Inspired by our recent WZ Book Club book ‘The Big Leap’ this Q&A series explores the individual ‘Zone of Genius’ for each of our team members. Next to explore their Zone of Genius is our Operations and Customer Manager, Abi Millar.
What would you say is your Zone of Genius?
It’s my fearless learning – any new learning, especially new roles, new systems and technologies. I’ve always been someone who is happy to put my hand up to investigate how to use new systems or new additions to systems. I say fearless because that’s the feedback I’ve had, that I learn without the restraints of thinking “can I do this?” or “what if I’m not good enough.” I get lost in the work of building new parts to systems or learning a totally new one to help my team. I love to see how new systems or technologies can make processes work better for people – I put myself in the shoes of the users and think; does it give them what they need? Is it too complicated? What can I do to make it easier? That’s why I know that this is my Zone of Genius – because I love to do it and it’s something that excites me.
When did you notice that this is your Zone of Genius?
At the beginning of my career, when I was working at a bank, they’d look for people to test new systems and the only person who would put their hand up to learn them would be me! It became quite clear that it was something unique to me. It’s why I now look after customers, following processes is like second nature for me to ensure they have the best experience.
Is your Zone of Genius something you have developed over time across your career or something you have always done?
It’s something I’ve always done. In my first job, I moved around several different departments – accounts and payments, customer service, sales and finance – quite happily because it helped me gain an understanding of how everything worked. The reason why I wanted to learn all of those new things was because it gave me more of an understanding of how the business worked as a whole. There were people who were happy to never leave their department but I found it really interesting to learn! I was the one asking my boss to learn the new systems or try the new processes – to the point that even senior managers would find me at year-end to ask for my help because I had learnt a system that no one else was willing to.
What would you say is your Zone of Excellence?
My nickname in my first corporate job was ‘Ops girl’ so it’s got to be Operations – invoices, receipts, those kinds of things. Give me Ops processes all day long, I can do those with my eyes shut. I like it because it feels easy, not something I have to think about. I can put a podcast on in the background and smash them out.
To conclude, what are your top tips for fearlessly learning new systems and making them work for you?
- Be excited to be a beginner – Everybody starts somewhere, let yourself be a beginner and give things a try to the best of your ability. I often remind myself ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ It helps me push through any fear that it might not work, to learn with an open mind and not with pre-existing expectations of how something ‘should’ work.
- Not all systems are created equal – so expect the unexpected! Even if systems are created for the same purpose, they can be very different depending on who developed them – someone who’s numerical, or creative, or a very technically-focused developer. When moving to a new system I always start with ‘What are the outcomes we need to create? What do the reports need to tell us?’ How we achieve them might be very different in the new system than the old one because of how it’s designed, and that’s why it’s so important to have an open mind.
- Not everyone will get it – You’re never going to get 100% of people onboard with a new system right away. A small percentage will always struggle to get it, because every user is different. That’s ok, no one system can ever be designed for every user. But if you spend a little time one to one with those users, when they need to do something specific at the moment they need to do it, you can build their muscle memory to be able to use it themselves.
