The Biggest Secret about Moms

By Animah Kosai

They rock the workplace. If you let them.

Here’s 10 reasons why:

1. Mothers have an insane talent for multi-tasking. Pay the bills, do the house chores, send the kids to school, pick them up, ferry them to tae-kwando, dance class, piano class, supervise their homework and cook dinner at the same time. And they didn’t attend project management courses. It’s inherent.
2. Doing all this successfully means excellent time management skills. Being late or forgetting can mean a child in tears and who wants that?
3. Focus on safety. When it comes to driving, kids are buckled up and mothers have eyesight like a hawk when they watch their children in the playground.
4. Pain and exhaustion stays on the back burner. Until everything gets done. Absolute dedication to the job.
5. Paying attention at the task at hand. Because if you don’t, your kid will howl at you, much worse than any boss on earth.
6. Motivating kids to do their homework. This brings to play incredible leadership skills and getting your team to perform. Especially when its maths!
7. Setting key task areas for the day and month, and meeting them almost 100%. Some mothers are nazis when it comes to list making and ticking them off. The mothers are the ones who will make sure your corporate KPIs are met.
8. Knowing the essential items to procure and getting the best price for it by doing research. Mothers will have a list at the supermarket, have set their budget and will compare prices against weight and quality. Excellent procurement skills.
9. Fantastic negotiators. Do you know who are the best negotiators in the world? Kids. And who has to face these top class negotiators everyday? Their mothers. Mothers learn to see through manipulation, rebut clever arguments as to why a 10 year old NEEDS the latest iPhone and, well half the time, gets her way. Fathers on the other hand have a much lower success rate. Mothers have excellent negotiating skills. When you visualise the “other side” as a bunch of whinny spoilt kids, you are more likely to win your negotiation.
10. And the moms who do all this WHILE at work? They have great delegation skills. The ability to delegate the driving, the house chores and the homework requires good teamwork and interpersonal skills with the people who are doing all this for you. And guess what, while these mothers may run out as soon as office hours are over because they have to do the evening pick up or cook, you can be sure that they delivered 100% while at work. They know how important that pay cheque is to raise their children.

So the big question. Why are mothers the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to hiring?

The painting is The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872)

Mothers’ Day: Your Children can teach you Leadership

By Animah Kosai

A few nights ago I had dinner with an ex colleague. We hadn’t seen each other in years so we chatted about people, our projects and the companies we were with.

“It’s funny you know,” I said, “in one day I have to play fierce lawyer when dealing with errant contractors, then be in a gentle receiving mode to advise harassment victims and coachees, and yet firm with various teams in getting work done. And now I am trying to inculcate a Happy workplace.”

“Sounds like parenting,” he replied.

Yes, parenting, leadership at work. What’s the difference?

Ask any other mother what is the greatest gift she has received. And she will tell you, her children.

To me, children are more than just love and responsibility.

I look at my daughter and her friends, and I learn from these feisty wise little sages.

Often when we have grown up, we have left much of our passion and dreams behind. As a mother, I had the excuse to revisit them. I rediscovered my childhood games, desires and fun. Thanks to my daughter, I can now buy and read those beautiful children’s books without feeling silly. I can play Lego to my heart’s content. With her, I can screech toy cars around the house. In painting with her, I discovered my own inner artist which had stayed hidden because when I was at school there was only one way to paint – perfectly. For decades I believed I was a bad artist.

But it is through children, that we re-discover our dreams and inner self.

And she has taught me the leadership principles you can find at all those fancy expensive courses.

One of my favourite questions when I do group coaching is to ask “what is your dream job”. I encourage them to think about what they wanted as children. Many answers come from the heart and have nothing to do with the shallow success focused society we live in. I get farmers, pastry chefs, rock stars, pilots and dancers. As an aside, although doctors and engineers have popped up – nobody has ever said lawyer. Even among the many young lawyers and law students I have asked.

Everyone goes back to what they truly feel – music, food, nature, fixing things or helping people. Our children are already there. As long as we don’t suppress them with our views of success.

The reason why I ask adults these questions is because many are so caught up with society’s expectations and this notion of a career ladder – once you are in a chosen career, you climb, climb, climb, rung by rung until you reach the top. And then you retire. Have you looked at the faces of people in senior positions? What do you see? Joy? Weariness? Stress? Happiness?

Can an unhappy leader really motivate people around him or her?

Can a happy child motivate you?

What if we were to bring childlike joy to the workplace? Look at Google and Zappos where happiness at work has become a focus.

I ask my groups to remember their passions and their talents. I then ask them to identify which of those they use at work. If there are very few used, then why not? Have you seen a child attempt to use their passion and talents in their assignments? They often try. But then who tells them to stop? Their teachers and their parents.

So when anyone tells me, oh my boss won’t let me be this way. I ask, really? Have you even tried? Or is it because 30 years ago, your mother told you to stop because in her mind, following your passion really won’t work in the “real world”. Think about it. You are setting your own limits, not your boss.

What we are now trying to introduce at work – getting employees to be happy and passionate so they can be innovative, solve problems, be strategic and visionary etc. – we have denied our children.

So my message to all you mothers on Mothers Day – listen to your children. Stop getting them to listen to you all the time. Watch and listen to them. See how they play, the ideas they come up with.

Better still, ask for their advice on how to approach work problems. As I grappled with contractual issues on a ship that would not go where we wanted it to, my then 5 year old daughter suggested that perhaps the captain wanted to go home which then opened a whole new perspective. Till today I ask her for advice on how to deal with difficult personalities. By advising me, she gets her answers to her problems.

Children have this uncanny ability to go straight to the root of the issue. Adults are often too afraid to do this because they are uncomfortable.

So Mothers, you have the greatest gift sitting right in front of you. Go and enjoy them.

Giving Positive Feedback

by Animah Kosai

The other day I mentioned how difficult it was for me to receive positive feedback. It then got me to thinking, how often do I give positive feedback to others. As women, we tend to be very critical of ourselves. Does that self criticism extend to others? Are we limiting the growth of those around us because we hold back a more positive way of giving feedback?

As parents, we are moving away from the Tiger Mom style to a softer listening, consultative and communicative style with our children. In the corporate world, the dictatorial approach is being replaced with a softer listening, consultative and communicative style. Hang on, I just said that.

I have found that the leadership styles I have learnt at work, can work, to an extent at home, and vice versa.

Shouting at a subordinate or your child for a mistake they have made or because they have added to your stressful day causes their defences to go up and sometimes slammed doors. A subordinate is unlikely to slam a door in your face but you can tell by his or her body language that he has shut you off and it’s going to take some effort to win his trust back.

When I first started working, barking orders seemed to be the acceptable way to get things done. That was how we learnt. Hey, it was no different from school in a sense. We would “learn our lesson”, bitch about the boss and continue to slog with our shoulders hunched feeling completely disempowered.

Over the years, we would get sent for leadership training, and bosses became more human. Although it could be that as I rose up the ranks and became a boss myself, I understood them better.

We learnt the importance of developing and nurturing our people in a positive and constructive style. To empower others, we would stop telling them what to do but guide them into finding the solution. It was hard at first, especially when you know the answer, to hold back and watch someone grapple and explore possibilities. And this is when I discovered that at times, my team members would come up with a much better solution than I could have dreamed of.

When reviewing someone’s work, we should mix the positive with the “areas of improvement” (euphemism for weaknesses). Discuss also why they may have made certain decisions or drafted a paragraph in a certain way. Mix the compliments with your questions – “I like how you have thought out of the box. Tell me why you chose this option.” Or “you have put across our position really well here. Let’s think if you were the recipient of this letter, how would you react?” – and if it was a reaction the person didn’t want, then the decision to change the letter and how to word it would come from them. That’s empowerment.

If you have been used to criticizing work, it takes an effort to turn the criticism into positive feedback especially when you want to get the point across. For instance where an employee has completely got the wrong end of the stick, “I have seen how much work you have put into this and it’s great. It might be easier if you stepped back at the beginning and work out what our goals to ensure you don’t go off tangent.” This might have to be followed with a hands on step by step guide on tackling the project at hand.
Yes, even if you feel like screaming at them.

And by the way, if you felt that way. Take a break. Have a kit kat or a cigarette, or go for a walk.

Only talk to them when you are calm and grounded.

So now, here’s your challenge. For this next week, keep score. Count how many times you give positive feedback compared to negative feedback. It could be feedback as short as “you did well” or “this doesn’t make sense”. Watch the responses of the person you are giving feedback to. Are they growing or shrinking with what you have just said. If they shrink, how do you turn it around?

Mentors & Coaches- Why we need them to succeed

There is a famous saying -“Physician, heal thyself’ which implores us to look at ourselves, to fix ourselves before we can help or fix others.  This is easier said than done, as many can attest to the fact that self-realisation is one of the hardest actions on our journey towards empowerment and success. It is so much easier to spot someone else’s flaws and coach them on it, than it is to look within and identify ours. Why is that? Perhaps, that journey is such a painful one that some choose to remain blissfully ignorant, or there are just some of us who don’t even have the tools to ‘see’.

This is where a mentor or a coach can help. A mentor can guide you on a task using his experience to grow you and teach you new skills. Whilst a coach facilitates a process to enable one to ‘see’.

Here’s a great article from The Guardian that sheds more light on this topic. As usual we welcome comments and stories of how mentors or coaches have helped you navigate the minefields of life.

http://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/may/16/mentor-or-sponsor-you-need-both