Settling into Transition
Last August, I started a conversation about the ingredients of a career change where I covered the first 2 questions of the below framework (you can read that first instalment here). Through this article, I’ll cover the remaining 3 questions now that I’ve had more time to adjust and reflect.
The more I thought about these 3 questions individually, the more I realised that - in my case - their answers are rooted in the same themes. That’s because my nature is to identify a few core things that I can do consistently well when initially faced with a new environment. The skill of how to transition is the topic of many a business and self-help book. Personality, mindset and energy levels at the time of transition, and circumstantial factors such as the degree of support have all played a role in how I look at this.
In this first year as a new kid on the tech block, understanding people and processes, and broadening my information scope are the simple and intuitive pillars I am working on. There is a natural inclination to rush into a lot of “doing” and “deciding” sooner rather than later which I have to actively suppress in favour of looking at key issues from the lens of the people, processes and information first. Whether taking more time to think leads to better comprehension, or reveals problems that have been over-looked, I find it extremely valuable to use the first 3-6 months allowing myself time to process. Every organisation has high expectations of quick onboarding and transitioning - the challenge is to regulate yourself amidst that to set appropriate expectations.
It would have been all too easy to falsely pressure myself to approach fintech with an impossibly steep learning curve as someone who was used to having mastered a particular domain. Knowing I have done well to choose the right environment where I can add value and which fosters learning, it sets a constructive starting point for 3 main levers I am pulling to get the most out of the people, processes and information needed in the journey ahead.
Humility - this helps me be easily and readily inclined towards asking any and all questions I need to understand core issues and their drivers, and where necessary to challenge assumptions. Quality decisions require quality information and that entails creating an environment where that information can flow openly and timeously. It also means catalysing cross-functional conversation to extract the benefit of everyone’s skills and ideas rather than being quick to impose my own. The phrase Highest Paid Person’s Opinion (“HiPPO”) exists for a reason - it creates distance, and worse, it makes colleagues less invested in the decisions taken.
Expanding my network - this comes as no surprise given how often I talk about networking. The purpose of it in this phase of my career has taken on so many dimensions. From potential service providers, business partners, talent recruitment, industry thought leadership, mentors and more, there is an ever-present and immediate need to immerse myself in new professional waters. Some people wait until they are more established in a new role / new environment before they start forging these new connections. Personally that is not my style because learning through people is simply more enriching: it yields facts, insights and the benefit of their experience. It also sharpens my convictions to be able to test ideas externally with people who have different conditioning.
Consideration for the way I work with, on and through teams. Fintech, unlike investment banking, requires significantly more co-creation of ideas. It’s arguably that desire to express innovation in an agile manner that draws talent into the sector. Effective leadership sets and inspires the team vision, and creates the conditions for the team to succeed. As I consider what leadership looks and feels like in this phase of my career, my biggest area of interest is in the collective achievements that result from cultivating and sustaining an innovative environment. Additionally, I am also very interested in identifying what truly motivates people. Without knowing this, it’s quite difficult to effectively engage them in any vision or with any incentive.
The Books Which Helped Me Most
1. Michael D. Watkins “The First 90 Days” - a favourite to re-read with every major transition.
Favourite Refreshers
“Match Strategy to Situation.”
“Transition failures happen because new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them.”
“Rework your network: as you advance in your career, the advice you need changes. Preparing yourself for a new role calls for proactively restructuring your advice-and-counsel network. Early in your career, there is a premium on cultivating good technical advisers—experts in certain aspects of marketing or finance, for instance, who can help you get your work done. As you move to higher levels, however, it becomes increasingly important to get good political counsel and personal advice.”
2. Daniel H. Pink’s “Drive”
Favourite Insights
This book offered a concise and realistic way to address the major motivations that drive human behaviour and satisfaction in the workplace regarding mastery, autonomy and purpose. My take on the book’s 3 main principles are not radical. However, simple as they are, I see the challenge in consistently scaling them across an organization.
Mastery:
We know this is a growth mindset where learning and intelligence are developed, and not limited to natural endowment. Organisations have a responsibility to nurture everyone - even the most self-confident person - through transparent, constructive and regular feedback sessions that promote progress. Developing a healthy feedback culture is a priority and not a gimmick.
Productivity is best in a flow state where individuals work on challenging tasks within their capabilities that stretch them into progressive improvement with autonomy and purpose. I consider, then, what proportion of employees get a chance to experience or expect this from their work, versus formulaic and repetitive tasks and restructure their job descriptions to allow fulfilling areas of mastery. Organisations can be so focused on the job to be done without tapping into the full value to be added by a particular person.
Autonomy
Each person desires autonomy in the way they work through self-determined 4Ts:
Task - being able to choose what to do
Team - who to do it with
Time - when to do it
Technique - how to do it
For me, one of the most important adjustments to the global Work From Home movement is a higher focus on outcomes, rather than face time, to evidence the quality of our contributions. Autonomy in producing those outcomes leaves room for much-needed creativity and dare I say, joy. Here, self-control and appropriate organisational expectations are important to avoid turning Working from Home into Living at Work!
Purpose
Intrinsic motivation is essential to purpose-driven work. Purpose is driven by shared values, creativity, self-expression and desired impact within the organisation.
Here, money matters at two levels: 1) as a hygiene factor (pay enough so that it’s not a matter of concern); 2) due recognition for great (out)performance.
Companies risk making the mistake that purpose-driven employees don’t know their financial value, or that they would fight for it. The balance to strike is to avoid making financial rewards the sole incentive because it can have the unintended consequence of belittling purpose by making the relationship transactional.
Money as the main incentive works for those who are extrinsically motivated, or for formulaic tasks where creativity doesn’t matter. Goals and incentives should be set with sensitivity for intrinsic and extrinsic motivations as relevant for the team or specific role being performed.
3. General Stanley McChrystal et alia’s “Team of Teams”
Favourite Insights
This was a foray into taking lessons from military service and applying them to a formula for winning teams doing business in complex times.
Agile teams thrive under decentralised decision-making, which means trusting a team with “shared consciousness” and democratised information access.
Leaders should re-frame their value and be more like gardeners (setting an environment for success) rather than being the single point of decision-making. Yes, their ability to make decisions is still important but they don’t have a monopoly on the requisite skills to make the best decision as they often lack the full situational awareness of those closest to the problem.
All these themes are tied together through empowered execution. It’s not enough to know the right thing to do. One must be able to act, and to do so without fear of reprisal, meaning….
When a team is aligned and motivated, each member is trying to do the best possible in environments that are complex and complicated. Acting quickly and decisively when there is no perfect answer, but instead just a “good enough” response requires leaders to create psychological safety.
We’ve heard some version of some or all these lessons, the challenge is in their successful execution!
Final Thoughts
I wrote mostly about personal mindset and people issues even though the fintech space has a lot of technical things to learn. I am certainly putting in the hours from that perspective but as a lifelong learner, I’ve been here before. The skill of transition lies in the mental and personal just as much as the technical. All need to be developed together. It’s quite tempting to focus on the technical first and only because there is a high degree of control over the pace of learning it brings. The downside is when you are a professional already in a job, the technical side is regarded as a given factor and it’s the power skills (also known as “soft skills” but I find that naming misleading given how influential they have become) that continue to shape the working experience.
Periods of transition are like learning to ski: you’ve got to shift your balance to navigate the shifting contours of a new environment.
