Season 3, Episode 1 with Alan Tang
Juliet Morris
Welcome, Alan lovely to speak to you and see you again. Alan is a champion of the squiggly career but he’s gone from corporate strategy to cheffing to becoming a multi-hyphenate advisor to seed and series A startups. He’s currently acting as a chief of staff that portfolio career teaching at Synthesis and writing on medium along with occasional private catering gig. So welcome Alan such an eclectic mix of wonderfully creative things.
Alan Tang
I’m excited to be here.
Juliet Morris
And I’m intrigued as to your thoughts on introversion and quiet leadership of how it resonates with you.
Alan Tang
It’s an interesting one because I think most people think about leadership as being someone that’s very assertive action orientated quite loud. And I think in the past, that’s always been the case. But for me leadership support has been about inspiring others. This can come about in different ways. So yeah, I just think that there are certain circumstances where that being allowed and assertive is useful, but I’ve seen quietly there’s different types of leaders. I think that marriage is important. Be very powerful. I think a lot of introverts. Very good active listeners. They’re very good at analysing and reflecting what others say. And this can be super influential. Some of the best meetings I’ve had with somebody like smart CEOs some other successful CEOs, they’ll only talk three, four times. But everyone will listen to every word that they have to say because they make each word count. And I think if I was to think about leadership, I wouldn’t really split it in sort of whether you’re the stereotypical leader or you’re a quiet leader, I think about is more being genuine. When you’re when you’re trying to be something you’re not people can see through that and I think leadership is just genuine and seems to influence others in a positive way. And you know, I’m still on that journey. Hopefully by just a walk in the park. I say I’m going to do what I can have a positive impact.
Juliet Morris
I love what you said about CEOs with very few words that make an impact. That’s got me curious because how does that play out in thinking and acting then from your perspective, because if you’ve gone from a corporate finance person, to which I think you started growing forward and then to becoming this multi-hyphenate, advisor, and a chef and a writer and all these other things, how has that played out in your leadership and their thought process and how you speak and act to yourself?
Alan Tang
I’ll be honest, when I started my career I think you’re as an introvert, you were always at a disadvantage. If I think back to my first ever assessment centre, how I got the internship to graduate role at GT. I was in a group with 11 others 10 of those were loud, wanted to cross because you have the right you could have that opportunity for yourself by attracting attention. Even though I disagree with it. I found that everyone was trying to grab the recruiter’s attention trying to stand out in front of everyone else. And to be honest, I didn’t think I’d get the internship I was quite lucky that someone would be that classic or Alan What do you think I was able to analyse and articulate what might want to say and I think okay, what was quite well and I got the internship but you know, it shouldn’t be the case that just because you’re allowed and you’re, you’re in the limelight that you get all of the all of the attention, financial reward, or the progression. And even though I see it in a lot of my meetings, in even when I was a chef as well, like you can see it but you can get drowned out quite easily by the people who are extroverted. So I guess what I’m trying to get to them, you have to learn to pick your moments and you get actually get really good at reading the room. When you’re an introvert. Right phrases like oh, just jumping in here with a few thoughts or building on that. Those are really a phrase that we use a lot and that really helped me I also think that there’s a consultancy trick that you can use which says what I’m hearing is x and then adding your own spin. Again, just gives you a chance to interject your thoughts out there because if you don’t say anything, you will get drowned out and you kind of get ignored to some extent. And I think it’s slowly changing in the corporate world. And even in the cheffing world, but needs to be a wide-scale change for so quiet leadership to have more I guess more of a say more of a co-axial table. So yeah, it’s quite it’s been quite a strange journey. But I’d love to just go back to my previous point, and that’s just myself be genuine. And I noticed that makes the biggest difference. So if I think about my time at Weiser, an employer branding agency when I joined I was still very corporate, very like institutionalised like GT in the nicest possible way. But we have a course called Writing wiser, and they taught me to really be myself when I speak whenever I say back in the day after a day, Julia, how are you? And then the main message, email and the best regards, like very corporate very stiff, but it’s not how I speak is not who I am and doing this road riding wise of course, I found that the lesson I took away was just be yourself when you write, write like you speak. And I found that it’s given me a certain freedom. I’m able to connect with people better. And it’s probably the thing that made me start writing on medium. It’s probably opened my mind to new opportunities. It probably helped kickstart my I guess fortify for the career, which I’ve loved. So, yeah, I guess the takeaway, if I was to summarise is yourself. Just enjoy the journey and see your attention. I don’t think you have to be an introvert or an extrovert but even be labelled as such. I think you can just be yourself.
Juliet Morris
The past what I heard there, Alan was understanding that you don’t necessarily want to be that loud person feel like a fraud feel like a fake. You want to just be you and come across as genuine and for you, that’s you found your way writing and then exploring lots of different avenues. So what point did you go, I want to do more than one thing then and have more than one opportunity.
Alan Tang
To be honest, it was when I was a chef. So I don’t know if you know Juliet, but chefs get paid peanuts. My first job I was on 16,000 pounds a year. And I had savings I could survive on that. But only for so long. So, I ended up doing a bit on the side as well. So private catering, so that came up that came about but also having a bit of consultancy for startups, you know, running workshops, just to pay the bills, but it made me realise that actually, I quite enjoy the variety. But I also think moving from a corporate finance to Chef background, like a chef role. It opens your mind to think to make you believe that anything’s possible. I’m an okay good cook, but to move into professional environment, cooking for 100 shares your cup of tea a day isn’t something that I thought I think I could take and when you are able to do that and overcoming deal Well, I was luckily in the right place and I got promoted to sous chef in my first year. It makes you think, actually I can do this. And when you have that mindset, you just start accepting opportunities, taking on new things that make you uncomfortable. And you learn from it very quickly. And that thrill that journey of learning, developing having an impact is something that love and having a portfolio career really, really gave me.
I am in love with Middle Eastern cuisine, just because it’s the first restaurant that I worked at. The food is so fresh and vibrant, just like flavourful. There’s loads of spices that most people wouldn’t have ever heard of. And it’s got a nice balance of like, savoury and sweet I think some cuisines can be very one-sided. It has never fitted but I mean, it’s hard to choose right? Indian Italian, Chinese, even modern British like a lot where British cuisine is heading towards and yeah it’s hard. It’s a very hard choice.
Juliet Morris
And you also teach a Synthesis. So how do you bring skills that you’ve learned from cheffing and corporate finance into teaching?
Alan Tang
Yes, I mean Synthesis just to give your audience a bit of a background. It’s a school founded by Elon Musk, and the idea is that they want to create, to educate and train students from the age of eight, upwards to about 15 to become better collaborators and better problem solvers. And for me, that’s, that’s really important because traditional schools, they teach you things that aren’t really that useful in life. And so, you know, surfaces trying to break that and it uses games and simulations as a way to incentivise students to have fun but also learn what they’re doing. And I first found out about Synthesis on Twitter. I’ve been following them for a while. I love the idea of education changing the future generations. And somehow, they’ll tweet today announced that they’re looking for teachers I’ve never taught before. As an introvert, I didn’t think I’d be a very good teacher either. But actually, it’s been a really interesting journey for me personally. And just to learn about not just how to facilitate a workshop how to project your voice, how to ask Socratic questions, it’s also about how to deal with different personalities, how to tackle problems from different angles. And I love that honestly, it’s my worst-paid job. It’s the job that’s up the crazies hours because most of my students are in the US, of course, but it’s also the one role that I look forward to every week because I see the growth of my students. I see the growth in myself. Like, just in the past two weeks, I’ve had people I’ve met at events at lunch club, say, Are you a teacher? And you said not 100% not a teacher, but I like to be and just that think about where I am now in that journey compared to where I was 18 months ago, 24 months ago. I’m a different person.
Juliet Morris
So how are you managing the different personalities of students?
Alan Tang
Good question. I think as a teacher Synthesis your job is not so much to teach. You’re there to sort of facilitate and ask the right questions and encourage this collaboration. And, you know, you’re always going to get introverts, extroverts, people who don’t like speaking up in the main room. So there’s some techniques you can use such as like having smaller groups, and then building that trust between the groups so that they start sharing ideas, you know, using positive reinforcement, but also just making sure everyone has time and space to talk. You know, at the start, I found that some students would hog the limelight, speak up, speak over each other students. And we just created this environment where we tried to give everyone time to speak up and have a voice. And in the past, that used to be you know, hands up, and we’ll take turns but actually I wanted to be quite organic. So I just started saying, going to be a hand up just make sure that you recognise and give space to others to speak and teaching, especially the younger students to just pause for two or three seconds after they’ve spoken just to let others jump in and it’s honestly it’s critical, it’s very collaborative environment where there are different personalities and they can come together as one. I think that’s, that’s really important because in life, you’re going to have to deal with loads of different personalities. So teaching the students from a young age how to deal with different people is super useful. I guess from my perspective, is just about getting being genuine, tricking genuine interest in them, understanding where they’re coming from, and also letting them know that they are frustrated letting their registration letting them use different mediums to communicate. Some people like to use chat, like to speak up. Some people like to just listen, and you have to just adapt to adapt to them.
Juliet Morris
I love that. And I love that because before we started recording this podcast, we were talking about time and giving ourselves the space. And yet you’ve just talked about if you create that space and facilitate that, that shift with younger people who are going to take that skill and hopefully bring it into their lives and their work which will have an impact on the future and on corporate workplaces. Because if you allow them to have that space, that’s that sense of creativity that that people can be heard. And that’s got to be a better place to be. Absolutely got to be opposed to me.
Alan Tang
I think that’s going to be the future of either workflow systems just I think it’s really important to have diversity, because it’s not just diversity of thought, but also, just like, you learn something right. And when everyone’s been trained for these graduate schemes, these courses to be the same. You end up having no innovation. So actually, I think just having different people with different thoughts, different voices, able to work together is the recent ones. Hopefully, Synthesis can do that.
Juliet Morris
Do you bring that into your work, genuinely and your life genuinely now because you’re giving that you’re allowing young, young kids, young people to have that space and that creativity and that innovation, for them to explore and be genuine which I know you’re passionate about? How do you bring that into every day?
Alan Tang
Life? I wish I could say that I’ve done more myself. Such a crazy 12 months that I haven’t really had the chance to reflect but I have noticed that I’m much more I use a lot of the skills I’ve learned from being a facilitator in my day-to-day so I will sit back. I will encourage conversations ask questions you Socratic questioning, instead of in the past, maybe just saying we should do X, Y and Zed. And it’s always hard because when I joined companies uptick, typically, one of my senior people, people look up to you and say, what do we do next? And in the past, I might have given them an answer. Here you analyse what their skill sets are their personalities and then given them roles that stupid but actually, the best thing you can do as a manager as a coach as a mentor is to ask them questions and put this back on your associate your team because it makes them feel empowered. It makes them feel like they are involved. Public decision making and actually, is how I’ve grown my teams in the past, from people who were just like, wait like robots and just waiting to be told what to do to actually taking the initiative to problem solve, to go around, talking to others to ask those questions. And I’ve seen it make them happier, make me maybe seen. It’s made my team happier. It’s made them more productive. It’s also helped the careers that you’ve I think about wiser and the finance team that I was born to fix. They’ve had triple promotions in the last two years. They’ve been recognised for cultural awards, that leaders they’re in right now. And that’s not none of that. Some of that’s not to me, but most of the sides of them. Questions, you encourage this, this growth and this why coaching is such a big, big industry right now. Right everyone’s offering coaching and mentoring services because with the right approach and the right people, you can have a huge impact on your career. So that’s from a work perspective, but from a personal perspective, I found I found it easier to meet new people and as an introvert, it can be quite hard to sort of put yourself out there but you know, something the first six months difficult so using Lunch Club, meeting people at events, running community, those are all really alien to me. But, once you do it after a while it becomes a muscle and then using the sort of facilitation skills to ask questions to listen, to be genuinely interested. I think they’re just massively helped and I found it much easier to connect with people to speak to people about certain topics. And just to learn something and it’s been a really interesting journey.
Juliet Morris
I love that and I can see how you have used that to find your own voice in how you interact with people in exploring things that you want to do and also writing too. So I’m interested in a world that is almost like standing on that bandwagon of saying everyone needs to bring their genuine, authentic self to the table. How do you feel about that and what would you what would you say to people who feel very quiet and almost like quite scared to do that?
Alan Tang
I was one of those people even a quiet didn’t really know how I should approach it. So at the start of this year, my previous boss Lauren said to me, I want you to start writing. I was stuck on a podcast that I wouldn’t need to start meeting new people. It really was like a huge step for your career in your personal development. And therefore just no way there’s no way to do this. But actually just taking it step by step and making it building a muscle for it has been really useful. And I find an enjoyable sort of, I don’t like writing I find it quite difficult but when you write something that is genuine is yourself and actually something that you’ve wanted to sort of share for a while. And when people can activate it can be quite nice to have people to speak to and it gives you confidence for the next one. I think from a meeting perspective, again, Lunch Club The first time I joined I was very apprehensive, but I’ve met some amazing people on our platform, and it was just about going in there talking with no agenda. No obligations. I’m not trying to sell I’m not trying to put myself out there. I’m just there to talk and listen and again, you’re dealing with different personalities. Really actually for extroverts people is a very introverted people but you learn how to what questions to ask when to jump in, when to when to speak, when to listen. But you also learn a lot of interesting topics I’ve learned about machine learning. I’ve learned about crypto, I’ve thought about new wind, wind turbine designs, some of them super interested about I’ve heard about my composting at home this work or why it can’t work. I’ve learned about just the kind of start your own business anything really. And again, it’s just made me probably a better listener the better. I get compensation so as a result of just doing it. And it’s kind of like swimming, right? You can be taught, or the theory taught. This is what you should do. But unless you do it, you can never really learn it never really master it. And what I’d say is just take it slow, have a little bit of a plan, and just enjoy the journey. And I think this is the important part you’re not yes, you’re trying to get to a destination but if you don’t enjoy the journey, you don’t want to be part of it. You’re never going to want to do it. And if that if that motive, that motivation isn’t there. You set yourself up for failure and you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.
Juliet Morris
I love that stuff. And I do something like us. So I never go and research the people I’ve been set up a call with I akin it to as if you’ve bumped into someone in the supermarket or in the pub or something and you just strike up a conversation because you go Oh, that’s interesting. And that I find that see, if you start from that place of curiosity and ask the questions, then you can have some really rich conversations and you learn so, so much on that it’s fascinating.
Alan Tang
But it also removes the pressure right? Because you’re not having to go in with an agenda. You’re just speaking, just learning.
What is useful. Especially for I guess us introverts is to almost have your story. Like how to introduce yourself that story. Practice because once you have that again, it makes it a lot easier for people to talk about certain things from your background. It can be a lot easier for you to just introduce yourself. Because otherwise if you don’t know what you’re going to say it can sometimes be a bit awkward and it can add a little bit of pressure to you. So it’s something I learned from my current boss and CEO. He talks about his career in decades as first I was in the army, then it’s sort of in like McKinsey and it was big tech and now this portfolio career in our kind of use the similar format you know, I talk about my life is in corporate finance, where they buy energy into that shelf life. Now is portfolio creating. I think it’s quite useful to frame it in that way. Because then it just taking people on a journey and people really relate to that. When you’re just throwing facts out there people don’t listen they need to. They want to hear story.
Juliet Morris
What would your top three tips be for listeners who are navigating the world of life and work as an introvert?
Alan Tang
I’d say definitely one be genuine, be authentic.
Number two would be to really be open to new experiences. You really won’t know where they go. If I think about this year. I didn’t think I’d start writing on medium. I didn’t think I’d be on my second podcast. I didn’t think that I’d be teaching as much as I do Synthesis and didn’t think that I would be talking about passive income learning about passive income but these things will come from conversations through just be open to new ideas.
And then I guess back of lesson this is the third tip is that just believe in yourself. Everyone has their own unique skill set their own strengths and no one’s perfect, right? You’re just leaving yourself and what you’re capable of. And since you’re working so hard, I mean, that’s the learning that I promise you it’s just if you have the confidence to try, it might not work out but you’ll learn something from it. And to add to your overall journey.
Juliet Morris
Life it’s an evolution.
Alan Tang
It is an evolution. I mean, just on that point about it being an evolution that I genuinely don’t know where my creative will take me. I don’t know what will happen in the next 12 months. But if it helps us satisfy your, your, I guess your audience, my plans are on the move towards more social impact and sustainability projects for work. So anything in the education, renewable energy, food waste space, there are companies out there soon call that future forest company echoes from zero. Obviously, there’s such good things and that’s where I want my career to move more towards. But, it’s hard right? You talked earlier. Today about balancing your money learning passions. I started thinking more about this in the framework. So how much time do I spend on things that pay the bills? How much time should I spend on things that I enjoy? How much time should I spend on things that teach me something and I found like 60/20 to watch, I’m doing things that pay the bills 20% of my time for the things I enjoy 20% of the time, there are things I can learn something is I think going to be the future for me at least for the next 12 months. And hopefully I can stick to that schedule. If you see me. I can imagine that working enough you can give me a nudge.
Juliet Morris
I love that model. I love that. That’s a great share. I get the 12 months and I understand you know the spaces that you are sort of starting to move into, what’s your big dream for the future?
Alan Tang
It’s an interesting one, to be honest. I don’t know. I wanted to. I actually applied for the on purpose programm. A one-year programme with two placements, especially about businesses just to learn more. But unfortunately, I couldn’t make it work in terms of work and money, and life commitments. But that you know, again, let me talk about something if I think longer term, I would love to find I’d love to make any further career but help have an impact, a bigger impact. A high level on the causes I talked about earlier education, renewable energy and food waste. And, you know, historically I’ve been working very much online on the front line, fixing things and solving things. But what I’ve learned is that you actually sometimes it’s take step back and think about the bigger picture. Where does this all tie in? What are the things you can do on a structural level at a strategic level to have a bigger impact? And you know, it can be things like design, design led thinking, we think about partnerships. Ultimately, I would love to be to three years have been known for sort of advising in this space and actually help to make an impact and actually tangible impact. I think a lot of companies in the space now are doing it for the money are they because your short term implies that when you start reading that green scale, green concrete How can you bring that development from say just the construction industry to something a bit wider? How can you create this ecosystem were able to talk to each other? Because it’s all very, very sort of siloed if you work in a green space, that’s what you do. And but really, if you’re going to have a huge impact, you need to start taking that out of that silo and bringing it into
Alan Tang
It’s interesting, to be honest, I don’t know I wanted to. I actually applied for the on purpose programme it’s a one year programme with two placements, social impact businesses just to learn more, but unfortunately I couldn’t make it work in terms of work and money and life commitments. But that, you know, again, that’s only 12 months I think if I think longer term I would love to find out. I’d love to make a little further career but help have an impact, a bigger impact, a higher level on the causes I talked about earlier is education, renewable energy and food waste.
And, you know, historically I’ve been working very much on the frontline fixing things and solving things. But what I’ve learned is that you actually sometimes step back and think about the bigger picture.
Where does this all tie in? What are the things you can do at a structural level at a strategic level to have a bigger impact and yet it can be things like sound design, led thinking could be things about partnerships.
Ultimately, I would love to be to three years have been known for sort of advising in this space and actually help to make an impact and actually tangible impact I think a lot of companies in this space now are doing it for the money are they because they can see a short term impact but when you start reading about say green steel, green concrete you know, how can you bring in the that development from so just the construction industry to something a bit wider, how can you create this ecosystem where actually everyone talks to each other? Because there’s all very feels very sort of siloed if you work in a green space, that’s what you do.
If you’re going to have a huge impact, you need to start taking that out of that silo and bringing it into a bigger a bigger environment where actually can have a bigger impact the one example that comes to mind is very much supply chain right so I was in supply chain for a bit and when you’re trying to make everything a bit more sustainable, so instead of using plastic can use paper bags instead of shipping tonnes of liquid why companies should concentrate and then dive into and get to the end. And but to do that, you need all the different pieces in the puzzle to talk to each other. And now, there are a lot of blockers that stop that happening or a lot of historic rules or great stuff, something’s not happening.
So just breaking down those barriers and hopefully my background in a diverse range of industries in my network hopefully will contribute towards that. And I’ve gone really bad about way but what I’m trying to say is you kind of need to have a network needs to be a network of banks, where you start in one place, how you can connect the dots to the other places in order for any of this really sustainable long term.
Juliet Morris
That’s a beautiful note to finish on. Thank you very much, Alan.
Alan Tang
That was wonderful conversation. Thank you for having me. And I’m sorry that I was sort of jumbling my way a little bit. Yeah, I find it really hard to articulate that last point because I go to know where I want to get to. I really don’t. But hopefully, more and more inspire some other people to think in similar way. We can come together and have a bigger impact than we currently do. Because if I think about my career now, a lot of stuff I do is like very grassroots, very like local, and you bring it all together. To really deliver something that would change. Change a system. Lots of wants to talk about on that. I agree. Hopefully. Yeah. Thank you for having me and thank you for restarting this I think your topics really interesting actually, to me if you can make it more common. It doesn’t have to just be extroverted. you can be a quiet leader, or more people can learn from this and actually implemented. You’re going to have a better workspace you’re going to have better luck and more comfortable walking around, people.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people , speak , career , genuine , learn , questions , journey , students , thought , introvert , extroverts , leadership , chef , space , teach , writing , love , different personalities , guess impact , talk , programme , sustainable long term , diverse range , learn , work , green , construction industry , space , paper bags , bigger , inspire , network , happening , grassroots , restarting , love , social impact , extroverted
Transcribed by Otter.ai