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So, the fastest way to explain this is through a basic background: UK heritage Science based A-levels Bachelors in Physics Masters in Physics PhD in Physics At this point I realised I preferred where I live to the studies I took. Since then: First 2 years : Management Information analyst (temp) Second 2 years: Management information specialist (temp) Fifth Year : Permanent Specialist Role Sixth Year: Permanent Expert Role Effectively I'm concious that I've learned so much soft information in the last two years, and if someone was in my situation, knowing that would be a real advantage. Granted, a lot of this won't be possible as it will be experience based - but if you need tips on how to progress and influence people, perhaps this might offer something to you. What would you want to know?
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Apr 1, 2015 01:09
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 03:40 |
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I've made a similar transition myself, quantitative PhD to finance. How do you manage HR and teambuilding exercises in a positive way for your career? My employer has a lot of focus on team spirit, engagement, networking and "developing leadership skills". I suspect that this is partially because a lot of the organizartion have dull jobs or a high pressure on sales. However, my team loves our primary tasks in statistics/risk management but are a bad fit socially in the corporate culture. So we have some major challenges in 1) The ongoing discussions on team spirit/engagement/networking are detrimental to the motivation of the team. 2) We have almost no influence within the corporation to get poo poo done, especially IT-related. Even for projects with hundreds of millions in savings or serious problems with compliance that risks hundreds of millions in fines. So I need to manage the corporate culture in a way that is positive for my career without wanting to shot myself. Also the team needs to reposition itself in the organization in a positive way, in a way that fits our team better. Any thoughts?
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Apr 1, 2015 10:49
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I recognise a lot of those elements - very similar and I think you'll find the same pattern in every major corporation these days. It's especially prevalent in the technical areas, there's often a division of Technical vs Management vs Corporate - invisible lines drawn up through a combination of the roles, team splits and behaviours. There's been some success is by putting a more local spin or actions in place. For example - asking the question of those who view the initiatives as detrimental, what ideas would you have that would be positive. It's amazing how often there's negative feedback, but sometimes either it's non specific (if you show me what's broken, we can work out how to fix it) or lacking insight (if you were in my shoes and were trying to do this - what would you do). What we ended up with was a slew of 'fixes' - some of which could be lobbied for change (one really simple one was just changing wording on a standard email cascade) and others that could then be explained in more detail of why they can't change. The most positive aspect was certain teams set their own initiatives in place of the central ones - improving the central goals of improving engagement/team spirit/skills but in a way that actually had meaning to them. The second part is immensely frustrating, and it's another common theme I definitely recognise. It can be tackled in a number of different ways. Firstly - on knowledge of the end to end. We had a lot of frustration from teams where their observation was that it takes far too long to get to a point of detailed requirements, however by sharing knowledge of how those are actually produced (and the red tape it has to go through) it helped them understand why in some cases it takes that amount of time. In terms of actually making positive changes though, a lot of it will be on making connections to build relationships where what you would like to influence can be heard. Of course there's still no guarantee any of it will be acted on - but the first step is to find a place where you will be listened to. The other element to tie in, like above - is to also look at small things. Small things tend to be easier to change and more straightforward to get done - and if it demonstrates something positive, it can snowball (usually over a long time) into a big thing. I'm no expert but that's what I've observed!
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Apr 1, 2015 19:08
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