Personal Contributions at AlphaSights

After 6 weeks on the desk with my team, I am switching over to a new group and new segment. With this switch comes the abilitiy to reflect on my personal contributions to the group. This is reflection was also more profound this week as we had our end of summer check in with the global vice presidents of the organization. Overall,  I think my leadership major has greatly helped me succeed this summer. It has helped me in practical ways but also has shifted the lens through which I view problems that I interact with. For example: as a leadership studies major, I know the importance of critically asking why. AlphaSights says that they want a culture of “radical candor,” and I know the importance of this because of my leadership major. When I was faced with a problem on the desk last week, I was comfortable telling my boss the suggestion I had. In our current system, you cannot search for customers of a certain service or product. Many of our clients want a customer perspective, and I started to realize how much easier and more efficient we could be if we had a label or button to note this information. In turn, my manager was able to pass this information along to the product team who can potentially implement it.

 

Throughout the whole summer, I think I was comfortable giving honest feedback because of Jepson. Jepson has taught me the importance of understanding why things are the way there are and then challenging them to be better. Personally, I have found the most effective way to do this is through asking questions. These questions can be asked to a member of senior leadership, but can also be acknowledged in your own head. For example: I consistently reflected on the trainer-trainee model that I previously wrote about. I started to realize that it may be more efficient to change this in order to keep both the associate and intern content. I started thinking about how to motivate followers the importance of sustainability for the organization. I brought this matter up to my trainer and I asked him if he thought the leadership model was sustainable. Surprisingly, he was very honest with me. He agreed that the model did need to change if the organization was to grow at the rate it wanted. I noted that there can only be a certain number of associates promoted to managers and managers to VPs before the numbers are skewed. He acknowledged that I was right and said it was something he was glad I noticed because it was important to note this in thinking about a future at the company. With my new team, I hope to be able to continue this critical thinking on how I can make my own personal work and the company as a whole more effective.