The cone of uncertainty - Afiya Chohollo

00:00

I've had quite a lot of people underestimate me. And I think back, I don't know, 16, 17 years ago, and someone said, you don't look like the type who studies physics. And the funny thing is, I have versions of that conversation every six months. But I equally have had people, and this goes back to leaders, I've had leaders almost spot me from the crowd and see my potential in me before even I have, and seen the way I work and given me the opportunity to succeed.

00:49

So, I've now come to a place where I'm quite at peace with the fact that some people will underestimate me, but there are also a lot of people who I respect, and I value what they do, who see you as well. And I think it might sound a bit pessimistic, but once you kind of make peace with that, you put less pressure on yourself.

01:24

When you reflect on your earlier days, why is it that your path is uncommon?

01:35

I think my path was uncommon because I was into lots of things. As a child, I was exposed to a lot of things. My parents were teachers, so they kind of sized me up for every extracurricular activity.

01:52

That's both good and bad.

01:53

I did science, I did dance class, I did everything. And they also were foster carers, so I was exposed to a lot of different people as well. I literally had strangers coming to my home some days, and like, here's your new brother, here's your new sister. And so having exposure to lots of different people from different backgrounds and different experiences, travel they were really passionate about as well. I didn't really have that one thing that I absolutely loved. Now, in fact, as a teenager at school, I really loved fashion textiles and science, and so many people were like, you're going to have to choose. You have to choose. It was just like, you are either into the arts or you're into the sciences. There was no middle ground. And I didn't know, I genuinely didn't know what I wanted to choose. So I did the most random studies. I did English, literature, language, physics, chemistry, and fashion textiles.

02:58

It's amazing.

02:59

It just chose what I was good at and what I liked.

03:02

I wonder how much of that came from the different people that were coming into your family home, because I guess they must have come with different interests and different backgrounds too, that's kind of always broadening your horizon.

03:18

Absolutely. A lot of them were older than me, so you kind of looked up to them and you wanted to be like them for the period that they were in your home. And yeah, I think all of those different influences, but more than that, I just chose what I was good at, what I enjoyed. And it was so interesting because back then, the options were very limited. It seemed really like, okay, you could be a doctor, and I actually hated biology. That was the one science I didn't like.

03:52

Don't be a doctor then.

03:52

Or you could be a fashion designer. And I was like, well, neither of those really spoke to me. I worked in a sort of fashion business as a weekend job, and I saw that none of them made any money. So I was like, yeah, this is not going to work for me. And so I stumbled across my degree choice. I think I put it into some sort of course generator, and I found material science and engineering. And low and behold, materials are in absolutely everything. So, your phone, your car, your plane, your laptop, structures. So it's a really broad engineering course, and that was perfect for me.

04:48

I really, really enjoyed the applied nature of engineering. So, I might be changing the chemistry in a material so that we get better phone signal. So how do we solve a problem? And that was what really spoke to me. And I was lucky enough to do a placement with the Ministry of Defense and kind of worked with the best scientists in the country, best engineers in the country, and was able to use different techniques. I was working in a very niche field. It was the Atomic Weapons Establishment, and there wasn't a lot of scientific publications. The team there, probably some teams in the US, DOD and Israel, and that was it.

05:45

So, I used to read papers from different industry and I would take techniques from the semiconductor industry and I would try it within what I'm doing, because there was just not enough research. And I got to look over the shoulders of some great people there who had a lot of time to just help me and try out all of these techniques. And in the end, we discovered new things. We were able to publish the work and it was a big lesson for me that actually now, I know that innovation actually comes at the intersection of different domains, but I didn't know that at the time, I just didn't have enough data where I was. So I looked in another area and tried to apply a technique that worked in a completely different field to where I was.

06:40

And then since then, I've worked in different industries and a lot of people say, oh, well, how do they all go together? And the reality is I was always solving problems and whilst the problem itself might be novel and I really like working on novel problems, the steps you go through to solve a problem, there are first principles. There are ways in which you discover that problem, there are ways in which you iterate through that problem, and there are techniques that you can use, that I've used in lots of different paths and journeys ever since. So I feel like for me, I feel like everything is related, and actually some of the best ideas come from bringing different domains together.

07:29

It's funny how it feels like our society must rely on both sets, because if you didn't have specialists who were experts, then you wouldn't necessarily have those more niche breakthroughs that you could then, or a generalist could then take some of those and then kind of swap them to different places, or find the intersection. And it's almost as if I can't imagine things existing, we almost need both.

08:00

Absolutely. And I learned so much from those experts that I worked with and I still utilize some of those, again, first principles that I learned from them. But there's a phenomenon called, I think, Einstellung effect, where actually, if you're so deep in a particular area, you just try and apply the same tools over and over again, even if there are better solutions outside of that, because that's what you know. That's what you've been trained to do. Whereas somebody who kind of hops around more, might try something outside of that, and it could be a better method or a better tool than something that you've been doing over and over again. That's not always the case.

08:51

Was there a day where you made the decision and you said, I want to be someone who's at the intersection of things rather than someone who's an expert in one thing? Or did it naturally happen?

09:08

It took a long time to understand that. I think it's something I've recently understood. In my current role, I look after a group of multi-discipline engineering and technologists. So I've got technical program managers, test engineers, DevOps engineers, software engineers, front end, backend, the whole cross section of technologists. And I think I realized that I couldn't have done that role if I'd been so niche.

09:51

Now, my counterparts, they might look after all of mobile, and that I wouldn't probably be as successful in that role because I don't have years and years of mobile experience. But actually how I can be successful in my role is because I have that cross sectional and intersectional experience. And so I think it only really, the penny dropped, to quote, in the last couple of years, really. I was quite derogatory about my experience. I was like, it's a bit random, and almost apologized for it. And I watched this TED talk, I came across this TED talk by a lady called Emily, who talks about being a multi potentialite. And I almost like burst into tears, because I was like, that's me. I like to learn different things. And I like to put them all together.

10:52

And even at the period of learning something, I can go really deep and I will become quite specialist to solve that problem for that time period. So it's not that I don't go deep and I don't get quite specialist, I just do it to solve that problem for that time period, and then I'm onto the next one. And then I take those lessons and experience with me.

11:18

It feels to me that you're touching on something that from the outside, it's hard to understand. Because on the one hand, it's a foundational engineering group. You're dealing with multiple different parts, but on the other hand, you're still the VP of engineering at Onfido. That's relatively special. Because someone from the outside would look at that and be like, whoa, that's quite a specific job that does something specific. And if you go all the way back to your time, studying materials, though materials kind of naturally sounds like that feels to you that it's generalist, again, someone on the outside might look at that and be like, materials. I've never heard of that, that sounds pretty specialist.

12:05

So it's almost like somehow, and I don't know why, it feels like you are getting the best of both worlds. You're managing to choose specialisms that are general.

12:16

Yeah. And as I said, I do go deep for that period. So I don't know, if I'm solving something around cloud, I might go really deep for that year or that six months I'm working on databases, but it is really understanding that there is core principles. So, when I was in materials, for example, me looking at structures and load on structures, you know, on this desk, if I have four legs and I'm putting a load on it, I'm distributing the load across four legs. In a database, when I horizontally scale, I'm distributing the load across multiple databases. So it's the same principles.

13:11

I introduced SPCs, Statistical Process Control, in a manufacturing company, and deployed the software for that problem, and it was around quality control. Something I also did at Onfido many, many years later, because again, we are solving a QC problem. And a lot of this has been done before. So I think sometimes with newer businesses like startups and software businesses, there's a tendency to think everything is brand new, but a lot of this actually comes from industries that are decades old, older than you and I. And they've been working in this manner to solve engineering problems for many years. And after us, we'll continue to use the same first principles, even when we are working in a very innovative and in a new field.

14:12

How can we access more of those universal truths that have repeated themselves in the past? Because, I think anyone wants that shortcut. They want to take the kind of timeless idea and repeat it if it means that it's the right thing to do in that moment, just for whatever reason, somehow, sometimes they're hard to access and they're hard to even know about.

14:44

Yeah, it's a really good question. I've personally done it in two ways as experience, so actually getting hands on. And back to your point about working with those experts, when I worked in manufacturing and I'd literally go down to the factory and I'd talk to people who'd been on that same machine for 40 years. When I was at the Ministry Defense doing research, I'd be with principal scientists, and asking them, picking their brain. So getting that diverse experience and working with those specialists is one way. I think I have a privilege of having classical engineering training and education, so that can't be overlooked.

15:35

But then the other way is reading. So, reading about what people have done before. I love the book, The Machine That Changed The World, which was around what the Japanese did in lean manufacturing. And so much of it, if you read it today, you'd be like, oh, that's a daily standup, that's agile. No, this was done over a hundred years ago. And you can read from other people's, and learn from other people's experiences, both from way in the past and new authors who are working on new things like serverless, event based architecture. You can read about these things. So I think those two, it's podcasts or audio, learning from others that way, or getting hands on in different experiences.

16:35

In order to do all that, you have to foster this curiosity and it doesn't come from nowhere. Where did it come from for you?

16:54

I think... I can do the most monotonous task if I'm trying to solve a problem. I just want to know like, what is this going to tell us? I've literally measured and counted dots to see what it's going to tell us in the data. But tell me to do that same task because it's a Tuesday, that's just so uninteresting to me. So solving problems is something I'm really passionate about and is one of my favorite interview questions.

17:30

I'm like, tell me about something you've worked on, tell me about a project you've worked on, but what I'm interested is why you had to do it. And did you solve that problem in the end? Because a lot of people kind of go in that middle part and, I did this, I did that, but I'm like, did you solve what you needed to solve? Why did you have to do it in the first place? And that's the curiosity that drives me, but it also comes from leaders who are passionate as well.

18:03

So my early supervisors in AWE, they were so passionate about what they were doing, that it made me excited. And I've been lucky enough to work for leaders that really, really inspire excellence and really inspire high performance in wanting to solve problems. And I think when I've left businesses, it's because they're not trying to solve problems anymore. And they're just trying to keep things going, which obviously is important sometimes of course, but that's when I start to get a bit bored.

18:48

I think you touched on two universal truths that I'd love to explore. There's the vision of leadership and the kind of bubble that we work within on the one hand. And then there's suffering and going through hardship in order to achieve of the grander design, or vision of some sort. Perhaps we could start with the latter, because you talking about doing that monotonous task, personally I so resonate with that. There are so many things that I reflect on. I think, oh my goodness, I can't actually believe I did that. But I didn't even question it, because I felt deeply that the outcome was worth it, and the thing that I was going for, I kind of deserved it. But for whatever reason, it is so much harder maybe in today's society where you only see the best clips of people, and you see those moments of success rather than those moments of difficulty in hardship. What role has suffering played for you, and what role has hardship played for you? And are there any other ways that you think about hardship and suffering?

20:15

That's a really good question. I have a blood disorder called sickle cell, and I have sickle cell SC. So, it's a slightly milder form of the disease, which means I mostly have a "normal" life. But when I was at university, I ended up having two surgeries, and I've had another one since on my eyes, which when you have surgery on your eyes, you need time to recover, so you can't actually go to lectures. You can't actually even open your eyes really. And the second time it happened, it actually happened on my final year. So I was a hundred percent convinced I wasn't going to graduate. Like a hundred percent. There was no doubt in my mind that taking six weeks off in your final year, that I was just not going to graduate.

21:17

I had lots of support from my peers and they mostly went to lectures and got me my notes. Sometimes they didn't though. And actually, because I had done that year well, I was well trained on lots of scientific techniques that usually you'd need a PhD student to supervise. But because I had that time, the university actually let me do it independently over Easter holidays, and I caught up. And not only did I graduate, but I graduated top of my class. But months prior, you couldn't have told me that was possible. There was nothing in my brain I thought that was possible.

22:06

So what was it?

22:08

I'd come so far. And I think I'd come so far, I just needed to push through. I like to be in control of my destiny, which is a problem. And I didn't want it to be based on anyone else. I wanted to be like, if I fail, I failed on me. If I succeed, I succeed on me. And I'm not someone who's super competitive with anyone else, but I'm so competitive with myself. And in fact, I've had quite a lot of people underestimate me. And I think back, I don't know, 16, 17 years ago, and someone said, you don't look like the type who studies physics.

23:08

Ag, God.

23:10

And the funny thing is, I have versions of that conversation every six months. But I equally have had people, and this goes back to leaders, I've had leaders almost spot me from the crowd and see my potential in me before even I have, and seen the way I work and given me the opportunity to succeed. So I've now come to a place where I was quite at peace with the fact that some people will underestimate me, but there are also a lot of people who I respect and I value what they do, who see you as well.

24:00

And it might sound a bit pessimistic, but once you make peace with that, you put less pressure on yourself. And I think the reason why in some ways I was quite successful, is because I knew I was going to be underestimated, I would go even harder. I would study all night. I remember colleagues who were like, oh, we'll just do half the paper. I was like, I'll do all of it. I'd learn more than I needed to for each role. I'd get hands on experience, I'd get the certification, I'd do above and beyond, because I wanted to feel less like an imposter, I guess. So in a way imposter syndrome has helped, but I wouldn't say it's healthy.

25:02

It certainly sounds like a drive. It's almost as if drive comes from either a dark or a light place. And we all wish we were driven by things that were hopeful, but there are times where you're driven by something that is difficult. And hardship in your past in some ways, has given you the drive to do things.

25:34

Yeah. I think I've been more driven by hardship than hope or positivity. And I'm trying to change that, but yeah, I think I've definitely in the past been more driven by hardship and a want to even overcome or prove myself. And it's interesting because now as a leader, I see that in some of the people I lead too, and it's getting them to see that they're better than they tell themselves that they are. And so it's kind of come full circle. I had leaders who did that for me and now I'm trying to do that for others.

26:30

It's not that those two universal truths that we picked out, the visionary part and the hardship part, seems so interrelated almost as if because you went through that hardship and it's taught you so many things, you are now able to paint the vision and be the type of leader because of all of those experiences.

26:55

Yeah. I mean, anytime I take on anything new, I still get that feeling of Ugh. You know, It's like that. Oh, I don't know how I'm going to do this.

27:05

The hardship again.

27:08

Yeah. But again, I think I've learned to articulate that and frame that. I have this sort of concept as the cone of uncertainty. And so you're going to go through that cone, and as time goes on, you know more, you become actually quite expert in that thing, and I know I'm going to get through that.

27:30

What does the cone look like?

27:30

So if you have a graph and you have time along, and then you have uncertainty, and it's literally a cone over time. And it goes down, your uncertainty decreases as you know more. And it's not a smooth line. Life isn't smooth, there's bumps and troughs. And so I framed that concept, I've sort of expanded on that as well, as how you kind of approach planning, if you kind of inverse that cone, and how you approach risk.

28:04

Run me through that. So how can you take the cone and invert it in a situation where you are thinking about risk?

28:13

So if you invert it for planning, the less certain you are, you don't plan in that much detail, so the planning horizon. Where you know more, you're planning details, so that's your daily plans, that's your sprint plans. And that's actually where your team should kind of operate autonomously. Where you've got to help them is kind of getting to that vision where it's a little bit more uncertain and you're collaborating with them along the way.

28:45

Now, if you put that 90 degrees, you have a bell curve, and that's risk.

28:52

Yeah.

28:52

Sometimes things are better than expected and sometimes things are worse than expected. But if you know you're going to go through this cone every time, I can then be at peace that if I feel really uncertain right now, but I'm going to go through that journey.

29:13

As if you're placing that uncertainty in its purpose?

29:17

Yeah.

29:20

That must so help your team.

29:23

Yeah. I think it also helps make decisions. So day to day, in those daily decisions, they can operate autonomously, and where they come to you is those decisions that have a lot more uncertainty. And then you collaborate with each other, okay, how do we get more certainty? What does the data show us? Or, how much runway do we have left? How safe are we to operate in this situation? And you put metrics behind that. And actually most of the time, you're just helping them frame that, and then they can make that decision themselves. Or you're giving them information that maybe in their world, in their silo, they don't see. But actually if you give them the information they need, they can make those decisions as well.

30:17

Have you applied the cone of uncertainty to your own professional journey and the way that you have made decisions about where to work and how to pursue your best work? And are there any insights that you think are applicable and appropriate?

30:37

Yeah. I think I do still find decision making big decisions. Do I buy this home? Do I change a role? I still find those really overwhelming and I'll wrack my brain. But I think what helps is the sort of empirical evidence that you've done this before. And so whenever you're thrown something, whether that's a new opportunity within a company or maybe your next phase, just reminding yourself that you've gone through that before. Every company, you have to learn the new norms, you have to learn the new terminology, you have to learn the people, you have to learn the technology.

31:31

And then there's this weird thing that people like pattern match for the same profile over and over again. So it's like, I often have said in actually every interview, I'm like, if you're looking for someone who's worked in this, like you're a competitor and does what they do at your competitor, I'm not the person, because I've never worked in the same industry more than once. And so I'm really upfront about that. And I ask the people I'm speaking to to really think about, do they just want to pattern match for the same, or do you want someone who actually will go through that journey, but probably will bring something new and something different?

32:20

How do you think about risk when you're deciding where to work and how to make key decisions? So, whether it's a skill set that you want to develop, or whether it's that you take the plunge and decide to do something new, how do you assess risk?

32:42

If I'm honest, in previous decisions it's more of been risk of staying put. It's like the risk of me sort of rotting there and not growing and not achieving what I want, which is not the best motivation. I usually go through this where I'm just so excited about being there and solving the problems, and then there's some sort of switch that happens maybe after a few years, and I'm like, oh, if I stay here, I don't think either the work would drive me, or even sometimes, unfortunately, the values of the company is aligned with mine. And so the risk of staying there becomes quite a detriment to my overall sort of life satisfaction.

33:50

I think looking back, that's how I made most of my decisions. And I'd like to not do it like that though.

33:59

I can imagine you going through that process, and I can almost feel it and envision it, that moment where everyone else thinks about the risk of leaving, but you're thinking about the risk of staying. And I can see how that will help your decision making, and you have a more broad way of thinking. But I find it harder to think about how you assess the values of a company with your own values, because that is just such a challenge. How do you know when there's this big a gap that's coming up? And it's hard to know if there's a moment as those two things are diverging when you should make the call, and that seems like a really difficult decision.

34:55

Yeah. I mean, in the examples where it's happened before, sometimes it's over time. It's like, okay, we're no longer innovating. And so, you know, can feel yourselves in meetings, just losing interest. And when decisions are being made in that organization, not to fund particular initiatives, you start to kind of detach from what you were maybe passionate about before. So that tends to be a little bit more subtle, and it happens over time because usually companies don't sort have that stark change. Maybe in different economic times, yes there are. But in general it's a little bit more gradual, and you start to feel yourself losing passion and losing interest.

35:56

I guess you've got to know what your values are too?

35:58

Yeah. But because I'm so driven by solving problems, if we're no longer solving problems, then it becomes quite obvious, and I become quite disengaged. The other time where it's been probably a bit more drastic, is if there is something egregious happened, that's really out of line with my values and I cannot continue to align myself. And that's happened in the past.

36:38

What happened?

36:42

Looking back, it was pre me too. I was really young. The victim also was really young, and I was the only person in the company that stood up for it. And that shouldn't have happened. So in that case I was done.

37:07

And how do you separate out the values of a rogue individual and versus a company?

37:16

How they handle it. Yeah, how they handle it. And how it was handled was just mean you wouldn't get away with it today, how that was handled? Well, I hope not. So yeah, I think rogue individuals, yes. Things happen, but companies have to take a stand.

37:48

That sounds like the far easier call to make, as opposed to one way you are trying to understand whether your values are diverging and those values aren't hitting you in the face.

38:03

And I mean, I had a situation with a contractor where I am today and I sort of defended myself. I was quite happy to engage in the conversation and just shut it down. And one of our co-founders wasn't in the meeting, but found out. And just zero tolerance, that contractor was gone. And it actually wasn't a matter of whether I was offended or not. I mean, the fact that I could stand up for myself, that's not part of why that decision was made, it was just inappropriate. And so I'll always respect him for that, because he just made that call regardless of whether I was okay or not, which was the right thing to do.

39:02

You said earlier, we're affected by so many other people in our life. And you said earlier that despite the fact that you're by all intents and purposes successful, that you are not competitive, or at least you're not competitive with others. What benefits does being competitive with yourself have, and how much of your success do you put down to it?

39:37

I think being competitive with myself was, and has been driven by imposter syndrome, and wanting to be seen as valuable. And the funny thing is, I'm usually never really aware, or sometimes the other forces of other people being kind of competitive together. I even think back to university, I was the only woman on my course and I didn't know that all the boys had this competition together about who's going to win all the prizes. I just wasn't aware of it, and I won all of them. So it's funny, when I'm competitive with myself, I tend to outdo others, but I'm usually not thinking about others, I'm just trying to survive.

40:41

It's mad that. It's the opposite of what I think you'd expect.

40:43

Yeah. It's like a happenstance, and that's happened loads of times. I've been aware of even people being competitive against me in almost sort of, I wouldn't say sabotage, but almost sort of trying to discredit me. And I'm just so focused on myself and trying to prove to myself that I'm good enough. And I always just end up outperforming that person. So maybe they should focus on their selves.

41:17

Yeah. I have this mini theory that if we focus on ourselves and we compete with ourselves rather than others, then we're not drawn to worry about what other people necessarily are thinking of us in that scenario. And therefore our interests don't diverge and go in the kind of multiple different directions. Instead, if we compete with ourselves, we're ultimately kind of forced to follow our own inclinations. We have to do what we are passionate about, because if we're competing with ourself, why would we be competing with ourself about something that we weren't being pulled towards. It's almost like it forces it in some way?

42:01

Yeah. I mean, I think there's still an element of even when you're competing with yourself of trying to prove yourself to others, there is still an element of that, but it's not competing with those others. So yeah, I think there is still an element of some level of approval, definitely when I was younger, for sure.

42:36

I don't want to be driven by that fear and that hardship. How do we flip? How do we not be driven by feelings of insecurity, and instead be driven by feelings of hope, the light, not the dark? You said you're in the middle of that transition, how's it going?

43:06

Yeah, no. I think going, it's such a cliche, but going into your thirties, you just have a different perspective. And I became really clear about what I'm good at. I started to recognize even the people that recognize me. Still to this day, I'm in touch with most of the leaders I worked for, and sometimes if they send you a Merry Christmas text, you're like, oh, why are they texting me? Because you almost didn't feel like you're good enough for that. And so that's such a weird thing. And now I make sure I get my Christmas text in first. And I really appreciate that they recognize that in me. And that is an evidence point for me. Forget the people who underestimate you, think about the people you respect and they recognized what you were good at. Then also, look back at all you've achieved. And again, that's evidence that you can tell yourself.

44:16

And so, I think between looking back at your evidence, accepting who I am, accepting that once I heard that term multi potential, I was like, I have a word for it. This is who I am. It's really changed that. And now I am really purely driven by the problems I have to solve. Taking on these teams, scalability was something that I had to solve across the different disciplines I was working with, and that's driving me. Career growth of my leads, that's driving me. And so building systems that are scalable and reliable, that's driving me. And now, I think, that will be how I make my decisions going forward. What's the mission that I'm trying to solve as opposed to what's the risk of me rotting somewhere.

45:24

How do you think you could have learnt these things earlier?

45:33

I think having examples or people, as I said, when I heard that word and watched that TED talk, the penny dropped. And now I'm a school governor and I go into schools and I tell the young people, don't worry about the job that you're going to have. You're 16, think about the skills. I saw a job for Head of Data Privacy at TikTok. That didn't exist five years ago. There's going to be jobs that when they're ready for the workforce, that are completely different.

46:14

What is it that you like? For a role like that, it would be that you like to bring data together. You want to understand how it impacts individuals. Are you obsessive information. Those are the skills that you want to cultivate. And maybe there'll be a role in six years time for a company that didn't exist six years ago. And I think if I had that discussion rather than you have to choose, that would've been more helpful. If I had discussions that were less about, oh, you're unique to be here, I wouldn't expect to be the only one in the room. And so it's really important to have those discussions with younger people.

47:11

Many younger people are also naturally driven by our human nature. And there's a big part of our human nature before we perhaps get tamed and educated in that way that pulls us towards status. And a big part of status is how much money we earn, where we fit in respective of other people. And therefore, you're kind of drawn to these kind of two big ticket items, like which job am I going to do? Because, essentially that will give me my status in society. And then secondly, how much money will I earn? Because that will reinforce it in some way and that'll be another barometer.

47:55

How do you not internalize that? How do you put that in its place and instead focus on those skills? And then follow up from that, how should you use it? Should you completely ignore money and status, or should it be a part of your decision making?

48:22

So maybe not status. I never really thought about status, but again, it was only in later life I really started to talk about money, and I think that is important. And it's often, again, a conversation, especially young women don't have, and I'm not exposed to. I have friends who are very similar to me, and somehow the men all have groups around investing, group chats, and we didn't. So I think it is important, and it's not either or. So if your skills are valuable, you'll make money. And you should make money. We all have to live, we all have to eat. So I think we should talk about money. I think it's important to talk about money. And that's another thing that I sort of learnt later on. But I don't think that negates letting people explore different roles and letting people explore different skills.

49:44

I guess we are also in a skills-based economy where if you learn skills and understand skills, naturally our market economy will reward you learning those skills and applying your brain as opposed to the other way around. So it's almost like maybe they're not mutually exclusive. Actually, if you do head towards money, maybe you don't want to start with that, but at least if you go with skills, it's highly likely that money will follow.

50:16

Absolutely.

50:17

Do any of these lessons help you be a better leader of other people?

50:26

Yeah. I think becoming a people leader, it's interesting, because I didn't want to be. I loved leading technical programs, because you got to lead everyone. But for the objective that you are all trying to work on and deliver, and you got to be hands on with the technical solution. But when you become a people leader, you have to give those opportunities to your team. You have to find the projects, the mission, define the direction so that they can have opportunities to execute and develop the skills so they can grow their career.

51:19

So earlier on I said that there's two ways in which you'd get that range, either being sort of hands on or learning from others. And I guess as a leader now, I've moved into more of that. I spend a lot more time reading, for example, because I need to define the directions to give my teams the best opportunities that they can execute on the things that will take them ready for promotion, or that will give them the skills that they're looking for.

51:53

And when you have a team that maybe doesn't have that, you've really got to give them a mission, and together create that so that they can execute on something that they're passionate about and that's aligned with the company's objectives, of course. So I think that's a big lesson, is that I had that from the leaders that I worked for. They gave me those big ticket opportunities and I'm always trying to create those for the teams I work with.

52:32

We started by talking about things that are at the intersection of different specialisms, and it strikes me as I reflect on our conversation, that all of the things that we've spoken about are also so interrelated. Thank you for running through the ones that are most important to you.

52:52

No problem at all. Thank you for this conversation, it was great.

52:55

Cool.

52:56

Thank you.

52:56

Catch you later.