#IBMCSCUSA2 … Ohh what to talk about .. from a CSC perspective, last week was a little quiet with my work week being quite crazy (or productive if I think positively!). However, over the weekend I did begin the stages of learning about Theory of Change and Project Impact Analysis. So let me start there …
Firstly, let’s position one of the principal goals of IBM’s Business Model which is to help “enterprise clients to become more innovative, efficient & competitive through the application of business insight & IT solutions.”
Let me more put that more simply. How to move a client, or a person from being given the fish, to providing guidance and teaching them how to fish to provide for themselves.
“Change” is the world I am in every day, every week with my corporate role, even through to my personal life. Over the years I have learned that change management is an important topic in many areas, from corporate down to even in my own family unit. As humans, some of us are great at handling change well, and there are a lot of others, not so well. So when you think through change, there is some planning that needs to happen to ensure that it is well executed through effective ways of communicating and educating people. We want people to feel comfortable in moving through change, that they are well informed! There is a skill in this, an art even! So learning any new skills to help with people and companies to be able to fish for themselves will definitely be a plus and over the next couple of weeks is a focus which I will share.
What I did learn about this week was more about myself! Why?
In this path of learning to be a leader both at work and in life, is recognising my strengths and weaknesses, accepting them, and then taking steps to work through anything that I have recognised. Also as part of this process is having the ability to apologize, accept ownership, and then gratitude for the experience.
Over the past few years I have done many self development courses and training, so I am very grateful that when I do put myself under pressure, that I am able to work through it fairly quickly, learn and move on. And that I did!
I had put myself under pressure for a meeting, had certain expectations that were my own, and when something changed, I snapped! What that did was quickly show me a couple of things
- that I did not want to be that person!
- that it is ok to have my moment of ego explosion as long as I took personal responsibility for my actions, and that I took steps to rectify.
It made me think about things that I have learned over the years, so this was a wake up and reminder of the following:
- saying sorry is one of the hardest words in the English language and not enough people say it
- judgement – can be a cruel harsh emotion whether it is on our self or on others and that I do strive to be aware of when I do it, so that I can correct myself
- expectations – when something happens, people can set expectations that others should change, when in fact, it should be all about “self” that changes if the behaviour is not liked. If we change ourselves, people are more likely to observe, and maybe you even become a light for others so that they themselves may want to change too.
- acknowledgement and forgiveness to one self and taking steps to correct it such as time out, a walk, meditation, definitely helps you to re-group, to re-think on how you could have handled such a thing better in the future!
- Know that I have this! That if for whatever reason I do not, then ask for help, or let people know that you will get back to them if you do not know the answers to their questions. It is OK to not know everything!
- To treat myself by taking some much needed time such as walk by the river
Re-group, learn from it, and make some changes!
Sharon Tunley 