Career Interview
An ENTP's experience of working in the consulting, corporate and start-up worlds
How would you describe your career in 30 seconds?
My career has been in 3 phases. It started when I left university having done a degree
in International Business and joined a management consultancy. I did that for 8 years and
got a good grounding in business in the real world, following on from the business theory taught at university.
The 2nd phase saw me leave consulting to join the corporate world and I joined a blue-chip organisation where I spent another 8 years. During this time, I spent a lot of that time doing customer secondments (working inside the blue-chip’s client’s businesses) – notably working in a telco and running a software business in a consumer electronics business. I then moved into the Business Development world and ended up running an Innovation unit – dealing with both start-ups and corporate.
What have been the 'best bits' of your career?
My initial thinking is the best bits were about the successful teams I was in. Having
done a lot of work on values and worked with elite people (both sports and military) and
applied their thinking to creating high performance teams, it’s highlighted that the teams
with the right mix of people were the most enjoyable parts of my career. I’ve enjoyed
working in small teams where I was challenged and where I challenged others, which raised the
effectiveness of the team as a whole. These were teams where everyone is well respected,
competent, and knows what they are there to do.
I did enjoy the travelling in consultancy – I think there’s a time and a place for that. I was lucky enough to do that at the start of my career and I thoroughly enjoyed working in different countries.
I’m not sure that ‘best’ is the right word. Some of the hardest times were the most valuable. I have had some roles that required me to work in an environment that differed from my values, but I learned a lot. This wouldn’t have been my best period, but it was probably the most valuable.
What things would you do differently?
Networking – it needs more structure than I gave it, and LinkedIn doesn’t really do it. I
never really built a network; you forget things, people, and situations. You never know
what’s going to come next, and I should have built and sustained a stronger network.
Understanding the importance of values and doing assessments earlier is something that I discovered late in my career. If I had been more self-aware earlier in my career, I would have made some very different decisions. My career has been pulled by what other people think I should do, and I should have taken more control.
Use and sustain relationships with role models, mentors and people you can talk to. It is something supremely powerful and I should have done more with this.
Make use of the training and development opportunities that are available in many businesses. I didn’t make the most of them myself, and despite offering them to my team, people were always reticent about making the case for doing them. When they are available, you should take them!
If you were to meet the 20-year old verson of you, what career advice would you give?
The first thing is to prioritise building your network and understand who in the network is most
likely to help and most importantly when you need to use the network, know what
you want from them. I was networking with someone early in my career and he said to
me ‘I can’t help you if you don’t know what you want’. It was a lesson well learned.
Find people who have done it before – be prepared to reach out. Why make all the mistakes when others have made them? In the same vein, leverage other peoples’ experience. I’m into the stoics, and it shows that humanity hasn’t really changed in 2000 years. The best way to learn is through experience – and if you haven’t experienced it, the closest you can get is through someone who has.
Get out there, be sociable and meet people. Use technology but don’t get absorbed by it. Social media is important, but there is more value in the skill of face-to-face engagement. Likes and followers are hard to monetise. Build real relationships.
Do something different outside of business – something exciting. An adventure. It doesn’t matter what. Beyond the actual experience, the ability to talk about it is useful across all parts of business, all levels of seniority.
What are the required characteristics to be successful in consulting, corporate and startups?
The overarching theme is to make other people successful – help solve other people’s problems. This applies
across all three areas.
In consulting you are looking to deliver against milestones, typically addressing macro level problems. Though on a day-to-day basis in consulting you are being paid a day rate, so you need to be demonstrably making a difference. It’s a value driven world. For example, I used to do a lot of flying – the boss would say that ‘the client is paying for your flight – your day starts when you get on the plane’. It didn’t matter that you were up early on the red eye, you needed to start working then. I’m glad I started in the consulting world, as this is a core idea that I’ve tried to bring to every job I’ve done since.
In the corporate world, you might be working on a number of projects, but you might not have a clear measure on a day-to-day basis – it’s more focused on what you deliver over a year. There’s a lot more adaptability, and a wider scope to handle, and people want more of your time – but because your value is harder to define, managing the stakeholders and prioritising what you do is vital. If you’re not helping your boss to be successful in the corporate, you won’t succeed.
You are an ‘innovation’ expert – what are your thoughts on a job in innovation?
I like the theory and process of design thinking – but my view is the
focus tends to be too much on ‘the idea’ and not enough on the ‘execution’. Innovation
should be very structured – yes, with reviews on whether there is value to be
delivered but following a structure. It’s really all about having an
idea but having the discipline and determination to bring it to value. In summary,
you don’t need to be technical, or even creative to be innovative, you need to have stamina.
Any final thoughts about managing a career?
Resilience and perspective are so important. I think the world of work is going to get harder.
Career Management
Taking control of your career leads to many questions: what job should I do? Where should I work? How should I find a job? What jobs best fit my personality? The role of Higher is to help you answer these questions; build your self-awareness, give you confidence in being able to explain who you are, and give you support on the '4.5 million minute marathon' that is your career.
If you enjoyed this article, have a look at some other articles that might be of interest and then take your own personality assessment - it's free, quick and who knows where it might take you?
