This Week's Thank You: The Person Who Says Yes

In my role as a trainer, I push people. I push them to think differently. To develop new skill sets and try new tools. To do things that aren't always comfortable. It's so easy to stay where it's nice and warm and everyone smiles politely at us. As a natural introvert, there are days when a life of monotonous data entry sounds about perfect. But ask any teacher, any parent or any boss who encouraged someone to try something new. That's when you see growth. That's when you see potential. Oftentimes, that's when the fun begins.

The training program I oversee has a number of knowledge-based quizzes and courses to make sure everyone has similar levels of content understanding. Boring, but necessary. It also has a number of opportunities for my co-workers to step away from their inbox and try something brand new. These are my favorite. I never know what I'm going to get.

One of these opportunities is called The More You Know presentations, a hat-tip to my Saturday mornings as an 80s kid. For their job, most of the presentations my co-workers do are through a webinar or a phone call and rarely face to face. The More You Know presentations give them an opportunity to work on their live audience presentation skills. The employee gets to choose the topic of the presentation and they have to present to their peers for five to 10 minutes. They have to provide some kind of visual, from a slide deck to a backpack full of survival gear, as one of our presenters used to teach us how to live in the wilderness for seven days.

These presentations have become a favorite not only of mine, but also of our entire department. It allows us to learn about our co-workers as well as how the Marvel ecosystem works or what board games we should add to family game night.

We do these presentations once a month. Last month, I had a schedule mishap and needed to find someone to fill a slot quickly. One of our newest account managers volunteered. She admitted this wasn't something she enjoyed doing, but she wanted more practice so she could get better. She put together a great presentation about her home country that she emigrated from when she was still in elementary school. I knew she was nervous because she instant messaged me a few times earlier that day with last-minute questions. But she did a great job. And she brought food native to her home country. Success.

The fact that she said yes, that she even volunteered for something she wasn't comfortable with, speaks volumes. She knew she wanted to get better at presenting and took the opportunity.

Thank you, Dika, for saying yes.

Comments

Unchosen: The Graduation Invite

Sometimes I'm really bad at predicting which design a customer is going to choose. And that leaves me with some of my favorite designs unclaimed. I'm going to start highlighting some unclaimed designs here in the blog, as well as some of my favorite designs that were chosen. I'm pretty proud of my concoctions, and I want to show them off! I've been doing a lot of invitations lately, and they are a lot of fun. I'm sticking to the small, intimate parties (no Bridezillas here, please) like bachelorette and graduation parties. My customers have great ideas for themed parties and you just can't find invitations at Target for the "She Got Knocked Up" baby shower. Okay, I haven't done that one yet, but I bet it would be a blast! This unchosen design came from a recent graduation party invitation. The soon-to-be alma mater's colors were green and gold, and the graduate is a big fan of pink. That's where the color scheme came from. Because it was a ...

This week's thank you: The person who makes time

Time by Stefanos Papachristou on Flickr CC BY NC I used to work at a bank where birthday and work anniversary notes from executives were part of the company culture. Even with about 350 people on staff, the executives made a point to know everyone who worked there. During my seven years at the company, I did informational interviews like mad. At least once a month, I picked up the tab for lunch to learn from someone I admired. Pretty much every executive at that organization made time for me at least once. I'm sure they weren't in it for the free lunch. These informational interviews provided me insight into everything from identifying skill sets to working to get myself into the right place at the right time. I've done a few interviews periodically since leaving that company with other people but short of an occasional LinkedIn update, I had lost touch with those executives. During the holiday rush, I ran into one of them at Target. That casual "hello" i...

This week's Thank You: The door closer

I have a reminder that goes off each Monday at 8:30am. The reminder says "Write a Thank You Note". I work in a large building, housing several hundred employees during our peak rush season. A large portion of the building is our warehouse, with conveyor belts whirring and totes strolling their merry way to the shipping stations. Within this large building, I work in an open configuration of desks and cubes in a fairly quiet area. Fairly quiet, that is, when the door to the room is closed. That door maintains the balance between concentration-enhancing white noise and a cacophony of heavy steps on concrete, snippets of conversation and the buzz of machinery. Maybe because my desk is closest to that door, or perhaps because I have the concentration of a gnat while I'm procrastinating, but my productivity drops to sloth-like levels when the door is left open by unaware (or less distraction-prone) co-workers. Many times have I looked at the door left ajar, will...

A Note of Thanks

Search This Blog