Cycling and Your Career: Is there really anything in common?

So on a recent Saturday morning I found myself in the very glam W Hotel at Sentosa Island, Singapore. I was wet, correction, I had been wet since 5.15am, when my husband (perhaps soon to be ex-husband) dug me out of bed to ride my bike in the dark, and in the rain. At 9am I had moved to "soggy" draped in a towel. I’m was wearing lycra with a nappy-like-seat that cyclists call “knicks” and due to being soggy the airconditioning felt arctic. I’m sitting with a group of other cyclists, mainly soggy men, listening to a 23 year work champion cyclist give us career advice. And she is good. She is articulate. And I’m glad I’m here despite being cold and soggy.

It’s hardly in these situations that I expect to learn and to be inspired but that’s what ended up happening. I was at the International Cycling Executives (ICE) breakfast and the guest speaker was Annette Edmondson. From Adelaide (Australia), Nettie has now racked up a large number of titles including Commonwealth and Olympic medals and individual and team world championship medals and I'm pretty sure most people, including Australian's, have never heard of her.

Did I mention she is 23? She is the one on the right below (in case you weren’t sure, I mean I’m looking pretty young and sporty here, hey?)

Any-hoo, I felt inspired to share three things I took away from listening to Nettie speak in my soggy pants.

1. If something is not working, make a change

Five years ago when Nettie was eighteen, she found she wasn’t enjoying her training, her sport or her life. After agonising for a while and progressively becoming worse in a sport she used to love,  she gave up cycling, indefinately. The 3 month stint working in a cafe made her realise she loved the sport but needed to change something. She realised she liked variety and she liked training with others.

She did some soul searching and belly button contemplating and with some help from others, changed it up! She has added more variety to her training and the events she competes in. Since that time her career has gone from strength to strength.

Keeping doing the same thing and expecting a different result is stupidity. Or more eloquently, if something isn't working for you then work our why that is, and then refocus to play to your strengths. It was important for Nettie to have variety in her training and in her competitions, so she refocused on the Omnium event which caters to that.

Of course this applies to elite athletes, couch potatoes and improving your career generally.

2. Men still earn more than women

Elite sport is no exception and perhaps it is even further behind the Corporate world.

As it currently stands the gender pay gap in Australia is 18.2% (and this is not that different in other developed countries). Overall that means women earn significantly less than men over their lifetime and that is a massive difference.

Nettie relayed a story about her brother Alex, two years her junior, who is also a cyclist and a member of the Australian track cycling team and Orica-GreenEdge. Nettie was signed to Orica-AIS. Nettie’s brother’s contract was ten times the value of hers.

I think most of the room felt collectively sick about this. How could this amazingly talented, articulate, determined woman (who was performing extremely well) be worth a tenth of the amount compared to the same job being done by a man?

There is obviously much work to be done to bridge the gender pay gap across the board.

3. Support Networks are Important

Nettie was able to thank and be grateful for all the people in her life from her parents who provide both moral and financial support, through to the the professionals (coaches, dieticians, psychologists, exercise physiologists and so on) and her team mates.

This is not that different to those of us who have developed careers in our chosen field. We have mentors and coaches, colleagues who support us and Managers and Leaders who help us set goals and give us feedback on our progress. We also have people in our career who show us how NOT to do things. Often these people are as important as those who show us the positive things!

So despite being in an arctic room with soggy pants, I took a lot away from learning about an elite athlete's career, that is not that different from what all of us experience in ours.

Lisa xx

Authentic leadership

I'm working with some leaders at the moment who are great. They are not necessarily great leaders all the time, everyday and that's ok. They aren't perfect and no one is. We are all learning and all developing. But what I love about them is that they are authentic. All the time. That doesn't mean they give away all of themselves, but there is no pretence and no pretending. And even though they don't reveal all of themselves completely they are not guarded either.

Ever had a conversation with someone who is guarded? Ugh. Over the past months I have had a couple of those conversations and gee, so not satisfying and I can't help feeling that these people are not going to move forward. These conversations make me feel like I'm not trusted, even though I know the issue may not be about me. Maybe guarded is the opposite of authentic?

The notion of being authentic and authentic leadership is something that has gained more attention and research recently, including from the Harvard Business Review, where you can read about discovering your authentic leadership.

So in my experience Authentic leaders exhibit the following:

1. They are true to who they are
In any situation whether under stress or not you see a person who is essentially behaving consistently and honestly. This doesn't mean that they don't get angry or upset, but they are willing to show this so people working with them know they are human.

2. They are open
By sharing parts of their whole life they allow others to connect with them. They share their struggles and difficulties. Not all problems and not with everyone, but they are able to work out what is right to share with the right people.

Last year one of the leaders I work with shared with the Operations team why Safety was so important to him. He took it beyond wanting to have a safe workplace so our employees are safe. He made it really personal and this made a huge impact.

3. They are consistent
These are not the people in the workplace that you tiptoe around because you don't know what mood they are going to be in, or how they are going to react to a situation. Because these people are open and authentic you can count on them to be consistent in their behaviour.

4. They are reflective: about their own behaviour and how they come across to others, as well as reflective of situations in business. They admit when a decision they made wasn't the best and they celebrate when things work out well.

5.They are perceptive: about how people in the workplace will feel about a situation and use to this to inform decisions and communication efforts. They are usually emotionally intelligent, being perceptive about people feel about things.

6. They have courage
They are prepared to make the tough decisions and have tough conversations. They are willing to help people do better but when they don't they make a tough decision and follow through. When they make a bad decision they admit it and make changes to fix it.

Having courage means they also give great feedback. They are able to get to the point of someone's development need, and frame it in a way that the person gets the message clearly. They don't sugar coat the message but they are clever in giving feedback that also doesn't offend and helps the person improve. There have been times when leaders have told me the feedback they have given to another person and I feel so proud of their skill and bravery.

7. They are liked. So this one is tricky because I don't think you need to be liked to do a good job (generally) and it's also not a priority in being a good leader, but I have noticed that authentic leaders are liked because they are honest about who they are. And this makes them much more effective and means people will forgive them for many things, because they are recognised as human and as a person.

So there are my top 7 attributes of effective and authentic leaders. What would you add?

Lisa

What do you do at work Mummy?

Sooo.....do you ever have a problem describing what you do at work? I do. Not because I don't know what I'm doing, because I do, but sometimes trying to describe it, is tricky. It doesn't sound very, well....real or important. Sometimes it might sound a little wanky.

If I'm telling someone who works in a big company they usually get it (and then start telling me why they hate their Human Resource department. Love that) but if not, describing my work is quite tricky.

It usually goes like this...well "I help organisations manage their people". Umm..or "I help recruit people and help managers manage them and help terminate their employment if needed". Well that's inspiring. If I take it up a notch and say "I provide and execute on the people strategy for organisations" Well what the hell does that mean? when it comes down to it I really just want to help the places where people work, to be better. I do this by helping leaders to be the best that they can be. Well that doesn't tell you anything but it's meaningful to me and links with my purpose.

Obviously I need to improve my elevator pitch but I think the biggest test is when Aiden asks me what I do at work. How do I describe that to a 6 year old?

There used to be a time when jobs were more simple and people knew what you did. For example:

• Teacher
• Farmer
• Train driver (Aiden wants to be a train driver. Charlie "me-too" Pearson probably does too but I think he is more suited to being a dramatic actor)
• Mechanic
• Doctor

Today's jobs include:

• Operational Risk Officer
• Chief Information Officer
• Head of Public Relations
• Chief People and Culture Officer
• Social Media Consultant
• Accounts Executive

Has the world gone mad or is this just a sign of the complexity of today's organisations?

Would love to hear how you describe your job to your friends, family and kids. Leave me a message.

Lisa xx

Doing less with less - My top 5 tips

Ever since 2009, business has been tough. The global financial crisis has somewhat changed business  and in some places the economy has never really recovered. Greece and their ongoing debt issues comes to mind and my home country Australia, while never officially heading into recession, has   ver really hit its straps since. Like the US, and many other countries interest rates have remained low and Australia’s unemployment has continued to rise.

The organisations I have worked for since then have continued to lay off people in light of uncertain  market conditions. Uncertainty and less people in organisations has driven the catch phrase “we have to do more with less”. How often have you heard this? In many organisations there is no redundancy left. No extra people to help out when things get busy. No one to look after your day-to-day work while you work on a project or are travelling. No one to handle your job if you are sick or on holidays. Familiar?

I often feel like I need to achieve more with less but of course there is a limit. There are only so many hours in the day and though I’m happy to work a couple of nights a week with teleconferences or catching up with email, I know that if I do this consistently and neglect things like exercise and doing something creative I won’t be good at my job at all. I get tired and cranky and start resenting my job. Travel on top of my day to day work, which I do a lot, just means the chances of getting sick increases.

Last year while attending a HR conference, one of the speakers spoke about doing less with less. That really stuck in my head. They weren’t talking about being less effective or slacking off, they were talking about getting really focused. They talked about getting clear on the true priorities and not expecting you can do everything. True priorities are the 2-3 things that if you didn’t do them the business would fail, or you wouldn’t be successful.

I try to keep this in mind.

So here are some things I do to try and do less with less:

1. I don’t keep on top of my inbox: (gasp) Now I know some of you are horrified by this.  I currently have over 33,000 emails in my inbox. Is your stress level rising just reading this? I use my emails extensively to keep track of information and priorities (the search function is my friend) but I don’t religiously manage them by putting them in folders and ensuring every email is replied to. A few jobs ago this was possible but the complexity and scope of my role now means is I did this I wouldn’t be working on those 2-3 important things. All I would be doing is working on email!

So what do I do? I deal with the critical stuff and try to have more conversations and less emails. If I miss something I apologise to that person and if some things slip through the cracks and no one follows up, well maybe it wasn’t that important?

2. I write a monthly report: Yes I am so innovative! So this is not exciting but it’s pretty simple. The report has two main sections. One: what I achieved this month  (which makes me feel good if I have made progress against my goals). Two: what I plan to do next month (which keeps me focused on what I need to work on).

When I’m writing the report, which goes to my Managers (so there is accountability), I have to review the previous month’s report to see what I committed to. Often there are items which I missed or for whatever reason were not a priority but I try to ensure they get done the following month. The report works well as I also have to go back to the goals I set at the start of the year to see what I might have missed.

3. I work in blocks: By block I mean a block of time. Some days are manic where it seems like I work on a hundred different things (and achieve nothing) but on other days when there are no meetings or urgent priorities I try to work on big pieces of work in “blocks” of time so I can focus. If it’s detailed spreadsheet type work sometimes I do it first thing in the morning and don’t open my email so I can’t be distracted. This is the classic important versus urgent management. Emails are the classic urgent. People wanting information and time that may take a short or long amount of time to respond to. The important stuff is the things that show you can deliver something, implement a project or finish something. There are days when I have reached lunch and all I have done is respond to emails which is often not very effective.

4. I exercise: Man I bang on about this don’t I? I wrote about it here, and here and probably a few others posts. You would think I looked like an elite athlete or a model the way I go on about it! But it’s a struggle and I don’t manage it every day and as soon as I get out of an exercise routine (as often happens when I travel) it all goes to shit pot. My sneakers are my best travelled pair of shoes but sometimes they don’t make it out of my suitcase.

The thing with exercise is that I am more focused and can do a bit more with the “less”. The body feels better and the mind clearer.

5. I don’t try not to read emails in bed: Ahhh…I remember when I got my very first Blackberry about 14 years ago. So exciting, so cutting edge. At the time the iPhone didn’t exist and this was the only way to get your work emails and diary one device that wasn’t a laptop. Great for travelling. Not great for any kind of separation from your work. We now have smart phones where every aspect of your life and communication is held in one device just sitting on your bedside table taunting you when you wake in the morning.

Over the past few months I have had to develop some discipline around reading my work emails, particularly in the morning before I have stepped out of bed. Working for a global company means a number of emails come in overnight. The problem is that some emails are either complex and/or frustrating and I find I’m not yet in the right frame of mind to deal with them. If I wait until I’m out of bed, dressed, hair and make-up done, and food in my belly, everything is easier to deal with. If I don’t wait some emails put me in a bad mood before I have even said good morning to my family, and it’s hard to recover from that.

Ditto for emails later in the evening. I have gotten into a routine of going a few nights a week to yoga.  I find yoga a blend of being difficult and relaxing and in any case you can’t think about work when you are bent over with your head between your legs trying not to topple into the person on the mat beside you. I get home from yoga about 10pm and shower and hop straight into bed. No emails. I’m not a brain surgeon. Lives don't rely on me reading my email. Whatever is in there can wait.

So there you have it. The things I try to help me doing less with less. How do you do less with less?

The Great Wall and Your Career

Those of you who are friends on Facebook will know that last week I came back from completing the 10km event of the Conquer the Great Wall of China Marathon. It all came about over dinner much earlier in the year, I think February, with two other couples. One of the women runs and was planning to do this event. My ears pricked up and I wanted to know more. What was the event? Who was doing it? Could I come too? (Apparently I have no shame in muscling my way into other peoples events.)


The next day while nursing a hangover from too many cocktails and red wine I checked out the website and starting hassling the other woman at dinner about also doing it. Both women are in a walking group with Mums from their kids school and I wanted in.  I wore her down and we entered, booked flights and a hotel.


Why did I want to do such an event? I have always wanted to go to Beijing and see The Great Wall of China. I also wanted to get fit and wanted to have a goal. This seemed like a great one.

Over the ensuing months there was training. I enrolled myself in the Michelle Bridges Learn to Run program (I can now run 5km without stopping when I never thought I would be able to do that), started watching what I ate and starting using the Yoga gym membership I have had since, oh about October last year. I also did a few Saturday mornings at MacRitchie Reservoir Park doing 10-11kms with a few others (and most of Singapore) and then a couple of Saturdays doing stairs. Lots of stairs. Note to self: Should have done more stairs.


In addition to the actual event on the wall, now that I had muscled my way into this group "walk babe walk" there was going to be lots of other nice things to do in Beijing over the weekend of the event. Nice dinners and touristy stuff.



The 10km was structured so that you went 5km in one direction and then turned around and came back. Most of the first 5km was fantastic, well the views and the excitement of being on the wall were. Our heads were up, we were happy and ready for the challenge.



Optimistic at the start

There were 21 Towers we had to climb up to and at each one during the first 5km we were pretty excited and taking lots of photos.

At about the 4km point we headed off the wall to descend down to the turnaround point. It was at this point after going down, oh about 10,000 steps I was wondering how I was going to get back up to get back on the wall. There was literally 1km of steps that just. went. down.


The things that got me through the first 5km were:

1. I had trained enough and I could definitely walk 10km
2. I had also done a number of stair sessions and felt like I was fit enough
3. The realisation that even though I don't have a svelte fit looking body it's pretty amazing anyway. All I have to do is put my foot in front of the other and keep going.
4. It would be my mind that does me in, not my body so I focused on keeping any negative chatter out.

The second 5km was something completely different. It started with 1 km of stairs straight up. I had to stop every 50m or so to well, breathe. I was walking with a friend and we kept repeating to each other that as long as we could get back up on the wall, we could do it.

Once back on the wall it was a hard slog. We had been walking for over 2 hours and our bodies were tired, particularly our quad muscles from climbing very deep stairs. There is basically no flat on the wall, well the sections we were on anyway. You are either walking up a slope, walking or climbing stairs or walking down a slope or stairs. Also sections of the wall had fallen away and while I don't consider myself scared of heights there were times where I felt very insecure.

The trip back we had a heads down watching every step closely so as not to trip and fall. We concentrated on breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. We didn't take any photos on the way back and the only time we looked up was to try and work out if the next tower we had to scale up into, would be the last.

What has this got to do with your career? Well I got thinking while I was slogging it way on that wall. There are times when your career is exciting, like when you start a new job or earn a promotion or achieve more responsibility. At these times you are happy and have your head up enjoying the view. At these times it seems easier to do your job and get things done. Your confidence is high. That was my first 5km on the wall.


And then there are times when its just hard and the only thing to do is put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. I bet you can think of times in your career that you had to do that too.

What else? Sometimes we need encouragement and help. My walking mate Belinda towards the end was very keen to get finished and pushed me along when I was feeling discouraged. At other times we helped each other. There was also recognition from all the participants of the event that we were in it together. Everyone was encouraging and supportive, well except for the one marathon running who tried to climb over me down some steep stairs but I guess you get people trying to do that in your career too!


The feeling at the end of the 10km was amazing. I had never done anything like this event before, and to be honest I won't be rushing back to do it, even though it was a fantastic experience. This relates to my career too. There are jobs I have worked in and companies I have worked for which were not great and generally bad for my health. I will never repeat these experiences in my career and am wise when I chose my roles now, but when I look back at the experience and what I learnt, I'm grateful for doing them.


Does my experience on the wall relate to your career? Do tell