someone mind the children so you can become a pair of business entrepreneurs for the night, talking and dreaming about the future and the wonderful things you’ll be able to do together as a family once you’re wealthy and influential.
10.Visualise your goals and exaggerate your future wealth. This can be fun, and an important ingredient in your success formula.
11.If you’re determined to climb to the top rung of the corporate ladder, take advantage of ‘perks’ offered to you. These are your rewards for a job well done. When I was Sales Manager at Ansett Airfreight I enjoyed inexpensive national and international holidays several times each year.
12.Join a network of like-minded people. This will give you positive reinforcement and the support framework you need to share your success and to ask for guidance when you need it from time to time.
13.Ask for what you want. No-one can read your mind. If you want to be successful, ask for the additional responsibility if you feel you’re capable of doing a more demanding job.
14.Dare to be a tall poppy. I’ve had my head above the crowd most of my life and believe me the view is much nicer from where I stand.
15.Befriend your mentors in life, don’t forget they’re human too and most will enjoy sharing their secrets with you.
16.When you have to make a decision, listen to your own intuition and follow your instincts, because it’s usually right for you.
17.Admire your competitors for recognising that your talents were worth imitating. Remember any fool can copy. I’ve found over the past 30 years it was best not to waste time or energy on my competitors: concentrate instead on developing more new ideas. I always had a lot of fun watching others trying to keep up.
18.Promote and publicise yourself and your business. If you gain a promotion, tell the press. When nominated for an award, enter it. Too many people think because they didn’t win first prize they lost. Wrong! Because you entered, you were promoted and respected by your peers and the community for your achievements.
19.All publicity is good publicity. So many times jealous people tied to put me down, but instead did me a favour. A supervisor I employed in 1979, for instance, tried to force me to pay her a huge salary increase. When I refused she called the newspapers and told them my new word-processing school was taking jobs away from typists. Her story appeared on the front page of the Saturday Advertiser. I was thrilled when my office phones rang non-stop, the following week. Typists were worried about losing their jobs and wanted to be trained in this new technology.
20.Learn to say ‘no’. Like most people, I’ve tried to please everyone all my life and by doing this I’m sure I upset my friends and family instead. There are only 24 hours in a day and you must choose to use them wisely. I like to help people, especially the young and elderly, but as I get older myself I realise I’ve lost a lot of my own rest periods, running around after others.
21.Take time out for yourself. Read, learn a new skill, try a new hairstyle, to pamper yourself, or to just simply take a walk on the beach. I’ve been very demanding on myself and during the many years in business my staff, have been the ones to remind me to; “take time off, remember you’re the boss”.
What is success anyway? It’s a different thing to different people. To me, success has meant being able to work in the job or business I choose; having an idea and seeing it become a reality; establishing a national business that was so successful by the time I was 28 I could travel the world for four months without having to worry about what I spent; finding Mr Right, having a son, being a family and doing all the things that normal people do.”
After having it all I admit: good health and common-sense are the two most important ingredients. Happiness is not letting anyone hurt you, and they can’t if you refuse to listen.
In her preface, Nancy Flannery has presented a theme of Celebration. Just let me add that, as we go to press, we’re also celebrating the 7th birthday of the Network, and receiving entries for the 7th Executive Woman of the Year Award. The offices of our headquarters at 107 Carrington Street, Adelaide, are be-decked with balloons in as rich a kaleidoscope as are the stories in this book.
The Net Result 2 has been dedicated to men, for without their support the AEWN Awards would not have been possible. After successfully organising five consecutive awards for South Australian women, we wrote personal letters to the Managing Directors of Australia’s top 100 companies offering naming rights in return for financial support of a national award in 1992.
Within eight weeks we received 26 letters congratulating AEWN for its initiative in creating the award and one genuine letter of interest from the Commonwealth Bank. Ann Sydenham from Telecom Australia rang me saying she had received a telephone call from Don Wood in Melbourne wanting to know more about the Network and its award as he had evidently seen our letter after it had circulated several departments. Ann alerted Don to the success of Telecom’s own Regional Manager, Gillian Leach, who had been Runner-up in the 1991 AEWN award and whose story appeared in The Net Result I book. She was a regional manager with Telecom controlling some 1,200 staff in three states when she won a place in the award.
We have featured Don Wood in this book to thank him and Telecom Australia for the foresight demonstrated in assisting Australian women through the national award to gain recognition and new opportunities. Celebrate with us!
(Lucille Orr’s story is under Genesis in “The Net Result I” and repeated for you, in this book).
Sponsor: Telecom
Don Wood
Telecom is proud to sponsor the
1992–1993 Australian Executive Woman
of the Year Awards.
As a gesture of gratitude to Telecom Australia for its foresight in sponsoring our national awards, we are pleased to present Telecom’s representative Don Wood.
Don Wood is a professional man who has achieved much during his working life.
Currently General Manager of Customer and Industry marketing in Telecom Australia’s Commercial Business unit, Don comes from a professional background which combines the diverse disciplines of marketing and engineering.
His experience has seen him hold senior positions in sales, marketing and general management with such high profile international businesses as Unisys, Epson, AAP-Reuters and Xerox.
Now, through Don, Telecom Australia has initiated the national Telecom Australian Executive Women’s Network Awards.
“Telecom supports the national Awards as part of our corporate recognition of the contribution that women make to Australian industry and commerce, business, large and small, private and public,” Don explained. “The Awards give Australian businesswomen the forum to celebrate their achievements and the right to be proud of what they do. That is why, on both professional and personal levels, I’m very happy to be involved.”
***
Don Wood signed a three year ‘Naming Rights’ Sponsorship contract for AEWN’s National Award. Due to the success of the Award, in 1994 Don Wood decided to change the name of our Award and re-launch it in 1995 as the Telstra Business Women’s Award. Telstra has never publicly recognised Lucille Orr, Founder of the Award. We congratulate her and the AEWN Members, Award Entrants and Winners for participating since 1987 as these women created the most prestigious Award in Australia for working women today.
National Winner
Lynn Champion
Lynn Champion won the NSW branch award, thus qualifying for the final judging in Adelaide, emerging as the first NATIONAL winner. Lynn is the managing director of Image Communications and the author of “One Minute Markers” and “Messages from the Fridge”. As a warm, caring person, she presents a story reflecting the attributes and achievements which make her worthy of the