Two Mirrors and a Cheetah: Think Differently, Own Your Career & Succeed by Being Yourself

Praise for Two Mirrors and a Cheetah

‘A career’s worth of learning and deep insights packaged for easy consumption. A must read for everyone who wants to build a career that brings out and develops the best of themselves.’

Jamie Heywood, Regional General Manager UK, Northern & Eastern Europe, Uber

‘Engaging, entertaining and thought provoking. For anyone seeking to further their professional career and frankly for anyone seeking to unleash their true self in business or in life, this book is one not to miss!’

Leila McKenzie-Delis, Author, Founder and CEO, DIAL Global

‘This book holds a career’s worth of wisdom from an inspirational leader. I’m so pleased that Fiona has gone to the trouble of setting it down so honestly and clearly, I just wish I’d had the chance to read it much earlier in my career! Read this if you want a happier and healthier career!’

Doug Gurr, Director of the Natural History Museum and former CEO, Amazon UK

‘Dedicated to exploring and understanding yourself, this book is packed with inspiring, insightful and practical advice and exercises to get you to where you want to go. The wisdom in these pages is priceless.’

Amanda Mackenzie OBE, Chief Executive, Business In the Community

‘Engaging, authentic and easy-to-read, this book is like having your own personal career coach giving you the confidence and clarity to tackle anything. If your career has plateaued, or you’re unhappy in your job but not sure what to do, then this book is essential reading.’

Ruwan Kodikara, VP Sony Music

‘Fiona has created a narrative to help us all understand how we can thrive in our careers and how we can help others achieve their rhythm. I highly recommend this book not just for work, but for the universal truths found within it that will help you thrive in life too.’

Matthew Phelan, Author and Co-Founder, The Happiness Index.

‘A highly engaging and valuable career guide, helpful at any stage in your career. McDonnell’s path is a distinguished one, and through her unique lens, that of scientist, seasoned business leader, adventurous soul and life-long learner, she provides relatable, practical advice and frameworks that offer the reader a roadmap to growth and career satisfaction, a means to flourish professionally on one’s own terms.’

Ripa Rashid, Author and Diversity and Inclusion Expert

Two Mirrors and a Cheetah

Think Differently,

Own Your Career &

Succeed by Being Yourself

FIONA McDONNELL

Published in the UK by Double Magpie

Copyright © Fiona McDonnell 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

The views and opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the author and do not express the position or official policy of any former or current employers or clients.

www.fionamcdonnell.com

Cover art by G Sharp Design, LLC

Interior layout and typesetting by waynekehoe.com

ISBN 978-1-7399263-1-1

FIRST EDITION 2021

Double Magpie Ltd

27 Old Gloucester Street,

London WC1N 3AX

www.doublemagpie.com

For Riemer, you embrace my ‘crazy’.

For Jasper and Elliot, you inspire me more than you will ever know.

Contents

Introduction

How abstract ideas make powerful learnings. An overview of Two Mirrors and a Cheetah as a concept and how you can use this book.

PART 1

BUILDING UNDERSTANDING

1 Know Yourself – Mirror One

Exploring the many dimensions of self-awareness, why it matters and how to improve yours. Identifying the elements of your unique product map: toolkit, motivators, work style and impact.

2 Be Yourself – Mirror Two

Living according to your values and defining your version of success. Seeing failure as a friend, owning your choices and changing your view of confidence. Developing your personal ‘volume’ switch.

3 Context – The Cheetah

Understanding the role of context in your career and how it affects you. Defining your needs for a fulfilling work context. Learning how to recognise and react to change.

4 Adaptability – The Future-Proof Skill

Exploring options to adapt, seek adaptation or move on. Processing a departure and moving on with new insight about yourself.

PART 2

APPLYING THE KNOWLEDGE

5 The Job Hunt

Ten action steps to land your next job. Preparing your mind, materials and story. Creating opportunities, networking, being proactive and selective. Remaining true to yourself and learning throughout the process.

6 The Career Pivot

Considering alternatives to the full-time employment approach.

7 The Internal Move

Ten tips for building an internal career path. Learning the process, identifying growth opportunities and maintaining choice. Getting involved in the organisation and bringing your supporters on board.

8 The Promotion

Transitioning successfully to the role of manager. Being a first-time manager or manager of peers.

9 The ‘Bad’ Manager

Strategies for surviving an incompatible manager. Not blaming yourself, understanding the challenge, having open conversations, seeking neutral perspectives and moving on constructively.

10 The Coach – Helping Others

Leveraging Two Mirrors and a Cheetah for your team. Helping people become more self-aware, building people up, helping people navigate change and building an inclusive environment.

11 Finding Your Rhythm

Adopting the learnings of Two Mirrors and a Cheetah into your routine. Overcoming friction, accepting risks, understanding balance, remembering practice and building momentum for others.

Acknowledgements

Note from the Author

Additional Resources

Additional Visualisation Exercises

Endnotes

Introduction

If I asked you to describe yourself as a piece of pasta, to tell me the type of pasta you identify with the most and why you chose it, do you think you would have an answer? This is a question I asked three senior guest speakers whom I was introducing during an industry conference in 2006. It was the after-lunch session, otherwise known as the graveyard shift, and so I wanted to do something that was a little fun and would capture the audience’s attention.

The speakers had little prior warning – I only let them know what I planned about 30 minutes before the start. Fortunately for me, not only did they oblige, but they entered into the challenge with amazing humour and energy. Each one of them was very quickly able to tell me not just which piece of pasta they chose but the fine detail as to why that shape was a good representation of who they think they are. It was not only entertaining; it was fascinating! We had rigatoni, chosen for its simple but powerful shape, cylinders being the strongest shape there is structurally. There was penne, similar in structure, reliability and strength to the rigatoni, but a little bit edgy as dictated by the slanting edge. I also volunteered the farfalle, a bow-shaped pasta; a romantic, artistic yet symmetrical shape which is delicate to look at though sharp edges become apparent when viewed up close.

Now, if I ask a room full of people to describe their unique skills or characteristics, I am frequently met with a long silence. There are even more blank stares and some uncomfortable shifting in seats, too, if I ask whether they are being ‘themselves’ at work, and whether they feel they are thriving.

I find this so fascinating. Most of us spend five out of seven days working, and a mere fraction of that time eating pasta. So, why the hesitation when the question is not abstract? Why do we not have the same handle on bigger things that matter as we do on what kind of pasta we would be? Imagine if you could describe with the same passion, precision and interest the straightforward, non-abstract things about you that are unique, as you can the kind of fruit you are or what animal best represents you. Imagine if you could just as easily talk about the things that excite you or the conditions that bring out your happiest or most productive self.

Perhaps we can even use that insight to break free from the expectations and filters that society dictates and be that person in practice. Maybe we could even follow the wisdom of the animal kingdom – like birds who fly south for the winter – and seek out environments that support us physically and mentally during our time at work? We are, after all, supposed to be the most intelligent species… and yet we put up with damaging contexts.

But, of course, it’s not one or the other, abstract or concrete, is it? It’s both. Abstract pictures let our creativity free and aid our understanding. These seemingly silly, metaphorical questions help us to talk about the not-silly truths of who we are and how we work. If we approach what is often presented as a rather serious topic in a different, more light-hearted way, we can access a greater understanding of ourselves. With patience and practice, it can all become second nature.

Mental images help us to relate to complicated topics. Abstract creativity helps us access understanding. Stories and anecdotes help us relate to and remember ideas. So, it follows that the right demonstration has the power to make tough topics fun; to not only land the message with your audience but enable them to actually commit it to memory.

Even 30 years after studying engineering at university, I can still recall complicated manufacturing concepts brought to life with storytelling in the book, The Goal, by Eliyahu Goldratt. Far from a theoretical textbook, it managed to enliven the topic by utilising narrative tools. In that same time, nothing in the field of softer skills or workplace psychology has landed as well for me as The Goal did in the field of engineering. I believe that it takes a lot of effort, and probably a lot of bravery, to be yourself at work, though it is a true source of power and advantage for those who succeed in doing so. I wanted to create something using visual metaphor and which had practical application to help people get a better grasp on what can be difficult topics to deal with, but which are so fundamental to equipping everyone to succeed just as they are.

The goal of Two Mirrors and a Cheetah is just that: to provide inspiration via an abstract idea, a metaphor or a mental image that will bring some simple and yet powerful career lessons to life. The key concept is based around a three-step framework, designed to challenge you to think differently and build a greater understanding of these key themes:

Knowing yourself – mirror one

Being yourself in reality – mirror two

Context and how it affects you – the cheetah

Together, these themes can help you take control of your career, navigate change and find greater fulfilment – through the magical method of just being yourself. Easier said than done, of course, but I am a firm believer that we are all more effective and happier when we do things as ourselves.

How to use this book

The book is broadly split into two parts. The first half is dedicated to developing an understanding and the second half to exploring how to apply the knowledge in different situations.

Part 1: Chapters 1 to 4 are about generating knowledge and introducing the mental pictures behind each of the mirrors and the cheetah to aid discovery and memory of the concepts. The different stories uncover the impact and development of self-awareness, self-belief, confidence and self-control: the ability to be oneself and filter feedback via the mirrors. This is followed by a detailed look at both the work conditions you require and the needs that must be met in order to succeed and feel fulfilled. Together, I refer to this as ‘context’, and it is the heart of the metaphor of the cheetah.

In each chapter I share the story of how the lesson behind the concept landed for me. I then seek, for each of these, not only to answer why it is important but also to suggest ways for you to increase your own understanding. I propose questions that challenge you to look at your career and situation with an objective eye. I also offer a few targeted, simple exercises that help you to be honest with yourself as a first step to evaluating your status quo.

Part 2: Chapters 5 to 11 will look at what you can do with this new understanding. These chapters address a range of career movements, both externally and internally, from the challenges of moving jobs to that of promotions, changing roles and managers, as well as how to leverage this framework to manage your own team.

Change, and how to adapt to it, is a thread that runs through the advice. Each section offers steps to guide you through these moments and to provide the encouragement for you to leverage what you learned in Part 1. We then close out the book with a look at how you can maintain these concepts in your life, encouraging you to model your newfound adaptability to help others and further aid the momentum towards a more diverse and inclusive world of work.

To bring the concepts in this book to life, I use examples from my own life and career, deconstructing them very openly to extract the learnings and weaving those through the story. Whether it’s circumstances, choices or life events, much of our career path is down to chance, no matter how hard we attempt to plan it. So, the chances of my choices and situations matching up with any one of yours is slim. There is no ‘right’ route for a career, there is only your route. My hope is that the lessons within this book will be transferable to your situation, whatever industry, country or culture you live and work in; whether you are starting out on your career journey, developing yourself after a number of years in work or indeed facing the challenge of a big career change and transition. In all these cases, the following chapters can inspire you and guide you, both in your current role and your next move. I hope you enjoy reading.

PART 1

BUILDING UNDERSTANDING

1 

Know Yourself – Mirror One

No career journey is smooth, and mine certainly wasn’t: it was a rollercoaster of running into walls, enjoying successes and learning from failures. When I look back across my career to date, reflecting on my many different challenges, there is no question that I have grown, shaped by those experiences, to become the person I am today. Among all of those experiences, there are a few key ones – some pivotal learning moments – that stand out for me. Strangely, the things which I found most difficult to learn were things I didn’t even think I needed to focus on. Many of those moments, although I wasn’t to know it at the time, turned out to be the start of big changes in my life and career. With reflection, I’m sure any of us could describe many such moments, both big and small, but for me, three key triggers stand out.

• The leadership course

About 10 or 15 years ago, I was on a training course for leaders. A mentor of mine was describing the most important moments or lessons in his own journey, and top of his list was gaining self-awareness. I can remember exactly how I reacted to that, and I distinctly remember thinking: ‘Really? Ugh, this is just far too soft and touchy-feely! Just tell me what to actually do.’ Despite the advice being laid out, plain and simple, I didn’t want to hear it, and it was only later that I made the connection between this moment and another I had experienced earlier in my career.

• The performance review

In my early 30s, I was working for Nike in the first role where I actually had a profit and loss (P&L) responsibility and a team who reported to me. The role was a hybrid channel manager and part of the sales organisation. Up to that point I’d mainly had strategic projects or supporting roles, so there was lots to learn. In this role, I received a performance appraisal that was less ‘shining’ than I would have liked. As a self-proclaimed overachiever, although there was nothing actually wrong with this performance appraisal, I was unhappy because, up to that point, I had only ever been in the very top percentiles. My manager tried to explain to me why the appraisal was what it was and, perhaps more importantly, why I shouldn’t just expect to be the best all the time. He said he didn’t know what ‘brand Fiona’ stood for, and that I couldn’t create demand for myself and my skills if I didn’t know what I wanted to be known for delivering.

Now, the fact that I was taken down a peg or two, although unpleasant at the time, served to make me a lot more grounded as an individual. However, the real lesson came later for me – after the leadership course that I went on when I made the connection between them. Of course, what my old manager was trying to explain is that I lacked sufficient self-awareness to know who I was and what my brand at work was. Other than being some kind of ephemeral idea of ‘the best’, I didn’t know what I wanted out of life, my career and my reputation. So, that’s twice that self-awareness was brought to my attention.

• The Christmas present

The final, ‘eureka’ moment of insight for me was completely unconnected to the work world. There was a time in my life when many of my friends and family were starting to settle down, get married and have kids. I too had imagined I would be doing just that, but life (as it so often does) had not followed the naïve plans I had made as a young student. I was following my sense of adventure and pursuing a globetrotting career, but I was still single. One Christmas during this time, I received a present from one of my sisters: a book called If I’m So Wonderful,