Is it okay to make mistakes?

Mistakes are part of learning, or so they say. This week, the concept of idiosyncrasy credit kept appearing in a multitude of ways. Idiosyncrasy credit explains the acceptability for a member or leader to deviate from group norms. If you act in a way your colleagues or followers see fit, you can gain credit. This will then help you if you ever deviate from these norms. While I think I have worked hard and been a good intern, 2 weeks definitely is not enough time to gain many credits with my manager and trainer. This past week, the idea of idiosyncrasy credit was relevant to a mistake I made. I was extremely busy one day and got off for lunch at 12:50. 30 minutes later, I realized I had forgotten to go to my meeting with my manager. My manager was annoyed but not mad at me, so in the moment it felt like everything was fine and he just rescheduled the meeting. However, as the day progressed he made a few comments about me needing to watch my calendar more sharply. Because I did not have a lot of credit within the group, my failure to follow group norms and go to my meeting meant I lost a lot of trust in my team. I recognized this and used this idea to realize I needed to work to build up more credits with my group. I did this by bringing in a planner the next day and being early for the rest of my meetings. I recognize that if I am late or miss another meeting, it will be an even bigger deal because I have little room for error in deviating from the group’s norms.

This concept also arose in talking about our client relationships. We discussed what makes AlphaSights successful and how we can improve our client relationships. Reliability, speed, and quality output were some of the most important ways we identified to build trust with our clients. In talking about delivering a high quality product, I actually brought up the idea of Idiosyncrasy credit in my group’s meeting (everyone was really intrigued when I explained it)!  If we consistently deliver high quality calls to our clients, they will have more trust in us and prioritize our services over our competitors. Further, in doing this, we will build Idiosyncrasy credits. Then, when mistakes inevitably happen, our clients will be more likely to realize they are not the norm and continue to trust us.

I really enjoyed seeing a concept we discussed in our class become so applicable to my internship. The idea of Idiosyncrasy credits falls within our discussion of legitimacy in leadership. Legitimacy is different from power because legitimacy gets people to comply because they intrinsically want to, not because they are motivated by extrinsic punishment or reward. Legitimacy is an interesting concept in the framework of AlphaSights. My managers and trainers are only 2/3 years older than me, and most of the office is under the age of 25. This deviates from the traditional ideas of legitimate leadership that we are accustomed to, like leaders should be older and more experienced. There are also many ultimate reasons we may naturally want to have more mature leaders, like the fact that elders are usually mediators in SSS.  Because of the young ages of leaders in the office, I think there can be a lacking of an intrinsic motivation for followers to listen to our superiors. Because of this, AlphaSights managers must often use power. AlphaSights uses a credit system to track each associate’s performance. If an associate does not bring enough credits in, they can be punished and even fired. This model shows that the company may compensate for a lack of legitimacy in leaders by giving more power to them. Legitimacy is something I definitely want to keep in mind as the summer progresses.