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Every Sunday morning Gerry would be waiting for my brother and me. Our Grandfather. There’d be a glass of lemonade, 5¢ and a chocolate Freddo Frog. It was always the same routine. We’d walk to Auntie Elsie’s, the Milk Bar lady. I could buy whatever I wanted with my 5¢. It was always a small Kit Kat for me. Gerry would take us the long way home. Showing us his favorite gardens in the neighbourhood. He taught me to love nature. To love flowers. He’d point out the camellias, daffodils, jasmine, poppies, snapdragons and occasional garden gnomes. The pleasure in small things. Gerry knew how to take the time to stop and smell the roses. I still love it. Walking around the neighborhood, any neighborhood, sneaking a peek into gardens. Seeing how many flowers I can actually name.   But what if you don’t have time because you’re working too much? It’s easy for your ambition to get in the way of your wellbeing. You can end up working too much. Running yourself ragged and burning out. Even when you know you’ll be no good to anyone. Especially yourself. Sometimes it’s not even your choice. The work demands it. Your

I’m a slasher. Not by design. I’ve had seven major slashes over my career. Here’s a few: management consultant / market researcher / lecturer / counsellor / executive coach That’s not counting all the different jobs in between. Twice retrenched. I was one of those people who never knew what they wanted to do when they grew up. So I went from job to job. Some even lasted a few years. Some call it a portfolio career. Sounds nicer. More professional. Interview-worthy. But it also sounds too buttoned up. Neat. It doesn’t capture the torture of the in-between. That time when you know it’s time to move and you’re not sure of your best next steps. There’s the fear of the unknown. The frustration of having to pick yourself up, yet again. The uncertainty of whether it’ll work out or not. As an old hand at next steps, it doesn’t matter that you don’t know what you want to do. What matters is: Finding a way to tolerate the ambiguity and uncertainty. Doing something constructive with your time so that you’re hoarding skills. Forever learning.   This, as it turns out, is what Robert Safian, editor-in-chief and managing director at

Go figure! Thanks to LinkedIn, I’ve reconnected with my kindergarten boyfriend (KB). My parents called him that. Our Dads were friends (I think they were hopeful). Down one of those hip Melbourne laneway hideaways, over a latte, just last week we picked up where we left off. A lot of years have gone by and it was great to see him. KB’s had a brilliant career. But being CEO can be pretty stressful too. I had to ask… Most recently it was when his company merged with a listed company. It was a good idea at the time. Actually a great one, financially. But after only a few short years there’s been a ‘conscious uncoupling’. And some argy bargy disentangling the assets. KB said the most stressful part was that they had philosophical differences. He couldn’t reconcile maximising short-term shareholder value over doing what he feels is right. Listed companies exist to maximise shareholder value. KB’s values are in: Doing work that makes a difference even though it may not make a quick profit, or a profit at all. Looking after their long-standing and loyal staff.   For the listed company, this is only business. For KB, this isn’t only

Sitting in the day oncology room last Friday with the IV in his arm he thought “at least I didn’t get dealt the teenage cancer card”. Not like the girl in the big aeroplane-like seat next to him. With her Mum sitting anxiously by her side with a Tupperware container of snacks for the day. “I’ve really got nothing to complain about”, he tells himself. “I’m not 60 for a few years yet.” My friend John was fine until 2am Saturday. It’s a known side effect. The pain. Not everyone gets it. He’s following instructions but… You know how it is… we always want to ‘do’ something. Thank goodness for email. Not that he expected a reply at 2am. But he got one at 5:45am! John’s relieved. His oncologist gives him a plan. All will be fine. For John. For now. But is the oncologist working too much? What’s he doing replying to emails at 5:45am on Saturday morning? No wonder he’s looking ‘grey’. Then there’s Jane. She works hard. But her boss has decided that it’s a bad look for her to leave early to pick her kids up from school. It doesn’t matter that she’s sitting at her kitchen table after

Ever known a set of twins you can’t tell apart? We were office neighbours. Every day I’d pop by to say ‘Hi’ but it took me four years to tell who was who. They’d had this their whole life. Just like the Bananas in Pyjamas, these human B1s and B2s grew up with their names embroidered on their school jumpers. It’s hard enough to get noticed for our uniqueness without being identical twins! I hadn’t seen the twins for a while – until last weekend. And last weekend I also saw Pitch Perfect 2. Featuring the all girl Barden Bellas a capella group. Two group members, Jessica and Ashley are indistinguishable. That’s the gag. No-one can tell them apart. They’re not even sisters, let alone twins! Why don’t people know who they spend so much time with? So my Qs for you are: Are you known for what you want to be known for? And do the right people know? It’s not enough to do a good job. Results matter but they don’t speak for themselves. You have to speak up for you. And you want to get the right people speaking for you too (aka sponsors). Here are three tips to get

This week Jane was saying that even though she’s underpaid at her newish workplace, she likes it because it’s “teamly”. Everyone, including The Big Cheese (AKA Kerry) has taken a salary freeze for the last couple of years. No exceptions. Nobody likes it and they’re hopeful things will turn around soon. But if nothing else, that’s teamly. In her last job Jane worked horrendous hours. She was working at work and then working at home … into the wee hours of the night too. She’d forgotten how to have a weekend! But at this organisation… Kerry says “Go home” at 5pm. All her colleagues say “Go Home!” too. They can see Jane needs help with that. And they help her. That’s teamly. What’s more, when Jane had too much on her plate, more than the need to work late occasionally… Kerry said: “Let’s look at your workload”. and he took some work from her! He knows that a healthy and happy staff member is more important for the organisation in the long run. Happy staff = happy clients = happy bottom line. That’s smart. That’s teamly. You won’t find the word ‘teamly’ in the Oxford English Dictionary. But it is in the Urban Dictionary.

We stood in awe of his performance. He beamed as we applauded. But he truly shone when he played his cello. Steven Isserlis is one of the world’s leading cellists. As Dick said when we had a drink after the performance: “I’ve never seen anyone love playing their music as much as Steven”. At first I thought about how amazing it would be to have someone as engaged as Steven on your team. Someone with unbelievable talent and skill. Someone who infects everyone around him with his passion and pleasure for his work. Plus, his output is sublime. Leadership Tip 1: hire right. Leadership Tip 2: create opportunities to showcase your great work to an appreciative audience. Then I thought about how amazing his storytelling was. Yes, they do that these days at classical performances. Steven told us the story of how the composer Thomas Ades challenged him. Steven told Thomas words to the effect that his music wasn’t for cello. Thomas replied, “I’ll have to find another cellist then”. That meant game on for Steven. For us it meant the performance was that much more meaningful and compelling when we listened to his feats of technical brilliance. Leadership Tip 3: use storytelling for

There’s something about the chocolate, coconut, sponge cake and jam combo of a lamington. I love this Aussie treat. It seems that keeping anything with chocolate on my Don’t Do list is futile. Does only having half (Sally ate the other half) today count? Of course not. Sticking to your To Do list (the top 5 things you’re going to do… and do them really well) is difficult. The Don’t Do’s are all the other things that didn’t make the final cut of the To Do list. You’d still like to do them. So they’re tempting and distracting. It’s about saying “No”. Sally was telling me how she’d reluctantly said “Yes” and was suffering for it. It related to her Don’t Do at work list. Her colleague Bob asked her to take on some of his load. Unfortunately she briefly forgot herself and said “Yes”. Sally had her part-time job set up just right. Until then… It never occurred to her that she had an option when Bob asked her to “do her a favour”. Why didn’t she feel she had a choice? Why did she put Bob first? He’s not even her boss. He’s a peer. I asked her, “What do you think would

Team leadership The “pub test” is Australian slang. It is a metaphorical test that seeks to evaluate the thoughts and opinions of ordinary Australians, and apply them in judging potentially dubious activities by others.   Years ago we came home to find Picnic (our dog) licking his lips. The roast chicken that had been resting on the kitchen bench all ready for our dinner had disappeared. Picnic had a sheepish look. We’d been gone for under ten minutes. And now the dilemma… What punishment, if any, matches this crime? One that would pass the pub test. It was our fault, afterall. We should have put Picnic out. In our defence, we had never seen Picnic on the kitchen bench and didn’t know he could get up there. Still, it was like we’d set Picnic up to disappoint us. He’s a dog after all. Just doing what dogs do. I’m telling you this because as a leader, if you don’t set your people up for success with clear roles and boundaries, the right tools and support, you might end up with the work equivalent of a dog on the bench situation and no dinner for yourself too.   When role requirements change

Last weekend I felt the wash of shame. It was while having lunch with my Mum and about 12 of her tennis pals after their game. A glass of unordered champagne arrives. I look up bewildered and Lou who’s on the other side of me says: “It’s from me. I’ve brought us all champagne to celebrate my new knee”. We toast the titanium and rubber. We chat about the knee for a while. It’s amazing to think that Lou’s walking again, in less pain and it’s not even two weeks since the replacement. Then Mum and I talk about where we’ll go for an upcoming family birthday celebration (mine). You’d think that was bad enough. Discussing something that excludes everyone around us. It gets worse. We put our smartphones to work and started surfing where to go. At the table. That was until I was shocked out of my selfish, surfing vortex. Lou eventually said: “It’s very rude”. She was right. Shame washed over me. It’s not just at lunch. That vortex of distraction and the challenge to stay focussed and present is ever present and everywhere. There’ll never be enough time for everything. Let alone energy and bandwidth. So why