Executive Education: Assertiveness

currently listening to "remember the name" by Fort Minor
this is a small research I have worked recently. DC is fun and NYC is the next.

Summary:

Being assertive means that one can respect the rights of other people to express their ideas, feelings and needs, and meanwhile one can recognize and state his/her side of the issues rather defend or bully himself/herself. Assertiveness can be learned through effective communication approaches.

Ideas of Assertiveness:

·        There are three steps that can help become more assertive

o   Step1: listen carefully to what others said and show them that you understand

o   Step 2: state how you truly feel

o   Step 3: say what you want to happen

·        A better way to say No

o   I would prefer not to… / I would rather…/I am not willing to…

·        Use “I” messages structure that includes “I feel…”  “…when…” “I want…”

o   I feel sad when you change the plan at the last minute. I want you to let me know in advance next time.

·        Being assertive in business setting  (with clients)

o   remember to gather information from the clients

o   practice what you will be talking in the meeting

o   cope with criticism in a rational manner

Assertive Techniques:

·        Broken Record – Be persistent and keep saying what you want over and over again without getting angry, irritated, or loud. Stick to your point.

·        Free Information – Learn to listen to the other person and follow-up on free information people offer about themselves. This free information gives you something to talk about.

·        Self-Disclosure – Assertively disclose information about yourself - how you think, feel, and react to the other person's information. This gives the other person information about you.

·        Fogging – An assertive coping skill is dealing with criticism. Do not deny any criticism and do not counter-attack with criticism of your own.

·        Agree with the truth – Find a statement in the criticism that is truthful and agree with that statement.

·        Agree with the odds – Agree with any possible truth in the critical statement.

·        Agree in principle – Agree with the general truth in a logical statement such as, "That makes sense."

·        Negative Assertion – Assertively accepting those things that are negative about yourself. Coping with your errors.

·        Workable Compromise – When your self-respect is not in question offer a workable compromise.

hunger-game

Summary of the day

BI
1. Ross Fubini, an investor at Kapor Capital described his life as real venture capitalist--meeting with hundreds of startups, working with portfolio compaines, going over operations and finance and scouting for companies to invest in. This is more than just "meet with startups and hang out money".

2. "22 executives share the best advice they ever received" and my favoriate piece "I don't mind what you do, as long as you don't do what we've done before" by Peter Swinburn, CEO of Molson Coors.

3. Chipotle's business model ad-free works out pretty good itself--only $ 6 million on advertising last compared to $650 million of McDonald's.  As long as it is profitably sustainable, why bothers ad?

DatAversity--a website for IT on data management
1.Netflix would separate DVD portion of its operation into another business called "Qwikster". This new business strategy creates not only an inconvenience for customers but also a difficuty for data management.


currently listening to Feel by Robbie Williams

I just wanna feel, feel the intensity of life, feel the passion of the life, feel sleepless nights, and feel the complication of beauty. I guess now is another moment for me to do nothing but think about life again. My mom called this morning concerning about my job search,  educating and pressuring my life and future. It is really hard to understand someone's situation unless you are in his shoes, whatever.

Finding a job is not an easy thing but finding a right job is difficult. enough said.


hunger-game? It is certainly not about the movie but the desire, we are hungry for fullfil the urge or drive that keeps us alive-either sex or meaning of life. It is a game that we stay strong and expose our weakness.

"Never Eat Alone"

Well, it's been awhile--almost two years--to get back on blogging here; nothing particularly about travellings, especially international travellings this time, even I have been traveling around in States for work and fun, not to mention that Boston is still my favorite city.

I recently finished up reading a book named "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi, which is about building relationships in business-there are a few chapters discussing about how to establish and maintain a healthy relationship in today's market, including follow-ups, small talk, conferences, mutual interests, etc. I have to say that the book itself is a bit common-sense but it does a good job to lay out what matters the most in relationship-building.  What gets me excited is that I value relationship-buidling the siginificant in my life so there are so many mutual understanding and sparkling while reading this book.

Anyway,  the secret of being an author is to write--that's where gets me back here again. I might not be an author one day but writing does help me keep track of my learning experiences from now on. I guess I need to clear my mind and calm the fuck down for the job search--my passion for consulting never lower down a bit.

I am going to track down some business articles from nytimes, WSJ, BI, etc and also add some new finding about website, food lover, wine-tasting, travelling and other interesting stuff.

summary of the day:\

Business Insider:

1. Greg Smith's New York Times op-ed critizing firm's predatory culture--it seems that Goldman Sachs is experiencing some culture transformation to a not-so-seemingly-good direction. Greg Smith, a former GS banker, described the workplace as "toxic and destructive". Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, warned its employees never seek advantage of competitors.

2. Top 10 apps that you must have: "Slice (e-receipts)", "Tripit (for frequent travelers)", "Box (cloud storage)", "1Password (passwords management)", "Instapaper (online articles saver)", "Quickoffice (Microsoft office)",  "Sparrow (email alternative for Mac)", "Clear (to-do-list app)", "Evernote", "Dropbox"
For Andriod Apps
"Rdio (music service)",  "Norton Safety Minder (parental control)", "Miscrosoft OneNote (Evernote)" "Readability (Instapaper)", "TED", "Vonage (free calls)", "Chrome"

New York Times

1. GT Nexus, a cloud-based information company has helped company (e.g., Adidas, Plfizer) deliver and share large data regarding supply chain process. It forecast the impacts of technology on future economy.

Just cut it here. gotta have some sleep since it's been a long day for job applications. St. Patrick is on the corner, you know what that means.