XA Podcast 021 | Relationships, Experimentation And Founding Teams With Vicky Chai | People And Culture Series

How do you build a great founding team? How do you handle moments of disruption, such as mergers or the mental health issues and increased isolation caused by working from home? And in a fundamentally people-oriented function, do you rely on your gut or act based on data and experimentation? In this episode we have Vicky Chai and Sergio Salvador discuss Vicky’s long journey from software engineer to Chief People Officer and the challenges and lessons on the way.

Discussion Topics: Relationships, Experimentation and Founding Teams with Vicky Chai | People and Culture Series

• Handling organisational integration during the merger of Singlife with Aviva
• People philosophy at SingLife
• Building a culture of experimentation
• Using data to shape opinions
• The importance of work relationships in sustaining mental health
• Building great founding teams

Transcript: Relationships, Experimentation and Founding Teams with Vicky Chai | People and Culture Series

Sergio Salvador: Well in this episode of the people and talent series for the XA podcast, I am very excited to be talking to Vicky Chai. Vicky is a business leader specialising in HR. Her background has been as a consultative senior HR practitioner focused on culture building, and the people side of M&As transformation and operations with a particular passion for building self-organised teams. Vicky was most recently the group head of people for Singlife with Aviva. Vicky welcome to the program.

Vicky Chai: Thank you Sergio. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you on people and talent. Let me maybe open up this conversation with a very short introduction of where I’ve come from, and also how I got on the journey with Singlife, so to speak. So, I was a computer science graduate. And my first two years of working experience was really as an IT support person. And shortly after that, I kind of realised that I prefer working with people more than with machines, and was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to make that switch into HR primarily through recruitment. And so the last couple of many, many years, it’s been a journey in terms of working in different areas. I’ve rotated through different areas of HR competencies in-house and also with external HR consulting firms. It’s been a very fruitful journey. And an opportunity came through a referral to join Singlife, the Insurtech startup that was formed in 2017 with Walter de Oude. And that was a fascinating start to a real, holistic startup experience for me at a time. Because prior to that, I’ve been in startup roles in organisations in established organisations. So I started up functions. I went into Greenfield roles, but this was really the first time I had a chance to work with a startup and Singlife, I was there with Singlife for about a year and a half, when the deal with Aviva was announced it was the end of 2020. And shortly thereafter, I was appointed CPO for the combined entity, which came together formally legally as one entity on January 1st this year, and then I was the group head of people for Singlife. So that’s a short piece of me and my journey so far.

Sergio Salvador: Fantastic. Thank you very much for that introduction. And I already have plenty of questions for you that I’m thinking I feel like asking you, I want to ask you. But first of all, I like to recognize that interesting journey that you have from a computer scientist to head of people and it resonates somewhat with me, I’m not myself, I was never smart enough to be a computer scientist. But it was just that affinity with technology and we seem to have ended up in similar spaces, from very different beginnings. But maybe going back to what you’re mentioning, the Singlife with Aviva kind of merger that doesn’t sound like a small task. And I’m wondering if you could just share with us a little bit of how you went about as the head of people trying to figure out how to bring these very different teams together.

Vicky Chai: Yes. I have to admit it was a daunting task. Because Singlife with a consortium of partners acquired Aviva. So you can say it was a small insurtech kind of acquiring a large established insurance firm. So it was a daunting challenge for sure. Now, so with any merger, the first thing to really understand is how similar or different or unique, each of the different organisations’ cultures are. Because as has been said, by Peter Drucker culture eats strategy for breakfast. And it’s true. You may have the best strategy, the best leadership team, but if the people in that culture don’t gel, then it’s a real uphill struggle. So in this case, we had help from external consultants, but also through my experience in previous M&As, it was very clear the first thing that needed to be understood and grabbed hold on was the culture perspective. And we started this journey with, first of all, understanding where we are, what are the culture and the values expressed by these two different organisations, how similar and how dissimilar they could be. And to our gratification, we found that actually, the organisation’s had many values in common. You know, both organisations wanted to put customers first, they cared about the customers, they cared about providing great service to their customers to care for them. They wanted to be agile going to market, and also the sharpening around valuing what people brought to the table.

So having that similarity felt, form a good foundation. But there were also differences to be expected. If you’re in a large organisation processes, and practices happen in a particular way, when you are in a small startup decision making, communication happens in a very different way. So those were the gaps that came out through that culture assessment, dissimilarities, and in terms of the ways of working, that was also fleshed out how fast decisions were made, how many levels of approvals did need to happen through. So having that awareness, that was to understand why different teams from the two organisations will act and behave and make decisions and solve problems differently. And then the next step was actually then to say, Okay, now we know now I know, what we’re up against let’s harness on the shared values and beliefs we have about customers and about our colleagues, and we use that to slowly work through how we will evolve our practices around decision making, around sharing information, around solving problems. And that was the more practical part of the culture journey, which will take years to kind of change because it wasn’t just about teams, doing things differently. It was also about the management team that’s coming together, and learning to also adopt new practices, new ways of working, and also maybe retaining some of the practices that worked in the past for a larger organisation. So it was really a bit of a mix and match in that sense. But a conscious effort to move ahead, collectively about what should work for us as a new organisation.

Sergio Salvador: Right. Well, that sounds fascinating not to mention a huge amount of work, I’m sure of it.

Vicky Chai: Yeah, huge amount of work. And it was very important for us to gather as many people into the process actively in workshops, focus groups and discussions to come with us on that journey of change.

Sergio Salvador: Fantastic. And I think this also takes me to, in kind of as a follow up to that, you already shared with us a little bit of your experience, you have actually had experience in quite a few different industries, Telco financial services, consulting, we already discussed your early years as a computer engineer, computer and software developer. And during that career, you have spent time both in corporate environments and startups, but if we focus a little bit on your time at the startups I’m wondering, on a couple of things. Number one, how did all of that previous career enable you? Or prepare you for the journey of Singlife? And what was your people philosophy at Singlife, especially from a hiring perspective?

Vicky Chai: I guess the first question of how my previous maybe work experience prepared me for a startup, I think personality wise, I am a person who loves to drive change from an enterprise basis. I’ve always sought out jobs that allow me to do that either to start something up, or to, you know, in the startup role, in an established organisation to do something that has never been done before. So along with that came a bit of self-assurance, because you need to have a little bit of a self-assurance to say, actually, I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but I think it’s going to work. But let’s try this and go ahead and if we make mistakes, and if things don’t turn out the way we do, we make adjustments. So that was kind of my philosophy around why I chose those roles because it gave me freedom, autonomy, but I also had to believe that I could with my experience, start to make a contribution. The people philosophy at Singlife, was very much shaped also by the co-founder, Walter, and he is actually a great believer in people. And has a great ability to maximise the potential of individuals in teams. So having that philosophy was very helpful. For me personally, it was about how to create self-organised teams, so that we can truly unlock and harness the potential of talent in teams. It was never about finding superstars and the most talented people because although even if you have them, if they cannot work together well, you don’t have a team, you cannot drive change, you cannot deliver results. So it’s about finding out how we empower or actually give away power to our colleagues so that they can come together, honour and respect each other’s talents that they are bring to the table and make things happen. And having a co-founder, who was like minded, really helped enable that process. We took chances with people, we made mistakes, we backtracked, until it was a safe space, also to experiment with some of these people’s practices.

Sergio Salvador: And what you say resonates with me, I’ve seen quite a few times before, that the thought that one of the most important relationships of a company of any size, but especially at the very beginning is their relationship between the head of people and the CEO. We also were talking about a little bit of what sounded to me, like, a culture of experimentation, where you were kind of trying things and learning from mistakes. I’d love to double click on that, if that’s okay. Because, obviously in my past, I’ve been with companies that also have these kinds of culture, but it’s not something that we find everywhere. And I’m wondering, kind of the reasons for this experimentation approach and what were the results. If you don’t mind sharing a little bit.

Vicky Chai: I think fundamentally it starts with the leaders and the values they hold. I also came from many organisations that actually did not experiment. That had set ways about doing things, that had set consequences for mistakes. So it starts with the leaders, being able to tolerate mistakes, and also moving beyond that, to have also experienced with themselves, the mistakes that they’ve made, but been given the opportunity to learn and to continue to thrive, to learn from those mistakes, and to continue to journey with the organisation successfully. So I guess it has to start with that, right? If the leaders don’t make it safe to fail, and then it’s hard to fail. It’s hard to learn from your mistakes, it’s hard to make mistakes. Now, as a mechanism, what we did was, we set the expectation that we expect people to make mistakes. And at the time, we’re a startup. What Singlife, in its early days, was trying to do has never been done before. So how do we know we don’t have the data and analytics to back it up. How do we know? So we had to consciously say, we are going to test and learn. We do expect all of you to make some sort of mistakes, because if you don’t, then clearly, you’re not trying hard enough, you’re not learning. There’s the opportunity to learn. So I think that the expectation was set. And when it did happen, we didn’t bury it or cover it up or not talk about it. They’re like, you know, even at Walters level like, yeah, that was a good decision in hindsight, but it’s not a good decision now. Oh, yeah we tried that and it didn’t work. Okay, what’s next? What do we do now? What’s plan B? What’s Plan C? So it’s able to also have those conversations in public. Not in private, and not about assigning blame, like, oh, this team didn’t do that or you didn’t do that. But like, okay, yes, we miss doing this. Okay, how do we fix it? So it’s about setting the expectation is about having those conversations. And sometimes it’s about celebrating us. And we’re like, oh, okay, we learn from that. And guess what, this is how we got this done better. Or guess what we made? We did something we shouldn’t, but it saved us going down the wrong path, we discovered it early. Yay. So it’s about sending that kind of environment. And it has to start with people who will lead business in different parts.

Sergio Salvador: You brought up a very interesting quote at the moment, which was analytics. And I had a question for you regarding technology. You know analytics and I think some technology do not necessarily have to go together. There’s different ways of gathering data, but how important was data and analytics of that data at Singlife?

Vicky Chai: Actually in my last few years now at Singlife from small insurtech to establish insurance I’ve learned data is very valuable, but even more, so are the insights that you glean from data. When you start something, yes, you don’t have data, you got to go with your past experience, and you got to be open about learning, right? But as you grow, any business line, any product line, any service line, you need to collect data, you need to understand how customers are consuming your services and products, including employees. As HR professionals, our customers, are our colleagues, our employees, they consume our services, how are they using it. I’ve learned that gut feeling isn’t always right. It cannot be applied to everything especially when in on such a skill of consumerism of our services and products. So it is very important because I have learned to revise my own so called opinions about how things should work or how employees behave or how management behaves, through getting better data. And data it’s not just how people consume services on the platform on a tech platform, but it’s also how they give feedback to you when you ask for feedback. So I think, as our services skill, the more important that data is and it has to be a combination, it’s not coming purely binary in zeros and ones that you get from a platform, it has also got to be conversation.

Sergio Salvador: That’s fascinating. And I couldn’t agree more. Increasingly, the concept of people analytics is more and more important in companies, although I feel that to a certain extent, it’s just still part of the realm of technology, of technology related companies, but increasingly, I see the more industries slowly creeping into them. Because as you say, it does allow you to make better people related decisions when you have that data. So today, we can go out on the street, and at least in Singapore, we can go to almost all places without wearing masks. Someone who wears glasses, like me, and I’m sure that applies to you as well, right? There is a significant sense of freedom, when you don’t have something foggy.

Vicky Chai: That’s right. And increase my sense of wellbeing I must say.

Sergio Salvador: And popped over a glass right in front of your eyes. But we shouldn’t forget that for two years, that was different. And companies and individuals had to operate in a very different environment. And with a pandemic I think that tested many aspects of resilience for all of us. And particularly, people like you and me in the people space. And I’m wondering if you can share some of the learnings that you had as you navigated the complexities of the situation, which at the end of the day is a crisis, right? Any learnings that perhaps could be applied to other kinds of crisis?

Vicky Chai: I’m not sure about applications to other kinds of crises, but I think this pandemic really brought home the point to me that we have to build human relationships first, before we can build strong working relationships that will contribute to the resilience of an organisation. Now what I mean is this a lot of times in the past, I mean, work in life has been so busy, that we go in, we do our stuff, we get on our calls, we have our face to face meetings. And then we go, we leave because you know, the day is late. And we go back and we repeat this. There are a few opportunities to create relationships that extend beyond the working environment. So when the pandemic happened, and we were locked down for many, many months, up and down, up and down, people were being left behind in terms of their mental wellbeing, in terms of support in assimilating into either a new organisation or an existing organisation, but virtually. And many people felt lost, and as we were very aware mental health issues were on the rise. So it probably points to me that we have to establish much more human relations in the workplace more closely so that when another crisis appears, whether it’s similar to the one that we just experienced or not, people know that there are people that they can count on. That they know how they can work together, virtually. They know who they can call on rather than having to be surprised by this sudden wall of silence or remoteness, or when you get on a call, it’s just five minutes, and it’s about work, and then you hang up. So those human relationships will be, I believe, the glue and the foundation for strong working relationships. So whatever crisis happens, I like to think people know, they’re not alone, and not just in terms of family and friends, but also in terms of being able to continue to drive the business operation and lead forward and I think it’s very important. I mean, you know, there are many, many interventions that all our head fellow HR practitioners today, you know, increase support for employee wellbeing, and doing more, either it’s virtual or face to face in person sessions, around, you know, coming together, having a cup of coffee, a pint of beer, you know, talk over things those are important. Those are touch points. But we need to figure out ways to build much, much stronger relationships, so that we can continue to thrive in periods of uncertainty, that we know that we’re not alone, and we can call each other and keep going.

Sergio Salvador: And what you say, actually reminds me of a sentence I’ve heard before of course, I haven’t gone dead by any stretch of the imagination, but I am coping with pride. A sentence around “If you take care of your people, they will take care of your business.” Ultimately, it is about the fact that yes, we are all people and we all deal with these crises in different ways, but knowing that there are others around the care can make a huge difference. So I have a question regarding founders, or a question for founders. So, I always talk about our roles, like CHRO, CPO as almost a CEO whisperer, someone who is very close to, and certainly it doesn’t apply to me, I believe that you have not been a founder yourself before, but you have worked very closely with founders. And from that perspective, and the people lens that you have today, developed over years of experience in the space in many companies. So I’m wondering if you would have any thoughts for founders, but especially early stage founders, who might need to shape up their teams. So when they start looking at the people aspect of their organisations, what thoughts might you have, what advice might you have for them?

Vicky Chai: I would say, when you’re forming your founding team, it is a team that’s going to shape the future of the business and the culture, very importantly, and will to a great extent, influence the resiliency of the business. So my first advice in terms of shaping that team is to really hire competent, humble, curious, and open minded individuals to form part of your team. Don’t hire people you’ve known in the past that you know could do those jobs, right? Keep an open mind, seek out talent, and build a diverse team. So don’t always find it with friends and family, people that you know from your past. Because those perspectives tend to dovetail into a very unifying, but may not be very helpful point of view moving forward. So you need that diversity from the beginning. And you need to hire a team, a group of people that can work together, because I think sometimes, co-founders tend to hire superstars and great talent. But the most important thing is the ability of the people to come together to form a unified team to charge ahead, in the same direction. Having talent is great, but if they can’t work together, there will be chaos, and chaos will undermine everything that the co-founder tries to build. So be open minded about who you hire, seek out talent, seek out diversity in perspectives. And get a few pair of eyes on the people that as a co-founder, you’re curious, you want to bring in, get a few different other pairs of eyes and conversations going. It’s not about hiring by consensus, it’s not because then nothing really will get done, but it’s to be able to see a more holistic side of the candidate. Plus, I have to say, by virtue of being a CEO, being a co-founder, you have certain drives and beliefs about your ability to do things and your ability to identify talent. However, don’t let it blindside you. Create that diversity of thought and perspective, already at the beginning, get a team that is competent, and that can work together. So I think that advice I would give to any founder who’s starting her or his own team.

Sergio Salvador: I love your emphasis on diversity. I think we are lucky to be in a region of the world where it’s possible to find a certain type of diversity. Yeah, perhaps nationality race. It always feels like there’s an endemic lack of gender diversity, especially in the technology space, and I will make an emphasis myself, if you don’t mind, me piling on top of what you were saying, regarding gender diversity, because that is an additional type of perspective that is added to the decision making process. And as you very well said, at least better outcomes.

Vicky Chai: Absolutely. You must seek out different perspectives, on the situation and on talent.

Sergio Salvador: Fantastic. We’re about to wrap up. But I have a couple of questions for you. I always like to finish these chats, asking for a personal recommendation of a book that you perhaps enjoyed or influenced you in some way.

Vicky Chai: May I recommend two books, but by the same author called David Marquet, and I tell his books to anyone who will listen to me recommend, because I find that they are organisation changing, culture changing, and they are leader, transformational. So the two books are by this author, David Marquet. He is first known for his first book called ‘Turn the Ship Around!’. And it’s really from him that I’ve learned the way to cultivate and nurture self-organised teams, because you can’t say, Hey, I empower you to go forth and be a team and make it happen. It doesn’t work that way. You’ve got to put in place mechanisms and interventions to give power to people to become self-organised. So ‘Turn the ship around’, actually outlines I think about 19 mechanisms in three pillars, which is around control, competency, and clarity. When you have competence, when you have clarity, then you can give control away. Now the second book is also by him and it’s called ‘The language of leadership’. And this book really impacted me personally, because I’m a very self-assured commanding kind of person, I can be very directive, particularly under stress. So it was real learning for me to how do you create a safe space for conversations to hear different perspectives, different solutions, different ideas, by using language, by how you speak, by what you ask and by how you face different things. We think we know it right. But actually, this book really opened my eyes to like, Ah, those questions I thought were helpful, we’re not coming across as helpful. And these different questions are helpful. So one is organisational transformation. And one is personally transformative. And I highly recommend if you do nothing, but read only two books this year, these are complete books I strongly recommend.

Sergio Salvador: Thank you very much. So the language of leadership and turn the ship around by David Marquet. I will figure out how to put them in the note. And we have come to the end of our discussion, which I thoroughly enjoyed before we do that I would love to share with our listeners where they can find more about you or connect with you? What are the best places?

Vicky Chai: Wow. I’m not really out there. I mean, I don’t write a lot or post a lot, but they can definitely find me on LinkedIn. And I would love to have conversations with people who are also trying to figure out with me, how do we enable self-organised teams to happen, how do we unlock and also harness the potential of talent in teams. So find me on LinkedIn, drop a message. And yeah, if you put that as a tagline, self-organised teams, then absolutely I will connect with you and have a conversation and learn from you as well.

Sergio Salvador: Self-organised teams there you go. Vicky, thank you so much for your time. It has been a real pleasure to have this chat with you. I have myself learned quite a few things and I’m looking for those two books that you recommended. Thank you so much.

Vicky Chai: Thank you Serio. Thank you for your time and opportunity.

Our Guest: Vicky Chai

Vicky is a versatile HR practitioner who designs and uses HR transformational initiatives to support business growth and solve long-term people issues. She relishes start-up roles and organisations, in companies that need to drive agility and constant change in order to grow.

Vicky has had both consulting and in-house operational & specialist roles across the full spectrum of HR in her 20+ years of HR career. Vicky was most recently the group head of people for Singlife with Aviva.