All’s Well that Ends Well

Welcome to the final article of the three-part series on reflections from my sustainable investing consulting research project. As shared in my previous article, we were having problems as a team but rather than trying to understand the root cause we kept putting things under the rug. We tried to continue working together by postponing the much needed conversation to resolve our issues. Undoubtedly, we failed miserably at it and soon our patience broke. We ended up using the next lecture to discuss these issues. The conversation lasted more than an hour but it was one of the most eye opening and introspective conversations I have ever had.

In hindsight, we should have done this earlier, but we started talking about things from the very beginning of the project. We made sure that everyone had the opportunity to express their concerns and feelings and freely share what they felt, and how they perceived things to be. We let go of our inhibitions and engaged in a non-judgmental discussion for the sake of the project and ourselves, knowing fully well that none of us has any bad intentions. We ultimately discussed our perspectives on why all the delays were happening, what’s hindering us to deliver our best, if anyone was facing any particular challenges – personally or professionally, amongst others.

I had a few realisations from the conversation. First, although everyone was trying to do their best despite heavy academic workload, one off delays at in different weeks negatively impacted the team spirit. Such things kept accumulating and the project work seemed more individualistic than a team effort. Second, it assisted me in seeing my blind spots, or how I was unknowingly making assumptions while the situation on the other side was entirely different. It is always preferable to ask and get clarification rather than assuming what the situation might be. Last, personally I tend to avoid confrontation and let things happen even when they are causing discomfort which is detrimental for myself and others in the long run. I have enough evidence from the subsequent weeks to decide that I won't ever again succumb to my inhibitions.

I concur that this was one of the most difficult conversations I have ever had, but I'm so glad we did it. Since we resolved all of our potential issues, were aware of each other’s perspectives and schedules, the weeks after were truly a delight. We came together as a team and worked on all the deliverables efficiently. All the subsequent team meetings were productive and positive. One felt like working on the project and its deliverables, problem solving seemed much easier, and discussions more fruitful. When one of us had limited bandwidth, we genuinely helped the other out and handled things as a team.

Moving away from the team dynamics to our consulting project. We analyzed the US philanthropy community's commitment to mission-aligned investments. We were unfamiliar with this idea, but our client, the CEO of a social enterprise, provided hands-on support throughout the project, greatly enhancing our understanding. Based on our research, we identified a few indicators to assess an organization's accountability and transparency. We summarized our research and created a checklist for organizations' baseline assessments as well as a Google form that can be used to easily increase the research sample.

Additionally, we conducted a few stakeholder interviews with the pioneers of mission-aligned investing to learn from their experience. We tried to understand the importance of transparency and accountability and how to drive these within the community. It was interesting to learn different perspectives which forced us to reflect upon our own perspectives. As a consulting team, we analysed all of our primary and secondary research and brainstormed our insights from the project. We presented our research to our peers, who contributed pertinent considerations and assisted us in improving our work. We then presented to the client and one of the industry's pioneers as well. They welcomed our assistance and appreciated our work and insights.

When I had registered for this course, I was excited to work on a consulting project and gain practical experience. I'll admit that I didn't foresee the depth of knowledge and experience I would acquire throughout these three months. Not only did I learn about a completely new investment strategy mission-aligned investing, but also learnt a lot about team, project, time, and client relationship management. These may be called as ‘soft skills’, but in reality they are ‘hard skills’ that are necessary for a working professional and which cannot be learned from a book. It has been a deeply enriching experience for me. Despite the many obstacles we encountered, I have no regrets about any step of the journey. I am glad I got an opportunity to enroll in this course since I learnt something new every week and it really made a difference for me. I would like to end with the quote- 'All’s well that ends well'.