The Water We Swim In: Thriving in Culture Change

For quite some time now, the money management industry has been consolidating. For many who have loved their craft, their team, and their role, the sudden external pressure might bring with it opportunity, but also uncertainty and tension. Even if your firm isn’t going through some kind of major event, there are likely many medium-sized iterations and changes reacting to the changes of others, or new regulations, or new “shake-ups of management”. These things happen all of the time.  Many of you who have gone or are going through it are in fact leaders in your firms or divisions and feel a responsibility to everyone you work with, down to every single last employee of the firm and every single last client. This care and a strong sense of responsibility is sometimes matched with the powerlessness of consolidating forces that knock on the door to adjust not only headcount (up or down!) but expectations, norms, and culture. 

We’ve all been through versions of this in our careers. As I sit outside and in between firms now, a few observations have come up that may help in terms of culture, collaboration, and centering yourself as you are working to understand and lead through these seemingly invisible forces. When culture, status, team dynamic, and outside pressures change, we can’t see them, but we do feel them. 

If you’ve lasted this long in your career, chances are, there’s a lot you believe is worth keeping and a fair amount that you understand is ripe for change, so how you spend your energy is important, and will help determine the outcome. When you’re in the thick of it, here are three questions that might provide some organization to your thoughts, clear out the unproductive stuff, and thrive even during a period of constant uncertainty and change in our industry. 

What is it that you lament? 

In other words, what are you ruminating over that you believe will be lost, that will change, that will be missed? These are not complaints but are the unseen elements of your job, your team, your company’s brand, whatever it may be, that you have a sinking feeling might have just disappeared. Well, maybe they have, or maybe they haven’t, but writing down the things you think you have lost or might be losing helps you get clear. Then, every few weeks or so, take a look at this list and see if they still matter to you. Sometimes, fear attracts fear, uncertainty attracts uncertainty, and in the midst of the more major parts of the change, we see so much that is exciting, and so much that is ruined. Make sure that if you think something is ruined, you actually think it’s worthwhile to care about and therefore weigh on you. You might decide you want to be picky about what weighs on you. 

Do you know what water you’re swimming in? 

There’s a helpful story about two fish in a fishbowl. One passes by the other and says “how’s the water today Frank?” The other fish looks surprised and says, “What water?!”

The idea here is to put some detail around the “water you’re swimming in”, and the best time to do this is when someone outside of your fishbowl has decided to clean the water, so to speak. If you’re still going to be in the same fishbowl, and aren’t going to make a change like leaving the firm, can you describe the business you are in, its new leaders, and why they are consolidating your firm? (as just one scenario). You may be doing this at the macro-level as an executive, or a more micro level, if just your team is changing. 

By describing the “water”, you are detailing the system you exist in. It isn’t tangible, it’s purely abstract. It exists in behaviors, motivations, and actions more than any words that will come out of the mouth of HR and PR folks. It’s not good or bad, it just is.

Now that you can describe more about the system you are now a part of, do you know what it wants?

This is about the power of clarity and truth-telling. I find it is better to know and understand the system you are in, say, capitalism, patriarchy, Big Agriculture, the public schools, whatever it may be, and look at all the motivations that those systems run on. This way you increase your chances that you won’t end up confused about what everyone is going after, why they are going after it, and how they might do it. Anxiety fills the vacuum when goals, motivations, and culture aren’t understood. Clarity on what “is” will help, even if you don’t like it at all. (It may go without saying that I’ve never “liked” patriarchy, but the more I understand how it operates, without freaking out about my judgments about it, the easier it is to have a chance at routing around it). So many of us stop at the judgment when judgment is really like some bottomless pit between the change occurring and helpful action and ways of being on the other side.

The interesting thing here is that the “system” is not necessarily good or bad. Besides, it is not worth getting caught up in the good or bad until you’re in a better position to know if you have any power to adjust or change it! For now, you’re just trying to understand what the system “runs on” so to speak: A distinct focus on profits? Great. An elite reputation to uphold? Ok. A David vs. Goliath/chip on the shoulder mentality as the company aims to grow? Let’s do it. Growth at all costs? Ok, at least I know what they’re thinking. 

There are so many motivations underneath the spoken mission statements and formal communications. The more we can figure out what motivates the system, the more empowered we are. You’ll understand where your time and energy will be wasted or made whole. After that, I think you’ll know what to do.

“I think the best is yet to come, so drink up, and good luck.”  — AJR