It took me more than 2 years to hire my second-in-command…
by Queenie Sun, Head of Revenue Management
I joined Teleport (the cargo department known as RedCargo) 2 years and 10 months ago as Head of Revenue Management. Back then, it was a new role in a new company. I was the only one in that department. “Figure it out,” I was told. “Bring revenue management to this industry in this company.”
In my previous roles, I had a team. I knew what to do. It’s like being in a defined sandbox; I knew how many could fit, and I hired the exact players for it and the size of the sandcastle that we needed to build. But not this role in this company.
‘Figure it out’ means that first, I need to know what to do.
No one told me then: being in a start-up means that no one has it figured out, and every day is a new challenge.
Being in a start-up in an industry that you don’t know about is harder.
Being in a start-up in an industry that you don’t know about, but refuses to accept their ways and aims to disrupt it for the better ways, it makes you realise that while you might not know what you need, you do know what you don’t want — the legacy guys, with legacy mindset from that industry.
So, what stopped me from hiring?
I could blame the workload.
Figuring out what to do means doing it myself first… and improving at it before I hire someone to pass it on to. That took a while.
Commercials are expected to deliver while I figure it out. That means doing things that need to be done, whether or not it is ‘revenue management scope’, because in a start-up, things that need to be done when there’s no one doing it means ‘do it, then figure that out’.
So after some system deep dives, local offices set up, contract templates and a lot of contract renegotiations later, I am still figuring it out.
How should all of the above be spelled out in my hiring JD?
I could blame the People Department and their process.
My boss placed my hires as top priority in the list of people we needed to hire when he found out that I was pregnant, just over a year into my role. We needed to engage in succession planning ASAP. Instructions to prioritise were there, but the process to begin the hire — and the actual hire itself — didn’t happen until my son was already almost nine months old.
I could blame my trial-and-error hires.
Some people grow into their role. Some people need the help to get there. I became invested in it; I wanted to do the same for others. Hence, I followed that concept — I made some hires in which I was confident that I could help them get there. (Through this, I also learned that some people don’t want to get there, no matter how much you choose to invest in them.)
Also, because my department is so new, it’s not that easy hiring someone with experience (in fact, it’s even harder to find someone with experience, but without the legacy mindset). For many reasons, my hires didn’t make it there, and we were back to square one.
I decided that maybe buying a ready-made product and improving it would be easier, and sat on that concept for a bit.
In June 2020, my boss said: “Let’s just focus on people and process.” And then, it suddenly became clear.
Working during my maternity leave didn’t drive my husband crazy, because I borrowed a desktop computer from my confinement centre (he doesn’t know exactly how much I worked). But working from home, and missing my son’s feeding time ultimately did. I’m not sharing this because I’m proud — in fact, I was embarrassed to put my new team through a clean-up process of the department as I had to deliver my son. I felt that I was being irresponsible to my team of two — one of whom was a last-minute internal transfer, and another I hired just before I took leave — as well as to the company.
But from that, I learned that everything can wait. It doesn’t have to be figured out right away. Just hire. The JD will never be perfect. The candidate won’t be married to me for eternity, so why should I have the fear to commit? The People Department will see the urgency, and press in until I seal the deal.
Now I spend a lot of my time not just contributing individually, but a lot more of communicating with the team on how to contribute collectively. And that means doing things their way sometimes. That means, where needed, I must push the timelines, to teach them so that they can do it better next time. I’ve always been aware of this concept — I was taught this in school. I know what delegation means, what building a team means, and what is expected of a manager. But at Teleport, I truly get to experience the effect of it, especially now that I assembled my very own mini ‘Avengers’; a stronger, more efficient team than I can hope for.
Do I have it all figured out? Not really. A little better than yesterday, but it’s a lot easier figuring it out with a team, that’s for sure. I no longer envy other managers who knew what they wanted and built their team early.
As 2020 ended and I concluded the hires for last year, I experienced my first Christmas and New Year — since I began at Teleport — knowing that my department can run without me. We had this thing called the ‘Holiday Test’ (to see how things run without you) and I’m confident that I did much better in 2020 than in 2019. I know I’m still being cut some slack because my deputies are new, but the same won’t be expected of me and my team next year. 2021, bring it on!
