IF YOU DON’T WANT TO, DON’T…SAY NO!

Are you a “Yes-all the time-round the clock-person”? , Do you feel bad when you say No, so you immediately go to a “but” that opens a lines of real or unrealistics reasons to eventually say Yes?, Do you know why do you do it? Want to experience the “FREEDOM” that saying “NO” can bring to your life?, then let me share what I did to stop feeling guilty by really wanting to say no, and always ended up saying yes to everyone.

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Leadership Interview: Jennifer Yao ‘My Experience as a Coachee’

What does the coachee’s experience look like? We see how a Key Account Sales Manager responds to being coached by her experienced Leader and raises her sales performance within a very short period of time.

The voice of the Coachee. This article is another chapter in an ongoing story about how coaching is Blooming in Shanghai. One year ago I published the article about Key Account Sales Manager Tracy Zhi’s experience as a Coachee. Staying with the same team in Shanghai, in February and March of this year I featured articles about Jerry Chen’s ‘Best’ and ‘Most Challenging’ coaching sessions with his direct report is an account manager Jennifer Yao.

Now it’s Jennifer Yao’s turn to tell her story. We hear from the person being coached. So listen up again Leadership Coaches; see what you can learn from Jennifer’s experience as a Coachee.

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Eight Things To Put In Practice In 2018

8 points for us to think about and maybe put in practice in 2018. They were shared by a great leader who I had the privilege to work for and who became a mentor and reference to me – an inspiration in many ways but mainly because he lives and masters them.

In a couple of days, 2017 will be part of the past and everything that happened during that, history. On today’s article, I want to share eight points for us to think about and maybe put in practice in 2018.

They are not mine. They were shared by a great leader who I had the privilege to work for and who became a mentor and reference to me – an inspiration in many ways but mainly because he lives and masters below.

  1. Winning Mentality. No matter what people say then it is just much more fun to win! You will need to deliver results, you need to clear bottlenecks preventing your team to lift their performance and you need to be result driven. Stay pragmatic while doing so as we will always face trade-offs which need to be managed carefully.
  2. Effectiveness. Everyone in your organization should look at you and be amazed on how much you get done at work. It’s not about being hard working and putting in long hours – but how you use the available time.
  3. Stakeholder Management. Don’t ever take that off your agenda…! Great stakeholder management will facilitate your work and make sure it is just easier to achieve results. Know your stakeholders and how important they are for you – and then manage accordingly.
  4. About Communication. Clear, short and to-the-point communication. This is about getting through to people with power and make yourself easily understood. You need to be able to tell a good story to make people buy into your key messages. You need to be able to adapt to the audience – and always remember that no matter which audience it is a privilege that they give you their time to listen to you.
  5. Cross Functional Working. Always be ready to assist cross functionally and raise your hand for new projects. Accept that far from all will fit into your KPIs and we have things we need to deliver as a leadership team. Assist and engage with your peers – both ways.
  6. Develop People. Get them promoted. Increase their market value. Make them feel that they grow with you. Provide frequent feedback and make sure to follow up via development plans. Invest in them – both your own time but also in learning when they can benefit from external support.
  7. Resource Utilization. Always be one step ahead to optimize your organization for the future. Take the right tough decisions to adjust. Move resources between teams if this is what is required to deliver the best possible results.
  8. Network. Create and develop a network. Nurture it and invest in it. Be a mentor to younger / less experienced colleagues.

The list carries on but I identified these 8 points as very strong and easy to remember/follow. Have you identified anything you could change and start doing in 2018?


Picture: I received this picture via whatsapp from a friend. Don’t know the source.

Leadership Interview: Tracy Zhi ‘My Experience as a Coachee’

What does the coachee’s experience look like? We see how a Key Account Sales Manager responds to being coached by her experienced Leader and raises her sales performance within a very short period of time.

This article is a first for me and for the Leadership Coach Blog. It’s also another chapter in an ongoing story about how coaching is Blooming in Shanghai. Exactly one month ago I published the article about Sales Manager Samson Zhou and the coaching he had been completing with his direct report Tracy Zhi. Now it’s Tracy’s turn to tell her story. For the first time we hear from the person being coached. So listen up Leadership Coaches; see what you can learn from Tracy’s experience as a Coachee.

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