Despite a successful career as a corporate partner doing complex deals in many challenging markets, Ben Crawford still relies on strategies and rituals to boost his confidence and overcome that old and familiar bugbear: imposter syndrome.
Ben Crawford begins with an apology. It’s been a full-on few weeks and he’s currently swamped with work as an A&O Shearman corporate partner, specialising in complex M&A transactions.
He wishes he had done a bit more preparation but adds, “Maybe these are the best times to have these conversations about leadership and courage.”
Courage is a quality that goes with his work.
Lawyers, especially M&A lawyers, are conditioned to look for risk. You want to achieve a positive outcome for your client and that usually means saying yes, or wanting to say yes, while also trying to mitigate risk.
“So when you have to say no to get the best outcome for your client, it can be really challenging. That’s when you have to summon up a lot of courage.”
Deals are, by their nature, complex. They invariably come with novel risks and questions. Only very rarely do you get cookie cutter transactions where you’ve seen all the elements before.
“It means taking a deep breath, facing your fears and doing something new. It’s quite exciting, but can also feel incredibly daunting.”
Courage over comfort
He’s no stranger to choosing courage over comfort, however. It’s been the hallmark of a globe-trotting career as a lawyer.
He left Australia as a graduate and joined legacy A&O in London as a trainee. Then he moved to Hong Kong as a newly qualified lawyer and spent time in Shanghai on secondment. When the opportunity came to move to Beijing, he leapt at the opportunity – having spent a year on exchange prior to starting his undergraduate degree.
"The firm has always been supportive and I’ve always felt that, being ambitious, it will be easy. Even when I moved to Abu Dhabi I felt, ‘It’ll be fine; I’ve moved country before, I’ve been with the firm my whole career, it’ll be straightforward!’
“But things are never straightforward. With every move there are new things that I have discover about myself, about my family, about being a father and about my career.”
Thirst for adventure
His thirst for adventure pre-dates his professional life. Growing up in Melbourne, he went to a school where learning Mandarin was compulsory. He took to it immediately, discovering an enduring love of the language and Chinese literature.
Music played an important role too. He began learning violin at four, but later, egged on by a great friend whose father both taught Mandarin at the school and ran an orchestra using traditional Chinese instruments, he decided to give Chinese music a go.
He learnt to play the erhu, a traditional Chinese bowed, two-stringed instrument with a long neck and a body made of snakeskin. The school orchestra travelled widely in Australia and Greater China.
“It’s pretty weird having a traditional school orchestra where you’ve got a bunch of young kids playing traditional Chinese instruments in the middle of Melbourne and touring in mainland China and Taiwan, but it was incredibly fun. These were really great experiences,” he says.
Ben and his sister lost their mum at an early age and they were brought up in a strong extended family, a fact that certainly fuelled his desire to go out and try new things. His grandmother always urged him to grab the chance to travel.
Aged 17, he won a scholarship to go to China and fully master Mandarin. “When I spoke to my friends who went straight to law school, they were like, ‘Are you mad? That sounds crazy. Why would you do that?’ To me it was an invitation that was impossible to refuse – it seemed like the most normal thing in the world to do.”
Comfortable being uncomfortable
The confidence he got from these early experiences and from an international career did not naturally translate into his working life as an M&A lawyer. There are, he admits, still times when his self-confidence can dip and he finds himself wrestling with imposter syndrome.
“I am very lucky to have had some great mentors – who have become very close friends. One very senior mentor told me to remember that waiting for grey hair won’t help much and to dive straight in…keeping in mind that everyone else at the table probably feels exactly the same way!” he recalls.
“It can be very uncomfortable sometimes. But you just have to relax and find a way to be comfortable feeling uncomfortable. You try to avoid catastrophising – a rabbit hole I used to go down a lot – and ask yourself, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’”
Then, with a grin, he adds, “I’m listening to myself saying this and thinking, ‘All morning you’ve just disregarded that clever advice and put it to one side!’ Trying to remind yourself is a difficult job, but ultimately you know that when you get through the difficult part, it can be really fun.”
Making space
Being phenomenally busy is also just a feature of life in an elite, global law firm and that can make it difficult to make time to pursue other interests.
His daughter is also musical and is currently learning piano and cello. It got him thinking about picking up an instrument again, even though his wife warned him not to take on another project that he won’t have time to commit to.
It’s an idea that’s on hold for now, but maybe, in time, there will be space to pick up that violin again.
Or perhaps it will be the erhu. After all, he still has one back in Melbourne.
