#CSCUSA2 – Page 3 – Sharon Tunley

Work, Ice Cream and Music

The last two days have whizzed by with meetings which is helping to provide my colleagues and I a glimpse into the Organization, the different teams, the challenges, all which is insight to netting out where we can direct our focus on to provide the most value. I must say my Salesforce training I received before I got here, is helping immensely!

This afternoon, sitting in our pod working away, someone popped their head around the corner and asked if we would like to join in on an Ice Cream party. You did not have to ask any of us twice, we were in, be part of the culture right! I must say, the entire UWBA Team have made us feel so welcome since our arrival. We were soon to discover that the Ice Cream party was between the 2 locations (San Francisco and San Jose (virtually with their own ice cream tubs)) celebrating, encouraging and rewarding the use of Salesforce Philanthropy amongst the employees. Mmmm! Eating the very nice ice cream was certainly a perfect opportunity to do some more networking with the staff in a relaxed atmosphere.

Moving on to Lunchtime, I wanted to share another opportunity of San Francisco culture. Walking, the four of us stumbled along a band playing so we took a few minutes to immerse ourselves into listening to these musicians playing outside the Microsoft building. I captured one of their songs for your listening pleasure.

Tonight, to keep with the music theme of the day, a small group of us ventured out to see Tom Odell at CAFE DU NORD.

It was certainly a beautiful atmosphere, Cafe du Nord was built in 1907 and was officially designated a San Francisco Historic Landmark in 2015.Tom was very easy listening as he played the piano, spoke about his writing career in between singing the songs. Tom is a popular artist in the UK, however, here in San Francisco amongst 300+ it was an intimate event, sound was great, and everyone respectful and listening as he bellowed out the tunes. Great night!

CSC Teams meet …

Another full day in San Fran .. with an extra buzz in the air as we all get prepared to meet with our respective host organizations. Everyone looking all amazing as we dressed up in our business wear.

Standing outside, a group selfie before we all divided into our sub teams and went our separate ways

However, I do think our team got the best mode of transport to the Office, traveling the fine cable car! The cable car was borne by someone wanting to make a change after witnessing a horrific accident in 1869 … Andrew Smith Hallidie.

We get to the UWBA office, waiting with anticipation, sussing out who the neighbors are, and if you look closely, see who else is on the board …

Once we finally arrive, we see that we have been given decks with each one have a welcome message. Already starting to feel like home!

After a few hours of getting some paperwork out the way, it was down to some listening and learning more about the different programs that UWBA have, the structure, and some time to ask questions along the way. The brain ticks over, notes made, and before long it was lunch time.

Now .. lunch … amazing! It ticked all the boxes of supporting local business and being good wholesome food which went down well as we sat with Nicole for a lunch meeting.

With a short walk to IBM Office …

We were greeted by Jamie Lawrence, our local CSC Coordinator. Jamie spoke of the CSC program with such passion and was excited to introduce

Scott Beale the founder and chief executive officer of Atlas Corps, a leadership development program for nonprofit professionals. Scott shared his story about Atlas, about the Fellows and his vision and passion.
Speakers from each of the 4 host organizations including Nicole from UWBA (picture below) were introduced. They all did a great job sharing their missions and what projects each of the CSC sub teams were to help in.

Time for the photos …

UWBA Sub Team

All the Sub Teams with Hosts

Nicole and Ansa (Atlas Fellow) from UWBA

Ansa and Sharon

Nicole was very excited to be part of the experience and loved the views

SFCCC Sub Team and Host

MEDA Sub Team and Host

WAKE Sub Team and Host

Jamie Lawrence with the Sub Teams

So that’s the official Day 1. Lots said, lots to do!

So as I watched the sun go down over the Bay, I was feeling blessed, still pinching myself that it was all happening. The sunset a glorious way to end our first day.

Connection and Letting Go

This time next Friday I will be well and truly on my way to an experience of a life time in San Francisco … woohoo!

After nearly 3 months of getting to know my other CSC team members via webex meetings, WhatsApp chats, Slack channels, we will all finally be together face to face in the one location, the one city, the one country, ready and willing, to help our 4 organisations – UWBA, WAKE, SFCCC, MEDA. Super exciting!

connectedworld

Bringing together 15 people from 13 countries (Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Romania, Switzerland, Vietnam, UK) whom have never worked together, coming from all backgrounds and experience, different cultures. So connection is crucial!

Learning from my own job and experiences, networking is super important. I started to think very early on, the different ways we can get to know each other, using different tools for different things. So in my true way of working, I knew that we needed to get this happening sooner rather than later to maximise the time to getting to know each other and went ahead full steam ahead. The comment I got after the final piece of getting the right people in the last big grouping this week was “Sharon, you are a super connector”. Connection is important as it allows us to grow as a team! The more we get to learn about each other, the more that we can find ways to work together to achieve greatness.

2018-08-31_20-43-41 As part of this journey, one of the other key tasks is to ensure that whilst I am gone, the work and support continues. I have worked really hard on ensuring that I finish off projects that I started, that the day to day things continue on in my absence, and support is in place for everything that I have been working on. So while I am away I have a clear conscious knowing that all will continue to tick over, which all helps me to put 100% focus on the project and experience ahead. So when my last final handover call this week was coming to an end, I was told “Sharon, it is now time to let go“ … and you know what, that I will!

I have an awesome network of colleagues around the globe and I know that everything is in good hands! Everyone’s support has been amazing from my Manager, to the Executives, to the squads around the globe that I work with, to my work colleagues and friends locally. So … thank you to you all!

This weekend is time for those last minute things, time with family and friends, and feeling thankful that I will be here on Sunday to help celebrate Fathers Day here in Australia with my family. So to all those whom will be celebrating Fathers Day in this part of the world, Happy Fathers Day!

Proud to be an IBMer

Proud

Today was just one of those days that reminded me why I continue to be proud to be an IBMer, even after 20+ years!

This morning at 5am local time, I was up early with a little bounce. Today my sub-team colleagues Benedicte, Ricardo, Susannah and I were having an introduction meeting with the Organisation we have been aligned to – United Way Bay Area (UWBA). With Notepad on screen for notes, poised with anticipation, taking a deep breath, here we were, on video conference finally getting to meet to talk with the Client.

With introductions done, it was time to switch on those skills and remembering the first rule of thumb and a couple of IBM’s 9 practices – put the client first, and listen for need, envision the future!

We listened, we learned, with only an hour, and knowing it was only to be an introduction with more to come in the near future. But oh my, how the mind was going through all the possibilities on how we can assist to help the organization. They have a few programs, but they are wanting to focus on the one which is supporting the Youth in the Bay Area, which in turn helps those volunteers and business partners that help to make this happen.

Our mission to help UWBA is to provide solutions for:

Analysing and reporting on UWBA employer engagement specifically for Business Partnerships
Labor Market Research for Youth Employment in the East Bay and beyond to expand youth employment work to new areas/sectors
Exploring data collection and an analysis protocol to conduct a longitudinal study on impact of business partnerships and the connection to youth jobs

Then came question time. Questions were asked, notes taken, the mind whizzing through all the fleeting thoughts ensuring that we made the most of this opportunity. Before long, the hour was up, and we were all looking forward to meeting each other face to face in less than 3 weeks time. So with a little more knowledge of what was ahead, I was feeling a little more grateful for all the skills I have learned over the years and knowing that they will come in very useful moving forward.

Later in my morning, it was time to put my focus on IBM, my employer. To listen, to learn, to contribute to our future as IBM A/NZ and what that looks like, and how this could evolve and potentially contribute to the wider IBM as a corporation.

IBM has had such a transformation over the recent years, it has certainly been a ride that a lot of us still here have been watching play out. Our A/NZ Managing Director, David La Rose being new to this role in October 2017, went on a journey across his Markets to introduce himself, where he is from, but most importantly, to listen, to learn, to understand his teams.

From this, David has taken the information he learned and with the help of his leadership team is doing something that has everyone curious about. We are about to embark on an exciting journey of culture growth and change where all A/NZ employees are encouraged to get behind and support, and to be a part of.

David and the IBM Leadership Team introduced a new program “Vision Sprint”. So today I attended the 22nd sprint session of Create. Lead. Become. Being a part of Sprint Session 22, a master number in numerology (the ability to manifest your dreams into reality), it was sure to be a lively session, full of great ideas. The Vision Sprints are focused on creating a workplace culture and new ways of working that will bring out the best in each of us. By participating in a Vision Sprint, we got to have the opportunity to work with IBMers from across all of our teams and businesses to create the IBM culture that will ensure IBM’s continued success.

The 2 hour session gave us an opportunity to ask what is our state now, what do we want to stop, and what do we want to keep. There was also a series of questions for what we would like to see in our future in IBM that we got to rate in sub-teams, and well, you can see from the pictures below, that most of our teams were focused on satisfaction with a constructive style (in the blue) over aggressive/defensive or passive/defensive styles.

If nothing else in my time so far with IBM over the last 20+ years, transformation is something we have the privilege to do regularly in many different areas. If something is not right, then we step forward to make a change, to course re-correct, to make a difference!

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Never to Old to Learn New Tricks

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Firstly, the CSC journey became very real in this past week:

I received my e-tickets to San Francisco, so it is all go for a 7 September departure
we received our Statement of Works (SoWs) for the organisations that we have been aligned to. When I read each of them, part of me was very excited about what each of these organisations provide in the San Francisco Bay Area Communities, the other was wow, the learnings, the possibilities, all the goodness that each of these organisations will do by up-scaling, and how we can help and contribute for them to achieve this. To find out more on these organisations, reference a previous blog.

Thought I would mix it up and share an experience, and how I was able to think about the relevance of life experiences, what crosses your path in the way of knowledge, and to what we are about to do as part of CSC.

This past weekend has been an eye opener as I spent time with friends whom have retired, but still eager to learn. Funny timing really … nothing is ever by chance. Through my CSC work and reading for this week and partly over the weekend, one of the links I was reading through was on social responsibility where one paragraph caught my eye that I thought was quite relevant to the past couple of days.

One company (which I won’t name here) has been developing new products and services geared to customers over the age of 60. To help overcome what the company calls a “knowledge barrier,” it has collaborated with sociations for older people in an effort to introduce retired men and women to the benefits of new technologies—for example, teaching them to communicate with grandchildren living abroad. The company meets a social need by helping this population use modern technologies and services while building a customer base in an underpenetrated market.

This past weekend was an opportunity of 4 days away, being time out with some friends, a reunion of sorts. Through my own passions of photography and adventurous outlook on life, being the youngest of the group, I soon became the popular one when they were watching the sort of things I was doing on social media such as collages and sharing the adventure to friends and family. So out came all the phones and ipads, and soon every few minutes was “Sharon, can you please show me that, how do you do that, how do i set up my device”. It was like a new lease on life for them, seeing the possibilities, an opportunity had opened up to be creative, something that they could see themselves doing. Being in Lake Cathie, NSW, there were plenty of spots to explore, so with phones in hand, the group started following me around asking questions on how to improve and use their phone cameras. Getting back to the accommodation, they were eager to begin making their own collages on the new app that they had dowloaded.

It was lovely to see and watch the twinkle in their eyes as they had found someone that is patient, willing to show them how to do something new, they were off with their new found skills, notes in hand. And it did not stop there, throughout the weekend, their world opened up as we had different discussions, they found out about the different apps that are out there that can help them in their daily lives.

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So when I think about age, and no matter how old one is, I started to think about United Way Bay Area being nearly 100 years old young. This organisation is still out there wanting to make a difference, has a willingness to learn, reaching out to make that happen. Their passion and commitment strong, they are wanting to understand how to upscale their projects in ways that will help many more people, with particular focus on the youth. UWBA has a core mission of uniting individuals, nonprofits, businesses, and government partners to fight for the education, basic needs, and financial stability of each and every person in the Bay Area.

So next time you think you are to old to learn new skills, think again! No matter the age, if you have a willingness to learn, there is so much you can do for yourself, and for others .. young or old! In fact, when I think about it, even IBM, with one of the 9 practices we have is Restlessly reinvent our company and ourselves. IBMs first century is a tale of continuous transformation written by men and women willing to challenge their own thinking and reimagine themselves as professionals. We are always pushed to keep finding ways to make IBM and ourselves as IBMers better.

So how will you or what are you doing to continuously grow, learn, re-invent? Love to hear your thoughts!

Learnings and Whom have we been aligned to?

learn grow flourish #IBMCSCUSA2 This week was another big week! A few things were achieved or discovered. If nothing else, learning does not stop at High School or University. If you are open to improving your skills, there is so much out there. You are the only person that can make that decision as to whether you want to grow and learn. Any decision you make about your life is perfect, there is no right or wrong! You are in control always, and there are no mistakes or wrongs, only flearning (failure from learning), growth, improvements of me, myself and I! If an opportunity is presented, then take a leap of faith, and go for it!

So my learning this week …

Topics I learned was on Theory of Change / Project Impact Analysis (understand the input, output, outcome and impact) and being an Effective Consultant (trust being key). All great skills to learn, to refresh on some that I do today, others I can implement in my day-to-day work and life in general.
IBM has a variety of courses we can select from, so additional learning for me was attending a Balancing Time and Energy course which I thought sounded interesting and relevant as I balance my work life with preparing for CSC. I wondered what additional tips I could learn, or be reminded of, so out of curiosity I attended this one during the week, and found it to be a refresher and learned additional tips on
- how to stay focused even through those challenging tasks and how to deal with procrastination.
- meditation and breathing techniques to help quieten and de-clutter the mind – this i found interesting listening and learning from someone how you can bring this topic into a course. Meditation and Breathing techniques I have taken the time to do as self development courses outside of IBM over the years, so it was great to see how this is brought into the corporate world!
- listening to music can help with completion of tasks – regardless of the type of music, people do well when we listen to the music, it triggers a part of the brain for concentration.
- time management and blocking time on your calendar, using your email tool to effectively add tasks and reviewing our email more effectively, and were given tools/methods on how to prioritize requests and work ensuring that we are doing the right things at the right time, that they are relevant, and on time and with quality.
- how eating right and exercising should be considered high on your priority to be more effective in balancing your time and energy.
- … and so much more. Anyone from IBM reading this blog, highly recommend that you take the time to attend this course, worth taking a couple of afternoons out of your week!

And the BIG news for this week …. We found out whom we have been aligned to, whom the 4 organizations are that benefit from this extraordinary process. So let me introduce

Firstly, I am very excited to share that I have been aligned to UWBA – United Way Bay Area with 3 other CSC team members and a Fellow. UWBA has been around since 1922 helping to unite individuals, nonprofits, businesses, and government partners to fight for the education, basic needs, and financial stability of each and every person in the San Francisco Bay Area focusing on Youth Development, Adult Empowerment, Community Development and Basic Needs. They are an incubator of innovative programs to improve and provide educational opportunities such as Youth Jobs Plus where they have connected nearly 8K youths with jobs, internships, and job training. Other core programs they have are Earn It! Keep It! Save It!, SparkPoint Centers, 211 Bay Area call centers, Emergency Food and Shelter Program, Labor Community Services, and Rise Together Bay Area.

The other 3 organizations where the rest of my CSC teams have been aligned to are:

Women’s Alliance for Knowledge Exchange (WAKE) – They work closely with their partners to provide women’s rights leaders tools, products, advisors and resources such as one of their main programs – Tech2Empower. Over the past 3 years alone, WAKE has trained 700+ leaders from 135 organizations in 10 countries. Activists and their organizations are leading change for their communities. With the latest tech tools and expertise they are able to scale and accelerate their work.
San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium (SFCCC) – formed in 1982, they form partnerships of non-profit health centers which promote and improve quality community health for under served people in the San Francisco area. With 27 Partner Clinics sites they provide care for over 112K patients being around 13% of the San Francisco population.
Mission Economic Development Agency – MEDA – With over 45 years of experience, MEDA’s mission is to strengthen low-and moderate-income Latino families by promoting economic equity and social justice through asset building and community development. They provide and serve over 7K people annually providing services such as financial capability/education, business technical assistance, affordable housing counseling, to name just a couple of what they do for people.

So all in all, this week was huge. Who am I kidding, every week is huge! But you know what, no regrets! Only surprise, excitement, and lots and lots of learning! Next week tune in to find out what our SoW (Statement of Work) will be, how we will be supporting these organizations, what do they need our help with to grow their organization; and what learning I have completed that I can share and hope inspire you with! If you have any comments, then I would really appreciate your sharing, love to hear from you! Until next week’s blog, have a truly magic week yourself!

End of Week 5 …

forgiveness

#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!

Week 4 …

Month 1 tick

Wow, Month 1 – tick! It was a huge week in all aspects of my life. Taking a few moments of quiet time in between all the craziness has been needed to keep the sanity in check.

I look back on what I have achieved so far, and it was a big fist in the air as I just finished tonight the prep activities as part of the first 4 weeks. Not sure about everyone else, but for me, it was a mammoth effort as I have

read lots
listened and watched many interesting videos
finished the last of meeting my team members
networked with different people from past CSC assignments

This week I met the last of my team mates – Yen from Vietnam. When I saw Yen’s introduction profile I knew that her and I would hit it off and was looking forward to the chat. Not only very similar passions such as photography, loves to travel, music and yoga, but also in our spirituality and way of life in thinking. Sure enough, an hour went by very quickly as we compared stories, beliefs, and experiences, and I was fascinated to listen to her stories about her belly dancing competition days, and her love of cats.

Highlights of Week 4:

my new passport arrived and that certainly made it all real.
began to learn about media and communications, the do’s and don’ts, and understanding what our key messages are about this wonderful CSC experience; how we can effectively blog and use social media.
read about photography tips that made me smile such as this article “Your Camera doesn’t matter” to which I agree with the points that were made. How many times people say to me “wow, you must have a great camera” and 9 times out of 10 I have taken that great pic using my phone. Like any artist, there are many tools you can use, but at the end of the day, it’s all about what is in your head and what you are seeing that you capture, all about the composition, having that eye for it.
I created a group chat which has provided an opportunity to talk to my CSC family on a regular basis, and to share pics as we build on that teaming which is a critical part of any project. There is no “I” in “Team”! So with that, you need to know whom you are working with. So what better way, but to bring everyone together in a group chat, and to just “chit chat”!
getting on good old Google to begin exploring places around San Fran that we as a team can explore while in the area. Through my interactions with the team, I have discovered a lot of us like the outdoors, adventure, travel and photography amongst the many talents and skills of each person. We have a long list which will require some voting on.

More sharing:

One of the TED videos I listened to this week was on “A Danger of a Single Story“. A fascinating talk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A great speaker, and such a good topic that Chimamanda spoke of, that I thought I would share with you all.

Although I personally am aware that a person has many elements, often we hear one thing, and make up our mind that they fit into a certain mold. I, myself, am guilty of this. However, to change, it’s having knowledge, it’s having awareness of ourselves and our thinking, that we can, in turn, change!

One example of “a single story” that happened today … I heard someone say, “that little boy was not even Australian”. I enquired as to how they came to that conclusion when they didn’t even know the little boy. For them, it was looks and their accent sounding different. But by broadening that person’s mind, I simply said that being young, yes; whilst from a different family background, they may speak that language at home with their family and loved ones; but all this does not mean that little boy may not have been born in Australia, or maybe he has been here a while, and is now an Australian citizen.

So never assume anything, and do not box or label something or someone. It takes work, it takes awareness of our own thoughts, and what we are saying, but it can be done. Learn all you can, and if you are not able to, then try not to make a single story and make assumptions, keep an open mind!

Do you have any examples of a single story that you can share?

Adding Purpose to Each Day!

Whilst I continue to wait for more details on my CSC assignment, I prepare!

Since I was accepted into the program last year, I have been preparing myself mentally, physically, and spiritually to ensure that I am at my optimum. For the last 4 months, to help with this, I have taken up Yoga and Pilates 3 nights a week, and go to a meditation group one night a week. This commitment to myself has been wonderful so far. Changes are occurring, differences being made.

So what’s next, what can I do more to prepare I ask myself …

Today I saw this as it caught my eye .. a picture of Benjamin Franklin, with the words from one of our company leaders “Benjamin Franklin’s schedule. I think we should all think about addressing Powerful Goodness every day. “. Curiosity got the better of me and i clicked on the link … I read and I listened. It all made sense! So what will I take from this …

Add purpose to my day … so making what i do more accountable and real. So in a journal, upon rising, write what good shall i do today .. how do i improve the world by me being a better person. Think on it, meditate on it, and jot down whatever springs to mind.
Evaluate throughout the day, journal it.
At the end of each day, ask myself, what good have I done today, did I accomplish everything that I set out to do .. what didn’t I accomplish, why not, and what can be done the next day. If I have accomplished something, what impact did that have on me, and on the World!

Will you join me in adding purpose to your day?
Would love to hear your feedback in the comments section on how you went. I will share with you how I go!

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