Allison Rossiter (00:02):
Our organisation is at the forefront of medical testing. We've always going to be one step ahead. And whether that's genetic testing or certainly over the past two years, COVID testing, we with the organisation to get a test to market within six weeks, we've got to keep on the front foot. We've got to keep looking at a way to add value. And of course our markets change all the time. There's always new diseases and things coming that we've got to try and deal with. I came in three years ago and I spoke to nearly everyone in the organisation and said, what's great, what's not so great. And how can we make this place amazing? And that's from the feedback from the organisation is why I decided it was the right time to go through a transformation.

Andrew White (00:52):
I think Alli, it's so interesting what you're saying. Um, and two things really land with me that, um, we've seen come through in the research. The first one is that as a transformational leader, if you are really going to kick off a transformation, you've got to separate yourself from the status quo. The second is that when you go and tell the organisation, you have to change, then you can't do that in that command and control way. You have to lead them through an emotional journey.

Allison Rossiter (01:19):
You know, you raise a really good point, but the one lesson I learned right at the beginning, I said to the leadership team, right, how about we get the team? And I got the leadership team on board. We get this team and we get them to go away with a blank sheet of paper and come back with this great creation of what we're gonna do. Because I said, there'll be no leadership involvement. It's down to you. You are the people we wanna hear from you. And this was me, I think being a little bit naive, but trying to empower this organisation, who'd been kind of more of a 1950s leadership prior. So we got everyone to do a one minute selfie on why they were gonna change the status quo. So all these selfies come forward and we picked 11 people and they were gonna go away and change our organisation.

Allison Rossiter (02:01):
And at the end, they were, there was a few tears again, and they said, we failed. We've let you down here because we just don't know where to begin. And my learning from that was, I'd give them too much freedom too soon without any guardrails. So I guess my advice would be, if you've had an organisation who's been quite under, under a command and control leadership, you, then can't open the doors and expect them to know how to feel empowered and accountable. You've got to take them on that emotional journey from, from one state of behaviour to another, that was really big, but what it was really interesting, what they came back to me with, and this was the most powerful thing of all, Alli, our culture needs to change. Our culture needs to change before we start designing anything on a piece of paper. And that's then where we focus next,

Allison Rossiter (02:52):
We decided we were gonna take on the agile methodology and not be 100% agile. So we weren't looking to be a tier organisation, but just agile enough so that we, we weren't in these silos, cause that was what was happening before. But we were a bit more fluid and we could move around where we needed to do. So I got a guy in to come and speak to the whole organisation about the basics of agile ways of working. And all I wanted to understand is like, when you go on holiday and you want to say, please, thank you one beer, please taxi, you know, whatever the basics I just wanted just to learn the basic language of agile. And then I said, right, we all have known now about squads and scrums. So let's pull together a squad on culture and we had 40 people of the 200 people put their hand up and say, I wanna be part of this team of this squad working on culture.

Allison Rossiter (03:45):
So when you say about involving the whole person, I involve them all and, and then we'd get them to come and present and work together. And that then we would, we'd ask them the questions. We'd get them to ask questions. We'd get them to run sessions. It was just, it was phenomenal. And, and it was them who built the culture, not me. But part of that culture is speak up and it being safe to speak up and your voice being, being heard and being respected. Through a transformation, we never lost any head count, but we did lose certain people because certain jobs were no longer required. That was hard. It was hard for us to say goodbye to some really great talent. It just wasn't, it wasn't the talent we needed going forward. And it was hard for our, our teams to say goodbye to the people they loved and had worked with for 20 years.

Allison Rossiter (04:36):
During that, that moment, some of the team were thinking, what have we done? Oh my, I wasn't thinking that I was, I was good with where we were going. I was happy with our decisions, as sad as it was to say goodbye to some people. But at the time people were, you know, again, change people don't like change. And so that the communication and going back to the why that's so important. Then as you give them confidence and you keep pulling, come, come with me. This is what we wanted. This is gonna be okay. Then they get on board again and they trust you. And it's okay. Now we've been live in our transformation for 18 months. It's turned out really good, but you've just gotta keep people on the path because it's so easy to get scared and run away, but you've got to keep giving them confidence, putting your arm around them, making them feel it's gonna be alright and reminding them the why, why are we doing this?

Allison Rossiter (05:27):
Why are we got to keep on trucking forward? Now our vision was better outcomes for everyone in Australia. So everything we did was to get to that north star. And that's what we kept talking about. So every communication I sent out, every time I spoke to the organisation, I tried to bring in that line not to be contrived, but because I believe it. And, I believe it in my heart, that's what we're going towards. That's what we've got to try and achieve. That's our daily goal. And when people join our organisation, I sit down with every new employee and we have a conversation a half an hour just to get to know each other. And that's what we talk about. We talk about our culture. We talk about our mindset and we talk about together we've got to deliver better outcomes for everyone in Australia. And I say to people, you can turn up and just do your job and that's okay, we'll pay you.

Allison Rossiter (06:14):
And you can go home at five o'clock or whatever. And that's all right. But when you working somewhere like Roche where there's a patient at the centre, you know, there's a, it could be our family or ourselves who need that test. It's so much bigger than that. And if you come to work thinking and knowing that you change lives every day, you don't come to work anymore. This is this, this is bigger than that. And so it, it is about that buying and it only by changing to, to reflect our market and reflect our customers and try and try to innovate healthcare actually, and drive it to the next level. Will we, will we generate that?

Adam Canwell (06:51):
If there was one thing that you could give to another leader, who's just about to start a transformation programme. What, what would you pass on to them?

Allison Rossiter (07:00):
Have a really compelling why you've got to know why you're doing it and the organisation have got to know why you're doing it. And if that's so compelling that you're going do, cause it's not easy. So it is got to be worth. It's got to be worth it's while. The outcome's got to be better than what you have today. And if you really believe that in, in your heart and your company, your organisation do as well, the journey will be, will be less painful. My other piece of advice will be don't strive for perfection, get on the journey. And like I just said, if it's not right, pivot and stop and, and maybe it is right, carry on going forward, but don't take hard work to be not right. Sometimes it's just hard work. And the third thing is, communicate, communicate, communicate. I cannot say that enough.

Allison Rossiter (07:48):
I sometimes I remember going through our journey thinking what, what, I don't understand why they don't get it. I've told them, uh we've, we did a town hall about it and of the people, as we all know, you need to communicate probably seven times for the message to go in sometimes. And that's, that's a really true statement. Just telling somebody once doesn't necessarily mean it's gone in. And just because I've told them that I understand it doesn't mean they understand it. And I think, you know, when you're dealing with humans, humans are complex creatures. So we have to find as many different ways to communicate as well. If it make videos, do emails, do town halls, do a dance, do a song, whatever. Just find a way to get your team on board. If you want them to rally around. That's really, really important.