Trainees2013

Assignments Module 3

BOUE Anne-Laure

Assignment 1: Reflection on Module 2

As part of our Graduate Trainees scheme, we are entitled to follow four trainee modules, each focused on different areas related to management skills and personal development. The second module was mainly based on several fields related to communication. Different subjects were approached leading to three major personal key learning applied on a day to day basis in our professional position. The second trainee module took place in Bremen on the 19th, 20th and 21st November 2012. It was successfully led by Helen Wilson, from JSB Group Limited, and was focused on communication (communication style and effectiveness, presentation skills, moderator and influence skills). These three days has been interspersed with theoretical approaches and role plays which allowed for each topic a complete immersion into the subject. The learning intake of these kinds of exercises is rather personal and the following deal with the learning that apply to my case. Seek first to understand then to be understood. Simple and clear, this statement has been for me a strong advice to follow. How often can we be blind or deaf from a message because of our "more important" to deliver? I realized that applying this principle on an everyday basis allows me to be more effective in my work and get more of the others when needed. Another powerful advice I keep in mind is that we only know half of the story- other person's situation & perception . This has stopped most of the small talked that were getting disturbing in a professional environment. It had the same effect on me and enabled me to gain on respect and empathy from my co-workers.

Always follow Push with Pull. The Push/Pull technique has been I think a big
step for most of the trainees. We realized how hard it is to Pull rather than Push. My personal experience is that using Pull for me is a hard exercise as I am often emotionally involved in my work. I have a very passionate character which sometime could be overpowering the conversation while it is not my aim. I am therefore working on the active listening to pull more efficiently and try to retain "hot" reaction from myself, as it is clearly not helping the rational side of the conversation. We realize the benefit of using the Pull version although it needs to NOT be forged! Showing we understand feelings and paying attention needs to come from a real interest. A constant probing and questions to actively try and understand is necessary. From my personal experience with push/pull practice, Pull should not be used too much to avoid the person to feel hemmed in, or a feeling of invasion of the personal space.

Less is more, more is less. Working on presentation skills has been very interesting and challenging. We all have been giving presentation during our education (Master thesis, group exercise, projects) but depending of our field of study, these presentations had different aims or audiences. With this part of training, we have been working on persuasive presentations which were new for us and we had access to great tips and advices. I had to give a presentation recently to present my work within CSM and some aspects of my work life. Although there were no eye contact with part of my audience, I tried to follow basics principles we have been taught. Feedbacks were mainly positives and I am looking forward to have more opportunities to present as I believe experience in presenting is a key for success.
My personal tips for trainees would be to try and try again. The first attempts are usually not the most successful ones but there is always great learning behind. Also, I read from time to time my note taken during the modules as a quick reminder of what has been done and said, and what the key messages were behind. We have the tendency to work head down and sometime forget about what we could improve to get better. Because at the end of day, I am the main actor of my development.

Assignment 2: Personal Learning Goals Module 3 Personal learning goals to achieve during module 3: Emotional management: I want to learn and be able to control my emotion in a professional environment, especially when the project I am emotionally involved in. As sometimes others peoples' comments can have different meaning it is important to not feel influenced/ attacked by them. I love working in a multicultural environment and once again, communication will be key in the success of our meeting. Keeping it simple and clear in an English speaking environment is still one of my top priorities, especially when handling a conversation with non native English speaking. Learn how to receive criticism Being a really defensive person I have trouble to take criticism in a constructive manner and would have the tendency to keep it personally. I think this is something I need to learn and develop and the next module.

Assignment 3: Executive summary of own traineeship Comparing the work done on my executive summary and what we learnt on module two, I am pleasantly surprised of my work. Please find below the positives and negatives point I found: +) Report well structured, the summary is appearing on the right side in the brown frame (might be unusual but is actually catching the eye) and the introduction reminds the aim of the report. The main body is giving the answer in a convincing and professional tone.

-) Too "childish" for an executive summary (picture/ "keep calm and bake cupcakes"/ colors), layout to rethink. Lack of evidences/ data to base on

Use your reflections of assignment 1 and compare it with your summary. Anything to change?

The summary of my own traineeship has a complete different goal than my personal reflection. The summary of my traineeship needs to be understandable by anyone reading it and should be mainly related to my function and my learning in my department. At the contrary I believe the reflection is aiming for skills that are learnt independently from our role. Moreover, the executive summary is to me a relatively public document compared to this reflection which is, first, for me (I believe writing down this reflection is beneficial for us) and for our traineeship's coach and tutor. If I relate some learning from module two with the way I wrote my executive summary then I guess this is already answered above.

Assignment 4: Country Navigator If you have time play around a little bit in the tool. E.G. compare yourself to a couple of nationalities or even with some of the other trainees.

MY PROFILE

VERSUS THE OTHER TRAINEES

I am not very surprised with the result with NL and do agree the "down straight to business" attitude we work differently on.

I am surprisingly pleased with Belgium results as I am going to achieve my IA over there in a month time! Looking forward to observe the similarities!

Interesting results! I did not expect my personal profile to match at this point the general polish profile.

I am no surprised with the result compared with my own country. I think my personal profile can be quite different of the global way of working generally in France. I recognize the complex thinking!

Relation with others when comparing average Chinese profile with mine is not surprising as there is a clear culture difference here (occidental and oriental). I am more surprised about the similar thinking.

Average Spain profile is not that different and I am surprised about the relation with others differences as I expected more explicit from Spain

I am surprised Ireland is not attaching more importance to relationship in work, the same way I am not surprise they are more loose in their decision making process.

I am very interested in the Indian profile and was expecting more similarities in the decision making profile. The relation with others is not as surprising (same comment than with China)

Difference between the UK (where I am actually based at the moment) my personal profile is slightly different from my own experience. I have been confronted with explicit behavior so far at work and have not sense (or observe) a tendency to implicit behavior, which does not link with the profile differences.

Prepare a personal case with "intercultural struggles" that you regularly experience within CSM (please do not use a one-off case, but something coming back).

Intercultural struggles are something we could observe quite often in an international company. Of course, these struggles can be insignificant or actually impact our work or results. I think this is important at this point to express that we cannot explain our "culture" and the way we perceive or our granted values, which depend mainly of the cultural group we have been raised in. Once again, my personal experience of being French in the UK shows me that British people are mainly straight and direct at work. I see the British culture as allowing a more relaxed atmosphere at work than in France. I also noticed that the hierarchal concept is not perceived the same way in the UK than it is in France. The conception of "boss" is rather different between these two countries. I fell like I am more able to speak up in the UK and that my point of view will be taking into consideration. We can distinguish as well a politeness and a sense of humor differently developed in the UK than in France. To conclude on this part, I cannot see any major "struggle" to be working in CSM UK so far and do not experienced any cultural issues. On another side, I am working on some European projects involving more than one nationality. It is interesting to see how some cultures are more "down-tobusiness" type (on time, strict agenda) while others one would appear more "lay back" (late at the meeting). Another struggle we can observe is on the decision making process. Some groups from the same culture will need far more information to be able to make the decision while another group will push as the decision appears clearly to them. It is important sometimes to have a third culture involved to actually bind everyone instead of being split by a culture difference. The concept of international struggle is rather difficult for young generation, and especially within Europe. While each culture got its own particularities, working with different culture is quickly common for young graduate. We are now used to travel far more easily and often and already had the possibility to work with different culture before entering our first work placement. It is a great and fun exercise to get to know different culture and to learn how to work with them. Working in a multicultural environment is for me a necessity and a drive and should be a force rather than an obstacle to work.