It’s the last day of 2019, and a great time to reflect on what happened this year. This year went by in a flash with some key events. At the middle of February, I got staffed to a blockchain project in Malaysia as part of the functional team. It was a great opportunity to work with emerging technology in a real use case. In parallel, I also submitted my MBA application to INSEAD (Read about it here : Why MBA & Application Preparation).
Then I received the admission announcement at the middle of the year, finished the project in around October, and finally left the team in early December. Now I’m traveling around Europe before the MBA program starts.
Throughout the year, there are several practical learnings that I hope to share with you. For learnings related to work and career, I think my reflection on my time in Accenture is a good representative of what I learned and it still holds true (Read about it here)
Having a to-do list is a life saver
Starting in Q3 2019, the number of things I have to prepare for INSEAD keeps on increasing. Starting from visa application, prework, and planning. Add things to do from work and personal life, and it becomes harder and harder to keep track of everything. Using an app to help track all of these are a great way to ensure I don’t miss out on anything. It takes time to build a habit, and I can safely say that I’m getting in the rhythm of continually managing it.
Personally, I recommend Microsoft To-Do. A key reason is the simple user interface and the app experience in Windows & iOS. It also links to your Outlook.com account (This means if you use Outlook app and link it to your outlook.com account, you’ll see the tasks from To Do),
Keeping a diary helps reflect and serves as good rereading in the future
The idea of keeping a diary has been quite attractive for me in the past. But the idea that was stuck in my head was that I should do a daily entry in a diary. Most of the time, I couldn’t follow through after 2-3 days.
This year, what I’m doing is to make an entry twice a week, and it’s rarely more than 2-3 short paragraphs. Most of the entries simply consists of what has happened since the previous entry, how I felt, and any thoughts.
Paying for an online cloud storage is worth it
This year I started subscribing to an online cloud storage and got terabytes of space. It is one of my most useful purchases of the year. It helped me manage my hard drive space, and it saved me from maintaining multiple external hard drives. It’s worth shelling out some cash for the convenience. I have even migrated all my photos to the space, so it’s easy for me to access any of the photos from my past anywhere.
Take vacations, you deserve it
I don’t know who needs to read this, but go take your vacation. No matter what kind of work you’re doing, the company will not explode if you take a vacation for 1-2 weeks. While you’re on your vacation, have the courage to not reply to work related communications and stop saying sorry that you’re on vacation. It’s your right to take a vacation, and you need to stand up for yourself.
Stick to a hotel chain, loyalty programs are worth it
While taking trips (both business and personal), I recommend you to stick to a hotel chain. When you just start out with a hotel chain loyalty program, there’s not a lot of benefit. But it gets better quite quickly. The points will pile up before you know it, and maybe you’ll get enough nights in the year to upgrade your status for the next year. A key benefit I love is the early check in/late check out benefit. Sometimes I even check in at 7 AM and check out at 5 PM. It’s essentially extending the stay for half a day for free!
The 2 biggest hotel chain I recommend would be Accor & Marriott. The key difference between both is the strength of the network. Accor is stronger than Marriott in Europe. While Marriott is stronger in the US. So if you travel to the US more, Marriott makes a more logical choice.
That’s it!
5 practical learnings that I got in 2019 that I think is easily applicable no matter what your walk of life is. Thank you for reading and I wish you a beautiful year end!
This part 2 is written onboard EK355 from Singapore to Dubai, on my way to France. So excited to start my journey with the school! This post will focus specifically on the INSEAD application process, and the preparation that I did.
P.S: Please feel free to contact me if you are interested to know more or if you have specific questions that I have yet to address here. Here’s the link to my personal website, but you can also contact me through LinkedIn or Instagram.
You can find part 1 here. It will cover my career journey and why I opted to pursue MBA at INSEAD.
What’s the admission process like?
Below you’ll find the exact step by step of the process taken from the INSEAD website:
The whole process from the time I submitted my application until the time I received the “CONGRATULATIONS” phone call took 65 days, broken down to:
1-3 : Application submission to interview announcement : 22 days
4 : Interview announcement to interview completion : 30 days
5-6 : Interview completion to admission decision : 13 days
The application submission in step 1 requires you to submit:
Essays
Recommendation
GMAT
TOEFL
The whole process was pleasant, with complete support from the admission team and alumni interviewers. Completing the interview was a tad long for me because I was traveling at the time, and scheduling the interviews was a challenge in itself. Eventually, we managed to set up the meeting times and we had great conversations.
My alumni interviewers were both quite senior, but they were humble and eager to share! I noticed that they were trying to make sure that I knew what I was getting into, and whether taking an MBA makes sense for me.
Application Preparation
For this section, I’m shifting from a narration to Q&A format, as I’ve had people reach out to me regarding these, so hopefully I have a good idea of what you want to know
GMAT
What is this?
It’s basically THE exam to take if you want to go to a business school. It’s accepted in all the top programs. GMAT is administered by GMAC (Graduate Management Admission Council). GMAC is a global, mission-driven association of leading graduate business schools.
Here are the 4 parts of the exam and the range of score in brackets:
Quantitative Reasoning (6-51)
Verbal Reasoning (6-51)
Integrated Reasoning/IR (1-8)
Analytical Writing Assessment/AWA (0-6)
You sometimes see “Average GMAT for the program is 700”. The number that contributes to this score is only number 1 & 2. Number 3 & 4 has standalone scores. E.g: It’s possible to get 1 in IR, 0 in AWA, but 800 in the Quantitative & Verbal.
This doesn’t mean that you don’t need to prepare for IR & AWA. It’s still recommended to have a solid score for both.
Once you register, log in and register for an exam close to where you live. I recommend you to register at least 1 month in advance so you have a clear goal during your study.
How long did it take to prepare?
2 months preparation
What was your score?
700+
How many tries?
1
What did you use to study?
Official GMAC books and online question bank (Amazon). I personally enjoyed the process, some of it felt like brain teaser quizzes!
Specifically for AWA, this is de facto the best guide I’ve seen.
Did you take a course?
No. I think a course is useful only if you need someone to help guide your study process, kick you if you’re being lazy, and ensure you make positive progress. If you’re confident that you can manage yourself, I don’t think taking a course is necessary.
How did I find the time to study while being in consulting?
I was lucky to have a project with decent work life balance, and I spent at least 8-9 hours per weekend to study.
How important do you think GMAT is?
I personally think GMAT is more of a checklist. It helps you understand whether you’ll be able to follow the curriculum of the MBA.
Did GMAT discussion come up during the interview?
No
Any advice?
Practice, practice, practice.
Do mock exams, especially the ones provided by gmat.com after you register for the exam
If you find it hard to study consistently, register and PAY for the exam. Once you have skin in the game, your motivation goes up exponentially
TOEFL
What is this?
It’s one of the accepted tests to certify English proficiency. I took TOEFL because I have taken it in 2009, so I have some knowledge of what’s the test is like beforehand. Some of my friends took IELTS because, in their own words, “It’s easier to score high”.
Same advice with GMAT. In addition to that, if you are working in a multinational company and normally use English for day to day communication, you’re most likely fine. Just practice for the Speaking portion as it can feel quite awkward. The official online speaking practice is the reason I bought the value pack prep plus instead of just buying the guide.
Essay writings
How long did it take to prepare?
1 month
Any advice?
Get someone else to proofread and ensure what you write makes sense from a logical standpoint. You can’t just make a sentence of “I’m a nuclear physicist, but now I’m interested in business, so I want to do an MBA.” There needs to be logical step by steps. Focus on what’s YOUR story, what DRIVES you, and what’s the PROOF.
Grammar. Don’t slack off on this. If need be, use online services such as Grammarly to ensure that you’re making sense. I don’t think perfect grammar is required, but your writing has to be clear and without glaring mistakes.
Your essays are gateway for the admission team to understand who you are, what’s unique about you, and whether the school can help you reach your goals. Be sure the messages are clear.
Recommendation
How long did it take to get the recommendations?
1.5 months
Any advice?
START EARLY. Nudge your recommender as soon as you decide to apply for an MBA. Let them know your story of why you want to go to MBA, and persuade them to write the recommendation themselves. You can also discuss on specific incidents that they can put into the recommendation. Remember that just writing “he is patient, hardworking and works well with other people” is not strong without evidence of incident that showed those qualities.
Video Submission
What’s it like?
You’ll get a link to do the video interview automatically after you submit your application. Check your email for Kira Talent. It’s basically a back and forth between questions & your answers. There’ll be a question on the screen, you have 45 seconds to prepare, and then 60 seconds to answer. Rinse and repeat 4 times. Additionally, you have practice questions to get comfortable with taking the videos.
What questions are typically asked?
For a full list of questions I used to practice, click here.
Any advice?
Be genuine, look directly to the camera, wear comfortable business casual, test your internet connection & device beforehand, and finally, try to show a side of you that’s unique and not clearly shown in the application documents.
Interview
What’s it like?
You’ll get an email from the admissions officer that congratulates you for moving to the next round and asks you where are you based. This information is then used to determine your interviewers. He/she will then inform you who your interviewers are. It’s then your responsibility to arrange for the session with the interviewers.
You’ll get 2 alumni interviewers, and it can be a challenge to schedule. My challenge was that both me & the interviewer was travelling around, so locking down the time to meet was tough.
Any advice?
Be genuine, practice your pitch on:
Why MBA – Show that you understand clearly your journey and why an MBA fits in there.
Why INSEAD – Show that you know what you’re getting into and what you’ll get out of the experience.
Both of the whys should also cover “what’s next”.
In Summary
The application process seems long, but most of the work goes into the application submission. Most people face problems because of the GMAT, so allocate more time to prepare for that.
That’s it! I hope these 2 posts helped you and I wish you the best of luck in your application process.
Writing this on board of GA821 from Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta. I’m filled with both sadness and excitement. I’m sad that I left the family I made in KL, but excited to go back to school soon. This writing is also intended to help me sort out my thoughts and hopefully help you in one way or another. In this post, I’m focusing on the career journey and why I opted to do an MBA at INSEAD. In the next post, I’ll share specifically on the INSEAD application process and preparation advices.
P.S: Please feel free to contact me if you are interested to know more or if you have specific questions that I have yet to address here. Here’s the link to my personal website, but you can also contact me through LinkedIn or Instagram.
You can find Part 2 here. It will cover the INSEAD application process and my preparations.
Why MBA?
There are 3 key reasons of why I wanted to do an MBA.
The first is my childhood experience. When I was a kid, I had friends who seems to travel abroad every single holiday. To be frank, I was jealous every time I saw their Disneyland or plane pictures. My family were modest, and we couldn’t afford to travel abroad. In fact, the first time I went abroad was 2010, and that was because my mother had a business trip to China and I could come with her. I was ecstatic to see another country. I still remember that it was a Singapore Airlines flight, CGK-SIN, followed by SIN-Shanghai. I know that this doesn’t look like it relates directly to MBA, but this experience kickstarted my ambition to see the world.
The second is my experience living in Jakarta. The city is well positioned as the center of economic growth of Indonesia. People migrated from villages and small towns to Jakarta in hope of fortune. I daresay it’s the “Jakarta Dream”, much like how the Americans have “American Dream”. A key advantage of being in Jakarta is availability of good jobs. This is further reinforced with the rise of tech startups such as Gojek, Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada, etc. But living in Jakarta also has some issues that fueled my desire to move. A key issue is the traffic jam and living cost. I lived at the outskirts of the city and I regularly took 1-2 hours for a one way trip (driving) from my home to office. Why not rent a room in the middle of the city? 2 reasons. First, because I work in Services/Consulting. I move around based on where my client is. Second, because rent is expensive and mostly with no facilities. Another key issue is inclusion. I think that we’re moving to a more conservative direction and I’m not comfortable with that. Some politicians are making it worse by utilizing divisive messages based on race or religion to win elections. This experience encouraged me to look beyond Jakarta in hopes of finding another place to call home. What do I need to do to achieve that? I need to build a strong foundation and network to be able to actually move abroad. Without a solid network, I wouldn’t be able to find a job or do business anywhere.
The last is my career journey. I’ve accumulated about 5 years of work experience and I reflected upon where I want to go in the future. My experience in tech, startup, and consulting showed me what kind of work excites me. I’m excited to work with people to create innovation and transformation. I prefer to forge new ways of working instead of just following the old. I believe open discussions with no hard feelings are extremely important. Finally, I dislike it when I don’t have clear goals. So with those in mind, what’s next? I would like to be a business leader that is known for transforming organizations. To go there, I want more experience in strategy development & execution leadership work. Unfortunately, based on my experience, I don’t have a proven track record yet of strategy development work and I don’t have a lot of leadership experience. And thus I want to improve those skills.
Combining all 3 drivers, my experience in Kuala Lumpur is an indicative sign that I’m going to the right direction. I lived in Kuala Lumpur for roughly 9 months, and worked on a blockchain project for a Resources company. I felt like it was a long holiday. I was able to comfortably live outside of Jakarta, and even though the work was tough, the team was awesome and the work was exciting.
So in conclusion, I assessed that an MBA would help me build skills and network quicker to be able to achieve my goals in the future.
Why INSEAD?
First thing I checked to find the right school for me was MBA rankings. Unlike other masters’ degree, MBA has so many published rankings with various methodology. Universities proclaiming “we’re a top business school in the world” is irrelevant. What’s relevant is what other people think about that university and MBA Rankings helps you understand what’s the general view or consensus about the schools. When you check most MBA Rankings, it’s highly dominated by the US schools, think Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogs, Booth, Berkeley. But there are several business schools outside the US that consistently rank great, such as INSEAD, LBS and HEC Paris.
Then the next question was, “In an ideal world, where everything goes according to plan, where do I want to settle down in the long term?” For me, the answer was Europe/Australia/Canada. Thus, the school I picked need to have a strong name in those 3 regions.
And finally, “what industry do I want to go to after MBA?”. As I wanted to go to strategy development and execution leadership, I looked for schools that produces a lot of strategy consultants.
Combining the answer of the 3 questions, INSEAD becomes a natural choice for a few things:
It’s a highly regarded business school with alumni all around the world.
There’s more than X nationalities in a class, and there’s 3 campuses (Fontainebleau, Singapore and Abu Dhabi). There’s flexibility of where I want to be based on, and it’ll help me experience many cultures quickly. Both will help me understand what kind of culture I’m most comfortable in.
It’s basically the “consulting school of the world” where most graduates go to Strategy Consulting.
INSEAD Singapore Campus
Thankfully, INSEAD has a campus in Singapore. I managed to visit the campus and set up a time to talk to Aidan from the MBA recruitment and marketing team to understand more about the school and the admission process.
Aidan shared to me about the school’s diversity, and the admission director’s (Minh Huy Lai) passion on inclusion. That was the first thing that resonated with me. After that we discussed on what INSEAD is looking for, he emphasized the international experience requirement, and open mindedness requirement. When I say open mindedness, the school will pit you with people from very different culture that without being open minded, you’ll struggle. Then we discussed my career journey, and which parts he thought I need to emphasize in the application. Finally he shared the results of the program for current students and the strength of the INSEAD alumni community. This discussion cemented my decision to apply because I identify with the school’s values and directions for students.
In Summary
Based on my childhood experience, Jakarta experience and career journey, an MBA is a great way to achieve my goals. Then based on school reputation, geographic location and industry focus, INSEAD is the school of choice for me.
Read the part 2 of this post for the application process and preparation advice!
Marking my 2 years in Accenture, I’d like to share what I have learned so far in my career in Accenture. I started off as a Management Consultant in Indonesia’s Finance & Enterprise Value practice. Then I moved to the Indonesia’s Resources industry-focused practice, and now I’m in Malaysia’s Resources CFO & Enterprise Value practice.
So far, I’m delighted to say that although I’ve seen and heard horrible experiences of people working in Accenture, those did not happen to me. On the contrary, Accenture Indonesia has been a place where I see less politics than what other Indonesian companies currently experience, and the leaders are committed in ensuring employees’ growth. Furthermore, diversity and Inclusion efforts are no joke. In Indonesia, we focused on women empowerment, mental health, and pride ally program.
So far I’ve been involved in 5 projects across multiple sectors and topics. But across the projects and throughout the 2 years, there are a few things that always holds true
Key things that I learned
Reputation is everything
You should try to network with as many people as
possible and build relationships outside your work group. If your project team are
the only people who you know and knows you, then you’ll be in trouble.
But frankly speaking, with the amount of people in the organization, it’s impossible for you to know everyone. Thus, your reputation becomes key. Your reputation needs to be good enough that people who never met you absolutely want to work with you because you’re known as being great at what you do. Sometimes this means that you need to tote your own horn, telling people what you did and what the impact was.
Not conveying what you want = never getting it
Everyone’s busy to fend for themselves and have no
time to sit down and think specifically about what’s best for you. You need to
do it yourself. Think about what do you want, make active steps to pursue that,
and tell your leaders.
The worst part of some companies’ culture in Indonesia that I’ve seen is protectionism. Instead of letting employees’ try out things, or move to another organization, bosses try to cage their best employee in their own division, and doing only what they’re good at. This might be good for the boss, as they’ll need to spend less effort growing people, but this is a recipe for stagnation for the employee. It would also potentially lead to the departure of the best employees. You need to make active effort to break away from this chain, even if you have to move to other company, or find a role for yourself in other parts of the company. Totally easier said than done, but I promise that if you manage to do it, the rewards are bountiful.
Cross cultural collaboration is challenging
I didn’t realize this much when I did projects only
in Indonesia, but when I started doing projects with other nationalities,
communication challenges become apparent. Then it’s a matter of resolving the
miscommunication peacefully, and not holding grudge.
Primary difference that will cause a challenge is typically Direct VS Indirect speech. People from cultures that speak in a more direct manner will feel that people who speaks indirectly are wishy-washy or unclear. While people from cultures that speak in indirect manner will feel that people who speaks directly are impolite or brash. This can only be mitigated by both sides realizing the culture of the other, and tries to meet in the middle, without judging the others.
Number one: Your boss. Number two: Your direct coworker circle
What impacts my happiness at work the most are these 2 things, in this order. I’ve been blessed with great direct managers in my time in Accenture, and I now understand what kind of qualities I look for in a leader. I think what I’m looking for is likely extremely similar with what you would want. I’d look for:
A leader that often gives feedback
A leader that can take feedback and change
A leader that can help you get a healthy balance of what do you want, and what is best for the business
A leader that is outspoken
Second thing that’ll impact your happiness at work is the quality and personality of the people you directly work with. I’ve met some of the most resilient and client value-oriented people I know during my time here. And I’m proud to have worked alongside them.
That’s it
Those are the key things that I’ve learned, I hope some of the things I mentioned resonate with you, and if you have any feedback or if you just want to chat, you can contact me in any of my social media profiles that you can go to from the links at the top right of the page.
The hardest part of New Year Resolutions is actually reviewing them and seeing how I fared. You can find my 2018 New Year Resolutions here.
2018 New Year Resolution Achievement
For the first one, 2018 is the year where I’m more honest with myself and I opened up to more people than the past 10 years combined. In addition, I became more vocal about causes that I care about, and I stopped caring too much about what other people thinks.
The second one is easy to review due to the quantitative nature, in 2018 I read:
6 CFA Level 3 books – Slightly cheating, but these still counted as books!
12 Monocle magazines
6 HBR magazines
Dear Founder
The Happiness Project
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
Truth: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality
Human + Machine: Reimagining Work in the Age of AI
The Corruption of Capitalism
Nonviolent Communication
From my reading last year, unfortunately there’s none that resonated with me as much as Carol Dweck’s Mindset and Clayton Christensen’s Competing Against Luck. But as election is coming for Indonesia in 2019 and for the US in 2020, I feel that Truth by Hector Macdonald is a worthy read.
I totally bombed the 3rd one. I was doing fine until the middle of the year, but I flaked from July onwards. This is a good lesson regarding continuity and I hope to be more consistent this year.
The fourth one I think I’m doing just fine. And for the last one, I became a CFA charterholder in September 2018 and I took the GMAT test, so I followed through on the goals I had! Additionally, I also studied Python for Finance: Investment Fundamentals & Data Analytics and Python for Financial Analysis and Algorithmic Trading from Udemy.
Overall, although there are room for improvement, I’m happy with what I achieved. 2018 has been a precious year of personal growth where I refocused and learned more about myself. I have great hopes for 2019 and I will share a more concrete set of goals soon.
Within the past 3 months, I have been working with Accenture’s Innovation Hub in Singapore to focus on developing new demo asset business case, and facilitate client workshops. The Innovation Hub is a physical space where we host client workshops, and showcase demos on how Digital can transform businesses. But keep in mind, that we are not R&D focused. We’re focused on building a business case that caters to business needs. You won’t find a technology that’s just ‘cool’ in our hub. You’ll see stuff that has business value first and foremost.
Last week, I had the great chance to deliver a demo and presentation to our Accenture’s Africa & Asia Pacific leadership on how the connected worker looks like in the near future, empowering industrial employees to be safer and more productive. Although the technology have been introduced since quite a while back, we’re just entering the phase of mass adoption and scalability.
The technology that I showcase in this occasion are a combination of smartglasses by Vuzix, IoT sensors installed in an asset, and tablet. Basically, this is showcasing how workers will communicate with command centers and supervisors in the future, and how industrial facilities can be monitored and controlled remotely. If you want to see it and interested in exploring how you can start on a Connected Worker initiative in your company, connect with me and maybe we can arrange a visit for your company!
In this post, I want to cover 3 key things you need to analyze to justify the investment of connected worker initiative.
First, how much value will come from a safety perspective? The US spends nearly 60 billion USD due to injuries in the workplace, making it a good idea to invest to lower even just 10% of that amount.
Second, you need to forecast the ROI from the added productivity. We can look at this from savings in replacing in-person inspections with remote inspections, first time fix rate, total time to resolution, and remote training. (Read more here)
And third, an analysis on how using digital impacts employee engagement is also necessary. Gallup showed that highly engaged business units realize a 41% reduction in absenteeism and a 17% increase in productivity. (Read more here).
Quantifying all these benefits will help you build the business case to invest in the connected worker. Of course the numbers presented might not apply to you, so due diligence becomes important.
Lastly, you can read more on the thought leadership piece from a few consulting firms on Connected Worker:
This post is a reflection and thoughts on diversity and inclusion. Something that you will definitely find as a value in any multinational companies across all sectors! From Microsoft, Accenture, McKinsey, Amazon, etc, all of them are making commitment in being inclusive, and they have dedicated teams and employee volunteers to support the effort. In Accenture, we have the I&D Team, we have Pride Allies, Women Mentoring Program, mental wellness, disability, etc. There are efforts to be inclusive all over the organization. It’s amazing when I can hear on a day-to-day basis that someone is coming a bit late/going back a bit early to drop off/pick up their kid, and there’s no one that comments “wow, he/she is using that kind of excuse not to work!”. Personally, I’m currently part of the pride ally network, while continuously looking for other ways to be involved in the I&D initiatives.
There are also widely available resources on why it can bring value to the organization. UBS proved that LGBT+ inclusion in the workplace can boost a firm’s financial performance and gain a competitive advantage over peers. McKinsey released a report that reinforced the persistence of relationship between diversity & business performance. CloverPop showed that being more inclusive in your decision making can make better business decisions faster. In 2017, Deloitte shared that 69% of executives put priority on diversity & inclusion.
If we want diversity & inclusion effort to actually be meaningful, we require participation from everyone. An inclusive culture doesn’t happen because the CEO says we have to be inclusive, or because Wall Street says that they want the company to be inclusive so the stock price goes up! An inclusive culture happens because the employees and the leaders are consciously making effort to be inclusive!
That brings me to the first question:
What does diversity & inclusion means for you?
I love a mantra I heard when I was in Microsoft.
Come as you are, do what you love
Now, whether it actually happened on the ground was another matter altogether. But the mantra itself is solid and reflects what diversity & inclusion means for me. Being inclusive means supporting an environment that allows you, me, and everyone else to be authentic. Being authentic means acting in ways that genuinely shows how we feel, without the concern of negative implications, without the need to tailor personalities to be accepted.
I used to hear people give a “be authentic” advice. But then when I’m authentic and straightforward, they get mad! Talk about confusing. (Honestly, this is similar to when your boss says “I’m open to feedback and have an open door policy. Please do share all your concerns with me”). Oftentimes, I think a “be authentic” advice means “be more expressive in sharing what I want you to tell me”, and isn’t that frustrating?
And when I mention inclusion, I really do mean everyone. No discrimination based on gender, age, marriage status, country, orientation, religion, whatever. An idea or contribution doesn’t have any less value if it came from people you don’t like!
Then the next question,
Are you actually inclusive?
Repeatedly saying “we need to be inclusive” is not enough. It needs to be backed up by actions from each and every one of us.
Reflect on yourself:
Do you assume that people who work differently / less hours are less committed to their work?
In meetings, are you disregarding opinions/views/suggestions from certain people?
In meetings, do you talk over some people a lot? (E.g: cutting off the more junior employees or women)
Is your team made up of similar profiles? (E.g: similar race, religious views, gender, etc)
Are you making jokes/comments at the expense of certain group of people? (E.g: “Don’t be such a girl”)
Are you expecting your team to work late because you also work late?
Honestly, if you answer yes to any of those questions, I’d say that you have some work to do and dig deep on why you do it. Of course those questions are not exhaustive, but it gives you a start!
Personally I’m still not perfect, and that’s why I love getting feedback on how people feel when they interact with me. I’m fine with being called straightforward (to the point some can be surprised), but what I’m watching out is if someone feels bullied/discriminated because of what I did. Without the people that gave me feedback, I wouldn’t have realized my own shortcomings! Like they say, it’s easy to find fault at others, but it’s hard to find your own fault.
To close, this is a great resource from Catalyst on how you can be inclusive everyday
