Workplace mentors can work miracles

The key to getting ahead is bouncing ideas off someone you can trust.

Stephanie Christopher is the Australian and New Zealand chief executive of The Executive Connection.

If a business leader wants to succeed, the most important advice Stephanie Christopher has is to encourage them to find a mentor and a peer group to share ideas.

Christopher, who took on the role of chief executive at The Executive Connection 10 months ago, says there can be nothing more valuable than having a group to share ideas with — whether that includes constructive criticism or reinforcement.

“It’s about questioning your decision-making, who can you bounce ideas off, who can you trust,” she says. “My advice would be to find a mentor, find someone who you trust and who can be a confidant, and who can be a bit tough on you. There’s also more and more value in a peer group.”

TEC was founded in the US in 1957 as a forum to share ideas and to help peers solve business and management-related problems.

Australian businessman Phil Meddings moved to the US in the 1980s and became president of TEC in 1985. He started an Australian chapter the next year with just six members.

The Australian and New Zealand chapter now has more than 1200 members and there are close to 20,000 worldwide.

Group members attend monthly half or full-day sessions, where they listen to a guest speaker on topics from recruitment to strategic planning, and spend time within a mentor group discussing business challenges and ideas.

“When you present an issue to a group or your mentor they will hold you accountable and offer a diversity of ideas,” Christopher says. “If you’ve got 15 of your peers, when someone presents an issue, the number of inputs you’re getting, it’s pretty tough sometimes and the ramifications can be big.”

She has always sought mentors during her executive career, which began about 15 years ago.

Management was not Christopher’s forte, given she studied speech pathology at university and considered studying law.

With women gravitating to law, medicine, teaching or the allied health professions, she found herself following a similar career trajectory to her friends.

Although allied health seems a long way from executive leadership, she found speech pathology and working with clients and in small teams taught her valuable skills. “It taught me how to ask open questions, how much you speak compared to the people who you interview,” she says.

“You’re leading a team and working in cross-functional teams, figuring out what was the issue and what therapy was needed. Learning active listening was also important, and learning that as a module as part of a course.

“Years and years later people are still talking about active listening and even in my MBA, it was a part of that.”

While working in speech pathology, Christopher began to lean towards leadership and took on roles such as president of the speech pathologists association in NSW. She was on national committees and became a spokeswoman for medico-legal issues.

The adrenalin fuelled her interest in the profession, but she came to realise there was more to learn in different fields of business.

In the late 90s she left the private practice she was working in and spent two years as the business manager for her husband’s airconditioning company.

From there she thought an executive role was worth pursuing and won her first position at a company specialising in returning injured workers to the job.

After studying for an MBA — which was critical in enabling her to shift from a clinical role to an executive position — Christopher moved to psychometric assessment organisation SHL, which was later bought out by CEB.

Mid-last year, Christopher was headhunted to lead TEC.

“I loved the smarts of the organisation and I loved the global connections,” she says.

“The shift to chief executive was appealing, and finding it was part of a large global network ticked all of the boxes.”

In her time at TEC Christopher plans to work with her international partners to improve the business nous of her Australian members, improve connections between people in different industries and encourage gender diversity — including having women take the lead as mentors.

TEC members represent all types of businesses, she says, from companies with a turnover of $1 million to those that turn over $500m.

Its success lies in bringing ­together ­diverse members, whether it be high-net-worth individuals or small company executives, to ­discuss ideas and to problem shoot.

“Everything is confidential. People will say they’re planning an expansion or they’ve hit a fin­ancial hurdle. It’s about supporting each other, being held accountable, being challenged, and that all speaks to the whole idea of the isolation and loneliness of a chief executive.”

Loneliness also can be a significant concern for chief executives, who, says Christopher, often can feel isolated, have the weight of expectation on their shoulders and have few peers to talk to.

At a breakfast seminar earlier this month, Christopher says, as soon as she mentioned the word loneliness, there were nods around the room. It is an unspoken concern rarely raised.

“It’s absolutely most important to have a peer network. Even through my career it’s been important to find a peer network and it can be a challenge at times but extremely helpful,” she says.

A mentor often has walked in the same shoes as a chief executive and can teach — whether it be a high turnover or having exper­ience managing a high number of staff.

Christopher says TEC will find the right fit for a mentoring group for each new member, but the group is often likelier to decide whether their interests align.

“The dynamic of the group is really powerful. The trust of that group when you see it in action, whoever comes in, it’s important that they’re going to be a good fit.”