CARMEL TURNER

Start having more meaningful conversations

When Carmel was nominated by senior management for the Xplore in-house Career Resiliency program she had to question, "why me?" The answer, "because you're a high performer in the department". A great compliment and reward.

At the time Carmel was finding her feet, having started with CBA in a managerial role with no direct reports, she now found herself as a people manager. She had attended some internal leadership courses to learn the bank's style of leadership but the Xplore program was the first external program she had attended.

Carmel really wasn't thinking at the time that she would progress any further, she was happy just getting stuck into the role. The Xplore program enabled her to see that she could progress and so she started to put in more thought to get to the next level.

The Xplore program stimulated Carmel's thinking in a different way. She gained greater self-awareness through questioning how and why she conducted herself the way she did. She had always been an outgoing, friendly person with no problems talking and networking with people, but she needed to hone these skills to be more effective.

Carmel started to think about how she was physically perceived, how she held herself in conversations and interacted with others. "In the business world you need to think more about what you are going to say rather than just coming out with it and regretting it later!" She found herself having more meaningful conversations with people just by thinking a little beforehand.

Not only did Carmel discover more about herself but others too in the process. This enabled her to build on her strengths and utilise them to steer her towards her goals. She found the DISC profile extremely valuable in identifying her key abilities that she was then able to translate into her current role.

Carmel thinks that this deeper self-awareness has enabled her to become a better manager. "We have different, more structured conversations. I get a lot more out of them because they know that I trust them. It's all about empowering people to do a good job". This notion that you do not need to do everything yourself enables you to get on with what's important to you and clear the way for you to achieve your goals.

Carmel enjoyed helping others on the program to be empowered too by sharing her experiences and listening to others. She believes that the structure of the program allows for free thinking and conversations to naturally occur rather than being forced. "Sometimes we'd just go off tangent for a while and this was great to share experiences, we had tears, we had laughter, people really opened up".

Right now, Carmel is focusing on undertaking a long trip but already has in the back of her mind what she wants next from her career when she returns. She knows that when the time is right she will be ready to make her next move and discover what opportunities are available for her.

« Return to case studies