Hakol Letova: Everything is for the best...this is what I learned! 3

Today is the start of Year 4…

Three years ago, my wife and I made the craziest and most beautiful decision in our lives.

Three years ago, just before turning 40, my wife, our 3 kids and I moved to Israel. We “made Aliyah”, as we say here.

Although we knew the country as tourists, Israel was actually a new country for us: I didn’t know the language, I had no job there, no career plan, I even had no clear idea of the job market – and my professional culture was a world away from the Israeli way of making business. 

For sure, had I known what was ahead of me before we came:

1.    I would have been scared to do it. Who knows? I might even have cancelled the move.

2.    I would definitely have prepared for it very differently. Just to take one example: I would have learnt IT coding and engineering instead of going to business school!

Three years ago, I had no idea about what I would be doing in the following three years…and it’s been an amazing journey, full of discovery, surprises, good (and bad) times.

Three years ago, I jumped into the unknown and learned to forget about fear, over-anticipation, rational scenario-planning (for events that never materialize). To be honest, I still have no idea about what I will be doing over the next three years either…but I am now used to it the uncertainty. I seem to have become more flexible, more entrepreneurial, more “Israeli”!

Today, I am delighted to announce a very important milestone (for me) in my integration process and involvement in the Israeli business community and high tech ecosystem. I have been appointed independent board member of Kadimastem (TASE: KDST). 

Milestones always represent a good opportunity to reflect on the past and to check what we’ve learnt.

Having reflected on my past three years, I decided to put it into an article and share it: I hope you enjoy reading it!

 

1.    Taking each challenge one at a time and adopting an agile “not-detailed-strategy” approach

Fortunately, we had no idea just how crazy an idea it was to move to Israel. 

We took one challenge at a time (new schools, new work, new friends, new community…), enabling us to continue the integration process with a positive “can-do” attitude. Sometimes, if you anticipate too much, you simply don’t do anything. It’s a bit like horses who do not want to jump the whole series of obstacles ahead of them when they are not used to jumping. If the horse only sees one, he jumps. 

I know it does not sound like a well-thought strategy, but it is a great tactic! Having a “not-detailed” strategy can actually be a great strategy…if three conditions are met:

• Focus on the big picture: the vision of what is important to you / the direction that you want to take
• Be flexible: by learning from every event in your life (see point 2 below) or from the challenges you just overcame. And don’t be ashamed to pivot if you think it’s worth it.
• Work hard on the execution: on making things happening, concretely.

With this strategy, you will be able to handle the surprises in your journey and go much further than you initially thought. This is what I have learned from my meetings with Israeli entrepreneurs and I know it has influenced me as I have adopted a more entrepreneurial mindset in my life. 

 

2.    Even crazier, I feel great having made mistakes…which is totally new to me!

Here is a short story to stress this point and illustrate my thought process on it.

I was born and raised in France, worked there most of my career, in large multi-national firms. I mastered the art of leading complex projects, managing internal politics, how to anticipate reactions and requests from my management and moves from my colleagues. In a nutshell, I was in my comfort zone.

Three years ago, just before we took off, my father-in-law offered me a very thick book that I did not open immediately for some reason. I recently started it - and I must say, it is eye-opening both about my own situation as well as about my vision about corporate leadership and decision-making.

The book is very famous and it’s central theory suggests that people place too much confidence in human judgment (cognitive bias). The writer is Daniel Kanheman, a Nobel prize winner in economics sciences (2002). The central thesis of this particular book is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative and more logical. System 2 is usually for complex or never-seen-before situations. His analysis is that we navigate all day long between System 1 and System 2. Our brain wants to process more things through System 1 than through System 2, for obvious efficiency reasons. The objective is to make less mistakes, improve the decision-making and leave more brain-space for System 2 to solve the really complex issues.

I realized how much I had always given priority to my “System 2” side, trying to anticipate as much as possible and control situations that were sometimes actually impossible (or near impossible) to control. In the end, I became like those large companies: slow to decide, not efficient enough in my work and above all, afraid of making mistakes!

In the past three years, as I was experiencing a completely different system, I have made many mistakes. Some big. Some small. But thanks to them, I have learnt to train my brain just to use System 1 to deal with a far greater number of new situations. And hopefully making less mistakes whilst doing so!

 

3.    I learned to multi-task!

I used to be a salaried employee, working with only one employer at a time…no more!

I have worked in more jobs in the past three years than I had ever done before. I have met amazing entrepreneurs who shared with me their passion for results. This has been truly exciting and eye-opening!

Walt Disney used to say “It all started with a mouse…”. That was true for him. But in my case, “it all started with meeting inspiring people!”

It all started with meeting Jeremie Berrebi, who hired me in his boutique investment company Magical Capital. He was the first one to give me a chance in Israel, leading me through the obstacles in his own, very smart, way.

He is well known as a successful serial-entrepreneur, geek and media star- with no academic education and no corporate career. Totally the opposite of my ancient definition of what should be the groundwork for a successful career path. Working with him taught me just how wrong I was!

When he gave me that chance, I had no previous experience in the high tech investment field. But with him, I managed to use my strategic analytical skillset to scout out and evaluate investment opportunities. And at the same time, to build my network in the growing Israeli high tech ecosystem. I am proud and grateful that such an amazing and caring person as Jeremie entrusted me to work with him and share great Magical Capital adventures.

More recently, I joined AxiomSL, a highly successful B2B software company serving international banks. There, I am advising another extraordinarily smart person who has recently been appointed as Chief Product Officer. I am working with him on setting-up the new Product Office and manage the change: we are defining the product strategy, detailing the roadmaps, implementing a new governance and a new KPI / performance assessment models.

It is both strategic and operational advisory - I just love it!

And last but not least, as previously mentioned, I have just been appointed a board member of Kadimastem. The company is developing a mind-blowing regenerative medicines technology based on stem cells, with an objective to cure diseases such as ALS and diabetes.

A few weeks ago, thanks to my best friend who introduced us, I met Yossi Ben Yosef- a typical, successful Israeli serial entrepreneur (just check out his impressive LinkedIn profile!).

Meeting Yossi was another inspiring moment for me on this journey – and again I discovered a sector I didn’t know much about. But Yossi has been kind enough to believe that I can help his board and invited me to join. The board is chaired by Eli Opper, former Israeli Chief Scientist and Chairman of Eureka, amongst other distinctions. The team is super high-profile, the company is on a fast development track….it’s very, very exciting. And I can’t wait to take part in the first board meeting next week.

I can’t believe I am now busy with such very different “jobs” and each of them excites me for different reasons. And I see around me many people asking for my advice or to involve me in new projects. This is totally new for me and so refreshing!

 

Today is the start of Year 4 on this journey….

I have no regrets about the past three years. The key thing I have learned is to say “Hakol letova” – translated from Hebrew, it means “everything is for the best”.

This way, I don’t look back with regrets, rather I take a positive approach to learn from my mistakes in order to avoid making them twice. It gives self confidence and enable to try and test what works or not (I apply here that from the Jewish concept of Hishadlut). That became my new technique of continuous process improvement!

Now, I can’t wait to know what will happen next and to see how many more surprises I will have experienced by the time I’ll be starting Year 5…

 

PS: thank you to my dear friend, Rob, for helping me on writing this article in proper English...So glad our paths met!

 

Source: Pulse