I had an inkling that Christine Silva was someone that I wanted to meet when I read her blog post on Ten Thousand Coffees this Fall. I felt that thread of excitement that rises up when I come across something that inspires me. A few weeks after inviting her for a chat on 10KCoffees, we found ourselves at high-ceilinged New York style café on Bay Street. Seconds into introducing myself, I was struck by how personable Christine was. Conversational, articulate and very down to earth, Christine’s openness made for one of the most memorable career conversations I’ve had to date - and I’ve had many!
I was hoping to find out more about Christine’s transition from the non-profit world to the corporate world. I also wanted to learn more about her research on women and leadership. What happened next is what happens in the best of conversations. We were side-tracked by a topic that we both have a mutual passion for: Innovation.
On Innovation, Storytelling, and Harnessing Expertise
Between Christine’s excitement over her adventures at the 2015 Startup Open House and my enthusiasm about attending the weekly MaRS Entrepreneurship 101 series, our collective interest led us to a conversation about Toronto’s ever-expanding innovation scene. We eventually ended up circling back to career development in general. Here is what I came away with:
Uncertainty as Currency*
Don’t wait until things are perfect to execute! Borrowing from software development, the beauty of innovation strategies such as agile methodologies and rapid prototyping lie in the fact that no idea has to perfect or even well-thought out to be tried. We can begin with half-baked ideas and then concretize them as we move along.
It dawned on me that the experimental nature of startup and innovation culture is transferable to career design in so many ways. If you find yourself on a path that is not clear, as many of us do, you have the power to quickly reroute and reconfigure. Experiment with having new conversations, learning new skills (or even spearheading them?), and telling new stories. You’ll likely be surprised by what you discover.
On Storytelling
At one point in our conversation, Christine looked at me and said: “It’s all about the storytelling, isn’t it?” I couldn’t agree more. It is all about exchanging those first ideas, getting know other people’s stories, and creating your own. There are infinite ways to create a compelling story that narrates what it is that you seek from yourself, and what you’d like to learn about from others.
So…how do you create a story unique to you?
Becoming a Thought Leader?
We live in a non-linear labour market, and it can be difficult to see how one work experience can lead to the next career move. In an era of impermanence and shifting circumstances, it’s up to us to create the thread which will link our way to the next step.
Here’s where you can let your unique talents and interests guide you. Find your way of expressing your knowledge around an area of interest to you. Use skills that you have: write, blog, produce videos, produce art (and yes, you most certainly have a skill to contribute!). Be sure, however, to link your production to a topic or subject that is relevant to your career path, and that has the power to create the next step for you. Allow yourself to explore themes that are fascinating to you, and invite others along for the journey. Your initiative will open doors for you, while simultaneously allowing you to gain expertise in a new area.
For instance, are you a non-techie fascinated by innovation in Education? If writing is your go-to, write, blog, tweet and profile goings-on in the world of EdTech. Become a bit of a subject matter expert in the field. Along the way, you will form opinions, create connections and establish yourself as thought leader in EdTech. Christine’s strong writing skills have often allowed her to conquer new ground. The most recent adventure? Live-blogging RBC’s staff events, allowing employees across the institution to clock into a given event and exchange knowledge in real-time. The result? An invitation to conduct a workshop around live-blogging for other RBC staff, connecting Christine to RBC’s burgeoning culture of innovation.
Career Building Continued
Mentorship vs. Sponsorship
Christine touched upon the difference between Sponsorship versus Mentorship in previous posts on 10KCoffees. I understood that sponsors will advocate for your success and champion your excellence, and are much more instrumental to career development than the looser concept and practice of mentorship. While both practices are beneficial, sponsors will take you further. Yet I wanted to know more. How can I ‘get’ a sponsor, and do I just go asking around for one?
Not so much. The key here is to build solid and collaborative relationships on the job so that your supervisor, manager or whoever it is that can speak to your work (ideally someone with clout) feels naturally inclined to advocate for you. In more concrete terms, those who are ideal candidates to sponsor you are those who can also act as your references on your resume. Christine’s advice for scoring sponsorships in the first place? Be Excellent, plain and simple.
Transitioning from one Career-World to Another
Christine transitioned from a senior role at research and strategy development firm Catalyst to a Senior Manager role at RBC, and from a professional workplace of 100 employees to one that is 80,000 strong. In her words, she ‘was not a conventional hire’ for RBC. Her previous work as Senior Director for Catalyst was strongly entrenched in research. I was curious: what propelled her to make such a change?
Two words: Impact and Challenge. Christine searched for a role that would be impactful yet also challenge her in a different way. Her educational background in organizational behaviour made for a great fit with her current role, yet she also chose to go down a different path than remaining in the world of research. Her ability to craft an intentional path, articulate it and also share it (so that we can learn from her strategies!) is inspiring in and of itself.
I would strongly recommend having a coffee and chat with Christine. Here is to manifesting career pathways with intentionality, creativity and courage!
*Agile versus Waterfall Methodologies
What methodologies, you ask? Essentially, agile methods of developing ideas, products and services allow for a different kind of approach to managing design projects, where process is measured incrementally and project priorities can be re-adjusted at planned intervals in the design process. Waterfall methodology, on the other hand, is a sequential design process in which there is little to no room for change or error. However, Waterfall goes far in containing the cost and scope of a given project or process. There are advantages and disadvantages to both processes, and your choice to use either one or a blended version depends on the kind of project you are working on, or the kind of software you are developing.
This post was published on tenthousandcoffees.com on December 2nd, 2015.