#LedaWrites – food for thought

What is your organisation doing to make sure that 'demoralising' is not what the learning curve feels like?

Everyone inside your organisation needs to be actively aware of which part of the script they are in.

When something unforeseen happens, you need to work through it.

When you deal with procurement, pain seems to be guaranteed.

It is our privilege and responsibility to play with every card in the pack and deploy every lesson learned.

It's a brave new world out there, and the bad guys have all the tools and none of the legacy to hold them back.

Of course there is a problem. And we are survivors. So let's talk about it in terms of what we've done about it.

Just because the phone is ringing, it does not mean it is an appropriate time to take the call.

Diversity is a fact. Inclusion is a choice. An active, constant, deliberate choice.

Does your technology need to have smoke coming out of its motherboard to be considered defunct?

The future is not there to be discovered. It needs to be constructed by the very people travelling to it.

Your marketing team can get you an advantage that is yours to lose.

Ask vendors to explain their pricing. Ask, and wait for a proper answer. And take it into account.

I hate to say it, but there is neither art nor science to pricing. Just elbow grease and arithmetic.

Don't just ask your vendors to explain their cost structure. Ask them to justify it.

I suspect it is inevitable that a bit of a rethink around open banking will have to happen.

Things are only going to get faster and more demanding. So travel light, because you need to go far. 

In a place where everyone says only a fraction of what they mean, speaking your mind makes you scary.

Diverse workforces are more resilient and perform better against every conceivable metric.

When it comes to team building exercises, the intention is not enough. The execution is what matters.

The reality is your CEO is mostly talking to risk and finance. And arguably, that is as it should be.

With digital transformation, leaders often take on too much individual risk for ambivalent collective returns.

If you want to participate in the future, you have to let go of the past.

DORA has no appetite to understand why your selective facts are better than the whole truth.

We already live in the Future. It is here. It is the Present. It is fully formed and at times rather wonderful.

With open banking, the responsibility for education lies with everyone participating in the ecosystem.

A lot of hard decisions fail to get made because of politics, habits and very basic human fears.

Inefficient and inadequate systems and standardised processes are the reality within every bank.

Knowing what the answer is, it turns out, is immaterial until you are prepared to do something about it.

In terms of digital transformation, it turns out that almost everyone was kung fu fighting. And it's time you did too.

Normal is nothing more than what everyone is doing... until someone stops and change occurs.

I don't know what it would take for people at the top to take their own empowerment spiel seriously.

At the end of the day, when it's all said and done... what do you want to be remembered for?

An embedded world is a world where trust is essential and needs to be constantly renewed.

Touchpoints with customers are not a good thing. Stop counting them. Stop wanting them.

Always measure opportunity cost. What are you not doing while you are doing what you are doing? 

Procurement buddies, those workday saints, have always been what separates a good day from a terrible one.

Maintaining your tech estate is not an exercise in bravery, but rather an exercise in risk management.

The majority of organisations fail because they allow folks to see what other teams do as 'not my problem'. 

The job is still about new technology, but it's not about the 'if'. It’s about the 'how'.

Asking for help is a superpower. It's brave to ask for help. And it's a braver thing still to accept it.

We have work to do, and however we choose to do it, let's at least stop acting surprised at it all. 

I want to share with you two little stories. And just a suggestion, if you'd be open to it.

I have a very complicated relationship with the language others use to describe a good salesperson.

'No stray dogs allowed' is a phrase I find myself muttering a lot. Usually in frustration or abject bafflement.

It’s time to double down or pull the plug on the things you have not doubled down on by now.

Fintech has become one of those terms that people throw around to mean... whatever...

We are uniquely placed to influence the application of tech and maturation of regulation. Go out there and do good.

The predictions we make at year-end are simply acknowledgements of what is top of mind.

The stresses of financial services have changed, proliferated and shifted, but never lifted.

Doing more with less often reaches a point where it is no longer possible.

The people who need fair credit products the most may not have access. That's economic unfairness.

The only way to support people who need money is to give them fair, affordable and speedy access to it.

An organisation that lives by its values is worth more than gold.

If eight balls are being thrown at you where you were meant to get just one, some may get through that shouldn't.

Mainframes are alive and well. But everyone knows they will have to eventually move off them.

You don't always get good options. But there are always options. So show up and make the choices.

For people in the money business, we are not very good at talking about money.

Don't burn yourself out with work. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't forget to look after yourself.

What do you think we should do differently as the banking industry on Mars? First, lose the mainframes.

At Sibos 2023, we went for a walk.

This year at Sibos we have a Future of Money reunion. Not just to opine. But to be held accountable.

No amount of system upgrades will ever teach humans how to treat everyone's time with respect.

You can't control everything. But you can control what you do next and what kind of player you are.

Technology will keep changing and will always require our attention. So don't be a tourist with tech.

The context in which your teams do the work you ask of them is a rich tapestry of ever-changing factors.

If you choose to learn new things, do it properly. Start simple, build up and take your time.

You can’t win a game you're not in. So turn up. Because the absent are always wrong.

How honest are you with yourself about the things that stress you out? About the things that scare you?

The light of dead stars looks the same as any other. But it doesn’t prove the star is still thriving.

Consultants can help you work out where you stand. But be sure to join in with the ‘working it out’ part.

Be honest and mindful of your constraints and make choices that mitigate their impact.

Open-ended plans rarely come good. When do you know the work is over?

Staying teachable is the biggest skill you can retain for the years ahead.

Don’t do all the things all the time. Figure out what is key. And focus.

It's Pride, folks, and both allyship and snacks matter. Snacks for the fun times. Allyship for the battles.

Ultimately, what we choose to do with the time we are given is the full story.

The world is not being eaten. It’s your margin that’s being devoured. And there's no-one to blame but yourself.

If you want to be rescued by the government, then you need to be operating as a public service utility.

With agile, like with most things in life, the lesson is: do it right, or don’t do it at all.

Having choices is of no value whatsoever unless you make choices.

A week is exactly as long as your own goodwill towards your colleagues and theirs back to you.

The world is divided into radiators and drains. Don't let the drains hollow you out.

You don't get a medal for deciding to transform your bank. If you get it right, you get to survive.

Hollywood’s happy endings are so pleasant. But they are neither guaranteed nor always the end.

Diversity is not a concession. Be mindful of your language and your actions.

For every 'can’t' that’s thrown at you, there is a plumbing gap somewhere in the organisation that needs fixing.

What happens when a learning opportunity shows itself when you are not in learning mode?

The last few years have shown us that the arrogant, ‘I will take over the world’ founder… didn’t.

The things you know are important really are. So don’t forget to do the right thing. And for the rest: be human.

Some people seek to establish their assumptions as facts and resort to a telling off as a power move.

Changing habits and everyday ways of working shouldn’t be a CEO initiative. It's everyone’s job.

If you don’t like confrontation, get better at it. So you can at least only have it once and move on.

Hierarchy should be about an increasing level of complex accountability.

At the end of the day, you don’t know what will turn out to be the critical events in your life and career.

Your values and principles and convictions only matter when putting them to action is hard.

Prepare for your meetings, and make sure you and your team are fully aware of the red lines you won’t cross.

Hold onto the pain to remember to avoid it. That’s what learning looks like.

Yes yes yes: I wrote a book! It is written, ready, and will be in your hands in the next few weeks.

As we head into a tough year ahead, my friends, I have this wish: may all your problems be solvable.

When it comes to your convictions, you need the courage to stand up for the thing you know is right.

The future is here. And it’s on fire. Here's what I want you to do about it.

The minute you become aware of ‘better’ being possible, ‘good’ is no longer good enough.

Gaslighting is insidious. If you see it happening in your organisation, shine a light on it.

If your business survives, emerge from the storm and kick the tires. Learn from this.

Dark days lie ahead. Don’t forget that not everyone is warm and fed and safe.

It’s fitting that this year’s theme for Black History Month is “Time for change: actions not words”.

Always keep going. That’s the only way any of this work gets done.

Use this time, this space to learn and think. Use the rest of the year to act.

We all act normal a little bit more than is good for us. But there is no choice, it seems.

Hire designers because you have blind spots. We all do.

The thing about asking real questions is that you need to accept that they may lead to a change in plan.

Don’t assume there's a plan. You're much better off assuming the world is on fire.

In a world of options, if you don’t get onboarding right, you will never get to do the next part.

Digital banking is not about pretty graphics, but providing cheaper services, wider choice and more access.

If you mean well, do well. Let your actions speak to your motives.

You'll always need a little more tech than you needed yesterday, but at least you don’t need to build it all.

A good conversation is one that leads to an outcome that isn’t an identical conversation.

The single most valuable thing you can be is reliable.

The right time to act was in the past. But that doesn’t mean don’t act now. It means act doubly fast.

Championing diversity and inclusion should be everyone's responsibility.

If we all see that the game is broken, maybe it’s time we change the game.

Asking for help is the greatest proof that you will find your way, eventually.

Here are the three things, the only three things, you need as a decision-maker in life and business.

It doesn’t matter how big the job is, it matters how engaged you are.

Maybe, just maybe, there is a better way of doing what we all agree must be done.

You won’t get far by not making sacrifices. But you won't get far by making all the sacrifices either.

Innovation is a war of attrition, and that’s exhausting.

Now is the only time. And every time you say 'not now' you make everything that little bit harder for your future self.

All business, no matter how young or small, operates in context. So think it through.

You can keep your flaccid apologies to yourself. We need you to see the teachable moment. And grab it with both hands.

For the sake of your productivity and creativity, take time away from your desk. Do it regularly. Do it with intent.

What’s next, you ask? This. This is next. The doing. It takes a while, so it will be what’s next for a while.

Don't just avoid difficult conversations in the hope that something will change. Talk. Build trust.

Maybe you should take your team out of the office to do something small and impactful for a few hours.

When you ask me a question, help me pitch my answer at the right level. That's the point of communication.

Change the way you book revenue and you’ve transformed the way clients are treated forever.

Stand up for something. Stand for something. And tomorrow, do it again.

Give praise where it’s deserved. Give it publicly. Give it as often as it's earned. And don’t add conditions.

Alignment is an ongoing dialogue that continues long after you've left the meeting room.

I've recently had some trouble proving to my bank that I am, in fact, alive.

It's not 'doing the right thing' if you only do it occasionally. You need to maintain high standards every day.

No matter who you are or what you're trying to achieve, it helps to act with urgency, before it becomes urgent.

Digital transformation focuses where it’s high value, but most of banking happens by human intervention.

A new normal is inevitable, and we need to start thinking about what to do next.

Financial services exists to serve. And that means that when we are not of service, we are just in the way.

No matter how smart you are, you may be wrong. And having the conversation will always teach you something.

This year, we should have the courage to move away from what we’ve always known to really push what is possible.

Don't manage up. Don't treat your trench buddies like they're expendable. Be a good colleague at all times.

You shouldn't always accept the premise of a question. Especially if it’s evidently not itself premised on fact.

I was asked recently in an interview what I mean when I describe myself as an immigrant. Let's discuss.

If you think you can dictate timings for the business you are in, think again.

The deal is: you can moan and rant and vent as much as you want. Provided you do something next.

The world is not divided between those with self-doubt and self-assurance. But if it was, I would pick the doubters...

Numbers are always true. But they don’t always mean what you say they do.

Here’s a fun fact for you: no matter who you are, most of the world is not like you.

I'd love to see the excitement caused by BNPL stretch to areas where lending is desperately needed.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about programmable money. And this stuff scares me.

The future of money is the main discussion point at this year's Sibos conference.

If we're going to talk about inclusion, don’t talk to me about current accounts. Talk to me about money.

There should be parity in the workplace. But we are a long, long way from it.

It’s when you're not selling that your true colours as an organisation shine through.

As the debate around working from home unfolds, I will confess there are things that worry me.

Everyone wants to do the parts of their job they like and avoid the parts they don't like. But the job is the job.

When working on a large or complex project, you should look to break it up and take it one step at a time.

Knowing that your team will know the right thing when they see it is essential.

People join companies but leave managers. And that is a fact.

Accepting the premise of the question keeps things tidy, but life doesn't work that way.

Don’t tell me money is not a problem. It most definitely is a problem. It just isn’t the real problem. 

All banks are the same, but in profoundly different ways.

Imagining and creating things is hard, but you don’t have to do it all yourself.

Make sure you don’t write yourself out of your own story, as life happens.

Sometimes it’s important to remind people that if you don’t ask, you won’t get.

There are a few tools you can use to keep checking whether you’ve lost your way.

There are three types of bankers, but there is only one type you need.

We focus on reducing cost because that needs no creativity, no thought, no iteration.

We brought an elephant into the office and still some people didn’t notice. But we kept coming back.

Allow humans to be human and expect them to do the same for each other. And no, it’s not easy.

In life, love and business: give it your all, fight, compromise but, whatever you do, know what you are getting into.

A lot of businesses & software projects aim to be Disney princesses but end up as "a bit of a Frankenstein".

Is the time upon us to really address organisational dysfunction?

We live in highly diverse societies. We work in highly non-diverse industries.

In a global village filled with noise and people trying to get a free ride, the tribe is strong, vibrant, unaffected.

One of my favourite things to do is regularly assess whether we can cancel standing meetings.

Mind your step. See the line, don't cross it and remember not to start a fight you don't have a stomach for.

We need the obvious stated. A lot. And for many reasons.

Reshape procurement, the process, the risk matrix, the articulation of business value and your sordid office politics.

Context matters. Context is everything.

Despite all our need for uplifting messages and poetry, the reality is we need predictability.

Are the successful fintech entrepreneurs singing to themselves, "the odds are that we will probably be alright"?

Representation matters, for all of us. Represent what is possible, but above all, what is desirable.

How a company treats you through the recruitment process tells you everything you need to know about its culture.

Whatever your reasons for tolerating bad behaviour, that defines you. More than anything else.

Before obsessively pressing the send button: pause, rewind.

How about we choose a new normal, the one that fixes the fundamental ways of working, not just the tool we use.

This is the story of Benjy. It’s part comedy, part tragedy, part buddy movie.

Teamwork, trust, and support come from a place of pure emotion.

Perfect the art of incremental business improvements in the cheapest and most efficient ways, before the competition.

The story we try to reconstruct and the story we tell ourselves isn’t the full story.

It's impossible to give feedback that isn’t evaluative; and equally hard to give feedback that isn't prescriptive.

It's time to focus. If nothing else, think how fast the last few years have flown by.

The only new opportunity COVID gives us is to be honest about the opportunities we missed.

The pay-off in building a bank for the future vs the short-term gains of playing it safe is worth every single bite.

With remote working, productivity may be up. But what about creativity and serendipity?

What 15 years of digitisation & modernisation have gotten us from the consumer's point of view? It's not looking great.

We are trying to pay lip service to wholesale dramatic change but get away with cosmetic modifications.

If the art of the possible is being explored, the art of the valuable remains elusive.

I see growing companies. I see ambitious professionals. I see evolving stories.

It's time for the banks to work together to standardise their onboarding processes and documentation for fintechs.

"Where do I begin?" If you have ever asked me, you know my answer is always the same: in the middle.

Principles are the sort of substance that doesn't bend under pressure.

It’s time to pay it forward. To the next guy and gal.

Everyone will have a part to play, but the risk teams will set the tone for what comes next. 

If you are looking for principles to navigate unfinishneess by, ask "who".

When it comes to digital adoption, the regulator has been the biggest driver of change in the more mature markets.

Do everything in your power to minimise the avoidable mistakes and the impact of the less exciting omissions.

Having walked in each other's shoes you are both a little better at your job now.

Careers and lives barely work to plan. Even if you have one.

Optimism might get you out of your chair and striving for a better tomorrow, but it isn't optimism that gets you there.

This is the time to handle the pressure, not indulge in the stress.

Everything we do in business is in pursuit of relevance.

For the extroverts of all hues, ethnicities, sexualities, identities and faiths, check on your introverted friends.

If you want something done in a bank you don’t need friends in high places. You need friends in low places.

Why do all these dreamers and makers and poets work in banking transformation?

I don't know how to not care.

For our next go-round the sun let's cherish the things we have and work towards the things we miss.

Good advice is measured, informed & situation-specific. Our industry has thrived on producing generic postulations.

Choose to act towards the next chapter. Choose to live each day of "not normal" as if more than survival is at stake.

We don't do nearly enough. We can do better and we must do better and we WILL do better.

#LedaWrites has given me an expansive place where I could reflect, peel back and grow.

Giving the people who are building your future a reason to believe in you and your right for a future is survival.

How do we ensure we are in a better place to serve, deliver, survive in the next Black Swan event?

Amazing teams have teams that care. That's how leadership works. It's a team sport.

"Humans. So many good ideas. So many failed ideals."

Being advised to fail and do so at speed, as if that, somehow, was not a relative thing anyway.

Everything that goes wrong in a bank, big or small, gets put neatly away in the closet of shame.

For some, politics is about winning the battle. For others, it's wining the war.

No one person should be enough to make another worthy of a future they can't themselves lose sleep dreaming of.

Let's hear it for imbalance. Being on the back foot is when you can kick the hardest.

The soundtrack to the cycle of emotions from the day you get the job to the day you deliver results.

Building the future is not about what you know. It's about what you dare believe is possible.

The technology liberates us in the most terrifying way.

Everything that matters happens because of those who stick it through the Messy Middle.

There is nothing wrong with accelerating your career. But as always, the how matters.

If your "why" is simply "to make money", your proposition may carry all the cynicism of yesteryear.

AI prize: building a future-proof organisation with a right to not just survival but also success.

Gender doesn't make anyone a better hire. Women are there despite and in spite of it. And that matters.

Moving away from bad bosses is not good advice, it is essential advice.

This is what good looks like.

Learn, be excellent to each other and trust that the music will only get better if you practice. Starting today.

False dichotomies – either fighting them or succumbing to them to get things moving, things done, to get people on...

Welcome to the Great Disillusionment Swamp...

No more placebo slides, neatly organising an avalanche of creativity on a four by four.

Pause and give thanks for the life changing lessons.

You can't avoid the pain and discomfort of change no matter how many digital agencies you engage.

In the disruption era, disintermediation is the big boys' loss for sure, but not necessarily the disruptors' gain.

You can be anything. But it will get messy.

The truth is everything we do touches and by extension changes people's lives.

Be the person people will call to join on their journey.

What’s diversity good for? Everything.

You've been warned.

The systems we laboured over will be grandfathered and stuff we don't understand will become important. Accept it.

Start with deciding what is core and what is key to delivery, survival and business viability.

Cold calling - the biggest challenge to the promise of the digital future we all strive for?

Taking someone for granted is the highest degree of trust.

Diversity of all kinds is good for business. It is also good for the soul.

I make mistakes, I don't know better, it's a thing. It's a superpower.

When interviewing, ask people about your version of the ocean, not just ship-building.

Better is possible. Better is needed. Better is now both a business decision and a moral imperative.

The helplessness. The fear. The rage. And the shame.

It is time we gave some respect back to the drops that make the ocean.

It's a terrible thing to be put in a position where you cannot improve your own performance.

So I had to go to the bank today. And the day's surprises began.

It's not practicality that makes banking in a foreign country hard. It's bankers.

Don't be afraid to declare time of death when it is true: it is not an admission of defeat.

Those "big block of cheese" meetings...

Over the years, I have left radically different people mildly confused by asking them how I can help them.

If you don't want your organisation to be plagued by self-fulfilling prophecies, don't create them.

Your business, whatever it is, is consumed and paid for by humans. Staffed and delivered by humans.

We don't directly do good in our fintech-verse, but we push the world towards something better.

A radically different way of establishing authority, managing organisations and measuring success is needed.

An industry asking itself the same questions for ten years despite having the answers is an ailing one.

It is now possible for us to be digital all the way down.

But unlearning is the only path to survival. Even if you can't learn to like that, you learn to value it.

By the time we get to the emerald city, the biggest change will have been on us: our people, not our infrastructure.

There is comfort in keeping with the pack, but it may be time to go your own way.

Every incremental triumph you celebrate in the office, is a moment of weirdness for the client.

A new kind of banker is emerging. Less arrogant. Less entitled. More ethical and informed, tech savvy and less greedy.

Experience means you no longer have excuses for not doing the things you know need doing.

What if, by treating the core capabilities as utilities we could totally change the game?

Find your legacy. Find your own flavour of useful. Dust it off. And make it better.

The intent is revolutionary. The path is non linear.

But if you try sometimes, you find, you get what you need. And need is bigger than want.

Giving constructive, actionable feedback is not easy. But man oh man is it essential.

I have been both a witness to and a participant in a conversation about something going wrong.

Things don't need you to believe in them to be true or come to pass.

Temptation to depart from all that holds you hostage, that mutes your melodies and dulls your colours.

Hold yourself accountable on the choices you make and how you follow them up once you have made them.

Good UX is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it ain’t that good.

Can you tell which bit of generalities "we have data, customers and scale" actually holds value for the future?

Find what your executives care about and centre your design around them so they can go off and do their job.

Imagine how much an innovation team would achieve if they also had your help.

What if my starting point was not my desk?

It's only when you do things again and again that trust renews itself. And a narrative builds.

Your user centric design goes out the window unless the entire money cycle moves in tandem.

Your gut points you a certain way; your heart decides; then your head wraps some logic around it.

Technology without heart will take you nowhere, in the slowest and most expensive way possible.

There are three types of meetings in the world.

Stay focused on the business and don't become too attached to the wallpaper.

We lament "legacy", we talk about it, we blame it. But we rarely define it because we have no intention of tackling it.

Find the price you are not willing to pay. And don't pay it.

Your legacy should be an infrastructure to suit your appetite, not ambitions cut to the size of dated tech limitations.

Who the hell are these millennials who need help saving $50 per month?

Conversation is an art that takes practice, commitment and presence – it's like learning to dance.

Our job is to persuade organisations to let go of their old bicycle.

Bankers, use the skills you have to continue the journey and give customers something meaningful.

The most heartbreaking thing is our institutional inability to learn from what we learn.

Stay teachable. And in doing so stay humble.

Cross fences, walk on the grass till you find your tribe.

Ecosystems are buzzing living things for those who are part of them.

The reality of corporate innovation is that experimentation is encouraged on condition of infallibility.

Spend time finding the right time to bring the cynics and the pessimists onto your journey.

I want to tell you all about my day.

Maybe it’s time for the ultimate pivot.

The most meaningfully transformative thing I have seen in my life so far.

The do's and don'ts of selling to a bank.

It is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

Three tricks to make the industry veterans smile and give the youngsters a three-second head start.

Choosing to stay the course even when it’s not nice or easy, matters.

Banking is a tech business.

We use time as a yardstick. And yet we don't seem to value it.

Sponsorship is a double edged sword.

If decision makers want to learn, they should put in the effort. Or pass the controls to people who do.

Your influence is always, always a ticket to the ball where you will find like minded folks.

It's not about women or money. It's about what hiring and rewarding with integrity does for your business.

Here we are, talking about decentralised centralised networks. Madness?

The digital era is here and, with it, a generation that champions creative forces and conversational integrity.