Values and Identity

Gratitude - I am grateful for every experience I’ve had, whether it's perceived to be good or bad, it has always taught me something given me lessons which I can carry for the rest of my life. Everyone I know and everything I have done, I am grateful for the lessons and people that have given me to connect and achieve and I always do my best to pay it forward.

Fail, just fail forward - I used to “fear” (false evidence appearing real), failure. Until I learnt that you either succeed or you learn. Now I’m grateful for every failure, (and I’ve had many… some spectacular!) because it makes me grow and pushes the thorns I have out of me. That's not to say I don’t feel crap whenever I have a failure (I am human), or that I am finished pushing out the thorns, but I would tell my 20 year old self, don’t worry about it… somewhere down the line, you’ll thank yourself!

Everything happens at the right place, right time and for the right reason, but do the work! - this resonates strongly with me at the moment. Uncertainty about my Job while looking behind and I see a family to support and bills to pay have given some dark days. But I would say have trust in your abilities and resilience. You can’t control the cards you’re dealt but you can play them to the best hand! I keep working to be the best version of myself that I can be and then let life take its course, because sometimes, that's all you can do.

Identity

Identity has been a bit of a journey for me. I’m a “third culture kid” born and bred, I attended international schools my whole life (British International Jakarta and United World College) and then attended University (Massey and Auckland) in yet another country where I was not born. I like to think of myself as an international citizen, I grew up in an asian household yet due to my upbringing and education, I have had the privilege to have friends from literally all over the world, many of whom i still keep in touch with. My wife and children are kiwis, my own family live in Melbourne and I have extended family in Asia, North America and Europe. Because of that I find that I have no problem meeting and learning about new people and cultures, in fact I thrive on it!

Apparently Myers-Briggs lists me as an “ENFJ”, I’m not a psychologist so I can’t diagnose my own personality! But I can share what I’ve learnt along my journey.

I lost my father to a plane crash when I was 15, the very thing I was aspiring to do, fly planes! Also at a time where I was a grotty teenager and needing that father figure in my life.. Life threw me a big test early, if you want it, as cruel as this is, do you still have it in you to get it? Boy, did I obsessively chase that..ups and downs, successes and failures, I managed to do it and then went along to have a great career at it. Now life has taught me to use that resilience to transition into a new career, when my old one seemingly folded due to a once in a 100 year external force… (how life works sometimes ;) ).

I’ve always been a late bloomer in life, so naturally I’ve come to the Tech party a bit later! I may walk slow at times, but I always walk forward, and I’ll always leave as many notes as I can behind!

My Strengths

Empathetic and Encouraging - I never want to be the smartest person in a room, and I’ll do my best to help everyone over the line. When I am the person that needs that kick up the backside, I’ll ask for it!

Communication - The best communication to me is two way. If i don’t know something, I’ll ask for help. At the same time, I do my best to communicate my needs and concerns because I understand the value of effective team communication.

Motivated and Resilient - I find something I want to pursue and I'll do it to the best of my ability. My life lessons have taught me to embrace failure as much as success and sometimes you learn more from finding out what not to do than what to do!.

Reliability - If i’m invested in a task or a cause, I'll see it through.

My Limitations

Self sacrificing - because of my high drive and motivation, I can sometimes stretch myself too thin and have learnt the hard way in the past. I make it a point to check in with my team members as much as I can so that I know they have my back as much as I have thiers when I start going down this path.

Tough Decisions - I sometimes struggle to make tough decisions when all the options provided are tough, especially if the consequences are humanitarian! To overcome this, I go back to my strength of never wanting to be the smartest person in the room, so that when the time comes, I can rely on people with better expertise in a subject than myself and trust that based on their knowledge and experience, I have made the right decision.

Idealistic to a fault - I can be a dreamer, which has its place and I like to surround myself with like minded people. However this is also where I make sure I have realists around me to stop me from flying too close to the sun!

Explain a situation where you have had an ethical decision to make.

After 2 years in my current role, I was selected to be part of the control group of pilots that operate into Queenstown. I was really excited to be given the privilege to operate into such a demanding airport with its stunning approaches and breathtaking scenery. At the time my wife was also pregnant with our second child. As much as it was tempting to soldier on with the course to become “Queenstown Qualified”, I knew that with the challenges of having a new baby, I wouldn’t be able to give the course and operation the respect it deserved. So I wrote to the Chief Pilot and Flight Operations Manager requesting to be removed from the course due to my family situation. I explained that this was not a reflection of my work ethic but rather good self awareness that I didn’t want to take on too much especially with a safety conscious role. My managers whole heartedly understood and removed me from the course. After my second child was born and we had a few months settling into life with 2, I went back to complete the course, got “Queenstown Qualified” and enjoy flying into one of the most stunning airports in the world!

Give an example of a time you were trying to work productively but were met with resistance

I was leading a team of facilitators and we were putting together a training package to roll out for annual training. We had a team of highly engaged and passionate facilitators with deep experience levels but with very different styles. This led to clashing during brainstorming sessions and putting together content. I was new onto the team at the time with 1 year of experience as a facilitator but was a team leader. I set about each session always bringing it back to the why. Some facilitators were driven by facts, others by ideas, some were realists and others, dreamers. I stated that I wanted each member of the team to pick a subject that they were passionate about and to work on it. At the end when we came to the final build up of the package, we got out the company's ethos and values and made sure that each input was linking back to these. Here I found that the balance of the team played its part well, and the differing styles and personalities helped to synergise the product into one that was inline with the company's value yet engaging. When we ran the training package live we constantly got good reviews from staff, with repeating feedback that they wanted future training to be run in the same format and style.