How Doing Revenue Assurance Can Be Like Jumping Off a Cliff

I don’t know if it’s because I used to be in the army or because Chinese or Singaporeans just tend to have a cultural sense of hierarchy, but I think I have always (mistakenly) thought that power comes from the top of the organization, from the boss or manager – and that it is the job of professionals to simply do what they are told and make sure the boss is happy.

But the more I am in Revenue Assurance, the more I start to question this way of looking at the world. Of course the members of executive team are very powerful and they have to set the strategic direction of your company. They make decisions that affect everyone, and it is the job of professionals to execute those decisions.

You Don’t Know Everything, How Can Your CFO?

However, I think we make a mistake if we assume that just because someone is in a management position, that they know everything you know and more. Many times, top level managers cannot possibly know everything – and in many ways they do not need to or want to.

Just that realization alone can be pretty earth shattering – because if you are like me, and have always assumed people in authority knew exactly what they were doing, the idea that they are relying on you to help them can be confusing, if not downright terrifying.

But at a certain point, even the best managers have to rely on smart, capable professionals to advise them and help them address specific issues. Especially with something like Revenue Assurance, which can be such a specialized function in the telco, you have to ask yourself - what are the chances your CFO actually knows how your job is done and what it is you are supposed to be doing?

And if things have not gotten scary enough, this is where it can feel like you are falling down a rabbit hole and it is never going to end. Because if management is not in a position to tell you what your job is, and you are not able to tell management what your job is, very bad things can happen.

Working in a Vacuum, Inventing Your Own Job

I do not know if you have ever been in situations like this before, but I certainly have. When you get hired into a job and not only do you not really know what your job is, it seems management does not know either.

In those situations, what usually happens is people fall back on what they know. Most people don’t naturally look to do things they do not know or are not comfortable in. So, for instance, if you have a background and education in IT, you turn your job into an IT job.

The problem then depends on whether what you’re doing is actually useful to the organization – and if all you are doing is making things up based on stuff you already know, the chances of it being useful can get pretty slim.

If The Job is So Difficult, Who Can Do It?

Now I’m not saying that this means you should never take on a job that has no clear boundaries, or you need your boss to have done your job before you can do it.

As I’ve said, what are the chances your CFO really knows how the Revenue Assurance job is done? If he did, he probably wouldn’t need to try and hire talented people to come in and help him do it.

The moral of this story though, is not to say jobs like these, as the Revenue Assurance job can appear to be sometimes, are impossible to do, or somehow not worth doing. I am just saying that it requires the right kind of people, who are going to approach things in a positive and useful way.

The Pioneering Spirit of Revenue Assurance

I said it above, most people don’t naturally look to do things they don’t know, or aren’t comfortable in. But Revenue Assurance professionals aren’t “most people.” These are people who are constantly putting themselves in a position where they are not the experts, where they do not know everything.

They are constantly having to do a difficult and often hard to understand job in environments they are not necessarily familiar with. Imagine having to help assure a billing system without previously having experience in telecoms, much less billing. Yet Revenue Assurance professionals do things like this every day.

Because Revenue Assurance professionals are people who keep themselves open to new things, and are willing to learn. After all, they work in telecoms, and if you are not willing to try new things you do not always understand, you probably should be in a different industry. And you probably should  not be doing Revenue Assurance.

Revenue Assurance – A Special Breed of Professional

I really believe that it takes professionals of special character and mindset to do this job – and that makes me happy. If it was easy, then anyone could do it – but it is not. So when you do manage to get it right, you know you have really achieved something.

Jumping off a cliff can be scary, but sometimes it can also be really rewarding, and really fun.

That’s why I LOVE Revenue Assurance.