What activities leave you energised? Have you ever looked up at the clock and gone “Wow! Where did the time go?” What are the things that you most look forward to doing?
According to Marcus Buckingham, these are what you can really consider your strengths. Forget about competency, skills and what you are good at, strengths should be considered from the perspective of what makes you strong.
On June 27 2017, I was a guest lecturer at Nagoya University Well-Being Program (Nagoya University Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences and School of Agricultural Sciences) and used the Lean In Claiming your Strengths Discussion Guide sponsored by Buckingham as a way to give the students a hands on experience with the Lean In Circle format.
Did you know that Nagoya University is #heforshe IMPACT Champion? HeForShe is a solidarity movement for gender equality developed by UN Women to engage men and boys as advocates and agents of change for the achievement of gender equality and women’s rights. They launched an interesting short course, you can find out more about how to build your Gender IQ here
Before my workshop, Setsu Suzuki shared her personal entrepreneurship story and the lessons that the graduate students could take from it in terms of their careers. Her takeaways on the power of networking, building connections are relevant for academics, entrepreneurs and professionals in corporate life.
I opened the presentation with an introduction of Lean In and my own Lean In story. Whilst a real Lean In circle would last about 2 hours and have max 12 participants to enable group sharing as well as individual and pair work, we had a limited time frame to give a taster session.
It was a diverse group with students from over eight countries, and I was happy to see some men leaning in as well!
If your organization is looking for ways to develop the curriculum of your women’s network or ERG focusing on diversity and inclusion, I strongly recommend looking into the Lean In materials.
It can be led from the grass roots, separated for “ages and stages” to develop peer support and gives a clear focus to each meeting once the curriculum is set following the kick off meeting.
Contact me for more information and I can deliver an orientation session to support roll out in your organization.