BB2 Week 2 SMART Goals and Goal Setting

So you can do this all by yourself today, Katie. Yeah, you're just in charge. I'll just let you do all the heavy lifting for a change.

My specialist subjects next week.

Me next week as a darling.

Yeah. My specialist subject CVs is next week.

It's not looking at you. Just really let's do bounce back program. Boom, Round two. So let's ask a few questions around, shall we? I've got what I've got there, you know. Carol, John. Well, two Carols. Carol us and Carol Luxembourg. Yeah, or say it. Come on, unmute yourself.

I'm not pronouncing that name. I mean, I hear it from the US all the time.

Right, okay. See, no, no, I mean Carol.

That's it.

I was gonna pronounce you. That's it. So you're Carol Luxembourg. Is that all right?

Yes, that's fine.

Carol Luxembourg. Carol usa. There you go. It's a lot easier. It's quicker. John Clancy, very easy. You know, you wrote all those books. Yeah. Oh, no, yeah. Different kind of Clancy. There you go. Related him some of the royalty checks. So week two, smart objectives. I don't know what's called that. So you should be supposed to got smart objectives in there. So did any of you get to do the homework? Yeah. Good. It was weird, as I said in previous weeks. Let's kick it off now. We might as well. I think you and I, Katie discussed it as well with Ayra as well, that it's really weird actually doing the self assessment because a lot of the time you spend your time very outwardly focused. So it's actually time thinking about yourself and having smart goals. And I'll give one major example. I think loads of the people that I spoke to had no clue of what they wanted to earn. I said to them, do you want to earn more? Yes, I do. Well, what is it? Is it 85? Is it 95? How are you going to get there? What are you going to produce? What savings are going to produce for your current employer in order to do it. And they were like, right, yeah. And I said, have you broken it down? Have you said, you know, done it, you know, correlated it, if you like, between what savings you might produce, what, what you impact you might have on your current employer. So when you go at the end of the year, I've just put a job offer out today to a guy and they're a privately held company now, and his salary will be directly related to his own performance, not that of the company. Because what they are is they're sort of not a mutual company but they're for their members and things like that. But actually you know he's got will have personal objectives. If he hits all of them he'll get a 25% bonus. If he doesn't, he won't. But it's not about the share price shifting by a couple of points here and there. You know, a month before it, some big event happens and everybody gets knocked and oh sorry, yeah, your bonus was going to be 25, now it's going to be 10. You know, you've worked really hard for this, you know, stuff. So you know, when we linked it to these smart objectives that was one of the key things. I didn't know if what results you guys had had from it or what, you know, what comments were you going to say Katie, what sort of thing? We talked about this earlier and or jump in.

I think a lot of people when they do smart objectives, just do objectives. They don't kind of break it down. I think they have kind of a vague end goal but they haven't really thought about actually how do I break that down into key milestones? And it's very much the same as what it's kind of like I guess a project management type scenario that you would be used to at work but actually when you put it towards yourself and personal goals it's very, very different. And I think we forget about all the factors that we can control versus all the factors we can't control and then how do those affect us reaching our end goal? And I think, you know, as Mike said last week, sort of when you actually sit down and you think about personally outside of a working environment what it is that you want to achieve with. You know, whether it's the standard weight loss, getting more fit, etc. You know, we don't really sit down very much and think about it. We're very tunnel visioned into career and getting the right salary, etc, etc. We're not really taking time out especially when, well especially probably over the last sort of four to six months. You know, we're just firefighting every day, especially if we have families and you know, we don't really take time out to think about us and our own personal life goals.

Yeah Aaron? Similar.

Well yeah and I think sort of what people are very good at is sort of setting targets like that. In the next five years I want to be this, this and this. But if you're thinking in the next five years it's not manageable so it's kind of doing it in bite sized chunks. Maybe looking at maybe this quarter I can improve my skills on liquidity and so like doing little chunks each time so that it's not, you're thinking, oh, I'm three years in, I've not got million pound house which is my five year target. It's sort of bite sized chunks that you can kind of tick off your list slowly but know that you're actioning what you want to be doing in the right direction.

And I joke in the office, don't I? You know, how do you eat an elephant very slowly in little bite sized chunks? You know, it's just about getting there. So, you know, sometimes. And again, I think, you know, a lot of, you know, the candidates I talk to, they say I want to be a treasurer. Okay, how are you going to get there? What you know, how are you going to be a treasurer? How are you going to do what the steps you need to take and they don't have, you know, and again, this. Well, actually the guy that I offered today, I'll use him as an example because he is very, well, very driven. He's also I think going to be tremendously successful because he was quizzing me about what had I seen from similar people. I sort of trying to question it earlier on in the press. So what do you mean? He said, well, I'm going for this role. If I should go for it, yeah, I do think it's great. He said, okay, where have people gone from this role as a springboard and where do you think? And you know, for instance, we've semi offered him the job, but actually he still wants to talk to two or three other people internally to see how they've progressed in the past two, three years. Is this the right move for him? And actually we've supported it. Great. You know, I'm really thrilled because I think, do you know what, he's making some really astute decisions there that perhaps some of my candidates, some of the other candidates, I've encouraged them say, look, you probably want to have a coffee with the treasurer again or have another conversation with a Treasury manager or deputy treasurer to see how they've done it. And also maybe not make the same mistakes sometimes as well in a way. I mean the other, you know, let's come back to you guys a little bit. You know, John and the Carols and Ian maybe and feel free. The other guys, you know, are not brave enough to go on video. But there are any things that, you know, surprised you about doing the goals or any comments about It. Or did you find it an unnatural process sort of thing? Well, you didn't like it. Carry said, no, this is rubbish. Or this was great.

I didn't find it unnatural.

Sorry, you liked it.

I didn't find it unnatural. I'm used to establishing objectives like that and quantitative targets.

Awesome. Sorry for you, because you're perhaps, you know, more. You. Sometimes people are more used to doing it with. For the people that work for them and things. Did you find it all right for yourself? Are you quite natural at it? Did you?

I've had a lot of experience, so, yeah, I was very comfortable with it.

Going through with it. Some of the other guys. Ian, you've unmuted. Yeah.

I think from my perspective, the difficulty was making it controllable. So, you know, you start off while going, I want a job in a FTSE 250 company. But then you realize, well, you know, that's not always up to you. You know, there's lots of factors that you are out of your control. So it was really just the process of trying to identify what it is that you could do in the short, medium and long term to make yourself as most attractive as possible. It was a good learning experience from that perspective.

It was good. And I think without it being a love, that's like, hey, you know, we do it and you just see as you can. Oh, yeah, come to us and stuff. But I think the fact is between Katie, who's got a tremendous amount of experience, Ayra's coming at it from the millennials, whatever you call it, and stuff like that, young kids, whatever. Yeah. But joking aside, we sort of combine something, and I've got 20 plus years of treasury recruitment experience, is then optimizing this group and all of your. The opportunity, if you like, if that's the right word, to just talk to us about it as well. I know that, you know, next week, if you like. I actually found this week one of the toughest ever to write about as well. When we were doing. But I know the next week is easy, you know, really, isn't it, Katie, with. You know, I know it's because you're weak. Yes, easy week. It's a walk in the park, but sort of doing CV resume stuff, it's very practical and stuff like that. But just as Ian said there, it's about sort of trying to maximize what is a FTSE treasurer looking for versus maybe also what is a FTSE? And it could be Fortune 500, you know, what's a top 100 treasurer looking for in the US? Versus a treasurer who's a Footsie 350, you know, and if they're looking to recruit, because the two people they might recruit as a Treasury manager are pretty different. You know, the specialism up the top end, the generalism at the bottom end, you know, they're not dissimilar. You know, you're still going to have the treasury stuff but you know, that's, that's what you've got to prepare yourself for and I think that's what, you know, Carol from Luxembourg, you spoke about the other day that you know, you've got some aims and what you've got to do and you've got a certain, you know, level of salary you've got to earn. But I think also there's, as you said about preparing yourself, how do you do it? Do you do study for ctp? Do you do some of the other stuff as well? I mean, Katie, again you think similar that, you know, sort of, I think next week will more practical stuff with the CV resume.

I think when it comes to goal setting and I've seen this in a working, a kind of career perspective and working environment, but also I've been a culprit of it in a personal environment is that we all have good intentions and we all set these smart goals and things like that, but then it's just like, right, I've done that, I'll put it aside, I'll have a look at it in a few years time. Actually it's a live document because you need to check that you're on track because say, for example, this year is a great example of it, you may have put something down as a goal and instead of being deflated because of something out of your control, you know, no one could have. Very little people could have predicted the pandemic but actually that could have had a complete knock on effect to somebody's career goals and personal goals. And it's just like actually if you've got a live working document that you're constantly sense checking that you're on the right path, something like the pandemic thrown in, you would then look and think, right, actually I've got to readjust that a little bit. I've got to be kind of serious with myself and is it still achievable in the timeline that I've given it, can I meet that, that bite sized piece? And I think we're all guilty of having good intentions when it comes to goal setting, but any kind of, you know, life happens and we kind of throw it away and it's still really important because I think gives you motivation, it re energizes you and sort of keeps you moving forward rather than sort of sitting back and thinking, God, I've been in the same role, I've not really moved, you know, if you're talking career, I've not moved in the last sort of two, three years, you know, what have I been doing?

And John, John and Carol in Luxembourg, I was just gonna ask what were the things that you found from it? Or did you just get a bit reflection time sort of thing? So John, over to you.

Yeah, I mean I found it interesting. I mean, but typically we would have used that approach at work and the results are more within your control. I mean like the object here is get a job offer, get choice of job offers. We don't totally control that. But by thinking it through this way, it doesn't hurt, it helps, you know, I mean, a more logical approach to job hunting. I think, you know.

Yeah, and I think, you know, we do it in the last week as well where we do about effective job hunting actually and sort of having an effective search strategy. And it's quite weird coming from us so saying, well you should register with other agencies, you should do this. But actually again, that's a. As we go through these weeks and that's why we did it over the sort of six weeks because we, we looked at one stage of the first two weeks, maybe wrapping them up into one and only having a five week program. But we actually said it stands alone because people need to have that where am I now? And then this is the first sort of direction week, you know, where are we going to go to? What are we going to do next? To take us towards that next goal. And we thought that was more standalone as well. I mean, Carol. Luxembourg. Luxembourg calling. There you go.

Yes. So I probably have a little different approach and a different opinion. I find it very good to set goals. Nothing against setting goals, but I think that we have to keep our flexibility. I mean you don't know how life goes sometimes, as Katie said. And today I had a call with my mentor and I have three different roles on my plate right now. Three different companies. I applied to three different jobs and they couldn't be any more different. One is a think tank, a startup, one is a mid sized corporate based in Switzerland and the other one is an M A huge nonprofit actually it's the NATO. So I mean it couldn't be more different. And my mentor said, so what is the one that you want to do. And I said, I can tell you right now, I have to wait until I get a gut feeling for all three. And this for me, depends very much on the people that I talk with and the people that I have to work with and that I report into. And in the end, for me, it will be the role that I have that I take, that I feel comfortable with. The people.

Yeah, and also the one that you're gonna enjoy.

Yeah, but, you know, when I enjoy the people, I mean, I've not applied to roles that I don't want to do.

Yeah, yeah, that's it. And Ian or Thomas or Yosef, you know, any of you put your hand up or jump in, you know, any, you know, anything else that you found surprising from. Not surprising, rather, but, you know, reflecting on it and, you know, looking at the goals. What were your. Your sort of thoughts and things?

Well, I think one thing I know for sure is that there's a lot of refining to do. I think I've tried to be as specific as possible, but as I get to understand, as you were saying, about what the London treasury market and the treasurers are looking for, I'll have to refine it a bit and make sure that the goals are aligned or the things that are in my control are aligned with what the market's looking for. So I've got no doubts.

I'll.

It's not a static document to. Even if I use it every month, I will have to be continuously updating and refreshing it.

I think it's brilliant, actually. Great point. Thank you very much. I could have set them up there. It's brilliant. But more because I think also that feeds into next week quite seamlessly. Obviously Katie's favorite week before the best week, which is LinkedIn week, we just, you know, I mean, I would show up for it just to keep, you know, your stickers there. That's fine. But joking aside, we've talked about it as well. Katie, know that this. Then you could bring these two together. So the treasury skills wheel, you've got the sort of bringing it together with the goals and then that feeds into your cv because I think your resume, you know, because I think a lot of people just see it as like this. Well, it's, you know, it's a documentary or just documents my career history. Yes, it does, but then it's to tell the reader what you want to do next and in a way to tell your story in as few words as possible, because it's not War and Peace. I've had a 16 page CV before it was horrendous. You know, you just need to be able to summarize and give that person the flavor of you, which I think, you know, CV resume week does that really, doesn't it? Well, better do hardy over to you. I mean.

I think there's so many. There's so many people that tell you what to do, what not to do and on CVs and so many companies that can write your CVs and things like that. But I think what we've done is very much base it upon actual live experience. And that comes from both being recruiters on agency side, but also from my experience of being in house and doing career coaching with people. So it's very much around really giving you a guide to ensure that you aren't just another kind of treasurer or treasury manager who does XYZ in front of a potential employer, how to really get yourself recognised a lot more. And, you know, this is just, as we said, it's just a guide. We're not forcing you to do it, we're just sort of saying, you know, actually, if you don't have a cv, here's how best to start one. If you do have a CV and it's working, but you're interested to see how to really sort of optimize it, then next week we'll be able to share that with you as well.

I'll send that out, you know, tonight or tomorrow morning maybe. I just want to make sure I've got the right attachments and stuff like that. And as you say, it is a living, breathing document, so it does change and everything else, but when you do get it and you're doing your reviews, all of you, and you're sort of sitting there and it doesn't take long, just have a good look. But one of the things I would say it was having a very, well, say, very interesting, not a very interesting conversation, if that's probably the best way to describe it, the other day with a candidate, a guy who's looking for a job, because that's what we do. Funny enough, as we're talking to him, he was then I was trying to give him some advice about his resume, I was trying to give him some advice about his CV and it was interesting there. Katie, you mentioned, and we mentioned there a bit on some of the outplacement people, Carol, you're talking about your mentor and everything else, but this was more specific with outplacement people. Sometimes it'd be very good, some are ex recruiters and stuff, but Then also what made me laugh was this guy's been looking for a role for a while, and actually the feedback I got from it was, I'm not sure I should change it. And I thought, you know what? Don't just sit in your. Sit in your job, keep applying for the jobs and don't get a new job. I thought, if I can't give advice, if Katie can't give advice, Ava can't give you advice about how to improve it. Try it, you know, and okay, you can. Might go back to it at a later stage. You know, what we say isn't, you know, the God's given truth. Oh, it must be this, blah, blah, blah. We certainly hope it's, you know, you know, don't we, Katie? Don't we are, you know, you've given advice as well, some of your junior guys, and some. Some take it and some don't quite listen. Would that be the fairest one?

I really think sort of with CVs, you want to sell yourself as best as you can, and if you're waffling in a cv, then that's not great. So when you say add clarity, sort of show what you've done, and they send you back an even longer cv, you're kind of banging your head against a brick wall, being like, that's not what we were thinking. But we can only offer advice, and you guys have to feel comfortable with what you're sending out to potential employees and agencies. So, like, next week is really good. I do like the CV week.

I think, also with a cv, it's probably one of. It's probably one of the things that people dread doing the most because, you know, nobody really likes selling themselves. And when you have to sit down and think about sort of what your strengths are, what you've achieved in your job, you know, people don't want to necessarily do that, but actually it's those kind of achievements that above and beyond the kind of standard toolkit that you have that will stand your CV out further. So it is worth taking the time and trying to get it as right as possible.

And also, it's an interesting one. Just you say there, I think a lot of treasury guys, you know, all the people in front of me now, you sometimes say, oh, I don't know how to sell myself. I'm not like, what? You guys are selling every day to the banks, you are selling every day to your cfo, you are selling every day to your team about why you. This is the best way to do a deal. This is the best way CFO says, oh, you know, do we do this treasure management system or this treasure. And you're actually selling the solution. So you've seen like three, three or four different ones and you decide which is the right one for the company and you're selling that to him, you know, talking to the banks, talking to your relationship partners. You're selling, you're presenting to them, those guys. And. And then I get. At the end of the day, I'm not very good at sales, Mike. So I think that, you know, that's something you guys have got to, you know, you sell yourselves, you know, I think, achievement wise and stuff like that. So. Right, any questions, anyone? It's a shorter week this week, which is always good fun. I see a few thirsty characters out there.

It's more pertinent to next week because, I mean, we see different approaches to CVs, Europe versus the US. Like the US used to talk a lot about one page, one pager. Another thing I hear recently is drop off, because older workers have it tougher here probably, but drop off older experience and older jobs. So maybe for next week, can we keep that in mind? Should it be the US practice or the European practice? And should you drop off all the.

Because I don't think there's a difference. I think it's baloney. Literally a nice US term. How long should a cvp, oh, resume be? One page. Rubbish. I've seen great US resumes that are three to four pages. Four is a bit long, but, you know, two to three pages, because the person's a global treasurer. You know, if you're a global treasurer and you've got global experience and you've been working in treasury for 25 years, you can't fit it on a page. Or if you can, you're not going to get the best out of it. So have a two pager, you know, so what I think, you know, we're also coming to cover letter as well, which we'll touch on next week. I think a cover letter can actually be a really powerful tool associated with, you know, a CV resume. I think they can be different. I don't think a European. Well, European CV is slightly different from a UK CV resume because sometimes you get a bit more standard formatting. Again, we'll go into it next week, but you have things like a photo on it and stuff like that. But photos, actually, you're not meant to have one in the UK because it can be discriminatory, can't it, Katie?

Yeah, yeah, it can, but then if you go to Switzerland, for example, there are certain things that they want you to have on a cv but you wouldn't necessarily have on the UK kind of side. So I think, you know, people will know what is customary. But I think in terms of the actual bulk of what we cover, it's very generic across the board and it's only just a couple of things like the photo or sort of a full address or something like that that may differ that we found across Europe rather than anywhere else.

I think it's a good point by John to sort of that we can clarify between the two and, you know, maybe we'll take each of them, we'll describe, you know, in generic terms all of it and then let's, you know, jump off on UK ones, jump into US ones, jump into, you know, across. Yeah, yeah. And jump into European ones as well. So I think. Carol, did you have a question or were you just. That was it, you had enough?

No, I was just going to say that I find on the first time I wrote my resume, I just got everything down like you would start writing a paper, you know, and it was very lengthy. And then I actually went back into my records from evaluations and I worked for a CFO who very much demanded that we have smart objectives and that we bring those to the staff meetings every week and they might change if there are other events that come up, but you were measured against those and they were quantifiable results. And when you think about your job in those terms, you. Your resume tends to have more accomplishments and fewer duties, and so it's much more succinct. And I was able to get it down to like one and a half pages and still show where I can add value to a company. And so I am a firm believer in smart objectives.

And I know, you know, again, because we're going to do it next week. I think the other thing is go back to that living, breathing thing. It's different for different jobs. People have said to me, you know, should I have one resume or should have one like this one, like that, have one resume as a core? And then you might have to adjust it, or one of the ways to adjust it or to address a specific problem is a cover letter, which is like your paracetamol, to the client, where you about cash management or systems or fx, whatever it might be. But again, we'll deep dive this next week and it'll probably be a longer call, so make sure you got a beer or a glass of wine there. It's fine. And I was early for Carol in the us, but, you know, she can, you know, tuck in at lunchtime. That's fine. Karen in Luxembourg. That'll be it. You'll be straight in there, won't you? Be happy, you know, like. I'll get a beer next week. I might even get a beer towards the end of the session. I'm usually good, see, I'm usually with just tea. That's it. Cool. Anything else, anyone? Or. To next week. Onward to next week. Lovely, lovely. No, no pressure, Hardy. All right.

Bye.