Dealing With Feelings at The Workplace with Mona Verma And S. Hali , Corporate Coach & Thought Leaders

“Strong women do not need validation. Strong women do not resort to conflict, rather, they work with and grow alongside the organization”, say Mona Verma and S. Hali, soft skills experts and inspirational speakers, in the workshop organized by Ficci Flo Hyderabad, in tune with the Ficci Flo motto where this workshop helps “to empower the greater 50”, as Chairperson Uma Chigurupati rightly puts it.

A series of interesting and dramatic analogies, role -plays, short videos, etc, were used by the speakers to ensure that they make their points stick with the audience. For instance, they used an analogy from mythology about how Lord Hanuman made decisions while flowing down the Dronagiri Parvat containing the life-saving Sanjeevani Buti. They related this decision to him reacting positively to an ‘Urgent and Important task’ by uprooting the Parvat itself when he could not decipher the whereabouts of the Sanjeevani and instead ‘delegating’ the search to an expert in response to the ‘urgency’ of the situation.

Several tips on saying no to multitasking, managing time judiciously by prioritizing things, working with subordinates, involving them and establishing a two-way communication, etc were shared.

The important takeaways from the three modules herein are:

Workplace Paradigm:

-Strong women do not need validation from outside; Strong women grow with and alongside the system, honing their skills while carrying the entire team with them

– Do not try to change too many things too fast, rather, try to contribute and make it count in the existing setup and keep upgrading yourself using available resources,

– To overcome an Abilene’s paradox as a team leader, where initially the team agrees to acertain task but fails to deliver, involve the team right from the start where it will become a collective idea to work on, not just the leader’s,

– persuade but do not intimidate your subordinates

– Ruminating should be done in order to arrive at a solution when criticized, not to give strength to a victim attitude which women usually resort to when criticized unfairly or otherwise

– Do not get delegated in the reverse; do not take on the subordinate’s problems and solve the problems for them, rather solve the problems with them

– Do not be too quick to frame an opinion, rather wait to evaluate based on complete information.

Time Management:

– In managing time judiciously, follow Eisenhower Matrix where tasks are to be prioritized. People look at results, not effort and results are achieved with prioritisation.

– Follow the 80/20 rule where 20% effort will fetch you 80% result,

– learn to say a big No; Women multitask as a rule which distributes their attention to several things at a time, thus losing out on the concentration required to complete an important task successfully.

Communication paradigm:

– Communication is a two-way street; just telling team members will not do. Engaging them, asking for their opinion on the best way forward and involving them, works.

– Be interested than interesting; this way selective listening is eliminated and you will get a complete picture to work on

– It is wise to be silent sometimes instead of getting frustrated trying to change a stubborn person’s mind; not everybody can be just

– Talk to each other; not about each other. There will be no scope for vicious rumours

– Feedback can be very powerful if done right – talk about the behaviour not the person, be timely, specific and cogent.

Lastly, women’s strong point, their uncanny 6th sense, was highly appreciated! It was very well taken by 85 Members who had attended the virtual Session.