An Interview with Jen Zwilling
The Basics:
Age: 23
Location:
New York
Current
occupation: Customer Experience Strategy Senior Consultant in IBM Interactive
Last school
attended: Duke University
Biggest
and/or most recent Blueprint Change*: Deciding to enter consulting rather than
the public/social sector after undergrad
*A decision
you made or something that happened largely or completely out of your control
Past:
Could you describe your biggest and/or most
recent Blueprint Change?
I have
always been very interested and involved in the public and social sector,
particularly with the Tourette Syndrome Association; I’ve been lobbying on
Capitol Hill since I was 12. So when I got to Duke, it was kind of a no-brainer
that I was interested in majoring in something related to that. I ended up
majoring in Public Policy Studies with a minor in Education and I thought that
I would probably go into some sort of policy or advocacy work, perhaps
education policy, or something non-profit related.
When I was
entering my senior year though, I realized that – while those were areas that I
was very very passionate about – there were a ton of causes that I cared a lot
about and the one thing that all those causes had in common was [that they all
needed funding]. So I started to learn a lot about venture philanthropy and
corporate social responsibility and I became really interested in the idea of social
impact and community outreach work that large corporations and very successful
individuals do. I realized that – while I felt much more competent in my
non-profit experience and understanding that world – I had very very little
business experience and that was something I wanted to gain. So I decided that
I would look into management consulting.
I wanted to better
understand how Corporate America works – what sort of business development and
strategy skills I could learn so that, one day, when I’m ready to come back
into the social/public sector, I’d have those skills and a toolbox to leverage.
You can have the most incredible people doing grassroots work, but at some
point, you are going to hit a ceiling if you don’t have the funding to support
it or the funding to make it applicable on a really large scale. I think there
is at least some shift in thinking about how to manage non-profits, and a lot
of that is a move towards what people call “venture philanthropy” – basically,
running non-profits like a business venture. More and more we see past CEOs or
people with very high-up roles in large corporations make the move to the
social sector and help non-profit organizations operate as if they were
businesses.
Obviously
you’re not dealing with profit; you are dealing with budget and raising funds,
but in some ways, it’s still revenue… the amount that you can raise for your
cause. So in order to have a successful organization – whether that’s a
corporate organization or a non-profit organization – there are certain
principles that can applied and having the ability to understand the connection
and the similarities between those principles in all different types of
settings is really useful and important.
What motivated this change?
There was a
shift in thinking when I was looking for a first job from “What am I going to
do with my life?” to “What is my first job going to be?” And I think that, sometimes,
you can still have a long-term plan, but the steps you need to get there may
seem to deviate from that path. I know that I want to be able to give back and I
think public policy is so interesting. But, right now, I think that I need to
learn more about how this world works. If I want to go into corporate social responsibility,
it’s not enough to have the social sector experience. I also need to understand
how corporate budgets are managed, the inner workings of corporations, the
politics of work at a large company. That was a huge realization for me…to
understand that what I see myself doing down the road, what my dream is, what
my dream looks like 15, 20 years from now doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s
where I should be now. I might need to do some things along the way to make me
a better candidate to get there.
I was in a
leadership development program [at Duke] and we went on a retreat at the end of
the program senior year and I got into a debate with some of my peers and, you
know, there is a whole school of thought that this is the time where we should
be doing the things that we are passionate about. Like, if I’m so passionate
about a certain cause – for example, if I think that one day I want to join the
Peace Corps – what’s a better time than now to do it? I am young, I am single,
there’s no one depending on me. I don’t have a family that I need to provide
for or is depending on me to be there every day. Now is the perfect time to do
it.
Then,
there’s the other school of thought – which I guess I fall into more – that now is
the time that I should be doing everything I can to set myself up for [what I’m
passionate about and might want to do in the future]. I should be making sure
that I am starting to establish myself financially and not stopping my
education. I might not be in the classroom anymore, but there are skills that I
need to get in order to get to where I want to. And the thought is that I
should be selfish in that way to prepare myself. So that, one day, I can better
provide for the people who will depend on me. My thinking is that I have the
rest of my life to figure out what exactly I am most passionate about and how
exactly I can involve myself in that area and, right now, I want to just work
hard and make sure that I am leaving all my opportunities open, not closing any
doors, and just setting myself up for the greatest possible future.
I don’t
think there’s anything wrong with either those viewpoints and I think it’s
great that people have goals, because that’s what keeps the world going around.
That’s what makes a diverse population of people. People from my graduation class
went into all different areas, for example. Some people decided to explore
passions, some people dove right into grad school, some people joined a large
corporation like IBM. I think that it’s really interesting to take into account
everyone’s perspectives and different ideas on what these really special years
right after college are for and what we can achieve in them and how we measure
that success.
What was the most challenging part of this
change and how did you adapt?
I think the biggest
challenge was the internal struggle. Also, my family and friends who know me
very well were very surprised that I was going to go work for a very large corporation
and jump into true corporate America. I think that the way that I’ve been able
to deal with it has been realizing that what I do for a living – my work and
primary job – doesn’t have to be what defines me.
This past
week, for the perfect example, I took some vacation time and I’ve been at the
semi-annual conference sponsored by the National Tourette Syndrome Association.
It’s an organization that I’ve been involved with my whole life. I started an advocacy
curriculum for them and I’ve been coming here to train these peers to be advocates
for themselves and others with this disorder. Just as I used to miss a few days
of school each year to do this training, I can take a vacation day or two and
come down to DC to do this training and lead a group of incredible teens to
Capitol Hill and help them lobby for an issue they are really passionate about
and affects their lives. I think realizing that this first job doesn’t have to
define all of who I am has been a good way to deal with that and not lose sight
of the things that I was and still am passionate about.
And also, celebrating
and being really open to the new interests I’ve found – things that I had no
idea would interest me and I would become passionate about. It’s really cool to
see my interests evolve. It’s just a reminder that you really don’t know what
you do like and what you don’t like until you try it. The unexpected tasks have
actually been really enjoyable. It’s strange transitioning from the past how
many years of our lives…our whole lives…in a classroom learning what is forced
upon us. Now it’s a very different kind of learning. It’s learning on the job,
seeking out your own opportunities.
I’ve gotten really interested in this whole
world of human centered design and design thinking. I’m reading a book called Creative Confidence written by the
founders of Ideo. It’s all about this human centered design and it’s so
interesting to see how the concepts – not only apply to some of the work that I
am doing when I’m doing customer strategy work and journey maps – but really,
in many ways, how they apply to the Tourette Syndrome Association. I look back
now and see how design thinking has been a process that has been ingrained in
me, sort of how my brain works. And, if I hadn’t fallen down this path and
ended up with IBM Interactive Experience, I don’t know that I would have ever
have known the term ‘design thinking’ and now that has helped me bridge my
interests together.
Life just
takes unexpected turns and I think that if you have a high level of awareness…and
by no means do I think that mine is perfect…I think it’s something that I’ll
work towards attaining…it’ll be interesting to see how unexpected fields can
overlap. That helps me feel confident in what I’m doing. That I’m not going
down a road that is going in such a separate direction of where I’ve always
hoped to end up. It’s just a matter of finding those paths that connect the two
and making sure that I recognize that.
Present
How do you feel about your Blueprint Change
now?
“If I made
the right decision?” is a really scary question. When I graduated, I was given
two offers: one for Teach for America and one for IBM. Those were the two
offers I was debating between and I knew that it was a huge decision. It wasn’t
like choosing one consulting firm over another or one teaching fellowship over
another. It was really a huge difference of what I would be doing on a day-to-day
basis. I guess I have no way of knowing if I made the right decision, because I
don’t know how happy I would have been doing the other. I’d like to think that
I enjoy learning and new experiences and I would have found more than the
silver lining in whatever path I took.
…But I feel
good about where I am. I feel like I learned so so much in the past year and a
half. I feel like I learned a lot about what I do like and what tasks I didn’t
know interest me. I’ve also learned a ton about what I don’t like and what
things really are important to me. And that goes in terms of career, but also
[in terms of my personal values]. When you are really busy, you learn a lot
about what’s important to you, because you see what you make time for. And that
has been eye-opening to reflect on.
No matter
how busy I am, the two things that I always make time for is family and close
friends. That’s something that I’ve always done and hoped, but realizing that
it’s true was a good validation for me. I think that it would worry me if that
wasn’t the case. And, like I’ve said, I’ve learned so much – new things that I
didn’t expect to like. Sometimes, I hear myself talking about more tech things
and I have to take a step a back and be like, “Was that just me? Who just said
that?” Because I never imagined that I would have learned so much in that
sense.
I think that
I’ll always be curious. I’ll always be looking and thinking about the next
opportunity and keep my eyes and ears open to what’s out there. I don’t think
I’m ever going to be 100% confident, 100% satisfied in any career-related
decision that I make. And I sort of hope that I never am. Because then there’s
hope that there’s something even better still to come. I guess sometimes that
is scary if you’re not able to be 100% satisfied, but I also think that, in
some ways, it’s what keeps me going. Who’s
to say that I couldn’t be even more passionate about something totally
unrelated?
I hope that
I get the opportunity to try new things. I hope that I figure out some more
things that I don’t like, because I do think that’s important, but I also hope
that I find unexpected things that I really enjoy.
And in the realm of changes in general -
what are some Blueprint Changes you are most proud of?
I think the
Blueprint Change that I am most proud of is switching from this CbD program at
IBM to IBM Interactive Experience as a Customer Experience Strategy Senior Consultant.
I feel like that was a really good example of the true first time that I was
able to try something completely new, figure out what parts I liked, what parts
interested me…set my sights on something…set a goal….and sought out resources
around me to get me there. That’s something I’m really proud of, because it was
something I really did on my own; it wasn’t something I always planned for.
I mean,
consulting wasn’t something that I always planned for by any means, but it’s
not like I took a huge risk right out of college. A lot of people surrounding
me were interviewing for consulting and it was more the norm than the exception.
But figuring out [my specialty] on my own…realizing what I like and then
finding the group at IBM that was doing it…trying to learn how to network and speak
with the right people…seek the right courses, seek out all the
opportunities….and then seeing that pay off and put me in a place where I’m
really really excited about the work…that’s been really cool. It has given me
confirmation that I’m happy with my Big Blueprint Change to go into consulting.
Because I’ve already been able to narrow it down and find a smaller field that
I’m passionate about.
If you feel overwhelmed with change(s) now,
how do you adapt?
I think
change is always really overwhelming; I feel like even really small changes are
really scary. Sort of bringing it full circle to what I said in the beginning
though – we are so so young, we have our whole lives ahead of us, so trying to
focus on the exciting aspects of the unknown instead of the scary aspects [is a
good way of adapting].
I’m totally
someone whose first inclination is to think of the scary parts of it. I really
think that I remind myself all the time of how young we are, how much time we
still have to make any changes that we may want. And that very very very few
decisions in life are permanent. With every decision and every big change,
there’s a trial period and there are consequences…there are certainly consequences
to decisions…and it’s not always easy to bounce back from a change, but almost
nothing is permanent and something not so great might lead you to something
really great. Those are my defense mechanisms. That’s what keeps me going when
things are too scary.
Future
What sorts of Blueprint Changes would like
to see happen in the future and why?
I guess most
of the Blueprint Changes that I would be most happy with in the future is going
to have to do more with my personal life than my professional life. Looking
really into the future, I want to have a family, I want to be a mom.
…but I don’t
know, because when I joined IBM, I had no idea that I could have hoped to end
up with IBM Interactive. And I certainly never would have said the phrase ‘customer
experience strategy’. I sort of always had a plan, always thought I had a
vision of where my life would take me. I knew the end goal for my future. Now,
I really have learned that I know what I like, but who’s to say that there’s
something I haven’t tried that I might like even more? That I might be even
more passionate about?
…so maybe in
the first time in my life, I feel like my future blueprint is really open.
There are some things that I know for sure – I know that I want to have a
family, I know that I want to travel more, I want to see more of the world, and
all of those things. But in terms of my career and where I hope it takes me, I
hope that I experience a few different things. My biggest hope is that I never
settle. That I keep learning, finding new things to try, and figuring out where
those things can take me. And sometimes they might take me to a point where I
don’t want to be, but I think that can be really useful too.
I guess I do
really hope that I eventually have a Blueprint Change that leads me back to the
non-profit world. I think that I will at some point need to make that my full-time
job. That’s at the core of who I am. In order to really feel fulfilled, I’ll
need to go back to that eventually. But, I feel like the more I enjoy what I’m
doing now, the more in the future I see that happening. And that’s okay.
What are you most looking forward to in the
time between now and year end?
I am looking
forward to new and more opportunities with the Customer Experience Strategy
group. I feel like I’m still sort of in transition, so I hope to get more
involved with that sort of work and really just focus on that. I’m starting to
help out with some bid and proposal work, which I’m excited about, but I’d like
to work more with more people in the group and immerse myself there.
Could you share a piece of advice from your
experiences (e.g. something that you thought about a lot during changes)?
I think that
my biggest piece of advice – I don’t know that I’m qualified to give advice,
but – to just remember that really no change has to be permanent if you don’t
want it to be. And every new job, every new experience…it’s not forever.
There’s not a quota of Blueprint Changes we can make. There’s no one who is
going to say, “Stop, you’ve tried too many things.” I think that’s really
important to keep in mind.
Even when,
down the line, I decide to transition to something else, it doesn’t have to be
what defines me. When I graduated college, for instance, it wasn’t like, “What
do I want to do for the rest of my life?”, but “What do I want to do for my
first job?” Thinking of it all that way can keep you grounded and make your
decisions a little easier, a little less scary.
Thank you, Jen!
0 comments :
Post a Comment