The Ultimate Banker

The ultimate banker Knowing the bigger picture as well as depth of line of business Know how to read your boss. Know what he wants from what he says, and what he want when he is not saying anything. Simplify everything when interacting with high ranking bankers. Don't jump into the jungle thinking you are dealing with monkeys, while in fact you are dealing with tigers Know what problems you will run to, make calculated moves, solve the problems Make friends through part time work / internship. Get a recommendation from bankers. Focus on getting in first, then make the right impression to others. Dress and behave like you belong to. Know how to pitch the things you know to the colleagues around you. Connections and recommendations are very important. Be thick faced and ask around. Help people to gain political capital. Network and do things for others. Learn by doing. Establish yourself as someone to be respected. Be a somebody amongst nobody Knowing people at deputy chief level or high net worth people automatically opens up many doors and exceptions to be made for you Create a spreadsheet / portfolio of banks to apply to. To monitor the job bank status for each bank. Teaching and managing people can be very draining. Interns help may be refused if the bankers feel utilising them is more of a liability than an asset Contrarian technique. Instead of going downstream go upstream. Work at a job distribution internship office, plant yourself at the mouth of the river to have first mover advantage in choosing the opportunities available. Creativity grit and sheer hard work Know how to speak the language and blend in. Then network with the higher ups to rank up. Be simple, straightforward and short. Every bank culture may be different. Know what are the expectations from your current rank. And what they want from you Show that you can perform every part of your job. Perfect all the small things. If the boss see your messing up small things, errors get magnified. Even worse if there is client impact When you are in a junior role, be humble and thirsty to learn. Communicate domain knowledge as a sharing session. Impression of Proud to be humble. In order to break in, don't oversell yourself. Make allies at the higher ups. They will only bring in someone whom they already trust. Steer away from high level politics. There are a lot of things you neither see not understand. Even if the side you support win, there is no guarantee he might rope you in. But there is guarantee that you will make an enemy. Always follow up on the stuff assigned to you. Attend functions that higher ups are attending and network. Be sociable. Never complain about negative stuff about work with colleagues. Ask the right questions, what articles they read, what people they follow When external consultants try to implement changes in the bank, try to sound them out about their ideas that are not specific to the bank. Take note of their blind spots and errors and propose improvements in the meetings (one to one session) Once you have ranked up, fight to stay up. Make friends with people close to the decision makers as they have implicit powers of influence. Ask about weather forecast of the bosses mood, and make proposals when he is in a good mood. Never rat people out. You may expose one person but not know how much support that person has behind the scenes Quantitative masters or cfa to rank up. Try not to go for general MBA. Annual review 1) Knowing your kpi. Review them carefully and Tech your moves towards them. Practise your pitch in terms of what you achieved. Entry level Promotion typically within 3 years. Mid level within 5 years. If you are good, you can even promote faster or skip grades 2) Start with What have I done so far What has the boss done so far How to make the boss look good and produce results 3) Impression management. Come before the boss. Leave after the boss go. Ensure boss is making money to the bank. Pick the right boss / department who is making money to the bank 4) Operation costs Operational losses Client impact Legislation Risks Simplify procedures and method of communication Political capital 1) currency that you hold to trade with specific individuals only. Use political capital only if benefits outweigh the costs. 2) accumulate capital by helping them out. Don't take advantage of others too much or people will view you as a moocher. Don't ask for help just because you are busy. 3) Participate in large scale projects that has high visibility. Stupendous time and effort spent in small projects does not meet required rate of return 4) If you want to push away people asking for help, appear stress and unable to cope. (stapling, photocopy) 5) As a team leader, ask help from your subordinates. Credit will go to you while others are forgotten. Let them do the tasks while you perfect the presentation of your project. Get trustworthy eyes to check for your mistakes Restructuring (approx once every 3 years) 1) when the tide crashes, be prepared and focus on what needs to be done. Stay calm and keep head above water. Learn to ride the wave instead of against it. 2) Actively participate rather than passively made redundant. Offer your services so that decision makers see your true abilities, and give second thought about putting you on redundancy list. 3) Symptoms of restructuring. Talks with other banks. News in the market. Water cooler talk. Calling in External consultants (push the blame to them if staff cuts take place). Productivity review, reorganisation, simplify and improve, cost review, 4) identify which type of staff redundancy. Termination of contractors or retirement staff / golden handshake . Giving farewell parties. Termination of fresh staff whom had yet to make deep seated connections with senior staff, lower redundancy payout, non proven track record, socially acceptable to fire them as they can better find new jobs. Create reasons why the bank need you rather than terminate you. 5) No-one is irreplaceable. Focus on value add and brand differentiation. Never trust management sweet talking away risks and bad news. Always have contingency plan as you only have a few weeks or months left if news is officially declared. 6) Fear only mess things up. Never exhibit incompetency to the boss. Focus in your work and create a sense of confidence and stability. Create alliance and friends cross departments and be a person of influence. 7) Size up potential threats. Size up culture of merged department and know how to blend in. If department is downsizing keep tabs on internal threats / colleagues. Stay ahead of the pack. 8) Market yourself by accepting high visibility assignments. Advertise your other skills. Jobs get obsolete, once you built up your portfolio of other skills, you can do into different lines of business. 9) Market soft skills by organising social projects, recreational activity, writing newsletters. This gives exposure to people of different levels. 10) Grab first mover advantage in cost cutting exercises. Take initiative in suggesting / implement cost cutting measures or solutions that raise productivity levels, or result in financial savings. Prove to others you are too valuable to be made redundant Super high flyer strategies 1) Create a solution when no one can think of one. Seek ideas from people different from you as the feedback is most honest and objective 2) Be confident. People look towards you for direction, if the leader waver, they will lose confidence and trickle down aftereffects spillover to rest of organisation. 3) Assemble a strong team that can fend off attacks, watch your back, and keep you in power. Identify potential candidates and treat them well. 4) Master communicating in simple and clear language. Leave no room for interpretation. Don't cause confusion and chaos for people down the line. Simplify corporate hierarchy so that information don't get distorted. 5) Completely no work life balance. 84 hours a week(12 hours 7 days) is the norm. You have to be responsible for min of 500 people. Talk to your family before taking up the job as you will need their understanding and support. You must be committed to put in the hours and acquire family support before taking up this role. 6) High risk high reward nature of job. M&A of banks and new boards, people below you screw up and you taking the responsibility leads to general insecurity despite your best efforts. Always leave a backdoor for yourself when things go south. Network with people from other banks, establish good relation ship, as you may need to get hired before fired 7) Network and know the VP of the different departments, whom are sme in their respective areas. You focus on the big picture while getting feedback in micro details from the VP. Always surround yourself with people from different departments, and hear them out before making major decisions. 8) Make organisation flat and non hierarchy. You need good people to come forward with ideas. One guy cannot think of or see everything. Formally announce an open door policy to get staff to talk to you directly, to suggest ideas and improvements. Recognise their contributions and consider implementing their ideas. 9) use huddles and communication of domain knowledge to your staff. As day to day work may have working distance, use training sessions and lunches to comnunicate mentorship and domain knowledge. 10) Trust people you use and don't use people you don't trust. Before you use a person, give them many tasks and tasks as you want before taking them in. But once you take them in, don't test their loyalty anymore. 11) treat laid off employee with dignity. Restructuring occurs and treat him with dignity before he leave. A company's most important asset is its reputation and don't make him feel bad and spread the bad news out. If you attempt to help him find new jobs or make recommendations, he will remember it and help you in the future. If it is integrity issues, treat him with extreme prejudice to avoid sending wrong signal to staff 12) For c level executive, give team lots of freedom in their first task. For performers, let them alone to produce good results. For non performers, point to their failures and use it as reason to micromanage 13) Create a split personality. Fair and impartial in the office. Friend in a casual setting. In a casual setting, explain the reason why you did something specifically. People are more receptive to your explanation in a relaxed setting. 14) create effective mechanisms to retain talent. Individual bank awards and entire bank awards. Make people feel recognised. Award the overperformers and the normal people. 15) For people who bring objective contributions to your bottom line , treat him well to signal you are impartial fair and value talent. For talents, make exceptions and fight for then so that he is willing to fight for is rather than move elsewhere. 16) Learn how to sell the cost and benefits not merely to the organisation, but also how it relates to the individual. 17) Focus on building your track record and hiring people with a strong track record.