My friend of 40 years has now departed this earth. Dr Phil Harker my long-time associate and mentor has left his body and gone to a better place. The world is diminished with his passing.

I first met Phil sometime around 1986 when he was part of a selection panel assessing applicants to be appointed to manage Callide ‘B’ Power Station. The power station was nearly completed and a new manager needed to be appointed.

The head of the Generation Division of the Queensland Electricity Generating Board had decided to try something a little different. Power Station Managers had traditionally been selected from talented engineers who were usually quite technically gifted but often lacked the necessary people skills to be good managers. On this occasion he engaged a psychologist to join the selection panel help ascertain the capacity of the candidates to lead and influence employees. That psychologist was Phil Harker.

Now this was probably fortuitous for me because I am sure the other candidates were better engineers than I was. But I had a little history of taking on managerial assignments and succeeding in my previous roles that other engineers had shied away from.

Needless to say I was duly appointed to manage this newly commissioned power station. But I had come to realise that Phil could be an essential resource in helping me make a difference.

The next time I encountered Phil was at a management retreat with my fellow Power Station Managers. After dinner we retreated to the bar to have a couple of drinks before retiring. I sat beside Phil and my good friend Sid Durrington. Sid was one of the most intellectually gifted people I knew. I was astounded to hear the two converse. Phil easily matched him intellectually which impressed me greatly.

This just reinforced my desire to involve Phil in my development of a new enterprise. There were in fact two strands of interest that enabled our relationship to grow.

The first speaks to the misguided priorities of universities. During his academic career Phil was renowned as a lecturer. But the university declared he would not be able to progress his academic career unless he devoted his intellect to research. Consequently he undertook a Ph.D. dissertation which focussed on how managerial assumptions about employees impacted managerial decision making. He used as his case study the example of managerial practices at Callide B Power Station of which I was now the manager.

But more importantly than that (as far as I was concerned) I engaged Phil to do workshops with my employees to understand the deeper philosophical question of what it is to be human.

These proved to be a great success with my employees. We even ran such sessions out of hours to include employees and their families and later the staff of the local schools.

It was our ambition to spread this knowledge as widely as we could in the Callide community knowing that such understanding helped people, in whatever capacity, to be more competent human beings.

Callide “B” proved to be quite a success. With the work we did on fashioning the organisational culture (where Phil’s impact was critical), coupled with the ground breaking industrial agreement I negotiated, the power station had high levels of labour productivity. Whereas the organisation for which I worked had given me approval to employ up to 280 staff, we managed to run the station with 160.

Phil was great at his work as a consultant but he always underestimated the financial value of his contribution. Money never seemed to matter to him. He used to lodge invoices for his work which were under-priced (in my estimation) and which had a disclaimer at the bottom which said something to the effect that if you don’t think my work was worth the amount invoiced just recompense me for whatever you think I was worth! Later on in my career I worked as a management consultant for many professional services firms and all of them would have been appalled at such an approach to charging clients!

Once Phil recalled to me a time when he had visited our head office in Brisbane and ran into my boss. My then boss was a very accomplished engineer whose skills relating to power station construction were recognised nationally by the engineering fraternity. I was rather fond of him but he had little appreciation of what we were trying to achieve and had quite a traditional approach to management. He said to Phil, “I don’t understand what you and Scotty are trying to do at Callide but if you don’t succeed in six months he will be looking for another job.” Fortunately the success of what we were trying to do became obvious quite quickly and I didn’t have to look for another job!

(As an aside when we started at Callide “B” I insisted that the management team wear the same cotton drill clothing as the workforce. This caused some consternation among the traditionalists elsewhere in the organisation who wore ties and sometimes coats to work. But my thinking was that there are enough barriers between management and workforce without creating more by the symbolism of what we wore to work. Anyhow my boss visited the power station one day and after checking the place out came back to my office and said, “I need to have a confidential talk with you.” I told him that was fine with me. I closed my office door, which I don’t think I had ever done before and said, “What do you want to talk about?” He looked a little uncomfortable before taking another look at my humble apparel and blurting out, “Look, I don’t know how to put this, but if you want to be treated like a ‘garbo’, dress like a ‘garbo.” I replied, ”I know you mean well but nobody is treating me inappropriately. And by the way, how do you treat ‘garbos’?” Well this completely disarmed him because he was a decent man and I knew he would try to treat people well whatever their circumstances. He left and never raised the issue again. After a while he did gain some understanding of what Phil and I were about which served us well in our next endeavour.)

Whilst all this was happening another power station was under construction –Stanwell Power Station.

I decided to apply for the position of Power Station Manager. I was appointed without even to have to contest the position. This early appointment was useful in a couple of important ways.

Firstly I knew from my Callide experience that I could run a power station with far fewer staff than had been the norm. Consequently I was able to convince those in charge of construction to downsize some of the workshops, the stores and office accommodation which resulted in the savings of many millions of dollars.

But secondly it became apparent to me that a leader’s key role was to develop an appropriate organisational culture and that should begin with recruitment. Here Phil played an important part. We identified some of the key characteristics employees might need to participate in the challenging work environment I had in mind.

As a result, under Phil’s guidance we developed a selection process which sought to enable us to assess applicants against these cultural criteria. When people applied for a job at Stanwell they were first assessed for their technical competency. If they met the technical criteria they were then invited to attend a two day assessment program conducted over a weekend. This process included every job position. From the most senior appointment down to those in more menial jobs all applicants were subjected to the same process. Phil attended a few of the earlier assessment centres to help train those doing such assessments.

I believed that getting the right people who were culturally aligned with my vision for the power station was so important that I personally participated in that process for the first couple of years of recruitment. Phil facilitated this. And as far as I know no other enterprise in the electricity industry has ever emulated this hugely impactful practice.

The results were mind-blowing. I had never before had a workforce who was so committed to what we were seeking to achieve. It was the best experience in my managerial career. And the productivity results were quite dramatic. When all of the four Stanwell generating units were commissioned we were able to run with just the same staffing levels we had at Callide “B” which was half the size of Stanwell!

Not all of this was due to labour productivity. We were also able to use the technology more effectively than other power stations. A lot of this was due to the work of an outstanding, innovative engineer –Des Covey. But even here we wouldn’t have been able to avail ourselves of these opportunities unless the workforce was prepared to come along with us. Their dedication to our ideals is what won the day. But it didn’t come without consequences. Some of our courageous people who contributed to this revolution were ostracised by their peers in other power stations and the Unions for daring to break away from accepted industrial norms. I can’t tell you how much I admired their devotion to this new way of working. But because of Phil and our new selection processes we had a workforce that was brave, committed to change and determined to succeed to make this new enterprise successful.

During this time I was living in Biloela and later in Rockhampton. Although Phil came to site regularly I often had to go to Brisbane and we would invariably catch up. Most of my planning with him was done over dinner and a glass of wine when I met him there. Occasionally, when it was possible, I would ask him to bring his wife, Judy, along as well. She is a delightful lady who I came to admire.

One day Phil asked me out of the blue, “Can you write?” I replied without, I must confess appropriate humility, “Well I think I can write as well as you!” “Good!” he responded. “Let’s write a book.” Over a period of twelve months or so we wrote a little book titled originally, Humanity at Work which we self-published. The book became reasonably popular necessitating us to reprint it a number of times. Then Oliver Freeman, who at that time was a publisher of mainly law texts agreed to have his firm, Richmond Press, republish our book now retitled as The Myth of Nine to Five. This resulted in another resurgence of interest in the book which was consequently also published internationally.

Around this time Phil was engaged by the Australian Institute of Management (AIM) to do a workshop at their Brisbane headquarters for the finalists of their Queensland Manager of the Year Awards. Phil asked me to join him in the workshop. We had performed many workshops jointly and it was always tremendous fun!

He often asked me whether I got bored hearing his material over and over again. I never did for a number of reasons.

Firstly some of his concepts were not easy to understand and some repetition helped me to deepen my understanding.

Secondly his thinking was always evolving. I used to complain to him that just as I got to understand his thinking on one thing he was expanding his thinking on another. I was always playing catch-up!

Phil, of course, was a great presenter. Not only did he have a prodigious memory that enabled him to quote verbatim reams of material he was familiar with, but he had a strong, sonorous voice that could fill a meeting room or a conference venue with little need for amplification.

Most people, seeing his stage presence, would not have known that Phil was essentially an introvert.  After a presentation when he invariably wowed an audience,, he often found the necessity to retire and have some time alone.

A particular memory I have of the AIM event I referred to above was when we stopped for a break. We both had lapel microphones. I turned mine off and a couple of the attendees came to talk to me. We chatted a while but then I became aware that I could still hear Phil speaking over the loudspeaker. I thought I’d seen him going into the toilet. I excused myself from my conversation and hurried into the men’s toilet where Phil had fronted up to the urinal still talking to a fellow next to him. “Phil! Phil!” I called. “Turn off your microphone!” Thankfully he did and order and decorum were restored.

Nevertheless, AIM seemed to approve of our presentation and commissioned us to do a repeat performance in Queensland regional towns and in the Northern Territory. I took some leave from my power station and joined Phil for a marvellous, enjoyable speaking tour. It was one of the most stimulating experiences of my life!

We finished the tour in Darwin. Phil was going to go sightseeing to Uluru after, but I had to get back to work. As we said goodbye he handed me a book. “This is something I think you should read”, he said. The book was A Course in Miracles.

A Course in Miracles is a 1976 book written by Helen Schuman. It has been widely applauded by those interested in spirituality. The underlying premise of the book is that the greatest miracle is to gain awareness of the importance of love in a person’s life.

Of course this was a major part of Phil’s teachings. The greatest philosophical debate in psychology in the twentieth century was about whether human beings had “Free Will” or not.

Phil’s conclusion was that although life was largely shaped by determinism we had one dimension where we could make a choice and that made all the difference. This choice was essentially about our worldview. (Unsurprisingly the book he subsequently wrote was titled One Degree of Freedom.)

He believed that we could choose a worldview of “fear” where our ego defence mechanisms sought to erect protective barriers to shield us from the threats we imagined others posed in what we perceive as an antagonistic, “dog eats dog” world. This worldview promotes the notion that life is a “zero-sum” game where you and I have to compete for everything and that your every gain is interpreted as my loss.

Or, alternatively, we could choose a worldview of “love’ where we understand that at the basic level of our being we are all as one. This worldview results in us having empathy for each other. In such a world I am happy to see you succeed knowing that your success occurs not at the expense of my well-being but enhances my sense of well-being because I am happy to see others prosper knowing that at our core we are all as one.

We had many discussions about this and what a difficult concept it was to sell. Phil pointed out that traditionally (n Greek for example) there were many words for “love” and the English language wasn’t able to discern the same nuances as the Greeks. He asked me. “How should we define ‘love’ in this context?”

I replied, “In my view Phil, ‘love’ is just the dissolution of separateness.” He liked that notion!

But in my professional life things were changing again. The Queensland Government decided to corporatise the Electricity Industry. The electricity generating assets were split into three and each set up with a corporate structure to enable each generation corporation to compete separately in the newly emerging National Electricity Market. I was appointed interim CEO of the organisation that had been created around Stanwell Power Station with a portfolio that included Kareeya and Barron Gorge Hydro Power Stations, Wivenhoe Pumped Storage Hydro and a number of gas peaking plants.

A board was appointed to oversee this new corporatised entity and one of their first tasks, as you would expect, was to recruit a CEO.

When I met with Phil he asked, “Are you going to apply for the job?”

“I don’t think so, Phil.” I replied. “I am more than happy running my power station. I am having a lot of fun working with great people who are so aligned with what we are trying to do.”

Then he said, “If you were appointed CEO you could have an impact on a whole lot more people. In all my work in organisations I’ve never encountered a CEO that actually understood human motivation and behaviour. You know you could make a difference to a lot more lives if you became CEO.”

Well that was great praise from my mentor. But I think he overestimated my effect. I was successful because I had assembled a very competent team around me. Some of those people had taken great risks with respect to their personal careers to work with me. I had admiration and respect for them. Fortunately to my great delight, many have gone on to forge impressive careers of their own.

When I contemplated Phil’s challenge I realised that if I was appointed CEO I would be able to draw on the talents of these relatively young, competent people to establish a new organisation.

Needless to say I was moved to compete for the role and was eventually successful in being selected from a broad field, including international candidates. But I can assure you that without Phil’s provocation I would have remained as manager of Stanwell Power Station. And I promoted quite a few of the young managers from Stanwell Power Station to come with me on this new organisational journey.

Once ensconced in my new role I again engaged Phil to work with my new workforce. Many of my new workforce were located in Brisbane. They were quite surprised by the fact that I should find it necessary to have a psychologist speak to them about human behaviour and related issues, I told them that it was my ambition to help people become more competent human beings knowing that if they did they would become more competent managers, employees, parents and citizens. And as usual Phil proved to be a great hit.

Well for whatever reason we were again successful and Stanwell Corporation was the most profitable player in the new competitive electricity market for the duration of my time as CEO.

(Two major players in attaining these economic results that I should acknowledge were my Trading Manager, Paul Simshauser and my Chief Financial Officer Gary Humphrys. But I would also acknowledge the impact of the other members of my young management team that rose to excel in this new organisational environment.)

Around this time Phil was engaged by the Local Government Association to give a workshop for its members who were coming from all around the state for their annual conference. Phil invited me to join him for a presentation. The venue was the conference centre at the Gabba Cricket Ground. Our presentation was well-received. At the break a fellow pushed his way up onto the stage as we were packing up.

“Phil! Phil!” he shouted exuberantly. “I’ve got something I want to share with you.”

Phil immediately recognised the man. He was the mayor from one of the regional Queensland towns where we had presented for AIM.

I remembered how he had sought some parenting advice from Phil. He was the father of a son in his late teens. He had a property portfolio and allowed his son to live in one of the units he owned. However the young man was untidy, and to his father’s disgust, left the unit in a slovenly state. He asked Phil what he should do.

Phil’s advice was pretty simple (and I had heard him give it many times before). He told the fellow, “Look, at this age parents need to realise they can no longer dictate the change in the behaviours of their children. They are now adults, even if reasonably immature ones. Now you must seek to be an influential friend, not a controlling parent. It is time to throw in the towel in your fight to manage your child’s behaviour by parental control.”

Phil’s curiosity was piqued. “What is it you want to share with me?” he asked.

“Well, after your talk,” replied the mayor, “I went to the unit which I own and where my son was living rent-free and I brought with me a bath towel. When I got there the lazy blighter was lying on the sofa in the living room with the usual mess on the floor around him. The side window was open and as I approached I threw the towel in through the window. My boy looked up startled and he said to me, ’Whatever are you doing?’ ‘I am throwing in the towel.’ I replied. ’From now on I will no longer treat you like a child  I am going to treat you like an adult and you can begin by paying the rent!’”

Of course Phil was hugely tickled by this story.

I eventually resigned as CEO of Stanwell. I moved into a career of management consultancy.

Not long after this a new movement in management development emerged in the form of Executive Coaching. This intrigued me. When I thought about my own career, Phil had been my mentor. It was so useful to have somebody to kick ideas around with that were not part of the organisation and were a wise impartial third party. No matter how wonderful your organisation is, it can be quite lonely as a CEO grappling with issues that you can’t in all propriety discuss with your subordinates. Having a useful, uninvolved confidante seemed to me to be very helpful.

Those who set themselves up as executive coaches tended to be trainers and psychologists. No doubt some of them were effective in their own way, but when I put my name forward as an executive coach I was embraced by executives because I had experience as a successful executive. I had credibility because when an executive was faced with a management issue I could often relate a similar experience.

When I began coaching many of my clients wanted help in strategic planning, public speaking, time management, team development and so on. I had experience in all such issues from my managerial roles.

But when we had attended to the immediate mundane demands of their managerial roles, a significant number of them chose to go deeper and explore what it means to be human and address their spirituality.

That is when I benefitted them with my learning from Phil. Most of them who had come so far in their personal development embraced the concepts Phil had taught me.

At this time, when I was I Brisbane I was often disposed to lunch at a little café close to where I used to stay. The place was called the Yi Café and the owner and proprietor was Vivian Ting. Occasionally I would lunch there with Phil. On many of those occasions I would invite along one of those I was coaching who I thought would benefit from exposure to Phil We had some fabulous discussions. One day I went down to lunch by myself, Vivian served me and she asked me, “When are you going to have your friend back for lunch. I enjoy hearing him talk when I wait on you!” I laughed and assured her he would be back before long and that we all enjoyed hearing him talk.

For the last ten years I have regularly posted an essay on my blog site. My topics have been wide ranging covering psychology, philosophy, spirituality, history, politics, international affairs and so on. On many occasions to support my point of view I have quoted Phil. I frequently referred to him as Dr Phil. Unfortunately some of my readership thought I was referring to a mediocre television celebrity of the same name. So I took to referring to my fiend Phil as “the good Dr Phil” to distinguish him from the mediocre Dr Phil!

Unfortunately for me, some years ago Phil decided to relocate to Tasmania. Since that time I have not seen Phil face to face. Nevertheless we shared e-mails and phone calls. He would send me material that he thought was significant to read and I reciprocated.

Our phone calls always intrigued my wife. When she calls friends and relatives the calls will normally last an hour at least. When I told her I was calling Phil she would ask me, “Did you get hold of Phil?”

“Yes,” I would reply.

“You didn’t talk long,” she would typically say. “You have hardly been on the phone ten minutes.”

“You don’t understand my dear. When Phil and I talk, we don’t talk long but we talk deep!”

Phil taught me that no one was special. As I understand him he was asserting that we have little choice about who we are because our biological history and our early socialisation make us who we are and we have no choice about that. So we can’t be special when who are is essentially determined for us.

But deeper than that we are all sparks of the same consciousness embedded in a temporary physical body trying to learn important spiritual lessons before that body expires. And when that body expires that spark of consciousness, which is immortal, flies back to be absorbed in the collective consciousness which is the essence of the universe.

So in this particular regard it is easy to agree with him that no one is special. But, although I am loath to disagree with him in so many ways, I have to assert that Phil was special. There is nobody who influenced my psychological and spiritual development more than this inspiring man. And when I look at the hundreds of my employees that he so positively influenced, and the lives he changed for the better, as much as I hate to contradict him, I must attest that he was special! I know this for certain because I have been privileged to have had a life and a career that was substantially enhanced by his involvement.

I hadn’t heard from Phil for a month or so. I told my wife, “I think I should give Phil a call.” But before I could do so he e-mailed me to inform me he was in hospital having suffered from kidney failure. I immediately rang him.

He was his usual ebullient self. He explained the details of his medical condition and was philosophical about the possibility of dying. He, as I long knew, had no great fear of dying. He told me he was having a special bed installed at home so that if he was discharged from hospital Judy might more easily tend to him.

Unfortunately not only had his kidneys failed but his hip joint had disintegrated so that he would unlikely be able to walk again. Now Phil loved to walk. When I worked with him I had been an inveterate jogger. But instead of jogging I used to join him for a walk and enjoy his conversation.

It seemed to me that not being able to walk would leave a very large vacuum in his life. I suggested to him that when he got home, which at that time (to me at least) seemed a possibility, we could again write something together. He seemed happy with that prospect.

I rang him every second day and chatted with him. We had deep philosophical conversations of course (as you always do with Phil) but we also reminisced about the good times we had spent together. One day I said to him, “Phil I am so grateful to have had you as a friend. I have learnt so much from you.”

His reply was somewhat disarming. “You know what I know, Ted, even though you have come to that understanding from a different route. I don’t regard you as a friend; I regard you as a brother.”

He had said something similar to me in the past, but now as he was nearing the end of his mortal existence it seemed such a wonderful thing to say and I appreciated it greatly.

I continued to call him and we had enjoyable discussions. But then one day I called and his daughter Becky responded. She told me the family had gathered around him and his condition had deteriorated. It was obvious that they thought the end of his physical existence was near. I asked her to tell him my thoughts were with him.

I waited a few days and rang his mobile phone number again. Surprisingly Phil answered, but his voice was frail and weak and not like the stentorian voice I remembered as a speaker. We reminisced for a while about the great times we had together. But he seemed to get exhausted.

“Ted,” he said, “I think it is time to say my goodbyes to you.”

“Thanks brother Phil,“ I replied. ”You know how grateful I am for all you taught me. And now even in these last days I am still learning from you. Goodbye and go gently.”

That was the last time we spoke.

Several days later I rang his phone only to be answered by his daughter Chelle. When I enquired after Phil she advised that he had passed on an hour or so before. I asked if the family would approve of my writing a tribute to Phil to be posted on my blog post (which he invariably read). Chelle laughed. “You know how much he detested adoration!” But that was not what I had in mind. I had in mind a celebration of what I knew of Phil and his huge positive contribution to so many lives, I heard a little discussion in the background and then Chelle said, “Mum thinks that would be nice!”

So here it is – my tribute to the good Dr Phil.

I apologise for being a large part of this narrative. I could only relate to you Phil’s wonderful influence by giving you insights about how he impacted on my personal and professional life. For the best part of forty years he showed me how to live. His message was always about the importance of love – the love that asserts itself as the dissolution of separateness.

And then in these last days, by example, he taught me how to die. He died graciously, without rancour and unafraid. He appreciated the fullness of his life and seemed to regret nothing.  He quietly and humbly appreciated his successes and looked at setbacks as learning experiences.

For a day or so after his passing I felt a little sadness. But when I reflected, this sadness was really quite selfish – I was sad that I could no longer talk to the man that had given me so much. But then I realised that I had been blessed to have come to know him, benefit from his teachings and share some special experiences and achievements with him my sadness was replaced with a sense of gratitude.

Vale, good Dr Phil. You have now shed your body and have gone somewhere where your ethereal essence will flourish without material restrictions. It was wonderful that you shared your life with me.