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Reconnect With Self – A Leadership Lesson from CBS’s Madam Secretary
In an episode of CBS’s Madam Secretary (Meaning of Life, May 13th, 2018), there is a side story where Russell Jackson was prescribed by his doctor to find a relaxing activity because of his heart condition. His intern Stevie was to find something not too “touchy-feely” exercise for him. Stevie was going for all the well-researched activities like yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, etc., none of which land well with Russell. Stevie’s Dad, Henry McCord, came to rescue. He told Stevie, “All these practices are a warm-up for the big question, the Spiritual journey. All his life Russel avoided it. He might drive himself to an early grave, trying to avoid it.”…
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Are You a Mom, Thinking of Going Back to Work?
Rebecca was a 39-year-old woman and a mother of two (8 and 10). She had a college degree and a 10-year of corporate experience. Rebecca was happily married to her husband Bob who made a handsome six-figure income, they were comfortably living an upper-middle-class life in a suburban town in the Seattle area. The only downside, Rebecca took an 8-year break after she had her second child and she was feeling lost about how to go back to work. It was clear that making money was not the main concern for Rebecca. Though some income of her own would have helped her self-esteem, “I want to have something to use my…
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My Interview with The International Voice
A few weeks back, Japnit Sethi from The International Voice, reached out to me to be a guest in his new show on YouTube. Japnit, a Computer Science graduate student at Virginia Tech (my alma mater), founded this with a mission to inspire the next generation of international leaders from all over the world who aspire to make their mark within the North American Tech Industry. We talked about a wide range of topics, starting with how I got into tech, my early days in the US, Job interviews, learning from my career at Microsoft, and finally, my work as an executive coach with leaders in technology. Japnit did an…
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Working From Home — The Employees Are Leading The Change (Guest Post)
Tara (not her real name) from our finance recently rang me on a late evening for online approval of a bank transaction. It was unusual because we encourage people to complete their works during regular hours. I overheard her only daughter, 4, saying something to the dad in the background. The mom was enjoying her family life, and her daughter was having fun with her dad. I felt happy for her. But she was breaching the Working from Home (WFH) policy; it doesn’t permit other members of the family in the same room. Something is amiss in the policy, then. As the world is going through the COVID-19 turmoil, the corporates everywhere…
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“Tell Me About Yourself” – Why It Is Hard and What To Do About It
Frequent flyers in the job market already know how this easy question could sometimes become quite daunting. During an interview coaching, I ask the clients to answer it first. Interestingly enough, even the expert interviewers have difficulty talking about themselves. Some of the common patterns are: Pattern 1 – They walk through the resume chronologically. Example: “I received my BS degree from the University of Kentucky, then I joined x company, worked there until 2002 as a junior software engineer, then I moved to y company and worked there until 2007, got promoted to a supervisor position. After that …” (At this point, my brain starts hurting ) Pattern 2 – They…
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How Coaching Can Increase Employee Engagement
I have worked within the high tech industry for over a decade and I have always wondered why a large number of the great hires end up disengaged, identified as below average performers so soon after hire! First as a manager and now as a coach, my observation is the raw potential the employees bring often gets underutilized because of the chaos in the workplace. Despite the relative maturity in the high tech industry we still depend on Darwin’s “Survival of the fittest” theory. I believe a coach can be a catalyst to increase the odds for each employee to be of the “fittest” species in the corporate jungle. Below are the stories of two…
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Agile Way to Plan Your Career – Story Of A Tech Leader (Video)
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Everyone And Their Mother Is Talking About “Coaching” – What Is It Really?
It will be rare to find someone who never heard “coaching” and yet it is one of the most overloaded terms today. Starting from sports coaching, tutoring or mentoring a junior professional, coaching bears a very diverse context. One common denominator though is about helping another person getting better at some skill. In the professional world, coaching is becoming more common in recent years. And that is where it could use little more clarity. According to the International Coach Federation(ICF), coaching is partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. The basic premise is, the person being coached is whole,…
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Women In Tech – Let’s Tap Into Our Own Greatness
[Look for a special discount code inside -Sharmin] Background Story – Last year I attended a global conference in Warsaw with a few hundred International Coach Federation (ICF) leaders from across the world(140 countries to be specific). The trip was very significant for me on many levels including the opportunity to meet some very talented and passionate leaders in the coaching industry. Kelley Russell-Duvarney was one of them. Although our personal backgrounds had very little in common, we found ourselves in an extremely engaging conversation as we sat in the last row of a tour van for several hours during our group trip. We quickly appreciated the similarities in our thinking as we…
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Aspirations – Find Your Own Unique One
Few years back we went to Zion national park in Utah. We hiked on a mountain in the scorching 80 degree heat. The destination was the “upper pool” a small body of water with a sandy beach. As we reached there, we savored the moment of achievement by cheering and taking pictures. But my 6-year old and her friend didn’t seem to care – they got something more exciting – the wet sand! To a 6-year old the wet sand and the possibility of sand castles seemed much more fascinating than my measure of achievement. We often forget that – instead of finding our own unique aspirations – we limit ourselves…
