Expert help to get that extra style and edge

Here's a New Year resolution: get a career cut-and-polish. Who can help? JULIE MIDDLETON reports.

THE MENTOR

It was an incident that would be life-changing: Pauline Winter, then an underemployed 17-year-old receptionist, was keeping her boredom at bay on the job by reading Alvin Toffler's 1970 description of high-tech dread, Future Shock.

A more senior staff member caught her at it, but saw the title before he could deliver a stern reprimand.

"Instead of ticking me off," recalls Winter, "he brought me books which we'd chat about - and it developed from there."

This mentor is now in his 80s; he and Winter still get together regularly to talk about her career, world affairs and current events.

"I'm almost tested on different parts of the newspaper," she says. "It's an advice and challenge thing."

A mentor - the word comes from Homer's epic, The Odyssey, in which Mentor taught and guided Odysseus' son - is generally an informal but respectful relationship with a more experienced colleague who wants to see you succeed.

Winter's hopes were larger than the reception desk. Her CV includes 10 years as chief executive of Workbridge, the employment agency for the disabled.

She chairs the Pacific Business Trust, is acting director of the Pacific Island Education Resource Centre in Otahuhu and sits on the Auckland Energy Consumer Trust and the Legal Services board.

And she is now informal mentor to about 20 people. Among them are men and women of all cultural and social backgrounds: corporate types, students, professionals, public servants and small business owners.

Some she sees every couple of weeks; others are more likely to be on the other end of the phone. Some have specific issues, such as the perennial work-life balance; others seek general broadening.

Winter, who describes her age as "a state secret", characterises mentoring as frequent and informal acts of generosity, the donation of time and insight to help others achieve.

The satisfaction is in "connectivity", she says, and seeing someone succeed.

Winter has been involved in formal mentoring programmes but prefers the development of looser, "spontaneous" relationships.

Sometimes they do develop into friendships, she says, "but you don't have to be friends".

"I don't give advice. It's more about challenging people's thinking. It's about sharing, pushing, trading, examining."

And, she adds, it is very often a lot of fun.

The Winter philosophy of career advancement means constantly looking out for learning opportunities.

She terms it "self-navigation, using beacons on the way".

"What I'm encouraging people to do," she says, "is to have the confidence to sidle up to someone that they particularly admire or who has something to offer - access to networks, information or a particular skill. Everyone has an ego, they like to be asked."

And potential mentors are everywhere - "parents, colleagues, people you go to church with".

And when Winter is approached? "We talk about what it is they are looking for and how we have to trust each other. Most of it's just listening, allowing people to talk through their thoughts."

One woman, a former colleague with whom Winter is still in touch after 12 years, had English as a second language and was so shy that her skills were underused, her contribution overlooked.

"But I knew she was astute and well educated and should not have been underestimated," says Winter.

Mentoring her "was the opportunity for me to support her and challenge her on how she interacted with other members of the team, how she could demonstrate she was worthy".

THE PRESENCE TUTOR

"If you ask me what presence is," says the bouncy Maggie Eyre, "it's about radiating the true you, who you truly are, and not being afraid to share your ideas, and to speak out in a confident manner.

"It's about showing your passionate self, your enthusiasm for life. Presence and passion are married."

Eyre, a 40-something former primary school drama teacher, actress and now a senior manager for Auckland public relations company Encore Communications, teaches corporate types how to develop that most intangible but critical trait.

Eyre quotes the University of California's Albert Mehrabian: 55 per cent of our impact on others is determined by body language, posture and eyes, 38 per cent by our voice, tone and inflection, and just 7 per cent by the content of whatever we are saying. It's very little to do with dress or status.

But here's the good news: everyone has the potential to develop more presence.

Eyre asks her students, often senior managers who have been told in performance reviews that they lack charisma, how they want to be perceived.

The answers: confident, credible, believable, professional. The learning curve looks to many, at least at first, like a vertical cliff face.

Eyre puts each in front of a camera and asks for a couple of minutes of chat on something he or she is passionate about - family, or kids, a hobby, perhaps, following that with a business-style speech.

Then she sits her students down with the recording. People have been known to run out of the room at this point, she adds, overwhelmed by fear of the camera's cruel gaze.

What they do discover is that the first recording, of the off-the-cuff chat, is invariably relaxed and natural - "they radiate presence" - in stark contrast to the business speech. Body language, says Eyre, appears closed and withdrawn.

The trick is to learn relaxed spontaneity and to apply it in all settings.

This often involves helping people to define their beliefs and values, which Eyre says gives the "personal power" to act with confidence and conviction: "They really need to believe in themselves."

She may teach meditation, breathing exercises, or self-affirmations.

Then it's back to the camera, working on splicing personality and presentation together and teaching what it means to live, as stage actors do, "in the moment".

Many of Eyre's clients have public profiles and seek her help to improve their speeches and presentations.

For the guy who always read his speech notes - the deadly impact of which Eyre likens to an actor reading the script before an audience - breakthrough came in convincing him that he knew exactly what he wanted to say, and could do it away from the protection of a lectern.

The person tangled in too much technology learned that while bells and whistles had their uses, the heart was a better vehicle.

Eyre charges an average of $250 an hour and says two hours is the minimum to make some progress. Some clients come once a week; others monthly, six-monthly or even yearly for a spruce-up.

THE RIVAL

You've probably had one in every job: usually similar in role, age, qualifications and experience, their presence has stirred your competitive streak.

But is rivalry a motivating tool, or just the murkier side of human nature?

"People learn from their rivals," says psychologist Ian McCormick.

However, rivalry needs to be underpinned by the desire to challenge oneself, not the desire to undermine others, he says, despite the fact that our competitiveness is hard-wired.

Australian science writer Bob Beale, quoted recently in the Australian Financial Review's Boss magazine, said that the levels in men of testosterone - a hormone also produced in women - often rise after combat and are highest among those on the victorious side.

But be warned, says management expert Marie Wilson: if you find yourself sabotaging or putting down a rival, you're putting a human tendency to poor use.

"If rivalry's just in your head and no one's drawn in to it, that's a positive thing. Rivalry can factionalise. It breaks down the cooperation which is pretty essential for most complex organisations."

Many companies mishandle the inherent rivalry among staff. Exploiting the need to beat works only if it's open and people freely participate, says McCormick, maybe by making a contest of meeting sales targets. Then success needs to be celebrated openly by everyone.