Ep. #61 Double the Impact: Unleashing the Dual Career Advantage With Ronald Tay

Jean: 0:07

Hi everyone, and welcome to Making Sense of Work Today. I'm delighted to be joined by Ronald Tay. Welcome to the podcast Ronald.

Ronald: 0:16

Hi Jean, it's good to be here. Great.

Jean: 0:19

I'm looking forward to our conversation. To give you a bit of background to Ronald, he is passionate about developing mindsets and skillsets, both in the professional field where he until recently served as head of leadership at Meta, as well as an educator where he has dedicated over a decade as an adjunct lecturer at Singapore Management University. And we're going to talk a bit about that experience. in a while. He has more than 20 years of experience in learning and development, leadership and talent management, and that spans across a range of sectors, consulting, consumer, retail, financial, as well as the tech industries. And I've known you across a few of those industries, senior in different places. That's true. Back. Yeah. Uh, his work has garnered industry recognition awards, as well as regular speaking opportunities at conferences. He's also published two books, which I didn't know until we were preparing for this one called Career Conversations and the Second Leadership Conversations, and these explore successes, learning and advice. From notable leaders across key diverse industries beyond his work life, he derives great value in interacting with Gen Zs as his in his adjunct professor role at the S M U, and he's a very active career coach and mentor. His personal passions consist of working out at the gym, jogging and or walking and mahjong, which I'm kind of interested to, uh, get some advice and learning from you at some point and having great conversations with great people. So, yeah, so welcome again to the podcast, Ronald.

Ronald: 2:10

Such pleasure. Thank you for having.

Jean: 2:12

Let's start with how is work at the moment.

Ronald: 2:15

It's interesting, obviously, um, I, as you mentioned, work at. As you may know from the headlines that has been liked, tech companies going through a lot of change, a lot of uncertainties, and so I'm part of the May layoff, where they're really trying to be a lot leaner and leaner in that sense. So I'm really at, I would say a career transition at this point, really enjoying the time doing gardening lead. Spending time, uh, friends and family to make care of myself. But previous to that, obviously I spent about a good two years taking care of leadership, learning and development with the company. Mm

Jean: 2:54

Gosh. And I know, um, you've been in different sectors. Um, how was, how is working in that kind of tech industry different to where you'd been

Ronald: 3:05

before? Yeah, I mean I spent about 16 years in banking finance prior to that. And so for those that know what banking finance, highly regulated, uh, there's a lot of dues and don't, that you have take care of. you hang around with very smart people, obviously with tech. Similar in some ways that you definitely hang around really smart, talented people, but it's a lot more informal. It's a lot flatter hierarchy wise, they focus a lot Agile values of. Fast or in the past, move fast and break things. So things are lot more agile. You really pick up the pace and, uh, from the perspective, because it's Facebook slash it's a very social company as well, so the embedding of learning and really social of the fabric. So I really enjoyed that time, in the work. But, uh, yeah, um, that's how I can see culturally the difference as well as kinda the pace as well.

Jean: 4:03

Mm. Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, I've had a little bit of exposure to matter and I, I, um, felt that kind of high energy, high pace since around it as an organization. For

Ronald: 4:15

sure. There's a lot of excitement we get to use. Awesome. A lot. Uh, so it's really great. Culturally a great energy, so I really enjoyed that. Yeah.

Jean: 4:24

Thanks for sharing that. When you have a good day at work, what does a good day look like for you?

Ronald: 4:31

Well, um, I have a lot of great days better, but I think great day usually starts. Where there's no morning conference calls. Uh, as you may know, meta is, uh, founded in the east, sorry, west coast of United States, so that might mean sometimes as early as 6:00 AM or 7:00 AM Singapore time where you're doing calls. So a good day is where I do not have to do a morning call. I could wake up at eight o'clock, I could do a quick workout. Walk and I like to clear off the emails in the morning about eight, nine o'clock. And then at 10 that's where I usually then head back to the office. I think one of the great things post Covid is that good amount of flexibility and a lot that flexibility. So I'll workplace. Um, it then probably involve meetings. The work that I do in leadership development involves quite a lot. Meeting either senior leaders, directors. Most important, prioritize teams as well as leaders. We wanna put the energy to work on their leadership as well as their team development. We update or talk about results or talk about perhaps business results, what needs to be, uh, prioritized in terms of helping them, and that probably would take me to probably a good. Afternoon or so. A good day probably also does mean like to, so work works and talk leadership. You team within you build trust, you team forward where you build strategy and missions and visions. You team through leadership and team across the pieces, work teams. And hopefully by then the day ends at about five or six o'clock, we still get the time to work out at the gym. That to me, would be a really, really great day at work. Great, great.

Jean: 6:42

I'm loving that. I'm hearing a lot of energy drawn from being with people in that for you.

Ronald: 6:48

Yeah. That's the nature of our work. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jean: 6:52

So I shared a little bit about you and where you come from, but it'd be lovely to hear from you a little bit about your journey, your career journey to this point.

Ronald: 7:03

Sure, happy to. Uh, as you know, I'm born and in Singapore I graduated with a geography major at a local university. Didn't really know what to do with the geography major, but back then applied to the first job, uh, interview I ever had, which is at the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore, which is kind the land planning authority. Spent two years in. I like the job, but I just found the whole focus about long-term planning, slightly impatient for a young man that wants to see needed results. I then think to myself, I would either wanna go into consulting, sales, or business development. Landed on my first consulting job in a local consulting company and loved it. It all involves spending time with leaders, managers, training them on a gamut of skills from personal to manager effectiveness, and I knew that. the mission and the passion I really wanna do to deal with people development. After my part-time mba, I went pretty much inhouse for the rest of the two decades and that's where I spent learning. Well spent time as a learning development manager, as a talent manager, and that's where I covered fmcg. Company such as L'Oreal, 16 years with banks including ubs, Nomura, JP Morgan. And then it came to Covid where, uh, this is for me epiphany. That's where I asked myself, do I really wanna spend the rest of my time in banking, finance, or do I really wanna reinvent myself, learn something different from different industry? And clearly for many people who. Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Googles would come into their minds. I was just very fortunate that Facebook reached out and that's where I joined them in May. But pretty much I would say as I look back two decades of my life, the passion energy's always been team people development, which I have no regrets for.

Jean: 8:52

Yeah, no, I, I can see that and I, I hear some kind of, similarities with my career in a way because it's that landing into a place that's about working, with adults in organizations that just cuz great fun and there's, and this, it's so rewarding doing that work

Ronald: 9:10

for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Jean: 9:13

So one of the things that I'm quite keen to talk to you about is the other bit of your life. So you are, uh, an adjunct professor at the Singapore Management University, or smu, as we all call it here in Singapore. And, um, this is, Almost like a whole nother job. So I'd love you to share a bit about how you came to do that. What meaning it's brought to you and Yeah, what you've, what you've learned and are learning from that experience.

Ronald: 9:44

Brilliant. Uh, as you said, I'm an adjunct lecturer at Singapore National University. I started teaching for good, maybe. Five, six years in a module called Finishing Touch, where at the point in time the whole focus is about honing undergraduate skills and interviewing career management as well as resume writing. And so that piece in my HR background, I was able to lean my energy into, and subsequently when they sunsetted that program, I moved into another module that. And for folks who are in, the career world back then, you remember that would be the global financial crisis back then. Really challenging. Back then I was ats I was responsible for graduate development and part of that piece of work, me going into the universitys was part very challenging cell back when everyone was wondering. There UBS at the end of that particular century or that period. Um, I, I made the sales pitch. People were pretty impressed in the audience, was the head of the career services center in smu. she reached out, we became friends, and I was just, at that point in time, was just really bored with UBS because, back global financial crisis concerned development. And I so asked her if there was an opportunity to adjunct teach. She said, why would you start teaching this finishing touch? As one of my adjunct lecturers, I jumped on it and really loved the energy of kinda balancing corporate life as well as academic life, and knew that was a side gig that I wanted have for the rest of my career.

Jean: 11:35

Mm. And how did the balancing go? Because that's quite a balancing gap. I mean, you've, you've had huge jobs, day jobs. Yeah. And you've been doing

Ronald: 11:45

this as well? Yes. Um, so just to, I teach about six hours every week. And that means most of my Monday afternoon. So I start teaching at about three 30. So I would've step outta the office early at about 3:00 PM and I would teach all the till about 10:00 PM that particular night with two classes back to, and I'll try to squeeze dinner right in the middle of the break. so I think. for something like this, if you do wanna embark on side gigs such as either teaching or a lot of friends who teach, uh, gym classes in between that, I think the most important thing is that you must understand that once you embark having side gigs, you no longer can opt for a nine to five concept. When it comes to actual day job something has to give. If you take some day hours outta your regular workday, you have to give it all back, either in the evenings or as well as weekend. So that was the sacrifice that obviously had for, and be really happy for because you wanna make sure that at the end of the day, the day job still takes that priority because it is. A day and the site gig always remains as a gig and they should not conflict with each other unnecessarily. So priority still goes to the day job. I think the second piece is transparency. So, uh, clearly back when I was working bank, you have to go through some level of compliance regulations to make sure its off compliance, that there's no conflict interest. Then the other piece line. And at the same time, it could be helpful for the company as well. Interact with a lot of university students. I could literally sells to students and maybe bring the of crop get is literally, and I'm able bring some intelligence, some trends like. Well, millennials then and now Gen Z back to workplace and my manager was very supportive of this and I obviously ensured that, uh, there will be no, deprioritization when comes to my work. So I think at the end of the day, as long as you're transparent, you're able to show that there's a value on both ends of the spectrum. It's a very good, uh, sell, it's good value for both sides of myself as well as company.

Jean: 14:11

And did you ever get any pushback from any of your managers about doing it?

Ronald: 14:16

Fortunately not, and I think fortunately it's cause most of my managers are not based out Singapore. And the value of being the regional head is that your boss is somewhere in New York. Yes. As well as in, you know, California. And so from that perspective, when I end my day at three or 4:00 PM. They haven't woke up yet, and in fact, when I come back at 10:00 PM back home, they've probably woken up and if there's any emergency that we need deal with, I'm happy to work till midnight. Just address those. So that's actually worked out quite nicely. They've always been support and as I mentioned, they're able to see the benefits bringing back that new energy, that new ideas back into workplace.

Jean: 14:57

Yeah, I really think this is so important because the nature of many of our jobs is so all consuming. And before we recording, I was talking about how consuming my job is right at the moment, and it can be very tempting not to have that, to look for opportunities because it feels like you are adding something in. So I guess I'm curious about, Where the benefit for you has felt in that adding something in to an already very busy life?

Ronald: 15:28

Hmm. I can think of really three key benefits that working will give me, and I'm sure those who embark one, one is kinda a different sense of energy. And for folks that is in the corporate world, you would know that the day-to-day hub jobs a working life when you're banging on the emails and you're having work, corporate meetings and all of that can be really draining, and so being in different gateway for me was standing in front of students teaching about careers or about ethics, was highly energizing and I felt that brought a new sense balance to my energy. So ironically, while I obviously gave more time and energy to the side gig, it gave a different sense of energy. So that's one. I think the second piece is mutual learning. they benefit from the fact that I was able to bring a lot of work situations, circumstances. What it is like to work with detentions in the workplace office, politics, et cetera, into the classroom. And I think the value of education for many undergraduates is that they would rather hear from someone that's in corporate world with real life experiences. Yeah. Than professors. That's theories academic and I think both. So they benefit from that. And in turn, I get to learn a lot of new things and the advances right now in generative ai, in tech, uh, in apps, all these things. I think the digital natives, like the Gen Zs, they're far more fluid than us. I would call myself almost a tech. So, so I learn a lot from that. from them as well, and so I highly energizing. Relationships with a generation that you typically wouldn't have. I mean, I've not been fortunate to have kids, so for me, many of these undergraduates who are now in their 18, so early twenties, are kinda like my kids and you obviously can't make friends with all of them, but for every class you have that special one or two that says, Hey, I really want to keep in touch with you. I think it's beneficial both ways. We'll meet up for coffees or lunches and they become my mentees. And at the same time, I learn a lot from them. So I've kept in touch with many of the students I've taught over the past decade and just close mentee, mentor, friends, relationship, and so that, that's really been very fulfilling for

Jean: 17:50

myself. Yeah. Very important. I was, talking yesterday to Vivek Iani, who's, uh, on the, for the podcast, so it will come out shortly. Um, he's done a lot of research into millennials and Gen Z. Here in Singapore and across Asia Pacific. And he was saying just, how important the reciprocal mentoring or, you know, I, it can be reverse mentoring, but I think it's reciprocal because you are mentoring. If you are mentoring the younger people, but they're actually mentoring you as well because they're sharing perspectives that are helping you to kind of, uh, stay fresh. I guess for me it would be about str staying alive to what's possible, to the things that are coming through that, you know, I mean, AI is something that I'm sitting on the edge of and looking at it and thinking, I know I have to get involved in this. But, um, you know, I'm sure sitting alongside somebody younger who was really getting into it would help energize me around it and get me in.

Ronald: 18:49

That's fantastic. I've been working design earlier on. Obviously I'm transitioning in my career, so one mentee do within an hour. He was like, okay, Googling this, you know, going on. So he's helped me like 50% of the effort just to come up with a decent website. Yeah. And I'm just marveling how just know switching between windows and going through kinda the different resources and that to me was just really, really humbling for folks like myself. But I think it's super refreshing. That's really,

Jean: 19:31

yeah. We absolutely have to keep learning and being without our immediate peers doesn't help that learning process necessarily. Yeah.

Ronald: 19:40

Absolutely. Yeah.

Jean: 19:42

Um, I'm curious about your teaching now, ethics and csr. Is that corporate social responsibility? That's right. Yeah. Actually, really curious about that. And what are some of the kind of insights and things that you are gaining from teaching

Ronald: 20:00

that? Oh my. Um, so it's, uh, essentially a 13 week course and just to give you a flavor of my, well, 10 plus weeks, week one I'll teach about, um, introduction to ethics. And one of the key things I always talk about is teaching you ethics does not make you a more ethical person. Uh, and I. Unethical. As human beings, we're flawed. We, wanna think ourselves as ethical, but we secretly wanna get away something. And I think the whole understanding about ethics is to understand that we are all technically ethical And we have all these biases, that tricks us to think we are actually good people, and so the sooner that we know, we are able to kind of unravel these biases and really understand how then I can live my self ethically. Week two and three talks about kinda like, so if you want it ethical, how, what does being ethical mean or how do you make ethical decisions? So we have a typical frameworks where we introduce about utilitarianism, where you balance between the good and the right. Uh, something called continu or deontology, where you balance the right against the good. Talking about principles and. What, what would a virtuous moral exemp moral models. Subsequently, we talk about ethical culture at the workplace, ethical leadership. We then talk about workplace, uh, ethics, where we cover things like privacy, discrimination, microaggressions, whistle blowing, and then we end up with corporate social responsibility, esg. And then finally just round of everything, crisis management, because at the end of the day, it's easy to talk about. Ethics in the workplace, but the real test of ethical decision making in the corporate world typically ends up when a crisis, you really wanna aim towards doing the most ethical thing for the company, for employees, stakeholders. But at the end the day, typically speaking, these three big entities, content with one another. Yes. What's. The, the biggest learning that comes out, hopefully for the students is to understand that inherent tensions arise in all organizations. And it's not about making, uh, the perfect decision. It's about making a decision, calibrating it, and understanding that at some point someone have to suffer. And so how do you mitigate? The minority interests or the stakeholder that's interest suffers in the most ethical manner. And so that's what, uh, my pure focus, I think hopefully there are, there are key deliverables outta this course.

Jean: 23:06

That's really interesting because essentially what you're saying is there's a lot of ethics actually comes down to how we make decisions. It is, and yeah. That's really

Ronald: 23:16

interesting. I haven't seen it that way. And the sacrifices out. Yeah.

Jean: 23:19

Yeah. Gosh. And we know that decision making is so flawed, so there we are. We have to look for the best decision and not the right one

Ronald: 23:25

possibly. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think in a classroom setting as student, you think that there's. Geared towards mathematically, unfortunately, ethics, making wise, that's right. Consequences. Can you then make the most reasonable ethical decision with all the, the information and circumstances ahead?

Jean: 24:02

Mm gosh. Really interesting. I, I actually could have another three hours of conversation with you about that because there's, I'm not gonna ask you to answer this, but perhaps there's something we could all think about is, and anyway, how do we define ethical? Because, you know, that could go a hundred different ways. I mean, I'm sure there's so much there. Wow, that's really interesting. You can all think about that a bit more. Um, Ask you a few questions about your books. So in your books you interviewed, uh, over 40 people I think. So they, and looking at them, their, um, senior leaders or experienced people sharing stories of career and leadership. And I was wondering if there were some insights that you gained or what the insights were that you gained from them in those, in that process of interviewing

Ronald: 24:51

them. Yeah, the genesis of the two books, career Conversations and Leadership Conversations came kinda that the brink of me turning a decade. Uh, I turned 40 that, that time about 10 years ago, I'd say. And as you turn a decade, you always think of trying to do something significant. And for me, rather than buying something expensive, I thought to myself, wouldn't be nice if I have international standard book number Legacy. And I was not famous. I'm still not famous, but I thought to myself, what's something that I can do, which I'm passionate about? I'm passionate about careers. I'm passionate about networking and learning, and if I combine all three together into a book, what would that look like? And so I thought to myself, ah, if I interview you, someone that is a famous architect, famous banker, famous celebrity, famous lawyer, Professional and distill all the learning lessons from their, from their professional experience, would that be something that would be helpful for the next generation? And that's kinda how that came both the first football career conversations and the second book on leadership propositions. I then went on to interview about 15, 20 CEOs in. Again, what is it like to lead themselves, their companies, and the organizations for future, as they make really tough decisions as CEOs And that's kinda the genesis of that. You know, there's many lessons and I'll encourage you to either borrow the book or buy them from Amazon. I remember. As I closed some one of the books, career Conversations, I had a simple analogy to think about what makes great leaders or professionals, and I had it in the hand and I had a simple way, and I think about, let's say the pinky. Pinky is small. We use it to dig a lot, into, uh, cvic of our faces. And I think of that as kinda considered and being calculated and I as leaders, you need to very considered and sometimes calculated making choices and that's the middle finger ring, like a wedding ring for many of us. And so commitment. But if you want to persevere to be a great manager, leader, professional, that takes a lot of commitment. And so I think for that perspective, commitment is super key to be successful. The the third thing, I'm not appointed unnecessarily. You realize it's the longest finger, and that means you always go above and beyond. And that takes a lot of courage and it's about encouraging to make the decision that's not the most popular. It's about courage to take the path, less travel. And so I think that's courage. Middle is a pointy finger. You use it many times to emphasize and make a point, and I think communication is super key. As a leader and manager, you always have to communicate the points clearly and so that people know how to follow it. And the final finger is a thumb, and the thumb is a special. In the sense that the only finger that could touch all and connections and we know successful, successful. But I think the key part about create successful leaders, CEOs, is that the unique gift to connect with other people and the unique gift, borrow the strengths of other people so that they can amplify and multiply their talents in their leadership. And so I think that's really some of the key is I thought of, uh, as writing these two books,

Jean: 28:32

Wow. Fantastic. Thank you. I imagine there's plenty there. So we will put links to them in the show notes as well so people can go and find them. As we draw to a close, I just want to ask a couple of questions. Um, I'm curious, uh, about whether you ever experience imposter syndrome. So this is a question that I like to ask people, particularly people with. Very successful careers like you because people can often look and say, wow, I bet he feels confident all the time. Any opportunities for imposter syndrome and if you ever experience

Ronald: 29:05

it, how do you handle that? All the time. All the time. And I think, uh, imposter syndrome is where other people think of you as, oh, he must be so confident. he gets his shit together, literally. Uh, and for, for many successful, Seemingly successful people, they always deal with their own demons and they their own worst critics, and Im not an exception to that. I think the most barely recent imposter syndrome I had was when I outta into and I plus years moved relatively senior role in net. But, uh, I was still considered an individual contributor, so I moved from a manager role then and became an IC in the beginning. And it was just really tricky cause I, with change of pace, change of industry, had manager that kept reminding me that you came very senior level, so there's expectations on you, particular time and learn. Um, and I remember. Like within two months of being in a company, he gave me this task to come up with a playbook on manager development. And I had no clue a how to come up with a, a playbook. And I had no clue how, kinda like, what does a playbook get better look like? And I remember I had just a sudden panic attack and there I was a blank sheet. Sleepless nights. I started, you know, really coming across really unintelligent and I knew that. And that was something that was just really crushing at the same time, the expectations that you give to yourself, even though other people said, take your time. And so I remember that to be really, really challenging time.

Jean: 31:06

And what did you do to help yourself come beyond it? To move beyond that?

Ronald: 31:11

I think for me, um, couple things. To underst that when you're suffering from imposter syndrome for many people is down alien yourself and really, Work for me, not particularly for company like that. Facebook, it's such social, interactive, and so I started trying there. There. Particularly challenging where I used to supervise people and tell people what to do and just kinda point them towards the way, and now I find I have to actually deliver and actually execute and I'm struggling with the identity and capability and so I need support and help. And so he was a lot more and more supportive, encouraging, uh, I also, I think very important internationally. Um, I realized I wasn't alone. That many of them, when they transited again to better Facebook had imposter syndrome. So I found allies was able encourage me. The third thing that I really tried to do is try find ways where early success and use these early successes. Tell yourself, encourage yourself and give your pat on the back and say, Hey, you're on the right track. You're okay. And so I started looking for projects my natural to. Would take well to my communications as well as future style that will buy me literally on, on this small project and start working towards a bigger project. And as you see small successes, feedback started coming through about people saying, Hey, I think you got it. Uh, it, it helped tremendously and of course it did sort of help that my manager. For, to a different role. Then I took over his role and that really then sort of made me a more comfortable and a little bit better as well. Good.

Jean: 33:16

Uh, brilliant. Yeah, so all of those pieces are about you. Working relationally, working with yourself, but also it's that, um, piece about confidence that small, steady steps help us to build it. Really. Yeah. It's really important. Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't happen overnight. Often. We need, and we need to be very proactive in doing

Ronald: 33:37

that. Yeah.

Jean: 33:40

Thank you so much. We're joined to an end, but I have one final question and that is, is there a book or a podcast that you would recommend? To

Ronald: 33:49

people. Um, I chanced upon fairly recently as a kinda a vendor seminar. They were talking about book and I haven't really talked, uh, absolutely read it yet, but went on YouTube and watched the, the YouTube video, my Learning Style Auditory. It's by Liz Wiseman. It's called Multiplier. And so it talks about how as leaders we can. We diminish the capabilities and strengths of our teams, or we can actively become a multiplier and actually start to literally multiply the capability, talents, the motivations of the team. And so as I watched the video looked at some of the experts, I thought that was really something that was really interesting. So that's something I think would be worth a good read for those who are readers and interested being better managers Recommendation.

Jean: 34:42

Great, thank you. And, um, we will put a link in the show notes to that, but also, uh, people can obviously go to YouTube and watch information there. Yeah, that's great. Thank

Ronald: 34:51

you. Perfect. For different learning styles. Yeah.

Jean: 34:52

Yes. For different learning styles. Yeah. Oh, Ronald, thank you so much for joining me today. I am, um, really inspired by this idea of how important it is for us to have a side hustle, something else that we are doing that feeds us. And that is then bringing that energy back into the organization. And, um, it's great to hear how you've done that, how you're doing in reality and, and also how you're giving back. Because in that process you are also, um, helping develop the next generation of people coming into the workplace. So thank you for joining and thank you for sharing your inspiring

Ronald: 35:34

story. Such great pleasure and when I say Jean, equally and inspired by you and efforts, not just as a super successful coach, but you're doing this just also again to enlighten, just kinda give inspiration to people. So keep doing what you're doing and I wish you all the best. Thank you.