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Why you don’t have to be a boss lady to do a career
“I don’t like to turn into a stereotype boss lady”, my mentee sighs. “That is not me. And I feel, I have to become such a person to do a career.” This conversation happened over 10 years ago – and it stuck with me. Why do people – and mostly women – believe that it is necessary to turn into something that they are not in order to achieve an undefined thing like ‘a career’!? I guess, it has a lot to do with role models. Women who did their careers in the 90s and early 00s were often quite similar to one another – leading to a limited variety…
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Your narrative determines success or failure – but differently what you expect
The project is intense. Everyone delivers at their best. You deliver at your best. You walk every extra mile – for the client, for the team, for your career. Mostly, you get positive feedback. But one of your deliverables gets rejected. The feedback feels horrible. Instead of walking on and putting the one negative feedback in perspective to all the affirming ones, your mind plays a trick on you. The feedback regarding your work somehow transfers to you as a person. The sentence „the deliverable is not good enough“ echoes into a „you are not good enough“ – getting louder and louder. If the self-talk isn’t stopped at this point,…
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Why you need to defend your team culture
Your team culture is important. It is the very reason why people join, perform better than expected or leave once they don’t feel they want to contribute anymore. But did you know that a good team culture needs defense? Let‘s assume, you have established the following team culture: 1. Everyone greets in the morning 2. Everyone helps one another 3. There is no backtalk accepted In order to establish this culture, you will need to speak explicitly about these three points in team meetings. You will give details why these behaviors are important so that everyone in the team understands why they should do the effort of behaving that way.…
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The best is yet to come
What sounds like a phrase of a fortune cookie, could actually have more impact in your life than you’d think. The headline displays a certain belief towards life which is rooted in an underlying narrative that everyone defines for him/herself. Have you ever heard sentences like “If I just had xy, then I could do/buy/move …”, “I cannot do x because …” or “If my boss/team/client wasn’t that way, then …”. Those narratives attribute responsibility away from the speaker towards other people or circumstances. In short: “If you cannot swim, it’s due to the lousy swimwear.” And although there might be tough life circumstances, attributing all your ‘why nots’ to…
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This crisis kills my empathy
Working in virtual teams has been around for years in project management and consulting. But the extend in which we now work remotely is new. And this is why project leads and management members in consulting need to adapt their leadership style accordingly. Before the pandemic, a good portion of the day was already spent at the laptop and in calls. But there were breaks to chat with colleagues over a cup of coffee. Often these talks were work-unrelated and even with people who weren’t on the same project. We just bumped into them by accident when leaving our desk. But in home office or people-reduced corporate offices, we don’t…
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How aristotle can help with sexual harassment
He lays his hand on her knee. “Well, sweetie, we should work on this together”, he speaks with a broad smile – leaving open whether he is referring to the content on the desktop or the interhuman relationship. She freezes. Unable to move or speak. Her heart is bumping, in her head thousands of thoughts – “Should I speak up?”, “Is this already sexual harassment?”, “Am I too upright?”, “We need to work for at least half a year together…”, “He will rate me at the end of the project…”, “Speak now or never…” … tic toc, the seconds elapse. What would you do? How do you react when you…
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Get into first row!
When you are standing at the shore of your comfort zone, you will feel the waves of fear clushing to your feet. That is the moment when you have to make a decision whether you take the challenge.