Olympic Games Lessons in Leadership & Risk Management

Dan Brown:

 Hello, and welcome to Ashurst Business Agenda. My name is Dan Brown and I'm a partner in the Energy and Infrastructure Practice of Ashurst, And I'm based in Brisbane. I'm really excited to share with you, this is the first episode in a series where we are exploring the 2032 Brisbane Olympics, which is forecast to deliver more than $8 billion in benefits to Queensland, including $4.6 billion in economic boost to tourism and trade, $3.5 billion in social improvements, such as health, volunteering, and community benefits.

Dan Brown:

 In today's conversation, we're going to really focus on two core themes. The underlying tenant of the entire Olympics is people, people, people. And we're going to look at the ways in which risk management can be brought in to ensure that everybody has an amazing Olympic experience. So joining me today for this podcast is Bob Walker. Bob is quite simply an amazing human and he's a director in our Risk Advisory Practice at Ashurst. He's got a wealth of experience delivering massive global events, and we're really grateful to have him here today to share his insights. Without further ado, let's roll into our podcast.

Dan Brown:

 So, Bob, thank you so much for making time to join us on our podcast today where we're going to be talking about the Brisbane Olympics. I guess from my perspective, a good place to start is really just thinking about, look, it's been three months since the announcement was made by the IOC that Brisbane has been successful in securing the 2032 Olympics. Amazingly, we've got 3,957 days until the Olympics kicks off here. Which on one measure seems like a very long time, but when we think about everything that needs to be done, that's going to just absolutely fly by.

Dan Brown:

 And so, when I take away the high profile athletes, when I take away the massive stadia and infrastructure that needs to be built, when I take away the really glitzy and glamorous and well choreographed opening and closing ceremonies, for me I feel like the Olympics is really just about people. People, people, people, as Brene Brown says. But I know that you've got a really rich and colorful history supporting Olympic games and also other global games. But maybe that's a good place to start from the outset really is just how did you get involved in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney?

Bob Walker:

 Thanks, Dan. So how did I get involved? Sometimes the team that was involved, we still ask ourself that question. I was part of a small boutique consultancy in Sydney, and we had carved out a bit of a niche for ourself in emergency management, emergency preparedness crisis management. And we'd been working with the education departments and types, and universities, and some venues. And we started to see as the infrastructure build for Sydney started to occur because Sydney had won the games, the venues started to pop up and we started to get more involved in helping them think through the emergency response processes and then training their staff up. And it just naturally evolved. And then an opportunity came up for us to get significantly involved with Sydney in the form of a whole range of different, what I'd say, risk management activities.

Dan Brown:

 And I guess for the benefit of our listeners, when we talk about risk management and risk management activities, at its core, what does that mean practically?

Bob Walker:

 Yeah, oh, what a great question. For me, risk is about what is it that we're trying to do. In this case, it was to put on a massive event. Thinking through, what are all of those things that could not go to plan and trying to actually stop that in that planning process and mitigate it there, or at least having some response mechanism in place to correct it if whatever it was was to get off track. So risk at its essence is, now everything we do, we take some level of risk. It's about making sure that we understand what that risk is and that we're prepared to take that risk, and making sure that we've got the right level of control in place where we can.

Dan Brown:

 Yeah, and I imagine there's a whole bunch of reasons why we need to do those risk assessments and put in place those risk management arrangements. But would it be fair to say that in some ways, when we distill this down to its most simple, I use that word flippantly actually in the context of delivering an Olympic games. If we distill that down into a number of simple concepts, I imagine really a lot of this risk management piece is all about ensuring that everybody who attends or participates in those games has an amazing experience, that people piece, right? I imagine we can boil it down to that, yeah?

Bob Walker:

 Yeah, yeah. And you and I have spoken about this before, but my belief is that the games are really all about the people, they're put on by people, for people and for the community so that we can understand it. The issue with that is that when you have people involved in a process, there's always an element that might not go to plan. And so we have to plan for that bit, right. And so that's what, that's the essence of risk and safety management.

Dan Brown:

 Yeah, that's actually a really interesting juxtaposition, isn't it? Because at the end of the day, you're delivering something for people by the people, but by having people involved in that process, things don't go to plan.

Bob Walker:

 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Dan Brown:

I imagine that most of the times when you're delivering those games actually been challenging to maintain focus or keep line of sight on the fact that we need to put the people at the center of every choice decision we make around this, because it's ultimately an experiential element isn't the game...

Bob Walker:

Certainly. And I would say that that was front of mind for everybody that was involved in those games, whether you were employed in one of the venues or employed by SOCOG to actually deliver something, or whether you were volunteering. You have to remember at an Olympic games, you have the largest volunteer workforce that ever gets assembled to come together for two weeks of the games and then for the Paralympic games too. And we should never forget that they cross over the pipe of the two. And so that's monumental. That's a lot of people, right? And so it takes good leadership and to make sure that it is front of mind. I always remember, so Sandy Hollway, who was the Chief Executive Officer for SOCOG was a real people person. And I learned that lesson from him 20 odd years ago that I have had absolutely maintain fronting century in my practice and how I've managed going forward.

Bob Walker:

It's about knowing your people and trusting your people, it's setting the right direction and giving them some latitude to be able to do that. Sandy used to walk the floor on a Friday in that main building where all of the planning for the most amazing games was occurring with some of the smartest people in the world that had come together to do it. And he would know them by name, he would know what their families were up to. And he just created a culture and an environment that was inclusive well before its time, that just drove everybody on that singular path to do the best they could do for those games.

Dan Brown:

That's an immense burden but also a privilege in some ways, isn't it? To have that role and to be able to discharge that role in a way where you're effectively taking everybody along for the journey because you have to, right?

Bob Walker:

And such an amazing environment, because we hadn't done it for such a long time. Melbourne was the games before it was the biggest, biggest infrastructure build in the country. It was the, as I said, the biggest volunteer workforce coming together, it was the biggest international workforce coming together to pull us together. And Sandy and his team were actually making sure all those pieces fit. I'm still in awe.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and I think that's a really important distinction around, I think it was 56 we had the Melbourne Olympics. 2000 we get to Sydney Olympics. The world had changed substantially in that period of time. And not just the world, but Australia as a growing nation had changed fundamentally. And that's probably a nice lead into my next question for you is, 20 years later in today, where we are today, where we find out we have the Brisbane Olympics in another, almost 4,000 days. How has the world changed since Sydney? How is it likely to change, it's like a double barrel question, sorry. But effectively, what I'm trying to understand is from a risk perspective, from the core of the work that you do, how is that going to impact the ability to deliver the Olympics here in Brisbane in terms of the way that the world has changed? And I guess the last 18 months has proved things can happen at the drop of a hat, but yeah. How will that affect the ability to deliver the games?

Bob Walker:

So thanks for the big questions. So I would say two things. So it certainly changed almost immediately. We know that in 2001, there was an inventing in America that changed the world forever. So 911. And so we looked to Salt Lake City games where I was part of that following year, the security posture had just changed considerably. So we'll never retreat back from that posture, that posture is there. And there is a very mature mechanism in place now that all countries have an understanding of what that needs to look like and how they cooperate on that. And so that's probably out of my remit to really talk about as well. But, so there is that security posture that's there. I think that you've got technology that's changed, you've got people's expectations have changed. There's a whole range of things that have changed for us as a nation from 2002 to when Brisbane puts it on.

Bob Walker:

The one thing that hasn't changed too much is the people. So people are still people and they want to come along and they want to be part of something. They want to be engaged and they want to own a piece of it. And whether that's by volunteering or whether that's by being a spectator or just being proud that it's in their state or in their country, everyone has a level of wanting to be involved in the games. And so, yes, there's been some significant change and there's been some cultural change in Australia as well, but at the heart of that still is people. And so that still means that our risk identification and assessment process fundamentally has matured, but it's still there and designed to help people enjoy the games and for the games to go on.

Dan Brown:

And I guess that's a really good segue into the next line of questioning around this because you're right. Fundamentally the thing that hasn't changed is that the games are all about the people. And yet, while we might be spending more time in our phones than we did it back in 2000s and using a whole lot of different technology, the other thing that I guess needs to be balanced with that is potentially at first blush, there's this overarching desire to go, all right, we just need to build and deliver the infrastructure in order to have the best games ever and the best experience ever.

Dan Brown:

But in fact, how do we actually go about in a very mindful way of delivering the best Olympics ever, but ensuring that the work that's done, the infrastructure that's developed is an enduring legacy that doesn't become a white elephant, that doesn't become malposed. And that actually continues to add value for future, perhaps generations off the back of that Olympic success. Because I imagine from even from a risk management perspective around things like redundancy, that's going to be a really tough role for you guys to be able to think about all those things.

Bob Walker:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think a lot of that sits back in the business case that each of the countries in host cities put together to be able to demonstrate there's that cost benefit analysis. And Actually being the host to, what does that deliver for our community from a games perspective or what's the enduring legacy that it delivers. And I'm sure that government would have had that front and center on their mind as to what it is.

Bob Walker:

And if we look to Sydney and look to the stadia that are there now, although 20 years on there, there's been some talk in Sydney about demolishing that stadium. It's had its time and going forward, but that, all of the stadia that were developed at that time, and for Sydney, the games were not just hosted in Sydney. There were all of the qualifying events and all the test events were around the country. So the actual spread of infrastructure uplift was not just to the host city, but actually out further. So, and I can remember going to, it was Bruce stadium in those days in Canberra. [crosstalk 00:14:03] Exactly, right. So it did, it actually was a lot further than just that city.

Dan Brown:

Thinking about the role that you had in Sydney and having to think about all of those things around risk, but also future-proofing a lot of the processes, procedures, and also infrastructure that was built. Let's fast forward to the Brisbane experience. Pretend for a moment that you're leading the risk piece on that. What are the considerations that are going to be front of mind? It's like, I guess in some ways, it's the old saying, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time. But what are some of the priorities and what would be some of the priorities for you if you were leading the charge on the risk-based around delivering the Brisbane Olympics.

Bob Walker:

Wow, that is a big question. I suppose, fundamentally you need to understand what the expectation is around delivery. What are we delivering and where. And then wanting that back as to understanding what's the resource and resource infrastructure commitments for those. What are the issues and or risks that sit around those. How do we control that. And always, what's our plan B. And when you've got, you're so far out that actually nothing is set in stone and so there is absolutely going to be a meandering path through that process of bringing together the right level of infrastructure, the right level of technology. I would even say that the technology that's going to be used in Brisbane is not even developed yet.

Dan Brown:

Yes, that's kind of a [inaudible 00:15:47] reason but it's true, so true.

Bob Walker:

So I think you've got to keep yourself open, know what the big pieces are, know how they connect together. Know what the risk is if they don't connect together and get good people around you that actually understand that intimately and can help you bring it together.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, right. And I guess for the benefit of our listeners, when you reflect on the role that you did in Sydney, what numbers of people are we talking about on a daily basis having to be successfully moved around Sydney or a venue? What's the magnitude?

Bob Walker:

So I think from memory, and it's a while ago, the largest day, the largest people movement, if you like, was, there was one day when the Sydney Olympic, gee, I can't remember the precinct, was full. So the stadium was full for the morning session, the show grounds and all the diamond pavilions as they were called, they were full. So everything was full and there was a change over. During that change over, there was effectively half a million people in that precinct, either coming out of the venue or going into a venue. And so you have to remember this public transport has to bring those people in and take those people out. And it was just amazing. And the reality is if you put half a million people together, somebody is going to die. It's just the law of averages.

Bob Walker:

You've got so many people together, not from any nefarious means and obvious, and they did. And so that you've got to, you're thinking through that process about, by bringing 500,000 people together, what's going to happen. What do I need to be prepared for. What are our emergency services. And lots of layers of planning. It was nine layers of contingency planning and testing for all of the events and all of the venues in the lead up to actually hosting the game. So there's a lot of preparation around that stuff. 500,000 people is a lot of people, right.

Dan Brown:

That's incredible.

Bob Walker:

And when you think about it, there is going to be queues, and there are going to be long queues while you're waiting to get on a bus or waiting to get onto a train. So part of the control strategies is making sure that you have spectator services, people or visitor interaction type people, but people with big personalities standing out the front, clearly visible in the Olympic uniform, engaging with people and keeping them happy and more, all of those things to take their mind off the fact that they might be standing in that line for an hour.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, that's incredible to think about 500,000 people. That, for anybody that's been to the G on grand final weekend, you've got 90 odd, 100,000 people there. So moving around Sydney at any given point in time during the Olympics, you had five times the capacity of the MCG. That's mind blowing.

Bob Walker:

Well, if you think about risk management, you then say, "All right, so we know that because we know the capacities of our venues, we know the schedule, we know that it's going to happen. All right, what do we need to do? What are the plans in place?" So that's the risk management process.

Dan Brown:

And, but that's the juice, right. And that's the juice I'd really love to know more about. And maybe again, this is a really hard question, but what does that planning look like? Where do you stop? How do you even begin to contemplate drafting a single plan let alone, I think you mentioned nine contingency plans.

Bob Walker:

Yes, it's an outliers of planning. Yeah, absolutely.

Dan Brown:

How do you start with... Where do you start?

Bob Walker:

So you start at the big picture, and you drop it down. And then everything has to interconnect at some point. And so that's why it takes so long. So if you start with the big picture that says we have 12 days of events. During those 12 days, we're going to have, or 14 days. We're going to have people here, here, here, and here. We know that because that's the schedule. Then start winding it back from there, right. And you have to also remember that, it's not like we haven't, we're not doing this already. So as you say that the MCG and the grand final is a great example. So we've got people that are really well skilled in bringing 100,000 people into a heart of a big metropolitan city regularly for those events. And you've got Melbourne cap around the country. And so it's about tapping into those networks, the planning that sits floor, that's happening now. Those people are all pulled up into assisting in that planning.

Dan Brown:

Yeah. So maybe this is just my simple mind, but is the order of magnitude around the planning so much different when you're looking at 100,000 versus 500,000? Or is fundamentally, are the issues broadly aligned?

Bob Walker:

Broadly aligned. There's a bit more complexity to it, right. But broadly, you can roll that up.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, yeah. And so I guess, turning to things that are probably not so positive, what will unravel the Olympics? What will unravel the best games ever type [Monica 00:21:09] that we know will, I was going to say we hope we, but we know we'll be ascribed to the Brisbane Olympics. From a risk management perspective or a risk perspective, what are the issues that might unravel that, or make the games not so great an outcome for people?

Bob Walker:

So I think it is fair to say that you can't plan for every contingency. So stuff will happen. So you have to be agile in your approach. And I can remember really early on in the piece, in the testing, and so in some of the test events and the volunteers for the test events picked up the uniforms, gone home and they'd come back the next day in their uniform. And by the end of the day, they all had rashes because it was something wrong in the manufacturing process of that particular component of the uniform. So you can't plan for that.

Dan Brown:

No.

Bob Walker:

So you have to be able to, you've got to have that agility to be able to respond and say, "Right, they're out and they are in." And then you look back at that and you go, well, thankfully we didn't have just one manufacturer of the uniforms. We looked at our continuity or our contingency and said that we need to have a couple of manufacturers. And so that was pulled and the other stuff was put in.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, so does this mean by extension you're the kind of guy that's got about four contingency plans for every day of your life or every aspect of your life?

Bob Walker:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I know we had a couple of years ago here in south Australia, we had a statewide power outage and my wife, took her about three hours to get out of the car park and get home. I'd been home that day and I'd got the camper trailer set up and I'd got our cooker going and the batteries and dinner was on just as normal. She goes, oh my goodness.

Dan Brown:

So look, I guess turning to something that's a little more serious for a moment, but I think is absolutely fundamental to the success of any Olympics, but especially the Brisbane Olympics is the involvement of the first nations people. I know it's something that you're really passionate about. It's something that our business, our firm here at Ashurst we're super passionate about it. And I know that there's been criticism of other games in the past around perhaps insensitivity or overlooking the first nations people. And I guess potentially there's a risk-based, but it's actually more fundamental piece around acknowledgement, involvement and respect. But what are the things that we really need to focus on to ensure that this super important and fundamental aspect of our Australian culture and society is acknowledged and respected in the right way?

Bob Walker:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I, my view was that in Sydney, at that particular time, the community had a particular view and our first nations people were involved in the opening ceremony and in the closing sermon. But what stood out for me was that, so then I didn't see any indigenous faces in the volunteers or I didn't see any indigenous faces in the leadership teams. And I think that has to change, right. And here's our opportunity to say, "We've got a number of years now, let's set a program up that is going to actually do that." This should be something that we should all be really jumping behind and saying, all right, how do we as a firm, what we know as a firm, we're very committed to that. But as a nation, how do we actually use the Brisbane games as a catalyst to actually help elevate and give our first nations people a voice by giving employment and skills. And there's a big enough period of time now that we could do that.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, yeah. And I guess it really ties back into that conversation we had a little earlier on the podcast, which was the games have to be more than just that couple of weeks period. It has to be about an enduring legacy primarily for the immediate community and the nation. But also more broadly for everybody that's touched by the Olympics. And so it seems to me to be a natural part of that legacy that we honor and respect the first nations people in the most appropriate way, given the significance and importance of the games.

Bob Walker:

I think so. And I think it creates a great opportunity for us to think about creative ways of actually doing that.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think when I was doing some of the background research around the Olympics and looking for content to drive the podcasts, I was really heartened to see public announcements and pronouncements by the state of Queensland acknowledging the important role of first nations people. And look, that's a small step, but the rubber needs to hit the road, I guess.

Bob Walker:

It does.

Dan Brown:

And I'm going to be really excited to see how that unfolds.

Bob Walker:

Yeah, and we can hopefully as a firm, we get the opportunity to partner in that.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, that'd be amazing if we could do that, isn't it?

Bob Walker:

Yeah, exactly.

Dan Brown:

So, Bob, we've been talking a little bit today around the Olympics not just being a two week ordeal, but it's really about a legacy pace. And I imagine during that process of helping to deliver the 2000 Olympics, not withstanding the depth and breadth of your experience and knowledge, you would have actually learned a great deal. But from, again, from that legacy perspective, what are some of the learnings, what are some of the tools that you took away from the Olympics that you've been able to implement moving forward that have benefited others outside of that pure games delivery environment?

Bob Walker:

Yeah, that's really interesting, Dan, because I think you're right. I mean that legacy is not just about the Olympic games and the infrastructure and the people that came to see, but it's about the people that put it on and the people that had the opportunity to actually work in those games. And so for me it was almost like the Olympic games of risk management for me. And it's continued to give back to me throughout my career. So I went on from that to the Rugby World Cup to Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, and to a couple of other events and chorused to what it is that I do in my career has still been fundamentally coming back to understanding risk and how to actually break it apart into manageable pieces so that organizations and people can understand it and then manage it and move forward.

Bob Walker:

And I think probably the most recent case of that for me would be obviously, we've got this thing called COVID-19 at the moment. And certainly in early 2020, that became the thing that I had got very seriously involved in some risk planning around COVID at the government level. So I did a fair bit of that and I was really bringing to fall all of that risk management skill that I learned during the Olympics and has stayed with me right throughout my career, because risk is about being able to get on with and get back to where you need to be safely. And with the South Australian film authority, they came in and spoke to me about trying to get the film sector in South Australia up and running again in order to create employment at the backend as our first wave of COVID started to die down last year.

Bob Walker:

So we applied a risk management approach. We developed a risk assessment tool. That particular tool we then helped the authority to use to actually undertake a risk assessment for a production, which then actually attracted the funding because the risk assessment had been done and created something like 300 jobs in South Australia for the filming of that particular thing when the entire film sector globally had been shut down. Our tool was then, that particular tool would then became the largest download for a risk assessment tool in the film sector anywhere at that time. And it was, it's been continues to be used, I suppose to look at the issue around COVID, understand the risks and develop a mitigation plan and a COVID safe plan out of that. So risk management continues to give.

Dan Brown:

Yeah, that's incredible. And it's all done from South Australia, that's amazing and impact of the global film industry. But look, I feel like I need to apologize because at the outset, what I should have done was introduced you as the absolute undisputed world champion of risk management. [crosstalk 00:30:02] Bob, it has been an absolute and genuine pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for sharing your really amazing insights into your experience, not just delivering the 2000 Olympics, but all of your other experience around the risk management piece. I've learned an incredible lot from you. So thank you so much mate.

Bob Walker:

Dan, thank you. I mean, this is the first time that I've been asked to participate in a podcast and I did my own risk assessment before. I won, right?

Dan Brown:

Of course.

Bob Walker:

So I'm really pleased. I'm really pleased to see that that went well. And I appreciate the opportunity and the openness of the conversation, thank you.

Dan Brown:

Thank you mate. Thank you very much for listening to Ashurst Business Agenda. We really do hope that you found this episode both worthwhile and insightful. To learn more about our podcast channels, please visit ashurst.com/podcasts. And to ensure you don't miss any future episodes, please subscribe now on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. While you're there, please feel free to keep the conversation going and leave us a rating or a review. Your insights and feedback are super important to us. Thank you so much for listening and goodbye for now.

Host:

If you enjoy Ashurst Business Agenda, why not check out our other two podcasts series as well? Ashurst Legal Outlook explains the emerging legal trends and requirements of our fast changing world. And ESG Matters at Ashurst reveals how business leaders are rising to mounting environmental, social, and governance challenges. You can listen and subscribe to Legal Outlook and ESG Matters wherever you get your podcasts.