leadership training: day 1

After a very hectic day in JULIA, I attended a leadership training seminar with some of my colleagues. Since there wasn't any space in the place where I sat, I opted not bring my machine with me and just relied on the pen and paper provided for note taking. But since the presentation slides were actually sent via email, writing notes became unnecessary...bummer.

Anyway, the training started with the usual introductions. We were asked about our expectations from the training and, together with those seated near me (Rodrey, Dale and Carl), we agreed that we wanted to acquire the necessary skills on how to effectively manage a team. Pretty vague, I know but we were all quite new in taking this role so I guess that was understandable. We were also asked to enumerate our top 2 strengths and for this part, the most memorable would be Dale's skills: charisma and flexibility. Carl and I found this amusing...but that's another story. Hehe. (peace Dale!)

The next group activity was coming up with a unique invention and we were told to be as imaginative as we need to be. We were asked to team up with other people and Joemar and Vincent became my random group mates. I'm not exactly the most imaginative type of person, at least in terms of inventions and technology or whatever, so I suggested something boring like a molecule that can consume anything. This molecule will be programmable, meaning it can only consume what you want them to consume like maybe in the case of an oil spill in the ocean or maybe fat deposits in certain areas of the body. We only had 5 minutes so we ended up presenting that idea.

Then we were asked to answer an evaluation form. It was to help us assess ourselves on the kind of leadership style that we use. After that, we learned about Gofer and Stewardship leadership which was pretty interesting. I'm actually more familiar with autocratic and democratic but in way, I think(?) they're the same.

The last activity was the "Den" scenario wherein we were told that in order for us to construct a dream den, we need to manage a team composed of:

The Best Friend - person who doesn't know anything about construction but is very enthusiastic and willing to help

The Sister - clueless about construction and has absolutely no idea what the fuss is all about

The Father - who is an expert in construction but has ill feelings towards us

The Brother-in-Law - enthusiastic, superb construction skills and willing to help in any way

Categorizing the "helping team" was fun. It made me think a lot about how I work with people and how personal relationships can be a major factor in what style you use as a leader.

I'm sure I still have a lot of things to learn in this training and I look forward to the next meeting.

...this little pig went to the market

I've been part of the "working" population for quite some time now. You WOULD think that I should be more or less concerned as to where my hard-earned(?) salary is going. Well, since I've squandered every cent of my money on whatever I fancy (READ: useless crap), I figured I better rethink my priorities and start saving up for the future. I'm with a new company and hopefully on my way to a very promising career in the IT industry, I beleve it's time for a change.

Fortunately, as part of the on-going research for a new project, I was invited to attend a seminar about stock exchange. The goal was to familiarize all PM/BAs of this particular domain in the capital market. The seminar gave us a brief overview on how you can build your wealth by buying and selling stocks via the Internet. Since I didn't know squat about the stock market much less having to do it over the web, it was quite interesting and very informative. The speaker was very knowledgeable and he was able to explain clearly how it works and how it can be beneficial to those who have money to invest. Even though it was my first time to hear anything about the broker/stockholder's world, I didn't have difficulty understanding its concept because the speaker was using layman terms. It really helped a lot because not only did it allow me to further widen my investment options, it also provided me the basic information I needed for our new project. It was a heads up on what the terminologies and processes the team should expect when we meet with the client. I believe it was a good starting point for all of us to learn the language of their domain.

The seminar lasted for about 5 hours and we were all pretty exhausted by then. Nonetheless, we all felt that our new-found knowledge would give us the confidence to get everything organized and jump-start the project. Personally though, it got me excited about using the stock market and how it can make my money work for me.

It's just too bad I don't have anything to invest.

Boo.

....and this little pig cried "Wee, wee, wee!"
All the way home.....