New Year's Introspection

Today's post I'd like to show you some questions that may allow you to know better your wills and wishes. It is possible that they may be of help to make a plan on your new year's resolutions, when you get to know you better:

1.- What are my strengths?

2.- What are my short term and long term goals?

3.- Who are the people that most matter to me?

4.- What are ashamed for?

5.- What I like to do for fun?

6.- What new activities am I interested or willing to try?

7.- What am I worried about?

8.- What are my values?

9.- What I believe in?

10.- If I had one wish, it would be:

11.- Where I feel safe?

12.- What or who offers me comfort?

13.- If I weren't afraid, I'd like to:

14.- Which achievement makes me proud?

15.- What is my biggest failure?

16.- What I like about my job?

17.- What I dislike about my job?

18.- What does my inner critic tell me?

19.- What do I do to show myself self-compassion and self-care?

20.- What am I passionate about?

21.- What is my happiest memory?

22.- Am I introvert or extrovert?

23.- Am I a night owl or an early bird?

24.- What do my dreams tell me?

25.- Which is my favorite book, movie, band, food, color, animal?

26.- What am I thankful?

27.- When I feel sad, I like to:

28.- I now I'm stressed when:

I hope this questions help you to remember who you are, what you like and what are your wishes. So you may have a better idea to plan your new year's resolutions

Information taken from: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/imperfect/2016/04/26-question-to-help-you-know-yourself-better/

Tell us, which question help you the most.

The right style for the office

A week ago, a good friend ask me to give her some tips to dress accordingly to her office. It seems that she received some critics that her outfit looked like a pijamas, and naturally she didn't want to have that type of comments inside her office. I'm not a fashion expert, but I can share some recommendations regarding how to dress appropriately, not just in the office but in some other events.

1.- Recognize your personal style: Learn about your type of body and personality with which you behave, that should be enough to understand if you are a dynamic and in movement person, or if you are a romantic people. The clothes you choose can project your personality. Also you may want to know about your body failures or your body blessings so you can choose wisely on your clothing.

2.- Fashion fade away: It shouldn't be necessary to invest a lot of money on the last fashion tendency, just choose among the right products that adapt to your life style, personality and type of job. Consider some logical recommendations, like metallic fabrics or sequins are considered appropriate for a night evening but not for an office environment. 

3.- Keep handy a Suit: In almost every office you will need to make a presentation of a project, have client-customer meetings, be at a formal event. Consider to have a black or navy blue suit with which you may enhance your professional image.

4.- Swap between your day/night outfit: For men is easier to add a tie or change for a white shirt. This allows that the suit could be used in day or night. For women adding a blazer or a night necklace/scarf will make the same effect of using your outfit for day or night.

5.- Check out your shoes: Footwear should combine with the clothing, if you are looking for a professional style, consider that the rubber soles are forbidden. It doesn't matter if you are male or female either if you are using high heels or flats. The shoe sole will tale about your formality. Don't ever forget to keep your shoes clean.

6.- Necklines, tight garments or transparencies: Don't wear them for the office if your plan is to have a professional image. If you want to be noticed about your achievements, take care about the look you have in your office.

Please share with us some other tips that you think are important.

Business Opportunity Time

With the end of the year, there are some people that take the opportunity to make some changes on their professional profiles. As I have told before, LinkedIn has become a social media that allows to keep in touch with a lot of people to improve the professional activities. If you learn how this social media behaves, you can take advantage of your contacts and the information they share.

The following post will provide some ideas for you to improve your profile and become a favorite of your contacts in a fast way.

1.- Create a charming profile: Upload a professional executive picture, always remember that LinkedIn is not Facebook, so use an adequate image that remembers your professional activity. Do not use your last party picture, use the one that demonstrates the work that you do. Also write about your professional activities, or if you have little experience, write about your studies. Your contacts will read about it and identify the type of business you may do together.

2.- Participate or create groups: Make contact with the alumni associations, the news releases, professional groups, among different ones, even if you are a shy individual, this groups will allow you to make relations with more people and keep in movement your profile.

3.- Make each of your contacts counts: If you have a special interest in belonging to a group, or do some type of services you must be approachable, so contact the people that are related to your activities. The last week I received the message of one of my contacts, regarding a law initiative that he is promoting. I was interested by the information he sent and about the initiative, I hope he could reach his purpose.

4.- Become a networker: Another option to keep awareness in LinkedIn, is to introduce people that may have inter-related activities. Review their posts and if you find it adequate, do the contact of people looking for business opportunities, job search, or offering products or services.

5.- Keep in touch: With some frequency, post information, share interesting articles, use the information media to publish news in your LinkedIn wall. This will keep in movement your profile and stay in the radar of your contacts for longer time. 

Seize the season opportunities and tell us about your outcomes...

Posada Mix

Christmas season brings a lot of social events among birthdays, graduations, weddings, showers. As days go by, we start laying up some of this events and at some point we want to join with our friends or family to have a good time. This time I want to suggest a way to have some mix events and enjoy different occasions at the same time.

This week we had the "Baby Posada", it was a mix of Christmas Party with Baby Shower. The organization was quite simple because we are a few lady's in this group and we usually see each other with a regular frequency. Marisol was the one who taught about the Posada, but Lily think of joining the event with a baby shower for Marisol, so we had this event to join and seize the opportunity.

The meeting was at Opy's house and she also get in charge of the food and decorations. Marisol took the appetizers, and the rest of us bring presents for the Christmas exchange and the Shower. We also take advantage and take a lot of pictures and sang Christmas Carols.

The fun part of having this Baby Posada, was the relaxed event it was and we also chat about the last events of the month. Each one shared our projects, the activities we have done and our future planes. We also program the following meeting.

I profoundly recommend to do this mix events, specially when the friends share some events, for example a birthday party with the new years toast, baccalaureate party with graduation or the house warming with a campaign closure.

Tell us have you had mix events?

How to save money in Christmas

The other day, chatting with some friends, we were worried about the Christmas expenses, we all wanted to share something nice with our loved ones, with our coworkers, the collaborators or the people who give us some type of service. But when you start to make your own list, then you realize that it's over 50 people and then the economic problem starts.

Considering that we are close to the most expensive season of the year, I will  make some recommendations for your Christmas shopping:

1.- Make use of your additional gifts: Each time that you receive a buying deal, like 2x1, an additional gift of a product you buy, consider to think if that extra product could be given to someone else. The past year I buy a cellular phone and they included an extra set of speakers, one of my sons keep them as his Christmas present, and I save something for his gift.

2.- Haggle: In some different countries it is expected that you ask for discounts while buying a product, like China or Turkey. In Mexico we use to do it at the flea market or bazaar. But I suggest that you can get into a store and ask: What is your today's offer? You may find some products that you could get with a discount and buy a better present.

3.- Seize your job discounts: There are a lot of companies that have some agreements with other stores to benefit their employees. In some point you may find products at a very good price or you may get them at regular payments. If you have the luck to work for a medium or big size company, you can ask to your human resources personal and get the information from them.

4.- Use the rewards programs: Every time you can subscribe to some reward program, like airplane miles, hotel nights, programmed shopping, register your number so you get the points. At the end of the year you may give away a stay at a nice hotel, an airplane ticket or some other benefit without spending a lot of money.

5.- DIY or Do It Yourself: Some of my friends are really good at handcrafts, or at cooking, or they simply use their spare time on hobbies for making beautiful presents. If you are among this people, consider using your skills to make you save some money when giving presents.

6.- Organize an exchange: If your group of friends want to gather and celebrate the moment, without spending a lot of money, an exchange may be the best option. This way everyone gets a present and you may not be on chapter 11 at the end of the season.

7.- Give away some moments: Remember that the most important thing is the friendship, and not the gift by itself. Spending time with your love ones should be enough to keep your Christmas Spirit Joyful

Have you any suggestion to save money in this season? Share it with us.

Christmas and Motivation

Christmas time is coming and with all of this we have now time to thank our colleagues for the good job made during the year. Considering that it's a good time to share your feelings and also do some Networking, you may now prepare your next year's way to motivate your team and start working on your objectives.

For this time I want to share some of the different motivation theories that can be used to keep your team working with enthusiasm:

Maslow's Hierarchy Needs: Motivation is defined as the step where we are in the pyramid, this define our needs, that are five: physiological, security, social, esteem and auto realization.

Commonly the employees that are new at your team (6 months or less) is probably because they have been looking for a job during the year. Give your collaborators the assurance that you want to continue working with them the rest of the year, and also, keep the promise that if their outcomes are good, they may stay as long as they want. 

Adams Equity Theory: People compare their rewards and their job outcomes with the rest of the team. With that in mind, they evaluate if they are equal or not, if they think they aren't demotivation and the actions to achieve it will come.

When your team realizes almost the same activities, it's possible that they share information about their salaries, benefits, among other. In many cases the definition of this conditions is not in your hands, as it is my case. But what you could do is distribute in an even way the job responsibilities, the recognition prices, training, job upgrades. Speak with your employees and ask them, what they want to receive in order to feel an equal situation.

Vroom Expectancy Theory: All human effort is done with an expectation of some success. The people trust that if he achieves his full capacity, some other consequences will come. The expectancy that the achievement of the objectives come with some wished consequences is called instrumentality.

In some jobs, the achievement of the goals has a remunerated bonus associated, but in the place where I work this is not a benefit. You will have to innovate and make your team feel motivated to achieve again that goal. Have a breakfast, give them some pizza, make a public recognition is a process that will make you to commit and then to fulfill, giving your team the expectation of a small but significative reward.

McClellan Power, Affiliation, Achievement Approach: What every people search with their performance could be one of this three things. The Achievement, impulse to stand out with the well done job. The Power, control or influence to obtain recognition. And the Affiliation, need to belong to a group.

With the time, keep some good working teams becomes necessary. Since my first big working team at the Academic Direction, when we all agreed how to organize birthday parties, going through Innovation Direction, Global MBA, and now Admissions Direction, all my teams get to know that they could trust each other to the achievement of the objectives. Communication among them, friendship, sense of affiliation, solidarity and support have made my teams stick together.

Following my own personal recommendations, my team and me are preparing a virtual "Posada" to have some time to share a little bit of recreational time and also get to know each other a little bit more. I will share the outcome.

In the meantime, Do you have any suggestion to motivate your people?

How to deal with a special situation

Daily I take both of my kids to school, well they both drive me and I try to teach them how to drive. I have to leave Arturo at 6:10 am where the bus pick him up, and then with Mauricio I have to drive to the other campus.

To avoid setbacks, we usually arrive to this site about 10 minutes earlier, and park on the side of the ridge that is perpendicular to the pick up area. One day, when Mauricio started the car and turn on the lights, at 6:10am, an automobile parked in front of us, and it will not allow us to move on to our next destination.

In addition to the parking action, suddenly the trunk opens from inside and a lady steps outside. I seized the moment to open my window and ask her if she was going to take a lot of time. Notoriously thwarted about my question, she answered that it will take her a lot of time, because she was going to take out her son's wheel chair and then help him to get into the bus.

At that moment, I realized that her activity will take her a lot of time, and that probably Mauricio and me will be late to the next site. So I have to ask her, please, that if she could move her car, because we were about to leave and we probably be late if we wait her.

She seem extremely odd, and probably a little upset from my lack of empathy to her situation, but she decided to move her car and we could leave without any problems.

In our way to the school, Mauricio and me had the following conversation:

-- Mom, the boy had a wheel chair

-- So?

--You should not ask her to move.

--You think that we should arrive late because one person who has this wheel chair?

At the end of the day, I asked Arturo how long did this boy has been using his wheel chair, and he told me that it was his first day. Neither the boy or us arrive late to our destiny. I also asked Arturo to be aware if this boy arrive to that site, that he should help him to unload the wheel chair or help the boy.

In your personal point of view, what you should do? I leave you with a map of the positions both cars had so you may figure the situation: