Episode 35 The Art of Business: Elevating Performance Through Creativity with Bourby Webster
Reimagining HR with Trina Sunday challenges traditional HR practices
Trina Sunday: If you want an innovative workplace and innovation is going to be at the core of your business or your organisation doing cool things, then tune into my chat with Bourby Webster. She’s an absolute creative powerhouse who’s known for her energy, her imagination and her fearless approach to leadership. And we talk about encouraging creativity in all aspects of life and our, organisations using creativity to bring people together, spark bold ideas and to challenge the status quo. Welcome to Reimagining HR with Trina Sunday, the rule breaking podcast where we challenge our thinking and our, current people practises. This podcast is for time poor HR teams and business leaders who are feeling the burn, lacking laughs and not feeling the love. I’m Trini, your host and I’m here to cut through the bs, explore different ways of thinking and create high impact HR functions because happier, healthier organisations are better for our people and our bottom line. So if you are keen to flip traditional HR on its head, hit the follow or subscribe button so you’re the first to know when new episodes drop. I’m, um, here to help and also to shake things up. So let’s get started.
Bourby Webster is the founder of the WA Symphony Orchestra
I’m really excited to be joined today by Bourby Webster. She’s an absolute creative powerhouse. She’s known as the founder of the WA Symphony Orchestra, but that just barely scratches the surface. She’s had a career that spanned the arts elite, sport, television engineering, business consulting. I’m not sure if there’s anything Bourby can’t do and she has that rare mix of creative and commercial which is bringing lots of different sectors that are in her world alive. And I’ve seen Bourby chat with rooms of people and bring creativity to spaces where I don’t always see creativity. And so along with being a professional violist and doing awesome things in terms of UK Electric String Quartet Bond, she is a, medal, a winning international coxswain, the first female, I believe in wa, first female Kings cup cox and she’s now steering a bunch of blokes, the Black Swans crew, Olympians champions and she’s leading that as the cox from the front. So I’m really excited to talk to Bourby because she is very passionate about encouraging creativity in all aspects of our lives and I feel like we are missing that in a lot of our organisations. So welcome Bourby.
Bourby Webster: Oh, thanks for having me.
Trina says culture and creativity bring people together
Trina Sunday: You’ve done a lot of things, a lot of things. And I’m really curious to know, maybe you can talk to us a little bit, especially for people that don’t know you, a little bit about your story. And your background and kind of what’s brought you to the spaces that you occupy today.
Bourby Webster: Oh, my goodness. So if I trace back where everything stems from, it’s. I grew up in a village and I was part of a community and it’s just such an incredible thing to be part of a community where it doesn’t matter how old you are or how wealthy your mum and dad are, whether you go to the grammar school or the local comp, like, it’s just an even playing field. And, you know, we had a playing field in our village and very, very Vicar of Dibley. But music was the one thing that connected us all. Like, there was always something going on in the village, whether it was a dance or a play or a thing. And so. And everyone participated, everyone helped out and contributed in some shape or form. So, you know, I’ve always just inherently understood that culture and creativity just bring people together in the most extraordinary way. And I’ve kind of made it my life and I’ve seen firsthand the impact of that now. And every single thing I’ve done has been building communities, but building through arts and culture, because there’s something quite extraordinary about human talent. I mean, as much as it’s incredible watching dogs do tricks to watch a concert violinist, you know, which is thousands and thousands of hours of practise, why is it that humans commit themselves to doing something like that that then gives us all goosebumps, and why does that matter? And why is it useful? And why do we not value it as much as someone who can make money on the stock? And is their gift greater than the violinists? And did it take as much work? So, you know, sort of really kind of understanding arts and culture’s place in society has really kind of driven me to kind of say, you know, we need to change the narrative. I think the human race is going off a very bad tangent right now. So all of my career and my jobs and everything has been about that. Building community and connecting people through extraordinary experiences by connecting them with ridiculously talented people who’ve chosen to be talented because we’re actually all creatively gifted. It’s just some of us choose to pursue it and others don’t.
Trina Sunday: I love that. And I’ve seen you, I’ve seen you in rooms before, you know, get people to put their hand up of, you know, put your hand up in the room if you’ve played a sport as a kid and, you know, Then keep your hand up if you’re still pursuing that and then flipping that for the arts around. Like put your hand up if you played an instrument or did something as a kid. And what we find in the room, and I’m sure this has happened in many rooms before, I’m sure, than the ones I’ve been in, but a lot less people have got their hand up for those creative pursuits. Right. Like they drop away. What do you think is contributing to that the most?
Bourby Webster: You know, I wish I could have tonnes of data and research at my fingertips, but unfortunately we’re not very good at researching as well. In the arts, you’re only just scratching the surface. Look, there is such a focus on winning as a global message. You’re either top of the ladder in the GDP as a country or you’re not. You know, like we measure everything on winning and how much we make and how much money we can make. And as a result of that, you know, this huge emphasis on sport, you only have to look at the fact that concert halls are closing and arts companies shutting down and stadiums are getting bigger and bigger, and bigger. And you know, that kind of focus on that win mentality has kind of led us all to think the sport is the absolute measure of greatness outside of work. And you know, we all know someone at our work who’s recently won, a triathlete or someone who’s recently won, you know, like it’s all about someone coming to work and saying, I won this or I got a PB or I did whatever. But if someone just said, I came and did this amazing 20,000 piece jigsaw, everybody, oh, okay, you know, like we don’t value it, we only value winning. And I’m scared to be in a world where win, lose, as opposed to win, win is the thing that we value most and particularly in our organisations and our workplaces. It’s not that sport is bad at all. As you pointed out in your intro, I’m a hugely passionate sports person and I love winning, but my goodness me, is that completely balanced with other things that aren’t about winning, that are about creating impact or giving joy. And those things to me have as much value as the medals that I’ve won.
I believe that creativity is essential to workplaces
Trina Sunday: And to your point around, you know, we are going off on a bit of a tangent and I lay up at night worried about humanity. I am acutely stressed about where we are going and the trajectory that we’re on. And creativity is one of these things where if we, if we do bring people Together and as you talked about that sense of community and I just have this Vicar of Dibli imagery in my head and I’m just like, it’s just making me smile on the inside. But it is about bringing people together with these, you know, whether it’s common purpose in organisations, but united by experiences. Right. And experiences don’t have to be about the winning. It’s like, it’s the joy, of competing or I do a lot of work in kids sport because my husband and I also have a football academy and we see this starting really early. Like the winning starts really early and we start to put accolades on that and value that, as you say, and so slowly over time, but it’s happening earlier. I think the creativity is being less valued, but from a workplace perspective, which is obviously the space I play in the most, that bringing people together, that’s where we sparking bold ideas. It’s where challenging the status quo comes from, it’s where innovation comes from. And I believe that creativity is essential to workplaces.
Australia is 49th in the world in terms of productivity according to OECD
But I’d love to hear, kind of, given your background, how do you talk about or think about creativity and the value it, can bring to an organisation?
Bourby Webster: It’s all the things you mentioned, but it’s actually more fundamental than that. We know inherently that when we’re inspired and motivated, we do great things. That’s just who we are as humans. If we are inspired, if we are and motivated and feel valued, then we will deliver in spades. And why is it that Australia on the productivity index, Global Product index is so embarrassingly low? I mean, I think we’re something like 12th GDP globally, but we’re 49th, um, productive. So most of us are just sitting there looking out the window. We think we’re not, we actually think we’re doing stuff, but we’re not inspired. It’s a slog. Most days are not in free flow of passion and excitement and go, oh my God, it’s five o’ clock. Crap, it feels like two o’ clock. And arts, and creativity are completely missing from our workplaces. So most offices will have a gym, they’ll have a bike rack, they’ll have showers. They’re all geared up, come to work fit and strong. Come on, everyone. Be as fit as you can to work as hard as you can to make us more productive, to make us more money. But we haven’t once just gone, actually. Do you feel like you belong? Do you actually feel like you’re making, you’re changing the world? Do you actually feel like you as a particular human being and the things that you are really good at and specifically special at are valued and noticed here. Or do we just want you to keep sending more emails out of that computer? And I really feel that if we were to say, well, if offices are going to have all those things, gyms, bike racks and showers, maybe, just maybe they should have practise rooms and art studios and listening rooms and if they did, what would that mean for us? And look, there is a huge amount of science that backs up the need for humans : to create. We are an extraordinary species and when we synchronise, which we can only do through singing and dancing, but which is why everyone all over the world does it, amazing things happen to us. But my gosh, the cringe factor I get, if I literally suggest to someone they’re going to sing, I almost watch them disappear under the table. Particularly here in Australia, way more so than in England or Europe or other, other countries. And I feel until Australia gets over its cultural cringe and starts being more creative in the workplace, we will not feel motivated, inspired. And so there’s not even a hope in hell of us being problem solving or ideating or imagining new futures of energy or technology if we’re not motivated and inspired. And as humans, the times that we get goosebumps is generally the times when we’re somewhere artistic or creative.
Trina Sunday: That’s so true. And I mean, you’re leading two production companies now in terms of the Rare Company and North street and obviously outside of workplaces, you’re looking at how to deliver performances and productions across Australia and also taking talent offshore. Right. And we do have phenomenal talent, but I also feel like it takes a lot, especially in the Australian culture as you talk about. I think it’s a fear of judgement. I think fear is most of what holds cultures back in terms of innovating in workplaces, but it’s also what thwarts us from stepping into trying new things and because we don’t want to look like idiots. Right? And that seems to be something where we do have a hang up about that and it just stops us. And this is a thing where you look at small children and they just, they don’t care and they’re just owning the world and they’re tutuing up a storm or the jumping around, they don’t care. But it’s, it brings a smile to our face as adults, I think, because we just are jealous that that’s not us and we don’t have that free, free spirit. But we Could. And so there’s a big mix from your production company kind of efforts and what that can bring to community, to what we kind of enter into our workplaces or what we might drive in our own personal lives.
You talked about arts and concert places, clothing. What do everyday people can do to bring more creativity into their lives
And I’m just curious to know what you’re seeing in terms of. You talked about arts and concert places, clothing. What do you see the things that everyday people can do to bring more creativity into their lives. Oh, my gosh, there’s so much.
Bourby Webster: I mean, look, it would really help if workplaces valued it too and created a space for it, because, you know, you can cycle to work so you can kind of use that time effectively because we’re all so damn focused on being productive and making money for somebody else, you know, that that’s sort of going well. I haven’t got enough time to be creative. But my goodness, maybe we actually do. I mean, if every single way that we communicate with someone is purely in writing, I’m just like, we’ve just missed out on the opportunity for sharing a huge amount. So, you know, I just keep saying, you know, that instead of families going to the park to chuck a footy around, you know, why don’t you go to a concert and sing or, you know, actually go and see something or do a jigsaw together? I mean, the workplaces, particularly from lunchtime choirs to Battle of the Bands, you know, the one thing I do find is that people aren’t. You know, shame is a big thing in Australia. People are so ashamed to say, I’m a ballerina if they’re a boy. You know, I have one friend who had a son and his father was like, over my dead body will my son do ballet? And I’m like, why is that? Why do you think ballet in Russia, male ballerinas are like bloody stallions. It’s the strongest, most powerful, controlled, extraordinary, goosebump worthy thing that a man can do is be a, um, male dancer. So, you know, I just. I find that so extraordinary. So I think if workplaces could help us express ourselves a bit more, then we’d fit it into our lives better and then we’d go home and have. It would always give us permission to do it with our children. So I think, you know, workplaces creating space for painting, listening, drawing, connecting, even sharing colours. Like, Trina, you were there the other day when I was giving a keynote and I just made sure that every table had crayons and paper and I might just doodle, if you feel like doodling, throughout the whole thing. But by the way, just Put down something, some shape in some colour that will let people on your table know how you’re feeling and how you want to express yourself. And we pick up. We are so extraordinary. Like colours matter to humans and shapes matter. We instantly know if something’s written in block capitals that it’s giving us a different message. If it’s written in italics.
Trina Sunday: Yep. Stop shouting at me. Stop shouting at me.
Bourby Webster: On email with your caps lock so shaven for just. We actually understand it so much more than we. That we use. And our ability to express ourselves to each other could create such different workplaces.
Trina Sunday: It was an interesting experience at the keynote. Just to kind of expand on that a bit, like from someone that was at a table and without exposing anyone, of course. We did have a gentleman at a table that was just like, I can’t even. I’m, um, not picking up a crown. I just. I can’t. I’m not even going to attempt to do that. And was absolutely not in a position to even pick up the crayon. And I was kind of leaning into that. I’m like, but what is it like, who cares? Like, look at what I’ve drawn. And the other thing from a behavioural observation perspective was there was chaos all over the paper. Like, everyone was scribbling what you would, you know, if you imagined Mr. M messy in the Little Men series. Is that what it is? But you know, that’s kind of what people’s brains were like on that Friday morning. But it was a really interesting. And I went all in on encouraging this guy to pick up that crayon without kind of forcing it into his hand. But it was like, but who cares? Like, I’ll draw. And it’s something that you take for granted as well. I have a six year old. I didn’t have a child until I was 40. And so I’m doing lots of little person stuff at an age where other people have really come through that long time ago. So I guess I’m exploring things a bit differently. But he did do it and he thought it was hilarious and we were having great conversation on the flip side. But it was striking to me. It was striking. And it’s these little moments to tune into, especially for someone like me, that works in the people space, right? Where it’s like, if you have people that fearful of being exposed by a suggestion of just scribbling something on a piece of paper with a crayon, how do they show up in meeting spaces? How do they show up in conversations, in workshops where if There is that fear of judgement that’s so inherently grained that you can’t step into that space. It saddened me, to be honest. Like, it was, it was really hard.
Bourby Webster: so how can we be inspiring when we’re holding back?
Trina Sunday: Yeah. And he drew something cool, right? Like, he drew something really cool.
Bourby Webster: Of course he would.
Trina Sunday: And it was something that looked different because he was thinking about it differently as well. But I think it’s just such a powerful metaphor for why we’re not as innovative as we might want to be. Like, we talk a lot in organisations around wanting to have innovative cultures and to be able to do cool things, but at, every turn we’re stifling creativity. Right.
Bourby Webster: 100%.
Trina says innovation is the practical application of creativity
Trina Sunday: Um, how do you talk about innovation? Like, from a corporate speaker? I talk about it in a certain way with my clients. How do you talk about innovation?
Bourby Webster: I just think innovation is the practical application of creativity. It’s actually putting creativity to work. So if you’re not using your imagination and you’re not, thinking creatively and experimenting and all the rest of it, how can you innovate? And even, you know, if you’ve got an innov. You know, when I speak to entrepreneurs and they’ve got a really innovative idea and I’m like, but if you’re going to do it through existing channels, the whole thing kind of grinds to a halt. There’s a reason that so many startups don’t get off the ground, because the idea is the innovation. But then the systems and processes and way that we try and get it off the ground is only what exists. If we’re only ever going to do what existed before, like, you know, we would never have the iPad. You know, you, you’ve got to continually be. You can only create an iPad if you can imagine it. So imagination is a muscle. The creative part of our brain is a complete muscle. And so if you’re not working it. I find it extraordinary that children can tell stories of unicorns and worlds and they create imagine in our imagination, but by adults. When do we do that? When have we ever kind of dreamt a different world ever? In our workplace, we’re just simply going through strategy as told by various strategic consultants and using boxes. And we’re only limiting ourselves to this unbelievable structure and process that’s gone before. I feel that. How can that. That’s never going to be inspiring. So people coming to work are just not going, oh, my God, every day I could change the world in some way. They’re coming to work Going every day I’m going to incrementally improve something. And that’s not inspiring.
Trina Sunday: No.
Bourby Webster: You know, like you don’t go to a movie and watch someone conquer a village. You watch them conquer the world. You know, like. Yeah. So you know, if it just. In our workplaces we’re so incremental. We’re not because we’re not brave because we refuse to pick up a crown. You know, and that’s actually a metaphor. But it does matter. Like he will have. Thank you, Tina. Because you will have changed that man’s life. Because what else is he saying no to? And then I think everyone in that room, the volume of people chatting and laughing. The minute I said go.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Bourby Webster: And everyone was like, oh my God, someone just gave me permission to draw. I haven’t drawn since I was a kid. And there’ll be people listening to this podcast if I literally go, when was the last time you actually used a crayon in colour? Not just doodling with a pen away, actually use a cranial killer and just do something and it’ll be so in your distant past. And it’s like, but things come out of physical drawings.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Trina says as we get older, our brains are losing brain cells
It’s really interesting because I do, as part of some of the work I do with exec teams, I mainly and typically work with HR leaders and chief HR officers and I’m. I work with HR teams to transform how we are, doing our people stuff and trying to influence that so that we can do things differently and shift mindset. But that also means working with exec teams. Right on people strategy and trying to get that shift happening so that the bridge between those that do not speak to each other in the same language. But it’s really interesting when I do psychometric testing and some of the things I’m accredited in, I get people to colour results. And it’s one of these things where even with execs and they’re like, are you really asking me to colour? I’m like, yep. They’re like, but this is so juvenile. M. I’m like, okay.
Bourby Webster: Like, don’t you find that weird? That also, you know, when I sort of talk to people about can we bring more creativity into a workplace? Leaders instantly think it’s for the workers. I’m like, no, no, no. You.
Trina Sunday: Mhm.
Bourby Webster: I’m sorry, you. When are you going to be more creative? The company shall remain nameless. But I worked with a large company recently at the very highest level global company, and I got them to try and tell stories and they were absolutely incapable of doing it. They’ve got zero imagination. And it wasn’t just that they were incapable, it’s. They didn’t want to for fear of coming up with a crazy. And I’m like, hang on a minute. They’re in an industry that needs to radically shift for the future of humanity. And I’m like, but just in case you might look juvenile, you’re not prepared to do anything but incremental shifting in the way that you communicate, that you talk, that you lead, you can’t imagine a different future. You’re not even prepared to imagine a radically different future. So I’m scared. I’m scared that, if you’re the leaders of an industry that needs to transform and you’re all holding back from picking up a crayon just in case you look bad, I’m like, oh. I mean, that’s why I’m worried about the world, you know, if only we could go back.
Trina Sunday: How do you not lose faith in that, Trina?
Bourby Webster: it’s so simple. You told that man, what have you got to lose? Give it a crack. And as a result, you made him feel safe enough that it didn’t matter and he did it. That’s one person. And it took five seconds and didn’t cost you any money. That’s why I’ve got so much faith. I am m. Literally like companies, the amount of money they spend on consultants and strategy and HR and support.
Trina Sunday: We both consult, right?
Bourby Webster: But yeah, and I’m literally like, this is insane. All you need to do is lead creatively and be a creative person at work and be visibly and try communicating through song, dance, words, movement, colour, texture, shape, storytelling. That’s all you’ve got to do and it’s free. And your entire company would be utterly, transformed. And it has to come from the top down. I think one of the fascinating things that people don’t realise is that as we get older, we’re losing brain cells. So the whole reason that we end up shuffling when we’re old is not because our legs stiffen up, our muscles still exist there. It’s because our brain signals don’t move as quickly to our legs to say, move. So everything up here is slowing down from the age of 11, in fact. So by the time you become a senior exec, you’re missing quite a lot of brain cells. So you’ve, you’ve actually learned some knowledge, but your brains have shrunk and you’ve missed brain cells. Now, there was a study in 2023, in an old people’s home in Switzerland where they taught 50, 70 year olds to play piano after six months. Because you are cognitive processing. You’re doing sound with physical movement, with reading notes, which is in a tempo, which is rhythm. All these different brain things are going on, awakening a part of the brain that most people never use. Within six months, the average growth of the brain was 15%. 15% of growth in a 70 year old. To get your brain cells back because of learning an instrument and the processing that that requires, it’s not juvenile drawing, you’re doing physical cognitive computing, textual shapes, alignment, fractions. You’re like, here’s the size of the paper, here’s the size of the lineup, all of that. And you’re trying to say something in colour as well. And you’re trying to get people to recognise things. You’re using your eyes, you’re using organism, these senses. It is extraordinary what is going off in your head when you do that. And if the average brain growth was 15%, imagine what the biggest was. And yet here are our leaders recoiling further and further from doing anything that’s uncool, unmasculine, unleader. Like, as you can tell, I’m quite passionate about this, but the change is hugely powerful and hugely simple. And I’ve. With the people that I’ve managed to work with and encourage them, it’s glorious. Everyone has a gift. Everyone’s actually very creative and once you allow them to do that and they realise that no one around them is cringing, in fact people are going, that’s actually pretty cool. They start doing it more. And the infection that would have. I mean, imagine St. George’s Terrace, the main business street in Perth, where every foyer, instead of just being filled with a coffee cart and people trudging their way to the office, was filled with art or photography or live music or poetry readings and rush hour performances, all created by the people who work on the floors above.
Trina Sunday: I love that.
Bourby Webster: And that becomes the hub where everyone meets and showcases what they do. And everyone’s like, holy shit, there’s Jane in accounts. Look at what she just did. Yeah, I don’t understand why we think people cringe when we do something, when we’re in awe when someone else does something. And you don’t even have to be that good at it because I think.
Trina Sunday: It’S just you delightfully surprised, right? And to your point around, you don’t have to be that good at it. I think part of what’s resonating with me in listening to you talk about that is, I respond to people who are brave, I respond to people who have a crack. And so I’m that person that cheers on, um, the underdog at a karaoke bar. Back in the day, karaoke, depending on my Japanese days. But you know, like, I’m the person that’s like, I love it when the most unsuspecting people go up there and then blow it out of the ballpark. Or you have people that just have a go and are having fun and it’s just, it’s contagious. Like the energy that comes from creativity is contagious.
How do you keep creativity alive when things are complex and messy
But I think there would be a lot of people listening that see their leadership team in that client that you just talked about and that struggle, with the thought around. We do have a leadership team that can’t be vulnerable. We have a leadership team that just are not willing to take leaps forward, the incremental change. And I’m a fan of design thinking and iterative change and not big bang transformation, because half the time we get it wrong and it takes too long to actually make a difference. But the creative channels around improvement, we’ve got to give space for that. But there are a lot of people listening that they would see their leadership team as the one that you described. And I think that how do you keep creativity alive when things are complex and messy and commercial? Because people don’t always put commercial and creativity together. You’ve made a business and a life out of doing that so successfully. And not everyone gets that chance.
Bourby Webster: If you want people to come back to the office, if you want people to be productive, if you want people to be excited and infectious and work their butts off for you, it’s an absolute no brainer. And this is free. I mean, literally, singing in the office is free. Bringing creativity, asking people, hey, mate, you play the guitar, why don’t you come and jam at lunchtime? We’ll have a luncheon, listen, you know, like, it’s free. It’s just insane. And you know, there is this thing where leadership is, oh yeah, boom, you’re right. We should be doing this for our team. No, forget the team. They are so creative and they’re hanging out for it. Everyone is actually inside, trust me. And I know this because I do it. And if I give someone a crayon and a piece of paper, I can’t stop. It takes 10 minutes to get the room back in control.
Trina Sunday: Yeah.
Bourby Webster: So, you know, this is such a no brainer. But it’s the leadership. If we cannot help leaders lose their sense of Shame. Oh, my God, I’m so ashamed I can’t sing, you know, And I. I regularly show videos of soccer games and stadiums around the world where the entire stadium is singing at the top of their voices. And I’m like, do you honestly think that that fat bloke up there and that skinny bird and that old lady, do you think they give a flying whatever that they’re not singing perfect? No, of course they’re not. Like, we’ve got to get ourselves out there and connecting, you know, I often find it amusing that people just go, I love going to the city. And I love. I’m like, yeah, because they’re entertainment with tonnes of music and activation and creative people. Every time a goal is scored, someone has used creativity to go, right, we need cannons, we need this music, we need dancing, cheerleading. So the bits that make us feel good about the winning is the art. So. So I, I find it really amusing. People go, I’m really not into the arts. I’m like, what are you talking about? You go to sport all the time. And if you can’t understand that, the way that we connect people to that sport is through the music and the entertainment. But, yeah, we’ve got to somehow address the leadership shame and cringe and fear that we have, particularly in Australia. I’ve seen it happen. I. I’m part of an elite rowing crew and, and rowing is. It’s a hugely disciplined sport that requires years of commitment. You know, you get fitter and stronger as years go by and it’s an endurance sport and all the rest of it. And when I’ve asked my crew, you know, before now, does anyone, anyone want to share what creative thing they do? And they’ll look, but, you know, one of them actually confessed to certain, yeah, I actually loved artsy, the first thing. One of the other crew members went, slightly great, sissy. And I went, right. I’m like. And that’s the problem we have, if men say to other men, oh, you regret. I’m like, why are you saying that? Are you embarrassed for him because he, like, starts it, or are you embarrassed for you? Like, I can’t understand why we’ve taken it so far, so far in this country, to the point where it’s ling us and even when someone loves it and does it.
Trina Sunday: And I think that’s part of the massive societal challenges we have around toxic masculinity. Right? And what we’ve stripped away from our, um, men in terms of being able to fully embrace the things that bring them joy and then on the other side, we’ve got, you know, we could have a whole other podcast chat around the gender inequity, around creative pursuits, even, I think a hundred percent. It’s a real shame that we haven’t been able to have these conversations really openly and honestly. And that’s something that we have to keep working on. But I think even in listening to, like the football match and the unit. But it’s the fact that people are united.
You mentioned right at the beginning of our chat, the sense of belonging
Right. You mentioned right at the beginning of our chat, the sense of belonging. And I think for me, that’s at the core of everything because I look at, you know, I work with organisations and there’s lots of organisations that talk about dei, so diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging. Belonging being the key marker. If everyone feels like they belong, then you’ve probably got the diversity, the equity and the inclusiveness part. Right. There’s another element to that, of course, um, which is the J, which is justice, which is again, a whole nother. But if we take belonging for a second, that’s at the core of when we know that we have positive cultures in our organisations that mean. Because from a HR perspective, we have a lot of language around psychological safety being thrown around at the moment. Psychological safety in organisations like psychosocial hazards or the end of the day, people don’t feel safe to be themselves, they don’t feel safe to express themselves creatively, they don’t feel safe to share ideas. And I think creativity is the magic bullet. If we’re investing our time and energy in that and if we’re investing in capability, uplift, it’s more opportunity and experiences, but an uplift in terms of focusing on creativity to the same amount that we might focus on building conceptual and analytical skills or problem solving skills. Like, we look at it from a very technical lens where we know that if we unleash creativity, then problem solving happens faster because we’ve unlocked, um, the part of our brain that’s programming us to say, we can’t, we can’t, we can’t, we can’t.
Bourby Webster: Yeah.
Trina Sunday: Where creative expression is like, why not? Why not, why not? Right.
Bourby Webster: A hundred percent. You know, coming back to that man with the crayon, you know, it is literally, that’s how small the barrier is. Just can’t do it, won’t do it, but then does do it. And when people do, it’s so liberating and, you know, the hurdles, the blockages are relatively, straightforward to get over. And yet, so in some ways it’s a mouthful just because of our perception of who we are. And, you know, if we need to change the narrative in Australia that we are an insanely creative nation, that we’re all gifted, that perfectionism is a necessary participation is. And, you know, one of the sort of science things that I learned from an emeritus professor, Alan Harvey at uwa, who’s got a fabulous book about brain and music out there, he, um, studied people’s brains and music. And it’s absolutely critical that the human race synchronises. We’re the only species out of a billion that can do it, which is extraordinary in its own right. Why is it that two dogs don’t bark ever, and you can’t even train them to do it? Even the most intelligent species, you cannot train them to naturally synchronise. It’s coincidence of two dolphins jump through a, hoop. They’re doing it on a visual cue. They don’t feel it. Whereas we feel a rhythm and straight away we dance to it. We can feel that rhythm and we can clap in time with it. And the reason we’re meant to do that is because as soon as we do, it reduces cortisol and releases dopamine. And so it instantly gives us a propensity to trust, collaborate and connect with people that we’ve sung and danced with. So imagine if we opened every new project meeting with a singing session. We would instantly have increased that team’s likelihood of collaborating, cooperating, and feeling like they belong in 10 minutes of singing. I mean, deepest, it’s free. You breathe in and some noise comes out. You know, you can sing along to Spotify, for goodness sake. You know, so, and this is science, it’s literally physiologically and emotionally changing our brain when we sing together. So, you know, and it’s well well known the number of choirs that are out there for mental health. There’s a reason that pub choir goes off that there’s an awful lot of these kind of sing out loud club musicals things where people can just go along and sing. There’s a reason that karaoke’s movies. We actually are meant to sing. So anyone who says can’t sing, don’t sing, won’t sing. I’m like, that’s very odd. That’s like saying, can’t walk, don’t walk, can’t breathe, don’t weave. We’re meant to, as humans, it is so in us to sing. That is what builds tribes, communities, teams.
Trina Sunday: And the power and the feeling part comes from the synchronicity, right? Like, that’s the connection and the power of the connection that the arts can bring when we have a group of people together doing the same thing at the same time. I didn’t realise that we were the only species. I hadn’t really reflected on that. The only species that can do that.
Bourby Webster: Yeah. And that’s why, you know, when you’re in that soccer stadium, the whole stadium singing, you get goose’s pumps. Because we feel like we belong, we feel like we’re strong, we feel like we’re connected to the team, to the people next to us, to everybody wearing our colour. And that’s all that we’ve done from singing. It’s extraordinary. And it’s three minutes at the start of a game and it transforms the mindset of 50,000 people.
Trina Sunday: Where do you start when you have the eye roll culture? in Australia, around. Oh, my gosh, she’s going to ask us to sing at the start of the meeting. Kill me now. Where do you start your conversations with teams like that? How do you introduce this?
Bourby Webster: It completely depends on the audience because the engineers and the. Anyone vaguely scientific has to have the science. Because if you can’t tell me factually and, there’s unfortunately so little data out there that singing in an office would increase productivity. Because if I could say that, then every goddamn CEO would be like, right, God. I mean, there’s something free that we can do that everyone actually loves to do and is meant to do and can do and it doesn’t cost me anything and it’s going to increase the productivity of my workforce. Are you shitting me? I mean, like, every CEO would be, you know, literally. So, um, sadly there isn’t a correlation at the moment. I’m going to be fighting for that because just there’s no CEO brave enough to start a choir, you know? Come on. Although I have to say, Wesfarmers did let us in. So. Thank you, Wesfarmers.
Trina Sunday: Thank you, Wesfarmers.
Bourby Webster: Rob Scott is a brave man, you know, but he also understands, he gets it. He loves music. But, yeah, it really depends. I try and make it personal because if I can’t let leaders go, what’s in it for me? Why should I do this if I don’t think it’s going to be any benefit? I’m not going to make anybody else do it. And if I hate singing. So it’s a question of making people feel safe, feel comfortable. And as soon as you can get them picking up that crayon, M Trina, as you did, you break the seal. And it, one thing leads to another thing and they will eventually become braver and braver and at the point where they’re just like, I now want to express myself in any way that I feel I can. And I want to not just do it through a laptop, I want to do it through physical expression or emotional expression or whatever. It will be infectious. I can’t literally. I only wish the investment was there.
My biggest frustration is the investment that every other industry is invested in hugely
you know, my biggest frustration is the investment that every other industry is invested in hugely compared to the arts. And this is starkly seen that WA wants a rugby league team, so we give it 65 million for a couple of years. You know, fringe festival, which 600,000 people go to Fringe World in Perth every year. I don’t think 600,000 Western Australians are going to watch a rugby league game. And yet fringe might get 1 or 2 million tops and are fighting for survival the whole time. So how can a rugby league team, and I don’t know how many rugby league fans there are in wa, but trust me, it is nowhere near as many as will go to Fringe. And yet they can get 65 million. So they will get the investment that will set them up in able to build the team, get the media, get the stadium, get everything built to enable them to be successful. If someone was to invest in fringe, 20 million a year, we got even a third. I can assure you that organisation will become self sustaining because of the way that it was allowed to invest in everything, to set itself up with revenue generating sources, et cetera, et cetera.
Trina Sunday: And I think that’s the science that goes with it. Right. But we need some bold leadership to take that up. So the commercial and big business that are backing sport reality, terms of return on investment, I’ll back this, put this money in economic outcomes. The economic outcomes are there for the arts.
Bourby Webster: Oh my gosh, 100% in spades.
Trina Sunday: Right? We’re just not looking at it, we’re not reading it. Obviously we saw how poorly it is measured or we wouldn’t have had the responses we had post Covid or when we were cutting funding to everything. And we’re seeing what’s happening in the Northern hemisphere right now and what’s being decimated in terms of programmes that are or are not being funded and what that’s going to mean for connection and belonging across the planet, let alone America, um, or beyond. But I think the numbers are there. But we need some really big visible corporates or supporters that are helping to bring the arts to life. And we know that the mental health aspects of this, because the flip side is with COVID we saw some really cool stuff happening online. We saw people coming together in different ways and they were singing. You know, like, there was lots of different things, but. But I think part of it is finding what the creative pursuits are, that are going to help bring teams together in organisations in a way where you’re going to get some traction. Like, singing might not be the thing. I have a fear of singing. It might not be the thing.
Bourby Webster: Of course not.
Trina Sunday: But a paint by numbers, to your point, which was one of the suggestions, where if you had paint by numbers on your wall and, like, everyone’s coming into a lunchroom and everyone’s adding to this, like, how cool would that be to be able to say, like, we created this piece of art in the foyer and we do it with kids, with street artists. Like. And I’m obsessed with street art. And just as a sidebar, I was talking to a client of mine, financial services company, last week, and I don’t even know how it came up. And talking about street art, I said, oh, I’m obsessed with street art. I’ve done a couple of big projects. And they were like, what do you mean? Are you a hooligan under a bridge with a spray can? Like, what’s that about? I’m like, okay. Quite the leap in terms of how you’re judging, you know, a group of artists who, if you’ve ever tried to control paint coming out of a spray can, and if you knew how many nozzles there were and the tools of the trade that go with this stuff, it’s like you’d pull your head in because that shit is hard. It’s really hard, but it’s really interesting. And it’s because I was talking about office space. So for me, as a facilitator, I cannot find in Perth the environment that I like to facilitate in as a creative person. They’re like, what do you mean by that? I’m like, everything’s beige. I said, if I won lotto and I had the money for the location where I wanna do it, all the spaces I have would have murals on every wall. There would be creative spaces for every workshop that have different choices within them, whether it’s blackboard walls or painting or whatever, you know, like. And they were kind of just staring at me. I was like, but you can’t find it. And they said, but not everyone likes that. I said, I challenge that. I think everyone likes it, but no one’s got it.
Bourby Webster: I’ve taken a group to the orchestra pit of His Majesty’s Theatre to do a workshop, you know, because the company rang me saying, oh, I think, you know, we booked the. Was it just the banqueting suite at Holiday Inn? And I was like, kill me now, kill me now.
Trina Sunday: So hard.
Bourby Webster: We’re trying to inspire, people, we’re trying to get people excited. And my God, you go backstage at a theatre and there’s so many pulleys and flight wheels and stuff and road cases and it’s just like incredible. It’s a rabbit warren back there of creativity and costumes and wigs and you name it, you know. Why on earth, would you not choose that for your space? I couldn’t agree with you more, Trina. Okay. I think, you know, it’s so, it’s systemic, so it comes from the government down that the government just is gdp. So it wants big business to tell it how it can be more productive for less money. So they want to pay us less and less and they want us to work more and more, you know, and that’s what we’re up against. So of course you’re going to paint your balls beige because that’s quick and easy. Just, you know, that’s spending time, care, connection, colour, inspiration. It’s such a false shortcut, though, because 13.6 billion was lost to mental health in Australia in 2023. And I have plenty of friends that say, oh, God, I’m taking a mental health day. But I rang in saying, I’ve got gastro. So what actually is, is the cost to our economy, how many billions of mental health issues that we’ve got? You know, I just think that we’re looking at the wrong numbers that, you know, we, we’ve completely got this wrong. And seeing you have a book on your shelf behind you that says profit first and I’m like, so many of our books are about. Even our, all our leadership books are about how to be more efficient. Efficient, effective. You know, it’s just insane. And because the investment isn’t there, you know, we have to target business leaders because actually, as humans, they understand so well that if they could connect their people, if they could find a way to tap into their staff’s gifts, all of them, there would be solutions to really tough business problems in their creative thinking and creativity.
Trina Sunday: I think it’s amazing. And there’s so much space in that. And I think about how we design organisations where creativity can thrive. Right? Not just survive.
Bourby Webster says human resources should put people first rather than processes
And I’m curious, Bourby, to finish off our chat to that point. Like, what does reimagining HR look like to you? What’s the most powerful change we can make to change the way we’re showing up for our people?
Bourby Webster: That it’s not about spreading systems and processes and putting things in place that can then feed out into people. It’s take all of your people and they are brilliant. Every human is extraordinary. To someone on the planet, every human is extraordinary. And if you’re not finding that they’re extraordinary, it’s because you haven’t dug out their gifts. You. You haven’t asked them to be fully them and ask them to share them and be proud of what they bring. And what they bring could be absolutely different to what you think the job description is. So I think HR needs to start by going, actually, it doesn’t really matter who we’ve recruited. What matters is the fact we’ve got really diverse community here of interesting people with different backgrounds, and yet all we’ve ever said is, are you qualified to do your job? We’ve never said, but what do you really do well, and what else could you bring to this organisation? I think if we start saying to our people, who are you and what can you bring? And to my point earlier, you know, we always know when someone’s won something, so we pretty much know if we’ve got a footy player in the office or a triathlete or something. We don’t know if we’ve got someone who’s brilliant at painting or someone who sings because we don’t ask and they’re too embarrassed to say. So I think HR has to really start. Human resources is about the humans, then it’s got to make people visible at work. And. And first of all, start by understanding what everyone’s gifts is. Do an audit. What can everyone do? You know, make it anonymous if people are scared. But let’s just get an idea of do we have and just repeat that back to them. Guys, do you realise we’ve got 27 people that say that? They say we’ve got 40 people that regularly complete jigsaws or paint pictures. We’ve got two word carvers, we’ve got three poets. We’ve got. And everyone would be like, well, who. Who are you? Like, hang on a minute. If this was anonymous and no one’s confessing, but man, are you. I’m surrounded right now by these incredible things. the conversations in the workplace would then open relationships that would lend lead to the technical skills being shared between different people in different conversations, which would then come to profit. So I want to change that book title. The thing behind you but profit last. I think if you put people first and their gifts plus their skills and find ways to facilitate that. Holy crap. Like we would have the strongest economy on the planet because it’s full of humanity and creativity that in turn produces. And I know that sounds a warm and fuzzy and. And the sad thing is I’m never going to get the opportunity to prove it because no one’s going to invest. No one’s brave enough. I haven’t yet found a leader brave enough to take the plunge. They’ll do it. Leaders are like, oh, boom. This sounds interesting. Maybe we should do something. Oh, there’ll be more money at the end if we do this, but they’ll do it incrementally. They won’t be brave. So for those people in hr, I think if human resources could just put that first, put their people first, every bit the 100% of that person, dig deep, find out what they used to do and if they still go, I wish I still did go. Well, we’re going to let you do that.
Trina Sunday: I love it. Bourby Webster, thank you for your time.
Bourby Webster: Thanks for having me, Tina.
Char asks teams to think about what brings them joy outside of work
Trina Sunday: Hey, Char. Teams, I’ve got some reflections and a challenge for you. I wonder how much we’re really tuning into finding out what people love and what brings them joy outside of work. I know that we blur the lines between work and home and that’s been a big thing since COVID but if we create spaces for people to be able to express themselves in the same way that we create spaces for people to come to work, to be their fittest physical selves, well, we’re going to be helping the minds of our brilliant people and making awesome things happen at work. So what could we do? I’d love to know.
Bourby Webster: Know.
Trina Sunday: Thanks for tuning in and leaning in to this week’s episode. As we look to reimagine how we show up for our people, organisations and community, reach out to us via our website at reimaginehr.com.au with your HR horror stories or suggestions of people you’d love to hear from or topics you want to explore. It’s all about people, purpose and impact and we are here for all of it.
Until next time. Take care, team.
