Category: Business Life

☆ ABOUT GENDER DIFFERENCE: COMPETITION

Just recently, I was speaking with my (female) friends about one key difference between men and women: competition.
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I find it not as common to support each other between women as I can see it happen between men.
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My perspective of the world is also marked from years of investment banking and more than a decade of M&A business leadership: both areas with male predominance. 
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When I have started to work in this field, more than 15 years ago, women were rare. The financial sector was a typical playing field for men.
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Those few women – interesting enough – were not creating coming solid ground in the sense of supporting each other, providing business opportunities for each other or exchanging best practices experiences. Nope – at least in Germany where I worked – on the contrary: they largely saw each other as competitors.
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Years have gone by, more women are working in the financial business but still: I miss the cooperation. Men are doing better here, that’s at least my view. 
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Just have a look how they do business: one usual key factor of success for men is to go have a drink after meeting / office time with their potential business partners – and schwups: the deal is closed in between two beers. 
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Difficult to get in as a woman. But possible.
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What I want to suggest?
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I d love to more follow the idea that in particular we women should not view ourselves as competitors. It would be gorgeous to see a female counterpart who has a great idea, another beautiful skill or a smart solution simply as a mentor for ourselves. Someone who initiate a chance to grow within us. 
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Train your mind and make sure YOU manage your mind and he not you. Become creative when it comes to how to play the game of life.
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And please my dear female friends here: let’s support other women – lift them up instead of down. To strengthen women’s right and life positions was always one key element for me and a major factor to become a lawyer. 

☆ FOR THOSE WHO DONT KNOW ME YET: WELCOME!

And as some people are wondering: I am a German lawyer/ Business Strategist and artist. 

Yeap – both parts of my brain, the left and the right, is okay-ly development and I am the living proof that both can not just co-exist but even co-support and co-create.

To me, it’s more a question about „when“ to apply the rational – more analytical – brain side and when the creative one. 

A life without art would not be possible for me. I only feel comfy when both parts of me a nourished: working on interesting business projects as well as exploring life with my creative side.

Ah, something I would love to mention also today: creativity is something you can train. It’s like a muscle. And you don’t need to be an artist to be creative.

Happy Tuesday!

PS Attached is one of my drawings „Fly away and don’t come back“. In case you are interested in getting one of the art pieces, send me a PM and let’s talk about it. Always happy when they find a lovely new home for some colorful inspiration. 

More work: www.corinna-rosa.com 

☆ CREATIVITY MEANS TO SEE OPPORTUNITIES

Creativity to me means to see opportunities instead of problems. And I believe we can all be creators. Professionally and privately. 

When working on business deals and transactions, you will always face new issues showing up during the process. 

It’s a natural thing as with time you understand more and more of the matter: take a M&A project for example – the longer you work on it and the closer you get to the signing date, the more info will be disclosed about the target (eg the company you want to buy). 

But at the same time complexity might arise (as eg trapped cash).

A creative mind sees possibilities and solution for business issues where others feel stuck. 

A creative mind is a flexible mind, a mind with which you can connect to your creator traits.

For being a creator, you do not need to be an artist. But for being a creator, you have to train to your mind. It’s like gym training for and with your mind.

The beauty is: the more you practice, the more natural it gets.

One thing I love to practise is to go into the unknown and make an adventure out of it. Don’t plan, just go with the flow and look what happens.

Talk to strangers for examples, send them a smile and see how the connection goes. Most probably – with the right intention of connecting – you will find yourself in an interesting conversation with them. You might feel like listening to what they have to say and here we go: through their stories about their life, you have the chance to learn new perspectives, new ideas and new dynamics of life. That is one beauty of life.

One way I invite new stories into my life is through @thehumanproject_podcast– follow in case it calls you.

☆ WE ARE NO DURACELL BATTERIES

I am convinced that a good work-life balance is a key component not only for private but also for professional success. 

Privately, because we definitely run less in stress mode and strengthen our immune system when we feel balanced. And professionally, because we are no Duracell batteries that can run at high power for almost endless hours. 

I have learned to pay attention to that in the course of my life. We all have limited resources of energy, focus and time at our disposal, and the question arises as to how we can best use them. One of my personal recipes for success is to use my focus with mindfulness and deliberation. Where our focus is, there is also our energy. Mindful beyond business.

☆ FRIDAYS

And when the business week is too exhausting, too much thinking, to much computering, too much head time … Friday nights like this, with my own hands, exploring new things, creating “real things” are the best

☆ THE CLEABING POWER OF SUNSETS

There is one thing I always try to do, no matter how much work I have on on the table: to go and see the sunset.

No matter where I am, Munich, Paris or somewhere else, I go and search for a high spot to see the sun saying goodbye.

Each sunset has a beauty of its own. No matter whether it’s cloudy or clear sky: for me they are all worth being seen.

I usually thank the day for all that happened. The good and the bad as it’s all just experiences that come and pass. Only our mind gives them a label, wants sometimes to stick on something instead of releasing.

The clearing power of sunsets.

Where have you seen the last time the beauty of a sunset?
Do you take time for it?
What sunset spots are your favourites?
Happy to read from you!

☆ BE A HUMBLE LEADER

You’d be surprised on how a simple trait of humility can affect a team’s performance and creativity — relationships and bonds are formed when you are grounded and connected towards others. Why? Cause this makes them trust you — which is important for teams, big or small. Even professional relationships require trust. TRUST ME. 

Be a humble leader and…

Start with admitting your mistakes. You don’t want to be that boss who keeps pointing the blame to someone else. Be accountable to your actions. 

Make your meetings more inclusive, get fresh new ideas and ask on improvement — creative a possibility ecosystem! 

Don’t let it reach to the point where you are already alone and stuck. Just be open. 

Simple! Your team trusts you and you should trust them back

So tell me, how do you make your own Possibility Ecosystem within your team? Do you have humble leader or are YOU a humble leader?

☆ How to effectively manage meetings

During my professional career, I learned that one of the biggest distractions for concentrated work are meetings. Attending meetings can either be beneficial or it can only be a distraction which can drain one’s productivity. For example, if I work on a new project and try to solve a suddenly plopped up challenge within a tight timeline but have a couple of business meetings ahead, I have to interrupt my personal work flow. Instead of being able to keep my level of focus high, I have to leave that place of special attention and move myself into the meeting room. Even if it is a digital meeting room, my focus on the former subject has been gone away. And to get that focus back, time is required: studies show that it takes 25 minutes for our brains to refocus on the original task. 25 minutes (!) to re-focus – when I learned that, I took a long, deep breath. That’s quite a time – lost time after all!

Therefore, I try to avoid workplace distractions and in particular „unnecessary“ meetings as much as possible. As we all have only a certain amount of energy to spend in our life, it might instead be a great idea to better chose where to spend our time, focus and life energy. To be able to surpass the challenge of turning meetings to a productive one, here are my 2 cents listed – maybe this list also works for you:

  1. No meeting without agenda: Do not waste time on a meeting without an agenda as it‘s a meeting without a purpose. Time is critical when working so spending it on something that has no purpose will decrease your productivity.
  2. Always work with a clear time frame for the meeting and clear „take-aways“ summarized at the end: Set a precise time slot for the meeting, so that everyone not only knows when it starts but also when it ends and make sure you have some final „take-aways“ from the meeting on which everybody has agreed upon before the meeting ends.
  3. Be aware with recurring meetings: Assess if routinary meetings are worth your time and attention. Always evaluate the value of the recurring meetings.
  4. Identify your key persons required for the meeting: If you’re the meeting organizer, make sure that the participants whose presence is critical should attend, otherwise attendance is optional for the rest of the team.
  5. Keep a special focus and contribute to move on: „Hyperfocus“ on meetings so you can get the best out of it. Contribute what you can help things move along so that the meeting will end at the time frame set for it.
  6. Keep days without any meetings at all: And if you’re the lucky boss, think about that having a day with no meetings at all each week allows everyone to work on their most important tasks without being interrupted.

In this sense I wish you a cheerful continuation of the week !

Yours, Corinna

☆ Three ways to avoid the negative impact of multitasking

There was a time in my life when I thought, my mind can process and manage all different challenges at the same time perfectly well, I learned in the meantime that multitasking is not always the best thing to do.

Pause right now for a moment and think about all the things you are currently doing right now. Obviously, you are reading this article, but chances are you’re also doing several things at once. Perhaps you’re also having an ongoing virtual meeting, are in the middle of texting a friend, checking your email in another browser tab, or planning your next tasks with one part of your brain. Doing all those activities at once is called “multitasking”.

According to a study conducted at Stanford University, very often, instead of increasing our productivity, multitasking affects our creativity, effectivity, motivation and mood negatively. Based on this research, especially those people who are regularly loaded with a lot of electronic information do even pay less attention, can less control their memory, and are more likely to switch from one task to another.

Here are my 3 ways on how to effectively avoid the possible harmful impact of multitasking:

Limit the number of things you juggle at any given time. Clever combination should be observed in order to avoid the negative effect of multitasking. Be aware that only a combination of these tasks performed simultaneously provide you with the positive aspects of multitasking: a) A few, habitual tasks like running while listening to music b) One task that requires most of your attention plus one habitual task like listening to a podcast while doing maintenance tasks c) One complex task, your most productive task that will require you more time and attention, can only be managed on its own.

Use the “20-minute rule.” Instead of constantly switching between tasks, try to fully devote your attention to one task for 20 minutes before switching to the other. Make use of your smartphone alarm if required.

Become aware of the times when you’re multi-tasking. There’s a good chance you might do it so much that you don’t even notice when you’re doing it. „Mindful beyond business“ is also the key here. The more awareness you have of your own behavior, the better you will be able to decide what kind of stress level you would like your body and mind to expose.

Doing one task at a time may help you to be more productive and it may make each task for you less stressful and simply more enjoyable.

Source: https://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august24/multitask-research-study-082409.html

☆Three ways to keep your attention level high

I’m pretty sure you know those moments, when we are keen on finishing a professional task or another project milestone but instead of completing it, we get distracted. And as soon as we get distracted, our attention is – of course – divided. You might not only get distracted by scheduled meetings but also by your own inner world, your mind. 

Here are my personal top three tools to keep my focus level high and to play out my mind: 

1. Use multitasking only for very selected, simple activities 

Our attention space is more limited than we think it is. Multitasking is not to recommend – unless it is a matter of habits, i.e. things that our mind can handle without much effort. Therefore, stop multitasking except you are making your laundry or cooking spaghetti. Decide for yourself, which of your daily tasks require full awareness and which part can live with just a „part of your brain” being present. You are adult enough.

2. Watch your mind and call it back when it starts to wander around

Our brain is build to crave for new, constant stimulation, and immediate gratification. It creates something called a “compulsion loop”. With various distractions pulling us in many different directions during a working day, keeping us focused on the important, and most urgent tasks that requires maximum attention often become difficult for us. Our brain simply want to move away from the task and rather think about the next vacation, how to get a coffee or how to solve the issue with the neighbor. 

One of the best practices for managing your attention is called meta-awareness where you become aware of what you’re thinking. Simply start noticing what occupies your mind. You’ll most probably notice that your focused mind expands and shrinks depending on your mood. Your mind is constantly changing as do the clouds in the sky. The more you notice what’s occupying your thoughts and the less you judge them, the faster you can get back on track when your mind begins to wander. 

Awareness is key here. 

3. Have a plan for the next day before you go to bed 

Always make sure to leave enough time to accomplish complex, creative tasks. To improve effectiveness, decide even the night before on the most important thing you want to accomplish the next morning. Start every day with a plan and commit to it.

Own your attention. 

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