Speed mentoring for Hungarian women proves success – that is the experience of Theresa Bubbear, Chargé d'Affaires of The British Embassy in Budapest who wrote about this experiment at her embassy for the WittyLeaks section of Diplomacy & Trade.
The first thing you see on
entering the British Embassy in Budapest is our new “rogues’ gallery” – photos
of former British Ambassadors to Hungary. They seem an impressive bunch –
solemn, wise, some of them stern, a couple with a twinkle in their eyes, all of
them smart and formal, most of them on the verge of retirement at the time the
photographs were taken. And all male.
Not as bad…
As a new female Chargé, it’s
hard not to be intimidated by my august predecessors. Some of them worked in
the days of ‘lady typewriters’ (as secretaries used to be called), all of them
had wives who ran the residence, raised the children, organized packing and
moving, and entertained guests tirelessly and charmingly. So important was a
diplomatic wife’s role that Foreign Office annual appraisal forms used to
include a box for comments about her. In my last job, in HR, I trawled through
some ancient files and found an intriguing comment about someone’s wife: “She
is not as bad as we had been led to believe”. Recruitment notes on female
applicants to the diplomatic service often began with a comment on the
applicant’s appearance, while comments on their male counterparts referred only
to their intellectual prowess.
Until 1973, just 12 years
before I joined the Foreign Office, female British diplomats were required to
resign on marriage, and until 1987, all our female Ambassadors were unmarried
and without children. Even now, women make up only a small proportion of the
most senior grades in the Foreign Office. We’re making progress and we have
some very senior and committed champions, but I’m still an ‘under-represented
minority’ in Foreign Office terms.
Not a minority
All this came as rather a shock to me. As the eldest
of three girls, with three daughters of my own, and having attended a girls’
school and the first women’s college at Cambridge (which was just starting to
integrate male students as I arrived), I’ve never really believed that I was in
any kind of minority. And, in any case, growing up in multicultural London, being
in a minority didn’t seem to be a problem.
That probably sounds naive,
although for many years it was true. I’ve been lucky. I have never experienced
discrimination and I’m proud to work for a genuinely diverse organization,
where ‘equal opportunities’ means exactly what it says, and where I’ve been
able to combine my family and career with relative ease. I’m equally proud of
the UK’s record on diversity and human rights and the effort we devote to
promoting and supporting these values around the world.
Speed mentoring
I am, however, not so naive as
to believe that I have achieved anything on my own. Every step of the way, from
school to university, to Foreign Office, I have had help and support: some of it formal, from managers, coaches,
and mentors; much of it informal, from colleagues and friends - and from a
perfect mix of older and younger people, both male and female. Many of them
would be surprised to know that I have remembered what they told me, but I
still keep a learning journal, where I try to record something I have learned
every day. I have trained as a coach and acted as formal and informal mentor to
many colleagues around the world, trying to give back a little of what has been
shared so generously with me, which is
why I suggested a ‘speed mentoring’ event for young Hungarian women to mark
International Women’s Day this year.
It was an off-the-cuff
suggestion. I didn’t know if it would work, or (if I’m honest) exactly how
speed mentoring worked. But when I saw the enthusiasm of my colleagues, I realized
that we were on to something. With very little time in which to organize the
evening, I wrote to a series of ladies to ask for their help. The US and
Italian Ambassadors readily agreed, as did some senior Hungarian businesswomen,
journalists, a philosopher, a fashion designer and a former MP. Within a couple
of days, I had 13 mentors and shortly afterwards, we had three organizations,
namely the Tom Lantos Institute, Milestone Institute and the Romedia Foundation
ready to supply mentees. The concept was much like speed dating – which,
needless to say, I’ve never tried. Each mentor had a seat at a table and the
mentees rotated between them every ten minutes when a bell rang. We supplied
sample questions, asked the mentees to sign up for three sessions with the
senior ladies they most wanted to meet, then watched what happened.
Girl talk
The evening got off to a
cautious start. The mentees, many of whom had travelled a long way, were
understandably shy when faced with their mentors. Many were a little overawed
by the Ambassador’s residence, which I had borrowed for the evening. And, like
me, no-one really knew how this would work. But as the mentoring got going the
noise levels grew, the smiles got bigger, and the excitement was palpable. I
was not mentoring myself, but I chatted to the participants between sessions
and many took the opportunity to ask me questions – what were the most
important things I had learned, who had helped, me, what was my favorite book,
how had I combined my family and my career, and what did my daughters think
about diplomatic life. By the end of the evening, each mentee had asked similar
questions of several mentors. Both sides were grateful for the opportunity to
talk and to share experiences and, importantly, each side learned from the
other. I was very struck by the fact that the mentors were, without exception,
sorry when the final bell rang, even though they had been mentoring for a solid
couple of hours by then. Everyone would gladly have continued.
Ten minutes with a mentor
won’t change anyone’s life, although I know that a job offer has been made to
one of our mentees as a direct result of that event. But it was good to
remember that even very senior ladies are not too grand to offer advice, and
that everyone has had to overcome difficulties along the way. The shy girls who
huddled with their friends at the start of the evening were more confident
ladies by the end of it, mingling with other mentees, chatting with mentors,
and lining up to take selfies with the senior ladies who suddenly felt like
friends. Several of them wrote to me afterwards, telling me that they were
inspired by the evening, and several of the mentors have also asked how they
can continue to be involved. We will certainly do it again. I’m not complacent
– there are many more young ladies who could use a shot of confidence and some
practical ideas. And some very real hurdles for them to overcome as they embark
on their careers. But if that evening made one girl determined to help someone
else the next day, or next year, or in 2050, I count it a success.
And where’s my husband in all
of this? He was a diplomat too, with a long and successful career. But he
eventually succumbed to girl power and left the Foreign Service. He’s returned
to London to work – in a girls’ school…


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