"You can have the greatest resources in the world, but the weights aren't going to lift themselves".  Tarkyn Lockyer is a 227 game champion of the Collingwood Football Club who now heads up the Australian Football League's National Talent Development Program. In this episode of Crisis Talks, we explore some of the highs and lows of his amazing career, from the disappointment of missing the 2010 premiership selection, his transition to coach in the same club and how he has found his own leadership style with the help of some amazing mentors.

From no. 34 in the rookie draft,  to 227 game veteran, Tarkyn's shown amazing determination and a willingness to learn from those around him. He talks about the importance of feedback in development, how he has adapted his leadership style from player to coach and the importance of strength - based leadership in moulding high potential talent into high performing teams.

Justin Dunlop leads Ambulance Victoria’s response to public crises as the Director of the Emergency Management Unit. In this Episode, we talk about the simple strategic objectives his team has applied to ensure the safety of staff and the continuity of service for Ambulance Victoria during the CoronaVirus Pandemic. His insights are a masterclass in adaptive planning and leadership.

Since 2004, Justin has been involved in managing Ambulance Victoria's response to major public events including the 2009 Black Saturday Fires, 2009 H1N1 Swine Flu, 2010/11 Victorian Floods, 2014 Heatwave, 2015 Ebola, 2016 Thunderstorm Asthma, 2019 Victorian Bushfires, and the current COVID-19 pandemic.

As a paramedic for more than 23 years, Justin is also the secretariat for the Emergency Management Forum of the Australasian Council of Ambulance Authorities. 

His passion to serve the community is evident in his lengthy history as a former board director and volunteer for St John Ambulance Australia. In 2015, Justin was awarded the Ambulance Service Medal for his work in emergency management and virtual reality simulation.

Tony was appointed Victoria’s first Inspector-General for Emergency Management in July 2014, an independent Governor in Council Statutory Appointment, working closely with emergency management sector partners and the community to strengthen Victoria's emergency management arrangements and enhance community safety.

In this episode, we talk about the importance of debriefing to improving performance and how government goes about reviewing major events to learn the lessons to enhance our preparedness for the future. 

Tim Walmsley is a veteran and the founder and CEO of BenchOn, the world’s first Talent Sharing Platform. Heeding the call for business owners and entrepreneurs to share their ideas to help get us through this Crisis, Tim joins me to discuss how organisations can keep their workforce and share their skills rather than standing them down. We talk about how he came up with the idea for this world-first solution, the process he applied to developing his business plan, and how you can use his solution to help keep your people in jobs during these extremely challenging times. 

A quintessential entrepreneur, Tim saw a problem and instead of accepting it, asked “Why cant we find a better way to manage it?”

If your business is currently suffering from the COVID-19 slowdown, then please either register your business for free through www.benchon.com  or if you have a larger requirement such as bulk staff to redeploy or large numbers of positions to fill, please contact BenchOn directly at [email protected]  so they can create a tailored service to meet your current needs.

From the frontlines of the NZ SAS to the frontline of a global pandemic, Anaesthetist Bill Bestic has seen the best and worst of humanity and understands leadership during uncertainty. In this episode of Crisis Talks, Bill gives us a unique insight into the preparations that are underway in our hospitals, the fears of our medical staff and the courage people are showing every day as they prepare for the worst case.  

“As a healthcare worker, I know exactly why I’m being Intubated. ‘Cos my lungs have failed and my fear then is if well my lungs have failed and I’m being put to sleep on a ventilator, there’s a possibility I'm not going to be waking up from this”.

Faced with the question of his mortality and that of his colleagues, Bill shares his perspectives on courage, leadership and decision making in uncertainty. Bill gives a pretty raw assessment on his disappointment with the leadership being shown at the NSW and Federal government levels and compares this with the real clarity in communications as all levels in NZ. Equally, he shares his optimism on what we can learn and take stock of as a society once we get through this pandemic.

After working on crisis management and continuity with corporates and government departments preparing responses to Ebola, Foot and mouth, H1N1 and now COVID-19 Jason Jarrett asks the question “Is the three-second rule dead?” Jason Jarrett is an adjunct professor in risk management, a consultant on risk and resilience and runs a mega Podcast, A Buddhist Podcast. Jason shares some unique perspectives on lessons from Ebola, Mad Cow and other crisis events that we can apply to confront Coronavirus. 

We discuss optimism bias, managing uncertainty, the death of the three second rule, the phases of pandemics and how to plan the return to work safely post outbreak. 

His daily mantra, “To bring out the best in yourself and the best in everyone around you” is embodied in his recommended daily Coronavirus routine:

1. Pray / meditate - do something for your spirituality

With fires ravaging Australia and questions about the affect of climate change, I sat down with Craig Lapsley, the former Emergency Management Commissioner of Victoria to discuss the lessons learnt from fires in Australia over the past 40 years. 

Craig’s work here and overseas, enables a unique perspective on how to best prepare for the fire threat and how we compare with other international response organisations. 

Have we learnt from these lessons forged in fire?

If there’s nothing more Australian than strangers coming together to help others in their time of crisis, then there is no one more Australian than Darren Hodge. Darren has spent over thirty years in the Victoria Ambulance Service, now serving as one of the elite few MICA Flight Paramedics. In this episode of Crisis Talks, we explore some of the cases he wrote about in his book, ‘A Life on the Line’ and we talk about motivation, fear, failure, success and the chain of life.

“Our currency is empathy”. When social media erupted after the Gold’s bus crash in 2016, we turned to Clare Gleghorn, the CEO of Bastion Reputation Management for support. Clare shares her insights into the impact of social media outrage and how her team measures influence to ensure a balanced response in a crisis; how to manage reputational risk in the digital age; the importance of empathy; and how organisations can prepare for the worst case.

@Cyberhacker Podcaster and CEO of CTRLGroup, Bastien Treptel joins us this week to talk about Cyber Security. He describes some of the industrious ways that hackers and nefarious threats are targeting and accessing our data and what we can do to prevent, prepare and respond if a cyber crisis strikes.