Part of this article is a work of fiction.
My key takeaway
What I learned from the MDE training can be summarized to a single question,
'Are you really happy in your company?'.
What's your happiness? I don't know many people who can easily answer this question.
This may be because not many people have given much thought to this question.
If you can answer it right away, you are happy or getting there.
I should be always always KIND to others...
I should always be creative...
I should always be kind to others...
I have always been fascinated by those ideas. However, through the MDE training,
I came to a realization that I have forgotten about the 'WHY?'
I met someone who joined our company with his own dream/agenda to create Jersey for Japanese national football team.
His name is Daiki and his vision is very clear that he is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve it. I believe that he is happy or on the way of happy.
As for me?
I dream of working in the South American market.
This is what I want to achieve in the future. It is relatively clear, isn’t it?
I am the type of person who thinks that I look so cool typing in my MacBook with a Starbucks coffee.
I also have an image where I have a little quarrel with someone that I work with who is Latin in our Panama city branch but all is good.
To achieve this goal, I need to be a great leader, know the Japan market like the back of my hand and learn success cases in Japan as well as in Asia. When I have these, I will be in high demand. Having these qualities puts me in an advantage.
However, is it possible for someone to be positive always?
"Leader" is very tough.
Another thing I learned from MDE is that, becoming a ‘leader’ is very tough. In order to be a great leader, I need to always learn, to remember ideas always, to keep an open mind always and to always communicate with members all of the time.
I came to a realization that these always aren’t easy to achieve.
In this MDE training, we had an exercise where we need to challenge ourselves in a sports activity for the first month. The theme I selected was ’Try Capoeira Acrobat’ and practice it for a month. The challenge itself was fun and I didn’t have any negative feelings doing it. Bottom line, I find the exercise enjoyable.
However, when it comes to the next stage which is ‘PRACTICE’, it all of a sudden became difficult. The challenge was changed to “always learn what is needed to become a good leader, execute and application of these learnings in the real business.”
All these were so challenging for me - learning new things always and using it always.
In addition, battles in which we don’t have a clear sight of the goal is mentally draining.
We might know the methodology to get there but we lack motivation.
What can we do at the time?
Let's consult with someone!
I consulted my mentor, Akira-san, from HR.
After my consultation with her, I got new points of view.
I learned from her that the most important thing to do once you already know what’s your happiness is simply to keep yourself motivated.
How to keep motivated
- Decide what time you end your work
- Minimize your attendance of unnecessary meetings
- Refrain from creating unimportant meetings
- Go home early, as much as possible, and work out regularly
- Get up early in the morning
- Take one rest in between work
- Don’t allow your tasks to chase you
- Tidy up and organize your desk and mailbox
How to organize your mailbox?
A tip I can share when it comes mailbox organizing is to archive old messages and to keep the number of messages inbox to almost zero or actual zero at the end of the day and especially the last day of your workweek.
I heard that many of JET members who receive tons of emails each day do this. Guess what? I have decided to adapt this system, too.
How to keep team members motivated
I learned a lot about this during the training.
My biggest takeaway is the idea that if the team members aren’t motivated,
it is the leader’s fault and no one else.
I am the sole reason why the rest of the team I lead isn’t motivated.
This, for me, is the reason why being a leader is a challenge.
A good leader is someone who is eager to learn, willing to share these learnings to his team, support his team and most importantly, motivate everyone to perform at their best.
I also learned DISC as one methodology to know a person’s interests and character even better. I learned this technique from my mentor. Through DISC, I learned that people have different “point of view”.
At the same time, I learned that companies have professionals when it comes to learning and development which is the HR team. So, I strongly recommend you to consult with them.
Last but not the the least, I would like to say my sincerest appreciation to my boss, everyone I met in the MDE training, the HR members and James.
Thank you very much.
End.
Below is a video of a dance where the one of the origins of the martial art Capoeira came from. If you want to see another style/form of ‘happy’, then I recommend you watch this.