Quite often strategies I see there are 200 pages of strategy
analysis and to me the results of strategy analysis is not
strategy. Welcome to Business Analysis
Live. I'm your host, Susan Moore,
community engagement manager with the International Institute
of Business Analysis. I explore topics with industry
guests about the work of business analysis professionals
and how their work helps organizations achieve better
outcomes. And yet, we take your questions,
too. Thanks for listening.
Let's get started. We're going to talk about
strategy today. Not a topic that we get to talk
a lot about, but it is increasingly requiring business
analysis professionals to step up and step in to the work of
organizations and the strategy work that they're doing.
And so you might be asking yourself, well, what does that
mean strategy and specifically, what would I bring to the table?
I scoured the world for an expert on this, and I have her
today. She is joining us all the way
from Warsaw, Poland. I want to invite to the stage
Elena Shukova. Hello.
Oh my God. Hello.
Hello, Susan. Hello, everyone.
Oh, my God. Your introduction is so
positive, so amazing. Well, thank you for inviting me.
Well, I love having you. I have had the pleasure of not
only getting to work with you virtually over the years, but
also meeting you in person several times here in the United
States. And they're in Poland, so, and
I'm looking forward to seeing you again this year in Warsaw
for the Poland Summit. Maybe we can give them a little
shout out as well because it's a fantastic event.
Same here, yeah. You know, if this is the
occasion, of course the guys come, come, and it's an amazing
event, Yeah. And it's in Poland and it's in
Warsaw. So it's so close to America,
right? It's.
So close. It's so close to America.
Well, hey, listen. So today's topic we're talking
about turning strategy into results.
And before we dive into that topic, I, I want people to get
to know you a little bit more. Tell the audience about
yourself. OK.
In a few words, as you said before, right now I'm doing the
job of Chief Operational Officer, Chief Executive Officer
for different companies and we do, we organize strategy, we
create strategy, we define strategy and then we make
strategy operational. So it means that we set
structure, we set teams, we set goals, we set O PRS and then
routines around those goals and said this PDCA so damning cycle
around those goals and derive lessons learned and then how we
help companies grow. That's what I'm doing right now
for the last already I guess eight years.
And before I was a BA, that's how we met.
Actually, I was a lead BA, I was BA, I was a strategy analyst.
I did a tent management in some companies.
But actually my first job when I started work with IT companies
was a business analyst. It was almost 20 years ago, but
yeah, doesn't matter. Yeah, that's where I'm coming
from. And right now I'm also leading a
few companies together with my business partners.
So that's, yeah, well, that's where I am.
My goodness. And if I remember you telling me
that you're CEO of like multiple companies at the moment.
So what's amazing is that Elena started when she was like 7 or 8
years old. So she talks about doing this
for 20 years. She is incredible.
Let's talk about that first time that you and I met, by the way,
because it was virtual. Yeah, it was virtual.
Yeah, I got it exactly. It was, I guess, virtual in Las
Vegas conference. I think I met you after that
conference and because I had heard some really great things
about your talk at ABC that year, I invited you and your
partner Hanya to come and do the talk that you did, which was
refreshing because you were talking about a case study and
strategy and OK Rs, but you also were talking about the things
that you did wrong. And I thought it was refreshing
and a little funny and also courageous and honest.
And you know, as you and I have been getting ready today, we
have talked about strategy as not being a straight line.
There's a lot of ups and downs. So talk about let's talk about
that for a little bit and let's talk about why we get, why do
companies get strategy wrong? Where do they start going wrong?
Oh my God. That's yeah.
Like coming back to what you said.
Yeah, exactly. That was a long time ago,
really, when we met. And yeah, I remember that
together with Hanya, what we did is to share a story about 1
transformation in Lufthansa in that time.
Yeah, it was crazy time. And we tried a lot.
We tried it a lot. And yeah, that's exactly was our
one of the attention, how to execute strategy using Nokia Rs
in that time. Yeah, it was, Oh my God, it was
a journey. But I'm thankful for that as I
believe that was one of the toughest journey in my life in
this area. And I learned from that a lot.
And coming to your main question, so actually why
strategies go so wrong, right? Like where it's coming from,
where it started. I believe that it started from a
few points. I mean the it's good start.
It's good start, of course from very from a lot of levels.
But I believe that when we are talking about strategy, we first
need to understand because like I mean, maybe let's start from
the very beginning what strategy is right?
Because there is it's kind of buzzword strategy.
Everyone using strategy as a important synonym.
Some sometimes when it's something is important, they say
strategy. But actually to me, strategy is
kind of simple and easy thing, at least for myself, because
when you are leading companies, you need to really exactly
understand what strategy is. But strategy comes from the
vision and vision I means like that.
It's like in a chess. So when you want to win, you
want to win on some markets with some in some area, in some
customer segment, in some niche, you define what do you want to
achieve, right? Like the ultimate win, ultimate
end game, you need to achieve. This is the first point.
And for me, this is also first point of failing.
So if you do not want where you want to go, then it's kind of
doesn't matter how you go there, right?
So the first is that you really need to understand what is the
end game of the company? So do you want to sell it?
Do you want to grow it to the international?
I don't know, as a big international company, do you
want to have small family business?
Do you have like boutique agency?
What do you want by having this company?
This is the first point. And by the way, coming also with
this connection to the B as I think it's also important to
understand that I'm coming from BA world, right?
So for me this is the ultimate question for everything like why
do you want two things? Why do you want to company?
This is the first thing. And then when we are talking
about the strategy itself, for me strategy it's kind of idea
how do you want to get there to this end game of your company.
And this idea is kind of idea which you get from the knowledge
about on which market do you exist in, on which customer
segment do you sell in your product?
Like what do you sell in what internal capabilities do you
have by doing by providing the service or the product.
So I'm usually using this chess example because if you have the
chess and you have you and your competitor, right, you need to
know what is the idea how to win quickly.
So you have this all strategies how to win and then you go why
you go 1st and then your competitor go next and then you
go next and then you go next. But all the time when competitor
make move, you need to reschedule reshuffle like your
strategy. So your ideas and coming back to
the strategy, it's exactly the same with the company for me
come like leading the company. It's kind of the game because
you need to understand how to win.
And then you have you need to have this idea.
And when you're asking me why strategy are failing feeling
sometimes this idea how to win is not clear because you're
really not defining your first move.
So you do not have this clear idea what to do next.
What is the, I don't know, the main challenges you need to
actually achieve, you need to solve to go faster, to go
bigger, maybe to find this, you know, leverage of really
winning. So for me, the 1st and main
reason why strategy fails because they are not clear.
They are kind of quite often strategies.
I see they are regions, they are 200 pages of something of
analysis actually of of strategy analysis.
And to me the results of strategy analysis is not
strategy. And to me it's really important
to understand that the strategy analysis is not strategy itself.
Strategy is coming from the those 200 pages.
But there should be really clear focus and clear idea how to win.
And 2nd to me the strategy failing because we are not
iterate, we are saying, oh, I want to, I don't know, achieve
500 millions of dollars whatever in the next year.
This is not the strategy, it's a vision, it's a wishful thinking,
right? It's not an idea.
You need to iterate. You need to understand how you
really want to get there and you find the repetitive way of
winning. And if you are not iterating, if
you're not really executing the strategy in a way that you are
doing this cycle right, plan do check ACT, plan do check ACT.
You are not learning and you could fail because you can
oversee the timing sometimes because you can even have the
good idea, but you could oversee that something good happening in
the market with your product. So you do not react fast.
And you know, it's kind of philosophical question usually
with strategist that what is the reason right execution of the
strategy itself. To me boss, the strategy should
be clear and the execution should be iterative.
That's I mean short answer. Well, boy, you, you got, you had
some Nuggets in there, by the way, But let's let me repeat.
This point to you OK. The results of strategy analysis
is not strategy. Exactly.
Powerful. There's no point because I think
strategy analysis in what I heard you say helps us to
understand the where we are, who we are.
What we are doing exactly? But that's it.
That is an input to how you. Decide.
How you decide? I think that's.
Exactly, yes. What to choose?
Because there is what, what the problem on the market or for the
company. You can, you have so many
options right now, you can do so many things, so many
initiatives, but the strategy, it's a good choice, a good idea
of the best idea of the best leverage, which will help you to
win faster. That's the idea, right?
So you need to find this. And of course you can do this
both way. You can analyse data very long
time, check all possibilities, check all risks.
This is one way to do that. And second way is to iterate
fast. Iterate fast you even bad ideas
because with the strategy it's quite often you do not have
enough data and you need to choose.
So you need to iterate fast. Of course you base sometimes
you, I mean you base your strategy on data, but it depends
on which level of on which level of growth is your product,
right. If you are before product market
feed, then what are we talking about, right?
You do not have enough data to do.
If it's, I don't know, the new market.
If it's a blue ocean, you do not have enough data because you do
not have even something to compare.
You don't have benchmarks. You do not have sometimes
competitors. But and if you in the red ocean
where you have a lot of competitors, that is also
important to iterate fast to really find the way how to win
in this red market. I know that I'm mixing a lot of
stuff here, but yes, to me this is is the most often failing.
Yeah, failing reasons of the strategy that we do not clarify,
we do not choose and we do not iterate.
Yeah, you talked about iterating in terms of having experiments
because you said you don't always have enough data.
From what I'm understanding, if you are setting up experiments
to test the experiments in some way, one of the goals could be
to give you enough data to know if you need to make another
experiment or do you have enough to make a decision right?
Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
Because thanks to experiments and in this case, it's my OK Rs
favorite OK Rs. Because based on you know, I
derive OK Rs based on hypothesis.
And actually the doing OK Rs are experimenting.
I can get more data or I can get clear decision.
Do not go there. And the idea actually of the
whole idea of doing business is to get this idea as fast as
possible, right? Because it's in your interest.
You do not want to invest more money in the idea which will not
bring you money, right? The point right of doing
business like in general. Exactly.
So you've brought up the term OK R.
As I said today as we were getting ready, I know OK Rs are
important to you because they're twice in your headline.
Let's tell. So define OK R.
So what does OK R stand for for those that may not be familiar
with that acronym? OK, R OK R, it's actually easy.
It's a objective measured by key results.
So they are actually measurable goals which could help or help
you to iterate your strategy. That's all.
That's nothing else. Of course, we derive there are a
lot of misunderstanding and misconception about our PRS
because when the corporates start using some methods, it's
become huge and it's become elephants and it become not
useful anymore. But in the this idea of Okrs
it's a way how to fast iterate strategy.
Nothing else there that's. And those Okrs don't necessarily
need to be data-driven metrics. They can be something else,
right? Yeah, there could be, of course.
I mean, I do not want now that you know, someone cut from our
podcast this, you know, part of this and then say Lana says
there is not shouldn't be measurable.
No, it's not at all. I'm just saying that the
possibility to have qualitative, not quantitative or key results
actually, but qualitative key results.
So it means, it means that you base those measures on for
example questionnaire or based on survey or based on confidence
level etcetera, right. So yes, but it's still
measurable. It's they're very objective
because the occurs the main part there is that it's really
objective. So it's no nothing to deliberate
if we are, if we achieved goal of it, we don't.
It's just a way how we define those key results.
But yes, they should be measurable, but the metric
inside could be qualitative, right?
So it shouldn't be. So the example there would be an
OK R probably isn't going to be revenue, it might be customer
satisfaction score. Yeah.
For example, if you are talking revenue, right, it's more
strategic metric because this is the log metric.
I know I'm using a lot of now buzzwords like login metric and
leading metric. But yes, the Ocars, they're like
useful Ocars. If they, we do want really to
iterate strategy, they should be leading metrics to have leading
metrics inside. And revenue is a kind of log
metrics because the revenue depends on so many things
around, right? So it's really the end, it's an
effect, it's an impact, right? When you see revenue, you
couldn't know actually where it comes from.
I mean, you know of course who paid you, but you, you do not
know what exact activity brought you to this, right?
You could do nothing and you could have a bigger revenue in
this month. Why?
Because I don't know you just there's something happened in
the market and some customer came to you.
You did nothing actually, but they came or you can do, I don't
know everything the best you can and then when you will fail just
because the market failing, right.
So it's not really depending on you.
And we are talking about OK Rs, those are metrics who are really
depending on teams who are working on them.
So you really can understand like how you get there and you
could derive this lessons learned, which is important to
really experiment and iterate. Because if you can derive
lessons out of working on goals, then you can learn, and then you
can iterate and then you can decide if this idea of the
strategies is OK, right? Yeah, I know.
Yeah. Well, no, you are making perfect
sense. And here's, you know, I don't
know, we might have some folks in our audience thinking that
strategy is all about action. But I'm based on what you're
saying. What I'm hearing is strategy is
actually about learning and then acting.
That's really what we're talking about here.
Yes, exactly. Yes, yes.
It's about learning and it's about getting more knowledge,
faster knowledge how to choose your actions, your initiatives
to really win. That's you know, the game of
entrepreneurship is winning. You are winning on your area all
the time, right on your in your game.
And you know what, I feel like sometimes we don't want to use
that word winning because somehow it sounds ugly.
But isn't that what businesses are really trying to do?
They're trying to win business. Yeah, exactly in their market,
so. But it's very important to
really define what's winning means for me as an
entrepreneurship. And I think here is coming to
Ivan BA. I believe that thanks to BA
skills. I mean, at least you know, when
I'm working with management boards, this skill about how to
really derive this exact reason, exact why we are doing things
like what is your winning idea? Because for me, winning could
be, I don't know, to be leading in my region.
I have some small customers who just, you know, deriving their
product in their small regions and they do not want go wider
because this is their win. And for someone is important to
win internationally or in Europe or in America, in Asia, wherever
we have this niche. It's about winning in your niche
and in your heart actually. Yeah, I know that I'm coming
somewhere to the human, but I'm really here saying that this
winning is very individual thing.
So you brought up your business analysis skills are really the
thing that got you involved in strategy.
And let's talk about human skills for a minute because I
feel like you know what you're talking about.
So when you're hired and you're talking with leaders about what
does winning mean to you are not looking for the tactic you're
you're asking them to dive deep into their hearts.
You'd really think about what does waiting mean?
What's the human skill that you've got to turn to in order
to have that kind of conversation?
I believe that this came really from my BA skills and from my BA
experience that from the first of all, I need to know how to
ask open questions, like open questions which really get me to
the root to the reason. You know, we SB as we all know
root cause analysis, 5 whys, etcetera.
And we all know like right now how to ask those coaching
questions, right, which are open.
So you need to understand what is the real reasons And the same
as you do is with business analysis.
When someone come to you and they say, oh, we want this
solution and this solution with this red button, whatever,
right? And all professional business
analysts, they know that you need to understand the exact
reason. What the problem do they have?
What like what they're thinking about?
What the process do they have? What is the context around
right? The whole BA about them getting
all the context, it's I mean it's natural for us, right?
And the same is with the business because when I'm coming
to board to sea level guys and girls and I'm asking them, OK,
like why do you do this business?
What do you want to achieve? What is the end game?
The first answer is usually we want to earn money, we want to
have this revenue. And when you go deeper and when
you start to really dig deeper, so to understand this reason, so
do this root cause analysis. Actually you start to find this
the exact why so why we are doing a business, what means for
us to be successful. So yes, this is the one of my BA
skills I'm using quite often. So really asking open questions
and going deeper to the reason. So let's call it root cause
analysis, whatever you call it comparing to the, you know, this
BA techniques, but this is the one thing and yeah, it's a
coming to this root, to this most important part.
And the second, OK, let's define then goal, right?
Let's define this measurable thing.
How do we want to achieve that? How we will recognize that we
will be there. Here's we have this strategy
metrics and actually all this context analysis, right, because
you need to understand in which environment you are working for
whom you are working. So actually the whole set of BA
skills I'm now using to lead companies that's like 100%
stakeholder management, etcetera.
Doing a look, we all have dogs, it's all good.
I. Know that's OK.
Probably somebody rang your doorbell.
I know how that is. Yeah, exactly.
That's just family coming. So what do you think then?
I mean, if you're using all of your skills, all of your
techniques from your work as a business analyst, what do you
think is the top human skill? Like if you would say this is
the number one thing that you've got to do or use, what would it
be? Oh my God, that's a deep
question. And I believe, I mean, this only
one skill actually come into my mind if I would choose only one
thing. And I think it's also kind of
connected with the whole thing, which is how we live right now.
So how our life and the evolution is going on.
And I will, before we'll name it, I will tell you the like
from far. So probably you will get to, you
will know that maybe someone of our listeners can even guess
what it means. I will start with the change,
right, because we all are in the constant change.
Companies are in the change, we are in the change.
We need all the time to adjust our skills, our learnings,
learning ability, our understanding of what's going
on. And also companies need to adapt
to all the time to the change, right?
So the change management is everywhere.
And we all you probably as ABA guys, you all know that like
really understanding the change management scheme is very
important. And coming to the human skill
back to that, I believe that's one of the most important skill,
human skill, which help us to really, I don't know, be be be
the yeah strife and be the really good and feel good.
I would say it's, I don't know if there is a it's a correct
word in the English. Yeah, exactly.
It's a resilience. It's a resilience.
Yeah. So this is the one to me
exactly. Yeah.
That I see CODIS. Yes.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's exactly resilience.
And to me, this is the skill you cannot learn from not doing.
You only learn that from experiencing failing and
experiencing and iterating and experimenting.
And as more you fail, the more you're resilient to the new
change and unfortunate. I mean, unfortunately, there is
no way you will be resilient if you do not do anything.
So you need to do, you need to try, You need to be open to the
new skills, to the new ideas, to the new needs of the company, of
the people around you. And I guess now it's even, I
mean, I believe that it was always important.
But now even if, if it's more important because we have AI,
right? We have, we need to be adaptable
and we need inside of us be resilient.
So that's for me the most important actually skill of
everything, of the life I would say even.
Yeah. Well, I would agree because I
think there is just a lot that is going on in the world, not
just in our families or in our workplaces.
I am interested, though, that you talk about gaining that
through failure because I feel like a lot of people are
conditioned to believe, well, if I fail, I don't want to tell
anybody. If I fail, I just want to
pretend that it didn't happen and I want it on.
And, you know, as we started today's episode, I said one of
the things I found refreshing was the case study where you
talked about all the things you did wrong and you did it with a
certain amount of humor. So that's actually that that is.
Important. An important thing that we're
doing when we're failing, we're learning.
Yeah, exactly. And I I really believe that if
you fail quite fast and it's you're not just talking because
failing is not, it's not a pleasure feeling.
You need to process that. I mean, and faster you learn how
to process that, the faster you learn, right, Because you are
not focusing on your emotions, bad emotions, how bad you are.
But to me, the really understanding that you are bad
in something, it's a first point that you will improve because
you cannot learn if you will not tell yourself that.
I'm bad in I don't know in managing people.
I'm bad in doing that I don't know in the deriving real
reasons. I am bad in I don't know
managing giving feedback for people.
I'm bad in this. So you understand it.
You get out of your ego. Actually, that's it's that the
first point. This is coming from my partner.
I mean, I believe that I learned it from him that he's always
saying that it's really that you first need to really derive
this, that you need to understand that you're betting
something and you learn, you fail, you learn, you fail and
you do that. And I believe that and I believe
that in B as in managing the company, this is the first thing
you need to do like with everything.
No, one of our I do not believe if someone tell me that it's
everything is great, everything is working.
I really believe that it's not true because I do not believe
that any of us like starting doing something and then all
knew how to do that. They we all knew how what tools
to use, what I don't know what question to ask.
No, that's not true. And the more you really, I don't
know, like you open to that you can learn from people because if
people really see that you are willing to learn, you're willing
to share, they also will share the energy works where energy
coming back that's. There is a certain yeah, there
is a certain energy to being vulnerable and we may not think
about that in the workplace, but when you go who I really, I
didn't get this one right, guys. So let's right.
And the first thing that you have to do is you.
So we want you to feel your emotions because that's very
natural. And then at a point we need for
you to work beyond that. We need to for you to get to the
other side of that because that's really where that
learning is. We sometimes get stuck in that,
like I'm terrible because I failed.
Yeah, but you are terrible. OK, that's that's So what?
Like So what? Just learn and do that.
Do that better. I mean like.
Everybody has a bad day. Yeah, exactly.
That's, I mean, bad day. But Marnes, I don't know.
You can have bad skills. Why not?
What actually is the problem? Like, who cares?
Only you should care. Like to be honest, Yeah.
And you know when again, when we were getting ready for today, we
were talking about when people bring you into a company to help
them, it is not because you have all the answers.
It is not because you are perfect.
It is because you have, I've seen a lot of things and you
know a lot of things, but that does not mean that all of your
experiments are perfect, but that you can help them to
manage, you know, the trends that you see and the areas where
you know, people fail. But it is likely that you guys
will experience some of those. Yeah, exactly.
They just use my experience. They just use my fails.
I mean, they are paying for my failing before because I'm
actually sharing with them how painful I felt, how painful we
had somewhere else. Yes, that's actually about that.
They get faster results just because I failed them before and
I can share that. And this is about an experience,
that's all. There's no like some, you know,
magic there like yes, that's and and I will never tell you that
all my life will was always, you know, like easy and I know all
the answers. No, I'm doing everyday new
things and I'm learning every day like this podcast in
America. It's also a new thing for me.
OK, I'm doing that. You know why not?
So we so far, our listeners, we talked about that and I said I'm
not going to ask many hard questions.
And you know, any question I asked, you're going to know the
answer. It was all good.
Well, listen, I we have got, we have, by the way, we have a very
engaged audience. I know that you can see their
comments today. I I would like for us to take a
couple of questions. What do you?
Yeah. Sure.
OK, it's a pleasure. All right.
And you know what? Today they all ask really long
questions, so that might mean that part of my face is
obscured. OK, here we go.
I'm going to pop this on to. OK, so hey Robert, this is from
Robert. On the topic of getting strategy
wrong, there's that Peter Drecker quotation.
Culture eats strategy. So when a company gets its
strategy wrong, the 1st place to look is the culture.
Many companies get culture wrong.
What do you see? So I think that's a great point,
right? Because you're not just helping
them to win, but do you talk about how their culture might
be? Perfect.
Oh my God, of course. Remember, I'm a level, so the
culture where it's created and what is the culture?
And I think the first thing to really answer to that, I'm not
sure that it's a question, but maybe no, some thoughts just to
check. So for me, the culture is the
worst behavior we accept. This is the culture and the best
behavior we accept. So whatever we accept, it's our
culture, right? Yeah.
And we create our, it's kind of we have a culture and we also
could create a culture. Of course, the whole culture is
coming from the acceptation, right, acceptation.
And then where it's come from, it's from comes from sea level,
so from middle management, etcetera.
And I believe that this quote which you use in the culture,
it's strategy on the breakfast or whatever, it's about that.
First of all, if we have even clear strategy, clear direction
and for example, we accept that we do not iterate or we accept
that we do not have planning reviews, retrospective, we do
not derive lessons learned, We do not really measure.
We accept to not measure our goals.
We accept to not to have, I don't know, to be weekly updates
or whatever. Then of course, the strategy
will be eaten, of course. Or if we accept that the
strategy is not clear, we do not, we accept that we do not
ask questions. We accept that people blame when
we are failing. If we do not accept
experimenting, then of course the strategy.
So I really believe that this quote is kind of, if it's a kind
of thing that it's so obvious, it's so nice sounding that of
course it's true. But I believe that for each
company it could really means very different thing.
And you're right that some so many people can get it
differently because for me, we take it differently.
What culture means. I just define you.
What culture means for me. For me, it's an acceptation, the
worst behaviour. So whatever we accept, it means
how we create our culture. Right.
Yeah, I think sometimes organizations can rely too much
on those employee satisfaction surveys.
Oh, we're a great place to work. Everybody loves working here.
But I think you're right, everybody might like working
there, but if we accept bad behaviors, that's really.
Yeah, it's our culture, right? And if we really, for example,
promote feedback, we promote transparency, we promote that we
could decide, we promote clarification.
So you know what did the worst? For example, what I don't know,
some manager comes to you and say I need this and do not
clarify what he needs or she needs to have.
And then you know, the Co worker that they're doing their best
job, they're doing whatever they think they need, they come, they
bring the result. And then the manager says, no,
it's not what I it's not what I need.
Like, and who blame for that? I think both sides, right?
Because the manager didn't clarify what he needs and the
work Co worker didn't ask how BA can help here define goals.
Yeah, Yeah, that's right. All right, Well, let's see.
So we've got a question. So we talked about resilience
and so Lenovo ask how do analysts build resilience in
their careers by doubling down on skills AI can't replicate.
So here I guess. So let's we didn't even bring up
AI today. I know that must be an important
part of what you're seeing in your strategy work today, but I
don't know. So let's figure out how to
answer this question. OK, I need to like to read it to
think about the answer. How do analysts build resilience
in their careers? By doubling down on the skills I
simply can't replicate. I like stakeholders to ask under
the judgment and navigation. Organizational politic I see
here there are a few topics like mixed and one question.
So I maybe will be thinking out loud what I think by reading
this and maybe we can find like reading this.
I will find my thoughts on that because I'm not really sure
because it's, it's like mixing a lot of topics when I'm reading
like how do analysts build resilience in their career?
I believe that you can build resilience by again, by failing
and and getting up fast, right? So I do not believe believe that
by just doubling down on the skills it's it will build your
resilience, it build your being more skilled.
But this is not the same to me. Resilience is a really ability
to get up after failing. It's a fast ability after some
hard situation to ability to grow fast.
It's for me the main skill in the change and now when we are
talking about the AI, it's a hard sentence to me.
Yeah, I think without getting because I know that if we start
talking AI that'll take take us in a this is over on the.
Start again to read it again, because it's a very interesting
thought, yeah. Well, and I think resilience is
maybe more of a trait than a skill to be built.
Now that might be just kind of, you know, you say potato, I say
potato, right? That's line from that song.
Okay. But so I don't know, it's kind
of like if I were to fall down and bump my knee and I get a
scab there and eventually I'll wear that scab.
I'll have that scab for a little while until everything heals and
then. It's a little bit stronger now.
In that. That's what I think resilience
is when I hear you describe. It yeah.
And coming back to the AI and it's a Terra, I think we are
talking about something different.
So we are talking about really you're growing in this scale.
So to find a way where you as ABA can find the way how to use
in your like everyday life or even create something which can
help people to freely use this, let's say, solution or whatever.
And I would say that here it's a more that you're really, you're
hiding your ego again and you just learn and you face the
truth that you don't know how to do that.
Like you really don't know how to do that.
And it's more about adaptability, not resilience.
Actually, I would say so, but it's adaptability to the new
things. And yeah, and resilience there
is this, you know that there will be the end of this
unpleasant feeling and you know how to behave yourself being in
this unpleasant feeling because you will be in this unpleasant
feeling for a while. But if you know that it will end
and it will last, it's fine because this will help you to
not focus on this failing, but more focus on how to learn fast,
right? So that's about that.
And there was in this question was also some things about
politics, etcetera. Oh yeah, you can.
They like stakeholder trust, contextual judgment and navigate
an organization of politic. This is, I mean, it's about
relations and how you really build this.
It's about culture, how you build your relation with people,
right? So how you react, and I would
say if the stakeholder trust, it's again, it's how you build
and also how you react to the external judgement or untrust,
right? It's about yourself.
So I think that here in this sentence, it's so many things
about how you actually react to the external triggers, to the
external things, how you. So it's about to having the very
hard internal foundation to learn, to grow and to not be how
to say that well, to know what do you want to achieve.
Yeah, I will say that. So she adds on to that in a
separate comment, which is super big, which if we were to post
it, we wouldn't see our faces, but that's OK.
So she had done some Myers Briggs, which is a personality
type indicator, OK. She's analytical and finds it
challenging to engage with others.
So that would typically be introverted, right?
And so the challenge was the confidence with doing things
that were putting her out in front of other people, which is
very much what a business analysis professional working in
strategy, you've got to be comfortable with.
You've got to be comfortable with working with all levels of
people and specifically higher levels of people and going into
a room where you don't know the answers because you don't and
they probably don't either. And you've got to be confident
and you will get it wrong. I can't tell you the times that
I went into a room with a bunch of executives and started poking
my finger into things that I didn't know and they didn't
know. And then it kind of went, you
know, it went pear shaped, as they say.
But I learned a whole lot of lessons and I hung in there.
That's resilience. So it's, yeah, you know, this
work, a business analysis professional working in
strategy. You have to be comfortable with
discomfort. All the time with not knowing
things, not knowing. You're not.
Having an answer that's yeah, exactly.
I mean, the only thing that you have on your side is the
experiences that you have. I love that you say they hire me
because I've failed a lot, right?
That's not quite what's happened.
You're very accomplished, right? But you you've done the hard
work of learning from those lessons and being able to share
that in a way that's helpful to them.
So it is a different kind of work.
There's no requirements. You're not what do you want to
have done? You are really getting into a
lot of human stuff. It could be uncomfortable so.
Yeah, I mean, yeah. And the resilience is Exodus, I
think, becoming liking it so you start liking it that you are you
all the time uncomfortable. Yeah, so I will.
What I say to people right when they start to get into this kind
of work is when you are known for being able to do this kind
of work, two things happen. 1 is you're going to, you're, they're
going to ask you to do more of it.
And two, the problems are going to get a lot harder.
And so you've got to be ready for that.
So that resilience, as Cody says, the grit, the
perseverance, those are just other ways of kind of combining
those. Those are essential.
So I think you're right. I think that is the most
essential skill that you need if you want to be ABA professional.
Doing this kind of work is resilience 100%.
We are almost at the end of our time.
I know you've been taking a peek into comments.
Is there any other question that you would like to answer before
we wrap up today? I know, like I said, this topic
has generated a lot of really detailed comments which I just
love cuz people are really, they're really like.
My God, those are great questions.
I mean, I'm reading that and I'm enjoying reading it even.
And you know, we you also will be able to get back to these
comments. So even if you're not able to
answer them today because we are coming from it.
OK, You can come back to this chat.
Some of them are in YouTube and some of them are on LinkedIn.
Yeah, all. Right.
I can answer them all. I mean, if that's like, you
know, the whole bunch of texts more about the strategy and
thinking, Oh my God. Yeah, exactly.
Before we go to day, because I know you're setting up your
speaking schedule for the rest of the year, we're I think I'm
going to see you in Warsaw. I think you're speaking yes.
Where else can people find you? I'm Oh my God, I mean, I don't
know from the whole all over the world.
I'm think it's the easiest way to actually approach me is to
write down to me on the LinkedIn.
I'm constant answering and really I'm there.
I'm trying to be present there, but because of I'm leading a few
companies, it's just a time scheduling and it's always, you
know that yeah, exactly. You need to work and then you
can share. So I'm sharing sometimes during
the pot discuss really what I'm doing.
So LinkedIn, just guys, please just add me to LinkedIn, write
to me. And I'm really I would love to
talk. This is the first place talking
about the events. Like you said, it's I will be in
the worst in war. So for sure in this IBA when I'm
quite usually in the conference, which are for founders.
So in Poland mostly, at least in this year.
Hopefully it will change the next years.
I mean, again, it's about focus. Like I said, I have a clear
strategy and I'm focusing. That's why.
You win in 2026. That's your strategy?
Yes, yes, I will win. That's the idea.
And so just guys write to me on
the LinkedIn and it will be easier.
Yeah. And there are usually also
advertised where I am in this year.
And I'll make sure in the YouTube description that I put
your LinkedIn info. And if you're joining us live
through LinkedIn, LinkedIn, actually, I think you can get to
her LinkedIn through the chat. Yeah, yeah.
Just you can write down my name and you will see there.
All right, well, this has been, boy, did I learn a lot today and
I hope our listeners did too. I mean, I'm actually I'm pretty
sure they did because boy, are they talking in in comments
today. All right.
Thank you so much. Thank you and thank you for
inviting me and thank you for those questions.
I, I, I guess we like came deeper than we expected.
So I'm I really like that. As I said, we never know where
this conversation was gonna go. So super cool, thank you.
See you then. Love you, you are the best.
See ya. Thank you.
See ya. All right.
And Josh, I boy, that's some new ways of thinking about strategy
and also our work as business analysis professionals in
strategy. So if that is something that
interests you or you've been thinking about, I hope that you
will take away some of Elena's thoughts today and apply that to
the work that you're doing. We'll see you again in two
weeks, and we're going to be talking about making data
impossible to ignore. And I've got a guest on that
talks a lot about storytelling, and maybe you don't think of
that as a way to talk about data, but he does.
So I hope you will join me then in two weeks.
We'll see you then. If you're hearing this, you made
it to the end of the episode. Thanks for listening.
Do you have any questions, comments, or thoughts about
today's topic? We'd love to hear them.
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