Iain Allan is now in his 70s, and shows no interest in retirement. He qualified as an actuary and spent his career in investments and banking. He took a strategic approach to his career, actively managing it to create and capitalise on opportunities at key points over the decades. Most recently, he has been encouraging more actuaries globally to consider career opportunities in banking, promoting this through the International Actuarial Association. 

In the investments domain, a financial option is an instrument which allows you to adjust the downside or upside potential of a given investment. One example of this is reducing or removing the chance of loss while retaining or enhancing the chance of gain. This ‘optionality’ allows you to benefit if things move in your favour. And, options are more valuable in uncertain situations (with ‘volatility’), when the path ahead is not clear – adapting as things evolve. 

A related concept in the world of bond (or fixed interest) investments is ‘convexity’, which involves rates of change. Simplistically speaking, convexity allows you to benefit whichever direction interest rates move – the best of everything! So, if you’re able to proactively steer your situation to give you optionality or even convexity, that’s incredibly helpful. 

Iain and John Young (one of his proteges) have written about the importance of creating strategic options, using examples from warfare and business. In their words: “Success comes from exploring many options and following up those that work best”. Read more for Iain’s career experiences and reflections, including his application of optionality in practice. 

Isn’t it curious how we as humans love shortcuts and simple solutions? For good reason: heuristics or hacks can dramatically reduce the energy we need to spend thinking or investigating i.e. lower ‘cognitive load’. ‘Social proof’ is particularly compelling to us: if others we respect endorse something, it must be great! Examples of such credibility signals include the professional credentials we have, our alma maters, the companies we’ve worked for, and others vouching for us – in effect, all stamps of approval affecting our personal brands. A consequence is that perceptions matter and can quickly become reality, including when it comes to performance and achievement in a work environment. 

Thus, what others feel and say about you matters significantly. In a professional context, influential sponsors can have a major impact on your performance bonuses and career path. And, sponsorship becomes increasingly important the more senior you are in your career, particularly as you aim for the C-Suite: you need to be well-known, and respected, by large groups of stakeholders, at all levels of the organisation, and both internally and externally. A successful CEO, for example, is highly likely to have reinforcement from a lot of her Non-Executive Directors (NEDs), who may also have actively supported her appointment. And, new NEDs probably needed endorsement by influential peers and seniors to join the boards they’re on. While we often think of sponsors as needing to be within your organisation (as that’s where many career advancement opportunities arise), active support from other advocates can help our careers too – for example, others in your profession, ex-colleagues and previous bosses. 

Trust me: sponsorship is important. Earlier in my career, a boss told me how he was spending time meeting one-on-one with members of the executive committee to understand how they thought about him and his work. At the time, I felt this was self-serving and manipulative, and I naively wondered why they didn’t already know what value he was adding or not. Some of my revulsion stemmed from having seen plenty of politically-savvy people achieve success by schmoozing, but without ‘genuine’ value-add – something I still feel is dishonest. However, now I also know just how important his networking with the influencers was: it’s not enough to be effective in your current role, even if you are recognised as a stand-out performer. This will not by itself guarantee you get opportunities to move into your next desired roles. You need to both deliver your current organisational objectives and gain exposure to and sponsorship from executive leaders i.e. add genuine value and be widely viewed as capable of doing even more. 

So, how can you actively improve your sponsorship? Read more for discussion on how business relationships matter, building strong impressions and addressing perception gaps, the marketing concept of superfans, and a proactive, three-step approach to gaining further influential sponsors. Let’s go! 

I’ve been listening to some personality-themed podcasts, exploring ‘cognitive functions’ i.e. how we make decisions. In this article, I attempt to distil some of this, exploring what each of four different types of people particularly value. I focus on one of our most important relationships at work: the relationship with our boss, and unpack each type considering what’s likely to be important to them. The underlying theory is that each type has different mental wiring, and they evaluate the world through this process i.e. how they believe the world ‘should’ be.

The four types are split by two dimensions: 
(i) thinking/logically-driven or feeling/people/emotionally-driven
(ii) structured/process-focused or flexible/opportunity-focused

You probably have a pretty good feeling of which type your boss might be, and which type you are – where these differ, it’s important to pay particular attention as valuing different things could lead to misunderstandings between you, especially in pressurised situations. 

Over the remainder of this article, I explore each type in turn, discussing what’s important to them. The more you can adjust your behaviour and delivery to give your boss what they value (while still being true to yourself), the better your relationship with them is likely to be, and the more you will meet their needs – which could lead to better increases, higher bonuses and more promotions. Read more to dive into the detail of each type.