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hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of On

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My Own Terms podcast. Today I'll be

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sharing with you three lessons that I learned during

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my time working at lada.

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So for those of you who are not familiar with Ladada,

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ladada is one of the largest e-commerce

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operators in Service Asia. They currently

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operate in six countries, Singapore,

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Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines,

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Thailand, and Vietnam. They

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were founded in 2012 and they've come a

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long way since then. So

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some contacts and background.

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My tenure in la. spans

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from November, 2019 to

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January, 2022, a

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little over two years. It is

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my opinion that e-commerce is a fast moving industry

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further as accelerated by factors like

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Covid 19 and the competitors'

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movements and the time that I was at the company.

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I had two separate roles within my tenure.

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Number one was, uh, merchant

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acquisition for Lamore, which is a channel

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within lada. And my second

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role was, uh, business development

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for Lazada omnichannel Solutions.

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Now, details of, uh, what I did within

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this tenure are for the two roles

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are all on my LinkedIn profile. Internally

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I work with local and regional teams and

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across functions like customer care, product

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and tech teams. And,

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uh, maybe one last, uh, context

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that's important is that more than 60%

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of my total tenure was working

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from home. Finally, uh,

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contacts, past experiences, organization,

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culture, and individual preferences matter.

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So Y M M

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V, which stands for your knowledge,

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may vary. So

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Lesson number one, document

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and share your work. This is something that I picked

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up from a line manager in the Shotton

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that he spent with the team. I was

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blown away when you shared entire BRDs,

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which stands for Business Requirements

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document on Internal Drive.

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What was even mind blowing was

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the level of details and

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rationale behind product and business proposals

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shared in the documents. I learned a lot

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just by reading them and beyond this, it also

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brings everyone up to speed and

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it forms the basis for discussion and meeting. and

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it's my view that only by documenting

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and sharing openly, you capture

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collective wisdom and allow everyone,

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which includes existing and future team members

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to collaborate and be on it so

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people don't have to start from scratch all over

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again. In fact, I argue that it

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is only right for employees

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to document and share their work as this

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is the company's intellectual property.

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Beyond big, heavy project documents like

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BRDs. I also advocate individuals

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and teams documenting and sharing. The

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below items. So for example,

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um, individual's role and responsibilities.

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This is, uh, especially recommended

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for new joiners. Uh, who should

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the new joiners share this with? With the team

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leader within the team? Why?

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So that everyone in the team is very clear about what

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you are doing. What are your focus

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where responsibilities. Another

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item is your key weekly activities,

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challenges, and focus for following week. I

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recommend everyone to do this, and

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you should share this with your team lead and within

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the team members. And

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third item, uh, achievements and milestones.

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Um, I believe everyone should. Of

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the things I've shared so far, and also

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to share this with your team lead, I think this is

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important, um, especially for probation

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assessment, performance assessment, quarterly

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and periodic check-ins. With

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your team lead. Now

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I understand while it can be hassled to be

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documenting this regularly, but

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I believe the pros far outweigh

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the cons. For the below reasons,

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number one is transparency. Um,

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when you document and you share this

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internally, everyone knows what everyone

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else is working on. This helps team member

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build collective knowledge and gather contexts.

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Second reason, efficiency. When you

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do this, it's gonna be easy to share

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knowledge with external teams and onboard

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new team members. And reason

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number three for continuity. When

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you do this, when you share all these documents internally,

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knowledge is retained even when team members

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leave or on or on leave. So

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therefore, this gives you less

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likelihood for you to be disturbed by your colleagues

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when you're on leave. Hi, hope you're

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enjoying the episode so far. I'm interrupting my

4:31

own episode to tell you that this podcast has

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launched a newsletter. If you'd like to receive

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bonus content from this podcast and topics

4:37

on career change and growth, consider

4:40

subscribing to our email newsletter. Link

4:43

is in the episode description now,

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back to the episode. Now,

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lesson number two. I've

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learned that leaders come in different forms,

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or in other words, I have broadened my definition

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of a leader. Now,

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let me explain. Not every leader needs to be

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an inspirational visionary. One to deliver

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or get the most out of a performing team.

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I've always held that leaders need to be of

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a certain type. For example, dynamic,

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charismatic, visionary, inspirational

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in order to be qualified. With

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air quotes and effective, I'm

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glad I come across leaders at Lazada

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who showed me otherwise. For example, I

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will be the first to admit that I've always doubted

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the administrator type, right?

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Uh, meaning these are the leaders that are

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acquired. Uh, ordinary

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once again with quotes. Um, behind

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the scenes, again with quotes, almost

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kind of like a postman whose

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main contribution is simply to pass messages

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from person A to person B and vice

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versa. But now in

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a fast moving industry and

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company like Lazada, in the e-commerce industry,

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the administrator kind

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of leader provides stability,

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tenure connections.

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and relationships to help his team get things done,

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and this is very valuable. I've

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also observed one trait of leaders of well

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performing teams. That is the leader's

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ability to hire well. Um,

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and I define that as having a judgment for people

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with delicate balance of skills, attitude,

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and potential. and also

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being a great compliment to the existing team.

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I noticed while performing teams tend to be the

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ones with great team vibes and culture,

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I believe this text experience skills

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and maybe a bit of luck to hire

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well and be, uh, dynamic team

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culture. Which leads me

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to lesson number. I

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have learned to lead a Lazada.

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I'm thankful for the opportunity to hire

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and lead a small team of three business development

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executives during my time there. It

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was a little daunting for me when I first joined

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and onboarded Lazada and e-commerce in general,

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so I wanted to pay it forward by Firstt

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a group. Start to the careers at ladada

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and e-commerce or tech in general. As

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you can imagine, I implemented lesson number

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one, which is document and share your work

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within the team. Beyond that

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below, list some key principles

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I communicated and practiced within the team.

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number one, transparency. Again,

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go back to lesson number one, document

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and share work. And

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second key principle I shared within the team

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is that I identify and communicate

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the destination that is KPIs

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or key performance indicators. And

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I let the team members figure out how they

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could get to the destination and

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I tell them, I'm happy

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to provide guidance and share my relevant experience,

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but I will not detect the

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exact path to the destination for the following

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reasons. Number

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one, figur out paths encourages

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ownership of one's own work, and

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allows growth and challenging status quo.

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these two things are much needed in fast

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moving sectors. And second

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reason is that my path may be outdated.

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It may not be the best, relevant or applicable

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for everyone. So even if I share

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what I've done, it may not be the best in

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this current time to solve this particular problem.

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And it may not be best executed by the team members

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that I have in my team. Uh,

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um, the key principle that

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I communicated with my team members, if

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in. make mistakes

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on the side of Overcommunication, and

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this is especially true and valuable in

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those who work from home days and

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doing work from home days. It's always about

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zoom or uh, web

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communication or web calls. We

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there, there is no water cooler chats, there's

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no lunch breaks that we can talk and, and

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explain context. So

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therefore, if in doubt, always over

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communi. Now,

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key principle number four that I always

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communicated within my team members

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is that take care of ourselves. Health

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and family always

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come first. Only

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when you take care of your health and

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family, then you can

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be in the right condition to take care of the business.

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So some of the things that I did advocate

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and emphasize during my time as a lead in Lazada

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is that, um, number one, I had

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two sessions of one-on-one, uh,

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30 minutes each with each team member

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weekly. This was especially crucial

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when they first onboarded with the team. I

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also got a team to attend regional meetings with

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the C-Suites participating in. Third

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thing that I did advocate and emphasize

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was the importance of building relationships

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with other teams and managing the

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internal stakeholders in order to do their work

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well. Fourth

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thing, I encourage the team members

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to speak up at external meetings with

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other stakeholders and also to show their work.

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It's one thing to do your work, but it's also another

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thing and another skill to

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show your work. And when you show

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your work, don't get me wrong, it's not

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to show off, is not

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to flex, but it's

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more. Letting people

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know, even internal stakeholders what

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you are doing so that they can ask the right

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questions. You can set the right context

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so that they can can do their job well,

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so that they know who to go to. When

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they face a similar problem down the road. Now,

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having said all that on my tenure,

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which is about around four months as a

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people lead, wasn't constant long.

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I cherished the journey and the time span

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with the team. Summing up. I

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couldn't be more thankful for my time. The

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opportunities I had and the relationships

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I fought at Ladada, the

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timing of my tenure at Ladada couldn't have been

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more opportune and important. There

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are obviously more takeaways and lessons in a tree

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that I mentioned here. I

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sincerely wish Lazada the best, and

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I look for the great initiatives and proof of Lazada.

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If you're enjoying this podcast so far, Kylie

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do us a big favor by subscribing

11:08

and falling apart because wherever you're listening or

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watching this from Connie rate

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reveal and chat as podcasts, if you

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felt any of the episodes helpful. Lastly,

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I invite you to share with us

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your comments and feedback on this podcast.

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Let us know how we can do better. You

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can direct message me on LinkedIn. My profile

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is John Lim, C Y or

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email John Lim, C y@gmail.com.

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I will read and reply every one

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of your emails till then speak

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soon.