Mapping Being

It all started when I was about 7 years old on a family holiday in the UK – ‘getting lost’ when I made a friend at a bouncy castle and went back to his place without telling my parents where I’d gone. I had no clue whereabouts I was staying and his parents spent some time eventually getting in touch with mine to have us reunited. As an adult I trained as a geographer, not wanting to get lost again!, and have been privileged to serve the public since the late 1980s in a variety of roles within both Federal and State government agencies – in the realm of mapping and data technologies.

 

In the last 15 years I have transitioned from a self-confessed ‘tech-head’ – more than happy to bury myself, on my own, in the sourcing of data and production of a map or statistics – to a manager of tech teams and a leader who is interested providing direction to individuals and high performing teams that may have ‘lost their way’. This workplace transition coincided with my own personal development journey which started when my 2 daughters were very young. 

 

I found that becoming a parent was not always an easy landscape to navigate and there were aspects about myself that didn’t serve me, my partner or my daughters. I would frequently find myself angry at both myself and the world around me, stomping my feet (very much like my daughters!) and raising my voice. My partner and I recognised there must be a different way to be in the world and that’s when I started down the road of transformation - getting curious about what stories I had made up about events in my life and what I’d made them mean about myself, others and the world. 

 

This journey encompassed all aspects of my life, including work. During my 35 year career I had experience with many different supervisors, some who were great, others not so. It was the level of care the good ones demonstrated – acknowledging my contributions, nurturing my development and trusting me – that had me think I could have a crack at managing people. I found the step from ‘tech-head’ to manager more difficult than I imagined. To let go of ‘doing it all’ and start developing a strategic vision for the team and organisation included a number of failures and took a whole new level of understanding of myself. 

 

After the third failure of an interview due to a lack of confidence and self-doubt – telling myself I “wasn’t smart enough for the job” – I’d had enough! There had to be some way of interrupting this internal monologue. Undertaking the Being Profile gave me access to become aware of what ways of being were serving me well and those areas that were holding me back. Knowing that confidence and assertiveness were areas to work on I actively started voicing my thoughts, rather than keeping them to myself. I experienced that on many occasions simply doing this with family members and work colleagues had conversations completely alter and new futures created that may not have happened if I stayed quiet.