Ray­nar­do Has­sanal­ly

As a young pro­fes­sion­al, I can at­test to the ben­e­fits of learn­ing from ex­pe­ri­enced lead­ers and men­tors and to the ben­e­fits of hav­ing ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als avail­able and ac­ces­si­ble to guide and ad­vise as I de­vel­oped as a mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al and in the de­vel­op­ment of the Lok Jack GSB Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion.

Be­ing in­ex­pe­ri­enced in the sphere of cor­po­rate gov­er­nance, I have been priv­i­leged to “be in the room” as sea­soned CEOs and di­rec­tors built and con­tributed to the de­vel­op­ment of the Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion. In re­flect­ing on these ex­pe­ri­ences, these are some of the fun­da­men­tal take­aways that I have gained from be­ing ex­posed to sea­soned pro­fes­sion­als and ex­pe­ri­enced lead­ers in my ca­reer de­vel­op­ment jour­ney.

1. Learn­ing from the Best: Tap­ping in­to the wis­dom of ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­als and emerg­ing lead­ers will help you gain in­sights in­to strate­gic plan­ning, stake­hold­er en­gage­ment, and ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance prac­tices. The abil­i­ty to ob­serve and learn from ex­pe­ri­enced busi­ness lead­ers, as de­ci­sions are made and ra­tio­nalised, shapes your think­ing and thought pat­terns as to the fac­tors that im­pact mak­ing busi­ness de­ci­sions. My most salient mem­o­ry of this was lis­ten­ing to the CEOs of three large cor­po­rate en­ti­ties in T&T dis­cuss the need to pre­pare their or­gan­i­sa­tions for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in Ju­ly of 2019 (six months be­fore the pan­dem­ic was de­clared) and the mea­sures that would be put in­to place to en­sure busi­ness con­ti­nu­ity should the pro­ject­ed event take place.

2. Con­tin­u­ous Growth: Ex­cel­lent lead­ers and men­tors em­pha­sise the im­por­tance of con­tin­u­ous learn­ing, in­spir­ing mentees to seek out new op­por­tu­ni­ties for de­vel­op­ment and re­fine their skills as they nav­i­gate the chal­lenges of lead­er­ship roles.

For ex­am­ple, one se­nior pub­lic ser­vant shared with us the ben­e­fits of her ca­reer when her men­tor ad­vised her to learn Span­ish and be­come bilin­gual. This skill made her the on­ly per­son in the man­age­ment team who was bi-lin­gual, which then pro­pelled her ca­reer as the or­gan­i­sa­tion col­lab­o­rat­ed with oth­er sim­i­lar agen­cies through­out Latin Amer­i­ca.

3. Shap­ing Ethos and Cul­ture: Men­tors shape the ethos and cul­ture of the or­gan­i­sa­tion or as­so­ci­a­tion of which they are a part. This then in­stils a com­mit­ment to the or­gan­i­sa­tion and fos­ters a sense of com­mu­ni­ty among its mem­bers, as there is now a shared goal. The cul­ture and ethos of the ALJGSB Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion were in no small part shaped by the knowl­edge, val­ues, and lead­er­ship of the in­ter­im Alum­ni Board of Ex­ec­u­tives and their col­lec­tive wis­dom and con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of this or­gan­i­sa­tion. They rep­re­sent the col­lec­tive knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence of nine lo­cal, re­gion­al, and mul­ti-na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions in a range of eco­nom­ic sec­tors. This col­lec­tive wis­dom per­son­i­fied the term syn­er­gis­tic col­lab­o­ra­tion, which re­dound­ed to the ben­e­fit of the as­so­ci­a­tion and to the fu­ture of Caribbean lead­er­ship.

4. Paving the Way for Suc­ces­sion: Ef­fec­tive men­tor­ship not on­ly pre­pares lead­ers for their cur­rent roles but al­so paves the way for suc­ces­sion, en­sur­ing a seam­less tran­si­tion of lead­er­ship and gov­er­nance re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. As the tran­si­tion from an in­ter­im ex­ec­u­tive to an elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive oc­curred, the need for suc­ces­sion plan­ning was ev­i­dent. How can con­ti­nu­ity be as­sured, and how do we en­sure that the progress that was made is not wast­ed? These ques­tions high­light­ed the need to put in place good gov­er­nance process­es and prop­er suc­ces­sion plan­ning and en­sure that they are en­shrined in the con­sti­tu­tion of the as­so­ci­a­tion to en­sure the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the as­so­ci­a­tion.

5. Stand­ing on the Shoul­ders of Gi­ants: By stand­ing on the shoul­ders of gi­ants, emerg­ing lead­ers are em­pow­ered to reach greater heights, in­spired by the be­lief that men­tor­ship is the cor­ner­stone of ef­fec­tive lead­er­ship and gov­er­nance. The knowl­edge that you have the sup­port of some of the great­est pro­fes­sion­al minds in the coun­try en­ables you to dig deep and stretch the lim­its of your vi­sion and abil­i­ties. They in­spire you to do bet­ter and do more and to build even more and bet­ter than what they have built.

6. Ac­tive Lis­ten­ing vs Lis­ten­ing to Re­spond: Ac­tive lis­ten­ing goes be­yond sim­ply hear­ing words; it en­tails show­ing gen­uine in­ter­est, em­pa­thy, and re­spect for the speak­er’s per­spec­tive. Ac­tive lis­ten­ing pri­ori­tis­es un­der­stand­ing and em­pa­thy; lis­ten­ing to re­spond fo­cus­es more on prepar­ing a re­ply or ar­gu­ment. Ac­tive lis­ten­ing fos­ters ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion and mu­tu­al re­spect, while lis­ten­ing to re­spond may hin­der gen­uine un­der­stand­ing and con­nec­tion. The art of ac­tive lis­ten­ing by men­tors and lead­ers, ef­fec­tive­ly prac­tised, equips and ac­ti­vates younger pro­fes­sion­als. It em­bold­ens peo­ple to give their best ideas, no mat­ter how in­cred­i­ble they may be, in the knowl­edge that they will be lis­tened to with un­der­stand­ing and em­pa­thy.

As the ALJGSB Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion grows from its birth to in­fan­cy, the new Alum­ni As­so­ci­a­tion ex­ec­u­tive holds the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of build­ing a foun­da­tion built by a team of bril­liant lead­ers. These men and women have set a high bar to at­tain. With their guid­ance and men­tor­ship, the new ex­ec­u­tive can take the ba­ton and lead the next stage of the de­vel­op­ment of this as­so­ci­a­tion. The vi­sion and goals set by the in­ter­im ex­ec­u­tive can be fur­ther de­vel­oped, and the bar can be lift­ed even high­er as we build a new gen­er­a­tion of Caribbean lead­ers.

Men­tor­ship plays a piv­otal role in shap­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers, equip­ping them with the knowl­edge, skills, and con­fi­dence need­ed to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of lead­er­ship and gov­er­nance roles ef­fec­tive­ly.

The Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (HRMATT) is the lead­ing voice of the hu­man re­sources pro­fes­sion lo­cal­ly. HRMATT Says is a col­umn meant to ad­dress the is­sues and con­cerns of pro­fes­sion­als and the gen­er­al pub­lic fo­cused on hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment.

To­day’s ar­ti­cle is writ­ten by Ray­nar­do Has­sanal­ly.

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