Confidence & Charisma 1

Latest News

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 Lutfi SDC has enjoyed being present at the Khartoum International Book Fair with other intellectual and educational entities and creating an opportunity to connect with exhibitors.

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 Lutfi SDC has successfully organized and presented in-house programmes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Sudanese Diplomats Women Association on the following topics:  Memory Enhancement.  Mind Mapping.  Lutfi SDC will be organizing a Time Management Programme facilitated by Franklin Covey Institute.

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Lutfi SDC is proud to present a Special Offer for employers to advertise and post jobs in our website for FREE! And last but not least, the Employee of the Month Award goes to……. Nada Eid.

Leadership corner

Confidence and Charisma – Part 1 Have you ever noticed that when some successful business leaders or executives walk into a room, everyone stops, instantly notices them and looks at them with admiration? Or when they speak, they captivate everyone around them? What is their secret? What do they have that most people don't? It's just their Charisma, confidence and attractiveness are not based on genetics, IQ, social position or luck. They are skills.

Understanding Charisma Of all leadership attributes, charisma is perhaps the least understood. At first glance, charisma appears to be an invisible energy or magnetism. There's no denying its present, but it's hard to put a finger on its source. Some mistakenly believe charisma is a birth trait— embedded in certain personalities, but completely absent in others. We believe charisma is both explainable and learnable. We also believe charisma helps to boost a leader's influence.

Charisma Charisma is a behavioral quality that anyone can develop. Think of it as force of character or personal presence or gravitas. Charismatic power is not commonly taught, but it can be. People with higher levels of charisma tend to be noticed, listened to, respected and followed. A strong charismatic personal presence is useful for leading, coaching, teaching, selling, speaking and relationships of all sorts. Having a charismatic force of character is also useful for defending yourself and others, for negotiating, complaining, and seeking redress - especially when directed to a higher authority or someone who thinks they're better than you. The notion that charisma is 'Godgiven' owes much to the selfprotecting ideas of the historical ruling classes. Rulers, leaders and institutions throughout the ages tended to maintain power by convincing everyone-including themselves- that ordinary people had neither the right nor the ability of greatness. To varying degrees, people in authority and certain institutions and corporations can still be seen behaving in this exclusive arrogant way.

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In the modern age 'ordinary' people are increasingly realizing that they can achieve virtually anything they want. Becoming charismatic - like becoming anything else you want to be - is no longer a gift from the god or because of posh education. If you want to be charismatic, you can just believe that:  Charisma must come from

within you as an individual individuality is vital.  Everyone can be charismatic.  Acting and toastmaster classes help.  Be honest and bold, but don't offend people.

Leadership corner What’s so useful about charisma? Charisma is not an always-on aura that only special people possess. Charisma is a force of human personality which can be understood, measured and developed. It is closely related to assertiveness, which we all need, if only for defensive reasons. Charisma is not just about showing off. It enables us to influence and inspire others and also to influence our external environment. If you want to build a business, lead a team, be a teacher or a trainer or a speaker or maybe enter politics, then you have more reasons for developing your charismatic powers. Conceptual Overview With its origin in the Greek language, charisma is regarded as a unique gift granted to a few special individuals. One of the first approaches to the examination of charisma in the social sciences was offered by Max Weber in 1947.

"How can you have charisma? Be more concerned about making others feel good about themselves than you are making them feel good about you." — Dan Reiland Origins and definitions of charisma The modern definition of charisma: "Compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others."

3. Get in touch with your emotions (and with other peoples’ too). 4. Be genuine. 5. Match your body language to your speech (lookout for this topic in our coming issues). 6. Think before you speak (less is more - silence is fine when you have nothing to say). 7. Speak with conviction (including the way you say things, facial expressions and body language). 8. Treat people as they want to be treated (notably listen actively and make other people feel special).

The concept of charisma translates across all cultures. For example, an interesting alternative word for charisma is mojo, used by Black American Creole (hybrid language), evolving from West African people.

Nikki Owen, who has studied charisma for many years, defines charisma by way of five significant personal attributes, summarized below.

Charisma - elements

1. High Self-Esteem - in other words self-confidence, inner-calm, self-reliance, independence.

Many and various models of charisma exist, which testify to the growing acceptance that charisma is not 'God-given' or inborn; instead it is a behavioral quality that anyone can develop. Here for instance is a summary of the main points of the CHARISMA DEVELOPMENT MODEL: 1. Relax and meditate. 2. Look confident (by feeling confident, having positive confident body language, and behaving as an equal to others). Page 3 of 8

2. A Driving Force - purpose, personal values, principles. 3. Sensory Awareness - i.e. empathy, emotional intelligence (EQ) 4. A Vision - visualization, belief, mental picture, positive attitude towards aim. 5. High Energy - passion, enthusiasm, commitment, determination. …To be continued

HR CoRneR:

Thinking strategically –Part 2 Further to our October newsletter, this month we continue to address and emphasize on some of the techniques and tools in which can help us to “Think Strategically”.

This can be done through applying measure before and after each project/assignment to show what changes have been made. Many of us are not getting the support required by management and board level because we are not able to show the difference that we apply strategically and the added value.

Assess and develop people capability The next step is to assess the capacity of HR and help managers to support individuals through set of tools such as skills audit, performance management information and to develop a process in which you can identify and deploy talent across the organization. This can be done by assessing strengths and weaknesses in relation to what needs to be done. The weaknesses may show gaps in HR activities that will inhibit the ability to meet strategic goals. Define specific HR strategy You now need to put together the strategic framework by statements of the business needs, addressing varieties of HR activities such as Recruitment, talent management and learning and development. You must explain how they will meet the needs, the resources required, the program for implementation (this will involve prioritization) and their benefits in terms of added value and output.

Conclusion Align system with strategy Determine where the organization really want to be and identify how HR help these needs to be met and ensure that policies, processes and system are all aligned for better contribution. We have possibly seen some organisations that embedded some values such as commitment, high performer organization or loyalty, but how are these nice slogans are compared to reality? Such values can be easily seen useless and contradictory hence, it’s important to allocate, align the resources needed in order to practice what we preach.

There is no universal prescription for an HR strategy. Its purpose should be to provide a framework for applying people management practices to achieve business outcomes. Therefore each strategy will be unique in itself and dependent on number of factors such as, business environment, business goals. HR strategy should be concerned both with the delivery of effective people management services and innovating new policies and practices. It is therefore also about making decisions about what needs to change, managing those changes and establishing what needs to stay the same.

Added value Reference Added value can be shown by sharing and publicizing any success HR has contributed to the organization. Page 4 of 8

People management magazine March 2007-(page 44) www.peoplemanagment.co.uk

Self development corner

learning from your mistakes- Part 2 This month we continue, what we started in October’s issue, Learning from our mistakes Where is the problem? Whenever we make a mistake, we often become upset. And being upset is our maker’s way of telling us that “we need to learn something.” If we lie, blame, justify or deny the upset, we will waste the precious gem of wisdom that is in every mistake. When you make a mistake one of the first things you should do is to define the problem or mistake clearly. Then, ask yourself what happened? Or what is the problem that needs to be solved? Then write it down. When you write the problem down on paper, you’ll be able see it more clearly. You’ll then be able to understand it better and it will be easier for you to find a solution. Then you should define all the possible causes of the mistake or problem. Ask yourself; How did this happen? Why did it happen? What were the critical variables that caused the problem or mistake?

Ask yourself what are all the different things that I could do to minimize the cost of the mistake, or to solve the problem that has arisen? The more ideas you have, the more likely it is that you will come up with an idea or combination of ideas, which will solve the problem or correct the mistake.

Here some questions to ask to help your investigation:  What was the probable

sequence of events?  Were their multiple small

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After you have defined the problem clearly in writing and all the possible causes, then you need to identify all the possible solutions, or ways of dealing with it.

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mistakes that led to a larger one? Were there any invalid or wrong assumptions made? Did we have the right goals? Were we trying to solve the right problem? Was it possible to have recognized bad assumptions earlier? Was there information we know now that would have been useful then?

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 What would we do differently

if in this exact situation again?  How can we avoid getting into situations like this? (What was the kind of situation we wanted to be in?)  Was this simply unavoidable given all of the circumstances? A failure isn’t a mistake if you were attempting the impossible.  Has enough time passed for us to know if this is a mistake or not?

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake “ Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)

Self development corner Humor and Courage No amount of analysis can replace your confidence in yourself. When you’ve made a mistake, especially a visible one that impacts other people, it’s natural to question your ability to perform next time. One way to know you’ve reached a healthy place is your sense of humor. It might take a few days, but eventually you’ll see some comedy in what happened. When friends tell stories of their mistakes it makes you laugh, right? Well when you can laugh at your own mistakes you know you’ve accepted it and no longer judge yourself on the basis of one single event. Reaching this kind of perspective is very important in avoiding future mistakes. So the most important lesson in all of mistake making is to trust that while mistakes are inevitable, if you can learn from the current one, you’ll also be able to learn from future ones. No matter what happens tomorrow you’ll be able to get value from it and apply it to the day after that. Progress won’t be a straight line but if you keep learning you will have more successes than failures and the mistakes you make along the way will help you get to where you want to go. Sometimes we have to laugh at our own mistakes to get over the embarrassment and keep going. Here are two steps to help us learn from our mistakes.

Step 1 Learn not to make a mistake more than once. It is very important to learn from your mistakes and not make them over and over. If you keep making the same mistakes it shows that you don't care and haven't learned to do the job right. Bosses want someone who can learn from their mistakes and improve their performance. When you learn from your mistakes you can help others who are having the same problem that you once had and that makes you a better and more valuable employee. Step 2

The learning from mistakes checklist  Accepting responsibility

makes learning possible.  Don’t equate making

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When we make a mistake that hurts others we need to do everything possible to correct this and apologize. No one is perfect and most people will truly forgive you if you are truly sorry and admit your mistake. Remember a mistake is not really a mistake if we learn from it, it is a learning experience.

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mistakes with being a mistake. You can’t change mistakes, but you can choose how to respond to them. Growth starts when you can see room for improvement. Work to understand why it happened and what the factors were. What information could have avoided the mistake? What small mistakes, in sequence, contributed to the bigger mistake? Are there alternatives you should have considered but did not? What kinds of changes are required to avoid making this mistake again? What kinds of change are difficult for you? How do you think your behavior should/would change if you were in a similar situation again? Work to understand the mistake until you can make fun of it (or not want to kill others that make fun of it). Don’t over-compensate: the next situation won’t be the same as the last.

TasTer Corner

Mind Mapping and Creativity Mind maps® originated in the late 1960s by Tony Buzan (British popular psychology author) inspired by note-taking methods of the great thinkers of history such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Richard Feynman (a noble prize winning physicist) and Albert Einstein, who all used a similar method for centuries in learning, brainstorming, memory, visual thinking and problem solving. So what is a Mind Map? A Mind Map® is a powerful graphic technique which provides a universal key to unlock the potential of your brain. It harnesses the full range of cortical* skills word, image, number, logic, rhythm, colour and spatial awareness- in a single, uniquely powerful manner making it an effective method of note-taking and generation of ideas by association. In so doing, it gives you the freedom to roam the infinite expanses of your brain.

The Mind Map® can be applied to every aspect of life where improved learning and clearer thinking will enhance human performance. It is used by millions of people around the world - from the very young to the very old - whenever they wish to use their minds more effectively They generally take a hierarchical or tree branch format, with ideas branching into their subsections. Mind maps allow for greater creativity when recording ideas and information, as well as allowing the note-taker to associate words with visual representations. Mind maps and concept maps are different in that mind maps focus on only one word or idea, whereas Concept maps connect multiple words or ideas.

(*Having to do with the cortex, the outer portion of an organ)

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What do you need to make a Mind Map®? They are so easy to do and so natural, the ingredients for your "Mind Map Recipe" are very few:    

Blank unlined paper Coloured pens and pencils Your Brain Your imagination!

That’s it! When you use Mind Maps® on a daily basis, you will find that your life becomes more productive, fulfilled, and successful on every level. There are no limits to the number of thoughts, ideas and connections that your brain can make, which means that there are no limits to the different ways you can use Mind Maps® to help you.

TasTer Corner 7 Steps to Making a Mind Map® 1.Start in the CENTRE of a blank page turned sideways. Why? Because starting in the centre gives your brain freedom to spread out in all directions and to express it’s self more freely and naturally. 2.Use an IMAGE or PICTURE as your central idea. Why? Because an image is worth a thousand words and helps you use your imagination. A central image is more interesting, keeps you focussed, helps you concentrate, and gives your Brain more of a buzz! 3.Use COLOURS throughout. Why? Because colours are as exciting to your brain as are images. Colour adds extra vibrancy and life to your Mind Map®, adds tremendous energy to your Creative Thinking and is fun! 4.CONNECT your MAIN BRANCHES to the central image and connect your second- and third-level branches to the first and second levels, etc. Why? Because your Brain works by association. It likes to link two (or three or four) things together. If you connect the branches, you will understand and remember a lot more easily.

5. Make your branches CURVED rather than straight-lined. Why? Because having nothing but straight lines is boring to your brain.

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." Albert Einstein

6. Use ONE KEY WORD PER LINE. Why? Because single key words give your Mind Map more power and flexibility. 7. Use IMAGES throughout. Why? Because each image, like the central image, is also worth a thousand words. So if you have only 10 images in your Mind Map®, it's already the equal of 10,000 words of notes!

All this and more is coming right to you. Contact us and check our website, www.lutfisdc.net, for the next course on Mind Mapping and Creativity

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