4 mistakes I wish I didn't make...

1- Don’t undersell yourself for your first job (…and never… full stop!)

I started as a young graduate in a regional bank in North East of France in September 1999, and did all the steps from Meet & Greet, to Teller, to Personal Relationship Manager, I had then to move my way up to Corporate Banking, and it took me 2.5 years. The first months were meant to be a “tour de banque” (bank tour), as fellow French say, but it turned out to be a long and winding road instead. 

While starting low enabled me to see the banking industry upside down, and get to grips with all processes, some of the learnings I still use today, if summer 1999 was to happen again, I would re assess the starting point and start differently. I could witness graduate colleagues having a faster and better career than me after 3 years, and had to work even more to catch them up later. The entry point does matter (quite a lot)!

2- Don’t slow your pace down if the organic rhythm of your environment is slow

In my first head office roles in Canary Wharf, London, I struggled to deliver projects at a pace that would suit my aspirations. I came to this role fresh from frontline, and full of energy and ambition, but while being initially frustrated with the number of approvals and number of people needed to take simple decisions, after some time I started to let this become business as usual.

With insight I noticed that I had compromised too much on accepting the red tape as a given, and settling with the “how things are done here” too much.

I had just joined the team and thought it would not be well received to rock the boat too much. This resulted in mixed feedback from my managers in my first year. With insight I would have pushed forward more and moved more pieces to accelerate things right at the outset. Thanks to these managers and the feedback, I got the lesson for the rest of my career!

Get off the blocks quick and keep it going! 

3- There are times, when work does not matter at all!

 Probably one the biggest mistake I made early in my career, when Noemie, my first daughter was born, I tried to work half days in the morning at the bank; and be at maternity during the afternoon. There was a lot going on at work and felt I had to a could manage both well. I felt drained mentally just after 2 days and it left a slight bitter taste to it forever. At the time the struggle came with the feeling of being good nowhere at all.

The worst part is now remembering those precious moments, as somehow spoiled by the work stuff. My advice to young fathers out there:

"take time out, properly handover the job, and keep your focus to these precious moments for as long as you can".

4- Because you come from the team, doesn’t mean it’s easier to manage!

I made my first leadership mistake immediately after taking on a 1st manager role, where I was asked to manage the team I used to be part of. The incumbent manager was promoted and stayed as my boss; so I thought the transition would be easy, as I knew all the colleagues and was keeping my boss.

This turned out to be a huge error of appreciation. As I discovered further in my career, it’s always easier to take the lead with teams who might know you, but were not your team.

 I discovered too late that it is much harder to re-establish ways of working with people than set them up first. This led to a sluggish start and weird situations, trying to find the right tone. Keeping natural and saying open what you think, working the first few weeks and months to clearly establish ways of working, expected behaviors and expectations with your team is a must in all cases, but specially is situations where when you come from the team you will lead.