Meaningful relationships

By Jane

Jane is a business analyst in our Chicago office. After graduating from Northwestern University in 2017 with an environmental engineering degree, Jane decided to join McKinsey for the limitless opportunity to work in various industries and face different challenges every day. She is passionate about clean tech and the education sector. Outside of work, Jane loves to explore coffee and tea shops and hole-in-the-wall restaurants in new cities.

October 10, 2018Hi again everyone,

For today’s post I want to share the third takeaway from my recent experience at FLITE, the training program for business analysts at the one-year mark. And that takeaway is that I haven't spent enough time sitting down to reflect on what I've learned over the past year.

We had a great session on personal values where we ranked our top three values (out of 30, including balance, family, integrity, responsibility, achievement, friendship, security, independence, etc.). We then discussed why they’re important to us and whether we do day-to-day allow us to live those values. My team of five people spent almost four hours talking about our values (way beyond the time allocation!). This exercise helped me realize I'm at a great place that allows me to live my values, and how much each of us can do to create space at the firm to live the value we care about.

The next day, we had an exercise where we added our strengths, passions, and practical considerations to our personal values. Combining everything gave us insights to what we should do to create our paths.

In doing this, I realized my passion doesn't have to be an industry, and my path doesn't need to be specializing in a content area. I'm still figuring it out, but I believe what I truly care about is having meaningful relationships and developing others. Back in June I actually returned to an old team I had worked with serving my first client at the firm. Working with great people and creating strong relationships with them energizes me and brings me joy.

At a time when many of us are uncertain or confused about where we want to be and what we want to do, it's wonderful to be able to sit down, reflect, share, discuss, and get coaching from peers and more experienced mentors on how to figure it out (or not figure it out, and just embrace the ambiguity while getting ready to jump on the next exciting opportunity you see).

Now, totally unrelated to FLITE, and for the sole purpose of me wanting to show off my vacation picture with cool BA friends—I went on a fun and last-minute Europe trip with two other BA's and a friend this summer. We hit Paris, Bordeaux, Andorra, and Barcelona (by car, train, bus, and plane) all in one week! It was awesome—hope you like the photos.

I’ll be in touch again soon,

Jane