Recently, through book reading and internalization, I realized how important it can be to do daily summaries. It gives you an end to each day with highlights and lowlights. You come into the realization of what has worked during the day and what needs improvement. I decided to do daily summaries either through writing or thinking in my head at the end of the day.
Below I will summarize my personal learnings from today's Corporate Learning Center's class "SMART as hell", which teaches about setting SMART goals to facilitate your success. The teacher, Glen Hughs, whom I think is brilliant with all sorts of quotes from different books, also talked about how you can manage your performance review by setting SMART goals and doing quarterly reviews.
1. It is up to you to drive the individual development plan and SMART goal setting for the next year. It in turn impacts your performance review for the coming year.
2. You are getting a leg up when you set up SMART goals that have upsides (and downsides come with upsides of course). Otherwise, with goals that do not have upsides, you are setting yourself up for ratings of 3s. I was particularly struggling with this item before, as I was not sure how I could get a 4 or a 5.
3. When you are at the individual contributor level, make sure at least a good amount of your goals is independent/does not depend too much on other people's results.
4. There are metric goals and rubric goals and both will work as long as they are clearly defined.
5. Metric goals work well for things that can be quantified.
6. Rubric goals work well for things that cannot be easily quantified and are better described and judged using different categories and qualities.
A couple of SMART goals I set for myself after the training:
1. I will redefine my annual goals with my manager to make them SMART during the next 1:1 meeting this coming Monday.
2. I will realign with my manager on my annual performance goal of 4 or above based on my performance in the first two quarters of FY13 before January 15th, 2013. (Make plans to close gaps if necessary)
Friday, December 7, 2012
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving, I am grateful for so many things... just like how I broke into tears this past Tuesday at the Toastmasters meeting when speaking about what I am grateful of this Thanksgiving. I have a great family, many good friends, and a nice job, to name a few, yet this little 3-month-old boy on the Holiday Giving Tree's wish card does not even have an infant outfit and a warm blanket. I bought an outfit for him today and I hope he will like it. When we look at how much we already have, rather than fixating on what we don't have, we will be much happier and will attract more great things to come into our lives. Thank you all, my friends, for being around. I feel so fortunate to have you all in my life. Hopefully I can be a helpful part in your lives whenever you need me. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
Friday, November 9, 2012
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Going back to work -- getting back into the game
Today I had the honor to attend the HYSTA Chinese Executive Event with my husband, at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View. The event was aimed at bringing more Chinese/Chinese American engineers into the Executive suite in Corporate America. Among the panelists are these amazing Chinese American leaders who have great experiences climbing up the ladder in big corporations as well as building up successful startup companies/teams. They all had great stories and advices to share and I really appreciated them taking their time to come. The best way to thank them is to practice their teachings and pass their messages along. Here I will try to summarize what I picked up from today's event.
First and foremost, one has to find something that he/she is passionate about. I remembered a sentence that I learnt from some book: "do what you love and you will never work a day." If one can find the area that he/she is really interested in, they will have the burning desire to become better at it. This way, success will follow. This is not to encourage people to constantly switch jobs to find the "right" one that they really love. Rather, as one of my mentors said, one should really get to know themselves first, and understand their values and what are driving them at the end of the day. If your job aligns with your values and beliefs, you will be motivated and love what you do.
Salesforce's COO George Hu mentioned intentionally choosing an industry and an environment that allow you to thrive. There were also some discussions about the difference in being in a small company vs. a big company. George, who had chosen to be in small companies in the early years of his career, said that things are more fluid in smaller companies and you have great access to senior people. David Ku, CVP at Microsoft, mentioned that in big companies, what and who you can influence really matter. Building trust and credibility will open up opportunities. In either case, though, you need to find your own advocates who will vouch for you.
Personal branding was also a hot topic that every panelist had something to say about. I think everyone now agrees that we, as different individuals in the workplace, are products to be sold. We need to create and maintain a good personal brand to better sell our skills and talents. Other people's perception about you is their reality. If some stakeholders have negative impressions about you, you will get stuck. In this situation, a brand changing campaign is desperately needed. You can either do this through demonstrating your true self to clear the misunderstanding, or have people whom the stakeholders trust clarify things for you. In any case, you have to perform well once given the stage.
Communication has always been an important point that everybody stresses. Nobody knows what you have been doing unless you go out and communicate with people. Always keep a transparent line of communication with your boss. If you want to have skip level communication with someone, always find a connection for introduction. Executives almost always want to know what is going on within the organization and you waste opportunities by not communicating. Executives also like to get to know people who really take the initiatives and go the extra miles, rather than people who have the mere purpose of being seen by them.
As an extension to communicating with your boss, one has to really try to understand what your boss really wants. You can have rational discussion with your boss once or twice per year to ask for opportunities to present to senior executives, if your boss forgets to purposely give you such chances.
Several other tips:
1. Dont's break relationships to get ahead.
2. Act fast to correct mistakes. Sometimes you need to quit and end things quickly. Do not always think that you can fix the issue.
3. When presented with a fork in life, sometimes the key is to just pick one direction without thinking about the what-ifs.
4. Get to know yourself well. Be comfortable with who you are and where you are. Make objective judgement calls. Be willing to adapt those aspects of yourself that are not effective.
5. Know who the decision makers are and what drives them. It is more of an art than science.
6. Regarding work life balance, George mentioned about taking long vacations. Instead of a week's vacation, take months' vacation. Presell your boss the idea of your long vacation (e.g. 18 months before, 6 months before, 1 months before, etc...).
7. Some good habits the panelists have: keep your email inbox empty; go to work really early to get ready for the day; allocate time to think; morning/night reflections.
8. Think different. Just do it. Keep walking.
Attending this event was such a great way for me to prepare for my return to work. Navigating through career is more like a game. There are rules and you are supposed to play with them to survive and thrive.
Hey, I am back into the game again and I can't wait.
First and foremost, one has to find something that he/she is passionate about. I remembered a sentence that I learnt from some book: "do what you love and you will never work a day." If one can find the area that he/she is really interested in, they will have the burning desire to become better at it. This way, success will follow. This is not to encourage people to constantly switch jobs to find the "right" one that they really love. Rather, as one of my mentors said, one should really get to know themselves first, and understand their values and what are driving them at the end of the day. If your job aligns with your values and beliefs, you will be motivated and love what you do.
Salesforce's COO George Hu mentioned intentionally choosing an industry and an environment that allow you to thrive. There were also some discussions about the difference in being in a small company vs. a big company. George, who had chosen to be in small companies in the early years of his career, said that things are more fluid in smaller companies and you have great access to senior people. David Ku, CVP at Microsoft, mentioned that in big companies, what and who you can influence really matter. Building trust and credibility will open up opportunities. In either case, though, you need to find your own advocates who will vouch for you.
Personal branding was also a hot topic that every panelist had something to say about. I think everyone now agrees that we, as different individuals in the workplace, are products to be sold. We need to create and maintain a good personal brand to better sell our skills and talents. Other people's perception about you is their reality. If some stakeholders have negative impressions about you, you will get stuck. In this situation, a brand changing campaign is desperately needed. You can either do this through demonstrating your true self to clear the misunderstanding, or have people whom the stakeholders trust clarify things for you. In any case, you have to perform well once given the stage.
Communication has always been an important point that everybody stresses. Nobody knows what you have been doing unless you go out and communicate with people. Always keep a transparent line of communication with your boss. If you want to have skip level communication with someone, always find a connection for introduction. Executives almost always want to know what is going on within the organization and you waste opportunities by not communicating. Executives also like to get to know people who really take the initiatives and go the extra miles, rather than people who have the mere purpose of being seen by them.
As an extension to communicating with your boss, one has to really try to understand what your boss really wants. You can have rational discussion with your boss once or twice per year to ask for opportunities to present to senior executives, if your boss forgets to purposely give you such chances.
Several other tips:
1. Dont's break relationships to get ahead.
2. Act fast to correct mistakes. Sometimes you need to quit and end things quickly. Do not always think that you can fix the issue.
3. When presented with a fork in life, sometimes the key is to just pick one direction without thinking about the what-ifs.
4. Get to know yourself well. Be comfortable with who you are and where you are. Make objective judgement calls. Be willing to adapt those aspects of yourself that are not effective.
5. Know who the decision makers are and what drives them. It is more of an art than science.
6. Regarding work life balance, George mentioned about taking long vacations. Instead of a week's vacation, take months' vacation. Presell your boss the idea of your long vacation (e.g. 18 months before, 6 months before, 1 months before, etc...).
7. Some good habits the panelists have: keep your email inbox empty; go to work really early to get ready for the day; allocate time to think; morning/night reflections.
8. Think different. Just do it. Keep walking.
Attending this event was such a great way for me to prepare for my return to work. Navigating through career is more like a game. There are rules and you are supposed to play with them to survive and thrive.
Hey, I am back into the game again and I can't wait.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Focus
I have been actively learning and practicing the Klemmer work for a while now and there are several sentences which I like the best and I will quote them below for my own references later.
1. "In this world, the most committed win."
2. "The fairest way to measure anything is by results, often harsh, always fair."
3. "We are never without the ability to choose in life."
4. "Compassionate Samurai anchor reality to their vision. Average people anchor their vision to reality."
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Out of the several chapters of the "Compassionate Samurai" book that I have read so far, the chapter "Focus" was the one that touched me the most.
I had realized that I needed to work on my focus before reading this chapter. I felt that I had so many parallel leads in my mind and each of them would take up some memory space while I was trying to process something in my brain at any given time. It actually slowed me down significantly in terms of the efficiency of any given task that I needed to work on, yet each of the thoughts appeared to be so interesting that I did not want to completely erase them from my system.
The book shed light on me through Brian telling one of his personal stories regarding how he had totally ignored the existence of a new 54-inch TV in his living room, since he was too focused on his thoughts. Brian was trying to let people know that you should watch out for the 54-inch TV opportunities in life while being focused, as it is quite possible to miss it when you are too focused (like what Brian himself did). In his words, you should be "simultaneously focused and have 360-degree awareness". But I was totally the contrary to Brian. I seemed to have always been looking out for any possible 54-inch TV opportunities in life so that I failed to focus on any given task on hand. This could also be harmful.
A couple of things that I will be working on as suggested by Brian:
1. "Focus on what's in front of you and then switch... The speed with which you can shift your focus is an ability you want to spend time developing."
2. When having a problem to be solved, focus on a solution rather than the problem. Ask the question "How can I?" instead of "Can I?"
Now my focus is to focus.
1. "In this world, the most committed win."
2. "The fairest way to measure anything is by results, often harsh, always fair."
3. "We are never without the ability to choose in life."
4. "Compassionate Samurai anchor reality to their vision. Average people anchor their vision to reality."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Out of the several chapters of the "Compassionate Samurai" book that I have read so far, the chapter "Focus" was the one that touched me the most.
I had realized that I needed to work on my focus before reading this chapter. I felt that I had so many parallel leads in my mind and each of them would take up some memory space while I was trying to process something in my brain at any given time. It actually slowed me down significantly in terms of the efficiency of any given task that I needed to work on, yet each of the thoughts appeared to be so interesting that I did not want to completely erase them from my system.
The book shed light on me through Brian telling one of his personal stories regarding how he had totally ignored the existence of a new 54-inch TV in his living room, since he was too focused on his thoughts. Brian was trying to let people know that you should watch out for the 54-inch TV opportunities in life while being focused, as it is quite possible to miss it when you are too focused (like what Brian himself did). In his words, you should be "simultaneously focused and have 360-degree awareness". But I was totally the contrary to Brian. I seemed to have always been looking out for any possible 54-inch TV opportunities in life so that I failed to focus on any given task on hand. This could also be harmful.
A couple of things that I will be working on as suggested by Brian:
1. "Focus on what's in front of you and then switch... The speed with which you can shift your focus is an ability you want to spend time developing."
2. When having a problem to be solved, focus on a solution rather than the problem. Ask the question "How can I?" instead of "Can I?"
Now my focus is to focus.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
New Year's Resolution
I have been thinking about my new year's resolution for a while and now I think it is time for me to share it with everybody so that I and everybody else can hold me accountable for my goals this year. Frankly speaking, this is the first time that I have treated it so seriously. If I say it, I will achieve it.
For the year of 2012, I would like to achieve:
1. Update my LinkedIn profile by the end of January.
2. Get within 120lbs by the end of the year, post the second baby.
3. Pass GMAT test by the end of the year. (Originally I planned to take the test during my maternity leave, but was persuaded by my fellow book club members to take care of myself and my new baby first during this critical period of time. So the timeline was changed.)
4. Do one thing out of my comfort zone each week. I will follow up each week on the progress of this goal.
Would you care to share your new year's resolution?
For the year of 2012, I would like to achieve:
1. Update my LinkedIn profile by the end of January.
2. Get within 120lbs by the end of the year, post the second baby.
3. Pass GMAT test by the end of the year. (Originally I planned to take the test during my maternity leave, but was persuaded by my fellow book club members to take care of myself and my new baby first during this critical period of time. So the timeline was changed.)
4. Do one thing out of my comfort zone each week. I will follow up each week on the progress of this goal.
Would you care to share your new year's resolution?
Friday, January 20, 2012
Invitation to the Champions Workshop
Dear all,
I hope this email finds you well, especially when the biggest holiday for the Chinese people, the Chinese New Year, is right around the corner! I wish a happy and fruitful Year of Dragon to you and your family!
In this festive season, have you stopped and thought about what you will achieve in the year of 2012? What is your New Year’s Resolution? Even more, do you know where you are going to be in 5 years? If the answer to any of these questions is unclear, or you are not sure if you will achieve the results you wanted, then please read along as I truly believe this event can help.
I would like to share with you a journey that I have been enjoying since I attended an eye-opening event. I have to admit that if you had asked me the above questions one year ago, I would not have had answers ready for you. I would probably even avoid thinking about them since I believed I would figure it out along the way and the answers would come to me eventually. But the truth is if you do not actively seek out the BEST answers for you, you will never have them and it will take much longer, if not forever, for you to achieve them.
We are so busy doing what we think we have to do, day in and day out, and never had the chance to get around to being who we really want to be, doing what we really want to do, and having what we really want to have, in our career, our marriage, and our life. If this is the case, some changes are due.
I invite you to read my blog if you have the time and witness the changes that I have been experiencing so far. http://lucyscareerblog.blogspot.com/ I know I am far from perfect and I am still practicing and experiencing changes every day. It will be a life-long journey and I wish I had started much earlier. That is why I am sending this email to you hoping that you could start the journey too.
Please do not block out my message from your brain since I heard that little voice in your mind, “Who are you to tell me what to do? Do you think you are better than I am?” I promise you that would be my response if you had sent me an email like this one year ago, when I believed that I knew no less than anybody else. But I invite you to keep an open-mind and see what it is about first before judging anybody. Often times, we don’t know what we don’t know.
With all the suspense, let me introduce to you the Champions workshop provided by Klemmer & Associates (K & A) on Saturday Feb. 11th, 1-4PM in Milpitas.
This upcoming Champions Workshop is a great way to get exposed to the programs. I encourage you to sign up as soon as possible because the seats are limited and they only come to this area about once a year so that tickets are sold out fast. Please check the link http://www.klemmer.com/workshop/results.asp?sid=3689 to purchase tickets online or contact me directly for tickets ($20 per ticket). You also get a free copy of the #1 Wall Street Journal Business Bestseller “Compassionate Samurai - Being Extraordinary in an Ordinary World” if you are among the first 100 to secure your seat.
Experience shows that this could be the best gift you give to yourself, your spouse, and the friends and work associates you like and care about in 2012. I am curious, would you be willing to trust my word for it and join me at the event?
Happy Holidays and wishing you a wonderful Year of Dragon!
To your better success and happiness,
Lucy
P.S. Come with your spouse – free daycare is provided for your children for supporting your growth!
P.P.S. Please believe me that sending this email to you was not easy for me and it counts towards my challenge to myself for this year – to do at least one thing out of my comfort zone each week! Thank you for reading this long email. J
Monday, January 9, 2012
To love is to accept
I had been trying to persuade my husband into attending the Personal Mastery Seminar by K&A for the past several months and did not succeed. After I came back from the kick-off party of the Redwood Forest Club (formed by several PM graduates) last night, I realized by how much the PM event could help both him and me and thus started another round of persuasion today.
After I enumerated all sorts of benefits and rewards that PM can bring, the answer I got was still a firm "NO". Some of his reasons seemed like excuses to me, some were even quite silly. I was about to lose my patience (as I "sometimes" do with my husband) and asked him," How come that you cannot just trust me and go? What will you lose if you go? You will have the chance to bash it unmercifully after you really get to know what it is. You can even accuse me of anything you want. (My husband was referring to it as a cult...)" He got a little emotional as well, "I just don't understand why I do not have the freedom to choose what I would like to do or not to do. I remember that you have told me many times that you do not like being told what to do. If so, why are you still forcing others to do what they don't like to do? Can't you understand that nobody likes being told or forced to do things? I have given you the freedom to attend whatever events you like. Can't you give me the freedom to choose too?"
All of a sudden, I had a revelation moment, just like the ones that I had during PM. My husband was right. I should not have imposed my ideas on him, even if I thought that they would benefit him. Everybody has their own logical thinking and reasoning and they would know themselves the best in the end. Maybe I really did not understand how much my husband was worried about me being 8-month pregnant and taking care of Guagua by myself if he went to the PM event. Maybe he really is at the stage where he knows what he wants and how he will get there and does not need too much outside help. I should be thankful that he is not just agreeing with whatever I say. After all, he is my husband, who has his own judgement. And, to me, I learnt the lesson that TO LOVE IS TO ACCEPT.
That is the end of the discussion, that is, until he sees some major positive changes in me (I guess).
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