Lead Yourself First: 537 Days in Antarctica | David Knoff

David Knoff: we're pretty confident we can get you out sometime in early twenty twenty one, which would mean at least a six month extension. but there's a very live chance that you might have to stay a little bit longer. Over to you. And that was it. I s you know, blanks cut to a black screen of just staring at myself on a computer monitor, faced with the fact I now need to walk out of my office, get the station together and break the news.
Tom: What does a leader do when the plan disappears and there's no end date in sight? Today we're talking with somebody who spent 537 days finding out. Welcome back to the Lead with More podcast, where we help you lead with character and build a culture that people choose. My guest today is David Knoff He's a former Australian Army Army Infantry officer and diplomat who served as Antarctic Station Leader at Davis Station. And he led his team through the longest continuous Australian Antarctic mission in modern history. Today, he helps leaders in organizations with decision-making and team performance under real pressure. David, welcome to Lead with More.
David Knoff: Thanks Tom, pleasure to be here. Looking forward to to our conversation.
Tom: Yeah, I am too. You've got a story. We we talk a lot about leadership under pressure. And that's that's not an uncommon theme, but yours is considerably different. And you know, just to set the scene, I'd like to just talk a little bit about the backstory to this, about about the mission and what was expected and then what happened, if you don't mind setting that scene.
David Knoff: Yeah, for sure. So I mean, I'd I'd had a couple of different careers before I I joined Australia's National Antarctic program in in two thousand and nineteen with a what I thought was a a a pretty straightforward twelve-month deployment down to Antarctica with with me and my team of 24 of us in total. And we were going into that knowing that we were, you know, the 73rd year of Australia's permanent presence in Antarctica. We've we've had a long, proud Antarctic history. We've got three stations down there and we we've had them running in a pretty routine, steady. State operational structure for for a number of years now. Certainly for the last sort of twenty or thirty years it'd have become pretty routine. If you you get your contract, you go down there as for myself as a station leader or a scientist or a doctor or a mechanic or whatever it is. You've got your plan, you've got your contract and and off you go. You you know it's sunshine and penguins and everything you expect. but then it's also you know it's gonna be pretty tough. We knew we'd stay for a summer and then a winter and come home at the the start of the the following subsequent summer. And And now we know that with Antarctica that that often things don't go to plan. There's certainly a number of stories in recent times where you know ships divert and get stuck in pack ice, or you might go down on the ship expecting to come back via one of the ice-breaking ships, and then you end up having to fly out via, say, the American station at McMurdo through New Zealand or something like that. Like things change and things happen. But more or less you get what you signed up for. And for us, when we we got on that boat in October 2019 on our 12 month adventure. We had gone through, okay, well, what happens if this happens? What happens if we stay a little bit longer, or we g you know someone doesn't want to stay for the winter, we can send them home in summer, and all these different permutations of of the plan that any complicated operational planning system would would you know do. But never in a million years do we imagine what was what was going to unfold for for us and for the world at large.
Tom: And the the interesting part I think that point out to the whole thing is that y you you talk about preparing for it like it's, you know, just another another day at the office. the truth is this is a mission to some of the most inhospitable parts of the planet. And so it's it's not just going across town to set up a new office or something like this. So right off the bat, you already know that there's some things you're facing. You already know that it's it's not i i it's gonna be a taxing situation. But but what you ended up facing, the news that you got is at some point during this process you found out that this was going to go a way that nobody had planned.
David Knoff: Yeah, correct. So it we we rolled through the first summer. So we we got down there in sort of early November. We left in October, got down there early November and rolled through that first you know, we're in the Southern Hemisphere down there, so it's it's summer, opposite of all your for your North American and European lists. We rolled through that first summer and you you've got 24 hours of sunlight, positive temperatures in the Celsius scale. And that's when we get the bulk of the work done. You've you've got, you know, nearly we are nearly a hundred people down there at that time, which is about a fifty-fifty split of scientists and and operational. support and everyone and and that's the summer season Antarctica it's and it runs pretty well and and we we had a fairly uneventful summer but as that summer finished and we got to around February March 2020 all the the scientists and everyone go home leaving the 24 of us there for winter and that was the first we started to hear about the pandemic and to be honest when we first heard about it for us we thought well sure doesn't really affect us you're gonna have some lockdowns or some travel restrictions Around the world and a few different things here and there. And you gotta remember how naive the whole world was back in early 2020 about, yeah, this is just gonna be another swine flu or another bird flu or another you know, kind of basic or like moderate pandemic where there's some some restrictions and some some concerns, but we'll all wear masks and they'll develop a vaccine soon enough and we'll get on with life. So for us, we thought, great, well, we're gonna be in Antarctica anyway for the winter. Great, we'll we'll just get on with it. And we did. We just got on with work and and ran the station and and had to do we had a lot of work to do. We we we knew we'd be there. So we went through the next few months fairly you know, routinely. We we had a lot to do, but there was some novelty factors that then we started to get contacted by different media outlets and as the world went into lockdowns and and work from home arrangements and all these other things came in. They looked to the Antarctic programs, so the Australian Antarctic program, but the the Americans, the French, the Europeans, and other nations did it for their own nations to talk to people back home, and we did some news crosses. I ended up doing an interview for the New York Times of all all pieces and and all sorts of things around well, this is what you do when you're stuck at home and you're you're stuck indoors in a blizzard. These are the ways to to keep yourself entertained. So it was all a bit of a novelty. But that novelty wore off when it it got to midwinter. So we we got to midwinter's day, which is the the 21st of June. Winter solstice down there, and we we celebrate that as all the Antarctic stations do with a with a nice fancy dinner and a kind of reminder that all right it's at that point in the year pitch dark outside. We have about six months of total darkness at Davis Station where I was, and you're looking at temperatures minus 30, minus 40 degrees outside. So it's pretty pretty much as as Antarctic as you could get. And we we celebrated that dinner going, okay, great, we've only got a few months to go, we'll be going home, and and and every day after that, the sun starts to come back. By about another seven minutes, you get a little bit of daylight at midday and then it sort of grows. So you have that excitement to look forward to. But two days later, on the 23rd of June, I had an online meeting back with our operations manager back in Australia. And he just laid out the cold facts that, hey, due to a whole range of pretty complicated logistical reasons, our what is in essence a triple redundant operational program to be able to get people out of Antarctica in the summertime. The first layer of it, our icebreaking ship, the old one had been decommissioned and our new icebreaker was now delayed to for its sea trials and commissioning due to COVID. It had already been delayed a couple of years, it was delayed further because of COVID. We wouldn't be able to get flights in because of the the subcontract or the aircraft that we use were all in the northern hemisphere at the time and and couldn't get to the south in time with quarantines, etc. And our our third layer of redundancy in terms of using international partners because of the pandemic and and a range of other factors, that wouldn't be available as well. And there was no contract ships in the southern hemisphere that could get to us and a whole range of different things. And we went through all the different options and had a discussion. I said, Well, so at the end of the day, like, all right, so what? What does this mean for me and the team? And he's like, Well We we're pretty confident we can get you out sometime in early twenty twenty one, which would mean at least a six month extension. but there's a very live chance that you might have to stay a little bit longer. you know, go ahead, do a bit of a stock take of all the food and fuel and and everything on station, have a chat to your team and and get back to us. Over to you. And that was it. I s you know, blanks cut to a black screen of just staring at myself on a computer monitor, faced with the fact I now need to walk out of my office, get the station together and break the news.
Tom: Yeah, so I wanna know in that moment, because we talk a lot about leading yourself first. And so, you know, that's that's a little bit off schedule of what you might have expected or what you might have prepared for. And what goes through your head at that moment and how fast do you do you recover into a situation where you can you can start figuring out how you're gonna process it to the rest of the team?
David Knoff: Yeah, it it was it's it was a tr really tricky situation. So there was I was basically in two minds. You had the practical part and then the emotional part. And you know, you v very much with my own training and background I went do the practical stuff first. So I went and saw my deputy station leader who was actually the the wintering chef. We had a quick chat to her about the the food supplies to be like, Hey, well, where
Tom: Mm-hmm.
David Knoff: are we at with with that? 'Cause that that's gonna be important part of it. from not just physically are we gonna be able to eat food, but what's the quality of that food gonna be knowing how and for anyone that's ever been in a remote location like an Antarctic station or anywhere, you know how important the kitchen, and the food becomes. So I'm like, All right, how bad is the f if the 'cause if we're sitting there eating, you know, oatmeal and and kind of biscuits, it's gonna get pretty pretty tricky. So thankfully that was alright. But then we kind of stared at each other with the and the emotional part came out. And we we had a quick hug to just be like, God, well thank God at least the two of us are getting along. and that we had a good leadership team. So we're like, all right, well we'll we'll get through this as a as a team and we'll go from there. And It wasn't straight away that we then got the group together and we had a a big chat as a group and broke the news and and the main part about that was to really just give everyone the chance to kind of rip the band-aid off and and break the news and say, Okay, this is these are the facts. Now go and tell your family. the worst thing that could have happened would have been for them to hear it via rumors or or from somewhere else. So we got told first and said, Hey, just go I I don't want this meeting to go very long. It's probably only a ten, fifteen minute meeting to explain it all and said, Right, get out of here. Go call your family. call your your workplace, do all the admin, do do what you gotta do and then we'll have another meeting you know, the next day or later in the week, I think it was, to to get together and and go through okay, well what do what do the what do the plans look like going forward. But in That time, I then had to get my own head right and say, Well, if I've got to lead this, people have got to look to me for answers to questions I I don't have answers to, and that there are no answers. They were sort of wicked problems of there's no solutions. And I remember having this moment walking around the perimeter of the station, which was you you can't go anywhere alone in Antarctica, other than within the station limits, really. So
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: very hard to get some some private time to to you can't just kind of go for a nice long run because. Because you've got to you know generally go with a buddy or take radios and a GPS and a sat phone and all this other stuff that kinda ruins your vibe. So just walking around the the station. which is still about a two kilometer loop to walk around the station, which is great. But at that moment, I I had this conversation in my own head to go, okay. You've been through I've I've you been in war zones and and done all sorts of crazy stuff with with my life, but I'd always kind of wanted a challenge and a moment to be like, this is this is it. And I had this this self-realization of like, well, this is what you wanted, you idiot. You've you've always put yourself in leadership positions, you've you've done all these crazy things, and they've always pretty much gone to plan or been as expected. And then here you are, you wanted to be an Antarctic station leader, and this is what you get. And It was this moment of empowerment to be like, all right, yep, as tough as this is gonna be and as lonely as it feels and as difficult as and I didn't even know how hard it was gonna get at that point. I just knew there'd be a road ahead that was gonna be a bit bumpy. But from then on, once I'd made that piece with my own self to say, all right, as hard as this gets, this is what you wanted. I was able to then roll with a lot of other challenges with a fresher approach. So that anytime something
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
David Knoff: went wrong or any time someone was in my office or and actually I ended up rarely doing meetings with anyone in my office. We'd often d either go for a walk or or drive around or get off the station and go and do some s you know, go check the penguin cameras or something like that and you know, change the car batteries or the solar panels on the the remote instruments. So you get off station and then you have your actual conversation with someone. But
Tom: Mm-hmm.
David Knoff: every time they'd they'd be saying, I'm struggling, or this other person's struggling, or we're gonna run out of this or we're we're really short on spare parts for this thing and I just sit there and be like, Well, yeah, you wanted this challenge. This is the you know, the challenge is what you wanted. You don't want to be a a leader in good conditions and on good days because it's actually fairly easy and in some some situations, certainly where we were at, on the good days it didn't need any leadership. I could just go and be a team member and work
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: as a labourer or you know, shoveling snow. There's ninety nine percent of jobs in Antarctica at some level require someone with a shovel to move snow. So I'd just go and help out if things were going well and step up on the days when when it needed guidance or leadership.
Tom: When you look back on that, were you in any way surprised at how fast the speed that you came to make that peace with yourself? And do you think that your previous experience sort of helped lead to that?
David Knoff: Yeah, I think i in a lot of ways, all of my previous experiences came to be useful in in different ways. Now the obvious ones that people jump on and be well you'd been an infantry officer. You know, this is this is classic, like leading in a crisis. No one does that better than than army officers. And that came up at points, not to give away too many spoilers of the whole story, but there was a few critical incidents along the way where yeah, you you lead that as you would in a crisis with very direct military style leadership of hey everyone needs a job and and here's the task, here's the timelines, no time for questions, let's let's go. But that was one to five percent of the time. That was small, small numbers. I spent more of the time leading it with the experiences I'd had running, you know, events and parties as at university and different stuff like that, of just like, hey, you need to keep this positive and keep people going and celebrate the little things and and make sure that everyone's getting the full experience. And I say, in in so many ways, being an Antarctic station leader. The face of it, everyone sees the operations and the kind of science coordination role of of what a station leader does. The the unseen bigger part of it is you almost like a tour guide or school principal or or camp commandant who needs to make sure that everyone's getting the right experience and everyone's enjoying it, everyone's involved, everyone's getting
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: along, everyone's communicating. Now they don't necessarily need to be best friends, but they do need to have professional relationships and that they're talking to each other and able to work in a way. So that means you're constantly making sure that hey, if or I've if Tom and Dave they work together all the time you need to make sure that then on on the emergency rosters or on kitchen duties, they're not working together. So they speak to other people and they socialise with different people and and that you're spending time, you know, not just sitting in your office doing bloody spreadsheets and rosters, but get out and walk around and and spend time. And it it was really important, I felt, to to lead in that situation, to just be a good team member. So that when it came to volunteer tasks or community duties and other things that I was as involved and as enthusiastic about having to clean up the mess in the s the gym or whatever it is as as anyone else to go, hey, you gotta be a good team member first, leading when you especially when you're living with the team, you you don't have the luxury of sitting in your Ivory Tower and and directing people.
Tom: Yeah, that fits really well with the I guess the theme of what what this podcast is about, what what I'm trying to do of leading with character and then building this culture because you made a it sounds like you made a conscious and an intentional decision to build the type of culture that would potentially survive this thing that with no end date in sight, with no no real idea exactly how long it was going to last. You might have had some some indications of what it might do, but you had to create this environment where you twenty four people could maintain some c sort of positive functionality and mindset where they they wouldn't sit there and dwell on on what they were facing.
David Knoff: Yeah, I mean the the tricky part was out of the the twenty four Yeah, most of them got got on board with that. And I I think in a lot of ways I didn't have to set that culture. The maturity and the experience of the group really st steered that in the right direction anyway. It was the outliers that that then started to take up more of your time. the the this
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: very small minority who did dwell on it a little bit too much. And, you know, we all dwelled on it at times. I think that was something that it became a very real human experience of you know, you've you've got your your sphere of control of no Just focus on what you can control and don't worry about what you can't control
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: and then control your attitude for for everything you you can't control. And and that is that there's a reality to that. And I talk about that in my workshops and keynotes and things. But the reality of that is the human mind is gonna wander to well, what if we don't get home? You know, what if what if and and the we had the luxury of time and we could sit around and and muse, like, well, what happens if COVID goes to 100% mortality? We wake up one day and No one answers the the Zoom calls and no one answers the phones and We're it and we chat about these things. It was it was interesting how some of the group were more than happy to go through random fantasy kind of contingencies of what ifs. And a few were
Tom: Right.
David Knoff: just like, I don't want to know about what happens if we stay another winter. I know that you've got a plan for it, and I know the chef's got a plan and the mechanics have got a plan. That's enough for me. Hopefully we go home as expected, or in with you know just the six-month extension. And that was an interesting one watching. watching the different individual experiences. But I think on the whole, if The positive the overall vibe of the group was to t to lean in and and find the positives and make the most of the situation. That does drag the outliers in the right direction, but it doesn't stop days or or
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: incidents where you you've got someone that does have a blowout and and does have a bit of a a rant about the situation. And I think as well I started to learn to accept that and let people have that vent and do it in a in a pr somewhat professional way and then give them a day off and then go right come back to work on Tuesday. randomly they'd go things on those those days they'd go and run a half marathon or something on a treadmill and get it out of their s their system and then come back to work the next for the subsequent day and be like, yep, cool, sorry about that. let's go.
Tom: And that's better than having them quietly brood somewhere and and not real people not realize what's happening, but you you are able to spot this and then and deal with it fairly quickly and give them some kind of way of of dealing with it so that then they can they can carry on.
David Knoff: Yeah, absolutely. And then one of the strangest bits of feed and you know, I love talking about like feedback and how you get that in these situations. So I got some great I had a great kind of the head of the the the trade support group. He was really good for giving he was someone that would just walk in, you know, classic kind of tradesman would happily just walk in or grab me and just say, Hey, you the way you did that was too harsh or you you're not understanding that people are tired or whatever it is and and I'd I'd really appreciate his just frank, honest feedback on something and then be able to rectify
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: it pretty quickly. But but towards the end of the trip, when we the ship was there to take us home and and I end up doing the kind of exit meetings with everyone to to wrap up their formal record reporting processes and but also just sort of say, Hey, it's done This this is the thing. One of the guys said to me, He's Hey, really wanted to say thanks for for doing the station meetings the way you did them. And I'm What do you mean? So every Friday, without you know, occasional change, we'd do our station meeting, which was quite a flat leadership structure, or quite a flat structure because we did have a smaller leadership group that would meet and we'd do a lot of one-on-one or or small group technical meetings. So didn't have to do a lot of technical. Technical discussion at the main station meeting on the Fridays. So it was a chance for everyone to vent and discuss community aspects in sort of like, well, doesn't matter what your leadership structure is, we all live together. So that's and and no one's above anyone in the community side of it. Like if you leave dirty dishes in the sink, it doesn't matter if you're my boss, that's unacceptable. how do you deal with that stuff? And I I started to not fear those meetings, but I'd always be pretty worried going into them. I'm like, geez, I know there's people angry about something. Or I've got to deliver more bad news was often the case of I'm going into the Friday meeting to clarify a rumour that the ship's more delayed or this or that. And I'd have to be the confirmer of bad news to say, hey, you've heard this rumor, it's correct. And now the team knew it wasn't me making the decisions, but it doesn't. really help when you're still delivering it. So I'd have to go to those meetings and they felt like a press conference sometimes or they'd you know, I'd plan them to go for maybe an hour and sometimes they go for two hours as it just goes in all sorts of different directions as people air grievances and you you're then moderating the grievances and trying to come up with a solution on the spot and and or you know, let's take it offline and like, no, let's deal with it now and this sort of stuff. But the feedback at the end of it was everyone said having that forum and having that locked in stone once a week to be able to kind of hash it out and and and get through it or or come up with a solution or agree to disagree was a really important part of it. And as so as it's it's a strange one about you know things that as a leader you go, I didn't like those meetings. I felt like they were unproductive but actually from the team's perspective they they appreciated
Tom: Yeah, from a a task standpoint, they were probably very unproductive, but from a culture standpoint, that communication goes a long way. I want to talk about how how you take that now and you bring it into what you're doing now because some of this stuff, well maybe all of it, translates, even though we're not talking about Antarctic expeditions anymore. You take this into everyday business, there's still elements of this that directly translate.
David Knoff: Absolutely. what I love doing now when I run run workshops with with businesses here in in Australia and and New Zealand and stuff, and it's great because often at face value when the the business or the team I love working with like junior leaders. I do a lot of work with
Tom: Mm-hmm.
David Knoff: CEOs and and other senior leaders as well, but they generally know it. They they've they've they've made the mistakes. So they know where they're at and that's where it is. Like the real essence or the the Silver bullet to being a good leader is to make make a lot of mistakes along the way and learn from them and then then you'll be good. And everyone remembers you when you're good. or they'll be wow, what a great leader. It's like, yeah, because he's got 20 years of of you know stuffing it up. That's why he's good now. You want to go and see them when they were at the start. So I love working with junior and emerging leaders. But often on face value, they're What the hell are we gonna learn from Antarctic guy about running you know a logistics company or a a healthcare provider or something like that, right? But what I love doing is is with The story. I'll often tell my story or tell the situation and the parameters of the situation we're in and say, okay, great. You're now in my chair. We'll pause there and run the scenario as if, hey Tom, you're now the station leader, Davis. It's it's August 2020. You're sitting there chairing the station meeting on the Friday, and I'll give out the role-playing card to someone who then reads out the cue card that says, Hey, This is my opinion, these my thoughts. And you then have to role-play that scenario of well, what do you do? How do you deal with that situation? And it becomes such an important part of the leadership journey of understanding that you're gonna want to solve problems and you're gonna want give answers, and it's gonna be so tempting. But the worst thing you can do is to create, you know, give an answer that then you can't back up. So you have to get comfortable with you know being quite uncomfortable, get comfortable with being unpopular and being able to give. Give answer that gets you through, gives them guidance and hope that there's gonna be a plan and there's gonna be a way forward,
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: yet at the same time you're in a situation of like, well, I don't know. I don't know when this ends, I don't know how this ends. But all I can do is set the course and set the tempo so that we can keep going and get through and and get people focused on the the task. And it becomes that manifestation of the sphere of control and that that leadership, you go, well, I can keep people focused on what we can do, and then I can manage and steer. their attitudes and an approach to the the what we can't control and I can seek answers or go, okay, well then let's look at these things we can't control and have a plan for what happens if if we are further delayed or if this changes or if this happens so that we've got a plan and and that you don't have to worry about that, Tom, because, you know, Joe over here, he's actually got the plan for that and Joe's working on on that plan. and Joe's gonna give us all an update on where that plan is at next week or or on Tuesday or Go catch up with Joe after this and he'll run you through that part of it if anyone's interested in in knowing what the plan is for for this. So that became an important part of and that's what I love doing with junior leaders and others is put in my put in my chair and see what solutions they come up with and then I'll I'll give the answers of like, well here's what here's what we actually did. And most of the time people people get there and it's pretty similar.
Tom: I can see how that would work 'cause as you were talking and telling these stories, I'm sitting here as somebody who's led teams and thinking, Well, I I can tell I know exactly what you're talking about. I may not have ha we may not have had issues where we were dealing with physical well being being and threats to the physical well being b being, but it's certainly the the mental, the emotional, the cultural well being, those threats are just as real to a to an organization or to a team that's sitting in the in the warmth and comfort of a of an office in the middle of an urban environment than it I could see the the immediate parallels to that. So I would think that people would recognize that if you've ever been in a leadership position, you're you know, what you're saying is right on point. And when you came so when you came back, was was it in your plan to do this to help organizations like this or was this something that came from it?
David Knoff: Yeah, no not wasn't my plan at all. I I got back and was a little bit lost. wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. I I had the option to go back to my old job with our our State Department. and Then straight away started to I think, you know, s as soon as we were off the boat, I did a media conference with a few other one of the other station leaders and the director of our Antarctic program. We did a news conference, chatting to a few different T V stations and I'm like, this is kinda cool getting to be on T V and and everything. And then out of that I I started to get more requests from different companies and different organizations, mainly people who I'd knew or had worked with before would say, Hey, can you come in and tell your story or or Tell us what we could learn from the situation you were in and and how that went. So it started to just develop that organically, if I will. I and I'd had that imposter syndrome of like, I don't know how relevant this is gonna be to running a business back here, you know, unless you're running an adventure tour company or mountaineering guide group. I I don't know how relevant this is gonna be. But turns out it was incredibly relevant and and it just grew
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: from there and I started to get more and more requests and bookings and then start to travel and people fly me to Singapore. I'm doing podcasts in the US and you know, all around
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: the around the globe and and that's been a great journey in itself, telling that story. Yeah. But I've also kept you know, I always often tell people I'm an Antarctic expedition at first, so and a speaker, author, workshop facilitator, second and third and fourth. So I still spend time going back to Antarctica and leading trips down there, which again keeps you in the game and I learned something different each time. And thankfully every time I've been back since two thousand and twenty it it's gone more or less to plan, but it it still always has this this air of uncertainty and challenge. And that's why I I love going back and find that it it's just the last place on earth, certainly that I've been able to work and go where they're just it is a different operating environment. You can't just click your heels and solve
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: a problem. And I often get asked the c the parallels between the war zones and there's some similarities. a lot of the equipment, like the comms equipment and remote generators and all this stuff is actually very, very similar military spec equipment and and different things that we use for these remote locations because it's rugged eyes that works in extreme environments and it's you know government procured and stuff and made by the big government contractors. So a lot of that stuff looks familiar. But the difference is when we're in Baghdad or or whatever, if you got injured, you know, you've got shot or even if you just like we had one guy once, you know, had an eye injury completely unwarlike. But You g you're on a plane to Germany like within an hour and and then you're in a first world really good medical facility, you know, eight, nine hours later you're you're in Germany and you you're getting great care and then you're back to Australia a day or two later or wherever you need to go to get your your eye fixed. So That was the d and and the the health care and the support around or if if there was a problem in a war zone, you know, you you radio it in. Comms, you know, comms is the most important thing. You have a problem, it's you might be you, a very small patrol out somewhere, as long as they can rein it in radio it in, help is on the way. There's gonna be air support, there's gonna be like indirect fire, there's gonna be a s a quick reaction force, there's gonna be a a second quick reaction force, there's gonna be an extraction team, there's metavax, like you've got all this stuff coming in. In Antarctica, most of the time, you're it. if you're out as a team of two or three people and something goes wrong, it might be hours until you get the first level of response. And that response is maybe two or three more people. if if we've got helicopters and we can fly that day, maybe we can get a few more people to you. But even then, if something goes wrong, even in the height of summer when we've got international flights in and out of Antarctica and other things, it can still take a week or two to get the right weather to get you out. And that is
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: such a different environment where and and even on the non-critical emergencies like someone injuring their or like breaking their arm right you know people slipping over on ice funnily enough is the biggest problem biggest cause of injury down there right so someone slips over breaks their arm That doesn't really matter back home. They're either off work or like, hey, Tom, you broke your arm. A huge percentage of the workforce now can either do their job or hey, come into work, but we'll put you in the office or we'll get you supervised. Like whatever. You there's probably a way back to work with a broken arm pretty easily for a lot of people, depending on your jobs, right? but down there, if someone breaks their arm, if they're a critical role, e.g., we often only have one doctor.
Tom: Mm.
David Knoff: Or something, if they break their arm, you then go, what do we do now? We we don't have a doctor for six weeks or we we don't have a surgical capability for six weeks 'cause the doctor just broke his arm. Now, that's a hypothetical, my doctor's never broken their arm, but it it's such a different world to have to deal with there's there isn't often redundancy and and even when there is it's it's pretty difficult
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: to get people in and out.
Tom: Do you find that this process is is similar across all of these situations you talked about where you first you first have to get control of yourself and and usually that's pretty quick, especially if, you know, if you're not the one that broke your arm, it probably doesn't take you too long to to make sure you've got yourself in order, you're leading yourself well before and then think about okay, what what am I gonna do now to help lead this team? Does that transcend all of these different situations that you were talking about?
David Knoff: It's true. Yeah, you you do have to lead yourself first. I think I I d did have a few moments in twenty twenty though where I I got that wrong. And that's where I said earlier about that feedback. So there was a few days where and certainly probably like one particular week where I was just dealing with some stuff back home in my own world that I didn't want to share with anyone and there was a couple of people on station that were were really sort of causing problems and I I I was at my own breaking point of like, what is this? Like I what am I what is the solution? It's just I don't have answers to anything. It's the same stuff. It's a groundhog day of like it's the same problems every day and it's you know, it's just going nowhere. And I'd and I'd let that get the best of me. And then one of the members of the team just just sort of came to me and said, Mate, like you gotta get yourself right and then come back to us because we're happy with what you're doing, you you're keeping it on track, you're doing what you can. We know that we appreciate that. but you gotta kind of get yourself a bit calmer. 'Cause I'd lashed out at a few people over minor things and
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: it was just silly and luckily it was recoverable. So I went and spoke to those people afterwards and said, Hey, look, just I know I was a bit harsh over over this and And they they they were in the s yeah.
Tom: Yeah, but that's the learning process.
David Knoff: And they were in the same boat. They had stuff going on back home that they didn't want to talk about and it was all manifesting in little bits and pieces around the the station and the it sort of came to this realization that I think we used to say, like if if you're if someone's giving you frustration b or annoying you with with something they're doing, you're probably annoying them just as much. no one's immune from it and you had to have that realisation that we we were all in the same boat. We all had the same fears and anxieties about the situation we were in and it kind of without knowing it was bringing us closer together, but it felt at the time that y you could you know push you away. So like magnets, that then you flip it around and all of a sudden you you've got that shared experience.
Tom: Well, the faster you admit these things and own up to it and then deal with it, the better it is than trying to suppress it or do something stupid with it like like that. it usually works
David Knoff: Yeah, absolutely.
Tom: better that way. But so what kind of people, what kind of clients are are look are you looking for or are looking for you and and w what how are they reaching out to you?
David Knoff: Yeah, so best way to get in touch with is through my website, www.davinoff.com. I w I work with all sorts of groups. So on what have we got? This week I'm in at a school with with primary school students talking about the differences between life in Australia and life in Antarctica, which I love doing and and talking about they're
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: quite young, so I won't talk too much about the science we do in Antarctica but with with older school groups. I'll talk a lot more about the role of of science and also how you can end like careers that nonlinear careers of it's it's sort of strange you can't just say, hey How do you become me? You can't just go to uni
Tom: Mm-hmm.
David Knoff: or go and do a skill and be like all of a sudden you be you kind of get there. Like, how do you map a career that doesn't make sense? So I'll do a lot of work with senior school and university students as well. But then it kind of scales from there. So I think then next week I'm I'm in doing some leadership training for a construction company, for their junior and an emerging leaders program. And then I do a lot of work with corporate executives, so C-suite officers, CEOs.
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: MBA programs and others around at that that higher level of leadership. And at that point, you're going away from teaching people about the journey and developing themselves as leaders towards, hey, here here's here's a story, Warts and all, of of what it was like to lead one of the most unimaginably tough situations on earth and and really drilling into the the guts of it of of how I as we've talked about here, how you lead yourself on the dark days, how you find a way to to give hope and a plan to a team. when you don't necessarily have that yourself. And I so I I work with with all sorts of groups and and really enjoy it.
Tom: Yeah, I I would think that a lot of people would immediately try to jump into solving technical problems instead of working on making sure they're in the right mindset first, 'cause that's really where it starts, is being
David Knoff: Yeah.
Tom: in the right place.
David Knoff: That's right. And I think sometimes it can be an interesting one that I th the to to almost pause the technical work, which will get resistance. There'll be people, my god, you can't stop this. I'm like, we can absolutely stop that. Like
Tom: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David Knoff: it doesn't matter. We're gonna get ourselves right and we're gonna focus on the people and then we'll be better at the technical side of things afterwards. But
Tom: Sure.
David Knoff: I talk a lot in in my seminars and things around comfort zones and our relationships with comfort zones and and how to use them for the best outcomes and and it's an interesting one of how after a while your comfort zones will become work and you kind of build you you rebuild your own comfort zones when you're in in in challenging situations and when you're in routines. I find that interesting of how when you're then trying to get someone to not work, they're resistant because like, no, no, no, I like to sit in there doing my thing because it's a task that I can achieve. I can do that. X equals Y, X plus Y equals Z, and I can cut at the end of
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: the day I've achieved this task. Whereas if they stop that for a day and come and talk about their feelings, they don't want to do it. Whereas that at a different point
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: in the journey, it's the other way around. They're I don't want to I don't want to go to work, I want to go and do penguin science. Like, how cool, that sounds amazing, and it's interesting
Tom: Yeah.
David Knoff: to watch that journey change. And the the key lesson I always give out of it is that there's nothing wrong with comfort zones. we all have and and and they're great, but you you've gotta like build a gate out and make sure that you still have a pathway to growth and learning and and challenge and that if someone says hey I need you to do something slightly different for the day or something different this week or hey Tom you're no longer going to do this job with giving it to someone else that they can have an attitude of like sure whatever like it's just another task I'll just do this other task and or that can that
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
David Knoff: can wait that can wait a day. I had this this great colleague I worked with when I was over in over In the war zones and and he used to always finish work quite quite early on a Friday, which often it would get some mixed reviews. People like, hey mate, like you know, there's all this other crap to do. And he's it's four o'clock on a Friday. I'm working tomorrow. Like we work seven days a week over there, so he's I'm working tomorrow. unless the Taliban are on the gates, I'm out. And he'd he'd go and you know Do whatever he wanted to do and just take that mental break to say, I'm out, I'm enjoying my Friday afternoon, I'm gonna go do go for a run or hit the gym or do my own thing. And it helped the rest of us realize because we'd be sitting there at our computers or whatever, just typing up reports or plan like over planning and overthinking everything like
Tom: Mm-hmm.
David Knoff: like a Western military does. And he he gave us this reminder of like, yeah, if the Taliban aren't on the gates.
Tom: Mm-hmm.
David Knoff: The bombs aren't falling today, let's just go to the gym, do something else. 'cause we'll be back here at buddy six AM tomorrow morning, overthinking and over planning the exact same missions and and things the next day. Like, yeah, yeah, it's true.
Tom: Wow, isn't that the truth? Yeah. Yeah, that's the way it happened. Well, David, let me ask you this before we just wrap this thing up. So if there's a leader listening to this today and they're going to take away one thing from this conversation, what would you say that it should be?
David Knoff: I the first thing, th my key principle to leadership is be a good team member first. That if you were just a member of the team, put in the effort there. And all the the intangible parts of leadership of showing up, putting in time, getting to know people. yeah, cleaning up in the like cleaning up the the break room. when you you borrow a vehicle, you you fill it with gas at the end of the day. You you're doing the the little admin tasks and the little things that hey, you're a good team member. and same with if If you're getting you've got to go and do a task with Tom, you're working with Dave today, that Tom goes, great, Dave's helpful. he's a good team member and they can separate that even if you're not in that leadership role in that moment, you're a great member of the team. It it I think it makes your leadership role more enjoyable and fulfilling and also makes it easier because you you know what's happening in your your group and your team. So don't forget you're a member of the team
Tom: Slightly.
David Knoff: first.
Tom: And as we say in the southern US, that'll preach. That's really good. Well, David, I want to thank you. I've enjoyed our conversation and I'm I'm expecting that people will get as much out of it as I did. the truth is that most of us won't ever have the opportunity to lead through something like five hundred and thirty s seven days in the Antarctic. But we all face things where the plan falls apart and there's no way, no clear way out. And so For everybody who's listening today, when that happens to you, and I say when because it will, I hope that you remember this conversation and I hope that you reach out to David using the information that I'll have in the show notes if you need help. And if you found this useful, I'd ask you to share it with another leader who might need it. And if you haven't already, subscribe and like to the podcast because you won't don't want to miss what's coming next. But until next time, I'm going to encourage you to keep leading with more.