Imagine taking on a challenge that was completely out of your comfort zone, a role that was totally new to you and largely unknown by many people in your company. A role that instantly opened you up to criticism and conflict in ways you weren’t really anticipating. That was the position Natalie Peters found herself in when she took on the task to lead the ways of working transformation at Telstra. In her words ‘I think in every possible way, professionally, and personally, the last 2 years has pushed me outside of my comfort zone’.

Belief is a topic that came up several times in my conversation with Nat, including why she persisted to get the results we can now see in Telstra as it clearly wasn’t easy. ‘What kept me going was the belief that it was the right thing to do for Telstra and for our people. Even though at times people were resisting the change and were afraid of what it meant, my belief in it overall being the best for our company was always strong’.

Other things that kept Nat believing in pushing forward: ‘Changing a large complex organisation isn’t easy and is never a lone mission. I had an amazing team of people to work with and as we experimented with how we adapt ways of working in the company, the momentum grew and grew. That gave me hope that more people believed and I was in fact on the right path. And the other thing was being able to talk quite openly about what was going well and equally what wasn’t going so well, being open to talk about the learnings was really important along the way. I think I learnt so much more from what didn’t work well than from what did. In a strange way, that builds belief. Personally, I didn’t do the things you should do. I should have been focused on looking after myself a little more so didn’t do meditation, I didn’t exercise, I also didn’t sleep much or take care of myself. I don’t recommend that! I am just saying I personally didn’t do any of that and I really should have.’

As you can imagine, Nat learnt a lot while being so far out of her comfort zone ‘I think with the benefit of hindsight, I got more and more comfortable as my knowledge grew. On reflection I do think I went too fast at particular times. So what I’ve learned is, it’s all well and good to have a vision in your mind as to the end goal but you have to bring people along with you at the same pace. Everyone working in this new way is in some respect outside of their comfort zone, its all new! So checking in with people is really important to make sure they feel prepared to adapt to the changes. That’s the resistance you get as the answers aren’t always clear so it does make people more anxious than in perhaps more standard transformations.’

I asked Nat about the other benefits of stepping out of her comfort zone ‘whenever anyone asks me what it was like doing this role my answer is always the same – , this has been the best and hardest period in my career. It’s the best now because I can see how special it was and how much people have grown from the experience. I know how much I have been able to grow from this  and I have learnt so much about organisations, supporting people through change, but also about myself. I have to unlearn a lot of things to do this role and I think I am better for it. I would never have known these things if I didn’t go and do something that made me feel unsure of myself. Because in that experience you see the best and the worst of yourself. And it prepares you for whatever’s coming next.’ In Nat’s case next is another big step that will take her to London!

Nat shared with me a specific learning – this is where she talked again about belief. ‘one of the things I did quite early on was running the enterprise leadership meeting with circa 200 of our leaders across the company. And I was trying to teach them some agile tools in a day basically, and I was doing it a very disruptive way solving real company impediments. This was the first moment of stepping out of my comfort zone, I’d been in the job six weeks when I took this task on. I was always determined to be bold. And I was about to get on stage for the first time and the pressure was massive and I remember I was nervous about the event being successful and having the right impact. As I was about to get on stage, I had this moment where I thought ‘How do I be confident?’ And I said to my co-facilitator on the day Dominic Price from Atlassian, ‘How do you have so much confidence when you’re speaking like that?’ And he said, ‘I don’t have confidence it’s belief.’ And it was the first moment where confidence was something different for me. I’d always thought that being confident was the right mindset but actually that was perhaps more about pretending…. Belief however allows you to be vulnerable, more open and connect in a very different way with what you are doing. I know that sounds corny for some people, but during this transformation, everything that tested me has actually given me more overall belief. Because I had belief in what I was doing, I knew what my thresholds were, what my limits were and what I was able to do. I was able to ask for help more openly and I would never have asked for help before because I wanted people to think I was in control and had total confidence. But belief is something deeper and subsequently that created more belief in others that they could trust me and follow me.’

Nat had one last piece of advice: ‘the reason I step outside of your comfort zone is because I am curious. I think life is a massive adventure, made up of a series of adventures. And unless you say yes to things, you will always be stuck in ‘no’ and wondering why things aren’t changing or moving for you. And when I get stuck in the ‘no’ I have no one to blame but myself. And it’s not always the best place to be. And when I am feeling frustrated or disappointed, nine times out of ten I can look back at decisions I’ve made and see that it’s because of a decision I made or didn’t make that has kept me there. And it’s really hard sometimes to say yes, because it’s going to push you. But every time I’ve done that I have looked back and I’ve surprised myself with what I’ve been able to do. And it’s given me so much more in life to keep moving forward to the next adventure. So I guess the other thing I’d say is when you’re when you’re faced with a decision and you’re thinking about it and ‘no’ is the safe answer…. maybe be curious and see what would happen if you actually said yes.’

Thanks Nat!

BIO

Natalie has been in variety of Human Resources roles for the past 21 years across multiple industries including professional services, financial services and telecommunications.

Natalie joined Telstra in 2013 and has led HR teams across multiple parts of the HR  organisation including leading National and International business HR teams.

In January of 2018 Natalie was selected to lead part of Telstra’s transformation to fundamentally change the ways of working across the company with a goal to create a simplified organisation that was enabled to deliver higher quality products and services for customers. The ways of working transformation included leading the agile at scale transformation at Telstra.