Most of us have heard of the saying, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.” Or maybe, “Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.”
In the past eight months, I (most definitely) was in the RIGHT ROOM, and I’ve absolutely surrounded myself with much smarter people than me! I got the privilege to rotate into high-performance analytics team whose main responsibility is to combat card fraud and minimize losses to the organization. (No pressure at all!)
I’ve learned many things during my rotation. If you find yourself thinking back on your experience and hope you could go back in time to do things differently, you know you had a worthwhile rotation.
This rotation reminded me to revisit some old leadership skills that I should remaster and be ready to execute at a moment’s notice. I gained new skills and improved upon some (not so strong) strengths necessary to take my leadership to the next level. And I’ve also unlocked a previously unattainable achievement—though an achievement not worth updating my resume or LinkedIn profile about—it’s still something I’m very proud of and a testament on how surrounding yourself with quality people can make the impossible possible.
Here are the highlights of what I’ve learned. Let’s call this, “The Four Things I Learned from Fighting Fraud Through Analytics.”:
Master the Numbers
Anticipate - Your Next Move or Questions
Trust But Verify
Lead from the Front
Master the Numbers
I’ve ran analytics teams before, but not as close to the data as what’s necessary to be effective in this role. Being a leader is not just about leading people. A leader needs to understand what runs their business, what value their business brings to the entire organization, and which specific indicators contribute to the level of success required to create that value to the enterprise.
Without any level of mastery of the numbers, how can you identify specific tasks that will influence the success of your team? How can you know how to effectively prioritize your resources (money, tools, people) to achieve your objectives as a team? How can you know if your team is doing a good job or not.
When I say ‘mastery,’ I’m not saying you must become a data scientist to be an effective leader. Remember you’ve surrounded yourself with much smarter people than you. (Unless you’re an actual data person like many of the leaders in the organization I rotated into.) What I’m saying is, have a solid understanding of each indicator—what it means to your business and to the organization, what causes those indicators to move, and what controls do you have in your toolbox to influence those indicators.
In their seminal book, “The 4 Disciplines of Execution,” Chris McChesney, Sean Covery, and Jim Huling describes mastery of the numbers under Discipline #2 “Act on the Lead Measures” and Discipline #3 “Keep a Compelling Scoreboard.”
Anticipate (The Next Move/Question)
Anticipation brought me back to preparing for class or any form of coursework in school. The Academic Resource Center at Harvard University put out an article explaining “How to Prepare for Class.” According to the post, here are the tips on how to best prepare for class:
Arrive Early.
Review what has been covered.
Anticipate what’s coming.
Assess your understanding.
Formulate your questions and comments.
Come organized.
During my rotation, I learned almost immediately the importance of being prepared to respond to fraud as a trend arises. To do that, a leader needs to read the data, be aware of the trends, and be ready to make decisions. Preparing also helps you respond to questions and inquiries from your peers and senior leaders about the numbers.
Twice a week, the leadership team meets to talk about the data. These meetings include leaders from the supervisor level up to the senior vice president. Preparing for these meetings goes beyond grabbing coffee before heading to the conference room or making sure your background is tidy before turning your camera on. Each leader is expected to have already studied the data (#2 in the list above), formulate an analysis (#4), and be prepared to answer questions from the senior leaders (#3 and #4). Being prepared saves time and it leads to engaging discussions that is timely and relevant.
Properly anticipating what’s coming will help you prepare for these conversations—you can do added research, consult with your team, and have a few options ready as possible action items to address the findings ahead of time.
Other benefits of properly anticipating questions/concerns are as follows: time savings (action items can be decided on and executed immediately after the meeting), money savings (at least in my context, we can immediately take countermeasures to prevent fraud), and building credibility (for you and your team – coming prepared will only boost your professional credibility).
Trust But Verify
Clause W. Langfred, currently the area chair and an associate professor (management) in the Costello College of Business at George Mason University, wrote an article in the Academy of Management Journal (2004, Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 385-399) entitled, “Too Much of a Good Things? Negative Effects of High Trust and Individual Autonomy in Self-Managing Teams.” In this article, Langfred argues that too much trust can lead to poorer performance. If we have a high level of trust, the tendency is that we do less or no monitoring of each other’s work.
Before this rotation, I led teams who are led by managers, and these managers have junior managers and assistant managers reporting to them, leading smaller teams. In the past eight months, I worked with six high-performance data analysts—all are either fully remote or hybrid.
I learned fast that despite the high-credibility and trust these analysts have earned, it is still on me to ensure that I keep tabs with them individually and as a team. Doing so strengthens the level of engagement and my level of awareness of their work capacity.
As leaders we’re trained to see the bigger picture. It’s our job to make sure that all our individual contributors’ efforts go towards that bigger picture. We can do this by touching base with them regularly and demonstrating that we’re monitoring them—not to show that we trust them less, but to show support and provide resources if needed.
What I learned here is to ensure that I’m having deliberate and predictable methods of keeping in touch with each individual and with the team—weekly team meetings, weekly one-on-ones, a live group chat* to have daily touchpoints, etc…
Lead from the Front
Leading from the front to me means being an example for your team. Leading the way, taking the first plunge, or taking the first bite of that super-spicy hot wings!
As I said at the beginning of this post, I found myself surrounded by extremely smart and competent individuals. (I’m pretty sure I’ve lowered the average IQ of the team by just rotating in!) I found myself stepping back (way back) during meeting because I felt intimidated with the level of knowledge they have (and I seriously lack) about the new business I was in.
I’m an introvert and I prefer my team to speak up for their own work (and take the credit for it), but there needs to be a balance between us (leaders) and our team taking the lead. Leading from the front doesn’t mean you’ll take over the meetings, speak for your team, and be the hero.
Here are ways you can ‘lead from the front’ appropriately:
Kicking off a Meeting – You may have called a meeting to discuss matters within your team or to start a collaboration with other teams. If you’ll have someone from your team lead the actual body of the discussion, kick it off for them. Welcome everyone, thank them for joining, give a brief as to why the meeting is called, and perhaps even provide an expectation on what we want to achieve by the end of the meeting. Then, introduce your team member as the person who’ll lead the discussion—provide their name, title, their expertise, and make it known that they are running point in this initiative.
Driving a Point – You may be in a situation where you have to influence policy, or a decision based on findings by your team. Do not let your team member drive that point across in a meeting especially with other teams and leaders. Before the meeting, understand what needs to be done and what the main ideas are to supports that direction. You can start by driving the point across – “We need to start doing X immediately.” Or “We need to stop doing this process by the end of the month.” – Then, make the brief explanation of the reasoning – “This process costs our organization $X per month on unnecessary fees.” – Finally, introduce your team member who will talk more about our findings – “Let me introduce Chris who’ll give a deeper dive into the numbers and our recommendations.”
Taking Responsibility – There will be times your team missed the mark, overlooked a particular item, or a new task is being assigned. During those meetings, don’t wait for someone from your team to speak up. (Lead from the front and) Take one for the team. “I got that. We’ll take it offline with the team and get back with you.” Or “That’s on me. We’ll make sure that’s taken care of.” This is a way to protect your team from getting humiliated in front of others. It also shows that you’re taking responsibility as the leader regardless if it happened outside of your control. Doing so also shows commitment from you as the leader of the team to ensure things will be handled and taken care of.
Think of it this way—normally, individual contributors prefer not to speak up in meetings if there are other leaders and especially senior leaders on the call. If it’s their work and if they have the specialization to provide what’s required, kick it off for them. You’re still acknowledging that they’re the experts, you’re also publicly acknowledging the great work your team member has done, you and you’re taking away the awkward part of starting a discussion in front of a group. Even professional speakers and stand-up comedians need someone to introduce them or warm-up the crowd. Do that for your team.
*Group Chats
This is a great way this team keep in touch with everyone. The team I rotated into was very geographically dispersed – we have folks working in our campuses in Florida and Virginia, and we have other individuals scattered across the U.S. working remotely. Despite all that, I’m impressed on how engaged each person is in the team.
Most everyone greets everyone in the morning, each share if they’re step away or take a break. (Then telling everyone that they’re back.) and say goodbye in the evening. (You’ll start noticing how each person has their own unique way to announce that they’re taking a break or leaving for the day.)**
That’s on top of talking about their shared interests—video games, sport teams, food, restaurants, or TV shows.
Oh, yeah, and the occasional work-related stuff!
BONUS ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
A month and a half into my rotation, we did a team activity at a local axe throwing place.
Just six months prior, I went to the same place with another group. I couldn’t get one axe to stick on the wooden plank! Of course, like how good friends do, they made fun of me for being ‘that guy’ who can’t seem to figure out how to throw an axe. Even the instructor was giving me that disappointed look.
I was already expecting the same results for my second trip with my new team. I’ve already forewarned the group that I’m going to be bad at this activity. That was a hard decision. It was either I don’t tell them anything and they’ll just find out how bad I am with axe throwing (perhaps the shock of how humiliatingly bad I am at it will have them speechless the entire time) or give them the warning so that they can muster as much sympathy that they would not make fun of me (that much).
As expected, my first many throws did not stick. What was not expected was how encouraging the folks were. Even my teammates were very supportive. Someone even had me borrow his personal axe to see if that would help.
After several failed attempts – I DID IT! I finally got one stick to the plank. And guess what – I started sticking most of the throws I did for the rest of the night! It ended up being a very fun afternoon (and not at my expense). It’s amazing how much someone can achieve if you know your team is rooting for you. That afternoon, I learned something new about the team I’m rotating into. They’re perhaps one of the most supportive teams you’ll ever work with.
***Not one of my actual successful axe throws.
Crowdsourcing FTW
Have you had an opportunity to rotate into another role or business unit in your organization? What was your experience? What things did you learn from your rotation that you can bring into your current role? Please share in the comments below.
**I wanted to end this post the same way one of the senior analyst [Shout-out, Dave B) ends his day at our group chat…
“Prevening and Happy Miller Time!”
P.S. - Thank you, Fraud Analytics team, for your hospitality and your generosity hosting me this year! Looking forward to work with you all again in the future!
