Emerging talent development

In the first two parts of the Internal Mobility Series, “Dominant attributes” and “Triggers of fulfillment,” we established an effective and reliable framework to screen any potential opportunity quickly and decisively, before the window closes. 

The third part of the series, “Who is the future me?," is about determining if today’s tactical decisions are consistent with your long-term personal development aspirations. This article offers a simple method to create a vision of the type of person you want to become in 10, 15, and 20 years.

For over three decades, out of pure interest, I studied successful people at all levels of society in various capacities, and this I believe to be true:

Very few of them accurately predicted their actual career path from their early days in the workforce, even though they are excellent planners and goal oriented. All of them, however, accurately visualized the type of successful person they aspired to become. Most importantly, success is not about “what you get” from any job, but more about “who you become” on your career journey.

For example, banking is an expansive career field that offers a wide variety of attractive opportunities for talented professionals who are willing to take risk and seize them. Changing variables like market dynamics, geo-politics, monetary policy, investor psychology, emergence of new financial products, regulatory changes, and other large forces create career opportunities for the nimble, skilled, ambitious, and decisive professional.

For example, over the last 30 years, many career paths were altered by the following powerful forces:

• The 1994 Interstate banking legislation,
• the late 1990s dot.com boom,
• the horrible events of 9/11,
• the mid-2000s political focus on home ownership that led to the boom of Mortgage-Backed Securities (“MBS”),   
• the 2008 financial collapse due to the failure of those very MBS securities, 
• the follow-on Dodd-Frank legislation, 
• the growing emphasis on Environmental, Social, & Governance (ESG),
• the powerful evolution of financial technology,
• the COVID pandemic.

How many professionals calculated these game-changing events at the start of their careers before the events occurred? Maybe a few, but those that did are outliers and lionized as visionaries.

In addition to these earthquakes that trigger tsunamis of opportunities, we also experience a dynamic environment driven by our personal, family, and health decisions.

The point is that it is impossible to predict all the variables involved in the future, so it is less important to script out our exact career path, and more important to have a clear, long-term vision for who you want to become.

How?

Begin by identifying leaders, family members, historical figures…anyone you admire and respect, and identify what specific qualities they possess that you would like to emulate in your future self. To be clear, I am not suggesting that you want to become them, but instead develop their specific qualities important to your aspirational future self. For example, is it part of your future self to become a…

• subject matter expert?
• respected visionary?
• influential speaker?
• highly skilled technician?
• empathetic leader?
• skilled negotiator?
• excellent client manager?

Then add in elements from non-career related areas. For example:

• Loving and dependable family member?
• Fitness and wellness oriented?
• Financially secure?

For each of these specific qualities, make sure that you have an actual person identified who has demonstrated excellence.

Again, you do not have to know them; just have access to information to help you learn about their lives. For example, I studied the qualities of influential public speaking in Sir Winston Churchill, steely tenacity in Frederick Douglass, efficient professionalism in U.S. Secretary of State General Colin Powell, and positive energy and presence in Tony Robbins. 

The goal is not to be them, but to improve yourself in these aspirational qualities: study excellence.

Once you have identified what qualities, skills, and behaviors you would like to emulate in 10, 15, or 20 years, and you know who sets the example of excellence, write a simple paragraph about who you will become. Post it in your closet, on your mirror, or wherever you can review it frequently.

You now have a blueprint to your “future me.”

Whenever an opportunity arises; a fork in the road that you have screened using the first two parts of the series about dominant attributes and triggers of fulfillment, then ask this vision related question:

Does this opportunity enhance my ability to advance towards the person I aspire to become in the future?

If this opportunity, this crack in the door, is consistent with these simple questions discovered in the three-part series, then kick the door open and go for it.

Even if you feel these potentially debilitating emotions, leave the regrets, anxiety, fear, doubts behind and just seize the moment. When you get to the next fork in the road: Rinse and repeat.

Next month, in the final installment in the four-part series, we will touch on a related subject of internal mobility and share practical steps to identify opportunities outside of your current work silo.

Part one of the internal mobility series, “What’s Next?” discussed identifying your dominant attributes, and then determining where they are most valued and sought after in society. Understanding your dominant attributes is critical before changing your career trajectory. Without it, you may end up feeling underutilized, undervalued, and unappreciated by your team members.

The second part of this series, "Triggers of fulfillment", examines the identification and understanding of what triggers your feelings of fulfillment and significance.

Can you remember 3 to 5 times in your life when you felt a deep sense of purpose, fulfillment, or significance about yourself? What were you doing, and why did you feel that way?

If you can go back and identify these types of moments, and then decode what really triggered those feelings, you will have tapped into the source of your future sense of purpose, fulfillment, and significance.

So, how do you decode these moments that triggered fulfillment? Start with two simple steps.

• Keep questioning “but why?” as you dig deeper into this area of introspection. You need granularity. For example, it is not sufficient to say, “I was fulfilled when I was solving problems”. But why? What type of problems? Were they academic, relationship, coordination, organization, planning, analytical, physical confrontation, or operational problems? What skills or qualities did you use? What was the environment at the time? At what point in the process were you fulfilled?
• Explore the “connecting thread” between these 3 to 5 moments. If you can find this thread (what is consistently present in these past moments of fulfillment), you have discovered the Holy Grail of career/life mobility. This is the key to selecting the right path to achieve success with fulfillment.

Qualifying career question: “Does this triggering condition exist in the new job opportunity that I am exploring?”

Once you have a deep self-awareness of your dominant attributes and triggers of fulfillment, you have a reliable framework by which you can decisively screen and pursue any potential opportunity before the window closes.

Next month, part three of the series will share a simple and quick method on how to clearly develop a vision statement of the type of person you want to become 10, 15, and 20 years from now. This process will provide guidance for the tactical decisions needed along the road to “success with fulfillment.”

Part one of the series deals with the identification, acceptance, and increased utilization of your dominant attributes.

Start by honestly taking inventory of your three (most) dominant attributes. What are they? Are those attributes truly valued in your current role? Are you able to use these dominant attributes every day at work? Remember, sometimes “good is bad, and bad is good” ...it just depends on the application of those dominant attributes. 

For example, let us consider Bond Trading versus Investment Banking.

A bond trader’s ability to generate profits for the firm is directly correlated to her/his ability to make quick decisions with asymmetric or limited information. In other words, the trader excels for having the ability and willingness to be decisive without near-perfect information. The attributes of high intelligence, analytical capacity, strong risk management are similar qualities of an Investment Banker, but this one dominant attribute may guide a decision on the best home for a professional within a firm. 

If a trader requires 100% information before they act, well, the competitor traders have already booked it...so a dominant attribute of being “decisive with limited information” is valuable (good) as a bond trader, but less so (bad) in other professions. The same dominant attribute is not so valuable in an Investment Banker, who may be engaged in strategic advisory with a Board of Directors, requiring a deep analysis with all the merits and risks carefully considered. 

So...if you have always struggled with selecting which movie to attend, you may not be suited for long term success as a Wall Street trader!

A key part in this introspection phase of internal mobility is to recognize that “dominant” doesn’t necessarily mean “good or bad,” as perceived in the current role, or life in general. It just means you are identifying something about yourself that was ever present since you were a child and if properly aligned, may be your “competitive advantage” within an organization. 

This step is critical to successful career/internal mobility because leaders, managers, peers, and mentors cannot truly help you get to the right place until they understand you...which starts with you...so think about it. 

What are your dominant attributes?

Next month, the second part of this “Internal Mobility Series” will deal with identifying and understanding your triggers of fulfillment and significance.

At present, no other banking firm has this exact role; a non-HR senior business leader embedded within each business group and focused exclusively on the management, development, and wellness of the emerging talent community. The results speak for themselves. The role has a positive impact on the emerging banker experience and serves as the foundation to deliver a world-class experience over the first 5-6 years of a career journey.

The historical practice in most corporations is to identify and promote into management, the professionals who excel at their existing job. If a banker is successful in executing deals, a bond trader puts up tens of millions of dollars in profit, or an equities salesperson excels in client coverage, the individual is advanced into management as a natural progression of upward mobility. But the flaw in this age-old practice is that the high-performing professional may not have the skillset or interest in managing subordinates.

Management often requires a prioritization of non-producing functions such as coaching, development, assessments, and training. While the relentless pursuit of excellence in producing functions is what distinguishes the talented professional from their peer group, that skillset and passion may not translate well in the management role. This dilemma often results in the necessary management functions taking a back seat to the producing functions, aka “player coach.”  When the inevitable constraint of limited time is added into the equation and “task triaging” must occur, the result is usually a deficiency in direct management effectiveness relative to continued high performance as a producer.

Frustration, resentment, and declining job satisfaction are likely to set in with the manager, and this person may long for a return to the days of daily productivity and clarity of purpose. Moreover, direct subordinates may perceive a lack of senior manager engagement on the range of functions that employees expect along the career journey in a world-class organization, including mentorship, direct feedback, quality reviews, apprenticeship training and the counseling needed to navigate the highly competitive workplace.

Any organization without robust management engagement is likely to suffer such consequences as underdeveloped talent, weak inter-group connectivity and deterioration in culture values. These conditions often lead to poor retention and unplanned attrition, which trigger backfill hiring, re-training and lost productivity. Experts estimate these (unnecessary) costs can decrease bottom line by 30-50% of each departing employee’s annual compensation.

Enter the Development Officer, Wells Fargo’s unique approach to enhancing direct management in the revenue producing Corporate & Investment Banking division, including Banking, Markets, Commercial Real Estate and COO/Control, with expectations that the role will expand across the enterprise. 

The Development Officer is a senior level manager of emerging talent, with underlying experience in the business, who has self-selected into the direct management role based on personal interests, dominant attributes and demonstrated effectiveness in management, leadership, and mentorship. The Development Officer oversees activities such as recruiting, training, staffing and annual review initiatives, ensuring that important strategic initiatives like DE&I, market-based compensation and wellness are considered in the pursuit of delivering excellence to our clients.

In the Development Officer, emerging talent bankers have a seasoned coach and advocate to navigate challenges specific to the early phases of a career, including post-school/military service transition, introspection, work-life balance, and family changes. 

I recently spoke with members of the student body at UMass Amherst, and one question during the day was “how can I measure the commitment that a firm is making to my professional and personal development?”

My answer was simple. When the opportunity arises, ask your potential employer the following question: 

“What senior leader will be focused on my development and wellness as their top priority?”

The answer will reveal a firms’ commitment to development and the underlying investment in your long-term future. 

When talented students decide to launch their Corporate & Investment Banking careers at Wells Fargo, they can be assured that all elements of a world-class talent experience are in place to improve their ability to achieve success with fulfillment.