My Mastercard Journey Part 2 (Merchants and Beyond)
Welcome back to Part 2. For some reason Part 1 gained abit more attention than expected but in a good way – I hope it has guided some of you vocal/silent readers on how to make your own decisions at work. I want to reiterate again that there is no right way to figure out how to carve a path for your career, but some methods tend to be more efficient (speed) and effective (impact). We last left off after I mentioned that I was going to be joining the Merchants team. We’re going to start the article off with 3 different pieces of advice, then I’ll show you how I applied them during my time in the Merchants team.
The Merchant Team (and other random side projects)
I give three pieces of advice when I teach my module about being a good worker to university undergrads:
1) Don’t lie during your interview. You should set expectations correctly. I know some people say you can fake it till you make it, but generally I feel that honesty is the best policy. Also, most people hire you for your attitude rather than your aptitude, especially at a junior level. Even for my current role, I was very upfront about what I could or couldn’t do. Be reflective and honest about your weaknesses because I guarantee you, everyone has them. The real differentiator is: does everyone know about them? At times I wonder if ignorance is better than deliberate deceit (but they are both bad, so let’s try to avoid them).
2) Observe and listen (Quick recap). Again, this is in the context of a new job/industry where you really don’t have any expertise. When you consider your actions at work, consider them relatively. Is it better to be proactive than passive? (In your current new position where you have no knowledge of the norms, being passive might be better). On the flip side, as I entered my new role in Checkout.com (vs Mastercard), I would be more proactive than passive because I know what they hired me for and I know where I can add value almost immediately. But I would still be listening and observing, just that I’ll be initiating my own workstreams which would be valuable to the company. The main point is, you should always be making decisions relative to your possible actions and consequences. There are no hard and fast rules.
3) Always be doing one extra thing on top of your BAU. Most of us would have a BAU role to juggle, but you always want to make sure you’re learning and growing. Depending on what the scope of your BAU entails, sticking to the BAU could cause you to stagnate. While you would be perfectly comfortable (and probably able to clock out on time), you’re limiting your career trajectory and development by not spending some extra time improving yourself. Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to do anything super high profile, taxing or showy. You just have to take on a task (delegated or self-conceived) to make sure you’re learning. If you value add to the team along the way, that’s a great thing.
Since we’ve talked abit about point 2 in the last article, I’ll focus on how I applied point 1 and 3 in the Merchants team.
Let’s start with some background: In my interview, one of the questions they posed to me was: “can you do modelling?” Well, technically, anyone can do modelling, because to build a model is basically to identify the levers, figure out how they affect each other and calculate output (the complexity of the model then depends on how granular you want your individual factors to be, how much automation should be done etc). In theory, I could have answered yes and it wouldn’t be considered a lie. But did I know how to build the model that they had in mind? Maybe, but I didn’t have the confidence then to say yes as I had never built a model as part of job. In addition, what I wanted them to hire me for were the skills that I was confident in bringing to the table: strategic thinking, building narratives and stakeholder management. If not being able to build a model was a dealbreaker, then perhaps I’m better off not securing the job. If my very first task was to build some form of a complex model, then I might garner the reputation of being full of hot air. Protecting your ethos, or who you are, is way more valuable in the long run. You would probably also sleep better at night. Side note: Of course, you don’t say: “I don’t know modelling.” You should say: “Here’s how I would build a model. I’m not sure if the type of model you’re looking for when it comes to this business as I have little experience, but I would be more than willing to learn if you gave me a couple of reference models to look at or told me who I can talk to to understand the business better.” Don’t be afraid to have a genuine conversation with people who might be your future managers/colleagues.
Of course, following that interview, they put me in the department least likely to have any form of modelling for my first rotation – Merchants! I’m very lucky to have a great, funny manager that is still a friend even after I’ve left. Because I was honest, I was not expected to build models and my first project leveraged all my strengths – building narratives for our managed merchants to demonstrate that we understood their business as well as show how our products could help them reach their long term goals. As you can imagine, it’s a lot of reading (annual reports, news), piecing information together and distilling it into a simple, comprehensible storyline (while plugging in some Mastercard products). In a way, being honest helped me excel at my job because I could actually do the job at a level that would showcase my unique strengths. I know this honesty saved me because the other person who got hired along with me had a very modelling intensive first project.
The good news is: point 1 comes with point 3. Because I knew how to do the job at a high enough level, I had the capacity to always improve myself during my free time at work. I could also take on extra duties that would further my knowledge. The most memorable one involved modelling (gasp). The pricing team asked for a volunteer to rehaul their entire excel pricing sheet to account for all the complex changes in AP. I was abit hesitant to take it on, but the good news is people are generally more forgiving if they know you’re doing it out of goodwill (AKA have fun burning your weekend(s)). So what does one do when confronted with a huge problem and no guidance? The same thing I do now when I’m confronted with the any difficult problem, even in my new role. Break down the problem into smaller chunks, figure out how to solve the smaller problems, and piece them together again.
For this giant formula laden pricing sheet I had to:
1) Figure out how payments and pricing worked at a granular level
2) Connect the dots when it came to how to formulas affected each other (sometimes you change one thing and a whole host of errors come up)
3) Figure out where to account for the changes (should I remove something? Should I add something? What is the cost of doing either? What makes my life more difficult?)
4) Use my best friend Google to figure out everything I didn’t know about Excel, then experiment, troubleshoot and repeat
5) Create a guide for anyone who wants to use the sheet but wouldn’t know it like the back of their hands (see the value of teaching!)
A rather funny fact: apparently this sheet is so complex that even after I had left they are still using my version of the file (while updating some simple fields that won’t screw up how the different factors interact with each other). Literally, no one wants to touch it because they know how painful it will be. After that experience, I knew that I covered a weakness and I could tell people in Mastercard “Yes, I know how to model”.
That concludes the end of today’s story. Hopefully this article has been useful for you. I know I said I wanted to write about how I made the decision to rotate rather than stay in the Merchants team but we’ll cover that in the next part and I’ll also touch on how I grew in the Acceptance team (from a support role to eventually managing some of the new regional accounts). Again, we want to keep it general and not too payments specific so everyone benefits, but if any of you have payment specific questions, feel free to drop me a message.
The key takeaways you should get from this article are:
1) Be honest, it’s better to forfeit the job than risk your reputation
2) Make decisions that are relative. In other words, my words aren’t that valuable, make your decisions based on your own circumstances.
3) Unsurmountable problems become surmountable once you break them out into tiny chunks. Then use Google. Trust me, Google will help you address your knowledge gaps.
Till next time.
P.S: That’s a picture of the merchants team… it’s a good thing there’s no video evidence of our terrible caroling, even if it’s for a good cause.