Owning my own company, alongside two very talented women, working hard, navigating the path for success somewhat strategically and to be honest somewhat by trial and error, nothing inspires me more than connecting and engaging with other women pioneering, achieving and just getting out there, giving it a go. So when I was recently reintroduced to Nik Hatherly (we used to work together in advertising!) I was very impressed by her passion and commitment to the Commonwealth Bank enterprise – Women in Focus. It did seem a foreign concept that a bank had set up resources purely in support of women in business. I was impressed and inspired to explore further.

Women in Focus is a vibrant community of women in business, doing some pretty cool things; connecting, supporting, creating opportunities for one another, sharing the wins and the losses. You have the opportunity to connect with the group through a variety of channels, including online conversations or forums or by attending one of the 50+ events that happen around the country. As someone that loves to connect face to face and really engage with people on a more meaningful, personal level, I decided that I needed to attend the very next Sydney event on 11th November – an evening of storytelling and connections with special guest speakers Jane Huxley, Managing Director of Pandora Radio and visual change maker Lynne Cazaly. The night promised to be a sharing of the personal career journeys for these two impressive women. Who doesn’t want to know the secret to success, how someone got to where they are today? We are all voyeuristic, intrigued by the lives of others, the choices they make, the lessons they have learnt.

But I have to admit I did have a certain level of scepticism coming into the event. How many times have we raced from a heavy day at work, giving up precious time with family friends or even much needed time to ourselves to attend the much dreaded ‘networking event’ in the hope that we would be hit by some kind of lightning bolt and handed all the answers? Well this day was no different. My day had been hectic and I was tired. I arrived at the famous Innovation Lab at the Commonwealth Bank just as everyone began to sit down. I placed my obligatory name tag neatly on my dress, and with a glass of wine in hand I took my seat.

Nik Hatherly introduced the night with an eloquent, funny and spirited opening to the evening. There is an energy to Nik that is infectious and I found myself already taking one step towards the converted. ‘Good start’, I thought.

Lynne Cazaly on creativity as a path to success

Lynne Cazaly was next to walk onto the stage. Her introduction set the room alight with laughter. It turns out that her great grandfather’s brother was the one and only Roy Cazaly, the man that inspired a football nation with his beyond belief high-marks and mid-air turns. At only 180cm tall Roy would come home from work and practice daily at leaping for a ball suspended from the roof of a shed at his home. Through sheer hardwork and determination Roy Cazaly inspired a nation to not only be great footballers but achieve greatness in everything we aspire to do. With this legacy Lynne Cazaly entered the stage beaming as the song ‘Up there Cazaly’ filled the room. From the moment I spied Lynne, I knew I was in for a few hours of serious entertainment. She was funny, and for a woman of such accomplishment just so down to earth and self deprecating. This was not your average networking event. This was real. This was honest. ‘Excellent first quarter’ I thought.

Lynne inspired the audience with her thoughts on how to use creativity in the workplace. Most of us think you need to have some kind of super talent to be creative, or that it is too risky to embark on a creative direction, there is fear around taking such a risk. We find ourselves thinking: ‘will this be bad for my career? What will people think?’ Lynne believes there is a new creativity and it is known as ingenuity. And our goal is to close the ingenuity gap, the gap between where you are and where you would like to be. You close this gap, be brave and success will follow. Lynne shared her formula to a wide-eyed fully engaged audience:

“To get going you just have to start, and start before you are ready. You may never be ready if you wait. I think we over think, don’t you think!” she laughs. “It’s also known as JFDI – just frickin’ do it.”

“The second thing you need to do is like surprises. Filmmakers do it to us all the time, it’s called a plot twist. It’s about spontaneity. Liking surprises is like saying I am open to whatever comes along. Let go, not know and it will be OK.”

“The third thing you need to do is launch often. Small experiments of creativity, then you amend, change and launch again. Failure is hot right now, seriously how hot is failure! Share the stuff that hasn’t gone well and learn from those experiments. Launching often is a very good startup methodology. You build, measure and learn.”

“Fourthly, staying curious about how things work is one of the first ways to get into creativity. The opposite of fear is not courage. The opposite of fear is curiosity.”

“And lastly don’t do it alone. Collaborate. Bring in a mentor, a coach, a buddy or a colleague. Someone’s simple suggestion could be a game changer for you. Allow that generosity that someone else wants to give you… this will help you close that ingenuity gap.”.

One final note, Lynne shares a quote from Jessie Robbins, an inspiring team builder: ‘Don’t fight stupid, that’s too hard. Yield, give in, shift, pivot and go somewhere else.”

“Seriously insightful and entertaining”, I thought.

Jane Huxley on challenging your thinking

Next on the stage was Jane Huxley. Jane has built her career on disruptive innovation traversing technology, media and music. She has moved from managing a team of 200 people as CEO of Fairfax Digital to starting up the first subsidiary of Pandora. A very impressive business woman, yet extremely entertaining and authentic.
It is so refreshing to hear from two highly successful women who don’t just paint a picture of fabulousness. They celebrate the failures:

“I look back over my career and yes it has been about disruption, and moving forward and not having fear, but it has also been about a belief and a purpose in the company for which I am working. When I started at Fairfax all those years ago there was a vision by Bill Gates of a computer on every desktop and in every home, and we literally thought ‘crap, that is never going to happen. Are you crazy? Computers are expensive, nobody knows how to use them’. I started my career using DOS 5.0! We literally didn’t think it was going to be possible. When I left there 16 years later computers were under $500 and they were everywhere, and now when I leave my house in the morning I am wearing two, I have two in my handbag, I have one in my car, one in my office, it’s all in the cloud, this is just a part of every day. I left Fairfax because my job had disappeared, in a space of 6 years the company went from having a small digital division to the whole company being digital. I have a lot of respect for that company and the people in it and their ability to be forward thinking and creative. Now that I am at Pandora my mandate is to deliver a better radio experience and we believe there is a better way.”

“So you need to start with having a drive to do things a better way and there needs to be that little part of you that is just a little bit uncomfortable. This will drive your curiosity.”

“Now I am hooked, no other word for it,” I thought.

It was very fitting that the event was held within the womb of Commonwealth Banks Innovation Lab. 39,000 people have come through the doors of the CBA Innovation lab since it opened 14 months ago. 35 projects have come to life. 7000 people have been trained in design thinking, and 150,000 post it notes have been used to help with ingenuity.

The essential ingredient for innovation is to be curious. Bring ideas and curiosities to life, with your colleagues and clients and give birth to things that we didn’t even know were possible. It’s about engaging every single person in your world to find a better way of doing any part of the business. It’s not that big bang that hits you, it’s the accumulation of small steps that makes a game changer. It doesn’t need to be a dent in the universe, it’s a rhythm, a constant hum that an organisation has. Innovation is an operating principle and it is constantly driving change.

As the Creative Director of a creative agency, creativity is a way of life, and now, so is Women in Focus.

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