Speaker 1: Hello there, it's Amantha. I'm currently on a Christmas break,
Speaker 1: so I've handpicked a bunch of my favorite episodes from
Speaker 1: the last year to share with you. Okay, on with
Speaker 1: today's best of episode. A great piece of advice can
Speaker 1: be powerful. It can set you on a whole new trajectory,
Speaker 1: land you a new job, or even prompt you to
Speaker 1: make a big career change. So through the many interviews
Speaker 1: I've conducted for this show, I have asked a lot
Speaker 1: of the leaders that I have had on for the
Speaker 1: best career advice they have ever received. And today I
Speaker 1: want to share with you four pieces of advice that
Speaker 1: have set them up for success. My name is doctor Amathemba.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy Inventium, and this is how I work a show
Speaker 1: about how to help you do your best work. So,
Speaker 1: for Wendy Stops, who is a non executive director on
Speaker 1: the board of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the largest bank
Speaker 1: here in OZ, the most fundamental piece of career advice
Speaker 1: she gives to people is to do your job well.
Speaker 1: And interestingly, Wendy says that people's first reaction to this
Speaker 1: advice is well, that's obvious, to which Wendy replies, it's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, whatever you're asked to do, do it and
Speaker 1: do it well. So if you're asked to go and
Speaker 1: photocopy two hundred pages, show them that you're the best
Speaker 1: damn photocopier that they have ever seen. And Wendy also
Speaker 1: recommends not whinging about the boring or tedious parts of
Speaker 1: your job, because every job has good bits and bad
Speaker 1: bits and you just have to do them all well. Now,
Speaker 1: another piece of advice that Wendy had been given is
Speaker 1: that she has been through plenty of hard times in
Speaker 1: her career, such as being on the board of Combak
Speaker 1: during the Royal Commission into Banking in twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 1: Wendy believes that the bad times are actually the best
Speaker 1: times for development because of how much we learn. So
Speaker 1: what Wendy shared with me on the show is she
Speaker 1: said that bad times make you a better person for
Speaker 1: the next job. So for her, sure, the Royal Commission
Speaker 1: was tough, but she learnt a lot as well, and
Speaker 1: she's a big believer in learning from the bad times
Speaker 1: and not just bailing, like actually sticking it out because
Speaker 1: you will learn so much and you will come out
Speaker 1: the other end much stronger and much tougher and be
Speaker 1: in a much better position to move your career forward.
Speaker 1: The next piece of advice I want to share it
Speaker 1: comes from Kendra Bank, who is the Managing director for
Speaker 1: Australia and New Zealand at SEKH And if you don't
Speaker 1: live in Australia, you will not know what seek is
Speaker 1: and it's essentially the largest online job board in Australia.
Speaker 1: So Kendra has spent the last two decades rising up
Speaker 1: the ranks in the digital sector. And advice that Kendra
Speaker 1: received early on in her career is to be in
Speaker 1: sectors and businesses that are growing. So she told me
Speaker 1: that where there is growth in a sector or a business,
Speaker 1: that creates opportunities and you can grow along with that
Speaker 1: business or sector. And for Kendra, having been in digital
Speaker 1: for two decades, that's been a big part of her
Speaker 1: story in cementing her career and rising right to the top. Now,
Speaker 1: for Allison Watkins, who when she was on the show
Speaker 1: was the group Managing director of Coca Cola Amatol, she
Speaker 1: told me that she started her career as what she
Speaker 1: described as an insecure overachiever. So Alison had a level
Speaker 1: of insecurity that she said made her somebody that just
Speaker 1: wanted to please, and this makes you very vulnerable to
Speaker 1: the judgments of other people. Alison eventually realized that exposing
Speaker 1: yourself to the judgments of others puts you in an
Speaker 1: untenable position because some people who pass judgment may not
Speaker 1: actually have particularly good judgment. So for Alison, during her career,
Speaker 1: she has become a lot better at accepting that not
Speaker 1: everybody is going to agree with the choices that she
Speaker 1: makes all the things that she does, and she's learnt
Speaker 1: to value the judgment for those who were well placed
Speaker 1: to be wise and considered, and for those people, their
Speaker 1: feedback is really important to Allison, and then she tries
Speaker 1: not to leave herself vulnerable to the judgments of less
Speaker 1: inform people. So essentially, remember that not all feedback is
Speaker 1: created equal. Now finally, some bad advice, and this comes
Speaker 1: from some advice that Kendra received in the form of
Speaker 1: parenting and career advice. Someone once said to Kendra, now
Speaker 1: that you're having your second child, you probably want to
Speaker 1: come back to a job that's a little less demanding.
Speaker 1: But fortunately for Kendra, she didn't take that advice, and
Speaker 1: she finds that there's a lot of assumptions made about
Speaker 1: how parents want to drive their careers, which can be
Speaker 1: very detrimental. And for her, it's not that slowing down
Speaker 1: is the wrong choice, but it's to assume that slowing
Speaker 1: down is the choice for everybody that is the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: So equally, to assume that staying in a similar career
Speaker 1: path is the right decision for everybody is also wrong.
Speaker 1: So what we need to do is enable people to
Speaker 1: look at what's really important for them and make choices
Speaker 1: that work for them and avoid making assumptions about what
Speaker 1: is best. So those are four pieces of advice and
Speaker 1: one not so good piece of advice to take on
Speaker 1: board to help you in your career. Hello there, that
Speaker 1: is it for today's show. If you enjoyed today's episode,
Speaker 1: why not share it with someone else that you think
Speaker 1: would benefit and maybe get some useful tips to improve
Speaker 1: the way that they work. How I Work is produced
Speaker 1: by Inventing and with production support from Dead Set Studios.
Speaker 1: And thank you to Martin Nimba who does the audio
Speaker 1: mix for every show and makes everything sound so much
Speaker 1: better than it would have otherwise. See you next time,