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Building Doors is a podcast about Inspiring Leaders who have created their own opportunities and are thought leaders, industry advocates and change makers in their field. This podcast gives you the resources, insights and steps to stop waiting for opportunities and start building your doors for success. Listen to this podcast to gain the resources, career tips and hands-on advice on how you can gain clarity and build doors in your own life and career.
[00:00:00] To truly collaborate, it's about trust. The Australian culture is not to trust first. The Australian culture is to trust when it's been earned. I think the art of compromise is really underestimated. And again, Australian culture is compromise is seen as a negative thing, whereas a good compromise takes you forward and it's really pragmatic and realistic.
Welcome to Building Doors. In this series, you'll develop the skills to build a roadmap for success, get inspired by those leaders who have come before you, and give you the confidence to stop waiting and start building.
Priscilla Radice is the Deputy Director General of Health. In the capital infrastructure spend of over 14 billion transforming health infrastructure in Queensland. I got her onto the episode because she fascinates me with her background in sociology, her human [00:01:00] centric focus on design, and the multiple leadership roles she's had across CEO of Infrastructure Association of Queensland and Managing Director of Contribute Consulting.
The part that's really interesting about Priscilla is her real focus on leadership collaboration. So what we'll discuss in this episode is how to collaborate with your teams and drive the right behaviors for successful project delivery and looking at different design elements and factors that you can consider to make sure that what you're designing is going to be within the budget and that you're able to deliver really valuable health infrastructure for the communities in Queensland.
So Priscilla, let's get in, get stuck into it and get started. Let's get stuck into the podcast. So I was researching your career history and I had to start there with getting an insight into some of the career choices you've made because you started from having your own business, you work with IAQ and now a highly high profile government role.
Talk me through your career background and some of the decisions you've made that led you to where you are today. [00:02:00] Decisions might be a big word. I'm not sure I've ever been that deliberate about it. I grew up in the country and I actually married quite young. Early and we moved to the East Coast and there weren't a lot of job opportunities.
So I started working in retail, I've done merchandising, ran a bookshop for a long time. Lots of different things. I think that as I got to my late 20s, kind of that needing to go to university. Wanting to grow, not sure what I wanted to do, but I was fascinated by having grown up in the country, I think fascinated by cities and how did cities work?
And how do people come together to build these structures? And I knew that my life working in hospitality and retail was coming to an end. People were not as polite as they used to be, and I was not enjoying it as much as I used to. And so I chose sociology. Because I really wanted to understand those kind of constructs.
I did my honours in port cities and how they were shifting out of industrial economies into service based economies. And from there, I worked in [00:03:00] economic roles in cities and ports, grew into transport, and started working on big major projects long time ago now. And CEOs would drag me in to say, you know, You can translate what these engineers are trying to say, but you've got a pragmatic lens around budget and what we need to achieve and what are the outcomes because you kind of build bridges to the community.
So generally, I've always been in roles where I'm connecting. different people and different stakeholders to try and get a better outcome is kind of probably a common theme. But I have done lots of different things, I think, and I've enjoyed them all. Generally, I make decisions based on the problem that needs to be solved or the opportunity to create something rather than make considered decisions or job titles or places.
But yeah, I've worked in lots of different operating models. So I think from an infrastructure perspective, I've probably sat at every seat in the table. I've been the client, I've been the consultant, I've been the community [00:04:00] stakeholder, I have been the kind of peer reviewer or assurance person and now I've also been the government side from a client perspective rather than private client.
Yeah, it's quite an interesting, they're all very different. So with all of that experience, one thing I am curious about is having exposure across all facets of the roles that you've done. How do we go with collaboration on projects? How do you think in this country we perform our projects in terms of engaging with key stakeholders and all coming together to deliver the work?
I think it depends on the sector, but broadly not as well as we could. I think when we talk about collaboration, We think it's either too kumbaya and everyone's just going to come together and then they forget that we still have to run the commercials and make sure that it's value for money or reasonable profit.
And it's difficult for people to do the same. So quite often they're very collaborative at the front end. And then as soon as it gets a little bit tricky, everyone defaults and lackey bans back to their normal behavior. I think the other pieces as we get [00:05:00] bigger and we scale and projects get bigger and complexity, People are used to collaborating with the networks they know, and you need to deliberately choose new networks or deliberately stitch together the networks you need to collaborate successfully on this job or on this problem or for this organisation.
And I'm not sure we're deliberate enough around that stakeholder mapping and actually who do you need to collaborate with generally. And I see this with my own team. We need to collaborate more and then just go and talk to the same people more, but it's actually a whole bunch of new people. that they need to be talking to and collaborating with, and you need to make those decisions deliberately.
How did you make those decisions deliberately in your career? Was it a strategy that you had, or how did you, when you're going into a new role, know who those stakeholders were and who you would need to collaborate with? Uh, I think you work it through fairly quickly, and I don't collaborate as much as I should in the role that I'm in.
I should be spending a lot more time building bridges across whole of government, and it's difficult to do that while you've got such big, you know, domain of work, how you pull yourself out of [00:06:00] that and actually spend more time. From my perspective, a lot of stakeholder and collaboration is also about managing risk.
If people understand the journey you're going on, if you've engaged with them, they understand that you actually can be mutually aligned, you're much more likely to be able to work that through quickly. To truly collaborate, it's about trust. And fundamentally, I think the Australian culture is not to trust first.
The Australian culture is to trust when it's been earned. And how do you have the time to work that through? And what are the definitions of how you earn that trust when you might have really different vested interests on a project? I think the art of compromise is really Underestimated, and again, Australian culture is compromise is seen as negative thing, whereas a good compromise takes you forward and it's really pragmatic and realistic and I think that can be a great outcome, but we don't necessarily approach compromise as seen as loss rather than gain.
It's interesting, why do you think we might, from a sociology perspective, [00:07:00] why do we not necessarily trust, or where do you think that that comes from in our culture, or why is that, they're that undercurrent, do you think? I think it's human nature. People are people. When people say, oh, it must be really diverse.
And I say, sectors are diverse and there's lots of challenges and things that are diverse, but people are people. And you can read literature all the way back to ancient Greece and beyond and storytime stories and the essentials of how people interact have actually not changed dramatically. So I think it is an inherent kind of culture where.
depending on your personality is whether or not you go, I'm just going to trust you. And then if you lose my trust, then you're pretty much out versus it's going to take me a while to get to know you. I'm going to assume that you might not necessarily, I don't think people are always neutral. So when they come to a table around and we all know it's about first impressions, it's about how do you create impact in a room or what have they heard?
So from our perspective, we've two years old health infrastructure, Queensland, [00:08:00] we were established to drive all new infrastructure. and inherited quite a few midstream projects as well. But, you know, we took that function off 16 hospital and health services. Now we didn't make that decision, but we needed to then work through to build trust.
And what does that partnership model look like? And when people lose something, there's a whole grading period around that and a big shift around the operations of that. And what does it look like? So they're not in a neutral position to trust a whole new entity that. It needed to build itself and needed to build that trust and we're still on that journey.
That leads into my next question around Building trust or establishing trust, and this can be something I know a lot of our listeners are construction and infrastructure, but a lot of times you might be coming into a team and it's a pre existing team and they don't know you yet and they don't trust you.
We see that a lot. And or the other thing is in your situation, you're coming in and taking over as a new entity. What are some of the strategies you look at as a leader to help your team and guide your team on the [00:09:00] journey of establishing trust? I think understanding that there's a shared purpose and a common goal.
And so what are we all trying to achieve together? And depending and understanding what success looks like and what the common goal is for each one of those different stakeholders in a room, whether that's the architect, the managing contractor, the patient, the consumer, the staff member, the infrastructure team at the hospital, my team, everyone does come with a particular lens and then aligning around what good looks like.
And sharing your personal stories as always. When you can actually understand a person for a person, it kind of takes you out of that transactional piece and gives you more of a sense of how do you connect as people and how do you kind of look at after each other on that journey. So we've been running project leadership charter workshops.
on all of our major projects, and that will be something we do on all of our projects when they stand up, and just airing what are the assumptions, where do people coming from, what are people's concerns, what, where are the common alignments, and how do you build on [00:10:00] those common alignments, but as with anything, it's a standard saying for a reason, cliches are a cliche for a reason, generally, and it is aligned to purpose.
What are our common goals? It is the why. And for most of my team, it's legacy. I've had a lot of people come from other government agencies and the private sector. They're like, wow, I've never worked so hard in my life. I wasn't expecting government to be like this. The pace, the scale, what we do, how we, our appetite to risk, our appetite for doing things differently.
And there's a real surprise in that. Because people come with a whole pile of assumptions for how different entities or agencies will operate. What are some of the common misconceptions you've seen people come into your government roles? Because you've done all the different sectors. What are some of the things that they expect when they come in and they go, Oh, that's a little different than what I thought?
Probably from our perspective, um, pace and scale, we're working fast. It's a massive program. We've got really tight timelines. We make decisions quickly. We're fairly decisive. I think government systems and processes aren't great. [00:11:00] It's not a native digital. It exists really well and it's actually ahead of some areas in parts of government.
I think the other piece is government doesn't naturally do whole of government well. And so it was interesting for me as a consultant, a lot of my business would come from joining people up and government was a small part of my business, but there were some agencies and never underestimate the value you bring to join up parts of a system because don't assume that.
Everyone in government's talking to everybody else because it's not the operating model is very much about your stream rather than how you come together. And you spoke about it then with speed and pace and people coming into the role and maybe being surprised by that and that there are deliverables and that you're moving at pace.
How do you balance the human side of health and what? Our public needs with the actual financial side as well of what we can afford or what the budget is. How do you constantly grapple with that from a sociology background and making the best decisions for [00:12:00] both? Because we sort of touched on this and you said it can be both.
So I was like, let's unpack that. Well, I think firstly, they're not mutually exclusive. Everyone assumes that they are and being fiscally prudent should not be something that is not going to deliver you the outcome that you need. There is a sense in health that we could eat the budget, essentially. The need is enormous.
And taking a statewide view around working that through, our role at Health Infrastructure Queensland is to deliver a flexible, future fit infrastructure that will deliver sustainable and equitable outcomes for Queenslanders. So, it's Infrastructure is at its very heart for people and there's nothing more important than health infrastructure for people.
So we take our role of actually wanting to deliver great outcomes. We designed the first design principles in Queensland Health that didn't exist before Health Infrastructure Queensland. So they are based on people and value and place and technology. So how [00:13:00] do we ensure that we are delivering to quality.
We have put a whole pile of processes in place to ensure that we do that. And we're changing our business case regime to ensure that we're pricing those design principles in from the very beginning so that you're not having to scope ladder things that are vital. On the other hand, we have a history, a long history, and it's not just in Queensland of designing based on The local view, clinicians, staff, consumers view of what the design should look like.
And there are elements of health design that should be award is award, depending on the theatre and what you're using for it. So theatre, how we have rolled out as standard room designs mean that we can get more money and more bang for buck. And deliver more. Because we're not redesigning every element.
And we're taking away subjectivity that, what has happened many times in the past, is you'll deliver based on a group of [00:14:00] very vocal clinicians are designed for perhaps an emergency department. Um, and so, And then five years later, when you finally built the new hospital and the emergency and it opens and there's quite often very new clinicians and they go, well, this design's terrible.
I wouldn't have had this design. We should have this, this, and this. So we now have a set of principles and we peer review those principles and those designs from different people all the way across the system to make sure that we can have robust conversations. We also have robust conversations around scope lettering saying, here's all of the base support services to have 200 beds.
You need more pharmacy. You need more kitchen. You need more medical imaging. Here's the package of things. There will be a whole pile of feedback from consumers and from those user groups to say, we want all of this. And then we take a really robust conversation to say, actually, you're right. You do need that, that the data it's been proven up.
We will either seek money if we need to, or we can work through the contingency if we need to. Or we'll say, that's [00:15:00] lovely, but it's actually beyond the base need and what's been announced and agreed and committed. And so we'll put that on a scope letter. And if we're doing really, really well, and we've got enough money and we're saving money, then these are the things that we can release.
And this is the timeline that we'd have to make that decision on. But I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Good design principles. So talk me through that. What are good design principles and how have you fundamentally built that as a team? Uh, so we had to do it fairly quickly. So they're under continuous review.
We have a design innovation and assurance committee from people from across the system that then look at those designs. The standardization sits under one of the design principles, which is value. And it's not about doing things cheaply. It's about not repeating consistently the same designs that actually should be based on best practice and will be the same anywhere they need to be.
And You can move some of that kit around, or you might need to have some deviations in a Bramfield context. But [00:16:00] basically that should be the design. And there might be a couple of options in those standard designs, depending on how you're using them. Uh, sustainability, the digital approach and how digital enabled and what that digital uptake is like, making sure that we are creating that future fit and flexible.
So thinking about the adjacencies in the building and what to replace where. Because we know that you'll need to make changes to model of care, you'll need to make changes or retrofitting, how do we make it as simple as possible to adjust what the role of that infrastructure is over time. So they're the sorts of things that we've embedded and we attach those to all of our tenders.
So that all of our work, whether it's business case or new project, that it's embedded in how we do the assurance. We have gateway reviews, are you meeting the principles, why are you not meeting them? One of the really important ones is also consumer engagement. within that is First Nations engagement. So we have a new First Nations engagement framework.
It's just won the National Gold Award for good design. And doing that work with Blacklash was [00:17:00] really important across the system, listening and talking across all the HHSs and many different Aboriginal liaison officers around what do we do well, what don't we do well, how do we make sure that we're doing engaging with communities right from the beginning of Master Plan to embed what are the principles that are really, really important to them and design facilities that are culturally safe and appropriate so that we get a better presentation at health facilities, which historically were not seen as places to get well.
And then working that through that it's not seen as rural and remote as well. The vast majority of our First Nations people actually live in S. E. Q. um, and so So making sure there's no kind of biases and working that through, we're doing some really interesting design work at the moment around, and this is a really dollars and budget versus what we can achieve on the design kind of halfway through in really talking through Pacific Islander communities down at Logan Hospital around palliative care and how many people like to come at that environment around end of life and those family groups [00:18:00] where Hospitals don't necessarily allow for that.
a larger group of people. So how do we accommodate that? What does that look like? Where should it be accommodated? How do we listen and adapt and respond? So in your role, there's obviously a large scope that you're responsible for and a lot of it's strategic. What's the most rewarding aspect of your role personally?
getting stuff done, reforming how we do it and being advocates for the hospital and health services. We are there to see the issues, to understand the problems. I think one of the things that I'm most proud of is we inherited a government election commitment for some mental health beds at Rockhampton that physically was very difficult to put in and to work through.
I spent a lot of time briefing the minister and briefing up around actually the desperate needs. mental health beds that inappropriateness of that facility for modern care. And the government made a decision to give us another 90 million from coal royalty [00:19:00] funds and to build stage two of a brand new facility.
And I had lucky enough to take central agencies up there the other day to have them experience that current unit and then understand the human rights importance of being able to build them. the right kind of facility and being able to advocate and explain that in that detail and be another voice for the HHS.
That's the sorts of thing that make you jump out of bed and make your heart sing. Yeah, that's rewarding. And going back to your sociology studies, how has that background influence some of the decisions you make and helped you in your role that you've grown into and that you do today as well? Oh, look, from a theoretical perspective, probably not huge amounts, really, now that I've been in infrastructure for a while and not kind of in city shaping, but the fundamentals of understanding how people operate.
It's not a psychology degree, but how people operate in groups and how people operate in [00:20:00] tribes and how people then create social structures around them is fundamental. Infrastructure is essentially a social structure. It's people's ants nests. So that whole piece around being able to have the EQ around how those things come together.
And I'm naturally a fairly I like to play in complex systems because I don't stay in my own swim lane. I kind of get the whole pool. What I've had to learn over the years is when you're knocking around in someone else's swim lane is kind of explaining why, when, what you're trying to do. I think there is a lot of silos and this comes back to that collaboration where people are like, stay in your swim lane.
It's like, well, actually I just want to lean in and solve and I can see if we join this job, this job, this job, we could do something really exciting. Um, up, but it's not trying to step on other people's toes, but it is often perceived that way. And so it's trying to find those like minded people that want to kind of lean in scale, do something fun together and make a change.
And health is full of those people and health is also full of women. I will still be quite often at a contractor meeting where there's [00:21:00] very few women there talking about infrastructure, but from a health context and my peers and my colleagues and working with the CAs and working with our partners. the hospital and health services, women are loud and proud.
And so that diversity is quite lovely. You leaned perfectly into my next question. I wanted to ask you, with health having that diversity inclusive leadership, we all know that in the construction industry, the, the, the split is really, the representation of women is really low, right? As an outsider's view, as well, being the client and being exposed across different areas, how can that industry from what you see improve on inclusive leadership and improve on their diversity and inclusion overall?
What are some of the things that could be happening to improve in that space? It starts with procurement. I think clients like myself could work with government to adjust that it doesn't have to be a PD with 30 years of experience having done these jobs and these jobs, because guess what it'll be a bloke, [00:22:00] that we can be better at job sharing, that we can think better.better about how we actually pin someone from a mentor point of view and be deliberate around mapping how we'd grow that. At the end of the day, the actual sites themselves, what are we celebrating? What type of personalities are we celebrating? I think Australian leadership absolutely supports the alpha and quite often the alpha male, the extroverted.
There's a default into. That, that scene, that loud dominating the space is seen as leadership. I think we could be a bit more introspective around that, but I think it is, there's the facilities, making sure that sites are suitable, just thinking about the whole of the supply chain because it's not just construction and what are all those different roles that people can have.
Yeah.
There's many levers that you need to pull and it's all the way back from early in the space. Yeah. It's just putting it out there as a bit of an option and working it through, but if the actual environment is still very kind of blokey, it is very work hard, play hard, and [00:23:00] generally women don't necessarily want to play the same way men do.
It's not always about going to the pub and getting smashed and then going to a whiskey bar. But if you don't do that, then you're not part of the team. Yeah. And so it can be really difficult to balance. I was talking to a friend the other day that works in the mining sector and they're like, I feel sorry for the women at work now.
They don't really get engaged with them the way they used to because everyone's so frightened around how to deal with them or treat them. And so it kind of swings from one extreme to the other. As a society, how we stop talking about gender is this really watching the American election play out with one party talking about how they're going to empower all of these young men to vote.
Which then you've got the other side saying, well, we're going to bring all the women out to vote. We still have this very inherently divisive conversation around men versus women at the moment. And I think goes beyond sector. It's kind of getting quite embedded. It is actually. It's a really good point.
And I've always said, we don't have to have one at [00:24:00] the exclusion of other. We're all humans. We all have diverse and inclusive thought that we can bring to the table. So it's just about getting everybody's opinions heard when we're making decisions that impact all of society. I want to talk to you as well about mentor walks, because you've taken part in that.
And mentoring for me, I've heard so many guests talk about the power of mentoring in shaping their careers and getting them to see what's possible beyond where they might be at that stage. Talk to me about why you've got involved in mentoring walks in the past. What your thoughts are on mentoring as having a role in career for people?
I think it's really important. I've never had a mentor. I very much grew up in industries where women did not help each other. And there were very little women in transport ports, my sectors, they weren't around to lend a hand. And to be honest, my experience was when they were, they were putting a foot out rather than a hand out.
I think that has shifted. You know, I think Julia Gillard in that whole space had a bit of a wake up call for women to go, actually, not everyone else has to do this as [00:25:00] hard as I did, and I think just the general shining a light in that space, Me Too movement, whole pile of things. So I think that the sisterhood that I found never existed is actually more around now, and because I never had that.
But kind of conscious to lean in and give back. I think when one of my clients, when I was after Arup, where I was doing more flights in a year than I could catch my breath on, it was a big region and a big kind of portfolio. And it was a lot of fun. It was great. And you know, great company. And we did some really transformational stuff.
But after four years, my son, my partner and I were pretty tired. So I went out to work for myself. And you know, if you rent, consulting's renting out your brain for a fee, yeah. So rent out my brain with Arup. They're being a middle person really, and it was fun. It's a bit isolating and we had COVID and those sorts of things.
And so when one of my clients was the Infrastructure Association of Queensland, so I was their CEO a couple of days a week with a portfolio, a whole portfolio of other things, but that was most of the other work I was doing was non [00:26:00] disclosure with boards. So it was quite, IRQ was kind of my public profile.
where people didn't necessarily know I was doing other work. But my opportunity to lean in and help industry and connect people and work that through, it was great. That was very much my lean back in and support and do some work that was a really different hourly rate from my other work, but it was really important work.
And, um, I saw there the value that could be had from lots of women and younger women and how much they'd reach out and I'm still in contact with a lot of them. And that was really, I need to make sure that I continue this. So I put my name up to mentor and it's walking, it's chatting, and the mentees support each other and share and that diversity.
And so it's nice. There's normally three or four of you, you go for a chat. And she has lots of different questions and sharing and I learn as much from them as hopefully they learn from me and from each other. I think it's a lovely concept. And it's a lovely concept where you're chatting and you're walking, it's a bit more casual and it doesn't feel quite so formal.
And so I think it suits a diversity [00:27:00] of people and it helps them feel more supportive that they can go and potentially meet or connect or find a mentor more formally because they kind of have a better sense of what it might mean. offer for them. It's a more relaxed environment as well for them to feel less daunted by the prospect too.
Yeah, yeah. Was there anything surprising that you took out of the mentor walks or that you learnt as the mentor as well from any of the walks that you've done? I just think the talent of people and the diversity of what they've done and where they're at. There's so many super smart, bright, amazing people and how we're better at connecting people that don't necessarily.
fit a CV or wouldn't normally get through kind of a process of the tick and flick of I need this and I need that. Like how do we get less prescriptive about what we're looking for in roles and more about the energy, the characteristics, and then we train people into roles. Because I've met so many fabulous people from such different walks of life.
And I'm like, I'd love to have you in my team. But how do I shape that in a way that [00:28:00] works through a recruitment process? I think the other one is just how genuinely there's so many common themes across industry and issues that people face. So you can get lots of different support in that way. But yeah, it's fun.
And I think the other one that always, there's the generosity of the other mentors, but just how people support each other. But the questions are generally fairly similar. So with all the work you've done in this space, right, and throughout your career from running a bookshop through to running a over 14 billion build, right, so it's been such a diverse career.
Looking back, what's the legacy that you want to leave for your life's work? Uh, I think delivering the right type of infrastructure that helps support healthy outcomes for people. Helping reform an industry that is very stuck in its ways. And how do we bring that innovative and fun and looking after each other so that it is a [00:29:00] sustainable and attractive industry for people.
And growing, you know, A diverse group of people that supported when they're so focused on delivering legacy for people. That's great. I can tell as well the way you speak about it. It's never been about the title. It's never been, it's always been about solving a problem, about serving the community. And it's really nice to hear because that's important to know if someone's representing the community that that's what they genuinely care about is the people and making the best decision for the public.
So the next part we're going to do is a rocket round. It's a bit of fun. So it's where we just ask a few questions just about you and they're pretty basic. So the first one is coffee or wine. Oh, what time of the day? That's what everyone says. So you need both, need both to function. Fair, fair. Wine on weekends, coffee during, on weekdays.
Same. Cats or dogs? Both. Oh, yay! We've got a cats! It's been a while since we've, this is fantastic! Um, I [00:30:00] like both too. I'm allergic to cats, but I'd love to have a cat. Uh, and favourite holiday destination? Depends. Uh, beach or desert. Italy. New Zealand. I don't know. It is travel everywhere. We, we like to travel.
It's fun. And, uh, what is some of the podcasts that you listen to? Uh, not many. Well, you can start now. You can listen to yourself. That won't be happening. No one ever wants to listen to themselves and it's so awkward when you do. Uh, and what makes you feel like your home? My family. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Oh, pleasure. I think we've covered so much and it's really fascinating. I know it'll be really interesting for a lot of our listeners to understand how decisions are made, understand the collaboration piece and design principles. So I think we covered a lot and I really appreciate your honesty and ability to share and give us insights.
Thanks so much for making pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me along. Thanks for coming. Thanks for [00:31:00] listening to Building Doors. Comments or questions, send them to hello@buildingdoors.com au and remember to rate subscribe and review. See you next time.