Why I Love Helping People To Solve Problems

Mine wasn’t a clear-cut ‘traditional’ pathway, so I went to London and temped. As a French speaker, my temping jobs seemed to involve being sent to the City, to work in banks. Usually it was as a temp PA, and very occasionally, I might actually get to put my French to use! Anyway, a year or so of doing this led me to a perm role in a finance company, where my brilliant boss was an Excel fanatic. And that’s really where this story begins.

...and it dawned on my recently that he is the reason I love my job! I absolutely and genuinely love playing in Excel! For me, it feels like I'm gaming! And so, when I’m working on a client project, everything just stops and I get stuck into my ‘screentime’ (those of you with kids know, it’s not easy to extract anyone from screentime…. that’s how I feel!). I'm not sure why I enjoy it so much – I think it’s the same reason I love Sudoku. You start with lots of blanks and unknowns and end up with - well, a satisfying result!

Partly because, as my roles changed over the years, I seemed to only ever continue working with others who loved a good bit of Excel too. Well, it makes sense – like attracts like! There were a few exceptions of course – and for the most part, we worked brilliantly together too (well again, it makes sense - opposites attract!).

It’s because, I don’t just enjoy Excel in isolation. It’s the problem-solving bit of it that I get a kick out of. Without context, what I unearth is meaningless. So workshopping it through is the fun bit - did my discoveries validate your assumptions? Or did they reveal an issue that could be easily resolved? Talking through the findings together, we finalise the set of actions and recommendations that I’ve already sketched out.

I use research and data to enable businesses to make better organisational decisions. In this area, as in many, we are awash with data and benchmarks – but if you want to better understand what the data within your own organisation is telling you, let me know!