September 2009 Archives

How interesting that I have already explored some of the career options typical for ENFJs, which is my personality type.

See the excerpt I’ve lifted from this resource, and my comments (in brackets).

ENFJ careers to consider

The following career areas are good places to look for a suitable occupation if you are an ENFJ. When thinking about these, remember that your perfect job might not be here, and that there are other professions that can meet these criteria in general.

Social Worker:

Day care coordinator.

Child welfare worker.

Care facility worker.

Counselor / Psychologist:

Private counselor. (I’ve received some church training, and have counselled people before)

Educational psychologist.

Career counselor.

Coach.

Health and wellness:

Public health educator. (By Jove! That’s what I was doing!)

Occupational therapist.

Chiropractor. (I would need training for that, unless you’re a masochist)

Dietitian / Nutritionist. (ditto)

Holistic health practitioner. (no New Age stuff for me though)

Optometrist. (I can’t see myself doing that)

Charity worker:

Non-profit organization director. (Mmm that sounds good)

Fundraiser. (Not in this economy)

Teacher / Lecturer:

College lecturer. (I have spoken at SMU and NUS but not on a regular basis)

Special education teacher.

Clergy (I have given testimony to the masses but haven’t gone further than that)

Creative:

Composer. (yes)

Writer. (yes)

Graphic designer. (done that too)

Editor. (yes)

Set designer. (not really, but I used to design computer game layouts and maps… does that count?)

Music/entertainment. (yes!)

Human Resources:

HR development trainer.

HR recruiter. (I have recruited colleagues before)

Administrator / Manager:

College or University administrator.

Small business executive. (why small only??)

Sales and Marketing:

Marketing manager. (possible)

Customer relations manager. (I’ve handled public complaints before)

Communications director. (ooh that sounds good)

Advertising account executive.

Events coordinator. (please no)

Sales representative.

Website content writer. (done that)

Copywriter. (done that)

Consultant:

Management consultant. (yes please… then again, aren’t I kind of doing that already, in-house?)

Project manager. (done that)

Corporate team trainer. (we take turns to train our team mates)

Politicians / Diplomats (possible)

Media and Journalism:

Producer. (I nearly became one, but my company closed down)

Reporter. (nearly)

Journalist. (yes - i was a columnist)

Music / entertainment director. (yeah!)

Catering:

Hotel and restaurant manager. (I don’t think I catered to that)

Music & Travel

I was busy with my cousin’s wedding, which began in Singapore (church + dinner) and a week later, ended in Penang (dinner).

I tried hard not to suffer from performance anxiety, and ended up Twittering a lot just hours before I was scheduled to play the wedding march. What was amusing was my cousin the groom was also Twittering back to me!

While in Penang, the Tan clan enjoyed their stay at the very chic G Hotel (which has been featured in Wallpaper and Monocle, no less) and a few of us enjoyed 2 straight nights of jazz at the hotel bar, albeit with too much cigarette and cigar smoke around us. Needless to say, the Penang hawker food was excellent, but I really had to hold back on the char kway teow. I hit the gym instead. Twice.

In between the two wedding dinners, I played the piano for a grand farewell party for a senior colleague. So all in all, it has been a very eventful week, with lots of piano practicing involved.

New geek toy

My Dell 23” HD monitor arrived over the weekend, and I am quite pleased with it! It has VGA and DVI-D ports to connect straight to PCs and Macs respectively, and is in a beautiful combination of white and black. It was on sale for a while, but I held back from buying it. Which was just as well, because Dell then lowered the prices further! So I payed S$279 for it, not including the extended 5-year warranty.

However, it’s a little too big for the corner of the desk (where I originally intended to place it). Ideally I wanted it positioned such that I could use it as a 2nd monitor while working on my MacBook Pro, and then turn it slightly so I can watch shows from my bed, further away. It’s now in a more awkward position, but in a more spacious location, on another part of my desk. So I am thinking of swopping it with my G5’s 20” monitor (in my music studio). The smaller 20” monitor would fit more comfortably on my desk, exactly where I want it to be.

The lesson: Less is more, more is less.

But now it appears that I may need to bring my Dell monitor to work, because I have been squinting at my small laptop screen, trying to go through my project plans and spreadsheets. We won’t be getting monitors so soon, but we were also advised not to buy any new hardware because eventually something will be done about it. As a result I’m stuck in the middle. So I may bring this rather large monitor to work, until the official monitors arrive.

People, old and new

A longlost friend got in touch with me, out of the blue. Other friends I haven’t seen in a while, also want to meet up. Also, I seem to have become an agony aunt and counsellor to a good friend. So things are getting interesting.

On Friday evening I will play host to a foreign visitor. This is part of my new work, which I hope will be exciting and fulfilling. I am getting to know my new team mates better, which is always a good thing.

While I didn’t intend to keep score, I realised that this week I passed the 500 mark for number of connections on LinkedIn. However I also received a number of requests from would-be MBA students, would-be INSEAD students, and random people from foreign countries who I had no connections with. The MBA applicants want to ask me lots of questions and get in touch with them. The others don’t even write a personal message to explain why they’re connecting with me. I’ve decided to ignore them all because I do not have time to upkeep such relationships, and because they’re complete strangers who I shouldn’t be connecting with.

Pride

Finally, I learnt that 3 web projects I worked on have been nominated for national awards. One project was largely of my own blood, toil and sweat, and I really enjoyed conceptualising it and working with the creatives who implemented it. If we win something, you’ll definitely hear about it from me later. It was quite difficult for me to sleep that night, because I was simply so happy that we made it this far.

So, onwards and hopefully upwards!

If you watched the US Open ladies’ semifinals match between Kim Clijsters and Serena Williams, you’d have witnessed a stark contrast in mindsets. At some points, it was a close match. But what won in the end was emotional intelligence.

After blogging earlier about Daniel Goleman’s book, Working with Emotional Intelligence, I re-read the chapter on Self-Control and watched a replay of the match, which Serena lost due to unsportsmanlike conduct. It was “unfortunate”, as Kim put it, but she herself stayed focused and didn’t lose her cool.

According to Daniel Goleman, self-regulation is one of the personal competencies of emotional intelligence. Self-regulation is defined as ‘managing impulse as well as distressing feelings’. These form the core of five emotional competencies, one of which is self-control - ‘managing disruptive emotions and impulses effectively’.

People with this competence:

• Manage their impulsive feelings and distressing emotions well
• Stay composed, positive, and unflappable even in trying moments
• Think clearly and stay focused under pressure

Kim was amazingly calm, whether or not she won or lost a point. Serena on the other hand lost her cool, broke a racquet and confronted a linesman who had called her out on a foot-fault. This resulted in her being penalised and losing the match.

Worse, this emotional fallout occurred in a very public setting. Serena’s angry words were reported (albeit with some variations) by news media. Her aggressive stance was captured and replayed repeatedly on TV and discussed on forums and Twitter, making the incident stand out even more. Hopefully she will cool off, reflect on this and come out mentally stronger. IMHO she should apologise for her behaviour too.

Let’s see this as a good lesson given by both players on how, and how not, to react under pressure.

And before we all forget the quality of the match itself - Kim, you did play a great game.

[Update: Kim wins the US Open!]

Currently I’m reading ‘Working with Emotional Intelligence’, which is Daniel Goleman’s follow-up to his hugely successful book, ‘Emotional Intelligence’.

Here’s an excerpt which is relevant to the work I’m currently handling. As we endeavour to improve information flow, we must remember it’s not just having a knowledge repository (systems/infrastructure) but building a sharing culture (people):

When it comes to technical skill and the core competencies that make a company competitive, the ability to outperform others depends on the relationships of the people involved. In [John Seely] Brown’s words, “You can’t divorce competencies from the social fabric that supports them.”

Just as maximising the IQ of a small working group depends on the effective knitting together of the people within the group, so with organizations as a whole: Emotional, social, and political realities can enhance or degrade what the organization potentially can do. If the people in the organization cannot work well together, if they lack initiative, connection, or any of the other emotional competencies, the collective intelligence suffers as a result.

This need for smooth coordination of widely distributed knowledge and technical expertise has led some corporations to create a new role: that of “chief learning officer,” or CLO, whose job it is to direct knowledge and information within an organization. But it’s all too easy to reduce an organization’s “intelligence” to its databases and technical expertise. Despite the ever greater reliance on information technology in organizations, it’s put to use by people. Organizations that have such learning officers might do well to expand the CLO’s (or someone’s) duties to include maximizing the collective emotional intelligence.

Look closely at the screenshot of the Harvard Business Review’s home page, above. The rightmost article discusses the disadvantages of using of Twitter, but just below it is a button for subscribing to HBR’s Twitter feed.

OK, it’s not as straightforward as that but I couldn’t resist showing the irony lurking on the surface. The author of the article feels that it’s better to send a customised email ‘forward’ rather than Tweet a link to all your followers. I agree that if possible, one should send personal emails to show that you care for other people’s interests.

However, it isn’t possible to do that all the time, and sometimes Twitter and Facebook are simply more effective ways of getting more generic news snippets out to the masses. Which is exactly what HBR is doing with their Twitter feed.

Also, one can send impersonal mass emails (almost like ‘spam’), or use Twitter’s DM or @reply function to respond personally to someone. So it’s not like one medium is absolutely more personal than another. It is, ultimately, what you make of it.

Just after 11pm yesterday, I was at the Esso station along River Valley Road. I had just used the cash machine inside the station and was walking back to my car, which had been refuelled.

Behind me, I heard a small commotion. The cashier was running after a male customer, asking him if he had dropped his credit card. I looked inside my own handbag to make sure I hadn’t lost anything. The male customer looked at the card and said it wasn’t his. He then came over to me to ask if it was my card. I looked at the name. No wonder - a female name was listed on the card. I told the man that it wasn’t my card. He then passed it to a pump attendant.

I then noticed that another customer’s car was just driving off. I gestured to the attendant, suggesting that maybe the card belonged to one of the passengers in that car. He dashed off but couldn’t catch up with the car as it went back onto the main road. I tried waving to the driver but he didn’t see me. Fortunately, the car stopped at the nearest traffic light and the attendant eventually reached the car.

I didn’t manage to see if there was a happy ending as I was already back in my own car, about to drive off. However I thought that everybody was quite honourable and went out of their way to look for the person who had lost her card.

I say kudos to those working at the pump for going out of their way to help a customer.

A quick post to let my faithful blog readers know that I am still alive.

I hit the ground running at work, researching and then presenting a new framework to senior management, writing speeches and MC’ing a launch event. I would like to thank my colleagues for the positive feedback on my performance and appearance. It was a big learning experience and I shall continue to learn and improve.

Feedback - about other issues - is what I’ve been getting a lot of, actually. I will continue to listen, and if I am in a position to suggest improvements, I will. Thank you once again and keep the ideas flowing.

Apart from work, I am busy preparing for my favourite cousin’s wedding. I will be playing the wedding march and 2 hymns. The problem is, the rest of the band isn’t able to meet until 2 days before the wedding (one of the musicians isn’t even in Singapore). So we are going to practice virtually and trust in each others’ abilities!

I am also involved in another rehearsal - but shall leave that as a surprise till the last week of this month.

I am still on track to hitting my ideal weight. All the pairs of pants I bought just before leaving for France are loose. I’ve got some clothes resized, and will soon be sending a second batch to the tailor’s otherwise I won’t have anything decent left to wear. And if anyone else asks me if I went to a slimming centre, the answer is no! It is solely due to a much healthier diet and exercise. I work for HPB, you know!

You’ll probably get more frequent updates from me via Twitter, so head over there and subscribe to my tweets.