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