the foreground the importance of challenging traditional assumptions and biases in order to reconcile how I see myself and how others see me.
Encouraging this thought process in a mentee is an essential aspect of being a mentor.
‘I felt honoured and privileged when Keerthi contacted me.’
I have experienced the power of mentoring as a mentee myself. I have been lucky to be mentored by some amazing people throughout my career and I attribute a large part of my success to mentors believing in me, encouraging me to move outside of my comfort zone, and actively sponsoring me. My first mentoring experience was provided through a professional association, and recently I looked back on the application form and was surprised to see that I had asked for a female mentor. I can’t recall why I made this request but I suspect I was looking for a role model in the days when senior women were in the minority in the legal profession, and perhaps I thought I would feel more comfortable and safer opening up to someone who I thought would be more like me and would have faced similar challenges. As it turned out, I was matched to a male mentor who was amazing, who challenged my thinking and pushed me to think laterally and out of the box in a way that I may not have experienced otherwise. One of the most valuable pieces of advice I remember receiving from him was ‘Don’t wait until someone recognises you. Put your hand up. Tell people and be heard.’
This advice resonated with me in the context of my cultural upbringing. Early in my career, I had been receiving feedback from my peers and manager that I possessed excellent judgment and was really good at my work, but lacked confidence in meetings. I was mystified by this feedback. I would never have described myself as lacking in confidence, so what was going on? Working through this feedback was a pivotal moment because I realised it was my cultural values at play. Having been brought up to respect my elders and not argue back, no one ever told me that when you go into meeting with senior people that set of values is not relevant. What I viewed as showing respect, others viewed as lack of assertiveness.
As my own career flourished I began to realise that a small investment of my own time can make an enormous difference to the careers of others. I am energised by mentoring others, actively sponsoring them and opening up my networks—and it’s a two way street—I continue to learn so much from my mentees.
My neighbour, Randell, asked me one day about how people approach me to be their mentor. ‘Well, they just ask—simple as that, or it happens organically’ I replied. ‘Really—that’s all there is to it? Then I’m going to introduce you to this amazing woman. I think you would connect really well and I think she could benefit from just meeting you.’
I then met Keerthi, this amazingly talented woman who had already accomplished so much so early in her career. Keerthi and I had an initial natural and comfortable connection because of our cultural heritage and common understanding of cultural value systems which helped to establish trust quickly.
There were a lot of things that Keerthi did not have to explain to me because I ‘understood’. But it was our diversity of experiences and perspectives that brought the most value to our relationship.
Early on, I knew that Keerthi could achieve whatever she wanted. Yet Keerthi described herself in quite narrow ways. I encouraged her to think outside the box, to think more broadly and to consider other options. This is a key role for mentors—to challenge your mentee’s thinking and stimulate them to think differently, to help them see things that they might not see because of their own blind spots, and to help them maximise their potential.
I also recognised the importance of connecting Keerthi to some of my network. ‘Interested in in-house roles? Then let me connect you with …’, ‘Considering working overseas? Then you must talk to …’. Asking is an incredibly powerful thing that women in particular don’t do enough of. People are always prepared to share their experiences or provide advice. Just asking someone for a chat can lead to so many different opportunities. I saw my role as facilitating the connection, and then Keerthi could make of it as she wanted.
The special role of mentors
I believe in having a diverse range of many mentors throughout your life. I see them like a board of advisors, with each bringing a different perspective and lens to situations at different times in your life.
I believe mentors have a number of special roles to play in helping to shape their mentee’s career. First, mentors give their mentees confidence—they are able to see your potential when you might not see it and they can instil confidence in mentees to feel comfortable about speaking up about their own achievements. Mentors validate that it’s okay to talk about your accomplishments without sounding like you are blowing your own trumpet. Secondly, mentors are not just there to build confidence they can also help to build visibility. The relationship may also naturally evolve into sponsorship, which is what happened between Keerthi and I. Sponsorship is powerful. Mentors can build their mentee’s visibility through introductions—just one sentence in an email to a network will resonate and they will take it further.
Tapping into the diversity of experience in any relationship helps each one of us realise our human potential. Yet often as migrants we just want to integrate and be like everyone else. As kids we want the ham and cheese sandwich for school lunch, not the rice and curry mum packs in our school lunchbox. Funny though, how all the kids at school wanted to swap their ham and cheese sandwiches for lunches—they appreciated our difference more than we did, as kids perhaps we should have celebrated ours more.
Shell has provided me with a great career where I continue to learn and be challenged. I’ve worked in London as well as Melbourne and in my most recent role, Shell has been incredibly supportive in enabling me to work virtually, as the only lawyer based in Melbourne (my hometown) supporting matters in the Asia Pacific region. I also lead a global community of Shell lawyers, designed to capture, share and leverage our legal knowledge and experience in the areas of health, safety, security, environment and social performance. It’s been a great role where I have had the opportunity to work with culturally diverse teams from all around the world, and continues to be a great adventure for me.
Shell uses the iceberg of differences diagram to explain the dynamics of diversity and I think this is a really useful metaphor. There are the characteristics you possess that are above the water line—the obvious things people see about you, to do with your gender, age and cultural background. Then there are the characteristics that are more hidden, or below the waterline. These may include your life experience, values, perspectives, thought processes, education, family background, motivators, or status in the community—all the other factors that together make up who you are as a person. Diversity and inclusiveness (and in my view, successful mentoring) is about recognising, understanding and including the whole person, not just what is obvious and can be seen. Once those underlying characteristics are activated, we can bring our whole selves to a relationship and realise our full potential. We are all different, we all have different experiences and we can all learn from each other. Having many mentors from diverse backgrounds is not only beneficial for individuals, but also the workplace and the broader community.
I was honoured and privileged that Keerthi reached out to me—I have loved being her mentor and I have learned so much from her.
Keerthi’s story
I was born in India but became a ‘citizen of the world’ almost immediately. My family followed my father’s career and the places to which it took us included Oman, Kuala Lumpur and eventually Australia. Fitting in to different cultures and environments was not a problem for me from an early age—attending international schools meant I developed friendships with children from diverse backgrounds as a natural way of growing up.
I grew up with a very strong and consistent message from my parents and grandparents—that you must be educated, and that you have a responsibility
