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Individuals recognised an increased
tolerance of
ambiguity
as a direct outcome of the secondment
program. Trish Clancy was seconded to Wunan,
an Aboriginal development organisation in the
East Kimberley, in 2011. She explained: ‘Dealing
with ambiguity is something you have to become
very familiar with in the Kimberley, even the basic
things about who maintains the diary, shall we
have a meeting at 3pm on Tuesday—yes, but it
might happen outside the supermarket on Monday.’
Melissa Griggs said her secondment ‘definitely
taught me to work in the grey. You learn to change
direction very quickly and move forward.’ Luke
Raffin reflected on the lessons learnt from his
secondment around decision-making:
Something I learnt from Jawun is to be more
accepting of not knowing all the pieces of
the puzzle … to accept a fair degree of the
unknown, but to make decisions based on
the information you have and be comfortable
with what’s ambiguous.
Self-awareness
was identified as an area of
significant growth. Jaimes Adlington said his
secondment gave him greater insight into his
own capabilities: ‘There’s more awareness of
what you do and don’t know, what you can and
can’t do outside of the business environment.’
Nathan Krieger, formerly of Westpac, said that
awareness of his personal style and habits quickly
came to the fore on secondment: ‘I can talk a
lot, and I became very self-aware of that on
secondment. Now I’m better at recognising when
I’m getting carried away and need to listen. That’s
so important when leading a team and growing
a business.’ Renee Schicks has similarly applied
her increased self-awareness back in the office:
‘It made me very aware of how my own experience
in commercial companies framed how I evaluated
options. Since doing my secondment, I’ve noticed
I place a much greater value on considering the
human impact of decisions.’
For many secondees, growth in self-awareness
was followed by a boost in
self-confidence
. Richie
Hadfield from Commonwealth Bank Australia said
the experience of stepping out of the corporate
world gave him increased confidence in his abilities:
‘It’s not until you get into a different environment
that you realise how capable you are and how many
skills you actually have.’ Bonnie Carter agreed:
‘[After my secondment] I ran an information
session which I hadn’t had the experience of doing
in the workplace before. When I came back to
work, I was like, “Right, I can do this.”’
Shane Phillips (CEO, Tribal Warrior Association), Kimberley Gordon (Tribal Warrior Association) and Vicki Reed (KPMG secondee),
Redfern, Sydney, 2010.
Photo: Daniel Linnet, Linnet Foto
CREATING VALUE FOR CORPORATE AND GOVERNMENT PARTNERS 17