web viewshe’s one of those kids who even when she’s trying to be naughty . ......

Suite 43, Cleveland House, Cleveland 4163PO Box 265

Cleveland, QLDAustralia 4163

Phone +61 7 3286 3901http://bradleyreporting.com

ABN 71908 010 981

MS THOMAS: Welcome, everybody, to the Empowering Women for the Future Summit put on by the Department of Premier and Cabinet as part of the State Government.

My name is Nellie Thomas. I’m going to be your MC for the day.

Just by a show of hands, who has been doing our workshops this morning, excellent, pretty much everyone. How did they go?

AUDIENCE: Good.

MS THOMAS: Good, excellent. The way it’s going to work today we’re not going to do like a TV thing so that we can actually talk to each other. I’m actually going to be able to hear you.

It’s so fantastic to have you here. I would like to begin of course by saying on behalf of the Victorian Government we would like to acknowledge and show respect for traditional owners and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders past and present.

The way that we’re going to begin today is of course I’ll need to do a bit of housekeeping as usually happens at such events. I’ll do something a little bit non-traditional though. Instead of opening with, what shall I say, a presentation, I’m going to start with a little bit of a story to kick us off today, but let me get through the housekeeping first.

First of all, can I ask everyone please to put their phones on silent. I won’t ask you to turn them off. You can’t do that at events any more. We will be asking those of you who are on Twitter, Facebook, various other things to tweet your hearts out throughout the event. Our hashtag is ewff2017 so please feel free to utilise that.

The toilets, some of you would have noticed on the way in, there are two exit signs, those beautiful, glowing orange doors out there.

Empowering Women – Part One

http://bradleyreporting.com/

There are toilets out in the foyer.

There are photos being taken today. Where’s David? David is around somewhere. There’s David. If you don’t want David to take your photo – not David in particular, I don’t think it will be personal David, but if you don’t want your photo taken then just put your hand up and indicate to David not to take a photo and he will respect that.

Our format for today, well obviously you’ve already been in workshops, it’s a fairly traditional format where we’ve got a number of speakers. You’re going to be fed and watered very well. As you can see sitting at tables with plates in front of you there will be a lot of food and drink served. There will also be an interactive panel this afternoon.

We will be having lunch at half past 12. We will be having afternoon tea at 3.15 and there will be a networking reception at 5.30. For those of you who know me, I’m a comedian by trade which probably doesn’t lend itself to you thinking that I’m good with time management, but I do run a very tight ship. I promise you we will be out at 5.30. That’s probably because I’m also a mother and I like to have things done on time.

For those of you with dietary requirements please just indicate once the lunch is served to the wait staff that you have dietary requirements and they will sort you out. There’s a range of different dietary requirements so just let them know.

As you will see, we’ve got our phone number up on these beautiful banners. If you have questions throughout the day there will be an opportunity for you to do traditional style as well, just put your hand up and ask a question but if you prefer to text in a question the text number will remain on the banners so you can send a text and those questions will be given to me.

On your name badges you will see there is a question, “Ask me about.” I hope you have. Some of you are looking at me like “No there’s not.” I should have checked that probably before I mentioned that to 1000 people in a room. “Ask me about”, it would be great for you to put something there that is just a bit of an icebreaker. We will be particularly interested in using that I’m thinking during the drinks later in the day but even just throughout


the day, just an opportunity for you to open up conversation.

In my case, some of you may not know this, but I was an under 13 State girls’ BMX champion. I was expecting more applause for that. Thank you. When I say “more applause” some applause. So, when I put my name badge on which I should have done I will be putting that there and you can ask me all about that. It doesn’t have to be about BMX, that would be weird. You can put whatever you like there but just something that people can ask you throughout the day.

Really, we want to make sure that you meet each other is the point behind that.

Networking reception I’ve already covered off on.

I also like to do, which is a bit non-traditional, but I think it’s important to do the thank yous at the beginning of the day while you still care.

I wanted to start by of course thanking all of the staff including the technicians, everyone who is going to serve our food today, the people who have made the food, the people who work here, everyone who has put in a huge amount of effort to get today on board and happening, a huge amount of logistical effort, so please give them a round of applause.

Of course all of our morning workshop facilitators thank you so much for your expertise and your time, to all the speakers that you are going to see today, there’s an incredible line-up of speakers, our panellists, of course to our audience. I know there are many places that you could have been today and you’ve chosen to come here and we’re most appreciative.

I would also like – I know that there are many, many people who have put a lot of work in today but I am going to single two out. One is Rebecca Varcoe. Where is Rebecca? I can’t see her. She’s over here somewhere. There you are. Rebecca, thank you. Give Rebecca a special round of applause.

One especially who I have been dealing with the most and has put in a huge amount of work to put on today, Donna del Giudice. Where is Donna? There she is. I hope I didn’t mangle your last


name too much.

Seriously it takes such an incredible amount of work and the logistics involved in getting all of you here today and all of the speakers and the food. It is a huge undertaking. On behalf of everyone in the room, thank you. It’s like you’re having a big party. Now you can just chill, just enjoy it.

Let’s get going. Actually, we might do the door prize I think. Let’s do something fun to start with.

I am very pleased to announce that we have got a door prize, in fact we’ve got five of them. There are two prizes in fact. One of them is Simo Sinek, “Find Your Why”. You will get a copy of this fantastic book.

The other one, and this is hard for me to talk about, because it’s mine. I told you I would do my best. This is my first children’s book that I’ve ever written and I literally got it from the printer last night. Thank you. There is not another human being in the world who has this book. I’ve brought five copies and it’s particularly serendipitous I think because it’s about empowering little girls and letting little girls be who they want. I was supposed to get it in a week. It came last night, so five of those to give away.

So, stand up. Have a look under your chair. How is it marked Rebecca? A sheet of paper will be stuck under your chair. If you’ve got it you have to do some sort of bingo call. I feel like The Price is Right, like you’ve got to run down, “Come on down.” If you don’t have a sheet of paper sit back down. If you do, stay standing.

I can see we’ve got one over here. There’s one over here and there are three over here. Isn’t that lucky it wasn’t on the empty tables or have you just been hunting around all of the tables. That would be even better.

Congratulations. Let’s be good losers. Well done, a copy each. You can sit down. You can have these two. I’ll give those back to you.

All right, let’s get going. As I said, I thought I might start today in a bit of a non-traditional way and just tell you a bit of a story rather than giving you a presentation. Really it’s my story.


I have two little girls. One of them is 10 years old. This is a picture of her. She is your fairly stereotypical little girl, loves pink and Barbies, wants to know when she can wear nail polish to school. She’s one of those kids who even when she’s trying to be naughty she doesn’t quite manage it. She comes home from school and she said to me, “Mum, I just learnt the ‘f’ words.” I said, “Really, what are they?” She goes, “fart” and “fagina.” Okay, you can’t spell but you know your anatomy so that’s good.

This is my other girl. She’s five years old. She was invited to a fairy party and she wore this. She was invited to a princess party and she wore this. Then she was invited to a mermaid party and she wore this. Needless to say she has a little bit of a different experience of the world than my other one and I hate to break your heart so early but she said to me recently, and she was actually the impetus behind this book, she said to me some time last year, she said, “Mum, you know the world takes it quite hard on me.”, and it does but she’s awesome.

Like I took her to a shop, you know one of those shops where no-one talks, like one of those sort of boutiquey kind of shops, and we bowled in there, this is just before Christmas last year so she was four, she walked in, dropped this massive fart and when all of the people looked at her she went, “Oh, Jesus, relax.” That’s the kind of kid we’re talking about.

I’m a comedian by trade as I said. My older daughter had to do one of those things at school about what do your parents do and she’s like, “Mum, what’s your job?” I said, “I’m a comedian.” She’s like, “What does that mean?” I said, “I tell jokes and, you know, I write books and stuff like that.”, and without skipping a beat she said, “Do people actually pay you for that?”, with a look of disgust on her face.

How did I get here? I was born in a little town in Western Australia called Merredin. If you don’t know it, it’s about halfway between Perth and Kalgoorlie. I’m assuming most of you don’t know it.

I looked up Merredin’s tourism destinations just to give you some idea what it’s like. There were 17 listed which I thought was quite exciting for a town of a few thousand, exciting until you read them.


The first one is the Merredin Railway Dam. That’s a dam near a railway line that no-one uses any more without a word of a lie.

The second is the Merredin Railway Dam water tower. That’s the water tower next to that dam next to the railway line that no-one uses any more.

I won’t bore you with all 17 but I swear to God coming in at 14 of 17 tourist attractions for my home town is the Shell roadhouse. We’ve got wheat, we’ve got water, we’ve got petrol, why would you go to Phuket, you know.

That’s just to give you a picture from where I come. My mum is from a family of 12, she’s the third in the line-up, dad is from a family of nine, neither of them Catholic, just rural. Both of them had, to put a long story short, extremely difficult childhoods.

Both of them lived in households with extreme family violence. I don’t think we can talk about women and empowering women without acknowledging that.

The family violence in dad’s house and the poverty was so extreme that he was institutionalised several times as my nanna couldn’t afford to keep him and his older brothers.

My mum, there are many stories that I could tell you about mum and the poverty that they experienced. Imagine 12 children, my granddad died, so my nanna was left in her forties with 12 children.

My favourite story which is sort of funny and sad at the same time is that there were six girls and they had one pair of bras, so they would literally fight over who could wear the pair of bras. There’s a great family story about my Auntie Susan wrestling my Auntie Dell on the day of her wedding saying, “I’m the one getting married. I get the pair of bras.”

Whenever I’m at the supermarket and I’m cranky because of, you know, the price of blueberries I think of those bras.

My childhood, I went to local public primary school. I spent my days in the afternoon swimming, riding BMX. This is the pipeline that runs through my town. It was so hot in summer that we would just go up and lay on it just like lizards trying to get cool. I’d help


mum. My mum was a cleaner. She cleaned the local butcher shop. I’d go and help her clean and of course a Country Practice. I just wanted to know who was of my vintage that would recognise a Country Practice. Suffice to say my mum had a day off when Molly died. She literally did.

My autobiography I found this at mum’s house when I was clearing some stuff out. That’s a picture of me at school, so this would have been when I wrote the autobiography. I have freckles, long hair and bushy eyebrows, look closer. Mum says not to worry about that because when I get older I can do whatever I want with them, always the optimist.

If I could change one thing about myself it would be my fat legs. This probably tells you more about me than you need to know or probably want to know. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful I have legs, I just wish they weren’t so fat.

If that doesn’t sum up my generation I don’t know what does. I blame Elle MacPherson myself. Remember those Tab ads. Remember when she came out of the water wearing the Akubra hat and some dental floss.

For the young people if you don’t know Tab it’s basically like diet Coke but tastes like squashed ants.

Neither of my parents finished high school. I was the first person in my family to go to university pretty much as a result of Whitlam’s reforms. I started in engineering, then came to my senses and went to my natural home, the arts, did a degree in politics and English, got a First Class Honours in cultural studies, even started a PhD. Unfortunately, my PhD topic was “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.”, so that didn’t lift us out of the poverty trap.

The reason I tell you these stories is we’re talking about women and empowering women in the future. I came from a household with no books and I don’t say that as a criticism of my parents. They’re not stupid people. They just didn’t have a lot of opportunities. I literally did not have a book in my household. I was not read to as a child and I’m now an author, I speak on the radio, I’m a comedian and I think most of that is due to the educational opportunities that I was given.


So, what’s our story of empowerment? Obviously, it starts with my nanna. For a woman to survive having 12 children, to survive the 20th century on her own with 12 children is incredible. Just as a brief aside about my nanna, they’re so strong the women in my family. Her sister, my Auntie Hilda she died a couple of years ago. She was 94. She died while chopping wood. Isn’t it amazing, chopping wood in the Western Australian heat just getting ready for winter.

Educational opportunities, family planning, I don’t think we can under-estimate. Do you think my nanna wanted to have 12 children. I think she liked most of them. I don’t know if she wanted that many, didn’t really have the choice. I obviously did.

Feminism, I’m not sure why we’re so scared of the “f” word these days. I think there’s no doubt I would not have had the opportunities I’ve had without feminism, an understanding of history, a historical moment in time, being born in Australia, how lucky was I having access to healthcare and in some way finding my way into a very strange industry called comedy.

So, circumstances are important and I think we’ve got to keep that in mind today. Structural changes are important. Personality is important. The people who came before us are important. Luck is important, a lot of that has been relevant to my story and all of that adds up to opportunity.

What’s next for my girls and for the women in this room I don’t know. I think we’re going to find out.

To start today it’s my great pleasure to introduce Susan Middleditch who’s going to officially open today’s forum. Susan is the Executive Director of the Department of Premier and Cabinet. She’s been executive across the Public Health, General Government and Not for Profit Sectors, delivered Corporate and Clinical Services, Strategic Planning and Organisational Change.

Susan and her team have spearheaded this event today. We’re going to hear more from Susan about why she is so passionate about gender.

One thing you may not know about Susan as well is that she’s an international squash champion, actually travelled the world in the


1990s playing squash, so perhaps we’ll hear a little bit about that, probably not. I’ve asked that without notice. Please put your hands together and welcome Susan Middleditch.

MS MIDDLEDITCH: Morning, everyone. Thank you so much and thanks to Nellie. You know how hard it is to follow a comedian when you’re really actually not that funny.

I wish all of you could stand where I’m standing right now because this room is absolutely incredible. There has to be, I think, about 700-odd people here today. Thank you all for coming. Who’s running the Public Service?

I’m very proud to be a female executive though my road like many of us has not been that easy. Throughout my career I’ve worked in a number of male dominated areas of the Public Service.

For example, in 2005 I was appointed as the first Executive in a Queensland statutory authority. My first achievement in that role was to get the guys sitting around the board table with me to stop swearing.

My second achievement in that role was to get one of my older colleagues to stop walking behind the back of my chair looking down the front of my shirt. It might be a reason why I wear necklines like this these days.

In 2012 I was one of only two senior female executives in Queensland Health despite the fact that 79% of our workforce were women. That was probably my first ah-hah moment when I sat around thinking about not only how many women I was there trying to support in Queensland Health and at that stage Queensland Health had about 85,000 employees, so 79,000 of 85,000 was a lot, but also how we as an executive were trying to support the health of Queenslanders and we were probably missing almost half of our population.

While the proportion of women in executive roles in the Public Service has increased recently it is only increasing slowly. However, if we compare our progress to the private sector I have to say that we’re absolutely streaks ahead.

Did you know that five of the seven government departments now


have a majority of female executives? That is great news but we’ve still got a long way to go.

Recent research by McKinsey found that increasing women in the workplace could add 12 trillion dollars to the global economy by 2025. Twelve trillion dollars is an awful lot of money and it’s about 36 times the size of the Victorian economy.

It would be really easy to be disheartened with the slow pace of change. Instead my team and I are inspired to take these figures and make a really positive change.

As my secretary and male champion of change, Chris Eccles, said earlier in the year, “We believe that the equality of men and women in senior and executive roles throughout the Public Service will lead to better advice to government and will help support the government to better deliver a diverse Victorian community.”

That’s the reason why we created the Empowering of Women for the Future summit. I’m very proud to see my idea and our work culminate in today’s events.

Today is all about you. Today is about our female colleagues across the Victorian public sector. I want today’s summit to not only inspire you but to provide you with strategies and the support that you need to progress your career.

This summit exists to give you practical tools and the workshops this morning were a fantastic example of that where we had about 400 participants that gained the opportunity this morning to learn invaluable skills that hopefully will not only influence the way you and your teams work but that you also got the chance to discuss ideas that will assist you in forwarding your career in whatever direction that might be.

I’d like to take the opportunity again to thank the workshop facilitators this morning and for the partners for all their hard work.

The summit however also exists to inspire you all individually. Over the course of this afternoon you will hear from exceptional leaders in their field who will share their own sometimes personal stories with you and we thank them for giving up their time so generously to be here with us today.


I would also like to acknowledge the male champions of change here with us today, both our formal MCC Victorian members and my male colleagues in the room however few there are of you. I can see a couple over here and a couple over here.

We really appreciate the support and encouragement you give to initiatives such as this and applaud your willingness to stand up for equality.

Today is a day to look towards the future but it’s also a time for action. We have much to learn from our speakers and from each other.

As you leave today I put to you one challenge. Today I’d like all of you to find at least one key takeaway that is most relevant to your professional development and please don’t let them stay in this room.

I challenge you to take that one key takeaway away as you leave and really put it into action.

I hope you find the rest of the afternoon enjoyable, inspiring and useful. As women we sometimes aren’t great at taking time out for ourselves so today is that time.

I also hope that today’s event inspires you to your next career step which I’m sure will create a better public sector and a better community for all Victorians.

Now please enjoy the day. Thank you.

MS THOMAS: Thank you, Susan. Could everyone please join me again in thanking Susan not just for opening the forum but also for just having the vision to put today on and bring us all together in the same room to be able to talk about these ideas. It’s absolutely inspiring already, so please join me in thanking Susan Middleditch.

It’s now my great pleasure to introduce our first speaker, Wendy Tancred. Wendy is the Chief Executive Officer of Mercy Super in Queensland. She brings more than three decades of experience to her role and currently sits on the Australian Dental Association Foundation Advisory Board and the Hawkesbury Institute for the


Environment Advisory Board. She lives in Brisbane with her husband and two children.

When I asked her in her introduction for something I could mention that was maybe unexpected we worked out that she’s never seen Game of Thrones which was shocking. She’s also never seen Harry Potter which was perhaps even more shocking, but one thing that I absolutely loved that I found out in our discussion I said, “Have you ever had a sporting achievement that’s like really interesting?” She goes, “Oh, not really. I mean I was like a target shooting champion.” That’s interesting. She is from Queensland so it makes sense.

She will be speaking to us today about the importance of being you so please welcome Wendy Tancred.

MS TANCRED: Good morning, everyone. It is a very impressive room from up here.

The importance of being you, we’re all individuals. We all come from different cultures. We all grew up in different environments. How can it be possible that we can look at someone else and go, “I need to be like you if I want to succeed in this place.”

If we think logically how can we believe that by disguising our true self by mirroring someone else’s actions and behaviours that it will actually work. We have, I certainly have, we try and we do, but it’s your life, it’s your career, it’s your decisions to own whether they turn out with hindsight to be good or bad, so why not just be you.

To reach our full career potential we need to know what we value, know what matters to us, know what brings us to work and, very importantly, know when to move on.

This morning I’m going to take a walk through my career where, on reflection because I certainly wasn’t aware of it most of the time, I either have been me or have not been me and tell you what happened.

I would also like to cover off some of the questions I often get asked in similar forums and share some of the things I wish I’d been told earlier in my career rather than have to try and work and sort them out for myself.


There are social norms in each workplace, various cultures and also within various industries and various States even. I am very conscious that I’ve never actually worked in Victoria let alone for the Victorian public sector, so my comments this morning or this afternoon now are given through the lens of the private sector in both large and small corporates.

When have I regretted not being me, when have I regretted doing what everyone else did. I don’t think it matters where you are in your career or how old or how experienced you’re supposed to be, I think we still make those mistakes and I certainly have, twice quite recently with fairly significant consequences.

About six years I decided to retire from executive life. I was a CEO and everyone said that after you’ve been a CEO what you really need to do is build a portfolio of directorships. It’s a sign that you’ve achieved, you’ve had a successful career, somebody else wants you to help lead their business, okay, that’s the lens I’ve got, I’m going to do that.

So, I resigned as CEO. I was on a number of boards, some that paid. I was lecturing at uni, perfect portfolio career. I hated it. I lasted 12 months. I missed being with people. I missed working in a team. I discovered that I didn’t actually like just setting the strategy. I liked actually doing the doing of the strategy.

I also found, I must admit I’ve never admitted this to people, I’m not quite sure why I’m admitting it this morning, it must be something to do with Susan and the topics, I also found my brain didn’t work properly. I would be in conversation with people and I’d mean to say the say the word “lectern” and I’d say the word “carafe” instead. I’d go, “Oh, my God, is something wrong with me.” I actually went as far as going to a doctor to see if I had a brain tumour, early dementia or something, but once I recognised that actually part of the reason was I wasn’t actually doing what I was enjoying, I wasn’t actually enjoying what I was doing. If I could talk properly that would help now.

I recognised that I needed to go back to being me and I went back to full-time work. Funnily enough from day one of going back to full-time work I could actually articulate and speak properly. I went back to full-time work and I grasped at the first, bright, shiny, white


light that came past in terms of opportunity and I actually made the same mistake again.

I went to work somewhere where the values that were espoused, were on posters on the walls, were not lived. Has anyone been in that situation?

Reality was a drive for hitting numbers. It didn’t matter how you got the numbers, it was all about the revenue.

I did not agree with the strategies, the actual tactical strategies that had been used in the business prior to my taking over the role, so I thought that I could make a difference. I thought that I could change the culture and make it what it should be which was actually consistent with the posters that were on the wall.

I didn’t hit the numbers and the pressure was on from the leaders above me. I recall very clearly thinking maybe it’s me that’s wrong, maybe I’m the one who’s got it wrong.

For a few months I relaxed my views with my direct reports and allowed them to go back to the tactics that had been successful prior to my taking on the role.

I turned into the style of leader that the previous leader had been and it was very uncomfortable. I did not enjoy doing it. I thought okay, maybe I’ve got to play the game, maybe I’ve got to run the business the way it was run and it will all be okay but I couldn’t do it.

I had to accept that the misalignment between my values and what I had to become to run the role, to do the role well, I couldn’t cope with it. I had to accept that I would fail in that role and for someone who has pretty much not failed at anything in her career recognising that you’ve not been successful was quite hard to do.

I lasted about 14 months before I made the decision to move on. I’m very, very glad I made the decision but working 14 months was a big no-no from a resume perspective in my view at that time.

In fact many times in my career when I’ve finally accepted that there’s a misalignment between my role, what I have to do in my role, the environment and the real me and I’ve made that decision


to move on, it’s actually in those times when an amazing opportunity has opened up for me.

My first CEO role actually came about because of exactly that. I was very happy running a national business. It was a bit of a juggle personally because I lived in Brisbane and my role was based in Sydney but I was okay with that. I used to commute to Sydney each week. I was thriving on the challenge and absolutely loving the role.

Then there was a restructure and I got a new boss. They had no experience in the area that I was responsible for but they knew everything. My ideas got blocked and they popped up as their ideas. They made decisions on stories rather than facts. Do you get the picture?

I can distinctly remember in fact being in a meeting and being told to leave because I couldn’t add anything of value.

Around that time I’d been approached quite consistently by a particular recruiter and I’d refused to meet with them because I was really happy enjoying the challenges that I had, but after yet another belittling experience by this manager I went, “You know what, I’m going to meet you for a coffee.” So, I owe my first CEO role to my worst boss ever.

Have I tried to be like others and not regretted it, I started my career in the early eighties in the financial services world, all male dominated. Everybody drank beer so I taught myself to drink beer. I still love a good beer. Everybody played golf. I wasn’t prepared to let anybody have an excuse not to invite me and I wanted to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself if I did get to play golf so I took golf lessons. I now, as I said, still drink lots of beer, had one last night, probably have another one tonight on the plane, but I don’t play golf. These days if I do get asked I go, “Sorry, I don’t enjoy it, ask somebody else.”

Questions I get asked quite regularly, “Do I network?”. Yes I do but I don’t enjoy it and I really don’t like networking for networking sake particularly female only events.

My tip is when you go to a function have three topics in mind. It’s a bit like the “Ask me about” on your name badges. Actually do some


planning and you’ll get a lot more out of the function, what is it that you want to know about, what is it that you want to talk about with whoever you meet rather than just the weather.

I also believe that your time in networking would be much more successful if you walk in by yourself rather than go with a friend or colleague. That way you’ve got a choice. You can either talk to somebody that you’ve never met before and start up a conversation, a la network, or you can just stand there looking really awkward and embarrassed, so most people talk to people.

When you are walking into those rooms walk up to a single person, someone standing by themselves because they feel exactly like you or walk up to a group of three. If you walk up to a group of two people standing there you’re going to butt into the conversation. It’s going to feel quite uncomfortable.

Another one I get asked do I have work-life balance. I don’t, I’ve never achieved it particularly not to the satisfaction of those around me. My husband is constantly complaining that I totally forget about anything to do with the family once I get to work. It’s true. It’s actually quite a deliberate strategy and the transition between home and work I just literally forget about everything to do with the family.

I regard it like a juggling act. I’ve got so many balls in the air at any one time, I know I’m never going to juggle them all successfully all of the time. What I do is I make a conscious decision of which ones I’m comfortable to let drop at that particular time. I must admit I’m very good at dropping the regular exercise ball. I never drop the have a wine or a beer at dinner, before dinner ball.

You need to be conscious that you can’t actually achieve everything. There may be times when there’s a key priority such as a sick family member in a new role, so be aware that you can’t juggle everything, be aware and make a conscious decision of what you’re prepared to drop.

Have I had mentors in my career, yes, one, and it was a disaster. I was on a high performing list. The assistance I got is I was matched with a senior person from another area of the business that I’d never met before and said, “Here’s your mentor.”


Lesson one, if you’re looking at mentoring please have some involvement in the selection of the person because that relationship is really important.

We met a few times. She was quite open, quite giving of ideas, seemed quite keen to help me progress. Then there was a restructure and she became my boss. Yes, she was that manager from hell that I referred to earlier.

It’s not the only story I’m aware of where women who become quite senior actually subconsciously or consciously tend to stop other women becoming more successful and I don’t get it. I don’t understand why we can’t give people a helping hand along the way.

I spend a lot of my time mentoring people these days and I’m very proud to do it. I’m a pretty tough mentor. I give them lots of homework and make them do all the work, but I think it’s really important, I don’t expect to say anything new to them to give them blindingly incredible insights.

I’m quite sure everyone here today has thought about or heard about everything that I’m intending or have already said but sometimes hearing it from a different person, hearing it with a different lens can really make a difference.

Are skills transferable? I had a very experienced executive coach tell me the answer to that is no, but my vote is the answer is yes. I’ve transferred between industries a number of times to go from the financial world, HR consulting, IT and now back to finance, so I think they are transferable but you have to be very careful if that’s what you want.

If you transfer between industries, so if you go from the service here in Victoria to the private sector for example, your relationships will be gone. You will need to build new relationships and build another personal brand and that’s okay but do you actually want to do that.

Often people, certainly in Queensland, people I’ve spoken to who work in the public sector up there you generally have this innate service value and sometimes that’s not well recognised in the private sector.


Do I read self help books, the answer is no. I had a director once and every time I’d see him he’d go, “Oh, when you’re reading Marshall Goldsmith’s, ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There’, what did you think about?” What’s another one, “So Good They Can’t Ignore You.”

He would make me feel so stupid because I’d never read any of the books that he referred to. I’d go back to my desk and I’d Google them. I’d try and remember what he said about the authors or the titles. I’d order them on Amazon, never read them. Eventually I just went why don’t I just admit that I don’t have much time to read and when I do read it’s junk novels to shut my brain down so I can go to sleep at night and so I did. I told him that. I don’t know if he really appreciated it but I think we should always continue to learn both formally and informally. It’s just he loved learning through that mechanism whereas I prefer to learn in a different way.

I’ve always worked full time. I returned to work when each of my children – they’re now 20 and 23 – were around six months old. I’ve often been asked how I juggled the roles I had at that point in time when the kids were little. I’ve never really understood that question because to me it doesn’t matter what role you have if you’re working full time the juggle is exactly the same.

I used to say that it was a habit, I was highly organised, I didn’t know any different, things like that, but the truth was I found it far easier to be at work than to be at home. The thought of being a full-time mum actually scared the hell out of me, so I disguised the real me in that situation for many years because I thought it was not socially acceptable to be honest with my honest answer and that was that I felt guilty about not feeling guilty.

As we get more senior in organisations technical skills are a given. It is assumed you have them or you wouldn’t be in the role.

It is our behaviours that are going to set us apart and also one thing I’ve learnt to watch out compared with how I work is when I’m new in a role, and you come in in a senior role, I’m quite a collaborative person and l love bouncing ideas from people.

When you come into a new team I’ve learnt I need to tone that right down because what I’ve found has happened a number of times in the past is I’ll be tossing around suggestions, tossing around ideas


and they’re taken totally out of context and then the team will come back and go, “Oh, yes, we’re ready to do whatever.”, and I’m going, “What are you talking about?”, because they’ve taken my suggestions and tossing ideas as instructions which is really quite deadly.

Not negotiables for a successful career include good communication, resilience, humility, calmness under pressure, professionalism as appropriate for environment and good old-fashioned manners. Please and thank you go a long way. It’s incredible how many people I come across in a work environment who have just forgotten the classic good old-fashioned manners.

Do you want to go home at night before the children go to sleep? Have you ever left the office leaving your jacket on your chair, a messy desk when it’s normally tidy, gone to an appointment in the afternoon in another location or leave the office the back way not through the reception? Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook and the author of “Lean In”, confessed to doing exactly those things in 2012 which had a huge impact on behaviours in corporate America. She actually had people sending her flowers for being open and admitting that that’s what women do. So, if she can leave early and admit it I think we all can.

Another lesson I’ve learnt is the world does not owe us. We are responsible for our own careers. The expectation that if you work hard you will be recognised and you’ll get tapped on the shoulder for promotion are long gone or at least very rare.

We need to invest in our own development rather than sit and wait for an employer or manager to guess what we need and deliver it to us.

Early in my career I worked in a very hierarchical organisation. What I used to do was look at the senior roles and go okay, which one do I want to do, what skills do I need to do to do it and I’d go about getting those skills, maybe formal study. It may be doing extra projects to my role, maybe acting as a relief role.

Often when I got to that senior role where I’d collected those skills that role was not actually there but I was totally okay with that because what I was doing was increasing the diversity of my skills and recognising that I needed to know other people and other


circumstances around my silo.

When we used to have spill and fills, when everyone has been made redundant and you have to apply for your own job again, my record of that was five years straight in a row before Christmas. You learnt resilience and you learnt that diversifying your skills is really important. I was always very curious about other opportunities and about what other parts of my business and other businesses did.

Workplace are changing. We all need to constantly change and businesses are driving for a culture of change readiness which is excellent.

Depending on how old you are you might remember microfiche. I used to use that in my first role. We went to computers, mobile devices. I loved telecommuting, working from home. It’s nothing quite like hanging out the washing during the daylight on a week day. Now we’re going into robotics and artificial intelligence, but it doesn’t matter. Whenever humans are involved we’ll have the complexities of human relationships.

To succeed in your career you really need to be good at relationships and have good relationship skills and self awareness. You will always have personality clashes with people where you work because that’s life. You shouldn’t expect that one size fits all in terms of communication. You need to learn to communicate differently with different people but you need to treat everybody with respect.

There is a phrase or a saying that says praise in public and criticise or, more appropriately, have a coaching conversation in private and I believe that’s very true.

When women apply for roles they look at the list of responsibilities and accountabilities, go, “Yep, yep, yep, I can do all them.”, and I apply for the role.

When men look at roles they look at the list, “Can do a couple.”, they apply for the role.

I’ve always followed the male traits in that one. I always believe that if you’re going to change roles why not go somewhere where


you know you can do enough that you’re hopefully not going to fail but there are also areas there that would challenge you, that will grow your mind and you will learn and develop from.

Because of that attitude I’ve ran a private bank without ever knowing anything about banking. I’ve ran an IT consultancy without knowing anything about IT, but I found your team will understand the technicalities of the business and it’s also a great way to build strong relationships.

I ended up becoming very close with a crusty old 30-year experienced banker who I had to work out how to gain his respect when I was female, blond and 35 as his new boss. We had a great working relationship.

Gail Kelly, former CEO of Westpac and mother of triplets if you didn’t know that one, talk about juggling, believes women need to be themselves rather than simply locking themselves into a harder, harsher persona to get ahead. She has stated women need to not try to be like anyone else or any other leader they have seen. Women tend to be inclusive in their style and I think that’s fabulous, we need more inclusion.

Everyone faces hurdles in their career. It’s important to remember to remain true to your career goals, know what you want, who you want to be and hold yourself to account, walk away if you can’t be you.

I have two very simple answers as to why it’s important to be you. If you’re not authentic people will see straight through you. You will never have their respect and your personal brand will never be strong.

Secondly, life is very busy. I can’t speak for everyone in the room but I personally struggle to fit everything I need to do into a day, the mental and physical requirements to get through the day.

It is just simply too hard to try to be someone else. Thank you.

MS THOMAS: Thank you so much, Wendy. Wow, I love your honesty. Was everyone else struck by that. There are so many events that I go to anyway, and I’m often obviously in this role, and you see people hedging around the questions. It was just so


wonderful to hear someone go, “I don’t have work-life balance.” The relief in the room. I miss out on my exercise. I’m big on that one as well. I don’t like networking, who does. I love it.

Now I’ve got some questions already coming through on the SMS. I actually wanted to ask you one myself though and I’ll take that opportunity since I’ve got the microphone. I particularly loved your idea, it’s the same in my industry and I think a lot of industries, the idea of women not pursuing someone else’s definition of success. That might be a “male” definition, it might be personality based, it doesn’t really matter. Can you just elaborate a little bit more on that and how it’s applied to you?

MS TANCRED: The finance world is full of males, and no disrespect to the males in the room, but you get to the stage where you look at them across the table and you go okay, he’s going to be like that. You find yourself building strategies to basically get what you want but you have to take their views on it. I can play the politics in corporate Australia. I have done it. I think I’m just too old and cranky these days. I don’t know if it’s a male/female thing but males seem to be better at mirroring what other males do and maybe that’s just the traits that they exhibit. It’s just something I’ve struggled with. I don’t know if that really answers the question to be totally honest.

MS THOMAS: I seems to me that I mean combining lots of different things you said sort of you’re at that point or have been at that point for a while anyway where the authenticity is more important than playing the game of pitting someone else’s idea of you.

MS TANCRED: Yes it is and I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting old. Everyone tells me the older you get you just don’t care what other people think. I’d like to think I still care what other people think, but authenticity is really important to me. Authentic leadership is really the current leadership genre that is regarded as the most successful and that’s really what I wanted to try and get across today without using the technical terms.

People see through you. If you’re not authentic they just see through it and I’ve been doing this type of presentation following a presenter and he’s espousing the virtues of something and it was around how you relate to staff. Then everyone left the room


because lunch was served outside. I’m the next speaker so I’m getting my presentation ready and he treats his staff in the room absolutely abysmally. He says, “What are you talking about? It just doesn’t make sense.”

MS THOMAS: I think there were lots of nods of recognition when you mentioned the workplace where there were nice empowering posters and the terrible culture.

There’s a lot of questions about your nasty boss. I have to say everyone is interested in the boss. I won’t go into too many of them because they’re not appropriate.

Let me pull out the gist. The gist is if you’ve got – and let’s make it even broader than a boss – if you’ve got a difficult colleague, particularly a boss, I think the vibe is the idea that sometimes women are trying to placate or to smooth over or to make nice and it’s not always possible, so how do you deal with that?

MS TANCRED: You’ve got to know when to give up. You can’t just give up immediately and go, “Oh, that’s it. I’m out of here.”, or, “I need to change.”, or whatever. You have to try and build a relationship with someone. You’re always going to work with people that you don’t like. That’s just a fact of life but you need to be able to, I think, defer.

For me to do the role well I need to be able to respect the person I work with alongside or that I’m the boss of. You need to find a way to connect. Often finding something similar in a non-work environment can work, sometimes going, you know, “Let’s go have a wine or a beer or something.”, and just have a general chat. Do something to see if you can get the relationship started.

I think it is important that in that case with that horrible boss it was either her or me. That’s the situation it got to and she was (a) more senior than me and had more of a brand in that particular – she was very good at managing up - I’m assuming you’ve had leaders like that as well - not so good at managing down. So, I just made the call.

MS THOMAS: Carrying on from that, someone has asked me a question but I’m going to put it to you. I’ll answer it briefly. What messages would I give to my two beautiful girls to empower them.


Thank you whoever asked the question.

I was picking up on that. I think the thing I’m trying to teach my girls is that balance between yes be kind and be fair but you don’t have to be nice all the time. Not everyone is going to like you and you’re not going to like everyone else. Can you speak to that in relation to not just that boss but in general?

MS TANCRED: That’s actually a really hard one to get across. My daughter is 23 and she started work about 18 months ago, full-time work after finishing uni etc. etc. in the HR field. She comes home and she tells stories and she’s really hard. I think she takes after her father. I’m a bit softer. I do hear her talk about things in a manner that she’s heard her parents talk around the kitchen table.

My husband runs a very large business in a totally different area to me, so often talk about examples and struggles. I think might daughter has gone the “I need to be tough” route. That’s not her. I try and do it by telling stories.

MS THOMAS: Can I just pick you up on something to just join two dots there. I wonder sometimes going back to the original question about that definition of success. You know you think of those eighties movies where women were just starting to get managerial roles and whatever. It was almost mimicking a caricature of a tough man.

MS TANCRED: Yes.

MS THOMAS: Do you think that’s the vibe that she’s following?

MS TANCRED: It definitely is because that’s my husband.

MS THOMAS: Can everyone just tweet that.

MS TANCRED: I’ve been married to him for 29 years. We love each other dearly but we’re very different in how we work. It’s back to that authenticity thing. You’ve got to be you and like everything there is a balance and there are times when you have to be tough.

I’ve got a board meeting next Monday, I’ve got a paper there and I’ll be making people redundant. I have to be tough. You have to do it, you have to make decisions. I shouldn’t have said that should I?


That was really bad. Don’t anybody talk to my team. I was talking to the chairman this morning.

MS THOMAS: There’s a big camera up there.

MS TANCRED: Yes. You do have to be tough but you need to have a softer side as well I think. I think the males in this world, present company I don’t know if you’re guilty or innocent, tend to just run that toughness. As Gail Kelly said, we don’t have to be a tougher persona of ourselves, why aren’t we just true to what we are.

MS THOMAS: It’s interesting isn’t it when you talk about male champions of change in some ways they’re trying to get men to be able to show a softer side.

MS TANCRED: Yes.

MS THOMAS: Yes, that black and white stuff. Now this was an interesting one. The work-life balance thing obviously is plainly thrown particularly at successful women. You mentioned juggling balls. Do you ever put them all down? How do you recharge and take a break other than your crap novels? It’s obviously not Game of Thrones so what are you doing?

MS TANCRED: No, I don’t put them all down. I am one of those people who tell my staff to turn off all devices when they go on holidays and keep mine on myself. I’m a hypocrite like that. I’ve never worked out how to shut myself down in that aspect.

MS THOMAS: Do you do holidays?

MS TANCRED: I do holidays. I went to Africa earlier this year, Greece and Italy next year, Stradbroke Island.

MS THOMAS: Did you like to climb mountains and stuff?

MS TANCRED: No, I don’t do that sort of stuff. That’s too hard. That’s back to that regular exercise stuff, you need to train. I find it really difficult. I don’t actually turn off because I can’t switch the brain off. I’m always constantly trying to work out what to do and things so I just don’t do it. I accept the fact that that’s not me and whilst I may be lying on a beach in beautiful surroundings the brain


still goes.

MS THOMAS: You won’t be speaking for Mental Health Week?

MS TANCRED: No, not at all.

MS THOMAS: Excellent. So the answer is no. I love the honesty actually. The final reflections in terms of if you were going to give advice, I mean it just doesn’t have to be the younger women but obviously you’re talking to a room full of high achievers is the truth, how do you balance – you want to encourage the high achieving and also encourage people to take care of themselves, to have a happy life, to be fulfilled in all areas. Can you do that in about 30 seconds?

MS TANCRED: Do what I say don’t do what I do. It is about balance and you do need down time. It’s about knowing when it’s appropriate to work and knowing when it’s not. So, how many of us actually answer those emails when they come in at 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning or at Sunday lunch time, I do. I’m guilty but we shouldn’t. We actually need to mentally have those breaks. It is about balance.

Nellie was talking to me earlier. I said, “What hobbies do you have?”, none. I desperately need to have a hobby because you need to get that mental break. As I said, do what I say don’t do what I do.

MS THOMAS: What I’m hearing and I find this fascinating, it sounds to me like you’ve just accepted this is the personality that I have in the sense of going I don’t switch off, I am not someone who is going to sit down and learn croquet and learn to do some knitting, I work and that’s what I love.

MS TANCRED: Yes. I’ve just learnt to accept that that is me. I was very serious when I say I’d built this portfolio of directorships and lecturing etc. but I just got mentally bored but not everyone else will be like that because there’s a vast number of people who are very successful at doing that, whereas I’ve learnt that it really is not me and I’ve just accepted it and gone okay, that’s me. My husband Harry will constantly berate me but that’s just me, that’s who I am.

MS THOMAS: So you know who you are. Isn’t it ironic given that


you just said that you don’t read self help books. That is pretty much the message of every self help book. Can I suggest you write one and we’ll all buy it.

I could talk to you all afternoon. That was absolutely fantastic. I’ve had this question three times and this will be our last question. I know you’re very funny I thought, thoughts on mentoring, but several people are asking you to be their mentor. The gist of the questions is how can mentoring work. Like, you obviously are a great mentor so how do you make mentoring work and if you’re the mentee how do you get the most out of the mentoring?

MS TANCRED: It’s not that I’m against mentoring. It’s just that I had a really shocking experience and if you get burnt once you don’t want to do it again, but I’m really keen. I couldn’t tell you how many mentees I would have and I’m more than happy – I put a whole stack of business cards if anyone wants to get in contact with me.

The connection between the mentor and the mentee is really important. You’ll find in a lot of work situations, and particularly the case when you’re a CEO, you can’t actually be open and honest with anybody. You can’t be open and honest with your staff because one day you might change business strategy and it has an impact and every time you have a conversation that’s around structure for example, everyone goes, “What about me, what’s happening to me” mentally.

You can’t be open and honest with your chair because effectually they’re your boss so who do you talk to. There’s a lot of roles in this world where they’re really lonely and that’s where a mentor is really important. You’ve got to select someone that you can relate to really well, someone who has I think got experience in the field that you’re working in.

General leadership is leadership and I do believe those skills are transferable, so if you’re looking for those types of ideas then other industries are fine but experience in understanding what you’re dealing with on a day to day basis and also the jargon that you’re talking to is really important.

You need to have a very open and honest relationship and I always make my mentees, as I said, do the work. They’re responsible for


finding the time in my diary. I usually pay for the coffee but they’re responsible for finding the time in my diary.

I do say right between now and when we next get together I want you to concentrate on this or why don’t you try to do that and if getting together is usually four, six weeks apart I say I want you to try it in the first week and give me a call and let me know how you went or drop me a line.

It has to be very open and honest and the relationship between the two individuals has to facilitate that. If in my case I thought she was being open and honest and I learnt that she was quite a different personality it’s not going to work.

MS THOMAS: And do your homework. There’s nothing more annoying – I mentor a lot of younger comedians and I give them homework too and sometimes they just don’t do it and I think what am I giving up my time for.

MS TANCRED: If you’re not committed why should I waste my time.

MS THOMAS: Do what you say you’re going to do.

Wendy Tancred everyone, please join me in thanking her.

-------


web viewshe’s one of those kids who even when she’s trying to be naughty . ......

Documents