While we’re all busy tying up the loose ends of campaigns and managing client needs through the holiday period it’s also around this time, we take stock of our year’s highlights and achievements and look to embed any prior learning to inform our plans, and help to establish new directions and avenues for the upcoming 12 months.
To assist me with this task, along with 25 other women from diverse industries I gathered by the Opera House on a mid-November Friday morning for the second Mentor Walks Australia event.
The vehicle has been running in Asia (Shanghai) for a few years now however two industrious Australian women, Bobbi Mahlab and Adina Jacobs have taken up the cause in Australia, rolling out the first events in Sydney in the latter half of 2016 — with plans to expand to Brisbane in 2017.
The premise
To support those women who are on the look-out for mentorship in their career and industry but who aren’t currently finding it via their own organisation or networks and provide them face-to-face contact time with high level executive, female mentors.
In groups of about four the aspiring women share and collaborate while walking with their mentor in order that they might learn new strategies, resolve issues and understand the unique challenges faced in their roles. The benefit of the mentor’s experience and approach offers industry specific advice on how best to navigate these.
A beautiful morning at Circular Quay
The event format is novel in that it runs for an hour — pre meeting and then a 50 min walk and in this short pre-meet time, I personally grew my network and connected with women in programmatic; social enterprise and heavy industry as well as within the branding and communications sectors.
The women who made up my group were from diverse areas of the broad marketing and communications remit, and we were grouped (pre-selected) by organisers with Suzie Shaw, Managing Director for successful, global social media agency: We are Social.
A leisurely stroll around Mrs Macquarie’s Chair
During our hour with Suzie, she imparted a little of her own story before mentees were invited to ask their questions from her. After 14 years in the UK forging her career in advertising, she returned home to Australia, married and with high aspirations. Underwhelmed by the number of women in executive roles Suzie set about establishing a body of motivated women, to help address this gap. The driving force behind the Australian chapter of SWIMM (Senior Women in Media and Marketing) she is not a stranger to the mentor and mentee relationship and has been successful in transitioning to high profile agency appointments, including to her current Managing Director role. She has two daughters under the age of 14 and lives for all intents and purposes a very busy life.
I took the opportunity to ask her ‘which three pieces of advice have carried her throughout her career.’ Her answers may well surprise you!
1. Know what you want
“My struggles with my career, have come when I am unsure about what I want. A boss put it to me one day, ‘well what do you want?’ ‘I don’t know?’ ‘How can you possibly expect them to understand what your needs and wants are, if you don’t.’ So I set about working that out and I went in and I said, ‘this is what I want’ and they still said no, but at least it was a fair exchange.”
2. Your career is your career
“I think I’ve got better over time at seeing the bigger picture, or having a broader perspective as when I was younger I think I had a bit more of an egocentric view of things. I realised over time that I’m a cog in the bigger organisation. No one’s thinking about you — you are, you’ve got to figure out what you want in the context of ‘ok, I’m just a cog when’s the right time to table my agenda, how do I make sure that what I’m asking for seems beneficial to the organisation, not just me?’
The company’s job is to run the company and provide a good structure to do that but it’s not the company’s job to manage your career.
Even things like one on one’s. The benefit of a session like that is often to the person being managed and so they should take responsibility for making them happen and making them productive, rather than leaving it to the manager to drive. ‘If you’re not having a one on one, then you need to fix it and get the most out of it.’
I read an article and shared it — about the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t. Really successful people are initiators, and I have people who sit there and tell me they understand that this is what they want, and I say to them, ‘well do you have the initiative?’”
3. Manage work life balance and learn to detach a little from the company
“I’ve come to get a little bit better at managing work life balance. I’m a better employee for it. I’ve always been a really dedicated and hard worker, but actually there are times when I’ve been so overwhelmed (mentally) by work that you end up being a bit resentful and think ‘I couldn’t possibly give any more,’ but I realised that the best thing that I could do was to learn to be a bit more self reliant and practice detachment.
Detachment is a concept that Louise Herron, CEO of Sydney Opera House has commented on in the past. It was a big learning for her, learning to detach from your job. Learning to detach from what people say about you, if you’re too attached to it, and if your whole person is attached to it, it’s quite hard to be mentally stable really.”
The next Mentor Walks Australia event is scheduled for February 24th 2017. Watch out for its launch in Brisbane next year too.
