OYP Episode 26: Simon James

Simon, Group Vice President and Global Lead of Data Science and AI at Publicis Sapient, tells us about the the importance of not stretching yourself too thin, how critical diversity within a team is to it's success and how picking your moments is key to leveling up in your career.

Interview

Peter Szczerba  - Welcome back to the Own Your Potential Podcast where you'll hear stories from leaders across the globe, the how they've taken control of their career growth and lessons on how you can too. Hi, I'm Peter Szczerba.

Ashley Snow - I'm Ashley snow.

Peter Szczerba - And today we have the fortune of speaking with Simon James, who's the international lead in group vice president of data science and AI. Apple. Was the Savior. Simon, really excited to have you on the podcast today. Let's just jump right in. Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about your career journey so far?

Simon James  - Yes. So my career is began in 96. And where are we now? 2021. So, I 25 years, have always worked in data. So I began as graduate trainee on a two year graduate program. And the only reason I got the job was because they broke their record for the math test. So like one of one of the CMOS hired me immediately from that, I spent two years as a product manager. But I realized very quickly that I specialized in data. And that's why I wanted to do and so that I moved from provincial England to London and joined, agency group. And that's where I've been for the last. That was about 14 years doing that. And then for the last 11 years, I've been at Sapient, but always in data.

Ashley Snow - So over the course of 25 years, how is your approach to self advocacy, your self promotion evolved? And what strategies do you think have worked well, for you?

Simon James  - Well, I think like when you begin your career, but most people I would guess, don't really have a career plan so much meaning, if you're lucky enough to that, then great, but I think you know, it's not until you get going in your career that you understand the options, and the choices that maybe are in front of you and what you should be doing, you know, particularly around like what are the some of the things you could be doing early in your career, that will help you in the long term, because most people just like deal with what's in front of them. That's enough. You know, it's a real big challenge just to, you know, deal with everything that's right in front of your nose. But I see some people are really good at kind of self organization, making sure that ticking some boxes early in their career that they know is going to present a well rounded person later on.

Ashley Snow - So do you think in this new remote working reality that self advocacy tactics need to change and evolve? And if so, how have yours?

Simon James  - Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because there are no rules are written No, no textbook has been written about how to work in, in the kind of distance learning or distance working environments on. So I think, you know, the playbook is to be determined, or at least the correct version of it is, I think a lot of the hustle that you can do when you're in an office is kind of taken away from you when you're not. So you can't just walk the halls, you can't just like, do favors for people so easily. You can't demonstrate, you know, the effort that you're putting in, or the extra curricular activity, it was harder to just naturally do that when we're all remote from one another. So I think you have to be mindful about it. And you have to kind of purposely think about, like, Where can I help, you know, if you think about, if you're a more junior colleague, and most managers love it, when people come to you and try and help you solve problems, and volunteer, and all those things. So I think, you know, even though the world has changed some some fundamental time immemorial, things will always remain, which is, you know, kind of, you know, showing desire to do things, be curious, volunteer to take on things that demonstrate that you have broad shoulders, and that you can manage other things beyond the day to day that you're being asked for, you know, that those have always been important things and they always will be going forward.

Peter Szczerba  - So I'm curious Simon, what your thoughts on how kind of the remote working reality we are in now has sort of leveled the playing field across your traditional introverts and extroverts in terms of things like self advocacy, or putting themselves out there to support you know, with work or or push themselves forward just because, you know, it's more difficult to be the kind of squeaky wheel or or loud, gregarious person that that certain extroverts can be more easily or naturally in an in person environment. Right. So there's this kind of level playing field and give the opportunity for for folks across the spectrum to really succeed in this space.

Simon James  - Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that you bring up the point about, you know, extraversion and introversion sapient I've always sat amongst teams that I've worked with, like, you know, often in Sapient offices, you will have seen, like executive floors, and even if they're an open plan space, they're still kind of an area where VPS and above sit and like people Don't worry, you want to go there, you know what maybe they do. But I was enjoyed sitting in amongst my teammate for the camaraderie, and because I can get a feel. And it was a weird term, but I get a feel for the mood, like who gets on with who, like, you know, who's who's working hard, who maybe isn't working so hard. But that that kind of day to day just kind of osmosis of understanding of your team can only get by sitting amongst your team, I think. And that's all, like, ripped away from us. So you don't, you don't naturally get those signals as a manager to understand that. And so you have to be more mindful of like reaching out to people checking in with people, you know, you can set up team meetings, but you understand that some people just can't make them because they clash with a stand up or, you know, some people just aren't good in that kind of team environment don't really want to, you know, engage in that kind of manner. So, you have to be you, as a manager, you have to be more alert to kind of checking in with your team to make sure people are okay. And you know, that they're that they're thriving in their job, because the natural clues that you get the cues you see around the office are just kind of taken away from.

Peter Szczerba - So I think that's really interesting. And you know, that having to be more active in this current reality, versus using that sort of organic approach of sitting amongst the team. You know, it's certainly a much more time consuming and kind of intentional thing. Now, but I'm curious, just as you kind of transitioned, in your own journey, from kind of that working level into a leadership level, did you find that it took some time for you to land on these types of strategies or approaches as to how do you get a feel for your team and, and who's kind of who within that team, and I guess were there scenarios that you learn from where, where certain things slip by you by not being engaged in your team, the way that you've kind of chosen to by sitting amongst them?

Simon James  - I think maybe earlier in my career, I was probably, you know, when I when I was trying to succeed, and overperform, you know, I saw it as a game of just acquiring as many poker chips as possible. And I tried to get my arms around as much things, you know, as many things as possible and, and demonstrating, you know, performance by how much how many people you manage how many projects you're delivering, you know, all kind of, you know, quantity based metrics. And over time, I realized that you can't do a good job, if you spread yourself thin, that if you have too many people who report to you, you can't give them enough bandwidth to do them justice, you know, you're always going to miss out on people. And I definitely modified my own evaluation behavior, to try to limit like the breadth of people managed to always ensure, you know, you have a really good kind of partners that can work with you, you know, who can take on the load, because they have to prove that themselves to their own career. But also making sure the spans of control are quite tight and small. And so you don't end up being responsible for too many projects. And you don't be responsible for too many people on a day to day basis, because you just can't succeed, you know, everywhere at once, you can only be good on the things you focus on. And if you focus on some things, then by definition, you're not focusing on others. And if those people then you know, they're missing out, if it's projects, then they don't get, you know, the full thing. So I think what I realized I became far less aggressive, I think, as I got older, about trying to grab more things, whether they were responsibilities, or you know, anything else.

Ashley Snow  - Yeah, I also find this point really interesting. I think we typically seek answers to these questions through the lens of the team member, you know, how do you make yourself seen? How do you own your success on the ground, but to hear your perspective on how your approaches as a manager have evolved? As a unique perspective. Can you talk a little bit about how you kind of model the way for your team members in terms of self advocacy, brand building, communication? What What do you tell the people who you know, work directly alongside you? What lessons do you try to share with them?

Simon James  - Yeah, I mean, I'm, I wouldn't classify myself as a great manager, right. So a lot of advice that comes from me and take it definitely with a pinch of salt. I think my first attempts at management and particularly younger person, you know, were were, I was drawn to things that, you know, I like and I do, and who are like me, so I can really empathize with people who are like me, you know, and just just to simplify this and remove them and nuanced, you know, people who were extroverted, people who are good at using sporting metaphors, you know, people who, you know, have a self motivated self starting, you know, could solve problems of very, very easily. And it was my first attempt, and it obviously kind of worked for people who fit that kind of mold, and I ended up crafting a team, I think when I was the first, I was the first department head at about 27. You know, I was the head of analytics at 27. And, you know, I built a team of people like me, which was great if you were like that, but it wasn't a very diverse culture. And it wasn't necessarily open for people who didn't and, and when I subsequently moved jobs, and I inherited a team that was very different, which opened my eyes a lot more to different ways of solving problems. And at that point, I think I realized without getting too specific, I, you know, I realized that most people in life just want to work on their strengths, they don't really want to work on their weaknesses. So when you do your AYP, and you get a lot of things, oh, you have to work on this, you have to work on that. I'm not a big believer in that people have a lot of motivation to work on their weaknesses, it's more important to identify roles that they can fulfill, that really play to their strengths, because guess what, they're motivated to play to their strengths. And it's more than around shaping, you know, a team is really, you know, composite of different characters and different personalities, doing slightly different things. And it's not the army, we're not trying to replicate units everywhere. And so in the second phase, I kind of worked out more about, like, assess people for what they were good at, and tried to find the roles and career paths that would really play to their strengths, both in the short term and the long term. And I think now we've got, I've evolved, again, a bit more, where I'm far more our speak to the individual, kind of encourage them really to say, look, you know, you're the only person that's really gonna absolutely care about your career in totality. So, you know, as you say, and kind of this track that you could own your own development plan. So you tell me what you want, and I'll help you try to achieve it, you know, within the bounds of what the business wants. That's why so actually, I think, I mean, I've gone 180, but I feel like I've definitely been through a number of phases. As I've got older, you know, and hopefully wiser and more kind of knowledgeable than when I was a pretty raw kind of manager earlier in my career.

Peter Szczerba  - That's really interesting, and particularly this idea of putting folks in the right positions to make them both further their strengths, but kind of fill some of those gaps, and finding roles and opportunities like that, you know, one common, not a common theme. But the theme that we've seen pop up once or twice is this idea of, of as an individual making the most of the opportunity you do have in finding within it ways to, to, you know, build on your strengths or address your gaps, even if initially at first glance, they're not there. And and that for some folks, actually, that's often where their biggest growth kind of leaps come from, right, it's making the best of those types of situations. I guess I'm curious one on your thinking about about that. And then also, if maybe in your career, there's an example like that, where you kind of used lemons and make lemonade and found that you had some explosive growth out of that.

Simon James  - Yeah, I think the advice I always give people to this day, is the, you know, what we do throughout a year, it's not all equally weighted, some things are really important. Some things are less important. And when you've got to work out is a I can, you know, give so much of my energy, you're doing a good job, day to day in my teams for my clients, you know, but that's the kind of necessary thing you need to do. But what you should also do is hold back some of your energy, some of your focus for those opportunities that come along, that can make help you leap kind of level, you know, because that's the thing that people are going to remember. And it isn't just, you know, this is not a coal mine, we're all chipping away. And we're all going to be valued by how much coal we've taken out of the ground today. It's like sometimes exposure to senior colleagues, who see you do a good job in a presentation, or in a client workshop, you know, those exposure to senior colleagues, you know, to leaders of the business, we see you doing a good job, that's like the ticket to kind of Accelerate Your Progress. And so you shouldn't, you know, shouldn't just like plow ahead mindlessly in the job, you need to think about what are those opportunities in a year? And am I getting them and if I'm not getting them, I need to demand them and ask for them. I want to run this section of this workshop, I want to go to this meeting. You know, I think I could do a good job here. And you can't just ask for it without backing it up. But once you get there, it's an all about, you know, grasping the opportunities that you see, you know, whether that's doing, you know, you might do a high profile presentation that Nigel Vaz has in the room, you know, and he might, you know, like the cut of your gib. And if he likes it gets more all the people who report to him are going to like it as well. So, you know, it's kind of like trying to find those opportunities that allow you to level up, and you know, turbocharge your kind of career path. You still need to do the day to day grind, right? But that's what it is. It's a grind, right? And it's not going to give you exponential returns. The exponential returns come from doing a good job where you either get, you know, exposure to senior colleagues, you get, you know, outsized, amazing client feedback from what you're doing, you know, and that allows you to kind of, you know, take up and you know, whenever you're thinking about promotions, or anything like that, and we're in that kind of promotion window today, you know, now, I always say to people, look, if I'm going to write the promotion email, I'm going to send to the whole company saying, a whole office saying, hey, congratulations, Peter, Ashley, you know, you've been promoted, what are those three bullet points that I'm going to write in the email editor is Oh, yeah, that's why that's why I know them from you know, and if you can write the three bullet points, then you know what you're aiming for. And then those three bullet points really become your objectives for the year that you work throughout the year to try and do. So if you can work backwards from the congratulatory promotion, email, you know, you can visualize your path, and that's super important.

Ashley Snow  - Okay, I really appreciate what you said about focusing on what a person is good at. I think in a very feedback driven culture, we tend to over index on constructive criticism. And at times, we unfortunately fail to recognize people for what they're doing. Well, I had someone tell me once, no, I'm not going to pat you on the back for doing your job, which is fair, but I think as a leader, you have to strike a balance between the two in order to keep people motivated. So on that note, I'd like to circle back to you specifically Simon, what's something that you're really good at something that you're maybe proud of, in your career, that you don't often get the chance to talk about?

Simon James  - I think something like, away from my day job, I've always been good at presenting, and communicating. And, you know, oftentimes, I feel like I'm invited to projects purely for the kind of presentation factor, you know, more so than the actual subject matter expertise. But I've embraced that, you know, for a while I thought, well, I'm a bit of a fraud, because, you know, I just, I'm really good at, you know, presenting and engaging, I've got a dry sense of humor, you know, in a business context, that's very rewarding, where you can set jokes up and deadpan, and still make everybody laugh, you know, particularly if you people see you as a, you know, a data person as I am, that tends to be quite a dry subject anyway. So any levity you can bring to it can change. But, you know, rather than thinking, Oh, you know, I'm just here because I can present, I get to take it as they want, it is actually a skill set. And it's actually important skills there. And what I've tried to do is help others kind of improve their own presentation, skills and the impact they can make. Because, you know, guess what, if you're good at presenting what people give you all sorts of kudos for things you probably don't justify mean, people overestimate how effective I am just because it seemed to go well in the meeting. Right, but I don't I don't take that as a, you know, a slight actually take it as well, thanks very much, you know, because it's a super important part of work today, you know, communication skills, the ability to, you know, give bad news, you know, to people give people tough feedback, the ability to change someone's opinion, you know, we all know, you know, with the kind of the echo chambers of politics today in social media, how hard is change anyone's opinion on anything, since everyone is like, you know, retrenching into a single position and do what they can do. If you can, if you can actually influence and change people's minds, then that's a skill. And I think, you know, I've benefited greatly in my career from being a good presenter, I believe, and, you know, other people tell me, I'm rubbish. I mean, you know, and I'm not perfect, I talk really quickly, you know, on my bad days, I have a really bad accent that people can't understand a word I'm saying, you know, and I sometimes get too passionate and end up arguing with people where I probably shouldn't do. But I think that has allowed me almost as like a non functional requirement of my job, you know, having presentations, and I say, it's a passion, and it's something I've shared with others. So I've coached a number of colleagues on helping them with their public speaking, helping them in their presentations, like all the UK guys that have presented at South by Southwest, over the last six, seven years, you know, I've kind of worked with them and, and coached them and, and worked with them on improving the kind of the quality of that. And it all stems because, you know, I found a mentor earlier in my career, who, who believed in me, and I wasn't as confident as I am today. But the fact that he would make me presents him first, before we would go see a client. And he would ask me all the difficult questions, you know, without holding any bars. He would ask me really tough questions and try and break me. And that basically forged me in steel once I'd been through that process with him a few times, I felt bulletproof. I felt like nothing, nothing could stop me. And I learned a very valuable lesson. Which is there's no difference between acting confident And being confident, they're the same thing. So if you can act confident, you are confident, you know, and I think one that penny dropped for me quite early on in my career, that made a huge difference to, I would say, the progress I made with my career because I could bring together this kind of very dry subject matter area of data, with the kind of more kind of fun and passionate kind of view of presentation and bring the two together was a kind of alchemy if you like, and that's kind of my stick, you know, that's what I do.

Ashley Snow - That's amazing. And I will take that line away with me, Simon, no difference between acting confident and being confident. I love that. To your point about presenting, I'd love to just kind of rehash something someone told me once and get your reaction to it, which was, when you're presenting, it's 60% how you sound 40% how you look and only 10% what you say, what's your reaction to that?

Simon James  - Yeah, I think, you know, there's a lot of training out there that helps them, you know, all the kind of nonverbal communication. You know, I see all the time, people making a point, like, but they do it, and they're like shaking their head as they make the point that the nonverbal clue says do not believe me, when I say this thing, or, you know, your your emotions need to tie in with what you're saying, you know, the whole package does your body language, you know, what you say, and I think at Sapient. You know, sometimes we're a bit guilty of, we massively rehearse, like we obsess about what goes on a slide. We massively rehearse what people say. And even on the day, it doesn't go according to plan because life happens, client asks a really complicated, difficult question upfront, and it kind of skews, you know, by the time you get to present where a half an hour behind, someone's telling you to cut your section in half, you know, it's far more important to be flexible on your feet. And, and like to have a depth of knowledge about what you're doing that you can kind of go off on any tangent, you're depending on what you read in the room. And I think sometimes we're over. We're over organized at Sapient, when we obsess too much about the written word, and we don't spend enough time thinking about the spoken word, and how you can inject kind of pathos, or whatever into the spoken word. And I think structures actually a really good to open people's eyes. But then we mustn't cling to kind of, you know, hard and fast numbers about things. So, you know, I think it's a really good point. But the bigger point is, if you know your material, don't be a slave to what's on the slides, or what's on the content, you know, feel like you can move off there, if the meeting demands it, because the client is asking a different question, or we now have new information.

Peter Szczerba  - I want that really resonates with me. And as somebody who very much leans in the direction of just knowing the content, rather than preparing my words going into presentations, I always love to have that kind of approach validated by somebody who you know, who's speaking, I admire who I've seen do really well in those types of circumstances. So I'm excited to hear that. I do want to quickly circle back to something you said very early on, just out of pure curiosity. Simon, you, you mentioned that you broke a record for a math test. And I want to hear a little bit more about that. Are you some sort of savant one? And then two, why was the job that got extended to you a product manager role, when you're a freaking math genius? It seems like there's like a lot of more relevant, I guess, roles that that could have been pushed your way given given that specific area of expertise.

Simon James  - Yeah, I was just one of those kind of general intelligence kind of things that had maths and English and IQ testing and stuff. So I'm just good at taking tests or used to be back in the day, think that was there. Yeah, and I think like, the standard approach into marketing in those days, and from a client side is to be a product marketer. You know, we didn't we didn't have the Google definition of product manager in those days. So it's somewhat different. But um, you know, I think in my two year graduate course, you know, I learned everything about kind of, you know, everything I needed to about marketing enough about everything, that I could work out what I liked, what I didn't like, and what again, what I was good at and what I wasn't good at, and at that time in mid 90s, you know, like big loyalty programs were coming out, that's where the data was in marketing. And that's why I decided I wanted to do more of that, because I wanted to move somewhere where had a lot of data, and, you know, like grocery loyalty programs, you know, have such rich transactional data. You know, I really thought that the area I want to get into and that's kind of what I did next.

Peter Szczerba  - And we love to hear that whenever we hear somebody on one of these interviews Essentially talk about where they followed their passion into their next opportunity. Right. And it sounds like that's exactly what you did. And, obviously, given your regional and global leadership roles that you've had over the years, you know, it's obviously resulted in success, I think one thing that I want to touch on just as you can kind of wrap our conversation is, is something that may resonate with you, as somebody who likes sports metaphors and is a sports guy, I find that there's overlap in psychology and ethos between kind of high performance athletes and high performance professionals of any nature. And I think one topic that's super popular with athletes in sports media is this idea of legacy and kind of the legacy you're gonna leave behind. And what is your legacy add up to? That I think that that's relevant to how people think about, you know, how their careers are remembered in their respective professions. And I'm curious, you give any thought to what your legacy is going to be? Is there something that you're aspiring to? I'd love to hear a little bit about that as also a fellow data professional, in terms of what do you want to leave behind?

Simon James  - Yeah, interesting question. I, I'm not sure. But I'm not a big legacy, kind of person, I'm quite happy that people move on, I think, you know, times change, and things change. And, you know, I don't believe the monument setting part of legacy. Too much, I haven't really put too much kind of thought into it, I think, you know, I've been, it's been almost 11 years. And it's always been a process. You know, and I think that's the thing about, you know, in these modern times, a lot of people have just got wise to the fact that it's all about outcomes, you know, and, and that's what we focus on our clients, I don't really buy into that at all, because I think it's really about the process. And if you get the process, right, the outcomes will come. We're not talking about the 76 is here, by the way before you started. But it is about if you focus on getting the process, right, the outcomes will look after themselves. Now I know we ultimately get judged on the outcomes. But you know, if you focus, like, if you focus on the money, you don't know how the money is made, right? Or you're counting the money. And I think you got to work out, you got to like in life, you've got to work out the equation of life. Like if I put effort in here, I'll get outsized returns somewhere else. And I think it's less about outcome. And it's more about method and the process and trusting the process, obviously. And I think what we have gotten better at in the 11 years I've been here is, we're getting better at the process. Now, we're not necessarily always seeing the results, you can ask any of our leaders about that. But we are getting better at the process, you know, we we find it easier to deliver repeatable solutions. You know, though, the camaraderie and you know, the friendships that I have with other senior people in data, you know, not just colleagues, but friends, friends, who I trust and what I was pick up and ask for advice, you know, that those friendships have been born through, you know, many years of hard work. And sometimes, when you're focusing on the method, you don't think about the legacy, I'm not really worried about legacy too much, you know, doesn't, you know, not gonna affect me after I've gone, but I but I, what I want to do here, you know, rather than look for legacy, I want to all eyes to the left more and look like how do we get the process, right? How do we get the method, right? So we achieve the outcomes that we want to do, and not just focus on outcomes, or focus on, you know, the celebration pie we have after the outcomes are not really motivated by those things more motivated by, you know, creating a better working environment that we can all excel in, you know, and that's kind of the, regardless of what team you're in, I think that's far more important.

Ashley Snow  - That's a great point, I think on the topic of legacy, we've started to realize that, you know, we as individuals don't have an entire ownership and maybe how our stories are told, but making people laugh, being a good leader, being good friend, and having an impact on people. Your legacy sort of speaks for itself.

Simon James - It's not like, you know, with Sapient and it's not like, you know, there's a career after Sapient where I go on TV and talk about Sapient. It's not like the NFL or something where we'll keep them happy. So I get a job in TV afterwards.

Ashley Snow  - This was incredibly insightful. Simon, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us.

Simon James  - That's quite right. And if we can have one more thing, maybe we should have a secret Hall of Fame. And then maybe that wouldn't change and I would be concerned about the legacy.

Ashley Snow  - Yeah, we'll set it up you, me and Peter, and we'll be the first three entrants.

Peter Szczerba  - I'm very okay with that.

Simon James  - Wouldn't be like a yellow jacket. It would be like a grey polo shirt.

Ashley Snow - Yeah, the consultants uniform.

Peter Szczerba - As long as it's Nike of all it.

Ashley Snow - Alright, Cheers, guys. Thank you.