody from loyalty talking about the operations that was amazing, or somebody from corporate communications that would have a perspective or government affairs. So you try to, when you were making a call, have people from a whole series of different disciplines because they just improved the decision making. [01:30:13] S0: One pet peeve?