Leadership during a pandemic with Dr. Ashley Bloomfield
Sir John Kirwan hosts Dr Ashley Bloomfield for a conversation about mental wellbeing.
Here’s what went down and where to listen.
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Managing a pandemic and having to make important decisions for the country comes with a lot of pressure.
In our debut episode of Open Minded, Sir John Kirwan spoke to none other than Dr Ashley Bloomfield, Director General of Health and CEO of the Ministry of Health in New Zealand. The calm, level-headed leader and public servant became an overnight hero to the New Zealand public during the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr Ashley Bloomfield discusses the toll that the pandemic has taken on him, revealing his moments of self-doubt, how he builds resilience for himself and his people, and his tips for leadership in these times.
Watch the full video interview
So, what went down in this chat?
Over the first few weeks of leading New Zealand through COVID-19, Dr Ashley Bloomfield reveals he struggled to sleep, having dreams about the pandemic. He said despite knowing a health crisis of such scale could come along, “you’re never quite prepared for it”.
Going from zero to hero was so unexpected, he was “nervous as heck” when he first fronted the media back at the beginning of 2020. He also experienced moments of self-doubt, waking up and thinking “Gosh, can I really do this?”. Bloomfield revealed even after facing the public for eight months, he still gets nervous.
To get him through, Bloomfield sought advice from people he trusted and respected. The amount of support and feedback he received gave him confidence in the advice he was giving to the government.
“Right from day one it was just being myself and being true to myself.”
"All you can do is get up every day, play what's in front of you, work with your team members but remain true to your values.”
"If something hasn't gone right, we'll say how can we go and fix it."
Bloomfield offers some of his tips and tricks about resilience and coping with stress saying, “Resilient people aren’t resilient because they never feel stressed, they’re resilient because they know what their triggers are, they recognise it, and they take active steps to prevent and manage it.“
On managing the workload as a business leader, he said “It’s saying - this is it, because I could keep going 15, 20 hours and I still wouldn’t do everything that might need to be done. So you have to be able to put the boundaries about it.”
“A key thing for me is, when I do go home, I’ve got to go home and be my best myself. I’ve got to be able to have energy, be able to listen…”
Here’s where you can listen to Open Minded and Episode 1:
See the full transcript of the interview below
00:00:08
John Kirwan: Hi, everyone, it's John Kirwan here, and I'm really excited as this is my brand-new podcast called Open Minded.
00:00:15
John Kirwan: For those of you who don't know me, if you're coming in from overseas or wherever you are in your beautiful part of the world... I'm a former All Black rugby player from New Zealand and I've been the face of mental health in the country, little country of New Zealand, for the last 15 years and I'm incredibly passionate about the mental wellbeing or mental health space.
00:00:43
John Kirwan: So, for me, I just want to do a little quick intro to tell you what the show is going to be all about. There’s so many podcasts out there, but I didn't find one for myself that really nailed the mental wellbeing era that we're all now in. I'm really, really intrigued in all facets of mental health and wellbeing from leaders, from people who are making decisions, from normal people. So, for me, understanding it, making it normal, helping people to understand it, and then with that, hopefully getting rid of a whole lot of different stigmas around it. Because we all have mental health, just like we have physical health. So, this podcast is interviewing inspirational people from all walks of life, right? All walks of life. I love meeting people. I don't know what you guys are like, but I absolutely love meeting people and they intrigue me. I love laughing and hearing their stories and their views. Specifically, I want to talk with them about how they are looking after themselves and how they might be transforming workplaces and cultures through their approach to wellbeing. You know, I think sometimes leadership is a hard place to be. So how do you lead in this mental health era?
00:01:58
John Kirwan: I love podcasts and I love listening to people's stories like an amazing CEO. But rarely do we get to understand what keeps them well, peel back those layers, understand their take and approach to what is one of the most important things in the world right now. Well, it's certainly the most important thing for me. So, I'm going to be bringing you amazing people every episode that we can all learn from to inspire, provoke ideas, have actionable insights, actually what do we take from this? What do we do? How can we put this in our day? And how can you invest in yourself and your people to do mental wellbeing well.
00:02:36
John Kirwan: I don't want to deliver fluff. You know, I want to give you the real stuff that's happening every day in the minds of these leaders, how they stay well in high pressure roles, how they have bounced back from challenges, how they build resilience in themselves and the people around them, how they look after their people.
00:02:53
John Kirwan: So, this is JK for those who you don't know me, everyone calls me JK, and this is Open Minded. So, let's go!
00:03:18
John Kirwan: So, people, my first ever Open Minded podcast and I sat down with a pretty cool guy to start with - Dr Ashley Bloomfield. He has led New Zealand's response to the COVID pandemic, and in doing one... and in doing so, excuse me, won amazing fans, respect and actually, celebrity status here in New Zealand and many parts of the world. For those of you outside of New Zealand, during our lockdown at one o'clock every day, this man would stand up and tell us what was going on. And he did it in such a way that he has created this auroa and this celebrity that is probably never heard of for someone in his position. It was an absolute pleasure sitting down with him and understanding what keeps him well, how he has dealt with daily stand ups with the media and all of New Zealand watching, the importance of resilience and recognising when you need a break. Such a calm, level-headed leader we can all learn so much from. So, enjoy.
00:04:23
John Kirwan: Well, hi everyone. I am absolutely ecstatic to be with you here today. I'll do a little bit of an introduction if you're coming from outside New Zealand. I'm a broken-down old rugby player that's very passionate about mental health. And for me to be here today with Dr Ashley Bloomfield, who is our Director General of Health and also CEO of...
00:04:49
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: The Ministry of Health...
00:04:50
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: The Ministry of Health, but the most amazing thing I want to talk to you about today, is that during COVID, this man here has been an absolute pillar of strength. So, eight months ago now, the good doctor had to get up and introduce himself to New Zealand. And everyone's going, "Dr Who?". And now, he has been a lifeline for our country with his honesty, with his ability to tell the truth and be transparent. And for him to gift me an hour of his time today to just talk about that journey is a real honour. My mum passed away a year ago and when she passed away, people would come up to me and say, "We loved your mum." and I said "Yeah, I loved my mum too. Why did you love my mum?"... "She always gave us time."
00:05:42
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah.
00:05:42
John Kirwan: You know? For you to give us this time when I know it's incredibly busy, really appreciate it. So, tell me about the last nine months. Firstly, tell me about fame. My daughter said to say she loves you, by the way.
00:05:55
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Thanks to you.
00:05:55
John Kirwan: And I hear that all the time. When I said to people, I'm coming to talk to you today, they said "Oh tell him we love him, he's awesome." So how do you go from introducing yourself, to today where you are, this, I don't know if cult figure is the right word, but it's been an incredible time for you.
00:06:11
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, quite the journey JK, and look it's great to be on on with you today. And thanks for the opportunity to talk about these issues, because they're really important. And I guess, as with eight months ago when I did my first stand up in the room next door here, small room full of media, nervous as heck, ah 27th of January, I still get nervous now, but one thing hasn't changed right from day one. It was just being myself and being true to myself and especially in a situation where, you know, whilst, you know, something like this might come along and happen and you hope it doesn't... when it does, you're never quite prepared for it. So, all you can do is get up every day, play what's in front of you, work with your team members, but above all, just be true to yourself and your values. And so, you know, the funny thing was, as people got interested and my reputation grew or at least my visibility grew ah, and people would comment on this and that and my staff members would just say, "Oh, we just see you being yourself up there." And I guess that's the most important feedback I can get and as soon as that changes, then I'll realise something's wrong. But in the meantime, it's just get out there, be myself, be open, be authentic, be honest, say what we know, what I know, what I don't know... and if there's something that hasn't gone right, say, "Okay. We'll go and look at that and see how we can fix it".
00:07:30
John Kirwan: That is easier said than done though isn't it. So, were there forces around you that made you second guess whether you needed to change yourself? I mean, were you pulled from different areas about, oh maybe I should do it different?
00:07:44
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Well, of course, one of the things about my role as a senior public servant is, I'm not a politician, but I'm operating in a political environment. And, you know, at the moment we are in a... just coming up to an election, so there's a lot of politics being played out. All the more important then to just keep, you know, true to the values and stick to who I am and the role I've got here, which is as a public servant. So, I'm here, you know, my employer is the public of New Zealand and that's always top of mind, as I think about who I'm speaking to through the media. And, you know, the media provides that direct channel out to the public and I'm constantly thinking, 'What is it that the citizens of New Zealand would want to know? What is it they need to know?'.
00:08:24
John Kirwan: The thing that always intrigues me when I see you up there is that obligation to the public that would give you the strength to maybe push back to the politicians or people that are trying to, you know, because it is human nature. So, you feel a strong responsibility to the public and that would give you the strength to maybe push back when you need to?
00:08:44
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, well, that's right. I mean, as a public servant, you know, the most important thing you're giving is free and frank advice to the government and to the politicians. And so, every now and then, that means yes, you, as the saying goes, you have to speak truth to power, and especially in a situation where there's so much at stake. And this is one of the big challenges early on. You know, the classic leadership challenge is giving advice on and making decisions in an environment where you've, in this case, not just got incomplete information, you've got hardly any information and the stakes are so high. I mean, giving advice to basically lock the country down for four weeks, it's pretty high stakes. I never thought I'd do that in my career.
00:09:24
John Kirwan: And did you sleep that night? How've you been dealing like... You know, we all ruminate. We all have big decisions to make. When you're thinking about those decisions, I mean, how do you actually switch, you know, the grey matter off to get some sleep and get the energy that you need?
00:09:40
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: I found it really hard at the start because this thing just came upon us and I've talked about, you know, dreaming about covid-19 for those first few weeks and I realised that I wasn't really sleeping well and knew that that would affect my ability to perform well. And so, I sort of got this... there was almost this pivotal moment where I made the shift and I thought, well, it's that classic thing is it... what is it that I can control? Because most of this, I can't control. So, I can control how I behave, how I come across, I can control the information I've got and how I communicate that and the advice I give. All the rest of it, I needn't worry about it. All I can do is get up each day and just play what's in front of me, draw on my skills and my experience and sort of back myself because, I've talked about this as well, moments of self-doubt, heck yes! Heck, what... you know, what... is my advice good? The other thing I found really helpful, of course, in these situations is the people around you. So, when I was giving advice, it wasn't just, 'Oh, this is what I think', I would talk to people who I know and trust and respect and get and triangulate my views. "What do you think about this?" And of course, that was hugely helpful. The more I did that, the better I slept.
00:10:52
John Kirwan: I think the hardest thing around leadership is actually the ability to reach out. So, you know, how did you make that decision to say, well, I can reach out, I don't need to do this alone? Because a lot of leaders that I talk to feel that they should have all the answers. I mean, is that something you struggled with? Did you feel vulnerable at times?
00:11:11
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Look, I didn't really struggle with that because I've always been of the view that you're only as good as your team and I've got a great team of people in this organisation. And I could see the support and feel the support from colleagues across the public sector. And so, it wasn't difficult in that respect, and in fact, it just kind of helped me build confidence in the advice I was giving. And also it gave the politicians confidence in the advice, because if they, as they do, they like to go and get their own advice or check for themselves and if they know I've spoken to all these other people, then that helps give them confidence in the advice.
00:11:49
John Kirwan: Now, this next question is a real big one. Born in Wellington, studied in Auckland?
00:11:55
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Born in Napier, actually. So, I'm a Hawke's Bay boy.
00:11:59
John Kirwan: Oh, I was just going to say! So not Hurricanes and not Blues?
00:12:02
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: I'm definitely Hurricanes. I've been asked that question. So no, I'm a Hurricanes man. So, born in Hawke's bay, first six years of my life in Maraenui, Napier, then shifted to Tawa. So actually, Tawa is what... for me... and these are the days when Murray Mexted used to play for the Tawa Club wearing his All Blacks socks I seem to recall occasionally. But, you know, I loved growing up in Tawa and then yeah, went to medical school in Auckland, got a medical degree and a lovely Auckland wife and she's now got used to living down here. We came back down here about, just over 20 years ago, so...
00:12:36
John Kirwan: and she'll be supporting the Blues, at least someone in the family.
00:12:39
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Actually, I think we've converted her to the Hurricanes as well mate, yeah.
00:12:43
John Kirwan: But the reason I brought up rugby is, I rang my old mate Sean Fitzpatrick the other day, worst roommate ever... don't ever be in a room with a front rower, it's not...
00:12:53
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: I'll remember that one JK.
00:12:54
John Kirwan: But when he became captain, they give him his own room, so that's a good thing. But I rang him and said, you know, "How are you going, mate? How's the UK?" And he said, "You know, JK, when when we grew up, our parents would talk about the war, you know, and and the depression and all those things... we're going to be talking about COVID. But the interesting thing watching you is, no one knows this. There's no blueprint. You know, this is what we talk to about to the leaders that are, you know, part of Mentemia, we say, there's no rules, no blueprint, there's no books. So how do you deal with that uncertainty? Because, I'm sure you don't have all the answers and don't pretend to, but you're making decisions. It must be so difficult when so many things are grey.
00:13:40
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, that is the big challenge. And again, this is the sort of the leadership challenges as how you give good advice and make decisions when no one knows what's going to happen. There's a lot of uncertainty and it goes back again to what are the things - and it's the same in our own lives - what are the things I have control over, because there's an awful lot that we can't control. And then it's it's making sure, well what is it I can control? And if we look then at our journey over these last eight months, well, we haven't done it perfectly, but, by goodness, we've identified how to get on top of these outbreaks when they happen pretty quickly and we've just had the most recent one in Auckland and we've been preparing for that, particularly, say, our contact tracing system, and it's performed really well. We're not going to rest on our laurels. We're reviewing. We'll go back and keep improving. And this is a point I've been trying to make over recent days. You know, it's not going to go 100 per cent right. Even if you know what the playbook is and you've got a playbook, it's not going to. But we can't afford to let every little, every thing that happens that isn't perfect... We can't afford to call it a failure and say "Who's responsible, who's going to resign?" because we just will stop learning and we'll stop adapting and that's what's served us really well in this today.
00:14:54
John Kirwan: Like I mentioned before, Fitzy said there's no blueprint for this. None of us can get any of this right. So, how do you look back on some of the learnings and go, okay, I now need to move forward?
00:15:06
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yep. Yeah look, this has been a really important part of our successful response is that we were prepared to review as we went along. And, you know, one of the things about doing those daily stand ups is, I got immediate feedback every day through the media about what wasn't going right, because someone would have written in or rang or sent an email or a GP or a nurse somewhere wasn't getting the PPE they needed. So, there was a lot of immediate feedback and it was really important in terms of being successful, that we were listening and being... it's the classic thing about a leader. If you want to improve, you've got to be open to hearing feedback and you've actually got to actively seek it. Well, I was kind of actively seeking it each day through those stand ups. And one of the things I'm really proud of is we've done, I don't know, well over a dozen or more reviews of different aspects of our response. Quick, and then learning and then what have we got to do to change? And that's, you know, it's an important lesson for leadership and for life, isn't it? You know, seek feedback. Sometimes it's not that comfortable. Kids are pretty good at giving feedback, I know. And they give it pretty honestly and pretty immediately.
00:16:16
John Kirwan: How did you personally move on mentally? I know that when I had a bad game, it took me a few years to actually dump it pretty quickly and then move on. So mentally, how were you doing that when you obviously felt so much responsibility?
00:16:30
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, and there were a couple of moments that had quite a lot of publicity where there was a perceived, you know, major failure or something had happened. And, there was one in particular where I said, well, look, I'm responsible for the system, so I'll take responsibility for what happened and for sorting it out. And it was a pretty tough time. I think I got asked by Mike Hosking several times to... when I was going to resign... but, you know, you've just got to, again, go back to centering yourself on your values, working with your team around you, drawing on your reserves of energy and so on, and thinking about the bigger picture as well. It's a long game this and you can't let yourself just trip up with everything that might not go 100 per cent.
00:17:15
John Kirwan: So you're standing up there in front of us one o'clock every day. You're leading us, staying calm, although you might have been tracking underwater a wee bit. How do you walk off that and then lead your people? You've got a fantastic team that I'm sure just can't concentrate on covid because everything else will fall over. So, how do you lead down in those moments? What are some of the things that you do to keep your team functioning, you know, giving away some of the responsibility, delegating? I mean, how do you lead?
00:17:45
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: So, I mean, a couple of things here... The health systems are very relationship based areas anyway, so, it's not a command and control environment. If anything, over the last eight months or so, we've done a lot more directive sort of command and control leadership where we've had to and much more than we normally would. But inside the organisation, you know, this is the key thing in a crisis. Your people have to be empowered to do things even without sometimes even being asked. And again, it's one of our successes as a public service here. I've got so many examples of where people just did what needed to be done without even being asked. They didn't wait for permission and we achieved so much because of that. And so, I guess it's the sort of, how you create your leadership culture in peacetime, will then translate into where you've got a crisis situation and people feel enabled and empowered to do the right thing without having to wait for 15 signatures on a bit of paper.
00:18:45
John Kirwan: Some people say that there's always a silver lining, you know, within a crisis. What have been some of the positives that have come out of this for you and your team in particular?
00:18:56
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Well, one of the positives is actually a thing in the wider health system. It's a huge system. And even the Ministry of Health is a big organization. And some of the changes that we know are the right thing to happen across the health system that would have taken 5 or 10 years, happened in about a week. And I'll give you an example, the use of video technology for consultations and primary care and general practice or even from the hospital outpatient consultations. Instead of making someone take half a day off work, travel across town, sit in a waiting room with a whole lot of people for a 10 minute appointment, they could do it by Zoom. Same with general practice, they move really quickly to doing most of their consultations online to protect their staff and to protect their patients as well. But actually, they found that... and the interesting thing is for mental health consultations, it was profoundly helpful because people could have their whanau around them, even if they weren't in the same home. They might be on a Zoom call. And the feedback we got, it was incredibly useful. Now, we would have been five years before we had shifted the sector in normal circumstances, and it happened in the space of a couple of weeks.
00:20:07
John Kirwan: As a leader in that environment, is that an attitude you take to those particular meetings? Because, like a lot of doom and gloom around, you know, there's a lot of negativity comming in. Do you consciously go to those meetings, say, "Right. What's some of the great things we can do right now?" or do you just let it evolve?
00:20:25
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Well, again, it's it's if you look at the health system, there are a lot of smart people in there, and a lot of people who do want to innovate and do things differently. And so when the situation arises, where it just has to happen, it's amazing how quickly new things are adopted. But, you know, the other point you're making here is, because it is high pressure, and because there's so much at stake, it can feel a bit overwhelming. And every now and then with the team, we just pause at least once or twice a week and say, let's just reflect on what we've achieved here. What have we done? Look what we've achieved to protect our people, to protect our health workers and our health system, and actually to keep New Zealand for much of this year, functioning as it was pre-covid.
00:21:08
John Kirwan: I think a lot of leaders of big organisations could learn from that, right? It's also important to reflect on the good things you've done, but not after a month... quite frequently.
00:21:19
John Kirwan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That regular sort of celebrating success. And sometimes those might be just small things, but you've got to you've got to stop and reflect and just acknowledge and thank people. Again, it's that being grateful. You know, one of my sayings I say to my kids is, "Pat someone on the back today." And it's just amazing. You give some positive feedback to someone, and you can just... you can see them soar. And it's great.
00:21:46
John Kirwan: I often talk about my sharks. I tell a story where I went to a psychiatrist and she taught me how to hypnotise myself. I didn't end up doing it for too long, but I went surfing and it was really good for me. But the second time I tried to do it, there's a whole load of sharks in the water. And I went back to, as you said, JK, they're your sharks. And basically my one is, I felt dumb. Left school when I was 15, got told I was dumb at school, you know, felt I was dumb. Second one, I had an impostor syndrome. So when I scored a try against Italy, for example, I woke up and came off thinking, when are they going to find out that I'm not good enough? I'm just lucky.
00:22:26
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah.
00:22:26
John Kirwan: But actually, they are now my triggers. So, I've made peace with those sharks and know they're not true, and don't believe in them. But when I get really stressed, they start coming back. And I think 'JK, what the bloody hell are you down here interviewing the doctor for?' You know... 'You dummy. What are you doing?' I knew that if I was feeling like, that means that I'm under, you know, pressure. So do you have triggers that you know, I'm getting stressed, you know, Ashley, I'm getting stressed, I need to just take a step back. Do you have things that you know?
00:22:59
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, well well, one of the things I know when I need to take a break is I speed up. Actually, I start... so so ,I'm sort of... I go even faster and my wife usually points it out to me, so I know I'm getting... it's near the end of term, I need that week off. One of the things I've found over the last eight months and I've talked about this is how, you know, getting, I get to 10 in the morning knowing I have a stand up at one, and I just automatically, my cortisol levels would start to rise, and I'd start to sweat a bit, and I'd get focused. And probably my team noticed the difference because I'd get, I'd start to go in a bit on myself as I started, started to prepare myself. And it was when I got to a day where I didn't have a stand up and it got to 10 o'clock, same reaction. It was like a trigger and I could feel... and then I realized, well, I need to have a break, because otherwise I'm not going to be at my best; as a leader, as an adviser and certainly as a person. So, those are the things that I can feel and, you know, i'd come off the stage after my one o'clock and be just, you know, because it's such a focus. You're in the arena, really. So I'd be really sweating away and thinking, 'Gosh, you know, was that all okay?' And you know, team would give me a little bit of feedback and we'd be fine, and then I could move on to the next thing. But it's just that knowing what those triggers are, and then thinking, okay, what this means for me is, time to take a few days off.
00:24:21
John Kirwan: Did you get better at it? So, understanding your triggers, I think sometimes we just rush through and ignore that and just think it's normal. But understanding your triggers. So did you get better? Because I think some of the stress is good, right? You can't walk in there too relaxed.
00:24:33
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: That's right, yeah.
00:24:34
John Kirwan: So, what did you do to get rid of some of that anxiety? Getting up there at one o'clock, change something?
00:24:40
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Well, in terms of how I prepare, you know, the key things I knew were then, making sure I was well prepared and just taking that time to just centre myself before I went up there. But it's also you think, you know, before every interview, 'Gee, am I going to go okay, here? It's all right. I've done this. I've done this before. You know, it's going to go okay. Just keep... keep the preparation right. Keep centered and keep focused up in there.' But again, it's that I'm probably much more attuned now to those triggers than I was before I started on this latest eight month journey, because previously, I would just I would just sort of roll with it but it wasn't too stressful. But there was so much at stake here that I knew. Right. Now I've got to just do something specific about this and take some time out.
00:25:24
John Kirwan: Do you judge yourself after it and say... like a test match, we used to come off, you know, didn't go that well. And do you judge yourself afterwards, do you make peace with it quickly? How does that work?
00:25:35
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Make peace quickly. Don't dwell on it. But, you know, my comms team here are fantastic and, you know, i'll come off and you usually know when it's gone well and say, "Yeah, I think we went well today." or there might be a couple of things and usually, there might be a phone call from the minister's office if there's something you've said. But... but... it's always in thinking, okay, what did we say? How could we... how could we maybe tomorrow, just, you know, provide some clarity or turn that around or get the message out we want to get out.
00:26:04
John Kirwan: Yeah, that's really interesting. So I'm sitting around watching one of your one o'clock stand ups and someone in the audience, who we can't see, asks a real... a question where... us around the room are saying, 'If that was me, I'd walk off the stand and just, you know, tell them what I thought.' I mean, how do you actually... do you take a breath? What do you... What's the mental process when someone is actually just trying to, you know, have a bit of a dig or saying something that, you know, no one knows what covid is going to bring us tomorrow, let alone, you know... So how do you deal with that? Are you that quick? Are you just...
00:26:42
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, well, a couple of things. One is, of course, the more I do, the more comfortable I feel and then you develop some skills. Particularly in responding to those questions that might be curveballs. But it comes back as well, to thinking about, well, what are the key messages I want to get across here ,and what's the impression I want to give the public? And one of the things that I've had a lot of feedback on, and particularly from kids, I've had so many lovely letters from children around the country, is the fact that I was calm during those stand ups, even though I was conveying information sometimes about deaths that we had had from covid. The fact that I was calm and reassuring... It sort of didn't matter quite what I was saying, but it was actually how I came across. And this is... I think it's a really good lesson for all of us, isn't it? It's that old saying about 'People won't remember what you said, but they'll remember how you made them feel.'
00:27:31
John Kirwan: No, that's incredibly important. So, how about your own anxiety then? You've gone from being relatively unknown, to having an amazing effect on our country. You've showed calm, I read an article the other day that said, you know, you are like the swan. Sometimes you're standing up there, but your feet are going under the water. I mean, has it changed you? Are you more anxious, less anxious? Have you had to work overtime mentally, to deal with what you have to deal with every day?
00:28:03
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, look, it's been quite a journey, as you can imagine... as it has for everyone, and particularly this uncertainty. We, as humans, we don't deal very well with uncertainty. For me, I'm not actually an anxious person. I'm actually pretty calm and resilient. I deal with stress really well. I've done plenty of challenging things in my life. And, of course, these sorts of roles, being the Chief Executive of this organisation and Director General has its moments. You know, it's pretty stressful at the best of times. But one of the things I've really... that's been really an eye opener for me is, as I have got, at times, anxious and stressed about particularly the stand ups, not because... not the fact of the stand ups, but just the relentlessness, you know the day after day, you know, working fourteen, twenty days in a row and then feeling that anxiety, which I'm not used to, and realising actually, the most important... If I want to be resilient, I've got to be able to acknowledge that, own it, recognise my limitations and then take active steps to manage it. And the big one for me is having breaks. You know, taking time out, getting out into the bush, spending time with family. But I guess that's been the thing that I really want to emphasize here is, resilient people aren't resilient because they never feel stressed. They are resilient because they know what their triggers are. They recognise it, and they take active steps to prevent and manage it.
00:29:28
John Kirwan: So if I asked you directly, your resilience plan is what?
00:29:32
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: So my resilience plan is, making sure I'm having time with my family, physical activity, just doing nothing sometimes, just having downtime, trying to get a decent night's sleep - if I'm not dreaming about covid and having a regular break, so, you know, school holidays coming up, I'm taking a week off. And also, you know, another big part of resilience is connecting with people. So, you know, working with my team here and coming into work every day and seeing fantastic people here. And that's what gives me energy then to keep going.
00:30:06
John Kirwan: So how do you go home? Because a lot of business leaders and leaders that I've spoken to, the workload is absolutely non-stop, if you want it to be. And I imagine during the crisis, you know, how do you limit that workload? What do you do? You work 12, 15.... How do you do it? How do you manage it?
00:30:25
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah look, so, you know, a 12 hour day would be typical. Then I do maybe a half a day or more on the weekend as well. But that's the point, isn't it? It's saying this is it. Because I could keep going... fifteen, twenty hours, and I still wouldn't get it... I still wouldn't do everything that might need to be done. So you have to be able to put the boundaries about it. And a key thing for me is, when I do go home, I don't go home and just sit on the sofa and not communicate. I've got to go home and be my best self for my family. You know, I've got to have energy. I've got to be interested in them. I've got to be able to listen and also, you know, be a good husband and a good father. So, it's not just about being there, but actually being positive and my best self, when I am there.
00:31:10
John Kirwan: Yeah well that's one of... I mean, I still struggle with that as a husband and father. I guess when I'm out in the public, I just don't want to talk to anyone when I get home. You know, I'm just... I just sort of need to be alone and sort of recover my energy. So, do you consciously keep your effort up or is it come quite natural or, you know, you go for a run to get that energy back first? Do you have some sort of plan around that? I haven't worked it out yet, by the way.
00:31:35
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, well, I think for me it's just, you know, on that drive home, just... it's really trying to just make that switch from work to home life. I've never really had a problem with that switching off and particularly on holidays. You know, once I go on holiday, I'm not looking at the phone. I'm not even interested in emails. Someone else has got that. This is my time to just clear my head. Just re-centre. Enjoy the bush, enjoy the mountains, enjoy time with family and friends.
00:32:04
John Kirwan: Are you a music man?
00:32:06
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah I love my music.
00:32:07
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: What's your go to?
00:32:09
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Just about anything. One of the things I love, we've got the whole family on the same Spotify account, so I really enjoy seeing what my kids are listening to and and also making recommendations for them as well. But, you know, I'm an anything from Bruce Springsteen to, you know, all the classic 70s, 80s stuff. But I also keep an eye on it... on new Kiwi music. I love watching that and following that. Big fan of, you know, Tiny Ruins, Teeks, Aldous Huxley that sort of more recent New Zealand artists.
00:32:40
John Kirwan: I think the reason I talked about music, I think it's really, really important because our lives are so busy now that in the car, it's important to make a conscious effort actually to put that music on. I say to people, instead of making phone calls, what I do is, I put, you know, put a bit of Van Morrison on and pretend to be him and sing at the top of my voice, because that is actually a trigger to start switching off. You actually gain energy rather than lose energy. So, is music a part of your sort of mental health plan? Do you use it a lot, or is it just a random listen when you feel like it or you actually plan it?
00:33:13
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: It's a planned thing. And that's both listening and playing because I play a guitar and enjoy doing it. We were just actually having a little lunchtime event today, it's the end Te Wiki o te Reo Maori - Maori language week and I surprised everyone by when we got to the waiata at the end, I grabbed one of the guitars and it's a nice waiata that one of our staff actually wrote, it's about what a Taonga, what a treasure te Reo is for our country. And, you know, there's nothing I enjoy more. It's actually a great thing is, singing with other people because it's a collective activity that just... I think it releases the endorphins. There's nothing like, you know, getting the guitar and having a good sing with the team here.
00:33:56
John Kirwan: I'd like to thank you for the lockdown because I decided to take the guitar up. So I'm getting lessons.
00:34:01
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Good man.
00:34:01
John Kirwan: Adult learning is not that easy though, to be fair. Sounds like I'm strangling a cat in the lounge, but, it's really good for my brain because like I said before, I'm an active relaxer, so, i'm picking up the guitar and playing it.
00:34:14
John Kirwan: So tell me about sport. I know that, you know, what does the future look like for you now? When you have to try and predict how our country's going... There's been a little bit... of I've been pretty vocal about the Bledisloe Cup sport coming forward. I mean, how do you look forward, keep the safety of the country in mind, but also try and get us back to normal? I mean, that would keep you awake.
00:34:34
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: This is the big challenge. Oh, definitely. You know, the future of the All Blacks is in my hands.
00:34:40
John Kirwan: Exactly, exactly.
00:34:41
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Well well, first of all, I should say I'm a huge sport fan. You know, I played rugby right through school and played a couple of years. Last team I played for was the Auckland University under twenty side.
00:34:52
John Kirwan: Who was in that side? There would have been a few.
00:34:54
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Oh well...
00:34:55
John Kirwan: How old are you now? Can I say that on TV?
00:34:56
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: I'm fifty four so...
00:34:57
John Kirwan: Oh there you go, so you would have been with Drake and...
00:34:59
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Oh no, they were a bit older than me, but I do remember Foxe coming along to one of our practices because I was in the backs, playing in the backs and he gave us a few tips. One of those, one of the practices there. So, you know, I love my rugby. I did a lot of stuff like athletics, cross country, pretended to play cricket in the summer. You know, now it's more kind of, keeping fit, running, mountain biking, trying to learn to surf at the moment.
00:35:22
John Kirwan: Oh, nice!
00:35:23
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah, just to do something new, as you said. Learning new skills. But in terms of sport, you know, organised sport in this country... Look, it's the same with all elements of our society. We've got to get this balance. And of course, we've learnt a lot in these eight months. I think we've done really well. We've managed the outbreaks and we've, I think had one of the best responses in the world. And to me, what that does is it gives us options. So, you know, I went to a few of the Hurricanes matches during our alert level one, our hundred days of freedom, as it were. And, I can remember standing with guys like Ian Potter and others saying, can you believe we're actually here watching this game in a stadium that was quite full actually. It was great to see the big crowds back. That's where we want to get back to. The pathway to that is making sure we've got really good control of the virus, so it's been great working with Mark Robinson on facilitating getting these Bledisloe Cup tests here. We didn't get the rugby championship and there'll be a whole lot of reasons for that. Some of them obvious, some of them not so obvious. But, you know, there are other sports we're looking at as well, netball, cricket. The whole idea is how can we host these games here, safely, so that as many people as possible can attend? And the prerequisite for that, of course, is making sure we've got the virus controlled.
00:36:42
John Kirwan: So, moving forward, you know, you're the steadying hand. You stand up there, give us all confidence that we're in safe hands. There's been a lot of talk about stress and anxiety for everyone moving forward. We've seen a little bit of a rise and actually talking about mental health. The real positive thing about covid is, we're asking our mates, you know, "Are you feeling anxious?" and there's a lot more honesty around it. You know, what would you say to people from your experience of being in the public eye, having to cop a lot of the stress... What would you say to the New Zealand public about looking after their mental health moving forward?
00:37:17
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Look, just to build on what you've said, asking other people how they are, it's... I saw this lovely phrase once. 'The biggest and smallest question you can ask someone is, "Are you okay?" And it's okay not to be okay. Which I think is a great saying. So, look out for other people. Being kind. I was so pleased that that was kind of one of the key messages in our response, you know, 'Stay home. Save lives. Be kind.' And of course, that's be kind to yourself as well. You can't be kind to other people, if you're not being kind to yourself. So you've got to look after yourself in the first place. And, you know, the second thing is just going back to my earlier comment, resilient people, are people who get stressed and anxious but recognise it and have ways to manage it and prevent it. So think about what it is for you. This is an uncertain time. We're all anxious about what's going to happen. We don't know. But there are also things that we do know and things we can control. And it's those basic things that haven't changed. As I say. Be kind. Gratitude - fantastic thing for, you know, actually helping manage anxiety, being grateful. And one of the things that it's just been such a great thing for my team here is, the amount of correspondence and little gifts we've got from the public that come in every day from grateful New Zealanders who just feel that we've looked after them and, you know, they send them to me, but it almost always says, "To you and your team." And so you only need one grateful person, you know, to really feel... 'Okay, it's worth it.' So, being grateful ourselves is a hugely helpful thing for mental wellbeing. And think about the things that we can control and don't let covid-19 define your life. It's something we have to deal with. But most of what makes us happy, most of what is about our lives is about the people around us and the things in our immediate environment. So just focus on those. They're the important things.
00:39:17
John Kirwan: And one last personal question, and I've been an All Black in this country and we're pretty popular, but I don't think there's anyone as popular as you at the moment. How's the fame thing? How's that going? How're you riding with that?
00:39:30
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Oh, look, mate. That's just been something I never imagined would happen. I mean, the fact that I'm sitting here next to you, like JK, I can remember all those matches from the first, you know, Rugby World Cup. Watching them and just thinking you were the man and you still are. Yesterday, I had a photo with Graham Dingle, you know, and my team are going, "Are you fan-boying Ashley?" This is a guy I've admired since I was a teenager.
00:39:55
John Kirwan: Yeah. Great New Zealander.
00:39:56
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: So, you know, a great New Zealander. So, you know, the fame, it is what it is. But I'm also aware and my wife pointed this out really early on, that it also means that, you know, fame can be quite fickle. So it's not the fame per se. It's always focusing on just doing the best job for New Zealanders. And at the moment, that includes quite a lot of exposure and a lot of visibility and publicity. And if that's helpful in terms of reassuring New Zealanders, and supporting our response... and this was the great thing about the first lockdown, you know, we surprised ourselves. I never imagined we would be so successful. It was beyond what we might have expected. And so, if I played a part in that, it's fantastic. The fame is a secondary thing. The one thing that's been fabulous that I would say that's come with it is, you know, Ken Laybourn invited me to be involved in this rugby match.
00:40:48
John Kirwan: Yeah, yeah, I saw that!
00:40:50
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Over in Wainuiomata, and I never thought I'd be lifted in a line out by Rodney So'oialo and Faifili Levave... and the nicest guys, honestly. Just fantastic. So, you know, that's been a real privilege, really.
00:41:02
John Kirwan: Well, just from me, thank you very much. I think that, you know, the way you've handled it... from a New Zealand point of view, you should just be incredibly proud. I know it's not over for you, but once again, thank you for your time. Thank you for your honesty and openness. Someone who can stand up there and say, yeah, we didn't get it completely right, but we're going to keep going is sort of how we used to live as All Blacks, you know. Don't blame anyone else, look at yourself first and keep trying to be the best you can be. So from me personally and my family and the rest of New Zealand, thanks for being you.
00:41:37
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: Yeah well thanks, JK, and thanks for the opportunity. And thanks for being you as well. And the work you do, you know, your mahi, I really admire. It's critical and you're making a real difference in this country. I guess, like me, that's what you want to be doing.
00:41:49
John Kirwan: Yeah, exactly. I think New Zealand is a great little place with great people and some of our suicide rates and mental health we've just got to get on top of like we've got on top of covid. I think covid has been real positive from a mental health point of view. We can talk about it more, be just a little bit more open and honest about it and if we do that, I think it'll have a wash on effect.
00:42:09
Dr Ashley Bloomfield: I agree, cheers.
00:42:11
John Kirwan: Go the blues!
00:42:17
John Kirwan: Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Open Minded. If you like the podcast, make sure to subscribe. This podcast is everywhere you get your podcasts, so make sure you do that. I don't need to tell you how and then you'll get my new episodes straight away. And if you can leave a review, tell everyone you know about it, it'd be awesome. But also, I'd love to get your feedback. You know, I'm new to this. I want to get better, and I want to know what you want to know about mental wellbeing. So, please reach out to us. And thanks. I'll see you all soon.