Laura Wolfe Coaching LLC

Supporting the Evolution of Careers, Leaders,

& Climate Consciousness

Becoming Culturally Fluent

By

greek food MGD©Awhile back, I wrote about the need to cultivate cultural competence in our ever more diverse world. Several people asked me for specific how-to’s so this is the first in a series sharing some resources and information for increasing CQ* (cultural intelligence).

A good first step when embarking on self-development is to see if there is a way to gauge perceptions of our current selves. For example, when doing leadership and management development, 360 degree feedback assessment is used for that purpose.

In the case of cultural competence, information on how non-Americans perceive us can be helpful in the same way and a good starting point. Once, a well-traveled New Zealander said to me he thought it strange and insincere the way Americans tell everyone they meet to ‘have a nice day’. It had never occurred to me that anyone would take offense to that statement.

I found this post, which summarizes information shared via AskReddit rather enlightening as to how we Americans are perceived. (warning: some of the language is a bit strong.) A top 10 version of this same info was going around facebook recently but now I can’t seem to find it. If you know of it, please share the link in the comments below.

Do you find any of these observations surprising?

The perceptions of non-Americans are interesting but really just the beginning. Consider the many cultures within this country, your state, your community, your workplace. How do you think you are perceived within those various contexts?

*I use cultural fluency, cultural competence, and cultural intelligence interchangeably.

 

 

Let Them Go

By

In January, I listened to this Amy Porterfield podcast about planning for the new year where Amy challenged business owners to consider what was working and what wasn’t working with regard to growing their business. Her advice was to stop the activities that weren’t contributing to success.

On the surface, that’s the obvious action to take but how often do people continue down a less than productive path?

Soon after, I came across an article about toxic people that included the wisdom, “the more time you spend with people who are unhelpful, unsupportive, disrespectful, envious, resentful, dysfunctional or outright damaging to you, the less value all your time has.”

Wow.

Time is a precious and limited resource and when minutes are gone, there is no getting them back. Too often we are overly attached to some initiative that once seemed like a good idea or to familiar relationships without ever evaluating whether they are right for what we hope to accomplish.

Consider both your personal and professional goals. Do the people and activities that consume your time support and align with the future you are working towards?

If not, let them go.

Would love to hear how you make the most of your time.

Development Pearls

By

What I try to do through my coaching and my writing is to help individuals find work that they are on fiyah about and to help managers and leaders grow in ways that improve both their performance and the lives of people in their organizations.

This week I published my second e-book for Kindle on Amazon. Development Pearls: Information for Professional Development is a collection of blog posts I’ve written around professional development and it is available for FREE through midnight March 23.

Feel free to share and thanks again for your support.

Laura

Would love to hear about your development journey.

Fun, fun, fun

By

baby kong floatAre you having some fun? Sadly, too many people just don’t have enough of it.

Can you think of something fun that you really love to do? Is there any way to work it into your schedule this week? Put fun on your to-do list. Make it a priority.

Spending several days in New Orleans during Mardi Gras got me thinking about the need for fun. NOLA during Carnival is a well-oiled fun machine and it’s wonderful how people spill out onto the streets to celebrate with friends, neighbors, and total strangers.

Everyone needs down time, especially those in high pressure jobs or really boring jobs and those whose work requires creativity and innovation.

Hey managers, are your people are having some fun? It doesn’t always have to be complicated. I wrote about making workplace fun happen in this earlier post.

One more thing about Mardi Gras – I love it for a lot of reasons but especially because it allows so many artists to showcase their spectacular talent and make a living doing what they love as float builders.

Would love to hear ways you incorporate fun into your workplace.