Author: Jenny Ebermann (bxljenny)

Multilingual Communication Professional, Mindful Leader and Coach/Consultant. Specialties: - Mindfulness, - Intercultural Communications, - Personal Development - Diversity and Inclusion - Mindful Leadership

Empowering Women and Minorities for Leadership Positions

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Creating Value – Embracing Diversity – Leading Mindfully

Context and current situation :

Although in the EU women make up nearly half the workforce and more than half of new university graduates, they are still under-represented in top leadership positions. And this not only applies to women: minorities are also hardly represented at top management levels, although demographics indicate that a diverse workforce is definitely needed in order to maintain current living standards and sustainable growth.

Change is already on its way :

One of the founding principles of the European Union is the equality of women and men. According to a Europe 2020 initiative, policy options for targeted measures to enhance female participation in decision-making at the European level will be implemented, forty percent of top leadership positions are to be held by women. In a number of European countries important steps have already been taken to support women on their path towards leadership positions. In March 2015, Germany decided to introduce a women quota: by 2016, thirty percent of board members have to be female.

However, a quota and targeting women alone is not enough. Minorities also have a role to play as Europe sees more emigration and immigration. What is more, qualifying, training and developing competent women and minorities will not happen over night. Additionally, men will also need to be included in this change towards more diversity.

This is exactly where we come into play:

We are convinced that all these efforts ultimately have one goal: managing future challenges by embracing diversity within companies and society as such. We simply cannot afford, not to utilise important resources – no matter whether they are women, minorities or older people.

On the other hand, our world is increasingly volatile, ambiguous, uncertain and complex. Looking at systems in a more holistic way, using all available resources therefore becomes a MUST! Emotional intelligence, mutual trust, empathy and mindful leadership will be key in this process in order to achieve sustainable goals, grow as individuals and organisations and mange future challenges.

DiversitynUI have recently teamed up with Sabine Chmielewski to build DiversitynU.com, tackling the challenges of the 21st century. We value humans first and believe that the secret lies in realising the enormous potential we all have.

What an exciting journey! Stay tuned and contact me to learn more or to ask for help/an offer.

Jenny

How big are your windows?

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Window and WallI hope you all enjoyed a lovely break over Easter! While spring is slowly coming in – at least in this part of the world – I found this Eskimo quote, which I would like to share with you:

“Don’t let the windows of your home be so small that the light of the sun cannot enter your rooms.” (found here)

Have a great rest of the week and stay tuned for more posts on mindful leadership, diversity and intercultural communications! Jenny

Employers: Time to use your Untapped Potential!

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Women empowermentYesterday while trying to find my way to the bathroom in a restaurant, I stumbled upon this sign…. While it made me laugh, it also made me wonder about the various initiatives targeting women that are currently under way to ensure more diversity in companies, equal pay and related issues.

Not only the European Union with its 2020 priorities, but also the UN with the “He for She” initiative are embracing the issue of gender equality encompassing better access to employment and education. Many governments are also taking action by enforcing thresholds for women on boards, only recently to be followed in Germany.

Looking at the demographics for Europe, we believe that it is time for companies to use so far nearly untapped potential, meaning bringing not only women onboard and into leadership positions but also minorities and qualified migrants. Diversity gets a broader meaning and won’t be a nice slogan in some mission statement anymore. The capacity to attract a motivated and diverse workforce by offering them a flexible, sustainable work environment where they can co-create, be treated equally, have a chance to grow and use their creativity, in short get a sense of fulfillment is a must for any company nowadays.

Following a mindfulness based approach to leadership, training, coaching and consulting, we further believe that emotional intelligence is a key ingredient to personal development, team building and leadership development alike. Mutual trust, emotional intelligence, empathy and mindfulness are needed to achieving goals, developing further as an individual or an organisation and engaging in change.

 Do you agree with us? Or maybe not? We would be happy to hear from you…

Have a great weekend!

Jenny

Trusting Emergence

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In order to move through the world with curiosity, sensitivity and closely attuned to your environment, being able to trust emergence and letting go into the change process is key. 

Gregory Kramer has the right words for this and I invite you to think about it over the weekend:

As you let go of plans, you are perched on the edge of possibility. Let the reminder to Trust Emergence arouse curiosity. What is happening now? Feel the truth of contingency and let it pull you out of any comfortable certainty. Attune to the unfolding moment and let your mind become nonresistive and pliable; let it move with experience. You can’t predict what someone will say, what will happen tomorrow. So you are waiting, relaxed in expectancy. Dwell in the moment lightly, with patience. If the mind wants to run ahead, to figure things out, remind yourself of the unpredictability of things. Let all plans fall away. Ride the moment. Locate the wisdom in not knowing. This leaves you open to anything, and not fearing change. Trust Emergence. – Insight Dialogue, page143

Jenny 

What mountains can teach us

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(null)Currently being in the mountains and enjoying the crisp fresh air as well as the snow, I thought it’d be a good moment to remind myself of the mountain meditation from Jon Kabat-Zinn . The purpose of this meditation is to become grounded and access our inner strength and stability when faced with stressful and/or challenging circumstances, both internal and external.

Even for people not used to practice yoga, meditation, mindfulness or other techniques, sitting (or simply standing) still and visualizing the image of a mountain can be very strong and powerful.

(null)So here it is, first a short description taken from Psychology Today and then a link to a nice and free audio version. Enjoy, breathe and be!

The Mountain Meditation

This meditation is designed to last about 20 minutes but can be shortened or extended based on the practitioner’s preference.

Sit down in a comfortable position on the floor or in a chair. After following your breath for a few moments, imagine- in vivid detail- the most beautiful mountain you know of and resonate with. Envision its various details and stable, unmoving presence grounded in the earth.

After a few minutes of developing and holding this clear image in your mind, imagine bringing the mountain inside yourself and becoming the mountain. Imagine yourself sitting in stillness and in calm, simply observing and resting unwavering as the various weather patterns, storms, and seasons pass before you.

Just as a mountain endures constant changes and extremes, we also experience various thoughts, emotions and life challenges. Imagine viewing these experiences as external, fleeting and impersonal events, akin to weather patterns.

Feel yourself unwavering and rooted in stillness amidst the constant change of your internal and external experience.

(null)And here a link to an audio recording you might want to listen to: mindfulness for students

Barriers to effective communication

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Communication BarriersDid you know that communication barriers can pop-up at every stage of the communication process (consisting of sender, message, channel/media, receiver, feedback and response) and have the potential to create misunderstanding and confusion.

To be an effective communicator and to get your point across without misunderstanding and confusion, your goal should be to lessen the frequency of these barriers at each stage of this process with clear, concise, accurate, well-planned communications.

Communications is thus only successful, when the receiver understands your message exactly the way you intended it!

Here are some possible barriers to effective communications:

  • Different assumptions
  • Different points of views
  • Emotions
  • Misunderstanding of language
  • Use of difficult words
  • Lack of attention
  • Poor clarity of speech
  • Conflicting body language
  • Sending discouraging feedback
  • Cultural differences
  • Lack of trust
  • Too much information

So many things can go wrong already in the normal communication process; now imagine what happens when you find yourself in an intercultural context!

Photo credit: Ed Yourdon / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Mindful listening: 10 easy tips

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“Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty.”- Isocrates on Goodreads.com.

Mindful Listening
As a new week is about to start, let me share some really simple but extremely important tips for effective, mindful listening with you:

  1. Face the speaker and maintain eye contact
  2. Be attentive, but relaxed
  3. Keep an open mind
  4. Listen to the words and try to picture what the speaker is saying
  5. Don’t interrupt and don’t impose your “solutions”
  6. Wait for the speaker to pause to ask clarifying questions
  7. Ask questions only to ensure understanding
  8. Try to feel what the speaker is feeling
  9. Give the speaker regular feedback
  10. Pay attention to what is not said, to non-verbal cues

Enjoy your week!

Jenny

Photo credit: sadmafioso / Foter / CC BY-NC

Empowering Women to Lead

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Meet my Team!

As we are heading up to our first Mindful Leadership Workshop in Morocco, entitled “Empowering Women to Lead”, I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce you to two fantastic and powerful women: Samira Eramdani with whom I am partnering in order to make the workshop in Morocco happen and Asma Nait Ouali, a young professional women who is acting as our project manager out of Marrakech.

Creating connections and providing for a platform for exchange, learning and personal growth truly is extremely rewarding and this workshop will certainly be only the first in a series of projects and programmes especially tailored to the needs of women to be rolled out in North Africa.

Leading Self and Others

… introducing Samira:

Samira Eramdani

“Being a woman in my country as in all others is not an easy job. Women have a heavy load to carry. They are asked to be perfect in conducting their career, educating their children and handling delicate family matters. How this is done is basically left to intuition.

I personally believe that women deserve to have support and training, be able to take advantage from mentoring programmes as well as to build and participate in networks. Most importantly: women should be celebrated. I thought about this programme as a way to begin this journey in order to advocate for the cause of women by providing the core principles of leadership. I have been fortunate enough to learn myself about what it takes to become a good leader, how to organise yourself and how to stay true to your purpose in life. It’s the first step. Many others will follow! “

…. and Asma:

Asma Nait Ouali

“Having graduated with a higher diploma in networking and telecommunications a couple of years ago, I started as a young engineer in management and marketing. Now, I am working as a professional project manager while studying as a part-time student in an MBA programme. In the meantime, I am managing my family’s business, the main activity being the supply of building materials.

Over and above all that, I assume many responsibilities as the eldest daughter of the family and take good care of all my family’s affairs on a daily basis. Thanks to my humble experience, I have been able to gain some skills particularly in leadership that I would very much appreciate sharing with like-minded women peers and professionals.

I believe that there are numerous Moroccan women like me, who are willing to fill different tasks and achieve perfection in as much their professional as personal lives.

Our workshop entitled “Empowering women to lead” was implemented to mainly serve this purpose: to assist professional women in their projects by enabling them to develop multiple leadership skills that, by the same token, may help them succeed in their personal life.”

 

From my side, I am very much looking forward to this collaboration and to our first common project. Let me finish by saying: “You are the architect of Your Own Life!”

Click here to read a great article on women in management just published in Switzerland (in French).

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Mindful Leadership & intercultural Communications

Perceptions: Road Blocks or Stepping Stones

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Stepping StonesThe recent global events as well as a blog post from Dr. Milton Bennett about tolerance makes me think along the following lines: all humans have an automatic tendency to judge their own experiences.

Instead of simply noticing what is there in the present moment, unfolding and happening, we think about what needs to be changed, how things could or should be different. Something is not quite right in a way, not good enough, not what we had expected and wanted.

Often these thoughts will take us, quite automatically, down on some fairly well-worn paths in our minds. In this way, we lose awareness of the present moment and the ability to freely choose if and how to react. We  jump quickly on to conclusions, which seem to be the right ones and by doing so, trigger behaviors and actions from ourselves and others around us.

Relating to the idea of tolerance we might want to ask ourselves where our threshold lies.

  • How do we really feel deep inside us?
  • What type of experiences deplete us and which ones make us happy?
  • Where do we feel comfortable and where uncomfortable?

We can regain our freedom from automatic thoughts and reactions, if as a first step we simply acknowledge the actuality of the situation we find ourselves in, without being automatically hooked into tendencies to judge, fix, or want things to be different from the way they are.

How do we do this?

  1. Notice what is going on
  • How did your body feel in detail during the experience?
  • What thoughts and images accompanied the experience?
  • What moods, feelings and emotions accompanied the event?
  1. Explore the effects of bringing awareness to the direct experience
  • What do you notice?
  • Is your mind wandering away?
  • Is bringing awareness to the experience affecting it in a way? If so, how?
  1. Accept what is there without wanting to change anything
  2. Let go and simply acknowledge the arising and passing of emotions and thoughts without becoming entangled in the content of it.

Next time you’re confronted with a pleasant or unpleasant experience, try writing down what happened especially in steps 1 and 2. Exploring our own sensations, limits, beliefs, emotions, moods and thoughts is not easy and change doesn’t come over night. It comes with a lot of training and attention.

And of course, change starts with yourself and with how you experience and react to a situation and not with other people around you!