Kategorie: General

What is the characteristic of a highly motivated person?

According to Prof. Michaela Brom-Badry, lecturer in the theory of motivation at the University of Karlsruhe, there are three identical characteristics of looking at oneself as a reason to be highly motivated.

 These are:

  1. Acting Autonomously: If you would say the following sentence to yourself: „I have the choice and feel free in what I do“, then you perceive your activity as acting autonomously. The higher your satisfaction with your own autonomy, the higher your sense of well-being and motivation to perform.
  2. Competent: If the following sentence fits you, you feel competent: „I have the feeling that I can successfully master difficult tasks.
  3. Socially Connected: If you are socially connected, you would say: „I have a warm feeling for the people I spend time with.“ Or „I feel close and connected to people I care about.“

 If you want to feel more motivated, work on the three things: Feeling free, feeling competent and feeling connected.

How would you liked to be remembered?

Yesterday we had a fantastic meeting in the OBD, about our agile and modern meeting culture, we will establish.

One point in this presentation was, that we should not accept an invitation, when we think we bring no added value to this topic. I can´t agree more.

Nevertheless, some of us have the assumption, that we should follow meeting invitations, as when we are seen there create the impression and the memory that we are important and crucial for the business.

This brought me to some thought about, how people might want to be remembered, as:

  • always to be busy and to have an overcrowded diary to show how important we are
  • spending long time in front of our laptop or in the office compared with others
  • trying to achieve good sounding job-title, a higher hierarchical level or other status symbols

Is this really for what you want to be measured or be remembered?

What do you think, could this be truly honest satisfying for you?

For me other thinks count more. I would be happier to be remembered as a person, who:

  • gave you valuable food for thoughts and thinking time
  • saw the brilliance in each conversational partner, with less amount of prejudgment a human being can have
  • was open to learn from others and treat all people in the same way
  • make people smile and reflect on their own and other way round.

For what or how would you like to be remembered?

If you like share your thoughts with us. I would be glad to get any ressonance from you.

Thank you in advance.

Study: Gender difference in building self-confidence

In an 2020 IFD Allensbach study (IfD – Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach (IfD) (ifd-allensbach.de)), 800 women and 800 men were asked: „What people draw their self-confidence from varies greatly. According to your observations, what does it particularly depend on whether women / men are self-confident? What from this list is particularly important?“

On top one for men was „success at work“ with 82% builds their confidence, followed by „finances“ at 77%. On top one for women was „popularity“ with 74% builds their confidence, followed by „good looks“ 72% Women answered only 66% that „success at work“ is important to their confidence.

Men want almost equal amounts of „recognition from women“ (51%) and „recognition from men“ (45%). Women voted differently in terms of gender. „Recognition from men“ supports self-confidence more (45%) than from „recognition from women“ only with (29%).

One assumption of the last fact could be that gender equivalence is more ingrained in the minds of men than in the minds of women. Women seem to value the recognition of men more than that of women (maybe this is just a wrong interpretation of a statistic 😉 ).

What is your opinion on this interesting fact?

Of meaningfull importance for learning and improvement: Reflection

“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way, creating more unintended consequences, and failing to achieve anything useful.” – Margaret J. Wheatley

This quote of Margaret J. Whealtey is fantastic as it brings it to the point. To learn from others around you, your circumstances your are in and from your self to become your better self reflection is more than important and needed.

But how reflection could be easy mastered in the full days we are facing with. Here are some thoughts and tipps for this:

Helpfull is to go through these four steps, which you can see in the picture:

1. Step: Observe

the situation in a retrospective or during the situation from the metaperspective

2. Step: Reflect

with the following questions:

a. What?

This question focus on the past. (e.g., What in detail had happened? What are the facts?)

b. So what?

This question focus on the present (e.g., What I have learned? What is my conclusion?

c. Now what?

This question focus on the future. (e.g., What I will change or retain in the future? What direction I will follow?)

3. Step: Plan

the steps and think in small nuggets (KISS = Keep it short and simple) which is really feasible. To make it easy you can follow these Acronyms:

4. Step: Act

following your plan. This is the most difficult step as the new way of interaction is new and unusual to this. The first times it will feel foreign and perhaps a bit threatening. It is like jumping the first time from three-meter diving tower. During the jump you sometimes regret it to have been jumped. But when you have landed save down in the water, you feel proud and happy.

For your reflection you need:

  • Time and space
  • A good environment with a positive atmosphere
  • Emotional supportive environment

Stay tuned: My first own book is coming soon

My first book will be soon published from the international publisher Springer Gabler Publisher. The publisher wrote me her feedback which was: „I really liked the content; it’s a book that you should get involved with, packed with lots of great theories, knowledge and examples – I learned a lot!“

With the German title:

„Erfolgreich Gespräche im Berufsalltag führen – Der Einfluss von Haltung, Deutungsmustern und Unterbewusstsein auf Gesprächssituationen“

(„Leading successful conversations in everyday working life – The influence of attitude, patterns of interpretation and subconscious on conversation situations.“)

This textbook presents a field-tested communication approach that starts with one’s own attitude, existing belief patterns and awareness of unconscious and autonomous processes. Unconscious biological processes, psychological and social aspects have a great influence on the success of a conversation and sometimes even decide on the entire cooperation. Especially, communication in working life is challenging.

The author shows various approaches and principles that promote one’s own communication competence. An important role is played by mindfulness, personal leadership, knowledge about prejudices and beliefs, trust, appreciation and emotional intelligence. Through attentive listening and curious questions, the interlocutor is encouraged to develop his or her own solution and to act in an intrinsically motivated way.

By applying the principles presented, conversations in the professional context are optimized and the togetherness is improved, as the conversations lead to solution-oriented behaviour, the results of which are implemented sustainably. Recurring examples from the professional context (performance appraisal discussion, onboarding, customer discussion, conflict discussion) provide helpful hints for practical implementation in everyday professional life.

The content is about:

  • Dynamic communication in the VUCA world
  • Preparing for a discussion and creating a pleasant discussion atmosphere
  • Changing convictions and discovering possibilities in conversation
  • Searching for and implementing solutions in partnership
  • Self-review for self-optimisation

Interesting background of the quote: „No one is more hated than he who speaks the truth.“ (Plato)

Studies have been able to prove that people would like to shoot the bearer of bad news and find the person unsympathetic.

The researchers suspect that this is related to the desire to find a sense / meaning in change. In order to this suggestion, bad news awakens the desire to bring things together, that do not have the same origin. As a result, the bearer of the bad news is disliked.

Solution: To reduce this dislike, as the studies showed, it helps to create awareness about the benevolent motives of the bearer of the bad news.
(source: https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxge0000586)

What is decisive for success? Is it IQ, social background, or talents?

Angela Duckworth investigated this question and found out that although these are important factors, success is decided by something else. She called this ability Grit.

People with Grit have the following characteristics:

  1. An unusual zeal for work
  2. A high degree of immunity to setbacks
  3. An inner conviction
  4. The knowledge of their own goals and visions

Grit is a combination of passion and determination that makes something special out of people.

This resulted in two formulas:

Talent x Commitment = Ability

Ability x Commitment = Success

With the help of a simple test (https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-scale/), you can find out how high your Grit Score is. 

 For those, who would like to listen to Angela Duckworth TED talk. Please use this link. (https://youtu.be/H14bBuluwB8)

About me, Stephanie Voss

Profile

Proven track record in leading Learning & Development roles, cross-industry experience, enthusiasm for current best practices and trends. Speaker, author of books and professional articles; honoured with various awards.

Special expertise:

  • Define and implement learning and development strategies emphasising agile learning while focusing on knowledge transfer usability and applicability for learners and also tangibly impacting business results.
  • Create modern learning environments aligned with strategy and future needs.
  • Initiate change processes and support agile transformations including adapting and refining employee qualifications based on continuous learning and new digital learning forms.
  • Develop and implement training and continuing education measures using state-of-the-art methods, approaches and tools, moderate workshops, coach executives.
  • Organisational optimisation based on economic and social/human core values aimed at modern, high-performance corporate culture.

Master of Arts in Adult Education as well as Organisational Development; Agile Culture Coach and Systemic Coach with a strong digital mind set, which combines the tried and tested with innovation; adept at assuming a key role in designing, promoting and implementing future-oriented and ambitious learning strategies, also in sensitising and inspiring interest and acceptance of Learning & Development at all hierarchical levels.

Education

Organisational Development (Distance Learning)                                                             10.2017 — 9.2021

Kaiserslautern University of Technology, Germany

Master of Arts Degree

Agile Culture Coach                                                                                                    
10.2018 — 3.2019

Synnecta

Systemic Coach and Change Manager                                                                            11.2015 —12.2016

INeKO – Institutes at the University of Cologne, Germany

E-learning Facilitator & Designer                                                                                    04.2018 — 7.20140

Office for Continuing Education at the University of Hamburg, Germany

Adult Education (Distance Learning)                                                                                10.2010 — 10.2014

Kaiserslautern University of Technology, Germany

Master of Arts Degree

Oecotrophology                                                                                                          10.1990 — 9.1997

Christian-Albrechts University Kiel, Germany

Diploma

Additional Knowledge & Miscellaneous

Languages                    Native German speaker, business fluent English

Publications                 
1. „Lernen auf den Kopf gestellt“ Healthcare Marketing 10/2015
2. „Gesundheit und Arbeit 4.0“ by Professor Dr. Matusiewicz; specific article: „Stärkung der Work Life Balance durch Blended Learning Konzepte“, published by medhochzwei Verlag in autumn 2018
3. Die Bedeutung der Stimm- und Körperpräsenz Organisationsentwicklungen und ihre virtuellen mündlichen internen Kommunikationen. Die Bedeutung der Stimm- und Körperpräsenz GRIN Verlag · 31. Dez. 2021
4. „Omnichannel im Pharma-Vertrieb Grundlagen, Benchmarks und Beispiele für den Pharma-Außendienst“ von Elke Schwarz
a) „E-Mail-Absender „Pharma“: Wie Omnichannel-Manager personalisierte E-Mails als Türöffner nutzen können“
b) „Nachhaltige Veranstaltungen der Pharmaindustrie: Quantensprünge erreichen mit virtuellen und hybriden Formaten“ Springer Gabler Verlag 2021

Awards                        
Human Excellence Award 2014, category: „Learning and Development Strategy”
Human Excellence Award 2015, category: „Knowledge Management”