Is that 95% of deaf babies are born to hearing parents, and most of the time, their deaf baby is the first deaf person those parents have met.
Purposely podcast amplifying the stories of people who are making a positive difference to society and the environment, people inspired by purpose. Here's your host, Mark Longbottom, everyone.
Welcome to purposely with Lachlan Keating, CEO of Deaf Aotearoa Lachlan, an Australian, has been with the charity for almost two decades, starting as a consultant and then taking the reins of Chief Executive, we have a wide ranging conversation, including, what it's like to be deaf in Aotearoa. What are the barriers? What are the things that stand the way from being the best version of yourself? Before we dive into the show, though, can I just ask whatever platform you're listening on, whether it's Apple Spotify or another, please hit follow, and I'm sure you get future episodes. Enjoy
this episode of purposely was brought to you by Benevity, the all in one software solution that benefits employees, customers, nonprofits and society. Let's get back to the show. Welcome. Keithing, everyone. Welcome to purposely podcast. Good
morning. Mark.
How are you good morning? Yeah, you're the CEO of Deaf Altura, what's your mission? What's your purpose?
Well, we've just been actually through a strategic direction refresh, so it's a good time to be asking me that like a test. Yeah, it is like a test. It is like a test. I better just check my notes. No, so really, at our heart, we're an organization that's here for the deaf community. We're here to break down barriers and really drive access for deaf people. We really want to see Deaf people thriving, using their potential reach their aspirations, and using all the gifts that they've been given to achieve their goals.
And we talked about before pressing record that actually, this is an audio only podcast, but we're going to make the transcription available, and in fact, you're going to go one step further, which is very cool. Which is very kind. So we make this accessible.
Yeah, we'll make this accessible in New Zealand, sign language is what we do for our community. With a wide range of information. Really heightened the need for this through the covid pandemic, when there was new information out every day for society, and we endeavored to make all that information available in New Zealand Sign Language, I think we would have done upwards of about 350 videos during the height of the pandemic. What we also saw there was, and it really started under when Jacinda Ardern initially became prime minister, having interpreters at her post cabinet press conferences on Monday afternoons. But then you saw them through the midday, one o'clock press conference every day through the covid pandemic, having interpreters there, and they've and it's good that Christopher luxons picked up that and continued on, but we're just seeing it more and more often now. I take myself back to the 2011 the first big earthquake in Christchurch, the February earthquake in Christchurch. It took us 46 hours to get sign language interpreters on TV alongside Bob Parker, and that only happened because one interpreter literally elbowed her way through the media scrum as it took 46 hours to get the interpreters on TV back then these days. So when fakara White Island erupted four or five years ago now, we had interpreters on TV within a couple of hours, and that's become the expectation, interesting enough, not just for the deaf community, not just the expectation from the deaf community, but also wider society. And what we're seeing now is, if there's no interpreter, as a particular media stand up and so forth. We're often seeing hearing people advocating so saying, where's the interpreter, and why is the interpreter not there? And how many
people are affected by deafness across New Zealand? It's obviously a spectrum, right? So these, you know, varying degrees of deafness, people affected by that. But what sort of numbers we got? A population around 5 million. How many people are affected? Yeah, so
the deaf community, who we work primarily with, that that's rather, rather small, relatively small, around four and a half 1000 people. And what we talk about there with the deaf community, the deaf community is is people who are probably born deaf or or lost their hearing early on in life, they probably have New Zealand Sign Language as their first language, and they've probably faced barrier to some degree, to education and employment and everything Society offers right throughout their lives. And part of Deaf old rowers role is breaking down those barriers, putting in accessibility measures like translations of information into sign language and obviously having interpreters as freely available as possible. But that the going further, that the heart of hearing community, which is which, which many of us become part of in later in life due to age related or industrial hearing loss and so forth, or perhaps people who are born with mild to moderate hearing loss. That number is in the several 100,000 but as our community, the deaf community, the sign language community, is around about four and a half
1000. And in terms of comparisons with abroad and overseas, has it been harder for. For those that community, for New Zealand, you know, throughout the decades,
there are good and bad examples and better or worse experiences for deaf people in different countries of the world. Interestingly enough, we had some for a group of four came across from the US, from a large deaf organization called Communication Services for Deaf, or CSD. They came from the States back in May, and they were full of praise for the work we're doing in New Zealand and and really looking to take some of our initiative back to the US, who also they've seen that on a more local level with with our cousins across the diction in Australia, we have a really successful service called first signs, which is for deaf babies born and will work with that up to the age of five, and a large deaf organization called Deaf connect, they came over to New Zealand about two years ago to look at our first sign service, and they've now taken that back into Australia and set up a similar service there. On the other hand, there are pros and cons of different more advantages and less advantages for different Deaf communities around the world, but deaf community in New Zealand, there's still lots to work to be done. It's a constant, relentless battle for our organization, the community, to achieve their rights and to achieve full access. So the things we're doing better here in New Zealand, but there's things that are going better overseas that we'd like to we'd like to see improvement on here, on a local front.
It's great to hear non deaf people advocating right being the in some cases you pointed to the first advocate, and advocate loudly in terms of accessibility, sign language at certain events, wonderful in terms of you guys as a charity we talked about before we press go. You appear large. You're doing good job of projecting your mission across the country, but you are quite a small team. Tell us a bit about how you operate, what you do, what you don't do, as a nonprofit,
so as a small, not for profit organization, when I say small, we are about 70 staff, 14 offices around the country for about 100 contracted sign language interpreters, and then we have some other contracts from time to time, teaching New Zealand Sign Language or providing deaf awareness courses and so on and so forth. But 70 staff around about when you compare us with other other large disability sector organizations that people are aware of, we are less than half the size, probably less than a quarter or even 10% of the size of some of the larger organizations. We're 47 years old this year, so we're relatively new. Again, when you compare with those larger, well known organizations such as CCS, IHC, workbridge and blind low vision, formerly known as Blind Foundation, we are much smaller and much younger than those, and we probably don't have the the networks and the connections some of those more, more well established organizations have.
And how do you fund yourself? Like, how does the income come in? Were you reliant on government contracts? You've got enterprises. Part of the mix, that's philanthropy. Like, how does, how do you guys enable yourself to do what you do? Well, primarily
we have we have government contracts, which is well over half of our revenue. We also generate income from sign language interpreting. Our Interpreting Service, called I sign is the largest in the country. There's three interpreting services. Ours is quite by some margin the largest. We generate significant income through there, but it's also a lot of cost in terms of running an organization like Azure, and particularly, and particularly running an interpreting service like that. We have a new interpreter graduate program, which, which we're investing three to $400,000 a year into, which is a significant investment, and are really drawing heavily on our on our financial reserves as a relatively young organization, as I said, we don't have huge amount of reserves where I say we're not a rich organization, we're not a poor organization, we're somewhere in the middle. And we really do need to expand our philanthropic ask and our fundraising services considerably to ensure we can generate more income and generate more income for things that have never been funded. So for example, with sign language interpreting a major contract is with the Ministry of Social Development, and there's quite a well defined list of the things we can provide interpreters for. But then there's things that deaf people need that fall into the gray area of the contract, or they might even fall outside the contract, things like going to your lawyer or going to your bank, or looking at a rental property, or looking to buy a house, a mortgage broker and so forth. Those things are in the gray area or or outside of our interpreting contract. But deaf people still need access to those just as a hearing as hearing people do you know, deaf people buy houses, deaf people go to the bank. Deaf people do everything that hearing people do, and they need access via via sign language and via sign language interpreters. So that's where we need to bring in additional income of our own so we can then reinvest that in the community for the initiatives that they're seeking to address. Yeah,
it makes a lot of sense. So innovating, staying ahead, because what, what are deaf people saying to you? They're having real trouble with still, and the barriers to, you know, living, you know, a normal like, if life, if you like,
yes, certainly are. It all starts with with education in deaf community, as is, what a society a stronger education, a better education, be it a compulsory or tertiary level, is is going to help you, in many cases, achieve your goals in the employment sphere, sadly, tragically, very few deaf people, in a percentage of have had the same access to education as hearing people. That is sad, it's tragic, and it's something we're looking to address deaf old drama, as well as many others, had been advocating for for many years, decades, in fact, for systemic change in the deaf education system, and we weren't seeing progress. We were seeing the Ministry of Education make plans and make strategies and write documents and policies and so forth. But there was no rigor to it. There was no timelines, there was no deadlines and so forth. So things just slipped, things dragged on, and things it was not going to achieve in the space of time we needed it to what what needed to be achieved. So in 2020, de fouled trust submitted a formal complaint via to the ombudsman against the Ministry of Education, who, by the way, are one of our major funders. And outside this, we actually enjoy a good relationship with the ministry, and there's a good it's good to have that relationship with them, that they they can fund us to deliver our first science service. But but also understand that we've got a dual role in terms of advocacy and services. So although we lodged that complaint, we did so transparently with the mrification wasn't a surprise. Then we were told them we were going to do it, and in fact, I recall one of their senior managers saying to me that not only was it right for us to make the complaint, and he didn't have a problem with us made the complaint, although they believed they were doing a good job. He also emphasized that deaf Ultra was the right organization to make that complaint. As the leading advocate, advocate for deaf people in this country, we were the right organization to take that complaint forward on behalf of the community and deaf students. So yeah, as I said, education, a lot of work is required the deaf education space to ensure deaf students are achieved at the same level as their hearing counterparts. This
is right from right from Early Learning Centers from birth, from birth,
yeah, from birth. Early Learning Centers essentially ensuring that from birth that those that child has access to sign language. Interesting statistic is that 95% of deaf babies are born to hearing parents, and most of the time their deaf baby is the first deaf person those parents have met. So if you get a real journeys go on for their family, and the families go through a whole range of emotions. They think, Okay, what do I do now? What do I do? I don't know sign language. What's wrong with my baby? How can I fix this baby? And so we put a lot of work in to reassure in the family that they should have high aspirations for their for their deaf baby, and they need to embrace their deaf child and embrace the deaf community. So what we do through our first sign services is we offer reassurance. We offer role models. We have deaf people go into the homes. Deaf people are fluent NZSL users. They're successful deaf people in their own right. And we introduce the deaf family to so the family to the to the deaf role models. They can say, Oh, wow, that deaf person's achieved a lot, so Can my deaf child. We also introduce the families with deaf children to other families in the same situation, because, as I mentioned before, it's only four and a half 1000 deaf people in the country. There's very, very low numbers, as you can imagine. So not many people know other other families the same situations. Often they might see someone in the supermarket or at a shop and so forth. Oh, wow, they're just like me, but they don't go up and talk and so forth. So we we push those relationships, encourage those relationships together. So more parents with deaf children are meeting each other, and there's some really, really strong Deaf parents groups around the country, parents Federation of New Zealand, local Wellington, all around the country, there's more, probably a dozen or so deaf parents groups around the country are really, really strong, smart advocates for that for their deaf children, because
that lived experience. They really understanding the challenges, because they go on that journey, but then to see a family who have sort of pushed through those barriers and had success, and there's been no drop off and aspiration, because that's probably the crucial thing. Is probably the bit with you know, like you and I about the same age, 70s, maybe 80s, 90s, like there has been a shift in terms of stigma attached to disability versus ability. What aspiring just because you're deaf doesn't mean you can't achieve anything in life. Yeah, there
has been a shift, but I think I'm not sure that the shift in attitudes has been matched with a shift in achievement, in terms of deaf and disabled people achieving their aspirations and their potential. Yeah, there's there's been incremental, and there's silly. Some really highlights how there's some great stories about deaf people achieving in the workplace and in the education. But we're not seeing fundamental shift across the entire community, because it really goes back to. Education, we need to get the education right, and that will obviously lead on to people's employment prospects and every other aspect of their lives that they wish to pursue, because A lot's
changed, especially post covid, in terms of, you know, what? Technology's more and more part of our world. So I'm assuming that one of the barriers for school or education could be cost, because some of those aids, adaptions, technology, stuff is separate. Seems super expensive, right? Has technology helped shift things a bit more positively
to a degree? I mean, I'm getting, I'm getting a, probably an email every fortnight from from people who are involved with AI, and we're still getting our head around AI people want to bring in AI interpreters. Also been talk about hologram interpreters for probably a decade or so now, and I think eventually there will be legitimate AI solutions, but, but we're a long way away from that right now, also with video interpreting, which obviously, you know, had prominence through covid and so forth, and through zoom and teams and other video platforms and so forth, and they certainly have a place. But a video interpreter is not always going to be a legitimate substitute for a face to face interpreter. In some cases, it might be okay if you're having a one to one meeting with your boss, and your boss is in Auckland and you're in Christchurch and one of you is deaf, having that on the interpreter joined via zoom might be okay, depending on the content of the conversation you were having, if it was a serious conversation, if it was a if it was a disciplinary matter, or if it was a job interview, then then you'd probably want to do that with a face to face interpreter, with everybody in the same room. But then for some people, it might be okay. Then we look at, say, you know, deaf people going to hospital or GP, or if they're going to the police, or if they're in court for whatever reason, so forth. Really, in that situation, a video interpreter is probably not suitable, and really need to have live interpreters in the room, face to face. So that's three dimensional, because there's been no zoom and teams, it's two dimensional. You don't always pick up all the the nuances. You don't pick up the facial expressions, the body language and so forth. So that means the interpreting is not going to be as effective.
You touched on something earlier on, this, you know, kiwi sign so this idea that is a, there's a sort of vernacular that's that's different for sign language in New Zealand. You have that across other other countries.
Yeah, there's NZSL slang. The same in just spoken, spoken English. Different countries have got different slang and different different terms of different things. You know, there's a MIDI of beer in Australia. Could be called a pot of beer in New Zealand and so forth, or a schooner. And you go to different states of Australia and the same size beer is called a different thing in different states. In New Zealand, just there's colloquialisms, there's there's local terminology for suburb names. So an Auckland interpreter, if they're on video, if they were talking to a if they're interpreting for a deaf person in Christchurch, and deaf person in Christchurch talked about the talk about Hornby or Lynwood or stroen or rickerton and so forth. They the Auckland interpreter might not know the signs for those suburbs, which means that the interpreting is not going to be as effective they might do, or them, or the deaf person might teach them along the way, during the during the conversation, so forth. There's a real bit of back and forth between the interpreter, deaf person, throughout, throughout most when interpreters being used. So yeah, the slang, there's colloquialisms, there's local knowledge and so forth. So really, having local interpreters working with deaf people is what we're looking for most of the time. But, but understanding there are only about 100 110 or 20 interpreters around the country, it's really expensive to fly places these days. So having it's not always possible to get to get interpreters on the ground, face to face all times. But certainly it's something we strive really hard to do really
important Mahi that you're doing in terms of, like aspiration and seeing, say, young person who's deaf, or you're maybe a family that have got a deaf child, and you see sort of role models, people being successful in life. And I think the world's feels like it's changing, especially around we look at sport so Paralympics. Are there a case in New Zealand where, you know, some Deaf people have done amazing things, and you've been able to sort of grab their story and sort of spread that those aspiring stories to your services? Yes, certainly
we are. We're all conduit for information. We have, I think, 30,000 followers on a whole range of social media streams, and we really look to highlight deaf people's achievements. You're
almost like a media company acting in those
media company. But I guess in some ways, we are. We're all conduit for information. People come to us, and via us, they ask us they ask us to share information. We might, it might be the government needs to do a consultation on a on a law change or a policy change, and they'll come to us, and we'll disseminate the information through our networks. We have a we have a newsletter list of about 2000 as well as our sort of 30,000 social media follows. So we're a good place to get information out to the community. And and to receive information, then pass it back through to the government. So
take a little bit of a moment, and we'll, we'll get back to how you join the organization and end up doing the job that you do today. But you, you know, some of our listeners may pick up the fact that you are not from these shores. So you originate from Australia. I think you were born in an island called Tasmania, off Australia, in a place called Hobart. But growing up, was it an experience? Was there a situation which kind of prepared you to work in the for purpose industry, to do something really meaningful with your life? Laser, growing up, what sort of environment did you land in?
I think my my father's a lawyer, my mother's a nurse. So they're probably people who spent their lives trying to help people through different situations. So that might have rubbed off of me. I was young for my my year at school probably should have got stayed back a year. So I left school, in fact, going back to I went through school with one, with a deaf boy, and then left school, not knowing what to do, and so I went and studied horticulture for a year, and I then went on to do an apprenticeship with in horticulture, with the Hobart City Council, and I worked with a deaf man there, and also studied with my apprenticeship colleagues, with another deaf man who was also doing an apprenticeship
you might at this point, even at So primary school was a child that was deaf, like one of the other students, you must and then those other experiences like develop quite a bit of empathy, understanding, seeing life through their lens, a bit, even from a very young age.
Yeah, I guess so I remember just couple of incidences with, with, with the boy Stuart at school. He, I don't think he used sign languages. It was more he had the sort of different sort of microphone set was plugged into his hearing I can't recall what was actually called. Was plugged into his hearing aids. But yeah, he was just one of our mates. He played footy with us. He played cricket with us. He was, I remember, he was a really good swimmer. And, yeah, I don't know, maybe, maybe my future was manifesting at that time. I just didn't know yet. Small school, no, large, large, all boys, private school, yeah, so
place that fascinates me. So it's, you know, it's fairly isolated, right, compared to the rest of Australia, or, yeah,
I guess so. But, I mean, yeah, he was just part of it. And then I think he moved to Sydney and lost touch so forth. I think he's back in Hobart, but yeah. So I met, I met a couple of Deaf guys early on in my work and study career, and then towards into my four year apprenticeship. Must have been about end of 96 or early 97 I enrolled in social
work. What was calling you there? Do you think? Well, yeah, I'm
just still, I'm still talking about that. But anyway, I enrolled in Social Work at the University of Tasmania in Launceston, and I was only 22 and a mate, a couple of mates had just actually moved to Western Australia. It's a long story, but we will get back to the point of why I work here soon. A couple of mates moved to Western Australia. One mate said, Oh, can you drive my car to Perth? So here I am. I'm just about to, I think I've just turned a long way. Yeah. And a mate said, and so I was a foot it was definitely a fork in the road motor. Where do I go to university for four years? Or do I drive for mates Carter, Western Australia and have some fun? And I took the latter and went to Western Australia. I was a very outdoorsy person, so I worked on a lobster crayfishing boat over there. And then I was a commercial diver for a couple of years, doing sort of underwater maintenance and building stuff and blowing stuff up and having a bit of fun there. And then I met my future wife, who's a kiwi, and about a year later, we came back to New Zealand for a wedding, my sister in law's wedding, and we decided Perth was too far away to go back that way. So
it's a six hour flight or something, isn't it? Almost heading into Asia, right? Yeah.
Well, Auckland's closer to Melbourne than Perth is to Melbourne, yes. So went back to Brisbane and didn't know what to do. And I still had this. I had this. I started something in there, lit the fire around, going into the social sector. And this is where my previous gardening experience came, came in handy. So I applied for a job at Wesley mission, Brisbane, which is the biggest not for profit in Queensland, got the job. And I was had a team of adults with learning disabilities, Down syndrome, autism, that we used to take out doing gardening. We have to do that, do all the gardening for the for the churches and properties and so on and so forth that were under the Uniting Church in in Queensland. And then I moved up into a different role in supported employment, open employment, placing, placing disabled people, people with mental illness, refugees from Sierra Leone and Sudan Somalia and couple of others into work. And then married first child, and came to New Zealand, and the only job I applied for was with what we were known that then, that time, the Deaf Association doing similar to work to what I was doing in new in Brisbane, getting deaf people into into jobs. This
is 19 years ago. Year, 2006
early. 2006 was Yeah, yeah, yeah. We moved out into oh five, and started work in early oh six and yeah. So I started with the Deaf Association on the 30th of January, 2006 and about 18 months later, I became the South Island regional manager. That must have been about three or four years, three years so or so. And then I became General Manager of Community Development, and then became CEO in june 2012 and I probably had in my mind it was going to be a sort of five to seven year tenure, and here I am, 12 years later. Yeah, so it's, it's certainly been a journey, learn along lot along the way, you were quite intentional
with some of that learning went. You see, you've you've gone and got yourself some sort of, you know, education nonprofit specific to two types of masters or sort of degrees. You're quite intentional about your learning journey and really understanding the sector. Yeah,
I was one of the last graduates of the Unitec Graduate Diploma in not for profit management. It sadly ended about maybe a year after I graduated. So I went through that. That was three years, and that was a really good course. And probably, I guess, like a lot of education we do these days, at our age and our level, you know, some of it, and the learning process you go through reassures you that what you're doing and what you know was was right, but you also pick up some new things you hadn't thought of before. And then in 2015 I was fortunate enough to go to Harvard Business School to do the strategic perspectives on nonprofit management program. There's about 160 people in the cohort. And there's only two people from New Zealand, myself and Sandra Budd, who was the CEO of Blind Foundation at the time. It's about 20 Australians. Think there's 25 countries. I remember there was a gent from Afghanistan, there was a Bolivian man. There was wide range of backgrounds. Quite a few people from United Way in the US. They're quite big in the US. A few from hapdap, humanity think the Scottish woman to do with a library. There was a woman from Seattle in my group that was from some sort of museum in Seattle. Was incredibly diverse cohort of people, and some of them I still stay in touch with. Now we have this sort of joke about the global crimson club, because Crimson is the color of Harvard. So there's a bit of a joke there. But I think one of one of my colleagues, he went back and did his second second stint, another course at at Harvard, amazing place. It's a you go there and you just, it's just as it should be, that you can just see it's a place where failure is not accepted. I went and watched the American football team training one morning. That was just incredible. To watch them training at sort of half past five in the morning. The levels, yeah, just four months, yeah. And just just the coaches and the support staff are around them. Was just just extraordinary. But just obviously in the classroom. What was really interesting, quite quirky and quite cute, is they still use blackboards. Yeah, there's beautifully blackboards, and they get they get cleaned after every hour of lecture and so forth. And, yeah, yeah. Amazing players. It's Harvard, and we went through about, I think, 17 or 18 different lectures across the week. But I remember now the woman stood out was Dr Francis fry, F, r, e, i If you want to look her up, amazing woman. She's been on the board of Uber. She's been the board of ups the Postal Service. Incredible woman. She's got lots of podcasts of her own, but the one, she was the one person who got the standing ovation after her speech or her lecture during the week. But she talked about, have the courage to be bad. You were like, What do you have the courage to be bad? It's the thing about because not for profits, we're all full of people who are really, really committed and good, and we're good. We all care about our jobs. A lot of us care about care too much if that, if that's a If that's a problem. But she also talked about, you have to decide what you're going to be good at, and therefore what you're going to not do, or what you're prepared to be bad at, because otherwise you end up in a state of exhausted mediocrity, where you end up not being good at anything, you'd be end up being average at everything, and you end up being exhausted. It's a really
good point, because one thing that all nonprofits have is relative scarcity of resources, don't they?
Yeah, yeah. We're all we're all having to wear multiple hats, particularly New Zealand, where people have got to be generalists. There's not, certainly at our level, our level of organization, we have so our general manager of interpreting and translation, he also oversees our finance department. Our general manager of organizational development oversees a whole bunch of different projects. Our general manager of children and youth also overseas communications. So you've got, you've got to be better to roll your sleeves up you're in the larger not for profits. You might have a communications manager, you might have a finance director, and so forth, but in so forth, but in smaller organizations like ours, you've got to be better roll your sleeves up and do tasks that in other organizations you wouldn't be required to do. At
Harvard, did you get a. Sense that what you're learning, what you're picking up, sounds like a wonderful network that you formed, but that it would translate well to different cultures, different settings. You know, because often we do these courses, don't we? And we have these experiences, and sometimes, like you said, the start, they just reaffirm what we already know. Do you feel like that? We really that, course, really made an impact on your future leadership.
Certainly, it certainly stretched me, and I guess, no disrespect to the wealth of knowledge that exists in New Zealand, but, but sometimes you go to new conferences in New Zealand and you've heard the stories before. Yeah, I really look I enjoy if I'm looking to go to a conference, I always look at the list of speakers, and if they got lots that I've never heard of, I usually go to those conferences. If I know most of speakers, I usually give it a bit of a wide berth, because I've heard it before. And no disrespect to them, they've got a good story at all, but, but I've heard it. But, yeah, silly Harvard, with those sort of 20 or 25 different nationalities and 17 or 18 different speakers, it was incredible some of the, some of the things we learned and took with us. And yeah, just go back to Francis fry as she talks about Southwest Airlines in the US, one of the most profitable airlines worldwide. And we, in terms of having the courage to be bad, they are really, really strong on getting you there on time. They are really, really poor on customer service. You don't get to choose your seat, you don't get any food, but they will get you there on time. So if you get on the Southwest Airlines, you know where that you're going to get there. You just need, you know, you got to take your own lunchbox.
Yeah, I've had that experience actually with them. So that that kind of permission, permission, I guess, or fresh perspective, because some of these things can actually, really, you just draw on them throughout all sorts of experiences, right? Like those things, you can sort of anchor decision making. Can almost even if you walked away with nothing else. That sounds like it could have been quite a key moment. Yeah,
that carries me bad. I know them quite, even though it's been it's, I guess I look at all the work deaf Ultra does, and it's all really, really important, and there's some things we don't do that maybe we thought about in the past of committing to that we actually don't. It might seem strange, but we don't teach a lot of sign language, because there's three or four businesses out in the deaf community, probably, in fact, probably is more than half a dozen actually, who do teach sign language. So most time, when we get where we get requests to teach sign language, most time we refer them on to other people. Some we do a little bit. We do a little bit, you know, a few $1,000 a really small amount of money generated from that each year. So most of the things, most of the opportunities to teach signing, we refer on to other businesses. So that, I guess, that's something we've decided not to do. We've decided not to teach sign language, which might seem a bit counterintuitive, given we are the leading organization promoting sign language, as I mentioned, there are other interpreting providers in the country, and some people prefer to go to those, and in some cases, they can if that's where their preferred interpreter works or is available through that Interpreting Service. There are other employment services, there's workbridge, there's CCS, there's catapult and other employment services that deaf could access. And that's great, so right, but, yeah, a lot of people only want to receive services from us, but there's also a lot of people who are happy to go to other services, and that's great that people have got that choice for themselves and your
sort of career arc, or your sort of journey with deaf Altera from from sort of consultant or Doer to leading and CEO, and being intentional about going out and finding knowledge around nonprofit sector leadership, you know, all that stuff, being quite intentional with that. Does it? It feels like you like it's you know, you, you're you love leading a nonprofit, because that's challenging. I love
leading a nonprofit. Yeah, I mean, I was just with someone this morning, just sort of a pier that we tapped to now and then. And there's a, there's, there's more good days than bad, but a lot of is a grinder, some, some not, wouldn't use, maybe not mundane. But yeah, there's, I don't go lots of gallery openings. I don't. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a media tart, if you like. In fact, I think our media adviser would like me to be in the media more than I am. But I guess that's an issue where situation where I've always, particularly on on on TV, I've always as often as possible push deaf people onto screen, and I've taken a back, back seat. Even with radio, sometimes we've actually had deaf people interview on the radio. We're having radio. We're having an interpreter there. But yeah, I do my fair share of media. I probably could do more. But as I said, I try to push out our Deaf representatives in front of the camera, because that just creates more awareness and and see as sign language on TV. We had it yesterday morning on breakfast TV for the first day of international, of International Week of the Deaf. Because
I know a lot of, I know a number of CEOs, and you have the pleasure and privilege of interviewing them on the podcast, but no one CEO is built the same way, right? And it feels like, especially in in this kind of modern era, that it's they talk about authentic leadership and but you know, you can be yourself, so if you're not, you know, not going to talk to the media regular. That's and you lead in a different way, maybe a less visible way. Sometimes leaders that's, that's okay, there's permission to do that, right? Yeah, as
long as Deaf Ultra are in, and pardon me, the needs of deaf people and the views of deaf people are forefront, it doesn't have to be me saying it. And sometimes it's better if it's said somebody by somebody else. It just depends on the topic and the situation. But you know, sometimes it's a CEO and it's got to be you, and it's if a certain message needs to be delivered in a certain way, then sometimes, yes, it does need to be the CEO. Have we? Have we
gone on a bit of a journey in a cycle that, and it feels like there's a lot of clarity now around charities being really, really mission focused. So you might, you'll have heard of mission creep. Yes, you know, like organizations who get distracted and start doing other things sometimes that's led by funders, right? Funders encroaching on leading charities. So part of what we talked about today is actually saying no to some things and doing what you do do really well, but yeah, like, really, if everything's guided by the organization's mission and purpose, you almost can't go wrong. That's simplicity.
Yeah, Mission creepy. You've got to be careful. Because I think sometimes if your mission and with our mission being breaking down barriers, that could be broad. So we need to really be robust and, I guess, disciplined in ensuring we stick within our boundaries. I think there are some organizations out there that I certainly won't mention. I think they they raise money almost just to fund their own existence, but, but it's almost more to keep their doors open. It's like, okay, but what you've raised all this money, but what are you actually achieving for you, for your for your constituents and your community? Because
that charity service, you know that income, part of part of your income is from services that earn income, correct, but they're aligned with your charitable
mission. Absolutely. Our big one is sign language interpreting, which is central to what we do, which, which is ensuring we're breaking down barriers, and Deaf people have the opportunity to thrive and achieve their goals.
So using your IP, if you like, generate income, but you're still delivering your mission. And I had a guest on recently, actually, and it was they'd taken over an organization who was sustainable financially, but it was sort of 80% of what they did was to service 20% of their clients that were bang on the mission, you know. And it was driven by the trustees and then the CEO, because I hired the person to turn that around and be really aware of why the organization exists, because charities don't need to exist today. They can, and there's sometimes success and charities not existing.
Yeah, I think we should be aiming to do ourselves out of a job, if we could get to a place where Deaf Ultra is no longer needed, because either there are other services doing what we do, or doing things better than we do, or deaf people are doing things for themselves and we're not needed, then that would be a great achievement for this organization. I think our organization will certainly evolve. We are certainly evolving, and some things we do more of now will do less of in the future, and vice versa. I mean, I say our organization is we're here, if you break it down to the lowest common denominator, we're here to make sure deaf good things are happening for deaf people, that progress is happening for deaf people. We're here to for any deaf person or a Deaf organization that comes through our door asking for support. We're here to do the best we can for that, for that person or individual. Now that might be a little bit because that's all we can do, or they only might need a little bit of support. So a deaf person, for example, might come to us tomorrow and they found a job ad, they got their CV, and they want to apply the job, and they just need us to spell check their CV. That might be all we need to do, and they're fine with everything else. Or they might have that they might have the job interview or lined up, but they want us to organize an interpreter. Other people might need a higher level of support to help help them get a job. So our job is to do what's required, but never to create dependence or do too much. We need to be driving independence, empowering people, giving Deaf people, opportunities to acquire more skills, gain more experience and to be independent, achieving people in their own right. Yeah,
that's the crucial part, actually, not forming dependencies and ultimately, you know, letting people down or overreaching in terms of you as a leader. You know, as we said, you've gone from Gardner, Gardner, to you know, leading an organization. What have you learned about yourself? And you know, what's your if you got sort of a general approach to leadership, and has that evolved? There's a lot of questions in there. Let's start with, how's it evolved? As, you know, locked in the leader.
I think I look back to my gardening days, and there were times, you know, if my, I think they were called a leading hand back at the Hobart City Council, if my leading hand was away and I, I got to drive the ute and or I got to be the sort of acting leading hand for a day or a week, I do recall having a different mindset for that very, very short period of time. So perhaps it was sitting within me to some degree to be. A leader you felt quite energized by, yeah, I just, I just, I would take on a different view of the of the task that day. I'd mow the lawns differently, that as a leader, as the gardener myself, as the as the apprentice, and I, I guess they say, you know, leaders are born as you know, there's all these lots of cliches and so forth. I don't, I think the main thing for me as a leader, is be vulnerable, be fallible. Self awareness has got to be high.
I think that's that's this stuff's quite new, the way, because some the sort of leadership model I was sold, maybe 80s, 90s, 2000s early. There weren't words like that in it. You know what? I mean. It was being right, being correct, being amazing, being brilliant, I don't know, like that felt like more of the narrative. So it's wonderful. It's great that you embrace those.
There's lots of cliches I say, yeah, you you manage things, you lead people. Well, that's not wrong, but I think there's got to be an intersection between leadership and management. Yeah, there's this, as said, that there's, I don't know how many 1000s of leadership books there are available on Amazon or in the library and so forth, but, yeah, I think they say you've got to make the people around you better. You got, got to get people to believe in what you're saying. You need people to challenge you. I'm really lucky. I've got I've got people around me who challenge me. One thing I really committed to when I became CEO, a hearing person being CEO of a Deaf organization, which is not unusual around around the world, there are many, yeah, there's a couple of organizations that have deaf organizations that have never had a deaf CEO, which is on the outside looks, looks a bit odd, but certainly, when I became CEO, I took over from a Deaf person who was the CEO before me. I then learned not long after I became CEO, there were no deaf people shortlisted, which was quite concerning. So I I really made a commitment then to get as many deaf people into leadership roles as possible. And I think that tally would now be about 12 or 13 or I've kind of lost count, but we've had a lot of deaf people in leadership roles while I've been CEO, so certainly committed to playing my part, to ensuring that when I leave, there'll be, hopefully, 345, really legitimate candidates, deaf people, who'll be candidates to be CEO after me. And personally, I'll be pretty disappointed if the next CEO is not deaf, because it means all the work I've done has been for nothing. So yeah, I think it's making people better around you. Yeah, you've got to. People need to understand it's okay to fail. It's okay to make mistakes. Yeah, for those well, don't, don't make it twice, but also, don't hide your mistakes. Yeah, because I'll find out it's really important. Yeah, you've made a mistake. Let's just fix it and move on. And we don't talk about it again. We don't, we don't go back and say, Well, yeah, you made the mistake last week. Well, no, you made the mistake last week. We're not talking about that again, which can talk about being successful in the future. So it's just learning from your mistakes, admitting your mistakes, and asking for help, because none of us knows everything. And I think having I said, we've had a lot of definitely, when our teams, and I wouldn't, certainly wouldn't have lasted as long we our organization wouldn't have had the success we've had while I've been CEO, without having such strong leaders, deaf leaders and hearing leaders within our organization. So it's getting good people. Yeah, and recruitment is not an exact science, and you don't always get it right. But yeah, I think really working hard with the people you've got. And if someone's not quite right in one role, move, move them around. You know, if they're a good person, you know, they're a good person, you want to keep they'll I think it was in I think was Jim Collins good, the great book. He talked a couple of things in there. They get, get the right people on the bus. But I think, not sure, was that book or another book around about that era. It was about recruit character, train skill. If they're not of good character, I don't care what's what skills they got. I don't care if they've got two, two MBAs, then then they're not sort of person we want. But if they're of good character and they're willing to work hard, then they're probably going to be successful in our organization, or in any organization, really. If you're willing to work hard, you want to learn, and you're of good character, then you're probably going to go a long
way. Do you have mentors? Not
formally, but I have lots of colleagues. I've got people I can call. I remember one that I a guy who'd been a bit of a mentor for me for a while, and when I was thinking about applying for this job, I rang him and said, talk me out of it. And he said, Well, if you apply for this job and you get it, it's not a job, it's a lifestyle. And he's absolutely been right. Another sort of unofficial mentor said to me, and this is advice that I should have listened to, but I didn't, but I try to. And he said to me, the role of the CEO is to do only the things that only you can do, and everything else needs to be delegated. Now that sounds right, and I don't disagree with it, and I wish I'd done that more, and wish I could do it more. But again, we're in a small organization where the people I want to delegate to, they're already pretty damn busy themselves. So it's, you know, there's a knock on effect. So, you know, we're as we're a small organization, if, if one we have one person on leave, it leaves a gap, and we. Don't necessarily have people who can just necessarily jump into the fray to fill in that gap. So yeah, that's been good advice that I've received. So yeah, I don't have formal mentors, but if I have, you know, probably half a dozen people I can call, and they call me too. We exchange information. I equip someone for a couple of hours this morning, and we we exchange information, and we're probably unofficially mentoring each other. Two
more questions, then I'll let you go. Last one really is more of a, you know, a bit about you. So I imagine it'd be kind of tricky being an Australian in New Zealand for so long. You know, you're here because you fell in love with a kiwi. But, you know, like around sports, you haven't lost the accent. People could still pick up the fact you're Australian. What is that, like, great, you know, living in New Zealand, do you miss Australia?
Um, well, we're this weekend's the AFL Grand Final. My team, hawthorns not playing. But I love my footy. I was back in Tasmania a month or so back, and I got to go some some footy, some some evil footy, and some local footy. And I love that sitting around just, you know, same as you go to local rugby here, your local rugby club or football, and
you really, because this is the thing about living in another country, is you have those moments saying you you really value them because they're kind of rare. Yeah, I know done some AFL sort of work in New Zealand to sort of generate that sport over here. But being at home amongst your kinfolk, I guess. Or yeah,
my wife reckons I take on a different demeanor, shurikens, my facial expressions and my laugh and everything changes when I'm in Australia. More annoying, probably, yeah, I'd say so yeah, as Yeah. I mean, I remember going to the Bledisloe Cup at the old Jade Stadium in Christchurch. I think it was oh six or oh seven. And surprising enough there, I know I had. I was head to toe in wallabies gear and track suit and beanie and scarf and stuff and and, yeah, I was one of about one out of 1000 in the crowd there. And remarkably, Australia got the first and maybe even the second try. And I remember I stood up and I wave my scarf around. I was like, Yeah, I just looked around and people were just giving me daggers through the crowd, like I was the worst person. It was lucky. I was surrounded by family, so I got out alive with with all my souvenir, my, um, my merchandise, intact, but, but, yeah, it was there certainly. I think there's, there's, some, I guess, some animosity from time to time on the sporting field. I went to the early this year, I went to the Australia versus New Zealand cricket test at Hagley Park. And on the Sunday, when it looked like New Zealand were going to Skittle Australia, it wasn't a great place to be. But then I watched the Monday, when Australia came back and won. And I wished I'd gone down to Hagley Park, because it was, it was quite satisfying to see Australia get the runs with quite a few over spare on the Monday. So
these moments are great moments when you're living in another country, right? Yeah. I'm just reflecting on moments growing up, and, you know, I'm thinking underarm bowling, and, you know, like there's this, there's a fair amount of animosity, but it does strike me as a key. But I think Australia looks to larger countries for a lot of things. And actually, I think the sort of relationship between New Zealand Australia is relatively friendly, like, I don't, I don't think there's a lot, I don't fit a lot of animosity, yeah,
I think most of the time, yeah. And even, I guess, you know, New Zealand's held the players low cut for 21 years. So I think, I think New Zealand in a rugby context, New Zealand treats Australia with contempt. But then cricket get the tables get turned. Then look at, I guess you look at Australia and England, we usually win the cricket, and they probably usually win the rugby, and there's a bit of bitter to and fro there. Yeah, living here, it's a great place. There's a lot of similarities between, between, between New Zealand and Tasmania in terms of the climate and then geography, the the hills probably a bit higher there, and obviously a lot more seismic activity here in New Zealand, when compared with, compared with Australia. But yeah, both countries have got their their pros and cons,
and we lived quite yet was affected by a really significant earthquake, like, like, still barring, bearing the scars today, isn't it? Like it's a city totally changed by that earthquake?
Yeah, there's, I guess there's probably about five years to go until Christchurch is gonna be more or less fixed. The stadium's, I guess, central to that. That's another two years to go. But everything in the CBD, I'd say, yeah. Five years, we'll see the CBD fixed, and, you know, it was a tragedy. 185 people died. Yeah, that was, you know, tragedy that, you know, families and communities, worker didn't come home, right? Yeah, and will never recover from, in many cases, you know, and people left cry church and have never returned. So that that's, that's something we can't get away from. We would never want to minimize. But, yeah, I mean, Christchurch, as a city, in terms of the infrastructure and so forth, is going to be an extraordinary city in in five years time. Once, once the stadium's done, once, all the once, all the buildings rebuild. I mean, it's bizarre that we've still got, you know, 10 story buildings which haven't been knocked down. You know, 30. 14 years after the event. I guess it's insurance is probably playing a part there. As an atheist, I probably shouldn't have an opinion on the crisis cathedral, but I think it's probably a missed opportunity there as well. I mean, I think they here that's been that's been pushed back for too long, and the crisis cathedral may now never be rebuilt in the in the form that it was going to be so but yeah, it's a great city again. It's got its pros and its cons. I lived in Wellington for for eight years, and Wellington's a great place, totally different from Christchurch. Lot more the there's the culture, there's the color, there's the diversity, but I guess I sum up Christchurch could be with Wellington as Christchurch is warmer, flatter and cheaper. But yeah, yeah, Christchurch is there's pros and cons between all cities. I guess Auckland's a great place too. But you know, I guess you look at, you look at the center of Auckland now, it's a bit, it's a bit, bit run down now. So hopefully Auckland, the CBD and Queen Street of Auckland, will get a bit of a pickup soon.
And the future for your organization, like, what? What's your aspirations for it, the role that you're going to play, looking to the future under your leadership. Certainly
we want to really with our new strategic direction coming in, we really want to drive home ensuring Deaf people are getting the opportunities, getting the support they need, getting the access they need, and thriving and deaf Ultras role is breaking down barriers, ensuring decision makers and people in in positions of influence, ie, the government and other other power brokers, are playing their part. And I guess my way of advocating with the government is has usually been presenting the facts and saying, I'm not going to let you ignore this. And that's that's been quite successful. We had a good win a couple of years ago with it, with a government agency, because we just, we actually, in fact, we use their own information, which was more or less freely available on their own website, to state our case, and we were successful, and we're not. We don't like to get political. We just like to actually have relationships and conversations and so forth. And we understand that there's there's pulleys, there's levers and pulleys within government, and you can't always get get everything you want at the time, but, but certainly, we push pretty hard, and we're in, I would say, weekly contact with different different government officials, just ensuring that our needs and the needs of the community are well known and front of mind. Because you just never know when a minister is going to walk in the office one day and go right, well, today's the day we give we support the deaf community, so you just need to keep, keep our situation well understood and well known by by people
influenced and staying mission focused, right? So that's you know, despite the fact you receive funding from government, doesn't stray, you don't stray from the mission, and you stay a powerful voice and a powerful advocate.
Yeah, we certainly, we've said, No, there's been a few. So we look at, in fact, probably every day, I look at the government tender website, just to see the more opportunities. And in the last couple of years have been three or four where we could have bid for a contract, and we decided not to, because we just thought it was too far out. It was, it was, would have been focused on our community, but it wasn't work we should be doing, and left it for others to take that forward. So I think that's that's that goes back to that courage to say no, or the courage to be bad is to say you can't do everything because then you end up being
average at everything. Welcome Keating Master. Thank you for joining my purposely podcast. Mark. Really appreciate
it. Thanks for listening to purposely podcast, please subscribe and leave your review. I hope you like what you're hearing, because I sure do you.
