Sunday 23 December 2012

Mulled wine, police choppers and long walks ...

I have the most wonderful assistant. She's brutally honest and provided very clear boundaries when I was interviewing her. She said:

"I don't do: Christmas in July, Country (visits or the music), Late finishes - although very happy to do early starts, or Fancy Dress..."


I was not really after any of the above so she got the job. We've been getting along just fine in the 18 months or so that she's been working with us mainly due to my observation of her rules. So it was with some trepidation that I confessed to her that I had to attend a Medieval Themed Fancy Dress Banquet. Her opinion of me shattered, I vowed to make it a memorable night and truly show her that dressing up is indeed one of life's great pleasures.

To get my Medieval on, I borrowed a wenches dress. Yep - someone I know had one just hanging around and offered it... Sir Velence (the Propeller Head) looked resplendent in a Knights costume bought online, with chain mail, foam shield and a plastic sword. The kids wanted to be in on the action too. Max is never held back by convention. Or any other restraint really so he joined Oscar the dragon, Sir Velence and Lady Likesaslot as Buzz Lightyear for a quick family pic before we headed out for a night with the other Dungeons and Dragons support acts and a few gallons of mulled wine to make it all bearable.

The banquet had the potential to be great fun... If you enjoyed sword fights, suckling pig, candelabras, overflowing bosoms, goblets and Greensleeves... We were on the verge of having a brilliant time when I realised that we had hit the mulled wine pretty hard and should probably get out before the Chain Dancing started. This is where our trouble and brush with the law began...

Taxis don't visit Guildford after dark unless they are passing through on the way to the airport. Being a beautiful suburb wedged between Midland and Lockridge has never run in Guildford's favour and on this night, no taxis were running in our favour. We started walking in the general direction of 'home'.  After a few kilometres walking along the main road, we ditched plans for a taxi (along with sensibility  and decided that back streets would get us home quicker. The back streets of Bassendean, Ashfield and Bayswater had the occasional working streetlight and we had comfortable shoes on so we kept walking and walking and walking. Two guys came past on bikes (or one guy came past twice). Another person sat in the gutter with a backpack and didn't look up when we staggered by. Other than that, it was all rather quiet until about 15 mins from home and a police chopper shined its big yellow light down on us and started following.

We were very drunk and very tired by this stage. I was grateful for the assisted passage but really didn't think much of it until a police car and 2 officers pulled up within a couple of minutes. With their lights shining on our sweaty red  faces, Sir Velence was offered, "Good evening Sir - is there any reason you are dressed like that?". WTF? You mean people actually dress like this without a reason? I started rambling about dragons, damsels in distress and pitchers of mead... The cops didn't wait for an answer, took a brief look at my Knights blunt and obviously plastic sword, got back in their car, called off the helicopter search light and took off into the night.

Two hours after departing the banquet, we made it home and flopped into bed.

In between doses of panadol the next morning, I was curious about the police, so I had a look at the local news to see if there had indeed, been anything newsworthy happening in the hood last night. It turns out that yes - there was a service station hold up, by a man with a hood and a large knife. 

We were a block from a real and serious crime, yet in my lovely assistants eyes, the main crime committed was Fancy Dress. It will never happen again.






Sunday 9 December 2012

How to survive a plane crash

Fear of flying? No sir-ee. Not me. Not much scares me. 

Sharks do a bit... Bogan's put the wind up me too. Cancer would be quite scary. Public speaking is fine. Unless I imagine the audience naked... That's scary and the worse bit of advice I've ever heard. Spiders and snakes are creepy too.

Ok. So there a just a few things that scare me a little bit. But not flying in a plane. No fear. None.

Apologies in advance to those I've inflicted this story on before. Despite my claimed fearlessness, I've lived a fairly safe existence. No bungy jumping, sky diving, canyoning, drug addictions... So my near-death experience catalogue is a bit thin. Whenever I have to talk up the adventures of my youth, my plane crash story is about all I have to lean on. Here it is:




In 2003 I was in a light plane crash in the Pilbara. The plane was a Beechcraft Baron – there was the pilot and 4 passengers. I was sitting right down the back. It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It was hot and had been a long day. I nodded at all the right places during the safety briefing but was more concerned with finding a magazine for the 45 min run from Pannawonica to Karratha. 

The dirt runway was rough and there was a big cross wind so I sat back looking forward to getting in the air and levelling out. We were up and I was momentarily relieved to be off the runway when we were suddenly sideways – one of the engines had conked out. 

Then the other engine stalled and I found myself looking straight down a wing at rapidly approaching scrub. No one screamed. We just all looked down our wing pulling us back to the scrub and rocks on the edge of town. We were only metres, if that, from the tree tops when the pilot and plane managed to level out and we started  ploughing through the bush on the edge of town. 

I'd like to think that in the face of disaster, I am quick to respond and saved by intellect. But no.  I am however, a fast-follower. So when I saw the other passengers bracing, I thought I would too… We bumped along the ground for a few hundred metres losing propellers, undercarriage and a few other bits as we went. When we finally stopped, I again reverted to form and looked where the other passengers were escaping and followed – despite the fact that I was sitting adjacent to an emergency exit. 

The passenger I chose to follow was on the high end of 200 cm and 120 kg. He moved fast through that small emergency window though. In a manoeuvre something like a Fosbury Flop, he flung his frame out and on to the wing. I was so far up his bum trying to get out of there, I copped his size 11 in the chin on the way out. We ran like crazy, dusted ourselves off and thanked god (or science) that we had all made it relatively intact. Later found out that we shared a few broken ribs and collar bones but that’s tough miners for you…

I learnt something interesting about myself through this experience:

As the plane was crashing, I didn't fear death or injury. I didn't say a few last ditch prayers. I didn't scream. I simply remembered that I was going on break. There was another plane back at the terminal and that I’d get out of this mess … quickly … and get on the next plane out of there. Don't get between me and a holiday. 



Wednesday 5 December 2012

How I work...

There are A LOT more geeks out there than I thought. Special mention must go to the Lightsaber owner-drivers club. I'm growing my hair long for a Princess Leia style and will post photos...

Despite some suggestions for changes to my top 5, your geeky protestations have been deflected. My poster boy geeks remain Brian Cox,  Leonardo da Vinci, Professor Frink, Alexander Graham Bell and, of course, the Propeller head. 

Given that one is too famous, one is fictional and two are dead, I have to take daily geek direction from the Propeller head and last week he shared one of his geek heroes with me - Chris Anderson...This Chris Anderson, not to be confused with another Chris Anderson (the founder of TED) has done some very cool things like:
  1. Establish geekdad blog -  stuff for Dads (and Mums) to encourage the next gen geeks.
  2. Editor of some pretty influential magazines like Nature, New Scientist, Wired and The Economist.
  3. Founder of DIY Drones - yes that's right there is at least one other person on the planet besides the propeller head who is interested in building their own...
I particularly liked his article on how he gets things done. But I gather that the readers of my updates, while they love geeks, hold some firm views on overachievers so I thought I would compare his responses to ones I'd give... if anyone ever asked...


































The similarities in our office furnishings and blog names ('geekdad'...'mininmummy'...) are eerie. 

Besides that, there's not much though. So there you have it - he's a super influential,  successful geeks geek and I'm well um.... normal....


Sunday 25 November 2012

Drafting... not the drawing kind... the path of least resistance kind

Today I rode a bike further than I have ever achieved before... I'm not going to tell you how far I traveled but rest assured it was a looooooooooong way in a very small and impossibly hard saddle. I hurt. Really hurt. Others might have trained or at least, taken their husbands bike for a test ride around the block before taking on an event like the Santos Great Bike Ride but I live an exciting life of last minute decisions and ill-considered commitments and so I find myself exhausted and suffering this evening...

There were a few thousand people in the event so hopefully they are not all feeling the same as I owe several of them a debt of thanks for letting me ride behind them and reap the benefits of their hard work. Most of all I have to thank my good friend and ex job-share partner, Fern. I roped her in to the event and then proceeded to ride on her tail for most of the course. She's fun and generous and pretended not to be pulling me along. It was while we were in the second half of the ride that my mind briefly wandered from the intense pain I was suffering and I thought. "Oh no, Fern's propping me up again, just like at work. She's doing the hard yards and I'm just sitting back and going along for the ride". This doubting self-talk is not typical of me. I suspected low sugar levels so took one of the red snakes she passed over and a barley sugar for good measure.

Deciding that a fit of depression was only going to add more misery to an already insufferable ride, I decided to think about all the good reasons for drafting. It's benefits are obvious in bike riding - when a steaming peloton comes shooting past -  but I think there are benefits in the office too. Here they are:


  1. It's efficient:  NASA said one of its F/A-18 test aircraft had a 29% fuel savings by flying in the wingtip vortex of a DC-8. So if you are feeling tired, burnt out and frustrated, find the closest office DC-8 and hook on. A surefire way to get you re-energized and you'll use less sick leave.
  2. Drafting is co-operative: if we take turns in the lead position and work together, we can actually be greater than the sum of our parts.
  3. It can also be a bit competitive or tactical: stay close behind your competitors  leaving yourself  more energy for a break-away push to the finish line when they have made a wrong move.
Be careful though. 

Having been at the back end of a peloton once that exploded into a sea of limbs, water bottles and falling bikes, I narrowly escaped with shot nerves and the sad realisation that there are no free lunches. If you are going to hook on to the back of superheros you better be prepared to get up the front occasionally or crash spectacularly with them...

Saturday 17 November 2012

How to be average ...

I know a few over-achievers. They are amazing people. Their efforts to save the less fortunate, climb mountains, excel in their careers, raise multiple children and look brilliant every day are worthy of note. They share their wisdom and then gush about our own (more mundane) achievements. They are put out there to set the example and shine a light on the hill for the rest of us but to be brutally honest, I am so over over-achievers. Their tales don't resinate. Their integrity is disconcerting, almost creepy. Their achievements are overwhelming and probably unattainable...

Sour grapes? No. Over-achievers contribute to society, their industries and families in ways I can't begin to emulate. I am thankful for their efforts but I don't want to be anything like them.

I think it's because I love 'average', most people I know are average and have average aspirations. After my friends have had a few drinks and tell me the things they like about me -It's normally just after I have slurred "I love you guys"... I'm often told I'm accessible. I take this as 'average' not, well umm, accessible...

Average is good. No great. It is to be revelled in. Do you want an easy and enjoyable life? Then harness your 'average'. 

It's good to be average at school because the teachers will be focussed on the naughty kids at the back and the naughty kids at the back will be focussed on the nerds at the front. Average school students can go a remarkably long way by just sitting in the middle and leaving them to it.

Its good to be average at the doctors, too. No one goes to the doctor wanting high blood pressure or low. We want to be told we are just like everyone else. Skin, weight, lumps and bumps. All average. Yippee..

I'm happy with my average family. No early starts for gifted children to get to tennis lessons or maths advanced tuition. No letters from the headmaster on delinquent behaviour. Two very average little boys is perfectly adequate. 

Average shoe size and dress size. Fine for buying whatever you want. In this case, there is a caveat on my push for average, it's perfect before the sales... Any woman who has scoured the bargain bins at the David Jones post-Christmas sales will not doubt have rued their average status when a fabulous pair of Jimmy Choo's was a available in size 11 only or those gorgeous Sass and Bide jeans were drastically reduced in size 4 (!!!!) .

Average at work...? Often neglected while we focus on the superstars and under-performers, but absolutely essential. Who else is going to keep the business running? Average employees are competent and comply with their terms of employment. They grease the machine and should be thanked. They don't tend to mess up their work life balance and don't darken your door with requests for their next promotion. More please.

So put down your book on Richard Branson, unsubscribe to your motivational podcasts and take a good look at your neighbours, peers and friends with small paunches, noisy kids and regular jobs. They (you) deserve a hearty thanks for being average.

PS... The other caveat on average. Best disguised at performance review time..



Saturday 10 November 2012

Why I love geeks .. every single spotty, speccied, stuttering one of them...

On Thursday night the absolutely delectable Brian Cox was talking on the 7:30 report. When I should have been hearing him say: 
"I actually think it's the Higgs Boson and the Higgs Boson seems esoteric sometimes when you talk about it, but this is a theory that's been around since the '60s and the proposal is almost bizarre - is that less than a billionth of a second after the universe began something condensed out into empty space and it’s the Higgs field. It's almost as if you could say this space now (holding hands in front of himself) is full of Higgs particles, really full of them. There's actually more energy in one cubic metre of space due to the Higgs field than the Sun outputs in 1,000 years. Bizarre theory. But the theory is that things get mass by bumping into those Higgs particles, by interacting with them, so rattling around, if you like, in this empty space."

All I heard was:
"I actually think it's the Higgs Boson blah, blah, blah, billionth of a second after the universe began blah, blah, blah is full of Higgs particles, really full of them. There's more energy in blah blah blah, interacting with them, so rattling around, if you like, in this empty space."

My reaction shocked me. Instead of listening intently to the wonders of smashing particles together and the discovery of the Higgs boson particle, I was gazing at this divine creature of science like a star struck tween watching her first Justin Bieber interview.

It got me thinking about geeks in my life and how brilliant they are. For a start, there is the Propeller head and father of our two children. Then there are the brilliant people I work with every day, solving difficult problems and doing more for the advancement of the mining industry than some of our so called leaders. I quickly realised that I love geeks. Does this make me a geek too? Those of you tuned into Big Brother on Thursday night rather than the 7:30 report will probably think I am but I'll use the following as my defense: 

Reasons why I don't think I'm a geek:
  1. I know nothing about Star Trek. Almost nothing anyway. There are Cling Ons I think? But I don't know much more than that. In fact I just looked up cling on and discovered that they are actually Klingons.. Sorry nerds...
  2. I've never read the Hobbit. I know that they are small. Do they have pointy ears like the people on Star Trek? Perhaps they are related somehow?
  3. I don't know the difference between C++ and Java. It seems strange to name one coffee based on it's origin and the other after the average grade on my primary school reports though.
  4. I hate hate hate hate hate role playing games. In fact dressing up for a Medieval Night Ball  a few months ago was terrifying. There is no visible difference between that and mock sword fights or playing Dungeons and Dragons. 
  5. And, I'm too scatterbrained and impulsive to be a geek. Learning how to use a 16 sided dice, write in PHP or sit through all the Star Trek movies requires patience and concentration. I was provided a low dose in both...
Having established, conclusively, my credentials as 'not a geek', I feel I can objectively share my top 5 geeks:

Brian Cox
What I really love about this particular geek is his enthusiasm and passion for science. He smiles when he talks and he wants us to be as excited about smashing particles together as he is. I still don't get what he's talking about but he makes me want to. Judging by his Twitter profile there's about a million other people who find him just as nerdilly spectacular as me.

Leonardo da Vinci
Surely the king of geeks. Sculptor, musician,  mathematician, botanist, writer, geologist (!!!), architect, painter, artist, poet, scientist and engineer! No wonder Mona Lisa is smirking. Those super-strong connections between his left and right brain dreamed up helicopters and solar power about 500 years before we really needed them!

Professor Frink (the Simpsons)
Every town needs a Professor Frink. While he invented a death ray, he didn't really want to use it. His other brilliant gems include a house that sprouts legs and runs away when burglars arrive and hamburger earmuffs. 

Alexander Graham Bell
Without the phone, would we have the smart phone? I rest my case. 

The Propeller head
The man responsible for introducing me (well introducing me to their ideas anyway) to the wonderful contribution of geeks is my husband the Propeller head. He is the only person to have ever said "when nano-bots take over the world' at a dinner party" and managed further invites. His hobbies include building drones and working on the next 'big app'.


Geeks change our world in wonderful ways and I love them all.

I salute you geeks. Make that a Vulcan Salute! 




Sunday 4 November 2012

Engagement part 2

Sunday is traditionally a great day for confessions... So here's mine.... I wrote Engagement part 1 in an attempt to drag myself out of my pit of despair... it was a great exercise because it made me realise that engagement is a choice.

Having just returned form holidays to a tonne of work, end of year targets and a long time until the next holiday, I was doing a bit too much moaning... Everyone I was talking to (or moaning to) agreed politely that the structure, culture, cost saving, project list, blah blah blah were all making us feel disengaged. It took a respected peer to say "you're not real happy are you Lucy" to make me reflect that I was sounding just a bit negative... a misery guts... So I did some navel gazing new millennium-style and looked up 'Engagement' on the web.

I fully expected to see all the great reasons for having engaged employees:

  • Companies with engaged employees have 52% higher performance operating income than those with low engagement scores*
  • Companies with high levels of employee engagement improved 19.2% in operating income while companies with low levels of employee engagement declined 32.7%*
  • Companies with both highly aligned cultures and highly aligned innovation strategies have 17% higher profit growth than companies with low degrees of alignment**
  • Engaged employees are more likely to promote your organisation, your products, have less sickies and innovate.

The thing that grabbed me though, was an article about getting on with it and working with whatever culture you have. http://www.strategy-business.com/article/11108?gko=f4e8d

Lots of us complain about poisonous cultures and the resultant lack of engagement. This turns the defeatist argument on it's head.


*Towers Perrin-ISR (2006) The ISR Employee Engagement Report
**Strategy + Business:The Global Innovation 1000: Why Culture Is Key, Oct 2011

Ps.. If anyone catches me moaning about work this week, you have my permission to beat me around with a hard copy of the attached.

It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

Anyone who has worked with me would have heard me use the expression "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission".This little gem is whipped out frequently, either to give guidance to team members or to excuse myself for making independent decisions. It's effective.. most of  the time...

Working for a pretty conservative organisation made me somewhat nervous about the application of this wisdom until I read something a few years ago from Colin Powell: 


“You know the expression – it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission. Well it’s true. Good leaders don’t wait for official blessing to try things out. They are prudent, not reckless. But they also realize a fact of life in most organisations: if you ask enough people for permission, you will inevitably come up against someone who believes their job is to say ‘no’. So the moral is ‘don’t ask’. Less effective middle managers endorse the sentiment “if I haven’t specifically been told ‘yes,’ then I can’t do it,” whereas the good ones believed “if I haven’t explicitly been told ‘no,’ then I can”. There is a world of difference between these two points of view.”

Who am I to disagree with a four star general? Using the 'Powell defence' enables me to get things done in a large organisation. I've crashed a few times though and have leaned heavily on the 'forgiveness' side of the expression...

Every day we are presented with opportunities to use our judgment. So use it. Weigh up the threats and opportunities and be bold in your decision making. No change or innovation comes from sitting on your good ideas. The resources industry is changing rapidly and with good planning and confidence your decisions will shape the future.

Thursday 1 November 2012

Engagement (part 1)

Sometimes I feel incredibly disengaged with work. I'll sit in meetings nodding and smiling at my colleagues but really I am thinking "how the hell can I get out of here and do something more interesting?" I had a particularly harrowing meeting a few months ago that coincided with my 4 year olds kindy concert. At the time of dropping my son off, I was not at all concerned about missing a bunch of kindy kids go through the noise and painful antics of "ag-a-doo-doo-doo, push pineapple, shake the tree,.. ." It took an arrogant peer dismissing some work that I'd done, feeling that I was being let down on a change I was pushing through and HR bogging me down in a policy point impacting my team that made me really question why I was at work...

That night I gave the propellor head a full debrief. He gave me a glass of wine. I went through all the usual wine-fired planning sessions (buy a newsagent, start consulting (what?), move to the big Australian, be a stay at home mum and adjust lifestyle accordingly,...). I then enjoyed the rest of the weekend. 

By Monday I was back in meetings nodding and smiling...

The fact is I did not really want to quit. I just wanted to enjoy what I was doing and make a difference. I wanted to feel engaged.

Here's some research on engagement:

  • Engaged people have less than half the sick leave of the disengaged*
  • Engaged employees are 87 less likely to leave the organisation than the disengaged**
Changing the organisation around me to make employees feel more engaged is a task for those with more influence and determination than me. Here's what I do for me when I am feeling disengaged:
  • Talk to people, and work on projects where individuals feel excited, happy to share and enthusiastic. It rubs off.
  • Its very tempting to grizzle to colleagues and most of the time they'll grizzle back. It's fun for a while but still leaves you in a pit of despair.
  • Think of all the jobs worse than my own. I don't mean sewer repairs but other corporate jobs like mine that I still wouldn't want.
  • Keep smiling and nodding your head... something better will happen soon...

Having engaged employees is good for business too. I'll cover that in part 2!

*CBI-AXA (2007), Annual Absence and LabourTurnover Survey
**Corporate Leadership Council, Corporate Executive Board (2004)’Driving Performance and Retention through Employee Engagement: a quantitative analysis of effective engagement strategies’ 





Tuesday 30 October 2012

Pitching for flexible work

Pitching yourself for flexible work arrangements  

It took a phone call from a colleague to make me realise some possibilities in this space…
I was about 6 hours from catching a plane to Queensland for a family holiday. Those of you with children will know the military operation that is travelling with children: portacot, nappies times 50 in the suitcase and carry on, wipes, wipes, wipes, spare outfits, sleeping cloths, swimming clothes and clothes clothes. Sunscreen, nappy rash cream, baby toothpaste and toothbrushes. Pureed food, breast milk, formula, rusks, a blanket for the plane, pram, car seats….

Anyway. This friend of mine had seen a GM job advertised and she thought we should apply for it. I always thought that you got tapped on the shoulder for these types of roles and was not losing any sleep waiting on the tap. She thought we should apply. I didn’t really think about it at first. I simply wanted to get back to packing so I said, I’ve got nothing to lose but no time to think this through. How about you write a letter and send my cv. We’ll see what happens….
I went on holidays and forgot about it.

When I got back, I discovered that I had secured an interview. It was time to start thinking and preparing my convincing career business case.
All great partnerships come when you are greater than the sum of your parts. So I worked on a pitch that described that. For the price of one general manager, Rio Tinto was going to get:
  • Over 40 years experience
  • 2 MBA’s
  • Degrees in economics and mining engineering
Experience in operations, studies, finance and approvals


Your experiences and opportunities will be different but my recommendations on writing your own career business case would go like this:


Be open with your strengths and interests. No one does a job well that bores them.
  1. Don’t be afraid of a non-conforming bid. It may be just what your business needs.
  2. Build your network and gather ideas from others to find out what has worked for them.
  3. Be sure to put a win-win case together. The best outcomes for you and your organisation will be the ones that you are both happy with.
Good luck!

Sunday 28 October 2012

Diversity


What about workplace diversity? I have just read the recent Human Rights Commission recent report into treatment of Women in the Defence Force. I am sure that you have your own views on this from experiences that I have never had but this is my take:

I wholly agree with one of the Principles outlined for success: Diversity of leadership increases capability. I have seen this first hand. As a leader of improvement for one of the world’s largest mining companies I see diversity of thought building long lasting and stable improvements in all processes. This is not achieved by ticking a box though…

□ Female

□ Homosexual

□ Aboriginal

□ Old

□ Disabled….

It is about understanding and including different norms and values. While this range of thinking is theoretically possible with say ‘a group of with middle class 40 year old mining engineers’, your chances of diverse thinking are far greater with a mix.
So – do we need targets? 

I guess the perfect answer is no. Every organisation understands that it will perform at its best, with sound decisions and high performance by seeking out the widest possible range of thinkers to deliver for them. It’s very hard to do this though in organisations with strong traditions. The norms are so often built around a very narrow determination of merit. My belief is that some organisations at some times, will require targets if only to wedge in some individuals with different backgrounds and experiences to support the organisation while its traditions and norms change.

What about not being the best 'man' for the job?

So if an organisation has targets, the immediate concern to many individuals is that there will be preferential treatment, and a weakening of the fabric of the organisation. Let me be very clear that all promotions and appointment should be based on merit. The advice I give all women in my industry is that they must pitch their skills and attributes to the organisation well. Merit can have a broad definition and so it should. You need to ask yourself: are there any particular skills you bring to your organisation that others aren't quite as good at?

In my case, it is relationship building, collaboration and networking. I am great at finding common points of view, building strong teams and connecting the right people together to make change. So while I know I am not the best mining engineer based on a purely technical assessment, I know that I have been appointed based on merit.

Workplace flexibility

My concerns with workplace flexibility became most significant when I was pregnant with my first child. Although Rio had generous maternity leave provisions for the time, I assumed that my career would stall when kids came along. I thought that you applied for maternity leave, had a baby, came back after a year or so in some sort of part time position that was not quite as interesting as your pre-maternity role and did it all again in a year or two. It was talking to women who’d been there before me that opened my eyes to new possibilities. They told me about contract work from home while on maternity leave that could slowly build up as the baby got older. They told me about negotiating so that my bonuses and entitlements were not adversely affected. They gave me the confidence to pitch for the work I could do that would be interesting and add to my development. 

When considering children, you don’t need to accept a career standstill – unless that’s what you want. We are lucky to be working in dynamic times; use your imagination to pitch your skills and limited availability at work that will stimulate you and add to your development. One of the women who had been there before me and gave me great advice was my good friend and the other half of the general manager business improvement at Rio Tinto iron ore, Fern Dyball. We were the first women to be promoted in a job share capacity at senior level in the organisation. Our great opportunity did not come by passively waiting to be anointed. We both demonstrated flexibility and determination to prove to Rio Tinto that job works at senior levels. Like all great partnerships, we work incredibly hard to have a consistent message and support the development of our team.

My experiences with workplace flexibility can be summarised as:

  1. Use your network when considering a family and seek advice from those that have been there before you. 
  2. Know that women have only been in mining  a relatively short time and our organisations are still learning – this provides you with an opportunity to shape new and exciting workplace flexibility.
  3. Never accept … “You are the right person for the job… it’s just that we want full time…” when there are great examples out there supporting flexible work practices.

Let’s be honest though. Flexibility is the bit that best for you. If you want a promotion or great work arrangements, you have to think of it from the organisations point of view. What do they get?

In the case of job share: Through experience at doing this at a senior level, I know Rio Tinto got great value. Because of our diverse background, skills and interest, Fern and I were actually greater than the sum of our parts. We knew we would be and we pitched accordingly.

Jobs for girls...


Growing up on the farm and without brothers, it simply never occurred to me that some jobs just weren't for girls. I was clearly naive. While studying mining engineering at Wollongong in NSW, I was stunned when told that women were not welcome at the local underground coal mines. In fact, I did not believe it until my first excursion when I was told to wait outside the crib room while all of my peers went in for a lunch, lest I be offended by the pictures of nude women plastered all over the crib room walls. 

At the time I accepted this treatment as just part of the workplace. I didn't mind eating my sandwiches alone under my cap light. I didn't mind always having to wear ill-fitting men’s PPE because women’s PPE simply did not exist. I didn't mind the liberal use of the c word or the fact that I could not use a toilet until well outside the mine and into the sanctuary of the admin office. In fact, I thought it was all rather exciting and went along with it in good humour.

It’s only in recent years that I look back on this sexism and gratefully acknowledge how far the industry has come. I don’t consider myself a trail blazer – greater women and men than me effected these changes, but I have spent a lot of time talking to other women in the industry about their experiences and challenges. These conversations have shaped my career and the role I am in now.

Looking after each other



When a colleague has a rolled ankle or a head cold, we are really good at making them feel comfortable – here, would you like a chair, a glass of water, I’ve got some panadol in my bag… We are not so brilliant at spotting and caring for our friends, family and colleagues who have less visible signs of distress though. It’s incredibly hard to start a conversation like ‘you seem a bit unfocused  do you want to talk?”. It’s even harder to call your boss and say that you won’t be in because you just can’t drag yourself out of your bed and you don’t know why you feel so blue. It should not be this hard! One in 5 people will suffer from depression. It is common and it is treatable but the consequences of ignoring it can be catastrophic.
I have had two friends take their own lives and I get mad as hell when I think that it was so preventable. One of these friends was the most gorgeous, talented and gregarious mining engineers I had ever met. Her laugh would shake the roof tiles off. Despite all this she took her life.

For eleven years she has been gone and not a week goes by when I don’t wonder about what she knew about depression, its prevalence and treatment options. It was never something we discussed…

As a leader, peer, subordinate, relation or friend I don’t hesitate to now say “Are you ok?”