Chapter 7      

People notice when you try to be someone you're not

The next stage of the recruitment process was the leadership ‘boot camp’, or Assessment Centre, as it's correctly known, for the final 14 shortlisted applicants.

We received taxi vouchers and flight bookings in the mail along with a letter directing us to be in Hobart in two weeks’ time for a weeklong assessment to be held in a remote part of Tasmania. We were told what to bring and were given a brief outline of what the week would entail. It all sounded very exciting — James Bond meets Survivor — and definitely not what I'd normally be doing in an average week.

Tough competition

The 14 applicants met at the Woolstore Hotel in Hobart before we were ushered onto a minibus for the three-hour trip out to Bronte Park. As we drove I surreptitiously assessed the other applicants and struggled not to feel insecure. Twelve men and just one other woman. They were impressive. I was surrounded by some very, very experienced leaders.

The first activity at boot camp was for each of us to stand up, introduce ourselves and explain why we had applied for the role and why we thought we would be a good fit for it. I remember standing there feeling overwhelmed. Around me were a Commissioner of Police, a National Distribution Manager of Fairfax Media, a CARE aid group leader, someone who had spent two years in Papua New Guinea and a number of others who had already been to Antarctica.

I remember listening to them, thinking, ‘Yeah, and I've worked in Ballarat … and Warrnambool’. I was completely intimidated, but at that moment I made the decision to continue to be wholehearted about the week. I thought, even if I don't have what these people have in terms of background and experience, I'm going to use this week as an opportunity. Where else would I get the opportunity to spend a week with a diverse group of some of the most experienced leaders in Australia? I'm sure I'm going to learn something from these guys. So whether I got the job or not, I was determined to treat this week as a gift, enjoy it and learn about myself.

There were a couple of people who were being highly strategic about the week. Initially we were very conscious of the mirror panels in the walls and the presence of observers, the interview panel, seated around the room. One or two people set out to present themselves as ‘obvious leaders’ simply through dominating the discussion and being assertive. The first scenario we had was to develop a waste management policy. I knew there were people in the group who knew far less than I did about waste management. I had been dipping my toe in and out of waste management (don't picture it in your mind!) for more than 10 years. I knew the environmental protection acts, I knew the technologies in use and the options available. Many of these people hadn't worked in a government organisation and so didn't understand any of the freedom of information or legislative requirements. But they saw the panel of observers behind the group and tried to dominate the conversation. I too was aware of the panel but I tried to approach it as I would any conversation. I sat quietly until the dominators had run down then quietly said, ‘Well, I've got 15 years of experience in waste management in a government environment, and while I think some of the ideas presented so far are good and would work, we also need to be thinking about …’ and I reeled off several key issues that had been overlooked. The group naturally turned to me and before long I was the de-facto leader of that exercise.

It was the same with risk assessments and the simulated search and rescue, which the Police Commissioner and I led based on our experience of similar scenarios in real life.

At other times I didn't have the expertise to lead. On the third day we set out on a 21-kilometre round-trip hike, including an overnight stay at a designated campsite. We carried our gear in backpacks but also carried a person on a stretcher who was pretending to be injured. I don't know who led us to get lost, but get lost we did. We were supposed to arrive at the campsite at 7 pm but finally struggled in, wet and exhausted, close to midnight. We needed to set up camp and get our food on the stove, knowing we had an early start in the morning. I knew nothing about tents, nothing about choofer stoves — I'd never even seen one before! Straight away a couple of the men started to set up the tents for our overnight bivouac. I said to the person who appeared to be leading, ‘I don't know how to run a tarp or light a portable stove, but how can I help?’ Collect firewood? Yep, I can do that. In my view, it is really important that leaders act when they have the expertise but listen to others when they don't.

Playing games

On the second night of boot camp we each had to stand up and give an impromptu talk about something we were passionate about. At that stage I had been living in country Victoria for two years, and coming off the back of the fire season campaign my passion became increasing the number of women firefighters. The Victorian fire services were still very male dominated and in my view would benefit from greater diversity, particularly in the senior ranks. I received a great response from my talk. People laughed when they were meant to and ooh'd and ahh'd where I hoped they would. I was pretty happy with my effort, but just before lights-out one of the boot-campers bailed me up.

‘I HATED your presentation,’ he spat. ‘Just hated it. You deliberately chose that topic to try to profile women in male-dominated industries.’

I was taken aback. ‘Uh, yeah, that was kind of the point. I believe in it and I'm passionate about it,’ I replied.

‘Yeah … well I'm on to you. You're a female and you're trying to influence the selection panel and guilt them into selecting you. You're manipulating them.’

Pfft. Whatever. I walked away. We obviously had different approaches to the week! I realised there and then that some participants were really taking a very competitive approach.

Instead of taking my talk at face value this guy was playing a strategic game. The aim of the presentation was simply to see if we had the self-confidence and presence to comfortably make a public address that engaged the audience. He met my apparent attacking manoeuvre with his best counterattack, designed to undermine and belittle my ‘strategy’! As the week wore on I would see him do this with others and would come to understand a lot more about him. It was apparent that he desperately wanted the job in order to change his life. He wasn't happy with his work or home life. And he thought the only way to get this job was to pull down his ‘competitors’ — whatever it took.

My approach was much simpler. Be natural. Be normal. Build relationships, and if you're the right person these people will know it. Where he wanted the job for ‘change’, I wanted it for ‘opportunity’. I had a fantastic life already, and I would have a fantastic life afterwards. Going to Antarctica wasn't going to change that; it would just make one year far richer than it might otherwise have been.

I think one or two others at boot camp may also have been gameplaying, and it was interesting to see them revert to ‘themselves’ over the course of the week. They had no choice. The boot camp puts you under extreme pressure, and it's nonstop. We started formal proceedings at 8 in the morning and didn't stop until 11 pm. There is no privacy. You share a room, you eat together, you work together and by the end of the day you collapse into a deep sleep from the constant physical and mental exertion. There is no connection with the outside world. We could bring our phones but there was no signal out in the bush. There was no way to get a boost from outside or even to check in with people.

As well as being physically demanding, the boot camp tested our writing, negotiating and problem-solving skills. Each of us had to mentor one of the other applicants and also conduct a ‘performance appraisal’ with another applicant, providing them with direct feedback on how we thought they'd travelled through the week. A panel member watched the entire process, taking copious notes. We were asked to publicly state our position on alcohol on station and were given various safety and diversity scenarios to respond to. We even ate meals with the panel. There was no respite and nowhere to hide.

All of this was very deliberate. The conditions were designed so you couldn't pretend to be something you weren't. We knew we were under constant scrutiny, and under these conditions we had no choice to be anything other than who we were.

In one exercise we took to inflatable rescue boats (IRBs), often also called RIBs or simply Zodiacs. In teams of four we were required to paddle across a lake, but three of the team would carry a handicap: one wouldn't be allowed to speak, one was blindfolded and the other wore highly effective earplugs and could not hear. The team captain had to provide instructions that all three could understand to navigate their boat safely across the lake. Halfway across the leaders were given the instruction to turn their paddles around, hold the ‘fat bit’ and use the handle as the paddle.

My reaction to the challenge was, ‘Sure, whatever. Let's get stuck in and give it a shot.’ I was too exhausted to question the rationale and just went along with the directive. Some other people spent a lot of time trying to second-guess what the observers were looking for. One of the boot-campers just ‘lost it’. He started shouting at his team, ‘NO! Not that way … this way! Paddle like this!’ After seeing this outburst I quickly realised the challenge was designed to see how we coped with ambiguity and with instructions that were difficult to follow.

Not playing games

One of the big gambles I took during the week was when deciding whether or not to provide a person with unsolicited feedback. We were engaged in an activity that involved setting down logs in front of each other to make a pathway through a ‘minefield’. There was no real point to the exercise other than to see how we worked as a team. It was my turn. One of the other applicants was right behind me, looking over my shoulder. He became increasingly exasperated with the time I took to perform this apparently simple task. He finally exploded, ‘Jeeesus! Not like that … THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!’, snatched the log from me and did it himself.

My immediate reaction was, no … that's not good. That's not how I expect to be treated. In fact, no one should be treated like that. I'm really not happy. I had an internal debate for a few minutes. Do I let it slide or do I say something, because really I'm competing against these people. If he continues to behave like this it will look bad for him and be one more person out of the selection pool. On the other hand, I must be true to myself and to the principles of leadership that I want to live by. Early and fearless feedback is one of those principles.

I approached my boot-camp mentor (another applicant) with my ethical dilemma and asked what he would do. He leant towards letting it slide. In his view there was no upside in addressing it, only a downside. I still wasn't comfortable with that and after another day I decided to provide the feedback. I waited until we could speak privately and provided my feedback to him. I explained that I didn't like how he went about correcting me and presented an alternative way he could have behaved, like, ‘Hey Rach, can I show you a way that might be more helpful …’ It didn't go down well. Feedback can be like that. He was cool with me from then on and he never sat next to me, or even near me, for the rest of the boot camp.

I don't know how it came out, but by the next morning everyone in the group had heard about it, including the selection panel. Towards the end of the week we had a formal interview with the panel and they specifically asked me about the incident. It threw me. What was the correct answer to give in this situation? This was a job interview after all. I had no idea. So I told them what I firmly believed: that I felt the applicant had been disrespectful to me so I had a private word with him about it, it was all sorted and it was between us. The panel didn't ask for any further details. They simply told me they only wanted to know if I had done anything about it. I guess I'd passed the selfrespect test!