Why in English? Good question. If I look back to my business life, I spent probably more time dealing with people in English rather than in my language. I would have want to have the “little flag buttons” on my website to switch between Italian and English.
But it’s not – I guess this could limit the creativity, forcing lot of effort just to have a solid consistence everywhere in the website. This is not for me: it’s overkilling and keeping time away from what I really wanna do, in general.
Creativity first – I do really like writing (as well as designing, creating, inventing, innovating…), so I will follow the day by day inspiration to fill pages in either English or Italian, where English is supposed to be closer to the business matters.
Corollary – please do not care if you will find a jeopardized situation on the website, just thank that my German is far from being good enough… (and my singing attitude is less than zero in a scale from one to hundred)
This is going to anticipate the feeling about my answer to the question: despite I always had a strong sense of duty (at least, after completing my studies…), there are topics that I really suffer when dealing for long without discontinuing my dedication – among the others, guess that words like “maintenance” and “infrastructure” are not really at the core of my interests. I don’t want to spoiler too much this concept, let’s park it for a while.
Sometimes wonder what I really wanna be when I grow up.
Well, I see a “better late than never” expression on your face, considering that, on aggregate basis, I will probably have to work less in the future than in my background. Yes, unfortunately you are right – but this is exactly the point: I am not ready to make compromises on that.
Guess I don’t have one true calling. Looking to the Emilie’s TED talk I found lots of attitudes that I share: not sure of being 100% a “multipotentialite”, just realized that I was unconsciously able to take advantage by some of these attitudes in my professional life. Working in Consulting has been a very good enabler for these attitudes of mine:
- I always worked sharing values and behaviours with all my clients counterparts, leveraging an organizational path by project, without falling too much into boring “routines”
- internally (in consulting), I had the chance to join and lead entities devoted to innovation and digital transformation by mission (that were allowed to spend less time in bureaucracy when growing fast)
There is sentence from Emilie that I can’t write better (not even in Italian): “I began to notice this pattern in myself where I would become interested in an area and I would dive in, become all-consumed, and I’d get to be pretty good at whatever it was, and then I would hit this point where I’d start to get bored. And usually I would try and persist anyway, because I had already devoted so much time and energy and sometimes money into this field. But eventually this sense of boredom, this feeling of, like, yeah, I got this, this isn’t challenging anymore — it would get to be too much. And I would have to let it go.“
This is exactly what I am feeling now:
- Some months ago I joined Pianoforte Group, having 1300+ stores worldwide part of 3 well positioned brands in the retail-fashion market (Yamamay, Carpisa, Jaked)
- I shaped the digital transformation agenda for the group, defining the CRM-Customer Engagement-Omnichannel journey for the coming years, working well with both Consulting and Solutions providers and having the chance to present the journey at the Oracle Retail Industry Forum in both Minneapolis (June) and Madrid (October)
- I had somehow to challenge for granting the approval of the journey. Now it’s there, investment approved, project starting but coexisting with lots of other day by day activities, application maintenance, infrastructure management, that are absorbing much more time to be devoted by all the project team members
- I feel I got it, it’s no more challenging in the sense I like, going to loose traction…
In my background, I led lots of international challenging programs, bringing them to completion (I mean, it is not a matter of execution) – what is the difference now? They were projects and they were managed as such, with a full time dedication, having a sense of urgency and challenge that I am loosing on a path that is more relaxed.
Here we got at the point of what I don’t wanna do: in the current situation, I fear that I could leave the program leadership in the coming months and therefore I prefer to handover the role now where there is a discontinuity between plan and execution.
I don’t feel of giving up, I am really proud of the accomplishment we got so far but feeling that I’m over, I don’t have anymore the same motivations I had in the “shaping” and creating phase, it is no more challenging for me over time: I really guess that it’s a different challenge from what really makes me performing at best – considering my own Vogler’s hero’s journey model I feel myself on the way back home.
And now? let’s move to what I wanna do.
I definitely trust Maslow’s hyerarchy of needs pyramid: I have been so lucky in always having the opportunity to feel the needs that are at the top of the pyramid – both Esteem and Self-actualization. Either meeting the needs or looking for meeting them represents for me the path to work better, feel better and achieve a greater self confidence leveraging work ethics and creativity:
- Quoting Michael Jordan, “work ethics eliminates fear”: he was probably focusing on how training is important to progress and succeed, if you take the sentence as it is, it is definitively true in business matters too: don’t feel panic if you work well.
- Yes, using creativity is part of my work ambition: ancient Romans stated “repetita iuvant”, but somehow bore…
Considering Maslow, how you wanna hit your target? By managing people and projects, this is a fair summary of what I like to do (and what I am very good at) – at the end of the day, I can achieve this both in Consulting (back to, déjà vu) and Retail/Fashion/CPG companies having a priority Digital Transformation Program in progress (to be started too?).
Missions Impossible? Not really a problem if fascinating me, I got some of them in my background – feeling the challenge increase the happiness to sort them out.
Wondering if Dream Job exists? Trust yes, I definitely have a dream – What about working as CIO for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina?
- It is a project – the timeframe is long but still a project – spacing through all of my favorite topics (sport, ski, mountain, Dolomites, Milan, olympics, digital….)
- I think that I can exploit a really unmatched commitment / passion, on top of my background, experiences, capabilities and skills to succeed.
Claudio Bianchi