Margaret Byrne is the Principal Consultant for UGM Consulting. UGM works with clients in the corporate, public and NFP sectors. Those clients are interested in new ways of working that will make a measurable difference to their business. This article explores Margaret’s experience with a business mentor and outlines how a mentor helped her to acquire more self-confidence and self-belief.
I wanted to leave teaching and start a business that brought values to life for people and their organisations.
I really wanted to use my talents to make a difference in people’s lives. We all have different things we are good at and different passions in life. Mine is around people and organisations. After all, these days we all spend so much of our lives working. Our workplace should be a community where we feel we belong and can contribute. At the time I decided to go into business, I was teaching in a TAFE college and motivated by just the same things that motivate me now. One evening I had been working late and walked down a long corridor towards the exit and the car park. The corridor was in semi-darkness and I think I was the last person in the building that evening. A single light shone on a poster at the end of the corridor.
Change the world – one heart at a time.
It said, ‘Change the world – one heart at a time.‘ I stopped in my tracks. It was as if this was a message to me – putting into words what I wanted my life to be about. But then I thought, ‘Yes, teaching is all about trying your best to have a positive impact on people, one heart at a time. But how many hearts can you reach even over a whole career?’ That’s the practical Scot talking! I decided there and then that I wanted to leave teaching and start a business that brought values to life for people and their organisations. In this way, I wanted to do my best to reach many hearts at a time.
But what did I have to offer and who knew me? How could I start a consultancy business from scratch?
I thought long and hard over that weekend. I came up with an idea for a film series – on issues that mattered to me and that might form the core of a business. I pitched the idea to SBS, raised nearly $1million to make the series, got a book out of the library on how to produce a film. That series was broadcast 6 times and I put our book to go with it, that I co-authored with a friend. And so my business was launched. Now, UGM Consulting is a successful boutique consultancy and I have a terrific business partner, as well as a fabulous team. I believe we help our clients to build strong, healthy, values-driven organisations. And our clients seem to agree!
A mentor… It’s someone who sees a spark in you
Mentors come in all shapes and sizes! In my business career, it has rarely been the case that I have formally sought out a mentor. And it’s also rarely been true that I’ve found one mentor that connected with my business goals overall. In my career, it’s been much more common that I have found the right person at the right time who had a skill set or a way of looking at things that was just what I needed to help me overcome a specific obstacle. One example was learning about marketing (obviously a critical element in the growth of a small business) from another female businesswoman who was very good at this – better than me. We shared skills. This is such a common way women help each other. Books call it ‘peer mentoring’ and, throughout history, women have just called it ‘friendship’! When I started out in business, I was a single parent with two daughters and a significant mortgage. I needed a lot of self-belief and self-confidence. I always seemed to be taking on things I’d never done before. Everyday involved stretching myself beyond my comfort zone. Some of my mentors during that critical start-up period were people who didn’t even know they were mentors! For instance, when I was at high school, I had one teacher in particular who made a powerful impression on me. Her name was Eileen McKenna and she was my English teacher. She believed in me. She told me I had talent. She also taught me that one small idea of my own would bring me more joy and sense of achievement than a big idea of someone else’s. She encouraged me to apply for a scholarship to Oxford that I won. I wrote to Eileen regularly for 40 years until her death recently. She was ‘in my corner’ and cheered me on – as she did for many, many people. We all need someone like Eileen McKenna. For some people, it is a parent or a family member or a boss at the outset of your career. It’s someone who sees a spark in you. For me, it was a very special high school English teacher. She gave me a wonderful gift – self-belief.
I think the main influence was around being willing to do new things and trying to bring an intellectual rigour to all that I do.
Miss McKenna never let me take short cuts with my work. Once I wrote an essay very quickly and handed it in. Looking back, it was just a pastiche of views from various authors. She told me in no uncertain terms that she knew all those books already. She wasn’t interested in reading a potted version of them in my essay. She wanted to see my thinking, not theirs. In this way, she instilled in me a love of research and problem solving. Today, this is one of the most important attributes that sets UGM Consulting apart. We bring a research capability and a willingness to tackle complex situations or problems that our clients face. Clients know we will THINK. This helps us to get to the bottom of what’s going wrong for them and generate more creative approaches to putting it right. In many ways, what we sell is problem solving.
Mentoring relationships can often take on a life of their own…
Some years ago, I was asked to design some kind of support for isolated, immigrant women. Many of them had small children. Most spoke little or no English. As you might imagine, depression was a feature. These women were lonely and vulnerable. Because of my own experiences of the way women mentor each other, I felt the solution would be to set up mentoring relationships. Through various community and church groups, I was able to find many older Australian women – often aged of 60s or 70s. You see they were lonely, isolated and vulnerable too – but for a different set of social reasons. All these women met once a week (small children in tow) to sew together. Sewing has throughout time and across geographies been something that women did (and do) together. So people shared their sewing and craft skills in these large groups. And as the women sewed, they talked. Instead of working directly with the immigrant women (the ostensible focus of this project), I worked with the retired Australian women – we explored mentoring. Then I just stepped back and let them get on with it. It was one of the most beautiful projects I have ever been involved with. Out of those sewing circles grew small businesses as the women decided to sell what they made together. They also began to design and make clothes they could wear. That led to thinking through the roles that clothes play for women in making us feel good about ourselves. By the second year of this project, the line became blurred between who was helping whom. That’s the thing about mentoring – I think especially among women – sometimes the mentor is one person, sometimes it is the other. In this way, mentoring relationships can often take on a life of their own, long beyond any formal arrangements, bringing great joy to both sides.
If you can show someone how to be a good mentoree, then they acquire an invaluable skill set.
I think an unexpected benefit of finding different mentors at different times, as I came across new challenges or obstacles, was that all this made me very interested in mentoring. In 2000, I took time out from my business to investigate mentoring more deeply. I interviewed 26 senior executives. I read a wide range of research papers. I wrote about the issue. I also began to set up mentoring programs in various client organisations and for some professional bodies too. This led to designing training programs, both in how to mentor others and also (and I think this is important) how to be an effective mentoree. I found that if you can show someone how to be a good mentoree, then they acquire an invaluable skill set – they can learn a tremendous amount from people that may be in their lives who are NOT natural, born mentors. I saw that some people were lucky – they had a special older or wiser person in their network that had the gift of mentoring another. But lots of people don’t ever meet someone like that. But supposing you knew how to make a great mentor out of a mediocre one? This is about the mentoree reaching out and making it easy, if you like, for that other person to mentor them.
My favourite part of being a businesswoman is…
I enjoy the freedom and the autonomy most. I get to design my own life and my own career in a very direct and daily manner. I do the things that matter to me. I work with fantastic colleagues and a truly talented business partner. We get to do interesting things for clients we care about. People often say, “You have a great job!” And I think that’s true. It’s also true that – as for all businesswomen – it’s actually me that makes it terrific! There’s no one else. I know for some people that might seem daunting. I know there is no one else who makes things happen. It’s down to you. But that same fact is also what makes being a businesswoman very exciting. In 2007, I was a state winner and a national finalist in the Telstra Business Women’s Awards. Through that network I met many businesswomen – in many, many sectors. All such different people doing an amazing range of things. But I felt we all shared a certain excitement about being in charge of our own destinies!
About UGM Consulting
UGM Consulting works with clients in the corporate, public and NFP sectors. Those clients are interested in new ways of working that will make a measurable difference to their business. Our integrated, evidence-based approach always focuses on key drivers of value as the starting point. We combine this with a strong metrics orientation that enables our clients to determine progress and assess outcomes. Our purpose is to equip our clients with the skills and practical tools they need to tackle unique, complex business challenges. Drawing on our expertise in strategy development and facilitation, change management, cultural alignment and leadership development, we design the right approach to address the particular circumstances our clients face. We offer methods and tools that are transparent, practical and transferable. We work hard to leave a legacy of skills at the end of each engagement. In this way, as we help our clients address current challenges, we’re also equipping them to tackle future challenges with increased self-confidence. On a personal level, my practice area within the business is very much focused on my career-long passion for diversity – including the progression of women and Australia’s engagement with Asia.
