3 Lessons I Learnt at Lazada
Opinions expressed in this article & blog are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of Lazada, past, current or future organizations that I am part of.
Some background and context:
My tenure at Lazada spans from Nov 2019 to Jan 2022, a little over 2 years
It’s my opinion that e-commerce is a fast-moving industry, further accelerated by factors like Covid19 and competitors’ movements in the time I was at the company
I had 2 separate roles within my tenure - 1. merchant acquisition for LazMall (a channel within Lazada) 2. business development for Lazada omnichannel solutions (details on my LinkedIn)
Internally, I worked with local and regional teams and across functions like customer care team, product & tech teams
More than 60% of my tenure was Working-from-Home (WFH)
Finally, context, past experiences, organization culture and individual preferences matter. YMMV - Your Mileage (of the lessons stated here) May Vary.
Lesson #1 Document (and Share) Your Work
This is something I picked up from a line manager in the short stint he spent with the team. I was blown away when he shared entire BRDs (Business Requirements Document) on internal drive. What was even mind blowing was the level of details and rationale behind (business & product) proposals shared in the documents. I learnt a lot just by reading them - beyond this, it also brings everyone up to speed and it forms the basis for discussion in meetings.
Only by documenting and sharing openly, you capture collective wisdom and allow everyone - existing and future team members - to collaborate and build on it. So people don't have to start from scratch all over again. In fact I argue that it is only right for employees to document and share their work - as this is company's intellectual property.
Beyond big ‘heavy’ project documents like BRDs, I also advocate individuals & teams documenting and sharing the below items:
While it can be a hassle to be documenting these regularly but I believe the pros far overweigh the cons:
transparency - everyone knows what everyone else is working on; helps team member build collective knowledge and gather context
efficiency - easy to share knowledge with external teams & onboard new team members
continuity - knowledge is retained even when team member(s) leave or are on leave i.e. lesser likelihood to get disturbed by your colleagues when you’re on leave!
Lesson #2 Leaders come in different forms (I broadened my definition of a leader)
Not every leader needs to be an inspirational visionary one to deliver or get the most out of a performing team. I’ve always held that leaders need to be a certain type i.e. dynamic, charismatic, visionary, inspirational in order to be ‘qualified’ and effective. I'm glad I came across leaders at Lazada who showed me otherwise.
For example, I will admit I’ve always doubted the administrator type i.e. quiet, “ordinary”, “behind-the-scenes”, almost postman type whose main contribution is to simply pass messages from person A to B and vice versa.
But in a fast-moving industry and company, the administrator-type provides stability, tenure, connections and relationships to help his team get things done!
I also observed one trait of leaders of well-performing teams - the leader’s ability to hire well i.e. having the judgement for people with delicate balance of skills, attitude and potential AND being a great complement to the existing team. I notice well-performing teams tend to be ones with great team vibes and culture. I believe this takes experience, skills (and maybe a bit of luck) to hire well and build a dynamic team culture. Which leads me to.....
Lesson #3 I Learnt to Lead
I’m thankful for the opportunity to hire and lead a small team of 3 business development executives. It was a little daunting for me when I first joined and onboarded to Lazada (and e-commerce in general), so I wanted to pay it forward by facilitating a good start to their careers at Lazada (and e-commerce / tech in general).
As you can imagine, I implemented Lesson 1 - Document (and Share) Your Work - within the team. Beyond that, below lists some key principles I communicated and practiced with the team:
Transparency - again, see Lesson #1
I identify and communicate the destination (KPIs) and let team members figure out how they can get to the destination; I am happy to provide guidance and share my (relevant) experience, but will not dictate the exact path to the destination for the following reasons:
figuring out paths encourages ownership of one's own work, allows growth and challenging status quo - needed in fast moving sectors
my path may be outdated and not be the best, relevant or applicable for everyone
If in doubt, err on the side of over-communication, esp in these WFH days
Take care of yourselves - health and family come first - only then you can be in the right condition to take care of the business
Some of the things I did, advocated and emphasized:
Had 2 sessions of one-on-one (30 mins each) with each team member weekly
Got the team to attend regional meetings with C-suites participating in them
Importance of building relationships with other teams and managing internal stakeholders to do their work well
Encouraged them to speak up at external meetings with other internal stakeholders and to show their work
While my tenure (around 4 months) as a people leader wasn’t considered long, I cherished the journey and the time spent with the team. Great news was, as a team, we achieved the business acquisition target, the team’s key KPI by end of 2021!
Summing up, I couldn’t be more thankful for my time, the opportunities I had and the relationships I forged at Lazada. The timing of my tenure at Lazada couldn’t have been more opportune and important. There are obviously more takeaways and lessons than the 3 listed here. I sincerely wish Lazada the best and look forward to great initiatives and growth of Lazada!
