A resilience toolkit: Tips from five women in the meat industry
Whilst listening to the five fantastic panellists at our UK & Ireland conference talk about the challenges and changes they’d gone through at the different stages of their life and careers, one theme stood out amongst all the stories they told: the importance of resilience.
No matter what life had in store, all five panellists continued to drive forward and found the motivation to keep going in their own way.
Resilience treasure chest
During the session, our panellists were quizzed about their advice around resilience: What would help lift you up and drive you forward to challenging times? What gives you the ability to adapt even when the pace of change is epic?
They were asked to put together a ‘resilience treasure chest’ made up of their best pieces of advice, which resonated so positivity with our attendees that we thought it only fair to share it to the wider MBW community too. So, here it is:
Our Panellists:
Jodie Bolland, Head of Livestock & External Sales, Morrisons
Julie Baker, Head of Enterprise and Climate Engagement and Partnerships, NatWest
Hannah Surtees, Group Head of Market, Strategy & Planning, Hilton Food Group PLC
Elaine Willis, Retail Director, Linden Foods
Elizabeth Buchanan, Special Adviser, Waitrose, Dairy Crest plc and the Chime Group, CVO; LLD; FRAgs
Learn to be brave and embrace empowerment
“Step outside your comfort zone, because that’s where the magic happens” Julie says.
When you get an opportunity to lean in, make sure you take it. “When I recall going back to work after having my daughter, I was a female assistant manager in a team of 14 and I was the most junior. We had a summit coming up and the senior manager at the time asked me to present on stage. I was terrified! But he said as the first female assistant manager, and to come back from maternity that I could be a role model to others. He instilled that confidence and took me outside my comfort zone…The more females that are around the boardroom table, the better. Even without knowing it you instil confidence in one another.”
When one door closes, a window opens. Have the courage to go through the window
“But don’t be alarmed if things don’t work out the way you’d planned’ says Elizabeth. “Things don’t often happen in a linear route; you’ll need to go with the flow but have the courage to go through the window in the first place.”
Do something you love
Elaine explains that “I never wake up and think I don’t want to go to work today. I think if you get to that stage, it’s time for a change.” Finding something that you love to do alone gives you more resilience to carry on. Be true to yourself and enjoy what you do.
“When I understood what my purpose and passions were, I aligned my decisions and my behaviour with those and managed to get my work life balance and find some inner happiness.”
Don’t get stuck by circumstance
Elaine explains “As difficult as some things may seem, there is always a solution to a problem.” Ensure that you have the right team around you, listen to your team and take time to step back and think about the right solution. We are much more capable than we think so have the belief and don’t get stuck on a problem that can be solved.
Hannah’s piece of advice around this is to keep perspective. When things are manic and the pace of change is epic, when you’re firefighting, try to look from the outside in because you’ll gain perspective and better control of the situation.
Build your tribe
Whether that’s family, friends, kids, mentors, mentees colleagues, current and past, build a support network that you can tap into and seek advice from explains Hannah.
Having a mentor or role model is great, says Elaine. But it doesn’t have to be formal or structured. There are opportunities to see role models and mentors around you every day – you just need to be open to seeing them and learning from people.
Clear your head
Try and clear your mind, find something that helps you to do this, where you start with a problem and at the end, you’ve forgotten about it. “For me it’s running” says Jodie “You’ll build your resilience and come back a better person.”
But finding that work life balance and splitting your time can be difficult to put into practise. Elaine explains “Your work life balance won’t be right all the time, you need to keep recalculating and rebalancing it constantly, rather than leaving it for months at a time.”
Huge thanks to our 5 panellists and our chair Harriet Wilson for an incredibly inspirational panel session.
