In this episode of the Arete Podcast, Richard Triggs sits down with Mark “Squiz” Squirrell OAM, former Australian Special Forces soldier, United Nations humanitarian and Everest summiteer, to talk about how leaders make good decisions when everything around them is going wrong.
Squiz joined the Army Reserve while at university and later passed selection for the 1st Commando Regiment. When East Timor came along, he went in as a security risk manager with the International Rescue Committee, and that work took him on to Albania, Sudan and Afghanistan. He then joined the United Nations World Food Programme, spending eighteen months in the West Bank and Gaza and two years in Nepal, where he summited Mount Everest in May 2006 to raise the flag for the organisation’s global fight against hunger.
Richard first met Squiz at one of his workshops, where a room of business owners put on virtual reality goggles and sat in the back of a UN car in Gaza as the situation around it fell apart. Squiz explains how he uses real footage like this to bring leaders to a decision point, then makes each team defend the choice it made.
The lessons carry into any business. Make the call early, before things get worse. Keep the flexibility to change the plan. Build your relationships before the crisis, because the middle of one is too late. Squiz also describes how behaviours he once saw only in conflict zones are now turning up in Australian workplaces, as staff and customers arrive already agitated by what they are being fed online.
A conversation for any leader who wants to be ready before the pressure arrives.
TIME STAMPS:
03:19 Squiz’s work today: keynotes and gamified leadership workshops
07:36 The Army Reserve and selection for the 1st Commando Regiment
11:51 East Timor and the move into humanitarian security
14:12 Albania, Sudan, Afghanistan and the UN World Food Programme
16:51 Eighteen months in the West Bank and Gaza
20:17 A firebombed car and the cost of misreading a culture
23:57 Summiting Everest for the World Food Programme
27:20 Inside the car in Gaza: decisions under pressure
30:52 Building relationships before the crisis
33:34 Conflict zone behaviours in Australian workplaces
37:11 What leaders can put in place after the workshop
40:45 How to get in touch with Squiz
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO PODCAST ON OUR YOUTUBE
USEFUL LINKS:
- Global Frontline (Squiz’s website)
- Mark “Squiz” Squirrell on LinkedIn
- Richard Triggs on LinkedIn
- Arete Executive
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