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Welcome to Humans of Agriculture. This podcast series is dedicated to discovering more about our food system, from the people involved in it.
Along the journey we'll be meeting people from all walks of life from Australia and from afar. Join us as we find out how our communities and our culture shape what we eat, and ultimately who we are.
More people, More often, Identifying with Agriculture
Oli Le Lievre 0:00
Welcome back to the humans of agriculture podcast this week, I'm bringing a bloke who probably when we think traditionally of agriculture, we don't necessarily think of his career having really kind of impactful role. But I think, Nick, when I was sitting at the Syngenta growth awards last year, and you won the Judge's Choice Award, it was going well, your business and what you've created actually challenges the stereotypes. And the norms of what we see is agriculture and associated to agriculture businesses. I think when you are getting your award and when you when they are talking about what you do, the light bulbs are going in my head of going wow, like, again, that's going well. When we look at what are the opportunities in creating a business or a part of transforming the agriculture sector and horticulture sector, we might not necessarily think that aeroplanes, airports runways are the natural fit. And when I heard what your business does, which I'm gonna get you to describe, I was just like, well, and then when we chatted on the phone the other day, I thought, looking at your career history and what you've done, I wanted to chat to you about these sliding door moments what those different pieces of the puzzle have been like in terms of growing a business, developing yourself as both a manager and a business owner, and how you can chase passion and create opportunity for yourself and other people in a career. So I'm very excited for today's chat. I think we're giving yourself an hour, we're probably going to absolutely explode that. Welcome to the humans of agriculture podcast.
Speaker 1 1:21
Yeah, thanks. I'm excited to be on I never thought I'd be chatting on a agriculture podcast, but made super excited. And looking forward to our chat today.
Oli Le Lievre 1:34
Matt, you're the founder and CEO of IBM group. Can you just explain in layman's terms for myself and the audience what it is that you guys do? Yeah,
Speaker 1 1:42
my Well, we're, we talk about our businesses having a mission to improve people's lives through plant sites. And so where that shows up is, you're talking about airports, the green stuff around an airport is for that client for that asset owner. That's their largest living asset. And so we help them maintain that or think about how they can best maintain that safely, but also sustainably, and helping them do that, and think about that in a sustainable way. And that's pretty exciting. It's very different. But you know, comes back to plants without plants or a little bit stuffed. So yeah, we think it's pretty important work.
Oli Le Lievre 2:27
And I'm assuming here that like the plant is a really personal interest of yours that kind of has drawn in where's that come from? Yeah.
Speaker 1 2:34
So when I was a teenager, I was I left school and was studying law. So man, I was going to be a lawyer and got a bit of a light bulb moment. And Tommy, I've always had an interest in plants. But he had a bit of a lightbulb moment that Yeah, that wasn't an area that I was going to be able to make a difference. And maybe that had something to do with the fact that I reckon I'd be a pretty crappy lawyer that made I switched to horticulture and started studying horticulture instead, and founded my first business when I was 19. And that's in the vegetation management space, hence, made over 30 years, you know, it's kind of evolved, doing what we do now. But the IBM group is integrated vegetation management, that's what that stands for. So I haven't come a long way from, you know, what I was doing when I was 90,
Oli Le Lievre 3:25
what made that you wanted to sit down that pathway of kind of creating your own business and opportunity, and not necessarily being an employee. It's interesting,
Speaker 1 3:33
both my mom and dad, you'd think about as entrepreneurs, small business owners, my mom, particularly Bill teams, small teams, but you know, build really impactful teams to be able to have an impact on people's lives, you know, whether it's the customers that, you know, they were serving in retail stores, or what have you, but also being able to, you know, chapter and course, you know, and when you and I were chatting before, you know, about business we were talking about, you know, really believe that, you know, love the bus analogy and around business, and Jay can get a group of amazing people on a bus, and then you can choose where to drive it, you know, and that's probably what gets me up in the morning. You know, and I've been involved in a lot of the business we're in now, obviously, it's commercial enterprise, but also on the not for profit side. You know, I've had a fair bit to do with other organisations. And it's just really inspiring to be able to work with a very cool group of people to be able to do stuff that makes a difference.
Oli Le Lievre 4:30
You talk about vegetation management, that early business, what did it look like at 19 years old?
Speaker 1 4:35
What might that look like? vegetation management sounds like a very, very salubrious word, weed control. So So helping governments do how to manage manage weeds in high priority places. Like I'm coming up today from the Gold Coast. You know, I've got Bond University just down the road from where from where our office is. The least agriculture place that you can imagine, the Gold Coast is actually more bio diverse than Kakadu is a fun fact. And if you think about it, you know, the, from the mountains down through to the mangroves, you know, the Gold Coast has got a lot going on. So I had a bit of a passion about being able to help sustain green assets for people. And if you think about it, agriculture is all about feeding the planet, plants have got an intrinsic role in being able to sustain the planet, I think about it as the other side, just the other side of the same coin, the role of plants and being able to cool the planet, you know, enrich people's lives, you know, and of course, give us air to breathe. So, I remember travelling over to New York and seeing Central Park and thinking, you know, to have different New York be with that Central Park. Right. And that's the same, you know, I've lived on the Gulf Coast for over 40 years, the same here, you know, without the, you know, without the trees without the parks, you know, without the diversity of life, it'd be really very different. So started off in week controlling with my brother and my father, you know, we ended up building a business over 20 years with a couple of 100 folks and helping us and serving our clients and throughout southeast Queensland. So that was the business. You know, I spent the first part of my career building I
Speaker 2 6:24
got, can I ask a question? And I think there's the beauty of the podcast and the way the conversation goes, you can never quite No, but I'm really interested in 19, you're setting up this business, you saw the need, that you could help government and other clients manage the vegetation in around that area that you're living? How do you actually and what were the steps that you applied to building that business? Back then, in kind of, I guess, the SparkNotes basic version?
Speaker 1 6:49
Yeah, it's it's funny. You're talking about sliding doors. I was studying horticulture. I was going to a class at one of the classes. I think it was a botany class I was doing at night, had a couple of guys who worked for the local council. And yeah, I've got to know these guys, and really cool passionate people. They said, Hey, we've we just sat there weed control contractor, and are you interested in doing a little bit of work? You know, like, kind of part time either you and no idea. So I was probably a good one to say yes to something I knew nothing about. I laugh because I was talking to one of our sons about this the other day, you know, turned up at the job. Well, the place they told me to turn up, and it's actually where the Gold Coast suns played, which is people's first stadium, it's called now but back then it was basically a big Council Park. And the supervisor said, Hey, we need to selectively remove the weeds out of this council park before that I had a big function coming up way before they played AFL there. And he goes, Yeah, have you got a trackless Chair of track? And he said, Have you got a boon spray? And I'm not sure whether to be proud or ashamed of that. But I turned around, I said, Yeah, of course, I got a boon spray, which I didn't. And I said, when do you when? When do you need it done? He goes, Oh, you know, look, just before we got to where the council function coming up in about a month's time, he goes long as they're gone by then. That'd be cool. So I think the next day, I headed up to breezy and got a made friends with the hearty spray agent up there and stayed up there for the next week while we built some spray gear for the back of the truck. And the rest is history, as I say.
Oli Le Lievre 8:36
That was the first contract. So it was a one man operation yourself for a while at what stage did it I guess go from being a job that was fully reliant on new to then becoming a business?
Speaker 1 8:46
Look, I was just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Back then it was late 80s on the Gold Coast, and the place was booming. So there was no shortage of weeds. I did half a decent job and the local council supervisors had the answering machine back then no mobile phones might they couldn't call the on a mobile. So I'd get home at the end of the day. And there'd be a bunch of messages on the answering machine about doing different sorts of jobs and, and I thought, holy crap, what am I gonna do this only one of me. And so my my brother Kim, who was in the defence force, so he was an Army. He was an Army Sergeant back then in operations and logistics, perfect guy knew nothing about operations and logistics. I barely knew anything about weed control. So I convinced him over a couple of beers. Why don't we? Why didn't he come and work? Work with me? And so here we have and nothing's nothing right. So I gave him half the business and he probably felt sorry for me. So then it was too and off we went and our father Trevor, he actually knew something about business. So I kinda have probably already realised now that was kind of his guiding hand in the background. So he did helped us out and ended up coming and working. Yeah, a few years later coming and working in the business with us. So that's a bit of the origin story is as it is so good. And
Oli Le Lievre 10:15
something along the lines of the sales pitch as you can keep serving the people, but just in a slightly different way, and I'm gonna do it with a bit of ownership
Speaker 1 10:24
100%, what I now know, of course, is, you know, the best of family business is actually the best of business, you know, because it's not without its challenges, but business can really be the glue that sticks a family together, done the right way and with in the right spirit. And that was certainly the case for us. You know, I mean, we've, we have plenty of twists and turns and up and downs over the next 20 years. But, you know, we grew that business, thanks to the hard work of a lot of amazing people. And that was just a great honour to be able to, to be involved in that, you know, yeah, I just feel very privileged.
Oli Le Lievre 11:03
I'm interested. And obviously, we in agriculture, you've got so many different 90 odd percent of farms in Australia, owned by family businesses. But what you guys learned, I guess, in being able to establish that operation, and today to have an incredibly successful business, both in terms of where you guys stand, but also recognised as the most awarded vegetation management contractor in Australia. But what have you guys seen as being successful? And what was some of those maybe aha moments that you had, going from being two brothers running around, like headless chokes drinking beers and spraying a few weeds to actually building a company?
Speaker 1 11:40
I think it comes down to you know, when you when you talk about family business, you know, at the end of the day, business is all about people, right? And the foundation of running any business growing any business, you know, is trust, think about a pyramid, that's really the base of the pyramid. And so I think one of the things that is a strength of family business is trust. And then the other one is patient capital, you know, like, you've got the ability to be able to, you're not a private equity funded business or whatever, you know, you're using family capital, you're able to make decisions for the long term. And then the, the other one, of course, is alignment around around values, you know, I remember one of our values, you know, was simply do the right thing. And so people would say, oh, you know, what about policies and procedures and stuff and say, Well look, you know, use your best judgement, and do the right thing. And even if later on, it turns out, that might not be I could have done something about a way that wasn't obvious at the time, nobody's going to crucify you for using your best judgement. So just do the right thing. And the family business, you're able to do that.
Speaker 2 12:55
It's interesting. And I guess it's the part of that, that I've juggled and kind of gone through was, so one of our values was around, just be a good human. And that allows to say, if you walked in the door, as I call, let's chat about what that means to you. Because my perception of it is that we are open, and we're respectful when we say things, but we also behave in a way that is respectful of you, and your time or whatever. And to me that like that's what being a good human is. And I think for us, it was actually like, how do you make those values a conversation piece? So another one around curiosity, but it's like, if I don't necessarily agree with you, I can get curious about your point of view. And internal, I want you to get curious about mine as well. It's really interesting. And that evolution for you guys going from family and bringing others in? Would you say that those values still the same of where they started 100%.
Speaker 1 13:41
For me, they they have a way that at all, I mean, I think it's about growing great humans, and nothing gives me more of a buzz than seeing our people grow, seeing people who've come through, you know, an organisation that might have been leading, grow and do other amazing things, you know, whether it's with their own families moving on to their own enterprises, or to bigger and better roles, or what have you, you know, nothing gives me more satisfaction than that. And that's bringing up kids, right? You know, you certainly don't want to keep them at home. God forbid, you know, got a 28 and a 25 year old, my wife and I and two boys and the 25 year old I think 18 months ago, less tone, you know what I mean? You just want them to go out and do other amazing things forge amazing lives for themselves. So, you know, it's no different to that in business. That's a real thing. Yeah, you're growing great humans.
Oli Le Lievre 14:38
Yeah. So let's talk about the evolution of the business. It grew from the council work. What are some of those maybe like significant milestones and pieces that you went through to get to where you guys are today?
Speaker 1 14:51
Yeah, I think realising the big piece for us was realising that the role of plant science In what it is that we, we were doing, you know, I'd like to say that we were reasonably, reasonably early in our adoption of, you know, what your neck, whether it was preemergent herbicides, you know, plant growth regulators, you know, other plant health technologies, you know, we're reasonably early adopters of that, of those types of technologies, those types of tools. So that was certainly a big piece of that. And that shows up in what we do, you know, what we do today and some of our methodologies in which would seem to many people to be counterintuitive, you know, and we actually talk about our work in airports if you'd like. But I think that piece, the role of plant science and technology, I think, also just realising that I don't grow a business, our people do, right. So, yeah, if we want to grow our business grow people, you know, and I mean, we obviously touched on that about, you know, growing great humans, but, I mean, I've had to check myself a number of times, you know, when you hit a bit of a wall in your business, and you go, Well, you know, what are we really doing? are we investing in our people? Are we serious about that, and realising that our bottleneck to growth is, is our ability to grow, grow a team, and get them aligned around around a common vision? So I think we didn't do that too badly. And hence, we're able to help regrow,
Oli Le Lievre 16:29
how's your role changed? Like, maybe, what stages Haven't you been the right person in an area?
Speaker 1 16:36
I think, realising that for a leader in the, in the business, I mean, often, you know, I've certainly it's certainly true that I've been a bottleneck to the growth in our business, hopefully, on on not or unless of that today than I was, you know, when I was say, in my 20s, and 30s. But realising that I needed to grow myself, and a big part, I think of our success has been realising, you know, my areas of, of weakness, and bringing people in, around me, that their strengths and my my weaknesses, you know, and also focusing on focusing on my strengths, I don't have too many of them, so I better put them to work, you know, and so, again, you know, like building that team, I think, you know, being involved on on, I'm still a member of the entrepreneurs organisation. EO has over 18,000 members, you know, worldwide, I think when I joined the organisation, we're around about 10,000. That's about surrounding myself with like minded peers, who I can learn from them, help plug some of the gaps and build my skills as a as a leader, which ultimately is probably the mighty key strength, if you like,
Oli Le Lievre 17:58
you're very humble, Nick, you're very humble. What are your passions today, you tell me, I can make assumptions, but I'm interested.
Speaker 1 18:06
My personal passions are people and plants, it doesn't get too much outside of that, you know, so family, obviously, you know, the people, you know, in, in our organisation, and the people we serve, there certainly passions of mine. He I've been very fortunate to be involved with the formation of the Botanic Gardens on the Gold Coast of Gold Coast was the largest, well, the only city in Australia without a botanic gardens many years ago, and it's now got a booming one with, with a couple of 100,000 visitors every year, and I'm very passionate about and proud of the small part I had to play in that. So that that's one and that's a nice way to meet me, I believe the meaning of life is to live a life of meaning. Certainly, for me, it's not about making money, it's, it's about making a difference. My ability to be able to have a small role in that through the Botanic Gardens. My wife and I were about to head off to help some friends build their Botanic Garden in Costa Rica, which is, again might seem quite random, but it's very aligned to our values. You know, that's a simple guy. That's the two people in plants. That
Oli Le Lievre 19:20
is so cool. So tell me on that people from one of the parts and I guess the part which really, really drew me in I was fascinated about this piece around airports like Where Where did that opportunity come from and how to come about, like all
Speaker 1 19:34
good opportunities starts with a problem to solve, you know, and Brisbane airports had an issue with a with an introduced pest. It's a keyhole Wasp, called the Brazilian keyhole wasp. And it's got an unfortunate tendency to to build mud nests in aircraft instruments. Overseas that's been quite a problem and has been the cause of have unfortunately, hundreds of deaths in aviation from blocking airspeed indicators on planes. And that issue Shut up at Brisbane Airport. And they approached us about helping them with that problem. And to a point where you know, it's not able to be eradicated within Australia. So it's about your understanding and you know, managing managing risks there. So, our involvement was really, from a plate science perspective was understanding that the best thing we could do to mitigate that was to actually manage the food source. It's a predatory Wasp, and it predates on on caterpillars. Caterpillars Of course, don't just show up in, in eating crops and agriculture. You know, they they eat grass around airports, and the wass then utilise the caterpillars are serve as a food source. And they stuffed a little fellas in, in small spaces, like like airspeed indicators on plane. So we got together with our friends at Syngenta and understood how we could sustainably manage the caterpillar populations around where the planes are parked at the airport. And by doing that, and putting in a programme to, to manage the caterpillar populations, that in turn has meant that the keyhole wasps no longer has the food source there and it can go elsewhere for its food, which of course, suits everybody just fine.
Oli Le Lievre 21:33
Yeah, interesting. When you look at like the opportunity in the future for what you guys do, increasing urbanisation with wildlife and different things moving into different places, what do you see as as the opportunities like how do you see, that has been both challenging, but really exciting for you guys do?
Speaker 1 21:53
Yeah, so I think about, you know, when you when you say that, Singapore comes to mind, and we've helped the Singapore government with some of their management issues there, as they relate to, you know, the green assets, and I love the fact that Singapore see themselves as a city and a garden. You know, you think about that. It's a lovely, a lovely, counterintuitive, but, you know, very powerful way to think about Singapore, and so plants are intrinsic to you know, their, their way of life. If you think about that, well, you know, the more plants the more density, the more the, you want to get more from less, you don't just want, you know, more labour involved to be able to manage that, to do that in a sustainable way, you know, means rethinking the way to manage that, and the role that plant science and Plant Health can really leverage leverage that, you know, so kind of Singapore's a bit of a, like a microcosm, and, you know, like, it's an intense way of looking at it. But bringing that into Australia and other urban areas around the world, we've got the same issues to deal with, you know, whether it's being able to manage Tree Hill from an agriculture perspective, or, you know, the natural environments that sit around those areas, for wetlands, and habitats and so forth. Plants have the common element of that. And so it's about understanding, is he using the airport as an example? Yes, there's problems there. One of the core problems, you know, what's at the base of the pyramid in in terms of solving that problem, and bringing plant science and really smart people to understand that, once we really understand it well, and we understand what the problem is, we can then go about solving it kind of solving. It's the easy part once we understand what's causing the issue.
Oli Le Lievre 23:39
Yeah, absolutely. And so for you, I guess, I'd be interested, when you look at where your business is heading. And when we look at probably like the agriculture sector, what are the skills? What are the types of people you think that are going to help your business flourish and succeed? And I think if I'm asking that in the context of I think of young people now who are sitting in year nine year 10, at high school, and looking at how things are going to change and evolve, what will help you guys be prosperous, and be able to continue to positively impact and protect people on the planet into the future? It's
Speaker 1 24:09
a great question. I think that educating people on the role of plants, plants aren't just important. They're actually the givers of life, for kids to understand that without plants, there is no life. Right? And I mean, that might be a bit of a blunt way of looking at it, but So education around plants and I mean, we've fortunate to have one of the preeminent partners in the country, you know, on our team, Dr. Sheldon Navy and Shogun has been been part of our team now for he's one of the cofounders of the business, understanding the role of plants, but also the opportunity of plants not just to feed the planet but sustain the planet. And there's a lot of talk, obviously, around climate change, that understanding that the plants have a fundamental role to called the planet to supply the water that we drink every day. And, I mean, I'm a real advocate of science based learning. So really understanding the role of science has to both improve our understanding of plants, but also our ability to think about what we do every day differently. And realising that we can get a lot more from less, you know, whether it's through resources, like, you know, just human effort, but also doing things in a smarter way, with lower cost and less risk as well. Which is, ultimately that that's what we're all about. You see the, the words up on the, on the back of the wall behind me, you know, one of our core values is, we're passionate problem solvers.
Oli Le Lievre 25:48
Nick, thank you so much, is there anything else that you want to I know, you're heading off to Costa Rica at the end of the week, which is going to be a pretty incredible little trip, slightly work, and also slightly played is anything else that you you want to talk about or anything from your end that you'd love to put out to our community as well?
Speaker 1 26:06
I think, you know, we talk about when we're working with particularly larger, you know, organisations, you know, whether it's, you know, whether it's an airport, or you know, government department, or what have you, is understanding that it's a journey, you know, if we want to impact if we're in a different outcome, and particularly if we want to want an industry step change, whether that's in green asset management, like we work in, or whether that's in agriculture, gotta take people with us, and understanding that there's some persistence, required, right. But there's also patients as well. And really, what we need to remember is we're taking hearts and minds, you know, to take people on the journey, we got to hearts and minds on the journey as well. Might we talk about a rising tide lifts all boats, you know, and so being patient, being persistent, and living the tide rise,
Oli Le Lievre 27:08
as you've touched on a few times, it's all about people. And I think at the end of the day, when it comes to when we're doing business with other businesses, we're actually doing it with people when we're trying to showcase our products. We are showing it to people I think, at the end of the day, it kind of all kind of all roads kind of laid back to that central park being the human. And I love how you talk about the hearts and minds and obviously it's that emotive piece that how do you actually really connect with people behind what you're doing in any facet of what you do? So, Nick, thank you so much. I know we've talked a little bit about business, we've talked about leadership. We've obviously talked about the plans and the science and the work that you guys are doing and thanks for taking the time to have you on. Oh
Speaker 1 27:49
my I really enjoyed it, Ali and it's been a privilege my friend Chittor
Transcribed by https://otter.ai