Challenge yourself, seek support, be self-aware, and pick your battles: Advice from 2020's winner of the Legion Consulting Grit Award

Last year Jennifer Nielsen was awarded the very first Legion Consulting Grit award as part of the UQ MBA awards program. I selected Jenny as the winner because of her unrelenting determination to achieve her goals, coupled with her emotional intelligence and ability to recognise when to act and when to stand back. During the award interview process, I loved Jenny's story about how she made cold calls to companies to get a foot into her industry. She kept making calls until someone said yes. That's determination!

We recently spent an hour talking about her stories, her 'grit' inspirational figures, and her advice to anyone going through a challenge or looking for a new one.

SR: What does grit mean to you?

JN: To me grit means the determination to see something through from start to finish, and having the courage and self-belief to overcome obstacles along the way. Self-belief is really important. If you want something, no matter what background you come from, and you believe in yourself, there are always pathways you can take to get there. 

SR: Just like Doc Brown's saying from Back to the Future – if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. If you looked up 'grit' in the dictionary, whose face would you see?

JN: You'd see a few faces. I have one particular friend who always had a long term vision of where she wanted to be (in a career sense). At the beginning of her journey, she thought she didn't have the right credentials, so she worked really hard and got them. She's proven herself time after time through her hard work and determination and never let non-believers get her down, she just kept going. I also think of my Grandparents and what they went through during World War II, coming out to Australia, leaving everything behind and starting a new life. Challenges that I assume refugees still face today. I also think about a friend of a friend who is striving to be a Justice of the High Court. She's been surrounded by family members telling her she can be anything she wants if she works hard. She's fought against discrimination on multiple fronts, as an Indigenous Australian and as a female. But she keeps going – she's got her sights set on it, and she will get there I have no doubt. 

SR: I love the way you're identifying people who are close to you and in your own network for sources of inspiration and strength. It seems that personal connection has a significant impact on you instead of the usual inspiration icons, which is nice.

JN: Yes. Everyone has a different story; I love hearing them! For example, one of my fellow MBA classmates. He hadn't studied for decades, had worked many years as a public servant and was incredibly nervous about starting the MBA. I remember talking to him at orientation on day one; he was full of self-doubt. But he really applied himself and absolutely aced the MBA. He won the personal transformation award in 2020 for his efforts.

SR: Like you, I love hearing stories, and that's a great one! How do you process challenges, and what's your mindset when it comes to moving forward? 

JN: I love challenges and view them as an opportunity to test yourself, improve your skills, learn new things and meet more people. A few years ago, I was in a role where I was really comfortable. An opportunity arose to move into consulting and establish a large renewables-based generation company. I had never done that before, but I knew I had some pretty good people and technical skills and knew it would be fascinating to be part of the journey. I met and worked with a whole new group of people, some familiar faces as it was a similar industry, but it was great to have people come from diverse backgrounds into the project. It was a high-pressure situation. We were building something from scratch, which was challenging from a technical and people perspective. It's one of the best things I have been part of. I could have just sat back and had a comfortable job, but now I know so many more fabulous people, and we achieve something significant together. That's special.

SR: I love tackling things that scare me and have been fortunate to have had a few opportunities like that – that make or break times. That's a really exciting place to be in because you know you're going to learn a LOT.

JN: Yes. And even in situations where you don't have opportunities like the ones we have been talking about, there are still challenges you can find in a 'comfortable' role, things you can jump at and learn from. 

SR: Absolutely. Challenges don't have to be MASSIVE and life-changing to have an impact. Thinking about your experience doing your UQ MBA, what was the most difficult thing for you?

JN: Definitely balancing a full-time job, kids, family and friends, personal goals and study. I can't read at night, I will always fall asleep, so I had to really manage my time. I put a lot of pressure on myself to get great marks at uni, exceed at work, be a great parent and partner. I constantly had to re-balance myself. My husband definitely got the 'bottom of the pile' treatment on more than one occasion. 

SR: Was there a mantra that you had or just something that when you felt really under pressure, you could just go okay *mantra*, let's keep going.

JN: Not a mantra as such, but I generally would reach out to other MBA members to have a chat. Just listening to each other's stories and understanding that everyone's got these different pressures in their life puts yours into perspective. And you generally pick up a tip or two along the way. The other thing I do much better now is to listen to my body. I got a serious case of the flu from not sleeping enough, feeling stressed etc. and it put me out of action for several weeks; physically and mentally, I couldn't do anything. I listen to my body now.  Since then, if I'm feeling stressed, I think to try to prioritise what really matters, and if I have done a good job and more effort won't improve it much (for example a uni assignment), I move on. 

SR: It sounds like you have a good idea of the point when you know extra stress isn't going to help, and you pick your battles. 

JN: Yes, both for study and work. I think I'm pretty good at recognising how much effort and time should be applied. It's always important to produce good quality work, so understanding exactly what you have to do is critical to not wasting effort and time. For example, are you producing a highly technical document or a one-page executive briefing?  I always consider who the audience is and what they need the information for. 

SR: It sounds like you set up the scaffolding of your work first, setting the scene, understanding the audience and being clear on what's needed, versus just jumping in. 

JN: Absolutely. That's also your storyboarding process that you taught our class—identifying the key things you need to talk about or cover off, and bring it together. 

SR: Exactly, it's also about the people side of collaborative work. I'm glad you found it helpful!

JN: I find that if you get early buy-in from the people, they'll usually support you all the way through. Whether they're helping to produce work, have the ability to allocate resources or help you get more buy-in across an organisation. I think projects with early buy-in generally have more success. 

SR: What advice do you have for anyone out there who's facing a challenge?

JN: Take the time to get some perspective. In one of my roles, I ended up helping to do three additional full-time roles at once. I was so overloaded I had to take a day off to refocus. At home, I got out the biggest piece of paper I could find and wrote down all the things that I had to do, in all elements of my life. Just getting it all on paper was helpful – I prioritised, deprioritised, identified the things I needed help with and those I was able to get help to complete. Support can come in many different forms; it might be help to look after the kids for a while or giving some technical guidance or just having a chat. Ultimately, getting everything out on paper, visualising it, sometimes shrinks the problem; it is put into perspective. But, sometimes you also have to let challenges go. It might not be the right time, and coming back to it when you have a clearer head can make all the difference. 

SR: And coming back to it later.

JN: I think being honest about how you can apply yourself and how you impact the people around you is important. 

SR: There is a certain amount of self-awareness that you need to understand your capability and capacity, isn't there?

JN: Yes, because if you burn out, it can bring down the whole house of cards. You don't want that to happen!

SR: I think there's some excellent advice in there. What about for those folks that don't have any challenges right now. Is there anything you recommend or any advice you have for people to take advantage of that fresher mind and perspective?

JN: Life, life is here to enjoy. Find challenges that align with your passions. If you're doing something that you like and with people you like, then you're more likely to go for those more demanding challenges that will improve yourself and grow who you are. A lot of people talk about work as a daily grind, and it really doesn't have to be like that. It probably will be sometimes, but not every day. If you've got great people around you, and if it's an industry you like to be in, the daily grind is worth it. So, find challenges that you love and challenges that can create a greater benefit as well

SR: What about for someone who's in a space at the moment that they that they're not happy with. They're not really enjoying the industry, they kind of feeling a bit stuck. Suppose someone's in that space. Now, for someone who's not enjoying what they're doing and where they're working. How would you recommend they just start and set up their intention, with actually enough juice to help them achieve what they want?

JN: Today, we're fortunate to have the Internet and a global network at our fingertips; our ability to reach out to people is amazing. UQ MBA alumni Nick Bamford told a story at the MDA Awards nights about reading an inspirational ultra-marathon book that triggered some questions for him. Nick sent the author an email, and ultimately the author became a coach/mentor for Nick's ultra-marathon running. Just talking to people with the same interests can open up a lot of doors. If there's a mentoring program where you work or industry associations you are interested in, join them. A door may present itself to you.

SR: This award is about recognising the value of hard work and prolonged dedication, even through challenges. So thank you for your stories and for being you. Do you have any final words for us on grit? 

JN: Benjamin Franklin's quote, "Failing to plan, is planning to fail", pretty much sums me up a lot of the time. But it's also very important to be present to enjoy the here and now. 

SR: Thanks, Jenny!