Mental models for finding work - Emma Van Dijkun

00:00

I moved very quickly. I think because I was so determined to move, I hopped into an interview process where it was all very swept up with emotions and kind of seemed like a good fit. And then I fell into my next role. The learning I have of that was I was very swept up in emotions and didn't actually do much fact checking on certain things. It was a difficult reckoning for me afterwards. Because I was like, "I was so into this and so sure about it." And it kind of makes you doubt your decision making process full stop. And I think that's where I was for a few years just thinking like, "Oh, these decisions I make, they can be really impactful. Am I making them right?"

00:43

What do you prioritize when you decide where to work your intrinsic motivation or your external motivation?

00:50

More recently, I've really tried to prioritize that intrinsic. Like, does it feel good or does it not? And I think that was a big learning for me, because I think I'm quite motivated by what other people think and how other people perceive me. And I think there's been a discovery phase in terms of trying to determine what's best for me and what I actually care about, not about what someone else is going to be like, "Oh wow, that looks amazing" or "Oh, that's such a cool job." And I think that's really hard.

01:28

What is intrinsic motivation to you?

01:30

I have a list of things that I think are important to me. And the way that I determine those are, it's about feeling it's about whether they feel good or whether they feel bad. And I think now I've been in enough situations where I've learned that about myself, in being in these different situations. So I know that I want to work for a company that is purpose-driven because it makes me feel good. To be fair most of the companies I've worked at have been, certain set of purpose driven. So it's almost like that is the entry level, intrinsic motivation, but I think there're other ones around. I need to find a place where I have autonomy and actually autonomy is super important to me. And that's something that is very intrinsically motivating for me, but I've always kind of known that because I've been given quite a lot of autonomy, but there have been instances where I haven't had that autonomy and I have felt so anxious to my core. It's been incredibly telling for me how important that is. As a kind of need, desire, everything else from where I'm working.

02:54

It sounds like you've had both experiences. You've made decisions based off how other people might perceive that decision and you've made them through your own motivation. How has that changed since the very beginning? And have you gone through phases where you've made decisions that were more based off your intrinsic motivation and more of your external motivation or is it as it switched?

03:20

In my fourth year of university I was doing so I was doing a chemistry degree and I knew I didn't want to go into chemistry partly because it didn't feel good. It didn't feel like the right step. I wanted something more social. And I remember having partaken in the milkround, which is where you get to be wined and dined by the bankers and the consultants and everything else. I remember thinking, oh, I should be a banker. My dad was a banker and my brother was a banker. And so I kind of explored that path a little bit because I thought maybe that's what is expected of me or where I should end up. And thank God I didn't get a job in banking, which is maybe telling in itself, but I think it would've destroyed me.

04:11

I really think it would've been awful for me. And instead what I did is like a summer away in Hong Kong. And I was speaking to a family friend who worked for EF Education. And she said, "Look, this is a great company. We're an international language school company. And we care about people's cultural exploration as well as their education and you could do some really cool stuff here". And I thought, I've never really heard of them. And is this really something that people will look at me and be like, "Oh, that's a cool job". But I applied anyway and I interviewed and they were really great. I got a job as a project manager in web at the time. And I'm just so happy that happened.

05:09

It was one of those chance things that happened, but ultimately they sort of molded a job to me. And although it wasn't the company that like everyone knew about and was like, "Oh, you do that". And it was a job that people could talk about that everyone could understand. It wasn't any of those things, which did frustrate me a little bit with the extrinsic motivation side of it, but ended up being so good for me and kind of started me off on this amazing career in tech. That I'm so grateful for and did really well in. So I think that for me is a really good example of the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations.

06:00

You went from EF in that circumstance when you've been there for what, five years?

06:05

Five years, yeah.

06:05

To Funding Circle. That couldn't have of been the most straightforward move, going from education to funding and loans. Why did you make that call?

06:18

That was a really tough time for me. So I basically got to a point at EF where I had a multifaceted job. So I was doing product management and working with designers and engineers, but I wasn't titled the product manager and I was sort of running a creative studio as well. And there's a bunch of different things and what I was frustrated by was actually the lack of understanding of what the outcome of my work was. And there was a product person in New York, Chad Jennings, who sort of became my mentor at the time. And he made me understand that what I really wanted was to double down on this product avenue and because it was all about ownership and you got to drive things forwards and it really sort of spoke to a lot of things that I felt like I was good at and that I was doing anyway and everything else.

07:19

But I think the hard thing at the time was that I didn't necessarily have the right title to apply for jobs in that space. And so I had this four month journey to try and find the right role. But I remember finding out about Funding Circle and a recruiter put it on my lap. And I was like, "Hmm. Business loans, is that really me. Finance, I'm not sure about that" but I went-

07:46

Banking.

07:46

Exactly banking. I was like, "What? No". But then I interviewed there and I had an interview with my boss to be like my CEO, the CTO because itb was quite early stage and you still got to have that kind of exposure to people. And there was the head of strategy who happened to play lacrosse with me at school.

08:09

But I was just amazed by the people and the energy and the what they were trying to build and the excitement of it. And I'd kind of had this epiphany just before going into it that I really wanted to work for a smaller organization and a startup would be really cool. And so again, all these things collided and when they offered me the job, I was so excited by it because it was just that energy that I could tell from the interview process that I was like, "Wow, this is amazing".

08:42

And it was an incredible ride. A four year ride. And again, so grateful for that experience. And so grateful that it took four months, it was painful, but I trusted my gut when that offer letter came in and I knew that it was the right thing. And my mother was like, "Why are you moving? You're moving from education. This is the worst idea ever". So thinking about those extrinsic pulls there was probably a bit of doubt of like, "Oh, is this the right thing?"

09:21

Sounds like you made this decision in a way that is almost... It sounds a little counterintuitive from the outside, but probably made a whole lot of sense to you at the time. It looks like in some ways you moved from education to finance for an external reason because banking.

09:39

Yeah.

09:40

But in fact sounds like you made that decision because you wanted to work. You were proactive in trying to work for a company that was smaller. When you were deciding that there must have been other things on the table too, like I want to work for a company that's smaller or it might have been a smaller company that's to do with a different mission other than finance. How did you decide that it was, I want to work for a small technology comp. Why was that the thing that you wanted to do at that stage?

10:13

It's a good question. I remember going for a walk in the woods and it just dawning on me. I think working for a small company, not like a super small startup where you can lose everything or lose your job in two days, but something mid small, which Funding Circle was because I joined them at 80 people. I don't actually know where that epiphany came from, but it was just like, "Oh, it just feels so good because I could have real autonomy. I could grow with the company". There were just a bunch of things that I can't even remember where that came from, but I remember the feeling of that epiphany and feeling how strong it was. And I think it was before Funding Circle really landed on my lap.

11:02

But I think what the reality of the fact was probably I started off my search being fairly or a little bit more conscious of what type of company it was, like what industry. And I think I was even looking at agencies quite a lot actually to see because I was very much in the creative realm and Funding Circle was not super creative and design oriented. And that was true over the four years and was probably the only downside for me, working there was the sort of lack of design. Because probably it got to four months I was broadening my search a bit more and therefore it was just like, would I give Funding Circle a chance? even if it wasn't necessarily ticking the boxes of industry that I wanted. Was it something that I could be okay with and it turns out, yeah. And to be honest, it was super mission driven. And I could tell that even more so from meeting the people.

12:04

How did you put up with that compromise for-

12:09

Design.

12:09

Such a long period of time?

12:12

The good thing is that I was working in probably the most design focused area in the business. So on the borrower funnel, it was the one that people cared about a lot and was also needed to have a degree of looking and feeling good. And what I tried to do a lot towards sort of my middle stages of Funding Circle and towards the end was, quantify by why you would spend money on UX and design. And unfortunately I never really managed to convince people that it was enough to spend a lot more money on them than we were doing, which was frustrating. I think there were... Don't get me wrong. Like the last couple years became more frustrating as you've grown loads, there's a lot of inefficiencies and issues and everything else. And when I left, I was very happy to leave at that point, but I think it was something that I continuously tried to change and I felt like I was in the best position to try and do that. But obviously didn't make huge strides, but I'd say it was okay.

13:31

Why did you take accountability for that scenario rather than do something different? There are many people in that scenario who perhaps might have said, "I'm doing the job that I want to do in the smaller technology company that I want to work for, but I'm not achieving the creative outcome that I'm looking for". And there are two options that you're presented with in that moment. You either take accountability for it and you try and for find in the circumstance that you're in the gaps or you move and you do something different. And I wonder why you persevered?

14:04

Because I think there was a lot of other things that were keeping me there. So I think there are two ways that I'm... So I am a creative person and I do have a sort of design sensibility that I really care about, but I'm also a very results driven person. And the thing that Funding Circle gave me that I was really lacking at EF was this idea of we've got results. We're going for these goals and it's measurable. And I think I was getting so much of that at Funding Circle. The other stuff didn't matter as much because I was like getting 30% increased conversion on the website and increased conversion in the funnel by X. And I was just loving that buzz of feeling like, "Oh, I'm actually adding to the business value of this business" and the lexicon of the business was all about numbers, it was all about data and because I'd just been so missing that beforehand, it was great to get that.

15:08

Sounds so difficult, balancing creativity and results at the same time. How do you do that?

15:12

I think I have a little bit of a better idea of it now at Multiverse where I am now. Interestingly joined, had the same feelings when talking to people in the interview process here, as I did at Funding Circle, people are excited, we're on a mission. It's go, go, go. It's very ambitious. And that really speaks to an intrinsic part of me. But what's also really nice is that there is a real desire and want to have a good looking product. And what's frustrating almost is we don't have that yet. And we really need to get there because I haven't had the resource yet to be able to put time and energy into it. But the exciting thing is that senior leadership are all like wanting that. Almost at the cost of like, does that drive any value? So it's almost going a little bit the other way again, but I think there is a bit of that constant tension because sometimes stuff that looks good. It's hard to actually understand the value of it.

16:18

Since you've finished at Funding Circle, you've done a few different things. And now obviously at Multiverse, what's driven your most recent decisions and what was driving your core when you left Funding Circle?

16:30

Leaving Funding Circle was a really hard decision for me to make, but was probably a decision that took me about a year and a half to really get the balls to do. I felt less and less in control and less and less sort of autonomous should we say actually towards the end of my time there. And I was sort of in this middle management layer, I was a director of product, but there was still like a VP and a CPO above me. I felt a bit powerless in that middle position. And at which point I really cared about the company and obviously the people and I built up a legacy there I guess, that I was leaving behind, but it was my intention coming out of that. Because I made this decision of like, "Oh I can complain about all of this stuff or I could just leave". And it got to a point in my mental health where I just needed to leave.

17:32

Did you make the call too late?

17:33

Yeah, I think I did. It took me a long time to think through it. Arguably I'm a very determined person I don't like to give up. So I think there was a lot of that at play where I was like, "I can't give up on this. I can still change this". And I think I realized, "Let it go. There're certain things you can't change here actually. It's better for you to leave".

17:57

Was there a tipping point?

17:58

Yeah, there was a tipping point when I was so stressed that the doctor essentially signed me off for two weeks, rallied myself and had to go like, "No, I'm fine". So I didn't take the two weeks, but I think it was a reality check for me.

18:13

Didn't take the two weeks.

18:14

I didn't take the two weeks, but that was a point where I was like, "This is not good". I think in my exit interview, I remember saying that the problem was that I was stressed and bored, which is the worst combination of things. I moved very quickly. I think because I was so determined to move. I hopped into an interview process where it was like all very swept up with emotions and seemed like a good fit. And I was really excited about the company and the product and all this other stuff. And I was like, "Oh, I can actually use the product and this is great and it's going to be so good and I'm going to be working directly for the CEO and it's going to be awesome". And then I fell into my next role. And the learning I have of that was I was very swept up in emotions and didn't do much fact checking on certain things and didn't take my time in it enough because I was so rushed and I have lots of learnings from that next experience, even though it was under a year long. It was very formative for me to rethink how I thought about my career and the decisions I make and how I make them and everything else.

19:36

It must be very difficult to make a decision when your intrinsic motivation is defined for you as how you feel, but yet you made a bad call there because you had an emotion. How do you tell the difference between?

19:51

It was a difficult reckoning for me afterwards because I was so into this and so sure about it and it makes you doubt your decision making process full stop. And that's where I was for a few years just thinking like, "Oh, these decisions I make, they can be really impactful. Am I making them right? What can you do?" And I think it really in a way damaged me on that front and I had to make a really tough decision joining Multiverse, because at that point, I was only in my job six months at the time that Euan approached me. And I was like, "Nah, it's way too soon to leave. I don't leave places quickly. It's not what I do", but I was already feeling like there was things that weren't quite right.

20:45

And clearly I took the interview because I was like, "Oh, what do I have to lose?" And then I dropped out because I was like, "No, I can't leave my team". And then Euan brought me back in and then I had to make the decision at the point that I got the offer of whether I'd leave or not. And I was leaving at a point that was like would be 10 months in. And there was so much that I was trying to check and so much that was going well, but also certain things that were not, and it was an agonizing decision to make. I now haven't looked back. I honestly feel like it was a really great decision to make. So that kind of gives me confidence again.

21:26

What was the mental moral there that you-

21:28

Adopted.

21:29

Developed?

21:30

So at that point, what I did was I had some conversations with my current boss and I had conversations with Euan and part of me was made the decision on how those conversations were going, like what they were like. And so I was quite honest with Euan in the interview process and he was really considerate. He was coaching. He was just a really nice sounding board. And I was like, "Look, I'm concerned about this". And I was able to be quite open with him and that felt really good. And then when I was having similar conversations with my ex boss, they were really just quite unproductive and unhelpful. And I think that was part of the decision. I think the other one was really about where will I be in two years' time and where am I going to be happier being in two years' time?

22:36

And that was a very strong pull. So I remember talking to... I'm very driven. So at Octopus, you had this scoring system and basically if you got an A1 you were like top of the class kind of thing, and I was really wanting that, really pushing for it. I remember talking to the HR director and they were like, "Oh, you won't get that in your first year. Like nobody gets that". And I was thinking, why am I busting my balls? Like that's ridiculous, and then also thinking about, okay maybe I would get promoted in two years time kind of thing, but wasn't a growing company and therefore those opportunities, you almost have to wait for them rather than earn them.

23:28

And that was deeply demotivating to me. Where comparing to Multiverse where it was like, "We're going for gold, we're winning. It's amazing. And in two years time we want IPO and like you'll win all the money and have like all the...", it's not really about money for me, but it's more like you will achieve something great in two years time and you'll learn so much along the way, because you're going to scale this team and it's going to be really exciting. And that to me was just so much more inspiring to think through for two years versus this, "No, we're going to try and clip your wings as much as we can". And so that was the big push for me.

24:14

What was that question that you asked yourself about the two years?

24:14

What was it?

24:15

Yeah. What did you say? Was it was it will it make you happier?

24:26

Yeah. Where will I be in two years time and what will I be happier with?

24:32

Sounds like sometimes we think that what we need to do is think harder when actually we just need to ask ourselves better questions to get to the heart of what we're actually thinking. And were there any other questions you asked yourself at that time that helped you get to the heart of how you really felt about it?

24:55

I think the one was around. Who would you rather be managed by? I think there was another one on, who would you rather be working with? And I was in a place where everyone was pretty, everyone was quite annoyed and disillusioned and unhappy where it sounded like everyone I was talking to at Multiverse was inspired and inspiring. And it was like, who would I rather be working with, was the big question. And it was like, I want to be in that environment versus this one.

25:35

And what have you learned through your own experience that you now apply on the other side, when you are showcasing what Multiverse are doing and you're interviewing people, do you approach it any differently?

25:47

So the way that I sell Multiverse to the people who are applying is very similar to sort of how I felt I was sold it and what motivated me to join. So I focus on the growth and the ambition. I focus on the career opportunity. I focus on this product trajectory almost that we're on and the impact that we could have. And so I do frame it in the way that I probably see it myself. Invariably it's actually worked pretty well. I think people get quite inspired by it because there are things that I mentioned that are quite common to most people.

26:31

And actually if they're not common to them, they won't be right for the job. So alluding to things like, it's a very high paced environment and there's a lot going on or we're not really a tech company yet, but that's what we're aiming for. And you have to be part of the journey and want to make that impact and know that it's a really important impact to make things like that. I think hit at home for people that I'm not selling a perfect picture but selling the right picture for what would motivate them to join.

27:09

As you've shared your journey, it feels like there's this constant question that's come up between how do you know whether it's you that's the problem versus the environment that you're in. Do you think you found an answer to that and how you worked through those problems?

27:29

I think the real answer to it is it's probably always a bit of both why I say that is because I've done a lot of coaching in the last... Been coached as well as working as a coach, but been coached over the last three years. And I think that's been really helpful in me understanding that question a bit more. And I think six months into Multiverse, I definitely had a real low and I was thinking, "Oh God, this really hard. And am I failing?" There is a trend of when I felt not in a great place. It's often when I feel like I'm not winning. I was able to have some really great coaching that got me out of that and made me feel a lot more confident and in feeling a lot more confident, things tend to go a bit better. And also you start to see the positives in things more, and then you're happier.

28:43

So I guess the answer is I'm not fully sure I know the answer to your question because I do think a lot can be changed with your perspective, but similarly there are probably just times where you need to get out because your perspective has shifted so much or there's no way you can go back to thinking that you're in the right place because some things are just so misaligned to your own values.

29:16

I feel like we should organize another conversation for 10 years time to see if worked out the answer. Thank you for breaking everything down of such clarity.

29:25

No worries.

29:25

Loved it. Thanks Emma.