Monthly Archives: June 2017

Lindsay’s In Business: PART 24: Twitter and first interviews

Mehmet Murat Idan

What happens when you realise your path is entrepreneurship rather than employment? Lindsay takes up the challenge and shares an account of her journey as it unfolds…

Twitter. Is it….

An annoying ego-based social platform where networking is a thin mask for sales: people with 2.3K followers feel like superstars, but haven’t they got anything better to do?

or

The ultimate digital social tool that gives you more scale and scope than ever before. Gain access to people, content and ideas. Get lost in a world of online networking opportunity.

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What did you learn yesterday/this week?

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When evaluating a position on any given topic, smart leaders must ask themselves, are they trying to learn something, or are they just trying to justify their opinion? The most profound and commonly overlooked aspect of learning is recognising the necessity of unlearning.

WHAT IS THE KEY TO SUCCESSFULLY BALANCING WORK AND LIFE?

Help you to succeed in life and work

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“I believe that being successful means having a balance of success stories across the many areas of your life. You can’t truly be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles”. – Zig Ziglar

The best work-life balance is different for each of us and will vary over time because we all have different priorities and different lives. The right balance for you when you are single will be different when you marry, or if you have children.

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How I learned to deal with negative people.

45130558-negativity-word-indicating-dissentt-negatives-and-negative.jpgBy: Angie Falls

A while ago I found myself in such a state that I could not proceed with my professional life. I felt like  surrounded by negative people only. After a while, I started becoming like them and started sharing their views on the chaotic work situation. There was a lot of nagging and gossiping about everything and everyone around me. Negative people just suck the life out of me. I try to stay positive and remain strong but their negativity ends up just completely draining me. I found myself feeling exhausted and depressed.

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Tackling the Elephant in the Room: Is It Even Worth It?

Isaac Newton

By River Ho Rathore

Over lunch several weeks back, a friend confided that he was unhappy with the way senior management was making decisions about their business operations, including its staff management. According to him, everyone in the team felt that improvements had to be done, from the way all tasks were considered urgent, to how the senior leaders easily assumed that team members would willingly stay late at night and still be available earlier than usual the next morning.

“Well, did you give them this feedback?,” I asked. He moved his head from side to side.

“Why not?,” I pressed on.

He drew a deep breath, intimating surrender. “I know them; they won’t listen to any of their juniors. I’ll just be wasting my time telling them this. At the end, I will suffer the consequences and put my job security and satisfaction on the line.”

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What impression do you want to make? 

Help you to succeed in life and work

elastigirl-the-incrediblesBy: Anja Uitdehaag

The first thing we do if we want to find out more about a first date, a potential employer or a new colleague is googling the person concerned. And what we’ll discover is his/her personal brand.

A ‘personal brand’ is in many ways synonymous with our reputation. It refers to the way we are seen by the world, including clients, investors, peers, boss, friends, etc.

If you are not conscious of what your personal brand is and not deliberately branding yourself, the outside world is branding you.

Thus, if you are quiet you could be branded as passive; if you’re too caring of others’ feelings you might be branded as weak; if you’re too open to learning new things, you may be branded as naïve; and, perhaps most unfairly, if you’re aggressively proactive, you could very well be branded as “mannish.”

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Are you living the life you want?

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By: Anja Uitdehaag

Some people know from an early age exactly what they want to be when they are adults — and how they can get there.

Others just drift along and let life happen to them. They have no specific objective in life; beyond the vague notion that they want to be happy.

Such a person will drift from one day to the next, without any sense of purpose or direction.

How much time do you spend thinking about the things you’re going to do one day? Do you initiate things in your life or do you just react? Do you feel that life is slipping by quicker than you would like? Have you ever experienced that restless, anxious feeling and weren’t sure what to do about it?

Every single one of us needs meaning!

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Situation 42: Unpopular tasks

A special project team, under supervision of Boss, is working on a business critical project. One of the project members is not pulling his weight and Betsy is gradually picking up more of his tasks. Boss praises Betsy for her flexibility and dedication to the project. Boss decides to take the project member concerned out of the project team. He discusses with Betsy how to best approach this sensitive situation since, according to him, she has very well developed interpersonal skills. Before Betsy knows she is the one who has to break the bad news to the project team member.

(Click on the pictures to see them in full size)

A great leader:

  • Provides support and guidance to build other’s capabilities without taking away responsibility;
  • Is assertive and expresses her needs in a calm, clear and professional manager;
  • Is courageous and willing to challenge authority to ‘do the right thing’.

How to best handle the situation:

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Lindsay’s In Business: PART 23: Breakthrough

carl jung2

What happens when you realise your path is entrepreneurship rather than employment? Lindsay takes up the challenge and shares an account of her journey as it unfolds…

Nothing tangible has actually changed over the past weeks, but things feel very different.

Here’s what’s been going on:

Firstly, a good, honest conversation with the leadership development company I’ve been collaborating with for the past 10 months or so, took place last week. We talked about roles and expectations – ironically an alignment meeting that was long overdue. Somehow, after travelling together, blindfold, on this journey to bring Mirror Mirror to life, this was the point to take stock and address some discomfort that had crept into the arrangement. With all of the experience within our core team about the importance of open-mindedness, trust and teamwork – we came out much better off.

The conversation made me think about the five key characteristics that block alignment:

  •  Assumptions

He never gives me any time to share my ideas – he’s obviously just not interested”

  •  Misunderstandings

But I thought you always wanted my team to comment on the technical aspects

  •  Unconscious biases

I think we need more data so we can be sure we’re making the right decisions

  •  Gaps in understanding

Every time we do this, we get the same complaints – but we don’t have a way to act on it”

  •  Social influences

If they’re not going to the meeting, I don’t think I should go either”

Thinking more about these, I made a short, animated slide show which – if I say it myself – has turned out pretty well. In fact, I think it NAILS the Mirror Mirror positioning – finally! Check it out on YouTube here.

At the same time, the work with the Global Electronic Company starts tomorrow – I have 14 people to interview and have been getting everything ready. And there are some good leads building in the pipeline. There was one call in particular with a global tech company at Anja’s place a couple of weeks ago (thank you for letting me take that call in your apartment, Anja!). The guy – who is quite a senior executive – was super positive. He said it was structured, practical, and unique. He was going to set up a call with his colleagues and talked about getting us on the suppliers list. I can tell you – that reaction gave me a high for the whole weekend!

That’s the kind of thing that really helps me believe that we will finish the Beta Testing phase by the end of the year, and that the business really has a promising future.

The bleak, dispiriting recent months of sales pursuits without the sweet taste of success is over. It’s almost the end of a whole year of Mirror Mirror now and things are getting on track.

This new summery month of June is turning out to be SUCH a different experience than the past few months were and my strength, energy and determination is back in spades.

Mirror Mirror allows teams to develop a shared picture of ‘where they are now’ so they have the clarity, alignment, and momentum needed to progress to ‘where they want to go next’. www.mirrormirrorhub.com

Your story, our platform: If you’ve got a story and would like to share it with other Femflectors, please let us know. Femflection is all about transferring learnings to help others, be they big or subtle. We want to connect with your feelings, your learnings, your reflections or your hopes for the future – in blog or interview format. Express yourself here. Get in touch with us via anja.uitdehaag@femflection.com

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