All entries for Sunday 01 April 2012

Follow–up on An introduction to emotional intelligence

Workshop Tutor: Samantha Tarren

Heres a summary of how I've been getting on with my action points

Hello Samantha!

I apologize for the delay in my blog entries. Unfortunately, I was unable to progress with my action points and follow-up posts as quickly as I wished.

As far as my last entry is concerned, I was analysing the importance of non-judgemental listening. I referred to Stephen Covey and his 7 habits of highly effective people. Since this last post, I have been trying to implement the active listening in day-to-day situations.

Having done the workshop on coaching, I found this area of self-development interesting. I have read a lot about coaching, its advantages and disadvantages and outcomes. Self-development as such is one of the main areas in which I can imagine myself in 3-4 years from now. Unlike mentoring, coaching is all about listening to other people so as to ask the right questions. What I started to do is the same thing. When talking to people, I try to listen more carefully. I pay more interest to their actual problems, and it works.

To demonstrate this on an example, couple of days ago I went with a friend of mine for coffee. She was going through a bad life situation, which she though is a vicious circle. I have known her since primary school, so I can say when her problem is real. In such situations, there is not a lot we as friends can do, but I tried to somehow help her to find a way out of it. Sometimes, asking right questions is enough. I have to admit, analysing things is what I am good at. So I wanted to let her to see the problem from different angles. I let her to do the analysis just by asking the questions such as: What can you do? Is there anything else you can do to make it better? Is there any other obstacle you haven’t thought of? What would be the first step you would take if you decided to change it? And so on, and so forth… After an hour, I saw that she was glad that she had someone who listened to her and that she had a change to talk about it.

However, I have to admit that active listening is sometimes tiring. It requires us to pay more attention and put more effort in the conversation than we usually do. It steals from the energy that we usually put into our problems. But it is only a matter of finding the right balance, isn’t it?

As for the summary of the blog on Emotional Intelligence, I feel that through writing about my perception of emotional intelligence, I learnt couple of important things.

First of all, I found out that meditation and mindfulness is not a cup of my tea. I tried, but it didn’t work. I learnt that every person has different ways of relaxing. In my case, running and exercising in overall is the way I should be maintaining the balance between work/studies and relax/life.

Secondly, I wanted to attend the workshop on Time-management. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to but at least, I read Getting Things Done by David Allen and successfully implemented a number of techniques which improve the time-management, such as to-do lists, ecalendars, eat the frog and 2 minute rule.

Lastly, I focused more on active listening. Having attended your workshop and 2-day workshop on coaching, I have a good base for improving such soft-skill. There indeed is a long way to go, but as it is said, the beginning is the most difficult part.

Thank you Samantha for following my blog. Again, I apologize for taking longer time for finishing the blog, but sometimes being reflective requires a bit deeper analysis. I hope I referred to all the things you expected me to and I look forward to writing the final blog for the Warwick Skills Portfolio Award.

All the best,
Natalia

: 01 Apr 2012 16:17 |  Tags: Actions Follow-Up P6 Portfolio Wspa |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Follow–up on Understanding your personality type

Workshop Tutor: Mary Sage

Heres a summary of how I've been getting on with my action points

Hi Mary!

I apologize for such a delay in my last follow-up. There was one last action point to go, unfortunately, the one that takes longer time to put in action:

3. According to ESTJ, I sometimes give less attention to my intuition - I will try to act more spontaneously/to trust my intuition.

You have to agree with me that this goal might sound easy but there is a long way from having said to having done. Since the last follow-up, I have been aware that I have to pay greater attention to the decision-making process.

Interestingly, what I found out is that when it comes to making decisions, I used to leverage the pros and cons, I tried to analyse all the aspects and impact of that decision, and also, I usually try to gather all the data related to the decision. Not only was this process more time-consuming, but also, in many cases, it influenced the final decision in such a way that I over-think a problem with an obvious solution.

One of the most common examples is a test. During the last mock exam from Financial Management with multiple-choice questions, I caught myself questioning the first instinct, hunch. When preparing for the real exam, I found out that in many of the questions where I thought the answer is correct, the first – unchanged answer was indeed, correct. In 5 out of 15 questions, I changed my answer in a way that I replaced a correct answer with the wrong one. And that was only because I was questioning my first answer even if I had been studying hard for the exam.

So I was thinking when I do such mistakes in exams, what is the result in a real life? That’s when I told myself to stop analysing and over-thinking every single step (and some friends of mine can confirm that I did it a lot). Changing the way we think is a long-term process, that is for sure, but it can be changed. When solving a problem or dealing with a situation, every time I ask myself: left or right, black or white, yes or now – decide now, don’t hesitate because it will make no change, it will add no enormous value. The exact opposite – it will keep you wasting your time, your valuable time that can be spent on other – more important things. The way people think can’t be changed in a second but It seems I made a good start, what do you think?

Dear Mary, I want to thank you very much for the time and effort you put into reading my blog, I think I covered all the action points I set for myself in the fist post. I enjoyed working with MBTI personality questionnaire, I feel I have learnt a lot about myself and I look forward to writing a bit more about it in the final blog!

Thank you and have a nice day!
Natalia

: 01 Apr 2012 15:16 |  Tags: Actions Follow-Up P10 Portfolio Wspa |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Follow–up on Career planning

Workshop Tutor: Chris Manley Fiona Kent

Heres a summary of how I've been getting on with my action points

Dear Fiona and Chris,

Here is the follow-up on my progress with the action points I set in the last blog.

Since your workshop, I have been working so much on improving my CV. As promised, I got my CV checked in the C&S Centre. I thought that attending the workshop on how to write your CV provides you with enough information but the opposite is true. The 20 min session, which I had with one of the advisors in the Centre, got far beyond my expectations. I thought that my CV was strong enough, but I found out that there is a lot that can be improved so as to make the CV flawless.

Ioanna Iordanou, the advisor in the C&S Centre, she pointed out during the session that my CV was well-structured and easy to read. However, she also suggested that due to having a number of important experiences, I should change the structure of the CV. The original CV was based on a timeline which was good, but it does not let the CV show the competencies and qualities of the applicant. So Ioanna showed me how to base the CV on competencies. I switched the timeline to the right-side and added the description of the most important skills and competencies that I gained from each work-experience. Now, the CV looks better, the layout is clearer and it presents my work-experiences, educational background and strengths in a more professional way.

As far as the second action point is concerned, I have decided to change it slightly. Due to having one application successful, I was offered a telephone interview. Therefore, I have decided to focus on the preparation for that conversation. I went to C&S Centre again to gain some advice on what to do and what don’t during the interview. On March 16, I spoke to Charlie Cunningham. He gave me several valuable pieces of advice which I am definitely going to implement in the preparation for the interview. The interview takes place on April 11, so I’m planning to go through company websites, skim their annual reports, google some information about the company and Charlie provided me with some resources regarding the types of questions I might be asked during the conversation and some videos which I think will be useful for the prep.

That’s it for now, thank you for reading and I will get back to the blog with updates after the interview.

Wish me luck and have a nice day!

Natalia

: 01 Apr 2012 14:16 |  Tags: Actions Follow-Up P9 Portfolio Wspa |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem