Webcke’s message on mental fitness

Shane Webcke is known for his toughness on the footy field and being a no-nonsense straight-talker. He says it takes strength to speak up about mental and emotional struggles and it’s a message he will share at a business lunch next month.

Webcke will be the keynote speaker at the Collaborate Moreton Bay Mental Wellness Business Lunch on October 17, bringing together the business community to explore practical strategies for supporting mental wellbeing in the workplace.

The event is at The Komo, Redcliffe, from 11am-2.30pm.

It will be delivered by the Collaborate Moreton Bay initiative, which is an alliance of local chambers of commerce and business groups including Pine Rivers, North Lakes, Greater Caboolture, Redcliffe, Samford, The Hills & Districts, Pumicestone and Bribie Island Chambers, and BPW Moreton Bay and FAN (Food & Agribusiness Network).

Webcke says his involvement in the event is a natural extension of his work in promoting workplace safety, following the death of his father in a workplace accident when Shane was 18 years old.

“It is that event that taught me the most about communication. When my father was killed, the way that I expunged the absolute poison that grief is, was through communicating with my dad’s mates,” he explains.

“They helped me enormously. I’m a natural talker and I wanted to talk to my dad’s mates, so I could still feel like I was talking to him. In doing that, and expressing all of that stuff, you get rid of it.”

Webcke says he is not qualified to speak about diagnosed mental health conditions but instead has an understanding of mental fitness.

“Someone who’s been involved in sport, and been in pressure situations, what I can speak to is methods around how you keep yourself fit. The mind is exactly the same as the body – it requires work on it to keep it healthy,” he says.

“One of my favourite sayings, and I think I stole this from someone, is communication is the physiotherapy for the brain.

“Anything we do in life is about perspective and if the only perspective you have is the one that’s running around inside your head, particularly when you’re facing something difficult, then you’re in trouble.

“The problem is that blokes are terrible at this stuff because we somehow see it as weakness. It takes strength to talk about the sh*t that’s going on in your life. You share a problem, you halve a problem.”

Essential knowledge

Webcke says employers and managers need an understanding of mental fitness, and how to support their staff in a modern workplace.

“I think gone are the days when bosses thought what’s going on with someone in their private life has got nothing to do with their work. We all understand now that everything is interconnected,” he explains.

“I learnt it mostly in a footy side … in a football side, a professional sporting side … those lines, there’s no blurring … it’s all the same. If you’re not good at home, you’re not good on the field.

“If you take that into a workplace … if you’ve got good workers, who are struggling with stuff and aren’t finding their way through it, it is naturally going to affect their work.

“It’s good business, as much as it is anything else, to try to encourage your workforce to deal with this stuff properly before small issues become big issues.”

Webcke says simply caring about your people can make a big difference.

“(NRL coach) Wayne Bennett, who was a great leader of people … what he was very good at was knowing his people and knowing them to the extent that he could pick when something was wrong,” he says.

“That’s the key to it. That doesn’t mean that you can fix every problem for every person that works for you, but if you can understand early enough that something has changed and talk to them about it and listen (it can help).

“It’s important to note too that not everything can be fixed. It’s recognising that there’s an issue, doing your utmost to get them whatever help they need. It could just be a conversation. That may be enough. Sometimes, they just need someone to care.”

Webcke says actively looking after your staff is good business, and essential in retaining good staff and meeting duty of care responsibilities.

“If you keep your people healthy, you keep your business healthy,” he explains.

“It makes sense to be good at this stuff. It really does.”

So, what’s his central message?

“People always respond to people who they think care about them. If you genuinely don’t care, if you try to put it on, people know that. Humans are smarter than that,” Webcke says.

“Any of this stuff is just about one human caring about another … that’s as simple as it is.”

The Collaborate Moreton Bay Mental Wellness Business Lunch on October 17.

Tickets are from $75 for members (plus booking fee). Contact your local chamber or networking group for the discount code. Tickets are $95 for non-members plus booking fee. Group bookings are available.

City of Moreton Bay is the major sponsor and Moreton Daily is the Gold Sponsor.

To find out more and to buy tickets, visit cciqpinerivers.com.au/combined-chamber-event