he approached me about being a candidate for a role in a large merger and acquisition he was working on, I asked, ‘Why me?’ For someone who I thought didn’t know me all that well, I found the answer fascinating.
He described some attributes I had not really thought about, such as my ability to diagnose what was happening in organisations, the value of experience in working with diverse executive teams, and my ability to provide a level of clarity through understanding the essence of a situation, making complex things simpler to understand. I just hadn’t thought of these as particular attributes, nor had I realised how generically useful they might be!
Regular self-assessment is a good habit to develop. Why regular? The biggest disadvantage of assessing yourself is that it is difficult to be objective about both your strengths and weaknesses. By making a habit of self-assessment you are more attuned to picking up on the feedback from others, which can realign your perceptions.
Inflection number six: Embarking on yet another new career
At one of my occasional lunches with Mark during 2006, he made some comments about how perhaps working with him and the team at what became EWK International (and later NGS Global) would be a good move. I thought he was just being polite and didn’t take too much notice.
Later that afternoon, though, I started to think things through. Perhaps it was time for my next career change.
I had indicated to my Gartner colleagues that I would only stay until we turned the business around and clearly that was happening. I rang Mark back later that afternoon and asked him if he was actually offering me a job? The response was of course he was, and how could I not realise that immediately.
Over the next few months, during discussions with the executive search partners, I learned why they might want me to join them, and why and how I could succeed in leadership advisory and executive search work.
My experience as an executive educator and advisor, executive professional services roles, and leading product development seemed to be a very good combination from their viewpoint.
Their business model was quite different from most competitors. It was (and is) a very collegial and collaborative model. They were all mature and experienced. It was the partners that played the predominant role in both bringing in business and in doing the execution of that business. There was not a layer of associates to whom they passed on the bulk of the work with clients. Sure, they had researchers, but partners doing the work was a key part of value proposition.
I took my usual approach and thought through where I would learn most, where I figured I would make the best contribution, and then, being in the second half of my 50s, asked myself what was likely to provide the best platform for the next ten or so years of my career?
We agreed that for the first six weeks my focus was to review all the intellectual property the group had developed and to put that into a more ‘industrial’ or ‘reusable’ form. The expectation was that it would take six months or more for me to be fully ‘inducted’ into this new business and I was grateful for that.
However, things usually don’t work out quite as planned and this was the case here too. I did focus heavily on the IP work, but also spent some time with clients alongside my colleagues and then brought in some early work.
On my second day I went with a colleague to have a discussion with a potential client. We left with two searches confirmed, and I thought, ‘How easy was that?’
The answer was that it was the result of a relationship built over time, and not to assume that most or many meetings would result like that. Over the next ten years I had many lessons.
5
parenting often requires trade-offs
Different stages lead to different choices
We regularly need to make choices about our next steps without knowing what is ahead. This means being flexible, adaptable and keeping our long-term options open.
It might be that an elderly parent needs more attention, a sibling is having difficulties and needs more support, or you want more time with your growing children.
Sometimes you will make trade-offs consciously, sometimes unconsciously, and sometimes just intuitively. It helps if those trade-offs are clearly articulated to yourself and those around you.
In Executive Search work we are constantly contacting people about their next potential career opportunity. We live every day with candidates, or potential candidates, weighing up the level of disruption they might want to cause their families by moving interstate or moving to a new country, or their colleagues by leaving.
Moving to a new role can create a whole set of new demands, particularly in the first few months when you are working to get your head around what is expected, dealing with a new environment and, sometimes, a new industry. Maybe, it might just not be the right time.
It’s helpful to take the longer view on your career, and sometimes to ‘hasten slowly’ and stay where you are for a while, as it suits your current circumstances.
Company director and board chair Kathryn Fagg started her career as an engineer on oil and gas rigs in Bass Strait. She later moved to management consulting with McKinsey, and then had senior executive roles with ANZ Banking Group and BHP Steel/BlueScope. She emphasises the need to clarify what is important to yourself, your family and to your employer. Be clear about what you can do and about the ground-rules.
There will always be trade-offs on both the career and home fronts. Decide what they are, what can work, and then get on with it.
You can have it all, just not necessarily at the same time
While the sentiment that ‘you can have it all, just not at the same time’ has been credited recently to Oprah Winfrey, I first heard it stated more than ten years ago by Jude Munro, the then Chief Executive of Brisbane City Council (one of the largest municipalities in the world). She was addressing a cross-section of executives about the approaches the Council was taking to ensure they had a sufficiently diverse workforce, and that they did not lose good people who could otherwise be better supported through family-friendly policies and practices.
Her willingness to articulate that she knew we all had to make different choices at different times, that working for BCC was not an end in itself, was refreshing, particularly at the time. I made a conscious decision to stay in a career in my 20s that suited my circumstances. At the time, teaching gave me a bit of flexibility to take on further study while also managing a growing family.
We women have the wombs so, for now, on average, we are more likely to take a bit more time out than men. But who knows what will happen in time, and already significant numbers of men and women are making decisions that mean each of them, at some stage, will work in paid employment less than full-time.
Seeing this more shared engagement of both men and women, and same sex couples, with their families today is just terrific. It opens up the options to parents much more than has been the case in the past.
Becoming a parent can result in different skills
Having to be accountable for the care and wellbeing of others—children, a parent or another family member—forces us to exercise, or uncover, our abilities to prioritise, make trade-offs, ask for assistance, and delegate.
Alisa Bowen is a digital leader who has worked for many years at the nexus of digital consumer technologies and business
