What it will take to thrive in 2021 (and beyond)

One of the best sessions I had the fortune of attending last year was on developing your personal brand. You’re probably thinking what I was when I heard of it; the topic of personal branding has a perception of being a bit cheesy at best and, at worst, aimed at arrogant, self-promoting sales people or job seekers. But nothing can be further from the truth. The starting point for personal branding is an exercise (well suited to the new year) of introspection, finding out ‘what makes you tick’ and coming up with as many ideas as you can to implement those triggers into your daily life, including in your interactions with others. And the starting point for this is to discover your values, the things that are important for you to experience and express through the things you do every day, in both your personal and professional life. 2020 was a horrible year for many, but it often takes something as drastic and widespread as this to bring out the best in people. During the year I personally witnessed an abundance of some of the core values which I’ve listed as those that I want to focus on for 2021, and which I think we all need a good measure of in order to thrive in the post-covid world.

Those values are: Creativity, Empathy and Grit. In this article, I want to talk through what I mean by these, give some encouraging examples of where I’ve seen them in practice recently, and give you some ideas for how you can incorporate them by outlining how I plan to do so in my personal, professional and community spheres.

But first a bit of context. Like a lot of people, I’ve had a few health scares within my family last year but, touch wood, they’re all still healthy. And, apart from that, I had a really good year. I’ve quite enjoyed working from home -  I’ve had the time to learn the piano, get into running and spend time with my family – at the same time as doing well in my job (I got promoted in July), getting recognised by Microsoft with a MVP award, and building out the technical communities that I run (Learn Data Insights – LDI - which helps people prepare for technical exams and Power Platform Finance – PPF - which is focused on the application of the Microsoft self-serve technologies in the finance sector). Coming into 2021, I officially joined Avanade today on 1st Jan (Altius got acquired in March) where there is a wealth of opportunity for professional growth and building strong relationships with colleagues, clients and Microsoft. The communities I run are also doing well – LDI has over 5,000 subscribers (helping many of them to pass their Power BI DA-100 exam), and I organised 17 PPF webinars in 2020 which now has over 700 people who registered for at least one of them. I’m incredibly grateful for all these organisations and community members for the recognition and opportunities that I’ve had, though I completely appreciate that not everyone is in the same boat. So many others have lost/are at risk of losing their jobs, and/or are completely understandably, through no fault of their own, struggling to manage with the chaos that is all around us. I don’t think that makes the introspection and personal branding exercises any less important, in fact it makes it more so. What will be different for everyone is the set of values you choose and, more specifically, how you decide to incorporate them into your life depending on your personal situation.

So now to the values, starting with creativity. The businesses which have survived (or even thrived!) during the pandemic so far have without fail been those that have creatively adapted to the new environment. Many of us also had to get creative last year in figuring out how to effectively work from home whilst satisfying our human cravings for social interaction and keeping some degree of sanity. As a consultant, I’ve had to find some creative ways to run meetings and technical training sessions virtually. And having creative freedom at work is one of the most important things for me – it’s basically why I love what I do; every day I can get creative with how I tell stories with clients’ data and design technical solutions to meet their business problems. If this is important for you too, list it as one of your values and figure out how you can introduce more opportunity for creativity in your role.

Looking forward, I’ve been coming up with some creative ideas for how I can engage better with the technical community. With every user group globally running their sessions virtually, there’s been an explosion of available content online. Of course this is a good thing – I’ve learnt tons from watching sessions from experts across the world that wouldn’t otherwise be recorded! – but there’s way too much content for anyone to reasonably get through. Plus the issue with online content has never been a lack of volume, but rather that watching videos online isn’t always enough for teaching people how to apply the concepts in their work. The first two Power Platform sessions I ran (pre-covid) were in-person conference/workshop sessions in London; it isn’t obvious how to move this online though this is a challenge I want to try and tackle this year. I’m looking into virtual classroom software and how to create worked example exercises for BI/Finance professionals that can have sufficient reach. This will require some creativity!

Next, let’s look at Empathy. I wrote a previous LinkedIn article specifically on this topic as for me it was the most called-for value of 2020. The unique thing about this crisis, more so than any other in recent history, is that we’ve all been in it together. Local communities have responded by helping each other out and in the UK – as well as many other countries - it’s so encouraging to see how the hard-working (and massively underpaid) staff in the NHS/Health Service have risked their lives to help the millions who have fallen victim to the virus. This empathy will still be needed once mass vaccination has been rolled out because even once we get the medical impact under control, the social and economic impacts will be around for many years to come. Not least because the pandemic has had had a disproportionate effect on societies thereby increasing inequality (e.g. This economist article highlights “Studies suggest that about 60% of jobs in America paying over $100,000 can be done from home, compared with 10% of jobs paying under $40,000”).

So in the current climate we can think about ways to build more empathy into what we do every day, even if that’s just helping our family and friends when they need it. Technology is also a powerful force for helping others – I was involved last summer in a global Power Platform Hackathon where hundreds of us built dozens of initial solutions to help with the pandemic situation – plus I’ve seen companies such as Microsoft make technical solutions freely available to healthcare providers, and Avanade helping a consortium of ventilator suppliers with their supply chain using Dynamics 365.

The lens of the world we now live in is important, but empathy goes beyond this. It is also about being open to diverse views and opinions outside of our own echo chambers (amplified in an online world fuelled by social media), recognising/remediating our personal biases, and making your work accessible. This last point is often misunderstood – accessibility isn’t just about making sure it is able to be consumed by people with disabilities, it’s far more fundamental than that. It can be something as “basic” as taking people on the journey with you, recognising that not everyone has the same set of specific knowledge and skills that you do. I’m often guilty of this – having spent several years of my career learning everything I can about Power BI, I sometimes (sub-consciously!) assume that everyone else has too! I need to remind myself that people are from different backgrounds and go at a pace that is comfortable for everyone. The key to doing this is building relationships with people, taking the time to listen and understand their perspectives and their needs, and not just “solutioning” straight away (something else I’m sometimes guilty of!).

The last value, which I imagine will be a new term for many, is Grit. Made famous by Angela Duckworth, Grit is “passion and sustained persistence applied toward long-term achievement, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. It combines resilience, ambition, and self-control in the pursuit of goals that take months, years, or even decades” [Source: Quartz at Work]. That might sound a bit misplaced in today’s ever-changing world where we need to also be flexible, adapting to new landscapes and situations (the pandemic being an extreme example of this!).  As a consultant focused on a technology stack that hasn’t stood still even for a single day in the past 5 years, I’ve experienced first-hand the need to be dynamic and cater any advice or recommendations I give to the current situation.

What this demands though is a growth mindset – the humbling recognition that you know less than you think and seeing every day, even every interaction with someone, as an opportunity to learn and grow. This mindset is a fundamental tenet of Satya Nadella’s strategy for running Microsoft (see my article on Hit Refresh) and is not only congruent with grit, but is actually a key ingredient of it. To be gritty, you have to be flexible but not fickle, least of all when it comes to your goals, even when times are tough.  I’ve written about goals before, making them identity-based and achieving them through building habits. Once you’ve set the right kind of goals, and a strategy to achieve them, the commitment to them should be unwavering. Working in the technology space - especially when you’re trying to push the tools to their limits and coming up with creative work-arounds to achieve what you want – is the best test of your grit; there’ve been times when I’ve been stuck with technical challenges for days, weeks and even months, but I don’t give up because I have a higher goal – that of achieving the outcomes I need to for my clients, and at the same time continually learning and pushing myself. Having a goal that serves a higher purpose, especially one that serves others, is crucial for motivation during difficult times.

I’ve seen evidence of grit in every successful person I’ve met (including my friend and colleague Mish Naik who introduced me to the concept), though there’s one group of individuals for which I think it’s actually a defining characteristic – the MVP community. I remember the first time I learnt that speakers at conferences (including the superstars like Marco and Alberto) weren’t paid for the session, and often weren’t even reimbursed for their flights/hotels from the other end of the world to come and speak. I didn’t get it - why would someone do that? Money aside, why would they even spend the considerable time required to prepare the demo and share all their knowledge and material freely when there are people out there clearly willing to pay them for it? A couple of years later I did get it, and it was me up there presenting at global conferences (even though my knowledge and skills still doesn’t come close to the bar set by some of these people!). It’s because once you’ve developed a deep passion for a subject, and knowledge that you know will help others, you can’t help but share it. It’s a way for you to solidify that knowledge and learn (I’ve submitted sessions for specific topics I haven’t even really tried yet – the pressure of having to explain it to a room full of paying attendees in a couple of months is sufficient motivation to learn!). You soon become addicted to the thrill of setting yourself personal challenges such as public speaking and meeting them! 

There are of course many people outside of the MVP community who demonstrate this grit, and – as a full disclaimer – I have no insight into the decision process for who Microsoft award the recognition to. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it includes a certain grittiness measurement, even if they don’t explicitly call it that.  Ironically, the notion of doing what you do with “no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way” is also a common trait amongst the MVPs I’ve come across – appreciating the recognition but not doing what they do in order to achieve it (else what would be the motivation to continue once you got it?); doing it because of the passion for helping others and leading communities. For my own part, the technical community has been such a platform of personal and professional growth for me that I’ll continue to do it even if I don’t get re-awarded.

So those are the three values I settled on. You might be wondering what this has to do with Personal branding which is where the inspiration for this article came from. Well personal branding, as I learnt, is all about authenticity – once you’ve come up with your values and how you want to implement them, then your interactions with others (online/through social media or in-person)- i.e. your personal brand - is just a natural, authentic and credible reflection of that.

I hope this article helps people, especially those who’ve had a difficult 12 months, think about their values and how they want to shape their lives in 2021 and beyond. Please do reach out to me with comments or feedback – this is an area I’m also very passionate about so would love to have a chat and share experiences!