Raising the bar

I used to work at one of the largest firms/partnerships in the world. Like a lot of companies/firms that make partners, i.e. equity owners of the firm, there was always a unique power dynamic. The firm would only make a certain amount of partners a year so it was competitive all the way up and often decisions were made that would hurt the firm and teams in the long run.

People were always looking to step over each other on their way up. Whenever someone new came onto our engagement team, everyone selfishly looked towards how it impacts them versus the firm and the team. Managers would hate new Directors who were brought in to oversee them because they took their promotion spot. Directors would hate new partners to the firm as it took their spots. I absolutely hated this.

My experience at Secfi has fortunately largely been completely different. We’re constantly looking to raise the bar meaning hiring the best talent to come in at all points. Sometimes this means hiring someone to take over your previous role or hiring someone who is going to be sitting above you on the org chart. I went through both experiences these past few months.

Admittedly, it took a bit of adjustment in either scenario. I have been with Secfi from nearly the beginning and hiring someone to take over what you’ve built, or manage you is a bit weird at times. I am constantly training upwards. Despite the minor awkwardness, everything is largely positive when you bring in new talent.

New talent means perspectives and experience gained that we were previously missing. This new talent if done right will lead to to net positives across the entire organization.

This of course means that early employees at healthy and growing startups will often need to put egos aside for the greater good of the company. It’s not often easy, but something that needs to be done if you want the company to grow. The beauty behind putting your ego aside to acquire talent is that employee is often a direct recipient of the benefits, even from an individual perspective.

In my experience, we continue to bring over highly talented individuals with much more experience than myself. One could look at this as more bosses, but I like to think that I’ve acquired more mentors as I progress in my career. On top of my personal development, my work load and stress levels continue to go down as these new hires get onboarded.

It’s amazing to see what happens when we continually raise the bar. I’m more excited than ever to be at Secfi and I continue to look forward to hiring more talent regardless of where they sit within the org structure.