- 6 months ago
The Examiner council reporter Joe Colbrook sits down with City of Launceston chief executive Sam Johnson to talk mistakes, learnings, and how council can move forward. Video by Paul Scambler
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00:00I left school wanting to be a detective.
00:04Really?
00:05I had a long life ambition to... I just loved it.
00:09I've always had a brain for problem solving and wanting to understand and, you know,
00:14get in and understand what's wrong and make it right.
00:17And I did the preliminary courses and so forth when I was 17.
00:21I was quite young.
00:23I got accepted.
00:25I haven't got accepted into an advanced intelligence program in Canberra.
00:31And I went, no.
00:34And the reason I went no, and I say this unashamedly, you know, I'm a real mummy's boy.
00:40But I thought, I'm not moving not only at a home but interstate for nine months.
00:46Like, no way.
00:47That was a real big thing for me at 17 years of age.
00:50And I thought, no, I'm not doing that.
00:52But I then followed career ambition number two, which was accounting.
00:57Again, I always enjoyed numbers because numbers to me were problem solving and numbers don't lie.
01:02You know, two plus two is always four.
01:04You can try and put a slant on it but it's always four.
01:07So I started accounting at University of South Australia.
01:10That's where I went.
01:11So two very completely different careers, you know, from sort of police investigative work to accounting.
01:17It was option A and option B.
01:19I didn't join the police force and I never become an accountant.
01:22Instead, I actually joined the finance sector and the property sector through Elders was my first professional career.
01:28And I kind of landed in local government.
01:31Very much so.
01:32Local government is always about problem solving and that can be good and bad.
01:36It's very much about how we solve communities, how we work with communities and solve their problems and solve issues of the day and work with people to get good outcomes.
01:44I mean, that's fundamentally the basis of local government and then right through to organisational management as well, where there's a lot of problem solving.
01:52But so there is some similarities to it, but you probably apply that across most sectors too.
01:56Any human being that says they've never made a mistake has never done anything or they've never made a decision, particularly in management roles.
02:03We're all human. I've always taken the approach of honesty is the best policy.
02:07I mean, you have to, right?
02:08And I've done that also because, as I said, you know, the person I fear the most in life is my mother.
02:13And she instilled in us in a very young age, like, you do not lie.
02:16So my brother and I still to this day, and he's older than me, still fear mum more than anyone, anything else.
02:22You know, if she catches you lying and doing something wrong, then stand by, look out.
02:25You know, she has no fear, let me tell you.
02:27And certainly in the commercial banking sector, I made one decision and I owned it straight up.
02:33I leant into it and it created all sorts of challenges and pain and processes for me.
02:38But it was the right thing to do to go, hey, I've made an error here and we need to fix it.
02:41I remember my boss saying, I wish you hadn't have told me that.
02:44It would have just been so much easier.
02:45But, you know, we both agreed it was the right thing to do.
02:48And it took me through a confronting journey, which as hard as it was to get to the end result,
02:55where I got the privilege of meeting the integrity, ethics and reputation board of a major bank.
02:59And let me assure you, that ain't no fun invitation.
03:02But at the end of it, it was a good experience, an experience I'll never forget,
03:08but also through that demonstrating the actual values of the organisation fundamentally integrity,
03:13to the point where I actually did win the National Integrity Award as a result.
03:17I've had plenty of experiences and one big experience in my local government career in South Australia,
03:21where a whistleblower came to me in a position that I held and said,
03:26I need to tell you something that I'm not comfortable about.
03:28And I use those exact words, you know, if you tell me something, then I can't unknow what I know.
03:32So if you need to think about that, then I suggest you think about it.
03:35And of course, they told me what it was, and that led to a massive three-year investigation,
03:40not about me, about other people, very senior people within the sector,
03:44and a lot of pain, and pain that I didn't need to go through.
03:47But certainly in the position that I held, I would be equally as bad by just saying,
03:52oh, you know, it's not really my pay grade, it's not really my remit.
03:54So, you know, I was quite vulnerable and exposed through that particular process in itself in South Australia,
03:59because I knew it was the right thing to do.
04:02And if I didn't actually speak up, if I didn't hold those people to account,
04:05then I was equally as bad.
04:07So sometimes you've got to be prepared to actually live what integrity really is,
04:10as painful as it is and as isolating as it is.
04:13We had an interesting upbringing, a good upbringing.
04:15When I say interesting, life wasn't silver spoon and beer and skittles for us.
04:19My dad was a truck driver for most of his life,
04:22and his husband truck driving certainly wasn't a highly lucrative career.
04:26He then went into government work to be home more to help mum.
04:29Mum's a nurse, so she went through the old school of nursing,
04:32not so much university.
04:33It was on the job training and so forth, so shift working and nursing.
04:36And I watched my parents work really hard.
04:39We lived in social housing.
04:41My brother and I never went without anything.
04:43We were well loved and we were extremely well fed.
04:46My mother loves to cook.
04:47Everyone's always hungry.
04:48Even if you've just eaten, she'll still feed you.
04:50And we were well looked after in terms of having the things that we needed.
04:55I'm a very proud recipient of a public education.
04:59We never had the benefits of private health or any of those things growing up.
05:02Everything was a normal life.
05:05And my brother and I often reflect on it.
05:07We're very happy about it.
05:08We grew up in an industrial town.
05:10Boys become men and men become tradies.
05:13And the women went off and become nurses or they stayed at home.
05:16There was very much that mentality.
05:18So that's sort of how we saw life.
05:20And for me, as a teenager, because I'm practically useless with my hands.
05:25My brother is the opposite.
05:26He's the boiler maker, fitter and turner and mechanic.
05:28But for me, I just didn't have that sort of coordination skill.
05:31And I used to think, well, this is going to be an interesting life for me.
05:33I can't really be the carpenter or the electrician or something.
05:36And even me enrolling in university when I did,
05:39I was the first person in the family to go near a university.
05:43It was a bit like, you're going to what?
05:45We don't do university.
05:46Well, this is cool.
05:47This is new.
05:48I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it was just that wasn't life for us.
05:52It was a whole new elitist world for us as a family, more broadly as well.
05:57Now, obviously, more and more have.
05:59And cousins have certainly gone on and done some great things as well as the world has evolved on.
06:03But that was life for us.
06:05And it was a great lifestyle.
06:06The mayor should always be, and this is understanding and respecting the roles,
06:09the mayor should always be that principal spokesperson, because that's the role fundamentally.
06:14And they're elected by the people to speak for the people.
06:16That's basically what the mayor does.
06:18I see my role as a public servant.
06:20And I say that proudly, not as a flippant statement.
06:22My role is no different to a senior public servant within the state government or the federal government.
06:27My job is to serve the government of the day.
06:29You give full and frank, unbiased advice, and you respect the decision of the government of the day,
06:35and your job is to implement it.
06:36It's not to point score.
06:37It's not to play games.
06:38It's not to say right or wrong.
06:39It's not to try and take control.
06:41It is understanding how the public service works.
06:43And generally, state and federal do it well, obviously.
06:46Local government, I find, at times can get itself into a bit of a twist in a bind,
06:50because it doesn't quite always understand and respect the roles and responsibilities of, you know,
06:55mayor, representing people, speaking for people, CEO, public servant.
06:59People don't understand their roles and responsibilities,
07:02or accountability comes into play, or they're hearing things they don't like,
07:07or sometimes you start to shine a bit of a light in areas that people don't like.
07:13And that's accountability and integrity in action again, right?
07:16One of the things I've always done in my role, and even when I was a mayor,
07:19I respected the administration, and then now coming onto this side as a public servant,
07:23respecting the views and wills around the table.
07:25And I say this consistently at the table,
07:26I'll give you advice if you want the advice.
07:29But it's not for me to then judge personally,
07:32and I'll give you the full and the frank situation of where we're at.
07:36Some people welcome that and go, cool, no worries.
07:38And they're fine, and they can go off and make their own decisions, and some don't.
07:42But for some people, it can also be very confronting.
07:45I mean, it's still only, what, just over a year now, right?
07:47So my focus has been predominantly the organisation as itself.
07:51You know, the people.
07:52You know, we've got 600 plus headcount across our organisation.
07:56So it's about, what are we doing?
07:58And do we have our internal processes and systems right?
08:01No, we don't.
08:02Are we working on it? Yeah, we are.
08:03And are we doing great work? Yeah, we are.
08:05And our people are really starting to come alive and step up and do some really cool things,
08:09and we'll continue to do some really cool things here as well.
08:11So that's my focus on it and to make sure that the council is supported.
08:15It's also that cultural shift to recognise to the council that you are the premium decision maker here.
08:21Yes, I'll make operational decisions around HR and hiring and firing and doing what we need to do to run the organisation to deliver the things we need to deliver.
08:28But ultimately, the key decisions and strategic decisions sit at the council table.
08:33That's not my decision.
08:34It's not my decision to say what is the strategic view of Launceston.
08:37Yes, I'll guide and help, and we've obviously just adopted our strategic plan.
08:41But that is for councillors to decide.
08:43That is for them to own.
08:44That is for them to articulate.
08:45That is for them to say to the 70 plus thousand people of Launceston,
08:49this is our collective view in the direction of the organisation,
08:52and we've employed this person to make sure it happens.
08:55I take a view quite bluntly that there's some unnecessary point scoring occurring,
09:02which is really unfortunate.
09:04Probably goes to show that some people haven't really enjoyed the level of accountability that has been applied in recent times.
09:11So you do start to get personality clashes and a little bit of point scoring and weaponisation of situations.
09:16Any modern day organisation would want and should to develop their people.
09:22And broadly, that is the approach of this council.
09:25And the Mayor is incredibly supportive of that and has been very vocal about that consistently as well.
09:29As I have been of our executive team and organisation as a whole, it's a common practice.
09:35It's a common practice in Tasmania.
09:37I mean, you can look at councils just down the road that have spent far more money than what Launceston is proposing
09:43on the Harvard experience, as people like to call it.
09:46Launceston as a business is the biggest in the state, right?
09:51And you're talking about a balance sheet that has $2.5 billion worth of assets,
09:56best bet of $160 million worth of revenue and over 600 people, bodies moving around the organisation.
10:02To give you a comparison, Metro, an entire state-based transport network in state government,
10:09is smaller than the city of Launceston.
10:11So they have less responsibility.
10:12Their balance sheet is about a billion dollars.
10:14Their FTE is less.
10:15Their revenue is less.
10:16So when you start to put in comparison and then when you start to go,
10:19well, hang on, what are the executives in state government doing in getting in terms of professional development and growing?
10:25Because you want the organisations to grow.
10:27You want the skill sets to grow.
10:29And if you want the things to be achieved and things to change and strategic plans to come to life,
10:34then you actually need the skill sets of the people who are paid to implement them to actually match that.
10:38And that's where things like Harvard come into play.
10:41And if we break that down, that's as simple as council saying,
10:44hey, CEO, we have an obligation in your contract to provide you professional development.
10:49What does that look like? Give us some options.
10:51I gave them some options.
10:52Harvard was one of those options.
10:54They chose Harvard.
10:56We've got even counsellors participating in professional development.
11:00And that's a great thing.
11:01And they should be participating in professional development to help grow them themselves
11:05and their ability to represent the people of Launceston as well.
11:07So sadly, I think the Harvard thing has, it's a great course.
11:12It's quite well renowned.
11:14Out of an entire three-week program, you get two days to rest.
11:20And then on those two days, you've actually still, which is two Sundays, by the way,
11:23you've then still actually got to do the readings and prep work.
11:26And you start at 7.30 in the morning and go three to five at night.
11:29So my itinerary was literally fly in, stay two nights to get over the jet lag, hit it, start it.
11:35And I was flying out literally the day after it finished.
11:37So it was no sort of big holiday, you know, stay for a bit longer.
11:40It was none of that sort of stuff.
11:41And that's also primarily because of the personal commitment it requires.
11:44It would be very unfair of me to say to my wife, oh, by the way, I'm going over for three weeks
11:48and I might stay for a holiday, you know, that would be not a cool thing to do.
11:51And I'm very lucky that I've got a very, very supportive and accommodating wife
11:55and always has been throughout my career and our life journey as well.
12:00So unfortunately, Joe, that's what I would call weaponisation and sabotage at its best.
12:06And it's very unfortunate, it's very disappointing, but that also shows that sometimes people,
12:10when they're deeply threatened, will drop to the lowest common denominator.
12:14I would be a hypocrite.
12:16Remember, I come from the Bronx.
12:18That's my comfort place.
12:21That's actually one of the things I'm deeply disappointed about in Launceston,
12:24is the neglect of the northern suburbs.
12:26I look at the investment we make and historically have made,
12:29and there's a lot of investment being made in CBD, as you'd expect, right?
12:35It's the pinnacle part.
12:36And to be really blunt, and I've said this in council workshops,
12:41I feel at times we are an elitist council.
12:44And that's changing.
12:46That attitude is changing.
12:47That investment style and approach is changing.
12:49And I'm not saying we should pull away from where our focus has been in the past,
12:53but it was pretty obvious to me coming here.
12:56Well, my natural place is out in the burbs, right?
12:59That's where I grew up.
13:01That's me as a human being when you boil it right down.
13:04As I said, if you ever get to meet my mum, you'll understand.
13:06If you meet my brother, you'll definitely understand it.
13:09But I think we could do a lot better.
13:13You've got this such difference in Launceston where you've got extreme wealth
13:18and then you've got extreme poverty.
13:20There's a little bit of in between, but you've just got such this chalk and cheese comparison.
13:23And I do believe Launceston has a role, as a council, has a role to play in that.
13:27We can do things.
13:28We can do simple things in that.
13:29We can work with the schools to do things.
13:31We can work with community groups to do things.
13:33But more importantly, we can actually invest in our own assets.
13:36You know, I drive around Waverley and Roachley and so forth,
13:38and I do that regularly to sort of, you know, when you're a local government nerd,
13:41you go and do these things.
13:42You look at the signs, you look at the bins, you look at the parks,
13:44you look at the footpaths.
13:45And I often look at our infrastructure, so our footpaths, our roads, our signs,
13:49within those suburbs.
13:51And they're awful.
13:52We can fix that.
13:53You know, I look at roundabouts here in the CBD.
13:55Broadly, they're pretty good.
13:56You know, we put lots of flowers in them.
13:57Every three months we change flower beds around and stuff, which is great.
14:00It looks fantastic.
14:01We don't plant one flower out in the northern suburbs.
14:04Couldn't tell you the last time we planted a tree out in the northern suburbs.
14:07We can fix that.
14:08That's not a significant investment.
14:10And that starts to instil community pride.
14:13And it's the old adage of if we don't show that we care about our own assets
14:19and a part of our own city, then how do we expect our people to care?
14:22I'm a believer in you.
14:23Stay in the role so long as you can add value.
14:25There's nothing worse than a hanger-on-er where someone stays in a role
14:29because they feel entitled to stay in a role or, you know,
14:32without me, the council won't survive.
14:33I mean, that is being a martyr when you get to that approach.
14:36So when I feel I've done what I can do,
14:39I'm quite happy to then hand the reins over to the next person
14:42because that's what public administration should be.
14:45And the same with councillors.
14:46You know, they should achieve what it is they've set out to achieve.
14:49They should know what it is they want to achieve.
14:51They should have a vision and they should be articulating that vision.
14:54And once they've felt that they've been able to achieve it
14:56or done the best they possibly can to get there,
14:58then you allow renewal to come through.
15:00It's no different on the administrative side.
15:02We do the best we can.
15:03We allow renewal to come through.
15:04Otherwise we become stagnant.
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