Congrats are in order

Two reasons to celebrate:
1. Dawen got a promotion! A long time coming, since she's been moved up to the level she should have been on ages ago.

2. Aadesh got engaged! it's about that time playa!~

One reason not to celebrate
Blackstreet concert got postponed til late Jan. Word on the street is that ticket sales were slow. Hopefully won't clash with Common.

Two new insights
I remember the comment Ivan left on my blog saying I should keep telling y'all how it goes down at work.

1. I became directly responsible for someone. It's not a major thing - we have these new interns over the summer and I've been allocated one. I'm showing them the ropes, being their first point of contact for questions, introducing them to key peeps, and just being their mentor. It's like the roles have been reversed. That used to be me two years ago - the noobie!

2. Went to a networking dinner and heard a speech by Jane Halton, Secretary of Department of Ageing and Health. She basically runs a goverment department with 4000 people. And she is responsible for kinda everything in the health system - that doctors give you the care that you require, you get processed quickly in a hospital, the drugs that we buy are safe, and how to contain an outbreak.

The one key thing that I walked away with from that speech was her talk on how leaders motivate people. It much easier to motivate someone when you can advocate to them directly - eg face to face. In an organisation of her size, its not feasible for her to do that, thus its very hard to motivate each person individually.

But with 4000 people how is it done? Or in an organisation like mine with 100,000 people globally? As a leader, you've got to be able to find that connection of what motivated yourself in the first place. It's finding the reason that she worked that extra hour beyond the 9-5 day, what made her put in an extra 10%. So the first step is to understand the reasons that pushed you to work hard, and using those reasons to motivate people. Hopefully, i can now motivate my intern!

Peace out,

DJ Ho.