Navigating Challenging Times
DAVID GALLOP IS ONE OF
THE BEST KNOWN LEADERS IN AUSTRALIA AS A LONG-TERM
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, WHO LED THE TRANSFORMATION OF TWO OF AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST NATIONAL SPORTING CODES INTO PROFESSIONALLY RUN, COMMERCIALLY STRONG
AND SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE ORGANISATIONS.
Q & A WITH DAVID GALLOP
Well known for having delivered focus and discipline to the business and operations of sport, he’s been at the forefront of managing the everchanging, fragmented world of media rights for sport, by encouraging and establishing the value of subscription TV and digital channels, while recognising the reach and importance of traditional free to air broadcasting. Over those last 25 years of upheaval and change, Gallop has led and negotiated some of the most significant media rights deals in Australian sport. He is acknowledged as the public face and key decision maker during some of the highest profile episodes in Australian sport including the enforcement of the National Rugby League’s salary cap involving the Canterbury Bulldogs in 2002 and Melbourne Storm in 2010. In 2016 he was Awarded a Member of the Order of Australia acknowledging his “significant services to sports administration through executive roles with football and rugby league organisations, and to the community.” A former lawyer, with a style and leadership approach that is widely regarded as measured, considered and pragmatic when dealing with complex issues, he’s worked closely with some of the highest profile people in Australian corporate life. He’s encountered his fair share of challenges along the way, but taken every single one of them in his stride. On a recent visit to Cairns, Danae Jones sat down with the man himself to gleam some advice from him on navigating challenging times in business. What top tips do you have for people in business going through the current challenging times? I love what Simon Sinek said in a TEDTalk he did where he talks about people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you’re doing it. And his best
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example of this in the TEDTalk is about Apple and the success of Apple. People don’t buy what Apple does, but why Apple does it. While I do believe in measurables and KPIs, I also think it is important to make sure that your team know that your door is always open. Do your weekly catch up with people, maybe have a traffic light system of all the issues that they’re dealing with. And you know formally how they’re going. But you expect your senior people to be in your doorway every day asking you what you think of something, or getting a bit of advice. That I think is a good balance. You have had your fair share of dealing with the unexpected in business. There seemed to be a time where every day you were in the media putting out fires for the NRL with the salary cap saga for example or poor off field player behaviour. How do you deal with the constant unexpected as a CEO? In all of my roles, I have always had to deal with an elevated sense that the unexpected ends up on the front page of the paper and that’s where you need to work carefully through issues to make sure you arrive at results which are going to be acceptable to the stakeholders across your business. One of my best examples is when I landed in Singapore on my way back from Europe and the message from my media manager was “don’t answer your phone until you’ve spoken to me there’s been some bullets fired at Kings Cross at Jarryd Hayne and Mark Gasnier.” Now it turned out in the end that the bullets were probably shot into the air by someone sort of not doing anything particularly aggressive about what they did at the time, but when you land at Singapore airport and you get that sort of message you immediately think someone’s had a gun out and they’re shooting at your players.
