Me and My Mentor. Norah Breekveldt
Читать онлайн книгу.
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 to your family and generations to come to do something worthwhile with that education. My parents sacrificed their own careers by moving to Australia so that we, their children, could have a better life. This sacrifice came with an implied responsibility, that the good education I was given be used to carve out a better life for myself and generations to come, and that studying hard and building a successful career was the path to such prosperity.
The power of one
My parents often remind me of my passion to lead as a young child—being the class prefect at school, being in charge and bossing my friends around, and telling everyone what to do. Then, for the first time, when I arrived in Australia I had difficulty assimilating at school and for a while I totally lost my confidence. I was first enrolled in a school where I was the only non-Anglo Saxon student in a school full of Anglo Saxon boys and girls where my differences—e.g. my accent (which was hard to pinpoint given the diversity of education I had already received), cultural habits (bringing Indian food to school was quite peculiar) and desire to be competitive in the classroom (I found it bizarre that there were no exams at primary school level)—I believe, damaged by self confidence. I subsequently moved to Cheltenham Primary School (a credit to my father who saw how miserable I was) and went on to Macrobertson Girls High School, both schools where there were many students from diverse cultural backgrounds, and suddenly I wasn’t the only different girl anymore, and I flourished again. I recall one teacher at Cheltenham Primary in particular, who took an interest in me, recognised my potential and instilled in me the confidence to overcome my apprehensions and insecurities. Almost overnight I totally changed, reverting back to my natural leadership talents and within six months I became school captain. Restoring my confidence in this way was an incredible legacy left by that one teacher.
‘You must meet Ruby. She’s done it all.’
I always wanted to be a lawyer from a very young age and I followed that dream. After graduating my law degree I began working at Corrs, a large commercial law firm. It was here where I confided to Randell, a work colleague, friend and mentor, about my aspiration to facilitate mentoring opportunities for women with diverse cultural backgrounds. The initiative, the Diverse Women’s Mentoring Association (DWMA), was launched in 2017 but back then it was still a dream. At the same time, I had just been offered the role of a Judge’s Associate and was contemplating whether this would be the best next career move for me. After confiding in Randell about these dilemmas he told me: ‘You must meet this neighbour of mine, called Ruby. She has a very similar cultural background and upbringing to you.’ He had been talking about Ruby all year, and would speak very highly of her: ‘She’s done it all, is a bit older than you and has a very successful career. She might be a good person for you to get to know’ he said.
It was as simple as connecting with Ruby on LinkedIn and the relationship immediately blossomed. The hallmark of our relationship is minimal rules; other than agreeing to confidentiality, meeting regularly and me coming prepared, the relationship has been shaped by my particular circumstances and needs at the time.
I have had the benefit of many professional mentors throughout my career and I credit much of my success to their influence.