November 14 issue of Fortune magazine with Martha Stewart on the front has a special section on the 50 most powerful women in business worldwide and other related articles. Definitely worth picking up.
To your success!
Camille Kocsis
Judy Crockett
Judy Crockett
Friday, November 11, 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
The Key To Taking Control
The Key To Taking Control
By: Brian Tracy
Set Priorities
Stress management requires that you take complete control over the activities of your daily life. This means that you plan your day, set priorities and work on high value tasks. The indispensable key to time management is concentration, the ability to focus single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and to stay with it until it is 100% complete.
Create Chunks of Time
This is not only the hardest challenge that a manager faces, but the ability to concentrate single-mindedly is probably the rarest single ability in the workplace. Most of our important tasks take large chunks of time. We need to plan and organize our days in such a way that we allocate these chunks of time so that we can do the jobs upon which our success depends.
A Burst of Energy
The wonderful thing about setting priorities and concentrating single-mindedly is that, the very minute that you do these two things, you will begin to feel a tremendous sense of control and well-being. As you work progressively toward the accomplishment of your most important tasks, you will feel a flow of energy and enthusiasm. As you finish something that is relevant and significant to your company and to yourself, you get a burst of energy. Your self-esteem improves. You feel good about yourself. You have a wonderful sense of making measurable progress toward greater successful in your career. You feel like you are making a difference.
On the other hand, working on small tasks or low priority items simply causes you to feel more and more stress. Even if you finish a dozen or a hundred of these minor and irrelevant low value tasks, you get no feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two ideas you can use immediately to concentrate single mindedly on the highest value use of your time.
First, analyze your work before you begin and then ask yourself, “What one thing, if I did it quickly and well, would have the greatest impact on my work?” Whatever it is, go to work on that one item immediately.
By: Brian Tracy
Set Priorities
Stress management requires that you take complete control over the activities of your daily life. This means that you plan your day, set priorities and work on high value tasks. The indispensable key to time management is concentration, the ability to focus single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and to stay with it until it is 100% complete.
Create Chunks of Time
This is not only the hardest challenge that a manager faces, but the ability to concentrate single-mindedly is probably the rarest single ability in the workplace. Most of our important tasks take large chunks of time. We need to plan and organize our days in such a way that we allocate these chunks of time so that we can do the jobs upon which our success depends.
A Burst of Energy
The wonderful thing about setting priorities and concentrating single-mindedly is that, the very minute that you do these two things, you will begin to feel a tremendous sense of control and well-being. As you work progressively toward the accomplishment of your most important tasks, you will feel a flow of energy and enthusiasm. As you finish something that is relevant and significant to your company and to yourself, you get a burst of energy. Your self-esteem improves. You feel good about yourself. You have a wonderful sense of making measurable progress toward greater successful in your career. You feel like you are making a difference.
On the other hand, working on small tasks or low priority items simply causes you to feel more and more stress. Even if you finish a dozen or a hundred of these minor and irrelevant low value tasks, you get no feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment.
Action Exercises
Now, here are two ideas you can use immediately to concentrate single mindedly on the highest value use of your time.
First, analyze your work before you begin and then ask yourself, “What one thing, if I did it quickly and well, would have the greatest impact on my work?” Whatever it is, go to work on that one item immediately.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
She's Gotta Have It...Businessweek Investor
JULY 22, 2002
BUSINESSWEEK INVESTOR
By Michelle Conlin
She has Everest-size ambitions, a flawless track record, and an uncanny knack for strategy. "I'd love to promote her," the CEO says. "But she just doesn't have `it.' "
"It," in this case, is executive presence, the elusive quality that has over the past year become a major focus in women's leadership development circles. This trait is so important to companies such as Shell Group and J.P. Morgan Chase that they have packed off their high-potential female managers to special seminars to develop "it," lest they wind up adding to an already depressing statistic: Women make up half of management jobs but are still just a sliver--5%--of the executive ranks.
Executive presence goes far beyond banishing the wardrobe of frumpy brown suits and stopping the nail-biting at meetings. It refers to that ability to take hold of a room by making a polished entrance, immediately shaking people's hands, and forging quick, personal connections instead of defaulting to robotic formalism and shrinking into a chair. When leaders with executive presence speak, people listen--because the talk is filled with conviction instead of equivocation. They inspire that I'll-follow-you-anywhere loyalty, conveying an aura of warmth and authenticity to everybody from the receptionist to the CEO.
It makes sense that executive presence is the latest key in unlocking women's advancement. Over the past few years, a growing mound of research has revealed that women executives trounce men in nearly every aspect of performance. But a gender gulf remains in the most crucial area: confidence. And confidence is the secret sauce in executive presence.
It sounds so utterly, self-help simple. But Cynthia Scott, a partner with San Francisco-based executive coaching firm Changeworks, says she's astounded at how often females in danger of being written off for advancement will leave a meeting without having said much--if anything. That makes them come off as passive and unengaged. When they do pipe up, Scott says, they often blow it by using qualifiers such as "perhaps," pronouns such as "we"--and, worst of all, ending the sentence with the inflection of a question, causing people to doubt what they've just said.
As long as men continue to be the primary influence on the corporate culture, the nice-girl, seen-not-heard communication styles women were acculturated with will continue to hurt them the further up the career ladder they go. Recent research by The Leader's Edge, a Philadelphia leadership training firm, found that top females in Corporate America were far less comfortable challenging others than their male colleagues. They were also more guarded in their social interaction--even though speaking frankly to your colleagues becomes ever more important at the executive level. Building social capital is imperative for women. Leaders promote those they like and feel comfortable with.
One of the biggest ways women can improve their "it" is by not winging what they say at meetings. Coaches advise rehearsing what you say beforehand, using your own style of declarative speech without overcompensating by becoming a bully. Learn the art of polite interruption. Warm up the room by telling a quick story. "A lot of communicating is planning ahead," says Leigh Wasson, a managing director at J.P. Morgan who has worked with San Francisco coach Peggy Klaus. In hallways and elevators, open up about your personal life to forge bonds with the senior team--something many women confess feels riskier than burrowing into their work.
Self-promotion is also critical. In shadowing female executives, coaches cringe at how often high achievers dodge opportunities to trumpet themselves, almost as if their achievements will go without saying. "Women need to learn how to brag," says Klaus, who holds boasting seminars at companies such as Pfizer. One strategy: Weave accomplishments into anecdotes. Lighten up on the self-deprecation and pour on more humor.
The best news about confidence is that it's easier to develop than competence--the part of the job senior women usually have licked. Now, they just need to start working on their "it."
Hers columnist Toddi Gutner is on special assignment.
BUSINESSWEEK INVESTOR
By Michelle Conlin
She's Gotta Have "It" |
| A growing mound of research shows that female execs trounce men in nearly every area of performance. But many lack "executive presence" |
"It," in this case, is executive presence, the elusive quality that has over the past year become a major focus in women's leadership development circles. This trait is so important to companies such as Shell Group and J.P. Morgan Chase that they have packed off their high-potential female managers to special seminars to develop "it," lest they wind up adding to an already depressing statistic: Women make up half of management jobs but are still just a sliver--5%--of the executive ranks.
Executive presence goes far beyond banishing the wardrobe of frumpy brown suits and stopping the nail-biting at meetings. It refers to that ability to take hold of a room by making a polished entrance, immediately shaking people's hands, and forging quick, personal connections instead of defaulting to robotic formalism and shrinking into a chair. When leaders with executive presence speak, people listen--because the talk is filled with conviction instead of equivocation. They inspire that I'll-follow-you-anywhere loyalty, conveying an aura of warmth and authenticity to everybody from the receptionist to the CEO.
It makes sense that executive presence is the latest key in unlocking women's advancement. Over the past few years, a growing mound of research has revealed that women executives trounce men in nearly every aspect of performance. But a gender gulf remains in the most crucial area: confidence. And confidence is the secret sauce in executive presence.
It sounds so utterly, self-help simple. But Cynthia Scott, a partner with San Francisco-based executive coaching firm Changeworks, says she's astounded at how often females in danger of being written off for advancement will leave a meeting without having said much--if anything. That makes them come off as passive and unengaged. When they do pipe up, Scott says, they often blow it by using qualifiers such as "perhaps," pronouns such as "we"--and, worst of all, ending the sentence with the inflection of a question, causing people to doubt what they've just said.
As long as men continue to be the primary influence on the corporate culture, the nice-girl, seen-not-heard communication styles women were acculturated with will continue to hurt them the further up the career ladder they go. Recent research by The Leader's Edge, a Philadelphia leadership training firm, found that top females in Corporate America were far less comfortable challenging others than their male colleagues. They were also more guarded in their social interaction--even though speaking frankly to your colleagues becomes ever more important at the executive level. Building social capital is imperative for women. Leaders promote those they like and feel comfortable with.
One of the biggest ways women can improve their "it" is by not winging what they say at meetings. Coaches advise rehearsing what you say beforehand, using your own style of declarative speech without overcompensating by becoming a bully. Learn the art of polite interruption. Warm up the room by telling a quick story. "A lot of communicating is planning ahead," says Leigh Wasson, a managing director at J.P. Morgan who has worked with San Francisco coach Peggy Klaus. In hallways and elevators, open up about your personal life to forge bonds with the senior team--something many women confess feels riskier than burrowing into their work.
Self-promotion is also critical. In shadowing female executives, coaches cringe at how often high achievers dodge opportunities to trumpet themselves, almost as if their achievements will go without saying. "Women need to learn how to brag," says Klaus, who holds boasting seminars at companies such as Pfizer. One strategy: Weave accomplishments into anecdotes. Lighten up on the self-deprecation and pour on more humor.
The best news about confidence is that it's easier to develop than competence--the part of the job senior women usually have licked. Now, they just need to start working on their "it."
Hers columnist Toddi Gutner is on special assignment.
Copyright 2000-2004, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Celebrating Women Festival
The Manistee County Convention & Visitors Bureau has announced the appointment of Catherine Zaring as Festival Coordinator for the Celebrating Women Festival for 2006.
Zaring has taken over the reins of the festival entering its second year, following a successful inaugural year in 2005 under the direction of the CVB staff.
“The Celebrating Women Festival offers a truly unique opportunity for Manistee to capitalize upon market specific events planning. We offer some truly interesting entertainment options for women…events that can highlight the special flavor of Manistee County’s diverse communities,” said Zaring.
Catherine Zaring brings to the festival many years of successful experience managing all aspects of festivals and special events in the Chicagoland metropolitan region. Most recently, she chaired the Wizard of Oz Festival in Chesterton, Indiana…a festival that draws almost 100,000 visitors to the small community over a three day period. She is proud of this festival which has grown to the point that visitors come from across the country and even from eight foreign countries.
The Celebrating Women Festival will be held over the first weekend of May stretching from May 3rd through the 7th.
For further information contact the Manistee County Convention & Visitors Bureau -
231-398-9355 or email cvb@manistee.com.
Zaring has taken over the reins of the festival entering its second year, following a successful inaugural year in 2005 under the direction of the CVB staff.
“The Celebrating Women Festival offers a truly unique opportunity for Manistee to capitalize upon market specific events planning. We offer some truly interesting entertainment options for women…events that can highlight the special flavor of Manistee County’s diverse communities,” said Zaring.
Catherine Zaring brings to the festival many years of successful experience managing all aspects of festivals and special events in the Chicagoland metropolitan region. Most recently, she chaired the Wizard of Oz Festival in Chesterton, Indiana…a festival that draws almost 100,000 visitors to the small community over a three day period. She is proud of this festival which has grown to the point that visitors come from across the country and even from eight foreign countries.
The Celebrating Women Festival will be held over the first weekend of May stretching from May 3rd through the 7th.
For further information contact the Manistee County Convention & Visitors Bureau -
231-398-9355 or email cvb@manistee.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)