Capgemini director's five career tips for success in work and life

Business Development Director in Insights & Data (I&D) at Capgemini UK, Tina Diamond recently shared her fascinating career journey and life lessons with Where Women Work. Read on for five of the interview’s key takeaways for success in work and life.

With a post-graduate Masters in Organisational Leadership from Oxford University and over 20 years of experience in digital transformations, Tina joined Insights & Data in April 2019.

Beyond her Capgemini role, Tina runs the ‘Diamond Forum’, where she works with women of all ages (including secondary school pupils) to help them engage more effectively in their daily lives, and is co-founder of a global leadership network for women called ‘Women in Dynamic Leadership’.

Read Tina’s full interview, or take a look at our top five takeaways:

Bring your cumulative best to work

“For me, bringing my cumulative best means bringing my all, including my experience, expertise and understanding from my whole life, to everything I do and every situation I engage in,” explains Tina. “I see it as, the sum of who I am is greater than the individual parts throughout my life and career, including learnings from what didn’t work as well as what did.”

Trust is fundamental to building strong relationships

Tina’s disposition towards others is always to trust and value first, rather than to be suspicious or question their motives; she believes that this attitude has been fundamental in building strong relationships throughout her life and career.

See challenges not as obstacles, but as ‘disguised gifts’

Tina explains: “I experience challenges as disguised gifts, an opportunity for learning something about myself or knowledge I need to become aware of and apply. While it may be an unpleasant situation which stretches my learning, it always ends up allowing me to learn something new, adding to my culmination, ultimately for a better or more effective way forward.”

Learn to ‘self-authorise’ and say yes to yourself

“I have learned to self-authorise myself, which means saying yes to my life…When I started to shift my mindset and attitude, I was pleasantly surprised in how often others would say yes to me. Which made me think that maybe I was saying no to myself before someone else did,” Tina shares. “Self-authorise yourself, put yourself forward…say yes to yourself until someone says no, and even then, there may still be a ‘yes’ that can emerge in another way, shape or form.”

You only have one life – take care of all of its parts

“People talk about having a ‘work-life balance’, but you only have one life and you have to make sure that life is working as a whole… If one part of your life isn’t working, say your personal life, it tends to impact your whole life, it cannot be separated. Think about your body – it is made up of many systems, organs and parts, working indivisibly as one whole system. If you break your arm, it impacts your entire system, not just your arm, impacting all the systems, organs and parts,” explains Tina.

“Another aspect in taking care of my whole life is to pick up the crumbs, no matter how small as they can impact the whole. The analogy that works best for me is: when I’m cooking, and there are a few crumbs on the countertop, they may not be noticeable, though when I don’t pick them up, leave them for a few meals, they become a mess which always takes longer to clean up. I am learning to pick up the crumbs, so at the end of the day, I don’t have to clean up a bigger mess.

“To apply that to my everyday life, if I allow a situation that needs to be addressed, perhaps a misunderstanding, miscommunication or impact to someone’s good intention, and let it go, not addressing for either clarification or sharing the unintended consequence, I WILL end up with a mess, and be wondering how it got to be so big. My guidance is to pick up the crumbs as you live, so you don’t end up with a mess.”

Read Tina’s full interview.