Young Planner, Are You Ready?

Jovens Planners Blog (Young Planners Blog) asked me to be sincere as a manager and to help those who are starting out with tips and my expectations about behaviors, techniques, literature and references. I have a lot, some simple things and some that are easy to say, but hard to put into practice. I'm not here to pat anyone on the back. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But, stick with me because it all comes from the heart.    

We need you more than you imagine.

You do not have to have already decided to be a lifelong planner while you are young. However, if you're working with it, be present, 100% focused, be proactive, pay attention, be available and don’t drop the ball.

The work that an assistant and supervisor do is the foundation of the whole strategy. If it is not solid and good, nothing else will be safe. Like a building built out of sand.

Interesting people have interests.

Study. Whatever you want. In a formal or informal way. But really study. One of the best features of a planner is when we know we can count on him or her to bring knowledge and new things to the table. And that only comes with interest and hours of dedication. Do not worry about what others will think of your area of interest. There is always something interesting and useful: carpentry, jazz, American football, gastronomy (high and low), Harry Potter, dogs, make up - these were themes of members of my DM9DDB team. I learned a lot from them. A planner is a life-long passionate learner.

Understand Zeitgeist.

Capturing the spirit of time is one of the greatest prowess and preciousness of a planner. Understanding the greatest movements of the society in which one lives implies leaving the bubble of ones references to become interested and to understand everything around oneself and all agents of influence. Understand the rules and exceptions. Acknowledging, for example, that although you only watch Netflix and on demand content, people still watch regular TV. That in the world of hype, the overwhelming conservative masses have chosen otherwise. Movement and counter-movement. For this we need to read newspapers, several different foreign newspapers, not only to have an influential opinion. Le Monde, El Pais, The Guardian, Washington Post, La Repubblica, NYT, CNN, BBC, Time and so on (Reading Wired, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post and FastCompany isn’t enough. Sorry about that, guys.). Reading sociology and history helps a lot as well. Read Eric Hobsbawn and Foucault. Google the recent Nobel Prizes in Economics.

The unforgivable.

I'm super flexible and not radical, but there are things that are unacceptable.

Here they are:

Send an e-mail or work doc without carefully revising the text.

Mistakes for lack of care and attention to me are a sign of little commitment.

Never show that you are fed up by way of body language.

There is nothing worse in this life than huffing, yawning, rolling your eyes and one word answers, because it symbolizes a lot of disrespect for the whole environment. You aren’t happy with or hated what a person said. Keep it to yourself, people are different and you will not find consensus in the work environment. You will not. Is it something that you can no longer handle, something that is putting your will to go to work every morning to the test? Formulate your questions with rationale and go to your manager. Then be ready to listen to his/her feedback.

Were you able to come to an understanding? Hopefully. If not, try again. It's good to persist. It develops us. If you do not, off to the next. It will be good for both sides.

Missing work because of a night out or coming to work with a big hangover.

The tip here is not to not party all night on a work night (that goes unsaid, right?), It's this: do not think your manager won’t notice. They realize just by looking at you that the work day will not be productive. After all, they were also in their 20s in the past ;). Coming in with a hangover once can even be forgiven if the manager is understanding, but if that becomes a pattern, you lose credibility and respect. This can even get you into a cut list, for example.

The manager prioritizes the most committed during difficult times because they always look for people who they can count on to be there rain or shine.

Tardiness.

Shows disrespect to people. Simple rule:

"Early is on time. On time is late. Late is unacceptable. "

Now, some (more) tips.

Relationship is not a bad word, it's an obligation.

One of the most common mistakes among young planners is to have disdain of relationship assignments in our area or any other.

The more the professional rises in his/her career, the greater their responsibility to relate to people, to know how to sell ideas and to negotiate becomes.

We are a social animal and this is part of our organization, of the communities and, why not of the companies too. And everything is fine. Carla Harris, Vice Chair of Morgan Stanley Bank of the United States, recently said at the 3% Conference in NY: "In your career you work with two currencies: performance and relationship. Performance is fundamental because it puts you on the shortlist for promotion, and relationship is the one that makes your promotion come true. After all, who will advocate in your favor and go out on a limb for you if they do not know you? "

Makes sense, doesn’t it? That is, the technical part of your job will be the core of your work up to the management level, but from there the core will be your ability to relate well with other people. One side of the coin cannot exist without the other.

Do not understand (only) the business of your client, understand business.

It is widely spoken that the planner needs to understand the client's business. Yes, it's true. It makes a brutal difference in the delivery and the drive of the professional. But to understand the client's business one needs to understand the essence of business. Understand the basics of business, especially if you did not graduate in business. I did not have any business training, I graduated in Social Sciences. I learned it in the school of hard knocks, and I sped up my learning when I realized that it would make a difference in my life. I founded a company at the age 28 and started an international executive MBA at the age 35. As important as understanding your client's business, is understanding the business you work for. How your business makes money, how it stays sustainable and how it can grow. Just being interested in this subject is already a differential and will make you look at things, projects and challenges from a different perspective. Do the exercise.

Hack things in a good way.

Learn how things work, how things are done in the place you work with your colleagues and friends. Methods, processes, paths.

After you learn, change everything. Hack, find new exits and shortcuts. Develop a way to do things better than the way you found them. A technology, a new process, a new way of looking at the same thing.

The use of a technology for an end that no one had thought of before. There is so much to be done with the mountain of tools to which we have access. It is worth challenging yourself to create something new that makes life easier for people and brings more learning into the work environment or even to the consumer. Someone will do this. I'd love it if it was you ;)

Understand the numbers.

Big data comes at a curious time, where few people understand the numbers. It is essential to know how to read numbers, know how to demand and cross reference numbers to achieve learning. Learn what you can about something called Econometrics. The principles of econometrics will be very useful hereafter. Are you bad with numbers? Sorry, go after it. Kumon, Khan Academy (Do you know it? It's great, my favorite!). I'm not kidding, okay?

The world needs data translators, people who turn that into information, knowledge and decision-making. We need to play and, as planners, to know and decode this world of, “oh my god”.

Courage.

Managers and customers need help, they are being pressured for it. It has a huge expectation on the new generation. Read articles from the AdAge, HBR and Campaign UK magazines on big data, strategy and planning. Something new comes out every day. There's an interesting article in Campaign UK called "The Rise of Planning". You will understand what I am talking about, especially about the future of planning.

English is not enough.

I know that it is already difficult to speak English well, very well. But I'm here to be honest and help who's getting started, not to pat anyone on the back. So, English must be fluent. This cannot be a problem. It will be very important to you because we expect that young planners will be able to absorb the most complete and contemporary content. And they are in English, most of the time.

But even if you’re a native… Sorry, English is not enough anymore.

You need to speak other languages ​because we are increasingly connecting with people from all over the world, and even if your English is perfect, Miami staff would love to speak Spanish with you. And it’s awesome.

That's how I decided to speak Spanish: when I arrived in Miami for a Latina meeting with an English presentation and discovered that I and my Brazilian colleague were the only ones in the room who did not speak Spanish. I set myself the goal of speaking in a year. It was great. Once I was even invited to work in Spain, can you have better recognition than that?

Languages ​are doors to meet people and also to incredible cultural universes, which will further increase your repertoire and levels of 'interest'.

It may even be that you gain prominence in caring for a brand by speaking a specific language. And that can be a super nice chance.

French, German, Italian, Mandarin ... Go for it and enjoy the ride!

Never underestimate your own work.

Another very common behavior among young planners is over-criticism. From criticism of the world to mainly from self-criticism. Yes, you are very self-critical. That's great because it makes you aware of the ridicule. Good. But, on the other hand, it often makes young planners disqualify their own work in the moment of truth. How does this happen? In many ways. Here are some of them that you can identify as something familiar and correct if necessary:

/// When it comes to presenting the result of a poll, you start by saying: "We talked to some people, but not many, nothing that can prove anything statistically, just a homemade survey." If what you have done is so irrelevant in your own opinion, why should I take it into consideration? Do not say “homemade”, please. Wouldn’t it be better to say, "I did a qualitative research with people of the target to look for some hypotheses and discovered..."? Isn’t that much better? Not the same content we're talking about, but presenting it in a much more confident way? Instead of a bad quantitative, you have a good qualitative.

/// Diminutives are prohibited. "We were thinking about a little something," "I made a small presentation here." No people. "I thought of something," "I made a presentation." Never diminish your work, believe in it. If you do not believe it, who will believe it, right? It may be that you do not mean to lessen it when you say that. So, do not under sell it :)

/// This one kills me. When you are making a presentation and suddenly start skipping the slides because they are not important. "I'm going to skip this one, this does not matter, I'm going to finish." If they are not important, why are they there, for Pete’s sake? Focus on what is important.

Lastly,

Be prepared for your big chance.

Get ready for a meeting. Have your work on the tip of your tongue. If you are going to participate in a meeting, be it internal, with clients, or with outsiders, prepare yourself. This may be your big chance. That’s it. Get ready for it as if it were your big chance. Get ready for a phone call, get ready for a meeting, get ready to talk to your boss. Study the materials and know the topics and the subjects you are analyzing. Show that you are prepared, that people can count on you.

You will become one of their sources. People will come to look at you when they ask questions. They will look for you with their eyes. They'll listen to you more, because they know you master what you're talking about. Your boss will trust you more. Just as the customer will realize that you take the job seriously, and this has incredible value.

If you are going to give a presentation, rehearse. Rehearse aloud at least 3 times. Rehearse to make sure everything is there and everything is in the right place. Rehearse to show that you master the content. Do not forget what's in that slide - "What is it, I do not remember" is not cool. Discover how much time you have for a presentation. How much time your boss has for that conversation. How much time your client has. Plan within the time you have. Suddenly someone calls you to explain something to a customer in the hallway, to a C-level executive, to the CEO. What's up? Are you ready? If that happens tomorrow morning, will you be ready? You have to be, trust me. I left this for last because it’s the golden tip, the best thing I can tell you.

If you just want to remember one thing, just remember:

Always be prepared for your big break.

Special thanks to Juliana Matheus and Verônica Merege for the invitation. Thanks, girls! Keep rocking!