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Today we have Nic Mackay who's a social entrepreneur and global change maker who has been working
very closely with M.A.D.E on a project yet to be announced, that we have coming up. He
specialises in using music as a means of making social change, but he's also ah, founded Australia's
largest, youth-run, not-for-profit organisation, called the Oak Tree Foundation with Hugh Evans
wasn't it, a few years ago now. Nic has helped raise over $5million and supported
projects over six countries, helped mobilise billions in government dollars and fight poverty.
He's also helped pioneer the expansion of global citizenship and social action education
in Australia with High Resolves particularly, which is an organisation that works with years
8 to 10 in schools. He's a sought-after speaker, well there you
go, we've got him here. So um, I've suddenly become amplified. And last year, in 2011 sorry,
Nic received the Australian Leadership Award for his outstanding contribution to shaping
the future. So, please welcome Nic Mackay.
Thank you very much, Leslie, for that kind introduction. Um, and thanks very much for
coming today and thanks for coming to hear me speak.
Um, my name's Nic Mackay and as Leslie said I'm a global change maker. I actually have
no idea what that means but it sounds really, really impressive so I'm delighted to be one.
Um, but I'm here as part of this broader series to talk about what democracy means to me.
I think that um, when I started reflecting on this topic, and I guess when many of us
reflect on democracy, we tend to associate it with a form of government and often then
with our ability to vote at the elections every four years or so. And obviously democracy,
in a formal sense, provides us with equal political participation for all citizens.
As we walk through the museum we will have seen the motto of M.A.D.E: People + Power,
coming from the Greek, Demos + Kratos. But in a, I guess, what this museum is actually
suggesting, and I agree, is that democracy is about more than just a form of government
and for me personally democracy offers a vehicle through which to make a difference. In other
words, a vehicle to basically create a better world. And given the myriad of challenges
that we face as a country, as a world, I think that democracy and its ability to be a force
for good and a vehicle through which to make a difference, is more important than ever.
So I want to do over the next 15 minutes or so, is discuss two of the elements of democracy
that I think are at the core of this idea of making a difference, and that is choice
and change. And I'm going to share in the context of my own personal story um, but I'm
hoping that there'll be points of connection and resonance um, and relevance for everyone
here today. Perhaps that's overly ambitious but we'll see how we go.
So perhaps if I kick things off and talk about the first of these sort of elements of democracy
that I think is key um, to the idea of making a difference and that is choice. Um, now choice
is something that is fundamental to the Eureka story um, as we know. The Eureka Stockade
came really out of a lack of choice, a lack of freedom for the miners to actually have
their say in actually how they were governed and that was the initial motivation for their
rebellion. Um, but I think that choice has also played a really fundamental role within
my personal life so to give you a little bit of my background and sort of put me in context
hopefully um, I grew up in Melbourne so, in the sort of outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
I went to ah, to a good school which I really enjoyed, I got good marks, I went on to a
good university, I'm sensing a theme here, and I was studying law. I had sort of, I guess,
this very clear sense of the direction that I was taking; I was going to become a lawyer,
I was going to, you know, potentially eventually a commercial partner in a law firm and that
was the direction I was heading in. Then in my second year of uni, life really threw me
a bit of a curveball, in the form of a phonecall from a friend of mine from school um, Hugh
Evans, who Leslie mentioned who at the time was over in South Africa with World Vision
as their first youth ambassador. Hugh gave me a call and said, I'd really like you to
help start a aid and development organisation that is run entirely by young people, young
Australians, for the benefit of young people in other parts of the world, particularly
in the developing world and particularly providing educational opportunities for them. And being
the sort of person that I am, I think I kind of, I don't actually know why I said yes now
that I come to think about it, and um, but whatever it was, I think it was something
to do with the way that Hugh talked about it and this idea of young people actually
being able to make a difference. But I did say yes. I said, yeah, 'cause look how big
could this thing get, right? Like I'm thinking in my head maybe a weekend or two every month.
It'd be something that might make me feel good and I can make a contribution and that's
gonna be really nice. Little did I know that this would actually represent the start of
my kind of real world education. Um, as Leslie mentioned, since that point um, the Oak Tree,
certainly beyond my wildest dreams, has become the largest youth-run organisation in the
country um, it has worked to raise millions of dollars or mobilise hundreds of thousands
actually of young Australians to raise money for educational initiatives in six developing
countries, and it's also been a sort of forefront for lobbying and education around the role
of government in providing overseas aid and development for the poorest of the poor. Um,
and this was really just an incredible experience for me. It kind of, it really changed my life.
It did. It changed the way that I saw myself, it changed the way that I saw the world, it
changed the way that I saw my place in the world and what I wanted to do. But interestingly,
it also created a bit of a challenge because I found myself living these two parallel lives
um, while I was at Oak Tree because I was still studying at university. So here I am,
during the day sort of, going to uni and studying law which I found less and less um, interesting
as time went on, and at night and often during the day when I was supposed to be at class,
um, I was then working on Oak Tree and finding that more and more um, exciting. And in so
doing I was kind of changing the way that I was really seeing and thinking and what
I thought I wanted to do. So at the end of that after I graduated from uni and I then
retired from Oak Tree because we set a cut off age of 26, so I retired at 25 before they
pushed me out the door, and I had this choice really that I was faced with and at the time
it was really between, you know, this career in a law firm and I had a job that I'd been
offered as opposed to some unknown career, I guess, in the area of social change or making
a difference. At the time it was such a big choice but it felt kind of a bit like this
in comparison. Um, and certainly for me personally and I
think for a lot of people around me, my friends, my family, around me it felt a lot like this
as well. But it wasn't the first time I'd had to make a choice, obviously and yet I
think something about the differences um, of these two worlds made the choice more clear
to me. And also the fact that, as I said, friends and family did question, do you really
want to go and do this other sort of thing that you're thinking about? Is this really
a career? And I was asking the same question myself. But I guess having a bit of a Eureka
spirit of rebellion within me um, I decided in the end to go with the latter option. I
didn't change my hair to look like that, I did shave my head but I didn't have the Mohawk
so it was a less alternative, or less radical. And what I did is I moved to South Africa
which was a country I'd spent a bit of time in with Oak Tree, we had some projects, and
this gave me a very interesting perspective on choice within the context of democracy
because I mean for many of us, we know the South African story, or at least the basis
of it um, and the incredibly challenging history that that country has and what it's emerged
from after apartheid. Um, and so it gave me this perspective of kind of a new democracy
because it still was when I got there in 2007, the democracy in South Africa was only really
what? Thirteen years old, so it was still finding its way and it was a really fascinating
kind of insight into a population, a group of people, who for basically the best part
of forty years, many of whom hadn't known the idea of choice and been able to choose
and had the freedom of being able to make the choices that they wanted. But more than
that I got to see that freedom of choice can bring both great opportunities and also great
challenges. One of the opportunities um, was that I met
a girl. There's always a girl, isn't there? Um, if I'm to be perfectly frank that was
a big part of the choice to move to South Africa.
This is the girl here. Her name is Dawn Desfire 'cause she's hot.
Um, and I met this girl and we got together and I was very, very happy um, but the challenge,
I guess, associated with this choice is that we began our relationship in post-apartheid
South Africa, and not everybody was happy for us or with us um, and regardless really
of race, regardless of gender or regardless of age, people had some issues with the fact
that we were together, for different reasons um, and it was a very interesting insight
into the other side of choice, and the consequences of choice and the challenges associated with
choice. But overall I guess the result of this decision
and the choice to move from South Africa, sorry to move from Australia to South Africa,
was overwhelmingly one I was really pleased with. So apart from sort of the personal side,
the result was that Dawn and I actually started another organisation together, a not-for-profit
called Keychange Music. If I'm to give advice, don't start an organisation and a relationship
at the same time, not a great idea. On the upside, if you can get through the first year,
you're pretty much set. But we started this organisation using music
for social change. We had a wonderful opportunity to work with 4664, one of Nelson Mandela's
organisations, also then came back to Australia and set up a branch here and worked with some
Australian artists. We brought over a Zulu choir from South Africa to do a tour and a
collaboration with Australian artists. After that I was then given the opportunity to work
in the corporate sector, on sort of the other side of the coin, so to speak um, around corporate
social responsibility and consulting with companies about ways that they could do good
and do well at the same time. That was again another great opportunity and education because
I was working with companies that are not always regarded as doing good or making a
difference, but I was helping them to see the ways that they might be able to actually
do that in line with the ways that they already did business.
Then most recently I've had the opportunity to work with High Resolves again, as Leslie
mentioned. A global citizenship program for high school students um, in years 8 to 10
which is really about helping young people to see themselves as purposeful, global citizens
and giving them some skills to be able to take action and make a difference um, in their
communities, whether local or global. And finally then, on the personal front, given
that we did get through that first year of the relationship and setting up the organisation,
I got married um, to the same woman. This is Dawn again, this is me...
In our traditional Zulu wedding. Um, this is me doing, um me and my entire family went
across for the wedding. We had two weddings, one in Australia and one in South Africa.
This is us both dressed in traditional Zulu attire, me doing my best impression of a menacing
and fierce Zulu warrior. Dawn is laughing at me.
Which is not quite the effect that I was going for but we had a wonderful time nonetheless.
So I guess I've kind of been involved in this idea of choice and choosing to make a difference
for quite a while and it hasn't always been easy, but I've tried wherever I can, particularly
in my career, to be able to make decisions that make a difference, whether big or small
because I think that choice is part of the responsibility that comes with being a citizen
of not only Australia but of the world. Um, and it's also a great opportunity that is
afforded to us by living in a democracy like Australia. I don't think that I'm the only
one that thinks this way. I think that kind of my belief around the role of choice and
its role in making a difference is actually something that's shared um, by a large and
growing group of young people um, around the world, and despite what we might hear or see
in the media, um I actually think that many young people do care about making a difference
and interestingly some global research that's just been conducted by Viacom and MTV around
the world, with Millennials, who are those aged between 9 and 30 um, has found that 84%
believe that they can actually change the world for the better. I think that despite
the level of youth disengagement from formal politics, which does exist and is a problem
and is something we need to address, young Australians are actually highly engaged with
informal forms of participation, particularly those that are linked to the issues and things
that they actually care about. I think that despite what we might think about the merits
of wearing a wristband or signing an online petition, I actually think that small actions,
particularly when combined with small actions of many others, can make a real difference,
can actually affect change. And that brings me really to the second element
of democracy that I think is at the core of this idea of making a difference, and that
is change. Again, it is something that is fundamental,
and was fundamental to the story of Eureka. The rebellion was born out of a desire for
change. No taxation without representation. And eventually it led to real change because
it actually succeeded. And think when we talk about making a difference or creating a better
world, essentially we are talking about change and democracy provides the mechanism for effecting
change. But that doesn't mean that it's easy to create change as I think we all know. If
I'm to create a, to give you a bit of a metaphor for what I think change is actually like,
the experience that I've had, I think that leading change is actually a whole lot like
surfing a wave um, and if you're anything like me, surfing a wave is not an easy thing
to do at all and I've made a fool of myself on many occasions as I have when I've tried
to lead change hence me seeing them as being so linked. Um, but I think what I've done
so far is I've kind of shared with you in the context of choice the sort of highlights
of my personal and professional journey. Now what I want to do quickly before I finish
up, is to share some of the challenges. Everyone comes and always talks about the wonderful
things they've done and I've been lucky to be involved in some wonderful things, I'm
not going to tell you all the things that went wrong. And the reason I want to do it
is I'm hoping that it can demonstrate the challenges associated with leading change
and I hope it's something that will be useful for you here today, for any of you who are
involved in leading change and that can be big or small. That could be anything from
trying to rally a million people and get a million people together in order to change
government policy, right through to trying to get together ten people in the local community
in order to refurbish the local community hall. In every case when we are trying to
lead change I think there's a few key steps that we need to keep in mind, certainly that's
what I've learnt. I actually think that the best change makers in whatever area and the
best surfers have a lot in common because they know that there are four key steps.
The first one is positioning. This was something that I learned in my time with the Human Race.
I mentioned that we were consulting to all of these big companies about how they could
do good and do well, and we though we were onto something brilliant. We were saying to
these companies, hey you can make your money, that's fine, but actually, why not look at
the ways you can do a lot of good and if you do then there's this growing group of consumers
and customers out there who want to reward you because they want to see you doing good.
And we thought we were cutting edge, we were right at the bleeding edge of like change
in the corporate sector and it was going to be major and Coke was going to change its
practise and we were going to revolutionise the world. What we actually realised was that
we were so far ahead of the curve that nobody had any idea what we were talking about whatsoever
and in particular, three things that I learnt out of the experience with the Human Race
was that if you're going to lead change you need to meet people at their current point
of understanding. If you can't connect with people at the point that they're at at the
moment, you won't be able to take them to where you want them to go. The second thing
is that there is actually such a thing as being too far ahead of the curve and I think
that we can learn these same lessons from surfers when it comes to surfing a waver because
any good surfer knows the importance of positioning. As we see in the picture, they need to be
out in front of the wave and they need to be facing in the direction that they ah, actually
want to go. If you think of the wave as being the change and the people that they're trying
to bring on this journey with them um, they want to be out just a little bit in front
but not too far in front and showing and pointing the way as to where they want to go because
the problem is, if you're too far out in front, as we were with the Human Race, then you look
a little something like this. And there's not a lot of surfing that's taking
place there. The second key step in leading change is connection
and this lesson came to me through the work we did with Key Change because as great as
it was in South Africa using music for change and we did do some wonderful projects, we
didn't achieve everything that I thought that we could and I think it was because of that
lack of connection. What we needed to do was find better ways of continuing to stay connected
with our stakeholders, so the artists but also the young people that we were trying
to impact. And I think something that maybe we missed in the context of the work that
we were doing is we didn't utilise the full power of the vehicle we were using, which
was music. We were using music as a vehicle for change and I think that as time went on,
the music became kind of more and more peripheral to what we were doing and as a result we actually
lost the power of what it could do and now a lot of the work that I'm focussing on is
about trying to get back to what we didn't quite do with Key Change.
But I think that this idea about connection holds true when it comes to surfing a wave
as well because all the best surfers know that you need to stay connected to the wave
as it builds. Yeah, you want to be out in front a little bit but you want to stay connected
at all times. So as the wave builds, as this wave of change builds, you rise to the top
with the wave and you're in perfect position um, to be able to actually enjoy the journey
that's to come um, because if you're not connected in the way that you're really need to be when
you're surfing a wave then the picture looks a little bit something like this. Um, what's
missing? The surfer, that's correct. Yes.
That's the problem with this picture. All right, so that's um, that's the second
step in leading change that I've learnt. The third one is around impact um, and this really
came out of the time that I spent with Oak Tree so again I've kind of talked to you about
all of the wonderful things that Oak Tree did and it was amazing, in fact I think we
got the positioning, step one, just right, we were perfectly pitched. Not that we knew
it at the time, but we were. We were perfectly positioned for young people that wanted to
make a difference. I also think that we got the connection bit really well done as well.
Um, we managed to somehow get connected to young people and show them how they could
be involved in helping to end extreme poverty. What we didn't do so well was prepare ourselves
for impact. In fact, we did the first two steps so well that the impact that came out
of this wave of change that we built, was almost overwhelming and at times we didn't
deal with it very well. Um, the two things that I learnt, and it's really, really important
from an impact perspective is, firstly, make sure that you lay really strong foundations
so that when this wave of change comes that you've managed to build, you'll be ready for
it. But secondly, being flexible enough to be able to respond to challenges and respond
to events and things as they happen. Again, exactly the same situation when surfing
a wave. If you look at a surfer when they come down the face of a wave, they've got
their foundations set. They're stable, they've got their knees bent, they're ready for whatever
comes about. But they're also flexible enough and they're also sort of nimble enough that
when they get a bump in the wave as they're riding down the face of it, they can still
stay on their board and they can enjoy the benefits of a beautiful ride. Um, if they
didn't have their foundation set, if they weren't flexible enough to sort of ride the
bumps and they therefore weren't really able to capitalise on the impact, then the impact
would then look a little bit more something like this. And nobody really wants that.
And finally, I think that the fourth step in leading change is actually about the next
wave and looking to the future. This is something I learnt from High Resolves and this is a
good story actually, as opposed to the sort of the not so good story of some of the other
experiences. One of the things that I took out of High Resolves that I thought was really
impressive when it was set up, and this was something that the founders put in place when
they put together, was kind of knowing when enough was enough. They knew when different
parts of the organisation had had, had done what they needed to do and we then needed
to focus on a different area. But they also knew the importance of planning for the future
and looking beyond the immediate horizon. I think a lot of times in life, and particularly
when we're leading change, we look at just the next thing, the next thing that's happening,
and that's fine but sometimes we don't pay attention to what happens after the next thing,
and what happens after the next thing after the next thing. And so when they come we're
not ready for them. We're not ready to deal with them, we're not ready to adapt, we're
not ready to continue to lead change. That was something that High Resolves does very,
very well. And it's the same thing for surfers who are
seriously good at doing what they do. As they are surfing and enjoying the ride of the wave,
they're always looking behind them, thinking about how much longer have I actually got
on this wave before I pull out? How much longer do I ride this before I need to pull out and
look for the next opportunity? And when they do, they're always looking back out to what's
coming behind them. What's beyond the horizon? Where's the next wave coming from? What's
the next area in which I want to be able to lead change and have this experience? So that
they can continue to enjoy the benefits that actually come with this amazing experience.
And so that I think is kind of, I hope I've actually painted a bit of a picture um, in
terms of what I think leading change actually needs to look like in practise. So to kind
of leave you with my final thoughts and then I'm very happy to answer any questions that
you might have, um, as I said I think that democracy for me is much more than a form
of government, it's more than voting at the polls, it is actually about something that's
personal, it should be about something that's personal um, and specifically I think democracy
is and should be a vehicle for being able to make a difference. But if it's to be that
vehicle then it requires us to both value and use the choices that we have and it also
requires us to find the best ways to be able to create change that is both meaningful and
lasting. I believe that we, that all of us can make a difference. I believe that we all
should make a difference. I believe that we all must make a difference in whatever, whatever
that looks like, however that resonates with us personally um, but whatever it is that
we do we should do something because the future of democracy, the future of our country and
the future of our world actually depends on it.
Thanks very much.