Ekaterina (00:00:02) - A leader is balancing, you know, smart and humility and being able to allow yourself the ability to grow and also lead by example for your team so they know that errors are part of learning. Mistakes come. And in fact, if you haven't made big mistakes, if you haven't had big problems, that's because you've played it too safe and you haven't actually really stretched yourself or your team or your company.

Ariana (00:00:31) - Welcome to Secret Ops, the podcast uncovering the world of operations, one episode at a time. I'm your host, Arianna Cofone, and today's guest is Ekaterina Curry, Managing Director and Head of Operations at Millennial Specialty Insurance. Now we are in for a treat because Ekaterina or Katie is a seasoned global operations leader. She has led people at the same time from over 22 countries. Hundreds of team members to build and scale operations across businesses. Not only that, which is incredibly impressive, she's also insanely humble and gives the best advice on how to think about operations through your own lens. I'm telling you, I wanted to get out a notebook and write notes on this one, and I think you will too.

Ariana (00:01:22) - Let's jump in. Katie, I'm so excited to have you on Secret Ops. We had our intro call. So many themes came up that I was excited to chat about, but I also think that people are going to just learn a ton from your experience. So let's start with how you got to where you are today. Where did your journey start and how did you get into operations?

Ekaterina (00:01:43) - Ariana, thank you for having me. Delighted to be part of your podcast and happy to talk about my journey into operations. First, I'll give you a little intro into my personal life journey so I can give some context into how I got into operations. So I grew up in Bulgaria during communism. When I saw the economy almost collapse, I saw hyperinflation, I saw companies struggling, and I was asking myself questions of why is this happening and what can you do to prevent these types of problems? So with that in mind, I came to the US. I had just turned 18. I came with a suitcase and a dream to get myself educated and to learn how to solve some of these major problems in life and in society.

Ekaterina (00:02:26) - My first role out of college was with Citibank, and I actually did work in operations there, and I work with Eastern European financial institutions because I am Eastern European. And I spoke some of the languages and I learned a lot there. One of my biggest lessons there was being directly in touch with the client, understanding what they value, and really putting the client view and the client perspective at the center of your product, and also with the center of your process and in the center of your technology. So I spent a few years working there.

Ariana (00:03:08) - That’s a lot! That's a big lesson. That's a big lesson. And I would say just honestly one that I think I learned later, I was customer service facing initially with operations. So I always know “the customer's always right”. Debatable, debatable. But thinking about the client, thinking about your user, thinking through that lens to build an operation that came much later for me. What made you put those pieces together in that role? How did you kind of thread all of that together in that time?

Ekaterina (00:03:41) - I think what I saw is that if the three pieces of process, technology and people were not aligned with the same clear goal and the same definition of success, there was too much distraction and there was too much noise in the system. You were really not able to achieve the goal and the KPI as smoothly with as little friction and for as little cost. And so I think for me, because I was client facing as well in my first role, I saw, well, “I know what the client wants”, but if I'm not able to bring it in, translate it for the technology team, or if my process doesn't correspond, then it's not built with the user or the client in mind. I am not able to effectively and efficiently deliver for them. So I think it was just really an observation, because I spend a lot of my time talking to clients on a daily basis.

Ariana (00:04:49) - It also seems like something if we go back to the very interesting start of your story in Bulgaria. How long did you, I guess, the effects of communism, what did that look like, and what did you observe during that time? Because you clearly are quite the observer. So what did you learn during that time, and how do you think that applied early in your career?

Ekaterina (00:05:11) - Well, I learned a lot about change because that was a drastic and abrupt, in some ways, change. And I was in my teen years, so I was still growing up and learning. And I think one of my biggest lessons from that time is that change comes suddenly or it can come suddenly. Of course, change can be very challenging for people and for companies and for countries, but with change comes opportunity. And so I think what one of my biggest lessons and I've learned to carry that when I've changed roles and I've changed industries and you know, I've moved and just, you know, had changes in my personal life is that thinking about “what am I going to learn from this?” And at the end of this change journey, where do I want to be? Sometimes that, you know, I ask myself that in my operations team we are going through Covid, for example. We have to adjust.

Ariana (00:06:23) - That's immediately what I thought about. That's immediately what I thought about.

Ekaterina (00:06:29) - Exactly. Right. So one is what am I going to learn as a leader? How am I going to adjust what I do and how I lead? What does my team need to learn and how do we need to adapt and be flexible? And three, is there something in the rest of our process or technology or product, or our interaction with clients that needs to be adjusted? So while we all as humans think, you know, we are somewhat resistant to change, and change is not easy. I have found that thinking about asking myself those two questions, “what do I want to learn from this change?” And two, “where do I want to be when this part of my chapter or my journey or my team's transformation is over? Where do I want to be?” I found that those two really help me navigate change.

Ariana (00:07:23) - I feel like I need to bring out my notebook, start writing some of these things for myself because. It's funny, it is hard in the moment of change. Or if we are bringing back the lessons you learn about being client facing. It's really hard in those moments of change or when you're having a client issue to see the lesson on the other side, or figure out what you're hoping to learn in that. But if you're able to kind of zoom out, it also lessens the emotional stress of it a bit, because I assume that a lot of it is.

Ariana (00:07:54) - How do I also not completely get wiped out by this change, or completely wiped out by this interaction?

Ekaterina (00:08:00) - Yeah, I think that part of it is also how do I manage my emotions through this major change, whether it's, you know, the country that's changing and, you know, going through challenges or maybe you're in a crisis at work, you're working on a project that's failing or, you know, you're working with a client that's leaving, I think, and not only I think, but I know that understanding yourself in your emotions has drastic impact. And as the leader, I tell my leaders, one of the biggest things that you can do for your team is to be able to reflect, bubble up, think about the big picture, come down, bring a little bit of perspective, and bring a little bit of calm to your team so that when you are maybe in a Covid situation or maybe you're in a really rapid exponential growth situation, you're able to kind of go up and then come back to, “now how do I solve this problem today?” Otherwise, I see so many ops leaders that are very deep into the tactical details of day to day, and it's very challenging to find time for reflection and t's challenging to find time to actually think about “why am I doing this, where do I want to be and how how can I lead my team there?” So think this balance between bubbling and tactical and coming again for strategic. It's an art and it's a science. And I don't think that I necessarily get it right, but I really try.

Ariana (00:09:47) - Totally. And having that reflection is half the battle. Right? I mean, think back to early in my career and I was probably a hot mess. I took things way too seriously that I should have let go. I should have gone high when I went low. I should have gone low level when I went high level. These are all things that you learn along the way, and you know, you learn them on such an intimate level from your growing up in Bulgaria to your early years and your career learning all those lessons. So from those early years, how did you proceed forward in your career? How did you end up being this operator today?

Ekaterina (00:10:16) - Yes, so I spent a few years at Citibank and I loved it, and I learned so much.

Ekaterina (00:10:21) - And then I decided to go to graduate school and I said, well, I'm going to go to graduate school at night because I just want to, you know, keep working and, you know, then go to school at night. And I tried it for one semester, and I really did not enjoy the experience. I thought, “I'm not benefiting. I don't have enough time to meet all the people to learn from their experience. All I'm doing is working all day, getting to school, being in class and, you know, then doing my homework.” And this is no, you know, no way to live that wasn't the experience I was looking for from grad school. So then I decided. To go to graduate school at NYU and NYU gave me a scholarship, and I'm a Bulgarian immigrant. So I said, of course I'm going to take the scholarship. But I also got accepted to Yale, and I said, I'm just going to go for one weekend just to see what I would be missing. And I went for that one weekend to tour the school and meet some of the students, and I loved it so much that I said “this is the place for me. I want to come. I want to meet these people. I want to learn from these professors.” I had a really great experience, made some great friends, learned a lot. I struggled a lot. It was very hard. I was below the mean in many classes, but it was a great experience and when I graduated, I took a role, another role in financial services, and that was a specialized credit analyst role in a large credit rating business. So that was a role to help me learn about financial markets and to really give me a deep understanding of the ecosystem and financial services. I did that for a while. I led some teams, I had some success there, and then I had an opportunity to take an operations role. But knowing that I had not studied operations, I had not been an operator and I had not I didn't really know the tools, the operational tools that well.

Ekaterina (00:12:30) - But what I did know is I knew the market very well. I knew the clients and I knew what was needed. And I recognized. And one of the big reasons why I took an operations leader role is because I knew in operations there is a lot of trapped value. These are engine room teams with a lot of young people with a lot of talent. And I, I said, “I know how to get that value out of this team and emerge it and bring it to life for the company and for the clients”.

Ariana (00:13:06) - So about the trapped value, absolutely! I feel that so many rockstars end up in operations because they are just solving problems until they realize that the common theme of solving all those problems is actually being in operations. So you end up with these amazing people that don't really understand what it is, because they sort of ended up there by accident. I mean, I'm definitely one of those people too. I guess this gets into…because I really want to jump into people process technology, but this is extra important because of what you do in your day to day life. Do you mind breaking down where you are today in your career, and what your day looks like as an operations leader from a global standpoint?

Ekaterina (00:13:47) - Yes. So today I'm very fortunate to lead three teams. I have a global operations team in a growing insurance company. I also lead a quality and process improvement team, which we just stood it up. It took me three months and three days to get this team hired and off the ground, thanks to the great leaders we have. And then I have a team of insurance agents that sell insurance. So three, three very interesting teams. And because I switched industries and, you know, in the past I was an outsider into operations. And then I was a bit of an outsider to my industry. I have found that that is a really interesting perspective. And one piece of advice I have for the listeners is don't be afraid to explore and go a little bit outside of your comfort zone, whether it's in your function or whether it's in the industry, or whether it's in the size and the geography of the team.

Ekaterina (00:14:52) - I think coming with an external perspective, especially for operations teams, adds a lot of value because a lot of the operators, like we said, can be very tactical and they're used to doing things a certain way. And because unfortunately, ops teams are catch-all teams, and when nobody else has a process or a solution, they raise their hand, they take the problem, they do their best to solve it. They incorporate it in their workflow. So now with that in mind, the question you really ask me, Ariana, is, you know, what does my day look like? It's quite interesting because I'm working with three different teams, and I'm in a wonderful company that's growing very fast. And so, you know, technology talks about building and kind of fixing bugs. So that balance I think in operations we talk about running the business and transforming the business. And that's how I spend my time. There's emergencies and there are things that need to be taken care of that are immediate. But what I really love doing. Is spending time on the more strategic projects that will help us get to where we need to be in 12 months, 18 months, 24 months and further.

Ariana (00:16:13) - That's a good way to articulate that. Running and transforming. Do you have a particular ratio? Just like if you were to average it out on a month basis, what percent do you think is running versus transforming at this stage.

Ekaterina (00:16:28) - At this stage? So when I started, you know, my role, I would say that 80% of my work was running the business because, you know, it required a lot of time and effort. But I think with any operations leader, if you're not moving towards transformation and you're not shifting that percentage, you're playing too small and you're actually not realizing the long term opportunities. So right now my time is about 50/50 and my ultimate goal….and I think this should be the goal for most operations leaders is to come in, put your feet on your desk, look at all of your awesome dashboards, eat pizza and see where the problems are, and then just go and solve those problems and think about long term. What are we not doing today that we should be doing for our clients, for our business, for our industry?

Ariana (00:17:27) - I love that vision. Also, we definitely need a cartoon of that operator that's like who I want to be when I grow up.

Ekaterina (00:17:34) - That's how I imagine, and I talked to my teams about that often, is if we've done our job well, the operations leaders would would be able to come in, put their feet up, look at their real time dashboards with their goals and their KPIs and their OKRs and the bottlenecks and the problems, and just zoom in to solve the problem and in the meantime, eat pizza and think, think long term.

Ariana (00:18:01) - Absolutely. I would get a slice of white just for reference. Don't know what your pizza of choice is. And there's also, you know, I tell people which is a joke, but it's kind of not a joke, which is if I do my job right, I'll automate myself out of a job. Like that's the goal here, is that we set up a structure of how things are run where I don't need to be there. I'm obviously there in any sort of emergency situation or strategic need, but on the day to day we're not just always putting out fires. That is the goal. And I will say, what you brought up really made me think of…sometimes I get asked, “what's the difference between an operator and an operations leader?” And I think that percentage of being able to think and do things strategically versus just doing things and running the business, that's the shift that I had to kind of figure out over time, which was really hard for me. Was that hard for you? I struggled.

Ekaterina (00:18:56) - It's very hard for me and I think it changes as well, because sometimes you have a crisis and you are just all hands on deck and you have to solve the problem. But I think the difference between being a manager and being a leader is exactly the ability to think, not just what needs to be done today, this week, this month. But what should we be doing? What is the competitor doing? What are best practices in the industry, or what are best practices across different industries that I should be learning, borrowing and bringing to my, you know, to my day to day working team.

Ekaterina (00:19:38) - And I think that's true for leadership more broadly. But I think specifically, operations leaders have the privilege and the responsibility to do more of that because they are the teams at the center of many companies. They're the engine room teams. They're the catch-all teams. They see the process, they see the problems, and they have the KPIs that are buried, typically in the workflow that tell really powerful stories that nobody else in the company actually sees and knows.

Ariana (00:20:11) - Totally. But then when it's not there, you have an “oh shit” moment. That's what I've learned is some businesses that I worked for, the operations teams that once existed due to, you know, cutting funding no longer exist. And things are falling through. And even though they're not seeing it, it is almost a house of cards. If you don't have that backbone. Which is a weird thing to try and describe to people and hard to point out.

Ekaterina (00:20:36) - But, you know, one thing that I have found is because operations teams, you know, in some companies, they're seen as cost centers. And you know that if the business is not doing well, they could be impacted by that. I have found that it's ops leaders…we have, I call them juicy insights. There were sides about our process and our systems and our clients and also our people and colleagues and employees. And those are buried in different parts of the process, in the cycle, in the processing work that we do. And when we emerge them and extract them. One, is they are valuable for clients because clients want to know a lot of these two, senior C-suite leaders want to know a lot of these juicy KPIs or metrics. And three, some companies and I've seen that successfully done…they take these and they are able to repackage them and they create business analytics products that then they sell. And they actually, you know, bring revenues from these exhaust pipe data and analytics and KPIs that are buried with the operations teams. So I think you have to think differently as an ops leader, not, you know, not just in the immediate and in the crisis.

Ariana (00:22:03) - Yeah. And that takes time. And it takes time to adjust, especially when I'm a doer. I love to lead by example. It sounds like you're that way too. It's hard because you can't always lead everything by example. And that's why you have an amazing team to do the work and to help you see the things that you eventually have to pull yourself out of. Which gets me into the trifecta. And I'm excited because I feel like I'm going to learn a ton from your pro tips. So the trifecta of operations, the best way I've defined it is people, process, and technology in harmony. And over the years that you have worked as an operations leader, I don't know. Pick your poison. People, process technology. What is a tip that you have for each of those? You you start it. Which one comes to the front the quickest?

Ekaterina (00:22:45) - Okay. So I'll start with people because I care very deeply about my teams. And I feel like when you empower your people, they do magic. The biggest lesson for me was around the growth mindset and I know we talk about it and companies preach about it and talk about it but. In reality, when everyone on your team knows that they can make a mistake. We do have some tolerance for errors, and what we really praise is progress and continuous improvement. The cumulative effect of this, both the mindset as well as the application, delivers really strong results. And so you know I love the book “Humility is the new smart.” Oh maybe we can link it in the show notes. As a leader balancing, you know, smart and humility and being able to allow yourself the the ability to grow and also lead by example for your team so they know that errors are a part of learning. Mistakes come and in fact, if you haven't made big mistakes, if you haven't had big problems, that's because you've played it too safe and you haven't actually really stretched yourself or your team or your company.

Ariana (00:24:19) - What do you think are some on-the-ground ways to encourage being open about failures or things that you've done incorrectly? I have had a Friday meeting where we just sort of like to unpack the week and we all sort of share a moment where we fell on our face a little bit, and that seemed to not only be really cathartic, but also hilarious and good for morale. What are some things that are some tips that you've learned and how to foster that?

Ekaterina (00:24:48) - So three things I would share on the tips. First, one is that as the leader you want to talk about your mistakes and your pivots because you set the tone. And when people know that you're making mistakes and you're pivoting and you're open about it, they're much more open about it too. Second is I love the retrospective tool in agile, and I think we in operations, we talk about Lean Six Sigma and we use a lot of those tools. And you know, I have many favorite tools there, but there are a lot of agile tools that we as non technologists can adopt and use. And the retrospective of what went well and what went wrong, whether it's a project, you know, something specific that we want to look at, I think that's something on the ground we can do. And then my third and very favorite part of encouraging growth mindset is reverse mentorship. We talk a lot about mentoring people, but I think a lot of times it is, you know, the team leads or operations managers or senior operations leaders. We need to learn and we can learn from our people. And having a reverse mentor who can, who is more knowledgeable in an area that you're weak in can really help you to bring up your skills. And it also encourages a great 1 to 1 collaboration. I had a reverse mentor in one of my previous roles. He was based in Brazil and he and I had very complementary skill sets. I taught him some things, he taught me a lot of things. And to this day now, many years later, we remain friends and we continue this natural reverse mentorship and relationship.

Ariana (00:26:33) - I love that. I think back to when I presented a data visualization of our operations when I was just learning how to do it to data scientists at a company, and they were like, Ariana, we've got to talk about this visualization. And it was so good, though it was a real learning experience for me. But I also was like, I don't know what I'm doing right now. Like I'm just trying to visualize it because that's something that we preach and I don't really know how to do it, but I'm giving it a try. And that willingness to kind of fail in front of an audience and then to have people sort of catch you and be like, “I got you”. Let me teach you how. We kind of look at data, the best way to process data. You're totally right. That reverse mentorship is, I think, also the way of the future, because there's no way we can know everything. And if we don't sort of humble ourselves and make sure that we really learn things from the ground up and come to the table without an ego to learn, that's how we continue growing. That's how we continue evolving and helping to really become, I think, good operations people. I love that though.

Ekaterina (00:27:34) - Yes. And I think we also set an example for our teams. And you know, a lot of times they are much more likely and they embrace what their leader is doing. And so as the leader, when they see you growing and learning and being humble enough to admit what you don't know and being collaborative enough to know, who do you need to work with so that you can extract the best idea and then put it into action? I think it begins to build that culture of incremental improvement that accumulates and does bring operational magic.

Ariana (00:28:13) - Absolutely. I can't wait. Now, process and technology I need to know more

Ekaterina (00:28:18) - Okay. Let me talk about process. So I think that in the process side there are many amazing tools that don't go out of style. And you know people talk about this, “oh, you know, are you still going to talk about Lean Six Sigma and are you going to talk about some of those tools.” But in reality they are best practice. They have been in a lot of times. There's the reason why it's because they deliver value. So I have some favorite tools around process and a lot of those kinds of Six Sigma tools.

Ariana (00:28:56) - Could you just break down Six Sigma for people who don't know what that is? If they're listening and they're like, this is the first time I've heard it. What is that?

Ekaterina (00:29:04) - It's an operating methodology that aligns how we do our work with visualizing our work. It actually brings process, people, technology to some degree and puts them together and provides a series of helpful tools that give us best practices in helping answer the questions. “How can I be an effective operator? How can I be an efficient operator? How can I measure my errors? How can I improve my process?” So it's an operating methodology that's been around. It started with Toyota and you know, it's manufacturing. But now I see it across many different industries. So I have a couple of favorite tools around the, you know, around the process. One is structured problem solving. And this is just being disciplined and having a periodic problem-solving time where the team gets together and talks about the four quadrants of the problems in the pain points and their impact and their viability, and putting some tests and learns and some pilots that will help us find out. One is, you know, is this going to solve the problem? Two, what, you know, what result is this going to bring? But even before you get to impact and viability, I think the beginning part of the tool is quite helpful because it asks why? And a lot of times it asks the five whys. Why is this happening and why is that happening? And it helps you to get to the root cause of the problem. It helps you to really define the problem precisely. And like Einstein said, if you have 60 minutes, you spend 55 minutes defining the problem. And once you have a really good understanding around the problem and what's causing it, the solution is much easier.

Ariana (00:31:09) - That's so hard to do as well, because we all come in thinking we know what the problem is. But that is the ultimate problem, which is we come in looking at the problem through our lens, our experience, how we approach our work, and having that sit down moment to say, let's align on actually what we're trying to solve here. That is such a key thing that's overlooked constantly. I mean, I overlooked it today. I was in a meeting in someone's like, “why are we what's the….” And I'm like, that is a great question. You know, because I'm trying to solve problems quickly. Whereas if you take that step back and you really look at the why of things and what are we trying to solve specifically? The solutions are very different depending on what the actual thing is.

Ekaterina (00:31:51) - Yes and I think when you get good at structured problem solving, it does not have to take long. It can be quick. I think a lot of times people assume that if you're following these tools, whether it's problem solving, whether it's having a good metric for your stakeholders, whether it's a skills matrix for your team or a workforce capacity model, when you use these, they just slow you down. In reality, they actually give you the structure so you can speed up. And I have noticed that a lot of times..first of all, it takes time for the team and for everyone to learn the tools. Once you begin getting good at them, they actually save you time and–

Ariana (00:32:31) - Definitely. Having that common language, right? That common way of working to build it takes time to use it, becomes super efficient. So you have to have that yucky, slow time where all of us are a little uncomfortable to get to learn.

Ekaterina (00:32:46) - It's a learning time. This, you know, this is just part of the learning curve. And look, the learning curve could take a while. And some teams it takes six months and some teams it takes longer. The team at that time is on an upskill journey because they're learning all these different things, and it's messy and that's the messy middle. But I think that this is part of taking middle-of-the-road teams to kind of push them up to become better and hopefully to get them to be best-in-class.

Ariana (00:33:15) - Yeah, that's actually something I'm going to go practice after this. So technology I mean technology rules the world right now. But it also can be a pain in the butt simultaneously. So what are some things that you've learned over the years to help leverage technology without it becoming the main focus of what operations is?

Ekaterina (00:33:36) - Yeah. So I had many lessons to learn here because I'm not a technologist. So the first thing I had to do is I needed to learn the language of agile. And so I had an opportunity to learn and get certified in agile. And I said, I'm going to do it because I cannot efficiently communicate with my tech teams if I don't speak their language. And so that's another piece of advice I have for operations leaders is learn the language of technology, if you don't already know it. The second thing is, the relationship between business and technology. It needs to be strong. And I think there's three components. One is clarity. What are we trying to achieve? Being very clear and being very specific about the problem we're trying to solve with the goal that we are trying to achieve.

Ekaterina (00:34:30) - The second part is, is the communication, frequent communication, and, you know, always erring on the side of over communicating and asking for clarity. Sometimes I sit in technology meetings and I need to ask for clarification. I know what the problem is, but is that the problem that my tech team is solving? That's kind of the second piece of advice. The third thing that I've learned is that you could do a lot with low-code and no-code automation, because tech teams are so busy, they have so many demands and in different roles I have seen successful citizen developers from operations. Those are the flexible Gen Z people that are willing to learn. And they're saying, look, I know my process and I know my pain points. If technology can help me solve them because they're solving much bigger problems, can I help myself? And there's so many tools right now, you know, not just on the no-code, low-code, but of course, with AI and the new tech tools that have come up that I feel that as ops teams in the future is going to be much more of operators solving their own problems with guidance from technology, rather than relying and crying to technology and saying, can you help me with this and help me with that?

Ariana (00:36:01) - Yeah, I mean, the possibilities are so much more available now.

Ariana (00:36:07) - Like I went to code school, I learned JavaScript, full stack did a bit of that, and I was like, I don't want to do this all day, every day. This is not the thing for me. I cannot stress enough, though, how much those skills I learned during that time have applied to operations. I am better at what I do now, because I have a whole other aperture of how I can look at problems. And I know that something that seemed like a massive issue, if we just connect it with Zapier and then it's solved and we can actually save somebody their sanity, save the business some time and get the team where they need to be faster. But that was a whole learning curve, right? Like that was one of the hardest things I had to do. I love that you said citizen developers. Really, to work with those tools takes curiosity. They have templates, they have walkthroughs, they have tutorials. Sometimes they have little free bootcamps you can join if you have a tool that you're using within your organization.

Ariana (00:37:05) - And it just takes curiosity to see, can I solve my problem in a better way? And then trying it.

Ekaterina (00:37:12) - And that's one thing I love about operations teams is that they are DIY. They roll up their sleeves and they say, well, “this is my problem. I've defined my problem. Hopefully it's good. As good as I can define it as well as I can define it. What tools do I have now? Can I use any of my Lean Six Sigma tools? Can I use anything else that's available? What's out there off the shelf, what's out there that's open source and that I can use” and I've seen quite dramatic changes with low-code and no-code automation that is able to transform processes that would otherwise take a lot of time and a lot of money to actually do it. Following the standard process of taking it into a text print and ranking it in the tech stack. And, you know, usually it actually doesn't even make the cut.

Ariana (00:38:09) - I also think it expands into the physical world as well. I was managing an office, which if you've ever done that, you know how much of a pain in the butt that is. And I was so annoyed to have to be tied to an office phone, so wanted to figure out a way how we can automate it into Slack so that anybody could pick up the phone and I passed it to one of our operations specialists and I said, here's the challenge. Here's some software that I think might work. Can you figure out how to do this? And she figured it out. It was amazing. It would come in. It would call in Slack. People can pick it up. If not, it would leave a voicemail. Then it would go to the right person and it didn't work perfectly. You know, it wasn't the best thing, but it did save a lot of headache and having to be anchored to a physical space. I mean, that seems insane now because we're mostly remote or we're, you know, half at home, half virtual.

Ariana (00:38:56) - But at the time, that was like a big time saver for me.. That was a huge thing. I didn't have to be tied to the stinkin’ phone. Which is a good time to kind of transition to the inside scoop, because we're talking about all these sort of things that come up as operators that people might not know about, or the ways that we're approaching things that are maybe a little bit different. So when it comes to Inside Scoop, I think the first thing is, what do you think that people get totally wrong about operations or operators?

Ekaterina (00:39:26) - I think a lot of people have the experience and the mindset that operations teams are support teams, and they're just there to kind of say, “yes sir, yes, madam”, and do the work, the work that nobody else wants to do. The most boring part of the work and I think that this maybe was the case years ago, but in a lot of places that's no longer the case. Operations teams and operating offices have the ability to solve problems that nobody else can because they're at the center of the business and operations. And so I think what a lot of people also even ops leaders get wrong is you shouldn't think of yourself as an ops leader. You need to think of yourself as a business leader. What does this business need? You need to understand and learn over time. To understand the financials, you need to understand enough about technology. You need to understand enough about your sales organization and what they're doing and what their challenges are, because then you could be the center of the ecosystem where a lot of the problems that don't belong in just one particular area can get solved in there at that part of the ecosystem.

Ariana (00:40:52) - That is, man, I've learned that the hard way. I have learned that the hard way. I've learned–

Ekaterina (00:40:59) - Me too! I’ve learned that the hard way.

Ariana (00:41:00) - Where you're like, you know, you sort of know maybe two of the three teams and then you've got to learn that third team. Because if you don't learn the third team's way of working, then it won't solve the problem for two and three. Like, it's one of those things that I didn't walk into operations thinking, I want to know how a financial department works. I want to know about insurance. I want to know how the sales team works. I want to learn about HR. I didn't walk into operations thinking I would even need any of those things. But if if I didn't introduce myself and become very knowledgeable, I was just missing the point. I was missing the target and that is something that I didn't expect getting into operations. What is something that surprised you once you got into operations? Like what is something that sort of like took you back as you started to get deeper and deeper into the role?

Ekaterina (00:41:48) - Many things surprised me. And they still continue to surprise me because I still continue to learn. But when I made that first transition from the business on the client facing side into operations, I was really surprised that people were making decisions without actually really understanding the…I think the downstream impact or without understanding where…I guess without having an ability to interpret the data. Because a lot of times in operations we get so much data and look, data, you can always massage it, then you it can tell the story that you wanted to tell. So extracting the data…for me, when I switched to operations, I looked at all of these, all of these juicy insights and all of these metrics and all of these things. And I said, I know exactly what to do with these. Why have you been hiding these all this time? And the team said, we haven't been hiding them. Katie, this is something that is just part of the workflow and nobody cares about it. And I said, I think that we could do a lot with these, and we can repackage them and position them for clients in a way that's very impactful. And I've done this in every role. And it's so interesting because, you know, I've led research teams and I've led creative teams and operational teams and sales teams and, you know, different types of teams, you know, now, most recently in the ops area.

Ekaterina (00:43:32) - But everyone has these insights that are hidden and they're buried and we actually can extract them and emerge them. So I think that's what surprised me how much real engine-room value there was that was kind of lurking behind the surface.

Ariana (00:43:53) - Oh, absolutely. A tool that everybody is using 10% of and you're like, “wait, there's like 90% of this that we could actually use in a way better way. And we can merge this and migrate this and do this.” And it was like I never really thought about that, but it's like discovering gold and you're like, oh man, I've got a treasure trove now of things I can use.

Ekaterina (00:44:14) - And I also loved finding people that are really, like said, they're very willing to try things and they're willing to figure things out because a lot of other teams think that they're more so waiting to be told what to do and how to do it. But in operations teams, people are DIY people. They're like, I can figure this out.

Ekaterina (00:44:37) - Just tell me what needs to be done. How much time do you have? And usually it's under very short notice and they're able to figure things out. And I love that about operators.

Ariana (00:44:50) - Me too. This gets to, I think, a question that both of you and I wanted to talk about, which is if someone wants to transition into operations and they want to be a part of this world, first of all, how do you do that? And second of all, I guess, what are some things that you've learned about mentoring the next generation of operators as a leader that would be useful for our listeners?

Ekaterina (00:45:15) - So I think actually getting into operations is not as difficult as getting into some other parts of the organization. I think it's much harder to become a technologist or become a salesperson. So when you're starting your career, if you're wondering where to go, operations is a really good learning ground and a really good stepping stone. It also happens to be a great place to stay and develop, because you're solving these problems and because you're the center of the organization. So how do you transition into operations? Think that you can come from many different sides. What you need to do is to think about what it is that you bring to this role that's your differentiator. Maybe you call it a superpower, maybe you call it, you know, your skill set. But what is it that you bring? If you're coming from another part of the organization, you're bringing a different perspective. You may be bringing the voice of the customer. You may be bringing a deep understanding of technology. If you're coming, if you're just starting out your career, you may be just bringing in your curiosity, your willingness to work and your willingness to learn and your growth mindset. But I think being clear and telling your network in your contacts that you are interested in an operations role, you're willing to learn, and you're open to doing virtual coffees and introductions with people. I think that's one way that you can enter. But again, as I said, I think operations are much more open than a lot of the other parts of the company. And so you can come from many different roads and still add a lot of value. And that's I think is the important part of if just have homegrown operators that are just starting and progressing in the company and they have not seen different sides of the business, they're not able to really get all the value. I know we already spoke about that.

Ariana (00:47:21) - No totally. Well, and that's also I think the thing that. I want to encourage, especially with Secret Ops. Everybody's journey to operations is different and are kind of weird backgrounds of doing this and going into this industry and doing this other kind of role. Operations is a perfect groundwork to be able to apply all of those things that you've learned into one really cohesive medium. And that's something that I always come back to for ten years of my career. I'm like, “what am I doing? Why? Like what is happening?” Like, all these things seem so different and off and not connected. And then one day it all of a sudden just came together when I realized operations was that medium, that I could do everything that I've learned and everything I want to do within that. And I think that mentoring the next generation is encouraging the diverse skill sets, encouraging people to bring in all of their different kinds of knowledge, whether that's learned within a school setting or whether that's learned just on your own into the environment. That is, I guess, a thing that I look for with younger operators is like, how open are they to learning new things, and can they teach me a thing or two? I think when it comes to working with Gen Z, a thing that I have noticed is that the “why” is incredibly important. I don't know if you found that in your experience, but that's like, why am I doing this? For what purpose? For what end goal? Without that piece, there's not that level of engagement that typically I need to have. What have you noticed on your side?

Ekaterina (00:48:56) - Well, I have certainly noticed that on my side that with Gen Z and actually with previous generations, you would say I need this done. And they would say, okay, give me some more clarity.

Ekaterina (00:49:07) - What do you need? When do you need it? The first question that you get from Gen Z is why? What is the problem we're solving? And I love that about it, because that's getting to the root of the problem, that's getting to the root cause analysis that we spoke about. A lot of young people come into operations because I see that in many of the large especially the financial services, insurance and other industries, this is kind of the first stepping stone for them to get to, to come in, learn about the operations. And then I love establishing and setting up ops teams as the talent hub for the rest of the organization. A lot of people get hired out into different roles with that solid background of understanding the process in the system. So I think as leaders, when we lead Gen Z, we need to communicate differently. We need to have that clarity and focus, explaining the why, explaining the problem, and being really precise about what we need and why is that, you know? Is that a client problem? What kind of problem are we solving? So that's first is around communication. The second part I think is about being yourself and having that humanity and that humility to show up as is the real you. And you know, we talked about it. Talk about your pivots. Talk a little bit about your mistakes. Be humble enough to recognize, to see and encourage good ideas and smart enough to actually adopt them and put them in practice and use the solutions. So think that that's another part of leading Gen Z. I also think that having fun and doing things, having competitions and having scoreboards and throwing challenges and having fun as a group and as a team is even more important to Gen Z than it is to some of the other generations. And as leaders, we need to embrace that.

Ariana (00:51:22) - Definitely. I think when I was first getting into my career, I did feel like I really had to put on a different persona when I went into work, you know I was also working a front desk at a gym. I felt like I had to be very professional, you know, like in my gym attire. In customer service too, I had to, like, put on this thing. And then, which inevitably happened is like my actual self leaked out and I was like, oh no, you know, put it back in, put it back in. But I think you're so right. Being able to just be who you are within a work environment is so much less exhausting like it is. It's just, you know, every day is much better now that I can just be more myself. And again, there's levels of vulnerability that you have got to reserve for family and friends. You don't have to pour your heart out at work, but just showing up as who you are with your sense of humor, with, you know, how you approach things. That is something that I have found really refreshing, especially, I think Covid kind of shook it all up right? Like we all are working from home. Everything's really changed and that's been a beautiful thing. I don't think I have to leave my personal life at work in the same way that I used to, and that's a bit of a relief.

Ekaterina (00:52:34) - It's a relief, I think so, and I think also bringing your humanity to your colleagues and your team, and seeing them and letting them be themselves, I think is equally important. And, I laugh that sometimes, you know, teams are powered by fun and food, but it does.

Ariana (00:52:59) - Yes, absolutely.

Ekaterina (00:53:00) - I think that, you know that there's a lot to be said about that. And having fun at work. I used to think, and, you know, when I worked in the Fortune 500 companies, I used to think that you need to be a very serious leader, and you need to come across as very thoughtful and very serious. You need to behave like that. You need to communicate like that. And thank goodness we changed. Covid helped us to realize it.

Ekaterina (00:53:30) - And I think working in a kind of mid-sized company, they've got this. They are ahead of the game in that you can be less formal. You can have fun and you can still do tremendous work. Accomplish a lot. Do what you need to do, but just do it in a state of flow and a state of fun, rather than in a state of just constant, you know, being so serious and so stressed out all the time.

Ariana (00:54:00) - A thousand percent. Honestly, just our health can't do it. We can't take it. It's not sustainable. When you combine the rate of change that's happening with that, it's just not sustainable. So we do have to let something go for it all to work and be cohesive. So we've come to the point in Secret Ops to get to know you a little bit more as a human being. So we're going to go into the rapid fire questions. The rule of the game is you just answer whatever first comes to your brain, so we'll jump in, which is what is your favorite part of the day?

Ekaterina (00:54:33) - Oh, I'm a morning person.

Ekaterina (00:54:35) - I love the morning. I get my walk with my dog in the morning, and I think about “what does success look like for today”. And I think about that for my work, and I think about that for my life. That's my favorite part.

Ariana (00:54:49) - Morning walks with the dog are the best. Next question is what book are you currently reading or what audiobook are you listening to?

Ekaterina (00:54:59) - Oh, I am re-reading The One Thing. It's a book by Gary Keller. I think it's such a great book for operators, and it really is about the power of focus and asking the right question. What is one thing that I need to do now that will make everything easier or unnecessary? I try to apply that in what I do.

Ariana (00:55:21) - That book is on my top list. I love that book. It changed my life when I read that. Next question is, and this is a difficult one, just to warn you, which is the best purchase you've made under $50?

Ekaterina (00:55:35) - That is the hard one. I've made many good purchases. I think what might be helpful for the listeners of the podcast is a subscription I have, Get Abstract and you could do it monthly. I think it's $99 for the entire year. So I don't know if it falls in the 50 range, depending on how you count it. But Get Abstract is a service that summarizes new business books and articles that come out, and they typically give you a 10 to 15 minute audio summary as well as the reading summary. And so that way when I see something, new books that come out and I don't really have the time or the capacity to read them all, I could just skim through and see which ones are important for me. I think they are other services like that, but Get Abstract is the one I've been using and I enjoy.

Ariana (00:56:29) - I want to check it out. What is something that makes you little-kid-happy?

Ekaterina (00:56:36) - Oh, okay. That's a good one. I think that this is combining work and fun work in play to drive the best results.

Ariana (00:56:49) - What is the most important lesson you've learned in your life so far?

Ekaterina (00:56:53) - I think professionally, it's the lesson that if you haven't failed and if you haven't made some big mistakes, you have not really taken all the opportunities you have played it to safe, and you are missing out on both what you can accomplish with your team and your company, but also as a person.

Ariana (00:57:20) - It's a good life lesson in life and business. Last question is what do you want to be when you grow up?

Ekaterina (00:57:31) - Hmmm. I think what I really love is taking people and teams and companies and bringing them from this kind of middle of the road, or mediocre or meh, to really pushing them up to being very strong, delivering amazing results or being best in class. And I think this is something that I feel that I'm doing now and I want to continue to be doing in the future, because that's what makes me happy and that's what makes me excited every day.

Ariana (00:58:10) - Well, I am leaving this conversation with a big old smile on my face.

Ariana (00:58:13) - Thank you so much. If people are listening to us and they're like, I want to follow Katie, I want to see what she's up to. Where should we point our audience?

Ekaterina (00:58:22) - Connect with me on LinkedIn at Ekaterina Curry and I look forward to hearing from you.

Ariana (00:58:30) - Amazing. Katie, thank you so much for being here. Sharing your knowledge. I will get my notebook out after we edit this and write down all the notes and the things that I've learned. But again, just thank you for sharing your knowledge so generously.

Ekaterina (00:58:44) - Thank you so much for having me.

Ariana (00:58:46) - Of course, also, Secret Ops listeners, you know, we are grateful to have you listen. Please make sure to check us out wherever you find your podcast. We are also on YouTube now, so if you're a visual learner like me, you can watch these episodes on our YouTube channel and we'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody.