Category Archives: mentoring

The problem with “likes”

like-coffee For some years now, we have been living in a society where people don’t like to upset others. One might question whether “political correctness” has gone too far when we can’t have Christmas decorations at a public school for fear of upsetting non-Christian students and in many schools kids are taught that “everyone’s a winner”.

Well the results of the recent US election prove that not everyone’s a winner. Not just Hillary; thousands of people have demonstrated against the results of a democratic election because they didn’t get the outcome they wanted. They didn’t like the result.

While clearly Donald Trump and others have decided to throw political correctness out the window, it may well be much harder than that to escape from. The widespread use of social media has perpetuated political correctness in our lives. On Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn we have all become used pressing the “like” button. Only on YouTube are you able to give a if you don’t like something. My kids tell me that this is to avoid bullying online, but we all know it doesn’t need a “thumbs down” for bullying to take place on social media.

One of the effects of “liking” something on social media is that we are then led to other like-minded posts or sites. Algorithms are designed to suggest “other sites you might like”. And so, we can easily found our screens filled with information that confirms or strengthens the first idea, proposition or statement we liked.

This confirmatory process has implications for our children, society generally and our business leaders.

Our kids today have more information literally at their fingertips than they will every need. Their challenge is not to try to find the information but rather to discern bias, truth or otherwise, fact from opinion rather than just accepting what they read or believing that the first three “unsponsored” entries on Google are correct.

Another implication of only hearing and reading what we “like” is that we become affronted when we see something we don’t like – leading to a lack of resilience. We have people in democracies demonstrating against the results of free elections. We have trigger warnings being brought into universities in the US, UK and Australia to warn students that they may be about to hear something that they find upsetting – and here we’re talking about facts being presented, not just opinions. We are becoming less and less comfortable hearing things that we don’t “like”.

As individuals, with this awareness, we need to be honest with ourselves; honest about our understanding (or lack of) situations, people, teams, whatever it is we are dealing with. We have to cut through the things we like to hear and ask ourselves the hard questions, or perhaps ask others hard questions about us. And more importantly, we have to listen to the hard answers, even if we don’t “like” them. We need to not just hear the things we don’t like, we need to acknowledge and understand them in order to be able to really understand our situations and ourselves.

The risk of not listening to what we don’t like to hear is that individuals are likely to blame someone or something else. Hilary’s loss in the election has been blamed on many things, but was she listening to anyone telling her she wasn’t connecting with the people in the places she needed votes? In business, it will be the economy, the unions, the government rather than your own strategy, lack of planning, poor execution or lack of understanding of the markets compared to your offering that is the reason you are now dealing with an outcome you don’t like.

For leaders of companies, the risks that arise from this environment of accepting the information provided or hearing reports that confirm their opinions, are whether they are really listening to understand their customers, their employees and their stakeholders. The best businesses understand their customers’ wants – just as Donald Trump threw out political correctness in targeting the many disenfranchised voters underwhelmed by the political regime they had. Yes, companies receive negative feedback on social media as well as “likes”, but are they listening to those who aren’t shouting it from proverbial rooftops?

In the same way, boards too need to critically evaluate the information presented to them. Are they probing beyond what they have been told? Do they have a real understanding of all the available levers within the business and their status? Do they scratch beyond the surface of what management want the board to hear?

The US election was not just a wake up call for politicians around the world. It should be a wake up call for leaders everywhere as individually or collectively as management teams or boards to filter the information they are provided with, particularly if it comes through social media channels. Information that they may not like to hear needs to be sought out, heard and understood so that they can be truly well-informed and understanding of the implications. As a result, surprise outcomes are far less likely.

Coffee count: 491

Have a plan

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coffee-and-beans Over the past few weeks I have had coffees with a number of people who wanted to talk about being better at what they do – in some cases in and for their business, in some cases in their careers. When I asked them what they wanted to achieve in a specific sense, none of them could tell me. And none of them had a plan.

Whether it’s in business, for your personal career or in life generally – you need to have a plan. To do this, it helps to have a goal, an outcome you want to achieve this year, in the next five years or what you want to be remembered for.

For business, it’s usually about having a number of goals across the spectrum of the business including financial, people based, product or market focused and so on. Once the goals are set, consideration is given to the capabilities and the constraints in and outside the business in order to develop a strategy to achieve the goals. Measurable milestones together with allocated responsibilities allow a business to track its progress.

A plan for one’s personal career(s) is not really any different. One needs to set goals and then develop a plan on how to achieve them – whether that involves up-skilling, networking, increased exposure, finding a coach or sponsor to assist and so on. And you need to keep yourself honest – where are you up to? How many coffee meetings have I had this month?

And then there’s a personal life plan, one that you take with you through all the different aspects of your life. Do you have a personal mission statement, something that defines the way you do things? What do you want to be remembered for? Have you thought about what drives you, what you’re passionate about? Having a clear understanding helps to achieve all the other goals you may have along the way.

Stephen Covey’s second habit* is to begin with the end in mind. Knowing where you want to go keeps you on track and focused. There is less chance of distraction if you ask yourself “will this get me where I want to go?”. It also allows for “disruption” – because you can still change the plan if it will help you achieve your goals.

The other important part to having a plan is to articulate it. Create something visual or put it in writing (I am a fan of “strategy on a page”) where you can see it or regularly check it. It will keep you honest.

If you’ve gone to the effort of creating a plan (and it does take some effort – whether it’s pulling together pieces of data in the case of a business, or your own data and reflections for a personal or life plan), then stick to it. But honestly, if you don’t like the plan or there are “disruptive influences” then make a new one. Just make sure you have a plan.

Coffee count: 484

* Stephen R Covey “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”

Advice, mentors & gut instinct

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3 kinds coffee One of the initial reasons for starting this blog was to share the advice that I received during my various coffee meetings on the road to becoming a non-exec director. Having moved to Singapore only in the last six months, I am still very much in the mode of learning about the way things work here, who’s who, who’s doing what work and how to go about things.

Everyone I have had coffee with has been exceptionally friendly and giving (thank you again, if you are reading this). I suspect that in part, this comes from the fact that for many people, Singapore is not their original home, and they may remember what it was like to arrive here and start from scratch. Notably, there have also been a number of people who have been especially helpful with introductions and suggestions and very direct feedback. This is significant in a society where speaking directly is not always an acceptable way of communicating!

In the process of these coffee meetings, as the new person I am often effectively “pitching” myself and my skills as well as asking questions about whom to speak with, what to join and where I can try to be of value. In some cases, I have been honoured to be able to also provide advice to others who are at different stages of their careers. A recent range of responses to a particular question I posed made me reflect on both my reaction to the answers I was given and the way in which I ask questions and provide advice.

Often the discussion I have with my coffee partner develops organically and there isn’t necessarily a defined set of questions. But recently, I put the same direct question to three different coffee partners – all of whom have lived here for more than a decade. The answers I received were “yes, definitely”, “no, don’t bother” and “probably, there’s no harm”. Now it’s fair to say I am not seeking medical advice from specialists, so there are no life and death consequences from having such conflicting advice. But it does make it a little bit more difficult to work out what line of action to take when one has such a range of responses.

As I reflected on this divergence of opinions, I realised that each person was giving me their view, no doubt, informed by their own past experiences and current context. The trick for me was to try not to take their response at face value, but to colour it with my knowledge of their experience and context to find its applicability to me.

This led me to the notion of ‘gut instinct’. Prior to asking the particular question, I had my own view, also informed by my past experience and current circumstances. The point of seeking others’ advice was to learn what I didn’t know about my new environment to better inform my own view. The reality is that each person has a unique combination of experience, history and context. The key was to listen to the advice, try to ascertain what influenced or gave rise to that advice and then disseminate it with my own circumstances. This is where the process of rationalisation should result in you establishing what will work best for you; what makes sense in your situation. This will generally lead you to a view that fits with your ‘gut instinct’, your intuition about yourself.

Given the conflicting advice, depending on which action I take, it will go against the advice provided by at least one of my coffee partners. The key to realise is that it doesn’t mean that everything they suggested is not applicable, nor that their advice was any less helpful. In fact, having someone suggest something that goes counter to your own leanings is incredibly useful to force you to think about why you may have wanted to take a particular action. It is the same as the different perspective that comes from having a diverse team at board or executive level that helps ensure that groupthink doesn’t result in taking a course of action because everyone thinks the same way.

Similarly, those who impart advice or who have the privilege to mentor others, need to remember that such advice needs to be provided with context and experience. Mentors often will ask questions rather than offer direct advice, and those questions also need to be posed in a way that makes the other person assess their own circumstances with an insight into others’ experiences and the applicability or not of those experiences to their own position. This, in turn, should allow the mentee the ability to consider different actions and their implications and what ultimately may work for them, based on their own understanding of themselves, their gut instinct.

Coffee count: 424

The balancing act

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One of the things I have learnt over the years is that you never know who you are going to learn something from and when. I have had the pleasure in the last few weeks of meeting with two formidable young professional women in a mentoring capacity. I found our conversations enlightening and informative.

By co-incidence, both women are recently married, both to successful young men who are doing well in their chosen areas. I was shocked to hear from both, quite separately, of the number of people who were asking them, when they were going to have children. Not just friends, but work associates as well. In today’s modern world, where people often enter into major events such as mortgages and parenthood without feeling the need to get married, why should marriage imply that parenthood swiftly follows?

Even more indignantly, why do people feel that they have the right to ask such personal questions? A million years ago, when I was asked the same question by my parents (only after I had been married a few years I might add), I made it clear it was none of their business. How much more so when the people asking the question are friends or work colleagues or supervisors? I did take a moment to wonder whether, in this world where Facebook and Instagram provide us with so many “friends” as well as a forum to share so much of our lives, these two things are colliding in a way that allow people to feel they can ask such personal questions.

But I digress. What was concerning to me was the questions both these women asked of me in relation to balancing work and parenthood. We are decades on from the start of women’s lib movement and pushing equality in the workplace. We’ve had a female Prime Minister (albeit one who wasn’t married and didn’t have children), a female Governor-General (who managed both) and currently have two female State Governors, a Territorial Administrator and a female Foreign Minister. We have a raft of successful female businesswomen, lawyers, doctors, directors, politicians and so on. Almost twenty years ago when I was considering having children, it didn’t occur to me that I wasn’t going to be able to continue to pursue my career. In fact, once I had the complicating factor of a second child I chose to leave the stability of tax law and pursue an entrepreneurial career.

I couldn’t have done it without the support of my husband and the fabulous assistance of a live-in nanny (which for the record was cheaper than any other form of paid-for childcare)*. In fact, part of my advice to both these women was that in any relationship there has to be an understanding and acknowledgement of both careers and the fact that there will be times when one career needs more effort and work and the other person may need to keep their career in a holding pattern as support. Trying to push two careers at the same time can be truly difficult – the added complication of children can make it even more complex. Another aspect of advice was not to try to be all things to all people all the time.

The demands of work in this era of 24/7 make the desire to balance all of these things even more acute. Shortly after the second of these meetings, it was announced that Cameron Clyne, CEO of National Australia Bank, was going to step down due to the demands of his job taking him away from his family too much. There is no doubt that being the CEO of one of the top 20 banks in the world and the top four in Australia must be a demanding role. But what hope do young women have to aspire to the top, to “lean in” as Sheryl Sandberg would have them do, if one of the blokes can’t do it either?

Just to make it harder, CEOs are continually encouraged to set an example for their staff in having work-life balance and benchmarked against their peers. They need to be seen attending school functions (by their kids as well as the broader market) as well as fronting the media and analysts when required. How do we balance the wonders of 21^st century technology when information is, and always expected to be, at our fingertips all the time, yet we need time to still be face to face with the people who matter to us (meaning our partners, children and parents, not analysts and shareholder activists)!

When one reflects on all of this, it’s probably not all that surprising that so many talented women have chosen not to engage in the battle and rather cede the opportunities to others who aren’t as worried about ensuring they understand playground dynamics at the same time as commodity price dynamics.

There are so many different things at play: biological disposition; technological advances and society’s behaviour as a result; the competing demands of investors and analysts; personal family circumstances; physical and intellectual attributes. There is also no right answer. Equally there is no wrong answer. Awareness, understanding, consideration and support are what are called for. What and when each person decides to do with their personal and professional lives is their own business. Our role as a society is to enable each person to fulfil their own hopes and dreams without making it harder.

Coffee count: 275 coffees

* Watch out for a future post on the arguments for greater support for childcare rather than paid parental leave.

Managing Expectations

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You’d think, given the title of this blog (1000 coffees), I might have managed my own expectations in the quest for a non-executive directorship portfolio. But as with most things in life, there are ups and downs and times when things look like they’re going well, and times when, frankly, they don’t.

As would be the case with many people in my position, when I meet with people in the context of seeking a non-executive director role, I am regularly reassured that I have the attributes boards are looking for, having run companies and been responsible for a P&L as well as having the appropriate financial and legal skills. I can tick all the boxes of things one should do: do the AICD course, focus on a particular sector, target not-for-profits and government as well, network with the people I’ve worked with before, and so on. However, it’s not a science. There is an element of timing, luck, synchronicity that plays a part too.

There are a lot of very capable people out there, looking to do the same thing. I had coffee with a gentleman a few weeks’ ago who told me of numerous occasions where he was “this close” and something happened for him not to get the role, whether it’s a deal falling apart, a change in focus, someone having just something else, or the inevitable “someone just knew someone else better”.

It can be disheartening, but it can’t be the end of the road. Recently I was approached and asked if I’d like to be considered for a non-executive directorship of a mid-level ASX listed company. In theory, I had all the requisite skills that the board were seeking given the company’s current state of business and the sector it was in, with one exception. I didn’t have listed company experience. I put forward all the reasons why I believed I could add value to the board and the company, but the feedback I received was that it was the lack of listed experience that didn’t get me onto the shortlist.

A recent conversation with someone at the AICD indicated that the Chairman’s Mentoring Program is really for people who are ready to step up to ASX200 listed boards. Given that this is not in any of their PR around the program, I responded that perhaps they should manage the expectations of the applicants better….

It all just confirms that despite the talk about the need for diversity in gender, skills, background and approach, most non-executive directorships are going to come through sponsors, mentors or recommendations. As one person said over coffee recently, it’s going to come from someone who is prepared to “stick his or her neck out and feel the breeze”. And the planets being in alignment.

Coffee count: 200

Circles of Action and Confirmation

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Those of you who are familiar with Steven Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (a book I read back in the early 1990’s and have revisited a number of times since) may recall his concentric circle model of the Circle of Influence and the Circle of Concern. His theory is that proactive people focus on their circle of influence, which sits inside their circle of concern. It’s a notion that I have often considered, along with the fact that worrying about things in your circle of concern but over which you have no influence is wasted energy (like getting frustrated when you’re stuck in traffic!).

This proactive focus can also be applied to the process of finding board roles. However, I have come to the realisation that the process also has two other circles in play: the circle of action and the circle of confirmation. Regular readers of this blog may recall that it is called “1000 coffees” because someone told me that it would take 1000 coffee meetings to achieve the board portfolio I was after. This resonated with many others and it seems to have some truth. While one has to have coffees with people both within the circle of action and the circle of confirmation, a board role is much more likely to come from the inner circle: the circle of action. Let me explain from my own perspective.

The circle of action consists of people with whom I have worked. It may be people who I have reported to, clients, people I worked alongside or who were part of the same team. They may be people who worked in the same organisation at the same time and while not working directly with me, were aware of the work I was doing. The things these people all have in common is that they have seen me in action: have seen how I work and the product of my work. They can speak first hand of how I operate, how I deal with people and issues. That gives others a degree of comfort if they haven’t worked with me themselves.

The circle of confirmation is a much wider circle. It consists of people whom I have met (and often had coffee with). They may be people who have talked with me at length, interviewed me (in the case of headhunters particularly) but not actually worked with me. They are the people who can confirm that I might be a good sort, don’t seem to have two heads and seem to be able to string some sentences together to make sense.

Until I have enough board roles so that my experience speaks for itself, I believe potential board roles will largely come from the circle of action. They will come from people I have worked with previously taking action, suggesting me to a chairman, a headhunter or a member of a nomination committee as someone who might be able to meet the requirements of the role they are seeking to fill. Their personal experience of me will carry the weight of a recommendation. And when my name comes up on a list, it will help if there are a number of other people who can confirm (and thus are in the circle of confirmation) that they have met me or heard of me and believe I might be able to do the role.

One needs both circles. Understanding the potential role of the people within each circle and to which circle a person belongs helps to bring focus to the process and the outcomes that might be able to be achieved from each of the coffees.

As with all things, there will be exceptions to the rule, but I thought this theory has enough legs to make it worth including in this blog.

Coffee count: 192

Benefits of career breaks – what women learn when they’re not “working”

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Very often when a woman writes her CV, there are gaps of some description, the so-called “career break”. These breaks most often are as a result of taking a break to have children, or to be at home for a period while the children are young. Increasingly, such breaks are also as a result of women taking care of an elderly or sick relative. Sometimes they are because a woman has worked all her life and decided that it is time to take stock or to spend time with older children before they leave home completely. Such career breaks are (very slowly) starting to appear on some men’s CVs as well – usually for the same reasons.

It seems that such career breaks usually have to be accompanied by an explanation, almost an apology. They almost always come with the assurance that the person is still capable and hasn’t lost any skills in the process. I think it’s time to turn that view on its head and look at the benefits of a career break and what positive things a career break say about a person. After all, if you were smart before you took a career break, having a baby or being a carer or stopping to review your career doesn’t make you any less smart.

There is, of course, the chance that if you worked in the financial markets where new derivative based products are developed every day, that you might have missed the extra bell or whistle that has been added while you were sitting out of the market for the past six months. But really, there are very few roles where the details can’t be filled in again – even in rocket science and brain surgery!

But what about all the other skills that are developed while the person is not “working”. Any person who has had a career break will tell you that being at home juggling the kids, the washing, the shopping and the other parents at school or in the canteen or uniform shop needs a whole new set of skills. The same is true for those who have to deal with doctors, nurses, hospitals and other health support services. It might be a change, but it’s certainly not a holiday. Not only are you flat-out busy, you’re not paid and often not appreciated much either. On top of it, if you don’t learn very fast to listen to others, to be accepting and empathetic, to multi-task, to be resilient and persistent, life just becomes frustrating and unmanageable. For someone not used to this part of the world, it can be much tougher to be successful than climbing the corporate ladder.

The truth is, taking a career break is more likely to give you exposure to the real world, and an understanding of real world challenges as well as the broader community; much more so than when one is ensconced in the corporate world. When these women (and the occasional man) return to the workforce, they are generally more efficient, better collaborators and have a greater ability to get to the real issues and understand what is really important. The skills they have gained while away from the office should be valued for what they are – indispensible assets.

So those looking at CVs with career breaks worked into them should not be thinking: “Oh, you might have lost your edge” and but rather “Great, this is someone with a much broader perspective”.

Coffee count: 181

PS For those interested in my personal progress, I am delighted to report at that the 176 coffees mark I was appointed to my first board role – moving from Board Observer to Non-Executive Director.

Industry focus vs agnosticism

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Right from the start, one of the questions I am always asked is “what industry are you focused on?” For many, the answer is obvious – years spent in banking would lead one to focus on the financial services industry; with deep experience in FMCG one would focus on retailing or manufacturing, as appropriate, etc. With a “lattice career” and broad experience across strategy, marketing, general management and business establishment in different industries, the answer has been less obvious for me.

However, it has always struck me as a catch-22 question. If one focuses on one industry and then attains a non-executive directorship for a company in that industry, one is then generally conflicted from seeking a role in another company in the same industry. Equally, it labels how people think of you. So I have been pleading agnosticism and saying that few industries are “rocket science” and my skills should be applicable across any number of industries. Usual response: nods of acknowledgement.

Two coffee meetings in the past week have led me to rethink this proposition….. At the first, with a mentor and experienced NED, the nod of acknowledgement was accompanied with a shake of the head. The problem with my answer, I am told, is that it doesn’t help people to place me in their own minds into a category. And for a first role especially, it needs to be easier for people to do that. I was advised to focus on what my key skills are and consider to what kinds of businesses those skills would be most applicable or useful. It narrows the range of industries or companies by being more specific, without being so specific that one might be excluded from being thought of as a specialist in one industry only. Articulated this way, I realised one can describe kinds of businesses rather than be very general.

The same question came up the following day and I applied the advice of the previous day. This time, the person (who was a colleague in the past) provided insight into how thinking about kinds of businesses and focusing on changes in the market, could lead one to think about one industry in order to access many others. For instance, the advent of the NBN will affect not just the obvious telecommunications businesses, but also others such as e-health, music, retailing and so on. This thinking allows one to talk to people in one industry about the implications on other industries – being industry focused without being industry limiting.

Two very enlightening coffees…..

PS: Shortly to have second round interview for first board role. It’s unpaid and it’s local, but it could be the first one!

Coffee count: 152

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