James Harper: finally finding fulfilment after his desire to fit in informed early choices and increasing success almost tipped him over the edge.

James has worked for over 40 years in the people performance area of organisations. He has lectured on University Masters Programs, facilitated workshops, delivered skills training and carried out senior executive coaching. He has held senior corporate roles and worked as a consultant in Australia, Asia, Europe and the Middle East 

In our conversation we talk about his childhood and education in Hong Kong and Indiana, the evolution of his professional career, the stresses that almost brought him down and how, he navigated his way through a prolonged difficult period and with help emerged into an exciting new international phase of his career. 

As you'll hear, James has had a fascinating journey and he shares his story openly and authentically. It is my pleasure to introduce him to you in this way. I look forward to hearing what resonates with you. 

You can contact James via LinkedIn or email:  james@jharper.com.au 

Why not follow us on Instagram @careerviewmirror where you can see a directory of all our episodes and comment on those you have enjoyed. 

To help you navigate the content we've separated it into chapters which work on Apple Podcasts and certain other streaming platforms. 

This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by Aquilae.  

Aquilae is a boutique consultancy in the auto finance and mobility industry. We offer our Expertise as a Service to help you design and deliver projects that develop your business and the people within it. Contact cvm@aquilae.co.uk if you’d like to know more. 

If you enjoyed this podcast please take a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your feedback helps us grow. 

For details of our forthcoming guests follow us on Instagram @careerviewmirror 

Email: cvm@aquilae.co.uk 

Twitter: @andyfollows 

Episode recorded on  16 March 2022 

Transcript

James Harper: 0:00

I had 300 HR people reporting to me, they're looking after 26,000 staff. It's a huge job. But I came a cropper, big time.

Andy: 0:10

Welcome to Career-view Mirror, the automotive podcast that goes behind the scenes with key players in the industry looking back over their careers so far, sharing insights to help you with your own journey. I'm your host Andy Follows. James Harper listeners James has worked for over 40 years in the people performance area of organisations. He's lectured on university Master's programmes, facilitated workshops, delivered skills training, and carried out senior executive coaching. He's held senior corporate roles and worked as a consultant in Australia, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. More recently, he was part of a team of consultants implementing a global behaviour change programme to improve the productive use of CRM systems. This is for a luxury automotive brand and is aimed at senior management and sales staff and involves in dealership business analysis and coaching. He's now semi retired conducting occasional workshops and coaching for a charity organisation that assists people to develop their ability to search and apply for jobs, as well as the confidence to perform well in interviews. In our conversation, we talk about his childhood and education in Hong Kong and Indiana, the evolution of his professional career, the stresses that almost brought him down, and how he navigated his way through a prolonged difficult period. And with help emerged into an exciting new international phase of his career. As you'll hear, James has had a fascinating journey, and he shares his story openly and authentically. It's my pleasure to introduce him to you in this way, and I look forward to hearing what resonates with you.

Aquilae Academy: 2:05

This episode of Career-view Mirror is brought to you by the Aquilae Academy. At the Academy we turn individual development into a team sport, we bring together small groups of leaders from non competing organisations to form their very own academy team. We build strong connection between team members and create a great environment for sharing and learning. We introduce the team to content that can help them tackle their current challenges. And we hold them accountable to take the actions that they decide are their priorities. We say we hold our team members feet to the fire of their best intentions. We do this internationally with teams across the world. If you'd like to learn more about the academy, go to www.aquilae.co.uk.

Andy: 2:51

Hello, James, and welcome. And where are you coming to us from today?

James Harper: 2:56

Hi, Andy, I'm coming to you from Melbourne in Australia. As you can tell from my accent. I'm not an Australian, but we'll find out more about that soon.

Andy: 3:06

We'll find out very soon because my next question is going to be where did your journey start? Then where were you born? Where did you grow up?

James Harper: 3:15

I was born actually in San Jose, which is very near San Francisco in the USA. But only because my parents who were actually Hong Kong residents. Were living there because my father was graduating from university. So much like those times my mother was 21. And my father was 22 when I was actually born in San Jose, California. And then at three months old, we moved to Hong Kong, which is where I grew up.

Andy: 3:46

I wasn't expecting that. That's very interesting, very young parents. Did you Did your arrival disrupt your parents studies or had your father finished before he moved back to Hong Kong? What was the story there?

James Harper: 4:01

The story and the right word to use is story because sometimes, over the years, you kind of wonder how how much they've been sort of slightly fudged. But the story is my father was taking his final examinations at the very moment that I was born at San Jose State University in English literature. And his dream was to be an English literature teacher but instead he went from there. Soon after I was born to Detroit where he went to a school for sons of Ford Motor dealerships to learn how to run a Ford dealership, I suppose what you had to call that before then, when I was three months old, my mother, my father and I then went to Hong Kong where he took over the business from his father.

Andy: 4:55

Okay, so you've got automotive in there in the family background and you You grew up then in Hong Kong for some time. Yes. Yes. Did you have brothers and sisters? Yeah.

James Harper: 5:09

One sister, one brother, we were all born very closely together, my sisters 13 months after me and my brothers 18 months after her, which really probably points to the fact that contraception didn't kind of exist back then the same way as it did today.

Andy: 5:27

So you have a nice closely grouped family unit there in age. And what about school? James? How were your school days? Tell me a little bit about that.

James Harper: 5:42

Quite mixed and fraught, in some ways. It started off, in my opinion, probably reasonably well, I went to a, essentially a school for just English speaking kids, which Hong Kong was an English colony, which meant that it was 98 99% Chinese and 1% English, who basically made all the rules and ran the place. And so I went to an English school called Quarry Bay till I was eight years old, did very well at school, I do remember being first in my class, and my parents thinking that was great. Then at about that age, my parents then took a long trip to Europe. So we went to Europe, we spent the summer there. And then, at the end of the summer, my parents dropped my, my brother and sister off at a boarding school in England, down in Sussex, and we went to this boarding school for three months, and then came back to Hong Kong. But why I mentioned the boarding schools, it was the first time that I probably got confronted with the fact that I was reasonably smart or clever, and I understood that. But I also realised I was socially not particularly adept. I was a bit of an angry kid. So I kept getting into trouble. That happened during that three months of boarding school.

Andy: 7:02

What sort of trouble? Are we talking about James?

James Harper: 7:05

Oh, just the rebellious stuff that like, you know, like, it was a boarding school. So being out of bed when you're supposed to be in bed, being in places where you weren't supposed to be, at various times as a boys school, as you can imagine, was quite strict. You're supposed to be here at this time in here at this time. And I was always looking forward to having a bit more fun. And it didn't take me long to find a couple of other cohorts. And the three of us were always getting into trouble.

Andy: 7:30

And you only about eight years old at this point?

James Harper: 7:33

Yes. But I remember quite clearly eight going on nine.

Andy: 7:37

And after you did the three months there, you went back to Hong Kong.

James Harper: 7:41

Yes. And then my and that's when my schooling probably came a bit more disturbed, because when I got back to Hong Kong, I had, I went back to the school I was in beforehand. But I felt very out of place. didn't do very well. I then got sent to a school that was predominantly a Chinese school, but it had one class that was English speaking. And then like, like, for instance, you had one ABCD and E. One A was English speaking BCD and E were all Chinese speaking. And I got sent to the school called St. Joseph's College, and did extremely badly there. To the extent where the story there is that my last year there, there was around about 200 kids in each class year. And they would call you up and you and your name would be called and you just come up and file by on the stage and get your your report card and things like that. But it was done an order of who came first to last. And I was I was second last. So you know, I was really the arse end of have anything to do with with schooling and academic. But the most interesting thing about that is I would say to you it didn't matter to my parents.

Andy: 8:52

That was going to be a question I was I would ask How were they, what sort of expectations they have on you? And how did they parent to you?

James Harper: 9:02

That's a huge question. fraught with bias because it's obviously coming through my my mind and stuff like that. But I think you need to whoever's listening to this is try to imagine being in a colony, where as a white person, you are a privileged group. And that white person, it's much like what you would see in the movies, those white people got together often in cocktail parties. And there was quite a lot of also and I've since found out this came I find this out a lot older a lot of shenanigans and infidelity and all that kind of sort of stuff. But it was very, very cloistered closed English community of people who all knew each other well and got pissed often together and all had servants that did the upbringing of the children. So I would have seen what we called my armor and my cook boy Who were a husband and wife, far more than I would have seen my parents, because they were at home all the time. But my parents were out quite a lot. So it had to do with what your your interests were. And if we go back to 21 22, being married, you know, I'm talking about, you know, 29 30. And when I look back at my 29 30, I was, you know, I was off to having a good time. And so were all the young parents in Hong Kong having a good time. So if you had were able to afford having servants to, to look after your kids, you didn't have to pay attention to them. And anybody who's had kids knows that there is a certain amount of of discipline, if you want to call it that, when you don't feel like doing something, but you know, you have to do something. So you need to actually keep putting in the boring times the hard yards, the sleepless nights, you've got to put that in. But if you've got servants to take that away from you, you don't put it in. So if I want to sum up my not only my upbringing, but most kids that grew up in Hong Kong, including my brother and sister, it was with parents that were fairly absent, but with very caring and very gentle servants. So that was kind of the the upbringing and parents more interested in their sort of maybe hedonistic way of living, tha n kids, and I would say, most English parents sent their kids off to boarding school at about the age of eight from Hong Kong. I wasn't sent off to boarding school till I was 13. But that was a common thing that you did you set your kids back to England or I went to America, or whichever country you came from to go to boarding school.

Andy: 11:40

Thank you for sharing that. And it makes me just want to ask a question. Was that similar then to the lifestyle that your father had been born into was a quite an affluent family? And that was how he had the experience he had?

James Harper: 11:53

Yes, very much so. Except the big difference is that my father's father put my father under much more pressure judged my father harder was harder on him than my father was on me.

Andy: 12:08

Interesting

James Harper: 12:09

but it was a parallel. Yeah. My great grandfather went to Hong Kong first. And he started off his business there. My grandfather then went to join him and actually took over his business. And then my father came and took over the business from my grandfather. But I didn't take over the business from my father.

Andy: 12:29

Yeah. And it was an automotive business was it? Was it? Yeah. Okay.

James Harper: 12:34

It was nearly automotive all the way along the along the way, although there was a bit of engineering in it as well, because in the very early days, when you were selling cars and trucks, and it was mainly to China via Hong Kong, sometimes you had to build the roads and bridges along the way, which particularly my great grandfather was, he was an engineer, that's what he was doing.

Andy: 12:53

Where had he moved from to Hong Kong, your great

James Harper: 12:57

he came from Ireland, as a kid to New Jersey grandfather, in America. And then when he was in New Jersey, he there that's that's where he qualified as an engineer, and did some, you know, road building bridge building. And the story is lost in the family, but for some reason, rather decided that it would be good to make his way to China to seek his fortune. So he went over to China, then he brought my grandfather over and then my father, we're talking about the early 20s 1920s.

Andy: 13:29

Yeah, I'm thinking that was pretty courageous decision to be making back then.

James Harper: 13:35

Can I just say that I agree with you. And I have often wondered, the kind of courage it took my great grandfather, and particularly my grandfather to go and set up and run these businesses in a foreign land where nobody spoke English. What's the equivalent kind of courage today in terms of going off and doing something? And I think we have to accept now that the geographic courage and language courage has disappeared. And the courage is more a much more intellectual analytical technology, kind of a sphere. Is that fair to say? Do you think?

Andy: 14:14

Yes, it is. Well I get where you're coming from it this idea that the world is a smaller place. Now. It's not it just seems a much more bigger deal to go in 1920 to go from Ireland via New Jersey to Asia. Seems to me would have been a much more arduous journey to make and also you would be cut off from family in a way yeah, you would not be seeing them again for months or years, if at all. If you made that decision. This wouldn't be yes. Right. In a way that just doesn't exist anymore. And that made me think but then courage is is really courage not about how far you travel. But how much fear Am I Overcoming to do this. So it could be an entirely unique individual relative thing that yes, for someone leaving their house and going to the corner shop could be an absolute terrifying ordeal that they have to overcome to do it, and they would be using the same sort of amount of resources and energy to break through that as your great grandfather did to go to China.

James Harper: 15:25

I very, very much like what you say, and I 100% agree. But I think there's as many courageous people doing courageous things now as there ever wants, however we romanticise that past. And somehow we think that as being something more admirable to have done. And yet, I'm not sure that's the case. Because I do think that courage is a feeling usually associated with anxiety that you actually deal with in a way that has you doing something that you really want to do, despite the fear. It doesn't matter what it is.

Andy: 16:03

No, I think we could have a long conversation about that topic as well. But and you don't know the circumstances of the person, either. There are people making big geographical journeys right now as we speak, because staying at home is just not an option.

James Harper: 16:20

Yes, true.

Andy: 16:22

But in this case, we are assuming that this was by choice. Anyway, let's that's wonderful. What a rich history. You've got a fascinating backstory. James, let's go to being 13 years old, then if that works, and you were sent to university. Oh, sorry. You were sent to boarding school at 13 in the US. How did you I'm wondering if the reason you weren't sent at 8 is because you did a three month trial and they said no we don't want him yet, he's too naughty. So what happened at 13? How where'd you go? How did you feel about it?

James Harper: 16:59

Went to America, unlike in England, where boarding schools, you know, you wear a uniform, and there's prefects and all that kind of stuff. America basically replicated that but made most of their boarding schools, military schools. And in some ways, it probably more formalised the hierarchy that you would have in any boarding school, and probably made the boarding school easier to run because basically, the kids all ran each other. So I went to a boarding school in Indiana, middle of nowhere in America.

Andy: 17:31

I think it's called the heartland of America James not the middle of nowhere.

James Harper: 17:37

Okay. All right. Well, can I say it might be the heartland. But it's it doesn't have the same charisma as maybe California or, you know, Florida or New York. I mean, Indiana, most people go where?

Andy: 17:55

Well, we've had a guest, Kirk Cordill, who you may well know. And he's from Indiana. So we've got some balance. If anyone wants to listen to a very positive view of Indiana, then they can listen to Kirk. So as far as you were concerned, this was not one of the most glamorous locations that America had to offer.

James Harper: 18:16

No, but it was completely contrasted with how glamorous the school was.

Andy: 18:21

Okay tell us more

James Harper: 18:23

The school was considered to be one of the schools in America. If you sent somebody there now it would cost you I don't know, I'm gonna say it in Australian dollars, it'd be 70 or $80,000 a year. In terms of fees. It was split into different divisions, there was battery there was infantry, and I was in in the cavalry. And believe it or not, the cavalry had 100 about 160 black horses we were called the Black Horse troop. So as well as going to school and sleeping there and being at boarding school. There was also the riding and caring of horses and all that kind of sort of stuff, just like the old day cavalry. So that was what this high school was like it was and it also had its own golf course. And it also had its own basic airport because quite a few parents would fly in on weekends to see their kids. So this was like, in the middle of I said nowhere in the middle of Indiana, this absolutely amazing school.

Andy: 19:21

What's a call James for our US listeners.

James Harper: 19:25

Culver Military Academy.

Andy: 19:27

Culver. I haven't been keeping a tally but basically you win schools. You're the first guest with a school that had it's own airport, that is what do you call it facilities that is facilities above and beyond.

James Harper: 19:45

But you missed the other bit. It had its own nine hole golf course,

Andy: 19:49

which probably you could use more often than the airport. That is something and I had no idea you were in the cavalry. That would have been given us so much opportunity every time you came into the room oh, here comes the cavalry we missed we missed that opportunity. Given you told us as a youngster, you were sort of looking more about doing your own thing, having some fun and not too focused on rules. That sounds like a very rule based environment. How did you fit into that?

James Harper: 20:27

People asked you the question, you know, how was school? And I would actually just answer that by saying it was mixed. It was fraught. You remember, I came from Hong Kong, where very few people spoke English. I arrived in America. And one of the things I most look forward to is it's being able to walk down the street and know that I can speak to anybody who was I was walking down the street to, I arrived in a school having been brought up in a very unusual way, with a whole bunch of American kids who I had just no idea what their lifestyle was, what was important to them, nothing at all. So I was very much on the outer, as far as I felt. And I really felt that I had to work away to get into the inner. And initially, that was about following the rules as best as I possibly could. And so I really worked hard at trying to actually be good at the school successful at the school, there was a very sort of straightforward way of saying whether you're doing any good one was, of course, your academic side, but the other was the rank that you got. And if you did, well, you got promoted, and you became a corporal or sergeant, and all that kind of sort of stuff. But after about a year and a half of that I gave up, because I wasn't doing very well, particularly because I was very late to hit puberty. When I arrived at the school, I was a smallest skinniest person in the whole school. And I was known as that. And I didn't actually hit puberty till I was 16, almost 17, to the extent where when I was 16, and I hadn't hit puberty, when I went to see a doctor, he said, Look, if you don't hit puberty, soon, we're gonna have to accelerate this somehow. So throughout my whole schooling, I was always a small kid. And everybody else's voice was dropping, and they were starting to shave and things like that I was just this little kid who looked like he still should be in primary school. And that pissed me off. So again, I became a bit rebellious there and a bit anti anti authoritarian. I followed the rules as much as I needed to. But other than that, I just kind of got by the best way I could. And the only thing I did that was particularly successful there was because of my height and size, I joined the wrestling team. It's not a sport that's very common outside of America. And because I was in the lowest category and weighed next to nothing, but one of the oldest, I became the state champion for my particular weight class. But that was the only kind of accomplishment and even then I felt like it was a bit of a cheat because I was there I was 16 wrestling kids who were about 13. And it was didn't kind of seem fair, but that was the only way I basically justified. Okay, I'm, okay, so,

Andy: 22:58

yeah, so you went to the US, you were excited to be able to walk down the street and know that you could speak to anyone, and arrived in this school. And I imagine the cultural difference was much bigger than you would possibly have have anticipated, because you'd think these guys are going to be more like me than the people in the street in Hong Kong, but find that they've got completely different backgrounds, they've been brought up interested in different popular culture and all that. And then your motivation to work hard at school was to fit in, you felt actually quite an outsider, but wanting to break into to the inside. So worked hard. But there's only so long that can sustain you, if it's not actually getting you what you want. And your physical attributes, were still keeping you a little bit at the edge of that inner circle, if you like or making you different making you stand out as more different from the others. So eventually, the willpower just kind of ebbs away, and you respond differently to it.

James Harper: 24:05

I actually felt inferior. That was the thing. I suppose most men if they reflect on their teenage years, and I would say I'm guessing only from conversations I've had with friends. I mean, those teenage years are quite fraught. You know, you're trying to sort yourself out and you're trying to study but at the same time, your hormones are going crazy and and you're trying to prove yourself as a man and and then you got issues with your parents at all. I mean, I felt left behind and all that kind of stuff. I felt quite naive, really, compared to the Americans.

Andy: 24:37

Isn't it interesting because you painted this picture of a, you know, such a privileged environment to be in. So when you said it was quite difficult school, I thought you're gonna say something like, you know, you couldn't always get a tee time that you wanted on the golf course or something. I'm joking. So you had some sporting success although a little bit tainted by your feeling that is maybe is not exactly fair that I'm three years older than these children even though I'm in the same age, same weight category. What about academic side as you came towards the end of your school years? How was that tracking?

James Harper: 25:13

Not very well. Yeah, I was doing the bare minimum, barely passing? No, I didn't do very well academically at all.

Andy: 25:21

Were you leaning towards any particular direction? When you left? Did you have any idea what you wanted to do?

James Harper: 25:26

No. Out of the blue, I suddenly got told by the school, at the request of my father sent me to Chicago, which wasn't far away from the school to go through this battery of aptitude tests and it went over two days, I think it was and I had to answer question after question after question. And the only thing that came out about it is my own realisation that I preferred to be, which was very peculiar. I wanted to be a forest ranger. And that just popped out of the multitude of questions that I had to answer. So when you keep answering these questions, would you rather do this or rather do that? Or rather, it occurred to me, Oh, look, I just want to be in nature. I just want to be a forest ranger. I have no idea where that came from. But that was that was the only realisation I had.

Andy: 26:16

Well, I know you're not a forest ranger. Now, and I'm not aware of you becoming a forest ranger. But then there's a lot of things that don't know about you, as we're discovering. So how did you take that? You didn't do anything with that? Forest Ranger idea.

James Harper: 26:29

No. I think it was a fantasy.

Andy: 26:32

Right? An escape escape to nature

James Harper: 26:35

An escape, I think. And that's a good word. I think it was a bit of an escape.

Andy: 26:40

I can understand that being appealing, given the picture you've painted of not the happiest, not the most successful for one of a better word. Time in in that school?

James Harper: 26:53

I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that I was unhappy, right? When I use the word fraught, what that means is lots of ups and downs. And you know, the times when you're feeling really happy and having a good time and stuff, no I wasn't unhappy. But I certainly wasn't fitting in but I wasn't unhappy about not fitting in.

Andy: 27:11

So it was fraught, but you weren't unhappy? Weren't you know, there were happy times as well. And after this process, the assessment process the the little fantasy about forest, forest ranger, what did you do?

James Harper: 27:27

My last year at school 1969. Just before Christmas, about November, my father arrived at the school and sat me down and basically said that he and my mother were divorcing. And that where I'd be going off after I finished Culver was uncertain. So therefore, I had no idea what was going to happen once once school was finished. I just didn't know at the time. But I wasn't particularly concerned about it, because it was a good school, they really pushed you along to apply to universities and things like that, I'd been accepted at a couple of universities. And so I was thinking, well, I might go to America go to go to university in America, but I just didn't really worry about it all that much. It wasn't a big surprise to me that my parents were divorcing because I could see that. Things weren't going all that well. And then when school ended, I moved to Australia because my mother moved to Perth. And then that's when the Australian part of my life began.

Andy: 28:27

And what had made your mum go to Perth, did she have Australian connections?

James Harper: 28:34

Her parents who it was my mother and father met in Hong Kong. And her parents were living there. And they had retired to Sydney. But my mother wasn't very well. Not really that capable, therefore at making very good decisions. And I should say, by the way, she's she's fine now and she's still alive and everything went much better afterwards. But she wasn't very well then not thinking very well. And she thought Australia if she lived in Perth she'd be close to her parents not realising that Sydney to Perth is 4000 kilometres away. And that's how we ended up in Perth. It was a little bit by accident in some ways. I think. Perth was another

Andy: 29:12

And was that the first time you've set foot in shock. Australia?

James Harper: 29:16

Yes.

Andy: 29:18

It was a shock to you. Was it when you got there?

James Harper: 29:21

Yeah, I still remember my brother sister and I arriving at the airport being picked up by my mum and my grandparents and being driven through the middle of Perth and my grandfather actually saying, Okay, this is the main street of Perth. It was high street and Perth driving through. There wasn't a soul on the street and it was pitch black. And we had to drive another 15 minutes to get to where our house was nothing around there. Yeah, there were houses but no people, hardly any cars. Particularly compared to Hong Kong. It was like this. It was a very, very peculiar sort of sense. I mean, I felt like we were, you know, really remote. I can remember thinking this is weird. And then the house that my father bought for my mother after he divorced her, was in a place which was still being developed. So it sat there like a pimple on the top of a sand hill, surrounded by sand, this little house, no other houses around it, the whole thing was just very, very peculiar.

Andy: 30:22

You thought Indiana was the middle of nowhere, it sounds like this was er

James Harper: 30:26

Well look, on one hand, it was beautiful. We weren't far from the water. The weather was great. It was rolling sand hills. I mean, some people would say it was idylic, hardly any people around everybody being really casual and easy. But it was still a shock and something else to have to get used to and have to work out work out how to fit in.

Andy: 30:48

I was about to say, How did you fit in because you know, you're Hong Kong, and then US background dropping into somewhere completely different, again, with all be it a common language. But that's all everything else, I imagine culturally quite different.

James Harper: 31:07

I actually think for some reason or other, I was quite lucky, because it didn't take me long to make some very good friends. And as we all know, you can live almost anywhere in the world. If you got good friends, you'll deal you'll be able to cope with whatever gets thrown at you. They were special friends, and some of them still friends today. Because I felt very humbled by the fact that they actually included me so quickly. Because I had a few things against me. First of all, I arrived in Perth, and I'm from a foreign country. And I also have an American accent. And the Vietnam war was going on and Americans weren't very popular. The view of Americans was fairly narrow. And basically, you know, they're all loud talking opinionated, rich people who we don't really want to know very much about. So despite all that, I had a number of friends who actually welcomed me. So that was very nice. But then I had to sort out my schooling. And my mother wasn't very well, she was actually having to go to a clinic she was an alcoholic and had to go through rehab and stuff. So basically, my my sister and I were like mum and dad to my mum, I don't remember those as being unpleasant or unhappy times. I just remember again, this being well, I used the word before, a bit fraught, you know, because sort of, because we had to sort of sort of few things out. But I also took advantage of the fact that I didn't have to go to university, there was nobody to tell me to. So I decided to start it then farting around getting little jobs here and there labouring jobs, factory jobs, making a bit of money here and there. And I did that for a few years. And really, it was just whatever I could do to make make some dollars and have a good time. And that that went on until I was about 20. I think I arrived in 17. And went until I was about 20.

Andy: 32:57

I love your comment about friends, James. And the fact that when you've got a few good friends around you, you can deal with pretty much anything, wherever in the world. You are

James Harper: 33:09

yes. In actual fact, I had a belief that these were really decent boys, because we were boys, teenagers who are just pleasant, and it just kind of worked with them. And they just didn't judge me too much by my accent or my where I came from, or anything like that just just accepted me for who I was.

Andy: 33:32

Did you then that period of doing odd jobs and whatever came came along? We know you ended up with a very professional career. So when did that start to emerge? Or what were the initial steps into what eventually became your, your professional career.

James Harper: 33:52

Two steps. Through the working and things like that I made a little bit of money and bought motorbikes and rode around, but I had enough money to actually then decide to go back to school. But the American system and the Australian system were quite different. And for me to be able to get to university in Australia, I had to go to what they call a technical college and do essentially what the last two years of school were in one year, and then sit the same exams as all the high school students would have to sit. So I did that and I did very well. And so I got accepted straight into university. In actual fact, I decided to do medicine. And the only reason I decided to do medicine is because it was the most prestigious status, money oriented profession. That's the only reason I decided to do that. But I got to university. I lasted about two months, and then quit and then headed off to a mining town where you can earn lots of money in Australia at that time. It was basically working six days a week, 12 hours a day but making a huge amount of money and then came back from that. Then went off to Europe for a year. Just travelling around But again, towards the end of it, I was working night shift in a factory. And I was, by that stage, I was what I was getting to be about 23, 24 and basically said, Oh, Jesus, I can't keep doing this for the rest of my life, you better sort of get your shit sorted out. So therefore, I decided to come back to Australia and go to University where I studied commerce, and then went and did three years at uni, did well added an extra year on for getting a bachelor's in psychology, if you did another year, and did psychology subjects, you could do that. So I had two degrees. And then from that, then I applied for a job was a public service in Canberra, which is the capital of Australia. And I got the job, they shipped me over to Canberra, and I was in what they call the Department of productivity, which was all about more the Human Resources side of organisations, how to actually help, you know, set up motivational programmes, etc. But the productivity rather than be techno technological was all about human productivity. So now you can see where the path is that that got me into where I ended up.

Andy: 36:06

Yeah, thank you. I see that. And in describing that, I was thinking, I was wondering to myself having been in, in a very privileged in Hong Kong, you described it, as you know, that privileged white community, and then clearly the school in the US was was incredibly privileged as well. And then to find yourself in Perth, was there a significant change in your lifestyle? When you you moved from the US to Perth? And did it? Did you notice it? Did it? Was it was it there? And if so, did you notice it? And did it affect you? Because I then noticed that you wanted to be a medic, because that was the high status high earning job and I wondered was that a way to recoup some of that status and money that you had grown up with, but maybe not have been as apparent, when you've gotten to this age?

James Harper: 37:02

My recollection is no, my recollection more was, again, it's just occurred to me now, it was about fitting in but fitting in better than anybody else. If you think about it, that the theme of fitting in has been always there. So becoming a doctor was fitting in with Australia, and fitting in with society and fitting in with everything. It wasn't about being able to have a nice house or a nice car, even if those were the means to fitting in.

Andy: 37:34

And was there any ever a thought to go and get into the family business? You said you you hadn't got into the family business. But was that a conscious decision? Or why was that?

James Harper: 37:45

Well, firstly, it was never encouraged. I don't remember the slightest bit of encouragement at all from my father. My father was a very creative businessman, but a lousy financial businessman and his company was about to go bankrupt, when he hired a guy called Bill Wiley to take over as general manager. And Bill Wiley, basically, in the space of about four or five years, turned the company around to where my father was able to sell it. The same year as my last year at high school, my father sold the business for an extraordinary amount of money. And I still remember one of the things that my father said, which I think was very irresponsible about 1970. He said to me, my name by the way, but we haven't brought this up my name is was was Wally. My name is James Wallace Harper, but I was called Wally when I was growing up, said, Wally, you'll never have to work a day in your life. That's a pretty extraordinary thing to say to a son. But then he proceeded to blow it all. And I've had to work every day of my life. Because I gotta tell you, if I'd got if he'd given me some, I don't think I'd be here, I wouldn't have had the self discipline to be able to handle that properly. So this necessity, thank god of not having all that money was, was a blessing. But so in a nutshell, when we moved to Perth, my mother wasn't very well off. She wasn't getting much from my father despite my father being filthy rich, we just led an average sort of middle class life. You know, I worked a bit so anything I owned, I bought and so I didn't feel anything privileged, or you know, anything like that at all.

Andy: 39:38

Thank you for sharing that. I'm glad I asked that question and there are there are personal reasons that that resonated with me as a as a thread to go down. So that's why I asked it and I am now then curious the next thing I was curious about was psychology because that is I, you and I have had, we haven't spent many hours together. But the hours we have spent together I have enjoyed so much, because of the way you think and the things we talk about. So I'm curious what point in the story you were drawn towards adding that extra year on and doing psychology

James Harper: 40:25

Right. Very clear. My first year at university, I did traditional commerce subjects. And, to big up myself, I actually tied for first place for the top accounting student at University of WA, my first year. And then I refused to continue with accounting. And when the county electorate said, why is it, I cannot imagine myself doing this for the rest of my life. And I moved more over to economics and management sort of stuff, and particularly economics. But my last year, they introduced a topic and it was more to do with with managing organisations. And some of that people stuff started coming in again. And having done work in factories, and all that kind of sort of stuff, I had this this thing about, there was something very wrong about using human beings to do what I saw as work that was barely above what a trained monkey could do. And I saw something sort of, when you're young, you're a little bit sort of more believe in those sort of principles, morals, and all that kind of sort of stuff. So I thought, right, I'm going to fix the world, I'm going to basically get rid of all these jobs and actually turn them into jobs that were more interesting for people and job rotation. And all those sorts of things were very big at that time. And we're talking about the late 70s. And I loved all that stuff. But there was no HR subjects. So if you wanted to do HR type stuff, the normal path was you then went and did psychology to pick up the understanding of human behaviour, so that you can apply in organisations, which you you picked up in management, but the management stuff was very black and white. And I thought, Oh, this is not enough. So that's why I went and did the psych psychology stuff, but not to be a psychologist, really, I found myself interested in factories, manufacturing establishments, and what they did to people and how to make that better. And that's what my first job was with with the Department of Productivity. And I actually moved to Melbourne after a year in Canberra, and here was this ex hippie, believing in peace and all that kind of stuff. And next thing I know, I'm finding out that my job is to go into these government factories, which made ammunition and armaments to help them be more productive.

Andy: 42:40

Gotcha. Love it

James Harper: 42:44

I gotta say the job went out, I my morals didn't didn't extend as far as to refusing to do that work. I ended up going into the factories and then trying to help out work out how to sort of improve things there

Andy: 43:00

I just imagine, I've never thought about this. But the sort of purpose conversations I like to have with with people and teams about you know, what, what is it you're doing here? And how are you making the world a better place? It'd be interesting if, if you're producing armaments. So you wanted to make these factories a better place to be for the human's in them, you wanted those? Well, it's just so close to my vision of a fulfilling performance. So people performing at a high level, but getting fulfilment out of what they do and going home feeling energised by the day they've had so that they can be great husbands and wives and mums and dads as well as good, good workers now, so very, very similar, but then they say, Okay, well go do that in an arm armaments factory. Especially with you labelling yourself a bit of a hippie and so wonderful. How long did that play out? James?

James Harper: 44:02

Well, I started off going in. And I was, you know, I was fresh out of university and things like that. And I had a boss that I used to follow around, and the factory used to have committee meetings. And my job was mainly to sit and write the minutes of the committee meetings and stuff like that, feed them back, etc. So it wasn't very hands on. But then a job came up in the training department. And the training departments role was essentially running programmes for the foremen and the team leaders and supervisors and managers of factories. And I was very lucky. And this is my first mentor, first person who really saw He saw how much of a shit I was, but he also saw what potential I had. And when I say shit, I mean, I didn't. I wasn't very good with authority. When I thought it was dumb. I would speak up. And yet he basically he saw the job and he said, Look, I think this job might be right for you And so I applied for it, I got the job. And that's when I moved into the into the government aircraft factory training function. And that's when really the career that I've ended up with now sort of began, because it just continued along that sort of route from then on to that established me in the HR area, but particularly in the organisational development training workshop sort of area.

Andy: 45:25

So I'm getting a picture, then even at that point James you say you you would speak out? You're not, not you're not comfortable, not just sort of passively accepting the structures around you putting up a bit of a fight really, against what you saw as things that you wanted to fight against things that made you feel like that? And did you start then when you got into that function? Were you feeling it? Was that feeling better? Were you feeling I might use the wrong words, but were you feeling more able to make a difference or more empowered, or this was just altogether feeling a bit more like the right place? You are in the right place, rather than battling against some of the environment you've been in before? Was this starting to feel more comfortable or that you could do something with it?

James Harper: 46:18

Yes, but I need to qualify it, it wasn't comfortable. I actually found training and running workshops and things like that quite anxiety producing. And if we go back to somewhere in the near the beginning, when I talked about courage, if you want to talk about my grandfather going to China, me moving into into training, which seems like a much more mundane thing, had a similarity, because I was shit scared about standing up in front of people and doing things in front of people. And if anything, when I was at university that used to hold me back in tutorials. So in some ways, I was trying to push through a fear to actually be better at doing something I believed it. So I was quite anxious for quite a while and even even today, I could get quite anxious. I mean, not debilitatingly s o but it's, it's there. So that, I dont know what you want to call it, performance, anxiety, whatever you want to call it. But what I'm anxious about has shifted hugely, though, back then it was just surviving in front of a group without being laughed at. And I don't think I was a particularly good trainer, I was more interested in actually being able to do something that got people having fun enjoying themselves. So it's very, it was a lot of experiential activity based training then. I used to go looking for what were the most fun activities and bring them in. And then of course not not really properly debrief the activity afterwards to sort of say, Well, what did you learn from it and all that kind of stuff. But instead, well did you do have a good time? Yes, great. Well, let's go to the next activity. I can see that in hindsight now it was it was more of a performance that I felt like I was having to do, then it took me a while to actually then engage in the in the true learning and creating an environment for people to actually sort of get some ahas and realisations rather than have been the person at the front who had to entertain everybody. That took a little while.

Andy: 48:14

That's an interesting idea. Well, first of all, we got to get in the right place, got to get ourselves into the right environment, the right bit of the company or the right job, or it could have been the forest. And then yeah, we get better. You know, first of all, overcoming your fears getting out there and exposing yourself to everybody looking at you and expecting you to perform. It's going to be a little bit clumsy to begin with, isn't it and then ok lean towards Well, if we can make them have a good time that seemed to go well make it entertaining and fun. And then over time, you get more sophisticated at it, you can relax a little bit more and be aware of what's going on and start to think more about what are we trying to achieve here? And let's Yeah, let's look at the insights that people are getting not did I survive? Did they seem to have a good time? Great. And so you talked about you were growing as a trainer, and you were still in the military or amunitions, aircraft?

James Harper: 49:19

Yeah well we had is we had aircraft factories, we also had the munitions factory, which made small arms and then we also had the factory that made bigger stuff. There was three factories I was looking after.

Andy: 49:32

And what caused you to move away from that industry or that government role? What came after that?

James Harper: 49:41

I frankly, don't quite remember. Other than I'm sort of guessing it was an ambition to actually maybe, you know, to to get ahead to become more senior to earn more money, all that kind of sort of stuff. Because I'm talking about I'm now in my my early 30s that I need to sort of establish a career and stuff. And the public service didn't really kind of offer that in some way. So I applied for a job at a department store group called Myer as a trainer, and got the job. And so therefore, I moved back over into private enterprise into Myer. It was a brand new job where I was brought in to actually design some training programmes for a woman who was put in charge of national training. But the whole thing was a bit of a failure, because the structure wasn't right, the company wasn't going well. She wasn't respected. And so after about a year, I was given the option of moving across to the Information Technology part of the company, and taking over recruitment, which is what I went and went and did so out of training into recruitment. And I did that for a year did very well at that, and got promoted to become HR manager of the IT company, did that for a while, then a company called Coles took Myer over, I then moved with the IT company that became called Myer Information Services. And I was the HR manager of that. And then somebody from Myer, who remembered me from previously contacted me and said, Look, we have a training role going over here, would you like to have a look at it. So I ended up taking up that role. And I was responsible for designing and delivering management training programmes for Myer. And I had a team of people about four or five people. And well, no, hang on, when I first started, I was only looking after one group. And then I was promoted to looking after the whole group. But that was that was actually a real turning point. Because I then had to move from just running workshops to having to be more strategic about training, I had to look after what we were going to do with all managers at all levels in this organisation of 26,000 people, what programmes we were going to design and deliver for all the different levels of management. And I did that quite well. And it was where I probably discovered that I had a conceptual ability that I hadn't really kind of tested or whatever it might be and the strategy I came up with and the way I did it, and the people I employed. Fortunately, it all worked out really well. So then they said, Okay, well, maybe you might be somebody who might be very senior at this company. So we're going to send you up to the Gold Coast to open up a brand new Myer store. So I went up there for 18 months. And that's when I had to move into a wide role and operational roles opened up a store, they then brought me back and they put me in charge of all management development again, but also manpower planning and all that. So in other words, I know I'm shortcutting this a bit. But this is boring, it's kind of boring. It was just a whole bunch of positions, which I ultimately ended up with the most senior role I had was the HR Operations Manager for all the Myer stores, which meant I had 300 HR people reporting to me, they're looking after 26,000 staff, in terms of HR, it's a huge job. But obviously, you have a lot of people working for you all doing their little bits and pieces. But I came a cropper, big time. It was a mixture of things, personal and also company, and some of the people who listen to this know, you get to a certain level in the organisation. And in my belief, your technical competence or proficiency, which in my case was was the area of people and how to get them to work well and be motivated, becomes less important. And the political consequences of who you align with and who do you actually support in terms of overall company direction become more important, and I didn't make that transition very well. Secondly, in the middle of all this going on, my wife and I had a third child who died at birth. And that really caused a lot of grief and tumultuousnous and things like that. And I it's only in hindsight that I know that I didn't deal with it particularly well. At the time I thought I was dealing with it fantastically well. You know, I cried and did all the right things and went to a therapist and did all that kind of stuff. But in hindsight, I was actually kind of, I was losing sensitivity. And I became a prick, I became an absolute prick of a manager leader. I didn't really recognise it at the time. Other than I knew it wasn't working. So I was a prick of a manager and leader to my staff, I wasn't fitting in politically, highly anxious, probably neglecting the family as well. You know, going to work at six in the morning and coming home at 10 at night, that kind of stupid stuff. And then, out of nowhere, somebody called me from another company said, Oh, we got a job here. Do you want to come and do it? And I said yes. And it was to escape what I had created that I didn't feel I had any chance of fixing up. I felt I burned all my bridges, I'd done it all Well, this is going to be a fresh start. And it was a lower level position in a smaller company, and it was the right decision. Thank you that. Oh, that was just one. Sorry. I know, it was probably very traumatic period of your life. I'm laughing because I do laugh. it was a while ago, I laugh at it now.

Andy: 55:24

It's I'm laughing at the beauty of that story from fast tracking a few positions that you did, and building up to having, you know, total responsibility for HR in Myers 300 managers, Oh, yeah. 300 staff reporting directly to you, 26,000 staff. And then you came a cropper and explaining all of the facets that you know, that perfect storm of things that happened and the transition to understanding the politics rather than just being a technical expert, just there's so much in that passage. And then an escape, you know, there's an escape comes, after you've got things into such a mess. Bless you that you recognise I can't fix this, I need to hit reset. And let's start again, you've obviously learned so much. And you're able to look back on that now and be so vulnerable as you have been in this whole conversation. And maybe I had a feeling you would be I had a feeling you'd be an awesome guest. And you would talk Absolutely, from the heart about what what happened and without any fear. And be able to be that vulnerable. Why'd you I'm going to I wouldn't normally do this, but I just feel compelled to sort of sidetrack and say, How come you're able to sit here and talk? Like this? James? What why people will say, Oh, he made himself so vulnerable. And that's something we talk about in leadership sessions and things. But why are you able to do that?

James Harper: 56:59

Therapy,

Andy: 57:01

say a bit more.

James Harper: 57:03

Oh, geez, I found myself getting quite emotional about it. When I knew things were an absolute mess. I lucked out meeting somebody at the time, who basically said, I think you need to see somebody. They were a therapist themselves, but because they were a friend, he said to you, no, you can't. I can't say he gave me some names. And I called them up and proceeded to go to therapy. Probably the most courageous period of my life was going to therapy. I used to be shit scared, every time I used to go to a session. I still remember probably the scariest thing I did was actually go and see my boss who was the CEO of Myer, to say I'm having troubles, I need to go and see a therapist, which means and my therapist was a traditional Freudian. So this was three times a week, an hour each time, I had to get there and get back. So it meant at least two hours every day, three times a week, I had to see a therapist, I had to go and see my CEO to do it. It was either that or not go to therapy. Somehow, I went and saw my CEO and I said, Look, I'm having struggling with it. He said, Oh, that's good. That's great. Well done. Now, and this was this was slightly before everything went pear shaped. If he'd said it when I was going pear shaped I could then say, Yeah, fucking hell you need therapy bloody hell. But it was during therapy that everything went kaput while I was in therapy, and it does remind me of the Jung statement, when a guy came to see Jung and Jung said to him, how things going, he said, pretty good. Not too many issues this season. And he says, Oh, that's too bad. And the next guy comes in and he says, How's it going? He says, My wife left me. I've just been kicked out of my job. I'm bankrupt. And he said, Ah, very good. We have plenty to work with. So I had plenty to work with. And essentially, I don't know. I mean, this is this is the weird stuff about us as human beings and how our brains work and things like that. I don't know if I actually set myself up through therapy, unconsciously, to fail to get to a place where now I am extremely content. I don't know. But it's a nice way of thinking about it. Because I was fairly destructive to a lot of people during that time. And as the only way I can actually try and say, Okay, maybe the payback is I've become a much nicer person. But I had to go through shit to get there. And in the process of therapy, I also divorced yet I'm now with a woman I've been with that for 20 years is the love of my life. My kids who I get on very well, I mean, like life is really good now, that was that was the you know There's, there's plays written about it, there's story's written about it, there's all sorts of written about the sort of the, you know the crisis that you have to go through to sort of ultimately come out, maybe find yourself and what you should be really doing and stuff. And that was my crisis. That's how I look at it, it was a turning point. And it didn't, it wasn't only a year or two, I would say, it went on for 10 years. And I don't mean that 10 years have been awful. I mean, the last few years of therapy were really were better than that. But no, it was it was it was tough.

Andy: 1:00:34

For some reason, I found able to ask you that. There's there's a security, there's a peace and inner peace, there's an awareness about you that obviously in a very short in, we've had, you know, some spent some very fun hours together was enough for me to feel okay to ask you to go there. And thank you for, for, for sharing that. If we come back to the the actual job side, what was who was the person and what was the business that gave you an exit from Myers.

James Harper: 1:01:15

The person who gave me the exit was somebody who actually brought me into Myer in the first place, when I headed up the management training, it was a woman. And she had left. And she was the HR manager of a company called Country Road, which was expanding and growing and stuff like that. And she asked me if I would come over and essentially take over the organisational development role, at Country Road. So I went there only lasted two years there, but but it was it was a grossly over managed HR function. There was an HR function about the three times the size it needed to be for the company that it was. And I felt a lot of the time I was just justifying my existence by coming up with this plan and that plan and this strategy and that strategy and this programme, none of which would actually get off the ground. But every one of them would actually have to be presented and talked about and discussed and all that kind of sort of stuff. So in the end, I agreed with her to a parting of the ways, which allowed me then to say, Okay, well, if I leave, pay me a little bit of money, which allowed me then go and set up my consulting business. So that you know, you get about three months pay and that tides you over that. So I then went did consulting for a number of years, which I really enjoyed. And it was while I was consulting, that i did some consulting work for a German company and the managing director knew the managing director of BMW who then contacted me and said, Look, I've heard some good reports with you I need to get the training function set up and running here in BMW Would you come and do it for me, I went and had a long chat with him. And basically they made me an offer too good to refuse. They paid me what I asked for. He basically said your your budget is unlimited, I just want this training function to be set up properly. And you know, we've I've already got approval for building a training centre. So from a training managers point of view, or training and development at this point, it was it was like being in Lolly shop. And that's what I basically did then I hired the people set it all up and got it going. And that's around about the time that we met. So I was there for nine years. Then I got asked to go to Munich, by Alan Harris, who you know very well, Alan went to Munich, he was looking after the import markets. He was having trouble with his training function. I fortunately had married to a very adventurous woman who said, how good is this? Let's go to Europe. Our kids, they can look after themselves, cuz they don't need us. I didn't take much convincing, but but she was really the driving force. So we went there. And that went very well. Then Alan ended up getting the job as president of Japan. And not long after he arrived into Japan. He said James well, when he first arrived, he said, Look, James, I can't hire you. Nobody speaks English over here. And training is all done in Japanese. I can't, you know, he said I'd love you to come over and help me out here because we've got issues. But then a few months later, he said, no but James, my issues are too big big. You gotta come over here and try and sort them out for me. So that's how I got to Japan. And I was in Japan for three and a half years.

Andy: 1:04:25

Okay, how was Munich talk a little bit about so great. You had your partner, your wife Loretta was up for it, because those can be difficult conversations when you come home and say I've got the opportunity to go somewhere. It makes it a lot easier. If your partner is not only up for the move, but is able to integrate and is able to make it work. Yeah, it's a team. It really is a team effort. When you do that. It's no good if the employee is successful, but the partner and family don't like it or can't make it work. So it sounded like you jumped on it. What was the reality when you got there? How, what was it?

James Harper: 1:05:09

Let me start off by saying Alan was an extraordinary leader. And he had a lot of respect from a lot of people, which when I was brought in, helped me, however, I inherited a couple of absolutely hopeless people who were put into the training function, because there was nowhere else to put them. But I was fortunate, one of the guys was really good in terms of his effort, but hadn't been brought up right in terms of being able to actually think about things from a training point of view and improving people's performance. He didn't have that kind of background in a way. But he fortunately left, the other guy stayed, he was just hopeless, but I couldn't do anything about it. And I was able to hire somebody else, who was really, really good.

Andy: 1:05:52

And say a little bit about Japan, then James, because we would think culturally, again, very different, Alan Harris had already initially identified Hang on there, all the trainings done in Japanese, this is not going to be a place where I can drop you in, and then decided that problems are big enough, I need to find a way for it to work. So how did it work in that different culture, different language?

James Harper: 1:06:19

It went well, but I left after three and a half years because I was bored. I mean, I could have stayed longer if I wanted to. But I was sent there really to try and actually bring the training department into alignment with what Munich wanted to see happening in training departments around the world. And some of it was very good. Some of it made a lot of sense from from a strategic operational point of view. So I believed in quite a bit of stuff. But Japan was not showing what it were really doing. And Germany was very concerned about Japan, because Japan was at that stage, it was, believe it or not, it was the most profitable market in the whole world for BMW. It made huge profit, because the margins on the cars was huge in Japan, because Japanese were quite willing to pay a premium for something that was European, despite the fact that some of the Japanese cars were almost as good. So I basically then had to, to arrive, find out what was going on, start to align at all with with what Germany wanted to happen and report back on and all that kind of stuff. So it was highly administrative. And I did have a little bit of an effect on the design of workshops and things like that. But because everything was a Japanese, it was quite cumbersome. I had three direct reports who all could speak English, but not particularly well. But because it was highly administrative, I could get involved a bit more of the detail. Interestingly enough, the Japanese like that. They like somebody who knows what's going on in the business, I was working at a level which which really, I would if I was in, in Australia, it would be a level below being a manager who was trying to make all these little bits and pieces happen and report back on them and all that kind of sort of stuff. Ultimately, it went quite well. But partly maybe because I love the Japanese and I seem to get on well with them. I'm a bit cheeky. And I think the Japanese kind of like that. So I really enjoyed it. But once the administrative stuff was done, once Germany was giving the ticks in the boxes, that everything was all they were happy with everything coming out of Japan and stuff like that. I kind of thought what's next. And the only option I had is to move back to Munich. I didn't want to do that. And so it was a life decision more than anything particular between my wife and I grandkids were arriving. And we said, okay, maybe it's time to go back to Australia. So I came back to Australia and then did consulting for a couple of years. And then when COVID hit, I did it for another year and zoom calls and things and then decided no, I'm not going to try and look for any more work and I'm down now. The only work I do is now a bit of a bit of charity work. And I'm very happy.

Andy: 1:08:57

That's good to hear. Good to hear. So we're very much up to the present day, then James. That's what you're doing now living in Melbourne. Bit of charity work and enjoying your grandchildren.

James Harper: 1:09:07

Yes, it sounds pretty simple, but boy, it's rich.

Andy: 1:09:12

Well, lovely line. Love it. Thank you. So I look, I knew it will be good. I didn't know it would be this good, this rich and

James Harper: 1:09:28

good. By the way, you know it's a privilege to be able to talk about yourself. It is a privilege to be able to sit here and have somebody listening to you basically spouting out stuff.

Andy: 1:09:41

Well, I'm glad you see it as I hope it felt like that. It's a privilege, I believe for me to be the person who gets to sit with you and you know, do my best to draw it out and ask some good questions, hopefully, and then to be able to share this with people who, who either know you but don't know you this well, or who don't know you and can get to know you this way. So it's definitely a win win from my perspective. And it. I, my goodness, I just love doing it. So there you go,

James Harper: 1:10:21

well, you're very good at it. I mean, you're very, you're very inviting, if that makes sense?

Andy: 1:10:28

I think so. Thanks very much, James.

James Harper: 1:10:31

Thanks a lot lovely to talk to you, Andy. And thanks for the questions. And thanks for listening.

Andy: 1:10:35

You are so welcome. Thanks, James. Bye bye.

James Harper: 1:10:38

Okay, bye

Andy: 1:10:44

You've been listening to Career-view Mirror with me, Andy follows, I hope you found some helpful points to reflect on in James's story that can help you with your own career journey, or that of those who lead parent or mentor, you are unique. And during my conversation with James, you'll have picked up on topics that resonate with you. For me, there were a few things that stood out the fact that he grew up in Hong Kong, and Indiana, and he had a privileged upbringing, but it was nevertheless fraught and not without its challenges, the desire that he talked about and the challenge that he had to fit in, and that was not really helped by his physical development. As a youngster the impact that friends had when he made those friends in Perth, and his decision to go to medical school, which again was for reasons about fitting in his wish to or ambition to be a forest ranger. And those early adult years, metaphorically hacking through a forest of possibilities before encountering a path that he stayed on for the rest of his career. Wanting to create workplaces that respected the capabilities of people, and coming a cropper when various professional and personal factors meant that he got an A mess that he really didn't think he could fix in the fact that he went to therapy, and the reaction of his CEO at the time, which was positive already back in those days, and the impact that therapy had for him, opening up the next phase of his journey, when he was given the budget, and he had the CEO support to set up a training function in BMW Australia, which led to it interesting assignments in Germany and Japan you can contact James via LinkedIn and email James@jharper.com.au, and we'll put links to those in the show notes to this episode. As you'll know, if you're a regular listener, we publish these episodes to first and foremost, celebrate my guests careers, listen to their stories, and learn from their experiences. And I'm genuinely interested in what resonated with you. If you have any comments or feedback for us if you have any questions or if James's insights have helped you, please let us know by leaving a review. Your feedback helps us to grow. You can leave a review on Apple podcasts or pod chaser, or you can find the episode on our Instagram at Career-view. Mirror and comment there whichever is easiest for you. Thank you to all of you so far, who've shared feedback with us. Thanks also to Hannah and Julia, who as part of the Career-view Mirror team here at Aquilae works so hard to deliver these episodes to you. Aquilae is a boutique consultancy in the auto finance and mobility industry. We offer our expertise as a service to help you design and deliver projects and programmes that develop your business and the people within it. Contact me if you'd like to know to be among the first to know about upcoming guests. Follow us on Instagram at Career-view Mirror. And remember folks if you know people who would benefit from hearing these stories, please show them how to find us. Thanks for listening